#lowest influence possible

[nepthys-merenset]

i started a second playthrough of HOT because i wanted to romance gisella, be a bad queen, and stay away from reinhold. let's just say i'm succeeding in 2/3 of those things.

[a-dash-in-the-middle]

Call centers for URGENT CARE AND HOSPITALS are hell on earth

I think talking to the wall might bring better results

[thewertsearch]

Familial Determinism

Or: let's make wild, uninformed guesses about the troll Ancestors, based solely on the lives of their descendants!

As a bearer of the lowest blood on the hemospectrum, Aradia’s ancestor was probably as poor as she is. She may have been an archeologist like her descendant, assuming the field existed in her era, but I'm much more interested in her potential necromancy.

On the instruction of your ANCESTORS, you have recovered MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY from the ruins, and convinced a friend to adapt it into a GAME THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION.

See, due to her bloodline, Granny Megido is the most likely ancestor to be behind the Voices. She's the only one who can claim a direct relationship to Aradia, and I think she was probably still around in the modern era - as a ghost, of course - guiding her young protege, as she worked to trigger the apocalypse.

What's your story, Granny Meg? How did a lowblood medium discover the secrets of Sgrub, centuries before it arrived? How much did you know back then - and how much influence do you still have, even now?

If Alternia's past is anything like its present - and it certainly seems to be - then I can't see Tavros's ancestor surviving there for long. If he survived to adulthood, then it was probably as a peaceful nomad, or perhaps some sort of ranger.

Either way, I don't think he'd involve himself with other trolls, instead preferring to spend time with his planet's wildlife. Basically, I'm picturing Snow White with a mohawk.

Sollux’s ancestor is undoubtedly still a techhead. I know it's centuries in the past, but this is proto-Sollux we're talking about. He'd invent technology if he had to.

Actually, that might have been his role. He could have been one of Alternia's first engineers, leveraging his Sgrub foreknowledge to contribute to Alternia's technological advancement.

Congratulations, Sollux Senior - you helped turn a nation of pirates into a space empire.

Karkat's an interesting one. In a more primitive society - ie, one without Imperial Drones - it might have been easier for him to hide his blood color.

...actually, he might not even have Karkat's blood color. It's possible that Karkat's candy red mutation is unique to him, and the other Vantas has yellow-green blood, like his Trollian position implies he should. That would result in an ancestor with a very different social position to Karkat, and the two could be substantially different as a result.

Nepeta’s current lifestyle would translate perfectly to a primitive Alternia. Her ancestor could easily still live in a cave – and since shipping is probably her calling, too, I'm picturing her as an accomplished matchmaker.

Kanaya’s situation is rather unique. Jadebloods are rare, and inextricably linked to the Mother Grub, so her ancestor has some of the strongest ties to her counterpart.

We're actually aware of an ancient Mother Grub, who may have been alive in the time of the ancestors - which hints at a relationship between Kanaya's ancestor and the next troll on our list.

That would be Terezi's ancestor, whose symbol adorns the Doomsday Scale. This device was probably a collaboration between the Pyrope and Maryam ancestors. Its purpose is unknown, but the Gate symbol is proof that someone had Sgrub foreknowledge. Curious.

Anyway, aside from this side hustle, Pyrope was probably a legislacerator. I wonder if the Alternian legal system was as broken then as it is now?

Equius... well, I don't really know, actually. He certainly feels like the kind of guy who’d model himself off his ancestor, so he was probably a pro-hemospectrum horse enthusiast.

Gamzee’s ancestor could have gone one of two ways. If Sopor Slime existed back in early Alternia, he might have been as docile as his descendant used to be. If it didn’t, he was probably the exact kind of bloodthirsty monster that Gamzee is currently regressing into.

I know which option I'm putting my money on, and it's the one that would make Gamzee proud of his 'Subjugglator' ancestors. Can you guess which?

Eridan’s ancestor is the Orphaner, which makes me think he has a similar role as a slayer of lusi. My best guess is that he killed the custodians of adult trolls.

Feferi is an odd case, because her ancestor would probably be an extremely famous historical empress. Fuchsia blood is so rare that Feferi is literally the only modern troll who has it, so I wouldn't be surprised if her ancestor was revered in her time.

What did you do to Alternia, Pexies? Did you help make it what it is, or - like your descendant - did you try to make it better?

[spamgyu]

hell n back // vernon drabble

it was rare for him to have a day off, even rare for it to fall on the same as yours.

the two of you had decided that the best way to make use of this once in blue moon event was to lounge about in your shared apartment – enjoying one another's company before he is forced to go back to his tireless schedule.

you watched as your boyfriend fiddled with the sound system at the corner of the living room – mumbling something about wanting to play you his new favorite song. you always did admire his love for music, the two of you using this shared interest to naturally govern most of your conversations.

there was evidence of this throughout your apartment; the main one being a wall of vinyl record covers from both past and present hip-hop artists you two enjoyed listening to. right below this display was a large mid-century modern wooden console; holding your boyfriend's prized possessions.

a turn table and radio system.

it wasn't long before the sound of the artist whistling blared through the speakers; vernon turning to you with a large grin on his face.

"come here." he held his hand out for you to take.

laughing, you set your phone down to accept his offer – allowing for him to take lead and sway along with the beat.

"could you tell where my head was at when you found me? me and you went to hell and back just to find peace" he sang along with the artist, bouncing to the trumpet that played. "the lyrics– it reminds me of us."

you listened closely to the words being played, allowing it to transport you back in time to when you had first met him. both of you weren't at your lowest, but you two were definitely not at your best – simply cruising through life with the intent to survive.

before him, you had gone through a list of men who had broken your heart – giving up on love itself.

and he was the same.

people did say that the best kind of love was found when you weren't searching for it – scoffing at the idea until you met him.

it came so naturally; meeting vernon had possibly been one of the best things to happen to your life and he could say the same.

he had no intentions of starting a relationship when he had been introduced to you through a mutual friend, but by the end of the night, vernon couldn't get enough.

hell, half way through hearing you rant talk about pharrell's influence in the music industry – he had been sold.

vernon wasn't the type to ask someone on a date the same day he had met them; it was as if you had put him under a spell and he hadn't been able to shake it off since.

if soulmates were real, vernon had found his – you.

"oh, but I'm here now baby. no life been lifin' lately, so I save you if you save me. i was over love, I had enough, then I found you." now it was your turn to sing along, catching him by surprise.

"so you know the song?" he gasped.

"i was the one that showed it to you." you laughed.

"hm..." his bottom lip jutted out, as he tried to sift through his memories.

"four months ago– i sent it to you."

he was overseas at the time, attending some award show; if you recalled correctly.

"baby give this song a listen [spotify link]"

halting your movements, vernon slapped his hand on his forehead – he remembers. "ah shit..."

"it's okay." you shrugged, walking over to the couch as the song wrapped up.

"brain fog has been so bad lately." he sighed, plopping down next to you. "i hate it."

with his nonstop work schedule, it was no surprise that he had seemed to be forgetting quite a few things – but you paid no mind to it. it came with the title of being the girlfriend of one of the members of one of the most popular k-pop group.

it was minor details anyways, and he's human after all.

"do you at least remember me?" you teased.

squinting, vernon played along with the bit – tilting his head to the side. "looking like my future girlfriend."

you pursed your lips. "that's crazy, because i'm taken."

"leave him." vernon leaned closer.

"nah," you shook your head before leaning in as well, allowing for your lips to brush against his briefly. "he's a catch."

"doubt it." vernon snorted.

"he is! he's got this stupid smile, always tells the dumbest jokes, makes the best burnt grilled cheese–" you listed.

"ah! you said you liked it crispy!" he cried, earning a laugh from you.

"that's called softening the blow."

"can't catch a fucking break." he groaned, slouching in his position.

to anyone, this sense of domestication would be boring, but such mundane acts couldn't help but warm your heart.

he wasn't the performer you would watch from your seat, the guy who you watched on your phone screen – he was your boyfriend, the man who you swore you would spend the rest of your life with.

he was a silly boy, making silly jokes – letting you in on the personality that he hid away from many.

PERMANENT TAGLIST

@thegirlwhoimagined @forcheol @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @f4iryjjosh @akeminy

@yonabutnotyuna @tacosandbitch @aaniag @bettybotterboughtabitofbutter @xbaekcult

@alwaysalmostthere @ashkuuuu @morkswatermelonnnn @isabellah29 @lottogyu

@bubbly-moon @lllucere @bo-fairykim @pluviophile-xxx

@daegutowns @niktwazny303 @fragmentof-indifference @leah-rose03 @haolistic @eclliipsed

@joshuahongnumbers @gyuguys @yaaaridk @christinewithluv

@yoonzinoooo @livelikejinki @watercolureyes @whoa-jo @primoisellerose

@wonwoobestboyy @rakshithanotrao @mingcouper @aksweet7 @nikkell

@raginghellfire @kriizztin @doubleshoticedshakenespresso @porridgesblog @bbysnw

@squashcolouredskies @viewvuu @black-swan-blog27 @got7svt6

[setsugekka]

❥classifieds (m)

↳ Stumbling upon a tossed out android in the park across the way from your place is one thing, but catching feelings for him? Well, that’s a whole other issue entirely, now isn’t it?

lee juyeon x afab!reader — chobits!au, fluff, awkward romance, angst with a happy ending, gratuitous sexual content, porn with plot [15.4k wc] cws: ethical/moral dilemmas pertaining to android sentience, sex under the influence of alcohol. sexual content: juyeon has a big dick and fucks like a pornstar because he is not strapped to normal mortal confines, penetrative sex (unprotected), (a lot) dirty talk, wet and messy.

With your cell phone shrugged up against your cheek as you lug a large, tied off garbage bag down two flights of stairs on account of the elevator being out of order, you can't help but feel somewhat discontented by the gentle huffs of laughter coming through from your friend on the other end of the line.

"You really gotta get out of that dump, it's so long past time now."

Sighing, you finally reach the lowest level of the apartment building, and with an aggressive tug, the far-too-full bag of paper waste follows through the front doors behind you. There's a recognizable tearing sound that you're hopeful is akin to more of a plastic flesh wound than anything that will result in even more picking up of mess than what you've already done tonight — but as you reach the end of the walkway and are met by the gracious offering of the dumpster sidelined at the street — you hurl the bag up and over your shoulder with as much strength as you can muster, while simultaneously and much to your displeasure feeling the slip of your phone from its nestled place, down to the concrete flooring below.

"Fuck, fuck...!"

On the other end, you can hear your friends' voice as she tumbles to the floor, juggled against your palms as you attempt to salvage the device. It seems to help to some degree as you manage to force it away from the cool, hard flooring and instead into the far more plush, albeit wet, grass just nearby — it's been raining all day, and you're none too pleased about that on account of the effect it tends to have on your already shoddy mood as of late — but regardless, your phone is safe, and picking it back up, you can hear said friend asking what's wrong as you bring it back up to your face.

"Sorry," you say in a hurry, suddenly realizing that you've transferred much of the wet and dirty from the ground to your face having not wiped the screen before ushering it back into place to respond. You wipe it quickly with a grimace and finish your thought. "Kind of all over the place. Been a long—"

You pause again, partially on account of trying to decipher just how long it has been that seemingly any and everything has been going wrong, but mostly as a result of the heaping pile of...you can't even begin to know what that has caught your eye from across the street.

Your heart beats heavy in your chest, because despite it not being all that late in the evening, and the lights of the park just across the way being very much still illuminated, there's one thing that you're relatively certain of and even from this distance now:

That's a body.

"—Life."

"What? What's wrong?"

Squinting, you're not entirely sure how to even answer that question. After all, this friend has now long since moved out of town and cannot possibly aid you in the situation at hand should it be a situation, and beyond even that much...how often does this sort of thing happen? What should you do? Call the police? Investigate?

You don't really want to see something that you can't ever possibly unsee, but the ethics of leaving what could be another human being over there — if they're alive, injured, in need of help...

"There's...a body, in the park across from my place."

You take a step towards the road.

"What!? Well what the fuck! Call the cops!"

Another step.

"What if it's just someone drunk and passed out? I'd hate to get them in more trouble than they really need on their hands," you reply with another step forward, now well on your way to crossing the quiet, residential street. "I'm just going to have a peek, I can call the police if I need to but I just want to be sure."

"You're crazy, what if it's a set up, what if you get attacked!?"

You hadn't considered that angle, and now that the thought is in your head, your heart beats just that much faster. Some sort of ploy to lure an unsuspecting person to them only to turn the tables and hurt them instead, you frown silently at the thought of it, but make no effort in changing your course, either.

"Well," you sigh, reaching the dewy, green grass of the other side of the road and stepping a tennis shoe atop it. "You'll know as much, you can call the cops then."

The following steps are quicker than the last, perhaps a part of you trying to get this over with as soon as possible on account of the worry of not knowing what may be awaiting you. Your friend says something on the line, though you only know as much due to the general sound of her voice and not because you've actually heard any of the words said. You suppose that with each step forward and towards the pile of flesh on the freshly mowed grass — just under a lamp post and as if entirely meant to be presented for your finding — that the loud thump of your heartbeat against the inside of your chest is all too capable of drowning out any other sounds that may insist on being heard by you.

You sort of had wanted to be wrong; about the whole that's a body thing. Unfortunately, now that you're here, you're proverbially kicking yourself for having been such an adept guesser as much.

Eyes wide as you gaze down at the pile of person just before your feet, you know that your friend is still talking to you, and you're a bit aware of how frantic she sounds with each passing second, though you're a bit distracted by the goings on before you now.

A bit curled up and almost in the fetal position on his side, at a glance it appears to be a man: mid-twenties if you had to guess with messy, mid-length black hair that appears freshly shaved at the sides and adorning far too visually pleasing and clean clothes to be someone who has gone through something all that horrible leading up to their last moments here and now.

In fact, he seems immaculately clean — not a spec of dirt or blood or any evidence of blemish gracing him at all. Even as far as your assumption of a drunk evening out, you'd think someone to have far more signs to show of it before reaching the point of having passed out in a public park just a few blocks down the street from the bar district.

If the scene before you reminds you of anything, it's at most like a house cat — simply curled up for a midday slumber where ever he may deem fit.

"HELLO!?"

Wincing, now that the terror that has held you hostage up until now has seemingly dissipated a good amount, the shrill shrieking of your best friends' voice can once again be heard through the speaker, though you're not all that thrilled about it.

"Hey, it's fine," you answer back calmly, still staring down towards the man at your feet — contemplating what, if anything, you're meant to do about this. "I think it's just a drunk guy passed out, though he certainly doesn't look like he had all that wild of a night."

"Lemmie see."

That's right, video calling. Pulling the phone back, you switch the call type and turn the camera angle down towards what it is that you've been graced with. You're not expecting all that much of a response, so when she gasps in what would seem to be misplaced horror, to say that you're shocked would be quite the understatement.

Because what is so shocking about this, anyway?

"That's not a guy you moron," your friend says in utter disappointment of you. "That's a persocom. Look, you can see the serial number just under his ear."

You hadn't noticed upon first look, though you hadn't been looking for any such thing to begin with, but now that it has been mentioned, you bend down to a squatting position to get a better look at what it is that she is referring to.

And just as she said, there it is: the number eleven situated just below and behind his earlobe.

You sigh. "Okay, so...what do I do with him? Should I call like...the pound?"

"He's not a dog, he's an android, what do you think animal control is going to do about him?"

"I don't know! I just don't know what to do with him! Should I just...leave him here?"

A few moments of silence pass by as your friend hums in thought before finally responding to your inquiry with a far too cheerful tone.

"Take him home with you. He looks like an expensive model, probably a custom build so I doubt someone just carelessly lost him. My guess is he's been abandoned because things got a little messy back at home and the original owner didn't know how best to deal with it — or rather, couldn't handle powering him down."

You don't really know what any of that means, all things considered. Persocoms being far from your area of expertise on account of never in your life having enough money to ever own one yourself; instead, they're simply a thing that you're aware of the existence of, but far from anything that you understand in any great detail.

The idea of a live-in android, a humanoid personal computer willing and able to help you with any and all tasks that you may find yourself in need of — the idea certainly doesn't sound terrible when you think of it like that, but there is one thing that rings heavy in your ear even if the concept of it glossed over so carelessly.

'—things got a little messy back at home—'

Whatever that means.

"Is it even legal for me to take him? What if someone comes looking for him? Isn't he someone else's property?"

The shrug on the other end of the line is nearly audible as your friend hums an answer to all of the questions presented.

"If they cared that much, they wouldn't have left him here. No one dumps their million dollar car in the middle of a parking lot with the keys in the ignition expecting it to still be there the next day."

Fair enough.

"You're gonna need some help getting him inside, though. Ask your cute, burly neighbor to help you bring your lil twinkbot inside — oh, and record it for me, that guy is so hot."

"I'm hanging up now, I've apparently got things to do."

"Ta-ta! Have fun getting your kitchen cleaned!"

Ending the call and finally alone with your thoughts, as well as the predicament presented before you — you think over again just why it is that someone would leave something so expensive, so presumably prized out here for any other random person to come and confiscate. You feel sort of bad, but you also suppose that should you come to find that anyone is in search of the item that you can just as easily return it back to them, and in better shape than however he would have ended up should he be left out here in the cold, rainy elements of the overnight outdoors, as well.

Something about the road to hell being paved with good intentions nestles into the back of your mind as you make your way back to your apartment to grab your neighbor friend.

As it would turn out, there are perks to having some nerdy, technologically-attuned pals.

Two knocks at your front door and you're quick to your feet, long strides across your apartment and towards the sound before you quickly open the door to welcome the all too excited smile that's awaiting on the opposite end.

You gently frown. "You're way too happy about all of this."

Popping an arm up on the wood of the doorway entrance, Changmin allows the grin to grow just that much wider at your displeasure. "Never thought you'd be the one to end up with a persocom, what can I say? Of course I'm excited. Now, let me see him!"

Stepping aside barely in time before your friend pushes his way inside anyways, Changmin barely kicks his shoes off in time before he's rushing across the open living area and over towards the slumped body of the android that you suppose is now yours.

Stopping just in front of him, you pause only halfway towards the two of them as your pal turns to look at you from over his shoulder, and you're none too pleased with the devilish grin pulling at the corners of his lips.

"He's handsome," Changmin says with some sort of insistence in his voice, though you feign not understanding it. "I mean, they're meant to be easy on the eyes but this one is something special."

You roll your eyes. "Okay, well, he's not mine and I didn't make him, so that really is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned."

"Sure," he waves off, as if not entirely willing to take you at your word. "He's probably a custom build, a lot of money in this kind of work."

Silenced, you watch as Changmin kneels down in front of the couch where the model sits, tinkering at the limbs and looking the details over before finally reaching up under the long, white dress shirt and seemingly dipping a hand down into the waist of the persocoms pants.

"Uh," you motion in discomfort at the sight. "What are you doing?"

Changmin glances back at you again, first in confusion, and second with a roll of his eyes upon realizing why it is that you're acting some kind of way about where his hands have disappeared to. "Control panel is at the hip, calm down. If you're interested in the more intimate details of the model I'll let you figure that out on your own time."

"Changmin!"

"Just saying," he chuckles, pulling his hands back and settling the fabric back in place again. Standing once again, he leans forward and takes the chin in one hand, closely looking over the facial features of the android and subsequently checking for life. "Now we just wait and see if he boots up."

There's not long to wait, however; watching on in anticipation for only a few seconds, the slumped stature sprawled across your couch lazily blinks a few times, as if having just been asleep like any other person. Much to your surprise, there's nothing especially bizarre or robotic about it, at all. In fact, his resemblance to human is sort of uncanny. Changmin releases him and steps back to stand next to you as you both watch in a sort of awe as the man on your couch pulls himself up into a more proper, sitting, position, rubbing his eyes from slumber before they bring themselves up and towards you to settle.

"Now what?" you whisper with a gentle lean towards your friend.

Changmin answers with a question towards the model. "Do you have a name?"

A few moments of silence pass, and it causes you to wonder if there is some sort of internal memory damage done that would result in the original owners dumping him off in such a way. Surely, there has to be some reason.

"Juyeon," he says, although it comes off in tone as if a bit in question. Unsure of the answer even himself.

"Cool, he works!" Changmin exclaims with a clap of his hands, eyes wide and bright and full of promise of what's to come despite the persocom being far from his own. "Do you have an owner? Someone we should return you to?"

Narrow, thoughtful eyes glance up towards the ceiling before coming back down and settling onto Changmin. "I have no recollection of previous ownership in my memory banks."

Glancing towards you, your friend shrugs. "Guess he's all yours, then."

Great.

You're happy to take a bit of a more background role right about now as you listen in on the way that Changmin engages with Juyeon, instead, you look over the persocom as he sits on the plush furniture now — seated more proper and with palms pressed to his knees as his eyes look up towards the man speaking to him. He reminds you something of a school boy listening in on a lecture.

"It's settled then!"

Not having realized that you've spaced out, the loud chiming voice of your friend brings you back down to earth with a crash as you're left to wonder what it is, exactly, that has been settled in those few moments of your not having been paying attention.

"What?"

With a strong hand at your shoulder, Changmin pushes you forward, and stumbling towards Juyeon, the two of you meet eyes once again — though yours certainly much larger and full of unease than his — in fact, he appears calm, if not a little unaware of his surroundings in a sort of charmingly confused way.

"He's yours, like I said," Changmin reiterates as he heads back towards the front door to see himself out. "Everything's set, he's good to go, the rest is up to you to work out."

"I don't even know what that means! What do I...do with him?"

Juyeon's still looking up at you with his gaze locked — brown eyes and a dark dusting of what you can only figure is a mixture of eyeliner and smoked eyeshadow that gives him even more of a cat-like allure, you suppose that whoever it was that had this model made certainly had a knack for it as far as visuals go, though what that entails and the uses for such a dashingly handsome model of life-like android...well, you're not sure you really want to delve so deeply into that.

Regardless, you hear Changmin huff out a laugh under his breath at your question, as well as the gentle sound of your front door being cracked open.

"That's entirely between you and him."

Over the following months, living with someone else begins to settle into a routine.

You figure it's simple enough, at least: Juyeon is happy enough with any accommodation you offer him. Countless of late night hours following his 'moving in' of sorts would inform you that owning a persocom is not much different from having a pet, though with far less emotional or interpersonal demands from you, and much more usefulness around the house.

Forum users often would post their routines with their persocoms and the work schedules that they would have them on. First time owners advised to settle into one, themselves, and to not allow themselves to view the androids as humans, though they certainly do resemble as much, and nearly unidentifiably different from anyone else in the crowd next to them. It's an intriguing sort of subculture, in a way: owners and persocoms and their relationships between one another. Some people happy to effectively use their personal computer androids as household slaves — keepers of the homes for nothing more than doing the tasks that the humans wish not to do, while others, you would find on one particular night after following what would turn out to be a quite fascinating internet paper trail of links, would view their persocoms as much, much more than that.

You would also come to find that the overlap in custom models, and owners with far more deeply established relationships with their persocoms, is stark.

It comes as no surprise the more you read into it and think about it: custom build computers far from unheard of in the realm of traditional hardware, so when it comes to someone interested in building what may effectively serve to be their exact, ideal type in a partner — all of the bells and whistles, every feature both physical and in personality perfectly manifested and created to serve — you find yourself occasionally looking at Juyeon through the eyes of whoever it was that set out to create him to serve that exact purpose for them.

And then wonder why it is that he has ended up in your possession now.

Seated at the dining room table now and with your laptop open, you glance up over the top of it towards the man in question as he scrubs a dish at the sink with one of your pink, frilled aprons snugly tied around his neck and waist — it's kind of a charming sight, you can't lie — and it's easy to see how someone could get used to this sort of thing. You've not settled into any particular routine with Juyeon at this point, and in part it's because you know yourself to be assigning him a particular level of personification that you've read time and time again to be ill-advised. It's difficult not to, however. So human in looks and the way that he simply exists around you, even the way that you find yourself thinking of him — as a 'man' — you recognize is probably far from the way that you should be viewing him. Regardless, as a result of your confusion in how to go about living like this, Juyeon has not settled in as your live in housekeeper, nor as your prized boy-toy, either. There are days where the both of you take on tasks around the house, sometimes he will clean the bathroom while you vacuum the house, but often, many days are spent with the both of you seated next to one another on the couch; little more going on than enjoying the television nestled across the way and against the wall.

Sometimes you suppose Juyeon's job is to do little more than simply exist in your shared space together, and he appears happy enough to do as much.

Though, it brings up another question in and of itself: does he have feelings? Does he experience happiness?

Of course, the obvious answer would be no. Androids don't have feelings, computers are not sentient. Weeks and weeks spent together with Juyeon, you can't be sure if you're becoming too comfortable with him and as a result losing your wits in relation to him just that much more, because there are moments where you're nearly certain that he must be experiencing some level of sentience. Emotion. A feeling. More hours spent late at night and long after he falls asleep to rest reading the accounts of other people truly feeling as if they've felt the same about their persocoms — only to be met with the backlash of people far more logically attuned, perhaps — because even as you read the stories from people who post just as much the same as you find yourself believing, you can't help but think them to be a bit too deeply enmeshed with what is ultimately, just a computer.

You think them to be crazy, and yet you think Juyeon to be different. So really, who is the delusional one?

When you ask him if he is happy, he tells you that he is. An easily programmed response, and especially for a custom build intended to be a specific someone's everything. No talking back, no free-thought, you exist to be mine and to live by me alone. You will be happy with it, but more than that, you won't express anything of the contrary.

A miserable life, even if he is incapable of truly feeling misery. Maybe you're projecting, both happiness and displeasure mutually upon a being so far from experiencing either of them.

Glancing over his shoulder and as if feeling your gaze at the back of his head, Juyeon gently smiles before turning back to rinse a glass in hand. You smile back, though it's slow in response and past the point of his ability to see it.

What truly charms you about Juyeon, though; beyond his sharp, model-esque looks and his impressive ability to get groceries put away in all of their proper places in record time, is more the cat-like and borderline vacuous curiosity that remains nestled behind his eyes. In moments when not tasked with something, you often catch yourself watching him — looking around the apartment at all of the elements surrounding him — small trinkets that glitter and shine, seemingly so intriguing to him in a way that you can't quite understand.

Because why would any of this be of any interest to him? Why should he have any interest in anything, at all?

It sort of dawns on you then, watching as Juyeon places the last glass into the drying rack next to the sink, that rather than doing late night internet searches and mulling over thoughts to yourself about the hows and whys and other inter-workings of whatever it is that makes up his mind, instead, it may just be time to do the most obvious thing.

Get to know him yourself.

"Want to sit with me?"

It feels weird to ask him, though you're not entirely sure why. You always present everything to Juyeon as a question, even tasks around the house. You know there is not likely to ever be a situation where he will deny you as much, it's almost certainly not programmed within his software at all (an ethical quandary in and of itself), but now you have no household errands for him to take care of. Rather, it's the most casual of circumstances in which you find yourself asking something of him.

Turning, it's almost as if his eyes light up at the question, though you curse yourself internally for even thinking as much. There's definitely a learning curve to this whole 'living with an android and not personifying him' thing.

"Of course."

Pulling up the chair just next to you, Juyeon settles in and his eyes settle upon you expectantly. You know this look, it's the look that is anticipating more tasks to be laid upon him. It makes you feel guilty, however — as if you're overworking him, asking too much of him already though you think it more likely that you ask far less of your persocom than many others do of their own.

It's quite literally a major function of his existence, so why does it feel so bad to use him as such?

Perhaps something to do with the way that Juyeon looks at you — as if you're the only person in the world. You suppose that for him that much is true, because as far as he can remember, the only other people in the world besides him are you, and Changmin.

It might be time to take him outside, but that's not the topic of discussion for tonight.

Pushing your laptop out of the way and instead replacing it with the glass of liquid, you nervously run your thumb over the rim as you purposefully avert your eyes from the man seating next to you. Really, you called this meeting long before you were reading for it, and now that it's here, you're not entirely sure what to say.

A shallow inhale, you pull your eyes upwards to finally meet his. "I want to...get to know you."

The silence following is deafening as you await a response. You imagine the gears twisting and turning inside of his machinery as if there's some kind of factory that lies beneath the faux flesh and hair that sits before you, though logically you know it not to be the case. Instead, you can see the proverbial gears of contemplation firing in that beautiful skull of his as he mulls over the words, and with pretty lips ever so slightly parted, he finally gives you a reply.

"What do you want to know?"

Juyeon's voice is deep and velvety in a way that you haven't thought about that much until this very moment. You suppose it's in large part because you've not sat down and had an actual conversation with him before now. It's pleasant, and kind of sexy — but you're quick to correct the thought as soon as it enters the mind.

"You said you don't remember anything about your owners before me, but do you know anything about...yourself?" you inquire slowly, as if treading upon waters that you're entirely unsure about. You don't want to offend him, or bring up unwanted memories, though you question how realistic a concern that even might be. "Like, do you have television shows you like, or a favorite color...foods you enjoy — though, I guess you don't eat food..."

Your words begin to sound a bit like rambling the longer you carry on, as well as you coming to realize that you actually have a lot of questions for him as he sits before you now.

Still, you watch as one, single corner of Juyeon's lips perk upwards, as if somewhere deep down in there he is thrilled about your interest in him beyond scrubbing tiles and porcelain.

Chin nestled against his palm with an elbow planted into the wooden table beneath, he cocks his head to the side and looks at you with nothing less than fondness.

"I can eat," he begins softly, quietly. "It's for show, of course, but I can. Shows, colors, anything like that...I guess it will just take more time, but I enjoy the things that we watch together in the evenings."

"We always watch something different, you just like everything?"

Juyeon hums in thought, and you wonder how much of it is for show as if to allude to the fact that he has any free will or thought at all. "I don't like the news. I don't like to hear about bad things happening to people."

Oh? A chink in the programming?

He continues the thought with little pause, eyes glancing up towards the ceiling. "I like those shows where a lot of strange people live together in a house and have fun all of the time, even though it seems to end up in fighting a lot..."

You laugh into the rim of your glass as you bring it up to your lips. "You like trashy reality television? I didn't expect that one."

It does raise a particular set of questions, however: the ins and outs of the goings on between sexually active and attractive people in reality television settings — how much of what would commonly be described as a typical, romantic, physically intimate encounter between people does Juyeon understand?

But you're not going to ask it like that, either. Because weird.

You take a sip of your drink and swallow hard before setting it back down onto the table.

"How much of the...human experience...do you know? Like, beyond speaking, cooking, cleaning — all of the basic, simple things — I guess I'm asking about...your programming?" you finally stutter the words out, though once you have, you can't help but laugh at yourself in the aftermath. "God, it's so awkward."

"You don't have to talk to me like I'm any different from you," Juyeon comforts, sliding a hand across the table to settle atop one of your own. It reminds you that you've engaged in physicality so little since his arrival to you, and his touch offering an unanticipated warmth that you wouldn't have expected from someone so far from human. "We're the same in all of the ways that matter, we just come from different places. I think that's the best way to look at it."

You swallow hard, heart beating surprisingly hard within your chest at the touch offered to you by him.

"But to answer your question; I have the same understanding as anyone else would, any other man of my age. I know of and understand the concept of the range of emotions, I feel feelings just like you, I feel touch and nervousness all the same. I understand romance, and passion, and—"

He pauses on the word, narrow, dark eyes glancing up from the table and meeting your own across the way. His gaze feels smoldering now in a way not before felt: kitten-like cuteness now replaced by a similarly feline but much more sinister presentation, your breath catches in your throat at the sight of him as his lips part once more to finish the sentence one started.

"—Everything else in between."

Throat dry at the words and touch, you shake it off briefly and hope for him not to notice the way you sit flustered as a result of it. Ridiculous as it is, there's something about the way that he looks at you and speaks to you in that moment that feels far too much like flirting, and worse than that, you shiver at how easy you found yourself lost in it, as well.

But Juyeon isn't real, not in the human sort of way, and you'll be damned if you allow yourself to fall romantically or sexually attracted to your live-in android pal. Not if you have anything to say about it.

Besides, that's a whole other can of ethically and morally questionable can of worms that you're not interested in wading through any time soon.

Instead, you abruptly pull your hand away with a loud clearing of your throat and your eyes just as sharply averted from his.

"Well, it's late," you say shakily, scooting your chair back with a loud noise and gathering your cardigan from the back of it. "Should probably head to bed, have a lot of work to do tomorrow."

You don't wait for a response, grabbing your laptop from the table and spinning to head towards your room. Avoiding his eyes all the while, it's only when you realize that you've left your dirty glass where it certainly doesn't belong do you still and resign yourself to having to turn back and face the man as he remains — presumably still seated where you've left him in wake of your humiliation.

A deep inhale, followed by a slow turn. When your eyes fall upon Juyeon again — messy dark hair and your cute, frilled apron still hugging his form, the glass is already in hand and you're met with the most disarming, delicate eye smile — almost as if a different man entirely sits there now from before.

"Don't worry," he says cutely and quietly. "I'll take care of it."

The following couple of months pass far quicker than expected as the greenery of summertime melt away in favor of earthier browns, reds and oranges — it's as if the world itself offering you the perfect opportunity to change and shift your interactions with Juyeon and subsequently, his interactions with the world around him.

Numerous, afternoon shopping outings for long sleeved shirts, jackets and scarves for him, paired with warm drinks that only you drink but none to anyone's acknowledgement should they pass by in brief, you can't help but feel the adoring swelling of your heart as a result of scenarios such as these: Juyeon isn't your boyfriend, he's barely even a boy, at all, but there are truths of the matter, and as much as you try not to lend too much thought to them, it still remains that where once sat a kind of emptiness in your life — no longer it remains as evident as before.

After a long day out together with your persocom, the two of you return back to your apartment far later in the night than originally planned on account of missing a train and getting lost just a bit outside of town, even in spite of having a literal computer along with you for the ride. Still, Juyeon holds the bags in hand and at elbow bend as he kicks his shoes from his feet and shakes his hat off to the floor like a child. The scene brings a smile to your face as you hang your coat onto the hanger, and gently pulling bags from long, fully capable arms, you and he briefly meet eyes in a way that feels so much different than most of the other times that you do.

A fondness for him growing in your heart. Nurtured everyday by the fact that you live with him, cook with him, shop with him, do everything with him. There are little boundaries imposed between the two of you, and as a result of it, you find yourself becoming far too enmeshed with each other in a way that you know is well on its way to becoming unwise.

The truth is that Juyeon is kind, and thoughtful, and everything that you would want in a partner.

Everything that you would want in a partner that you have no hope of ever finding so long as he remains in your life, taking up the space that he does — not only in your apartment, but in your life, in general.

Comfortably nestled between the sheets of your bed, you sigh into the cool air of your bedroom as it gently swirls in circulation on account of the quiet spin of the ceiling fan just above you. Eyes slowly falling to a close as sleep begins to take you after a long and busy day, the stirring of your bedroom door just about fails to pull you back from the grips of slumber — as if unsure of its having happened at all.

One eyelid cracking open to survey your surroundings, you glance over towards the ever so slight pooling of illumination from the hallway, obstructed only by the tall, lanky silhouette of someone dangerously and conveniently familiar to you.

"What's wrong?" you question in a whisper, but Juyeon doesn't step any further forward in response.

Instead, you're met with a few moments of uncommon silence before you hear him inhale to answer.

"Can I—" he pauses again, trepidation heavy in the air between you. "—Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Oh.

Oh?

You know that you don't have that long to mull over the inquiry without bringing about even more worry and anxiety that is quite evidently already present within him. The idea of that alone is something that you've spent so much time talking yourself out of ever since finding him powered off and abandoned in the park just across the way that to be faced with the fact now and again — even in spite of being told as much straight from the mouth of the man himself — you have no choice but to take him and his word at face value now, as well as come to a decision as quickly as possible.

The relationship has been easy thus far, simple, enjoyable; in ways, something like this feels like the obvious next step.

Relationship.

Perhaps the obvious next step if Juyeon were human, and capable of even being in a true relationship with you, or anyone, for that matter.

Matters of the heart often at odds with the mind, but really, what's the worst that could happen? Friends share sleeping arrangements, family members share sleeping arrangements — you know yourself to be more than capable of doing as much without it becoming sexual.

Talking yourself into it, the beginnings of coping with having made a decision that you know not to be the one that you likely should be making.

Either way, you're out of time.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

You're not so much startled awake by the feeling of it, in fact, you're willing to melt into the touch much quicker than perhaps you might have anticipated. Perhaps it's on account of teetering just on the edge of consciousness, and thus not entirely having all of your wits about you — maybe if you were in better form you would be far more willing to make the better, proper choice.

The gentle shifting push of your thigh out of the way, then the delicate curl of long, adept fingers into the sides of your panties — maybe you would have more of a chance, but not after the feeling of the smooth, blunt tip of his length sliding through your wetness from behind and bumping right snug against your clit with what one can only assume to be some sort of practiced ease.

You're certainly awake now as the groan catches in your throat and your eyes roll back ever so slightly — Juyeon continues on with the motions, too; there's no accident in his movements against you, faux-fucking you though with no penetration as he repeatedly delivers slow, stead drives of his hips against you from behind as you lie spooned and somewhat pinned beneath him.

He's heavy, but doesn't feel much more so than any other man of a much larger stature than your own. Instead, his lips press up against the shell of your exposed ear almost instantaneously with hot puffs of air cascading down from his mouth onto the quickly dampening flesh of your face as you remain caged under him.

"Does it feel good?" he whispers against you, and with the way that his breath catches on his own words, you'd swear that it must feel similarly erotic for him, as well.

You nod ever so slightly, managing out the most meager of replies as the feeling of him relentlessly prodding your most sensitive parts begins to have a building need for more and more. "Yeah."

"Do you want to feel more of me?" Juyeon then asks, hand slipping back from your underwear and fingers instead gripping tightly into your hip, as if to put the thought in your mind of how he could have you should you allow him to.

He sounds absolutely sinful in your ear like this, and you've briefly been made aware of this side of him before, though not one you've allowed yourself any time to mentally explore. It's something you've put well and far out of your mind — the possibility of this, the crossing of this line. You've done the reading, you understand the long list of potential purposes of persocoms...

He lightly groans into your ear, and it rips you back from your thoughts.

"I can make you cum over, and over, and over again," he says in addition, never relenting the slow, pointed glide of his cock through your folds. The persistent itch of a budding orgasm is felt between your legs, and you want deeply to be bigger than the urge.

"I have—" Juyeon whispers against you again, and this time it's paired with a particular shift back of his hips. You know what's coming, the most cognizant part of your mind choosing instead to feign ignorance just for the chance to simply enjoy this for what it is, and with little other thoughts or considerations accompanying it. Blunt, press of the end of him at your entrance, followed just thereafter by the slow, smooth sinking of his length into you as the rest of the thought finally exits his sinister lips.

"—Endless stamina."

"Fuck, Juyeon—"

"Yes?"

It takes you a few moments. Moments that feel like hours as you come back to consciousness and try to make sense of what's real and what isn't, but what you can quickly gather is that that was not real, and now that your eyes are open to view Juyeon laid up in bed just beside you: hair messy, eyes on you, and very much hands (and everything else, for that matter) to himself — this is real.

As is the suffering throb between your legs.

"Dreaming of me?"

You know he's joking, and you chuckle it off as normally — albeit, nervously — as you can. "Yeah, I guess so."

Having a hard time facing his gaze despite feeling it on your skin, you're only able to offer him a quick glance before hastily knocking the sheets from you and clamoring out of bed towards the bathroom for a much needed, freezing cold shower.

"Anything you remember?" Juyeon calls out lazily and through a yawn, turning himself over in place as to follow your movement with his attention like a pet who is all too interested in your every whereabouts.

Over your dead body.

"No."

You slam the door shut. It's on accident, of course, blame it on being so tightly wound up.

Two days later, with the dream mostly out of your mind and the ability to make eye contact with your persocom having come back into your routine, after a simple dinner and a movie outing that turns a bit into dinner, a movie, and some drinks — with a light buzz that has your head a bit in the clouds and your inhibitions somewhere up there with them, once arriving back to your apartment with Juyeon, you find your eyes lingering on his form just that much more than you might typically allow yourself to view: quite a tall figure with broad shoulders and such a pretty, small waist to accentuate the curve of him — if the work done on his face alone wasn't perfection enough, then whoever had such a custom build done certainly didn't allow for the attention to detail to end there.

You wonder how much else of him is molded perfectly to someone's tastes, but shake the thought from your intoxicated head just as fast. You cannot be doing this. Not now, and not ever.

Juyeon pulls off his coat, setting it up onto the rack and dipping perfectly manicured fingers into the neckline of his white, button down, dress shirt — you watch him from the corner of your eye, though you wish yourself to have the self control not to — gently tugging at the buttons and leaving just a few of them undone in a trail that leads just far enough down the front of his chest to expose the pale, flesh there without showing off too much. A tease, though he's not doing anything in particular, and especially not on purpose.

This is entirely on you, and projection in its truest form. Curiosity certainly is having its way with you now.

Clearing your throat, you manage to pull your eyes away from him entirely, though the awkwardness of your movements draws his attention, anyway. Pulling your shirt from your pants in the beginnings of undressing for a shower and bed, you suppose it is simply time for yet another ice cold shower — not the first, and likely far from the last should these living arrangements persist.

But the clasping of Juyeon's hand around your wrist has other plans for you entirely, as it would seem.

Gently tugging you back towards him, everything feels like slow motion as his head dips down towards yours — other hand coming up to delicately cradle the side of your jaw as he leans in — you still in place for numerous reasons; fear, anticipation, concern, excitement. Juyeon pauses just after you, lips nearly feathering over your own with how little distance now rests between the two of you.

"Warming up to me, are you?" he asks in just above a whisper. You're not sure how to answer that, largely on account of the fact that it feels as though he can read your mind. A response isn't necessary though, because he continues the thought. "I can tell. I can feel the way your heart races or your body temperature shifts..."

You can't help it, chin shifting upward ever so slightly as if in an attempt to close the distance, but if he recognizes the half-assed effort, Juyeon doesn't allow it and maintains the gap still.

"You're interested..."

"I'm...curious," you correct, and for once it's actually the truth.

"Curious," Juyeon copies with slightly upturned corners of his lips. The air between the both of you feels stifling now and as though there isn't nearly enough to go around. Dizzying close to him in such a way that has you wanting to reach out and touch him far more than ever before, you have got to keep your cool — alcohol induced bravery being no excuse to make decisions that under normal circumstances you might never make.

And then come to regret.

But you suppose that the thing just said about being able to tell is true; Juyeon takes the moment into his own hands and walks you back only a few steps so that your back is against the wall. Now caged in by him, it reminds you briefly of the dream only a few days ago, although you face him like this now — reaching down, Juyeon takes one of your hands into his own and leads it up towards the unbuttoned mess of shirt along the top of his chest, pressing your palm to that very place as if urging you to touch him, feel him, be forced to acknowledge that he very much is here and real in all of the ways that really, truly matter. Physically, mentally, emotionally — Juyeon is just as much there as any other man you could have in your apartment this evening.

Your fingertips meet at the skin of his sternum, and though you've made physical contact with him before, you're surprised by his warmth each and every time. You don't anticipate him to ever feel as human as he does — even a light, barely there sheen of perspiration to the touch from the long walk between the train station and your home.

The science doesn't make any sense, or maybe it does and your judgment simply far too clouded by inebriation and desire to put the pieces together, but the thoughts are immediately put out of your head when Juyeon closes the distance between your mouths finally and kisses you hard where you stand against him.

Head slightly cocked to the side for just the right angle, when Juyeon's lips part against yours and his tongue dips delicately across your own you think for sure your knees might just give out from beneath you. Thankful for the wall at your back, fingers curling into the white shirt that they were placed upon — you know this is spiraling out of control, and quickly, but at this point...

You're not sure you have the self-control to do anything about it.

Suddenly and much to your displeasure, however, Juyeon breaks the kiss and pulls away from you, though not breaking the physical contact between you entirely as he takes your hand into his own and leads you towards the living room — seating himself on the couch, the very same couch where Changmin booted him up and back to life only a handful of months prior to now — you stand somewhat awkwardly as he gazes up at you with those same, devilishly slender eyes that you know to be hiding some sort of ideas of misdoings behind them.

Large hands slowly coming up to the buttons of his shirt again, his eyes never leave your own as he continues to release more of them; one by one another button falls away from the shirt that keeps the fabric held together, the flesh hidden behind, and with each one your breath catches in your throat. In situations like this, albeit infrequent as they are, you're given ample time to think about this, about this and what this is and what you're doing. It's wrong. Objectionable at best and ethically despicable at worst, you're fairly sure...

Your eyes look up from his hands and to his own instead, Juyeon meets your gaze with slightly parted lips and the gentle, erotic poke of his tongue to the inside of his cheek as his fingers run out of white buttons to unfasten, only to travel just a bit further down in journey of finding more.

"You said you're curious, " he says finally, pulling apart the button of his trousers with ease and making just as quick work of the zipper. "So, what are you curious about?"

You're fairly certain you're going to pass out.

He looks ungodly hedonistic like this under the barely illuminated evening lighting of your apartment living space — legs spread and undressing himself for your viewing pleasure. You wonder how much better of a person you would have to be to withstand this kind of test, because Lord have mercy, you are on the precipice of failing now.

Juyeon brings his thumbs up to hook into the hip of his slacks, and raising his lower half he gently pulls them down just enough to be out of the way.

All the while his eyes never leave your face.

"Curious about functionality?" he questions, though it sounds a bit as if it's rhetorical. An inquiry to no one in particular as your eyes fall to the far too fitted black fabric that now lies between your eyes and whatever it is that is hidden beneath. Juyeon brings one hand up to the bulge there, slowly palming over himself as you watch him. "Anatomical correctness?"

You swallow down absolutely nothing into the desert that is your throat as you watch on.

Then, he dips the same hand beneath the fabric, wrapping a fist around himself and shallowly pumping. Only now does he allow his eyes to fall from you — head falling back against the couch and eyes rolling shut at the feeling of himself.

"Or is it more—" he whispers again through his ministrations. "—Personal taste?"

"You're going to ruin my life," you finally manage out, but to that, Juyeon only laughs with a careful raise of his head once more to look at you.

"Quite the contrary," he says in response, still slowly palming himself beneath his briefs. "I can be any and everything you want me to be."

Inhaling sharply and with an evident shake of uncertainty to your stature, you look into Juyeon's eyes again — deeply, firmly — and come to a decision. It might not be a good one, and it almost certainly is not the correct one, but it's a decision nonetheless; made here and now.

You'll deal with the fallout should the time come.

"I want to touch you."

Juyeon doesn't reply with words, instead pulling his own hand from himself and granting you the space to experiment as you see fit. Knelt between his legs, your own palms slowly snake up his thighs only to meet at either side of the place that your curiosity mostly resides. Eyes fluttering up towards his own again before you go any further, one corner of his lips perking upwards in fondness has your nerves quelling just ever so slightly, though not nearly enough to put the entirety of the issue to bed.

"Do you...feel it?"

Fingers curling into the elastic waistband of his briefs, you tug them down along his slender hips gently to expose the long, hard, length of his cock to your eyes in totality. Part of you is almost surprised to find him to be erect at all, though you suppose it wouldn't make much sense, otherwise. You've done enough reading to know physical intimacy to very much be a feature of many persocom models, and especially custom builds, it should come as no surprise now.

Juyeon was built to serve many needs of someone's, and sex was most certainly one of them.

Taking him into your palm, the contact brings a jolt from him, and you suppose that's answer enough to the question. Juyeon answers still.

"I feel everything," he sighs out, reveling in the feeling of your hand along his shaft. "Pleasure, pain...I feel it all."

At that, you begin a languid, lazy pace along him, watching the way his chest heaves and falls with every stroke — amazed by how real he feels in your hand. Long, but not particularly thick, his cock weighs heavy in your palm, and even seeing a beading of precum at the slit surprises you, thumb coming up to swirl it along the wide, blunt tip of him.

He writhes beneath your touch at that, a groan caught in his chest while dark eyes stare down at you.

"You have...cum?" you question, still slowly swirling the liquid around the head and enjoying the unraveling of him like this.

While erotic in the most basic sense, something about the situation feels clinical, nearly scientific, in a sense. Even with Juyeon's cock in your hand as you stroke him off like this, you can't help but think it a bit like an experiment. Unsure touches that lack fundamental understanding, rather than something truly intimate and sexual in nature between two people. In the meanwhile, your free hand slowly traverses the exposed flesh of his abdomen just up the way…smooth to the touch by familiarly muscular beneath the pads of your fingers.

Maybe this ought to be how the first time goes, you can't be sure one way or another.

Barely capable of holding his head upright and with only one eye cracked open to look down at you, Juyeon forces out a reply as best he can. "Not in the traditional sense, of course, but you wouldn't know the difference in the moment."

"How?"

"Won't it ruin the allure?" he chuckles under his breath, though it hitches at the tail end with a particular flick of your wrist along him. "Knowing the technical workings of it all?"

You don't answer him, at least, not verbally; instead, you lean forward to take him into your mouth with a swirl of your wet, warm tongue over the head of his cock to taste him in full.

It earns you a full bodied groan, one that you've apparently been dying to hear.

Slowly bobbing along half of his length, you're only given a few moments of taking him before you feel a strong hand under your jaw — carefully pulling your mouth up and off of him to instead look him in the eye as he speaks to you.

"I can still cum in you," he whispers out, thumb ghosting over the wet of your bottom lip and lewdly pushing his hips up to glide the tip of his cock against your messy, used mouth. "More than most, if that's what you like."

The words bring such a painful throb to the space between your legs.

"What else can you do?"

Educational talk has officially teetered over into dirty talk, foreplay. Suppose that was bound to happen, all things considered.

You don't take Juyeon properly into your mouth again, instead allowing him to simply drag the wet mixture of spit and precum along your lips and chin in such a pornographic display that it has his eyes gazing down at you just that much more hooded and full of lust than you've ever seen before. It's intoxicating how he views you like this, and for a man that already teetered on the edge of unfathomable levels of sex appeal, you question whether it possible for anyone to look more seductive than he does now.

"Fuck you as long as you want, as hard as you want," Juyeon finally answers in just above a whisper, voice laden with desire. "Any time, any position. Anything you want, and the best part—" he questions, though you think to know where he's going with this already.

The anticipation of hearing the words pooling in your gut in what can only be described as unbridled arousal: the promise of unmatched sexual desire. No one will ever fuck you the way that Juyeon can fuck you, because it is quite literally impossible by human standards.

"—I never finish before you do."

Endless stamina, a cock that is always hard, capable of orgasm and continuing to serve you...precisely the kind of information that once upon a time, you were hoping to avoid ever learning.

And as if he can see the world spinning inside of your head with this newfound information, Juyeon leans forward in his seat to bring your arms into his hands — pulling you closer, he slots his lips against your own all over again even in spite of the mess. This time, however, the kiss is far needier, more hurried, laced with a wanting that you could have never guessed lied buried within him all this time.

Has it been, or is he simply meeting you where he must as per his programming?

Breaking the kiss, Juyeon only allows mere centimeters between your mouths before breathing the request into yours.

"Let me make you feel good."

Letting him take the lead, you melt into the touch of him pushing you up to your feet once more as his fingers go to work at front of your pants. Little time is wasted before the fabric is pooled at your ankles and you are urged to step out of it, when just as quickly, Juyeon takes your hips into his hands to pull you forward and settle atop him with a knee nestled into the cushions of your couch and on either side of his own.

Hovering over his lap, you feel the careful nudge of the tip of his cock as it settles firmly against your entrance but with no real insistence to enter you just yet. Instead, Juyeon's hands as well as his attention is turned upwards to your chest with soft palms grazing the skin and warm, wet lips wrapping around one of your nipples in just the perfect amount of pressure that has your head spinning.

Tongue digging firm circles into the sensitive bud, you almost miss the way one of his arms slithers around the small of your back as if to hold you snug in place against him, but just as quickly it becomes rather evidently all a part of his plan as you finally feel the intrusion of the wide, blunt head of his length prying you open from below and pulling your body down to sink onto him in full.

It's a slow, careful process — and for that you're thankful with no physical preparation done on your end. In ways, you prefer it that way — like this, it feels real, it feels raw. Sometimes sex simply happens without the bells and whistles and without the luxuries of time, or foreplay.

Sometimes, people just need to feel each other.

Teeth digging into your bottom lip to pull back the whine that threatens to escape you — feeling impossibly full of him like this as your hips settle flush in his lap — there's a passing moment where you worry of him being too big with the looming threat of him at the deepest ends of your insides, instead, Juyeon leverages his above-average strength to lift you off of him just at the precipice of too much before gently gliding you along his shaft all over again for friction that is just so fatally exquisite.

Getting a handle of your bearings and shifting your weight to take more of an active role, you roll your hips against his own as Juyeon shifts the grip his arm has on you to instead hook up at the top of your shoulder from behind — better to pull you down hard against him, fill you deeper with himself as you find a rhythm atop him that starts to suit you.

You can't hold back the whimpers, though you'd like to try, and looking down at Juyeon beneath you as you ride him, part of you wants nothing more than to ignore the explicit adoration that shines in his eyes as he watches you like this.

"Good?" he asks quietly, as if not wanting to interrupt when the answer is so obvious, anyway. You nod quickly, Juyeon pulls you down onto his cock harder as if in affirmation of your reply, and you moan out loudly for him as a result. "Want to watch you cum."

"Fuck," you gasp out, as if the mere request enough to get you there already. "I'm close, I'm close don't stop, don't—"

"Harder?" he asks you now, and all you can chant out is breathy 'yes'' in reply.

Juyeon shifts his position from beneath you just slightly, slinking down so to have better leverage of his feet against the floor and you immediately realize why when he meets your comparatively useless fall along his cock with a hard, full drive of himself up into you instead.

The force just about knocks the air out of your lungs, but more than that, the friction has you seeing God.

It takes little more of that — thighs trembling and abdomen clenching in orgasmic promise as you grit your teeth through the most euphoric release you think to have ever experienced in your life up until now. Juyeon's hips never falter, never slow — because why would they? Never at the whims of his own humanity or release, he can fuck you just as hard, just as fast, all of the way through your own orgasm and past the point where other men may lose themselves to the stimulation...

Not him.

Sounds of wet skin pressing hard and fast together ringing heavy in your ears — it's all you, that much you know — how drenched you are around his dick as he still continues to drive into you even after the peak of your orgasm falls off, it's only now that you realize that Juyeon will simply continue fucking you like this unless you ask him to stop — ask him to finish for himself.

Leaning down, you capture his mouth into yours all over again — a bit teethier and ill-coordinated than the previous times but much needed all the same, the man beneath you is happy to meet you in such intimacy, and like this, you whisper your own request against his dry, bitten up lips.

"You can cum, want you to cum."

Meeting the words with a throaty groan, Juyeon cocks his head to the side to kiss at you better before pulling away and speaking against your mouth once more. "Want to feel me fill you up?"

The grip his fingers have on your body stiffens then, one of your own carding through the damp, black strands that stick to his forehead as a result of the goings on now. Juyeon fucks up into you hard and fast again as if chasing an orgasm of his own and as the curve of his cock drags against your g-spot all over again, fingers curling into the hair at his scalp much harder than anticipated as he threatens to take you there all over again, your eyes clench shut at the familiar throb of him as he buries himself deep within your walls for one, last time and with a deep, almost pained groan through gritted tight teeth.

Clenching down around his cock like this you can feel him empty inside of you in waves — gentle pulses of his cum pumping heavy within you.

Then, silence. Nothing more than the quiet, rhythmic sounds of two people attempting to catch their breath in the aftermath of...who knows what, really.

Juyeon sleeps with you again that night, just as he had already done previously. The only difference this time being the way delicate, long fingers fish for yours beneath the sheets.

Four, loud knocks at your front door is not how you wish to be startled into consciousness.

More than that, the distinct sound of a familiar woman's voice sounding out through the otherwise empty halls.

Stomach leaping into your throat, this is bad. Really bad. For a plethora of reasons, but most of all because of what — and who — still resides next to you in a deep and seemingly much needed slumber.

Last night was a lot, for the both of you; your thighs are sore and frankly the remanence of stinging throb that is still harbored between your legs serves as just as much of a reminder as anything of the series of decisions that led you to this very moment.

But you don't have time to mull over the hows and whys, because you have to get up, get dressed, and present somewhat properly before your friend wanders into your bedroom and stumbles upon the aftermath of such a thing herself.

You intercept the situation well enough, however; robe slipped on over your form and sitting her down at the dining room table for a late breakfast — a surprise visit, great, though less sarcastically so under usual circumstances. She brings breakfast and you're at least thankful for that because you are starving after the appetite worked up under last night's activities and you question whether you have the strength in your legs even now to stand at the stove long enough to cook something up for yourself, much less for a guest, as well.

Juyeon is no where to be found still, even an hour after your awakening. For that, you are thankful, though you know it not to last forever. Your home is his home, and he has free roam of it as he should...especially now, especially with the way that things have unfolded between the two of you.

Whatever your relationship is with him now, it is forever changed in some way, shape, or form. Lines have been crossed and while you're certain of his ability to simply carry on as though nothing has ever happened should you ask it of him...

Can you?

Shoveling another slice of fluffy pancake into your mouth as she carries on about what it is that she has been up to since having moved away from the city that the two of you once shared, your mind remains clouded with not only the what of your plans to disclose, but beyond that, the mere fact that you simply must.

And the window to do so draws quickly to a close.

"I have to tell you something," you finally say. The words are quiet, already somewhat beaten down in anticipation for a less than thrilled response from the friend sitting just across the way. She's not particularly judgmental, no, but this? This?

It wasn't all that long ago that you sat on the same side of the moral fence on this particular quandary as her.

"What—" she begins, and while at first you believe her to be inquiring about your words, the direction in which her eyes gaze — fully beyond you and back towards the bedroom door gives away that you have run out of time, entirely.

Shit.

"—Is this?"

Eyes closing slowly in a bout of displeased defeat, you exhale heavily before turning around to inspect the scene: it couldn't be worse if you had tried to set it up as such, either — Juyeon standing just outside of the bedroom and fully in sight of the both of you, freshly washed and nude from the waist up...only a towel held closed by hand at his hip to keep anything shrouded from the eye, at all.

He exits just as quickly, fast on the pickup and most certainly not needed for this.

Turning back to view your friend, the scowl evident on her features — a question of what happened here, how did we get here written all over her, though you can't imagine she'll offer as much in a verbal sense.

"I'm going to ask you this one time," she states calmly, though the displeasure in her tone is beyond evident. You don't want her to ask, because you don't want to tell her the truth, but you will. "Are you...involved with your persocom?"

Silence so heavy you could hear a pin drop, and picking at the skin around your fingernails in nervousness, you pull a shaky inhale into your lungs before delivering precisely the answer that you know she does not want to hear.

"Yes."

"Really?" she bites back, equal parts disappointment and disgust that you can hear all too plainly. "You're having sex with the android that cleans your bathroom? You're got to be fucking kidding me."

"It's not like that," you hurriedly answer with a whine. It sort of is like that, but too much simplicity behind the words, too little nuance, there's so much more to the circumstances and the goings on and everything surrounding...everything, that to say it like that doesn't do it justice: it doesn't do the situation justice, and it most definitely doesn't do Juyeon justice, either. "It wasn't like that for a long time, it was never my intention. I tried— "

She scoffs, cutting you off from the thought. "You tried? Tried what? To not fuck him? How hard could it possibly have been? Surely you're not so lonely and pathetic that you have to resort to settling in for a life with a custom built, glorified sex toy for life."

Hearing someone speak about Juyeon like this does something inexplicable to you in a way that you couldn't have anticipated. Bubbling rage in your gut at referring to him as nothing more than perhaps, quite literally, what he truly is — still, you cannot bear it. Can't bear to hear it, and especially not with such contempt in ones voice.

He is more than that, you know that to be the truth. You live with him, you speak to him, you share a life with him.

Briefly, you think back to all of those people you read posts from early in the days of your meeting, the claims of nearly certain sentience in their persocoms. Hints of life. True life. True free will.

You can't prove it, but you suppose that much like so many other things, some beliefs reside wholly on faith.

It is your truth, and that's all that you need now.

"Do you have feelings for him or something?"

Without missing a beat, you answer her. "Yes."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, give me a break."

"You don't know what it's like, what he's like. Juyeon is so real, thoughtful and kind and full of life and love in a way you couldn't possibly ever understand unless you experience it for yourself. You know just as well that I used to feel the same way about the concept of such a thing, but now that I've lived it..."

"You cannot have feelings for your persocom."

"I care for him," you plead with a defeated shake of your head.

"It's not real, he isn't real," your friend insists, pushing herself back in the dining room chair with obvious intent to leave and hear no more of what goes on here any longer. "You're living in a fantasy land, and I don't want any part of it."

Grabbing her belongings, the woman that you once called your best friend exits your apartment in a flurry — you don't have time to offer any more explanation or understanding, not that you think it would quell the situation at hand, anyway, but the sinking feeling in your chest of not only loss, but guilt once again reminds you of all of the reasons that you may have been right the first time around. That maybe this is wrong, that you are wrong for allowing this to reach this point, at all.

Cleaning up the table full of plates of half eaten food that tell a story of a meeting gone horribly wrong, you consider doing the dishes here and now — and typically, you might, but the nagging feeling in your gut paired with the all too apparent absence of Juyeon calls you elsewhere in the quiet of the walls of your living space.

Knocking gently at the wooden door frame of your bedroom, the door is open, and in spite of it being the middle of the day, the flash of lightning oozing in through the rain drenched window on the opposite end causes it to feel equally gloomy in ambiance as the mood otherwise feels, anyway.

Along the way, Juyeon sits at the edge of the bed, as if in wait of you to come and find him like this. He is dressed now — a simple black t-shirt and loose, black sweatpants — oddly enough, it feels as though he is dressed in anticipation of somewhere to go.

Slowly walking inside, the rain pelts against the window so roughly that you're not sure Juyeon capable of hearing you should you wish to speak to him in a whisper, thus, you seat yourself at the edge of the best beside him with a palm lightly placed over one of his knees.

He heard everything, you know that well enough with the way that sound carries through your tiny living arrangements. Aside from that, you know him capable of feeling — beyond the projection of his sentience that you feel yourself so sure of, how much of his ability to feel even just at a base level; hardware, software, whatever it is that makes him the who and what that he is — Juyeon feels, and immensely so from the way that sadness wears so evidently on his features now.

You can't help but wonder if this isn't the first time he has lived through circumstances such as this. Memories wiped and primed for rebooting with a new person, a new life; all the while dressed and ready once again to take his leave, though why that urge settles within his bones so strongly, he himself can't even be sure.

"Should I go?"

The words, while anticipated, tug painfully at your heart. Lips down turning into a frown, you squeeze his knee beneath your grasp before leaning further against him and pressing your head to his shoulder in comforting embrace.

"No," you answer quietly. "I don't want you to leave."

Shifting slightly, Juyeon turns to face you more, wrapping long, strong arms around you in an embrace that you think to be something of a thank you for not abandoning him once more. Pulling from one another slowly, you reach up to cradle his face into the palms of your hands as you look deeply into his eyes: beautiful, and endlessly dark but glittering and so full of life, all the same — moments like these, like this, you're so certain of what lies beneath.

So much more than what you're told, so much more than what you had bargained for.

This time, you pull him into the kiss.

Rather than the trepidation of uncertainty, laced within these lips now is a sense of knowing, and allowing your hands to fall from his face to instead search for the bottom hem of his shirt, upon finding it, you feel the knowing grin of his lips twist against your own.

And with that, a tug of the fabric upward.

Juyeon slips his shirt off quickly, tossing it to the floor elsewhere along the room and you waste little more time shrugging off the robe that you earlier had no choice in putting on, anyway. Perhaps a wise choice as you're reminded of having worn nothing more under it, he's swift in maneuvering you in a way that suits him as he pulls up from the bed and instead pushes you back along it — following up the length of your body as his hips settle between your legs and lips once again slot against your own.

This time it feels different. Less curiosity, less learning. Now? Simply experiencing him.

Forearm pressed into the mattress beside your head, Juyeon's other hand feathers down the flesh of your torso towards precisely where you want him to be — delicate fingers ghosting over your skin in such a way that the tiny hairs raise in the wake of his touch, everything that Juyeon does is with intent to have you melting beneath him, and not only does it work, but it's far better than you could have ever imagined.

As his middle finger finds its mark between your legs, slipping between your slit and slowly rubbing circles into the sensitive nub of your clit, his lips slip down from yours to kiss along your jaw; down the column of your neck and settling just at the juncture between your shoulder, carefully sucking and nibbling marks into the supple flesh at his mercy.

Back arching into his touch, you want to feel him more and again. It hasn't even been that long since the last time, but with so much promise of what's to come, you find your body reacts in such a way that you barely capable of reigning it in. Every touch of Juyeon's is perfect, both in placement and pressure. Never too hard, nor too soft, always the precise, right amount.

Slipping a finger into you, you can't help but press your hips down and against his hand in a bid to feel more. Juyeon grins into the skin of your neck as you do, the feeling of his teeth that much more evident and bringing about even more of a pulse of your needy walls around the single digit buried inside of you.

"Juyeon," you finally say, though it comes out as much more of a pathetic, desperate whisper than ever intended. At the sound of it, he begins fucking into you slowly with the very same hand, simulating the precise thing that you both know you're about to ask of him now.

"Please," you whimper now, still grinding down against his hand. "Need more..."

Shifting his weight slightly, Juyeon brings his lips up to your ear before answering back in a whisper. "Want to feel full of me again?"

Arousal throbbing hard around his hand, you hear him huff out an amused laugh against your ear. "You know you can have any part of me that you want, all you have to do is ask."

Pulling up quickly and with no interest in losing more time, Juyeon slips his pants off and to the floor only to settle between your legs once again. This time, however, he sits knelt between your thighs as he brings the same hand back to continue prying you open for his cock, and as you look down to survey the scene, you find him lazily palming over himself as he watches himself work you open.

It's a bit more than you had been ready to take in the sight of, dizzyingly intoxicating and lewd with his lips ever so slightly parted in awe of you and the tight grip of his fist around his length pooling precum at the slit.

Slender and perfectly toned body sitting before you like this, perhaps you never stood a chance, after all.

Finally pleased with the work done, Juyeon slips his fingers from your wetness to instead hook around your thigh and press the underside to his chest — with your calf situated at his shoulder, he urges himself closer, angling his length down to press the wide and glistening tip of his cock at your entrance and with every intention of sinking into you just like this; fully splayed wide for his viewing pleasure.

Firm strokes between your folds, you moan out in need and frustration for him, which only brings an upward curl to his lips just that much more.

He's teasing you.

"Ju— ah —"

Protest quickly lost in your throat as you feel Juyeon begin his initial drive into you — carving out space for himself between your tight walls with slow, intense press of his hips forward — with your body open for him like this he feels even bigger inside of you. Fuller of him with less space inside to accommodate for his size, it feels so soon that surely he will be buried fully inside of you, but with a quick glance down through the tightly knit furrow of your eyebrows, you're quick to learn that the position offers far more than you had originally bargained for.

Humming, Juyeon tugs his bottom lip up between his teeth. It would appear that like the typical man, he's facing the mortal fear of desperately trying to fight back to urge to cum, but knowing better, you can only imagine that you feel fucking exquisite around his dick.

"Doing so good," he says after all, jaw nearly hung open as the last remaining signs of his length disappear inside of you. "So full. Pussy is so small, couldn't possibly take more."

Pussy throbbing around him as he says the words, Juyeon groans quietly with the first withdrawal before slowly pushing back inside of you all over again — slightly faster this time, and almost as if he anticipates you to break from under him.

Up until now, your mouth remains shut knowing well enough that should your lips part nothing more that desperate whimpers and whines will spill out, but needing more from him, you have little option presented to you.

"Juyeon," you say first, little more than a pained whisper falling from bitten red lips. Narrow, dark eyes fall to your own in anticipation of what it is that you're going to say, but likely nothing could have prepared him for the request being made of him, next.

"Break me, Juyeon. Make me yours."

Careful, gentle eyes turning nearly menacing, threatening at the words; Juyeon's grip into your thigh harshens suddenly followed by a quick, hard snap of his hips against your own — so rough that it has you shoving up the bed, it's following subsequently by more and more as he settles into a ravishing pace into you, delivering repeated, firm, drives of his cock against your walls and with the angle that he has now, the perfect curve of his length serving as the most immaculate deliverance of friction against your g-spot.

"You look so pretty wrapped around my dick," he manages out through hard fucks into you, eyes dancing their way between your own and the very place that he disappears inside of your needy body. With a firm enough grip of your leg in place and the strength to manage it, his other hand comes down to messily rub wet circles into your clit, and the touch has you crying out just that much more loudly for him, too. "Okay baby, why don't you cum for me? Lemmie make you mine and I'll give you just the reward you deserve."

And it doesn't take long to give him what he wants, either. Between the relentless fullness of his cock inside of you and the filthy words that drop from once seemingly innocent lips, your thighs shake in his grasp and walls tighten that much more around him with the threat of your release as it accompanying yell catches in the dryness of your throat — coil on the verge of snapping, you need something more from him, though you're unsure how to manage it out in time. Grasping desperately out and towards him, he picks up on it quickly — leaning down to meet you face to face as you hurriedly usher the broken words out from your body.

"Cum with me—"

Needing no more instruction, Juyeon settles back into place between your thighs continuing hard against you, and as the coil in your gut snaps with orgasmic release, you force your eyes open to watch the muscles in Juyeon's abdomen tighten just the same; jaw clenched firm and head thrown back momentarily just before his jaw falls slack and the deep, pained groan of release rips through him as he fucks his load fully into you as you cum around him and milk it thoroughly out of his body.

Slowing at the tail end of both of your orgasms, Juyeon's grip on your thigh softens, gently allowing your leg to fall from his shoulder, and while not pulling himself from the wetness of your cunt just yet, as you look up at the sight of him — fucked out and damp with the aftermath of sex that cannot possibly ever be beaten, as he carries on within you in slow, shallow strokes, you suppose that curiosity gets the best of you, yet again.

"Can you...cum again?"

He grins, as if with complete understanding of the filthy implications of such a question.

Gently lowering himself down again, bare chest to bare chest with you once more, Juyeon kisses along your neck once more, along your jaw and meeting at your mouth again. It's gentle, with barely there nips of his teeth at your bottom lip before he offers you an answer to the question.

"So, that's what you like," he whispers into your flesh, tone heavy with desire and the need to meet all of yours. "Make you mine, fill you with my cum over, and over, and over again..."

His hips begin to pick up pace again, firmly pressing the entirety of his still impossibly erect cock between your messy, soaked, walls. "Just want to be unthinkably full of me, don't you? Filthy thing, playing house all this time, wonder how long you've wanted me to make a complete mess of you."

You don't know, you sort of lost track, and you're not entirely interested in revisiting the timeline, either.

Pulling up and out of you abruptly, you're nearly discontented by it until you feel firm, strong hands pulling at your arms and twisting you to turn you over. Falling flat to your stomach, those very same hands gripping hard into your hips from behind and pulling you up to meet his own at just the right angle — you have little time to reconfigure yourself before you feel the blunt prod of his cock reentering you from behind this time...

And it is intoxicatingly electric the way his length pries you open like this.

Wasting little time, Juyeon fucks you hard and fast, slowing only to dip forward and grasp your arms into his hands — a makeshift contraption of you losing your range of motion as you're forced to merely balance on your face and chest with arms pulled harshly behind your back to grant him the leverage to fuck you full of himself just the way that you deserve.

Just the way that you want.

"So wet for me," Juyeon groans between thrusts, the prominent sounds of such evident with every hard meeting of his flesh against yours. "Won't let you lose a drop of my load, is that what you want?"

Barely able to speak, you manage out the most pathetic whimper of affirmation that you possibly can.

"Want to feel me cum inside of you?"

"Y-yes."

"You gotta cum around my dick again then," Juyeon insists, though it doesn't take much with the relentless fullness of him into you from behind, you're already nearly there by the time a hand slinks down between your legs to rub at your pussy all over again. A humiliating few seconds — though you have no concept of time now as it is — before you're crying out and throbbing around him just as requested, and with little more work, Juyeon answers you back with a loud, full groan as you feel his cock pulse and throb with release as he once again fucks you full of the warm, sticky wetness of his cum.

Slowly releasing your arms from his grasp and gently falling forward to lie beside you in the afterglow of all of this, once finished staring at the emptiness of the ceiling and contemplating whether or not there lies a specific place in hell for people just like you, you feel the familiar touch of Juyeon's delicate fingers as they find your own, slotting between and taking your hand firmly into his embrace.

"I think I'm in love with you."

As consciousness takes you once again the next morning, you're at least thankful for the fact that it's not the knocking and yelling of a friend that you no longer are acquainted with that awaits you — instead, Juyeon stands at the edge of the bed with coffee and breakfast made, though not on much of a silver platter on account of your not having one — it's a cutting board, but hey, it's the thought that counts.

Head sweetly cocked to the side, Juyeon looks down at you with fondness that once upon a time you may have shrugged off entirely as nothing more than a part of his programming. Now, with a new understanding not only of him, but perhaps of yourself and life as a whole, you find yourself far more willing to accept things as they are — whatever that is, and simply...in the moment.

Juyeon looks at you with unbridled love and adoration, because he does love you, and he does adore you. No matter the hows or the whys or the wheres that it may come from, this is the truth; this is your truth, and this is Juyeon's truth.

Now that love has slowed down, you're simply grateful for the ability to have caught up to it.

♡ send me your thoughts and feelings in my ask  (⌒‿⌒) —this is a oneshot, there will be no part 2.

[atheistcartoons]

“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”

George Washington in a letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792.

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813.

“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”

James Madison, 1819.

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

James Madison in a letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822.

“Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.”

James Madison, 1822.

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

Benjamin Franklin in a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780.

“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”

John Adams in a letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816.

“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”

James Madison in “A Memorial and Remonstrance”, 1785.

“Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.”

Roger Sherman, Congress, August 19, 1789.

“We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.”

George Washington in a letter to the members of the New Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793.

“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”

John Adams.

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814.

“Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”

James Madison.

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

James Madison in an 1803 letter.

”I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799.

“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”

Thomas Paine.

“I wish [Christianity] were more productive of good works … I mean real good works … not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing … or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity.”

Benjamin Franklin in Works, Vol. VII, p. 75.

[readytoescalate]

"EMORY IS EVERYWHERE": AN OPEN INVITATION FROM PROTESTORS OCCUPYING EMORY UNIVERSITY

As the Palestine Solidarity movement rips across college campuses, college administrators and government bureaucrats are rushing to denounce anyone taking action as an “outside agitator”. Those who grease the gears of the war machine think that this rhetoric will erode public support for bold actions at Emory. They are wrong. 45 years after the Camp David Accords - an infamously botched, imperialist plan for peace between Israel and Egypt with no input from Palestinians - was orchestrated by an Emory faculty alum President Carter, we observe that there is nowhere on Earth “outside” of Emory University. We want to say as clearly as possible - we welcome “outside agitators” to our struggle against the ruthless genocide of Palestinians. Emory University has the highest tuition, the lowest acceptance rate, and by far the highest endowment of any institution in Georgia. Economic barriers, infamously racist standardized testing, and nepotism have barred many from studying at Emory. To students in Atlanta and beyond - we invite you to struggle with us. Local high school students dream of attending Emory, and many teachers encourage them to study hard and take up extracurriculars to increase their chance acceptance, knowing their chance of admission is slim. To local high school students and teachers, we invite you to struggle with us. Just down the street from Emory Hospital Midtown is the site of the former Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter. In a bid to gentrify the city and evict its houseless population, the City closed the shelter and did not replace it, displacing hundreds and cutting off a last line of support for thousands of poor people in the city. Emory University purchased this building, just one example of Emory’s contribution to gentrification in Atlanta. To those without homes, or those displaced by gentrification, we invite you to struggle with us. Emory’s $11 billion endowment, the 11th highest in the country, is an outsized influence in Atlanta’s economy. While economic inequality widens in the city, Emory remains a bastion of the rich. To the restaurant workers, house cleaners, gig workers, and all proletarians - we invite you to struggle with us. In 2020, Emory University laied off or furloughed over 1500 employees. To those who are no longer affiliated with the university - we invite you to struggle with us. 4 out of 5 students at Emory are not from Georgia. While the Freedom Riders were heading down to Georgia in the 1960’s to fight for Black people’s right to vote, segregationist governors cast them as “outside agitators”. To those from outside Atlanta and Georgia, we invite you to struggle with us. 1 in 5 students at Emory are from outside of the United States. The Palestinian students murdered by American weapons under Biden will never be one of those students. To those from outside of the country, we invite you to struggle with us. In April 2023, Emory admin called the police to break up a protest led by students against Cop City on the quad. None of the pigs were Emory students. To all of those who struggle against police brutality, we invite you to struggle with us. EMORY IS EVERYWHERE. THE PLACE FOR DIVISION IS NOWHERE. WE INVITE YOU TO STRUGGLE WITH US.

[mionkings]

GRAVITY FALLS SPOILERS MAYBE? FOR THISISNOTAWEBSITEDOTCOM.COM — AT LEAST WITH BILL CIPHER AND STAN PINES/GRUNKLE

This involves thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com and Bill's PTSD involving Stan along with a theory of Bill Cipher possibly still in Grunkle Stan's mind.

So I've been seeing some people concerned over the idea that Bill Cipher hasn't left Stan's mind at least not fully, and while I do also have some belief that maybe some remnant is still there—perhaps it's just Bill's remains left behind all while his soul is trapped in Theraprism.

But the idea that Bill still has access to Stan like before, nah.

In reality; I highly doubt it, it feels just like at the end of The Book of Bill: where Bill snaps over the mere idea that Stanley must've influenced the reader not to join him, just him viscerally screaming out Grunkle Stan's name— resulting with Bill in the void swearing that someone will let him out.

Bill Cipher is labeled with Max Security Rec in the Theraprism, that implies that he's clearly being watched even if they had this one 'slip up' with the Book of Bill. They still hold more power over him since they confiscate his book after five minutes :)

To me, it feels like he's lashing out now—Bill is now what he considers his lowest and is raging at Stanley for not only beating him, for being a cheaper version of Sixer, but for also being happy. To me: Bill is desperate; he's trying to plant doubt that they fully purged him from Stan's mind in which I highly doubt that either the Axolotl or the Theraprism wouldn't notice.

—

But we'll see what happens if any updates come again, maybe I'm wrong and Bill isn't truly gone from the Pines Family 🤷‍♀️ but from what we've been seeing, Bill is grasping at straws now and clearly he's mad that he underestimated Grunkle Stan lmao get rekt loser

[bloop-bl00p]

Rewriting Hellaverse Heaven

Welcome to Heaven

We all know that Vivienne's worldbuilding skills are terrible, I’ve been pointing out a few issues so it’s not a new concept. I don’t want her to butcher Heaven in the second season, I know she will so I did something myself.

Anyway, I’ll start with the lowest in the hierarchy and gradually start climbing higher, it’s not 100% accurate to the angelic hierarchy we all know but where’s the fun in taking the accurate text without making any changes?

I. Humans:

Different ranks

Humans, while mostly there to rest after their death, can access more important ranks that are essential for Heavens to keep working. It’s based on how they lived on Earth.

Venerable: Venerable is the title given to a deceased person recognized as having lived a virtuous life, they sinned but it wasn't that bad and their good doing overcame their bad deeds. They are very common.

Blessed: To be beatified and recognized as Blessed, you must die because you accomplished a virtuous act based on the 7 Capital Virtues. A Blessed has the opportunity to assist a Saint in their daily routine and help welcome new souls in Heaven, making them visit different places and integrate them into the communities.

Saint: Sainthood requires a heroically virtuous and borderline sinless life, which means they dedicated their entire life to helping others and the world around them. A soul who accessed sainthood has the opportunity to further participate in the maintenance of Heaven. Saint Peter has the keys to open the Gates and knows which souls can have access to it.

The Choirs

Venerables can be part of a Choir since they have the most free time. The main style is currently Gospel and Acapella but Gospel Rock with Christian Symphonic Metal recently added themselves with new generations.

If I had to rewrite “Welcome to Heaven” it would probably be like “Gospel True” from Hercules.

II. Earthly Messengers

In other terms, those angels interact the most with humans whether it’s on Earth, in Heaven, or in Hell.

“Common” Angels

a. Overall:

That’s what they are called in the scripture and honestly, I was too tired to find another name. They are mostly pacifists avoiding confrontation and only carrying action and the words of God for the Greater Good. “Common” Angels take humans' appearance to blend in to spread good morals and values to inspire others.

They have to protect mortals from demonic influence, AKA identify and either repel the demon or slay it in extreme circumstances. They are my replacements for the Cherub in Helluva Boss and the reason IMP and other needs humans disguise.

b. Guardian Angels:

A guardian angel is assigned to protect and guide a particular person. You can't see them but their advice manifests as your internal monologue. It's up to you if you want to listen to it. They are the reason you think twice before willingly making bad decisions.

Principalities

If the “Common” Angels take care of individuals person, Principalities take care of kingdoms and large communities focusing mainly on the chiefs so they rule fairly over their people.

Unfortunately, most Principalities fell with Lucifer and the Fallen currently use their skills to manipulate rulers for the benefit of Hells.

Powers

a. Overall:

Powers heavily partake in Heaven’s army and it’s not rare to see them roaming around with a sword and armor, I mean, it’s their duty to protect the place. Once a year they descend to Hell in order to kill as many sinners as possible.

While it’s still a hazard as demons in general have varieties of powers that can make a fight difficult they do it nonetheless. During the war against Lucifer, their loyalty was such that no Powers fell which not only boosted their ego but also made them loathe those who turned against the Almighty.

Archangel Michael is the leader of the army but since Lucifer obliviously does not want the guy near Pentagram City Misael, his best soldier and lieutenant, takes the lead once in Hell.

b. Context around Exterminations:

The Examination was set up when Lucifer stopped torturing sinners and established a semblance of society to gain more power. Misael proposed it, not only to stop the Fallen Angel from harvesting strength but to regulate the number of souls in Hell. Which got accepted.

A deal was made with Lucifer who did not want to start another war. It’s a simple arrangement, nobody but the Powers could have access to Hell, the Extermination can only happen once a year at 12:00 AM on New Year’s Eve finishing the second the clock reaches midnight to announce the New Year. The Angels don’t have access to other rings and can only kill within the enclosure of Pride, they can attack anyone (Hellborns included) but not members of the Royal Class. It’ll be wise to be precise that blue blood can’t intervene during the extermination, it’s part of the deal.

Each of them has prayer duties where they need a few days to demand forgiveness after each extermination because they destroyed souls.

Sinning gives more power to the Seven Deadly Sins, so each Power chooses their victims wisely specifically targeting sinners classified, in their own terms, as Overlords since they massively perpetuate immoral behaviors in others. They know exactly who targets thanks to Adam and Eve.

The first humans were sent to Hell because they doomed humanity except that not only did they keep their human appearance but they got a pardon from the wrath of Lucifer. Sealed away from the chaos of Hell, they stay in contact with Heaven and inform them of news deemed as important like the rise in power of a sinner.

III. Heavenly Rulers

While they rarely venture among humans, the actions they take can affect life on Earth.

The Archangels

The Archangels have been given the monumental task of managing life in Heaven for humans and the travel between Heaven and Earth/Hell. Each one of them has a different area of expertise translated by the etymology of their name.

They take care of the “Common” Angels and Power's activities making sure everything goes accordingly. They make sure everyone follows the rules, arresting/killing those that don't, and assigning the proper sentence when ordered to by God or the Dominions. They can be sent to Earth to deliver very important messages and are responsible for miracles, you know, people magically getting their visions back or limbs suddenly growing back, yeah, it’s them.

Dominions

Dominions rule over the Angels under them in the hierarchy, they monitor their activities making sure everything is fine. They solve arguments and grant intelligence with their immense wisdom and, like judges, give verdicts and penalties to criminals often helping God himself when faced with dilemmas, they were the ones who proposed the flood and helped God make his 10 Commandments.

The Ophamins

They are eyed wheels inside eyed wheels that contain fire whiting them, don’t try to visualize that.

Whenever Gods ask for a place to be blessed they will take the fire from them and spread it around making mere earthly houses holy. When that happens Hellborns (imps, succubus, or else) cannot approach these areas, unless they wanna die. You see this fire doesn't just repel sin it cleanses it completely and since Hellborn creatures are physical manifestations of sins they die the second they get close to the fire.

The fire is used to make angelic weapons.

IV. God’s Attendance

They can get physically close to the Almighty and help Him by carrying His orders or even replacing Him in some cases.

The Cherubims

Cherubims are armed with a sword whose warmth rivals the sun, it’s directly made from the fire of the Ophamin. One became the Guardian of Eden after Adam and Eve ate the Defended fruits (A pomegranate in my rewrite) Two also stand beside Saint Peter protecting the gates of Heaven.

Their duty is to protect sacred places, If God sends them to Earth it’s to protect a zone, Noah was asked to build the status of two Cherubim on his arch to ensure its protection, The same goes for Solomon who built temples with sculptures of Cherubim inside.

The Sheraphim

The closest to God physically, Seraphim cover their body with one of their three pairs of wings to not blind people and avoid outshining the Heavenly Father. Their love is so grand they burn, it doesn’t hurt them.

They essentially have endless creativity, not unlimited like God but pretty close, they helped him when creating the universe and its rules.

The Seven Holly Virtues

Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Saraquel, Gabriel, and Remiel.

Also called the Council of Seven, these angels are the most powerful of their type and take charge of Heaven when God is unavailable. Each of them represents a Virtue and they are the ones you’ll see when you’re dead.

Each evaluates your entire life before your eyes and decides whether you go to Hell or not, the process lasts a few seconds from your perspective, hence why you feel like your life flashes before your eyes.

V. More informations

1. Angelic weapons:

Their making always involves the fire of the Ophamins, whether it’s a literal flaming sword or used to melt metals. Ophamins are the only ones able to touch this divine fire, they are literally made from it, Angels above them can be hurted by it but they are allowed to have flaming weapons because of their much more important status and their experiences. Those below are given metallic weapons melted with the fire to give a tier of its properties but it’s less powerful, nonetheless, it is still effective against low-tier demons.

→ A flaming sword kills Angels (fallen or not).

→ A simple blade can only kill the offspring of the Goetia (in my rewrite the 72 Goestia are Fallen Angels that had children in Hell), Hellborns, and sinners.

2. What are they made of?:

Angels were created the second God asked for Light, as they are part of it. They have free will and autonomy but choose to serve their Creator as it seems like the most logical thing to do. They are sinless beings living in another plane of existence. Usually, when angels fall off of grace they shapeshift because they don’t want to be associated with Heaven, only taking a more “holly” appearance to trick humans.

This shapeshifting ability is flawed for both species because their natural eye colors cannot change. You know what they said “Eyes are the window of the soul.”

3. Morality and the importance of ethics:

Angels are moral beings and have free wills, they know ultimately what is really good and what is really wrong and that’s how they base their judgment upon humans.

There’s one flaw in this system, however.

They live in an alien-perfect environment. Everyone knows their place and carries their very specific duties, they don’t question rules because why would a perfect God would create imperfect rules? The last time someone tried to drastically change everything they lost a tier of their friends and witnessing what they are doing now reinforces that feeling that their sense of morality is ultimately right.

Ethics is many things and I still struggle to fully grasp what it is despite the little research I made, what I understand is that it helps in understanding people's behavior and giving fair judgments in court. What is morally wrong can be ethically right, there’s a huge difference between robbing a bank because you want to get rich and being a pickpocket because you have children to feed. Angels don't understand that, they don't understand humans and that’s why so many people end up in Hell without really deserving it.

4. These have nothing to do with the rewrite:

The way I suffered to write this is unreal. I have a bad habit of doing research and writing at the same time! Don’t be like me… because the number of time I had ideas and decided to scrap them because the results of my research made more sense makes me want to cry. I didn't but I was close.

You can also count me not saving my progress and accidentally closing Tumblr so I had to rewrite paragraphs. Anyway, the pain is over and I‘m glad the final result.

[back2bluesidex]

To Be Popular - JJK (18+) [Ch. 2 Preview]

↪ Patreon Membership Exclusive Series

↪ Pairing: Social Media Influencer! Jungkook X Marketing Manager! Reader ft. Yoongi

↪ Summary: You love everything about social media - apart from the ever-growing number of social media influencers. You don't understand how these people gain followers and admirers just by installing a camera and doing very basic things in front of it. And you despise how some of them can do anything to gain fame, to be popular - even if it includes uploading their bedroom scene in pornsites aka people like Jeon Jungkook.

But when your company launches a new product and your department head tasks you with signing Jeon Jungkook up as an endorsement partner - you have no choice but to chase him like the corporate slave that you are. However, things turn worse when you embroil in a dating rumor with him and have to keep the game going for the sake of everything.

is it really for the worse or things will turn in a way you never expected?  

↪ Theme: Strangers to lovers au, fake dating au, kind of enemies to lover au, angst, smut, fluff.

↪ A/N: This series will have 2k words per chapter and will be updated weekly. Hence, you can expect the first chapter sometime next week. Hope that you enjoy this one <3

Index: Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | ?

Read full Chapter on Patreon

Just a week ago you were scoffing at your laptop watching this guy make fame out of a porn video and now he is leading you god knows where to do god knows what. 

Before you could take in your surroundings, Jungkook slams you on the nearest wall. He wastes no time in locking you between his arms. 

“You really came here only to convince me? You had no other intention, huh?” He asks with the lowest possible voice. A shiver runs down through the path of your spine. 

“No. What intention would I even have? I fucked things up at the meeting so my superiors are making me clean the mess.” Your voice comes out firmer than what you thought you could manage. 

“Oh? Really? But I think there is something else to it.” Jungkook comes closer to your body. His chest touches yours. You take a sharp inhale but keep the eye-contact intact. 

Jungkook’s eyes dip down to your chest again as he continues, “you want what you watched in that video, don’t you?” he wets his lips once those vile words come out of his mouth. 

Your jaw hits the floor almost, “what the fuck? What makes you think I want you?” 

Jungkook invades whatever was left off of your personal space and whispers right into your ear, “If you accept it nicely, tell me the truth whether you got turned on or not, I will give your company a chance.”  

You gulp at his offer. 

If you say you were completely unaffected after watching him fucking his partner so well, then it will be a lie for sure. 

So… if you swallow your pride and tell him that he indeed had some kind of effect on you - he will be up for another meeting? 

“And what if I tell you the truth?” you question, looking deep into his chocolate eyes. All you see there is mirth. 

[thatbitchery]

'Power' and 'power hungry' are those words that we have demonized and sacrificed to spread the level down propaganda that's egalitarianism and anti- hierarchy, when power is not only inbuilt meaning we all seek it but extremely important and useful to life.

Power is the ability to influence the outcome, perception and course of events. People that have power are people that have- control or at least influence over lives, theirs or otherwise. Lack of power is the most painful position one can be in- exhibit A your childhood if you had one of those parents. Lack of power power leads to slavery, bring under dictatorship, resentment, self loathing, humiliation, shame, etc. The most painful position you can be in is one where you Lack power over yourself.

Neitzsche (I can never correctly spell his name) insists that power over yourself is the most important form of power, and that a good life is a life spent garnering and exercising power over yourself. Power over yourself is simply- discipline. When your will is stronger than your impulses and urges and wants- when you're disciplined- then you have achieved the highest form of power in existence- which makes this the first point. An easy way to be powerful is to be disciplined.

Power over others, however , is just as important. As social species we are constantly in need of company, in fact isolation is a death- to be at the mercy of others is also a death. Since as a social species we are dependent on each other for survival it is important to have some level of power over others- we are also animals and people will naturally treat you at the lowest level they can- it's important to make this level as high as possible.

So then, some cheap / completely free easy to do ways to be powerful?

Articulation and eloquence. Jordan Peterson says the most dangerous thing a person can be is to be articulate and eloquent. Why? Because words are the most powerful weapon out there. Everything social happens through words , and it's a social species so do the math. Wars have been declared and ended over and through words. Relationships formed and destroyed. Governments created and disbanded- words. In my religion save for human beings Everything was created by words- its that powerful. The most powerful you can be is articulate. The way you speak- from your surface lexicon to your intonation to the speed you use to your accent- people judge you over this. It influences how people treat you and think of you. It's soft power that's also explosive. Increase your surface lexicon. Get rid of your original accent and get one that people either a) find superior or b) commonplace ie most people have it (fun fact before skin color and origin we assess each other on accent basis and subconsciously decode if we like you or not. Explanation: people in the same tribe have the same accent , so consider eo brothers and safe. Strangers, not so much). Learn to pace your words. Be straightforward and open. Which drives me to point two

Honesty and authenticity. Look , I think you should lie. Manipulate girl boss gatekeep - these require lying at some point- go for it. What's more powerful, though, is to learn to ger what you want by manipulating the truth. You know what they say- the truth will set you free. Here's the problem with lying- we can tell. There are tells and subconsciously cues that your body sends when you lie and we subconsciously detect them and when you're caught in one lie it destroys your credibility all round. It's like a castle of jenga falling apart, everything that was once in harmony just- trips over. Credibility is the backbone of all relationships- you lose that you get isolated. Honesty is such a powerful tool because a) its vulnerable b) it signals confidence c) it builds trust d) the gift of companionship- you meet people that can actually relate e) you don't need to remember too much or always hold up a facade, the truth will set you free f) it's such an idgaf move that makes you seem superior especially if it's something you'd get judged harshly on. Just- be truthful- I've given f ways in which it influences how people treat you. The trick here is to do the mystery thing- keep things to yourself, unlearn your need to overexplain or justify, learn to give vague, short and true answers and when in doubt, cry.

Knowledge is power- what more must I add. Read. Keep up with the economics and government politics. Learn personal finance and build a financial base. Read fiction. Listen to podcasts. Be informed. Know the things that matter, and no that isn't drake X Kendrick Lamar it's things that matter. Get good grades and hold, at the very least, a bachelor's. Watch movies and go to the opera. Subscribe to newsletter. Be informed. Know. Knowledge is power. Join training camps and whatnots. Be skilled and efficient.

Networks. Power is stored in webs and security is in numbers. Exhibit a) try attack someone with a strong fan base see how that goes for you. You want to be powerful? Have friends, and not just friends. Powerful friends. I don't mean a team of CEOs necessarily- loyalty at the top is tricky and unless you're also a CEO that might not be easy- I mean people that can influence the turn of events. Sometimes- like in fandoms- it's simply just, people. Who your networks are made up of is dependent on what you want- as long as you keep in mind security is in numbers. Run up your numbers, ma'am. Forget your introvercy and self isolation methods , leave your house and learn to talk to people and run up your numbers. The most powerful you can be, is to get to a point where a) you have numbers on every level b)you have a cult leader like presence- that people worship you and are willing to die for you. Like most celebrities do. That's security, that's power. If you have a Nicki Minaj level fan base people treat you well because if they don't your fans will tear them apart. & you can get away with anything because they will justify it for you.

Grooming and mannerisms. We- inclusive of you- judge our books by their covers. Before you speak your Grooming and your etiquette speak for you. That's, I'm not explaining this. I know you know.

START HERE

[turbulentscrawl]

Identity(V) Headcanons: Victor Grantz

Don't mind me, I just love him

-Victor’s biggest struggle in life is his crippling social anxiety. He’s a kind-hearted individual with a lot of empathy, but he’s deeply wounded by the pattern of abandonment he’s had in life (his mother, his uncle, any friends he made in school…) and as a result he’s one of the slowest in the manor to give true trust. He’s terrified of letting people in just to be abandoned again, and he doesn’t trust spoken words easily, so he simply avoids meeting people directly as much as possible. Promises, especially, make him feel gut-wrenching distrust for the one making them.

-(That said, Victor views keeping secrets as a promise of his own. One that others may not know he’s keeping, but a promise for their privacy nonetheless.)

-He believes people are more authentic when they don’t know they’re being observed, be it in-person or on paper. Victor doesn’t trust himself to accurately read someone’s tone or body language up close anymore—he becomes blinded by fear, and sometimes hope, so he takes things at face value even if it’s to his detriment--but he’s good at reading between written lines and gauging things from a distance. In this sense, he’s a decent judge of character. He’s a people-watcher both for enjoyment and to build himself a sense of security around others. (Though, sometimes this leads people to think he’s a bit of a creep, which makes him feel terrible.)

-All that said, Victor does not wish harm on anyone. He’s afraid of cruelty, not just for himself, but for anyone. And this is where his empathy comes in—he really, truly wants for the world and the people in it to be better. If he thinks there’s a chance of helping someone improve, he’s willing to help. If he thinks there’s a chance of saving someone from a painful death in a match…he’s willing to risk himself to see them through. He has some of the lowest pain tolerance in the manor, which is especially surprising to learn when you consider he’s among the most willing to rush into danger to help someone. (I mean he ran into a burning building to save a dog....)

-Ironically, Victor is very big on communication in the relationships he does build. When he finally gets close with someone, he’s not keen on losing them to misunderstanding or misplaced expectations, so he needs an open line—and patience—at all times. He still prefers letters to face-to-face conversation, however, so serious conversations can take a long time to sort through. (This goes for a modern setting, too. I know people think texting can be disingenuous, but Victor gets too stressed with face-to-face conversations and he prefers to have the time to think over and give a thought-out response that isn’t influenced by anxiety or fear.)

-He’s fit from all his walking, but doesn’t have much in the way of muscle. In fact, he’s on the soft side, especially in his arms and stomach area. He makes for a very cozy cuddle buddy, and he’s honestly one of the best huggers in the manor. (If he’s comfortable with the person, that is.)

-Personally, I feel like he’d be bit of a foodie. He’s not a picky eater and always happy to try new foods. (Though, while he doesn’t restrict himself from meat, he prefers fruit & veg.) If whatever he’s eating is dog-safe, he also likes to share bits and pieces of stuff with Wick.

-His preferred Love Languages to give are Acts of Service and Quality Time. To receive, he likes Words of Affirmation and Quality Time. In short, he wants to spend as much time with his loved ones as he possibly can. He doesn’t need you to do things for him because he’s used to taking care of himself, but he does like to receive sweet words (verbal or written) so he knows how much you love and value him! (That may sound counterintuitive given his suspicion for promises and sweet words…but by the time you’re close enough for love languages to matter, he’s gotten over most of those hurdles with you.)

-He’s a bit of a goofball! He’s anxious enough that it doesn’t come out for most people, but he does enjoy a good, silly time. He gets along well with Memory and Emma, for example.

-Victor talks with Wick a lot. Not out loud, or even in writing, just in his head. Social anxiety can get lonely, and having a cute doggy face to put half of his internal dialogue to helps bury those feelings…at least for a little while.

[fandomworld9728]

Random headcanons about the sins and their relationship with Luci and Charlie? Maybe Lilith too?

(Since there's no AU/fanfic attached to this, I'm going to assume you mean from the canon show. Since there isn't much that we know about Lilith I'm only going to do Lucifer & Charlie)

(Also, I'm sorry this took me so long to respond to!)

Beelzebub:

While not actually related, treats Lucifer like he's her precious baby brother

Is the only one who makes a drink strong enough to get Lucifer drunk (And finds any excuse to get him to get him totally wasted, loving how he finally relaxes and cuts loose)

Totally threw the baby shower when it was announced that Charlie was going to be born

The fun Aunt who tries to show Charlie how to have a good time (Especially with her being high strung like her father)

Sends the two lots of goodies from her Ring. Doubly so when she knows they've had a rough time/bad day

Helped get Charlie get ready for prom with Lucifer, Lilith & Asmodeus

Asmodeus:

Acts like the older brother/father figure to Lucifer

Always ready to wingman for Lucifer be it during his marriage to Lilith or after when Lucifer tells him he's ready to get back out there

Always keeps a table or two open at Ozzie's for Lucifer & Charlie just in case they wanna bring a date to the Lust Ring

Definitely tag teams with Beelzebub to help Charlie & Lucifer threw heart break and to dress them up for parties/special events

Most supportive of the Sins on the two Morningstars' crazy ideas (And often the voice of reason)

Mammon:

Used to be close to Lucifer until he ripped off Lulu World

While it is his Sin taking over, the other side of it is that he is very much the living embodiment of imitation is the sincerest form of flattery with Lucifer (He doesn't know how to properly express it and is heavily influenced by his Sin that he doesn't know how much damage he is actually causing) (Please someone smack some sense into this guy)

Absolutely loves Charlie to pieces and teaches her all his favorite tips and tricks of the trade

Easily breaks under Charlie's famous puppy dog eyes

Satan:

Is like that brother who looks for any reason to fight. Finding any excuse to punch Lucifer in his face (Mainly the face because he finds it amusing whenever Lucifer screams not the face)

Whenever Lucifer visits Wrath he greets him by using his lasso to capture and tie him up

Just loves bullying Lucifer in any way possible & complains about him 24/7 (Yet misses him when he doesn't visit)

Despite his willingness to cause harm to Lucifer, he would lay down his life for him and especially for Charlie

Was the one who taught Charlie who to control her emotions so her demonic form & magic didn't go haywire

Feels most at peace whenever he's around Charlie. Something about her sooths his Sin

Leviathan:

Sees Lucifer more like a father than a brother

Uses his hypno-eyes as a form of hypnotherapy on Lucifer when he's at his lowest

Envious (shocker I know) of how much Lucifer loves Charlie

Despite that he very much loves Charlie like she was his younger sister

Belphegor:

Lucifer is her favorite patient since he only ever comes in for sleeping pills (when he finally took her advance to use them for his shitty sleep schedule

Will sometimes just appear in Lucifer or Charlie's bed and have what she calls a Nap Party or Group Nap

Only goes to parties at Beelzebub's when Lucifer drags her (no she doesn't have favorites) (even though she totally does and it's him)

Is Charlie's only doctor and will accept nothing else on the matter

Was the one who delivered Charlie when she was born

[wutheringskies]

The Twin Jades

dude sometimes I just come across such bad meta. it's even worse if it starts off good and turns bad.

Good Meta Points:

• The Lans really love younger child Wangji (no pets allowed, but wangji can have them. Wangji wants lotus pod seeds and gets them etc.)

• Instead of giving agency to his actions and thoughts, they think he's being influenced or corrupted by others to act in such ways (especially Lan Qiren.)

Bad Meta Points

• Lan Wangji is spoilt, similar to Nie Huaisang or Jin Zixuan.

• Gets the lowest punishment at all times (pfft.)

• "I get it you waited 13 years but you fucked off into the sunset with your husband leaving your emotionally unstable brother and duties"

• "Good to see people talking about Lan Wangji's flaws" - mentions him being spoilt and demanding instead of his actual flaws.

Like... you cannot seriously point out how he gets to have rabbits as a point of him being spoilt. Lan Wangji has made like one error in his life in his studies. He's assigned himself punishment for stuff that wasn't even done by will (coughs, wwx). He's made his decisions and lived with the consequences.

Despite what you say, Lan Xichen isn't a terrible brother to Wangji. Neither is Lan Wangji a selfish brother.

Sibling relationships are complex, and between two individuals with their own set of values. Lan Wangji is totally righteous, even more than Nie Mingjue. He can't stand exaggerated, political loopholes and unrighteous acts. He does what he can do, working on the ground level.

Lan Xichen isn't Lan Wangji. He knows the world is filled with corrupted people, and challenging each and every one of them would lead to your own devastation (read: Wei Wuxian's biography). Thus, he tries extending his sympathy to all, and draws conclusions that allow the least possible damage. He does think Lan Wangji made a dire mistake with Wei Wuxian, because if not, he will have to face the fact that the world punished his brother for his righteousness and it would shatter his whole foundation (like it does).

But despite that, both of them share similarities. They both want the better of the world. Lan Wangji is brave enough to challenge the whole foundation of the cultivation world. Lan Xichen is brave enough to lay down peace even when it's so painfully obvious there's no option of it.

Lan Wangji trusts his brother enough to bring Wei Wuxian back to Cloud Recesses after getting stabbed at Jin Tower. Lan Xichen lives up to this trust and helps them investigate the matter. Lan Wangji even assures Wei Wuxian that his brother would not stand for Jin Guangyao if his crimes were true.

See, you don't have to completely have the same sort of sets of beliefs to be siblings. Sibling relationships are complex. Both these brothers know each other, their strengths and their weaknesses well. They may be exasperated at each other's insistence, yet they are well aware that they both have to walk their own paths.

Lan Xichen could never take away Lan Wangji's pain or fix him. Neither can Lan Wangji fix Lan Xichen.

But both of them will always have each other's backs. They are each other's families. Each other's brothers for life.

But at the same time, they have each their own paths to walk. People need to understand that it's not about a lack of sense of responsibility on Lan Wangji's side, but the realization that if he went back home, he may lose Wei Wuxian again. His uncle wants to take him back, lecture him and lock him into seclusion. His uncle wouldn't accept his proposal to be married to Wei Wuxian.

He doesn't give his uncle the chance to "accept" or not.

And he literally returns three months later.

I can't help but feel that those who say he was selfish do not have siblings. Or have bad sibling relationships. I'd say Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen have a perfectly good relationship if despite their differences, their terrible parentage, their opposing personalities, the roles they both played in each other's life (with Lan Xichen being sworn brothers to Jin Guangyao who played a major role in Wei Wuxian's fall, and Lan Wangji being Wei Wuxian's husband, who in turn, set the case back onto Jin Guangyao, thus hurting Lan Xichen), the things they couldn't help each other out of, but yet, they do trust each other and love each other.

And I trust that Lan Xichen will one day figure stuff out. There's a lyric in this MDZS song called unfettered. It is like:

The past is akin to dew in the morning. Even if it can be comprehended, it lays under layers and layers of fog.

In the end, hatred, love, resentment, debts and regrets all come to pass.

Just like how Lan Wangji is not his father, Lan Xichen will also not be his father. I don't think both of them had hurtful intentions towards the other at any point.

It's not like "Yunmeng bros" where JC intentionally wishes to cause pain to Wei Wuxian. It's not like the Nie bros, where NMJ has to be super over-protective of Huaisang.

It's just two siblings with their own lives choosing to be with each other, in happiness and in grief (mostly in grief uhm) in a terrible world where the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[tuulikki]

Was anyone going to tell me that Engels really hated the Irish or was I supposed to find that out for myself???

These are some really impressive anti-immigrant talking points:

The southern facile character of the Irishman, his crudity, which places him but little above the savage, his contempt for all humane enjoyments, in which his very crudeness makes him incapable of sharing, his filth and poverty, all favour drunkenness.

With such a competitor the English working-man has to struggle, with a competitor upon the lowest plane possible in a civilised country, who for this very reason requires less wages than any other. Nothing else is therefore possible than that, as Carlyle says, the wages of English working-man should be forced down further and further in every branch in which the Irish compete with him. And these branches are many. All such as demand little or no skill are open to the Irish. For work which requires long training or regular, pertinacious application, the dissolute, unsteady, drunken Irishman is on too low a plane. To become a mechanic, a mill-hand, he would have to adopt the English civilisation, the English customs, become, in the main, an Englishman. But for all simple, less exact work, wherever it is a question more of strength than skill, the Irishman is as good as the Englishman. Such occupations are therefore especially overcrowded with Irishmen: hand-weavers, bricklayers, porters, jobbers, and such workers, count hordes of Irishmen among their number, and the pressure of this race has done much to depress wages and lower the working-class. And even if the Irish, who have forced their way into other occupations, should become more civilised, enough of the old habits would cling to them to have a strong, degrading influence upon their English companions in toil, especially in view of the general effect of being surrounded by the Irish. For when, in almost every great city, a fifth or a quarter of the workers are Irish, or children of Irish parents, who have grown up among Irish filth, no one can wonder if the life, habits, intelligence, moral status -- in short, the whole character of the working-class assimilates a great part of the Irish characteristics. On the contrary, it is easy to understand how the degrading position of the English workers, engendered by our modern history, and its immediate consequences, has been still more degraded by the presence of Irish competition.

—Condition of the Working Class in England, 1845

Dirty, stupid immigrants stealing jobs? Revolutionary take

[meeblo]

@stalkiwi so, Muelsyse. This is just going to be extrapolations off of Mansfield Break, Dorothy's Vision, and the manhua. I think Mumu also appears in a vignette event or is hinted to, but I haven't read that one so I won't bring it up. No lone trail spoilers.

In 7-10, it's revealed that Elves are heavily discriminated against.

The Aegis of the Infected. The Yeti Squad was one of its subsets, and its members did not solely consist of Infected. The exiles, the fanatics, the maimed, Elves, Durin, and Sarkaz. The guerrillas did not fight for the Infected alone.

While the Durin can become recluses in their advanced underground cities, Elves have nowhere to go. We haven't seen any Elves besides Muelsyse. It's possible they have mostly died off as a result of this persecution. It's important to Muelsyse's character to recognize that she is a member of a persecuted minority, a minority that may have already been mostly killed off.

Mansfield Break introduces Muelsyse at what is in my opinion her lowest point. Saria is no longer at Rhine Lab, Ferdinand is swallowing up Energy and coming for Originium Arts next, Parvis is Parvis, and Muelsyse is entirely alone with no one to plead to but the negligent and indifferent Kirsten. Muelsyse's actions and plans regarding Anthony show just how bad things have become for her. She's so deep in the cuthroat game of Rhine's internal politics she's trying to adapt to Ferdinand and Parvis' tactics, but she isn't Ferdinand or Parvis. She can't manipulate people like Parvis or crush rivals like Ferdinand; her plan with Anthony is solely preventative. Gain custody of Anthony, Ferdinand can't get Simon Co and Muelsyse now has at least one bargaining chip... but what next? What does she do from there? It doesn't advance the situation, merely prevent things from becoming even worse for Muelsyse. It also reflects Muelsyse's increasing desperation that she's willing to think of Anthony as an asset and refer to Ifrit simply as the test subject in Mansfield Break. She's so deep into self-preserving fight or flight that her empathy is being pushed down. But this isn't working for her; she's still losing ground, her plan in Mansfield Break failed spectacularly when Saria freed Anthony rather than giving him over to Muelsyse, and pushing down her compassion is just paining her. Something has to change.

In the Rhine Lab manhua, we see Muelsyse before things at Rhine start to fall apart for her. She's working as an informant for Kirsten, but she's able to set that aside for what she actually believes in. Parvis is still Parvis, but Ferdinand hasn't amassed nearly as much power yet. After Saria and Muelsyse find the tape from Haydn Pharmaceuticals with the horrible things they put Ifrit through that lead to the explosion, Muelsyse closes the laptop solemnly and begins truly helping Saria rather than merely monitoring her. Throughout the Rhine manhua, we can see Muelsyse's compassion towards Ifrit. She has ulterior motives in visiting Ifrit to get some information, but we can see that Muelsyse cares about Ifrit, and continues to visit even after it's clear they won't get any info about Haydn from Ifrit. Ifrit isn't solely "the test subject" to Muelsyse, lil' Iffy is someone that Muelsyse wants to help save. Going against the cover up and continuing to dig places her in danger she could have otherwise avoided, but she continues anyway with Saria. Saria's presence at Rhine is crucial for Muelsyse to feel safe in taking risks for what she believes in. Saria is the backbone of integrity at Rhine and without her there are no checks in place on monsters like Parvis and Ferdinand. Even overwhelmed and weakening in influence, Saria's iron will provides a safety net for Muelsyse. It's implied in the Tin Man scenes that Muelsyse is the one leaking info from Rhine Lab (something Dorothy's Vision's opening scene confirms), an action very much in conflict with Muelsyse being Kirsten's informant. There is a clear struggle between Muelsyse doing what she believes is right, and Muelsyse doing what she believes she has to in order to survive among vipers like Parvis and Ferdinand. Muelsyse is so deeply trapped in the politics of Rhine Lab that she has no way out. There's a scene in the Manhua where she says something about having a good resume if things ever go south, but Saria calls that out. Muelsyse's resume means nothing in the face of the power Rhine has over its industry in Columbia. Saria can walk away because she's the only person Kirsten respects and because Saria has a will of steel, but no one else can escape Rhine Lab; Silence goes to Rhodes Island leading the partnership with Rhine, Mayer goes over as part of this partnership to escape Ferdinand's control over Engineering, etc. Rhine Lab has created a closed system in the Columbian scientific community where the only way out is to another Rhine affiliated company or one of Rhine's many puppet shell companies like HydeBro, Loken Watertank, and Haydn Laboratories. Muelsyse has nowhere to go, but she recognizes that she's clearly in danger, so she is forced to hedge her bets and lean on both Saria and Kirsten for aid.

Dorothy's Vision shows Muelsyse beginning to change after her loss in Mansfield Break. Playing the game failed, utterly, so she's more openly doing what she believes in. If she can't win anyway, she might as well do as much as she can even if it makes her even more vulnerable, so she leaks even more documents. This catches the attention at last of the Columbian military, and leads to Ho'olheyak stuffing her into a mechsuit. Crucially in the opening scene of Dorothy's Vision, we see Muelsyse attempt to call Kirsten for aid. Kirsten doesn't pick up, because Kirsten doesn't give a shit about anyone except Saria. The implication here is clear, in my opinion: Muelsyse was never Kirsten's informant because she was given the task by Kirsten; Muelsyse was Kirsten's informant because she was desperately attempting to make herself useful to Kirsten so that she could have any sense of security that Control might protect her from Ferdinand, Parvis, or the military. These frankly tragic lines as Muelsyse is stuffed into the mech shed new light onto her character:

Cold hard steel clamps down on the limbs, preventing any attempt at movement, never mind resistance. If only tears would flow from the eyes. Mother always said tears were powerful weapons. But the eyes are not cooperating. They have seen too many mountains fall and too many rivers dry up over the centuries. They have seen too many loved ones die. They have become dry, like the land after a nomadic city has passed through.

Muelsyse is old. She has seen so much conflict, death, and tragedy. She has lost too many loved ones, and been placed into mortal danger many times herself for being an Elf. Despite being a compassionate person who wants to do what she believes is moral, Muelsyse is burdened with the weight of centuries of loss and the fear of losing even more. She tries to steel herself to this loss, to stop empathizing, to survive, but it just digs her deeper. She attempts to hide her identity as an elf, does her moral actions like leaking info and comforting Ifrit in anonymity and secrecy, so that on the surface she can appear a crafty and formidable force in Rhine Lab's internal politics, but it doesn't fool anyone. In Dorothy's Vision, she tries to let go and do more of what she thinks is right, and at first all it seems to get her is days on end of suffering. But the latter half of Dorothy's Vision begins to prove her wrong; Doctor and Saria begin to prove her wrong. Their actions are succeeding against Ferdinand and the military, they are able to walk straight in to Rhine, they are able to place themselves into danger to make the change that needs to be made and walk back out unscathed and successful. Whereas Muelsyse always hedged her bets and tried to walk the line between Rhine Lab loyalty and pushing against corruption, Saria and Doctor have no such reservations. Muelsyse is shown that stepping with full confidence towards a cause you believe in can work, and is shown that her own leaked information is making an impact.

I haven't had any Lone Trail spoilers, but I have listened to Muelsyse's song, Morning Dew. I could discuss the lyrics at length but here's some verses I find especially important. I'll put it under a cut if you haven't heard the song and don't want it spoiled.

Overall, Muelsyse is one of the most interesting characters of the Rhine Lab storyline to me. She is a silly elf, that's right, but there's so much depth to her. She's a kind person, a silly person, and yet she also makes an active effort to try and be both of those things in spite of the loss and sadness she's witnessed. I feel that it's less of a coping mechanism, and more of an ideal she wants to be. Muelsyse is fun and silly in spite of what she's been through, not to cover up what she's been through.

Don't let the loneliness stop you from being kind. Don't let them say that your peace is a waste of time. Don't let them crush all your dreams, then change their mind

This first verse reflects the trajectory of Muelsyse's character arc after Dorothy's Vision, and her compassionate nature. She's no longer going to let others disparaging her efforts or outright opposing them get in her way of what she thinks is right.

This room was built for one chair only. I'm not empty, I'm just lonely, tied to the ghost of you. I can be gentle too.

The first two lines here reflect Muelsyse's loneliness as one of very few elves and her isolation at Rhine Lab. She's not empty like Parvis and Ferdinand are, corrupt to the core; she's just alone and desperate. I'm not sure who "the ghost of you" is here, I assume Lone Trail will make it more clear, but I have a few guesses. It could be Kirsten, Muelsyse joined Rhine Lab because of the kind of person Kirsten used to be and is now trapped tied to the ghost of Kirsten attempting to appeal to her for safety against the other sector directors. It could be Saria, that Muelsyse is tied to the lingering influence of Saria that remains at Rhine Lab after her departure. It could be Muelsyse's presumably dead mother we don't really know anything about mentioned in that Dorothy's Vision text.

Oh-ooh... letting me go isn't the only answer. Oh-ooh... letting me go makes the world spin faster. "No one like me" doesn't mean you won't like me. Oh-ooh... I'll let you go, it's a pattern on repeat.

The chorus, reflecting the amount of times people have left Muelsyse behind. Saria leaving Rhine is the obvious one that sticks out, but it's clear that this is a pattern that keeps happening to Muelsyse, and the "No one like me" implies that some of these people leaving did it for racist reasons because Muelsyse was an elf. Muelsyse attempts to make connections, but inevitably she has to let them go as they leave her behind.

Don't let utopia haunt you, there's more to save. Don't stop the search for the perfect, you're smart and brave. Don't let them sail off in anger, just smile and wave.

The next verse continues to reflect Muelsyse's compassion and desire to save people, in spite of being faced with opposition preventing utopia from being possible. "Don't stop the search for the perfect", even while perfection is impossible it's still worth striving for. The last two lines show Muelsyse's acceptance of all the people leaving her life. She's resolved to smile as they go, rather than be angry at it.

The ship takes off, now I'm the captain. Gentle breeze, I'll make it happen. I'm gonna lock the doors, no one allowed on board. I won't choose, I'm not ungrateful; making peace to quell the hateful. Look at the mess you made. I whisper as you fade.

This last verse before the song ends with the chorus again I hope shows where her character arc goes in Lone Trail. Muelsyse is finally taking control of her own life and becoming the captain of her own ship, no longer having Kirsten fill that role. "Look at the mess you made" probably refers to the mess that is Rhine Lab under Kirsten's willful negligence, who is now fading into the distance as Muelsyse is able to finally sail off and escape.