#how does wrecker feel about being the dumb muscle?

[ct-hardcase]

I've seen responses to bad batch crit like "tcw didn't constantly have hard-hitting emotional moments in its first season" like yes I agree on that but Ahsoka in particular did learn hard emotional lessons in that season and was forced to confront her faults, as did Anakin and the assorted side cast. Additionally, haven't watched mando yet so can't speak for it but Rebels and Resistance excelled in that area, even with Resistance following a similar path to tbb in that not every episode seems to be building toward a larger plot at first.

The thing with Resistance and Rebels, even with their smaller-scale first seasons, is that even if the plots were simpler, is that at least one character almost always had to confront something about themselves (I was going to list examples but it got long, suffice to say that at least one character usually has big growing moments either internally or combined with the crew even in episodes that seem more filler, with few exceptions).

tcw, resistance, and rebels also have an advantage over tbb in terms of emotional growth where the crew is sort of figuring itself out even if they are familiar with each other (see: Hera and Sabine's arguments about her meeting fulcrum, Jarek and Tam's arguments over the state of the Fireball), whereas tbb seems to be a well-knit unit, even with the addition of Omega and the subtraction of Crosshair—the only real conflict seems to be that thing going on with Tech and Echo, given their similar position.

and with tbb, I'm not asking for every character moment to get unpacked at once, and I'm honestly chill with some degree of filler and cameo, but moments are presented in episodes where there could and should be characters outwardly questioning things, but they sort of get glossed over.

For example, a while back, the mission of the episode was to rescue a Separatist leader. Echo, Hunter, and Wrecker seem distinctly uncomfortable with it at first and share a few words, but it's resolved with "well, it's a job" which would even be a legit PoV, but it's not brought up again after that, when it could've been a moment to realize that the Separatists had their reasons for splitting from the Republic, or showing Echo to possibly be more reticent than the other two to just go along with it since he was quite literally tortured and dehumanized by the Separatists.

I'm not saying we need to completely derail the story the show's telling but I wish stuff that seems to happen offscreen happened for the benefit of the viewers.

[d*nt rb]

[somedaylazysomeday]

Stretch

Wrecker x fem!reader. You and Wrecker have been dating for a while, but there are still a few things he refuses to share with you. (AKA: bigger isn't always better.)

*I write Wrecker as being a capable, emotionally intelligent man. If you're looking for 'dumb brute' Wrecker, this story isn't for you!*

Rating: NC-17, explicit, lemon, NSFW, etc. Minors DNI!

Word Count: 5,500

Warnings: heavy makeout session, a lot of talk about size, fingering, mention and use of sex toys, oral sex (female receiving), unprotected piv sex, creampie.

Next | Masterlist

---

You and Wrecker were exactly where you always were when you got a moment alone - in each other’s arms.

It was a leisurely make-out session in Wrecker’s bunk, kissing and groping like you had when you were teenagers. Well, like you had when you were a teenager. Wrecker technically was a teenager if you counted the years chronologically. But you had learned to tune those thoughts out, or your whole relationship got kinda creepy.

And you really enjoyed this relationship.

Wrecker was a sweetheart, capable and clever in his own way, but he had a nasty tendency to compare himself to his brothers. Those comparisons often left him feeling insecure - stupid, loud, and too big were his most common worries - but you had made it your mission to remind him how much more he was than just the muscle of the Bad Batch.

When his hand rested gently on one of your breasts, it covered the entire thing, cupping you delicately. He broke away when you moaned, giving his own groan at the realization that you weren’t wearing a bra.

“Mm, just like that,” you encouraged as he used two fingertips to tease your nipple until it was standing at a stiff peak, visible even through your shirt. “You always know just how to touch me.”

“I ought to,” he said with a grin. “We’ve been doing this for how long?”

“Not nearly long enough,” was the most honest answer you could offer him.

“Mesh’la,” Wrecker murmured, lowering his head to yours once more. He nibbled at your lip the way he knew drove you wild, then took advantage of your groan to slip his tongue between your teeth.

His hand crept lower, sliding under the waistband of your lounge pants. You had taken to wearing them around the Havoc Marauder, especially when you had reason to think that you and Wrecker might get some alone time. Wrecker got frustrated if your pants were too tight, and an impatient Wrecker tended to just tear things instead of letting you take care of them yourself.

So you wore lounge pants a size or two too big, the drawstring cinched tight around your waist to keep them from falling down entirely. It was all about easy access, and if Wrecker wanted access to you, it was your pleasure to make sure he had it.

You utterly lost your train of thought as a large finger pressed between your folds to your aching core. It landed at exactly the right spot and you made a small noise into Wrecker’s mouth.

It was your pleasure, indeed.

“Do you want my fingers tonight, gorgeous?” Wrecker asked.

It was a simple question with a much more difficult answer. Wrecker always asked that. He could comfortably fit two fingers in your tight core after opening you up, or you could use any number of the toys carefully hidden under your bunk. But not his cock. Never his cock.

“You know what I want,” you countered, leveling a firm look at him.

Wrecker returned your firm look with a blank one of his own, until understanding dawned in his eyes and he pulled his hand out of your pants. “No, mesh’la, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Please, Wrecker?” you asked. You wanted to respect his wishes, but there was no reason for him to deny himself. “I want you.”

“I’m too big, sweetheart,” Wrecker murmured, looking distraught. “I’ll hurt you.”

“No, you won’t!” Wrecker shot you a disbelieving look and you quickly qualified your statement. “I mean, it might be uncomfortable at first - kriff, it probably will be - but it eases. It always does.”

“Always?” Wrecker asked, a playful light gleaming in his eyes. “Are you out seeing other giant men?”

You laughed aloud at the tickling touches he ghosted across your waist and ribs, only just realizing that your shirt had ruched so far upward. “You know I’m not!”

“Then how are you sure?”

“I’ve been practicing with my biggest toy,” you explained, trying not to be embarrassed. If you were going to convince Wrecker to share all of himself with you, you had to be stern and businesslike, not shy.

“Show me,” Wrecker told you.

“Ooh, we’re feeling adventurous tonight,” you returned, grinning.

Wrecker shook his head, grinning right back. “I meant show me the toy. Though if that’s what you want tonight…”

“No, I’ve already told you what I want tonight,” you reminded him, though you dutifully retrieved the toy from the hiding spot where you kept all of your playthings. You climbed back onto Wrecker’s bunk, handing the toy to your lover.

Wrecker lifted a brow as he studied the silicone toy. He ran his fingers over the bright purple ribbing on the surface, studied the small control panel on the base, hefted its weight in his large hand. Then he held it to his crotch while you watched with a frown.

He passed it back to you, shaking his head. “It’s not as big as I am.”

“Keep bragging,” you joked.

Wrecker wasn’t smiling at all when he said, “I’m not bragging. I’m telling you that I’m bigger than the toy you said makes you uncomfortable at first. I’ll hurt you, and that’s not something I’m willing to do. Even for you.”

“Wrecker, please,” you asked again, resting your hand on his chest so he would look at you.

His brown gaze was tormented and you felt a surge of guilt rising in your chest. You hated to see him looking so conflicted and you would leave it alone… if you were utterly sure that his reluctance to fuck you wasn’t rooted in his feelings of not being good enough. Not wanting to was one thing, but feeling like he would mess something up if he tried? Unacceptable.

“I care about you,” you started, trying to ease into the conversation. “The time we’ve had has been precious to me. But I feel like you’re holding back. You let me use my hands on you, and my mouth a few times. Why won’t you agree to be inside me? I want it and I think I’m to the point that you can comfortably fit with a little work from both of us.”

An unpleasant thought dawned on you. “Is it the idea of doing the work that’s the problem? Because if that bothers you, I get it. Or if you’re not interested at all. If you tell me it’s because you aren’t interested, I’ll leave it alone.”

“Are you asking me if I want to fuck you?” Wrecker asked carefully.

You nodded, opening your mouth and closing it again without speaking.

“Mesh’la, if I had a credit for every time I’ve thought about being inside of you, I could afford a fancy Political District apartment.” You softened and leaned in for a kiss, but he stopped you with a quick press of his lips against your forehead. “But if I had a credit for every time I’ve worried I’ll accidentally hurt you, I could buy Coruscant. It’s too risky. I like what we have and I don’t want to mess it up.”

“What if we just try it?” you asked. “If it hurts badly enough that I can’t handle it, I’ll tell you, we stop, and we don’t try again until both of us are sure we’re ready.”

Wrecker looked torn again and you hurried to add, “Either way, I can promise you that you’re not going to mess anything up. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”

You cuddled against his chest, giving him time to think without you staring at him. Despite what he tended to say about himself, Wrecker was a thorough thinker. He liked to think about every part of something before he decided on it. That very cautiousness was what made people misguidedly think he was unintelligent.

“If we do this,” he started eventually, and you sat up with your heart already pounding in excitement, “we do it my way. I don’t wanna hear any complaints outta you, gorgeous.”

“Agreed,” you rushed out.

He laughed at your eagerness. “Okay. I’m gonna make you come at least twice before I even take off my body glove, and probably one more time before I get anywhere close to being inside of you. If it hurts, even a little, you tell me. And if it keeps hurting, we stop.”

“It might hurt a little at first,” you reasoned. “That’s just how stuff like this works.”

Wrecker frowned at you. “You need to promise that you’ll tell me if something hurts at all. I won’t hurt you. Even the idea of it makes me think this was a mistake.”

“I promise,” you hastily agreed. “I’ll tell you the moment something hurts. How about a number system? One means I can feel it, five is uncomfortable, and ten means we need to stop. I’ll tell you if we hit five or ten, or you can ask me what number and I’ll tell you in the moment. Does that work?”

“That makes sense,” Wrecker eventually agreed. You grinned triumphantly, but his hands rose to cradle your jaw, guiding you to look at him. “Are you sure you want to do this, mesh’la? I don’t care if I’m ever inside of you that way. I think what we have is perfect. I don’t need anything more - I could never ask for anything more.”

Well, when he put it that way, it made you sound ungrateful for being so determined to do this… But you nodded anyway. “I feel like you’re being cheated, Wrecker, whether you agree or not. I want to give this a try. It’s important to me. But if either of us don’t like it, we can go back to the way things are right now - no harm done.”

“No harm done,” Wrecker affirmed with a nod of his own. But there was a worried little crinkle between his eyebrows that stayed even after you tried to kiss it away.

Deciding the best way to ease his worries was to get started, you leaned up and brushed your lips over his. Your motions were gentle at first, but steadily gained intensity as he began returning your kiss. By the time your tongue crept into his mouth, his hand was back under the waistband of your lounge pants.

When Wrecker’s fingers finally parted your damp folds, you lifted your hips in a wordless plea for him to keep going. He did exactly that, teasing your clit gently until you were rocking back and forth in an attempt to increase the friction against your most sensitive spot. One large digit sank into you, the wetness of your channel easing the process until it seemed like your body was pulling him in full-speed.

You moaned as Wrecker began increasing the speed of his thrusts, and he moaned back when he pulled back enough to replace one finger with two. Your pussy gripped him tightly, locking down around the intrusion after he had pushed in to his largest knuckles.

He patiently waited for you to ease around him, occasionally rotating his fingers to offer some stimulation, but focusing most of his efforts on your kiss. When you finally relaxed, you broke the kiss long enough to say, “I’m good now.”

Wrecker’s fingers began to work utter magic inside of you. They twisted, they thrust, they spread, they rubbed. In what felt like a minute or two, you were panting up at him, focused on the rapidly building tide inside of you.

Wrecker’s thumb ghosted gently over your clit and you made a sharp noise. He paused. “Number?”

Remembering the number system you had invented took an embarrassingly long time, but you managed to gasp out, “One!”

Wrecker nodded, resuming everything he had been doing before, but added a leisurely lick to one of your nipples. “Wrecker! I’m gonna come!”

He licked it again. “Good. Come for me, mesh’la.”

You did, the orgasm crashing through you as you fought not to give a loud cry. You weren’t sure why - you had the Marauder to yourselves for the next few hours at least. No one was around to hear you make noise. Still, you bit it back and trembled on Wrecker’s fingers until you were too limp to do so anymore.

“Don’t do that next time,” Wrecker requested. “I want to hear you.”

“Deal,” you agreed lazily. “Ready for my next one.”

Wrecker smiled, leaning over you as you stared up at the way his body glove-clad chest took up your entire field of vision. When he pulled back far enough for you to see him completely again, he held up the large purple toy you had been using to stretch yourself.

“Are you brave enough to show me?” he asked.

“For you?” you asked rhetorically. “Anything. Hand it over.”

The toy was a comforting weight in your hand. You really had been using it quite a bit to prepare yourself for this. If all went well, it could be the very thing you had needed to finally take Wrecker’s cock.

You reached between Wrecker’s mattress and the wall of the ship, fishing out the small bottle of lube he kept there. The pair of you had used it often enough for you to know exactly where it was hidden, but he still looked surprised and a bit embarrassed by your actions. Little did he know that you had covertly watched him fuck his own fist long before the two of you had ever gotten together…

Deciding that bit of information was best kept to yourself, you drizzled a healthy helping of lube over the toy before depositing a bit on your hands to be pressed into your pussy. You were sopping wet from your recent orgasm, so it was a bit of overkill, but it was always better to be safe. You had no doubt that Wrecker would put a stop to everything if this hurt, even a bit.

You smoothed the lube over the silicone of the toy’s surface, sliding your fist over it slowly until it was coated and shining. Then you rested it gently on your lower belly, the tip pointing up toward your belly button while the base was aligned with your entrance. The precarious position meant that you had to center your breathing in your chest rather than your stomach, but you had to admit that the deep purple was striking against your skin tone.

From the way Wrecker’s breath caught in his throat, he agreed.

You kept the toy balanced there while you reached lower, massaging the lube into your pussy. More accurately, you mixed the bottled lube with the slick that your body had made, but Wrecker’s uneven breathing told you the effect it was having.

Your fingers were still working in gentle strokes and circles when Wrecker’s voice - even lower and rougher than usual - broke the almost-silence. “Put it in.”

With a slow lick of your lips, you did as he told you, lowering the toy with your lube-slicked hands. The point of it dragged through your folds, as if searching for the right place until it was pressed to your entrance.

It was not a realistic toy. There was no flared crown, no veins in the silicone shaft. Still, you slid it inside of yourself slowly. The tip pressed into you, your hands pushing it deeper and deeper as it widened into the full circumference of the toy itself. Your folds obligingly widened around it, letting the toy in with minor resistance until it was fully seated in your pussy.

Your head fell back almost without your permission, your world narrowed to the now-familiar stretch of the toy’s cool surface. You could feel your channel pulsing around the intrusion, but it was a good feeling.

When Wrecker spoke, his voice cracked. “Numb… number?”

“Mmm,” you moaned, unable to keep your hips from working against the toy embedded in your tightness. “Two.”

“So, almost uncomfortable?” he asked, his eyes meeting yours for the first time in a while. You realized with a pleased sort of surprise that his gaze had been locked between your legs, watching your pussy spread open around the girth of a bright purple toy.

“Not even close,” you assured him. “I can just feel it a bit more intensely than your fingers.”

You had never taken this toy after already having had an orgasm. The silicone had always felt nice, but now? It was nothing short of a revelation. It was like there had been a low-level ache in your pussy, one too subtle to notice, but this went a long way toward easing it. You were feeling more confident about taking Wrecker’s cock with every passing moment.

Those thoughts disappeared in a puff of vapor when you felt the toy jostle slightly inside of you. Your widened eyes shot to the space between your thighs, unsurprised to see Wrecker there. He was staring at your pussy with something like wonder on his face. One of his fingers was tracing against the base of the toy, alternately pressing it deeper and stirring it inside of you.

You planted your feet so you could lift your hips slightly, as if offering yourself to him. Wrecker’s gaze snapped to your face again, but you only smirked at him. “Mind lending me a hand while you’re down there?”

Wrecker’s eyes darkened so fast that you tightened around the toy buried in your folds. “What do you need me to do, gorgeous?”

“There’s a- a button on the base of the toy,” you explained breathlessly. “Press it for me?”

He did, and the toy began a low-level buzz that sent vibrations through every part of your body as you hummed with pleasure. “That’s perfect.”

Your hands dipped down to play with your clit, balancing the motions of your fingers against the squeeze of your inner muscles. Sometimes, you fucked yourself with the toy, but you didn’t want to risk it this time. It could be a little uncomfortable, and you knew Wrecker was searching for a reason to deny you access to him.

Besides, the lack of motion was nice, a slow and subtle build that allowed you to work with the toy inside of you, getting yourself used to the stretch again. If everything worked out, you would get an even better stretch later.

“Can I do it instead?” Wrecker asked hesitantly.

You pulled your hands away immediately. “Please? Just… hit the button again first.”

He did, and you tensed as the vibrations kicked up to a more insistent buzzing. The tightness released a moment later, your body unleashing another flood of lubrication as Wrecker began to rub gently at your clit, massaging the lips of your pussy at the same time.

He zeroed in on one of your more sensitive spots, delivering the mildest pinch you had ever received, but it made you jolt like you had been shot. Every muscle tightened - including the ones in your core, and the toy slid out of you slightly. You reached down automatically to push it back inside, but Wrecker’s hand was already there.

“Sorry, let me fix it.”

Wrecker planted the heel of his palm against the toy, pushing it firmly back inside of your pussy… just as the angle pressed the button again.

You stiffened as the toy began the vibration pattern you had the most love/hate relationship with. It was incredibly intense and never failed to make you come in record time, but you completely lost control of your vocal cords when you soared over the edge.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! …Buzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzz! Buzzzzzzzzzzzz! Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! …Buzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzz! Buzzzzzzzzzzzz!

You choked on your own cries, gasping in a deep breath before letting it out in a wail as you came with a violence you didn’t often experience. The orgasm was almost painful, ripping through you in a way that left you writhing so desperately that Wrecker couldn’t remove the toy until he pinned your hips in place. He tugged the still-vibrating silicone out of you, fighting against the way your inner muscles had locked in place around it.

After he switched it off, the silence was broken only by your gasping breaths as you tried to recover from the intense pleasure. If you could move, you would have thrown an arm across your face.

You were well and truly embarrassed now. You had bragged about being able to take the toy with ease, then you had promptly lost control of the situation. You had gotten fucked by a piece of purple silicone, and it had made you scream with helpless pleasure. Wrecker would probably assume you couldn’t take him and he might actually be right.

“So…” Wrecker started, sounding strange.

“I’m sorry, Wrecker,” you interrupted, still not looking at him. “It got away from me a little bit. I promise, none of that hurt and I don’t normally lose control that badly.”

“Mesh’la,” he said firmly, pinching your chin between his thumb and forefinger so that you would look at him. “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you serious?” you asked, studying him skeptically.

Wrecker gently unfolded your hand, pulling it down his abdomen until you could feel his rigid length jutting against your palm. Your fingers wrapped around him automatically - as much as they could, anyway - and he gave a tiny thrust.

“I’m serious,” he vowed solemnly. “I almost lost it when you came. Almost shot off in my glove. The only thing that stopped me is that I want to be inside of you when that happens.”

Your breath caught in your throat and you knew you looked hopeful. “Does that mean you’re ready?”

He hesitated. “I think I want you to come one last time. Give you some extra time to recover from that last one.”

“Fair enough,” you conceded. “Will you at least ditch the undersuit?”

“Sure,” Wrecker agreed immediately. He pulled back only far enough to avoid elbowing you in the face as he stripped the top of his body glove off, exposing the thick muscles of his torso. The lower half was next, and you saw first-hand how much he had enjoyed your show with the toy.

You traced gentle fingertips over his hardness. “Beautiful.”

He laughed at that, despite the concern on his face. “That’s my line.”

“We can be beautiful together, then,” you conceded.

Wrecker kissed you deeply, massaging your thighs. “I want you to come in my mouth.”

“But…” you trailed off with a frown. “You’re finally naked, though.”

“Last one,” he promised. “I just need to make sure you’re ready for me. Is that okay, mesh’la?”

You gave an exaggeratedly put-upon sigh. “I guess if you’re determined, I can stand to wait a little while longer.”

Wrecker’s kiss was deep and slow, his tongue sliding against yours before he pulled back. “I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

And then he slid down your body, brushing kisses against your skin all the while. He paused to suck at the underside of a breast, then to lick a patch of skin on your hip before blowing cool air over it, but he made it down to the cradle of your hips.

His hands pressed against your thighs, spreading them wide with a gentle slide of calluses against tender muscles. You found yourself stretched open with your knees on either side of Wrecker’s broad shoulders, leaving you utterly helpless as he lowered his head and began to explore you.

You had never been with someone as talented as Wrecker when it came to performing oral. Some of your past lovers had treated it like a race to the finish line, thrusting their tongues into you as far as they could while they pinched your clit, then acted inconvenienced when you didn’t immediately come.

Wrecker always seemed to take his time with you. He laved your sex with savoring strokes, dipping and curling his tongue as if he was eating a delicious favorite treat. The sensations were too strong for you to take without moving. As always, he had to hold your hips down after having barely started.

Unlike his typical routine, however, Wrecker carefully eased a finger into your pussy as he licked. It slid in easily, and he added another almost immediately.

After having come so hard around the toy, you took both fingers with ease. You felt a third finger poised to enter you as well, the tip lightly braced against your lips.

"Number?" he pulled away to ask, lips covered in your shine.

"One," you told him immediately. "I can take three fingers, I know it."

"Are you sure?" He looked dubious. "It'll be a stretch and you've already done so much…"

"And I'm gonna do more before we're done here," you insisted. “Please, Wrecker.”

And he listened, pressing into you as you rode the wave of sensation. The extra finger, tucked in tight with the others, wasn’t immediately noticeable. But by the time he had all three buried in your heat, you were writhing on the bed, inner muscles clenching around the intrusion.

“Number,” Wrecker grunted out, his free hand squeezing your thigh.

“Two,” you panted. “Keep going.”

He did, bowing his head to search out your clit while his fingers began thrusting slowly into you. It felt like you came only seconds later, though time was incomprehensible just then. It was sudden and smooth, like you had already been riding high on your own pleasure, so the peak was just a slight lift into nirvana instead of a violent propulsion there.

Wrecker slid his fingers free, giving one last swipe of his tongue over you. “Are you okay, mesh’la? We don’t have to keep going.”

It took longer than you would have expected for you to form words. That last orgasm had left you feeling boneless and satisfied, but there was nothing in the universe that would stop you there. “That was three. Now get over here.”

You reached over and grabbed the small bottle of lube, using it to coat Wrecker’s cock with a shiny layer before you wrapped your hand around it. You pumped over it once, twice, three times, then he loosed a rough noise, giving a powerful thrust into your grip.

He pulled your hands away, then. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

“Wrecker, you’re ready, I saw it,” you told him.

“That’s the problem,” he replied, looking ashamed. “I’m worried I won’t be able to control myself. That I’ll end up hurting you.”

Your immediate impulse was to reassure him that he couldn’t, that it would never happen. But you fought that reply down. Wrecker was worried, and you owed it to him to take his concerns seriously.

Wrecker was incredibly, impossibly strong. Sex was a time of lowered inhibitions and he could lose control. There was a chance he could hurt you. It would be wildly out of character for him based on everything you had seen over the course of your relationship, but it was technically possible.

“Lie down here,” you told him, moving so he could stretch out in the mass of pillows he had accumulated for you.

He obeyed without protest, settling into the fluffy nest on his bunk. Then he watched with wide eyes as you threw one leg across his torso. You didn’t sit directly on his waist. You had pushed for this, but you wouldn’t do anything to make him feel like he was being forced.

Instead, you settled lightly on his stomach, leaning forward to cup his jaw and lose yourself in a kiss with him. You could taste yourself in his mouth, and it seized you with a powerful feeling of longing. He had licked you, suckled at you, taken your essence down his throat. You were in him, it was only fair that he was in you as well.

“Do you trust me to stop if it’s too much?” you asked, smoothing your hand over his broad chest. “Because I trust you to stop if I ask you to.”

“I trust you,” Wrecker agreed, sincerity written all across his face. “I always trust you.”

“Thank you,” you said, smiling down at him. You slid back slightly, reaching between your bodies to hold his cock in position against your dripping entrance.

Your thighs trembled as you began to lower yourself onto him. The activities of the evening had left you stretched further than you had ever been, but you still had to battle the way your body was trying to raise yourself back off of him.

Unsurprisingly, Wrecker was the biggest man you had ever been with. His cock eased into you, hard and unyielding and unimaginably huge, but there was no pain. There was discomfort, of course. There was no way to avoid that, but it was easily bearable. You would consider it a four on your number scale - nowhere near needing to stop.

And then, gravity stopped helping you as much as it had been. You lifted up on your thighs again, sitting down harder this time as he sank further in you. Wrecker gave a hoarse groan, hips thrusting up toward you.

The motion was sudden and deep. He hit the end of you and you gasped. “Five!”

Despite his earlier worries, Wrecker reacted immediately. He wrapped hands around your waist and started lifting you, but you locked your legs as far around his waist as you could manage.

“Don’t you dare!” you hissed. “I just got here! I need a minute to adjust, but I’ll be fine.”

“I hurt you,” Wrecker said, looking upset.

“For half a second between massive amounts of pleasure,” you countered, giving him an experimental squeeze with your inner muscles. “I’ll be fine.”

Wrecker’s hands started roaming over your body, lingering at your breasts and between your legs. He stroked and pinched and tweaked and rubbed until you were relaxed around him once more.

You lifted up on him, bringing your hips up and forward before thrusting back to impale yourself on him again. You and Wrecker made shocked noises at the same time as you found your rhythm, fucking him into you as you both reveled in the way your muscles rippled around him as he drove into your folds.

The stretching sensation never quite disappeared, but with so much pleasure alongside it, it just became a different sort of feeling. Before you knew how you had gotten there, you were pushing yourself full-force onto his cock as he drove his hips up into you at the same time. It was deep and intense and mind-shattering, leaving you both panting in the sharpness of it all.

“I’m close, gorgeous,” Wrecker warned you breathlessly.

“Come for me, Wrecker,” you encouraged. “Inside me.”

Your command seemed to motivate him. Wrecker planted his feet on the bunk, fucking up into you until you were bouncing on his cock, jaw dropped with the shock of everything running through you. It should have been painful to have him so deep inside of you - and it probably would have been, if he hadn’t started to come.

As such a large man, Wrecker came a lot. Even if he was down your throat, you struggled to swallow down the entirety of the cum he released. And if you were jerking him off? Forget it. Cum would be everywhere, jetting up to paint your torso and arms with his seed. It was incredibly attractive to you for some perverse reason. It was Wrecker, a sign of his overwhelming passion.

Wrecker drove himself into you, shuddering as he found his release. You could feel cum dripping lewdly from you, coating him with his own release.

To your surprise, you had one more orgasm in you. Watching Wrecker come beneath you brought it rolling over you in slow, toe-curling waves. You tightened and loosed in languid ripples that left you throwing your head back with the all-encompassing pleasure of it all.

When you had both fallen down from your respective highs, you were collapsed forward on Wrecker’s chest, his softening cock still buried inside of you. Both of you were fighting to catch your breath, but you still sacrificed panting for sake of sharing a kiss.

Wrecker pulled away first, frowning. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not at all,” you reassured him. “It was perfect. Any time you want to try this again, I’m good with it.”

“You’re amazing, mesh’la,” Wrecker told you, sounding awed.

“You are, too, Wrecker,” you reminded with a smile. “But you’re going to have to pull me off of you before we get stuck like this. I can’t feel my knees at the moment.”

Wrecker laughed and kissed you as he lifted you off of his length, swallowing the little moan you gave when he slid from you in a rush of slick and cum. He settled you beside him, throwing a leg across your thighs and pulling you into the warmth of his body.

You would have to go to the ‘fresher to take care of things soon, but you let yourself have some time to soak in the pleasure of being with Wrecker.

---

A/N - Wrecker is amazing, but if he's proportional, penetrative sex could be a bit of a struggle. This is far from realistic, but I wanted to explore a version of things in which Wrecker and his lover have to do some prep work to make sure things are pleasurable for both parties.

Thanks for reading! You can find other works (including Star Wars and Bad Batch) on my masterlist!

[archived-kin]

simeon with a himbo boyfriend

note from kin: once again i am writing for the boys because this fandom doesn’t have nearly enough content for them, especially for Big and Beefy Men. let them be in dating sim fandoms too!!!!!! give them more content!!!!!

anyway i’ve made you an angel since i don’t want to have to think about the deeper repercussions of what simeon dating a human would be (i mean we all know what happened to lilith when she tried it)

fandom: obey me!

character(s): male!reader, simeon, luke, belphegor, beelzebub, asmodeus, satan, leviathan, mammon, lucifer, barbatos, diavolo, solomon

pairing(s): simeon/reader but it accidentally becomes everyone/simeon’s boyfriend at some point whoops (this ended up as a pretty big block of text as a result so please let me know if you have difficulty reading it so that i can try to format it better!)

warning(s): nope!

genre: fluff!!!! fluff everywhere!!!!!!!!!

simeon thinks you’re the cutest goddamn thing in all three realms

you may be six foot four inches of muscle but to him that is six foot four inches of ADORABLE

you’re very strong so he likes to just run and jump up at you from behind and wrap his arms around your neck because he knows you won’t be fazed by it (physically anyways, emotionally is another story)

the other angels always gasp when he does this in public because it’s so far from his usual ‘poised and elegant’ thing but how is simeon NOT supposed to climb all over you like a koala when you’re so big and huggable???

simeon just really loves jumping at you like that okay

because every time he does you’ll just pause for a second and look very confused as to why your back has suddenly gotten heavier, and then you’ll turn your head, and your smile and excited little ‘simeon!!’ is to DIE for

he has to be incredibly upfront with you about what he wants because otherwise you will not understand

he has to say, word for word, “i want to sleep in the same bed as you every day” before you actually realise that that’s what he meant

the whole exchange kind of went like this:

simeon, being sappy at like seven in the morning: “i want to wake up like this all the time from now on”

you: “??? do you want me to come lie down next to you before you wake up tomorrow morning?”

simeon: “no, for the whole night”

you: “you want to wake up like this for the whole night??”

simeon: [sighs]

he also often has to be the one taking charge when it comes to physical affection  

like you’re always willing to give him hugs and carry him around and let him sleep sprawled out on your chest like a starfish and give him kisses but half the time simeon has to ask you because for some reason you just won’t do it on your own???

at one point simeon starts getting a little insecure that you don’t actually really like physical affection and are just going along with it for him

because he’s a sensible angel, he brings this up with you before jumping to conclusions

he was not prepared for you to reply that you always wait for him to confirm that he wants affection because you’re afraid that you’ll accidentally hurt him with your strength if you go for it by yourself

simeon doesn’t cry a lot but dear god did he come close that day

after that it’s just hand holding and hugs and forehead kisses galore from you and simeon couldn’t be happier

now, it’s time for a bit of backstory

you were created purely to fight during the big celestial war, which is why you are so Beefy and Stupid

the beefy is because they needed you to be both strong and intimidating, while the stupid is because they didn’t create you with anything but fist fighting in mind

during the war you were a force to be reckoned with because you could just run at and headbutt a demon and they’d immediately be flung straight out of the skies and back into the devildom

and, even better, this meant that you didn’t have to kill anyone! you could just punt them so hard that they’d be flung out of the realm where the battle’s taking place entirely

once the war was over though they didn’t really know what to do with you

you were basically just this giant baby who didn’t know how to do anything but war

so they just dumped you in a garden and told you to take care of the flowers

which was how simeon originally met you! he was taking a walk around the gardens and saw you crying over a tree that you accidentally snapped in half with your big clumsy hands

now, simeon wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight, but HOLY FUCK

if he hadn’t already been an angel in the celestial realm he’d have thought you were some divine being from the heavens

anyway long story short simeon consoled you and started helping you take care of the garden, taught you how to live a life in times of peace, spent entire nights just lying awake and thinking about your smile and your laugh and how warm your hands look to hold and how it would feel to hug you, and finally managed to confess to you without you misconstruing it as just a Friendly Act of Kindness, and now you two are the proud holders of the title Cutest Couple in The Universe

granted only asmo calls you two that but you’ll take it

speaking of asmo allow me to segue this to the rad exchange programme era

you get so sad when simeon tells you he’ll have to leave for a year

your face falls when he breaks the news and your voice is all lost and quiet when you ask, ‘does that mean i can’t see you?’

simeon is absolutely devastated

it’s like a thousand puppies and kittens are being murdered right in front of him

he nearly cries (when i say nearly i mean he does)

but he can’t back out of the exchange program now, and one year isn’t THAT much for beings that live for possibly forever, so in the end, giving you a giant hug and about a million kisses to make up for the ones you’ll miss over the coming year, simeon leaves for the devildom

he makes it about a month and a half without you before he starts getting all mopey

and you’re not doing much better up in the celestial realm

michael actually has to message simeon and ask him how to deal with you because you spend every day dejectedly shuffling around the gardens that you take care of and it’s making everyone sad just looking at you

simeon reads that message and immediately decides that either he’s going back to the celestial realm or you’re coming down to the devildom

the authorities are a little cautious about it because you’re one of the purest angels they have and they really don’t want you getting corrupted by demons

but simeon assures them that the few demons that you’ll actually be having contact with wouldn’t do that, and you’ll be under both his and lord diavolo’s protection

so you end up being allowed to join simeon in the devildom for his exchange year!!!

honestly with the way the two of you react when you see each other again you’d think you hadn’t seen each other in years

simeon runs up to you and jumps straight into your arms and you spin him around in a big hug and ahhhhhhhh it’s like a teen romance movie but with an actually compelling relationship

and so you move into his bedroom (because of course you’re still going to share one down here) and take up a temporary position as a gardener to take up time since you can’t really do school

pros: simeon now gets to see you every day again and you look very cute bustling around the devildom’s fancy gardens with a watering can and wheelbarrow. also he gets to watch you lift an entire shed and it’s the best thing he’s ever seen

cons: the others are all basically in love with you now as well

simeon’s torn between ‘why wouldn’t they be, he’s literally the most perfect being ever’ and ‘what the fuck, that’s MY boyfriend’

belphie likes you because you are similar to beel and you’re also warm and big and strong so he can take naps on you and you won’t be bothered in the slightest

one day simeon sees belphie just jump onto your back and start sleeping there while you’re crouched in the garden doing some weeding and he’s so stunned by the sheer audacity that he forgets to be mad about it

honestly you don’t really notice that belphie is sleeping on you until you go to get up and feel something move on your back

and then, being the dumb precious idiot you are, you just lie face first there on the lawn so that he can carry on sleeping without being disturbed

consequence: simeon nearly cries at your sweetness but is also incredibly jealous and belphie is now having Feelings that he didn’t sign up for

beel meanwhile isn’t sure how to feel about you at first because he kind of feels like you’re stealing his twin all the time, but then you make him your special candied fruits (from produce that you grew yourself) and he loves you from that point forward

also PLEASE share your workout routine with him he wants to know your secret

it turns out that you don’t really have a workout routine?? you were just made like that

though the constant exercise and heavy lifting and stuff you do as part of your daily garden-care routine (you take care of basically all of the gardens back in the celestial realm) helps as well

he’s a bit disappointed but he does like that you can pick him up without any effort

one time he asked if you were capable of it and without missing a beat you went ‘let’s find out!’ and straight up swept him off his feet

beel was fucking screaming on the inside but no can’t feel feelings that’s simeon’s boyfriend

meanwhile asmo… okay we all know the way asmo is

boy took one look at you and immediately started drooling (figuratively anyway. physically his jaw just dropped)

kudos to him though, he backs off with the flirting as soon as simeon informs everyone that you’re his partner

asmo may be the avatar of lust but he is no home wrecker (he still finds an excuse to hug you every time he sees you though because awooga, muscles)

(he does know his boundaries so simeon doesn’t mind too much)

asmo also very likes the fact that you have such a green thumb because it means you can grow the prettiest flowers and you’re always willing to trim him a few to use as accessories

at some point simeon accidentally eavesdrops in on a conversation between the two of you where you’re just gushing about what kind of flowers he likes and how you’re going to plant them everywhere in the devildom because you like it when he smiles when he sees them

CRITICAL HIT!!!!!

simeon is pretty sure he combusts on the spot, while asmo is just squealing

thus was the origin of the title ‘Cutest Couple in the Universe’

satan on the other hand is mostly disinterested in you at first

the two of you live in pretty different worlds even if you live within the a five minutes’ walk of each other. he prefers to stay locked up in his room or the library and just curl up with a good book or ten for hours on end, while you’re always outside, digging flower beds and pruning bushes and cleaning fences and walls and basically doing every other little bit of manual labour that none of the brothers could be bothered to do before

he does note that you’re pretty good at what you do but that’s about it

until one day

you’re just pottering about in the garden outside the house of lamentation doing your angelic gardener thing when the stray cat that satan’s secretly been feeding for the past month or so comes by for its usual afternoon meal

satan has the window overlooking the garden so he quickly spots its ginger fur as well as you staring directly at it, and he immediately panics because what if you scare it away with your intimidating stature???

(yes, part of the reason satan doesn’t acknowledge you before this is because he was kind of scared of you and your muscles that he heard could punt beings out of entire realms back in your hey-day)

so he quickly dumps his book (though not without carefully bookmarking his place first) and rushes down to the garden in hopes of salvaging the situation, only to find you lying face first on the grass once again, though this time it’s not his little brother on your back

it’s the cat, who is purring like a little motor and aggressively kneading its paws against your back

satan can’t even see your face in this moment but he still basically gets cupid-shot in the heart because this is the cutest thing he’s ever seen

he has to force himself to calm down for a bit before he approaches lest he get overexcited and accidentally incur simeon’s wrath in the process

anyway after that satan makes a beeline for you every time he sees you and learns that you are an Absolute Idiot, but it just makes him like you even more

if satan was intimidated by you at first though, levi is downright terrified

you look like you could snap him in half with a single punch

he doesn’t try to talk to you at all for the first few weeks because how could he possibly find common ground to talk to you about?? you probably hunt dragons and eat rocks or something in your spare time

it isn’t until satan brings you up one day and mentions that you are incredibly dumb of the ass and probably couldn’t hurt a fly even if you tried that levi even entertains the idea of befriending you

he’s still not making the first move though

but it turns out that he doesn’t have to! one day you just show up at his bedroom door holding a giant crate of his latest akuzon haul

turns it got dropped off at the local post office after traffic problems and you volunteered to go pick it up and bring it back

anyway levi thanks you and starts unpacking his stuff, expecting you to leave in silence, but then he looks over and sees you just standing in front of his tv and staring at it

he’d been playing some battle platformer to pass the time before you showed up, and while levi himself doesn’t consider it particularly remarkable, you’re absolutely fascinated

being a gardener in the celestial realm you’ve never really had experience with this kind of thing, and you’re even more tech-illiterate than simeon, so what you’re seeing is basically like magic to you

so levi takes it upon himself to teach you as much about the art of gaming as he can in the short span of the next four hours before simeon gets home from a meeting of some kind and you inevitably immediately run off to greet him

you learn the basics relatively quickly but you’re still pretty awful at it

levi loses count of the amount of times you’ve accidentally run right off the end of the platform and fallen to your death once it reaches thirty two

it’s pretty much the most he’s laughed in, like, forever

congratulations! you have gained a new member in your party! levi will now follow you to the ends of the earth because you are the first person he feels like he can just be totally at ease around without being judged at all and just have fun with

(once, after you leave another gaming session to go cuddle with your boyfriend in the garden, levi catches himself thinking that ‘it isn’t fair that simeon gets to date him’ and has to do some serious self assessment)

mammon meanwhile has none of the reverence for you that his brother does

the amount of times he’s tried to rope you into his money-making schemes (which never work because he fails to realise that you are incapable of doing anything malicious in the slightest) is honestly just embarrassing at this point

simeon has to step in more than a couple of times because honestly mammon could ask you for your wallet and you’d probably just give it to him without another thought

that being said your wallet wouldn’t be much use because you never have any money

you just don’t understand the concept of exchanging money for goods and/or services so you never see any need for it

that being said, simeon does give you some money every time you go out into town on your own because something will inevitably catch your eye and you’ll suddenly realise that you just cannot live without it

the thing is simeon spoils you ridiculously so he always gives you way more money than would be considered a reasonable allowance

which means all mammon has to do is tag along and ask you nicely and you’ll probably buy him anything he wants

he does this a couple of times but then stops because he actually starts feeling bad about it

something just doesn’t sit right with him when he’s walking around with a bunch of shiny new things you’ve bought him with money that was meant to be spent on you while the only thing you’ve bought of your own volition is a pack of chocolate lollipops shaped like rabbits to share with simeon and luke

he may be the demonic avatar of greed but even he has a line that he won’t cross

he makes up for it by buying you things instead

nothing too expensive (he’s still mammon after all), just little things like sweets or bulbs for flowers you haven’t tried planting yet or food colouring for you to use for your candied fruits

speaking of those candied fruits, guess who loves and would probably kill a man for them?

lucifer

man may not seem like it but he has a hell of a sweet tooth

there was a bit of tension between the two of you when you first met (well there was tension from lucifer anyway) because he’d never met you like he had simeon and luke and had no idea what you were like

plus he’d heard about how you’re everyone’s favourite now back in the celestial realm and the little piece of him that still misses his life as an angel is a little petty about it

but then he interacts with you more and he realises that that favouritism is absolutely deserved

he will not admit it but he has wondered what being carried by you would feel like on multiple occasions

figures out how to read you really well which isn’t much of an achievement when you wear every single feeling you have on your sleeve but it still brings him a bit of satisfaction when he notices something that simeon doesn’t

he may be a pridey mcprideface but he is willing to give up a bit of that pride by pretending he can’t carry something heavy so that he can watch you do it

simeon acts like he doesn’t notice this but he absolutely does and he doesn’t know if he should tease lucifer about it or whack him over the head with a newspaper for it

all that aside though, much like simeon,  lucifer also thinks you’re just the cutest

he comes across you building a pillow fortress in the middle of the house of lamentation’s living room one day and is understandably like “what are you doing in my house and what are you doing with those pillows”

you explain very seriously that satan asked you for help in an apparently pre-arranged pillow fight with mammon and that every warrior needs a well-protected base of operations and offer to show him all the optimised battle features somehow recreated from nothing but cushions and blankets and chairs 

lucifer’s heart goes d o k i  d o k i

he also has experience with Big and Dumb men from dealing with both beel and diavolo (when the three of you are together it’s just himbo3) so the stupid doesn’t bother him much

speaking of diavolo (wow i am nailing all of these transitions from character to character look at me go)

this man is basically just a grown up golden retriever boy and you are a big gentle st. bernard so the two of you get along like a house on fire

you’ve seen how much this man gushes about lucifer. now imagine that times a thousand

that is how he talks about you

honestly sometimes you’d think HE’S the one dating you

simeon would probably get defensive if he didn’t get so much whiplash from their conversations about you

diavolo: “i must say, i never would have pinned [name] as being your type”

simeon, ready to Fucking Brawl: “excuse me?”

diavolo: “though i don’t blame you, have you seen his page in that book about the celestial war? the illustration does his true beauty no justice, of course, but it’s enchanting in and of itself. to be honest i’d have loved to have seen him in action during the war, i imagine it would have been quite breath-taking to see”

simeon: “…what”

barbatos is usually just there in the background during half of these exchanges and he has to seriously stiffen up his poker face to resist just bursting into laughter

the other half of the time the conversation is just simeon and diavolo going back and forth gushing about you

barbatos honestly dislikes you a bit at first

not for any personal faults of your own! it’s just that all your garden work + your very forgetful mind means that you’re often tracking dirt everywhere

it doesn’t help that diavolo keeps inviting you over to the castle for tea and a chat and half the time you leave these big footprints on the floor and he wants to cry because he just spent four hours mopping that

he mentions it to diavolo in passing at one point, who then passes the message on to simeon

barbatos kind of gets concerned for himself because he knows simeon does not take well to you being insulted (one time a demon at the r.a.d. called you an ‘unintelligent buffoon’ and he was ready to start a fist fight right then and there)

not that it was an insult, but you never know how love can blind you to reason

but simeon just assures him not to worry and tells you to remember to clean your shoes as well as changing clothes after doing some gardening

normally you’d forget being told these things within a few hours but simeon offers to give you a kiss every time you remember to do this so now you remember every single time you’re about to enter a building after doing some gardening

after that barbatos holds no ill will to you at all

he teaches you how to bake and is honestly so endeared by how clumsy you get in the kitchen

you knock an entire container of salt into the cake mix by accident because your hands are too big and you moved too fast and barbatos is just like 🥺

he low-key babies you even though he’s like an entire two heads shorter than you

you don’t mind though because getting babied by barbatos means you get given all sorts of cakes and sweets all the time

simeon isn’t sure how to feel about it but it doesn’t seem to be the patronising kind of babying (it’s more of an affectionate doting) so he lets it happen

what he doesn’t let happen is solomon’s relentless attempts to feed you his food

you are both too dumb and too nice to realise just how bad his cooking is, but simeon knows you have a sensitive stomach and are actually a pretty fussy eater - you just tend to stay quiet when something isn’t to your liking because you don’t want to complain

having had a sample of solomon’s food himself in the past, he knows that you’ll probably get sick eating it, and he doesn’t want you to be uncomfy so he refuses to let you try even a bite

it’s like he has a radar in his head that goes off every time solomon approaches you will a bowl of ‘noodle soup’ that looks more like something he’s fished out of a nuclear waste tank

solomon, when he’s not trying to indirectly poison you, is probably the guy you spend the most time with apart from simeon and luke

he’ll just hang around nearby with a spell book while you do your gardening and show you some neat little magic tricks every now and then

he tries to help with the gardening but he’s not exactly physically strong and he nearly breaks his back trying to lift a giant bag of compost

so he decides it’s probably better for him to just watch from afar

kind of wants to conduct an experiment to see just how much weight you can lift before you start getting tired

one time he sees you cut down a whole tree with one hard swat of your hand and just walk off carrying it over your shoulder and he has to take several deep breaths

luke knew you already, so not much changes while you’re in the devildom

he really wants to learn to make candied fruits the same way you do but he can never get the hang of boiling the sugar mixture to the right heat and consistency (plus he’s kind of scared of how hot it gets)

you like to just carry him around on your shoulders and while luke would normally bristle at being treated like a child, you act like this with nearly everyone

(once he sees you running around the garden with diavolo of all people perched on your shoulders, arms raised in the air like he’s on a rollercoaster ride, and he nearly passes out on the spot)

he seriously adores you and acts like a guard dog whenever he feels like any of the others are trying to take advantage of your dim-witted naïveté because NO demons are allowed to harm his big brother like that

he will also chase them off with a stick if he has to if they get too close because no being is allowed to even remotely try to disrupt your relationship with simeon 

simeon himself is no fool, and he’s well aware of the effect you have on pretty much everyone you come across, but he trusts them because they’re his friends

besides (and he isn’t being cocky or anything), it’s not like the relationship you have with them even holds a candle to what you have with him

they’ve all known you for less than a year, he’s loved you for nearly two millennia

they might be allowed take naps on your back while you work or be carried about on your shoulders, but do they get to spend every night snuggled up in your arms, feeling your chest rise and fall with every breath you take? no, he doesn’t think so

in conclusion: one day himbos like you will probably take over the world with their big muscles and unwavering loyalty and clueless grins that could make anyone’s heart skip a beat, and simeon’s pretty sure he’d be okay with it

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Sorry but what exactly is up with the bad batch arc? I've heard people talk about the issues with echo's white skin but I haven't heard that many bad things about the arc itself? (ik you said you don't want to be negative on your blog so I would absolutely understand if you didn't answer this ask)

Oooooooooooh boy. Well I just had a long, long, LONG rant about it with someone, but I guess I’ve got an excuse to put all of my points onto a post and talk about it publicly now that I got an ask x) I’ll keep it under the cut so I don’t throw my salt in people’s face. I really don’t want to upset people who love that arc - it has redeeming qualities, but overall it pisses me off so much for so many reasons. So here:

The first issue is obviously two members of the Bad Batch (minus Echo) being being just about the furthest thing from maori no matter how much you're willing to stretch it. 

Like... yeah, nah. I wouldn’t even accept Crosshair and Tech (grey haired guy and goggles guy) as Jango’s natural biological sons, nevermind as his clones. 

The problem is that their different appearances are justified by them being described simply as clones with desirable mutations (i.e superpowers). But why the hell did the creators have to change their appearances for that to be a thing? How does that correlate? Sure, the concept of clones with different faces is interesting, except... no, no it’s not, and I’m gonna rant about it in a few secs. But basically it's like they thought giving them different faces would be a good substitute for having different personalities (another thing I’ll come back to). If they really wanted to have buff clones with super eyesight or whatnot they could have just done that, without making them lose what little melanin the lighting of the show had allowed the other Clones to keep. 

But the gigantic problem is... showing that the "regular" clones have VERY distinct identities despite their identical faces has been one of the themes of the show from episode 1. Literally, the first episode of TCW has Yoda taking time out of a mission with galactic stakes to tell the three clones he’s with (who tell him they’re all the same because they have the same faces) that they’re wrong, and that they’re very different in the Force, that their appearance doesn’t matter, that they’re all equally unique and important, and he lists all of their individual skills, strengths and weaknesses. 

And it’s not just me being bothered by that, here’s a post by @cacodaemonia​ saying the same thing. 

Introducing the Bad Batch as "unique" clones who are "different" and "not like their brothers" because they have different faces and skills completely breaks that theme of the show!! Because the entire point of the Clones in TCW is that their faces don't matter, they ARE unique! 

(Plus the Bad Batch’s character designs are so cliche and uninspired it’s just laughable to try and justify bleaching their freaking skin for the sake of visual diversity. 

This took like 10 seconds. I found the first guy by literally googling “soldier movies,” and the other two are Team Fortress characters that look a LOT like Wrecker and Crosshair. One is “Heavy” and one is “Sniper” lmao.

And behold:

The above picture is a Team Fortress reference that I found just by looking up “bad batch clone wars,” so I’m not the only person who sees it.) 

And the batchers don't even have personalities to justify calling them unique! They have no character traits beyond the most cliché american soldier tropes ever. We have a token loner sniper, a token "smart tech guy" who knows everything from xenoanthropology to biology to Separatist computers to sound waves to encryption, a token Badass Brooding Leader and a token “dumb muscle guy.”

I dare anyone to find more about their personalities than this: - Crosshair is the perpetually grumpy sniper who looks down on "regs,” - Wrecker likes to blow up stuff and doesn't like heights, - Hunter is the leader and is friends with Cody, - Tech is smart doesn't trust Echo. 

That’s it, that’s literally it. Four episodes about them and that's all we get. These character tropes are literally the least inventive ever. FFS, Hunter even has a freaking KNIFE! Not a vibroblade, mind you, like in kriffing Star Wars. A knife. Against metal droids. Why. They couldn’t make this more of an american-war-movies cliché fest if they tried. (And sure, he can feel electromagnetic waves so maybe it does make sense for him not to carry a vibroblade and maybe this is nitpicking, but he looks like a ripoff of a Predator character and it pisses me off).

Another thing is that when you introduce characters you have to make them likable - and them despising the normal Clones is a terrible way to do that! And they don't even grow from that because at the end of the 4 episodes arc they just see Rex as not bad "for a reg" and they see Echo as no longer a reg, and both of these things are infuriating! 

The worst thing imo is that Echo then becomes part of them (and irreparably loses his melanin in the process, uuuuuuuuugh) when there is nothing to justify this. 

The dialogue goes like this: 

ECHO: You coming? TECH: Not really our thing. CROSSHAIR: Accolades. WRECKER: Yeah, we're just in it for the thrill. Yo! HUNTER: You sure it's your thing? ECHO: What do you mean? HUNTER: Your path is different. Like ours. If you ever feel like you don't fit in with them, well, find us. (they leave) REX: Those are some of the finest troopers I've ever fought alongside. Echo. You and I go way back. If that's where you feel your place is, then that's where you belong.

Echo doesn't feel like he belongs anymore, okay, but why would he feel like he belongs with the assholes who up to the last five minutes of the mission thought he was probably a traitor, and also verbally expressed that he was not worth saving?? In all of the arc, Echo himself never voices that he feels he’s not ‘like the other Clones’ anymore and that he feels it’s a problem. His relationship with Rex immediately picks up where they left things off - the first thing he does upon being lucid again for the first in over a year is cracking a joke for Rex’s benefit. 

Why would Echo feel like he doesn’t belong in the 501st anymore, when we don't even see him interacting with anyone from his past life except for Rex and Anakin (who are both extremely very supportive of him)?? If there had been one scene of a “regular” Clone (ugh) looking at him with horror and disgust or something, or just Kix and Jesse cracking jokes with Echo awkwardly standing by the side not getting it, I could forgive the show trying to make it feel like he has an identity crisis, but this was so shallow!

The only thing that makes Echo and the Bad Batch’s experiences similar is that they *look* different. It’s so against the themes of the Clones I’m seething just from thinking about it. And what the hell? Echo ALREADY didn’t fit in. That was the WHOLE POINT of Domino Squad. They didn’t fit in because they thought they were better than anyone else because they had trouble getting along with their brothers, so obviously it had to be their brothers’ fault (ahem, Bad Batch?). And you know what happened? Domino Squad OVERCAME that. And Echo and Fives still didn’t “fit in” because their personalities were unique and creative, and they became ARC Troopers because Cody, Rex and the Jedi VALUED THEM FOR PRECISELY THAT. Echo having new and unique skills and a modified appearance is the most bs justification for him feeling like he doesn’t belong!! 

And that brings me to my biggest issue: Rex telling Echo the bad batch are some of the best troopers he's ever met. I'm sorry, based on WHAT? What Rex values above everything is loyalty and brotherhood, and the Bad Batch DOESN'T DISPLAY ANY OF THAT. We never see them even expressing concern for each other! Wrecker treats saving Cody’s life like a trivial issue, because it’s just ‘sO eAsY’ for him, and beyond that we never see them supporting each other or genuinely expressing affection for each other beyond boasting about each other’s skills... 

Sure they can destroy a lot of droids, but they're dismissive of Rex's brothers, and the entire Umbara arc and this arc showed what he thought of that. They keep saying things like "not bad for a reg,” don't show any trust in Rex's skills or experience (even though they can't have been fighting in the war for more than a year and a half when he’s been there from the beginning, and he outranks all of them), they are essentially guerilla fighters which has only minimal value in a galactic war, and they never grow beyond their views of what regs are, and can and can’t do. 

None of that should make them good troopers in Rex's book. Going back to Echo not fitting in, remember who taught the Domino Squad the importance of seeing all of your brothers as important and equally valuable? Shaak Ti, true, but more importantly? 99! The guy the Bad Batch are named after. He did have value and was important and was no less of a trooper than his brothers, even though his mutations made him LESS powerful, not more. (And btw, just from a writing standpoint, the batchers don’t have any weaknesses, which is shit.) Cody and Rex mourned 99 as a true soldier even though it wasn’t his sacrifice that brought them victory (which would have implied that he had value as a soldier and a brother because he saved them, as opposed to him having that value intrinsically), because that’s what a fine trooper is to them. A BROTHER first a foremost, someone altruistic, brave and loyal. The Bad Batch distort the meaning of 99's character with their behavior. They’re not altruistic, their bravery is mitigated by the fact that they’re freaking invincible, so of course they take risks (again, see Wrecker saving Cody without a care because it’s easy to him, as opposed to Rex being ready to run into a burning ship about to explode because his brother is in there, and having to be physically dragged away). The Bad Batch denigrate their brothers for being less skilled, thinking their own abilities make them unique somehow, when 99 could barely fight and was still the one who taught Hevy about being a good soldier. 

And again the batchers don't grow from that. Which is all the more frustrating because the original ending didn’t have Echo joining them, from what I remember of the unfinished episodes, and the arc actually ended with them receiving their medals in front of regular troopers who cheer for them, as opposed to them smugly ostracizing themselves and dismissing the ceremony as trivial and meaningless. (original ending vs s7 ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab1eCfzKamw) 

It’s so annoying. Do you know what characters never had an entire arc dedicated to them and still have far more personality and more interesting designs and more symbolic weight?? 

Jesse, for starters. Kix. Dogma. Cut. Slick. Keeli. Ponds. Rys, Jek and Thire. Commander Doom. Commander Fox. Wolffe. Hevy. Hardcase. 

Cody was a more interesting character just in his RotS appearances. 

Waxer and Boil had one episode about them and then only two cameos plus Waxer’s death, and they’re still some of the most memorable, beloved Clones of the whole show. And Boil was grouchy and prejudiced like Crosshair, but he has so much growth that we could make a whole thread about it. 

I'd say the last problem with the Bad Batch is that it has cash grabbing money hungry vibes. Different faces are more marketable, cliché personalities are more toy-friendly, and it's basically a big ad for the Bad Batch series. And they throw Echo in the Batch at the end for bs reasons (again, it wasn’t in the original ep from what I remember) and they tease Cody in the show to make sure fans will still watch even if they notice the lack of soul. And less melanin sells more at Disney apparently. 

So that’s my whole pissed rant. 

[noddytheornithopod]

So yeah, seen the premiere and had a bit of time to think things over and see what others are saying. My feelings... I’m not sure how I’d summarise them. I guess I’d say something like enjoying it but in a very distant and sceptical way? I’ll write more about the actual episode soon but to start, I should mention the source of my scepticism and hesitation: whitewashing (cut for a spoiler character).

Even back last year when the Bad Batch arc aired, I saw the mutant clones from Clone Force 99 and all of them but Wrecker looked... way lighter than they should? And the implication is that their genetic alterations is why they look, well, whiter? When these deviant clones are allowed to serve because their mutations turn out to be “beneficial” and “positive” instead of disabling?

Yeah... look, I don’t think Filoni and the folks at Lucasfilm are being intentionally racist, but nobody ever thinks they’re racist even when they’re spreading that very racism (well, except a few unashamed bigots like Nazis, but they’re a very clear minority and not really relevant here). Taking clones of a brown man and having them turn out to be whiter and the correlation of that being with genetic traits that enhance existing features instead of making them unfit to serve... yeah, really not a good look. There’s a reason some people have been using #UnwhitewashTBB. Oh yeah, did I mention that Wrecker, the only one with a normal, darker skin tone is the big dumb muscle of the group? And that Tech, the whitest one, is the brains? Crosshair and Tech both look like white dudes, and Hunter even if his tone is darker still looks paler than he should (same with Omega for that matter). And of course, Echo basically has bleached skin because even being frozen shouldn’t deprive him of that much colour, so what the heck? They can’t even justify that one with genetic alterations to the template, which is already a bullshit excuse because... why does having a brain that process information super efficiently or super enhanced eyesight make your skin lighter? There’s no narrative reason for them to be lighter skinned, it’s such a flimsy excuse with weird correlations that send some kinda unfortunate messages. It’s a shame, because the idea behind the Bad Batch is that differences are what make us who we are and that we should value that... and yes, they ARE different from regular clones (which I guess is why they designed them like this???), but they don’t need to be turned into freaking white people to illustrate this. Like, if you really want to show them be different, convey that in features associate with their traits (aka something that Wrecker’s design does, shame being the darkest skin ruins that >:V).

Oh yeah, speaking of whitewashing... the hell is up with Caleb? Oh yeah, Kanan Jarrus from Rebels is here, back when he was still padawan Caleb Dume. When I was watching the episode I was like “wait, is his skin tone right? or is it kinda light for him? also his hair too???” I then saw other reactions and yeah, this is definitely a whitewashed design. Just... why? The fact that they’re retconning a comic whose version of events I honestly prefer doesn’t help at all. How are they gonna excuse this one? That years of being on the run blasted his pasty white skin with too much UV? That he’s stuck inside the temple too much?

It’s apparently an issue that some fans have discussed for years, and I’m glad it finally became clear to me. The most I got concerned about clone whitewashing was when people tried to claim Rex was that dude on Endor, and... no? Just because they both have fucking Santa beards doesn’t mean they’re the same person. But I mean, suddenly hearing these voices all come together with the hashtag finally brought things into perspective. It seems like it’s been an issue for a while, little thing that had me going “huh that’s weird” like 99 looking awfully white even as he’s deformed (oh yeah I also think he’s written in an ableist, even inspiration porny way, but that’s ANOTHER story), the clones in general seeming to have lighter skin tones in places (in TCW it never bothered me tho I have seen criticism of it there, it’s mainly in Expanded Media and Rebels I was asking questions). There’s also Boba Fett in the episode Deception looking weirdly pale?

People have even brought up that Dee Bradley Baker, a white man, voicing these Maori men brings issues, especially with how his accent... isn’t very accurate. Like, I do think he’s a great voice actor, even with the clones and how he’s able to individualise all of them even with the same voice, but... his accent honestly sounds more like a bad Australian one than a New Zealand one, lol. Again, this is something I always noticed and found weird, but only with the recent movement has it really been giving me perspective. Even this took me a while to process, because in voice acting there seems to be more flexibility with who can play who (even if many recent conversations like the one about Apu from The Simpsons have gotten people to ask if when this happens we lean into caricature, which is what people are concerned with here).

Okay this post was actually meant to be a general reaction to the episode, but my whitewashing rant really got out of hand. I do feel like I could’ve been more vocal in the past about some of these things, especially as a white person myself. It’s easy to be complacent out of fear of conflict, and it’s something I do feel I need to work on. I also do want to specifically hear opinions of Polynesian and of course especially Maori Star Wars fans and what they have to say about this, if anyone has anywhere to direct me in that specific regard.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Lucasfilm has a whitewashing issue. I don’t believe there’s deliberate malice, but that makes it even more important to fight - things like this can be normalised to a degree we don’t question it. It’s much harder to unpack unconscious biases and things that are normalised in society than it is to confront the open bigots.

[seventeen-scenarios-blog]

To Admin Hoshit: Santa’s Helper (G)

Pairing: Admin Hoshit x Soonyoung Request: “tbh write anything as long as it ends well and no one dies” + “longish fic?? if possible???” Word Count: 2,843 Genre: Crack Warnings: Don’t do drugs, kids

A/N: Lmao I had a lot of fun writing this for you. Sorry it took so long. But Merry Christmas Hoshit, hope you enjoy this piece of nonsense lolololol I think it’s pretty obvious who I am at this point tbh, but have fun guessing, lovelies!

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do this anymore… I’m leaving you.”

“W-what? But we were doing fine all along! Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know, I’m just not feeling it anymore, okay? Look, it was really fun and exciting when we first started out, but right now, the feeling’s fizzed out. I’m hella tired of this. We have to go our separate ways from now on.”

“You can’t just leave me alone after all that we’ve been through together! There’s still so much we’ve not done!” You stand up, rage filling every vein of your body. “NAKAMOTO YUTA, GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!”

“THIS IS SO NOT WORTH SIX DOLLARS AN HOUR!” The man snaps his head around towards you. He slams the roll of tape down on the table, throwing his hands towards the pile of neatly gift-wrapped boxes. “I’ve been at it for ages now, and I’m already considered a saint for staying back a whole hour past my shift to help you! Let me go home to rest, damn it!”

“We’ve agreed to sign up for this winter job together!” you yell back, “You can’t ditch me now!”

“You’re the dumb one who signed your entire life away to this job so that you can buy your dumb merchandise,” Yuta remarks snarkily, ignoring the offended scoff you send his way. “Anyway, I’m out. Girl, I love you, but there’s only so much gift-wrapping I can handle before I turn completely insane.”

“The moment you walk out of this gingerbread house, you’re dead to me, Nakamoto.”

“Been dead since Day 1, babe.” And Yuta leaves with a sassy final wave goodbye, whipping off his reindeer headband and tossing it into the bin. “Have fun dealing with the kids.”

You let out a resigned puff of air to blow your bangs out of your face. Your only friend on this job is gone, and now you have to spend the rest of your 10 hour shift with either a total stranger or… that guy.

You stand up, stumbling a little after being seated on a god-forsaken kiddy stool, and made your way towards the record sheet containing the names of the part-timers pinned on the wall. The way your name occupied a large area of the excel sheet made you wince.

It had sounded so easy on the advertising site: wear a silly costume, give out complimentary gifts to children that attend the Santa Meet-&-Greet event at the mall. You sold your soul to the devil without thinking twice. But no, this job has taken a significant chunk of your sanity. Between the Meet-&-Greet intervals, you had to wrap an endless pile of gifts for the endless number of children. On more than one occasion, you had to stay behind to hit your quota, returning home when it’s almost midnight.

But then again, with the exorbitant amount of albums and merchandise of your favourite band you have yet to get your hands on, overtime pay is good.

Your name was under the ‘Santa’s Helpers’ list; every ‘Santa’s Helper’ would be paired up with a ‘Reindeer’ for each shift. You had thought it was a lot less embarrassing walking around in public in an elf’s costume compared to a reindeer’s -- you thought wrong. It’s tight, it’s itchy, the ringing of the silver bell adorning the tip of your hat had annoyed you two hours into your first day you snipped it off without hesitation. All the “reindeers” had to do is wear a damn onesie with cute reindeer horn headbands to match.

Anyway.

Your eyes scan through the ‘Reindeer’ list for the partner you’d be tied down to for the rest of the day. Yuta’s name is aligned with yours up till 5PM, and the person underneath Yuta is… Kwon S-- Jesus Christ.

You tilt your head back with a sardonic, almost maniacal grin. Your day is just going splendidly, isn’t it?

“The kids will be coming in 10 minutes, please be on standby…” the manager’s voice trails off as she only registers one other presence in the gingerbread house. “Where’s the reindeer?”

“HERE!”

A breathless wheeze, followed by a series of thundering footsteps cause the both of you to jump as Devil’s Spawn himself bursts through the fragile styrofoam doors. “Sorry, there was a line at the washroom, I couldn’t change until just about a minute ago…”

Both you and your manager scanned the boy’s bedraggled appearance simultaneously: his purple hair was frizzled and stuck out in all directions imaginable, his cheeks are shining with a sheen of perspiration, and apparently he hadn’t learnt how to button his clothes properly as a child.

Your manager tuts and waves him away, “Elf, you have 10 minutes to make this reindeer remotely presentable to the public. I have other matters to attend to.” With that, she whisks herself out of sight.

Soonyoung tilts his head, confused, until he lays his eyes on you. Then, his already small eyes narrow into hostile slits. “Oh, hello brat.”

“Tool,” you retort cooly, stepping up to fix Soonyoung’s mismatched buttons. “I thought you’re supposed to be a reindeer, not the grandma that got run over by one.”

“Hohoho, you’re hilarious,” he drawls mockingly in a high tone, slapping your hands away. “I can fix those buttons myself, thanks. And pass me one of the headbands from the bin, I left mine at home.” Rolling your eyes in disbelief, you proceed to fish out Yuta’s abandoned reindeer headband and throw it to the male.

“It’s Yuta’s, so I’m not sure it’ll go over that fat head of yours. I reckon you give it a try.”

“Meanie,” he mutters, grabbing it and fastening it over his head.

“Album wrecker.”

“Salty brat!”

“Son of a--”

“Mommy, look! A reindeer and a gremlin!” You both instantaneously abandon your banter to slap grins on your faces as a chubby kid waddles into the gingerbread house. Looks like your evening shift started early. Soonyoung bursts into a fit of laughter at the boy’s words. You curl your hands into fists in chagrin, forcing yourself to maintain the smile.

“The last time I checked, reindeers. Can’t. Laugh.” You discreetly but painfully jab him in the ribs before approaching the child, ignoring the pained yelp he lets out in response. “You’re done meeting Santa, kid? I’m one of Santa’s elves and I live here in this gingerbread house! Can I interest you in a free toy from under the tree?”

Against all odds, you manage to upkeep your professionalism throughout your shift, though you can’t help but let out a crotchety remark or two.

“Don’t go too close to that reindeer over there,” you’d say, one hand cupping your mouth while the other made pointed gestures over to Soonyoung, “I heard it eats children for breakfast.” Looking back, you wished you reserved that comment for someone more impressionable. The bespectacled twelve-year-old had stared back at you with an eyebrow raised, completely unimpressed.

Completely spent, you abandon your uncomfortable post on the kiddy stool to crashland on the carpeted floor with a satisfied groan. That’s 11 out of 12 days of Christmas down. Only one more day in this stinking job and you’re free for the rest of the holidays.

“God…” Soonyoung sighs, shedding off his thick reindeer onesie to reveal a white tank top that has been turned translucent with his sweat. “If I had to sing Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer one more damn time, I would have ran myself over with a sleigh.”

Normally this would result in a comment about him being weak from you, but this time, you are distracted by how his muscles stand out from under the thin material of his clothes. As insufferable as this guy can be, he sure does know how to have a good body-- wait, snap out of it, damn it!

“Oh, good! You are still here!” a sing-song voice cuts through your unholy thoughts as your manager enters the gingerbread house with paper bags lined with grease. “I got the both of you dinner. It’s a job well done today as usual!”

Both you and Soonyoung exchange suspicious glances. Free food and a chirpy attitude to boot? Those are two things you’d never associate with your boss.

“What do you want us to do?” Thankfully, Soonyoung lacked the tact and asked the question you were afraid of. At once, your manager drops her cheery facade with a nervous laugh. “I’m afraid I’ll have to buy a couple more hours of your time… See, an orphanage just called in to say that they will be dropping their kids down tomorrow at 8AM to visit Santa so that’s a hundred children’s worth of gifts to wrap and prepare by then…”

“A HUNDRED?!”

“But you don’t mind, do you?” She blinks sweetly at your direction. “I know this is last minute, but I’m sure the overtime pay will be enough to cover the costs of your guinea pig’s operation, right? That’s what you mentioned during our job interview?”

Behind you, Soonyoung can barely retain his snort of disbelief. “Guinea pig, huh? Is that what they call K-pop albums nowadays?” he guffaws just loud enough for you to hear, and you reward him with a merciless stomp on his big toe while never letting go of that faux angelic smile of yours.

“Sure, ma'am… But uh, my overtime pay will still be one-and-a-half times that of my average, right?”

“But of course! And you’ll have Reindeer over here to help you, so I’m sure you’d be done in no time!”

“I’ll be what now?” Soonyoung gapes dumbly.

“Great, I knew that I can count on you two! See you tomorrow~!” she merrily waves in farewell, making way for two toy store clerks lugging sacks-full of toys. The thin material of the sack rips, and a mountain of toys barrel out, leaving you and Soonyoung stunned.

But in retrospect, the sack is still holding on better compared to your little tether of sanity.

Soonyoung exasperatedly rubs his nape, carefully dragging the sack towards your work table. “Well, let’s just get this over and done with.”

He reaches over to the roll of wrapping paper, but stops short with a jump when you slam your hands atop of his. “Nuh-uh, there’s absolutely no way I’m trusting you with these.”

“What? Why not?”

“You’re going to ruin them with your sub-par fine motor skills and subsequently crush the dreams of a hundred little kids.” You let out a feral hiss, scrabbling at the wrapping papers, scissors and tape towards your bosom protectively. Soonyoung looks beyond peeved.

“I will not!” he cries. “My fine motor skills are, as they call it, FINE!”

He hazards an attempt to slide a pair of scissors out from under your arm, but you lunge out, snapping your teeth at his fingers and he withdraws, visibly intimidated. “What’s wrong with you, woman?” he yelps, obviously offended.

“YOU STEPPED ON MY ALBUM AND TORE IT WITH YOUR STINKING FEET FIRST DAY ON THE FIRST DAY WE MET, AND TRIED FIXING IT WITH POORLY CUT DUCT TAPE. THAT’S WHAT’S WRONG!” you screech. “HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BE ALL CHUMMY WITH YOU AFTER THAT?! HOW DO PEOPLE TRUST YOU TO GO OUTSIDE UNSUPERVISED, YOU MONSTER?!”

“Look, that was just that one time!” he cries in defense, ignoring a woman’s concerned glance into the gingerbread house. “And don’t you have like, twenty of the same damn album? If I’d known you’d still be this hung up about it after 2 months I could have just bought you a new one!”

“How dare you, every single one of my albums are unique and precious and--” your eyes snap wide open when you register his previous words. “Did you say you’d buy me a new album?”

To your surprise and delight, Soonyoung shrugs. “I mean why not, these things can’t be that expensive, right?”

You beg to differ, but then you consider the fact that Soonyoung (lord knows how) is a lot more well off than you are as a freelance dancer. You abandon the lingering doubt to slap on what you hope is a face of a pleading puppy dog at the purple-haired male.

He audibly blanches. “Alright, let’s get to work now, can we? Good thing there isn’t anything in my stomach to hurl out, yeesh...” He tries once again to snatch the pair of scissors from your possession, but the icy glare you shoot at him makes his actions falter.

“You’re still hopeless at crafts, by the way,” you inform him, the image of your ruined album, hastily patched together with silver strips of adhesive with dog-eared pages here and there, surfacing in your mind. You can’t help but laugh at that ridiculous scenario. “Duct tape, really?”

“Oh shush, I panicked. At least let me feed you while you wrap, okay?”

You both reached an efficient compromise whereby you handle the wrapping while ever so often opening your mouth such that Soonyoung could slip a french fry between your lips, him munching on his own burger as well.

“Eat!” Soonyoung snaps when you refused the tenth fry. He’s realised by now that you had an awful habit of not eating whenever you’re too absorbed in something. “How are you going to wrap the presents for the kids well on an empty stomach?”

“Who cares about the kids,” you drone, your words coming out as more of a statement than a question.

Letting out a puff of air at his dark violet fringe, Soonyoung tries again. “How are you going to get your paycheck to buy more merchandise if you’re working on an empty stomach?”

“Ah,” you part your jaws and Soonyoung feeds you again with a resigned sigh. “Who knew you’d be this whipped for your favourite artiste?”

“Who didn’t?” you point out, throwing aside the finished toy car with reckless abandon.

“Yuta was complaining the other day that you barely have the time to hang out with him because you’ve chained yourself to this job. And for what, money for more merchandise and concert tickets?”

You hear the incredulity in his voice and you purse your lips. “Look, think whatever you want, but they make me happy. This world sucks and their music is a form of escapism for me. I’ll be willing to work day and night for the boys that make my life just that much brighter. Like it or not, they will pretty much occupy the majority of the space in my heart.”

You both fall silent while you catch your breath from that revelation. From the corner of your eye, you see Soonyoung shifting his eyes nervously. “Then… is there at least space for one more person in your life?”

The scissors in your hand slip and clatter onto the table noisily.

“I mean--” Soonyoung stutters, knowing how his words must have sounded like. “I want to make it up to you, you know. We started off on a bad note because of me, and I’d like it if we can have a do-over. Let’s go out for lunch or dinner sometime after this stinking job ends.”

Surprisingly, that sounded good to you, but there’s no way you’re letting him get the impression that you’re warming up to him this quickly. “Fine, I’ll see if I can squeeze you in.”

“Great!” His eyes, already tiny like the that of a hamster’s, light up like a child’s on a Christmas morning. “We’ll head on out for dinner after our shift tomorrow, then we’ll head on to the shop to get your new album, sounds good?”

Dammit, I like this kid already.

You nod, and you both resume work. At some point, you turned on your Spotify playlist to let Soonyoung get to know the kind of music you’re listening to, and he actually enjoys them. In return, he lets you listen to his favourite bands and musicians.

You even let him try his hand at wrapping a relatively simple box-shaped gift, only to grab it back in utter horror when he sticks the wrapping paper inside out.

You don’t know how long you’ve been going at it, but Soonyoung stiffens in fear when you both hear a resounding metallic click from a few metres away.

“W-was that the mall custodian locking up?” he whimpers, but he turns befuddled when he sees you looking completely nonchalant.

“Yeah, the mall closes at eleven, the doors will open again at seven in the morning.”

At this point, Soonyoung can’t even begin to feel surprise anymore. “How many times have you been locked in here because of work?”

“Eh, thrice counting this.”

“God, you’re hopeless.”

“But this means we’ll be first in line to grab some drinks at Starbucks tomorrow. We can have our date then. You in, kid?”

And Soonyoung actually laughs, whether it is out of amusement or of sheer despair, you can’t really tell.

“Oh geez, what have I gotten myself into…”