#as for everyone else who commented my love for you all goes a thousands ways I will forever cherish everyone who signed my Christmas tree

[salaciousdoll]

You all that sign your name on my tree made me cryyyy, haven’t cried since yesterday to that bad and crazy kdrama 😭 i love each and everyone of you 🎀 I’ll definitely try to make every goal I’ve set in my head in 2024, which is get closer to people. Love you guys and MERRY PINK CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE AND THEIR FAMILIES IF YOU CELEBRATE IT 🎀

[unbearableblog]

My Christmas gift for you.

Messages (Carmen Berzatto x reader)

Summary Carmy’s actions towards the reader might eventually lead to consequences.

Word count ~2,8k

Warnings 18+, No use of Y/N (there is rarely a name but it’s just for aesthetics, you are welcome to insert your own name), action set in S2 so possible spoilers, cursing, angst, relationship problems, possible mentions of smut

A/N God this took a lot from me! Legit flew to Copenhagen haha. I am very grateful to each and every one of you who read, liked, commented or reposted and supported this! I would never think that this would happen. I hope you’re not going to crucify me over the plot. Thank you so much for waiting!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Chapter 1 (the one with departure, Denmark, and desserts)

Things were a little different at the Beef lately.

“Richie, shut the fuck up!”

“You first, child!”

Well, maybe not so different. But they certainly were different with you. Amongst the neverending screaming, cursing, and fighting, you somehow survived getting shot at, losing the power, dealing with the IRS, and everything else that constantly went wrong with this cursed place. The amount of experience you had in this short amount of time has topped anything you've done before. You couldn't catch your breath. But that's what you do for the ones you love, right?

It's been some time since you started helping Carmen with the Beef - serving the customers on a particularly busy day, calming down Carmen, sometimes giving Richie a pep talk when he needed to keep his shit together. But mostly you just chatted with Sydney and sat in the kitchen, doing your college assignments while watching Carmen work. You could never get tired of it - he looked so professional and smart. It was his element. Well, when everything was going well.

The entire time, you were there, talking to Carmen as he prepped for the day, giving him a smile and getting one back, just watching him go on about his day and move so swiftly like a well-oiled machine. Seeing him in an apron drove you wild. You'd have to stop yourself from going up to him and touching his god-given curls or rubbing his back through his white T-shirt (but more often you failed to do so). Most of the days you patiently waited to go home and show him everything that was on your mind all day.

One time he caught you staring, mind far away from the Beef. His voice brought you back.

“Are you thinking about my fingers again?” He said while putting his arms at his hips, almost offended.

You bit your lip and looked at him with a guilty smile.

His hand went up to brush through his curls.

“You’re not gonna get any work done if you keep thinking about that. And with the way you look at me, can say the same thing about myself.”

You whine and playfully pout, not wanting to keep studying.

“Come on, princess,” he comes closer to you and whispers in your ear so that his whole voice goes through your body and his lips brush your ear “And when we get home you can tell me all about it while you sit on my ‘pretty’ cock”

Sometimes he would explain what he was doing or why things weren't going the way they were supposed to, sometimes you would share something you found fascinating in your assignment. He would always listen, even if he didn't fully understand, but you knew he was trying to. It made you feel so special - you got the whole attention of this hot 3 Michelin star chef, covered in tattoos and buff, but he looked at you with such care and softness. His muscular arms touched and wrapped around you with strong tenderness and appreciation. Sometimes you saw the same attention to the details in the food he was making - he really cared.

Everything changed after the Beef closed down.

Carmen was a little taken aback when you told him you were going to Copenhagen with Marcus. You were at the restaurant, like any other day, figuring out a thousand things that were wrong before the opening, when you heard Denmark being mentioned amongst the guys.

“Someone's going to Denmark?” you asked, turning around on your chair.

“Marcus is,” Carmen brushed off, and continued having his conversation with him.

“Wait, to Copenhagen? Why?” you felt ignored.

“Uhh, to learn everything about desserts,” Marcus answered. Carmen didn't even look in your direction.

“When? Why didn't you tell me?” you sounded excited because you were, but your heart felt like it was placed into an iron cage. Carmen knew how much that city meant to you, and to not even mention that your friend was going there felt neglectful. But maybe you were overreacting - he was probably busy, he doesn't have to tell you everything, and it surely wasn't for long anyway.

Berzatto shrugged his shoulders. “Why? It's just for some time.”

“I was actually thinking about going there too. I haven't seen my sister in a while. Maybe we could fly together? I know everything there,” you were ready to help Marcus as a bonus. You really appreciated him as a friend, and returning the favor for all those delicious pastries he made at your request would be terrific. You could also use a fucking break from Chiberia.

“For real? That would be awesome!” Marcus exclaimed with his arms, his smile releasing your heart from its prison.

“Uhh… yeah-yeah, sure, I guess,” Carmen squinted his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “I- uhhh, have to go out for a minute. Umm,” he swallowed “-meet that rep for me, yeah?”

An entire work shift of flying has gone by the time you started seeing the bronze-roofed houses sprinkled like decorations on a Red Velvet cake. You made Marcus promise you not to judge the country by its airport, as it usually was surprisingly dirty. Nevertheless, there were hints of what life there was like - a burst of energy, culture, and flavour. You walked what seemed like forever through the endless white halls with blue sections, wondering how many times Carmen had been here and whether you ever crossed paths. You kind of wished he was there. Your excitement rubbed off on your friend - Marcus was beaming with happiness, anticipating your time there. He knew it was going to be life-changing.

The moment you went outside felt like you could breathe again. The weight of The Beef, Carmen, stress, problems problems problems dropped off, was left behind, and never got on the plane. Your chest wasn't encircled by snakes that only pushed until you suffocated. Your mind was clear.

You helped Marcus settle in his awesome boat, and after reading the owner's note to "keep the water in Coco's bowl", searched for the cat for like 20 minutes. Unfortunately, your efforts were fruitless.

Marcus only let you go back alone because you assured him of your safety (you gave him a speech about how it wasn't like Chicago) and experience. Still, he made you text him when you got to your sister's. The two of you were always trying to make your relationship work, but the distance didn't make it easy. That did not mean that you were going to give up - you were used to making a lot of effort for the people you love. She was ecstatic and grateful to see her little sister. The rest of the evening was spent eating, sharing your lives, and talking about your mysterious boyfriend.

“I don’t know, he’s just so… distant. He always leaves somewhere, does god knows what when he knows we don’t have much time! Sometimes it feels like I care about the restaurant more than him. Which is so weird because he was so into it before! He planned the whole thing! And I am so fucking stressed from it all! I never even wanted to work in a restaurant but I was there for him!” you expressed your pain very loudly.

“Have you thought of… breaking up with him?”

You exhale and almost completely give up mentally.

“I don’t know… it feels like we don’t have much of a relationship at all anymore. We don’t go out, all the time is spent on the opening. I swear sometimes I’m there just for our friends and his sister, I can’t just leave them without help while he’s wandering somewhere”.

You couldn’t sleep because being in bed without Carmy by your side felt plain wrong. You were also jetlagged which meant that the peaceful world of Morpheus was avoiding you like a plague. The same thing happened to Marcus, so you both were just texting about what you were doing.

“idk, i gave up and went to get some tea” you typed, a warm mug in your hand as you cozied up on the couch with a blanket.

“yeah, same shit here. bout time to get ready anyway”

Your whole house was asleep, and probably would be so for a while. It was too dark to go out for your liking. Boredom kind of crept in.

“what is it exactly u're gonna do there?”

“uhhh i wish i knew. make some things from the pics i showed u i guess”

“can i watch?” Was it too much of a request? Who even knows if you'll be allowed there?

“yeah i think so. i'd love to not have to do this alone”

You smile, finish your tea, and get up to find some clothes.

You finally reached the place and were met by a tall man in an apron. He introduced himself as Luca, and you heard a very sultry voice softened by an accent. You wondered where he was from.

“I'm Chef Marcus. That's Liv. Is it cool if she just hangs around and watches me?”

“Hi,” you smile at him.

“Hello. You could also join in. What kind of a chef are you?”

“Oh I'm not, I'm -”

“Well, with the amount of time Liv spends in our kitchen listening to every word of the CDC, I'd say she might as well be a chef by now,” Marcus only half-jokes. You give him a look anyway.

Luca prepared everything and soon he and Marcus were working. You were sitting on the other side of the table, able to see everything. Only now you were starting to notice how strong he was, you have to be, you thought, if you stay on your feet all day. His arms were also covered in tattoos that didn't seem to make sense, like Carmy's.

“So who are you?” Luca's question doesn't sound rude, just curious.

“I'm his boss' girlfriend,” you nod as you speak.

“Wow,” he seems to be thinking something, but maybe it's just him being focused on putting the peanuts on dessert, “What are you doing here?”

“Uhh, visiting my sister? It was time and I thought Marcus here could use someone to show him around. As for here, I was really jetlagged and bored.”

Luca was amazing. The way he coached Marcus even when he made mistakes was consistently calm, stern, and leading. Not once did any of you feel berated or hear his voice go louder, all you knew was to just try again. His entire presence excreted stability and equilibrium.

After an extensive lesson, it was Marcus' turn to try. All of you leaned closer to the dessert in hopes of seeing more. You held your breath as you watched Marcus carefully place a tiny piece in the clockwise direction of the dessert when in the blurred background of your vision you felt something change. Instinctively, you looked up from the dish, and your eyes met the gaze of your friend's teacher. There he was, almost lying on the table, looking at you. As if he wasn't busy right now. As if the dessert didn't matter. Hypnotized. “Got it!” Marcus smiled and stood straight up. “Great job, chef,” Luca switched back to Marcus.

Suddenly a firework of spice embraced you in its scent, making your head go round from the all-encompassing desire to taste it.

“Oh my god, are those cinnamon buns?” you had to put your hands on the counter to keep yourself up. “Yeah,” Luca stood straight. “You like them?” “They smell amazing!” you could swear you saw a quick prideful smile brush Luca's lips.

“They are her favourite. And she's very specific about'em too,” Marcus threw you under the bus.

Luca seems interested. “In what way?”

“I'm not, okay? I just believe that cinnamon buns should have a lot of sugar and cinnamon, or else they're just buns. There was this place near the park, and the pastry they sold was like 90% dough. I didn't like that at all” you defend yourself, and Marcus scoffs, having heard you rant about it many times at The Beef.

“Abomination,” Luca shakes his head.

“Exactly! I love it when there is so much sugar that it's oozing out, that's how it'd supposed to be.”

Your lighthearted banter somehow led to Luca opening up and talking about his life and experience. He also shared a couple of stories about determination, his acceptance of not being the best, and some of his failures. Soon all of you were joking around and laughing at your pasts. You felt your heart warm up to him and thought that leaving the house was a good idea.

Marcus stepped outside to check on his mom. He called her sitter as often as he could, and every time you hoped that everything would be alright. Luca was silently doing his work, kneading some dough. It was a demanding process, but so meditative, and you couldn't help but float away watching his big hands grab and squeeze the smooth dough, throwing it back onto the table occasionally, his long fingers dug into it, leaving an impression. “So where is he now?” you ask. “Who?” “The chef who was better than you. Where is he now?” you wondered if Carmen knew him or told you about him. “Well, you tell me. Apparently, opening up a new restaurant,” the chef said, as he threw a careless nod in your direction. Huh? Your heart drops. What? You let out a nervous scoff. “You're saying it was… Carmen??” Your question was met with a simple nod as he kept working. “Carmen Berzatto, the chef that was better than you at everything?” you almost spell out. Luca just takes his eyes off the dough and watches your reaction. He is also confused. “God, he really is the best?” the question sounds more like an exhale. “People keep saying it, but I guess I didn't realize” you sit down, defeated, and stare off. Your mind keeps pacing - what happened to Carmen? How did he go from being the best to being a yelling mess of chaos? Why is someone who looked up to him so calm and collected but still successful? Why can't he be like that? “You sound surprised. What, he doesn't feel like it?” He asks while kneading the dough, this time slower and a little softer. You look at him, then shake your head away and look down. You want to tell him everything about the way Carmen treats you, and how different that is from what your beginning used to be, how he doesn't appreciate you even though you spent so much time in and on The Beef, and how unfair that is, and have his deep voice tell you the answer, but you can't. That would be weird. Luca notices your hesitation. “You know, when we worked together, he would often be… difficult,” there is a pause after he says it because he is reading your face, trying to understand if he's walking on thin ice. He isn't, so he continues. “Partly why I didn't become better than him was because he wouldn't let me.” “Yeah, he shared something like that.” His brows went a little higher, and his grip on the dough hardened and stayed there. “My point is, being with a person like that can't be easy. Man, we only worked together and I already wanted to smother him, can't imagine being in a bloody relationship,” his smile makes you laugh and for a second you forget every bad thing in the world.

Later that day you wanted to call Carmen. “Carm, you free?” You wished to tell him everything - how much you loved the city, how nice his friend was, the fun you were having, and how good this was for you. Kinda wanted to beat his ass for being so mean to Luca too. “not rn, Liv, busy”

Of course.

“Olivia! Come here!” your sister screamed to get your attention. You noticed she was standing at the door, talking to somebody, so you got up and approached her. “What's up?” you asked. She closed the door and turned to you, holding something in her hands. “It's a gift from your boyfriend,” she said in a teasing tone, and you could swear that the last time you saw her that giddy was in high school. “What? How do you know?” A drop of hope celebrated its birth in your chest. “The delivery guy said it's from a chef,” the last word she playfully stretched out, so it came out a little funny, like Tina says it. You couldn't believe it. There it was, a white box carefully tied with a red ribbon. Finally Carmen realised how distracted he was and decided to apologize. Obviously, you were gone, so he missed you. Your heart filled with warmth and you smiled to yourself - you knew things would get better. You take the hefty precious gift from your sister's hands, sit on the couch, and open it with anticipation. Inside, 9 breathtaking gourmet cinnamon rolls with caramelized sugar barely fitting, leaking out of the mouthwatering, well-kneaded dough. And a note.

"You deserve all the best in the world - Luca"

I hope you enjoyed it! Part 2 might come quicker if you comment how you liked it

Snippet from the next chapters

🏷️ Tagged everyone in the comments! If you want to be excluded, just let me know♥️ @carma-fanficaddict @eternallyvenus @sia2raw @helloheyhihowdyheya @soursopsista @m1dnightsnackz @custarrds

Dividers by @saradika

[jasmineoolongtea]

― like a rockstar ✧₊⁺

― the ways in which they're like as your rockstar boyfriends

contents: gojo x f!reader, geto x f!reader, choso x f!reader (reader wears a skirt), kinda suggestive tone for them, nicknames are used (baby & love), headcanons/brief drabbles a/n: title is based on like a rockstar by chase atlantic (chase atlantic my loves <333), might do more characters/scenarios with this concept if you guys like it/have any ideas for it, any likes, reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated as always ♡

thinking about rockstar bf!gojo satoru who always dedicates his sets to you. it's kinda become a tradition for him to start off with a public declaration to you to his crowds of eager fans cheering and chanting his name with all their might.

"this one goes out to my girl out there in the crowd." he says with a devilish smirk, his cerulean eyes landing on you with calculated precision. thousands of eyes follow his outstretched finger that's pointing to you, most of them probably burning with jealousy from his fangirls, but you could care less about them when all you're focused on is him.

basking in the bright glow of the spotlights, there's no other way to say this except for the fact that he looks devastatingly handsome in his white tee and silver necklace with your initial on it and how it clings onto the ripples and reflexes of his toned body. you have a matching one, of course, a shiny letter 's' that clings to your neck, he gifted it to you before going on stage a few shows ago. "now everyone can tell we're just for each other." he remarks against your lips before crashing his into yours.

you wave at him shyly and blow a kiss in his direction, one he catches with ease before swinging the electric guitar strap around his neck. he sends a nod to his bandmates, signalling for them to start before taking centre stage again as he leans into the microphone.

"all these songs are just for you, baby."

thinking about rockstar bf!geto suguru who insists on getting a kiss from you before he goes on stage. "it's a good luck charm love, trust me." he asserts, taking your hands in his with the cold silver of his rings making you shiver slightly.

you're wearing that lipstick that he likes, the dark red one that looks so good when it's smudged and ruined from his own lips. he brings his thumb up to your bottom lip, running it slowly across the satiny finish in the way that makes your breath stop momentarily.

"where do you want it sugu?" you'll ask, as you always do, fluttering your eyelashes innocently and looking up at him with your doe eyes.

"anywhere you want, love." he whispers in your ear, the smooth timbre of his voice sending tingles down your spine. there's a fire lit within you, and a mischievous grin graces your features.

that's how he ends up going on stage with red lipstick on his lips and on the side of his neck. rumours were definitely going to swirl around this but that was the least of his worries when he spots you off on the side, donning his leather jacket with pride.

now you two are matching and wearing something of the other, him with your lipstick boldly marking him as yours and you in his leather jacket that smells just like him. he doesn't tell anyone but for you, he pulls out all of his tricks in his set tonight.

thinking about rockstar bf!kamo choso who makes sure you get front-row seats to whatever he does. doesn't matter where or when, no matter how inconvenient it might be, for choso, when there's a will, there's a way.

you knew that about him but that doesn't mean you were expecting him to pull you onto his lap during one of the band's practice sessions when he saw that all the other seats were unavailable. you feebly try to push him off as you insist that you'll find another seat somewhere else, your cheeks heating up with slight embarrassment as you do.

"but baby, i need you close to me." he'll say as he pouts at you, his grip tightening around your waist as he nuzzles his face into your back. his bandmates don't even blink an eye at his antics, already used to how attached their drummer is whenever it comes to you.

you sigh to yourself, your hands cupping his cheeks as you look into his eyes, a lovesick expression painted on his face. "you promise me that this won't interrupt your practice?" you ask as you feel one of his hands leave your waist and absentmindedly start to wander up your thigh towards the edge of your skirt.

he nods fervently, pressing a chaste kiss against your lips as a sign of confirmation. you're sure that the only reason that he isn't diving into your lips like a starved man as he usually does is because he's not in the mood to have an audience, in the form of the rest of the band, for it. you readjust yourself on his lap, making sure that you're situated in a better position with your back flushed against his toned torso as he rests his chin upon your shoulder.

his breath is hot against your ear as he whispers to you. "i'll play even better 'cause you're here."

[manicpixiefelix]

head, heart, hand. {Felix Catton/Reader/Oliver Quick}

Part 13.

Summary: As you promised, you spend the morning with Farleigh as moral support for Oliver's upcoming visit. Perhaps getting reasonably high and discussing your sex life wasn't the best move, all things considered, but it definitely seemed like a good idea at the time.

{ masterpost }

Need to Know: They/Them. Explicitly NB Reader. FWB!Reader/Felix. Reader is from a well off family but has pretty much been adopted by the Cattons.

Warnings: suggestive themes, kind of explicit discussions about sex, reader gets high and is high for the second half of the chapter (based on my experiences & understanding of weed)

A/N: 6673 words. OH WE ARE SO BACK. we get to spend more time with farleigh this chapter, i love him so very much omg. also the reader's experiences/behaviour while stoned is definitely reflective of my experience, and everyone experiences these things differently so that's that. also felix being down So Bad for the reader when they're high because of how fucking adorable he thinks they are??? man is In Love. but please, leave a comment letting me know how we're feeling about getting back into it after a break for some AU and oneshot shenanigans! next chapter will be from oliver's POV and im THRILLED about it.

TAGLIST IN COMMENTS!! // TAGLIST ALWAYS OPEN ! (just message or comment to be added)

----

On your first morning back at Saltburn, you wake to the smell of cigarette smoke. Felix is beside you, sitting up against his headboard, cigarette in one hand and book in the other. Groggily you lean over, bumping your forehead to his lowered elbow, and he smiles down at you. In the morning light, Felix is ethereal; at Saltburn, in his element, completely relaxed and at home, he glows.

You'd lost count of how many times you'd woken up next to him, it feels like hundreds, possibly thousands at this point, but something about this, the thousand and first, is different. Is better. Soon enough this dream-space will be broken by the idea of breakfast, and the anticipation of Oliver arriving, but right now you bask in this one, tiny piece of perfect.

Your room.

"My Felix," you mumble mostly to yourself in the morning light. It's more like a sigh, like a dreamy reminder of the Summer to come. Felix goes pink, which you don't even see, eyes closed and wearing a blissful, sleepy expression, half pressed to the pillow by his side.

You'll never be entirely privy to the ongoing thoughts of Felix Catton, no matter how well it may seem that you can read them. But you've always wondered. Sometimes you ask, and you know he wouldn't lie to you, but you always find yourself curious about the things he leaves unsaid. Not now, of course, now you're falling back asleep, but it's moments like this, moments you wonder about how he perceives the vague, offhand possessiveness - or overt possessiveness, if that afternoon you'd spent meticulously marking him said anything - you so frequently display. It's not always intentional. You wonder if he's ever found it off-putting.

It's never been a conversation the two of you have outright had; why not me? Why not only me? It's never had to be asked; beautiful, fanciful people should not be confined. What a shallow answer. Because you are the home I will always come back to, I promise, I promise, I promise. But there's no way to say that out loud. There never has been, even if you've both known it for years.

But none of that plagues you now; the bed and the early morning are both pleasantly warm. The heat from Felix sitting beside you is as comforting and familiar as is the smell of his cigarette amongst the fresh air from the open window. You're drifting back off for what little more sleep you could capture before the day begins, and you don't see the way Felix is watching you in this moment.

There are no eyes on Felix now, no-one to watch, no-one to judge. No-one else who knows how you smile when you sleep next to him.

Breakfast has everyone else in the house buzzing. Venetia's hungry-eyed across the table from Farleigh, her food practically untouched as she demanded as much information from him as possible after complaining about you and Felix being stubbornly tight-lipped. As you hear them gossip, you and Felix share an exasperated look at the edge of the room, you with two plates of food and him with two steaming mugs, before you both head back to the table.

"Y/N, dear," Elspeth cuts over Farleigh's sarcastic remarks about Oliver's fashion choices the minute you settle yourself down. Looking to her with a polite smile, as was custom, she smiles back, "Duncan has put together our Summer event schedule for you, would you still like it to be left in the lilac study?" You nod, quiet and grateful, trying to start on your breakfast before she adds, "as always we've made particular note of the events which your parents have been included as part of the guest list for, so please do just let us know ahead of time whether you plan to be in attendance also -"

"Mum," Felix hissed, to which Elspeth looked rather confused and startled, as if she couldn't understand what she'd done wrong. Pamela, as ginger as you'd ever seen her, and clearly having come back to the house despite not having been here over Christmas, looks to you with that doe-eyed softness that she always seem to have.

"Darling, I didn't know you had parents," she mused with her trademark far-away tone of voice. Her words, however, set off both Farleigh and Venetia, who couldn't help but laugh, and even Felix was grinning behind his mug.

"Of course they have parents, Pamela," Elspeth whispered loudly to her, clearly embarrassed on the woman's behalf, while you just tried to enjoy breakfast, and the absurdity of it all.

"No, I always thought-" Pamela frowned for a minute, looking between Elspeth and Sir James, "aren't they one of yours?" Her gaze turning back upon you, then to Felix next to you, "I recall something about you two being twins, isn't that right?"

"No, dear, that's not -" Elspeth is desperately trying to salvage the conversation despite Venetia all but crying with laughter. Both yourself and Felix, after sharing a vaguely horrified look about the whole situation, try to focus on your breakfasts, even as Elspeth continues, "Pamela please don't say something so crass at the table."

"What's crass about the idea of Y/N and Felix being twins, Auntie Elspeth?" Farleigh asks, wearing a smile that's all teeth as his Aunt freezes momentarily. Venetia's laughing has gone past the point of being audible.

Felix chokes on the coffee he's been trying to hide behind, right as your eggs go down your windpipe and send you into a coughing fit.

"When was Oliver set to arrive again?" Sir James asks like he's absolutely oblivious to the situation that has arisen at his breakfast table, instead lowering his paper to smile brightly at his son.

"Um," Felix takes half a moment to compose himself once more, before levelling a weak smile at his father, "I believe his train gets in at three."

"Wonderful," ever enthusiastic, James nods, "we'll have a car sent out and waiting for him." As if the Cattons have ever made anyone catch a taxi if they didn't have a town car of their own. Forever eager to be the perfect hosts.

"Do you think he even knows what a town car is?" Farleigh asks disdainfully, which sets Elspeth off and cooing about the sorry state of their upcoming guest, while you attempted to swat Farleigh's arm for his comment.

"Hey, no," he leans out of your reach, all but oozing contempt at the reminder of Oliver's impending arrival, "you're my ally in this today, you promised; no being bitchy about my opinions just because I don't want to save a horse, ride a pauper like you do -" even as you snap at him, the eyes of most of the table are on you in an instant.

"Farleigh," you snarled under your breath, feeling yourself growing flustered.

"You're a dreadful fucking pest," Felix frowns at his cousin around you, but Farleigh merely shrugged without even a shred of remorse. Several pairs of newly intrigued eyes are still fixed on you.

"Felix had mentioned that you were fond of Oliver, pet, isn't that right?" Elspeth began tentatively. You kind of wished your chair would spontaneously collapse beneath you, if only to give everyone something else to talk about. Alas, it remained sturdy, and you remained pinned like a butterfly beneath Elspeth and Venetia's gazes, "I never really thought to ask what you thought of the boy, which is foolish of me, he's your friend too, is he not?"

"Clearly," Venetia said, smile surprisingly wolfish.

Oliver's constantly searching eyes shine blue as the sky in your mind. Everything Oliver Quick says, does, and is, seems so deliberate; he's constantly a man with more thoughts than words, so you know that what he chooses to say always has meaning. You love that he's capable of directness that so many others will shy away from, but is able to chatter through small talk if it's to be had. He can read a room and let it affect his approach without feeling the need to change himself; that's why so many of your friends back at Oxford found him so off-putting. It's one of the things you loved about him.

Oliver is Oliver at the club, at the pub, walking to class, in the grocery store listening to you and Felix argue about pasta sauce, in your bed, smiling at you and kissing you and murmuring the kinds of things to you that none's ever taken the time to say, the kinds of things that makes your heart beat hard against your ribs and in your throat in a way that you don't get from people who aren't Felix anymore -

"Uh, yeah, he's a good friend," you shrug and try to seem as nonplussed about the discussion as you're able to, while your eyes are all but burning holes into your plate, "he's really quite lovely, and he's got such a beautiful, unique face; I think you'll be very charmed by him, Elspeth." Beside you, Felix coughs very deliberately to cover a laugh.

Chancing a glance at him, you're both pleased and vaguely mortified to see, not the jealousy you would have seen perhaps a week ago during a discussion like this where he is privy to far too much information about your feelings regarding Oliver. Instead, you see your best friend trying not to laugh at your casual act knowing your casual 'he's a good friend' and 'he's really quite lovely' actual means 'I've been absolutely railed by the young gentleman coming to stay at our house, so yes you could say I adore him'. This is much better than the jealousy. This is one of the many reasons you love having Felix as a best friend. You also desperately wished you weren't at the breakfast table with the entire rest of his family.

Elspeth, however, seems pleased enough by the answer to let you finish your breakfast in peace. Felix does too, but he's wearing this amused little knowing smile the entire time. Okay, if it means Felix isn't being weird and jealous about it, you'll take it.

After breakfast, you allow Farleigh to pull you outside to the picnic table you'd had installed in the middle of your favourite flower garden. He'd asked you to paint his nails, promising to return the favour, claiming to desperately want to spend his last hours of freedom surrounded by beauty while he could.

"You're mad at me," he says bluntly as you're concentrating on painting the nails on his left hand black. Like Freddy Mercury used to, he'd told you.

"No..." you murmured distractedly, trying to wipe carefully at where you'd gotten a bit on his skin.

"You don't have to be here," Farleigh could be heard rolling his eyes, and as you dipped the brush back into the bottle, you paused for a moment, looking up at him in genuine confusion.

"You asked me to spend time with you today," like it's the simplest thing in the world.

"You are aware that you're not actually a robot, right?" It surprises you how genuinely concerned he looks in this moment, leaning forwards, as if proximity would better impart the importance of his words, "you don't have to do just what everyone says; you have free will."

Looking down at the bottle, as if to continue your work and not to hide your expression, you once again tell him that you know. You move onto the next nail, and Farleigh falls silent.

It is beautiful out here. The garden itself that you found yourselves in was actually considered to be yours. It had been a birthday gift from James and Elspeth after hearing some of your idle musings as a late teen. It was an overwhelming offer, one you'd tried to turn down countless times; there were books about the Saltburn Estate as it was, they shouldn't allow you to alter it in any way! But they'd been terribly insistent. Our home is your home. You won't even lie; you started crying on the spot at that.

They'd asked you if you wanted to hire people to get it all taken care of, and while you'd accepted in part, the actual planting and initial maintaining of the garden itself was something you put an entire Summer into.

A circular design with a beautiful vine-covered arch as it's entrance, two thick rows of flowers in various shades of pinks, blues, purples, and whites bordering the outside, with a bubbling stream separating them. Smooth stones lead through the arch to a circular opening of lush, green grass, itself encircled by another small stream. The picnic bench sat at the back of the inner circle, while several small white chairs and benches with ornate tables between them sat either side, still leaving a generous patch of grass that you'd often had picnics on in the years since it's creation.

When you had come back over the following break after the garden had been completed, you see that a single statue had been placed flush against the back of the picnic table, between it and the edge of the stream, fitting perfectly. Far more understated than most of the other statues littering the Saltburn estate, it was of a young woman, her hair tied back and looking even to be quite short if you looked at it the right way, in a surprisingly shapeless toga, arm raised, hand poise to her mouth as if she's about to eat whatever's in her hand. Four large seeds. The figure looks gleeful at the prospect of eating them. The figure kind of almost looks like you. But you've always brushed it off; you're not that vain.

The Cattons have always had loved their mythology.

The family called it the Fairy Ring Garden, and Elspeth especially enjoyed hosting gatherings there.

Now, it was peaceful, just as Farleigh had hoped, smelling sweet even when the flowers weren't all in their full bloom. You cap the bottle, reaching for the top coat.

"They're not going to kick you out," Farleigh breaks the silence as you're shaking up the formula and waiting for his nails to dry. But his words have you stopping dead.

"I never said I thought they would..." you say slowly, while something uncomfortable begins to gnaw at your stomach. Farleigh's expression, while unimpressed at what he knows is a lie, is still full of that concern.

"But you do think it."

Logically, rationally, you know they won't. But you also know that you can't even bring yourself to say it in a way that was believable. Farleigh's looking at you like you're a puzzle he can't even being to solve, a friend with a problem he doesn't know how to talk through. So you ignore the comment altogether.

"I am mad at you," you say instead, looking up at him with a humourless smile.

"About... this?" He frowns.

"About implying that I have the hots for Oliver at the breakfast table, you dick," and you got back to shaking the nail polish as Farleigh laughs in that sharp and familiar way that breaks all the rest of the tension.

"I was not expecting breakfast to be such a shitshow," he wheezes with laughter, his free hand coming to rest on his chest as he kept his hand with it's black nails still on the table for you, "Pamela is a riot, God I love her."

"Where did she get the impression that Fi and I were twins?" You crows with amusement, which just set Farleigh off again, "and Elspeth's horror at the thought - did you see her face?!"

"I'm not even lying to you, I didn't realise she like, actually knew you and Felix were boning until she made that comment to Pamela -" Farleigh grinned with a scandalous little gasp.

"I hardly did either, except yesterday she got all weird about Fi and I officially sharing a room while Oliver was here, and it was clearly because she knew we sleep together; I have no idea how much she knows, or how long she's known, but she definitely knows," you offered with a smirk, while Farleigh ate up the gossip with glee.

As your focus returned to your work on the final layer of polish on his fingers, the conversation died down for several, serene minutes.

"Felix is going to show Oliver to his room when he arrives -" Farleigh's voice was unfortunately once more laced with disdain.

"Can I ask what your genuine problem is with him?"

It's quiet, but there's a distinct, irate hum from across the table after half a minute. Farleigh, when you glance up at him, is frowning down at his fingers, at you painting the final one, carefully cultivating his thoughts.

"There is an inherent unwillingness to engage in the stylistic aspects of, well, everything, despite how he is a constant, lurking watcher of the world, and must still see the value that is placed on it, that I find... off-putting," he says very carefully, and the minutes you've finished his nails, he picks up the base coat from the table and starts shaking it, waiting for you to present your hands for him to return the favour. "He acts like this weak, little mouse, but he's the cat, always watching every fucking thing, judging all of us but pretending like he's not and he's innocent. He's like you, but at least you're upfront about it," it's not a surprise when he finishes your first hand and looks up to gauge your reaction.

It's the second time someone's compared you to Oliver. Somehow you think you like this comparison better. Still, it feels strange to hear. Farleigh only waits for half a second, however, before he starts on the next hand.

"You..." you too carefully pick your next words, "have clearly put some thought into this."

"Adriana is going to hear a lot about Oliver tomorrow in our session; I'm trying to put some of the work in before I get there," he says flatly, though you can't help but genuinely smile.

"Adriana?"

"Therapist; phone session scheduled for tomorrow. Organised it before I knew about yours and Felix's little coup of my Summer, but I'm more than glad for it now."

"You're still going to those sessions? Good for you, man."

"Yeah, mom and Uncle James thought it might help me stick it out at Oxford," he sucks his teeth loudly for a second, "guess they were right." Then, without even looking up, "she still think you need therapy too," he practically sings, and you hum noncommittally. Farleigh's mentioned once or twice that the few times he'd brought you up in his own sessions, his therapist had seemed reasonably concerned about you. You had chosen to ignore it before, and you would continue ignoring it now.

"You brought weed, right?" That was the other thing about the Fairy Circle Garden, it was tradition to get high if it was any combination of the four of you children. Farleigh grins as he finishes off your left hand, both because your obvious attempt to dodge his statement, and because yeah, obviously.

"Let me finish your nails first; did you bring your iPod?"

"Of course."

You'd chosen a pale, gold polish, something almost close to a cream colour, that sparkled in the light, and spent the entire time Farleigh was furiously searching his pockets for his lighter admiring them.

In the afternoon sun, you and Farleigh lay in the grass of the Fairy Circle Garden, sharing a joint and listen to a shuffled mix of Queen songs. Elspeth had put one of their albums on after dinner, which the whole family let themselves enjoy, and it had been on all your minds ever since.

"Can I ask you something?" Farleigh mumbles, holding his hand up to the sky to admire the shiny, black polish adorning his nails.

"My dearest Fars," you grinned widely at him, "you can ask me anything ever in the world; it's me, you know this, but -" you turn faux serious, though only for a second, taking back the almost finished joint, "now you can ask me anything." And you breathe deeply, letting the smoke sit in your lungs, passing the last of it back to Farleigh. He takes his time, however, and your head swirls the longer you let the smoke settle in your lungs.

"I genuinely cannot picture Oliver being any fucking good in bed," he blurts out, and turns to you; unfortunately there's a look in his eyes that's genuine rather than disdainful, "granted," he amends, seemingly actually reasonable about this, "sometimes my mind does replace him with the puppet version of Pinocchio, from the cartoon - I'm actually not trying to be mean here, my brain just does that -" while you're actually rolling on the grass with laughter, both from his apparent situation, but also because the weed has definitely already hit you.

"Farleigh, oh my god -"

"Stop it," he's starting to sound genuinely distressed, "I've had sex with you, I know what you've got going on down there; I can't stop vividly imagining you getting puppet dick!" Your attempts to comfort him aren't particularly successful when you're still cackling even as you try and hug him. At least he accepts it, returns your hug despite sulking at your continued laughter. Then, and you can actually hear him getting over his distressed bit as he adds, "it's wooden, right? And it grows like his nose?"

It takes you a full five minutes to calm down from your laughter once more, but at least this time Farleigh's laughing too.

"Christ, Fars -" you're wiping tears of laughter from your eyes, sitting up, your legs crossed. Farleigh is still stretched out, lounging on his side and propped up on his elbow, "I'm never going to be able to watch Pinocchio again."

"Now you know how I feel," he shrugs, "and that was before I knew you'd -"

"Whatever weird, possible puppet-based euphemism -"

"Oh, you know me so well," he smirked, though the look in his eyes is warm.

"- I'll pass on," a lull comes in the conversation, and you lay yourself back once more. Checking your watch, you're surprised that there's still quite some time before lunch, "why would I lie?" You lower your arm, and prop your hands behind your head. Farleigh makes a confused noise, "about Oliver; do you think I'm lying?"

"My dearest Y/N," he echoes your tone and affection from minutes earlier, before sliding to his more familiar cadence, "you can, will, and have gotten in bed with every person who's caught your fancy. I have watched you transcend sexuality literally all over the globe, and I know from countless personal experiences - thank you by the way - that you rate sex by how good you can make your partner feel," he looks up at you for just a moment where he's laying on his back like he's remembering those countless personal experiences and you do not have the self restraint to not roll onto your side to face him, to watch him. Farleigh both knows what you're doing, while also finally making his point; "I don't think Oliver Quick is good in bed, I think you just made that man find God."

It's quite the compliment, and if it were anyone else, he'd probably be right.

"Fars-" your smile widens bashfully, and he has to close his eyes for a moment, shaking his head.

"Don't say my name like that, you're derailing the conversation," he mumbles, sounding rather bashful.

"Like what?"

"The way you do when you're high," he huffs an embarrassed breath, cracking an eye open to look at you. You hadn't realised that there was any special way that you would say it, but you apologise faintly, shifting yourself to lay at an angle, your head on his chest, facing him. Farleigh closes his eyes again, wearing a faint smile as he runs his fingertips up and down your arm in a soothing, repetitive gesture. Which does nothing but feel like teasing in your current state.

"Why do you care so much about Oliver's dick-game?" You try and focus. It catches Farleigh off guard, judging by his bark of laughter.

"As you have so thoroughly pointed out at least twice by now, the man has a limited number of features that would be arguably hot on someone with a better personality -"

"Oh, right," you nodded, "your repressed crush on my poor friend who you hate," tone flat, you brace for whatever response you know you will get, but still yelp when you receive a hard pinch on the arm. "Those are some big words, by the way; Adriana should give you a gold star - ow! Fine!" You pout, doing your best to cross your arms despite not actually moving yourself from Farleigh. It takes a few beats, but you hear the faintest laugh echo in Farleigh's chest, and moments later he returns to idly running his fingers up and down your arm.

The moment settles around you both, and you let your eyes fall closed. This moment of contentment almost mirrors the one from this morning, but your head swirls too much for it to be entirely perfect.

"I'm not lying," you finally say. Farleigh makes a noise of interest. Eyes still closed, you're kind of willing to bet his are too, "you said so yourself; Oliver's like me, he... watches," you wet your lips, hesitating for a moment, "he listens."

"But you listen," Farleigh says like the equation isn't adding up in his mind. God why did you have to talk about this in the first place, now all you can think about is Oliver, Oliver, Oliver -

Harder, he'd actually listened. Hold me here. Listened. This angle. You can bend me like this. Pull. Bite. Move. Fuck.

You had to open your eyes; Farleigh is watching you, half seemingly aroused by whatever picture he has in his head, half still relatively confused. Every sensation in your mind feels tenfold right now, you could have said any number of things to prove your point, but there's one that sticks. Slowly, you sit up, half bracing yourself over Farleigh, hands planted in the grass either side of him as your silhouette blocks the sun from his face.

"Fars," you've already forgotten that there's something about that nickname that always gets him, even soft and serious like this, "Ollie's the first person outside of Felix who's made me cum before they've gotten the chance to finish in my entire memory."

Farleigh, who'd been grinning up at you, gently running his fingertips across your cheek and down your jaw, actually looks a little stunned.

"That can't be right." He mutters faintly. Your answering expression is grim and telling, "oh my god," with the exact tone of someone discovering shocking, world altering news about situations far less trivial, but the apology in his eyes and faint horror in his voice is rather amusing.

"Doomed to the life of a - what did you call me that one time?" You grinned despite yourself, sitting back a little, "a service bottom?"

"Oh my god I definitely did!" Farleigh lights up at the memory, glad too for the breaking of tension once more, and you rather eagerly add.

"So it was nice to be, you know, be listened to, taken care of the way I kind of take care of people?" You try to put it to words, "but I still- uh, I think I was just a regular- um -"

"Oliver Quick; service top," Farleigh muses like it's of great importance, which is enough to make you laugh once more. But your arms are getting tired of holding you up, and your self restraint is worn past the point of no return, so finally you lean down to kiss him. Farleigh grins against your lips, "hey."

"Hi," you murmur, everything about you radiating a syrupy kind of fondness, "I'm not mad at you."

"Clearly," Farleigh chuckles faintly, pulling you back in. The second day of Summer and it feels like freedom already, and of Summers long passed. Getting high and making out in the Fairy Circle Garden is not an unfamiliar experience, and you'd always considered it a good way to pass the time. In your mind, it seems like a great idea at the time to share another joint together; you end up with Farleigh's knee between your thighs by the time you realise that you're almost late for lunch.

"Oh my god, Fars, they're going to kill us," you couldn't contain your laughter as you briskly made your way back to the house.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Farleigh called out from a few feet behind, and you stopped, looking at him with concern for his urgent tone. Instead, he swooped in with a grin to give you one more kiss before passing you, "they're not going to care," he adds.

"They're so going to care!" You hissed, voice a guilty mix of concerned and amused as you stepped into the house. Then, after a moment, "I care if they know!"

"That is not something I can help you with, pet," Farleigh shrugged, "but I think they might care about the grass stains on our clothes." And with that he swans away, radiating a bright confidence that you can't help but be endeared by in this moment, that distracts you, if only for a second, from your nerves.

Back in your room, the nerves set in tenfold when you find Felix to be there as well.

"How's Farleigh coping?" He asks with a pleasant smile.

Be totally cool and stealthy and not high right before Oliver's meant to arrive. You can do this.

"Surprisingly well," you responded cheerfully, raising your hands to show off your nails, "we listened to Queen," maybe a non sequitur, but not an incriminating one, you tell yourself, "and..." frowning for a moment, you pull at the shoulder of your shirt, trying to examine it for the grassy faux par Farleigh had been accusing you of. As you're trying to figure out if you really do need to change, it appears that your mouth takes on a mind of it's own, adding, distractedly, "... grass stains. Fi-" you look to him with sudden intensity, not having realised that in your attempt to see the back of your shirt, you'd tried to turn to get a better look, like a dog chasing it's own tail, "Fi, is there grass on me?"

Felix, taking you by the shoulders to steady you, is giving you a truly bemused look. It's enough for you to already be pulling away from him, stripping off your shirt to look in your drawers.

"I'm going to kill Farleigh," but you can hear his exasperation is highly coloured with amusement. He chuckles faintly, "and you, probably."

"Ooh~" you mused mostly to yourself, "see, I told Farleigh this would happen," you clicked your tongue as you squinted into the drawer for the perfect replacement. Then, very suddenly, you processed all of what Felix had said; "and boo, don't kill me," you pout, pulling out a button down and taking a few moments to check the size on the tag to see if it was yours or Felix's, "I'm capable of a great many things, Felix," you tell him matter-of-factly as you pull the shirt on. Satisfied with your change in wardrobe, you look to see him sitting on the end of the bed, looking thankfully endeared by your antics, "and we're late to lunch, almost," despite how you strode over to him with purpose, standing yourself between his legs, arms draped around his neck, "poor form showing up late, covered in blood, and with a dead friend in the other room;" he can't help himself, he laughs, wrapping his arms around your waist, looking up at you with the most loving exasperation in his eyes. However the sound of his laughter is absolutely what you would consider a victory, "see, don't kill me I'm occasionally funny."

"You're so fucking high." He laughed a little helplessly. Drat. At least he seemed to find it funny, leaning forward to press his face against your chest for a long moment as he let out a faint sigh. Felix is warm, his breath on your skin through the fibres of your shirt, his arms around you, knees pressed against your legs; Summer is sweltering, and if he were anyone else you'd be extracting yourself in an instant, but you want to melt into him in this moment.

"Shh," you stage whispered, petting his head, "don't tell Felix, we've got an important guest arriving today," and he looks up to see the apologetic smile you wear as you run your fingers through his hair. You drop the bit, "it seemed like a good idea at the time, then I..." you hummed for a moment, frowning, "lost track of... it. Time."

Felix's gaze softens as he looks at you, eyes shiny and pupils blown wide, holding him so tenderly. Does he even know that he looks at you like that? Does he know how much it means to you?

"You make it frustratingly difficult to - we have lunch-" he has to firmly remind you, even though he is grinning and endeared by your antics, as you bring one leg up over his, knee settling beside him on the bed. Your smile is only guilty because you know it should be, not because you feel any kind of actual guilt. You bring your knee off the bed, but are now straddling his thigh.

"We have lunch," you parrot back with a nod. But Felix's hands are still on you, still wrapped around you and holding you to him, watching you with this look like he's endeared, like he's almost mesmerised by you in this moment; you, who keeps echoing 'we have lunch' until it starts to lose all meaning, and you kind of forget that you're still just standing in your room with Felix, until you're chanting those three words under your breath like a little song that you're bopping along to. Any real thoughts had absolutely left your head about a minute ago.

Felix is watching you with that look in his eyes like he's never loved anyone more in his life.

"I am so hungry," you finally broke out of your little, strange trace, before lighting up, "oh my god we have lunch!" Suddenly enthused, as if you'd forgotten the entire few minutes that had just passed, you step back. Taking Felix's hands, you pull him to his feet as he laughs sweetly, "come on," tugging him through the halls, he lets you lead him by the hand, "once we finish lunch it means its almost time to see Ollie, and we love Ollie!"

Very suddenly three rooms away from the dining hall, you stop. The pace you'd set was eager, so Felix practically crashes into you without a warning, and has to catch you both on a doorframe. You've got your hands flat on his chest, the airy, pale linen shirt he'd chosen for the warm day, staring at them as he's braced over you. Then, very suddenly, your focused expression breaks into a smile like the sun from behind a cloud, looking up at him with absolute joy.

"We match."

He looks down; your nails, his shirt, almost identical shades, though your nails still sparkle faintly.

"I should have said I was stopping," you added, though neither of you had moved. You were still looking at your hands; "I should say more of the things that I think in my head out loud." Then, after a long few moments, and Felix continuing to indulge you, he hears you mutter, "I can feel your heartbeat in my hands."

You should definitely move and go to lunch and not stand here and be close to Felix for an infinite amount of time even if you know that Felix loves you and would definitely indulge you and would let you stay in this space and this moment and this close to him forever and ever if you asked. None of which you say out loud. Instead, what comes out is -

"I like that we match," and you drag your hands down his chest to take the hem of his shirt between your fingers, momentarily tugging on it as Felix finally stepped back.

"You're an absolute terror," he says fondly, taking your hand.

"Yes, but I'm your terror, fuck-o," you tell him with a childish kind of glee, and Felix was rather glad you couldn't see the way the silly little sentiment had made him melt.

As much as he adored the way you became overwhelmingly talkative, loving, and bold whilst high, he still had to stop you both outside of the dining hall to remind you to tone it down.

"Mum and dad can't know," Felix insisted, and you nodded very seriously.

"Mum and dad can't know," you agreed in a whisper, collecting your composure as best you could. For the record, you did pretty good; you didn't serve yourself an ungodly amount of food despite how hungry you were, you used the correct knives and forks even if it took you about twenty seconds of squinting to identify which would be best, and you made a point to be pretty much monosyllabic in conversation. It was working. For the most part.

"It's such a wonderful day, such a lovely omen," Sir James cheerfully gazed through the large windows in the dining hall, clearly glad for the sun.

"Yes, I forgot how beautiful it is to see you all taking advantage of the grounds on days like today," Elspeth added, "I think I saw you two heading out there," looking up, you see her gesturing to yourself and Farleigh with a polite smile, "how was it?"

"A beautiful place to cope with Oliver's impending arrival," Farleigh says through a humourless smile. Venetia leaned over her plate to leer at you both.

"Fucking in the Fairy Garden again?"

"No," you replied arguably too forcefully, mouth half full of food and gaze focused on your plate, terrified of giving away your state right now. Pamela, across the table, spluttered into her tea.

"Venetia," Elspeth admonished, scandalised. However, as much as you were trying to act normal, considering your relationship with three of the individuals at the table, it didn't register until it was too late that your normal may not be everyone's normal at the table -

"It's the middle of the day, Ven, I have a sense of propriety when the sun can see me," then, clearly losing your grip on self restraint while Venetia grins upon seeing her mother's exasperated face momentarily in her hands, you leaned a touch closer to Farleigh, "oh, and Felix is going to kill you."

"I'll add it to my calendar," Farleigh rolls his eyes with a smirk.

"I'm going to kill you both," Felix himself chimes in blithely.

"See, I told you so," you again leaned in to Farleigh, who just gave you a fond, amused smile in response.

"What?" Comes Elspeth in the lull, unsurprisingly befuddled, "Felix, darling, why are you killing your cousin and Y/N?"

"No reason!" You respond jauntily with a sincere, sweet smile. It seems like Elspeth's trying to decide if she should be concerned or not. After a long moment, she decides to accept that it's a joke.

"Well don't do it where I can see," she sits back primly, "or if you must, I request it not be bloody."

"I'll exsanguinate myself in preparation," Farleigh says flatly without missing a beat. No-one at the table had been expecting anything like that, and the mood breaks, turning as light as the sky outside, with the sound of everyone's laughter.

[night-market-if]

Spoiler Ask

So I'm going to address it all here under the cut because I've gotten a few asks in that are pretty similar and I'm sure I'm going to get more. So I thought instead of answering the same thing over and over, I'd just do a response below. Warning, spoilers for the end of book 1.

Full disclosure. I am sick. We are going through a lot of family things at the moment. My patience is probably thin.

For everyone that says MC is already too forgiving of Milo. Milo has not even come into the story yet. You've only observed memories of him. If you feel like you need an inner dialogue to tell you how angry you are over this "betrayal" or "death", I don't know what to say here. Because MC is literally just observing things at the moment. Any options that have been put forth to comment on Milo and what has happened, have been more to lay ground work and to also give a scope of the type of emotions that will be offered in the game. But literally, Milo has not even shown up yet into the story in a real capacity. So please stop sending me asks about how you are upset that MC has "forgiven" him because there has literally been no real interaction between Milo and the MC.

As for this betrayal and death thing. I am going to state this now for those who aren't going to like where my story is going so you don't need to read if you don't want to. As the Night Market, you knew you were going to die. You gladly came down and wanted to experience death. You looked at what Milo (a non magic user) was doing, and said "hey, this would be a cool experience" and then you came down here. So, yes, you are going to feel the full range of emotions that come with it. But you are also going to need to take some personal accountability for your actions. That is what is going to be explored in this book. An entity that didn't realize what emotion actually meant, came down thinking it wasn't going to be a big deal to die, and it turned out it was a big deal. A big fucking deal, in fact and that by doing so, they actually hurt people they loved. So, don't forgive Milo. I'm not forcing anyone to. But, I will not be writing an MC that puts all the blame on him. Because guess what? The Night Market would have died if he didn't do what he did. So, everyone also saying that he killed the MC? No, he literally saved the MC and billions of people. And I don't care what way you spin it? One person is never worth a billion souls. And with the MC being someone that literally cut themselves open over and over again to save most of the people living within the world, I would think they would probably not be too keen on Milo sacrificing them so they could die together in some bullshit Romeo and Juliet act.

Now, I am all for exploring how an MC comes to terms with the feeling of betrayal along with the feeling of needing to take responsibility. I am all for exploring an MC that goes "holy shit this emotion thing is way bigger than I thought and I'm angry and confused". I'm there for it. I'm excited to write it. But, I will not be writing a willfully ignorant MC that doesn't take into account that they did this to themselves as well. And yes, if you choose to not acknowledge it in game, others are going to acknowledge it for you. If you want to not read because you can't become a villain, rock back and forth in a corner and weep, or violently get mad at someone who saved the world? That's cool. I'm not offended by someone not reading it. Anyone coming into my ask box and saying "I just am not going to read now because you aren't doing xyz" I wish you a good night and hope you find something else for you because there are thousands of stories out there.

I am not interested. Nor will I ever be interested. In writing a story where I add to the plague of ignorance that is this world. Aren't we kind of all struggling enough with that in our own lives? MC is a being of compassion. They will always be a being of compassion. That is going to shift and change based on circumstances and there are going to be moments where that compassion can fall into question. When it comes to Milo, it is going to be a messy bit of confusing emotions because there is so much more than just the black and white strokes of "OMG he killed me" that seemed to be the rhetoric on here. Now, you don't want his character around? Alright. Other than when you have to see him for Gatekeeper purposes, you probably won't.

To all of you guys complaining or sending me ask after ask stating how you don't like what I am doing. I am going to tell you this and it will not ever change. If you don't like reading this, then don't read. I am not here to write a story for you specifically. You don't like the direction of a work and can't ever broaden your scope of fiction to give it a shot? Then please don't. But to have this kind of messages coming through when literally we are a chapter in? Seriously. The instant gratification is bullshit. I'm going to suspect this is coming from the younger half of my audience who is way too accustomed to a confirmation bias internet algorithm and who has had a very small scope of real life. This is of course not all of the younger crowd but it's starting to seem like a pretty good amount.

I love having conversations with everyone. My discord is always open but most of you anons hide because you are far too scared to come at me with your user name or engage in a conversation feed where more than just me can answer. I mean, you guys send me asks, citing others user names, to call them out through me. It's laughable at this point.

I love having discourse with all of you but I'm not going to keep answering the same thing over and over again and justifying my work when it doesn't need to be justified. This is a small little bit of fiction in a vast sea.

If I sound pissed, it's because I am at this point. And I'm sure I'll get more asks in that are stating they are jumping ship or that they are disappointed in me or what not. I'll delete them and move on with my evening.

To all of you who are here for the ride and just want to experience what I'm writing? Thank you. Fiction is just meant to be a form of entertainment. I am not writing anything profound. To anyone that is looking for something more, move on. I'll see everyone who wants to get mad or saying I'm too harsh, in my inbox, I am sure. Thank god you can block anons.

[jeonstellate]

even a fool knows

seungcheol captures people’s hearts wherever he goes, but there’s really only one heart he dreams of capturing: yours.

๑彡 choi seungcheol x gender neutral!reader

๑彡 arranged marriage!au, unrequited love!au — angst

๑彡 paragraph format — 1.4K words

masterlist

[gif’s full credit belongs solely to its owner]

๑彡 title is taken from stray kids’ mixtape: on track (whose lyrics fit with the ‘other side’ of this story, albeit i would never write it).

People always say Choi Seungcheol would make a perfect husband.

They would constantly say how lucky his future spouse would be to have him as their other half.

And, really, how could they not? Choi Seungcheol was flawless in their eyes: someone who was wise, witty, and well-mannered in every which way.

Every time a variation of such comments were uttered to him directly, Seungcheol could only express his appreciation. After all, it would not be appropriate to disagree to a compliment — even if he personally begged to differ.

Choi Seungcheol, no matter how hard others try to engrave it in his brain, just could not see himself like they do. Aside from despising the bitter aftertaste of narcissism, it was something he found difficult to wrap his head around.

He knew no one could be perfect: not in everything — not even in anything. Approaching near perfection seemed impossible, too, since improvements could not really be maxed out. There were always upgrades to be made, may they be in someone or something.

And Seungcheol knew he was no exception.

However, a part of him still dared to hope that he was one; a part of him still hoped that he was perfect — or close to, at least. Then, perhaps, he would finally be worthy of owning your heart.

You were someone who had always been by Seungcheol’s side — as he was with you — ever since you two were children. While he gradually saw himself develop romantic feelings for you over the years, he was also there to witness you gradually fall for someone else. And, likewise, he was there to watch the heartbreak you suffered upon finding out that your love was set to marry someone else.

Seungcheol, albeit he was pained whenever he heard you talk about your love and whenever he had the misfortune to see you both together, never once wished for you two to separate. He found no joy in seeing your heart break into a thousand pieces. As his love, he could never curse you with a suffering much greater in magnitude than his own.

It was even safer to say that he would have preferred to shoulder all the pain of not being loved enough in return if it meant you never had to experience such heartbreak.

But, of course, he was not particularly the universe’s favorite — and so were you.

When the condition of your succession to your father’s seat came to light, Seungcheol was notably your only choice. The actual owner of your heart had long been away and unavailable before marriage even became a question for you and you were really not in the right headspace to try and seek a potential husband within a stranger. Thus, despite not being your first choice, he had become your only one.

You were the one to ask for his hand. To ease his uncertainty, your question came with a promise you knew he would not refuse. "I cannot promise that I will give you my heart, but I swear I will not let anyone else stand by my side other than you."

You had known for a while that Seungcheol was in love with you. After all, while everyone told him what a perfect husband he would make, they also congratulated you for capturing his heart. You never acted upon such knowledge nor did you do anything to acknowledge it, though. At least, not until—

Choi Seungcheol ultimately accepted. Yes, it hurt when you explicitly told him you could not promise him your heart, but your offer to reserve the spot next to you as his and his alone was too tempting to pass. He knew, with that kind of opportunity, he would at least have time by his side to convince you how worthy he was of your heart.

He never loved you suffocatingly, even after your wedding. Rather, he settled to continue loving you as he always had: subtly, with small gestures — and occasionally grand ones with a new excuse of "keeping up appearances." With those — and other things — he dared to hope he was winning your heart, even if bit by bit.

In addition to your oath, you also granted Seungcheol the power to ask for divorce — no question asked. He did insist that he would not be needing it, but you still kept it in your contract as a form of a way out for him.

And, really, Seungcheol honestly thought he would not. After all, while you might think you were trapping him, he never thought of it as such.

He did not think he was trapping you, either. At least not until your love reappeared — with no strings attached. No spouse clinging to his arm, no ring on his finger, not even another home faraway to go back to. He could not be bothered to learn what happened to your love’s spouse — mostly because, whatever the circumstance might be, one thing still remained: he was now the only one standing in your way to true happiness.

Choi Seungcheol, despite people’s insistence on how perfect of a husband he would make, found himself at a loss. When he witnessed that your time apart did not even subdued your feelings for another, he had reckoned that his time to attempt to win your heart had come to an end.

"My word still stands, even after I sign the papers." You told him when he came inside your office one day, divorce papers on hand. "I swore no one else would stand by my side other than you and I intend to keep that promise even after our marriage."

He, in all honesty, did not know how to react — much less reply. Your words seemed like it should have ignited the butterflies in his stomach, but it did not. It was not like he felt nothing, either, because he definitely did — he just did not know how to process those feelings.

There was pain, at first. The part of him that reacted negatively to your words wanted to tell you how unfair you were being: uttering those words so carelessly, like they did not mean anything — when they meant so much to him.

Then, there was serenity. Another part of him, one that had long accepted the truth, just wanted to thank you sincerely. You kept your oath all throughout your years together and even allowed him to love you more than he could have from afar. In the greater scheme of things, those should be enough.

Seungcheol shook his head, "I’d rather if you don’t." It made his heart swell upon hearing those words again, but he knew it was best not to expect anything beyond your marriage. Once everything had been finalized, you no longer had any obligations to him — and you should not have to hold onto anything else that pertained to him.

It might have been all in his head, but he could have sworn you were moving slowly on purpose. Truthfully, he was in no rush — nor did he want you to hurry stamping the end of your tie to him. After all, if everything went according to his plan, this was the last time you would see each other.

"You deserved my heart, Choi Seungcheol," you say as you added your signature with your stamp. Not once did you glance at Seungcheol as you uttered those words, so it appeared as though you were talking directly to the document right in front of you instead. "I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you in time."

Your words had weight in them, but he pretended to not feel how heavy they hung in the air. With the divorce papers now decorated with your seal of approval, everything before you handed the envelope back to him was now in the past — even if its contents still needed to be submitted to be processed.

Seungcheol’s role in your life had ended, as did yours in his. The years you had spend next to each other was down to the last minute, officially counting down the seconds until you never see each other again.

"I guess this is a goodbye, then, [first name]." Choi Seungcheol said your name one last time, willing you to give him one final look, as he held the door open on his way out. "Please be happy."

He left you a final memory of him, with a smile that did not quite reach his eyes.

Then, he was gone.

(And, against your will, a tear escaped from your left eye . . . followed by a waterfall.)

[cinemaspoppycornuwu]

[You and Sanji got married]

["MINORS DO NOT INTERACT" Header made by @benkeibear ]

This fic is originally made for my beloved friend who gives me unconditional support @syntheticseraton1n . But anyone who reads this can feel self inserted here. Nala, sweetie, I hope you like the wedding I prepared for you. And readers who don't like NSFW, it is okay, cause the first part of the fic is actually SFW! Just a fun wedding and meeting of friends 🥰

But still, I think I messed up with the whole fanfic and ruined it. Sorry, One Piece fans. Sorry, Sanji simps 😭😭😭

╭──────────.★..─╮

Wedding OST 🎶 (might add more sooner or later, dunno)

1. Nupcial march [violin] (When bride comes in);

2. Barbie 12 dancing princess theme (Couple dance);

3. The wellerman [violin];

4. Hey Brother [cello] (Avicii);

5. Wake me up [cello] (Avicii again);

6. Angel eyes (Abba);

7. YMCA (Village People);

8. California Gurls (Katy Perry);

9. Work (forró version - Rihanna);

The list goes on but it would take too long to put EVERYTHING!

╰─..★.──────────╯

Honestly, you couldn't be more thankful when you met the strawhats. Everyone there is so cheerful, almost looking like a daycare of children but grown up. Your captain, Monkey D. Luffy was the most childish but he had an empaty ability. Luffy always had that sense inside on his heart to know when people were good or bad.

And then there was your beloved Sanji. The guy who would marry you in that sunny and bright day. Blonde has always been supportive and gentle with you, especially when he joined the crew. Everything in him was so charming. His greyish-blue eyes, the way he lights up his cigarrette to smoke away from you (to not bother with the smell) and makes sure the smell fades away later so he can be closer, his heart shaped eyes when talking to you (well, honestly, for any woman). When he genuinely confessed to you in a wonderful night, your heart did a backflip. It was the very first time you felt like that: butterflies fluttering in your stomach, trembling a little bit, teary emotional eyes, cheeks as red as the most stunning rose. And when Sanji proposed to you? Gosh, it was a disaster because Luffy ate everything Sanji has prepared for both of you. But you accepted him with no hesitation.

Today, was your wedding day. Nami was helping you get ready to get married in the amazing Thousand Sunny. Of course that the ginger one and Sanji thought of marrying somewhere else better for you. But Thousand Sunny has given all of you guys great memories and it meant so much for you, just like the resting in peace now Golden Merry. The gold digger young navigator stopped and helped you dry your tears.

—Just look at you, S/O... You are so wonderful! - the dress was a strapless white one with laces on it. Nami also chose good jewerly to put in your ears and in your neck, giving a special touch on it. Your hair was decorated in an elegant messy bun with flowers on it. Your makeup wasn't that heavy but very perfect for the ocasion. And so were the heels. Not too tight but made you look a little bit taller to kiss Sanji.

—I've... I've never been so beautiful... Oh, Nami, this means so much to me!

—Hey there, it is okay! Just don't cry or the makeup will run! - she said, containing her tears as she gave a friendly kiss on your forehead - Are you ready?

—Of course! Our captain must be waiting for us since he for sure is hungry - the both of you laughed at the comment about the captain - Let's go.

—Just one more detail - Nami stops and gives you a bouquet of fake flowers. Since you guys spent more time in the ship than in the lands, Nami made sure to buy fake flowers for the wedding before the trip to the island where you guys would stay. The flowers may not be real, but the reciprocate love between you and Sanji for sure was.

When getting out of the cabin, everyone was waiting there. Robin was reading her speech to make the cerimony happen, Luffy was already stuffing his mouth with meat, but what had surprised you the most was seeing Zoro being Sanji's wingman. Everyone knows they fight a lot but deep inside, care for each other just like brothers. Speaking of him, he was impecable! Sanji wore his best suit and even put a red rose as a decoration.

—You look amazing, ma cherrie... - Sanji says with a weak whisper as his eyes get filled with tears. You, in response, comfort him with your healing touch.

—Everyone, except for the main couple, sit please - Robin said - Strawhats, we are here together to celebrate a very special ocasion. It isn't everyday someone gets married in a ship. And this is a very special one. We are here to celebrate not only their love. But also their companionship as well. This time, the couple destiny predicted was Sanji and Y/N. I gotta speak some words by myself as well. I was hoping for you two get married and look at everyone now - she laughed - You guys even managed to get our captain all dressed up.

—Robiiiiiiin! This itches! Can I take it oof? - Luffy said impatient.

—The bowtie isn't that tight, Luffy! - Nami growled before noticing Robin adjusting Luffy's bowtie with her devil fruit.

—Back to the cerimony, I want you two to know that this whole crew loves you both!

—Chopper, the rings, please! - Robin called and the tiny reeinder came all happy and proud. He even stood in the point of his hooves to give you both the rings, but the raven haired beauty gave him a little help as well - Now your vows, please.

—Sanji, you are my everything. My moon. My sun. My stars. My whole world. I, Y/N, want to be loyal with body and soul to you. You own my heart. You had saw me at the worse of the moments, saw my deepest fears and I am taking the best decision of my life right here, right now. We finished one chapter of our lives and we are starting a new one - you had to use a mini stair to reach Sanji's cheek so you could kiss it gently, leaving the blonde with goose bumps. He helped you go down

—I, Sanji, promise to always hold your hand and never let go. To comfort you when sadness comes, And the most important: be loyal and loving you no matter what happens. I'll be your light, always - he spoke softly but still with all certain in the world while holding your hand as if you were made of porcelain, kissing softly your hand - And of course, do your favourite meals.

You giggled at the last part.

Everyone was so happy for the two of you and all of them with no exception helped in the decoration of the wedding party. Chopper even did a special chocolate candy. Even Luffy did part of the decoration even though he slept while doing it. You could see Franky crying hard while blowing his nose. He got emotional, someone please give the capitalist cyborg an hamburguer later. And Usopp was in the very same state as Franky. Both held hands while imaging a life like that.

—Sanji, do you accept Y/N as your‐

—Yes.

—And, Y/N, do you accept Sanji as‐

—Yes.

Robin snorted and let out a laugh before finally saying as clear as crystal:

—I happily announce you two as husband and wife! You can kiss now!

—Come here, mon coeur! (Come here, my heart!) - Sanji held your waist, lifted and pulled you closer for a passionate and loving kiss.

There were petals thrown by Nami, Robin's multiple arms due to her Akuma no Mi, Luffy and even Chopper. Let's be honest, he was trying his best in his daily form (boi was sparing rumber balls for important ocasions). Zoro even let out a laugh and said:

—NOW LET THE F*CKING PARTY BEGIN! CHEERS! - he grabbed the first alchool bottle and chugged down half of the bottle.

As soon as the magical kiss ended, Sanji adjusted a string of your hair behind your ear and gave another kiss, but this time, in your cheek. His greyish-blue eyes filled with emotions that he couldn't speak but you understood him better than anyone else.

The party was absolutely amazing! Brook already got his violin on point for the first dance of the night between you and Sanji. Your knight held your waist gently within one hand and with the other, your hand. He had whispered some words before you felt like you were on a fairytale during the song.

—I don't deserve you...

You replied by giving a soft quick peck on his lips that said more than words. Once it ended, everyone clapped and Luffy said automatically to put on a more cheered up music which literally made him drag Usopp and Chopper to dance. You decided to dance with Nami and Franky just for funsies while Brook danced while playing his violin. Sanji danced with Nami, Robin, Chopper (honestly, these two were so adorable together) and even Zoro. Only booze to make them feel like that sometimes. You guys danced and singed for like, 4-5 hours straight. And of course, Luffy ate his daily meats in a corner (some angel had prepared for that monster).

—Attention everyone, the bride will throw the bouquet! 1... 2... 3... Whooo! - and the lucky one to got was... Usopp! (THIS WRITER SHIPS USOPP AND KAYA, OKAY? 😭)

—Sanji! Y/N! Come here!

—Hm? What happened, miss Nami?

—I got a room for the two of you in the hotel.

—Of that lesbian couple of old ladies? - you asked.

—Those two! I talked to them about your wedding and guess what? You two will sleep in the best room!

[HERE BEGINS THE NSFW PART YOU ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, YOU HORNI ONES]

While the whole crew rested on the ship, Nami had reserved a special room for you and Sanji spent the night as a couple. If you know what I mean. Sanji carried you in the most gentle bridal style way and when the door was finally locked, leaving the two of you, both of you were impressed! Nami actually chose a great suite! With even a frigobar, special bathtub with candles, a very comfy bed and anything a newly married couple could want and get in a room. The ginger navigator even included the best breakfast for the next morning.

You could feel your husband smirk in a devilish way and you were right. He started to attack your neck with teasing kisses, starting to get you ready for what you two are about to do.

—Sanji! C-Can we have a bath first?

—Of course! Plus... I know this dress makes you like a queen but I guess tonight it would look better on the floor~ Hm~? - that was everything he said before seeing you fully red. He gently placed you on the bed before removing his fancy suit and put them in some wardrobe. He noticed they also had put robes and towels. Man, for sure these people are prepared.

—Sanji, I can't reach my back. Can you help me? - before you could even think of anything else to speak, the dress was off, revealing the white lacey underwear that Nami also bought you.

—My~ I am trully in heaven~ - he whispered as he removed his pants and then his socks. And finally, his underwear, revealing his dwong, slightly hard and you were impressed of how his pubic hair was slightly blonde as well. Anime logic? Fanfic logic? Where? Logic? What is this? Is it to eat?

As soon as both of you emerged in the bathtub all naked, you reached to get the soap so you could wash your body.

—Soft... - he said as he placed a kiss on your shoulder but quickly cleaned his mouth because it was with soap as well. You laughed at his reaction - Oh, it is like this, then? Already wanting a little punishment in our first night as a couple?

—Oh, you're such a tease~

—I can't help if my love is looking so sexy right now~

—Hehehe~ Let's go once we finish here~

Even though Sanji was excited for the moment, he still helped you wash the body like the gentleman he is with no rush, just loving and appreciating the process. Once he finished, he got a towel to dry both of you and by your surprise, he picked you up like if you were a potato sack and ran to the amazing comfy bed. Now he could begin properly. Sanji started attacking your lips.

His kisses are normally sweet outside (and even with the) sheets. But this time, he was desperate, starving, as if your lips were the last thing that could keep him still but at the same time, weak on his knees. He then went down to your neck, giving small but loving hickeys to remind you how much loved you are for him. With each kiss, your heart increased the beatings. When you less noticed, blonde cook was already in your most sensitive area: your cherry.

—Well... Bon appetit. For me~ - that was his only warning of what it was about to come. It is like that his tongue does magic with your clit and pussy. He knows exactly where to stimulate you and at which speed. Not too slow for you not be teased but also not too fast for you to come quickly, he wants you to enjoy the moment but let's be real: he is enjoying way more for sure. Your fluids were like the best tea for him.

—San... San... Ji...~♡! Aaah~♡

—Don't need to be shy, love~ Just let me hear that sweet voice~ We have the whole night for ourselves... - he lost his composture as soon as you gently touched his head as a sign for you to go further. That was more than enough to get his motor going working harder.

—I'm... I-I-I'm...

—Hm...?

—I'm close!

—Yay! - he let out an "yay" just like a cute adorable kid who had recieved the best chocolate bar. But it was only a gentleman eating a pussy. And you are the wife of that gentleman now - Go on for me, princess~

With one more yelp, Sanji thanked mentally for the tea and made sure to not miss anything released.

—What a yummy meal, my love~ Now, I guess for being such a good girl, you deserve the main part~ Just let me get the condom—

Your hand slapped his gently which made him widen his eyes like "wtf". You spoke softly:

—It's okay... I asked for Chopper to make something for me...

—And how did he reacted?

—He got embarassed. I need to apologize to him once the honey moon ends... Poor fella - you sighed.

—Hey, it's okay. Maybe one day he will ask for his partner in some future ahead use it too.

—SANJI! - you both didn't hold the laugh.

—What? It is true!

—Why don't you come spend some... Energy with me instead thinking of Chopper's future life?

—Sounds amazing~ No condoms?

—Not this time.

With a big smirk, Sanji positioned himself between you.

—I'll go in, okay? - he whispered as he held your hand. You nodded and my, Sanji fitted perfectly on you. About his dick size, he is normal but perfect! Not too thick cause it would hurt you, not that long, but fits inside perfectly. And no matter what size he would have, he would know how to use that sword. Plus, for Sanji, sex isn't only "banana in, banana out, banana in, banana out". It is a loving moment where he can spend with you and be romantic. Sanji absolutely hates quickies and wants give all of his love to his beloved one. It didn't took that long for him to start moving inside with that "ploc ploc ploc" sound coming as well.

—Sanji...

—Shh... Just relax and let me please you... - he couldn't help but groan and let out some soft moans with you. His magical hands stimulated your exposed nipples, bringing more pleasure to your smaller figure - F*ck... But if you keep squeezing me like that I won't handle that much~ So tight...~♡

—San... I... I love you...

His heart did a tiny dance inside his body at those sweet words of yours.

—I love you too, Y/N... - he squeezed gently your hand before kissing your forehead. And it was in that moment when Sanji got a little bit more of speed on his movements, making you moan more and more. You couldn't think of anything else but Sanji loving you intensily - C-Crap... I'll release...

—Me too...

—Together... - that's all he said before kissing you intensily. In some minutes, one of your most intense orgasms finally came. Blonde, panting, kissed your forehead and stayed some minutes still inside of you before finally removing it. God blesses for whoever will clean those sheets. And may the boss give some extra pay for them.

Your husband picked you up and took to the shower just to do a quick clean before finally sleeping in bed. As soon as you two were spooning, he pulled you closer, face to face and whispered:

—The first of many of our nights as a married couple...

—Yup... Sanji, today was amazing... Not only this moment of ours but - you gigled - Our friends finally reunited as well. Even Zoro was happy!

—That marimo. He knows how to have fun sometimes as well.

—You missed him laughing and being like that as well, hm?

—Not that much.

—You admited it! I know you two are besties!

—Y/N...

—Sowwy~ Hehehe~ Let's just... Rest for a while... I got tired... Goodnight, my love...

—Bonne nuit, mon amour... Une dernière chose: je t'aime ♡ (Good night, my love... One last thing: I love you ♡)

🎶["POST-CREDIT SCENE" OF THE REST STRAWHATS WHILE SANJI WAS DOING LOWVE WITH HIS WIFE]🎶

"Take more 4, Luffy" (Nami)

"Nope" *lands one more +4* (Luffy)

*laughs and lands one more +4* (Robin)

"Yohohoho!" *purs two +2* (Brook)

"Not with me!" *puts one +2* (Franky)

"Neither me!" *puts +2* (Chopper)

"...fuck you guys..." *gets +20 cards of Uno* (Zoro)

The couple was just cuddling and being sweet in the next morning, don't worry, fellas :)

(And yes, you guys wrote a letter for princess Vivi about the wedding. She cried because she missed that moment but was so happy for the crew)

The end.

[hyunverse]

you're the only friends i need ♡⸝⸝ hyunjin, seungmin, felix

best friend!hyunjin, felix, seungmin && reader.

genre — fluff, drabble, platonic.

note — decided to make this a continuation of my oneshot, "midnight existential crisis." hope u don't mind anonnie!! if u want a redo then just lmk <3 idm, i love writing best friend!skz content. anyway, listen to ribs by lorde for ultimate feels.

laughters bounce off the apartment walls, smiles radiating as shiny as the night stars. you're so happy, yet you feel like you're going to cry. there's nothing as bittersweet as graduating.

"do you think they'll realize that 4 robes and caps are missing?" felix questions, gulping down his saliva.

in order to celebrate the four of you graduating from university, seungmin had suggested to flee from the ceremony while still wearing the robes and caps. he claimed that after paying thousands for the sake of education, the four of you deserve to at least steal the robes. hyunjin and you had always been the easily swayed type, so you had no problem going through with the plan. felix mentioned the guilt he would feel, how stealing is immoral — but he agreed, anyway. it's the power of peer pressure.

hyunjin pats his shoulder, "it's fine, lix. we'll return it tomorrow, okay? we'll say that we genuinely forgot."

“and lie? hell no,” felix defends, eyebrows cutely furrowed.

seungmin rolls his eyes. it’s constantly like this — convincing felix to do things that aren’t very. . . morally correct would take quite a while. it almost always works though.

“yongbok,” seungmin says, “guess what else is a lie? your life. you’re still living it though, so just calm down.”

upon seungmin’s remarks, felix lets out a huff. fighting with seungmin is like pouring water onto an umbrella — useless. the boy’s head is filled with comebacks.

you shake your head at their shenanigans, “let’s just take pictures.”

flashes fill the apartment, along with giggles. it’s all fun and games, basking in the company of each other. for the last few months the house hasn’t been full with noises — everyone too occupied with their own studies. for the first time in a while, everyone gets to be at the same place at the same time. you could feel the void in your heart getting full again at seungmin’s out of pocket comments, hyunjin’s enthusiastic claps and felix constantly hugging you.

before you know it, a carton of apple juice is being carried to your makeshift photo booth (which is just a white cloth being hung im your living room, and a tall wooden stool. hyunjin claims that it’s rustic and vintage, perfect for polaroids.)

“time for a toast, time for a toast!” felix exclaims, pouring the juice in shot glasses.

“seriously? apple juice? have we gone too broke to afford alcohol?” seungmin pipes.

you smack the back of his head, causing the graduation cap to fall off. the boy rubs his head, sending glares towards your way.

hyunjin clicks his tongue, “let’s not get drunk on graduation night, seungmo, i don’t want to forget such an important night.”

“okay go off i guess, hopeless romantic.”

hyunjin rolls his eyes and helps felix pass around the shot glasses.

“okay,” felix clears his throat, “who wants to start the toast?”

“me,” seungmin raises his hand, “cause if y/n or hyunjin starts, it’ll be sappy too early.”

the oldest boy scoffs, side-eyeing the youngest. it’s a surprise all of you survived three years of seungmin’s brutal remarks. it’s also a surprise that after all those words, none of you have grown immune to them. always caught off guard.

“just start your speech already!” an australian accent replies.

“okay fine,” the raven head gives in, “fuck university. shake ass, get that money!”

laughters erupt in the atmosphere, started by hyunjin’s wheezes.

the night goes on, chaos enveloping the four of you. what started with a playful pillow fight ended up with you and felix on the floor, wailing.

“it’s just,” felix sniffles — at this point, it seems like he’s drunk on apple juice — perhaps the placebo effect truly works, “no more university means childhood is over. we’re adults now. adults!”

seungmin’s eyebrows start to furrow. his pink lips part to say something about childhood ending the moment you graduated high school, but hyunjin’s elbow digging into his waist stops him.

you vigorously nod at felix’ word — it takes all of seungmin to not say anything, “you’re so right lix, it’s scary, isn’t it. we might have to pay taxes soon.”

“no! not taxes. that’s too grown up,” felix wails again.

once again, seungmin wants to say that they already pay service taxes everyday, and once again, hyunjin elbows him.

“oh my god. that means we won’t have to fight each other over who gets the bathroom first because we don’t have 8 in the morning classes anymore,” you sigh out in realization.

felix’ eyes couldn’t be wider.

“fuck. you’re telling me i won’t hear hyunjin’s hair dryer at seven fucking a.m anymore?”

behind the calm facade, both hyunjin and seungmin suddenly feel heavy. as if all that realization just dawned upon them — and it really did just click into hyunjin’s head. being an interior design major, he out of all people was the most eager to leave university. now, it doesn’t feel as sweet anymore — merely bittersweet, as bittersweet as the latte he’d drink every other night to survive in his course.

hyunjin holds back a gasp. seeing both you and felix break down is enough. he needed to be the strong one in that situation, so he sits and watches the two of you converse.

“i’m going to miss this phase so much,” you say between sniffles.

“yeah, me too,” hyunjin adds before placing a chaste kiss at the top of your head.

just like that, a crying session begins. at the end of the night, hyunjin has to carry you bridal - style, while felix practically begs seungmin to give him a piggy back ride (and makes seungmin promise to return the robes and caps the first thing in the morning.)

“god, god, god,” you mumble — a prayer.

yet, no matter how many times you stare at the numbers displayed on the online banking application, it won’t change. two digits (the first beginning with a one) stare back at you, mockingly. like you’re the biggest loser in the world. honestly? at the moment, you feel like you are.

“calm down y/n,” hyunjin comforts. his voice is softer than usual, like a lyrebird imitating the sound of love.

“i can’t,” you breathe out, tears pricking at the side of your eyes, “i’m officially broke. and jobless.”

your phone sounds a soft thud when you toss it onto the bed. the bed dips once you jump onto it, where hyunjin is waiting with open arms. his arms and chest are inviting — wide and warm, ready for you to bury your face into and cry. seungmin quietly sits beside you.

"you'll be okay," hyunjin comforts, pulling you into his arms, "things will turn out okay."

seungmin nods, large hand rubbing your back. you don't have any energy besides to sniffle and shake your head.

"it won't be okay," you cry out, "i've sent so many resumes but none of them emailed me back."

"and that's okay, y/n, we'll help you with that. seungmin will help you write more resumes, i'll design them and felix will be there to hug you everytime you're stressed. we're here for you, promise. just hold on."

seungmin excessively nods again, "yeah. jinnie's right."

you lift up your face to meet hyunjin's, eyes teary and nose all snotty, "it feels like i'm being too dependent on you guys."

hyunjin clicks his tongue, "not at all lovely, you've been so independent this whole year. sometimes we all need help."

a frown is plastered across seungmin's face the moment he spots more tears running across your face. using his sleeve, he wipes the tears. it doesn't matter that your eyes are constantly leaking water — he's willing to wipe the tears over and over again.

"i'm literally broke guys, seriously," your heart feels so heavy — it could burst, "i don't think i have enough money for next month's rent. i think i'll stay at my family's . . . maybe it's about time."

"no!" hyunjin slightly raises his voice in panic, "it's fine. stay. i have some money from work, seungmin does too. . . felix seem to have a stable job. we can more than support you for a couple months. "

it's your turn to say no.

"can't do that jinnie. . . don't have the heart to. you're freelancing, it's not always stable, seungmin's tutoring multiple kids a day just to get by, and felix works too hard for me to let him support me. i can't do that to you guys, it's wrong. but thank you, seriously."

"we really don't mind, y/n," seungmin speaks up, "it'll only be temporary anyway, at least until you're all set up. i don't mind tutoring extra people for you, and i know felix won't mind, he'd insist on helping out."

speak of the devil — felix walks into the bedroom. hair messy, and a pout plastered across his freckled face.

"lix?" hyunjin raises an eyebrow, "what's up?"

the question has felix' lips quivering, like he had been holding onto one straw the whole day. frankly speaking, he had been.

"fucked up so bad," felix mutters, plopping down on the bed beside your figure, "fucked up a cake and it was literally today's special."

you frown, "c'mere lix, it's okay."

"i don't feel like it's okay. feels like i'll lose my job after only a week."

"don't say that," hyunjin cooes, "you're an amazing baker. they won't dare to fire you."

felix merely shrugs, too tired to even function. the four of you end up staring at the ceiling. seungmin soothingly traces his pointer on your arm and it leaves goosebumps in its wake. it's his silent way of telling you that he cares.

"you okay, lix?" you quietly ask.

"yeah. you?"

"jobless and going broke, but i think i'll be fine."

"ah," felix sighs, "i'm here for you, okay?"

the duvet shuffles when felix turns his body to face you. you reciprocate, scrunching your nose when you feel his finger tap on it.

"you're not alone in this, you know? don't be scared to ask for help sometimes."

"thank you, lixie, really. i feel like i owe you guys so much."

hyunjin shakes his head, "nonsense. you're our best friend. we're always here for you."

seungmin nods in agreement, "if you don't want to accept us supporting you financially for a while, then perhaps you'd like to tutor as well? i know some kids who need help with the subjects you're good at."

your heart goes warm at their remarks, feeling nothing but grateful for your best friends. they're always there for you — for all the times you've leaped out of joy, the breakdowns after break ups, the grieving over a dead fictional character — they've been there for everything. you couldn't ask for better friends.

"thanks, guys."

taglist (send an ask to be added) — @zoe8stay

[queen-of-the-avengers]

The Avengers: Part Six

Pairing: Loki x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.6k

Warnings: canon violence and angst

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

x

Suddenly, storm clouds roll in and lightning strikes the skies above the Quinjet.

"Where's this coming from?" Natasha asks in confusion.

Thunder rumbles overhead causing the Quinjet to shake slightly. Loki sits up straight and stares at the sky intently.

"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?" Steve asks.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows."

Something strikes the jet from above, and you sigh knowingly. Thor must have found a way off Asgard if he's here for his brother. The ramp on the back of the jet opens and Thor lands on it, shaking the whole Quinjet. He grabs Loki with a glare and yanks him out of the jet. Everyone is left dumbfounded since no one here knows who he is... no one except you. Tony immediately puts the Iron Man helmet on to go after him, and you're quick to your feet.

"Now there's that guy."

"Another Asgardian?" Natasha asks.

"His name is Thor. He's Loki's brother," you say.

"Is he friendly?"

"Doesn't matter. If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost."

Tony gets ready to go after them, and you try to stop him.

"No, you'll just make it worse!" Tony jumps out of the aircraft despite your words. "Shit."

Steve grabs a parachute to go after him and you turn to him with concern.

"I'd sit this one out, Steve."

"I don't see how I can."

"These guys come from legends, they're basically Gods."

"There's only one God, Y/N, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that."

Steve jumps out of the craft before you can stop him. You look at Natasha who nods for you to follow. With a sigh, you jump out of the plane to follow the four men. Thor and Tony are having it out on the ground below while Loki is watching from the cliffs above. Steve hasn't touched the ground yet but you know he will go to Thor and Tony before he goes to Loki.

This is your chance.

You fly down to Loki and land a few yards away from him. He stiffens when he feels your presence but you're not backing down now. You march over to him just as he turns to face you. You push him on his chest away from you and he takes it because he knows you're not a threat to him right now.

"I thought you died two years ago!"

"Did you mourn?"

"How could I not? I did it for months while I was trapped on Asgard." You pause for a moment or two. "You're a fucking thief. You stole my life from me!" Loki wants to respond to that but he knows he can't lie. It's true. He did hide your memories of him away, buried in the back of your mind. "You took a year's worth of my memories from me. Do you not remember that?"

"I don't know, that was such a long time ago."

"Let me refresh your memory, shall I? You're the one who came up to me amidst the battle and took me away from him. You're the one who gave me shelter and promised me Markus wouldn't hurt me anymore. I'm the one who stuck by your side through it all, who loved you when you thought no one else did." Hearing you say these words is scaring him but you continue. "How dare you take something so precious away from me and act like it didn't mean anything. How can you stand there and act like I don't mean anything?"

"You don't."

He's only saying that to protect himself but you can see through his lies. It's been a thousand years since those precious times but you can still read him like an open book.

"Yeah, okay," you scoff and sniffle. "How can you say that and know it was it like to kiss me? Hold me? Care for me? That's all you did for that entire year. It's just you and me right now, Loki. No one is around for you to pretend to. I know who you are. I know the man you are, and right now, all I see is someone who is broken and tired. Tell me," you walk closer to him, "who is hurting you?

He grows angry because he doesn't know how to deal with his feelings. He doesn't know how to tell you that you're right. Someone did hurt him. Someone is manipulating him but he can't think clearly enough to actually see it.

"You know nothing about me!" he shouts at you.

"That's where you're wrong because I know you like the back of my hand. You're lost, you're broken, and you'll believe anything anyone tells you like how your father didn't love you or that Thor is better when really, you've always been the better brother."

The fight between the three men takes its toll when Thor uses his hammer on Steve's shield. The impact it makes levels out the ground a few hundred feet away from where they're standing. Trees are torn down, dust and debris go everywhere, and the trees near you and Loki shake from the force. You grab Loki's arm and pull him close to you.

"You made your bed. Now you've gotta lay in it."

Natasha circles around and gathers up everyone who left the jet, and you're on your way to the helicarrier in no time. Loki is handcuffed and escorted by many guards to his containment cell, the cell that they built to hold the Hulk if they ever so need it. It's a large glass cell held up by hydraulic rigs. 

This feels too easy because Loki goes in willingly without issue, even after they take off his cuffs.

"In case it's unclear," Fury walks over to the control panel that is wired to the containment cell, "If you try to escape or so much as scratch that glass," Fury lifts up a clear plastic covering that protects a big red button. He presses a few buttons on the screen that opens a larger hatch underneath the cell. If he presses the red button, the cell drops down the hatch and freefalls to Earth's surface. Loki walks to the side of the cell to peer down the hole. He can't see it completely but his mind fills in the blanks. "Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. Do you get how that works?" Fury closes the hatch and replaces the plastic covering over the red button. He points at Loki. "Ant." He points at the red button. "Boot."

"It's an impressive cage," Loki smirks. "Not built, I think, for me."

"It's built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard." Loki slyly looks into the camera pointing at his cell. "The mindless beast makes play he's still a man." He turns back to Fury. "How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill because it's fun." You look down at his words. Loki isn't this person. He's good if he only allows someone in to show him he is. "You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

"Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power--unlimited power. For what? A warm light for all mankind to share, only to be reminded of what real power is."

"Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something," Fury chuckles and walks out of the room.

Now that it's just you and Loki, you walk closer to the glass. He stares at you without an expression on his face. Still, you know exactly what he's thinking.

"If what I remembered is true, and we both know it is, I'm not going to stop until I get you back. You're not a lost cause even if you seem to think so."

You let him think about your words, and you head back to the bridge where everyone else is. They're all seated at the long table in the middle of the room, and you take your seat next to Steve. Only he knows your feelings for Loki. He's not judging you for having them, after all, you can't help who you love. The others would judge but not him. He places a comforting hand on your shoulder, and you smile at him.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce asks after moments of silence.

They must have heard everything he said to Fury.

"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army? From outer space?" Steve asks, surprised.

"I've heard of the Chitarui," you say. "They're ruthless creatures who will kill anything in their paths. They need a leader to operate, to tell them what to do. I'm assuming Loki is just that."

"So, he's building another portal? That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor asks, looking at you.

"Jane is okay," you ease his mind. "He said she's halfway around the world working on something else. She won't be harmed.

Your words seem to calm him down for right now.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell along with one of ours," Natasha sighs.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor glares at Bruce. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," Nat points out.

"He's adopted."

"What did they need the Iridium for?" Bruce asks after looking at the notes on file.

"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony announces his presence from the elevator. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD." He walks past Thor who stares at him intently. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing." He looks around the place and gets back on topic. "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." There are tons of people working on the computers on both sides of the platform, and Tony addresses all of them. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the topsails." Tony points at a man in the corner. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He looks at the controls at the end of the platform and covers the eye that Nick Fury has an eyepatch over. "How does Fury do this?"

"He turns," Maria says.

Tony touches the side of the panel before turning toward the group.

"Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Maria asks.

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, and the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asks.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce answers.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally, someone who speaks English," Tony smiles at Bruce.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve mumbles to you.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner." Tony and Bruce shake hands. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled, and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"Thanks," Bruce looks down in slight shame.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him," Fury states when he walks in.

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"He tried to mind control me in Germany with it. It should have worked but it didn't. As soon as he tried using its power on me, it exploded. It's like that power doesn't work well with my power. I think it has something to do with the fact that I have the power of the Tesseract in me."

"I don't know about any of that but it is powered by the cube. I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys? I do not understand," Thor says.

"I do!" Steve gasps. "I understood that reference."

Tony rolls his eyes while Steve looks pretty proud of himself for understanding something in this modern day.

"Shall we play, doctor?" Tony asks.

"Let's play some."

As Tony and Bruce walk toward the lab, the man playing Galaga starts the game up again to continue playing it. With everyone doing their own thing, you sneak off back toward Loki's cell. He's pacing the inside as if he's thinking and waiting. He pauses in the middle of the room before sitting down on the bench inside. You see yourself in the reflection of the glass, and another memory comes forth.

You can only take so much interaction with other people before you need a break. The ball is still in full swing with everyone dancing and enjoying each other's company while you snuck off to be alone. You're standing in the middle of the hallway facing the city below. The lights twinkle as some people return to their homes and turn them on. Your reflection in the mirror stares back at you as if she is a whole other person.

Loki has been looking for you for the past ten minutes and finally finds you in the hallway. He approaches you from behind where you can see him in the reflection of the glass.

"There you are." He wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you into him. He leans down and presses soft kisses on your neck. "The party is dull without you."

"Sorry, I needed to get away. I'm not used to all the attention."

"The library is quiet. We can go there if you'd like."

You turn in his arms and wrap your arms around his neck.

"I'd love to," you smile.

You pull him down to your height so you can kiss him. Every time you do, it's like the first time. Sparks fly the moment your lips touch his. This love is nothing like you've ever experienced before. He's so magnetic... electric... it honestly makes you dizzy. You've never felt safer than you do when you're in his arms.

Steve wanders the halls until he finds you, and he places a hand on your shoulder. You jump at the contact but calm down when you see it's him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay."

Steve looks at you, then at Loki, then back at you.

"What do you see in him?" You sigh but he's quick to ease your pain. "I'm not judging. I'm genuinely curious."

"All you see is what he's done now. All you know is the version you see right now. I knew him a thousand years ago. He was kind, gentle, and caring. He always put me first even if I didn't ask him to. He took care of me when no one else would. Where you see a villain, I see someone in pain. You think he's evil when I know he isn't because I've seen it."

"A thousand years is a long time. He might have changed."

"He hasn't. I saw the man I knew in there. He wants to come out but he doesn't know how. He's being manipulated by someone they know can exert their power over. He's a puppet in their plans. I'm gonna get him back. I just need time."

"You might not have a lot of it."

"I'll take what I can get." You shake your head and talk about something lighter than this. "Come on, we should see what Tony is up to. I can't imagine it's good."

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[moonflower-rose]

I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, I’m just wondering. I noticed that you only seem to rec your friends. Also you ignore some of the fics from fests that you participate in when it’s courtesy to read and comment on everything.

This one has been sitting around for ages, possibly since last years Erised. I don’t normally feel the need to justify any of my decisions as a fan, I don’t feel I NEED to this time either but it is actually something I’ve seen pop up over many years and I’ve decided to answer it this one time only. I’ll probably ignore or delete any other asks on the same topic.

So, everyone participating in a fest reading and commenting on everyone else’s work seems like the ideal, right? In reality, some people want to write about things that you as a participant absolutely cannot handle - for me that’s usually MCD, terminal illness, infidelity, domestic violence, severe depression, and lots of other things. That’s what the tags and warnings are for, of course, and I’m using them appropriately. Have I read and enjoyed stories with any/all of those themes before? Yep. That doesn’t change that generally these themes affect me negatively so generally I avoid them. If and when I feel like I can handle them, I might try them out. Only I can know when I might be ready to do that. It might not be during the course of Wireless or Suds or whatever the fest I’m part of is. That doesn’t mean others shouldn’t write that content. It doesn’t mean I should harden up and just read it for the sake of etiquette.

Sometimes I simply cannot handle the size of the fic. I don’t feel the need to describe my whole life, but I work full time, I have family commitments, I need to do regular life things like washing and shopping and cooking and the dishes. Fics under probably 20K feel more manageable, I can read that on my lunch break or maybe before work, but more likely before bed. Longer stuff requires more time (obviously) and I’m not good at putting something down when I start it and pulling an all nighter mid-week is way harder when you’re 40.

Some of my closest fandom friends have big and popular fics that I haven’t got around to reading yet. Some of them have short ones that are heavy on topics that I can’t cope with right now. Not to put words in your mouth, but its unfair to assume the reason for my lack of attention is that I don’t care about them or I’m not appropriately prioritising my fandom time. I’ll get there eventually, or maybe I won’t. My friendships are hopefully strong enough to endure me not reading their stuff and them not reading mine. My friendships are not based on what those people can create for me or how they can promote my work.

As far as reccing goes, I’m a very inconsistent reccer. My goal for 2022 was to do more reccing and I did none. None recs with left beef. I’m not generally trawling for fic (the way I did as a 22 year old approximately one thousand years ago) and so I mainly see fic from authors I have already encountered and loved, via AO3 user subscriptions. My next gateway is via recs from friends (the magnificent @sitp-recs for example). I’ve been very lucky to have had people I deeply admire and enjoy become off-stage pals, but I’m not reccing them on a friendship basis. If I had to guess I would say my most consistent recs are of authors who I have had lovely, delightful interactions with but who I don’t have established friendships with. No stats but I reckon @lqtraintracks @writcraft and @letteredlettered would be people who pretty much always write things that make me lose my fuckin mind but we’re not part of a DM frenzy that involves graphic discussion of our latest health dramas, what we ate for dinner, what shenanigans our pets and siblings have got up to (that’s @shiftylinguini whether she likes it or not). I rec the BABY CHEESES out of them despite this.

What it boils down to is that I will engage the way I feel comfortable engaging, when I feel like it. I definitely have people I avoid (generally those who express terfy sentiments) and people I’m dragged towards like a magnet. It is what it is. I’m sorry if you have been a person who I haven’t engaged with and if you feel badly about that. It’s probably for benign reasons (see above), unless it’s because of one of the bad reasons.

[aeskanera]

My personal ranking of Kotor companions from most to least favourite:

Juhani - naturally the top spot goes to the first lgbt+ character in star wars media. we love a lil lesbian

Mission Vao - this is my child, goes without saying

T3-M4 - he beeps! he goes deet deet! he has a flamethrower! he cost like a thousand credits though hence the third place ranking

Hanharr - so I know no one ranks him very highly ever or talks about him cause it’s actually pretty hard to get him in a play through but like. if you can find his dialogue options online and read through all his conversations I would so recommend it. He is absolutely fascinating whether you’re giving LS or DS answers and he’s an extraordinarily interesting character study (as are all the Kotor II characters but he’s a particularly underrated one). They took a lot of elements of Zaalbar but also Juhani and really fleshed them out and since Juhani’s my fav it makes sense I’d like him

Canderous Ordo - bioware let me romance him I’m begging you on hands and knees. that being said I know my opinion of him is biased for this reason so to be objective he’s a few spots down

Atton Rand - normally I don’t get the obsession when tumblr goes nuts for the most average men but like. i get it this time. Especially because he’s not average he’s arguably the most nuanced and complex star wars character to exist, even more so than Kreia (to me) with insane depth and his romance is certainly the best written romance in star wars. but also this man doesn’t shower

Mira - I feel like sis never gets enough credit for definitely (in my mind) being down bad for female exile. like she fully rejects male exile if he comes on to her and then when she comments to the other girls like “back off he’s mine” she follows up with clarifying that if anyone is going to turn him in for a bounty it’s her. and if female exile asks if Mira knows anything about men Mira’s just like “I know how to hunt them for bounties. What else could you possibly need them for.” and when you read her thoughts she only wonders how male exile still looks so young but for a female exile she specifically is like “she’s just so naturally beautiful” cue hearteyes. That being said her being wlw is not canon and she absolutely reeks of performative third wave feminism

Kreia - Kreia, sis, take a chill pill. wonderful, fascinatingly written character and all but like. damn. also middle of the list for being a parasocial mother figure to me in all the good ways and the bad. She would be lower but she was a fucking beast in combat plus carrying on the Star Wars legacy of losing hands in lightsaber duels

Carth Onasi - they said cookie cutter hero even down to the dead wife but also give this man the worst trust issues you’ve ever seen and make him awful at flirting. I did not know the game pseudo forces you into his romance even if you reject him, cause I’ll not lie the first time I played through the game his awkward and downright terrible rizz captivated me. but also if I didn’t give Mira a free pass for product-of-its-time writing, it’s not fair if I don’t also judge Carth for that so like negative points for pushy sexism

Visas Marr - don’t like that if you’re a male exile it forces you to have only saved her life out of sexual desire no matter what you say about it. and if we’re judging Carth’s romance for that, we have to judge this too. plus she’s so bad in fights, I don’t know what it was but I could never get her to stay conscious for any fights even low level ones no matter what I did in a play through. But also my darling with the best fashion taste in these entire games. Shy lil sweetheart who also fully was preparing to slit your throat. Like I love her, the uselessness as a companion is fully the reason she’s so low

Bastila Shan - she is as preachy as everyone says and it’s so much worse when you learn she’s supposed to be like 20 years old (which yikes x1000 for male Revan) but even with female Revan I was always willing to overlook the preachiness as a character thing back when I thought she was closer to the same age as Revan, like in her 30s or close to equals at least. But it does become much harder to overlook the arrogance and lectures when this snotrag is like at least a decade younger than you. also what even is battle meditation it’s a stupid power. but I cannot deny the mommy issues did make me relate hard plus now that legends isn’t canon (not that it ever was) that means legends is whatever I want it to be so in my brain Bastila is at least 30

Zaalbar - I want to like him so much more than I do. He’s just I think one of the worst cases of Kotor I having a very limited system of good and evil so like all of the nuance that his character could have is pretty straightforwardly handled and very black and white

Jolee Bindo - take notes Kreia on the superior grey jedi (even though I ranked him so much lower than her lol). but yeah mad props for being the only true grey jedi to exist in these games, at least when you first meet him. I just unfortunately have adhd and since his whole character and all his interactions are just longwinded war stories, I get very bored very quickly. (and yes Canderous is similar but his stories are shorter and don’t make up his entire relationship with Revan and also I want to romance him)

Bao-Dur - we love to see disability rep just would be nice if I could have more than like three conversations with him. as great a setup and backstory as the rest of the Kotor II companions and then they do basically nothing with him even if he learns Force wielding

HK-47 - he’s mostly so far down because I think he’s extremely overrated. like he as a character is fun but he’s treated like the greatest cleverest writing to have ever existed when it’s literally just the same two jokes over and over again

Mical the Disciple - I do love him actually but yeah everyone’s not wrong about him being the blandest most milquetoast nerd to have ever existed. I do have affection in my heart for him but unfortunately he must also lose brownie points for replacing Dvakvar, an infinitely cooler character

Brianna the Handmaiden - this girl would have bullied me in high school I think

Dvakvar Grahrk - why did they replace this cool alien with yet another boring human. clearly they did not think it would be believable that Atton would be jealous of an alien’s relationship with f!exile or else he’d have been more jealous of Bao-Dur as well. star wars made aliens only to hate on them and quite frankly I would like to have recruited and possibly (depending on the quality of footage that could have existed) even romanced Dvakvar. Unfortunately because we know next to nothing about him he must come at the bottom of the list. RIP to what could have been

G0-T0 - I literally forgot about him at first, I simply do not care about this thing

Honorary mention: Bao-Dur’s Remote - he’s just a lil guy that zooms around! no flaws nothing but perfection. would be number one if I considered him an full companion. Also honorary mention to Trask Ulgo, gone but not forgotten

[sawyerconfort]

Rumour Has It| Elizabeth Olsen x Reader

Hey!

As I said, I had plans to write part 2 of CAR’S OUTSIDE, so, here we go!

Part 1 to read first: CAR’S OUTSIDE | ELIZABETH OLSEN X READER

Enjoy!

Got any request? Ask or comment in one of my last posts!

---------

Prompt: When something goes wrong, you and Lizzie know you can't take any more hiding your relationship from the fans.

* * *

“All right, can we start?”

Elizabeth was tense. And aerial. The last night you had been together was still on her mind, because she would never have guessed you were crazy enough to walk into her hotel room like that without people knowing you were together.

Trying to change the course of her thoughts for the interview, she cleared her throat and waited for the interviewer to start asking the questions, but she couldn't stop her thoughts from flying towards the night you spent together in her hotel room.

While she was doing a battery of interviews with MOM, you must have been doing something else in her hotel room, still locked, waiting for the paparazzi to leave the hotel balcony so you could leave.

When the interview ended, Elizabeth went down the stairs towards the exit of the place where she was and ended up being photographed by the paparazzi that were surrounding there as well. Inside the “studio” it was quite cold, so she was wearing a scarf to cover her neck, but when hit by the morning heat, she acted on her own and took the scarf off her neck.

New camera flashes were blinding her eyes, and she sighed as she sat in the seat of the car that would take her back to the hotel, hoping you were still waiting for her and hadn't given up on the special day you had planned.

* * *

“Baby, I'm home!”, she warned as soon as she opened the door. And her eyes widened when she saw Joe sitting next to her on the couch, looking unfriendly. "What happened? Why are you with these shit faces?”

"I could say so much..." Joe began, getting to his feet. “But as I know it was probably unintentional, please, I'll let you see for yourself the mess you're getting yourself into...”

Elizabeth frowned and approached you, who had pursed lips and a serious face, as if something really serious had happened. “Baby, what the hell is he talking about?”

And then she saw. Her name in Trending Topics, the paparazzi picture as she left the interview studio. A huge hickey mark on her neck, just as she took off her scarf.

All of that was bad enough in itself. And the worst thing is that I couldn't explain or lie, let alone say it was a sun mark or allergy because of the scarf. It was clearly a hickey.

"I have nothing to do with your personal life, let alone your sex life, but..." Joe chuckled. "Couldn't they be a little less… wild?"

You smiled. “Joe, sorry, we can try to cover it up. We can make fun of the situation. People don't know about us, they might as well think she's with her boyfriend... you know, some guy. We both dated a lot of men, anyone could have caused this hickey.”

"You can't cover it up, baby..." Elizabeth replied, letting out a little giggle. “Everyone saw it.”

"But they don't know what happened!"

"You do know...", Joe cleared his throat, pointing his cell phone in their direction. There was a picture of you walking out with shopping bags in both hands. “The paparazzi got what they wanted, they stayed here all night after you two and you were careless enough to go back to the hotel where Elizabeth is holding two shopping bags full of stuff, JUST WHEN I TOLD YOU NOT TO LEAVE HERE NO WAY!"

You looked at Elizabeth, lost. “I think I fucked up…” you whispered. "Shit, I'm sorry Lizzie, if I had been careful..."

She wrapped her hand around you and pulled you close. “It wasn't your fault, love. We should have thought better of how we were going to do it when dawn came…” she whispered back. And then she looked at Joe. “You know what? I think we both made a good mistake, even.”

He was confused for a minute, and then she continued.

“It's about time, Joe. We have thousands of theories spread across social media, many people saw me kiss (Y\N) in public at parties we went to together. Pretty much everyone knows we're dating...there's no reason to hide anymore.”

“Oh, sure, I agree,” he replied, nodding. “But you don't care about your career? Or with her career?” His eyes flicked from Elizabeth to you and from you back to Elizabeth. “Now come on, Lizzie, you just got a movie out. Do you really want to risk everything for two pictures?”

"But you were the one who said there was no more solution, Joe...", you replied. “There is nothing more we can do. Unless you confess everything. I'm sure the fans will support us, they always support us in everything.”

He looked at you and shrugged. "Then don't say I didn't warn you..."

“Relax, man,” you scoffed. “Go back to my apartment and get something to eat, open the beers I left in the fridge and see if you can calm down, okay? We command from here now...”

Joe shrugged again and motioned to indicate that he was keeping an eye on you as he left the apartment. When Elizabeth came back to you after locking the door, she had a silly little smile on her face.

"I think we should have been more careful yesterday...", she smiled, hugging you and kissing your neck. “Especially you, young lady. I remember you told me you weren't going to leave any marks,"

You blinked at her. “Really, Lizzie? I mean, look at you. It's okay that I got out of control and I was to blame for all this, but come on, how can I not lose control when you're by my side?"

She laughed and took your face in both hands, kissing you and walking slowly towards the window. When she opened the curtains, you finally understood what her plan was. A good photo for the paparazzi who were still waiting down there was what they wanted, and if they could see the two of you kissing, it was a profit. There was nothing left to lose anyway.

"Lizzie, wait..." you said, pushing her away. “And now, what are we going to do?”

"You told Joe yourself, my love...", she replied, still clinging to you. “Let's take over everything. Kick the bucket and say “fuck you”! Let's give the people what they want!”

“You mean, take over? Assuming that we're really dating?

She nodded. “I've waited too long to show the world that you're mine. Enough of this bullshit, please, dear.”

Your eyes gleamed. "We'll be in this together, won't we?"

“We will, I promise”, she gave you a peck and reached down to your shirt, trying to unbutton it. “But now, I think you and I need to relax a little before sharing our dark secret, don't you?”

You smiled mischievously. "This time, I want you to leave me with the 'sunmarks'", you teased, making her laugh and kiss you again.

The two of you dropped onto the couch to make love once more, amidst the chaos that was becoming your lives now that everything was exposed.

* * *

Elizabeth opened her eyes and realized she was clinging to you on the couch. Her cell phone kept loading messages, and she grabbed it to see what was going on. They were messages from the PR agents, of course, and when she looked back at you, she realized she could ignore them for now.

Turning the camera to her side, she snapped a picture of you sleeping, the blanket covering your naked body, and posted it to Instagram, willing to tease, with the caption quoting Adele, and your favorite song of hers.

Rumor has it, (s)he is the one I'm leaving you for.

Smiling involuntarily, Elizabeth turned off her cell phone screen and lay down beside her, burying her face in the crook of her neck, ready to face the tide of chaos that would rise after that photo.

But she was Scarlet Witch, she could handle all that too.

[thecollectionsof]

you were on a picnic blanket

It began as a matter of circumstance, as many great things do. 

Jaida, alone at the park, watching the people go by. Nicky, alone at the park, trying to clear her head after a long day at work. Neither were expecting to find a kindred spirit—it was just the two of them, both alone at the park, hoping that the sound of birds and smell of the blooming magnolia tree that Nicky was sitting under would let them escape their lives, just for a moment. 

Until something changed. 

Jaida’s internal commentary about the pretty girl under the magnolia tree had been going practically since she sat down. Maybe it was the bright smile she gave her when they locked eyes, or the way her hair blew slightly in the wind, or the ethereal-looking sundress that perfectly complemented her body. Maybe it was the way a petal fell on her head and she just laughed a little, her shoulders shaking as she giggled to herself. Jaida wanted to know more about her, creating narratives about who this person might be—she’d have a fancy name but shorten it to a nickname, she thinks, like Primrose to Rosie or Rebecca to Becky. And she’d be from somewhere cool, like San Francisco or something. 

Her rambling thoughts are interrupted by a shrill voice and a figure coming to stand in front of her. 

“Get off my bench! Everyone knows that I sit on this bench at 6pm every Friday, this is my bench. Get off of it!” A woman demanded her to move with a level of audacity that leaves Jaida stunned, staring at her uncomprehendingly. She blinks, closing her mouth after it had apparently fallen open, and stood. The bench was nice, yes, but it wasn’t worth facing the wrath of a thousand suns—or rather the wrath of one particularly stubborn woman at the park. 

But she didn’t want to leave the park just yet, and there were no other benches in sight, so she was at a loss. And then she hears a giggle from the person under the magnolia tree, the person she’d been trying to create a life story for the entire time she was sitting on the bench.

“Hey! You can come sit with me here, if you want?” she offers, gesturing at the rest of the blanket she was sitting on. She had an accent, so she had already got something wrong about her. She was delighted to see what else she got wrong. 

“Yes, please,” Jaida replies, gliding over to the blanket and settling down next to her, close enough to share the blanket but far enough to keep some distance between her and the beautiful stranger. The stranger doesn’t seem to mind the proximity, adjusting her legs to lean closer to where she had sat. 

“I’m Nicky Doll, and you are…?” she begins, waiting for Jaida to fill in her name. She smiles, and Jaida smiles back.

“Jaida. Jaida ‘Essence’ Hall, the essence of beauty herself,” she introduces herself with a quirk of her lips, and she notices the way Nicky’s eyes flick down, checking her out. 

“The essence of beauty, I see why you’re called that. You’re beautiful,” she comments candidly, as if stating a common fact, but her interest is given away by her posture and the way her eyes refuse to leave Jaida. Jaida can’t help but lean closer, already enamored with the woman in front of her. 

“Thank you, baby,” Jaida replies with a grin, “but I might need to fight to keep that title if you stick around.”

Nicky looks delighted, her own grin growing wider at the words. “Stick around?” she begins, “I come here all the time, and this is the first time I’ve seen you. You are the one that needs to stick around.”

“You caught me. I just moved here from Milwaulkee, but now I’m a New York City bitch,” Jaida clarifies, giggling a bit at being caught. 

“Well, Miss New York City bitch, I’d love to show you around sometime,” Nicky’s gaze is intoxicating, and Jaida can’t help but nod enthusiastically. It goes against her desire to look cool in front of the pretty girl under the magnolia tree, but she couldn’t help but show her glee at the obvious mutual attraction between them. 

A comfortable silence falls between them, and they both take the time to admire the beauty around them, the thing that both of them came for originally. The green of the trees, the colorful flowers, the birds landing on the decorative fences, all of it painting a serene picture of a perfect evening at the park.

Jaida lays back, content to look at the sky and soak up the warmth of the evening sun. Nicky follows shortly after, her hair fanning out around her as she follows Jaida down onto the picnic blanket, letting her hand rest close to Jaida’s invitingly. She laces their fingers together, looking over at the girl next to her to check if it was okay. Nicky’s still gazing at the sky, but she has a small, content smile on her face. She squeezes her hand, a silent answer to Jaida’s unasked question. A silent it’s okay, this is good.

Evening turns darker, the sun setting through the trees marking the beginning of the night, and the park somehow grows even quieter. Kids return home, the nice older lady from down the street is gone in time for Jeopardy, and the lady that brought them together leaves with one last spiteful glance at Jaida, as if she was a premeditated bench stealer. Jaida just smiles back, unable to keep her joy off her face, and Nicky huffs out a quiet laugh in the space between the two of them.

“We should’ve really thanked that woman,” Nicky says later as they stand up, only separating their joined hands so she can fold up the picnic blanket and tuck it under her arm, beginning their walk out of the park, “I was trying to think of ways to start a conversation with the most gorgeous person I have ever seen, but I thought that I would never get the courage to say something.”

Jaida can’t help but blush, trying to find the words to reply with. “Maybe we should,” she replies, “because I was doing the same thing.” 

“What are you doing tomorrow? I’d like to show you some of my favorite spots, if that’s still alright with you?” Nicky proposes, looking at her hopefully. It doesn’t escape her notice that Nicky’s ever so slightly taller, having to look down just a bit now that they're both standing. 

“Yes!” Jaida exclaims, before realizing that it sounded a bit desperate—didn’t know many people in NYC yet, so getting to spend more time with Nicky sounded wonderful. “I mean, wait, I’m free tomorrow, yeah.” She tries to save herself from sounding too excited, but she fails.

“Great. Meet me here at four? We can walk around and then go to a restaurant I like nearby, if that sounds good to you?” Nicky questions with a laugh that Jaida can’t help but join, even if it’s at her own antics. They’ve made it to the entrance of the park, and it seems like they’re going in opposite directions—her apartment is to the right, while Nicky’s headed to the left.

“Yes. Perfect. See you tomorrow, Nicky!” she says, and she’s met with the other girl’s resulting grin. 

“See you tomorrow, beautiful,” Nicky replies, and then she turns and walks away. Jaida’s watches her go for a second before turning on her heel and heading back to her new apartment, her new home, suddenly much less nervous about her place in the city. It’s hard to be nervous about that when she has to worry about what to wear when she meets back up with Nicky tomorrow, after all.

[shoujoboy-restart]

How do i stop feeling bad about being bi. / Same sex attracted? I feel the world and god hates me

A lot of instrospection and research into how normal same sex relations were WAAAAY before catholicism and after it too.

Mr Tomlinson was a farmer at Dog House Farm, which is on the site where a golf course now stands near Wakefield in West Yorkshire. He wrote the entry on 14 January 1810 in response to media reports of the execution of a naval surgeon for sodomy.

Mr Tomlinson wrote: 'It appears a paradox to me, how men, who are men, shou'd possess such a passion; and more particularly so, if it is their nature from childhood (as I am informed it is) - If they feel such an inclination, and propensity, at that certain time of life when youth genders [i.e. develops] into manhood; it must then be considered as natural, otherwise, as a defect in nature … it seems cruel to punish that defect with death.'

Mr Tomlinson goes on to question how God could allow such severe penalties for a divinely-ordained trait.

The passage was uncovered by Eamonn O’Keeffe, an AHRC-funded doctoral student in the History Faculty at the University of Oxford, while undertaking his PhD research in Wakefield Library. Although historians have written about other parts of the Tomlinson diary, this passage has not previously been brought to light.

Mr O’Keeffe said: 'In this diary we see a Yorkshire farmer arguing that homosexuality is innate and something that should not be punished by death. While Tomlinson’s writings reflect the opinions of only one man, his phrasing - ‘as I am informed it is’ - implies that his comments were informed by the views of others.

There's nothing new under the sun. At the heights of punishment and persecution of gays there are still people who cared for us and knew the way we were being treated was unfair, even the very label used against us, homossexual, was made by a gay liberation sexologist ad it meant to simply describe us normally.

I was never that religious, and my family was never too much about religion either, but we still hd clear catholic influence, my mother is a very open minded and just shrugged off both me being agnostic and me being gay so I'm very lucky for that.

But something that can help you is try to get away from concrete and boxed spirituality if you still find the need to use it, i myself think religious fundies are just sadistic narcissists: People that hate themselves so much they need to think everyone else does as well, and that even a ominipotent being that could solving droughts, famine and performing miracles instead gives a shit about who's sucking dick and wearing skimpy outfits.

Find pride in your sexuality too, don't feel ashamed of having weird fetishes or having unusual desires, as long as it's consensual and with sane informed adults you doing nothing wrong at all, explore what you like and what you dislike, and don't feel pressured to be a prude "because it's the minimum you can do as sinful homossexual" be what you want to be because it's what makes you happy and satisfied, i do personally think "conservative gay" stereotypically doesn't provide many answers for how you feel, since the least of it is gay guys that are disinterested in what benefits us and the extreme is gay dudes praising and laughing over terrorists commiting mass murder against us, so try to find a middle ground obviously.

Understand you were worth respect dozens of thousands if not millions of years ago and you have only been disrespected for barely a millenia and the world is progressing and finding space for you, find community and friends to relate with and instrospect and research to know you were always loved and there was always a place for you and there will always be no matter what.

[silvernyxchariot]

My Genshin Hot Takes

that shouldn't be hot takes, but the gacha community be the gacha community. Posting, because I'm a spiteful little guy.

"Never pull for a 4-star if you don't want the 5-star"/"That's pure financial suicide."/"NEVER pull on a weapon banner"

The only people who care about how much people spend on a gacha game are, from my observation, the teenagers who are jealous they can't spend money, the whales (spends hundreds to thousands every month) with a superiority complex, or the free-to-plays who "humble brag."

Pull for whomever or whatever the fuck you want. It is no consequence to me or anyone else, whether you spend YOUR primos or YOUR own money. Which brings me to my next point.

"Whales $$$$$ vs Free-to-play"

I don't care. Either help in the domain or leave. We don't have time to talk in the chat when Azdaha is beating everyone's ass.

"Standard characters are trash"/"QiQi is the worst."

You're mad you lost your 50/50 and you don't know how to build characters. That's your luck + your own fault.

"No! I won my 50/50 on a banner where I didn't want the 5 star! I was just building pity."

No one feels sorry for you. "Building pity" does not exist if you're not wishing on a banner where you don't want the 5 star. Wish on the banner WITH your desired 5 star.

"You can't play characters together that don't synergize 😡 that's just wrong."

Assuming you all remember that I am a KavehxAlhaitham slut, you all know that I'm the biggest hater of this one. 🎶I hate the way that you talk. Hate the way that you walk.🎶/ref

This game is 99.99% casual. The only "endgame" content is Spiral Abyss and the new Imaginarium Theater. If you only care about Spiral and meta characters, then hang out with the meta slaves and build the meta. Just don't shove it down everyone's throat like it's the only way to play.

A character's kit (attack set, passives, cons) is forever, but you CAN change their weapons and artifacts however you'd like. I'M LOOKING AT YOU 🫵 TIKTOK with your Pyro Yao Yao, Chongyun mains, and Amber DPS's. Idgaf if it's a private server or an actual candid co-op, if a little Yao Yao is slapping 1M in damage or Amber finishing Abyss, Ain't No Way Y'all Have An Excuse In 2024.

"[Blank] is the best [insert category]."

I'd say this phrase is only really viable for the top DPS characters. So, this goes out to the rest of characters, if they have a list of replacements or substitutes that you can use, they can't be the best. Please refer to my point of "building characters however you want" in my point above. I know the artifact RNG is trash or not everyone has $$$$ to drop on Genshin, but do what you can with what you have. Your Fischl might be a better battery than your Raiden. It's a marathon. Not a sprint.

"Don't speed through the Archon Quests or else you'll get burnt out."

Or do. This one is dependent on the individual's attention span. I sped through mid-Liyue to the end of the Sumeru Archon quests to "catch up" with the story and felt fine about it.

The real burn out is just farming, not even just for artifacts, but character ascension materials, weapon materials, exp books, etc. This doesn't really apply to you AR60 players with backstock and abundance of resources, obviously. My only regret is not playing through the AQ fast enough to understand the plot of the limited events, Parade of Providence (i.e. the InterDarshan event) specifically, and Windblume 2023. So, I didn't play them and thus don't have the limited weapons associated.

Schrodinger's Sexuality

I actually really love this take from a HoyoLab comment. So, I'm sharing it with all of you.

"All playable characters have no cannon sexuality since all playable characters don't cannonically have any love interests so believing all pc are straight is also a headcannon :D if anything any "romantic" acts done to traveller means they have to be bi, since events are pretty much the same regardless of which traveller you choose. so everyone is nothing, everything and also sometimes something, all at the same time."

Tl;dr Sexualities for characters, coded or not coded, may be whatever you'd like.