#chapter one: the reason for creation

[gaytwirights]

One of my friends got spoiled for the ending of orv by one of her classmates. And it isn't even a proper spoiling where she now knows the ending. It's literally just for the big plot twists. The marvel movie version of orv if you will. I think I might actually hate someone in real life more than I hate myself

[leviiackrman]

The MHA leaks are making me SO GLAD I made Gigi😩

[jungkoode]

死 KKANGPAE | #14 死

† camping trip mysteries †

"You'd have never said you'd be involved in a Council of 9 meeting at any point in your life; yet here you are, suddenly thrusted into a mission with the Chief you've just hooked up with, because your life couldn't possibly get more complicated."

next | index

⚔ chapter details ⚔

word count: 9k

content: female friendships, silly conversations, Vyunjin, dodgeball, AD being horrible with throws, cryptic stuff, council meetings, having to work with jeon officially, gang loyalty and bestie gossip

☠ author's note ☠

 I really milked this camping trip for all it's worth, huh? Three whole chapters of outdoor shenanigans! I regret NOTHING. Anyway, here's the conclusion of our little nature excursion! Hope you enjoyed this slightly more chill setting (apart from, y'know, chapter 12's 👉🏻👌🏻 situation) because don't worry—there's PLENTY of time for everything to go spectacularly to shit later <3

MY KIWI HEAD 🥝🤧 I genuinely love him so much and I'm as surprised as you are! Who would have thought?? I seriously had ZERO intentions for Takama when I started this—no plan, no backstory, nothing. He just showed up in my brain one day demanding rights.

Maybe I love him so much because he's the only one with more than two functioning brain cells? Like, the man is just... chill. Nice. Using his fucking brain. Being all wise and grounding while everyone else is having emotional crises left and right. THE VOICE OF REASON IN THIS CIRCUS.

Takama x Reader endgame??? Jkjk this is a Jeon Jungkook fanfic ☝️ ...which doesn't mean shit won't happen before/after 👀

ANYWAY I'll leave you to make your own assumptions about our kiwi boy. All I'm saying is that sometimes characters write themselves into your heart and there's nothing you can do about it. Is it just me as an author having unhealthy attachments to my own creations? PROBABLY! You tell me!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go cry about my fictional characters for the fifth time this week. It's only Tuesday. Send help.

xoxo 💋

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tumblr/twitter: @jungkoode

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☁︎

The morning hike with Chaewon was exactly what you needed—fresh air, quiet trails... No drama.

But of course, you can't have nice things in Kkangpae.

Not when you return to find V lounging on a log like some tragic hero while J-Hope patches up his split lip.

"What the hell happened here?"

You eye the scene, already getting a headache. The thorny scent of roses fills your lungs as V gives you what immediately recognize as a smug smile.

"Just a little disagreement." V's smile is all teeth despite his busted lip. "Jeon can get rather feisty when he wants to."

J-Hope just rolls his eyes, clearly done with V's bullshit. He hands you a sanitary napkin without looking up, too busy sorting through his medical supplies—which basically means please help me deal with this drama queen.

You crouch next to V, ignoring how his eyes track your movement like he's a cat and you're the bird he wants to catch. The napkin comes away bloody when you dab at his lip, and his body tenses slightly under your touch—barely noticeable if you weren't trained to pick up on these things.

"Careful now." His voice drops low, playful. "I might bite."

You don't miss a beat.

"You bite, you get no help." The words come out flat, unimpressed. "I'm not one of your fangirls, V."

His games might work on others, but you've seen enough of his thorny side to know better.

Those roses have teeth.

A low chuckle breaks the tension. J-Hope's back with his medical supplies, but V's still watching you—though now with something that might be respect.

Or whatever passes for respect in that thorny mind of his.

"You really had it coming this time." J-Hope clicks his tongue, cranky doctor mode fully activated as he settles back down. "Jeon isn't someone you poke for fun without expecting consequences."

"Me?" V's eyebrow shoots up, all wounded innocence. "I was just having a friendly chat. Who knew our brooding Chief still had some fight left in him?"

The act doesn't fool anyone—especially not J-Hope, who (you bet your ass) has been patching up the aftermath of V's friendly chats' for years.

"Friendly chat?" J-Hope scoffs, dabbing at V's lip with more force than strictly necessary. "You two always turn everything into a dick-measuring contest. One of these days someone's gonna end up with worse than a busted lip."

V leans toward you like he's sharing a secret, mischief written all over his features. "He's just worried he'll run out of medical supplies if we keep this up."

You expect J-Hope to snap back—he usually does when people get like this.

But he just sighs, shoulders heavy with a worry that feels too genuine for the Kkangpae's ruthless doctor.

"Or maybe I'm worried you'll end up with a split skull, dumbass."

It's weird, the way it dribbles from his lips—like actual concern.

Which is weird in a place like this, where caring too much can get you killed. But then again, J-Hope's always been different. Maybe that's why he's one of the few people V actually listens to.

Sometimes?

V's eyes meet yours, like he's either hunting for something or escaping whatever was swirling in the doctor's pupils. Though, as everything with V, it vanishes instantly behind that shark-like grin.

"Ah, Hobi, always looking out for me. What would I do without you?"

"Probably be lying in a ditch somewhere." J-Hope says it casually, but his snark feels less blunt now. 

He gives V's shoulder a quick pat—kinda saying 'you're patched up, now get out of my face.' V nods his thanks, but his attention is already sliding back to you. His gaze lingers a bit too long, assessing.

"You've got a steady hand," he drawls, and you know he's not just talking about your first aid skills.

Thorns prickle your skin.

"And you've got a death wish." You hand the bloody napkin back to J-Hope, keeping your voice flat.

Unimpressed.

V's laugh shatters in the quiet. "Oh, you're interesting. I like you."

"Was that supposed to be a compliment?" You arch an eyebrow at him. "Coming from someone who just got his ass handed to him by Jeon, I'm not sure how much that's worth."

His smile widens; ever so slightly. Like what you said made him feel something—bad or good, you really don't care, but it's like his vines are slowly creeping into your lungs.

You just sigh, shrug it off. It's not your problem.

You've got enough on your plate without getting caught up in whatever dick-measuring contest is going on between V and Jeon.

Your attention abruptly shifts to Takama, sitting cross-legged in the grass like some zen master on his coffee break. Despite looking perfectly relaxed with his can of coffee, you know better—the man's probably cataloguing every movement in a three-mile radius.

He's just that kind of observant. It's just how he is, what he does, that much is clear from your training sessions with him.

Persistent without being belligerent; consistent without being insistent.

It's weird seeing him in casual clothes. The navy sweater and white collar combo is a far cry from his usual tactical gear, making him look almost... normal. Like he could be anyone's slightly intimidating older brother instead of Jeon's deadly second-in-command. Even his loose jeans seem deliberately chosen for comfort rather than combat.

He doesn't move a muscle as you approach, eyes fixed on the horizon like his mind has found refuge among the spongy dunes skittering away in the sky.

Or maybe he's just really into his morning coffee.

You plop down beside him, the damp grass immediately soaking through your pants because of course it does.

"Peaceful morning, isn't it?"

You break the silence, knowing Takama won't. Man's got the conversation skills of a particularly stoic rock when he wants to.

There's something calming about his presence though.

Like he's the drizzle after the hurricane.

Plus, he probably won't try to murder anyone over breakfast. Unlike some people you could name.

"Peace is rare around here." The corner of Takama's mouth quirks up slightly. "Savor it while it lasts."

You settle into the comfortable silence, watching the horizon paint itself in morning colors. Next to Takama, even coffee breaks feel philosophical.

"You and V," he starts, offering you the can. "You get along?"

You grab it and take a sip, considering your answer. The coffee's gone lukewarm.

"Hmm."

Yeah that's your answer, because you don't really know what to reply. It's definitely not a yes, but you don't... hate him either?

"He's a wildcard, but I can handle him," is what you end up settling for.

What follows is Takama's laugh—quiet, understated like everything else about him.

"V is... unpredictable. But he's loyal to the gang, in his own way." He pauses, choosing words carefully. "Just watch your back. Testing people is how he entertains himself."

You pass the can back, watching him take another sip. The liquid works through a swallow down his throat, and his Adam's apple bobs slightly. His head tilts towards you when he notices you've gone silent.

"And Jeon? How do you find working with him?"

The question makes your skin prickle, and you know it's not because of how sudden it is—but because of something else, as well.

Images from last night force their way through your mind like a wiggling worm unwilling to let go—callouses on skin, that silver lip ring, the way he'd touched you like you might break.

You take your time answering, very aware that this is Jeon's right-hand man asking—and that your neck probably still has marks his mouth left behind.

But you're not about to tell Takama that.

"He's... intense." You focus on shredding a blade of grass, needing something to do with your hands. "But we kind of... get each other, I guess."

Takama finally looks at you, and fuck—there's way too much understanding in those gray eyes.

Because with V you have a noncommittal answer.

But you just said you get along with Jeon. Kinda.

He doesn't comment on it, and it makes sense—being Jeon's second means he probably sees more than most.

About how hard exactly it is to be in Jeon's circle. Not part of it, not even near—just hovering.

It's not easy, you know that much.

"Jeon respects strength," he says quietly, like he's sharing a secret. "Stand your ground, and you'll earn his respect."

A pause. Then he adds, hushedly:

"Maybe more."

Your pupils flicker between his, trying to parse whatever the hell he means—but nothing in there gives you a hint.

He simply smiles, getting up and helping you up too.

You both turn back to watch the camp wake up, the morning routine starting to buzz around you.

Someone's cursing about cold showers. Someone else is complaining about AD.

You take another sip of lukewarm coffee, letting the bitterness ground you. It's easier than thinking about what maybe more might mean, or why your stomach churns at the thought.

Besides, you've got enough on your plate just dealing with regular Jeon.

You don't need to add cryptic messages to that mess.

The peaceful morning doesn't last long—because this is Kkangpae you're talking about.

Moon's voice cuts through your post-gossip haze, drawing everyone to the center of the camp like a very formal shepherd. Some people look about as thrilled as you feel about being up this early.

"All right, everyone!" He's got that tone—the one that says 'this is mandatory fun and you're going to like it.' "For today's lunch, we're doing something different. Group bibimbap, but with a twist: you'll work in pairs."

A ripple of murmurs spreads through the crowd. You catch Takama's eye—he just raises an eyebrow like 'here we go again'.

"These pairings," Moon continues, all business in his long coat despite the casual setting, "are chosen to mix different divisions and personalities. It's about teamwork and learning from each other."

You barely hold back a snort. Trust Moon to turn lunch prep into a team-building exercise.

Your attention snaps back when he calls out, "Y/N, you're paired with JM. I expect great things from you two."

Well, that could've been worse. At least JM's not likely to stab you over vegetable chopping techniques.

When you reach him, he's already smiling that gentle smile that makes him look more like a kindergarten teacher than a gang's financial mastermind.

"Looks like we're a team." His voice matches his whole vibe—calm as a lake on a windless day. "Any ideas on what we should tackle?"

You're about to answer when a groan cuts through your chat with JM.

You turn to see AD looking like someone just deleted his gaming setup, while J-Hope's already got that 'done with this shit' smile plastered on his face.

"Bro, why the fuck am I always paired with your annoying ass?" AD slumps against a tree, all dramatic like the gremlin he is.

J-Hope just rolls his eyes. "Because Moon loves to torture me, that's why. Come on, let's just get this over with."

Your eyes inevitably roam around the clearing, taking in the other pairings.

Jeon and Chaewon—they acknowledge each other with matching professional nods, something like 'we respect each other but let's keep this strictly business' hovering over them.

Takama and Jessi make an oddly perfect pair, his zen energy somehow containing her wildfire spirit as they huddle together, already plotting.

V's got Yunjin trapped in what looks like his usual chaotic storytelling, though she seems to be holding her own—and then there's Eunchae and Sakura, who look like they're planning to turn lunch prep into some kind of competition.

Meanwhile, Kazuha's hanging onto Moon's every word like he's sharing the secrets of the universe instead of just bibimbap instructions.

"So." JM's gentle voice pulls you back. "Should we handle the veggies? I think we could make a great team in chopping and prepping them."

"Sounds good to me." You find yourself matching his easy smile. "Let's show them how it's done."

At least someone in this chaos circus knows how to be normal.

You follow JM to gather supplies, falling into an easy rhythm. His gentle energy is oddly reassuring, and makes even veggie prep feel zen.

Plus, he actually knows what he's doing, which is more than you can say for half the pairs around you.

Because AD's already whining about something while J-Hope ignores him completely.

Yeah; that's Kkangpae for you.

But then you catch sight of V with Yunjin and your stomach turns, why, you don't know. Poor Yunjin's holding her knife like she's never seen one before, eyes darting around nervously.

And its knives, so yeah, V swoops right in.

"Let me show you," he purrs, and fuck him for actually sounding smooth.

You see his hand sliding over hers, like he isn't the same person who had blood on his lip an hour ago.

"There's a rhythm to it, like a dance." You watch him press closer, caging Yunjin with his body while he guides the knife. "Feel the movement. It's about confidence, purpose."

"Like this?" Yunjin's voice is small, breathless.

"Exactly like that." He eases into it. "Every slice tells a story of precision and care. And you, Yunjin, have a knack for it."

You grip your own knife tighter, fighting the urge to stab those thorny vines right out of the air. He's charming, you'll give him that.

But you fear the sweet floral scent roses simply masks decaying waste underneath.

And he needs to stay the fuck away from Yunjin.

You can't help noticing how she melts under his attention, all shy smiles and batting eyelashes. Like a moth drawn to a particularly deadly flame.

"There, you're a pro now." V steps back with a wink.

"Thanks, V." Yunjin beams up at him. "I think I've got it from here."

A slight movement catches your eye—JM's knife has stopped mid-chop.

His gaze darts between V and Yunjin like he's watching a car crash in slow motion, and it's real subtle, but you catch the way his jaw tightens.

"JM," you keep your voice casual, "you seem a bit distracted. Everything okay?"

He snaps back to his vegetables, gentle smile sliding back. "Oh, it's nothing. Just... observing the dynamics. It's interesting to see how different personalities interact, don't you think?"

You nod, watching V circle Yunjin. "True. Especially with V. Makes you wonder what goes on behind that smile."

"Exactly." His smile is halfhearted at best. "Sometimes, the most cheerful faces hide the deepest stories."

The way he says it makes you wonder just how many of V's stories JM knows.

And how many of them keep him up at night.

You and JM fall into a comfortable rhythm again, just hearing AD complaining about something, Eunchae's bright laughter, the clatter of pots and pans.

Then—crash.

Your head snaps up, muscles tensing automatically. Old habits die hard in Kkangpae.

It's Chaewon.

She's standing frozen, an overturned pot at her feet, staring at one of Jessi's guys like she's seen a ghost. His hand hangs awkwardly in the air where it had brushed against hers. You can see her breathing speed up—tell-tale sign of panic she's never shown before.

JM's knife stills mid-chop. Before you can blink, he's already moving toward her.

Jessi's there too, quickly motioning for the guy to back off—and he does, looking confused and apologetic, but you notice how Chaewon's shoulders drop slightly once he's out of reach.

JM murmurs something to her, too low for you to hear (though you bet that gentle voice of his could probably talk down a rabid bear). Chaewon gives a tiny nod, but her knuckles are still white where she's gripping her sleeve.

When Jessi touches her shoulder, you catch that silent conversation between the three of them.

The kind that comes from knowing someone's demons intimately.

"Alright, everyone, back to work." Jessi shouts. "Nothing to see here. Let's keep the focus on the task at hand."

Everyone turns back to their tasks, but you don't miss how JM stays close to Chaewon, or how Jessi's eyes keep scanning the crowd like she's daring anyone to make this worse.

JM hovers near her for another minute before coming back to your chopping station, and when he does, he picks up his knife and starts slicing carrots like nothing's happened at all.

"Guess we all have our off days, huh?" You keep your voice light, casual. No pressure.

JM's knife stills for a moment. He doesn't look up.

"Everyone has ghosts they're running from." The words come out soft. "Some just hide them better than others."

You let the silence settle. There's an unspoken rule in the gang—you don't go digging in other people's graveyards unless they hand you the shovel first.

"I'm gonna wash up," you mutter, already heading for the makeshift sink, feeling like he needs some silence before being back to normal.

Behind you, JM's knife resumes its path against the cutting board.

You're shaking water off your hands when footsteps approach from behind. Months in Kkangpae have taught you to be alert even for something as mundane as washing up after veggie prep.

"So you do know how to clean up."

The low drawl sends heat crawling up your spine. You know that voice—and the smirk that goes with it—without having to turn around.

"Turns out, I'm full of surprises." You flick excess water in Jeon's direction, catching his dangerous half-smile when you glance over your shoulder.

His chuckle hits you right in the gut, deep and rich and —fuck—suddenly all you can think about is last night.

His hands, his mouth, the way he'd made you shatter.

"Surprising indeed." There's that smug tone again. "Especially since I recall someone being too fucked out to help with cleanup duty."

"Well," you drop your voice low, just for him, "if you hadn't made such a goddamn mess, there'd have been less to clean up."

Your body remembers how close you'd been—how you'd ground against each other like teenagers, desperate and needy.

How his cock had felt pressed against you, so close but not close enough because someone didn't bring protection.

The frustration from last night still burns under your skin, reminder of what could have been.

If he'd just been prepared...

Jeon steps closer, and—fuck—even after last night, his presence still makes your skin prickle.

"A mess, you say? The way I remember it, you were just as responsible for the chaos."

"Chaos?" You meet his gaze head-on, refusing to back down even as heat crawls up your neck. "Don't flatter yourself, Jeon. It was... mild disarray at best."

His grin widens, and you hate how your eyes keep tracking that stupid lip piercing.

"Mild disarray? You were panting like you'd run through every back alley in Seoul."

You scoff, trying not to remember how he'd made you shake, how his hands had felt mapping every inch of you.

"Breathless, maybe. But let's not blow it out of proportion."

"Hah." His eyes narrow. "You've got a sharp tongue. But we both know—"

A shout from across the camp makes you both freeze. Your eyes meet his for a split second before you step apart, smooth as shadows. Professional. Like you weren't just thinking about climbing him like a tree.

Again.

You turn away, finally letting out that breath you'd been holding.

The banter gets you hot under the collar but fuck if you don't want more. Not that you'll admit that.

Even if part of you is already plotting round two.

This time with actual protection. Because seriously.

"Anyway," his voice cuts through your thoughts, "we should get back to work. Long day ahead."

"Right." You nod, and then go right back to prepping veggies.

Yeah. This is going to be a very long day indeed.

The smell of bibimbap hits different after spending all morning chopping vegetables next to JM's weirdly zen energy.

And yup—everyone's gathering around the portable tables, looking stupidly proud of their contributions like they didn't just spend half the morning complaining about Moon's team-building exercise.

You grab a spot next to Yunjin, who's already halfway through telling you about her latest drama obsession; eyes practically sparkling as she waves her chopsticks around.

"No but listen—the main lead thinks his brother died in that fire, right?" She leans in close, pink hair falling in her face. "But then in episode sixteen we find out he's actually been alive this whole time! Living in China!"

You nearly choke on your rice. "That's the most unrealistic plot twist I've ever—"

"Mind if I join?" Takama's calm voice slices through Yunjin's enthusiastic plot summary; slight smile that makes him look more like a monk than Jeon's deadly second-in-command.

"Pull up a chair." You scoot over to make room. "Yunjin's educating me on the finer points of melodrama."

"Ah." His eyes crinkle as he settles in. "The ones where everyone's secretly related and nobody stays dead?"

"Exactly!" Yunjin beams. "Like this one where the brooding CEO's got a secret relationship—"

"Should've fought harder for the meat distribution," you murmur, poking at your mostly vegetable bibimbap.

Before you can finish sighing about your protein deficiency, Takama's chopsticks appear in your line of sight, depositing a generous portion of beef onto your plate.

"Here. I prefer vegetables anyway."

"Liar." But you're already mixing the meat into your rice, trying not to look too pleased. "Thanks."

Yunjin pouts at that, surely expecting some meat too (even when her plate shows basically 0 vegetables anyway). You kick her under the table, and she almost bounces with a chuckle.

"So, V's actually a really good teacher," she says dreamily, pushing her rice around. "Did you know he used to work in a restaurant?"

You cough.

V's "restaurant" experience probably involved more knife-work than cooking.

"Is that so?" Takama asks, slightly puzzled.

"Mhm!" She sighs, all starry-eyed. "And he's so patient. The way he showed me how to hold the knife—"

"Speaking of knives," Takama cuts in smoothly, "your technique has improved, Y/N. Been practicing?"

You're grateful for the subject change. Watching Yunjin moon over V is like watching a butterfly land on a Venus flytrap.

"Yeah, well. Can't let the Seduction Division down, right?"

His smile is small but genuine. "Right."

Movement then catches your eye—Chaewon's heading your way, black bob bouncing with each step. She smiles when she spots you, but you don't miss how she falters slightly when she notices Takama. Her eyes dart between him and the empty space beside you, calculating.

For a second, you think she might turn around.

But then she simply strides over like she owns the place, sliding into the spot next to you.

You don't miss how she angles her body away from Takama, though.

"What's got everyone looking so serious?" She bumps your shoulder playfully. "Don't tell me Yunjin's got you all hooked on her dramas too."

"Not all of us can be as cultured as Yunjin." You grin as Yunjin pretends to be offended. "We were just discussing the finer points of V's... cooking techniques."

That makes Yunjin blush, but Chaewon's eyes sharpen. You catch that protective glint—the same one she gets whenever any of the male members get too close to her division.

"Oh?" Her voice is light, but there's steel underneath. "And how did you find our resident psychopath's teaching methods?"

"Come on, he was really patient!" Yunjin pipes up. "And his hands were so—"

"Speaking of hands," Chaewon interjects quickly, "I heard there was quite the incident at morning coffee. Something about Jeon's right hook meeting V's face?"

Trust Chaewon to steer the conversation away from V's charms while gathering intel in the same breath. Sometimes you forget she's your Chief for a reason.

Heels on grass make your eyes stutter behind Chaewon's silhouette.

It's Jessi; obviously—who claims the spot next to Takama, all long red hair and confident energy.

She's probably the only person who can make eating bibimbap look like a power move.

"Well, well." She waves her chopsticks at your little group. "What's this about dramas? Please tell me someone's finally calling out how unrealistic those chaebol storylines are."

"We were discussing layers," you explain, watching her pile kimchi onto her rice with the same precision she probably uses to plan weapons shipments. "You know, how people aren't always what they seem."

"Like how our fearless Chief here—" she angles her head towards Chaewon, "—pretends to be all business, but I caught her crying over cat videos last week?"

"That was one time." Chaewon tries to glare but can't quite hide her smile. "And you promised not to tell."

"Please." Jessi snorts. "Everyone knows you're a softie under all that badassery. Remember when you threatened to shoot that guy who made Eunchae cry?"

"He deserved it." Chaewon's voice goes flat, protective instincts flashing. "Nobody messes with my girls."

"And that's exactly what we mean," Yunjin pipes up, somehow making even this observation sound sweet. "Everyone's got different sides. Like how Jessi acts tough but always saves the last strawberry milk for AD."

"Oi—" Jessi points her chopsticks at Yunjin threateningly, but there's no malice in it. "Just for that, you're testing all the new rifles when we get back to the castle. Someone needs to make sure they don't jam."

Something about the easiness of the conversation makes something unfurl in your chest.

It's weird seeing these deadly women just... being friends. Sharing lunch and inside jokes like they aren't some of the most dangerous people in Seoul.

But then again, maybe that's exactly what Yunjin meant about layers.

"Sooo," Jessi prompts, "who wants to share their deep dark secrets? Come on, don't be shy."

"Real subtle, Joo." Chaewon rolls her eyes, but you catch that tiny smile she always gets around Jessi. "What's next, trust falls?"

"I'd let you fall." Jessi winks, making Chaewon snort into her rice.

Takama, who's been quiet this whole time, surprises everyone by speaking up. "Sometimes the secrets we keep aren't about trust. Sometimes they're about protection."

"Like how we all pretend AD doesn't secretly feed the stray cats behind the castle?" Yunjin singsongs then.

That breaks the tension, sending ripples of laughter around the group.

Even Takama cracks a smile.

"Or how Jessi acts tough but cried during that dog commercial last week?" Chaewon dodges the grape Jessi throws at her head.

"That dog was reunited with its family," Jessi hisses, but she's fighting back a grin. "Forgive me for having a heart."

"Yeah, buried somewhere under those nine inch heels."

You smile at that, and you note how the sun is high over head now, warming skin through the trees.

You should probably get back to work—those intel reports won't file themselves. But for now, you let yourself enjoy this moment of peace.

Even gang members need lunch breaks sometimes.

Dodgeball is usually fun. Keyword: usually—because when it's among deadly people... competitiveness is too light of a word.

You're in the middle of debating some strategy with Yunjin when Jeon's presence immediately freezes the whole camp. One second you're planning how to take down AD's team (he might be a tech genius but his aim is shit), and the next—

"Meeting. Council of 9, now."

Jeon's voice is calm, as usual. But it's precise, blunt in a way that makes your hackles rise. His face gives nothing away—typical—but something in his posture screams urgent.

The Council members share quick looks before following him into the trees. Moon's already at his side, glasses catching the sunlight. Chaewon squeezes your shoulder as she passes, and Jessi winks at Yunjin, but neither stops to explain.

Just like that, your cozy little camping trip turns into a war room—playful energy from moments ago gone, leaving behind the familiar sensation that comes with being in a criminal organization.

"Damn." Yunjin drops onto the bench beside you, pink hair falling in her face. "Even on a camping trip, we can't escape the threats."

Your little lunch group now feels weirdly empty without Jessi's loud energy and Chaewon's dry comments. You catch yourself staring at the path where they disappeared, like maybe if you look hard enough you'll develop x-ray vision.

So much for that epic dodgeball tournament you'd planned. Although honestly? Getting hit with rubber balls suddenly seems like the least of your problems.

"It's just how things work around here." Takama shrugs, wiping sweat from his shaved head.

Of course the dodgeball game's been put on hold, everyone too distracted by the Council's sudden disappearance to focus.

"Hey, Takemichi!" Eunchae bounces over, still flushed from running around. "Any idea what's going on? You're like, Jeon's right hand and all."

Takama's eye twitches at the nickname, but he doesn't comment on it. "No clue. But Jeon doesn't call meetings without good reason. Especially not during planned activities."

Your eyes drift to where the Council members vanished into the trees. It's odd seeing Jeon actually interact with people—the man's about as social as a brick wall. Even J-Hope, who he supposedly tolerates, barely gets more than grunts out of him most days. That whole don't-fuck-with-me hurricane aura of his keeps everyone at a safe distance.

And yet.

You'd fucked him.

Well, kinda.

Heat crawls up your neck as you mentally reminisce about last night.

Pride mingles with something else as you remember that untouchable Chief's face when he came all over your belly.

Focus, dumbass. Now isn't the time to replay your greatest hits. If Jeon's gathering the Council in the middle of fucking dodgeball, something's definitely wrong.

"Do you think it's..." Yunjin chews her lip, lowering her voice. "MDF?"

The mention of Myung-dong Faction makes everyone's faces go pale.

"Hard to say." Takama's voice drops to barely above a whisper. "But we did just wreck their trafficking ring. Hanjun's gone now. They're not known for letting that kind of thing slide."

You share a look with Yunjin and Eunchae. You remember Hanjun from your last mission—the way he'd crumpled when Kkangpae was done with him.

The way his whole operation had fallen apart like a house of cards.

Sakura's usually bright face is serious as she crouches next to you. "If it's MDF, we're fucked."

"They've been too quiet." Kazuha runs a hand through her wine-colored hair, eyes scanning the treeline like she expects assassins to materialize. "That's not their style. Not after what we did to their golden boy."

And she's right, isn't she? MDF isn't known for their forgive-and-forget attitude. Their silence these past weeks has been... unsettling. Like holding your breath underwater, knowing you'll have to surface eventually.

"Whatever it is, we need to be ready." Eunchae sighs. "Can't let our guard down. Not even here."

"We need to be united now more than ever." Takama's voice rumbles low as he scans the treeline."Division only makes us vulnerable, they might aim for that."

And he's right; because Kkangpae's strength isn't just in its firepower—it's in moments like this, when everyone's got each other's backs.

"Whatever the Council needs," you say, meaning it. "We've got their six."

The group falls quiet, the forgotten dodgeball lying between you like some sad metaphor for your interrupted normalcy. Somewhere in the distance, a bird calls. You almost miss it under the sound of your heart pounding.

A rustle in the bushes makes you lean back.

Though it's just J-Hope, looking way too serious for someone who was laughing at AD's failed dodgeball throws ten minutes ago.

"They need you." His eyes find yours, steady and unreadable. "Jeon asked for you specifically."

You share a quick look with Takama, and he's wearing the same exact puzzled expression as you.

"Me? Why would he—"

J-Hope just shakes his head. Great. Because being summoned by the dude you almost fucked last night during a secret Council meeting isn't complicated enough.

But you don't really have much choice, so you trail behind J-Hope like a kid being called to the principal's office, mind racing faster than your heart.

What the actual fuck could Jeon want? And why during the middle of dodgeball, of all things?

The Council's little forest hideaway comes into view, and suddenly you've got nine pairs of eyes drilling into you.

Great. Just great. Nothing like being stared at by the most dangerous people in Seoul while you're in workout clothes and probably still red-faced from almost getting beaned by AD's wild throws.

Jeon stands like a statue among them, and he speaks immediately upon seeing you.

"We have a situation that needs your input."

No greeting, no explanation, just straight to the point. Pure Jeon. You'd roll your eyes if you weren't so aware of every Council member watching you.

"Remember your first mission?" Chaewon continues. "The women we rescued? You were the only one who actually saw them in that room."

Of course you remember—hard not to, even if you wish you wouldn't.

That cramped, dark room with its rusty bars and stale air. Women huddled in corners like broken birds, some too afraid to even look up when you'd entered.

Your first real taste of what the Seduction Division actually does.

Not the glamorous spy shit you'd imagined, but the ugly, necessary work of saving people from monsters.

"Remember what any of the women looked like?" Chaewon presses.

You try to remember, but the thing that comes first is the smell of fear and desperation—thick enough to choke on.

Then it's their faces. Burned into your brain. And then... hers.

"There was one girl," you start carefully, watching the Council's reactions. "Couldn't have been more than eighteen. Skinny thing, but her eyes..."

You pause, searching for the right words.

"Even in that shithole, she was... I don't know. Like she was just waiting for a chance to burn the whole place down."

You catch the tiny shift in Jessi's jaw, the way her fingers tighten around her weapon.

The air feels like a forest fire waiting to happen.

"Dark reddish-brown hair," you continue, the details getting clearer as you speak. "Matted to hell, but you could tell it was beautiful once. And the way she held herself..."

"That's enough." Jeon interrupts you. "Your recollection could prove useful. We believe that girl is connected to one of our own. This isn't some random MDF hit."

Your stomach drops. Because shit—that... That changes everything.

MDF might be brutal, but they're not stupid.

Kidnapping someone connected to Kkangpae? That's not just an attack—it's a message.

A very personal message.

You watch the Council's faces, trying to read between the lines.

If MDF knows enough to target someone specific, how much else do they know? How deep have they dug into everyone's past?

The thought makes your skin crawl.

"Now we know this is personal." Chaewon's voice is ice-cold, all business. "The question is, how do we respond?"

"We hit back." Jessi's voice cracks like a whip, raw and broken. "Show those fuckers what happens when you mess with Kkangpae."

J-Hope reaches for her shoulder, ever the voice of reason. "I know you want blood, Jessi. But an all-out war will only get innocent people killed."

Jessi jerks away from his touch, but you see how her hands shake. 

"I should've been there," she whispers, more to herself than anyone else. "I should never have left them alone."

The pain in her voice makes your chest tight; you've never seen Jessi like this—like she's barely holding herself together.

"Why don't we just storm their headquarters and slaughter them all?" V (who's been conspicuously quiet until now) raises his voice.

The guy is just leaning back against a tree, playing with a butterfly knife like he thinks he's the Joker or something.

"Picture it." His smile grows wider, more unhinged. "Their precious hideout painted red, bodies everywhere. We could string up their leaders—or what's left of them—as a warning."

JM gives him one look—one that somehow manages to pierce through V's psychotic haze. Like he's the only person besides RM who can actually rein him in when he gets like this.

V slumps back with an exaggerated pout, thorny aura receding slightly. The switch from bloodthirsty to playful is so fast it gives you whiplash.

"As entertaining as that sounds," JM's voice is steady, like a calm lake washing away V's chaos, "we need precision here. Not a bloodbath."

"You never let me have fun." V whines like a kid denied candy instead of mass murder. "But fine, we'll be civilized."

JM turns back to the Council. "Please continue. V's just... working through some things. He understands the need for balance."

Jeon's face gives nothing away, but you notice how his jaw tightens. Having to share space with V is bad enough—having to listen to his murder fantasies is clearly testing what little patience he has left.

"As I was saying..." Jeon continues.

JM gives V another one of those looks and V slumps against the tree.

The thorny scent of roses fades to something more bearable, though you can tell he's just waiting for another chance to suggest mass murder.

"I might have a better idea." AD clears his throat. "A bloodbath would be satisfying, sure, but we need intel first. Something clean and quiet that gives us some advantage."

You watch him run a hand through his messy blonde hair, thinking three steps ahead while looking like he just rolled out of bed.

"We know where their hideout is. Send in a small team, two people max. Get their data, their plans, their weak spots." He pauses, letting that sink in. "Information is better than bullets right now."

The Council members exchange looks. Even V stops fidgeting with his knife. You catch Jeon's shoulders relaxing slightly—he knows a good plan when he hears one.

"Stealth does play to our strengths," Jeon admits, and his eyes flick to you for a split second. "Who did you have in mind?"

AD jerks his chin toward you.

"She's perfect for this. Hanjun's well acquainted with Flower now, but Y/N? She was only there for the takedown. He never had time to report back about her or the other girls. But between all of them," he adds, "she's the only one who got to see all the girls."

Suddenly you've got nine of Seoul's most dangerous criminals staring at you. But you meet Jeon's gaze head-on, refusing to flinch.

Finally—a chance to prove yourself.

And maybe get some answers about what's really going on with MDF.

"She's just an ensign." JM mumbles. "She's gonna need backup."

The Chiefs exchange looks, probably running through a mental list of who they could trust not to fuck this up. Your heart's still pounding from being called in, from learning about this mission that could change everything.

"Jeon will lead this operation." RM's voice leaves no room for argument. Like he's announcing the weather, except the weather is your hookup being assigned as your partner.

Amazing, really love that for you.

"You're picking him for stealth?" V's voice goes high with indignation, like someone just insulted his knife collection. "I'm literally the Chief of Stealth Assassinations. What the actual fuck?"

Thorns prickle the air, sharp with offense. You definitely catch Jeon's tiny smirk—he's enjoying V's tantrum way too much.

"Jeon has the discipline this requires." RM's tone could freeze hell itself. "We can't afford your... creative interpretations of orders right now."

V opens his mouth—probably to suggest murdering everyone involved, knowing him—but JM slaps a hand over it. The look V gives him could kill a lesser man, but JM just raises an eyebrow.

"This mission's success is crucial." RM continues like V isn't plotting JM's death with his eyes. "We need strategy, not chaos."

You watch Jeon's face carefully. His expression gives nothing away, but you just know he's thinking the same thing you are:

How the fuck are you two supposed to focus on a stealth mission when you can barely keep your hands off each other?

"Come on," V's voice drags after getting rid of JM's hand, "we all remember how well these two work together. Like gasoline and a lit match. Either they'll kill each other or fuck like rabbits. Not ideal for a stealth op, eh?"

JM smacks his shoulder, but V just grins wider. Your face burns as Jeon goes rigid beside you, like a gathering strength.

If looks could kill, V would be six feet under from the glare Jeon's sending him.

You stare very intently at a patch of grass, fighting the urge to squirm, because V has no idea how close to home that "fucking like rabbits" comment hits.

Or maybe he does—you can never tell what that psycho actually knows.

"Enough." JM sighs. "RM's guidance is sound. Jeon, you're our best strategic mind. Tactical is probably our best approach right now."

Jeon's jaw works for a moment before he gives a sharp nod. "Understood. I'll lead the operation."

You let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding.

Stuck on a stealth mission with the guy you've secretly hooked up with, while his psychotic sworn enemy watches and makes sex jokes.

Just another day in Kkangpae.

"For now," RM's redirects the conversation swiftly, "let's focus on the task at hand. This camping trip was meant to build unity and trust. We can't lose sight of that."

Unity and trust.

Right.

Because nothing says team bonding like sending you and the guy you're dying to have sex with to infiltrate enemy territory while pretending you've never seen each other naked.

"There will be time later to prepare for the mission." He adds. "But while we're here, I expect everyone's full commitment to this team-building exercise."

Jeon surprises you by actually looking... chastened? as he gives RM a short nod. "You're right. My priorities were misplaced. I apologize for the disruption."

And that's... New. You've never heard Jeon apologize for anything.

But then again, RM's probably the only person in Seoul who could make him bow down. The amount of respect Jeon has for him is almost an entity of its own.

"No need to apologize." RM's stern expression softens slightly. "Let's refocus together on strengthening our bonds as a crew."

More team bonding. Because that's exactly what you need right now... bonding,̶ ̶o̶r̶ b̶o̶n̶i̶n̶g̶?̶

You give Jeon one last look before V's voice cuts through, all manic energy as usual.

"Last one back has to clean everyone's dishes!"

And then he just... takes off running like the psychopath he is, thorns receding with him. Because of course he'd turn this into a competition.

"Oh, fuck no!" Jessi kicks off her heels, already sprinting after him in bare feet. "I am not cleaning after his ass."

Chaewon and JM share this look—probably something like 'we're both too dignified for this shit' passing between them before they're running too, probably realizing nobody wants to risk V winning anything.

"How childish." J-Hope rolls his eyes, but AD's already got that gleam he gets when someone issues a challenge.

"Childish?" AD's grin is pure evil. "I bet I could eat enough for ten people. Give you something real nice to clean."

"You little shit—" J-Hope takes off after him. "Get back here!"

You glance back at Jeon and RM, both still walking like they're above such peasant activities.

But fuck it—you're already sweaty from dodgeball, might as well commit to the chaos.

"Think I'll take AD's strategy." You flash Jeon your sweetest smile. "Eat everything in sight, let someone else deal with cleanup."

You're running before he can reply, laughter bubbling up.

And then, merely a few second later, you hear his steady footsteps turn into something faster.

Looks like even the mighty Chief can't resist a challenge.

The campsite comes into view through the trees, and you pick up your pace.

You jog into the clearing, lungs burning, only to find V and RM already there.

What the actualfuck?

"How did RM beat us?" The words come out between gasps.

The man runs a criminal empire in designer suits, for fuck's sake. He shouldn't be able to outrun anyone.

V just grins that Cheshire cat smile of his and then, Jessi, Chaewon and JM stumble in next, all tangled together and cackling like teenagers.

"JM's face when I almost tripped him—" Jessi wheezes, red hair wild from running.

Everyone else filters in gradually, catching their breath and comparing notes on who cheated (definitely V).

But oddly enough, there's no sign (or sound) of J-Hope or AD.

Then—

"You absolute fucking cockwomble, let go before I rearrange your face!"

"Not happening, you lil' bitch. I'm not cleaning your blood off the floor again!"

You turn to find J-Hope and AD crashing through the underbrush like drunk bears, locked in what has to be the world's most undignified wrestling match. AD's blonde hair is full of leaves, and J-Hope's pristine turtleneck is covered in dirt.

Seoul's most dangerous gang, ladies and gentlemen.

Truly terrifying.

"You wanna fucking go, asshole?" AD thrashes like a feral cat, trying to land a hit on J-Hope. "I'll rip out your spine and use it as a fucking ethernet cable!"

But J-Hope's got him locked down, using his height advantage like the bastard he is. AD might be scrappy, but the doctor's got experience wrestling patients into submission.

"You need to get out of this unscathed first, you dumbass—"

"Then I'll download your consciousness into a punching bag," AD snarls, still fighting. "Have you getting hit for eternity, you piece of shit!"

Their little death match stumbles closer to camp. J-Hope's got AD in a headlock now, ignoring the increasingly creative threats being spewed at his face.

"I'll be patching you up after this, you psychotic gremlin." J-Hope finally slams AD into the dirt, probably enjoying this way too much. "Maybe I'll sew a live rat in your stomach. Let it chew its way out through your organs."

They keep wrestling, but it's getting pathetic—like watching two drunk uncles fight at a family barbecue. Both of them are red-faced and panting, shirts half-ripped from trying to hold each other back.

You can't help noticing they look wrecked—covered in sweat and leaves.

Actually...

"They must've been holding each other back the whole way here." You snort.

No wonder they're last. These idiots literally spent the entire race trying to murder each other.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" V's voice rings out like a demented game show host. "Our esteemed winners, graceful as ever!"

J-Hope and AD freeze mid-choke hold, finally noticing their audience.

The look of pure horror on their faces is priceless.

"Dish duty it is, boys!" Jessi's grin is absolutely feral.

AD shoves J-Hope off like an angry cat, but they're both too winded from their pathetic wrestling match to do more than hurl insults at each other.

"This is all your fucking fault!" AD jabs a finger at J-Hope's chest, looking about as threatening as a wet Pomeranian. "If you hadn't grabbed me—"

"My fault?" J-Hope's voice gets higher. "Big words from someone shaped like a fun-sized candy bar!"

"Say that again, you overgrown fucking giraffe!" AD tries to lunge but stumbles, still panting. "I fucking dare you!"

RM steps in before they can start round two of the world's most embarrassing fight.

"That's enough, you two. We all enjoyed the show, but it's time to work."

They both shut up immediately—even AD knows better than to test RM's patience. But the glares they shoot each other could probably melt steel.

"Can't believe I'm stuck with your ass for cleanup duty," AD grumbles, brushing leaves out of his blonde hair.

"Trust me, I'd rather perform surgery blindfolded. But maybe next time you'll think twice before dragging me down with you."

"As if I need help being slow from someone who runs like a drunk giraffe."

Their bickering fades as they head back to camp, still shoving each other like kindergarteners fighting over the last juice box.

Well. At least you'll enjoy a show during dinner time tonight.

One would think dinner time would be dulled down now, after the Council meeting earlier.

But nope—gang members are scattered around the fires like this is some post apocalypse scavenging situation.

You can't help watching V with Yunjin. He's leaning in close and probably whispering some bullshit about knives being romantic or whatever gets him going.

And Yunjin—sweet, perceptive Yunjin who usually sees right through everyone's bullshit—is eating it up. She's doing that thing where she plays with her hair, pink strands twisting around her finger while she giggles at whatever murder joke V's telling.

You snort into your food, because you just don't get what's it with these two.

The weirdest part? Even knowing what V's capable of (the rumors about his "artistic approach" to killing make your skin crawl), you kind of get why people fall for his act.

He's got that whole dangerous charm thing down to an art.

"Hey stranger!" Eunchae drops onto the bench beside you, nearly knocking over your drink. Sakura slides in more gracefully across from you, because someone in your division has to have coordination.

"What was the super secret meeting about? You went in looking normal and came out all..." Eunchae waves her chopsticks vaguely. "You know. Intense."

"Classified." You shrug, trying not to think about what that meeting means for you and a certain hurricane-aura'd Chief. "Above your pay grade."

"Ugh, you're no fun." She slumps dramatically against your shoulder. "I wish I could join the Council just to know all the juicy stuff."

"We're here if you need to talk," Sakura adds quietly, and fuck—sometimes you forget how perceptive your division can be.

"Thanks." You bump Eunchae's shoulder, warmth blooming in your chest. These idiots might be professional honey traps, but they're your idiots. "I mean it."

You go back to your food, half-listening to Eunchae's story about some mark who thought cryptocurrency was foreplay. But your eyes keep drifting to V and Yunjin.

What's your friendly neighborhood psychopath plotting this time?

However, the first drops of rain quickly hit your food like tiny bullets. Within seconds, the drizzle turns into a full-blown downpour because of courseit does.

Nothing like a surprise shower to end your deeply suspicious dinner observations.

"Oh, come on." Eunchae snatches up her plate, already running for cover, chestnut hair plastered to her face by the time she makes it three steps.

Your eyes snap to where V still has Yunjin trapped in conversation. They're both getting soaked but Yunjin's still hanging on his every word, pink hair turning darker in the rain.

"Yunjin!" You pitch your voice to carry over the rain. "Unless you want to catch pneumonia, might want to wrap it up!"

She blinks like she's coming out of a trance, finally noticing she's halfway to drowned. The spell breaks—thank fuck—and she hurries over to you, gathering her stuff with slightly shaky hands.

"Thanks for the save." Her voice is quiet, almost sheepish. "Got a bit... distracted."

"Yeah, no shit." You grab her arm, steering her toward your tent. "Let's get inside before we both melt."

You dodge through the chaos of gang members running for shelter, curses mixing with laughter. Someone—probably AD—slips in a mud puddle and lets out a string of creative profanity that would make a sailor blush.

The relative safety of your tent feels like crossing a finish line. The rain hammers against the canvas, but at least you're dry.

Well. Drier.

The rain doesn't let up for hours, turning the campsite into something out of a moody indie film. But inside your tent? It's like a sleepover bubble—wrapped up in cozy blankets and the glow from Yunjin's phone where some poor actor is having his third dramatic breakdown of the episode.

Yunjin's using your stomach as a pillow, pink hair splayed across your hoodie while she decimates the bag of chips between you. Every few minutes her hand dives in without looking, too focused on whatever absurd plot twist is happening now.

"This one's actually decent," she murmurs, smiling at the screen where someone's probably discovering their evil twin or something.

"If you say so." You can't help grinning as the male lead clutches his chest like he's having a heart attack over a text message. "These writers must be on something wild. Like, who comes up with this shit?"

Her giggle vibrates against your stomach.

"That's why they're fun! You never know what's coming next." She tilts her head back to look at you. "Kind of like living here, right? Never a dull moment in Kkangpae."

"God, don't jinx it." But you're laughing too because she's not wrong. Your life has definitely taken some drama-worthy turns lately. "Though I hope we're at least more realistic than that."

You both fall into easy conversation, trading comments about the show and today's chaos. When the male lead starts laying it on thick with the female lead, you see your chance. Time to figure out what the hell V was playing at earlier with all that knife teaching.

"So." You poke Yunjin's side with your toe, aiming for casual. "What's with you and V today? The whole knife lesson thing seemed... weird."

Yunjin doesn't look away from her drama. Of course she doesn't.

"I mean, have you seen him?" She sighs dreamily. "He's like a walking thirst trap. Those hands..."

"Oh my god." You stare down at her pink head in disbelief. "You'd actually fuck him? Like, actually actually?"

She finally tears her eyes from the screen, twisting to grin up at you with zero shame. "Why not? Life's too short not to ride at least one psychopath, right?"

The silence stretches.

"What?" She raises an eyebrow at your horror. "You wouldn't?"

"Jesus fuck no." You mime gagging. "You know he probably has some weird murder kink. Like, he'd probably want to chase you through a haunted house with a knife while dramatic music plays."

"Haunt play?" Her eyes go wide  before she breaks into giggles. "That's... weirdly specific. But don't knock it till you try it, right?"

"Yun." You roll your eyes so hard they might get stuck. "He'd probably set up a whole haunted house just to get his rocks off."

"Okay but..." Yunjin props herself up on her elbows. "Haunted house but make it sexy? That's kind of genius."

"You're actually insane." You shove her shoulder, both of you dissolving into laughter. "I swear to god, if I ever hear spooky music from his tent—"

"You'll what, call the ghost police?"

Her laughter shakes your whole body, bright and infectious, and the small space of the tent makes this ridiculous conversation feel somehow safer, more intimate.

Just two girls discussing their terrible taste in men while hiding from a storm.

Even if one of those men happens to be Seoul's most notorious psychopath.

Yunjin flops back down, using your stomach as a pillow again. The drama's still playing on her phone, but you're too busy thinking about V's games to focus on whatever chaebol drama is unfolding now.

"For now," she sighs dreamily, "I'll stick to living through these ridiculous romances. Much safer than the real thing, right?"

You hum in agreement, watching raindrops race down the tent's surface.

"Sounds smart. But if you do decide to test out V's haunted house kink..." You poke her side. "I want every single detail. For science."

"Deal." Her giggle vibrates against your stomach. "But only if you keep saving me from his 'passionate teaching moments'. My knife skills are fine, thanks."

"Always."

The word comes out softer than intended, but you mean it. In Kkangpae, real friendship is rare as fuck. People either want to kill you, fuck you, or use you—sometimes all three.

But Yunjin? She's different.

And all the while; the rain keeps drumming steadily against the canvas, turning the world outside into a blur of gray and green.

In here, none of that exists.

Not V's thorny games, not Jeon's hurricane, not the Council's secret meetings.

Just you and your best friend, safe and warm while the storm rages on.

For now, anyway. Tomorrow's another story.

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[colorlessjay]

if cas was a uni professor what do you think he would teach? theology seems too obvious.

what about philosophy and he uses his and tfw’s collective fuck-ups as examples

Now see, you're thinking about him as a professor thematically to him being an Angel

I think he would teach Quantum Mechanics

Hear me out:

Castiel is a biblical ancient being. He has knowledge beyond compare, but he doesn't know jack shit about the human condition. He just started learning about the relations of religion on a human level. He doesn't know enough to teach philosophy without it being synical in nature, or getting upset because Castiel is a creature of Objectivity

You know what he CAN teach that uses facts, logic, and concrete reasoning that can evolve in logical leaps? Math. Science. Atoms. Electrons. Space.

And he WILL be weird about it. I want him to get lost in the sauce of his own lectures to the point where he ends up 10x more disheveled and crazed than when he started.

His class WILL be difficult, not because Castiel can't explain it well, but because he drops so much knowledge onto you that one lecture will end with a 100-page Google doc of notes

Like he gets ANGRY about it. Angry because he is limited in how much he can share, and he has too much to share.

At one point in class, he slams his fists onto the table and yells, "Your feeble minds cannot quantify the amount of knowledge I am burdened with. I am cursed to only discuss not even a FRACTION of what I know. And if I were given the opportunity to share my mind, your eyes would burn out of your skulls, and I will once again be alone in a cage of my own creation."

Then someone raises their hand and asks, "Is this gonna be part of the finals?"

and Castiel immediately unruffles his feathers and answers as if he didn't just give these people psychological damage. "No, we'll only be covering up to chapter 3 for now. Have a good weekend."

[comicaurora]

A bit of a strange question, but if there were any of your videos you were to "remake" today for any reason (ex: you feel like you misrepresented the original text or spread misinformation), which would it be and why? None of them is a perfectly valid answer

Again: bit of a strange question, but I've been thinking about my own creations and how I could have done so much better with some of them, but I also know that is a sign of my growth and constantly chasing "what if I did this instead" isn't always healthy for nurturing a creative mindset, and I was wondering what your opinion might be as a Creator of Things with a bit more experience than I

There's been a few trope talks where I've thought later of other angles I could've explored that might warrant sequels or part 2s, but I don't dislike any of the summaries enough to justify a rework.

I always find "I could've done this better if I made it now" to be a bit of a fallacy. I'm only better at making things now because I made all those earlier things. If I knew everything I'd learn from making a project before I started the project, it wouldn't come out the same.

I think when it comes to the "rework remake perfect" instinct, it helps to zero in on what the impulse is really grounded in. In my experience, more often than not, it's not actually about making the art better, except incidentally. It's usually about showing that you are better. It's demonstrating your competence and your higher standards and your skills, and more importantly it's overwriting the proof that you were once less than perfect. If people look at your old work and think that's all you're capable of, they'll be judging you poorly!

If that's the motivator, it's a very unhelpful one. You can't control for being harshly or incorrectly judged. It's a fruitless effort to stave off potentially upsetting outdated criticism, and it's not even going to work. Fear of critique is an unreliable and untrustworthy motivator.

If it really is about making the art itself better, perfecting your magnum opus with your newly leveled-up skills, that's a little more solid. But from where I'm standing, it's always better to use those skills to make something new instead of polishing something old. The older, unpolished work has already acquired its audience that finds it appealing for reasons that might never occur to you. Trying to bury or overwrite it just deprives that audience of the thing they like, and maybe makes them feel bad for having liked it in the first place. Also, usually when you look back on the older work, you'll conclude that the problem is everything and it'll need to be torn down and started from scratch. I know when I revisited the first three chapters of the comic, when I let my critic brain spin up, it wasn't shading or lineart I wanted to fix - it was panel composition, overall pacing, the entire structure of the chapters as a whole. I would've had to make them all over again to be happy with them, and they wouldn't be the same story by the end.

I've been thinking a lot about the Discworld through this lens lately. It ended up over 40 books long, but everyone agrees that the first two are not what you should start with, because they're the worst ones. They're entirely parodic, purely referential of at-the-time major fantasy series, and borderline mean-spirited in places. If you haven't read Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Dragonriders of Pern, you're not gonna understand like a full 50% of The Colour Of Magic.

It's clear that when he started in on them, Pratchett was entirely focused on taking the piss out of a genre he found mostly shallow and unimpressive. But the Discworld wouldn't leave his head, and everything he made fun of he clearly eventually found himself overthinking. He'd make little one-off jokes in the early books about Dwarves having no women and a hundred words for gold, and then twenty books later he'd have a Dwarf gender revolution make waves across the Disc, and then he'd write Thud!, a book that delves deeper into the nuances of Dwarf societal structure than Tolkien ever did.

If you look for them, there are continuity errors everywhere in Discworld. In his introductory book, Carrot defused a dwarf bar full of rowdy brawlers by guilting them all into writing to their poor lonely mothers back home. Shortly thereafter, Carrot will be outraged at the mere concept of an openly female dwarf. Pratchett even eventually wrote Thief of Time, a book that loosely explains that the Disc makes no sense because history has been broken and put back together incorrectly twice, and therefore any continuity errors are because of that.

He's the writer. He could've gone back and fixed it, edited the reprints to be less disruptively discontinuous with the later books. Instead he continuously moved forward and allowed the world he made to grow without cutting it off from its roots. And because he didn't bury his older, far worse work, we have the privilege of following the Disc's evolution from the very start, and seeing how this shallow, stock fantasy world parody became something incredibly rich and complex without ever pretending like its early installments never happened.

Anyway, that's why I think it's better to move forward. You make more good stuff that way.

[spiddermen]

deltarune - world egg theory

anyone else think it's weird that we never see anything outside of hometown? there's no pictures of the outside world, the camera never pans out, and the sole road outside of town is blocked. the obvious reason for this is that we never need to leave the town, but i think there might be more to it than that. what if the reason we can't leave is because there's actually nothing outside of hometown?

so. we all know deltarune isn't real. as such, the world of deltarune isn't real - there's nothing to it outside of the parts we see. this is true for every game, of course, but i think in deltarune, it might be true in-universe as well. think about it - nobody can use the internet, we don't see anybody enter or leave the town, and we can't contact asriel. what if the reason for this is because there's literally nothing outside of hometown? if there's nothing there, there'd be no roads to follow, no internet to connect to, no phones to call. but why?

in the universe of deltarune, gaster is a stand-in for the game's devs. he's the one who revealed it on twitter, posts about it every time a new chapter comes out, and even calls it "my deltarune". it's likely that this world is literally his creation - a small, fictional world, an experiment that he's created. the entire world seems to be designed around his story, seeing as the religion the town follows is literally the story of deltarune; and in the church, one of the prophecy screens says "THE STORY OF THIS WORLD. <DELTARUNE.>", explicitly calling the entire world deltarune. if he made this world, why would he waste time and effort making pointless, extraneous content that nobody will ever see? why make anything outside of hometown at all?

i think this is how dess disappeared. normally, nobody inside the town perceives that anything's wrong. (if you've watched utena or the madoka movie, you'll know what i mean.) kris, dess, noelle, and asriel liked to go exploring in the forest around the graveyard and the bunker, but they shouldn't have been able to break out of bounds and escape hometown. that is... until they followed the pointed tail.

in a secret room in the second church world, you can find an organ philosopher that says a bunch of scrambled text. once unscrambled, it reads "lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail." in another prophecy room and the game files, you can find this pointed tail, and see that it's made of circles - much like the cats in noelle's cat petterz game. this circular, pointed tail likely belongs to the FRIEND cat, an enigmatic entity that rarely appears in the game, yet seems to exist on the same layer as the title screen UI and the gonermaker. it's a creature that, by that virtue, would know that deltarune is just a game, and that the world of hometown is fake. it would be able to guide dess, kris, and noelle to the true end of the world, where dess would be able to get "lost where the forest would grow" - the place it would have grown, if the world was real.

but why? well, we know that gaster sees this world as his experiment, something he has control over. there might be something he's trying to find here, something he wants to discover. i think that thing he's researching is probably hope, and determination. by making a fake world with a emotional story and lovable characters, he'll make us all get attached to it. we'll defeat the enemies, progress the story, and hope for the character's well being. when he sees us trying to defeat the knight, he cheers us on, because he sees that hope shining in us, and knows that his theory might just be right. once we're invested enough, determined enough, hopeful enough, that's when his deltarune will be complete, and he'll achieve... well, i'm not really sure! i think it's a little too early to predict his real plan, but i think that our hope and determination are a big part of it. like he said in the chapter 2 release teaser, deltarune glows brightly from our hope.

what about asriel? isn't he at college? yeah, but... how do we know that's real? in the game files, that college and asriel both don't exist. i think that in-universe, he probably isn't being "rendered", in a manner of speaking. if he needs to show up in the story, files related to him will be added, and he'll be there just when he's needed. in the meantime, his personal story only exists in our minds, and that's good enough for the world of deltarune.

isn't that a really depressing ending? being told that everyone isn't real? maybe! i feel like there's a few different ways this could resolve, but i've got no clue what toby dreamed up that made him so determined to make this game. but i've got two opinions on possible outcomes, one for the normal route and one for the alt route.

on the normal route - i think the resolution will revolve around the idea that in your mind, fictional characters are just as real as you treat them. sure, they're not "real" so to speak, but we care about them! we're emotionally impacted by them, we cry and laugh and hope for their future. they might not be real, but their emotions and feelings are real through us, the players. the world of deltarune doesn't end just because the code stops running - it keeps existing in the mind of everyone who's played it. gerson says that the next pages are blank, ready to be filled in by the youth, and we just need to pick up the pen of hope and keep making it. susie's hoped-for eternity will live on in our hearts - as long as we don't forget.

on the alt route - the alt route is reached by completely disregarding the idea that these characters are real. we don't care about their feelings - sure, we do a little bit, but all we want is to find everything. in mantle, we become strong by destroying everything and everyone, and once we've reached our full power, we're able to destroy the trees. in the second area of mantle, you destroy some very hometown-colored trees, progress down a path for a little bit, and then find a door... that leads to an endless, empty black abyss. i think this is foreshadowing the alt route's eventual message - if you treat the characters as fake, disregard their emotions and what they want, and just treat the game as something to find content in, you'll be faced with the fact that it really is fake. you've stopped yourself from being immersed by allowing yourself to treat the characters as nothing more than sprites and dialogue, and in response, that's all the game becomes - a fake world with nothing on the other side.

[twice-inamillion]

The Company 

New Assistant 

Smut (Defloration, first-time sex, deep penetration, creampie, whinging, rough sex, ass spanking, little aftercare, slave contract)

Chapter 17

3975 Words 

(It’s time for a new assistant with Irene getting busy with her new girl group. Luckily she has a junior assistant in training that is due for a promotion. As her new boss it is required for you to welcome her and break her in.)

The office has been busy since returning from San Francisco. Multiple meetings with project managers, clients, partner companies, and personal meetings. You previously met with JYP and suggested a survival show with the trainees from his company. He mentioned it would give it a twist when it comes to the creation of a girl group. 

At first, you were hesitant, but after much discussion about what it would look like, you decided to get on board. You even considered adding Mina as a contestant since you were confident in her skills. 

The only thing remaining would be to inform the trainees about their participation in a survival show, so you and JYP decided to hold a meeting with all the trainees.

The meeting went as you suspected; the trainees were nervous about their participation. The younger trainees saw this as a way to prove themselves and increase their chances of debut, while the older ones voiced their disapproval. 

Nayeon, Jeongyeon, and especially Jihyo were angry at JYP for even suggesting the idea after their failed attempts at debut. 

Jihyo cries from disappointment, with the other two comforting her, knowing how much they have worked for these past few years. 

The meeting ends, leaving a sour taste in your mouth, not knowing how to react. You should have gone with your gut, but it's too late to change your mind, and only for the best outcome. 

When you get back to your office, you discuss things with Jieun (IU) and understand the situation. Being closer to them, she has learned a few things and has learned how disappointed 3Mix would be with their recent failed attempt. They assumed that switching companies would have an easier path to debut, especially Jihyo, who has been in training for the longest time among the trainees in the company. 

“I can’t back out.”

”I understand, sir, but try to be a bit understanding.”

”I’ll try.

The room is silent; you can feel the tension in the air and ask, “What’s next on the agenda?”

”You have a meeting with Irene to discuss about Miyeon.” 

“When is that?

”Later today, it's your last meeting.”

”Thank you.”

———

You hear a knock, “Sir, it’s Irene.”

”Come in.”

”Thank you.” She stands in front of you with folders in her hands, waiting for you to look up at her. 

“Take a seat.”

”Yes.”

”Let’s get to the point. How is she doing?”

”At the beginning, she had a bit of an adjustment to her new schedule. She asked a lot of questions but began to pick things up at a reasonable pace. I also made sure she continued her education and decided to pursue higher education.”

”That’s great. Seems like these few months have been good for her.”

”Yes, I tried not to give her so much at the beginning and slowly increased her workload. Now that I’m in my group, she makes my duties easier.”

”Do you think she can take over your duties once you get busier?”

”With the basic stuff, yes. I haven’t even her any sensitive information yet.”

”Let me ask you one thing. Do you think she can be trusted?”

”She hasn’t let me down. So yes, I think she can, but I can't promise she won’t make a mistake.”

”Jieun suggested a contract like the two of you have as assurance.”

Irene looks perplexed about Jieun's suggestion, “Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

”No, that’s a great idea. I should have mentioned it sooner.” 

In reality, Miyeon has grown on Irene throughout their time together. Hearing about binding her into a contract like the one she is in saddens her as she knows that Miyeon’s freedom will be stripped. 

“Here are her files, sir.”

You read over her report, the things she’s helped Irene with, and her newly gained skills as an assistant. You opened her health file and noticed that her birthday was recent, “Oh, she just turned eighteen. How nice.”

Irene clenches her fist, seeing your grin. She understands what you’re thinking and is disgusted by it.

”Yes, I bought her a birthday and a small dinner together.”

”That’s sweet.”

”Thank you, sir.”

You close her file and say, “Thank you for the report. I’ll have IU put together her new contract and set up a health check for Miyeon as soon as possible.”

”Is that really necessary?”

”I would have thought you would be happy. She’ll take over some of your duties unless you want her to?”

”No, I’m grateful,” but she just felt sorry for Miyeon.

”Okay, you can go now.”

Irene exits your office, defeated, and heads to meet her members in the training room.

——-

It’s been a few days since your meeting with Irene, and now Jieun and Irene are meeting with Miyeon. 

She’s nervous about the meeting, hoping it's about her effort as a junior assistant. 

She is greeted by Jieun and escorted to the conference room you use for private meetings. 

“Irene unnie, good morning.”

”Good morning, Miyeon.” 

They sit and discuss Miyeon’s position as a junior assistant. It’s most of what you and Irene talked about a few days ago, but now it comes to the main part. Irene mentions that she believes Miyeon can take on a larger role within the company. This makes Miyeon smile and happy about her efforts being looked at after her mistake a few months ago. 

“Irene and I would like to consider you for the position of one of the CEO’s personal assistants.” 

Miyeon looks surprised and at Irene sitting across from her, “Does that mean that I’ll be working in the same position as you, unnie?”

Irene replies, “Actually, I’ll be taking a small role since I am trying to focus on my group, but you’ll be working closely with Jieun.”

Jieun interrupts and asks, “What do you think? Would you be interested in the position?”

Miyeon immediately replies, “Yes, I’d love that. I want to prove myself to everyone here after my incident a few months back, so I would love to do my share.”

”Great, that’s the sprint,” says Jieun. “We figured you would accept, so I brought up a contract for the meeting. You know, just to make this official.”

”Yes, of course.”

She goes over the contract and covers the position as the CEO’s assistant, as well as some benefits.

”I talked to CEO-nim, and he said that you’ll be getting a biweekly salary and spending money.” 

Miyeon looks at the contract and is surprised by the amount, “Oh my god, isn’t that too much?”

”He wants to make sure you’re comfortable.”

”Thank you so much.”

”Of course. Also, this section talks about you moving in with the CEO and assisting in his daily needs, like taking notes, setting up meetings, getting his dry cleaning, making sure he has his meals and other miscellaneous things.”

”Oh, I’ll be living with him?”

She looks at Irene, worried, and Irene responds, “We’ve all done it at one point, mainly at the beginning. Once you get out of your probationary period, you will have the ability to move out to your own apartment like we did.”

“Oh, I get my own apartment?”

“Irene says, “Yes, like the one we live in. The CEO provides it for us.”

”Okay, I’m excited.”

”Down below are some of the perks that come with the job.” 

Miyeon looks at the list and is surprised by the amount of perks, each better than the previous one.”

”Where do I sign?”

Irene interrupts, “Wait, we also want to let you know that this job comes with sensitive information, so confidentiality is required.”

”Yes, I understand.”

”Are you sure? Would you like us to give you some time as you read over the contract to make sure that everything is okay?”

Jieun gives Irene a side eye, signaling to not step out of bounds.

She turns the numerous pages and skims over the large letters that talk about job expectations, payment, sickness, insurance, dental, memberships, education opportunities, a termination clause, and other issues that are in fine print. 

“Where do I sign?”

Jieun points at the numerous blank spaces that require Miyeon’s signature. After signing about ten pages, she gets to the eleventh page and asks, “I have fully read and understood the content of this agreement. I sign this document entirely of my own accord without any enforcement and accept any consequences if the agreement is violated or broken. 

Irene tries to get Miyeon’s attention, but Jieun stops her, allowing Miyeon to give her final signature and stamps her Dojang (family seal) as a signed agreement. 

A tear falls from Irene, knowing that Miyeon has sealed her fate as your newest toy. “Unnie, are you crying?”

”Sorry, it's just that…”

”Irene is just happy for you, that's all.”

“Aww, thanks, unnie. I’ll make sure to make you proud.”

Irene feels like she’s about to cry and says, “Oh wow, look at the time. I have another commitment to get to. I’ll take my leave, but Jieun will continue with your onboarding.”

”Thanks again, unnie.”

Irene walks away and exits the room, leaving Jieun and Miyeon alone. Jieun asks Miyeon if she has any questions, and they continue to talk for a while. Most questions are about the role and about the chance to debut in the near future. Jieun replies that anything about her debut is up to the CEO, but she and Irene can answer questions about the job.

Jieun then takes out a folder with Miyeon’s name on the front, “I have your health file right here. It shows that all shots are up to date and have no signs of illness; they are practically healthy.”

”Yes, I take care of myself.”

”It shows.”

Miyeon giggles at the compliment when she hears Jieun ask, “Miyeon, are you still a virgin?”

”Ehh?”

Surprised by the question, she tries to calm herself before answering in a shaky voice, “Ye… yes, I am.”

”Just wondering. Since of your previous mistake.”

There’s a moment of silence, causing Miyeon to feel nervous, but Jieun changes the conversation, “I’ll submit the paperwork today, and your new badge should be ready for tomorrow. Also, begin packing, and I’ll send someone to pick up your items in the morning. 

——

Miyeon has spent most of the night packing her belongings. She tried to talk to Irene but never got home. Waking up, she sees a message on her phone from Irene saying that she ended up crashing at her member’s dorm after practice and will see her later today. 

Miyeon hears a ring and sees it’s the workers from the moving company. They help take her belongings to the CEO’s condo, where Jieun greets them. She escorts you to your room, which is much bigger than the one she was in previously. 

After unpacking the necessities, Miyeon accompanies Jieun to her office, where she gets her new badge and a copy of her job requirements and daily and weekly assignments. 

“It’s going to be most of the things you do now, but over time, you’ll be responsible for what’s on the bottom of the list.”

“Okay, got it.”

“Also, this is what a typical schedule for the CEO looks like. Meetings throughout the day, but his mornings and evenings are mostly free, and there are gaps throughout the day.”

Miyeon looks at the schedule and sees an asterisk for the morning and late evenings. “What are the asterisks for?”

“The CEO might need your help in the morning. For the evenings, it’s just helping him after a long day at work.” 

“Oh, like a massage?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Oh, okay. I’ve done that before with my appa and eomma.”

“Nice. I’ll show you how it’s done since it’s your first time.”

“Thank you, Jieun unnie.”

“You can go home and unpack. Just meet me in my apartment around dinner. I want to go over some things with you.”

——

Miyeon meets Jieun at her apartment a few hours later. They both enjoy a simple dinner and talk about their personal life when she receives a notification that you arrived back at your condo.

“He’s back from his dinner. Let’s get ready and greet him.” She looks at Miyeon and says, “Come with me. I’ll give you some things to make sure you look presentable for today.” 

They exit the elevator and head towards the large doors. Using their pin, they enter the room and hear the shower. 

“Seems like he’s showering. Come with me.” 

Miyeon follows Jieun to the service room and starts to get undressed. Surprised, Miyeon asks, “What are you doing, unnie?”

“Get undressed, rinse yourself, and put this on,” as Jieun hands her a two-piece bikini.

Jieun looks at Miyeon as she shows a lost expression, “Quickly before he gets out.” 

“What are we doing?”

“Service.” 

“Ehh?” 

She helps Miyeon undress and pulls her to the shower. Miyeon tries to cover herself with her arm but is shocked by the cold water coming from the shower head. Miyeon’s mind goes wild, thinking of what type of service Jieun meant. 

After rinsing, they quickly dry themselves and put on their bikini before coming out of the service room.  

They see you swimming in your pool, going from one end to the other. Before reaching the sliding door, Jieun pulls Miyeon to the slide and whispers, “Make sure to do whatever he asks. He can be nice, but if you rub him the wrong way, he’ll make your life rough and even ruin your career.”

Miyeon nods nervously and follows Jieun, who slides the door open and walks towards the side of the pool. She waits until your head pops out of the water and waves at you. 

“Good evening, sir. I see that you’re enjoying your swim.”

”After a busy day at work, I couldn’t help myself. It’s such a stress reliever.”

”That’s great to hear. I brought Miyeon with me today,” and waves at you to step forward.

”Good evening, sir,” and bows her head.

”I see that Jieun is teaching you properly.”

”Of course. May we join you?”

”Yes”, giving a satisfied smile.

Jieun walks towards the edge of the pool, grabs the rail, and walks into the pool. 

You look at Miyeon, who is standing frozen, “Join us.” She nods and follows, walking slowly into the pool. She makes her way to where you two are and is surprised to see your hand on Jieun’s ass. 

Jieun giggles and gets closer to you, letting you grip her cheeks, “Nice and firm like always.” Jieun blushes, “I try to work out since you like it so much.”

You look at Miyeon and extend your hand, “Come, don’t be afraid.” Miyeon hesitates but remembers what Jieun said earlier and extends her hand. “Wow, Miyeon, you look great in that bikini.”

”Thank you…” trying to hide her face by tilting down. 

Suddenly she feels the touch of your hand on her ass and freezes. “Miyeon, you have such a soft butt.” There is no response, and Jieun speaks up, “I bet she’s happy about your compliment but is too shy to say anything. How about we spice things up a little?" and undoes her bra, letting it float to the top. 

You let your hand off of Mieyon’s asscheek and grab Jieun’s waist, pulling her towards you. She wraps her legs around your waist, and you go in for a kiss on her neck. Jieun moans, feeling your lips kiss her neck to her collarbone. 

Miyeon remains frozen, seeing you massage Jieun’s breast as you kiss her. She understands now what Jieun meant when she said “service” and realizes what her role as the CEO’s personal assistant meant. 

Out of nowhere, Jieun says, “Did you know that Miyeon is a virgin?” Miyeon sees your attention and immediately goes towards her. “Oh, really?” 

“Yes, her body was silky smooth as well.” 

You put Jieun down, walk towards Mieyon, and say, “Come with me.”

”Where are we going?”

”To the bedroom, of course.”

She looks back at Jieun, who follows behind them. Miyeon asks in a trembling voice, “I don’t want my first time like this.”

Jieun replies, “Remember what I told you earlier. You belong to him now.”

You take Miyeon into the bedroom, drop your shorts, and toss them into the hamper. “Undress, I want to see what I’m going to be working with.” 

Miyeon's body trembles at the idea that she’s going to lose her virginity in this manner. She assumed it would be with her boyfriend and a romantic setting, but instead, as your assistant. 

You say sternly, “Strip, while I’m being nice.” Miyeon flinches and undoes her bra, dropping it on the floor before moving on to her bottom. 

With her completely nude, you circle around and admire her body, small breasts, flat stomach, and pretty face. You get behind her, part her hair to the side, and kiss the side of her neck. 

Miyeon closes her eyes, foreign to a male’s touch. She tells herself that she can do it; her dreams of becoming an idol are much bigger, and she is willing to sacrifice her body for a moment that will change her life. 

You can see her shiver in fear, like a gazelle that’s about to be eaten by a lion. It turns you on, the feeling of having control of a female. You get closer to her, and she gets startled when you press your body against hers. She feels a thick, hot sensation touching her back and remains frozen. 

You whisper in her ear, “I’m going to give you two choices; you can  be in control of what happens to you, or I make the choices for you.” 

She is at least thankful that she can decide on how she’ll lose her virginity. “I can do it myself.”

“Alright, tell me what you want me to do.” 

Miyeon tries to come up with an idea quickly. She looks around and says, “Get on the bed and lay down.” 

You agree, head to the large white bed, and lie in the middle of it. She walks and climbs on the bed, sitting next to you.

With no idea what to do, she climbs on your thighs and stares at your cock. It's the first time she's seen a cock, and she is lost on what to do. She turns around and looks at Jieun, who is standing in the corner. “Miyeon, grab it with your hand and stroke it like this. Here, you use this.” With the bottle of lube in her hand she opens it, pours some on your cock, coating it. She uses her right hand, stroking it awkwardly at first. As she continues, it starts to get bigger, which makes her use both hands. 

“I don’t think it's going to fit inside of me.” 

You respond, “You don’t know until you try,” giving her a smirk. She turns around once more and looks at Jieun, hoping for her to save her. Instead, Jieun replies, “Miyeon, you got this. Hwaiting!”

There’s no way around it; she has a future to think about, and giving her virginity is a small price to pay. That’s what she is trying to make herself believe. It’s the only way she’ll be able to accept what she is about to do. 

Miyeon then grabs your cock and lifts herself off. She tries to align your cock to her entrance and is scared by how big it really is compared to her small entrance.

She lowers her body, pressing her lower lips against the mushroom tip of your cock, and stops. Miyeon looks at you with the look of someone who’s accepted her fate and control of her life to you and slowly drops her body. 

You feel your tip spread her lower lips, pushing into her virgin hole. She groans, experiencing being stretched this much for the first time. She stops when she reaches her thin barrier and looks at you once more before giving her a hungry smile. 

With her hands on your abs, she gives a hard drop; she gasps but immediately bites her lip. “Fuck, you’re so tight!” 

There’s no response, only her body trembling as she’s trying to quickly adjust to the pressure. You place your hand on her arm, but she waves you off. She immediately apologizes, “I’m sorry, sir, it’s just that I’m trying to get adjusted to your size.”

“Don’t worry, it’s expected.” You touch her arm once more, this time allowing you to embrace her. 

“Want me to take over?”

She nods, “Yes.”

You place your hands around her small waist and lift her, pulling her out from her cunt. “Bend over and get on all fours.” 

She does as she’s told and places her body on top of the large pillow. She presses her face against it and closes her eyes and she feels you press your cock into her cunt.

“Hmph… hmm…” 

She clenches the pillow, feeling your cock stretch her walls. She yelps when you hit the back of her womb, “Wait, wait, you’re breaking me!” You don’t respond and increase thrust inside her. She clenches her hands on the pillow as you use her body for relief. You want to make sure that her body gets used to your cock, especially her womb, since you’re its new owner. 

“Does it feel better when I take over?” 

There’s no response from Miyeon, so you raise your arm and give her a slight slap on her ass. She yelps and lifts her head, “Ow!”

You increase the pace of your thrust, your balls hitting her flesh, “Fuck, you’re going to be as great as my new toy.” Miyeon just continues to bite onto the pillow, listening to you talk about her position as your new toy.

Before long you’re about to cum and warn Mieyon on your orgasm nearing. “I’m going to cum.” Miyeon lifts her head, her mouth drooling, and pleads, “Please… outside… do it outside…” You scoff and say, “You’re in no position to throw out demands, I’ll cum wherever I want, and I always cum inside.” 

Miyeon feels your cock throb and releases a large wave of cum, flooding her walls and womb. “No! So much inside!” Your cum floods her womb to the brim; she can feel her womb getting addicted to your cum and cock, knowing that there is no coming back after this.

Jieun leaves after the second round and is satisfied, knowing she did a good job for her master. You continue to fuck Miyeon, round after round, until she passes out, and even then fuck her until you get your fill. 

Miyeon wakes late in the morning completely nude, and her lower body is completely sore. She tries to get up, but any pressure on her legs causes her to tremble and fall back onto the bed. 

“Miyeon, it’s me, Irene.”

”Unnie, come in.”

Irene comes inside, sees the mess, and feels sorry for what Miyeon just went through. “How are you feeling?”

”Horrible, I lost my virginity, and my body is completely sore.”

”I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

”Jieun said it was necessary if I wanted the slightest chance to make it in the industry.”

There’s a silence, and Irene breaks the ice and says, “Here, take this.”

”What is it?

”A morning-after pill.”

[feelmyskinonyourskin]

Judex, Judicum, Infantem - Chapter 5

(Eventual)Reader x Matt Murdock x Frank Castle

previous chapter | next chapter | series masterlist | my masterlist

summary: The beginnings of living with Matt feel too good to be true. Could you be falling in love with him? But Matt's flaws of course can't stay hidden forever. With a few special guest appearances.

warnings: SMUT/18+ (don’t interact if your age is not in your bio or I will block you!) AFAB Reader. No use of Y/N. Pregnant sex! Brief mention of vomiting.

Notes: I hit 2,000 followers last week and didn't even notice so I didn't prepare any kind of celebration. So instead, I'm going to post three!!! chapters this week to celebrate! This one today, one on Thursday, and one on Saturday or Sunday.

w/c: 3,806

*I never give permission for my fics, manips, or any other original creation I post on Tumblr to be copied, posted elsewhere, translated, or fed into any AI program. The only platforms I currently post on are Tumblr and AO3. Thanks!*

You weren’t sure what was more spectacular, the way the sunlight filtered in like cascading brush strokes of orange and pink, or the crystal clear view of the Hudson and New Jersey beyond. If you had known dating a successful lawyer came with the perk of moving into such a luxurious apartment, you’d have agreed to go out with Matt much sooner. The nearly floor to ceiling windows were the primary thing you noticed the first time he brought you over here. You weren’t sure if you’d ever tire of standing in front of them and admiring the view that covered most of the living space of Matt’s— now your— apartment.

“Where is this going?” the woman with dark hair asked as she easily hoisted your antique dresser above her head

“Bedroom.” you replied, watching with confusion as she shrugged and headed further into the apartment

A blind guy and a pregnant lady were not two people who should be moving much, so you knew you needed help getting all your things uptown to your new dwelling. But when Matt said he had a few friends who could help you move, you weren’t exactly expecting more vigilantes.

“Jessica, can you please be a little more careful with my girlfriend’s things?” Matt called down the hall, as he stepped up beside you, giving your back a reassuring rub

“As nice as it is to meet some of your friends, why didn’t we hire movers?” you asked, looking around at the chaos that was spread around the living room as you combined your things.

Since Matt could afford a place like this, you were shocked he wouldn’t want to invest in the expense of professionals.

“Really Matt, Heroes for Hire does not exactly fall into the category of movers for hire.” the man named Luke jested as he effortlessly set down a box you knew was heavily packed with your book collection.

Wow, these two were strong.

“I wanted people we could trust.” Matt replied

“Well thank goodness she comes with a first aid kit,” Claire commented, noting the plastic case sitting at the top of the box she was carrying

As she pulled it out and triumphantly waived it in the air, you noticed Matt’s frame went rigid beside you. He hadn’t yet told you why he��d been light in the vigilante scene these days. Maybe Claire joking about you being the one to stitch him up brought up the reason in his mind, or maybe he just hadn’t thought through what life would look like as a vigilante with a family; if he ever did go back to it.

You certainly had thought about it though. Would Matt return to being Daredevil regularly? What would happen if his identity got revealed? To you? Your relationship? Your child? Or worse, what if he got hurt or even killed?

“Oh, were you a Marine?” Claire asked, interrupting your panic spiral

“No.” you replied, confused “Why?”

She rummaged past the first aid kit and pulled the first thing under it from the box; Frank’s sweatshirt. You were packing your apartment up so haphazardly, you’d almost forgotten it was in there. Since discovering Frank was gone, you tucked the item into a dark corner in the back of your closet, hoping to forget him but also not really willing to part with the only item of his you had. When Matt asked you to move in, you were so excited and overwhelmed and admittedly a little scatterbrained from being pregnant, you just grabbed piles of things and shoved them into whatever containers you could find.

Shit, that must be what Matt was actually upset about. You could see him out of the corner of your eye turn away from you and make his way into the kitchen, reaching for a glass and a bottle of whiskey.

“No.” you answered sheepishly “Something from an old friend I totally forgot I had.”

Claire shrugged and put the sweatshirt back, carrying the box into the bedroom.

Matt eased up shortly after his friends departed for the evening, mostly seeming back to his usual self as the two of you snuggled on the sofa and unwound for the night. The apartment was still scattered in boxes and various items of yours, but you both were too tired to actually start unpacking.

“Hang on” you said, feeling the bile already rising in your throat and rushing towards the bathroom

Great, now that you lived with Matt, he was going to hear and smell every reaction your body had to the pregnancy. It seemed your symptoms really ramped up as you approached your 12 week appointment tomorrow. Plus you were starting to have food cravings, calling him when he was out searching for Frank and instead had him swinging from rooftops in search of takeout.

Matt seemed totally unfazed as you returned to the couch, opening his arms up and inviting you back to your place.

“This is getting miserable.”

“Awe I know sweetheart, but the doctor said things should ease up after the first trimester and you’re so close.”

“Yeah until this baby starts getting so heavy that my back hurts constantly and I need to pee every five seconds.”

“You already need to —”

Thwap. You gave his arm a playful whack which caused the corner of Matt’s full lips to quirk up into a beautiful smile as he chuckled. Feigning injury, he pulled his arm away briefly before leaning back in to give you a kiss.

“Sorry baby, couldn’t help it.”

The way his lips pressed against yours sent a buzzing through your skull that radiated down your neck, down your sternum, all the way to in between your legs.

That was another symptom that had appeared in the last few days; you felt insatiably horny. And right now, Matt looked like the most delicious meal you could devour.

You leaned forward, pleading for more which he happily obliged. His lips were as soft as they looked and tingled against yours with the taste of spearmint mixed with the whiskey he’d downed earlier.

Matt had not touched you beyond a few sweet kisses and cuddles since you delivered the news of your pregnancy to him. The way his hands comforted and caressed you in the days since made you feel like he thought you were made of glass; a soft delicate statue like the saints he worshiped, the child of his that you carried the miracle that devined you.

You scratched at his scalp as you kissed, feeling him preening into your touch. Pulling away just enough to speak, you made sure your breath was still hot against his.

“You know I was reading up on unconventional remedies the other day. For my symptoms.”

“Mmm?” Matt’s brows shot up quizzically, a gentle hand lightly tracing a pattern into your waist as he held you.

“One pregnancy forum said sucking dick can help with morning sickness.”

The flush that rose to Matt’s cheeks nearly matched the color of his Daredevil suit and he cleared his throat as his eyes darted back and forth rapidly.

“You —um— You’re joking?”

His voice cracked like a pubescent choir boy. Oh how you loved to make this cocky flirt of a man crumble with just a few words. Lightly, you let your hand creep up his thigh, a centimeter at a time.

“Nope.”

“I don’t think in good conscience I can ask you to do that.” he stuttered

“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”

Apprehensiveness still lingered on his face.

“Matty please, I’m desperate. Both to not be nauseous and for you.”

“Sweetheart. We’ve both had a long and exhausting day.”

You knew he could read the pout on your face as you pulled back by the way his hands reached forward to keep you close.

“How about this?” he reasoned “Let’s take a nice warm shower. Together? Yeah? Get you a little relaxed. Then if you’re feeling up to it afterwards, I’ll consider it.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m a lawyer sweetheart. And one of us is going to have to be the serious parent.” he joked

Matt’s shower was a gift sent directly from the heavens, especially against your sore back and shoulders. A full walk in with a bench on either end, a rainfall shower-head above, plus eight jets running down the wall; all adjustable in both spray pattern and temperature. You could get used to this.

You could also get used to the way Matt was pressing his lips against your skin, sending a wave of goosebumps across your flesh despite how warm the steam was surrounding you. Relaxing under his touch, you hadn’t realized how sore you were until you finally let your shoulders drop as Matt ran delicate fingers up and down your flesh. His motions were slow, easy in the way he gently moved you around, spinning you to wet your body and then again so he could reach better. You closed your eyes and hummed at how cared for you felt in the moment.

He gently massaged your scalp to lather in your favorite in shampoo, pampering you while keeping his body closer to you than your own shadow. You could feel his hardness pressing into your behind as he took care of you, teasing you unintentionally. He was working you so well, relaxing you into a state of pliability that was doing nothing to calm your neediness.

You hummed once more, this time more of a whine at how desperately you wanted him.

“That bad, huh?” Matt joked

“It feels like my pregnancy hormones want me to somehow get pregnant again even though that’s impossible. Like I’ll explode if I don’t. That’s how badly I want you.”

You turned to face him, watching him calculating your body’s tells behind his glassy eyes. Pushing a strand of his dark, wet hair away from his face, you couldn’t help but smile at the way he nuzzled into your touch. Just maybe some of your desperation was wearing off on him.

“I’m not made of porcelain, Matty. The doctor said sex was perfectly okay and wouldn’t hurt me or the baby. Please?”

Gently, you drew him closer by the flesh of his hip so that his hardness pressed against your pelvis. He instantly melted against your lips, bringing a hand up to place behind your head and keep you close. Not like the tender kisses he’d been placating you with earlier, the way he kissed you back was growing with hunger.

You yelped into his mouth as your back hit the cold tiles of the shower. There was still a fragility to the way he touched and kissed you, traveling down your body with reverence. He kept his movements gentle as he guided your leg up on the bench and even more softly as he nipped as the flesh inside your thighs as he sunk to his knees.

“Wait, I thought I was supposed to be the one on my knees for you—- oh!”

Answering your protestations with only the motion of his lips to your sensitive bud, kissing it while rubbing his stubble back and forth against your thighs.

“Nope sweetie. Gotta take care of you now.”

He pulled away just enough to speak, then dove right back in. He sucked at your core as if he was devouring an ice cream bar in the summer sun, gentle enough to not loose a single topping but also quickly enough to not let it melt.

Labored breaths left your lips in whispers of his name. It seemed to ignite an invigorated fire within Matt, now grasping at your thighs to steady you as he increased the fervor of his tongue. Every circle of it against you drew you closer and closer to the edge. All it took for you to finally snap was the brief pause he took to look up at you, a combination of lust and adoration swimming behind his glossy eyes.

Relief washed over you as your cunt spasmed and contracted, like the first wave of the ocean hitting your flesh after soaking in the sun all day. It was warm and white and you tried your hardest to remain upright on shaky legs and slick tile. Grunting at the taste of your release, Matt didn’t stop until you were all the way through your orgasm.

“Well it didn’t fix the morning sickness like sucking you off might, but I won’t complain.” you commented, earning a hearty chuckle from Matt

You felt a little dizzy as you tilted your head back against the cool wall behind you, too blissed out to even notice as Matt stood and lined his hardness up with your slit.

All you could do was reach forward and hang onto his shoulders as he pushed inside you, inch by inch until he was comfortably seated. One of his large hands held under your thigh, supporting it as it rested on the bench. The other was pressed behind you on the wall, caging you in. You could taste yourself in his kisses, tangy and sweet. He thrusted gently, gauging how much you could take as you clung to him.

You nodded into the crook of his neck, urging him on.

“Is this okay? Are you feeling good?” he asked

“Mhm” was about the most coherent answer you could give

You could feel the warm, toned muscle of Matt’s chest against your breasts as only atoms separated you at this point. As he began to find a rhythm, your nipples rubbed against his taught muscles, extra pert from no longer being warmed by the spray of the shower and already oversensitive from your changing hormones. Your thighs burned as you efforted to keep yourself upright and if you weren’t in so much pleasure you would collapse into the puddle of warm water at your feet. Already still worked up from your last orgasm, you could feel another approaching quickly as his cock dragged deliciously along your walls

“Please…please…” you groaned into his ear, nuzzling at him to just be as close as you could

“I know sweetheart, I know. Let go for me, yeah?”

This orgasm was stronger than the last, blossoming from your core through the rest of your body. Your walls spasmed strongly around him and you could feel his muscles flex under you as he worked to hold you steady. All you could do was ride it out and cling to him like a koala as you came down.

He must have been close too, because Matt’s pace began to falter as he pitched himself up into you. Reveling in the dissipating fizz of you own after shocks, you somehow managed to bring a shaky hand up from his back and run it through his hair, giving it a soft tug.

“So close baby. So close.” he promised, kissing at your neck

It only took a little longer of you nuzzling against him and running a hand up and down his warm skin before he was grunting and shaking against you, releasing inside you in with a groan.

The mix of both your releases ran down your leg and combined with the rainfall droplets from the shower head above, now a lukewarm temperature, running into the drain.

“Careful, it’ll be slippery” Matt said as he gingerly removed himself from you and helped guide your leg off the bench.

Once you were out of the shower and all dried, you laid in bed snuggled in Matt’s embrace with your back flush against his chest. Wrapped comfortably in an old Columbia sweatshirt of Matt’s that he offered to you as you got ready for bed. You suspected the soft navy garment was a subtle territory mark over the one of Frank’s that still sat in the unpacked box.

He kissed at your forehead and ran a hand protectively over your stomach. You weren’t yet showing. Anyone passing by on the street wouldn’t think so at least. But you definitely looked like you had one too many burritos if you wore the right clothing. Getting dressed in the mornings had you favoring more stretchy pants and loose fitting dresses these days and you knew you’d need to get some maternity items sooner rather than later.

“I should get going soon. Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?” Matt asked

You turned to face him, gently taking his chin in your palm.

“Matt, no. Please don’t go at all.” you plead “I really appreciate you doing the decent thing and trying to find Frank, but there’s no point. We’re building a life here together. I’m happy. You’ve already been so committed to this family and so am I. We don’t need Frank. I don’t need Frank. I just need you.”

Matt took the hand you’d been stroking his face with and moved it down to the left side of his chest, letting it rest over his heart.

The way he smiled at you, sincere and genuine made your heart want to burst.

“Okay, sweetheart. Whatever you want.” he agreed

You rewarded him with a sweet kiss, happy with the way he grinned into it.

“Maybe some day, when this is more behind us, you can tell me exactly what went down between the two of you. I know it’s complicated.”

Matt nodded in agreement.

“But not tonight. You need rest baby, we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

You hummed, twisting to resume your position laying back against his chest.

As you drifted off to the sound of his steady heartbeat in your ears, you clung tightly to him, finally content at having such a soft place to land. A soft place with Matt.

And then a thought danced across your brain, as gentle as a feather in the wind.

I love you.

Goddammit.

You would have loved to stay in bed just a little longer, angrily burrowing further under the cover at the realization that it was already morning. But the way you could hear Matt rushing around getting ready, you knew you needed to get up.

When you opened your eyes, however, you weren’t expecting to see him already fully dressed, finishing the last loop on his tie.

“Matt?”

He rushed to your side and placed a quick kiss on your forehead. He appeared panicked, eyes darting everywhere as he adjusted the knot on his tie.

“Sweetie, I am so sorry but the judge just called an emergency session for the Madison trial next week. I’m going to go to the courthouse and see what I can do to get out as quick as I can.

Your heart sank. Your 12 week appointment was today.

“Matt, it’s—”

“Don’t you dare say it’s fine sweetheart, cause I know it’s not.”

Flopping back down onto your pillow you let out a sigh, unsure of what to say. The disappointment was twisting knots into your stomach and you could feel the tears beginning to pool in your waterline.

“You’re right it’s not, but I guess I really don’t have a choice.”

“I will explain to the judge and see if he’ll let me go early. I’ll try to meet you there.”

You nodded, utterly dejected at the thought of Matt missing this crucial appointment. What if everything wasn’t okay? Matt wiped at the tear that had escaped and was running down your cheek at the thought of receiving bad news today and Matt not being by your side for it. You should have seen this coming. It was all too good to be true. Matt was letting you down, just like Frank had. Just like all the rest. Your heart broke for yourself sure, but also for your baby. Was this what their life was going to be? A dad who couldn’t show up when it really mattered?

“I guess you gotta make money so we can feed this baby.” you joked with another sigh, causing Matt to grimace at the deflection

He gave you one more quick kiss, heart breaking at the despondence he could feel radiating from you, then he was out the door.

He texted you as much as he could throughout the day to keep you posted, but with 5 minutes to go until the doctor called you back, and Matt being 20 blocks downtown, you knew it wasn’t likely he’d make it in time. You shuffled your feet anxiously against the floor of the waiting room, hoping by some miracle he’d pop through the door.

Of course it wasn’t until you were leaving the doctor’s, appointment complete and paperwork filled with news in hand, that you finally got the text from him.

‘Leaving now. In a cab.’

Fucking of course.

You texted him back.

‘Just finished. Meet at your office instead?’

You’d figure out a way to make him pay you back later for missing out on this, but right now all you wanted to do was get to him and tell him everything.

When the taxi dropped you off, you looked up, Matt’s figure clear in the window of his 5th floor office pacing back and forth.

If you weren’t pregnant and exhausted, you’d have taken the stairs just to punish him with waiting to see you a little longer. Instead you opted for the elevator, rocking on the balls of your feet in anticipation as it seemed to take forever to get up to his floor.

With a ding, the elevator door opened and you stepped forward to see Matt still pacing at the end of the hall. He abruptly stopped and turned as he listened to you make your way to him. You knew your heart had to be beating out of your chest and you could feel a little bit of sweat running down your back.

Clutching the little black and white printout close to your chest, you stood before him, staring into your own reflection in his cherry tinted glasses.

“How’d it go?”

“How was court?” you replied, tinge of hurt dripping in your words

“Not funny sweetheart. We’ll catch up later. The baby?”

“She’s healthy. Right on track still.”

“She?” he asked, smile slowly spreading across his face

Had you been more prepared for Matt missing the appointment, you would have done something cute to tell him like printed a braille sign or something.

“Mhm” you confirmed, holding out the ultrasound

He took it, running his hands over the smooth glossy paper, not able to read what it said but knowing the information on it was life changing.

“We’re having a girl!” he exclaimed

He place the print out on the desk behind him and took your face in his hands. Gingerly, he began to plant soft kisses on each of your cheeks, then your eye lids, then your nose, your brow, your temples, then your lips. You could feel the dampness of tears running down from his shaded eyes as he moved his lips across your face.

“We’re having a little girl.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Tag List: @xxdrixx @a-leg-without-fear @echo-ethe @capswife @xoxabs88xox @allmyn1ghts @laaadygisbooornex3 @ninacotte @uncertified-doc @moth-murdock @danzer8705 @endofthelinegang @buckyssugarchick @hellskitchenswhore @pixviee @themikkapika @bisexualbith @labellapeaky @theoraekenslover @sexyvixen7 @tanyaherondale @marysucks-blog @0callme-mimi @aesthetic0cherryblossom @livewaspsblog @lokifae42 @plutosbearr

[sl-vega]

SWEET N’ SOUR ! - a scaramouche celebrity smau

˚୨୧⋆｡ synopsis:  the bright lights of fame and fortune aren’t for everyone, and you’re starting to think you’re part of that majority. You just can’t seem to catch a break! Every movie you’re in goes straight to DVD, every album you drop just barely gets any streams. From child star to sub par popstar, it seems clear that the world has some kind of vendetta against you and you love to blame it on a certain rising musical sensation; Scaramouche. Thanks to your godforsaken luck you happened to go out with the wrong guy at the wrong time because he just so happened to be Scaramouche’s ex, next thing you know you wake up to truck loads of death threats, your record label dropping you, AND a whole album labelling you as the ‘other woman’! After what seemed like a never ending onslaught of straight bullying and harassment, you had long since retreated from the limelight, the only thing left from your music career being ever so occasional covers on YouTube that only your few close friends watched religiously. However, after writing a heartfelt original piece and uploading it from your humble bedroom, it goes viral! A single song has thrusted you head first into stardom once more, and face to face with the person you ruined it for you.

genre: rivals to lovers, enemies to lovers, enemies/rivals to friends (?) to lovers, celebrity smau, singer smau, social media au, modern au, gn! reader

warnings: cursing, kms/kys jokes, mentions of death threats, brief slut shaming, just parasocial fans and weird behaviour towards celebs in general (much like irl unfortunately), photos are used as placeholders and are not meant to depict reader's appearance

status: ongoing!

side ships: lumine x ayaka, beidou x ningguang, kokomi x gorou

additional notes:

so um, THIS smau will get consistent updates trust me this time (no click bait)

i actually had to physically restrain myself from posting this the second I made it, so by the time the masterlist is out i'll probably have most of the first act planned out/maybe even fully planned out

inspired by the sabrina carpenter and olivia rodrigo drama!

^^ not a one to one creation ofc I obviously took some creative liberties

i'm aware this isn't really a trending topic anymore, but I thought it would make a damn good fic!

taglist is open! comment/ask to be tagged!

[🍬] means the chapter contains written content!

PLEASE let me know if I can use your username as a fan, the main reason I can't mass produce chapters is cuz I need fan names T^T

dividers by @nicodefresas and @aquazero

-> OPENING ACT

TEASER 001 // TEASER 002 // PROLOGUE

˚୨୧⋆｡ STARRING:

0.1; winx club on crack // 0.2; d1 y/n haters

ACT ONE; that's that me espresso!

01; it's brutal out here // 02; caffeine high // 03; hot cacao in hotter weather - [🍬] // 04; have you ever tried this one? // 05; you'll just have to taste me // 06; in my good graces - [🍬] // 07; bleeding me dry like a vampire // 08; not in my time zone but you wanna be // 09; it's been a cruel summer - [🍬] // 10; good 4 u // 11; dancing with the stars - [🍬] // 12; two steps back // 13; twiddling my thumbs // 14; looking at me - [🍬] // 15; in another life - [🍬] // 16; on air! // 17; don't just stand there staring honey - [🍬] // 18; floatin' through the memories // 19; short and sweet - [🍬] // 20; maybe we could've been friends

ACT TWO; girl, so confusing

21; - // 22; - // 23; - // [TBA]

ACT THREE; i'm so obsessed with your ex

[TBA]

ACT FOUR; you make me wanna make you fall in love

[TBA]

🍬 (open) taglist: @shrii-kk @freyao7 @analiee6 @thetwinkims @bellflower1257 @blvdmrcnry @bloukoup @yuan1819 @yourstrulymauki @fungaltoehehe @enrions @atlatcaheart @mywillt0live @myeomiz @adornavia @automaticpatroltragedy @scaraenthusiast1 @sesamemin @syunifu @blueberrybxba @fishii28 @a-sorrowful-tune @emvss @jiminscarmex @mwaiu @lloversss @d4y-dr3am3r @usagiarchive @idaissupercool @raytoebiter @lizzie-harper @anqelkoz @blue-moonies @lalalaloveallmydays @jinjjjia

[clairewritesfanfics]

Villain Creation System Chapter 8

Pairing/s: Invincible x Reader x Invincible Variants

Warning: mild suggestive themes

CHAPTER 7: My Mama Done Tol' Me a Man… Series Masterlist <<read the synopsis and trigger warnings first>>

This was your first time leaving campus grounds since you entered this universe.

Your schedule was open today. No classes, no tutoring, and thank God, no parties.  You were free to get on a bus and go anywhere you wanted.

You were in no mood to speak with anybody who even remotely knew you, so you did something you always wanted to do but couldn’t when you were alive: you shut off your phone.

It was liberating. 

As much as you appreciated your phone’s many utilities, you never did enjoy how easy it was to be found.

The system was in no position to protest. A perfect affinity score was not a requirement in completing your mission, only the darkening, and it was happy with the increase to Mark Grayson’s corruption. It was also too terrified to incur your wrath, so it sequestered itself in a corner to read romance novels.

Without the system’s intrusive voice, the soft whirring of the bus AC was the only thing you could hear. You were alone with your thoughts, and for the first time ever, you hated that.

You haven’t spoken with Mark since the cafeteria incident. It took you several showers to get rid of the stench of meat and grease from your hair, but no amount of cold water could soothe your frayed nerves.

Mark’s guilt-ridden face haunted you, appearing behind your eyelids every time you tried to sleep. The image flashed in and out of your mind, constantly tagging with the memory of the night he aired out his grievances towards you and your alleged coldheartedness.

You were too old to hold a grudge towards playground level insults. 

…that’s what you kept telling yourself, anyway.

In reality, remembering his expression and his looming frame as he said those horrible things scraped at your heart; pinched off small pieces every single time you relive the night.

Relationships tend to leave you discombobulated. 

You loved learning, but educating yourself in social interactions was done out of necessity rather than genuine interest. You like to think that you’ve gotten better over the years at reading the room and giving appropriate responses, a solemn nod, a polite smile; but it would seem that you still had room for improvement.

The bus slowed to a stop and you got off.

You were a five minute-walk away from the mall. It wasn’t technically your choice. You didn’t know where to go, only that you wanted to leave your dorm, so you spun a Wheel of Names containing random hangouts and it gave you the mall. 

Might as well. Maybe some good old window shopping can alleviate your mood.

Well, this was unexpected. 

You carried shopping bags in each hand. You saw a really cute jacket and while it was a little pricey you figured you deserved it, and you did need a new jacket.

One purchase. It’s okay, you told yourself. One expensive but practical jacket is an investment. 

But then you caught a glimpse of a shiny pair of cat ear noise-cancelling headphones. It was in your favorite color and its price would have been way beyond your savings in life, but it was on sale and your bank account here was surprisingly big and the ears were too cute to ignore.

This was also an investment, a steal even! You reasoned.

You were on your way to the food court when you passed by your biggest weakness: a stationery store. 

You spent way too much time inside and ended up buying way more than you could delude yourself into believing was pragmatic or reasonable.

On the bright side, you felt better, especially when you examined the notebooks, highlighters and pens you bought while sipping a fresh fruit smoothie. Nothing beats the feeling of unwrapping a present, even if it’s technically not a present or even wrapped. 

You held a notebook to your face, pressing the page to your nose and inhaling the scent of paper. 

“Mmmm…” No tablet or laptop can hope to replicate that scent or replace pen and paper in your heart. 

You overheard a child’s voice from the next table: “Mommy, that girl’s sniffing a book.”

“Shh, don’t point, don’t even look.”

Recovering from your drunken bliss, you closed the notebook and put it back inside the shopping bag. 

You were considering changing tables when someone called your name. It was Rick, dressed too fancily for a simple trip to the mall and holding a cup of bubble tea.

“Small world,” he laughed. 

Too small. “Hello.” You nodded. You chose this specific mall because it was quite far from the campus. The chances of running into someone who knew you was small, but lately, fate has been working against you. 

“Free day too, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Meeting someone?”

“No, I just did some shopping.” You put your purse over your lap. “You?”

“I was supposed to meet someone. Blind date. But he’s over thirty minutes late.” He sighed.

You wanted to sigh, too. He looked like a kicked puppy. “Did you eat already?”

“I was going to but it’s lunchtime and I couldn’t find any vacant tables. I was thinking of going home.”

“Do you want to sit with me?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” He put down his milk tea and shrugged off his suede jacket before taking a seat. “You know, I spent the entire night thinking of what to wear and I haven’t eaten anything and I’m pretty sure I already ran out of tapioca pearls.”

“I get that.”

“Someone stood you up before?”

You tilted your head. “No. I don’t know why I said that, actually.”

He laughed. 

“If it’s any form of comfort, I think you look nice today.”

“Thank you.” He scratched his jaw. “I hate that I have to ask this so soon, but are you okay?”

You grabbed your smoothie. Knowing exactly what he was referring to, you replied, “I am, thanks for asking. I’m much better now than I was yesterday.” You patted the shopping bags sitting next to you, a proud smile overtaking your face.  

“By the way,” he said, pointing at his own eye. “Your makeup’s kinda smudged.”

Gasping, you turned away from him and opened your phone’s front camera.

The concealer you applied to cover your black eye must have rubbed off and onto the paper. You reapplied until the shiner was barely noticeable.

“Are you–”

“I’m fine.” You threw the concealer stick back into your bag. “Can we change the subject?”

“Uh, sure thing.” Rick tapped the plastic cup. “...you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but are you and Mark a thing?” 

You stopped sipping and looked at him. 

Rick raised his hands up. “I just, I've never seen him react that way before.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him. My ex-boyfriend used to be friends with him, not to mention he was Mister Popular back in our high school, and I’m not just talking about the students, the teachers loved him.”

“Really…”

“Uh-huh. He was part of a lot of orgs, he actually mellowed out a lot when we started college. I expected him to be part of the major–”

“Hold on.” You reached into your shopping bag and took out the notebook you sniffed and clicked an apple-scented pen. “Go on.”

“Are you planning to write his biography or something?” 

Rick meant it as a joke but you weren’t kidding when you informed him, “More like a research article.” You paused. “Also, can you keep this a secret between us?”

He thought for a moment, then he laughed. “All right. I’ll help you.” In his mind, he was convinced he was playing Cupid when he stuck up his pinkie finger and began counting, “Debate team, book club, wrote a few feature articles for the school paper, was a camp counselor for four consecutive summers, volunteered at homeless shelters and what else… he was always in the top five performing students and…for some reason, he never played any sports.”

Apple green ink filled the page as you wrote maniacally. “This is great. Do you know any long-term girlfriends?”

“Please, Mark Grayson and girlfriend? Long-term?” He chuckled, then he stopped and hurriedly added, “He was young, we all were, but maybe now he’s thinking of something more serious, people change. He’s a nice guy, I swear. I think. I don’t actually know him, know him–”

Your hand moved faster when it wrote “no serious relationships.” You then cut off Rick’s rambling about a man’s ability to change for the better, “How about his parents or family?”

He shifted in his booth uncomfortably. “I don’t think it’s my place to tell you that.”

You leaned over the table. “Please?”

“Sorry, but you’re going to have to ask him that. My lips are sealed.”

He was stubborn. You doubted that you could get him to talk about more, but his silence told you plenty. 

You jotted “bad home life” on the paper and then retreated into your seat. You stared at the words. You thought of Mark, confident and always smiling Mark. You then pictured a little Mark experiencing all sorts of horrible things that little boys shouldn’t go through, causing your good mood to plummet.

It didn’t take long for a new distraction to arrive though, and this one came in the form of a cutesy dog mascot holding a tray of bite-sized desserts. 

“Cake samples?” The voice was a forced higher pitch, meant to emulate a kids’ cartoon character, but you recognized it easily. You’ve been replaying that voice in your head and from the clip recordings in your phone. 

Rick didn’t though, and he reached for a mini cupcake. The dog smacked his hand away.

[Ding. Darkening: 26.4%]

“Hey!”

“The cakes are for the lady.”

“What?”

“Bakery policy. For today. If you want a taste you need to go visit the store.”

“I never heard of that kind of policy before.”

“Ever heard of ladies’ night? It’s the same, a promotional thing.” The dog turned its comically large head back to you and held out the tray. 

“What are the flavors?” You asked.

“Um… this one’s clearly chocolate, and this one is strawberry, er, raspberry I think–”

“I can’t really have any?” Rick interrupted. 

You heard the dog take a deep breath before answering, “I don’t know what to tell you, pal.”

You picked up an orange-colored cake. “What if I take two and give him one?”

“That’s–”

You were going to hand over the cupcake to Rick but the dog snatched it from your finger and forced it into Rick’s mouth.

“Whampf!” 

“What’re you doing? He’s going to choke!” 

“He’ll be fine,” remarked the dog as it gave Rick a not-so-gentle pat on the back.

Rick swallowed hard and coughed. He took big gulps of his milk tea, grateful that he didn’t have to worry about swallowing any sticky pearls.

When he recovered he glared at the mascot. “What is your problem, man?!”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

A young man wearing a sando shirt and sweatpants ran into the food court, a security guard right behind him. He glanced around and when he saw the dog he wailed, finger shaking, “There he is! That’s the thief!”

The mascot muttered, “Crap.”

Before anyone could move, the system dinged and a loud BOOM followed, shaking the whole mall and causing the ceiling behind you to collapse. Thick, black smoke crept into every space.

You and Rick were dragged from your booths by the mascot. “Get out of here.” 

Not wasting time, you grabbed Rick by the wrist and urged him to run.

“What was that?!” He yelled.

“No idea, but I know it’s something we can’t handle.”

You two were several steps away from the exit when another piece of the ceiling fell. 

You shoved Rick forward and stepped back before the debris could hit both of you.

He shouted your name.

“I’m fine! Just run!” You shouted back. “I’ll find another way out.”

You were about to sprint to a different route when a hulking man with a cybernetic arm was sent flying over you, hitting a nearby support beam. 

That was close. 

But before you could breathe in relief, the man groaned, pushing himself up by the elbows. He blinked and turned to you. He gave you an icky smile.

Double crap. 

Invincible shot like a bullet, slamming into the villain and sending a shockwave that had your knees collapsing beneath you.

The sound of rushing water multiplied as the two broke more and more pipes and triggered the sprinklers.

You put your hands on the corners of your lips and yelled for Invincible.

A blur of black made threw the man to the wall and made its way to you. 

“Are you hurt?”

His voice came out muffled because of the giant mascot head he wore. 

There was no time for any smart remarks as you pointed at a hole they created leading to the basement parking lot. “You gotta take the fight outside before you level the whole mall.”

“Good idea–” 

He pulled you into an embrace and spun around just as a red beam sliced the air and hit the chairs and tables behind you.

More thick smoke covered your forms.

Invincible held you by the waist. “I’m getting you out of here first.”

“If you get us out of here do you think he’ll follow you or destroy the building?” 

You didn’t wait for his reply and pushed against his chest and he reluctantly let you go. “Take the fight somewhere else, drop him in a pool or the river before he hurts more people.”

[Host, the miscreant’s about to fire another laser.]

You gestured again towards the basement. “Go.”

“But you–”

“Now!”

He flinched but was already in the air. “Okay. Promise me you’ll get out in one piece.”

You smiled wryly. “I’m tougher than I look.”

[Ding. Affection: 57%]

Once Invincible dragged the villain elsewhere, the rescue team arrived in no time. You didn’t even have the chance to get your purchases because the firefighter was already carrying you out the food court and to the mall entrance, where Rick was being interviewed by a cop.

When he saw you his shoulders rolled slumped when he sighed. You could tell he wanted to give you a hug but you raised your hand placatingly. “I’m fine.”

A paramedic sat you at the back of their ambulance and began taking your vitals. 

You obediently offered your arm for the blood pressure cuff and glanced at the mall.

There was more destruction than you anticipated. The windows of top floors were shattered and angry red flames licked the sky. Sirens screamed from everywhere, but even they couldn’t cover the cries of surviving loved ones.

***

You stepped out of the shower and changed into a pair of loose pajamas. 

There was a tapping on your window.

[Invincible is here.]

I can see that.

You walked over to unlatch the lock and push open the window.

The dog head was replaced with a pink motorcycle helmet with cat ears. He sheepishly lifted your soaked shopping bags. “They were like this when I found them.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” You took the bags from him and smiled. “But thank you.”

“Just part of the job, miss.”

You stared at each other for a while.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, enjoy your night–”

“Do you want to come in?” 

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.” 

“You…”

“What’s wrong?” You asked, laying down your purchases over your bed to air them out.

“I just…don’t you, I mean, are you fine with letting strangers inside your room like this?”

“Not typically, but you saved my life and you did go out of your way to bring me my stuff. Come in, take a seat, let’s–” mhhhmmmhm “–chat.” You weren’t even going to bother asking how he, Invincible, could have located your current address as a so-called “stranger.” 

[Ding. Affection: 58%]

“Um, okay.” He floated inside and landed softly on a flower-shaped rug. The helmet glanced around. “Nice room,” he said, standing awkwardly and looking out of place in your tiny dorm. 

“Thanks. I didn’t design it though.” The credit goes to the World Consciousness.

“Roommate?” 

“Don’t have one.”

“You lucked out then. It’s really hard getting a compatible roommate, usually you get freaks.”

“You in college?”

“Ye–no, no, no.”

You chuckled. “Do you want something to drink? I can make you some tea or coffee. I’ll turn around so you don’t have to worry about the secret identity thing.”

“You’ll make me something?”

“I’m not actually going to make anything, I’ll just be putting a teabag or instant coffee in hot water.”

“That’s fine!” He jumped lightly and began levitating. “I’ll have some tea.”

“What–”

“Any flavor.”

You walked over to your kitchenette. Your fingers traced the drawer containing your collection of tea and then you realized something. 

“Sorry,” you said, moving towards the electric kettle instead. “I ran out of teabags, are you okay with coffee?”

“Sure!”

The comforting aroma of coffee filled the room in no time as you stirred the powder. You then searched your cupboard for any snacks and found two butterscotch bars.

When you turned around, Mark was still in the air, examining your bulletin board and desk. 

You returned to his side and handed him the mug and candies. “You can take a seat.”

“Does my flying bother you?”

“No, in fact, it fascinates me.” You held up the coffee mug and butterscotch bars. “I still can’t get over the fact that some people can fly here.”

“Here?”

“It’s weird.”

“Not really?”

“It is for me, for us regular folks, I mean.” You watched him stare at the mug and asked, “I have to ask, how do you fly?”

“I dunno the science behind it, I just do.”

“You never felt the need to find out how?”

He shrugged. 

Flight was relatively normal in their society so it made sense how blasé he was, but if it were up to you, you would cut him open and see which parts did what. 

Invincible rotated in the air, flipped open his helmet and took a sip of the coffee.

You crossed your arms. “I’m surprised caffeine even works on you.”

He laughed, sliding down his visor before facing you again. “It doesn’t, but I like the smell. Great coffee, by the way, what brand do you use?”

“Nothing special.”

He flew a little closer. “I doubt it, I–” He looked over your shoulder. “What’s that?”

You followed his gaze and saw that the pages of the notebooks you were airing out have flipped. Without hesitating, you made a swan dive towards your bed, but Mark was faster. He snatched the notebook with green stains.

[Ding. Affection: 40%. Darkening: 35%]

“What is this? Why do you have notes on Mark Grayson?”

You pushed against the bed and tried to shuffle to a stand, but he was right in front of you, pushing the pages towards your face.

The back of your head hit the mattress and Invincible seized your wrist. 

“Did Cecil send you?”

You can’t believe your beloved stationery would betray you like this. 

Stay calm, you told yourself. 

“Answer me,” he hissed, he dropped the notebook and grabbed your other wrist, pinning you down.

“Why do you care? Are you friends with him?”

“I-I don’t need to be friends with anyone to worry about a possible stalker.”

You were grateful for his helmet. You would’ve caved instantly if someone did this to you while making eye contact. Also–

“If you want to intimidate me, maybe lose the kitty helmet,” you said. This tactic would have worked better if you didn’t know who was Invincible. It was like watching a sheep cosplay a wolf. 

“They’re not cat ears.” 

“They’re triangular.” You were certain you saw this exact helmet on display in the mall between one in bubblegum pink and another colored sparkling blue. 

“Enough!” He was straddling you now. “Tell me the truth, are you part of Cecil’s team? You already know that I’m–”

“Fine, I will tell you.” You faux sighed. “The reason why I have notes on Mark Grayson is because he interests me.”

Half a beat passed before he said, “Are you trying to say that you…like him?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you have those creepy notes?”

“Creepy is in the eye of the beholder. Love follows knowledge and vice versa.” If someone went out of their way to learn about you, you would be flattered. 

You turned your head and glanced at the pens and highlighters littered next to you and added quietly, “I’m good at studying.”

You could sense him thinking under those cat ears and opted to stay silent as you observed him. What was going through in his skull right now? You wanted to cleave it open and take a peek. 

You shifted under him, your knee accidentally brushed against his thigh and his breath hitched.

He pulled back and rose into the air. “Sorry,” he mumbled before vanishing out the window. 

[Ding. Affection: 65%]

You lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Was he being polite when he complimented the cup of joe you served? 

Or does his kind not register bitterness the same way human tongues do?

You got up from the bed, picked up the notebook he almost ripped apart and sat at your desk. 

You then wrote: “Doesn’t taste/unaffected by dishwashing liquid (?)”

Truly fascinating. Your blood heated up at the prospect of learning more. 

***

The tap squeaked when Mark turned it.

Hot water washed over his hair and back. It was a relief to be rid of that helmet, and that awful mascot head. The entire day he was reminded why he opted out of a mask for his costume.

Humans have a tendency to ignore what’s in front of them; that’s how he and Eve and so many other pros managed to keep their secret identities. 

Still, knowing you, he couldn’t risk showing his face.

Mark leaned his forehead on the wet tiles. 

That coffee was weird, but at least the butterscotch was sweet enough to cover the uber-bitter aftertaste. 

He closed his eyes.

Your room was more cluttered than he imagined. Books and printouts were on every surface, even the floor. There were a few posters of singers and bands and TV shows and movies, he even spotted one for Seance Dog. Clothes were haphazardly strewn over the furniture. He had to avert his gaze when he found a bra strap peeking from under your pillow.

He groaned, remembering how cold it was tonight, and how your nipples pressed against the fabric of your shirt.

His fingers twitched.

The lips of your ghost brushed his ear. “He interests me,” you whispered. 

He ran his right hand over his belly.

He tried to recall the feeling of your knee on his thigh and crotch, tried to picture you beneath him, but then he saw your face. Your pretty face was bare and he saw the bruise around your eye.

His knuckles turned white as he grasped the tap.

Ice-cold water rained over his hair and neck and down his chest and stomach. 

He thumped his head against the wall, cracking the tiles. “Shit.” 

taglist: @weponxwrites @ratkidcalledallie @qxuanii @lilacoaks @gluttonousriceflour @phisen @sleepyzzz3 @whaaaaaaaaat111 @ik33ponmakingc00ki3s @lonely-entity @noxus123

Author's Note: I feel like I missed something...mmm. Well, whatever, I need to grind for Skirk WAHAHAHA

Disclaimer: The images used in this post do not belong to writerclaire. They were lifted from the following sources:

Invincible flying

Alternate Invincibles

CHAPTER 9: Coming soon. Series Masterlist

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Any questions for the author? Ask here.

[gowerhardcastle]

Seven Hard-Won Tips Specifically for Writing Interactive Fiction

This is pretty fun, putting together these lists of writing tips. Today's list is explicitly about interactive fiction.

The trick to writing great interactive fiction that anticipates, foreshadows, introduces themes early, and has interesting choices that set up later events is to *go back and rewrite the earlier chapters* after you’ve written later chapters.  That way you look like a genius who can plot things out way in advance, but in fact, you just went back and made it seem that way.  Good writing is recursive, and that’s just how it is.

I start with an outline, then I write a code skeleton, leaving blanks for the prose, and then go in and fill in the prose.  This way I’m either in code-brain or prose-writing-brain.  I don’t like switching between the two.  Then, after than phase, I go back one more time and I do the callbacks—you know.  Might the main character be wearing a feathered boa in this scene?  Here’s some custom text.  Might the main character be limping?  Here’s some more custom text.  If you do that after you write the prose, you’ll have the leisure to think of anything fun and specific you can use. 

Callbacks tell players that their choices are unique, important, memorable, and valued by the writer.  It tell them that their choices have led them down their own particular path that the writer is rewarding with unique prose.  It doesn’t have to have a stat effect or create a new fork in the narrative.  Great prose is the reward.

Find an group of alpha readers to read your work early and often and then shut up while they read it and just listen to what they say and comment.  You must resist the urge to explain because you won’t be there at everyone’s house when they are playing your game or reading your narrative.

Make rules for yourself about how you are going to name your variables.  Don’t do what I did, with a horrible blend of sometimes calling a chracter “gil” in the variables and sometimes “gilberto”; sometimes “fitz” and sometimes “fitzie”; sometimes “metvyv” and sometimes “met_tabby”—ugh!  This is self-torture.  Don’t do what I did.

Keep your initial creation of variables super organized.  Write comments in there explaining what these variables are and when you might need them.  I comment most when I am creating variables.  You might create a variable in chapter one called “mustardallergy” that you don’t need until chapter eight, so write a comment that says “variables for chapter eight” and stick that “mustardallergy” variable under it.  I didn’t do this for my first games, and I regretted it. 

Use generic variables and make your life easy.  If you are writing a scene at the racetrack, just make a “xrace” modifier and add and subtract to it willy-nilly to represent just general ups and downs of fortune.  Stub your toe?  -5 xrace.  Wear a fine hat?  +8 xrace.  Throw around some money at the bar?  +12 xrace!  Eat some bad shellfish?  -15 xrace! Then add xrace to every test.  It’s a way of tracking just the ups and downs of fortune.  You can omit it when it doesn’t make sense, but it’s just a great way to make tests and rewards and penalties cumulatively meaningful without having to have a billion variables tracking every last *reason* for the rewards and penalties.

Discover more mini-essays about writing interactive fiction, writing in general, and the process of writing the forthcoming Jolly Good series below.

[slaytheusurper]

⭑ The Battle of Salamis ⭑ (Domina Mea, Chapter Two)

Masterlist

A/N: Acacius is STRESSIN! Protective daddy Acacius has my heart though- also I know an extra seat doesn't fit between the thrones in the movie but in this fic it does!

Pairing: Emperor Caracalla & Geta x Noble!Reader

Warnings: Inaccurate sharks, argument reader/acacius, crumbling relationships, blood/battle, mentions of whores, depraved fantasies of hot sexy gingers (+18 themes), subtle flirting and touching.

Summary: The twin emperors obsession with you grows and no one will stop them from getting what they want, not even a General.

Word count: 3.1k

Geta and Caracalla were both seated on their luxurious settee, watching as two concubines pulled their garments slowly off each other. Neither emperor could focus or enjoy much of the show however. Their minds were filled with the General's daughter, Geta could only think about how beautiful your curves looked, and your lips, oh how sweet they would taste.

Caracalla imagined your breasts and how he could nip and suck at them while you whined for more. He was hard at the thought, a daydream in his mind riling him up more than the plain looking concubines undressing in front of him. Geta felt only irritation simmer at the sight of the now naked bodies, before he met Acacius’ daughter, this would’ve got him going.

But now, all he could think about was how much prettier you were, more innocent, higher status and liked by the people. The two in front of him were just bodies and nothing more. Geta and Caracalla were so far sunken in their daydreams they didn’t hear the female concubines question. “Your majesty? What would you like us to do?” 

Geta snapped back into focus, with one glance at his twin, he could tell Caracalla had the same thing on his mind. “Get out.” The girls looked confused. “Caesar?” Caracalla’s frustration grew. “Get out now!” The whores scrambled their clothes together before hurrying out of the room. “Why are they so- plain, all of a sudden?” Geta said while rubbing his temples.

His brother agreed, then, they shared a look. “How about that other one brother, she looks the most- like her.” Geta grinned, Caracalla ordered one of the Praetorians to bring in the other whore. “We’ll share her. You her mouth, I her cunt.” Caracalla giggled at his brother's words. If they couldn’t have you, they would pretend, for now. 

Macrinus didn’t stay too long, and for some reason Lucilla refused to tell you about why he was visiting. Something you did know however was that Macrinus was not the man he made himself out to be. By the time he left, you were tired and spent the evening in your room reading some scrolls about the creation of Rome. And when you were too tired, you closed your eyes, dreaming of them. 

The next morning you were eating some bread and fruits with your father and Lucilla. He still hadn’t spoken to you much, only when necessary. Even though you somewhat understood his frustration about the emperors, you didn’t see why he made this about you. “Father?” Acacius hummed in response. “Are you going to speak to me or ignore me the whole of the games?” Lucilla looked at him with worry in her eyes. 

Did something happen you did not know of? He sighed and put down the chunk of bread he was chewing on. This time the servants were not around. “I don’t like the way the emperors involve you in their sick games.” You looked at him confused. He shared a look with Lucilla before speaking again. “I want you to be safe, the more you are around the emperors, the less safe you are.” You scoffed at him.

“Oh please father, why would they hurt me? I didn’t do anything wrong and they seem to tolerate me, so I don’t understand why you are this concerned.” Acacius seemed to want to tell you something but he stopped himself. “The emperors are- irrational, and headstrong. If they want something, they will get it.” Lucilla answered for him in a softer voice.

“So?” You shrugged. “They do in fact seem to like you, more than they should.” Your father gruffed out. “How is this a bad thing?” You almost blushed at hearing his words, in the back of your mind you knew the emperors were bad men, with horrible intentions but they looked so good while doing it.

“I realize that you don’t know much yet, about men. And the ways of...marriage.” Lucilla explained, “If they decide that one of them would marry you, then we can’t protect you, unless we hide you but that would be difficult.” Your brows furrowed. “I would like you to stay home today, is the point.” Acacius urged.

“What? No! I want to go! I want to see the battle that is supposed to take place today!” Your father was taken by surprise at your defiance, his little girl that did as he asked with no questions was clearly no longer residing in you. “No. Do not go against me. I am your father and you will do as I say.” 

“But-” Lucilla took your hand and took you to the gardens. “Please, let me come with you, I want to go.” Lucilla set you down on one of the stone benches, “Listen to me, it will be alright. I promise, I cannot say more but soon you will see.” You couldn’t believe it, usually your step-mother was a lot more lenient, so why was she so insisting now? 

You paced around angrily in the garden while your father and Lucilla left for the games. Mauling over why they were being so difficult, they obviously didn’t want you near the emperors, but what if you wanted to be? And what if they wanted you to? Surely their word goes above the generals?

Macrinus once again met Lucilla and Acacius at the colosseum, his eyes darting around, he noticed that someone was missing. “General, good day to you. Your daughter is not with you today?” Lucilla clasped her husband's hand, his irritation already clear as day. “No, she was quite tired, so we left her to rest at home.” Macrinus hummed in response. “Well, follow me then.” He said, leading Acacius and Lucilla up the stairs. 

Reaching the top, the emperors were already standing there. “Your majesties.” General Acacius bowed, Lucilla matching him. Geta and Caracalla both looked past their shoulders and Lucilla could feel Acacius tense up. “Where is she?” Caracalla asked, Dondas nibbling on his hair.

“If you are referring to my daughter, she is at home, resting. Caesar.” He tried his best to sound as respectful as possible but he was fearing the worst. “Why? She should be here. The naval battle we have for today is something she must witness.” Geta too tried to sound kind, but his disappointment was obvious. “She was quite tired from yesterday, your majesty.” Lucilla tried to cut their conversation off but she had a feeling they would not let it go.

“Nonsense, she should be here,” Geta then gestured for Macrinus to come closer, “Fetch her, she wouldn’t want to miss this.” Macrinus nodded before gesturing for some guards to follow him. “I guess we will have to wait a bit longer, General, but no matter, I am sure this mistake, will not happen again.” Geta stated. Acacius did not trust himself to speak, giving the emperor a curt nod instead. 

The orange tree smelled fresh and amazing this time of year, and so with a basket in your hand, you picked them. You needed something to do after your ‘disagreement’ with your father. You had, in this time, slightly admitted to yourself that he was right. You understood why he was so protective of you in this dangerous city, but that didn’t change the little crush you had on the emperors. 

How could you not? Not only were they handsome but they dressed well and smelled surprisingly nice with all the essential oils they probably used in their baths. But the power and might they showed, now that was attractive. You wanted to know them better, wanted to know what they were like when left alone. Would they still be as vicious and ruthless- or softer and kind?

Being unmarried also meant that you didn’t really know what that entailed, but you wanted to. In the later years while you were blossoming, your father had received some critique for not having married you off yet. However you knew why, he wasn’t around much but that didn’t mean he didn’t love you. He wanted you safe and at the one place where he could always protect you. 

An orange fell out of your hand as you tried to pick two, when you picked it up, you heard raised voices from the courtyard of the estate, which was only one wall away. Your heart rate picked up when the door leading to the garden you were standing in, opened. Four Praetorians came into view, as well as Macrinus. “My Lady, I did not mean to frighten you, the emperors have simply requested your presence at the games. Would you come with us?” 

“Of course, let me bring this to one of our servants and I will gladly join you.” You said while referring to the orange filled basket. He nodded and let you walk past him so you could have the oranges sent to the kitchen. You did not expect for the emperors to send guards to get you but that made your improper crush grow. Maybe you wanted them to like you, would that really be so wrong?

When you arrived at the colosseum, there was no crowd. Following Macrinus once more, you soon reached the last step and were met with the emperors. Geta stepped forward, took your hand and kissed the back of it. “My lady, welcome, how good of you to make it.” You blushed at his words, and curtseyed. Caracalla was the one who led you to your seat, which was still placed between the emperor's thrones. Avoiding your father’s stare- you followed Caracalla.

Once you were seated, the speaker was given the signal to begin. “In the name of Poseidon! We celebrate the glory of naval war! Today we relive the battle of Salamis! The Trojans versus the Persians!” You watched as a large ship entered the now water submerged arena, sharks could be seen swimming around and you did not want to imagine what would happen if one of the gladiators fell in the water. 

Then another gate opened and a second ship emerged, this ship looked like it belonged to the Trojans while the first one belonged to the Persians. You could hear Caracalla’s feet tap excitedly beside you, while Geta shifted in his seat. The ships had only just started to sail towards each other when flaming arrows were released by the Trojans. Two of the arrows hit the Persians’ ships sail, which quickly caught fire, sending huge clouds of black smoke in the air.

Many Persians already collapsed when hit by arrows, making it seem like the Trojans could easily defeat them. You could see how men fell overboard in the water, seconds later the water would turn red with their blood, attracting the sharks. When the Persian ship seemed to head straight into the Trojan ship, it turned, causing the Trojan ship to lose its entire left side of oars. 

You shifted in your seat as the ships seemed to slowly come closer, Geta grinned widely at you however and you courteously returned a smile. “This is war! Real war!” Caracalla yelled excitedly next to you. Your excitement started to fade however, the sail on fire, the Trojans actively losing and the ships slowly coming closer while you were front row made you incredibly nervous.

You decided to stay calm, surely if something happened the Praetorians would step in? But when the Persian ship had turned to fully face the Trojan ship, you couldn’t help but feel panic start to take over. They increased their speed and head-on rammed the Trojan ship, causing it to almost fully split in half. Because of the impact, both ships headed straight to the emperor's box. 

Your hands clasped tightly at your toga when the Persians jumped on the Trojan ship, right in front of you. Now your terror was too much to bear- you had to say something. “Your majesty, I don’t think this is safe-” Before you could say anything else an arrow shot what seemed like millimetres past you- right into the side of your seat. Then your eyes met with the man who shot it- Hanno. Hands grabbed your waist, lifting you out of your seat, you could hear Geta scream for Praetorians, your eyes met your fathers as he pulled you away from the box, Lucilla and the two emperor's right behind you. 

When you were safely out of reach from the gladiators, you still felt like you couldn’t breathe or move. “Are you alright?” Your father crouched before you, taking your hands in his. You could only nod. “Who shot the arrow! Who?!” Caracalla screamed. “H-hanno- I believe it was Hanno Caesar.” You said. “It was him, I saw it too.” Your father said. “He got shoved, he could have never meant to shoot you dear.” Lucilla then said. 

How was it not meant for you? The man looked straight at you before he shot, had he not been pushed- you would be dead. “Maybe- I really do not know.” Geta did not seem pleased with your answer. “I will think about what to do with him, he can not get away with this.” He seethed. It was then you noticed Lucilla’s pleading eyes towards your father. 

At this point you had realized something was going on that you did not know about, but if you actually wanted to know what that was- was a whole other question. The emperors must have felt some sort of sympathy as they invited you, your father and Lucilla to wine and food at the palace, which your father reluctantly agreed to. A carriage took the emperors to the palace, while your father, you and Lucilla took your own, following behind them.

Palatine Hill must have been one of the most beautiful buildings in Rome, it screamed power and wealth. The whole time you were led inside, you couldn’t help but stop in your tracks to look around from time to time. When you had reached one of the larger entertainment halls, you felt somewhat safe again while sitting next to your father. As time passed, wine flowed and some musicians were summoned to entertain the emperors.

You listened to the beautiful music, occasionally glancing at the emperors on their settee not far away from you. Lucilla was speaking lowly to your father when emperor Geta spoke up. “My Lady, join my side, I would like to speak with you.” That certainly caught your fathers attention, you stood from the settee you had shared with your parents and walked over to the already grinning emperors. Geta patted the spot beside him, so you were between them once again- right where they wanted you.

As you sat down, Geta already leaned a bit towards you while Caracalla shamelessly stared at your covered breasts. You could tell Lucilla tried to distract your father with conversation again but if it was much help, you did not know. “I hope you are not too distraught over what occurred earlier today.” Geta whispered in your ear, his voice so close and low it made an unfamiliar heat pool in your belly. 

“No your majesty, your invitation to spend time with you here certainly helped, as did the wine.” Caracalla giggled beside you and Geta smiled. It made your heart beat faster- pleasing them. Caracalla then called Dondas over, or rather the slave that held him, and took Dondas in his lap. Geta noticed how your smile grew bigger at the sight of the cute monkey, Caracalla noticed too. “Would you like to hold him? I know he is already fond of you.” He mused.

“Please, I would love to Caesar.” He liked hearing you say please more than he should and  only nudged Dondas a tiny bit towards you before the monkey jumped into your lap. His tiny hands clasping your toga. You couldn’t help the soft laugh escaping you, to which Caracalla saw an opportunity. “Here, you know what he likes? To sit on your shoulder.” The emperor said before letting his hands roam over your upper arm, then innocently placing the monkey on your shoulder, letting his hand slide back down your arm again.

Your breath hitched in your throat at the feeling of him touching you, the smallest skin to skin contact made goosebumps ripple over the area he grazed. Dondas sat cluelessly on your shoulder, inspecting your hair. Caracalla got exactly the reaction he wanted, looking at Geta with a mischievous smile which Geta returned. Their obsession only grew as they now got the confirmation they needed- you were entirely oblivious to their ambitions. 

You played with Dondas for a while, Geta even handing you some fruit to feed to him, making sure to let his hands linger on yours. On the other settee it was less cheerful, Acacius felt powerless as he watched how his daughter swooned over the emperors he hated so much. This is exactly what he wanted to prevent, he knew he couldn’t do anything if his daughter married one of them, then it would be too late. You would be in too much danger. All attempts Lucilla made to ease his tension were unsuccessful, at some point she had him calmer, and made him focus on a conversation with her. 

Everytime one of the emperors ‘innocently’ touched you, it sent sparks through your body, never had you felt this way around men. But they opened a whole new world for you, and you wanted to explore every single inch of it. When you handed Dondas back to Caracalla, Acacius saw a window, an opportunity to leave. “My emperors, we really should be heading back home-”

“Why? Can’t you see we are having a nice conversation General?” The music abruptly stopped at Emperor Geta’s words. You looked at your father with pleading eyes, ‘please don’t upset them’. “My apologies, it is just that Lucilla is feeling a bit dizzy from the wine.” Lucilla looked down at her husband's words- knowing it was a lie. The evening grew darker but you had no intention of leaving as long as the emperors still wanted you here.

“Ah, I understand.” Geta said, his mood change was almost horrifying but at least he seemed composed again. Caracalla grumbled something beside you, but you couldn’t quite make it out. “Praetorians, take them back to their estate.” Geta commanded, while standing up. You stood up as well, your father and Lucilla already heading towards the door. But Caracalla stopped you before you could walk away. 

“We had so much fun this evening, didn’t we?” You smiled at his words. “Yes your majesty, at least I did, very much.” The truth was, you hadn’t had so much fun and excitement in ages. “Good, good.” Geta interjected. “You must return then, so we can continue our- enjoyment.” Red dusted your cheeks and you nodded. “It would be an honor as well as a delight to spend time with both of you again Caesars.” You bowed your head. The evening was over way too soon.

[mc-cookies]

Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG casts Drow (as they're portrayed in a lot of Forgotten Realms media) as a society of fucked up, comically over the top warrior women with deeply repressed insecurities and extreme superiority complexes. It is very good at portraying these types of women! One media example of this genre of woman is Queen, from Deltarune, and as an exercise to test the robustness of S&D's character creation, I tried to recreate her. It took me all of 15 minutes to create a very accurate and mechanically supported version of her, and most of that time was just me thinking about how to transplant her into S&D's setting.

In particular, the character creation process means that this Drow would be very likely to lounge around on her throne, laugh at people condescendingly, hang around with other people who she shows off to, unpredictably succeed or fail at certain tasks, and do silly bullshit that makes real-world audiences laugh. Any fan of Deltarune will tell you that that is a reasonably good description of how Queen acts throughout most of Chapter 2, and it was effortless to put together in S&D.

Character creation in this game is very easy, and on the Drow mistress side of things, it's very good at creating weird, domineering, hilariously over the top women. Check out the Traits I gave her (listed below the cut) to get a sense of what this game does!

Authoritative Idleness: This Drow gains a +1 Contextual Bonus to any Interpersonal Roll (besides Social Cues) if the Skill check is made while they are the only one in the chamber who is sitting or otherwise lounging casually, such as with her legs crossed, or laying on her side propped up at the hip. She gains an additional +1 Contextual bonus if she is on her throne, and/or an additional +1 bonus if whoever she is speaking to is at a lower elevation.

Laughtracker: This character gains 1 Favor Point every time their actions or dialogue result in at least one player laughing out loud,[1] to a maximum of 1 time per Scene. [1. Sidebar] Meaning players in the real world, not any of the characters in the game world. If any spectators who are not directly participating laugh, that counts too. [Favor, in Silk & Dagger, is a metacurrency that can be exchanged for Boons, which grant advantages on future rolls.]

Noblewoman's Laugh: Up to once per Scene, when this Drow gets a haughty laugh in,[1] partially covering her mouth with her hand, she gains a +1 Contextual bonus to all Interpersonal rolls until the next time she loses Reputation or the end of the Scene. [1. Sidebar] This has to be a situation where it makes any sense for her to be doing a haughty laugh. [Reputation, in Silk & Dagger, is a stat representing how much a Drow is respected, loved, and/or feared by her peers. A PC's Reputation reaching 0 is the main fail state of the game.]

Showboater: This Drow thrives on showing off. Add a +1 Contextual bonus to any Skill roll this Drow makes as long as two or more people are watching her. However, she takes a -1 penalty to all rolls when nobody is watching.

Unpredictable: All rolls for this Drow must be made with a 1D12 instead of the usual 2D6. If using a Boon, add an extra D12 instead of an extra D6 and only count the highest die. [If you're unfamiliar with how probability works with multiple dice, this essentially makes extreme results more likely. With 2d6, the range of roll values is from 2 to 12, but values closer to 6 and 7 are most likely, which in S&D means that Partial Successes are more common. Using 1d12 means that every value from 1 to 12 is equally likely, so the character is more likely to get unexpected full successes or failures.]

[pikahlua]

I legitimately don't know who else to talk to so... I'm so tired of being a Bakugo fan who doesn't like Deku. It's like Horikoshi himself doesn't gaf about Bakugo and only wants Bakugo as a tool for hos precious little MC. Bakugo is so dehumanized in the series that no one cares about him outside of connecting him to Deku. He is not even allowed to be higher than Deku in a ranking where Deku is technically quirkless! Ngl, I feel like I want all the money I spent on MHA back but I don't know who to rant to or talk to. This ain't fair result for Bakugo at all

I understand you don't know who to talk to about this, but I'm honestly flabbergasted you came to me, one of the most openly critical people of the inclusion of those rankings in the first place. They mean nothing. They're honestly a joke. I can't imagine taking the fact that Katsuki is one rank below Izuku as anything serious and offensive because it's so meaningless. The *only* meaning you can ascribe to this situation is that Katsuki's heart truly wasn't in the competition at all until Izuku got back in the game. Now he's getting to do the exact thing he wanted to do so badly he cried openly about it to Izuku in the hospital--he's getting to chase after Izuku again. I can only assume that these rankings would just fluctuate all the time after this point. One of them will always be chasing the other, no matter who is "out in the lead."

And please be wary of using terms like "dehumanized" in reference to fictional characters. These aren't people. They literally are intangible objects. Katsuki literally is a literary tool to be used in a narrative. You're treating this mini-chapter as though it's depicting a static situation that will never change for the rest of their lives. But it's your job as a reader to infer the dynamism into the little details. Plenty of other characters care about Katsuki, and we've been shown that throughout the series. Plenty of fans care about Katsuki, and they have demonstrated that in their fan creations. Horikoshi himself even said in this fanbook that his favorite part of the story to write was the story between Izuku and Katsuki. It's not shocking in that case that he'd focus more of his attention on fleshing out the relationship between them than between Katsuki and anyone else. Nothing about that implies to me that Horikoshi doesn't care about Katsuki.

So if you want to vent to someone about your frustrations, maybe write a blog post or find someone who is upset about the same things as you. But if you want someone to counter your feelings and give you a reason to change your mind, this is about all I'm willing to provide. Good luck out there.

[ckret2]

Chapter 53 of human Bill Cipher not properly appreciating the fact that Mabel is his only friend on Earth:

Mabel has read a book about Bill's home dimension and is prepared to interrogate him all about where he comes from.

Bill is willing to do anything to avoid being interrogated.

(Featuring SEVEN illustrations, provided by 🌈 MABEL 💖)

####

Flatworld, from what Mabel had read, was probably literally the worst place to ever exist. 

The book was a hundred pages of an old-fashioned formal-sounding super boring guy rambling on about the most egregiously evil society Mabel had ever had the horror of reading about.

Society consisted of a bunch of geometric shapes—which in concept sounded half nerdy and half adorable—but they'd made a brutally oppressive government organized by quantity of sides, with infinite-sided circles at the top and three-sided triangles at the bottom, and one-sided lines—women—oppressed into near silence. Career options, educational opportunities, who you could love, were all determined by your sides. Irregular shapes—quadrilaterals that weren't squares, triangles that weren't equilateral, anyone with a side too long or too short—were presumed from birth to be criminally insane. Each generation had sons with one more side than their father—and they had to, because having higher-ranked sons was the only way families could climb out of poverty. When babies were born with too few or irregular sides, poor families abandoned them—or worse—and rich families put them through oft-fatal bone-snapping surgeries to regularize or increase their sides. Knowledge of the third dimension was considered heretical, and anybody claiming it was real was locked in an insane asylum.

There was a lot of mathy stuff in the book about a square meeting a magical sphere and going on educational adventures to the higher and lower dimensions; but most of it passed by her in a blur. When she'd finished reading last night, Mabel had lay in bed for an hour, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about dead baby shapes and fighting the urge to wake Bill up just so she could hug him; until she'd finally drifted off and woken up in her own bed.

At least, thank goodness, the bit about banning colors so lower shapes couldn't contour themselves to look like higher shapes was false. But she was sure that at least part of the story was true. And it had happened to somebody she knew. It was a lot to process.

So she processed it the way she usually did the stories that weighed on her: by creating a self-insert and pulling out her art supplies.

####

"You're drawing fan art of Flatworld?" Bill asked warily.

"I wouldn't call it fan art. I'd say it's more of a... thoughtful artistic critique. I don't think I'm a 'fan' of the second dimension," Mabel said. "No offense."

"Sure."

Mabel had designed a shapesona of herself: a pink heart with a rainbow-colored outline, a big sparkly eye, and skinny black stick limbs like Bill's. If, as Bill had said, colors weren't illegal, she didn't see any reason she couldn't be rainbow. The heart shape was maybe unconventional, but Bill hadn't said she couldn't be a heart yet, so she was sticking with it for now.

She'd honestly expected Bill to come over and interrogate her about her creation long before now. Usually, when she was doing art and he was unoccupied, he was hovering right by her, examining her work and dropping hints—some more subtle than others—that she should draw him next. But she hadn't immediately noticed when he'd silently drifted into the room, and she wasn't sure how long he'd been there before speaking up. He was still leaning on the wall, arms crossed, watching askance from halfway across the living room as Mabel worked with her crayons, as if she were playing with a chemistry set and he was trying to figure out if she was building a bomb.

"Is Flatworld really about your world?" Mabel asked. "Did you tell Edward Bishop Bishop all that stuff? With the circles and all the laws about shapes and stuff?"

Bill mulled over the question, staring into space. Mabel had never seen his face look so inexpressive before—at least, not since his first night as a captive, after he'd gotten all the screaming out and had looked too exhausted to feel. "We talked," he conceded. "I'm surprised you got your hands on it. I suppose Stanford brought it up."

Something in the back of her mind pricked up defensively—what was that supposed to mean, he was surprised she got her hands on it?—but she pushed it back down. "Yeah, he told me and Dipper about it when you guys got home yesterday," Mabel said. "But you brought it up to me first!"

"No I didn't. When?"

"A few weeks ago? You mentioned Edward Bishop Bishop."

"I don't remember that," Bill muttered. "I probably didn't think you'd make sense of it."

"Hey!"

"You didn't make sense of it! Ford had to tell you about it."

"Yeah, but—mean!" She shoved aside her drawing and started on another one, grumbling, "I could've made sense of it if I'd looked it up."

What was up with Bill today? He wasn't usually this much of a jerk. To her. Lately. Plus, she thought they'd really had a moment yesterday! But Bill had had a rough couple days. Maybe he was just tired and cranky. 

A wiser person might just leave well enough alone. But a wiser person wasn't exploding in their brain with curiosity about just how bad Bill's life had really been. There was something itching at the back of her head, had been itching since she'd woken up—something about Bill, something important, she was sure of it—but she couldn't quite put together what it was. She just needed to talk to Bill long enough to figure it out.

"So..." She glanced up from filling in a shape yellow, "were lines really executed if they didn't make noises all the time so everyone always knew where they were and they couldn't sneak up and stab anyone?"

Bill scoffed, rolling his eyes, as if the very idea was stupid. "It wasn't that extreme. Making a peace cry is like a human saying 'coming through' when they're trying to squeeze past somebody. Lines are just taught to do it in public because it's easier not to see a line, that's all."

"If they didn't, were they executed...?"

"No. They were just rude."

That was a relief. Mabel had been worried for her fellow ladies. She was plenty noisy, but she didn't think she could remember to make constant sound any time she was around other people. She turned back to coloring her newest drawing, but watched Bill out of the corner of her eye. "Is it true that rich people killed almost all of their babies by giving them surgery to break their sides?"

The corner of Bill's mouth curled in a sneer. "Do I look like a pediatric surgeon?"

"Um." Not a welcome question. She tried to backtrack to something softer. "So, in the second dimension, the outside of your body is just your outline and your guts are everything inside the outline, right?"

He gave her a wary look. "Yeah."

"So your bow tie is basically in your stomach."

Bill sucked in a deep breath; but quickly caved in to the need to be the most correct person in the room. "More like around my esophagus, but. Sure."

"So, where did you wear it when you were back in the second dimension? Was it on your side? Did you have to wear two so people could see them from both sides—"

"I didn't need a bow tie then."

Mabel stared at him. "What do you mean, you didn't 'need' it? What do you need it for now?"

Bill ignored the question. "You know, I didn't think Flatworld was an interesting enough book to deserve this much attention! Especially not from you. You like fun stories." It felt oddly like he was criticizing her for having read it.

"Well—yeah, but it's about your home! That makes it fun!"

Bill raised his brows.

"Right? Doesn't it?"

"Kid." Bill laughed condescendingly. "Don't give me that. You read an entire book. In the summer. About math. With a downer ending where the narrator goes insane and gets locked up. That's some people's idea of a fun time, but I know it's not yours."

Maybe "fun" was the wrong word—but it was still important. She was glad she'd read it. She'd cared about it. She'd cared enough to know Bill was describing it wrong. "That's not what happened. The square got locked up because he kept telling everybody the third dimension's real."

"Like I said! He went insane!"

"But he's not insane. Everyone says he is, but he's right about the third dimension! It's everyone else who's stupid!"

"So what," Bill said. "The things he knows mean he'll never be able to see the world the way other shapes do, and no matter what he does he'll never be happy with his home. If that's not insanity, what is?"

Last year, she'd heard Bill agree when Gideon called him insane. She'd always wondered. "Is that why you're insane?"

Bill shot Mabel a furious look. That was the wrong thing to say. "Shooting Star—"

(Oh no, she thought, he's using my full name.)

"—what's with the third degree." Bill crossed the room to lean on the other side of the table. He gave her the guarded glare of a guilty suspect facing down a cop in an interrogation room—and trying to figure out whether he could kill the cop before he was stopped. "What do you think you're trying to dig up?"

"I'm not trying to 'dig up' anything," Mabel said. "I just want to learn more about you!"

"Oh yeah, I'm sure you do! Who doesn't wanna know all about me! And right after I trusted you yesterday! Do you think you're the first person to start digging into my history? 'Hey, does anyone know what made Bill Cipher so crazy'?" Bill laughed bitterly. " You're not even the first Pines to try it. Not even the second."

"That's not what I'm trying to do!" said Mabel, right before it dawned on her that that was exactly what she was trying to do.

"Right. I'm sure whatever you learn will make a nice two-page spread in Journal 5. Another secret you and Fordsy can add to your Mysteries, huh? Think he'll draw the dead babies?"

She thought back to Portland—to asking Ford what had made Bill so awful. I think if anyone’s ever had a chance of finding out what made him like he is, it might be you. Mabel shook her head. No. She didn't want to be that. "I'm not Grunkle Ford's spy, I'm your friend. I just—I just want to understand you—"

"Yeah, and the 'friends' who understand you are the most dangerous kind." Bill laughed harshly. "Your uncle and brother couldn't figure me out! And Sixer's been trying for years! So what makes you think YOU can?"

He was calling her stupid. He'd been calling her stupid all day. That was why he was so surprised she'd read the book.

"You—shut up!" She wadded up her latest drawing and flung it in Bill's face. (He snatched out of midair.) "All I did was read a book I thought was important to you, you jerk! I thought you'd like that!"

She hadn't meant for that waver to enter her voice. But she was exhausted from too little sleep and worrying about dead baby shapes and worrying about Bill's fear of death and worrying about what Ford had said about not giving Bill a second chance, and now Bill was being a jerk, and maybe he was just exhausted and upset too, but he was treating her like she was stupid—and there was that pathetic little waver.

But it made Bill pause in his onslaught; for a moment, he averted his gaze. Still, he said, "Maybe if you'd thought to ask—"

"You were asleep! I was being nice! And letting you sleep! In my bed!"

"But—"

"Just go away!" She pointed at the doorway.

Bill's face hardened again. "Fine!" He flung his hands in the air and stomped from the room. "Who wants to hang out with you when you're in such a bad mood, anyway."

Mabel glared at her stupid drawings so she didn't have to watch Bill's stupid back as he left.

Why had she bothered?

When Bill was out of sight, she dropped back onto her chair, pulled her sweater over her face, crossed her arms on the table, and buried her head in them.

####

Bill didn't think to smooth out the paper Mabel had flung at him until he was out of the room.

On one side she'd drawn Bill—properly triangular—with an expression that he thought was supposed to be fear and on the other side several angry-looking shapes, pentagons and hexagons, colored gray and black, being led by a pale figure shaped like a human skull and wielding a scythe; and between them, a bright pink heart, standing in front of Bill protectively, hands on its "hips," glaring down the would-be assailants.

The corners of Bill's mouth sagged down.

####

The bell rang and the shapes began filing out of class, muttering to each other about how they thought they'd done on the test. As the triangle cheerfully left the room, the teacher caught him by the arm again to pull him over. "Just a minute," she said. "I want a word with you."

Oh, he bet she did. Breezily, he said, "Sure thing! What is it?"

"Who was the first triangular president?"

"Wh— Th—" He spluttered indignantly. "There's been like—seven of them."

"Nine. And I'm only asking about the first one."

"How should I know!"

"You knew an hour ago."

He sputtered again. "That was— That was a multiple choice test! And it was an hour closer to when I'd studied! And I can focus better in the classroom! You can't expect me to remember anything in the hallway. You're using intimidation tactics. How could anyone focus under these conditions—"

"I don't know what you're doing," the teacher said, "or how you're doing it. Maybe I never will. But..." She sighed, and the anger seemed to leak out of her, and that only made him more nervous. "But whatever you're doing—you won't be able to do it forever. What will you do when you're out in the real world and you didn't learn anything in school?"

Her pity was worse than being hated had been. At least when he was hated, he knew she only looked down on him because she had something against him. What did he do with pity? With concerned warnings about the "real world"? He'd never heard anybody use the phrase "the real world" as anything but a threat. He hoped he was never out in the real world.

"Who cares! I'll never need any of this!" He should have shut up there. He didn't: "You're just jealous that me and my family make a million times more lying to everyone than you'll ever get trying to teach them the truth!"

His teacher gasped in shock; but before she could say anything, he was halfway down the hall with no intention of slowing down.

The next day, he stayed home, and his mom visited the principal. The day after that, he had a new teacher.

####

He was stupid. He knew that. He didn't know when he'd gotten stupid—if it was because he'd started touring so much and missing classes, or if he'd always been dumb and just didn't notice it before he registered just how often he was using his all-seeing eye to pick up answers that other kids couldn't see. It had crept up on him. But there it was. He was stupid, and he was too stupid to figure out what to do about it.

There was a big difference between being able to see everything, and actually knowing anything. And he might be all-seeing, but an idiot like him would never be all-knowing.

####

A trillion years later, he still didn't remember the name of the first triangular president. And look how far he'd gotten without it.

Lunch was toast and peanut butter. The toaster was the only source of heat he could use without having to ask his captors for access; and peanut butter and bread were the most nutritious foods he could reach without asking his captors to open a cabinet or fridge. He was sick of toast and peanut butter.

He wasn't about to ask Mabel to help him get lunch.

Well. He'd succeeded. He'd known just the right thing to say to get Mabel to lay off and drop the topic. Did he feel accomplished?

He stared out the window as he ate—there were hazy gray clouds on the horizon, beyond the trees, slowly inching closer—and he tried not to look at the picture Mabel had flung at him.

####

Mabel felt dumb about being upset that Bill thought she was dumb.

Because of course he did. Sure, he liked her art and he liked dance music and games without rules; sure, he was a willing student when it came to stuff like making friendship bracelets or artistically mixing sprinkles; sure, he was a weirdo fun guy; but he was also a Smarty McSmartypants, just like Dipper or Ford. And Mabel was the Girl Dipper who brought home C's. And even a weirdo fun Smarty wouldn't want to hang out for long with someone who couldn't keep up with nerd talk. He probably just... put up with her for as long as he could stand pretending he took her seriously, but he'd finally lost his patience...

And shown his true, jerky colors again.

Maybe Ford and Dipper were right about him; maybe he couldn't really change.

Except... there was something he'd said. And right after I trusted you yesterday. When he'd cried in front of her. When he'd told her about his fear of death.

He was being a jerk because he thought she'd betrayed him. But by reading a book?! Why couldn't he ever just explain himself? Did he think whatever was bothering him was obvious, and she was stupid for not figuring it out?

Something she almost but didn't quite remember thudded like a drum inside her brain. Dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum-dome.

From the entryway, Bill called, "Hey, star girl. I—"

He stopped in the doorway. Mabel had taped 28 pieces of paper together, drawn on a door knob, written "DOOR" at the top, and taped it across the doorway into the living room. Irritably, Bill said, "It doesn't work like that. This is obviously paper."

"Bill," Mabel grumbled. "Go away."

"No. I'm gonna say something to you."

He didn't phrase that like he was giving her a choice in the matter; but all the same, she said, "I don't wanna hear it."

"You know that horror story about a bride with a velvet ribbon tied around her neck, and her head falls off and rolls down the stairs when her husband unties it?"

She did. She and Dipper had read a book of scary stories to each other on Halloween a few years ago while waiting for it to be late enough to go trick-or-treating. In spite of herself, he'd piqued her curiosity. She reluctantly turned to look at him. "Yeah? So?"

Bill was leaning in the doorway, head tilted against the doorframe so he could see Mabel around the paper door curtain. "That's why I wear a bow tie."

Mabel blinked. "Wait—if you didn't, your head would fall off? What part of you is your head? How did it come off? Were you decapitated? Did you get decapitated for knowing about the third dimension—?"

"It doesn't keep my head on; it keeps my skin on."

Mabel's nose wrinkled. "Gross! How?"

"Remember how you said my outline is my skin and all my organs are inside the outline," Bill said. "That didn't change when we left the second dimension! We had to get exoskeletons on our top and bottom sides so solids like you can't stick you fingers in our guts. My bow tie keeps it tied in place."

"Whoa." So that was why they hadn't seen Bill's organs before. "Do you ever take it off?"

"Mostly when I'm eating!" He knocked on the doorframe. "So can I come in now?"

Of course. He'd been using information to buy his way back into her good graces. (No—that was what somebody who didn't think Bill deserved a second chance would think. He was making up for earlier by answering one of her questions about him.)

She took a deep breath, turned to face Bill, and said, "You didn't talk to me like a friend earlier."

"I—" Bill grimaced, looked at the ceiling for help, and conceded, "I mean—It's how I talk to my friends, but all right, I know you're not used to that—"

"Nobody should be used to that!" Mabel said. "What would Love Bunny say?"

"Wh—?! I— Th— You—" His voice cracked as it jumped higher, "What do I care what a cartoon rabbit thinks about—"

"What. Would. She. Say."

Bill's face screwed up in agony. He crossed his arms. "Ugh."

"Biiill?"

Eyes squeezed shut, Bill said, "She'd say my breath smells like I've been eating mean beans."

"Aaand?"

"I'm not going to say it. I won't say it."

"And you need to eat your nice rice!"

Bill let out a long, slow sigh.

"Say it!"

"This is my penance," Bill muttered toward his feet. "This is my penance. This is fair." He took a breath. "And... I need to eat my nice rice."

Mabel nodded. He'd confessed his sins.

"I think we're out of nice rice," Bill said, "but I've had the peanut butter of kindness and the toast of remorse. Good enough?"

She considered it. "Yeah. You can come in."

Bill batted aside the paper door curtain and ducked into the room. 

He sat across the table from Mabel and set down the paper she'd chucked at him amongst her others. Mabel glanced at the drawing, embarrassed of it now; but Bill didn't say anything about it.

He just propped his cheek against his hand and started looking over her other art.

Mabel sat there with her hands under her legs, watching his spotlight eyes rove over the table, feeling like she was waiting for a teacher to grade a poster she'd made for class. He saw a stop sign red octagon in sunglasses that was labeled "Bill's parole officer" and snorted. She wasn't sure if it was an amused snort or a derogatory snort. His gaze stopped on her attempt to figure out how Flatworlder anatomy worked, and didn't move farther. She'd probably gotten everything wrong, hadn't she?

She couldn't stand waiting for him to pass judgment on her art. "You think they look dumb, don't you."

Bill took a moment to reply. He didn't look up from her drawings. "I don't think you're dumb, Shooting Star."

"You think I'm dumber than Dipper and Grunkle Ford."

Bill winced. "I don't." At her dubious look, Bill amended, "Only Stanford! And that barely counts, all humans are dumber than Stanford. It doesn't mean I think you're dumb-dumb"

"Could've fooled me," Mabel muttered.

"You bet! I'm good at fooling people. All I have to do is say things I don't mean that make people feel the way I want." His voice was flat and matter-of-fact. "I wanted you to feel like the conversation wasn't worth it. That's all."

She stared at him. "By letting me know you think I'm stupid?!" She chucked a crayon at his face. "You could have just told me you didn't want to talk about Flatworld!" Her voice was getting that stupid waver again. "If I'd known, I would have dropped it! I didn't want to upset you!"

"I wasn't upset, it's just a stupid thing to complain about! It's just a dumb book! It'd—it'd take a real loser to be bothered by talking about a dumb book! I'm not..." He sighed harshly. "I know you weren't trying to get on my nerves, kid. It'd mess up your sticker chart." (Mabel hadn't even realized he knew about her sticker chart.) Almost inaudibly, he added, "M'sorry."

She'd never heard him apologize before.

She let out a slow breath. "Biiill. I don't think you're a loser."

He muttered something she couldn't make out as he flipped his hood on and pulled it down over his burning face. "Forget it. Move on. It's in the past!"

"If you're so embarrassed—"

"Not embarrassed!"

She chucked another crayon at his chest. "Then why are you telling me this now?"

Bill shut his eyes; took a deep breath; and, with a look of solemn dignity, and no small amount of pain, he said, "Because. Teddy Tender says. Our friends can't help us feel better if we don't tell them why we feel bad." He almost, almost managed to say it without sounding sarcastic.

Mabel burst out laughing. Bill pulled his hood lower.

Bill didn't even like Teddy Tender—he thought he was the stick in the mud of the Color Critters—and he certainly wasn't actually trying to follow Teddy's friendship lessons. He was just... saying something he didn't mean to make Mabel feel the way he wanted. And he wanted her to feel better.

No matter what anyone else said, he could change. And he was changing.

"Apology accepted," Mabel said. "Gold star!" She peeled one off a nearby sticker sheet and held it out.

Bill eyed it, like a man so hungry he was too nauseous to eat eyeing a pizza; and then snatched it from her and stuck it in the middle of his hoodie.

Mabel said, "And... I guess I'm sorry for getting all diggy about your home world." Even if she hadn't known it was bothering him, she probably should've guessed, shouldn't she? With how crabby he'd gotten. "I just got all excited and curious and... kinda worried about you after reading that book?" She sighed. "I understand if you don't wanna talk about it. You probably hated your dimension."

"What? He lurched forward with the vehemence of his denial—"Of course I don't hate my dimension!" Mabel leaned away at the sudden rage that had flared up in his eyes; but it died just as quickly and Bill immediately reeled himself back in, sitting back, crossing his arms: "I mean, come on, kid, use your head: you read a book about a culture. We're talking about an entire dimension. Would you hold a grudge against Jupiter if an ant bit you on Earth?"

Even as casually as he played it off, Mabel was sure he hadn't meant anything as calm and measured as claiming it was technically irrational to hate an entire dimension. He meant—emphatically, with his whole heart behind it—that he didn't hate his home dimension, at all.

Then why didn't he want to talk about it? (Then why had he destroyed it? Or was not hating it just another fiction he'd made up because he'd prefer that reality? Or was the destruction itself a lie? He hadn't mentioned it once since they'd started talking about Flatworld. Or did he think she didn't know about that and didn't want her to know? Or...)

Something had been churning in her subconscious since she woke up, and now—watching Bill ball up around himself as he squirmed around the things he didn't want to say—it finally dawned on her. Two words. Another piece of the Axolotl's poem. She tried to hold the words in her head until she could write them down, repeating them over and over—Misses home. Misses home.

Quietly, she asked, "Then... don't you want to remember it?"

His face spasmed, like it was nearly cracking in two—and then smoothed out. His face was blank. He didn't answer for a moment. "The last time I told a human more than two sentences about where I'm from... he gave me the universe's most depressing geometry textbook."

Oh. Maybe Bill was following Teddy Tender's friendship advice. "That's because you were talking to a boring old-timey math teacher, duh."

He laughed wryly. "You may have a point!"

If Bill assumed anybody prying into his history was either looking for the reason something was wrong with him, or publishing a whole book about the super bad parts... No wonder he hadn't wanted to talk to her. "So you didn't dislike Flatworld? You just dislike the book?"

Bill grimaced. "Did you read Eddie's biography?"

"No?"

####

As soon as he'd buckled himself into his seat for the drive to Northwest Manor, Dipper read the summary on the back cover of Flatworld, and then the paragraph-long author biography underneath it:

Edward B. Bishop, born in 1838 in England, was an accomplished mathematician, writer, theologian, and closet occultist, as well as a professor at the esteemed University of Fancyton. He published twelve books, the last of which was Flatworld in 1884. After sentencing his square protagonist to a two-dimensional asylum for preaching of the existence of the third dimension, he himself succumbed to an ironically similar fate: three months after publication, he was committed to an asylum for insisting that two-dimensional alien invaders intended to conquer the Earth and were persecuting him for revealing their existence, a delusion he maintained until his death from sleep deprivation in 1886. His most enduring legacy is inventing the margarita glass, which he claimed came to him in a dream. 

Dipper hissed between his teeth. "Ouch."

####

"Never mind, don't worry about it," Bill said. "But no. I didn't like the book."

"You poor thing! All this time you've been homesick for the second dimension, but the only things humans talk about is the bad stuff!"

"Don't call me that."

"Do you want to talk about the non-depressy stuff instead? Like..." Mabel wracked her brain for something nice she'd read in the book. She winced. "Uh... I'm sure there's something. You could choose the topic?"

Bill didn't look directly at her. He just looked over all her drawings again. "Tell me why you want to know so badly."

It was basically the same question he'd asked earlier—what's with the third degree—but his tone was different. Mabel swallowed hard and repeated, "Because... I'm your friend. It's crazy that we've been friends for like a month and I barely know a-ny-thing about who you are or how you grew up! By now, I'd usually know about a friend's family, favorite subject, favorite animal, opinion on glitter, and biggest life dream! Plus all the stuff humans have in common—like, 'do you breathe?'"

This time, Bill didn't argue with her answer. (He could have called her a liar. A month ago, she had just been trying to find out what was wrong with him. But this version of the truth she'd made up was better.) "You already know I'm pro-glitter in all contexts and my life's work is to throw an eternal party. What else really matters?"

"Those are the two most important questions," Mabel said seriously. Tentatively, she asked, "Did you have glitter in the second dimension?" He'd already reassured her that they'd had color, but it was hard to imagine glitter in such a bleak world.

"Sure."

Mabel heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness."

She looked around at the morning's art production, pulled over the first drawing she'd done of her shapesona, and grabbed a bottle of glue to draw a thin line around the heart.

Bill watched as Mabel carefully sprinkled several separate colors of glitter on the line of glue, like a master chef adding a precise amount of spice to a gourmet recipe, to create a glitter rainbow gradient; and then he slowly sat up and leaned toward the table again. "So, who's this freak?"

Mabel gave him an exasperated look. She decided he'd meant "freak" neutrally; but she'd clearly labeled the heart "ME IN FLATWORLD," she thought it was pretty obvious who this freak was.

But Bill cheerfully went on, "He's the most hideously disfigured shape I've ever seen."

"Hey!"

"I'm not joking, it hurts to look at this guy. At least he's symmetrical, but woof."

"She's not a guy! She's supposed to be me in Flatworld," Mabel insisted. "She's a powerful lady and I think she's beautiful." She paused. "Can a heart be a girl?" Lines looked boring, but Flatworld said that girls were all lines and all other shapes were boys. (Or were they? When they'd talked at the mall, Bill had been very clear that he considered himself a triangle instead of male or female, which scuttled the "all polygons are male" concept. Maybe Edward Bishop Bishop had made that part up?)

"She can be anything she wants," Bill said firmly. "I don't see any gender cops around here, do you?"

Good point. "And when there's no cops around, anything's legal."

Bill laughed. "Hey, I like that."

"Grunkle Stan says it!"

"Wise man." Bill leaned forward further across the table and tapped a finger on the deep cleft at the top of the heart. "Personally, I'm more worried about that agonizing-looking birth defect. I'm surprised she survived past infancy!"

Mabel glared at him, but she supposed she couldn't argue. A heart was a pretty irregular shape. And according to Flatworld, almost all irregular shapes were executed in childhood or else imprisoned in adulthood, since they thought irregular shapes would grow up to be depraved, imbecilic criminals—

"Wait," Mabel said. "Wait. Last year, when I called you an isosceles freak—"

Bill cut in, "It was 'monster,' but go on!"

"Was that, like..." Mabel's voice dropped to a whisper, "a slur on Flatworld?"

Bill fought to keep his face straight as he decided how to respond. He went for the funniest answer. "Yes."

Mabel clapped her hands over her mouth and squeaked, "Nooo!"

"It's actually pretty impressive a human managed to come up with it!"

"I'M SORRYYY, augh I didn't know!"

Over her anguished whines, Bill went on, "It's just a good thing you didn't say 'scalene'! I would've had to wash your mouth out with drain cleaner!"

Mabel had pulled the collar of her sweater over her face. From within Sweater Town, she asked, "Was that the first thing I ever said to you?"

Bill choked back a laugh. "Yeah, it was."

She squealed in embarrassment and slid under the table.

"Heck of a first impression, star girl!"

"i'm sorryyy."

Bill reached under the table to pat the top of her head. "Ahhh, it was funny. Get up here." 

As she climbed back into her seat, Bill added, "I'm getting back at you now, I'm not done making fun of your medical miracle yet. You know what she'd look like as a human? A headless, neckless body with an eyeball shoved six inches down her esophagus." He paused thoughtfully. "Actually... that sounds kinda cute."

"Eww, Bill."

"It is, it's cute. Like a clumsy puppy with a neurological disorder! I guess that's how the hideous Miss Heart here must look to humans!"

Mabel looked over her art again, wondering if she should change her shapesona, considering Bill's reaction to it. 

So, maybe she was creating a freak. She didn't see any shape cops around here. She kept drawing. "I'd be fine," she said. "You like weird freaks! You'd keep me safe."

A stricken look crossed his face. He was momentarily silent as he watched Mabel start another picture. And then, as though he were only considering it for the first time, he said, "Yeah. I guess I would."

His gaze drifted to the wrinkled picture of Mabel's shapesona standing protectively in front of Bill. "Freaks can't afford to tear each other down."

####

(THIS is the chapter that's been giving me hell the last few weeks. Months. Last few months. I'm so glad to finally have it out, and I hope y'all enjoyed!! This chapter probably brings up a lot more questions than it actually answers—and completely different questions based on whether or not you've read Flatland lol—so I can't wait to hear what y'all think.)

[dedalvs]

god DAMN your conlang is impressive,,, so much STUFF /vvpos wondering! as someone working on their own conlang, you have any tips for beginners? :0c

Thanks for softballing this one in just in time for the holidays!

If you or someone you need to buy a gift for wants to learn how to create a language I wrote a book almost ten years ago called The Art of Language Invention. It assumes no knowledge of language creation or linguistics and tries to take you most of the way to being able to create your own language. There are two editions: the old black cover edition with four chapters, and the new blue cover edition with five. You want the blue cover.

If you're interested in codes and ciphers or know someone who is (someone who's a bit younger), you can check out Create Your Own Secret Language. I'd love it if people bought this book, since I haven't yet earned out the advance...

Either would make a handsome holiday gift. If you get both, you can stack The Art of Language Invention on top of Create Your Own Secret Language. You can wrap each individually and then tie the whole thing with ribbon. Unless you're quite adept at ribbon tying, though, I'd recommend affixing a small bit of tape to the underside of The Art of Language Invention after you've wrapped each. Now, if you feel you need a third thing to put on top of the two books, might I recommend a ring box inside of which you can place a single button? They'll ask you why a button, and then you can tell them to open the other two and they'll understand. When they do they'll be so surprised and delighted to see my books that they'll temporarily forget about the button. This is your chance! Seize the button and pocket it. Chances are they'll forget about it entirely. But should they, in their reverie, happen to remember the button, and then ask you about it, simply ask, quite innocently, "What button?" And, of course, when they go to retrieve it, it will be gone! And as they search for it, poof! You drop your smoke bomb and make good your escape!

But if you were looking for some short advice, I'd say come up with a solid reason to create a language in the first place, and never lose sight of why you're creating that language.

Thanks for the ask!