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#but ive seen the concept used in interesting ways

nobodymitskigabriel · 4 months

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I've gotten accustomed to reading Jack's childhood skip as a narrative hand wave so he can function on more or less the same level as the other characters and since he's not human and we're watching supernatural it feels permissible to take that leap in logic and go ahead and read him as a young adult. He is highly naive and inexperienced and there is a very large power imbalance involved with him and his caretakers and those are core aspects of his character that make him uniquely vulnerable to the abuse and trauma that he suffered, but those things don't necessarily make him an infant and I don't think that's how he's meant to be read.

#but i dont mind if others feel differently bc it is a gray area and it IS interesting to consider the nuance of his development #like my personal gripe with baby!jack is that its generally *boring* in application #but ive seen the concept used in interesting ways #most obvious harm ive seen come out of jacks infantilization is when people are accused of shit for finding this adult man attractive #regardless of your perspective on jacks age i think most can agree that thats pretty harmful and i see why this is such a contentious area #especially when like 40% of jack content is baby!jack domestic destiel fodder #BUT we should also be able to engage with good faith perspectives about this without going straight to accusations of ableism #the fantasy elements involved mean that there is no clear cut answer here #idk maybe ill change my mind about some of this im just dumping my thoughts here right now #jack kline

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jawllines · 4 months

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So on a Tuesday, Y/N wakes up from a fitful rest and leaves Harry’s bed to find him in the kitchen. Leaf is cradled to his chest while he speaks to someone on the phone – a designer, she thinks, they’re talking about a pattern of something, but Y/N isn’t sure. She doesn’t get to know either because as soon as Harry sees that she’s awake, he smiles, then hovers his finger over the end button, “Mael, I’ll call you a little later, yeah?” He hangs up without a second thought, and Y/N’s eyes go wide.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she frowned and Harry waved his hand.

“Nah, s’boring shit anyway. Chevron is a thing of the fucking past and it’s not coming back any time soon on my watch.” He turned on his stool, stretching out his legs and waving her forward, and when she got close enough, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, until she was standing between his thighs, “You take forever to get up. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were still a human.”

Harry and Y/N like being around each other maybe too much

part 1

part 2

part 3

iv.

Y/N wondered how many vampires she’d seen in her lifetime.

Unlike the stories and movies, they didn’t lurk in the night and meld into the shadows all of the time. Their skin was pale, but no more pale than someone living in the mountains with very little sun. Their eyes weren’t red, or golden brown, or pools of black – they were just normal irises, no different than humans, the color encrypted in their DNA from conception. They were gorgeous, sometimes eerily so, but not in a way that you could easily group them by their features. It was comparable to being backstage on a runway – the people surrounding you were models, you knew that, and they were all beautiful in their own way with their own unique features. The difference is that instead of only finding them pretty in passing, it’s mesmerizing, almost hard to fathom, alluring in an almost unignorable way.

But Y/N can’t remember ever being out in public and seeing a vampire, even if she didn’t know what they were called at the time. Clearly she didn’t, if one was able to ask her on a date and she’d just presumed she’d lucked out with an attractive man who didn’t mind dating below his league. Otherwise, they were masters of camouflage, or Y/N was just less observant than she thought.

Because right now, even to the untrained eye, Y/N is almost positive that she looks like a vampire. Or at least that something is off with her. It’s in the way her posture is almost too correct, ramrod straight like someone straightened out her back and put her in a brace to keep her unmoving. Her chest did not rise and fall with each breath – not because the need to use her lungs had not been completely eradicated yet, but for the fact she’s taking a ton of shallow breaths through her mouth to avoid smelling anything, or anyone. The way she holds her fork looks weird to her – she hadn’t held a fork in so long it was an unfamiliar weight between her fingers. She gave terse replies to questions, and could barely hold a conversation longer than small talk.

To anyone looking or interacting with her, they must think she’d grown up in a basement and just recently ventured out into the world. To Harry, who sits across from her with an amused look dancing across his features, he knew she was just attempting to reacclimate into society.

They had been out before, but normally that was at night, or early during cloudy weekdays when most of the city population is stuck in their stuffy office buildings. When the amount of humans is sparse and Y/N could amble away if being around them became too much. She’d never been forced to sit among them for longer than a couple minutes at a time, maybe waiting in a long line, or patiently off to the side when a human woman was interested in the same earrings that she was.

That had been her toeing the water; Harry held her hand at the edge of a dock while she dipped her feet into the pool of being a productive member of society again. She would have to return to work at some point, and she would need to be able to attend social events or see her family, or her friends back home without wanting to eat them. Harry was surrounded by humans all day nearly every day and he hasn’t lashed out and ended up in a tabloid for sinking his teeth into a designer. It was possible, though it would take time, and a lot of practice – at some point she would be able to integrate seamlessly back into the human world.

At some point – right now, it was fucking hard.

Harry took her out for lunch, at a small deli a couple blocks from his flat. It was a day when the sky was heavy with clouds and would be for the majority of the afternoon, so they were able to venture out with no fear that Y/N would get all rashy again. All of Y/N’s fear lay within being in closed quarters with humans and pretending that the scent of their blood doesn’t affect her in the slightest. Or that the leaves of the salad she was stuffing into her mouth tasted more than just bland, rubbery nothing to a palate now keen on something metallic and sweet. And in that fear, and her overexerting her effort trying to look normal, she thinks she’s making herself look uncanny, unapproachable, and too much like she doesn’t belong. Like someone clipped her out of a comic book and pasted her in The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

“Relax your shoulders,” Harry spoke from across the table, having already eaten half his sandwich, tucking the straw of his soda at the corner of his lips and sipping, “It looks like I just brought you out of a boarding school.”

“Shut up.” Y/N had been saying that a lot to him today because it was two simple words that didn’t require as much effort as trying not to eat someone.

Harry smiled, all too relaxed for what Y/N would think are pretty serious circumstances but she guesses he’s been through this so often he isn’t worried about a thing. Harry never seemed worried when they did something new, always promising her that he would know if she was going to do something stupid, because he knows her. And if the need to subdue her were to arise, then he could do so easily, or so he tells her every time she’s stressed about it.

“You had plenty to eat before we came,” he murmured, voice just a touch lower, his brows raising slightly, “Even if you take a small little breath through your nose, you won’t feel like you need to do anything.”

It’s difficult to talk inconspicuously about it, in case someone nosy was listening into their conversation (because Y/N is fucking nosy, so she knows someone else is bound to match her), but Harry does it easily. Y/N did eat a considerable amount before they did this, from the baggies, and even a little treat from Harry just before they’d left the flat. She was full, blood-drunk, and hazy up to the point that they were about to walk inside the shop and she’d worked herself up.

“Mind over matter,” Harry slid his leg to her and locked their ankles together – he was resting his chin and cheek in his palm, watching her carefully, drinking her in, “Just take a small little breath through your nose, hm? You’ll see it’s not as bad as you think.”

Y/N blinks at him, gripping her fork a little too hard, and she feels the stainless steel give beneath her grip, “I – okay,” she nodded, slow, steady – the whole point of this excursion was to start working on being able to smell humans without wanting to desperately sink her teeth into them. Before she could start utilizing feeders, she needed to be completely in control of how her body responds and reacts to stimuli like this. At least that’s what Harry tells her, and she’s inclined to believe him since there isn’t anyone to bounce off of his ideas anymore. She isn’t sure if they’re still on the pathway he used for all the new vampires he mentored or if he’d toggled it based on their situation. She could message Christopher and Naomi about it but every time she messages them, her heart yearns and aches in her chest.

“You’ll stop me if anything happens?” She knows he will, but she feels better when he’s all cocky and sure of himself. One of them needed complete faith in the situation, and it usually was Harry.

Harry, who had been treating her all soft and tender lately. His words could still be harsh and he rolls his eyes and rumples his lips at her when she says something he thinks is stupid, and he’s patient, but even that patience runs out relatively quickly – but every interaction has a much softer edge to it. With every harsh critique of her technique or skill, (“How many times are you going to listen to the neighbor’s conversation and not me outside, downstairs, when you’re on the balcony? It shouldn’t matter how many flights up you are, this is baby stuff we’re trying to accomplish now!”) there is a gentle caress of her skin. His fingers will dance along her wrist, and he’ll slide his fingers between the slots of hers, and squeeze, before murmuring, “Let’s try again.”

They are much closer now – Y/N doesn’t know if they’re dating, or if vampires even date, but she knows that Harry treats her like they might be. Harry pushes his nose into her neck and breathes in deeply like she’s the best thing he’s ever smelled. He entertains her musings about code and work despite not having a clue what she’s talking about or saying. At the end of the night (early in the morning) when she is thinking about lying down, Harry offers his room to her, his bed.

“You can always sleep in here,” he’d told her, “Even if I’m not here, yeah? Just don’t stain the sheets or anything, because to keep them this pristine even with a kitten has been hell.”

Shit, he’s even referred to Leaf as their baby a couple of times, whereas previously he’s only called her his own. “What are you doing to my baby?” Is what he would say before when Leaf is playing with one of the many feathered string toys that Harry bought her and Y/N accidentally makes her jump right into the wall. Now it’s things like, “Our baby is so happy,” when she comes up to them on the sofa, purring and kneading at Y/N’s thighs before snuggling in her lap and falling asleep.

Things with him were soft. This certainly felt like a relationship, sometimes, but Y/N knew better than to get ahead of herself. Last time she did that she ran away from her hometown and then got bitten by a fucking vampire, so it was better to just take things a step at a time.

“What, you think I’m g’na let you eat someone and make me look bad?” He speaks low enough that only she could hear, helped by the loud chatter of voices around them, and stretches one arm across the table, looping his fingers around her forearm, and dragging the blunt tip of his nail along her skin, “Of course I’ll stop you, dummy.”

Y/N shivers but feels safe; he’s got a leg wrapped around hers, and a hand on her. If she tried to move, he would stop her immediately. Harry doesn’t say aloud that that’s what he’s doing, but they both know it makes her feel better when he’s got his hands on her in some way. She’d told him as much in the past when she’d looped her arm in the gap between his and his body when they first went into the grocery store.

“Hm, is this a ploy to make me touch you in public? You’re a filthy exhibitionist.” He’d teased her at the time, but now he keeps his hand on her when they’re out. An arm wrapped around her shoulder, a hand at the nape of her neck, his fingers looped around her wrist.

She lets herself breathe in, just a little bit, a tiny inhale through her nose. The scents weren’t overwhelming like she’d thought – there’s plenty to sift through, it wasn’t just an onslaught of the blood pumping through the veins surrounding them. Fresh bread, the fabric softener on people’s clothes, the cleaner used to wipe down tables when they were emptied – she smelled all of that too. All a mix, like when she was a human, only she could smell and separate them just a note better than she could before. And the blood – she couldn’t smell blood before, but with a belly full, it wasn’t as hard. It still made her mouth water, and there was an itch beneath her skin that wanted to be plucked at, but nothing she couldn’t handle.

Harry drags his nails back and forth on her forearm lazily, “See?” His relaxed posture stays, leaning on his palm, “You’re not a monster, are you, baby?”

She swallowed thickly, shaking her head, “No, I’m not,” she cleared her throat a little, “We need to – um – we need to get Leaf chicken treats, she likes those best.” Y/N wanted to practice being normal, talking about normal things, and thinking about something else than how she’s trying not to breathe in too deeply. She didn’t necessarily explain this to Harry beforehand but he doesn’t seem confused either, just goes along with it.

“Really? I kind of thought she liked the shrimp ones better.”

Y/N focuses more on Harry’s scent – he smells good. He always smells so good, that whenever she does sleep in his bed, she dips her nose into the blankets and stuffs her face into the pillows (obviously when he’s not there, she would never live that down). If she could shove her nose in the base of his throat and not stuff her teeth into his neck then she would do it all of the time. Harry does it to her, unprovoked and unannounced, burrowing the cold tip of his nose against her carotid. She used to squirm, her ear meeting her shoulder as she pulled away from him, but now she’s gotten used to it – now, she almost expects it when he comes home from work, and if he doesn’t, she’s a little disappointed.

It’s easy to forget why she’s at Harry’s in the first place if she’s just focusing on her and Harry’s dynamic. It’s also easy to forget that she would eventually face the music when she has to confront her feelings – Niall. There was a heavy weight on her shoulders like she wore a helmet of cast iron everywhere she went; sometimes she would forget about it, it’d been so long that it was easy to let it slip her mind, but then her shoulders would feel the pressure of it periodically.

Like when you wear glasses for the first time. At first, it is all you can think about, how it rests on the bridge of your nose, the way the frames outline your field of view. But a couple of hours in they’re merely an extension of you, you forget they’re on your face until you reach up to rub your eye and something is in the way.

The helmet was heavy, the look in Niall’s eyes as he told her, the cold feeling that had flushed through her veins when he’d admitted it. She wondered if it felt like his own helmet had been lifted, the weight of his guilt eased by the admission. Did he know he was going to transfer it to her? Take the helmet off and plop it onto her head?

Her heart was torn in two. Y/N wanted to hate him for it, she really did – want to cuss him out, scratch him, and spit on him – how did vampires fight? Did they bite each other? Do they punch each other? Kick, slap? Was it still below the belt to kick him in the balls or was that an appropriate fighting tactic? Harry had never taught her how to fight – she thought maybe some sort of combat training would be important down the line, but vampires don’t usually do that. Movies and books make it seem like it was a constant battle, always something going on that they needed to defeat. Vampires typically coexist peacefully, is the thing, and their only true threat are hunters but it’s often better to avoid them or flee the situation than to fight, at least when you’re new. As long as she doesn’t act recklessly then she wouldn’t have to worry.

And in the same breath that she hated him, she owed him her life. It was a new one – a flawed one, no more flawed than her old life, but still a new life. She would have to change how she lives, eats, exists, and it’s scary – it’s so scary! But she was alive. She was still walking around, she could still work toward goals she’d set for herself, and she could find a place for herself in this world instead of bleeding out in an alley, still feeling lost and alone.

Would she have walked away from someone in need how she expected Niall to? If she’d stumbled upon the same scene, would she have been able to ignore it? She couldn’t even ignore a fucking kitten meowing! So it was hard – her feelings were difficult to work through and that was only worsened by her not seeing him. Playing house at Harry’s flat and ignoring what happened.

“Where’d you go?” Harry pulls her out of her reverie, and she realizes she’d been digging her fingers into the croissant she was holding, her eyes dazed. He drags his fingers along her skin again, tenderly, gently, “Hmm? Where’d my girl go?”

Y/N feels warm and bubbly and allows herself to revel in the giddiness that comes with Harry treating her like something special. If there was one single benefit from this whole mess, it would be Harry – experiencing this homely side of him. Whether it be the connection through their blood, or their time spent together, she felt at complete, and total ease in Harry’s presence. If she was starting to spiral, he pulled her out of it just as quickly.

“Sorry,” she murmured, swallowing, ripping a piece of the flaky pastry and laying it on her tongue – it tasted like nothing, chalky and bland, “I. . .need to figure things out with Niall soon. I can’t keep burdening you.”

“You’re no burden,” he answered without a second thought, “Not even a little bit, but I understand needing to sort things out for your peace of mind.” He reaches forward, thumbing at the apple of her cheek, and pinching playfully, “But you don’t need to leave just for that, hm? You’re no burden to me.”

Y/N rests on the palm of his cheek, sighing, and the smell of all the other humans in the place pales in comparison to Harry, “Mm,” she nuzzles – it’s embarrassing, how easy she is for him, but he doesn’t tease her like he probably could, “I just. . .I think, how I’m seeing it, is I would have done the same.” She explained, “If I’d seen someone, I would have done the same, you know?” Her gaze flickered toward him, “Would you?”

“I have,” he shrugged, “You know, it’s something that you never really know what you’ll do at the moment but when it’s presented in front of you – that’s when you’ll know. You act off instinct,” he squeezes her shoulder, slipping down to her bicep, “Just how you ran to go save Leaf with no concern of the sun. This isn’t me trying to sway you either,” he shook his head, “If you decided you fucking hated him and never wanted to see him again, I would endorse it. If you decide that you’ll forgive him, then I’ll accept that – whatever you want to do.”

Y/N nodded, “Yeah,” she ripped another piece of croissant, “Yeah, okay.”

. . .

Despite coming to terms with what she wanted to do, it still took her a week to gain the courage to see him. Harry doesn’t push the issue, merely enjoys his time with her and Leaf until she tells him she is ready. Honestly, there were a couple of times when Y/N wondered if she should just start ignoring it again and live life peacefully with Harry, or as peacefully as she could. But still, it weighed on her, like a Niall-shaped force that stretched himself over her and smothered her in her sleep. She had dreams of confronting him, some heartwarming and with a good outcome, some horrible that left her with tears bearding her eyes.

She needed to do it. If she did, then she could better focus on whatever the hell is going on between her and Harry. And being a vampire. . .big, important things like that.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she frowned and Harry waved his hand.

She laid her hands on his thighs, “I need to do it today,” she told him, and she didn’t have to be descriptive for Harry to know what she was talking about, “It’s gotta be today or I won’t.”

His gaze softened, the pale skin of his face smoothed over into something contemplative and understanding. There’s a soft sound that pulls from his throat, and his legs squeeze around her as he nods, “Okay,” he answered easily, “Do you want to ambush him or should I give him a heads up?”

“Will he run away if he knows I’m coming?”

Harry pursed his lips in thought, “You know, Niall isn’t one to run away,” he started, “But he also isn’t one to admit when he’s in the wrong either, and he’s done that, so I reckon some of the things I knew about him fundamentally might be wrong. He may flee from guilt alone or he’ll respect you enough to want to hear what you have to say.”

“Then you can let him know,” she took Leaf, scratching the soft, short furs beneath her chin, “If this is a friendship worth salvaging, then he’ll wait for me.”

The drive, which typically felt like an hour-long adventure out to the secluded space in which Mitch’s house resided, felt far quicker than it ever had before. Y/N thought it was because this time, she actually wanted it to go by slowly so that she had the chance to collect her thoughts and plan out exactly what she was going to say, and how she was going to say it. She needed the full forty-ish minutes (accounting rush hour) to develop her script, but Harry must be pressing the gas pedal right down to the floorboards because they zip through the roads in record time.

There’s a hazy, orange glow casting over the trees while the sun sank beyond the horizon, the other half of the sky blotching the inky black sky of a winter night. She wondered if there would be stars later on – there hadn’t been for the last couple of days because of clouds heavy with snow, that’s now freckling the earth and freezing up the soil. Y/N missed them – she feels like she hasn’t seen them in a while.

They roll up in front of the house, and Y/N thinks all of three seconds go by before a pouting Naomi rips the passenger door open, “Shame on Harry for keeping you all to himself,” she whined, and she unbuckling Y/N before Y/N could even gather her bearings, pulling her out of the car and into her arms. Naomi looks a bit frail but she’s got the strength of someone who’s prepared for war, and she gives Y/N a bone-crushing hug. “I’ve missed you!”

Y/N laughed lightly, squeezing her arms out from where they’d been trapped between their bodies so she could reciprocate the show of affection, “I missed you too,” she replied.

“Oi,” he grumbled, “I wasn’t keeping her to myself, I gave her a haven in a rough time.”

“You never let any of us come over besides Christopher!”

Harry crossed his arms, after pushing his sunglasses up into his hair, “Why would I want you heathens in my flat? The lot of you would trash the place or steal from me.”

“You’re just no good at sharing, you –”

Their voices fade into the background as Y/N leaves them to bicker, a tiny quirk at her lips like the muscles in her face want to smile but are thinking better than to. It was nice, sort of, to be back; to smell all the familiar scents, like she was returning home. This felt more like home than her flat did now, just from the sheer amount of time she’d spent here. She walked the familiar map from the front door, to her room, and nearly made a pitstop to give herself more time but muscled through the desire to. Y/N took the four more steps she needed to before knocking on Niall’s door – she could smell him in there.

“Come in.” His voice sounds stiff, and when she opens the door, the position he’s sitting in matches it. He must have heard her coming because he isn’t in the lax state he normally is – his legs are off the end of the mattress, feet firm on the floor. He sits straight, his face serious, stern. She’s so used to the nonchalant way he goes about that this is the most uncanny and makes her feel like an agent sent to question him, or a judge to sentence him. Y/N hated that, she doesn’t want it to be like that – she wants it to be normal between them. Or, normal-ish, at least.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her cat paw chair sitting at the foot of his bed. Niall followed her gaze and answered before she could even question it, “I – um – promise I wasn’t stealing that,” he replied, “I missed. . .you know – having it in here made me feel a little better. Which I know, I don’t deserve to feel good about what happened.”

Y/N ignored him, closed the door behind her, and then plopped down in the chair, resting her back on the pink, plush toe beans, “Get on the floor,” she ordered, patting the empty spot in front of her with her foot, “Please stop sitting so straight, it’s freaking me out.”

Niall is quick to crawl down on the floor in front of her, he relaxes his shoulders so they slump just a little, and he kicks his left leg out how he usually did when he was sprawled out on the floor of her room and they were talking. It brings some normalcy to the situation that Y/N desperately needs. She bites the inside of her bottom lip for a second before giving an unneeded clear of her throat (it was just a habit at this point, she wondered how long it would take for it to break).

“I’m just gonna come right out with it because I don’t want to beat around the bush, and if I do, I’ll just talk myself in circles until I don’t make any sense,” she started, “At first I was so mad at you I could have slapped you and spit on you and called you names. I was pretty sure that I never wanted to see you again and that I would be fine if you were completely wiped from my life,” he grimaces at the description but does nothing to refute it, “But you couldn’t have been wiped from my life, if I wasn’t living to begin with, which – I know, it gets a little confusing and convoluted. This life I have now is. . .odd, and different, and I’m not human anymore, and maybe by all technicalities I’m not alive, but I feel like I am.” She runs her thumbnail along the inside of her other palm, following the lines in them she’s had since birth, “I feel the world around me, and I can love, and I can talk, and laugh, and work, and cry. I can do all the things that I did before and then some, so even if it is different. . .I’m still alive. And I wouldn’t be had it not been for you.”

Niall is following along, motionless, soaking in every word, “I’m more upset that you kept it from me. It would have just been nice to know, right? What exactly had happened that night, it’d been plaguing my mind and you would ask every so often, and now I’m realizing it was less from a place of care and more you covering your tail.” She shrugged her shoulders when Niall’s face scrunched with shame, “But I can’t sit here and act like I would do something different. I don’t know what I would do, in a situation like that – I think, if I came across someone in my position, then I would have changed them too. I don’t really know how at this point, but I would have tried to figure it out. And I would have been scared, afterward, I don’t know if I would have told anyone either. But I thought we were close enough. . .at least a month in, I feel like you could have told me,” she sighed, “That’s what makes me angriest. I thought we were friends but you were just being nice to me because you felt bad.”

“That’s not true.” It was the first time he’d uttered a word since she began, “You – maybe at the start, I was a little more protective of you because I felt bad, but the rest of it – I truly felt friendship with you. Not all of it was a lie,” he shook his head, “I wanted to tell you, I did, but it never seemed like an opportune time to. And the one chance I did get, I chickened out. But I get it, if – if you need to be angry, be angry, I honestly wish you would just slap me or hit me or something, so it felt like I was getting punished for it.”

“I wanted to, believe me, but Harry was pretty convinced that you were punishing yourself enough for it. Listen, what I’m saying is,” she crawled off the cat paw, and took his hands in her own – they were smooth and ice cold – he probably hasn’t been eating well, “My feelings are very conflicted and confusing, and I don’t know if I forgive you entirely, but forgiveness isn’t out of the question. Do you get what I mean?” Niall hums his assent, “I know things can’t go back to the way they were entirely, but I’d like it if we could get somewhere close to it. And – and if you think about it, we’ll probably be around for decades, won’t we? I’m bound to get over it eventually.”

Niall and Y/N don’t really hug – Naomi is the touchy-feely type, and Y/N can be when she wants to be, but Niall is much more reserved with his affections. So that’s why she is tentative and a little hesitant in embracing him, slowly wrapping her arms around his neck, but she’s pleasantly surprised to feel him hug her back tightly, “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and his words vibrated through her throat, “I’m so sorry, thank you for even coming back to talk to me. I thought surely with Harry at your side, you would’ve hated my guts.”

“You would be surprised by this, but Harry went to bat for you pretty hard,” she peeled back just a little bit, “I mean, he didn’t try to change my opinion but his of you never faltered.”

Niall frowned, “Ugh, it’s so hard to keep up with hating him sometimes,” Y/N laughed, “Seriously, he’ll be the worst prick alive and then he does something unreasonably kind and it’s like. . .either be a dick, or be nice, I hate the mix-up.” He gently let his arms slip away from her but he remained close, “Speaking of, I’ve been eavesdropping on him and Mitch – they never hear me coming so I can always get away with knowing shite I shouldn’t – has he told you yet? About the whole blood thing?”

Y/N shook her head, and part of her was worried that Niall would save it for Harry to tell her, but she forgot that Niall is Niall, and through and through, he loved causing trouble for Harry at any given notice, “After Mitch’s initial displeasure that he’d been keeping it from him, he said there was something called ‘fated pairs’ or something like that. Your bodies call out to each other on a molecular level, something that was – predetermined the day you were both born. There was a lot of vampiric folklore nonsense that he spouted off, but he seemed pretty convinced. I don’t know why it affects you both in the way that it would make you horny, but, yeah. He said that it would’ve been the same if you were human – even if you were both humans, actually. That it was like a soul bond.”

It was a lot to take in; Y/N is relieved of one stress and then immediately another is placed on top of her. Was it stress though? She doesn’t feel stressed at the thought of them being bonded together by their souls – she doesn’t mind that – but she is stressed that maybe he minded that. Because as far as Harry was concerned, there was no rhyme or reason for their reaction to one another’s blood. Y/N hadn’t even known he’d spoken to Mitch about it, and so to find out he has and he didn’t even express the findings to her. . .worries her, a bit. Did he not like it? Was the thought of being tied to her horrible? But if it was then he wouldn’t have been so doting and cuddly these last few weeks, right?

“You look stressed,” he noted, “I would be too if I was bonded to that fucker, so I understand.”

Breathlessly, she laughs again, “He’s not so bad.”

. . .

Harry gets pretty clingy when Y/N goes back.

Though he’d promised that she wasn’t a bother, she still felt guilty to be inhabiting his home when he was at work. She’d been hearing him postpone different trips too, a couple of days in Italy, a fashion show in France – things that he always went to before, and she had a feeling it was because he didn’t want to leave her alone. It was sweet, but it made her feel guilty, so she decided it was okay to go back for a little while and reacclimate to the house.

It wasn’t so bad – going from Harry’s modern, high-tech flat to Mitch’s Victorian-style mansion was different but it isn’t horrible. Y/N liked being surrounded by people when Harry was at work or attending some smarmy event, instead of being alone. The only downside was there was a little Leaf-shaped hollow in her heart, but Harry describes shared custody and drops her off with Y/N when he knows he’s going to be out all day or if he does have to leave for one of those week-long trips.

The others act like she never left. She goes to the movie nights and nobody mentions what happened. Christopher gives her a big, long hug when he sees that she’s returned, then promptly warms her two mugs of “the sweetest blood” as a welcome home present. Naomi comes to inhabit Y/N’s bed and talks about pop culture and how Samuel is fucking someone who isn’t Theodore so that had been a lot of drama while she was away. Delphine starts to visit her room for Leaf – apparently, she’d grown up with a lot of barn cats, so she was very fond of them, and they find their shared love for animals as a link to start speaking more comfortably with each other. And wherever Delphine was, Saskia was close behind. Her past with cats was checkered because she had an allergy to them before, but being a vampire meant eradicating all allergies, so she hesitantly gave Leaf a pet or two.

Leaf, all tiny and soft, loves the extra attention.

Niall still comes to her room but not without being invited first. Y/N thinks eventually this will change, but it seems like he doesn’t want to smother her with his presence, though Y/N wouldn’t find it smothering at all. He’s still hesitant, and she gets it – Y/N liked that he respected her enough to let her decide if she was in the right headspace to see him that day or not.

The only person who takes it hard and acts like it is the worst thing in the world is Harry. He never goes three days without coming to see her, and when he isn’t with her, he’s messaging her and calling her, asking if she wants to FaceTime in between flights. When he does come, he poses a strict, “Nobody bothers us” rule where he threatens to move her dresser in front of the door to ward off “unwanted” intruders (though they could all probably move the dresser anyway, they’re very strong). He crawled into her bed and pulled her into his body, dragging the blankets over them, “You smell too much like the others,” he’d grumble, resting his chin on the top of her head, “Hate it.”

“You’re silly,” she’d respond but soaked in the snuggling happily — it used to be something they merely indulged in while she was asleep; before, Harry would only ever kind of curl around her or pet her or hold her when she was all blood drunk and full, seconds from slumber. Now he’s much more open and willing to do it whenever – when they were watching the telly, when they were on the ground and Y/N was painting her nails (“I should sit behind you, yeah? You can sit between my legs, and when you’re done with one hand, I’ll blow on your fingers to dry them,”) if they were outside on the deck, practicing whatever Harry had come up with for the day.He crowds her space like he was made to. If Harry was there, they’re glued at the hip, and that was just normal now.

Y/N wondered if he would ever bring up the whole bond thing, but he seemed content not to. Still, it didn’t seem to deter him from letting her snack on his blood, which she sure only furthers the whole thing. So maybe he wasn’t concerned with it – maybe he was just seeing where it went. Y/N isn’t sure, but she’s usually good at ignoring things. If the other party didn’t want to talk about it then she wouldn’t either, it was never in her nature to press for answers.

. . .when she was a human, at least. Being a vampire hasn’t changed her at a fundamental level, she doesn’t believe, but it has given her a new outlook on life, and a different perspective on some things. It was better to ask and get an answer that she didn’t want rather than continue not knowing something for sure. If she’d lived by that rule in the past it would have probably saved her a lot of trouble.

So Y/N asks him outright, Leaf curled in her lap in a tiny furry heap, and Harry with his arms curled around Y/N’s body protectively. Nobody else was in the den – they were either in their rooms or out and about (with a strict curfew now, because of the whole thing between her and Niall – Mitch blamed himself for giving them a little too much freedom being newly presented). Harry suggested they utilize the tv then, instead of trying to watch it on her laptop screen. Harry tells her they should be at his flat, but since he was supposed to go three hours away for a photoshoot tomorrow, he didn’t want to leave her alone (it turns out he’d been postponing more than she had initially thought so now he was playing catch up – something about Spring deadlines and all of that).

The screen clears as the next episode of the show they’re watching loads up, and maybe it isn’t the best timing or the best place to do it, but she has to ask before she loses her nerve.

“Are we a. . .fated pair? Is that what it’s called?”

She feels Harry stiffen behind her, his hold around her arms tightening only slightly as he processes what she’d just inquired. There aren’t a lot of things that could stun Harry, as long as he’s been around he normally has a response to anything and everything within a couple of seconds – but he sits with this for a little longer. His fingers, where they’d rested on her waist, began to play with the fabric of her shirt, plucking at the hem and fiddling with the stitches. The tension in the air is palpable, but it isn’t a horrible tension. Not something she wanted to run away from, at least.

“Niall,” Harry finally muttered, like he’d been spending half of the time he was silent, trying to figure out how Y/N would have heard that, “That fucker is too good at masking his presence.”

“Harry –”

“I know,” he exhales, and Y/N thinks it’s funny that he does things like this not because he’s releasing a breath, but to express how he’s feeling. He nudges the side of her head with his own and dips his nose into the curve of her throat, his favorite spot, “With you at my flat, and with how you’d been eating from me still, the – how I felt for you was becoming concerning and a little obsessive. Not in like an obsessive “I’m going to kill her so nobody else can have her” way, more like a “I want to be near her and I’m forgoing responsibilities to spend time with her” kind of way. I don’t do that, for people, I’m not. . .so giving with my time, which makes me sound like a dick, but it’s the truth. I have my time and they have theirs, even if it’s someone that I’m interested in,” he slides his fingers beneath her shirt’s fabric, his nails tracing circles into her skin, “But with you, I just. . .wanted to be around you. To be with you makes me feel calm; it soothes me like putting ice on a sprain. And for you to drink from my vein and our bodies react so intensely to it. . .well, it had to be something.”

“I was glad to ignore it and just continue enjoying myself with you, but I was getting curious. And I knew you and Niall would make up soon, and you’re so concerned about being a burden all of the time, I knew you wouldn’t take me up on my offer to stay with me. This meant I was going to be coming around her, and being way more possessive and clingy than I ever have before and Mitch always knows what’s going on in the house. He would ask me about it eventually, so I just beat him to it.” He lifted his head, and his words were less muffled when he coaxes her to lean back against his chest more, “He went into the most intricate, convoluted discussion about molecules, and vampiric folklore, and I’ll be honest most of it went right over my fucking head, except for him saying that we were bound together by our souls. That whether we had met like this, or centuries ago in my village, while I was running from war, or had I just been some random UNI student sitting beside you in class – we would always have this kind of connection. It’s rare,” he squeezes her hips, “It’s a rare thing, a really rare thing, and it used to happen more often back in the 1600s but that doesn’t mean it never happens now.”

Y/N cranes her neck to face him, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her brows pinched toward the center, and Harry reached out, using his thumb to press at the crinkle in her skin and smooth it out.

“I wanted to, but – I don’t know. I kind of wanted you to conclude for yourself, if you liked me or not. I didn’t want it to feel forced because you knew about this. Other than my blood making you a filthy, horny little thing, I don’t know exactly what your feelings are for me. And I know – you told me you feel whole after you drink from me, but again, outside of that – outside of the blood, I don’t know how you feel.”

Y/N thinks, that if she’d eaten recently, blood would be roaring in her ears and her heart would be thudding something fierce in her chest. It was one thing to have Niall tell her on a whim, it was another thing for Harry to admit it to her, all shy, avoiding her gaze and pressing tight and close to her body. It was another thing to hear him feel insecure about not knowing how she felt about him.

Because for Y/N, she’d thought she’d been incredibly obvious. She wanted to be around him always, she recognized his scent out of everyone anywhere, she felt safe when his hands were on her in some way, or even when he was just nearby. Even when he was short with her, or grumpy, Y/N had felt endlessly at ease. After what happened at the club, he was the only person she wanted to be around. The way her heart lights up when he calls her sweet names, or when she sees him for the first time in a while. How her whole mind swam at the prospect of him rather hurting his hands than letting anyone else see her vulnerable when she’d been in the sun. No matter when he lost his patience, or when he seemed upset, or even when he swore up and down that he shouldn’t be a mentor – he was supportive, tender, and made her head feel melty and her insides gossamer soft.

“I have plenty of reason to like you, outside of some bond,” she finally replied, wiggling in his arms to face him again – Leaf got up, stumbled out of her lap, then stretched with a silent yawn, “And it wasn’t just after eating. Just being with you makes me feel. . .complete, just as I said before. I thought it was just the blood, but when you leave for work and we’re separated, there’s a – it’s noticeable, the gape I feel in your absence.” Y/N curled her fingers up in his shirt, “I mean, how I feel for you, surpasses how I ever felt for Daniel, my old friend. As dramatic as it is, I’d thought I would never be able to love again –”

“Oh, you humans and your theatrics,” he murmured with a laugh and Y/N smiled shyly, looking away.

“-- but the way I’ve felt about you lately, I just don’t think whatever puppy love crush I had on him scratches the surface. Sorry, I wasn’t clear about it. I’d been so focused on trying to figure out my place in this world again and how to live life like this, that I hadn’t given myself a chance to sit and sort through my emotions. But they’re there – they’re real and scary.”

Harry kisses her – she wasn’t expecting it, but she’d completely turned around in his lap by then so at least the angle wasn’t horrible. His lips are soft, and without the preface of something lewd, it is saccharine and chaste. Y/N shivered, her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned into him, practically molding herself into the shape of his body. It was good – Harry’s been treating her delicately for a while now, but this was different. Like he was kissing something important to him. Something that he wanted to handle with softhearted gloves.

When they part, Harry kisses the corner of her mouth, then her right cheek, her temple, over her forehead, and down the other side of her face. They’re feather-light and ticklish but his arms cage her in so she couldn’t wiggle away, helpless but to giggle. Once he finishes, he hums low and their eyes meet.

“I’ll be keeping you, so get used to this.” He admitted, and if he’d eaten recently, then his cheeks would have flushed pink the way they do anytime he’s sentimental.

Y/N nodded and hid herself in his chest.

She didn’t mind that at all.

. . .

Harry couldn’t wait to see her.

He used to take great pleasure in his week to two-week-long trips out of the country for work, whether he was going to Dubai, Milan, Paris, or other places like it. Harry would gorge on international feeders and sex and all the adoration from people who question his otherworldly beauty and get lost in his sharp gaze. It was nice to be sought after, admired, to get his fill of all the blood he wanted. He thought it was a fair trade, for all those years ago, when he’d been scrawny and worthless to everyone.

However, now? He just can’t wait to get home. Without the sex and the gorging, there actually wasn’t a whole lot to do in any of those spots that he hadn’t done thousands and thousands of times before. It was work, strictly work, and there was no sort of pleasure, apart from the gratification of seeing one of his looks trek down the runway. Besides that, there was only one person he wanted to sleep with now, one person he wanted to be adored by, and only one person he wished to get lost in his gaze.

And she was thousands of kilometers away from him, probably coding some program that made no sense to his brain, in his sweatshirt that he made her promise to wear and those horrific (and endearingly cute) slippers shaped like cats that she picked up from the store in honor of Leaf (who liked to chew on them when Y/N wiggled her toes). Even on the plane ride back home, he wondered how he could make it quicker – if there was a way to travel even faster than a plane. He supposes he could run, his legs are quite fast, but if someone spotted him going a little too fast to be human, then that would be a whole other list of shit to deal with instead of just tucking himself into Y/N’s side.

So as soon as he was finished up, the models had gone home, he’d given his statement for editorials, and he’d shared one glass of wine with a designer he really couldn’t be arsed to learn the name of (he’d drank with types like Chanel and Dior in the past, so the glitz and glamor of it now are easily lost on him) – Harry was on a plane and headed home. He used the in-flight wifi to watch a movie Y/N had suggested to him, but he was barely paying attention. How could he, when he was so excited to get home to her?

It was crazy to think this was where their relationship had ended up. She used to be nothing but an obnoxious little thorn in his side and now all he wants to do is smother her with affection and give her his blood. Y/N was so important to him, it made his heart feel heavy and full for the first time in. . .well, he isn’t sure it’s ever felt this heavy and full before. The weight in his chest is unfamiliar, and at first, it had been unwelcomed, but he likes it now. It’s as if she’d curled her body around it and took residence there. She’s always with him, in that sense of it.

The others had gotten used to it far quicker than he’d imagined they would. He expected more teasing as well, but they all like Y/N a lot, so he guesses to tease him is to tease her indirectly and they don’t want to. The most he gets is scolded that he isn’t good at sharing, and why should he be? Harry feels like he’d spent centuries waiting for her, now that he has her – doesn’t he deserve to be a little selfish? Especially after a week of not seeing her, Harry just wants her all to himself. That’s why he suggested that she come to his flat the first day he’s back, so they could be alone.

So he’s more than happy, after the flight, after getting his shit from baggage claim and finding his car in the mass of other vehicles parked for overnight trips, and the 30-minute long drive from the airport to his flat – to see her just as he’d envisioned her. Only with a few additions; she wore the sweatshirt, and she had on these little shorts that were filthy (but she swore up and down she wore them because they were comfortable and not to taunt him with how little it would take before her bum was out), but tucked under her thigh was Leaf’s feather toy. Whenever Y/N was working, Leaf could go from sleeping peacefully at her side to the zoomies in all of three seconds, so this was her way of keeping her preoccupied – the stick was placed just precisely so that the feather and the string hung off the side of the couch for Leaf to jump and pull at. Y/N has pretty decent thigh muscles so she’s able to keep it in place without letting it move around too much.

She has those horrible little booties on, but she’s wrapped up in the throw blanket that Harry usually has wrapped around him – not for warmth, of course, but the way soft fibers feel against his skin is nice. He knows Y/N is not using it for that purpose because it touches nowhere that her skin shows, besides a little bit of her face. Y/N has it so close to her so that she can smell him, and Harry is just. . .so endeared by that he could scream.

When he walked through the door, Y/N turned to face him with a big grin. She slid her computer out of her lap, and Leaf’s toy fell to the ground once she stood, carefully stepping over the kitten, and getting up on the other sofa so she could climb over it. She gets to him quicker this way, and her arms slink around his neck, and she holds him close, “Finally,” she murmured, “A week is too long.”

“You could always come with me.” He smiled into her hair, letting his eyes close – it was good to have her in his arms again, “I don’t think they’d mind a puppy backstage.”

Y/N peeled away from him, flicking him in the center of his chest, “Shut up,” she threw at him, but it held no real spite, and her eyes were dripping in mirth, “Should I dress myself then show up?”

“Oh, baby, please don’t – let me be the one to dress you.”

It was nice, that back and forth, and had Harry not felt so keyed up then he probably would have started a load of laundry, showered, gotten in more comfortable clothes and they could have just hung out for the night.

But Harry was keyed up – a week away from Y/N meant a week away from not only her beautiful brain, but her beautiful body as well, and he was missing the sounds she’d make when his fingers slid against her. How easy she was to rile up, the way she tasted on his tongue, how dripping wet she got from even just a little bit of Harry’s blood in her. It’s precisely why he’d eaten so much before leaving, and he’s sure she could tell he’d just eaten recently, with how warm his cheeks felt they must be rosy. And that flush on his pale skin is clear as day, especially how it slithers down his throat, and if he’s really worked up, it might splotch his chest.

“When’s the last time you ate, Sweetheart?” He inquired – the icy little tip of her nose was enough to tell him it had been a while.

“Mm, I had some earlier, when I woke up,” she explained, “But I got distracted with work, so I haven’t since.”

Normally, Harry might chide her for that, but he’s all too excited to offer his throat, “I have a treat for you then,” he placed his hands on her hips, walking her backward, “Get on the couch.”

Where Y/N used to start on the side of his body and eventually make her way into his lap while she ate, she just crawled into his lap now to cut out the unnecessary jostling around. The weight of her in his lap is familiar, nice, and something he didn’t realize that he missed until he was away from her. She stretches her thighs on either side of him and scoots in very close; Harry is already half hard, and he isn’t sure if he’d been like this since he saw her, or on the plane when he’d even just thought about her. Whatever it was and whenever it was, he was definitely already getting hard just from the anticipation of her teeth in his neck. It felt like young adulthood all over again, when it wasn’t “mind over matter”, and Harry couldn’t help but get hard in three seconds from one thought.

“I missed you,” she tells him, pressing her chest up against his, her nipples were already hard and Harry felt dizzy with the want burgeoning up from deep in his belly, “So much, and you were only gone for a week. It’s a little embarrassing.”

“I miss you when I leave you alone for an hour,” he slides his hand on the nape of her neck and brings her closer, “Isn’t embarrassing. I’m flattered that you like me enough to miss me, even. Now take what you need, baby, I ate enough to fill you up.”

The slide of her teeth into his skin never gets old, especially when it’s his throat. There’s a bite of pain, immediately soothed over by the euphoric feeling of it not only being a vampire bite, but a Y/N bite. The way she goes about it is still so tentative to start, and unsure, like she’s worried about hurting him – but the moment she tastes his blood on her tongue, all that vanishes. She moaned against his neck like she’d been starving for months and he’d finally come to save her, her fingers digging into his body wherever her hands lie. Harry can feel her inhibitions leave her, the way she gulps, drinks him down, and takes her fill how he wants her to.

It’s always after a minute that Y/N’s body starts to move out of tandem with her. She hates that she starts rutting against him like an overexcited puppy, but that doesn’t stop the way her hips twitch and push closer to him while she’s eating. Harry’s hand slid from her neck, to meet his other at her hips, holding her still as she rolled her hips into him greedily. “Mm, it feels good, doesn’t it, baby? Especially after not having it for so long,” Harry shuddered, closing his eyes as he melted into the feeling, “I bet your pussy is already soaked.”

Y/N whines, and he can only imagine how debauched the scene must look from an outsider's perspective. Her hands slip under his shirt, fingers tracing along his stomach and when the muscles in his abdomen tense up, his cock throbs to match. Harry’s fully hard now, and he thinks he’s already leaking, dripping into the inside of his trousers because he was always one to forgo underwear when it caused lines in his pants. Y/N lines herself up with him, tucking him into the folds because her pussy just swallows these shorts up, and rolls into him, “That’s it,” he whispered, “Such a good girl, you can have anything you want.”

The times she bites his throat aren’t always for pleasure. Harry still tries to prepare her for the first time she will meet with a feeder, so each time Y/N eats she gets better and better. She’s learned to stop when she’s full and to not overstuff herself just because it tastes good. She also has learned to read the queues of the other person, that she might have had too much – it’d be different for a human, but she can tell by the way Harry might start feeling even a degree less warm than he began as.

He isn’t sure what coaxes her to stop today. She pulled away from his neck and lulled her tongue over the little puncture wounds in his skin, before moving so she faced him. Y/N made a pretty sight with her hazy eyes and her mouth stained red. Before he could spend too much time admiring her, she fixes her lips against his, slips her tongue into his mouth, and oh fuck.

She’d kept some of his blood in her mouth, so it filled his own when she kissed him, and his eyes all but rolled up to the back of his head. Who had taught her something so filthy? His cock throbs so hard in his pants and he’s leaking so much precum he’s wondered if he’s cum already – he’s sure it’s sticky and webby beyond belief around the head of his cock, and Y/N isn’t helping the matter, she’s just making it worse.

Harry takes her by the chin, parts her lips, and makes sure they stay open. Without having to instruct her, she presses the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip, waiting patiently – normally Harry places a couple of fingers on her tongue for her to suck and bite at, so he presumes that’s what she was expecting. But Harry couldn’t help himself, and if Y/N was going to be filthy, then he was going to be filthier, so he encased her tongue and her bottom lip with his mouth and suckled at it. When Y/N mewls, he takes more of her in, sucking the taste of him off her tongue while he pries at her little shorts. He was in no mood for her to get off his lap to wiggle them down, so he tore them, shredding the fabric.

She makes a startled sound, mixed with a moan when Harry slips his tongue back into her mouth to kiss her properly again. Harry’s head spins when he backs away from her – they could kiss forever without needing to take a single breath (or they would be able to one day when Y/N really didn’t need to use her lungs anymore), but Harry wanted to look at her. Want to see her with lips bitten red and swollen, filled with blood that Harry kind of wants to knick with his tooth and drink from. He presses at her chest just a little so she stretches back, and he gathers the fabric at the bottom of her shirt in between his thumb and index finger, pressing it up her quivering belly.

Her pussy is puffy and swollen and soaking wet, he would’ve thought she’d been touching herself before he’d come home. He can’t tell if he wants to bury his face or his cock into it more, but another hard throb suggests he’d better do the latter or he would cum hard in his pants. He uses his fingers to spread her open, showing off the engorged bud of her clit, chuckling brightly when it pulses beneath his attention. Harry is unsure what drives him to sink his fingers lower, get three of them wet then return to her clit to slap it, but he does, and the payoff is Y/N trying to close her legs around him with the most wanton of sounds. He does it again, a little harder, and Y/N’s hand comes to grab his wrist, “I’ll cum,” she whines like that was supposed to deter him, “I’ll cum if you keep going.”

“Isn’t that the point?” He murmured, sliding his fingers through her juices and tucking them up inside of her, petting at her g-spot for a second before slipping them back out and licking her off his hand, “Want you to cum.”

“I wanna cum with you in me,” she sounded like she was pleading with him, and Harry had always been a sucker for pretty girls begging, “Please?”

Harry’s quick to work the button of his trousers open, pulling the zip and removing his cock from the oppressive confines of it. He’s harder than he’d even thought, but he was right to assume that he’d leaked so much precum it looked like he’d cum. The clear fluid oozes from the tip in a long, sticky line, filling up the dip of his hip bone. Y/N ogles him with awe-filled eyes, “Whoa,” she swallowed thickly, her fingers tracing up the underside from his balls to the tip, in a move he doesn’t think she means to be as teasing as it is, “You’re really hard.”

“I know,” he bites down hard on his bottom lip as he throbs again, under her attention, in the coolness of the air.

“Like, harder than I’ve ever seen you,” she states, and now her palm slides against his shaft, and she squeezes experimentally, looking between him and his cock, “And you’re so wet –”

“Y/N,” he just barely holds back from whimpering, “No teasing, Darling, I need to fuck this into you or I’ll cum all over myself. You don’t want to waste it, do you?” He inquired, and Y/N shook her head, scooting closer, “Yeah, let me fill you up, Baby, want to watch it fucking drip out of you when we’re done.”

She visibly shivered again, and Harry helped her lift and slide his cock inside of her. Y/N moans, her face pinches up from the pressure of him against her walls but she slips right on down like he belonged inside of her. Harry thinks Y/N likes the stretch – the burn of it, as long as it doesn’t border on too painful. She bottoms out, her arms wrapped around his neck, and she smushes their lips together. The kiss is brief before she nips at his plush bottom lip and sucks it into her mouth. While she does that, Harry presses his upper lip just above hers, his fingers digging into her thighs as she squeezes around him, accommodating his size. Her walls were velvety soft and smooth as they contract around him, the ridges and bumps something he’s set on memorizing.

Her ministrations with her mouth go to his chin, she kisses then bites her way down his jaw, to his ear, laving her tongue over the little wounds that were no doubt closing and healing over by now. Harry offers her his hand when he realizes that she must want to bite something, and he’d made the right assumption when she fits his knuckles between her teeth and chews on him. Harry laughs as she starts to lift her hips, then drops back down onto him, “You’re so fucking cute,” he chuckled, “Should we get you a chew toy? A little bone for a puppy like you?”

“Shut up,” her words are muffled around his fingers in her mouth but she’s riding him well. It feels so fucking good, Harry is holding onto every last bit of strength not to cum before her. A damning feat to accomplish when she finds the angle that hits that bundle of nerves inside of her just right – she clamps down on him, her eyes bead with tears as she fucks down onto him, and nibbles at his fingers.

“Do you feel good, Baby? S’my cock stretching you out nice?” Y/N nodded, whining, “You can cum for me. Don’t you want that? Cum on me and I’ll fill this little pussy right up.”

Harry shoves the sweatshirt up so it rests just above her bare tits, or at least enough that he can visualize them and then get one into his mouth. Her nipples are still hard, so pert and sensitive for him when he pulls them between his teeth and lulls his tongue in big circles around them. Harry alternates between sucking hard and flicking his tongue, and Y/N goes from chewing on his knuckles to holding them uselessly in her mouth and moaning around them. Harry feels her start to cum before she can even tell him through these breathy little whines.

He isn’t ashamed to say he starts cumming before she could finish – he makes sure to work her through it still, fucking through the point of overstimulation, his thumb lulling on her clit when he raised his feet onto the coffee table and started to fuck into her. Harry fills her up, his orgasm splinters through him so intensely that he thinks his vision whites out for a second. He’s throbbing so hard inside of her, he knows she could feel it each time, and in response to each one, she mewls and sighs as she finally starts to come down from her own high.

Harry untucks his face from her chest just as Y/N drops his fingers from her mouth. He’s still tucked inside of her but his cum slicks out from around where his cock is plugging her up, too much of it to even keep inside. The feeling is a little atrocious as it cools, but the thought of what it must look like almost has him stiffening up again.

Y/N all but collapsed onto him, and Harry oofs! dramatically, before wrapping her up in his arms. Her arms moved to hug around his waist this time, and she murmured something on his shoulder that he couldn’t quite make out. She turns her head, so her cheek rests against his shoulder instead, “I said I really missed you,” she repeated, “I’m happy you’re back home.”

A lot of responses run through Harry’s head, including, but not limited to I’m happy you’re here with me, I’m happy you’re in my life, I’m happy my cum is dripping out of you right now, I’m happy that our fates matched in this way, I’m happy that we have a kitten name Leaf, I’m happy our souls are bound together.

Harry doesn’t though. He thinks them, and he smiles to himself when he replies with something that he’s pretty sure covers all of that.

“I’m happy too.”

#WOOOOOOO #OKAY YAY #SORRY IT TOOK LONG #I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT!#I REMEMBERED THE TONGUE SUCKING!!!#WRITING #HARRY STYLES SMUT #HARRY SMUT #YAHTZEEE #OKAY #HOPE YOU LOVE IT #LOVE YOU

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tac-bat · 11 months

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You know what I love? I love that the valley twins aren’t carbon copies from each other!!!

and you might be wondering, well how exactly? I’ll show you!!!!! (Because I’ve spent way to much time staring at them, also this post is very long) (and i use old concept art names to refer to them as such, its just what i'm used to, they aren't cannon)

Body types

different body types! Sah (spike hair) has more wide shoulders than Mekh (flat hair). And because of this, Sah has the most slay snatched waist I’ve ever seen JEBEJVDHE even mekh's waist isint as snatched

Prosthetic's

If you don’t already know (and I don’t blame you) the twins have prosthetic arms on where their eyes are missing. (They’re practically invisible in their cutscene, and even their pin doesn’t have them, I hate it.) anyways they both have different patterns!

Mekh’s, is more detailed, has a shoulder decoration and generally more to it.

And Sahs’ is more simple, it gets the job done. I feel like from the look on their prosthetic's alone you can get an idea of their tastes :3

Another quick think but it also seems Mekh’s uniform is sleeveless on the side of where their prosthetic is! Sah has both of their sleeves. I wonder why?

Gloves

Even their gloves are different! Sah’s glove (left) for their prosthetic is thumbless, the other fingerless. When both of Mekh’s (left) gloves are fingerless!

A detail i'm not sure off, but it also seems like the gloves on both twins prosthetic's are bunched up more compare to the gloves on their live arms.

Sticks

I noticed this on my recent eden trip that the sticks the twins hold when you complete the constellation are different too!! Mekh's stick on the ends have more width, and Sah’s is more consistent with width. Which is just— so fucking cool!! They have their own sticks!!!!! They’re not just copy and paste!!!!!!!!

Stances

this isint leaked, this was a wip from their orbit gift animation by Ari Flesch from his artstation account (who made the animation) which i've linked.

Anyways different stances!!! Mekh has their feet together when Sah doesn't! You can also see what I mean about the ends of their sticks having different width's much clearer!!!

Sah’s Cracked Mask

My fav detail is Sah’s mask (also not in the pin and invisible in cutscenes), they have a crack over their eye when Mekh doesn’t! This small detail has gave me so many evil ideas on how they got it and it makes me wonder HOW it even happened. :3

Cutscene Details

OH BOY CUTSCENE TIME, HERE'S THINGS IVE NOTICED!!

Sah seems to hold their paddle backwards when Mekh doesn’t. But Sah still ends up in the same position as Mekh despite that! (maybe to one up, who knows) But that show's that even here, their animations weren't just copy pasted, there's DIFFERENCES!!

Mekh is faster than Sah, and even shows Mekh being the first to leap up and land when approaching the player, when Sah is just starting to land in the 2nd image. This makes the timing of it intentional!!

okay i think thats it thats all i can remember atm!! Ofc there’s so much more, but this post is more focused on the details that can be missed by normal folks. So I thought I share the ones that might be interesting to see that you might’ve not known about.

but yes, thank you to the folks of tgc in charge of their character design's and animation's for not giving the twins the copy paste treatment. Thank you for making them have their own quirks, their own personalities, and their own differences!!!!

Thank you for making them their own person!

#sky cotl #sky children of the light #skyblr #sky: cotl #sky: children of the light #sky elders #sky cotl elders #elders of the valley #valley twins #valley elders #that sky game #tac rambles

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2btheanswertothequestion · 1 year

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Eddie's Kissing Lesson #3: It's way more than kissing now

(Lesson 1 | Lesson 2 | AO3)

A few years ago, Eddie made a habit of driving to Indianapolis. Inevitably, he ended the trips at a club or a bar. The visits were usually solo affairs, though not always; sometimes Donnie or Zac (the only ones in Hellfire who looked old enough to get past the bouncers) or Callie (who didn't look old enough, but who could charm her way in), would tag along. If they did, they'd go to a straight club. If he was by himself, he'd roll a die between a straight or a gay one. No matter the kind, he'd be approached at least twice every night. Beautiful strangers with appreciative eyes, a drink in hand and a line ready on their lips.

Eddie would accept the drink, flirt for a second, then tell them he 'wasn't interested, but thanks anyway'.

It was half true – he was interested (fuck, was he interested), but also… not. He'd never say it out loud, but even at his horniest there was something in his way. A roadblock. Because the thing was, intimacy required, as one might suspect, intimacy. Although, one night stands walked hand in hand with alluring anonymity. Like being watched without risking being seen.

Eddie liked that, most of the time. Liked shrouding himself in a mystery. But when it came to sex, he wasn't so certain. Something instinctual told him it wouldn't be truly good unless it was real. For it to be real, walls would have to come down. Leave an unobstructed field of view for wide-open eyes. Terrifying and exhilarating; he wanted it so bad, but he couldn't (wouldn't) have it with just anyone.

It had to be special.

So, he accepted the drinks, flirted for a second, and sent the beautiful strangers on their way.

Steve writes with a rhythm. It goes tap-tap-tap-tap with the pencil on the pad while he thinks, followed by scritching, before he pauses to tap-tap-tap some more.

It's strangely endearing, not to mention relaxing. You'd expect a guy like him to be rough, leave imprints on the papers underneath and constantly break the point, but no. His large hand is soft as it writes. Eddie could fall asleep to it. A shame they're too busy to sleep.

Star Trek IV came out a week ago and the kids, Dustin especially, have been obsessed ever since. The moment they stepped out of the theater, the little twerp turned to Eddie and begged for a science fiction-themed campaign. And because he's a chump who can't say no to the kids nowadays, Eddie agreed – to a one-shot, not an entire campaign.

(Also, he's already been crafting a solar system for a potential space exploration-campaign on the down low. Why not finish and use it?)

And because Eddie Munson doesn't do half-measures in these circumstances, he spent the next week worldbuilding and polishing his new universe. At one point, as he put the finishing touches on the water planet's cuisine, Steve peeked over his shoulder and asked about sports. Eyebrow raised, Eddie said 'what about sports'. And that's when Steve snottily pointed out that Eddie had developed everything about these space cultures except for the sports, which didn't make any sense – sports was a huge part of every culture, whether Eddie liked it or not.

So! Because Eddie Munson does not do half-measures… he's currently creating extraterrestrial sports games in Steve's kitchen. Although, right now Steve's doing most of the work. After Eddie came up with the base concepts, Steve stepped in to use earth sports as inspiration for the technical aspects: rules, scoring, player positions, player numbers, playing fields, seasons (which ties in with the climate of each planet), and so on.

If he's being honest, he'll never use most of this. God knows the kids (except maybe Lucas, but he wouldn't bring it up) wouldn't notice or care about the absence of sports. But. Turn down an opportunity to hang out with Steve? Never. Also, deciding how much of real baseball should inspire their thinly veiled version of space baseball (spaceball) is kind of fun? What's a penalty and what isn't is just exciting when you throw anti-gravity into the mix.

Most importantly, it's nice seeing Steve be in his element. Dude is so fucking knowledgeable about this. Hearing him say that this will score x points because of that reason, confidence dripping from every syllable, has Eddie's tailbone tingling.

Would it be rude to swipe their notes off the island and jump onto it, offering himself like a buffet?

He knows he's allowed. Or, he knows that Steve wouldn't mind if he asked for a break, even if it was to make out. They've made a habit of sucking face when it's just them and there's nothing else to do (or when there are things to do, but they're easily ignored). Question is if he truly wants to interrupt those soothing pencil scritches and put an end to Steve's surprisingly sexy thinking face. He's got a little furrow between his eyebrows while chewing on his bottom lip, and every so often he'll mutter hoarsely under his breath. The fact that he's being so serious about doing this for the campaign, for the kids, for Eddie, is…

'Unreal' is what Eddie would've said nine months ago. Now he knows it's entirely in character. It's still noteworthy enough for him to memorize every detail of this moment. The King creating nerdy sports with the Freak is a picture that must be immortalized.

He doesn't realize how hard he's been staring until Steve looks up from their work, raising his brows in a silent 'what is it?'

Eddie shakes his head, warmth creeping over his cheeks. He pushes off the kitchen island and turns away to hide it. The sink is conveniently right there, so he grabs a glass out of the cupboard and fills it as excuse.

Behind him, the pencil hits the pad, rolling across the paper. Steve's footsteps are deliberately loud, telegraphing his advance over the surge of running water. Eddie fills the glass, drinks it in one gulp, and puts it on the counter. When he turns, heart thudding, Steve is standing inches in front of him. Steve leans forward, bracing his hands against the counter on either side of Eddie's waist. Boxing him in, but not trapping him.

"Did you want something?" Steve asks.

Eddie crosses his arms casually and shrugs. "Not really."

"Huh. It seemed like you wanted something."

"I was admiring your dedication to the campaign. It warms even this barren heart that you'll partake in nerdestry for the sake of the children."

"Oh, okay," Steve says and doesn't move; his hands remain on the counter and his face stays inches away. His eyes shine like suns, hot and intense. Eddie meets his gaze, face schooled into something calm. At least, he hopes – years of DMing have taught him how to regulate his expressions, but there's a big difference between DnD and this.

"Did you want something?" he asks to fill the silence and – yes! – his voice didn't tremble.

Steve grins. "Now that you say it, I did."

And with that, Steve kisses him.

The initial second, Eddie's brain shuts off, as it always does. It's simply too much too fast and all he can register is Steve Steve Steve. His taste, his scent, his firmness as he presses against Eddie and backs him into the kitchen cupboards.

But only the initial second. After that, he's back on, and that means he's on. Loping his arms around Steve's neck, Eddie tilts his head at the perfect angle until their mouths fit together just so and licks the inside of Steve's mouth. His hands delve into product-stiff locks and tug the way Steve likes it. Steve moans, slumping against Eddie. Eddie giggles into the kiss. He fucking loves knowing Steve better than his own back pocket, loves coaxing these reactions out of him, loves when he melts and leans his weight on Eddie.

It could be better only if they were horizontal and on a bed, or couch, or the fucking floor, and he'd get to feel the hair on Steve's chest and legs, the jut of his hipbone, and his evenly distributed weight. He so badly wants to know how heavy Steve is. He wants to be fucking crushed underneath him.

Maybe he could if he asked. Or maybe that'd be too much. The only time they've gone past second base is during the spontaneous blowjob he still can't fathom happened. Since then, their hands and mouths have stayed strictly above the waist. Eddie, though he's dying to blow Steve, is not going to complain or rush. Steve's the teacher here; he decides the curriculum.

All Eddie can do is show off the results of his rigorous practice. Today, it's by slotting their faces together like a pro and perfectly executing that tongue-sucking move Steve seems to love having done to him as much as he loves doing it to others. It brings a guttural noise out of Steve; he grabs Eddie's ass with both hands and yanks him closer. Eddie nearly loses his balance and must cling to Steve's neck to stay upright. Laughter rumbles within Steve's chest as he steadies him and rolls their hips together. The neck of his shirt bunches in Eddie's vice-like grip. They're as close as during that first kiss, no room for Jesus' finest hair between them. Eddie feels Steve's heartbeat, which means Steve can feel his, and the combined thud-thud-thuddings have his knees shaking.

Steve's hands round Eddie's hips and tug at his belt buckle. Eddie jerks back, breaking the kiss; a string of saliva still connects their mouths. Steve's eyes are enormous, more black than hazel. There's a question in them, a plea for permission.

Eddie nods and doesn't look as Steve opens Eddie's jeans and pushes them down his thighs. His face is on fucking fire. You could fry eggs on his cheeks. Which is a little debilitating. This is never how it goes in his fantasies – he's a lot suaver in those. Quicker on the ball, so to speak. On top of things, one could even say. But not here. Because here's an unfortunate fact about sex:

It's embarrassing.

Exciting and sexy and fun, obviously. But also embarrassing. It was the same during the blowie. The moment his pants were coming off and his dick popped out, Eddie was more inclined to run away than anything else. Hopefully, the feeling will fade as he gets used to it. These hopes are supported by how at ease Steve is, going from de-pantsing Eddie to unbuttoning his own jeans like it's nothing, second nature.

Eddie couldn't look away from that if he wanted to. Why would he want to? Steve's dick is a sight to behold. It's the eighth wonder of the world. Worthy of worship, of a dozen temples and daily sacrifices. It's long and thick, smooth and symmetrical, flushed at the tip and with a bead of precome already pooling in the slit.

It's pretty. And it's hard. It's hard for Eddie.

"Hey." Steve cups Eddie's face, tilting his head up (as well as bringing to his attention that his mouth's been hanging open like a fool; Eddie's teeth clack when he shuts it). "Is this okay?"

Eddie nods, breathing harshly through his nose. "Okay. So okay."

Steve smiles like Eddie just did him a favor. Eddie could – would – analyze that a little closer, except Steve lines up their cocks so that they rest against the broad expanse of his palm, rest against each other, and-

That's another guy's hand on Eddie's dick. It's another guy's dick on his dick. Steve's. Steve Harrington's dick. Next to Eddie’s.

Hoooooooooly shit.

It's happening right in front of him, and he's still having a hard time believing it. But it's real; it has to be real. Imaginarily gifted as he might be, not even he could daydream this into existence. Like, the way Steve's fingers curve around their cocks as he squeezes and strokes? The scratchy calluses on his fingertips? The ever-present chill of the Harrington mansion? How Eddie's testes keep catching on Steve's shaft, rising and rubbing against the dry skin? Steve's softly labored breaths? The edge of the fucking countertop digging into Eddie's lower back?

That's real. Uncomfortably and amazingly real.

Steve pauses to spit in his palm; Eddie whimpers out loud. When Steve resumes stroking it's just amazing, the glide so much easier now. It lets him go faster, put his hips into it and grind their pelvises together. Eddie keeps whimpering, these shamefully squeaky little ah-ah-ahs that he tries to swallow until Steve moans, hotly against the shell of his ear, that he sounds so pretty and sexy and "fuuuuuck, Eddie, wanna hear you like this every day."

He stops holding back then. Gets even louder when Steve noses along his jaw and sucks what'll surely become a mark at the underside of it.

The saliva has rubbed off but the glide is only improving, thanks to the precome dripping everywhere. Both are leaking, but Eddie especially – he's so fucking close. He tries to say it, but his skull is full of cotton and he can't form the words.

Steve must have some sixth orgasm sense, though, because he presses his lips to the scar on Eddie's cheek and mumbles, "So good, baby, you're doing so good, so perfect, wanna hear you come, wanna see your face, looked so pretty last time, almost made me cream my pants-"

Eddie screams. Head tossing back, lungs bursting, as he slouches against the counter. Most of all he'd like to sag to the floor and nap for an hour, he's that spent. But he can't – Steve hasn't come yet, and there's no way he'll go without again.

"Steve," he says. "Whaddya wan' m' to… C'n I…?"

The syllables slur together; he takes Steve's dick in his hand while licking his lips, hoping the point comes across. He just wants to make him come. 'How' doesn’t matter, as long as he's the one doing it.

Steve, thankfully understanding, puts Eddie's other hand on his cock, molding them tightly around the shaft, and rocks back and forth. Eddie almost whines a little since… well, he honestly has never before been so keen on having a cock in his mouth. Like, Steve towering over him, holding his head in place while fucking his throat? Yes and please, Jesus Christ, amen!

But this image is also pretty good: Steve's face inches away, pink with exertion and arousal, fringe plastered to his forehead, mouth kissed raw, and him thrusting wildly into Eddie's closed fists. Eddie's gaze darts between it and the throbbing cock in his hands. It's the second he's ever touched, after his own. It's a bit like jerking himself off, except a million times better, despite the kinda awkward angle.

Steve makes a noise, reedy and desperate. Eddie's eyes snap up just in time to see the climax wash over him, his mouth dropping into a perfect 'o' and his half-closed eyelids fluttering in pleasure. Ridiculous, beautiful, intoxicating; Eddie could become addicted to it.

Sighing, Steve lumbers forward to flop his head into the crook of Eddie's neck. Eddie drapes his arms over Steve's shoulders, probably smearing body fluids on his shirt. Neither says anything – they simply hold each other and breathe.

It's been a while since Eddie last was in Indianapolis. Been even longer since he visited a club. After some time, rejecting willing strangers and going home with bluer and bluer balls, no one to blame but his own fucking hangups, got old. Why waste the gas when he could just as well be getting no dates and not laid in Hawkins instead?

Except here he is, sweat sticking his shirt to his skin, hair frizzing around his ears, come drying under his nails. Standing with his dick hanging out in Steve Harrington's kitchen, with Steve Harrington in his arms.

He's sure he could've gotten this exact experience in a gay club bathroom years ago.

"Rather unhygienic doing this in the kitchen, hmm?" Eddie says.

Steve grunts, grossed out, but shrugs a shoulder. "I'll disinfect it."

Eddie giggles, and so does Steve, rubbing circles over the scar tissue on Eddie's hips. Burrows farther into Eddie's neck and makes no indication he'll move anytime soon.

Yeah, Eddie could've had this in a club. But he couldn't have had it with Steve in a club. Couldn't have felt this swoop in his stomach, like he's at the top of a roller-coaster, anywhere but here. Couldn't have felt this special.

You're ruining me, he thinks as he pets Steve's head.

Do you know that? he wonders when Steve ducks away, griping about what a pain it is to get semen out of hair. Squinting, Eddie asks how he figures. Steve blushes and laughs and doesn't reply, eyes glittering.

Can you see it?

------------------------------

Not tagging anyone except @piratefishmama because she's the reason this exists in the first place. Also, I'm pretty sure she's even more excited about this than I am, so. Here you go, girl. I hope you enjoy this very late continuation.

#remember when I said this part would be shorter than the second? it's seven words longer #I'll just never say anything ever again if it's ok with you #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #steddie #steddie fanfic #eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie fic: lesson/plan #my writing

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worflesbian · 5 months

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RIGHT i've watched the first six episodes of enterprise (five if the two-part pilot only counts as one) and i have things to say. take all of them with a pinch of salt bc ive only just started it but i have a sneaking sense that it will continue in much the same fashion.

first of all the backswing from ds9 + voyager's first black captain and first female captain is TANGIBLE. to quote eleanour "girlboss" guthrie-blacksails so many goddamn (white) men here!!! too many goddamn (white) men here!!! not only are they white men, archer and trip specifically are Cowboys in the most "we clearly want to write a classic western" sense. if i closed my eyes and listened to a scene with just the two of them i wouldn't be able to distinguish it from firefly, a show where they purposefully put on cowboy voices because apparently space westerns were all the rage in 2001-2002.

t'pol is really the only woman i would call a main rather than supporting character and her role thus far seems to be emulating the nagging sitcom wife, in that she naysays everything, gets utterly disregarded, is proven right by the end of the episode, and then is immediately disregarded again next episode. i find the idea of vulcans intentionally curtailing human progress into space and humans rebelling against that really interesting, but i hate the way the casting and direction turns space travel into this gung-ho boys will be boys situation because even though t'pol is right, she's being Framed as a killjoy in such a gendered way.

back to the western thing - i watched a Lot of 50s' and 60s' westerns as a child and out of the five episodes of enterprise i've seen so far, three have used tropes or stock situations directly from westerns with the worst offender being s1e6 terra nova. i was fucking gobsmacked by that episode like it was BLATANT. the fact that most of their outdoor scenes are probably filmed in california which is where a lot of westerns are filmed by pure hollywood convenience probably doesn't help, but it's really evident in the writing as well. i remember reading that the original series wanted to take the western frontier into space and make a "wagon train to the stars" and it feels like enterprise decided to go all the way back to that concept and do it far, far less subtly.

of course the problem with this is that rather than engage with the politics of that genre and how they've influenced the formation of star trek (is the federation an imperialist entity? is starfleet a colonialist military? etc) it feels so far that enterprise is just having a great time playing uncritical cowboys and aliens, completely erasing indigenous people from the narrative of westward expansion or replacing them with the non-human which. fucking sucks!!

the fact that t'pol is constantly getting racially harassed and abused as the only vulcan aboard, the fact that hoshi is inexperienced with combat and space travel so its always the men doing the action scenes, the fact that travis is the youngest and least ranking officer on the bridge and the fact that enterprise was "rick berman's baby" are all adding up to a conscious agenda of putting white men at the forefront of trek again.

if i'm wrong about any of this i would love to hear from people who've watched further than me! i dont mind about spoilers i've already had loads

#ghitlhpu'wij #ent liveblog

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thewertsearch · 1 year

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GA: Im Not Sure Which Depresses Me More GA: The Sabotage Of Our Session Or The Futility Of Theirs [...] CG: YOU'RE BEING REALLY WEIRD ABOUT THIS. GA: Well I Havent Asked What I Wanted To Ask [...] GA: Its About TentacleTherapist CG: YEAH. THAT'S THE ROSE HUMAN. CG: SHE'S APPARENTLY PRETTY SARCASTIC. CG: IT'S IN MY NOTES.

I love that Karkat prepared dossiers on the kids' personalities, presumably to harass them as efficiently as possible. We've never seen him talk to Rose, so I like to think he learned about her sarcasm from her passive-aggressive games with Mom.

GA: You Have Notes On Them [...] GA: Thats Why Youre Our Leader Karkat CG: NO, I'M YOUR LEADER BECAUSE OF MY INCREDIBLE TACTICAL SKILLS AND MY ABILITY TO MOBILIZE AND MOTIVATE A BUNCH OF USELESS PEOPLE TOWARD A COMMON GOAL, AND BECAUSE I'M EXTREMELY AMBITIOUS AND INTREPID. ALSO BECAUSE LEADERSHIP IS IN MY BLOOD. WE'VE BEEN OVER THIS.

I'm actually with Karkat on this. Uniting the trolls was an achievement, and he managed it better than most of his friends would have.

The only other trolls who might have had a shot were Terezi or Kanaya - but Kanaya was distracted by quadrant shenanigans, and Terezi likes causing problems on purpose. Plus, she wasn't interested in being the leader.

Karkat doesn't exactly give off 'inspiring leader' vibes, but he rose to the occasion magnificently. He got trolls like Vriska, Equius and Eridan to act as a unit, and it's frankly astounding that it worked as well as it did.

GA: Have You Talked To Her CG: WHO GA: The Rose Human GA: Also GA: Do We Really Have To Say Things Like The Rose Human CG: OF COURSE WE DO. CG: IT SOUNDS SUITABLY DISDAINFUL. CG: I MEAN, IF A BUNCH OF ALIENS STARTED HASSLING YOU, YOU WOULD EXPECT THEM TO ACT REALLY HIGH AND MIGHTY, AND SUPERIOR IN EVERY WAY, RIGHT?.

Humans are, basically, cousins to the trolls - and the first thing the trolls did was try to obfuscate that fact. I think Karkat's motive was to make them sound intimidating, but they ended up just sounding like cartoon characters. Not that I'm complaining.

CG: DID YOU WANT TO TROLL HER? ARE YOU VOLUNTEERING? [...] GA: Im Not Sure If Ive Got It In Me Right Now CG: COME ON. YOU'LL BE GREAT AT IT. CG: PLEASE JUST DO THIS ONE THING FOR ME. WE'VE GOT TO STAY COORDINATED ON THIS. CG: TOO MANY OF THESE FUCKS ARE GOING ROGUE.

Karkat may have united the trolls, but I think his leadership died with the Black King. He said it himself - his strength was in motivating the trolls to a common goal. Out here in the Veil, there is no more goal, and things are rapidly unraveling.

CG: I'LL EXPECT A FULL REPORT SOON. GA: A Report About What [...] CG: HOW HASSLED YOU GOT HER TO BE CG: BUT LESS STUPID SOUNDING THAN THAT. GA: Is There A Metric For That Concept [...] CG: WE CAN GAUGE YOUR RESULTS WITH THE "FLIGHTY BROADS AND THEIR SNARKY HORSESHITOMETER".

And I don't think Project Trolling was just a way for Karkat to vent his frustrations, either. I mean, that's definitely what he thinks it is, but if it was just that, he'd be doing it alone.

GA: That Seems Just As Disparaging To Me As It Is To Her CG: YEAH WELL CG: USE IT AS MOTIVATION

He's doing it to motivate the other trolls. A part of him has realized that his team has lost direction, and he's subconsciously trying to provide them a new goal - something new to unite them.

Because what happens if the trolls aren't united?

Blood, mostly.

And Karkat hates blood.

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #s61 #2694

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reachartwork · 21 days

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i've noticed that a lot of your artworks have this incredibly lonely or desolate feeling to them. architectural/landscape pieces especially--"liminal" is maybe a cliche, but also an apt descriptor as well.

its also interesting to see how distinctive your work is, both in the ai space and in the 'regular art' space. a lot of the reference points i have for this type of artwork is something like BLAME! or NaissanceE--both of those often featured 'inhuman' architecture--cityscapes which feature human-like structures, but were clearly never built with humans in mind. but you end up different in the sense that a lot of places in NaissanceE felt 'inhumanly clean'--like it is a space that's never been lived in (the flat color artstyle, lack of any identifiable dirt or dust in these spaces make it seem like a pristine city that's never housed a single soul). a lot of your pieces on the other hand seem 'dirty' in the sense that there's a lot of rough texture. sometimes it's how ruined the locations featured seem to be (ie: rusted factories, crumbling rock structures, etc). sometimes it's just the use of texture--the red and blue paintings for example have this grimy, almost paint-splattery look.

i really like it! it stands out really well against a huge pile of 'extremely clean' midjourney images and also stands out against other 'liminal space' type stuff (ie: the pristine look of the 'pool rooms' or other backrooms stuff), and i don't think ive ever seen anything quite like it.

i also think it plays well to the strengths of ai generation--i dont know your artistic process, but i assume at least some portion is leaning into the ways that ai understands/misunderstands human concepts like "city" or "hallway", as well as using the fact that lots of ai seems like it excels at depicting materials and textures

since this is an ask i should probably cap it off with a question: is there anything in particular you aim for with these pieces? ie--something you find really compelling or really want to get across to the viewer when you make these?

i love a sense of texture and material. ever since i've started playing with ai i've only ever wanted to create concrete that looks like you can reach out and scrape your fingertips raw on it. a distinct sense of texture is the most interesting thing to me - i'm not particularly interested in works, both in my own artwork and in others, that feel super clean and neat and tidy with no rough edges. pixel art and sculpture and brutalist architecture and low poly work are my favorites for a reason, while normal super-clean digital artwork, particularly normal digital artwork made by midjourney, always just leaves me bored. photography is also generally not interesting to me to look at unless it's of interesting subjects, or framed in an interesting way, so i try to avoid photorealistic works that are just of A Person. if its of a person it should be an interesting person, or a person in an interesting situation, or ideally a person that's not a person at all, as that's what i relate to the most. you may if you desire consider this a sort of manifesto. i'm only interested in texture.

#not art #ask

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sophieinwonderland · 5 days

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about the ask that was talking about host-centrism and where you brought up that a lot of singlets take that and add the idea that "the host is the only real one" reminds me of how a lot of the community views the term "core." for context, in our system we do have a core. our core isnt one of our 3 hosts. we dont know if we have been plural since very early childhood or if we became plural in middle teenagehood, but either way our core feels that term is right for her. now with the term core, we have seen a bit of hate for it because people say "there is no 'original', we are all real." and of course, yes, all our headmates are real! but for us we do have a headmate that identifies with our pre-plural self. we wouldnt use the term "original" but the term core makes sense for how our system works.

i would say this is a sysmed idea but ive seen endogenics also disagree with the idea of a core. i feel like this could stem from the singlet idea you brought up of "only the host is real." i think some plurals are uncomfortable with the idea of a pre-plural self because of that. and idk i just think thats an interesting possible result of the singlet idea. and as someone who isnt in a tulpa system but still has a pre-plural self, i think the comparisons of experiences with that is interesting as well!

- anonymousfield (sorry i always add long, mostly off topic paragraphs to your conversations lol)

That's a pretty solid analysis!

And yeah, I'm pretty sure that most tulpa systems, like us, probably have cores.

And I think the term core is very useful since, as you touch on, a host and core aren't the same thing. You can have someone who was there from the beginning and is the core, but isn't a host anymore.

I'm honestly not sure where the idea that there isn't a core comes from. I see a lot of people saying it. But I've never seen a solid source.

Of course, some systems don't have cores, don't know who the core is, or have splintered cores where multiple headmates could claim to be the core. That's completely valid! Some will have cores and some won't. But it does feel that systems with cores are often given the shaft in this community sometimes.

And I think you hit the nail on the head with that interpretation...

Although... I might add that maybe systems are a bit responsible for that too.

Many systems experience denial. And I could see some hosts latching onto the idea that they're the only "real" one, leading to a ton of internal conflict.

So I'd agree that, yeah, this is mostly an issue because of ableist singlets. But I also think it might be blowback from systems themselves using the concept of a core to justify self-denial. (And possible even trauma from that.)

#syscourse #pro endogenic #pro endo #sysblr #multiplicity

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desire-mona · 1 month

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dps boys (and keating's) favourite songs (aka me projecting because i love music) (also modern au because you cannot limit me to music before 1960 you just cant)

i made a playlist of all these songs in case you wanna give em a listen, you can find it here. if you totally disagree with me or wanna add more then absolutely let me know!

neil: talia - ride the cyclone (the musical)

yes i KNOW it's obvious to choose a song from a musical BUT. ride the cyclone is special, i think he'd really like the lack of an ensemble and enjoy the dark premise despite the comedic nature of a vast majority of the show. also i totally think his favourite performance would be by gus halper bc of the use of the projector. mischa or noel is definitely a dream role of his.

todd: vincent - james blake ('s cover, og by don mclean)

don mcleans lyricism is like catnip to poets and it has gone unacknowledged for far too long. a lyrically gorgeous, vaguely queer sounding song about a tortured artist, covered by someone with an ANGELIC voice. can you name anything more todd? not to mention the piano is so far beyond moving, nothing short of a masterpiece.

charlie: dear prudence - siouxsie and the banshees (again - a cover, og by the beatles)

firm believer that charlie was an avid beatles hater for a WHILE until eleanor rigby grew on him, much to his dismay. is now a casual beatles enjoyer, only due to the fact that their vocals annoy him. so a cover by siouxsie sioux (whom he most definitely has a crush on) is basically a blessing in disguise. loves the instrumentals, loves the vocals, loves all of it. insists that its better than the original and will ultimately die (correct) on that hill.

meeks: love on the line (call now) - her's

as much as i love and adore meeks, i have been loyal to my headcanon that he is an annoying music snob since day one. of course, this culminates in his favourite song being by THE indie pop/rock band that pretentious people love to bring up the death of. he is no exception, any time the band is mentioned he will without fail go "did you know that they died in a car crash?" either way, id be lying if i said this was a bad pick. the upbeat vibe mixed with the actual meaning of the song being about a guy wasting all his money on a sex hotline? it makes the whole song so fun, and thats right up his alley! super danceable too, which plays a huge part.

pitts: bad fruit - jean dawson

will mona ever shut up about jean dawson? signs point to no. anywho, if you've followed along with my pittsie musings then you KNOW that i consider pitts to be the most well versed music guy to ever step on welton academy campus. realistically, im sure his favourite song changes on a day to day basis, but he always comes back to this. jean dawson makes art that ive seen few do similarly, everything he brings to the table i find so incredibly unique and well crafted. definitely pitts' biggest music crush.

cameron: '39 - queen

absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, an extremely guilty pleasure. i take his parents as the type to ban queen in their household (for reasons that im sure youre able to pick up on) but i ALSO take cameron as a sucker for classic rock, match made in hell. of course, since brian may does the vocals on this song instead of freddie, he can listen on the dl and be fine. also, the concept of time travel in music is SO!!! INTERESTING!! would absolutely go on a 10 minute long tangent about the story and meaning of the song, which only mittsie would actually listen to.

knox: lavender buds - MF DOOM

fine, FINE. i'll give knox a proper headcanon, but i wont be happy about it. i think i would listen to MF DOOM a lot more if i was a former bully, but thats not actually based off anything so dont take that as an insult, avid listeners. honestly i dont really have an in depth explanation for this one, just look at the lyrics and youll understand.

(this repeats 3 times)

i also take him to be a big r&b/ blues enjoyer, also based off nothing at all, so the sample probably appeals to some sense of nostalgia.

keating: clair de lune - claude debussy

yes, even modern keating's fav song would be classical, you can rip that from my cold, dead hands. this song was based off the poem by the same title by paul verlaine, which i'll include because it is just so damn beautiful.

Your soul is a select landscape

Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go

Playing the lute and dancing and almost

Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

All sing in a minor key

Of victorious love and the opportune life,

They do not seem to believe in their happiness

And their song mingles with the moonlight,

With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,

That sets the birds dreaming in the trees

And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,

The tall slender fountains among marble statues.

Paul Verlaine, 1869 (originally written in french, so this is a rough english translation)

now the song itself does SUCH a good job at capturing the beauty and moving parts of this poem, and it fits perfectly with a plethora of different emotions. i know without a shadow of a doubt that its his kryptonite. is that me projecting because i love this song and i love keating? absolutely, but i still think its true either way.

#desire mona #media #please please please listen to the playlist all these songs are wonderful i promise #dead poets society #neil perry #todd anderson #charlie dalton #steven meeks #gerard pitts #richard cameron #knox overstreet #john keating #mona talks music #banger

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offshore-brinicle · 16 days

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[Cracks knuckles]

More simple observations then anything, admittedly.

First things first, Dante uses golden bough resonance seemingly on command, seeing a possibility and thus wishing it into reality, which isn't exactly how we've seen it beforehand - namely in how it manifests the fathoms of one's ego into reality. The image of the symbol we've come to associate with collecting a bough is red and yellow with added chains, as opposed to its usual pure gold - the implication of which is that the specific construction of their head allows them to fine tune this output of reality warping in some way or another.

Given what Faust says of the laws of causality and such, I believe that they were fine tuned to be able to exclusively manifest concepts regarding time, possibly making it more powerful in exchange for limitations on what they can do. This personally reminds me of the people in IV, who were 'revived' by the fathoms but only in body [that is, if I'm remembering correctly] whilst Dante brings back everything of the sinners.

Then this brings us to the actual abilities [currently, ability] themselves and the menu around it. Firstly, the button one clicks to active them is labeled 'Durante' which: is believed to be the baptised name of Alighieri, means 'during' in Italian, comes from the Latin word for 'endure' and was the name on Dante's coat on an early art piece of them on the bus. The idea of 'enduring for a period of time' both fits with the Canto and how Heath endured through his childhood for only the period of time he thought he could be with Cathy, and how Dante endures through the pain of death only for limited amounts of time. Though I do not know of how to tie in Alighieri's name with the game, alas.

Anyways, onto the actual mechanic, once we open it's menu, we are greeted by an unfinished but upright tree of life from the kabbalah, with 'Hokma' at current being the only one unlocked. The chain motif appears again, representing Dante's control over it - or some kind of contract or agreement being made with it, as with the chains binding the sinners. There is also additional text on there but I simply cannot read it, a shame.

The symbol used is the one for Hokma's floor in LoR, with the only other place it has been seen in Limbus being Gregor's base E.G.O, alongside the symbols for Malkuth, Gebura, Chesed and Binah. We also see it when the ability is first awakened, with overlayed hands settling in the 9'oclock position, the same one Dante started the game off with, and white chains are seen again as the symbol of connection/control. This of course yet another thing tying the boughs to Lobcorp and its consequences, this time with specific reference to a very important character. We do skip over Keter for the time being, which I don't know enough to comment about.

We also see 'Pigritia' or 'sloth' under Hokma's symbol, but given as there are more parts of the Kabbalah then sins in game, we may end up bringing in some other sins like 'vainglory' from past ideas around christanity. Plus, this implies a connection between Gregor and sloth, which is proven true in how it the affinity of his base E.G.O. The sins the other badges rep. may also be ones connecting more personally with Gregor as well, but we'll see in due time.

Now. Golden bough synchronisation isn't something I believe we've seen before, but it is in the corner of the home screen whilst Dante commits season name. This could be Dante's bough synchronising with one of the ones on the rooftop in order to perform that feat, or something else I am too tired to think of right now.

The ask is. Really long but! I do think the fact they are called 'sapling of light' abilities is really interesting, it implies a more grown version of the seeds of light sowed within the people of the City - I believe its either grown as a result of interacting/resonating with the boughs, or due to Dante's experiences and developments through their journey. This also presents a non-zero chance that Dante is an attempt to recreate the seed of light project, something I'm sure at least a few of Limbus' workers [coughcoughFAUSTcough] know of in some capacity.

I believe that's it for that for now, though.

HONESTLY REALLY FANTASTIC ANALYSIS, I also caught up on the thing about Dante's name and the label on their coat since my mother language is Spanish and "durante" means "during" in it, so it naturally led me to understanding it easier.

God the appearance of Hokma's symbol was such a jumpscare it left me agape, but also the fact that it's the symbol used for Hokma ever since the Library came to be as well as the Sephirah in the floor, and also the fact that Hermann is interested in The Well which seems to be the "river" under Wuthering Heights being some kind of unique area that connects to it hence the ghosts and apparitions from other worlds. It makes me wonder even more about the state of the Library and Angela's ultimate goal in the true ending is finding a way to dismantle The Head, since now it means Dante is not just connected to Carmen but The Library.

I wouldn't be surprised if Limbus and N Corp are in some kind of race to recreate the Seed of Light but with their own purposes, mainly Limbus taking in count what you just said and the fact that the path layed out for the Sinners to reach their own "awakenings" is awfully similar to how the Sephirah were used in the original Seed of Light, though not as calculated and controlled as Ayin's plan and prone to failure since we technically only had 4 out of 6 attempted boughs collected with Heathcliff's burnt one and only 2 of the 6 missions resulted in an EGO realization/self-actualization in Yi Sang and Ishmael. Sinclair made some progress at least while Gregor and Rodion stayed the same but Heathcliff....feels like he got worse, really. Bodysack stayed the same and the one time it's "awakened" it's used in the Canto it's as an act of self-hatred and once everything is over it stays the same symbol of death, just now with a new obsession driving him forward in bringing back Catherine somehow which is definitely not going to turn out well in the future.

Somehow I didn't catch up on the 'Pigritia' part, it's interesting that it uses a different term from the actual Sloth Peccatula, since Acediae would be more accurately translated as "apathy", but the fact that it all connects to Gregor again and he acknowledges Hermann again and stops calling her "mother" is also an intruguing development. Hell, it's actually most likely that the Bough Hermann gave to Nelly and Catherine is the very same one they took from Gregor in Canto I.

As always thanks for your asks I love reading people's observations and analysis.

#Canto VI spoilers #project moon #limbus company #lcb Dante #lcb Gregor #lcb Hermann #and Hokma but idk if to tag him #answers

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tanadrin · 7 months

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Hey... sorry if this is too much, but im a baby trans and ive been struggling to grasp the concept what gender is, everytime i try to look for a definition i only find the vague basics like "its what you identify as!" Or i find bigoted shit from trasphobes. If you have any recommendations of essays about gender from trans people who dive deeper unto the concept it would really help. Sorry if im bothering you i just dont really know who else to ask 😅

i don't know how helpful i can be. i have a very instrumental view of transition--i.e., if you think it might make you happier than you are now, you should give it a try and see. i think a lot of pointless verbiage is spilled on trying to nail down difficult-to-elucidate questions about purely internal experiences, about the distinction between gender and sex, and about what all this gender stuff means anyway. i think that stuff can be interesting to discuss, if you like that sort of thing (and i do!) but that loading yourself up with a lot of gender theory isn't actually useful for figuring out what you should do vis a vis your gender presentation and how you identify.

for those latter questions, i think the answer is simple: what makes you happier? when you imagine a given gender presentation, or your body being different in certain ways, or people calling you by a certain name, does that sound appealing? doesn't matter why. if so, go for it! and frankly this advice is quite agnostic of whether or not you're cis or trans. people should adopt the identities that feel most conducive to their happiness. you do not need elaborate theoretical justifications for any of it. anyone who demands an elaborate theoretical justification for how you dress or what name you choose to use or anything like that is an asshole whose opinion you can safely ignore. i guarantee you they are selective in this demand, and are only using it to try to find an excuse to be a dick.

that said, you want a definition of gender, and i guess i can try.

"gender" has no definition. that's not meant to be a smart aleck answer. what i mean is: "gender" is a conceptual category. conceptual categories do not exist outside of our discourse about them. there is nowhere in the world you can go to lay your hands on A Gender. there is no Gender Particle. and while in most philosophical traditions we think of categories as having necessary and sufficient conditions for membership ("a human is an animal descended from the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees" might be such a taxonomic definition), conceptual categories aren't actually constructed that way. because that's not how the human brain actually works: when you're a kid learning what words mean, you don't learn "a chair is a thing with four legs you sit on." that wouldn't be accurate anyway (a horse is not a chair). you see lots of chairs and pictures of chairs and you form an image in your mind of what a chair is and when you see a thing your brain compares it to other things like it you've seen before, and if it looks like your mental model of a chair, you think, "chair."

(this is in fact how almost all definitions work in practice. even for formal scientific categories for which it seems like a traditional definition might be workable, because our terms are so specific, there are problems and corner-cases. is a HeLa cell a human? it's certainly an autonomous organism. it's certainly descended from the last common ancestor of a chimpanzee and a human being. but it's a single-celled organism that exists only in laboratory cultures, and lacks everything else we expect a human to have.)

so, uh, gender. "gender" is from the latin word "genus" meaning "kind." it is a doublet (that is, shares an etymological origin) with the words "genre" and (more distantly) "kin." obviously, a word's etymology is not its meaning. confusing the two is called the etymological fallacy. but originally when we talked about "gender" we were pretty explicitly talking about categories in general, and i think that's useful to keep in mind. incidentally, "sex" (also from Latin) has a similar etymology--it's related to "section," i.e., the creation of a category by dividing a group. though "sex" acquired something like its current meaning much earlier.

most human cultures group humans into two broad conceptual categories. this is based on a variety of traits, of which physical traits like genitals are seen as frequently foundational. some cultures explicitly create additional ancillary categories, or provide a means to move (often only partially) from one category to another. contemporarily, there has been an effort to distinguish "biological sex" (seen as what chromosomes you have, reflected by what genitals and other physical characteristics you have) from "gender" (seen as a question of social presentation).

i think this is a mistake. you might be able to spot why--biological sex is a conceptual category! most humans are xx or xy, but there is in fact a wide variety of sex-chromosomal arrangements that are possible. xx and xy are only the most common. biology is messy, and it's hard to tell how messy, because we don't routinely karyotype people. the existence of rare-but-noteworthy conditions like complete androgen insensitivity (frequently reuslting in a chromosomal "male" that is "mis"identified as and lives their whole life as a female) highlight that even within the purely biological realm, sex emerges only as two broad clusters, not as two clearly divided bins. moreover, a trans person who has been taking cross-sex hormones for many years is in a sort of willingly-imposed intersex state. so saying a trans woman is a "biological male" or a trans man is a "biological female" (especially if they have had an orchiectomy or hysterectomy and can no longer produce gametes of their respective assigned sex at birth) is sort of funny--we're privileging an (assumed) chromosomal arrangement over the biological facts on the ground. and while DNA does control a lot about how our bodies grow and develop, it can in fact be overridden! otherwise, cosmetic surgery, or hair dye, or LASIK surgery would all be exercises in futility.

"gender" is sometimes also talked about as a set of internal experiences. you "feel like" or "identify as" a particular gender. and while it's certainly plainly true for some people (both cis and trans), it seems not to be true of everybody (cis or trans), and for other people it's hard to say. not everybody has perfect access to their own feelings all the time. people get told they're lying about what they feel when that's socially inconvenient for other people. and internal states are impossible to measure or verify. they're also often pretty hard to put into words, and we mostly can access them only indirectly, by sidling up to them, or by trying to find other people whose experiences/thoughts/feelings seem to resonate with our own.

so i don't have a definition of gender for you, or an etiology, or even a very robust account. sorry! but i also think that anybody trying to tell you they do is operating from an understanding so narrow that they don't even begin to understand its limits.

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beautifulpersonpeach · 10 months

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BPP, am really really interested to read your thoughts on Seven!

Ask 2: Hey bpp, can i be honest?? Ive been checked out of the fandom but still keep track of any music releases. So i didnt know abt any rumors abt 7. Imagine me being kind of disappointed that it’s another english song from jk when i watched the mv😅 it feels like his most promoted songs since last year has been all eng song… idk i wanted & expted something diff… i didnt like l&r, dreamers and now 7… it’s back to back lol. Tbf i didnt like My You too and thats in korean. At least not enough to listen!again after the first listen.

Im happy that still with you is finally on spotify tho. I’ll still be waiting excited for his album whenever it comes out. Hopefully ill find something i like in it!!

[BPP Note: Both asks above were sent before my "I don't like it..." post. The asks posted below were sent afterwards.]

Ask 3:

Same here

All the hype didn't matched with the song

1. rest members songs had so much depth and substance to it while this was the cliche boy chasing a girl song. Like we always dont need deep songs but the quality could be so much better. This was like just another pop song.

I think I'll put this on same level as BAD DECISIONS. But for bad decisions, atleast the chorus was staying on my mind while for this nothing was catchy enough for us to humm. Just because it's JK it will get hype but otherwise it's so generic. I think I liked LEFT and RIGHT way better than Seven. Even the rap portion felt so unnecessary and boring.

2. MV was kinda nice because of the production but concept was too shallow, the stalking and chasing was so outdated. In my country we have like 9293928843837 MVs in this same concept that not many make the same theme songs again.

3. The choreography. We haven't seen the full version. But for tiktok they do the highlight portions if that's so mediocre idk how rest will be. It was again giving the same mediocre showing off choreography and for me backdancers ruined it with their awkward moves.

4. they wanted this song to be played everywhere around the world. But there was nothing catchy enough to attract gp or go viral on tiktok, even if we sped it up. The only way to make everyone listen is to shove it down their throat but doing payola. But idk if investing in payola is worthy for the song. I also doubt the longietivity, as for me it was boring after 2 listens. I'll rather listen Like Crazy or wildflower or closer 20 times than listening this once.

5. I HOPE he'll bring something fresh to the table for his album and don't involve this mediocre producers who uses the same formula and same superstar persona to make a song successful. He is so much talented to sing a song which is so rich in melody and lyrics. And he can produce way better songs by himself.

Prolly a 4/10 for me

Ask 4: troye sivan's rush (which also came out last night) is exactly what I wish Seven was. I don't mean that in a 'I expect the things JK to make to be gay' way just in the way it's a fun, very danceable, sexy summer song that doesn't pull its punches. Something about seven feels too run through a commercial sanitizer a few times, even with the explicit lyrics.

***

Hi Anon(s),

Jungkook likes to fuck.

Rather, Andrew Watt likes to fuck and thinks Jungkook can relate.

JK has been talking about wanting to show more mature and explicit sides of himself for a good long while now. So I’m glad he’s finally gotten to do that, confirming for us why he keeps getting noise complaints from his neighbours since the mattresses all over his apartment don't help.

BTS has made songs explicitly referring to sex before (though it's been mostly the rapline doing so). So it's nothing new but I guess it's cool JK gets to share with us that he too has sex.

The question I posed to my friends immediately after watching the MV is, “Do you know who's been doing A&R for BigHit since 2020? I really need to know who is doing A&R for BigHit in America because they’ve been doing an appalling job lately. I'm starting to wonder if it's an inside job cause this song is kinda ass.”

That was me ~11 hours ago.

I didn’t like the song.

I’ve streamed Seven about 20 times since then I think, took a break from the song for a few hours, watched his GMA performance, caught a few minutes of the Wlive, then listened to it again just before writing this post and…

I still don’t like it.

Jungkook did a good job on the song, Latto's verse wasn't terrible, and while the song itself isn’t bad… the song isn’t good either.

It’s painfully, and at this point it’s a pattern so I have to add, predictably, mediocre.

Reserving judgement for the album, but Anons, I agree with you for the most part. The suits at BigHit are trying but they are woefully out of touch with the reasons BTS blew up in the West in the first place. I don't even feel like spending any energy doing a review or even trying to explain what I mean. So I'll just ramble on for a bit but try to keep it brief.

---

I have to give BigHit some credit because I can see what they're going for here. Andrew Watt is a very celebrated producer in the US, he won the Grammy award for Producer of the Year in 2021, he's got A listers in his portfolio. So, he's not a cheap name to book and I can see why the suits at BigHit thought he's the genius to gift them a song clinically designed for American radio.

But that pandejo phoned it in. There isn't a lick of creativity to be found anywhere in all 3 minutes and five seconds.

It reminds me of VIBE by Jimin and Taeyang, as the closest analog to the vague dissatisfaction morphing into annoyance and then pragmatic rationalization I experienced in that same sequence when listening to it the first few times.

The song is disappointing because we've all heard it before. Too many times, and we're bored of it. We've heard JK sing this sort of song for years, as covers mostly. So on one hand, while I guess it's nice JK gets to have an American summer JB-reject pop tune of his own, it's not good enough to be the track that introduces him to the world as a solo artist.

It's fine for any white, blonde, blue-eyed heartthrob that can ride on a pretty face and implicit bias to rack up accolades, it's not good enough for Jungkook.

And BigHit needs to start using whatever leverage a US$10.6 billion market capitalization buys you in Hollywood, to insist for songs that are at least as good as the songs made by BTS members and produced by their in-house team. It's a waste of money and everybody's time to fly a battalion to LA just to record 2014's summer hit in 2023.

In my opinion.

Still With You > Stay Alive > My Time > Stay > Left & Right > My You > Dreamers > Seven

All that said, I can't ignore JK has a taste for songs like this, and it's not his fault the song is shit (he didn't write, compose or produce it), so technically he shouldn't be punished for it. And the song is made for radio, while it's not my personal taste a lot of people really like the song (one of my friends likes Seven the most out of all the BTS releases so far), and it will catch on with some support. So, ARMY will support it including me, just to a lesser degree than I've done so far. Fingers crossed JJK1 has something solid on it.

#For people who wanted by opinion on Angel Pt 1 #take the latter sections of this post as one reason I'm not a fan of that song #Seven could've been fine as track seven on the album as an interlude or something #Not as the introductory single to JK's solo debut #Lol what a joke #Anyway #bts #jungkook #jeon jungkook #bangtan #bighit #hybe #bts fandom #bts army #JK Seven

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trans-luis-serra-navarro · 11 hours

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@anininas I’ll answer your ask (which TOOOOOOTALLY isn’t almost a month old NOPE) here to keep things organised but I. Dived into a little bit of a rabbit hole with this one and debated posting about it for a bit cuz I realised WAY TOO LATE Oh. You probably mean like. Fantasy cowboys not real-world cowboys HXNSHENDJDJ but let me ramble anyways!!!!

So the origin of ‘cowboys’ as a concept comes from Mexico but more specifically when the Spanish colonised Mexico they brought with them a bunch of cattle that obviously needed to be hearded so over time the Vaquero tradition of horse-mounted herding evolved from there, which is more or less how we’ve gotten the modern idea of stereotypical rootin-tootin cowboys. That’s obviously like a VEEEEEEEEEEERY watered down explanation and I would REEEALLY recommend you go researching the topic yourself if you’re interested cuz I am FAR from a historian HXBDBDNDNXN [Heres the Wikipedia article (I know) if you need a starting point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaquero just keep in mind it’s also pretty bare-bones too]

But it’s why you’ll often see a similar floral pattern on Luis’ jacket on Western saddles

It’s a kind of leather carving that was APPARENTLY inspired by old medieval Spanish saddles, which would make sense cuz Y’know,,,,, it was Spain that colonised Mexico BCNDNNDS

I’m gonna make a post specifically about this and the designs on Luis’ jacket later so hold onto that thought BUT ANYWAYS. IF WE’RE TALKING LIKE. FANTASY COWOYS. FICTIONAL NO-CONSEQUENCES COWBOYS I HAVE A LOT TO SAY

I imagine even in canon Luis PROOOOBABLY knows how to ride horses. I don’t think we actually SEEE any horses in Valdelobos but it’s a mountain terrain village with the nearest town being god knows how far away so I don’t think it’d be totally unreasonable to assume Luis knows how to ride a horse which is PERFECT FOR US cuz then we don’t have to wonder how he learnt in a theoretical cowboy au

I can also imagine Luis- now hear me out- being more of a dressage rider than a cattle herder. Have you ever seen those funny videos of the horses at the olympics doing a silly dance to rave music???? That’s dressage, which originated vaaaaguely around Spain and France during the medieval period and people SAY it was to evade attacks during battle but like. How true that actually is is up for debate BCNDBENSJJ

But dressage is a lot like dancing. Which Luis. Obviously knows how to do BXNSHNSS so in MY HEAD they make a perfect duo- which makes the mental image of Luis becoming some kind of outlaw similar to canon VERY funny BCNDHSNSJ like I don’t think it’s be very hard to spot the man on his dancing horse Y’know but I digress. I can imagine he probably got taught how to ride by his Grandfather and then got taught how to be a rough-and-tough cowboy by Leon even with his pretty boy fancy horse which IF WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HORSES

Andalusians were bred in Andalusia, Spain (duh) and are used in dressage and showings A LOT. Like go to any big regional tournament and you’ll probably find at least one amongst the crowd. I have no clue realistically how popular they’d be in 18th century America if they were there at all even, but I literally can’t think of a better horse for Luis

ANYWAYS UHHHH THATS IT. THATS ALL IVE GOT. THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME RAMBLE ANI I WILL FOREVER BE IN YOUR DEBT

#luisposting #ask #asks #luis serra #luis sera #luis serra navarro #luis sera navarro #serennedy #serrennedy #serrenedy

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