#fuck that means that the other 50$ i spent on other people.....

[floor-tiles]

guys I may or may not have spent let's see.......

40$ of my birthday money on my girlfriend's Christmas gift. I love buying things for her. so much bro.

[caligulalotus]

i would like to thank the phrase “femmes with fucked up genders” for helping me unlock my jenkins ingram lore

[tgcg]

this is my element (+ album)

asking me to pick my fave album is like asking an orphan matron to pick her favorite baby boy

thats some weird and cruel circumstances to put upon me i feel like it changes every damn week like a rota

i mean what if my beats misbehave and i gotta put 'em in time out i cant play permanent on that theyre too cute

but yknow what i can show you one thing thats been on my mind lately

===

so when i was a kid we had this skateboard vid by "element skateboards" on DVD

they were this skateboard kit slash apparel company that was all about progressivism and shit and they did these much lauded comp tapes of dudes riding around on their boards and doing the dopest of macho tricks on the shit

flipping it turnways

putting the rock in the house like a big man

we had some of their merch actually

===

so anyways the one we had back then was This Is My Element

released 2007

mostly clips from cali i think and i mean the camerawork is fucking insane on some of those shots

this is gonna sound lame as fuck but i prob spent so many cumulative hours just peelin through the footage and ogling the shit outta it

that framing was tight

===

so you may be asking yourself or me

dave you genuine dicksucker i asked about your fav album not your favorite sordid ass display of smooth dudes hardcore riding and grinding them boards in public dude you have a problem

ok well that wasnt a question first of all so jot that down

but anyways to THAT i say

listen to the music

the whole thing has an original soundtrack of ambient beats

got some abstract hip hop jams, got some more indie stuff, lots of acoustic sampling

HELLA underground

and basically every track minus one is done by sampler beast david p. madson AKA "odd nosdam"

dude is my hero seriously

he is the master of the beat machine i shit you not hes always been kinda my idol on this stuff

aside from bro obviously

===

obviously.

===

anyways he had an E-mu SP-1200 which is a really oldschool sampler invented by dave rossum in the late 80s

revolutionary to the hip hop scene

nosdam had this mega distinct sound to his music that i always wanted to replicate on my own beats

still do

i dont know for sure if he used it on T.I.M.E. but he uses some of the same samples from "vol. 9" which was exclusively SP-1200 so im gonna get a lil j’accuzi on that

it couldve been a boss dr sampler SP-202 though idk

he had one of those

===

so aside from beating the shit out of the pause/resume button to flip my whole cranium at the cinematography or whatever i would also kinda play it on loop to listen to the soundtrack and space out at 2am

the lonely broner seemed to free his mind at night

ok shit broner is good but i didnt mean it like that

that was goofy lets just keep movin

it was the only way i had to listen to it back then but i mean the video is 50 mins long so its basically just an odd nosdam album with accompanying ambient skater sounds and random expletives and whatever

random car sequence

yknow what i dont think people respect enough?

the dude who catches all the "mad stunts yo" on camera

i swear to god at least half the time hes ALSO on a board and that shit is bananas to me

bros gotta be on some whole other level of zen to skate good AND catch all them glamor shots of his fellow skater

thats like an express ticket to the ER imo

the ambulance is already on the scene watching you like an eager crow watches a half dead dog

===

ok gonna go ahead and lay it out flat

not great on a board myself

kinda dogshit at it actually

so maybe im not exactly an arbitrator of skateboard heinousness

but i always kinda liked watching THEM do it i mean who doesnt?

whats an even crazier layer to stack on the "dave" cake is

and dirk told me this because unfortunately it kinda happened post-2009

he would do all these collabs with one of my childhood favorite underground rappers david cohn aka serengeti

surrounded by daves left and right dude even before all the time travel horseshit

thats like

serendipitous as fuck i think!

===

if sburb was just a revolving door of artists called dave that i could bump fists with

instead of other mes in various states of aliveness tending toward extremely dead

i wouldve probably given it something higher than 2 stars on my TGN review

===

so yeah you ask me my favorite album its T.I.M.E. by odd nosdam i guess

bump that shit on a walk your mind will go places unknown to man

[icarusallusion]

One of the main reasons I've been so fond of Otasune since I first knew it was a thing was because I think they're genuinely one of the purest forms of love in Metal Gear.

Throughout the series we see horrible relationships between horrible people trying to get by and then that relationship gets dragged through the awful scenarios they live with, be it war, internal struggles, infidelity etc. Despite this common place struggle with so many other characters, we see Otacon and Snake steadfast loyal and healthy throughout every struggle they go through.

They may not be an official couple, but they will always stay the most communicative relationship even outside of shipping. I see people joke about how Otacon kind of bosses Snake around (especially in MGS4), but I always saw it as refreshing. In the series, there is so many times where x character does something horrendous and y character just sits aside and silently sulks about it.

But this doesn't happen, like at all, with Dave and Hal. There are many times where Snake doesn't think about consequences to his actions as a general rule of soldier, however Hal has never been a soldier. So when these things happen, Otacon tells him off and it's something Snake genuinely needs to hear. It's something human, away from combat. Because Otacon is one of the very few characters that talks to Snake as a person, as a human, not as a soldier or fucked up clone baby.

Snake has gone his whole life scrapping the bottom of the barrel to stop feeling so lonely, he flirts with every woman he sees, he attaches himself very easily onto superiors, etc. Snake is a man who has spent his whole life trying to appeal to people, to get the praise he was never allowed as a child. Otacon gives him the comfort he never got. While any military superior can say Dave is the best of the best. None will look him in the face and tell him he has to live to just live.

Hal also opens a lot of doors to Snake's own discovery about himself. While this next point might sound a little cringy, stick with me. People may joke about the anime interest Snake and Otacon share, but it always came across so genuinely sweet to me. Snake's only interests up until he met Otacon have been, stop feeling lonely and war. I think even part of his musher life and interests within sledding can contribute to part of this. I mean come on, not even a regular musher keeps 50 dogs in their house and dogs are a natural remedy to loneliness. But in all seriousness, David refers to the huskies as his only family and I don't see him connecting with any other mushers he works with, it reads as him wanting to not be alone while also still being so lonely. As well as how mushing is considered a more normal interest than being an otaku, especially in the early 2000s. Mushing is a sport, and being an Otaku was pretty much unheard of or hated. Watching this guy who has been stuffed full of war propaganda scream a dorky "falcon punch" and "ninjutsu" with his best friend is so heartwarming in a way.

As well as Otacon's whole meme turned question of "do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?" Is something that I think Snake needed to be asked. It's probably been something he's been thinking about. It is also one of the most human things Snake asked throughout the game. About finding love in fear. Otacon constantly prods into Snake's heart and brings out the good in him.

Not only does Hal open up a space for Snake to have genuine unashamed interests and show true pure humanity. He also shows off their childhood. Both Hal and David never got proper childhoods. They connect that with each other through cheesy animes, talking about uncertainty in love, finding out what life is all about, navigating feelings, and through that damn cheesy handshake hug. It's all genuinely pure and wholesome love that connects what they didn't get to explore in childhood with one another. When Snake opened that piss covered locker and saved Otacon, he brought his own salvation into his life without knowing it. The very presence of Otacon saved Snake. It's why MGS4 felt so depressing for me especially, the strain between Snake and Otacon left a hole in my little heart and made Snake feel even more hopeless.

I also want to talk about how Snake benefited Otacon.

Otacon begins as cowardly and timid, he's an incredibly insecure character that struggles to connect with others, probably stemming from the issues in his younger life. When he meets Snake, he's faced with someone he could relate to that has an outward appearance that makes him seem so much more confident than he is. Snake is not this, he's as insecure as Otacon. Indirectly, Snake is the whole reason Otacon gets on his feet to take action against terrorism, takes action to become a better person. Snake shows Hal that he doesn't haven't to be strong to do the right thing. Throughout time, Snake helps Otacon come to terms with his own self worth and issues.

In MGS2, it has one of my favorite examples. The infamous bro hug scene.

Before it, this is when Otacon allows himself to open up about his childhood, not even just Infront of Snake, Infront of Raiden too. This showcased such a development in his character because he's proudly talking about it, while even through tears he doesn't hide it anymore.

Did you know that during that scene if you pan the camera to Snake, you can see that he is crying too?

When Hal has a breakdown over his sister's death, Snake is there to comfort him as well as tell him how it is in bluntness with a hand on his back that he needs to save people. It isn't cold or callous, it's letting Otacon know that he has something worth fighting for after a loss like that. Then when they face one another, they embrace each other and Snake tells Hal that he believes in him. Hal spent a lot of time as a scientist, hoping for someone to believe in him, while Snake puts all of his belief into Hal.

I can never forget the iconic "You're the only god I can pray to, Otacon" line. Snake has a deep loyalty, love, and belief in Otacon that Otacon has never been truly given before.

They both, in turn love each other till the end of their lives. Their love was one of the most heart wrenching and beautiful things in Metal Gear Solid and it's no surprise it captivated so many people. Their relationship, whether you ship them or just see them as a bromance. There is no denying the love they feel for one another as friends or lovers is one of the most iconic and sweetest bromances out theres They have impacted so much pop culture and I love them forever, as I'm sure many of you do who read all the way to the bottom.

[bigwishes]

Ask and You Shall Receive

Keanu was a party boy from the streets of New York. Spent most nights in the clubs dancing up on guys. Half the time he'd end up shirtless dancing on the bar flexing in lean muscles driving everyone wild.

Keanu burst into his apartment at 3am half drunk stumbling down his hallway. He didn't manage to score tonight and was horny as hell. If he couldn't fuck, he'd have to relieve himself some other way.

He threw himself down on his bed and flicked open an incognito tab on his phone. Keanu normally found himself bringing home twinks and twunks but what he really wanted was a guy with some size, a huge bodybuilder to totally dominate and make into his bitch. Keanu got hard just thinking about it and went straight to looking up images of massive tanky guys in tight constricting posers. Keanu scrolled through images until he found one with a short caption tied to it. He read it getting finding himself drawn to the fantasy. He had never seen something like this before and clicked on the photo being taken to a website with hundred of captioned photos and stories about guys growing from a skinny jock into a bodybuilder as big as a mountain. Keanu's eyes were glued to the screen and he was captivated by the fantasy.

He had dumbed his load on his bare stomach and chest 3 times and he was ready to go again realising he had discovered a new fetish. Scrolling down the rabbit hole he found one offering suggestions / asks for transformations with a personal touch. Keanu's half drunk brain half horny brain thought he had come up with the perfect suggestion...

"I want to grow so big bodybuilders look like twinks next to me"

Keanu chuckled to himself and fell asleep with one hand on his dick.

Keanu woke up groggy the next morning feeling the pain in his head from his hangover. He would rather spend all day in bed but he knew he had to get his morning routine on the way. Keanu got up, making himself a cup of coffee as he wasn't one to eat first thing. He then dropped down on his half and tip toes to pump out 50 push ups and 50 sit ups like he did every morning.

Keanu picked himself up off the floor and moved his sweaty body to the bathroom for a shower. Looking in the mirror something was different, his body seemed fuller and not just from a pump but he felt bigger too. It was probably his ego combined with his hangover making him feel bigger than he really was but that didn't mean he still didn't feel big.

All day Keanu felt stronger, when he was lifting boxes at work, carrying shopping home, even when he was out flaunting his body on the dance floor he found himself clumsy and bumping into people more often, found his clothes feeling tight like they had all shrunk in the dryer, but he didn't think much of it.

The next morning was almost the same, wake up, coffee, workout but instead of taking a shower instead he had to go back to the kitchen and make himself something to eat, for some reason he found himself starving and craving a protein shake.

Keanu mixed up a shake and made himself a bowl of cereal which is scoffed down like a beast. He caught a whiff of himself still sweaty after his workout he then went to take a shower. Only this time when he saw himself in the mirror he definitely noticed the difference.

His muscled were thicker but not just thicker they were bulging out of his clothes. His mouth dropped and his brow tensed with shock as he flexed his bicep examining himself in the mirror. He dropped his pants leaving himself in his underwear trying to examine his thick quads but he couldn't quite get a look even when he tried standing up on the edge of his bathtub. Although he could feel just by tensing his legs and from how tight his underwear was around his ass he had definitely gained a lot more than a few pounds of muscle overnight.

Right as Keanu was about to get in the shower his phone alarm rang telling him to leave for work. He quickly dashed out of the bathroom throwing on any clothes he could get around his new bigger frame. His clothes still fit but he definitely felt them struggle to stretch over his back as he moved. Running out the door and into the apartment complex elevator he got almost to the bottom floor when he saw a small dark patch in the bent reflection. Upon closer inspection Keanu saw faint pit stains on his shirt under both his arms and the elevator smelt slightly of sweat. He scratched the back of his head.

"Guess that's what happens when I don't shower after working out" he thought.

Getting used to the changes were strange. A crate he'd normally need to ask for help to move he almost through across the room on his own. Lucky everyone at work was used to the smell of manual labour otherwise other people at his job might realise he forgot to shower.

The next morning Keanu got out of bed hearing his stomach growl. He Instantly got up rubbing his six pack, feeling his abs be more defined than yesterday. The novelty hadn't kicked yet, at least not until he had something to eat. Hungrier than yesterday he smashed a shake and two bowls of cereal. After eating he hit his normal workout and went to take a shower. He saw himself in the mirror, bigger and fuller once again. As the water was warming up Keanu sat on the edge of his bath, looking down at his chest bouncing his pecs to himself.

His back was wider, lats and chest sticking out competing for space with his arms. His legs were wide and his quads rubbed against each other. Keanu's walk was slowly turning into more of a lumber.

He grabbed his pec with his massive hand and rubbed his hard defined abs. By the time he pulled himself out of his self inflicted trance he had run out of hot water and his alarm was ringing for him to go to work.

"fuck" he said turning the shower off running to his bedroom to grab some clothes.

Keanu frantically ran around his room trying to find something to fit, his jeans wouldn't go up over his massive legs, his arms wouldn't fit through the arm holes in his shirts, he couldn't even get his button ups to come half way across his chest. The only thing he had left were his gym tank and shorts. Both of which used to be loose casual fits for him but now they were tight, like a bodybuilder who ordered the size down from what he needed.

Keanu frantically ran out of his house to the apartment building elevator. As the doors open he went to walk through them when he bounced out, both his shoulders smashed into the duel opening doors. He was so used to knowing when it was open enough for him to enter for years and now he was clumsy with his new size. Standing in the elevator the smell of sweat was starting to become potent. He'd have to make sure he took a shower on his day off.

Keanu woke up groggy from a late night of partying until 4am. Sitting up in his bed he felt a constricting pressure around his legs. Pulling back his bed sheets he saw a pair of jeans ripped and torn around his massive tree trunk legs, so tight the veins of his legs could be seen pressing through the fabric that hasn't been ripped.

Keanu stood up hearing the sound of denim. He tried to take off the jeans but it was like peeling off a layer of skin. It was like they had been shrunk after putting them on.

Finally pulling them off he realised how badly he needed a shower. two days of hard working and a full night of partying without a proper shower left him stinking worse than all the guys he worked with combined. He walked down the hall, bumping into a few things along the way struggling to reconfigure his internal gyroscope. After waking up as big as he was yesterday he expected he'd stop growing by now, but he was shocked at how massive he was when he looked in the mirror.

Keanu was twice as wide as he was yesterday and easily twice as dence. He struggled to curl his arm up to take a selfie, his bicep and forearm fought against one another and it was almost like he was forced to flex if he wanted to use his arms.

He dropped his arms to the side trying to leave them resting comfortably but his wide back and lats made his arms stick out like he was always doing a lat spread. Keanu took a few steps hearing his steps making his entire apartment vibrate sounding like he was stomping just from a regular step. His muscles bounced in the mirrors and he got hard looking at his size move. Keanu reached down and found it difficult to reach his dick, as he rotated his arm forward his shoulders and biceps collided, he could just barely grab his dick, not just from how his massive muscles constricted his size but from how much girth and size had been added to his manhood. It wasn't something he had been noticing compared to the massive changes of his swelling muscles everyday.

Keanu waddled his massive frame back to his bedroom, feeling his thighs rubbing against each other constricting his movement. He made it to his bed lying down feeling his massive weight bend the frame in. He pulled out his phone which was dwarfed by his enormous hands. Keanu reached down to his dick able to comfortably move with one leg half cocked in the air.

Keanu went to the cite he was on the other night and found a reply posted to the request he just barely remembers sending in. He read the story seeing images of him posted in between long paragraphs about him growing when he's asleep. Keanu began to jerk himself off moaning as he read the story. He got to a paragraph where he read about growing whilst he pleasured himself, he felt the blood pump up his muscles and heard as his body adjusted itself with the constant swelling of size. His phone looked like it was becoming smaller by the second and it was harder for him to keep his hand wrapped firmly around his manhood.

Keanu was on the edge right as he got to the end of the story. He quickly clicked the request button.

"I wanna be stupid big, make me stupid big"

Keanu blew his load all over his abs and relaxed into his bed. His head felt slightly cloudy. Looking at his tiny phone a short story tied to his latest ask popped up on the screen.

A picture of him as an enormous swollen titan standing in front of a mirror in what looked like his bathroom with the simple caption.

"you are so massive and so heavy but so fucking stupid you can barely string a sentence together you dumb horny giant"

Keanu got up and waddled his ridiculous mass to his bathroom where he stood in front of the mirror shocked at his bulging size but before a thought of regret could form in his head he noticed drool pouring out the corner of his mouth and his jaw slowly fell open as all his thoughts evaporated.

UHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh HUHUHUH

Keanu let out a moronic laugh giggling at how he bounced his pecs in the mirror.

Now if only the monstrous moron could figure out how to get a hold of his dick...

[bubblergoespop]

My Top Aaron Quotes

men who are just constantly tired of everything>>>>>

“Well buckle up, wiz kid.”

“So yeah, I am gonna miss you. I’m really gonna miss you.”

“Sue me. Except don’t. My brain is already fried from the financials, I don’t need to throw legalese on top of that.”

“Fuck it. There’s nothing in here I can’t replace. I want you."

“Oliver”

“I didn’t say I wanted to spend the day with you, I asked if you wanted to spend the day with me. I asked first.”

"Ell"

“Hey, stop it. Because you know how much I like you running your fingers through my hair. Makes my brain go all fuzzy.”

“I appreciate it. And you.”

“Oh, it’s not playing dirty. It’s just me making you feel good.”

“I didn’t realise I was apparently dating an anthropomorphic backpack.”

“H-hey—stop it. You—no, your kisses are just… it tickled. Shut up. So what if my sides are ticklish, it’s not like that’s weird, you shit.”

“Oh, and now you can’t even find the strength to lift your head out of my lap, hmm? You poor thing. Who knew that being lazy could be so exhausting?”

“I love you very much. Now get off me.”

“You talked a big talk back then. But it turns out you’re just a cuddle-hungry softy after all, huh? Yes you are. At least when you’re still sleepy, anyway.”

“I also know you’re probably the kind to fly off half-cocked and make me chase you down with the SPF 50 like a madman. If for no other reason than to infuriate me.”

“Come here. Come closer. Because I said so.”

“I love you. And I love rain. And I love being with the person I love while it rains. Isn’t that a fun little combo?”

“You are very cute looking up at me like that.”

“Or is the thought of a few more minutes in my arms that much of an imposition? Asshole. Mmm. I love you too.”

“I can’t even try to say a nice thing without you having to get some snark into it, can I? No, I wouldn’t have it any other way. You brat. I love you just as you are.”

“You make me better. And that’s no small order when you’re talking about me, given the high level I already started at.”

“A man’s gotta eat. And you’ve always been my favorite thing on the menu.”

“Oh yes, you’re so put upon. Your evil boyfriend only makes you a whole breakfast spread, he won’t then also let you sleep in even later than you already have.”

“Eli”

“Yes, in a shocking twist, I do find your absence unpleasant. Perish the thought, right?”

“Time spent with the people I care about is important to me. It doesn’t have to be time doing anything special, it doesn’t have to be conversations about our future or some greater purpose or any of that shit, I just want to be with the person that I’m with.”

“Sure, there are plenty of ways to sleep on a couch just fine. It’s your hybrid approach that lands somewhere between gymnast and pretzel that tends to get you in trouble.”

“You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

“If it feels like it's coming on again, come tell us, okay?”

“I only met them a handful of times. They're sweet. They laugh a lot. They spent most of the time giving Elliott shit, it was funny. Not in like a mean way, like the way you do when you love somebody that much. They were a good balance for one another.”

“God I sound old. And I feel old. And I’m not, but it feels like it. A grumpy old man. Might as well start yelling at kids to not play so loud in the neighborhood, really complete the image.”

“Stop calling me an old man, only I’m allowed to call me old. Don’t be mean. I’m in a vulnerable state. I need baseless praise.”

“Yes. Holding you feels very productive.”

“Yeah. Let me just rub it on that pretty face for a little bit…”

“ It’d be fine. Almost as fine as you. I’m tired, I’m allowed to be stupid.”

“El, I have never hated you. You’re my little brother, I love you.”

“No the windows are mirrored glass. You should know that, you worked here.”

“Whose is it? Louder”

“Thank you baby. Yeah, thank you for trusting me like you do. […] All I wanna do is prove myself worthy of that trust.”

[azulaaaaaaah]

atla/tlok characters that i think did *it* (but i just can’t prove it)

this is the most unserious post i’ve ever made. (AND I WANT TO PREFACE BY SAYING BY *IT* I MEAN KISSING)

Sozin and Roku

and history will say that they were just great friends…

this is the only one where ill legitimately die on this hill

like i’m 90% sure roku just showed Aang their friendship in the flashbacks to prevent awkwardly explaining to a 12 year old monk that he was romantically and/or physically involved with the person who committed a g*nocide against his people

LIKE CMON WHY IN THE WORLD WAS SOZIN SO PRESSED IN THE BACKGROUND OF ROKU’S WEDDING ??? AND FOR NO REASON?? WHY WAS THEIR FRIENDSHIP SO INTENSE?

sozin i feel loved roku (to an obsessive level) and roku literally dgaf. king shit

Wan and Raava

genuinely what the fuck was going on between these two. like i don’t even have any words

canonically at the very least it was a domestic partnership

S2 korra doesn’t make sense at the best of times. imagine trying to explain the intensity of this pair’s devotion to each other, to someone who hasn’t seen the show- all the while knowing raava is a disembodied spirit practically older than time

she’s the embodiment of everything good and light in the universe and he’s just wan. (and he’s wanough <3)

‘do you think we’re soulmates in every life?’

‘bet’

‘wait that’s not what i-‘

Cabbage Merchant and his cabbages (or at least a cabbage)

yeah i’m not touching this one with a 10 foot pole

Every member of the red lotus squad

ah yes it’s my favourite evil polycule

amidst plans to kidnap children and topple monarchies what else is there to do except… kiss.

let’s be real there’s something so inherently romantic about being apart of an elite, vaguely murderous anarchist squad

they all share one exact bed. it’s canon

(p’li somehow big spoons all of them)

The S2 Nomads

these dudes are the textbook definition of anti-monogamy

like they’re obsessed with love so i fully believe that they think ‘it should be spread amongst others’ or some shit

oh to be a travelling communist nomad in a band, wandering the wilds with my wife, and our several partners

they’re somehow the opposite of the red lotus and yet the same. they all share a single bed/sleep area

The dangerous ladies (but all separately)

i don’t ship any of these particularly and yet can still admit that it’s canon

ty-lee and azula have kissed bc azula probably made up a dumb excuse like ‘oh i don’t want my first kiss with a guy to be… erm… bad’

mai and ty-lee have kissed because they both probably have genuine, vaguely deep rooted romantic feelings for each other

mai and azula have kissed to purely spite zuko (and yknow what ty-lee too)

HOWEVER A KEY ASPECT TO THIS DYNAMIC: azula is completely unaware about the ty-lee and mai thing. it’s uh… better off that way.

Hakoda and Bato

i ship this about 50% but like… it’s got to have happened once right? considering all that down time they spent together on a boat away from the repercussions of water tribe society…

also considering they were leaders i doubt the other warriors were in a position to ever call them out on it

like cmoooooooon what’s a little kiss between the homies every now and again?

hakoda is where sokka gets his rizz/flagrant bisexuality from and i can’t change that guys

[probablyasocialecologist]

When you look at Instagram or Facebook, I want you to try and think of them less as social networks, and more as a form of anthropological experiment. Every single thing you see on either platform is built or selected to make you spend more time on the app and see more things that Meta wants you to see, be they ads, sponsored content, or suggested groups that you can interact with, thus increasing the amount of your “time spent” on the app, and increasing the amount of “meaningful interactions” you have with content. I also want you to realize that anything bad that you see on the platform is a symptom of Mark Zuckerberg’s unwillingness to rate-limit or sufficiently moderate the platform. Logically-speaking, one would think that Meta would want you to have a high-quality Facebook experience, pruning content that might be incendiary, spammy, scammy or unhelpful, or at the very least, comes primarily from those within your own network, but when your only concern is growth, content moderation is more of an emergency measure.  And to be clear, this is part of Meta’s cultural DNA. In an interview with journalist Jeff Horwitz in his book Broken Code, Facebook’s former VP of Ads and Partnerships Brian Bolland said that “building things is way more fun than making things secure and safe…[and] until there’s a regulatory or press fire, you don’t deal with it.”  Horwitz also cites that Meta engineers’ greatest frustration was that the company “perpetually [needed] something to fail — often fucking spectacularly — to drive interest in fixing it.” Horwitz’s book describes Meta’s approach to moderation as “having a light touch,” considering it “a moral virtue” and that the company “wasn’t failing to supervise what users did — it was neutral.” As I’ve briefly explained, the logic here is that the more stuff there is on Facebook or Instagram, the more likely you are to run into something you’ll interact with, even if said interaction is genuinely bad. Horwitz notes that in April 2016, Meta analyzed Facebook’s most successful political groups, finding that a third of them “routinely featured content that was racist and conspiracy-minded,” with their growth heavily-driven by Facebook’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” features, algorithmic tools that Facebook used to recommend content. The researcher in question added that “sixty-four percent of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools.” When the researcher took their concerns to Facebook’s “Protect and Care” team, they were told that there was nothing the team could do as “the accounts creating the content were real people, and Facebook intentionally had no rules mandating truth, balance or good faith.” Meta, at its core, is a rot economy empire, entirely engineered to grow metrics and revenue at the expense of anything else. In practice, this means allowing almost any activity that might “grow” the platform, even if it means groups that balloon by tens or hundreds of thousands of people a day, or allowing people to friend 50 or more people in a single day. It means allowing almost any content other than that which it’s legally required to police like mutilation and child pornography, even if the content it allows in makes the platform significantly worse.  As a result, Meta is kind of like an absentee parent, occasionally looking up from their phone and muttering “don’t do that” when something obviously awful happens, and even then they’re extremely hesitant to intervene. 

[number1mingyustan]

Habit (part iv.) —k.sy

GIF by chogiwapadada

fuckboy!hoshi x fem!reader

Genre: fwb au, college au, fuckboy au, angst, smut

Warnings: cursing, kissing, marking, fingering (f.), multiple orgasms, explicit smut, unprotected sex, creampie, so much el oh vee ee

Word Count: 4.2k

part i. part ii. part iii.

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(a/n: i really thought i was going to have this done yesterday, but i didn’t and i lowkey think it’s kinda rushed so i may go back and edit it a bit)

Kwon Soonyoung was a giver. He gave and he gave and he gave, but it wasn't always enough. He put his best foot forward in everything he did. Whether it was someone or something he was interested in, he put so much effort into it.

It was odd though because he gave so much until he'd reach a wall that he put up himself. He couldn't quite verbalize why he is the way he is and it frustrated him.

When Soonyoung danced, he put his all into it. He was light on his feet and never missed a beat. His movement was sharp yet fluid and graceful. It didn't matter how difficult the choreo was or how familiar he was with the dance style, he was going to do the best he could.

He didn't start to feel insecure about his dancing until he graduated. It was always something he loved and made him feel free. He realized he wanted to take it seriously, but there was a wall in his way.

While he managed to convince his parents to support him, he felt obligated to do better. Every move he made needed to be perfect or it wasn't good enough. If it wasn't good enough for them, it wasn't good enough for him.

And then there was you.

Fuck.

Never had he experienced anything like the relationship the two of you had before. He'd done the friends-with-benefits thing before, plenty of times. But with you, it was different. Once your friendship shifted to something more, you were enough for him.

He hadn't slept with anyone besides you. He didn't see the point of entertaining other girls when he had you. He was always big on aftercare, but spending all that money to door dash a meal? You were the only girl he'd spend nearly 50 bucks for just because you wanted a burger. He played board games with you and watched movies after sex. He spent so much time with you and started to grow attached.

He’d spend hours and hours with you, and he loved it. But your time together was always cut short at the end of the night.

It was a habit he couldn't quite bring himself to break.

He really wanted to, but he couldn't. Spending the night made it all feel too real. He'd said at the beginning that your relationship would be a 'no feelings' thing, and to him spending the night felt like he was admitting he broke that rule.

Soonyoung had a lot of bad habits. He slept around a lot, he ignored his emotions, he doubted himself often, and he rarely communicated anything deeper than surface level.

They weren’t all bad though, he had his good habits too. He knew when to prioritize his studies, he danced to deal with his stress, it was an outlet for him to acknowledge and deal with anything on his heart or mind. When he cared about people, he cared a lot, almost too much to the point where it might have been one of his bad habits.

But his best habit of all, well that had to be you. Aside from the mind blowing sex, you brought out a good side in him. He wasn’t a bad person by any means, but he was a whole lot better when he was with you.

And for him, these past few weeks have been like hell without you.

___________

To say you've been living your best life for these past few weeks would be anything but the truth. You've spent the majority of your time with your head buried in your books.

You've started to prioritize your academics and almost completely isolated yourself. Nai's been trying to get you to go out more, but you refuse.

You go to class, the library, and to bed. It wouldn't be such a bad thing for you to prioritize your academics, however, you haven't been yourself lately. School and studying have become something you've done to kill time, not because your academic life has been in any sort of trouble.

And it serves as a great distraction.

Economics projects aren't as fun when you work alone. Yeah, the grade is good because all you seem to do now is homework, but it wasn't like your grades were bad before anyway.

Nai worried about you, but she understood you were hurting and healing. She gave you the space you needed, but also the comfort.

So much so that she managed to convince you to go out to a party tonight. She promised to stay by your side as long as you wanted company and assured you a social setting would be good,

You resisted of course but soon came to realize she was right. You couldn't just mope around for the rest of your life over something that could have been. You're far from ready to put yourself back out there romantically, but a party couldn't hurt all that much, right?

__

The house is loud and overcrowded, as expected. Nai pulls you through the crowd of people toward the kitchen. Pushing past sweaty bodies with loud music blasting your ears was not really what you needed. And of course, by the time you actually make it to the kitchen, there's no more alcohol left.

Nai sighs, "Damn it."

"I'm going home," you tell her.

She holds onto you by your arm. "No! You need to get out of our room, I'm not going to let you rot in there any longer. This is for your own good Y/n."

You roll your eyes. "There's nothing to drink, it's loud as hell, and this house is beyond overcrowded. I'm taking an uber back to our dorm."

Nai doesn't let you go. "And do what? Sleep? At 10 pm? Study? You don't have any exams coming up. I know things are fucked up because of Soonyoung, but we're still young! I'm not going to let you rot away before we turn 21."

You sigh.

"I'm sure there's someone here you can talk to," Nai offers.

"I don't really want to talk to anyone Nai," you frown.

She stares are you silently. She's thinking, contemplating whether or not she should say something to do. "Fine, let's just have fun on our own."

__

If your night out wasn't already bad enough, you ended up completely third wheeling. You appreciate Nai for keeping her promise about staying by your side, you really do. But when she's also spending every moment with Seokmin as well, it's not as much fun for you.

She's trying to include you in their conversation, but it's forced. You get along with Seokmin, and you've become good friends as well, but you feel somewhat like a burden.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you excuse yourself. "I'll be back."

Instead of going to the bathroom, you decide to make your way outside. In the backyard, it's relatively quiet. You slide the door closed behind you and walk over to one of the plastic chairs bordering the pool.

There’s a couple leaning against the side of the house making out, but you pay them no mind. Nai was right about how you needed to get out of the house, it’s nice, but you’d rather be alone while doing it.

For the first time in weeks, your mind is clear. It's a little chilly outside, but nothing you couldn't handle. You bask in the outside air. The stars are shining bright above you in the night sky. You admire the world around you, not a single thought in your head.

No school, no Soonyoung, nothing.

What's only a few short moments of bliss feels like an eternity until the sliding of the door catches your attention. You turn your head to the side.

Oh.

Soonyoung.

Your heart drops, then starts beating rapidly. Fuck, he’s actually here standing in front of you. You should've known he'd be here. Just because you didn't see him with Seokmin you shouldn't have assumed he wasn't there, he never missed a party.

Your heart is beating out of your chest so loud, you fear he can actually hear it. You're happy to see him as much as you don't want to admit it. You've missed him so much even after everything that went down.

“Shorty?” he asks.

The familiar nickname brings butterflies to your stomach. He knows you said to stop calling you that, but it’s just what you are to him. Call it muscle memory, call it love, but you’ll always be Shorty to him.

“Soonyoung,” you breathe out.

He scratches the back of his head nervously. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll go back inside, I didn’t know you were out here. I just wanted some fresh air but I- I’ll just go.”

Don’t.

Stay. Please.

“You don’t have to,” you tell him simply. “I kind of wanted to talk to you anyway.”

You swear something lights up in his eyes. A flash of hope and excitement. You don't know where your sudden confidence stems from, but all you know is that you missed him and now he's here in front of you.

“Really?” he questions.

You nod. “Yeah, I think a conversation between us is long overdo. Can we leave though? I’d rather talk somewhere else.”

Soonyoung is trying so hard to contain his excitement. You really want to talk to him. He doesn’t even care if you’re about to tell him you never want to see him again, he’s just so happy to see you.

His Shorty.

He contemplated not showing up to this party and now he couldn’t be happier that he did. Whether you’re giving him another chance or not, he’s going to do his best not to screw it up. You mean too much to him not to put in his effort.

"Do you want to come back to my dorm?"

For the first time ever, Soonyoung has actually invited you back to his dorm. His home, where he can’t be the one to leave you if shit happens.

“Yeah.”

__

The walk to his dorm is a quiet one, but thankfully quick. He walks slightly ahead of you, although he can't stop himself from turning back every couple of minutes. He has to remind himself you're really there.

He leads you up to the third floor and into his room.

"Did you want anything to drink? There's water and soda in the fridge." he offers.

"No thanks, I'm good," you say quietly. You're standing in the middle of the room looking around curiously. He's realizing, you've never actually been here before. He feels a bit guilty, you seeing his dorm is long overdue.

"You can sit down y'know," he says.

You nod, taking off your shoes and making yourself comfortable on his bed. You hold your knees up to your chest with your arms wrapped around your legs securely. Your back is against the gray wall behind his bed.

He sits on his bed, leaning against the wall as well. He's sure to leave plenty of space between you two. He doesn't want to make you uncomfortable. He wants to be careful, can't risk messing things up between you more.

"Can you talk to me now? Honestly?" he starts.

You sigh. There's a bit of silence as he stares at you. He can tell you're trying to gather your thoughts and find a way to tell him what you want to say.

"You said that you and I were going to be a 'no feelings thing.' And at first, I was okay with it, but the more time I spent with you, I started to realize that wasn't really the case anymore. And I got scared you were just going to end things with me because I caught feelings."

He's shocked, yet relieved at your sudden confession. He digs his nails into the palm on his hand to stop himself from saying something about your confession.

"What made you think I would do that to you?" he questions.

"Everything, Soonyoung," you breathe out. "You told me about your ex and how much she hurt you. And since then, you've been good at the whole sex with no strings thing. I had no reason to believe you felt the same way that I did about you. I wanted to have a relationship with you and be your girl, and for fuck's sake have you spend the night every once in a while. What else was I supposed to think when you couldn't even spend the night?"

He bites the inside of his cheek.

"You can't just decide that for me though," he sighs. "I understand why you assumed and you're probably right, I might not be fully ready for a relationship yet. But I have to be the one to decide that. You can't just jump to those kinds of conclusions and then completely leave me hanging. I had no idea what was going on in your head and I was willing to listen to you."

"I know it was wrong of me not to communicate with you, but you have to understand how much doubt I had. I mean, how else was I supposed to feel when you mention another girl's name right after you fuck me raw?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The first time we did it raw... that was a new level of intimacy I don't think I'd be willing to share with anyone else. Maybe it was just me, but it felt different and like, special. But then got to the shower..."

"We washed each other's hair."

"Yeah, and when I was washing yours... and told you I liked the blonde. What did you say?"

Shit.

"Shit," he runs a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Shorty. I wasn't thinking, honest. I didn't think about how that was gonna affect you. "

"That's why I started to doubt everything so much, because it felt like you were never going to think about my feelings. It was more than just the comment too... It was you and Leina upstairs at the party.... and you and Akari at another party after you and I..."

"I know how it may have looked to you, but nothing happened. Both of them are just friends to me, honestly. I'm not sleeping with either of them anymore, I haven't slept with anyone besides you since that day I bailed on you for Econ."

"Seriously?" you ask in disbelief.

He nods. "I swear, I haven't touched anyone else. Haven't even really looked in another girl's direction."

He can tell you're shocked by his words. All this time you thought he was still sleeping around. All this time you hadn't the slightest idea how much he prioritized you.

"I'm sorry," your voice rasps. "I shouldn't have assumed you were still sleeping around. And I shouldn't have assumed your feelings either, it was wrong of me. I had no right to decide for you– I was just trying to protect myself and my own feelings."

He pouts. "I know you were Shorty, but I wanted the same thing as you. Of course, I wanted you to be my girl, why else do you think I wanted you at my show so bad? Wanted you to see me dance and tell me I looked good."

His comment makes you smile.

"I'm sorry too... for making you doubt me and everything," he looks down at his lap, twiddling his thumbs. " I should've considered your feelings more if I wanted to show you how much you mattered. And I've still got some stuff to work on as far as relationships and communication... but I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me and have some patience. Because I really do want to get better, work on all of that stuff for you. Make sure I can treat you right and give you everything."

He looks back up at you, meeting your glossy eyes with his. Oh no, he made you cry.He knows it’s not because you’re upset with him but still… she doesn’t want to see you cry. He vows in his head at that moment to never lay it happen again.

Wordlessly, he wraps his arms around your frame. You turn into jello, melting into his touch as he embraces you with love. You feel so warm, inside and out.

“I wanna get better at communication too,” you sniffle. “And being honest about how I feel to make this work with you. I think we both of stuff we need to work on, and I’m more than willing to work through it with you.”

He lets out a breath of relief over your shoulder. He's so fucking happy right now. His heart's content, filled to the brim with joy. He'd got you where he wants you. He knows it'll require great effort to avoid repeating history, but he couldn't be happier that he's doing it with you.

"Shorty,"

"Soonyoung."

"Hoshi."

"Hoshi?"

"Hoshi."

He likes it a whole lot better when you say it. He freaked out the first time because it was a sore subject, nickname his ex used to call him. He freaked out because he loved the way you said it, how you moaned it when you came around his cock. It scared him how much he wanted to hear you say it over and over again.

He tucks your hair behind your ear. He looks into your eyes longingly, eye contact never faltering. Butterflies fill your stomach and you begin to feel hot beneath his gaze.

His excitement gets the best of him and he breaks the longing tension in the room. He cups your cheek and presses his lips against yours. You react immediately, kissing him back tenderly and his thumb draws circles on your cheek.

He loves kissing you. You melt into his touch so easily, so naturally. He can never get enough of you.

"Is this okay?" he asks against your lips.

You hardly break the kiss. "More than okay."

Your bodies fall into the bed, tongues dancing with one another as fingertips trace skin. You get lost in him so easily. He's so addictive, you can't stop kissing him.

His kisses grow feverish and heated as his hands continue to roam your skin. Your shirt rides up and he takes full advantage of it. He can't keep his hands off of you, touching every inch of your exposed skin.

You make it easier for him, momentarily breaking the kiss to peel your shirt off your body. His lips find your neck and he's quick to leave marks. He sucks along your skin, marking you as his for everyone to see.

He pulls away, looking down at you with a smile as he admires his work. He's interrupted by you suddenly tugging at the waistband of his jeans.

"Shorty," he warns.

"Please Hoshi," you whine.

Fuck. He's a goner.

"You sure you want to? It's not too soon?" he asks.

You shake your head. "Look at you communicating," you smirk. "Don't worry, I'm good if you are. It'll be just like before for now," you assure him.

He nibbles on his bottom lip. You two still aren't official, so it will be a lot like how things were before just you know... better. And who was Kwon Soonyoung to turn you down?

He gives in, allowing you to continue tugging at his jeans. You're smiling like a schoolgirl right now, hands fumbling with his zipper. You free him of his jeans, exposing his already hard cock poking through his underwear.

You've hardly touched him and he's already losing it. Only you can do this to him.

He dips his head back down, capturing your lips in another heated kiss. His hands play with the buttons of your jeans before he slides them off your body. He breaks this kiss briefly to slide his shirt off.

You continue stripping one another bare, lips finding one another quickly every time the kiss is broken. You've reached an entirely new level of intimacy with him. You feel closer than ever and you never want to let go of this feeling.

He touches you with great care, fingertips circling your clit as you squirm beneath him. His head is buried in the crook of your neck as his fingers pleasure you delicately.

You're moaning and panting right into his ear, only fueling him to go faster. He pumps his fingers inside of you, simultaneously rubbing against your sensitive bud. You're falling apart around his fingers within a matter of minutes.

He coaxes you through your first orgasm of the night, filling your ears with the sweet words about how good you're doing for him and how beautiful you are.

He waits for you to fully come down before peppering kisses along your forehead and cheeks. He kisses away the tears staining your cheeks, " 'S okay Shorty."

You assure him that you're fine and he moves to pull out a condom from the pocket of his jeans. You stop him, telling him you'd rather take him raw. He's absolutely losing his mind over you.

He aligns his cock with your soaked entrance, coating his length with your arousal. Your body jolts every time he runs his length along your sensitive clit, leaving you grinding against him desperately.

He finally stops teasing and slides his length into you with ease. Your arms immediately wrap around his frame, nails sinking into his broad shoulder and toned back.

"Fuck," he moans.

He pushes his hips into your slowly, sure to fill you up with the entirety of his length. You wrap your legs around his torso, forcing his cock to thrust deeper inside of you.

You moan in unison, crying out every time he bottoms out inside of you. You feel so close to him, so full and content.

Your sweaty, sticky bodies, are tangled beneath the sheets. You can feel the intimacy in every inch of your body, from your fingertips to your toes. He's not fucking you, not the way he usually does. He's making love to you, ensuring that you really feel him as he drives you into your second orgasm of the night.

He continues to fuck you slowly, relishing in how tight and warm you feel around him. He never wants to leave this place, want's to keep you in his arms forever. You feel so fucking good, cunt tightening around him as you ride out your high.

He watches you, face screwed in pleasure and head sinking into the pillows. He loves watching you fall apart, lips parted as you cry out his name. He loves the way you feel around him, how it always sends him into his own orgasm. He loves everything about you.

He loves you.

He has to stop himself from saying it when he falls apart, burying his head into the crook of your neck. You feel his cock twitch inside of you as he releases his load into you.

Once he comes down from his high, he presses another kiss onto your forehead before slowly pulling out and falling into the bed beside you.

"You okay?" he asks.

You nod, intertwining your fingers with his. " "M all good Hoshi, promise."

His heart beats faster at the sound of the nickname. He's so whipped for you, and he can only hope your heartbeat is as erratic as his right now.

Like always, he escorts you to the bathroom and showers with you. There's a comfortable quiet between the two of you, he fears things will move too fast if he opens his mouth.

The same words he's thinking are tingling on your tongue. You won't say it, it's too soon. But he knows and you know, regardless of whether or not it's said out loud.

In his room, he redresses himself and lends you some of his clothes. He smiles to himself as his eyes scan your body. You look so cute in his clothes, he wishes he could take a picture.

Oh fuck.

"Shit!" Soonyoung falls onto the bed and grabs his phone. "I didn't tell Seokmin I was leaving!"

"I didn't tell Nai either," you begin scrambling for your phone on the bed with him.

There's 4 missed calls and 16 text messages. The older messages begin with 'BITCH WHERE ARE YOU' and end with 'checked your location, nvm! glad you two made up, i'll see you tomorrow morning'

You and Soonyoung exchange looks, laughing to yourself knowing both your phone screens look similar. "They know we're together," he smiles. He drops his phone on the bed, wrapping his arms around your frame and pulling your body into his.

He envelops you in his warmth, comforting and cuddling you. You don't resist, turning into putty in his arms. Your head is pressed into his chest and you can hear his heartbeat. It's perfectly in sync with yours, completely filled with love.

"Shorty?"

"Hmm." you hum.

"Stay the night?"

You smile into his chest. "I thought you'd never ask."

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© number1mingyustan - Do not repost without permission.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 莲花楼/Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Mysterious Lotus Casebook is a 2023 drama about a beautiful twunk who just wants to die of his chronic illness in peace, except that neither the dumbass purebred dog of a man who has decided they're best friends now nor the jock begging him for a rematch are going to let him go without a fight (in the latter's case, literally).

Also they ride around in a magical bamboopunk RV.

I have referred to it elsewhere as "the CW presents: Nirvana in Fire," and I stand by that assessment. (I orginally called it Tiger Beat Nirvana in Fire, before realizing that Kids These Days will not get that reference. Shout out to the other elder millennials in the audience!)

There's been a lot of English-speaking fandom buzz about this show, to the point where if you're in these circles, I'm sure you've heard about it before. I know I had by the time I started watching -- which left me largely unprepared for the actual viewing experience, because the parts of the show that fans talk about are not a representative sample of the show itself.

This drama can be a good time. It's fun to watch. It has some hilarious beats and also some emotional moments. It spent its not-huge budget very smartly, and as such is generally quite lovely to look at. As my League of Nobleman rec will attest, I appreciate raw materials, and this is a show that has some fascinating raw materials.

(Or some materials that need to get rawed, take your pick.) (Also, it's not my fault they didn't do a dramatically lit Fang Duobing shot so I could round out the trio here.)

You'll find some people out there who've gone real hard for this show, doing some deep analyses and getting really emotional over it. I don't want my gentle ribbing to give the impression that those silly fans are delusionally talking like the show's a five-star restaurant when it's really just a fast food joint. Not so! There's a reason it's captivated a whole lot of people! And in case you might be one of those, allow me to give you five reasons you should consider watching it.

1. This bitch

The main character, Li Lianhua/Li Xiangyi is probably 50% of the show's appeal all by himself. He's fascinating. He's gender. He's fashion. He's been afflicted with a substance we called "bitch poison" the whole time we were watching. He has many emotions. He cries a lot. He coughs up blood every other episode. Cheng Yi is putting his whole lianhuassy into this performance, and it shows.

I made the Nirvana in Fire comparison earlier, and I stand by it for a lot of reasons, but the truth is that he's actually much more Opposite Day Mei Changsu: Li Lianhua wants all this stuff to fuck off and leave him alone forever. He is not seeking vengeance, nor does he particularly want to Do Schemes, but Circumstances keep dragging him back into the thick of all this nonsense he thought he left behind when he (mostly) died ten years ago.

The thing is, he used to be a real dick back when he was a kid. And I mean a real dick. He was a dick to his chronically insecure adoptive older brother. He was a dick to his girlfriend with the personality of wet tissue paper. He was a dick to the handsome loser who liked his girlfriend. He was a dick to his followers. He was basically just a cocky little shithead who thought he was the best at everything -- and he actually was the best at everything, which just made it worse.

Li Xiangyi used to think everything (especially himself) was sooooo important, and now that life has massively kicked his ass, Li Lianhua had come around to the position that nothing is actually that important, so let's just all chill and grow vegetables. He doesn't want a rematch. He doesn't want to retake his rightful place as the head of anything. He just wants to pay his respects to the dead before he joins them.

Now will everybody please just stop moving into his house.

2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (affectionate)

As I mentioned earlier, everything I'd seen about the show on Tumblr had still left me absolutely unprepared for what a silly ride it is. Because it's silly. Hoo boy, is it silly. My wife dubbed it "lace front Phoenix Wright," just to give you a metric for how silly we're talking. Ace Detective Fang Duobing never cross-examined a parrot, but I feel he came close.

This show has some serious goof-ass jianghu nonsense -- you know, the sort of stuff that's impossible and ridiculous, except everybody’s going to treat it like it's just a normal part of existence. Here's a short and certainly inexhaustive list:

mind-controlling bugs

other bugs that control the mind-controlling bugs

ex-conjoined twins

a grown-ass man who can compress himself into bitchy third-grader

grave-robbing societies with secret brag language

so much nonconsensual qi-blocking performed by poking people in the boobs, that can't be safe, everybody wear thicker shirts

magical crossdressing powers

a bad guy who looks like this

a princess who can get abducted and sex-trafficked and, like, nobody really notices? huh.

healing childhood paralysis by the power of believing in yourself

a ... hallucination pit? what was that, anyway?

so. many. mechanisms.

the equivalent of the "he's only mostly dead" business from the Princess Bride

a gradually lethal bookshelf

the strange amnesia everyone suffers from where a dude can cover maybe 30% of his face and render himself immediately unrecognizable to long-time friends and associates

The thing is: I think this goof-ass jianghu nonsense is a legitimate selling point. I found it so fun. I turned off my need for show elements to obey little things like the laws of physics, and I had a good time. It can be a very funny drama, in part because it knows how silly a lot of its shit is, and it chooses to go full speed ahead with a sincere heart. If you are down for some shounen absurdity, you are in for a treat.

However:

2.2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (derogatory)

I'm granting myself a sub-point here, because this is an important qualifier for the previous point.

I'm going to assume, based on what I've seen from fan responses, that many of the people who really like this show actually don't like the goof-ass jianghu nonsense. They are here for the BL vibes (after all, there are three cute boys who alll have some intense emotions about one another), and therefore downplay all the parts that aren't that. I want to make it clear that this is not a bad thing to do. There are many, many properties where I myself fixate on a single element and toss the rest into the sea. No judgment here.

However, since this is a post written to convine you to watch something, I want to make it clear what you're going to get if you dive in. If you're one of those people who skips scenes and/or entire episodes when your ship of choice isn't onscreen, you're probably going to be doing that a lot here. (I mean, I can't imagine doing this, but Tumblr has taught me that fandom is a rich tapestry.) The bones are good, but the connective tissue can be questionable.

The main thing I wish I'd known before starting is that the mysteries are not the selling point. They are the celery that gets the cute boy peanut butter to your mouth. You, the viewer, absolutely cannot solve them; you're never given enough context or information to keep up with the detective lads, much less get ahead of them. Everyone does everything in the most convoluted way possible, to the point of comic absurdity. Finding out whodunnit is rarely that satisfying, because too often the culprit is Jianghu Steve, You Know, That Guy Over There With The Superpower The Characters All Know About But You'd Never Heard Of Before Thirty Seconds Ago.

The goof-ass jianghu nonsense feels like the place where the show I see fans talking about least lines up with the show that actually exists. And I think that's a shame, because I think the show that actually exists is actually a good time! It's just, you know ... silly.

3. Whenever Di Feisheng's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Di Feisheng?

This drama gets sold like it's the adventures of three guys together. (Hell, I kind of did it myself in the intro.) This is not the case. This is the tale of two guys who do most of the plot stuff near one another, and their occasional third, Di Feisheng.

This is a 40-episode series and I swear this guy's onscreen for maybe 15% of the time -- and for half of that, he's just off doing his own thing anyway. He disappears entirely for huge chunks of the series, which is a crime, because he is my absolute favorite.

He is the rare grumpy himbo. He doesn't just have resting bitchface, he has bitchface for all occasions. He somehow has bitchface even during the rare moments he actually smiles. He's got a whole traumatic backstory, but the traumatic backstory is not the reason for the bitchface. He's Just Like That.

(Important to note that the actor himself only slightly has a resting bitchface. Xiao Shunyao can look normal and indeed quite pleasant. He has simply leaned into it real hard for this grouch.)

The one -- one -- reason I can accept his being gone for so ding-dang much of the show is how often he re-emerges with perfect, hilarious timing. Thank goodness the show realizes how much comedic potential his character has, because his unexpected entrances are some of the best laugh-out-loud moments of the series. If the show had taken Di Feisheng as seriously as Di Feisheng takes himself, he would have been unbearable. As it is, he's an unmitigated delight.

While you losers were being heterosexual, he studied the blade.

He makes the perfect foil for both Fang Duobing, who's the human equivalent of a puppy trying to gnaw an elephant to death, and Li Lianhua, who just wants to be excused from this narrative. Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing are basically two dogs fighting over their favorite toy, and their favorite toy is Li Lianhua, who really wishes he weren't. Some of the most compelling and fun moments of the series are when these three losers are all together.

And these three losers are barely all together.

This show is Not Danmei. It's so Not Danmei that I had a tremendously difficult time while making this post finding either official images or screencaps with even two of them in frame at the same time, much less all three. It is, however, a Danmei Starter Kit. I mean, the tag on AO3 has, at present, 742 works in it (283 in English). That's just since July! There are years-old c-drama shows that have a fraction of that fan output! And I'm willing to bet a big reason why is how little the very intense boys with ridiculously compelling interpersonal dynamics actually interact onscreen.

But, I hear you asking, why would less of what the fans want equal more fan goo? Well, friends, that's exactly what the fan goo is for: filling in the blanks. And this here show has a lot of blanks. Look, I've made a very scientific diagram (that many people seem to agree with) about how this all works:

The Hump of Compelling Mediocrity is the place where the amount of stuff worth thinking about far outpaces what the show actually contains of said stuff textually. It is the ideal location for imagination adventures.

Di Feisheng and Li Lianhua's relationship in particular lives right in the middle of that hump, what with the huge gaps in their backstory and all. They are a pair made entirely of unanswered questions. What the hell is going on there? What's their whole history, beyond the big fight? Why are they like this about one another? The show refuses to say. Whatever you imagine, you're correct. Now go tell AO3 about it.

interlude: God's perfect dipshit

I feel like I'm engaging in Fang Duobing erasure in the rest of this post, since he's not at the tip of any of the points I'm making, so I'm going to add a picture of him here, because I love him and want to pinch his perfect little cheeks.

You know what I am shocked by? How the MLC/DMBJ reincarnation fics apparently have not taken hold yet. I give it another two months.

4. IT HAS A DOG

FOX SPIRIT, MY SWEET BABY

'You mean the dog gets a whole selling point to himself' yes the dog gets a whole selling point to himself, because he is a very good dog and a very good boy (and his actor is a very good girl)

Apparently he has a whole backstory in the novel that never gets included in the drama, including an explanation of why he's named "Fox Spirit," if you feel like going and reading up on that.

Sadly, Fox Spirit is in the show even less than Di Feisheng is, and that is a crime, because he could have solved all these silly human mysteries in thirty minutes flat, Wishbone-style.

Dogs are so good.

5. One bad, bad girl

Do you like an unhinged villainess? Someone who's been sucking down Crazy Juice since beat one? Because oh boy, this show's got one of those for you.

Jiao Liqiao wants two things: to rule the world, and to make Di Feisheng her pretty little housewife. And whomst among us does not understand these two impulses?

She's not even the Big Bad! She's mostly just Di Feisheng's personal nightmare. She is the type of woman for whom the phrase "he's just not that into you" was coined. You've got everyone around her telling her, honey, I don't even think I've ever seen him look at a pair of breasts, while she's already planned their whole wedding menu and reserved the venue.

She has spent the last ten years of Di Feisheng's extended vacation making sure she's the one who's actually in charge, functioning as the point person for all the other evil schemes going on. Instead of handing over the reins upon her himbo boss' return, she's just going to keep doing what she's good at. As long as he keeps doing exactly what she wants him to do, she's gonna let him do it. If he gets out of line, well, there's always Plan B (the B stands for Breaking all of his tendons and making the world's surliest RealDoll).

I love the fact that she's so obviously evil, and he can't see it. To a certain point, it's not his fault -- everyone who serves under him is pretty obviously evil, so that doesn't make her special. But she's real evil even above and beyond that, and his dumb ass can't stop thinking about Li Lianhua long enough to notice any of the hundred or so knives she's aimed right at his back. He's so uninterested in her constant advances that he doesn't register how wanting to fuck someone and wanting to overthrow someone are not mutually exclusive desires.

(Was I bothered throughout most of the series by how her lipstick should be a little more crimson and a little less coral? Yes, but I'm not going to hold it against her. She's busy doing evil stuff. She'll get over to the nearest Jianghu Sephora and restock one of these days.)

While the show occasionally sidelines or straight-up forgets about a lot of its supporting characters for several episodes at a time, it never forgets to check in on what Jiao Liqiao's up to. Claws out, hair done, she is at all times a constant glorious, scenery-chewing menace with excellent taste in terrible men. Absolute legend.

Bonus: These two sluts

They don't get to be a full point because they're not nearly in the show enough, but just look at them. This is peak male character design. Slutty undone hair and slutty bare forearms, be still my bisexual heart.

Going to give it a try?

iQiyi's got you exclusively, baby.

Have I sounded a little defensive in this rec? Yeah, probably. It's just that I know there's a big and pretty intense fandom out there for this already, and I feel like a jerk coming in and being like "sure, it's fun!" when people are posting about how it made them cry for weeks. I want to be clear that that's not a bad reaction to have, while at the same time also being clear that that's not the reaction I had.

I might not even have written this rec, had I not been nudged to -- not because I don't think it's worth watching (I clearly do!), but because I don't know how much help it needs from the likes of me. There are plenty of other evangelists out there that'll give much more enthusiastic recommendations (like this one).

But the truth is that not every show has to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius to everyone. I watched the show, and I liked it, and I had a normal time.

I also think there's something to the way I watched it, which was: one episode per day, schedule permitting, such that it took nearly two months for me to finish it. (And before you think I singled MLC out for this, this is actually how I watch most c-dramas.) I bet binging it is a way different experience, one where what rises more readily to the top is the tragic throughline of Li Lianhua's whole deal. If you're inclined to skip things not immediately germane to your points of interest, this is definitely the show to take at a solid run.

I actually paused in the middle of making this rec and made the one for the Blood of Youth, because the two invite comparisons: jianghu tales with chronically ill protagonists, some imperial bullshit going on, pretty boys with swords being weird about one another. Mysterious Lotus Casebook did not grab me as hard as the Blood of Youth, because MLC went for a more understated take on all its nonsense, instead of shooting completely over the top, which is how I prefer my nonsense (as the record will show). If you take your silliness with a subtler flavor, this could be the perfect thing for you.

Maybe you'll wind up being one of those people who gets their whole insides totally ripped out by this drama! But even if you don't, you're probably going to have a good time watching it anyway. And really, what more can you ask for from a show than that?

Peace, nerds.

[imaginespazzi]

Part 3: Shades of Grey

Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7

That's the thing about illicit affairs (they lie and they lie and they lie)

(In which a masochistic writer makes things difficult for herself and makes things even messier than they were before)

Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd

Themes: Angst, Pining, a little bit of Hurt/Comfort and Fluff as always

Words: 7.2K (nice and short as always)

TW: Explicit Sexual Content (MINORS DNI), Swearing, Cheating

A/N: Hello my lovelies <3 I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job of sticking to my deadlines, who woulda thunk it? Fun fact, I'm at ~ 50 google-doc pages with this fic and despite my constant "trying to write less" rants, I'm actually lowkey proud of that. Anyways, there's a pretty clear hint (I am not a subtle person) as to why what happens at the end happens and if you pick up on it, I promise it'll save you from losing your minds till I write part 4. Also a couple of logistical details about the Cayman Islands are probably off but it's what worked so it's what I did, just pretend lol. Per usual, I did edit, there's probably still typos any way, feel free to point them out. And as always, let me know what you liked, what you didn't and what you'd like to see in the future. Happy reading and have a wonderful rest of your week lovelies!

August 2021

The fight was inevitable but neither of them can tell you what really lit the flame. One second they had been fine (well as fine as two girls who knew tonight was their last night in a while could be), the next they were hurling bullets at each other. There’s a subconscious part of Azzi’s brain that tells her to grab Paige and duck for cover, to preserve whatever little bit of friendship they can. But her whole body vibrates with anger as Paige’s words crash around her like a tsunami, drowning out the good angel on her shoulder that’s pleading with her to stop. 

“It’s a good thing really. You and your non-existent nerves would have never survived playing for UConn,” Paige sneers, and that mean smirk on her face just doesn’t quite fit right, “I don’t know what I was thinking with that honestly. You’re not built like that.”

Azzi flinches, eyes blazing, “some of us want to be more than just another good UConn player.”

“That’s what all the people not good enough to play for UConn say,” Paige retorts bitterly and Azzi doesn’t think she knows this girl standing in front of her, one whose words are aimed to make her cry instead of laugh. 

“Not good enough and yet you still wanted me on your team.”

“Nah you know what, my bad, I didn’t realise you’d fucking stab me in the back like that, ” Paige hisses, “you’re a fake as fuck friend and you’d probably make a shit teammate.”

Azzi’s never had a heart attack. She doesn’t even fully think she knows what a heart attack really is. But she’s certain this pain in her chest can’t possibly be anything less than one. It starts at her heart and then spreads to her lungs and then floods through her body, until she can’t move, she can’t breathe. 

“You don’t mean that,” she whispers. 

Paige hesitates, as if suddenly aware of the fragility of the moment, her voice considerably softer when she speaks but she doesn’t take it back, “ real friends choose each other.”

“Oh my god,” Azzi laughs, it’s the worst thing she could do in the moment and Paige’s eyes flash with anger, “you’re so fucking full of yourself.”

“Watch your fucking mouth-”

“Don’t you even dare. You say all that shit to me and now you can’t hear some of it back? Contrary to what you might think Paige, my whole life doesn’t revolve around you. My decision for where to spend the next four fucking years, does not revolve around you,” Azzi’s voice rises with each word. 

Fighting is cathartic in a way. They’ve spent almost a year delicately tip-toeing around the subject, growing further and further apart and yet still holding on for dear life. And Azzi doesn’t want to let go, but everything feels burning hot, and her hands are starting to blister. 

“Oh you’ve made that very clear,” Paige bites back, “you’ve made it very clear just how little I mean to you.”

“Because I chose a different school? That’s all it took Paige, seriously? That’s all it took for you to call our friendship fake?”

“No what it took Azzi was you being a fucking liar.”

“I didn’t lie about anything.”

Paige scoffs, her voice taking on a pitchy mocking tone, “ ‘I’d love to play with you Paige’, ‘being on the same team would be nice P’,  all of that fucking bullshit when you didn’t mean any of it.”

“Oh we’re playing that game,” Azzi seethes, “how about ‘Az I’d support you no matter what’ huh? Where did all of that go?”

“Maybe if you didn’t make stupid decisions then.”

“No, actually choosing not to play with you might have been my smartest decision yet,” as soon as the words are out, there’s a part of Azzi that wishes she could wrench them back in. 

“Right,” Paige’s voice is eerily quiet now, “well I hope that works out well for you then. Go to UCLA Azzi, have a great fucking life and stay the fuck away from mine.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Azzi takes a cautious step towards the blonde and almost immediately, Paige steps backwards, her expression suddenly blank. The change to indifference is somehow worse than the previous malice, “Paige-”

“Fuck this, I’m going home,” Paige says resolutely, her fingers fidgeting with themselves as she reaches for her phone and wallet. 

“We need to talk this out, we need to try and fix this,” Azzi all but pleads, trying to position herself in front of the persistent older girl who’s trying to make her way to the door. 

“I don’t know if I want to fucking fix this,” Paige yells, shaking away Azzi’s hand on her shoulder, “I don’t know if it’s worth it,” her voice breaks as she says the next words, “I don’t even think  I wanna be friends.”

When Azzi’s 14, Paige Bueckers dribbles through a USA basketball camp court straight into her life and teaches her all about how one person can come into your life and carve out a permanent shelf. When Azzi’s 16, Paige’s casual smiles and not-so-insignificant touches teach her all about the complicated space in-between just friends and something more. When Azzi’s 18, Paige says those words, ones that sound a lot like giving up, and teaches Azzi that sometimes in life, even the people you thought would never make you feel this way, are the ones who'll break you the most. And that’s the day Azzi makes a promise to herself that she’ll never give someone that part of herself again, unaware that when she’s 20, Paige will teach her that some promises are meant to be broken. 

***

July 2023

Azzi doesn’t know what god she pissed off to get herself into this position, stuck in a booth with Zoe on one side and Paige on the other. Her girlfriend’s left hand is placed firmly on her thigh and Azzi has to fight the vehement urge to shake it away because Zoe’s normally soft, sweet touch feels itchy and heavy. But the way Paige’s biceps are pressed against hers might be even worse. Every time the blonde moves a little, the sliding of her smooth skin against Azzi’s arms, sends a jolt of electricity through her veins. And Azzi doesn’t know when she became that girl, the girl who already has someone to hold her but is desperately craving somebody else’s touch. 

When people’s girlfriends surprise them with an unexpected visit, the appropriate reaction is to be overwhelmed with happiness. Except since she’d met her, Azzi’s summers have always belonged to Paige. With them having lived in separate states most of their lives, it was the one time they got to be with each other for an extended period of time. It was an unspoken rule really, one that they had subconsciously still followed the year before when Azzi had shown up at Paige’s door, even if they’d only gotten the last couple of weeks of the season; summer was theirs. So, when Zoe had shown up that afternoon with a bright smile and shining eyes, all Azzi had been able to register was a sense of loss as Paige pulled her hand out of Azzi’s. 

Introductions had been somewhat awkward. Her parents knew of Zoe, but hadn’t met her yet. They were nice of course, her dad pulling the shorter girl into one of his bear hugs and her mom giving her a warm smile. Jon and José were more awkward, nodding their greetings but making no move to actually welcome her. Paige had managed to muster up a smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and shake the other girl’s outstretched hand. And then there was Drew, whose normally goofy smile seemed to have disappeared. 

“Who are you?” the young boy had asked quizzically, his eyebrows crinkling together. 

“Oh umm, I’m uh- Azzi’s girlfriend,” Zoe had replied, the last word causing Paige to involuntarily flinch. 

Drew had looked over to Azzi then, his eyes wide and accusing, “you can’t be Azzi’s girlfriend.”

“Is that so?” Zoe hummed, clearly not taking him seriously. 

“It is,” Drew had said petulantly, ignoring Paige’s warning squeeze, “she’s Paige’s.”

The silence after had been deafening, as Azzi tried to stop herself from choking on air. Eventually Paige had regained her senses first, apologising for her younger brother’s lack of filter (“he says stupid things all the time”) and then Azzi’s dad had swooped in before things could possibly get any more awkward, proposing that they all go out to dinner. And that’s how Azzi has ended up here, shuffled in a booth, opposite her parents, with Paige on one side and Zoe on the other. Life really and truly isn’t on her side these days. 

“So girls, what are y’all pizza orders?” Tim asks jovially. Azzi’s brothers and Drew, desperate to go enjoy the sun (and avoid Zoe), had already told them their orders before zooming to the park right outside the restaurant. 

“Oh uh- Az you wanna share a Margherita pizza?”

“Azzi and I’ll just have our usual.”

It’s as if the world wants Azzi to suffer as both Zoe and Paige immediately look at her expectantly. The girl in question keeps her eyes focused on the menu in front of her, unsure how to best handle this predicament by doing anything other than maybe just running out of the restaurant. 

“What’s your usual?” Zoe asks, her voice all curiosity and no ill-intent. 

“Grilled chicken and bacon with spinach and onions.”

“But Azzi doesn’t like onions, she says they make-”

“They make her breath smell I know,” there’s a hard edge to Paige’s voice, “but she-”

“She can’t pick them off. She can’t pick anything off of her pizza because it takes-”

“It takes the cheese off, I know that too. That’s not what I was going to say. She doesn’t eat them because she thinks they make her breath smell but she does like them. It’s just-,” Paige’s eyes flare with mischief, “she only eats them around people who are close to her. Guess you’re not quite there yet.”

Since Azzi had mustered up the courage to finally tell Paige about Zoe, right before summer break started, Paige had been nothing but respectful, supportive even. Until tonight apparently and Azzi doesn’t even know to react to the fact that her best friend has started a pissing contest over fucking onions. 

“Right,” Zoe bites her lips, her ever-present smile slipping slightly as she slowly pries the menu out of Azzi’s hands and looks at her with hopefully eyes, “but we’ll get the Margherita tonight babe?”

“I-” and Azzi really should say yes, side with Zoe like the good girlfriend she is, except, well, all she can think about is that Paige hasn’t smiled since the California girl had arrived in D.C., “I think um- I’ll stick to my usual Zo, I’m sorry.”

She’s a terrible girlfriend, because immediately Zoe’s smile fades, and Azzi barely notices it, too busy watching Paige’s grin light up her face. Her baby blue eyes sparkle as if she’s won some important battle and it’s not even dark yet, but Azzi swears it feels like the stars have come out. 

“Okay,” Tim says slowly, looking between the three younger girls, as he waives over the waitress, “if that’s decided then.”

The issue with Paige being pretty, is that nobody’s really immune to it, including the cheerful waitress that practically skips over to serve them. Her eyes glaze over a little bit as they roam across the blonde’s face and then to her arms before drifting down to her torso. Paige’s tank top doesn’t leave much to the imagination, exposing both her muscled biceps and toned torso and Azzi doesn’t need an x-ray to know the widely appropriate thoughts going through the waitress’s head. The feral roar of mine takes birth in her stomach and the quieting whisper of she’s not does little to subdue it. 

“I’m Libby,” the waitress says, tongue darting across her lips, eyes solely focused on Paige, “and I’ll be your server today.”

Libby collects orders dutifully, polite and agreeable, but doesn’t once fully look away from the blonde, practically drooling once she finally gets to her, “and what can I get for you to drink babe?” 

Azzi’s not sure whether it’s the sultry tone or the nickname that gets Paige’s attention, but all of a sudden her best friend is staring up at the waitress with her own flirty smile. She likes to think she’s not a particularly violent person, but Azzi thinks she might end up in jail for homicide tonight. 

“Well babe,” Paige winks, Azzi wants to die, “what would you recommend?”

Libby smirks, clearly feeling triumphant as she leans on the table, one hand reaching out to brush Paige’s forearm, “sex on the beach.”

Several things happen at once. Tim chokes on a breadstick. Katie immediately thumps him on the back. Zoe lets out a laugh. Azzi’s nails break the skin of her palm, drawing blood as she fists both of hands. And then-

“She has a girlfriend,” it’s a blatantly untrue but all Azzi can think about is stopping this  random girl from eye-fucking her Paige. It does the trick, Libby’s eyes go comically wide, as she steps back from the table, from Paige. 

“She does?” Tim asks. Next to him, Katie, shoots her daughter a knowing look that veers on the edge of disappointment. 

Azzi stutters under the heat of Paige’s glare, the blonde clearly unamused by her lie, “I uh- I mean um- it’s not official but um yeah,” she doesn’t even sound convincing to herself, “I’m uh- I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

She practically shoves Paige out of the booth so she can climb out of it herself, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Her heart hammers in her chest and she tries to block out the sound of Paige’s being questioned by her dad, as she rushes into the restroom. 

There’s no amount of water she could splash on her face to make this heat go away, but she tries anyway, unsure of when the tap water starts to blend in with the tears streaming down her face. The unsettling anger of how dare she flirt with another girl beating in her heart is replaced by the guilt of i’m not allowed to feel this way thrashing around her rib cage. It hurts all the same, as Azzi clutches her chest, trying to even out her breathing.

She doesn’t hear the door open or close until, “What the fuck was that?”

“Get out,” Azzi whispers, closing her eyes and leaning her head on the mirror, “just give me a second okay?”

“Oh no, no, no, you owe me a huge fucking explanation right now,” Paige hisses, “what the fuck was that bullshit? I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“It was a joke-” before Azzi can even finish the sentence, there’s a hand on her biceps, forcing her to turn around. When she opens her eyes, Paige’s face is far too close to her own and when she tries to move back, she’s trapped with the cool edge of the sink. It’s too much, the proximity, the tension, the lingering touch of Paige’s fingers curled around her arm. 

“Stop lying,” Paige bites out. 

“It just slipped out babe,” and fuck, Azzi absolutely hadn’t meant to add that last part, hadn’t meant to make it so obvious what exactly had triggered her little outburst. Realisation flashes across Paige’s face, as she takes a step back, letting go of Azzi, and the distance should be freeing, but instead it just makes her feel lost.  

“That’s what this is about?” the blonde asks in disbelief. 

“Yes- no- I don’t know, okay,” Azzi’s voice is high-pitched, “I’m sorry okay. I’ll tell the waitress it was a joke,” she lets out a humourless laugh, “I didn’t mean to fucking cockblock you.”

“Cockblock me? Dude I wasn’t trying to fuck the waitress what the fuck?”

“Could’ve fooled me babe,” Azzi sneers. 

Something menacing flashes in Paige’s eyes, “stop calling me that.”

“What? You don’t like me calling you babe. You didn’t seem to have a problem when it was her.” 

“Oh my fucking god Azzi,” Paige throws her hands up, “you don’t get to do this. Not when your girlfriend is sitting right there.”

The reminder of Zoe is like being splashed with cold water and Azzi feels everything inside of her freeze. She grips the edge of the sink, trying to find some semblance of balance as Paige continues to glare at her. 

“For the past few hours, I have had to hear your girlfriend call you every fucking nickname in the book. I have had to watch her kiss you and move your hair back and grip your fucking knee under the table,” with every sentence, Paige inches closer and closer, until she’s accentuating every word by pushing her index finger into Azzi’s chest, “and you can’t even fucking deal with me calling some other girl babe?”

“Paige,” Azzi whispers when Paige’s voice breaks on the last word. Their faces are so close, she can feel the other girl’s uneven breathing all over her skin. And it takes everything in her to not cave in and reach a hand out to caress away the tear that's threatening to fall from the blonde’s tearline. 

“It’s been hell Azzi,” Paige spits out, “so you don’t get to be upset if I want to fuck someone-”

Something snaps and before Paige can complete the offending sentence, before she can imprint an image that will forever haunt Azzi’s mind, Azzi silences all the warning bells of why she really shouldn’t, and pulls her best friend into a searing kiss. Immediately, Paige’s hands come to rest against Azzi’s hips, pressing her firmly against the edge of the sink. It’s as if they’re trying to meld their bodies together, both of them gripping each other as close as possible. Outside, it’s a summer evening of clear blue skies, but here in this random restaurant restroom, lightning strikes.

Paige bites at Azzi’s bottom lip and then traces her tongue over the bruise she’s created, smirking when it elicits a gasp from the younger girl. Lips still firmly moving against Azzi’s, her hands work expertly on the buttons of Azzi’s tight shorts. The sensation of everything Paige is all-consuming and Azzi feels like she’s drunk on the taste of her best friend’s skin, as she moves away from Paige’s lips, to pepper kisses on her neck, before moving down to suck a mark into her collarbone. Mine, mine, mine. 

“Fuck Az,” Paige moans when Azzi’s teeth grate against her skin and it’s the brunette’s turn to smirk. But her cockiness is short-lived when Paige’s fingers finally find their way into her now unbuttoned shorts. They press down on her clit through her underwear, making her whine. 

A cry of “Paige,” escapes her lips when the blonde slides Azzi’s panties to the side, her middle and index finger beginning to rub circles around the younger girl’s clit in a tantalisingly slow rhythm. 

“So wet, so fucking wet for me,” Paige’s voice is wrecked with want, as she brings her free hand to cup Azzi’s jaw, forcing her best friend to look her in the eyes. It scares Azzi, the sheer amount of emotion she can see swirling in the blonde’s eyes. There’s lust and then there’s something else, another l-word that she can’t bring herself to acknowledge, knowing it’ll ruin her, ruin them. 

“Please,” Azzi whispers against Paige’s mouth, as the older girl’s fingers slip from her clit to tease against her soaking entrance, dipping into her folds but not giving her what she wants. 

“If you want something baby,” Paige traces Azzi’s lips with her thumb, “you have to ask for it.”

Azzi's hands moved away from where they had been firmly gripping Paige’s waist, to wrap around her neck. She bites softly against Paige’s left earlobe, eliciting a low groan, before bringing her lips as close to the blonde’s ears as she can, “I want you to fuck me.”

It’s all it takes, Paige finally gives Azzi what her body’s so desperately craving, for far longer than she’s willing to admit, pumping two fingers into her pussy, while her thumb stimulates her clit. And fuck, Paige knows exactly what she’s doing, fingers curling in the exact right spots and Azzi feels like she’s floating or flying or falling, maybe all of the above. 

“Please, please, please,” Azzi babbles incoherently, burying her face in the crevice of Paige’s neck, tears beginning to blur her vision. Because, it’s too much, the ecstasy, the fact that it’s Paige behind the ecstasy, the fact that this is better than her wildest fantasies. 

“Doing so good for me baby,” Paige praises, fingers starting to move faster, “taking my fingers so fucking well Az, think you can handle one more?”

Azzi whines in response. Paige pushes in a third finger, both of them letting out identical sighs of pleasure. She’s slow for a second, giving Azzi time to adjust but-

“Fuck, Paige, faster, please,” the younger girls moans, grinding fervently, desperately,  against Paige’s fingers, trying to create more fiction. 

“Anything for you Az,” Paige whispers, and even in the high of the moment, Azzi knows those words are about more than sex, “whatever you want.”

As Paige’s fingers begin to move at a rapid pace, curling around her g-spot, over and over and over, Azzi can feel that familiar pressure building in her stomach. Her fingers claw at Paige’s neck in warning, too worked up for words. Paige nudge’s Azzi’s face out of her neck, free hand cupping the younger girl's jaw. 

“Come apart for me baby,” she whispers before pressing their lips together. 

Azzi’s hips stutter as her orgasm rolls all over her, pussy clenching around Paige’s fingers, as she moans into the older girl's mouth. Spent, her body goes limp, her best friend’s  firm grip pressing her against the edge of the sink, the only thing anchoring her and keeping her uprights. Paige slowly pulls her fingers out of Azzi’s pants and the loss of contact feels wrong. It’s instinct really, as Azzi reaches for Paige’s hand and brings it up to her mouth, sucking each of the older girl’s fingers clean one by one, and it’s worth it for the way Paige looks wrecked. 

“Az-” she begins softly, eyes filled with questions but before Azzi can even think about any answers- 

“Azzi,” reality crashes and burns around the two girls as Zoe’s voice calls out for her girlfriend. The sound of footsteps gets closer and closer. Panic takes the place of pleasure as Paige and Azzi jump apart from each other and the realisation of their surroundings hits both of them at the same time. Sweat sheens against Paige’s collarbone and Azzi’s lips are bruised, her eyes still glazy. Their identical dishevelled demeanour gives away far too much. Just as the restroom door creaks open a little, Azzi dives into one of the stalls. 

“Oh, hey Paige,” guilt pools in Azzi’s stomach at the sound of Zoe’s innocent voice, as she presses her ear against the stall door,  “is Azzi in here? She’s been gone for like 20 minutes.”

“She- she was,” Paige stutters, and Azzi hates herself even more for putting her best friend in this position, “I-uh I think she um- she wanted some fresh air.”

“Ah okay, I’ll go try and find her,” Zoe pauses, “are you okay? You look a little flustered.”

“Me? Oh yeah, I’m fine,” Paige assures in a high-pitched voice, “just uh miss my girlfriend you know.”

Azzi flinches at the lie. She’d made such a fucking mess today. The lying, the cheating, all of it was so out of character and all of a sudden, she feels dirty. Tears brim in her eyes as she begins to process the gravity of what she’d done. And perhaps the worst part of it, is that she can’t find it in herself to fully regret it. If she could turn back time, she doesn’t know if she’d do anything different. Because when it comes to Paige, Azzi’s fine living in shades of grey. 

“Yeah, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” Zoe says slowly. 

There’s a pause and Azzi knows the words neither did I are floating in Paige's mind before she answers, “yeah, it’s uh- it’s new.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you,” the sincerity in Zoe’s words hit like stones, rupturing whatever built up image of i am a good person Azzi had ever had of herself

“Thank you,” Paige replies quietly. 

“It just-,” Zoe draws in a breath, “Azzi she- she worries about you a lot you know. Even before- you know- when you guys weren’t- you know? Like I think she thinks about you a lot,” there’s an unmistakable wistfulness in Zoe’s voice, “ like- if you’re doing okay and all that. And I don’t- I don’t even know you but I know she wants you to be happy- and- and I want whatever Azzi wants- so- so if you’re happy- that’s good.”

“That’s- that’s really sweet of you,” Paige sounds as guilty as Azzi feels.

There’s quiet for a minute until, “do you think I make her happy? Does she- does she talk about me?”

Zoe’s voice is laced in insecurity and hopefulness and Azzi wishes she’d never brought this girl into her mess in the first place. The sun-kissed Californian had been a classmate who had accidentally stumbled upon Azzi mid-breakdown on a random Thursday. One second she was hesitant, the next she was spilling her woes to a stranger, tired of holding it in. And from then on Zoe had been on a mission to just be there. She’d never hidden her intention, always clear that she wanted more than friendship and Azzi, despite knowing that her heart didn’t really have space for anyone else, had let her loneliness be her guide and given in to the urge to just let someone hold her. But the truth is that while every other second spent with Zoe was filled with mentions of Paige’s name, every moment spent with Paige was never about anything else other than her. 

“She- she does, she seems happy,” Paige can’t bring herself to say the with you. The blonde sounds defeated, as if the admission that Azzi could possibly be happy with someone else has taken everything out of her. 

“Good, it means a lot,” Zoe’s voice is lighter now, like there’s a smile hidden in it, “especially from you. Thank you. I’ll uh- I’ll go see if I can find her.”

Azzi waits for the sound of footsteps shuffling and then the sound of the door clicking behind Zoe, before prying herself out of the stall. Paige is hunched over the sink, face buried in her hands. And the words my fault, my fault, my fault imprint themselves all over Azzi’s heart. 

“Your girlfriend’s looking for you,” Paige says, not bothering to look up. 

“Paige I-”

“Just go Azzi, we’ll just” Paige scoffs, “we’ll just play pretend again,” the walls are up again and Paige is unreachable in her castle built from the ashes of the purity in their friendship that they’d just sacrified for a fucking quickie in a barely-lit restroom. And maybe Azzi should say something, maybe she should stay and see if she can fight her way into Paige’s castle. But Azzi’s no knight in shining armour, not Paige’s, not Zoe’s, not anybody else’s because knights don’t cheat and they don’t lie and they don’t break people’s hearts. So she listens to what her best friend says, she walks out, and she pretends she doesn’t hear the sob that’s let out behind her. 

***

November 2023

UCLA is up on UConn, it should be a pretty momentous occasion and it is. Azzi’s had one of the best games of her career to get her team mere seconds away from getting their first win over the powerhouse. For UConn, so has Paige, except there’s nothing but frustration gleaming in the blonde’s face. The game had been bad for UConn, the cracks created by injuries on full display. And the competitor in Azzi was more than happy to take advantage of that. But the part of her that was Paige’s best friend was stuck on how tired Paige looked. Someone fucking help her, Azzi had thought throughout the game, she literally just came back from injury. 

The outcome of the game is clear and Azzi’s already on the bench getting rest, cheering for her own team of course, but keeping a subtle eye on what’s happening with Paige. Azzi’s eyes follow Paige as she’s finally subbed out. The older girl walks to the end of her own bench, hands coming to rest on her thighs as she hangs her head, face scrunched up in irritation. Paige does that thing where it's like she’s trying to bite of all the skin on her lips and Azzi has the familiar urge to march over and make her stop, preferably by kissing her, not that that’s a thought she’s allowed to have. 

It’s ironic really, the 2,943 miles that had once been the reason they’d fallen apart, is the only thing holding them together. Being out of each other’s reach makes it easier to ignore what had happened over the summer, makes it easier to not give into that same vice all over again. And it makes sense, Azzi thinks, because since she’s met her, whenever Paige had just been a blurry goofy face on her screen, they’d been good at the just friends thing. The moment they could touch though, that’s when lines got blurry. As much as Azzi’s not sure how she survived a year without Paige, she’s even less sure about how she’d survived that one year where they’d practically lived in each other’s skins. 

Things in the handshake line are somewhat icy with both teams being overprotective of their star players. Muhl’s eyes are full of disdain once she reaches Azzi and Arnold barely shakes her hand, only doing as much as she has to, to keep up appearance. Azzi’s teammates aren’t any better, Angelica smiles at everyone until she reaches Paige, and Kiki rolls her eyes at the point guard. But it doesn’t matter what anybody else does, not when Paige practically falls into Azzi’s arms, her tense body finally beginning to relax a little. 

“You did good,” Azzi whispers into the blonde’s hair, tightening her hold on the other girl as she soothingly strokes her back.

Paige scoffs, burying her face further into Azzi’s neck, “you did good, I did what I had to.”

They break apart reluctantly, the shutter of cameras ruining the intimacy of the moment. Their hands hold on a touch longer but the minute they finally slip away from each other, the familiar feeling of i’m tired of missing you that seems to always be lingering within Azzi, prickles against her heart. 

*** 

UConn and UCLA don’t have a rivalry but if you were sat at the hotel restaurant in the Cayman Islands on a lovely November evening, you wouldn’t know that. There’s multiple women’s basketball teams present at the restaurant and everyone’s mingling with each other but the Bruins and Huskies seem determined to avoid each other at all costs. At one point, Angelica and Muhl, of course it would be them, accidentally bump into each other and Azzi holds her breath at the icy glare shared between them. She’s not sure how she and Paige ended up with something akin to the women’s basketball version of the Montagues and the Capulets, but it seems fitting with the way her life’s been going, that it would eventually start to take the shape of a tragedy.

It’s around 10pm when Azzi notices Paige moving in the direction of the door, towards the beach. Azzi hesitates for a moment, knowing her need to go after the blonde isn't just one born out of a best friend’s concern, but it’s Paige. It doesn’t matter if there’s inevitable destruction on the other side, it’s Paige and when it’s Paige, Azzi will follow. 

Paige’s silhouette on the beach, glowing underneath the moonlight, with waves crashing onto the shore beyond her, is straight out of a dream. Azzi’s not an artist by any means, but she thinks if she were, this moment would be her muse. The sea wind causes Paige’s hair to flutter with it. Her eyes are closed in concentration, knees pressed against her heaving chest as she takes in deep breaths of salty air. Azzi traipses across the sand, sandals in hand, before falling to the ground next to the other girl. A whisper of a smile is the only acknowledgement Paige offers her as they let a comfortable silence glide over them. 

“It would be nice to live here,” Paige says after a moment, “it’s peaceful.”

“Except when it storms,” Azzi surmises. 

“It’s not peaceful anywhere when it storms,” Paige counters matter-of-factly, “can you just let me have my moment?

“Right, right, continue.”

“Well now I don’t want to.”

Azzi laughs. Paige grins. It’s so easy. It’s so fucking scary. 

“Why’d you leave the restaurant?” Azzi asks cautiously. 

“Fresh air.”

“And?”

Paige sighs, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, “it’s gonna be a long season.”

“It always feels like that at the beginning.”

“I know- it’s just- after last year- I just thought it would be different. We’d show the world this time. Be like the other UConn teams of the past. Maybe I just wanted something easier.”

“No you didn’t,” Azzi nudges Paige’s shoulder, “you’ve never wanted easy in your goddamn life Paige. If it’s not a challenge, then it’s not for you. Because you’re God’s strongest soldier, and He’ll give you  his hardest battles, right?”

“Right, but sometimes I just don’t feel so strong.”

“Remember what I said in LA? It’s okay to feel that way P. It’s okay to feel however you feel. Let yourself breathe sometimes, it’s good for you. Fall down, let things go, just- remember to get back up and hold on again. It’ll get better, I promise.”

“You always say the right things,” Paige says quietly, and then even quieter, she whispers under her breath, “you make it so hard Az.”

Azzi’s not fully sure what that means. She’s not sure she wants to. Instead she tangles her and Paige’s fingers together, ignoring the way it feels a little too right,  and lets them fall back into a peaceful quiet.

“So,” Paige begins again, after a couple of minutes, “Zoe didn’t make the trip here?”

I’m holding your hand and you’re thinking about my girlfriend. Maybe you’re a better person than me. 

“She can’t just leave all her schoolwork and follow me wherever,” Azzi says, trying to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. It’s true except the part where Zoe had asked if she wanted her there and Azzi hadn’t been able to give her the enthusiastic yes she wanted, starting an unspoken argument that quashed any chance of a nice romantic island getaway for the two of them. 

“She did for the Elite 8 last-” Paige bites her tongue. 

“How did you-,” Azzi’s brain feels dizzy with confusion, “how could you know that? You left- after the Sweet 16, you- how did you know Zoe was there?”

“I didn’t leave,” Paige keeps her eyes adamantly on the ocean, “the team wanted to stay longer,” that’s a lie, Azzi knows her too well, “and so I stayed and you know me, I love watching hoops so I uh- I watched your game.”

“You were there,” Azzi whispers more to herself than Paige at this point. She’d been so sure she was just hallucinating, her heart trying to trick itself into seeing what it wanted to see, “why didn’t you tell me you were there? Why didn’t you come see me after the game?”

“I did- fuck Azzi- I did-”

“Where? I would’ve seen- I didn’t see-” 

“I saw you,” Paige cuts through Azzi’s frantic questioning, her voice heavy with unspoken emotions as she continues to refuse to look at the younger girl, “you and Zoe. Together.”

“Paige-”

“After the game, you were looking for someone in the stands and I- I thought maybe you were looking for your parents but then I saw you- with her- outside the locker room and- it hit me that- that you were looking for her,” Paige spits the last word out as it feels like lava on her tongue. 

In the grand scheme of things, maybe Azzi should let Paige keep this misconception, maybe it would make things simpler if she let Paige believe in the idea that there was someone else Azzi sought out when she was struggling. But- 

“I thought I saw you,” Azzi breathes out, “I should have been looking for Zoe but-” she has to draw in a breath when Paige whips around, piercing blue eyes that feel like they can see straight into Azzi’s soul, “Paige, I was looking for you-”

The last bit of sound is stolen away from Azzi as Paige’s lips crash onto hers. And it’s so different from summer and that wretched bathroom. Something softer, more gentle, but still desperate and passionate. Time slows down, as Azzi pulls Paige into her lap, hands caressing her waist, mouths still moving against each other with perfect rhythm. They only pull away when air becomes a necessity, resting their forehead against each other, as they breathe in sync. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Azzi whispers, moving a strand of hair out the blonde’s face. 

The way Paige blushes is everything, “stop.”

“You are,” Azzi insists, pressing a kiss against the corner against the edge of her lips, “you’re perfect P.”

If she goes blind tomorrow, in the next second even, Azzi thinks that would be okay. As long as this, Paige with her soft Azzi smile, looking at her with that sparkle in her eyes, face illuminated by the shine of the stars, is the last thing Azzi sees. 

Slowly Paige climbs off of her, stretching out a hand to pull Azzi up. 

“You don’t have a roommate right?,” she asks with a soft smirk that transforms into a shy grin when Azzi nods. And this isn’t a version of Paige that Azzi's ever met before, so different from her cocky loud best friend, but she’d like to learn her all the same. 

The hotel staff probably think they’re a little drunk as they giggle their way to Azzi’s hotel room. Azzi barely manages to get the door open, before Paige’s lips are all over her again, drifting everywhere from her lips to her neck to her collarbone. 

“Off, off, off,” Paige urges, hands pulling away Azzi’s shirt and she can’t help but giggle at the older girl’s impatience. She keeps her eyes firmly on Paige as she unhooks her bra, smirking as her best friend’s eyes glaze over. Paige moves to touch her, and Azzi moves back immediately. 

“Nuh huh. I show you mine, you show me yours.”

“You’re so fucking annoying,” Paige groans but does as she’s told, discarding her shirt and Azzi’s smirk widens. She moves towards Paige, slowly tracing her tongue down the older girl’s neck. 

“Am I?” Azzi whispers, as she backs her best friend onto the bed. Paige’s eyes follow her every movement as Azzi slowly slides down Paige’s pants, and then her underwear. She runs a finger down Paige’s soaked folds, causing the other girl’s body to shiver, “so wet already, for someone so annoying?”

“Fuck y-” Paige cuts herself off with a groan, when Azzi’s fingers find her sensitive clit.

Settling herself in between the older girl's legs, Azzi grazes her teeth against Paige’s left thigh, satisfied when it makes the other girl’s breath hitch,  “if I’m so annoying maybe I should go?”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Paige warns breathlessly, head propped up against Azzi’s pillows. 

“That’s what I thought,” Azzi smirks, as she peppers kisses up Paige’s thighs, her right thumb lazily flickering against Paige’s clit. 

“You’re such a fucking tease,” Paige lets out a frustrated whine, “just fuck me already.”

Azzi bites down hard against Paige’s thigh, wanting to leave a mark in the one place no one would ever see it, before looking up at Paige, “whatever you want.”

Paige’s entire body writhes as Azzi fucks her tongue into Paige’s pussy, building pace with every thrust. One hand fists around the sheets, as the other moves to grab at Azzi’s head, trying to guide her in deeper. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck shit Azzi please,” Paige curses, eyes rolling into her skull, “just like that fuck.”

She’s so close, words becoming incoherent noises, thighs beginning to shake, when Azzi pulls her tongue off.

“What the fuck-” Paige almost yells but it turns into a groan when Azzi replaces her tongue with two fingers instead, “shit- FUCK.”

Azzi attaches her now-free lips to Paige’s clit and she can tell it’s too much. Paige’s back arches off the bed as her eyes go hazy. And then Azzi’s above her, fingers still rapidly pumping into Paige, as she places a delicate kiss against her lips. 

“Let go baby, I’ve got you,” Azzi whispers into Paige’s ear as the blonde closes her eyes, letting her orgasm wash all over her, “I’ve got you.”

Paige is still for a second, as Azzi slips her fingers out, continuing to press lazy open-mouthed kisses against her best friend’s neck. She squeals when she feels herself being flipped over, back hitting the mattress. 

“What was it you said?” Paige asks cheekily, as starts to unbutton Azzi’s jeans, “I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours.”

Azzi rolls her eyes, a laugh escaping her throat. Trust them to be dorks even in a moment like this. And then Paige attaches her lips to Azzi’s clit and the giggles turn into loud desperate moans. When she slips her fingers in, it’s clear Paige remembers exactly how to push Azzi over the edge. 

“So fucking perfect,” Paige whispers from between her legs, eyes looking up at a blissed-out Azzi with awe, “you’re so fucking perfect.”

“That’s you,” Azzi manages to get out in between bated breaths, before her own orgasm hits her, and Paige’s name waterfalls out of her lips like a prayer. 

There’s no more words after that, only shared looks and soft grins as they make their way into the en-suite bathroom, lazily washing each other between stolen kisses. They fall asleep, wrapped in each other's arms with matching content smiles. 

***

Azzi wakes up alone the next morning. There’s no scribbled note, or even a text. In fact there’s really no proof that Paige was ever there to begin with, except for the ghost of Paige’s touch written all over Azzi’s skin. For a second, Azzi sits in bed and stares out her window. There's a thunderstorm brewing outside (it's not peaceful anywhere when it storms). She watches the raindrops slide down one by one and decides that, that’s the only water that’ll fall today because she won’t shed a single tear and she won’t cry and she most definitely won’t sob. 

She replies to Zoe’s i miss you text with a me too she doesn’t mean.

And then she gets up and goes on with her day. 

[stranger-nightmare]

Hi I sent in a request for number 50 from the fluff list and numbers 5 and 20 from smut I forgot t clarify I would like it to be with Billy hargrove! I love your writing and happy birthday!

𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐞 𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐞𝐬

fluff prompt 50 “this isn’t adrenaline, I want to spend my life with you” & smut prompt 5 “on your knees” & smut prompt 20 “after that little stunt? you’re not getting off that easy”

pairing: Billy Hargrove x (female) Reader

summary: you make Billy jealous by flirting with Steve, so Billy of course decides to remind you who you belong to

warnings: smut with a fluffy ending, penetrative sex (m+f), orgasm denial, oral (m receiving), minors DNI

This is for people 18+ only. Minors do not read on. By clicking ‘keep reading’ you are hereby agreeing that you are 18 or older.

You squeak out a moan as your face is pressed even further into the mattress. Billy pushes into you harder. Deeper. Fucking you so roughly you thought you were literally gonna break apart. You can hear him grunting loudly, his breathing heavy with the effort of pounding you into oblivion. His hands hold onto your hips so tight it hurts, pain flaring through your midsection, mixing with the pleasure he was fucking into you.

“Oh shit” your cry is muffled as you feel your orgasm rising to the surface, getting ready to break over you.

But Billy then abruptly pulls out of you, letting you fall forwards onto the mattress, your ruined pussy clenching over nothing, your orgasm fading into nothing. You mewl and whine into the sheets beneath you, burying your head as you try to hide the pathetic look on your face.

The next thing you know Billy has his hand wrapped around your jaw, pulling you up to look up at him.

“Come now sweetheart” he seethes darkly. “After that little stunt? You’re not getting off that easy” he laughs wickedly.

You should’ve known that flirting with Steve would’ve resulted in this. Billy leans in dangerously close to you, his eyes narrowed.

“On your knees” he commands, the sinister calm in his voice sending shivers through your body. “Now” he leaves no room for arguing.

You take your sore and spent body and swiftly move to kneel in front of him. His cock is hard and shining in front of your face, wet with your own slick. Billy grabs the back of your head and tilts your head up to look at him.

“I think you’re still in need of reminding who you belong to” he says darkly before pushing your head down and forwards, forcing your mouth onto his waiting cock.

You take him deeply into your mouth, gagging lightly as he pushes right to the back of your mouth. You can’t help the moan that escapes you as you taste yourself on him, a mix of your slick and his salty precum.

Billy grunts loudly and holds your head tightly the entire time, essentially using your mouth as his own personal fuck toy, bucking his hips roughly against you.

“That’s it” he encourages. “You’re mine. You’re mine” he grinds through gritted teeth.

His hips move faster and his grunts get louder.

“Fuck, you’re mine” he growls loudly as his hips finally stutter.

His dick twitches in your mouth as you feel his hot load hit the back of your throat, causing you to almost gag again.

Billy’s hand comes to cup your cheek again, his other hand remaining firmly behind your head, keeping you on his cock.

“Swallow it” he hisses the command, his thumb pushing against your lips.

You look up at him bashfully and obey his instruction. You keep sucking and swallowing until Billy ends up shivering, getting sensitive.

He drags you up by your jaw until you're stood in front of him. He kisses you roughly and deeply, his tongue dominating yours, tasting himself all over your mouth.

“I love you” he says suddenly, whispering against your lips.

You nearly stagger back from the surprise. He’d never said that before, and so you’re not sure you believe him. It was too sudden. Too abrupt. You figured you were just a fuck to him, nothing more. You roll your eyes sadly, your face turning downwards meekly.

“Billy, you don’t mean that” you sigh.

He lifts your face with a finger under your jaw.

“Yes I do” he stammers, all signs of the brutal man who had just face-fucked you were gone.

You look at him, a sad smile playing on your lips.

“You’re just saying that because I blew you, it’s just adrenaline talking” you shrug, feeling a tear sting your eye.

He shakes his head fervently and takes his hands to cup your face.

“This isn’t adrenaline, I want to spend my life with you” he looks at you earnestly, his eyes holding yours steadily, unwavering in their intensity.

Maybe, just maybe, he did mean it…

Masterlist

A/N: title from Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac, I seem to have a thing for naming my Stranger Things fics after 80s songs haha!! anyways I really hope you liked this <3

Taglist // Join My Nightmare Realm // Ko-fi

[wandas-lovey]

I’m being delulu so i started wondering (¡again!) what life with five would be post-season 3. But like…he’s a teacher in this…

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

* after all his siblings left when Reggie reset the universe you’re left with a mopey five

* you’re both pretty sad the first couple of days having just lost the people you love most :(

* but we don’t have time to be sad we need to get jobs!!!

* im gaslighting myself into believing that five and you have a place to stay the first night in the new timeline instead of being homeless 💀

* five becomes a teacher in the new timeline and you can’t convince me otherwise

* and what do you know!! you become a teacher too :D

* five would definitely teach math while you’d teach history (cuz you traveled through time when working with the commission, idk just go with it)

* while your classes may be a bit hard for the students you two are definitely the schools favorite teachers!!

* i mean why wouldn’t you be? the students can’t get enough of the two mysterious young teachers who showed up out of nowhere in the middle of the school year….

* you two definitelyyyy didn’t threaten the previous math and history teachers to quit their jobs or else they’d be dead by nightfall

* I just know many students are crushing on you BOTH. have you seen yourself lately? You look great ;)

* you both find it funny tho cuz they believe they’re crushing on teachers who are in their early 20s when it’s actually two 50 year olds in their younger bodies

* you two wouldn’t be the type to eat lunch with the rest of the faculty. you’d eat together in each other’s classroom enjoying your time together even if it’s for a short time

* five’s the type of boyfriend/teacher who interrupts your class for the dumbest reasons just cuz he wants to see you :,)

“can i borrow your stapler for a minute?”

“i’m in the middle of class right now”

“Yes I’m aware but i need to finish stapling the students review packets”

“you bought a stapler yesterday…”

“yeah but yours works better”

“OUT!!!”

*your students definitely find it cute :)

* after witnessing playful banter between the teachers that was a little too ~flirtatious~ the students get suspicious of what’s actually going on between their math and history teacher

* “are-are you and mr.hargreeves together..?”

* up until this point neither of you have confirmed to your students what your relationship was with each other

“unfortunately we are” you say with a smile on your face

*after confirming your relationship that day, your students spent the rest of the class asking you all types of questions about your relationship

“how did you and mr.hargreeves meet??”

“how long have you been together?”

“did you ask him out first or did he ask you?”

“why did you wait this long to tell us??”

*when your classes switch out and head to their next class with mr.hargreeves they try and pester him too about your relationship

“why aren’t you married yet?!?”

“ oh wow. i didn’t realize that was any of your business”

* you two are the kind of teachers to always be chosen to be chaperones for school dances.

*five definitely complains the entire night about being tired and wanting to go home

*who could blame him. watching over teenagers for hours making sure no one’s bumping uglies is exhausting

“how much longer till we can leave? This music’s awful. I’d rather throw myself off a building than be here.”

“Five…we just got here”

“What’s your point?”

*after a long night of watching over whore-knee kids, you head home ending the night with curling up on the couch and falling asleep in each other’s arms while The Breakfast Club plays in the background

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

i have no clue how to fucking end this 💀

also this shit ain’t proofread

[caxycreations]

I hate to do this but

I need help. I need

so much fucking help.

There are a few major things I need.

TL;DR at the bottom, but I'd appreciate you read this to fully understand the situation I'm in.

I need to reacclimate to driving vehicles, so I can get from place to place on my own, but to do that I need help from someone willing to ride with me and help me feel calm in adjusting to being behind the wheel again.

I need to find work, consistent work, that pays at a regular rate, which isn't overwhelmingly fast-paced. Night shift, anywhere, or work from home, or even day shift at a place that isn't rapid-fire energetic work.

I need to save up, be able to put money back so I have enough for emergencies like car wrecks or hospital trips or some such, and so I have enough to save a nest egg to live off of eventually.

As it stands, my only two options for who can help me with driving outright refuse to do so. They won't give me the opportunity to get behind the wheel, and when asked why, it's because they just don't want to take the time for it. These are the same people who simply "didn't want to take the time" to help me reach a dentist before my health insurance ran out. The same people who demand I help them at every turn and lecture me on selfishness when I tell them I don't feel well enough to do it.

I can't find work. The only work from home jobs here call for certifications, licenses, neither of which i have, or they call for several hours of uninterrupted focus, which I can't get here because if anything as drastic as the dog sneezing happens, I'm the one ordered to deal with it. I don't have one uninterrupted hour, let alone enough for a full shift of work. As for out-of-home work, the only places within safe walking distance are the post office (which I failed the assessment for and can't retake for a year) or the cotton gin (which isn't hiring for any positions I qualify for). So with no options in town, I have to drive (see problem 1) to find work. Which I can't do. So I can't find work outside of my streaming and avatar comms, the former of which earns roughly $20-$25 a month, and doesn't pay until earnings hit $50...Basically, I'm earning $60-$70 every 2 months. I can't live off that.

And that leads to the saving issue. I make a max of $70 every 2 months, and a friend sends me $50 every 2 weeks to help me, which totals to $100 one month and $170 every other month if I earn the absolute maximum from my streams. The $100 of the first month goes to groceries, every time. It has to. The second $100 goes to groceries of that month, $50 goes to my phone bill because I have to have service for family emergencies, and the last $20 winds up going either to more groceries or to what miniscule enrichments I can get for myself to keep from going insane here. Which means I wind up with a profit of anywhere from $0-$20 every 2 months, depending on whether that 20 actually gets spent or not. And of course, if it isn't one month, it's spent the next for groceries. I have next to no profit, no savings.

Living here is poisoning me. I live in a sunroom. Not a bedroom, not "part of the house", not an apartment or studio. A sunroom. A singular room that contains every single thing I own, a mattress on the floor, and for the record, as a sunroom, it leads directly outside. Want to see my door?

That is the door between my room and the outside world. That, and a single glass door secured by a very small, very rusted door latch on one side, is my only protection from the elements and any potential intruders. The door, as you can see, isn't even fitted to the frame. It's held in place by gravity and a single nail.

And yes, that is the breaker box behind it, entirely uncovered and with exposed wiring. Should I make it worse?

That door, held up only by gravity and a single nail, were it to fall, would fall directly onto my bed. Why is my pillow at the closest end? Well because I can't sleep with my head at the other end because my totes with all of my stuff are at the other end, and the mice like running on top of those totes and I would rather not sleep head-closest to the end they play at. That big TV? Busted, belongs to my mom's husband, and they have nowhere else to put it. That monitor beside it? Busted, because my brother broke it trying to stand on his computer chair and rather than throw it out, they had him put it in here with "the other screen".

The clutter on my bed? A hot glue gun kit a friend bought me which has literally nowhere else to be.

TL;DR and conclusions

I can't take the steps to better myself alone. I need as much help as I can get. And given my major problems right now revolve around a lack of jobs/opportunities, inability to drive alone + nobody willing to ride with me, and inability to save up because of expenses, I can really only look at the things I can reach out for help on.

I've reached out to some friends to help me look for options regarding new living arrangements, but those arrangements mean nothing if I can't afford to go, or worse, can't afford to stay.

I've got to save up. I've got to have enough to put back. So that leads me to the ending note here.

If you can spare even one dollar, ANY amount of money, at all, it would help immensely. If you can't, then please reblog, spread the word and help me reach more people so I might finally get out of this place. Every cent given this way is going straight into a savings account, not to be spent until absolutely needed, or until an opportunity to get out of here surfaces.

You can help me through paypal or cashapp, either one. Cashtag is $Aazoth, Paypal fundraiser linked below. Don't stress over the amount, I only set it to the maximum because I need as much as I can get and I wasn't sure what to expect so...better safe than sorry, given idk how the fundraisers on there work. I'd have set it to end later but I can't. I'll update y'all with a new one when this one ends.

@sparrowcraft @moremysteriesthantragedies @thetruearchmagos @a-scaly-troublemaker @that-one-enby-onyx @snakelovingnerd @eldritchx @leisoree @amerylise @profoundlyhauntedclaws @thefinalgoat @leisurelywingedlemon

[optiwashere]

This seemed fun, so why not do this for my babies? Portraits taken from art in this post.

Some elaborations under the cut...

Stats

Ages are at the end of BG3. Shadowheart is at least late 40s in canon, but I always had her as 50 in my mind. She has her birthday in my fic canon during the post-Absolute Crisis rebuilding while Asheera's won't be for another few months.

Asheera is ~201cm tall, Shadowheart is ~170cm tall. Roughly 31cm height difference!

Ship Parameters

Shadowheart and Asheera both enjoy being the big spoon and little spoon, but Shadowheart prefers being nestled in Asheera's embrace. Doesn't mean for a bit that the roles aren't reversed now and again, though.

Shadowheart wears Asheera's clothes all the time. Constantly. They are, of course, comically oversized on her.

They both use pet names for one another, but Asheera fancies herself a bit of a romantic so she likes to come up with melodramatic ones ("my Heart") while Shadowheart prefers "love" and "my love." Shadowheart also calls Asheera "my Lady paladin" a lot in the fics, but IDK if you consider that a pet name or not?

Shadowheart is undoubtedly far, far, far more introverted than Asheera. In fact, Asheera is pretty extroverted in general. The extrovert/introvert ship dynamic is my catnip, how could you tell?

So, the affection one I took to mean what they prefer. Shadowheart likes quality time and affirmations while Asheera likes acts of service and quality time. However, if you imagined it as what they do then their placements would be flipped.

Shadowheart confesses love first. Affection and attraction, that's technically Asheera.

Neither of them really panic about bugs. Asheera has a bad habit of killing the little creatures though, and she has serious thoughts about her own oaths when she does it.

Horse riding... Listen, all I'm saying is Asheera riding a horse with Shadowheart behind her? Yeah. But, like, if we're literally talking about driving a car then Shadowheart can drive but if anyone else offers to drive then she's going to take the opportunity to sit in the passenger seat, curate the music, and fall asleep.

Shadowheart knows how to cook because she's an adult, but she's just terrible at it. I'm sorry, she is a horrible cook to me. Her taste buds are all fucked up from decades of sampling/testing poisons, venoms, and paralytics as a Sharran. Asheera's not much better, she just knows that if Shadowheart cooks it'll be a disaster for everyone.

Shadowheart prefers discretion and Asheera loves giving her wife big, showy kisses for all to see. They have an understanding.

Despite the jealousy levels, Asheera is prone to overprotectiveness. After everything that Shadowheart went through in her life, after everything that Asheera saw in her memories and in the events of BG3, there's no way she doesn't immediately come to Shadowheart's defense at pretty much any perceived slight. Shadowheart finds it very sweet, but unnecessary. She can defend herself just fine. Doesn't mean she hates it though.

Shadowheart has the age on Asheera by a margin, and she spent decades in a Sharran cloister. Calling them "relationships" is probably a bit much to be fair, though. This doesn't mean Asheera is some naïve virgin! She's actually more experienced with long-term relationships than Shadowheart.

Levels

They're both extremely horny, especially for one another, but Shadowheart wins out on this one by sheer excitement to try out anything and everything that she thinks Asheera would want to try. Asheera isn't a prude by any stretch of the imagination.

Shadowheart is awkward in that "sheltered in a cult commune" kinda way. She says the wildest shit sometimes and expects people to just move on from it. Someone who quotes erotica with their friend in public is going to cause others to feel awkward. Asheera on the other hand? She makes things awkward by either being way too serious about a situation or cracking bad jokes about it; there is no in-between, and nobody is sure what to expect.

Asheera doesn't get jealous. Shadowheart is jealous of things that aren't really related to their relationship. I don't think either of them gets jealous over that sorta thing. Shadowheart just has to manage her feelings about family given that Asheera has one that loves her and she was able to experience a childhood and such. That triggers jealousy which Asheera finds normal and reasonable and completely understandable. It's one of those aspects of Shadowheart's specific trauma that isn't really something you "get over" and Asheera, while finding it hurtful and hard to deal with sometimes, relies on her training and oaths as a paladin to manage that specific hurdle in their relationship.

[theladyofbloodshed]

The conversation in ACOSF about Rhys being the best option for High King (k!ll me pls) is so strange, because how are Cassian, Amren and Azriel not aware of how much everyone hates the Night Court? They’ve literally spent hundreds of years acting like pieces of shit yet they think the High Lords will just hand over the reigns (after 50 years under Amarantha, no less) and all the Fae in the courts will be oh so happy.

They stole from Tarquin and Feyre’s boss babe destruction of the Spring Court left the door open to Summer, Kallias and Beron openly hate Rhysand, Helion is friendly and will be until he realizes that his pals at the NC think so little of him, Thesan won’t do it either because the Dawn court is said to be neutral in conflicts (war means people die). Tamlin will probably off himself before he kneels and if Lucien is temporarily in charge, I doubt he’ll do it either. If Eris is High Lord by then, he’s definitely NOT kneeling. Man’s been waiting too long to be in charge.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!!!!

They're all so oblivious and righteous in their beliefs at the same time.

Azriel: “Kallias, Tarquin, and Helion might be willing to kneel. Thesan will kneel if the others do.”

Why would the three non-white high lords be willing to kneel?! Tarquin and Helion didn't expect to be high lord but Tarquin is doing a damn good job of trying to improve the lives of his court. Why would any of them give up their court's ruling to a near-enough stranger? Cassian nodded. Rhys as High King: he could think of no other male he’d trust more. No other male who would be a fairer ruler than Rhys. And with Feyre as High Queen … Prythian would be blessed to have such leaders.

Respectfully, what the fuck are you smoking Cassian? Feyre's rule so far a) gone to war b) had a baby. We've never seen her involved with politics except when she started a fight at the high lord meeting and burnt the lady of the autumn court. Blessed?????? Tell that to the Spring Court who got annihilated thanks to her. Tell that to the Summer Court who got annihilated because she opened the doors to Hybern.

So Cassian said, “Tamlin would probably fight, and lose. Beron would be the only one standing in your way.”

Tamlin is a high lord who is the same size as Cassian and fought in war bands. Like why do they act like he's not powerful???

Beron please I am rooting for you, make their lives difficult as hell

“I will not be High King. I will not consider it, not today and not in a century.”

Literally the only sexy thing Rhys has ever said.

How would it even work except for retconning the scant world building? High lords have their specific powers. You can't just make somebody high king surely, what happens to their powers?

I do think it will happen though. Rhys will change his mind and realise it's for the best if he becomes high king because amren said nesta's swords should be his.

Listen, just make Nesta high queen and be done with this.