#and i can have solid interesting discussions about this with them in person

[malereadermaniac]

૮ • ﻌ - ა Jocks n Straps - Jock Studio Guys x Male Reader

Word Count: 9k

Plot: Dating & Smut headcannons with Ace, Derek, Bryce, Zayne, Yuuto, Leo, Avan - 'dating' doesn't mean sfw!! (;¬_¬)

Featuring: Top!Characters x Bottom!Reader

Note: Pls bear in mind that the game isn't out yet, I have no clue if my characterisations of these guys will be accurate or not! Also - each scenario is separate! Reader's sport is track!

Warnings: Nsfw / MDNI ~ amab m!reader / FDNI

Derek Kingsfield ~ dating

Dating the quarterback of Olympus was not for the weak! At least it wasn't meant to be; but Derek made sure that it was as easy as possible for you. You first met the giant hunk-of-a-man on the track. Derek and his rugby friends were hanging out by the track n field section of Olympus, and the redhead couldn't take his eyes off of you for a solid three hours while you practiced. To be fair, you were not only one of the star runners of the track team, and not only fucking attractive, but Derek also found your personality super magnetic! You were so kind to your fellow runners; offering them water and checking on them, even offering the freshmen an early finish 'cause the sun was especially hot that day. So, Derek went up and talked to you; a perfectly normal reaction to finding someone attractive, for a six-foot-something hunk that's never been rejected before! "You're a really good runner, I can see why you're ranked second even as a sophomore" Derek commented "Haha thanks! I've been running since I was a kid so ya know. You're one to talk mr Quarterback-since-freshman-year" You reply charismatically "Oh so you know of me?" Derek smirks

And that was it. The two of you hit it off immediately! Though it did take a while for the two of you to actually become exclusive, you thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the talking and dating stage! Derek quickly added you on all of his socials and started talking to you whenever he could; something you definitely wouldn't expect from the inanely popular quarterback! Though you got along with Derek, you didn't expect him to actively show interest in you; it was a nice change from some guys who expected you to put in all the effort! You quickly learnt a lot about Derek and vice versa; you two would text throughout the entire day and late into the night. It was like you two had known each other for ages! And the more you two learnt about each other, the more you liked each other. You liked how Derek was built like a douchey, bulked-out man, but was, in fact, one of the nicest and most caring guys you'd met. The redhead was the dictionary definition of a gentle giant! Derek also liked you more and more, the more he got to know you. He liked how passionate you were about your sport, but how you were equally passionate about things you valued in your life; you cared deeply about your friends, you cared about your education at Olympus, and you cared about Derek despite not knowing him for that long! You'd check on the redhead after games and offer to help him out with uni work (even though you probably didn't know the answers, but it was the thought that counts); everything about you, and everything you did, just made Derek more attracted to you!

So once the two of you made it official, you immediately became a well-known couple on campus; the ideal relationship, just two partners who truly loved each other! You two were always supporting each other at big events and even during small practices. Everyday you learn something about Derek that subverts the stereotypes you held about him. You didn't expect the muscular quarterback to have a geeky side which watches starwars everynight! And you didn't expect Derek's biggest red flag to be putting your feelings before his! You've had to have serious talks with him about not bottling up his feelings to make you happy. You have also had some serious discussions about your relationship, he's in his final year after all! Derek's getting ready to graduate and go pro whilst you're still gonna be stuck at Olympus training! But trust me, Derek is far more distraught about this than you are! Your gentle giant boyfriend has shed tears at the thought of being so separate from you, and he's even felt physically ill when you even suggested that he'd want to break up with you to fully experience his life! He just cares about you so much!

Derek Kingsfield ~ nsfw

To your surprise, Derek had a secret career in porn; he was known as 'The King'~ Your boyfriend was very shy to tell you at first; ashamed and sad that there are many videos out there of him having sex with other men that weren't you! But Derek didn't wanna lie to you about it! He was so torn over this that it was even affecting his plays on the field! You of course noticed this and just asked him straight up. But to Derek's surprise, you didn't mind as much as he thought you would! "I mean it feels a little weird... But if anything I guess it's kinda hot" Holy shit Derek got hard when you said that.

'The King' was very mean and dominant in all of his videos, but as you already know, Derek is quite the opposite - again, a gentle giant. That being said, just because Derek cares about you and checks in on you, that does not mean that he isn't a fucking sex god! Obviously, your boyfriend is incredibly attractive; six foot something, incredibly muscular, proportionate, tits and ass the size of Texas, broad shoulders and back, huge, manly hands, etcetera etcetera. But his skill in bed needs to be scientifically studied! His time in porn definitely taught him a couple of tricks! The man knows foreplay like the back of his hand; fingering you not only to loosen you but also making you cum before he even gets his dick inside! The hunky quarterback ensures that he gives attention to all the spots you like; biting your nipples, sucking on your neck, kissing you on the lips, jerking you off slowly and softly as his fingers curl directly into your prostate. Derek just knows exactly how to get you off!

Derek fucking loves it when you suck him off too! The size difference between his huge, muscular thighs and your smaller body; and of course the size difference between his monster of a cock and your cute face in comparison! Holy shit it just riles Derek up so much! Speaking of his dick, your boyfriend's cock is definitely one of the biggest on campus! That thing is not only over 7 iches, but it's thick and veiny too! His foreskin is somehow loose when Derek is flaccid, but when the redhead is fully hard, his dick head is so thick that his foreskin struggles to keep it in! His balls are thick and hang low, and Derek's pubes are a thick forest of deep red. Also, 'cause of how physical rugby is, after a game Derek's dick stinksssss of just straight-up MAN; seriously, his musky crotch has made you get hard within seconds many a time!

Derek is also super open to fucking however you want to! Want him to go slow and guide you through it? He's fucking you slowly in missionary as he makes out with you and jerks you off to the pace of his thrusts. Want your boyfriend to get dominant? The quarterback has you in a mating press, calling you names and spitting on your whilst he fucks you at a pace which shouldn't be humanly possible. But no matter how he fucks you, Derek is always giving you top-tier aftercare. It doesn't matter if he treated you like you were made out of glass, or out of rubber! Derek insisted on cleaning you up, apologising profusely 'if he went too hard', and cuddling you until you both fall asleep. But what you love most is giving Derek aftercare! Truthfully, he's never received it before, and he told you this the first time you offered it to him! You were shocked; big, hunky boys need aftercare too!! So when you let the giant man lay on your chest as you stroked his hair and showered him with praise and assurance, Derek almost started crying.

Kinks: Derek has a huge thing for fucking in sports gear! He just finds it so hot when you worship his cock through his jockstrap, or when you kiss him through his helmet. And holy shit does it make him hard when you put on his much bigger rugby top and practically drown in it. Size difference is another thing that just turns your boyfriend on. Derek just fucking loves how you can physically tell that he can protect you and care for you! And despite his ego never controlling his actions, it sure does feel good when you inflate his ego by commenting on how big, or muscular, or tall, or strong he is; especially if the 'big' comment is made towards his dick! (KIND OF) EXTREME KINK WARNING Another notable kink of Derek's is fisting. Just look at those line tattoos around the circumference of his massive bicep! He's had the tattoo since his days as 'The King'; the porn company paid for it, and gave him a huge raise for doing some fisting porn! And at some point, Derek started finding it really hot! He knows it's a bit extreme, and he was also way too embarrassed to tell you about it at first, but when you asked him about those videos he had to come clean! And thank god he did tell you about his fisting kink, cause the shit you let him do? The memories of those experiences are the only ones he can finish to when he jerks off!

Zayne Alexander ~ dating

You knew of Zayne since your first day at Olympus. He's practically a celebrity on campus and has the fangirls to prove it! But your first interaction with him was one that some people would die for. Zayne was used to the constant attention, but after a particularly tiring practice, he couldn't be bothered to deal with his crazy fans. Unfortunately (fortunately) for you, you were the only person in the vicinity who wasn't fawning over the ace basketballer of Olympus. You were literally just chilling on your phone waiting for one of your friends on the basketball team, and the next thing you know, Zayne's thumb is tilting your chin up from your phone and his lips are on yours! After a (suspiciously) long kiss, Zayne pays you no attention and turns around to his fans, shouting: "Sorry girls! Can't spend too much time with ya! I'm a taken man now~" Huh? The next, next thing you know, every single female student on campus fucking hates you! Great! "Dude! What the fuck?" You say after all of Zayne's fans disperse, but the star baller forgot you were still there! "Oh? No one's ever complained about kissing Olympus' star baller" Zayne says smugly, but when his pulling rank didn't work on you, his interest was piqued.

Cliche, but you couldn't care less about Zayne's celebrity status; and (cliche again!) that caught his interest. In fact, you actively disliked the man! He was a stereotypical playboy jock; he was rich, popular and suffered from a serious case of affluenza! You could see right through Zayne; you could tell that his confidence was an act and that he was constantly desperate for something new, a new, thrilling experience. You just didn't know that the new, thrilling experience Zayne had set his eyes on, was you.

Over the course of a year, Zayne had made it his mission to get you to fall for him; not because he liked you, but because he liked the challenge. He was ready to lead you on like all his other fans and conquests. But nothing fucking worked! Pulling rank? You couldn't care less that he was a star basketballer. Flirting with you? It grossed you out how hard he was trying; and how full of himself he seemed. Showing off his strength, body, or wealth? It icked you out. Nothing was working on you and it frustrated Zayne. Like a lot. So much so that his rich, confident act crumpled. You woke up one night to your phone getting spam-called by a drunk Zayne after one of Bryce's parties. The dark-skinned man was at your dorm, drunk and shouting for you. After getting him to shut up by letting him inside, Zayne word-vomited all of his thoughts; thoughts about how frustrated he was that you weren't falling for him, thoughts about how he didn't know why he wanted you to like him so bad, thoughts about how frustrated he felt at this pressure put on him to be this confident star player. And somehow, out of all of the tricks Zayne pulled to try and get you to fall for him; this moment worked best. You got to see the real Zayne, and that felt like a breath of fresh air. You could tolerate him like this; for some reason, your heart beat a little faster when he was like this around you.

Zayne realised after that night that he could let his walls down around you; he was expecting you to let people know about how much of a phoney he was, but when his reputation didn't crumble overnight, Zayne realised that he could trust you. Trust you in a way that he couldn't even his closest friends. And that made him actually fall for you... But the muscular baller knew that his usual tricks didn't work on you. So Zayne kept being his real self with you; and that most definitely worked. 'Cause the two of you were actually dating not even three months later!

Dating Zayne came with its challenges. His fans were actually a problem. You would receive daily hate messages from anonymous accounts. But one post from Zayne solved that problem. And though that was the bare minimum, it made you fall for Zayne even more; 'cause you knew that before you, Zayne wouldn't have done that for anyone else. And even though you were icked out by his rich-boy act, you couldn't deny that you seriously enjoyed getting spoiled rotten by your boyfriend!

Zayne Alexander ~ nsfw

In all of his past relationships, Zayne was a sex-first kinda guy. He never really loved his partners, but he definitely enjoyed the sex! But with you, he actively didn't want that to be the case. Zayne fucking loved you and he didn't want to ruin things with you by making you feel like all he wanted from you was sex! So it took a while for the two of you to actually go all the way. But holy shit, when you two finally fucked? Earth-shattering. Obviously, Zayne has plenty of experience with both men and women, but you didn't expect him to care so much about your pleasure! Before you could even offer to suck his dick, Zayne was on his knees willing to suck yours! And holy fuck did he know what he was doing; you watched as your boyfriends muscular, broad back flexed as his head bobbed up and down on your dick, his tongue circling around your head as his man-bun bounced slowly came undone. Zayne was also very quick to get his long, masculine fingers inside of you; getting your guard down with his mouth on your cock and sliding his wet fingers inside of you with seconds!

The tall, dark man loves to fuck you up against walls and fucking loves to get loud. Zayne just likes to express the pleasure he's feeling through sound! So every time you two fuck, the walls of the room practically shake from the loud grunts and moans which escape your boyfriend's throat. But Zayne also loves it when you get loud! Like 50% of his pleasure during sex is from his ego, so when you become a moaning, whimpering, crying mess from his dick? His ego gets 10x bigger (somehow) and just turns Zayne the fuck on!

His dick is usually the culprit when it comes to making you loud. BBC is an understatement. Zayne is fucking huge. It hurts! The poor guy will loosen you for a whole hour and you'll still need like ten whole minutes to adjust to his length and girth or else you will cry. But for you, Zayne preps you right and is happy to wait; he can't say he did the same for his past partners though... His dick is also a little veiny but not that much. The most notable characteristic of your boyfriend's dick is his Prince Andrew piercing! You can't say you didn't expect him to have one; Zayne is a crazy thrill seeker so of course his dick is pierced along with his ears! It's fully healed so Zayne doesn't always keep it in; 'it's annoying to clean' as he says. But the muscular man noticed your affinity for it, so Zayne puts it in more often.

Kinks: Again, your affluenza-suffering boyfriend is a text-book thrill-seeker; so it makes sense that Zayne would be a total exhibitionist! Your popular boyfriend just gets so fucking turned on by the idea of getting caught fucking your brains out and word spreading around campus about it. He's so into it that Zayne has convinced you to fuck in public places on multiple different occasions; to the point that it's become weekly!! This man has fucked you against public toilet cubicle doors, he's fucking you full Nelson in the basketball changing rooms, and you two have even fucked on an aeroplane when the ace was called for an away game... But reality does hit Zayne when you two almost get caught (which happens less often than you'd think). If someone ever almost walks in on you two, Zayne comes back to reality real quick; pulling out and dressing you. You have taken note that Zayne never goes to cover himself up first though; even in moments of panic, he thinks of you first... Worship is another huuuuuuge kink of Zayne's! Whilst his playboy persona is partially an act, his ego still controls him; so of course, watching you worship and appreciate his body and marvel at his beauty turns him on! Zayne loves to watch you as you lick and kiss his muscular back, his shoulders, his huge, long biceps, his thick thighs, his thick ass, and most definitely his cock; holy shit does Zayne love it when you admire his huge dick and comment on how huge he his.

Bryce Callahan ~ dating

*CRASH* You weren't exactly sure what you'd bumped into, but you knew that it was nice n soft. You were late for your track meet, something you'd never been as one of the top runners at Olympus. And as one of the top runners, you were going at lightning speed; so much so that you blinked and you had crashing into something. Or rather, someone... Bryce Callahan. You knew of the ginger wrestler and he knew of you. By your first month at Olympus, you two knew of each other; both having quickly gained reputations and popularity, although for very different reasons. You had been out and proud about your sexuality since your first day, and if anything that gained you some brownie points. But in general, everyone just naturally loves you; you're nice to everyone no matter if you know them or not, and you just have this confidence and aura around you that draws people in. Bryce on the other hand is your stereotypical asshole jock, but he quickly gained popularity not just because of his looks but also because of the parties he throws. It's at said parties that Bryce has noticed you before. He'd heard of you before, with some guys on his team and that he hangs with talking about you and how they'd 'hit that'. But seeing you at parties, he kind of got it. Bryce understood why you were just as popular as him, if not more popular; you were objectively attractive, but damn why were you so magnetic? But back to whatever it was you crashed into. It was soft, so you assumed it had to be a person. But, as you peeled yourself off of whoever you had smashed your face into, you heard the person make a comment "Bro what the fuck?! You that fuckin' desperate to cop a feel?" You quickly noticed that your impact had been softened by none other than Bryce; more specifically by the muscular giant's huge pecs.

A short spout of bickering took place between the two of you after that comment; all of Bryce's remarks having slightly homophobic undertones. But when you saw the track team start practice, you gave up on the little argument you were having with the ginger; who obviously claimed that he won the argument and that you 'backed down'. And that pretty much summarises your relationship with the wrestler. You didn't like Bryce; he was an abrasive and douchey 'alpha male' who clearly had some homophobic tendencies. Bryce didn't like you; you were a gay guy who acted as flamboyant as you wanted to if that's how you felt. But if Bryce didn't like you, why was he blushing all throughout your interaction? Why were his heart and mind racing even hours after his first interaction with you? Why couldn't he force his eyes off of your ass as you hurried away to your track meet? 'fuck off I ain't gay. Just stop thinkin' you idiot' Bryce repeated over and over in his head, trying his best to deny the pounding warmth he felt in his chest.

It was only after this fated first interaction between the two of you, that you and Bryce began really noticing each other; especially since you two kept running into each other no matter where you were, though it was mostly at parties. It would always go the same: the two of you would bump into each other, Bryce would make a comment about you, and you would retort with a wittier comment which would make the ginger short-circuit. You quickly gathered that the wrestler wasn't a fan of gay people, so you figured you could get a kick out of the hunk's bigotry by adding in compliments and blatant flirtations throughout your bickers. "That the best you could come up with, handsome?" "You're lucky you're hot, 'cause holy shit are you dumb" "Awww just couldn't stay away from me tonight could you?" Comments along those lines would always result in Bryce stuttering and flushing a dusty pink; his snide comments halting, which meant you won the argument.

However, this routine changed over time. You noticed that Bryce remained outspoken and douchey around his bros; but as the night progressed and the alcohol kept flowing, the beefy man's demeanour would change. Instead of one interaction between the two of you per night, it changed to two. The first remained the same as always; Bryce would come up to you (subconsciously trying to find you at every party) and the two of you would have a squawking match. But a second interaction between the two of you also became routine; one which was only due to Bryce's affinity for drinking (alcoholism). During the latter half of the party, the more laid-back and less hype half, a drunk Bryce would make his way over to you. And for a solid hour or two, the intoxicated wrestler would blatantly flirt with you. At first, you assumed that the homophobe was taking the piss out of you and joking around; but you quickly realised that this wasn't the case. And so, the only reaction you could provide the man with every single time he would drunkenly compliment and flirt with you was a chuckle and a smile. 'He's such a closeted cunt' was all you could think throughout his inebriated advances. A small part of you felt bad for Bryce, but his sober, homophobic actions and comments hushed that sympathetic part of you. But as more and more nights go past and you attend more and more parties, that sympathetic part of you grows louder. 'Poor guy is so deep in the closet' you would think as Bryce's flushed face looks down towards you. His massive body caged you against a wall, the drink in your hand was the only thing dividing the two of you. And as compliments of your looks and personality fall off of Bryce's tongue, his half-lidded eyes looking down into yours, all you can do is feel bad for the ginger; having noticed that he'd sobered up a while ago but didn't want to part from you. Bryce's words had stopped slurring, the flush on his face was no longer from the alcohol but rather from his proximity to you, and his eyes were no longer half-lidded due to fatigue but rather due to want and need. 'What the fuck am I doing?! This is pathetic. I'm not... gay! But I don't want to stop'

But these drunken-to-sober moments weren't enough for Bryce to come to terms with the raging storm that was his inner battle with his sexuality. What did force the ginger to acknowledge his feelings though, was a moment at a tournament of his. Bryce was always nervous before matches desptie never letting that show. But that day especially, nothing could calm him down. So as he stepped out into the ring and looked around, the wrestler caught himself scanning the crowd for your face. Shit. Why was he doing that? 'For fucks sake get a grip, you ain't gay!' The ginger thought, but his thoughts were quickly silenced. All of his thoughts were silenced when he saw your face in the crowd. Not just his self-deprecating thoughts, but all of his worries had been drowned out by his heartbeat. Fuck. He liked you. He couldn't even deny it anymore. The smile you shot him really sealed the deal though; Bryce's face flushing when his eyes made contact with yours.

Bryce was stressed out that he had to work through all of this uncovered information; he had buried all thoughts about his sexuality early on in his life. However, what Bryce didn't expect was that you'd be there for him through this. In fact, it was at the very next party the two of you were attending that you walked up to the wrestler; not caring that he was surrounded by his equally douchey bros. You asked to talk to Bryce in private and after a moment of shock, Bryce followed you to a secluded bedroom on the upper floors of whatever party house you were in; his bros making lewd comments and thrusting motions as the two of you walked away from them.

The room was surprisingly silent; only a faint sound of music from downstairs could be heard. And long story short, you gave Bryce a brief speech about you and your sexuality; how it took you a while to get as confident as you are in your queerness and that you thought other people would care a lot more than they actually did. You did this to try and create a safe space for Bryce; you didn't expect him to start crying right away... So after comforting the massive wrestler, holding him into your (much smaller) body and rubbing your hand over his huge back to soothe him, Bryce finally felt comfortable enough to start talking. He confided in you about everything. Bryce explained that his hate for you had changed over time. He knew he didn't hate you because you were gay. He hated you because you forced him to deal with this part of him. You forced him to deal with his inner turmoil for the better part of a year. But when you asked if he still hated you, the ginger's answer was no. No, Bryce couldn't hate you. Not when you were the only reason, outside of wrestling, that he would wake up in the morning. He didn't hate you. Rather, Bryce was jealous of you. "You're just as well known as me. You have an even bigger reputation to uphold. But you just don't care..! You don't let all that fuckin' social pressure affect you and that makes my heart burn! Why can't I just be like you?!" Bryce's eyes fill with tears again but they don't fall this time. Bryce also admitted that he doesn't find himself attractive in the slightest. You could tell since your first meeting that Bryce was insecure, but damn you didn't expect him to be that insecure. You try to uplift the man's spirits with a 'Hey! I find you hot...! I um, I guess' and all Bryce can reply with is a small chuckle, a smirk, and a 'thanks'.

Ever since that night, Bryce actively tried to change; coming to terms with his sexuality and working on his attitude. Your friendship with him blossomed, and after a couple months of witnessing Bryce's growth (and being bombarded with flirtations and date proposals), you gave the ginger wrestler a shot. And thank fuck you did. Dating Bryce is a rollercoaster for sure, but you enjoy every second of it! The difference between your boyfriend when he's around his bros and when he's around you is night and day! Bryce is such a little baby when you two are alone! Like fully asking for cuddles and to lay his head in your lap as you stroke his orange locks. It took him a while to be comfortable with the fact that the two of you were dating and that he was gay, but the first time Bryce responded to one of his bros comments with 'yeah he's my boyfriend. So what?'? You were so proud of your man that you let him hit it like craaaaaazyy! We're talking the sloppiest top and letting Bryce go to town on your ass. Bryce is still a party animal, so he'll still go to (and throw) ragers, but only if you're going to said party as well; which you usually do. But! The giant hunk will always make sure that he's less drunk than you are, in case he has to go back to his 'alpha male' personality in order to protect you. He just always feels this primal urge to be your protector and show you that he's the only man you'll ever need! On that same note, holy fucking shit does Bryce get JEALOUS. We're talking practically resource-guarding you whenever a guy even talks to you at a party! And god forbid the ginger goes to grab you a drink and some guy tries to make a move? Your muscular boyfriend is going full-on alpha bro and threatening to beat the shit out of whatever 'beta male' was chatting you up. He's like actually so fucking in love with you it's insane. INSANELY HOT!!

Bryce Callahan ~ nsfw

Your first time with Bryce was certainly something. Your boyfriend's a little on the dumb side, so you don't blame him for assuming sex with a man wouldn't be that different from sex with a woman. You did have a go at Bryce when he tried to shove his HUGE dick inside of you not only without prep but also without any lube! But despite being on the slower side, Bryce cared about you enough to learn quickly how to have gay sex. And holy shit once he did? 100/10 experience! He just knew exactly what to do! Knew how to use his huge, strong hands and how to move you about.

Now while you do love everything about your boyfriend, you can't deny that his body and looks are at least 50% of his sex appeal (the other half being his attitude during sex). Your man is a wrestler for god's sake! Look at his fucking body! His back is broad and built, his thighs are the same circumference as your waist, his hands and feet are massive, his ass is thick and bouncy, and his fucking biceps? Holy shit. Despite being hesitant at first when you asked him to put you in a headlock whilst fucking you, Bryce now does it every single time you two fuck 'cause it turns you on so much that you cum within a few seconds! Your moans getting so much louder and so much more raw; it turns Bryce on so much to know that he's getting you like that.

Bryce knows how to get you going too! Other than getting you in a headlock, the ginger knows that you in general have a thing for how much bigger and stronger he is than you; and trust, he fucking loves that too! Bryce loves how infatuated you are with his huge arms; he loves that you love his thick biceps. If he wants to fuck, all Bryce has to do is take his shirt off 'cause it's hot' and flex his arms as he puts them behind his head; not only showing off his BUILT arms but also his orange, bushy armpits. You're on your knees within seconds. Bryce has also ascertained that you have a huge thing for his massive, rough hands. You love how big they are and how calloused and rough they feel against your soft skin; trust and believe that Bryce is into that too! It just turns you on so much when Bryce is rocking your shit and his hands are roughly holding your hips, or gripping your plush asscheeks, or gripping your face and squishing your cheeks together.

Kinks: Bryce has a huuuuuuuuuuge breeding kink. Which is really weird cause whenever he's had sex with women, he's never even dared to cum inside; stressed about actually getting them pregnant. But with you? Bryce can let go and cum inside of you, shouting filthy comments like 'gonna fuckin knock you up, babe!', 'Wanna put a baby in ya sooooo badddd Hngggg~', and 'Shit- wanna start a family, baby?' whilst he's balls deep inside of you, teetering closer and closer to the edge. It must be that the comfort of knowing that you physically cannot get pregnant is always subconsciously there; so Bryce can fill you up with his hot, weirdly thick, jizz without a second thought!

Another thing that about Bryce is that he gets incredibly into it in the moment. The ginger gets like, really into sex. It makes sense that he was assigned to the House of Dionysus! And 'really into sex' specifically means getting borderline animalistic. Bryce will fuck you so wildly and so roughly that the wind sometimes gets knocked out of your lungs! However, this does mean that you can just lay there and take it! 'Cause Bryce is willing to put in all the effort; holding your hips up with a tight grip as he roughly pounds into you if you wanna go doggy. Or if you wanna do missionary, all you gotta do is wrap your arms around your boyfriend's neck and he'll do all the rest! Resting your legs on his muscular arms and making out with you as he drills his huge dick into you at a pace and force that shouldn't be humanly possible!

Another thing that your muscular boyfriend has a thing for is fake wrestling. He likes that your sport focuses on stamina over strength, 'cause that means Bryce can overpower you easily and put you in all sorts of lewd positions. The man feels so powerful when he forces a whine or whimper out of you when he puts you in a position that stretches you to your limit, and he loves to play innocent when he puts you in a leg hold that forces his huge, musky bulge into your face!

Shorter headcannons for the remaining characters!

Yuuto Nakajima ~ dating

You and Yuuto knew each other from your lectures; rather than having met due to your respective sports. The two of you quickly became close friends! Your personalities just worked together! The both of you shared a love for the subject you were both studying at Olympus but also your respective sports and other hobbies and interests; you two were just meant to be friends! Your friendship with Yuuto very quickly grew past lectures; with the hyperactive volleyball player visiting your dorm on the daily and the two of you hanging out and going out to town at least three times a week! You quickly realised that Yuuto was definitely sorted into the right house at Olympus; Artemis being the god of wild animals and nature couldn't be more perfect for the Ace volleyballer. Yuuto would constantly take you out to parks and forests, showing you the beauty of nature and how freeing it felt.

But a problem rapidly arose. You were slowly but surely falling for your friend. But who could blame you!? Yuuto is just so compassionate and empathetic towards everyone; especially towards you! And his whole thing about real men wearing pink? You're sold. You also literally could not deny how fucking hot Yuuto was! He's a solid six foot with tan skin and such a perfectly muscular yet lean build. His face was textbook attractive! And that toothy grin? You're ashamed to admit that you have jerked it multiple times to just Yuuto's looks alone!

However, you were unaware that this problem was actually not a problem at all. Because Yuuto was equally (if not more) head-over-heels for you! Yuuto loved how you matched him so well. He's incredibly energetic and has literally been diagnosed with ADHD but you can keep up with him. You don't mind his erratic topic shifts and topic loops in conversation, and you join him on his random-ass sidequests like it's a part of your daily routine. Most people have just called him annoying and moved on in the past so Yuuto masks like it's second nature; toning down his natural behaviours and almost faking his way through social situations. But with you, Yuuto feels like he can just be himself! Additionally, you're Yuuto's type to a tee. Like the man couldn't possibly find you more attractive than he already does! So it didn't really shock anyone to find out that by the end of freshman year, you and Yuuto were a couple! And it's been the best experience of your life so far! For real, Yuuto treats you like royalty; like you hung the moon and stars yourself. The two of you will never miss a sports event in which the other is participating. Yuuto is quite literally your biggest supporter; he's always on the sidelines screaming your name and compliments constantly fall off of his tongue after you win a race. You do the same for Yuuto though! You're your boyfriend's No.1 cheerleader! You watch the ace volleyballer like a hawk at his games whilst you cheer his name; and before each game, you promise him special rewards. Although these usually come back to bite you in the ass; once you promised him a round for every point he scored... He scored ten points in the first match alone.

Dates with Yuuto are pretty run-of-the-mill! Romantic settings and gestures. But your boyfriend's personal favourites are the dates where the two of you just spend time together at home; either watching films or cooking or just cuddling and chatting.

You both gifted each other a lucky trinket on your one-year anniversary. Yuuto gave you an expensive bracelet engraved with your initials and his (along with sweets and flowers). You gifted Yuuto a necklace with a pink crystal on it. You were upset that your gift was much less expensive and fancy than his, but Yuuto assured you that he loved it simply because it was a gift from you. And since then, Yuuto has only ever taken it off to shower~

Yuuto Nakajima ~ nsfw

Sex with Yuuto is fucking fun! It's just always so enjoyable. Your boyfriend is fucking wild in bed but in the best ways! He'll get so lost in pleasure that his eyes roll back and his tongue slips out of his mouth as he drills his 8-inch, slender dick into you. Yuuto's constantly grinning and smiling when the two of you fuck and it rubs off on you! He's just so happy and his ego swells so much 'cause he's the only man in the world that gets to have you!

Breeding kink? Yessir! Once again, the house of Artemis makes sense for Yuuto! God of childbirth sure does make sense for a guy who wants nothing more than to fill you up with multiple loads and watch your belly grow with his child~ But for real, make even the slightest mention of him 'breeding' you or 'knocking you up' and Yuuto is moaning, whining, and cumming.

Biting and marking is another big thing for your boyfriend! Yuuto has his possessive side and wants the world to know that you belong to him and that he belongs to you! After a night with him, your thighs, neck, chest, ass, and even your stomach are littered with lovebites and hickeys. But the same goes for Yuuto! You make good work of your boyfriend's neck and shoulders; especially when the man is pounding you into next week!

Leo Mendez ~ dating

You first met the ace of the Olympus soccer team at training. Most of football as a sport is cardio and running; so a lot of your track meets and training sessions were shared with the soccer team. You and Leo were almost immediately drawn to each other. You liked his cheerful and energetic personality; he had that boyish charm that a lot of the guys at Olympus lack, as they preferred to show themselves as macho men. Leo on the other hand was also very attracted to you very quickly. The blonde liked how you treated your teammates and even treated the soccer team as if they were family; and your looks also had the man head over heels... Leo just couldn't get enough of those trackstar legs and that ass?! Gah Damn!

Being a ball of sunshine who is worryingly optimistic, Leo didn't see why he shouldn't just straight up ask you out; he was into you, why wouldn't he act on that? A quick "Hey you wanna go out sometime? :)" text was shot your way and the two of you were already out at a cute little cafe in town! The whole talking and dating process came so naturally with Leo! The soccer star would blatantly flirt with you and compliment you on your looks, personality, and smarts; and it was anything but cringe! In fact, it was really fucking charming and refreshing!

Dating the the twunk was just as wholesome as you'd expect it to be! You and Leo shared cute moments every day you're together: You've had to wipe whipped cream off of Leo's nose when he too hastily drank his coffee You fix each other's messy hair after a game or race on the daily Leo will constantly trace shapes into your skin with his fingers; hearts, stars, you name it And the amount of times you two have bumped noses when kissing is too many to count!

Leo will also constantly compliment you. He's a charmer for sure! Your blonde footballer will flash you a toothy grin and when asked why he's smiling will reply with 'You're just so pretty' followed by a chuckle. Literally heart-melting shit. That being said, you also compliment and praise your boyfriend a lot! And his reactions are pure gold! Leo's tan face will just flush a dark pink at any compliments which fall off of your tongue, but the praise is what really gets him. Any positive comment of yours about his soccer skills or god forbid a mention of you being proud of him? He's hard. Full-on boner mid-field. -_-

Leo Mendez ~ nsfw

If you were to ask him, Leo would say he was verse. But in literally every single one of his past relationships, he's never been the top... So you can imagine how fucking ecstatic the man is when he learns that you prefer bottoming 'cause bro loves topping! Though one thing that the blonde has learned from his past relations as a bottom is that he sure does love getting his ass eaten! Leo fucking loves it when you switch between skillfully sucking his dick and slopping rimming him; his eyes always end up rolling to the back of his head and his fingers tangled in your hair whenever you pull out that combo. OH! And not to mention how fucking hot you both find it when you go ham on Leo's ass after a football match! His musk and sweaty, salty yet sweet taste coats your tongue so nicely as you lap at your boyfriend's hole through his jockstrap; an arm of yours holding the small of his back down as your other hand grabs one of the straps of his jock like some sort of rein on a horse.

You have a huge thing for Leo's tanlines. Your boyfriend just looks so hot with his sunkissed skin and those erotic lines highlighting the parts of his body that he only lets you see~ And yes, he does have a tanline underneath that pointless bandaid on his nose.

No matter what the two of you are doing, even if Leo's balls-deep inside of you, the blonde's all jokes and toothy smiles! He's just so appreciative of you and grateful that you're so comfortable with him to allow him to be so intimate with you! He's so cute wtf.

Avan Geiserford ~ dating

As the student council president, one of Avan's many responsibilities is ensuring all clubs and departments are running smoothly and performing as they should be. Therefore, you first met the responsible man during a performance assessment he was conducting on the track team. And being the blunt man that he is, Avan listed off everything that needed to be improved about the team; without a single positive compliment to be found. "Don't you think that's a little rude? I mean I get we can improve but track is ranked third for overall performance" You commented. But you weren't met with a counterargument... "Oh, I apologise. The track team is indeed performing above average" And with an awkward smile, Avan left.

That socially inept rizz worked on you though... 'Cause why did you find the awkward man sort of refreshing? He spoke facts but when called out for something, he would take full accountability and apologise. That's better than most guys you've been with! The bar is in hell.

You took a liking to the swimmer. So you started going out of your way to see him. Avan didn't mind your presence; you weren't as smart as him but you were near the top of your class, so you helped him out with council business. You'd even helped the stresshead solve the council's budget problem in only a couple of days. He'd been stuck on that for weeks! After spending many hours together over a couple of months, Avan considered you a close friend of his. The two of you would not only work on council business together, but you would hang out too! You would sleep over at Avan's after binging starwars; having fallen asleep midway through the nerd's in-depth explanation of the lore. Avan would even ask you to come to support him at swim meets; watching you cheer him on and run up to him for a hug after he wins, it just made him feel all warm n fuzzy inside! Shit. That's when the man realised he was down bad for you.

You had the poor guy stressing; well you didn't, but the idea of having to ask you out had Avan losing sleep! And he's the typa guy who goes goes to bed at 10pm sharp and harps on about the importance of sleep. But you showed mercy to Avan when you asked him out! The navy-haired man took the deepest sigh of relief when you brought your lips to his. His reaction made you think he didn't feel the same at first! But when he saw the worry on your face, Avan blurted out a "ILikeYouToo.DoYouWannaGoOutSometime?"

Despite his socially awkward side, Avan is the perfect boyfriend. Yes the PDA can get a little awkward, and his hands get clammy when holding yours in public, but it's all in a cute way you know? But other than that he's textbook Prince Charming! We're talking pre-planning and scheduling dates for the month... This sounds annoying, but Avan makes sure to work them around your schedules and to only inform you of them a week before! The only reason you know he schedules dates is 'cause you found them in his daily planner T-T

Avan Geiserford ~ nsfw

Surprisingly, you were Avan's first! You expected such a hot and smart jock to have suitors lined up for him! But Avan's never really been interested in all the romance and sex that goes on at Olympus. That was until he met you.

Because of his lack of experience, your boyfriend gets hard at everything you do... Hey, he finds it hard to separate love and lust! To him, because you're his boyfriend, his love for you translates to a deep attraction! Avan will get hard from you trying on his glasses; to him, it's a simple gesture which not only makes you look fucking adorable but also has a few possessive undertones. Your ace swimmer will also pop a boner at the many compliments you throw his way; it doesn't matter if you're complimenting his looks, his skills, or his smarts, Avan will get hard just because his gorgeous boyfriend is complimenting him of all the people you could be complimenting! Avan even gets hard watching you study with him! He just thinks you're so smart that it's sexy.

Despite having a very vanilla first time, and being a generally vanilla type of guy, Avan does have one very specific thing that gets him going. That being pools. Not just being in pools obviously. But being with you in a pool? Shocker, he's hard again. The swimmer just loves seeing you in his domain; your soft skin wet and your curves are highlighted by your swimwear. Avan not only appreciates your body, but holy shit does he get an ego boost that a guy as hot as you is his and his alone. Oh, and the water does feel real good around you two as Avan holds you against him; grindings his hard dick into yours as the two of you make out in the pool.

Ace Anderson ~ dating

This man is a total Hikikomori. Like, he didn't leave his room during his first year at Olympus. But at some point at the start of his second year, Ace noticed you on his commute. He's a total perv who literally cannot go anywhere without finding any man around him hot; imagining them in different levels of nudity and in all sorts of different scenarios. When Ace first saw you on his way to his lecture, he of course noticed how attractive you were! He liked your body shape, your ass, and even weirdly specific things like how your feet were perfectly sized for your body. But Ace liked your face the most; his first thought when he saw you was that you could be a good porn star with a face like that (again, he's a fucking perv). Ace took note of how even when resting, your face had this sexy/cute aspect to it; he could easily picture how your face would look with cum splattered on it.

You noticed him checking you out and decided to have a little fun. Hey! A pretty hot guy kept checking you out. Naturally, you batted your eyelashes and smiled back at him! And that was all it took for the two of you to start talking and hanging out.

But even though the two of you weren't even dating yet, Ace would profusely fantasise about dating you and fucking! During dates/hangouts at your place he would constantly snoop through your shit; checking out what underwear you owned to more accurately imagine you in them, and even finding your dildo and other kinky things of yours. Clearly, the man wasn't just a pervert, but he also didn't know how to respect boundaries. And though Ace said nothing about your toys in the moments, he sure as hell jerked to the thought of you using whatever he found!

Once the two of you started officially dating, Ace began showing his perverted side more and more. He would casually ask if he could keep your used underwear. Like it was nothing! But you knew Ace well enough to expect something like that; you were dating the pervert after all...

Ace Anderson ~ nsfw

Before the two of you met, Ace's hobbies consisted of spending all day watching porn and fantasising about men... But now that he has you, Ace doesn't necessarily need his porn; yet that doesn't mean that he doesn't still enjoy it. So imagine the blue-headed man's elation when you agreed to just watch some porn with him and jerk each other off instead of fucking. The two of you spent a solid two hours just edging and gooning to Ace's favourite vids; and to be fair, you both really enjoyed yourselves. No massive amounts of effort had to be put into it, and you didn't feel like you needed to put on a performance for your boyfriend. It was just raw pleasure.

Other than his porn hobby (addiction), Ace discovered that he has a passion for directing erotic films; not just enjoying them! So again, your twunk boyfriend was very happy when you agreed to some spicy photoshoots and recording sessions from time to time! Ace was into anything as long as it was on camera. He loved filming the two of you fucking, he loved filming you as you jerked off or fingered yourself. Ace even liked directing you; he would get so turned on when he would watch his videos back and hear himself behind the camera giving you pointers or guiding you through whatever you were doing.

I hope you guys enjoyed! To be fully honest I just feel like something is off with this fic. I've tried rewording and re-organising it so much but I give up. Hope it's just me and that you guys like it!

Been desperate for some Jock Studio stuff and assumed you guys would be too so hope I fed y'all right!

Love you guys so so much - Byeeee

Note from two days later: this is a piece of shit omfg get this fic out of my sight

Note from one more day later: Eh it's fine ig. Just wrote Bryce's section and holy shit that's like a whole fic by itself T-T

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Point of View: the Biggest Thing You're Missing!

Point of view is one of the most important elements of narrative fiction, especially in our modern writing climate, but you rarely hear it seriously discussed unless you go to school for writing; rarely do help blogs or channels hit on it, and when they do, it's never as in-depth as it should be. This is my intro to POV: what you're probably missing out on right now and why it matters. There are three essential parts of POV that we'll discuss.

Person: This is the easiest part to understand and the part you probably know already. You can write in first person (I/me), second (You), and third person (He/she/they). You might hear people talk about how first person brings the reader closer to the central character, and third person keeps them further away, but this isn't true (and will be talked about in the third part of this post!) You can keep the reader at an intimate or alien distance to a character regardless of which person you write in. The only difference--and this is arguable--is that first person necessitates this intimacy where third person doesn't, but you still can create this intimacy in third person just as easily. In general, third person was the dominant (and really the only) tense until the late 19th century, and first person grew in popularity with the advent of modernism, and nowadays, many children's/YA/NA books are written in first person (though this of course doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't write those genres in the third person). Second person is the bastard child. Don't touch it, even if you think you're clever, for anything the length of a novel. Shorter experimental pieces can use it well, but for anything long, its sounds more like a gimmick than a genuine stylistic choice.

Viewpoint Character: This is a simple idea that's difficult in practice. Ask yourself who is telling your story. This is typically the main character, but it needn't be. Books like The Book Thief, The Great Gatsby, Rebecca, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Sherlock series are told from the perspective of a side character who isn't of chief importance to the narrative. Your viewpoint character is this side character, the character the reader is seeing the world through, so the main character has to be described through them. This isn't a super popular narrative choice because authors usually like to write from the perspective of their most interesting character, but if you think this choice could fit your story, go for it! You can also swap viewpoint characters throughout a story! A word of warning on that: only change your viewpoint character during a scene/chapter break. Switching mid-scene without alerting the reader (and even when you do alert the reader) will cause confusion. I guarantee it.

Means of Perception; or, the Camera: This part ties the first two together. If you've ever heard people talk about an omniscient, limited, etc. narrator, this is what they mean. This part also includes the level of intimacy the reader has with the viewpoint character: are we in their heads, reading their thoughts, or are we so far away that we can only see their actions? If your story is in a limited means of perception, you only have access to your character's head, eyes, and interpretations, where an omniscient narrator sees through all characters' heads at once. (This doesn't eliminate the viewpoint character--most of your writing will still be in that character's head, but you're allowed to reach into other characters' thoughts when needed. You could also be Virginia Woolf, who does fluidly move through everyone's perspectives without a solid viewpoint character, but I would advise against this unless you really are a master of the craft.) Older novels skew towards third person omniscient narration, where contemporary novels skew towards first person limited. You also have a spectrum of "distant" and "close." If omniscient and limited are a spectrum of where the camera can swivel to, distant and close is a spectrum of how much the camera can zoom in and out. Distant only has access to the physical realities of the world and can come off as cold, and close accesses your character's (or characters', if omniscient) thoughts. Notice how I said narration. Your means of perception dramatically effects how your story can be told! Here's a scene from one of my stories rewritten in third-person distant omniscient. The scene is a high school football game:

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” She shivered; the wind blew in. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, stuttered there, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” She met his eyes, which he pulled away. “You don’t mean that," Piper said. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” The cloth of Carmen's uniform caved and expanded under Piper's fingers.

With distant-omniscient, we only get the bare actions of the scene: the wind blows in, Piper shivers, the cloth rises and falls, Carmen points, etc. But you can tell there's some emotional and romantic tension in the scene, so let's highlight that with a first person limited close POV:

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” Frost spread up from her legs and filled her as if she were perforated rock, froze and expanded against herself so that any motion would disturb a world far greater than her, would drop needles through the mind’s fabric. A misplaced word would shatter her, shatter him. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, thought better, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” “You don’t mean that.” She spoke like a jaded mother, spoke with some level of implied authority, and reminded herself again to stop. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” Piper felt the cloth of his waist cave and expand under her fingers and thought: is this not confidence?

Here, we get into Piper's thoughts and physical sensations: how the frost rises up her, and how this sensation of cold is really her body expressing her nervous fears; how she "thought better" and put her arm around his waist; her thought "is this not confidence?"; and how she reminds herself not to talk like a mother. Since I was writing from the close, limited perspective of a nervous high schooler, I wrote like one. If I was writing from the same perspective but with a child or an older person, I would write like them. If you're writing from those perspectives in distant narration, however, you don't need to write with those tones but with the authorial tone of "the narrator."

This is a lot of info, so let's synthesize this into easy bullet points to remember.

Limited vs. Omniscient. Are you stuck to one character's perspective per scene or many?

Close vs. Distant. Can you read your characters' thoughts or only their external worlds? Remember: if you can read your character's thoughts, you also need to write like you are that character experiencing the story. If child, write like child; if teen, write like teen; etc.

Here's another way to look at it!

This is a confusing and complex topics, so if you have any questions, hit up my ask box, and I'll answer as best I can. The long and short of it is to understand which POV you're writing from and to ruthlessly stick to it. If you're writing in limited close, under no circumstances should you describe how a character other than your viewpoint character is feeling. Maintaining a solid POV is necessary to keeping the dream in the reader's head. Don't make them stumble by tripping up on POV!

[vincentbriggs]

Do you need a sewing machine to start making shirts and vests? Is hand sewing an option worth considering, or should I invest in a machine, in your opinion?

That's really a matter of personal preference!

Do you need a machine? Absolutely not! Every garment ever made before the 1840's was sewn by hand, and a lot of them after that too. I've sewn many garments completely by hand, including the early 18th century tiddy-out-violinist shirt, these bright orange breeches, and this green waistcoat.

Is it nice to have a machine? I think so, but again, individual opinions vary!

One of the costumers I follow sews everything 100% by hand because she finds it meditative and isn't interested in using a machine at all. Some people hate hand sewing and prefer to do everything by machine, with maybe a bit of hand finishing if they absolutely can't avoid it.

I do about a 50/50 split overall, maybe skewing a bit more towards hand sewing. I like to do pants, shirts, and nightgowns mostly by machine with some hand finishing, but for jackets and waistcoats I usually do considerably more hand sewing than machine, because I like 18th century tailoring techniques and think they give a nicer looking result. I do most of my buttonholes by hand, or I do them by machine first and then cover them in hand stitching.

Most people who sew do at least some of it by machine, but again, I don't know which way you prefer to work, so I'd suggest trying out both to see how you feel abut them.

For hand sewing, I suspect a lot of people hate it because they're using shitty needles and/or shitty thread, and perhaps haven't found good resources for hand sewing techniques.

Here's a post of hand sewing advice that I found quite helpful a decade ago. Use good needles because the eyes of the cheap ones have jagged edges and will ruin your thread! Use nice thread because the wrong kind will be twisty and tangly and will fray more!

Thimbles are good and useful, and typically they go on the middle finger of your dominant hand, and you use them to push the needle. I prefer metal thimbles and dislike using leather ones, but some people prefer the leather ones, or rubber ones.

The metal ones come in sizes, and I don't know how to find out your size aside from trying them on in person, but I know I'm a size 11.

One very important thing is that if you're hand sewing a garment, look for hand sewing specific instructions on how to do the construction techniques you're going for. A lot of the time when someone nowadays is trying to figure out how to hand sew a thing they'll just try and copy the machine sewn version, and a lot of the time that's inefficient and more difficult and the result looks worse, because machines and hands work very differently!

This is something I'm going to briefly discuss in the outro to the very long shirt video I'm working on, because it's so very common, and I've done it too! On several of my earlier hand sewn shirts I didn't know to turn the edge in on the front slit and do a little narrow hem, so I instead sewed on a facing for the front slit and cut and turned it, just like I'd seen on machine sewn shirts. This made it about 3x more time consuming, and the result was much bulkier and looked worse.

I've got so many more things to say about sewing but it's almost bedtime and I don't want to make this post too long.

For machine sewing, again there's a lot of personal choice. Some people like newer machines, some people like vintage or antique ones. I'm one of the ones who prefers solid metal vintage machines. I grew up using an old cast iron Singer, and the newer domestic machines just feel so plasticy and insubstantial to me. I'm used to ones that just do straight stitch and can also go backwards, but some people are perfectly happy with ones that can't even backstitch.

I do think that for a beginner the vintage machines are a better deal, because if you're patient and look around for a while you can snag one for really cheap at a thrift store, yard sale, facebook marketplace, etc. Also they're mostly metal and therefore harder to break.

I recently got a Pfaff (from I think the 1960's?) at an estate sale for 25 bucks. The zig zag mechanism is stuck and needs fixing, but I cleaned & oiled it up and it works just fine for regular straight stitching.

There are SO MANY online resources for how to clean, oil, and fix vintage sewing machines, especially the more popular brands, and a lot of the time cleaning & oiling is all they need. Read the manual and get an oil bottle with a nice long pointy thing so you can reach all the parts, and get some compressed air to whoosh out the fuzz. If it's old and hasn't been used in years, turn the hand wheel and observe every single place where metal rubs against metal, and Make It Greasy There.

(If you don't have the manual, you can often find those online too. I even found the service manual for my new-old Pfaff! I have the original users manual, but this one's for the people doing repairs.)

Oh this post is getting much too long! If you don't know yet if you like machine sewing, try seeing if you can use one without owning it, perhaps at a sewing class or in a makerspace. I know some libraries can loan out machines. A sewing class would probably be a good idea actually, if there are any available where you live!

Much like how you'll have a bad time hand sewing if you've got shitty supplies and no proper instructions on good techniques, you'll have a bad time machine sewing if it's not oiled well and if the tension is uneven.

There are so so very many things to learn about sewing and I hope I'm not making it sound too overwhelming, because I promise it's not if you take it one step at a time!

Also, when someone who's been sewing for a long time says "You may think you can ignore (piece of sewing advice), but actually that's bad and you will regret it", they're usually right. Oh, how I regret not learning to use a thimble years earlier than I did...

Sorry this post is so long, I hope it's helpful!

Basically, there's no one best way to sew anything, and you should try different stuff and see what works best for you, because everyone has different preferences.

[paperbackpanic]

Hiii, if you’re still open to requests, may I suggest either Tim/masky or EJ (or anyone you prefer really) with a super femme S/O who’s just really crass. Like they love all things cute and pink but they’ll take every opportunity to say the most outrageous thing they can think of

EJ and Masky with a hyper fem s/o who says outrageous stuff

A/n: hii!! Omg I loved this request specially because I'm kinda like that? I mean my mouth sometimes runs faster than my mind and I end up saying outrageous things but it is not, like, on purpose most of the time and I really like dressing super fem! I also really love writing for EJ and Masky :D. Sorry for the long rant I'm kinda lonely and need to run my "mouth" out a bit, anyway I hope you enjoy!!

A bit of a content warning for NSFW and generally gross topics but nothing too explicit.

Eyeless Jack

🎀 honestly you too contrast so much is kinda comical. EJ is the dark serious silent type and you are a cute and pink agent of chaos who honestly can talk a lot, specially considering you take every opportunity to say absurds.

🎀 Is pretty hard to surprise/get him off guard but when he first meet you he was pretty surprised, he thought you would be the shy "feminine energy" super polite girl you being really crass caught him a lil bit off guard

🎀 He isn't bothered by the things you say, he honestly find the fact that you're crass quite interesting

🎀 Yap sessions Yap sessions!! You'll let all of your wildest thoughts run out of your mouth and EJ will sit and listen. He won't judge but sometimes a thing you said will generate a long philosophical discussion about why you think that and he usually says something like "you do/say that just because you like to go against the norm or is it something deeper?" to start it off

🎀 You asked him once if his semen could be dyed with food dye BEFORE it came out of his body. It technically can? But like only because you can "tint" the urethra a bit with the dye but it involves a catheter and he's not going to put one in his dick because you want to see how much food dye would take to make his cum neon green. No matter how much you tried to convince him he won't budge ☹️☹️

🎀 You know that scene in some random old movie that I don't know the name with Marilyn Monroe that goes something like that:

"I know more than 200 ways to kill a man"

"You could glue a jar filled with rats to someone's face and then light a torch on the bottom so it would start to heat up and the rats would try to run away by chewing the person face off ☺️"

"201"

That's you two.

🎀 The only time when he will ask you to shut up and be polite is when you need it for your safety. I mean not everyone likes crassness and the most violent creepypastas would kill you without a second thought if you irritate them too much so he'll make sure you know beforehand when it's dangerous for you to be your true self

🎀 As I said in previous headcanons Jack doesn't really see stuff so he doesn't have a solid opinion on your style of clothing, he likes the texture of it though. Ruffles are great to run his hands through

🎀 Over time he just kinda stopped listening your crassness like, not in the literal sense but sometimes people around him point out and he's just "oh I didn't notice" he just filtered out that what you were saying was crass and just registered "my s/o is talking"

🎀 Overall a pretty good relationship, you two balance each other very well

Masky

🎀 He doesn't really like people who are crass or being crass himself. He's too old for that, but he will put up with you out of love.

🎀 Overtime he grew used to how you are, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't look at you like you're insane when you say something particularly out of pocket. Like creeps usually do stuff that's not really polite or demure but they don't typically say stuff out loud (or at least they shouldn't)

🎀 Your cute style is really a pro in his list on why he put up with your bullshit. It might not look like it but he has a soft spot for cute things

🎀 yapping with him might be a little difficult, he will listen to you of course he's not a bad boyfriend but he will shut you down pretty quickly if you're trying to convince him of doing some weird experiment or saying something particularly absurd.

🎀 He will use stuffed animals, cute clothes, nice dinner dates etc. to bribe you to be at least less crass when the situation call for it. You will shut up and be polite and not crass if he just asks nicely but you can't help but exploit him a little on this aspect and I can't blame you

🎀 if you ask him, he will gladly give you some lessons on good manners. He likes you however you are but this is something he thinks you can work on...

🎀 shuts you up with kisses. I will not elaborate

🎀 He has a secret ranking of most outrageous stuff you said to him/near him is only 5 itens long but he likes looking at it from time to time when he's missing you.

🎀 Assuming the Creeps exist in the same universe as us and not in a separate one: you told him about Twink Masky. He did not like it. It was funny

🎀 Despite everything he loves your personality, even if your crassness can be considered a "flaw"

[basedonconjecture]

Keeping in mind that interpretations are subjective, but the reason I personally tend to veer from readings on Lucanis that box him into being reckless, impulsive, etc. is, at least in part, an issue of semantics, I think, in how those traits are positioned in discussion. Yes, these are facets of his personality, but more in that they're minor aspects that are attached to and/or must be triggered by something else as opposed to being the core traits they're often discussed as. And I say this because the only times we see him actually being reckless or impulsive or acting without a plan are under duress. That these facets come out during high emotional points is interesting in what it's saying about Lucanis and how whatever is occurring is effecting him, particularly wrt his emotional repression. It is more interesting to me to read these moments as being outside the norm for him for the significance that then places on them. Illario refers to him as always being in control of himself and a given situation. You can choose to interpret that how you want, but my reading is that’s how the people around him generally tend to view him, too. That his interior thoughts suggest it is a struggle for him to do so against these external expectations even before the Ossuary, when also considered alongside how much time he’s spent repressing his emotions, how he was essentially taught that to have strong emotions was dangerous, his resentment toward how much of his life is centered around decisions he didn't make for himself, and so forth all make these moments where that control breaks that much more significant.

Why is his anger at Forfex so significant? His personal principles were violated to a degree he couldn't ignore. Why is he crashing out at Weisshaupt? Because they're all unprepared to deal with reality of what they find there—he's an assassin, not a solider, and they don’t have a plan for how to deal with it. Why is his plan for confronting Illario after ensuring Caterina is safe reduced to 'knives'? Because now he only has the anger and hurt and betrayal at his cousin to focus on and can't compartmentalize that long enough to think about anything else—that fight is personal, it's ugly, and he still hasn't consciously thought about the repercussions of “taking everything” from Illario. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when he’s faced with the moment of actually having to decide whether he’ll kill Illario or not. Do you see what I mean? They’re linked to moments where his behavior is saying something both about his emotional state and what’s happening narratively. It is also quite interesting, too, to look at how action-oriented he is in nearly every other aspect of his life (also why he approves when Rook makes decisions that prioritize action) except when it comes to his family (or dealing with his emotional problems at large) until he's forced to confront them. There is friction in all these things being at odds with each other at multiple different points between TWJ and VG that is compelling.

[bouquetface]

Moon Darakaraka

Accuracy is influenced by the ENTIRE chart. This is a general info post for beginners not a personal read - your experiences can be drastically different.

🌙 This spouse is likely to be sensitive and moody. They may read into your actions. For example: You text them a joke at their expense, they will be hurt & overthink the text.

🌙 If aspected by Saturn or a benefic in an earth sign, the above can be to a less extent. They are slightly better at grounding and rationalizing their emotions.

🌙 The spouse can be clingy. They require more from you to feel secure in the relationship.

🌙 If in a mutable sign, the spouse is better at adapting/changing. However, they are more controlled by their moods. For example, they may easily change their mind based on mood, they may be bad at following through with plans.

For ex: DK Moon in Sag - they may refuse to make solid long-term plans but they may like discussing the future in a fun, non-serious way. They are better at spontaneously taking action rather than planning things.

🌙 If in a fixed sign, the spouse is stubborn but they will be more stable. In a fixed sign, the spouse can be sarcastic and dry in humour. They are more logical than the usual Moon DK placement. However, they are less likely to be spontaneous. They may struggle to adapt and react poorly when there are sudden changes in routine/the plan.

For ex: DK Moon in Virgo in 4th house - if you attempt to change something abt the home or family without discussion, it'll become a huge problem. This placement gives a spouse who can be a control freak about the home and family.

🌙 The spouse will have a motherly nature. They take care of you like a child - depending on the entire chart this could feel suffocating or loving.

Depending on entire chart, spouse may be enabling. You may indulge with the spouse and often this placement shows a couple who gain significant weight in marriage/relationships.

However, when in a sign like Virgo or in 6th H, this can give a spouse who is concerned with your health habits. They may assure you pick up healthy habits - eat healthy meals, stretch n workout. If aspected by Mars, they may try to get you to cut out unhealthy habits.

IRL EXAMPLES - GOOD & BAD:

Kim K has Moon DK in Pisces in 5th house.

Her specific placement would give a spouse who is moody, creative, romantic and sensitive. DK in the 5th H shows the spouse has HEAVY influence on children you have together (especially the first child) and your own artistic endeavours/expressions.

Positive Traits:

When they were married, he had been known to do grand gestures for Kim - this is the DK Moon in Pisces + 5th H influence showing a romantic side to him. He used to style Kim, showing he did control/influence her creative expression. His daughter, North has already shown interest in music like her father. She appears to look up to her father - showing he does have a big influence on his children (DK in 5th influence).

Negative Traits:

Kim's Moon is harshly aspected by Saturn & Jupiter. Jupiter is expanding the traits of DK Moon (overly sensitive, fragile ego, unstable/moody). Saturn's aspect would normally offer stability to Moon DK, however her Saturn is conjunct Jupiter - Jupiter holding the lowest degree shows Jupiter's influence dominates over Saturn. Thus, Kim was given a spouse who is uncontrollable and struggles to be grounded.

Selena Gomez Moon DK Aries in 10th House.

Postive Traits:

DK in 10th house would show the spouse has influence on your career and public image. After they marry, it wouldn't surprise me if they began working together. They'll likely merge their brands together to become known as one - for ex: Blake lively & Ryan Reynolds - chances are if someone knows Blake, they know Ryan and vice versa.

Moon is a natural benefic. DK Moon in 10th house shows a spouse who is successful in their career. Her Moon aspects Sun further highlighting her Spouse would have status and respect in their career. Benny is a very successful music producer - most people have heard his work.

DK Moon in Aries indicates he is likely outgoing, open about his feelings/expressive and potentially impulsive and bold. So unlike some celebs who remain very private about their personal life/relationship, Benny is pretty open in his interviews.

Potential Negatives:

If there were to be scandals involving Benny, it would heavily impact Selena's reputation as well.

Benny may be impulsive, he could say or do reckless things that eventually hurt Selena. He may be so blunt that he is sometimes rude. He speaks his mind due to Moon being in Aries.

Extra Detail about DK:

DK can show spouse appearance. Selena's Aries Moon aspects Sun. Moon, Aries and Sun are all indicators of a short spouse. Benny is slightly shorter than Selena.

If you simply looked at her 7th house, you'd expect her to have a tall spouse as she has Saturn in Cap (indicators of a tall spouse). So although she had had relationships (7th H influence) with tall men, ultimately her spouse was slightly shorter (DK influence).

This shows the importance of reading the entire chart when looking for specifics.

DK in Aries shows a fast-paced relationship. Selena and Benny got engaged after a year of dating. This shows the DK Aries Moon trait, Benny goes with his intuition rather than what is traditionally the norm. And they did know each other for a very long time as friends and are at a mature age when they marry (Saturn in 7th H influence).

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

I am very intrigued to hear your expanded thots on sub!joe and pegging! I think it adds an extra layer of vulnerability to their relationship that is super interesting. Plus as long as you don’t include it in one of the main fics, people can choose to read it as a part of that universe or not 😊

sub!joe brain dump (NSFW edition)

I'm glad others want to hear about this because!!! It's been bouncing around in my brain for weeks now!

Note: There's more discussion about how the dom/sub dynamics are started, feelings, and relationship in this too.

CW: BDSM dynamics (heavily described, D/S dynamics, swinging), 18+ content (pegging described)

want to read other sub!joe? you're in luck (please note: main fics do not have all these dynamics; this an expansion of the entire universe)

sub!joe masterlist | joe burrow masterlist | main masterlist

________________________________

It always starts with consent. And anything new is always discussed outside of sex. Always, always, always, always. It's non negotiable. I know I haven't talked about it a lot in the fics. But there's a ton more that's happening behind the scenes. Between their escapades, there's a lot of conversations about boundaries, wants, if anything's changed. Safe, sane, and consensual. Pillars that the two of them live so deeply by. 

When these dynamics first started cropping up, Domme sat Joe down. She has experience prior to Joe about it, mentioned to Joe in broad strokes she was previously apart of 'the scene'. Joe took it in stride that it was her history. It intrigued him a little, and he asked all his questions but doesn't delve into specifics. Domme never forced it into their relationship either, didn’t cram it in at every turn. Just mentioned it once, let Joe ask his questions and then let it go. 

But the signs feel so obvious to her. They keep cropping up, how he reaches for her in a crowded room. Sighs into her when they’re alone. Jokes about wishing he could just his brain off. So, Domme makes it a conversation. She only intends to bring it up one more time, and again, let Joe decide if he wants to press it further. She brings the conversation to his attention with a soft and sweet, “Hey, I'm noticing similar things in you and our relationship that I’ve seen in prior dynamics and I want to make sure that a) you like it and b) to discuss if you want to make it a more solid and integrated part of our relationship?”

Of course Joe asks what she means, so she lays it--all facts, all, “I’ve noticed..” or “It appears..” so there’s room for her to be corrected. Which Joe doesn't. Because everything she lays out is true, is what it seems like.

Or so Joe thinks until he asks, “What does it remind you of?”

“Dominant and submissive roles and dynamics--that’s what it reminds me of.”

“And I’m the--” He can’t say it. 

“Well, you’re Joe. But if we map your behaviors onto that framework, the behaviors look like those of a submissive.”

It’s careful. Joe notices that much. She doesn’t call him a sub. Just talk about the behaviors. But he’s taking the leaps. He’s seeing where the conclusions, and summations will all lead. Joe hesitates, hadn't really considered himself a sub or anything. He wasn't oozing a super domineering personality but he took care of shit. He handled shit as it came up, when it needed to be handled. Like he was supposed to do. How could he be a sub when he's literally a leader? It's not like he lets Domme do everything. 

But she's, again, so fucking smooth and soft with it, "Think about it like this. When it's the two of us together, you seem to relax a bit more. You let me do more things for you than you let others do for you. Do you like it when I step up for you in specific situations?" 

“Yes.” Because it makes him feel cared for. Which is easy to answer, to admit too.

“Do you like it when I praise you? When I take a bit more of the control? Not all, but when you get to pass some of the weight over to me, what do you feel?”

“Relieved.” It’s like Joe can breathe easier. “But you feel the same right? When I help you out?”

“Yes,” she nods. “But I like shouldering that weight. I take orders all day at work. I like giving them sometimes.”

Joe is exhausted by them. He makes decisions all the time that by the end of the day he’s sick of it. “So you’re not annoyed when I call you asking for help on what to ask my chef for the week?”

“Never,” she grins. “It makes me feel needed. Like, if intimacy could go into a gas tank and is added into and taken out of. You relying on me in those ways fills my intimacy tank--to make tiny decisions when you don’t want to or are too exhausted too. Or when you say you just need to hear my voice or want me to give you the least amount of choices possible makes my whole body flutter.”

He nods, chewing at the inside of his cheek. He knows the feeling when she just steps up, when she’s just there for him--solid, unwavering, unflinching at even his silliest and tiniest of needs. “And me passing some of the smaller things onto you fills mine using that logic.”

The more Joe chews on it, the more he realizes, yeah no, he really likes it when she takes care of things for him. When she's with him at events, and she just gets it when his battery dies or when she helps navigate a conversation Joe feels himself slipping in, or when they're out shopping together and she rolls her shoulders back and strides with every step, confident and sure of herself in ways that Joe is confident, but that's full of practice and a quiet kind of internal pep talk. Joe's fought to be confident and she just is. So it starts slowly, the two of them easing into this dynamic.

The dom/sub came up near the year mark and they've been together a while now, since late, late 2021/early 2022.

Domme sits Joe down to do a 'Will Do, Won't Do, Want to Try' list after their initial conversation. She hands him a sheet of paper, walks him through folding it into thirds and then has him label each column as one of the following: Will Do, Won't Do, Want to Try. Explains that the idea is that Joe writes down what he's willing to do (inside the bedroom and inside their dynamic), what he won't do at all (hard limits), and stuff he's willing to try or maybe he's a little unsure about. 

"Think of it like a stop light. Will Do is green, you're all for it. Yellow is the stuff you want to try that we'll talk through and about, make sure there's rules in place. Won't do are red lights. Hard limits, no goes, no matter what." 

It seems simple enough. They work in separate rooms for a little bit but then Joe misses her and creeps out his office and kisses all over her face so it gets tabled for the day. But for the better half a week, it's swirling in the back of Joe's mind. It’s intriguing to take the plunge into all his fantasies. 

They finish their lists and then comes the hard part where they have to talk it through. He sets the page down, a few lines crossed out and then nearly bolts. 

But Domme coaxes him in, her voice soft and smooth, and silky, makes him feel safe when she says, "So, we can start easy. You tell me when you're most excited about from your lists." She doesn't read it, just trusts him enough to know he'll share it truthfully. Joe melts into the couch cushions right there, thinking to himself, I'll do whatever she'd fucking ask just as long as she keeps talking to me like that.

Joe's hard limits are like no visible bruises, no excessive pain (because he is a professional athlete so he needs to be able to discern a sting from something more worrisome), no tight bondage, and nothing that could cause severe harm--it's all reasonable. And Domme helps him sort of categorize and clarify as needed. But she distinctly notes there's nothing on his list about anything penetrative on his end. Like he couldn't fathom it all.

They establish safe words. His is turquoise. Hers is dragonfly. Joe's practiced in his head, Too much--use turquoise. It's the phrase Domme used with him. That if it ever became too much he could use 'turquoise'. Just over and over and over, so he makes the association. 

When they first get used to the dynamic, Joe slips and uses, "Stop." And what he was trying to say was something like, "I need to catch my breath." 

But the second the 'p' pops off his lips, Domme's pulling away from him, settles off to his side, her hands hover. "What was too much? Need space?"

It's the first time that Joe realizes just how much words matter and even though it wasn't his word, she's listening, she's paying attention to every little thing. Just like he does. So, any time Joe needs a breather, he's careful to use something like, "Need a second," Or "Can we take a time out?"

It may sound silly sometimes, but it works. It lets them both know what's needed. Wording is so incredibly important during their sexual adventures and even outside of the bedroom too. If Joe's overwhelmed in public or about something, he's a lot more mindful on how to communicate that. "Hey, can I take five?" or "I think I need just a second before we go out."

It's Domme that brings up pegging the first time. 

They check in on the Three W list (Will Do, Won't Do, Want to Try) like once a quarter, so 3/4 times a year. Joe's pretty consistent. Literally changes maybe one thing (marks are okay during the off season or asks if something they sort of rotated out to come back around [looking at you wax play]). So when Domme parts her lips and says, "I want to try pegging,’

Joe swears his eyes are going to fall out of his head. "On me? Peg me?"

She nods. He doesn't hate the idea, but it makes his stomach uneasy, "I need more time on that one. Can we loop back around to it?" Joe stews on it for two weeks. Does he want that? Would it be strange? Would it hurt? What would he do while being pegged? Would he feel different afterwards?

On a Friday afternoon, when Domme's off from work and finished her errands, and Joe's back from his meetings, Joe resurfaces the conversation with a simple, "Can we talk?" 

They talk through every minute detail. Everything. Dildo size, lubrication type, prep work, safe words, scenario (Joe has to be the one to ask for it. Even if it terrifies him, the ball has to be in his court for this)--everything, they talk about everything.

It's so strange at first, even though Joe asked for it, and Domme's being so gentle, he can't help but tense when the first wet finger traces his rim. Like is he actually about to do this? She pauses, free hand smoothing over his back, kisses up his spine. "Want me to stop or do you need a second?" 

He's usually so composed, can follow through on a decision once it's made. But this feels like it could shatter him. Could totally ruin him everything he understands about himself. "Just a second." 

Domme kisses at his back, a hum shaking at his spine. "Take all the time you need."

Eventually with a lot of encouragement, he lets her proceed and the push through the mental is the hardest part, because once she's in, the pad of her singular finger working at his prostate so gingerly, Joe's a goner. 

He pushes back into her hand and she laughs, not maliciously, a puffy satisfied sound. "Do you like that?" It echoes the question he offers all the time, usually in jest. But Domme knows the truth, that Joe loves the praise. That Joe's keening each time she tells him just how well he's doing, how good he's making her feel. To hear it back, with the delicious twist of his stomach at the careful work--Joe's literally on cloud fucking 9. 

She works slow and deliberate, eases him open with the second finger. Whispers into his skin, "Look at you. Doing so well for me. Fucking perfect. Want it that bad?" 

Joe doesn't think he can get enough, pushes and pushes and pushes back on her fingers and palm. He comes apart on her fingers, a soft and easy pull over his cock, the press of her fingers in his ass. It's messy, how hard and how violently he comes, but Joe is absolutely liquid for the rest of the night. His brain is just gone. Totally gone. Utter silence. He can barely respond to Domme. Barely hold the glass of water. 

He settles squarely onto her chest when she slips onto the bed later, tucks him up to his chest with the comforter. "Did so well for me. Took it so well. Made my misty eyed when you came, trusting me with that." Joe hears it, a smile ghosting over his face as he presses his nose into her breasts.

Joe does feel a little different. But not like he thought he would. He feels...so content. He wakes first and her fingers are still in his hair, he's proud of himself for actually going through with it. It's an instant classic. Joe still feels like Joe, like a man. He washes his face, pokes around in the kitchen, answers some emails, tries to ease her awake but she still jolt. He laughs at her huff of annoyance. "I know, I know,” he coos. “Mornings are rough. I'll sweeten the deal with a breakfast pastry." 

"Should've started with that,” she huffs. 

 It just feels right as the two of them orbit in the bedroom, getting ready. But she pauses him in the closet. "How do you feel?" 

"Good. Really good." Because that’s all there is to. She made him feel so fucking good. And that’s all that matters. 

And if Joe thinks her fingers are magical. The strap is literally god tier. 

It takes Joe a few tries to work up to the dildo. And it's just the tip, oh it's just the fucking tip and Joe's already damn near crying at how good it feels. He gets all puffy, chest heaving, begging her to keep going. "Need more, god, please." 

He loves it when she pulls at his hair, bring his head up and whisper against his shoulder, "Watch yourself." 

The mirror reflects back his own fucked out bliss--messy hair, puffy pink lips, red chest, the echoes of her kisses and bites scattered over his body. He wants to watch, wants to see her take him, claim him like this but it just feels so fucking good. Makes his brain go totally silent. He doesn't even know what's saying, if he's saying anything. Just becomes an absolute mess of himself. And she always makes sure the drop doesn't hit so hard, though it always sort of does. 

She likes to take him hard after he gets used to it. The growl of her voice into his body as her hips snap into his, bringing him under, so far under he does not remember his name. Doesn't know it by sound, only knows her voice--can't pick out words or their meaning, just knows they're taking up space, that something is happening. 

Joe is brought so utterly to feeling, that he swears he can feel the ridges in the strap, the faux veins, the divot of the tip, and he adores this space. It strips him bare. He's not the quarterback, not the head of the franchise. Joe's not a man, not a son, not a partner, not anything. He is just. He is. He's his muscles, tendons, ligaments. He is sinew. He is sweat. He is the puff. He is the labored breath. He is the begging. He is the pleading. He is the curl of his toes. He just fucking is. He exists as nothing more than the feeling of closeness between the two of them and it holds him. Fills his cup, leaves his thirst quenched. 

Then she coddles him, bring him the protein shake or water, praise him with soft whispers against his ears, play in his hair, make sure his phone is on the charger, his alarm set if he needs it, pick out his practice clothes (when needed) and Joe doesn't need to ask for her to do it because he's not going to be online enough to do it.

Joe doesn't ask to be pegged often, but when he does he asks it with a shy look on his face, like he's scared she'll say no. 

But Domme never does. Always grins up at him and nods. "I'd be happy to." And they still talk about the scene, because it keeps Joe at ease, but it leaves him with the thrill of anticipation buzzing at his skin. Makes him hot with glee for the time to come. He just feels so safe with Domme about it. She makes him feel so, so safe. 

When he brought up how he worried about what it would mean afterwards, she nodded, didn't make him feel crazy for being worried if he'd still 'feel like a man'. "Let's walk through. You do anal and then what? What do you think happens?" She didn't discount him, didn't tell him it was stupid. She just wanted to know and walked through it with him. 

"Well, I've never taken anything up the ass before, but what if it does change something? What if I realize something that wasn't there before?"

"Then you know better, baby."

 "What if I like too much?” he asks. 

"Well, then we either get hemorrhoid cream and use the strap more, or I get to introduce you to the world of threesomes." 

"Baby, I know about threesomes," Joe laughs. 

"Nah, I mean the real deal." 

He grimaces at the thought. "No, I like the idea because it's you. I don't think I want an actual dick. That just-no, hard no." 

Her grin is bright, arm sliding over his shoulder. "Then I don't think you have much to worry about, love. Sounds like you already know plenty about yourself."

Because they check in so often about the 3W list, they also use that time to check in about the relationship. They'll discuss goals they have for themselves in the relationship. 

Joe wants to be better at staying grounded and connected during the season and he has grown in that regard ,but when they're losing he tends to retreat and sometimes it leaves Domme feeling iced out. 

Domme wants to get better about not always taking over in social situations. Which is why we see in the NFL Honors blurb, she doesn't overstep, just encourages Joe. She's a social butterfly and protective over Joe. Which he appreciates when he needs it, but it's not an every time thing which can be hard for her to dial back on at times. 

They can talk about everything, "Hey, a couple weeks ago you said something and it wasn't what you said, it's how you said it. It's still bothering me. Can I talk to you about it?" 

To anyone on the outside it sounds like a work meeting, talking about KPI's or goals for the year, but for them it's just how it works. Because they're in the scene, it's super important that they do have this space to talk about their relationship, even if it can feel clinical.

What’s not clinical though is what happens behind those closed doors. That is all guttural, hot and biting. Just want they need, what they know the other loves. 

Domme, because she was in the scene first, eases Joe into it. She has a few friends still connected to the scene and knows about a rather large party happening right towards the end of the season. Asks if Joe wants to go when she finds out about it about two weeks in advance. Joe, now more comfortable with their dynamic about a year into the relationship, agrees to go. 

He’s not barred her from going previously, just asks that she abides by some ground rules: no sexual penetration, she can’t dominate anyone, but she can flirt if she wants, kissing is fine, she can sub if she wants to someone else too. So most often, Domme goes and spends her time being tied up, or goes to aide as a hostess. Helps newer couples find their footing. She still has her fun without Joe. 

However, when they finally go together, it’s a private affair. They rent a car so no one can trace their actual plates. Domme guides him around. It’s really just so Joe can see more, build his repertoire more. But he’s so fascinated with the scenes, and the rooms. No one bats an eyelash at him. No one gives a fuck about who he is. They don’t go often, a handful of times a year. But Joe brings back new things to try every time. Part of him feels like a kid in a candy store again, the unbridled kind of delight at seeing the scene in action, unfolding out in front of him in real time. Knows what people are feeling as it’s happening, a visceral kind of reaction that makes leaves goosebumps across his skin. 

Domme will settle into the main room and let Joe scamper about. She watches with pride when he comes back, a lipstick stain on his cheek and a mischievous grin on his face. “What did you see?”

“Follow me,” he returns with a hand held out. 

It’s usually always something that shocks Domme. The first few parties she brought him she stuck close by, reiterating the rules and keeping him up to date on the lingo. But later on, towards the start of their third year Joe scurried off only to drag her back to a shibari scene. “That--I want to look like that.”

He said it with so much awe, so much tenderness that it made Domme’s chest melt. He looked at it like art. Like one would look at a sculpture from years ago, taking into the details--so much awe and wonder. Domme spent weeks practicing on herself, doing research, testing the waters with Joe in non sexual scenes. Joe tries his hand at it too. Likes it when she lets him take the reigns a little bit. 

They don’t participate in the parties a ton. 

Joe’s not much of a sharer. He likes to watch, and likes to go. But again, Joe’s not great at sharing Domme. There’s a couple that Domme used to play with before Joe, the couple before she met Joe. He understands that of course others played with her before. But no one plays with her now except him. He’s Domme’s. Domme is his and he doesn’t want to share that with anyone. It is possession, but not ownership. And it’s not jealousy. She’s talked freely about how she used to play before Joe. He likes hearing about it. A couple times he’ll ask her to “turn on the charm” and that gives her permission to flirt, dazzle, lure, kiss, bite, light play.

But there’s no sex. For either one of them. Joe likes to watch her work a room, select her target and reel them in. Like watching a skilled lioness on the hunt. Lethal and charming, disarming and deadly. But there’s some pieces of her that Joe can’t let anyone else have but him. 

Domme’s willing to let Joe go a little further than he lets her take it. But Joe doesn’t do anything that she can’t do. If someone asks to give him a kiss, or something, he lets it slide. Knows how much Domme will light up at the mark. But the same rules she follows, he does too. Because that’s the most fair. Because in all honesty, that’s all he’s willing to give up, a kiss (rare-ish), a teasing wink (more common). 

Joe has a little admirer--Scarlett, a woman in her forties, he’d guess--who fawns over him. He’s happy to accept the attention because she’s nice about it. If Joe’s sticking close by Domme, she’ll ask, “Can I cut in?”

Usually, he laughs, eyes cutting to Domme, who nods at him after he nods that he wants to go. “Go,” she laughs, patting at his chest. “Have fun out there, tiger.”

Scarlett’s never offended if Joe shakes his head no. He’ll squeeze a Domme’s palm and she’ll slide in front of him just a fraction, even if she’s talking to someone else. Scarlett grins. “That’s alright. Find me when you’re ready, sweetheart.”

Sometimes Joe does loop back to find Scarlett. He’ll spot her watching him. It reminds him just a hair of Domme, the kind of magnetism they both have in their presence. Domme’s is teasing confidence. Knows how to bait. Scarlettl’s a quiet confidence, more assured. Scarlett will kiss his cheek, pull him into the couch or next to her. “She’s treating you right?”

Joe nods. “The best.”

“Good.” Scarlett plays a little with his hair, resting against him for a minute or two. “If she doesn’t treat you, you tell me. I taught her better than that.”

“I will. Need anything?”

Scarlett always laughs. “Trying to get me into trouble. I like it.” Sometimes it’s just a kiss, and it’s nice, fun, different. But there’s always a little voice in the back of Joe’s mind that’s comparing when he knows he shouldn’t. It’s not the same. Not Domme and though he likes the dabble, he never lasts away from Domme. 

Joe would seek Domme out even in the dark, pulled to her, called like sirens do to the crashed sailors. Joe doesn’t care to break the spell. Even with Scarlett in his lap, with her kissing over his neck and chest, Joe will look for Domme across the room--the prideful smile on her face makes his chest flutter. His whole body lit with fire.  

Sometimes Joe doesn’t find Scarlett again, just keeps an arm around Domme, pulls her into his lap or find a little corner of the room to bury his face into her neck, kissing at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. A silent plea for her and Domme always answers it, pulling his face out. 

“Want to get out of here?”

Joe will nod. “But I know we just got here.”

“Have all I need right here. Take me home. So I can have fun with you there.”

[isagrimorie]

This is a really good interview with Jac Schaeffer about episode 7 of Agatha All Along.

Schaeffer orchestrates “Death’s Hand in Mind” to unfold with an emotional clarity that allows LuPone to shine in one of her best ever on-screen performances.

[snip]

What sort of feedback would she be giving?

She has a number of mini-monologues, and as we got closer, I tweaked a few of them. She came to me and was like, “Can we please just do it how it was?” And I was like, “You’re the boss, absolutely.” She’s a theater actor. She respects the page. I was trying to streamline and get us moving, and she was like, “No, I want to say all these things.” And bless her, I’m so glad she said all the things.

There are really two different tracks in the episode: the linear timeline as the other characters are experiencing it, and the emotional timeline as Lily is experiencing it. How did you and Patti navigate that?

Patti asked for a script in correct order so she could understand what she was doing. She really did have a solid handle on it, but she would get lost a little bit. Her focus was, “Where is the big emotion? When do I really unravel?” That’s why she wanted to see the episode strung out linearly, but I was like, “You’re the one bouncing around.” She’s the constant, so whenever she’s feeling the deep emotion of it, that is correct, because she’s being wrenched all over the place. So I think her process was finding when the pulling around really starts to trigger her vulnerability.

[SNIP]

The other thing that was very complicated about this episode was the practical part. Those swords are real, and they’re on piano wire. We had to number them and know the order and decide where they went before any actors set foot on the set. So we had this sword map that was nuts, and Ishi was my sword angel, keeping all that in both our minds. And the actors — they were so lovely — they were willing to let me say, “We cannot explore dancing around the space. I need you here right now, otherwise a sword is going to hit you in the face.”

THEY USED REAL SWORDS. When they said that they used minimal CGI… they were not kidding about it!

[snip]

Lilia, Alice, Mrs. Hart — are they all really dead?

I anticipated this question today, and I’ve been thinking about my answer. What I want to say is that this is a show about death. We actually have the character of Death in our show. I am interested in that conversation, and I am fascinated by how death is used in the comic space and in the MCU. Personally, I feel that when a person dies, you can still talk to them and feel them, and they can still be in your lives. But death is immutable. It is permanent. With this show, we wanted to pay respect to that. So this a more earnest and grave conversation about death than maybe you would find in another superhero project.

I like this actually. I like that in WandaVision the show dealt with grief and trauma. This time it’s dealing with death face to face and having an honest discussion what death is.

I think what it will end up showing is that death… is not evil. Death just is. It is a fact of life.

To paraphrase the Ninth Doctor: Everything has its time and everything ends.

So are the Salem Seven dead?

Yeah, the Salem Seven are dead. They’re off the board in our show, is what I will say. Lilia has saved everybody!

And true to my hypothesis, when Jac is fibbing or not telling the whole truth, she answers as succinctly as possible. Because it is technically true the Salem Seven are dead because the remaining Salem members are now just the Salem Two.

Since only five appeared in the Tower.

Lady Death has been a significant character in the Marvel Comics for a long time. When did you decide to include your version of that character in the show?

Oooh, it’s so fun to be talking about this now. We wanted a pursuant character. We wanted somebody who was going to be after Agatha, and therefore after the coven, because we liked the logic of whatever Agatha’s problem is, once they become a coven, it becomes the problem of the whole group. Very, very early, we had this character we called the Debt Collector. Witchcraft is a lot about intention and exchange and checks and balances. So we had this notion of someone being after them for unpaid debts of witchcraft. I don’t remember when we pivoted to death, but it was just so sexy. We were just like, who is the perfect ex-lover of Agatha Harkness? It was just so obviously Lady Death. It felt so right. 

It’s so interesting what they conceptualized for the ‘pursuant’ character before locking on to Rio/Lady Death. The ‘Debt Collector’, it says a lot about their initial thoughts and rules for Witchcraft which sounded (to me) something similar to Fullmetal Alchemist’s philosophy of ‘Equivalent exchange’.

The intention of checks and balances and unpaid debts of witchcraft.

Also, I still love that the person, the character who brought Lady Death, the cosmic being into the MCU wasn’t Thanos with his trillions of death via snap. It’s not Deadpool.

The character who brought Lady Death into being is Agatha Harkness.

Executive producer Mary Livanos and writer Giovanna Sarquis were instrumental in the character. Giovanna came in with the Dia de los Muertos [look] and having her be Latinx, and Mary was very much an influence on Rio’s darkness and toxicity and how enmeshed Agatha and Rio are. It was something that needed approval from on high. We had to get the sign off from Kevin [Feige]. There was a moment where we were all holding our breath, worried we weren’t going to get it. We were really delighted that we got the OK.

I love this, @mswyrr pointed out that Santa Muerte and Lady Death actually has similarities. And to know now that it’s deliberate? It’s so amazing.

Also, Mary pointing out the darkness and toxicity knowing that Mary Livanos is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and quite possibly a Buffy/Faith shipper… The knife scene in the first episode feels more like a deliberate reference now!

This is what happens when fangirls become in charge! Wooo!

You said Rio is a “pursuant character” — is she a villain, or at least an antagonist?

Yes, I would classify her as an antagonist. I would classify everyone in the show as a villain and a hero at one point or another.

[snip]

Again with a carefully short answer. But also the emphasis that she is an antagonist and Jac’s insistence that in the show no one is purely a hero nor a villain. Because people are more complicated than that.

we designed this show to really take off dramatically in the back half. I’ve been really interested to see how that lands with people. I think for the most part, people are on the track that we hope they will be. It’s not about the specifics of characters showing up or cameos or revelations, really. But it sounds to me like what people are emotionally interested in, I hope that we deliver on that. There is more Agatha, there is more Rio, and there is a conclusion to this story, and there is some truth to be shared about Agatha.

I like that— for Jac it’s not the cameos or the revelations, it’s the emotional interest and investment. It’s the unpacking of Agatha as a character, its Agatha and Rio individually and together. This is what Jac and the writer’s room are interested in.

I love that in superhero show, they’re tackling the very heavy subject of death. And I trust this team of writers to bring it home.

[laurelwen]

Daddy Issues in Like Minds: Sally and Martin Edition

As a fandom, we have extensively discussed Alex and Nigel and their daddy issues from a number of different angles. The other day I was considering this central theme and the post I made about it here: The Sins of the Father.

It occurred to me that both Sally and Martin are also caught in the same trap, unable to escape the legacy of their own fathers.

Martin McKenzie:

By inheriting his profession from his father, he is in some ways simply a copy of his own dad, following the same path and attempting to follow his dad's moral and professional code. At the same time, he also inherits membership in the Order and the expectations that come with it. When Dr. Forbes presses him to release Alex, those expectations come into play. Dr. Forbes chides him for not following along with the script, as his father would have done. Martin asserts that his father would have done his job properly, abiding by the rule of law. In the end, it's not clear which of them has the correct assessment of Daddy McKenzie, and given what we know of the Order, I think either thing could be true--or both are.

While Martin chooses to adhere to his faith in his father's sense of duty to the law, either way he chooses, he's still caught up in Daddy McKenzie's legacy--and perhaps, his sins. Ian's confidence that Martin would help a fellow Brother indicates that this IS a standard practice among members of the Order. The way he phrases it even suggests that he personally knew Daddy McKenzie and perhaps had examples of Dad's past behavior as his basis for the assumption and the belief that Martin would behave similarly. Martin might have an idealized version of his father up on a pedestal when it is entirely plausible and even probable that the man was guilty of bending and breaking the law to aid the brotherhood.

Is Martin upholding or subverting his father's real legacy? Can Ian presume to know the son by the actions of the father? In the end, Martin renounces membership in the Order, but does he actually escape his father's sins? Isn't he just as willing to bend the law to suit his own purposes? He takes an immediate disliking to Alex, decides that Alex is guilty, and charges him with no solid evidence to avoid having to let him go. He calls Sally in and pressures her to "find him culpable". This is a gross undermining of the due process of law. He won't break the rules for the sake of the brotherhood, but he has already broken them extensively for his own purposes. He has deluded himself into a self-righteous belief in his own ethical rectitude, but he merely repeats his own father's sins in the service of a different cause. Perhaps that IS his father's true legacy...and sin.

Sally Rowe:

We're given much less material to work with pertaining to Sally and her father, but the key piece of info we do get feels very illuminating. When Sally is trying to go home and her car won't start, she opens the hood herself and tinkers with what seems to be the distributor cap*. From her lack of hesitation and confidence in pulling the cap off, we can guess she's had this problem before and fixed it herself. Dr. Forbes offers assistance and they have a brief exchange in which she explains that she inherited a passion for difficult cars from her dad.

Sally's dad imparted both a knowledge and a love of cars, including a particular fondness for types that are prone to frequent mechanical problems. She doesn't just have an interest in these cars, it's a "passion" for them. One can surmise this was a pastime they shared as a bonding activity, Sally shadowing her dad as he fixed the latest problem in his favorite car. One might be tempted to say that Daddy Rowe's legacy then was one of empowerment for his daughter, encouraging her to occupy traditional male spaces and giving her the skills to solve issues that most people need to pay a skilled professional to handle.

I think this trait gives us a window into Sally's psyche far beyond just an automobile hobby. Her passion for "difficult" cars--cars that break down frequently, cars that are tricky, unreliable, and temperamental, cars that can turn on you and leave you stranded a hundred miles from home--feels like a character trait that applies to more than just cars. It gives us a window into the inner forces that led her to choose a career in forensic psychology. Her job duties entail a careful examination of "difficult" people in order to diagnose problems and offer an assessment to law enforcement to determine legal next steps. Sally is effectively opening the hood and tinkering around with the complex human mind to determine the functional status of each patient.

A piece of advice from a practicing forensic psychologist to those who are considering the career:

You have to be able to convey your thinking into well-written, well integrated, and professional reports that will be read by judges, attorneys, clients, and other professionals involved in the case. You need to have a complex understanding of personality adjustment, psychological assessment, the law and the legal process, the relevant literature, and be attuned to one’s limitations in forming opinions.

I find the last portion particularly relevant here. While her instincts led her to choose this profession, they also present a type of limitation to her ability to objectively assess patients. She doesn't just want to fix a car when it breaks, she has a "passion" for the ones that break down often. Most people would want to get rid of a car that had frequent issues, deeming them more trouble than they are worth. But Sally is drawn to problematic cars--and people. There is a subjectivity inherent to her interest in the cars/people with frequent problems which drives her to remain attached when others would give them up as a lost cause.

This trait underlies her entire interaction with Alex, and I think it plays a major role in her downfall. In this post, I examine all the ways that Martin and Alex are very much alike. I would also suggest that their similarity is why Sally was/is drawn to both of them. We know Sally and Martin were previously in a relationship, though that has ended prior to the film's events. Regardless, Martin demonstrates that he at least still knows Sally well enough to push her buttons and enlist her help with his cause. Upon meeting her, Alex immediately starts to probe this woman in an attempt to find her weak spots so he can manipulate her for his own ends. Sally has a similar reaction to both of them, essentially conveying that she sees through their patently obvious attempts to influence her. Her ability to recognize their problematic behavior doesn't actually stop her from caving to their wishes--she cannot resist the "difficult" cars.

It seems likely that most others in her position would have given up on Alex after hearing even a part of his frankly preposterous claims, deeming him beyond the point of any repair. Sally is blind to her own limitations - the tenacious to a fault need to figure out the problem and fix it - and this impedes her ability to remain objective. Her satisfaction at solving the problem is on display as she presents her analysis to her peers--she basks in the pleasure of diagnosing this complex psychological dynamic and preens at the recognition she receives for it. And with poetically perfect timing, while she stands at the highest point in her professional career, Alex reveals that she has been deeply deceived. All her satisfaction at having solved the problem and "fixing the car" comes crashing down in the realization that she was so very wrong. The instincts instilled by her father, rippling outwards from this simple hobby into her personal and professional life, are what cause her downfall.

In Like Minds, there is no escaping your father's legacy.

[*Distributor cap source: I was raised in a family of mechanics including my own father, and I have pulled off a distributor cap to check the cap and the spark plugs when my car was having trouble starting. Feel free to look up pics of the distributor caps to verify my assertion (you won't).]

[Like Minds Masterpost - Main]

[misc-obeyme]

How many relationships (or hook-ups) do you think the Demon brothers (+ side characters) had before meeting MC?

All of them are very old and seeing how they live long lives surely they had some experiences, some more than the others.

I'm thinking out of everyone Asmo definitely had the most experience with others. But with Asmo most of his experience are from hookups since he's the most beautiful in all Devildom, so everyone would want to have their way with him. He probably tried going into serious relationships but that didn't go anywhere.

Lucifer's pride might have gotten in the way for him to form a serious relationship in the past (and he was still traumatised being cast out of heaven), but he definitely had hookups here and there. I can see Mammon trying in the past to enter a serious relationship, he was madly in love, but he got taken advantage of :(( Maybe he had hookups for money??

I'm sorry, but Leviathan is an Ancient Virgin. The only experience he had was his right hand. Again it's difficult to say with Satan. He tried relationships and hookups but he wasn't into it and sticks with romance/smut books instead??

I doubt Beelzebub had anything serious going on with someone but maybe he had a few hookups? Belphegor's the same with beelzebub, my guy is too lazy haha.

It's difficult to place Diavolo seeing how he's the next Demon king. This may sound dumb but maybe he had a lot of Physical experience (The best Succubus/incubus for the king! The best Orgies for the King!) but no romantic relationships seeing how easily everyone would want the crown for themselves and how much of a scandal that could be. This could also be said for Mephistopheles since he's a noble too.

Then there's my precious sexy ass Barbatos. It's hard to say but i low-key think he had a few flings here and there when he was still young and not a butler yet. He won't be seeking out any relationships/hookups anymore since he probably tried everything already and that could possibly distract him from his butler duties.

Raphael/Simeon are Angels so i doubt they had any experience in the past when it comes to Relationship/hookups. Solomon DEFINITELY had quite a lot of Relationships/hookups! This guy had a ton of Succubi and wives! As for Thirteen i assume she's not into Relationships/hookups until she meets Mc.

What are your thoughts on this?!

Now this is an interesting topic, anon. I've thought about it a lot, but I don't think I've managed to settle on a solid idea that I like best.

The rest is below a read more because I wrote A LOT, so this way people won't have to scroll as much.

Also NSFW below the read more due to the discussion of sex, but nothing explicit.

I think how experienced the characters are is going to depend on how sex is viewed in their respective realms.

We know how it is in the human world. I personally have a huge issue with the way sex is taboo in our world. It bothers me that there's so much suppression of it and that people are so concerned about stuff that really isn't that big of a deal. It feels manipulative and I've always felt the conservative view of it is the predominant one in our society, which only exists to control people. At least, this is my view of how I've seen it handled around me. So I feel it's important to note that I am a USAmerican. I also happened to grow up in a place that was ultra conservative while not being conservative myself so my opinion may be skewed.

Anyway, the only reason I'm talking about this is that it means I tend to prefer thinking of both the Devildom and the Celestial Realm as more free with this kind of stuff.

Especially the Devildom, but the idea that just because angels are angels means they've never experienced sex or relationships bothers me. I think it's because the CR touts itself as being the pinnacle of all things good and pure and in my opinion, sex is good and pure. I don't like thinking of it as a "sin." (PLEASE NOTE I'm discussing consensual sex between adults, obviously this is not the case for abusive situations.)

That being said, I'm also aware that this is my personal take on it, so it might not really make any sense. Like I just want the CR to be chill about it because that's what I would prefer, not because it necessarily makes sense for them to be chill about it lol.

In the context of the game, it makes more sense for the CR to not be chill about it.

But their stance necessarily alters how much experience I believe characters like the brothers and angels to have.

Because the brothers were obviously angels for a big chunk of their lives.

I also have a personal preference for characters who do have some experience. I think a first love/first sexual encounter is always extremely intense and can be toxic or problematic in ways that the inexperienced person is blind to. (Not necessarily of course, but you kind of move past that all encompassing devotion that you tend to have for your first.)

So for me, it's more appealing for the characters to have moved past that first experience and to have some knowledge of how love and relationships work. It isn't necessarily about the sex part, but sex is often entangled in love and it certainly complicates things.

Which means that in my own personal thoughts about it, Levi is the only one who could even manage to stay a virgin that long.

The reason for that is because he makes it pretty clear that he rarely leaves his room, especially after they fall.

Now if the CR is chill about sex, I think it's possible that Levi had some desperate sort of encounters while he was fighting as the Grand Admiral you know what I'm saying? But if we're going with the idea that they aren't chill, then yeah, he's probably still a virgin.

I do think it's possible that Levi isn't a virgin, though. I honestly think you could easily come up with a situation in which he actually did have the opportunity come up. Maybe he even fell in love with someone over an online message board before meeting them in person. I just think there are options, you know? And in the end, it depends on what you prefer.

In fact, I would say I kinda feel this way about all the characters. I think you could say all of them are virgins if you wanted to. Lucifer, for instance. CR isn't chill, so he never did anything as angel. After he fell, too dedicated to his work and Diavolo to even bother pursuing anybody and always immediately shutting down anyone who came onto him so as not to get distracted.

That's just an example, I'm saying you can change these details to fit with your preference for any of them, though I think Asmo would be the hardest lol.

So here are my ideas on all of the characters, based on the concept that the CR is not stupid and instead chill about sex:

Lucifer is experienced, but not by a ton. In the CR, he's too busy being a seraph and keeping all his lil siblings in line. Maybe there are a couple of people who catch his eye and while he might indulge, I don't think he'd have had a relationship. After they fall, he retreats into himself. At this point, if you're into DiaLuci, that could start to become a thing. But I also think you could say that maybe he had a little bit of time where he kind of went crazy, going out and doing all the things he maybe didn't have time to before, more as a bad way of coping with the reality of the fall and the loss of his sister. After time, when they all get settled, I think it's an every once in a while kinda thing. He just doesn't strike me as the guy who'd have time for relationships unless it was with someone like Diavolo or MC (or Solomon... yes I'm still on the solulu train just you wait). He doesn't have any reason to let someone that close to him, you know?

Mammon, I agree with you on. I think he probably wanted to be in a relationship and likely fell hard for someone, only to have his heart broken. Thus his tsundere attitude now. It's a defense mechanism. I think that could have happened in the CR and then once he fell, he would just do the hookup thing, especially when he's out partying or gambling or something. It doesn't mean anything. He's still protecting his heart until MC comes along.

Levi we've discussed, but I do think he's either a virgin or maybe had some fumbling moments in war time, you know. Pluuuus I kinda think he was probably admired by a lot of angels during that time. So you know.

Satan has a whole stretch of time where he's just trying to figure himself out. I think he'd be cautious about a relationship due to his wrath. I always think of Satan as being super romantic, but he's also concerned about his own anger. He's afraid to hurt people because of it. So I kinda think he'd hold off. He likely had some hookups and such, but I don't think he'd have a full blown relationship until he felt it was someone who truly understood him.

Asmo I agree with you on, but I also think he could have had a serious relationship at some point. I kinda see it both ways. He might not because he doesn't want to tie himself down to any one person, but I think he can also fall in love passionately. So I think he could've had one really intense relationship that inevitably fell apart.

Beel is such a sweetheart, I can imagine someone else falling in love with him easily or other people kinda throwing themselves at him. I don't think Beel would've refused them, either. But I don't think he had a serious relationship, maybe just short ones here and there, probably some hookups, but nothing more.

Belphie I think could go a lot of ways, but I kinda see him being mostly uninterested. He might have had a couple hookups over the years, just because there are so many years and there's no way the opportunity didn't arise at some point. But I don't think he ever cared about anyone enough to pursue a legit relationship.

Okay, now bear with me here, but I kinda like the idea that Diavolo and Mephistopheles hooked up lol. I mean, they were childhood friends, right? Maybe when they got older and started having those thoughts and such, they were like hey... why not? I think it's really cute when bffs decide to be each other's first, even if they never intend to have a serious relationship, you know? Just another reason for Mephisto to hate Lucifer lol. Otherwise I would say Mephisto is probably pretty picky. I think he's more likely to only have been in a serious relationship, considering hookups kinda beneath him.

But aside from that, it's going to depend on what's expected of royalty in the Devildom. I can't imagine they'd have a rule about it, though. It's the Devildom, you know? So I think Diavolo has likely had hookups, but I do think it's a rare occurrence now that he's focused on running the Devildom and united the worlds and all that.

Barbatos, my true love. I like the idea that he was a bit promiscuous in his younger days, traveling through space and time and doing whatever pleased him. He might have been more passionate, more likely to fall in love, a little more free with himself physically. But ever since becoming a butler, I think he clamps down on that quite a bit, just like he does with everything else. He's certainly experienced and I don't think he's like not ever doing anything since becoming a butler, just that he doesn't do it as often as he once did. He's had a few relationships in the past, I think, but not since he started working for Diavolo. He's too dedicated and spends all his time in the castle.

Simeon and Raphael are going to depend on the CR again, but if we're still in my preference of the CR being cool about it, then I think Simeon at least is no virgin. He's too pretty and there is no way a million angels have not come on to him. And like I don't think he'd just fall into the bed of any angel that batted their eyelashes at him, I do think that he's secretly very passionate. Under that cool exterior, he loves hotly and I think he'd have fallen for someone at some point, giving them all of himself. Now he's older and more calm and collected and carrying the grief of losing Lucifer and his brothers.

Raphael I'm not so sure about. Because on the one hand, he's clearly quite passionate too in a "here are the spears" sort of way. But he was also super dedicated to his goal of becoming a seraph, so I don't know if he even had the room for any kind of relationship. Might still be a virgin. But I think you could go either way with him.

Solomon is a human and he's been around for ages there's no way he's still a virgin. I know I said you could make it work, but wow, that'd be tough to do with him, I think. He's like nah, the 700 wives and 300 concubines (or whatever the numbers were lol) are just for show, I didn't actually do anything with them! Wait, no but he had kids. Well you could say that Biblical lore doesn't apply to your story adsklfjdf

However. Solomon is known for being incredibly lonely. Even if he had relationships, he likely had them with other humans who inevitably died and left him alone again. So I think after his normal human lifespan ended and he had to start moving around more and kind of dedicated himself to magic, he likely stopped having relationships of any kind (love or friendship or anything) because it hurt too much. I think he could have hookups or one night stands with people he never saw again. But not so much a relationship.

Thirteen I dunno. That woman is hot af. I could see her having to turn down a lot of advances. I think she might have had some hookups, maybe even a relationship, but nothing too serious. She strikes me as a little more lighthearted about this kind of stuff. Like you know life is fleeting and in the end I'll just have to reap you anyway lol. I don't think she would get serious until MC.

ANYWAY. Sorry for this absolute NOVEL of a response. I didn't realize just how much I had to say until I started... and then I couldn't stop. I hope that somewhat answered the question, anyway??? In the end, I think it's possible to have all the characters as experienced or inexperienced as you like!

[rosemarymoodboards]

Critique Isn’t Hate: How to Spot Manipulative Arguments in Fandom (and Shut Them Down)

There’s a growing pattern in fandom discourse where people confuse critique with hate, and emotional projection with canon. And when they can’t win the argument? They start throwing around buzzwords like “misogyny,” “anti-feminism,” or accuse you of “not understanding character arcs” not because they care about those things, but because they ran out of points.

Let’s break down the playbook and why you shouldn’t fall for it.

“You’re just trying to control how people ship!”

False.

Shipping is free. Ship what you want. Literally no one can stop you.

But if you enter the conversation saying “Zutara makes sense” or “Aang x Katara was forced,” that’s a claim about the story, and claims can be critiqued.

Critique is not control.

Critique is not hate.

Critique is the bare minimum of discussion in a media space.

“Saying Katara didn’t need a relationship is misogynistic!”

Nope.

Saying a female character doesn’t need a love interest to be complete is not misogyny it’s literally textbook feminist media analysis.

What is misogyny? Acting like a woman’s arc is only satisfying if it ends in a romance.

What’s also misogyny? Guilt-tripping women into silence by slapping the feminist label on your OTP.

Let’s be clear:

Critiquing romantic tropes =/= hating romance.

Wanting female characters to be centered in their own arc =/= “talking down to women.”

“Zutara was about emotional closeness, not just trauma!”

Let’s talk structure.

Zuko and Katara:

-Had one major emotional arc together (The Southern Raiders)

-Shared limited one-on-one scenes outside of that

-Had no romantic build-up: no confession, no longing, no soft moments of mutual desire

They ended the show as allies, not lovers.

Yes, they respected each other. Yes, they grew. But respect and shared pain =/= emotional intimacy or compatibility.

You can imagine a romance from that foundation. But don’t pretend it was ever in the text.

“You clearly don’t understand the story or character arcs.”

Ah yes, the final fallback of every cornered fan: condescension.

Translation: “I don’t like that you made a solid point, so I’ll insult your intelligence instead.”

This is a cheap trick meant to shut you up and frame the other person as “objective” and “logical.” But ask yourself:

Did they actually address your point?

Or did they just try to emotionally intimidate you into backing down?

You don’t have to be a professional analyst to read a show critically. Your perspective is valid, and if they’re trying this hard to twist your words or discredit you, it’s because your critique hit something real.

So... how do you shut it down?

You don’t have to match their tone.

Just make it clear:

-You’re allowed to critique romanticization of imbalance, trauma, or rewritten canon.

-Saying “this relationship wasn’t earned” isn’t the same as “this character doesn’t deserve love.”

-You’re not being hateful. They’re being defensive.

And if they go full meltdown and delete their comments after you reply?

Congrats. You didn’t just win the argument. You showed them they couldn’t bully you into silence.

You can ship what you want.

I can critique what was written.

That’s balance.

[midnight-weird-thoughts]

I know it has been nearly a year since the whole thing about Toichi being alive, and I am sorry if anyone said this before let me know and I can delete this, I was just taking a break to engage with the real world, but after rewatching some episodes I decided the only way I will accept this concept, is if they make him the Big Bad. The guy in charge of the Black Organization, as far as I know, is called Renya Karasuma. The earliest I can remember the name being dropped was in the Sunset Manor case with the mansion made out of solid gold. I remembered it because KID disguised as Kogoro. But the point it, he was there. I don't remember if we were told why he was there or on what information was he basing his infiltration on, but it's kinda ""coincidental"" that KID often appears when The Boss is discussed or alluded to in the episodes. This wasn't the only occasion. It is actually kind of a recurrence. Also, we know that Karasuma is in his hundreds at least, and Vermouth's age is unknown either, but she is older than Jody who is in her late-ish twenties (based on how long would it have taken her to become an FBI agent). The apotoxin is an interesting project to be having in a criminal organization even if you spin it as a fluke in a poison-making process, it is still a weird side-effect to have.

A pill that de-ages and seems to have no other adverse effect on the person. Not even mental capacity loss to the level a child's brain would have. And then we have an immortality giving gem also being sought after. And the world does have real magic, as we see with Akako. It is not just supersticion.

Toichi was also suspiciously on time to somehow save Chikage from those men who tried to blackmail her into stealing something. We are told he became a thief for her, which is an interesting impulse from a — presumably until then — law-abiding magician. Plus the skills he had to escape armed members of the organization...

And it is theorized that Chikage was the one to teach him disguise. He somehow came to teach Yukiko and Vermouth and passed on those skills further. How did this arregnement take place? Did he advertize he wanted students? Is that things world-famous magicians do? Doesn't it usually happen by specific tutelage? Wouldn't Yukiko had to have thought him out herself? Where did Sharon come from in that equasion then? Also, in which country did it happen? Did Yukiko move to America? Was Sharon on "vacation" in Japan? Did they track to an unrelated country where Toichi was in that time period just to learn from him?

If Toichi was really helping his wife by redirecting focus to himself, how did he not notice that Vermouth was shady? He was after an organization of people, reportedly. His new student was shady. Both were big name career criminals. Neither of them were careless people. Yukiko was a civilian, it makes sense she didn't know. But these two? On an unrelated note, Vermouth was said to be the Big Boss' favorite.

Also, a little etymology. As we all know anime characters names are all just horrible puns. But this time it is actually pretty funny the kind of coincidences you see. Kaito we all know is a pun on "thief" in Japanese. But it is not just him in that family. Toichi spells his given name like this 盗一 . 盗 means "steal, rob, pilfer" according to a dictionary, and 一 means either "one" as in a numerical or "best in".

A funny name for an internationally wanted thief. A pun from the author, but in-world a funny name to chose for your child. My friend and I actually used to joke that there were an entire dynasty of thieves in the Kuroba family and they just liked to make it subtly obvious.

But that is not the only thing. Kuroba is spelt like this 黒羽, where 黒 means "black" and 羽 means "feathers". Funny when the Big Bad's name is Renya Karasuma. Where Karasuma is spelt like 烏丸 where 烏 means "crow, raven" and 丸 means "circle". And Renya is spelt like 蓮耶 where 蓮 means "lotus" and 耶 means "questioning, question mark, interrogative". The question mark is KID's symbol in the ironic "?" "!" exchange that Toichi and Yusaku came up with. Chikage, for the record, is spelt like this 千影 where 千 means "thousand" and 影 means "shadow, silhouette, phantom", but that is neither here nor there. It could be her real given name or she could have changed her name, because what are the odds that the two best thieves in the world come from the same country and happen to be in the same part of a huge city at the same time? (Half-French Kaito, my beloved, but this isn't about that.) If she did change it, it is also a play on the organization. If she didn't her parents maybe wanted an actor and got a thief. Cursed by a name and all. I know this is all over the place, and I am grasping at straws and probably sound like a conspiracy theorist, but that reveal really destroyed me. The Kaitou Corbeau episode was a betrayal, and I can't even think of what Kaito's mental state was like then under the Poker Face. I saw fics where it was actually Chikage who dressed up like that which, coming from a mother, I would consider a form of psychological torture even playing with your child's trauma like that. So if Toichi does wind up being alive, I hope for nothing less than him being the Main Antagonist of the entire series. I know this is unlikely to happen, given how Karasuma's silhouette was drawn as an old man's and Gosho has proven to not be able to write healthy relationships of any kind (from Kogoro and his hitting of Conan and his alcoholic womanizing tendencies to the abandonment of parents being played as a quirk to the jealousy and dysfunctionality between Shinichi and Ran and other couples being shown as "cute" and many other instances), he will probably have Kaito forgive both Toichi and Chikage, but damn... But well, the Kurobas have proven to be masters of disguise and Vermouth doesn't seem to age, so there's that

[cipheramnesia]

I would not expect a huge amount from a reality/found footage horror movie about a possessed pregnancy, called "Delivery: The Beast Within" to necessarily offer much, but I figured the concept was just interesting enough that it would at least be, at a bare minimum, interesting to watch. And well, I don't know what to say except this is why I watch random horror, because Delivery: The Beast Within is a really good fake documentary horror.

So the strengths of this style of movie usually revolve around actors delivering more improvised or natural performances, needing relatively few budget intensive effects, and generally using the appearance of lower quality filmmaking to their advantage for suspense or realism. However, the majority of these types of movies generally treat the capacity to use these techniques gives them complete freedom from the need for direction, cinematography, or consistent writing. Plus, of course, the perennial nagging question of "why are they still filming this?" The Paranormal Activity series is probably the best example of lazy found footage horror, where the actors replace naturalistic improvisation with simply being very rude and generally angry at one another, and long, static shots for the sake of a single minor detail pad out the runtime. Poorly made films of this type can feel like they drag on for hours waiting for anything to happen.

Delivery effectively managing to dodge all of the major issues, provide a solid and tense work of horror, along side a bit of subtext plus a genuinely disturbing ending makes the whole affair rather brilliant. I'm not sure what decision helped the most. Having realistic story beats helped a lot - no one in the movie suddenly turns their life over to an imaginary exorcist, everyone acknowledges the protag is going through it, the supernatural parts are just this side of questionable that there's no reason to jump ship. It plays heavily into terrible, family friendly reality TV tropes up front, and there's a good chemistry between the leads where they seem to genuinely care for each other, which makes the gradual decline more distressful. It's just a lot of little details like the way the video artifacting is isolated to the pregnant woman (and switches immediately to the baby after it is born). The husband's reaction to what seems like miscarriage (it felt very nuanced, as someone who gets pretty quiet with strong emotions), and the one major event that makes the couple sever their connection with the documentary crew for several months. It's all a series of clever details that develop into a relatively well thought out plot, good pacing, and respectable camerawork.

On top of all that solid technical foundation, Delivery is also prodding at the USAmerican concept of pregnancy - how it's idealized, how little the physical and mental wear on women is discussed, the stress on relationships, really most of the ways it can impact on people physically, mentally, and socially. This isn't new territory per se, but Delivery makes these topics feel more a piece of the film text, rather than something overtly pointed out to the audience. No one person is explicitly gaslighting or deliberately misleading the pregnant woman, but the social pressures on her both as an expectant mother and also as a woman in crisis surrounded by support for her pregnancy specifically is tangible. It's the kind of subtext you don't necessarily need to recognize to enjoy Delivery as a solid horror film, but it adds layers and emotional resonance to the story.

As a film, it's what you might call a high B; a solid 8/10 performance from something that looks like it's working with 1/10 resources. They tapped into something and everyone involved very clearly committed. There are of course multiple trigger warnings around babies, pregnancy, and animals. But the ending. That was something.

[hermit-lover]

PLATONIC REQUEST (If you include any romance I will be sad.) Reader who is adventurous and curious, loving science and fantasy in equal measure—so long as no one tries to misapply them and claim falsehoods are factually true or that stories always need to be scientifically perfect. Intentionally tries to pick up lots of skills. Innocent and childish. Intelligent, but uses internal fact checking to discern lies, which obviously has limitations when trying to determine if someone is lying about *themself.* Reader is friends with Scar and/or Etho. (So, personally, those two are my favorites right now, and I wish I could be friends with both of them. Approximately everyone who knows me in Real Life is unsurprised by this, because both of them are a type of person I like, and both of them have traits I like and want to cultivate in myself. 🤷‍♀️ Or at least, everyone would be unsurprised if I were the type of person to talk about having squishes [that's the word for wanting to be friends with someone, like a platonic crush] but I tend to keep my emotions about myself to myself, so only a few actually know.) Anyway, I think that the differences between Etho and Scar can be really interesting. Of course, you can choose to only include one of them in the resulting Reader Insert story, if asking for two Hermits is too much, or you don't feel familiar enough with one of them to write for them, etc. Other than the Reader being friends with one or both of the requested characters, you can have a lot of free will in the type and genre of the piece. Want to write silly fun times? I'm down! Want to write an adventure piece? Those are some of my favorites! Want to write about Reader helping the selected character(s) (or vice versa?) Sounds good to me! In the mood to write angst or hurt/comfort? I'll accept that too! Anyway, if this was all too long, or too vague, or too dull, or you have any questions—you can message me and ask questions or request that I send in a better request myself! 😅 Thank you for your time, consideration, and potential writing!

Fetching Wood!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Character: Ethoslab x Reader, GTWS x Reader.

Type: Blurb (~2k)

Theme: Platonic

Summary: Unsurprisingly, attempting an adventure on the HermitCraft server attracts shenanigans.

TW: brief swearing.

A/N: I hope I did your ask justice!! These two are so silly together and so adventure awaits. :)

The chirping of birds drifts through the ajar window, letting in the sounds of morning calamity and the gentle breeze that brings with it the scent of deep woods and dirt. Your cluttered desk stands proudly in front of you, stacks of intricate designs meticulously sketched, bottles of experimental potions, gadgets, gears, suspicious white powder, and ink spattered across the solid dark oak. It was your workshop- or at least part of it. At the moment you are preoccupied from tinkering, rather you squint at the mess of your storage trying to decide what exactly this trip warrants.

You see, your build, a large wizard-esc tower and subsequent dungeons was a rather demanding feat, and with your newfound appreciation for the Nether woods and brick, you needed a trip to Nether.

It was much to your surprise that when casually discussing the idea with those surrounding you, your neighbor Etho was quick to jump aboard. Apparently he too needed a restock on warped logs and mushrooms, and was more than happy to tag along to make the process more enjoyable.

It was always exciting seeing the ivory haired man, so many Hermits (including yourself) looked up to him.

With the whole HermitcraftTCG and Decked Out craze of last season he was a hard man to come across besides fleeting moments in games. You would be lying if you said you weren't eager to impress. Tucking another fire resistant potion (you can never be too sure) you sigh and check the time.

No...it couldn’t be that hour already...

Snatching up your backpack and skittering towards the door of your starter-starter base (something you will be tearing down) you made it out into the grass. You were so smart when it came to inventions you'd think you would be a little more aware of the time- but unfortunately not. Being late was an reality you lived with often. Snatching the reins of your beloved horse Millennium, you place a foot in the stirrup and very nearly faceplant off of the other side of his torso. He lets out a vibrating huff and you pout.

“Cmon, I can't have a horse making fun of me.” You scoff, rightening in the saddle. The horse doesn't comment back, shaking out its mane and beginning to trot. You ease Millennium into a canter, riding with practiced ease through the forest towards your neighbor.

It's a bright and sunny day, the wind whipping across your face and tugging at your clothing where it is free from the confines of your armor. You had asked Cleo and Stress to help in making a perfect outfit to combine the high fantasy of the wizard tower with the stylish ease of a scientist. You say they have done wonderfully. Despite not actually having a tower to call home yet, you were eager to leap into the aesthetic.

Spotting the gorgeous blue ceiling you broke into a grin, pressing a bit harder to have your horse break into a dash. Leaping over a small creave you break into the clearing, spotting the man of hour leaning against the side of the portal- a full one with corners and all of course. He straightens at your sudden appearance, watching you with careful eyes- You stand up in the stirrups, throwing a leg over and slowing the horse to let you jump off. Millennium whinnies and turns, slowing to blink at you. You hit the ground with a small ‘oof!’ knees bending to not topple over.

“Tadaaa!” You wiggle in the ever-corny jazz hands, watching his expression crinkle into a smile. His light chuckle makes you beam in pride.

“Woooow what an entrance.” Etho claps slowly, muffled by his fingerless gloves. It was almost sarcastic but it amused him nonetheless. “Almost makes up for the fact you're late- huh?” He prods, clearly in a teasing manner. You pout.

“Only by-” You check your watch. “Half an hour!” It's defensive, but you stick your tongue out to show no harm.

“Mhm, still late.” He turns sharply on his heels, now facing the portal. “We better start moving so we still have daylight!”

“It’s 9:30, plus we’re going to Hell- No sunlight there.” You quickly tie up Millennium, taking a tic to admire the build. Pacing quickly to catch up beside him, you note vaguely that he didn't move, instead throwing a coy smile (Hermits got used to only reading his eyes) down at you before stepping into the swirling purple depths. It was always nauseating, the world thrown off kilter and shapes fluttering behind your eyes. Then the pure heat- it prickles your palms immediately with sweat and makes you wipe them on your pants as you step out onto the odd red stone, slightly squishy under foot. It was an eyesore as always, the usual red cavern punctuated by glowing portals and scattered cobblestone paths.

“Sooooo.” You drawl, turning to face him- he looks odd in the environment. Pale skin and stark haired reflecting the orangish hues of ever-burning fire. Greens of his outfit reminding you much of the holiday season. “Lead the way captain.” You prompt- the notification of ‘Going deeper’ noting your lack of experience in this particular world. He chuckles, but sets off, picking around fires and large craters. You follow to a tee, analyzing the scenery in an attempt to memorize it for later. You've almost committed this well populated spawn area when a panicked scream breaks through the crackling silence. Jumping out of your skin you launch towards Etho- sword drawn. But that scream…It wasn't a ghast-

“NO NO IM SORRY I KNOW I FORGOT GOLD JUST SPARE A SCAR ONE SECOND!-” Hightailing from around a corner the offender nearly knocks into you, letting out a yelp. Scar’s eyes are wide, his expression that of pure terror, cheeks dusted in the same red dust as the scenery. A tic goes by as you open your mouth to speak, at the same moment he realizes you're friendly, dashing to cower behind you. The sound of a crossbolt loading pulls your attention from the man. The piglin snorts, eyes narrowed in bloodlust, weapon drawn as it searches for presumably Scar. Tattered tunic and scraped golden boots. You and Etho had planned accordingly- a gold dawning his boots as you opted for golden bracers- but a quick glance at Scar confirms he had in fact forgotten. Flicking your sword you swipe at the beast. Blade forcing it backwards. It squeals in surprise, having not seen you as a target. The crossbow rounds to your chest, you brace for pain. Then another blade cuts through the air. The piglin lets out one last squeal as it dissolves quickly into mist. Crossbow and leather toppling to the floor. You let out a breath and look to your savior with a pout.

“I totally had it handled!” You insist, poking him in the chest with a finger. It slides uselessly off of his iron chestplate. Etho blinks at you, then shakes his head.

“Uh no, you were totally doomed and in need of a strong PvPer to defend you.” his quirked head shows his comfortable ease, and it warms you that he liked bantering. Too bad you were about to murder him.

“Oh? Do you know one I can bring next time?” You ask, batting your eyelashes innocently. He gawks.

“Oohhh!-”

“This is fun and all but do you have any food and gold I can borrow?” You had forgotten about him. Turning to Scar you flash him a grin, digging in your pockets for food.

“Didn't expect to save a charming Scar this fine morning.” You chuckle, offering some of the steak you gathered to his shaking hands.

“Well I didn't expect to be in peril- I knew I had forgotten something!” He eagerly crams the food into his mouth, chewing as he talks around the bite. “Good thing Etho came to save me.” It's a tease- but you still squawk.

“hEY-!” The unholy noise grates your throat, and causes him to nearly choke on the mouthful, swallowing hard to avoid choking. His muffled giggles tug a smile to your lips. “You're an ass.” You spit, turning sharply away from him. “And to think I was going to share my bracers. Guess not!”

“Wa-Wait!” Scar stumbles to bump against your back, straightening himself to not invade your space too much. “You wouldn't leave a helpless scar all on his own?” His voice tilts into a whine, widening his eyes to plead. You scoff, gesturing vaguely to Etho.

“You have an Etho, isn't he enough for you?” You snark back, Scar is silent. He sulks to the Canadian, throwing an arm across his shoulder to begin his sales pitch.

“Ethhooo my buddy, you wouldn't happen to have some gold I could borrow?” Scar tries, offering a meek smile to the taller man. Etho hums, tilting his head to peer across the blazing landscape.

“Nope.” He pops the p, eyes squinting into what must've been a shit-eating grin. Scar groans, letting his knees buckle in exaggerated disappointment. Etho shifts to slow his descent, the uniformed man sliding helplessly to the red floor.

“Need me yet?” You call, shifting to spin and stare at the off pair. Scar groans again, but lifts his arms to grabby-hands. Splitting into a grin you trot towards him, sliding off one golden clasp. His fingers barely brush the surface before you snatch it away. “Nuh uh!- you gotta say I’m better than Etho.”

“Hey!” Now it was Etho's turn to protest, placing a hand on his hip. “You can't make Scar lie.”

“Then I guess he won't get any gold.” You shrug, Scar sputters. Using Etho as a pole to claw his way back up.

“Uh- I didn't say that, I think you're incredibly talented and definitely better than any old Etho.” He smiles, flashing his teeth. You hum now, swinging the gold bracer around. Scar winces every time it nearly slips from your grasp.

“Yea alright.” You toss the accessory and he lunges for it, fumbling for a few moments before managing a firm grasp.

“Oh thank you kind and generous-”

“Alright, that’s enough horsing around, we are already running behind schedule.” Etho interrupts, trotting back on path. You groan in childlike disobedience, but follow along. Scar stumbles to catch up.

“What are you guys doing?” He asks, keeping pace but tucking close to the protection of your side.

“Fetching wood.” You answer, giving him a nudge. “What were you up to?”

“Oh! Same here!” Scar answers confidently. You give him a once over. He doesn't appear to have even successfully made it to the biome, judging by the lack of mycelium on his boots. Raising an eyebrow skeptically he chuckles. “Well I was going to…”

“There's always space for another.” Etho butts in, clasping him on the shoulder. “Even if the role is just the goof.”

You giggle, causing Scar to shoot you a glare.

“I am more than just that!- I can be the entertainment, have you seen the most recent news about Mando?-”

You grin, a small excited noise leaving your throat. Etho groans loudly, retreating a safe distance to let you geek out. He knows the consequences of getting too close, being dragged into full body renditions of scenes.

Despite the blistering heat and hostile atmosphere, a few friends never fail to lighten the mood. You always feel safer when tucked between their shoulders, endless chatter filling the air. And maybe some shenanigans and mishaps occur along the way- but that's the fun of HermitCraft.

[goddessofroyalty]

I have been really curious about this. Since Silco is quite a reserved and serious person does he ever get insecure during his pregnancies about how his body is changing? Do people make comments about his size or anything that would make him insecure and uncomfortable? Would he talk to Vander about it?

Silco is interesting in that he is a very proud person but he's also doesn't necessarily want to hide where he came from or what he survived to get to where he is. So I think there are parts of it that he doesn't get bothered by and bits that do bother him.

I don't think his stomach getting bigger bothers him all that much. If anything I think he somewhat dresses to better accentuate it. There is a level of pride he has in the fact that he is growing his and Vander's child. Both in the sense of he's giving life to their child and the sense that their relationship is solid and growing a family from it. It also helps him when he's arguing with people about how what they are doing is for the next generation in Zaun because of the very visible reminder of the next generation that is his pregnancy. He's very much trying to cultivate that striking image of a pregnant person standing proud in front of the Empire they've built that their child will someday inherit.

What he hates are the bits of it that ruin that image. So he enjoys his stomach getting bigger right up until it's to the point where his walk is now more waddle. There's very few people he feels comfortable puking up around from the morning sickness. He probably wears makeup to hide how tired he looks from it. Anything he thinks would make him look 'weak'.

With comments I think it depends who makes them and in what context.

Positive comments or neutral comments don't bother him, even if they are talking about him getting big. Because he is pregnant and he is proud of it. And part of that is his stomach swelling because his and Vander's child is growing in there.

Sevika and Benzo can make passing more snarky or negative comments about him getting big or that he's starting to waddle and it doesn't really bother him because he knows it doesn't affect what they think of him generally. He'll can easily throw a comment back at them and move on without thinking about it.

The other Chem Barons or people who work for him I think he also will shoot back with some snarky comment of his own when they do make a snarky or negative comment (normally something about how, despite being the pregnant one, he's still able to do his job correctly) but I do think it bothers him more. Because it's evidence that it is affecting the image he has so carefully curated.

I think he would talk to Vander about it but not directly. Vander can tell someone has made a comment that's bothered Silco because Silco will throw a question or comment in almost passing discussion that he knows actually came from someone else ("Do I look like a whale to you?" "You better not be expecting me to move fast seeing I'm currently moving like a penguin"). Vander always offers to go personally talk to whoever told made the comment to Silco but he gets turned down because, no, it was one of Silco's people who said it Silco will deal with it. And deal with it he probably does because he knows if he doesn't than it will more broadly affect the image he has created.

[branwyn-the-half-witch]

Comparative Mythologies of the Long Night: Part Two – Azor Ahai and The Red Sword

In part one, we looked at the origin story of the Long Night, and the ways in which it is reflected in the main series. Now, we shall move on to discuss the heroes who seemingly saved the world.

The most notable of these heroes, with whom you are likely aware, is the one most commonly known as Azor Ahai; emerging from Asshai, this is the hand that wields the flaming sword Lightbringer. They are also known as Hyrkoon the Hero, Yin Tar, Neferion, and Eldric Shadowchaser.

As a brief aside, it is interesting to note that all of these names can be related to specific places in Essos; the Patrimony of Hyrkoon is an ancient nation, Yin is a city in Yi Ti that has often been its capital, ‘Nefer’ is the last city in the distant kingdom of N’ghai, ‘the Shadow’, or the ‘Shadow Lands’ are a region in the furthest east, with AssHAI in the southwest, serving as something of a gateway to them – and it is the Shadow, as we will later learn, from whence the dragons may have first originated; tamed by an ancient, unnamed people.

Whether this solid anchoring of these heroic aliases in various places means anything more than a suggestion that the hero – or heroes – may have come from there, or were perhaps claimed by those peoples, I will leave you to ponder. For now, we shall turn to Azor Ahai’s legend.

Of Azor Ahai (AA), we have the most available information of all of the legends we shall discuss. He is also the only one explicitly prophesied to return again, and the manner in which AA shall return and be heralded is very clearly laid out for us from multiple sources.

AA is described as a leader, wielding a burning sword that radiates heat and light. He gave ‘courage to […] men and [led] the virtuous into battle’, returning ‘light and love’ to the world. So we should account for these aspects, as well as the finer points of the prophecy.

Much has been said about who AA reborn might be, with many candidates proposed. I will not be spilling that ink here; it’s Daenerys. Born on Dragonstone, a smoking isle in the great salt sea, she arose when darkness gathered and, beneath a bleeding star, awoke dragons from stone.

I would also point out that even Jon Snow, upon hearing of the Prophecy in the context of Mel’s candidate Stannis, zeroes on the importance of Stannis not being born on Dragonstone. One can almost hear the author himself tapping his fingers impatiently, no?

If you favour another candidate, a more abstract interpretation of the prophecy, feel free to do your own research and present it elsewhere; I am interested primarily in exploring the myths, not arguing. However, I do hope you will let me expand on my case and consider it fairly.

Dany becomes a leader, bringing hope and courage to mankind and returning light and love to those lost in the darkness. Moreover, she inspires them to fight for themselves, for their lives and loves; leading them into battle, but not doing their fighting for them.

I would also briefly highlight this echo of command from Quaithe, in light of one of AA’s names being ‘Shadowchaser’ – and that Quaithe wishes Dany to go to Asshai, from whence the myths of AA were born and the prophecy was written.

Going back here may mean in a temporal sense, revisiting the origins of AA and learning who he was, what he did, and most notably for Daenerys, why it was needed. She is, as present, unaware of the encroaching darkness that threatens the world, on any level except subconsciously through her dreams. A revelation is needed.

To add to this, we have the ‘Prince that was Promised’ title; these are used interchangeably with AA by Mel and by Maester Aemon and seem to often refer to the same person; in light of GRRM’s addition of Aegon’s dream to the canon, my interpretation is that they do refer to the same person, but by accident. Though we do not yet have it in GRRM’s words, Aegon saw the return of the Long Night and a Targaryen fighting against it. This is tPtwP, Aegon’s name for this leader who happens to also be the one who woke the dragons from stone to fight the cold.

And it is Aegon’s dream that dream-driven Targaryens have stumbled across in their scrolls – what Rhaegar to become a warrior and thence to confer the promise he initially saw in himself upon his newborn son. The Red Priests who herald Dany speak only of AA; Mel may have discovered tPtwP on Dragonstone itself. All other sources for the Promised Prince title seem to be either Targaryen or Targaryen adjacent – such as Barristan, who himself speaks of Jenny of Oldstones’ witch friend, presumably close to certain Targaryens.

But what of Lightbringer? Daenerys is not trained in arms, so how can she wield a sword? Recall that AA reborn is marked by waking dragons from stone and wielding Lightbringer. There is no separate mention of forging/reforging a sword. Perhaps there is more to the tale than that?

So let us examine Lightbringer and its forging; AA makes three attempts to forge the blade, quenching it in water, lion’s blood and, in his successful forging, the living heart of his wife, Nissa Nissa. The blade is described, by the Jade Compendium, as making its own fiery heat.

The blade never being cold, but being warm as Nissa Nissa was warm, is very alike to the description of dragons being ‘fire made flesh’; and the description of Lightbringer in action resembles nothing so much as the affect of Drogon’s flames. Lightbringer, Red Sword of Heroes, is not a blade; it is the dragons awoken from stone. But what of the three forgings? The exact arrangement of the forgings is sometimes debated, but the one I favour is this arrangement: the first forging in ‘water’.

The second in the ‘heart of a lion’; note that this moment is so important it appears again in the dreams that guide Dany’s steps to her eventual success.

And the third, successful forging – in the ‘sacred flames’ of a funeral pyre, fed by the blood of heart’s beloved. Note the proximity of the water/lion/heart imagery on each occasion, and that the conversations following the first scenes are about dragons, and then about war.

In the chapter prior to the pyre, Dany has dreams haunted by a pursuing cold, and by ghosts urging her on, with very familiar gemstone eyes; this links Dany and the dragons explicitly to the Great Empire of the Dawn and thus to the Long Night that followed the Blood Betrayal.

These dreams also link the dragons to sacrifice, just as Lightbringer is linked to Nissa Nissa’s sacrifice. Dany’s dreams show us the lives lost in her journey to that point (though Drogo is not yet entirely lost to her); those she has lost will lend their names to the dragons.

Blood sacrifice is a deeply potent power, both within ASOIAF and without. Many characters tell us of the potency of shed blood; of kin, king, and of holy men. Within many cultures in our own world, blood sacrifice was a holy act, to ward off catastrophe, as payment – and penance.

In Aztec mythology, for instance, it is now generally understood that blood sacrifice, both of slain captives but also one’s own blood on a daily basis, was both a fuel offered up to the gods for their daily labours, and as repayment for the debt owed by the living to the gods for their sacrifices made when creating the fifth sun, and so all human life. The dreams emphasise Dany’s own shed blood from the beginning; in her bloody footsteps, the burning in her womb, and the burning blood from her torn open back, which ultimately grants her wings.

When the time comes, she offers up her own blood by walking unafraid into the sacred flames of the funeral pyre, to bleed with her fallen beloved. Dany alone, among all Targaryens who have attempted to bring back dragons, took the last and most important step of self-sacrifice.

But if we understand blood sacrificed to be offered up, not just for power but for payment of debt, what debt is Dany paying here? Moreover, have we strayed from AA in this talk of blood magic and penance? I would argue not; for just as Dany’s Lightbringer is living dragons, so too do I believe that AA’s red sword was no literal blade, but dragons also.

I would here posit that Azor Ahai, in the coldest, darkest night, sought to bind fire made flesh to humankind. I propose that he tried and failed twice, before binding dragons to the fate of men.

I implore you to consider that Nissa Nissa was a dragon.

This concludes Part Two. Part Three shall answer the question, ‘what in the world did she mean by that last comment?’, by examining sacrifice, necessity, and the long, sad history of House Targaryen’s ritual offerings of innocence as payment.