#and i racked up a whole bunch of greats

[mymp3]

Haikei Doppelgänger - Lvl 32 Master pass

[pinkanonwrites]

Washrack Academy

Jetstorm and Jetfire have a lot of questions about humans. But you? You just want to take your shower in peace.

TFA Jetfire, TFA Jetstorm, and Reader, no ships but it's implied Jetfire has a little crush on the reader, human reader, non-sexual nudity, is it still voyeurism if it's mostly fueled by curiosity? probably, AFAB Reader with GN Pronouns, alien anatomy discussions

"You know, humans are being much more hygienic than Sentinel says they are being."

You rolled your eyes, hefting your small duffel bag further up your shoulder. "Yeah, well Sentinel doesn't know as much about humans as he thinks he does. Most people I know shower every other day at the very least. We aren't big fans of being dirty."

"But now you are being extra dirty!" Jetstorm loomed over you with a cheeky grin, running a huge metal digit over the top of your head. A slick of motor oil came with it, sending another disgusted shiver down your spine at the gooey sensation. "Bumblebee maybe needs to working on power steering! And not splashing human friends with drinks of celebration."

Being a human liaison representing the city of Detroit on Cybertron was already a job way outside of the normal parameters of your career, and the stress was leaving you pretty wired. But Bumblebee accidentally tipping an oversized can of motor oil off a table and directly onto your head while showing off just had to be the final nail in the coffin. In front of a whole bunch of big important Autobots and everything.

Now you were being flanked on either side by Sentinel Prime's personal squadron (a gig they eagerly volunteered for and a choice both you and Sentinel had little say in) as they showed you to whatever the Cybertronian equivalent of an army base locker room was so you could get cleaned up. 

"And motor oil not to be damaging your fluffy organic fibers?" Great, now Jetfire was poking at your greasy hair too. At least he had half a processor to keep his igniters off while he did.

"It's called hair. And it'll only damage it if I leave it in too long. Plus, it's really bad for my skin."

"Good for it not to be doing badness to hair! Yikes for it to be doing badness to skin. So sensitive, little organics. Must be very hard!"

"You're telling me, bud."

"Here! Coming this way." Jetstorm gestured for you to follow him through a tiled doorway. The room beyond looked remarkably similar to the locker room you'd had in high school, though blown up to a cartoonish scale. "We have tiny washrack for mini-bot sizes. Maybe too big for you still, but is better than nothing!"

He wasn't exaggerating, the handles for the mini-bot sized faucets were still a good two or three feet out of your reach. 

"Where do you even put your towels? Your soap?" You glanced around but failed to find any bench or wall divot suitably placed for setting your things down. "Is there anywhere I can set my bag?"

"Just be putting bag into subspace! Easy for peasy!" A small compartment popped open on Jetstorm's chest, and from it he procured… a metal scouring pad? A giant one, about the size of a large restaurant platter. If the situation weren't so incredibly absurd already, you might've gotten a chuckle out of the idea of a robot using a Brillo pad as a loofah.

"Yeah, we don't… humans don't have that." You said instead. Because this situation was, in fact, incredibly absurd.

Jetfire and Jetstorm looked at each other, mirrored expressions of visible confusion. Then, they both shrugged.

"Being a human…"

"...Is very difficult!"

"Look, just- can one of you hold it for me? Please?"

"For certain! I will be best at human wash rack supplies holder job! Be counting on me." You dropped your duffel bag into Jetfire's cupped hands and wrenched it open. Grabbing your various bottles of hair product and a large towel from within, you lined them up on the floor along the wall and hopefully just beyond the reach of the shower's spray. But as you moved for the bottom of your shirt to pull it off, you felt the prickle of two pairs of optics staring just a little bit too hard at your body.

"Are you two just gonna… watch me? You can wait outside, you know."

"We are to be protecting you from curious bots! And make sure you do not do the snooping or the wandering off." Jetstorm insisted.

"Are you gonna do that while staring me down? A little privacy, please." Was it ironic to ask for privacy in a locker room? Probably. But most people had the decency not to stare while someone was getting undressed. 

Most people. Maybe that sentiment didn't extend to twelve foot tall transforming robot soldiers.

"Staring? Who is doing the staring? Certainly not us goodness bots!" 

"No, no! We would never be the staring! Especially not at soft and squishy little human frame!"

Both brothers rushed to cup a servo over their optics, continuously asserting their supposed innocence all the while. You sighed, peeling your way out of your slick and permanently stained clothes and letting them fall to the ground in an oily heap.

"Well I don't know how it is on Cybertron, but on Earth staring at people in the locker room is what we call 'bad manners.' You two ever heard of those?"

"We will being so very manners-filled! No staring from us at you, big promise." Jetfire insisted, carefully depositing your bag into his subspace as he brought his other servo up so they were both covering his faceplate.

"Though do not be trying to do the sneaking off while we are look-away! That would be also called 'bad manners.'" Added Jetstorm with a cheeky thumbs-up.

"I'm not going to go sneaking around your base naked, so you don't need to worry about that. Now could one of you get the water for me, please?"

As Jetstorm felt along the wall and cranked the water to partial blast, you swear you heard him ask his brother 'But what is "naked" meaning?' The hiss of the showerhead quickly covered it, though, and you decided you'd rather focus on getting clean before you struggled to explain the foreign concept to the pair of ridiculous twins. The water ran just hot enough to make your skin tingle as you lathered your hair with shampoo, vigorously scrubbing the motor oil free from your scalp. It'd probably take more than a few rinses to get everything out, you'd have to ask Professor Sumdac to bridge you some more toiletries way sooner than you'd originally planned. Maybe Sari could pick some up for you on her next trip home?

But as you lathered your hair up for the fourth (maybe fifth?) time, you couldn't help but notice a quiet, metallic buzzing that could just barely be heard over the hiss of water. It paused and fizzed in a rhythmic pattern, not all too dissimilar from Morse Code. It would stop for a moment, before picking up again, slightly lower pitched this time. It sounded almost like… a conversation.

"If you've got something to say, you can say it out loud." You called them out. Jetfire startled at the sound of your voice, his own sounding slightly strained. 

"What? But we are such quiet being!"

"You're doing that… that 'EM field' thing. Where you talk to each other with your brains? I've heard Bee and Bulkhead do it before. So, c'mon. What do you want to know?"

He clammed up, absentmindedly scuffing one of his pedes against the tiled floor. Jetstorm, meanwhile, had a sly grin growing across his faceplate. He raised his free servo up in the air like a student waiting to be called on.

"Actually, Jetfire is having a question!"

"I-I am not! Do not listen, brother is merely making funny joke!"

"No, no! Do not listen to him! Jetfire is very, very curious about human not having sp-MRMPH!"

A cacophony of metal on metal echoed through the wash racks as Jetfire tackled his brother to the wet tile, wrestling his servos over the other's intake to keep him quiet. Jetstorm grabbed for his brother's goggles and pulled him into a shaky headlock, even as Jetfire repeatedly kicked him in the knees with the flat of his pede. You scrambled to grab your towel, clutching it to your front as the two bots collapsed to the ground in an ear-splitting crash.

"Hey, HEY! Quit it! What the hell are you two doing?!"

Both of their heads snapped up at your tone, Jetstorm still looking mischievous while his brother had the decency to look a bit sheepish. He quickly pried Jetfire's servo off of his intake.

"Jetfire is wanting to know why humans do not have spike! You know, since he was doing the peeking."

"Y-You were also doing peeking! I know you were curious too!" Jetfire shot back.

"Maybe curious, yes, but you are obsessed! 'Oh, little humans are so soft and so squishy being! Why so warm? I want to be holding one!'"

"I am not sounding like that! You are making exaggeration!"

Jetfire seemed on the verge of tackling his brother again, so you quickly stepped in. "Okay, geez, look. I will answer one, ONE! Question each. And only if you stop hitting each other. That's it. I don't have the energy for this today."

The two bots awkwardly clambered back to their feet, Jetstorm looking down at you with a playful grin while Jetfire seemed to be looking anywhere but your unclothed frame.

"Brotherrrrr?" Jetstorm teased. "Would you like to be going first?" 

Jetfire dignified his brother's teasing with a sharp elbow to the side, but spoke anyway. "S-Sorry to be peeking when you said not, but, um, do humans not have- uh, not have spike? Or is it hidden? Maybe not pressurized? If embarrassing you don't have to say. No biggee."

You furrowed your brow. 'Spike.' You don't think you'd heard any of the Autobots use that term before, at least not around you. Maybe it was a built-in weapon? Or some sort of specialized armor plating?

"I, uh, I don't know what a spike is. Sorry. Can you be… more specific?"

Jetfire let out a high-pitched sound, similar to heat escaping a tea kettle, while his brother only seemed to beam even brighter at his humiliated suffering.

"Ah, you know! Spike!" Jetstorm grinned. "Right here, above valve? Comes out like 'fssshh'? No modesty panel on you, so maybe just hidden away!" He made a bunch of vague motions in front of his crotch, and with a looming horror you started to catch on as he mimed the motion of something growing and rising up in front of his crotch plate. His modesty panel.

Holy shit they had robot dicks.

"N-No? No, I don't have a- a spike." You were doing your absolute best to stay focused on the conversation at hand, not think about… about the robot penis that apparently all Cybertronians had? "Humans, uh, most humans just have one or the other. The, um, the spike or the… the…"

"Valve?" Jetstorm happily supplied.

"Sure? I guess?!"

"Something new to be learned every day! Right, brother?" Jetstorm thumped his brother on the back with an open servo, while Jetfire was openly refusing to make eye contact with you. The temperature in the room seemed to peak by a few degrees, and based on the heat waves rolling off of Jetfire's body you had an inkling suspicion it was his doing, however unintentional it may be. "Anyways, my turn, yes? You said word 'naked'. What is 'naked' meaning?"

"Uh, y-yeah. Um, yeah. Sure." God, you did not have the mental fortitude to deal with these revelations today. "Naked just means you're not… covered up? Wearing clothes. There are some parts on a human that have to be covered in public, otherwise it's uh… inappropriate." Your only solace was that now you had some sort of comparison to make between Cybertronians and humans. "Like, you guys wouldn't walk around with your… your spike out? Same for humans."

"Ohhh…" They even had stunned realizations in unison. You'd almost consider it cute, if you weren't already so burnt-out.

"Yep, well, class is over. Can I please get dressed now? Preferably without being watched?"

"A-Ah! Yes, of course! So sorry! Here is things." Jetfire quickly fumbled your duffel out of his subspace, only for it to slip through his digits and hit the floor with a thud. Wincing, he turned to shove his brother from the room, calling over his shoulder to you as they went. "We will be watching door so no bots do peeking! Then there is no way we be seeing you naked, not even little bit! Seeing you in moment- but not naked! Just normal seeing!"

"O-Okay? I'll be out in… a bit." But they were already gone. Weird. Weird couple of bots. But hey, at least now you could dry your hair in peace.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

"Very bumpy landing, brother." Jetstorm couldn't fight his mirthful grin as he stared down at his spark-twin, who was currently sitting with his back to the wall outside the wash racks, knee-joints pulled up tight to his chassis and faceplate hidden from view. "I may not be seeing exact same appeal you do, but humans are verrrrrry entertaining being. That human especially so!"

"I wish to be offline." Jetfire lamented. "So awkward, very very uncool. They will never be speaking to me again."

"Do not be so downer, brother! They answer questions very nice, and do not even yell when you peeking at their array!"

Jetfire let out another pathetic wail. "Do not be reminding me! Me, caught peeking? Would rather scrub every rivet on Omega Supreme than be that embarrassing again." He slammed his helm against the tops of his knee-joints a few times for good measure, a loud, echoing clanking reverberating down the hall. "Why are little humans being so soft? A-And when covering self, why are little peeks of soft bits around towel so- so erotic?"

Jetstorm cackled, patting his brother atop the helm with his servo. "And to think, we thought being human is hard. Sounds like liking human is much, much harder!"

[iliketangerines]

HI I LOVE U I LOVE U AND UR WORK SO VERY MUCH 🤞🤞🤞

do u have any thoughts on ANY mk boys (johnny, liu kang, kuai liang, literally any combo or individual IDM AT ALL) with a reader that has hella piercings :3 specifically or at least a tongue piercing

i have so many holes in my face i NEEEED to know what they'd do about it :3 nsfw if possibleee, giving u lots of room to work with tehe THANK YOU 🩷

show me what you can do

a/n: i gotchu pookie, haven't written for kenshi yet so here you go

pairing: kenshi x afab!reader

warnings: nsfw (MDNI), blowjobs, nipple play, pussy eating, finger-fucking, creampies (wrap it up dick-havers)

when you first arrive at the Wu Shi Academy, Kenshi has to do a double take when he sees you

your entire face is covered in piercings: two in your nose, two on each eyebrow, two pairs on your lips, and an endless amount on your ears

when you take a picture with Johnny Cage, you stick out your tongue, and he can see you have a piercing on your tongue as well

Kenshi knows for a fact that you’ve definitely been looked at weird and ostracized for having so many piercings, and he’s reminded of his own experience with his tattoos

you two buzz to each other like a flame and a moth

you’re spunky, fun, and performative, almost like Johnny but much more endearing and much less annoying

the two of you get closer as you train, but he notices you aren’t ever at their hand-to-hand combat training, maybe a few times to learn a few defensive moves but much less so than him and the others

you tell him later when he asks that 1. you don’t want your piercings to get ripped out (you’d seen some not so tasteful things at fights) and 2. you’re more a distance fighter

when he raises an eyebrow, you smile and tell him to find you tomorrow morning

he wakes up early and heads to your room, and you bring him to a different part of the Wu Shi Academy that he’s never explored

there’s a selection of weapons on the rack, and you beeline for some throwing knives

you pick them up, flipping them in the air and doing a myriad of tricks with them, flashing Kenshi a wink before flinging them in rapid succession at the human-dummy on the other wide of the field

they all hit, one right between the eyes, one in the neck, and one right in the dick

Kenshi cringes at that but is nonetheless still amazed at your skill

he watches you do this with a plethora of weapons, the crossbow, the bow and arrow, throwing axes, blow darts, and even a rope dart

by the time you’re done practicing/demonstrating your skills, it’s nighttime and he’s spent the whole day watching you practice with your weapons

he’s blown away, where had you learned to get so good at distance weapons?

you tell him you grew up in the circus, and at an early age you were very good at throwing darts

you were a great performer and trained in a bunch of different weapons to woo the audience: you could even use playing cards as a weapon if you wanted to

he can only stare at you in shock, and you ask him about his own life, after all, you had just shared your entire life story, and it’s only fair if you know his

he feels a bit uncomfortable but tells you that he was raised in yakuza, that he trained with a sword, that he’s done some unsavory things, and that he is trying to get Sento back from Johnny to save his clan from the yakuza

you squeeze his arm, telling him sorry but that you believe in him and that he can save his clan

you tell him that he’s amazing, that he’s the only one who's actually listened to you about what you do and hasn’t judged you for your piercings

he brings a hand up to cup your face and glances at your lips

you lean in close and give him a soft kiss, and he can feel the piercings digging into his face as you kiss him, but he doesn’t mind, even enjoying the way they rub against his skin

he pulls you into his arms and kisses you deeply, and you slip your tongue into his mouth and he groans at the feeling of your piercing rubbing against his tongue

the two of you make-out for a few moments before pulling away at the sound of Kung Lao calling you two for dinner

before the two of you leave, Kenshi tells you he wants to take things slow: he’s had to seduce people for the yakuza, but he actually wants this with you and wants to take it slow and you agree

the two of your find time for each other among all the training, sitting close to each other during meals and giving each other quick kisses before leaving for training

on nights, before the both of you retire to your rooms, you both look up at the stars together and tell stories about each other

you tell him about how you got your first piercing, how you got them at quite a late age: 14, and how you were so scared you nearly cried

he tells you about how he sliced off the bun of his mother’s hair when he wasn’t paying attention to where he was swinging his sword

after a few months, a few days before you all travel to Outworld, he escorts you to your room after one of your late-night talks, and you go to say good night

but he grabs onto your arm, and asks in a quiet voice if he can come in

you blush and smile and beckon him inside, sliding the door close and turning on the lamps in the room

it’s simple and plain, no decorations, but Liu Kang hadn’t really allowed them to bring anything with them

but, on your dresser, there’s a pile of playing cards, and you light up as he notices them

you drag him to sit on the bed, and you sit across from him and shuffle the cards and tell him to pick out a card

he picks out a card and memorizes it before sliding it back in the deck

you shuffle the cards and pull one out and ask him if it’s his card; it isn’t, and he tells you so

that’s when you lean in close and say you know before reaching your hand into the folds of his uniform, your hand brushing against his chest, and pull out a card

it’s his card this time, but Kenshi’s a bit red at how you had pushed your hand into his uniform

you look so proud, eyes shining brightly, and he can’t resist

he pulls you in for a kiss, pushing you back so you both fall back onto the bed

he grinds into you, and you moan at the feeling, and he’s going crazy

Kenshi kisses you for what feels like forever, running one of his hands up and down your body, squeezing at your hips and your thick thighs

finally, he pulls away and strips off his top, and you run your hands over his tattoos

he shivers and tugs at the edges of your own uniform, and you take it off before he leans back down to kiss you and slots his leg between your soft thighs

you moan and grind down onto his thigh, and he can feel himself growing harder by the second

he pulls you up slightly with one hand and uses his other hand to unhook your bra, you barely have time to be impressed because he shucks it away and starts trailing kisses down your neck

he goes to tease your nipples when he feels metal on them

in a daze, he pulls away and finds that you also have nipple piercings, and he almost cums in his pants at the sight of your chest heaving up and down with your pierced nipples

immediately he tugs at the piercings, and you whine

Kenshi smirks and brings his head down to lick and tug at your piercings, and you dig your fingers in his hair as he plays with your nipples

he can’t get enough of your sounds: your whines, your whimpers, especially the choked moans you make when he tugs at the piercing a little bit too hard

but you push him off your chest and flip him on the bed, and he props himself on his shoulders as you wiggle your way down his legs

he’s watching with blown-out pupils as you pull down his pants and release his cock from his underwear

it springs up, pre-cum leaking at the tip, and you pump at his dick and watch as Kenshi throws his head back in pleasure

he’s had sex before yes, but it’s never felt this intense, so warm, so loving before

his eyes shoot open when he feels your mouth envelop the tip, and he feel the piercing in your tongue press against the slit

he nearly cums right then and there as has to dig his fingers into the sheets to control himself

you bob your head and down his dick, piercing pressing deliciously into his dick, and he can’t help but watch as you eagerly try and make him cum

when you bring your head back up, suckling on the tip with the piercing pressing into him and your hand pumping him fast and hard, he cums hard into your mouth

it feels like forever as you keep stroking him through his orgasm, and he feels dizzy when you release his cock from your mouth with a small pop and stick out your tongue to show you’ve swallowed all his cum

he drags you back up to kiss him, tasting himself, and gropes at your ass

you grind down onto his abs, and he files that thought away for later

he wants to return the favor, so he flips you over onto your back and trails kisses down your stomach before taking off your pants

he spreads your legs and finds another piercing right on the hood of your clit, and somehow he isn’t surprised anymore and dives right in

he hums around your clit, sucking and flicking the sensitive bud, and you arch your back off the bed, whining at the sensation and tugging at his hair

he grinds his hardening dick into the mattress at the feeling and continues to lap at your sensitive clit, and he takes two of his fingers and pushes them into you

you moan at the stretch, your hips bucking toward him, and he fucks them into your wet pussy, curling his fingers to try and find that sweet spot

he’s watching you intently to see when he does, and as his fingers curl into you once more, you throw your head back and grind against his fingers

he smiles against your cunt as he massages the spot, and somehow your pussy grows even wetter, and there’s an audible squelching sounds he fucks you with his fingers

all too soon, you’re cumming around his fingers, and Kenshi sucks on your clit like a lifeline, prolonging your orgasm for as long as possible

when you come down from the high, he puts his fingers into his mouth and tastes your cum on his fingers, moaning at the taste of you

he then brings himself up to kiss you again and grinds against your pussy before finally aligning himself and sinking in

you both moan, and Kenshi swears he’s died and gone to heaven

you’re so soft and wet, and he never wants to leave so he just stays inside of you and grinds a little longer against you

you’re whining, fucked-out and light-headed from the stretch of his cock, and start to beg for him to please fuck you, and who is he to deny your request?

slowly, he starts to thrust into you, shallow little ones at first but they get deeper and deeper until he’s full-on fucking into you like a rabid animal

he brings one of his hands down to rub at your clit, your piercing digging into your clit and providing a little extra stimulation

you’re whimpering at the sensation, and he brings his lips down to kiss you

he can’t get enough of you sound, how you feel, how all of this is just so much

Kenshi can feel tears pricking at the edges of his eyes and can’t care, and he takes his other hand to hold hands with you as he keeps fucking into your wet pussy

his thrusts start to grow more erratic, and he’s close to cumming, and so he pinches at your clit, pressing your piercing into your clit

you cum with a loud moan, and you clench down on his dick, causing him to groan and cum inside of you

the both of you kiss for a little longer as Kenshi fucks the both of you through your orgasms, and then he stays a little longer inside of your cunt because it’s just so warm and wet just for him

but eventually, he pulls out of you and looks for something to wipe you both down

you point at one of the cabinets, and he pulls it open to find a spare hand towel

he takes dampens the rag with some bottled water on your dresser and wipes the both of you down and throws the rag down with the rest of  your discarded clothes

he lays down on the bed, snuggling you in close and wrapping an arm around you

you trace his back with your hand, humming a soft song, presumably one from your circus, and he finds himself falling asleep to it

the next morning, Johnny Cage flings the door open and then immediately shuts it at the sight of the two of you laying naked in the bed and cuddling each other

the both of you change quickly and bolt out of the room to find Johnny Cage laughing his ass off

Kenshi scowls at him, and you smack the back of the actor’s head

but as you two walk to breakfast, the both of you intertwine your hands together and everything’s all right again

[urmom3001]

Apollo’s Favorite (Luke Catellan X Reader)

Summary: Reader gets called upon a quest from her father, a quest where she is destined to never return. Very much similar to Yue in Avatar the last air bender

Warnings!: angsty ish. Fem!Apollo!reader. No happy ending sorta? Erm not proof read😔😔

Percy had just gotten to Camp yesterday. Poor boy, just lost his mother, put into a camp with a bunch of strangers. Percy was rethinking all of his life’s choices when he finally snapped out of it and realised it was all real. He was here, with the counselor of Hermes cabin learning the “Ins and the Outs” at camp.

As they walked they walked around the U shaped cabins they passed Cabin 7. Percy was very attentive and noticed how beautiful the cabin shined. How the sun reflected off of the carefully, crafted pillars of the building. As he admired the cabin..which was way better than Hermes Cabin. He read the plaque just above the doors of the cabin and he noticed a wooden bow and arrow with intricate gold detailing just above the door of the cabin and under the plaque.

“In Great Thanks to Y/n L/n…” Percy read in his head of off plaque. “Hey Luke?” Percy turned to his left,

“Yeah?” Luke answered

“Who’s Y/n L/n, sounds like she’s got a whole bunch of glory.” Percy joked

Luke thought to himself, he looked like he was reminiscing. This alarmed Percy, maybe he hit a soft spot and he didn’t know?

“Yeah she has a lot of glory. She’s known as Apollo’s Favorite”

- Last Year Around the Summer Solstice-

I was shooting arrows at the shooting range when Chiron aproached me. My bow and arrow was my most prized possession, a gift, from my father. Being Apollo’s favorite was, pressuring and nerve racking. The Gods were very bipolar, it could’ve changed in an instant. If you keep trying to understand why the Gods are the way that they are, you’ll drive yourself crazy.

“They are ready for you to choose.” Chiron continued “Follow me” he gestured and he started walking.

I wordlessly followed. I didn’t know who to choose. I knew one thing though, I wasn’t choosing him. I was terrified. The Oracle is always confusing, but this one was very crystal clear.

“One soul is destined to never return back to the place they once called home”

Everyone that attended Camp Half-Blood knew it as home. Somewhere they could belong. One of the three of us is not making it back.

As we got closer to the circle of the camps best, my stomach was churning the words of the Oracle repeating in my head. How would Luke react when I don’t pick him? We go on each others quest all the time. But this one, I just. I don’t think I could live if Luke is the one who didn’t return.

I stood there before all of them. I pointed at an Ares girl, Clarisse, I think. She’s a fierce fighter. “You….and..” I hesitated. I looked at Luke, he was looking straight back at me. “You.” I pointed to one of my half brothers that was right next to him. The look of betrayal showed on his face.

“Very well” Chiron announced. “Pack everything you will need. Your journey will begin Tomorrow morning, and your deadline is, The Summer Solstice.”

I watched as everyone walked away, everyone but Luke of course. I tried to start walking away before he could say anything to me.

I started but he followed “ What the hell was that?” He asked, he sounded furious.

“What do you mean Castellan?” I always called him by his last name.

“You know what I mean L/n” And he called me by mines.

“Because you don’t understand what’s at stake here. This quest changes everything.” I said.

“So why didn’t you choose me. We always go on eachothers quest.” He questioned.

“It doesn’t matter. I need to pack my-“ I started walked as fast as I could now. He cut my words off.

“What’s going on L/n?? What the the hell did the Oracle say to you. I don’t understand why you didn’t choose me”

At this point I was fed up. It was too much. One of us is going to die. It could be me, or it could be one of the other two.

“BECAUSE ONE OF US ISN’T GOING TO MAKE IT BACK.” I finally shouted. I could never keep anything away from Luke Castellan.

“Wha-what?” He stammered.

“One of us, isn’t. Going. To make it. The Oracle said to me. ‘One soul is destined to never return back to the place they once called home’ Don’t you get it?? One of us isn’t coming back. And I’m not going to let you onto this quest because I don’t know what I would do if you died because of me.” I finally let out with a sigh. “Now please, I need to pack.” I left him there. He didn’t say anything as I walked away.

I finally made it back to cabin 7. What if I was the one that would die? I’ve never been scared of death. I always sort of knew my father was going to give me a choice of something being his favorite and all. I never even desired glory. I just wanted to be a kid.

Everyone else was at the archery range or doing other camp activities, so the cabin was empty when I arrived. I started to pack my things. Some clothes, some medicines I had made, and other needs. Finally I looked at my bunk. Above my pillow hung my bow and arrows. Of course I was taking my bow and arrow. I carefully took it off the holder on the wall and placed it on my bag. The mist will cover it once we are in the regular world.

I was almost done when I heard a knock. I knew who it was. If it was one of my siblings they would’ve just come in. “Come in!” I shouted. I was working on making more medicine for the quest.

“Hi Castellan” I said with my back turned to him.

“Refuse the quest.” He said.

“Excuse me? I can’t refuse a quest from my father himself are you nuts?” I didn’t turn to look at him, still working on the ambrosia mixture.

“What if it’s you?” He said, I swear I heard the smallest crack in his voice.

I finally turned to look at him. He was worried I can tell.

“Then it is me. I will die a very famous glorious death.” I said half jokingly.

“This isn’t funny, you can’t die on me Y/n I need you.” He came closer.

My first name coming from him made me wince. He’d only ever called me Y/n when he wanted me to take him serious.

“Luke, everything is going to be okay.” I walked to him and grabbed his hands. “I’ll always be here for you.”

“Always?” He asked as we interlocked hands.

“Always.” I confirmed with a smile. “Come on, Dinner’s gonna begin soon, and I can’t wait for desert they’re having strawberry shortcake!” I said as I dragged him towards the door. I could finish my medicine later.

“Alright alright.” He followed…not that he had a choice or anything.

-Morning of The Quest-

“Thought you could leave without saying goodbye?” I heard Luke say.

I turned around and ran to hug him. “It was too early. I didn’t want to bother you I-“ he cut me off

“Y/n.” I finally looked at him in the eyes. Taking in all of him. If I didn’t come back, this would be the last time I would see him. “You could never bother me” he finished his sentence.

“Okay, I’m sorry, but I really need to get going” I said.

“Right, uhm. Before you go I…” he hesitated.

“You…?” I quipped to make fun of him.

“I uhm wanted to give you this.” He handed me a bracelet, it had all of my favorite colors and it was simple. Just how I liked it. I loved it. “And I have a matching one!”

“Luke, this is..” I looked up at him. “Amazing, thank you I love it. I’ll wear it for the rest of my life.” I hugged him, tighter than I ever had before. This could be our last hug after all.

“Come on!!! STOP MACKING WITH MY SISTER WE NEED TO GET GOING!!” My half brother shouted.

“Leo SHUT UP.” I shouted back.

“You should get going” he said as he hugged me.

“Yeah.” I said disappointedly. “Luke?”

“Yeah?” He looked down. And I finally looked up at him for the last time. And I kissed him. I had never kissed anyone before. But I’m glad I kissed Luke. He kissed me back, and it was like we were made for each other. Like plato had sculpted us out perfectly for eachother. After what seemed like forever we pulled apart foreheads pushed together.

“Don’t die on me. Okay?” He said as he he looked into my eyes.

“You’re never getting rid of me Castellan” I smirked as I started walking away.

And so we set off on our quest, hoping for the best. As I looked back at camp over my shoulder. I saw Luke standing there waiting for me to leave his line of sight before going back to his cabin. He waved as a looked back. And I waved too.

-Current Day, Camp Half-Blood-

“She’s the soul of the Sun now.” Luke answered monotonely. “Every century, Apollo picks a new soul to be the Sun, otherwise the Sun wouldn’t shine without a soul.” He explained to Percy. “Y/n L/n was the soul he chose to be the next Sun. We didn’t think it would be Y/n. Everyone knew she was Apollo’s favorite but, we didn’t know the reason she was, was because she was the next Sun.” He said.

“So this Y/n girl, she’s..that?” Percy said as he pointed to the sun.

“Yup.” Luke confirmed.

“She went into the quest knowing that one of them wasn’t going to make it. She knew there was a big chance it was going to be her but, she went on the quest anyway.” Luke went into detail.

“Wow she’s..really brave. I guess that’s why she has a plaque in her honor?” Percy asked.

“Yeah, her siblings fought for it to be done. She was so young you know? She was, brave, kind, and so smart. She was amazing.” Luke noticed he might’ve said a little too much when Percy questioned.

“Were you close with her?” Percy asked.

“Yeah, she was..we were..it’s complicated.” Luke muttered.

“You guys loved eachother..huh?” Percy picked up.

“Yeah,” Luke sighed. “I loved her a lot. I never got to tell her. How could I not though? She was so perfect. Down to earth. She never wanted all of the glory and monsters. You know?” Luke said. He hadn’t talked abt Y/n in ages. Of course she was always on his mind. But he never really talked about her anymore. He couldn’t bring himself to.

“Yeah. I know the feeling.” Percy felt exactly like Y/n. He didn’t want to be a half blood. He didn’t want glory. He didn’t want any of this.

“Well, uhm. We should get going, we have a tight schedule.” Luke said as he started walking away. Percy followed. As they walked together. Percy noticed Luke adjusting a bracelet on his wrist a lot after talking about Y/n.

“Yup..” Percy thought to himself “ …Definitely hit a soft spot.”

A/n: Ermmmmmm this is my first work pls be nice😔😔💔💔💔 constructive criticism is VERY much welcome and erm I hope u enjoyed :3

[movedtone0mile]

the perfect hostess

60s AU 

husband!Jaehyun x housewife!F!reader

feat Johnny and Taeyong

warnings: 60s gender roles, mention of alcohol, johnny and taeyong are attracted to Y/N, smut, minors dni!!! bad english from a french person (blame grammarly), probably anachronisms idk how folks talked in this period but you ain’t reading this for historical accuracy.

word count: 3.5K

AN: I tried something new ok, I addressed Y/N as “she” rather than “you”, tell me if you have a preference, but I’m not a big fan of this formula (“she” sounds more repetitive to me for some reason and I had to use  ”Y/N”  a lot more which I know can bother some people)

summary: Jaehyun loves his wife, she's lovely, pretty and most importantly: the perfect hostess. So when he invites his co-workers Johnny and Taeyong over, he's pleased to see that they all envy his marriage.

Jaehyun and Y/N could not be a happier couple. They lived in a well-furnished suburban house, Y/N was a dedicated housewife and Jaehyun was a successful businessman. He worked hard to provide for his family, but always found time to enjoy his wife’s company, despite his busy schedule. Oh Y/N was certain she made the best match in town. 

Jaehyun was very much in love with his wife, and always looked forward to coming home to her after a long day at work. Y/N, on her side, admired Jaehyun's work and dedication to what he did. She loved hearing about his work projects and the challenges he faced. So when Jaehyun suggested this dinner with his colleagues, she was happy to accept. “It sounds like a great idea darling.”

He nodded excitedly. “Yes, I would be delighted if you met them.” Walking behind her, he blew air on her exposed neck, making her shiver. “And it would also be an opportunity for me to show off your fantastic cooking skills.” 

Y/N couldn't help but chuckle at his compliment. "Well, I'd love to have them over. How many are we talking about?"

“Just a few. Two, maybe.” Jaehyun said. “I would not want the whole office to think that I am their friend. I have to maintain some kind of hierarchy, you know.” 

"I'll start planning the menu then," Y/N replied, already thinking about the dishes she could prepare.

“Well, we are not in a hurry..” Jaehyun kissed her neck, down to her clavicles and Y/N gripped the counter as she sighed. 

꧁ ♡ ꧂

Dinner was scheduled for Friday, and as the end of the week approached, Y/N's excitement grew, and she spent her week focusing on making sure everything was perfect. She was both impatient and anxious. She was determined to make a good impression. 

On the morning of the dinner, Y/N woke up early, eager to get started on the preparations. She took extra care in selecting the ingredients for the meal, making sure they were fresh and of the highest quality. She meticulously cleaned and arranged the dining room, preparing the house for the arrival of Jaehyun and his colleagues. Then, she spent hours in the kitchen, cooking up a storm. 

In the evening, she heard the sound of keys turning in the lock, accompanied by a bunch of husky voices. The men arrived promptly at the agreed-upon time, Jaehyun insisted on not making his wife wait. 

When they walked through the door, Y/N rushed out of her apron and into the lobby. 

The two men putting their jackets on the coat rack were very handsome. The former threw her a bright smile, to which she responded shyly, meanwhile, the other was taller than Jaehyun and had sharp eyes. Hers dropped to the floor, and she did not dare to hold eye contact with him. 

“Don’t mind her, she can be a bit shy.” Jaehyun chuckled. 

His soft smile managed to ease his wife a little, and she eventually welcomed their guests with a warm demeanour. Jaehyun introduced Y/N to the two men, who she now recognized as Taeyong and Johnny. Jaeyhun had insisted on her calling them by their first names, but she did not feel comfortable enough yet.

Y/N led her guests to the dining room, where they were met with a beautifully set table and the delicious smell of the food she had prepared. Jaehyun followed closely behind and the group settled in around the table. 

꧁ ♡ ꧂

Y/N came back from the kitchen, holding a platter of steaming hot lasagna in her hands. She felt a surge of nervous excitement when she set it in the centre of the beautiful spread she had laid on the table her husband and his colleagues were seated. “I hope you all like lasagna.”

Jaehyun looked up at her with a grin. “I am sure it will be perfect, love.”

Johnny and Taeyong took in her elegant dress and overall stunning appearance and smiled. She felt her cheeks flush under their gaze, not used to receiving the attention of men who weren’t her husband. 

“Thank you for having us over, Y/N.” Taeyong said, his voice smooth. “It looks absolutely delicious.”

Johnny nodded in agreement, his eyes still fixed on his friend’s wife. “Yeah thanks for having us. You look beautiful, by the way.”

Jaehyun arched an eyebrow and Y/N, flattered, muttered a small “thank you”. 

As they started to dig into the lasagna, Y/N watched the men anxiously, waiting for their reaction. She needn’t have worried though. 

“This is amazing, Y/N,” Taeyong said between bites. “You are a fantastic cook.”

“I have to say, Jaehyun, you’re lucky to have such a talented wife.” His colleague added. 

Jaehyun’s eyes narrowed at the comment, curious about where this was going. 

Y/N, on the other hand, was simply relieved that her efforts had paid off. 

The dinner progressed and Jaehyun, Johnny and Taeyong found themselves drawn into a conversation about business -probably to avoid the elephant in the room. They discussed challenges they faced, other co-workers and business strategies.

Y/N, noticing the intensity of the conversation, couldn’t help but feel a little left out. She had always been proud of her husband’s success in his field, but she had little interest in it.

As the conversation continued, she excused herself from the table, taking their now empty plates with her. The technical jargon and strategic planning were a bit too much for her, and she felt a little out of place. She retreated to the kitchen to clean up a bit and finish preparing dessert. 

Jaehyun had noticed her discomfort. He had realized that the conversation had become a little too technical and business-oriented for her liking. He did feel a twinge of guilt for not including her more, but he needed her out in order to discuss the matter he wanted to discuss with the men at the table.

He hadn’t even need to bring the subject up by himself, as after a moment of awkward silence, Johnny spoke up. “Jaehyun, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you are very lucky to have a wife like yours.”

Taeyong nodded in agreement. “It is hard not to be drawn to her…”

“I can see why you’re so crazy about her man.” the taller man pursued, sipping on his wine. 

At first, Jaehyun had felt a twinge of jealousy. He loved Y/N more than anything in the world, and the thought of anyone else showing interest in her would usually upset him. But right now, he found the situation quite amusing. In fact, he felt a strange sense of pride that his wife could be so appealing to other men. It was proof of how wonderful she was, and he couldn’t help but feel a little smug about the fact that he was the one to have you. 

 “She is quite amazing, right?”

Taeyong and Johnny both nodded, their eyes lingering on the kitchen door, where Y/N had disappeared. 

“You guys seem to be really interested in Y/N.” Jaehyun said, looking directly at them. 

Taeyong and Johnny exchanged a glance before Johnny spoke up again.

“I told you, and I told her, I won’t deny that she is a very attractive woman,” he said “but we would never do anything to jeopardize your marriage, I hope you know that. We are friends after all.”

Jaehyun took a sip of his drink before responding. 

“I am very lucky to have her, indeed.”

Setting down his glass, he stood up, “Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen. I need to check on my wife.” and made his way to the kitchen to find her. 

When he found her, Y/N was arranging the plates for dessert. He could see the tension in her shoulders and got closer. 

“Are you okay darling?”

She jumped when she noticed him, looking up. “Yes, I’m fine don’t worry.”

Putting his head on her shoulder, he waited quietly for her to be honest, as he always did, and it had always worked. 

“I feel a little out of place with all that business talk.” She admitted. “I don’t understand all those technical terms, and I feel like I don’t belong in the conversation…”

He wrapped his arms around her before apologizing: “I am sorry Y/N. I should have made sure you were included.”

“It’s okay. I know it’s important to you, and I want you to know that I am proud of you and all of your accomplishments.” With that, she turned around and leaned in to kiss him softly. 

Jaehyun helped Y/N carry all the plates when they both emerged from the kitchen. Y/N apologized for her absence and, now in better spirits she was ready to be attentive to all of her guests’ needs, making sure they had everything they needed and that their glasses were always full. She engaged in lively conversations, in which they seemed very interested, and quickly found herself enjoying their company. She was grateful for the opportunity to get to know her husband’s colleagues and friends better. 

However, as they chatted and laughed over dinner, Jaehyun couldn’t help but notice the way that Taeyong and Johnny paid his wife extra attention. They both leaned in when she spoke, their eyes never leaving her. It was as if they were both competing for her attention. 

Even though Y/N enjoyed both of their companies, her impressions of Johnny and Taeyong were quite different. 

Taeyong was very charming, and she already grew acquainted with his infectious laugh. She found herself giggling at his jokes and feeling an odd flutter in her stomach when he shot her a smile. He was attentive, engaging and seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. There was something about him that was hard to resist.

On the other hand, she couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated by Johnny’s presence. Something about him made her feel strange. Maybe it was the way he looked at her, with his intense gaze and easy smile, or maybe it was the way he seemed to effortlessly dominate the conversation, his every word commanding attention, even from her husband. 

However she felt, she felt a little guilty for feeling this way. After all, they were colleagues and friends of Jaehyun’s, but she couldn’t help it. 

Jaehyun could see the way that Y/N was flustered by all the attention she was receiving, the proud feeling lingering. It was somehow gratifying to see others recognize the woman he had chosen to dedicate his life to, and he could tell that she enjoyed it as well. In the end, he knew he had nothing to worry about, Y/N loved him just as much as he loved her. He still made a mental note to keep an eye on the situation though. 

As they finished dessert and coffee, the conversation turned to more lighthearted topics. Y/N told a funny story about her parents’ dog, and Johnny shared hilarious anecdotes from his trips, which contrasted a bit with the cold first impression he made on Y/N. Taeyong laughed along with them, his eyes lingering on Y/N whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. 

The dinner drew to a close and Y/N felt a sense of satisfaction wash over her. She had succeeded in making the evening a success, and her guests had enjoyed themselves. She knew that Jaehyun would be pleased as well, and that thought was enough to make her happy. 

Jaehyun thanked his colleagues for coming and walked them to the door. 

Before they could say their goodbyes, Jaehyun could not fight the urge to take Y/N by the waist, lean in and kiss her. He knew he didn’t have to be scared of his guests, and jealousy had been replaced by something else throughout the night, but Jaehyun still somehow felt like he had something to prove. 

Heat rushed to Y/N’s cheeks. She was pleased with her husband’s display of affection, but she was surprised he would do this in front of his co-workers. Placing his hands on the small of her back, Jaehyun deepened the kiss, pulling her closer. 

Johnny and Taeyong watched them with envy from the front door, feeling a bit jealous of the loving couple in front of them, as they were both unmarried. He felt their burning gazes on him, but all Jaehyun could focus on was the way his wife melted into his kiss, her hands gripping his arms. 

Johnny cleared his throat, trying to break the tension, “Well, we should probably get going.” 

The couple untangled from each other, Y/N still a bit dazed by her husband’s action. 

Taeyong nodded, his eyes still fixed on Y/N, “Yes, it is getting late.” 

“Well, goodnight guys,” Jaehyun said, his voice light, and smile smug. “Thanks for coming over.”

“It was nice to meet you.” Y/N added politely. 

Both men reluctantly tore their gaze away from Y/N, and as they made their way to the sidewalk, they couldn’t help but daydream about what it would be like to be in Jaehyun’s shoes. 

꧁ ♡ ꧂

When they left and the couple was finally left alone, Jaehyun pulled his wife close. 

“You did an amazing job tonight Y/N,” he declared, wrapping his strong arms around her. 

She smiled back at him, feeling a little shy all of a sudden. “Thank you, I am glad you enjoyed it,” she said, snuggling into his embrace. 

“I knew you would be the perfect hostess. Thank you for making this evening so special.” He whispered, his breath hot on her skin. “Let me thank you as you deserve.”

Suddenly, he leaned in and kissed her one more time. This time, it was a gentle, tender kiss. Y/N felt a warm feeling spread through her chest and wrapped her arms around Jaehyun’s neck. They stood there for a long moment, lost in the feeling of each other’s lips, before Jaehyun decided to lead Y/N to the living room, loosening his tie in the process. 

Once there, he pushed her gently to sit on the couch and kneeled in front of her on the ground. With his hands, he began to stroke her legs, Y/N shivered as Jaehyun’s fingers went up from her ankles to the inside of her thighs. He took one of her feet and placed it on his shoulder, he then proceeded to take off the heels she was wearing, his eyes intensely looking into hers. 

“You have worked so hard today. You deserve a rest.”

Y/N sighed, getting more and more relaxed, and Jaehyun released her right leg to repeat his action on the left one, leaving a few kisses here and there. 

With his wife’s shoes off, Jaehyun got up and took place next to her, where he got her to sit on his lap. Y/N placed her hands on his shoulders, waiting for his next move, but Jaehyun was taking a moment to observe her face. 

Her lips always offered him the brightest smile when he came home, her cheeks lit up with a pink shade when he complimented her, and her eyes were always the ones to betray her emotions, whenever she did not dare to speak up. 

“I love you so much.” He murmured. 

“Oh, Jaehyun..” Y/N leaned in to connect their lips with a new fervour. She cradled his face in her hands and pushed her chest onto his. Jaehyun’s hands travelled from her neck to the collar of her dress and began to unbutton it, exposing more and more of her skin. Pulling the dress down her shoulders, he attached his lips to it and grabbed her thighs to fumble them. Y/N let out a moan and he took advantage of her open mouth to slide his tongue inside of it. Her hands went to his hair and began to mindlessly tug on his locks. “Would you let me take it off?” He asked sweetly, tugging on the fabric. Y/N nodded in agreement and got up on her feet before dropping her dress to the floor. 

Jaehyun admired his wife’s body for a moment before motioning her to join him on the couch. “You know, you’ve made quite an impression tonight.”

Y/N smiled, pleased with Jaehyun’s satisfaction. “Thank you, I hope they liked my cooking.” Jaehyun chuckled and she frowned, apprehensive. 

“They’ve liked more than that darling.” He laid her down under him on the sofa and went back to kiss her neck, an enigmatic smile on his face. 

Y/N sighed, but curiosity about what he had just said prevented her from enjoying his gestures to the fullest. Feeling her tense, Jaehyun straightened, looking into her eyes for any kind of discomfort. 

“Jaehyun, what do you mean “more than that”?” 

With a raise of his eyebrows, he grinned, again. “Oh, how can I tell you that, love? You know Johnny and Taeyong aren’t married, and I think tonight you made them quite envious of our life together.” 

“Really?” Y/N asked, worried. She never meant to make them uncomfortable or for them to feel unhappy with their own situation.  

“Well, it is not our marriage that they envy the most.” He went down to whisper in her ear. “It is you.”

Y/N’s eyes widened in surprise. “What?”

“They are very attracted to you darling. But how could I blame them? You are indeed the most beautiful woman one’s ever laid their eyes on.”

She looked at him sceptically. “Well, I am flattered, but I think you are just teasing me Jaehyun.”

“Believe me, Y/N.” he said, “They told me.”

Confusion and embarrassment washed through Y/N as she processed what she had just heard. Was he angry? Should she apologize? Was it going to change something at work? 

Catching the glimpse of concern in her eyes, he answered her muted questions, “Don’t worry my love, I am not mad. In fact, I understand them very much.”

His lips went back to her chest, as he began peppering kisses along her breasts and belly, and Y/N tried to push the thought of her husband’s colleagues being attracted to her to the side and focus on his touch. 

“Jaehyun, we should go to the bedroom.” Y/N sighed, her breathing already unsteady. 

Jaehyun’s hand reached to her chest and took her breasts out of her bra’s cups. “I am too impatient for that Y/N.” He began to suck on one of her breasts and fumble the other, making her shiver and whine under him. “Please, let’s do it here.” 

When she gave him her agreement, chuckling about how adventurous he was being tonight, his fingers travelled between her legs and he began to touch her through her underwear. 

As his fingers continued their ministrations, Y/N threw her head back and started to thrust her hips thoughtlessly, moaning the name of her lover over and over.

Jaehyun got up on his knees, unbuttoned his shirt and Y/N ran the tip of her fingers on his chest and arms as he dropped the fabric. She gave little pecks on his shoulders as he fumbled with his belt, to take off his pants. Eventually, he succeeded and got out of his trousers. Jaehyun slid Y/N’s panties down her legs and placed his body between them. 

One of his hands, next to Y/N’s head, steadied him, while the other held one of her thighs. Y/N gripped the sofa’s cushions as Jaehyun entered her heat, a long moan resounding. She gritted her teeth and they both waited for the uneasy feeling of stretching to disappear. Jaehyun stroked her cheek affectionately, as he peppered kisses on her face to ease her through the pain. 

When pleasure got the better of discomfort, Y/N gave a nod of her head to her husband and he began to thrust into her. 

Y/N whined and Jaehyun bit his lip, he was always reluctant to be noisy when they slept together. He started off slow at first, but his speed gradually increased and he took hold of both of her thighs to hit deeper. Pleasure rushed to his head and he began to hit harder.

“Jaehyun, it’s- it’s too much! Slow down!” Y/N cried out. 

He stopped his movements, realizing he had been lost in the euphoria of the moment and had gone too far. He cradled his wife’s face in his hands and peppered kisses on it. “I am deeply sorry darling, I- you feel too good…” 

“It’s okay, just… keep moving..” Y/N said before giving him a kiss.

Jaehyun resumed his thrusts and watched Y/N’s chest rise from the sofa, as her back arched, with self-sufficiency. His muffled groans also grew louder, and it was becoming more and more difficult to keep quiet. 

Y/N was overwhelmed with the pleasure he was providing her, and her moans grew louder and louder. She felt the coil in her belly tighten and Jaehyun’s movements became sloppy and uneven. Her grip on his neck tightened, and her nails, planting onto his flesh, would certainly leave marks in the morning that would stay for a few days. 

Y/N’s eyes teared up, as a wave of pleasure washed through her and they both came together. With a low groan, Jaehyun embraced her and released his load in a final thrust. Y/N snuggled in his hug as heat filled her up, and she felt all of his love wrap around her.  

Jaehyun had come inside, but he and Y/N were still trying for a baby after all.

[ssetchubai]

Battle Maniac and his fighting style.

While I was creating various videos with the BRB, I wondered: what exactly is the fighting style of the Battle Maniac? No wonder he has such a loud nickname, which should imply monstrous abilities in battle. The developers created his animations based on a real-life fighting style. And this fact prompted me to write this post.

Let's talk about weapon first. I mistakenly believed that the Battle Maniac uses a rapier or an epee, when I first met the BRB. The saber is also a weapon used in fencing, as I've learned. After examining the structure of the saber in detail, I concluded that the Battle Maniac is fencing with a saber. Rapier, epee and saber differ markedly in the appearance of the blade and hilt.

Saber is a chopping and stabbing weapon. It can be inflicted not only with pricks with the tip, but also with chopping blows with the whole blade. It has a flexible steel blade with an oval-shaped guard with a bracket protecting the owner's hand and fingers. Since saber discipline has a wide range of movements and requires fast and strong attacks, swordsmen's footwork and reaction to changes in strategy are the key to victory.

We can conclude that the Battle Maniac wields a saber, since both stabbing and cutting blows can be traced in his mechanics. Saber fencing is the most traumatic and most demanding for an athlete among other modern types of sports fencing, because of the blows, which can be extremely painful if the technique is violated.

Methods of holding a saber. The saber should be held lightly, without excessive tension in the fingers. When controlling a weapon, slightly squeeze the handle of the saber with your fingers, feel the position of the arch, which is formed by three points of support — the index finger and thumb and the flesh of the palm at the little finger.

a.) - Basic; b.) - Individual.

I think the Maniac uses the basic way of holding the saber, since his fingers are located closer to the blade and further from the end of the handle.

Fighting stance. I thought, "Maybe this is an individual stand? After all, his legs are in the right position. He's a professional in battles, he could have picked up his own stance." But no, I still found the name of his rack, and this position is called "recover saber".

The fighting stile. I will not describe the detailed location of the body and limbs, because it will confuse you. You can see the comparison below in the form of GIFs and pictures.

Movements in the combat stance are performed in the form of steps and jumps forward and backward of various lengths. A large place is occupied by double steps, running forward and backward, steps and jumps with great depth of advance, as well as various jumping movements. A prerequisite is the constant maintenance of a stable position of the torso in a combat stance.

The lunge. The most common variant of the lunge is a lunge performed from a fighting stance with a slightly larger body weight distribution on the leg in front. You can also make a jumping lunge from this rack.

Fencing with a saber requires constant maneuvering, moving quickly along the track for considerable distances. Saber fencing is characterized by a diverse use of attacking actions with varying speed of execution for tactical purposes, as well as saturation of actions based on the speed of dilemma reactions and switches.

I thought that the topic of fencing and the Battle Maniac's fighting style would be extremely interesting to parse. It also turned out to be very difficult for me because I don't understand anything about it, and I had to reread a bunch of articles, watch a lot of videos and review the Battle Maniac's movements at slow speed.

There is a result! I think the developers took saber fencing as the basis for the Battle Maniac's mechanics. His movements have some personality that he could develop with experience, but all his movements really exist and are practiced to this day!

[wifelinkmtg]

There's "spaghetti western" and then there's whatever the hell this Chef Boyardee shit is

Hello! and welcome back to Wifelink. We're talking about Outlaws of Thunder Junction today, Magic's second product in a row set in a version of Nevada, and let me tell you something: I am not impressed. The mechanics are uninspired, the setting is undercooked, the story is overstuffed, and to top it all off the whole thing smacks of settler-colonialism. AND they yassified Vraska, the monsters!

WE WILL GET TO THE HOT WOMEN, BELIEVE YOU ME, BUT FIRST I AM GOING TO COMPLAIN SOMEWHAT, AS IS MY RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN, AS A HUMAN BEING, AND AS A GAMER

The mechanics we've discussed elsewhere, and I will skim over the main storyline except to say that very few of this Big Villain Heist Team-Up gets enough spotlight to justify their inclusion here beyond getting recognizable names on cards, and that Rakdos' presence on the plane alone ought to be an apocalyptic calamity. I appreciate Jace & Vraska going full blackpilled accelerationist, stealing a baby, and aiming to destroy the multiverse & start over (a novel hybrid of Raising Arizona and Doctor Strangelove,) but I also know, sure as the sun rises, that whatever happens with their villain arc will be a underwhelming let-down.

What I actually want to complain about, though, is the setting. Thunder Junction ain't real, and I don't mean it's fictional, I mean it's plywood facades on a backlot. It's the set for a cowboy film. You feel me? This ain't a plane, it's a god damned sound stage.

Lemme go over the facts: we know Thunder Junction has been settled for a bit over a year. A year! - and yet there's multiple towns, multiple railways, and an honest-to-god metropolis. Less than two years and we already have ghost towns! This is not the product of a bunch of people on various planes all individually deciding to seek a new life in the off-world colonies. All of this represents a staggering quantity of people, material, wealth, and labor, being moved between planes, directed and organized - but by whom? For what reason? How, even? The story is totally uninterested in these questions.

One of the few silver linings to the way the Phyrexian invasion storyline ended was that the Omenpaths had a lot of interesting potential! Different planes would come into direct contact with each other for the first time ever! Different technologies, different philosophies and religions, different kinds of magic colliding, coming into conflict, adapting and adjusting to each other. And after a couple of sets where the interplanar contact was limited to one or two particularly adventurous individuals, we finally get to see what interplanar contact at scale looks like here in Thunder Junction... and it just looks like a John Wayne flick. Did people not bring their culture with them? Is there a big rack of hats and boots and dusters right where people step off the Omenpath? Shuck off those old Ravnican rags, kid, get changed. You'll spoil the aesthetic. I mean, it's baffling.

Luxurious Locomotive (art by Leon Tukker). This is one of the few man-made parts of this plane that I can look at and know where it came from: this is a Kaladeshi design. More of this sort of thing would have made Thunder Junction feel more like a real place and less like a Sergio Leone joint.

There's a side story, No Tells, by Isaac Fellman, which I quite like actually: it's about guilt and betrayal and the inevitable regrets of having moved into a queer housing co-op, and one of the things that makes it great is that we know where Yuma came from (New Capenna), we know why he left (the limitations of "be gay do crimes" as praxis under capitalism), and we know what he brought to Thunder Junction with him (cocktails, pool tables, and his co-op's emergency funds). Fellman has written nothing else for Wizards and doesn't play Magic, and even so he's done more to make Thunder Junction feel like a real place situated in a real history than the rest of the story team combined - which goes to show, one, that we should only let trans people write magic story for the next decade or so, and two, that what I'm asking for in terms of worldbuilding is not unattainable, or even that difficult.

And all of this ties into the colonialism, right? Thunder Junction is being colonized, and asking questions about who benefits, who's sponsoring this breakneck settlement of the plane, what they're after and so forth would require the story to take a good hard look at the process of colonization itself, and Wizards is flatly unwilling to engage with anything that thorny in their products. So, just as Ixalan involved a limp-wristed slant reenactment of the Spanish conquest of the Americas - but it's fine because they're the bad guys and they're technically not even trying to colonize Ixalan and they don't win anyway so no one gets hurt! - Thunder Junction is attempting to present a Disneyland version of Western colonialism. Untamed wilderness! Bringing civilization to uninhabited deserts! How cool and heroic these hard frontiersmen and -women are! I'm told they brought in Navajo cultural consultants for the Atiin, a fantasy equivalent, and I hope those folks were well compensated! The Atiin seem cool, and the one Atiin character we spend any time with is well-written, but the Atiin are not indigenous to Thunder Junction. They're not being colonized. And if there weren't anybody being colonized, I'd probably still dislike the colonial vision of a wild land inhabited only by animals, just waiting for us to shape it to our will with railways and violence, but there is in fact a native race of sapients on Thunder Junction, and these cactus folk get no voice in the story, so if they have some kind of opinion on the rapid colonization of their home and the clear-cutting of their cactus forests, we don't get to hear about it.

Prickly Pair (art by Brian Valeza) Too much of the extremely-limited presence Thunder Junction's only indigenous sapients have on the cards is devoted to cactus-based puns like this one, which is pretty distasteful given, you know, the colonialism.

I'm talking about colonialism not because I think that replicating colonial myths in fantasy fiction is an unethical thing to do - although it is - but because you can see, right, that Thunder Junction's lack of verisimilitude is intertwined with the colonial vision of the world at play here, yeah? The story wants to have cool cowboy shootouts and train robberies and it does not want its cowboy fantasy to be complicated by uncomfortable realities, so it has to avoid all of the basic worldbuilding questions that would tell us who the colonization benefits and how they're profiting off the plane, and in the end we're left with nothing but an empty aesthetic, like a duster hanging off a scarecrow, blowing in the wind.

ANYWAY SO WOMEN

To be honest, under the circumstances I'm not really feeling like giving the fine women of Thunder Junction my usual more elaborate treatment, so we're going to lightning-round this shit, which is at least thematic.

Blood Hustler (art by Anna Pavleeva)

Vampire MILF.

Rattleback Apothecary (art by Loïc Canavaggia)

Snake MILF.

Wrangler of the Damned (art by Michal Ivan)

Cis lesbian haircut, good with a rope.

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds (art by Ryan Pancoast)

BIG

[gwiyeounsonyeon]

Growing Pains End (MWC 13, 14!)

Pairing: RE2 Leon Kennedy x Male(Intended) Reader Summary: College AU! Leon takes you out. Words: 2,282/200 Warnings: I think the reader was referred to as a guy but I might have deleted it, I'm throwing this in here just in case Notes: I really wanted this to go on longer, originally I had it planned out for a few more chapters, at least five extra but I didn't want to overwhelm myself. Maybe if I get better at writing longer-form stories without getting exhausted I'll write five more chapters with Leon and Reader after college.

Navigation | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

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The beginning of the movie was pretty decent but very quickly you were snoozing for the rest of it and only came to when the end credits rolled. Thankfully Leon didn’t seem to notice you’d fallen asleep and as you walked out of the theater side by side you listened intently to the retelling of his favorite parts, unable to stop yourself from thinking he was really cute with the way he was so animated as talked. The way he waved his hands around to emphasize what he was saying, the big smile on his face as he talked, and if you looked close enough at him you could see little dimples in his right cheek. Your stomach exploded uncomfortably in butterflies and your heartbeat quickened, you avert your eyes from his face and dump the empty bag of popcorn in the trash, and fidget with your, now empty hands. You both stop so he can grab his bike from the rack and once he’s got it, he starts walking while talking about what you assume to be the end of the movie, leaving you no choice but to follow after him. 

Throughout the conversation you zone out, the softness in his voice making you sleepy again but soon he stops to rack his bike once more, “I just wish they gave the guy a better ending…” He pouts and you zone back into the conversation just now realizing you were standing in front of some diner, “Hm?” Your brows raise as he leads you inside, greeting the hostess who seats you at his usual table. “You come here a lot?” You follow the hostess to a booth by the front window and sit down opposite to Leon, “Sometimes, yeah–and since exams are starting soon this is a great place to study.” You nod and look around, the waitress hadn’t come by yet and the hostess had disappeared somewhere into the kitchen. “You nervous about exams?” You fidget with your menu, not really hungry enough to get anything. Leon shrugs and nods “A little, I mean… I think I'm more nervous about becoming a sophomore.” You nod in turn feeling a little sympathy for him, “It's not too bad, do you know what you wanna major in?” You push your packaged straw around the table starting to feel a little nervous, this all seemed too much like a date. Leon perks up immediately and nods “I came here ‘cause of the STARS criminal justice courses.” You furrow your brows feeling a little confused, “I thought STARS only donated the football team.” Leon smiles and shakes his head, “The football stuff was only done this year, STARS was originally the first big donator for classes and stuff, they help fund the whole left wing.” You nod, not having a good idea of what he's talking about but you’ve been in the left wing once or twice, it's full of a bunch of law stuff that you’re not interested in at all. 

“So, you’re gonna be a cop.” He nods enthusiastically “I’ve known my whole life that I wanted to be a police officer, it's always been my dream to save people.” You watch his hands as he plays with his napkin, you can't help feeling really small next to him. He's got all these great plans and here you were studying for a major you had no idea if you wanted to keep or not. “What about you? What are you majoring in?” You open your mouth to say something but the waitress comes out first, “Sorry about that.” She smiles and sets two glasses of water on your table, “What can I get for the two of you today?” She pulls out a little notepad and pauses, waiting for either of you two to speak up first. Thankfully Leon takes the lead “Can I have my regular?” He turns to you with a big excited look on his face, “You have to try that one, it's just a burger but it's so good.” He points to the menu and you nod, “Uh… Yeah, sure. I’ll have that.” You don't really feel hungry, your stomach feels fluttery and nervous, the waitress smiles and takes your menus. Before she leaves she winks at Leon, “He’s cute, kid.” 

You don't get it but Leon goes bright red and sputters awkwardly, “What’s that mean?” His face goes a darker red and he hides behind his hands, now you’re even more confused. You go to speak but he beats you to it, mumbling from behind his hands, “I… um…” He drops his hands so he can take a long sip of his water, “You have to promise you won't laugh, okay?” He looks at you, the flush had died down a little but his cheeks were still bright pink. You nod and he takes a deep breath, “For… I dunno, like, a few weeks… maybe a month um…” He clears his throat, you put your hands in your lap and fidget under the table, your heart rate picking up slightly. “I uh… i've really liked you––a- and um… i've wanted to ask you out but…” It feels like your heart is going to beat out of your chest, your hands feel a little sweaty and there's a lump forming in your throat. “I- I’ve talked to her about how to ask you f- um forever a- and when I did, she was right. Uh- it wasn't as hard as I thought.” When he finishes he looks relieved but you feel like you’re about to have a heart attack. 

“Wha- um.” You stop to clear your throat and gather your thoughts, you have no idea what to think, all of this feels like it's happening so suddenly. You see Leon lose a little confidence and your stomach does this weird flop, you have no idea what to say, you don't even know what to feel. Does he want to be your boyfriend? Does he just want sex? Is this all an elaborate prank? Is this even real, are you dreaming? You have to be dreaming, you pinch yourself under the table but you dont wake up in your bed. “W- s- so… uh… it’s just- j- just a date?” You stutter lamely, starting to feel very conscious about how weird you're acting “-I mean… you’re not… like, asking to be my boyfriend, are you?” He looks a little upset and your palms grow sweatier, you lean back against the plush booth and rub the sweat from your palms. You feel like you might have a heart attack, your heart beating wildly against your ribcage, you press your hand to your chest hoping to quell the feeling.

Leon’s eyes follow your hand and his expression falls into an off sort of look like he’s deep in thought; “I want to, uh––e- eventually, I mean..” He finishes anxiously, looking back up at you to see your expression. He must've seen something in the way your looking at him because he relaxes a fraction and moves his hands from his lap to the table as your hand drops from your chest. “B- but we obviously don't have to do anything like that, if you don't want to I mean, it was just. I just didn't want to wait any longer to tell you and I had no idea how to tell you-” He’s rushing things out like he's starting to get anxious, fidgeting with his glass of water, but you stop him with a sigh. “I- Leon….” Your hand moves up to rub at your forehead, the ache from earlier coming back full force as you try to figure out how to navigate this situation. He seems to take your actions as rejection, wilting in his seat like a forgotten flower. 

“It's fine just…” You let out a wry chuckle, “Why me? Like, of all people?” He perks up a little, sitting up straighter when you ask the question. “Why?” You nod, he doesn't give your heart any time to rest as his expression is taken over by something bashful and sweet, your heart skips as a shy smile works onto his lips. “Why not?” He asks shakily, trying to work up his confidence, “I- I… You’re so…” He fumbles nervously. “I’m not sure how to…” He huffs, starting to get frustrated with his lack of eloquence. “I just do, okay? Y- you’re like, really hot a- and you're funny…” He takes a deep breath as the words tumble out, “And I can't stop thinking about you, like––when you laugh i- it makes my heart beat really fast a- and when you smile a- at me–and just when you smile in general, it makes my stomach feel fuzzy” His cheeks go pink as he talks, gesturing wildly with his hands. 

You feel like you might cry out in shock or awe, or like you might have a heart attack for real this time because your heart rate would put anyone else up into a hospital, But you don't keel over and die. Because Leon is right in front of you, and he's confessing to you that he thinks you're hot and these things that you worry over constantly gives him butterflies. Your fingers feel a little chill from the adrenalin that zips through your nervous system, your hands shake slightly as you look around the diner, no one seems very interested in your conversation but you can't help feeling a little paranoid. Your brain screams at you that this is a bad idea, that you shouldn't be doing this but you can't help yourself. You stand from the booth, for a split second Leon looks dejected but that shifts to confusion as you make your way around the table to sit directly next to him. 

“... I… This…” You make an aborted gesture between the two of you, unable to get your thoughts straight, and not really sure why you came to sit next to him. You take a deep breath and look around the diner again, all of these faces, so many more important things happening, some probably happening before your eyes, and here you are getting all choked up over a little crush. With that in mind you sober up slightly, you will your heart rate to slow and your hands to stop shaking while you straighten your back, “Im not… good at this kind of stuff.” You start, your anxiety leaves a chill within your chest and makes the hairs on your arms stand on end but you push through, not wanting to feel like a scared baby anymore. “But that… I dont think that means I dont want to try…” Leon perks up a little from beside you, and you feel like you might cry from relief. You had no idea how good it feels to get these things off your chest, “I…” You take a deep breath and clear your throat. “I like you, obviously-” You see Leon shift beside you but you keep your gaze firmly on the table in front of you both. 

“But it doesn't mean that e-…” You take a sip of your water, your throat feeling a little dry, “I have a lot of flaws and a lot of insecurities a- and I dont…” You pause as Leon’s hand envelops yours, “I dont care.” He says stopping to chew on his lip anxiously. “I- I mean, me too obviously. Everyone has to be like that, I think…” He's trying to comfort you and it works, your chest feels warmer and you feel a sting behind your eyes that could be tears or joy that someone is finally saying this to you, too many awful exes, too many nights alone. You swallow down the lump in your throat and turn to him, finally looking at his face; The look he has is so painfully sincere, his eyes are raw and open and pleading, like he's begging you to read his mind, to feel what he's feeling. “But I don’t uh… I- I don’t think you should keep worrying about that stuff…” He trails off. 

A spike of warmth floods your face as his eyes glance down at your lips, you lick your lips self-consciously and his eyes follow the movement. “‘Cause–” His voice comes out scratchy and he cuts himself off to clear his throat, “Because, I’m still going to like you anyway.” You forget about the diner, the other people in the building, everyone else in the world, it all gets pushed to the back of your head. Your breath catches in your throat, the world seems a little fuzzy and you feel like you’re on a merry-go-round, spinning as fast as you can and watching the world pass by you in a blur. You dont know who leans in first, but it doesn't matter. Leon kisses you like he looks at you; soft and hesitant but determined, it makes you feel dizzy, and when you pull back you aren't sure how to catch your breath.

“Okay…” You whisper shakily, your thoughts feel skewed. You hear the bell to the diner ring and Claire and Luis enter grinning like kids getting candy, they sit in front of you and Luis chuckles, “I didn’t think it would take you this long.” Your face goes red and you hide in your hands, suddenly very embarrassed. Claire laughs loudly, drawing the attention of other customers. “God, you guys are something else, you know that?” She says grinning, you feel her kick your shin lightly under the table, glad to see you come so far from the hell you were in almost a year ago now.

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A/N - I really enjoyed this chapter and writing more long-form stuff, it made me feel so good seeing it finished. The only thing I wish I'd done was plan it out more and go about it differently, when do this again I probably won't do it for a writing challenge, or do it all in a few days consecutively

[batsplat]

hi batsplat this is marquezian.. as our resident casey scholar i was wondering if you have casey race recs !!

boy do I ever have recs! here's a (hopefully) fairly comprehensive list, drawing from more or less all the stages of his grand prix career and featuring races notable for a bunch of different reasons

casey is quite defensive of the 'boring' racing of the alien era (in particular the 2010-12 years)... but it is a shame his time in motogp overlapped so heavily with the 800cc era, which did lead to some tough watches for fans of 'overtakes' and 'close racing' and 'unpredictability'. so a lot of these race picks aren't necessarily reflective of how casey racked up the majority of his wins, plus presumably don't always match up with what his own picks would be. but well, whatever! I threw in a few of the ones I know casey likes

warning: the race descriptions generally spoil the results of the races. since this list is pretty long, I've put an asterisk next to the races I'd particularly recommend, and double asterisk next to my personal faves

my tldr spoiler-free top five faves list is catalunya 2007, donington park 2007, laguna seca 2008, sachsenring 2010, and laguna seca 2011. my five next-off most notable/fun races are assen 2004, turkey 2006, qatar 2007, phillip island 2009 and silverstone 2011

and here's the actual list, in chronological order:

sachsenring 2003: first podium in grand prix racing! big disclaimer: the recordings of the 2003 125cc races you can find on the videopass are poor quality and don't feature any commentary, so not the easiest to watch. this race is also not great to follow on the colour front: the three main protagonists are *squints at notes* casey (yellow bike, number 27), perugini (mostly black and white but with a few greenish highlights, 7) and de angelis (mostly green, 15). but well it's a really tight fight that goes until the last corner, good fun... casey's talked about how nervous the track made him so he wasn't racing his opponents hard enough at the end. which is kinda sweet and revealing

brazil 2003: another tight battle, this time with jorge (green/red, 48) and de angelis, another time he doesn't QUITE make it. jorge's first ever victory! y'know the one where he overtakes everyone on the outside and starts the whole x-fuera thing

valencia 2003: first win! 125cc/moto3 racing being reliably good fun is a time-honoured tradition and it can even make that middling karting track exciting to watch. it's a good fight - quite helpfully, casey's nicely visible yellow bike contrasts well with the blue bike (hector barbera, number 80) and the red bike (sic, 58) (at some point steve jenker, 17, shows up on a black and white bike). that being said... the bloody video on the motogp website cuts off around two and a half laps to the end, which is a shame because those laps were (apparently) filled with drama. very close finish, not helped by the spark plug of casey's bike breaking RIGHT before the end, which is a very casey thing to happen to him. he thought he was screwed but ended up being saved by barbera running wide trying to overtake him in the last corner. here's a cute lil feature with casey discussing the race that you can probably just watch instead of the race. also ofc him saying how good it felt to beat the spanish at their home circuit (clip here), king of spite

^look at him in evil gross luminous yellow

**assen 2004: I'll admit, this race is one of my faves in large part because of the terrorism jorge does on casey on the last lap, which casey was NOT happy about. (in a funny coincidence, the same event features jorge's future teammate doing some last lap terrorism on gibernau that gibernau is also decidedly not thrilled about.) featured in the autobiography - he really wasn't a fan of jorge at the time - and when he's being sulky in the interview they have in the post-race broadcast. but another great fight and, with my apologies to casey, the last lap is fantastic. excitingly includes commentary!!

jerez 2006: casey's first motogp race! you don't reallyyyy see enough of him on the broadcast for it to be completely worth it, but it's still a proper good ride. he starts in fifteenth, makes a great start and then gets a lil lucky at the first corner when toni elias attempts to murder barrels into valentino and opens up a gap for casey. gets all the way up to fourth and finishes sixth!! also ofc a starring performance by dani at the front of the race

qatar 2006: second race of the season. after the first race, casey had been ill with a bad fever, plus there'd been a fuck up with the flights that meant he only got to the lusail circuit ten minutes before the first session. he topped the first practise session and qualified on pole, even though he was still recovering from illness and was massively sleep-deprived. his first battle with valentino, eventually drops a few places but still <3 also features some fun vale/nicky hayden battles

*turkey 2006: the third race of the season (look he front-loaded his good races that year) and my girl's first premier class podium!! but... bit of a heartbreaker as he did come VERY very very close to winning. also he said apparently he was pleased with his podium but when he got to parc fermé his team was acting disappointed he didn't win :( still a fantastic race, the highlight of casey's troubled rookie campaign. (casey was fast from the get-go in the premier class, but was dealing with major tyre issues that the team around him didn't do a good job at helping him with. by the end of the season, he ended up acquiring a somewhat unfair reputation for being a crasher, with the lovely nickname 'rolling stoner'. still, for young talent it's generally the peaks that matter most and you could really see his ability shine through here)

*qatar 2007: obviously of Great Narrative Significance, casey's first race with ducati and when he announced his arrival at the top of the sport by getting his first premier class win. good solid fun casey/vale fight, though it does feature the classic 'ducati blasts past everyone down that very long lusail straight' syndrome. people were kinda mean about that - which in turn made casey very irritable, arguing that if your bike is a nightmare to ride everywhere else then it's an accomplishment to be close enough to blast past down the straight. unfortunately I do agree a lil bit with the naysayers in terms of the actual racing, but still a pretty good fight

^the last year it was a day race

**catalunya 2007: probably my personal favourite? (of the ones casey won, anyway.) just something about a great battle at that track - obviously valentino had about a million, but this was really the only race-long one that he lost. important in the context of the 2007 title campaign - even though it was only a ten-point swing - because it showed casey wasn't just about horsepower dominance. fantastic riding from both of them

**donington park 2007: my fave of his wet weather performances because he actually has to work his way through the field. he started fifth but was outside of the top ten early on after an uncharacteristically poor start. fun race with plenty of good shake-ups of the order

(he sealed the title in motegi and won his home race for the first time that year, but since he finished sixth in the former and won the latter by a few lightyears, they don't make the cut)

*qatar 2008: more fun than qatar 2007!! imo!! obviously it's also jorge's first race and he's on pole and dani's a bit injured and those two have their whole thing™️ going on... and vale has just switched tyre suppliers and is trying to prove he's not washed and casey is starting his title defence... so a big significant race for all four of them, and unlike many races in that era has a fair few twists and turns and almost all of them actually get to fight each other a bit. okay eventually it settles down and gets dull but until then it's fun (and there's also some very late excitement involving dovi/vale)

**laguna seca 2008: I feel a wee bit bad for including this one and casey would throw something at me, but well it obviously belongs on here. ignoring casey's complaints for a minute about vale's aggression, it really is a fantastic battle - and vale only goes as far as he does because casey's so good! (also unsure whether casey would appreciate this line of reasoning.) probably the one everyone's most likely to have already watched, and for good reason since it slaps. sorry casey

estoril 2009: only for sentimental reasons, after the first few laps it gets boring fast. still, it's casey's first race back after the mystery illness-induced break, he immediately has a cute lil battle with vale (which he wins, slay) and... okay then it's basically a procession but it's also nice and sweet when it's over and he's on the podium and he's shown everyone he's still got it. maybe skip like. 20 laps

**phillip island 2009: casey's first win in only his second race back!!! warning that it's a little light on actual overtaking but it's still tense and close most of the way through and casey's so great to watch on this circuit. (he's literally too good at it for most of his races there to be all that interesting, this is probably the best one.) plus it's another one included partly for sentimental reasons. here's my pitch:

sepang 2009: so he's been slandered for months, he's been written off, ducati have been fucking him over, he comes back and immediately gets a podium finish and wins the next race... what does he do after that? win again obviously! another neat little wet performance (partly helped by vale having a bit of a shocker off the line lmao, though he seals the title that day with a p3 finish)

valencia 2009: if you want to see the pole sitter crash on the warm up lap and dani almost miss the start in confusion

**sachsenring 2010: vale's first race back after the broken leg. usually that's the time when everyone would pretend to be nice to each other... but all three of vale, jorge and casey had gone to efforts during vale's absence to make things worse <3 anyway cracking race including a good fun spite-fuelled battle between casey and vale for the last podium spot, one of their better scraps with a dramatic ending - after which both of them are charmingly bitchy about each other to the media (see below). shame it was basically their last notable battle in the dry (I didn't include either jerez 2011 or le mans 2012 on this list because I wouldn't really recommend them as good casey races, but they do more or less conclude casey and vale's on-track story. and the latter is also the last podium they share, plus it's the race right after casey announced his retirement. fave presser moment)

^😭😭😭😭😭 you guys are AWFUL oh my god. people always talk about laguna 2008 but the vibes got way more rancid post-2009 when their actual on-track rivalry was basically over

motegi 2010: this one's kinda marginal on whether it qualifies for this list. casey was really proud of this win and felt his 2010 wins were particularly impressive given how much he had to override a bike that was objectively shit by this point.... BUT in practise once he shakes off dovi, it's quite a dominant win and the real fun is watching valentino experiment with whether he can make jorge lorenzo the first person ever to die of rage alone while riding a motorcycle

*silverstone 2011: one of the truly great wet weather performances. this is a personal taste thing - I don't mind dominance as much in the wet because it's just cool sometimes seeing somebody drop a masterclass on the field in those conditions. but obviously not necessarily the most exciting victory fight once he hits the front after like. a lap. still, good battles going on behind him

^a fan of british tracks, not a fan of the british

*sachsenring 2011: great three-way battle with jorge and dani, with the lead exchanged several times - also plenty of other good battles down the order. not one casey emerges victorious from, but definitely one of the best races that season

**laguna seca 2011: okay look corkscrew this corkscrew that but there's an argument to be made that casey makes a pass in this that's better than anything marc and vale can DREAM of. well no I won't go that far - but it's still an incredible overtake, insane thing to do at a blind corner, and casey just looks fantastic riding on that circuit. in his autobiography he says something along the lines of 'oh it looked scary on tv but I knew I'd make it'. which. okay casey!! not gonna say more than that, one of those where you'll know it when you see it. one of the best races of his career and also a key race in that year's title fight

phillip island 2011: marginal inclusion, but it's sweet he sealed the title on his 26th birthday by winning his home race (even though he mainly sealed it there because jorge lost half a finger and couldn't start the race). conditions got treacherous when the rain showed up but well casey stayed on the bike, just about

*jerez 2012: casey's first and last win at jerez! this is the one that casey called his greatest career win at the time and... sure, fair enough, especially given he had a weirdly bad record at the track. he didn't enjoy the experience much because of his arm pump issues, which makes the performance all the more impressive. fun first few laps in particular, after that it's maybe a bit more tension than actual action. still a proper good race

estoril 2012: another win he's very proud of... another one that's maybe even more skewed towards tension than actual action, but still an unmistakably impressive performance given jorge's strong record there and casey's physical issues. that and jerez completed his set as they'd been the races he hadn't won yet, which made him feel more certain of his choice to retire

phillip island 2012: listen it's his last win and it sealed the title (for jorge), so was at least somewhat exciting. but also according to his autobiography, casey deliberately rode slower for a bit before expanding the gap again just to keep his focus up, which I think gives you a sense of how easy he found winning there

^his penultimate race and sixth consecutive victory at phillip island. he also finished on the podium in his last ever race at valencia

[happilysmythe]

❥ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚

trent frederic.

word count: 7.1k

warning: explicit content

"she can get a taste" — tyga

- - -

ALLISON

Trent Frederic.

Only the most annoying neighbor someone could possibly have. His snarky personality, his cocky demeanor, his massive ego…wildly unpleasant, to put it plainly. 

I only know him because of Brady—my best friend. He has been since we were kids. I went to school with him for years, so it was only natural that we ended up gravitating toward one another. Not to mention we lived only one street away from each other. 

When I started to go over to his house, I met his older brother, Matthew. I ended up becoming closer with him over the years, as well as their younger sister, Taryn. 

Trent was friends with Matthew. They were only a year older than me and Brady, but Trent just loved to act like I was so much younger. He was usually at their house whenever I was, so I had the displeasure of seeing him more often than I would’ve liked to.

He’s the only person I know who calls me “Al”. And boy, do I hate it. I’ve told him countless times that I despise it, but he refuses to call me anything else. He knows it pisses me off—that’s why he does it.

In 2016, Matthew and Trent got drafted into the NHL. I was upset at the time about Matthew leaving—as I said, we had gotten close—but I felt a sense of relief that Trent would eventually be all the way out in Boston after college. I would barely have to see him anymore.

Then, Brady got drafted in 2018, and it was just me and Taryn. 

Every year, the Tkachuks would host this big party and invite a bunch of people for Christmas. It was always fun for us, especially as kids. For a few years after the kids got drafted, they would continue the tradition. It’s gotten harder for them, though, and they eventually stopped doing it as a whole.

This year, they did something different. It would just be the kids—Matthew, Brady, Taryn, me, a few other friends…and Trent. I’d be seeing him for the first time in a few years. 

Great.

- - -

I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell, then waited for an answer. Not long after, it swung open, and a familiar face stood before me.

“Allison White,” his voice rang from the other side of the doorway. “As I live and breathe.”

He looked…different.

His hair was longer; curlier than it used to be. It was gelled up slightly and a loose strand hung in front of his forehead. He was wearing a suit—a light blue blazer with black pants, and a white collared shirt under it. His tie was red with white polka dots, and a brown belt sat at his waist.

His arms were…bigger. And a thick, titanium ring wrapped snugly around his right index finger.

But his face was the same. It always has been.

“Trent Frederic,” I sighed, folding my arms. “What a pleasure it is to see you again.”

He chuckled and stepped aside. “Come in before I lock you out.”

“Alright, alright.”

I walked past him, my arm brushing against his, then slipped off my jacket and hung it on the coat rack. I flattened my hands over my dress, smoothing it out before turning back around. Upon turning back, I found Trent standing still, his eyes fixated on me. A few moments passed before he looked back up, snapping out of his state, and spoke.

“Come on, Al.”

“Really?” I rolled my eyes, “I told you to stop calling me that. It makes me sound like a guy.”

“Oh no,” he pouted, taking a step forward, his back facing me as he walked away. Completely disregarding my complaint, he shouted, “Al’s here!” to the rest of the bunch and I shook my head, following behind him.

After walking inside, I greeted the others, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a long while. Eventually, the group sectioned off, and I ended up sitting at the kitchen island with Taryn and a few friends, just talking and having drinks. Trent went off with Matt, which wasn’t surprising, but he found a way to keep coming over and bothering me like he always did.

He pushed past me—roughly, at that—as he came into the kitchen to grab another drink.

“Do you mind?”

He turned around, a smug grin shaping his lips. “Me? Not at all,” he winked, then pushed me again as he walked out.

“Isn’t he cute?” one of Taryn’s friends asked, looking at me. “I wish that was me.”

“Hell no,” I shook my head. “He’s a dick. Trust me—no you don’t.”

“Man, I don’t care. Have you seen him? I would let him do whatever he wants to m—”

“Oh my God,” Taryn cut her off, “shut up!”

I laughed, picking up my glass and bringing it to my mouth once more to take a sip. She wasn’t wrong—Trent was good-looking, sure—but he was nothing more than an ass. It wasn’t often that a guy was more irritating than him.

I looked up to see Matt and Trent separating from the rest of their group and wondered where they were off to. But the thought ended up leaving my mind as quickly as it came. 

- - -

TRENT

Matt didn’t say anything when he wanted me pulled aside. He just elbowed my arm and nodded his head to motion me out. I stood up and followed him into an empty bedroom down the hall. I crossed my arms as he shut the door behind him, then walked over.

“What’s this about?”

“Listen, man, I’ve gotta talk to you about something,” he spoke, folding his arms as well. “It’s about Allison.”

I was confused when he mentioned her name. There wasn’t much to talk about when it came to her, other than the fact that the two of us never got along. It wasn’t exactly shocking, either. I only knew her in the first place because she was friends with Brady, and she was always over their house. It was like I was forced to see her no matter what. Our personalities clashed, anyway. She’s not all that different from me, so it came to nobody’s surprise that we wouldn’t exactly be fond of each other.

I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily. “What about her?”

“Before I say anything, you need to know that I was in the same boat as you before, alright? I didn’t believe it, either.”

“Believe what?”

He took a breath. “Allison’s got the hots for you, man.”

The laugh that came out of my mouth was almost instantaneous. Allison? Please. She’d rather throw herself into oncoming traffic than see me. And sometimes, I could say the same for her. 

“Good one,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Seriously. You almost had me interested for a minute there.”

His expression fell flat with his voice. “I’m not kidding, Fred,” he said. “Taryn’s been talkin’ to me. She’s been telling me about how she mentions you constantly, how she’s all of a sudden taken an interest in the Bruins, all of this crazy shit. I’ve seen her more than you have recently and I’ve noticed it, too. I know you probably think we’re wrong, but even a bat can see it.”

“Oh, come on, dude. There’s no way that you actually believe that bullshit. None of that is even proof, you’re just talking out of your ass.” 

There’s no fucking way that they’re right. She just roped him in with nothing to prove it but some speculations and he went with it. If she really felt that way I would’ve known it by now. And it wouldn’t just be Matt and Taryn suspecting it.

“She was watching your games, man,” he said, nodding his head. “She saw it with her own eyes. She went to her house to grab something and she could literally see the game on her TV in the back.”

“I don’t buy it. Just stop trying.”

“Whatever, man,” he sighed. “I just wanted to tell you in case you wanted to do something about it.”

“I’m not going to,” I told him, walking toward the door. “Nice talk.” I walked out of the room and back into the living room, then sat down.

I kept thinking about what Matt told me, though. She always hated me, I always hated her—that’s how it was supposed to be. That’s what it was. It was never anything more than that, and it wasn’t going to be. I continued to tell myself that he was wrong, even as the thought of him being right began to plague my thoughts.

He was wrong, even though she was caught watching games. He was wrong, even though she apparently would always talk about me. He was wrong, even when I would look over and catch a glimpse of her looking my way, then turn back around as if she was never looking at all. He was wrong. That’s what I had to keep telling myself. Keep convincing myself.

But even I didn’t buy it anymore.

- - -

The rest of the night sort of happened in a blur. Matt’s words hadn’t stopped echoing inside of my head, toying with my thoughts since he said them. They only hit me more and more as time progressed, until I was convinced that he really was right the whole time.

So I started to watch her. 

It wasn’t often that I would pay attention to her body language—or anything about her, really—but tonight was different. She seemed to tense up when I was around, which would happen years ago, but it makes a little bit more sense if any indication of attraction comes into play. The looks I found her catching, more than once. The way it seemed as though she was trying to avoid me, trying to avoid even making eye contact with me. The simple shit like that just wouldn’t leave my mind, no matter how fucking hard I tried to make it. 

And with paying attention to her came intruding thoughts of my own. 

Like the way that the black dress she was wearing molded tightly to her body. Or the way that her hair fell down to her collarbones, framing her chest. Or how her legs were completely exposed, leaving me to wonder what they’d feel like wrapped around me.

“Are you listening?”

The sound of Matt’s voice took me out of my thoughts, prompting me to look away from Al and back at him. “Huh?”

“I said,” he leaned in closer, “why don’t you walk Allison home?”

“Absolutely fucking not,” she protested, folding her arms. She shook her head, “I would rather walk home with a gorilla.”

I pouted and brought my hand to my chest. “Aww. That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Al.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to Matt. “No chance in hell.”

“Oh, come on,” Taryn chimed in. “It’s cold out! Then you don’t have to walk home alone! And it’s nightime. That would be awfully inconsiderate to make her walk alone, Trent.”

“Yeah, I’m with Al on this one. I’m all set.” I turned to her. “You’ll be fine, right?”

“Yup,” she confirmed, nodding her head. “I’ll be fine.”

“Mmm…I don’t know,” Taryn shrugged. “Sounds pretty unsure to me, doesn’t she?”

“You cannot be serious,” Allison exclaimed, then frantically looked around, stopping once she was facing the remaining group of people on the couch. “Brady!”

“Huh?” He whipped his head around. “What?”

“Can you please tell them to stop pestering me about this?”

“About wh—huh?”

Matthew sighed and rolled his eyes. “Y’know, that thing we were talking about earlier?”

“Ohhh,” he nodded slowly. “Just let him walk you, Allison. They aren’t gonna give up.” He turned back around and kept talking to the other guys near him.

“You know what? Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll do it.” I walked over to the corner of the room and grabbed my coat from the rack on the wall, then slipped my arms into the sleeves. “Come on, Al. Let’s just get this over with.”

She sighed as well and grabbed her jacket, then put it on and put her hands in her pockets. “Alright.”

“Thanks for having me,” she spoke as she hugged Matthew, then Taryn. She walked over to Brady and did the same with him. “It was really nice to have everyone here again.”

“Anytime,” Matt replied with a smile. “I’m sure it won’t be the last.” He looked over at me, a cheeky grin plastered on his face, then winked.

“Mhm,” I nodded sharply. “I’m sure. But it was nice, I agree. Thanks, guys.”

“We’ll see you again soon, yeah?” he asked as I walked to the door and opened it.

“Yeah.” I held the door open with my back and watched as she brushed past me, waving as she walked out. “See you guys.”

I shut the door behind me and caught up with Al, who was now waiting by the sidewalk. “You know you don’t have to come with me, right?”

“I do. They’re gonna watch through the window, I swear,” I said, walking beside her. “Better off just going with you and saving a useless argument.”

“I guess,” she shrugged. Her arms were folded as she slowly walked down the sidewalk.

“How have you been?”

She rolled her eyes. “If you actually cared how I’ve been you would’ve come up and talked to me tonight. You’ve had the whole night to do it.”

“Would you just answer the question?”

With a sigh, she replied, “I’ve been fine. There. Happy?”

“Yes.”

The rest of the walk was mostly silent. She didn’t want to talk to me—which was nothing out of the ordinary—so I just kept quiet. But the thoughts from earlier were still swirling through my mind. This could be the last time I see her for a while…So I decided to throw it out there. 

“Hey, Al?”

She rummaged through her bag for her keys. “What?”

“So…Matt was talking to me before.”

“Oh, was he now?” she breathed. “I know. I saw.”

“He told me you have the hots for me.”

She stopped dead before the key could even reach the hole, then turned to face me. “What?”

“I didn’t believe him at first. I told him that you hated me.”

“Yeah. I do,” she angrily replied. “Wait—at first?”

“Yeah, well…He started getting to me,” I told her, folding my arms. “He told me things that got me thinking, you know? Even Taryn believes it.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You were watching my games.”

“You’re fucking insane. I don’t have feelings for you, Trent. So don’t flatter yourself.” She stuck the key in and turned it. “He’s lying.”

“I don’t really think he is,” I argued. “He seemed pretty sure about it. I can tell when he’s lying or when he’s unsure. He wasn’t.”

“Fuck’s sake, Trent, that doesn’t mean he’s right!”

She walked inside to hang up her jacket and I stepped in, propping the door open with my hand. “If he’s so wrong then what’s with you getting all fucking defensive?”

She slammed her purse down on the kitchen counter. “God, do you ever shut up?! I can’t catch a goddamn break with you no matter what, can I?”

“Well, excuse me, princess. Apparently, I’m not allowed to ask you a question.”

“You’re such an asshole,” she shook her head. “I don’t know why I ever—” She fell silent.

“Ever what?”

“Never mind.”

I scoffed. “Seriously? You’re just gonna pretend like you didn’t say anything?”

She chose to ignore me instead of speaking. Silently, she grabbed her bag and put it down on the floor.

“Of course. Now you’re just gonna ignore me.”

She quickly whipped back around to face me and raised her voice. “Fine! You know what, Trent? Fine,” she yelled. “You were right. I have ‘the hots’ for you. I want you. You fucking happy?”

I took a breath as the words angrily came from her mouth. She finally admitted to the one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about the whole night, and yet I was still dissatisfied. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why do you care, Trent? You hate me, remember? And I hate you,” she rebutted. “That’s what this is. That’s what it always was. We’re not close, and we never have been.”

I ran a hand through my hair and scoffed. “So after I left you just kept hating me anyway?”

“Oh, my God,” she raised her voice again. “No, Trent! I didn’t keep fucking hating you!”

“So what, you were pretending?”

God, she was infuriating. So fucking infuriating. But even as I stood there impatiently waiting for an answer I couldn’t stop myself from thinking the same thoughts from earlier.

She was hot when she was angry.

But she didn’t give an answer. She didn’t have to. Because I already knew it.

“Why? What kind of sense does that even make?!”

“Because it was much easier for me to keep hating you than for me to let myself fucking miss you, Trent!”

- - -

ALLISON

Before I could say anything else, he walked toward me and pushed his lips to mine. 

I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t. It was nearly impossible when his hand was on my face the way that it was, forcefully pulling me toward him. His other hand was on my waist, gripping it tightly as he kissed me.

I hated how quickly I gave in to him, how my body just seemed to fold without as much as an attempt to resist. My hand reached up and tangled in his hair as the other wrapped around his midsection and kept him close.

A low groan fell from his lips and hummed against mine as I took a handful of his hair and tugged on it. God, it was hot. He was hot. And I wish he didn’t taste so fucking good.

He tore his mouth from mine and moved it to my jaw, trailing kisses up to my ear and down my neck. Heavy breaths escaped my parted lips as the hand he had on my waist tightened its grip. 

I felt his hand slide up my back, fingertips grazing the skin that was left exposed between the thin straps of my dress. The feeling of his fingers on my back, paired with his lips as they once again pressed against mine, elicited another moan from me. 

Fuck him for listening to Matt. Fuck him for telling me about it. Fuck him for forcing me to admit how I felt.

And fuck him for making me want to do just that.

My hands moved to the zipper on his jacket and quickly pulled it down. He responded to the action and shrugged the sleeves down his arms, then shook it off and tossed it to the floor. A gasp left my lips as he grabbed my waist and walked me backwards, his eyes already having spotted the bed in the room down the hall. 

The door slammed behind him and I soon found myself pinned to the wall with Trent’s hand firmly gripping my throat. He leaned down to kiss me again and his tongue brushed against my lips. I allowed it through without a second thought and the muscles in his hand tightened around my neck. 

“Trent,” I breathed shakily. “Fuck.”

I felt him grin slightly against me and soon his free hand was on my shoulder, pushing the strap on my dress down my arm. I managed to shrug the other one off without his help and it wasn’t long before I felt him violently tugging the fabric down my body, enough for it to slip off and pool at my feet on the floor. It was almost ironic that I hadn’t worn a bra.

He hungrily eyed my figure and swallowed thickly. The warm skin of his hands grazed the exposed skin of my thigh as it trailed upward and I moaned again softly at the touch.

“Thought you hated me, hm?”

He slowly removed his hand from my neck and moved it under my chin, using a finger to tilt it up. The way that his eyes slightly narrowed and his lips faintly curved into a smirk as he looked down at me rendered me nearly speechless.

“I do,” I breathed heavily as his eyes bored into mine. “God, I hate you.”

“I’m not too fond of you either.” He pressed another soft kiss to my lips. “But you already knew that.”

My fingers curled around the lapels of his blazer and peeled it from his arms, revealing the tightness of the collared shirt under it. The fabric looked as if it was begging to be loosened, to be removed from his body. Or maybe it was just my own head that wanted that to happen.

His eyes never broke contact with mine as he reached up and loosened his tie, then pulled the red fabric from his neck and threw it down with his suit jacket. 

When he kissed me again my hand reached for his shirt and untucked it from his trousers, then slipped under it and slid up, stopping at his chest and staying firm in its spot. No matter how much I hated him—or at least claimed to—there was no denying the fact that I couldn’t resist him. He was so fucking hot. And God, it felt so good being pushed against the wall by him and his goddamned frame. 

His head craned to the side and aligned with my neck once more as he kissed it, leaving marks in his path. My hand maintained its place on his chest, rubbing it up and down while he coaxed more groans from my lips. 

I slipped my arm out of his shirt and brought my free hand up to the collar. It didn’t take long for him to notice what I was trying to do, and he pulled back to allow me to unbutton it. Slowly, I worked my way down, and I was able to feel his burning stare as I looked down at my hands. I gulped as I reached the last button; the shirt finally fell open, revealing the toned stomach underneath. 

A chain hung from his neck, which was once covered by the suit. The tag on the chain sat in the valley of his chest, highlighting its definition and heightening my desire even more.

“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen him shirtless—that came with being around him so damn much. But it was the first time I had in years, and that meant that it wasn’t the same as it used to be. And boy, was it fucking different.

I pushed the sleeves down his arms, my eyes staying focused on his upper half and barely noticing the fabric as it hit the ground. My fingers wrapped around his biceps and my hands moved up and down slowly, feeling the warmth of his skin under my palms. “God, you’re big.”

“Yeah?” he asked and I nodded in response. “I know.”

“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” I shook my head. “Still the same asshole. And still so damn full of yourself.”

He didn’t come up with a witty reply. Instead, he just kept looking down at me with that filthy grin plastered on his face and I shook my head. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “God, do you ever shut up?”

He reached up and grabbed the back of my head, then pulled me in, forcefully shoving his lips to mine again. By now, it was too late to back out—I already knew what I’d gotten into. No matter how irritating, how rude, how self-centered and dickless he acted, I wanted him. I wanted to keep feeling his hands all over me. To keep feeling his mouth on mine.

To fuck him.

And besides, how could I possibly have backed out when I was standing half-naked between him and the wall?

He moaned into my mouth as my hands roamed his bare back, feeling the hardness of his muscles for myself. The sound was admittedly gorgeous, and I knew it wasn’t hard for him to tell that I thought so when I felt that shit-eating grin spread across his lips against my own. So fucking cocky.

His hand moved downward and I felt his thumb pressing into the soft skin of my inner thigh as he grabbed it. He lifted my leg up in a silent demand to wrap my leg around his waist and I obliged, doing just that almost immediately. 

I reached down between us and began to unbuckle his belt. It wasn’t exactly easy to get a firm hold on it while his hand slid up my thigh and rubbed it up and down, effectively distracting me and diverting my attention elsewhere. I finally was able to loosen it and pull it from his waist, but before I knew it his hands were under my legs, lifting me off of the floor. 

The leather belt fell to the ground as I wrapped my arms around his neck, still kissing him fervently as ever. He laid me on my back, allowing me to slide up to the pillow and lie flat as he hovered over me. His eyes looked me up and down and he finally spoke, his voice in a rasp.

“God, Allison, you’re so hot.”

My eyes widened at the use of my full name. In all the time I’d known him he’d never done that. Not even in the times that we would get along. Fuck, I wanted him to do it again.

As he lowered himself down, his hand slipped between my legs, his fingers finally making contact with the damp surface of my underwear. He pushed the fabric aside with his fingers and slowly teased the now exposed area with them, dragging them up and down slowly.

“For someone that hates me so much,” he spoke with a low voice, “you’re pretty damn wet.”

Before I could reply, his finger was inside of me, moving at a torturously slow pace, as if he was barely moving it at all. And it was then that I remembered he had that godforsaken ring on; the cold touch of the metal hitting my skin was the reminder.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you wanted to fuck me.” A second finger joined the first as he kept up the crawling pace. “Don’t you think so, Allison?”

A faint moan fell from my lips and I nodded my head, unable to form the words to answer his clearly rhetorical question.

“Mm. That’s what I thought.”

He sped up the pace slightly, but was still denying me the gratification that I desperately needed. I reached for his arms and tightly grasped them as he continued to move his fingers. And I thought that ring was hot before…

“Trent,” I breathed, swallowing hard afterward. “Shit.”

He leaned down and kissed me again, muffling my noises with his mouth as his tongue slipped past my lips and tangled with mine. With each movement of his fingers his pace quickened ever so slightly. And with those movements came moans that spilled from my mouth, mixed with his name, their only purpose being to fuel his ever-growing ego.

He knew I was close. He knew he brought me there himself. And because I knew Trent, I knew that there wasn’t a chance in hell that it would be that easy.

Slowly, he pulled his fingers back and eventually out of me. He flipped his hand over and gently grazed my skin with his knuckles, the ringed finger slightly sticking out from the rest. A quiet whimper left my mouth.

“You like that?”

Of course, I fucking liked it—it was obvious. He just wanted to hear me say it. Under any other circumstance, I wouldn’t have dared to give him that satisfaction, but I knew there would be no benefits to it at that moment. Slowly, I nodded, squirming in his grasp. “Yes.”

Then he took his hand away.

I groaned at the loss of contact. “What…what the hell?”

He let out a laugh and brought his hand up, then used the same motion of grazing my skin with his knuckles, this time on my cheek. “Problem?”

“You know my problem,” I replied through gritted teeth, still holding onto him.

“I’m not sure I do.” He moved his hand to my chest, then slowly slid it down to my stomach, but stopped just before he reached my waist, leaving me on edge again. “What is it that you want, hm? Use your words.”

“God, you’re such a prick.”

A grin spread across his face and he hooked his fingers in my underwear. He tutted and shook his head. “Is that how you ask?”

That did me in.

That filthy fucking attitude of his. As much as I hated to admit it, I was weak. It turned me on. I couldn’t take anymore of the incessant teasing, the way he was doing just about anything to delay my pleasure. To make me squirm. So I gave into him, because I had nothing else to lose.

“Finish what you started, Trent,” I breathed, then reached behind his head and pulled him down to me. 

I felt his lips on my neck again, but his fingers remained hooked in the fabric, still brushing against my skin. “You’re missing something.”

A soft moan left my lips again as I felt him flatten his hand under the fabric. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he wanted me to do, but now I was willing to.

“Please.”

The familiar sensation of his fingers—including the ringed one—filling me returned and I groaned as he pushed them in, grinning down at me like a bitch. 

He knew exactly how to move them, how to get me right where he wanted me without allowing me to protest. How to bring me to the edge and make me want

to beg for more. The mere thought of letting him control me like that normally wouldn’t dare to cross my mind, yet here he was, fingers deep inside of me, draining every last drop of strength from my body.

Finally my body gave in and let go, his name spilling breathlessly from my mouth as I fell from my high. He kept the movement of his fingers up, his lips trailing kisses down my jaw. My hand wrapped around his neck and my nails dug into his skin, causing him to suck air in through his teeth.

Once my body stilled, he slid his fingers out, then brought his hand up to his face. He parted his lips, and one by one he licked each finger clean, starting with his index. His eyes never left mine as he did so, and the sight of it was enough to bring me back to where I was before. He hummed as he reached the last finger and leaned in closer to me. 

“Shit,” I groaned. God, he was hot.

He chuckled to himself and brought his lips to my ear.  “Mmm.”

I squirmed in his grasp as he pressed a feather-light kiss to the skin of my ear, then moved to my chest and began kissing a path down to my stomach. He hovered for a moment before continuing down again. He pressed another soft kiss to the waistband of my underwear and he continued to leave more atop the fabric as he moved down.

“Anyone ever done this to you before?”

I nodded my head sharply, looking down at his head between my thighs. Of course, I’d been gone down on. I wasn’t as innocent as I might’ve led on. 

“Was it good?”

“No,” I quickly answered, shaking my head.

It was always the guys who claimed to be good that weren’t. And it wasn’t hard to distinguish the difference between good and bad when it came to that. It was just never great. But for some reason, I knew that he’d be the difference.

He nodded and used his fingers to slip the fabric down my legs, then moved back up and used his hands to pry my legs open. I felt his warm breath hitting my skin as he drew in closer, then his lips lightly touched the now exposed area.

God, was I right.

I’d never met a guy who could use his tongue like that. I didn’t even know where he learned to. 

All I did know was that the same infuriating person I was practically forced to grow up with now had his face buried between my thighs. And it felt so fucking good.

“Fuck, Trent,” I moaned as my hand snaked into his hair, grabbing a fistful and tugging slightly on it. 

A faint moan of appreciation left his mouth and his hands gently rubbed my thighs as his tongue flattened and put pressure down. He placed more feather-light kisses on my skin, sending chills through my body. His tongue parted my folds, sliding up and down slowly. As he moved, his nose grazed the surrounding skin and I moaned breathlessly at the feeling.

My hand pushed his head closer as my body desperately begged for more. My hips writhed against his face and he responded to my movements, squeezing my thighs and grinning against my skin. His lips closed in on my clit, his tongue circling around the flesh as he sucked gently. When he opened his mouth once more, his warm breath hit the wet skin and I groaned in anticipation.

If anyone ever asked me to name one thing Trent Frederic was good at, I never would’ve said giving head.

Until now.

My grip on his hair tightened and his hands slid up and around to my hips, then held them down firmly. My thighs closed, wrapping around his head from the removal of his hands. “Oh, God.”

No guy that I’d ever been with could make me as desperate as I was with him. I felt weaker than ever after giving into him so damn fast. I wanted to stop it—to push him the fuck away from me—but every nerve, every muscle, every bone in my body wanted to keep feeling him. I craved his touch, and there was no denying that fact. 

He kissed another path up toward my waist, stopping at my hips and breathing softly. 

“No, please,” I breathed, brushing his hair back with my hand.

But he already decided that he was going to stop. His lips disconnected from my skin and he sat up on his knees, looking directly down at me. His fingers reached for the zipper on his pants, pulling it down promptly and starting to slip them down his legs. I watched silently as he pulled them off, his underwear with them, and let them fall to the floor.

I gulped, my jaw clenched as my eyes caught sight of him. There was nothing left to separate us anymore. And I knew that we wouldn’t stay apart for much longer.

He pushed my legs apart and settled between them, breathing heavily as he looked down at me. Soon I felt the familiar pressure as he slowly slid the tip of his cock up and down my folds, the action prying a long, weak moan from my throat. I watched as his eyes began to close and he hissed, sucking air in through his teeth. 

“T…Trent,” I sighed, sliding my hands up to his shoulders. “Please.”

He kept moving it against me, depriving me of the gratification I desperately needed. I was already tense—close—and he was making it infinitely worse. The fingers of one hand extended slightly upward and held the back of his head as I took a shaky breath.

“Trent, please, I can’t,” I stuttered, swallowing thickly, “—can’t wait anymore.”

Finally, my pleads were answered as I felt the pressure of him pushing into me. Fuck, he felt incredible. He leaned forward, putting his arms on either side of my head to hold himself up enough to hover over me. I kept my hands where they were, gripping tightly as he found the right position.

He began to move, slowly at first, allowing me to adjust to him. Gradually he picked up speed, his breaths growing heavier as he thrust his hips into mine. Long, soft moans fell from my lips as he moved.

The tag on his chain hung in front of my face, dangling back and forth, taunting me. He noticed my eyes following its path and took it between his teeth, closing his eyes and taking a long breath afterward. He sucked in air, a low groan sounding from his throat after and I tightened my grip on him in response. 

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered, whimpering quietly as he lowered himself down toward me.

He opened his mouth and the tag fell. I felt the cold, condensated metal hit the skin of my collarbone as it landed. He moved his head to the side of mine, bringing his ringed hand up to my face and lowering his voice.

“Tell me, Allison,” he spoke quietly, his voice almost a rasp in my ear. His fingers rested below it, pulling my head toward him as his thumb pressed firmly into my cheek.

“Has anyone ever fucked you right?”

“Yes, but,” I slid my hands up and around to his back, my nails pressing into the skin. “Not like this…not in a long time.”

Almost every guy was the same—devoid of any passion whatsoever, just wanting a quick fuck; so why bother caring about how I feel? Selfish. All they did was take and had nothing to give.

But none of that was true with Trent.

He responded to me with a low chuckle and nodded his head teasingly. He continued to move against me, his breath warm on my neck. The distance between our bodies finally closed as he lowered his full weight down onto me, and a single arm wrapped around me, pulling me up to him by his flattened hand on my lower back. 

I leaned up and kissed him again, allowing his tongue to slip past my lips again and he groaned softly. What I would give to hear that sound over and over again. Shit, every time he does it I fold. 

“Fuck, Trent, I’m close.”

“I know,” he mumbled against my lips, taking a staggered breath. “I can feel it.”

His movements grew faster, driving me up the bed as I gripped him tightly, and it wasn’t long before I felt myself giving in and tightening around him. He hissed, sucking in a breath as I let out one of my own, the noise sounding as a moan of pleasure. His name spilled from my lips—more times than I’d like to admit—and I could feel him twitching inside, on the brink as well.

I reached up and scooped a handful of his hair into my hand, gripping it tight with my fingers. “Trent,” I swallowed, “please.”

Soon, he let out a heavy breath and warmth began to spread in my stomach, eliciting a deep sigh from my throat. The feeling of his release—the sensation of it coating my insides—was nothing short of incredible. I gripped him tighter, my body tense as his thrusts slowed.

“Fuck, Allison.”

The sound of my name flicked a switch in my brain, causing the relentless thoughts from before to resurface and whirl in my head. 

He fucked you, the voice inside screamed. You’re supposed to hate him, and you let him fuck you.

But I didn’t care anymore; I was too busy relishing in the feeling of it all—the feeling of him. The way he was prying unstable breaths from my mouth and leaving my body feeling oh, so pleased. 

And if that wasn’t enough to make me stop caring, maybe it was the burning feeling of him slowly dripping down my inner thigh.

After pulling himself out, his spent body remained atop mine, his chest visibly heaving above me as his head laid next to my own and his face found itself buried in my neck. He pressed a light kiss to the skin, then another, then a few more in the surrounding area. 

“I don’t hate you, Trent.”

The words came out soft—he needed to know I was being sincere. It was the first time I’d ever said it out loud, but I knew that I meant it. It wasn’t until he left St. Louis that I realized the truth.

It’s been a long time since I’ve hated him.

His head lifted and he kissed me gently as his hand rose up to cup my cheek. “I know.”

My hand was still in his hair as I rolled my eyes and shook my head, gently scratching his with my nails. I let out a chuckle and sighed.

“Asshole.”

“I’m not that bad and you know it,” he rebutted teasingly.

A smile tugged at my lips. “Fine,” I gave in, “you’re right.”

There was a brief moment of silence after that. I took the time to look at him. To admire him. His eyes, his nose, his faint little smile—all of the things I refused to get to know before, yet they already had familiarity to me. 

Before I could stop myself from saying another word, my mouth opened to speak.

“Stay with me.”

Without missing a beat, he nodded, then rolled off of me and faced me as he laid on his side. His arm snaked around my waist and pulled me in gently. By then, I’d already shifted onto my side as well, so my back pressed up against his chest once he pulled me in far enough.

“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” he finally spoke softly into my ear.

Another sense of warmth—this time from emotion—flooded my stomach. I giggled softly and smiled gently at the words.

It was then that I decided that I was going to stop worrying about what happened and just let myself enjoy it. Enjoy him. I left my distress to be dealt with in the morning. I was satisfied as long as I got to spend this moment with him, free of regret. So I relaxed into him and let my eyes flutter shut as he pressed a kiss to the side of my head.

“Night, Allison,” he practically whispered into my ear.

But even through all of tonight, something still felt off to me. And it didn’t take much longer for me to figure out what.

“Call me Al.” 

[seat-safety-switch]

You might not be all that surprised that I like pinball. It’s a pointless, fruitless contraption of annoying sounds and bright lights, with a bunch of half-broken metal inside. That’s more or less the crown prosecutor’s description of me from last spring. I heard they spent like a day in a whole-office brainstorming session just to come up with that one, but I digress.

The point of pinball is, like all great human endeavours, to rack up an arbitrary score by playing the game. To this extent, you pay money for a limited number of chances. A better writer than me could make this some sort of metaphor on life itself, but I’m not going to resort to that kind of trickery. No, I want to talk about actual pinball.

Here’s the thing about a game that mostly consists of bouncing a steel ball into stationary objects, which trigger sensors and relays. That stuff breaks down, and it breaks down all the time. Although you may imagine all mechanical objects as existing in a perfect state of repair and a zero-percent-humidity vacuum, the real world is completely filthy. Dirt and hair get into things. Grease reacts with the plastics and becomes some kind of nightmare tar that has to be removed with industrial paint-stripping equipment. Screws pop out. The playfield flakes off and warps. Complex electronics seize up somewhere deep inside and begin to act, in the words of Alan Turing, “fucking haunted.”

So that means that the operator of a pinball machine has to be constantly maintaining it. Keeping an eye on all the bumpers. Being good enough to play it and hit all the features, check to make sure the multi-ball bonus works. This is the kind of thing that I like to do, but unfortunately I was born a couple years too late to become full-time employed maintaining pinball machines across America, driving a $500 Plymouth Barracuda, seeding secret second and third families whenever I find a small town that I particularly liked. Instead, I get to look at my friends’ pinball machines and go: that looks bad. You should replace that part. And then they say: I can’t, because nobody makes that part anymore. And then I spend a year meticulously constructing an exact replica of that part, only for the next thing in line to break.

All this is to say that pinball is keeping me from doing even basic maintenance on my fleet of terrible cars, which I’m sure is appreciated by the citizenry at large. Stick that in your ass and smoke it, Your Worship.

[givemea-dam-break]

Lovely, that's what I hoped to hear🩷 absolutely love the stuff of yours that I have read so far, and I'll definitely read the test when I have time, but in the meantime i'm gonna leave this request: a george x reader, somewhat inspired by the "Flower" oneshot you wrote for Lockwood. I'm thinking they go to the Fittes Ball, and the reader goes shopping with lucy for dresses. And I'd love some flustered George who is just wholly overwhelmed by reader who is all dolled up in a pretty dress. And here you can maybe include some locklyle? Like Lockwood showering Lucy in compliments and being charming and confident as usual and reader hoped for a similar reaction from George but he just kinda says nothing bc he doesn't know how to handle himself. And they go to the ball and while lucy and lockwood go off to retrieve the book, reader and george just are kinda awkward until some guy (or someone we know, kipps or someone) comes up to reader and asks her to dance. And she jist goes with him bc while she is disappointed with georges reaction she is still determined to enjoy the evening. And maybe when they are about to leave George wants to get her and she dismisses it and says she's having a good time and she's coming home later. And when she comes home george is still awake and waiting for her in the kitchen and they have a little fight and some confessions 👀

Let me know if you like that idea! And thank you in advance if you decide to write it🩷

a/n: i love this idea so much!!! it’s going to go a little differently due to the fact that after the fittes ball, they have to go get the mirror, but i hope this has turned out ok as i've cut out a big chunk of the actual story to keep this moving lol. strap in because this is a long one <3 also can i just appreciate your username i love it

warnings: angst, mild language gn reader

"Best friends have correlating dresses. It's law, basically."

Lucy laughs at you, flicking through the dresses on the rack. "Is that so? I have to admit, I'm not great when it comes to clothes. You just pick for me."

Grinning, you show her the dress you've already picked out for her. It's simple, made of royal blue satin with flowy sleeves that bunch at the wrists, and it falls to what would be about mid-thigh. Lucy doesn't look entirely convinced, but when you show her the pair of sparkly tights, she smiles.

"It's part of the Lucy flair," you explain. "I have a pair of boots you can borrow to go with. I have the image in my mind."

"Alright, then," she says, taking the dress and tights from you. "What are you going to wear, Fashion Expert?"

"Hmm." You tap your finger on your lip before selecting a dress from the rack. Red, also satin, with fluttery capped sleeves and thin gold stitching in the shape of flowers at the hem. "What do you think? Red and blue - pretty iconic"

As you expected, Lucy shrugs. "You'll look pretty in it. You look pretty in everything."

"Thanks," you laugh. "Do you think he'll like it?"

"Who, George? I'm sure he will. Whether he tells you that is another story entirely."

"True."

The sad truth, really. As you both go up to the counter and purchase the dresses, you can only hope - dream, more like - that George will come out of his shell a little. He's not overly keen on the fact that he's coming to the Fittes Ball, but he agreed a little more easily when you said you could stick with him on the outskirts while Lockwood charms people until his socks blow off. You can't blame him for not wanting to come. He doesn't like people, really, and his thing is staying at home and sticking his nose in a book. If you guys weren't going to infiltrate the Black Library at Fittes for this book by Mary Dulac, he wouldn't be going at all, even with your promise.

On the walk back to Portland Row, you keep yourself talking, if only to keep the nerves away. If you're being honest, the whole prospect of breaking into Penelope Fittes' private library and stealing a book isn't what's making you sweat. It's the thought of George seeing you in a dress.

Most days are spent in pyjamas or your work clothes. There's nothing overly special about your faded jeans or ectoplasm-spotted jacket, not even your sturdy boots that you spent time making little embroidered patterns on. George has seen you at your worst - hair frizzed from sleep, crumbs left on your T-shirt, wearing socks with far too many holes in them, so the thought of dressing up for a special occasion makes you a little nervous. Will he think you look nice?

Lucy would scoff if you asked her that question. She'd say that you don't need a boy to find you pretty to be worth anything.

But George isn't just a boy. Not to you, anyways. He's much more than that.

The better part of the afternoon is spent getting ready. You fix Lucy up with a pair of your nicer boots and sit her down to put some makeup on her, for which she doesn't stay very still. Yeah, immediately after you're all going to go on a heist and steal back a very important mirror, but who's to say you both can't look good doing it?

George and Lockwood come in shortly after you've finished your own makeup, as well as styling yours and Lucy's hair, and you stop short, watching for George's reaction.

He's dressed in a nice black suit, with a white shirt and orange tie, and his hair is slightly neater than usual, but it suits him. Your heart flutters a little looking at him.

Lockwood, for his part, looks completely wonderstruck by Lucy, who watches him carefully. The tips of her ears are tinged pink.

"Luce, you look -" He clears his throat, and you hold back a smile. "You look great. Amazing, actually."

She presses her lips together, but you can see the smile tugging at the corners. "Thanks."

"Uh, I have something for you, if you'll accept it." From his pocket, he pulls out a thin silver chain on which a small gem glitters. "It belonged to someone close to me. I'd like for you to wear it."

Lucy takes it with gentle hands. "What if I lose it?"

"You have a pretty good track record with precious necklaces."

She laughs at that, looking over at you. You smile as you fasten the necklace around her neck. "Thank you, Lockwood."

His grin is confident, clearly bolstered by the fact that she accepted his gift. He keeps looking between her face and the glittering necklace.

Silence ensues, and your gaze travels over to George. He's standing there, staring at you with those gorgeous dark eyes of his, and for a moment, your heart feels like it's going to explode. You wonder what he'll say, if he likes the dress or not.

"I'll go check on the cab," he says before darting out of the room.

And, just like that, every piece of confidence you had dissipates and it feels as if you're a balloon with a hole poked in the side, slowly deflating. You should've expected it, really. George isn't the complimenting type, but you liked to hope that for once he might say something.

Swallowing your embarrassment at your failed hopes down, you plaster on a smile and turn to Lucy and Lockwood. "You're right, Lockwood. She does look amazing, doesn't she? Blue's her colour." You give a pointed look at the blue tie he wears, and notice he's even wearing blue socks.

The little detail makes you happy for Lucy, truly, but it doesn't make the hurt any less painful.

Lockwood smiles, but Lucy's quick to notice the expression hidden under your smile.

"Come on," she says. "We better get going."

--

The Fittes compound is bustling with people - wealthy socialites, young agents, supervisors, everyone dressed up in fancy clothes, sparkling in the twinkling lights. Music plays from every corner of the massive room in which the Ball is located, packed to the brim with people. Waiters breeze by with trays holding drinks and food. Lockwood plucks a flute of some sort of drink from a passing plate.

"Shall we make the rounds?"

Lucy groans. "Posh people and small talk. The worst form of torture."

George makes a sound of agreement but doesn't speak. Beside him, you shuffle awkwardly, clasping your hands behind your back.

"Plan still the same as earlier?" you ask Lockwood. "You and Lucy find the book while me and George stay to - what was it you said?"

"Mingle," Lucy says in a mocking tone. You've half a mind to believe she's done it to make you laugh.

"Just keep the attention off of our absence," Lockwood says. "Kipps probably expects the worst of us tonight."

"He asked you to this, didn't he?" Lucy asks you. "Won't be much of a problem to keep him distracted. Just dance with him or something."

Tension snaps in the air. Beside you, George doesn't say anything but his hands twitch a little bit.

You shrug. "Probably won't dance with anyone tonight. But I'll make conversation. I'm good at that."

Soon, Lucy and Lockwood split off from you and George. The two of you slowly drift towards the edge of the party, out of the tightly packed crowd of old people with expensive-smelling perfume and cologne. Once or twice, you almost choke on the strong scent.

George keeps close to the wall, watching the crowd carefully, while you stand a foot or two away, arms crossed over your stomach.

Truthfully, you'd love to be dancing. It's not so much about the party or even the music, but who you'd like to be dancing with and how it'd probably be the only time you ever get to do anything remotely like it with him. But here you stand, staring out at the few couples with the bustle that are shuffling together, grinning.

"Thanks for coming tonight," you say to George, trying to make conversation. Usually, it comes easily, and you can find anything to speak to him about, but it's strained now. "I'm not sure I'd be a great distraction on my own."

George shifts slightly. "I'm not sure about that. You've got a fan coming over now."

You try to ignore the hint of irritation in his voice. He's allowed to be irritated - about coming to the party, at least. This really isn't his scene. But if he's mad that someone else asked you to go with them, he's got no right. He's made no effort.

But, he's right about one thing. Quill Kipps is making a bee-line right for you.

"(name)," he says upon reaching you. "Karim. Where are the other two?"

Plastering on a sweet smile, you say, "It's Lucy and Lockwood. They've been making mooney eyes at each other a lot recently. I wouldn't be surprised if they're off dancing somewhere."

"And what about you? I can't imagine that you like just standing on the outskirts of the party."

"You don't know me as well as you think you do, Kipps," you say. "In fact, I have company that is far more preferable than you."

Kipps glances back at George. "Yes, you look like you're both having the times of your lives. Well, I only came over to ask you if you'd perhaps come dance with me. If not, Bobby Vernon has asked me to suggest he be your partner."

"Bobby? Isn't he, like, twelve? And aren't you twenty, or something? Both options sound positively strange."

"It's just a dance."

You look over at George, who's watching the encounter carefully with narrowed eyes. He rubs the lenses of his glasses on his orange tie.

You've made a promise to stick with him at this party, and you don't intend to break it. No matter how disappointed you feel that he didn't even say something like You look pretty when he saw you in your dress, it doesn't entitle you to leave him.

"Sorry, Kipps, to both of those generous offers. Like I said, my company is much more enjoyable."

He takes the rejection better than you thought he would, but soon it's just you and George again.

"You should've gone and danced with him," George says after a while, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Otherwise you've bought that dress for no reason."

You're not sure why that comment makes your skin flush hot with anger, but it does. You bought the dress to feel pretty in, not just for George but for yourself. It wasn't for no reason. Crossing your arms over your chest, you turn away from him. If you look at him any longer, you're worried angry tears will start prickling your eyes.

"Well, then maybe I will go dance with Kipps. You don't seem overly interested in conversation with me, anyways."

"Fine."

Maybe you expected him to put up a little more of a fight. Maybe that's why, once more, you feel your body deflate a little. You don't spare him another look as you trudge through the crowd until you find Kipps.

"Oh, (name), hello again."

"I've rethought your offer," you say. "I'll have that dance if you're not busy."

He's not your preferred partner, but it was starting to get stifling standing with George when you had so much you wanted to say. Kipps at least tells you what's on his mind.

For example, "Karim seems pretty unhappy with your decision to dance with me."

"He doesn't tell me what I can or can't do."

How ironic. He has in fact told you to dance with Kipps, and here you are, obeying like a dog on a lead. You scowl at the thought.

"You look nice," Kipps says. "Red suits you. And your hair looks nice."

"Thank you." It's sad that the only compliment you've gotten beyond Lucy's is from Kipps. Even then, you're not sure how to feel about it. He's old in a teenager's terms.

"If looks could kill, I think I'd be dead."

You turn your gaze, eyes catching George's distant figure, but he's looking at a little book he'd stashed in his suit pocket just before leaving.

Looking away, you try to keep the sadness out of your voice. "Stop messing with me. I'm trying to enjoy this party. I'm standing in the same building as Penelope Fittes. This is a big moment for me."

Even then, it's clear to even Kipps that the enthusiasm just isn't there.

A flash of blue catches the corner of your eye, and you see Lucy waving as discreetly as she can.

"Thanks for the dance," you say, offering him the best smile you can muster.

Kipss grabs your wrist as you make to walk away. "Be careful with Karim, okay? I know our teams don't get on, but that doesn't mean I want to see you get hurt because you want something he can't offer you."

For a moment, you just look at him. Finally, you say, "I'm not sure what you're talking about."

--

The bone glass is gone. Pamela Joplin is no longer a threat. The ghost of Edmund Bickerstaff is no more. Lockwood's bullet wound has been treated. George and Lucy are safe.

And yet...

Sitting at the kitchen table the following morning, you scribble away at the thinking cloth. After the events of last night - the Fittes Ball, the 'Battle of Kensal Greene' as it's now known - you couldn't sleep, so you've sat here all night, scratching away at all the swirly shapes on the cloth. Really, you should throw it out and replace it, but there are a few funny drawings you've recently drawn that you'd like to preserve a while longer.

The stairs leading down to the kitchen creak, but you don't move. There's only one person it could be.

Lockwood is sleeping off his bullet wound, and Lucy is up in the attic having a nap.

George steps through the door, shutting it softly behind him, but you don't look up at him. Instead, you take an angry bite out of your toast.

"Is that my egg cup you're using?"

"Yup."

Usually, he would've made a little scene out of this because, typically, it's Lockwood that uses his egg cup and the two of them love causing a scene. But he doesn't say anything; he only makes himself a cup of tea and some toast before sitting across from you.

It's silent for a while. You're not sure what to say, so you opt to keep scribbling on the thinking cloth. The most recent doodle you've made is of you and Lucy as stick figures, which is nothing compared to the sketches she's got pinned up in your shared room in the attic.

"So, last night."

You don't bother to look up. "What about it?"

"You dancing with Kipps?" His tone is cautious.

"Me and Kipps?" You scowl at the hidden implication. "He's, what, twenty-something? I'm a teenager. That's gross."

"No, I know, I didn't mean that. I just meant you two dancing together."

"No one else was going to dance with me. Well, other than Bobby Vernon, and he's about half my height."

George is quiet for a moment. "I just..."

The sigh that leaves your lips is exasperated, to say the least. "You just what, George? You're usually very straight to the point, so I'd like to know what said point is."

You know you're being harsh, but all of your emotions feel frayed from not sleeping and the boil-over from yesterday. You're still frustrated about it.

"I didn't like seeing him dance with you."

"Well, you don't really get a say in it, seeing as you didn't speak to me most of the night, and when you did you were telling me to go and dance with him. Seems a little confusing, right?"

"I didn't know how to say what I wanted to," he says, frowning. "Seeing you in your dress... I don't know. I don't know how to say it now."

"Oh, I have an idea: (name), you look pretty. Four words. Four words, George! I get it - you struggle to say things when you get overwhelmed, but I would've appreciated something as simple as that. I didn't need you to dance with me, or to give me a necklace that belonged to someone dear to you, or even wear a tie that matches my dress. I just needed four words. Three if you take out my name!"

"It isn't that easy! My throat closes up around you, and I forget how to speak."

"You're speaking fine right now."

"Yeah, because we're arguing. You're not standing in front of me looking like you've been blessed by some god."

You blink, stunned. "Well, I suppose that's one way to put it."

"I could put it a million different ways in my head, but I just can't say them." He won't look at you. In fact, he's taken his glasses off. "(name), I've never felt like this before, and it's hard to vocalise any of it. Last night I was - well, a lot of it was spent trying to figure out how to word it all without embarrassing myself. Like - like, I enjoy mornings with you before Lucy and Lockwood get up - well, most mornings - and we just talk about anything. You listen to me about things you probably don't care about."

"I do so care about Jonathan Fro-yo's books -"

"Jonathon Arroyo, you mean." There's a little smile on his face. He's fiddling with his fingers. "But that's beside the point. There are a lot of things I like about you or enjoy doing with you, I just don't know how to say it all."

Watching him for a moment, you decide to take a leap. "Would it make it easier if I told you I am hopelessly head over heels for you? Those mooney eyes Lockwood and Lucy are always doing? I'm also a culprit of it, but you're the source."

The glasses are back on, and you have to admire the way his hair flops over his forehead in messy curls when he turns to look at you abruptly. Those entrancing dark eyes of his widen in shock.

"You're telling me you couldn't guess? George Karim, perhaps your research skills aren't quite on par with what you think they are."

He smiles, a little less subdued this time, and your heart soars at the sight. "I'll try my best to talk from now on," he promises. "But it gets hard. All I ask is that you understand that."

"So, am I correct in assuming you like me back? Because if I've just admitted that I'm crazy about you and you don't even feel the same, I'll be mortified."

"I do," he says. "And you did look pretty last night. Beyond pretty."

It's not much, but it's a start, and you're willing to work on it.

[andradrawsstuff]

Fifth chapter of my fic ✨

I keep forgetting to post these lmao

Hehe Private gets to swear :)

Chapter 5: How to pocket a penguin

The city streets were illuminated with neon pink and glowing bar signs, contrasting against the pitch-black night sky. Alleyways were stained with the permanent scent of fruity alcohol, and bars were bustling with rowdy patrons. The boys waddled their way through the streets, exploring what the nightlife had to offer. They were already out for two hours, hopping around the dozens of bars and buzzing nightclubs. They weren’t there purely for fun, however. Kowalski suggested to search for any spare parts they could find, as well as pickpocketing some extra cash. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Not that they cared much, really. They had no soft spot for humans, and it showed. If it were animals that were on the receiving end, they may have had a little more empathy and spared them from swiping their cash.

By the time it reached three in the morning, the penguins had already racked up quite the hand.

“Good work boys,” Skipper praised. “At this rate, we might have enough to buy us a whole plane again!”

“Yes… well, next time we need more cash, we should just come back to Miami!” Kowalski added. “These people are loaded!”

They finally decided to take a break from swiping and let loose a little. The club they were stationed at was filled with drunken partygoers who seemed to be misplacing their beverages quite often. Or so they thought that they were being misplaced… when in reality, the cheeky birds pinched every stray drink they saw and decided to have a little fun themselves. At first, it started off light. Just one drink Skipper said. Skipper ORDERED. One shot… ah, what’s the harm. How about two? Those two turned into three, and three turned into five. After seven, they completely lost count. All they knew, was that they were having a GREAT time.

“WOOOOOOO HAHAHAHA LOOKATMEEEE, I’M A PWETTY WITTLE BUTTERFLY!!” Kowalski screamed at the top of his lungs whilst swinging on a chandelier, making sure the whole city heard him.

“Ohkay, ohkay. How’s about you give me that one.” Skipper asked Private, poorly attempting to swindle him out of his drink.

“What?” He replied completely appalled. “No, that’s MY drink, piss off and get your own!”

“LENNYYYYYYY!!” Yelled Rico. “LENNYYYYYYY WHERE ARE YA MAN?” Who the hell is Lenny?

Those birds were GONE. Not a single functional braincell left in their heads. They were fully toasted. Things only got worse when they started seeing things. Lobsters. One here, one there, and one in the corner of the room. At first, it was only a few. But then more appeared out of nowhere. They must be tripping, they thought. Was this normal? This never happened in Monte Carlo…

“Kuhwalski… analysis…” Skipper spluttered, growing concerned about his visions.

“Uhhhh, I have absotutely NO clue…”

Rico couldn’t muster up the courage to even grunt anymore…

Private managed to form a single coherent thought. “Wuh- wait… are you guys seeing them too?”

Those lobsters seemed to get increasingly angrier… and closer. The boys bunched up together, huddling in order to stay up on their own feet. This time, things seemed more real. Those lobsters were really there, and they were after them. Skipper gathered all his strength to ask Rico for a wooden bat, but immediately blacked out, followed by Kowalski, then Private, then Rico. They were out like a light. The clawed creatures gathered around them, nodding to each other about something. One of them was a dark crimson colour, a scar on his right eye and claws almost as big as Private. He seemed to be the one in charge. He pulled out a beige sac and pocketed the poor penguins, signalling to the others to move out. Those silly birds, what did they get themselves into…

[therizino-ao3]

Hermit Horror Week 2023

Day two: Environment

Summary: xB wants to support his friend, but there’s something about his base that feels wrong. He can’t bring himself to leave, no matter how much he knows he should.

Read on ao3

Contains: unreliable narrator, a character being non-consensually drugged (implied + in a magical way), loss of free will (strongly implied), panic attacks, fairy folklore, suffocation mention, weird time shenanigans

“So dude, have you seen my base yet?”

xB looks up from the diamonds he’d been counting, “Hmm? No, I haven’t. You’re doing like, mushrooms or something, right?” So far, his and Hypno’s business has been doing great. They’ve been getting quite a few sales lately, to say nothing of the IOU collection they’re racking up. They’re making bank.

“Yep! Like a mushroom forest, mystical land kinda thing,” Hypno takes the diamonds xB hands him, “You should totally see it! I’ve finished the main mushroom and a bunch of decoration around the place, it looks so cool.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m happy to head over now, if you want?”

They head over there by foot, instead of by elytra. It’s… a little weird, but xB doesn’t mind, he thinks Hypno wants to show off the custom lamps he’s made for the path. It’s quite atmospheric, he’ll admit, with the towering dark oaks letting only small puddles of sunshine hit the ground, and the glowing fungi beckoning them forward. It’s magical.

They seem to walk for ages, wandering down the twisting path. At one point, xB turns around, just to see what’s behind them. There’s nothing. It’s pure black, no sign of the pretty little lamps they just passed. xB swivels back to Hypno, about to voice his concerns, but Hypno starts talking about dye farms and making concrete and xB just kind of forgets about it. It’s not too much of a concern, anyway. The further in they go, the more xB realises how safe it is. Like, initially he was super concerned of a creeper crawling out from the forest, with how dark it was outside the path, but he actually hasn’t seen a single creature other than them. He can’t even hear the birds sing here. Hypno must have done some mad mob-proofing.

Eventually, the trees open out and he looks at Hypno’s hard work and instantly his stomach drops. His mind is screaming at him to get out. He needs to leave. His heart is thundering. His eyes squeeze closed. Then, he feels Hypno’s comforting hand on his shoulder and it’s all okay. He blinks a little and looks up at his friend.

“Is everything alright xB?” he’s frowning.

“Yeah, I’m just- I felt on the verge of a panic attack for a second there but, now it’s all gone,” his face feels a bit wet, is he crying?

“Are you sure? We can go back if you’d like, I don’t want to continue if you’re hurt,” Hypno looks concerned.

“No, no, it’s all fine. It might be like, hay fever from all these mushroom spores,” he says. As he says it, he knows it makes absolutely no sense, but he wants Hypno to stop worrying.

“Alright,” Hypno seems to buy it, his tone becoming more playful, “You know, you can just admit you’re jealous of how cool my base is, xB!”

“I am not jealous, we all know, out of the two of us, I got the cooler base. M’kay?” he smiles, feeling a bit better. They’ve crossed over a barrier of tiny mushrooms in front of the path, seeming to circle around the whole area. Inside, there’s a field of beautiful light green grass, home to all sorts of fungi Hypno’s been cultivating. They’re mainly red and white, with some brown, but they’re in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. Throughout the area, there are fairy lights and lanterns and fireflies and they all glow in the darkening dusk sky. When they left Horse Head Farms, it was mid-morning, xB remembers. It’s funny how fast time passes.

Most of the mushrooms seem decorative, but the larger ones have been made into buildings. There are cute little doors carved into the trunks and signs that say things like “Storage” or “Farms”. One particularly thick and pretty mushroom has been decorated a lot, he assumes it must have been Hypno’s starter base.

“I can’t believe you’re living in Smurf village, dude,” xB giggles.

Hypno punches his arm, “This is not a Smurf village! It’s a fairy realm. Get it right, xB.”

xB’s mouth feels dry. He knows that word. Fairy. Right now, he can’t think of what it means. He nods. He looks at the giant mushroom in the centre of the base.

It’s obviously the centrepiece, towering over every other mushroom. It’s incredibly beautiful. Hypno leads them to the front entrance. xB feels sick looking up at the gills of the mushroom. He can almost imagine the microscopic spores floating down, filling their mouths, suffocating them. Spore particles would probably be good to add, the movement would make the build more dynamic. He’ll tell Hypno later. Hypno drags xB into his home. The wooden staircase looks very nice, Hypno’s done a pretty good job on the spiral. They run up it together. The air smells sweet, almost sickly. After a very short tour, they come back outside - Hypno hasn’t finished the interiors yet. He’s surprised he was allowed to leave, he thought Hypno would trap him there forever, not that he’d mind.

Hypno is looking at him, “So what do you think of my base, xB?”

xB thinks. He thinks about the amazing lights and the vibrant colours and the magical aura. He thinks about Hypno, who’s one of his best friends, who has worked so hard on this base, who xB would do anything he asks him to do. That’s weird, he’s able to realise. He likes Hypno but Hypno is also sometimes very annoying, and other times, xB just likes to mess with him. He wouldn’t do everything Hypno wants. He thinks about all the people willingly signing their IOUs. Is xB willingly answering Hypno’s question? Not that he has any choice, he has to answer it regardless. He wonders if Hypno’s human. He always assumed he was, not having any visible non-human traits, but sometimes the signs are more subtle. He’s thinking too hard.

“Hmm, it’s alright,” he says, “My base is still better.”

[squeakadeeks]

hello, here to pester you with a question >:3!

where do you get the money to make your cosplays?? i'm in the middle of crafting a bunch of stuff for a plant convention and gyatt damn everythings so pricey

:((

along with the storage ive been getting this one a bunch too haha

to tell true, this is no fault on your part so no frets here at all !!! BUT i'm not comfortable discussing my personal finances online. because on a wide scale, anything in regards to money gets incredibly niche to a person's circumstances and will make people get upset/can leave you vulnerable to a lot of bad things. My pay scale and spending habits are not something i'm hip to sharing online since its really private and opens a lot of dangerous doors. (also my spending habits are not exactly healthy or generalizable either.) I'm not saying this to like...dodge being a secret billionaire or anything, but even if i say "i work a STEM job" I've had people get weird about even just that information.

That being said, there are ways i make cosplay more affordable.

usually in-store fabric shopping at say joanns, is just about as expensive as it gets. if you have to shop only at joanns, michaels, etc the bill racks up fast. There are some in-store fabric shops that are cheaper, especially if they are wholesalers or general fabric warehouses, but those are not easy to find outside of cities most often. Joanns does have good coupons, and i can only shop at joanns these days if i have a coupon or there's a sale on that fabric type i'm interested in!

online wholesale fabric shops are a good way to find fabrics that are at lower prices, but then it does incur extra shipping costs. because of that i try to limit the number of orders I make (more orders, more extra shipping). this looks like grouping orders between projects, or even compromising on fabric types based on the stock of one website so i dont have to split an order between two sites.

sometimes you really do have to sacrifice material type. theres been a number of projects this year that i wanted to make out of a nicer type of fabric, even Thistle for example i considered making out of a dupioni, but it was just too dang expensive. dupioni would be around $25 a yard...vs poly suede which is $6. or even a cheaper satin at $3 a yard is a common sub i use as well. I also very frequently have to throw out entire cosplay ideas just based on cost since its just not feasible no matter how many compromises i make.

reduce the burden by extending your timeline. unfortunately theres no way around it, most projects i make are $200-300, and thats....fairly low in the grand scheme of things for crafting-focused cosplayers on mid sized projects. but either way, dropping all of that at once in one place is a huge blow to the wallet. but if you break up that whole $200 cost into say...$20 chunks from one week to the next, its softer. if you cant or dont want to reduce your budget, expanding your timeline is a good solution. now granted, that does cause a problem with the whole "less orders means less shipping costs" but the weighing of those two scenarios has to be done person to person/project to project.

STOCKING UP....when there are sales or other things, building a horde can be a great move. like silverbell didnt actually show up much on my finances this month because all the fabric i used on his suit was storage fabric. so it was ""free"" to me this month, because i already bought it.....3 years ago...and that money isnt real anymore haha.

this is really regional and depends on where you are, but thrift stores can have material sections that have good fabrics as well as sheets/blankets/base garments etc. ive been weirdly lucky with finding great fabrics at thrift stores...like literal joanns fabric for half the cost there, but thats super SUPER hit or miss and not something i rely on, but i do check that section whenever i'm there

[johnnyporko]

saw st. aurora twice this weekend, recap and pictures under the cut 🫡

first up was their first ever tavastia gig! it was so cool to see all of them super excited, and it was clear they were having the time of their lives 🥰

sadly they only had a 30 minute set :( but nile managed to say 'fuck' 20 times during the gig 💀 somehow i ended up with their only setlist of the show, it's definitely getting framed!

i also got to meet some internet friends at the gig, and it was so nice 🥺

then, saturday, jyväskylä and @theflyingfeeling! lutakko was super hot, even though it wasn't super packed 🥵 after delta enigma and their joonas porko lookalike singer, it was time for st. aurora, and almost their whole discography, plus 3 unreleased songs 🥰 i absolutely cannot wait for them to release 'nothing at all'

saturday's shenanigans involved petja breaking a guitar, him using nile as a guitar rack every time he switched between guitars and petja and eemi running around looking like hurricanes cause they actually had space to do that 🌪

as always, on both nights they were hanging oit at their merch, and i had great chats with all of them 🥰 they are such nice people, and their gigs are always a great time

tldr: i love this bunch of dudes a lot. sometimes they play music between the shithousery that goes on on stage

as a bonus for scrolling this far, have a picture of me and eemi after the tavastia gig (look at those curls, and the dog pin!)