#maybe i should set some kind of limit for myself though because i dont want to get stuck on trying to get a perfect recording

[schalotte]

in case anyone's curious i did get one nice recording of i, carrion (icarian) today. BUT i think i can still do better if i just, .. basically just open my mouth a little more, sing a little bit louder. it's not like the tone and calmness i chose were unbefitting of the song but i feel like there's a little luft nach oben. i'll try again!

[jangofctts]

Are You in Or Out?

Rated: Explicit 

Word count: 11.5K yall I am SORRY

Warnings: good lord y'all here we GO-- smut, explicit language, violence and mentions of blood and gore, injuries, unprotected sex (don't be a dick, wrap that stick!), oral (m&f receiving), blindfolding, vaginal and anal fingering, vaginal and anal sex, double penetration, spit is used as lube but for the love of GOD doNT DO THAT, there are some dom vibes on Paz’s end    

Summary: The job you’re on takes a turn for the worst--Paz comes to your rescue and you're brought to the Covert. There you meet Din Djarin. though during a good natured sparring session, you’re suddenly stuck between an age old rivalry that spirals out of hand. Hopefully an agreement can be met. 

a/n: hey...how y’all doin....SO lemme explain you smthn. I said helmets must be OfF--giv me them LIPS BABEY so this is a slight AU in which mandos can see other mandos’ faces. ya get me? I also tHot that it would be nice and fun to set the timeline 5-6 years BEFORE the plot of the Mandalorian so we gots a younger din here. anyway, as always enjoy and I hope you like!!

Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes—

Some as little as burning your finger on the nozzle of a smoking blaster or tripping over your own shoelaces. Simple things. Mindless things. 

Nothing that could ever compare to the catastrophic decision of picking up bounty hunting as a reliable source of income. 

The little ones were easy—tax evaders and deserters of the Empire—most who’d yield and gladly follow without complaint just at the sight of your blaster pointed between their eyes. And the gag of it is—most of the time you never bothered to load the damn thing. 

Reckless.

An invitation for disaster. 

But skirting that precarious edge, one little slip up away from plunging head first into inevitable trouble is better than Bracca. Stars—anything is better than Bracca. There’s no glory in bounty hunting but there’s even less in ship scrapping. Abysmal pay in exchange for risking your life on rain slicked metal with only the Ibdis Maw to break your fall.  

The guild you work for is considerate—scratch that. Greef Karga is considerate. Sure the flirting is a touch unbearable but it saves your ass in the long run. All easy money bounties set aside for you in exchange for a cheap drink, hollow laughs and sugar sweet smiles. 

It’s enough credits to get by—more than plenty to rent a room and charter a ship. 

But there’s only so many bounties to capture within the limits of the guild and oh so many people the empty blaster trick works on. And so the credits begin to thin; it gets too expensive to buy off a pilot and the debate over buying food or being able to pay for your room becomes more frequent than the scraprats that skitter inside the walls.  

It’s suicide to snag a higher paying bounty because....well—these bounties shoot back. 

Whatever.

 Might as well die trying. Who knows, maybe you could score big time if you manage to pull this off. 

Maybe. 

                                                       -=-=-=-

You’re not sure who’s more surprised—Karga when you asked for the bounty or yourself when he actually gave it to you. 

“Are you sure, kid? This could—“

“End in a fiery shitshow? Yeah—I figured that,” you sigh, swirling your drink with a little complimentary toothpick. “But I need the money.” 

“Hah! You’ve got guts, girl.” He flashes you a smile and smooths down his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “Tell you what. The last assignment was just taken but I’m sure if you run you could catch him. Work somethin’ out.”

Jumping from your seat, you throw on your coat and toss a couple credits onto the table to cover the drink. “What’s he look like?” 

“Big fellow—Mandalorian. You’ll know when you see him.”

You shout your thanks over your shoulder and hightail outta there. The landing docks aren’t far, you can see them from here. It’s finding the guy that could pose a problem.

If he hasn’t already left, you bitterly think. 

However, it seems the universe is on your side today. Karga was right. He is big. Stands out like a sore thumb against his ship that glitters dully in the overcast sky. Kinda like an oversized blueberry. A yellow and blue blueberry….not important—

“Hey! Hey, you!” You’re so close, just a couple yards away. You swear and hurry up your pace as he steps onto the loading ramp. “Big guy! Large...blue man?”

You trip over your own feet as he turns his head. Fuck—

No way are you gonna be able to bargain with this guy. Built like a fucking AT-AT and probably just as stubborn. After all, no one would ever be dumb enough to come between a Mandalorian and their quarry. You grimace, and suck in a breath—

Before a word even leaves your mouth he interrupts with a steady, unwavering;

“No.”

Your brows furrow. “I didn’t even say anything!”

“I know what you were going to ask,” he huffs, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “I work alone.”

Ok, then. You didn’t want to resort to begging, but you’re kinda running out of options here. You take a steadying breath and plant yourself at the bottom of the ramp. “C’mon man. Look—I’ll let you take seventy percent of the cut and I can—“

“You’ll let me?” He repeats, the staticky tone of his voice dropping into an edge more cutting than broken transparisteel. The metal platting on the ramp vibrates from the weight of his step to move closer; Stars it takes every fucking inch of willpower to hold your ground. “You’re lucky if I let you leave with your life. Get lost.” 

Fuckfuckfuck—you should listen. You wanna fucking run for the hills and never look back in case he comes looking to purge your name from the kriffing galaxy. You clench your jaw and steel your nerves. Too bad—you’ve dug your heels so far into this empire of dirt and false bravado that your only way out is continuing to poke the sleeping bear until he snaps your spine or caves.

You have to crane your neck to glare into that dark strip of his vizor, seeing as he’s invited himself into your personal space. “No.”  

“No?” He mocks, now toe to toe with your scuffed up boots. 

Your teeth clench, a scalding flush burning through your cheeks and all the way down to your chest. He’s toying with you—finding amusement in your stubbornness and apparent lack of braincells for challenging him. “You don’t scare me.” 

The man hums, a deep purr that rumbles through his entire ribcage as he raises his gloved hand. You curse yourself for flinching because surely he’s about to crush your skull like a fucking grape, but no. All he does is fix your rumbled collar then pat your cheek.     

“I don’t need the extra baggage.”

“I’m not baggage,” you sneer, slapping his hand away. “I can handle myself.” 

“With an empty blaster?” He points out, tipping his head to the side. “Your parlor tricks won’t do you any good on this job.”

“I’m a good shot!” You sputter, placing your hands over you hips and mustering up your best glare. “W-when I have ammo…” 

“Right.”

Meeting Paz Vizsla, could have gone far better, to put it into the most simplest of words. Jagged and hard to settle into a routine around each other for the journey to Nar Shaddaa in a tiny, old, and cramped freighter ship. Most cycles you have to wedge yourself beside a cargo crate to sleep. In addition to that, how it’s able to break through the atmosphere let alone fly is beyond you—an entire mystery on its own.       

At least you’re able to sit in the spare seat inside the cockpit—one of the only places available to stretch your legs. The only problem is that it’s also where Paz Vizsla likes to lurk (well, not lurk—it’s his ship and it’s where he can comfortably fit but—to each their own). 

There’s a net of tension still woven between you—each interaction like tiptoeing over eggshells. Though, like all things, it becomes simpler. There’s not exactly any ongoing conversations—you don’t want to pry into a life you know nothing about—it’s not your business despite the cumulation of questions that linger in the back of your mind. You know when to take a hint—not every person is willing to indulge you about their livelihood, and surely not something as secretive and well guarded as the Mandalore.  

Familiarity is what you want to call it. Comfortable with each other’s presence with small talk speckled in throughout the never-ending vastness of hyperspace. Compared to the infinite turmoil in your life, slippery footholds and uncertainty—Paz Vizsla is steady. In a way— predictable and safe in the confines of this ship.       

You’d even go as far as to label him kind, a friend maybe—if you look past the grumpiness and rather poor taste in corny jokes. You know it’s stupid, no doubt stemming from the deep ache of loneliness that comes hand in hand with staking it out on your own in the galaxy; but you can’t help but wish that this could be a new normal. Not some once in a lifetime thing where you both part ways, fade into the recesses of memory and leave it at that. 

If things go well—and rarely do they on a job—maybe you’d pluck up enough courage to ask him if you could stay. There’s no harm in it…right?

                                                 -=-=-=-

Well—the cynical part of you was right.

It did end up in a fiery shit show. 

Turns out the stupid quarry you’d been tracking excelled in long range weaponry. A former marksman for the Empire to be exact. Guess that tidbit of information wasn’t pertinent. A need to know sorta thing, if you will. 

You feel the molten bolt of plasma connect with your side before your ears pick up the sound of a weapon firing, like a crack of lighting in the empty alleyway. And before your body even connects with the duracrete, Paz is returning fire. A brilliant neon red against the hazy blur of shadowy buildings.  

Kinda weird how knocking the back of your head hurts worse than the literal blaster wound burned into your side. Shock maybe. Or the heat from the plasma cauterized each veins and artery it tore through and ate away at flesh and nerves. Hm…          

You’re sprawled in a wet pool of something—either your own blood or a puddle of stagnant gutter water and damn—you’re wearing your favorite shirt.

It doesn’t matter at this point…

You’re choking on your own air from the big ass hole blasted into your diaphragm, so to say things are looking grim is an understatement.  

Nar Shaddaa isn’t your first choice to kick the can on, but hey—not everyone gets the luxury of dying on Naboo. And just as you’re ready to slip away into that sweet, sweet abyss, it seems your fellow armored friend has other plans. 

The beskar is freezing against your cheek after he deadlifts you off the duracrete—you remember that plain as day. That and the hushed rumble of Paz’s voice insisting you save your dwindling supply of air instead of apologizing to him—or ordering you to stay alive for kriff’s sake. It’s impossible to argue with Paz—like trying to bite through durasteel, and while those beckoning tendrils of eternal slumber are mighty tempting, you cling to your life with all the strength you have left. After all, inconveniencing someone with a corpse is such a party foul to the highest degree.    

The rest is muddled—like dredging up silt and clay in a murky river that just leaves you with a pounding headache between your eyes. It’s a terrible mess of pain and bouts of temporary consciousness, mistaken with fever dreams and yup—more pain. The only consistent is Paz—hovering nearby or settled beside you—through thick and thin as you heal. 

There’s no solid reason your brain can conjure as to why he brought you to the Covert—it’d have been easier to just dump you at the nearest hospital and be done with it. You’re not his responsibility and you’re too afraid to ask what it means. Too many possibilities—too many answers you aren’t in the mood to face or untwist.     

And so you leave it be, set aside for another time—which brings you to the present day…        

You’re splayed over your little makeshift cot, feet propped up on a spare pillow as you scour through a cheesy Coruscanti gossip magazine. It’s years old—the only piece of entertainment you could find other than a weapon in the Covert. And seeing as a massive hole had been blasted through your ribcage, picking up the clever art of throwing vibroblades or shooting targets to pass the time was out of the question.   

Even if you’d rather fall into a Sarlaac pit than stare at the wall for hours on end yet again—it hasn’t been all that bad. It’d taken weeks before you regained enough strength to sit up on your own, let alone walk—and walking is putting it lightly. It was more of a stiff legged shuffle better suited on a two hundred year old woman seconds from disintegrating into dust at the mere hint of a breeze.  

Not to mention—your right lung was all but shredded. Ripped apart from the plasma bolt and miraculously reconstructed by a more than questionable bacta tank, hopeful thoughts and well wishes. To this very day you still sound like a broken air filter. 

Eh.    

Could be worse. 

At least you aren’t dead. 

Just another setback that adds on the growing pile of reasons why never to leave the Covert. Free food, free board and mild entertainment to top it off. Paz had stayed at your bedside for the most part while you recovered—stuck with babysitting your sorry ass until you regained a bit of mobility. The times Paz hadn’t been at your side to stave off the boredom, it was up to you to find your own fun. 

Snooping is what Paz had labeled it—but you saw it more as an adventure. You met Din Djarin exploring (lost is what you actually were) in the dimly lit underbelly of Nevarro, after all. Yes, you may have scared the ever loving shit out of the poor guy and yes, he may have singed off your brows with a five foot jet of fucking fire—but hey. No one got hurt.        

And you made a new friend. Sorta…Din is difficult to read, subtler in his soft spoken words and quiet demeanor. A bit like a skittish loth-cat at the start, but nowadays it’s not uncommon to find him lounging in the same space as you or hovering over your shoulder, awfully curious in whatever it is you choose to do. Like Paz, Din isn’t overly fond of sharing much information about himself but he never complains after you regale tales of your own vastly fascinating past. He seems interested enough—tilts his head a tick to the right when you speak to indicate that yes, he’s listening despite the unforgiving dark line of his visor.      

There are others in the Covert too—some so elusive you have a hard time believing they exist. Shadows of what they once were before the rise of the Empire. And so, you count yourself lucky that you’d been introduced to two others—Aeris Fenn, a young man nearly as tall as a Wookie, and a woman named Ives Arrey; her armor a flashy green—damn near florescent in the light. 

They’re nice enough company. Aeris is a chatterbox, his wit sharper than a blade but lacking in any forethought before he speaks. Ives is the far opposite—rolls each sentence in her mouth before she voices it, but in no way is she angelic. Maker—you’d bet your entire left asscheek she’s behind each bad decision and silly shenanigans Aeris sticks his nose into. He never learns—not after a harsh chiding or cuff around the helmet from Paz or the Armorer could dampen is childlike enthusiasm or steer him away from repeating the same mistake over and over.  

Though if you read one more kriffing sentence of this garbage magazine you’re about to invite chaos himself to entertain you. Good thing too because just as you sit up to find the red armored Mandalorian—Paz rounds the corner and steps into your little broom closet that hardly passes for a room. 

“Paz!” You greet, tossing the magazine over your shoulder. “Please tell me we’ll be doing something interesting or else I might start ripping my hair out. Or maybe commit a heinous crime—haven't decided yet.”      

Paz grunts and shakes his head. “You’ll be doing neither. But today we’ll be sparing—hopefully that will curve your boredom.”

You scrunch up your face. “Sparring? Er, no thanks—I choose life.” 

“You breathe funny since your injury,” he says, jabbing a finger between your ribs. “And all you’ve been doing lately is laying around.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you sneer, tucking your arms over your chest. “Didn’t realize I was supposed to be running laps with half a lung.”

“It’s like stretching a muscle, you need to gain your strength back.” He retorts. “This will be good for you.” 

You groan and flop back into bed. “I don’t wanna. I was pretty much dead like three cycles ago—cut me some slack, man.”

There’s a brief silence as if he’s mulling over your words, but he’s stubborn. You crane your head to look at him as he says your name with a deep sigh attached to it.   

“Truthfully, I’m surprised you’ve survived this long.” He says it quietly, fragile even, like he’s still expecting you to tip over and die on the spot. You very well might.  

You huff. “Wow. Thanks, Paz.” 

You feel his heavy stare through the helmet. “What happened to you that night was a mistake. It wasn’t preventable but the least I can do is teach you basic selfdefense.”  

You gripe out your complaints but you know you’ve been beat—and well, a bit of your agreement is based on guilt. 

Damn it.  

                                                     -=-=-=-

It’s weird to see Paz without his heavy duty gear—like seeing him naked or a crab without a shell. The only piece he continues to wear is his helmet and padded gloves and under clothes, but it’s still weird. Strange enough that it shocks you tongue into remaining still instead of bitching about this. 

He leads you to a wing of the Covert you’ve yet to discover and ushers you through the doorway. The floor is padded, a bit smaller than you expected and already occupied by none other than Aeris Fenn. 

It’s a whole other kriffing shock to the head seeing him without the plates and layers of fabric and beskar too. The armor makes him bulkier—fuller and much more intimidating. Now, with only his black underclothes on, Aeris could be the spitting image of a sentient tree. Willowy limbs that stick out like branches as he stretches on the padded mat. He lazily swings his head around as you greet him, his face still covered by the black beskar painted with streaks of red. 

“So you choose sparring over knife throwing?” Aeris snorts. “And to think I thought of you as a friend.” 

“You think I chose to be here?” You say, grumpy and still upset at the choice of activity. Really, a brisk walk around the Covert would’ve been fine.

Aeris shrugs. “Ah, and I see you’ve roped in my favorite vod. Tch, he uses his fists instead of his words to teach. I wish you luck—you’ll need it.”      

You open your mouth to retort but Paz beats you to it. 

“Leave.” 

“I’ve just arrived, actually,” Aeris scoffs, folding his torso over his other leg to stretch. “Perhaps you could reschedule. After all—our guest is quite free most days.” 

Welp—you’re perfectly fine with that. Problem solved. 

You spin on your heel and make a break for it but Paz snatches your wrist and pulls you back to his side. “Aeris.”  

“Paz,” Aeris mocks, tipping his helmet to the side. 

Paz exhales, a long, tired sound and grovels out another plea in clipped Mando’a. Aeris languidly stands and brushes off imaginary dust from the front of his pants. “Sorry, what was that? I don’t understand your accent.” 

“Boy—“

“No, no, it’s alright.” Aeris sighs, waving his hand in a mopey display as if he were told that his birthday party were canceled for the fifth year in a row. “I’d have trouble speaking too if my enormously thick head were cooped up in that little bucket of yours all day.”  

You wince. 

In the time you’ve known Paz Vizsla, he’s never been one to launch into rash decisions fueled by anger—he lets it simmer and build like an oncoming storm over the ocean. Devastating once it reaches land.

Aeris bobs his head and inspects his black leather glove, picking at a loose thread on the inseam over the thumb. He clicks his tongue. “Or'dinii—you’re going to kill her.”  

Your offended scoff is ignored as Paz steps forward; jutting his chin up to even out the few inches Aeris holds over the man. “You still haven’t learned to shut your mouth, boy.” 

The tension surges and crackles like a volt of electricity through the air—unresolved and ready to ignite with the sparking embers of Paz’s growing irritation. It’s not a fight Aeris Fenn will win. He’s volatile and hotheaded—but his expertise is in long range weaponry. Precise, deadly and swift—not whatever this little pissing match is heading towards.    

Aeris clicks his tongue as Paz digs a fist into the black fabric of his shirt. Paz yanks him forward, the metallic clink of their helmets colliding an unpleasant scrape that pierces your eardrums. Aeris snarls out sharpened words in Mando’a as his willowy fingers shoot up to curl beneath the lip of Paz’s helmet. 

In the blink of an eye, Paz lifts Aeris up by his collar and launches him across the room like he weighs nothing more than a couple of down pillows. His helmet meets the wall with a resounding clank, chipping some of the red paint outlining the visor. Ouch. 

Like a kicked dog, Aeris clambers to his feet, still dazed and swaying and for a fearful second you think he’ll retaliate. But with whatever braincells he happens to possess today—he instead spits out a venomous curse that even yourself would hesitate to repeat. He leaves without another word, bristling with rage. 

Your flash Paz a questioning stare. “The hell was that about?” 

Paz waves it away with an irritated grunt. “His heart is in the right place but he is young. Aeris doesn’t understand his place in the Covert yet and I doubt he will for years to come.” 

You frown. “Poor guy…” 

Paz mutters something under his breath. “Enough distractions. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

“Y’know…I think that’s enough excitement for today. I think I’ll be going now—“ Your last ditch attempt at weaseling out of this is quickly thwarted the moment you turn your back.  

You wheeze as the heel of Paz’s palm shoves into your shoulder blade, the force of it sending you stumbling to the ground. “Paz—“

“Go on. Hit me,” he orders. You squeak, narrowly avoiding the well aimed kick that skims the top of your scalp. 

You scramble to your feet, skirting out of range of the oncoming right hook. “So you attack me instead?” 

“How do you expect to catch quarries who are bigger than you?” He presses. You hiss as the points of his knuckles dig into the meat of your shoulder. 

You dance out of reach and rub your arm, a dull throb flaring up in the muscle. “I dunno—electrocute them?”

“Not if they take you by surprise.” 

You screech as his knuckles skim your cheek. Adrenaline pierces you veins and you wildly throw a flaky punch that wouldn’t even impress a toddler. He catches your fist with ease, his entire hand dwarfing your clenched fingers. “You can do better than that.” 

You snarl and struggle to rip your hand back. “I’m a scrapper. I don’t fight.”

“No,” he retorts. You fall onto your ass as he abruptly lets go of your hand. “You’re a bounty hunter.” 

You roll your eyes. “Hardly—why can’t I just stay here?”

Although there’s nothing to see with that swatch of black covering his eyes, you can certainly feel the look he’s giving you. A deep sigh hisses through the vocoder. “You can stay here—“

A triumphant smile splits across your face—

“—but not without contributing where it’s due.”

You puff up your cheeks and let out a dismayed stream of air. “Booo—lame.”

He sighs again and helps you off the floor. “Even if you leave the Guild, what I’m teaching you is helpful.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say. “I’ll give you a call after I use your invaluable skills to beat up some thug.”

Paz ignores your comment and turns on his heel. “Let’s go through it again. This time use your front two knuckles instead of your whole fist.”

As your eyes land over the stretch of tight fighting fabric over his back an idea pops into your head. It’s a petty move but getting a punch in is fruitless—like trying to beat up a brick wall. You don’t fancy a broken hand and your knuckles are already bruised and swollen to the point where it’s hard to bend them. 

And so, without any forethought and with a running head start, you launch yourself onto him, your arms coiling around his neck. It does the job—takes him by surprise and makes him tip to the right. 

Aha! Yes!

Your reign of victory is short lived, however—

He latches onto your forearms strung around his neck and yanks. And much in the same way he threw Aeris like a sack of potatoes—you’re no different. For a short stretch of time that feels kriffing endless; you soar through the air, your directional whereabouts violently ripped out beneath you and equally nauseating in the same breath. 

Why you ever agreed to this—you don’t know.   

Your shoulder blade connects with the mat first, leaving behind a dull sting as you roll and tumble with uncontrollable momentum. Oh, yeah—you’ll feel that in the morning. 

Groaning, you thank the Maker that your body eventually settles into a miserable little pile of limbs and pain. But, it seems whatever higher power that lingers in the edges of the galaxy hasn’t decided to put you out of your misery just yet. 

A bulky shadow blocks out the dim lighting overhead, and for a brief anxiety ridden moment you’re afraid it’s Paz. You roll onto your back with a pathetic groan, a beg for mercy on the tip of your tongue—but as your eyes flutter open they’re met with an entirely different man. 

Din Djarin looms over you, his head cocked to the side as you blink in dumbfounded bewilderment. Ah, hell— 

You swallow, a furious heat bitting at your cheeks. “Uh…fine weather we’re having…”

“We’re inside,” he states with a brief glance up to the ceiling. 

You purse your lips. “Huh.”

With a pensive hum he offers his hand, you sigh and roll over, accepting his gloved hand. He hoists you up easily and adjusts your rumpled collar. “You ok?”

“Pfft, yeah,” you groan, rubbing your throbbing shoulder. “Never better.”

The low grumble of your name is a cross between disbelief and irritation. Din jerks his head, his attention zeroing in on Paz. “Are you trying to kill her?” 

“She isn’t made of glass.” 

“She is still recovering—“

Normally you’d intervene, but their bickering is tiring and it gives you the excuse to lie down. By the time one of them caves you’ve counted exactly one hundred and twelve weird ceiling stains. They should get that checked out.  

“Very well,” Paz snarls, cutting through your wandering thoughts. “You teach her.” 

Din scoffs, his shoulders drawn tight as he stomps over to your splayed out self. “Get up.”

“Geez, fine,” you grumble, not in the mood to test his patience further. “Since you asked so nicely.”

Later he’ll no doubt apologize but right now? He has to prove a point. Din cuts right to it, moves in close to place your clenched fists in the right stance and nudges at your feet until they’re a bit wider than hip distance. 

“You have to get in close with a bigger opponent,” he says, stepping into your space until your fists are close enough to touch his chest. “We don’t have much range here—easier to break our guard too.” 

“Right. And how would you suggest I do that?”

“You’re always beating me at cards.” Din says, tipping his head to the side. “You have a clever mind. Use it.” 

“But I always cheat.” You point out, dropping your guard to swat at a stray hair.   

He catches your wrists and returns them to where they ought to be. “Quick enough to get away with it.” 

You make a noise of uncertainty but do as you're told. Din takes a couple steps back and with a rough order you begin. 

He’s faster than Paz—bats at your guard in quick bursts and steps away when you attempt to hit back. It’s a dance almost—somehow elegant in its brutality of bruises and flashes of pain as you move around one another. Compared to Din, Paz is almost clumsy but unpredictable. Din—despite the rapidness of his attacks and evasiveness, becomes predictable.

He steps to to left—you follow. He rocks onto his toes to jab his fist forward and that’s where you find a break. Punching Din’s helmet won’t do you any good but catching the juncture of his shoulder with your elbow is completely feasible. Too bad that you’re not the only one with a clever mind.        

Din uses the momentum of your attack to catapult you to the ground—his own body rolling with you in order to capture you in a headlock of sorts. This sucks. After this you’ll never be setting foot in this Maker forsaken room again. 

Din tightens his elbow that’s looped around your throat as you squirm and flail, trapped against his chest. He grunts as your elbow digs into his ribs but holds steady and snakes his free arm across your front, pinning your limbs to your body in an unbreakable vice. All mobility is cut off as his knee pushes between your thighs, locking your leg out into an uncomfortable and frankly quite awkward angle. 

Inhaling a shaky breath, you arch as the crown of his helmet skims along the curve of your throat; the bite of beskar frigid and startling against your flushed skin. You can see his visor out of the corner of your eye; glittering and dark like the polished obsidian on Black Spire and endless like the greedy maw of a black hole. 

Your breath hitches as he shifts and curls his head closer to your ear. His voice rumbles low and deep through his chest and vibrates against the delicate cartilage. “Yield.” 

However much your pride wrestles with the sensible part of your brain, it’s all for naught as you jerk your head in defeat.  

In retrospect you should’ve said something—used your voice or made some kinda sound because suddenly Din’s forearm digs alarmingly hard into your windpipe. He read the stuttered jerk of your head as another pitiful act of defiance but no. Nope. 

Here you are—asphyxiating.   

Not exactly what you had in mind, being strangled by a Mandalorian and all—but a chokehold where you could very well die was not it. 

Fuzzy darkness begins to shade the corners of your vision, lightheadedness and a curious warmth that prickles down your spine settling low in your belly. A raspy gasp manages to slip through your blocked off airway, and stars why does this feel good?   

“Din—”

Paz’s sharp bark is distant above the ringing in your ears and it all stops.

You gulp in air that burns your throat like refined fire whiskey—hunched over the mat as a large palm rubs soothing circles over your upper back. You cough and roll over, sounding like a dying animal run over by a speeder then hit with a spiked club to polish it off. 

You’re quickly herded into Paz’s arms and pulled into his lap. Still wheezing and attempting to recover lost oxygen, whatever Din is trying to say translates into an indiscernible hum against the ringing in your ears.  

“I’m fine,” you mutter, though neither of them care to listen. Like bristling wolves, snapping at each other’s heels.  

“Apologize to her,” there’s not so much as a centimeter of room to argue. “Now.”           

It’s nice of Paz you suppose—defending your honor and what not, but you’re not a vengeful person. It was an honest mistake and you want to explain that so Din quits looking like a kicked puppy, yet the sudden touch over your ankle stops you. All the times Din has initiated contact it’d been a friendly pat to your shoulder or ruffling you hair, and while touching your ankle isn’t exactly scandalous it’s certainly an odd place to put your hand on. 

Your fingers clutch Paz’s shirt as you eye the man lingering at the bottom of your feet, his gloved thumb unconsciously rubbing patterns into the exposed skin between your boot and your pant leg. “Cyare—I’m sorry.” 

You blink and lick your lips. Interesting. “I-I don’t know what that word means.”

His hand inches higher, resting on the swell of your calf. “Sweetheart…darling…loved one—“ 

There’s a shift—a dark undercurrent that none of you should be dipping your toes into. There’s a million and one things to say or do to sever this at the root, but are you going to? Nah. 

Din’s thumb now rests over your knee, goosebumps following in his wake. “Should I keep going?” 

It too hot—stuffy with both of their heavy stares locked on your flushed face. You squirm and glance up at Paz who only offers an impassive stare. Great.   

“I can make it up to you,” Din continues, his hand stationary—a warm weight even through the fabric of your pants. “If you let me.” 

Your mouth feels drier than the desert on Jakku. This…nothing good could come out of what Din is hinting at. This is uncharted territory—launching yourself into the great unknown without any idea of what’ll fester and grow if you agree. 

It’s not like it hasn’t crossed your mind—it’s just…it’s never been both of them at the same time. These men are short-tempered, an open flame to jet fuel with deeply seated ire woven into the very fabric of their beings. You’ve barely scratched the surface on the inner workings of their mutual hostility, but you’re bright enough to question if this will make it worse. Tinder and brittle twigs feeding and enabling the hungry flames of rivalry to spiral and consume with chaotic brilliance of a dying star—

But, oh—

Isn’t it worth taking the risk? 

You suck in a grounding breath and slowly extend your leg that Din touches, gingerly skimming the toe of your shoe along the inseam of his inner thigh. “H-how would you…make it up to me?”

Din preens at your answer and shuffles closer, lifting your legs so that they rest in his lap. Devotion drips off his words like a fine liquor as he toys with the laces on your boots. “Anything—say it and it’s yours.”    

Sparks of molten heat race down your spine and metastasize in your lower belly, spreading through each vein and artery like a some sort of invasive ivy. You spare a look up at Paz as he shifts.      

“Go ahead, girl,” Paz assures. “Answer him.” 

It’s an unspoken, buzzing sort of thing like the static air before a storm, crackling and surging with pent up energy. You all know the implications of what’s to come—but it’s your words, quiet and steady that irons that nail into your coffin.

“Take me like you mean it.” 

The next few moments pass in a dizzying blur, a mess of anticipation as your shoes are yanked off, your pants following soon after and tossed into some unknown corner of the room. Paz helps you out of your shirt, a shiver wracking through your body from the chill, leaving you bare save for your underthings. Yet the warmth that seeps through his shirt and his hands that linger over your ribcage do a lovely job at making up for the cold.

Din shuffles closer and brings his fingers up to cup the side of your face, lowering his head to rest the crown of his helmet on your forehead. “Wanna touch you.” 

Your breath hitches as Paz’s hands sweep up your torso, cupping and kneading your breasts. “Y-you already are touching me, Din." 

Paz snorts as the rough leather of his gloves scrape over your skin and unhook your bindings. You hardly hear Din over your own whine as Paz rolls your hardened nipples between a forefinger and thumb. 

“I want to feel you—without the gloves,” Din clarifies, fighting to keep your attention on him. “Will you let me?”  

Maker that shouldn’t even be a question. You moan out your approval, delighted that both of them decide to slip off the padded fabric. Din touches your bare thigh the same moment Paz returns his hands to your tits and it’s exhilarating. The rasp of their bare palms against your flesh is addicting—something so foreign and warm compared to their usual armor and thick layered clothing. 

You arch into Paz’s hand as it curls around the base of your throat, a tentative pressure but still heavy. “You’d let us do anything, wouldn’t you? Needy little thing.”

“Yes,” you croak, already debauched and falling apart at the seams. “Anything.”

You’re all too happy to fade away in the embrace of the larger man but the other participant is far from letting that slide. Din grabs your hand, guiding it towards the front of his trousers, the drawstrings already loose and easy to pull aside. He groans and twitches as your fingertips flirt along his navel, then curl over the waistband, tugging his pants the rest of the way down to pool around his knees. 

You reach for the already impressive outline of his cock pressing against his boxers, but Paz cupping your cunt through your underwear just before you touch Din is distracting. You gasp and arch as Paz digs the heel of his palm against your clit, electrifying ecstasy zipping down your spine with each touch. 

There’s a twinge of guilt after Din huffs and drags your limp wrist back to his cock, this time encouraging you to palm him by guiding your actions with his own hand until you lazily oblige. Din’s quiet grunts, gravely against the vocoder do nothing but throw more jet fuel to the fire inside your belly. The growing urge to actually touch him gnaws and corrodes the forefront of your brain. With a firm yank his boxers are quick to join his trousers and Maker—

Fuck—

Will he even fit?

Din is thick, rosy brown and flushed at the tip and beginning to curl towards his bellybutton. A bead of liquid shines at the tip, dribbling down the underside as he wraps his fist around the base of his length. He gives himself a languid stroke before he, once again, reminds your hand of what it’s supposed to be doing. Din is searing in your palm, molten and stiffening to hardened steel in your grip.   

“You look so fuckin’ pretty like this,” Din hisses as his head rolls back onto his shoulders. “S-so pretty holding my cock.”

Your desperation tears at your insides, insatiable and Maker— you wanna taste him. You want to hear every little stuttered moan and feel each twitch of his hips as he claims your mouth as his own.    

But before you’re able to ask Din if he’d be willing to fuck your throat, Paz grips your knee and slings your leg over his thigh, murmuring praise as he peels off your underwear. Paz’s hand snakes down to your pussy and runs two thick fingers through your already slick cunt, then delicately parts your folds. 

It’s like a fucking bomb going off as his thumb grazes over your swollen clit. His forearm locks tight around your waist, keeping you in place as you arch and tremble. Paz is feather light and teasing, as he strokes over the little bundle of nerves in a painstakingly slow rhythm. 

“Paz—“ 

He nudges your cheek with his helmet and chuckles. “You’re so sensitive, vaar’ika. Such lovely noises too.”  

Paz trades in his light touches for using his two fingers instead. They form a relaxed ‘v’ shape, trapping your clit in between the digits as he massages in a steady up and down motion. You cry out, every nerve shocked and flooded with saccharine pleasure, shoving you so treacherously close to that precarious edge of release.      

You have no fucking chance as a different set of fingers, leaner in length but just as bulky, carefully prod at your entrance. Din’s pointer finger slides into your cunt, quickly adding a second as your core clenches and stretches for him. The dual sensations over your clit and Din’s fingers steadily pumping and curling inside you send you hurling into that dazzling white-hot pleasure.     

Throwing your head back, you cry out—a jumbled mess of their names or just nonsense— pleasure crackling out from your core and all the way down your legs. Your cunt tightens like a vice around Din’s digits, your legs twitching as your high dips into prickly overstimulation. You whine, and swat at Paz’s hand, Din pulling out his own fingers a moment later and wiping your wetness on the inside of your thigh. 

Your head rests in the crook of Paz’s shoulder as your breath fans across the side of his helmet, fogging up the metal where the blue paint is chipped and scraped away. The shirt he wears smells a bit like sweat but the underlying scent of him is comforting—worn leather and something crisp, like fresh laundry. You don’t mean for the words to slip out—

You know better than that, but everything feels muddled and silly and, and, and—

“I wish I could kiss you.”  

It’s like dousing ice cold water on a pile of smoldering coals. A silence, petrifying and like the inhale before jumping off a cliff and into a rocky sea, ensues. Stupid, stupid, stupid—  

Paz shatters the fragile suspense with a rich laugh that burns away all the icy worry making itself a home in your ribcage. He moves his arm up, his fingers gripping your jaw to fix your gaze onto the other Mandalorian. “You want his mouth on you too?”  

You whimper and nod, but it isn’t enough. 

“Use your voice vaar’ika,” Paz hums, pressing the crown of his helmet against your cheek. “Tell us want you want.” 

“I-fuck—” Paz’s fingertips sneak up your torso, rough callous catching deliciously on your skin. “I wan’t your mouth on me. B-both of you.” 

Paz chuckles and releases his hold on your chin. “You’ll have to be blindfolded, sweet girl.”

Din scoffs, a harsh crackle through the vocoder. “Like she’d want to see your face anyway.”

“Please,” you mewl, turning your head to curl into Paz’s neck. It’s not ideal, but it’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make. “I don’t care. I need—“

“Patience, little one,” Paz purrs, rubbing up and down your bare sides in a soothing manner. All it does is stoke the flames. “You’ll get what you want.” 

Paz shifts, reaching for your abandoned shirt and stars—

You can feel his cock, firmer then tempered durasteel and poking into your lower back. Oh, hell—these men are going to ruin you. 

You’re nudged forward, your vision going dark once your shirt is securely tied around your head. The knot traps a few hairs that pull sharp against your scalp but the measly pain is worth it. Oh so worth it.  

“Is it too tight?” You hear Din ask, concern lacing his gravely vocals. 

You wave your hand in dismissal. “S’fine.”

“Cant see anything either, right?” 

You squirm, your patience spreading thin. “Din, please.”

“Fine.” There’s no bite to his tone and under different circumstances you’d have more composure. Acknowledge that they’re putting their religion, their whole being into your hands—a fragile trust that could so easily be shattered. 

Your ears pick up their subtle movements, their helmets landing onto the thin mat with soft thunks. With bated breath you wait for them to jump into action, seize every spare moment to taste your skin and breathe the same air. But—

“You need a haircut, vod.”

“And you need to shave.” Retorts Din with bitter indignation. 

“It’s hardly even stubble.” He chortles. You giggle and twist away as he scrapes his prickly cheek up and down your neck. “Besides—she likes it.” 

There’s another lull, and with the blindfold everything is amplified—the quick and quiet breathing of Din on your right and the slide of fabric against skin as Paz shifts. Your attention is captured by Din’s bare palm, warm and calloused like weathered leather left out in the afternoon sun. He caresses the outside of your thigh in smooth, longing strokes, enraptured by the softness of your skin. You whimper and let your leg fall open, exposing more of your thigh for his curious exploration. 

The sudden touch on your cheek is jarring. You know Paz is there—it’s not an easy thing to forget the solid chest you’re leaning against but it’s hard to focus. Difficult to settle on one thought before it slips away like grains of sand between a clenched fist. Paz’s touch is heavier than Din’s, ambitious and greedy but…mindful. Even as his fingers spread along your jaw and drag you into a deep, mouthwatering kiss. It’s…stars—   

There’s nothing that can describe this. No word that could ever hold a candle up to the way his lips, plush and soft, move against yours. His nose brushes against your cheek as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss, his warm tongue sliding against the seam of your bottom lip. 

You whine and bury your hand into his hair as Paz groans, a low rumble in his throat. You wonder what color it is, but carding your fingers through the curls atop his head suffices for now.

Your curiosity is abruptly ended as Din’s hand snakes around your forearm. You’re forcibly yanked away, only to be met with another pair of lips. Din murmurs an apology at the sting of his teeth bumping into your upper lip, but the pain is hardly the first thing on your mind. 

Din’s kiss is devouring—  

Scalding and bright—the galaxy, a thousand suns, all there ever will be and all that ever was. The way his lips move against yours is a devastatingly sharp contrast to the steady, syrupy sweet kiss Paz offers. Desperate and eager to surround you in his own arms—steal away any lingering thought and replace it with him. Din Djarin—  

You gasp as Din’s teeth nibble and pull on your bottom lip, only a moment before he surges closer, wrapping his hand around your jaw to hold it open as he licks deep into your mouth. Breaking for air, Din tangles his fingers into your hair at the base of your neck and yanks, baring the column of your throat. His travels down, the tender kisses morphing into teasing nips and lingering sucks that’ll turn into tender bruises in the morning. 

Din hovers over your breasts, his heated breath and cooling saliva the catalyst to the goosebumps that rush over your skin. He lightly tugs on your nipple using his teeth, then plants a sweet kiss over your sternum.   

“Can I taste you?” Din murmurs, his lips ghosting over your flesh. “Maker—wanna put my mouth on you.” 

“Din—“ A different set of lips latching onto the juncture of your neck and hijacks your train of thought. Wipes your mind clean until Paz is the sole thing you can consciously focus on. 

Paz laves his tongue over the shell of your ear and urges you to lean back against him once more. Your nose scrapes against his stubble as you tuck your head into the crook of his neck, his hips lazily rolling his hardened cock into your backside. 

“Or…” Paz rumbles, capturing your hand and interlacing your fingers with his. You marvel at the sheer size of his palm—astounded still when he leads his and your hands to palm his cock. “I could give you this. Fuck your pretty little cunt until you’re screaming for me.”

It’s a punch to the gut. Why the fuck do you have to choose? You squirm as Din points his tongue over your nipple then sucks it into his mouth. 

Working through the fog in your head, the answer is clearer than fucking crystal. Because who in their right mind would turn down a Mandalorian’s request to eat you out? Not you, that’s for sure. “Din—want your mouth.”

Din huffs in triumph and slips between your legs that part to accommodate his broad shoulders, leaving no patch of bare skin untouched and worshiped. You shiver as his tongue circles around your bellybutton then retreats. Din settles his head beside your knee and mouths a kiss there.  

You whine his name and buck your hips, heart beating wildly in your ears. The teasing is unbearable and, stars—if he doesn’t start now— 

He nibbles on the inside of your thigh, laving his warm tongue over each mark he leaves behind, buffering the sting of his teeth. Din snake his hands under your ass, hooking your knees over his shoulders as he heaves your cunt closer to his mouth. Din’s thumbs part your soaking pussy, his breath hot fanning over your cunt. His tongue his scalding—like liquid velvet as he dips the tip of his tongue from the base of your slit all the way up to your clit. 

Din sucks on the little bundle of nerves, rolling his tongue until you’re crying out, molten pleasure zipping through you. He grunts as your fingers tangle into his hair—fuck. Fuck, you need more.   

Arching into his mouth, all thoughts are obliterated; nothing but the warmth of his tongue, and his lips, devouring you as if he were a man seconds from death and you’re his saving grace. That frenzied desperation lingers on the edges of his movements like he’s afraid you’ll fade into smoke—but you’re not going anywhere. Not even a million credits could convince you to push Din’s head away. 

He sinks two fingers into your clenching hole and curls his fingers, stroking and curling his fingertips to make you sing. Zeros in on that little spot that causes the involuntary twitches of your leg and wrenches embarrassing, high pitched mewls that fill the room. You’re careening towards your high, the sensitivity of your last orgasm amping up the influx of pleasure. 

“Shit—Din. Close—I’m so close,” you gasp, pulling his hair tight enough that you know it must hurt. He makes no sign that it does, just groans and buries his tongue into your dripping hole, licking alongside his fingers that shovel more of your wetness into his mouth. 

Your release unfurls through your body like sticky molasses—smoldering embers that seep into each limb until they’re heavier than lead. Fuck—it’s so hard to think and at this rate your brain is as good as gone.   

You pay only a fraction of attention to Din as he kisses his way back up your body and lands a final one over your lips. His thumb grazes over your chin, his gravelly words of praise cutting through some of that foggy haze, how good you were, how fucking delicious you tasted when you came on his tongue. You taste your own arousal on his mouth as he noses your cheek and captures your lips in another kiss.           

“Are you done?” Paz asks dryly, much too barbed to be thrown your way. You groan when Paz jostles your limp body as he hoists you back into his lap.

“Just starting, actually,” Din quips. “Why don’t you hand her back over? I’ve got some more things I wanna try.” 

Paz scoffs and secures a heavy arm around your middle. “Greed will get you nowhere.” 

“Neither will your arrogance.” 

“Shut up—both of you,” you interrupt. Your voice is raw and choppy but it does the job. “Just fuck me already.”

For now their little spat is sidelined—it’s not worth ripping off that bandage of a temporary truce. There’s a chaste moment of quiet, like they’re considering tearing into each other’s throats instead, but with a touch to Paz’s thigh the standoff fizzles out. 

“We need to work on your manners,” Paz suggests, curling his large, calloused hand around your neck in a loose hold. “I believe it’s please fuck me.” 

Maybe if you weren’t practically a pile of brainless goo, you’d argue. See how far you can push—though this time you fold. “Please fuck me. P-please—I need it.” 

Seemingly satisfied with your answer; Paz wedges a hand between your bodies to grip his cock and run the tip through your folds, soaked from you own wetness and Din’s saliva. The head of his member nudges at your entrance, and wether it’s his size or the fact you can’t see anything—you panic. 

Your hand shoots out, nails harpooning into the meat of his forearm. “W-wait—you’re too b-big.”  

Paz freezes and moves you up his lap and presses a kiss over you hairline. “We can stop. Just say—“

“N-no, I’m fine,” you assure, planting an apologetic peck on his stubbled jaw. Stopping is the last thing you want to do—it was just…overwhelming. A sensory overload testing the very fringes of your being. “Go slow?”

You feel his head bob in compliance as he moves you back to where you’re hovering over his cock. You relax this time, not as many alarm bells clanging through your head as your cunt flutters around the fat tip and then that glorious, first thick inch. Paz’s thumb bumps over your throbbing clit, coaxing your pussy to take him further. 

“Yeah, that’s it vaar’ika,” he grunts, his breath fanning over your neck in quick pants. “Taking my cock so fucking well. So nice and pretty.”

Your pussy flutters, fresh waves of arousal hot and burning.You nearly keel over when Paz starts shallowly rocking his hips, easing your body the rest of the way down his length until the back of your thighs touch his. Maker—how the hell is he all the way inside? You can feel him in your fucking guts—         

“See?” Paz purrs. He sucks a bruise into the meat of your shoulder and pushes his palm against your lower stomach, making the fit even tighter. “Fits fucking perfect.”

The noise your cunt makes pulling out and the debauched moan that filters through his vocal chords is obscene. If anyone where to walk by, well—it’s certainly not training that’s going on, for the better lack of words. 

Paz holds true to his word—keeps his pace limited to deep, languid thrusts that brush up against something that makes your whole body shake—like strumming a golden chord molded to a musician’s fingers. Fuck—he’s doing all the work too. Lifting you by the swell of your hips and pulling you down onto his cock with a rough buck of his hips. 

Abruptly, he slows to a gentle rocking—quick to lock you in place as you thrash and roll your hips. “Paz—n-no. Keep going. You n-need to—“

Paz silences your please with a wet, open mouthed kiss. “Our friend looks lonely. Why don’t you use that pretty mouth and suck his cock?” 

Din. 

You hear the man curse in Mando’a, probably some stab at Paz—

But with a pat to your outer thigh, you don’t need any more prompting—you’d give up your left hand to get a chance to suck him off. With the help of Paz, you’re eased onto your hands and knees, shocks of white-hot pleasure zipping through your core at the change of angle. Like this Paz is seated deeper inside, stabbing into each spot that makes you sing.    

Fuck—your arms are shaking—only able to hold yourself up for half a click and then you’re sinking face first into the floor, ass in the air as he fucks into you. Paz clicks his tongue and wraps his arm around your front, pulling you back up from your slumped position. 

“I told you to suck his cock, girl. Not take a nap.” Paz accentuates his words with heavy, well measured thrusts—the kind of force you know will leave your whole lower half throbbing and sore in the aftermath. 

You whine as Paz grabs a hold of your jaw, digging into the tender joints until your mouth falls open. “Good. Keep it like that.” 

Paz’s hand falls away, replaced by a softer touch. The pads of Din’s fingers hook under your chin, guiding and tempting you nearer to what rests between his legs, hot and heavy and large.       

You feel the tip of his cock, flushed and pulsing, rest on your bottom lip. You lap up the beads of sticky precum with kitten licks that morph into suckling the entire head. Din grunts out your name and tangles his hand into your hair as you tongue at the ridged frenulum. He never forces you to swallow down more of him—lets you cradle the first few inches in the wet warmth of your mouth and languidly roll the pad of your tongue around him. 

You want to take him deeper, let Din fuck your throat raw, but your jaw already aches. Your lips are pulled tight around his shaft, drool dribbling down your chin and landing on the mat below. You’re not sure if you could take more of him without the danger of your teeth catching or dislocating your jaw. So you manage like this—hollowing out your cheeks and and using the momentum of Paz’s thrusts to pleasure Din.          

It’s frustrating—it must be each time you let his cock slip out of your mouth to breathe or the fact Din isn’t able to fucking fit his cock into your mouth. Annoying that you aren’t able to think properly to help him out a bit ore when that said brain is being fucked straight outta you, put through the wringer and then body slammed onto duracrete. 

Din cups your cheek, strokes over your skin with his thumb and maneuvers himself out of your mouth. You whine and lean into his palm, his touch addictive like smoldering coals in the dead of winter.    

“You want me there instead of him?” Din purrs, using the tips of his index and middle fingers to tilt your chin and drag you into an open mouthed kiss. “Fuck you like you deserve.” 

The profane imagery of Din between your legs instead makes you clench tight. It only takes a couple seconds and a few more feverish kisses before you’re nodding to his request. Paz mutters a swear, hesitates, and reluctantly pulls out, leaving your cunt empty and aching with need. 

Din, however, is speedy—quick to hoard you to himself and yank your legs over his hips so that you’re draped on his lap. He jumps straight to the point, no fancy maneuver or drawn out teasing—just grabs the base of his cock, slides the flushed tip between your folds and sinks into your cunt. Even after your pussy had been stretched and molded around Paz’s length, you struggle to take Din’s entire cock into your aching center. It’s easier than Paz but, Maker—not by much. 

You whine, harpooning your fingernails into his shoulder once he bottoms out. Din snarls a curse and latches his teeth onto the juncture between your neck and shoulder, prickly pain shooting directly to your belly. “Fucking tight. H-how—fuck.”

There’s no time to adjust before Din sets a pace, harsh and desperate—his hands digging into the flesh of your ass for better leverage. Each roll of his hips borders erratic, taking his pleasure without thought—intent on reaching his own end before it could be yanked out from under him. Din’s staggered exhales below your ear are interlaced with subdued moans that start low in his ribcage then dip into a higher, airy pitch. A delicate sound you’ll guard closer to your chest than any secret you possess for the rest of your life—precious and yours. 

Din turns his head to steal a kiss. “You feel fuck—fucking good. Wanna feel you cum around me. S-squeezed so fucking hard around my fingers—“

You choke out a groan and feel your arousal begin to drip down your thighs—hear the thrusts of his cock into your cunt become shamefully wetter. Heat sizzles down each vertebrae in your spine, burning up each and every cell with the brilliance of a wildfire. Stars, this is gonna destroy you.      

Din’s hand sneaks between your bodies and rubs tight, little circles over you swollen clit. There’s no build up to your orgasm—just a blinding surge of blistering warmth that knocks you off your feet and steals away all the air left in your lungs. Your nails dig into Din’s back as you shake and grapple for a foothold in your own consciousness—the steady warmth of his body a much needed anchor for the madness that threatens to drown you.  

“Good girl,” Din praises, pace faltering from just how tight your pussy squeezes and flutters around his cock. “S-such a fucking good girl for me.”     

Regaining some semblance of control, you realize he’s still fucking going—still rock solid and throbbing, fucking you through the aftershocks of your release. Your arousal turns sharp, like rough cotton over a fresh sunburn as it dips into overstimulation. It’s not unpleasant but Din has to slow his hips to a delicate roll for you to recover.            

In the time it takes to inhale, a different calloused hand kneads into your lower back then smoothes up your spine. A second later you feel the scrape of Paz’s stubble prick along your exposed shoulder as his tongue drags along your sweat dampened skin—all the way up the curve of your neck and ending at the shell of your ear. 

You’re not sure if it’s intentional, but as Paz crowds closer the tip of his cock pokes at your other hole. With a surprised mewl, you tense and shy away—but he follows, molds his chest against your back to sandwhich you in. The hand gripping your bicep jumps to your neck and pulls your head against his shoulder. 

Two of Paz’s fingers dip down the curve of your ass and brush along the puckered skin—far less jarring this time. “Do you want to be fucked here too?” 

Maker—

You’re gonna fucking explode.  

Stuffed to the brim already, it’s hard to imagine Paz cramming himself in along with Din. A little red light blares in some corner of your mind but it’s quickly soothed as Paz plants soft kisses over your cheek and jaw. You trust him—there’s no reason to think he’ll hurt you or push you to the point of pain.

You catch his mouth with a kiss and rock your hips back. “Y-yeah, ok. I trust you.” 

You feel his smile curl against your cheek. “Don’t worry vaar’ika—I’ll take care of you.”

Paz strokes your bottom lip with his thumb and kisses the crown of your hairline as you sink into him. With his ring and middle finger, he pushes past the seam of your lips. “Suck.”

You obey, sealing your lips around his two digits and coating them in your saliva. Paz pulls them out with a pop and moves them between your legs, and with the added wetness dripping from your cunt, the first finger is easy enough. The second and third have you gasping as he scissors them and stretches your tight hole wider. You claw your nails into Din’s shirt—and he’s no better—Din’s own hands are clamping around your hips, struggling to keep still and biting back moans each time your cunt constricts. 

Your hips begins to meet the thrusts of Paz’s fingers as your body familiarizes the feel of him there. It’s a deep thrill that rushes up through your spinal cord—much different from anything you’ve felt before. 

“You like this, don’t you?” Paz goads, chuckling when you whine as he extracts his fingers. “I think you’re ready to take my cock, yeah?”

You shudder and nod, your voice no more than a squeak as it pilfers out. Paz strokes the top of your head and tips you forward into Din’s eager arms as Paz slicks up his length in a mix of precum and your dripping arousal. He touches the swell of you ass in warning, lines himself up with your hole and wedges the tip of his cock inside of you.     

Involuntary tears dampen your makeshift blindfold as Paz buries himself deeper, his rumbling tone urging you to relax—relax even though your mind is drowning in an ocean of arousal and swirling emotions you have no hope to pin down and analyze. It’s for the best—thankful as Paz bottoms out that it wrenches you back to a feasible reality you’re able to manage.

“Shit—I-I’m gonna die—“ You sob, writhing at just how full you are. But there’s nowhere to fucking go—     

“Easy,” Din breathes, and you wonder if he’s said it to keep his own head on his shoulders. “Easy.”

Din’s gravelly rasp cuts through the fog in your head, and stars—you sound like you’re fucking dying. Your wheezy breaths and lightheadedness would certainly suggest that—but no…no, you’re fine. Better than fine.     

A rush so acute and devastating launches up your spine as Din’s patience cracks. He experimentally rolls his hips and that’s the end of it. You’re swallowed up in that riptide you fought so hard to avoid—fuck. You won’t be the same after this. How can you?  

You can feel them both, separated by a thin wall as they sprint towards their own highs. You’re never once left empty—Din reaches the end of you as Paz pulls out and while there’s not exactly any finesse involves it’s the best fucking thing you’ve felt in your entire life. There’s no bickering—no teasing and you’re struck with an idea that makes you clench tight around both of them. You wouldn’t mind if this was the way they decided to settle scores or finally see eye to eye.   

This time you can’t discern your high—just a constant overflow of ecstasy and dazzling arousal like an imploding supernova. You cry their names—sob and shake in their hold with such fervor that Paz traps you tighter between them to keep you still.  

“Fuck—you get so fucking tight,” Paz growls, blunt nails digging into your hips. “And so fucking wet.”

His fingers touch the inside of your thigh and stars—he’s right. “I get to fuck your cunt next time—see how much you’ll drip for me.” 

Even if the blindfold were off—there’d be nothing to see but a white wash of nothing. Blinded by pleasure and bursting at the seems. 

Jealous, Din steals your breath away with a kiss, licking and nipping at your swollen lips until you whine his name. His jagged pants fan across your chin—chapped lips and patchy facial hair tickling across your bottom lip as you breath the same air. 

Din whispers your name like a prayer, his fingers clutching tight around your thighs as his pace starts to flounder to choppy jerks. “Shit. I-I’m close—“

Your fingers twist into his hair. “Yeah—ok baby. Let go.”

Din’s teeth sink into the base of your throat and cums. His seed coats your insides—hot and copious and fucking shit—if there’s a next time you want him to cum in your mouth.      

You don’t get time to relish Din’s stuttered gasps of your name, laced with praise and a show of a tender and bleeding heart before Paz is gathering up your hair in a tight fist and jerking your head up. “You—you want me to cum too? Say it.” 

Without a breath of hesitation you beg for it, cry and arch into him. It does the trick—

Paz is loud—shouts a thunderous roar and buries his cock deep into your hole. Din is still recovering from the aftershocks of his release when Paz pulls out after what seems like ages pumping you full. His cock no longer there to plug you up, his cum begins to dribble out and mix with the mess between your legs. Your legs shake and you wobble--crying out as Din slips out, your body dreadfully empty and aching.     

You're lowered to the mat by Din and if you weren't still trying to formulate words, you'd thank them. Lips dart over your cheeks and hairline, and for once nothing needs to be said. It’s nice...the radiating warmth from their bodies and the simmering flush through you body is something you could get used to. But you’re no stranger to the shifting tides of the future. 

You shrug it off.    

Your eyes are heavy and with one of them stroking your hair and the other your thigh, you drift to sleep. Later—later all unspoken things and disastrous words can be dealt with tomorrow. You must be dreaming when it’s said--careless and bold, but the words nestle into your heart and sprouts with fear. 

“You love her, don't you?” 

translation:

vaar’ika--pipsqueak 

or’dinni--dumbass idiot 

vod--brother/comrade 

tag list: 

@bobafctts​ @djxrxn​ @teaofpeach​ @corrupt-fvcker​ @nelba​ @datmando​ @ben-is-a-hoe​ @dreams-like-clockwork​ @aerynwrites​ @auty-ren​ @huliabitch​ @anxiety-riddled-mando​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @trippedmetaldetector​ 

[lighthousegod]

This isn't miraculous related, just a vent. Using this site like reddit cause reddit sucks.

So like. Hear me out here.

I've had some shit friends before. Like, the gaslight, gatekeep, getawayfromme kind. And I ended that relationship, and the friend I have an issue with now is WORLDS better than the toxic ones I've had in the past. So trust me when I say I know this could be worse.

However,

Every time I talk to this friend I just get SO pissed off. She has PTSD, as well as OCD, and she just got taken off of some medication a few weeks ago, which has made things really hard for her. And I've been trying to be patient and be there for her. But I'm about to be at my mf limit y'all.

So the main issue is the complaints. Usually, I dont mind complaining, I'm pretty pessimistic myself so I do understand. It's hard not to. But god, every conversation we have is about how horrible her life is. Any time we talk, it always wraps back around to how "her brain hates her" and she can't catch a break. It's exhausting.

It's pretty clear that shes not lying, though. Something really is wrong. She has been missing class cause she has trouble making herself get out of bed, and her grades are steadily dropping. I know she doesn't want that and really beats herself up about it. And I have empathy for her, because I really do understand. I'm diagnosed with depression myself, and man, it takes me a LONG time to get myself ready in the mornings for that very reason. I take a lot of steps to make sure I have no other choice but to get out of bed. I even tried to share some of those strategies with her, like setting your alarm or phone far away from where you sleep so you have to at least get up to turn it off. Of course, she provided an excuse to why she cannot do that.

Now, more recently its gotten worse. I can't tell if I'm fed up or if she's gone downhill, or both. To preface, we spend a LOT of time with each other. We're both in college, and we're basically each others only friends. We knew each other in high school, so this isnt a new friendship. I could go on for another essay length post ab how I wish I would've forced myself to make friends at the beginning of the year instead of relying on her, but that's not what this is about.

So, she has OCD. She also has a lot of health issues, like allergies and asthma and all that. Pre-serum steve rogers comes to mind, except not that severe, of course. So, with these things combined, she's become a bit of a hypochondriac. Any time she has a cold, it's basically the end of the world. She'll convince herself she has a fever even if she hasn't taken her temperature, and hole herself up inside her room saying she's too sick to walk. Of course, when it all comes down to it, she usually doesn't have anything specific wrong with her, just a bad cold. Or maybe nothing at all. Now, I should preface that with this pandemic, I am certainly not saying she shouldn't be cautious. However, at this point, she has been tested and she is indeed negative for covid. She didn't even have a fever. And yet, I am still eating lunch alone, like I have been for days. I'm still receiving texts about how miserable she is for having to do her laundry or attend class in her state. I'm not her, so I can't say that this sickness is being blown out of proportion or not, but man is it exhausting anyway.

This situation where she leaves me to fend for myself for days, complaining the whole time, only to come back and have me by her side to keep her company, has become a trend. It's hard to let her wallow in her dorm alone like I do, because I'm usually so sick of sitting with my own thoughts that I take any opportunity to have some human interaction. If she's done self-isolating, I'm there. Even if I leave her company feeling worse than before. This is a weird issue to deal with as an introvert, so I'm navigating is as well as I can.

The last issue I have is the one I'm the most unsure about. This is because, as much as I've been complaining about her, she is actually a good friend to me most of the time. She is one of the only people that has ever let me talk to her about my problems, and recognized them as real problems instead of dramatics. For a while, I thought our relationship was strong, considering how many times we had talked about our respective traumas to each other. I truly can't thank her enough for letting me talk through some hard times over message with her.

But it's been a lot different lately. When I talk about my issues, it always circles back to hers. Her past is horrible, and the reason for her ptsd, so I completely support her talking about it openly instead of internalizing it. But man, she talks about it a LOT. I think its partly my fault, as I have trouble controlling my tone when talking about my mental health, past, etc. Its hard for me to be vulnerable like that, so I usually have a sort of neutral, emotionless tone. Even leaning towards the lighthearted side sometimes. Because of this, I assume she thinks its fine to talk about her problems too, because I dont sound upset. But when she brings up her issues, it does usually end up with her being sad or angry and me replying with a lot of "yeah, that's awful" and "man that really sucks, why would he do that to you." Its not that she DOESN'T listen to me, like I said, I do talk about my problems to her. It just feels disingenuous when the conversation always ends in us talking about her trauma, even if I started it by opening up about my own. And because I talk about mine some too, it feels wrong to tell her I'm not in a good place mentally to talk about hers. I'm really not in such a bad place that I cant handle her talking about her past, or even her present struggles. But it feels like mine are just- idk, overlooked? (Not to mention, any time I've confronted her about these things she apologizes profusely, but ends by telling me she's already internalized what I've said to her, and that she needs to talk to her therapist. Of course, she covers it with a lighthearted, self deprecating tone. But I still feel like shit. And somehow, she's the victim again.)

I've been struggling a lot lately, with a lot of similar issues (depression especially, although I have mental illnesses that she doesn't share, and vice versa. I realize our situations are not the same.) And I've even told her, or tried to. I know that people deal with depression in all different forms, but it's hard not to feel a bit of resentment when she complains about not being able to get out of bed. Like, god, I know. I really, really do. I have to scare myself awake with my alarm and force myself out of bed to turn it off. I have to wake up such a long time before my class starts because I get stalled with every step I take. So much of my mornings are spent staring at the floor in a loop of thoughts about how badly I want to get back in my bed and pretend I don't exist. But, lo and behold, I get to class. I cant afford to miss. And I know skipping class isn't good, it feels awful, I know that guilt well. But still, listening to her complain about not going to class feels like listening to someone complain about not being able to run into fire because they're not fireproof. No one's fucking fireproof. But still, here I am, covered in burns every day. Listening to someone whine about how horrible it is to watch everything burn from their window.

No, I don't feel the guilt of not trying. But that doesn't mean it's easy. That doesn't mean I come out unscathed.

[quidfree]

prompts,.,, fem tdbk and a date gone very wrong ? ❤️

ohhhh my god anon. pump this shit directly into my veins i love this whole premise let’s go. also all inspired by whatever the fuck horikoshi was doing in this 

just so everyone is on the same page here, it is not a fucking date.

it’s lunch. a singular lunch. people do that shit all the time. even katsuki does lunch, sometimes. she went to that semi-shitty diner place with kirishima that one time when the food hall was shut because some dumbass first year exploded into goo or whatever. and todoroki does lunch, too- her and deku were on some shitty lunch date like a week ago, as evidenced by deku’s even shittier selfie of them having a grand old time doing whatever the fuck they do alone.

fuck, not a shitty lunch date. a shitty lunch. whatever.

the point is lunch is a normal non-date thing people do, and the fact katsuki and todoroki are maybe not the usual suspects for it is just circumstantial. it’s not like they planned it ahead of time, or made some big thing about it. they literally arranged for it in public, so obviously todoroki didn’t think there was anything weird about it. and there isn’t! they’re both going to be in tokyo on the same day, and todoroki’s always happy for any excuse to spend less time with her old man, and katsuki sure as fuck wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to avoid her hag of a birth-giver for a few blissful hours, so when todoroki had very nonchalantly gone ‘oh, bakugou, we could do lunch then”, it wasn’t like she had any real reason to tell her to go fuck herself. like, yeah, maybe a year ago, on principle, she would have, but even katsuki can only take so much trauma-bonding before she resigns herself to the reality that she’s stuck with half ‘n half for life, one way or another, and she may as well suck it up and approach civility because said moron is determined to ignore her open malice until she plays along anyways. they’re... you know, whatever. friends. or something. jesus.

the point being that it’s not a date, and the fact that she’s getting increasingly annoyed at her limited wardrobe is just because she would have packed more shit if the crone hadn’t insisted that they ‘pack light’ so they could get cheaper train tickets for less luggage. it’s just annoying that she can’t wear anything that’s not screaming holiday.

it occurs to her as she sits and scowls at her suitcase that her mother has been watching her from the doorframe for some undetermined amount of time, which is criminal mainly because she’s a goddamn hero-to-be and getting snuck up on by anyone is a blight upon her good name. she tries to disguise the ego damage dealt by glowering murderously in her progenitor’s direction.

“what the fuck do you want?”

“you know,” the she-devil says, cocking a hip, “if you want to borrow something nicer...”

“i wouldn’t be caught dead in your shitty clothes!” katsuki snarls, which prompts the witch to immediately scowl back.

“watch your damn mouth!”

“watch your waistline! no way in hell are we the same size!”

“why you little-”

the interruption at least reminds her that she is obsessing over her clothes ahead of meeting todoroki for lunch, which is so humiliating it kickstarts her brain again long enough to grab some normal shit and get the hell out of there.

on the walk she checks her phone again. the previous day she’d had to bite the bullet and make the first move, todoroki’s infamously terrible communication skills making themselves known once more, and their ensuing conversation had been so mortifying she’d nearly cancelled all-together.

to: Half ‘n half

Yo asshole are we still meeting tomorrow or what

I’m busy as shit

from: Half ‘n half

Yes. TS

to: Half ‘n half

What the fuck is TS

from: Half ‘n half

I was signing off.

to: Half ‘n half

SIGNING OFF ON YOUR OWN TEXT

YOU THINK I DONT KNOW YOUR DAMN NAME

from: Half ‘n half

[Pin attached]

Does here at 12.30 work for you?

to: Half ‘n half

Yeah whatever

Don’t be late

And don’t think I’m forgetting the fucking signing off thing

from: Half ‘n half

Glad you can make time for mockery in your busy as shit schedule.

the venue looks like some rich person shit, which she semi-expected, but it means a lot of people give her weird looks as she makes her way inside, probably on account of the shorts and t-shirt she’s wearing if not her general vibe. some old woman actually drags her purse to her, which makes katsuki sorely tempted to bare her teeth and maybe hiss for effect, though she settles for scowling and shoving her hands in her pockets. it’s 12.27, because she wasn’t going to be late but being any earlier would have given off some dubious impression that she’s eager to see todoroki, except now she kind of wishes she’d just come for 12.30 because if there’s some reservation bullshit she gets the feeling she’s going to start fighting with the waiting staff, and then-

“bakugou,” todoroki calls, from inside, raising a hand with unnecessary formality. “you made it.”

“course i made it,” katsuki grunts, absolutely not relieved as she by-passes the suspicious looking waiter to join her outside. “think i can’t ride the damn underground by myself?”

todoroki is wearing jeans cuffed at the ankles and a white t-shirt on top of which she’s thrown on an open button-up with the sleeves rolled up, and she looks casual and normal and incidentally kind of like they dressed to match, but the important part is that she doesn’t look dressed up at all, so katsuki was totally right about the non-date situation, and also isn’t the only one totally underdressed for the shitty venue.

“you look nice,” todoroki says then, completely shattering katsuki’s brief moment of reprieve. “i’ve never seen so much color on you.”

katsuki almost chokes on her own tongue, but the worst part is that the asshole seems completely nonchalant about the weird as shit observation, focused on her stool as she takes a seat on the balcony. which- what the actual fuck? since when does todoroki issue compliments unprompted- of the non-professional variety, at that? and what the fuck does she expect katsuki to say now- return the compliment? say thanks? is this whole thing some kind of exercise in psychological torture?

well, fuck it. she can’t look like a little bitch just because todoroki said something inanely positive. two can play that game.

“yeah. you look half decent yourself. did you hire someone to dress you for the occasion?”

todoroki blinks up at her in surprise, which is totally a win and would make her more smug if she could stop feeling so weird and prickly all over. for a dangerous moment todoroki seems on the verge of blushing, but miraculously the world rights itself and the usual deadpan persists, one brow quirking up in completely feigned ineptitude.

“there was a compliment somewhere in there, so thank you, i think. i thought we were past this vendetta.”

“we’ll be past this vendetta the day you burn your piece of shit hero suit,” katsuki retorts, back on familiar ground, and relaxes long enough to squint down at the menu.

this turns out to be a mistake.

“the fuck? is this whole thing in french?”

“oh,” todoroki says, after a beat. “that makes sense. i thought my english had deteriorated.”

“are you- you didn’t know? you recommended the place!”

“it was the nearest place to our hotel,” todoroki defends, now having the decency of looking slightly put out. “coq can’t mean what i think it means, can it?”

“that’s chicken, asshole,” katsuki hisses, flinging the menu down. “great, now we’re going to have to flag down one of the shithead waiters and ask for a japanese menu. excuse me! hey! yeah, i’m talking to- what the hell, did he just blow me off? hey, jackass! you with the shitty mustache!”

“sorry about that,” todoroki interjects, when mustache asshole turns an offended stare their way. “do you have the japanese menu?”

“we only serve the food in its authentic form,” mustachioed asshole says, with frigid self-satisfaction. “might i suggest google translate?”

“might i suggest my foot up your ass, you shitty-”

“that’s fine,” todoroki says, in a flat tone that implies otherwise. “we’ll make do.”

the waiter sniffs pretentiously as katsuki thinks about all the ways she could beat his ass into next tuesday, running an aggravated hand through her hair when the wind rustles it into her face. she’d half expect todoroki to suggest they fuck off elsewhere, but when she looks back her way she finds an ill-boding gleam of determination in her eyes despite the impassive set to her face, and it’s a testament to how fucked in the head ua has made katsuki that she feels a sort of sick thrill of recognition at the sight. todoroki’s in stubborn bitch mode.

“i’ll have this,” todoroki says, sure enough, pointing to the most expensive item on the menu. “and also this. and one of those.”

the waiter’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull, and todoroki looks unfazed in katsuki’s direction, tapping pointedly at a sleek black and red credit card in her wallet. “bakugou?”

well, if endeavour’s paying....

“sure,” katsuki says, slowly, and then turns her meanest smile the waiter’s way. “i want the frog legs.”

mustache clears his throat, attempts condescension. “we don’t serve that here.”

“you’re a gastronomique restaurant,” katsuki says very loudly, as other clients turn to stare, “and you don’t have fucking frog legs? is this a joke? does this napkin say authentic french cuisine or am i hallucinating?”

“i can ask the chef,” the waiter demurs, casting a nervous glance at the muttering snobs nearby, and attempts an ingratiating smile. “anything else for you, mademoiselle?”

“what did you just call me?”

once the ordering debacle is over, todoroki slants katsuki what may well be an apologetic glance, vaguely contrite frown sitting pretty atop her usual dead-eyed stare.

“i probably should have read up on the place ahead of time.”

katsuki is well within her rights to chew her head off, she thinks, but food’s on the way and she got to yell at the asshole who gave her the once-over when she came in, so she’s feeling forgiving, even in the face of todoroki’s annoyingly doll-faced apology. the bitch really has to do the bare minimum and she looks like a fucking kpop idol.

“yeah, whatever. i always knew you were a shitty ops planner.”

todoroki, who is an asshole, looks relieved at her generous forgiveness for all of a second before she quirks a brow. “between the two of us, i only count one person who has actually spoken the words ‘shoot first, ask questions later’.”

“that was in a training simulation,” katsuki protests, outraged. “and you know damn well the actors were annoying as shit!”

“i did find them slightly too committed to the role,” todoroki concedes neutrally, which totally means she agrees with katsuki 100% and is being precious about it. katsuki scoffs.

“least the view’s decent.”

“the-“ todoroki starts, in weirdly confused tones, until she follows katsuki’s gaze outward and nods in understanding. “oh, the skyline. yes.”

what else katsuki could have meant she doesn’t fucking know: they’re sitting pretty in the middle of tokyo. the only thing the hellhole of a restaurant has going for it at this point is the cityscape.

todoroki stares out into the distance for a good long moment, and with the breeze her negligently loose hair whips this way and that, red and white blur where the two halves mingle. instinctively katsuki itches to braid it flat so it doesn’t tangle. if todoroki asked her she’d tell her to just cut her damn hair into a bob or something- it’s not like icyhot has any attachment to her princess hair, and she’s got the obnoxious bone structure to pull off any length. not that she’d mention this last part. or that she’s given it much thought. it’s just fucking obvious.

if todoroki could keep her mouth shut throughout the rest of the meal, it could be sort of nice. tokyo skyline, and companionable silence, and presumably edible food. worse ways to kill some time, and way less incriminating than anything that may be said otherwise.

“i think this is the part where we make small talk,” todoroki says instead, sadist that she definitely is, as katsuki grimaces feelingly her way.

“no, we don’t.”

“well, we don’t. but this is the part where we should.”

“i don’t even believe you can last a minute of small talk, icyhot.”

todoroki looks pensive, mismatched eyes thoughtful. “...how has your day been?”

“uneventful,” katsuki says, combative, and eyes her watch. todoroki does not give.

“this place seems nice.”

“you don’t even think that.”

“how have you been finding tokyo?”

“noisy.”

“the weather seems-”

“no.”

“you look nice.”

“you said that already, dumbass,” katsuki grunts, palms crackling with sweat, and does not at all read into the way todoroki makes a stupid little movement with her mouth that could ungenerously be interpreted as a pout.

“well, i meant it, so i’m saying it twice.”

“give it up, half ‘n half, just ask me about training.”

“...how is your training?”

“i did this thing yesterday,” katsuki starts, leaning back in her chair, and from then launches into a very technical and barely exaggerated retelling of the batshit insane stunt she pulled off with her quirk the day prior. todoroki’s focused attention is gratifying, in a totally platonic non-weird way- it’s just that her parents couldn’t very well follow why exactly said stunt was as insane as it is, but todoroki obviously can, and also there’s that thing with todoroki where pulling a reaction out of her ice queen act is admittedly more satisfying than most people. it has jack shit to do with the fact katsuki’s got a very minor complex about todoroki paying her her dues, and even if it did then that’s entirely fucking reasonable considering she still hasn’t forgiven her for the sports fest incident. 

it is a little weird having todoroki’s sole focus on her outside of hero shit, though. it’s not like they really hang out one on one outside of school or work. it’s kind of- unnerving. yeah. unnerving, to be making prolonged eye contact, todoroki’s expression intent but not intense the way she gets in fight scenarios, frowning lightly because she has resting bitch face but apparently genuinely interested. it’s kind of a relief that todoroki asks questions- moves them safely into a conversation, so katsuki’s not just sitting there talking and sort of dry-throated. fucking waiter, leaving them water-less.

it’s fine. they talk about training, and quirks, and then todoroki pushes her hair behind her ears and leans forward to demonstrate on a small scale this thing she’s trying to do where she melts her ice and refreezes it in rapid succession so it causes what is essentially ice rain, but there’s logistics and shit that need to be worked out for it to work the way she’s thinking it might, and katsuki knows her thermal shit so they start scrawling maths over the napkins, and then bicker over the finer points of first year chemistry, so when the food actually arrives to interrupt them todoroki’s startled blink is weirdly relatable, like she also forgot where they were.

the waiter’s there and gone before they’re really recovered from the brief misplacement, which katsuki registers only when she looks down at her empty glass.

“goddamnit- how hard is it to bring us water?”

“they only offer sparkling,” todoroki says, gravely, then outpaces katsuki’s disgust by placing her hand over her glass, ice rising before she switches hands and melts it down. “tell me if the temperature’s off.”

intensely mollified and trying not to look it, katsuki sips it. “’s fine.”

“okay,” todoroki says, faintly pleased, and tilts her head to look down at her food. “i have no idea what any of this is.”

“moron,” katsuki snorts, except it comes out way fonder than it has any rights to, and from beneath the convenient curtain of hair todoroki’s smiling a little, so she hastily stabs a frog leg and gets to eating before anyone gets any ideas.

the actual meal goes okay-ish. most of the stuff todoroki ordered is extremely pretentious french cuisine, and todoroki secretly has the culinary adventurousness of a five year old, so it befalls katsuki to impatiently attempt every dish and pronounce it edible before todoroki will deign to brave it. she’s still trying to bully an unyielding todoroki into attempting the weird bird soup thing when there’s commotion nearby. it takes the both of them approximately three seconds to spring into work-mode; katsuki’s on her feet poised for a fight before she’s even consciously thought about it, scanning her peripherals, and she doesn’t even need to look to feel todoroki unconsciously covering her back, cool sting of air signalling her quirk at the ready. 

the commotion turns out just to be some old dumbass choking, relaxing them both out of their stances as she falls back to let todoroki ahead. they’re both uber-qualified for first aid shit, but she’s self-aware enough to know even todoroki’s bland reassurances are usually preferred to her bedside manner. unfortunately, the whole entourage seems to be braindead, because they’re all crowding the old guy in a panic while he chokes, his wife in shrieking hysterics.

“oh, my god, he’s choking! he’s choking! sugar-plum, stay with me!”

“fuck me,” katsuki mutters, unethically thinking that she would personally prefer choking to being married to someone who calls her sugar-plum, but todoroki’s pushing ahead with implacable calm, so she trudges after her anyways.

“excuse me. excuse me. i need access to your husband.”

“who are you? don’t touch him! help! get this woman off my husband!” wailing hysteric yells, bosom heaving dramatically. katsuki is starting to suspect she poisoned him on purpose or some shit, because no way does anyone talk like that in real life.

“she’s a fucking qualified first aid provider, lady, shut up and let her through!”

thankfully, the woman seems on the verge of an outrage aneurysm, which drags her focus away from suffocating her choking husband to dramatically pointing at katsuki long enough for todoroki to duck past her and reach the guy as he turns purple.

“how dare you speak to me that way? who do you think you are?”

“ma,” chinless moron number one says, clearing his throat. “i think that’s one of those future pros from TV.”

“what?”

“you know, ma,” chinless moron number two adds, glancing nervously between them. “the one that explodes things. you know. from UA.”

katsuki takes great pleasure in watching recognition dawn in the old cow’s beady eyes, but in any event there’s a hacking noise and then the old man’s coughing out a bone into his plate as todoroki steps noiselessly back from the table.

“he’s fine now. enjoy your dinner.”

“god, that was gross,” katsuki says, as they ignore the woman’s sputtering and return to their seats. todoroki tilts her head. 

“not really. if he’d thrown up it would have been.”

“not the choking guy,” katsuki scoffs, casting a glance back his way. “his wife. talk about theatrics.”

“she seemed more afraid of us than her husband dying.”

“for good reason,” katsuki mutters darkly, spreading out in her chair. “i hate civilians.”

“i don’t think she recognised us,” todoroki counters, pensive, and absent-mindedly takes a bite of the weird soup before she screws her face up like a betrayed kid. “oh. you didn’t say it was sweet.”

the look on her face thoroughly distracts katsuki from asking what other reason the pearl-clutcher could possibly have to be so terrified at the mere sight of them; instead, she chokes back a laugh, stifling a grin. “what are you, five?”

“i don’t think i like this,” todoroki says, mournful, which makes katsuki grin harder. she can’t help it- todoroki looking stupid is her kryptonite. 

“then don’t pick a restaurant where you can’t read the menu, next time.”

todoroki’s midway to looking up, but for some reason her expression transforms instantaneously, which makes katsuki reflexively try to quash her amusement. todoroki always gets weird when she’s smiling. 

“next time?”

motherfuck. obviously she didn’t mean next time like next time, she meant next time like- hypothetically, in the future, when todoroki’s on a lunch date with someone else. a lunch non-date. she’s just about stopped sputtering furiously long enough to try and express this sentiment when it occurs to her that todoroki seems- pleased, one eye soft sky-blue when katsuki accidentally meets it, and that draws her up short long enough that she ends up just muttering lamely to herself. fucking todoroki. 

on the heels of this utter embarrassment, she downs the rest of her water, scowls in a neat 180 at everything in sight, and wonders for the first time in her life how the fuck extras get through dates. not that this is one.

it’s fine. they’re done eating, and no one’s died, and katsuki is no longer fifteen and thus mostly trusts her ego to lick its wounds and recover from the ordeal. even if they stick around for desert that’s only another half hour of this to endure. as long as todoroki doesn’t make any sudden moves they’ll be fine.

...the problem is, of course, that sudden moves are todoroki’s modus operandi. katsuki has not forgotten the bitch calling them friends on national television in the same breath that she was vociferously denying them being anything of the sort. in todoroki’s fucked up brain, they’re always ten steps ahead of whatever they actually are- considering katsuki’s come around to privately acknowledging she’d take a couple more stakes through the gut for the asshole, in todoroki’s world they're practically hitched.

platonically. platonically practically hitched. this is not a thing, goddamnit. no matter the weird looks aizawa’s been giving them, or utsushimi’s nefarious schemes, or the alarming cardiopulmonary condition katsuki’s been developing of late. she’s not some shitty yuri protagonist pining over the nearest female bishōnen in her vicinity.

admittedly if she was to pine over anyone it sure as fuck wouldn’t be some guy, but that’s besides the point, since pretty damn near every person on earth is just some guy by her standards, regardless of gender. the fact that todoroki is not one of said people is entirely irrelevant.

her internal irritation is so distracting that she misses the tremors nearby until entirely too late, by which point todoroki’s stupidly perfect brows raise an incremental fraction and she goes: ‘oh’.

when todoroki goes ‘oh’, some shit is about to go down. 

katsuki turns slowly with an impending sense of doom, and sure enough, the sight that greets her is so nightmarish she seriously reconsiders whether the entire day has been just that. 

“don’t freak out,” a giant building-sized deku booms, apologetically, as his hideous giant face stares at them. “it’s just a quirk thing.”

it’s probably a good thing katsuki has gone speechless with outrage, since it permits todoroki’s constantly composed ass to ask useful questions katsuki probably would have coated in a fair amount more threats and cursing.

“midoriya. i didn’t know you were in tokyo.”

“well, i wasn’t meant to be,” deku says/booms like a foghorn, as the restaurant clientele shrieks and stampedes behind them. his sheepish expression is even more punchable when magnified. “it’s a long story. it’s almost sorted out now, though. i just saw you guys from over at the NPA office and thought i’d come ask if you maybe wouldn’t mind lending a hand? i wouldn’t ask but there’s going to be a lot of cleanup and your quirks would be really helpful to-”

“we’ll do it as long as you shut the fuck up,” katsuki yells, to cut him off, massaging her temples. “the monologuing’s bad enough when you’re not about to burst my fucking eardrums, jackass.”

“oh, sorry! i’m trying to be very quiet but this body’s just hard to get used to- thank you so much for helping, i didn’t mean to come bother you on break...”

“it’s fine,” todoroki says, and then seems to realise that her monotone doesn’t reach midoriya’s giant-ass ears and clears her throat, raising her voice to a shout. “it’s fine. let me go deal with the bill and then we’ll go.”

“sorry?” midoriya whisper-shouts, craning his monstrous head closer to them, the sight of which will haunt katsuki for the rest of her life. “i can’t hear what you’re saying!”

“she said she’s going to go pay for our nice fucking lunch,” katsuki hollers, with no small sense of satisfaction, as deku winces and todoroki slinks off. “since you want to come crashing it like a dipshit.”

“sorry, kacchan!” deku begs off, flapping hand gestures creating enough wind to knock over a nearby umbrella stand. “i just thought it would be a lot of help if you came to oversee the fall-out- especially with the building damage-”

“we’re good,” todoroki announces, to katsuki, apparently having given up on matching her in decibels. she’s got that classic hero look on her face, already in work mode, but just when katsuki’s about to do the same and jump into action, the look wavers a little and she frowns vaguely awkwardly. “thanks for doing lunch.”

“huh?” katsuki stutters, thrown, and then scowls at nothing in particular, stalling. todoroki’s the one who paid, albeit indirectly- it’s typically weird of her to be all formal about it all of a sudden, leaving katsuki to attempt to wriggle them out of the awkwardness of the moment. “i didn’t do shit except show up and eat, weirdo.”

“it’s been abnormally hard to show up and eat in the circumstances,” todoroki replies, a little wryly, and more concerningly a little resigned sounding. which is just unnatural, because todoroki may have expanded her range of emotions considerably since first year but resignation is not on her usual roster, and there’s nothing to be resigned about unless she had some kind of vested interest in this whole fiasco playing out any better than it did.

which she didn’t, obviously. katsuki’s been through this. she chose the nearest possible venue and rocked up in jeans and a t-shirt, and- and why is the fact that todoroki never dresses so normally out of class only now occurring to her, again?

she’d said ‘i think this is the part where we do small talk’. the part of what?

“yeah, whatever,” katsuki says, automatically, as her brain plays catch-up, which is the excuse she will forever stick to for what leaves her mouth next. “should have known you’d be a lousy date.”

todoroki goes ‘what?’ at the same moment deku does, ten times louder and more bug-eyed, which reminds katsuki that 1) deku is still there, 2) deku is still as big as his martyr complex, and 3) deku is the fucking worst, and allowing him to trap her into friendship is somehow responsible for this, she’s sure of it. 

“can we go handle this fucking mess or what?” katsuki snaps, instead of screaming or breaking deku’s very large nose or maybe self-immolating in abject humiliation, hands erupting into explosions as she jumps onto the balcony railing. maybe if she throws herself headfirst into the debris she’ll concuss herself and turn amnesiac. 

“um,” deku is saying, when she turns a withering glare his way. “um, yes! yes! yeah! let’s go do that!”

so she jumps skywards, explosions blasting her high into the air, and very scrupulously does not look towards the sounds of slick ice forming just behind her until todoroki skates into her peripheral vision, hair waving flag-like behind her. ahead there’s a building with a crater clean through it where deku must have erupted from, though when she turns to comment she finds him a fair deal behind them, lumbering pace slowed further as he avoids stepping on anyone or anything along the streets. instead her eyes lock on todoroki’s where the latter is staring at her, face unreadable, and she bristles hard enough to disrupt trajectory, correcting course rapidly before she plummets into an office.

“what?”

“i’m a lousy date,” todoroki repeats, neutrally, over the wind. katsuki grits her teeth.

“and what about it?”

she’s bracing for a lot, but not the horrible, sickening eye-crinkle thing todoroki does, dark eye twinkling even as her expression stays carefully impassive. “you think you can do better, then?”

“hah?”

“next time,” todoroki intones, very precisely, and then dips ahead like a complete coward as katsuki goes a color never previously visible to the human eye, sifting through about fifteen emotions before she decides to stick to outrage.

“what the hell? you suck at asking people out, icyhot!”

“you don’t have to say yes.”

“what, you think i can’t do better than this mess? you’re on, asshole.”

“i look forward to it,” todoroki says, gravely, and then there’s a collapsed building to handle and shit to do and if anyone wants to ask why katsuki is so especially gleeful in blowing shit up they wisely keep their mouths shut. she just likes the job, all right.

(for the record, it’s still not a date until katsuki says it is.)

[enderspawn]

It's alright if u don't wanna answer this cuz this argument gets people really riled up but do you think c!Techno is a tyrant or nah?

Cuz many c!techno apologists argue that he isn't just cuz he's an anarchist but I've also read a lot of essays that go against it and it'd be really interesting to see ur opinion on this

i think he, in some contexts, can most definitely be called tyrannical, yes. a tyrant? no.

to avoid spamming ppl w discourse we've all def heard before (and bc this ended up MASSIVE (like 2.3k ish), but fairly in depth bc i didnt wanna speak out of bad faith and wanted to be EXPLICTLY clear-- oops), the rest will be under readmore

so heres the thing i want to preface: i used to really LOVE c!techno. i joined beginning of s2, right when exile started, and he was arguably my favorite character. since then though i've fallen out with him a LOT, to the point i almost... actively despite him at times (though mainly in a toxic kind of way which i can acknowledge is flawed).

in short, his actions started to speak louder than his words and i lost investment in his personal character struggles because of the actions he took (doomsday was my breaking point. i get feeling angry and betrayed, as well as seeking revenge against lmanberg, but his actions went too far for me to CARE and it hurt so many more characters as well.)

so when i speak, i come from a place of disliking him but also somewhat understanding the position c!techno apologists come from: i used to be one of them myself.

NOW, do i think he's a tyrant? no. for reference in my analysis, i try to look up the definition of terms to make sure they are utilized properly. while "tyranny" and "tyrannical" can have multiple uses, tyrant itself is a more specific term. to combine the top two definitions, a tyrant is referring to "an extremely oppressive, unjust, or cruel absolute ruler (who governs without restrictions, especially one who seized power illegally.)"

techno's position as an anarchist, imo, DOES indeed make him unable to be a tyrant. tyrants are rulers with very clear power over others from a structural way. anarchists are about the lack of structure or power over others and instead viewing the people around you as equals in power.

in forming the syndicate, they very explicitly worked to not designate a leader and instead make it so that no one would have any power over the others systemically. techno may have taken a integral role, yes, but it doesn't make him suddenly "the leader", its a role that wouldve had to be filled by someone (even if it was democratic to decide who to invite, they'd need someone to hand over the invite itself yknow? like no matter WHAT there needed to be A ROLE)

one could argue that he IS a leader in the shadow hierarchy of the syndicate (which, yes, is a real and professional term used in management courses despite sounding like it comes from a 4kids yugioh dub) in that everyone CONSIDERS and looks to him a leader without him having any actual structural basis behind it, but to argue that allows him to be a tyrant is in bad faith i believe. especially because to the people he would be "ruling", he ISNT oppressive, unjust, or cruel. they are his friends and support network and critical for a lot of his personal development (since feelings of betrayal and trust issues are critical to his character and why he acts the way he does). I wish we were able to SEE this develop more, but oh well.

but like i said: tyrant is fairly specific in definition. TYRANNY, and thus TYRANNICAL are not as limited. I've discussed their definitions here. originally, i made that post because i was angry at a take i had seen that claimed that, like you said, because techno was an anarchist and not part of any government or leadership position, he couldn't be tyrannical. to which i heartily disagree.

for something to be tyrannical, they simply must have an overarching/oppressive power over someone or something. it would not be inaccurate if i were to say that something is "under the tyranny" of a concept, because what it means is that something is under the power of another thing/concept. you can frankly call anything tyranny if it is widespread/overarching and you don't like it. mask mandates? tyranny, its forcing me to act in "rigorous condition". hell, theres even such things as tyranny of the majority in which people agree too much on one thing and it gives them unfair power or tyranny of the minority where people with minority opinions have too much power (thats a very grossly oversimplified definition of both, but it covers the base idea well enough for my point)

the point im making above isnt meant to be taken as "anything can be worked to be defined as tyranny thus it is a meaningless claim", it is that tyranny (and again, thus tyrannical) are very open and nonrestrictive terms.

to make it easier to define, alongside the definitions provided i want to add an explicit clause that is (imo) implied in the original definition: tyranny is... well, bad. that is to say if someone has power over a group but literally everyone is fine with it and agrees to it, its not tyranny. thats just a group of people getting along and one happens to have power over another. a leader does NOT equal a tyrant (as discussed above), so leadership should not be equated with tyranny.

thus as an example: wilbur acting as president (before the election) may have been "unelected" with power over his citizens, but no one was upset with that power. thus, he is not a tyrant and not acting tyrannically (as well as the fact his power was, arguably, NOT rigourous or absolute but thats another topic for another time). SCHLATT however IS a tyrant, as his power was absolute (he did not consult his cabinet) and forced people to comply instead of them complying willingly, thus he was acting tyrannically.

now to finally get to the damn point of this essay: where does c!techno lie? honest answer? it depends slightly on your perspective, but it depends a LOT on the future of the syndicate.

techno is incredibly clear in his goals: no governments, no corruption. in fighting with pogtopia, he is actively working to topple a tyranny-- he isn't tyrannical for doing that.

when he strikes out on nov 16th, it is because he opposes them forming a new government. when they oppose him and disagree, he launches an attack against them. is this tyranny? maybe, but probably not. he IS trying to impose his own physical strength and power (as well as his resources) over the others to stop them from doing what HE doesn't want them to do.

however its more nuanced than that:

1. hes lashing out emotionally as well as politically. he feels betrayed by those he trusted and he believed that they would destroy the government then go (i'm ignoring any debates on if he did or did not know that they planned another government, though it is a source of debate). but typically idk about you but i dont call tyranny for someone fighting with another person.

2. he also may be acting with good intent again, in HIS EYES. if tubbo was part of manburg, whos to say he wont be just as bad? he, in his pov, is likely trying to stop another tyrant before they rise.

3. and finally, and tbh the most damning from any perspective: he gives up. he quickly leaves then RETIRES without intent to try and attack again until he is later provoked. tyranny is defined by it not just being power, but power being USED. if he doesn't use his power to try and impose any will, then he's not tyrannical.

Doomsday I am also not going to touch very in depth on for much of the same reasons. My answer is again a "maybe", depending on the weight you personally place on each issue:

1. he's lashing out as revenge for the butcher army and as revenge against tommy for "betraying" him (though this one we explicitly know he was ignoring the fact tommy did not want to go through with it, however he still did trust and respect tommy regardless so his feelings are understandable anyway)

2. he sees new lmanberg as corrupt and tyrannical (which is undeniable: house arrest for noncompliance, exile without counsel, execution without trial, etc), and thus obligated to destroy it

but also, theres the implicit understanding he's doing this to send a message: do not form a government, or else. its a display of force that also works to warn others unless they want a similar fate. phil even explicitly states that he is doing so to send that message, so one could assume techno is doing the same alongside his personal reasoning listed above.

what i just described is the use of a oppressive and harsh (physical) power in order to gain compliance from people (that compliance being 'not making a government'). does that sound familiar? exactly. it follows the definition(s) of tyranny given previously. technoblade is acting in a way that is, by very definition, tyrannical.

so the debate shifts: is he valid in doing so because he is trying to PREVENT corruption and tyranny. like i said, new lmanberg was undeniably corrupt at points. i held nothing against techno for trying to topple manburg, so does that apply to new lmanberg as well? short answer: i dont know. it depends on your specific opinion of what is acceptable. its like the paradox of tolerance: to have a truly tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance. to have a truly non-tyrannical society, do you need to have a tyranny enforcing it?

personally (and bc im a lmanberg loyalist /hj) i say it is. regardless of the corruption of new lmanberg, they are also giving a threat to EVERYONE. even those who are innocent, they are presented with the exact same threat and rule set: if you make a government, you will be destroyed.

(which, small divergence here, is part of why debating c!techno is so frustrating. so many times you end up hitting a "well it depends on your political views" situation and there ISNT a correct answer there. im here to analyze characters for fun, not debate political theory)

so: the syndicate then. this is where this debate really "took off" and i think its due to one very specific miscommunication about its goals and plans. the syndicate, upon formation, declares itself to stand against corruption and tyranny. when they are found, the syndicate would work to destroy it. so heres the golden question: what do THEY define as corruption and tyranny? if you were to go off c!techno's previous statements, seemingly "any government" is a valid answer. however, he also states he's fine with people just being in groups together hanging together.

what then DEFINES A GOVERNMENT for them? what lines do they have to sort out what does "deserve to be destroyed" and what does "deserve to exist freely"

this is a hypothetical i like to post when it comes to syndicate discourse:

i have a group of people. lets say 5 or so for example. they all live together and build together. any decisions made that would impact the entire group they make together and they must have a unanimous agreement in order to proceed, but otherwise they are free to be their own people and do their own thing. when you ask them, they tell you they are their own nation and they have a very clearly defined government: they are a direct democracy. does the syndicate have an obligation to attack?

there is absolutely no hierarchy present. there is no corruption present. but, they ARE indeed a government. is that then inherently negative? my answer is fuck no (see the whole "difference between a tyrant and a leader" thing above).

but THATS where the issue of this discourse LIES. in some people's eyes, the answer to that is YES. techno's made it clear "no government" is his personal view, but does that spread to the syndicate as a whole? do they act preemptively in case it DOES become corrupt? is it inherently corrupt because its a government, regardless of how it is ruled? the fact of the matter is because of how little we've seen the syndicate work as a SYNDICATE, we don't know that answer. so we're left to debate and speculate HOW they would act.

if the syndicate were to let that government exist, then they are not tyrannical. they are showing that they are working to stop tyranny and corruption, just like in pogtopia again.

if the syndicate were to destroy/attack that government, then they are tyrannical. simple as that. they are enforcing a rule of their own creation without any nuance or flexibility under the threat of absolute destruction.

miscommunication in debates comes, in my opinion, in the above. of course theres more points of nuance. for example:

would the syndicate allow a government like i had described with early lmanberg, where there is an established hierarchy but everyone in the country consents to said leadership? on one hand, there is no tyranny or corruption present which is what they are trying to work against. on the other hand, theres more a possibility of it occuring. perhaps they'd find a middle road between the two binary options of "leave or destroy" i am presenting, such as checking in occasionally to ensure no corruption occurs.

but if they were to destroy it without, for lack of a better word, "giving it a chance" they would be, in my opinion, tyrannical. they would be going aginst their words of opposing corruption and instead abusing their power to gain compliance.

your/others opinions may differ, again it depends on if you see it as worth it to possibly stop future tyranny or if a hierarchy is INHERENTLY a negative thing.

part of the reason so many blog gave up this debate, beyond not getting very clear answers for the syndicate, is because of the nuance present. there. is. no. right. answer. every single person will view it differently, because there is no universally agreed upon truth of right or wrong here. BUT, i hope this helps shed some light on the discussion and my thoughts on it

[seedleaflesssapling]

Ver 2.0? Turning Point?

I can't really identify to which point in my life that i started to doubt myself but im pretty sure that it was because of UP. Damn, that school, my uni. It do really have the ability to make you feel small; i was in a disadvantaged side when i entered it, you know. I was acquainted, no we did not really talked one-on-one, but i heard when we did introductions - Pisay, UP High, science comprehensive schools, Xavier University, who wouldn't be intimidated by that when you came from Col. Ruperto Abellon National School (who would know where that is? I was lucky enough for a teacher recognized it and my classmates be like 'ahhhhhh,' .....really?! I dont even know where xavier is, it just sounds cool). Another thing is that, i wasn't a stem shs graduate - a leverage(?) or excuse (?) that i always use for them to know that i am at disadvantaged side here, not their competitor, probably a NOBODY. They, being stem graduates, have capstone projects you never thought that they have at that age, but i would hear them saying that it was publish in this journal (whatever, idk the journals lmao, i dont even understand their studies 2nd lmao, but that was some smart shit you know, a shit that makes me feel pathetic for being too proud of my what? Correlational study from inconsistent surveys?!!! Wtf, wtf, wtf). But it was a very good peer pressure you know, i kinda turned it that way. Being left behind, being on the rock bottom, i have no other place to go but up. It wasn't the goal, like making or taking the top spot, i just need to survive.

Inevitably, the exams came. I had hard time adjusting chem but math was kind to me. Who would have thought that i would get two 1.0 at my math subjects for the first semester, the sem that i thought i would barely pass. I was even a CS for that sem. Who would have thought? Our first chemical engineering subject that involves computations was on the list the next semester and the first exam, out of 100 i got something like 20ish. WTF. THAT WAS MY FIRST FAILED EXAM. but no, never did cry but tears were flooding inside. So apparently, i have to focus more on this subject and i did. Some were still failing, but i raised my average up. We also had physics, my first ever physics. I really love physics that time or that sir rommel is just a very good professor. I got the highest score on our second LE, everybody else did fail. Small victories. Not that they lose, but i just won. But i heard one time they were talking about me re: passing the physics exam and even getting a high score. They were uhm.. a guy i really look up to cause his good, the other was a girl that idk but i think she didn't like me back then. They were friends but eventually the girl transferred uni because who cares why. i heard the guy saying something like sin.o gid na si franklin nga taas iya score man, maybe even worse than that, i still look up to the guy even until now. But wtf. I really took it in that time, like i wanted to cry but did not. With all that, i got a fair grade at physics. I still got 1.0 at maths that sem and even maintained being on the CS list. S M I L E. BECAUSE WE HAVE A MIDYEAR CLASS. VERY EXHAUSTING FOR SOMEONE WHO DONT WANT ANYTHING BUT JUST ADJUST, SURVIVE, AND FIND MEANING OF BEING A UP STUDENT. It was just one subject and it was math, but i got 2.0?!!! I have no excuse to that, i am very grateful for the family who accommodated me. After midyear class, i did got sick, it sucks, really sucks. I wanted to file an LOA for the next academic year, it is the only thing i can think of for me to go back on track (i haven't said that my parents pushed me to graduate with latin honor and i wanted to also for my resume to look good because everything else in me is effed up). I really wanted to pause and be free for a while but i also wanted to graduate on time (mostly because i want to give the bitches who dared to have expectations be put on my shoulders not the satisfaction, but the audacity to tell them 'i aint did it for ya') so i asked mama. THANK GOD, SHE DID SAY NA KUNG ANO LANG KAYA MO, AMO LANG DA IH 😭😭🤧🤧 so i enrolled, but went to school late, haven't attended the school opening but all is good. I did kind of reset, just enough for me to face school again.

Second year, it was fucked. I did really love coding on octave and doing sheets at ms excel though. On that year, we have formed the che 103 bagsak group. Together with two of my classmates on 103 and math 55, we became buddies after failing che 103 on the first LE, another 30 over 100 exam hahahahaha. We made bawi just enough for us to pass the subject hahahahahuhu. I have thermodynamics sub, i barely pass. Thank G na wala ko nag removal. If ever i did, i am so sure that i wont make it. My GWA for that sem was not enough for me to be a CS. Who cares? I still did, actually but mama was never been too pushy since then, even since after midyear, after getting that 2.0 grade from the only subject i am good at. Btw, my math 55 for first sem, second year, was 1.25. Not a 1.0 but still, it's good. Second semester that year was when pandemic hit so there's nothing much to tell. I was, sorry but i was really, glad to be away from school for a while, not until for a while became forever. Virtual university set-up was very hard. With too much from taking in whatever i see and hear on my surroundings, even just at home, everything is difficult. It is very hard to find motivation and discipline in studying when i was surrounded with people who do nothing. Even to this point i am writing, everyday is like a battle, but is mostly an internal one. Self vs self, a war no one knows who will win. So the confidence, the tower of knowledge i did build, exponentially went down. I did really well when i was in grade 10, i did my best that time and it can be seen at the achievements i had that year. Being consistently on top 1 the whole year, placing second on division MMC (even getting the highest score on the written elimination round for the whole cluster), doing well sa physics under maam andico, placings on cluster journalism competitions - it was like a record best, best record (?) Whatever. But it wasn't enough you know, i eventually came fourth like wtf. I had read from somewhere Newton saying like the two years when he did write the three laws of motion and the calculus stuff were the two best years of his life, and it kept me thinking that what if mine already passed? That it was when i was in high school?

But, back when i was in school, every time that i was belittling myself or even at random times that i would feel nervous for nothing, my classmates and close friends would say na:

Uno mo man ang Math, uno mo na na (it was a one or two time thing, what if chamba lang to???)

Ikaw man highest sa first le sa thermo (it was really an absolutely one time thing, i barely passed that sub)

Alam ka man sa physics (i was just invested on physics and maybe nachambahan lang na ang ginpractice ko solve kay parallel sa exam ni sir)

Alam ka, d ka lang confident (OKAY???!)

I was ignoring those shit cause who cares if i did really good that time. Yeah, it felt good but it wasn't fulfilling. Satisfied but not happy. But with recent events, i think i would be changing. This post will be a written contract that i will push to be better, to start trusting myself, and build that confidence glow behind me; to believe that i am bright and i can hack it, whatever it may be.

For coherence, i would itemize na lang all of the events that brought me to epiphany lol

It was Friday, 17 Sep, when Dean, in our plant design subject, gave an activity for us - to come up with solutions that would address problems he presented. 1 off grid island community (either you address the water, electricity, and phone reception/signal problem under a 100k budget) and 2 vinegar packaging with a 500 mL volume and should cost less than the cost of vinegar. The due's on Monday, 20 Sep. The challenge is that you should come up with an idea that is not the same with those who already turned in their proposed solutions. I haven't turned in mine until Sunday afternoon. We are 23 in class, hence there should be 23 proposed solutions for each problem. However, only 20 or 21 turned in their solutions and as a student who decided to do it three days after the sheet was given, i was at the second to the last of the entries hahaha. I have limited choice since a lot have been proposed. And ngl, i did entered my idea for the first problem at Sunday evening and for the second problem it was on the afternoon of the next day. Those were basic solutions cause who am I? Am just your basic guy.

Tuesday, 21 Sep (#NeverForget #NeverAgain), class again for plant design (PD). Dean discussed stuffs which im ngl, i did not listen because im bored (not until he said 'we'll have a 5-min break and we'll have a quiz after that' like wtf, how will we do our quiz???!). After the short break, I did study cause i panicked as hell, he presented the prospects of the course, that we will be divided in groups and that the leaders were chosen based on the solutions they turned in the activity previously given. So there's no quiz, i was calm the whole time after that until my name was called. Like wtf??! Your basic guy will be a leader???! Hello!!! So i chat people, asked them if it was a good thing (course it was!!!? So dumb right?!). And then, i asked another leader and she agreed to my argument that we should only be divided into six instead of seven as what dean has decided. So i chatted dean (pic below). I just accepted the role half-heartedly.

As leaders, we should be hiring people for our team and we should make pubs. I dont have a canva account to help me do pubs. I made mine at MS ppt HAHAHAHAHAHA but im good so its cute. We were assigned with projects and i get to have the 4-member team. The vacant roles were project maven and liaison officer for a 3-member team. In my pubs, i included scrummaster as position to be filled, cause who am i to lead?! So yeah, that's it. I did the pubs Wednesday and I submitted my resume Thursday (third to the last hahahaha but my resume's cute hahaha).

Thursday. So i had this invite by a classmate to join the Shell event long time ago. He was reaching out for someone to ask Dean for his approval because Dean did not replied to the email he sent. So, i volunteered. I really want this competition cause this will be my first and maybe last competition as a UP student. So i DMed dean and blah blah blah he asked for selection process. I relayed the message and apologize to them for being me because i was thinking that it was me who made him come up with the decision of having the team be selected. Like, wtf i was just asking for his approval. Getting kicked out of the team was not my intention. Those whom i chatted that night were telling me that it wasn't my fault blah blah blah. So i half-heartedly agreed to them.

Friday came, yesterday, the interview. I am very anxious for someone who will be the one asking the applicants lmao. I already have been interviewed before for college applications and somehow remember the feeling, nerve wracking, whatever. To calm my nerves, i listed questions which i never got to ask properly btw, but at least i have concrete ideas on what to ask. The first interviewee was my very closed friend and so we just laugh and laugh and laugh HAHAHAHAHA. IDK if dean saw it but who cares. And the next and next and next. 3:30 passed by fast and guess what??? YOUR BASIC GUY HAS THE MOST NUMBER OF APPLICANTS TO THE POINT THAT DEAN CUT MY LIST. IT WAS EXHAUSTING BUT VERY FLATTERING. I FEEL SO HONORED. i really thought and very scared at the thought that no one will apply to me but wtf, just wtf. Ranking my applicants was damn hard. 1 i have a dream team but one was cut by dean; 2 this could make my friends mad; 3 this will be the group for the whole year; 4 i am really exhausted. But still, i submitted the list. I was hoping for the people i chose to choose me back. Only two out of three did, i am forever grateful.

Still on Friday, the classmate who invited me to the Shell thing and Dean had a zoom call and discussed about the competition. That classmate told dean what i told him the other day that i might be the reason for the decision of having the selection process done. He told me this through a voice memo, katamad daw magtype. A voice message that i played over and over again. Dean actually find me interesting (?), Invested (?) Idk exactly but the classmate told me na 'may nakikita daw talaga sya sayo. Na grabe ka ka-practical as a person like yung ideas mo daw sa plant design napakasimple lang pero napaka practical to the point daw na madami nag apply sayo kanina. And then, you need more confidence lang daw talaga' so ig, you basic guy is a practical guy now. It's just flattering.

Now, whatever happens, i must meet those expectations right? This could be a lousy motivation but what is if there's none? I dont know why im writing this. I just thought i should get my thoughts out. Ver 2.0? Turning point? Let's just do good 😌

PS I put this on my bio on FB, guess im getting more public, and if you happened to read this because you saw the link on my bio, send me a message about you thoughts.

PPS if your initials are JTZC, these have been my week and i miss you even though you're not interested in me anymore, you are hard to forget

[lovedlovingly]

Growing up, spec when seen as a daughter, with an abusive mother - u swear to never become like her. Which we all know can be a trap, the mindset can make you overlook the exact traits you silently took with u from her without even noticing it, because your focus is more on "what not to be" than "what to be" and self reflection.

I live with this fear all the time. Not always consciously, but especially when someone makes me feel bad, small, unimportant etc about myself I always go back to "I shouldn't be like my mother" trying to find a response, which isn't... Usually the situation where i should have my focus on [those traits]. But instead see if what I'm feeling is how I felt as a child, and make myself finally heard the way I longed for by a mother figure.

These fear throughts of "am I becoming my mother?" are also strong when ppl come to me with a problem or a need to vent. The way I react to them to be able to give them the sense of being heard and validated is strong, not only because I want to prove something/"someone" wrong, but because it's something I myself long for, it's traits of someone I want to be. Choose to be.

I think this process has been one of the hardest for me, also because I don't have good tools yet! I feel insufficient, as if I could imagine what should be in my toolbox but when I actually look in it there's only a hammer wrench and a couple of nails.

I know I have [toxic traits]. Any human does. What separates me from my own mother is that I want to try to be better. Not only for myself but for those around me. Right now tho, limited edition© for ppl who treat me with kindness, value and respect, because they're things I've been starved of for so long and I need my The Sims™ meter to go up to green. Then I can probably handle other people with no turmoil inside me. But while working with one self, these aren't easy things. Trauma patterns and beliefs are hard, especially from childhood. You have nothing to go back to, no former self. You have to find a new you to create, find out what you even want, find your own needs. It takes time and you stumble and u get angry because u feel with one toe out of line you've fallen all the way back over.

And sometimes that's also connected to the abuse, to be hard on ourselves, to think we can't handle it - not really, that things are too good to be true so we should take a more modest path to set our goals on. There's so many dimensions to this to work with. And it both makes me exited but also really sad.

What's also hard is. Even if you cut your mother out of your life, the people around you know you in a certain way. So changing can be really hard on that point too, you've found a new role with new ppl but u still want more, you still want to recover. I dont know how to solve that either, it feels like an elastic band. You try to move forward but find yourself ending up in old patterns because even if your abuser isn't around you've formed a trauma self, who's the one others know u as. It's weird. I guess the best thing is to try and grow with the ppl around u? And if they can't it's okay to leave them behind. And it's okay for them to leave you behind too! They might not be able to handle the change (ever so small) but it's important for you and for once you want to listen to yourself and not long for suffering.

Because we do bond in suffering. We bond with complaints. But when that's all a friendship is u have to reflect if that's helping you become the person, the version of yourself, you want to see.

And if you only bond in "happiness" in "positive thinking" where there's no room for venting or problem solving. That's unhealthy too, and you won't thrive. You feel like a cactus in a habitat for lotus flowers. It's someone constantly pouring on soil to completely cover a flower and tell it to grow thus their job is done (they give so much nurture but not what's actually needed for said person and it's still neglectful)

I feel recovery is a really lonely path. It's like, you're not alone on your journey, absolutely far from, but it's lonely.

And sometimes the fear of still being the victim is stronger than the fear of becoming my mom. The fear that that loneliness (even though on my way I've met amazing ppl and we've walked the same path for a while) will make me turn around. Sprint back to what I know. What's familiar. Because at least I know that outcome, I know I'll be miserable - and for some that's more comforting than the thought of unknown possibilities. No matter how good they are. Been there too!

So sometimes the bravest thing an abuse survivor can do(being terrified but doing it anyway), is having the courage to take the first step towards the unknown and open the different doors on the way forward and decide if they want to stay there for a while or move forward again. And even though it is lonely at times, we actually never are alone. It's loneliness in community. It's a duality at the same time. It's a coin forever spinning.

Just because our mothers made us feel cut off from the rest of society, because our trauma makes us feel like we're the puzzle piece that doesn't fit in, doesn't mean it's true. There are, sadly enough, so so many survivors in the world to find strength from or to help in your turn when able. And even more amazingly, to work together with.

I hope that in the future, and it might take me 20,30,40 years to get free from all the marionette strings my mother tied to me, but I hope I can look back, from time to time, and be proud of and have so much thankfulness in my heart and compassion with how brave I was for taking that first step towards unknown recovery. And really thank them for bringing me there. Just like I in the present, thank my former self for all the ground work they've done for me to be where I'm at already!

And maybe that's the biggest difference between me and my abuser, I can truly feel love for myself and in turn it makes me want to love others and make them love themselves. All because I'm proud of the former versions of me, even though they've stumbled head first at times and had to learn hard lessons and just like anyone I have things I feel ashamed over in my life. The thing I can be happy over is, in hindsight and who I am rn, I would go back to all those situations and correct them if I could. Apologize if I could. Make amends if I could. Tell ppl to fuck off earlier if I could. It gives me comfort to know I don't feel fear towards who I was. Back then I might have only had a nail in my toolbox! And I did what I could with what I had - just like now.

But one thing remains the same, I've always wanted better for myself but never at the expense of others. If I go up I take u all up with me! And in that I can never become my mother.

[anxietysroomsupport]

(1/?)Um so school has just recently started and on the third day I was already crying having a break down. I think that writing would help me be a bit more calm you know organize the brain and all that good stuff. But the thing is I've kinda told myself that 2 months ago that I was gonna write and I still haven't. I even deleted my discord and told myself that I would not log on again till I write. And well let's just say I still haven't reinstalled discord. The thing is writing just ✍🏽🚫

(2/3)Writing just sucks so much I hate it. I'm not even writing like a book or anything its just suppose to be my feelings, but I hate it. I feel like it takes forever just to write less then half a page. I also feel like my thoughts and my hand writing speed are so off. I also just don't like thinking about half the things going on in my head. ✍🏽🚫

(3/3)Sometimes I cant even get the thoughts I need to write out of my head. Like my brain just turns off. My hand writing also be ugly. So can I get some advice on how to make writing not so miserable so I actually do it. Idk me and writing just dont get along. 

Hi ✍🏽🚫 Anon,

Let’s get a little meta.  How did you feel after you wrote these asks?  Any calmer?  Maybe not..

But, how long did it take you?  Because these three asks are just under half a page.  And it kind of seems like you accomplished some of your writing goals: 

You wrote something

You wrote about feelings you’re having

And, yeah, it’s just your feelings about writing, but give yourself the credit!  You might be struggling because you’ve set up too many rules about what, and how, you can write.  If you can’t write what you intended, just write anything.  Write about how pissed you are that you can’t write what you wanted.  Write about how frustrating it is, and how there was that other time you felt frustrated, and then that thing will remind you of something else, and something else, and pretty soon you’ve got a whole page.  If you can’t form your sentence, a single word will do.

Try free writing.  Here is the first example, and the second.  Sometimes it just involves writing the same word over and over again until your brain lets it go.  Sometimes it’s about writing every synonym you can think of for a word until you find the one that feels right, even though you were just in the middle of a sentence.  Throw grammar out the window.  The only goal is to get letters on the page.

Before you do that, though, put yourself in a good mood and reinstall discord.  Punishing yourself for not doing an activity, when that activity’s only purpose is to make you feel better, can be surprisingly counterproductive.  You’re bored and in a bad mood because you’re punishing yourself, and writing sucks more because it’s associated to the punishment.  If you’re mind is stimulated by all the discord happenings, then you’re going to be in a better place to write if you let yourself have it.  Give yourself that downtime each day.  Put a limit on the total time, like 30 minutes, and then switch your attention to your paper and pencil.  If you miss your time limit, that’s okay, just start when you remember.

A lot of people struggle to write a fast as they think.  That’s just because our muscles can’t keep up with the super-computer that is our brain.  A lot of people turn to typing to get around that, but if you don’t have that option, you can practice to write faster by hand.  Here’s a youtube video that gives some fast-writing tips, and here’s a wiki link that talks about Teeline Shorthand, which is a journalism trick to get information down fast.  These two strategies could be combined so that you train your hand muscles to get faster, and at the same time, you’re learning an altered alphabet that is designed to be written quickly.  If no one else has to read it, it won’t matter if they don’t know shorthand.  

You can also use shorthand to make coded messages to your pals.

As far as ugly handwriting... this is one of those things that no one worries about except the person themselves, and maybe your teachers.  No one else is judging your handwriting.  It doesn’t matter how it looks once you’re out of school.  I know a guy who writes as well with his foot as he does with his dominant hand, which is it say, it’s completely illegible both ways!  And it affects exactly zero aspects of his adult life.  

Other ways you can make writing more enjoyable would be, use colored inks!  Get some sparkle pens!  Make some lemon juice ink and write your friends secret messages!  Model your layout after the illuminated manuscripts, and make some doodles!  Writing to calm yourself means it should be something that’s actually enjoyable, so let yourself do whatever you need to do to actually enjoy it.  There are no rules but the ones you set yourself.  

-Miss Fay

[horizonmoonfics]

Pairing: Namjoon x Y/n Genre: Flansgt (it wasn’t fluffy enough to be fluff, but it’s not really angst so just. Flangst?) Word count: 2k Warnings: you are very unproductive. Tags: @cypherwritersnet​ 

“Melanie, for the last time, I can’t make it today. It’s my cousin’s birthday. I’ll catch up with you some other time.” “Okay fine, but we’re bringing Ainsley next time, alright? Magic Shop at 7 PM on Tuesday.” Melanie sounds stern, but you know she’s not entirely serious. No one’s gotten Ainsley out of her room since she broke up with Chad. “Alright fine, but if we manage to get Ainsley to see actual sunlight, you’re paying.” “Deal.”

You hang up the call, wondering how you got yourself into this situation. You put on your jacket and head out of the dorm, on the way to your aunt’s house. A few hours of chattering with your relatives and gossiping about your older cousins while the younger ones run around and eat cake will be enough to distract you from the fact that you’ve been behind on your work for three weeks. You head on over to your cousin’s house, parking your car next to the sidewalk. You step out and walk up to the door, and before you can knock, it opens, and your cousin runs out and hugs you. “Y/N I’VE MISSED YOU SO SO MUCH OMG! How have you been? How’s school? Are you seeing anyone? We have so much to catch up on!” your cousin Laurel squeals. “Laurel, calm down. It’s only been a month!” “STILL. Now. How’s school? Are you seeing anyone?” Laurel continues, eyes burning into your skin. This interrogation lasts for another ten minutes before she remembers that you two are standing outside, and then invites you in. A few hours of chattering with your relatives? More like six hours from 1 PM to 7 PM being bored to death while Laurel flirts with her boyfriend.

                                                   ~The Next Day~ It was Tuesday. At 6:59 PM. In the Magic Shop cafe. Waiting for Ainsley. Melanie, Skylar, and you were already there. It was raining, and it was raining pretty hard. The bell at the entrance to the cafe jingled, and you looked up, seeing Ainsley walk through the door. “So we finally got Ainsley out in public? I’m impressed,” you say, with a small chuckle. You are actually impressed, but also dreading having to pay for everyone’s coffee. “Don’t count on it happening again, I’m tired and I have homework.” Ainsley sighs. “Well, we might have to let your grades slip a bit. When was the last time you met someone?” Skylar says, adjusting the sleeves of her blazer. “It hasn’t been that long…” Ainsley drifts off, as you and your friends look at her. None of you believe anything she’s saying. “Okay maybe it’s been a while. So what? I can take time to focus on my studies! That’s not a bad thing to want.” “No it isn’t, however you were miserable after you broke up with that last guy. I can’t remember his name and no don’t you dare say it he is taboo. You spent three months sulking. And now you’re drowning yourself in essays. Take a freaking break girly,” Melanie says in her dramatic it’s-the-end-of-the-world voice, her hands on her hips. “Melanie I am not drowning myself in essays! I only have three due this week-” “And you had seven due in the past two days we are not taking any bullshit about not having much work.” You say, placing your phone down on the table and sighing. “We want you to go out more, to socialize. Maybe meet someone. At least revive your social life a little bit. Seeing someone who you can casually hook up with will be better than hiding in your room and only emerging for classes.” “There is merit to y/n’s words, Ainsley. Meet someone. Get dick. Don’t attach yourself if you don’t want to. Whatever. Just get out of the house.” Melanie said, then added, “but we should get coffee first. I mean, we’re here, aren’t we? It’s a coffee shop.” Everyone laughed, then sent you to grab a few drinks and some cookies. You shook your head, chuckling as you walked to the counter. You thought about Melanie’s words a little bit. Hooking up? It wasn’t really your type of thing to do, but maybe Melanie’s advice could apply to your worries as well. Though, you had enough on your plate already, so maybe not. When you returned to the table, you gave everyone their drinks and they began to talk about what they’d been up to the past week. “Oh also, you know that new club that opened up on First Street? I went there with some classmates the other day. I may have met someone…” Melanie says with a wink. “Who? Who? Why haven’t we met him?” said Skylar, pouting about being left out of the loop. There wasn’t a loop though. “Calm your tits Skylar, I’m about to tell you. His name is Kim Taehyung, he’s chill, and he’s pretty cute. He had three friends with him, I don’t remember their names though. And I’ve only known him three days, he hasn’t met anyone.” Melanie laughs, patting Skylar’s shoulder. “I think we should pay that club a visit. What’s it called again?” you say, genuinely interested. You think you know what place she’s talking about, the House of Cards club. It was kind of like a coffee shop that sold booze, and it was a great place to meet just about anyone. “House of Cards. Do you have any reason in mind to go?” Melanie asks, but all four of you already knew there was one reason to go. “No. No no no. I am not meeting your Kim Taehyung and his friends.” Ainsley says, wincing. “I do not go clubbing.” “It’ll be fun! Let’s go.” Skylar gets up, grabbing Ainsley’s wrist. You all head out the door, about to set foot in what will be the starting point of the most interesting night of your lives. About twenty minutes later, you’ve walked into the House of Cards and not only found Taehyung, but met six of his friends. They all seem nice, but you’re pretty sure you’re not going to talk to all of them today, especially with the way Ainsley is eyeing Seokjin. You sit down next to Namjoon, who seems to be the quietest. He’s wearing black glasses, jeans, and a pink shirt that says “Don’t Waste Your Time.” He doesn’t seem to be the type to waste his time, and you hope that rubs off on you. You need to get a leg up on studying. “Hi, I’m y/n.” You say, reaching to shake his hand. “Hi y/n, I’d introduce myself but you already know my name. How’s life?” He asks, shaking your hand. You smile, and say, “It’s pretty good, other than overwhelming schoolwork, you know?” You mentally slap yourself when you remember that you actually do have overwhelming schoolwork, and that you weren’t just making a joke. “Ah yes. Schoolwork. Honestly I think this is probably the most stressful time of the year, especially with exams coming up.” Namjoon agrees, and you take a mental note to check which exams you have next. “Yeah. Do you have Professor Sejin? I hear he’s going to have a really long essay portion.” You ask, curious to find out how he’s going to cope with exams. You really do need some study tips… “Oh jeez… Yeah, I have him. You?” “Yep. I’m in his second period class.” “Dang. Early. He hasn’t said anything to our class, how did you find out about the essay length?” He pushes up his glasses, all attention focused on you. “Some of my friends had him last year, they say his essay requirements never change. Figures that he’d be a teacher that doesn’t let up, you know?” “Yeah. None of the older ones do.” You both laugh, and Namjoon asks if he can get you a drink. You say yes, and ask for a coffee because you know you’re going to be driving tonight. You two talk for a few hours, only interrupted a few times by Melanie and Taehyung leaving (to do who knows what), Ainsley laughing at Jin’s jokes (and telling you that Jin was off limits… maybe she will be getting over Chad tonight), and by Jimin’s insistence on buying everyone another round of drinks. You and Namjoon both declined, preferring coffee to alcohol. Eventually, you check the time and realize you have a lot of studying to do. “Damn, it’s nearly midnight.” You say, looking at your watch. “Wow. Yeah, it is. Do you want a ride home?” Namjoon asks, getting up with you. “Ah, no thanks, my car’s at Magic Shop. I’m going to walk over there and then drive home.” “Okay. Can I walk with you? My car’s a few blocks away, so I’ll probably be heading in the same direction.” “Sure,” you say, smiling. He’s nice. When you get to his car, you turn to him and see that he’s taking a pen out of his jeans pocket. Upon seeing your look of confusion, he smiles shyly. “I was going to ask for your number,” he says, “but you don’t have to give it to me if you don’t want to.” You smile, and take out your phone. “I think there’s an easier way to do that than writing on my arm.” He laughs, and pulls out his phone. After the exchange, he bids you good night, and you do the same before he drives off, in the direction of campus. You get home about twenty minutes later, and get a text almost immediately after walking through the door.

Kim Namjoon: Hey 12:03 You: Hi 12:05 Kim Namjoon: Do u want to study together tmr? 12:05 You: Sure! If it doesn’t bother you, of course. 12:05 Kim Namjoon: Lol 12:05 Kim Namjoon: I wouldn’t mind, + it’s a good chance to get studying in 12:06 You: Alright lol 12:06

You finish making plans, and you sigh happily to yourself. Finally, something to get you to actually do your homework.

                                                     ~The Next Day~ You wake up to the sound of your phone alarm, playing the song “Rain” by BTS. Fitting, considering that it is raining pretty heavily outside. You have three new texts from Namjoon, as well as like fifty from your group chat with Melanie, Skylar, and Ainsley (Skylar was the only one who didn’t hook up with anyone, apparently).

Kim Namjoon: So it’s raining 8:20 Kim Namjoon: maybe we should study at the library instead? 8:20 Kim Namjoon: ur call lol 8:21 You: sure 8:46 You: i dont feel like dealing with soggy notes today lmao 8:46

After a laughing emoji from Namjoon, you get ready to go meet him.

You spot him almost immediately in the library. He’s the one person not wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and he waves at you when you walk in.

“Hello stranger,” you say, winking. He smiles, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses as he smiled. “Nice meeting you too, y/n,” Namjoon says, patting the seat next to him, “have a seat.”

You sit down and pull out two of your textbooks and your computer, while Namjoon clears a space on the desk for you.

“So, what exam are you studying for? I’m finishing up with my Civ Pro studying.” “I’m working on my Modern Literature essay prep,” you say, pulling up the essay document on your computer. “Ooh, I could help with that, I took Modern Literature last year.” Namjoon says, adjusting his glasses. “Okay, thank you!” You say, warmly. And so your study session begins.

The next few hours are spent not only studying, but also joking around and giggling. Studying with Namjoon was fun, but also very productive. The most productive you’ve been in months. You schedule more sessions for the next few days, and leave the library feeling very satisfied. You’re definitely cool with having a study partner.

[the-alien-enby]

Metonic Week- Machine

Metal had only been a part of Sonic’s team for a short while, after abandoning his own creator due to difficulties. Sonic had gladly accepted his metallic copy on his team, but as for Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, they weren’t entirely on board with it. Metal even knew this, but as Sonic had asked of him, he tried not to think too much of it. After all, he had so many other things to worry about. Like what if Eggman tries to control him again? What if he somehow leads his new team into danger? What if he... did something horrible to Sonic. On the outside of his thoughts, Sonic was standing beside him, tapping his foot and watching Metal’s optics going in a swirly motion.

“Uhh Mets?” He asked, “Ya doing okay, bud?”

In response, Metal spazzed out some, mostly in surprise as to Sonic’s voice suddenly chiming into his internal thoughts. His optics turned back into their usual oval shape as he looked at Sonic.

“yes. I am doing ‘okay’. Please do not... scare me.. like that again.” Metal spoke, only somewhat in his usual monotone voice, now kind of developing his own special voice.

“Fine, Metal. Anyways, Tails and I are about to go invade one of Eggmans bases! Wanna come?” Metal had noticed Sonic had his brown backpack on. The same one with an emerald colored charm. Only almost matching his bright green eye color.

After Metal gave a simple nod in response to Sonic’s offer, he, Sonic, and Tails headed out. The base was located in Chemical Plant. Of course, Sonic would have something to say about this.

“Mann! Egg-head always builds a base there, huh?”

“Well,” Tails began, “There are a whole bunch of.. well, chemicals, there for his machines. And a lot of machinery in general! That could be why he likes building so many bases there.”

“What do you think, Mets?” He looked over at the blue robot, who didn’t expect to be a part of the conversation, “why do you think Egg-head loves building bases there?”

Metal thought for a bit. “I will be honest, even though I’ve worked for him for as long as I’ve even existed... that’s a great mystery. But Tails’ answer seems to make more sense to me.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right!” Tails laughed some, causing the other two to laugh along.. even if Metal’s sounded more awkward than normal.

————-

It took the group a few hours, but they were soon at the entrance of Eggman’s new base. Metal wondered if Eggman had even changed the entry passcode since he left him. Wouldn’t be surprising if he didn’t, considering how much of a buffoon he was.

“AAlright, Guys! So what’s the plan? Sneaking in? Busting in?” As sonic spoke, he was doing his usual pre-running stretches.

“Now hang on..” Tails had his Miles Electric out, and was using it to scan the base’s entrance and beyond, “It seems that Eggman loaded this place up with security. Even if we do sneak in, we’ll have to be a whole lot more caref-“

Tails was interrupted by Sonic. “Psh! Funny, tails. But what’s the worst ol’ Eggface can do? Catch me?” Sonic continued laughing.

“Sonic, this is Eggman we are talking about. My creator. He knows I work with you now, so he has most likely created something stronger than even myself to take care of you. Tails is right. We do need to be careful.” Metal spoke in a serious tone. Of course, being a robot, he almost always sounds serious.

“An egghead is an egghead. Even if he’s lost one of his creations, I think his limit is at you.” Sonic chuckled, “now let’s get a move on!”

“Fine..” Metal followed Sonic as the spindash drilled through the metal door, immediately afterwards dashing in. Tails stuck with his plan of sneaking in carefully.

Inside the base, it was almost pitch black dark. The only source of light Sonic and Metal had were Metal’s bright red optics, but even that made it hard to see. Sonic used his “hog-sense” to figure out where he was going, as Metal simply scanned around.

“Sonic, this really was a bad idea.. now that there’s a gaping hole in the door, that’s sure to alert someone..” Metal said, almost expecting a snarky response from Sonic.. but to his surprise, nothing. “..Sonic?” Even after that, nothing. Not a sound. He scanned around for the blue hedgehog, but nothing. Metal had a bad feeling about this. But there’s no way Sonic himself could’ve been captured, right?

Well, unfortunately, Metal was wrong. Sonic was in fact captured. Silently knocked out by Eggmans newest creation... which was literally just a spy bot. Eggman did want a new killer robot. But he currently did not have the materials to build a new Metal Sonic. So what’s just as fast and could easily be made as strong, if not stronger? The real deal. This was also a great opportunity to test out a new creation of his; the Roboticizer. A machine that can turn organic matter into machinery through a painful process. Perfect.

Metal was growing worried, but soon spotted a light. From what he could tell from silhouettes, someone was being carried into that room. Metal already had a feeling who it was, and ran towards it. Quietly and slowly however because he didn’t want to have whatever was gonna happen to sonic happen to him as well.

The spy bot dropped Sonic off inside of a cylindrical container, and left before it sealed Sonic inside. Eggman, seeing this, laughed to himself.

“Oh OHOHOH!! Not only do I get a new powerful robot, but I finally have the problem with this blue pest out of the way!!” Eggman continued to laugh before stopping himself. “Right then! Let the Roboticization process... INITIATE!!” He quickly pressed a button, just after Metal had walked in.

“RELEASE SONIC, DOCTOR. OR THINGS WILL GET MESSY.” Metal had his sharp claws out, not joking about how things would get messy.

“Ah, well if it isn’t my former robot, Metal Sonic. I’m afraid you’re too late to save Sonic now!!” Just as he finished that sentence, the roboticization process on Sonic had finished. The cylindrical container lifted, revealing Sonic... only now robotic. His optics now a red color similar to Metal Sonic’s. “Mecha Sonic.. ATTACK!”

Following the orders of Eggman, Sonic got out of the roboticizer and attacked Metal.. but oddly enough, seemed to deactivate right as he was about to actually try hurting him. Both Eggman and Metal were confused as to why this was so.

“N.. NO! HOW COULD I OVERLOOK SUCH A FLAW!!?” Eggman exclaimed, “I HAD MADE SURE THE PROGRAMMING WAS PERFECT!!”

“And yet, here I am leaving.” Metal said, as he picked Sonic up, “Oh.. and for your own safety, get lost.” Metal walked out of the room, leaving Eggman just whining about his defeat. As Metal left, he contacted Tails to let him know that an escape was required, due to what had happened to Sonic.

———-

Hours had passed since Metal brought the now robotic Sonic back. Tails was trying to reactivate it, Amy was horribly worried for Sonic, and Knuckles was blaming Metal for all of this.

“Maybe had you just been left as scrap metal, Sonic wouldn’t be like this!” He yelled at Metal.

“Knuckles I’m sorry, but can you shut up!? It was Sonic that didn’t listen to my or Metal’s warning and rushed in anyways!” Tails was defending Metal’s case. Sure he didn’t entirely trust him yet, but he had seen the warning before his eyes.

“Oh so now you’re taking his side!? What’s next?! Are you gonna be trusting EGGMAN of all people next!?” Knuckles raised his voice. Metal has had enough by now. He went between Knuckles and Tails and of the first time, showed true emotion through his voice.

“YOU KNOW WHAT?! I get it!! I get that you don’t like me! I get that you won’t accept the fact that I have changed! That ive decided to be my own person- robot- whatever!! And I get that you would think that I would be responsible for this happening to sonic!!”

No one had known this, but Sonic was already reactivating, actually acting like himself, green optics instead of red, just in time to hear the rest of what Metal had to say, “and you know what?! I’ll accept responsibility for what happened to him! I should’ve forcefully kept him from breaking in like that! I should’ve kept a better eye on him! So you know what?! Maybe I don’t belong here after all! Maybe you’re right! I SHOULD JUST BE IN A SCRAP PILE!!” And with that, Metal stormed out. Everyone in the room was baffled. None of them, not even Sonic, had ever seen Metal like this. Sonic finally got up.

“METAL!! WAIT!!” Almost as soon as he got up off the table Tails and Metal had set him on, he had fallen down. When getting up, he finally realized what had happened to him.. or was at least getting an idea of it.

“...huh.. Well Tails.. you were right. I should’ve listened to you.” Sonic was beginning to tremble some, but soon stopped. “I’ll ask about how the heck this happened later. I’ve gotta stop Metal from doing whatever he’s probably about to do!!” Sonic ran off again, but unfortunately for him, going at a normal running pace.

“Oh come on!! GO FASTER, FEET!!” And almost as if they listened to him, he began going his usual speed. Thanks to the thrusters on his legs. Tails tried to go after him, worried that he would deactivate again, but Sonic was already gone.

It didn’t take him long to catch up with Metal, as Metal was not using his back thruster. Sonic was about to ask him to come back, but Metal beat him to the first words.

“You know.. you know it’s my fault Sonic.. dOnT you tell lies..” Metal kind of sounded like he was crying, his optics in a sad expression.

“Metal.. why would I even lie to you!? I’m not one to lie anyways!” Sonic slowed down to talk to Metal, “And assuming that you’re blaming yourself for.. this..” he motioned to the rest of his now robotic body, “well don’t. It’s my own fault for not listening to you and Tails.”

“But..” Metal robotically sighed, “What about the others? Even if you defend my case, they’ll still think it’s my fault.”

“No they won’t.. they’re only rough on you because of things you did in the past. Even then it was only because you were following your programming. But now you’re your own bot! You’ve even developed your own personality!”

“You’re.... you’re right about that.” Metal finally stopped.

Sonic stopped as well. “Now come on. Don’t go and scrap yourself over all of this. That wouldn’t be good for either of us.”

“..Alright.”

—————

-Epilogue-

Sonic and Metal soon headed back to Tails’ workshop. Sonic had confronted Knuckles about how he basically told Metal to go kill himself, and pretty much made Knuckles apologize.

Tails began figuring out Sonic’s situation further, with Metal helping out. Unfortunately for Sonic, he would be stuck like this for the rest of his days, if not just for a long time. While this did upset the blue hedgehog, he understood that this was what he gets for going into everything head first. Metal was there to help Sonic get used to life as a robot. Their relationship began to blossom over time, causing them to begin to crush on each other... but what happens afterwards is only to be assumed.

——————————

This took forever to write

@metonic-ship @enigma--machine

[indomitablemegnolia]

He growled, his eyes rolled, I had finally pushed him onto his uncomfortable place; "My imagination, my wants, my needs are simple; I just hunger to be near you. I would love to just sip coffee and kisses for days; make out like mad teenagers; I want nothing from you; all I require from you, all I ask of you, all I want is for this sliver of a moment, a simple time away from time."

He stopped, a look crossed his face as if something inside was daring him to tell the unvarnished truth; I simply waited for that idea that struck so suddenly his jaw dropped as though he had a revelation, he looked away letting out half a chuckle, finally he came to a resolve; "I realize to rip your attention away, to cast these doubts away is to lay it all out; I finally understand it's my turn to lay it all out bare; I have to be as unashamedly honest, to let you know what my imagination screams: I hunger for you," he raised to his knees crawling over my legs, "I need to touch you; I am lost to it," he crawled slowly up my body, "I want you, all of you;" he locked me in place as his arms braced his frame planted on either side of my head; "your eyes, your lips, your mind," he sighed, kissing me soft, "your heart, your body," he nestled himself between my legs, "sensually," he kissed me harder doing things with his tongue that made my breath leave in a moan; "sexually," he ground suggestively against me "I want bury myself so deeply in you;" he stopped looking a little ashamed, he kissed me, holding me close, "I want you, simply as a man wants a woman; simple, no rules, no expectations, no explanations just simple, basically, I am willing to take as much as you are willing to give." He kissed me softly, slowly, undressing my soul; "I ask you in return, why not you? Why me?" I must have given him that look again, he set his jaw, "Seriously darling, why me? How did you find me acceptable?"

"Simple," I rolled to where he had left my journal, he tried to reclaim it from my fingers, I slapped lightly at his hands, pulling it farther away from him when he reached for it I carded through until I found the dress piece; "Read, I knew you, I loved you well before we met." I pushed the look under his nose, he read, his eyes flairing; he looked up. I nodded, "Yup, I wrote of you long before the possibility of you seemed real. Look at the date." I pointed over the cover at the left corner. "Ages ago, fifteen years; back when I had friends and they spoke to me of their wedding plans; a friend was belabouring the cut of the dress, the flavour of the cake, how the brides maids would behave; but always ignoring the fact that her intended was a jerk, who ended up beating her; I wrote that to satisfy my soul; solidly believing that no such human existed; that I was safe; then there was you."

"How, how, I doubt anyone knew me; I didn't even know me, then." I watched him read it again, "I gather you thought these were impossibilities," he rolled to his side as close to me as possible, that long leg laying over mine like a downed tree; he began reading in that dramatic voice; "I was listening a friends diatribe about trying to find the perfect wedding dress… It has to have a bit of this, or an overlay of that. She was fussing and fawning over the bow details when the Person about to stand opposite of her was of inadequate material. So I started mulling over who, if ever anyone, I would stand opposite. I thought I would fuss over the important things.

Accepting NO less than the sum of all of these traits.

I imagine it like walking up to the service counter a lot like a cosmetic counter, kind of playing paper dolls. I would like him have eyes of green and blue; he must be tall like Clint Walker;" he was holding caressing my journal in one hand in the other he began counting the qualities he possessed; "he would speak with a strong Baritone like Marshall Dillon; he would have the sensibilities of Sargent Tyree, 'no ma'am I don't chaw and I don't play cards'; in essence no conformity and no lying;" his leg began caressing and rubbing where our bare skin touched; he looked to me, "I am sure our current understanding does not count in that" he looked into my eyes as I confirmed with a nod, he counted three; "the ideals of Steve Rogers. Boots and Hat would be nice, Cowboy, Mountie, fireman or other.' Hiking boots, I hope, count," he held up five fingers; "He must love dogs, cats, goats and well most animals except killer whales.' I have a dog, don't mind cats, never met a goat and we will come back to the whale thing; 'I’d like a man who can speak at least one computer language and two audible languages.' Check and check." He held up another completed hand of qualities.

"Someone who gets String theory, science jokes, bad puns and delicious entandre." His eyebrow raised deliciously on the last word, understanding what I was inferring. "Who loves all kinds of music, or at least who can stomach my musical schizophrenia, entailing all of, but not limited to: rock, punk, classical, country, especially older country, psychobilly, regae.' Oh, darlin you know I do;" he kissed my cheek; "The ability to laugh at himself is a MUST, laughing at my jokes…. still a maybe, I know they are bad.' You will have to believe me, but yes, I can. 'He has to enjoy singing and dancing, even if done badly.' I am charmed by your sing along and dances actually when it comes to the dances I am more than charmed, it's more of a turn on, and you know I dont hold back that much either; 'I would like a soul who loves whimsy, doing the funny walk up Market Street, singing and walking in the rain and willing to do the insane and comical, including moving every item in the house to center around a new precious gift.' I never thought about it, but I am game to try, 'I would hope he would like to cook; observe good etiquette, open the doors for me;' at all times, 'he should know the ignition timing for a ‘64 Chevy 283.' Not that exact information, but I like to tinker and grease monkey around in cars; 'I hope he would understand me when I tell him that simple things like a french toast breakfast for dinner using almond extract instead of vanilla, washing my hair or checking my engine fluids, means 'I love you' as well as hand written notes, cards made of glitter and cardboard are as romantic as diamonds in the right setting.' Anyone else I would doubt, but you, you are that anomaly."

"'He has to know how to say things that cut through to the heart of the matter, either romantic, apologetic, inspiring,or just truth and mean every word.' I have left the days of part measures behind. 'He has to like pancakes and breakfast for dinner' more of a waffle guy but I do understand, 'and ice cream in the morning. He has to value my thoughts BUT not weigh them too heavily,' you just watched my transition, 'debate especially HEATED debate is fun (and more than a little sexy),' Sounds fun. 'I would love someone who adored words as much as me, I always wondered if it was hoping too largely to hope for someone who could pick up my favorite books and know the passages that strike my very innermost being, maybe read them aloud to me with the longing and emotion I myself read them with,' Oh what a fun game that will be. 'Money wouldn’t hurt but neither is it a must, it is not important to me, neither are looks, according to most I do have an odd taste in beauty anyways.' Odd taste? I must probe that later, 'Most of all He has to take me as I am because I can’t change myself for anyone else. I was 12 the one time I tried to be someone else, I have never wanted to be anyone other than what life has shaped me into. He has to appreciate my laughing snort, my funny ugly toes, and the fact that I will laugh when he trips or falls, stubs a toe, or any other slapstick comedy-esque routine injury that doesn’t involve blood…He has to find my oddities, eccentricities and idiosyncrasies, the fact i wear oversized thermals as my sexy night clothes, t-shirt and ripped sweats, flirty dresses and sparkle jeans as sexy as fishnets and a bustier…. But most of all He has to laugh with me, love me even when he’s mad at me and not mind a lot of residual radiation…. Until then I don’t care to even think about bows, bustles, frocks or hoops, I want a hero, anything less would be completely inacceptable and uncivilized' god I love how you laid it all out exactly like playing paper dolls."

He kissed me long and deep, "So, you think I stack up pretty nicely do you? The ideals of Steve Rogers and the voice of Clint Walker. So, you like cowboy shows?" I nodded, "eyes of green and blue, so, then k mmm I assume for you this has been oddly easy for you?"

"Not in the least, I have to trust in hope, and we are not on speaking terms, I had to trust that you were not some figment, some dream, I had to trust in the universe; just this once. Too often, especially of late, hope has dangled dreams just beyond my fingertips simply to pull them away, just as I almost touched..." I sighed, still mourning the loss of my last dream; "so, when you appeared I assumed this was another hard lesson to be learned. You made that easier by being you." I pulled him down to me kissing him sweetly.

He sighed, finishing reading, "Damn darling. I am stunned. How did I make it easier by being myself?" His eyes got glossy and he drifted away.

"The cupcake, I didn't even think you were truly real until you did the most thoughtful thing I had ever seen personally." I kissed him sensually with a subtle roll of my hips; I pressed hard to him, it was his turn to let loose such an erotic sound, half moan, half growl. He pressed me hard down feasting on my soul. He almost let himself run with the moment; he slowed fingers soft, lips cajoling; slowly he edged to a stop, pulling away.

"Where did you go?"

His music changed again, Billie Holiday singing kiss me once, god, his smile, "I imagine recapturing that first kiss, no stumbled step just a surrender; you naturally, fiendishly moving against me; god, that first kiss we shared, the laugh, it wrecked me." He tucked my hair back behind my ears, I cuddled my cheek into his palm. "I want to see in your eyes, when that simple truth, that in this give and take, that you give yourself to me freely, that you take equally greedily; not because you have to, or because I asked you, but because you want it too. I want that mad passionate love. Mostly, I want you, any way you will give, the only way I get you."

He pressed me back into the bank of pillows, "Now, of course, for such a gem, I offer all that I am," I moaned as I felt his weight settle into my body. "I offer you freedom; a pure and total freedom; freedom from the drudgery of that other everyday life." He laced his fingers through mine, kissing each fingertip. "I offer freedom as an abstract ideal. I can't offer a freedom from pain." He ran his hands delicatly over my body, lingering in places "I offer you a freedom from responsibility, from guilt, from regret; momentarily a freedom from sadness. I offer you moments of pleasure, moments to be happy. Oh, I can offer you pleasure likes of which you have never known."

I rolled my eyes closed, pleasure already making my soul free. "No, please, don't close your eyes;" my eyes snapped open, "I need you to look at me." I let a slow breath out, "I want to see the realization in your eyes that I am offering you my love." Slipping along the deep V in the robes neck, his skilled hands teased my flesh, his deft tongue pulled my eyes. I felt so very alive, his fingers moving at a slow, a tantalizing pace, pressing the edges of the robe out, exposing more of my flesh; I was already drowning in lust and need; his eyes holding me captive. "Ah there it is, all of me is what I offer you, all of you is all I ask of you."

I had been so lost in this feeling I had forgotten to be self conscious, I notice finally, his fingers caressing some of my scars, angry red welts I have never let anyone see. I stopped breathing but then I saw his motion, his revrence, "Gods, you see them and you are not revolted?"

He shook his head, then I watched his lips caress the welt that transacted my sternum. "Nope, not even a little. All of you, it's all I ask of you."

"Kiss me until I forget how terrified I am of everything wrong with my life." God, did he, the man's kisses were amazing I felt his hands his tongue, both working in unison; I gravitate toward him, longing for, wanting to use my hands in such a delicious spell; thirsty for more contact. My awe apparent in my voice, as he pulled away, almost a whisper, "wow," I smiled. He was magnificent.

"Well, my sweet you never really defined, 'really, very good,' for me..." he kissed me almost in passing, "maybe we can work that out together." He kissed me, soft, asking, "or you tell me your favourite food."

"Chinese." I giggled,

He laughed, oh, that gorgeous marvel of deliciousness, pulling me to my feet, starting a sweet waltz, "I do love a good chinese dinner," he danced me in a soft circle, he buried his nose in my neck kissing at first; his tongue lightly licking, "I want you, I need you in the purest ways, the longing in my bones howls to be near you, to be with you;" he pulled me closer his hands, his lips, his tongue becoming more insistant; my arms slid along his wide shoulders caressing his neck my fingers playing with the soft curls there, he started with soft bites. I gripped the robes lapels, "I want bring all of your senses alive;" his hands began to move over the thick terry cloth, soft, looping circles he traced in the opposite direction of his tongue; pulling him closer, I let out a breathy sigh. My breath hitched, I slid my hands under his robe, sliding along his silky skin; "tell me sweetheart, total honesty, tell me how you feel about what I said."

"Hmmm, nerves, I never knew I had, are all on fire; I am lost on this ocean adrift on sensuality and revrence; I want more, to be honest no one has ever told anything like the intoxicating words the dreams you have been laying at my feet; like Yeats; I feel as if this is not one of those times hope isn't playing me for a fool. I am no longer unsure, afraid; we are alive in a way that I have never experienced; alive, I am having trouble making up my mind which I want the most; I crave your words, but that sweet haunting revrence of your touch," his hands moved with more intent, beginning to grip pulling the robe, holding me close, his lips with intention, I moaned unashamedly, living in the friction of his fingers using the terry cloth to excite, "mmm, the trailing fluidity of your hands creating punctuation for your crafted sentences, natural aphrodisiacs. Oh, those words followed by the delicious brush of your hands; oh, feeling, that feeling." Duet of the flowers started as if by Devine intention; "Apt moment for this particular aria, the quiet end of one flower, my fears, and the resurgence of beauty in this; these moments."

Kissing me breathless he bent me back taking advantage of the parting robe, his lips feasting along the edges of the terry cloth; I sighed, I bucked, I strained backwards, shuddering gasps escaped. "I love how you react instantly, honestly, you senses on edge, your shiver at my voice, your bend to my touch."

His revrent hand glided up my neck, dipping his thumb between my lips; words were pulled from me; "The way your touch softly glides, fingertips delicately trace the furrows, the hollows for those words to sweetly flow." I licked his digets, caressing the pads with my tongue; "the texture of those large, luscious, calloused hands, each of your fingers touched with just the perfect roughness; each finger pressed softly, trailing against my aching, hungry skin. The gentle veracity, the keening desire, your lingering breath weaves our tale." As I spoke I have been licking and kissing his glorious chest running my hands fore the skin of his shoulders.

His hands traced soft but insistently along my body over the robe; his lips sweetly asking for more. "Oh, sweet darling, please believe me your words flow so deliciously, just keep talking and I promise I will only follow your lead."

His sweet asking pushed me to a bold move; I traced my hands from his chest to his abdomin, his delicious breath hitched then shuddered his hands stilled; "Your kisses craft slowly flowing paragraphs; long languorous passages; savory, sensuous stanzas of will and want;" I found his sash and pulled it slowly, determined, it came loose, his robe falling open; he half moaned, half sighed in relief; my hands grew bolder at his reaction, my eyes skimming along, what can only qualify as the most beautiful specimen of human male I had ever seen, complete with perfectly bleached white jockey shorts, "the hushed whispers of the soul allows the movement of our bodies to create the chapters of our own perfectly written novel. Your eyes spoke to me of the extent of your will, I am shaken;" his hands now bold, reciprocated, pulling my sash, my robe fell open, I shivered, my soul had been standing here naked for a while, finally phisically I matched, dropping my arms letting it slide from my body; the steps to our dance had turned to soft swaying; he pressed our bodies close. His breath sucked in through his teeth, mine left in a gust of a sigh; "though, I confess not disappointed." He hooked his foot behind my knee and pushed; with a squeal I landed on the soft duvet, his weight delightfully covering me. I giggled.

"For long moments there, I could not speak," his lips soft on mine, his words an echo of my soul, "the fate of the world could have hung in the balance of my one uttered syllable and I would have been unable to even whisper acknowledgment." His hands revrently sliding mine gripping along his warm delicious frame; "I wish I could say sorry for falling over you, but you are just so delicious, this communication, so honest like blatant souls." I giggled as his fingers tickled, turning quickly to a hiss of air between my teeth, his lips caressing the scars lacing my abdomen, shocking myself I didn't try to push him away, instead I continued letting my lips kiss every piece of skin it found. "The more I get, I just want even more; tell me more, please, just keep talking."

I licked my hungry lips, surreptitiously making sure they had not fallen off completely. His glorious mouth drifting revrently over my scars, resting and reveling in my hungry skin; the things he was doing his hands, lips and tongue were deliciously driving me wild, he wasn't kidding about waking every one of my senses, "Oh, I watched as your eyes spoke, I was drowning in those green seas of desire; now, hearts, souls slowly burn. Gods, now I admit freely, it is you that I want; it has always ever been you, believe it always will be you." I gathered his robe pushing down his shoulders, running my fingers light over his soft skin, letting my nails lightly trail, his growl played across my skin. "In fact, I will fan the flames, I want to let them burn, right through my skin, right through the heart of me. I want to burn in this sunspot moment."

Our eyes locked, the look in those fathom deep depths stilled my breath; will and want and something more simmered deeply; he pulled me close, our bodies pressing sliding conforming to eachother; his mouth moved along my sholder, his tongue tracing lightly the length, gripping softly pushing my face to the left; his lips taking full advantage of the opened space. Legs winding, my hands growing even bolder, gripping his bum, his fingers danced across my skin, they flitted, butterfly soft over my breasts; I arched off of the bed, my breath shuddering; I clutched at his shoulders; we melt together, like two links remembered and fused again together; "we thirst, hunger, want, need, crave … lust. How wonderful to be alive." I kept the words from flowing, but how will hurt when we are through?"

He slowed, pulling lightly away, as if reading my mind, "No one knows the if's, when's, or how's, we should just bask in the is;" his breath coming in deep billowing pants; keeping in complete contact; "I need to know how far I should go."

Panting, I try to quip, "I dont know, how far do you think you can make it in this storm?"

He laughed, delicious feeling rushing over my senses, my bare skin. "You know exactly what I mean, do we, you and I, go all the way, no regrets; we will just fall asleep together when the night is burnt and tired, and I want, I want, I want... you, I have wanted you, I want to finish this day feeling your pulse pressed against mine just so we know we are both alive, in this beautiful second. I want… I” he took a breath; "but to hell with what I want, if you wish we can just sip coffee and kisses, until the storm is past."

I took a deep breath, and willed myself to answer with every ounce of sexuality I had, in a very Lauren Bacall style; I angled my head seductively, stretching an arm over my head saying rather with a bored tone, "Here I thought my laying naked and panting in your arms would have been a clear indication." I yawned, "Take me to bed or lose me forever." God his laugh, "I want it all, if we were at a restaurant I would be ordering the lobster with out checking the price, or even looking at the chicken." I ebbed away losing steam, I wound up to let loose one of my nervous, inane topic traversing tirade.

He pressed his finger to my lips, "Shhh, yes, I know you are nervous, but seriously listen. You hold the power, be that hurricane you showed me, that amazon queen."

He nuzzled and kissed my neck sending delicious butterflies dancing through me. I hummed a solitary note of praise, "Gods, the way you see me, I. .." I trailed off as he worked deliciously on the sensitive nerves where shoulder meets neck, I went slack, I clung to him.

@iamhisgloriouspurpose this is the continuation to the last part.

@keeper0fthestars. @pedeka @writernotwaiting

@sweetfairy1 @fromthedeskoftheraven

[lowkeysebastianstan]

hey there. I totally get your frustration with endgame and the ending. I wasn't happy and I'm not happy how half the fandom tells me/us how we have to look at it. how we have to accept it. how the actors are happy with it and so should we. how the writers/producers - okay, I'm gonna leave them out of this seeing neither of them have any idea what they have done in the first place. after all they disagree on everything in every interview since the release. and isn't that funny? (1/?)

how even they are not on one side with the movie? what I despise most right now when it comes to this movie and this fandom is how we are treated. how we should tag our “hate” - which I think is funny since I didn’t hate the movie entirely. I hated pieces of it, like I did with past movies. I never liked doctor strange and even back then people were allowed to mention how casting cumberbatch for the part wasn’t the smartest idea they had. (2/?)

people want us to be happy with an ending that doesn’t make sense to us and they appreciate and are “allowed” to shove down our throats with their happy posts about a perfect ending. how is taking tony’s life after he finally married pepper and got a daughter is perfect? how is sending steve back to peggy after they did everything in their power to convince us he moved on from his past life…how is that perfect? (3/?)

you can probably tell I’m bitter. I really am. there’s not a day that goes by I’m not frustrated with what we got after ten years and 22 movies. however, I thought to myself what would it give me to cling on to this on my blog. would it change anything? I do know I’m not alone. I see so many people agreeing with this anger and it gives me some sort of peace. at the end of the day, though, it’s also important to see what it gives to you. (4/?)

talking to one of my closest friends about it and voicing my frustration with the end helps me more than keep posting about it. because in the end it won’t change a thing. the longer I surround myself with the frustration and anger and everything that comes with this not being what I had hoped for the more it pushes me from the fandom. of course everyone do as they please and I get people who want to get it out of their system. (5/?)

but maybe sitting down and look at what the constant repeating will give you in the end, realizing where it might end, could help finding some kind of peace for you. I’d hope for you to enjoy the parts of the fandom that still apply to you. I really like your blog and you as a person and I’d hate to see one of my fave people on this site to leave (I lost count, but this is the last)

whew! hi right back, that was quite something. 

i feel ive answered this ask before, was that also you?

i mean, yeah. i know im not alone, i do. i see some of it on my dash, but not a lot, since ive had to block every marvel related tag just to keep from indulging in some light murder (just gentle ones, not to worry), and i really cannot fathom why ppl on the other side of the isle can’t do the same? or if you’re getting tired of the negativity? blacklist. or unfollow, block even. 

as ive said a few times lately, ive been here 6 years. and this is the first time ive aired my frustration in any noticeable way. sure there’s been a few occasions where i got the salt shaker out, but that was in relation to much more limited subjects, and it was a post or two at the most. 

ive been frustrated with previous movies too, but ive kept my trap shut, ive just gone on, kept my queue stocked, giffed the rare set and hid behind pretty solid content, no drama, not personality, no engagement. 

and it’s not too bad, to just be anonymous, to look at the pretty, spread the pretty, do the occasional tag rant, and let that be it. 

but.

when i came back after a long hiatus last autumn i started writing again. i posted a psa where i apologised for the fact that i would reblog my writing on this blog, i informed what tags i was gonna use, and for the first time i actually checked my follower count before and after. i lost 20 followers the first day. for posting writing. my writing. that was tagged to a ridiculous degree. and i saw a fair few more disappear before the exodus, and idk. i made me realise a thing or two.

one, people like my blog and the content i post

two, they’re only here for that content

three, to have a strictly themed blog will limit you horribly

four, my followers in general don’t give a shit about me, only about the content i post, which fair enough

five, i care about that, even if i don’t care about the follower count as such, i do care that the ones i have actually like me

six, which is completely absurd bc none of them knows me at all, i never show myself

but that was then. this is now. and the last weeks has made me realise the most important thing of all, i dont care any more. why the fuck should i? when my showing any kind of negativity about something that i did care a whole lot about but i no longer have?

endgame might have killed all my enthusiasm for the mcu, and it fucking hurts. it’s been a staple in my life for years, ive invested my time, my creativity, my love and my goddamn money, and ive got jack shit to show for it. i have a blog that i used to love, but is becoming alien to me, and that hurts too. ive invested a lot in this blog too, after i deleted a few of my other blogs a couple of years back, this is by far my biggest one. and im torn tbh. 

do i want to leave it? no, i don’t. can i go back? honestly? i doubt it. if my love for the mcu is gone, well so is bucky. and lets be real, a sebastian stan blog with no bucky? i cannot really see it, can you?

but hey. ill make you a deal, all of you. ill ease up on the memes, i won’t stop bc i have a few scheduled, you guys blacklist or unfollow if you dont want to see them, and ill see about sprinkling in some sebastian content if i can find any i deem worth it. 

also i don’t have any close irl friends to air my frustrations with, everyone here loved this crap, and that’s not really the discourse im looking for. but im happy for you, it sounds nice :)

hope you’re having a great day! 

eta: i won’t leave btw. not unless the porn hub thing comes into fruition. just so you know, and if anyone cares. just sayin. 

eta2: also? the fact that i, or we, are complaining and being pissed at the movie, but the opposition are attacking us for doing that? instead of, again, fucking blacklist and leave us the fuck alone? yeah, doesn’t help with the bitter. if y’all are so threatened by our arguments, maybe you should reevaluate your own, seems you’re trying a bit too hard there. i don’t want to take enjoyment from anyone, i envy you too much for that, but ffs, just leave me the fuck alone to deal with it. (that’s not @ you, that’s to them)

eta3: and thank you for saying im someone you like. but see? ive been trolling you all, im terrible. and i expect you don’t like me as much now anyways. but thank you, it was nice to hear nevertheless.

[bemundolack]

Solidarity: a Curious Cat Response

Someone in the comments asked for the full text, so here it is:

Hey, my name’s Bemundolack. If you follow me on social media, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been busy lately. I was at a Trans Day of Visibility even that got attacked by neo-confederates. I'm had to look for a new place to live because I got evicted. I’m trying to organize positive praxis with my comrades. It’s a busy time. But I always appreciate getting CuriousCat questions. It usually takes my mind off things and makes me reason through an answer. I have a habit of writing novel-length answers to fairly simple questions. I recently got a question that kind of feeds into what’s been happening in my life, though, so I thought I’d make a video response. -clears throat-

“I do want to learn, I just notice the ones who cry loudest for socialism are the ones who didn't do well in life. I know school doesn't mean everything, I just find it hard to feel sorry for someone who had missed their opportunity because they picked drugs and booze. For people who failed, of course socialism is beneficial to them. I legit dont mind helping those with born diseases or disabilities. But I feel very iffy giving money to druggies. I'm not saying drug addicts dont deserve help, but iono, they seem lower on the order of people who need help.”

Let's examine some of the assumptions under this question. Whenever you ask something like this, you’re basing it on a set of premises that build a world-view. In this case, I think the asker has some bad premises. If people “pick drugs and booze” instead of choosing to be successful, then they should not have the same material benefits that people who choose success should have. That’s the first underlying logical thread that I see.  

So let's first look at why people "pick drugs and booze." One of the primary reasons people abuse drugs is a form of self-medication. People who don't have access to healthcare, especially mental healthcare, may turn to alcohol and opiates to treat various health problems. If a therapist is $200 per session and alcohol is $1.50 for a 40oz, the path of least resistance when you're feeling suicidal is obvious. That's where people's first drink comes from. And a culture where that is the path of least resistance for everyone creates peer pressure to participate in alcohol consumption. Addiction and trauma tend to be intergenerational, especially in families with a background of intergenerational poverty. Alcohol is more heavily advertised in poor, black, brown, and immigrant communities. Those communities tend to be poorer because of a history of things like redlining, rent discrimination, Jim Crow/segregation, gentrification, and mass migration caused by US imperialism. Everyone who is born is born at the raw edge of a set of material conditions with a history of how they arose, and a limited scope for the continuation of that path based on current material conditions, whether that's good or bad. People don't usually start opiates with IV drug use, they usually start because they were overprescribed opiates, or because they were normally prescribed opiates but have a family history of addiction that may be genetically linked, or because they were born in the circumstances described above and were pressured to accelerate their addictive behavior because of sheer cultural momentum. People don't wake up in the morning and say, "Damn, I currently have all my needs met, but I would like to be dependent on a substance and jeopardize my position on the hierarchy of needs." People usually become addicted out of an effort to meet some unmet need.

Even rich people. Even capitalists. Marx's theory of alienation talks about how the working class is fundamentally alienated from our labor, each other, and ourselves. But that must be doubly so for the capitalist class, in some ways. If your needs are met via the exploitation of other people's labor, that is fundamentally alienating. The working class is alienated by the mode of production, the capitalist class are the agents of the mode of production. If you work is managing other people’s labor, then your work is to alienate yourself. I think that's why rich people suffer from addiction, too, and why they all turn out to be artists when they recover (because they can afford to recover because they have health insurance and can go to rehab, poor people just die). Art is (usually) labor that fundamentally serves no one other than the artist, and then secondarily serves their audience. It's labor that we're not alienated from, and it connects us to other people.

This video by Innuendo Studios illustrates the inherent problem with this question: hierarchy. Hierarchy clip

So far, my answer to “If people choose drugs over success, they shouldn’t have the same things as successful people” has been “People don’t choose drugs in the way that you’re thinking, there’s an element of economic coercion and social momentum.” But there’s another thing that I would like to point out: prioritizing the needs of the “deserving” over the needs of addicts or the “undeserving” is an unjustified hierarchy when scarcity is manufactured for profit. We have enough food, shelter, clothing, and other things to meet the basic needs of everyone, at least where I live. We have such a surplus that food gets thrown away, the dumpsters locked and monitored with cameras so that hungry people can’t access their basic needs for free. Houses remain empty as investor properties, helping to raise the rents around them and make money for people who already have incredible amounts of money, while people sleep on the street and get rounded up by cops just for existing in public. We currently, right now, prioritize the greed of people whose needs are met to an excess that we can never dream of over people who are starving and dying of exposure.

Socialism is NOT about giving people money. Socialism, at least the type that I’m a proponent of, is about eliminating money as a system for distributing resources. It’s about changing the nature of work so that our work affects our material conditions directly instead of giving us a wage to pay for our material needs. It’s about abolishing the system that causes people to live in luxury while others starve.  

I don’t want to place myself above anyone else on a hierarchy. I want there to not be a hierarchy. The idea isn’t to make the owners and bosses into underlings, and turn the underlings into bosses and owners. It’s to get rid of the ideas of bosses, underlings, and owners. We don’t need people to occupy those roles to have a functional life together as humans.  Our hierarchical systems are inefficient, cruel, wasteful, and unnecessary. And if you feel like you need police to tell you not to murder people, and you need a boss to tell you to do something with your time that meets your needs, and you need a landlord to allow you to live in your home, then... Maybe you’ve got some internal soul searching to do.  

The people that attacked us on TDoV and the type of person who would send me this message would probably both say that they value freedom, but how can you have freedom when you’re constrained by a rigid hierarchy? When you’re alienated from those around you because you’re dead scared of them rising above you, or because you’ve got to do everything you can to rise above them? Are you free when even the idea of real liberation makes you cling fearfully to the bars of your cage?

Specifically referring to the Curious Cat question, we should give alcoholics and addicts what they need because the liberation of others around us is a vehicle for our own liberation. You’re not expected to break yourself out of the hierarchy single-handedly. Anything you can do to meet people’s needs when they don’t “deserve” it is subversive to the hierarchy. It connects you to other people in a way that allows you to work together to free each other. We call that solidarity.  

We need to have solidarity with people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol because we are all in the working class. The vast majority of us will never be capitalists; that is, people who own private property, the means of production, or a significant amount of wealth. We need to have solidarity with people who are addicted or homeless or living in poverty because that could be most of us in just a short amount of time if something went wrong. A mentality that says, “Well, I’ve got everything I need, why should I care about others?” isn’t just cruel, it puts you at risk. If you’re willing to sacrifice someone else’s wellbeing for your comfort, then your wellbeing is subject to forfeit as well.  

Capitalists don’t care about you. Capitalists care about themselves and their profit and their property. If you want them to care about you, you have to threaten one of those things, and we are no threat to capitalism as isolated individuals. Solidarity is power. Solidarity is liberation. Solidarity is life. We need each other, because alone, we are powerless. Alienation is death.

If you’ve watched this entire video, thank you very much. I know this was short, but now I’m a little more stable, so I should be able to put out more content. If you wanna follow me elsewhere on the internet, I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and Curious Cat @ Bemundolack. If you’d like to support me, you can like this video, subscribe to my channel, and consider supporting me on either ko-fi at ko-fi.com/bemundolack or on patreon at patreon.com/bemundolack. I really have to thank my patrons this time around. I’ve been in a very precarious financial situation, and I couldn’t have made it through without you. Your support actually does mean a lot to me. Special thanks to the following patrons:

[aaronmascoll]

Chapter 30 - Leila

Leila sat there, awkwardly, as Mr. Apex aggressively sucked on Morgan's breast. His animalistic growls of pleasure forced Leila to avert her eyes. She chose to stare at the floor, thinking it would make the situation she was in less awkward. It did not. "Slow down," Morgan said playfully. "I have a proposal I'd like to present to you."

"You talk," Mr. Apex said in a hoarse voice. "I'll listen."

"As you may know, I'm not too fond of the way the elders have been acting as of late, and it has come to my attention that they are preparing to do something heinous."

"Aren't they always," Mr. Apex said with a menacing growl. "At least when Gwen was in charge, the elders stood for the betterment of all people. Not just themselves."

"Which is why, I'm removing myself as one of their supporters. I've been conversing with my graduates and their families, and they've all sided with me. I've already started to set up a community in the old kingdom of Zein. We're still limited to the country's outskirts, but as soon I figure out the heat problem, I will be the queen of my very own country."

"And you've come here to ask me what, exactly?"

"I want you to marry me."

Leila suddenly looked up and gasped, not from what Morgan said, but from what she saw in the window to the redwoods. Morgan glanced at Leila and continued as if she wasn't there. "We'll combine schools, and present a unified front in the event that the elders try to do anything drastic. But, regardless of your decision, I have come her to release you from the binding. The elders, however, will not like that you're free. They will try and bind you again."

The green eyes Leila saw starring at her through black flames just sat there, waiting. She was going to say something, but her body froze with fear. "So," Mr. Apex said with a look of burden. "It's face the elders in another war alone, or together in a loveless marriage."

"I do love you though, as friend, but any kind of love is better than none at all. I know Gwendolyn would've made you the same offer."

"And I would've gladly accepted it, but I'm not sure if I'm going to live passed the night." Mr. Apex stood up, and moved Morgan to the side. He turned and face the window to redwoods, and roared. "REVEAL YOURSELF, MONSTER!"

The overwhelming sound of his voice shook Leila out of her frozen state. She stood up and ran to Morgan. Leila took off her blazer and put it over Morgan's shoulders. "We need to leave!" Leila almost screamed.

"Why? What is that?" Morgan asked.

Before Leila could say anything, a low throaty laughter drowned out all the sound in the room. The black flames changed into the shape of a man. His uncanny green eyes scanning the entire room, and then finally settling on Mr. Apex. The black flamed man tore open the window from the redwoods and stepped into Mr. Apex's office. Surprisingly, Leila felt no heat coming from the flames, nor did the carpet where he stood catch on fire. "The Immortal Beast," the flames spoke in a deep inhuman voice. "Alas, we finally meet."

"Why have you come here, monster?" Mr. Apex growled.

"I've come for my prize."

"Go Morgan," Mr. Apex said in a soft voice. "Take my students with you. Maybe they'll fare better in your care, then they did mine."

Mr. Apex began to grow. His clothes started to tear, golden fur sprouted from every part of his body, and his head transformed into that of a wolf. "Now," he spoke in deep, animal infused, voice. "Let us monsters fight. I will show to you I'm no mere prize to be collected." He roared again and his body began to coat itself with blood red flames.

At the same time, Mr. Apex's aura erupted from his body, blowing Leila and Morgan off their feet, throwing them into the wall like weight rag dolls. Leila heard the black flamed man begin to laugh again. "Is that supposed to frighten me?" He said amused. "I guess, It is time I show you what a real monster looks like."

The black flamed man grew until he touched the ceiling. The black flames dissipated and the body of a much larger animal revealed itself. As Leila looked at it, she couldn't tell what kind of animal it was. Its skin was black and scaly like a snake. Its arms were covered in black fur, and thicker than Mr. Apex's entire body. The claws jutting from its fingers were longer than the fingers themselves. Its legs reminded Leila of a dog standing on its hind legs, and its head was shaped like a wolf, but its snout was longer than it should have been. The black flames that had covered the creature before, were now coating it from the back of its head, to the very tip of its long thick tail. A pair of tight black shorts was the only Identifying factor that this creature had some sort of humanity.

The black creature was big, bigger than Mr. Apex in his animal form, and much too big for his office. It had to hunch over to fit in the small room. The ceiling above the creature began to crack. At first, Leila thought it was still growing, but she was wrong. Its aura exploded from its body, coating everything thing in black flames, and throwing Leila and Morgan against the wall for a second time.

Now, Leila couldn't tell you what the black creature sounded like as it tilted its head back and roared, because her eardrums had ruptured. She closed her eyes and screamed from the pain as the ground shook. It roared so loud, Leila felt her bones vibrate like a turning fork made from her very own skeleton.

Leila's hearing slowly came back as her eardrums healed at an accelerated rate. Though all she could hear was a soft ringing, a soft voice spoke to her. The voice sounded like man was speaking using her own voice. "Daughter of Merlin," it said. "You have nothing to fear from me. I would never intentionally hurt you. No God would hurt a child of Merlin and invoke his wrath. Take your friend, and the students with you. Get them far from here. It would do me great pain to see innocent younglins caught up in my hunt. Do hurry, I'm brimming with so much excitement, I don't know much longer I can wait."

When Leila opened her eyes she on some kind of field, there were lines in the grass, and bleachers on all four sides. Morgan lay next to her, unconscious. The entire student body was behind them. One of the teachers came and checked on them, "Are you alright," he asked.

The teacher was accompanied by a large student with golden bull horns jutting out of both sides of his head. "I'm fine," Leila said deliriously. "Check on her."

After a minute, the teacher had the large student carry Morgan, and then he returned to Leila and helped her stand up. "She might have a concussion, and there isn't much I can for her here. Do you know how we all got out here?"

"Yeah, I think that monster teleported us all here. No, not a monster, I think it called itself a God, but right now it doesn't matter what it is. We need to leave, immediately!" Leila opened a giant portal to the beach in her pocket dimension. "Everyone go through the portal, now!" She shouted.

"Why do we need to leave?" A nearby student asked. "Let's just wait for headmaster to kick that thing's ass."

"Because," Leila said impatiently. "They're waiting for us to leave so we dont get caught up in their fight! But, one of them isn't gonna wait for much long!"

Just then, the ground began to shake, and an explosion lit the sky with blood red flames. Another explosion went off, and black flames swallowed the red ones. Two figures appeared in sky. One of them roared so loud, Leila's head began to throb, and her ears started ringing painfully. The other shouted, "Run you fools!" With those final words, everyone poured into the portal, and onto Spencer's front porch.

[freckliedan]

For the ask; everything that has a “4” in it. Festive, right? I hope you’re having a wonderful night ⭐️

happy 4th, anon!! & ty for the ask! i’ve been having a lonely night n this def made it loads better

(under the cut bc this got long)

4. What is your favorite word?oh.. maybe, home? but in sign language. it’s not the most beautiful or delightful word i know, in english or sign language, but it’s the one that makes me feel the warmest. (i’ve taken all 4 ASL classes offered at my college, and on one of the only days i was late during my last semester my teacher signed “welcome home” to me when i finally got to class and it’s one of my happiest memories. i’m also very gay for the idea of a home with my found family, so home is just one of my favorite words). 

14. What is your current desktop picture? i literally dont’ know how to find that on this computer because it was my best friend’s before they got a new one and gave it to me (because my old computer was very , very badly broken) but anyways i have no idea where to get the pic they have as the desktop from! so. rip

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. i’m going to assume this means one sandwich right now, rather than for the rest of my life, because that’s a very cruel punishment to wreak upon a taurus with a gf who’s going to culinary school, 

right now i’d make myself a sandwich on nice homemade bread with mayo on one side and that nice fig spread you can buy at fred meyers on the other slice, melt some cheese on the fig slice, add bacon, tomato, lettuce, and avocado, and possibly an egg because i know how to live my LIFE

34. What was your last dream about?i don’t know but some of my friends were in it

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?this is skewed because i’m alaskan but sunsets in the summer and sunrises in the winter. summer sunsets are so nice to chase when the days are long and it never gets darker than twilight (genuinely i haven’t seen the stars since april or early may) and going to an outdoors ocean front park and watching the sun set behind the mountains is GORGEOUS and wonderful but in the winter we have so much darkness that every sunrise is a blessing and every sunset is the worst thing ever. in high school there’d be days where the sun both rose after i got to school and set before i went home at night so when the light shows up in the winter. i’m happy.

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor?i’m lactose intolerant so it SHOULD be none of them but this bitch loves dairy YEET anyways it’s strawberry @ places that don’t have a lot of flavors and at places with wider ranges i still usually stick to fruit flavors! cherry is good.

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer) i’m a lesbian

43. Do you have any scars?i have a chickenpox scar on my eyelid & on the upper limits of what could be considered my left tit it’s like, practically chest at that point, what’s a body,,, i also have a piece of gravel in my left knee from falling & refusing to let anyone take care of it in 2nd or grade, a scar on my left foot from doing dumb stunts as a 7 year old, and a nearly invisible scar beneath my right nostril from falling as a 2 year old ! im clumsy as Fuck

44. What do you want to be when you graduate?i want to work for a nonprofit that helps lgbtq+ teens! i don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like but it’s really important to me to help lgbtq+ youth who don’t have supportive families, and those who might be facing homelessness. i’m going to have a fairly generalist skillset when i graduate, so i don’t know exactly what role i’m going to play, but i know that i’m going to help kids that never got the unconditional love and support that they needed & deserved from family. i also am going to be a storyteller thru various mediums! written & multimedia & possibly podcasts. i’m working on that.

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? i’d take away whatever current physical health thing i’m dealing with that i haven’t been able to get help for yet and that’s making me grow facial hair and have less energy & more apathy & doing a Lot (i think it’s PCOS and hormonal imbalances). it’s recent and it’s causing me a lot of troubles but other than that i’m so happy and so at peace with myself that i wouldn’t change anything about me, not my weight not my ADHD & depression not a Damn Thing. 

46. Are you reliable? yes!!! i’m  the kind of person that burns myself out showing up for others. if it’s not an important thing it sometimes slips my mind bc of my adhd but when it matters, i am always there. across time zones, even. if i give my word about something? i make it happen. im the reason they invented the phrase immovable object.

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?I wouldn’t change my past, and my future self probably wouldn’t, either. I’d just ask them to tell me about their happiness, I think. It would give me a tangible reason to keep working towards the dreams I have. 

48. Do you hold grudges?i’m a taurus. i don’t hold grudges over stupid things and i’m not petty for the most part and i don’t act like a dickhead when i have a grudge but it’s like, my dad missed the one and only choir concert i ever had when i was in the 10th grade for really stupid reasons when he said he’d be there, and that was in 2011, and it took me like 6 years to get to the point where i was completely past that. i wasn’t acting on the grudge but it was a grudge and it did affect like. how willing i was to trust my dad and ask him for things and how i felt about him for a really long time? so like. yeah. i hold grudges. i’m very willing to excuse people’s behavior up to a certain point but once a line is crossed someone has to work really hard to make up for the ways they’ve hurt me or loved ones of mine. my gf can usually talk me out of Forming grudges though bc she’s a virgo libra cusp and so good at being less intense than me w some situations.

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create?mammals with bird wings :c make the catwings book real.. cats whom can fly w soft lovely bird wings. i love cats and also flight

54. Have you ever baked your own cake? yes!!!! i’ve baked like box cakes obvi but last year for my gf’s birthday me & our best friend made a really cool coffee flavored alternative frosting cake for my gf & she really liked it & i’m like :’) 

64. What do you think about babies?i’ve been like........ yelling all night to @freckliephil about how much i want to have kids w my gf and how i can’t wait to be a mom. i think babies are very small and breakable and i’m not ready to have one right NOW at all but i am so, so excited to be a parent someday and to give a kid everything they need no matter what, like, babies are so cute and my cousin had a son this year and when i got to hold him for the first time i nearly cried thinking about being a mom someday. i’m cutting this short because i’m really, really emo abt babies right now but GOD. i want a baby. i want painting a nursery w my gf once we’re wives, and i want a rocking chair, and lullabies. i wanna watch the baby grow up to have me and my gf’s facial expressions and i can’t wait to see that baby grow into a person with likes and dislikes and an entire personality :c god. i just. i really, really love my gf and can’t wait to have a family with her. & we’re probably also going to foster but like! also. babies.

[sloblesbian]

been doing a new years resolution & reflection post every year since 2014 so im gonna continue that trend. 

personally this was a really great year for me. it’s very weird. things are objectively bad. if you think too much about the future things start to fall apart. there isn’t anything to rely on, outside of my own ability, and that’s limited in what i can do without support. but. it’s not hopeless. i dream a lot of finally graduating and getting a job that will keep me more than just barely afloat, and of what that could mean for me... i won’t graduate for at least 2 year (i need 56 more credits-- i think after 2 years i’ll have 2 more classes to get in, unless i manage either some summer courses or 2 semesters of 5 classes, both of which are unlikely) and even then i know finding a job is hard. theoretically i could start now but i find it difficult to work 30 hours a week and go to school. i’m also afraid that i might make less at an entry level job than at my current job... but maybe this summer i will apply at some bookstores & libraries. 

also... i really love my girlfriend. she’s coming to stay with me for 2 weeks in march and i am so excited. it’s been a good year for us. every day i talk to her and she really understands and like, gets me you know? i am amazed and i fall in love some more. 

also i accomplished a ton in 2017. maybe not the things i set out to (i finished 1 sock that i started last november, lol, and the only short stories i read were a few online and for school) but i transferred to RIC. i only took 2 classes because i couldnt register till june but i got As in both of them and my gpa is a 4.0 which has never happened in my LIFE. i’m excited about the classes i’m starting this month, and after i finish spanish & anthropology i should only have english classes from then on out. i wouldn’t say i love my current job but it’s miles better than working in retail. it’s less stressful and while i’m generally working less hours i am making a little bit more. it feels necessary & helpful as opposed to being in an endless capitalism machine that only exists to grind me down for unreasonable standards. 

but i did read 100 books which was real touch & go for a while.. the first couple months of 2017 i barely read & felt like i had lost my ability to plow thru a ton of books, then the middle of the year i caught up & jumped ahead... fell behind, etc. i finished my last book on the 28th though. i read a lot of comics; my page count for this year is way down, but it doesn’t matter. that’s still damn impressive. 

and for things i didn’t plan at all but still accomplished: i wrote 4 pieces of fiction this year. i mean. they’re all fanfiction, which isn’t really something i even read never mind write, which i think is maybe??? sort of even more impressive? i’m going to try and write some original stuff in the coming year but like. right after nanowrimo, my friends and i, who were previously in the fictional coalition of writers who don’t write, uh, all started writing. which is great. but i mean. i started writing in february? march? i wrote a 10k word fic, and then a short follow up, a short pjo thing, and i wrote another 6000 words this month but it’s not on ao3 cause it’s like... a complementary piece to something that isn’t finished yet, lol. overall about 20k words which isn’t too much in the long run but i like that i wrote 4 completed pieces. it’s nice because i had sort of let myself give up on writing because... i mostly don’t enjoy it. i don’t like scrounging for ideas. but i do like planning things out enough, outlining what i want to happen, and then writing the whole thing. it’s like writing a list and then accomplishing it which... as u know, i love. as far as i can tell uhh most people don’t need to do this. i really have to know like. the end trajectory of a piece before i start writing. i don’t have to know every detail but if i am confused to where it’s going i can’t write it. i’m not great at ideas but i am good at making things happen. it feels nice to accomplish something creative, when i basically haven’t since i uhhh dropped out of art school. 

also, i wrote 47 reviews, which, damn! i (read: my bff & roommate mags) put up a new website, even if it is going to come down this month (i think. i wanna transfer everything first) and i wrote a review nearly every week and a lot of them were good. like. that’s a lot of writing, between fiction & what have u, what category do my dumb reviews fall under. 

(FOOD/DIET warning i dont wanna put it in the tags of the post just skip this paragraph) oh also i cut dairy & eggs (& also gelatin & honey, i guess) out of my diet, & i feel very very good about it (also i think i lost something like 20 lbs-- i don’t weigh myself but uhhh thats good thats very good). when i stopped eating meat in 2010 i lived with my mom & my intention was to one day go vegan but like... i didn’t want to put the strain on her & also i sometimes struggle with food things. but it’s gone really well. it’s nice. feel good. love to cook. very good at it. 

so like...... a really good year for me. here’s what i want out of 2018

i’m cutting my reading goal down specifically because i don’t think it’s something that can grow exponentially and i think the main reason i was able to accomplish it was because i didn’t have too much school this year. when i started setting goals for myself in 2012 my original goal was 50 books; that’s what we’re going back to.

every year (except 2016 when i was realistic) i told myself i would read more short stories & knit more. i’m hoping that having less to read (which i prioritize over all other hobbies) will give me more time. also i have a desk & a chair set up which... idk... helps? i put some knitting stuff there & grafted the toe of a sock the other day, so i hope it does, at least. i read a short story yesterday so i hope that’s a portent for 2018. i want to finish the time travelers almanac at least. i have a lot of collections and i do enjoy them. it’s just easier to get through novels than anything else. 

if u follow my twitter you have probably heard me say this but: 2018 is the year of the video game for me. im, uh, terrible at games- im fairly certain i have dyspraxia, at least mildly (im wildly, wildly uncoordinated)- but for a while i was playing a few because i had done it enough that i had gotten better..... well, this year i played persona 5, which i really loved like. more than any video game in a long time. i know a lot of people were disappointed with aspects of it (rightly so) but i had never played another persona game so i think that probably shaped my opinion some, and also, i think p5 dealt with issues that i really love to see in fiction & generally don’t, even if it ultimately dropped the ball. anyway. it kind of revitalized my interest, and i want to play more. i have p4 that i want to get through. i never finished usum. i have a bunch of games on steam & mags let me sign into their steam library too & they have about 400 games (thats not an exaggeration). i wanna replay me2&3 for sid. i want to practice so i can play games that are more difficult than i usually do. (mass effect being the sole fps i can play, usually i can only play very linear rpgs (think pokemon & dragon age) and uhhh puzzle games, god i love puzzle games) 

so, more concretely:

read 50 books

try to read more short stories

knit more

play video games

do well in school

that sounds good. happy new year.