#debating on leaving the original posts up or just taking them down entirely

[snowflakebottles-art]

gonna be reposting a LOT of art for a hot minute because i finally got un-SHADOWBANNED YAYYYYYY heres a bunch of ffxv stuff :^)

#ffxv #final fantasy 15 #ff15 #noctis lucis caelum #gladiolus amicitia #ignis scientia #prompto argentum #cindy aurum #aranea highwind #debating on leaving the original posts up or just taking them down entirely #because the vast majority of them got like 0 notes #but also sometimes they got a few and some people said nice things. hmmmm #snowflakebottlesart

[hexonthepeach]

perfume - k.dy

pairing: f4!nct doyoung x fem!reader (past johnny x reader mentions)

genre: hana yori dango/boys over flowers/meteor garden/f4 thailand reverse harem au (mild allusions and characterization only)

warnings:

bully-to-friends-to-lovers, established relationship, polyamory, dom!doyoung, glucose father adjacent, scent kink, control over food consumption/bathing (for scent kink purposes only), gratuitous use of the l-word by anti-romantics, angst/feelings, flashbacks and history

🔞 edging, cockwarming, orgasm denial, oral (m/f receiving), passionate sex, rough sex, spanking, creampie, bukkake, consensual negotiated kink (degradation, somnophilia), anal play (f receiving)

wordcount: 20k

author's note: this is a doyoung-centered continuation of my ongoing F4 au. it can stand on it's own but i recommend reading Dive for more context. Doyoung's role in the F4 is Sojirou Nishikado/So Yijung/Ximen/Kavin (playboy control freak) so this fic incorporates elements of his secondary romance within the original/adaptations, now with y/n.

read on AO3

fic headers / dividers credit to @ saradika + please do not repost

Freshman year, Kocher International. 

Head down in your books at lunch, trying so hard to escape scrutiny from above, you pretend to be no one. 

It shouldn't be hard to be nobody, otherwise ignored and immune to whatever social contract deliberates your life. In a better world you'd be invisible. It's a superpower you'd wish for much more over the usual playground answers of super speed or control of the weather. 

Let me be unobserved, you'd thought. Let me open a door and not worry about a bucket full of dirty mop water falling on my head or the inevitable posting of a grainy video of it, posted in a Telegram channel to fulfill some checklist made up by bored, rich monsters. 

Your four-generation-behind phone with its cracked screen proved useful in some regards; you never heard about these public pillories until some kind stranger sent you a screenshot of them, usually in the context of whatever plans they'd made to torture you again.

Every notification is already a pain, driving splintered glass into the pads of your fingers. Just now you're reading a text message from your father asking you to pick up more cheap instant noodles from the convenience store on your walk home to round out whatever scraps he's picked up from the local restaurant your mother bussed tables and cleaned dishes at when she needed extra money.

"Why is Saint Kim watching you?" your friend asks across the table. She's been looking up at the room this entire time, unable to give you even a moment of her attention or assistance to finish the English homework you'd been working on. You'd been rushing all day to finish it before afternoon class, after a late morning of delivery driving for your family's drycleaning business.

"Are you sure it's not the Devil?" you ask, parsing through the lines of a book you'd bought secondhand, trying to match verse for verse.

"No," she says, shaking her head when you finally look up. "Don't react. He's coming this way."

"Shit," you say under your breath, eyes flicking to your untouched lunch. "I need you to leave now. Take these trays and dump them and I'll meet you outside of 4th. If I make it."

You don't look up from your book as you mutter, but you follow her path and her hesitancy as she internally debates whether to heed your warning or watch from a safe distance.

Your handwriting becomes a scrawl of nonsense you have to cross out in sharp lines. You begin the verse again, holding your breath as you will your entire body and mind back to a manufactured calm. 

If you can't be invisible, you can at least play your role. You're copacetic by the time you see the tips of polished black wingtips beside you, before you hear the Saint clear his throat.

“Y/N.”

He drops a familiar, school-mandated clear cosmetics bag next to your ratty backpack. The already embarrassing stash of tampons and old chapstick has a new bounty including a "used" pregnancy test stick with a second line drawn in with pink gel pen jumbled into its contents.

"You left this . . ." he says, not finishing the sentence to indicate where he'd found it. You immediately hear a titter. Your flock of spectators is growing by the second and the useful idiot at its center seems wholly unconcerned.

"Thanks," you say, not bothering to look up or to even hide the bag. You keep writing, blindly, the English words just rounded shapes flowing from your shaking hand. 

Their kind fed off attention, your only defense is to starve them of it.

The Saint clears his throat, again. Apparently he’s not just unconcerned, he’s also unwilling to leave.

"Aren't you grateful Doie found it before someone else did?" You don’t have to look up to know it's Miranda who’s asked, glimpsing her manicure as she picks up your bag, green gems shining on perfectly-tipped nails. 

"Oh this must not be hers. I didn't think she could afford this."

You think she might be diving into the stash for one of the Lilies' pointed additions but no–you watch in horror as she plucks out the bottle of perfume you'd been carrying with you since your parents had gifted you a single, tiny box last Christmas. 

"Chanel?" she says, laughing. "No wonder you smell like my grandma."

"Probably a knock-off," another of the Lilies says. Ginger, by the sound of her grating voice. Her handwriting on the board in homeroom listing out your abortions is as familiar as the pink gel pen script on the extra large foil condom with xoxo slut written on it staring at you through the plastic.

"Definitely a knock-off. You have a nose, don't you, Doie?"

You look up, finally, at Saint Kim. He's alone for once–the other one, the Devil Kim that shadows him is still up on the second level, leaning on the railing over his shoulder. You watch the Saint’s small mouth turn into a moue of distaste, nose wrinkling at the proffered bottle.

"Authentic," he says, capping it before offering it back to you. Your field of vision is obstructed by that veined, pale hand–fingernails as perfectly groomed as the rich girls who surround him.

You reach up to take your most prized possession back only to find he doesn't let go, holding tight when you try to pluck it from his fingers.

"You should know . . . " he says, sniffing slightly.

You look up at him with alarm blazing in your eyes. Every word Kim Doyoung says to you writes your next damnation. You should ignore him, run, anything–but you can't look away once you've met his assessing gaze, his tall frame limned in the fluorescent cafeteria lights like he's carrying his own personal halo. 

Even seeing him at a distance every day can't depreciate how ethereally handsome he is. You know better than to swoon at that elegant face, night-black hair pushed away from his forehead. Beneath his family’s charities and his PR-scripted concern you know he’s just another ungodly creation birthed of nepotism and curated genes.

He leans in, carefully, musical voice a whisper. 

"You should know it doesn't suit you."

The laughter that follows is deafening.

No, you think. He's just as soulless as the rest of them.

“What do you mean actually sleep?" you ask, coyly, unbuttoning your romper. "Like after we . . . ?"

"I've managed 6 hours of sleep in 36 hours, y/n–” Doyoung seems to hesitate, dark eyebrows raising, hand pushing his hair back from his pale forehead. He snaps his laptop closed, at last, shoving it to the farthest edge of the bedside table.

No–you think–not hesitation. 

Frustration.

You've seen this man before. 

All work and no play made Saint Kim into a Prince of Hell. He'd spent the first 8 hours of your date day half-present–the other in the 4 hours of sleep he's gotten since some crisis at his family’s headquarters in London that usurped your vacation. 

A whole 2 days in which he hasn't held you at all. His rules, his chance, but you can't help but wonder what has him so clenched that he's barely even touched you since your date began at 6 am Bangkok time.

You'd taken two extra strength melatonin and slept like the dead, anticipating his early-riser schedule. Only you and God had to know you'd fallen asleep next to your day tour fit ready to be fucked in it. 

You’d made yourself so pretty only to find him in the kitchen hunched over his phone, laptop softly pinging with notifications. Doyoung had still been dressed in the clothes you'd seen him in the night before, ending his conference call to laser in on you hovering in the kitchen.

"Are you upset?" Doyoung asked.

"No," you'd lied, pushing the piece of paper he'd left the staff on the counter, his English handwriting crisp and formal. "What’s this?" 

"We have a few dietary restrictions today," he’d said. 

"Are you saying I am what I eat?" You’d asked, taking a bite of a plump strawberry. "Is this some kind of prep?"

"It's for the date," he'd said, resigned. "Just be patient with me."

Then he'd smiled, disarming you with a casualness you hadn’t seen on him in a long time, rubbing his eyes blearily under his thick glasses. 

"Can we go back to sleep?"

And so you'd settled into his grasp on your made bed, scrolling Insta and waiting for the inevitable alarm–which turned out just to be Jungwoo delivering two iced Americanos in some gambit of checking your progress.

"Missed the floating market opening?" Jungwoo asked, eyebrows raised at the sight of Doyoung face first in a pillow.

You'd silently mouthed your thanks, leaving the drinks to sweat on the bedside table as you changed into your second outfit of the day, occasionally drifting in to check on your sleeping beauty.

It was a rare delight to have him so vulnerable beside you, blanket rucked up beneath his chin and his white teeth visible past the sweet curves of his mouth. Without consciousness your partner for the day is just Kim Doyoung, the gentler side of the same creature who you knew would often choose a couch to watch serial television with you over a day trip if you wanted it. 

But this was different.

Now instead of using his precious time to fulfill what you'd felt promised in his casual brushes against your back when you'd finally traveled out, or the way he'd stroked your leg at brunch under the table (every bite chosen by him, of course), you're being railroaded into lying still while he sleeps. 

Again.

You continue undressing, letting him drink in the sight of the lingerie set he’d left in your room. You knew it was custom made by the way it lifted each curve he’d already had access to, tailored for you as if every millimeter of your body was to account for.

Doyoung's cheeks are hollowed, lip chewed. He pulls his glasses down and regards you even more as you continue to undress yourself.

"You do know what the word 'nap' means, don't you?"

"I'm not the one who hasn't slept," you say. "At least let me get comfortable."

His stare pierces into you as you turn around, stripping for utility rather than give him a show he clearly hasn’t earned. You check yourself in the floor-length mirror beside the bathroom, viewing yourself through his eyes as you pluck the lace over your curves to sit just right. 

“Do you like it?” you ask.

You may as well be speaking to the floor when you turn around, finding him buried in the pillows only by the dark fall of his hair.

“You can’t be that tired,” you say. 

You're used to taking a late afternoon siesta in peak summer but you're far too excited to even consider sleep right now. For one, it's sweltering–windows open to allow the noises of hawkers and traffic not far off to drift in.

Second, you've never been more turned on in your life. 

You can still feel the tingling in your toes from when he’d slipped his hand up under the hem of your shorts, teasing at the velvety smooth skin on your inner thigh as you tried not to choke on your mimosa.

You make your way to the bed languidly, crawling up the thick white duvet with a teasing smile.

"Just stay on your side of the bed, please," Doyoung says.

"Oh," you say, collapsing on top of the covers beside him. "Well you're no fun." 

"And you're impatient and uncouth," he retorts in a way that makes you wonder if he really means it. 

"Will you at least hold onto me?"

"Too hot." He rolls on his back, flapping his half-buttoned shirt in the breeze from the fans. You sigh dramatically, collapsing into the pillows in the middle of the bed. 

"You should get naked, then.” You say. “Don't be modest on my account."

He opens one eye to glare at you, finding you relaxed and inviting beside him. His throat bobs, gaze flicking to the ceiling.

"That year of celibacy really took a toll on you, didn't it? Two hours. Indulge me."

"Please, sir," you whisper. "I've been such a good girl."

It had been a stipulation of the F4’s latest deal–24 hours for you to recover from your first night before the gauntlet began. Doyoung had been more than strict about the terms, leaving you your own set of instructions including–not surprisingly–not touching yourself.

Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t think about masturbation constantly, at all hours of the day. He may as well have told you to try not to think about a white bear for how powerful the intrusive thought had taken over since then.

"You'll get your reward. Later," he says. He's an impassable wall, stretched out beside you, so you content yourself with staring at his profile. Even under these oppressive circumstances you appreciate the light dusting of freckles on his cheek brought out by the sun, the dark lashes dusting his cheeks over the slight bluish marks of sleep deprivation.

"Yes, sir."

It only takes a few minutes for him to snap at you again.

"Stop that," 

"Stop what?" 

"Getting so handsy."

You hadn’t even realized your hand had drifted over the plane of his belly under his white shirt, too absorbed with watching the muscles in his cheek spasm as you inched nearer. 

"Can I help it when you're right there?" you ask. "I thought this was your–"

Doyoung rolls you before you can slither any closer, pressing your back into the sheets with his hands on your wrists, knees digging into your thighs. 

If the intention was to get you to stop being uncomfortably turned on it has the opposite effect: you let out a moan of pleasure, legs twisting together for friction. He slams them shut between his own, groin pressed into yours.

He's as hard as you hoped, and you lift up into him to let him know you know it.

"If you don't behave I'll have to cancel this," he warns directly in your ear, sounding as choked as you feel. "I thought you were already trained." 

"Trained to fight back," you correct, pressing against him with your own strength.

"That's not trained," he says, lifting up. "I'll blame your lack of experience and experienced partners. Nothing we can't work on. Until then you'll follow my rules or I pull you from the game. Understood?" 

You let a few beats pass, accepting there's no way out and you don't have anything to throw back at him.

"Yes, sir," you pout.

"Now that's a good girl," he says.

Just as quickly as you were taken down you're let go, inhaling deeply now that you're not being pressed into the soft bed. 

"You really don't want to play with me before you sleep?" you ask, brushing your lips against his chin as he crouches over you. You’d be a liar if you didn’t say you enjoyed the way his nostrils flare a bit, working his pink bottom lip between his teeth. Whatever arbitrary rules he’d set for your time together you can tell he’s at least regretting it right now, stiff length brushing against your bare leg as you lift your knee to test it. 

“Are you trying to make me punish you?” he asks, voice husky. 

"I thought you liked it when I was a brat," you say, cocking your head. 

Doyoung sighs, eyes half-lidded. "I do. But not when you're using it to avoid intimacy."

Your throat clenches, a hard knot forming in it you can't seem to swallow as your face gets even hotter.

“What are you talking about?” you ask. 

“I think you know what I mean,” he continues. “It’s not like we both don’t have a habit of using sex as a distraction from anything emotionally challenging.”

You gape up at him in disbelief. 

Of course you’d never been able to hide that aspect of your last relationship with him when he’d often been right outside the door. All of the F4 knew how many times your arguments with he-who-should-not-be-named-especially-not-while-in-bed-with-his-best-friend had ended in you shutting him up by any means necessary. Not that you didn’t enjoy it at the time–but rather you understood it wasn’t the most healthy template for a relationship. 

"I thought this wasn't going to be about feelings," you blurt out.

“Proving my point.”

Doyoung tsks, tapping your cheek with his fingers–nowhere near a slap but just as effective, soothing the spot with his thumb. Soon he’s brushing your tears away when they inevitably spring up and you have to turn to hide their seep into the mass of pillows.

"If I wanted therapy I wouldn't be here, Kim Doyoung," you say, trying to bury your face in the piles of soft down. 

“Shh, silly girl,” He gently pulls you out from hiding, soothing you with a warm kiss against your forehead when you stop struggling and let him hold you, releasing that surge of emotion and writing it off to hormones and the sting of rejection.

“You know I’m speaking to myself here, too,” he states softly. “Bear with me, I’m learning.” 

"Do you even really like me?" you ask, face pressed into his chest. 

It’s horrible to admit this specific insecurity but you can’t help it. Being abandoned multiple times in your life when you’d finally, finally let your walls down would damage anyone’s trust. You’d hoped this day with him would be easy and carefree and light, not dimmed by the shadows of your anti-romantic histories. 

"I adore you, actually." He settles partially on top of you, leg wrapped over yours as he props himself up on his elbow. "Which is why I want to start this right. You wanted the F4 boyfriend experience. This is mine."

"Last I checked you’ve never seriously dated anyone," you groan, sniffling. 

"Last I checked, neither have you." 

Well, that connects. You swallow your fears, relaxing into the cage of his embrace, retreating a little from the vulnerability of being exposed.

"What kind of girlfriend experience were you expecting, then?"

A lazy smile gusts across his features. You can't help but find it a bit sinister after being handled so indelicately. 

“I don’t always know what’s going on in that empty little head of yours." He accompanies his statement with a brush of his thumb across your flushed cheek, tracing your semi-parted lips in a way that sends sparks down to your core. 

"I’d like to stop guessing and actually get you to let me treat you the way you want to be treated. Have you ever asked yourself what you want?"

You panic a little, considering his words. Living with disappointment had made this question a hard one to even consider. 

"I just want a good time. Isn't that what you want, too?"

Doyoung seems to ignore your ask, drifting into a relaxed state against the pillows. His hand traces the hairline at your temple. "You know I worry about you. All the time, actually.” 

His voice is lower, a little wistful, and it’s doing just as much as the slight brushes of his fingertips to make you throb all over again. A lack of sleep must have made him delusional, you think. This is not the Kim Doyoung you know.

“You’re always thinking of how to take care of the people around you, I think you’ve forgotten how to relax and let other people take care of you.”

"Is that why you're always involving yourself in my business?" you ask, matching his tone in how breathless you are. You expect a quip, not the sincerity written on his face when he swoops in to press a gentle kiss against your lips, too fleeting to be anything but sweet and sincere. 

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time? It certainly wasn’t just to get into your pants. I want you. All of you.” 

You're taken aback by his honesty. You'd always suspected his constant meddling in your affairs came from a place of interest but you'd never wanted to give him too much of a response–maybe a little afraid his fickle nature and fear of commitment would mean he’d give up on your friendship, too. 

Another thing you knew about Saint Kim: he had a tendency to run like a frightened rabbit at the first sign of emotional neediness in his partners. You'd never given him reason to believe you expected anything from him, but you'd also stopped fighting him on giving you what he desired to give.

It wasn’t just presents or expensive experiences, of course. He’d found out quickly those weren’t welcome without some cajoling. No–his art was in knowing what you needed even before you realized it, nudging it across your path. 

You’d figured out his deviousness after the umpteenth time someone was charitable at your little florist shop part time job, offering to fix your scooter in exchange for a nice arrangement for a proposal. As soon as you’d seen the fully restored bike outside and the customer didn’t return your texts you’d called Doyoung, completely unsurprised to find he was at the coffee shop next door, waiting to pick up his flowers.

“Stop being so nice to me,” you’d said. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“What makes you think I’m giving you charity,” he’d responded, dropping a department store bag and your own custom coffee order on the counter. “You’ll wear this when I come to pick you up tonight at closing, including the jewelry and perfume. I need you to play your part again. The flowers are a consolation for the heart we’re breaking.”

He’d enlisted you as his defacto “new girlfriend” for the more difficult separations, and though you’d gotten your share of a glass of expensive wine thrown in your face more often than he ever experienced it (his type always went after the easier target) it wasn’t like he didn’t have a replacement dress ready and a nice dinner waiting after you’d cleaned off the Chateau Lafitte Rothschild. 

You have to face the fact that no matter how many times he’d treated you like his girlfriend, you’d never actually expected him to want you to be one. 

“I’ve waited a very long time for this, Y/N. Which is why I want our first time together–alone," he adds quickly. "–To be special."

It's difficult to believe him but you're spellbound all the same, watching pink dust his cheeks and his ears turn a shade darker as he most likely realizes how ridiculous it is considering him fucking you senseless the other night with the help of two other men. 

But you can empathize with his anxiety. Yesterday's Thai massage he'd arranged had helped you work out the flight or fight of anticipating being alone with him. It’s back now, but different. The way he's looking at you makes you feel infinitely naked, infinitely unlocked.

"What do you mean special?" you ask, wary, hoping to see some glimmer of uncertainty or falsehood in his gaze. You want to believe it's a lie or just some artful prank, trying to ignore your heart flip-flopping in your chest. 

It’s a mistake to let him see you squirm considering it’s Doyoung’s drug of choice–his lips twist into another menacing grin as he plays with the charm on your necklace. Another of his little gifts.

"Do you think you can handle it?" Doyoung asks, dripping self-satisfaction. “Or are you going to chicken out on me?”

You turn over so he can't see your expression, realizing he’s throwing your own words from the night before right back at you.

"I haven’t decided if I want to date you, yet,” you say. 

"Maybe not," he says. "But you'll have to pardon me for wanting to show you this good time you supposedly want while also treating you decently. Unless we're no longer friends?"

"We are," you say, biting your lip, "even if you enjoy torturing me."

"Torture?" He laughs, breathy. 

"Metaphorically speaking."

"You have no idea, do you?" You can feel the edge of his glasses as he bites the place where your clavicle connects to your shoulder, his hand snaking around your bare middle.

"You could show me," you invite, mid-gasp, as your body responds to his long-awaited touch. His fingers are almost cool in contrast to the heat in the room, tracing circles in your skin that have you squirming. 

"Is that a challenge?" he asks.

Why not?

"We don't have to have sex," you offer. "Maybe you could just–"

"Shh," he says, fingers skimming lower. "My terms. Are you going to stay quiet for me?"

You nod into the comforter, breath hitching as he touches you through the thin layer of your underwear, veined hand flexing as he molds the damp fabric to your body. It's such a delicate pressure but he's already memorized your shape, index finger sinking into your folds, gently rubbing a ring around your throbbing clit.

You're sticky and swelling with each pass, entranced by how good he is at teasing you, cherishing the way he sucks in his breath when he pushes into the indent of your hole.

“Doie,” you whine, leaning back into him, trying to get him to kiss you as he laughs into your hair. 

“Quiet,” he reminds you, kissing your cheek and teasing the seat of your underwear where they're soaked the most. "You want to take these off?" 

You shake your head, sensing it would be too easy of you to give in.

"That wasn't a question," he says, tugging down the band, leaving them trapped tight around your thighs. "I don't want you to wear them until I tell you that you can." 

You feel your core clench at the way his voice cracks, his fingers sliding back up to slowly and delicately draw a thread of moisture from your bared slit. You whine a little when he stops touching you, bringing his fingertip to your lips.

"Taste it." 

You let your mouth fall open, let him run it over your tongue, beginning from the middle and swirling over it. 

"Describe it," he murmurs. "If I like your answer, maybe I'll indulge you more." 

"Salt," you say, immediately. 

He tugs your hair, making you meet his eyes. 

"Have I taught you anything? I want specific notes. Flavors." 

You're transported back to the time he'd taken you to your first (and last) wine tasting. Spitting into a bucket and being lectured about body and tannins and soil conditions was the last thing you'd wanted to do after an hours-long trip to a vineyard but you'd indulged him, allowed one glass of what he considered the only drinkable wine on the premises. 

An unrefined palette, he'd called you. 

"Fruity and floral," you make up. "A nice lingering finish. Want a taste?" 

He looks down at you behind his glasses, equal parts amused and unimpressed. "Did you use the soap I asked you to?" 

Your brain glitches at that. Had you? You'd been in such a rush to go out–

You gasp when he palms your breast, squeezing the meat of it through the breathable fabric of your matching bra.

"I'll take that as a no," he says. "I guess you're not ready." 

He rolls off of you, leaving you in a lurch as you realize your legs are locked together by your underwear. You move to remove them, taking off your bra as well to avoid the awkwardness of being partially dressed.

By the time you're done you realize he's on his back, the hand that had been stroking you buried in his loose khakis. 

"What are you doing?" you ask, more than a little pissed off at the sight of him masturbating as if you aren't ready and willing to assist beside him. 

"Getting ready for our date. You can watch. No touching." He cracks an eye to look at you before closing it again. "Either of us."

"Are you edging me, Kim Doyoung?" Your menacing tone is entirely natural.

He hums a bit, working himself at a more punishing pace, knuckles peeking out from under his boxer briefs with each full pass over his length.

"Can't even look at me? Afraid you'll lose control?" You sidle down on the bed, beside his tensed thigh. You can smell a bit of the ozone on him from a morning in the sun, your knees knocking into his calves when you move over him.

"I don't trust you," he says, voice deeper than you've ever heard it.

"Is it touching if you finish on my face?" you ask when he finally blinks up at your presence, hovering over him with your breasts dangerously close to his clothed thighs.

"Absolutely not."

"Not touching–"

"Just. Watch," he orders.

He pulls himself free from his pants, surprising you with how dark and weeping his tip is as his thumb encircles it. Pools of white precum spatter on his lean, pale belly, your head dipping dangerously close–

"I said watch." He grabs at your hair, denied when you bend up again, showing him your dirty tongue.

He groans, fingers clenching air. "You were put on this earth to test me, weren't you?"

Still, he doesn't break his attention on the way you roll the drops you'd licked from his clean skin in your mouth, swallowing once you've fully enjoyed the taste.

"A little sweet you say," teasing him. "Drinking pineapple juice?"

"Brat," Doyoung says, but he's almost gone–eyes dark with desire, gently gripping your skull as you continue to ease in.

You're a master at following his lead, blowing a breath over the spot you'd licked, and then his length until his movements slow, cherishing the way you hold your mouth over his cock.

"If you can't give me what I want, then at least give me a taste," you say, sticking out your tongue in offering. You love the way he responds to the sight, needy and losing it when you hold eye contact, drilling into him.

"No," he echoes, weakly. He's too smart to push into your open mouth, instead driving his hips up to fuck his fist as you watch his glasses slide down his nose, eyes clenching shut. 

"You're no fun," you say. "Just a little swallow can't hurt?"

"No. Don't want to ruin it," he says cryptically, making a choked noise as you brush his fingers with your nose and he has to pull you away.

"I promise you it . . . It will be worth it," he manages. His jaw clenches as his movements relax, finally in control of you both.

"It better be," you say. 

You lower your lashes as your eyes flick between his cock and his face, stretching out your tongue to the point that drool begins to drip down your chin, splashing on his whitened knuckles and the tight stretch of his balls peeking out from his underwear. He bites his lip, breath holding as he starts to spiral.

The first thick rope of white rockets up his half-bared chest. Soon he's spurting even more, cum reaching his rucked up shirt, a little getting on his glasses. 

He's so out of it he doesn't fight as you wrest out of his limp hold. You clean up the sticky mess on his skin with your tongue, his abdominal muscles twitching under the light flicks and drags. 

"Want to give me some notes?" you ask, straddling him without resting any weight down, taking off his glasses. This time when you move to kiss him he rises weakly to meet you, lips parting to accept what you haven't swallowed. 

In truth, he tastes wonderful. Coffee, a little menthol from toothpaste and a hint of the watermelon you'd shared earlier mix beneath the coat of his spend.

He licks into your mouth until you moan, your body throbbing with unfulfilled pleasure. You follow him as he sinks back into the pillows, enjoying having him at your disposal, your core leaving wet trails on his thigh when you brush against the fabric.

"I'm going to wait until you're asleep and use you if you don't help me get off," you threaten, pressing soft kisses to his slack face. It’s no use. Doyoung has passed out again, lower teeth visible as he snores softly, forehead sheened with drying sweat.

Fuck it, you think. 

You ooze off of him to take your second cold shower of the day, and maybe get acquainted with one of the fancy showerheads in his massive walk-in while you use his special soap. 

It's not–technically–touching yourself.

Your mystery destination isn't an unknown–it's in every tourist booklet and blog you'd skimmed before your trip, thinking you'd be on your own to find a good spot to traverse to. But it still takes your breath away the moment the car door opens in the sprawl of motorbikes and delivery trucks and Doyoung takes your hand to pull you into Paradise.

Pak Khlong Talat is a bustle of energy well after dark, the time you know its treasures are delivered fresh and unbloomed, wrapped in newspaper and steeped in crushed ice. For as far as you can see the market sprawls along Chak Phet road, but even more overwhelming than the sights and sounds is the scent. 

Jasmine, roses, lavender. Thousands upon thousands of blooms strung up and tended to by night owl vendors, delicate arrangements hand-sewed by artisans streetside into garlands so well-crafted Doyoung has to tug you to keep you moving, onwards to some other unspoken destination. 

"I was worried you might hate flowers after working with them for so long. I take it you like it?" he asks, indulging you when you ask if you can take his picture at a particularly lovely hang of garlands, the purple-blue light perfect for the film you'd loaded into your father's old camera. Photography had never been your craft, but after your dad had passed you'd made an effort to capture more of your memories, cherishing what you'd taken for granted before.

“It’s perfect,” you say, admiring him through the viewfinder. "But can you look like you're having fun?" 

Your model is stiff, mouth a moue as he checks the street for other observers or a possible collision with a laden handcart. 

"Fun?" Doyoung asks, and you snap his picture on the offbeat, enjoying his look of surprise. 

“Like you've taken your date to one of the most romantic places on earth, after buttering her up with a night cruise of Chao Praya and finally letting her eat real food." 

He sniffs at a fall of marigolds, a smug look on his face that you commit to film, right before he sneezes. 

"For the record, we're eating after this. Som tam hardly counts as a meal, I just didn’t want that drink going to your head." 

You're shepherded through the vast warehouse of the main market, to an adjacent street, and into a non-descript building painted in a funereal white.

"Are we even allowed to be here?" you ask, once the key code is entered and you enter the strange business. 

"I called in a favor," he says, taking your hand, leading you up a metal staircase past a simple storefront of dried blooms and shelves laden with boxes and bottles alike.

An apothecary? An alchemist's shop? The purpose of the space eludes you.

"An atelier," Doyoung explains. "One of the most sought out in the world."

There's the distant hum of the city outside and a central air you're unused to in this climate but the upstairs is quiet–by all accounts either an office or a laboratory, or a mixture of both. The central working area is a chaotic but organized space filled with tables of glassware and dried floral arrangements contrasting potted orchids, small beakers of coffee beans littered amidst rows of labeled brown bottles.

"So this is how they make perfume," you say, inspecting a stoppered bottle labeled "Gerianol 10%".

"Not just any perfume. The best. Here." Doyoung leads you to a much less cluttered workstation, the desk arranged with the lights still on, a note detailing some instruction you can barely read before he slips it into the pocket of his slim-tailored pants. Beneath it is a notebook, scrawled with a perfect cursive English you recognize from the cards he’d included in boxes or bags whenever he’d bothered to claim their contents. 

"Sit," he instructs. You think he means the comfortable chair but before you can sit down he presses you to the desk, caging you in. 

"Sit," he repeats, hands on your hips through your slinky skirt, lifting you to the bench. You scoot back, carefully, the white blooms of some exotic flower brushing against your cheek until he can move the vase a careful distance. 

"Do you understand what we’re doing here?"

You can't possibly know what he means, eye level with the graceful column of his neck and his exposed collarbone beneath his translucent button-down, drowning in the melange of scents but most especially his clean, neutral cologne. 

"No," you say, honestly, heart beating fast. 

He picks up a corked flask from some kind of metal scale, dipping a thin thread of paper into it to waft it a fair distance from your nose.

"Before we came here--before you even agreed to this trip–I sent instructions to my friend for a specialty blend of their creation. It took quite a bit of back-and-forth–I even visited here last month to take a private class and make sure we prepared the base and middle to your standards."

"For me?" 

You feel dizzy, reaching out to take the sample and smell it again, his hand capturing your own before you can bring it too close to your nose. He wafts it for you, expectant as you absorb the details.

Indeed, it smells divine–exactly the kind of warm, bright notes that make your heart feel at ease. There’s something floral and citrus worked in, not too heavy, the finish leaving you with an impression of a lazy summer afternoon. 

“It’s beautiful,” you say. “Did you make this to match what you knew I liked?”

"Yes.” Doyoung exhales, looking almost sheepish. "I had some references. That cheap shampoo you never stop buying, the Lush exfoliator with the orange blossom, even–" he shudders a bit– "that awful Chanel you doused yourself in, in high-school."

"Coco Mademoiselle," you say. "It's been years since I–"

"It didn't suit you," he says, standing up to sample another bottle from the neat row. 

Something dawns on you, a distant memory locking into place.

"It was you," you gasp in realization. "You're the one who got rid of it. I should have known when you tried to give me that bottle of Jo Malone–"

“It had already turned. You need to store your scents away from direct light.”

“It was a keepsake!” There were very few possessions from your youth that you’d been able to hold onto–not only because your parents had been barely able to afford your school uniforms, much less gifts. What little you’d had was lost when your house was destroyed by the men your father owed money to, this small thing neglected in the destruction.

“It didn't suit you because it wasn't made for you," he continues. "You wore it because you thought it would make you fit in, when you should have made what you wore wear you–"

"Please, stop."

You have to bite your lip to the point of pain, remembering how excited you'd been to unwrap that tiny bit of luxury your parents had saved up to buy you, your mother sure the brand name would save you from another day of humiliation. You didn’t have the heart to tell them that the cutout ad from the magazine on your wall was for the model, not the actual perfume, but you felt loved by the gesture all the same.

Hundreds of thousands of won an ounce for it to only turn on your skin, well before afternoons spent on the basketball court under the thankless sun. That memento had aged from pink to a sickly rose unused on your cosmetic shelf, a totem from a time when you imagined yourself belonging. Before it had disappeared, like so many other things.

You can't remember the last time you'd worn anything, had never even gone near that section of a department store after the humiliation of being made fun of for smelling cheap.

“My dad skipped lunches and my mom worked double shifts to get that for Christmas my first year in Kocher,” you say. “Mira was the brand ambassador for that campaign, you know.”

Mira had been your idol even before you won the scholarship she’d established to attend Kocher. Perfect, beautiful, but most of all the first girl in their sphere to show you genuine kindness.

"It must be so easy for you," you say, wiping your face. You rarely cried these days but that memory was particularly painful, a reminder of how often you’d assumed Doyoung found you just as offensive. Not just your scent, you thought, but you.

Something to be tolerated. Below his regard. 

"Whatever you want, you can have. Whatever you don't like, you can get rid of. I'm sorry, I don't live in your world. I can’t just throw something away when it’s not useful."

"No," he says, quietly, abandoning his explanation. "That was thoughtless of me. I can replace it–"

“Can you?” You glare up at him. “Is this what you really want? To dress me up like your perfect doll and feed me from your hand so I’m more able to suit you?

Doyoung looks like he's going to be ill, every design in his head unraveling before your eyes. You’d feel sorry for him if you didn't know this was a lesson worth imparting.

"Don't ever offer to replace what you don’t know the true value of," you say, voice trembling.

There's a weighted silence as he considers his next words. You still haven't slipped away from him, choosing to hold your ground. How many times had you been forced to be the antagonist in some fruitless class warfare, unresolved? But then you also had a habit of finding battles in peacetime. 

You pluck the newest scent strip from his frozen hand and waft it between you, at the designated distance.

“Thank god this smells nothing like it,” you murmur. You offer him a wry smile, anger fading. “I couldn’t stand it.”

You feel Doyoung’s relief as he collapses against you, forehead against your hair as his arms wrap tight around your middle. You relax after a bit, cheek pressed to his collarbone as you breathe in his unique scent–a little like fresh laundry left out in the sun.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “All these promises and plans and stupid details and at the end of the day I really . . . Don't know what I'm doing."

"I really don’t know what you’re doing, either," you say. "But I like that you try.”

"You do?" The hope in his voice makes your iciness melt a bit. You let your hands twine around his neck, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease with the gesture.

“I know it’s not easy for me to admit but I do appreciate everything you do for me, Doie,” you say. 

He doesn’t respond in words but you savor the shift in his demeanor, like a weight has been lifted from him. You think even he didn’t know it was there. You ignore the glassiness in his eyes when he pulls back, choosing to look at his notes instead.

“Are these all the ingredients?” you ask, working out a few of the more familiar words. “What’s op–?”

“First things first,” he says, rolling up his sleeves.  "Did you touch yourself?" 

"No," you say, surprised by the shift. "I followed your instructions. No products with scents. No underwear."

You spread your thighs to make your point. His hands hike your skirt up, over the breadth of skin to your hips and then to the curl of your belly, his breath hitching as he finds you already glossy.

It had been a bit of a gambit considering your riverside excursion but he'd allowed you a lemongrass-based repellent–the scent of which is still clinging to your bare skin as he kneels down to press a kiss to where his fingers had traced earlier.

You jerk a bit, conscientious of the workspace as he spreads you, just that light touch making your nipples harden beneath your thin shirt and bra.  

“Are we allowed to–”

“Shh. Relax and try not to spill anything,” he interrupts, breath cooling your wetness. “I just need some inspiration.”

“What?” 

"You’re so good already," he says into your sex, spreading you so he can lightly tongue at your skin. “Perfect little flower just for me.”

After waiting so long, you're torn between begging and shoving his teasing licks away, hand threading through his raven hair as the notebook slips from your hand.

"Kim Doyoung–” you gasp as he spears his tongue through your upper folds, nose nudging the sensitive bud. “–if this is another round of teasing I will murd–”  

You yelp as he hunches down to wrap your legs around his shoulders, hands re-occupied by exposing you as you try to stay upright. 

“Don’t worry. You can come like this. I want to know if you taste different after.”

You don't know what he means until his mouth closes over your clit, sucking just right. You jolt, pinched on the meat of your thigh until you can relax again, making little mewls as he rolls his thumbs alongside the point of contact.

“I want you inside of me,” you beg, feeling that fluttering sensation that heralds a build-up. “I wanted to come with you inside me.” 

“Soon. Just need to be good while I sample you.” 

“Sample?” Your hand sinks into his hair in panic, tugging, but Doyoung is too lost alternating between suckling at your sex and palpating you with a circling thumb, his beautiful hands gripping your thighs to keep you spread.

“Drip for me, first.” 

“I don't think I can–”

“You giving up already?” Doyoung scoffs, smirking up at you with reddened lips, tongue-tip darting against your clit. Every brush of soft muscle makes you spasm a bit, belly tightening unfulfilled.

You shake your head, panting. “I just . . . Doie I want you inside me.” 

“You can relax and take it,” he says, tongue wrapping around your labia, sucking slightly. Your head is buzzing, every stray thought removed by his exploration of you.

“Relax. If you don't I'll just have to try until you're begging for me to stop.” 

“No, please, Doie. I'll be good,” you plead. “Just . . . need something inside. Hurts so bad being empty.”

“Hand me a pipette.”

“What?”

“The one that looks like an eyedropper,” he says, hand open to accept like he’s performing surgery. You fight to find the right glassware with his mouth still on you, efforts more focused and intense as your legs tense with each hit. You find the rubber-stoppered glass cylinder, stomach dropping. 

“Is this safe?” You ask, gripping his mussed hair tighter when he pulls away for a moment.

“If you hold still, yes,” he taunts. You seize when you first feel the tip slip inside you. The glass is cool but warms to your body heat quickly, too slim to feel anything.

“Good girl,” he says. “You’re even pushing this out, you must be so tight.”

“I am. Too tight,” you groan. “Please don’t tease me anymore.”

He ignores you, focusing on his work, pulling the instrument free when he’s satisfied.

“Not bad,” he says, dropping it on the desk beside you before he’s back on his knees with his nose buried in your cunt. “Bet you can do better than that.”

“No, please, I need you–”

“Then drip for me,” he laughs into your leg, tracing the wetness down the crease in your thigh. You tense your hold on the desk’s edge when you feel his tongue prod at your entrance, muscle breaching your hole to lick into you. He makes a satisfied noise in the back of his throat that has you plummeting just as he resumes stroking your clit through the slippery coat of your arousal. 

Finally, you think, feeling the advent of tears for how wound tight you are, how desperate you are to feel him give you just one more point of contact with the ache inside.

“Oh god, don’t stop, please don’t stop,” you repeat, the noises obscene as he drinks you in, other hand on your hip to hold you against his face. It’s not even the stimulation that makes you begin to come but the audible groan he releases as he feels you quake against his mouth, heels snagging on his shirt when the first wave breaks and those little tics inside you turn into powerful contractions around his tongue-tip taking everything you can give him. 

He keeps licking you even when you’re begging for him to stop, nose tracing down to catch a stray drop from the back of your knee with a playful dart of his tongue. 

“Was it worth it?” you ask, folding over him as he wipes his mouth clean in your drenched skirt. You know it’s just the start but you already feel wrung out and feather-light, wicking away the sweat that’s beaded on your own face despite the cool, dry air of the room. 

“Hmm?” he hums a bit, disentangling to stand up and hold your face in his hands. His pupils are blown, sweat beading on his temples, but he looks as satisfied as you hoped he would be, your arousal drying on his slender features.

“All the prep,” you say. “Isn’t that why–do I taste as good as you expected after all that?”

Doyoung looks down on you, amused. Already you feel like you’re heating up again, with how his dark eyes flit to your mouth and back up again. 

“You think I prefer you prepped?” he asks, angling his head down besides yours to whisper in your ear. “The next time I eat that perfect little pussy of yours I want it to be filthy.” 

He traces the lobe with his teeth for good measure, pulling another moan out of you. “I’ll even make sure to wait until the other two have a go at you, first.”

You feel your heartbeat stutter as he presses his lips to your pulse point, tongue darting past his lips to dab at the sweat there.

“No, precious, I wanted to make sure the perfume we make tonight matches all of you.” Doyoung’s nose brushes your ear as he breathes in your scent. “Every time I wear it I’m going to remember the way you sounded when you first came for me and me only.”

The promise of it has you feeling a different kind of heat, dizzying for how much you want it to last past this night. 

“Fuck,” you whisper explosively, eyes clenched shut to stay fixed upright, fisting the thin material of his collar as he pulls you from the countertop and against the hard planes of his body. “I need you. Now. Please.”

“I like hearing you say that,” he chuckles a bit. “But I’m going to make you earn it. You can wait a little longer. You made me wait years, after all.”

You let him guide you into his lap, in the chair, pushed into the desk as he opens the notebook to another page. And another, until you take over and explore it for yourself. In the dim golden light from the street outside you catch glimpses of colors and drawings, notes written of impressions and memories you’d all but forgotten in your haze of grief these past few years. 

There’s even photographs taped to some of the pages–ones you know well by the fact that they’d been taken on your camera. Doyoung didn’t have Jaehyun’s artistic training but he did have an eye for capturing candid moments.

November, your first year of college. You’re standing in the first snow of the season, catching flakes on your tongue. You can still feel the burn of them, hear the murmur of the city dulled in a fresh blanket of white and taste the roasted yam you’d eaten, tossing it in your mittened hands until it was cool enough to peel. 

Doyoung’s shoulder is off-kilter beside yours, unable to capture himself in the frame for all his long reach. The peek of the striped scarf you’d knitted for him in gray and blue is all that’s visible of him under his peacoat, the mismatched weave of it captured even in this poor exposure.

“Base note: cedarwood,” you read, carefully, eyes hazing a bit with emotion. Evergreen.

“I still have it, you know,” he murmurs against your temple. “I only stopped wearing it because it started unraveling.”

“I’d make you another but I quit knitting after making three scarves,” you say, wryly. “Well two and a half, actually, I ran out of yarn on Jungwoo’s and made him a hat instead.”

“I thought you were just trying to get him to hide that ridiculous military haircut,” Doyoung muses. “Keep going or we’ll be here all night.”

“Now you’re impatient?” you ask, cementing your flirtation by shifting in his lap. You can’t ignore the feeling of his erection folded against the curve of your ass, or the way he grunts when you find a better seat with it nestled between your thighs.

“Sometimes I forget you were put on this planet to vex me,” he says. You’re lifted up by the waist, a hand on your lower back the moment you’ve found the desk for support, face above the book. 

“Why don’t you try reading until I’m satisfied you know exactly what you’re getting?”

You don’t fight him, elbows bent as he rucks up your skirt. You feel your face grow warm with blood as you find yourself exposed to him again, locked in by his legs and his groping touch reaching up beneath your shirt. 

"Base notes: amber and–" you have to fight to keep your voice steady as he swats your exposed curves, hard enough to sting. 

"Ambergris,” he corrects, voice fried with delight.

“Ambergris,” you repeat. “And white musk."

"Good. And?"

"Bisabol–" you begin, corrected with another slap on your ass that hits, hard, glass jingling on the table.

"Did you jump ahead?" He asks, knowing full well your eyes are swimming with tears. 

"No sir," you say. “I didn’t think that was a real word.”

"Opoponax." He says, reaching over you to grab a bottle, dropping a thick oil on you and rubbing it into your bruising skin. "Also known as sweet myrrh. Go ahead. Keep reading."

"Source: distilled from resin from ancient groves in Somalia, bought in Mogadishu from a local orchard, all profits to fund schools and clinics for women displaced by civil war." 

"Do you believe this to be a charitable effort?" He asks, hand spreading over your buttocks. You think he might be referring more to your arrangement than whatever is written on the page.

"No," you say. Your history and political know-how might be lacking but you've seen the wrong side of kindness. "It sounds like what people write to make themselves feel better about exploitation."

"Clever girl," he answers. You feel his nose brush against your skin, testing the mingling of scent with it. "Keep going."

You turn the page, swallowing back your protests. This spread is rich with text and color, a veritable garden bursting from the page. You fix on the first entry in the upper corner, bracing yourself for another faux pas.

"Heart notes: Turkish rose," you say. "What is this, poetry?"

"Aren’t you familiar with it?"

You shake your head, lips pursed in delight at the scrawl of English. “No.”

You let out a gasp as he bites the flesh nearer your back, the sting of it surely leaving a mark by the way the pain lingers.  

"Read it," he says, dipping over you for another bottle. “You’ll remember.”

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows," you dictate, stumbling over every word and yet never punished for it. Instead Doyoung lets a steady drip of the bottle fall down the back of your leg to your knee, his fingers bringing up the rest to mix what he's already poured on you.

"Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." 

You end your recitation in a whisper, leather binding and paper gripped in your fingers as he massages the oil gently into your tingling skin, careful to avoid where your legs are locked together in arousal. You're heady with scent and sensation, awaiting some reminder that this isn't just a strange dream you’ve wandered into.

"There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, lulled in these flowers with dances and delight," he finishes for you as he paints the rest up your spine beneath your shirt. You let him ministrate on your body as the words settle, as time recedes and you face a version of your youth you’re not sure isn’t just fiction. 

That book beside you, the first time he’d spoken to, long forgotten.

“Midsummer’s Night Dream,” you say, turning to face him again, settling between his thighs as he fails to meet your gaze. You lift his face with your fingers, cheeks indented by your gentle hold. “You remembered that, too?”

“It was the first time you ever looked at me,” he says. “And it felt like you saw right through me.”

No, you’re not dreaming. You’re the architect of this moment just as much as he’ll claim to be a cursory observer if confronted on it. 

You take in his mismatched eyes–one folding a little more than the other when he smiles at you ruefully. Those freckles you’d never really spent time examining, a happy accident of the time he’d spent with you in the sun. His fingers catching yours for a moment when you weren’t paying attention.

But most of all, the haunted cast where he’d lost sleep managing someone else’s problems. When he’d still been worrying about yours.

“You’re always thinking of how to take care of the people around you, I think you’ve forgotten how to relax and let other people take care of you.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “I don’t think I ever really saw you until now.”

“What didn’t you see?” he asks, expectantly.

Six years of his careful distance from you, that coldness and disinterest just another mask for someone who was as raw and vulnerable and real as you if you managed to pry open their shell. His tendency towards control, towards the knife’s slice of cutting you so cleanly from his life no one would know your name unless he spoke it aloud.

There wasn’t another human being in their right mind who’d last that test, your only grace being that he’d thought you were untouchable. His best friend’s girlfriend, of course. But beyond that, one of his best friends. 

No, one of his only friends.

“What didn’t you see?”

It wouldn’t require money or taste or a family name to bring Saint Kim down to earth. Just time and small acts of resistance, like the beautiful shell remnants you’d spilled into his hands on that last trip to Maui together, when it had still been the five of you. Each ground down to a small disc with a perfect spiral at its center, a reminder of the beauty remaining in broken things.

You place the notebook in his hands, curling your fingers around his. The pages it’s opened to are sparsely constructed, besides the photographs nestled between. Only you two know what’s there, buried in black sands and blue waters. You can see his handwriting falter where he’s written the notes for this moment in your shared history, sketches of those shells, and flowers.

A single photograph of you watching the others playing in the surf, his shadow cutting across the stretch of your legs.

Top notes: Jasmine for sensuality. 

Orange Blossom for innocence. 

Plumeria, for admiration. a new beginning . . .

You recognize the creamy yellow-white flower he’d tucked behind your left ear when you’d fallen asleep beside him. A non-native plant to the island, you’d learned, worn to indicate one was taken. A weed, like you, now prized as a treasure.

“What didn’t you see?”

You pull back to look at him, giving him yourself without reservation. 

“That I think you love me . . .” you say. “. . . Like I think I love you, too.” 

He looks up at you, astounded, the chair beneath him creaking as he collapses. 

For once you regret being beside him when you’d heard the same words spoken to him by other people, pulled into their lives without you ever remembering their names. The difference between you, you once believed, was that they didn’t mean it. 

Now, you understand, they just never knew the true cost of losing him. 

You watch him collect himself, running a hand back through his hair and curling into his seat, memories forgotten in his lap, bedamned. You’re sure the engines of Hell are running hot for the way he can’t even look at you right now. 

He needs a way out, you think. You’d rather be drowned in other women’s wine poured over your head than be on the receiving end of his disregard again, the script already constructed in your mind before you’d found you had the nerve to sleep with him.

"You can be honest with me,” you say. “Tell me it's been fun but you're not interested in a relationship.”

“What?” Doyoung is just as confused as when you’d told him you loved him, as honest as you’ve been in both sentiments. 

“Your family will never approve of me. I’m just another fling you happened to take a more lasting interest in. It’s better this way. Cut me off, forget about me and move on.”

It's his turn to balk. You expect his pre-programmed response. Saint Kim's gospel for turning down the interested but uninteresting party: deflect, dissuade, detach. 

“No,” he says, face draining of color.

“It’s okay,” you say. “I can handle it. Really. We can still be friends.” 

“No,” he repeats, more forcefully.

“What do you mean, no?” you ask. “Isn’t that how this always ends?”

“You stupid girl,” he says, grabbing your face in his hands so you can’t escape, making you look into his warm gaze. 

"Don’t you get it? This was always about feelings.”

When his lips crush against yours you don't have to speak to respond, catching his head so you’re not suffocated by the raw emotion you can feel in every movement. You return each kiss until the breath is out of your lungs, until you're drowning in his scent as he forces you back onto the desk.

You’re impatient to feel him, everywhere, aware you’re ripping buttons as you open his shirt to gain access to his smooth chest, trailing kisses as far down as you can go, still unable to escape his tongue sliding over yours.  

“I wasn’t going to do this here, like this, but fuck it,” he says once he’s free, fumbling with his belt as he holds you to pepper your face and neck in a steady reminder of his affection. “I need you.”

“I need you, too,” you echo wholeheartedly, helping free him out of his clothing, pulling his length to where you’re still slick with oils and cum and ready for him. God, you think you’ve never been more ready to break around him, to show him what he’s brought out of you with this game.

“Please don’t make me wait anymore,” you whisper. 

You watch his face, breath held and heart stuttering as he sinks into you slowly, both of you gasping at the way your heat resists each measure of his continuous thrust. It feels like he’s barely in you when he stops, making you moan in dismay.

“Doie, please,” you say, trying and failing to wrap your legs around his slender hips to capture him deeper. You’re half out of your mind with that burning weight inside you remaining still.

“Say it,” he says, taking off your shirt to have access to your skin. He pulls down your bra, nipples tugged between his fingers as he assaults your neck with his tongue and teeth.

“It’s special,” you choke out. “Thank you, please–”

“Say it,” he corrects, twitching inside you but not moving an inch more. He curls down to nip at your breast above the lace, sucking a mark into the softest part. “Without the ‘I think’.” 

“No,” you resist, realizing what he’s asking too late. Your nails sink into his half-bared shoulder, head rolling against his. “You don’t get to torture me for that.”

“Don’t chicken out on me now.” Doyoung laughs against your cheek, hand splaying around your hip to still your squirming. “I can do this as long as it takes.”

He thrusts, just a little more, making you cry out in desperation as the contents of the desk tinkle behind you. 

“Fuck,” you breathe. “You think I love you?”

“So, so close.” He pulls out, rocking into you again to feel the seize of your entire body when you anticipate just how far he’ll go before denying you. A little more, at least, and you can feel how much it’s taking for him, see the strain in his body as he holds back.

“You love me,” you tease, this time not a question, no you think. “Saint Kim loves me.”

He sheathes himself in you fully, gripping your nape to kiss you as you clench involuntarily around him, protests in the back of your throat muffled by his tongue sliding across yours. He tugs at your bottom lip when he breaks free, fully smiling now like he isn’t buried completely in your cunt just warming himself instead of chasing his own bliss.

“What did you call me?” he asks, leaning over you to retrieve something. 

You take advantage of his distraction to snake a hand between you, slipping beneath your skirt before it’s grabbed, tight, and brought up to his lips. 

“Don’t cheat,” he says, wrapping your fingers around the cap of a bottle. 

“You never heard anyone call you that?” you murmur, opening it. 

You smell spring flowers and delicate citrus before it’s taken away, set aside when you nibble and suck at his sensitive ear to make him twitch, hands drifting across his ticklish belly down to his hipbones. He reads your intent again, stopping whatever silly task he’s doing beside you to lift your wrists to his shoulders. 

“The name is a little ironic, isn’t it?” you say, squeezing him experimentally with your thighs as you stroke his nape with your nails. You flex other muscles too–earning the grunt he makes as he feels you squeeze around his girth. 

He angles your head, pressing something wet and soft to where your pulse flutters in your neck. You’re immediately permeated with a light, airy, sweetness, the different scents revealed like a melody that ends in that richer, warmer scent from earlier. 

“Is that my perfume?” you ask. 

“An anointment,” he says, blowing across your skin to dry it and sending a shiver down your spine to where your bodies are locked together, that fullness and muted pleasure of him radiating down to your toes.

“I do seem to have a demon inside of me,” you sigh into his neck as you rest your head against his shoulder. “Do they do that in exorcisms?”

“Blessings,” he corrects, adjusting with another grunt. “We’ll find out if it worked in about an hour.”

“An hour?” you grumble. “You think you can keep torturing me that long?”

“I think I gave you the key to your own cage,” he says, checking his watch. “About five minutes ago. Does it feel like longer?”

You mumble something into his rumpled collar, making him laugh beneath you. Even just that tiny movement has you involuntarily gripping him, abdomen clenched. 

“What’s that?”

“I’llsayitifyoumakemecome,” you repeat, embarrassed enough to hide your face in the crook of his neck again. 

“You think this is a negotiation, Y/N?” Doyoung’s hands are back on your breasts, thumbing the areola in slow circles that are very much a reminder of his touch earlier on your throbbing clit. You whimper, trying to stay still so he doesn’t figure out that if he continues to do that you might have a chance–

“You trying to make me come squeezing me like that?” he asks, breath ragged. “That seems like a quick way to end this.”

“You . . . you could just fuck me,” you wheeze, feeling the way he teases your pebbled, hard nipple with lighter brushes, his mouth quirked where it’s pressed to your forehead. 

“What if I want to make love to you, instead?” he asks. He inhales sharply at your body’s response. 

“Fuck, you liked me saying that, didn’t you?”

You nod, unable to speak, holding onto him in desperation as the combination of his words and soft strokes make you melt into the pleasure of every small motion of him inside you. You realize he’s unconsciously pushing into you, too, unable to keep his hips from pressing into yours. 

Overstimulation is making you hyperaware of the scratch of his unzipped jeans against your burning thighs, the random brush of his open belt against your belly. Time seems to disappear as he holds you quietly, letting you soak up the fragrant, radiating warm reality of him.

“I can wait all night for it,” he threatens, even just his lower register making you quiver a little around him. “Count every time you twitch and moan on me until you break.”

You’d felt him flag a little while he worked but now he’s fuller inside you, stretching you wide as he twitches to life. It’s even hotter than all of this build-up, you think, knowing he can act a menace but that the idea of you surrendering to him is what’s really getting him off.

Of course, you think, mentally steeling yourself like you’re preparing for war. In a way this is something like it, up against as formidable a foe as he is. 

“Doie,” you whisper, threading your hands in his hair as you nuzzle for his lips, kissing him softly and intimately, like it’s your first time. “When did you know?”

“What?” He goes a little rigid against you, unable to hide his rapid heartbeat with how close you’re pressed to him. You blink up at him, expectantly. 

“When did you first know you loved me? Really?”

He smiles, shyly, but you see the hint of anxiety on his features beneath his arousal. There it is, you think, having to hide your own satisfaction. 

“Is this a trick question?” he asks, warily, eyelashes half-lowered.

“Not if I know the answer,” you say, smoothing his kiss-swollen lips with a touch. “I don’t think it’s in that book, either.”

“Really?” He’s intrigued, a tentative rock of his hips against you making you dizzy. “Tell me.”

You shake your head, just as playful. 

“I’ll tell you later,” you say. “After.”

He sighs explosively, nose wrinkling. “You don’t know.”

“Want to bet?” you ask. It’s always a little thrilling seeing Doyoung presented with an opportunity he can’t resist. He fumbles for the notebook beside you, almost slipping out of you when he has to reach even farther for a pen.

“Write it down,” he says, smug as a cat who’s caught something small and easily toyed with. 

“Only if you do, too,” you say.

His answer is a pained sound of agreement, adjusting himself against the desk. 

“No peeking,” you say, flipping to a page in the back. 

“Wait,” he says, grabbing the book before the nib of the nice pen touches the creamy paper. “What are the terms?”

You ponder for a moment, feeling a grin slide onto your lips. “Doesn’t our perfume need a name? Whoever is right, gets to name it.”

You can practically taste his delight as he leans in to kiss you, forcing you to pull your page closer to you. You make him wait, filling the blank space as best you can with detail as he fidgets between your legs, sending small shocks of pleasure through you both. 

“Thank you,” he says in earnest once you’ve handed him it open to a new leaf, his hand and the notebook shaking a little as he tries to write mid-air, finally resting it awkwardly atop your head in order to scrawl out his own answer.

“My eyes are closed, Kim Doyoung.” 

“You’re a cheat,” he says, shushing you with an added thrust of his hips. 

You settle back on your elbows, already enjoying your victory as you feel the tiny pressure of his handwriting, hear the scratches of his sketch. You're more emboldened than ever when the leather binding snaps shut.

“Now tell me,” you say, looking up at him coyly. 

“Can’t I just show you–”

You snatch the book from him, turning to your entry. Then, to his horror, you rip your page free and fold it shut, tucking it into the pocket of his open shirt.

“Tomorrow morning,” you say. “You had 24 hours, right? I’ll give you my answer tomorrow morning.”

Doyoung looks as if he’s tasted something sour. “You won’t tell me.”

“I’ll tell you that you won,” you say, looking down at his page. You trace the fresh ink with care, admiring his tight script and explanation. “February to April? How could I have guessed an entire season?” 

“Did you at least guess the year?” he asks, looking a little better for your affirmation of his win. 

You nod, finally feeling the discomfort of your position and resting your head against his warm chest. There’s nothing awkward about being wrapped around him like this, the late hour and strange, still space making it easier to forget the world outside.

“Hard to forget,” you say. “I thought for sure I’d never see you again after that winter holiday.”

Another break with Johnny, of course–but this one had been your choice. You’d finally felt the crushing weight of two years of contempt from the people around him, the Suh family matriarch at the center of it all, doing everything in her power to crush not only you but the people you loved. 

And then, when you’d needed him the most, Kim Doyoung had walked away from you, too. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you, either,” he sighs. “It was the first time in a long time you weren’t with us. With me. And it was my fault for pushing you away when you were just trying to–”

“It’s in the past now,” you cut him short with a finger pressed to his lips. 

The memory is painful, still–and you don’t want to sully this moment with it. You appreciate that even in his roundabout admission there’s a clear understanding for all you’d been through. You’d hoped he remembered that time from the past, when you’d first peered between the cracks in his carefully-manufactured facade.

Now you could be sure of what it meant to him. You feel like your own walls are crumbling, the light shining through. 

“So you chose the period of time when we didn’t speak to one another, at all?” you muse. “Not just one day?”

“You know what they say. Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he says. “You were on my mind every minute and every hour of those three and a half months.”

He pauses, sigh warm against your brow. “I couldn’t tell you when I knew, for sure. I certainly couldn’t admit it, then, even to myself. But sometime then, I realized I cared more about you than a friend.”

You’d never doubted he was capable of it, never doubted it might be true. But hearing him admit it, now you know why he wants to hear it from you, too.

“Say it,” you say.

He finally looks at you again, tired but alight with amusement.

“You first,” he says.

“Who knew three simple words would be so difficult for Saint Kim?” you tease him.

“Alright. Come here,” he motions, slipping out of you with a shared groan. He pulls you to a couch under the shuttered window, settling down and forcing you to straddle him. In this position he can’t stop you from immediately taking all of him, his eyelids fluttering when you bottom out.

“You feel like heaven,” he murmurs. 

“You’re not going to last,” you laugh, delighted by the way his nose scrunches when you clench around him. 

“Says the girl who’s sucking me in like you never want me to leave.” He grabs on to your hips to roll them against his own, fingers tightening when you wriggle against him. “You’re gonna say it first even if I have to fuck it out of you.”

“Whoever comes first, then?” you offer.

“I can live with that,” he sighs, head resting back on the couch. 

You rock on your knees slowly, satisfaction warming you throughout as you force him all the way inside you. You let him hear how he makes you feel, pleading sounds and whispers every time he hits that place in your upper walls, curved inside of you perfectly. It doesn’t matter if you're in control you can’t help but hunt down that lovely rush of pleasure in your belly, twining your arms around his shoulders to steady yourself. 

“Good girl,” Doyoung praises, watching you in awe through half-lidded eyes. “You’re so beautiful. I always wanted to know what it would look like when you lost yourself with me.”

His words make you shiver, brushing his lips until he holds you against his mouth to show you how he likes it, less exploratory and more confident. It’s maddening how good he is at this, making you feel every single sweep of his tongue across yours, hand on your neck keeping you from escaping. 

“Don’t you want to–” you protest as he helps you to lay flat on your back across the length of the wide loveseat, settling between your thighs. 

“Oh god, Doie,” you whimper when he takes over, finally, finally, beginning to fuck you. It’s just as slow but at least he penetrates you fully before pulling out almost all the way, shoulders quaking as he holds himself up. 

“Promise me you'll let me dote on you for the rest of your life,” he says, not waiting for your response before driving into you again. His movements are barely controlled, grunts escaping the back of his throat when his hips snap into yours again.  

“I promise,” you hold onto him, back arching off the cushion to meet him, blissed out in the relief of each, careful stroke against your fluttering walls. That crescendo is happening whether you want it to or not, every overworked knot of muscle threatening to snap loose. 

“Promise me that no matter who you fuck you’ll always let me treat you right,” he says, voice breaking. “You’ll let me show you how I feel even when I can’t say it.”

“Yes, Doie. Yes.” You pull down on his shoulders, trying to move for you both, kissing his jaw and throat.

“Stop fighting me and take it,” he says, moving more easily with the thick coat of your cum, establishing a gentle rhythm. 

His voice has always made it hard for you to pay attention to anything else but he abuses that power now, murmuring guidance into your neck that has you tightening around him as he fucks you deep and slow. 

“That’s my girl,” he praises. “You’re taking me so well. Take all of me.”

You feel shivers up and down your body, nipples hardening tight as they brush against his chest, his hair tickling your forehead as he blindly kisses and licks at your mouth and chin. 

You’d thought he’d be concentrating on something else in his head to keep from losing himself but instead it’s you who's floating, breath captured in your lungs when he adjusts on top of you to pin your hips down, pressing your leg wide to bury himself to the hilt.

“You feel so perfect. I could really do this all night, you know,” he smirks down at you from where he’s supported on his elbow. “Is that what you want?”

“No, fuck, please,” you whine. There’s no thoughts in your head besides just how much you want that ache inside of your cunt to melt into real pleasure. 

“You want me to stop?” he asks, feeling how you begin to pulse around him as he swirls his hips up into that most sensitive part of you, his flat belly grinding into your clit. You gasp, leg locking around his, helping him work you apart.

“No no no,” you beg, face hot. “Just . . . just kiss me through it, please.”

Doyoung’s smile grows wider. “Say what you already told me.”

You twist your head against the cushion, earning his hand on your jaw as he makes you look at him while you break, kissing you between panting breaths. His confidence is written in the cocksure grin remaining on his mouth, more cruel when he bites at your bottom lip, hard, before licking the pain away. 

“Say it,” he breathes, slowing down on purpose. 

“I . . . ah,” you cry out, “I love . . . please don’t stop.” 

“What’s that?” he asks, pace punishingly slow. Your legs lose feeling, vibrations starting in the back of your thighs and tremoring down to your feet. 

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” you repeat, nearly tipping off the edge, “I’m coming, I’m finally–”

He slows down right as you hit that crest, making you cry out in frustration. 

“Doie, I’ll kill you–”

“Say it,” he says into your lips, pulling out–too far–

“Iloveyou,” you exhale, seizing around him in time to your wildly beating heart.

“Louder.” He slams into you again, merciless.

“I love you, you stupid bastard,” you say, hanging on to his shoulders. “I love you!”

“Good enough,” he says, drilling into you until he can feel you break, orgasm sustained through the painful pressure of him losing himself in your throbbing heat, finding your mouth again, finally, to silence the repeated mantra on your tongue.

You kiss him fiercely, unloading everything words aren’t enough for, legs tied around his waist to keep him locked inside you until he’s fighting back, fucking you so hard the sound of it fills the quiet room. 

“I love you,” you repeat a final time for him, just to watch the way it makes him break, jaw slackening when he loses control, finally. 

He stutters into his own orgasm, teeth scraping against your locked lips, forehead pressed into yours as he empties inside you for what feels like forever, finally collapsing on top of you with a whimper when his arms give out and he’s as limp as his cock inside you. 

You scrape your nails across his scalp, soothing him. You don’t mind his weight, or the way you’re still pressed together with sweat and your combined spend. 

“Wasn’t so hard, was it?” he rasps, eyes dazed as he looks up at you. 

“No,” you say, shaking your head tightly. “Not for me, at least.”

“You’re not mad?” 

You know he means his inability to say the magic words but you crack a smile, just as pleased with yourself. 

“About the bet?” you ask. “No.”

Oh, it’s delicious seeing realization dawn on his face, little glimmers of surprise and horror bubbling up from his afterglow. 

“Fuck,” he says. You’re grateful he doesn’t deny it, rolling to the side in defeat. 

“Who told you? ‘Woo?”

You laugh softly, rolling over to pin him down with your leg, trapping him against the back of the couch. 

“You did, right now,” you say, relishing having him where you want him. “I had a hunch. And I know you, you’d never beg for someone to say something during sex–”

“I didn’t beg,” he corrects, grimacing.

“What was it? The first one to get me to say it? Bonus points if it’s on your cock?”

“Ah, well,” he says, perking up despite the fist pressed to his forehead in embarrassment. “Then you don’t know.”

“I’ll find out soon enough, Jaehyun wouldn’t–”

“You’re really not mad?” he asks, painfully reticent as you pull his hand away from his face and twine your fingers together.

“Not if it means I can use it as leverage,” you say, kissing his knuckles.

That doesn’t seem to surprise him, at all. 

“Good girl,” he says. “What do you want?”

A few years ago, give or take 

You’re a little too happy, an awful fact considering how much he'd missed seeing you this way.

Lately you’ve been sleepwalking through your life, all those tiny fractures and bruises finally having the time to mend–but healing is a painful process in itself. Doyoung had returned from his family’s formal Chuseok gathering in Singapore, eager to check in on you after receiving sparing responses from you via text.

You didn’t have a friend he could check in with instead any longer–not after that one girl had fled the country, the other ghosting you after their father was mysteriously laid off from a company he well knew did business with Suh International. 

He’s worried about you long before that, terrified that one last straw would break you even if by all indications you were strong enough to take it. After you’d had Johnny arrested and solicited a no-contact order you’d cut your ex off completely, moving to a tiny apartment far from where you’d grown up, changing your number. 

Only Jungwoo knew about it, and it was he who’d reluctantly offered your whereabouts to him after a few glasses of whiskey in their usual club. 

“She asked me to keep her info on lockdown. Got that hacker kid, what’s his name–Haechan? Wiped her socials off the map, so he can’t find her. He did good but you know Suh.”

Doyoung nods. They hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, probably because the idiot was combing through every civic office and apartment building in the city. Hell, he’d probably driven around until he found her by sight alone, knowing that animal wouldn’t rest until he knew her whereabouts, as stubborn about chasing her down as he was about refusing the F4’s help. 

“His mother called me to ask if the place he bought in cash was for her,” Doyoung says, knocking back his drink as he receives a text, heart sinking that it's not you. “Did you help him buy it for her?”

Jungwoo sighs. “No. I just got her rent halved with some coercion, you know? But then he goes and buys a unit in the same building with whatever stash he thought the Old Tiger didn’t know about.” 

The Devil Kim leans back, long legs akimbo as he gestures towards the server for a refill. “He’s waiting for her to go back to Chicago before he moves in. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“I did not,” Doyoung affirms, turning away from the group of women at the bar sending looks towards their private table. “Let’s plan for when Madam Suh leaves. I can have her pull him into the London offices, considering he’s failing his courses.”

“Stone cold,” Jungwoo says, smirking. “Glad I’m not on your shit list.”

“Just don’t fuck with her,” Doyoung says. “Or fuck her.”

Jungwoo laughs into his glass. “Even I’m not that stupid.”

He’d thought he wasn’t, either. 

Not until you’d called a few days later, your speech a little slurred. He couldn’t have told you if what he was doing was important even if he was in a meeting, showing up to find you picking at a bowl of bar snacks in what he thought might be one of the nicer bars in your shitty part of town. Not as shitty as your old neighborhood, but it wasn’t a competition.

“Saint Kim,” you’d heralded him, raising an empty glass still smelling of watermelon and hibiscus. 

“You shouldn’t be drinking alone, here,” he’d said. 

You were dressed in one of your few nice outfits, a little on the revealing side for his tastes, but those had been Johnny’s you’d conformed to–animal print and thin straps, tastefully tasteless.

“I wasn’t,” you say, hiccuping. “Alone.”

For the first time in a long time fear spikes his blood pressure into overgear. Were you drugged? Was he going to have to fend off another predator who'd found you vulnerable?

You deserved the chance to move on but there was a real threat in what would happen to anyone who approached you without their permission. Johnny’s, yes, always, but the F4 had also agreed to look out for you well before your last incident at a club. 

“Who?”

“She left,” you say. He feels instant relief, reaching out to adjust the thin coverup slipping off your bare shoulder. 

“You make a new friend?”

You shake your head. “She’s nice. Met her in one of the ikebana classes work is paying for. Thought we were hitting it off but I must have said something dumb because she ran out of here, fast.”

You look up at him cautiously, too inebriated to realize he can recognize a set-up before it begins.

“You didn’t just talk about your ex, did you?” he asks, settling beside you at the bar. He orders something less ridiculous than whatever you'd been drinking, while you scroll through an Instagram feed, finger trembling over the screen. 

You look up at him, color-stained lips curving in an easy smile. “You want to see what we’re working on?”

Doyoung finds himself looking through a grid that is immediately obvious is not yours. His mouth goes dry, seeing rows of beautifully-staged floral centerpieces, the backgrounds as familiar as the back of his hand. You don’t seem to notice, going to the user’s story and tapping in vain to find the picture she’d posted.

“She deleted it already. Huh. Well, she texted me the picture–”

“Stop.” Doyoung places his hand over yours, his palm damp from the immediate flood of adrenaline. 

“So you do know Mona,” you say. You look up at him, expectantly, eyes glassy with the brand of hopefulness and naked curiosity he’s seen you charm everyone else around you with before. 

“She’s the one, isn’t she?”

Doyoung pulls cash from his pocket, not caring how much he puts down except that he’s sure it’s enough to cover the amount he’d like to drown himself in right now. Enough to go blind and burn out the phantom of that face he’d put behind him years ago. 

“Put your coat on,” he says. “I’m driving you home.”

“But I’m not–”

“Now,” Doyoung says, grabbing your wrist. He’s barely ever touched you in the years that you’ve been friends, and it sickens him when he feels you freeze in fear and confusion, that trauma response buried so deeply it's in your bones.

He wants to be kind, he wants to be patient with you. He just doesn’t have it in him to be anything to you right now.

“What’s wrong, Do–?”

“We’re leaving,” he says, dragging you out into the bitter cold evening, the streets slick with sleet, your heels catching on the pavement as you stumble in his wake.

“Stop,” you yell at his back, trying to yank your arm free from where he’s bruising your skin with whitened knuckles. “You’re hurting me–”

“You’ll live,” he says, pulling you to where he’s parked his car, the engine roaring to life the moment you manage to close your door. He can barely look at you, realizing too late that your crestfallen expression is making him more upset than the lightning strike of seeing her name again.

“You didn’t ask my address,” you say, quietly, met with his silence as he drives much more dangerously than the weather permits. He's forced to speak with you once he's slammed the brakes at an intersection, red light shading you through the windshield.

“Tell me one thing,” he says. “Did you try to set us up by having me come there?”

You’re petulantly silent now, an answer in itself.

“Answer me,” he orders, hands gripping the wheel.

“I thought you’d want to–”

“Do you think we have the kind of relationship where you can just do whatever you want and get away with it?” Doyoung’s voice is calm but he sees you flinch at his words and tone, your shoulders moving under your jacket as you begin to quietly cry. 

It drives him deeper into anger, hitting the gas with a roar of the engine the instant the light turns green. 

“You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself for this one, Y/N,” he says, already regretting every word tumbling out of his mouth. “You fucked up.”

“I just thought you could both have some closure after that–”

The car jerks as he brakes in the side lane of the service road, cars roaring past them honking their horns. Your sobs are barely audible over the idling engine and the blink of the hazards he turns on while he tries to find calm, your face turned away from him. 

“You thought that interfering in other people’s personal lives would make you feel better,” he says. “No wonder you don’t have any real friends.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see your full body shakes still, can feel as that armor encasement you’d put together piece-by-piece over years of dealing with loveless reality falls back into place. And, years later–no, even hours later–he’ll remember how at the time he was stupid enough to think it was the right thing to say. 

You needed a reality check, he’d thought. A reminder that all the wishes and hopes in the world wouldn’t change the bleak architecture of it, uncaring by design and much easier to navigate without them. That moving on was the only path to this idiot’s dream of closure, something you knew nothing about for how often you’d let them pull you back into their world, blinded by sunk-cost and loneliness. 

All the things he wished he believed for himself, but without the benefit of your optimism.

“Fuck you, Kim Doyoung,” you say, opening the car door and slamming it shut without so much as a glance behind you. He’d waited to make sure you reached the nearest bus stop before driving off, calling Jungwoo to let him know you were here–crying in the cold. 

He'd seen you in passing.

His best friend knew a lie when he’d heard it, most especially from him. 

He wouldn't hear from you again until spring.

Kim Doyoung can’t sleep. 

He’s not allowed to. 

He can’t move either, arm going numb beneath your curled body, your breathing finally easing for the dozenth time since his trial began. You have horrible sleep habits–kicking off the covers, stealing the pillows–but tonight you’ve passed out with that same bone-deep tiredness he’d felt earlier, face beatific in the slivers of light piercing through the slatted shades. 

It’s close to dawn, he thinks, the cacophony of insects and birds outside transitioning from a quiet chorus to a full orchestral suite. Soon it will be too loud to sleep deeply. 

“Y/N?” he whispers, tentatively, not daring to move.

You don’t respond, relief rushing through him. It’s not that he’s desperate to join you in slumber but that he’s waited for you to finally surrender to REM. He needed you down. 

And you needed it, too. 

He’d negotiated with Jaehyun when you’d been in the shower, earlier, sacrificing precious moments of shared time exploring your skin and the new taste of you under the water to supplicate himself to his best friend and worst enemy in this moment.

“It’s a charter,” Jaehyun said, blinking sleep from his eyes but awake enough to be angry. “You’re not finding another one short term.”

“I emailed you the tickets. Cattle car but first class, at least,” he says. “Jungwoo agreed to give you his day, he doesn’t want to take her out until after dark, anyway. You can sleep in tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Jaehyun had slammed the door shut in his face, but he hadn’t missed the budding smile on his friend’s face. At least one person was rooting for him.

That’s how he’d earned another morning with you. As always, making up for lost time.

You’re half out of the covers, one leg sprawled over the duvet as you sleep. You’d put on one of his softer button-downs, inhaling the smell of it after he tried to steal it back. 

“Please let me wear you,” you said. “I want to dream about you.”

Being around you like this is more comfortable than he imagined, as if you’re being slotted into a position he didn’t even know there was an existing space for. He’s woken up to women in his bed but you’re the first who’s ever asked him for this, particular experience.

“I used to have this fantasy, you know, whenever we crashed at your apartment.” He’d watched you go sheepish recalling, dates omitted for a reason. “Sometimes I’d lie there and touch myself thinking about you crawling into that guest bed–maybe a little drunk or you’d forget which room. Or maybe, you just wanted me to think that. I’d be awake but I’d pretend to be asleep while you . . . used me.” 

He experiments by tracing his fingertips up your bare leg, the peek of your lace underwear beneath the hem of his shirt maddening for how it curves into the crest of your ass, presented for him. A treat dangled before him, the command to partake only that you wanted him to make it slow–you wanted to wake to it.

He sucks a breath in, erection in his sweatpants hard against the band already from just watching his sleeping beauty. He finds every mark on your leg, every fine hair, thanking Heaven above you aren’t overly sensitive or ticklish like he is when his hand slips beneath his shirt to your belly. 

He slots himself against you, carefully, as if adjusting in his sleep. He has to wait for your breathing to even out again, slipping his free hand up to your breasts. 

“Used you? Did you not get off in this scenario?”

“I mean, yes. But it’s mostly about you. You wouldn’t say anything at all, you’d just fuck me full of your cum and then you’d leave me leaking it on your sheets and go back to your room. Or sometimes I’d crawl in your bed, if you were alone, and you’d cover my mouth so the others couldn’t hear it. And the next day it would be like nothing happened, you wouldn’t even bother to ask how I’d slept.” 

He loved how much of a slut you were, when you felt comfortable enough to share that side with someone. Johnny had certainly never appreciated the subtleties of your nature–too blinded by adoration to even consider degrading you on purpose. 

No, Doyoung had known for awhile you pushed the boundaries with him to see if he’d break.

Your nipples harden even though he’s barely handling them, discovering what shape your breasts make in repose as he tries desperately not to rut into the swell of your ass. Warming himself in you earlier had been one of the hardest challenges he’d faced but it had been worth it to learn you inside and out, to know how to make you grip his cock with that delicious little cunt of yours with just a kiss or a word that pleased you.  

You don’t wake but he knows he’s gotten through to that little lizard brain of yours when your legs rub together unconsciously, pushing back into him so his cock is settled between your buttocks. The friction from the lace is like the proverbial pea under a mattress–rubbing against his cock through the layers, catching on the veins and scraping the underside of his cockhead. 

It’s already a nice ache, one he ignores as he adjusts to better continue plucking and teasing at your body beneath your shirt, until you’re used to his touch enough to truly fall back under, once more.

You're so vulnerable, completely at his mercy as he brings his hand down to test the patch of moisture growing in the fabric, that lace sticky with your dreams of him. 

Use you, he thinks. You have no idea what he wants. 

Doyoung can play with the fantasy of you crawling into your boyfriend’s best friend’s bed while he’s passed out in the other room, determined to be punished for waking a sleeping monster . . . but it’s not what he's fantasizing about now. 

He takes time in stroking you, a single finger digging in between your lips through the fabric, listening intently for your breathing to change. You sigh, one of those full exhales one does in their deep sleep, but you arc back a little, into his touch, leg falling forward crooked so you’re a little more spread. 

Doyoung wishes he could move down there and use his nose to push you apart instead of his hand but that’s not your fantasy–not this time. You didn’t want him to spoil you anymore, completely underestimating his love for it. True, he didn’t often eat other girls out, too personal or just too much of a chore to figure out what they liked, but you weren’t ever going to be with him and not come from that first. 

Just the thought of tying you up so he can spend hours fucking you on his tongue is making his cock pulse, too hard to be ignored. He quietly pulls down the drawstring of his sleepwear, freeing himself so he can replace his finger with the much wider tip of his cock, biting back a groan as he rubs into that damp, soft lace he’d known would suit you the moment he’d touched it in the display box brought to his private buying room. 

You'd never know he’d already fucked himself with it before ever giving it to you, that errant fantasy of touching you finally realized as you whimper a little in your sleep at the soft push of him between your legs. He finds where your clit is getting just as swollen as the rest of you, bouncing against warmth and the promise of unspooling that need with his help, again.

Just his precious little cocksleeve, spoiled and worshiped, showing your gratitude by begging for it even when you’re unconscious. He tests the waters of the scenario by slowly pulling the seat of your underwear to the side, easing in between the fabric and your folds. 

You twitch against him, sheets rustling. He holds still, cock jumping and balls tightening with a little anxiety. 

He only has this one chance. 

Outside in the dark and quiet of the house sleeps the man everyone knows you’re really with, the one who doesn’t have to fight for an I love you to pass your lips. You’d never understood what it felt like watching you climb into Jaehyun’s lap whenever the whim took you, pretending you didn’t know what it did to him or the other two of them watching you.

Your breathing is shallow and your hand flexes a bit, against the pillow, but that’s it. Within a minute he’s grown more confident that you’re still asleep.

He reaches over you, pressing the pads of two fingers against the front of your underwear while he slips a little deeper between your legs, eyes almost rolling back in his head at the contrast between the satiny slide of you and the rougher cling of your panties. It’s a relief as he loses himself to it, rutting from the back while he applies constant pressure to your bud.

“Mmm.” You make a soft noise, but he doesn’t pull free, choosing instead to keep a hypnotizingly steady pace fucking against you. Your hips twitch against him, seeking out more contact, but he doesn’t rush–pressing his head against the back of yours and melding with you in the softness of the pillows and sheets. 

You’re so wet you’re soaking his pants, everything he collects tickling down to his balls pressed into your ass. He’s going to stuff your mouth with his fingers, when you finally open it, make you gag on them while he fills you full from behind. 

You moan now, voice syrupy with sleep. He doesn’t care if you’re still down, not with you gently pushing back, trying to get release.  

Not yet, you little harlot, he thinks, hips going still again. He’s burning at the wait, your cunt continuing to glide against him as you act out whatever is going on in your dreams, the movement making him insane for how closely it adheres to his desire to have taken you back when you were innocent, his little virgin weed learning what her body wanted, seeking it out in his bed.

“Treat me like one of the girls you don’t really like. Use me.”

Such an unending fantasy of yours that he never wanted you, almost sweet for how dumb you are–or just willfully ignorant. He’s always liked the second one better–your little game played out that you were one of them. Dressed in that school uniform, kicking your skinned knees, sucking on a piece of candy while four college-age idiots hid their bathing-suited boners under their robes, fighting or fucking around in front of you so you could keep up that precious little illusion of immunity. 

“Johnny,” you murmur in your sleep. 

It should make his blood run cold but as with all twisted-up and tangled desires it only makes him feel ignited, pulse pounding in his head. You’re still asleep and thinking of someone else, someone not even in this house, the guilt of it passing over him faster than a cloud on a breezy day. 

He rocks back into you, this time pulling out enough that he can find your soft hole, already tight again–the only part of your body not relaxed as he forces his way past the flutter of your opening, cockhead sensitive enough to sense the more textured g-spot where he knows you’ll come fast and easy if he fucks into it. 

“Shh,” he says, finally trailing his mouth against your jaw, pushing into you softly. “Go back to sleep, baby.”

“Mmhmm,”  you reply, nuzzling into the pillow, curling into him. He pushes a knee between your legs, folding you into the bed beneath him as he begins to fuck you, finally taking you for himself and himself alone. 

You’re so warm inside, body adjusting to take him easily for how boneless you are, kitten-like mewls muffled by the pillow. It turns him on hearing the edge of pain there, the way you struggle when he pulls your underwear up so tight it sticks between your folds, clit rubbing against it the way he’d stroked himself to completion with it tied tight around his cock.

“Stay quiet or I’ll stuff your mouth full instead,” he whispers against your shoulder, feeling as always a little stupid but losing that internal cringe when you choke on a moan.

“Is that what my little slut was dreaming about? Gagging to tears on another man’s cock?”

He feels you tense at a bit at the suggestion, letting him use you in spite of the rougher handling. 

“That’s right. You said another man’s name in your sleep. Do you think that's acceptable?”

You shake your head, whimpering. 

“Such a whore you can't keep track of who's dick is inside of you. Tell me, who's fucking you right now?” 

“Doie,” you say, music to his ears. He'd always hated the nickname until you started using it. You were the only one–you were always the only one who made his chest burn with unsated desire when you said his name.

“Who owns this tight little pussy?” 

“You do,” you gasp out. 

“Are you going to forget me? Maybe I need to fuck you so hard you only think of me when you spread your legs for another man.” 

Doyoung feels electric at how easily you begin to crumble with just a few words, squeezing his dick so tight when he says something you like, even more when he makes it hurt. 

“Sleepy baby going to let me stuff every one of your holes until I’ve had enough? Use you like my own little doll?”

You nod, no longer capable of speaking except in a plaintive moan when he leaves you to shuck off his pants and pull down your ruined panties, pillow pulled beneath your belly to force your ass up. In this position he can drill into you deeper, burying you into the mattress with each thrust. 

“That’s what you get for crawling in here,” he says, fingers digging bruises into your hips to hold you down. “Keep your mouth shut and take it.”

The pleading, almost scared noises you're making have him hard and pulsing, two steps away from coming himself but in no hurry to. He pulls your hair to bring your head back, shoving his fingers in your mouth. 

“You like that?” Your cunt can't hide it, sucking him in. “Get them wet for me.” 

You drool over his knuckles, gagging as he fucks your mouth with them in an awkward rhythm to his merciless rutting. He spits into his hand when he's satisfied, fingers swirling around the tight rim of your ass so quickly it makes you buck. 

“Don't scream,” he murmurs, giving you two fingers at once. You make a noise through the pillow you're biting, gripping him tight. He's gentler with this, slowing, letting you adjust to take him.

“This is my favorite, right here,” he groans. “Feeling my cock inside you with my fingers. I'd fuck this tight little ass again but I want to feel you come like this.” 

He begins to stroke you harder, deeper, wet and sticky when his balls slap against your abused cunt. He keeps his fingers buried in you, scissoring you open as you take it.

“Come for me, Y/N, grip me good so I can fill that pretty mouth of yours.” 

It's a beautiful feeling when you begin to throb, contractions in your ring of muscle letting him know when you hit your peak. He fights the tingling in his balls, the urge to come with you painful for how long he's been holding it back. 

He talks you through it, instead.

“Such a good little hole,” he says. “You're coming so hard, baby, can feel it so well.” 

You moan, loud, as you break, loosening almost immediately, flooding him with sweet, hot warmth. He makes sure the last of those tics is gone before pulling out.

“Roll over,” he says, straddling you with a hand on the headboard, delighted by the sight of your flushed face and starry eyes. You already know what to do, tongue lolling and uvula exposed as he guides himself into your mouth, soft tongue swirling around his tip. 

God help him he's been thinking about this since yesterday, pushing deep enough to gag but not choke, fucking your mouth and the hot tightness of your throat when he hits it. It’s the sight more than anything that drives him to spill hot white ropes of cum into your mouth, pulling out to milk the last few splashes on your parted lips and delighting at the sight of you licking them with your spend-covered tongue.

“You’re so perfect,” he says, dropping down and kissing you, finally, tongues stroking each other until you finally pull free to breathe, blinking up sleepily at him. 

“You do taste different,” you tease.

“I taste like you,” he says, pressing soft kisses all over your face. “My sweet, sweet girl.”

“Did you like that?” you murmur. 

“I loved–” he pauses, watching the smile spread on your wet lips. 

“I love you, you know,” he finishes. You reach around his neck, comforting him out of instinct, but he doesn’t need it. 

“I love you,” he repeats, testing the words on his tongue now that they've flown out so easily, the tightness in his chest easing as you rise up to kiss him. 

“It's beautiful to hear you say it,” you say. “But you're right, I know.”

“I think I even know the exact time and date,” you say, reaching between you into the pocket of your shirt to pull out that torn and folded art paper scrawled with your words and an amateurish sketch.

Tomorrow morning . . .

[Unknown number] [Tomorrow morning April 13th dawn is at 6:17] [I have something to show you. Meet me on the roof of the East Wind Hotel]

Doyoung looks at the text message again, hand hanging over the railing of a dance floor, conversation with the woman by his side forgotten. With the blur of a late night and a trip to a different hotel room, with a different woman, he'd almost missed it.

Probably one of the innumerable flings he's had, Jungwoo recruiting him to get every last lick of enjoyment out of Seoul before he enlisted. His friend snatches the phone from his hand.

“No business,” Jungwoo slurs, eyes bloodshot as he focuses on the text. “I thought you weren't working hospitality anymore.” 

“It's not . . .” There's something nagging at him, like a bird pecking at his skull in time to the drone of the EM, the buzz of conversation. A sense of deja vu so strong he's forced to cycle on it. 

“Pfft. I know you don't bring girls back to your kingdom,” Jungwoo says. “Stop working and party.”

Doyoung doesn't know why he feels compelled to see the cryptic message through, doesn't know why he races across town at 5 am, reeking of whiskey and another woman’s perfume, doing his best to sober up as the designated driver talks about the change in weather, the cherry blossoms in full bloom outside the window.

The morning commute is already surging and the destination central to the city so by the time he makes it he's out of breath from running two blocks away from a jam, head pounding.

“ . . . restricted for non-guests,” someone is saying, voice recognizable as an intern he knows from his leadership program, still stuck on night front desk duty. 

“I just need a few minutes, please. I need to take a picture–” He'd recognize that voice in a hundred years if he hadn't heard it, not just a hundred days.

“What's going on here?” 

You freeze, shoulders stiffening as you turn to face him. Not much has changed–a new haircut, same ratty old sneakers–but you look different. No longer a ghost, but just as untouchable for the skittish way you hold when he approaches, only the barest relief on your beautiful features.

You don't smile, don't even say hello.

You're scared of him, again, just that thought making him spiral.

“You came,” you say, exhaling. “We need to hurry. We need to get to the roof.”

Doyoung turns to the staff. “Is the roof access still shut down?”

“Stair access only, sir.” 

Your eyes go wide at the interchange, something like embarrassment passing over your features as you begin to laugh. 

“Of course this is your hotel,” you state, smacking yourself on the forehead. “Of course, why didn't I think to check that. God, I'm an idiot.” 

“We didn’t change the name when we acquired the chain so it would be unlikely for you to have guessed that,” he says. “What are you doing here?” 

“There's no time and it's easier just to show you. We need to get to the roof, now,” you say, grabbing his wrist and tugging on it towards the stairs. 

“Y/N,” he says, holding you fixed and pointing at the elevator. “We can take it up as far as we need to.” 

You're still laughing maniacally twenty floors up. “I was going to cry if I had to go up another flight of stairs.” 

“Are you really taking pictures?” He asks, gesturing at your camera.

“No, but I started carrying it the first time someone called the police on me thinking I was going to jump,” you giggle, wiping away tears. He feels delirious from lack of sleep, so maybe you are, too, but it doesn't seem to be the case as you spring out the doors, forcing him to guide you when you're lost in the executive suite hallways.

“I managed to sneak in last time, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten this far. I'm glad you came just in time, I think they were going to kick me out.”

He's surprised at how easily things have snapped back into place between you, no mention of anything that's happened as you race up the stairwell to the roof access. 

“Will you tell me–”

“Oh thank god,” you say once your through the heavy doors and collapsed on the green helipad, growing impatient when he props the door open out of habit. He's been up here many times, nothing remarkable about the space besides the legacy sign on top, view crowded by other buildings at varying levels. 

“Stand here,” you say, pushing him into place, turning him by the arms. “Do you see it?”

“I don't even know what I'm looking for,” he says, beginning to grow annoyed. 

“Look over there, at the People's Bank. Relax your eyes, it will only take a minute.”

He feels increasingly foolish but he does what you ask, cool morning breeze clearing his muddled head. The sky is washed in a pink and blue haze, the sun cresting the more mountainous region of the city behind you to bathe the city in solid gold.

“There,” you breathe, letting out a little sigh.

“What?” All he can see is a few birds passing over the vista of crowded advertisements and neon. 

“Do you see the light?” you ask. 

“There's tons of lights–” he begins, cut short by the blinding catch of the sun's reflection on one of the characters, then another. He spells it out slowly, guided by your hand holding his to each one. 

The bank: Sa. 

The next building over, also burning brighter with the touch of the sun: Rang. 

Then an advertisement that has been up long enough most of the original message is lost. Hae.

“How did you find this?” he asks, knowing it would be impossible for him to have ever seen this without knowing the trick of the light. 

“I didn't find it. Well I did–I had to search some buildings for it.” 

Later he'll find out you climbed close to fifty flights of stairs in the last two months, had spent every waking moment not working or in school breaking into buildings before sunrise to find that exact spot, forever amused at the thought you hadn’t checked his family's flagship hotel first.

“You don't remember getting the same message from someone else?” you ask. “I was worried you wouldn't come, again.”

Again. Something tugs the memory up from the oubliette he'd locked it into, Mona teasing him about sleeping in and missing their appointment.

Mona. 

His stomach falls, checking back behind him at the door as if that particular ghost will return to haunt him.

“She's not here. I wasn't trying to set you up,” you say, recognizing the dismay he can't hide. “Honestly. And I know whatever closure you find is yours and yours alone. You were right about that, too, I'm sorry.”

You twist your hands in front of you, suddenly overwhelmed with anxiety. “I did this for me. Because I wanted to know what she tried to tell you, even if she couldn't say it aloud.”

You don't look at him, can't in order to continue. Doyoung feels like a live wire, exposed, two months of painful loneliness and a lifetime's worth of avoidance of this fact all surging through him in this moment. 

As much as he would prefer to leave he's not going to run like he did back then, when he'd ignored the hard parts to pretend like a friendship wasn't something more. Not with the stakes of losing this one.

“You once told me you were just friends, even if you couldn't be one anymore for her after you realized you loved her. How it broke you to be with someone you couldn't be with, who wanted something different.”

“Now you know. She didn't want to stay one, either,” you say. You look up at him nervously, regaining your confidence.

“I just wanted you to know that you were loved, Kim Doyoung. You still are.” 

You turn away towards the door, pretending not to have seen the tears dripping down his face under his glasses. He ignores them, too, not knowing what to say or do to make sure you never leave him again.

The spot never mattered to him, the word and it's confession forgotten in time. What changed that day was having you in front of him after so long, the way you were a reflection of him so many years ago, fighting to be by the side of someone who didn't know how to love you back, the right way.

He'd promised himself than that even if he couldn't say it, he'd show you.

“Thank you for coming. I'm sorry for interfering with your life, but that’s what friends do.”

You'd almost made it to the stairs when he'd wrapped around you from behind, the first ever time he'd held you in an embrace, unsurprised to find you shaking like a leaf as he rested a wet cheek against your hair. 

“I'm sorry,” he says. “Thank you.” 

You relax a little, squeezing his hand. In that small gesture everything is reset, everything is okay again. They won't talk about this for the next few years, even when Jungwoo asks how you'd come back into their lives so suddenly and without any indication that things had changed.

But they had. Deeply. 

“You can make it up to me by buying me breakfast,” you say, smiling up at him, wiping his cheek with your sleeve. “We have a lot to catch up on.” 

“Did I win?” you ask. 

Doyoung can only laugh, giddy, as you burrow into his side to smother him in kisses and teasing. You were put on this earth to challenge him, after all–always right there to match him in stubbornness and competition.

He presses his nose to your neck, inhaling the remnants of the scent you'd made together, one bottle for each, though you didn't have to know his formula was just a bit different.

“‘Tomorrow Morning’ has a nice ring to it, I suppose. It lingers well.”

“It was my answer, actually. I needed to see if I could break Saint Kim's vow of romantic abstinence before I made up my mind,” you say, smug as you move to get up. “Glad you were able to find out before your time was–”

You shriek as he pulls you down again, pinning you to the bed. 

“I still have a few hours,” he says, voice dangerous. “I'd like to hear you say it again.”

#kim doyoung x reader #kim doyoung fic #kim doyoung smut #nct smut #doyoung x reader #doyoung smut #doyoung fic #nct x reader #nct fic #nct imagines #nct fanfic #nct djj fic #nct dojaejung fic #nct djj smut #nct dojaejung smut #nct f4 au

[nichecomicstournament]

propaganda under the readmore

Gwen Lou Sabuki: Sabuki was a member of the original (junior) Invaders (the Kid Commandos) crew, along with Bucky Barnes and Toro. She has 6 total appearances, the most recent of which was in a flashback, back during the Original Sins event, in which she prevented the U.S. Military and the original Invaders from wiping out Japan with an artificial tsunami.

Blaine "Kid" Colt:

I WILL DEFEND COLT WITH MY LIFE

Ok, I know that nobody reads the Marvel Westerns except me (the vast majority of comments I see on comics sites about them are some variant of “I’m just reading this for completion’s sake”) but Kid Colt is the reason I actually sat up and paid attention to the 1940s-50s Westerns. He’s been through several new origins, and all of them are superficially similar to the first origin we saw laid out in his debut (Kid Colt, Hero of the West #1) but they ALL miss the POINT of the character.

In the first year and a half or so since his debut in 1948, Colt was written by a specific author, Ernie Hart, and he establishes over and over again that Kid Colt is, a violent, traumatized young man who has chosen the life of an outlaw and has no regrets about any of his decisions.

In the first Colt story, we learn that he’s very skilled with a gun, but chooses not to wear guns because he knows his temper means that he would probably draw and kill someone if he had them on him. He endures the ridicule of the other townspeople and even his own father, who doesn’t know his reasons for refusing to wear a gun. But his father is murdered by law enforcement to steal his land and cattle, and Colt is framed for it. He takes matters into his own hands, kills the lawmen (beating one of them to death with his own whip in the process), and leaves town.

For the next eight issues, and the other Western titles he appears in at the time, Kid Colt rides alone for the most part, but consistently goes out of his way to help other outlaws who need it, and affirms over and over again that being a criminal does not make you any less human or deserving of dignity- but he is merciless with lawmen and judges and sheriffs who abuse their power. Sure, he is sometimes lonely, and once or twice considers settling down, but ultimately embraces his new life as an outlaw, and enjoys the freedom it affords him.

The only times in the Hart run, iirc, he considers settling down is with an entire community of people who show him love and concern (particularly, and notably, there's a young man who tends him back to health, though this ends in tragedy). Colt also has no problem getting help from people because he is a charismatic, kind man- he very rarely finds himself in a position where he can’t get help from a local (unlike, say, Rawhide, who is perpetually a target but that’s a post for another day) But regardless, Colt is popular with ladies, but settling down with a woman for love is something that he can never do, and he says as much more than once. There are several ways to interpret this, but this aspect is another one that vanishes when Hart stops writing Kid Colt.

1950, the year Hart stops writing Colt for whatever reason, is around when the Comics Code Authority really started to get some teeth. You can even read letters in the actual comic itself in the lead up to 1950 put in by the publishers talking about the ongoing debate about the moral content of comics, and one of the first things the new writer does (Leon Lazarus) is revamp Colt’s backstory. On the surface, it’s mostly faithful - but it changes the fact that Colt kills both the Sheriff and his deputy to one shooting the other and Colt accidentally knocking the Sheriff off the cliff. The textbox epilogue says he was “accused” of murdering lawmen, implying innocence. But it also completely removes the rage element from his backstory- in this version, Colt doesn’t carry a gun because he doesn’t want his skill to draw in a bunch of gunhawks, claiming he had a brother (who had never been mentioned before, of course) who got shot in the back because of his skill with a gun.

Needless to say, these two changes remove the most compelling things about the character. Crucially, unlike a lot of other Western heroes who find themselves in this predicament, Colt as written by Ernie Hart has no interest in proving his innocence. Colt becomes an outlaw because he sees no other way forward- but he never looks back. He honestly does not believe he did anything wrong and has no interest in justifying himself to the world. But under Lazarus, and pretty much all the later writers, suddenly he hates being an outlaw, and wishes he could prove his innocence, except it’s impossible. He pines after women he meets once. He is suddenly respectful to lawmen and judges and won’t raise a gun against them even to save his life or the life of another. He says shit like “I might be an outlaw but I don’t act like one.” They might as well have just made a completely different person.

Don't get me wrong, there’s some good stories that show flashes of who Colt was in the beginning, but most of the life is leeched out of him, and this is definitely true in all the modern versions of Colt that we have. In The Sensational Seven, Colt is for some reason turned into a boorish douchebag who only thinks about sex. DeFalco’s Kid Colt oneshot, in addition to having a lot of Confederate apologism, goes with the blandest, most toothless version of Kid Colt possible, and that asinine “Moving On” oneshot by Tony Isabella in Marvel 1001 is just. It’s not any sort of a satisfying completion for his character arc, and there's untapped ground withi

Anyway, I know this is more than you ever wanted to know about cowboys, especially Kid Colt, but I lov him so much please....

#gwen lou sabuki #blaine colt #golden girl #kid colt #actual polls #polls

[callmearcturus]

@vmprsm replied to your post “i've never seen someone who hates MI3 more than...”:

I would sell a piece of my soul for you to rewrite mi3 so it's Good

​i mean there is so little substance to MI3, I don't know if I would rewrite it at all or just create a wholecloth new MI in its place that introduces Julia and ends with Ethan retiring?

off the top of my head, I would maybe do an MI where the set-up occurs in a place where a Medecins Sans Frontieres organization happens to be set up, and Ethan is injured in the opening act, resulting in him meeting Julia when she elects to take care of him.

I'd give them Instant Chemistry-- I know from KKBB that Michelle Monaghan is very good at instantly endearing herself to an audience and being snarky and fun. Ethan meeting a hypercompetent, golden hearted, exceptionally snarky nurse and liking her from word go honestly works for me; it's well-established by the entire franchise that Ethan imprints on people fast, so what if he imprints on Julia and she's like "huh. you're p cute actually."

maybe while he's recovering, the Bad Guy Of The Movie tries to get Ethan killed so Ethan has to am-scray with Julia in tow just to keep her safe. She can tag along for the rest of the movie. I would position her as a voice of reason (similar to how Benji is used in GP) to have an outsider emphasize the IMF is fucked up and scary and to poke fun at it.

And in act two, I would have Ethan do his Batshit Stunt Of The Movie and after the audience gets a moment to ooh-and-ahh at the spectacle, Julia points out that this is an unreasonable way to live and tries to ensure Ethan is actually okay after. Which, if you fold into the usual The IMF Is Kinda The Bad Guy B-plot that's common in early MI movies, would set up a decent impetus for Ethan to consider leaving.

To service that theme of broken trust and the perils of self-sacrifice, I would have the Act Three reveal be that whatever the MacGuffin is, it's the US Government actually created it, and the mission is in part to cover up the Defense Secretary's huge blunder from becoming public. Ethan and Luther should have an angry debate over being tools to prevent a PR disaster with Luther successfully arguing "you're right but also we can't let the MacGuffin go off and hurt civilians"

follow that up directly with Julia sitting down next to a disillusioned Ethan and explaining that she joined the not-MSF because she wanted to do go and see it with her own eyes. and Ethan nodding along.

do the big climax where Ethan and the team save the day, but instead of getting on the plane back to America, Ethan asks Julia if he could stay for a while. end the movie on that moment, on Ethan leaving the IMF to Do Good that is tangible and in front of his eyes.

HELL WE CAN EVEN KEEP OWEN DAVIAN, but in this version, he's explicitly a former CIA spook who levied his international connections into a business as an arms dealer. make it extra tasty by having him originally being the CIA agent working with the Pentagon on the Dangerous MacGuffin and in that process getting disillusioned with the US govt, and deciding to sell the thing to a specific nation in the global south that the US is trying to manipulate the govt of. THAT would have some cronch to it.

anyway yeah maybe that's what i'd do if I could erase MI3 from the world's collective memory and do a new version. thematically this might be too similar to Rogue Nation buuuuut listen this is off the dome, okay.

#mission impossible

[vera-deville]

Got an ML request in the form of an ‘imagine’. Imagine if Luka Couffaine was a weresnake?

Thank you very much for requesting! I appreciate it!

09/12/2022 - 10/06/2022

Pairing: Luka Couffaine x Reader

Word Count: 1,861

Warnings: Getting bit by a weresnake? And mentions of trauma dealing with it. Also, I kinda spooked myself trying to think of a backstory for Luka's weresnake-ness.

Gender: Gender neutral as it was not specified in the request.

Notes: Okay, so-

I have never heard of a "weresnake" in my life, so I had to do a fair bit of research for this one.

Another thing is, I'm unsure if you wanted Luka as a weresnake, or Viperion as a weresnake, and to top it all off, I have literally no knowledge of weresnakes.

So, I ended up writing an imagine where Luka turns into a weresnake every full moon (I struggled so much to think of this-).

I'm really sorry if that's not what you wanted, but if it isn't, you're more than welcome to request again with whatever particular details you like!

Aside from my persistent lack of weresnake knowledge, I'm kinda excited for this, seeing as it is my first ever Miraculous Ladybug fanfic! Woo!

In which Luka Couffaine is a weresnake.

Luka Couffaine had a secret. Much like most of the others his age-

But this secret was unlike the others. Very few people knew of the existence of it. And much less the story behind it.

It was a few years ago when it first occurred, and it was because of a rather gruesome incident. Luka had been a little younger at the time, and had been walking home from school, when he decided to roam the city he called home for just a bit before returning home like originally planned.

But his jolly roam was cut short when he was suddenly snatched (quite literally) and through the flurry of it all, somehow found himself on the rooftop of some building. Obviously, he was terrified, because no one would appreciate being snatched up by someone in broad daylight.

But Luka's fear only worsened after he laid his eyes on his captor.

An odd thing.

She had the body of both human and serpent and she looked rather young. Almost his age. And she seemed like an artist's drawing that they posted to Deviant Art. If anyone were to see her torso up, they wouldn't make much of it, seeing as she looked like any other human.

But from the waist down...

She was something else entirely.

And she was advancing towards him rather rapidly.

Luka tried looking around for escape options, but to his misfortune, there were none.

The strange being's tail caught him and before he could register a single event, he felt a sudden searing pain in the left side of his neck. Screaming, he tried thrashing around, but the serpentine being was much too strong for him.

After what seemed like ages, Luka barely recognized the being taking him down the building and leaving him to sit on the ground, propped up against the wall of the building.

Some time passed, when Luka finally got ahold of his bearings, realizing that it was night and people were giving him weird glances as they walked by. One lady was kind enough to stop and kneel down to ask if he was alright.

Nodding, and telling the woman that he was fine, he stood up shakily and made his way home.

During the long arduous walk home, Luka pondered whether he should tell his family about the weird incident that had taken place some time ago.

And after much fretting from his mother and sister and an intense fever, he decided that yes indeed he should tell his family.

Anarka and Juleka were very worried for Luka and wholly believed him (because why wouldn't they) and debated whether to take Luka to a hospital or not. After all, explaining that he was highly feverish and this was due to some snake-human thing biting him wasn't the most plausible story in this day and age.

So, after Luka was laid down to rest, Anarka and Juleka tried researching about the mysterious being Luka had encountered. Eventually finding out that he met a weresnake, and that bites from them lead to the victim's transformation into a weresnake (through a rather shady website), Anarka and Juleka's worries increased tenfold.

Anarka almost thought about contacting a certain someone, but pride dodged that bullet. For now anyways.

Within a few days, Luka actually became better by himself, though found himself constantly fretted over by his mother and sister.

And for a while, things seemed like they'd gotten back to normal. At least until a month later when Luka woke up without any legs and a tail instead.

For obvious reasons, everyone on the boat freaked out.

And after some more research on weresnakes, they were able to come to the conclusion that this occurrence was going to happen every full moon.

In the beginning, Luka felt totally out of control and a little depressed by the sudden and drastic change in his life. But never once did he blame the weresnake who bit him.

And through the power of time, he slowly began to accept this new facet of him, even looking forward to the transformations every month.

In the time span of a few years, many things had changed.

Paris now had a supervillain as well as superheroes. Loads of them.

Oh and there were akumatized villains. Villains who didn't want to be villains (at least for the most part Lila).

Luka slowly met many of Juleka's friends at her school and even became very good friends with some of them. He ended up falling for one of Juleka's friends, and for a little while, she was into him too. But her heart still yearned for another, so with a heavy heart of his own, he let her go.

Luka figured that it'd take him a while to get over his lost love, but life his interesting ways of working and led him closer to another friend of Juleka's. They had a certain magnetic pull about them that Luka couldn't help but succumb to.

And over time, he developed feelings for them.

It was inevitable.

Y/N was just too good to be true.

And sometimes Luka wondered if he was enough to even be their friend, and every time, Y/N would assure him gently that he deserved every friendship he had.

Luka had eventually planned to confess to Y/N by writing a song for them.

But the confession would have to wait because his transformation was coming up soon.

The weather was starting to become more chilly, but it was still enjoyable.

Anarka and Juleka went into town for a nice girl's day out, leaving Luka home at the boat.

And it was at this time that Y/N decided that it'd be a great idea to go visit the twins at the boat.

They tried knocking on the door at first, but there was no response. Seeing as the Couffaine family never minded them coming into the boat randomly before, Y/N settled their nerves about possibly breaking into a friend's house and made their way inside.

Y/N tried calling for Juleka and Luka, but still there was no response.

So, as any person should, Y/N decided to leave the boat, because the family clearly wasn't there.

But then they heard a clatter coming from inside the house.

And as any person probably shouldn't, Y/N made their way further into the boat, towards the noise.

They soon realized that the sound came from Luka's room, and knocked on the door, asking if he was there.

Instead of hearing an answer in the form of words, Y/N heard more clattering.

Letting whoever was inside, Y/N loudly proclaimed that they were coming inside when I shrill "no" resounded from inside the room.

Stepping back in confusion, Y/N recognized the voice as Luka's and asked him what the matter was. They patiently waited for a response, and when they didn't get any, they sat down against the door and told Luka that he didn't have to tell them anything if he didn't want to.

Inside the room, Luka was somewhat of a mess. His crush whom he was planning on confessing two days later had come to this home two days earlier-

And to make matters worse, he was in no form to meet with anyone.

After much deliberation, he spoke up, letting Y/N, who was still sitting against his door know that he just wasn't ready to talk to them for now. Before Y/N could have a chance to fall down a rabbit hole of panic of having done something wrong, Luka quickly assured them that they hadn't done anything wrong and that he would explain everything to them soon and that at the moment, he just needed some alone time.

Y/N, trying their utmost best to not overthink Luka's strange request, agreed and told Luka to text them when he wanted to meet and thus left the boat.

A couple hours later, Anarka and Juleka arrived home and checked up on Luka. Seeing as he was fine, Anarka went to the kitchen to get started on dinner.

Juleka on the other hand (through the power of twintuition), knew that something was bothering Luka. And after asking him about it, he confessed that Y/N had visited earlier and he told them to give him some space for now and when he was ready, he'd meet up with them and explain his weirdness.

But the problem was, he wasn't quite sure how he was going to explain to Y/N that he was in fact a weresnake and that every month, he'd turn into half a snake.

Juleka understood her brother's dilemma and assured him that if he did want to confide in Y/N about this secret of his, it'd be fine, but he should never feel pressured to tell them about it, and if he did in fact feel pressured about it, he could simply tell Y/N that he wasn't comfortable talking about it and they'd understand and leave it at that.

After a nice hug shared between the twins, they made their way to the kitchen to help their mother with cooking.

That night, Luka made the decision that his confession to Y/N would not only involve him confessing his feelings for them, but also his serpentine secret.

A couple days later, Y/N received a text from Luka about meeting up at Andre's ice cream stand.

And that's where they met with Luka. Getting their respective choices in ice cream, the two walked around in comfortable silence. Said silence was finally broken when Luka told Y/N that he had something to say.

Taking a deep breath, he said "Y/N, you're an amazing person. You have such a magnetic pull about you and I couldn't help but be attracted towards you." Y/N smiled, knowing deep inside where this was going. "I had this whole thing planned out a lot smoother actually. I even had a song prepared and everything, you know?"

Taking in Y/N's reactions to his words, Luka continued, "I was going to confess my love for you today here at the park. But then you showed up two days earlier and I sort of panicked." Y/N frowned at that, about to tell Luka that he had no reason to panic. "The reason for my panic is another confession in and of itself actually."

Taking Y/N's hand in his, Luka said, "I love you Y/N. You're a memorable person. Whenever I look at you, this beautiful mellow tune rings through my head. I want to protect you and cherish you to the utmost of my ability, only if you allow me."

Y/N was giddily trying to hold in their excitement and ended up exclaiming to Luka "Of course I'll allow you! Luka, I'm in love with you too. Have been for ages now. And I'm so glad that you feel the same way!"

Y/N hugged Luka tenderly, only to suddenly pull away. Stunned, Luka asked them what was wrong.

"Didn't you say you had another confession for me?"

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #miraculous ladybug imagines #mlb imagines #imagines #miraculous ladybug fluff #mlb fluff #fluff #romance #weresnake #anarka couffaine #juleka couffaine #luka couffaine #luka couffaine x reader #luka x reader #reader #y/n #vera deville #the marchioness

[mikkokomori]

I'm debating on making one of my Omori AUs into a fanfic at long last, but idk if I'll have the motivation to finish it, but I still want to get it out there? Any thoughts and advice you might have? - Repressed!AU Anon

Ahh, I'm a fairly bad person to go to for advice on fics specifically because of the fact I tend to immediately drop it and delete it ^^'

But!!!! I will say that there is a small method I believe could work since I've been testing it out for a little, and it's been doing okay for me! That is, try to write only one chapter.

It doesn't have to have an ending, nor does it have to be the longest one chapter fic in existence. Just one chapter with the basic gist of the concept you want to work on. After that, if you want you can post it up on any writing website and mark is as complete and see how well it goes with readers, or! You can continue to privately write and not post it until you believe you've reached the end of the fic and then post it up online.

I use the former, and it works better for me than it does the latter. I'll often leave it up and then wait for readers to check it out and see how their reaction to it fairs-- often times, it gives me opportunity to see if they like it and figure out what exactly it is that caught their attention and expand on that. While I do believe this could work better with oneshot series, it's still the better option if you're as impatient as I am when it comes to writing stories (as well as being able to give you a confidence boost and motivation at the same time!)

On the other hand, I have seen some people (I do believe even an anon has popped in saying this) that will write the whole fic down first and then later on upload it, either all of chapters in one go or scheduling when to update them. If you're a patient enough person to write everything down, then you should take this approach, especially if it's supposed to be an AU or original scenario for post-endings that you want to do that have no base to work off on. Though it really depends on how focused and dedicated you are to the fic to be able to finish it all (especially knowing some people have a hard time getting motivated in the middle of it and can put it off for months at a time!).

Of course, this is just entirely based off of my own experiences throughout the years I've been a small fic writer! While most of my fics I have deleted (mostly out of sheer embarrassment lol), I do think that there really is no one way to go about writing a story, and sometimes writing on the go, while the most likely to be left unfinished, is often the best way to go! Considering you can get a lot of feedback from readers, and it is often how writers are able to go far with their stories because of it!

#sorry if nothing made sense i am not very smart in giving advice or anything since i feel like #most of the time im just rambling random nonsense #i only offer things that i know have worked for me so far based on experience and not on “what is correct and incorrect” #ofc im a very absentminded person who dissociates a lot so a lot of my own methods are based on focusing what others like #since i tend to value other peoples opinions its usually my way of staying grounded and focused on the story im writing #ofc this may not work for you since not everyone has the same difficulty on gaining motivation and focus!!!! #anon asks #repressed au anon #miko talks

[bylertruther]

I do feel from the conversation he had with Argyle in S4 that Jonathan was using Will and Joyce as an excuse to avoid Nancy and deal with his insecurities. Joyce herself was anxious about his college application, she didn’t want him to stay with her forever. So Jonathan is complex: part of him wants to leave and live his life, but another one is used to take care of Will and Joyce and doesn’t really want to move on.

i think things can be many things and have many different parts. we know that jonathan has trust issues, doesn't want to be "selfish", and was putting off having to be vulnerable with nancy at every opportunity. it could be that he's partly hiding behind that reason, but i also think it's true on its own, too.

jonathan has routinely taken on parent / provider responsibilities and felt guilty since season one. he feels personally responsible for will, in general and also for what happened to him, and for his mother, who he had to take care of both when will was missing and just in general. he didn't have any friends, but he did have a job, and he took extra shifts to help the family while taking care of his brother, too.

joyce tells us that he's always been good at taking care of himself, and he tells her that she can't get like this again and that she can't shut down right now, suggesting this isn't anything new, something further supported by the policemen saying she's been on the edge for a while now (or something like that). furthermore, in season three, he mentioned that he needed his summer job because of things like college tuition and the mortgage and was so upset and frustrated with what ended up happening that he was tearing up about it.

he's also routinely seen saying that he should've been there for will, that x thing happened to him because he wasn't there, and apologizes multiple times for it.

joyce doesn't want him to stay with her forever, but that doesn't mean that he hasn't been parentified and that he doesn't feel a personal sense of duty towards his family—one that he's displayed since we're first introduced to him. jonathan is someone that loves his family greatly and is entirely devoted to them. he cares for will like a brother, but he's also a father figure to him and stepped in both when lonnie wouldn't and to fix lonnie's mistakes.

jonathan doesn't want to tell nancy the truth, because he fears he may ruin her plans and he absolutely doesn't want to do that to her, but also just because he feels like if he's going to leave his family, then it needs to be for a good enough reason. it's just in the way that he says it: "like, i... i can't leave my mom and my brother to... to... to chase a dream that isn't mine." how he singles them out, how he emphasizes that.

idk. jonathan is a complex character and his subplot right now truly shows that. but i don't think that this is something that needs to be debated all because of my original joyce post. i don't think joyce wants him to stay with her forever, never go to college, and never live his own life. still, that in no way negates the fact that she relied on him heavily to be her co-parent and help provide for them even though he was just a child himself.

joyce tells jonathan that he isn't alone in the world, but she doesn't follow through. she parents will to the point of smothering, but what does jonathan get? he takes care of himself, keeps everything to himself, never asks for anything, cares for others while maintaining that he's fine, and doesn't reach out because he fears that no one will be there to catch him if he falls.

not all of that rests on joyce's shoulders obviously, much of it is because of lonnie and society at large, but he showcases many of the experiences that similar parentified children went through. he's had very little support. the person he came to rely on is nancy, but how is he going to be honest with her when being honest could potentially upset her? when he could lose her?

jonathan is the way that he is because of a lack of support. add in the fact that his brother has gone through horrific, traumatic things when he wasn't there, that he witnessed his parents' awful loveless relationship, and you have someone that feels like they can't leave or that feels conflicted about doing things for himself. none of these things exist in a vacuum and the behaviors of one character affect the other.

#asks #not rereading this as per usual so if i fucked up somewhere o well

[aria-benedetto]

Author Ask Game

I was tagged by @verkja. Thank you for the tag!

I am going to leave this as an open tag.

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

I didn't consciously choose a lesson, but I do think most of my stories/daydreams end up having themes that might be taken as lessons or morals (which I mostly put down to my fascination with tropes, concepts and media analysis. I cannot stop overanalysing every story I read, including my own).

To answer the question, for A Hero's Death, I think you could take "be careful what you wish for" as a lesson, although there is definitely a case to be made that there is something in there about hero worship and unquestioningly accepting explanations and narratives offered by autority figures? Kind of? *squints* Not sure that any of them are coherent, though, since a lot of the time my themes are less a lesson and more my own attempt to essentially debate nuance with myself.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

I guess the biggest inspiration here is a mix of common superhero narratives and my personal pet peeves with them.

To give a concrete example, it never made sense to me how supervillains could take over major US cities and the government and military just... accept that? What? Because of that, in my worldbuilding, each city is essentially its own country and they are losely connected in something resembling the EU. That way there is a lot more leeway for different laws, supervillain takeovers and vastly different political landscapes in different cities.

There is also some inspiration in there from the real world and some things are just there because I wanted them to be there.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

My MC is trying to solve a crime.

As for what I am trying to achieve, that differs strongly between pretty much all my MCs and Michael (the MC of this story). Usually, I find them interesting as characters and they work well in the scenario I want to invent a story about.

For Michael, I needed a complete outsider to the backstory (which is where this story actually started), because otherwise the plot wouldn't work. So what I am trying to achieve with him is have a narrator who can view the entire backstory through an outsiders point of view.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

... am I going to have to count now? *goes to the doc and starts counting*

Counting Prologue and Epilogue and provided I didn't miscount, 22. Probably.

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Original content and I'm planning on posting it to tumblr.

When and why did you start writing?

This story? At the beginning of July, because I had been reading Writblr and Whumplr blogs for about a year at this point and wanted to try actually writing a story myself instead of sticking to daydreams.

Writing generally - I used to write short stories as a child and young teenager, but mostly stopped once school assignments moved from creative writing to essays. I still regularily write non-fiction though, mostly for university ... or because I write essays on topics I'm invested in in various forums.

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

*blinks* I have no actual idea. Maybe that it helps (me at least) to not get invested in the idea of having a big reach? Writing niche stuff is fine and makes the handful of people who enjoy the niche really happy, because it is usually very difficult to find stuff for that niche.

I mostly follow a handful of blogs whose writing I got really, really invested in before I made an account. And I am really, really bad at remembering urls and I don't want to miss anybody, so I'm not going to list them, but they are all really great. Some are whump writers, some in the superhero and/or fantasy genre. Some write a mix of a lot of stuff.

Blank questions:

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

How many chapters is your story going to have?

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

When and why did you start writing?

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

#ari answers asks #ari plays games #ask games #author ask game

[angelgrebo0000]

Serj and Daron get freaky

A System Of A Down Serj x Daron fic.

On a painfully boring night, Serj and Daron decide to explore each other's bodies.

18+

Gay sex, anal sex, cum swapping, mutual masturbation... I don't even know why I'm writing all this. You will soon find out. ;)

Originally posted to AO3.

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

Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian were bored out of their minds one night. There was a raging torrential rain that forbade anyone from leaving the hotel. John and Shavo were fast asleep in their respective rooms, but Serj and Daron, who decided to crash together to save money tonight, were not.

Serj stared at the TV from the king-sized bed, Daron clipping and filing his fingernails. The clock ticked, and the unforgiving rain beat down upon the windows. Every now and then, the TV would emit the low, but nevertheless irritating sound of static. Other than that - silence. A silence that with careful consideration, Serj decided to break.

"Hey Daron…" "Yeah?" "I need to tell you something, and… fuck it. This is as good a time as any." Serj says, his Armenian accent tinged with a slight guilt.

"What is it, man?" Daron asks, care in his voice, but not looking up from his nails.

"I… um… I…"

"What is it?"

"Yeah… um… I…I…"

"Spit it out, man." Daron says assertively, now looking up.

"I think… I'm…"

There is now a hint of annoyance in Daron's big, dark eyes. 

"I'm… I'm questioning my sexuality…"

"Oh! Yeah, that's cool." Daron says, now putting his attention back to his hand.

"...Is it?" Serj asks carefully.

"You know I'm bisexual. I don't talk about it, cause I don't like talking about myself. But that's fine. Why are you so scared? That's not like you at all."

"Because… it's not you I'm worried about. I don't know how everyone else will take it."

"Fuck 'em."

"Yeah, but… my family."

"Yeah, fuck 'em if they can't look past that. They don't have to understand it one bit. That's an age and a cultural thing. But if they disown you, that's their goddamn problem. I don't think that's like them, anyway."

For a moment, they both say nothing.

"So… you think you like men, huh?"

"I mean… yes."

"Do you have a type?"

"Armenians. Slightly effeminate men. Just slightly. With a bit of a macho exterior. And you know the type of women I like…"

"Hell yeah, I do. But… the sort of man you described… Does he play guitar?" Daron asks.

"I mean… he could." Serj chuckled.

"Does he smoke weed?"

"He most certainly could be."

"Does he wear eyeliner?"

"He could…"

"This is the best game of Guess Who I've ever played! Ooh! Is it… is it me?"

"I mean…"

"Do you have a crush on me, Serj?"

"I mean… a tiny bit. I don't know if it's just admiration or… or if I want you, though."

"But… Do you want me… romantically?"

"I've kinda always wanted you romantically."

"Well… I know what we should do…"

"Daron… before you say anything… I don’t want to date you. It would fuck up the entire dynamic of the band. I love you. That’s not debatable, but… it would end sorely."

"Yeah… you're right."

And, silence again, until…

"But… you know what we could do?" Serj says, a small lustfully singsong tone wrapping itself over his gentle cadence.

"What?"

"Well… Maybe I want to know if I do like guys, for real. And because we're both about to lose our damned minds to boredom… Maybe you could help me."

Daron puts his file and nail clippers aside, and slowly shuffles over to Serj. 

"You wanna experiment with me?" Daron croons through a pout.

"Y-Yes… yes, I want to experiment with you, Daron."

Daron wastes absolutely no time, gently gripping his bandmaster's face, kissing him with a slow, undying passion. His tongue slowly slithers its way into Serj's mouth, exploring it, and eventually sliding down his throat, and infecting him with his lust.

Serj tangles his fingers in the younger man's hair, reciprocating the passion that Daron is giving him.

"Fuck me right here?"

"Well… yeah… but I was thinking… we have all night. We could watch some porn… masturbate together… and then… we could go at whatever pace we're comfortable with."

This wouldn't be the first time that the two have masturbated together. Slowly, as Daron dims the lights, and activates the porn channels on the hotel TV, Serj undresses all, save his underwear and sits himself on the bed, propped up with a pillow.

"The hotel staff already thought we were banging when we booked a room with one bed. Let's prove them right."

Serj's cock is now fully erect, crying to leave his boxers. He just palms it gently through the fabric. 

"Uh… looks like we need a code.”

"Yeah, fuck that, I'm not asking some poor bastard for a code for the porn channels."

Daron just throws himself to the bed.

"I've been needing a good fuck. I'm just glad it's with someone I love so much."

While Daron undresses, they return to making out.

"Hey… you know we don't have to date… but we could be fuckbuddies… just… sometimes." Daron suggests.

"Let's see how this goes, first."

Daron admires Serj's body. He sees it a whole lot, but he's not blind to it. 

"You know I love your body, right?"

"Why?"

"Because it's fucking beautiful. Now shut up."

They kiss again, now with hands exploring every inch of their bodies. Daron's hands wander to Serj's boxers, slowly pulling them down, allowing his rock hard boner to proudly spring out. 

Serj does the same to Daron. 

They masturbate as they make out. Daron grows more and more aroused, simply from just kissing him. They then begin to swap hands. Slowly, Daron tugs Serj's large member. Slowly, rhythmically and gently. Serj does the same to Daron, gently nibbling on the skin underneath his ear. 

Serj places gentle neck kisses on Daron, making him beg in the form of a small whine. 

"You like that?" Serj asks, speeding up his twists, flicks and strokes of the wrist. 

Daron whines affirmatively.

"Do you have lube?" Daron asks.

"Of course I do."

Serj grabs a small bottle from his jeans pocket on the floor.

"I had a sneaking suspicion I might get laid tonight…"

"Are you… experienced with penetration?"

Serj asks, in an effort to not hurt his Daron.

"A little… but it's been a while."

"Tell me if this feels good." Serj asks.

After lubing up two of his fingers, he gently puts one inside Daron. 

Daron whines gently, bucking his hips at the sensation. Serj wastes little time, and adds another finger. He fingers him rhythmically, speeding up, scissoring them both inside him. Daron squeezes his eyes shut, burying his face in the crook of Serj's neck. 

"You know what?"

"What?"

"I'm really… really tempted to replace my fingers with my tongue. Would you let me do that?"

Daron whimpers in affirmation.

The younger man leans over the bed, arching his back and staring behind him at Serj. Though not showing it, Serj has never done this and is a bit nervous. 

"Just… tell me if it feels good.

"Mhm…" Daron whines submissively.

Serj spreads Daron's cheeks with both palms, and slowly leans in to rim him.

Daron sharply inhales as Serj's tongue makes contact with his tight pucker. Serj slides his tongue gently across the hole, up and down in small sweeping motions, before flicking the point of his tongue against Daron's opening.

Daron's eyes recede, and he whines out in pleasure.

"Fuck yeah, that feels so good."

"Yeah? You like that?"

"You don't need to keep asking. Damn right, I like that."

Daron's back is arched so beautifully, facing the ceiling, along with his big doll eyes.

Serj sticks his middle and ring fingers inside of Daron, continuing to tongue his sweet ass. He twists and contorts his fingers the way he was before. Daron begins to become breathless, burying his face in the plump hotel pillow in an effort to mask his moaning. 

"Such a good boy." Serj croons, putting his clean hand through Daron's silky, black hair. 

“What’re you gonna do to me next?” Daron asks.

“Well… you’re gonna stay bent over… and you’re gonna take my cock like a good slut.”

“Yes, sir…”

“Mmm… that’s what I like to hear.”

Serj thoroughly lubes his cock, stroking himself gently. He slides it across Daron’s asscheeks, and then around his rim, teasing him as much as possible.

Serj grips Daron’s right cheek, massaging lightly with his thumb, as he slowly works, his huge, veiny length inside. 

As Serj very steadily inches himself inside, bit by bit, Daron begins whimpering.

“It’s… so… big.” He cries out, tongue hanging out of his mouth as he drools.

“You love my cock, huh?”

“Mhm…”

“You’re a whimpering, drooling, crying mess for my cock, huh?”

“Oh yeah… I am.”

Serj is fucking him only painfully slowly. Daron begs him to speed up, and he can barely take it when he finally does. 

Daron screams in wild desire with a fair bit of pain attached as Serj pounds him. He speeds up, slows down, and then slams into him again. At last, they switch positions, And Daron lays back, spreading his legs, holding his knees against his shoulders. He is completely and totally blinded by Serj’s cock.

“Oh… Oh Serj, I’m close…”

“Yeah? Wanna ride me till you cum?”

Daron nods, and pounces on Serj when he lays back and opens his legs. 

Serj grips Daron’s ass tightly, guiding him, but only slightly.

Daron takes the initiative of bouncing as hard and fast as possible, slamming Serj into his sensitive sweet spot over and over again.

Serj places his hand on top of Daron’s as he strokes himself. 

Before long, Daron’s eyes roll to the back of his head again and he lets out a primal scream of pure pleasure. He truly makes a scene, screaming Serj’s name and sobbing in joy. He painted his own tummy, and Serj’s with his thick, white cream.

The thunder, and excessive torrents of rain outside were truly a blessing tonight - because of it, the entire town wasn’t awoken by Daron’s lust-filled cries of ecstasy.

This was almost enough to make Serj blow, but he held out well. 

“On your knees. Right now.”

Daron did exactly as he was told, and dropped to his knees, eyes facing the heavens, and tongue out. He knew what was about to happen, but had no idea what Serj had planned for afterwards.

Daron needed no instruction, and so he took the entire length in his mouth, sucking with intense passion, worshiping Serj’s penis with all his might. He stares him in the eyes, still crying. 

“Want me to choke you with it?” Serj asked.

Daron nodded, and for about five seconds at a time, Serj pulled Daron’s head as far towards him as possible. Daron gagged, tears flowing freely down his cheeks.

“Put your tongue out…” Serj ordered, to which Daron immediately complied. 

And with one huge, dramatic grunt, Serj spilled his seed all over Daron’s mouth. 

Just when Daron was about to swallow it, Serj pulled Daron in for a kiss.

They swapped Serj’s cum from mouth to mouth, grunting and moaning as their seed-soaked tongues wrestled each other. They groped and caressed each other, Daron moaning as he swallowed Serj’s cum. He licked his lips, and Serj’s to make sure he had every last bit of it. 

I

Then, they just looked into each other's eyes, smiling. They shared a kiss, before Serj ran a hot bath. 

“I… I’m sore… So sore…” Daron whimpered a little.

“I’ll fuckin’ bet.” 

“That was… that was the best sex I’ve ever had…” Daron sighed.

“It was pretty damned good.” Serj said, smiling down at Daron.

The two shared a deep and passionate kiss together, naked and stood up in the bathroom, as the room filled with steam.

“Let’s get us all cleaned up…” Serj suggested.

And so, they shared a hot bath together, talking and sharing small, intimate kisses. Daron lay on top of Serj, savoring this moment, never wanting it to ever end.

“It's a damned shame we can’t be lovers.” Daron said less-than-enthusiastically.

“Well… Maybe we can…”

“Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can…”

#system of a down smut

[redlibra14-2]

FD Survivors as SCPs *Part 1*

/Hello again all, 

It’s been a while. I’ve just been busy with some personal stuff, college, fanfic ideas, Pokemon-related stuff, etc. I honestly didn’t think that my first SCP post would garner some attention from the Final Destination fandom the way it did but it did. I mean it was kind of a casual idea that I had going on in my head that I didn’t think would go anywhere. But I guess it’s starting to take shape. Also, if anyone wants to make fanart based off of my SCP matchups, by all means go ahead. And I’d also like to give out a disclaimer: Much like in my previous post about this, these matchups are based solely on my opinions and what I think fits. Apologies if we disagree, but I did say that if you did have a different opinion, feel free to post it in the comments. Which by the way, feel free to do the same here. I put this as Part 1 in the event that anyone wants to see more in the future. @hatsumesgoggles, this one is for you. This took about a decent 10-20 mins of research and internal debating before making the final decision.

Anyways~ 

This is another FD/SCP crossover post, but this time it’s with the survivors. 

Starting off with: 

Nathan -  SCP-26805 aka "The Helper Spirit": Now this one is a bit of a mixed case for me, as the SCP in question could apply to basically any of the sidekicks to the visionaries since they all share the same role. And Nathan is no exception to this. And it especially doesn’t help when this SCP isn’t as well-known as some of the classics, like 106 or 035. But I will give you a brief rundown as to what this thing does. Basically, it’s a spirit that can possess anyone and ONLY the person possessed can see its true form. It is also know to cause what can be broken down to and choked up as an adrenaline rush, such as being able to lift heavy objects or withstand bullets. And while possessing the person in question, it leaves behind a clone of itself (SCP-26805-1). But when it leaves the host, the host can’t even remember what the thing looks like after being released from its grasp. And if you think that’s it, that this thing isn’t so scary, let me give you a quick fact: this thing was one of the few scps that can literally incapacitate larger SCPs like 682. You gotta admit that that’s pretty powerful as it can basically temporarily turn you into a Jojo stand user. Now why Nathan in particular when I said that this could also apply to other characters? Well, Nathan does say that he can see dead people. I... unfortunately do not have any other reason why other than Nathan making a reference to the Sixth Sense to match him up with it. And also, going back to how this can also apply to other characters, this thing can literally possess multiple people at once, such as when some Chaos Insurgency members got possessed and with the power the received, almost destroyed an entire site. However, they were twarted by another army of 26805-1′s who were on the side of the Foundation. This also shows that this being isn’t purely a force for good, but it can also be used for evil too. Which is why it’s classified as Euclid, not harmful per say, but not safe either. This thing could literally possess anyone, meaning literally any FD character (unless I come up with different and better matchups). Hell, the closest thing to a helper spirit moment that happens in the FD series would be when Alex saves Carter. Too bad this thing wasn’t around to save him from being hit with a brick. 

(I’m gonna be honest with you guys and say that I originally wanted to place a cooking based scp with Nathan because fun fact: the whole cooking gig that every FD fan and their dog knows Sam had throughout the 5th film was originally supposed to go to Nathan before it got cut. The more you know.) 

Kevin - SCP-965 aka “The Face in the Window”: This one was also difficult to pin down because most of the SCPs that I tried or thought could fit were either phenomenon’s or literal objects, humanoid or sports-themed specifically, but none of them really seemed to fit with Kevin in my eyes. That was until I learned about SCP-965, aka “The Face in the Window”. This thing only appears when the “outside” of the window is slightly darker than the “inside” by 5 candelas. This thing can appear in the window regardless of how dark or light it is. It’s still there even if you tried to cover it up by closing the curtains. This thing is also known to instill the feelings of unease, nervousness, and paranoia and the areas in which it is seen are fully assembled window frames, regardless if installed or not (SCP-965-1). The only way it changes homes is if you destroy the current -1 and it reappears in a different window with no explanation. Also, if you sleep in a room with a window containing this thing, be prepared for the non-physical, yet choatic nightmares you’re gonna face. They’re so bad that they will leave you feeling as though you’re being watched or stalked in the waking world. And if these dreams become more frequent, the side effects you may experience are, but not limited to: 

- heartburn or abdominal pain 

-vomiting blood or have blood in bodily wastes 

-ulcers 

-and low-grade hemorrhaging in varied locations of the victim’s gastrointestinal tract. 

These symptoms happen because exposure to this thing is what’s causing abnormal spikes of fear and paranoia, allowing these symptoms to happen. It’s a traumatic experience and the more pain you feel, the bigger its monstrous grin grows. Now why did I place him with Kevin instead of 26805, like I did with Nathan? If you know anything about the visions in the films or how any of the characters die, you’d know that Kevin’s vision-based deaths have a lot to do with windows. Such as the picture of the flash going off in his face making it look like he got squashed against a window, or how in Wendy’s last vision, he’s sucked out of the window of the subway train and reduced to, as James A. Janisse once so lovingly put it, “a strawberry shortcake”. Plus throughout the film, while trying to put on a brave and helpful front around Wendy, is fearful and uneasy, which fits this to a tea. But then again, all FD characters feel this way to some extent, because it’s difficult to not be traumatized after the things they went through. (Also, a more morbid part of me is amused at the idea of Ghost!Kevin haunting windows, especially near where he “died”. I put “died” in quotation marks because like how I mentioned in my previous post about how we don’t know whether Wendy or Kim are alive and well, we don’t know Kevin’s fate either. For all we know he could be hidden away somewhere safe and vibing with Julie and Wendy.) 

Olivia - SCP-056 aka “A Beautiful Person”: Much like how I felt SCP-105 was a good choice for Wendy and to quote what I said in that section of the post: “Do I really need to explain this? To me it just seemed pretty fitting.” I mean seriously, does this really require an explanation as to why? Have you seen Olivia? She is literally a ✨Q U E E N✨. But in all seriousness and simping aside, she is very vainly beautiful. We see her take her shirt off in one scene and just preferring to wear more open clothes. She also really hates her glasses and it is why she visits an eye-laser sugery clinic leading up to her death. She values her looks so much to the point where it gets her into a heated rivalry with Candice. When I thought about what SCP should fit her best, 056 was the first one that came to mind as some of its behavior and abilities sound like Olivia. It can change its appearence at will according to its environment and the people around it. It can turn into either the most handsome man or the most beautiful woman. It’s so attractive to look at to the point where it leaves others feeling insecure and jealous of it. Sound familiar? Kind of like the rivalry that Olivia and Candice had as mentioned earlier. It’s also very vain but can be helpful if so desired. No one knows its true form behind the numerous masks it wears. Despite what everyone feels about it, it still gets its way. 

So anyway, those were my matchups. And again, some aren’t perfect but that’s what opinions and having discussions about said opinions in the comments are for. And if you want to see more, let me know. (Also, i just found out a few minutes ago as I am finishing this post that 26805 isn’t really part of the canon and is a fanmade scp but lets pretend that it is, at least for the sake of this post)

#final destination #Final Destination 2 #final destination 3 #the final destination #final destination 5 #SCP universe #scp-26805 #scp-965 #scp-056 #Matchups #CrossOver

[icinch]

10.5 Ways to Make Your Blogging EASIER

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10.5 Ways to Make Your Blogging EASIER

One of the toughest things about blogging is the self-imposed pressure to always have a terrific, earth-shattering, life changing blog post that makes people catch fire reading it.

You know what I mean. You’ve got that little voice whispering in your ear that if your posts don’t measure up to some impossibly high standard you’ve set, then all is lost and the world will know that you’re a fraud.

The good news is, it simply isn’t true. You don’t need every post to be a 2,000 word masterpiece or the final definitive word on your topic. Instead, all you need is content that gives your readers what they want. That’s it. Your readers want to know the latest news or the best methods? Then that’s what you give them. Forget trying to be a great writer and instead focus on being your readers’ ‘friend in the business’ and you’ll be an AMAZING blogger.

Here are 10.5 more tips to take some of the blogging pressure off of you and put the fun back into blogging:

Make yourself a posting schedule and then stick to it as regularly as you brush your teeth. Surprisingly, having a blogging schedule actually makes it easier for you to blog. It provides soft deadlines that keep you motivated to sit down and write. You won’t be able to put off your blogging if your readers expect a new post every Tuesday and Friday, and you know it.

Keep a running list of blogging ideas. Use a program like Evernote to keep track of your ideas and the resources you can draw from when writing your posts.

Forget being totally original. Seriously. Every idea is built upon or inspired by someone else’s idea. So give credit where credit is due, provide your own unique twist or take on the subject and relax – no one expects you to reinvent anything.

Re-purpose your content and other people’s content, too. Curate, list, pull bits and pieces from here and there – it’s all good. Just give credit to everyone you sourced from. And go back to your own content and see if you can’t update it, re-purpose it, mix it up or whatever. Odds are if you’ve been blogging for more than a year then you’ve got a small goldmine of content you can mine to create new content.

Be more of a reporter and less of an expert. Being the go-to expert in your niche is difficult, especially when you’re new to blogging. The pressure can become so unbearable that you cease to write, afraid you’ll pen something that will make you look foolish in your readers’ eyes.

But if you place your focus on reporting instead of being the absolute authority, magic will happen. You’ll feel freer to express your own opinions, you’ll find it’s far easier to write posts, and because you are referencing other authorities and experts in your niche, you become your own authority to your readers.

Mix up your content. Are you only writing blog posts? Then add videos. Are you only podcasting? Then write blog posts. If you limit yourself to one media, you’re also limiting the number of people who will engage in and benefit from your content.

Short is great. So is long. There was a time when it was suggested (actually, I saw this again quite recently) that no post should be under 2,000 words, and all posts should take days to write and be the absolute authority on whatever you’re writing about.

Hogwash. I briefly mentioned this in the beginning – write as much as you need to. If you can cover your topic in 200 words, DO IT. If it takes 2,000 words, then just make sure you’re holding your readers’ attention for the ENTIRE 2,000.

This reminds me of the “short sales letter vs long sales letter” debate. It’s a stupid, ridiculous debate, and here’s why: A blog post or a sales letter should be exactly as long as it needs to be and no longer. Period.

Stop leaving terrific blog comments on other people’s blogs. Seriously. You just read a post on a high traffic blog and you’ve got your own opinion or insight you want to share that you’re sure will help that blog’s readers.

Don’t do it. Instead, create your own post on your own blog and link back to the original blog. Then let the original blog know that you mentioned and linked to them in your post. This way your blog has more great content and who knows? You might get a backlink from the blog you referenced.

Use images. Every. Time. Maybe more than once, too. It’s irrefutable that images work at grabbing attention, so make sure that every post you make has at least one image. And be sure to place a caption under the image, because people are far more likely to read the image caption than anything else on the page (other than the headline, of course.)

Publish your articles on other sites. Sites like LinkedIn, The Huffington Post and many, many others allow content to be republished on their sites as long as it fits their guidelines. This is a terrific way to pick up new subscribers by posting a link back to your own profile or blog.

And what about Google’s duplicate content penalty? The duplicate content penalty doesn’t apply to syndication or curation. If it did, you’d never see a major news site appear in the top of the search results because they all subscribe to services that helps them get duplicate content, such as the Associated Press. And bloggers who frequently syndicate their content to other quality sites report that they receive no penalties what-so-ever.

10.5. Ask for the subscribe. Ask. And ask. But don’t be obnoxious. You wrote a post on getting traffic, and you’ve got a free report on even more ways to get traffic? Ask them to subscribe right there at the end of your post. “To get 27 more ways to get targeted, free traffic with the push of a button, simply tell me where to send the report and it’s yours.”

If you’ve been having trouble blogging on a regular basis, hopefully reading this has made you realize that blogging doesn’t need to be stressful. The rules are not as rigid and some would have you believe, and the most important thing of all is to simply give your readers what they want and lots of it, in whatever form it might take.

[mariacallous]

PRAGUE, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Leaders of the European Union and neighbours from Britain to Turkey met on Thursday to discuss security and energy emergencies plaguing them all since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a symbolic summit that underlined Moscow's isolation.

The gathering in Prague was the inaugural meeting of the European Political Community (EPC), a brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, bringing together on an equal footing the EU's 27 member states and 17 other European countries.

Some of the countries are waiting to join the EU while another, Britain, is the only one ever to leave it.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was tied up with a crucial parliamentary debate at home, bringing the number of leaders down to 43 from the originally envisaged 44.

The meeting at the ancient compound of Prague Castle was a grand show of solidarity for a continent mired in multiple crises - from the security fallout of the war in Ukraine to an energy crunch and a looming recession that has dashed hopes of robust recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic downturn.

""We have very clearly displayed the unity of 44 European leaders in condemning Russian aggression and expressing support for Ukraine," Macron told a news conference after the summit.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: "This summit confirms that Russia is in complete isolation."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addressing the meeting via video link, urged leaders to turn the new political community into a "European community of peace".

"Let today be the starting point. The point from which Europe and the entire free world will move to guaranteed peace for all of us. It is possible," he said, calling on the leaders to "direct all possible powers of Europe to end the war."

A special spotlight in Prague was on British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who - under pressure at home after only a few weeks in office - joined the stage with leaders of the EU.

Her decision to attend left some hoping for a reset in relations between Brussels and London, building on a warmer tone in recent weeks in a standoff between the two sides over post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.

Truss, who declared earlier this year while campaigning to become prime minister that the jury was out on whether Macron was a friend or foe, told reporters in Prague that the French president was indeed a friend of Britain. read more

The two leaders met for talks in Prague, and Macron added to the reconciliatory mood later, declaring: "I really hope this is the beginning of the day after".

A TALK SHOP?

Russia's war in Ukraine is certain to remain a focus of the new club as leaders of the embryonic EPC will meet next time in Moldova, Ukraine's small and troubled neighbour.

Still, it is far from clear that a forum some have already dismissed as just another talk shop has a robust future.

Its sheer size will be a major obstacle to delivering concrete policy, as will its political and cultural diversity and traditional rivalries between many of its members, from Armenia and Azerbaijan to Greece and Turkey.

In a blog before the summit, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said clarity was still needed on the EPC's core rationale, its relationship with the EU, how it should take decisions and even whether it should have a budget of its own.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the summit was "a very timely initiative" to discuss problems of the European continent and find common solutions, but he cautioned that the EPC should not become an alternative for countries hoping to join the EU.

Ankara opened membership negotiations with the EU in 2005.

On Friday, leaders of the EU's 27 countries will meet on their own in Prague. Tensions will play out over Germany's 200 billion euro ($197.50 billion) energy support package that many of its peers see as damaging competition in the bloc's single market.

EU countries will also try to work through differences over how to cap gas prices to contain soaring energy costs that are turbocharging inflation across the bloc.

Separately, the EU's member states gave final approval to an eighth batch of sanctions against Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine, but said implementing a price cap on Russian seaborne oil included in the package required more work.

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

#supernatural season 15 #spn finale #speculation #destiel #destielgate #the ending was not the ending #fuck the cw #trust the story #we were robbed

[phoenixyfriend]

👀 PLease tell us your thoughts about the Jedi babies re-growing up among different cultural contexts.

Oh fuck okay

Context: original post, chrono The specific post this ask is referencing: here

Summary of the AU: Disaster lineage got tossed back in time. Anakin stayed 21-ish, but Obi-Wan and Ahsoka got deaged, took new names for time-travel reasons (Ylliben and Sokanth, or Ben and Soka), are now staying with the True Mandalorians under Jaster Mereel because the Force said to, go back to the Temple after about a decade. They grabbed Shmi about three months after arriving.

So as far as the cultural background goes, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka had similar upbringings. She spent a few years on Shili first, but both spent the majority of their childhoods up to age 13/14 being raised in the creche. So that's the basis that they would default to, in a vacuum.

Nobody is raised in a vacuum.

Along with the Jedi cultural background, they're being raised by Tatooine natives in a Mandalorian environment.

Shmi and Anakin are both former slaves who have desert survival baked into their bones. The longer Anakin spends around her, the more his accent slips, the more he talks about old folktales, the more he uses idioms that don't exist on a cityplanet like Coruscant. All the things that he tamped down to be a Jedi come floating back to the surface, and Shmi's never known anything else. Anakin's knowledge of slave customs make her feel more comfortable, which in turn makes him feel better, and so on.

Mandalore is just... the culture they're living in. You don't grow up in a new culture with a new language without picking up on it personally. (Source: I moved to the US when I was a little under two years old.)

I think the thing I'm going to focus on as an example is the way each of these cultures approaches family, and then maybe how they approach the keeping of peace/what peace means.

Jedi: Where you come from means little, only the legacy you leave behind in your students. Mandalore: You protect your clan and your children; adoption is a major cultural value, if not actually practiced consistently. Tatooine: You can lose your family at any time, so you value what you have in all its forms. You don’t forget where and who you came from, to family of blood and family of choice alike. You cling to your memories and what little you still have of them, to what your master cannot take away.

These are all valid ways to approach family, and each of these approaches can have significant meaning to different people. But they do all, to a certain degree, conflict with one another, despite all three being fairly communal cultures.

The Jedi have a culture, one that’s built on a shared ability and religion over thousands of years. It’s not just an organization, but a continuous community with legends and traditions and art and records. But it’s one that is built on new blood coming in from the outside, volunteers who join because the religion speaks to them (near literally, given the nature of Force Sensitivity), given up by families who couldn’t or wouldn’t teach them in a way that let their talents flourish instead of pushing it all down.

For the Jedi, a culture built on people coming together due to something they have in common intrinsically that their families of blood do not, it makes sense to put emphasis on letting go of that past when they can, and to place importance on teaching lineages. It’s not just the official master-padawan pairs, either, but that’s the most obvious and easily paralleled element. Moreover, a lot of the Jedi culture is about gaining knowledge, so obviously spreading it is good, and also on supporting the galaxy to make it a better place; to view the Jedi order as a heavily communal culture would make sense, since their values are all about selfless betterment of the universe, which on a larger scale is about the galactic conflicts, but on a smaller scale is about supporting their own community, the children and the ill and elderly.

So that is the specific culture that Obi-Wan and Ahsoka grew up in, one that holds blood family as relevant but not particularly crucial to one’s identity, but is structured so people leave behind legacies through education in a manner that often becomes adoptive family (depending on your definition, I guess). Jedi are encouraged to connect to their home cultures, if not their families, with practices like the coming of age hunt for Togruta leading to the young Jedi taking a trip out to Shili to engage in that cultural milestone. This can also be viewed as a way for the Jedi to maintain personal connections to the wider universe, a (not entirely successful, but certainly attempted) way of keeping them from becoming too isolated and insular from the universe at large, and losing touch from what the galaxy actually needs of them.

They’re now growing up with two cultures that do place emphasis on blood and found family.

Mandalore, as presented in The Mandalorian, has their traditional values set as being heavily associated with their armor, battle skills, and childcare. While that’s clearly a set of values that aren’t actually followed by everyone with full sincerity, we can assume that these stated cultural values do have at least some impact on the way the society is structured, since we do see more traditional characters (Jaster, Din) adopt orphaned children and then have the Mandalorian elements of their immediate circles support that claim.

(We’ll ignore Jango and the whole clone army thing because the amount of Sith influence is up for debate and also holy trauma, Batman.)

However, we also see that a lot of Mandalorian culture is built on their family histories. On the New Mandalorian side, we see emphasis placed on the fact that Satine is House Kryze and that she’s a duchess. Her bloodline is relevant, though not the most important thing about her. On the Death Watch side, we have Pre and Tor placing emphasis on the fact that they’re Clan Vizsla, descended from Tarre, that this is important to why they deserve what the darksaber represents, this is part of why they not only deserve to lead, but should for the good of Mandalore.

Bo-Katan’s armor is a family heirloom. Boba’s armor was Jango’s, but before being Jango’s, it was Jaster’s. Armor is important enough to pass to family, but the family can be adopted. This all tracks.

The resol’nare specifies loyalty and care for the clan/tribe among the six tenets.

These two elements seem relatively well-balanced: the importance of adoption and the importance of family as a larger unit on the level of a house or clan.

And then you have Tatooine, which also balances blood and adoption, but for entirely different reasons, that being this: it can always be taken from you.

For all that a Mandalorian could historically expect their family to die in battle, and a Jedi could expect to lose their master the same way if things went poorly, those were usually choices. A Mandalorian was raised to walk into battle, and then they could make that choice to do so. It wasn’t often much of a choice, but they could feasibly turn their back and choose to be a farmer or a doctor or something, and support the people who went out to do battle instead of being the one on the field themselves. A Jedi could choose to be a healer or an archivist or join one of the Corps.

A slave does not get that choice. A slave can be killed or sold on a whim from their master. It’s not a one-time trauma, but an ever-present fear. Your parent, your child, your sibling, your spouse, all of them can be separated from you at any time. You can always lose them, and you have no choice but to grin and bear it, or try to run and die before you reach freedom.

In a context like that, I imagine Tatooine places a very heavy emphasis on family, both of blood and of choice, and on treasuring what you have while you have it. A person is always aware that they can lose whoever they have in their life, and so they make the most of their times together, have clear and consistent ways of expressing that love (I imagine primarily direct verbal confirmations and physical contact, practical gifts like water and fruit). Childcare is important, elders are venerated. Those who survived that far have valuable wisdom, and the children are to be given what happiness they can have before reality wipes that ability from them.

The family ‘networks’ among Tatooine slaves are smaller and tighter knit. There’s less trust for outsiders, but once you’re in, you’re in until you are taken away. Still, families are torn apart regularly, and often can’t contact each other after being separated if they’re sold far enough away, so families stay small because they’re always being broken up. Unlike Mandalore’s tribe/clan system, or the Jedi’s wide, loosely-structured community, Tatooine’s slaves form smaller groups that cling for as long as they can, and try to support each other. (There are selfish ones, of course, especially the newbies, but... well. Most try.)

Tatooine is also much more likely to assign a familial role (e.g. referring to an elder as ‘grandmother’). It’s not uncommon in the others (multiple Jedi refer to their masters as a parent or sibling, like Anakin’s “you’re like a father to me” line), but it’s not as baked-in that such a role should be given.

So on a structural level, we have two people from a community culture with little emphasis on blood family or formal familial roles are now being raised in a community that has them asking “what can you do for the people around you first, and then the wider world?” by people who tell them “your family, blood and found, is the most important thing you have; never let anyone take more from you than they possibly can.”

And that shit has an effect.

For all that Sokanth and Ylliben were once raised with a knowledge that their duty, their goal, was to better the galaxy as a whole, they are now being told that the community that raises them asks their loyalty back, because societies are built on support networks, and if you support the tribe, it will support you. There are parallels to that kind of thinking among Jedi, because it is basic social theory, but it’s not presented as the same kind of cultural value. It’s not given as something to strive for, just a basic fact.

This, for instance, means that once they’re back at the Temple, they have a tendency towards suggesting study groups and other ways of supporting people in their immediate circle, often structured in very unfamiliar ways. Again, this isn’t uncommon among Jedi, but it’s not done in the same way, or with the same emphasis. The Jedi also often approach problem-solving in a different order, so the step of “meditate on it and you may find your solution” often comes before “gather information from people who know more about it than you do,” while Ben and Soka have by this point learned to do it the other way around, because that’s what the Mandalorian system taught them: rely on your family first.

Meanwhile, the Tatooine element of their upbringing has them being much more willing to just... casually refer to ‘my dad’ and ‘my sister’ and so on. They use those words. It’s not just “my master is like a father to me,” but “this is my father.” They don’t hesitate to talk about the family they had and still have in Mandalorian space. None of the Jedi begrudge them it, really, but it’s always a shock to hear for the first time, and between the Tatooine refusal to pretend the connection is gone and the Mandalorian tendency to err on the side of roughhousing as affection, they’re just... odd. It’s not like none of the other Jedi know family outside the Order--some of the old books had Obi-Wan visiting his brother on Stewjon once in a while--or like none of the active Jedi are loud or boisterous, but the specific manner in which Soka and Ben interact with the Order, especially when their dad is around, is very weird.

More Soka than Ben, really, but that’s mostly just because Ben’s a very quiet person until he gets a little older, so it’s harder to notice on him.

Point is, while they still hold to their duty to the wider galaxy and will continue to keep that duty above almost anything else in their lives, the way they talk and act about the subject of family, especially in private, is heavily influenced by their new cultures.

This is already very long but I promised I’d talk about peace so let’s go:

The Jedi seek peace as an absence of war and conflict in the portion of the galaxy under their purview, in hopes that they will prevent as much suffering and death as they can.

The Mandalorians are varied, but Jaster Mereel’s group (which is the community the Skywalkers are with) is likely to view peace as unrealistic to achieve in the long term. They do not seek war, but they know the world they live in, and are prepared to protect against violence as their first resort. They always expect an attack, even if they don’t seek it.

The Slaves of Tatooine view peace as the calm in a storm. It is the status quo. Nobody has escaped tonight, for the guards aren’t searching, but neither is anyone dead. The Master you have is in a good enough mood to not sell you, to not kill you, to not beat you. Peace as an absence of suffering is impossible, so you seek for your master to be peaceful, that is to say: not raging at you.

The scope of each of these narrows significantly. From the known galaxy, to the wars that meet Mandalorian space, to the household one serves.

A community like the Jedi can choose to address peace as something to be sought on a large scale as an absence of war. They primarily function within the borders of the Republic, which has its problems but is largely structured to prevent such things from occurring until the Sith interfere. The Jedi have a structure that allows them to address peace as an ideal to be sought, at least within the borders of the territory they serve.

Mandalore, meanwhile, has been at war on and off for... ever. When they are not at war with themselves, they’re at war with someone else. ‘Peace’ is just the time between wars, and they know that if they do not attack first, they will be forced to defend. Jaster Mereel was known as the Reformer, and part of that was that instituting a code of honor, one that was intended to prevent Mandalorian warriors from acting as raiders and brigands, but rather acting as honorable hired soldiers, or taking roles such as the Journeyman Protectors. Given that, I imagine that he views war as something inevitable, but also something that can be mitigated.

War doesn’t touch Tatooine.

Oh, it might raise taxes and import rates. It might prevent visitors who come for the races. It can do a lot of things.

But to a slave, these are nothing. The only thing war does is affect the master, the person who chooses when their slaves get water, when they get beaten, when they are no longer useful enough to keep around or keep alive.

The peace of a slave’s live is dictated by how much abuse they are subjected to by the person who owns them.

What this means for Soka and Ben is... well, they are viewed as war-hungry by the people who don’t know them very well. They have armor. They focus on fighting, both with and without their sabers. They know tactics better than most masters. They claim that war is coming, and don’t seem too sad about it.

(It is a fact to them. War will come. All they can do is meet it. They’ve already done their mourning once.)

They also... well, Shmi tells them things in hidden corners. How to duck their head to hide the hate or fear in their eyes. How to watch for the anger in the tendons of a hand. The laugh of someone who enjoys the pain they’ve caused, not just the adrenaline of a fight. She is free, and so are they, but she has not forgotten how to hide in the shadows until the master’s ire has turned elsewhere. How to be small and quiet and unseen until the danger passes.

A Jedi’s first resort is words. Their second is their saber. But the Jeedai hold their heads high, and the Mandalorians do the same.

“You rely on the Force, and you have your pride,” she tells them, her hands on their own. “But there will come a time when you will not be able to remind people that you are free. You will not be able to say that you are a person, that you deserve the respect of a living sentient. Perhaps it will be a politician who treats everyone like that. Perhaps you will be captured by an enemy. Perhaps you will be undercover. You will not be able to fight, with words or with weapons, and you will have to know how to survive.”

Tatooine does not have peace. Tatooine only has survival.

And while Jedi fight for the survival and peace of the universe, they are refined and composed. Mando’ade fight like warriors of old, and Tatooine slaves fight like cornered, rabid anooba.

The galaxy comes first, but when the chips are down and the Sith come out to play, Soka and Ben do not need refinement, because they know how to toss aside their pride and live.

#Tatooine #Mandalore #Jedi #culture clash #star wars #the clone wars #Anakin Skywalker #Shmi Skywalker #Ahsoka Tano #Obi Wan Kenobi #Jaster Mereel #family #war #Phoenix Posts #Anakin and the Jedi Babies #Phoenix Answers Asks #I have no idea how accurate this is but it's what I'm working with

[scorpionyx9621]

Do you think Jason Todd fandom is kinda toxic? Because it seems like NO MATTER what DC do, there'll always be complains. Forget the bad adaptation like Titans. Even Judd Winick cannot escape the criticism with how he potrayed Robin!Jason. They just never satisfied.

SORRY, IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RESPOND TO THIS. I just moved from Washington D.C. to Seattle, which, for my non-American friends, that's 4442km away. And I DROVE THERE ALL BY MYSELF. And now I'm trying to find new work in a new city and trying to stay mentally healthy and positive. Life is exciting but hard and scary.

*sighs*

As someone who was a fandom elder with V*ltr*n. I've seen some of the worst when it comes to fandom behavior. I'm talking people baking food with shaving razors and trying to give them to the showrunners. I'm talking leaking major plot details and refusing to take it down unless they make their ship canon (I am looking at you, Kl*nce stans) For the most part, DC Comics has had a decades-long reputation of treating their fans like trash and not caring what they think so from what I've seen, we all just grumble and complain in our corners of the internet about how we don't like how X comic portrays Jason Todd.

The challenge with Jason Todd is that he's your clinical anti-hero, the batfamily's Draco in Leather Pants, he's a jerkass woobie, and on top of all of that, he's a Tumblr sexyman. It's a perfect storm for a very fun but frustrating character to be a fan of. It doesn't help that every writer decides to re-invent the wheel every time Jason comes up so his canon lore is confusing at best and inconsistent as a standard.

I guess starting with a general brief on who Jason is and what is uniform about him with every instance he's appeared in comics/media.

Grew up in a poor family in Gotham with a dad who was a petty-mid-level criminal, and a mother who dies of a drug overdose.

Survives on the street on his own by committing petty crimes and potentially even engaging in sexual acts to keep himself alive.

Is cornered by Batman and taken in after Dick Grayson quits/is fired

Becomes the second Robin, but is known for being the harsher, more brutal Robin.

Is killed by Joker after being tortured, but somehow comes back to life and regains senses through the Lazarus Pit

Resolves himself to be better than Batman by basically being Batman but kills people.

Where there has been a lot of conflict in the fandom is the fact that Jason Todd is not a character that is written consistently. DC Comics loves to go with the narrative that Jason was "bad from the start" and was the "bad robin" when, yes, he has trouble controlling his anger, but he also still is just as invested in seeing the best of Gotham City and trying to be a positive change for the world as any other DC Comics hero.

Where I get frustrated with the fandom is its ability to knit-pick every detail of a comic they don't like while completely disregarding everything that makes the comics great and worth it to read. My example being Urban Legends. To which most people had pretty mixed reactions to. I was critical of the comic at first but as it went along I ended up really liking it. I have a feeling DC Comics went to Chip Zdarsky and told him he had 6 issues to bring Jason back into the Bat Family, and honestly he didn't do a bad job. Did it feel rushed? Absolutely. I wish there was more development of Jason and Bruce's characters and their dynamic as a whole. However, where I see a lot of people being angry and upset with Urban Legends is that they feel Zdarsky needlessly wrote Jason as an incompetent fool who needs Bruce to save him.

Whether or not that was the intention of Zdarsky is up to debate. However, and this may be controversial, but I don't think he wrote Jason Todd out of character at all. For as fearsome, intimidating, and awesome as Red Hood is. Jason is a character who is absolutely driven by his emotions. Why do you think he donned the role of Red Hood? As a response to his anger towards The Joker for killing him, and towards Bruce for not taking action against The Joker and for seemingly replacing him so quickly after he died. Jason didn't care about being the murderous Robin Hood or for being the bloody hammer of justice against N*zi's and P*d*ph*les. He only cared originally about making The Joker and Bruce pay. It wasn't until he trained under the best assassins in the world and realized most of them were horrific criminals who trafficked children and were p*dos that Talia began to realize that the teachers that she sent Jason to train under started dying horrific and painful deaths.

The entire story of the Cheer story in Batman Urban Legends was started because it finally forced some consequences upon Jason. Tyler, aka Blue Hood's father was a drug dealer who gave his supply to his wife and kids. And when Tyler's father admitted he gave the drugs to Tyler, it immediately made him fall within the self-imposed philosophical kill-list of Jason Todd. And Jason, well, he proceeds to kill Tyler's father. When this happens, Jason is in shock. Tyler's dad fit the bill to easily and justifiably be killed by Jason. We've never seen Jason having to deal with the consequences of being a murderous vigilante on a micro-level. When Jason realizes what he's done in that he's murdered Tyler's dad, he's shocked. He tells Babs the truth. He does a rational thing because he's in shock. He doesn't know what to do, he never has had to face the consequences of his actions as Red Hood and now the gravity of befriending a child as a vigilante hero who kills people just set in when he killed the father of the same child he was just introduced to.

(Oh here's a little aside because it had to be said, Jason would not have been a good father or a good mentor to Tyler and absolutely should not have been his new Robin. Jason is a man who is in his early 20's (not saying men in their early 20's can't be good fathers at all) who is a brutal serial killer using the guise of a vigilante anti-hero to let him escape most of the law. the complications of having the man who murdered your father adopt you and make you his sidekick are way too numerous for me to explain in a long-winded already heavy Tumblr essay post. There's a reason why we don't advocate for a story where Joe Chill adopted Bruce Wayne or one where Tony Zucco took in Dick Grayson.)

The next biggest argument is that they feel that Jason is giving up his guns as a means to just be invited back into the Bat-Family. To which I will tell anyone who has that argument to go actually read Urban Legends. Already have and still have that argument? Please re-read it. Don't want to? That's okay, I will paste the images from the comic where Jason specifically says that he doesn't want to give up his weapons for Bruce and his real reasoning down below since the comic isn't exactly readily accessible.

Jason gave up the guns because he felt the gravity of what he had done and knows how it'll effect Tyler. Thankfully his mom is alive and in recovery. But Tyler doesn't have a father anymore. And Jason killed Tyler's father. It may have been in accordance to Jason's philosophy, but it was a case where it blurred the lines. Jason Todd isn't a black and white character, just very dark gray. He doesn't kill aimlessly like the Joker. If you are on Jason's list you probably have done something pretty horrific, and also just in general, being in his way or being a threat to him. Mind you, in early days of Red Hood and the Outlaws (Image below) Jason almost killed 10 innocent civilians in a town in Colorado all because they saw him kill a monster. That being said, Jason isn't aimless in his kills.

(Also can we just take a moment to appreciate Kenneth Rocafort's art? DC Comics said we need to rehabilitate Jason Todd's image and Kenneth Rocafort said hold my beer: It's so SO GOOD)

That being said, the key emphasis in the story of Cheer asides from trying to introduce Jason Todd back into the Bat Family and give an actual purpose for him being there, other than him just kind of being there ala Bowser every time he shows up for Go Kart racing, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, and the Olympic games when Mario invites him, is that Jason and Bruce ultimately both want the same thing. Jason wants to be welcomed back into the family and to be loved and appreciated. Bruce want's Jason back as his son and wants to love and protect Jason. Both of these visions are shown in the last chapter of Cheer while under the effect of the Cheer Gas. It's ultimately this love and appreciation they both have for each other that helps them overcome their challenge and win.

Jason Todd is a character who, just like Bruce, has been through so much pain and so much hate in his life. The two are meant to parallel each other. While Bruce chose to see the best in everyone, giving every rogue in his gallery the option to be helped and give them a second chance, hence why he never kills, Jason has a similar view on wanting to protect the public, but he understands that some crimes are so heinous they cannot be forgiven, or that some habitual criminals are due to stay habitual criminals, and need to be put down. But at the end of the day, the two of them both try to protect people in their own ways.

I am aware that through the writings of various DC Comics authors such as Scott Lobdell and Judd Winick, the two have had a very tumultuous relationship. And rightfully so, I am by no means saying that Scott Lobdell writing an arc where Bruce literally beats Jason to within an inch of his life in Red Hood and the Outlaws, nor Judd Winick's interpretation of Under the Red Hood where Bruce throws the Batarang at Jason's neck, slicing his throat and leaving him ambiguously for dead at the end of the comic is appropriate considering DC Comics seems to be trying everything they can to integrate Jason back into the family. That being said, a lot of these writings have shaped the narrative of Jason and Bruce's relationship and have an integral effect on the way the fandom views the two. It doesn't help that Zdarsky acknowledged Lobdell's life-beating of Jason by Bruce at the very end of Cheer by having Bruce give Jason his old outfit back as a means of mending the fence between the two of them. That does complicate a lot of things in terms of how they are viewed by the fandom and helps to cause an even greater divide between the two.

Regardless, I want to emphasize the fact that Jason Todd is a part of the family of his own accord. Yes, he's quite snarky and deadpan in almost every encounter. However, Jason is absolutely a part of the family and has been for a while of his own will. There's a great moment in Detective Comics that emphasizes this. Jason cares about his family because it is his found family. Yes, they may be warry about him and use him as a punching back and/or heckle him. At the end of the day, we're debating the family dynamics of a fictional playboy billionaire vigilante whose kleptomania took the form of adopting troubled children and turning them into vigilante heroes. Jason Todd wants a family that will love and support him. This is a key definition of his character at its most basic. This was proven during the events of Cheer and is being reenforced by DC Comics every time they get the opportunity to do so.

Now, none of this is to say that I hate Judd Winick. I do not, I don't like the fact that in all of his writings of Jason, he just writes him as a dangerous psychopath, and Winick himself admits to seeing Jason as nothing much more than a psychopath. Yet Winick is the one who the majority of the fandom clings to as the one true good writer of Jason Todd because 'Jason was competent, dangerous, smart' Listen, friends, Jason is all of that and I will never deny it. However, what I love about Jason isn't that he's dangerously smart of that writers either write him as angsty angry Tumblr sexyman bait or that they write him as an infantile man child with a gun. There's a large contention of this fandom that has an obsession with Jason Todd being this vigilante gunman who is hot and sexy and while I definitely get the appeal. It is very creepy and downright disturbing that all of you hyperfixate on his use of guns and ability to be a murderer. It is creepy and I'm not necessarily here for it.

What I love about Jason Todd is that despite all of the pain, all of the heartache, all of the betrayal, and bullying, and death, and anguish. Jason Todd is one of the most loving and supportive characters in all of DC Comics. Jason has been through so much in his life, but he still chooses to love. He still chooses to see the bright side in people. Yes, he takes a utilitarian approach and chooses to kill certain villains, but at the end of the day he wants to see a better world, and he wants to be loved. It takes so much courage and so much heart to learn to love again after one has been abused or traumatized. I would not blame Jason at all if he said fuck it and just went full solo and vigilante evil. He has every right to, but he still chooses to be with the Bat Family of his own accord. That's something that I see a lot of in myself. I have been through a lot of trauma and yet I try to be a better person myself in any way that I can. It is extremely admirable of Jason to allow love back into his heart when he really doesn't need to. He kills and he protects because he has this love of society. It may have been shaped by anger and hatred, but Jason has found his place amongst people who love him and value him. I think Ducra, from Red Hood and the Outlaws put it best in the image given below.

To end this tangent, I love Jason Todd and all of his sexy dangerousness, but it's far more than that. As much as Jason may be dangerous and snarky, he loves his family without a shadow of a doubt. I look up to Jason Todd because despite all of his pain and all of his trauma, he still choses to love. Jason Todd is a character who is someone I love because despite all of his flaws and having a very toxic fandom, he still serves as a character filled with so much heart and so much passion. I wish more writers would understand that. But for now I will live with what I have. Even though the fandom may be vocal about it's hatred for his characterization, I choose to love Jason regardless because he is a character who chooses love and acceptance regardless of his pain. Jason Todd is by no means a good person in any sense of the word. He has easily killed upwards of 100 people by now. He is a character who is flawed and complex but ultimately is one who powers forwards and finds love and heart in a place from so much pain and anguish. That is what I love about Jason Todd. After all, to quote a famous undead robot superhero, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" Jason Todd chooses to love despite all of the trauma and pain and grief. Yes, he is hardened in his exterior, but inside there is a man with a lot of love to give and someone who deserves the world in my eyes.

#Long post GOD #Jason Todd #Red Hood #Bat Family #Batman #red hood and the outlaws #RHATO #RH:O #Batman Urban Legends #Red Hood Lost Days #TW Voltron #TW Death #tw murder #TW Klance #Gotta love how i am pouring my heart out onto jason AND calling out the Voltron fandom #Regardless love Jason Todd people

[frombeyondtheblackhole]

Hermit DSMP Swap AU: Part 8.1

Over the course of the next couple of days Scar helped George and Skeppy get settled in. He introduced them to the other Boatem People. There was Pearl, who lived in the upside down boat house, Impulse, who Skeppy thought looked a lot like a buffer version of George, and Mumbo, who had an impressive mustache and lived in an RV pulling a tiny house. 

Scar helped George build a mushroom house in the space between Pearl and Impulse's houses, while Skeppy very quickly got involved in helping Pearl prank everyone on the server by tipping their cows (and every other animal for that matter) upside down. She had to convince Skeppy not to tip anyone's named pets though. 

The Boatem hole was opened up to the void. Now that Skeppy could get a good look at it, it kind of terrified him. The never ending darkness. George tried to push Skeppy in, which led to Skeppy chasing George around with a diamond sword for a good ten minutes. Scar fell in several times. He seemed fine, though that could be debatable. Falling in the void had to have some kind of consequences, didn’t it?

Scar got a new, bigger, better hat. Skeppy tried stealing it, trading it back and forth with George as Scar chased them around Boatem begging for them to slow down. Pearl even showed up and joined in the hat trading, but then she made them give it back. There was something under her chipper mannerisms that neither of them wanted to cross. She was nice, but Tubbo was nice, he had nukes, Foolish was nice, he controlled lightning, Puffy was nice, she killed Ant. In their experience, nice meant dangerous. 

Grian got bored just sitting around all day and was soon back to his usual pranks. He summoned a giant tree golem with Pearl’s help that tried to eat Mumbo’s van till Mumbo talked to her and calmed her down. His peace, love and plants thing really did come in handy sometimes. Mambo found out that her name was Treesa. Now she just sat watching over Mumbo’s house and humming to herself with the sound of rustling leaves and groaning wood. Sometimes Mumbo could be seen sitting on her shoulder talking to her as she listened, her eye’s closed and her branches swaying in the breeze as she soaked in the sun.     

Impulse opened up a shop called I-Soar selling elytra and rockets. Skeppy and George were fascinated by them and when no one was looking they stole some elytra to give them a test run. Skeppy immediately flew into a wall and died, while George fared a little better but died when he tried to land. Everyone's inboxes were buzzing with notifications as a string of death messages appeared in the chat. It didn’t take long for Scar and Impulse to find the two culprits. Skeppy tried to jump off the roof he was standing on and fly away, but he timed it wrong and landed with a splat, his items going everywhere. George started running, he was on the ground and unable to get any air.

Impulse was easily able to catch up to him with his own elytra. When Skeppy returned for his stuff Scar and Impulse admonished them for stealing. Then they gave them some flying lessons, showing them how to use the rockets to give them a boost and how to land without taking damage. They were only fifty percent successful. Though, when they were done they made them return the Elytra. To be honest, Skeppy and George were both quite done with the whole affair and glad to be back on the ground. The novelty had worn off a while ago and Skeppy and George were tired of constantly dying to fall damage. 

Grian designed a game of hide and seek that involved the Dragon egg, while George and Skeppy secretly plotted to steal it when no one was looking. 

Skeppy also finally decided to build a base for himself. He collected a ton of diamonds. Some of them came from his enderchest (Which he seemed to still be able to access). A bunch of them he got from taking a page from Scar’s book and going door to door, selling the Hermits random junk. He may have also taken all the diamonds from the center of the diamond ore tower outside Cub’s base. They were just sitting there in the open, practically asking to be taken. Using these diamonds Skeppy made a diamond block box house (When he ran out of diamonds he used dirt) in the middle of the town center next to the Boatem pole. 

The look on Grian’s face when he saw it was totally worth all that work to get the diamonds. Grian practically begged him to take it down or move it. He even tried bribing him with more diamonds but Skeppy insisted that it was the most beautiful house in existence and he was going to live there forever. He even threatened to move it onto Grian’s front lawn. 

This place wasn’t that bad, Skeppy was actually enjoying himself here.   

---

Skeppy was nowhere to be found. Bad had searched through their mansion, and at the locations of their various projects, he even looked around the Greater Dream SMP, calling Skeppy’s name the entire time. The Diamond was gone. 

This wasn’t the first time Skeppy had gone off on his own for weeks to sulk, only to come back a month later as if nothing happened. But usually he would at least make a big huff about how he was leaving and never coming back and how Bad was a bad friend. This time there was none of that. He had just left. 

Bad felt a tightness in his chest as tears pricked at his eyes. Was he really that bad of a friend? What had he even done to make Skeppy run off without even saying anything? They had already made up after the whole egg debacle. 

Bad shook his head “No, I’m a good friend. I’m the best friend. He’ll be back any day now, he’s probably just running errands or something,” Bad tried to convince himself... now that he thought about it he didn’t know where Skeppy went off to whenever he ran off. 

Without even realizing it Bad found himself standing near the entrance to the spider spawner... the entrance to the Egg’s domain. He stopped. He had been free of the Egg’s influence for several months now. But the egg might know how to find Skeppy. The Egg could find Skeppy. No. Bad tore his eyes away, shaking his head and walking briskly down the path in the other direction. He had tried that before, it hadn’t ended well for him.  

Bad felt a pit in his stomach. He genuinely regretted the things he had done while under the Egg’s influence. But the Egg could give him what he wanted. No. it never actually gave him what he really wanted, he knew that now. He knew that then too, he just hadn’t wanted to believe it... He didn’t need the Egg... but... it would be there. As a last resort. If all else failed.

[Notes: This one was inspired by another comment by @the-local-scp, Thanks again. I wasn’t originally planning on writing Bad’s perspective for a while. Skeppy runs off all the time. But then I thought about it and it makes sense that he would notice. He always notices, and this time he has no idea why Skeppy left. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed. This is the end of my pre-written stuff. The next one is probably going to be a bit of a long one so it may take a while before it gets posted, or I may break it up into smaller chunks... we’ll see]

#dsmp #dream smp #hermitcraft #dsmp au #dream smp au #hermitcraft au #hc x dsmp #hc x dsmp au #hermitcraft dsmp swap au #skeppy #georgenotfound #grian #good times with scar #impulsesv #pearlecentmoon #mumbo jumbo #badboyhalo