#but also man the content available for these two are literally NON-EXISTENT

[blackkatdraws2]

Han Myungoh and Han Dareum~ [Omniscient Readers Viewpoint]

My personal headcanon is that Han Myungoh had to consult a cosmetologist to teach him how to style a woman's hair so he could make pretty hairstyles for his daughter, Han Dareum.

Because I'm sure he wouldn't know how to do a girl's hair since he's never done it before!! ----------------★ [The scenario below is inspired by the future events of the novel // might contain spoilers!] [Content Warning: Injury, Angst, Hurt]

He clutches at his daughter's limp body. Her frail body was weak, but still breathing, albeit faintly.

"You'll be alright, sweetheart. You're alright, I'm here. Appa is here, sweetheart. I came back for you like I promised--"

He mumbles words of comfort into his daughter's ears. Hugging her, making sure she's safe in his arms, making sure she's still alive.

By now, he wasn't sure whether these words were for his daughter or for himself. But he repeats them anyway.

His Han Dareum was finally home.

[14dayswithyou]

Teo NSFW Alphabet

🔞 18+ CONTENT! MINORS: DO NOT INTERACT! 🔞 Hello Teo Alvarado Nation, I come bearing gifts

A = Aftercare (what they're like after sex)

For one night stands; Teo will casually point out where the bathroom is and let them use any of his personal products —before ignoring them in favour of his phone or organising an Uber/chauffeur to pick them up. But for regular hookups; he'll have a towel, a bottle of water, and some snacks ready on standby. They are welcome to stay the night, but they better be gone before Teo wakes up in the morning.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner's)

Necks :) He likes how nicely his fingers look wrapped around his partner’s throat — as well as the expensive jewellery he buys specifically for them to wear. I know everyone probably expects me to say that Teo likes his own face the most, but he honestly might prefer his own biceps instead. He's worked hard to maintain this kind of build, so it's only natural for him to want to show off the results.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

The only time you'll ever get to see his cum is if you give him head; otherwise, he'll use a condom (or send you home if there are none available). But!! His seed is somewhat thick and has a bitter taste. It's not unpleasant, though!

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He's probably had a sexual escapade or two with a few of the other library employees by now ^^; He won't go anywhere near your immediate coworkers, though — he's not that much of an asshole.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they're doing?)

Sexually? There's almost nothing this man hasn't done already. He's extremely skilled, knows what he wants, and isn't afraid to ask for it if his partner(s) are willing. Romantically, however? That's an entirely new realm to him. Theo has probably never held anyone's hand before or kissed them with affectionate intentions. He knows how to fuck, but he doesn't know how to make love.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Doggystyle, in front of a mirror. He likes being able to pull his partner's hair, slap their ass, or place a hand on their neck/shoulder blade to bend them to his liking. Seeing his partner's face might be a bit too intimate for him, so any position that lets Teo fuck undisturbed is good in his books.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

While he's far more serious, he'll entertain any goofy partners. If they crack jokes or do something silly, he'll roll his eyes and go along with it — for the most part. Once it starts getting old, he'll simply ignore it.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Most of his body is hairless for his own personal preference, though he does grow out his happy trail on occasion... Especially if he knows his regular partners are into it. It's a dark patch of black to match the hair on his head.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Literally non-existent. When he sleeps with someone, it's because he's either looking for a bit of fun or to let off some steam. Both parties are aware of this, though, and Teo would never have sex with someone who sees him in a romantic light or wants something more than a casual hookup. I can't believe this is happening, but if it's blog!Teo (aka Rosie and Jesse delulu AU /pos), then he would be waaay more intimate with his partner! He's more likely to make eye contact and even lean in for a kiss if you beg him enough.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Although he'd definitely jack off if necessary, Teo is typically around people who are willing to help him blow off some steam — so there isn't really much point. Teo does find the idea of mutual masturbation hot, though!

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

My dyslexic ass doesn't know how to spell it correctly, but he's got a crying kink!!! Seeing his partner so overwhelmed with pleasure just does something to him, and it goes hand in hand with his degradation and knife kink. However, I want to make it explicitly clear that Teo doesn't get off to seeing his partner in pain!! He also wouldn't do something they're not comfortable with. Everything gets discussed before the relationship situationship can delve into anything more long-lasting.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He loves to do it inside his McLaren (or Tesla, in Blog! Teo's case). His windows are heavily tinted so you don't have to worry about any outside interference, though Teo isn't above threatening to wind down the window inch by inch in order to tease you. Other than that, Teo is down to fuck almost anywhere that's hygienic and sanitary. But keep in mind that he also gets a kick out of public indecency, and bribing the law isn't above him either (if you guys somehow got caught).

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Sending him risque texts, telling him you're bored and alone, unabashedly sitting in his lap while he's with his friends, literally taking his hands and shoving them down your pants, etc. He likes people who are confident and forward with him without feeling ashamed or embarrassed by it. ...Just don't make it seem like you're trying to claim ownership over him, though. Don't cling to his side to make his friends jealous. Don't send him spicy texts because you saw him flirting with another man. And don't act brazen just to flaunt your relationship in front of that cute souvenir shop cashier.

N = No (something they wouldn't do, turn offs)

To be honest, there isn't much that Teo is not open to. He's down for almost anything so long as it's legal and not too immoral/outlandish. He's fine with somnophilia if it's discussed prior, but things like dubcon might be a bit too icky for his tastes. Keep in mind that he's also really selfish, and would probably want to stick to his own kinks since they are more familiar to him.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

He was born to be a pillow princess, but wouldn't mind going down on his regular hookups either.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

It's always hard and rough with him, though he likes to switch up the tempo in order to tease you/his partners. Just when you think you're about to come, he'll slow down and ultimately stop moving. And once you've sufficiently begged him enough — maybe turn on the waterworks to really get him going — then he'll give it to you fast and hard until your toes are curling and your eyes are rolling back.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He's Corland Bay's king of quickies lmao. Teo is the type to pull you (and your clothes) aside and take you where you stand before going about his day as if nothing happened.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He's always down to take risks and experiment! Teo is open to trying out almost anything — and unlike Ren, he's more in favour of having others see you both get fucked. Teo knows he's good and wants to show the both of you off.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

While 3-4 rounds might not sound like much, Teo tends to draw them out for as long as possible. It's almost like he's trying to edge you with how often he'll stop before you can reach your peak... But the orgasms always feel that much better for the both of you when you're especially horny and desperate for release. I think the better answer would be that Teo can last at least six hours in the bedroom.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He doesn't use anything on himself, though Teo does have a small box of toys for his partners who prefer it. I wouldn't count his knife collection as toys, nor the literal police handcuffs stashed away in his drawer. (Which, ironically, were used to detain him after he vandalised a small business..... Why did they let him keep the cuffs.... How did he get away with it.........)

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Teo isn't one to be a physical tease (he doesn't have the patience for it), though he is a massive verbal tease in the bedroom. More often than not, his words are mixed with a degrading edge to it. "My thigh ain't enough for you? Then why don't you try begging me for more, then. C'mon, I know you can do it." / "You want more? Move your hips then." / "Hands on the mirror, doll. I never gave you permission to touch yourself." / "Look at you, crying while bouncing on a cock like that. Can't handle it splitting you open like that, huh?" / "Fuck. Can't help but act like such a cock-hungry slut, can you? I'm not even all the way in yet."

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He mainly uses low grunts and growls, though he does use a lot of dirty talk to fill the silence. Teo gets more vocal the closer he is to coming.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Blog!Teo only ever kisses Angel :) It's already kinda hinted at in all da NSFW fics with him involved, but I'll take advantage of this situation and make it more official hehe

X = X-ray (let's see what's going on under those clothes)

I ERASED HIS PENIS FROM MY MEMORY, But I wanna say it's around 7 inches and extremely girthy. There's a prominent vein or two running along the underside with a slight curve to the left when erect. Even when soft, it looks like he's packing heat down there.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Teo has a high sex drive, but he can easily manage it. Surprisingly, he probably only has sex like... maybe four or five times a week? He's too busy being a public menace and setting things on fire. Now that I think about it, I do quickly want to reiterate that while, yes, Teo is a playboy; that isn't his defining personality trait. Since the very beginning, he's always been a lover of chaos and messing with people (/nsx) — not sleeping around. Flirting =/= sex, and Teo has always been so much more than just a hedonistic fuckboy. So please don't take this post as confirmation of him only being interested in sex (or sleeping with Angel)!!

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Teo will most likely stay up a bit longer just to scroll through social media on his phone, though he is willing to initiate pillow talk if it's with one of his FWBs/regular hookups. If it's a one night stand, he'll only fall asleep once they're gone.

[decadentworld]

Hi!! Can I request Steve having his first time bottoming with reader? Im sure he would tbe the one you would have to take more time with, specialy since hes always been the top and only been with woman. I really love reading your longer fics where it all builds up. thankyou!!!

Anon, tell me why I keep making my request fills longer and longer? I hope I’m not being too exaggerated with the length of this one.

Notions.

A story divided into moments.

Steve thinks back to all the moments that lead to him being in this position. Literally.

※ Bottom Steve Harrington/Top Male Reader.

※ 23,391 words.

※ Requested by Anonymous.

※ +18. Minors do not interact.

※ Content and warnings: First time bottoming. Gentle manhandling. Praise kink. Slightest D/s dynamics (Submissive Steve Harrington/Dominant Male Reader). Brief allusion to subspace. Laughter during sex. Discussions about gender roles and stereotypes. Porn with a bit of plot. Allusions to dyslexia.

※ Both characters are canonically 18 or older.

※ Work available only on Tumblr and under ArchiveOfOurOwn pseud of the same name (DecadentWorld). Do not repost, edit, or redistribute. Do not use for TikTok videos.

I.

It’s already scary enough for Steve to be in a relationship with a man. Steve from two years ago, no, one year ago… perhaps even less: Steve from six months ago would have never imagined he’d ever have a significant other he would call a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend. How curious are life’s many twists and turns. It just so happens that this latest relationship of his has been the steadiest in a good while. Just shy of three months, but Steve feels it so much different from any relationship he’s ever had.

Especially from Nancy.

How to describe the contrast between you and her? He could start by the obvious: she’s a girl, you’re a guy. That’s easy. It wasn’t that easy at first, though. Steve’s only known he’s bisexual for just a bit longer than you’ve been together. It wasn’t a smooth transition, being able to put in words that he was also interested in men. It has been like that for a long time for Steve, always noticing that maybe Harrison Ford seemed a bit more handsome to him than to other guys at school. Not that he ever said it out loud. What’s always been easy for him to understand is that he could not be saying these things out loud, lest he accidentally out himself. Even at the time he wasn’t aware of his own bisexuality.

It’s different, thinking about girls and thinking about guys —a single guy, for the moment. The girls he’s been with were usually dainty, pretty, curvaceous. Soft. All things that truly appeal to Steve.

But you? A man?

Oh, boy.

You’re nothing like them. Whereas they were small, you’re big. And while they normally let themselves be led —like they expected Steve to take the reins, because both they and Steve believed it was their and Steve’s God-given place—, you’re independent. You don’t wait for any of Steve’s cues for anything at all, because this has been discussed between the two of you, which at the time gave him the biggest realization of his life: that there’s no need for there to be roles if it doesn’t feel right for both parties.

Even as this has been said, understood, and internalized… Steve started wondering early into the relationship how it would feel like if these roles (again, non-existent if not desired) were… reversed.

And you noticed. And you started to respond in kind.

It’s something new and fun to explore.

There’s more. Steve’s a pretty tall guy, and, sure, it’s rare to find taller girls. He’s always been the one to be looked up to. That would absolutely not be a problem for him at all. He liked, when he was with girls, to lean on them, to playfully put his chin atop their head, to surprise them by hoisting them —Nancy— up when they —she— least expected it.

And now?

There was one time when you did exactly the same to him. He’ll never forget the fuzzy feeling he experienced at that moment. He gave you a screaming giggle, hoping you wouldn’t notice the strong blush on his face. (You did). And when you released him and he stumbled while looking for his footing once again, he turned around, looked up at you, and…

And made this face, see, like he was having an epiphany.

It was as if he only then realized how much taller and bigger and stronger than him you were.

It was something endearing to see, that time. Steve looked as if he didn’t know what to say. His mouth was trying to form the words, but he seemed like he was also embarrassed by his inability to speak, because he looked like he was holding in a nervous laugh at the same time. And when he realized that he was truly speechless, he could only emit a little titter, tip his eyes down with an even darker flush, and bring a hand up his head to put a lock of his hair behind his ear.

The hair behind the ear is what pretty much sealed the deal. It was at that moment that Steve thought for the first time: Is this how girls would usually feel?

“Everything okay, sweetheart?”, you asked then, if only to tease him further, because you somehow knew what he was going through.

And he could only mumble incoherently.

II.

Let’s go back to this change of dynamics for a second. Steve will never not be left reeling after he experiences any of the small pushes you give against his idea of ‘set role’. Any time he feels like his preconceptions are challenged, like when you experiment with his notion of a previously self-thought assertive person, he so gracefully takes it in stride. Enjoys it, even, which is great, and Steve senses you two are reaching an unspoken agreement of sorts:

He’s going to gradually let you take the reins of the relationship.

This is so new to him. Sometimes, it downright terrifies him how alright he is with it. He feels like he should be more combative about it, but…

Steve is curious, alright? He can’t stop recalling the time before you were together when you playfully asked him to compare hand sizes, one of the most overt romantic advances in history that he fortunately responded positively to. If not enthusiastically. And, oh, how very bothered he ended up when you actually pressed your right hand to his left one, palm to fingertips, because he only then became aware of how much bigger your hand was, compared to his. His reaction at that moment was unforgettable. It was similar to the one he had when you first surprise-hoisted him up. All blushy, unable to hide it.

One of the first few times in his life he was truly abashed.

He keeps remembering with each day that passes, with each newfound sensation he gets when he’s with you. There are a series of similar happenings he can’t get enough of. These involve the times when you’re teaching him how to cook.

Listen. Steve Harrington knows he sucks at cooking, alright? But that’s because no mother of his has ever taken the time to teach him basic stuff, such as the amount of time an egg needs to be boiled, and no father of his has ever handed him tongs or a spatula and told him how he’s exactly supposed to flip burgers at a barbecue. He knows he has some of the fault in this. His past as a spoiled brat has left him reliant on the housekeeper who always leaves the fridge stocked, with meals ready to be microwaved at a moment’s notice. And after, it’s not like he had any interest or time in reading any sort of cookbooks when he was constantly stressing over the end of the world.

The fact that every time he tries his hand at cooking he keeps burning that same meal leaves him crestfallen and uninterested in anything else.

So, when you one day visited him and saw how stressed out he was, fluttering around the kitchen, you knew you had to intervene.

“Are you okay, Steve?”, you asked worriedly, watching him turning his back to you, almost frenzied, stirring on a pot and attempting to do something else you couldn’t see from your position while also making quick glances at a book on the kitchen counter.

“Yeah. Uh, I mean…” Steve twisted his head at you and quickly back at the stove. “I mean…” He seemed to trail off, too busy and perhaps even frantic, fully focused on what he was doing.

“You sure?”, you pushed.

“Uh…” A quick turn of his head towards the book and you could suddenly feel his exasperation. “Shit! It was supposed to be half a spoonful? Not a— fucking spoonful and a half.” It was obvious that he was thinking out loud.

You approached him, then, from his left side so he could see what you were doing. A nervous and disheartened glance at your arrival told you everything you needed to know. You put your right hand on the low of his back. “Doesn’t look like ‘okay’ to me, sweetheart.”

Steve gave you a long, sad look, and turned off the dials on the stove. He heaved a brooding sigh. “It was supposed to be a surprise. I thought this’d be easier and quicker to make.”

You smiled at him. He was too sweet. “Honey. You were making me food?”

Steve looked to the side. “Yeah… but, apparently, I’m too stupid for that, too.” He didn’t want to cry over this. He thought he would look even more stupid if he did.

You knew he was spiraling, and you wouldn’t let him. You were familiar with how hard he was on himself on a good day, but you also knew how bad that would get when he was trying to give you his displays of affection. So you brought the hand you had on his lower back up to his chin, softly stroking it with your thumb, catching the gorgeous shy look he was giving you. “You’re not. I forbid you from calling yourself that.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Seriously, Steve. You’re not stupid. Whoever told you that, they’re all levels of wrong.”

His eyes strayed anywhere else, and he muttered: “I call myself that.”

“Well. You’re wrong, then.”

Steve quickly glanced up at you again. There was so much conviction in what you said that he just had to bite his lower lip to hold back a smile.

You smiled, too. You lead his head closer to yours, noticing how breathless he got, and gave him a slow and sweet kiss on his lips. When you withdrew, he was looking up at you with stars in his eyes. “You’re a sweet boy. You were cooking for me. That’s so lovely.”

Maybe you understood that he liked a little bit of praise, too, that day, if the way he looked down and to the side with the lightest dusting of pink on his face was indication enough.

But that expression was rapidly being overshadowed by dejection.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. I can’t seem to follow basic instructions. It’s like the words get mixed up, or something.” He looked back at the cookbook and your hand fell from his chin.

“Hm.” You skimmed over the contents of the book, and glanced back at the previous preparations he had on the stove. “I got this one. Mind if I help you?”

Steve bit his lip. “How?”

And you—

You got behind him. Pressed your chest to his back. And took each of his hands in yours.

Steve gasped.

“Like this?”, you asked. “You might be able to learn a thing or two better if you have the muscle memory.”

Sure. Muscle memory, Steve thinks, among the haze that his mind has become. The warmth of your bigger body against his makes it hard to think of anything else. But he claws himself out of it long enough to answer: “Uh— Y-Yeah. Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay!”, he reiterates, with a giddy smile you can’t see and a nervous titter present in his voice.

You chuckle as well.

That day was the first time Steve sincerely felt like he was being… eased into a lighter headspace. The way you guided his hands while chopping ingredients on the cutting board, while sliding them into a pot, even while in the act of properly washing his hands under the faucet and drying them as well… It all had him almost breathless. It was the first occasion in which he didn’t mind relinquishing that previously-thought position he had believed he had to occupy, once upon a time.

And how to describe the feeling?

It felt like a weight off his shoulders. It felt like something he thought should’ve always been present in his life.

It felt natural. Not forced.

That feeling of being enveloped, not only by your bigger and warmer frame, but by this sense of a guiding hand you were giving him, was slowly turning him into mush on the inside, and setting off a fuzzy sensation inside him, like a tickling feeling. It was causing chaos inside his mind, and he didn’t want it any other way.

Which made following your instructions a lot harder, but, hey, that’s why you were being his puppeteer, right?

“Pay attention, baby.” Your murmuring next to his ear had the exact opposite effect.

“I am,” he choked out.

God. His cheeks were so red by that point. Steve found himself abashed knowing that you could see him, because your head was lying on his shoulder, right against his. And the way his heart was pounding, reverberating through his body and through yours against his, was so obvious he knew you would’ve been able to sense it even if you’d been on the other side of the room.

But he found some solace in the fact that yours was pounding, too.

That is the flashback —or rather, string of flashbacks, since you had to keep teaching him how to make different meals— that keeps him going whenever he gets too much into the particular idea that he’s doing something wrong. Because he’s not. Steve feels right when you make him feel like this, and no amount of bigoted ideas drilled into his mind since he had use of reason will stop him from coming back to those moments.

III.

And what moments. Steve has a little problem every time he remembers the first few times he was intimate with you. A man.

Hoo, boy. It’s so different with a guy. The change —or rather, lack— of dynamics would make for interesting situations in bed. And on the couch. And by the entrance door. And…

Well. You can’t blame Steve. It’s as if this new relationship, this new revelation, re-awakened his high libido he thought broken after the whole supernatural shebang. At first, it was he who would eagerly turn you around against the wall after you initially did, turning the previous make-out session into something hot and heavy that would leave him bothered. You would let him, because you understood how new and inexperienced he was with a male, and wanted him to be fully comfortable. He would fall into place and push his own hips against yours, feeling thoroughly thrown off in the best way at feeling something similar growing and pressing against himself. Then he would do it faster, harsher, getting light-headed when he’d feel your big hands on his lower back, urging him until he would muffle a shout in your chest and cum in his pants like it was the first time he’d ever had an orgasm.

But then, as more times followed, and more items of clothing would gradually disappear, Steve would find himself as the recipient of these same actions. The first time was the exact same situation: against the wall. Only, he was the one trapped against it and your body, and he was the one to be rutted against.

And this peculiar feeling of confinement wasn’t unpleasant.

The second time was on your couch. There was excitement in the fact that you two were slowly turning more horizontal. He tentatively let you arrange him to be sitting against one of the arm rests with his legs extended while you kneeled in the space between them. There was also comfort in the fact that you would check on him every five or so minutes, so that Steve would understand that that position was a choice fully of his own, and that he could tap out at any moment if he needed to. And so, the fun would heighten, and he would totally feel out of his depth when he understood that he didn’t have that much space or momentum to rut against you, and that he would have to receive more than he had to give.

He would have to take it.

And this knowledge made his heart beat so fast it’d feel like it was coming out of his chest, and it turned his face into the most appealing shade of pink, and it would pull the prettiest moans and the prettiest expressions out of him, and it made his legs shake like they had never before with a girl, and it had him coming in his pants and covering his mouth in shame at the loud moan that threatened to escape him.

And the third time was the first time he had the courage to ask to undress you, and you responded in kind and asked if you could undress him in turn, and suddenly you’d both be on your bed, only one layer of clothing left.

Steve would take off the last item of clothing of his by himself, the first time he’d ever be sheepish in a sexual encounter. You would compliment his size, because it was a very nice-looking cock indeed. There was no doubt over why he’d been called King Steve in the past.

But when your own underwear was off, he gasped and sat up in shock. In alarm, perhaps. Because, sure, he was King Steve, who was the subject of mainly nice rumors…

But you?

It was ridiculous. There had to be a limit.

So, understanding how apprehensive he was, you would comfort him, tell him you didn’t have to do anything if he changed his mind.

But Steve surprised you, and he smiled timidly, seeming to cover his mouth with one hand while he simply looked at it.

He would exhale, almost as if he was chuckling. Nervously, of course. “It’s…”

“Yeah. I know.” Your apologetic smile put him just a teeny bit more at ease.

Steve looked at your cock, then at you, then at it again, one jittery hand hovering in the air close to your body. “Um…”

“D’you wanna touch it?”, you encouraged him. You grabbed his right hand with all the softness in the world. You leant up on your right elbow and laid your head on your hand, trying to transmit as much ease as you could to him.

“Yeah. Okay,” he answered shyly, and he shortened the distance until his hand was gently palming your half-hard cock.

Steve heaved in a breath. It felt…

It felt so similar, yet so different. New. Exciting. He stroked with an open palm up and down once, releasing a small titter at your pleased hum.

You would not leave him unattended, of course. Your own left hand slowly approached him, first resting on his folded left leg. Your big hand stroked up and down his thigh twice, hearing his excited shaky breath, and came to rest on the juncture of his leg and hip.

You looked at him, noticing he was biting his lower lip in anticipation. So you didn’t tease him anymore, and finally wrapped your hand around his erect cock.

Steve released a silent moan and his eyes closed on their own for one moment, until he felt your initial first strokes and just had to watch you. He released a disappointed little noise that made you smile when you let his cock go, only to go red as a cherry afterward when he realized his little slip-up.

You chuckled. It was clear that this situation was so new to him, so much so that he didn’t know how to handle his own reactions. “Cute.”

Steve tried to hide. Impossible. His pink flush covered every part of his head, down to his neck and hairy chest. “‘M not cute.”

You straightened until you were sitting up, used one hand on the bed and another one on his thigh as leverage, and closed up on him, until you were leaning into him. Steve looked at you from under his lashes when you did this, biting his lip in anticipation, because the point of contact on his thigh, so very close to his hard cock, was making it hard to think about anything else. “You are.” The other hand that wasn’t on his thigh then slid to the back of his head, and you ran your fingers through his hair. He exhaled heavily. “There’s no fighting me on this.”

That’s how you slowly guided him into a steamy kiss, at the same time that you took hold of his cock once more, feeling more than hearing his muffled moan against your mouth. You stroked him, softly, just so enough that he would push his hips towards your hand, aching for more.

You were feeling particularly mean that day. Your hand kept its slow pace and you felt just how much that agitated Steve. He withdrew from the kiss and gave you this expression, like he was all but holding in the biggest pout ever. You only raised your eyebrow at him, secretly thrilled at his neediness. “Want anything?”, you teased him.

“Yeah. You know.” Steve’s face was so pink. You knew how much of a novel it was for him to have to actively ask for something, rather than simply do it himself, if only because he was still getting used to this fun change of dynamics.

“Oh, but I don’t. Do enlighten me.” You got all close and personal with Steve by this point, noticing his averting eyes. “Use your words, baby.”

At that, Steve could only bite his lip. He mumbled something, too low for you to hear.

“Sorry. What was that?” You smirked at him, because it was obvious that he was enjoying being teased so much.

“Do it faster,” Steve reiterated, unable to look at you by then.

“Do what faster, exactly?”

Steve made this embarrassed noise, something between a grumble and a whine. He hid his red face in the pillow under him while you chuckled. “Stroke me. Faster.”

You bit your lip while he couldn’t see you. You thought it was too early to test the waters for it, even though you were extremely sure he was starving for praise, so you settled with telling him: “Good.”

Steve’s eye peeked from the pillow’s soft cotton when you said this, and you knew you had hit the nail right on the head, if the way his face softened when you said it was indicative enough.

Then you complied with his request. Steve went from an embarrassed mess to a shameless one after only a few seconds of intense stroking. He shifted on the bed until his face was fully visible again, and you were able to see the way it transformed from his pleasure before your eyes. With no clothes to act as a hindrance, he could feel everything.

And even then, he took you by surprise. Without warning, he started stroking you with the same speed you did to him. You met his eyes. He had a particular glint in his that led you to understand he was feeling competitive.

You raised an eyebrow.

He bit his lip, like he was holding back a smile, even as his moans were momentarily muffled. Then, he gave you that same verbal confirmation for your thoughts, even though it was quite far off from what you had been expecting:

“You want me to go faster? Use your words.”

But he said it with such a waver in his voice and with such a deep shade of pink on his face that you couldn’t help but cackle at him. Steve’s face turned pouty as you did, but he knew you weren’t being mean on purpose. It was just so fun to think that he wanted to return to his former place on top, like he was trying to flip your own game on you.

How wrong he was to think that you would go down without a fight.

You chuckled a bit more. “Cute.”

“What?”, he asked with a shaky voice, subtly pushing his hips into the tunnel of your left hand.

“It’s cute that you think you can win this game.”

Steve’s face got impossibly redder. He closed his eyes for a second while his mouth opened in a silent moan, but tried to compose himself afterward. You leered at him, each time more convinced that he did have a little bit of a praise kink. He steeled his face as much as he could afterward, intently looking at you. “It’s not— It’s not a game if you’re not even trying to beat me.”

You smirked. “Oh, so you want me to put up a bit of a fight?”

“I mean,” Steve started, trying to look nonchalant. “…if you’re not a coward.”

You chuckled lowly at him. Then, you got close to him, trying to blanket his body with yours, but he was ready for it and met you in the middle. He kissed you hard, attempting to overpower you. That made you chuckle within the kiss, something that made him grunt in something similar to annoyance in response. Your hand moved faster and harder on his cock, a heavenly feel to him as the amount of pre-cum he was leaking made things easier, resulting in an intense handjob, made all the more vivid from your rough and calloused hands.

Even as he moaned freely in the kiss, he was still trying to get you to lie under him. His hand imitated your own’s movements, though you could feel the slight tremor his was showing. He tried to overcompensate by opening your mouth and pushing his tongue onto yours.

You raised your eyebrows at this, but kept this little game he didn’t know he had lost before he had even started. On one twist of your hand, his hips pushed up higher up and his cock accidentally brushed against yours, making him yelp and making you grunt. You withdrew to look at him and noticed the redness of his face overtaking his neck and chest now. Clearly, he was trying to keep up, but the haze of pleasure was making it difficult.

Still, he pushed on and attempted to lay the expanse of his body on yours, still stroking you fast. It seemed like he forgot how much stronger than him you were, because you didn’t even budge an inch.

As this dawned upon him, you did the same to him while in his stupor, gently pushing forward to lay him down until he was completely horizontal on the bed. He put his free hand on your chest, and you stopped in your tracks, wondering if he wanted to stop.

But when he started trying to push you back and to the side, you understood it was all still part of the game. Steve’s face took on an annoyed expression, like he was truly bothered about not being strong enough to overpower you.

He decided to up the ante and released your cock, using now both hands to attempt to subdue you, opting to clutch your hips with his legs to gain enough momentum to toss you aside.

You didn’t move at all. Instead, all that did was rub your cocks together.

Steve moaned, starting to understand that it was a lost battle.

And you chuckled again, releasing his cock to hold yourself up over him. “See, I think it’d be easier if you just admitted defeat.”

Steve groaned, but it was clear that he was trying to hold back a smile. “Not a chance.” He thrashed on the bed, putting all his strength in his limbs for a strong shove.

He managed to push you aside for a second thanks to the momentum, but as soon as he wanted to imitate your previous position, you were on him again. You wrestled on the bed for some seconds. You were delighted with the small giggles he was releasing, knowing how fun this change felt to him.

You laughed back at him once you were just like before: holding yourself up over him. This time, your hands held his shoulders softly, but firmly, pressing him down into the mattress.

Steve’s hands shot up at you, but you quickly grabbed his wrists and put them to the sides of his head. When you did this, he quieted down, and his face took on an even darker shade.

You softened the grip on his wrists just to make sure he was alright with it, but he didn’t move them an inch. Instead, his body went lax under you.

It was such a heady sight. “I win.”

Steve blinked out of his stupor for a second. “Y-Yeah. I guess.” He tried to look annoyed, but he just looked like he was holding back a nervous smile.

“Do you surrender?”, you drawled out, getting close to him, close enough to breathe the same air as him.

His heart was beating so fast. “I guess,” he mumbled, trying to look like this was a hassle for him, but the pink on his face wasn’t receding.

“You guess?”

Steve gave you a look, like he was annoyed. Then, he thrashed once again, attempting to use the element of surprise to overthrow you once more, but you were prepared.

With the grip on his wrists, you held his writhing body down and turned him around on the bed, softly, an intoxicating contrast to what he was expecting.

Steve gasped, genuinely feeling small at the feel.

You managed to lay him down until you were enveloping his body with yours, your chest pressing against his back.

When Steve felt this, he gave you a moan he’d never heard himself make. His face was almost squished against the pillow, and the feeling of being utterly overpowered was making his thoughts go haywire.

You released his left hand while you gently twisted his right one until it was held against the low of his back. At the same time, your hard cock brushed against his right cheek on accident.

Steve gasped.

“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna do anything weird right now.”

He was secretly relieved. You released his hand, which remained against his back even then, holding yourself up and your hips pushed off the bed just in case, so that your cock wouldn’t come in contact with him anymore. Steve noticed this but didn’t say anything at first, and he couldn’t after, when you took hold of his cock that was pressed in-between his belly and the mattress and started stroking it fast at once. He moaned loudly and freely.

“That’s it, baby. That’s so good.”

Steve moaned even louder at that. He didn’t know why that simple word made him feel all fuzzy inside. But you did.

He reached back with his left hand until he could touch your hips. “It’s— fine. You can…” He attempted to press you against him.

“You sure?”, you asked him; despite this, you complied immediately and pushed your hips against his ass, though you lowered your body a bit so that your cock wouldn’t be in direct contact with his ass.

“Yeah, but it’s— you can—” Steve pressed his face against the pillow from the embarrassment when he tried to push you higher up with his left hand behind him. “It’s okay if… but we don’t… Jesus, don’t make me say it.”

You chuckled. You pressed your body against him, angling your hips so that the length of your hard cock would be pressing between his cheeks, pointing downwards.

Steve almost shouted at the feel.

That was how you managed to make Steve feel even more helpless: your entire body pressed against the back of his against the bed led him to rut against your right hand in desperation.

You kissed his nape to give him some comfort. “Just this. I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

The back of his neck burned with abashment. “Yeah. You’re right. I mean, I think. I mean—”

You chuckled and gave his neck more little kisses. He released a small titter because of his nervousness. “Trust me. You aren’t.”

Steve bit his lip where you couldn’t see him. You just kept stroking him, the feeling of being enveloped by you adding on to his mental haze. He tentatively shifted his hips to chase more of the feel of your hand, but in doing so he also incidentally rubbed his ass on your cock.

Steve didn’t know why that pushed him so close to the edge.

You’d never heard Steve make such a sound— he was all but whimpering deliriously. Steve realized this and covered his mouth with his left hand, grabbing onto the sheets next to his head with his right one.

He was so adorable. You knew he was embarrassed from his own reactions to this change. “Does that feel good?”, you grunted next to his ear as you shifted your hips to rub against his rear again.

Steve blubbered something unintelligible, legs folding on their own, as if he was close.

You cackled at him. “Babe. I asked you a question.”

“What— Ah, fuck— Y-Yeah. Yeah.” Steve’s was all but writhing on the bed by that point. “Wh-Why does it feel so good?”

“We can talk about it later. For now…” Your hand was a blur between his belly and the mattress while you rubbed your cock on his ass. “… I want you to cum just like this. Come on, sweetness. Make a mess.”

You knew just how nonsensical he got when he came on a good day. But you didn’t know this would be a strong orgasm, so you weren’t prepared for the way he moaned, almost like it hurt, when he had the most intense orgasm he’d had to date, spurting lines upon lines of cum, as if you’d edged him for hours. God. His face was probably the best part, but you couldn’t see him from your position. Such a shame. His little whines would probably embarrass him if he had more coherence that moment.

After coming like a literal freight train for what seemed like minutes, you knew he was done when he relaxed on the bed. His breaths were quick and deep, like he couldn’t draw in enough air.

Your hard cock was twitching from its snug position between his cheeks, but you ignored it for the while. Your mouth started making its way to his, starting from his nape, where you left slow kisses, until you reached his red cheek. Steve was too out of it to respond.

You lifted yourself off his body, and he still didn’t acknowledge you. You gently manhandled his body and rolled it around, until he was lying on his back on the bed, next to the frankly impressive cumstain on the sheets. Steve’s eyes were closed and his breathing only then started to return to normal. You kneeled between his parted legs.

Steve finally opened his eyes, seeming to just then realize that his position had been changed without his knowledge.

“Back on the land of the living?”

He breathed in and out a couple of times before he chuckled, shyly, rolling his eyes at you. “Jesus, dude.” Steve took in the hard cock that was looming over his own spent one, the heat from yours so strong that he could feel it in the proximity. He bit his lip, extending a shaky hand forward and taking your cock in it. “You’re still…”

“Yeah,” you answered nonchalantly.

“I… let me…?” Steve looked up at you in question.

As if he ever needed confirmation from you. “Whatever you want, baby.”

He steeled himself and started stroking you, slowly at first, but quickly building up the pace until his hand was a blur on you.

You closed your eyes and bit your lip. “Won’t be too long, now.” Your hips freely pushed to and fro within the tunnel of his hand.

Steve was taken aback by this at first, but the visual rapidly turned the feelings inside him into something fuzzy and hot and.

And. Big.

And when you moaned in that low voice of yours, it was like one of the few remaining notions in his mind were broken once again: the contrast between a feeble and feminine voice against this gruff and masculine one was unmistakable. He welcomed this change too much. He’d thought he couldn’t get any more flustered, but he’d been wrong.

As you leant down and held yourself over Steve on your hands and knees, Steve thought he’d never felt smaller than at that moment. His heart was pounding so hard from the feeling of being caged in, but he —even with his terrible experiences with being trapped, confined, restricted in any way— felt safe, not cornered.

You opened your eyes just in time to see another one of those epiphanies he continuously had those days. You smirked at him, and Steve glanced at you before his eyes strayed downwards again, mesmerized with the sight of your cock thrusting into his fist.

Which. Well. Might have been just the tiniest beginning of a second epiphany that day.

“‘Find out something new?”, you grunted out, already close.

Steve looked up at you once more, mouth opening but then closing, biting his lip in that shy way you were so familiar with. “Maybe…”, he mumbled.

You gave him a low laugh before you bit your lip and closed your eyes, face twisted in bliss. “Getting close.”

Steve seemed to breathe faster at that. He only nodded, almost enthusiastically, and his hand stroked you even faster. He gave you a quick sultry look, and you were left wondering what it meant before his left hand went under the one he had on your member, and rolled your testes with it.

You growled at him, hearing his intake of breath at it, before you lent forward, closer to him, hovering only shy of a foot over him. You opened your eyes to see him looking almost frantic, unable to choose between looking at your face or at your cock, before you closed the distance and gave him a short, steamy kiss.

Steve whined a little when you withdrew, because you were suddenly coming on his stomach, grunting from the release. He kept stroking you through it, drawing in breaths from his open mouth as you added to the mess on his stomach.

His cock valiantly tried to fill for a second.

Once you were done, you smiled at him, noticing his sheepish expression. You rolled to the part of the bed that wasn’t stained with his cum and lay down on your side.

Steve’s eyes were shyly straying away from yours, but he wasn’t able to look away for too long, always coming back to your own or to the mess you made on his belly.

You used the hand that wasn’t stained with his cum to stroke a finger across his cheekbone. “So? What did you think?”, you asked him, as you reached behind you without looking to grab some tissues.

“W-Well…” He looked adorable. He lowered his face down to your chest, so hopelessly trying to hide the blush on his face, but it was useless. He giggled against your skin. “It was… something.”

You chuckled in sympathy. “Baby.”

“Hm.”

“Was there any point where you didn’t like any of it?”, you asked, specifically thinking of the part where you were rubbing yourself against his ass.

Steve’s eye peeked from your chest. He bit his lip to hide a smile, even though you couldn’t see it from your position, and shook his head.

“No? None at all?”

Steve knew what you were referring to. His face only got redder. “No. Actually…” He looked like he was about to say something, but quickly lost his courage and hid his face again. “N-Nevermind.”

“It’s okay to be embarrassed, sweetheart.”

He grumbled, embarrassed. “‘M not embarrassed.”

You could only chuckle at that. You kissed his forehead, and Steve laid his head in such a way that you could see him. “Whatever you say. I’m just saying there’s a first time for everything, and I recall you seemed to like a certain part a lot.”

Steve kicked his feet against the bed and he— he whined. Like it physically hurt him to hear you say this. He mumbled: “And what about it.”

You openly laughed at him. He was just so fun to tease. “Nothing. Just saying. There’s a whole world of possibilities you might have not thought about yet.”

God. Steve’s face was steaming hot by this point. He knew what you meant, but he couldn’t verbalize it, the sole idea setting off many different reactions in him, most of which were welcome, but made his heart pound fast at the same time, gave him the shivers.

But you knew he was probably drained, so you took his silence as a gentle dismissal for the day.

IV.

That last memory could be named ‘The Beginning Of It All’, because Steve feels like something fundamentally changed in him after you both were done that day, him staying up for a while after you started dozing off, lost in his thoughts.

These same thoughts invade his mind at every point of the day the next days that pass. At work, at home —alone, like always—, while going to run some errands. He can’t get that particular moment out of his mind, and it makes his face turn so red to just catch himself starting to think about it.

Because, first of all, he’s still wrapping his head around it. It being the fact that you were right: there is truly a world of possibilities he hasn’t completely thought about up to that moment. It being the fact that he’s starting to wonder how… some things might feel, and Steve finds himself almost steaming from bashfulness when he can finally find the courage to put it into words:

Fucked. He wants to know how it would feel like to be fucked.

He runs his hands through his hair, across his face, over his mouth, anything to try to somehow erase the red tint his face gets when he thinks about it.

It never works, of course. At work, Robin gives him that squinty look whenever she catches the most minuscule shift from his normal skin tone to anything other. Like a shark to blood.

“You know you can tell me anything, right, Stevie?”

“I know, Robbie. But maybe not this one?”

And his face goes the deepest shade imaginable after saying it and he tries to cover it, and Robin stews in her concern, but leaves it at that. She helps by offering to pull out the old reliable You’re Cool vs. You Suck board, to which Steve gently but exasperatedly refuses. Because he is cool, for once. He believes.

V.

Some few days after The Beginning Of It All, Steve caves in. He’s just so desperate to know more about this particular fixation of his that has his mind going haywire, but he knows it has to be different.

He’s had anal with a few of the girls he’s had sex with, so he knows the difference between vaginal and anal penetration. Obviously. He won’t be able to involuntarily self-lubricate or dilate before being penetrated. He knows that.

He just doesn’t know what it entails. Before sealing the deal.

So Steve, in his eagerness to learn more, spends one of his weekend days travelling all the way down to Columbus, where he knows no one will recognize him, an almost two-hour-long trip just to have a semblance of anonymity.

How freeing it is, to be able to walk into a —though secluded— queer-friendly sex shop, just to buy a magazine where he’ll be able to read ‘Everything You Need to Know About Anal!”, and come out of it, full-incognito. He just hopes times will change in the future and he won’t have to hide so much for something so simple.

So, two hours later, when he’s back home and with a fresh new magazine in his hands that he treasures like a family heirloom, he gets comfortable on his bed after closing the door to his bedroom —as if his ever-absent parents would barge in at any moment.

And he reads.

Admittedly, the more he reads, the more he can feel his face start to heat up, albeit for a different reason now. Because he now knows what he needs to do. Before.

He giggles. He reads on. Discovers new things apart from the specific act of anal penetration, since the magazine focuses on gay sexual health in general. Is taken aback by a few things, mentally slaps himself on the face for not paying enough attention back in high school. Particularly reprimands himself for thinking that condoms are only useful for stopping pregnancies, hasn’t really thought about the possibility that there are sexual diseases and a whole epidemic going on, something that could have gotten to him even during the times that he would have sex with girls.

Finds out something that interests him way too much, another one of the things he glossed over at school, but is sure a lot more of his classmates would have as well:

‘The prostate. Just a quick stroke on this bad boy will have you seeing stars. Ask your partner to try it on you.’

Curious. Where is it, again?

Oh, right. Just about two inches into.

“Into…”, Steve mutters, feeling the tips of his ears burn. He covers his face with the magazine and giggles, just like a girl with a crush. He lowers the mag until his eyes can peek from above it. His eyes stray anywhere and everywhere as he’s in deep thought.

Into. Steve hasn’t had any sort of stimulation on his behind other than some days ago, when you got him off while rubbing yourself against him, but he can clearly recall his own reaction to it. Such a strong response has to mean something. He just hopes it ends being all it was said to be.

His cock is starting to get hard from the thought. Just recalling that encounter has him feeling heady, growing inside his pants. Steve bits his lip. He lays the magazine on his chest and rubs the juncture between his thighs and groin with his hands while he thinks. The idea of fingering himself is growing more and more in his mind. He just has to give it a try.

A wild thought strays into his mind: the image of you thrusting two fingers in and out of him.

Steve releases a heavy breath. That vision has his cock throbbing.

He grabs the magazine and drops it beside him, on the mattress. Then, he quickly gets up and makes his way to the shower.

Previous preparations are done. Now comes the fun part. Hopefully.

Steve throws himself on the bed, still naked after the shower. His cock has remained on the beginnings of an erection all throughout, and it’s driving Steve crazy.

He settles until he’s half sitting up, half lying down on the center of the bed. He reaches to the side and opens his drawer, taking out the bottle of lube he has stored. Quickly, he opens it and pours a generous amount of the liquid on the fingers of his right hand, recalling what the magazine said about there never being enough lube for anal. He giggles a bit in the face of what he’s about to do.

With a heavy breath, Steve lowers his right hand down to his behind. He plants his feet on the bed to have a better approach. Then, he tentatively brushes his middle finger against the furl of his hole.

Steve bits his lip. It feels intense, and he hasn’t even started doing anything yet. He tries to relax, just in the way he’s read. Breathing in and out, he rubs the tip of his finger in circles, around his hole and occasionally venturing towards the center of it. Then, he steels himself, and starts pushing in.

He finds that the first finger enters without much trouble, perhaps a bit too easily, because he suddenly finds himself pushing it to the last knuckle on accident.

Steve gasps. It feels… equal parts good and weird. He covers his mouth with his free hand and giggles. He can’t believe he’s really doing this.

He waits for some seconds until he gets used to the feeling of his finger inside himself, and then starts pulling it out.

Okay. That feels downright weird.

Steve continues in spite of this, talking himself into enjoying this, trying to recall the feel of your hard cock rubbing between his cheeks. But it’s one thing to have another person do it to him while in a context where he was already hard, and another entirely different one to experiment with himself while he’s only now starting to feel pleasure.

He lowers his left hand to the discarded tube of lubricant on the bed. Steve does some gymnastics with his fingers, trying to open the lid with only one hand and to pour lube on that same hand, something that makes him spill some lube on the bed on accident. Oh, well. At least he gets some of it on his hand. When he’s done, he closes the lid with one wet hand and moves that same hand towards his cock. He encloses his member with his lubed hand, and that instantly brings him some pleasure.

But it’s not enough. It’s sort of difficult to stroke himself with his left hand, given that he’s right-handed.

Steve shakes his head. He thrusts his finger in and out of himself and tries to look for… anything that might give him some pleasure, but he simply can’t.

He thinks it’s because he only has one finger in him, so he puts his ring finger next to his middle one, squeezing together until he feels his rim give a little. It feels like a tight fit, but Steve pushes on, before he manages to fit the tip of his second finger inside him.

The stretch gives him pause. It certainly feels like a strain and it burns to a degree.

He doesn’t let that stop him and pushes forward, and he suddenly finds himself with two fingers inside him.

Steve breathes heavily. The stretch does something for him, but he doesn’t know if it’s something good or not. The only thing he knows is that his cock gives a little kick at the strain, but it’s too early to say if he really likes it, or if his body is just reacting naturally at this point.

So he waits and strokes himself slowly. His cock is only about half hard. Still, he holds on until he feels like he can move his right hand. He starts pulling his two fingers out and then back in at a leisured pace. There is undoubtedly something intense about the feeling. He keeps on thrusting slowly, in and out, still rubbing his cock at the same speed, and then starts a faster pace with his fingers.

Still. Nothing much.

He suddenly recalls what he read in the magazine. Right. The prostate. Two inches into.

Only, Steve doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel for. He presses forward, upward, but nothing really stands out.

Steve purses his lips, almost pouting. He was expecting something mind-blowing after the other day. He prods and thrusts some more, but it’s fruitless.

He reaches a sad conclusion: What if he doesn’t enjoy anal sex at all? Has that time just been a one-off?

Sighing, he pulls his fingers out, resigning himself to finishing himself with a mediocre handjob.

VI.

Steve’s dejected mood translates into most of his actions the next days. You’re the one who notices the most, when you visit him at Family Video today.

He’s alone in the store, Robin probably in the back room for her break, no clients in sight. He has his back to you, for once seeming to do his job and arranging VHS’s in a neat pile. That tells you all you need to know.

He senses someone behind him, but doesn’t turn around as he says: “Welcome. How may I help you?”

“I’d like the longest and horniest movie you have, please.”

Steve jumps at your voice. He quickly turns around, and whatever light scowl that might have been present in his face is instantly swapped for a nervous smile.

But you can see some slight tension on his face, so you say: “Don’t worry. There’s no other people here.”

“Yeah,” Steve starts, his voice almost tight, “…I know.”

You think his attitude is a bit strange. On any other normal day he would’ve been vibrating with energy just by having you in his proximity, but today it seems like he’s just subdued. Unhappy for some reason.

So you lean on the counter and notice his intake of breath, as well as the subtle reddening of his cheeks, something that will never change regardless of his mood.

“What’s got my pretty boy so down?”

Steve valiantly tries to grin at you, but it sort of comes out as a grimace. He hums. “I can’t really talk about it at work.”

You hum, too. “Wanna tell me about it after work?”

Steve bites his lip, like it’s a hard decision for him. Now you’re convinced that there’s something truly wrong going on. Finally, he decides. “Yeah. Same time as always?”

“Yep.” You subtly brush your fingers against his hand on the counter, the most overt thing you’ll try in public, knowing how nervous he gets about it. Steve sighs happily when you do. Then, you lower your voice, almost to a murmur. “I’ll give you an extra good time, just to see you smile. And, well. Make other sorts of faces, too.”

Your angel turns red. He giggles against his own shoulder, giving you the first display of genuine happiness.

You chuckle as well, as you turn to leave.

Later in the evening, Steve shows up in your doorstep, and you can’t help the way you practically drag him inside your house. He laughs when you do.

As soon as you close the door, you’re on him. Steve’s gasp is muffled by your lips, but he composes himself to respond in kind. You feel him opening his mouth to push his tongue onto yours, which surprises you, since he’s not usually the one to start such contact. Not that you’re complaining. You brush your tongue against his and feel his moan vibrate throughout your body. As if on instinct, his body presses against yours, but as soon as you feel the beginnings of a hard-on —which, surprisingly, isn’t yours—, he withdraws at once.

Steve gives you a nervous half-smile. “Hi,” he says, so shyly it gives you whiplash.

You chuckle. “Hey, there.” You lean down to give him one last peck on his lips. When you separate, you take his hand to start leading him further into your house. “Wanna sit on the couch? Watch a movie? Or…”

He stays in silence for some seconds, starting to look all too awkward for some reason.

You rub the hand you have in yours with your thumb, the question obvious in your face.

“Um…” Steve looks down, abashed. “Wh-Whatever you want.”

You purse your lips. “Hm. No offense, sweetheart, but that was the least convincing thing you’ve ever said.”

Steve chuckles. “You’re not wrong.” He looks up at you from under his lashes. That’s enough to get you going. “Well… we could…”

“Yeah?”

His face does a funny thing and he releases a titter. “You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”

You want to tease him more, truly, but you feel as though whatever had him so crestfallen today might have drained him for the day, so you settle with: “Not this time, sweet thing. Let’s just go to my room so we can talk.”

“Yeah…” Steve’s face takes on a deep shade of red.

“Really,” you try to sound reassuring as you start walking to your bedroom with him in tow. “Whatever you want. We can talk… or we can talk.”

He laughs openly. “Right.”

You arrive at the door of your room. Steve looks at you, so bashful it’s almost painful to watch him.

You both cross the threshold. “Want me to close the door?”, you ask, knowing about his usual want of privacy, even though you lived alone.

He nods, meekly. So you close the door and stand in front of him, taking his hands in yours, expectant of whatever he’s going to say, because you know that he has it on the tip of his tongue. “Wanna lie down? Or sit down for a bit?”

Steve understands. He bites his lip. “Um…” He stays in silence for a while after that, so you take it as a refusal. You’re truly worried at this point.

You give him some encouragement. “Is anything wrong, sweetheart? Or was it that way at work?”

“Uh…” Steve looks skittish. You’ve never seen him quite like this. “I guess you could say so. But it’s…” He heaves out a breath and looks down. “God. It’s so embarrassing.”

“Anything you wanna tell me, baby, know that I’ll never judge you for it.” You rub circles on the insides of his wrists.

“Okay…”

God. He’s so quiet it’s almost creeping you out. You want him to say what’s on his mind so bad, but you don’t want to rush him, so you just stand there, awaiting his next words.

“So, um…” Steve purses his lips, feeling the tips of his ears burning. He still doesn’t look up. “You know the other day, when we, um…”

Your heart sinks. You’re so sure he’s going to say something along the lines of ‘I hated this and that and I didn’t want to say it at the time’. You just stand there, trying to not let the panic show on your face. “Yeah?”

He doesn’t notice, since his eyes are glued to the floor. “Wh-When we were…” He exhales, and it comes out a bit whiny. “It’s so hard to say this.”

You decide to put him out of his misery. “Something you didn’t like?”

At that, Steve looks up at you quickly in confusion. “Um. No? Actually…” He bites his lip, unable to even give you a nervous smile. “I, um… might have liked it too much.”

You try to not let the relief you feel be too obvious. “Oh.”

“Y-Yeah. So, I, um… I might have… done more research? And…” He whines from the embarrassment.

“Yeah?”, you encourage him, because this ‘research’ he’s talking about feels just too good to be true. “That’s amazing. What did you find?”

“Well…” Steve looks you in the eye for one second before he decides it’s too much for him, whines again, and hides his face in your chest.

You chuckle in compassion. You kiss the top of his head. “Go on?”

Steve takes a deep breath. He tilts his head so you can see some of his face. “Well, I kind of… tried some stuff.”

“Some stuff?”, you press on, almost desperate to know more. “That’s great, babe. What’s wrong with it?”

At the reminder that there is something wrong, Steve seems to deflate. “I’m getting there.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

He chuckles softly. Next, he encircles your torso with his arms, noticing how you’ve done the same to him. “I kind of… I don’t know… liked it but also didn’t, so it was kind of disappointing. And I got really bitchy afterwards because I thought I had it down.” Steve looks up at you with the saddest, most adorable eyes from his position on your chest as he kept speaking freely. “And I’m also kind of mad at myself because I think I did it right, but it wasn’t what I expected. And…” He seems to get shy again. “And I wanted to… do more… with you… but I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong, or if it’s something I really don’t like.”

You card your fingers through his hair, knowing how hard it is for him to talk about something like this. You lift his head, with your right hand under his chin, and let his pretty face look at you. “You’re so brave for telling me this, honey.” You give him a slow, sweet kiss on the lips that seems to soothe his nerves. Now, you let him know just how supportive you are. “Just to make sure, is this something you want to like? Or is it something you feel like you have to like to make me happy?” You raise your eyebrow at him, jokingly scolding him, and he knows what you’re about to say, because he looks equally exasperated and amused. “What did we say about expectations and roles?”

“I know,” he says, a small genuine smile on his face. He bites his lip. “I want to like it. For myself.”

“Good.”

Steve unconsciously catches his breath at that and carries on. “I’m just not sure if I’m doing it right.”

“Okay,” you conclude. “So let’s get this straight: you’re talking about…” Your hands lower down his back, until your fingertips are touching the rim of his pants. “Playing with this?” They stray lower, until you can feel up his cheeks on your hands, over the denim. “As in, anal?”

Steve’s face gets so red once the word is out. He nods.

“Okay. Did you use a toy? Or fingers? Something else?”

He hides his face in your chest again. “F-Fingers.”

“Cool. What did it feel like?”

Steve’s eyes stray downwards, and he chews on his lower lip, trying to find the words. “It was… sort of intense? It was kind of good but also weird. And I was expecting it to feel a lot better since, you know…” Steve looks like he’s about to break into nervous laughter. “But… I don’t know what I was expecting, honestly.”

You purse your lips in thought. “Did you reach your prostate?”

Steve shakes his head. “No. I know about it since I read— I mean… during my research…” His lips tremble in a shy smile.

You chuckle. He was just so adorable. “What would this research be, if I may know?”

“Well. Kind of… a magazine?”

“Ooh. And did it tell you where it was?”

“It did. But I just couldn’t find it for some reason.”

You hum while carding your fingers through his hair. You’re almost sure this entire talk might be doing something to Steve, but you don’t want to push just yet. “That might be a very good reason why you didn’t like it that much. The prostate is extremely important for this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. If you’ve never felt naturally inclined to do any sort of anal play, it’s most probable that you might not feel pleasure just from anal itself. You’d need something more.”

Steve puts the tiniest bit of space between you two to look at you better. In doing so, you notice his state of arousal, which proves that he is a bit pent up over this.

When he realizes this, he shifts in place, subtly trying to cover himself, looking at you sheepishly.

You chuckle, grabbing his chin and laying a hot kiss on his lips. “Baby. ‘This talk doing something for you?”

Steve bites his lip and shyly nods.

Your hands tentatively slide under his shirt, resting on the sides of his hips within it. “Tell you what. Someday… if you want, that is… I could help you with this. We could play a little to see if we find a fix.”

At this, Steve sucks his lips into his teeth, like he’s trying not to laugh, and his face takes on a deep shade of pink. “Um… well…”

“Yeah?” You’re eager now, knowing he’s onto something.

“You could… right now, if you want?”

“Oh, babe.” Your hands slide underneath his polo shirt until they reach the middle part of his back. “You mean…?”

“I… kind of… today, I… before I came here…” Steve fidgets with the rim on the back of your shirt. “Again. W-With fingers— Like— I tried to see if…”

You give him a steamy kiss to put him out of his misery. He whines lowly within it, and moans when you open his mouth to rub your tongue against his. You separate too soon for his liking. “Yeah? Played with yourself?”

Steve is so abashed he can only nod.

“That’s so hot. I bet you’re so pent up right now.” Your hands return to the rim of his polo, and start pulling it up to his midriff, looking at him in question, to which he eagerly nods. You take off his shirt and leave it on the bed.

He’s on you the moment you return to him. His sudden kiss leaves you breathless, but it only makes you chuckle. His jittery hands pull at the rim of your shirt and you comply, quickly taking it off.

After some moments of haste, you’re both completely bare to each other, returning to that prolonged kiss you can’t get enough of. Your hands stray lower and lower down his back.

You withdraw long enough to breathe out: “Cool if I do this?”, before lowering your hands to the top of his cheeks.

Steve gasps. He nods, almost vibrating against you.

You chuckle, and take each of his glutes in a firm handful each.

He whines as you play with him, looking at you from under his lashes. You lean forward, and lay heavy kisses down his neck.

“Oh, fuck.” A little bite has his legs twitching on the floor. “Fuck!” A long lick from the hollow of his clavicles to the side of his jaw while you massage each handful has him moaning intelligibly.

Two fingers of your right hand suddenly rubbing against his hole have him jumping almost a foot in the air. “Okay?”

Steve’s moans are airy. “That’s…” He breathes in and out as you rub up and down the sensitive skin. “G-Good.”

You finish this with a steamy kiss on his lips, before laying your hands on his hips. “Let’s go to the bed?”

“Yeah.”

After you’re done leading him to the side of the bed that has the night table next to it, you both sit down and continue kissing and caressing each other for some seconds.

You know Steve’s impatient. You have to make this good for him, have to prove to him that he could totally like this, so, after you withdraw from his lips, without taking your eyes off him, you reach out and open the drawer, taking out a tube of lube and a condom.

Steve’s eyes land on the square packet, almost nervously.

“Don’t worry, babe. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

He bites his lip. “Um… what is it, then?”, he asks, apprehensively.

“Let me tell you.” You leave the objects in the space between you and Steve on the mattress. With your right hand, you shift Steve’s legs to part them. He lets you, albeit hesitantly, unsure of what you’re planning. You grab the condom and show it to him. “Sometimes, people who have any sort of anal play with others might use condoms for whatever they’re gonna be inserting into the other, even if it’s not a dick.”

“Really?”, he sighs out, almost relieved.

“Yeah. They might use it for toys or even fingers. So I’m asking you now: do you want me to wear this when I’m fingering you?”

Steve’s face burns at your bluntness, but he takes the time to think it over. “Hm. Is it necessary?”

“Not as much as it is for anal sex per se. Depends on how worried you are about contracting STI’s, which is pretty much a null possibility. Our results looked pretty good, if you ask me.”

Indeed. The doctors cleared you both something like a week ago.

“It’s whatever you want, babe. I’m okay with either.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “Maybe you could not wear it? I kind of… need to feel it properly if I’m gonna be doing it later on my own.” Steve turns giggly as his face darkens.

You chuckle as well. “Now, that’s a pretty picture.” You start leaning forward into Steve, hearing his giddy intake of breath when he feels you rearranging him on the bed, until he’s half lying down in the center of it. You muse for a second. “In fact… I’d be totally okay if you tried that right now.” Steve’s mouth quirks in a demure smile. “You know, to see what you’re doing wrong.”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course. Just for that.” He bites his lip, pink on the face, because he will do it, just because your encouragement makes him all warm inside. He grabs your lube, pouring some on the fingers of his right hand, and then leaves it aside. “Fair warning, though. It might be kind of unsexy. I’m gonna be flagging.”

“That’s normal. It’s not easy to remain hard just from anal.”

He smiles. “Yeah, well…”, he trails off.

And he starts. He lowers both hands to the area near his groin, his left one going for his cock, stroking himself in order to relax, before rubbing the lubed fingers of his right hand on his hole. He exhales.

You wonder at the sight. Steve lightly squirms from your pointed gaze, but he continues on nonetheless. His middle finger enters him without much trouble, due to having played with himself previously. He doesn’t make much noise, apart from the occasional exhalation.

“How’s that feel?”, you ask him.

“Underwhelming.” Steve’s expression resembles a grimace, but he valiantly tries to give you a little grin. He quickly makes way for a second finger, which takes a bit longer to enter, but when he does, you can see the subtle shift in his features. He looks like it’s a bit of a strain for him. “It feels only sort of better right now.”

“Because of the stretch?”

“Yeah.”

You hum. The visual is breathtaking. If only Steve could see himself right now, he’d know that you don’t need much more than this to go. Still, you feel kind of bad for thinking this when he’s clearly not enjoying it thoroughly. “Try to search for your prostate. It should feel like a spongy patch.”

“I’m trying, now.” Steve shifts his hand, probably moving his fingers inside him.

After some seconds, you see his shoulders slump.

“I can’t.” He sounds petulant about it.

You click your tongue. “Poor baby. Maybe I could do it for you?” And his face takes on the red hue it’d lost during his act. He bites his lip. “If you want, of course.”

Steve licks his lips. That certainly sounds nice. He nods, biting his lip as he takes his fingers out, wincing at the empty feel. Once they’re out, he looks around, hand hovering in the air for some seconds, before he lays that hand on his thigh, not quite knowing what to do.

You pull some tissues from the box atop the night table and give them to him, to which he looks grateful and cleans his hand.

“Just leave it there,” you tell him, and he drops the tissue next to him on the bed.

Now, you lean forward. Just as you were expecting, he gives you that demure expression before you take his lips in a slow kiss, opening his mouth just in time for him to lay his tongue on yours. You kiss him for some moments, rubbing your hands up and down his torso, playing with the hair on his chest and his nipples until you’ve got him panting against your mouth.

Before you withdraw completely, you bite his lower lip, to which he gasps. “Now I’ve got you all hot and bothered.” Steve smiles, head tilted down to his chest. “Were you all hot and bothered when you tried to finger yourself, too?”

“Sort of. Not as much as right now.” Steve parts his legs wider, something that has you ready to go.

“I’m flattered.” Still leaning into his space, sharing the same air, your right hand sneakily goes down his belly until you can grasp his hard cock. He breathes out, minutely thrusting up and down into your fist. Your fondling doesn’t last for too long. Your right hand releases his cock and slides over his testes, lower and lower, until you’ve got four main fingers resting on the juncture of his thigh and hip and your thumb against his perineum. “I want you to feel something.”

Steve gives you a heady look, heart almost beating out of his chest at the soft contact. “What?”, he whispers.

Your thumb presses against his perineum.

Steve’s body seizes. He gives you the prettiest, loudest moan, and his body curls into your hand for a moment before dropping on the bed, at the same time that you release the pressure.

“Fuck… What the fuck is that?” He runs a hand through his hair, looking at you in wonder.

“That is your prostate.” You smile at him.

“Oh my God.” Steve laughs softly.

“Yeah. Now imagine that, but…” You muse for a second. “Ten times more intense.”

Steve gives you an almost panicked look, but you know it’s in the best way, because he finds himself muttering: “Holy fuck…”

“Now you know why so many gay men like to bottom.” Your thumb rubs the skin of his perineum without pressing forward, something that makes Steve antsy with pleasure. Then, your hand slides downward, until your thumb can rub against the tight furl of his hole.

Steve bites his lip to hold back his desperate moan.

“I’m gonna make you feel so good, you’ll see. I bet I could make you come just from your prostate.”

“Fuck,” Steve breathes out. “Is that even possible?”

“Yeah. After this, you’ll be able to do it to yourself. Trust me. Once you start, you can never stop. It just feels so good.” Your thumb presses in without much intent; you only do it to hear Steve’s frantic breathing increasing. “With time, your body might learn how to get pleasure just from penetration alone.”

“Ah, fuck. I can— I can totally see it.”

“Yeah.” You lay a heavy kiss on his lips. “I could get you all needy when you do.” Your hand now rests in front of his ass, middle and ring finger rubbing up and down his hole. His legs twitch. “Make you want a real cock in place of fingers. If you want,” you clarify when you spot Steve’s big eyes glancing at you with something that looks like nervousness, which, in reality, is pure unadulterated want.

He nods fervently. He subtly pushes his hips towards you, letting you know how ready he is for you to start.

So you do. You quickly grab the tube and pour lubricant on the fingers of your right hand. As soon as you press the tips of two fingers against his hole, his hips twitch, and he makes the smallest sound that has your cock throbbing.

“Good. Let’s just start with one since my fingers are thicker.”

God. Steve seems to only now recall this fact. It only serves to turn him even more flustered. He nods.

The tip of your middle finger starts pressing forward. To be fair, it’s not too difficult to breach him, since he played with himself using two fingers before he arrived, but doing it himself is so different from feeling someone else do it for him.

When the tip of your finger enters him, his lungs seem to run out of air. He clenches harshly around you.

“I’m gonna need you to relax, baby.”

Steve pants. “I’m trying. It’s just… so intense.”

You understand him, of course. Your left hand goes to his cock and you start stroking him at a leisured pace.

He gives you the smallest moan. Once you feel like he won’t clamp down on you, you continue entering him with your finger, until it’s down to the last knuckle.

Steve keeps on breathing heavy, but there’s a small smile on his face. “Oh my God. That’s so…”

“How is it?”

“Better than on my own.”

You nod. “I wanna put two in before I start feeling for your prostate. I promise it’s gonna feel real good like that.”

“Yeah.” Steve nods with a blush high on his face.

You pull your middle finger out until only the tip is in. Your ring finger rubs softly against his rim, next to your middle one, before you start pushing both fingers forward.

Steve clenches down, gritting his teeth from the small strain.

“Hm. Can’t have you clamping down on me like this, sweetheart. How about you try to push out a bit?”

“‘Push out’? Oh my God,” Steve laughs, embarrassed. Covers his mouth but does as he’s told.

Your two fingers push in to the last knuckle way too easily after this, so much so that Steve’s left panting, his arms buckling and ending up having to lean on his right elbow.

“Oh my God,” Steve repeats. His cock is only half-hard by now; in spite of this, he feels it kicking at the stretch.

You still your two fingers inside him, waiting for him to get used. When you hear Steve’s heavy breathing calm down, you decide to start thrusting them in and out.

He clenches down and makes small whines.

“Too much?”, you ask softly, as you stop your motions.

Steve gives you a half-smile, half-grimace. “Hm… I don’t know, honestly.”

You think you see some of his previous frustration seep into his expression, so you decide to not tease him anymore.

Your fingertips press against the upper part of his walls. Steve bites his lower lip, knowing what you’re trying to do.

It takes some long seconds of exploration, but when it happens, it’s a sight to behold.

Steve shouts. His face is the best part: pinched tight in a perfect mix between shock and pleasure. His entire body twitches against your hand. His legs kick for a second, and his cock hardens in front of you, before he slumps against the bed.

“Holy fuck,” is all he can pant out, left hand against his beating heart.

“There it is.” You smirk at Steve, and he only has a brief second to catch his breath and look at you in euphoric torment before you’re suddenly thrusting right against that spot, focusing on bringing the most prolonged and intense reactions out of him.

And you certainly fulfill this task to the maximum, if the long, whiny moans coming out of your boyfriend are indicative enough. Steve grabs at his own knees to try to keep himself as open as possible, because the forceful twitches of his body have him closing them without meaning to, too uncoordinated to do anything other than suffer from pleasure. When he can’t even coordinate his hands anymore just for that, he has no option but to thrash on the bed.

This is the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. Steve’s expressions are some of the prettiest, most arousing you’ve had the honor of witnessing. The way his eyebrows pinch and his eyes shut tight, mouth open to let out airy moans, is something that won’t leave your mind alone for the foreseeable future.

Steve opens those beautiful eyes just in time to beg you with them to not stop, and you don’t need any verbal ratification to understand.

Your fingers move in circles against the bundle of nerves, and his legs shake so bad you’re afraid he might start cramping at any given moment. Steve is laid out on the bed, almost unable to comprehend the amount of pleasure you’re giving him, unable to even open his eyes to witness this.

“Oh my God,” is all he can moan. It’s so endearing, the way he keeps his left hand over his chest, like he’s trying to will his heart into not beating so fast.

“Ever thought it could feel like this?”

“N-No. Not at all— fuck!” His left hand leaves his chest and goes up to his mouth, covering it, as if he doesn’t know what to do with it. “I-It feels… Fuck, it feels kinda weird too, like I’m gonna…” Steve takes his hard cock in his right hand, gritting his teeth when he feels like there’s going to be a rush of something other than cum in any second.

You chuckle. “That’s normal.” You softly take his right hand in your free one, leaving it aside without much resistance. “Look at that. You’re all hard just from this. That’s so good.” Steve breathes out a series of short moans behind his hand after you say this, looking at you with a bit of newfound shyness, even now that he’s laid out, taking your fingers in him.

“Y-You think it’s good?” He squirms when you give slow, deep thrusts against his prostate.

“Oh, baby. It is. It’s so good. You’re doing so good for me.”

Sweet boy. Does he really think covering his face with one hand will hide him from you noticing his deep blush?

You give him the quietest chuckle. “Look at this for one second, babe?”

Steve lowers his hand until only his mouth is being concealed, looking at you while debating himself on doing it or not, but he ends up bringing it down to hold himself up on quivering arms while you give him short, less intense thrusts with your fingers.

He leans up until he’s half sitting up, looking at your wrist.

“Would you look at that,” you drawl out, pointing at your moving hand with a nod.

Steve looks. His cock releases a steady stream of pre-cum at the sight.

Because right now, he’s looking at you doing to him the same thing he used to do to so many girls: you’re finger-fucking him with the two fingers in the middle, index and pinky ones pressed flat against the sides of them.

Just like a girl.

Steve feels faint at the sight. “I’m gonna cum.”

“Oh, yeah?” You resume a fast, intense pace, your fingers making squelching noises when your palm meets his skin.

Steve his moaning through his teeth, unable to hold himself up anymore and leaning back on his trembling arms, on his elbows. His legs twitch restlessly, and he’s helpless to stop himself.

He grits his teeth not only at the pleasure, but at the intense feeling growing on him with each passing second. His right hand rests on his heavy cock. “I— I c-can’t— I really feel like I’m gonna…”

You know what he’s referring to. “It’s okay. Just let it happen. I promise it’s nothing bad.”

Steve trembles, writhes, sways from one side to the other one as he tries to fight the feeling. “I— can’t.”

The truth is, Steve can. He’s just too scared about the novelty of this one orgasm, because he knows it’s not going to be gentle on him, and it’s something so new it frightens him. The thought of its magnitude makes his heart beat even faster and has him terrified at the same time.

“Okay, baby.” Your left hand goes on his cock, and you start rubbing him up and down quickly.

“Ah, fuck— I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” You chuckle. “You did so good, baby.”

Steve’s body starts curling in itself. “Ah—! Did I?”

“Yeah, you did.”

Before Steve’s overwhelmed eyes, you slide down the bed until your face is at the same level as his cock.

“You were so good for me. You deserve a reward.”

And you just manage to give him a little suck while you stroke him and finger him, right on his glans, before his eyes roll back and he’s cumming harder than he’s ever had.

The noises he makes are so— animalistic. His face crumples in the most euphoric agony, and his body curls against your head, like he can’t take such amount of pleasure, like he’s trying to push you off.

But he isn’t.

He comes, and comes, and comes into your mouth, his orgasm seeming to never end, and his own body not giving him a second of respite. You just swallow as much cum as he’ll give you, because you just can’t stop giving him pleasure, either, still bobbing your head up and down in short strokes to prolong this. Your fingers haven’t stopped, either. You’re pretty sure you might be overdoing it by this point, but the way he can’t stop moaning and whimpering as you keep on rubbing circles against his gland tells you he’s enjoying this too much.

At last, his body stops twitching so much. He drops on the bed. You take this as your cue to lift off him, licking the last traces of his cum off your lips before you give his slumped face a smile, removing your fingers from inside him.

God. Steve’s eyes are so glazed over behind barely-opened eyelids that you wouldn’t be surprised if he can’t focus his sight for minutes after this. His chest heaves quickly on the mattress, left hand loosely on the left side of it, no doubt trying to calm down his thumping heart.

You can’t help yourself. You slide up all the way until you’re kneeling before him, and your right hand lowers to your painfully-hard cock.

He looks like he just got fucked.

Steve comes to only seconds after you’ve started a quick pace with your hand.

You chuckle at his barely-there expression. “That was a strong one, wasn’t it?”, you grunt out, already feeling close.

Steve’s breathing doesn’t get any slower than as it is right now. He reaches forward with a trembling right hand, hovering under your cock.

“Just rest, babe. You can barely move.”

“No, I… I need to. Didn’t even touch you yet.” He looks sheepish. “Sorry. I get so stupid when I’m horny, I forget to do anything else.”

You give him a wolfish grin. “That’s not a problem at all.” You feel a pull at your gut. “In fact, I’d say it’s hot as fuck. But if you really want to…” You take his lax right hand in yours and manipulate it until it’s circling your cock.

You then start fucking his fist.

Steve’s mouth opens in a silent gasp as he feels the friction of your cock thrusting in and out of the tunnel of his fingers. His spent cock makes a brave attempt of filling again.

Only a few more thrusts are enough to have you grunting, increasing in volume as the only warning you can give him before you’re coming long lines on his torso.

Steve gasps at this. The heat that hits his chest, along with the visual of your cock virtually fucking him, is enough to have him almost dipping into a gentler state of mind, something that makes him panic for the briefest second before he’s pulled out of that place when he hears you grunt out for the last time.

You didn’t notice his predicament, so when you come to and take note of Steve’s spooked eyes, you take his drenched hand in yours. “Babe, you okay?”, you ask him, concerned.

Steve nods, reassuring. “Yeah. That was just… kind of intense.” He chuckles. A blush sits high on his cheeks as he looks at you, at the same time that he brings his soaked hand close to his lips. “Now it’s my turn,” he says, albeit a bit uncertainly, referring to when you swallowed him.

“You don’t have to.” But fuck if the visual doesn’t make your spent cock throb again.

He doesn’t answer. Only looks at you with the most smoldering expression on his face while he opens his mouth, brings his cum-stained fingers into it, sucks, swallows, and…

Tries to hide a grossed-looking grimace. “Um.”

You openly laugh at him, dropping next to him on the bed while he still has you in stitches.

Steve hits you on the chest with that same hand while he pouts. “Don’t— fucking laugh, man. I was trying to have a moment.” But he’s trying to hold back a laugh as well. “How the hell did you swallow… that so easily?”

You try to calm down enough to answer. “You just get used to the taste.”

His mouth purses, and his grimace just makes you start laughing again. “Is that what I taste like, too? Jesus. I mean—! No offense.”

Steve can only hide his own smile with a pout when that just makes you laugh harder.

VII.

Steve’s newfound good mood is contagious. Robin is almost afraid at this point. She thinks his mood swings are so over the place as of lately that he needs some sort of emotional support. Continuously, she asks him if he’s really feeling fine, to which he answers with nonchalance.

He obviously can’t tell her exactly what’s got him so happy.

It’s not just a single thing. It’s not just the fact that you helped him overcome his frustration after being so pent up.

It’s also the fact that, yes, he recently found out that he could do it himself…

And yes. He can get aroused just from penetration alone.

In fact, Steve’s almost embarrassed by how much his libido has gone up these past few days, namely because he now actually craves penetration at times.

He bites his lip on his way home from work, pupils dilated as he fights to keep his hard-on down within the privacy of his car, because he wants it right now. He wants to use his fingers on himself, wants to keep adding to feel the stretch.

Wants to get ready for you.

So he doesn’t bother to get comfortable before he climbs out his car in a haste, almost forgetting to close his entrance door with key before going up the stairs, heading straight for the shower.

Steve is splayed on the bed and has two fingers inside himself, this time from his left hand, so that he can stroke himself easily with his right one. He’s done this exact thing every single day this week, attempting to imitate your movements from a week ago, hoping to replicate that glorious moment.

It’s never the same as if you were the one doing it to him, but it still makes him come harder than all the previous years before this.

Currently, he’s scissoring himself open, gasping out at the small stretch. He has his eyes to the ceiling, picturing you instead of him. Your two thick fingers felt so amazing in him, stretching him out so much more than he could with his own.

Steve recalls the feel of your cock in his hand, so big he almost can’t close his fingers around it completely.

Oh, fuck. He always forgets how big you are. The size of it scares him a little, but when he’s so horny like this he feels like he could take you, at all costs.

Still. He needs to prepare for it if he’s really going to ask you for it later.

So he pulls his two fingers out, until only the tip of them are in, and tightly presses his index against them, gently thrusting in to get all three of them inside him at the same time. It’s a snug fit, and he finds it’s more difficult to add something as scant as a single finger inside, but he presses on.

It burns, but Steve manages to push three fingers in to the last knuckle.

And then, he wants more. Because the stretch, which has become more intense now, sets off different reactions in him that he could have never imagined.

And so he doesn’t wait long enough to get used to the current stretch, and he tries to push in the last finger, his pinky one into himself. But he finds that it’s sort of too much, the strain he puts on himself causing mixed, overwhelming sensations, but even that doesn’t stop him.

With a great amount of mental effort, he slips the last finger into himself, and—!

And it’s such a big stretch that it has him hissing behind gritted teeth, and it still doesn’t stop him as he starts thrusting in and out of himself, not waiting to get used to the pressure as he strokes his cock faster and faster—

Steve cums without even reaching his prostate. He feels his hole clench repeatedly, tight around his own fingers, at the same time he releases onto his chest, heaving in gasps from an open smiling mouth because it feels so good.

When he’s done, he slumps against the bed, fingers pulling out but pushing in one last time as he feels an overwhelming current of painful pleasure from it, and isn’t that an idea for another time?

At last, he pulls out completely, a resolute thought resounding in his mind:

Steve needs you to fuck him.

He doesn’t even attempt to wait in order to not look so pent up. He calls you only one hour later.

He breathes out: “Hi,” before you can even exchange greetings and ask who it is.

“Hey, baby,” you chuckle. “You sound eager.”

“Well… maybe.”

You hum in agreement, now eager as well, sensing he’s going to say something you’re going to like a lot. “Why would that be?”

“Um… well, you see…” The way he’s speaking tells you he’s probably blushing; you just know him like that. There’s a brief silence after this, before he continues. “Can I… If you’re free, I mean…”

“Yes?”, you say teasingly.

“I was… I was wondering if I could…”

“Yeees?”

You hear something that sounds like a mix between a whine and a groan. “You’re going to make me say it.”

“Yep.” Your voice now takes on a lower, more smoldering quality. “If you want something, you have to ask for it, baby.”

There’s an intake of breath on the other side of the line. Then, the smallest of whimpers. “Okay,” he croaks out. “Do you think I could come over?”

“Sure. Movie, snacks, and cuddles it is.”

He’s so fun to tease. You obviously know what he wants, but it’s just so fulfilling to hear the petulant groan he gives you. “Not what I meant…”, is his almost inaudible response.

“Sorry. I didn’t quite catch that. Can you repeat it for me?” Your face hurts from the way you’re smiling so widely.

On the line, he groans, and you hear a series of… taps?

Oh, he’s probably kicking his feet against the floor, just in the way he does when he’s so abashed it physically hurts him.

You openly laugh at him. “Alright. No more teasing. Come over already.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

“Just don’t stretch yourself too much. I wanna have my fun, too.”

“Holy fuck—” is the last thing you hear before he hangs up on you.

You’re left laughing loudly.

At last, Steve steps foot on the threshold of your house, finally about to get what he’s been aching for.

He raises his hand to knock, but he’s taken aback when the door opens in his face before he can do so.

It seems he’s not the only eager one.

“Hey, there.”

“Hi,” he answers, bashfully. It hits him only now, that he’s about to do this. He tries to cover it with a smug expression. “Were you waiting for me behind the door?” He raises his eyebrow.

“Nooo. Why would you think that?” You put your right hand on the low of his back to guide him in before he can answer. “Just come inside already.”

Steve snorts, and his face takes on a deep shade of red as he mumbles: “Pretty sure that’s my line— I mean.”

You give him a wolfish smile. You close the door, and immediately you push him against it, leaning into his space without kissing him, only giving him a pointed look that he squirms under. “You know, you’re being a lot more overt than usual, did you know?” You lean down, your lips almost brushing his. “Why’s that? Hm? Something on your mind?”

Steve makes that shy, quivering smile and tops it off with the straying eyes. It might be seen as part of this little game, but you know Steve well enough to know that he’s feeling truly bashful right now. “You know what it is,” he whines out.

“Hm, but I don’t. I think you should spell it out for me.” Your right hand goes under his chin. You tilt his head to be facing yours in a better way, using your thumb to rub against his skin. By this point, you’re positive that you can try out something related to his glaring praise kink. “Eyes on me, sweet thing.”

He moans airily. Steve looks at you, seeming to want to obey you at all costs, even if that makes his face burn and his heart feel like it’s going to beat out of his chest.

“Tell me, baby.” You speak with your mouth directly onto his, in a sensual caress of sorts.

Steve heaves out. “I— want you to fuck me.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, you push your lips onto his in a steamy kiss that has him closing his eyes from the intensity. His arms wrap around your neck, hands going down your back to grab at whatever part of your shirt he can. Your hands, conversely, hold onto the sides of his hips, quickly sliding under his polo to stroke up his ribs.

He moans within the kiss, which finishes too soon for his liking.

“That’s so good, baby. You’re such a good boy for me.”

Steve almost yells from how loud he moans. Rushes to lean his face on the side of your neck, almost mortified by his own reaction. The tip of his right shoe kicks softly against the floor.

You chuckle next to his ear. “You like me calling you ‘good’?”

He doesn’t remove his face from your shoulder; he only nods against it, blushing so hard you can see it spread down his nape.

You chuckle against his ear. “That’s good to hear. Now, be good and follow me to my room.”

Steve’s eye peeks from against your shoulder. He’s feeling so sheepish he almost can’t speak. “Okay,” he croaks out lowly.

You lean back some until he can no longer hide into your neck, enough that you can see the deep shade of pink his face has taken. Your right arm goes around his waist now; you use this leverage to lead him towards your bedroom. “Feeling fine?”, you have to ask while you walk, because you know that this is a very big step, and that he probably needs the highest level of reassurance.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I just… You’re kinda making me feel the way I probably made girls feel.” He laughs nervously.

You chuckle as well. Once you’re behind the threshold of your bedroom door, you close it, noticing his low intake of breath at the action. “What’s that mean?”

“Just…” Steve’s hands find yours and he plays with them to anchor himself. He shakes his head shyly, his foot twisting, like he doesn’t want to answer.

“Small?”, you venture, and his little nod and bite of the lip confirm it. That makes you smile. “That’s fine.” You rub his hands with your thumbs. Then, you pull him closer to the bed. “I’m here to make you feel nice and safe.”

Steve looks up at you with a small shaky smile. He closes the distance, giving you a soft kiss on the lips. “Thanks.”

He blushes when you chuckle at him. “Don’t thank me over that. It’s just my duty.” And he’s left breathless when you slide your hands under his polo shirt, high enough to start lifting it up to his middle. “Now… how about I take off your clothes so I can make you feel real good? Hm?”

At his shy nod, you slide his shirt up and off him, immediately going for his lips after it, gliding your rough hands over his torso, playing with the hair on his chest. Steve moans inside the kiss when he feels you thumbing at his nipples. When you withdraw, your mouth finds its way to the right side of his neck, leaving hot trails with lips and teeth. He moans softly, grabbing at the rim of your shirt and pulling it up with eagerness. You chuckle at him. You allow him to pull it off you, and the moment it’s on the floor, the pounces on you just like you’ve done to him. Steve attacks your mouth with an impatience you haven’t seen before, but that’s fine. That just makes you smile within the kiss, because you’re so glad Steve’s found something he likes that you can both passionately agree on.

Steve pulls back from the kiss, flushed, but raising an eyebrow at your obvious smile. You decide to distract him, feeling for his button and zipper, and you fulfill this mission, since you can see and hear his enthusiastic response to this. Quickly, you undo the front of his pants, and before you pull them down, you take Steve by the shoulders and gently push him down the bed, until he’s sitting down by the end of it. His hands support his weight behind him, and for this brief second, he looks up and up at you, because you standing before him forces him to lift his head to look at you, and he feels so hazy he has to subtly cross his legs at this, mindful of his now fully-hard cock tenting the front of his jeans.

But you don’t let him. Your hands push his knees outwards at the same time you lower yourself to kneel before him, and this vision has him gasping out and leaking just from that.

You wink at him from your position on the floor. Swiftly undoing his shoes and taking them off, your hands reach forward for the rim of his pants, and as he looks at you in a daze, your fingers hook right under the edge of his underwear, and you start pulling his lower garments down at once, giving him a gruff little laugh when his very hard cock is released from its confines with a small rebound.

When it’s off him and he’s bare before you, you lift yourself up using his thighs as leverage and start leaning towards him, in a low prowl, until you’re hovering over him with your hands on the sides of his head.

Steve’s nervous hands jitter down your torso, all the way to the rim of your own pants, and he makes quick work of the button and zipper. He pointedly looks at his hands, so as to not lose his nerve at your searing gaze. When he’s done, he ventures a quick glance at your eyes, but quickly looks down again as he starts slipping your lower garments off you.

You haven’t stopped looking at him throughout this. Your eyes just can’t leave his rosy face and nervous bites of his lips as you shift above him to help him undress you.

Once you’re both nude, it seems to hit him that you’re both going to do this. Steve’s demeanor changes into one of agitation. He finally looks at you, a nervous, quivery smile on his mouth, though you understand that he’s looking for reassurance now, which you’ll easily give to him.

You lower your head to his and kiss his worries away. “Let’s start slowly, yeah?”, you say, almost in a whisper, all but reading his thoughts, since his torso seems to deflate at that.

“Yeah,” he breathes out.

There’s a little grin on your face now. You lean back to let Steve rearrange himself on the mattress, until he’s lying in the middle of it with you on top of him.

Your hands rest on top of his knees, sliding all the way down to his groin, but before they get there, Steve lays his own on top of yours. “Wait. Before we start…”

“Yeah?”, you ask, about to be concerned.

“Um… W-Well, you said on the phone… But I’d already— Uh…”

You exhale a laugh at his little stammering. “What, sweetheart?”

“Uhhh…” Steve smiles shakily. “Y-You said…”

“I said…?”

“You s-said… you wanted to have your fun, too, but I’d already— By that point, I’d…” Steve covers his nervous giggle with his right hand and looks elsewhere.

A heavy current of pleasure drops down your belly. “Oh, baby.” Your hands lower to the juncture between his legs and groin, fondling the surrounding place without giving him what he wants, to which he whimpers. “Did you stretch yourself?”

“Ah— I mean… I called you like an hour after that?” His voice is nothing more than a whisper now.

He tries to hide from the weight of your gaze behind his hands but—

Your hands hold onto his wrists. You gently push them against the sides of his head.

Steve’s eyes glaze over.

“How many?”, comes your rumbling voice.

And he has to inhale heavily, in vain, because his response comes as a whisper. “Four.”

You use the grip on his wrists as leverage to push yourself onto him, and he allows you and welcomes you into his open mouth. Your tongue pushes into his mouth, and he has the frenzied realization that you’re virtually fucking his mouth with it.

Steve cries out. His eyes roll back as he feels himself leaking.

He tries to prolong the feel, but you pull back too soon, and he finds himself whining at the loss.

“Got yourself all nice and open for me? That’s so good, baby.” Your heavy, grumbling voice against his lips has him trying to cross his legs uselessly, since you’re in the way.

Steve bites his lip. “Sorry,” he says, moving his legs around to caress yours, urging you to do more.

“Why are you sorry?” You laugh while you take your hands off his wrists and lay them to the sides of his head. You think you imagine the disappointment in his eyes when you do this.

“You said you wanted to…”

“That was all talk, sweetness. I absolutely do not mind that we can skip that part and go straight to the main course.”

At that, Steve can only shut his eyes tightly and bite back a moan. He opens them just as quick, embarrassed at his own reaction.

You just give him a tight-lipped smile. “Not sure if this is gonna reassure you or do the opposite, but I’m pretty sure you still need more prep before we do anything else.”

Steve’s right hand rubs at his mouth nervously. “Oh my God…”, he mumbles, even though he has a small nervous smile on his face as his eyes lower to your big erection. “Right.”

“Right,” you echo with a contrite smile. “Did you forget about it?”

“N-No. Not at all.” Steve looks up and elsewhere as he mutters the following: “You have my word.”

“Do I?”, you tease, stretching towards your night table and opening the drawer.

Steve bites his nails as he watches you do this. “Mm-hm.”

When you have the objects you were looking for in your hands, you show them to him, and he centers on the one on your right hand with an hyperfocus you’ve seldom seen on him.

Steve’s eyes rest on the condom packet with apprehension and excitement at the same time.

You lay it and the tube of lubricant on the bed, between his open legs, next to you. Leaning down to rest a quick kiss on his bitten lips, you run the fingers of your right hand through his hair. “Whenever you want to stop, just say so.”

“‘Kay,” he whispers bashfully.

You lean back, staying in a kneeling position between his parted legs, and smirk at him. “Now, I would totally like to know more about this little bit of playing you did before you came here,” you say as you open the lid of the tube.

Steve covers his mouth with his right hand as he giggles. “What’s there to know?”, he asks shyly.

You pour some lube on your right hand and rub your hands together to warm it up. “Just fun stuff. Did you find your prostate?”

Steve looks elsewhere with a shy smile. “No. I mean— Not today.” His right hand lowers to his chest, resting atop his thundering heart.

“Hm? Then how…?”

“Just…” Steve clenches his eyes shut as he giggles nervously. “Just from my fingers.”

“Oh, yeah?” Your right hand lowers to his entrance while your left hand goes to his hard cock. You don’t even need to stroke him; he’s already turned on enough from your previous teasing. “Just from the penetration alone?”

Steve nods meekly. Then, as he feels your fingers spread the lube on his already tender entrance, he lays his left hand on your wrist. “I… Let me touch you, too. Don’t wanna leave you hanging like the last time.”

You chuckle. He’s just so sweet for you. You can feel his hand shaking. Lifting your left hand from his erection, you rub the unlubed knuckles from that hand onto his own. “Let me be selfish, yeah? I wanna make this about you today.”

It’s really telling for you that he doesn’t insist. “Okay… You sure?”

Your middle and ring finger prod at his hole, leading him to gasp in short breaths. “Yes. Just leave it to me, sweetheart.”

He nods resolutely, then.

Now, at the same time that you start pushing in the two fingers in the middle, your hand returns to his hard cock, which hasn’t gone down at all— You think it might actually be harder now. Steve’s jaw drops open when he feels your two fingers start pushing in, almost easily from how much he’s stretched himself before he arrived here. Even that initial stretch feels heavenly to him: your thick fingers fill him out so good, and they feel so different from his. Whereas he’s used to his own smooth, almost delicate ones, yours are hard and rough. Thicker, too. Steve bites his lower lip as you breach him to the second knuckle, choosing to still yourself to let him get used to this small stretch.

His legs twitch to the sides of you, rubbing onto yours in a sensual caress. “Come on…”, he mumbles.

“‘Want more?”, you ask, not waiting for an answer before you push the two fingers to the last knuckle.

Steve’s back arches in a beautiful curve as he gives you the most breathless and erotic moan. He quickly lets himself fall from it just to hold himself up on his hands behind himself, half-sitting up, all to see the place where you’re joined.

You give him a small chuckle. “Oh, you wanna take a look.”

He looks up at you from under his lashes, because he does. He wants to see, and he wants to feel the same way you made him feel so many days ago. Steve’s breaths are so noisy now; he can’t stop himself when he sees and feels the way you are thrusting in and out of him, two fingers at the sides of the ones inside him just like he’s fantasized about. His feet are restless, stirring next to you on the bed, increasingly rustling the bedsheets the faster you go.

Your fingers go softly now, barely coming out of him, just to rub circles along the walls inside him in a sensual massage that has him gasping out. Your other hand is barely a caress on his cock, knowing he now doesn’t need much more than your fingers.

The tips of your fingers suddenly press up against that spot. Steve’s body curls in itself.

“Fuck…”, he finds himself choking out.

His eyes are drawn to the place that connects you two, but he finds that he can’t keep looking for much longer, because you’re pulling him into a short kiss that leaves him even more breathless. When you separate, he looks at you impatiently, and his voice is nothing more than a whisper.

“Come on. Come on.”

You chuckle through your nose. “Eager.” But you pull your fingers out and press your index one against them, beginning to push in.

There’s a brief resistance, but as Steve breathes out heavily and wills himself to relax, you manage to thrust inside, this time with more pauses in-between.

Steve’s mouth opens to draw in as much breath as he can. Putting one hand on his pounding heart, he looks at you with something that can only be described as adoration.

You give him a little smile. Taking your left hand off his member, you lay it atop his own, on his chest, gently pushing him back on the bed.

“Relax.” Your low, rumbling voice is soothing for his nerves, so he obeys. He lies on the bed, growing more restless with each second that passes.

In a weak voice, he requests: “The last one— Add the last one.”

“You sure?”, you ask, knowing that he should get used to the current stretch, but you still thrust out until you’re at his rim, adding the fourth and final finger next to the other three.

Steve nods so eagerly you have to laugh.

With a lot of patience, taking his cock in hand to soothe him further, you begin to thrust four thick fingers inside him, meeting resistance right away.

Your left hand strokes him slowly, focusing on the head to bring out the greatest amount of pleasure possible. “You have to unclench for this, baby,” you mumble out.

Right after, your right thumb presses against his perineum, drawing a startled moan out of him. You feel him clamping down on you even further for a second, and then you do it again.

Steve hides his eyes under the back of his hand, already winded from this. He can feel himself surrendering to your touches, opening up to let the tips of your fingers thrust in, just far enough to breach him. “Fuck…” His moan is prolonged as he uncovers himself, looking at the general direction of your hands.

“That’s it…”, you encourage him.

Softly, you inch in, until you have four fingers seated deep inside him.

Steve heaves in a loud breath.

“There we go. So good for me, Stevie.” His moan at this is choked off when he feels your rough fingertips moving around in him. “Feels good?”

He moans again, but cuts himself off with a short cackle. “What do you think?”

That only makes you chuckle as well. “Yeah, I bet it feels real good.” You start pulling out, loving the way his legs just can’t stay still. “Just look at how much you’re leaking, baby.” Your left hand focuses on the tip of his cock at the same time you thrust back in, drawing a small shrill sound from him.

Steve tries to look at the place you’re showing him. He does. He just can’t with the way you’re suddenly pushing up, pressing against that bundle of nerves.

He shouts.

His body trembles, his hands hold onto your wrist, his legs kick against your hips, and his own hips grind onto your hand, desperate for more of that contact.

You gladly give it to him. The more you rub circles and press harshly against his prostate, the more Steve’s resolve thins out. Sparks fly behind his eyelids as he tries to process the amount of pleasure you’re giving him, feeling himself slowly drenching your hand in pre-cum.

He can’t take much longer than this. He grabs your left wrist, stopping the movements of your hand on his cock. “N-Not gonna last if you keep…”

Your left hand leaves his cock. “Yeah. You probably can come just from my fingers, can’t you?”

And you press up inside him, at the same time you press with your thumb from the outside, and he wails.

He brings himself out of it with a giddy laugh as you begin pulling your fingers out. He rests his hand on his eyes. “You did that on purpose.”

Your smile is wolfish as you wipe your hands on the sheets, lean forward, and get closer to him. “Maybe.”

And then he’s uncovering his eyes, looking up at you as you take hold of the pillow under his head. Steve shifts to help you, and when he sees you bring that same pillow at the height of his hips, he starts biting his lip with impatience. He understands what you’re trying to do. With the help of his feet, he pushes his hips up, enough for you to slide the pillow under them, leaving him in a very vulnerable position.

You lean into him once more, and when your groins just slot together, he shivers, overwhelmed all of a sudden. You understand this, and push downward, taking his lips in a soft, soothing kiss he yields to.

Steve withdraws first because he needs to take a deep breath to not lose it. His hands grab at your shoulders, unsure of how to anchor himself.

“Need a break?”, you ask him, concerned.

He just shakes his head with vigor. Biting his lip, he wraps his legs around your hips, pushing you against him. You both moan at the contact.

You laugh. “Alright, then. Let me just…” You lean back, Steve’s hands falling from your shoulders and laying on his own chest now. You grab the packet, open it, and start rolling the ring of the condom on your cock, before Steve’s hands come to rest on yours. “Wanna help me?”, you ask.

Steve nods, unable to get the nervous smile off his face, and, with his hands under yours, he starts sliding the condom on.

Once his hand gets to your base and you’re done groaning about it, you grab the tube of lubricant and pour a generous amount on your member. You stroke yourself a couple of times before you inch closer to Steve.

And Steve looks at you with excitement and the slightest tinge of agitation before he brings his own folded legs closer to his own chest.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Hold yourself open for me,” you mumble, grabbing his right knee with your left hand and laying a kiss on it.

With your right hand, you take hold of your cock, and slowly, very slowly, start pushing inside.

Steve clamps down around you almost immediately. His throat chokes around a moan, and his legs twitch in your hold. “Sorry.”

You lay wet kisses on the inside of his right leg, your mouth twisted in a small smile. “Why?”

He chews on his nails while he looks elsewhere. “I dunno,” he mumbles, embarrassed.

That makes you smile. Your right hand leaves your cock, which is already fixed in place, ready to thrust in, and it goes around his cock. You stroke him softly for some seconds, loving the small changes in his expression, how gorgeous he looks with every single face you can pull off him. His small noises prompt you to keep stroking him, subtly pushing forward to start inching into him.

He clenches with each small inch you push inside, and as you manage to push the end of your head inside, he hisses between gritted teeth, and puts his hands on your shoulders. “Just… a second.”

“Of course,” you answer, stilling in place to let him get used to the stretch, which is quite a lot more than four of your fingers.

Steve’s eyes are also clenched shut, but after some seconds he opens them, looking at you from under his lashes, breathing heavily and quickly. He nods at you, resolutely.

You lean down to surround him completely, and his arms easily go around your shoulders, anchoring himself with you. Your mouth seeks his, and he meets you in the middle with enthusiasm, or perhaps anxiety. Steve pushes forward with his lips, trying to get the most of the kiss, and you open his mouth in turn, pushing your tongue onto his.

As you do this, your hips push forward minimally, starting to thrust yourself inside him while you distract him, but it seems to not work that well.

Steve pulls off you. “W-Wait,” he grits out. He looks at you with a grimace that he’s trying to conceal with a quivery smile, but you know him too well for that.

“Of course,” you say once again, because you’ll take as much time as he needs to. “Hurts?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but seems to lose his nerve and shyly looks to the side.

“Tell me the truth, baby.”

“Kinda…”, he mumbles.

You give him a small peck on the lips for reassurance. “That’s okay. Just tell me when you’re ready to go.”

Steve gives you the tiniest nod, too embarrassed by himself. Some seconds pass, before his restless legs rub imperceptibly around your waist, him looking at you and nodding. “Okay.”

You take your cue and start pressing forward once more, but once again, his arms cling tight around your neck and he yelps: “Wait!”

You’re halfway into him, and the way he’s clenching around you is almost sexually tortuous, but you obviously heed his word again. “Sorry. Sorry.”

Steve’s pinched expression eases up after a second, and this time, he gives you a genuine smile, pressing his mouth to the side of your neck to cover it in kisses. “You treat me so nicely,” he mumbles out, like it makes him bashful to say it.

You feel your chest soar at this. There’s a small, breathless chuckle coming straight from your chest right now. “Do I?”, you ask, even though it’s pointless, because you’re only showing him basic decency.

But your Steve still looks you in the eye and nods.

Another small chuckle, and now you’re leaning back. “Okay.”

Steve seems almost confused as your hands grab at the back of his knees, but then realizes what you’re going to do as you manipulate his legs until they’re crossed, and then place them in a right angle to his body, his ankles coming to rest above the left side of your neck. “What are we doing now?”, he asks, almost forgetting he still has half of your cock inside him.

“I’m putting your legs in a specific position that’ll help you relax better,” you explain, noticing his still-puzzled expression. “Your anus. This position helps you relax your anus.”

Steve bursts out laughing, covering his mouth with his hands because it’s just rolling off him now. You laugh with him.

“I thought it was the other way round,” Steve says. “Like, with my legs open?”

“That’s for the pussy,” you answer, and you rest your hands on his crossed knees, laying hot kisses on the expanse of his shins. Steve shivers at this. “You ready?”

Biting his lip, he nods slowly, bracing himself once again.

“Alright, sweetheart. Remember to push out, too.”

Steve laughs, almost in a sob, because you’re starting to inch forward, and this position does help him a lot, and as he does as he’s told, he finds that what felt like something impossible is now too easily possible.

Your hips meet his ass almost too quickly, sending him scrambling for a grip on the bedsheets. He breathes in and out like he’s hyperventilating. His left hand is now on his chest, trying to calm his heart down. You lower your right hand to that hand and lay it on top of it, wanting to reassure him.

His expressions. God. His expressions are something out of this world. His eyes are closed, eyebrows pinched and mouth open to let out quiet moan after moan.

As soon as Steve opens his eyes, they stray towards the place where you’re joined.

“Oh my God,” he says, almost in a whisper.

“Too much?”, you ask.

Steve shakes his head. “Just… a lot.” He bites his lip to hold back his little noises whenever he feels your cock so much as twitch inside him. His free hand covers his mouth. “So big…”, he says, almost to himself.

“Yeah?” You teasingly move your hips a minimum fraction, and that is enough to have Steve gasping out and shifting his legs onto your shoulder.

When he sees your amused expression, he almost pouts, though it’s obvious that he’s trying to look teasing, too. “You’re mean. I thought you were gonna be gentle with me…”

His words make something hot and heavy settle deep in your belly. Your grip on his legs gets tighter, and he makes the quietest little squeak at it. “Yeah. I did say that.” Your right hand rubs up and down his left thigh, going down to his cheek and fondling it to open him up more. Steve makes a breathless moan at this. “I’m gonna be so nice to you, baby. In fact, I’m gonna go real nice and slow, just so you can see how gentle I’m being with you.”

He moans openly now. Steve finds that while he likes that idea, he also craves something different in the near future.

For now, he just nods.

So you start. Using your grip on his gorgeous long legs, caressing his left one down to his ass and back up, you start pulling out of him, hearing his long intake of breath. You do this until you’re halfway into him, and then push forward until you meet his hips again. Steve breathes heavily and quickly, his jaw slack as he tries not to succumb and close his eyes to the sensations. Then, you do this again a couple of times, thrusting out and in minimally, just so that he can get used to the stretch. His legs twitch every time your hips meet his rear. His left hand has returned to his chest, and you find this so endearing; you know how nervous but excited Steve is by this, so much so that he tries to halt his pounding heart however he can.

Now your hips are pulling back further, until only the head of your cock is inside him. You push all the way into him with the same slow pace. Steve’s expressions are something wonderful. You know he can’t help himself when he clenches his eyes shut at the pleasure, but still tries to open them as soon as he can every single time.

On the next thrust, you pull back, and this time, the head of your cock starts sliding out of him.

Steve hisses and clamps down when he feels the widest part of it breaching him on its way out.

You shush him and kiss his shins. “Relax,” comes your soothing mumble.

His breaths turn quicker, and his eyes close for a brief second before he opens them again, looking at you with dazed eyes and nodding.

You feel him gradually unclench as you’re pulling out completely, the tip barely inside him. Then, you push forward once again.

Steve has less trouble to take you in this time, if the way you’re easily fitting inside with a smooth thrust is indicative enough.

And once again, he gives you a breathless moan when you’re all the way in.

“Alright there?”, you have to ask, because you know of his tendency to hide his own discomfort at times. Luckily, he gives you a genuine smile and —this makes you laugh— a thumbs-up. “Alright, you dork.”

“Yeah,” he adds on. His flushed face now takes on a darker hue. “Actually… can you go a bit faster now?” He mumbles the last part, like it embarrasses him to say so.

You laugh softly at him. “Obviously.”

Now, you’re pulling out of him all the way, and pushing back in with a bit more force than before. This leaves Steve breathless, jittery, and blissed out all the same. So you do it again and again. With each thrust, your pace increases, and the friction makes his mostly-quiet moans rise in volume. What were previously soft noises of skin slapping begin turning loud too.

You’re purposefully avoiding his prostate. You think it might be a good idea to build up to it first, so as to get him used to the stretch before you do anything, but you know it won’t be a long time now.

Steve slowly parting his legs to bring them to the sides of you tells you enough.

“Tired of that position?”

He shakes his head. “Just…” He rises his arms to encircle your shoulders, face burning at this point while you’re still thrusting in and out of him. “…wanna hold you.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” You give him what he wants.

Steve’s legs wrap around your waist as you push in and out of him. The newfound friction of your belly on his cock has his legs growing restless, his moans pouring from his lips freely now. His eyes can’t stay open for too long.

He makes the effort just to look at you, long enough to let you know he wants you to kiss him. So you do. He opens his mouth to deepen the kiss as you start going faster, small moans slipping from the spaces in-between.

Steve withdraws, already feeling breathless.

After some long moments like this, just thrusting at a moderate pace and looking at each other with — something strong, something that could shakily be called love, his face begins to show some signs of discomfort, too subtle to seem that way to any other person, but you know your boy well enough.

“Hurts?”

“Just my hips,” he talks in between moans.

You gradually slow down until your movements are minimal, something that seems to turn Steve antsy. You ignore this for a second, though there’s a smile on your face at his impatience. “Must be the position.”

You stop completely. Steve tries to not make such a loud whine at this, but it’s obvious that it doesn’t work. He blushes right after.

As you pull out completely, he makes the quickest yelp at the emptiness.

“How about this?”, you ask. Your hands softly grab at his sides, starting to manipulate his body in a way that lets him know you want him to turn around.

Steve blushes even further and starts giggling when he understands. He rolls over until his chest is to the bed.

“Just like that,” you grumble. “On your hands and knees, yeah?”

It’s a good thing that you can’t see his face, because Steve just about melts from pleasure at your words, and it embarrasses him so bad that he makes the smallest whine. He does as he’s told, though. This position leaves him feeling vulnerable and open, until you lie across his back and envelop him, making him feel safe now.

“Good boy,” comes your low mumble, and Steve’s jaw drops to let the quietest moan out.

Your right hand grabs your cock, and at the first contact of your tip against him, he clamps down once again. Steve bites his lip as he tries to relax, breathing heavily.

Slowly, you begin to breach him once more, feeling the small contractions around your cock. “Close your legs, baby.” He obeys, knees rustling the bedsheets, and suddenly you’re thrusting all the way into him again.

Steve lets out a loud moan, loud enough to be considered a shout. This position is… something else. It leaves him reeling from how much deeper it somehow feels, almost hurting from it. Most of all, Steve can feel himself surrendering to you, feeling so safe and loved.

His arms quiver, struggling to hold his weight already. At the same time that he notices this, you start pulling out only to push in with a strong thrust that makes him buckle and fall down to his elbows. Steve’s moan at this is something so erotic it has you throbbing inside him.

“Good to keep going?”, you ask him, and he nods enthusiastically from under you.

Now you resume that moderate pace you had before, only this time, somehow, it feels more intense. You hips slap against the back of his legs every time they meet, filling the room with the erotic sounds of skin against skin and his loud, airy moans. Steve can’t keep his eyes open anymore. He just yields to the intensity of your thrusts, feeling full to the brim with your big cock going in and out of him. His moans increase in volume the more you press down against him, because he understands what you’re trying to do.

Your hands rest on the high of his back, pressing down with gentleness. “Lie down.” You find just the tiniest bit of resistance, probably because Steve almost can’t stand the idea of getting even more pleasure than this. “Trust me. It’ll feel so good.”

So Steve shakily obeys. His arms go lax to his sides as he lays his chest on the mattress, his spine almost straining from the curve you’ve enforced onto him.

Your cock presses on his prostate.

Steve screams.

“Ah— Fuck!” His legs fold on themselves, and his feet kick against the bed as you continue stimulating him. “Fuck— Oh my God. Th-That’s…”

“Feels good, right?” You lay off his prostate for the moment, knowing it probably wouldn’t take much to overwhelm him if you kept on.

“Y-Yeah…” Now you can feel his quivering legs working to— to meet your thrust. “Again. Please.”

“Oh, yeah?” Your hips bear down with force on his own, and you know you’re hitting his prostate dead-on because his wails are so sudden and loud they almost scare you.

“Yes!” His jaw is left open in an endless moan, eyes clenched shut at the intensity.

The more you keep pressing down, the more you feel his body lowering, wondering why this could be, until you lean up a fraction and notice his legs sliding open on the bed. Your cock throbs at the sight. To know that he’s so turned on that he can’t keep up with you…

“Fuck— S-Sorry— Can’t h-hold myself up.” Steve confirms this same thought as he keeps moaning.

You laugh in his ear— It’s something almost mean that has Steve’s eyes wide open in a second. “Don’t worry about it,” you say as you keep thrusting, following him to the mattress.

Suddenly, your right leg is pushing his own closer to his center. Your left one does the same with the other one. As soon as you have him in the position you want, your legs press against the sides of his, holding them together tightly, not allowing him to open them to lie in a puddle on the mattress.

Steve screams at this.

“Holy— fuck!” He screams, he moans, he wails, because this specific position has your cock rubbing against his prostate on every single thrust, and it has you going deeper still, and he starts to feel himself lose it when it almost hurts when you reach the end of his walls on every thrust, feeling so small and almost bursting at the seams with it.

You know that it won’t take longer for him, so you keep bearing down on him, focusing on that bundle of nerves, feeling it increase in size the slightest bit. Your hips go faster.

Steve begins to feel the same way he did the other day. There is this very specific intense feel that comes from his prostate and has him feeling desperate, because it’s so different from anything he’s ever felt.

He knows he’s going to come just from this, and this time, though terrified, he’s ready for it.

“C-Close— Ah— I’m close.” He says this, and you kiss the back of his nape, your left hand going under his body to press against his pounding heart. Steve’s left hand presses against yours, intertwining your fingers. “J-Just from this!”

“Yeah? You want it?”

He nods so quickly it almost makes you laugh. “It’s weird. F-Feels so weird. I really— fuck!— Really feel l-like…!”

“Okay, baby. Let it happen. I’m right here. It’s alright.”

Steve nods, his face in such agonic pleasure he’s almost glad you can’t see it, because you’d probably feel concerned over him. “Okay. O-Okay—!,” he concedes, his heart beating faster at the mounting feeling.

The more you thrust against him, the more he can feel himself losing it, until the feeling turns so intense he almost can’t breathe.

“C-Coming— I’m coming! I’m coming! Oh my God!” Steve’s voice turns desperate.

And he screams.

His body seizes. A sensation he’s never felt before ravages his entire body. His eyes sting with a hint of tears at it. He feels a forceful tremble throughout his limbs, and he’s left unable to control them as he feels himself coming and coming and coming, so intensely it almost hurts, and in such a different way he’s almost ashamed, because he really thought…

But there’s no room for thoughts in his mind because he’s still coming, and he’s still moaning without noticing, shutting his eyes at the acuteness of the feeling.

“Oh, that’s it, baby. You’re squeezing me so hard— fuck!”

As Steve begins coming down from the longest and most intense orgasm of his life, he moans weakly when he feels your hips shuttering behind him, yelping at the warmth of your cum filling the condom.

After some long seconds of you groaning in his ear, which makes his hurting cock valiantly attempt to twitch, you pull out of him, softly, though it still makes him yelp, almost in a whisper, until you’re off.

Without the support of your legs against his, he drops to the bed in a helpless pile.

Steve’s chest rises and lowers quickly, still trying to draw in as much breath as possible and to calm his still-pounding heart. You lie to the side of him, your right hand caressing the expanse of his back to let him know you’re still there.

You know he’s not even processing this, too gone to even notice you’re not holding him up anymore.

But after some long minutes, Steve calms down enough and regains enough lucidity to shift on the mattress, feeling your hand on his back and sighing at the sensation.

With what you think is the biggest display of effort in history, his arms strain enough for his head to rise and turn to the side you’re on.

Steve looks at you without saying anything. You don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t know what to say, or because he can’t, so you do, first.

Sliding down the bed to be at the same height as his head, you circle your arm around his back, and say: “Hey. That was a full-body one, wasn’t it?” You kiss his left shoulder.

He still won’t answer. You start getting concerned, before he smiles, bigger and bigger, until he’s giggling against the bedsheets. He mushes his face into the mattress as he does this.

You laugh with him, still not understanding if he’s too out of it and high on endorphins.

After some seconds, Steve stills, and his concealed face turns just the slightest fraction, just enough for his eye to peek, showing you that he’s sporting the darkest blush ever.

“Um…”, he starts. “Hi?”

And that makes you laugh even harder. “Hi, baby. How are you feeling?”

Steve turns his head further towards you, biting his lip. “Good.”

“Good,” you repeat. “How did all of that feel?”

His expression is so cute to see now. It’s like he’s getting shy all over again after everything you’ve just done. His lips twitch, not knowing whether to smile or to bite his own lower lip. “Good,” he mumbles again.

You hum, almost teasingly. “Just ‘good’?”

Steve laughs, embarrassed, shoving your face with a weak hand while you laugh. “What do you think? Jesus. I can’t even move.”

You give him a wolfish smile, but contradict it when you wrap your arms around his body. Steve lets himself be surrounded by you, feeling small and safe in a way he’s never had before.

[navree]

thank you for holding alex accountable for being awful and not infantilizing her like some sexist misogynistic people are

The thing is, Ned absolutely has the lion's share of the blame for being the person who put the company in serious legal and financial jeopardy by going after an employee.

But Alex is a very senior employee (I think she's been with them since the company started in 2018 and was possibly at Buzzfeed with them beforehand tho I'm not sure if that's true) and one of the most notable Try Guys related public figures beyond the guys themselves (only Rachel and Miles likely top the Food Babies in terms of exposure and constant presence in content), so while the power imbalance isn't non existent as he was still very much her boss and a literal company CEO, that imbalance is as negligible as it can be in that situation.

It may come out that there was More To This, but given how extraordinarily unlike that is given the lack of statement from Alex, YB being shady about both Ned and Alex (good for you YB I'm so sorry people are dragging you into this), and the available information that we have, I feel very comfortable in pointing out that Alex is a grown woman capable of making her own decisions who chose to enter a relationship with a man she knew had a wife and young kids, while also in a long term relationship herself, and knowing that this would be a huge problem if it blew up, not to mention just the moral indecency involved in deliberately hurting two other people who've done you no wrong in such a deeply humiliating way. She is not a child and it is ridiculous and yeah, borderline sexist to treat her like she is, not to mention hugely disrespectful and trivializing to actual women who are harassed and preyed on in the workforce and who actually are taken advantage of by employers with more power.

Is she the most to blame? Not by a long shot. But is she completely blameless then? Not by a long shot.

[statemiral]

To heart 2 dungeon travelers ova

As long as they have super powers, they`re in the show., visual novel The two terms are similar yet different, however, the fact that they look and `feel` the same outweighs the technical differences. As the name implies, seinen works are marketed primarily to an audience of young men the age range commonly understood to be the target of such works goes roughly from 17 to somewhere in the 40s., super power Be it an ancient Greek Heracles, a cybernetic muscle-man, or a fourteen year-old girl in a mini-skirted sailor suit. A role-playing video game is a video game which includes elements of non-electronic role-playing games., seinen Seinen, literally "young man", is one of the main demographic classifications applied to manga, and, by extension, to anime, especially manga-based ones. It can also refer to when whole elements of one work are lifted out of their context and reused., RPG Any anime that is based on a role-playing game aka RPG. ) for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original. The harem may be only a support to an existing or predictable relationship, or the lead may end up in relationships with most or all members., magic Magic is the art of purportedly manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of unknown occult laws., parody Anime that imitate other stories (can be from TV, film, books, historical events. The lead will often be physically abused for his behavior. Sexual tones are applied to the lead`s behavior and to the members` depiction. The female characters often draw heavily from stock archetypes. Their interactions are romantically or sexually loaded. In Japanese, however, it is a catch-all term for all things anyhow sexual in nature, mild or otherwise., fantasy Imaginative or fanciful work, especially one dealing with supernatural elements and themes., game Based on an interactive (even if minimally so) form of entertainment software, generally available for PCs, consoles or arcade machines., harem Three or more characters, generally female, are under the influence of one character, normally male. Among western anime fans, the term is used when vague sexual content, such as skimpy clothing or nudity, is prominent. Japanese humour can be a bit strange to westerners, so if you`re new to this type of humour, just bear with it it`ll most likely grow on you if you`re a fan of other kinds of comedy., ecchi Ecchi, or etchi (エッチ), is a common Japanese word meaning "indecent", "lewd", "frisky" or "sexy" its usage can be compared to the English word "naughty". A comedy anime is laced with humour and sets out to provoke laughter from the audience. These stories are built upon funny characters, situations and events. Adventure films are often, but not always, set in an historical period., comedy Anime whose central struggle causes hilarious results. Rather than the predominant emphasis on violence and fighting, the viewer of adventures can live vicariously through the travels, conquests, explorations, creation of empires, struggles and situations that confront the main characters. Information collected is aggregated and anonymous.Adventure Adventures are exciting stories, designed to provide an action-filled, energetic experience for the viewer. These cookies enable us to provide better services based on how users use our website, and allow us to improve our features to deliver better user experience. Marketing Cookies are placed by third-party providers with our permission, and any information collected may be shared with other organizations such as publishers or advertisers. These cookies are used to deliver advertisements that are more relevant to you and your interests. We use the information collected to evaluate and improve the performance of your shopping experience. They also enable use of the Shopping Cart and Checkout processes, assist in regulatory and security issues, measure traffic and visits, and retrieve order information for affiliate commissions. These cookies are required to use core website features and are automatically enabled when you use the site. You can use this interface to enable or disable sets of cookies with varying functions. We use data cookies to store your online preferences and collect information.

[drspencerweed]

Safer to Kiss

Summary: [Y/N] is new to the BAU, and Spencer’s avoidance of handshakes backfires a bit.

WC: 2073

Content: fluffiest fluff, mentions of kidnapping/violence (typical bau stuff)

A/N: I haven’t written fluff for Spencer yet, so I hope y’all like this! 

Masterlist

read on ao3

I wasn’t nervous about my first day at the BAU. Sure, it would make sense if I was, but I had been working my entire career to get on this team. It was where I belonged, and I knew it. My interview process with Hotch had been a breeze, and I was ready to start the next step of the process: working my first case with the team. It was just preliminary, I was still in my probationary period, but I knew it was going to go well. I was over prepared for this job. 

So I wasn’t nervous. I was ready. I met Hotch in his office that morning, ready to do paperwork until a case came in. But he greeted me with a nod and held up a case file. 

“Round table, now.” He said, and I followed him out into the bullpen. The rest of the team was already in the room, waiting for us. 

“Hello everyone. Meet a potential new member of our team, Agent [Y/N] [Y/L/N]. She’ll be joining us on this case in a probationary manner.” Hotch introduced, and I was greeted with six smiling faces. Immediately I was drawn to the most attractive man in the room. He was sitting down, but I could tell he was tall, lanky. His hair swept over his forehead perfectly. I didn’t let my attention linger there for long however, as I didn’t want to make my attraction obvious. Luckily, one of the other agents jumped in and turned me away. 

“Derek Morgan.” The muscular man to my right said, holding out a hand. I shook it with a smile. 

“David Rossi.” The next man said, again holding out a hand. Around the table they went, introducing themselves. Agent Jennifer Jareau, JJ. Agent Emily Prentiss. Penelope Garcia. Then finally - the man who had so quickly caught my eye. 

“Spencer Reid.” He said with a nod. 

“Doctor Spencer Reid.” Morgan corrected with a nudge. Reid rolled his eyes, and a flush reached his cheeks. It was cute. And he was a doctor? I might have found my dream man. 

“Nice to meet you,” I greeted, holding out a hand to shake. His flush grew deeper, and he cleared his throat. 

“The number of pathogens passed during a handshake is staggering. It's actually safer to kiss.” He informed me, nodding and smiling. I retracted my hand with a smirk. 

“If you wanted to kiss me, you could just say so.” It was out of my mouth before I could help it, the snarky retort something that I would say to any one of my friends. But I probably shouldn’t say it to someone who is technically a superior. I shut my mouth quickly and cleared my throat. Morgan let out a loud laugh, and Garcia chuckled. Reid looked shocked, his face turning a bright red and his eyes going wide. He started stuttering. 

“I-I wasn’t, that’s not-” 

“Pretty boy, stop while you’re ahead.” Morgan teased. Hotch looked at all of us disapprovingly, while Prentiss, Garcia, and JJ all smirked at Reid. 

“Sorry,” Reid coughed into his hand, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He said, looking me right in the eye. I smiled at him. 

“You didn’t.” I sat down in the only seat available, between Reid and Morgan. “Pretty boy?” I asked Morgan. Reid tried to jump in to defend himself but Morgan held up a hand to stop him. 

“I mean, am I wrong?” Morgan teased. I looked back at Reid and gave him a deliberate once-over while he blushed. It seemed he hadn’t stopped blushing since I walked in the door. Before I could answer, Hotch cleared his throat. 

“Garcia, let’s get started.” 

Reid avoided making eye contact with me throughout the whole briefing. The only time he so much as looked at me was when I brought up the fact that the unsub’s overkill could be related to abuse in his own past. He only looked at me to bring up a statistic about how most serial killers who use overkill actually know their victims. I realized I may have taken the joke too far. 

I was determined to make him more comfortable around me, as I worried that my statement from earlier had intimidated him. Even if nothing happened between the two of us, I needed him to like me. I wanted the whole team to accept me. 

~~~~

The case went swimmingly. We caught the bad guy and saved the man he had kidnapped just in the nick of time. For the entire week we had been working on the case, Reid and I had spent very little, if any, time alone. It was like he was actively avoiding me. Morgan called him ‘Pretty boy’ very often, and I learned it was just something they did. And I completely agreed with him, Reid was a very, very, pretty boy. I had to work hard to keep my eyes off of him when we were working in groups. He was just so attractive, and every rambling statistic spew made me more and more attracted to him. 

I was developing a devastating crush, and fast. 

We were boarding the plane to go home, and I purposefully sat across from Reid. Everyone else petered off to take naps, and quickly fell asleep, but not Reid. He took out a hefty novel and began reading at his exponential pace. I watched him for a few moments before taking out my laptop and browsing the internet. After I was sure everyone else on the flight was deep asleep, I shut my laptop and sighed. 

Reid looked up at the sound, and met my eyes. He made a questioning face. “Is something wrong?” He asked, lowering his book. 

“No, I just wanted to apologize.” 

“For what?” He seemed shocked, and closed his book and put it to the side. 

“For what I said at the round table. I know it made you uncomfortable, and you’ve been avoiding me this week because of it. I didn’t mean to come on so strong.” I said. His eyebrows raised, and a flush started climbing up his throat. I quickly realized the implications of what I said, and began back-tracking. “Not that I was trying to come on to you, in any way, but uhm. I especially didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

Reid nodded and took a moment to take in what I said. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable.” I could tell it was a true statement. He still wouldn’t meet my eyes, his hands twisted into each other on the table, and he seemed endlessly intrigued by their movement. But even with his body language betraying him I could hear the sincerity in his voice. 

“But you have been avoiding me?” I smirked slightly as I said it. I noticed his absence of a denial to that specific accusation. He bit down around a smile at my call out. He looked up to meet me in the eye for the first time since we met. The hazel was striking. I smirked at him. 

“I guess you could say that.” He said, letting his lips turn up. “But not for the reasons you think.” 

“For what reasons then?” I asked, intrigued. I couldn’t think of any other reason he would be avoiding me. His flush travelled up his neck to his cheeks. He coughed slightly and glanced up at me. He still wouldn’t meet my eyes, his eyes falling on my lips and then going back to his hands. 

“You-” He started but cut himself off, bunching his lips together nervously. I chuckled a little and gave him an inquisitive glance. 

“Go on, I’m curious.” I prompted. He smiled and shook his head almost imperceptibly, but I caught it. He mumbled something under his breath, speaking so fast and so low that I couldn’t make it out. I quirked my head to the side, leaning forward in my seat. “What was that?” 

“I said, uhm. You make me nervous.” He confessed, meeting my eyes quickly and then looking away again. I sat back in shock. Me? Make this man nervous? He was a literal genius, surely he knew how attractive he was. Not that I thought he was out of my league, by any means, but I expected him to be fairly confident in himself. For christ’s sake, his best friend called him ‘Pretty Boy’ more than he used his name. And yet, there was proof in front of me that the confidence I assumed he had was non existent. 

“Am I that loud?” I asked with a laugh, trying to deflect what I thought he meant by ‘nervous’. He was attracted to me, wasn’t he? I hadn’t yet decided what I wanted to do with that information. It would make sense to ask him out, but I kind of liked the idea of teasing him without his knowledge. He seemed easy to fluster, and I loved flustering people. 

He burst out laughing at that, shaking his head in disbelief. “No, no. It has nothing to do with loudness. You’re just, uhm. I’m not used to people like you.” 

“People like me?” 

He coughed into his hand and licked his lips. “Pretty. Confident. Forward.” He listed the adjectives quickly, counting them on his fingers. I smirked at his admission. 

“So you think I’m pretty?” I smirked. He stuttered, trying to backtrack, but he knew he had been caught out.

“I-I just, yes, of course! But not like.... you’re objectively attractive! And subjectively, of course, but it’s not to say that I- that you-” He stammered out. I kept smirking at him as he dug himself a bigger hole. Finally I took mercy on him, reaching across the table and placing a hand over his. 

“It’s fine, Reid. I think you’re objectively and subjectively attractive, too.” I said with a smile. His eyes shot up to meet mine, his hand flexing underneath my grip. 

“Y-You do?” My heart melted for the sweet boy in front of me. How could he not know how attractive he was? He started on another rant. “I know that, scientifically, I have good bone structure, but I’m quite awkward which usually discredits whatever symmetry my face has.” I reached out and grabbed one of his hands in mine. It barely spooked him and he kept rambling. “More symmetrical faces are typically perceived as more attractive, but you probably already knew that.” He kept glancing between my eyes and our hands. Our fingers weren’t interlaced but our palms were pressed together. 

“I did know that. I also know that you’re cute.” I squeezed his hand when he shook his head with a small smile. Suddenly I realized that our hands being together went against his no handshake rule. I went to pull away with a muttered, “Sorry-” But he just squeezed back and held me there. 

“You really think I’m cute?” He asked skeptically.

I smiled widely. “Yes, I do.” His eyebrows raised and he shook his head in disbelief. I simply grinned at him as he tried to wrap his head around the idea that I could possibly be attracted to him. It was such a sweet sentiment it made me blush. I leaned forward in my seat a bit and reached out for his other hand. I was feeling bold. “So are you gonna ask me on a date or would you rather me do it?” 

He smirked up at me shyly. “Would you like to get dinner with me when we get back?” He asked, interlacing our fingers. 

“I’d love that.” I answered, squeezing his hand. The smile he gave me was so bright and brilliant it made my own face light up. 

“Yes, Pretty Boy, get some!” Morgan said from next to us, apparently not as asleep as I had thought. I laughed out loud as Spencer flushed down to his neck. Morgan smirked and winked at the two of us. 

Our fingers stayed interlaced throughout the rest of the flight as we talked in hushed tones and got to know each other. Every word out of his mouth made me fall a little deeper, a little faster. It was way too soon to call it love, but I knew it could get there. The little seed in my heart was growing exponentially, and the way his thumb danced over my skin didn’t help it.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I always appreciate likes/reblogs/comments/etc! Also if you’d like to be added to my taglist just message me or comment on this! (If you’ve made it this far here’s a secret: there might be a sequel to this fic if enough people want it :)) 

taglist: @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto​ @rusticreid​

[freddiekluger]

Why Cap Being Internally Closeted Is Not Only Possible, But Valid Representation 

i wrote this to a lot of mitski and onsind, so you can’t blame me for any feelings that bleed through

now i don’t know if it actually exists, but i’ve heard of there being a lot of discourse surrounding the captains story arc regarding his sexuality- i believe the general gist is that having a queer character that remains closeted to themselves is either unrealistic or ‘bad’ representation, and as someone who really treasures the captain and relates to his story so far a lot, i thought i might break this down a bit. 

i’ve divded up every complaint i’ve heard about this into four main questions which i’ll be covering below the ‘keep reading’, because this is gonna be pretty comprehensive. full disclaimer i reference my experiences as an ex-evangelical non binary butch lesbian a couple times, and i spent a year studying repression and the psychological impacts of high demand sexual ethics for my graduating sociology paper, so this is coming with some background to it i swear

the big questions:

can you EVEN be gay and not know it????

but isn't this just ANOTHER coming out arc, and aren't we supposed to be moving beyond those?

but if cap can't have a relationship with a man because he's a ghost, what's the point?

since cap's dead, isn't this technically bury your gays, and isn't that bad? 

1. "but is it really possible to not know? Isn't that bad representation?"

short answer: no and no.

before i get into the validity of the captain's ignorance about his own orientation as 21st century rep, let's break down how the hell the captain can be so clearly attracted to men and still not even consider the possibility that he might be gay, as brought to you by someone who literally experienced this shit.

the captain's particular situation is both a direct result of the lack of information around human sexuality he would have had (aka clear messaging that it's actually possible for him to be attracted to men. i don't mean acceptable or allowed, i mean physically capable of happening- the idea that orientations other than heterosexual exist and are available to him, a man), and a subconscious survival mechanism. the environment in which he lives is outright hostile to gay people, while the military man identity he has constructed for himself doesn't allow for any form of deviation from societal norms, let alone one so base level and major. as a result of this killer combo of information and environment, instincts take over and the mind does it's best to repress the ‘deviant’ feelings until a. one of these two things changes, or b. the act of repression becomes so destructive and/or exhuasting that it becomes impossible to maintain. the key to maintaining a long-term state of repression of desire is diverting that energy elsewhere, and a high-demand group such as the military is the perfect place for the captain to do this (this technqiue is frequented by religions and extremist ideologies worldwide, but that’s not really what we’re here to focus on). 

while the brain is actively repressing ‘deviant’ feelings (aka gay shit), this doesn't mean you don't experience the feelings at all. when performed as a subconscious act of survival, the aim of repression is to minimise/transform the feelings into a state where they can no longer cause immediate danger, and something as big as sexual/romantic orientation is going to keep popping up, but as long as the individual in question never understands what they’re feeling, they’ll be able to continue relatively undisturbed. you know how in heist movies, the leader of the group will only tell each team member part of the plan so they can’t screw things up for everyone else if they get caught? it’s kind of like that.

this is how the captain appears to have operated in life AND in death, and it’s a relatively common experience for lgbtq people who’ve grown up in similar circumstances (aka with a lack of information and in an unfriendly-to-hostile environment), and accounts for how some people can even go on to get married and have children before realising that they’re gay and/or trans. 

personally, while i can now identify what were strong homo crushes all the way back to childhood, at the time i genuinely had no idea. there was the underlying sense that i probably shouldn't tell people how attached i was to these girls because i would seem weird, and that my feelings were stronger than the ones other people used to describe friendships, but like-like them in the way that other girls like-liked boys? no way! actually scratch that, it wasn't even a no way, because i had no idea that i even could. i even had my own havers, at least in terms of the emotional hold and devotion she got from me, except she treated me way less well than cap’s beau. snatches of the existence of lgbt people made it through the cone of silence, i definitely heard the words gay and lesbian, but my levels of informations mirrored those that the captain would have had: virtually none, beyond the idea that these words exist, some people are them, and that's not something that we support or think is okay, so let's just not speak about it. despite only attending religious schools for the first couple years of primary, until i got my own technology and social media accounts to explore lgbtq content on my own- option a out of the two catalysts for change- the possibility of me being gay was not at all on my radar. don’t even get me started on how long it took me to explore butchness and my overall gender, two things which now feel glaringly obvious. 

when shit starts to break down, you can also make the conscious choice to repress which can delay the eventual smashing down of the mental closet door for a time (essentially when the closet door starts to open, you just say ‘no thanks’ and shut it again by pointedly Not Thinking About It). in the abscence of identifying yourself by your attractions, it becomes quite common to identify with a lack- in my case, this meant becoming proud of how sensible and not boy crazy i was, and in the captain’s case, this means becoming proud of how sensible and not sensuous/wild (aka woman crazy) he was, identifying with his LACK of desire for women and partying (which, even in the 40s, involved the expectation of opposite sex romances and hook ups). i’m not saying that’s the only reason he’s a rule follower, but i think the contrast between About Last Night and Perfect Day pretty much support this. (the captain getting on his high horse about general party antics that he inherently felt excluded from because of underlying awareness of his difference & his tendency to project his regimented expectations of himself onto others, vs. joining in the reception party, awareness of how the environment supports difference in the form of clare and sam, and relaxing his own rules by dancing with men- the captain doesn’t mind a party when feels like he has a place there.)

so the captain was operating in a high demand, highly regulated environment (primarily the military, but also early 20th century England itself), with regimented roles, rules, and expectations. working on the assumption that he wouldn't have had out/disclosing lgbt friends, he would have had little to no exposure to lgbt identities, and what information he did receive would have been hushed and negatively geared. while my world started to open up when i started high school was allowed to have my own phone + instagram account, resulting in me realising something wasn't quite 'right' within a few years (making me a relatively early realiser compared to those who don't come out to themselves until adulthood), in life the captain never had that experience. he didn't receive the information he needed, his environment didn't grow less hostile. with the near-exception of havers related heartbreak, his well disciplined and lifelong method of repression never became destructive/exhaustive enough to permanently override the danger signals in his mind and allow him to put his feelings into words. neither of the most common catalysts for change happened for him, so he continued as usual, even after his death.

BUT, and here’s where we come to why this is actually great representation, arrival of mike and Alison represents the opening up of new world. for the first time, the captain is actively made aware of the fact that his environment is no longer hostile, and better than that, it’s affirming. he’s also getting access to positively geared information about lgbtq people and identities, so option a of the two catalysts for change is absolutely present, and resoundingly positive. 

the captain’s arc is also relatively unique as it acknowledges the oppressive nature of his environment, but actually focuses on the internal consequences, and the way that systems like those that the captain lived in succeed because they turn us into our own oppressors. for whatever reason, we repress ourseslves, and often can’t help it, and i find that the significance of the journey to overcome that is often overlooked in more mainstream queer media. perhaps it’s just not very cinematic, or it remains too confronting for cishet audiences, but ghosts manages to touch on it with a lovely amount of humour and hope. Jamie Babbit’s But I’m A Cheerleader is another favourite piece of queer media for the same reasons.

not only does it show this, but as the captain continues to get gayer and lean into some of his less conventional traits (like an interest in fashion and the wedding planning), it shows lgbt people who have been or are going through this that there CAN be a positive outcome. it takes a lot to unlearn all the things that have painted you as wrong, especially when a massive institution is desperate to continue doing so, but you can do it, you can be happy, and it's never too late. (i've been meaning to say that last point for ages for ages, but a mutual beat me to it here)

2. not just another coming out arc

i absolutely support the demand for queer stories that don’t center around coming out (it’s like shrodinger’s queer: if you’re not coming out on screen, do you really even exist?), but i don’t align with the criticisms that the captain should already be out. for the reasons mentioned above, the captain’s particular story is fairly different to the ‘young white teenager who mostly knows gay is fine, it’s just everyone else that’s got the problem, but have a unremarkably straight sounding soundtrack, a trauma porn romance, and a cishet saviour’ that we keep seeing. the captain’s ongoing journey with his sexuality emphasises the overaching theme of the show: recovering from trauma and humanity’s endless capacity for growth, and i think that’s worth showing over and over again until it stops being true.

additionally, while the captain’s journey regarding his gayness is a big part of his character and story, ghosts makes it clear that it’s not the ONLY part, and being gay is far from his ONLY characteristic or dramatic/comedic engine. the fact that i’m even having to congratulate ghosts for doing that really shows how much film and television is struggling huh.

while all queer media is, and should be, subject to criticism, i think if it helps even one person then it absolutely deserves to exist, and i can say i’ve found the captain’s journey to be the lgbt story i’ve found that’s closest to my own, which says a lot considering he’s a dead world war 2 soldier who hangs out with other ghosts including a slutty Tory, a georgian noblewoman, and a literal caveman. 

3. if captain gay, why he no have boyfriend???? 

another complaint that’s been circulating is that since the captain doesn’t, and likely won’t, have a boyfriend, that makes him Bad Representation because it follows the sad single gay trope. i kind of get the logic from this one, and a lot of it is up to personal interpretation, but part of me really enjoys the fact that the captain’s journey towards accepting himself is separated from having a relationship.

coming out is often paired with having romantic/sexual relationships (either as the reason or reward for doing so). my own struggle with repression didn't end the second that came out, and i still struggle with letting myself develop & acknowledge romantic feelings as a result of actively shutting them (and most other feelings in general) down for years, and statistics show that lgbtq youth in particular tend not to live out their 'teen years' until their twenties. by not giving cap a relationship straight away, ghosts separates the act of claiming identity and sexual orientation from finding a partner (two things which are, more often than not, separate), and also provides some very nice validation to folks who have yet to have the relationship they want, especially when lots of mainstream queer media is now jumping on the cishet media bandwagon of acting as if every person loses their virginity and has a life defining relationship at sixteen. it’s essentially a continuation of the earlier theme of “it’s never too late”, and who’s to say the captain won’t get a gay bear ghost boyfriend to go haunt nazis with??? people die all the time, it could happen.

(also, i think him and julian will have definitely shagged at least once. it was a low moment for both of them and they refuse to speak of it.)

lots of asexual/ace spectrum fans have come out to say how much they’ve loved being able to headcanon cap as ace, and while that’s not a headcanon i personally have, i think it’s brilliant that ace fans feel seen by his character- we’re all in this soup together babey (and sorry for cursing everyone still reading this with that cap/julian headcanon. i’m just a vessel)

4. “okay, but cap’s a GHOST- doesn’t that make this Bury Your Gays?”

this is a bit of a complex one, but i’m going to say no as a result of the following break down.

Bury Your Gays (BYG), aka the trope where lgbtq characters are consistently killed off (and often with a heavy dose of trauma, while cishet characters survive) is probably one of my least favourite lgbt media tropes. BYG has two main points:

1. the lgbt character is killed, thus removing them from story entirely- hence the use of the phrase ‘killed OFF’ (killed off of the show/film)

2. the character’s death reinforces the perception that lgbtq people’s lives must end in tragedy, instead of being long and fulfilling, or are inherently less valuable. bonus points if the character is killed in a hate crime or confesses same-gender love right before they die (that one implies that queer love genuinely has no future!)

not every death of an lgbtq character is bury your gays, and i personally feel that the captain is an example of an lgbt death that isn’t. 

first of all, while the captain is dead, so are the vast majority of characters in ghosts. the premise of the show means that death is not the end of the line for its characters- for most of them, it’s the only reason we get to see them on screen at all. as such, the captain being dead doesn’t remove him from the story, so point one is irrelevant.

at the time of posting, we don’t know how or why the captain died, but we've had nothing to suggest his death was in any way related to his latent sexuality, so his mysterious death doesn’t actively play into the supposedly inherent tragedy of queer lives, nor the supposedly lesser value. that’s as of right now- since we don’t know the circumstances of his death it’s a little tough to analyse properly. while the captain’s life absolutely features missed opportunities and it’s fair share of tragedy, hope and growth (which seems to be the theme of this post) abounds in equal measure. the captain may not be alive, but we DO get to see him growing and having a relatively happy existence, that for the most part seems to be getting even better as he learns to open up and be himself unapologetically- that doesn’t feel like BYG to me.

while writng this, it’s just occured to me that death really is a second chance for most of the ghosts, especially with the introduction of alison. from mary learning to read, to thomas finding modern music, they’ve all been given the chance explore things they never could have while they were alive, and hopefully grow enough to one day be sucked off move on.

in conclusion,

i love the captain very much and i hope his arc lives up to the standards it’s set so far. i don’t know where to put this in this post, but i’d alo like to say i LOVE how in Perfect Day, the captain wasn’t used as an educational experienced for fanny at all. i am very tired of people expecting me to be the walking talking homophobe educator and rehabilitator, so the fact that it’s alison and the other ghosts that call fanny out while the captain just gets to have fun with the wedding organisation made me very happy.

here’s a few other cap posts that i’ve done:

the captain’s arc if adam and the film crew stayed

a possible cap coming out 

the captain backstory headcanon

if you’ve read this far,

thank you!

also check out @alex-ghosts-corner , this post inspired me very much to write this

[dramaticviolincrescendo]

So. Ryan.

I’m going back to s4 for a minute because the wonderful @damngcoffee and I were discussing fleeting yet fascinating Ryan, and I wanted to put my thoughts out into the universe. I hope you don’t mind.

I’ve never thought too deeply about the dynamic between Ian and Ryan before. Even in planning out “In Pieces,” analyzing Ryan’s motives wasn’t strictly necessary because it’s not really something Ian would pick up on based on his perspective in this situation. Ostensibly, it’s quite simple: during his club days, Ian is swinging with a new and visibly elegant circle in a drastically different part of society than he grew up in. That’s why Mickey is so out of his element there, whereas Ian expertly camouflages himself the way he always has. On the surface, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Just a party. Just Ian, manic and feeling on top of the world and in his element. Just another red flag missed amidst a sea of them. What happens at the party, however, really seems to potentially indicate that there’s more to this and more to Ryan as a character than merely acting as a clever setup for Mickey to indicate that he and Ian are officially in a relationship.

Up to that point, all we’ve seen surrounding Ian from Mickey’s point of view are real slime balls—older men preying on someone that they don’t necessarily realize is underage, but they definitely know is very, very young and vulnerable. There’s the lap dance guy, the one who can’t run to save his life, and the dude who’s just asking for his fingers to be broken one by one. Mickey alludes to two in particular over breakfast that first morning, and when Ian mentions a regular inviting them to a party, Mickey is focused on a rather specific image of what one of Ian’s regulars must be like.

Then they go to Ryan’s loft, and...it’s classy. Sophisticated. This isn’t a raucous after-party, but a very different atmosphere, full of upper-middle to upper-class ladies and gentlemen who are clearly professionals. Many of them are in suits or dressed nicely, having a late-night drink and speaking tastefully. They’re also substantially older than Ian and Mickey, who are only nearing seventeen and nineteen respectively at the time. These people have careers and, in the case of the sociologist Mickey speaks with, are working on advanced degrees. The only visible drugs are the ones on the table in front of Ian while he’s asleep the following morning. This isn’t the kind of party that we’d expect, knowing where Ian is mentally at this time like we do.

We tend to focus a lot on what Mickey’s response to all this is, but I’d like to use it as a diving board for analyzing a few dimensions of Ryan’s character that appear to indicate that, through the encroaching darkness of Ian’s as yet unacknowledged illness, there are people who are possibly watching out for him. So, here are a few things that stand out about our encounters at Ryan’s loft:

Ian says that Ryan is one of his “regulars.” Based on what we’ve seen so far, this immediately has us thinking there’s a level of sexual interest on Ryan’s side, even if only as something of a voyeur who enjoys watching Ian dance at the club. There’s no physical manifestation of that interest, though. Ryan noticeably doesn’t behave like the skeevy guys we’ve already seen, Ned included. That doesn’t exclusively mean that he’s on the up-and-up, of course, but I found it worth noting that their hug is just a hug, and he doesn’t step out of his role as a cordial host for a second. He treats Ian the same as he treats Mickey: with kindness and social acceptance, albeit with more familiarity. And when Ian goes with him to see what drinks are available, there aren’t any apparent undertones. Ryan immediately heads towards the open kitchen, and Ian follows at a polite distance. Host and attendee—those are our initial vibes as far as Ryan is concerned. It’s jarringly different from our other forays into Ian’s current lifestyle.

Enter the sociologist. What a fascinating individual for Ryan to interact with. He immediately asks if Mickey is with Ian, which is nothing special in itself and serves as a way to engage Mickey in conversation without simply asking what he does. The fact that he moves into that, however, is very interesting to me because he’s so straightforward about it. It’s not an interrogation, yet there’s an element of investigation to it. Perhaps he’s just a curious guy making conversation with someone who looks uncomfortable; perhaps he’s familiar with Ian from these parties and is doing a bit of research into who it is that Ian brought with him, as it is arguably the first time that’s happened. Either way, what he says that he’s studying is a “blink and you’ll miss it” sort of reference. It also flies under the radar for anyone who isn’t familiar with the field of sociology. We end up like Mickey: lost and confused by “transgender sex work and symbolic interactionism within the framework of hustler-client relations,” but generally understanding that he’s studying sex workers and pimps—emphasis on the sex workers. Something we know Ian was at the time, working the front and back of the club as he later admits.

Now, for the uninitiated, symbolic interactionism is a theoretical perspective in the field of sociology that focuses on how our social interactions with other people, social institutions, and the world around us both facilitate our construction of reality and alter or solidify our perceptions of our existing reality. While there are many directions his study may be taking him in, this sociologist is writing a dissertation on the meaning that is made between hustlers and clients—what symbols emerge that define each side, their roles, their meaning to one another, the dissemination of the values and norms that guide their relationships, etc. In short, he’s studying the socially constructed meaning of the relationship that specifically transgender sex workers and pimps have with each other and their clients.

On the surface, that has no bearing on this situation. Mickey’s confused, and it’s an ironic bit of writing to connect him to this group he’s uncomfortable with by showing that South Side Mickey is the pimp that the upper classes of society are studying for their Ph.D. It’s pure satire, a brief commentary on just how different classes of society can be and perhaps even a nod to how lower classes are inside the fishbowl that upper classes are peering into but will never truly experience. To the viewer, however, what a sign that may be, depending on your interpretation. Ian has clearly been around this group of people enough that he’s known. They’re familiar enough with him to say that he’s great and how lucky Mickey is to have him. If Ryan is one of Ian’s regulars, then they know where he came from. They know he’s young, and they know what he does for a living right now. There’s no way this sociologist—studying what he’s studying, asking what he’s asking—doesn’t have some professional interest in Ian’s circumstances. Enough, perhaps, to check in on who this person he’s brought with him is. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t read so much into that, but this isn’t the only time it happens.

The next morning, Ian is asleep and Ryan chooses to wake Mickey first. He knows Mickey wasn’t comfortable with him the night before, which I thought he handled with a lot of grace and good-humor. In most cases, I’d expect more disdain, but not with Ryan. It’s interesting, then, that he didn’t go to Ian first given their familiarity. Sure, he knows Ian worked the night prior. He may just have impeccable manners and want Ian to sleep a bit longer. If he’s a regular, he knows Ian needs it. (He probably also sees the drugs on his coffee table and figures he definitely needs it, but I digress.)

So, he wakes Mickey. He makes a casual joke. Then, when Mickey says he’s not Ian’s keeper, his demeanor shifts just slightly. His expression grows hesitant—tentative, like he’s been meaning to ask something but hasn’t quite worked up to it. For someone who should just be a regular, who shouldn’t care much outside of Ian dancing, whose interest has been that of a polite acquaintance thus far, his gaze is more intent than I’d have expected as he waits for Mickey to tell him if he’s a boyfriend or if he’s someone who is a one-night deal. Are they together, or is Mickey just a fleeting fancy for Ian?

Are they together, or is Mickey taking advantage of this very, very young sex worker that Ryan has conveniently invited to his home after work instead of him going home with some stranger?

Are they together, or is Mickey some stranger?

When Mickey says they’re together, the intensity ebbs and casual Ryan is back. He offers a contented reply and heads off to get breakfast for Mickey, still not knowing what Ian wants. If that was his prime motivation for approaching them in the first place, wouldn’t he have woken Ian up at that point? Wouldn’t he have completed his task of taking breakfast orders? It makes me wonder if that’s not why he woke Mickey at all. It makes for a good excuse when he was delivering food to others who stayed overnight, but the more I rewatch their interactions, and the more I read into how dissonant his position as “a regular” and his behavior are, the more I wonder if there’s something else to Ryan.

A regular who doesn’t seem all that interested in Ian as anything other than an acquaintance—a person, not a dancer or object like literally everyone else in Ian’s new life that we’ve seen so far.

An engineer and photographer Ian says with absolute certainty doesn’t want or expect anything from him.

A professional with professional friends who are studied in the fields of sociology and sex work.

A man somewhat older than them who checks in with Mickey—after someone else has already done so and discovered that their sex worker guest is there with a self-proclaimed pimp—to inquire after his relationship with Ian in a relatively non-invasive manner.

Ian was taken advantage of by so many people as a kid and especially during his initial spiral. I’ve always thought of this as being a lonely time for him even though he certainly felt like he was a part of everything and surrounded by all the wonders of the world. He abandoned the military and his dreams. He flitted into and out of Ned’s home. Monica flitted into and out of his life yet again. His family wasn’t looking until Lip’s hands were tied by the MPs, and even then they were almost immediately distracted by the situation with Fiona and Liam. Mickey was married and seemingly out of reach. He’d left his friends and connections behind.

But maybe, just maybe, there was a guy who saw him at work and saw him. Maybe there was a guy who was a little older, a little more educated, and a little more savvy about the scene Ian was involved in when he noticed this kid dancing on a stage in a place he had no business going to.

And maybe this guy decided that he’d look out for this kid who was in way over his head, indirect and not at all obvious about it, yet someone who cared at a time when Ian unknowingly and unintentionally had to rely on the kindness of strangers.

[cardentist]

this isn’t a proper discourse post, I Agree with a lot of what the op said but there’s specific things about it that get under my skin in a way that makes me want to talk about it, but I don’t want to engage with that post both because I don’t want to speak over the point that’s being made and frankly because I don’t want to be misinterpreted because of the point that’s being made in it.

so for context, I’ll just say that it was a long post about how a lack of engagement with women characters in fandom spaces is tied to misogyny. just be aware that I’m responding to something specific and not criticisms of this in general. (feel free to dm me if you want to see the post for yourself)

the rest of this is going to be rambly and a bit unfocused, so I want to get this out the door right at the top: it is not actually someone’s moral obligation to engage with or create fan content. all other points aside, what this amounts to is labeling people as bigoted for either not creating or engaging with content that you want to see, and while the individual may or may not be a bigot it’s not actually anyone’s job to tailor their fandom experience to cater to you. 

fandom is not activism. it’s not Wrong to point out that a lack of content about women in fandom is likely indicative of the influence of our misogynistic society. and suggesting that people examine their internalized biases isn’t just fine, it’s something that everyone should be doing all the time. but saying that it is literally someone’s “responsibility” to “make an effort” by consuming content about women or they’re bigoted is presenting the consumption of fan content as a moral litmus test that you pass and fail not by how you engage with content but by not engaging with all of the Correct content. 

judging people’s morality based on what characters they read meta for or look at fanart for is, a mistake. it Can Be Indicative of internalized biases but it is not, in and of itself, a moral failing that has to be corrected.

if you want more content to be created about women in fandom then you do it by spreading content about women in fandom, not by guilting people into engaging with it by saying that they’re bigots if they don’t. you encourage creation Through creation.

okay, now to address what Mainly set me off to inspire this post.

this post specifically went out of it’s way to present misogyny as the only answer for why this problem exists in fandom spaces. and while I absolutely agree that it’s a Factor, they left absolutely no room for nuance which included debunking “common excuses.” which, as you can probably guess, contained the things that ticked me off.

first off, you can’t judge that someone is disconnected from women in general based on their fandom consumption because the sum total of their being is not available on tumblr. 

people don’t always bear their souls in fandom spaces. just because they don’t actively post about a character or Characters doesn’t mean that they see them as lesser or that they don’t think about them. the idea that you can tell what a person’s moral beliefs are not based on what they’ve said or done but based on whether they engage with specific characters in a specific way in a specific space can Only work on the assumption that they engage with that space in a way that expresses the entirety of who they are or even their engagement with that specific media.

what I engage with on ao3 is different from what I engage with on tumblr, youtube, twitter, my friend’s dms, and my own head. people are going to engage with social media and fandom spaces specifically differently for different reasons. you can’t assume what the other parts of their lives look like based on this alone. 

second off, there can be other factors at play that influence people’s specific engagement with a fandom.

they specifically brought up the magnus archives as an example of a show with well written women. which while absolutely true, does Not mean that misogyny is the only option for why people wouldn’t engage with content about them as often. for me personally? a lot of fan content is soured because of how it presents jon. I relate to him very heavily as a neurodivergent and traumatized person, and he faces a Lot of victim blaming and dehumanization in the writing. sasha and martin are more or less the only main characters that Aren’t guilty of this, and sasha was out of the picture after season 1.

while this affects my enjoyment of fan content for these characters To Some Extent on it’s own (I love georgie, I love her a lot, but I can’t forget that she looked at someone and told them that they were better off dead because they couldn’t “choose” to not be abused), the bigger issue is fan content that Specifically doesn’t address the victim blaming and ableism as what it is, even presenting it as just Correct. 

this isn’t exclusive to the women in the show by any means, this is exactly why I avoid a lot of content about tim, but it affects a lot of the women who are main characters. that isn’t the Only reason, there’s more casual ableism and things that tear him down for other reasons (the prevalent theory that elias passed up on sasha because he’s afraid of how she’s More Competent In Jon In Every Single way. which comes with the unfortunate implications of jon being responsible for his own trauma because he just wasn’t competent enough to avoid it) but that’s the main one that squicks me out.

of course not all fan content does this, and I Do engage with content about these characters, but sometimes it’s easier to just stick with content that centers on my comfort character because it’s more likely to look at his character with the nuance required to see that it is victim blaming and ableism. 

it’s not enough to say that the characters are well rounded or well written and conclude that if someone isn’t consuming or creating content about them then it has to be due to misogyny and nothing else.

there’s also just like, the Obvious answer. two most prominent characters are two men that are in a canonical gay relationship, which draws in queer men/masc people on it’s own but the centering of their othering and trauma Particularly draws in traumatized queer people that are starved for content. georgie and melanie are both fleshed out characters in and of themselves, but their relationship with each other doesn’t have nearly as much direct screen time. and daisy and basira have a lot more screen time together and about each other, but their relationship is very intentionally non-canon because of its role as a commentary on cop pack mentality.

people are More Likely to create content for the more prominent relationship in the show and be drawn into the fandom through that relationship in the first place. I have no doubt that there Are misogynistic fans of the show, but focusing on the relationship and the characters that make you happy isn’t and indication that you’re one of them.

which brings us to the big one, the one that sparked me into writing this in the first place (and the last that I have time for if I’m being honest). the “common excuses” section in general is, extremely dismissive obviously but there’s only one section that genuinely upsets me. 

without copying and pasting what they said directly, it essentially boils down to this: while they recognize that gay and trans men are “allowed” to relate to men, they’re still Men which makes them misogynistic. Rather than acknowledge Why gay and trans men would engage with fan-content specifically that caters to them they present it as a given that it’s 100% due to misogyny anyways. they present queer men engaging with content about themselves as them treating women like they’re “unworthy of attention,” calling it a “patriarchal tendency” that they have to unlearn.

being gay and trans does not mean that you’re immune to misogyny, being a woman doesn’t even mean that you’re immune to misogyny, but that’s engaging in bad faith in a way that really puts a bad taste in my mouth. 

queer men aren’t just like, Special Men that have Extra Bonus Reasons to be relate to boys, they’re people who are more likely to Need fandom spaces to explore facets of themselves. and while you can Relate to any character, it feels good to be able to explore those aspect with characters that resemble you or how you see yourself.

when I first started actively seeking out fandom spaces in middle school I engaged with content about queer men more or less exclusively. at this point I had no concept of what trans people were, and wouldn’t begin openly considering that I might be a trans person until high school. I knew that I’d be happier as a gay man before I knew I could be a gay man, and that’s affected my relationship with fandom forever. 

I engage with most things pretty casually, reblogging meta and joke posts when I see them, but what I go out of my way to engage with is largely an expression of my gender identity and sexuality. I project myself onto a comfort character and then I Consume content for them because that was how I was able to express myself before I knew that I needed to. it’s not that girl characters aren’t “worthy” of me relating to them, it’s that I specifically go to certain fandom spaces to express and work through my gender and sexuality. that’s what I use those fandom spaces For.

I imagine that I’ll need this crutch less when I’m allowed to transition and if I ever find a relationship situation that works out for me. but also like, why should I? it’s not actually hurting anyone for me to explore my gender and sexuality through fanfic until the end of time. nor does it hurt anyone for me to focus on my comfort characters. 

fandom is personal comfort and entertainment, not a moral obligation. people absolutely should engage with women in media and real life with more nuance and energy than they do, but fandom spaces are not the place to police or judge that. 

[davidmann95]

Hey David? Why is ours such a cruel and merciless God?

mirrorfalls said: (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your inbox should be filling up with more specific deets riiiiight about now.)

cheerfullynihilistic said: THE SNYDER CUT

Anonymous said: You don’t seem to think Superman’s public rep will take another beating from the Snyder Cut coming out. Honestly I thought you’d be way more upset than you seemed on Twitter.

Anonymous said: So uhh, against all thoughts and logic the Snyder cut is being released? Maybe as a mini series? Thoughts?

Anonymous said: SNYDER CUT!

Bullies. Jocks. Guys angrily asking if we know who their father is. Assorted dudebro nerd-oppressors of America:

You have failed us. You have failed us so hard. What else do we even keep you around for if not to head this shit off at the pass? Shame on you.

Okay, so seriously: I’m actually gonna put most bitching and moaning under a cut, because I know firsthand there are as many as several non-slavering maniacs out there who dug Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and who are simply and entirely reasonably excited that they’re getting this movie after all. I don’t feel like throwing a wall of text at them shitting all over this, so I’ll lead off with I think some fairly even-handed commentary on the real-world circumstances here, rambling speculation regarding the production, and some cautious optimism about the actual movie/s. THEN I’ll get to what I imagine most of you are here to see.

So totally in a vacuum: this is a cool, good thing. I’m the notorious theatrical Justice League-liker, but at best it was a compromised product due to the original creator - who like it or not clearly had an incredibly ambitious personal vision for these characters and their world - suffering a horrific tragedy forcing him off the project, and leaving his final stamp on blockbuster culture and a world he’d devoted years of his life to a flop with his name on it when he couldn’t even truly call it his own anymore. At worst, said tragedy was taken advantage of by suits to ditch him in the home stretch so as to try and shove out something ostensibly more marketable. But now because of a...very loyal fanbase, the man’s getting the opportunity and resources to rise like a phoenix and see at least some of his vision through in a huge way. That’s pretty remarkable.

Not in a vacuum this is fucking horrifying. I’ve already seen folks poo-poohing the reflexive fears that this will ‘set a precedent’, and they were right enough that I deleted my initial tweet on the subject because I didn’t think I could express my own opinion with any nuance in the space of 280 characters. Yeah, nerd whining definitely shaped Rise of Skywalker (another movie I enjoyed in spite of the circumstances of its creation). Hell, Sonic the Hedgehog crunched its CGI team prior to unceremoniously firing them to redesign his model thanks to outcry. That’s already a market force, and just to be clear upfront, if we can’t agree the predominant mode of operation for #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a toxic nerd harassment campaign when they spammed posts memorializing deceased actors and chased Diane Nelson off Twitter, we’re not gonna be able to have this conversation. And director’s cuts are you may have noticed also already a thing. But this isn’t changing direction on a project that’s already going to exist no matter what, this is turning back 3 years later on a commercial flop and dumping tens of millions of dollars into it, explicitly in response to that harassment campaign. It’s not *actually* going back and, say, remaking The Last Jedi, but by god to the naked eye it’s gonna be as good as for plenty of fanboys, and probably to some shortsighted execs as well. This is a new thing, and in this context it is a very, very bad one. Hopefully one that won’t amount to anything.

As for the movie itself: what the hell is this thing going to end up being? I assume with this sort of cashola being pumped into it we’re not getting any slapdash greenscreen or storyboarded sequences, but four hours? Is it really just going to be an expanded and revised version of what we saw in theaters, or is this including content that would have been in the originally planned Justice Leagues 2 and 3? My understanding is that those were already compressed into a single Justice League 2 before plans collapsed altogether, were they maybe filming side-by-side and this’ll be the whole shebang? If not is Snyder going to hedge his bets and end this on a clean note, or keep it ending on a cliffhanger in hopes HBO will throw another $250 million his way to keep going? Does DC want to keep going? Would they give into fan pressure on releasing after all what was widely publicized as the first film of a duology or trilogy with dangling threads if they weren’t going to be at least watching the numbers to see the feasibility of returning to this in a bigger way? Not that I think WB execs would piss into Snyder’s mouth if he were dying of thirst at this point if he simply asked to be able to do Justice League 2, but if he floated that if they instead just give him a liiiiiiiitle more money he can finally deliver unto them their very own Avengers - one that they can work on even during quarantine since it’s mostly just VFX work left - and hey if it works out he’s got a sequel or two cued up and ready to go? Maybe they look at their scattered plans and say the hell with it and end up giving this a theatrical release and sequel with Snyder holding the reigns again if this ends up a killer app; stranger things have happened, if not many, and somehow this is already happening in the first place after all. Alternatively, if this succeeds, could they go “thanks and good on ya, totally do another, but it’s gonna be an HBO exclusive so you’re only getting a hundred million, figure it out”? Would Ben Affleck return? How much reshooting will he be willing to commit to even for this? And most importantly, since this is potentially going to be serialized as six ‘episodes’, will We Got This Covered count this as another ‘win’ since their bullshit rumor mill algorithm spit out “Justice League HBO TV show” recently?

As for the project itself: I ain’t subscribing to HBOMax for this bad boy, but once it becomes more widely available I can’t claim I won’t probably watch it. It’s basically a new movie about the Justice League, and if there’s anything I WOULD wanna see Zack Snyder do in the DCU, it’s the movie finally moving past pseudo-realism (aside from some of those dopey costumes) and leaning all the way into godlike superbeings bludgeoning each other through continents. I absolutely wanna see his aesthetic take on the Green Lantern Corps, and New Genesis, and time travel, and all the other weird promises of where his movies were going to go climaxing in a ridiculous super-war across all spacetime. It’s the same reason J.G. Jones was an exciting choice for Final Crisis before he had to leave, seeing a guy known for his work in an ultra-real grungy superhero style starting there and building up to seeing his version of absolutely wild cosmic spectacle. And no, to respond to one of the initial asks, I’m not worried about the impact on Superman. Everyone seems to have accepted this is its own distinct thing whether they like it or not, I think him getting to complete his ‘arc’ will quiet down many of the folks who like to yell at every other version as retro nonsense since now they’ll be able to be smug about having had the best take rather than pining for a lost finale, and I’m not interested in further Superman movies at the moment anyway with Superman & Lois in the pipe (which I was originally paranoid would be endangered by this when rumors first started floating, but if it’s been brewing since November then if they wanted to strike that down to ‘make room’ according to their Byzantine ever-shifting rules, they would have by now). Far as I’m concerned, as long as the other DC movies get to keep doing what they’re doing during and past this - even Pattinson in his corner, however that works - then totally let Snyder work out all his Wagnerian superhero bullshit for another flick or two. If nothing else, maybe we’ll learn what the hell that diagram up there is supposed to mean. And a plea I want to clarify upfront is wholeheartedly sincere: we’re already down the rabbit hole, so let Snyder to literally whatever he wants with his non-theatrically released Justice League. Zero input or veto power from outside parties. If he wants Flash to hang dong or Superman to say fuck or Batman to learn he’s Steppenwolf’s secret dad or Cyborg to learn he needs to eat babies to fuel his machine parts, let him go for it. Whole point is this is now his thing for people who want his thing.

Okay, beneath the cut the filter comes off, so go ahead if that’s your jam.

Hahahahahahaha this is gonna be such a fuckin’ shitshow you guys, Jesus Christ.

They’re giving the dude who did BvS and wants to make an Ayn Rand adaptation someday $30 million to take another crack at this monstrosity! 30 goddamn million smackaroos for four fucking hours of by many accounts roughly the same basic movie, except now presumably with what little coherency, fun, and clean character work the theatrical cut managed to pull off excised in return for weighty staring, ponderous pseudo-philosophical musings, hackneyed symbolism, aimless mythology teasing, and Steppenwolf I understand being decapitated by Wonder Woman at the end rather than taken back to Apokolips. I didn’t even spoiler mark that shit because don’t you dare pretend you care about the fate of Steppenwolf. I won’t have it.

I used to wonder if I was indeed missing the forest for the trees with these movies, that I was so inflexible in my personal image of these characters - even though I appreciate plenty of alternate takes on them and even some stories that bend or break what I consider their ‘rules’, just not these - that I was incapable of grasping or appreciating these films on their own merits as works of art using those archetypes in wildly different ways; even I could see there were good moments and interesting ideas on display despite seemingly failing to come together. No matter how much I personally deconstructed how and why it wasn’t working, I couldn’t do it to my own satisfaction to the point of stamping out that niggling little worry with how many folks whose opinions I respect love ‘em. Until I finally remembered that the Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is totally the same basic story as BvS, centrally driven by an even worse take on Superman, and that’s still one of the best superhero stories of all time. These just stink by any merits, and while I think Justice League absolutely has the potential to be the most *entertaining* of the bunch, it’s not going to magically become *good* in the eleventh hour. Not to lift up Joss Whedon of all people as some kind of savior, I’m on the record that my love for Justice League as-is is some kind of inexplicable alchemical accident, but I promise that there is not going to be one single addition to this movie that’s going to make up for the removal of “Just save one person”.

Also I’m already not looking forward to dudes tweeting “whoa, he’s splitting it up into a serialized narrative, reflective of the sequential nature of the characters’ primitive native pictorial medium! Or mayhap in ode to the pulp film adventure serials which inspired those in turn! Even the Justice League children’s cartoon for dumb babies, which was itself...made up of episodes! That’s three references in the structure of the thing alone! The man’s operating on an entirely different level!” “God, isn’t it amazing how much better he understands the source material than you”, they shall say, about a man who I understand just very confidently referred to Doomsday in his livestream as having destroyed Krypton in the comics. Again, don’t you say they won’t, just the other day I saw folks tweeting they just realized that since Jor-El wears armor over his bodysuit that technically means Superman’s whole costume is underwear which means Snyder’s totally honoring that without putting him in ugly dumb red panties so checkmate, dorks.

(Okay, in fairness, I know Snyder was saying that’s his take on what happened to the moon in the past of the movies and maybe I only misheard that he thought that also happened in the comics, and it’s trivial information anyway. Still sucks though, that seeming out-of-nowhere Jax-Ur shoutout was like the one thing I liked about that otherwise interminable Krypton sequence. And why is there a second Doomsday? You did Death of Superman already!)

And further SPOILER thoughts below on the reported plots of 2 and 3:

It’s also an amazing, perfect sort of narrative synchronicity that the hypocrisy of Man of Steel in presenting Superman as a savior would (will?) be matched by the movies also rejecting that promise long-term. In there, Jor-El’s musings on the capacity of every living thing being capable of good, the closest the film has to a singular moral statement, are proven wrong when Zod has to be put down like a mad dog, and rather than the one who’ll bring us into the sun, Kal-El’s presence draws ruin from beyond the stars to our world. And again in BvS with Doomsday. And again in Justice League 1-3, where in spite of claims by Snydercutters that it’s okay for Superman to be a really lousy take on Superman because it’s totally supposed to take several movies after putting on the costume and calling himself Superman, including his own death and resurrection, for him to really, like, become Superman, man, he remains a liability to the end. His death lures in Steppenwolf, the Kryponian matrix in his genes is Darkseid’s goal, he becomes the villain of the first act of Justice League 3 - possibly of his own free will depending on which version you’ve heard about - and at the final showdown, it’s Batman who sacrifices himself to stop Darkseid and save the world and inspire the rise of superheroism, because Batman, you see, rules, whereas Superman, stay with me here, drools. A letdown given BvS was just about the one major story of the last 30 years to unambiguously conclude Superman is better than Batman, but not a shocker. None of what I understand goes down in these - iconography from the likes of Fourth World, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death and Return of Superman, Rock of Ages, Final Crisis, and Injustice reused but stripped of all context and thematic weight that gives it meaning (even Injustice is built on the premise of having a ‘good’ Superman to contrast the dictator); Lois being the ‘key’ because of her connections to two men, one she married and one she bears; time travel that even by the very generous suspension of disbelief applied to it in a genre like this operates by two obviously completely different sets of rules in its only two uses, and is then used to write the entire second movie of the trilogy out of continuity in the first act of the third, making one and a half of these movies pointless - is shocking. It’s just more empty notions and unfulfilled promises offered up to a fanbase staking everything on the idea that all the tampering, all the wild swings, all the meandering, it’s all building UP to something, not possibly just a dude who doesn’t understand these characters but wanting to look very clever with them before building up to one more rad punch-up. So yes, make these movies. Let what can be gleaned from them as worthwhile be revealed, leave the rest of it up for examination to be judged as it deserves and let it, finally. Finally. Be done.

[miguel-manbemel]

Translating Sanders Sides

Some of you may know, but one of the things I’ve done consistently is writing the Castillian Spanish subtitles for most of the episodes of Sanders Sides by @thatsthat24​ and @thejoanglebook. In fact, I’ve written them for all of the episodes that had the option available, “My True Identity” and “Taking on Anxiety with Lilly Singh” are the only two episodes that for some reason don’t have the option activated. Here I’m gonna share how it has been so far my experience translating Sanders Sides.

There’s one frequent misconception about YouTube subtitles. Save for some exceptions, creators don’t usually have the knowledge of all languages in the world, so it’s usually volunteers who write the subtitles in their mother tongues or in languages they know enough of. In my case I started writing them because, even though there were already Spanish subtitles of the generic variant, they usually had, and sorry if the original writers are reading me, several flaws, like misuse of expressions, mistakes in words (I encountered the word “hiss” as “rugido”, when the correct word would have been “bufido” in the case of a cat hiss or “siseo” in the case of a snake hiss, certainly not “roaring” which is the real meaning of “rugido”) or, and this is the only thing I’m clearly against of, things that weren’t even in the original video, like jokes someone made up, fanon commentary, even compliments to Thomas or the characters. I get that we all like these characters and the creators, but that’s not the place to express our love for them, and this is something that Thomas himself has said every once in a while that he doesn’t want to see in the captions and subtitles for his videos.

As YouTube subtitles, once approved and live, are virtually impossible to edit or delete, except by the original creator, my idea was to start writing the Castillian Spanish subtitles for the video, as an alternate version of the translation. The first episode that I translated right after it was released, I remember it as if it was yesterday, even though it was almost three years ago, was “Moving On Part 1″, then I translated all the previous episodes, and after that every episode as soon as it was released.

Writing the translation of an episode takes a lot more time than what anyone could figure out. The YouTube subtitle tool is not the most comfy to work with, even though it does its job. When the subtitles in English are already available, it gives you the times synchronized already with the English subs and you just have to write the translation. That looks as if it saves time, but in Spanish, like many other romantic languages, words are on average much longer than in English, which means that you need more time to read them, so the original times usually have to be readjusted and that takes time. I usually just delete the times altogether and write them all from scratch, it gives me more work, but it saves time in the long term. Not much though, as, on average, it takes several hours for me to write subtitles. The last episode, “Putting Others First”, if we count only the hours I dedicated to write the subtitles, it took me around 20 hours, in several intervals along three days. I’m including in this the several proofreadings I make of the subtitles where I always find typos or mistakes that I need to correct, which makes me watch and rewatch the video like dozens of times. (I’m not perfect and probably I’ve overlooked some typos still, but who hasn’t?) Thank goodness it’s good content and enjoyable to watch again and again, otherwise, the labor would be tedious.

Then there is another problem. I usually translate the text just as it is portrayed on the video. That’s, after all what a translation is expected to be, and it usually is. But there is a problem that arises from time to time. Sometimes, the original doesn’t have a direct translation or, and this is something very common in works like Sanders Sides, full of puns and jokes, the translation kills the joke. In those cases, some translators opt for adding a note between brackets explaining the joke and why the translation doesn’t get it right. I personally don’t like this solution, because it distracts you from the action (you usually have to pause the video to read the note) and most important, because, as I said, it usually happens with puns, and you know what happens when you explain a pun, right? My personal option, and something that translators are indeed encouraged to do as far as I know, is to, when a pun cannot be literally translated for some reason, get the idea that the writer wanted to convey and, being faithful to that idea, create a pun that makes sense in the target language, in my case Spanish.

I’ll explain this with an example of the most difficult piece of dialogue for me to translate in all the episodes I’ve translated of Sanders Sides. It was nothing particularly philosophical or convoluted. It was a piece of dialogue from “Losing My Motivation”. It was when Thomas said “Oh, man, I do do that” and then Patton giggles and says “doodoo”. It looks pretty straightforward... except for the fact that the auxiliary “do” doesn’t have a translation in Spanish, it just doesn’t exist, so the translation of that joke didn’t make any sense and wasn’t funny at all. You literally didn’t understand why was Patton laughing. So I was forced to become creative and my idea was to rewind a bit and get Logan’s previous piece of dialogue, when he was talking about how if Thomas “sits around waiting for inspiration to strike, consistency is unattainable”. I had the idea of using the old expression “kissed by a muse” as a synonym for inspiration, and so I translated into Spanish as “if you sit around waiting for a muse to kiss you, consistency is unattainable”. Then, I made Thomas say, “Oh, man, I do wait for that kiss” and, then instead of the doodoo joke which didn’t make sense in Spanish, I used the similarity between the Spanish for muse, “musa” and the Spanish for walrus, “morsa”, and I made it look as if Patton misheard, and laughed because he thought Thomas was waiting for a walrus to kiss him. It’s not perfect, and I only do this as a last resort measure. I usually prefer sticking to the original as much as I can.

There’s only one other instance when I’ve become creative while translating. In the scenes featuring rapping or some songs. There’s one defining characteristic of rap: it has to rhyme. If it doesn’t it’s not a rap. So, to create a translation of a rap that didn’t rhyme was almost like a sacrilege to me. So, in the case of the Rap Battle from “Am I Original”, I wrote Spanish lyrics for that rap that respected as much of the original as I could while also respecting the rhymes and also the metrics. These are the lyrics I wrote in Spanish, followed by the literal translation (I presume you all know the original English lyrics by heart at this point)

Damas, reyes y nobleza no binaria Ved como derroto rápido a este paria Aplastaré a cualquier villano con ganas de ir a por mí La bruja dragón lo sabe bien: llegué, vi y vencí Aunque no sabía adivinar, Sabía que esto iba a pasar. Piensas fatal, rapeas mal Te crees lo más, y en un pispás Acabo con tu honor: no es difícil de lograr. Te voy a superar, Princi, pues tengo una mente simpar.

Mejores genios he logrado hundir, tú no podrás huír. Si presionas, subiré, y me tendrás sobre ti. Todo es cuestion de cápita. Vas a perder como ocurrió en Ática. Ya está, vete a casa, se acabó. Solo hay un bardo entre los dos, no eres tú, soy yo.

Ladies, Kings and non binary nobility Watch how I defeat this outcast I’ll crush any villain with the guts to go after me The Dragon Witch knows well: I arrived, I saw and I won (Veni, vidi, vici) Even though I can’t tell fortune, I knew this was gonna happen. You think awfully, you rap bad You think you’re the best and in no time I end your honor: It’s not difficult to manage. I’m gonna get over you, Princey, because I’ve got an outstanding mind

I have managed to sink down better geniouses, you won’t be able to run away If you push, I’ll rise up, and you’ll have me over you. It is all a matter of capita. You’re gonna lose as it happened on Attica. It’s done, go home, it’s over. There’s only a bard among us both, it’s not you, it’s me.

As you can see, it says almost the same as the original, only that not literally, and the rhymes are preserved, so it still is a rap.There is people who may disagree with this, but this is actually a technique that is used all the time when doing a translation. In fact, sticking literally and rigidly to the original words in a text is considered a flaw in a translation, because sometimes it makes you lose all the sense of the original.

That also happens with idioms. It is a huge mistake to translate them literally. There usually is an equivalent in the target language and that’s the idiom you must use. For instance, in Dealing with Intrusive Thoughts, there’s a moment where Virgil asks Remus if he has a strong suit and Remus answes “I do, my birthday suit”. Both expressions, “strong suit” and “birthday suit” don’t make sense if literally translated to Spanish. For the first one, we have “punto fuerte”, literally “strong point”, and for the second one we have the expression “en cueros”, literally “on leather”. If I had translated the dialogue literally it would have been “¿Tienes algún traje fuerte? Sí, mi traje de nacimiento.” That doesn’t make sense in Spanish. So I had to translate to Spanish as, “¿Tienes algún punto fuerte? ¡Sí, ponerme en cueros!” (”Do you have any strong point? Yes, putting myself on leather!”) As you can see, it doesn’t make sense in English, but asure you it makes all the sense in Spanish and conveys the original words perfectly.

And I think this is more than enough of sharing my experiences translating Sanders Sides. I hope this has been enlightening in any way and that I didn’t make it too boring. I didn’t mean to pontificate about it. I’m only sharing my own experience. There are many other translators in other different languages who have their own experiences and they’re all equally valid, for starters because any language is different and therefore different rules and methods apply. As long as the translation is faithful to the original, not necesarily literally as I said, it will be a good translation, and that’s our goal after all when we translate something, to make a foreign work reachable to a broader international audience. I hope I have managed to do so and that I made @thatsthat24 ‘s work more reachable, as it deserves to be so. Until next time.

[illegiblewords]

FOR CONFUSED BYSTANDERS

I know that I have a lot of followers who have been (very patiently) witnessing a stream of pictures, commentary, and general posts related to Final Fantasy XIV. This is going to be my attempt to present the game and its story with context for you guys who have no idea what’s going on.

I’m doing this for two reasons, the first being I LOVE THIS GAME. If I can share the positive experience I’ve had with other people, I’d like to do that. The second reason is, for people who still follow but aren’t necessarily going to play themselves--it might offer enough background info to make posts that go up more entertaining at least. I know I don’t personally mind seeing bloggers, writers, artists, etc. share something I’m unfamiliar with, but it gets more fun when I have some clue what it’s about.

Parts of this post will be just about my own subjective experience, some will be recapping the story, some will be going over different ways I’ve seen people play in case that appeals. So on and so forth. I’m aiming to offer an honest reflection on whatever seems important.

Putting this under a cut because really, this is fucking long. Not as long as it looks because pictures are included but even still. For anyone who reads, I hope you enjoy and if you have questions don’t hesitate to hit me up! :)

BACKGROUND - NON-MMO PLAYER LOVES THIS MMO

I have never played an MMO before this. I’m pretty apathetic about them for the most part. When I play games I like to design things, get good pictures, and kill baddies for stress relief. I'm here to immerse in an exciting world and story, meet characters I can invest in. Stuff in that vein. So far as gaming goes I’m pretty simple.

There are people who put heavy emphasis on the social elements of FFXIV. They’ll play with their friends specifically, either because they’re focused on fighting together or because they want to roleplay or just to hang out. I’m not really in that category.

I entered knowing no one, and while I’ve made some friends through FFXIV I mostly interact with them outside the game itself. This can happen on tumblr, on forums, on the official blog platform, etc. In-game, I encounter other players all the time but it is generally something like “I was running around the city doing stuff and other people were also running around the city doing stuff”. You can approach people. You can message them and do little emotes like waving or hugging or slapping or whatever. You can do these emotes directed at nobody and just see your character go through the animations, which can be fun for taking pictures.

More detailed encounters with other players happen in dungeons, trials, and raids. These are called registered duties. Guildhests and PVP (player versus player) exist too, but I haven’t done them. I’ll elaborate later, but the gist you need to know here is that you are grouped in with a fixed number of additional players and then placed in a setting with a pre-set encounter or encounters to overcome. Some of these are straightforward, some require strategy.

In FFXIV, people usually chat to varying degrees during duties. Most are polite, pleasant, and focused on gameplay. At least where I am, which I’ll also go into later. Occasionally there are people who are jerks in the sense that they are inconsiderate or rude to other players. Also occasionally, people are incompetent. More often though I’ll encounter someone with a great sense of humor or people who have helpful tips to improve.

This is a game where, if you see a player marked as new struggling with low level monsters, a more experienced player might pause to oneshot that monster so the newbie can escape. People are casually nice most of the time.

Since I’d normally be doing single-player anyway, for me this is very refreshing. I get to do all the things I’d be doing in a single-player video game, but I also get light exchanges with other fans in ways that aren’t disruptive. There’s enough meat to the Main Quest Scenario (MSQ) and side quests that I don’t feel bored or lonely at all.

FFXIV does cost money to play and has a subscription. This can be paid in varying increments. I personally think it’s worth it because 1) the developers are adding new content on a pretty regular basis 2) the developers actually care about quality and having happy fans 3) the game keeps getting better over time 4) there is SO MUCH you can do in the game. It is truly expansive beyond anything else I’ve seen. I might not be ready to do a subscription with every game, but for this one absolutely.

This essentially plays like a normal final fantasy game in most respects. You might run around solo by-and-large, but there is an NPC supporting cast. They and the villains get fleshed out very well. Same goes for civilians and other background characters. The biggest difference off the top of my head is the story’s beginning...

OBSTACLES

I’m going to get this out of the way early, but in essence I think there are two main obstacles as a beginner. The first and most notable of these is that the game’s entry point, called “A Realm Reborn”, is less well-written and EXTREMELY LONG.

Seriously. I’ve only gotten one character past this point and it took me a stupid amount of time. Some of the quests at this stage are things like “my dad doesn’t like the stinky chocobo please spray it with perfume so it is less stinky”.  Or “jump through all these stupid hoops so you can fight the exciting boss you’ve been waiting for”.

However, the length at least is slotted to be fixed in the future. I’ll probably announce that when it happens in case that’s the deal changer for anyone.

On writing quality, it starts off mediocre. However, later writing is so strong that it actually manages to make past scenes WAY more interesting. The initial setup also kind of lures you into a false sense of security, at which point shit gets real very fast.

The second obstacle for beginners involves a degree of not knowing what you don’t know. For example, there is an extremely powerful attack that can be used in registered duties called “Limit Break”. Initially I didn’t even know where to find it to put in my move hotbar. Then I didn’t know that using it would take limit break away from other players in the group. Then I didn’t know that the limit breaks of different jobs needed to be used under different circumstances. An example of this would be that spellcaster SHOULD use a limit break attack on freakishly large groups of enemies, but SHOULD NOT use limit break on a lone boss unless there is literally no other damage class (DPS) available to do it. This is because the overall impact of caster limit break is comparatively low, but effects more enemies at the same time. Using limit break inappropriately can frustrate people.

There are other things similar to this, such as when you use Duty Finder (a roulette that sets you up with completely random people interested in the same registered duty) and when you use Party Finder (where you announce what registered duty you want to do with what circumstances, then people volunteer to join), or being aware of which moves are supposed to be used in which order for top efficiency. That said, if you tell people you’re completely new they’ll usually be willing to explain.

If it’s something like “how do I use the glamour plates to switch into designs I made easily” or “how does crafting even work”, youtube is very helpful too! Overall just take initiative and communicate to people your experience level while in groups and things tend to work out.

THE STORY

Disclaimer: Recaps get less detailed over time to avoid spoiling too hard.

SHORT VERSION

You are a god-slayer, or more precisely the slayer of false-gods. False-gods drain the land to make it lifeless and are prone to brainwashing people. You also regularly fight the rough equivalent of angels who believe the world as you know it has gone horribly wrong and are trying to force things back into their natural forms. Excessive death ensues anytime they are successful, so high stakes. Meanwhile, an authoritarian and technologically advanced nation is causing issues on the regular and has to be stopped.

PRELUDE/LEGACY

Final Fantasy XIV had a rocky start with patch section 1.0/the true beginning, which I did not play. While there are videos online of what it was like for those curious, the gist is that five years before the current opening the world was stricken by a terrible calamity. The nation of Eorzea (an allied collection of city states) was at war with the Garlean Empire--otherwise known as Garlemald. During this war, one of Garlemald’s scientists implemented a genocidal strategy against the Eorzeans by dragging the lesser of two moons down upon their heads. This moon was called Dalamud. However, what took this situation from bad to worse was that Dalamud wasn’t actually a moon but a prison.

Thousands of years prior, the technologically advanced nation of Allag had been performing experiments using dragons and entities known as primals. Primals are summoned into being using a combination of aether (life energy, the source of magic), ritual, and the belief of their summoners. One of Allag’s experiments involved murdering a powerful dragon then using the tortured prayers of his lover and his kin to summon a warped, primal imitation of him. This primal was then trapped as a power source and left to fester in rage and insanity.

The dragon’s primal is Bahamut. Dalamud was his cage.

When Dalamud burst open above Eorzea, Bahamut was released in all his apocalyptic glory. A collection of heroes, allied to an organization called the Scions of the Seventh Dawn (dedicated to eliminating primals for the toll they take on the land and its people) stood against Bahamut. A man named Louisoix Levellieur, leader of the Scions, cast a powerful spell by summoning the Twelve Eorzean gods to stop Bahamut. This spell cast the primal, Louisoix, and the heroes five years into the future. It also wiped the heroes, known thereafter as the Warriors of Light, from memory.

Part of what makes 1.0 really cool looking back--when the developers saw how many problems existed in the MMO, they knew they would need to reboot it. There was a date set for that to happen, which would involve taking Final Fantasy XIV offline until an improved version could be released. Players knew the real world reasons behind all this. What they didn’t know was how the hiatus and reboot would be presented within the narrative.

People who were up-to-date in the storyline knew that war had erupted and that the moon was falling. They also knew that a particular time, the game would be taken offline.

This is what they saw.

A REALM REBORN

The average player, and likely anyone reading this, will not have played patch 1.0. For us, Final Fantasy XIV begins five years after Bahamut’s calamity. The world is still recovering and has been irrevocably scarred in the dragon’s wake. Refugees from both that event and Garlemald’s conquered territories pour in even as the empire bides its time for another invasion.

The player is a fledgling adventurer endowed with a gift called The Echo. The Echo is an ability that first, prevents them from being brainwashed (or “Tempered”) by primals. This is important because like I said before, one of the things that gives primals their power is belief. This extends to prayer. If a person is tempered, they will worship and empower the primal responsible until they die. This means most people can’t even approach primals safely, much less fight them. More than one character (including NPCs) possess The Echo, but it remains a rare ability.

Another aspect of this gift is that it allows someone (without any deliberate control) to see into the memories of others, superimposing emotions and perspectives of the event over the witnessing Echo-user. It also translates all direct speech into an understandable form to the Echo-user. There are additional abilities that become unveiled over the course of the story, but these are most important and consistent going in.

The player initially is just one of many such adventurers, a guild of independent mercenaries willing to undertake odd jobs using their skill in combat. After coming into conflict with a mysterious, masked organization, however, it becomes clear that the player has been chosen as champion to Hydaelyn herself.

Because you see, Hydaelyn isn’t just the name of the planet. This is also a sentient mothercrystal claiming the role of protector to all life on Her surface.

The masked organization consists of spirits with varying degrees of immortality. They also have the ability to body snatch. These are called Ascians. Ascians argue that the world was split into fourteen pieces thousands of years ago by Hydaelyn, and that their dark crystal god--Zodiark--is the true will of the star and represents a natural state of being that must be reclaimed. Their way of pursuing this objective requires causing a series of apocalypses or near-apocalypses, always coming with innumerable casualties.

As Hydaelyn’s champion the player joins the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in combating primals, fights against lingering threats from Garlemald, and thwarts Ascian plans to continue rejoining the world through calamities.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

HEAVENSWARD

Shit goes pear shaped in a big way and you have to flee territories held by the Eorzean Alliance--city states including Ul’dah, Limsa Lominsa, and Gridania. Ishgard, now a frozen, mountainous landscape ruled by a religion dedicated to the goddess Halone, takes your character in.

Ishgard has been at war with the draconic nation of Dravania for thousands of years. Dragons are immortal by natural means, but can be slain. Ishgard no longer remembers, by and large, why the war even started except that they have been losing loved ones in horrifying ways for as long as they can remember. They refused to send aid during the struggle against Garlemald specifically because they couldn’t spare forces from their war with Dravania. They have a reputation for being hostile to outsiders, having extreme class divides, and inquisition-style zealotry. Nonetheless, there are good people here and over the course of A Realm Reborn the player manages to befriend some of them.

This arc delves into Ishgard’s war, and involves the player taking part while clearing their name in the Alliance. Toward the end, it is also extremely important to note that the player encounters a group calling themselves “Warriors of Darkness”, who are in-league with the Ascians. It comes to light that they hail from one of the divided worlds, that their world is in terrible danger, and they believe the path to survival comes from confronting you.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

STORMBLOOD

One of the antagonists we encounter forces the Alliance to involve itself in freeing Garlemald’s conquered territories, namely the nations of Ala Mhigo (largely Middle Eastern) and Doma (East Asian). In undertaking this task, the hero comes into repeated conflict with Garlemald’s crown prince, Zenos yae Galvus. Zenos is basically a serial killer with the resources of a prince but no actual investment in being a prince. It’s pretty wild.

A lot of this plot focuses on the consequences of Garlean rule. Over time though, it comes to light that the founder of Garlemald was a high-ranked Ascian and is still very much alive.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

SHADOWBRINGERS

The plot set into motion with the Warriors of Darkness resumes as the player is forced to travel to their home world. Dealing with a setting on the brink of Armageddon, this current arc has a ton to do with examining different perspectives while getting much clearer insight on lore metaphysics. Most notably, we finally learn why the Ascians act the way they do and discover more about the nature of the player character and Hydaelyn.

I’m aware this is vague, but honestly this is my favorite of all the expansions/arcs so far. Seriously it is fucking killer.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

YOUR PROTAGONIST/THE CHARACTER CREATOR

The main character of Final Fantasy XIV is known as the Warrior of Light, regardless of whether you play from the Legacy version of the game or A Realm Reborn. Similar to the Dragon Age games, in Final Fantasy XIV you get to design your own main character and shape their identity to varying degrees through the story. Some people like to imagine their protagonist as existing within a completely different role in the world of Hydaelyn for roleplay purposes (so not a Warrior of Light), but that involves essentially disregarding the main quest scenario narrative provided. It’s fine to do that of course, but I’m going to be explaining things that essentially fit within the canon approach.

There are currently eight playable races for the Warrior of Light. These include hyur (human stand-ins), elezen (elf stand-ins), roegadyns (orc or giant stand-ins), miqo’te (cat people), lalafells (dwarf or gnome stand-ins), au ra (tiefling or draeni stand-ins), viera (female-only bunny people at the moment), and hrothgar (male-only lion people, the beast race).

Each race option has two subraces attached. The most dramatic differences between subraces come up for hyur, where there are Midlanders (shorter and slighter frames) and Highlanders (taller and beefier/curvier). Otherwise it’s more minor differences.

It is common for players to develop their own personal interpretations of who their Warrior of Light character was before the story begins and how that impacts progression. This can be shaped by what race they belong to and what lore is attached to that race according to region. It is also possible to shape things according to which of the Twelve (Eorzea’s pantheon) the Warrior of Light worships. These deities are loosely described and made available for selection at the beginning of the game.

It isn’t unusual for people to pick names in-keeping with lore. A good site to turn to for this is over here, although there are also spots that go into what different names actually translate to. Other people just go with whatever they feel like. I think I saw someone named Cheese Whiz once.

Stat variation is pretty negligible between races, and it’s mainly an aesthetic/tonal choice. Currently there is some pressure on game developers to make Viera and Hrothgar playable for male and female gender options both, and it seems likely that at some point this will happen. Currently there are indications that the release for Viera and Hrothgar was somewhat rushed due to some behind-the-scenes circumstances, so while they are less versatile than other options this is likely to change at some point.

As someone who is a sucker for character customization, I want to mention that while it might be easier to get some of the fantasy races to fit a particular ethnicity--Final Fantasy actually does a great job in terms of visual versatility and has made it possible to hit a wide range of options well. For example, it might be easier to make an East Asian au ra or a French elezen, but you can easily break with that in totally believable ways. You might not have the precision adjustments of Dragon Age: Inquisition or Bloodborne, but the options presented are pretty flexible.

In terms of how the Warrior of Light works through the game, again while there is some wiggle room there are certain aspects to their identity that stay pretty consistent. They get jaded and worn out by the narrative as time goes on, they experience loss, they become increasingly chatty and sarcastic. They have powerful neck muscles from years of communication by nodding. Commonly, the personality of the Warrior of Light is also influenced by the job they choose.

THE JOBS

Something I wish got explained to me early--you only get certain jobs as options starting out, and any others you hear about getting added are only accessible at higher levels. In Final Fantasy XIV, basically when it comes to combat you start with a very basic class, which graduates to a job (better versions of the class) when you fulfill certain requirements.

There are notably three main roles a combat class or job can fall into. These include tanks, healers, and DPS. Tanks are responsible for leading the charge, provoking aggression, directing mobs, and enduring attacks in groups. They don’t deal the most damage but have the highest defense and are generally right in the thick of the action. Healers can deal damage but their main purpose is to keep themselves and everyone around them from dying, especially in groups. At the moment all of the healer jobs use magic. DPS (Damage Per Second) are the jobs that are mainly responsible for taking chunks out of the enemy’s health. Within DPS there are additionally three subcategories, these being Melee DPS (non-magical and close-range), Physical Ranged DPS (non-magical and fighting from a distance), and Magic Ranged DPS (magical and fighting from a distance). There is also a limited job and Crafter/Gatherer classes, but I’ll get to those later.

Some DPS jobs, additionally, focus more on playing support to other party members while others are geared toward boosting their own damage output.

The classes you can choose from in the character creator include:

Gladiator (Tank, Sword and Shield)

Marauder (Tank, Axe)

Lancer (Melee DPS, Lance)

Pugilist (Melee DPS, Fists)

Archer (Physical Ranged DPS, Bow)

Conjurer (Healer, Wand)

Thaumaturge (Magical Ranged DPS, Staff)

Arcanist (Magical Ranged DPS, Tome)

At level 10, if your armory system is unlocked (you need to complete a quest for your starting class NPC mentor to do this) you can approach an NPC in Limsa Lominsa to unlock the Rogue class as well. This is a Melee DPS class and uses twin daggers. If your character starts with Marauder or Arcanist this takes less time.

To graduate each of these early classes into a job, the following requirements need to be met:

Paladin (Sword and Shield): Requires Gladiator level 30, Conjurer level 15.

Warrior (Axe): Requires Marauder level 30, Gladiator level 15.

Dragoon (Lance): Requires Lancer level 30, Marauder level 15.

Monk (Fists): Requires Pugilist level 30, Lancer level 15.

Bard (Bow): Requires Archer level 30, Pugilist level 15.

White Mage (Wand): Requires Conjurer level 30, Arcanist level 15.

Scholar (Tome): Requires Arcanist level 30, Conjurer level 15.

Black Mage (Staff): Requires Thaumaturge level 30, Archer level 15.

Summoner (Tome): Requires Arcanist level 30, Thaumaturge level 15.

Ninja (Daggers): Requires Rogue level 30 and completion of quests Sylph-Management and Cloying Victory.

I’ll describe these in more detail in a bit, but there are waaaay more combat jobs than this. Currently the others are:

Dark Knight (Tank, Greatsword): Requires having purchased the Heavensward expansion and having completed all of the Seventh Astral Era Quests up to Before the Dawn, which is needed to unlock the city of Ishgard. This job starts at level 30.

Gunbreaker (Tank, Gunblade): Requires having purchased the Shadowbringers expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 60. This job starts at level 60.

Astrologian (Healer, Star Globe): Requires having purchased the Heavensward expansion and having completed all of the Seventh Astral Era Quests up to Before the Dawn, which is needed to unlock the city of Ishgard. This job starts at level 30.

Samurai (Melee DPS, Katana): Requires having purchased the Stormblood expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 50. This job starts at level 50.

Machinist (Physical Ranged DPS, Firearm) Requires having purchased the Heavensward expansion and having completed all of the Seventh Astral Era Quests up to Before the Dawn, which is needed to unlock the city of Ishgard. This job starts at level 30.

Dancer (Physical Ranged DPS, Chakrams): Requires having purchased the Shadowbringers expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 60. This job starts at level 60.

Red Mage (Magical Ranged DPS, Rapier): Requires having purchased the Stormblood expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 50. This job starts at level 50.

So total, right now the jobs include 4 Tanks (Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, Gunbreaker), 3 Healers (White Mage, Scholar, Astrologian), 4 Melee DPS (Dragoon, Monk, Ninja, Samurai), 3 Physical Ranged DPS (Bard, Machinist, Dancer), and 3 Magical Ranged DPS (Black Mage, Summoner, Red Mage). Total is 17 jobs. When I describe these combat based jobs, I’m not going to focus on the actual gameplay aspect because frankly I don’t know how to play all of the jobs. This is gonna be a quick and dirty explanation based on the scientific approach of “idk that’s just my impression”.

Paladin: You are a holy knight and you can heal a little sometimes maybe (???) and you are very good and noble with great defense.

Warrior: You are a beserker who loves to release your inner beast and kill shit in really violent ways and are kind of a badass and do the most damage of the tanks.

Dark Knight: Super super edgy and kind of magical but also straight up crazy, you hate corrupt authority figures and are willing to get your hands dirty and darken your name in order to protect others. One of the most beloved job questlines.

Gunbreaker: You have a sword that is also a gun and you can shoot people with it, soldier style. Basically if you have ever fantasized about having a knifegun this is like that but better.

White Mage: Very pure, focused on nature and communing with elemental beings, all about that land/sea/sky thing with ties to the elements earth, water, and air. One of three magic traditions that got involved in a next level magic fight, this one stemming from the city of Amdapor. Amdapor is full of fungus and poison spores now.

Scholar: Takes a highly intellectual spin on magic with ties to weird geometries and so forth, figured out how to summon fairy familiars from aether. Does a lot with shields and preventing people from taking as much damage in the first place. One of three magic traditions that got involved in a next level magic fight, this one stemming from the city of Nym. Nym is a floating city and is basically hovering in ruins now, with any surviving residents having been transformed into tonberries. Tonberries are little green creatures that like to stab people.

Astrologian: A fortuneteller take on magic that combines tarot cards, astrology, and crystal balls. The idea here is that Astrologians are messing with fate and time in order to heal you, sort of undoing damage. Snazzy dressers, intimidating moveset.

Dragoon: Jumpy people with spears who struggle to live down their legacy of animation lag-related deaths, my understanding is that today’s Dragoons do solid damage and are decent at survival. Their reputation, however, is that if someone is going to die in a fight it’s probably them. They are very broody and like to hang out in high places with capes billowing in the wind. They also wear spiky armor and fight dragons and have the soul of a dragon. People make jokes at their expense a lot but with affection.

Monk: You punch people to death and get gauntlets of varying levels of sharp. You also get to master chakras and go through forms associated with different animals. In a series like Final Fantasy where people carry swords bigger than they are, you’re the job that said lol who needs that and made your body the weapon.

Ninja: Very very sneaky, used to be sort of a state-sanctioned criminal. If anybody is a spy it’s you. You are very fast and can basically turn invisible and sometimes smoke bombs go off. Mudras are used and I don’t understand.

Samurai: Deal a solid amount of damage and are very flashy and cool, probably one of the highest damage outputs for Melee DPS. Very neat and fancy katanas.

Bard: Draws a connection between the strings of a harp and the strings of a bow, is able to both shoot the crap out of enemies, make enemies more vulnerable with some songs, and make allies more powerful with other songs. I think Bards are very pretty and fancy.

Machinist: These are tech nerds who realized that guns are an option. So are flamethrowers. So are robots. This job has a reputation for being ungodly complicated to play but this has apparently been rectified recently.

Dancer: Similar to Bard in that they do a lot to boost allies in a fight, do lower damage as a result but damn do they boost their allies. Also have ridiculously swanky outfits and are super flashy in fights.

Black Mage: The edgy magic users, they are disciples of Eorzea’s death god and all of their magic ties into destruction. If you wanna make the biggest explosions Black Mage is where you go. Magic ties to fire, ice, and electricity but primarily puts focus on the shift between fire and ice. Black Mages also have a reputation for being involved in demon summoning because they were kind of the assholes in that magic war against White Mages and Scholars. Black Magic as a discipline has ancestry in Mhach, which is of course now crawling with demons. Black Mage is the DPS king in the sense that if you want the biggest numbers of damage dealt, this is where you go. They are however tragically slow and squishy so expect the Black Mage to be somewhere between standing right where an attack will land or dodging frantically between spells.

Summoner: Has the ability to summon small familiars in the form of defeated primals, these being namely Ifrit (fire-based), Titan (earth-based), Garuda (air-based), Bahamut, and Phoenix. Apparently their questline is covered in Ascians too. One of two DPS capable of raising fallen allies.

Red Mage: Very fancy, fast-moving swordsmen covered in ruffles. The founders of Red Magic were Black and White Mages who came together in the wake of that magic war mentioned above. They essentially work to balance Black Magic and White Magic alongside physical attacks. They don’t get the numbers of some DPS but are again extremely fast and are also capable of raising allies. Versatile.

The limited job is called Blue Mage, currently being lamented because it’s unable to fight in dungeons or main quest situations to the extent of other jobs. Blue Mage gets abilities by fighting monsters and learning magical abilities from them. They use a cane and are massive dandies who will hopefully get the opportunity to do more in the future.

If you want to actually make in-game money without blood sacrifice, you want to get involved in a Crafter or Gatherer job. These don’t deal with combat but instead let you acquire, develop, and sell in-demand resources to other players.

Gatherer jobs include Fishers, Botanists, and Miners. Crafter jobs include Carpenters, Blacksmiths, Armorers, Goldsmiths, Leatherworkers, Weavers, Alchemists, and Culinarians. I am not good at these and so can’t explain them properly, but some people do play the game exclusively so they can level these jobs. I think that besides getting mad cash, this is probably because Crafters and Gatherers also get to make really fancy houses and get very pretty clothes with their vast amounts of wealth, skill, and resources.

THE SETTING

There are three city states that, at the start of A Realm Reborn, comprise the Eorzean Alliance. Your character becomes a hero to the Eorzean Alliance before any other nation. The three nations are Ul’dah, Gridania, and Limsa Lominsa. Ul’dah is a desert city (someone mentioned it being Byzantine), ruled by a Sultana, and watched over by the dual-aspected god of death and commerce. Gridania is a forest city (to me it looks Western European but unsure?), ruled by a spiritual Elder Seedseer, and is watched over by the nature goddess Nophica--her will embodied in the form of spirits called Elementals. Limsa Lominsa is an ocean city (Greek influenced, although some territories read Caribbean), ruled over by an Admiral, and is watched over by a sea-goddess.

Ul’dah is a major trade center and known for having a solid amount of crime and corruption, harsh wealth divides, huge reverence for the dead, and general canniness. Gridania is super spiritual and has massive reverence for the forest and maintaining both it and the boundaries necessary to co-exist peacefully with Elementals. Limsa Lominsa is literally pirate town and have the most kickass military/naval fleet ever.

Depending on what job you choose in the character creator will effect which of these three cities you start out in. It’s ambiguous where the Warrior of Light comes from so conceivably you could be a native to that city state or a foreigner from somewhere else. It mainly matters in terms of if you’re making a story up for your character or not.

Another city state is Ishgard (technically Eorzean but isolationist), which has parallels to Norse mythology, France, and the Catholic church. It is covered in snow and full of mountains. Ala Mhigo is also a city state, and while like Ul’dah it is also a desert environment this one seems to place higher emphasis on different regions within the Middle East and India. One part looks strongly reminiscent of the Dead Sea, for example. Idyllshire was formerly a territory of the nation Sharlayan, which dedicates itself to the scholar-god. However, Sharlayan up and bailed when Garlemald showed up so that whole city got evacuated.

Those city states are all based on the continent Aldenard. Garlemald comes from a continent called Ilsabard that we haven’t gotten to see yet. It’s supposed to be cold and shitty there. Also worth mentioning, Garleans are on the one hand atheists and on the other hand borderline worship their emperor.

Othard is the Far Eastern continent and represents Asia. The two main city states we’ve seen there are Kugane (Japan) and Doma (China). There are other nations in the surrounding areas that we know about as well but haven’t explored. Both Kugane and Doma worship entities known as kami, omnipresent spirits who appreciate treasure and sometimes play a role in manipulating the fates of mortals. There are also animal spirits who through wisdom and longevity gain power and the ability to change form. These are called auspices. Special shout out to the Azim Steppe of Othard as well for representing Mongolian tribes and a plains environment.

There at least two other continents around but we don’t know a lot about them yet. One is The New World and draws from pre-Columbian North America. The other once housed a nation called Meracydia that opposed the ancient Allagan empire.

Shadowbringers takes place on a world called The First, which is one of the fragmented realities split by Hydaelyn. This world is called Norvrandt. It parallels Hydaelyn in some ways but not others. The desert environment of Ahm Areng geographically resembles the red deserts of the Southwestern US, but the architecture doesn’t match. The Rak’tika Greatwood is an A+ perfect jungle setting and heavily modeled after Mayan civilization. Eulmore kind of reminds me of the idea of pre-French Revolution excesses surrounded by poverty but with almost neon circus aesthetics married in. Il Mheg is rainbow fields and glassy lakes and fae creatures fucking with you 24/7. Very pretty and art nouveau.

The Tempest is full of secrets.

THE COMMUNITY

People focus on different things in this game. It’s huge enough to make that extremely doable.

One group involves the combat-focused players. These are people who just want to take on content labeled Extreme or Savage and beat it as smoothly as possible. Very talented bunch but tend to be short tempered sometimes, also often can’t wrap their heads around people playing any other way.

Glamour hounds are people who are in this for the A E S T H E T I C S. They want their characters to look a very specific way with certain gear in certain colors and god damn it if they have to run savage to achieve their goals they are going to do it. Often also are very into exciting mounts and housing, will frequently do artsy screencaps and share them online.

Lore hounds are people who focus mainly on the main quest scenario, overall storytelling, NPCs, setting, metaphysics, etc. Some of these people just want to analyze and make predictions. Some are independent fan creators. Some are roleplayers.

Worth noting--the most active roleplay communities are on the Crystal server, on the worlds Balmung and Mateus. My understanding is that these worlds are pretty packed and come with their own collection of pluses and minuses. More drama and a high likelihood of being ambushed for erotic RP, but fun community storytelling too. You can absolutely join servers outside your geographic location, by the way.

I’m on Primal server. It’s pretty chill.

Crafters, gatherers, and gamblers as far as I can tell are out to get top tier gil and fabulous prizes. I think some just honestly like the process too tbh and it happens to pay swimmingly. By the by, yes there is an in-game casino.

Last major group off the top of my head is the people who are mainly, specifically there to hang with friends and otherwise socialize with the game as a medium for that.

OKAY BUT I FOLLOW YOU SPECIFICALLY, WHO THE HELL ARE THOSE CHARACTERS YOU KEEP REBLOGGING?

EMET-SELCH

He is an Ascian who showed up fashionably late, would rather be napping than villaining around. Massive troll and also responsible for single-handedly making the fandom care about Ascians after four arcs of apathy. Secret sad boi. I am omitting a bunch because he’s basically a walking spoiler, but someone once described him as having absolutely relentless theater kid energy and I have yet to see it put better than that.

ELIDIBUS

Another Ascian known as the Emissary. Talks more about balance than ZODIARK!!!??!!!?11111!! and sometimes tries to have conversations instead of fistfights. Is not as good at having conversations instead of fistfights as Emet-Selch but is significantly better at it than Lahabrea, who will be described next. Elidibus is notable for spontaneously adopting a child and then passing that child off to the heroes as discreetly as he could.

LAHABREA

The third major Ascian and the first recurring one players meet in A Realm Reborn. Lahabrea seems like he is probably a few screws loose, fucking loves to blow shit up, embarrasses all of the interns who get stuck with him, and spent years in charge of PR before his colleagues realized that was a mistake. Makes very poor life choices. Apparently he used to be a fantastic orator and was praised for his imagination but these talents have since been replaced by ZODIARK!!!??!!!?11111!! and explosions. Has been described as an idiot by Emet-Selch and “unique” by Elidibus, who needed to take a very long pause before saying so.

G’RAHA TIA/THE CRYSTAL EXARCH

Honestly this is only pseudo spoilers, basically everyone figured out who he was well before Shadowbringers got released. Catman is currently doing battle with another character called Haurchefant for the position of #1 fan to the Warrior of Light. Has some wild misadventures with you that involve exploring ancient ruins, excessively long fetch quests, clones, and getting sucked into a demon world. Later runs across time and space to save your life but kind of almost gets you killed in the attempt. Says he is very sorry for this later. Just doing his best.

NERO TOL SCAEVA

A scientist who fights with a massive hammer, formerly worked for Garlemald but finds himself unemployed later. Is better than the engineer Cid, who gives you all your tech. He is also a troll, an egomaniac, and fucking hilarious. It takes a while for the extent of this to be revealed because A Realm Reborn still had some issues.

AYMERIC DE BOREL

Basically in charge of Ishgard, for a while literally but now only mostly. A very reasonable authority figure, runs the the Warrior of Light across several countries when you get injured in battle then chills at your bedside. Thinks you should relax sometimes. Encourages this by taking you to dinner once.

ESTINIEN WYRMBLOOD

Broody Dragoon McAngst of Ishgard, fucking hated dragons for the longest time because they murdered his whole family. Goes on an extended journey with you and in the process reveals he also hates moogles with a burning passion. Chills out a lot later, has demonstrated he is in fact a real bro.

YSAYLE DANGOULAIN/ICEHEART/LADY SHIVA

Delusions of grandeur and good intentions, also chosen by Hydaelyn and possessing The Echo. Figured out she could use her possession of The Echo to literally become a primal without losing her mind or body. Wants peace at any cost and will kill shitloads of people in the name of peace. Morally questionable but an interesting lady. Disagrees strongly with Estinien about moogles.

HAURCHEFANT GREYSTONE

Name sounds like a sneeze, is currently fighting G’raha Tia for the title of #1 fan to the Warrior of Light. Apparently there was an event where he said he wants the Warrior of Light to be his pony, as in he wants to ride you. Has shirtless men doing squats in his office. Saves your ass when shit gets real for Heavensward and then saves your ass again when the Pope’s bodyguard tries to murder you. It does not go well.

ZENOS YAE GALVUS

Absolute serial killer who feels like you complete him and give his life meaning and are his BFF. Probably wants you to fuck him. Also the crown prince of Garlemald and has spent years trying to engineer situations that will produce someone who can actually fight him as an equal. Doesn’t give a fuck about most things but jesus does he go yandere.

FRAY

If you become a Dark Knight, Fray becomes your NPC mentor and basically takes the Warrior of Light on a journey in becoming batshit insane. 10/10 Best teacher hands down.

SOPHIA THE GODDESS

A primal who I love to pieces, basically shows that the only way you can have perfect balance forever is if you are literally dead. We know this because the song that plays during her fight is about her murdering an entire family because they were unstable.

SRI LAKSHMI

Another primal who I love to pieces, just full throttle lotus eater in action where she encourages you to go fuck everything and be happy. Super pretty.

SEPHIROT THE FIEND

One of my top fav primals, pure id and distorted Kabbalah. I have a lot of feelings about him and have analyzed his fight to pieces.

CENRIC ASHER

Lol he just my Warrior of Light. I have a story for him but it is not official or anything.

THE FIVE BILLION OTHERS

Probably other people’s characters! I just really love seeing what people come up with, whether it’s their version of the Warrior of Light or going full-throttle into OC territory. It’s really refreshing to me, seeing how passionate and inventive people get. ^^ There are plenty of other important NPC characters, some I would even consider favorites of mine, but I just don’t post them as much.

IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR JESUS CHRIST GET YOURSELF A COOKIE OR SOMETHING. GOD DAMN.

[okimargarvez]

HURT- open wounds - 22

Original title: Hurt.

Prompt: Luke’s dark thought, destiny, contrasted love.

Warnings: sexual content, dark thoughts.

Genre: angst, drama, romantic, smut, dark, mistery, frienship.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, BAU team, O.C.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: multichapter.

Legend: 💏😘😈🔦🐶❗🎈👻.

Song mentioned: La tua vita intera, Tiziano Ferro.

Hurt- Masterlist

GARVEZ STORIES

Note: this is the last chapter. This story is ended!

Chapter 22-

-This story will end today, in some way. It's clear by now.- Penelope stands up and approaches him, without touching him. Luke can see her shiny eyes, but also the stubborn expression.

-I know. That's why I'm afraid.- the voice trembles, but refuses to give up. He hugs her, caresses her back and whispers sweet and comforting words.

-Hun, darling, look at me.- he takes her face in his hands. -I'm afraid, we are all afraid. But I can't promise you anything other than that I'll do my best, I'll be careful, because nothing will happen to me. Because I don't want to lose you, I don't want to lose the opportunity to stay with you and now we have to take care not only of Roxy, but also of Twisty...- he smiles, even a few tears fall from his eyes. -It's a great responsibility.- the last word is cut from her lips.

-Yes, it is. So be sure to bring your ass back home tonight, otherwise I'll go out with that man of the billiards that always flirts with me...- Luke laughs and grabs her by the wrists, bringing her closer to him again.

-Oh yes?- he knows he still has only a few seconds. They have to go and save Diana. They kiss again, then get out of the bunker. He must concentrate on the mission, he can’t think of Penelope in a fixed way, because this could distract him and make him commit some imprudence.

The blonde woman now feels powerless, because she can only wait for the facts to unfold, there is no information that can be useful to him, she has no way of preventing things from going as they should, but she has a terrible, dark premonition that digs in her bowels. She feels the desire to vomit, scream, cry. She hasn't had a chance to tell him how much she really loves him. Now, thinking back to the first months, how she behaved, trying to keep him at a distance, then realizing that she fell in love with him, all too soon... she is not being able to do without him. Now, she feels like an idiot. It started in such an absurd way, it is absurd even that Luke can really love her... yet he does. Please, Lord, let everything work out for the best. I know I ask You too many favors, but in that house there are so many good people who don’t deserve to die, including one in particular, and... and I promise You that I will be able to clearly demonstrate to him what I feel for him, if You let him come back in one piece.

 Lindsey poses the detonator and he handcuffs her and takes her outside. He feels less the burden on his heart. The helicopter trip goes by very quickly. As soon as it comes down, he runs into Garcia's room, nobody notices, but even in that case, he doesn't care. Maybe she heard his footsteps, because she waits for him on her feet. She hugs him hard, doesn't want to let him go. -Love, it's ok. It's over. I told you it would be over. Spencer won. We won. Lindsey is in our hands, Cat is in prison and Diana is safe. Do you want to see him? Soon Reid and JJ will arrive too.- he raises her chin, she puts her lips on his, but in a moment the kiss becomes more ravenous.

-I... I need it... it's so wrong, isn't it?- he doesn't let her replicate, he shakes his head and leaves the room, followed by her. A great promise lies on her head, yet here again she can’t find the courage to keep it. Then she sees all the others, already waiting, including Reid's mother and decides to postpone it later. She wants to enjoy this moment, because as JJ said many years before, they have so few good memories in these rooms. They see so many horrible things, the darkest points that the human mind can reach... so it is also good for the atmosphere of the building to be charged with positive energy. The elevator doors open, here is Spencer; Emily sends Diana forward, they exchange a few jokes in a low voice, then the hug. How much she misses her parents right now. She has never yet spoken to Luke about them, or rather not about their death and her feelings of guilt about it. She hasn’t yet told him a lot of things, all those that she didn’t want to say. Things must change. She had made a promise to him (apart from that to the Almighty): that once the story of Reid was resolved, they would have told the team about their relationship. That they are together. And now she will have to keep it.

She's thinking about this when she gets a text from Emily. She just says to go to hers bunker and so she hurries. But inside there is... Derek. There really is Derek Morgan, beautiful as always, even if that long beard makes him strange, he still remains the most attractive male specimen of the entire universe, her chocolate thunder, her statue of a god carved in... sorry, Luke.

She strives to regain control of her mind, then he comes out with his -Hey babygirl.- and that smile. It's too long since she heard that voice, that nickname, then she melts, sending to hell any effort to look like a normal person. Not with him, although there is Prentiss to watch the scene.

-Oh my God, oh my God, it's you!- she hops around in his arms. -It’s really you! You smell...- she closes her eyes to better enjoy the moment -…like… you smell like hope and happiness! It’s really you.- then they separate, but keep holding on to his arm.

-Yes, it's me, it's me, but listen.- he takes her face in his hands. -You gotta focus, ok?- Penelope knows he is perfectly right, so she tries to listen to him.

-Yeah. Anything. Anything.- she nods. -Focus... focus on what?- Emily lifts a cell phone and shows it to her.

-This text.- it says that Reid got out of prison and wants to see Derek, and that he must write to her if he wants to get the address of the security house where his mother was put. But it is signed with her name.

-Oh crap.- the blonde's heart leaps and she thinks exactly what her colleagues had already suggested. A trap. In fact, when she saw Luke enter her bunker shortly before, something, like a little voice, told her No, it's not over yet, but she didn't want to be right. The bad guys were in prison and the good guys were safe. What could happen? Now the answer is there, before her eyes. They move back to the meeting room.

 -I know we are all tired, but we might have a new load on Mr. Scratch.- that damn bastard is one of the criminals he has to thank for letting him know Penelope and true love, at more than forty years old. It is the asshole that led him to combine his path with that of the BAU, finally accepting to become a full-time profiler. He didn't believe he would make it, but now here he is. He faced so many different cases, most of it had nothing to do with Scratch or his modus operandi, yet he did it brilliantly, he managed to make his own contribution... in these people gathered here, plus Spencer who is not present because he is enjoying his new-found mother, he has earned a family. They aren’t just colleagues, but this is not something that happens everywhere, unfortunately. For example, it didn't happen with the members of the task forces, except with Phil... And you saw the result of having a friend in the middle. Friendship and love make you vulnerable to attacks. But looking at the blonde woman next to the chief of the unit, he consciously accepts to risk again, to mix the work with personal facts. But this time it will be different. There will be no ghosts of women to torment him and ask him why you had to send my husband, among all those who were available. Phil didn't even have the qualification to work on such a mission. What happened to him is your fault. Your fault.

-Somebody did a bang-up job of cloning my cell phone to send Morgan a fake text luring him to a non-existent safe house. And whoever that somebody is has mad skills.- but he is not the only one who is staring intently at Penelope. In fact, even that other man, the only one who doesn't know in person, the elusive ex-special agent Derek Morgan, is watching her carefully. Luke doesn't want to be jealous anymore, he doesn't want to repeat what he did when he saw a guy flirts with her at the bar or he saw her talking to Sam, her ex. He doesn't want to redo those mistakes. He trusts her, knows she doesn't love Morgan anymore, he's just her best friend and he has to be able to accept it.

-The kind of skills Scratch has.- Walker says.

In any case, he can't stand it. He has to get in the way, shooting even a useless question, but he must ask it, provoke her, remind her who is her boyfriend in this room. -Were you able to trace where the hack came from?- immediately he sees the expression of his woman stiffen. She looks up at the sky, assumes a very theatrical pose. She is reciting this part hopefully for the last time.

-Do you see what I have to put up with?- she asks to Morgan, but pointing towards Luke. The former agent frees his crossed arms.

-Alvez- he says. It's a strange thing, to be called by that one, who until he saw him was just another ghost, a fading creature, just a name, not a real person and now he is too much. -You always get a location, with this one.- and he puts his hand on Penelope's shoulder, literally squeezes it , while he looks at Latin in a... malicious way. As if, despite having been the last to see them, so he shouldn't know anything about them, instead he has understood everything. And in this case the situation is serious, because it means that the love he feels is printed directly on his face. Or that the blonde had talked to him, about the two of them, well before they officially got together. He will ask her as soon as he can. But right now he can't help but feel jealousy, pure jealousy, or rather the extreme intense desire to go there and take those fingers off his woman's body, to be able to pretend he is more at a distance, shouting, not just to Morgan, to others too, how things really are. But of course, he can't. He confines himself to a slightly mentioned smile, which blends perfectly with those of the others, next to him. And to put just a hand on the gun. Not that he is going to use it, but... it reassures him. -You guys are all good to go.- he adds, finally returning with folded arms.

-Obviously Morgan can’t come with us. He is a civilian now.- too bad, in case there will be ever a terrible accident... But no! He is married, with a small child. Luke, take control of your mind again. Penelope now loves him. But she hasn't said it yet. But she made it clear. It's enough? No, but it must be.

-We will miss you out there.- JJ says. Even Derek doesn't seem very happy.

-I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it out there in the field with you guys. I think about it every day. But between my old friends and my new friends- he clearly points towards Luke -you guys are gonna go out there, you're gonna handle your business, you're gonna make people feel safe, and then you're gonna come home. And that's all that matters.- he is forced to admit that he is right. It's the only thing they have to do. But once this Scratch story is solved, they will have to give them at least a mini vacation; he will take Penelope to the mountains, where his grandparents had a chalet, they will stay there with Roxy and Twisty, they will enjoy walks and dinners by candlelight and after dinner under the stars...

-Let's saddle up.- the leader says, bringing him back down to earth. It's not over yet, but it will be soon. They all come out except the two best friends, he can't help but throw a last look at the blonde and in that look there is both the renewal of her promise (I'll come back home alive) and a slight warning (Don't forget who is the man you will wait with open arms).

Penelope asks Derek to accompany her to her den, even if for a moment she is tempted to tell him everything, about her and Luke, because she needs to let off steam with someone, to let her terror out. Scratch is a terrible adversary, he has almost destroyed Hotch's life, forced him to hide for Jack's sake, made him relive Hailey's murder, kidnapped and tortured Tara's brother, he knew perfectly well that Agent Alvez had joined their team... he knew too much about them, with too much warning. There was certainly a mole in the Bureau and their next mission would be to find out who it was. But right now she could only sit there, greet her best friend and then, in her bunker, listen to conversations among her colleagues. Limit herself to this.

Listening to Morgan talking about his baby, about the fact that he started walking... she has an extreme desire to cry, but this time with emotion. She had never thought of him as a father, but clearly he is perfect in this role. She should have known when he insisted on taking the baby Henry in his arms. And she can't help but wonder if Luke would be a good father too... a useless thought, since she is out of time, but they have Twisty and Roxy, and they are such a wonderful family too.

-I'm so proud of you.- he says, stroking her cheek. -I love you, always.- but then he changes his tone. -But do you think you can try to be a little friendlier, with Alvez?- bigger fear responds in her place, making her raise her eyes to the sky.

-Oh my God.- she really thinks If you would know what is the truth, and how really friendlier I’m with Alvez, you wouldn't reproach me. She has nothing to laugh about it.

-Hey, hey, hey. Look at me. He seems like a pretty all right kid.- and he smiles. You knew how much it is! He's like you, but he doesn't just play with double meanings... he makes them become concrete. He is intelligent, insightful, clever, mischievous. Sexy, jealous. Sweet, insecure, he has so many shadows that follow him, as you, but I think he has a little less of your willpower to overcome them. That is why I am there, and I will help him.

-He… I... it's complicated. I'll try. I make no promises.- already, enough promises, because so much fails to respect them. Suddenly the thought that they are already out hits her, they are in danger and that something horrible could happen at any moment. It doesn’t abandon her even while she greets his chocolate thunder, receives his kiss in the air and sends a bigger one back to him, remains to stare at the area until she realizes that he has really gone (again). And then she walks towards the bunker and connects with the others. -All right, Boltron, sound off.- a joke, to play down. She listens to someone's voices up to her. Ok. So far so good, they are still all alive and... She doesn't have time to finish thinking. Suddenly she hears a skid, braking noises, and doesn't understand what's going on.

Then she hears Emily ask -Is everyone ok?- and the others answer in the affirmative. Not even ten seconds pass. An even louder sound destroys her ears, so much so that she is forced to take off her earphones. She tries to contact them, but no one shows signs of life. So she sends a team of ambulances to the crash site and only then, she allows herself to faint for a moment.

 But this is a luxury that she can’t afford too long. The phone rings, she replies, is one of the paramedics. -Mrs. Garcia, we're bringing them to the...- but besides the address, he doesn't want to say more, about for example the conditions of her colleagues. So she drives up to there, passing every second from the most absolute discomfort to the optimism that characterizes her. She also calls Derek, to warn him of what happened and Spencer. Both said they will reach them as soon as possible. But she doesn't have time to wait for them. Then she parks, enters, asks the reception, all automatically, trying not to think. If she would did, she would stand motionless, too afraid to feel something she wouldn’t be able to overcome. They tell her the floor where they are hospitalized. The first she sees is Rossi. He wears a neck brace, but otherwise he is standing and seems to be fine.

-Penelope...- as soon as he hugs her, her armor collapses miserably. -Quiet, we're all fine, it's all right...- and yet something in his tone doesn't convince her. And the suspicion becomes atrocious after she enters their rooms and sees everyone except Luke. Why isn't he with others? Yet she doesn’t have the courage to ask anyone. She sets foot in the last and here is the answer. The body lying on that bed is completely covered with a white sheet. Dead. He can't be gone. He can't have abandoned her. She approaches a few steps but doesn’t dare to lift it. Not yet. -Why, Lord, did You have to put him in the middle?- she doesn’t notice at all that someone else has entered and remains on the threshold to listen to her. -It was my mistake, a lack of mine. I'm the one who doesn't have the courage to tell him how much I love him, how much I can't be without him and now... I'll have to try, but I don't think I'm able to do it. No. I know You have heard it said so many times, that they say that time helps, that what doesn’t kill you strengthens, makes you fat...- she doesn’t hear a slight chuckle behind her. -But I am very sure: I will not be able to recover. So, don't send me another handsome man to replace him, because I realized that no one replaces anyone. Derek is Derek and Luke is... he was...- she can't finish the sentence. -In short, I won't fall for a third time. I will always remain faithful to him, for what still remains for me to live... my only priorities will be Roxy and Twisty. I will never find another man so handsome, so interested in me, and above all...- huge male hands appear on her hips. She doesn't scream, because she seems to have recognized the scent that wrapped her. She is afraid to look down, but she forces herself to do so. She can no longer let her fears dominate her life. And she recognizes those hands. But it can't be...

-Hello.- he just tells her. Exactly the same word he had said to her the first time he saw her. -Hello, I'm Luke Alvez, from the task forces. I’ll collaborate with you in the case of Cullen...- she had ignored the hand he held out to her and merely glancing at him and raising her eyebrows, she had claimed -Penelope Garcia, computer technician. Now excuse me, but I'm very busy...- and she was gone, walking away on her vertiginous heels. -Penelope, love... are you okay?- it is not a hallucination, but this doesn't make less painful what she has felt. But she must be sure. She walks away and lifts the white sheet. Crumpled and wrinkled skin, different stitches... she lets it fall back down. It is an elderly person.

-Luke, I thought you were... dead.- the man makes a sign that he knows, he wraps his arms around her body to keep her closer. He too had the same terror. -It would have been my fault, because I can't tell you... show you.- it's ridiculous, she called thousands of people like that, she said that word to many people. She lifts on her toes and takes him by the face. He believes she wants to kiss him, but her intentions are different. -I love you.- she finally says. -I love you.- she repeats, as if the fact that she had worked so hard to pronounce it had opened the dam of her fears. -I love you and I understood, after all these years, that those two words are often not enough, that all that is between us is more important, that you were right: to stay awake waiting for your love to come back, is the biggest I love you that you can say.- she smiles, absorbs Luke's smile and now yes, he finally lays his lips on hers. Then she takes his hand and they leave the room.

-Pen, it's risky, the others are around here. They could see us.- he wants so much to get rid of this secret, but he will always and always put what she wants and what she needs, in the first place. Penelope sighs, increasing her grip.

-I know, but I'm not afraid anymore.-

_________________________________

TAG LIST: @shyladystudentfan  @norge-the-great @avengerquake123 @reidskitty13 @eclipseflower123 @lovebennycolon @pegasus-scifichick @theshamelessmanatee  @beana83 @ilovegarvez @martinab26 @hideourscars @ gracieeelizabeth27 @iliketomakecreampie @hepensadocosaspeores @arses21434 @sillygirlspy @mymidnightnightmare @teyamarra @mydreampenelope @lilises-blog @cosmicmelaninflower @thinitta @extremeobsessions101 @agentbishop @hellodawnwrightfan @kiki-krakatoa @amieatingevidence @ leftlamphumanfestival @ella1239me @flufflehufflepuffle @the-ellen-stuff I tagged just who liked at least a chapter of this story. Tell me if you want to be removed from the tag list ^^

[orthodoxlily]

Survey Results: Civil Affairs Spin Off! Who’s Next!?

Hey everyone!

So, Surveymonkey sent me a 3 month anniversary email regarding my Spin-Off survey and that kind of hinted that it was time to take it down. Whoops! Sorry, Surveymonkey!

Just thought I’d share the results! So for those of you who don’t know, the survey consisted of a general question about what type of fanfiction readers wanted to see next;

After that, I provided summaries of 4 potential Civil Affairs Spin-Offs and ask that my readers give them a star rating with ‘5 Stars’ being ‘Loved It’ and ‘1 Star’ being ‘Not Diggin’ It...’

SUBMISSION # 1: PRIORITIES

“Each generation of The Uchiha clan has only ever had two primary goals; survive and find a way to exterminate The Senju. After all, the Senju clan is the only real threat to the Uchiha...or at least that's what Madara always thought. Madara Uchiha has discovered a more pressing threat from within his clan - in the form of his own father. Madara faces the harsh reality that in order to protect his clan he must overthrow his father and seize leadership. While the Council of Elders supports him, they also recognize Madara's most glaring flaw; he's a military tactician, not a politician. This time, Madara needs to try and get his way with finesse...not the force he's used to. 

Lady Fuyumi Tetsuhimi, the eldest daughter of a Lord from the Land of Iron, has an enviable social prowess and a keen mind eager for political games. Intrigued by the unrest within the Uchiha clan, Fuyumi agrees to be Madara's bride and help win him the position of clan head. When she accepts the clan's request for her hand in marriage she agrees to live for the Uchiha Clan from that day forward. And she meant it.

The story follows the two as they navigate the realities of an arranged marriage where both individuals prioritize the needs of the many over each other...or even themselves. One must have priorities.

The story begins in the Warring Clans era and continues until after Konoha's founding, chronicling Madara's marriage and the power-struggles within the clan during that time. As it takes place in the Civil Affairs Narutoverse, there's plenty of world building.”

RESULTS FOR # 1

 SUBMISSION # 2: YOU CATCH MORE FLIES WITH HONEY

“Tobirama Senju was determined to be a bachelor for life. The clan’s Council of Elders and his father tried to persuade him into marriage more times then he could count but he couldn’t be bought. With a wife came children…which was something he really didn’t want. He had no right bringing children into a world where they wouldn’t be likely to live past their eighth birthday. So, he remained happily unmarried and planned to do so until his dying day.

He might have succeeded, if his soft-hearted brother hadn’t been determined to bring the Hanabachiro clan back from the precipice of destruction. Lord Hanabachiro came to The Senju clan begging for protection with little to offer other then a marriage to his daughter – and Tobirama was the only unmarried Senju man available. Not pleased with the deal but unable to deny his brother’s request, Tobirama Senju married Mitsuka Hanabachiro.

Mitsuka wasn’t very bright and was extraordinarily pure-hearted. This combination made her naïve which from the beginning gave her no-nonsense husband nothing but grief. When she wasn’t irritating him she was getting into trouble. And when she wasn’t doing that…she was slowly melting the wall of ice he’d put up around his heart. Which in truth just irritated him more until one day he woke up and it didn’t. If Mitsuka was honey, then Tobirama was vinegar and you know what they say; you catch more flies with honey.

This story begins during the Warring Clans era and continues until Tobirama’s death, chronicling his life with his wife and exploring just how two people can ‘grow’ to love one another. It’s not going to entirely be romance as it does take place in the Civil Affairs Narutoverse and it will have a great deal of world building.”

RESULTS FOR #2

SUBMISSION # 3: BULL IN A CHINA SHOP

“Azami Ito had never had big dreams, at least none so grand as moving to a big village and making money as a successful business owner. Her father did but she didn’t. She was more then content to live her life blissfully single, in her childhood home, consumed by her art. Her blown glass art, specifically. In her house she had always been the patient and steadfast one, unlikely to bend and less likely to break.

Her father was a naïve moron who was incapable of seeing the evil in the world and as a result, was swindled out of all his money and land. He then promptly died. This left Azami destitute apart from a ‘promised’ piece of property in Kumogakure that she was pretty sure didn’t exist. Still, with nothing else to her name and nowhere to go, she made the move to the hidden village to see this ‘promised property’.

To her surprise the building really does exist. To her displeasure, it’s a dilapidated heap of wood. She makes the courageous decision to stay and fix up the building to be a shop where she intends to sell her glass wares and with some elbow grease, she begins to make some progress. She even begins to make a name for herself.

Then the eldest son of the Raikage comes literally smashing through the roof and out the front door, leaving nothing but shards of glass in his wake. Azami’s life is about to take a strange twist that even she didn’t expect - she was about to fall in love.

Nothing about A says subtle: he’s a bull in a china shop (in more ways then one). Which means she’s in for a difficult courtship, considering A can’t come within 300 feet of her shop without causing major property damage.

Once again takes place in the Civil Affairs Narutoverse although obviously this one is in Kumogakure. Plenty of world-building with a bit more of a rom-com feel to it then the others. Since the Kumogakure hierarchy of Raikage seems to pass from father to son, there will be a lot of expanding on a ‘monarchy’ of sorts and all the political drama that entails. If you’ve read Civil Affairs, you’ll probably be able to notice some cultural differences that I plan to incorporate between Kumo and Konoha.”

RESULTS FOR # 3

SUBMISSION # 4: ANGST ISN’T GOOD FOR THE SOUL

“Hisano Takano, barely able to hurt a fly, was too gentle to be a ninja but that was okay since her fiery brother was always there to protect her.

Despite not being a ninja, Hisano does have the same chakra sensing abilities as her brother and her late father. Through these abilities she has discovered something very important; your mood is affected by your chakra, and your chakra is affected by the chakra of others. Even more fascinating, when certain stones or crystals are charged with chakra they can alter and even correct these ‘chakra imbalances’.

While her brother is wandering the path of the shinobi, Hisano dedicates herself to studying ancient documents that refer the very phenomenon she’s been witnessing. With their wisdom Hisano goes into business and becomes Sunagakure’s first, and only, crystal healer. At first, most of the village doesn’t believe in her methods and she’s treated like a joke.

That changes when a desperate Temari no Subaku, eldest child of the late Lord Kazekage, knocks on her door with a request for help that she could never refuse. Even if it means having to spend a few days investigating the chakra of the village’s notorious demon-container.

This one takes place in the Civil Affairs narutoverse and is really going to be about doing some world building with Sunagakure. It’s going to span from just after the chunin exams in the television series to Shippuden and is going to bring more depth to just what exactly Gaara did for the village. I feel like Sunagakure’s likely shattered political scene and nearly non-existent economy needs to have some attention brought to it. Also, it gives me a chance to build a refreshing GaaraxOC because TO ME, while it was realistic, the Boruto series did Gaara an injustice by leaving him without a romantic partner.”

RESULTS FOR #4

Next, I asked if those taking the survey could order the results based on their preference of the order they would like to see the spin-offs published (#1 being published 1st to #4 being published last). The more times a story was ranked #1, the more points it got.

As you can see, the winner was: ANGST ISN’T GOOD FOR THE SOUL

Our Runner-Up was: BULL IN A CHINA SHOP

Since seeing these results I have begun serious work on finalizing the outlines of these stories and have made substantial progress in writing them. My plan is to have one or both ready for publishing by the time I complete Civil Affairs.

Stay tuned and thanks for participating!!!

[stewy497]

Stew Reviews - inFamous: Second Son

No, I’m not dead, I’m just really lazy. But now I’m back, and you might be interested to hear that I managed to get my hands on a PS4 at a vaguely non-extortionate price while I was away. So, let’s do some exclusives to justify my reckless spending.

Infamous: Second Son is an indirect sequel to the two prior Infamous games on the PS3. I haven’t played much further than the prologue of the first one, but that doesn’t matter since while Second Son utilises a few concepts from the originals, the story is largely unconnected. In the time since Infamous 2, leading man Cole McGrath has retired to Seattle to run a small chain of electronics shops, leaving the position of protagonist to Delsin Rowe, young Akomish punk and graffiti artist named after his preferred clothing material. In the world of Infamous there exists a small percentage of humans with the ability to manipulate different forms of matter, known as Conduits. Since the events of the first Infamous games, Conduits have developed something of a PR problem, being more commonly referred to as “bio terrorists” and imprisoned by some crazy woman with funny ideas about civil rights.

Second Son kicks off when a prison bus transferring a handful of Conduits crashes in Delsin’s neighbourhood, allowing a handful of them to escape. While investigating the crash, Delsin discovers that he can leech powers from other Conduits; this gives resident crazy woman Augustine, a government Conduit agent who looks like a head teacher dressed by a militant goth, an excuse to maim the Akomish people with jagged concrete shards. Thusly is established Delsin’s motivation to go to Seattle and take in the sights, while also maybe taking some time out to leech Augustine’s powers and undo the damage she caused. On the way he meets and leeches a handful of other Conduits, but none of them are particularly engaging or developed beyond their archetypes – I think the exact moment I gave up expecting compelling storytelling from this game was a line from the Neon Conduit, a pink-haired punk girl with facial piercings and an edgy attitude: “But the drugs, man, they were heaven.” I shouldn’t need to explain why that falls flatter than a pancake off a penthouse balcony, but just in case I do, it represents the character as nothing more than a caricature of a troubled youth, lacking in any nuance or insight. The story also attempts to make Augustine seem like a well-intentioned extremist, but that too falls completely flat since she’s a psychopath. No, seriously. If the concrete torture thing didn’t already tip you off, for all she claims about imprisoning Conduits for their own protection, she doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of human empathy, or that innocent, frightened, misunderstood people don’t appreciate being having their freedom stripped away, or being literally treated like death-row criminals.

I know I usually do my overall summary at the end of a review, but on this occasion, I’m going to skip ahead and say right away that while Second Son isn’t particularly offensive, I have very little actual praise to give it. Second Son was a launch title, and therefore was expected to do little more than showcase the new PS4’s graphical capabilities. In other words, PARTICLES. You can barely see the game past them. Every ability Delsin can use generates them in copious amounts, the same applies for most of the enemies, and the environments aren’t much better. Which is why it’s especially ironic that, on a slimline PS4 at least, the framerate suffers when things get too busy. Such as when the game starts throwing baddies at you en mass, the only way it knows how.

Combat is actually halfway exciting. With most power sets, taking down enemies becomes a decent challenge as each set functions differently and allows you to dispatch enemies in a variety of ways. Well, except for Video. Video lets you turn invisible and run around deleting enemies at your leisure. Effective, but not exactly stimulating, and since it also has the most effective movement ability the game is for all intents and purposes finished once you acquire it. Concrete is one of the stronger options in both combat and storytelling, as it lacks a non-lethal option in a noteworthy case of ludo-narrative synchronicity; Augustine was completely ruthless, and so is anybody with her powers. It’s just a shame that you only unlock Concrete at the end of the game, at which point there’s nothing to use it on, depending on how much of the sandbox you already cleared out.

You’re up against unfavourable numbers right from the beginning, as the core relays which are your primary source of upgrade tokens are heavily guarded, and fights often descend into spamming the dash button and waiting for your health to regenerate. It gets frustrating since it turns out that denim and sarcasm don’t make particularly good body armour. Less a problem in the later portion of the game, since you can get an upgrade that lets you restore your health with karma takedowns, and this also charges up your clearing attack. Useful for clearing out garrisons, but I feel like the combat could have been more reasonable if the clearing attack had been less pivotal. Had it been the unlockable endgame ability that it feels like, rather than a standard part of your powerset, it might not even have gotten stale watching the associated overdone, particle-smothered cutscene over and over again.

Outside of destroying core relays, the majority of the available side activities – destroying cameras, collecting audio logs, rooting out hidden DUP agents – only contribute to unlocking district showdowns, which only unlocks the district fast travel point, which is pointless because once a district’s showdown is completed, there isn’t much reason to stick around. Even if the fast travel system wasn’t a pain to unlock, your Conduit movement powers are fast and effective for getting around, and make exploring the city fun; in itself another nail in the fast travel system’s coffin, since you need to explore to find upgrade tokens and karma actions to build your powers. That would a good thing, as the essence of a sandbox is that messing around in it is cathartic and contributes towards achieving your goals, but Second Son subverts this by giving you relatively little room for specialisation, restricting you to a paltry handful of available powers and upgrades which ultimately do nothing to affect the outcome of the final confrontation, and in turn rendering moot the franchise’s signature karma system. Ideally there should be upgrades that increase your damage output or improve your mobility and evasiveness to make the final boss easier – incidentally, that would have been appreciated since as it stands the final battle is tedious, repetitive and unforgiving. You could probably finish the story in a single sitting if you ignored the side activities altogether, which would have the added advantage of giving you some actual endgame content for after the end.

While the side activities don’t contribute anything to the story, they do serve the purpose of clearing out Augustine’s flunkies and liberating Seattle from martial law. But that just means that if you do go through the side activities alongside the story as I did, by the end you’ll be left with nought but a dessert trolley of super powers and nothing to use them on. There is something called the Paper Chase, a questline which requires you to register an account on the inFamous website to start; I had assumed this was for customer surveying purposes, but it turned out to be a rather tedious and unintuitive ARG which requires you to peel yourself away from the actual game and spend half an hour shuffling through papers on your browser before you can actually play the damn mission. I didn’t bother, because it defeats the purpose of playing a video game and I have better things to do.

So, bottom line: Second Son stands for nothing, and brings nothing to the medium. I can’t think of a single reason to buy it if it didn’t already look like something you’d enjoy. It’s the video gaming equivalent of junk food – good enough while you’re experiencing it, but take a step back and you’ll find no reason to consume it. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the stencil art gimmick though. I thought it was very charming.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #476

“yeah, i am the brain, some say insane”

What is your favorite Pixar film? Finding Nemo. Who was the last person to send you any sort of message on social media? My sister Misty. Would you rather build a snowman or a snow fort? Why? Snowman. I think you can personalize them better. At what age do you believe children should begin having screen time? I don't know. I guess it would depend on the kid. Have you ever failed an important test? Which subject? Yes; I failed my last Algebra final and the course. Who taught you how to ride a bike? How old were you? My dad. Idr how old I was. Do you know what your ring size is? What is it? Nope. When you picture dinosaurs in your head, what color are they? Like a darkish red or green. Last candy you tried that you did not enjoy? Or one that you did enjoy? No clue. Were you a chubby or thin baby? I was your average size. What is the most outrageous thing you’ve considered doing lately? Trying to get a cubicle job. Like seriously, NOBODY wants those. I don't either, but I just don't know what other options I have that don't require a degree and I'm not flocked by other people. I'd probably have some duties on the phone, but like... I'm not going to find a job I qualify for that is perfectly reclusive. Have you ever known somebody who ran away? Not personally, no. Rollercoasters that go upside-down… yes please or no thank you? NO FUCKING THANK YOU. Can you have kids? I would assume so, but honestly I wish I physically couldn't with how intensely I fear being raped. Are you a fan of Elton John? I've never really listened to his music and know very little about him as an individual. What does your town’s name begin with? "R." Are you a seafood fan? Nooooo. The one and only seafood I enjoy is shrimp. Give me a random word in another language. Tell me what it means. "Himmel" is "Heaven" in German. Odd how that was the first one to come to me, ha ha. Which city would you like to visit- Rome, Tunis, London, Madrid or Paris? Rome. New tats in your near future? Sadly no. :/ I have to focus on more important things. Did you ever participate in beauty pageants as a child? No. I don't support those. Have you ever ridden in a limousine before? No, but I've always wanted to. :( What's the most amount of money you'd pay for a house or a vehicle? Idk, considering I'm not familiar enough with what is considered reasonable and average for either. What's the longest wait time you'll wait at a restaurant to be seated? If it was actually up to me, shit, maybe only 15 minutes. I am way too impatient, and I'd rather just go to another place than wait for a while. Have you ever been given a responsibility that you couldn't handle? Did you mean: my past three jobs? Did you ever try to start a club as a child? For what? I feel like my friends and I did before... but I remember nothing of it. Who was your favorite babysitter as a child? My sister had this friend in our neighborhood as a kid whose grandparents used to watch us. The grandpa we knew as "Uncle Donny," and he was bar none our favorite. He was such a sweet man. Have you ever cared for a stray animal before? Cats, on many occasions in the past. [TW: SUICIDE/OVERDOSE] Have you ever contacted a suicide or crisis services hotline? For whom? Yeah, for me. I tried first to reach them online in one of those private chatrooms, but I want to say I waited around 30 minutes with nobody available. I was so desperate that I tried calling too, but again, it was too busy. That's when I ODed. Is there anyone from your family that you no longer associate with? I have an uncle by marriage that's an abusive, manipulative fuck that NOBODY associates with, except his brainwashed daughters. Do you have any illnesses that reoccur frequently? I mean, I have mental illnesses that flare up now and again, but no traditional illnesses. What is your sexual orientation? Queer or pansexual, idk man. Have you ever done any drugs harder than marijuana? I've never even done weed. What is one job you would never want to have? I would, no exaggeration, rather die than be a butcher. I could never in five trillion years. Do you bite or peel your string cheese? I don't like string cheese. Who crosses your mind the most? Girt, nowadays. I know, a fucking shocker who wasn't the answer. Have you ever been on a scavenger hunt? In school, yeah. Ever been to an auction? No. Are there two colors that you just simply despise? Puke green and yellow. If you were a fish, what colour would you like to be? I wanna be the Rainbow Fish. :') Did your first real significant other change you at all? You have literally no idea. Are you waiting to have sex until you’re married? No. What’s your favorite football team? I don't like football. Or even understand it. Do you have anything autographed by a celebrity? No. What’s your favorite way to eat peanut butter? Gimme a Reese's and I'm a happy bitch. :^) What’s your favorite kind of sandwich? I'm basic, just hand me a pb&j. How are you today? Worried about my mother since she has Covid now. I'm not feeling too hot, either. Was any of your home decor inspired by Pinterest? No. What is this month’s calendar picture? I don't own a current calendar. What is your last ex-boyfriend’s or ex-girlfriend’s name? Sara Jane. I prefer to refer to her as just my best friend, though; "ex" usually implies negative feelings in some way or form, and I've none of those. Do you use Snapchat? I never have. Would you rather go out for pancakes or steak? Yum, pancakes. Are you the clubbing type? No. Clubs don't appeal to me at all. Is your ex sexually attractive to you still? I haven't seen him in literally years. I wouldn't know. What is unattractive about them? The fact he apparently can't accept a mentally ill partner. Supposedly, he broke up with the girl he dated after me for the same reason he left me: her having depression. Like bro, good fucking luck finding a girl who doesn't struggle with something. Good luck finding someone who's going to be on Cloud 9 all the time. And also, he never communicated what he was feeling. Do you have a crap load of friends to hang out with? God no. The only person I hang out with is my boyfriend. Honeymoon, where? Alaska, if it's a good time of year to see the Northern Lights. If not, maybe the Bahamas to visit their black and pink beaches. The heat and humidity put me off, though... Lipstick over the actual natural lip line, your thoughts? It's capable of being attractive if done well and it's not too extreme, unless you're only looking from a distance. It can look especially great on drag queens imo. How would your wedding bouquet look like? Depends on the time of year, really. I kind of want to say black regardless, but I think that would blend too much with my dress (which I want to be black). Maybe if it was in the fall, which I want, it'd be orange and black to fit the Halloween vibe I'd love to have as a theme, perhaps a rich red, or light pink and white... idk. That's far in the future. What kind of game would you like to play that doesn’t exist yet? Bro, give me a meerkat simulator. There's the Lead the Meerkats Wii game that I ADORE, but I think the concept could be greatly expanded upon and made more realistic. What is one thing you would never ever eat? Balut came to mind very quickly. That looks like the grossest shit imaginable. I'll never forget seeing it for the first time on GMM and wondering how neither of them literally died where they sat lmao. There are a LOT of other foods, too. I'm incredibly picky. Which character in your favorite movie do you hate the most? Every single character from The Lion King is so lovable. Which non-existing (sci-fi and such) weapon and/or vehicle would you like to own/use? Bro, I want Thori'dal from WoW. A bombin' bow with unlimited, magical arrows? That shit's dope. Could save your life, and plus I love bows. How do you think the world will end? Humanity's end will almost certainly be rooted in human action. The end of the planet itself will probably be a black hole, gamma ray, or something else supremely powerful. If you could take a pill that would cure something in you that isn’t an illness - what would you be cured of? The fact I'm fat. :^) Take it all away pls. Has anyone besides your family seen you naked? If so, who? My ex. Do you remember anyone’s number by heart? Literally nobody's. Not even my own. :x Name something you will never try in your lifetime. Hunting. What’s the best place you have ever eaten at? The Cheesecake Factory, omlllll. Are you at home right now? Yep. What’s worse: Crocs or Uggs? Crocs are so fucking ugly to me. Do you knock before you open doors? Always. Does Fred from YouTube annoy you? Now THIS is a throwback. I liked him as a kid. He'd probably annoy the shit out of me now. Anything exciting taking place today? No. Who have you texted today? My mother and Becky, the receptionist at my psychiatrist's office. I rescheduled my appointment to tomorrow with my mom being sick (she wants to talk to him, and she's in no shape to today) and me not feeling well, either. Do you like grapefruits? No. Have you ever had the Reese’s PB candy bars? Omfg, the ones that are a bar of smaller squares is my FAVORITE candy in the world. Where’s your mother? In bed. She was directed to mostly quarantine in her room away from me. Are there any pets you’re wishing for? Always. :( Do you like oatmeal raisin cookies? I HATE raisins, so guess. Is your belly button pierced? No. Do you watch PewDiePie? Not anymore, no. His content changed a long time ago and doesn't interest me anymore. Do you like "Despacito?" Omg my sister showed it to me once and I hated it. Do you have any subscribers on YouTube? uhhh *checks* I have 71. More than I expected, ha ha. What’s the first word that comes to your mind if I say: "Boop!" Booping a snake on the nose. :'3 Have you ever played Five Nights at Freddy’s? Nah. I enjoy watching YouTubers play it, and I like the franchise, it's just not my kind of game to actually play. Can you twerk? Oh god, never tried, don't want to. Do you like dabbing? It looks stupid to me. It looks like you're smelling your armpit, dude. Can money buy you happiness? You are 110% full of shit if you think it can't to some degree. I would be so, so much happier if I wasn't poor. Have you heard of Blizzard Entertainment? Well, considering they're the company that owns World of Warcraft, obviously.