#i feel like. i just don't see the amount of discussion i would expect to see.

[corneliushickey]

every now and again i come across a gifset and i am hit with the full force realization of exactly the kind of psychosexual.... well it was certainly a psychosexual something or other! between hickey and crozier. like. christ alive. there is something fucking wrong with you two.

[idolomantises]

Wasn't sure when it would be the best time to discuss this, but since the ending is drawing near... yes, Bugtopia is ending.

It was a decision I really wrestled with myself for months over it, before finally concluding that letting it end after 40 episodes was the better option. Just to be clear, webtoons did not force me to end the series. They even offered to give me a pay raise to continue the series. It was my decision due to a multitude of personal factors. I'll just repeat what I said on my patreon:

I just want to say, first of all, thank you all so much for patiently waiting for my series to release and for supporting my work as I began developing the series. Bugtopia was a series I genuinely loved and adored and it made me feel so incredibly happy that people were turning their heads towards a series about weird bugs and their natural lives.

However, as you can probably guess, it pains me to say that I am concluding the series after season 1. I had 4 seasons planned with new characters to introduce, but unfortunately, I cannot see myself continuing to work with Webtoons and I want to pursue other projects.

This decision was due to a compiling number of issues with the company, the final straw was when they had a mass layoff, fired my editor that I've been working with for two years, and did not inform me for a week, leaving me in the dark until they randomly assigned me with someone else. My new editor is great and I'm glad I'm working with someone so patient and understanding, but this decision to fire my previous editor, the one who got me the job to begin with, without prior warning made me feel disrespected and disregarded, and it killed all motivation I had for properly completing the series.

I also felt incredibly overworked, I was spending vacation days working on comics and avoiding time with family just so I could get something done for webtoons once I come home. I feel like so much time was being wasted away for a company that paid me so little that I had to work twice as hard building up funds on my patreon. Bugtopia just ate up so much of my time. The pay also didn't make up for it. It's commonly assumed that webtoons authors make about $800 for the episodes they do, but that's not true. In fact, you can make far less depending on the amount of panels expected for your contract. It doesn't help that the artwork i did for banners and promotions were all things I had to draw and didn't get paid for, and the work I gave was either tampered with or scrapped, making me feel like I spent more hours of my day wasting time. There were also comics I had to censor and scrap, likely due to another series being in hot water for its racially insensitive content. But it was just extra work I wasn't being paid for. It also frustrated me because I was seeing other series with far more explicit content getting away with a slap on the wrist (turns out you can't say "fuck" anymore without it being hit with a mature rating, disappointing!)

In all honesty, it just felt like webtoons needed me more than I needed them. I was making more money from patreon in a week than I was making from webtoons in a month.

Personally, while I don't really regret my time with Webtoons and met some great people along the way, I honestly don't think any artist should work with them. You will be severely overworked and underpaid, and will barely be featured in ads unless your series becomes an instant hit immediately. It doesn't really matter how successful you are, you're just a product to Webtoons, put yourself above the corporation.

I have tried my best to provide you all with a satisfying conclusion to Bugtopia, even if some episodes may feel rushed or incomplete, but I completely understand if the conclusion isn't to your liking and I do apologize, but I could not continue working on this series if this was the mistreatment I was going to continuously get. I owe a massive thank you to my editor and assistants for helping me complete the series, I truly don't think I could have ever finished it without them.

Though I am done with Bugtopia, that does not mean I want to stop projects entirely, so please don't feel bad for me. I have a lot of upcoming projects and ideas in the works, and I'm still continuing the Monsters and Girls series.

Will Bugtopia ever return... possibly. I retain complete ownership of the series after a few years, and I wouldn't mind continuing the canvas series (or possibly starting over). Unfortunately I don't think I can continue the Webtoon Original as it belongs to webtoons now, but never say never I suppose!

[ozzgin]

“Do you mean it in the sense that Reader goes through monster boyfriends and is quick to dump them for the next catch”

Yep. Just a vile reader who’s breaking hearts left and right. I think you’ll write it beautifully if you channel your evil side like when you play the sims! ☺️

-👘

Yandere! Monsters x Heartbreaker! Reader

You've always been a free spirit, unable to settle on a single partner. Even after being abruptly transported into a different dimension where you are the only human surrounded by monsters, this habit of yours has persisted. Except monsters, as you will see, are harder to discard than humans. They aren't as willing to accept rejection.

Content: female reader, reader is a player, monster smut

Ah, how troublesome. He won't stop calling. You lazily pick up the phone and look for the options to block the number, clicking your tongue in irritation. You'd specifically told him you're not interested in anything serious. "Who's calling?" The man shuffles under the sheets, still half-asleep. "No one." You respond curtly, glaring at the intruder. "It's morning already, by the way. When are you leaving?"

You slam the door shut before the overnight guest can bring up the classic "Will I see you again", and exhale theatrically in relief. Finally alone again. You look up and shake your fist menacingly, as if whichever entity governing this world is responsible for your bad luck. You've always been utterly indifferent towards committed relationships, and yet most fuck buddies end up head over heels for you, dragging themselves at your feet like pitiful beggars. Pathetic and a pain in the ass to deal with.

Well, someone must be up there, because your situation feels too much like a sassy answer to your complaint. You've just rushed out of your apartment a moment ago and last time you checked, the concierge office wasn't on a rocky hill covered in deep cracks erupting with lava, stretching out into the seemingly unending horizon. Where the hell are you? You turn on your heels, reaching for the door, only to find out - who would've expected? - that it's gone. Great. Your immediate explanation is that the guy you've mistakenly brought home last night must've slipped something in your drinks. All this for a sloppy, clumsy eating out.

The worry of being drugged vanishes quickly once the first creatures of the realm appear. Hard to believe anything on the market could cause such detailed hallucinations that can sniff and touch you: Some alligator-looking minions with eyes popping out of their backs slid out of a nearby crevice to investigate the newcomer. Ironically enough, they seem to be the ones shocked by your appearance. Once they've hesitantly assessed your presence, they scurry aside to discuss their findings. "What could it be?" You hear one mumble, completely baffled. For whatever reason you can understand their language, so you decide to speed up their detective work. "Ever heard of human?" You shout, with a hint of sarcasm in your voice. The beasts gasp in unison. "Nonsense! Straight out of a children's tale!"

Eventually, after a lot of confusion and pointed fingers, you manage to figure out your predicament. You've somehow landed in a world of monsters, where humans are more of a fictional, mythical existence. Thankfully they don't seem to consider your potential as food, though you're not sure if the sudden, massive ambush of creatures is any better. The alligator-like quadrupeds brought you to the nearest settlement and had to form a barrier to stop the curious beasts from almost trampling you in their frenzy to see "the human". You've garnered ridiculous amounts of attention, yet such reaction is to be expected; how often would an earthling wander into their world? It could very well be a lifetime singularity for many.

As the days pass and you become more accustomed to your fate, you begin to feel that familiar calling. It doesn't look like you'll be going home anytime soon and a lady has her needs. Additionally, whatever popularity you had back in the human world is a minuscule fraction of what you're currently experiencing here. In the eyes of the monsters, you're an exotic treat that cannot be refused. It shouldn't be too hard to find yourself a partner, or two. Or three. Who keeps count nowadays?

You remember stumbling upon a postcard print of "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" at some museum shop. You immediately picked up the thick cardboard, eyeing the artwork in amusement. A woman enveloped in the limbs of two octopuses and very obviously enjoying herself. Who even came up with the pairing, you wondered at the time. Whatever the artist was thinking, you can certainly see his point now. The first one to receive your indecent proposal was an eldritch creature of sorts, something straight out of Lovecraft's lucid dreams. Dark, long tendrils sprawling out of an amorphous core - which you assume is its head based on the bulging, glistening orbs hungrily staring at you. Your whole body is throbbing under the tight hold of the slippery tentacles, wrapping around you in masterful intricacy. You could see the result featured in a bondage magazine, though you don't...can't ponder much on it given the fact you're, well, stuffed with monstrous appendages. You doubt any genital variation back home could compare. The monster is even polite enough to occasionally wipe away the continuous stream of drool spilling out of your whining mouth. Towards the end you barely have a voice anymore, throat sore from the loud moans and merciless constriction. Your muscles contract all at once, overwhelmed by the sensations. Whatever sensitive areas you might have are presently aching under the needy fondling of the creature.

Mind-blowing. The memory is enough to have you wet and squirming with desire. Even more so when you consider the other varieties of monsters ready to fuck you senseless. Soon enough you're surveying the neighborhood for the ideal suitors and thankfully you don't have to worry about making wrong choices, as there's always a next target. Thus the following weeks fill you with a particular kind of nostalgia (among other things and fluids), reminding you of the bed-hopping in the human realm. From werewolves drowning out your whimpers with their desperate howling, to hooved legs of hybrids violently thrusting into you until you're a dripping mess. "Look at me" is what one of the beasts demanded in a low growl, turning you on with its ragged voice and clawed hand encircling your frail neck. Although you had to ask it where exactly to look, given it was covered entirely in eyes.

You yawn and stare at the ceiling, reminiscing about the depraved fuckfest you're currently recovering from. You might've overdone it with the last one. Alas, you came enough times to make up for it. Just as you turn around to readjust the ice pack, you hear a loud thud coming from the entrance. You (carefully) sit up and rub your eyes, trying to focus on the shadow figure approaching your bed. It's one of the lizard monsters, swiftly slithering across the wall and landing over you with an angered expression. "Where the fuck is that dog?" it inquires with a hiss. "What? Who're you talking about?" you mumble, wildly confused. "The one that dared to touch you."

Oh, not this crap again. You almost roll your eyes. "You never said anything about us being together." Is your annoyed reply. "What? I thought it'd be obvious you belong to me!" You're about to question the strange logic, but your couple's quarrel is interrupted by the sound of shattered glass. The many-eyed monster crawls its way in with fluid, uncanny movements, releasing a deafening screech once it notices the lizard in your bed. "Off! Get off my human now!" is what it finally manages to verbalize in its fury. Okay, it seems to be the common belief. To clear off any shred of doubt remaining, the ceiling gives in and crumbles like putty under the weight of an enormous tentacle. You scream and cover your face from the bits of rubble flying everywhere, but you're quickly sheltered by another thick appendage looping itself around you, against the wrathful protests of the lizard. You did not anticipate the eldritch creature could expand to this gargantuan size.

For the first time since arriving here, you feel homesick. At least back home you could get rid of your annoying admirers with the slide of a button. Is there a larger scale alternative for cosmic blasphemies? You shake your fist (up? down? you can't tell in the darkness of the tentacle shield) towards the entity once more. Damn it, you've learned your lesson. Several steps must’ve been skipped before reaching a pack of angry, possessive monsters fighting over your ownership.

[matryosika]

Hyung Line: Love Languages and Sex

Wordcount: 5,467 words.

Genre: Smut, partly head canons and scenarios.

Includes: SKZ Hyung Line members, female reader, brief discussion about food in Minho's scenario, curse words and dirty dialogues. Smut warnings below.

Author's note: Long time no see! I just randomly thought about this yesterday, and I had a couple of scenario/drabbles I wanted to write about regarding this topic so here they are. I thought about uploading them individually, but I don't know. I'm currently working in the second part of this, so yeah. Thought I would just put this out there for now. I hope you guys like it! Please remember that english isn't my first language and this is not proof-read so I apologize for any mistake in advance.

If you like this, please consider supporting me by reblogging, leaving a comment or sending me an ask. If you wish to support my work further, please consider buying me a coffee! ☕

Smut warnings (varies from scenario to scenario): Masturbation (f. receiving), overstimulation, multiple orgasms, squirting, praises, use of petnames, established relationship, foot massage (for Minho's part), public sex (for Changbin's scenario), body cumshot (for Hyunjin's scenario), vaginal penetrative sex, unprotected sex, implied creampie (for Changbin's scenario).

Chan: Acts of Service and Words of Affirmation

“One more?”

When you told Chan you were feeling stressed, you didn't exactly expect him to try and cheer you up like this —face buried in your sweet, throbbing cunt, and hands intertwined with yours. You have been going at it for hours on end, with no signs of Chan ever wanting to stop —not even after your third orgasm.

“Channie…” You want to tell him it's his turn, that you also want to make him feel good. That you need to help him releasing the tension between his legs, make him come just as much as he has made you tonight.

But you can’t even begin to deliver a coherent sentence, or at least not when his nose is applying the perfect amount of pressure to your clit while his tongue laps messily on your slit, his spit and your own wetness creating a sticky, awkward sensation that reminds you of all the time Chan had spent working on your cunt in the past hour or two.

“Mhm?” He knows you’re too fucked out you can’t even speak, but the devilish grin plastered on his face tells you that he wants to listen to you. Or at least your babbles. “What is it, baby?”

“Chan,” you latch your hands onto his dark locks, pulling them harshly and earning a hiss from him. “Chan, please!”

You don't have to tell him exactly what you want for him to know. The way you grind your hips against his face sells you out —Chan knows you need more than just his mouth, and he is more than happy to comply.

If you ask for it, of course.

“Greedy,” he laughs under his breath, a string of saliva connecting his lips to your cunt. “Come one more time for me, and I’ll consider giving you what you want”.

A fair exchange, you think. But when the ravages of over-stimulation start hitting you painfully than before, you highly doubt you can fulfill his plea.

“I can’t,” you gasp with shortness of breath, hands leaving Chan’s to clinge at the bedsheets underneath you. “Chan, fuck, wait!”

The last thing you want is for Chan to stop, but the words fall from your lips faster than you can process them. So he withdraws from your pussy and stares at you with half-lidded eyes, swollen lips and chin glistening with your arousal.

“No! Don’t- don’t stop, I’m sorry”.

You’re not making any sense, and he loves it.

“Am I hurting you?”

You shake your head eagerly, swallowing hard while you take advantage of the break to take a breath. “No, it’s just- I’m- I want to please you”.

Chan smiles.

“I have to take care of you first,” he mumbles, lips attached to flesh of your inner thighs. “Want to make you come enough until your mind is completely empty”.

“But I-”

“Tonight isn’t about me, okay?” he drags his words lazily, humming and slightly whimpering them when he rubs his nose yet again against your clit. “I need to make sure you’re not feeling stressed anymore”.

You plop down onto the bed again, hands gripping his curls while unconsciously bringing him closer to your core.

“See, I know you can come one more time,” Chan whispers against your pussy, two of his fingers spreading your folds while he coats them with your previous arousal, “you’re always good to me like that”.

You buck your hips when he unexpectedly thrusts his middle and ring finger inside you, walls welcoming and clenching around them so tightly Chan almosts come right in his pants.

“3 orgasms are not enough for someone like you, hm?” he fucks you delicately, enjoying the wet sounds your cunt makes every time he sinks his fingers inside you, “you still want more”.

You cover your face in shyness, only letting out small whimpers and moans every time he curls his fingers.

“Don’t,” his available hand, which he has underneath your right thigh and the curve of your ass, reaches out to pull both your arms, causing you to uncover your face, “I want to see you when I’m talking to you”.

He grabs both your wrists with his available hand, while the other works wonders on your cunt. From where you lay, the sight is heavenly —you can catch a glimpse of his flexed shoulders and back, along with his bare face and messy, dark curls. You could reach your fourth orgasm just by that alone, but Chan has other plans in mind.

“You’re so sweet,” he’s practically groaning his words, licking remains of your orgasms from his lips, “I don’t ever want to go a day without tasting you, ever”.

You moan at his words, heart racing faster than it was before. He has always had a way with words —ever since you two met, he has always known exactly what to say to have you at his feet, mercilessly.

“Channie,” you cry out loud, head falling back as your back arches in pleasure. “Chan!”

“Come on,” he drags his swollen lips against your hip bone and the side of your tummy, inhaling deeply the scent of your skin while the room is filled with wet, lewd noises, “I can feel you’re close, I know you can take one more”.

There’s no point in trying to hold back, so you start letting yourself go.

“All day I’ve been thinking about your sweet cunt,” the more he talks, the rougher he fucks you with his fingers and the closer you get to your release, “you’re all I fucking need. I don’t want anything else but you”.

You melt with love, tears threating to spill from the corners of your eyes. There’s something enticing about the contrast between his words and his touch, how he can say the sweetest, purest and loving things while his fingers keep on fucking your pussy with no tenderness, exactly how you like it.

“I just want to show you off to everyone,” Chan continues, feeling the wetness around his fingers starting to increase, word by word. “Want to tell everyone how pretty you look like this, how proud I am to have you with me”.

“F-fuck,” you’re coming, he can tell. The way your eyes are rolling to the back of your head, and your hips spasm against his hand sells you out.

“That’s it,” he moans, the raspiness of his voice sending shivers down your spine. “Give it to me, I know you can”.

He continues fucking your cunt through your orgasm, not daring to stop even when drops of your arousal wet his hand and bed.

“Stay still, baby,” with his available arm, he holds you down and pins you against the bed, preventing you from closing your legs or get away from his touch, “make a mess, I want to lick it clean”.

Minho: Acts of Service and Physical Touch

Minho is naturally a giver.

Sure, he does love being on the receiving end from time to time, but really nothing gratifies him more than taking care of you, in every way you should be taken care of.

Whether it’s taking a chore off your hands when you’re exhausted, running an errand to save you time on a busy day, or picking up take out and medicine when you’re feeling down, one of Minho’s ways to show you love it’s by performing acts of services.

Hence that, you’re not surprised to come home tonight with a full home-cooked dinner, with dessert and all.

“Hope you’re starving,” your boyfriend welcomes you, still wearing an apron on top of his work outfit. Black, formal pants and a white shirt with rolled sleeves, “It’s your favorite, by the way”. 

Earlier today, he called you to ask you for a quick grocery shopping list, in case you had some things missing from your fridge. Apparently, he was going to be released early from work, so he had some spare time before meeting you at your place and he could stop by for the things you needed..

“My head is all over the place,” you admitted, hands brushing through your hair in frustration, “I’m sorry Min, I completely forgot to leave the grocery list you told me. And I’m not even sure what’s missing- probably the whole fucking fridge is empty”.

He could tell how busy and exhausted you had been over the past few weeks, so he came up with a plan.

“I can come to your place and do the list myself,” he proposed by the phone. “Then I’ll go to the supermarket and pick the food and stuff you need, yeah? I’ll return to your place at night, and we can unwind together. Is that okay?”

You thanked him, probably a million times, before hanging up and going through with your day.

When he sits at the table with you, you finally get a taste of the dish. As expected, is more than just delicious. It’s a whole fucking experience, especially because it was made just for you.

You two eat together and help each other cleaning the kitchen afterwards. When you're done, with a comfy outfit and while having another glass of red wine, Minho suggests he does a massage on you because you look tense.

“What a nice, elegant sex proposal,” you laugh, extending your legs on top of his while you are sitting in the couch.

“I never said anything about sex,” Minho tiltes his head, the tip of his digits grazing against your skin. “So who’s proposing that to who?”

“You know, I could use a massage,” you leave the glass of wine on top of the coffee table, and let your body slowly slide into the couch. “I’m not sure about the sex part. I don’t know if I could ride you with how fucking sore my legs are, but I can make it up to you during the weekend”.

Minho laughs, a genuine, heart-warming laugh.

“We don’t have to fuck tonight,” his hands and digits trail an immaginary path from your feet, to your ankles, to your knees and inner thighs. The touch is enough to get you wet, and you curse him mentally for that, “but I still want to make you come, at least once”.   

Sometimes, you really can't begin to comprehend how Minho is all that. Attractive, smart, hard-working and just… perfect in every aspect, including sex.

“I’m so embarrassed,” you admit, moaning softly when his hands start working on the soles of your feet. It’s certainly not a massage massage, but rather a compilation of soft and lustful touches, “I really want to make things up to you but I’m a mess right now, there’s a lot going on at work and-”

“Hey,” he interrupts you, caressing the sides of your feet while working on them. “I’m not complaining nor asking for anything in return, am I?”

He isn’t.

And he is also not the type to expect some sort of payment for a favor.

Minho loves like that¸ without expecting absolutely nothing in return except for your satisfacion.

“But-”

“Am I?”

“No,” you softly reply, more as a whimper than an actual response. He is still massaging your feet and ankles, slowly growing harder at the series of moans and hisses you’re letting out.

“Why don’t you tell me where you keep your vibrator?” You love how it’s a casual question, how you no longer grow timid when he asks stuff like that. You are a couple, and he knows way more about you and your private life than anyone else. “Let’s put it to use tonight, hm?”

“Nightstand, second drawer,” you immediately sigh, losing the warmth of his body when he stands up from the couch to go to said location —the nightstand, second drawer.

He comes back not even 2 minutes later, holding the hot pink item to his hand. He sits right next to you, inviting you to spread your legs for him while he pushes your underwear and pijama shorts to the side.

A proud smile peeps out of the corners of his lips, knowing he did absolutely nothing but you’re still dripping wet, underwear and clothes sticking to your folds.

“You weren’t sure about the sex part?” he hums in content, caressing your slit with the tip of the toy. “Honey, you’re body is begging for me to fuck it”.

You arch your back unexpectedly when he turns on the toy, digging it further against your clit. He motions for you to take care of the toy, guiding your wrist to it in order to have both of his hands free and available to caress you, grope you and kiss you as he pleases.

“It’s really good,” you moan, masturbating for him while his hands reach out to your breasts, massaging them and pinching your nipples. “It’s not as good as your cock, but it does the task. I should get a better toy”.

Minho laughs against your skin, tongue latched to one of your hardened buds. His right hand wanders along the side of your body, caressing your waist, hips and thighs as much as he wants.

“You know nothing compares to me,” Minho whimpers against your skin, his hips grinding ever so slightly against your spread thighs. “But it’s cute that you’re still willing to try and find something that could compete against me”.

You bury your right hand onto his dark hair, pulling him closer to you, if possible, while your left hand holds the wand against your cunt.

The more he touches you and kisses you, the closer you get to your orgasm. And pathetically close, at that, since you’ve only been doing this for roughly 3 minutes.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed your body these days,” Minho groans, peppering kisses on your chest and neck while his hand sneaks between your ass and the couch. He squeezes and gropes it harshly, making you move your hips a bit up to give him better access. “Just want to cover it all with my kisses, lick it and touch it how you like it”.

Minho buries his face on your neck, and starts kissing your skin sloppily while his right hand is still groping your body. He doesn’t care about being messy —in fact, that’s exactly what he is going for tonight.

“Don’t stop,” you babble, grinding your hips against the toy while Minho’s lips and hands are all over you. “Don’t stop, Min, please, don’t-”

When you’re just a second away from your arousal, Minho places his hand on top of yours and presses the vibrator against your clit more, forcing you to orgasm faster. “Don’t worry,” he groans near your ear, face still buried in the crook of your neck, “I won’t stop until you’re satisfied”.

Changbin: Words of Affirmation and Gifts

“What do you think?”

Changbin has to take a full minute in order to arrange his own thoughts. If he had to say what he actually thinks of that dress, he would earn a couple of disgusted faces from the rest of the people at the boutique.

“Good,” it’s all he manages to say, slyly leaning forward to hide his bulge, “let me pay for it and let’s go home”.

“I’m still not done, though,” there’s a bunch of clothes you wish to try, and you know that doesn’t impatient Changbin –he is a great shopping partner. But judged by his lustful gaze, you think he has changed his plans, “I’ll be quick, I promise”.

He isn’t mad, nor wants to rush you, but Changbin wonders how long it’s going to take for him to lose his sanity before he gets to fuck you in the very same dress you just tried on. It hugs your body just right, allowing you to show just the right amount of skin to drive him crazy.

“Shit, I don’t know about this one,” you murmur from inside, just a long curtain separating you from Changbin, who is currently sitting at a small couch placed strategically in front of the fitting rooms, “I don’t think this is my size”.

Before he could ponder the situation, the pros and cons of demanding a small, modeling catwalk from you, he asks you to show the dress to him.

“It’s too tight,” you complain, struggling to zip it up, “one wrong move and I- I’m going to flash everyone in here”.

“Let me see it,” he asks again, impatiently looking forward to watching the curtain slide back, revealing you.

“I don’t- I look weird,” the dress is not your style, nor it’s something you would wear out on any occasion. You thought it would be fun to try it on, see if you could get out of your comfort zone, but it escalated too quick. “It’s too much, it barely covers anything”.

It’s not intentional, but you’re practically edging Changbin with your words. The longer you drag it out, the whiner he gets.

“Alright, alright,” you finally exhale, your hand pushing the curtain separating you from his gaze out of the way, “but don’t fucking say anything”.

Even if he wanted to say something, he can’t even speak. His throat is dry, aching just as much as the throbbing pressure between his legs that demands for his whole attention.

After some excruciating, awkward moments in silence, you speak again.

“Okay, say something,” the lack of words from him is making you feel unsteady, because he is just staring right at you quietly. You can’t possibly now what’s going on in his mind. “I told you it doesn’t fit and it is too damn expensive, and the fabric is -”.

“Get that one too,” it’s not a question, nor an advice –it’s an order.

“It’s too exp-”

“I don’t care,” the pent up tension is making it seem as if he’s angry, but you know he isn’t –he is just too damn horny, and needy, and desperate to get home and fuck you in every position possible.

“Alright,” you nod, feeling your heart skipping a beat when Changbin’s intimidating gaze falls up on you, basically begging for you to be done. “I’ll just… take it off and we can- go home, yeah?”

You go back to the fitting room with a wet sensation between your legs, feeling your folds sticking to your underwear while you relentlessly try to take the dress off. It had been hard to put it on, but you underestimated how difficult it was going to be to take it off on your own.

“Bin?” you ask, “is someone there who… could help me?”

Changbin looks around, but there’s no one other than him. Not even the lady who manages the changing room and checks which clothes people are trying on is there.

“There’s no one here,” the dark-haired replies, standing from the couch with more confidence now that he knows no one can spot the bulge in his pants, “what do you need?”

You shyly push the curtains to the side yet again, revealing the now messy dress after your failed attempt to take it off. “Can you help me?”

You turn around, putting the back zipper on display for him. It’s rather an easy task, he just needs to pull it down.

But how easy can it be when all he can pay attention to is your ass, and how good it looks underneath that tight dress? The clothes are so tight he can catch a glimpse of the silhouette of your underwear, buried in the flesh of your arse.

“Please?”

He doesn’t helps you unziping it and, instead, pushes you inside the fitting room again, closing the curtain behind him as he is sure the area is completely empty, except for the two of you.

“I can’t,” he breathes, turning you around so that your hands lay on his chest. “I don’t want you to take it off”.

“I have to if you want to buy it for me, silly,” you’re teasing him, acting oblivious to his sudden reaction. “Quick, don’t want anyone to catch us together in here”.

“I want to fuck you while you’re wearing it,” he confesses, his lips so close to yours you can actually feel his breath caressing your chin. “I want to fuck you right here, so you can see how pretty you look”.

You would be lying if you said you’re not turned on, not even in the slightest. But your hardened nipples and wet underwear speak louder than you can.

“Please,” he begs, hands moving slowly from your waist to your ass, groping it while pulling you closer to him. “Please let me fuck you”.

The more he pulls you towards him, the more you can feel his throbbing, hard cock against your body. You are probably going to regret your decision, but you still give in.

You need him more than he does.

“If someone catches us…”

“They won’t,” Changbin groans, lifting your dress up with one hand while the other unbuckles his pants with a swift motion, “just keep your pretty mouth shut and I’ll take care of the rest, yeah?”

It seems like he isn't asking for a lot, but he is. How can you possibly keep your mouth shut when his raw cock is about to stretch your pussy?

He turns you around, your palms resting on the wall for support while his nimble hands place you in the perfect position for him: back arched, ass up and legs open. Really, how can you possibly keep your mouth shut when the tip of his thick cock slides against your slit?

He knows time is running out, so he doesn’t waste it –he sinks his hips against yours delicately, only to pick up the pace when he feels you getting used to his cock.

“You drive me fucking insane,” he groans against your shoulders, leaving wet, sloppy pecks that soon turn into love bites. “You’re just- too pretty- can’t keep my hands off of you”.

You moan at his words, sounds that are quickly muffled by one of his hands against your mouth.

“So- fucking beautiful,” his words come out choppy, but he manages to keep the volume of his voice down, unlike you. “You're just too good to be real and mine”.

The sound of your muffled whines, Changbin’s soft groans, skin hitting skin and the wetness of your cunt around his cock is what fills the whole fitting room. You’re wondering if someone can hear you two, but you really don’t care anymore.

 “You’re so tight,” he can’t get himself to stop. The urge to praise you and compliment you is the exactly the same as coming inside you, he is really desperate for both and judged by the way you squeeze his dick everytime he speaks, he knows you like it too. “Perfectly made for my cock”.

The rougher he pounds himself inside you, the more you lose balance and control of your own body. Your cheek is against the wall, your weak arms barely doing anything to support your body, but his grip around you is what keeps you stable.

“I’m going to fill you up, yeah?” he is not that far from his arousal, and neither are you. “I want to show you how much I love you”.

You nod eagerly against his palm, drooling all over it. One of your hands leave the wall to rub your clit, the new stimulation provided pushing you to the edge.

“Come with me, pretty,” he pants, barely speaking with shortness of breath. “Give it to me, let me know how much you love the way I fuck you”. 

His words have never failed to make you lose it. Not even once.

Hyunjin: Physical Touch and Gifts

You’re his muse.

You have been since the day he met you, since the very first time he laid his eyes on you.

Whether it’s for a poem, a drawing, a painting or a sculpture, you’re exactly where he finds his inspiration at. Hyunjin would rather die than looking at someone else, would rather stop making art before immortalizing another body that isn’t yours.

And besides being his muse, you’re also his lover. His partner, his accomplice, his everything. He trusts you more than he trusts himself, cares about you more than anything else. He wants to share all of himself with you, from his anger and sadness to the things he can’t say out loud, his filthy desires that he knows only you understand.

To be honest, you share a lot of the same. Especially your preferences, like and dislikes.

“Isn’t it pretty?”

A set of laced lingerie, your favorite color.

“What’s the occasion?” you ask him perplexed, carefully folding the wrap around it.

“Saw it on my way back to your apartment,” he is standing right in front of you, smiling softly at your excitement. “I thought you were going to like it, so I just couldn’t not buy it for you. It’s too pretty for you not to have it”.

Hyunjin is like that, always.

If he sees something he thinks you’d like, or if there’s something he wants you to have, he buys it and gives it to you as a gift. There doesn’t need to be a special occasion for Hyunjin to shower you with gifts —whether it’s a painting of yourself, a small hand-made bracelet, a new coffee mug or a whole expensive set of lingerie, Hyunjin always makes sure to get to your apartment with his hands full.

“I love it,” you reassure him, your fingertips tracing the lace of the underwear. “I’m going to try it on for you”.

He smiles widely, his eyes turning into crescent moons when his muse promises such a thing —he’ll get to see it on you, on your naked skin that always tempts him into touching it.

You come back faster than he expected you, only wearing the set of lingerie and nothing more.

“Oh,” it’s all he manages to say, his body freezing in its place.

“It looks good, hm?”

Hyunjin makes a mental note to go back to that place and buy all sets of lingerie available just to gift them to you, as soon as possible.

“You’re a fucking goddess”.

His compliment gets you shy, but you still walk towards him as he is sitting on the edge of your bed. Right next to him you spot some of his arts supplies –a sketch notebook and some other utensils.

“You want to draw me?” you ask him with a smile and the warmest tone of voice. Like pure honey and sugar.

“I wanted to,” Hyunjin murmured, looking up to you, “but I’ve changed my mind”.

“Why so?”

The position you two are at is perfect for Hyunjin to embrace your body –you’re standing right in front of him, between his spread legs. His mouth is at the level of your torso, and his hands can explore your whole body easily.

“I just want to admire you,” he sighed, leaving a single, quick kiss on your tummy. “Kiss you and touch you, remind myself that you’re all mine”.

You giggle softly while latching his fingers to his hair, something that earns you a subtle moan from him.

“You know I’m yours,” you sigh when his mouth and tongue becomes bold, licking and nibbling at your flesh while his hands caress the sides of your body, “don’t need to remind yourself something you already know”.

“Sometimes I can’t believe it,” Hyunjin whispers, grazing his plump lips against the lace fabric of your underwear, “that you belong to me”.

You arch your back slightly when his tongue licks a trail from your pubis towards your chest, the trace of his saliva looking better than any texture or color Hyunjin could paint, ever.

“I do,” every time it gets harder to hold your sighs and moans, his skilled mouth making you feel impatient for his touch, even when he is all over you. “I belong to you. I’ve been yours ever since the day I met you”.

He inhales deeply the scent of your skin, the way the tip of his nose brushes against you sending shivers down your spine.

“Let me mark you,” Hyunjin whispers, doe eyes staring up, right at you. “Don’t need that sketchbook when I have your body like this”.

He guides his lips to the side of your hips, nibbling at the skin and sucking somewhat harshly, only stopping to soothe the skin with soft kisses and kitten licks.

“You’re going to cover me all in love bites?”

“If you allow me to,” Hyunjin smiles, admiring the print of his teeth against your skin. “I want everyone to know you’re all mine, in every way possible”.

He guides his hands from your ass to your lower back as he stands up, pressing his body against yours.

“I want you to fuck me,” you whisper, hooking your arms against his neck. Your touch makes him shiver, but he conceals it well. “Please?”

You don’t have to tell him twice before he is already laying with you on his bed, taking his clothes off on the way.

“Can you leave this on?” he asks you when you’re about to unhook the top part of the underwear. The idea of getting to fuck you in something he gifted you is riling him up, so he prays for you to agree. “Want to come all over it, so everytime you wear it you can remember me”.

You just smile and nod, impatient to feel him deep inside you.

“You’re so warm,” Hyunjin hisses when his fingers push the lace underwear to the side, revealing how ruined they already are. “So fucking slippery”.

“I’m always like this when I’m with you,” you admit, “especially when you have your hands all over me. It drives me insane”.

You’re both more than ready for each other, as usual. It’s a magical thing, how it only takes you a few words, touches and gazes to receive each other’s body.

“Relax for me,” he whispers when the tip of his cock stretches your entrance, “like that”.

He holds your hand and you squeeze it hard as he enters you, sinking it into the mattress right next to your head.

“Shit,” a gasp escapes your lips when he bottoms out. And, slowly, he pulls away only to repeat the same movements of his hips against yours, “so- good”.

Hyunjin leans down to kiss your forehead, and then your cheek. He then finds your lips, and synchronizes the brushes of his tongue with the thrusts of his hips.

“Faster,” you plea when he releases your lips to let out a quiet whimper, pressing his forehead against yours while his body moves on their own. “Fuck me faster, Hyunjin”.

And so he does. All to satisfy you.

Every time he bottoms out, his pubis brushes against your clit and gives you the much needed stimulation to reach your climax, so you’re getting closer every time he slams himself inside you.

Hyunjin notices it, by the way your walls clench around him, so he continues steady with his movements. He hasn’t let go of your hand and he doesn’t plan to –he loves feeling you squeeze it, telling him with your touch what you can’t put into words.

“Hyune-”

“I know,” he groans quietly with shortness of breath, “let yourself go, I’m right here”.

Your orgasm hits you right when your gazes meet, and Hyunjin can feel it from how wet and slippery you’ve become, and how hard it is to maintain a steady pace when your hips are practically begging for his release.

“Come on,” he encourages you, not wanting to pull out before fucking you through your high, “give it to me”.

You arch your back and let go of his hand to hook both of your arms around his neck, violently trembling against his body while trying to get away from the stimulation he is providing you with.

But only after you’re done he does so, with a swift movement he pulls away from you and strokes his cock two or three times before coming all over your body, the set of lingerie getting paint with his orgasm.

And as he jerks of the remain of his high on top of you, Hyunjin realizes no painting he has ever gifted you has done you any justice.

[dearhargrove]

thirty feet under

Evan Buckley x reader

summary The last thing you expected to see on the news tonight is Eddie trapped under 30 feet of mud with your husband desperately trying to get him out. Knowing how reckless he could get, you drive there after informing Bobby and have a talk with Buck.

word count 4734

tags basically s3 e15, reader and Buck are married, fluff, and hurt :<

a/n I dunno I was just sad watching that episode like the way Buck was immediately trying to dig Eddie up? I'm crying actually. I love these two fr. Yeah wtv I just needed to write something where Buck isn't suffering lmao 😭

masterlist

You've been following the news ever since you first saw that the 118 was at the scene of the small boy trapped in the well. You had nothing better to do, and if you had the chance to watch your husband work? You took it.

What you weren't expecting almost an hour ago was the drastic changes and complications arising as they tried getting Hayden - the trapped boy - out.

The obnoxious news reporter is talking about the weather and what's happening but you've stopped listening long ago. Your eyes were transfixed onto the background where Eddie was getting ready to go down the second tunnel they'd made in order to reach the boy safely.

However, something wasn't right. You don't know if it's Hen’s nervous expression or the overall unease of the team that carries through the screen, but something feels off.

You bury your hands in your hair as you continue to watch. The rain is pouring hard, the mud seems to be making everything worse and there were more firefighters arriving at the scene by the minute.

You're basically praying when the cameraman zoomes past the news reporter and onto Eddie as he's being let down into the hole. Evan is behind the winch, brows furrowed. You could see it on his face too; noone in the team seemed to be happy with this.

Considering they were letting one of their own down a 30 foot drop without fully knowing how stable the ground was, you understood.

For the first time since the broadcast started the blonde is quiet, microphone held at her chest as she watches and waits to see what's going to happen.

You're quite literally on the edge of your seat, knees pressing into the couch table as your hands press together anxiously. You trusted Bobby. He would never allow a plan to go through if it wasn't thoroughly planned and ensured at least a certain amount of safety to his team.

Nevertheless, your eyes move to Buck. He's clenching the remote control of the winch so tight in his hands you're sure if the material weren't as slippery from the rain he would've broken it. He doesn't just look stressed anymore but anxious.

That's a look you don't see often; he's confident and stubborn (arguably stupid and reckless). If he does something he commits to it and he's sure of it. But right now? He's the opposite. Bobby has a hand on his shoulder and you're thankful for his sensitivity to Buck’s feelings, the silent comforting visibly (to you - who could read Evan like an open book) helping him.

“Come on,” you chant under your breath as minutes pass. How could this be taking so long? Wasn't there a limited amount of time Eddie could be down there? You're sure he was wearing an oxygen tank and you remember Evan talking about the limited time that posed.

“And what is that- the rope has seemingly snapped! Neither the boy or the firefighter of the 118 is back up,” the news reporter is almost yelling now and you're thankful for her awful screeching voice as it had made you listen to what she's saying.

Wait. Did she say the rope snapped?

You frown and stand up, unable to keep sitting as you spot Evan’s devastated look as he discusses something with Chim. Oh goodness. This isn't happening. Why is the rope the only thing coming back up?

“The weather is getting worse as the firefighters decide to send down a second one, hoping this time the rope works. We're expecting a thunderstorm and the rain will continue-” you blend her out again as you see Chimney now in Eddie's spot.

“Jesus,” you mumble. He's down in a second, everyone moving even faster than before. Evan had his fists stemmed on his hip, watching the descent of his friend. Knowing him as well as you did, you're almost one hundred percent sure Buck had discussed going down instead - no doubt being shut down by either Hen or Bobby.

You couldn't help but feel glad he hadn't been the one as you could continue keeping your eyes on him.

It's Bobby's eyes which widen first, jaw dropping. Next follow Hen and lastly Evan. There, secured on the rope is Chim with a tiny boy wrapped in some kind of foil that would help him get his body temperature up again. His mother is crying as she welcomes him back into her arms, your lips quirking into a smile at the wholesome scene.

Now only Eddie was missing.

The 118 was discussing something in the back when you decide to text Bobby, seeing Evan being reprimanded by said man.

I'll come over and stay out of the way - just gotta make sure Buck does nothing too stupid…

You text the captain and receive a thumbs up emoji a moment later. You grab your phone, keys and wallet before hurrying to your car and driving there.

When you arrive your glad for the raincoat you'd picked, pulling it tight around your body as you try finding a spot where you wouldn't be in anyone's way.

You find it soon enough, and the first thing you notice is something akin to an argument breaking out between Hen and your husband. You sigh and hope he wouldn't do anything reckless, because by God that was his specialty. Bobby pats his shoulder more aggressively than necessary and points in your direction.

Buck turns around and when he spots you his face practically melts; excusing himself as he jogs over to the fence you'd decided to stand.

“How is it going? Where is Eddie?” You ask almost immediately and Evan sighs heavily before frowning again. You press your thumb against his forehead and smooth out the worry wrinkles, him already so used to the gesture he barely notices.

“He's- he's trapped. He cut his rope for some reason and we can't reach him over the radio. We're sending someone else down to see what happened down there.”

You curse and slide your hand to rest on his cheek. His skin is cold and wet from the rain and you're certain he caught a cold by now.

“You're not going,” you say. It's a question and demand at the same time; you trust him to do the right thing but he easily becomes reckless. He didn't like when you pointed it out, but it was true. It had gotten you two into an argument more than a handful of times but he never ceased to be stubborn when on a call.

“What do you mean? Of course I'm going, Eddie's down there!” He huffs and stiffens, leaning away from your hand on his face in the same notion. “Evan,” you start and he looks up from his feet and into your eyes, the pleading look in his eyes making you melt a little.

“I know you're capable of doing this but-”

“No! I'm capable so why shouldn't I?” He interrupts and you unhappily note the reporter approaching. You glare at him before putting on a fake smile when the woman stops in front of the two of you.

“Do you have a minute?” She asks and you almost roll your eyes at the flirty tone she regards your husband with.

He smiles shortly and excuses himself, looking at you meaningfully before going back to the rest of his team. She turns to you and before you can escape she starts talking, the camera right in your face. Great. You'd been ready for bed when you decided to drive here (and look accordingly) and now you're on national news.

“How do you know him? What did you talk about? There seemed to be some tension.” She makes an oohing noise and this time you can't contain your eye roll. “I was simply talking to my husband. Now excuse me please,” you see the shocked look on her face and she nervously adjusts her hair before turning back to the camera.

“Evan Buckley!” You say loud enough that not only Bobby but Hen and Chim turn around as well, eyebrows raised in surprise at your presence. The one you actually addressed was currently busy getting into a harness.

You stand behind him, mumbling thanks to Bobby when he steadies you as your feet slip on the mud and wet ground. “What do you think you're doing?”

Buck looks at you over his shoulder, red goggles on his face and similar gear to what Eddie had worn. “My job,” he grunts and you sigh exasperatedly. “I see that, I have two eyes.” Frankly you didn't want to be this upset. He wasn't special as in he should get special treatment; the team risked their lives daily all the same.

But you were scared. You'd seen it many times; he'd get an idea and pull through with it, no matter what anyone says or what the odds are. It simply pisses you off that he never thinks of anyone else.

He acts like no one cares whether he lives or dies and that's what's really bothering you, once again as he is getting ready to go down.

The desperation must be visible on your face because Bobby's comforting hand moves to your shoulder and you exhale and look at him, lips quivering.

“I'm sorry I shouldn't be bothering here, I don't know what came over me.” You apologize and suck up the tears stemming from foreboding fear.

He shakes his head, “It's okay, you know we'll tell you if you're in the way.” You nod and wrap your arms around yourself, ready to at least tell Buck you loved him before he went down.

You flinch at the Crack of the thunder. And then there's white sparks everywhere as the lightning strikes the crane, causing the LED lights to fail and cast everything in darkness. There's screaming and you just barely see Buck unclasping his harness before his arms wrap around your waist and he throws himself backward.

You scream as you cling to his arm, utterly confused until the crane creaks horribly and starts falling. It looks and feels as if it's in slow motion but it gets faster the closer it comes and then it lands on the earth with a loud booming sound.

You heave in shock at the whole thing until Buck let's go of you and runs the few steps to the well.

And that's when you see it. Your face falls and your pulse accelerates when there's not one or two holes but none. Someone to your left yells that the ground collapsed and over the ringing in your ears you see Buck kneeling over the spot as he claws at the mud, screaming in vain.

You whimper when the realization comes that Eddie is still down there. Under pounds if not tons of earth with no way out. You Clasp a hand over your mouth as tears fall down your face. Eddie would make it, you convince yourself in order to calm down enough to think rationally - especially to be there for who needed you most right now.

“Baby, come on, you'll save him but you need to come this isn't safe,” you urge as you tug at Bucks shoulders. He resists, muscles straining as he keeps digging only for every hole he makes to be filled with more mud. “Evan, please,” you cry and he snaps out of it, heavily breathing as he turns around to look at you.

He's crying and you can see the pure desperation and fear replaying on his face. “Inside! We need to discuss plans!” Bobby yells and makes a motion with his hand before all of the remaining 118 hurries after him and into the house.

“Let's go, yeah? They're thinking of a way to find him,” you repeat to your devastated husband. He whimpers and tries to say something as he weakly claws at the earth, you shush him and pull him into your chest, uncaring of the mud and dirt covering you both now.

“He'll be okay. You know Eddie. He would never leave Christopher alone.” he shakily nods and moves his hand to your hips to squeeze them. He knocks his forehead against yours and you can feel his exhaustion as he leans fully onto you.

“Buck you gotta calm down and focus. You can do that, right?” He nods dazedly and you move your hand onto the nape of his neck, cupping it to ground him.

“Eddie needs you. Focus. No stupid or reckless decisions.” He manages a tiny glare at you before he closes his eyes and inhales deeply, opening them when he's ready. There's new determination cursing through him as he stands up and pulls you to stand with him.

The pouring rain sticks his hair onto his forehead and you swear he's the most beautiful person to walk this earth. His blue eyes wander over your face and he seems to find what he was looking for when he presses a tender kiss to your lips, nose and forehead.

“I'm sorry I just- I can't lose him. Chris can't lose him,” he mumbles and you nod in understanding. “Shh, I know.” You keep your hand to cup his face for a moment and then sigh, ushering him towards the house. He frowns and pulls you with him but you smile and shake your head, “I'll go relieve Carla. I haven't seen Chris in a while anyway.”

He nods but is reluctant to let you go, kissing your forehead again and mumbling an ‘I love you’ into your skin. You smile and soothe your thumb over his knuckles, “I love you more. Be careful.” You say the last part with a warning but worried tone and glance at him with a small frown.

He huffs amused and pecks your temple before stepping back and adjusting the hood of your raincoat to sit tightly on your head, “I will be. Tell Chris I said hi and that I want to do a sleepover again.” You laugh and he does too for a second until his eyes and expression dull and the looming threat to Eddie's life moves back to the forefront of his thoughts.

He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, mumbling something and then looking up again. He begins to say something when a commotion to the side drowns his voice out. Confused you both turn around and his arm slips around your waist to keep you close - a habit you adored.

“What?” You mumble. The huddle of people clears and in the middle is Eddie - his arms are limply slung over two other firefighters’ shoulders and his head is hanging down. His entire gear is dripping wet as if he'd gone for a swim (well technically he probably did… you note mentally as the positive shock wears off). His helmet and goggles are missing, hair sticking to his forehead and most worryingly his eyes are bloodshot and red, earth and mud dirtying his usually clear skin.

“What..?” Evan breathes out and his arm drops from around you as he runs over to his best friend and carelessly pulls him into a hug. You see Eddie's smile as he rests his head in the crook of Evan's neck, sluggishly moving his arms around the others shoulders to hold himself up. The two men who had helped him hover for a second in case their help was needed again but when Evan keeps clinging to the older they retreat.

Then you feel Hen, Bobby and Chimney rush past you - the two paramedics with their first aid bags. You're unsure whether to put your plan from a moment ago into reality or if you could be of help here when Buck starts dragging Eddie along and over to you.

With a stressed sigh you approach them, stopping a foot in front of them with a warning glance, “You both should get in the ambulance and let these two,” you point to Hen and Chim, “do their job. No wandering around, boys.”

Evan pouts and Eddie manages a chuckle that still clearly showcases how tired out and overall done he is but you welcome it nevertheless. “You're like, way too strict. He basically just drowned,” Evan starts, and both you and Eddie roll your eyes - you in fond annoyance and Eddie in amusement.

“Wow. Why do I always get the attitude?” He huffs and side eyes you as he drags Eddie to the ambulance but not before mouthing another ‘I love you’.

Shaking your head you pull down the hood of your coat and nod at Bobby, signaling him you were going to leave now. He nods and turns back to whatever important duties he had now.

After a last glance into the ambulance (where Buck actually sat still for once) you get your keys and drive off. The drive to Chris and Eddie is only about half an hour and when you get there you still see the light in the kitchen on. This was unusual - normally Carla would just watch some TV with the lights off when she waited until early in the morning for Eddie to come back.

You knock on the front door and wait, the older woman opening the door with a wide smile, “Thought I saw you approach. I saw you on the news, you wanna tell me what that's about, girl?”

You laugh and shake your head, reciprocating the warm hug and stepping into the house. “It's pretty boring. Thought I'd spend the night here today, Eddie will probably not be home tonight or tomorrow…” You solemnly explain and she hums.

“Saw it on the news. And.. for some reason he did too,” she sighs heavily and walks you to the living room. And surely there is Christopher perched on the sofa with a worried little frown on his forehead as he watches the news.

You furrow your brows and nod, “Did he see it all?” She nods again and you understand why the little boy wasn't in bed although it was nearing two in the morning when his usual bedtime is nine thirty.

“Chris? Hey, buddy!” You smile and ruffle his hair. He grins at you in that adorable way and you wave at Carla over his shoulder as she grabs her bag and keys. “You wanna explain why you aren't in bed?” He looks a bit guilty but pouts stubbornly. “I saw dad on the news.”

You didn't really need more explanation - you knew Chris worried for his father in the same manner Eddie was probably currently thinking about his son.

“I saw him too. And you know what?” He looks at you with big but tire, dropping eyes. “He's with some nice doctors now and he's gonna be completely fine again very quickly. Doesn't that sound good?”

He ponders for a moment and then slowly nods, “Buck?” A chuckle escapes you and you grin, “He's fine too.”

“Then why were you angry with him?” He asks and it takes you embarrassingly long to connect the dots. The news reporter seemingly had shown your and Evans little dispute earlier. “I wasn't angry with him he was just being stupid,” you shake your head and explain.

Chris hums and looks back at the news report. You bite your lip in thought and then tilt your head, “Do you want to talk to Buck?” Christopher basically lights up and nods eagerly clasping his hands under his chin as you video call Evan - praying he was still with Eddie and that in a few minutes Christopher would be calmed enough to finally go to bed.

“Baby? Don’t worry I’m fine the doctors just checked me out,” he’s slumped in a hospital chair in a way you know will have him complaining about his neck hurting tomorrow and his eyes are just as droopy and tired as the ones of the boy next to you.

“That’s good. There’s someone who really wants to talk to you.” Chris squeezes into the frame and you chuckle before handing him the phone, watching Bucks face light up as he sees him, “Chris! Hi, bud! What are you still doing up?”

Said boy giggles and starts recounting his evening. You start cleaning up a bit meanwhile, getting everything ready for Chris to go to sleep and for Eddie to return home without going straight to cleaning (because he would and that man really needs to rest for once).

The living room gets suspiciously quiet and you put down the kitchen towel and plate to check up on the two boys. “Chris?” Your heart melts when you see him laying down on the sofa with your phone clutched in your hand, still on the call and showing your husband also napping.

You gently take the phone and put it on the table to briskly talk to Evan after putting Chris to bed. Then you put an arm under his back and the other under his knees to carry him to his room. Luckily Christopher doesn’t wake up and you quickly tuck him in before leaving the room with the door opened a bit.

You turn off the lights except for the small lamp next to the sofa and pull a blanket up to your chin with your phone back in your hand.

“Buck?” He grunts in his sleep and the phone slips from his hand until it’s laying on the hospital bed and you huff a quiet laugh.

“Alright, I love you.” You whisper and hang up, quickly texting him to tell you when Eddie would be back.

The next morning you wake up to someone poking your cheek repeatedly and before remembering where you were you almost turn around and continue sleeping.

Then a small but very much insistent voice calls your name.

You squint your eyes at the light streaming in from the sun, the shadow keeping your eyes from being blinded belongs to Chris. “We need to visit Dad.” He decides in a sure voice. You stretch and sit up, reaching out to gently make him sit down as well.

“Visit him? I don’t know if we can yet I’ll have to ask the doctors…” Chris huffs unhappily and you nod in understanding. “I know, but you’ll see him soon.” Reaching for your phone you stop in your tracks when there’s a thump at the door before two voices can be heard throughout the hallway and into the living room.

Christopher looks at you with a confused look and your nervousness evaporates when you hear an exclaimed curse and another voice scolding him after. Well, that could only be your husband and the only one Chris wanted to see right now.

“Dumb and dumber are here,” you whisper to Chris and he giggles. After Bobby had called them that once Chris had picked it up and now it was kind of an inside joke between him and almost all of the 118 - to the displeasure of the two guys.

He holds his arms out and you pick him up, sneaking to the door to watch as one of them seems to try and get the key to fit into the designated spot.

“Let’s let them in?” The boy in your arms nods and you open the door, staring at Eddie and Evan with raised eyebrows. “You guys should never try robbing someone.”

Bucks jaw drops in offense and you can practically see the rebuttal on his face but he keeps it to himself and simply holds up two plastic bags, “We got breakfast.”

Chris is busy reaching for Eddie who seemed a bit unsteady on his feet but other than visible bruises he looked fine. You smile at him and pat his shoulder as he walks inside, kissing his son's head and gently murmuring about something as you focus on Evan.

“Morning,” you finally greet and lean up for a kiss, Evan gratefully giving you one. He grins down at you and then at the boy in your arms, “Chris! Did you protect her all night?” He asks with an exaggerated voice and you laugh and roll your eyes but take the plastic bags with food from him and pass Chris into his arms.

You leave the two to themselves as you look at Eddie and sigh before hugging him, “You scared us half to death yesterday.” He shrugs and grins “What else would I be doing other than stress you guys out?”

Your jaw momentarily drops and he grins with a shrug and fakes sympathy as he pats your shoulder. You two walk into the kitchen to prepare the food onto plates.

“How are you? Be honest,” you warningly add, fully aware of his habit to minimize his worries and pains same as your husband.

“Sore. Probably added some trauma to the collection.” He jokes and you look at him over your shoulder with a glare that makes him laugh. “No really. I’m fine. Just needed some rest and the bruises will go away with time.”

Nodding, you cross your arms over your chest and catch a glimpse of Buck holding Chris up and pretending to be an airplane. “How is he? He was ready to dig the earth up with his own hands when you got trapped.” You sigh.

Eddie nods and shakes his head, “Yeah, no he was pretty worried. I got quite the lecture when I woke up.” You both laugh at that and then you pass him two plates while taking the other two, “Let’s eat breakfast.”

-

When you’re home that evening you both are dead tired and yet Buck insists on carrying you up the stairs and helping you change into your pajamas (though you’re sure that was just for his enjoyment).

“I have tomorrow and the day after off. You know what that means? All day in bed,” he grins as he flops down onto the mattress next to you. With a smile you comb your hand through his hair and smooth your thumb along his temple.

“You definitely need to rest.” You agree and he turns his head to look at you, “Nope. I need you. So you better call in sick as long as I’m off.”

You huff at his demanding tone, raise both eyebrows and lean back on your elbows. The mattress and pillows make you groan in comfort as you concentrate your gaze onto him.

He was halfway laying down on his side with his arm propped up under him. He was wearing some black shorts and a dark blue t-shirt that was too tight around his biceps. His eye bags are worse than usual and you can tell since that night Eddie almost died he hasn't been sleeping well. His hair is an adorable mess and you don't refrain from reaching out and gently carding your hand through it.

He hums and closes his eyes with a small smile tugging on his lips. “I'll call in sick,” he perks up and opens his eyes again, a smirk replacing his earlier smile before you interrupt, “But only because I can actually feel that I'm getting a cold and not because you're asking me to.” He pouts and it goes unsaid by either of you that he played a big part in you taking some sick days.

After all, you usually put your health on the back burner, focusing on your job and other things like grocery shopping. Buck had always had a problem with that, lecturing you whenever he came home to see you passed out on the couch with tissues around you and a mountain of blankets keeping him from being able to throw himself on top of you.

“Alright, baby. I'm gonna be Doctor Buckley!” He grins and sits up, dusting off his shoulders and puffing out his chest. The action makes you burst into laughter and you fall on your back. He takes that as an invitation to lean over you and pretend to check your airways and pulse, pressing his ear over your sternum.

“You're so childish,” you comment and he happily ignores you to convert his checking of your breathing to laying on your chest with an arm wound around your waist.

It grows quiet and there's a comfortable atmosphere as you play with his hair while he snoozes on your abdomen.

Maybe you wouldn't mind being sick for a few days if this is the doctor taking care of you.

[masn-mount]

I know we're all melting at Jude with the kids but what about him melting about you with the kids!!! being like I want you to have my babies and you're like??? where did that come from

this is just a little blurb, I hope you enjoy xx (this is rushed and not proofread because I need to sleep and if I don't post it right now I'll just delete it soooo also haven't written in months so yeah, bye)

okay yes, like he would be standing around with his mum and teammates trying to focus on the conversation they were having but he couldn't tear his eyes away from you running around after Lucas Vazques' kids, making them laugh uncontrollably when you caught them or the way you'd help Dani Carvajal's son hold up the trophy, making him smile so big for thinking he was lifting it by himself and as if he wasn't feeling overwhelmed already he swore his heart could have burst when you later went over to him to say bye with one of his teammates not even one year old clutching on to you. Small arms around your neck, her little head resting against your shoulder and you just looked so natural with it and it drives him a little mental and after he's kissed you and you leave he can't get that image out of his head even with the amount of drinks in his system by then. When he gets home hours later he's trying to make as little noise as possible, not wanting to wake you or anyone else in the house up and he's not expecting to walk into your shared bedroom and see you sitting up in bed, phone in hand no doubt scrolling on Tiktok. "You're going to feel beyond terrible tomorrow," is what you say when he falls on the bed, he lays still for a second before he starts moving around so he can lay closer to you, head resting on your stomach. Your fingers go to scratch the back of his head and after a few moments of complete silence you almost think he's fallen asleep until he lifts his head so he can look up at you, eyes so pretty and glossy and you smile at him before running your thumb over his pouted lip. "You okay?"

"I want you, want you to," he kept mumbling the words over and over, you found it a little amusing how he had gone from this overly confident man you had seen all over your X and Tiktok feed hours prior to this shy boy laying next to you.

"Want me to what?"

"Have babies with me." You were unsure on how to respond, it was probably the last thing you'd expect him to say so you just sat back, raised your eyebrows at him, a giggle escaping past your lips at how he was nodding his head while repeatedly mumbling "yes, I want that".

"You do, yeah?"

"So bad."

"Okay, how about we go sleep?"

"No, I've jus-, just keep thinking about you with the kids today and I, I want us to have that," he sounded so sure you could have almost forgotten that he was drunk out of his mind.

"I thought you didn't want kids?" You teased, fingers running over his cheeks, still trying to get used to his completely bare face. Your future together was often a topic of discussion but kids had never been apart of the conversation until this moment and you weren't going to pretend like seeing him be so good with all of his teammates kids hadn't sent your mind in a frenzy.

"I never said I didn't want them with you."

"Okay."

"Yeah? we should try...right now."

"Okay, calm down, silly." You tried to keep your voice down but couldn't hold in your laughter over how fast he was trying to get undressed before laying over you, lips moving over your chest and up your neck. "Hey, don't laugh...trying to love on you, baby," but when you didn't stop, instead hiding your face away from him and in your pillow, unable to take him seriously Jude got the hind and laid back down, content for the moment with just holding your hand.. "I love you...mucho."

"I love you mucho too, Jude," you smiled, leaning up and capturing his lips with yours for a moment before pulling back.

"I get to come home to you, so lucky..so lucky you're going to be the mum to my babies."

"Go to sleep, handsome."

"We'll try tomorrow."

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

A lot of people will be spending more time with their families of origin in the next few weeks.

And when you're with people you've spent so much time around in the past, it can be easy to fall into old habits and social role dynamics without really noticing, and without evaluating whether those patterns are reflective of the values we have now.

So with that in mind, I'd like to gently suggest taking a closer look at your family's interactions and see whether there are patterns you're part of that you don't want to be and could potentially do something to disrupt.

For example, is there anyone:

your family routinely treats as faintly ridiculous or hysterical?

or whose ideas, opinions, or interests are automatically dismissed by the group when those same things would be worthy of consideration/discussion from someone else?

or who gets teased and made fun of more than others, or past the point where they seem to be having fun?

or who is expected to do a disproportionately large amount of work that others could be helping with?

or who is consistently left out of group activities and is not asked if they'd like to join this time? (Do they think you'd be happy if they did join in?)

or who is automatically treated like "the problem" in any conflict they're in, regardless of whether they initiated the conflict or were being reasonable or not?

or who makes/has made repeated requests that some reasonable boundary be respected that is habitually ignored, belittled, or argued with?

or who habitually speaks or acts in unkind or unloving ways and gets minimal pushback, and/or minimal concern for the targets of their unkindness, because "that's just how they are"?

Or is there maybe:

a gender, racial, and/or class/income, etc., divide in who in your family does how much cooking/cleaning/kinship work?

a difference in who leads dinnertable conversations and whose input, interests, opinions, etc., are more valued/respected?

a difference in whose job or home life is worthy of being asked about?

automatic assumptions about people's interests, skills, life experiences, etc., that haven't been updated in years? Is anyone trying to build connections and find out more about who each of you are now?

Group social dynamics are always complicated, and perhaps never more so than in families. I'm not in your family, and I don't know the complicated contexts between each of the members. I also don't know how you'd like your family interactions to go, or if you're even spending time together willingly or unwillingly. Maybe this post will be helpful to you, maybe not.

But if you want your family to interact in more loving ways, sometimes as adults or even teenagers there ARE things we can do to interrupt patterns people are participating in without even noticing!

We can start helping with work we're not expected to participate in, and we can ask others who don't participate to take on part of the task. (In many families, a man standing up and starting to clear away the dishes and saying, "Brian, would you mind grabbing the green beans and the mac and cheese?" would be out of the ordinary if the women usually do that, but (in many families) people would go along with it once suggested.)

We can try to bring neglected others into conversation by asking and genuinely listening to their thoughts and opinions.

We can speak up when someone's interrupted and insist that we want to hear the rest of their thought.

We can take seriously the person treated like a joke, and show others that we're taking them seriously.

We can say "I don't think we need to discuss people's bodies here" or "not cool, dude" and redirect the conversation when someone is unkind.

Sometimes we can take people aside and ask them to ease up on a person being teased. Sometimes saying "I think it's actually hurting their feelings" or "it's not funny anymore, let up" is enough to actually make a difference.

We can ask about someone's job, interests, home life, hobbies etc., when they are usually left out of being asked.

We can try to remember that people aren't fixed in stone, and try to get to know who people are now without making too many assumptions.

Sometimes harmful patterns can be interrupted just by pointing them out and making an effort to not participate in them anymore.

[jouxlskaard]

Strap in, fuckers. This is a long one.

I've seen a lot of discourse and discussion recently about why TMAGP isn't resonating with listeners as much as TMA did, with a lot of people pointing towards the infrequent structure of each episode and the lack of subtlety that TMA had once excelled in. And while both of these are true, I think the main culprit that has caused these problems for listeners is one thing: the pacing.

TMAGP is only going to be 60 (Edit: 90) episodes long, compared with TMA's absolute behemoth of 200. When I'd found out about this, I'd assumed that it meant TMAGP would have a much smaller story - not having to establish as much information as TMA did, and allowing the story to have lower stakes as a result. This certainly wasn't a bad thing, as many sequels that have tried to one-up their predecessors have gone disastrously wrong, but I knew that the structure would be different to TMA as a result.

However, from the 12 episodes that we've seen so far, it appears that TMAGP is going to have similar levels of stakes to TMA - not the same stakes, of course, but they'll likely be on close to equal footing. This means that TMAGP has to establish the same amount of information to listeners with significantly less time to do it in, and the pacing has to speed up to adhere to that. In the first 12 episodes of TMA, we had established one possible recurring statement character (Gerry), a disturbing worm woman (Prentiss), and the fact that Jon doesn't like his assistant and refuses to believe any of the statements. In the first 12 episodes of TMAGP, we've established every important protagonist and what they sound like, two recurring statement characters (Bonzo and Ink5oul) with one that has already physically appeared, much of Sam's backstory and his ties to the Magnus Institute and the fact that something is deeply wrong with their workplace. That is a big difference.

This difference in pacing is what I believe is turning listeners away from what they'd originally enjoyed about TMA, because there's no longer that warm, comforting atmosphere when you listen to it. Its sound isn't designed to come from a tape recorder and a tape recorder only anymore; it's no longer a sit-down and listen to the Archivist tell you spooky stories for 20 minutes anymore; and, like I mentioned earlier, the structure is no longer the same throughout each episode. The horror anthology aspect, whilst still being there, has now taken a back-burner to the metanarrative because so much has to be established in so little time. To many, that's a bad thing. They listened to the original because they liked the statements, and the little things connecting them hinted to a much larger story at play. When this story was revealed, we got to see Jonny Sims and his brilliant prose at its best, because there was no longer anything to hide and the statements were in their purest forms - no longer having to establish information to the audience, and simply basking in the fear.

I'm sure we'll get to see the same thing in TMAGP once the narrative reaches that point, but the current pacing has uprooted a lot of listeners' expectations for the show. I'm going to listen to the entire thing, personally; yeah, it's different, and it doesn't deliver the same vibes and comfort as TMA did, and I probably won't be able to fall asleep whilst relistening to the more obscure episodes like I could before, but in a frankly disturbing way, I'm still fascinated with what Jonny, Alex and the other writers have created. This type of horror is the only kind that I genuinely enjoy, and I'm excited to see what direction Protocol goes in.

Edit: I feel like I should clarify that I don't see this comparison as something that takes away from TMAGP. Alex has said that it's going to be different from the get-go, and I do think that comparing it to TMA is an exercise in futility to an extent. I just wanted to talk about the shows together because I feel like they complement one another, and the narrative beats that I've talked about are less to do with TMA on its own and more to do with general narrative structure. We have buildup, payoff and pacing no matter what show it is, because that's what makes a story. I think TMAGP could be taken a little bit like Deltarune in terms of its relation to the original source material: separate entities with some overlap in character and themes. At the end of the day, it's still early days for the show and this entire spiel could just end up gathering dust - I just think it's a cool thing to think about, and it gives me an excuse to infodump about how pacing can affect a narrative and the audience's response to it.

I wrote this while my cat was laying on me. Have a picture as a reward for reading this whole thing.

[genericpuff]

So I watched ChattyMia's Lore Olympus video which was great and everyone should watch it. It seems most people who do series reviews of the Lore Olympus don't like the comic for obvious reasons. Then I was reminded by the end that the comic is expecting a TV series which is in development hell. It made me think that Rachel might be better off not having a Lore Olympus TV show. Most praise for the series died awhile ago as the story became an utter mess. If it did get a TV show, people will see the early red flags like the age gap, the treatment of Minthe, trying to excuse cheating, Hades horrible behavior to workers, nymphs being discriminated with no pushback, etc. If some of them read the comic for spoilers they would later see the other big red flags of the series. Excusing slave labor, Persephone threatening the lower class, Hera getting with Echo a 'trash nypmh' as she once called Minthe, Apollo gets community service, the continued mistreatment of Demeter etc. Which I feel will cause everyone to go 'wtf is this series? 50 Shades of Grey mixed with Keeping Up with the Kardashians?'. Then you have to wonder if some of them will do a deep dive and find the stuff about Rachel's tie to Lolita. It would be especially bad if a bigger content creator talked about it. And we already know Rachel doesn't handle criticism the best (i.e. the struggle street tweet, the Minthe cosplay situation or even the merch). So I could only imagine how much worse it would be for her if Lore Olympus got a TV show and more eyes got drawn to it and her. It would no longer be just confided to the web comics fanbase but the much larger TV one. Unless Rachel seriously considered rewriting the TV script (or rekindling it lol) I don't see how a TV adaptation of her show would be good press for her.

Yess I've seen that video, it's great! She did a great job summarizing a lot of the biggest core issues with LO's story and art without getting too lost in the sauce (though god knows the rabbithole of LO's issues runs INCREDIBLY deep in an equally fascinating and "oh god what the fuck did I just read' kind of way), her video editing was very entertaining and her Persephone cosplay was a great touch 😎

That said, regarding the thought of "most people who do series reviews of LO don't like the comic", there is an amount of bias we have to acknowledge there - there's often a lot more to say in the negative rather than the positive. By extension, people who simply enjoy LO and don't participate much in the online discussion surrounding it or the discourse concerning it are less likely to make 2 hour videos analyzing it. So while the popular opinion of LO has shifted more towards a negative point of view, that doesn't mean that fans of the comic don't exist - it's just that most of those fans are blissfully enjoying the comic and can only sum it up as "it's very pretty and the plot is great", whereas many people who didn't enjoy it are more likely to voice their opinions as to why in far more explicit detail (though on the flipside of that, it also goes to show that there's a lot more to analyze in LO's flaws than its strengths - it's ironic that the fans often don't have much to say beyond "it's cute" or "I relate to Persephone" and anything further than that is relegated to pure headcanon pieced together by assumption and best guesses to make up for Rachel's lack of writing).

All that aside though, regarding the TV adaption, at this point it's less a matter of reception and more a matter of relevancy. The perfect time to release or at least show us proof of the LO TV show was years ago, when the comic was at its peak between 2020-2021. The second best time was at last year's NYCC when Rachel was a headlining guest. The fact they still had nothing to show for it at this year's NYCC, with Rachel nowhere to be seen and instead focusing more on the Freaking Romance adaption with Snailords filling the role as their featured guest (an equally if not even more problematic creator), is astounding, but unsurprising.

To me, LO feels like a real life case of "Tortoise and the Hare". Back at the start of it all, in 2017-2018, it was doing what no other comic on the platform was doing, presenting us a retelling of the Hades and Persephone story - which was very popular on Tumblr at the time - through a modern setting and with art that was incredibly unique for the platform. That, paired with WT's aggressive marketing, propelled it far ahead every other comic on the platform, creating a gap so massive that even the comics in second place on the trending tabs still weren't even close to LO's lead in terms of stats and money.

But then it got complacent. Quality of the comic's writing and art dropped, it was becoming increasingly obvious that LO had become no more than a marketing grift akin to the likes of Harry Potter - easily turned into books, t-shirts, socks, coloring books, figures, etc. - and that gave way to an increase of criticism towards it, criticism that had always somewhat existed even as far back as its days on Tumblr, but was now amplified by the existing ongoing proof that LO was never all it was cracked up to be.

Now, at best they shill $200+ figurine pre-orders, but the show is nowhere to be seen and, with the comic now finished and locked behind Daily Pass, its relevancy is dying out. "Rachel Smythe Presents" still has nothing to show for itself, Rachel's IG and Twitter seem to be purely for merch-pushing by the Inklore team, and Rachel has, at best, two new series that she suddenly announced but, in her words, don't even have anything written or planned for them yet beyond the taglines that were thrown together for her socials.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Greek myth retelling industry is in a renaissance. Hades is still a massively popular game, with its sequel now in early access; Epic: The Musical has been making waves on Spotify and TikTok far exceeding that of LO's in terms of audience reach, and even has more to show for itself in the way of official animations than LO ever has; and now Kaos has recently launched its first season after being in production since 2018 - yes, you read that right, it got commissioned around the exact same time LO became an Originals series which suggests the idea for it was already floating around and being pitched prior to LO - and, frankly, has beaten LO at its own game by achieving everything LO set out to do - weaving a Greek epic-style story in a modern setting, balancing romance with prophecies and world-ending stakes. It took a while, but Kaos made it past the finishing line, while LO has been dragging itself behind it, still making empty promises that a TV show is "still in the works" and "coming soon", with not a single thing to show for itself.

LO may have gotten a head start in being the "sleek, modern, sexy Greek myth retelling" by the virtue of being a weekly webtoon, but slow and steady wins the race - the productions that have taken their time cooking in the oven are now coming out as beautiful and delicious as we, the guests at the table, were told would be, while LO is simply the short-term gratification junk food that bombards us with gimmicks but sits like a rock in our stomachs and leaves us unfulfilled and wishing for a better meal.

Those better meals are here now and they were absolutely worth the wait.

[tommycorriander]

Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, And Disability

I am disabled. This is something I've talked about a handful of times on this blog and on my Twitter, and anyone who knows me knows I am a disabled man. As a result, while I do enjoy dissecting media and politics, the need to be an advocate for disability issues would have fallen on me to some extent regardless. Disabled folks are often left out of conversations regarding diversity in media, in a continued oversight from able bodied peers.

What does this have to do with the Hellaverse?

Both shows contain at least some small amount of disability representation; specifically, they both have characters that are physically disabled. In Hazbin Hotel this is Vaggie, as she is missing an eye and prior to the finale had lost her wings. In Helluva Boss, the characters would be Fizzarolli, a quad amputee, and the unnamed deaf child in the special. The only character I ever see talked about in regards to their disability by the wider fanbase is the unnamed child, and on a smaller scale in critical spaces I occasionally see remarks on Fizzarolli's disability.

This is a problem.

For as much as fans of one or both shows would love to claim diversity in their shows, the lack of disability representation and the lackluster portrayal of the minimal representation is poor. And I haven't seen any of my fellow critics discuss this, which I feel is an oversight, though I don't fault them for this as there are many problems with both shows and they tend to have their hands full. However, this angle of viewing the shows has been overlooked, which is why I wish to discuss it today.

Firstly, I'd like to specify what I mean when I discuss disability. While the conversation regarding the Hellaverse is primarily centered around physical disability as this is the only form of disability portrayed in the shows, coded or otherwise, disability comes in many different forms. Intellectual disabilities and mental disabilities are just as important for representation in the media as physical disabilities. Among physical disabilities, there's also a difference in visible and invisible disabilities, the latter of which is hardly ever shown in media compared to the former. Ideally all forms of disability would be portrayed equally and with respect, but unfortunately this isn't the case. I also don't expect every show to tackle every demographic at once; this isn't a reasonable request, and to be very clear, my issue with the representation in HH/HB does not come from every single unique experience with disability not being covered, but rather with the narrative the creatives behind the show and the show's fans continue to push: that both shows are diverse and are, in some way, more progressive than other shows.

This isn't the case for many reasons. Fellow critics have gone into depth about the show's lack of representation of women in nuanced roles, the lack of queer women, the racist ways in which the very few characters of colour are presented, the lack of trans representation, and even the way sex and sexuality is presented being rather conservative at times. That isn't the focus of this essay, but I would implore anyone who is reading this who is somehow unaware of the previous issues to seek out essays that talk about those points; Cassidy Whiskey on YouTube has a three-part series that covers a multitude of topics, not just issues of representation, and I would have recommended helluvareceipts on Twitter, but her account has sadly been deactivated. I'm sure there are others, but I'll lose focus if I try to name every single person to go to. If you're willing to trawl through general pettiness in the critical tag (which, let's be real, that is probably how you found this post) you'll find well-worded critiques as well.

Back to the topic at hand. The lack of representation of people with disabilities is already frustrating, but there isn't a complete drought: Vaggie, Fizzarolli, and the unnamed imp child do exist, after all. However, their representation is not just flawed, but even exploitative in some ways.

First we have Vaggie. Aside from the visual of her missing eye and seeing the incident in which she lost that eye, nothing comes of it. She never has to contend with the difficulties that come with impaired sight, and it's never brought up by other characters. In the training scene between her and Carmilla, it's not a factor: instead, her greater flaw in the physical realm when it comes to combat is having longer hair. This is an extreme oversight, which I believe shows that Vivienne and the various writers for the show never actually take into consideration what should be a major element of a character, that being her impaired vision. Furthermore, the loss of her wings isn't even considered at all, with her somehow gaining them back at the end of her training montage with Carmilla. This could have been an excellent vector to discuss physical disability in a coded form, with her wings being a stand in for more traditional forms of limb loss. Still not ideal, as I believe it's better to have forthright depictions of disability over metaphors, but it would have been something. Instead, it's never a factor, and worse, it's effectively cured. As far as representation goes, Vaggie might as well not even count.

That's all that exists for Hazbin Hotel. In Helluva Boss, we have two characters, and I will save the unnamed child for last, because that is where the real issue with the representation is on full display.

So, Fizzarolli. He is a quad amputee and potentially hearing impaired, though the latter is speculated on due to a single scene which I discuss later. Since that scene is the only time it ever comes up, I will focus on his amputee status. He lost his limbs in a fire, something we see on screen. I will disagree with some of my fellow critics in that this scene should have been more detailed; I feel that had the scene shown more of the damage dealt to Fizz's body it would have come across in poor taste, and focusing on the tragic aspect of disability usually ends up feeling like trauma porn in the hands of poor writers, which Vivienne most certainly is. I do not trust her to handle a more detailed scene with grace, especially given her track record (more on that later). It is ultimately for the best that the scene is mostly brushed over, even if it would have been better in the hands of someone with the maturity and sensitivity to cover such a topic for more to be shown in regards to his injuries.

Otherwise, Fizzarolli is mostly fine. He's shown not just surviving but thriving, he has a loving partner (criticisms of the portrayal of said relationship not withstanding) and generally sees success in his life while still having to grapple with the realities of his disability when it comes to his prosthetics being prone to damage and potentially shutting down. I would, in the hands of anyone else, like to see more of this character and what his daily routine looks like as a disabled man.

Unfortunately all the good will built with Fizz comes crashing down when we get to the unnamed imp child in the Fizzarolli special episode. This child is the poster child for virtue signalling. Frankly, it's disgusting how a majority of the fandom seemed to ignore how fetishistic this portrayal was. This is where the real meat of the essay comes in to play.

This unnamed child is given a single scene, and is then promptly forgotten about and never mentioned again. They are introduced as being a fan of Fizz here to view the competition, there is a brief exchange between the two, and then we all move on. And yet this scene was championed as somehow revolutionary or a sign of the top-tier diversity and progressiveness in Helluva, when in reality this type of scene has been done to death. This is tokenism.

One major stumbling block many of the people championing this scene seem to get tripped up on is a very simple question: why was this child a child to begin with? Really, this seems like a simple question, it shouldn't have much thought. Sometimes characters are kids. But within the episode it's clearly shown through multiple different avenues that this is an adult show. The performances are dripping with sexuality, several of the fans of Fizzarolli are there because Mammon sells sex robots of the guy, there is no mistaking that this is something no child should be at, let alone by themselves.

So why was this child a child? Simple: brownie points.

It's a lot more difficult for people to share clips of a wholesome moment from your show if the person Fizz was interacting with was an adult. People are ableist, this is pretty par for the course; as a disabled person I find it generally safer to assume people are ableist before proven otherwise. I can guarantee if this scene were to be between Fizzarolli and a deaf adult fan as opposed to a young child, it would not have been championed as this amazing representation by mostly able bodied fans. And that is by design: if Vivienne genuinely cared about representation, if she truly wanted to show something meaningful to her adult fans in her adult show, she would have had the interaction be with an adult. But that doesn't get her clip shared around on social media. That doesn't get her brownie points for inclusion. It's safe, it's palatable, it's sickeningly wholesome, and it's insulting for that. This is a show for adults, something Vivienne and company is adamant on, and yet they treat their audience like children. As a fan, you should be insulted to have this key-jingling one minute clip presented to you. You should demand more, demand better.

Unfortunately I do not see ever getting better from Vivienne. She has made it very clear she truly does not care about creating art, she really only stumbled into being championed as a paragon for animation because her majority white and able bodied fans saw the inclusion of primarily gay men and thought that was good enough. She does not give a damn about disabled people, and she never will. To expect good disabled representation from her is like expecting good queer representation from a Marvel movie; she is in it for the money, and it just so happens that the inclusion of that scene makes money.

Addendum thoughts that were too long to put into the tags: I would like to make it clear that disability, because it presents very differently, is experienced very differently by many different people. If you felt seen or represented by the disability representation in either show, that's fine, and I don't want you to feel bad for feeling seen. Ultimately disabled people are largely given scraps; I have not once seen someone with my particular physical disability portrayed in media. Sometimes we latch onto things that are subpar or lacking; my criticism of reception to this scene is targeted primarily at able bodied audience members who may be lacking in this perspective and to also champion fellow disabled people to rightfully demand and expect better. Thank you for your time.

[thinkingaboutbetterdays]

feelings are scary. ( gregory house x reader )

gif belongs to me

He knew breaking up over a text message was the coward's way out, but there would be questions he didn't want to answer, uncomfortable feelings he tried to bury down and pretend didn't exist. Greg House didn't have healthy relationships. Especially not with a sexy ER nurse.

Before you started dating you were often lured to the clinic under false pretenses to see someone he considered interesting but it was just a way to see you. When his team failed to give him the answers he wanted, he would follow you around the ER and discuss his latest patient. You were always bubbly, smiling at his sarcastic remarks, and when he insulted your patients you always said, "Don't mind my friend here, he hasn't had his caffeine fix for the day."

You never turned him away. You were never exasperated by the amount of times he managed to trick you and when you started dating he realized you always knew it was a ruse, and went along with it anyway because you wanted to see him too.

Greg House didn't maintain healthy relationships. But for four blissful months, you did. And it terrified him.

Saying I love you opened doors he had long since locked. You admitted that you didn't need him to say it, but you wanted him to know how you felt. The next day you received his termination of your relationship and were stunned by how curt it was.

Once the knife stopped twisting, you realized you had expected this reaction and decided to give him time and space. For a week you pushed your feelings down, focusing on your job, and while he didn't visit you in the ER or get you to meet him somewhere in the hospital, you had felt the weight of his gaze more than once. He might not have spoken to you, but he still stopped by.

You did everything you could to stop thinking about the department head. Until a car crash victim died and everything came bubbling to the surface. You tore off your gloves and changed in the locker room, washing off the blood, and slumped on the bench, fending off tears that dried up as anger set in at how unfair it was that an eighteen-year-old was dead from a drunk driver.

When you made it to his department you noticed him on the balcony talking to James and stormed outside, gaining their attention.

"Uh, Y/N, h-hi -"

"Go away, Wilson."

"Right-o." He made a swift exit as House sighed, turning to look out at the view, resting his hands on the wall.

"I thought you'd crack sooner -"

"Shut up." You barked.

House raised an eyebrow, turning to look at you and seeing the tears in your eyes.

"You are an arrogant gasbag." His eyebrows rose at the insult as you were docile by nature. "What gives you the right to tell me how to feel? You don't. Do you think falling for you wasn't scary for me? Feelings are scary, Greg, and they feel like crap and sometimes they feel great and everything is butterflies and rainbows until an ego-maniac decides to stab you in the heart because he can't let himself be happy."

House listened quietly as you moved around, gesturing wildly with your hands.

"I know you are a gigantic pain in the ass. I know you're cynical. I know you use humor to keep people at arm's length but for a second, I thought that maybe you would finally let me in the door. And then you avoid me like I have the plague like a middle-grader! I mean, what the hell?"

You stopped pacing, finally meeting his gaze, and took a moment to catch your breath.

"Can I talk now?"

You rolled your jaw, nodding reluctantly.

"Come here."

You walked closer and when you were within arms reach, he brought you to his chest, kissing you hotly. You melted into his chest as he kept his balance by leaning on the wall. His arms wrapped around you, and the scent of his cologne made tears prick your eyes from how comforting it was.

The passionate kiss was the closest thing you would get to a confession. And right now that was enough.

[walpu]

Hello hello 🫂 how are you? I hope you're well! This is my first time request 🏃 feel free to ignore

I was thinking that reader just bought a house and now having troubles with paying the electric bill and water bill they couldn't even prepare a proper meal for themselves, so the reader decided to put on a website open one spot for a roommate with a condition of course. Here where Aventurine found the website and saw who it was.. the person who helped him once, would they remember him anyway? and Aventurine decided to sign up and meet the reader at reader place, discussing about the agreement and spilt who was paying the bill. not Aventurine mind he decided to pay full bill and buy groceries anyway stlas of course he got scolded

Eventually they got close,, close friends even.. reader started taking interest into Aventurine liking, well reader doesn't know he's a gambler ((or is he?)) Overtime,, Aventurine started to become more touchy, well reader doesn't mind it since they adore love affection,, well sometimes they got flustered when Aventurine touch becomes more bold ((yk what I mean?)) Not until they got pinned down OR Aventurine the one got pinned down?

This is too long hhh I love your HC Aventurine 🫂 (it's yummy) have a good day!

Hello!! Thank you so much, I hope I got it right since I wasn't sure if I should make in into a modern au or make it canon compliant (spoiler I've ended up with the second option)

being roommates with Aventurine

notes - gn!reader, fluffy, hurt/comfort (sort of?), no beta

Considering Aven's leaked story, it'd pretty much canon that Aventurine doesn't forger people who helped him at least once. Which is not that surprising, when you think of it. Not many people were kind enough to land him a hand without expecting something in return.

He found the website by pure coincidence. Another case of his luck working in mysterious ways.

He recognizes your face immediately. Like, almost embarrassingly fast.

But, you know, whatever, not like you remember him, right? He sends you a random sum of money as a thank you for helping him in the past, not elaborating on who he is and why he's paying you. Scared you shitless I bet. But other than that, he doesn't see any need to reach out.

Except he just can't stop thinking about this add.

He never had comfortable living conditions before he joined the IPC. It would be a huge luck for him and his sister to have something soft to sleep on. And after he lost her, after he was shackled, caged, stripped of his pride... Well, not the memories he likes to go back to.

Now he has a huge apartment and a comfortable bed, a privilege to sleep under a warm blanket. Yet he has no one who would be there for him to distract him after a nightmare, no one to make this place feel like a home. It's a beautiful golden cage, nothing more.

Meeting you to talk about your add was a whim. Something to do for fun, really. A way to distract himself. Maybe he'll just see how are you are doing. Maybe you'll remember him.

Well, you don't. He signs the arrangement anyway, mentally beating himself up for it. Stupid. Pathetic.

But... you really look the same. Like you didn't change one bit since the day you showed him that small amount of kindness.

He'll just pay off his debt. That what he tells himself. He doesn't even have to live with you, just pay his half of the bills for some time. He may be a cunning businessman but hey, he has a reputation to uphold (at least for his own sake, since you have no idea about the mental gymnastics he's doing), he can't just let his benefactor starve!

Also, it's a bit funny to look at your reactions. You may not knows he's one of the Ten Stonehearts but you're not stupid, it's obvious he's not the last person in the IPC. Why would a guy like him need a roommate??? Also, he lies to you that the money you received earlier were just a prepayment, he just forgot to elaborate when he sent it. Shady. How tf did he learn you card information to send you the money. What a weird guy. Up to no good, it seems.

He can't help but laugh in amusement, seeing you squirm. But hey, not like you have a lot of options, right? You gotta take him in~

At first he doesn't plan on staying at your place, like, at all. Maybe once or twice a month so you wouldn't freak out about his "suspicious" absents.

But... You're fun. Fun to be around, fun to tease. You recognize his Sigonian eyes but you don't say anything. You don't try to get into his personal space but you also seem to be sensitive to his subtle mood changes. You don't try to be overly nice and don't ask for his money, his luck, nothing of sorts. It's the bare minimum, even lower than the bare minimum, it's just basic human decency yet it makes him feel warm.

Like, look at his and Ratio's relationship in canon. Ratio may not be the nicest and the most polite person but he treats Aventurine with respect and look at how Aventurine behaves around him. He's more relaxed and playful, genuinely lookin for some kind friendly companionship. So like I'm 100% sure that despite his "ohhh you can use and betray me," approach this man is such a sucker for any sort of sincerity. He's just friendless and miserable let me bite him.

So anyway, he sticks around far more often than he planed. Even if he has every right to do so as your literal roommate, he still feels like compensating it by paying for all of your bills, just because he can. Maybe it will make you happy with him, maybe you'll start needing him, maybe you'll be happy with him staying by your side.

Well. He gets scolded. Apparently, being roommates doesn't work like that. He refuse your attempts to pay him off your part off the bills though.

"You can make it up to me some other way. For instance... Let's play a game, shall we?"

He is knows for making the situation favorable for himself, after all.

Just like that, you slowly get closer. He teaches you to play card games, even offers to take you to the casino with him. Jokingly, of course. There are a lot of dangerous people who want him gone there, after all.

His heart flatters every time when you take the initiative to know him better.

"Soon enough you'll master me in this, dear" he says playfully, his hand brushing against yours as he takes the cards from you.

Aeons, the touches. Touches! He never took a notice of how him and his sister would accidentally brush against each other when they were still by each other's side. It was natural, after all. After her death, he didn't have anyone to be close with, no one to relax around. And now he has you. You're not family, he's not even sure if he can call you a friend (what is friendship anyway?? he can playfully call you his friend here and there but if he would call you this with all seriousness, would you run? would you pull away? stupid, stupid, unreasonable thoughts). So with this unclear relationship, how can he handle the touches when there are so many of them? Most of them are casual, accidental. Yet he can't just simply ignore them. Even if you can... (local gambler finds out not everyone is as touch-starved as him more at eleven).

He does the only thing he knows. Tries to be bolder. It's a risk, sure, you may easily push him away. But we all know he's a gambler and a great one too.

Anyway, you don't push him away and he's lost because, apparently, you don't mind him clinging to your side and whining when he's tired. And you don't mind him hugging your arm when he teaches you another card game. And you don't mind him hugging you from behind when you cook something for both of you. Btw him discovering the comfort of living together with someone and sharing chores, getting used to each other's patterns and such is another huge thing but I'll run out of words soon so maybe I'll leave this for another time.

Okay back to the topic. You don't push him away even if he was secretly expecting just that. It's just too good to be true, no?

Well. You start being affectionate as well. Now what.

He can't just stop now, even if he feels like he should. It's all too new, to scarry. But it's so good. Leaning into your hand when you caress his hair, falling asleep on your shoulder. Your soft eyes on him. You waiting for him to come back home.

He gets even bolder, more touchy. You'll push him away soon enough and, at least, this sweet delusion will end. And before that, he at least can see your flustered expression when his cold fingers slide under your shirt, holding onto your waist.

"What exactly are you doing?" you ask him one day and he thinks that's it. You're fed up. You'll push him away now.

Instead you push him on the couch, pinning him down, looking at him with unreadable but intense gaze. Seems like it's his turn to get flustered.

"Oh? Did I cross a line, my dear?" he asks with a laugh that was supposed to be playful but ended up being shaky. Damn you and your charm, you make him too weak. And instead of being merciful, you just chuckle at his struggles!

Tease him back!!!!! Kiss his cheeks!!!! Or his lips!!! In this moment, he's all yours. You want to cuddle? He'll be happy to. You want something more intimate? He will oblige. Just let him know you want push him away no matter what.

[drdemonprince]

in regards to the concept of abled people not existing/abled folks being expected to do more in relationships with disabled folks... You make some good points about us all being disabled in different ways and not recognizing it, but I still feel that there's quite a vsst gap materially between say, an ADHDer who can lift and push 50lbs easily/without pain and one who can't. And i have run into big roadblocks in relationships with other lefty types as the person who can't! And I think that expectation should be talked about and accepted more because I know a lot of "leftists" who would never think to apply this to stuff like doing the dishes because they're hellbent on everyone doing Equal Amounts. It's all fun and IG graphics about disability justice until they decide that youre Nonbinary roomate named sock who doesnt do the dishes etc etc , then see yourselves to the door!

You're absolutely right that there are differences in what various disabled people can do and the privileges that affords. It's glaringly obvious as a problem in Autism spaces, where people who can mask and speak like me are listened to and trusted and frequently talk over people who are nonverbal and cannot mask.

Even there, though, there are massive problems in attempting to rank-order someone's level of ability rather than just speaking specifically about these things in terms of privileges and oppressions. People assume I'm capable of all kinds of things I am not capable of, for instance, or hold me to ableist standards of productivity and ability because I "seem more capable. And Autistic people whose disabilities are more obvious have the opposite problem -- they are denied agency, presumed to be incompetent, not permitted to take on challenges they could find stimulating and worthwhile, and are dehumanized, etc.

And so where I'm getting with this is that we can't determine from the outside what a person is capable of doing, or what they should be capable of doing. It's not that far of a logical path to go from saying "Oh, this ADHDer is not physically disabled, they can lift 50 pounds, they can do a lot of things that I can't do" to saying "This ADHDer didn't unpack all our luggage for two weeks after our trip, they are lazy and not pulling their weight."

Someone might have the literal physical ability to do something in terms of strength or mobility, but not have the ability to complete a task because of the disabilities they do have (ADHD, in this case), and even if we are disabled ourselves we may be primed to see those people as lazy, uncaring, not pulling their weight, and all kinds of ableist interpretations.

So broadly I get your point, it is undoubtedly true some of us have abilities that others don't. but I think there's no way to put this idea into practice beyond just trusting people when they say they cannot do a thing, and not passing harsh judgement against people we think ought to be able to do a thing but don't (and maybe can't). This goes back to the original point of the discussion -- wondering why so many other people seem to fail disabled people and not show up for them.

To your second point, about a lot of even leftist people bringing therapy and instagram infographic "boundary setting" advice to their relationships and expecting all chores to be divided up equally, yeah that's a big problem and it's been a big problem in interpersonal relationships for many decades at this point. Most people overestimate the portion of the chores that they do, underestimate the work their partners or housemates do, and aspire to "equity" in a way that drives them absolutely crazy with score-keeping and resentment. There's a lot of research on how that outlook absolutely poisons heterosexual relationships and has done so pretty much ever since women started getting the ability to say no to a chore. It's a big problem of individualism under capitalism at its root, I think.

And the social change needed is much the same thing -- people need to learn to actually trust their loved ones when they say they cannot do the dishes, cannot clean the gutters, can't drop off the rent check, etc. I think a disability justice politics of raising everyone's class consciousness regarding their own disabilities and others is the way to go, and a massive strengthening of community ties.

[runawrites-blog]

Bucky Barnes Comforting You During Your Period 🩸

-First and foremost, this isn't a taboo subject at all for the two of you -Depending on your comfort level on talking about the subject of menstruation it would have probably taken a certain amount of time to speak up about it but you quickly found out that Bucky isn't put off by it in the slightest -It's not like you'd actively discuss your period either but I'd imagine that you could just casually mention it to Bucky and he'd just file it under things to keep in mind for the next few days

-If you need more affection, he's totally down for that but if you're irritable or need some space he'll make sure to provide that for you, too -And if anyone makes a dumb joke about it being that time of the month or something he'd just give them a death glare to make them shut up -I think ever since HYDRA and him routinely getting his memory whipped he'd keep a pretty organised routine which helps him navigate his new life -Therefore I see him as someone who keeps your cabinet stocked up on menstrual products and knows when you're running low -That being said, sometimes you might still run out but Bucky isn't opposed to picking up pads, tampons and the like at all -And then the clerk just sees the former Winter Soldier, whose face has been plastered all over the news during his trial, standing at the register with a pack of brightly coloured menstrual products and some sweet treats -Speaking of Winter Soldier, he pulls that card whenever you worry about him being grossed out about your period and he'd say something along the lines of "You don't expect the former Winter Soldier to be grossed out by a little bit of blood, do you, Doll?" -Or when you accidentally leak onto the sheets he'd pull out things like "I'm pretty well versed on how to get blood out of any material on this planet." -But aside from these joking comments, Bucky is also very sweet and attentive and if you want him to, he'll cuddle you, give you a massage or do whatever it takes to make you feel better -I'd imagine he'd probably give you great massages to ease pain in your abdomen or lower back -Bucky is also totally not opposed to sleeping with you, so if you feel up for it, he will take this as a great opportunity to ease your cramps because "It's scientifically proven that it helps reduce period pain, Doll. Let's give it a try!" -Overall, I think he'd be a totally attentive and sweet partner during that time of the month, who goes out of his way to make you feel better while also making sure to not go overboard and respect your boundaries

[thewertsearch]

@relaxxattack asked: i mean absolutely NO offense by this, but it’s extremely humorous that you watched meowrails have a heartfelt talk about their feelings and then said they’d be better off as friends… when having heartfelt talks and helping each other with feelings was the very first thing we learned about moirallegiance XD [https://www.homestuck.com/story/2448]

You're not wrong. Actually, this conversation is a pretty good case study on my mixed feelings about moirallegiance, and I want to talk a little about that.

See, on the one hand, I don't have any issue with a troll having a trusted companion, with whom they can have emotionally authentic conversations. On the contrary, that's something the Alternians desperately need, and I completely understand why a troll would seek out a consistent source of emotional support.

...but on the other hand, I do take issue with the fact that you can only have one.

In the linked conversation, Feferi seems kind of annoyed that Eridan's talking feelings with Karkat, instead of her. The implication is that he can't talk feelings with both of them, because 'the troll you discuss heartfelt feelings with' is treated as an exclusive, monogamous relationship.

As a consequence, trolls seem forced to get by with the minimum possible amount of emotional support. There are heartfelt conversations that Eridan isn't 'supposed' to have with Karkat - because Feferi is his moirail, singular. Hot messes like Vriska and Eridan can't benefit from networks of moirails, the way they probably need to - they're expected to offload that entire social role onto one single person, and that really doesn't seem healthy, especially for children.

At the end of the day, I do think moirallegiance is a good idea. I just don't think it really works if moirails can't be poly.

[streets-in-paradise]

Third Fate - Achilles x Fiancee!Reader

Requested by Anon

" Hey, I found your tumblr and I'm loving what you do here, mostly troy. I don't know if you're getting requests, but if you are, you can make one for Achilles based on that scene where he's told he can go and win glory in battle and have his name spoken for centuries or he can stay and be loved, have children, wife? I would love to see Achilles receive more love, with a wife and children. Feel free to make any changes you want, thank you very much in advance."

Hi, anon! I got this way sooner than what i expected because I was really in the mood to write it. The bittersweet mix of angst and fluff was exactly what I wanted to get into this week. Hope you will enjoy it :)

For a lenght concern i kept it in a pre war, pre marriage discussion of the prophecy. If once you read it you happen to like what i wrote here let me know and I can post a continuation showing what happens next ( i originally planned to do so, but it became too long so i prefer to save that for a second part)

Word Count 3.200

Warnings: Standard Achilles sexyness ( no smut, but if you watched the film you understand what I mean with this.) Some aspects of both, the canon of the film and the source material it is based on, were changed to fit the request in my envision of the story.

Summary: Terrible news disrupt the eve of your engagement to Achilles. He is called to fight in Troy and the spectacular war that the gossip foretells seems to be the destiny of greatness he had always dreamed with, but the price he has to pay for it is his happiness with you. The three days ultimatum Odysseus gave him is his moment to decide, but he won't do it without you.

Note: Inspired by two prompts by @creativepromptsforwriting

Prompt 1014 - " Well, the prophecy was a bit unclear about this part."

Prompt 1010 - " Let's not worry about the future. Let's just take this one kiss at a time."

"I like how that sounds."

Tags: @mysticaldeanvoidhorse @helie-brain

There was no easy way for him to explain to you what he had just found out. After Odysseus arrived bringing the news of the war in Asia you were already sad thinking of the distance that would keep your fiancé far away from you for an uncertain amount of time, but the real hardships surpassed your expectations. The whispers of fame claimed the conflict escalated enough to become the greatest war your world had ever seen, but you still imagined it as one war like many others he fought before. No matter the challenges found in battle, Achilles would always return to you. 

Except that he wouldn’t,not from Troy. His mother told him of an old prophecy announced before his birth assuring that war would be the peak of his consecration as a hero, but the price for this glorification was his death. From this fact fate allowed him only two options of choice. He could either stay in Greece and be loved during his lifetime knowing history would forget him, or go to Troy to make his name immortal facing his doom. 

To the end of his tale all you could do was cry, convinced that you were losing him forever. All your plans faded in just one instant, the life you dreamed together was gone. 

“ I’m not dead yet, look at me.” He sweetly mocked you. “ How can you be so sure already that I’m here to tell you I’m abandoning you to get myself killed?” 

You could tell he was trying, but that wasn’t making it any better. 

“ If you don’t go, you will regret it. “ Was your dry comeback. “I know you, Achilles. You live to fight, staying away from the battlefield feels to you like a punishment. I can never keep you for long, not even when war calls you to fight other greeks. Why would it be different this time? You were born for this war, not to labrate the fields and raise goats. If Troy is the fate of greatness that you deserve, I can’t ask you to abandon this life purpose for the sake of our wedding.” 

Despite how much he loved to see people worshiping as a hero, he was very aware to be a man in your eyes. Your approach was realistic and showed how well you knew him, much better than some of the men bleeding with him in war. If you fell for him, you did it knowing what to expect. Begging him to change his nature to fit the requirements of peaceful domesticity was never in your plans and you wouldn’t try it even if you were desperate. 

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to surprise you on occasions, exactly as he did when he proposed to you freshly arrived from the victory against King Triopas and his giant Boagrius. 

“ Do you think I wouldn’t give it all away for you? Then I guess you don’t know me as well as you claim. “ He teased you with insistence. “ I can do well raising horses, I have some magnificent ones already. Do you know that horses are one of the most remarkable exportations of the trojans? If their city gets sacked by greeks and I manage to buy a few of theirs to mix with mine we would get an excellent rare breed. “ 

You cleaned your face and warned him against the mockery. 

“ Don’t play with me! With the memories of your proposal still fresh, fate demands me to let you go. Being your wife is my dream, but I can’t have you knowing I would be destroying everything you worked so hard for. The immortality of your name is a cause bigger than me, the happy marriage we could have had or the children I could have given you. It can’t be a coincidence that this war gets unleashed precisely now, just as we are taking the first step to formalize our union.” 

“ They are pressuring me to choose, it’s true, but the load of this decision lies in the fact that I want both more than anything.” 

Achilles interrupted himself to take your hand, inviting you to abandon the distance you were forcing ever since he began to explain the situation. 

“ I need you by my side, it’s the only vulnerability I have ever allowed myself. A glorifying death doesn’t scare me, but surviving far enough without you would be torture.” 

Your lips parted in sincere amazement for that confession, so unusual of him. 

“ A slow agony. If the war doesn’t kill me first, lovesickness will.” He continued. “ The comfort of lonely men fighting in foreign lands is dreaming with their distant wives at night, the hope of returning to them makes life bearable. I would not have this, from the moment I would board my ship I will be aware you are lost to me. All I would have is the wound of my pierced heart still bleeding love for you and plenty of time to wonder how wonderful it would have been to make you mine… Sooner or later I would lose my mind. Knowing glorious death would be the only comfort already promised to me, I would roam the battlefield searching for it. It’s most likely I would perform incredible acts worthy of being remembered, but I would do it as the insane man who is desperately looking for the warrior meant to kill him. The poets would write for centuries about the madness of Achilles.” 

“ Aren’t they singing that already? Many people have described you as a madman.” You teased him, unsure of how to comfort him. “ Not that I mind, but that is a fact.” 

“ They have no idea, unfulfilled passion would consume me in such an incredible way that Paris would feel a reasonable man hearing about me.” 

He dragged you even closer so he could hold you in his arms and you fell for his touch chuckling sweetly. 

“ Would you be competing against both princes at once while fighting the trojans?” 

“ The warrior prince and the lover boy wish they could compare to me, I win in each one of their expertise areas. “ He followed your provocation, then whispered at you. “ I fight as fiercely as I love. “ 

You bit your bottom lip to avoid an audible response, but your flustered face was speaking for you. For an instant you felt as if nothing had changed between you and you have never heard the terrible omens. 

“... Maybe that’s why no woman is meant to have you, the great goddesses would be jealous. “ You theorized out loud while caressing his cheek. “ It’s too much, like Icharus flying too close to the sun… Although I would be lying if I deny I would gladly burn and fall for you.” 

Achilles stopped the flow of words taking your breath away with kisses that numb your senses, but not your mind. He had the habit of expressing important things in short, ambiguous phrases or not saying anything at all. When the hungry kissing began to escalate and you felt his hands roaming the sides of your body you understood that was his answer. If he would be saying goodbye, he would at least try to keep himself distant to make it easier for both of you. Given that his involvement on the war would ruin your chances to formalize, he would be encouraging you to find someone else. 

 He was pulling up your skirt slowly, evidently searching for the heat underneath. The opposite of what you would need from him if he would be about to leave you, so you stopped him right away because you realized what that meant. 

" This isn't the time to act impulsively. I know you love me as strongly as i love you, but you have to choose what truly matters the most to you. If you decide to stay, others will be making history and maybe the pleasures of the thalamus will not be enough to cure the resentment for what you will be missing. Think carefully, hearts can change and the future wife you adore now can one day become the load that brought you down. " 

Although a sensical objection, that didn't seem to preoccupy him much. 

" Never, you were made for me. The omens were very clear, staying grants me a blissful life with you for the price of letting my name fade. I have only two options: be loved and forgotten or waste my life following the fool's orders until death will reward me with immortal glory. Between spending the rest of my life with you or with Agamemnon, I think it's clear where I would rather be. "

The sacrifice was too great, ultimate proof of his love for you. Behind that relaxed phrasing Achilles attempted to de-dramatize giving up his biggest personal dream for the one you shared, what you still considered wasn’t fair. 

Responding with an equal offer was not only what your heart began to crave, but an alternative solution neither of you had considered. 

“ There has to be another way, your mother never said what I must do in all of this.” 

He wasn’t sure of where you wanted to point, but began to suspect it. 

“ Well, the prophecy was a bit unclear about this part.” 

The mischievous happiness renewed in your eyes let him know you had just found hope in the most insane of places. 

“ Don’t give me that look, this is what happens for leaving you a while alone with Odysseus! Now you think you can outsmart destiny and find me a third end.” 

You smirked with pride before presenting your idea. 

“ I can’t interfere with yours, only my own. If no part is clearly stated for me in this sacred command sent to you, then nothing stops me from choosing one. Instead of having you abandon your dream to stay with me, I’ll follow it with you.” 

His eyes were wide open staring at you, disbelief making him feel you were then playing with him. 

“ Are you telling me we could just get married and board the ship to Troy the morning after our wedding night? What kind of honorable nuptials would that be? When all the wives of the country would be giving their farewell to their husbands, would you follow me like slaves are meant to? War holds no virtuous position for a woman to occupy, it would be a stain to your reputation your parents would curse me for. “ 

“ If your baby cousin can go, so can I.” You justified yourself.” To stop me you will have to stop Patroclus and we know that is not going to happen.” 

The exactitude of your threat made him feel frustrated. Not because he wouldn’t love having you with him, but since he was refusing to publicly humiliate you like that. All Greece would know you were going to be the only wife following her husband to Troy for unexplainable reasons and they could judge your morals. Decent wives were meant to wait for their husbands and take care of their homes, not let passion distract them from their social duties. War camps were masculine places meant to be despised by the women, since their only female presence was typically in a state of degradation. Besides, Helen had already caused a moral breach shaming the greek concept of marriage and that was the reason pushing the fight. People would be judgemental of your relationship, they would question you for immorality and him for lacking authority to make you stay like a normal wife should. 

He wasn’t thinking about him anymore, of protecting his name and the weight of his masculine prestige. He was extremely worried about you and the consequences it could bring when he wouldn’t be there to protect you. 

“ Do you sincerely want to go to Troy and watch me die?” 

“ It’s still better than watching you sail knowing you will never come back.” You terminated in response . “ I have heard the city is built to withstand a ten year siege, enough time for us to have a life together before destiny will reclaim you.” 

Arguing with you was hard, even if the idea was insane you would find ways to make it sound logical. 

“ A camp on the trojan beach is no place to start a family. “ He replicated softly, just letting you know he was trying to make you understand you couldn’t ask that. “ What are we going to do when the children come? Because they will, eventually. If you become my wife no omen of death is going to stop me from making love to you.” 

You smirked innocently, ready to deliver a justification. 

“ I'm not naive, Achilles! Do you think I don’t know what happens in those camps? Captives get pregnant all the time, so it's not impossible to go through it there. It may not be ideal, but I can make it. If you would leave me here and break our relationship to protect me from your fate, you could still put a baby inside your finest war trophy girl.” 

“ And who said I’m leaving?” He questioned you. “ I’m not doing it and I am not breaking up with you. Now stop with this nonsense, my wife can’t be giving birth surrounded by death.” 

“ But trojan women can? Because births aren’t going to stop there. “ You insisted, sitting near and acting as if you were two civil parts on a trial. “ Hector has a baby boy, if he can be a father in this mess so can you.” 

The provocation made him hold a groan, but he turned back and kicked the nearest surface as a frustration release outlet. 

“ It’s different for him, his wife is a princess and they have a city to defend. “ He tried to articulate in fast speaking, doing all he could to not show signs of anger growing because of your stubbornness. “ I don’t want you to have the life of a war captive, to denigrate yourself for me.” 

It was very sweet, you were feeling his pain but he had to understand yours too. 

“ As long as you are still breathing I will not accept a life without you. When the time comes I will embrace grief, but I’ll cry for you as your widow. In the meantime I don't want no one else, I’ll have the ground of your tent as thalamus and I’ll have your children.” 

He gave a few steps towards you, presenting one more solid concern. 

“ What will be of all of you when I'm gone?” 

That should have been a strong preoccupation making you desist, but it didn’t. 

“ We will be alright. They will inherit your share of the sacking, we know your death is linked to the fall of Troy so I can assume we will win something. Given that the House of Aeacus would possess fresh new heirs to renew the bloodline, I may even be able to bargain with Agamemnon the throne of Phthia for one of them. He hates you, but he would not be politically capable to refuse if you become the maximum fallen hero of the war he just won.” 

At that point he felt true powerlessness because he just couldn’t convince you out of it for your own good. 

“ They can’t grow in a warzone, think of the ruthless people they will become.  Those kids would not know any better until it would be too late for them. I don’t want a soulless soldier as heir, people saying Achilles’ son has surpassed the brutality of the father.” 

“ Let our little monsters run free through the camp, they will turn out fine if we guide them right. “ You imagined out loud, not scared at all by the dark warning. “ I can’t wait to see them messing around, you will be in tears the first time one of them will grab a wooden sword trying to copy their father.” 

Illusion was starting to make his negative stance harder to maintain, he loved what you were saying. It sounded so wonderful that he couldn’t help find some sensical feeling in it. There was only one detail you haven’t solved for his resistance to fall completely. 

“ How would I fight the enemy worried for you? You will be the only married woman around thousands of men and although I'm terrifying to most of them, I can’t keep control at all times. Some of those men will not be myrmidons, they will not know who you are.” 

“ That’s the best part: I’ll keep Patroclus bussy.” You announced with excitement, knowing well he wouldn’t resist it. “ I know you don’t trust him in an open battleground yet, but he would not accept being left behind so you have to take him or he would never forgive you. With me on board you have a safe mission to give him that would keep him away from combat but still make him feel a hero. By the time you will judge him ready to charge into battle my presence will be naturalized and his vigilant eye won’t be needed anymore.” 

Hope was truly hitting him because he started to feel as if the crazy plan could work if you all would make it work out. Most of the persons he loved the most could be with him for the rest of his lifetime, making the surviving gap before the consecration worth living. His little cousin, his best friend and his wife along with his future children all gathered like some warrior family. 

A taste of happiness before the end, walk the two roads simultaneously into a third fate. 

“ Blessed be your stubbornness, you wonderful woman! “ He praised you, surprise making his attitude switch as he rushed towards you. “ How can you be in every detail? You are insane, but I love you. I don’t deserve you, I can’t believe this.” 

He made you smile and by that point you knew you were about to win. 

“What exactly? My incredible ingeniousness, my gorgeous looks?” 

“ That you love me so much, '' He admitted, then picked you up bridal style. “ That you will be my wife and I will brag about having you to both greeks and trojans. I will not rest until you will be the most honored person in that camp alongside me, your sacrifice will be part of my legend and maybe that will be my start to repay you. “ 

His immense gratitude was making you chuckle due to the unusual intensity, but he wouldn’t stop. 

“ I’ll love you to my last breath, I promise you that.” 

You were all smiles while caressing the strands of hair falling at the sides of his face. 

“That’s all I want. No other payment you can offer matters to me because my will for sacrifice comes from love, just like yours.” You purred blissfully. “ Let’s not worry about the future, let’s just take this one kiss at a time.” 

Mesmerized as he was, he replied against your lips. 

“ I like how that sounds.”