#i just want it to fix itself >> and not be a goddamn problem

[senselessalchemist]

got to sleep in for 1/2 hour before fridge woke me up with a horrid grinding sound, what a luxurious way to begin my weekend

[teapsoon]

x

[borathae]

“The story of how you convinced your awesome boyfriend to ride your face.”

Pairing: Cowboy!Taehyung x Mechanic!Reader

Genre: established relationship!AU, Countrylife!AU, Slice of Life!AU, Smut

Warnings: subby!Taehyung, Dom!Reader, shameless flirting, Taehyung is a needy boyfriend, making out, needy fumbling, Tae’s hands are doing hot things, face riding, rimjob (m.receiving), handjob, allusions to oral for her, he’s a little sceptical at first but loves it in the end, they are happy & in love

Wordcount: 8.1k

a/n: This is Only Yesterday!Taehyung because I may have a lil crush on him. Also PtD!Taehyung is the sole inspiration for this ngngn 🥵 I also wanna state that I fucking love the OY universe, it's so comfy and makes me feel so snuggly hhahfhah. have fun besties 🤍

“This is stupid. I ain’t gon' do that”, Taehyung says, shaking his head.

The two of you were on a lovely date today. You took Taehyung out for dinner earlier, but you are long back at your place. Now cuddling in bed whilst listening to some music.

“Why not? It’s gonna be fun”, you say, wiggling your brows at him. 

“It’s 'cause, I don’t like nothin' close to my butt.”

“Really? So you don’t even wash yourself?” you tease, knowing very well that Taehyung was a very clean person. You just like to tease him.

“Ew no, I ain’t nasty, ‘course I wash my own ass. But I just don’t want nothin' stuck into it.”

“I'm not gonna stick anything into it”, you laugh, “I just want you riding my face.”

“Yeah, but that’s like weird. I'm no girl.”

You roll your eyes. 

“Oh come now, it’s 2023, let's not go there.”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that. I ain’t no sexist. I just feel weird about it”

“Why?”

“What you mean why? I just do. You know how the guys gon' look at me when they find out I sat on my girl's face? They gon' laugh at me.”

“Okay, I hear you. I'm sorry I brought it up. You obviously don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with”, you assure him and peck his cheek. 

“Thanks, you’re really sweet. It means a lot”, he says, reaching out to pinch your own. 

“Just so you know though. The guys would never find out. I don’t talk to them about the sex we have.”

“Good you don’t”, he laughs, “that'd be hella weird if you did.”

“Yeah, right”, you agree, laughing right with him. 

Taehyung rolls over and cages in your head between his elbows.

“What?” you stop laughing.

“Nothin’, I just like listenin’ to you laugh”, he says, kissing you deeply afterwards.

“Mhm babe”, you mumble into him, making sure that he won’t leave your lips for the rest of the night by hooking your arms behind his head.

It was a hard day at the garage today. The sun was sweltering and as a result, the heat was almost unbearable. You spent most of your day under a car, sweating your ass off and trying to fix a problem which didn’t seem to want to reveal itself. It turned out to be a faulty tie rod. You proceeded to spend the other half of your shift replacing it. 

“Hello”, a familiar voice draws you out from under the car.

“Hey there babe, whatcha doin' here?” you greet your boyfriend, standing up for the first time in hours. You groan, stretching out your back, “goddamn, my back is fucked.”

Taehyung acts instantly. He gets behind you and gives your shoulders a massage. 

“Wow, thanks babe”, you say. 

“You sweatin' so much”, Taehyung says. 

“Yeah, it’s so hot. I literally can’t stand the heat.”

“Yeah today’s boilin'. We had to get the cows outside too 'cause they'd died of a heat stroke inside. Now they all chillin' by the stream.”

“That sounds like a good life. Just chilling by the stream, in the shadow and with no hot car above you.”

“Yeah, I figure. Wanna sit in the shadow for some?”

“Sure, we can do that.”

You have a small umbrella behind your garage. There was a pair of plastic chairs and a small matching table underneath it. Taehyung drags you on top of his lap, earning himself a loud whine from you. 

“You're literally kidding. I'm so hot.”

“You gon' stay here”, he wraps his arms around you.

“Tae, I’m so sweaty.”

“I don’t care, I’m sweaty too. I just came from the fields. That’s why I’m dressed like that.”

Red sturdy cotton from top to bottom and with a brown cowboy hat perched atop of his head. He also has his boots on and wears a bandana around his wrist. 

“You look handsome”, you tell him, “I look like shit though.”

Grey work suit opened and pulled down to your hips. Your white tanktop is soaked in sweat and covered in black grease stains. Just as are your arms and some parts of your face. 

“You look sexy, I’m into it.”

You roll your eyes at him fondly. 

“Course you are.”

Taehyung smirks lazily and lets his hands slip to the inside of your thighs. 

“No. Behave.”

“Why not? I've not seen you in so long. I'm lonely.”

“We saw each other last night. You had breakfast at my place.”

“Yeah, that’s ages ago. Miss you like crazy, babe”, he says and puckers his lips for a quick kiss.

“Behave, Tae”, you warn in a chuckle.

“Why?” he whines. 

“Cause I'm coming over later anyways. Don’t taint my reputation.”

Taehyung chuckles, dancing his hands closer to your middle. 

“Tae”, you slap them away gently, “keep your grimy fingers to yourself.”

“They ain't grimy. I washed them”, he whines, retreating them and placing them on your hips instead. 

“You know how I meant it. You’re way too horny.”

He chuckles and kisses your shoulder. Despite all the grease and sweat and dirt, he kisses your shoulder. And he loves doing it.

“I can't help it, it’s your fault ‘cause you’re so hot.”

You turn on his lap, placing your feet down with a loud stomp before letting yourself fall down right on his cock. He moans at that, widening his eyes in surprise. 

“So you think I’m hot?”

“Goddamn babe, you gon' make me hard.”

“Behave.”

“It's kinda hard when you sittin’ on my cock.”

“Oh? My bad, sorry”, you fake your guilt, slipping down his lap all to his dismay, “better?”

“Don't know, now I want you ridin’ me.”

You give his chest a gentle slap. 

“Hush, we're in public.” 

“Fuck babe, don’t you wanna leave early? Wanna have you right now”, Taehyung whines, tugging at your hips needily. 

“No, I have to finish the repairs. The customer is gonna pick up the car tomorrow and I need to finish it before that.”

“Tell your employees to do it.”

“No, I'm not gonna give my employees more work just ‘cause you’re horny.”

“That's unfair.”

“No, it’s not. I'm a fair boss.”

“No, it’s unfair to me.”

You roll your eyes.

“I'll ride you in a few hours.”

“Do it now.”

“No. Why are you so horny today?” 

“Cause I miss you and I was thinkin' about what we talked about.”

“What do you mean?”

“The thing about the rimjob.”

“Oh that. I thought the topic was off the table.”

“Yeah, I thought ‘bout it some more and maybe I ain't that against it anymore.”

“You watched porn about it, didn’t you?”

He flusters just slightly.

“Don't judge me.”

“I'm not, you can watch whatever you want”, you nudge his chest, “so you watched porn about it. Liked it?”

“Yeah well, maybe, I don’t know. I can’t say it didn’t make me hard.”

You chuckle.

“Don't laugh, I ain't proud of it.”

“Tae, it's totally fine. I’m the one who brought it up, it should be obvious that I'm into it.”

“Okay, you right about that. Sorry, I’m just weird about it.”

“No, you’re alright. Discovering new things about yourself can be scary.”

He nods his head. 

“So you wanna try it tonight?” you ask him.

“Don't know about tonight, I still gotta think more about it.”

“Alright, then we'll do something else tonight.”

“Yeah, you ride me and I make you cum.”

You laugh.

“Alright, I ride you and you make me cum. Twice.”

He smirks lazily, giving your hips a soft squeeze, “deal.”

“Good. Deal”, you say and give his chest a soft slap, “break's over, I've got a car to fix.”

You get up from his lap. 

“Yeah, I gotta go too. I just came here for a quick talk. I gotta go back to the fields again.” 

“Alright then, I’ll come around at seven.”

“Yeah, I’ll be waitin’. Oh yeah and don’t eat somethin’, Seokjin’s cookin’ dinner tonight.” 

“Ooh nice, now I'm even more excited.”

Taehyung leaves after giving you a loving smooch on the lips and a playful spank on your butt. And you continue your task of fixing the car. 

You ride Taehyung that night and it leaves the both of you entirely blissed-out. You leave early the next day, letting him sleep. And Taehyung sends you a sweet text once he wakes up, thanking you for last night.

You met Taehyung around a year ago. You couldn’t stand him at first. He wasn’t rude or gave you any other reasons for why you should have hated him, but you still did. You hated a lot of people back then. Especially men. Now stay with this story, we are getting there. You hated them because your environment quite frankly made you hate them. Your dad was a drunk, your grandfather was an abuser and your cousins were all terrible husbands. Your job also regularly showed you just how etched the old school sexism was in your town's men. Some would leave with their faulty cars because “a woman could never find the issue, let alone fix it properly”, some would ask if “Missy needs to take care of the garage for the day cause the hubby got drunk last night”, some would just straight up ask where the real boss – they meant your husband – was, despite your garage carrying your name and your name only. You were unmarried, if one may add this little fact. Now, it was a very small town. Not more than a thousand people, surrounded by big fields and with roads that weren’t the best for a car's health. There was another village close by. Up in the mountains and with not more than two hundred people. But your garage was the only garage in this valley. It still didn’t excuse the passionate sexism so many people showed.

Taehyung visited your garage about a year ago with his brothers Seokjin and Namjoon. Their truck had broken down and with the help of their oxen, they towed it all the way from their farm to your garage. It was quite the peculiar image indeed.

There were many things wrong with their truck. Brittle breaks, a broken oil filter which resulted in motor issues and they hadn’t cleaned out their aircon in years either. 

This still wasn’t the reason why you couldn’t stand Taehyung at first however. It was because he was playful and flirty and talked to you with a sort of childish carelessness and not once did he question why a single woman was the boss of a garage. On the contrary, he found it pretty awesome that you were. And this enraged you, because as much as you tried to find another reason for “why all men sucked”, you couldn’t find one thing about him that sucked. Now, his brothers were awesome too, but his brothers were both married already, so of course you weren't gonna mess with them. But Taehyung was single and very obviously interested in you. 

He began visiting your garage even long after you fixed their truck. At first he came with canting questions about cars and trucks and “his brothers sent him to get something” but as weeks turned into a month, he stopped pretending to visit you professionally. And one day he brought flowers. One day he came to your garage, dressed in his best clothes, with flowers in his hands and a shy grin on his lips and then he asked you for a date. And you pretended not to have time at first until Taehyung gave you a pout and you pretended to magically make space for him in your schedule. 

And the rest is history. He visited you with flowers or chocolates or other cute presents, you went on more and more dates, you shared your first kiss, you asked him to be your boyfriend and Taehyung said yes. 

Now you are here. One year later, terribly in love with each other and happier than ever. Taehyung is truly the best boyfriend ever. He is actually such an awesome boyfriend that you managed to shed your sometimes misplaced hatred against men and now changed it to “some men suck, not because they’re men but because society made it easier for them to be shitty people without consequences”. It was quite the big step for you, but Taehyung made it easy to do.

Taehyung visits your garage on Tuesday again. Five days after you rode him in his childhood bedroom with your hands around his throat.

“Hey babe”, he greets you.

You turn, “oh? Hey there handsome stranger, what brings you here?”

“We made bread today, I got you some”, he says, lifting a little basket filled with two loaves of bread into your vision, “got you some cheese to go with it.”

“That's so sweet, thank you so much Tae. You guys' bread's always so good”, you accept the gift with a fluttering heart. 

“You gon' like that one 'cause it's got a thick crust.”

“Just how I like it. You know me so well.”

“Yeah, gotta be best boyfriend of the year”, he says and grins cutely, earning himself a sneaky little kiss.

You feel scandalous doing it because you've got customers next to you, but Taehyung is too cute not to kiss. 

He flusters accordingly, knees buckling and body drawing closer to you instinctively while his gaze becomes oh so dreamy. 

“You're already the best boyfriend of the century”, you say, soothing over the spot you kissed before pulling away shyly.

“Hehe”, he lets out, grin growing.

“But what brings you here?”

“I wanted to see you”, he says.

“Aren't you coming over later?”

“I am, just wanted to tell you that I've been lookin' forward to it the entire day.”

“Me too. You're so cute.”

Taehyung steps closer, lowering his lips to your ear. The gesture speeds up your heart tremendously. 

“I made a decision”, he whispers seductively, “I'm down.”

You sneak a scared glance at the customers. They haven’t heard what Taehyung said, still busy looking at the newest model of truck they plan on buying. 

“Tae goddamn, you're making my knees weak”, you whisper, knees truly wobbling. 

He lets out a teasing chuckle, keeping his voice extra low for it. 

“I can't wait, babe. I'm gon' ride your face like a pony.”

You snort, rolling your eyes despite your stomach doing a little excited flip. He may be silly, but he is still terribly hot whilst being so. 

He steps back afterwards, pecking your heated cheek. 

“I'll see you later, love. Can't wait”, he says, having the audacity to turn and leave you in your boiling soup of horniness. 

You won’t be able to properly concentrate for the rest of the day, mind solely focused on what Taehyung told you. 

So he is actually going to ride your face.

You live in the village above a ramen place. The owners are an elderly couple, who were nice enough to give you their spare rooms upstairs. You wanted to pay rent, but they refuse to accept your money whenever you offer, saying that family doesn’t need to pay. They lived next doors in a little two story house with a small, walled garden. Sometimes Misses Kang brings over leftover ramen. Mister Kang regularly brings over persimmons from their persimmon tree. Maybe regularly was too weak of a description. You basically are able to eat fresh persimmons daily during their season as each morning, you open your door to Mister Kang grinning at you with his two front teeth missing and a melodic “got more persimmons, granddaughter” on his lips.

You weren’t their granddaughter, but you think that they see you as such. Misses Kang once told you that they had a granddaughter, born the same year as you, but that she died in an accident in the mill she worked at. You sometimes catch her calling you by their granddaughter’s name before she catches herself and then laughs about it with embarrassed melancholy in her dark brown eyes. You never correct her, you simply give her a smile and then hold her hands to laugh right with her.

You think that you might love them. You never really knew your grandparents as they both died when you were around five, but if they were still alive, they would be around the age of the Kangs. So as much as they see you as their granddaughter, you see them as your grandparents and that was a very lovely thing to do.

Your place was very homely. It stretched over the entire space of the downstairs restaurant with windows on each side of the building so you always had something pretty to look out at. From the east windows you could watch the sun rise behind the high mountains in the distance. From the west windows you could watch it set behind the forest covered hills. From the south windows you had view of the village and from the north windows you could spot the mountain village in the far, far distance. Taehyung always says that he plans on taking you there one day because of its amazing teashop, but he didn’t get to do that yet.

A set of dark wooden stairs leads up to a balcony and your front door. You keep your herbs and tomato plants on the balcony as it was south facing and therefore perfect for growing your food. You plan on trying out bell peppers next season. Taehyung promised to give you some of their seeds for it and also to help you with any horticultural struggle you face.

Speaking of Taehyung. You have just managed to finish lighting all your candles in your living room when you can hear his distinct knock on your front door. He always knocks in a rhythm. It changes between two patterns, depending on what he feels like that day. He used the second pattern tonight. Two slow knocks followed by two fast ones.

You check yourself in the mirror one last time, fixing the creases in your dress and the mess in your hair, before hurrying to open the door. You are so excited.

Taehyung, like most of the time, is leaning against the railing of the balcony, posing all nonchalantly. He is wearing his favourite blue jeans tonight with a matching shirt and his fanciest cowboy hat. He tips it as a greeting, giving you a playful, lopsided smirk.

“Good evenin’ me lady”, he greets you.

“Good evening, handsome cowboy”, you greet him, stepping out of the doorframe, “come in. Did you get here on Bruno?" 

“Yup, he's parked outside”, Taehyung says and greets you with a kiss.

“That's nice. Did you have a good ride?”

“Yup. But not as good as I'm gon' have one later, am I right?” he flirts as takes off his boots, placing them on the bamboo shoe rack you built yourself.

He makes you laugh, “hopefully, yeah.”

“I picked this for you”, he says, presenting you a bouquet of meadow flowers. He hid it behind his back pocket before.

“They are so pretty, thank you so much”, you accept it with a fluttering heart, “I gotta put them in water before they weld. Get comfy in the meantime.”

You store your vases in a cabinet in the living room. Your parents gave it to you, told you that it was already two hundred years old and that you will take great care of it. You love it a lot. It really compliments the rest of your wooden furniture.

“I’m thinking that we could eat kimchi stew for dinner. I still gotta use up all my old one, it’s really sour already”, you tell Taehyung as you make your way to your kitchen.

It was separated from your living room by a half wall. The hanging cabinets formed the other part of the wall, leaving you with a big enough window so that you could comfortably look at Taehyung as you work to fill the vase with water. Worktops were on one side of the half wall while a spacious breakfast bar was on the other side. You never use it, because you consume most of your meals in front of the TV on your comfortable couch.

“Sounds good, I didn’t eat yet”, Taehyung answers you, standing by the window like he always does when he comes over. With his hands on his hips and his tummy just slightly sticking out as he arches his back.

“You don’t mind that I didn’t cook it yet, do you? I just didn’t know how soon you wanna fuck, so I waited with the food.”

Taehyung keeps on staring outside.

“Tae?” you try.

“Mhm?” Taehyung looks over his shoulder.

“I just said that I hope you don’t mind I didn’t cook yet ‘cause I didn’t know if you wanted to fuck already.”

“Oh”, he turns to you then struts to the couch to sit down, “no, it’s fine. I ain’t hungry yet. I’m nervous”, he confesses and laughs shyly.

“You are? Because of the rimjob?”

“Yeah”, Taehyung nods his head.

You put the flowers in the vase and place it on the breakfast bar, turning it in a way so that you could see the prettiest part of the bouquet from the sofa. Then you strut to Taehyung, letting yourself plop down on the sofa next to him.

“You know we don’t have to do it, if you changed your mind again”, you tell him, caressing his thigh.

“No, I’m nervous ‘cause I really wanna do it”, he says, taking off his hat to play with his hair nervously, “I feel like an idiot”, he confesses in a breathy laugh.

“Why?”

“Cause I talked all big balls at the garage and now I’m nervous. I’m big mouthed, nothin’ more.”

“It’s fine, I get it. We can chill for a bit if you want”, you suggest.

“Yeah, I like that” he says, letting himself fall down on your sofa. He throws his legs on your lap, relaxing with a loud sigh. He grunts and then hums in content as he rubs his own tummy.

“Pff”, you scoff, “you and your dad noises all the time.”

Taehyung peels his left eye open, “those ain’t dad noises. They’re uncle noises.”

You chuckle, running your hands up and down his shins mindlessly.

“How’s Jihyo doing? Is she still teething?” you ask him.

“Yeah. She’s cryin’ so much”, Taehyung says, opening his right eye too in order to look at you as you talk, “Namjoon hyung’s been tryin’ to calm her down all day but she keeps cryin’. I’m kinda glad to be here now, not only ‘cause I can see you, but to get away from the baby. It’s so noisy at home.”

“That sucks. I get your struggle. I bet it must be so uncomfortable for her though.”

“Yeah probably. Poor girl, must be so confused why teeth keep showin' up in her mouth”, he says and then with the help of his abs sits up. He pecks your cheek, making you turn your head to him. A kiss on your lips follows, the kind which leaves a flutter in your tummy.

“Why did you do that?” you ask in a whisper.

“Cause you’re so pretty”, he whispers, stubbing your cheek with his nose.

“You’re such a flirt.”

Taehyung chuckles softly, eyes flitting to your lips.

“Can we make out?” he asks.

“I really want that, yeah”, you answer him.

“Mhm honey, you’re so hot”, he rasps, hooking his fingers behind your head to pull you into a kiss.

The problem with not sharing a place is just how incredibly needy you get for each other. You rarely go out for dates and if you do, you always have to do it after a quick fuck at one of your places. You joked about it with him already. Your dates always start with sex before anything else can happen. You blame it on all the shameless flirting the two of you do and all the days spend separated. You can’t help it. Taehyung is the hottest man alive and his body is so fucking addicting. When you know that you can spend the rest of the day with him, you get so horny and needy for him that you want him first and only then crave other date activities.

And Taehyung feels the same. He is certain that if you and him didn’t start off your dates by fucking, he would actually die of blue balls during the date.

Taehyung falls back on the sofa, pulling you with him. You fall atop his chest, elbows caging in his head and lips dancing with his’. He sighs because of it and you answer him with a soft moan.

You were actually his first. He never put great importance in the whole concept of virginity like all those big town people do. He is convinced that virginity is nothing but a city trend, because he never thought it to be important. He knew that he wanted to be intimate with the right woman, no matter when she came around, and he saw no shame in waiting for her. He found her in you by the young age of thirty one and now he can’t stop wanting you over and over and over again. Sex is so fucking amazing when it’s with the right person. Taehyung is convinced of it.

“How come you’re already kinda hard?” you break the kiss to ask him in a chuckle.

“Cause I’ve been horny for you all day”, he says and pouts, “stop teasin’, I can’t help it.”

You snicker, “you’re cute”, you say, pecking his lips until he stops pouting and kisses you back properly.

He wraps his legs around your hips, closing his arms around you in a way so that his chest is snug against yours. Like this you can grind against him, humping him with needy rolls of your hips. 

Taehyung breaks the kiss in a breathy chuckle. 

“You gon' make me cum if you do that”, he says, having to moan softly as his hips chase the friction. 

“Yeah? Wanna go to the bedroom?”

“Yeah, want that.”

“Let’s go.”

No time is wasted between you and him. You are needy for each other and that means you have to act quick. You make out on your way to the bedroom. Lips dance with each other desperately while your hands fumble with the other’s clothes. His shirt leaves his torso in the hallway. Your dress follows seconds later. 

Taehyung cradles your tits instantly, massaging them through the fabric of your bra. He makes you moan because of it and for your hands to work even quicker. You tug his white tanktop out of his jeans, pulling it up his torso. 

The kiss breaks so you could slip it over his head. Taehyung even lifts his arms for you, chuckling shyly when you rough up his hair. 

“You good?” you ask him.

“Yeah, I'm good”, he says, falling back into the kiss as your fingers begin running through his hair. He touches your lower back, but soon feels up your ass. He is too obsessed with it not to steal a touch. You don’t mind. On the contrary, you like it. Taehyung’s fingers have been on every single inch of your body and you goddamn love how they feel. He is so unapologetic in his touches, so confident and with the right amount of cockiness to really get you going. Obviously he never does new stuff without asking first, but he also knows when it is safe to do stuff without asking as he is incredible good at listening to your cues. 

Just like right now, when you press him against your dresser, placing your knee on the surface to cage him in. Your ass sticks out that way, allowing Taehyung to pull your panties to the side and run his fingers along your middle. Your pussy and rim. He knows just where to touch to make you sigh. 

“You're wet", he mumbles into the kiss.

“Mhm, wet for you”, you tell him, kissing him with tongue. 

Taehyung moans, parting his lips to allow you access. You are so good at tongue kisses. Taehyung thought the concept was weird at first. Until you kissed him with tongue for the first time. That’s when he finally understood and, quite frankly, became obsessed. He tugs you closer, trying his hardest to tilt your hips in a way that would allow him better access to your clit. 

You stumble because of it, crashing into the dresser with him and knocking over your candle. It was turned off. Thankfully. 

“Careful there, cowboy”, you laugh, slamming your foot down to find support again.

“Sorry, my bad”, Taehyung chuckles, giving you a sheepish look, “you okay?”

“Mhm, I am”, you say, rubbing your hand up and down his chest, “my candle not that much.”

Taehyung fixes it with a blush, swaying his shoulders from side to side. He glances at you.

“Sorry?” he mumbles shyly, widening his eyes cutely.

“Com'ere, you sweetheart”, you say, dragging him to your bed by his belt. 

Taehyung follows with wobbly knees, feeling then wobble even more when you drag him atop your lap. You slam your hands onto his round buttocks, forcing him to yelp it surprise.

“Babe”, he gasps, widening his eyes, “whatcha doin'?”

You snicker, wiggling your brows. 

“You like it?” you coo, kneading his plump flesh.

“I can't say I hate it”, he says, laughing breathily. He shakes his head, “you been doin' things to me, babe”, he murmurs. 

“Yeah?” you smirk, looking at his lips, “come and kiss me.”

Taehyung claims your lips instantly, arms closing around you and naked chest melting with yours. He moans, squirming on your lap.

He hasn't sat in your lap very often before. Maybe once or twice while you were in the heat of the moment, but never actively. You? You are sitting on his lap all the time, everywhere and anywhere. Taehyung not so much. He thinks it’s weird. Not because he actually thinks that it is, but because he is always scared to be called mean names. You always tell him that the people who call him names aren’t worthy of his attention either way, but you won’t pressure him. 

It makes it feel all the more special tonight. He is comfortably heavy on your lap and to your surprise, he is better at grinding against you as you thought he would be. Also, his butt feels extra plump and big in that position. You can’t stop feeling it up. 

Taehyung has the sexiest ass in the universe. It was actually one of the first features you noticed about him. Next to his smile and pretty eyes. His butt always looks so good in jeans and all those tight riding pants he wears. You like holding it whenever he gives it to you missionary and whenever he takes a shower at your place, you can’t help but jump right in there with him just so you can feel up his ass. 

Truly, with your obsession for his behind, it was only a matter of time that you'd suggest butt stuff. You know that you won’t get Taehyung to agree to anything going up his butt for a long time, but you don’t mind. You are already content with the aspect of getting to eat him out. 

You break the kiss, panting heavily.

“I fucking want you”, you rasp, trying and failing to slip your hands into his jeans. They’re just way too tight.

“You do?”

“Yeah, want you riding my face like you’re riding my thighs.”

Taehyung flusters, lowering his eyes.

“Unless, you changed your mind?” you make sure. 

“No uhm, no”, he shakes his head, “man, I’m nervous. Phew”, he confesses and laughs breathily, “I think my heart's gon' give up.”

“That's alright. If you still need time, I can give it to you.”

“No, I just. I want", he glances at you shyly, gnawing on his lower lip.

“Go ahead”, you encourage him.

“Can I use yo' shower? I wanna be smellin' good down there.”

 “Of course, go ahead. You know where everything is?”

“Yeah, been takin' too many showers here”, he jokes, getting up from your lap to hurry to your bathroom, “I'll be back soon.”

“Take your time, babe.”

You decide to add a little bit of romance to the bedroom in the time he freshens up. You light the candles, careful not to knock them over again, and fluff up your sheets so they look inviting. Then you turn on Taehyung’s favourite artist and get onto bed, resting in a sexy pose for when he comes back. 

Taehyung does so after fifteen minutes and with a towel wrapped around his hips and his skin smelling like your rose shower gel. 

He stops, looking at you with widened eyes. 

“Hello there sexy, you’re back", you greet him, wiggling your brows.

“The room's lookin' so romantic”, he gasps, “babe, you look so hot”, he exclaims, climbing onto bed, “babe, you been doin’ so much”, he giggles.

“I thought I’d set the mood”, you explain, rolling onto your back as Taehyung climbs on top of you. He plops down on your crotch, hands resting on each side of your head. 

“You're spoilin' me, I’m so lucky”, he says with the biggest heart eyes.

“No, I'm lucky. You’re so sexy with your towel”, you say, tugging on it playfully. 

Taehyung draws closer, “wanna kiss you.”

“Do it.”

You fall back into the needy tongue kiss, continuing where you left off, except that Taehyung wears significantly less clothing and his fingers are kneading your tits. Your own are groping his thighs and butt, forcing the towel to unravel more and more. Taehyung doesn’t mind, moaning and mewling into your mouth as his body falls back into the pleasure. 

The shower made his cock go down again. Quite frankly, the act of cleaning out his butt and making sure he was squeaky clean back there felt too embarrassing to him to stay hard. He didn’t mind doing all this stuff, because you always do it for him when you’re doing butt stuff, but it was still foreign to him and therefore a little scary. Taehyung thought that it wasn’t that bad in the end and that he could imagine doing it again if he ends up liking the rimjob. 

He likes that you turn him on again. All it takes are your touches and kisses to get his cock hard again. 

He breaks the kiss, moaning your name and dragging his parted lips down your neck. Like this, his back arches naturally, finally giving you the opportunity to rip off his towel. It falls onto the floor and becomes forgotten. 

Taehyung moans, wiggling his hips. He sucks on your skin, eliciting sighs of his name. Your fingers grasp his buttocks, kneading and massaging them so eagerly that Taehyung feels the sensation on his rim. It is so peculiar to him, because you've groped him like this a hundred times before and yet this is the first time where he actively takes in on how this makes his ass feel. And it feels really good. Electric and just gentle enough that Taehyung craves more.

“I'm horny”, he confesses, chasing your touch. 

“You are?”

“Yeah”, he whispers. 

“Horny enough to hop on there?”

“Maybe? Don’t laugh if I move weird.”

“I would never”, you promise him.

“Yeah then, uhm”, Taehyung lifts his head, “wanna, uh, try?” 

“That sounds like a plan to me. Hop on there, cowboy”, you say, spanking his butt gently. 

Taehyung scrambles to his knees and begins to climbs on top of you, mumbling every step under his breath and laughing nervously throughout the whole process. He chooses the position you always choose when you ride his face. With his butt facing you and his head facing your toes. He places his hands on your thighs and looks over his shoulder.

“Don’t look there”, he whines when he realises that you are gazing at his ass.

Your eyes flit up, “why not?” you laugh fondly, “you’ve got a nice ass.”

“Yeah but”, he can’t find an excuse, “sorry, I’m weird ‘bout it.”

“It’s alright”, you give him a reassuring smile, “wanna scoot up a little and make it easier for me?”

“Uh yeah”, Taehyung follows hesitantly, widening his eyes nervously.

“There we go, so sexy”, you murmur under your breath, grabbing his buttocks to spread them.

“Shit, I can’t look”, he gets out, turning his head away and squeezing his eyes shut. It’s going to happen soon. Taehyung holds his breath in preparation. He can’t pull back now. It’s going to happen one way or the other. Fuck, his heart’s going to give up on him.

“So sexy, babe. You’re so sexy”, you rasp and stick your tongue out, dragging it over his rim.

“Woah”, he gasps, flinching away. Despite his attempts of not looking, he still ends up glancing over his shoulders, lips parted in shock and brows lifted.

That felt so warm and wet. Taehyung stills feels the effects it had on him.

Your eyes meet.

“How’s that? Was that really that bad?” you tease him a little, caressing his tense buttocks.

He shakes his head.

“Yeah? Wanna give me more?”

Taehyung shimmies back up and sticks his ass out, eyes glued to your face. Your eyes flutter closed and a second later Taehyung feels wet warmth drag itself over his rim. He widens his eyes, mouth falling open in shock. Another time. You use the flat of your tongue for it, grinding it against his hole.

“You gotta be shittin’ me”, he gets out and laughs shakily.

Your eyes open, pinning him down with just a look. He gulps, feeling the next lick so intensely that he has to moan. He moans again when you purr against him and flick your tongue over his rim. You lift him off of you and to Taehyung’s surprise, he is really sad that you did. It felt so good. Taehyung wants more of it. 

“Like it?” you ask him.

“Yeah”, he rasps, “can you do it again?” he asks shyly, moving his butt closer to you.

“Mhm babe”, you purr, pushing him back down onto your face.

Now encouraged by his words, you truly show him what you can do. There is no reason for you to hold back anymore. Taehyung’s into it and that means you want to show him what he missed. You keep his hips pinned down, using your entire head to grind your tongue against his hole and kneading his buttocks with hungry fingers.

“Fuck”, Taehyung presses out, rolling his head to the front and dropping it. He squeezes your thighs, arching his back instinctively. He moans, closing his eyes as his body falls into the pleasure. He has to give it to you. You once again, did it. Taehyung was so sceptical of the entire situation. How could a guy enjoy getting his hole licked? It sounded impossible to him. He is happy that he was wrong, because what you are doing feels really good. Your tongue is so warm and wet and soft, showing him just how sensitive his backside actually was. Oh, he is so happy that he was wrong.

“Don’t wanna stop”, he sighs, wiggling his hips which results in his hole grinding over your tongue even better. So he does it again, moaning your name as warm pleasure soaks his senses. He feels especially warm between his legs and his inner thighs. He can’t explain it. It starts on his hole and spreads down his thighs, threatening to go further and further. Taehyung wants it to happen, scrunching up his nose in bliss. “Don't wanna stop”, he confesses in a barely there whisper, “don’t stop….”

You slip off of him for some air, eyes running over his hole. It’s all wet from your spit, looking so pretty up close. All soft and relaxed. You have to squeeze your thighs together at the view. It’s a true shame that it took you so long to see it. You missed out on the sexiest view ever. 

“How’s it looking?” you check up on him, aching for another taste. You crave him with every fiber of your body.

“Want it again”, Taehyung sounds out of breath and needy, wiggling his hips in a silent plea for more.

“You’re so hot, Tae”, you rasp, pulling him back. You moan into him, licking and sucking his hole hungrily. He tastes so good. You seriously can’t get enough of him. You dreamt of this moment for so long. You always knew that Taehyung would be a natural at riding your face. After all, this man rides horses like no other. It would have been surprising if he wasn’t good at taking a little ride on your face. And he is. Oh he is. 

You moan happily, wrapping your arms around his waist. You need to be suffocated by him. He smells so good, tastes so goddamn heavenly.

“You’re crazy, fuck”, Taehyung groans, squeezing his thighs together as best as possible. He doesn’t want to suffocate you, scared that he is way too heavy, but you give him no other choice. You have him hostage and all he is supposed to do is take the pleasure you give him. Taehyung must admit, it was a pretty easy task to do.

You hum in agreement, wiggling your tongue into his hole. Just a little, but Taehyung still shudders in reaction, voice pitching in pleasure. Fuck, he sounds so sexy. You want him crumbling on your face. It’s all you need.

You slip your hand to his cock, wrapping your fingers around him to jerk it off quickly.

“Ah! ___!” Taehyung moans loudly, throwing his head back, thighs trembling like crazy and cock throbbing in your hand. He was so concentrated on how your tongue makes him feel that he completely forgot about his cock and now that you are tugging on it vigorously, he swears that he will actually pass out.

He scratches up your thighs, grabbing your hips instead. He can barely find any strength in his fingers, shaking as he tries to squeeze you.

“Ah! Ah god! Ah!” his voice is loud, leaving him instinctively. You’ve reduced his instincts down to shaking and moaning for you. There is nothing else his body could do right now. It feels so goddamn good to him.

Your grip around his cock tightens each time you reach his tip, sending jolts of pleasure through his veins each time that happens. And whenever you do, your tongue on his hole feels even more unbearable. You aren’t going deep, just a little past the tip, but that’s enough already for Taehyung to feel completely and utterly fucked. 

Fucked.

Taehyung gasps for air.

Fucked by tongue. 

Taehyung moans, clenching around you. 

“What are you doin' to me?” he somehow manages to produce, “oh god, what…you…doin' to me?”

You growl, spilling tears. He is so into this. You can’t believe your luck. This is the best day of your life. You want to treat him so fucking right.

You try to wiggle your tongue deeper, fucking it in and out of him with nods of your head. Your fingers glide over his cock quickly, spoiling him to the best pleasure in existence.

Taehyung is burning up, chasing the sensations with needy movements of his hips. You moan deliciously because of it, presenting your tongue to him so he could fuck himself on it. And he takes it gladly, riding your face as if he was made to do so all while his cock spills his desperation all over your fingers.

This is seriously the best day of your life. You spill more tears, moaning happily. This is the best day ever. The fucking best.

“I’m close”, he confesses, resorting to moaning loudly afterwards. He arches his back, slipping his hands up to your waist to squeeze you as best as his weak limbs allow him to. “Really…close…”

“Mhm Tae”, you growl, tightening your arm around his waist to push him down on you. It squishes your nose a little, but you don’t mind. He is burning up on your tongue, twitching and clenching all desperately and driving you insane in the process. You concentrate your touches on his tip, jerking it off with the fastest movements even if that means Taehyung has to writhe and whimper your name. 

Maybe you wanted this to happen. He is so sexy when he is writhing for you. All needy and desperate and running on nothing than the desperate desire to orgasm. He looks sexiest like this. With his skin all glowing in pleasure and the chains around his neck jingling each time he writhes. 

Taehyung tenses every muscle in his body, curling his toes. He hasn't felt so much heat between his legs before. He doesn’t know how to handle it. He has to let go. He  can’t take much more.

“I have to cum”, he croaks, “babe, I-I have to- ah, cum”, he breathes, dropping his head and tensing his stomach, “please. Please. Baby, please.”

You moan into him, twisting your hand in sync with your tongue wiggling into his hole again. Deep and quick. You want him completely ruined. 

“Oh god”, he gasps, “oh god, oh god, n-now ba-”, he can’t finish his sentence as his high knocks him out completely. He screams your name, throwing his head back as he gets swallowed by the flames. He covers your tummy and thighs in his cum, trying his hardest not to drop onto your face, but failing once it feels way too good to him.

“Sorry, oh sorry”, he gasps, shaking atop of you. “I, I can’t control..it! Ah!”

You growl into him, telling him that you don’t mind by pressing him even closer. You want him to give you everything. Every shake, tremble and twitch until he physically can’t give you more.

Six more strokes and then Taehyung gasps in overstimulation, dropping to his elbows involuntarily and slipping off your face that way.

“Oh god”, he chokes out, plopping down on you with his entire weight.

You pant for air, licking your lips to get all of his taste. So fucking tasty. Your hand slips from his cock, caressing his waist instead. He is shivering like crazy.

“Fuck Tae”, you croak, gulping heavily, “that was intense.”

“Mhgmh”, he lets out, hiding his face away in your thigh. He nuzzles you, whining loudly. You lift your head, glancing down at him.

“Are you okay?”

“No?” he turns his head, squishing his cheek against your thigh, “why'd you have to do that?” he whines with a pout.

“Do what?” you ask in a chuckle.

Taehyung rolls off you, dropping onto his back. He rubs his hands over his face, exhaling loudly.

“Make me cum so hard.”

You snicker, sitting up and climbing on top of his lap. You drag his hands away from his face, intertwining your fingers with him and pinning them next to his head.

“I told you that you’ll like it, didn’t I?”

“Yeah? But what the hell?”

You chuckle, leaning in to kiss the tip of his nose.

“So? What’s the bottom line here?”

“That I’m scared of what ya’ doin’ to me”, he murmurs, cracking you up. He laughs with you, wrapping his arms around you to hug you against his chest, “you were right. I loved it”, he says, nuzzling his nose into the side of your face, “never cum that hard before.”

“Yeah? I loved it too. You were so hot”, you tell him, enjoying his hug with a fluttering heart.

He purrs happily, snuggling into you.

“Did you cum too?” he asks, tracing your spine slowly.

“This was about you, it’s fine”, you dismiss him, but Taehyung shakes his head vigorously.

“I can’t accept that. My lady needs to cum too”, he says, sitting up even if it is hard. He picks you up for a second to throw you into the pillows.

“Not so fast”, you laugh, accepting your fate of getting your panties pulled down by him with the biggest heart eyes.

“Relax, babe. I'm gon' take care of you”, Taehyung says and parts your legs. Seconds later has disappeared between them, not to be seen again until you are five orgasms in and you have to tug him away from you by his hair.

[seat-safety-switch]

In the town where I was born, their only claim to fame is having a really exciting snake-breeding festival. Once a year, for whatever reason, all the snakes in the surrounding area decide that it's a great idea to get their bone on in the middle of town. Tourists used to travel there, back in the days when television was more boring, and watch this infinitely undulating orb of reptile sex slither all over town. Now there's not so many tourists, although the snakes are as randy as ever.

This has, naturally, impacted the town's economic prospects. It's easy to refuse fiscal support from other levels of government when the local diner is doing boffo business from nature photographers and U-Haul van airbrushers. No handouts. Strong back, principle and all that. Thing is, when the local economy goes to shit, usually the surrounding area does as well. So they started to attract snake handlers.

Now, I don't judge folks for their oddball religious affiliations – I have owned a Chrysler Intrepid, after all – but it just seemed to me like it was a bad idea to handle snakes. Especially snakes you don't know. Especially-especially snakes you don't know, after the long-time pastor who provided all the snakes for your previous handling episodes had died without leaving any documentation as to what he did to make the old snakes not bite you. So now the town had two problems: the aforementioned fiscal constraints, and also legal trouble from allowing a bunch of folks to show up in their Sunday best and get bitten to death by poisonous, horny snakes.

Ultimately, the problem solved itself. And by that, I mean that I moved out of town as soon as I was able. There's not much left for me back there anymore. The snakes own it all now anyway, due to an obscure provision in state law. Sometimes in the spring, though, I like to think about visiting the town, and taking a few photographs, just to recapture a bit of that old glory. Then I don't, because if I wanted to see a bunch of snakes making life difficult for myself, I'd fix the wiring harness in this Goddamn Saab.

[treasure-mimic]

I do think one of the most interesting aspects of Guardians Vol. 3, and I’m not surprised this take hasn’t had quite as much traction since it’s not as viscerally emotionally interesting as exploring Rocket’s trauma, but one thing that really stuck out to me was the way that the High Evolutionary, from top to bottom, was a complete refutation of eugenics and those practices. This is evident even from the trailers, with a line that got heavy focus in promotion despite showing up surprisingly late in the film itself, “He didn’t want to make things better. He just hated things the way they were.” Marvel has kinda been on a tear with ‘villains who have a point’, which I haven’t hated as much as others, as the story can go somewhere interesting by having the hero adopt the worldview of the villain, but it’s also cool to see a villain who is just fundamentally, objectively incorrect in every way and needs to be stopped because their harmful ideology is only causing pain and suffering.

Obviously, there’s the emotional cost. Guardians 3 doesn’t hesitate to show how the High Evolutionary’s methods are repugnant and despicable, what happens to sentient beings when their life is compared to some arbitrary and unfounded aesthetic, physical, or mental standard. That aspect is important to show if you want to cover this topic.

But I think the other half is equally as important. I have had real encounters with people who will try to say that eugenics as a practice isn’t fundamentally flawed, it just needs to be executed ethically. And the next step of this exploration is to look at the raw results and say, no, this isn’t better. We see that within Counter-Earth, a planet supposedly populated with the perfect civilization led by the perfect authority, and it’s the exact goddamn same, with all the same ills and sins as our society, it is no better. To quote a documentary on a separate topic, but which also covered people who thought they knew the one easy fix to make society better, “because those problems are patterns of human behavior. They’re incentives, they’re social structures, they’re modalities. The problem is what people are doing to others,” not that there’s some secret defect in some people’s DNA that’s somehow screwing over the rest of us.

Everything about the High Evolutionary’s worldview is fundamentally flawed, that is what makes him a terrifying opposing force to face, and we see this from the very beginning when someone that was supposed to be a lesser life-form, a stepping stone to creating the actual perfect people, outsmarted him, figured out something he couldn’t see. Then that same individual became one of the most celebrated people in the galaxy, Rocket both achieved greatness and also found a group of people who unwaveringly love him, while the man who created him, who saw himself as the one to guide life to that perfect society, died loathed and betrayed by all those closest to him, because he was wrong and could only hurt people and was going to get everyone killed pursuing his wrong ill-conceived goal.

[dailydegurechaff]

What is Marry like in this AU of yours?

God I fucking hate Tanya von Degurechaff so fucking much holy shit. Holy shit, every piece of propaganda she's in, every photo, every parade, every video, she's got this painfully serious, annoying as shit, fuckass blank look on her stupid fucking face. Absolutely no part of her ugly as sin piece of shit appearance is endearing. Her stumpy fucking legs? How the hell is someone that fucking short. Her dumb little silver wings medal? Her shitty, round bastard face? The three thousand percent unnecessary dumbass shitass fucking ANTENNAE that no person in her company has EVER FUCKING TRIED TO FIX FOR HER IN tHE HISTORY OF GOD'S GREEN FUCKING EARTH? God, I hate her. I hate her so much. So FUCKING much. Every time I see a White Silver toy or a propaganda poster or a shitty goddamn commercial, it ignites my primal rage response and I'm overcome by the need to punt this shitty little war criminal into the fucking sun. "tee-hee! I'm Tanya, the White Fucking Silver, I like war crimes". Fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. You look like a shithead little brat. Your dumb fucking antenna hair makes your whole shitty head look like an unkempt street cat. I hate your dumb fucking little button nose and your stupid, stern blue eyes and your over-the-top no-nonsense hardass asshole personality. Any time she smiles it invokes all the wrath and fury of a spoiled child having a meltdown over a chocolate bar in a w*lmart checkout line. And I know its irrational. That's the worst part. I know she's just a single fucking child soldier in a giant fucking empire’s army, I know it doesn't matter, I know I shouldn't care. But that's part of the problem. The part where no matter the might and fury of my hatred, the locus of my homicidal intent is alltogether a tiny piece of a greater evil. I find myself laying awake in the dark in the early hours of the morning consumed by the spirit of Wrath itself, all the force and might of a flaming hurricane directed at a bottle of piss in a ditch by the highway. The absurdity of it all burns me to my core. What better things could this energy be directed towards? And yet my disdain for this stupid, useless, insubstantial failure of endearing propaganda utterly eclipses the intrigue of all other pursuits. I hate her. I hate her on a level of my mind reserved for the worst of the world's array of sinners, and I can't even begin to justify it. Tanya the Evil is, for all intents and purposes, a single facet of the army subjugating the world- a propagandized pawn distilled into the single, hateable form of a shining ideal soldier for every other imperial scumbag to emulate. The fucking. Fuck. I have no words. There is no cuss or epithet in any language that can encapsulate the height of the emotions I am experiencing. God, I hate her so much. I hate her so, so fucking much. I want to light her ugly little dumpster body on fire. I want to graphically beat her to death with the butt of the gun she stole off my father. I want to punch her to death. You know that weird feeling you get, when you see a picture of something so cute you find yourself overcome with the bizarre, inexplicable urge to squeeze it? It's EXACTLY like that, except instead of cuteness it's disgust. The wordless knowledge that her existence as a war hero is evidence of all the failures of mankind. I find myself possessed by the will of a Holy Angel gone rogue with the belief that God has made a mistake, and I alone must correct it. This is the trial by which Samael himself fell from grace. This wild, meaningless rage. A thousand blades of shining steel cast with inhuman force in the direction of a plastic grocery bag floating on a breeze. What horrors must I have committed in a past life to be plagued by this torment now? I must Unmake this sinful child

(x)

[recreationalfanfics]

Bed Sharing Troupe (Daythunder x Reader)

No, I don't care if the Eremites are NPCs, they're H O T.

You lay on the bed if his tent nervously, a bit rigid and a bit tense. Not because of the bed itself, the soft and plush blankets along with the nicely fluffed up pillows were quite comfortable. It was just that it was...intimidating to sleep next to him. Not because he intimidated you or anything, quite the opposite considering how doting he is when you happen to injure yourself or how protective he is of you during battle...No, the reason why you're so nervous is because you were undeniably attracted to this man and couldn't find yourself falling asleep because of it.

After your tent was destroyed because of a fight breaking out between two of the newer eremite recruits, he had graciously offered his tent for you to stay in. You were gonna decline him and say you can ask a friend but then you're ever so reliable pal simply said: "Um, actually, I don't think I have enough room in my tent." It would have been a totally believable and valid reason if it wasn't for the goddamn smirk they wore on their face when they said that. He allowed a small smile to grow on his face as he turned his head to you, "Then it is settled, you can stay with me until your tent is fixed!"

Speaking of him, you were brought out of your flashback by the sound of the tents entrance opening and he walked in. You stared at him in awe because while the top part of his uniform didn't really cover much to begin with, his body was still so magnificent without it. His pectorals were the first thing your eyed laid upon, the next were his built arms that he used to put his giant weapon against one of the very few simple-designed furniture he had in his tent, and then the sound of his deep yet comforting voice.

"Are you comfortable?" He asked, making you blink out of your thoughts. You do your best to keep your cool: "Yes, thank you! And, again, thank you for allowing me to stay."

"Of course, I always welcome your presence, (Y/n)." He replied without missing a beat, making your face feel hot and your smile a little more awkward. He then picks up some extra blankets and pillows and proceeds to put them on the ground. You frown until you realize that you were laying on his bed and soon, guilt crept into your gut.

"Y-you don't have to sleep on the floor. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just gotten on the bed-" but he interrupts you, "(Y/n), please, I am just fine. Plus, you've already made yourself comfortable."

"I'll be just as comfortable on the ground!" You insist, "It's no problem and I already feel bad for staying here and...I don't know...I guess...It'd make me feel bad if you slept on the ground."

There's a silence that fills the space between the two of you. Archons, you wished you could see underneath the bandanna and look into his eyes, just to know what he was thinking. But he stared at you, as readable as a rock as his mouth remained in a neutral frown.

"I see, so...the obvious solution would be that neither of us sleep on the ground. Unless it'd make you more uncomfortable if I slept next to you?"

Honestly, you weren't sure how that suggestion made you feel: Excited? Nervous? Skiddish?...Feral? but it was quite obvious that you two didn't want the other to sleep on the floor so you responded and agreed with him that it was the best case option because your brain had short circuited so badly. So you scoot over and feel your heart start to race a little as he laid next to you. He is courteous towards you in the situation, a little oblivious to your attraction from him, but fully aware of his attraction to you; he tries his best to make you feel as comfortable as possible.

He makes a pillow wall for the both of you or just lays as far from you as possible to give you the space that you need. But he has a hard time falling asleep much like you, the both of you tense yet grateful for this situation. You fall asleep first and he doesn’t realize it until he feels a shift in the blankets and feels you curl up by his side, causing him to turn his head to the side while relaxing his body at the feeling of your touch. His gaze softens as he stares at your sleeping features, you look so precious right now. But now he’s met with a dilemma, does he move you away or does he let you be. I mean, you seem to be comfortable like this but he knows that you’d be embarrassed if you woke up like this. But maybe you were cold, though you seemed rather well covered in the mess of blankets.

He decides to leave you be and let you rest, after all, he wouldn't want to risk waking you up. So he closes his eyes, your warm body next to him making him finally realize how drowsy he was. So he allows himself to rest by your side, using his other arm to pull you close and left it there, enjoying the feeling of your form against his own.

Pressing his forehead against yours, he lets out a silent tired yawn.

"Goodnight, (Y/n)."

[rustyregion]

NOTHING CAN SAVE US

Hey, do you guys remember that one time Miraculous did something decent?

Look, I don’t want to be mean but ffs, the Shattered Dreams AU is abhorrently bitter when it comes to how it treats its characters that I’ve just decided to do a bunch of mental gymnastics and completely modify how the personalities work in the multiverse’s own rules because I want to look at this AU with anything other than confusion. Also, before anything, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean everyone else can’t, this is my opinion

I’m extremely pissed at Nightmare’s portrayal here, because it not only makes him incredibly inconsistent, but it also makes passive Nightmare seem like more of an ass than the original corrupted fucking Nightmare. All this just because you need him to change teams. Making Passive and Corrupted the same being while simultaneously keeping the relationship with Dream pretty much the same (ergo, being the best brothers ever and later being mortal enemies on only one end) is ridiculously damaging to how Nightmare is as a whole because my guy cannot learn a lesson until his brother essentially kills his sanity for him. Also if you gave that much of a shit about Dream from day 1 then why the hell were you trying to kill him until the second apple incident?

So,, since we’re taking extremely dark tropes here I decided that I want Shattered to act childish and make him believe that damaging everything he has been protecting until now is the only way for Nightmare to like him. The whole inconsistency with the apples I would fix by doing the exact same as the original, but Dream eats a golden apple instead. We literally have no information (specially back then) about what the inverse apple incident would look like,, so just say the golden apples had the same goddamn effect but with positivity and make Shattered a personality that’s not your average emo classmate from middle school. To fix Nightmare you have to rewrite the entire timeline, so just leave him like that but make him a redemption arc or just let everyone know the hypocritical cunt he is idk. Anything but make him revert back to square 1 with no consequences please

I’m done talking about this multiverse and I really don’t want anyone to hate on the creator of it, because this was obviously not made with malicious intentions. That being said, it also doesn’t make it immune to criticism. Nothing is,not even me, but criticism isn’t equal to hatedumping and honestly, if you have any arguments in favor of this multiverse PLEASE let me know because I really want to like it. (Plus most of the problems I have with it comes from the fanon Nightmare not the AU itself but whatever)

Dreamtale belongs to JokuBlog

Shattered Dreams MV belongs to Galacii-Gallery (I think?)

The original scene is from Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and ChatNoir (Shadybug Special)

[seldaryne]

"Wyll's quest regarding the Wyrmway is now a subquest instead of part of his main quest."

"Wyll's quest regarding Ravengard will now more reliably and frequently receive updates in Act III."

so mechanically speaking then, was the demotion of quest status in the first point required for them to implement the functionality of the second or??? because i genuinely don't understand why it became a subquest, especially when the game's structure already allows you to just ignore quests & move on to the next area if you want. most of the patch notes that directly mention wyll are bug-related or scripting flow, which i don't have a problem with (bug fixes are great, we love those). i'd love to hear any thoughts about this, though, because i really can't think of a reason why it had to become a subquest?

i also initially read that second point as planning for future updates to wyll's content but at a second glance i think it may just be referring to journal updates? i don't know, i'd like to believe my initial reaction was the correct one but... yknow. anyway i maintain that this is yet Another example of some really goddamn weird choices on the developmental end of things. if the companion quests exist on a sliding scale of 'most related to current main storyline to least,' wyll is very much at the top end of things. optimistic thought is that a lot of his scrapped content existed in the parts of act 3 that were cut, but i would think that as a studio you'd see that & make an effort to level things out with how much screentime the other companions have. at the bare minimum, your player base shouldn't be able to clock so many weird holes in his story arc where it's clear that something else was supposed to be offered.

i'm also not saying that the other companion arcs weren't clunky in some areas & didn't need a bit of help, but the disparity here makes deprioritizing those edits seem like a more logical course of action. like there's a difference between some slightly unpolished scenes vs. something that feels fundamentally lacking in a lot of structural ways, especially when you get into the finer points of the comparisons. act 3 imo is the one that feels the most bare-bones to me. like yes, there's Stuff there visually and quests too but it doesn't feel as lived-in as acts 1 & 2. i would say that the underdark to ketheric section feels the most dense, content-wise, and i don't think it's a coincidence that it's the bracket of the game i enjoy the most. i maintain that giving wyll's storyline the attention it needs would not only help with the character arc itself, but also pad out the quieter stretches of act 3. at this point i don't really see how they'd be able to add in the upper city without either completely changing the trajectory of the third act (so like, almost definitely something we Will Not See Happen & understandably so from a production standpoint. weird post-release editing aside, it is still a finished game.) & i'm also not sure what a DLC would look like here because the main story feels pretty complete too. off the top of my head, maybe one where you follow wyll & karlach into avernus would work, but that's worldstate dependent & probably wouldn't get made for that reason.

all that to say, from where i'm standing it really seems like giving wyll the same respect other companions are offered would by extension fix some of the act 3 issues, without having to release an entirely new area of the game (i'd love it i just don't think it's realistic lmao). like i know why/what the factors are that led to wyll getting the short end of the stick, it's bullshit but it's not the first time we've seen black characters handled unfairly by devs (& fans), but beyond that it's literally just. so confusing to me on the basis of writing alone. why wouldn't you use the character with that many ties to the titular city of the game more? why isn't he more integral to the story when it really seems like he has every reason to take the spotlight in certain areas?? like that's a fantastic resource of a character to use to move the narrative along and Yet.

idk. this started off as just a reaction to patch notes but it's so unbelievably frustrating to watch it keep happening every patch.

[willel]

I mean there will be a reason why Joyce ultimately ends up with Lonnie. It could be a poor choice in itself, Lonnie was maybe a 'good person' outside and seemingly was a nice figure and Joyce believed that without realizing Lonnie's true face until it was too late and that they got married and then Jonathan was born... but I just wonder if their problems truly started to appear after the marriage, maybe possibly after Will was born?

Because if Lonnie was such a bad father, why didn't he leave the family right after Jonathan was born? Why did he only ever leave after Will's birth and after just deciding that there was no 'hope' for Will? We also have to realize that Lonnie actually tried to get Jonathan on his side in S1 when he said Jonathan should just leave the town.

Do not get me wrong I am not saying Lonnie wasn't a bad person. I am just saying it is rather *interesting* that he left only after Will was born but not after Jonathan was born. I mean, he clearly was staying in the family for years, but then he left after Will's birth. Maybe he believed Will had no hope to become 'normal' while he saw Jonathan as more of a valuable child.

Jonathan once said, "I don't think my parents ever loved each other" or something like that. I think that still rings true. Listen. My parents aren't AS BAD as Lonnie and Joyce (my dad was an absent father but he still isn't at Lonnie level scum and my mom is not is not the affectionate type like Joyce), but... let's just say, I understand why I was born. I was an oopsie. But my little brother???? I don't know how the hell HE was born. It's a goddamn mystery let me tell you.

Sometimes despite how incompatible two people are, they just.... end up together for a bit and create families. I'm always like "If the relationship was so bad leading up to me and everything after... WHY then, does my little brother exist? Ya'll are stupid." (yes, I call my parents stupid. They accept this.)

Until the news about the play came, I think most of us assumed Lonnie and Joyce stuck together because Lonnie baby trapped Joyce or something with Jonathan. That may still be true, but the timelines don't really add up.

Maybe it's the case that much like in season 1, Lonnie continuously pretended he's "changed" before inevitably screwing up and showing his true colors?

Maybe for years Joyce and Lonnie were on and off. I imagine since Joyce and Hopper weren't on speaking terms, maybe Lonnie did something to ruin their relationship at some point during all this.

Jonathan is born because again, Lonnie pretended to "turn a new leaf" and made his way back into Joyce's life. It immediately took a downturn I assumed. But once again, maybe he convinced Joyce he would be better and they had a second child to "fix it". But it only got worse?

I know you're like "No way Joyce is this gullible to fall for it over and over again". It's possible she did. Not because she's stupid, but I imagine her mental, emotional and financial health was not good for a long time. Here's some fun facts.

In the US, women weren't allowed to own their own bank accounts until the 1960's. That means most women relied on their fathers or husbands for finances.

It isn't until 1974 that women were allowed to have their own debit/credit cards without their husbands signing off on it. Literally.

You can see in a situation like that how throughout most of their relationship, Joyce would've been depending on Lonnie because of finances. And how with all this power over finances, Lonnie screwed his own family over with his debt and overspending.

Saying all that, I think we can say Joyce kept Lonnie around because:

She was dependent on him emotionally for a while even though he was the one making her mental health worse

She was dependent on him for finances even though he probably spent all their money and put them in debt

At one point, she probably didn't want to become a social pariah since being a single mother divorcing your husband was looked down upon

She somewhat wanted the kids to have a father even though he sucked ass (Lonnie left when Will 4-8 years old depending on the source you read)

I'd also like to say, I don't think Lonnie just left. I think over the years, Joyce has dumped Lonnie, kicked him out, and then took back on repeat.

I make this assumption based on season 1. He seems super bitter towards Joyce. When he finally comes back to town, he's once again playing up his "I'm better now" act to Joyce and Jonathan.

When Joyce discovers he's just there for the money, her reaction gives me the impression that he might've done something similar in the past. Weasel his way back into her life because of money.

She says, "I can't believe I feel for this!"

Then Lonnie goes into a spiel about how much she NEEDS him and she can't do anything right without him there.

Joyce has to threaten him to get him out of her house. Apparently he was at her door for hours, demanding to let him back in and take him back. She goes to the door with a hammer to threaten him some more.

All of this gives me the impression that it wasn't as simple as "Lonnie left". I think Joyce dumped his ass for the final time and he was forced to leave. Through his bitterness of getting dumped and removed from the home, he willingly became an absentee father and did nothing to support his family. No doubt over the years he's been waiting for a crisis to hit them which would give him an opportunity to enter their lives once more.

[spaceshipkat]

oh fuck. what happened this time?

the usual things (i’m tired of the selfpub to tradpub pipeline, but i’ll spare the rehash of why) (also it’d be great if trends didn’t make or break an author’s chances of 1. selling a book in the first place and 2. doing well enough to earn back an advance so an author can start to receive royalties) and a new thing i learned of today (some of tradpub has apparently begun making some of its authors print their own physical ARCs, since they’re more expensive than eARCs and unfortunately ARCs don’t have a great return rate—aka not enough people leave reviews or spread the word about a book they’ve read an ARC of. yet another problem is that publishers can’t distribute the author-printed ARCs for the author because the publisher didn’t print them itself)

but also what’s going on with Bethany Baptiste. if y’all haven’t seen, i’ll try to sum up what i know of the present situation: she sold her debut years ago and was supposed to also publish years ago (i think around 2022?). her editors fucked it. (from what i’ve heard over the years, sourcebooks is notorious for fucking it. this is not a new phenomenon where they’re concerned, but it’s double fucked because Bethany is Black and as we all know publishing caters first and foremost to white people.) then she was supposed to debut earlier this month (March 2024) but “printing issues” forced sourcebooks to push her release date back to the end of this month. this week, she tweeted that sourcebooks has continued to fuck it, and today (3/21/24) sourcebooks tweeted that her new pub date is this May, again citing the aforementioned “printing issues” (whatever the fuck that actually means with regard to Bethany’s specific situation is anyone’s guess)

it’s just…very, very disappointing for countless reasons: that tradpub is willingly fucking over an incredibly important voice in publishing overall, but especially YA SFF; that publishing continues to undervalue Black voices; that time and time again anyone who is not cishet and white (and, more often than not, a man) will get the shaft; that tradpub continues to prove it is literally falling apart at the seams and no one is actually sure how to fix it. for instance, apparently S&S sent out an email to agents apologizing for editors who are “unresponsive,” except whoever made the decision to send that email thinks “unresponsive” means three weeks, which is just absurd given how overworked editors are. by this, i take it to mean S&S is gonna try to push editors to reply to submissions within three weeks, which is fucked. (i hope i am misreading what this means, but i am pretty sure i’m not.) not only will that harm editors who are already overworked and underpaid, it’ll likely have detrimental effects on authors since it’s unlikely an editor will be able to make a sound decision in that timeframe and get their entire editorial staff (anyone who participates in acquisitions meetings, when editors bring a book they want to buy before their publisher on the whole) on board. i have watched this industry change so goddamn much over the last decade, to the point i barely recognize it anymore. i remember when the Big Five was the Big Six. i remember when an author could hit a bestseller list through quality rather than the volume of noise surrounding their book. i remember when publishers still did marketing for their authors (and even then it wasn’t great, but the fact that was better than it is now? dear fucking god authors are so fucked). i remember when an author’s advance was based on the quality of their book, rather than the number of followers an author has—i remember when the latter was the goddamn exception to the norm. i remember when an author could be sent on tour by their publisher rather than paying out of pocket if they wanted to meet readers. i remember when an author could dream of making a living through their writing. now that’s fucking laughable. now you’ll be lucky to make north of a nice deal ($1 - $49,000) and you’ll barely see a sniff of publisher-led marketing on that money—on any money. (remember, that’s why tradpub is snapping up selfpub successes and popular fanfic with the serial numbers filed off. those won’t require as much marketing because the author has already personally done the heavy-lifting.)

now to be fair, tradpub is a little better in some ways: representation is a bit more common now, for instance, even if still woefully sparse—on every side, from authors to agents to editors to publicists etc etc; john green isn’t topping the bestseller lists for years and years (though CoHo and sjm are)—and bestseller lists are a bit more fluid, even if they don’t seem to carry as much weight and still largely ignore anyone who isn’t cishet and white (and likely a man) (go look at Kennedy Ryan’s insta post from the past week when she hit the NYT list); and it’s good that most of editing is done virtually rather than by hand, since we need to save trees (however much i would have loved getting a physical copy of my book in the mail sprinkled with editorial notes). but overall? tradpub is on fire and im so fucking tired.

[cursedwithgloriouspurpose]

Just to put it out there, this is the post that set this off though I've been seeing shit like this for weeks. I'm not reblogging it because I don't want to directly spread this.

Can't believe I have to say this, but: AO3 is not an inherently community properties. It is a Non-Profit Organization that was begun and organized by people with certain ethos in mind; in a very condensed nutshell, the freedom to write and share any and every kind of fic, no matter what subject matter it contains. Period. They wrote the charter to suite their ideals, funded it alongside like-minded individuals, and manned it for many years. People who believe in the dream that they set up are the ones largely running the show now (a few founding members may still be around, though I'm not sure about that,) but so far that ethos has remained in tact.

While AO3 was always meant to serve the community (and they do,) it was never meant to be run by anyone who does not share their ethos. That's why actively contributing to the organization itself--ie, through volunteering, and/or donating--is a requirement for having a say in what the archive does. You do not get to vote on board elections if you are not involved. You do not get to be on the board if you do not do these things. That is how all non-profits work. A non profit is not a union (and outside of possibly the original vote to organize, no union I've ever heard of allows non-union members to vote on union procedure, policy, or in elections.)

One of the reasons why this is true is that anyone who doesn't agree with the founding tenants of absolute free speech, no matter how vile that speech may be, will not stick with the organization long enough to change things internally--that is a feature, not a bug.

Why? In this case, because of that ethos. Because of the fic bans and the purges that the idea for AO3 was born out of, which always stemmed from "concerned individuals" and calls for "morality." Completely unironically, because of all the shit that's happening to regular libraries across the US right now. Essentially, because of all the things AO3 was always meant to stand against.

God fucking damn but am I tired of this latest round of anti nonsense disguising itself as "Proship" and "Anti-racist" and "Anti-harassment" in order to try and drive a wedge between AO3 and its donors. I've seen this song and dance before. We all have. It used to be "child porn" and "think of the children," and now its "harassment," and "abuse!" Ie, the exact things that the modern lefty is hard programmed to fall into line behind without actually considering the evidence.

People please read through this shit critically before just assuming its valid. Note the lack of actual, clearly displayed and easily legible proof*. How all the "I've complied everything in one page!!!" posts seem to just be paragraphs after paragraphs of conjecture and vague statements without, again, any goddamn proof (except, maybe, a list of links entirely removed from context, appended to the bottom.) Be critical of authoritative statements about how things "should" be run without any sense of where that authority is coming from, and the lack of solid answers (or even suggestions) as to how the problems should be fixed in any way that isn't "Fire everyone I've decided is responsible for this (again, without proof,) and replace them with people who want to completely rewrite the ethos of the site to allow bans on content that everyone (and by 'everyone,' I mean me, the speaker) agrees is objectionable."

There is an alarming number of parallels I've been seeing lately re: how people are currently attacking AO3 and how bad actors in various states are forcing through book bans. Please be mindful.

*"easily legible" is kind of a weird phrasing, but i can't think of a better one. What I mean, specifically, is a good 90% of the "proof" links I've found are all links to mid-page comment streams on anonymous wank boards which mostly start mid-conversation, effectively removing them from their original context, and never site any sources of their own. Literally everything is He Said/She Said levels of bullshit with some corporate buzz words tossed in to make it sound more valid than it is.

[dailycass-cain]

Knight Terrors: Nightwing #2 had Cass in it so of course I'm going to give my thoughts on the issue. Is it good? Is it bad? No matter what I'll talk about the Cass in extraordinary detail!

I'll start with the good.

As a series focusing on Nightwing and Scarecrow? It was good. Alright. I mean this isn't the first time we've seen Dick facing his nightmares (nor will it be the last), but the layer of Scarecrow being involved added something to this mini.

Daniele Di Nicuolo's art was amazing. Really made the two issues pop more. More so when it went into the whole "nightmare" vibe.

That's all the positives I can give.

The whole Batgirls section of this issue felt superfluous to the overall story with Dick. It didn't really add anything to the plot, and all the two did was free Barbara-- which is kind of a detriment to the character.

I mean you could've had Nightwing and Scarecrow fix her and she finds out the exit herself. There was "zero" need for the Batgirls in this story sadly. In that area, the whole female section to this mini just felt-- meh to me.

Ironically, once again Nightwing and the three Batgirls just don't mix well. The character overshadowed all three Batgirls back in the infamous Batgirls #7-8 arc.

The ideas are solid with each Batgirl facing their own nightmare. But that's the grand problem with this issue and the story in itself. We just never see it.

I went into the issue and this page above is like, "Okay, we're gonna get some context right? Akin to what's going on over in Action Comics and Superman tie-ins to this event? We're so getting a Cass/Steph story and-- oh that's it no more issue? WHAT WAS THE POINT?!" 😩

Going into the story I kept expecting more and got the rug pulled out from under me. Therein lies the rub. Dick, Jason, and Tim (Damian gets to be in the main story) got FULL exposure to their "Knightmares".

Batgirls? Well, tough luck here's a tiny nugget and um.. WE'RE DONE!

At the very least with Batgirls #7-8 I know the context of the two issues. I can understand why that story is a calamity as it entails everything so very wrong with Dick (he overshadows the actual leads) and Barbara (is squandered in reused bad subplot again for the 4th time).

If it wasn't for Spirit World #4 the week prior, and Birds of Prey #1 next month (September 5th and you should ALL buy it). I'd be more peeved at the waste of space Knight Terrors: Nightwing series gave Cass.

The ideas by Michael Conrad and Becky Cloonan are sound. The problem is-- we get NOTHING more. Just, "hey this happened. We're not even gonna explain why Cass looks way different now and is caked in blood."

Just enjoy this cool moment. That's it.

I don't blame the writers for this. They thought of the idea to put this in here and that's it. I blame DC heads for this. You clearly could've given us a Batgirls tie-in or small story to "fill that gap" from point A to B.

This felt like I was back in 2016-2020 where we'd get a "small bone" and that's it. Well, coming off Batgirls ongoing, Cass being in Spirit World and BoP. I can say I don't mind overlooking it almost.

Almost.

The problem is in regards to Stephanie Brown and Barbara Gordon two female characters who deserve better. Whatever comes from the godawful "Gotham War" event next month something bad just feels will come over Steph and Babs.

It already feels unneeded as Tec, BoP, and Batman & Robin feel like they're just going in this direction:

So if that's the case. Why can't we get one nugget in this damn event for Steph and Babs? Freaking Knight Terrors: Punchline #1-2 gave Babs a better nugget here and that was a goddamn nightmare construct.

I can go on and on. But DC you need to still treat female characters slightly better here. Ironically, yet again when it comes to your Batgirls.

This issue disappointed me. It made me slightly angry, but hey Spirit World is currently out there. Birds of Prey is out next month. As a fan of Cass, I'd be feasting and feasting good.

Do you want a better-written comic by this team? Batgirls #14 and anything after #7. I also LOVED the idea of Cass being scared of what she might become still. I wish we you know-- SAW IT TOO!

DC?

Treat your female characters better than this. This issue feels like a regression. If Stephanie gets "taken off the table" for a bit due to this godawful event beginning next month. This issue will just feel worse.

[clatterbane]

One of the things that's actually funny is that I have been eating SO MUCH more sugar (and carbs in general) since I did finally get appropriate treatment, with the supplemental insulin I've needed since at least 2008.

It's extra fun when you already have an ED history, and get plunged into that "you're obviously slowly killing yourself with knife and fork, but what would anyone expect from a lazy fat American?" mentality. Coming not least from the people who are supposed to be helping. The ED brainweasels were certainly having a party for too long, and I probably did my system some extra damage with restriction and overexertion. Whatever I did, it was not going to fix my fucked-up pancreas--and things just kept getting worse as more and more beta cells gradually died off.

I still have to nope right away from too many legit triggering conversations even among people with known autoimmune diabetes. No damned wonder we have like a 30% rate of diagnosable EDs, even on the "I did nothing to cause this, HONEST" autoimmune side of things. (I don't even need to get started on the misplaced Type Wars hierarchical BS again. Pisses me off even worse, as someone who nearly got killed by ending up on the "wrong" side of some terrible assumptions for way too long.)

And that 30% is mostly among people who did not already have disordered eating behavior (or significant scrupulosity problems) going in. It's positively encouraged--again, not least among professionals who are supposed to be helping. While being one of the fastest ways to cause your body serious mischief, especially once you throw supplemental insulin into the mix. If I am never exposed to another word about intermittent fasting or obsessive focus on carb counting with a moralistic tone, it will be way too soon.

Thankfully I have yet to hear one single goddamned word that's not genuinely medically appropriate about my weight or presumed eating habits since I did have that spectacular collapse, and then got to be clinically underweight enough that they have been repeatedly commenting on that--between the mistreated diabetes itself and the resulting GI damage from that final ketoacidosis crash. Regaining some weight and actually feeling hungry again more often, as I keep recovering from that bullshit and am consistently physically able to eat solid food again, has been sort of doing my head in lately. Not least because I do not want to get treated like garbage again, as I do recover and get back to a healthier weight. I have seen how that works, and really do not need a repeat.

There's still too much that's kinda triggering on an ongoing basis, but at least I am quite deliberately telling myself that I can eat whatever the hell I want and mostly actually DOING it. I am now decently equipped with insulin and a CGM to watch my blood sugar levels, and the world is my smörgåsbord at least as much as it is anyone else's.

I may actually go and get some ice cream in a little while. Because I want it, and I do have the technology.

[shinelikethunder]

love all your analysis of the writing choices in spn and also how you articulated your relationship to the source material. you are insightful and cool

thanks! oh, SPN, you are god-tier at making people articulate why they want to smash a bottle over the text's head and start a bar brawl with something they also love. i was not expecting to earnestly, unironically love the stuff it does well, but here we are, and i have not met a canon that set off such intense "your problems are so crazymaking BECAUSE i'm so invested" reactions since... well... RTD-era doctor who.

(hypothesis: one reason early tumblr was Like That was because the core brain-damage eras of both shows aired 2005-2010, and the fan hyperinvestment kept feeding off itself for years before peaking. i cannot overstate HOW unusually effective both of these shows are at making you go "babygirl, not only am i desperate to fix you, even the subject of What Your Goddamn Problem Is has me so obsessed that when i spend thousands of words tearing you a new one, it'll just be more proof that you've got me by the balls." bbc sherlock was never in this tier; if anything, it was an elaborate con engineered to trick people with those impulses into hallucinating a good show around it.)

[bardkin]

taking on @who-is-page's Folcintera Week Challenge! do note that entries most likely won't be daily, because i have Various Things wrong with me (such as Work and Chronic Sleepy) <3

🐾 What is your species? How do you experience aspects of your nonhumanity?

I’m a fisher marten, human-gem-hybrid, coyote, animal familiar, artificial mobian hedgehog, and a demon-weapon. I’m also a Storyteller archetrope, though that doesn’t totally apply here (until it does, sometimes).

Generally speaking, I experience various shifts — most commonly in the form of phantom limbs / parts (ears, tail, fur, fangs, gem, etc), envision or "self-image" shifts (tho I hesitate to call them "shifts" since I don't usually internally "see" my human-body-self, when I think about my self-image anyway), and mental / instinctual shifts — and have sort-of-memories, as well as noemata. All of this is physiological & neurologically based (though, my Shadow fictotype was just kind of... dropped into my lap, uninvited, and I've simply been Shadow The Goddamn Hedgehog ever since), with a very "narrative" framework to a lot of it.

When it comes to my animality specifically, I experience it in possibly a very niche way. I do have very “usual” experiences of beastly shifts, instincts, etc, but I’m not just restricted to four legs. I’m kind of like those queer little animals in Beatrix Potter’s books, Little Bear, or RedWall — I’m a creature straight out of a beast fable. Kind of furry adjacent, but also Pretty Much A Furry in a very nonhuman way. It kind of melds into very human activities. Unnoticeable unless I become aware of it, because it’s become almost background-noise levels of normalized to me. I almost always have some phantom animal part, be it ears, a tail, quills, fangs, pawpads, claws. It's more noticeable to not have these shifts.

My animal familiar-ness is still something I have yet to delve deeper into, as this is a concept that requires connection to another; lending one’s self to help someone you’re bonded to. Admittedly, I haven’t had the chance to explore it yet, but I do know that it’s affected by all manner of its depiction and origins. Be that daemons from His Dark Materials, or palismen from the Owl House, each iteration of the “magical animal companion” feels like me. It also bleeds into dragon-rider bonds, and heavily affects how I experience that genre, or stories that have this as a trope or character. Rather than relating to the (usually always human/humanoid) rider, I find myself in the shoes (or, more aptly, the scales) of the ridden dragon.

Being Steven Universe is an experience I’m not sure I can articulate properly in a few sentences, other than... that is who I am. I am Steven in the most mundane, everyday ways possible. Being Steven is also the closest to being internally human that I'm ever going to get, and even that never feels like "human from this earth." I am Steven in the way I have endless optimism, in the way I always want to help and fix others’ problems (even if I can’t, and even if it’s detrimental to my own mental health), and in the way that I have Goddamn Mommy Issues. Again (which is only partially a joke). I may not be Steven-From-The-Show or Steven-From-The-Light-Games, but that's also me. Even some fanfiction iterations are me, which is something of an entirely separate essay in itself.

The demon-weapon thing is... well, saying it (simply) “feels good to identify as something that can turn into a weapon” seems... kind of surface level, but, it’s what I experience. There are days where it feels like I should be able to flex some unseen muscle, something under the surface, and have my arm become a blade, or to be able to morph completely into a scythe or sword. That I should be able to resonate my very soul with the one(s) closest to me, so that they could literally wield me as the weapon I was meant to be. It’s something I know will never be a reality, but that it should.

And... being Shadow the Hedgehog means experiencing a gut wrenchingly regretful nostalgia for a sister I never had & couldn’t save. It means having quill shifts out of nowhere, sometimes over top other phantom shifts, and having something to attribute my memory gaps to (even though I know they’re because of the auDHD, & not caused by this fictotype. Sometimes to get mentally well you have to be a little mentally unwell). It means embracing not knowing who I am, and forging ahead anyway.