#but at least i've got people now who know what they're doing and will help return my room to a livable space

[pastafossa]

Fiberglass nightmare update: So the construction cleanup guy came and he was horrified over what the contractors had done with the fiberglass in my room.

"And they left your fan on, which just blows the dust around???"

"Yeah."

"And they didn't cover any of your stuff???? The bedding, the furniture????"

"Nope."

"And they told you to sweep and dust, which just pushes the fiberglass dust into the air??????"

"Mhm."

"And then they told you that you could sleep up here??!?!?!? When I can literally see fiberglass on your floor?!??!?!??!?!"

"Yup."

Cleanup guy:

So basically, he confirmed it's bad, and not safe to be up there, so I've also had to cancel the drywall guys tomorrow (cleanup guy said they'd just stir up the dust). The cleanup crew is going to have to come in with a massive, industrial strength HEPA vac and clean floor to ceiling (since the fan + ac blew it onto everything, including the walls and ceiling). They're going to give all the furniture a full wipedown from top to bottom, and then they're going to bring in a massive air filter, hook it to the window, and essentially pump the fiberglass dust in the air out the window. That'll take at least eight hours after they clean up, so I'll be on my air mattress for a while longer. The good news is - THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO COME IN TOMORROW.

He also confirmed my clothes are saveable, as is my mattress (though not the bedding). I told him to let me know if there's anything up there tomorrow that can't be saved, since a few of my desk drawers were slightly open, and at this point I'll just add it to the list of thing to replace.

[psychoticallytrans]

A surprisingly helpful bit of social maneuvering I've figured out from trial and error: Throughout your life, you are going to need things from people. Often, it's going to be on a deadline. And when that deadline passes, you generally want to know what's going on. So, you need to ask them.

There are two kinds of people, broadly, in this situation. The Shameless will tell you what the holdup is, with absolutely no regard for if the reason is "good enough". This is actually very helpful, because you get the real reason immediately, and can start working on a solution.

The Ashamed is trickier. People who are Ashamed are people who were often told they were giving excuses when they were trying to explain, and they'll often avoid you until they solve the problem on their own. This causes them and you a lot of stress, and often takes a lot longer to solve.

Long term, the strategy for dealing with people who are Ashamed is to provide a supportive environment where they're comfortable sharing any problems they're having with getting things done. But, there's a way to at least partially short-circuit that:

Provide an explanation for them.

One example might be "Hey Susan, I noticed that I don't have your report yet. Are you busy with other projects?" The readymade explanation signals that you're willing to accept an explanation, which is the big anxiety point.

Sometimes, you still won't get an honest answer- especially if the honest answer isn't "good enough" by the standards of the person who traumatized them. But, I've found that it often at least gets you a lie that lets you give them some slack or work around the problem.

Let's say that Susan has actually completely forgotten that she needed to do the report. She's horrified at herself, and completely unwilling to admit the real problem. But, she can now safely reply with "Sorry Jennifer, I've been swamped, and it got lost in the mix. I can have it to you in two days. Does that work?"

From there, so long as Susan gave an estimate for when she can actually do it, she and Jennifer can hash out a solution.

It's not a perfect solution, but it works astonishingly well for how small of a change it is.

[treasure-mimic]

So, let me try and put everything together here, because I really do think it needs to be talked about.

Today, Unity announced that it intends to apply a fee to use its software. Then it got worse.

For those not in the know, Unity is the most popular free to use video game development tool, offering a basic version for individuals who want to learn how to create games or create independently alongside paid versions for corporations or people who want more features. It's decent enough at this job, has issues but for the price point I can't complain, and is the idea entry point into creating in this medium, it's a very important piece of software.

But speaking of tools, the CEO is a massive one. When he was the COO of EA, he advocated for using, what out and out sounds like emotional manipulation to coerce players into microtransactions.

"A consumer gets engaged in a property, they might spend 10, 20, 30, 50 hours on the game and then when they're deep into the game they're well invested in it. We're not gouging, but we're charging and at that point in time the commitment can be pretty high."

He also called game developers who don't discuss monetization early in the planning stages of development, quote, "fucking idiots".

So that sets the stage for what might be one of the most bald-faced greediest moves I've seen from a corporation in a minute. Most at least have the sense of self-preservation to hide it.

A few hours ago, Unity posted this announcement on the official blog.

Effective January 1, 2024, we will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee that’s based on game installs. We will also add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no extra cost to Unity subscription plans this November. We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user. We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.

Now there are a few red flags to note in this pitch immediately.

Unity is planning on charging a fee on all games which use its engine.

This is a flat fee per number of installs.

They are using an always online runtime function to determine whether a game is downloaded.

There is just so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start, not helped by this FAQ which doubled down on a lot of the major issues people had.

I guess let's start with what people noticed first. Because it's using a system baked into the software itself, Unity would not be differentiating between a "purchase" and a "download". If someone uninstalls and reinstalls a game, that's two downloads. If someone gets a new computer or a new console and downloads a game already purchased from their account, that's two download. If someone pirates the game, the studio will be asked to pay for that download.

Q: How are you going to collect installs? A: We leverage our own proprietary data model. We believe it gives an accurate determination of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project. Q: Is software made in unity going to be calling home to unity whenever it's ran, even for enterprice licenses? A: We use a composite model for counting runtime installs that collects data from numerous sources. The Unity Runtime Fee will use data in compliance with GDPR and CCPA. The data being requested is aggregated and is being used for billing purposes. Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. Q: What's going to stop us being charged for pirated copies of our games? A: We do already have fraud detection practices in our Ads technology which is solving a similar problem, so we will leverage that know-how as a starting point. We recognize that users will have concerns about this and we will make available a process for them to submit their concerns to our fraud compliance team.

This is potentially related to a new system that will require Unity Personal developers to go online at least once every three days.

Starting in November, Unity Personal users will get a new sign-in and online user experience. Users will need to be signed into the Hub with their Unity ID and connect to the internet to use Unity. If the internet connection is lost, users can continue using Unity for up to 3 days while offline. More details to come, when this change takes effect.

It's unclear whether this requirement will be attached to any and all Unity games, though it would explain how they're theoretically able to track "the number of installs", and why the methodology for tracking these installs is so shit, as we'll discuss later.

Unity claims that it will only leverage this fee to games which surpass a certain threshold of downloads and yearly revenue.

Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.

They don't say how they're going to collect information on a game's revenue, likely this is just to say that they're only interested in squeezing larger products (games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, Fate Grand Order, Among Us, and Fall Guys) and not every 2 dollar puzzle platformer that drops on Steam. But also, these larger products have the easiest time porting off of Unity and the most incentives to, meaning realistically those heaviest impacted are going to be the ones who just barely meet this threshold, most of them indie developers.

Aggro Crab Games, one of the first to properly break this story, points out that systems like the Xbox Game Pass, which is already pretty predatory towards smaller developers, will quickly inflate their "lifetime game installs" meaning even skimming the threshold of that 200k revenue, will be asked to pay a fee per install, not a percentage on said revenue.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Hey Gamers!

Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold - regardless of how that copy was obtained.

Guess who has a somewhat highly anticipated game coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024? That's right, it's us and a lot of other developers.

That means Another Crab's Treasure will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business.

And that's before we even think about sales on other platforms, or pirated installs of our game, or even multiple installs by the same user!!!

This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. Which is really something we'd rather not do.

On behalf of the dev community, we're calling on Unity to reverse the latest in a string of shortsighted decisions that seem to prioritize shareholders over their product's actual users.

I fucking hate it here.

-Aggro Crab - END DESCRIPTION]

That fee, by the way, is a flat fee. Not a percentage, not a royalty. This means that any games made in Unity expecting any kind of success are heavily incentivized to cost as much as possible.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A table listing the various fees by number of Installs over the Install Threshold vs. version of Unity used, ranging from $0.01 to $0.20 per install. END DESCRIPTION]

Basic elementary school math tells us that if a game comes out for $1.99, they will be paying, at maximum, 10% of their revenue to Unity, whereas jacking the price up to $59.99 lowers that percentage to something closer to 0.3%. Obviously any company, especially any company in financial desperation, which a sudden anchor on all your revenue is going to create, is going to choose the latter.

Furthermore, and following the trend of "fuck anyone who doesn't ask for money", Unity helpfully defines what an install is on their main site.

While I'm looking at this page as it exists now, it currently says

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

However, I saw a screenshot saying something different, and utilizing the Wayback Machine we can see that this phrasing was changed at some point in the few hours since this announcement went up. Instead, it reads:

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming or web browser is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

Screenshot for posterity:

That would mean web browser games made in Unity would count towards this install threshold. You could legitimately drive the count up simply by continuously refreshing the page. The FAQ, again, doubles down.

Q: Does this affect WebGL and streamed games? A: Games on all platforms are eligible for the fee but will only incur costs if both the install and revenue thresholds are crossed. Installs - which involves initialization of the runtime on a client device - are counted on all platforms the same way (WebGL and streaming included).

And, what I personally consider to be the most suspect claim in this entire debacle, they claim that "lifetime installs" includes installs prior to this change going into effect.

Will this fee apply to games using Unity Runtime that are already on the market on January 1, 2024? Yes, the fee applies to eligible games currently in market that continue to distribute the runtime. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

Again, again, doubled down in the FAQ.

Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones. A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

That would involve billing companies for using their software before telling them of the existence of a bill. Holding their actions to a contract that they performed before the contract existed!

Okay. I think that's everything. So far.

There is one thing that I want to mention before ending this post, unfortunately it's a little conspiratorial, but it's so hard to believe that anyone genuinely thought this was a good idea that it's stuck in my brain as a significant possibility.

A few days ago it was reported that Unity's CEO sold 2,000 shares of his own company.

On September 6, 2023, John Riccitiello, President and CEO of Unity Software Inc (NYSE:U), sold 2,000 shares of the company. This move is part of a larger trend for the insider, who over the past year has sold a total of 50,610 shares and purchased none.

I would not be surprised if this decision gets reversed tomorrow, that it was literally only made for the CEO to short his own goddamn company, because I would sooner believe that this whole thing is some idiotic attempt at committing fraud than a real monetization strategy, even knowing how unfathomably greedy these people can be.

So, with all that said, what do we do now?

Well, in all likelihood you won't need to do anything. As I said, some of the biggest names in the industry would be directly affected by this change, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they're not just going to take it lying down. After all, the only way to stop a greedy CEO is with a greedier CEO, right?

(I fucking hate it here.)

And that's not mentioning the indie devs who are already talking about abandoning the engine.

[Links display tweets from the lead developer of Among Us saying it'd be less costly to hire people to move the game off of Unity and Cult of the Lamb's official twitter saying the game won't be available after January 1st in response to the news.]

That being said, I'm still shaken by all this. The fact that Unity is openly willing to go back and punish its developers for ever having used the engine in the past makes me question my relationship to it.

The news has given rise to the visibility of free, open source alternative Godot, which, if you're interested, is likely a better option than Unity at this point. Mostly, though, I just hope we can get out of this whole, fucking, environment where creatives are treated as an endless mill of free profits that's going to be continuously ratcheted up and up to drive unsustainable infinite corporate growth that our entire economy is based on for some fuckin reason.

Anyways, that's that, I find having these big posts that break everything down to be helpful.

[trashfangirlsworld]

Hello! I've been inactive due to the current events in the mcyt community, but I've been keeping up with the qsmp admin situation and I thought I'd share some opinions because the amount of doomposting I've seen the last few weeks has been more than I've seen in any fandom in a while and I feel like it's reached the point where people really need to chill the fuck out because they're not thinking straight and actively not helping. Everything I'm gonna say is based on stuff I've seen on both tumblr and twitter.

they should not promote/release merch! : one of the things that baffles me the most tbh; how do you expect any employee to be payed then? Merch is so far the only big source of income for the server besides q's own cc salary or whatever income they get through the official qsmp channel on twitch and youtube (which I don't think is a lot). "I get that they said they have no funds, but still it doesn't feel right"... sorry but at this point I don't know what to tell you, do you expect them to pull money out of their asses? You can't demand that they stop making merch and then complain that they can't afford the twitter admins at the same time. If you don't feel comfortable buying anything from them it's fine obviously, but if your reason for it is that you're helping the admins then I have bad news for you. I have seen people propose that quackity sets up a patreon, and while I think it would be a good idea, I understand why he's not doing it, since with the merch he can at least give something back to the people that choose to support his project instead of people just giving him money for free, especially with what's happening now. Also with how much hate he's been receiving simply for the merch I can't imagine that a patreon would be recieved well.

we don't know if the money is going to the admins/ they should not use pomme's likeness! : the money is definitely going to go to the employees and admins because otherwise the server would not last. And as much as I understand people feeling protective over pomme's admin, quackity studios is very much allowed to sell merch of the character because it is not the likeness of the admin, it's a minecraft model made by the people that work there. Would you have rathered they skip her character entirely? Do you really think that would have been okay?. Also correct me if I'm wrong, but I've seen posts and tweets saying that pomme's admin has been confirmed to come back with the other eggs whenever it happens by pierre, who talked with her admin.

the admins of the update accounts got fired, it means they want to fire everyone, they aren't making things better! : it sucks that the updates accounts had to end and I feel bad for every twitter admin that clearly cared a lot about the project, but unfortunately it had to happen if there simply isn't enough money to pay them adequately like they deserved and ultimately the update accounts were not essential to keep the project going, so it makes sense that they were let go unfortunately. This is not gonna be the case for the egg admins because if they got fired (which they didn't), the server would basically end. Just because a cc does not know when they will be back does not mean it's not gonna happen. Just because tubbo randomly said that he's not sure if they will be back does not mean they were fired; tubbo is normally not a reliable source of information, even less so when he's been live nonstop for the past 20 days, which is prior to everything happening. If you genuinely didn't expect a reduction in non essential staff considering everything, then you have unreasonable expectations on how this stuff goes. As I write this, I'm seeing people saying that "they would understand this decision if q had set up a patreon to pay the admins", and once again I don't understand how people don't realize why quackity might not be keen on the idea of having his fans pay his own employees for his own project instead of, you know, doing it himself; and, again, do not fool yourself into thinking it would be recieved well. That being said, it's fair to criticize how everything was communicated to the admins, but I'll get to this in more detail later.

quackity should not have uninstalled social media, he's trying to avoid everything! : he's not avoiding anything, he's been off social media for a while now, which is why it took him that long to remove wilbur from the server. He has every right to not want to look at social media, as his focus should be on restructuring his server instead of doomscrolling on twitter because people think he needs to see how much people dislike him. The only people that he should talk to are those that have important information to tell him, like josè with the document. He explicitly said on stream where to contact him if you have helpful information and I'm sure that despite multiple well liked posts saying not to spam his email, people are definitely doing it anyway, which is probably gonna slow the whole thing down even more. I hope josè's document is able to be seen with pierre's help as well.

quackity studios is not communicating with their employees and leaving them in the dark and that's not okay : I agree with this. i think a huge chunk of doomposting lately has been due the lack of communication not with the audience, but with the admins, and they deserve to know what is happening behind the scenes more then us since this is about their current or future job.... that being said, I do kind of understand why they're being so secretive and shutting everyone out, and that's due to all the "leaks" that have been spread online. I understand the anger but I really wish some people would realize that discussing leaked bts lore stuff in ccs discord servers does not help the situation at all and instead makes it seem like they're only doing this to rile up the fandom against quackity studios by using the lore of people's fav characters.

At the end of the day, I think people just aren't used to dealing with a situation that does not have a clear cut solution and someone to clearly hate, so the result is this doomposting and the over aggressiveness toward anything related to the project. Personally, I haven't witnessed anything that made me lose faith in the qsmp like some people have been saying, as every change that we've seen so far coincides with what quackity said on stream a while ago. I only wish things were communicated properly to the admins clearly, as they're the ones most affected, so I hope that's resolved soon. Ultimately quackity is singlehandedly restructuring the server from basically zero, has had to fire people that were misusing money and power and, depending on what josè's document said, is probably gonna have to fire some more. This is not an easy process, nor a quick one, you're not gonna hear about sunshine and rainbows for a while and doomposting about everything you hear because you expected quick change is useless. Think before you speak, have a clear head and most importantly have empathy.

[ashleyisartsy]

Problems (objective and personal) I'm not seeing discussed a lot w this new WatcherTV thing, in no particular order:

-Alienates people internationally who literally CANNOT GET the streaming service!

-Alienates casual fans who don't watch or want to watch all of their shows. Putting down 60 bucks a year to watch just one or two shows is kind of insane, at least for me.

-The volume of content Watcher has produced historically hasn't been enough to justify a separate streamer. I understand there's no way a small team could compete with something like Netflix, obviously, but that's what you're trying to do by putting yourself in the streamer market.

-Will this streamer be secure? What steps are in place to protect your viewers info? ESPECIALLY payment info.

-Will it be easily watchable on multiple devices? I watch YouTube videos on my phone at work 90% of the time, or at home on my TV thru my switch. Is this a browser only deal?

-What are the internet requirements for this? Believe it or not most streaming services won't run on my internet personally. I don't have any for that reason. I can watch YouTube on 360p, or on my 2-bar-reception phone data. Not everywhere has stable reliable internet.

-The suddenness and totality of the move was going to be jarring no matter what, if the idea had been introduced gradually or started as a hybrid model to test audience interest there wouldn't be nearly this amount of pushback.

-I understand the people saying "pay artists!!" Bc I am one, and I get that their quality is expensive and they have a whole company's worth of people to support. I do actually think their work is worth paying for! Everyone's is! But convincing anyone to pay for something they previously got for free is going to be a hard sell. They were still getting paid before, they're now just asking us to pay instead of the advertisers. Idk about you, but that's a way bigger hit to my pocketbook than a multimillion dollar company's bank account.

-I get that YouTube can be a really shitty place to be a creator sometimes, and that being beholden to advertisers is something they don't want to be. It's why they left Buzzfeed! They already have a patreon and merch and it's clearly not been enough for their ambitions. But shooting yourself in the foot because your running shoes are wearing out isn't going to make you a better marathon runner. They had to know that there was going to be a not small portion of their audience unwilling to make this move with them (and again, lots literally aren't able to!)

-If they had a free w/ ads option, or even did a hybrid model with whole shows behind the pay wall, or even just ran a fucking crowd funding campaign to help cover costs of new seasons of shows, any of those things could have worked. They don't even have YouTube memberships turned on, which I've personally seen many many channels do even when they already have a patreon. It really doesn't seem like they've exhausted other options, at least from an outside perspective, which is all we have as viewers!

-I get that this has been in the works for a long time, and that there probably isn't a way for them to back out now. But I hope they can find a way to make this more accessible if they want it to work at all. I truly am not wishing for their downfall, but the whole situation is an awful mess.

Idk, rant over. As a lot of you are I'm feeling very disappointed and upset with this one, and I'm not paying for it either. Hope the boys can salvage this one for their and their crew's sake. Would really hate for this to be the end.

[sanguineterrain]

Hi Sanne! I'm not sure if requests are open, but if you're up to it I'd like to request red hood x reporter! Maybe reporter reader is getting too close to a case and is starting to become a target and hood takes her protection into his own hands? ((Including lots of midnight rendezvous and rooftop bump ins))

i love this prompt sm! i've been thinking about a reporter reader ever since i read task force z :) thanks for requesting!

jason todd x gn!reporter!reader. tw: reader is attacked (but they're okay), guns, violence, fighting, jason being both a force to be reckoned with and a big softie. 2.5k words

****

"I don't need protection."

The Red Hood crosses his arms. You cross yours right back.

"Yes, you do," he says.

"No, I don't. I've lived in Gotham my whole life. I can take care of myself."

"Living around and being in the thick of violence are very different. You're already chasing this story; they will come after you."

And what a story it is. The story of the decade, at the very least. A task force of formerly-dead Arkham patients wielded against Gotham by a mysterious benefactor.

It's terrifying. It's dangerous. It's sure to win you your first Pulitzer.

And it all means absolutely nothing if the Red Hood keeps wrapping you in red tape.

Your jaw ticks. "This is my story, Hood. You can't turn it in, so I will. And I won't be scared off by some slimeball."

"Oh, please. You wouldn't even have known about this story if it wasn't for me, smarty."

Smarty. His favorite moniker for you because, according to him, you think you know everything.

Working with the Red Hood has been an unfortunate side effect of chasing your prize-winning story. Not only is he wanted in twenty-six countries (you Googled it) and is a ruthless crime lord (supposedly formerly, but you're doubtful), but worst of all, he's got an attitude to match yours.

He's also built like a tank, which is why you can't just. Outrun him.

"I can't just not publish the story," you say.

"I don't want to stop you from publishing the story. Hence the protection."

"I can't afford a bodyguard."

"Well, it's a good thing I already paid my rent this month."

You scoff. "The Gotham Gazette has a strict 'no armed and dangerous' policy. I'm afraid we all have to leave our gun-toting vigilantes at home."

You open the driver's door of your car, ready to end the conversation here and now. Hood calmly closes the door with his hip and leans.

You glare. "Get off of my car."

"Fact." He holds up a finger. "These kinds of people always strike before the story comes out. They know you're scared and stressed, and they wanna do it before the story gets out. Otherwise, it's obvious who killed who."

"And where did you read this fact? Crime Lord's Digest? We don't even know if they know I'm the reporter who broke into the lab."

"Listen, smarty, I've been in this game a lot longer than you. I know how they operate," he says, finally getting off of your car, only to lean on the hood. Jerk. "It's only a matter of time before whoever's behind this snuffs you out."

"I am not letting a wanted criminal nest in my apartment!"

"That's why I'd be there."

"I was talking about you, Hood."

"Funny."

"I'm not joking. Look, I appreciate your... help." You try not to show your exasperation. "But there's no way I'm inviting you over to my apartment. That'll set off more alarms. If anything happens, I'll call you. Until then, stay away. Deal?"

Hood looks you over.

"Hm. You're awfully comfortable with giving me orders, smarty."

Your adrenaline spikes for a second. But it quickly calms. You've worked with Hood for a month now. Sure, you were petrified the first week, but it quickly dissipated. You've fallen into an odd camaraderie with him.

It's actually kind of nice, having him on your side. No one at the Gazette gives you the time of day. You've become used to having a partner. Not that you'd ever tell him that.

"You take orders so well, I can't help but dole them out," you say, only a little smirky.

"Watch it," Hood rumbles, only half-serious. Probably.

You beam and wrench open your car door, sliding into the seat.

"See?" you say, turning the ignition. "No snipers waiting to take me out. I'll be fine."

He shakes his head and slides off the hood. "Ten bucks says they'll try by the end of the week."

You close your door. "You're on."

****

As it turns out, Hood doesn't need the end of the week to earn his tenner. Trouble breaks down your door the very same night.

You're on your couch with some well-earned Lebanese takeout when your door is ripped off of your hinges. You shoot up from the couch, chest immediately tight.

Your assailant is masked and isn't that typical, giving masked men everywhere a bad name.

You run to the kitchen, hoping you can grab a knife. But you're grabbed before you can get there. You slip on the carpet and trip further into your assailant's arms.

"Keep still so I won't make a mess," is all he says.

You start screaming. He covers your mouth and you bite his hand. That earns you a thump on your cheek, so hard your vision blurs.

Bang!

You freeze, expecting the warm drip of blood and the excruciating pain to accompany it. Instead, your assailant falls to the floor, clutching his ribs. You stumble backwards and see Hood at your door, gun still aimed. He stalks over and kicks the assailant in the chest as he does. The assailant groans.

"You okay?"

You're still staring at the man who very nearly killed you a minute ago. Blood roars in your ears. You think you might be close to fainting.

"Hey." Big, gloved hands hold your face. You flinch and hold the owner's wrists. Hood comes into view once more.

"Are you okay?" he asks firmly. "Look at me, look at me, sweet. Breathe. 'S okay. Does anything hurt? Did he—"

Hood cuts himself off as he touches your cheek, where you were hit. He lightly runs a thumb over what is probably a budding bruise.

Hood lets you go and whirls onto your attacker. He hauls him up and presses a gun to his stomach.

"Go ahead, shoot me!" the attacker shouts.

"If I shoot you, it won't be out of mercy. You won't get a quick death. You don't deserve it," Hood snarls, and you suddenly remember all of your good reasons for fearing the Red Hood.

"I ain't telling ya shit!"

"I don't expect you to," Hood says, and fires again.

The man crumples to the ground, but he's clearly still breathing. Still alive. Hood drags him to the door by his collar.

"You go back to your boss. And you tell 'em that they're fucking with the Red Hood now. And, in case I'm not being perfectly fucking clear through all that blood loss—" Hood grabs the man by his hair and wrenches his head back. "If you come for my reporter again, you'll wish I was kind enough to put a bullet in your head."

Hood hauls your attacker outside. You hear a car start a minute later, and it tears down the street.

You look at your guardian angel, spattered in blood.

Not nearly as much blood as I expected, you think manically.

Your body aches and shakes with adrenaline. You can't even get enough control to move to the couch.

"How–how did you get here so fast?" you ask, staring at your now cracked coffee table.

"I've been monitoring your apartment since you got home. One of the traffic cameras picked up a stolen vehicle turning onto your block, so I came here."

You look at Hood. He seems very collected, all things considered.

"You—how did you find my apartment? Have you been stalking me?"

"Please. Lend me a little credit, smarty. I don't need to stalk you to find where you live," he says, holstering his gun.

"Are you insane?!" you burst. "That is such a gross invasion of privacy! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Hood looks at you.

"What's wrong with me is I just saved your life," he says evenly. "And on that note, you owe me ten bucks. Maybe even fifteen, considering it took less than a day for them to do exactly what I said they would."

Your lip wobbles. You don't know what triggers it; maybe it's your scratched up door or torn sofa or the fact that the Red Hood is in your living room right now with blood on his suit.

The tears form quickly. You can't stop them.

You cover your face but a sob claws out of your throat. Soon, you fall into big, heaving cries.

"Whoa, hey." The floorboards creak under Hood's unsure footsteps. "Hey, I didn't mean that. Shit. I was just kidding about the bet part. Aw, don't cry, smarty."

A hand lightly touches your shoulder. You lean in, but don't dare to initiate more contact. So Hood eases you into a side hug, awkwardly patting your other arm. He's extremely warm and solid with muscle, but his chest is soft enough to rest your head on. He unclips his holster so it doesn't dig into your body.

"I was just kidding," Hood says quietly in your ear. He rubs your arm. "'M sorry. Didn't mean to make y'cry."

You sniff and shake your head. "No, it–it's not that, I'm just—God, I'm t-terrified, Hood. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? They're gonna kill me! I'm gonna die before I win my first Pulitzer!"

You try to suck in deep breath but it's not working. Hood leads your unsteady feet to the couch. You sit, fingers gripping his jacket. Hood carefully loosens your grip.

"They're not gonna kill ya, smarty. I won't let 'em. C'mon, let's have a seat. Where's your kitchen?"

You point, lashes still thick with tears. Hood leaves and returns shortly. A glass of water is held to your lips. You drink it, breathing stilted.

"'S okay. Take it easy. Breathe. That's right."

You swallow half of the water, and he sets the glass down on the coffee table. Hood hands you a wad of tissues.

"This is pathetic," you say, wiping your tears. "Can't believe I'm being nursed by the Red Hood."

"I think nursed is a strong word. But it's more than I usually do for my informants. Then again, they don't usually burst into tears."

"Don't make fun of me. I'm fragile."

"I wasn't making fun of you," Hood says, gentler than you've ever heard him. He puts the tissues aside and rests a hand on your shoulder. You turn into it, appreciative of the weight. "You handled this better than most people would. You didn't even pass out. Hell, I've passed out."

You're sure that Hood is leaving out important details behind that anecdote, like fighting off a hundred men or being swallowed by a whale beforehand. You're grateful nonetheless.

You turn to him, fresh tears in your eyes. "They're gonna kill me, Red."

He shakes his head. "No. Listen to me. Nobody is gonna do anything to you, okay? I'm not gonna let 'em hurt you, smarty pie."

"That's an impossible promise," you say. "One of these days, something will happen. You can't be everywhere at once. Especially not while I'm at home."

Hood tilts his head. "Well..."

"Well, what?"

He rubs his throat. An old injury, he'd once told you. The pain flares up sometimes.

"I could call in a favor. Get you into a safehouse."

"You would do that for me?" you ask. You probably shouldn't ask. Shouldn't look a generous vigilante in the mouth. But you can't help it.

"I can't very well publish the story myself, can I?"

You shrug. "I doubt that. You have your ways. Once you have the evidence, you don't need me."

"That's not true," Hood says fiercely. "I do need you."

Your eyes widen. Hood fumbles for a moment.

"That—I mean for the case. Obviously. I don't have any journalistic links besides you. And I wouldn't want the story to fall into the wrong hands."

"Oh." You have a strong urge to wrap your arms around him. Weird. "Well, um, thank you. I appreciate it."

"Don't thank me yet. It'll take me a few days to get the safehouse," he says.

You deflate. "Oh. So I have to stay here until then?"

Hood is quiet for a long time. So long, you briefly revisit your original theory that the Red Hood is actually an AI remotely controlled by a billionaire.

"Hood?"

You reach to touch him. He flinches, a tiny movement. You immediately draw back.

Nope. Still a man.

"Sorry," he says, hand slipping from your shoulder. "I was, uh, going over options. No, your place is toast until we find whoever's behind this. But, um, it would be possible for you to—if you want to, 'cause if you don't, y'know, I understand, but I—it would be doable for you to, uh, stay with me. Until I get the safehouse."

"Stay... in your apartment?"

"'S not far from here. And it's a hell of a lot better protected than your place. And, y'know, I'd be there most of the time, so like..." Hood clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. It'd be safe. I promise."

"I wouldn't want to impose," you say, nervously scratching your arm.

"Mm. If you're scared of staying with me, y'can just say so. I won't take it personal."

He does kind of sound like he's taking it personally.

"No, Hood, it's not that. I don't... I'm not afraid of you. That, uh, went away a while back," you say. "I just... I don't want to burden you. After all, it's your space."

He makes a sound that tells you he's rolling his eyes behind his helmet.

"Saving your life is important, smarty. Why you don't think so, I'll never know."

You make a soft, pleased sound. "Got a real bleeding heart there, Red."

He sighs. "Yeah. I'm working on it."

You grin. "Thank you for rescuing me."

"Part of the job. If you don't wanna stay with me, I could..." Hood hesitates. "With your permission... I could get the Bats involved. Ask one of them to house you."

"You mean Batman?"

Hood grunts. "Preferably anyone but him, but yeah, if it comes to that. He'll probably get involved anyway. Fuckin' busybody."

"The Bats would protect me? But they don't know me."

"Don't matter. If I asked them to, they would. If that's something you want."

You think. Is it something you want?

Sure, any reasonable person would prefer Nightwing or Batman to protect them.

"I don't want to stay with them," you say. "I'd rather stay with you."

He jerks like you've told him the sky is falling.

"You do?" he asks.

"Well, yeah. I know you, Red. And I know you'll keep me safe."

"At any cost," he says.

That simultaneously frightens and thrills you.

"Then I'd like to go home with you," you say. "If you'll have me."

"'Course, smarty. Anything to keep you safe. Go pack some stuff. I'll be out here. You're okay?"

"I'm okay." You stand and turn before he can see what he does to you.

Yes, it's an odd thing, being partners with the Red Hood.

You're starting to fear that you can't have it any other way.

(pt 2)

[eggcats]

Radioapple fic, where after it's revealed that Pentious was redeemed, Heaven sends some angels (including some of Lucifer's own family) down to check out this Hazbin Hotel. (common fic theme)

And Lucifer is STRESSED. He hasn't seen any of his family in millennia, and they absolutely did not part on good terms. Especially because now he has to make as good of an impression as he can because he will NOT be the cause of Charlie's dreams failing.

Anyway, one of Lucifer’s estranged family arrives and they have absolutely NOTHING good to say about the hotel, it's people, or even hell itself. Insulting the decor, how it looks, being like "You got kicked out for free will and THIS is what they do with it? Ugh." and the like.

Lucifer is trying to keep himself together for Charlie's sake. (He's only had 3 breakdowns today, he's doing good!)

However, the last thing he expects is Alastor coming to his defense. Alastor looks at this shitty relative of Lucifer’s and is immediately like, "How DARE you? Antagonizing this angel is MY JOB, and I don't send him into hysterics, I send him into MUSICAL NUMBERS. Get out of my hotel immediately." But, obviously, he can't SAY that (for many reasons, the least of which is that Charlie needs them here for her redemption project).

So instead, he just picks at everything they say. "Hmmmmm, yes, but we at least chose to do this with this, free will you're insulting. What's your excuse for that eyesore youre wearing, hmmm?"

Alastor goes as far as to defend Lucifer’s choices in decor in the hotel, and Lucifer is completely confused because he and Alastor literally fought the day before about that SAME decor??

(The second the angel leaves Alastor turns to him and goes "They're right, you know, that is the ugliest interior design I've ever seen," and then DISAPPEARS before Lucifer can even respond. What the hell?!)

Alastor is not ignorant of toxic family dynamics, and while part of his initial issues with Lucifer stemmed from his belief in him being a deadbeat father, actually knowing him kind of changes his thoughts on this. It's a little telling that Charlie has been (apparently) attempting to contact her mother during her 7 year disappearance and has heard nothing, but the father who (she believed) thinks she's a failure shows up within an hour of her calling him ONCE. And then he does whatever he can to help her dreams, and the second she implies she wants him around more, he MOVES IN. It's kind of hard to continue thinking that LUCIFER is the toxic parent in the family dynamic, after all this.

(He still fights him, though, because it's fun to tell the most powerful being in hell his choice of interior design is ugly. If Alastor kind of doesn't go for the throat in all of Lucifer’s insecurities anymore, no one needs to acknowledge that.)

So, during the entire Heaven tour, Alastor is strongly in the "form a united front" boat. He can and WILL come out of the shadows for a sarcastic quip that simultaneously shuts them down AND makes Lucifer feel better.

(Alastor will NOT acknowledge the anger that goes through him at the idea of someone other than him picking at Lucifer, especially when they are CLEARLY trying to send him into a breakdown. How dare they. *cough* Anyway.)

So the whole ordeal winds up not as stressful as Lucifer was dreading, because somehow he has an antagonistic cannibal deer defending him the entire time. And Lucifer has no idea HOW that happened, but it does kind of make him feel better. (And Alastor's form of mocking him does, too, somehow.)

When they're alone, however, Alastor still picks at him so they can fight. (And Lucifer didn't notice until now how much FUN he has fighting with Alastor, and that Alastor insulting him makes him want to do better and prove him wrong, unlike his visiting family that makes him want to lock himself away for a decade.)

The tour ends, and Alastor and Lucifer go back to how they were before. (Sort of. Lucifer might be re-evaluating every interaction they've ever had and might send himself into a mild crisis.)

[radiocrypt-id]

The bad kids haven't really looked too closely at the Rat Grinders (meta wise I know it's a commentary on different play styles and how shitty xp farming is and how op players/parties can become by doing the bare minimum if they put in the time while everyone else plays the damn game) but I find the split perspective problems absolutely fascinating. I can't wait for the Bad Kids to look at the Rat Grinders with envy and anger that the Rat Grinders got to live a normal highschool life without all this insane danger and experience being a teenager without it being the end of the world for them. Right now they just hate the Rat Grinders energy and are matching it back (which is a very high school thing to do. To have beef with a whole other group of kids and not even know why but you'll die on this hill because they started shit first)

Because to the Rat Grinders, from a purely outside perspective, the Bad Kids are fucking monarchs of the school, right? They skipped classes, ran around town, fought people, got arrested, hung out with a big devil? Every new staff member came at their recommendation? One of them has both her dads working at the school?? The destroyed school property, got teachers killed, straight murdered the coach? These fucking kids run around and are apparently scott-free? because the principal liked their chaos enough to let it go and help them avoid the police? To the Rat Grinders, the Bad Kids are untouchable. They're exempt from the law. They're liars, cheats and need to be humbled. It's unfair. From everyone elses perspective, it really does look like the Bad Kids have been given crazy favourtism.

Meanwhile, all of the Bad Kids have died at least once. They've been irreparably changed and are in a constant state of fight or flight. They assume everything is dangerous and anyone might be an enemy because for two goddamn years that was the exact case! They couldn't trust any adult first year! Literally anyone could have been infected with Kalina second year! who knows what happened with the Night Yord but I fucking bet they had issues with Yorbies pretending to be helpful just to kill them! Everyone, for two years, has been out to get them! They can't even sleep! And now they have to grind so hard or they fail. Adaine has a seemingly full time job after school basically every day because she literally can't afford to live? Fabian has taken on the most physically strenuous classes and sport one dude could and has dreams of also being a social legend because he's fucking lonely in that big house and he just wants to fill it. If anyone in the party fails or dies Riz is shit out of luck and wont ever get into a university? He so desperately wants his friends with him so he's working over time and ignoring his limits to make up for his party members not caring about the future. Fig is going through the strangest arc I've ever seen in my life? she's hard avoidant and taking three classes, so a 250% work load, because she's desperate to fill her time so she can't think about all the other work she has to do that if she ignores too long could crush her under the debt of her band from her label, or how alone she feels without her girlfriend around. Gorgug is so desperate to prove himself that he's doing four years of school work in one, trying to play catch up and also prove himself at the same time, he's taking it all so seriously but also is so fucking tired. And Kristen. Mother fucking Kristen "hey girlie" applebees. Expected to dedicate her life to a god with no direction, with the weight of failure being her gods death, while also being in school and also at your friends insistence needing to run for student body president and getting your priorities so mixed up and being completely left behind by her peers who didn't have to rework their entire world view and understanding of life in the span of a few months every few months.

The Bad Kids are in a terrible place. They're suffering. I want them to just say it out loud, to stop pretending they have it handled and are fine. I want Riz and Adaine to yell at the party to get their shit together. I want Fabian to tell someone how alone and abandoned her feels. I want Kristen to scream at Cassandra that she agrees, that it's not fair, she's just a kid, how could she be enough all on her own with no help? It sucks a god can only rely on a child, for both the god and child! They're both suffering from this arrangement! Neither is happy! I want Gorgug to beat the shit out of Porter with his inventions and rage at the same time, to make the best shit and use it in the most stunning way anyone has ever seen. I want Fig to finally get some freaking help, to have her teachers and parents reach out in a meaningful way and stop telling her to figure it out alone because clearly the pressure is too much for her to handle and she's drowning. I want someone, anyone, to look at the Bad Kids and tell them to stop. To help them. But I know it wont be that easy. I know it'll be the Rat Grinders yelling at how unfair it is the Bad kids get everything while they're on the sidelines that'll get under the Bad Kids skin and they'll yell about how awesome they are and that they didn't ask for any of this shit to happen to them and to fuck off. I know it's gonna get so much worse before it gets better. I know they'll figure it out and that it'll be a painful road there.

[wileycap]

The Stupidest Things In Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender: A List

a.k.a.

a whiny rant from someone who has dedicated far too many of their already limited number of braincells to atla i know it's just a tv show but come on this is what tumblr is for let me whine

For your consideration, with many spoilers:

5. Katara Being Smug After Kicking Jet's Ass

In the original, Katara is betrayed by Jet. You can feel the raw emotion in the words "I trusted you! You're sick, and I trusted you!" immediately followed by her concern for the innocent people Jet has seemingly murdered. It's not a triumph, it's a wound, and the next time she sees Jet, her first reaction is "kill on sight".

This is great. It's heartwrenching, it's humanizing, and Katara using violence against Jet isn't a victory for her. It's just pain.

In the live action, Katara very mildly chastises Jet for trying to kill innocent people, which is... an interesting characterization for her, to say the least. Jet then tries to grab her, immediately followed by Katara throwing him and freezing him. She then just tells him goodbye. Her tone is placid, almost unaffected.

And then Jet says "Look at the power you have. That's because of me!"

Katara: "That wasn't you. That was me."

And then she strides off with a small smile, and that's the end of that. Sokka and Aang are not present. It's an incredibly hokey moment that's meant to emulate the style of feminine empowerment, but it has none of the substance. It glosses over any human feelings of hurt and betrayal. All that the it ends up doing is removing a story beat for Katara.

4. The Badgermoles

"They're blind! They sense feelings and react to them! Anger, fear... but mostly love."

Katara and Sokka hold hands in a cave and it makes the badgermole stop attacking them.

The blind badgermoles. Navigate by... love.

Yeah.

Do I need to say anything? Can we all see (pun intended) how stupid that is?

3. Bumi Makes Aang Choose Between Killing Him Or Letting Himself Die To Make The Dumbest Point Imaginable

Remember Bumi? Aang's old friend, a fun, kooky king? Well, here he's an actual fucking psychopath.

He collapses part of the roof onto Aang, and Aang holds it up with airbending. Another part of the roof collapses on Bumi, and Bumi just... shrugs his shoulders, fully intending to die. Aang holds that one up as well, and Bumi, instead of helping, makes the dumbest fucking point I've ever heard about "making tough choices", and urges Aang to let the boulder crush him.

Again. Bumi, the fun, wise king, wants Aang to kill him.

The situation is defused by Katara freezing a little strip on the floor so that Sokka can very slowly slide on it and tackle Bumi to safety. I can not emphasize how slow his slide is. Running would have been faster. Bumi has time to look at him and say "Huh?" as Sokka slowly slides across the floor. Oh, yeah, they were led onto the scene by the love-sensing badgermoles.

Then it's Aang's turn to be dumb. He says "you CAN rely on your friends" and hands Bumi a friendship rock. Bumi is pacified for now, but there is no telling when his next Saw trap will activate.

This made me actually feel bad. I just. I kept expecting for it to turn into a secret lesson, like Bumi in the original show, but it never did. Bumi's just a spiteful psychopath who is easily swayed by the gifting of rocks.

2. Koh The Face-Stealer Has A Backstory Now

Why? Mother of Faces? What? No.

No.

Iroh Is Intimidated By Zhao, And Then He Kills Zhao

Ah, Live Action Iroh. The most ineffectual man on the planet.

So, Zhao has the Moon Koi in a bag, and is ready to stab it with his special stabbing implement. Iroh is standing right behind him. RIGHT BEHIND HIM. Iroh has been there the whole time. Iroh does not want Zhao to kill the fish.

Iroh says: "Whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you tenfold!"

Remember how in the original, where that was like a big, shocking moment that he got angry? And how Zhao immediately let go of the fish, only to then have his anger get the best of him? How Zhao attacked the spirit by surprise?

Well, here it's a little different. For one, like I already said, Iroh doesn't come in suddenly, he sort of gets bullied into looking for the spirit by Zhao. Then he looks for the spirit, and after Zhao finds it, then he decides that he really has a problem with killing the spirit. He did protest before, but then he kind of just caved and helped anyways.

He threatens Zhao, and Zhao just... brushes him off. "Spare me your empty threats." Then the firebenders next to Iroh sort of... glower at him menacingly, and Iroh looks worried.

Zhao offers Iroh a place at his side once he becomes Fire Lord, which, uh? Okay. Fine. I actually don't have a problem with Zhao wanting to be Fire Lord, that seems to be entirely on brand for him, but everything he does to get to that goal is just stupid.

Aang arrives, they talk, Aang says "I don't matter", and then Iroh, who has sidled past the Glowering Firebenders Who Do Nothing Else, shoots the fish out of Zhao's hands. And then, as Zhao is on the ground, reaching for the fish with his special stabbing implement, Iroh forgets that he can shoot fire out of his hands, and lets Zhao stab the fish.

AND THEN Iroh, who literally stood by two different times and let Zhao kill the fish, decides to kick everyone's ass. And the Glowering Firebenders do nothing. One of them just stands in the background. Iroh doesn't even attack that guy.

In the original, Iroh immediately leaps into action after Zhao kills the spirit by means of surprise attack, takes out Zhao's guards in about a second, and Zhao escapes.

Here, he doesn't do anything at first except help Zhao find the spirit he doesn't want to see killed, then back down, then do something, then back down again, then do something again, then forget that he can do anything, and then he does something again.

It's just... so dumb. (So dumb it's brilliant!) No! It's just dumb!

And then, fifteen minutes later, after Zuko has dueled Zhao, Iroh kills him. Iroh just barbecues him by striking him from behind. Gee, Iroh, if you were willing to do that, why not just do it when Zhao was holding the fish?

Dishonorable mentions:

The fact that all of the actors fit their characters so well and have some great moments, but the show just doesn't support their performances at all. I feel so bad for all of them, being robbed of a chance to shine by some truly awful writing, editing and direction

The Ocean Spirit making Godzilla noises

June flirting with Iroh (didn't they say that they wanted to remove iffy stuff from the original? Well, that whole thing was iffy in the original. Why didn't you cut it entirely?)

Zuko doing the jazz hands to charge an attack

All the clunky and unnecessary exposition (for example: after Aang turns into the Ocean Spirit, Yue immediately turns to Sokka and narrates that Aang has turned into the Ocean Spirit, for almost 30 seconds)

The fact that Aang can only communicate with each Avatar at their shrines

The Ice Moon

The Cabbage Man literally turning to shout his line to the heavens while fire rages around him

The Secret Tunnel song being shoehorned in for no reason

Iroh's entire backstory being shoehorned in for no reason

Ozai being a caring dad actually

Zuko being shocked that Ozai prefers Azula

Gran Gran's speech

The fact that they showed Gyatso being killed by Sozin (literally nobody needed a big action scene, because that's what it was, predicated entirely on the genocide of the Air Nomads)

And finally, the fact that Sokka and Yue's reason for going to the Spirit Oasis is that Momo was fatally injured.

[facefullofsadness]

The world needs guitarist winter!! 🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥 (i die a little each time i see her with a guitar)

AGREE!!! everyday that has passed since 230225 winter playing guitar at synk hyper line in seoul for the first time has just been me trying to recover and seek guidance bc damn, she ruined my life and it's all I've been able to think about

content - rockstar guitarist!winter, best friend's sister!winter, dom!winter, includes txt members (beomgyu and yeonjun) and giselle, song references, smut (messy and wild sex, slight degradation, fingering, cunnilingus, strap-on usage, choking, breeding kink, quickies, squirting, vibrator usage, semi-public sex/voyeurism)

wc - 3122

a/n - a loaded one since it's been a while. I had sm fun writing this in general, but especially a certain part (I think u'll be able to tell when u get there), I was laughing my ass off so fking hard. also I just got a haircut that's very wolf-cut-y so it helped a whole bunch to get into writing this lol, committed to the bit!

winter's a damn good guitarist.

she's fuckinggg hotttt too when she plays and she knows it. watched a vid of her recently doing her guitar solo during girls and after the final riff she smirked at the camera and I LITERALLY COMBUSTED DEAR LORD.

anyway, I imagine her in a rock band, one with beomgyu, and they're both just the hot, wolf-cut, dark emo guitarists. you're the lead singer and front man of the band and were the reason the band formed in the first place. you were besties with beomgyu and you two wrote and composed music from time to time, always having the idea of a band as a passion project at the back of your minds.

eventually, gyu recruited his sister, minjeong. the three of you worked together diligently, recruiting yeonjun as a drummer who knew and dragged along aeri as a bassist. it was truly a dream come true, getting to pursue what you're passionate about the most with your best friend and a group of people just as enthusiastic as you were.

though, it was hard to focus with such a pretty girl like kim minjeong breathing down your neck at all times. you, beomgyu, and minjeong would primarily work together on music, usually going from the afternoon until after midnight hours. while minjeong was only a few months older than your best friend, she'd boss him around and push him to go home, saying it was late and that their mom needed to see at least one of them to know they were okay. he'd groan and complain about it, especially since you and him were the main collaborators for songs and were the best when you were together, but she'd always promise to take good care of you, whatever that meant (huehuehue).

beomgyu cares more about you as a little sister than he does his own sister so when he gets confirmation that she'll take care of you, he accepts it and goes home early, leaving you and minjeong in the studio alone. you bite your lip as you watch the door close, your friend leaving you behind with her.

"just you and me now, huh pretty?" the girl leans into you on the couch.

you shift uncomfortably at the close proximity and try to subtly scooch away, "uh yeah, I guess so... we should try to finish this arrangement before we get out of here."

you try your best to compose yourself and act professional, hearing minjeong's deep chuckle next to you, "alright then."

actually getting work done and writing some lyrics alongside figuring out the instrumental arrangement with minjeong since she's the other guitarist, besides beomgyu (also bc he left). you tell her that you get frustrated with the fact you're not that good at playing, her having asked why you don't just make the arrangements yourself. and so, she decides to teach you! well, "teach you."

placing her acoustic Silvertone on your lap and crawling up slowly behind you, her warm body pressed up against your back, the brush of her lips against your ear making you shiver. she brings her arms over and places her hands over yours, guiding them around the strings and assisting with the chords.

she whispers deep and raspy into your ear various instructions, "if you cover this entire fret and press down on these strings, you'll get the F Barre chord. it's a little difficult but nothing you can't manage, right princess?"

"the placement kinda hurts..." you complain, feeling the burn of the metal strings against your skin.

"it'll be a little painful when you start, but with practice you'll get better. you have to press down harder than that though," her pressing your fingers down harder against the nylon strings.

whining softly at the pain, making her lips come closer to your ear, "come on baby, you can do it, a little pain goes a long way. I know you can handle it."

a chill runs down your spine at her words, proceeding to repeatedly attempt to strum the chord correctly until the sound was full.

"good girl, it wasn't that bad right?" you turn to face her, her lips just centimeters away from yours.

your breath picks up at her proximity and a smirk tugs at her lips, moving her face into your neck and hotly sighing against it.

"how badly do you want it, hm? how badly do you want me to fuck you like a rockstar?"

your grip on her guitar tightens as her mouth trails around your neck, gasping when you feel her tongue drag across slowly.

"what do you think you're doing?"

"nothing you don't want me to already, sweetheart."

you lean into her touch, moving your hand away from the body of the guitar to lace your fingers through her soft wolf-cut hair, pulling her head in further into your neck, now placing wet kisses against the skin.

you suddenly shoot your eyes open at the realization of what you two are doing and stutter, "I-I don't think we should be doing th-this... we need to finish the arrangement... and also, y-your brother, what will h-he think?"

you stumble over your words as minjeong just hums in response to, continuing to leave sloppy marks across your neck, feeling her make hickeys on parts of your skin that wouldn't be noticeable.

"we have all the time in the world to finish the song. but what about gyu? did you want him instead then?" she asks, almost threateningly, challenging you to say yes.

in response, you whimper and pull her head in further towards your neck, practically begging her not to go away.

"don't you feel ashamed letting your best friend's sister do this to you? or are you just a slut?"

you don't answer, only shut your eyes and bite your lip. minjeong doesn't like that, resulting in her hand to pull you by the hair backwards, head facing the ceiling. your eyes shot open at the contact and you see her blown pupils staring into yours.

her voice comes out low and dark, "answer me whore. tell me what you are, I wanna hear you say it."

you gulp down a lump in your throat, debating if you should listen to her or to your morals. all sense jumps out the window when she sexily raises her eyebrow at you, an expectant expression sitting on her aroused face.

fuck it whatever, she's too fucking hot, "I'm your slut, minjeong, all yours."

finishing the arrangement? what a joke! she has your legs spread wide open on the soundboard, skillful fingers pumping in and out of your squelching cunt, your head thrown back, moaning into the hot air of the studio. her one hand plunging deep into your pussy while the other one is wrapped around your waist, holding you close, keeping your thighs propped open with her body. and she's just watching you, her mouth slightly open and lips a deep dark plump red, her messy hair tousled, bangs sticking to her sweaty forehead. she loves watching how your face contorts in response to her digits curling to hit that delicious spot in your hole, hitting it repeatedly, her palm slapping against your clit with every quick thrust of her hand. the sounds of your croaky moans, wet and clenching pussy, and her heavy breathing fill the sound-proof room, the thought of productivity not even grazing either of your minds.

the pleasure built so much, you felt that knot in your stomach tighten. minjeong quickened her pace as she felt your legs start to shake around her, sensing how close you were to cumming. it was all too much and you suddenly orgasmed, crying out moans with every wave of delight that surged through your body, thighs trembling, eyes rolled back and mouth hung open, your hands gripping her shoulders for dear life. she intently watched with a lustful stare at every expression your face made while you came, memorizing how good you looked when she fucked you. pulling her fingers out and collecting every drop of cum you leaked onto her hand and wrist, licking it clean until a thin sheet of her saliva remained.

"open your fucking mouth and stick your tongue out," she demanded with a deep voice.

you obeyed and gagged, feeling her tongue shove itself down your throat, forcefully swallowing her saliva and your cum. drool seeped out the sides of your lips as she continued her onslaught in your mouth, feeling her clothed hips grind against your sensitive clit, moans slipping out of your throat in the form of gags.

she'd pull away suddenly, tongue exiting your mouth with a wet slurping noise, making you cough. "you. are. mine. remember that."

she'd remind you, running her damp fingers through her hair.

these late night escapades continued to occur with every single long session held in the studio (she definitely recorded some audios of you guys fucking for sureeee). the creative part of you wanted beomgyu to stay and help with the music, but the sinful part of you so desperately wanted him to leave as soon as possible to have his sister all to yourself. your best friend never caught on to you and minjeong, but oh, yeonjun and aeri caught on like THAT. the tension between you two was so palpable, the two older members would side eye you during practices and giggle to each other, watching the two of you eye fuck from across the room.

eventually, the band's popularity would build and proceed to skyrocket, leading to your guys' first tour. tour meant performing together, traveling together, being with each other, and ultimately, tour meant being with minjeong. and so when management would get 3 hotel rooms for you all, 1 for the boys, 1 for the girls, and well, 1 for aeri being the sleeping beauty she is, rooming with minjeong meant a few things. practicing together, writing and composing together, and sleeping together (for the girls in the back, SEX).

throwing you onto the bed as soon as you reach your hotel room, tearing your clothes off and pinning you down, sloppily kissing each other. she'd prep you by eating you out, sticking her wet muscle inside of your leaking core, caressing your walls and flicking against your g-spot. you bit down hard on the pillow, muffling your moans as her thumb covered in her saliva rubbed against your throbbing clit. her pulling away right before you came and putting on a strap-on she brought on tour (for you of course!), wasting no time in thrusting it into you.

the pillow probably did nothing to silence your screams as she mercilessly fucked you into the mattress, hand pressing down on your lower stomach to feel her cock pumping in and out of you, the tip of her dick hitting your cervix again and again, her thumb still stimulating your clit. minjeong had your back arching, your hands flew everywhere, trying to grip onto anything to ground yourself, but nothing was enough, even as you screamed and bit down on your pillow. your eyes watered and your vision blurred as she rammed into you, the dark-haired girl moving her hands to wrap around your neck, choking you, gradually adding pressure with every rough thrust. her pants eventually became moans too, loving the feeling of the side of her strap hitting that delicious spot inside of her too, slapping her clit against yours as she bottomed out in you.

"I'm gonna fucking cum in you y/n, I'm gonna knock you up, fill you up until you're leaking both of us," minjeong growls above you, lowering her face to level with yours.

you feel tears fall down the sides of your face and your throat sore from another scream ripped out of you as well as her hands around your neck as she throws the pillow in your mouth onto the floor, attaching her mouth to yours instead. you cry onto her tongue as you orgasm against her strap, toes curling and legs wrapped around her waist, nails digging into minjeong's shoulders, cum gushing out of you as you feel her cock shoot fake ropes of white liquid into you, filling you up. you feel her shake in your arms too as she cums, her pleasure leaking out onto your thighs, soaking the bedsheets. she collapses on top of you, both of you desperately gasping for air, her dick still inside of you, keeping the fake cum from leaking out.

"good thing we have another bed."

of course being on tour also meant fucking in the green room before a performance. having done interviews all morning, having a concert for the tour tonight, minjeong was so mean! she had you wear a vibrator the entire day! it would be on the lowest setting up until the interviewer would ask you a question. she would turn up the intensity and you would squirm as you tried to answer, gripping your ripped jeans, almost causing another tear. and so when you two were left alone in the green room for just a minute, she took you right then and there, your legs wide open on the sofa, her mouth stimulating your clit while she increased the vibrator's setting to max, thrusting it in and out of you.

you were screaming in pleasure, all the built up tension in your stomach finally being relieved with each pump of the sex toy in your pussy. you clutched onto her leather jacket for dear life as you came all over her face, squirting everywhere. she licked as much as she could and you both worked quickly to clean before anyone came back. your members, staff, and the fans would notice you limping around on stage that night, winter with an especially evil smirk resting on her face.

being on tour also meant getting fingered in the bathroom backstage. it's literally 10 minutes to showtime, but minjeong NEEDED to fuck you now! her calloused fingers pumping in and out of you while you reciprocated fingering her too. both of your skirts hiked up and panties pushed to the side (no safety shorts? idk this is fiction, ignore it!), moaning desperately into each others mouths as you messily and sloppily made out against the bathroom stall door. curling your fingers at the same time, biting down on her lip while her fingernails dug into your thigh at the feeling. rolling your hips against her palm to stimulate your clit, her repeating the motion and pinning you harder to the door so that your bodies were flush against one another.

screaming into each other's mouths as you came at the same time, cum dripping down your wrist. quickly cleaning one another up (with your tongues, yup) and running to your places since there was literally THIRTY SECONDS to showtime! beomgyu confusedly looking at you two in frustration, asking where you guys had been, yeonjun and aeri rolling their eyes laughing, still lowkey irritated that you guys were LITERALLY FUCKING instead of getting ready to perform smh. everyone definitely noticed the redness in both of your cheeks. winter had fingered you with her calloused hand, the dampness making it more difficult to play the chords during that show, the band noticing the change in effectivity too (how technical!).

at some point, the fans would notice the tension between you two. who wouldn't ship the lead singer with the guitarist in a band anyway right? especially when it's the hot dark wolf-cut emo guitarist winter and the stunning pretty charismatic lead singer. but of course that wasn't the only reason, you guys were soooo obvious. you're singing the flirty and seductive lyrics towards her, minjeong returning a smirk back at you and sticking her tongue out while she fingerpicks her guitar, raising her eyebrows when she does. trailing your fingertips over her bare skin in skimpy outfits they'd put her in onstage, singing the lyrics into her ears.

or literally just flat out fucking saying it. like having those soundcheck Q&As where fans would ask you questions like "if you were to date one of the members, who would you date?"

answering each other's names at the same time, causing everyone to laugh in the audience, beomgyu gagging, and yeonjun and aeri holding back laughter. minjeong following up by saying something like "I mean, it's not like it hasn't happened before." LIKE WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?

or when you and winter are in an interview and they ask what the inspiration was behind a particular song, let's say a more sexy song, and she responds first, "well, every song that we've written has influences from our own personal experiences."

the interviewer would be like, "so then is it true when you sing quote 'I might fuck your friend, I made my mind up'?"

you blush profusely and winter just dies laughing, "I'll let you guys decide that one."

"y/n, you wrote "we go for hours and it's still good" correct?" the interviewer continues.

"yes yes but the details don't really matter do they?" you nervously laugh while minjeong drills holes into the side of your head, staring at you with a playful and sinister smirk on the side.

my favorite headcanon to think about is online discourse regarding you and minjeong. your guys' new mv dropped for your latest single and there are a bunch of scenes with you and winter acting like an angsty couple in the rain, making up in the end by having an alluded to sex scene (lmao, wild if this actually would ever happen).

I just imagine twt going INSANEEE.

slut4winter: DID Y/N AND WINTER FUCK AT THE END OF THE VIDEO?!?!?

y/nonechancepls: i literally cannot defend minjeong and y/n anymore...

beomgyuswolfcut: bro, winter fr cucked her brother from y/n 😭😭

aerifuckinguchinaga: win-y/n's chemistry is a lil too real yall 💀

drumjunyeonjun: not them saying it was their fav scene to film, the closet is made out of AIR, IM SICK OF U F WORDS !!!

and of course, despite all of this, your dear bestie and minjeong's brother doesn't catch on. at times, beomgyu will be all what the fuck is going on when you two say something that has double entendre or has some sort of underlying meaning.

yeonjun usually just pats him on the back while laughing, "oh my friend, never change, never change."

aeri being such a nosy friend LOVES hearing you rant about it, chin propped up on her fist, leaning forward against the table, a cheeky grin on her face. with every spicy detail, she's always just like, "girllll, you're insane and wild, but good for you!"

a/n - like rq, through a guitarist pov, winter is so attractively good at guitar it pisses me off. also headcanon songs this band would make are like wdywfm by the neighbourhood, sex by the 1975, do I wanna know by arctic monkeys, and slow down by chase atlantic. incredibly self indulgent hc and WHAT ABOUT IT!!

[silverwhittlingknife]

How would you describe Tim's people skills? Especially when you compare them to Dick's?

Hi anon, this was a fun ask!! I picked out a few panels for each of them (comforting friends, a bit out of sync with friends, fighting with friends, and offering practical support to friends) just to get a quick look at their people skills in action, and then I rambled on about my thoughts on their strengths and their weaknesses.

(Caveat: I'm going to try to focus on my ideas about differences between the two of them, since we're comparing, but I do think they're socially more similar than not, so you might also want to check out @bitimdrake's post on Dick and Tim's similarities for the big picture!)

Short version: I think they've both got good people skills. Dick's are a bit better and more natural, whereas Tim's are more practiced and learned (in ways that sometimes show).

Let's start with Dick first, and then I'll get back to Tim.

Dick

Comforting friends in Titans Secret Files:

Dick: Will you go back in there and sit down? This is my house. You don't need to clean up after me! Donna: I know, I just... I just ... Dick: Hey, hey... what's the matter? Donna: Nothing. It's nothing. Dick (reaching out to supportively grip her shoulders): Donna, this is me here, remember?

A bit out of sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Titans 3:

Dick: The movie runs 98 minutes. So if we fast-forward past the coming attractions and watch only half the credits, I can still make it back to Blüdhaven in time to - Roy: Nightwing, chill. Team morale demands that you relax and enjoy yourself.

Fighting with friends in Titans 13:

Dick: We haven't used it much, Changeling. But that's gonna be different. Starting right now. Our performance against Tartarus and the HIVE was unacceptable. Each and every one of you should thank God you weren't killed. Kory: How dare you? How can you just stand there talking to us like we're a military detachment -

Giving support to relative strangers in Nightwing 87:

Neighbor 1: Oh, he - he's a true gentleman, you know? Always holds the door, or helps me up the stairs with my groceries if we both come in at the same time... Neighbor 2: ...used his motorcycle to jumpstart my car one morning and even got my brother-in-law a job with Wayne Enterprises when he got laid off... Neighbor 3: ...and he's very, very, very nice and doesn't talk down to me. Plus he lets me use his basketball.

Offering practical support (making dinner) in Prodigal:

Tim: I can't believe you can actually cook... Dick: I like to eat. Tim: So does Bruce - but he had to order Chinese last night. Dick: That's where I'm one up on him - I've lived on my own without an Alfred. Still miss him, though... He was good for a lot more than cooking and cleaning. Tim: Yeah. But at least we don't have to miss him on empty stomachs.

Strengths:

I think Dick's people skills are pretty simple: he has them! He's good at people! And I tend to think of Dick's people skills as so automatic they're mostly instinctive. It's not something he really has to think about because it's so ingrained in him. A combination of natural talent plus a childhood spent around sociable performers means Dick's just really highly attuned to the people around him.

And I don't think he's particularly obvious about it. So e.g. you could be having a conversation with Dick where he didn't seem like he was paying close attention, but if there was An Important Moment where you got anxious for a moment or let something important slip or let a bit of anger show through etc. - Dick will have picked up on it, even if it's unconsciously, and it'll stick with him and come back to him later.

And just generally - I think Dick has good instincts for who he can trust and who he shouldn't trust; when he's treading on conversational landmines he'll often pick up the unease even if he doesn't have the context to know why there's a problem; if he's trying to comfort and trusts his instincts he'll often do the right thing even if he can't justify in words why he felt like that was the right thing to do.

So I think for Dick, there's always the level of conscious awareness - the things he's aware he knows, if you will - and the level of unconscious awareness - things he senses, but maybe can't explain, or maybe doesn't want to know so he's suppressing the thoughts.

So he's good at leading, and he's good at comforting, and he's good at listening, and he's good at figuring out the right thing to say...

Like, he's good at all of it, so it's actually sort of difficult to elaborate because there's just not that much nuance? Given any particular interpersonal situation, Dick has an excellent chance of getting a quick read on some random guy he's just met and then getting the reaction he wants pretty fast, whether it's intimidating the guy or comforting him or getting him to cooperate or taunting him until he loses his temper, etc etc etc.

Obviously Dick's not a mind reader, and he can get things wrong, especially when he's in the throes of one of his own personal crises, but generally I think Dick's very very sure-footed with people, even with strangers.

Weaknesses:

This isn't a weakness precisely because Dick's usually doing it on purpose, but he'll sometimes have fights with his friends because they think he's acting overly professional/detached and he thinks they're not being professional enough. So e.g. in Titans 13, you can see Dick's set up the room almost like he's leading a business meeting, and he's the boss lecturing them, and they're reacting by getting mad at him. Part of this is basically a Traditional Bat Problem - Tim's friends also balk because they feel like Tim's keeping them at a distance - but Dick tends to lean especially hard on "I'm The Leader Here So Shut Up And Do What I Say" professionalism / distancing.

When things are going well, Dick's friends may grumble at his intense professionalism but basically appreciate it (this is basically how things go in their reunion in TT vol 2); when things are not going well, though, it becomes a point of tension. Generally, Dick gets extra-professional as a coping mechanism when under stress, as here in TT vol 2 12:

To the extent that Dick falters with social skills, it tends to be almost exclusively with people he knows well, not with strangers. Dick sometimes struggles with maintaining relationships, largely because he's often juggling multiple responsibilities; he'll sometimes get hyperfixated on something and deprioritize his more stable relationships (so e.g. when he gets fixated on trying to fix Blüdhaven and gets distracted from his relationship with Babs).

Somewhat relatedly, if things start going wrong in his own life, he tends to self-isolate out of shame and avoid everyone he thinks of as more put-together. So, for example, in the aftermath of Blockbuster, he's a self-destructive mess who's trying to dodge and/or drive away Clark and Roy and Tim (all people who care about him and would want to help), but Sophia Tevis and Rose are two messed-up young strangers in trouble and their obvious neediness trips his "urgency" meter, plus he may be a mess but they have no context to realize that so he doesn't feel so self-conscious, and he's able to be drive-by super-helpful to them and then dive right back into privately self-destructing.

Also not a weakness per se, but he tends to be a bit of an introvert in general - he and Wally are close, but they go long stretches of time without catching up; when he's spending time with friends, usually it's Donna / Wally / the Titans / Tim visiting Dick rather than the other way around; he's more likely to get cajoled into joining a team than the other way round - Wally talks him into rejoining the Titans and Roy talks him into joining the Outsiders. He likes people and likes spending time with friends, but he's usually not the one initiating a social gathering. He's self-aware about this; in Titans 9, he muses, "It's not the newness that's the problem. The problem is the old stuff. The ruts. You know someone long enough - well enough - and you fall into a rut with them... you completely take the relationship for granted..."

Relatedly, because Dick's pretty self-contained, he has a recurring problem where loved ones interpret him as distant or detached or indifferent even when he's still passionately attached - both Kory and Babs break up with Dick in part because they feel like he's not really that committed to them (also there are mmm Problematic Plotlines involved but I'm ignoring those for the purposes of this post), and in both cases IMO they're misreading him. He's deeply upset by both breakups and responds with big declarations of feeling and, uh, proposing marriage shortly afterward. (Okay, so he's not ALWAYS sure-footed sdfdsfs)

When Dick's getting something wrong, it's usually because he's upset and overcompensating - when things with Kory and Babs are tense, he tries to fix it with Big Gestures; when Vic's mad at him about spying, he missteps with an elaborate secret plan culminating in a big dramatic offering of a new body which Vic does want... but he's still understandably miffed at Dick for making a bunch of decisions behind his back instead of talking to him. Dick guesses right about something Vic will want, but because Dick when he's feeling guilty tends to slide into I-Am-The-Leader, I-Must-Fix-Everything-By-Myself, I-Am-Responsible-For-Everything mode, he forgets that the whole original problem is connected to not respecting Vic's autonomy / right to make decisions for himself, and that a better gesture would be asking Vic what he wants instead of once again making decisions on his behalf without consulting him. (I'm sympathetic to Dick's spying-on-Vic plan on account of how Vic did turn into an evil moon for a bit - comics are bonkers, you guys sdfdsfs - but I'm also very sympathetic to Vic feeling that he deserved fuller disclosure here.)

And you can see similar patterns in lower-key conflicts too: every time Dick gets accused of being just like Batman, it's usually because he's coming off as harsh or detached or uncaring (sometimes on purpose because he's pushing people away; sometimes just because Dick handles grief and fear by shutting down; sometimes because his the-buck-stops-here leadership style can come off as overly-detached), even though Dick actually cares SO SO MUCH, all the time, about everyone he knows.

But honestly... these weaknesses exist, but they're minor in comparison to his strengths?? Dick's a guy with a lot of very strong friendships for a reason. He's true as steel and once he cares about you, he cares about you forever. <3

OKAY! So that's Dick. Let's finally move on to...

Tim

Comforting friends in Joker's Last Laugh 3:

Tim: Babs? Is everything okay? (hugs her)

A bit out-of-sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Young Justice 7:

Cassie: A campout isn't a campout without a real fire. It's no fun at all. Tim: But the generator is far more efficient, Cassie. It's non-polluting, it poses no threat of forest fire, and it's... it's ... (taking in everybody else's expressions, sighing, reversing course) It's no fun at all. Impulse, can you...?

Fighting with friends in Adventure Comics 3 (stonewalling, avoidance, and lying!)

Conner: You weren't picking up. Tim: I didn't know it was you. Conner: I turned off my caller ID blocking. Tim: I was busy. I am busy. Conner: Too busy to talk to your best friend? Tim: Yes. No.

Giving emotional support to relative strangers in Robin 98 / 100 / 156:

Wesley: I just wanted to thank you. They tell us at the meetings that it's important to let people know how you feel. You did a lot for me - making me sober up. If you hadn't taken the time to notice - (Later) Tim: You're gonna stay strong, right? (Wesley: Right.) Tim: You're gonna stay sober, okay? (Wesley: Okay.) Tim: You're gonna do it 'cause - Wesley: 'Cause if I don't you'll come back and kick my butt all over campus. Tim: Uh huh.

(The redhaired guy was about to jump. Tim convinces him to sit down and talk first.) Tim: So, you're in college? Guy: Yeah, I'm a freshman. How'd you know? Tim: Just a hunch. I'm guessing you don't like it much. Guy: I always hated high school. Always felt like I was outside looking in, never part of any group or anything. I was on the diving team but even then I didn't feel like part of it. The only good thing was that was where I met Lori, my girlfriend.

Offering practical support (medical care and tea) in Batgirl 59:

Tim (treating her injury as she shares her traumatic past): Whoa. That's ... horrible. Cass: That's nothing. Stephanie and I used to laugh about - oh... uh... never mind. Wait, Tim. I... I'm so ... stupid, I don't - Tim: You're not stupid. Want some tea? Cass: I ... uh... yeah. Thank you.

Strengths:

Tim! I think Tim's also pretty decent at people - not as good as Dick, but hardly anyone is?

I tend to think of Dick as instinctively good at people, and Tim as more consciously good at people.

Tim spends a lot of time being intentionally watchful: observing, spying, psychoanalyzing people, paying careful attention to what they say, thinking about what makes them tick. (And Tim psychoanalyzes himself, too. Tim is studiously engaged in the study of Tim, and of Tim's friends, and of Tim's family. He's often playing a role, even when that role is "Tim Drake.")

So e.g. in Red Robin, at one point Tim has an elaborate domino-falling database where he's compiled a list of villains he wants to fight and how he wants to fight them, all leading up to a very careful takedown plan for Boomerang where he's thought through and anticipated Boomerang's every move ahead of time... and he's basically right! He gets it all right!

And this kind of intensely-studied logical chess-game of "he will do this for this reason, and then this for that reason, and the other people will respond in this way, like a series of dominos, and I've thought through all the possibilities" is Very Tim to me, and I feel like... this is just the sort of thing that Dick would never ever do?

And mostly Dick wouldn't do it because he wouldn't have to. When Dick's skeptical of James Gordon Jr., he goes to talk to the guy and feel him out, and he ethically feels obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt because there's no evidence against him, but he's got a bad feeling and doesn't trust him and secretly slaps a tracer on him because he's got an instinct he'll want it, and he's right: James Jr. is up to something, and that tracer is exactly the thing that Dick needs.

And similarly if Dick wanted to goad James Jr. into doing something, I think he'd go off and meet him and goad him into doing it, and he'd have an instinct for what to say to make that happen - I think the whole elaborate domino plan that Tim comes up with for Boomerang would feel unnecessarily complex to Dick. Not that Dick doesn't make complicated plans, because he absolutely does, but Dick doesn't usually overthink people.

Similarly, if Dick had been the little kid in Lonely Place of Dying, he'd have gotten worried and gone straight to Bruce and talked to him, not gotten worried and taken photos of Bruce from a distance and then come up with an elaborately overthought plan to go to New York and track down his estranged son and fix him that way. And, like. Kid!Tim's not entirely wrong! He's correctly picked up on a very real and very strong connection between Bruce and Dick even though he doesn't know either of them! And given how little actual information Tim has, this is actually an impressive plan (it's a bad plan, because Tim doesn't know about their fights, but it's an impressively solid plan given that his entire information basis is "watched them from a distance and collected news reports"). But this isn't how Dick thinks about people.

Backing up to a more general point: Tim values people skills really really really highly. I think "uses interpersonal skills to help and comfort other people" is one of Tim's highest values and arguably the highest value - he imprinted on Dick because he was kind, and then imprinted on Batman because he was comforting Dick. And he has six million After-School-Special-style plotlines where he tries to comfort / advise / rescue / etc. people in various stages of emotional distress and who are using bad coping mechanisms. His very first outing as Robin involves talking down a semi-suicidal shooter; the big finale of YJ has Tim talking Secret down from her rampage; he's very gentle when he's comforting his girlfriend after she confides in him about a maybe-attempted-rape; he talks down a suicidal college student in Robin; plus there's the entire concept of "Batman needs Robin" in the first place; not to mention his obsession with the importance of friends; and so forth.

So it's something that he's good at because it's something he values and works at. His people skills are conscious and learned. He does a fair bit of amateur psychoanalysis of other people's problems, and he's generally good at identifying the problems, even if he's not always great at fixing them. And he's often playing a role, or imitating other people, rather than being himself; he invests a lot of time constructing alternate identities; he's often more comfortable wearing a mask. (It is just so typical of Tim that his civilian friendship group is the DCU version of D&D players.)

So his practiced-people-skills work decently well, because he's diligent and he cares a lot, and he's better at people when he's older than when he's younger. And he's extremely good at things he's had a lot of practice with, like meeting new schoolmates, or making small talk, and he's friendly and he likes people, and he's good at learning scripts and following them, and he only tends to misstep when he's distracted or unusually anxious or when he's in a situation where normal social norms don't help. (Of course, since he's a vigilante and not an ordinary person, distracted / unusually anxious / weird situation are all things that happen more often than you might think!)

I also think Tim has a few caretaker instincts that have become automatic - generally he's hyperaware of when people are upset and usually tries to reach out or fix it, and even when he's trying to keep himself at a distance he'll slide into caretaking sometimes - so e.g. there's that moment in Batgirl with Cass when Tim's kinda upset with her for siding with Batman (and distancing himself from other people in general), so he's not intending to get close to her, but also what we see him doing is treating her wounds and then getting her tea. And meanwhile Cass actually wants to reach out, and she's intensely observing him and worrying and wanting to help, but what she actually does is... drink the tea. That Tim got her. While she stays firmly on her side of the couch.

(I tend to think of Cass as slightly similar to Tim but at the very very very beginning of her learn-to-people journey here? Like Tim, she cares!! A lot!! And she's successfully understood that Tim's upset, and she knows when she's put her foot in her mouth. But she's not sure what to do yet.)

Weaknesses:

Tactless! This is a tricky word because I think people sometimes hear 'tactless' and misunderstand it as 'generically rude,' but that's not quite the issue - Tim's quite polite most of the time; his problem is that his default mental monologue is very detached / psychoanalyzing / analytical, including about himself and things he's emotional about. He'll often be analyzing his own emotions even in the process of having them (I also talk about this a little here, though it's mostly a post about Dick and anger), and Tim's also constantly analyzing other people.

This means that if he doesn't edit his brain-to-mouth filter, he can come off as too detached or professional or calculating.

This is obviously similar to Dick's problem of coming off as too detached / professional - again, they're both Bats - but it's not quite the same thing, and I think this distinction is most obvious if you look at the places where they're doing it on purpose and picking fights:

Dick's most likely to pick fights by pulling rank: "I'm the boss, you all fucked up this mission and you better not do it again, shape up or shut up." This is a kind of distancing that's about Dick-the-impassive-boss and you-the-subordinate.

By contrast, Tim's more likely to pick fights via hostile psychoanalysis: "I notice you're being snide about Cass again, but we both know you're actually just mad that Bruce cares about her more than he cares about you." When he's miffed, both his inner monologue and the things he says tend toward 'uncharitable analysis of your emotional weaknesses,' and this is something he periodically directs at Bruce / Jason / Damian. This is a kind of distancing that's about Tim-the-hostile-analyst and you-the-unfortunate-target-of-analysis.

(Caveats: I don't think Tim's above trying to pull rank if he can, but he rarely has the opportunity; Dick's not above jabs at other people's weaknesses when he's very defensive and feeling attacked - junkie, elevator - but IMO he's more likely to pull rank, whereas Tim's jabs are more likely to be wrapped up in insulting psychoanalysis, so e.g. Jason's insecurity is his problem. The Jan Brady of the Batfamily.)

You can see related similar-sounding-but-different issues if you look at some of their respective breakups. So e.g. Dick has a breakup with Babs in which she thinks he doesn't care about her, and Tim has a breakup with Cassie in which she thinks he doesn't care about her. And these breakups are different for six million reasons (among other things, Dick and Babs have a pretty intense romance, whereas, uh, Tim and Cassie have had one date and IMO she's very right that they're better off as friends).

But you also get some useful character notes:

Babs is wrongly anxious that Dick's mostly in love with nostalgia for their past rather than the person she is now (he 100% does love the person she is now!) and she's being unfairly bitchy about Catalina, but she's also correctly noted that he's gotten into the habit of deprioritizing their relationship in favor of vigilante busywork & that he's been a bit pushy in swooping in protectively rather than letting her fight her own battles, so when she's accusing him of being a control freak it's not completely coming from thin air; Dick responds by getting hurt, upset, and direct (he gets furious and punches something, but then makes a big sweet sincere emotional speech to her about how much he cares and values her, albeit one that's so caught up in his own emotions like wanting to "protect" her that he's not slowing down enough to take in her insecurities).

Cassie has correctly realized that dating Tim is a bad coping mechanism and she really needs to just deal with her grief over Conner; when she starts crying, at first Tim moves to comfort her, but when she actually clarifies the breakup, an upset Tim responds by aggressively de-emotionalizing the conversation and pretending he's being totally logical and not emotional about it - he first wonders aloud if he's a bad detective for not seeing it coming and then attempts a bonkers guilt-trip suggestion that it's their duty to date in order to uhhh avoid turning evil in the bad future (sdfsfdsfdsfds sure tim nice try)

This isn't because Tim literally doesn't have feelings, because of course he does! But often, the more upset he is, the worse he gets at clearly expressing those feelings, and the more he intellectualizes them or avoids discussing them.

(Caveat: The trouble with any distinction is that it's easy to exaggerate it in ways that are oversimplified, and I want to emphasize that this doesn't reduce to "Dick always expresses emotions, Tim is never emotional," or anything like that. Dick has a bunch of complicated feelings about the intensity of his emotions because he values control and detachment and often is trying to be more detached (I talk more about this in the context of anger here and here); Tim often retreats to faux-analytical detachment when he's actually very emotional; and these are tendencies rather than one-note 24/7 truths - Dick is completely capable of intellectualizing away his emotions; Tim is completely capable of just getting straightforwardly and directly upset. But if you're looking for broad distinctions, I think it's fair to say that Dick's usually better at directly using his words and expressing his emotions, even if he sometimes feels self-conscious shame about it later, whereas Tim tends to self-sabotage and deflect and hide by producing intellectualized faux-logic instead of just being direct about what he wants or what he's feeling.)

An unrelated issue is that Tim also tends to get intrusive when he's anxious, and it gets worse the more he cares about you. Tim really really really wants to know what's going on and has an intense Need To Help, which generally works out for him - this is the entire reason he pushes his way into the Batfamily! - but it's easy to imagine Tim running into people who might not appreciate his busybody sneakiness; so e.g. secretly stalking your friend because he has a bruise, or running your friend's DNA, etc., is... stuff that all comes from how much Tim cares, but also it involves a very fuzzy relationship with other people's privacy, so Tim's friendships that stick around tend to be with people who find this kind of intense observation to be caring rather than pushy. Relatedly, Tim's version of "be protective" can overlap with "be condescending," which means he tends to get along best with confident people like Bruce, who could punt him into a wall and who thus finds Tim's 'disapproving medic' shtick endearing instead of insulting.

Tim also struggles to connect to people for whom he doesn't have an obvious "script" or who don't respond to his usual scripts. So e.g. offering Gar a "you don't like me but let's be friends" handshake worked; offering Cass a "let's be friends" handshake worked; offering the same thing to Damian did not go over so well; and I think this kind of "it usually works so this is my habit now?" thing is very Tim, and I don't think it's the sort of mistake that Dick would make.

More broadly, because Tim's people skills are conscious and learned - the effort sometimes shows! He stares at people. He secretly spies on them. He pokes around in their secrets. Dick can be paying close attention to you and seem like he's not, so that his awareness seems effortless and less intrusive. I think Tim's awareness tends to be a bit more effortful.

That said, though, I don't think that Tim's intensely-observing-you shtick is necessarily obvious except to people who are fairly socially-skilled themselves. When I write fanfic, I generally write from Dick's POV, and I tend to write Dick being hyperaware of when, say, Tim's observing him, or trying to figure out what's going on with him. But I think of that as more "Dick's good at reading Tim and really aware of being watched, so every attempt at subtlety stands out in neon lighting," and I think to someone who's less good at reading people than Dick is, Tim is a lot subtler.

And I think for e.g. someone like Cass, who really struggles with people skills, Tim seems impossibly and naturally good at interactions in the same way that to Tim, Dick seems incredibly good at it.

[cannibalbuffe]

hi! I've honestly been craving some qpr headcanons with Alastor as someone who's also aroace! The concept piques my curiosity so much considering most of the stuff with him is purely romantic (no offense to those writers, I just wanna see more qpr stuff! :])

Of course! But do forgive me, annon, I got so carried away with this 😅. I just really like Alastor a lot.

I ended up writing some backstory to your relationship first, but I highlighted the start of the proper qpr headcanons if you feel like skipping that.

Obligatory I'm sorry if this is ooc, I'm still getting used to writing about these characters. This is also all based on my own perception of him.

(Also, I am aware that qprs are very different from one another and there is no single mold for a qpr, I'm just going off of what I think it would be like with Alastor.)

Uhh, I also finished this at 1 AM, so forgive any mistakes. And I'm pretty sure I changed the verb conjugations(? Is this how you say that in English?) from present to past at some point. Sorry. Enough with the A/Ns now. Hope you enjoy!

Alastor queerplatonic relationship headcanons

(gender neutral reader, Alastor x reader)

‼️Trigger-warning‼️: mentions of cannibalism (not graphic), a single mention of tongue-kissing and making out (spoiler: he doesn't want either of those things in this work.) Usage of the word queer, but not as a slur. Alastor is a grandpa and you have to explain LGBTQ+ stuff to him, but he gets it.

› At first, before you were close, it's likely that he didn't see you as an equal.

› Truly, in his eyes, it seems not really is his equal. He is the most powerful overlord in hell and he knows it.

› Unless you are someone he holds in high regard (and this is mostly based on vibes, barely anything to do with power, as we can see by how he is with Lucifer of all people) before your first meeting, like Zestial, you won't be on equal footing at first.

› You only really start getting close when his perception of you shifts.

› You respect his boundaries, you are interesting, you and him share quite a few interests (or not really, but you're at least interested in hearing about his), and you're, surprisingly, pretty wise and mature.

› And caring. I personally believe he would be drawn to that in a way that he may not even understand fully- or realize it at all.

› Still, the point is. He respects you, and you respect him.

› (And not in the way some others do, where they're only "respectful" out of fear. You would act like this regardless of his power.)

› This, by the way, is important. You don't treat him like a superior, but as an equal.

› You'd think someone like him would love to be treated like a superior, and it's true. He very much does.

› But he has to admit to himself that it does feel nice whenever someone isn't shaking in their boots and can hold really good conversations with him while still not being pushy, annoying or just generally disrespectful.

› Anyways.

› Ever since you became friends (which took long), one could say, you just kept becoming closer and closer.

› You were the first one to be vulnerable with him, of course. It happened on accident, but you trusted him enough for that.

› You were also the first one to share any more intimate information with him. Something you wouldn't tell just anyone.

› Between this, your conversations, and maybe even helping each other around (honestly, he probably helps you more than you do him, but you always offer it and always in a sweet way, never condescending, and he appreciates that.)

› He eventually felt more comfortable sharing personal things with you too.

› (He may have distanced himself a bit when he realized this, but it was short-lived. You can't be without each other for so long, and you were pretty upset at his suddenly withdrawal. You may not have mentioned it to him, but he could tell, and as much as he hated to admit it, it hurt him to see you sad because of him.)

› This marks the beginning of the path toward your queerplatonic relationship.

› I mean, you didn't initially label it as such, but it definitely started there.

› Surprisingly, I feel like the first one to ever do any sort of affectionate gesture towards the other was him.

› You knew he didn't like to be touched, so you didn't.

› But! He just started getting more and more comfortable with touching you. At first it was hands on your shoulders, or putting his arm over them.

› I can even see a head pat or two, which he probably passed off as some sort of joke the first few times, but, if you liked them so much, just became a thing he does to you.

› And then one day you, completely absent-mindedly, intertwined your arm with his while walking around.

› When you noticed you had done it and he hadn't said anything, you questioned him about it.

› "Alastor, I'm sorry I didn't ask... is this alright?"

› "This?... Oh, you mean the arms? Ah, dear, don't worry, if it weren't I would have simply told you so!"

› From them on you only got more and more physically affectionate with each other. At first you would usually be the one to start it, but eventually you were both shockingly equal in doing so.

› (You still would always ask if you could touch him beforehand, but after a while he just gave you a free-pass.)

› Not a lot in public, though. Mostly just hand holding, or intertwining arms (if in public, that is.)

› Alastor also was so protective of you. You were the person he treasured most, after all.

› Well, demon.

› Even if you told him you were going to be okay, he would watch out nonetheless. He couldn't afford to lose you, not when he's never trusted and cared for a person this much.

› You two also cuddle a lot. You were the first one to ask, as usual, but now both of you feel weird sleeping alone.

› Alastor loves being the big spoon, if you're doing that.

› But he is also quite fond of occasionally being the little spoon, although he wouldn't be caught dead admitting it.

› A hobby you two do together is cooking. Cooking with Alastor is fun... especially if you're okay with cannibalism.

› But if you don't like that, he won't insist, of course.

› He's pretty good at cooking, though! If you're also good at it, then great. If not, he'll tease you about it (in a friendly way), but still teach you.

› On teasing, he teases you quite a bit, but never in a mean way. If you don't mind, of course.

› You also may tease him occasionally, but he doesn't appreciate you teasing him in public.

› The two of you also have a good amount of inside jokes that probably confuse the hell out of the others.

› Kissing... well. I don't really see Alastor as the type who would enjoy kissing on the lips too much.

› Tongue is out of question for him, as well as any sort of making out, but otherwise... if you like it, he can do that for you.

› He might actually like a peck or two. An acquired taste for him. Don't overdo it, though.

› Of course, him being from the 1930s and not very familiar with anything LGBTQ+ related, he would, at first, be somewhat confused by the request.

› You would probably have to explain to him that nothing is inherently romantic, especially not if you don't want it to be.

› "A kiss on the lips? Well... we aren't courting, Y/n."

› "We can put our own meanings to things, though. Would you like this kiss to be romantic?"

› "Definitely not!"

› "Well, me neither. So it's not!"

› "... That is very sound logic! I can't believe I've never thought of this myself."

› Kisses on the rest of the face are something else, though. He does enjoy it whenever you kiss him on the cheek. He himself might occasionally kiss you on the forehead.

› But overall I don't think he's big on kissing.

› If you want to really solidify that you're in a queerplatonic relationship you'd also have to explain what that means to him, sorry.

› Again, he's old and not up to date with things.

› Thankfully he understands things easily.

› "I see... I suppose we do have quite the queer relationship, don't we? And it is certainly platonic. I don't see why not!"

› Going back to vulnerability. It will never feel fully natural for him to just be vulnerable with you — or anyone else, for the matter.

› (In case you couldn't tell, he's using the word queer as meaning odd (and doing a little pun. You know. Because it's a. Queerplatonic relationship. Queer. Hehehehe), as it defies the norm of what a platonic relationship usually looks like, despite being one.)

› But you know him well enough at this point to recognize whenever there's something going on with him.

› And if you show concern and give him enough time he will share whatever it is with you.

› If it's not anything too big he might even reach out to you first.

› He can also read you like a book and gives surprisingly good advice, and is also pretty good at comforting you.

› You are the only person allowed at his studio while he's live on the radio. You usually read as he speaks in the background, his voice is very relaxing. He enjoys having you around.

› He's also particularly gentlemanly to you, more than to the others. When you're with him you never have to open a single door yourself, for one. If it's raining, he'll hold the umbrella for the two of you. When walking together on the sidewalk, he's always on the side closest to the street instead of you.

› You two often go out for dinner. If you also fancy some cannibalism, he will definitely show you his favorite restaurants around. If not he will just pick the best non-cannibal places (but you know those are not his favorites, haha.)

› He just cares about you a lot, even if it took him long to admit (it may have seemed fast-paced during this, but Alastor is someone who really takes long to get close to.)

› And you care about him lot too!

› (And you're probably never going to be in a life-threatening situation again, at least not at the hands of most demons. Who would ever want trouble with Alastor?)

[naomiarai]

Conscious – cbg.

Synopsis : Your best friend's idea for trying to help you stay awake for your finals might be a bit twisted right?

Pairing : beomgyu × afab!reader [non idol au]

Wc : 1.6k

Warnings : dom! gyu, sub!reader, praise, pet names (princess, angel, pretty girl), fingering, unprotected sex, creampie.

Disclaimer : the lovely anon who sent an drabble on this. it got deleted, but I decided to write a fic on it. [I wrote this in one sitting while I was drunk so..]

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Finals week was up tight for you. You swore you'd fail if you don't stay up all night studying. Hell that's not seeming to work

Luckily, you had someone to pent up with your version of opposite-insomnia. Beomgyu is annoying, but you still want him around. He's probably the only one keeping you sane when you keep falling asleep instead of racing your eyes on words.

You've managed the ones you couldn't avoid and here you are with the last one. Beomgyu seems careless today. He's sprawled up over your living room couch, his legs crossing over yours. Laptop situated on your lap, your eyes kept closing, only something that touched you lightly jolted you awake.

You scream out in frustration, muttering numerous curse words to yourself. Beomgyu jolts up, wide-eyed. A frown forming on his face.

“Your opera made me lose my game!” he says with an annoying tone. “Gyu, that's the least of my worries right now, I keep fucking falling asleep.” you reply back, clenching your teeth. “Don't disrespect your elders now” he says with a grin on his face. Beomgyu was a year older than you, but that doesn't give him a pass to act so entitled to his age when you act up.

“Nothing's working. I stopped taking melatonin, and all tube lights are turned on” you admit in a low voice. “ I don't get how you fall asleep that easy now. You had insomnia level 100 when you were little” he says in a wondering tone. You groan at him, wishing it were the complete opposite now.

"You know, I heard endorphins can keep you awake” he blurts out randomly. You turn your head towards him, with a small frown on your face. "Endorphins?” you ask. “Yeah, they keep some people awake”. Why did he sound so suspicious? “They're found in chocolate, laughing, listening to music...sex..”

You choked on air as you heard his last word. Sex? Now that's a fact. You haven't had sex in quite some time now...

Beomgyu looks at your bewildered face and scoffs. “What? It's true” he says. He thinks for a split second before he asks “Speaking of sex, when was your last time?” How did he sound so casual? "W-..why are you even asking?, i had two boyfriends in the past soo..” you randomly cut of, going into thought.

“Right, the first guy, who was it? Ah- Jaehoon! An asshole if you ask me” he sounded annoyed saying it even though it didn't look like it. You could tell. But why? “second..was Sunghyun? I didn't like him either” he says as he puts his fingers underneath his chin.

“Why the fuck are you going over my history of boyfriends? ” you ask. Also, he sounded weird talking about Sunghyun as well. He replies after a pause, “Which one actually made you cum?” you froze at his words. Does he actually know what he's saying? “Beomgyu!” you scream, “Why would you even ask?!”

“Oh, so none of them did?” he asks curiously. “Nevermind, ________ just tell me”. You think on his words, the only thing you never told Beomgyu was about your sex life. It's not like he asked anyway. "I-..I've had sex like twice...?” you mumble. He looked puzzled, “Don't tell you've only that two times of sex in only one relationship that lasted like, two and half years..? He got his answer, just because you didn't say anything.

He scoffs out laughing, “Did you cum at least?” he asks with a sigh. You pause for sometime.. was it really that embarrassing? “N-no”. You get back to your senses, getting angrier by the second. “But what does that have to do with me falling asleep?” you retort. “Absolutely nothing!”.

He has that shit-eating grin on his face. God, you just want to wipe it off with a kiss. Wait. What were you thinking? No.

“I'm just saying you know, it works like this, you overwork and start falling asleep too easy then I tell you that sex produces endorphins and they help you stay awake, anddd, he adds, dragging the d sound, you haven't had proper sex”

You roll your eyes at his explanation like it didn't mean anything. It doesn't. ”You're acting like I could go get dick just because I keep falling asleep” you reply back. “It's not like I have a boyfriend now, Gyu” you add on.

“But I'm right here”. He says ever so slowly. You're taken aback, frozen still in your place. “What the fuck are you even saying?” you say, almost whispering. His face and tone remain nonchalant, contradictory to yours. “You say you have no boyfriends, right?, and I'm probably the only guy you talk to”

Should you say yes? It's once and he'll probably never ask again. And he's kind of cute. You'd date him. But you would never tell him this. No, but you did get braver at the moment.

“Is this your excuse at asking if you could fuck me?” you ask calming yourself down with a laugh laced in your voice. He seems to take your presence in for a moment. “Did it work?” he asks with a sly smirk.

“If you want it to” you say quickly before you could do anymore pausing. His grin grows bigger; he slides the laptop off your lap and places it on the transparent coffee table with a soft thud. Connecting his lips with yours, you moan into the kiss at the sudden feeling. His arms wrap around your waist as you sit straight up. “Strawberry?” he asks tasting your chapstick. You simply nod, cupping his cheeks to resume the kiss. “Woah, looks who's actually eager here” he laughs.

He picks you up without breaking the kiss, having your legs on his both his sides. You break the kiss saying, “Not on the bed, I don't have new sheets ready” He chuckles at your prediction. “Who said it had to be on the bed?” He sits back down, with you still straddling his lap. His hands slip underneath your shirt, cold hands caressing your warm body. “I didn't expect you to agree so easily” he asks continuing to kiss your neck. “W-...well you did something about those endorphins...” you whisper. He laughs at you, quite obvious he hadn't bought it.

You sit up straight on his lap for a second, thinking. “But won't we make a mess on the couch?” you ask expendentaly. “If you let me go inside..?” he asks with a smirk. You slap his chest multiple times, his idea has some structural value to not making a mess but won't it.... leak out? God, no you should never think dirty. At least you won't have to change the bed sheets.

He claims your lips again in passionate kiss, hands going down to remove your sweatpants. Your left in a crop top and panties. What a sight. He breaks the kiss to lay you down on the couch. “I'll make you cum, astonishing you never have after you had sex twice” he says dramatically. You roll your eyes at him, to which he scoffed at in a high pitched voice. “Just wait, I'll make you roll your eyes for a valid reason” he says before undoing his belt and discarding his jeans and boxers.

You tried to look away. He had a pretty dick. But will it even fit? “Don't look away at the man who's going to fuck you now” he says playfully, hovering above you. You stare at him for a couple seconds, taking in his features. He moves your panties to the side, taking a look at your glistening pussy. “Need to prep you, angel” he says. Taking his fingers closer, he slips in a finger, extremely tight unsurprisingly. “You groan at the sudden feeling, he adds another finger stretching your walls out, you feel pleasure slowly forming from the slight pain. He continue s to stretch you out, with you letting out loud moans form time to time. He retrieves his fingers back just when you're legs shook. You look at him confused.

“I'm only having you cum on my cock” he says before slipping his hands underneath your shirt and removing your bra. He starts to play with your hardened nipples with slick covered fingers, to which you would scold him for, but it felt too good.

He pulls his hands back, spreading your legs open and removing your panties whole. “Ready princess?” he asks softly to which you nod slowly. He enters you with ease,, still going slowly. You feel so so full. He groans out loud, he mutters a 'so tight' before slowly thrusting in and out. “Mmnh–ngh fuck–” you moan out, the pads of his fingers rubbing your clit, making your roll your eyes back. His pace gets faster, so as his grunts and your moans. “Shit–pretty–you feel s-so good” he grunts. The sound of skin slapping against skin takes over your senses, raw pleasure filling you. “Don't stop! nngh– so s-so good!”

The wet and lewd sounds of his dick going in and out get louder, as he slowed down, dick starting to twitch slightly inside of you. You felt a firework inside your stomach, like a coil so desperate to burst. You think you're about to cum. “G-gyu, think I'm gonna cum fuck—!” you moan. “Yeah? cum for me princess, g-good girl aren't you? cream all over my cock-!” You feel his cockhead slowly hitbyour cervix with each slow thrust as you feel the coil in your stomach collapse, coming all over his cock.

He came after you, filling you up, and it leaked out onto the couch. “That was great” he blurts out tired. You slowly recover form your orgasm, getting back to your senses. “Is this going to be a one time thing or—” You're cut off with a kiss, him saying “Absolutely not. I'm keeping you angel” you simply smile at him.

“But gyu didn't you tell sex kind of helps you stay awake, I really don't think that's for me..?” He takes in your words, “It is for some people...” he says before his eyes light up with a grin plastered on hif face. “So round two?”

[slackerlifewhere]

Involving kids in battles

There are a lot of opinions about Cale Henituse, formerly known as Kim Rok Soo. Some readers love him and some readers don't. Some find him funny and some think he's annoying. Some see his selflessness and some judge him as selfish.

He's a very complex character that is just tired of the bullshit the gods did to a lot of people including himself.

But the one thing that some readers do not like about him is how he includes kids in wars and battles against multiple powerful threats.

I've made a post about female characters that slightly mentions this. It can be found during On's part in the post if you're curious.

So here's the thing about the kids in TCF, or rather, the kids in Cale's group. They're strong in different ways.

And most of them, excluding Lily and Basen, are not humans.

To understand why I think their presence in battles are okay, let me first bring up Kim Rok Soo's past to understand the way he thinks.

As we all know, at least the ones who finished the first book, Kim Rok Soo did not have the best life. His parents died from a car accident when he was young and he was left to his abusive uncle. He was mostly alone with no connections to other people (for reasons you need to read about if you haven't yet) until the apocalypse (when he was a young part-timer) happened where he had to survive by himself until he became a member of a team with different abilities. He was a member who had to fight and watch people die when he was young until he's 36 years old.

He doesn't have a normal life and childhood.

'Kim Rok Soo had once had to starve in the past. He did not enjoy seeing children looking so skinny. Although Lock had always looked feeble and his tall height made him skinny from the start, he seemed even thinner now.' - Chapter 234: Something Obvious (3)

So if a person who grew up under these circumstances is suddenly thrusted into another world where anyone can die easily, what would he do?

Basen and Lily

His first reaction to the idea of Basen being sent to the plaza where Cale knows a tragedy might happen, is to agree with Deruth's idea of replacing Basen, knowing full well that his younger brother will not come back completely fine, especially since he's a normal kid. He chose to sacrifice his safety for a brother he barely knows since he recently just got transmigrated in this strange world. Basen is more fit to help in their territory than to fight in battles. And he does not see this as a weakness.

When Lily asks for a sword instead of a normal toy a child of her age would normally want, he easily agrees. This is a kid who wants to learn how to fight. He knows that there will be war coming to Roan Kingdom and their territory will be the first to face this danger. So the idea of her learning how to fight, with the mindset of someone who survived in an apocalypse, made him agree without complaints.

Raon Miru

Fast forward and he gained the trust of three children who are harmed by a tribe and a cruel noble. He pities them but also understands their pain at the same time, especially after everything he went through. He knows coddling them would not make things better since they already know how harsh the world is.

Raon is a baby dragon but he's stronger than all of the people in his group, except Eruhaben. He's a kid who easily talks about destroying the world if Cale doesn't wake up after fainting. He's a kid who wants revenge against Venion and he never let go of that anger even when he was freed by Cale and his group. He knows he's stronger than Cale and does not want to leave this "weak" human despite the strong enemies they face.

But Cale, even with this thought of "putting him to use" at first, told him to hide himself in all battles and when around strangers.

Even though he knows Raon can fight, it's obvious the little dragon will face potential problems if everyone knows there's a dragon in the group. Arm would do everything to get Raon and bring him to DHB, the nobles would probably become greedy, a lot of people will rely on him for things he shouldn't even need to do, and Raon will never be truly free from all the expectations placed on him.

He could leave Raon with Elves and Eruhaben but considering what Arm did to the elves, Eruhaben's lair, and Olienne, there are no safe places to leave him.

Cale gave him the freedom of choice. He can live freely as a dragon without trusting a human. He was fully confident that Raon will not follow him. But he did. So Raon is his responsibility now.

I made a post about liking both Cale and Reigen Arataka and I can honestly see their similarities in this part. They know the kid with them is stronger than them but they also know that fully placing all the responsibilities and expectations on this kid will ruin them.

He, like Reigen, tells his kids that it's okay to run when facing a strong opponent. That it's okay to rely and let the adults handle the hard part of the battle. He respects and relies on them when necessary and pulls them back when they face real danger.

When the White Star first appeared, Cale's first instinct was to hide Raon in his arms and to defend themselves from the man. He was also prepared to fight until Eruhaben appeared. No matter how much Raon wanted to fight, Cale kept hiding him and was genuinely scared for the dragon.

So yes, he cares for the kids in his own way but doesn't treat them in a patronizing manner.

On and Hong

Like I've mentioned in my other post, On and Hong also did not have a great childhood. They were chased from their tribe who wanted to kill them because they're "useless" and mutants.

They did not trust anyone until they met Cale who says one thing and does the opposite. They placed their trust on Cale who may appear indifferent and cold but seems to care for them by giving them bread, medicine, and meat without having expectations from them.

Some readers might find it distasteful but it's obvious that they want to be useful, no matter how small their contribution is to the fight. I think the term "useful" makes it cruel but for them, it's something to be proud of. When he first uses this term, it's when they were saving Raon. But his next instinct was to check if they're okay after infiltrating the cave.

Is it bad to let these kids fight after they escaped death? Yes and no.

They should be safe, away from harm or danger. That's normal to think about children and I agree they need safety like normal children. But once again, these kids aren't human and they are in a different world from us. They grew up in a tribe that expects them to be strong so in every opportunity, they look for ways to be strong.

That's not exactly a normal kid's way of thinking.

And again, Cale's initial indifference to everything around him is the extension of what his former life did to his psyche. He's not a normal person either. None of these characters are normal. Oddly enough, the most normal are Litana and Valentino.

And in all honesty, knowing how he thinks and respects someone's needs and wants, if they want to stay away from danger or stop fighting, there is no doubt he would accept their wishes and let them hide somewhere far away from Arm. But like Raon, they want to fight back against the tribe who wants them dead. In a sense, they also want revenge and to prove everyone that they've become strong.

Lock and the Wolf children

Lock is still a young boy, no matter how much he shoulders after the death of his tribe. I still see him as a kid like Basen.

When Lock was having troubles during the war, Cale did not scold him. Instead, he encouraged him to eat since he noticed how Lock hasn't been eating since he first learned he can't use his berserk form. He told him that he did not need to fight. His only role was to stand and protect Raon. Simple but it made Lock feel relieved and happy that Cale didn't get angry at him for being weak.

I see it as Cale just wanting him to step back and get stronger, to rely on the rest of the adults and to not worry about regressing. I can only imagine what Kim Rok Soo went through to be so wise about this kind of situation.

This part is one of the most memorable to me because of what happens at the end of the battle,

'I am the adult.

I am the guardian of these two children.

I need to take full responsibility since I chose to take them in.

I need the Super Rock's power.'

Cale, despite all his inner complaints and initial reluctance about how he's suddenly involved in a group of children's safety and protection, finally admitted how important it is that he takes full responsibility of those he took in. And the way he does it is by "sacrificing" himself.

When Lock finally overcome his fear and was about to protect Cale, Cale got annoyed and said,

"Children grow up so fast" with a pat on Lock's head.

He sounded like a father or an uncle who was proud of Lock for overcoming his obstacles. This one scene among multitudes of others made me recognize how much he cares for these children. It's happening mid-battle but it doesn't detracts the emotional value but only increases it. It was another reason why I find Cale Henituse so interesting and mesmerizing.

Conclusion

Cale Henituse, for all his self-hatred and low self-esteem, does not bring down a child or person's confidence. He gives them the choice to become strong and protects them when they're weak.

He does not force them to do anything they can't or don't want to do. He knows what he went through as Kim Rok Soo is bad and he doesn't want them to go through the same thing.

Reading between the lines made me see that there's something deeper than what Cale shows.

___

I'm not gonna lie, I sound like Clopeh at some parts whenever I write like this. I felt the same when I was writing about the female characters lmao

I'm sorry if this is so long 😅 I became too passionate about this topic. I understand the people who are worried about the kids but this is still my opinion about it.

[reggies-eyeliner]

OKAY AN EXTREMELY SELF-INDULGENT SENSELESS RAMBLE ABOUT JWCT REGARDING GRIEF AND EMOTIONS AND FOUND FAMILY AND COMPLEX CHARACTERS COMING UP AHEAD WOOP WOOP !!!

i cannot stress to you enough. how much i love the way they write processing trauma. like yeah trauma is all silly and angst and whatever but it's a real thing like genuinely and it's exhausting to see shows just dismiss it over and over again but THIS SHOW I SWEAR IT'S JUST. EVERYTHING IS DONE SO SO WELL AND I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL LIKE

and not to mention that the animation SERIOUSLY DOES IT JUSTICE like the expressions are SO GOOD OH MY GOSH LIKE IT'S I'M THEY'RE YEAH THE EXPRESSIONS. ARE INCREDIBLE. that looks darius got in his eyes when he KNEW the password to brooklyn's phone and kenji didn't??? so good SO GOOD and just the way their eyes all shine before they start crying is actually done so well that if you listen carefully you can feel my heart breaking

also i love how like emotional processing is also written so much. all of them aren't afraid to cry and i feel like that's just. yeah it's beautiful. they cry soft they cry loud whatever it is they're comfortable enough to do so and if they're not they at least know they won't be judged for it ARE YOU KIDDING ME I'M GOING TO BITE A TABLE?????

the characters have flaws. i love that so much. the characters are not perfect but they're still likable and it's executed so well. darius' grief is PALPABLE and kenji's anger, albeit sometimes annoying, is so understandable that you can't actually be angry or annoyed with him because the story writing makes you understand. that's incredible. yasmina struggles with anxiety and ptsd and she gets frustrated and that is !! okay !! sammy ignores her emotions and struggles with toxic positivity but we understand *why* she talks to yasmina that way (because she's worried and scared and concerned for her girlfriend, but she's also just as worried of truly addressing what she's been through) so it's so hard to get mad at her. ben is THANJ GOODNESS not mischaracterized as a cinnamon roll and is actually a complex character with complex emotions and i can't get enough of it. he's like a pain he's so annoying sometimes but it's endearing because he reminds you of that one classmate from elementary that makes you go ohhh yeah no it's him that's fine

okay paragraph was getting long but I do have more to say about kenji. the relationships in this show are executed SO WELL and I'm beyond relieved that Kenji and Daniel's relationship was written INCREDIBLY WELL

like. okay first off the asian rep YEAHGHH IT EAS GOOD !!! WOOP WOOP YRAHAHDH HONK HONK the part about kenji saying he should get his violin after daniel was like telling his sob story was SO FUNNY OH MH GOSH

and just. kenji and daniel kon. im. like his dad was never perfect. far from it and yet kenji just he loves him so much and wants to make him proud and it makes me sick because the writing helps you UNDERSTAND why

daniel keeps giving kenji ultimatums and kenji standing up to him for once just. yeah. that was done incredibly well. and then not even ten minutes after daniel started to change and gave his son something without expecting anything in return other than his presence daniel gets eaten alive in front of him.

okay now this show holy moly i was NOT expecting daniel to just. get ripped apart but um YEAH THAT HAPPENED and the grief was written so well I cannot stress this enough. I loathe in movies and shows when they skim past traumatic deaths and just act like the grief is just non existent and this show does an incredible job at showing that it is VERY MUCH STILL THERE and it makes people out there who are struggling feel a little less crazy and that's so beautiful

i've been a benrius enthusiast since day one and honestly at this point i just hope everything goes well for them moving on. brooklyn's death and Darius coping with her grief was done SO SO WELL and honestly okay as much as i love sibling-type dinostar i think rewatching scenes with the lens that he was in love with her just makes it hurt so much and it's just. yeah. it's written well.

I will say that I think the story could have gone on without Darius confessing his love to Brooklyn, and the scene where Kenji asked Darius about the voicemails could have been used solely as a chance to highlight grief. another way the scene could have gone was if kenji sifted through the voicemails and just heard Darius's voice shatter in a way he's never quite heard it or listened to darius blame himself and that could have been a moment for kenji to realize that grief isn't something people should deal with alone, that *he* shouldn't deal with grief alone

regardless i really do think the idea that Darius was in love with Brooklyn was done really well. I don't know a better way for kenji to have figured out the truth, and for that I am grateful :D!! I hope the hardcore shippers don't get too mad though 😭

also I absolutely loved the lady with the whistle. she's cool. her character design is terrifying and the way she treats the dinosaurs reminds me a of a queen that is very fond of her workers like 😭 she's cool but also i would never want her within a 100 mile radius of me

the found family in this show is actually. yeah. it makes me cry because it's just done so well because it doesn't idealize perfect relationships. there are awkward moments, there are sad moments, characters still feel broken and alone despite having people who've actively said that they'd go to the moon and back for them. it's realistic and it's written beautifully

I think Darius might actually be the character with The Writing ever. his grief and his nostalgia, his awkwardness and fascination with learning and his kindness are all things that exist together and I am so so grateful for that. he's allowed to laugh and make jokes while feeling constant, looming guilt. he is fascinated with learning while also struggling to feel like he deserves to be happy, he enjoys learning about dinosaurs while also being terrified of them on the worst days. he feels guilty and feels like a bad person. but he's loved and he's cared for. can you tell he's my favorite now because

enamored with yasmina and sammy as always. they are just the girlfriends ever and i love so much how openly they communicate with each other. sammy apologizes when she makes mistakes, yasmina doesn't hold it against her. they're always at each other's sides and their love isn't conditional. i love them SO MUCH

okay sorry im making this about darius again but this guy actually is The character ever. I don't think I've ever felt so seen in a character and i just yeah the writers are incredible because all of the characters are written to feel relatable, and if not that, to feel real. it was just a huge comfort to me to know that okay im not crazy for feeling this way because of a character, who was written and animated by dozens and dozens of creators was allowed to be written this way, i'm not messed up in the head, im just processing emotions and it's okay that I need help for that

THIS SOUNDS SO CRINGE I AM SO SORRY

but yeah i. i love this show.

[jamesdeniscouldnever]

Headcanons for Zev and Rolan to tide you all over until I can nail down a plot for the poll winner fic.

How they take care of Tav

🎇Rolan🎇

The grumpy wet cat of a man is a little less grumpy and wet when Tav is tired or hurting.

If they're returning home after a long road full of fights and sleepless nights, Rolan takes a gentle approach.

After making sure they have something to eat and drink in front of them, he's drawing them a hot bath.

If they return with more severe injuries, then God's help Tav.

Scolding and fussing, cursing, and name calling.

He does it out of love, we know this.

Still feeds them and draws them a bath.

Helps remove their armor, all the while tutting and making aggravated comments about "always playing hero" or "can't go a day without a fight" even though tav knows he doesn't mean it.

Once they're in the bath, he sits beside the tub

He'd like to join him, but the tub isn't that big, and when there are two people, his tail gets painfully twisted

He talks them into comfort, what Cal and Lia have been up to, how things are at the tower, and stories about the threw siblings growing up.

Uses his long, glorious nails to really help scrub Tav's hair.

Purposely dumps the water over their head to help rinse without letting them cover their eyes.

Immediately feels bad when they yelp in pain.

Coos and helps rinse it out, pretending be just wasn't thinking.

After the bath wraps them in soft sleeping clothes and puts them to bed (mother hen, who?)

When Tav asks if he's joining them he replies "now now, I've got things to do. You sleep, I'll be back later."

And he does, once Tav is sleeping.

He watches then for a moment before sighing at their bruised Visage and whispering things about "my poor angel'

Curls up behind them, holding them tight.

Tails wrapped around their leg and arms squeezing them.

Falls asleep beside them, holding them like he can protect them from the life they've chosen.

⚜️Zevlor⚜️

Has almost certainly been either on the road with his beloved Tav or staying in their camp

He knows he said he'd like to retire in the city, but once he realized he loved someone who was such a menace to their own health, those plans went right out the window.

Fighting by their side is part of his way of showing care. Watching their back, shielding them from harms way, even if they scold him for it later.

His approach to love and care is so much more obvious than Rolan's.

Constant loving stares and words of affirmation, reverence to the person who dared show him kindness and love that he though he didn't deserve.

And when the day is done and a browbeaten Tav returns to him, he's got a hand on their back or an arm around their waist in an instant, leading them to the fire to eat and relax.

Watches carefully as he makes sure they eat least one full serving of their meal. Tail wagging in pleasure when they do.

Humming old Eltural lullabies while helping them clean up by whatever stream or river is near.

Brushing their hair is his favorite.

Once in their tent, he's pulling blankets over Tav and urging them to sleep. Strokes their hair until they are.

Stays up after they're resting, watching them, watching the camp for danger, enjoying the stars.

When exhaustion finally wins, he's back in the tent, curling up in a protective little ball by their side closer to the tents entrance so if anyone tries to get in they'll trip over him and wake Tav.

If Tav is ever severely injured, Avernus take this man, he is a wreck.

That face he makes when the guy gets shot by goblins in the Grove? That immediately followed by tears and sobs.

Even if it's not life-threatening, he's on this knees at their side and begging them not to go.

The most careful and methodical medical treatment Tav has ever received followed by the most protective and clingy Zev there's ever been.

He insists on doing everything for them now. He won't let them in harms way again.

Just a sad, overprotective, DILF of a paladin who loves his Tav.