#not sure what to do with myself until it's published

[mi-i-zori]

A Tiny World

CoD - 141 x Snail (OC/Fem!Reader)

SYNOPSIS : Snail really likes to play Animal Crossing to relax. Turns out, Ghost does too.

WARNINGS : None. But please read the Author’s Note below.

Author’s Note : Snail is an OC that can be read as a Fem!Reader - I do my best no to describe her too much, but may sometimes say that she’s small (height) and has long hair.

I do not give anyone permission to re-publish and/or translate my work, be it here or on any other platform, including AI.

Playing Animal Crossing is Snail’s way to escape the world whenever she can’t do or focus on anything else.

At the beginning, her first goal is to fill the museum to the brim - which she does pretty quickly, allowing her character to sit on a bench in front of the exhibits and enjoy the music playing in her ears. The aquarium is her go-to place to fully relax. Sometimes, she even falls asleep, leaving her little persona to bob her head left and right while watching the fishes.

When she really wants to empty her mind, she focuses on building her own little world. She’s quite indecisive about the theme she wants to follow to decorate her island, which leads her to divide it in multiple « regions ». Each one has an aesthetic that progressively gives way to another one, like a natural border that allows her to create a smaller theme in-between.

To go with these regions, she’s made different characters. They, too, live in a house and are dressed to fit a specific theme, and she enjoys crafting stories for each one of them. Her favourite house is like her own little museum, filled to the brim with curiosities of all kinds. Insects, fishes, plants, skeletons… The main room looks like an old apothecary shop, and a part of her longs to be able to make her own apartment a real version of this virtual house.

Ever since he stumbled upon her playing quietly in the common room, Ghost has been sharing this moment of peace with her, watching her play, learning about the game and the little world and characters she’s bringing to life. He rejected her offer to create his own character in there, but it doesn’t stop him from sitting next to her and throwing a few glances at the screen while reading or watching TV, or fully focusing on it while sipping on a cuppa.

« You sure you don’t even want to try playing a little bit, LT ? » Is what Snail keeps asking every single time - and, at some point, Simon gives in.

He finds that he really enjoys fishing the most, hunting bugs being a close second. Snail excitedly explains every single mechanic of the game to him, and the roles end up being reversed. She’s now the one watching him play as he keeps catching the most expensive things for her to sell as if he’s been doing this for his entire life, and he quietly listens as she blurts out random trivia about whatever fish or bug the little character is showing off.

There’s a moment when a neighbour actually manages to steal the expert’s target, immediately digging their own grave. Simon now sees a mortal enemy in them, and is ready to unleash hell on their life whenever he can. Snail taught him how to use the net as a weapon, causing him to whack the poor fellow on sight, despite her asking him to not be too mean. She likes this neighbour - it’s a frog, after all, and they’re nice to her. She does her best to keep them on her island, making it up to them after Simon’s spent at least an hour bullying them.

To try and salvage what’s left of her friendship with that neighbour, Snail introduces him to the islanders she actually wants to move away.

« LT, this one said the custom mushroom dress I made for myself wasn’t fashionable. Can you please help me unleash Hell on them until they leave ? »

« This guy put his house on the beautiful patch of rare flowers I’d made for my new zone. It took me weeks to get them all and now I have to remake everything ! »

« I don’t vibe with this islander. They’re mean to everyone, and made my best friend sad. »

« Equip your net, » is what he always says in return, settling comfortably on the couch before grabbing the controller.

Simon never realised how satisfying it could be to whack the characters of a cute video game on the head in-between a few sessions of fishing. So much that it’s become a little ritual now.

Though he still adamantly refuses to create his own character.

[storybook-souls]

you guys have to promise me that if i ever write something and it’s bad you’ll tell me.

[literalgrill]

Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

[sanguineterrain]

Hi Sanne! I'm not sure if requests are open, but if you're up to it I'd like to request red hood x reporter! Maybe reporter reader is getting too close to a case and is starting to become a target and hood takes her protection into his own hands? ((Including lots of midnight rendezvous and rooftop bump ins))

i love this prompt sm! i've been thinking about a reporter reader ever since i read task force z :) thanks for requesting!

jason todd x gn!reporter!reader. tw: reader is attacked (but they're okay), guns, violence, fighting, jason being both a force to be reckoned with and a big softie. 2.5k words

****

"I don't need protection."

The Red Hood crosses his arms. You cross yours right back.

"Yes, you do," he says.

"No, I don't. I've lived in Gotham my whole life. I can take care of myself."

"Living around and being in the thick of violence are very different. You're already chasing this story; they will come after you."

And what a story it is. The story of the decade, at the very least. A task force of formerly-dead Arkham patients wielded against Gotham by a mysterious benefactor.

It's terrifying. It's dangerous. It's sure to win you your first Pulitzer.

And it all means absolutely nothing if the Red Hood keeps wrapping you in red tape.

Your jaw ticks. "This is my story, Hood. You can't turn it in, so I will. And I won't be scared off by some slimeball."

"Oh, please. You wouldn't even have known about this story if it wasn't for me, smarty."

Smarty. His favorite moniker for you because, according to him, you think you know everything.

Working with the Red Hood has been an unfortunate side effect of chasing your prize-winning story. Not only is he wanted in twenty-six countries (you Googled it) and is a ruthless crime lord (supposedly formerly, but you're doubtful), but worst of all, he's got an attitude to match yours.

He's also built like a tank, which is why you can't just. Outrun him.

"I can't just not publish the story," you say.

"I don't want to stop you from publishing the story. Hence the protection."

"I can't afford a bodyguard."

"Well, it's a good thing I already paid my rent this month."

You scoff. "The Gotham Gazette has a strict 'no armed and dangerous' policy. I'm afraid we all have to leave our gun-toting vigilantes at home."

You open the driver's door of your car, ready to end the conversation here and now. Hood calmly closes the door with his hip and leans.

You glare. "Get off of my car."

"Fact." He holds up a finger. "These kinds of people always strike before the story comes out. They know you're scared and stressed, and they wanna do it before the story gets out. Otherwise, it's obvious who killed who."

"And where did you read this fact? Crime Lord's Digest? We don't even know if they know I'm the reporter who broke into the lab."

"Listen, smarty, I've been in this game a lot longer than you. I know how they operate," he says, finally getting off of your car, only to lean on the hood. Jerk. "It's only a matter of time before whoever's behind this snuffs you out."

"I am not letting a wanted criminal nest in my apartment!"

"That's why I'd be there."

"I was talking about you, Hood."

"Funny."

"I'm not joking. Look, I appreciate your... help." You try not to show your exasperation. "But there's no way I'm inviting you over to my apartment. That'll set off more alarms. If anything happens, I'll call you. Until then, stay away. Deal?"

Hood looks you over.

"Hm. You're awfully comfortable with giving me orders, smarty."

Your adrenaline spikes for a second. But it quickly calms. You've worked with Hood for a month now. Sure, you were petrified the first week, but it quickly dissipated. You've fallen into an odd camaraderie with him.

It's actually kind of nice, having him on your side. No one at the Gazette gives you the time of day. You've become used to having a partner. Not that you'd ever tell him that.

"You take orders so well, I can't help but dole them out," you say, only a little smirky.

"Watch it," Hood rumbles, only half-serious. Probably.

You beam and wrench open your car door, sliding into the seat.

"See?" you say, turning the ignition. "No snipers waiting to take me out. I'll be fine."

He shakes his head and slides off the hood. "Ten bucks says they'll try by the end of the week."

You close your door. "You're on."

****

As it turns out, Hood doesn't need the end of the week to earn his tenner. Trouble breaks down your door the very same night.

You're on your couch with some well-earned Lebanese takeout when your door is ripped off of your hinges. You shoot up from the couch, chest immediately tight.

Your assailant is masked and isn't that typical, giving masked men everywhere a bad name.

You run to the kitchen, hoping you can grab a knife. But you're grabbed before you can get there. You slip on the carpet and trip further into your assailant's arms.

"Keep still so I won't make a mess," is all he says.

You start screaming. He covers your mouth and you bite his hand. That earns you a thump on your cheek, so hard your vision blurs.

Bang!

You freeze, expecting the warm drip of blood and the excruciating pain to accompany it. Instead, your assailant falls to the floor, clutching his ribs. You stumble backwards and see Hood at your door, gun still aimed. He stalks over and kicks the assailant in the chest as he does. The assailant groans.

"You okay?"

You're still staring at the man who very nearly killed you a minute ago. Blood roars in your ears. You think you might be close to fainting.

"Hey." Big, gloved hands hold your face. You flinch and hold the owner's wrists. Hood comes into view once more.

"Are you okay?" he asks firmly. "Look at me, look at me, sweet. Breathe. 'S okay. Does anything hurt? Did he—"

Hood cuts himself off as he touches your cheek, where you were hit. He lightly runs a thumb over what is probably a budding bruise.

Hood lets you go and whirls onto your attacker. He hauls him up and presses a gun to his stomach.

"Go ahead, shoot me!" the attacker shouts.

"If I shoot you, it won't be out of mercy. You won't get a quick death. You don't deserve it," Hood snarls, and you suddenly remember all of your good reasons for fearing the Red Hood.

"I ain't telling ya shit!"

"I don't expect you to," Hood says, and fires again.

The man crumples to the ground, but he's clearly still breathing. Still alive. Hood drags him to the door by his collar.

"You go back to your boss. And you tell 'em that they're fucking with the Red Hood now. And, in case I'm not being perfectly fucking clear through all that blood loss—" Hood grabs the man by his hair and wrenches his head back. "If you come for my reporter again, you'll wish I was kind enough to put a bullet in your head."

Hood hauls your attacker outside. You hear a car start a minute later, and it tears down the street.

You look at your guardian angel, spattered in blood.

Not nearly as much blood as I expected, you think manically.

Your body aches and shakes with adrenaline. You can't even get enough control to move to the couch.

"How–how did you get here so fast?" you ask, staring at your now cracked coffee table.

"I've been monitoring your apartment since you got home. One of the traffic cameras picked up a stolen vehicle turning onto your block, so I came here."

You look at Hood. He seems very collected, all things considered.

"You—how did you find my apartment? Have you been stalking me?"

"Please. Lend me a little credit, smarty. I don't need to stalk you to find where you live," he says, holstering his gun.

"Are you insane?!" you burst. "That is such a gross invasion of privacy! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Hood looks at you.

"What's wrong with me is I just saved your life," he says evenly. "And on that note, you owe me ten bucks. Maybe even fifteen, considering it took less than a day for them to do exactly what I said they would."

Your lip wobbles. You don't know what triggers it; maybe it's your scratched up door or torn sofa or the fact that the Red Hood is in your living room right now with blood on his suit.

The tears form quickly. You can't stop them.

You cover your face but a sob claws out of your throat. Soon, you fall into big, heaving cries.

"Whoa, hey." The floorboards creak under Hood's unsure footsteps. "Hey, I didn't mean that. Shit. I was just kidding about the bet part. Aw, don't cry, smarty."

A hand lightly touches your shoulder. You lean in, but don't dare to initiate more contact. So Hood eases you into a side hug, awkwardly patting your other arm. He's extremely warm and solid with muscle, but his chest is soft enough to rest your head on. He unclips his holster so it doesn't dig into your body.

"I was just kidding," Hood says quietly in your ear. He rubs your arm. "'M sorry. Didn't mean to make y'cry."

You sniff and shake your head. "No, it–it's not that, I'm just—God, I'm t-terrified, Hood. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? They're gonna kill me! I'm gonna die before I win my first Pulitzer!"

You try to suck in deep breath but it's not working. Hood leads your unsteady feet to the couch. You sit, fingers gripping his jacket. Hood carefully loosens your grip.

"They're not gonna kill ya, smarty. I won't let 'em. C'mon, let's have a seat. Where's your kitchen?"

You point, lashes still thick with tears. Hood leaves and returns shortly. A glass of water is held to your lips. You drink it, breathing stilted.

"'S okay. Take it easy. Breathe. That's right."

You swallow half of the water, and he sets the glass down on the coffee table. Hood hands you a wad of tissues.

"This is pathetic," you say, wiping your tears. "Can't believe I'm being nursed by the Red Hood."

"I think nursed is a strong word. But it's more than I usually do for my informants. Then again, they don't usually burst into tears."

"Don't make fun of me. I'm fragile."

"I wasn't making fun of you," Hood says, gentler than you've ever heard him. He puts the tissues aside and rests a hand on your shoulder. You turn into it, appreciative of the weight. "You handled this better than most people would. You didn't even pass out. Hell, I've passed out."

You're sure that Hood is leaving out important details behind that anecdote, like fighting off a hundred men or being swallowed by a whale beforehand. You're grateful nonetheless.

You turn to him, fresh tears in your eyes. "They're gonna kill me, Red."

He shakes his head. "No. Listen to me. Nobody is gonna do anything to you, okay? I'm not gonna let 'em hurt you, smarty pie."

"That's an impossible promise," you say. "One of these days, something will happen. You can't be everywhere at once. Especially not while I'm at home."

Hood tilts his head. "Well..."

"Well, what?"

He rubs his throat. An old injury, he'd once told you. The pain flares up sometimes.

"I could call in a favor. Get you into a safehouse."

"You would do that for me?" you ask. You probably shouldn't ask. Shouldn't look a generous vigilante in the mouth. But you can't help it.

"I can't very well publish the story myself, can I?"

You shrug. "I doubt that. You have your ways. Once you have the evidence, you don't need me."

"That's not true," Hood says fiercely. "I do need you."

Your eyes widen. Hood fumbles for a moment.

"That—I mean for the case. Obviously. I don't have any journalistic links besides you. And I wouldn't want the story to fall into the wrong hands."

"Oh." You have a strong urge to wrap your arms around him. Weird. "Well, um, thank you. I appreciate it."

"Don't thank me yet. It'll take me a few days to get the safehouse," he says.

You deflate. "Oh. So I have to stay here until then?"

Hood is quiet for a long time. So long, you briefly revisit your original theory that the Red Hood is actually an AI remotely controlled by a billionaire.

"Hood?"

You reach to touch him. He flinches, a tiny movement. You immediately draw back.

Nope. Still a man.

"Sorry," he says, hand slipping from your shoulder. "I was, uh, going over options. No, your place is toast until we find whoever's behind this. But, um, it would be possible for you to—if you want to, 'cause if you don't, y'know, I understand, but I—it would be doable for you to, uh, stay with me. Until I get the safehouse."

"Stay... in your apartment?"

"'S not far from here. And it's a hell of a lot better protected than your place. And, y'know, I'd be there most of the time, so like..." Hood clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. It'd be safe. I promise."

"I wouldn't want to impose," you say, nervously scratching your arm.

"Mm. If you're scared of staying with me, y'can just say so. I won't take it personal."

He does kind of sound like he's taking it personally.

"No, Hood, it's not that. I don't... I'm not afraid of you. That, uh, went away a while back," you say. "I just... I don't want to burden you. After all, it's your space."

He makes a sound that tells you he's rolling his eyes behind his helmet.

"Saving your life is important, smarty. Why you don't think so, I'll never know."

You make a soft, pleased sound. "Got a real bleeding heart there, Red."

He sighs. "Yeah. I'm working on it."

You grin. "Thank you for rescuing me."

"Part of the job. If you don't wanna stay with me, I could..." Hood hesitates. "With your permission... I could get the Bats involved. Ask one of them to house you."

"You mean Batman?"

Hood grunts. "Preferably anyone but him, but yeah, if it comes to that. He'll probably get involved anyway. Fuckin' busybody."

"The Bats would protect me? But they don't know me."

"Don't matter. If I asked them to, they would. If that's something you want."

You think. Is it something you want?

Sure, any reasonable person would prefer Nightwing or Batman to protect them.

"I don't want to stay with them," you say. "I'd rather stay with you."

He jerks like you've told him the sky is falling.

"You do?" he asks.

"Well, yeah. I know you, Red. And I know you'll keep me safe."

"At any cost," he says.

That simultaneously frightens and thrills you.

"Then I'd like to go home with you," you say. "If you'll have me."

"'Course, smarty. Anything to keep you safe. Go pack some stuff. I'll be out here. You're okay?"

"I'm okay." You stand and turn before he can see what he does to you.

Yes, it's an odd thing, being partners with the Red Hood.

You're starting to fear that you can't have it any other way.

(pt 2)

[acescavern]

Lay Your Hands On Me x Mingi x Reader x Yunho

When you’re left alone over easter break, your two hot neighbors convince you to join them for their lake house getaway. Only, you didn’t realize the topic of conversation would be surrounding your dry sex life on the very first night. After a tense encounter at 3am, you decide to try and see how long it will be until they break.

Pairing: Yunho x fem!reader x Mingi.

Genre: Smut. basically pwp ish. i'm not entirely sure if there even is a plot to this anymore. not proof read

wc: 6.5k woops?

Warnings: NO member shipping, threesome, poorly written smut, best friends yungi, yungi are your neighbors, reader gets left out by her friends, mingi and yunho are horndogs, big dick!Yunho, Rough mingi, i feel like Mingi was kinda soft Dom, there's a thigh spank or two, unprotected (wrap it up!), cream pie, talks about readers sex life, overstimulation, multiple orgasms ( f receiving ), pussy eating, slight stomach bulge, the reader is a tease. Mingi calls reader Dollface, and Yunho calls her Angel.

note: Hey! I haven't written a full-fledged fic in a while. I feel like I've repeated so many words in this. I hope you still enjoy it, though! these two men have been WRECKING me. Did anyone catch the coachella live stream? I literally died

ps. I wrote this whilst listening to if u think I'm pretty by artemas

Any feedback is greatly appreciated! What was your favorite part?

I do not permit for my work to be copied, published on other websites and blogs or translated.

Your shoulders slumped once your roommate’s car finally left your peripheral vision. All of your friends had found something to do, somewhere to go and have fun, over the Easter break. It left you sitting in an empty apartment, listening to the sounds of the heating and water pipes creaking or even your upstairs neighbour's loud exhilarating activities.

You were excited at first, the prospect of having the place to yourself.. but the fear of missing out finally set deep into your bones when your friends had decided to meet up with each other during their trips whilst you sat at home alone with nothing but the walls to talk to.

With a dejected sigh, you pulled your thin cardigan further around you and turned to head back inside. You knew you probably looked miserable to any passerby, but you couldn't find it in you to care.

You startled when a pair of firm hands settled on your shoulders, halting your mopey shuffling down the hallway. “____?”

Your eyes rose from the floor, settling on the worried features of your neighbor. The corners of your lips twitched into a sorry excuse of a smile, hand lifting to wave at him. You didn't trust your voice. You always made a fool out of yourself around Yunho and his roommate.

“What are you still doing here? I just saw your friends leave from the window, shouldn't you be with them?” His brows were creased, his expression drawn in confusion.

Yunho’s fingers were absentmindedly pressing your shoulders as he bent his head to read your face. You knew the sting of your eyes meant tears, but you blinked them away and shook your head.

“I'm.. “ You swallowed thickly. “I'm by myself this break.” Your chest hurts just admitting it. “I wasn't invited.”

You weren't sure that Yunho's expression could even be sour, being the sweet and polite man he is, but it did. A flash of irritation crossed his brown eyes. Your heart leapt into your mouth when his hands moved from your shoulders to cup your face, your own wide eyes staring back at him. “and you're gonna be okay?”

You knew Yunho meant nothing by it, but his touch was warm and safe. You fought the flutter of your eyelids, willing yourself not to lean into his touch. Your head bobbed in a slightly restricted nod, Yunho pulling his hands away.

“I guess. I'll just… clean, I guess.. laundry...” You weren't hiding how low you felt over the whole situation. Your voice held no enthusiasm, no life.

Yunho pursed his lips in thought, giving a quiet nod and letting you be on your way. He watched with a frown, your shoulders slumped and head hung low. Your eyes had lost the spark today that Yunho found one of his favourite things about you.

Instead of making his way down to the car to check if they had everything, Yunho went back into the apartment he shared with Mingi. The younger male looked up at him in confusion from the couch.

“What did you forget? Yunho, I swear if you just walked to the car and back again I–” Mingi was swiftly cut off by Yunho perching on the coffee table in front of him.

“What if ____ joined us at the lake house?”

It’d been half an hour since you were left to your own devices. Half an hour of mindlessly flicking through the TV channels with disinterest. You were almost grateful for the continuous knocking on your door… until you weren't, and it wasn't seeming to go away.

Opening the door only a slither, you came face to face with your other neighbor. Mingi. His dark hair is messy and damp as if he'd just showered. Judging by the enticing scent of spiced apples coming from him, he had. “Yes?” You raised an eyebrow at him, his expression locked in a grin.

“Pack a bag. Bring a swimsuit.” He said simply, causing you to stand solid in front of him for at least a good thirty seconds as he looked at you expectantly.

“Mingi wha–” Mingi cut you off, his hand cupping your shoulders to turn your body back into your apartment.

“Yunho wants to get there before midnight. Hurry up.”

That was exactly how you found yourself sitting in front of a warm fire a little before midnight with a marshmallow on a stick, your neighbors both sipping beers as they too toasted their treats.

“I did not look that miserable!”

“You did! You looked like someone kicked your puppy!” Yunho laughed, recalling your wounded look in the hallway just a mere three hours ago.

Mingi reached over, his ringed hand patting your knee. “You're cute when you sulk, ____.” His hand retracted all too soon, fingers curling back around the beer bottle to lift it to his lips again.

You'd long finished your beer. You all were only having one tonight anyway. You'd discovered after you had gotten here that the duo planned on staying a week at least.

After your complaints and confusion were worn off, you were grateful. Anything was better than listening to your thoughts for two weeks whilst you had the apartment to yourself. You were also glad that none of the perishable food you had stocked would go to waste. It would save the three of you having to live off gas station sandwiches before you could get groceries for the week.

You had never realized how relaxed the two best friends were away from the university. Around the campus, Mingi's expression was always pulled into a stressful pout. The crease between his brows was always begging for your thumb to just gently smooth it out. Yunho's shoulders were permanently tense. In fact, his whole body was. There were many times you felt like you'd run into a literal brick wall, but it had just been Yunho in the halls.

To see them both lounged back in the plastic outdoor chairs, beers in hand, and smiles on their faces was nice to see. Your soft spot for the two handsome best friends only grew tenfold.

“So,” Mingi set his beer bottle down, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Why were you alone?” he peered at you in curiosity.

“Didn't we go through this?” Your head tilted to the side, eyes moving to the side to send a puzzled look into Yunho's way.

Mingi shakes his head, pausing a moment. His tongue swiped over his bottom lip as he thought about how to voice his curiosity.

Mingi cleared his throat. “No, I mean…You had the whole apartment to yourself..” He trailed off.

He sighed, seeing your brows crinkled further in confusion. “Okay?...”

“He's asking why you didn't have anyone over.” Yunho cut in, his tone slightly exasperated with Mingi's cryptic questions.

“Oh.” The statement had your shoulders straightening in surprise, a deep blush spreading across your cheeks. “Uhm.. I don't have anyone.” Your gaze tore away from his own, glueing to the marshmallow you’d plucked from the bag next to you.

You busied yourself with stabbing it with the stick as a prolonged silence carried across the warm fire. It wasn’t that you detested the idea of having company. It was more a case of…well. Most men gave you the biggest ick. Nearly all men you’d ever come across had given you the ick, and it only took you until now to realize that Yunho and Mingi had never given you that feeling.

You would be blind to miss how handsome they both are and the fact that both of them were genuinely nice guys. That just made the icing on the cake. The cake that you wanted, you’d wanted for a long while. You hadn’t made it obvious. You’d never made a move on either of them. Why would you? You knew who good guys like them go for. They go for bad girls they think they can fix. They didn’t go for girls like you. Little did you know, you couldn’t be more wrong.

When you did look up, both Yunho and Mingi’s concentration was fixed on you. Mingi’s left eyebrow raised as if to challenge your answer. “What?” Your tone grew slightly defensive.

“____, The walls between our apartments are very thin.” Yunho trailed off, looking sideways at his best friend when your clueless expression grew.

“So…?”

“So, we hear things. Everything. Specifically, I hear things... Through my bedroom wall on the other side of yours.” Mingi continued on, relief flooding him when your face broke out into a laugh, a cute red hueing your complexion.

“That isn’t my room, Mingi.” You covered your mouth to try and keep your humorous spurt of laughter at bay. “My room is on the other side of Yunho’s.” You took a bite of marshmallow.

“Wait…” Yunho murmured, his expression thoughtful. “So, you’re the culprit of the fake moaning after your roommate's birthday party last month?” His revelation had you choking on the sweet treat, Mingi had the courtesy to thump on your back to dislodge it.

“Oh my- Yunho!” You spluttered, hiding your face behind your palms. “The one time I tried to get with someone and you were listening?!” a heavy groan of shame left your lips, your body sulking back into the camping chair you were sitting in. “That’s so unfair!”

As much of a gentleman Yunho was, he found the whole situation hilarious. “A really rare occurrence.” He grinned, reaching into the cooler for another beer. “Seriously though, I felt bad for you.” You knew what Yunho meant.

Yunho was referring to how fake your noises were, how the guy didn't even pick up on it. Not that Mulgyeol from the campus soccer team would have time to notice. The guy was out in 5 strokes. You also knew for a fact that Yunho was probably referring to the sad little fact of you having to finish yourself after he left. You weren’t proud of that but you have needs and whilst the vast population of men give you the undeniable cringe factor, every six months or so you would attempt to divulge your urges - just to see if it would be different that time. News flash, it wasn’t.

“H-How did we get onto the subject of my dry sex life?” You nervously chuckle, looking back and forth between the two men with vibrant cheeks.

A chuckle rumbled in Yunho’s throat, dying off to a comfortable silence. The conversation topic would have felt very intrusive had it been with anyone else, but somehow, the two still hadn't weirded you out. You were still sitting comfortably content in your camping chair around the fire with them.

Mingi fidgeted in his seat, fingers threading through his platinum blonde hair… he hadn't said much else for the next 15 minutes. the three of you sitting in comfortable silence.

“I’m off to bed, guys.” You mumbled tiredly as you stood. You began to fold up your chair to take inside, but Yunho waved you off, claiming he would take it when they went to bed.

You weren't far from them, certainly not out of earshot when Mingi spoke again.

“We'd never do that.” it didn't take a genius to know what he meant, and the mere thought of his words made your skin alight. “Goodnight, ____.”

Mingi's parting words at the campfire the previous night had lit a fire within you. Your skin prickled with the curiosity of what else he could have meant. Your dreams hadn’t been favourable to you either, your body jolting you awake with the lingerings of a breathy plea hushing into the silence. Your skin was littered with goosebumps, and your mouth felt dry.

One thing about being in this lakehouse is the chill of a night, but you didn’t plan on being out of bed long. Especially in your pyjamas that were only white shorts and a blush pink camisole with white lace trim to match. A shiver shuddered through you as your feet hit the cold wooden floorboards. You didn’t bother with a cover-up. It was 3 AM. Who would be up at this hour anyway?

Mingi was. Nearly choking on air as he rounded the open doorway to the kitchen to find you reaching up on your tiptoes for a glass from the top shelf. You had one knee resting on the grey marble of the counter for leverage but it only had Mingi’s eyes zeroing in on the shortest pair of shorts he had ever seen, your cheeks almost shyly peeking out the hem.

He sucked in a breath, brain finally kicking into gear when he saw your balance wobble and your fingertips only pushed the glass further away on the shelf. He heard you grumbling to yourself, cursing whoever decided to put the glasses on the top shelf. Your rambling had an endeared smile whispering the corners of his mouth, his head shaking slightly as he approached.

Mingi knew he was testing the waters here but as he closed in on you, his left hand splaying its fingers on your hip to steady you, his chest to your back, the right arm reached past your own to grab a glass. He felt the jolt of surprise your body made against his own.

Mingi cleared his throat. “You didn’t look like you were winning.” His voice was thick and gravelly from sleep, fingers tightening their hold on you as you moved back instinctively.

The glass made a muted sound as he set it on the counter, Mingi’s brown eyes nearly rolled back into his head at the view of your neck arched back to angle your head toward him, staring at him with surprised doe-like eyes.

You seemed to be rendered speechless, a blush on your cheeks that almost matched your top. The male was having heart palpitations when he finally got the front view of you, the teasing view of your navel between the hem of your camisole and the waistband of those pesky shorts he just wanted to remove drove him crazy.

Needing a distraction from the way your nipples perked beneath the material stretched over your breasts, his touch on you ceased. His fingertips tingled from the buzzing feeling of grazing your bare skin. Clearing his throat, he swiftly picked up the glass to fill it.

You felt like your soul was trembling, calling out for him to touch you once more. You felt wound tight, words catching in your throat. “U-Uhm, no.” Your attempt to recover had your voice sounding slightly strained. “Who’s bright idea was it to put cups on the top shelf?” You laughed it off quietly.

“That’d be me.” He hummed, “Yunho’s grandmother left us this place in her will, we renovated it a little.” Mingi leaned back against the counter, his black sleep shirt pulling taught across his torso. “We’ve known each other since we were kids, our families are close.”

You nodded quietly, acknowledging him. Mingi lifted the glass of water to his lips, your eyes locking on how his throat moved when he swallowed the cool liquid. Your gaze trailed up to his face, heated gazes locking as he pulled the glass away. Your breathing elevated, Mingi was looking at you as if he wanted to eat you… The corners of his mouth tilted up as he held out the half-full glass of water to you.

You couldn’t look away. The intensity behind his eyes locked you in place, your fingers brushing his own as they curled around the cool glass. Mingi couldn’t look away, couldn’t stave off the stirring in his shorts as he watched you turn the glass and drink.. His mouth prints are being covered by your own.

Mingi’s brain couldn't help it. To him, you’d just indirectly kissed him. He could see the range of emotions in your eyes. The eye contact finally broke when Mingi caught sight of a droplet of water cascading its way past the rim of the glass and making a path down your jaw and neck… he watched it disappear under the almost sheer camisole.

“Fuck, ____… You don’t make it easy.” He groaned throatily, prompting you to set the now-empty glass on the counter once more.

“What do you mean?” Your head tilted, eyebrows drawing in confusion.

An amused chuckle sounded between you, Mingi shaking his head in slight disbelief. “You seriously don't know how much we want you, do you?” He moved away from the counter, towering above you. Your chin was tilted up toward him by his index and middle finger, Mingi’s hot breath dusting your face. “You’ve got to know how fucking crazy you make us.”

“U-Us?” You echoed in confusion. You sounded breathy and distracted.

“Mhm. He’s right.” You jumped at the sound of the new voice. Yunho.

Mingi’s fingers curled around your jaw, tilting your head to Yunho’s tall figure casually leaning against the doorway. “Look at Yunho when he’s talking to you, Dollface, hm?” Mingi’s lips sounded against your ear, teeth grazing against the shell.

Yunho made it no secret that he was checking you out. Not when his bottom lip pulled into his teeth when his dark eyes roamed your figure. “We could give you everything you need and more, Angel.” His tone is soft, and you nearly find it harder to focus when Mingi’s face is pressed to your own, his hands sliding around your waist after finding no resistance.

“If you let us.” Mingi finished for him, ghosting his lips against the corner of your jaw. “But you ought to think about it…decide what you want.” His words left you confused, your eyebrows furrowing when they cut through the haze.

“Why?” You looked to Yunho, the male grinning at the desperation in your eyes.

He tutted, shuffling closer. Yunho’s long fingers slid into your hair, palm cupping your cheek. He almost cooed fondly at how you arched into his touch, your eyes fluttering shut. “Because this wouldn’t be just a one-time thing,” he murmured. “If we have you, we aren’t letting you go. You’re ours.”

Your breathing stilled, mind dizzying. A sound escaped your throat, both Mingi and Yunho’s touch seizing from your body. “Think about it, We won’t make a move until you do.”

And with that, both men left the kitchen with sick grins, leaving you standing there breathless and wanting.

You hadn’t slept for the rest of the night. How could you? With a proposition like that, your mind only raced. You’d come to the same conclusion. Nothing they said last night had scared you away. You still very much wanted them both, and actually, you liked the idea of being ruined for anyone else. Being theirs… well.. You guessed your thoughts of good guys only wanting bad girls were wrong.

You were already showered and dressed for the day by the time Yunho emerged from his room. Mingi was still sleeping, his door firmly shut opposite the room you were staying in.

You sat at the round four-seater table at the far end of the kitchen, a cup of coffee in one hand as you scrolled on your phone. Yunho liked the blue colour of the blouse you wore, your cotton shorts complimenting it nicely.

He fixed his cup, sitting silently across from you. Yunho wondered if he and Mingi crossed a line with you yesterday. He’d worried about it all night after the kitchen encounter. All worries were soon washed away when he caught your eyes shyly glancing up at him.

“Was last night okay?” He blurted, almost wincing at how rushed he sounded.

You seemed to pause, taking a long sip of your coffee before you answered him. Almost as if you were making him wait. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable.” You voiced, prompting his shoulders to relax.

The both of you sat in a comfortable silence until you’d finished your drink. “It’s so sunny out, I’m gonna catch some sun.” You washed your coffee mug up, then turned to Yunho just before you left the room. “Wanna join?”

Yunho nodded, claiming he would meet you out on the deck. What he didn't expect was to find you in a pastel peach string bikini, the front of your body shiny and glistening with tanning oil. He can see where you had missed spreading the liquid on your back.

He inwardly groaned. Surely, you were doing this to him on purpose at this point. Yunho readjusted the sunglasses on his face, setting his phone and book down on the small table between the two sun loungers. He leaned back in his lounger, picking up his book to flick through.

From the corner of his eye, he watched you lie your lounger flat, adjusting the head cushion to lie on your front. The sun bounced off your skin beautifully, and Yunho was about to compliment as such but stopped short when your hands reached behind you to untie your bikini top.

“You don’t mind, do you? I hate tan lines.” He couldn’t see the mischief behind your eyes with your sunglasses in place, but he for sure caught the twitch of your mouth. “Did I miss any of my back?” Your question was loaded with faux innocence.

Yunho slowly folded his book back, slipping in his bookmark in the process. He set it down, wordlessly grabbing the tanning oil and standing from his lounger. Yunho perched himself on the edge of yours. “You missed a bit. Can I?”

You hummed your consent, propping your head on your forearms. “Mhm, please.”

Your stomach fluttered at the feeling of Yunho’s big hands on your bare back. The tingles returned, just like from Mingi’s touch in the kitchen. His hands slowly rubbed the oil into your skin, fingertips adding pressure at your shoulder blades.

“You’re tense.” He mumbled, thumbs working at the knots of muscle easing the ache away only to make the ache in your core yearn for him further. His hands firmly pushed up from the bottom of your back, thumbs caressing your spine and his fingertips brushing the sides of your breasts.

The sounds he pulled from you had Yunho smirking to himself. An almost pained moan had his fingers pausing. “There.” You sounded so breathy... Yunho wondered if you’d sound like that if he found your sweet spot too…

“God..” You groaned, “You got magic hands or something?” You mumbled against your arm.

Yunho laughed softly, dragging his hands down toward the base of your spine. He thought for a moment, eventually speaking up. “You don't like tan lines, right?” He waited for your hum of affirmation. “Then what about these?” His fingers tugged at the waist of your bikini bottoms.

Your eyes sprang open, neck twisting to look back at him. Whatever he had expected you to say or do was not indeed what you said and did for certain… Yunho watched on in stunned fascination as you swiftly untied the strings on both sides of your bikini bottoms. “You’ve got a point. Mind helping me out again?”

Yunho had never agreed to something so fast, pulling your bikini bottoms back from behind. He swore under his breath, mouth parted as he watched the drizzles of the tanning oil hit your skin from the bottle in his hand. His hands moulded to your body again, smearing the shimmery tanning oil over the globes of your ass. He was entranced, locked on the way they rippled under his touch. Yunho allowed his fingers to testingly dip close between your legs, rewarded with a soft moan of his name. Your breathing was getting shallow, your body responding to his touch like a magnet. His fingers brushed so close, one arch of your hips and-

Yunho withdrew his hands, once again leaving you to sit on his lounger once again. You were a mess, body trembling as you attempted to recover. “There. All done.” The amusement behind his voice was clear to you.

Fuck.

After Mingi had woken up, he’d ventured out to the deck to join you. His chest was exposed, a pair of black swimming trunks sitting low on his hips. He sat in the lounger you previously occupied. “Where is she?” He asked Yunho, arms stretched above his head in a yawn.

Yunho nodded toward the lake where you were, sitting on the small jetty with your legs dangling in the water. As if you’d sensed him, you looked up from the ripples of the lake water and caught Mingi’s gaze. He grinned fondly at the beaming smile on your face as you lifted your arm to wave. “Cute.” He murmured to his friend.

Yunho nodded in agreement. “The sun suits her.” He looked up from his book. “Makes her eyes shine.”

Mingi tilted his head, smile broadening as you slid off the jetty and into the water. “She caught a tan today?” He didn’t look away from you once as you swam over, climbing up the ladder to the dock and brushing your wet hair away from your face.

“Yep...oiled up and everything.” Yunho thought back to how you’d just let his hands trail your body like that. Once again, he shut his book as you approached.

“Mings! Sleep well?” You asked, grabbing one of the towels you’d brought out with you that morning. You took no notice of the trance he was stuck in, too focused on the water droplets dripping down your body just like last night.

Well... a little like last night, he could see more of your body. Peach suited you. Yunho nudged Mingi with his foot, snapping him from his staring. “Huh? Oh! Yeah, slept great.” He sat back in the lounger. “Always do out here.”

After drying as much of your body as you could, you disappeared inside. It wasn’t long before you reappeared, a cherry popsicle in your hand. Mingi’s arm encircled around your waist when he noticed you were about to sit on the floor. Instead, he let you sit between his legs on the lounger.

“Better than the floor,” you joked. You lifted the end of the popsicle to your mouth with your left hand, and your right beginning to mindlessly scroll through your phone.

Your body relaxed against Mingi’s chest as his fingers mindlessly played in your hair. “Is the water warm?” He asked, raising an eyebrow of amusement as you moved the popsicle away from yourself with a grimace. The iced treat had melted, the sticky substance making a mess of your hand and chin. You didn’t even want it anymore. The Cherry taste was more sour than expected.

“A little chilly to begin with,” You answered, slotting the half-eaten treat back into the wrapper, Yunho taking it from your sticky fingers to put it in the bag they were using as a bin for their snack wrappers.

Mingi didn’t say anything more. Instead, he grasped your wrist in his hold and brought your hand to his mouth. With a startled gasp, you tilted your head to watch as he lapped up the remnants of the melted liquid from your skin. Once he was satisfied, he let your arm go to shift his attention to your neck and collarbones. His mouth was warm and soft, wet tongue lapping at the mess on your skin. Your arms raised behind you to curl your fingers into his hair, sighing out in contentment.

Mingi moaned against your skin. He was addicted now he finally had his lips on you. Just like he knew he would be. Mingi’s teeth nipped gently at the juncture of your neck, his tongue swirling over the skin to soothe it. You didn’t have it in you to scold him for marking you up… not when your mind was a dizzy spell of fire.

Your dazed, addled mind didn't even see Yunho move from his lounger. You hadn’t a clue until his strong hands grasped your ankles, fingertips ghosting their touch up your legs to part your thighs. “So pretty.” His honeyed voice reached your ears through the haze. “But, sweet as she looks…” He began, his tone sharpening. “I made a discovery earlier, Mingi.”

The younger hummed against your skin, mouth still worshipping your skin. “Mh? What’s that?” His words muffled with his wet kisses across the tops of your breasts above your bikini.

“Our Angel, here.” Yunho toyed with the strings of your bikini bottoms. “Already knew what she wanted the moment she came on this trip with us, didn’t you?”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t think of a coherent thought right now… a sharp swat of Mingi’s hand across the top of your thigh drew out a whimpered gasp. “Yunho asked you a question, Dollface.”

“Yes! Yes, I knew.” You cried out, Mingi’s teeth biting at your skin once more.

“Thought so.” Yunho mused. “That stunt you pulled earlier really didn’t work in your favour, did it?” You hadn’t ever heard his mocking tone before, but you weren't about to complain… It sent shocks through your core.

“No, It didn’t.” You admitted. You were hoping to wind him up, determined to see how far he would go before he snapped… but instead, he’d left you practically naked and wanting on the lounger next to his.

Yunho tutted, shaking his head. He tugged the ties of your bikini free, letting the strings hand down. “I’m going to enjoy this.” He spoke raucously, shuffling down to lie at the foot of the lounger on his stomach.

Yunho's soft lips made contact with the inside of your knee, traipsing kisses up until he met the crease of your leg. He wasn't worried about anyone seeing you. The lake house was in the middle of a wooded area, two miles from the road or any neighbouring cabins.

Mingi held you still as your body began to writhe, the product of Yunho's lips blowing cool air over your throbbing centre. “Stay still, Pretty girl.” Mingi said gruffly, mouthing at your breast over your bikini.

His mouth worked at the bud of your left boob, lips suctioning around the nipple. Your whines fell on deaf ears, Mingi just wanted to kiss every inch of you. He struggled with the knot at the centre of your back that kept you partly clothed. Frustrated grunts, making him lift his mouth off of you to attempt to untie it. He settled with wrapping part of the string around each fist and tugging, effectively snapping the material.

Your head was too fuzzy to care, especially when you felt the flat of Yunho’s tongue lick straight up the middle of your core. “Yunho!” One of your hands flew down, from being draped around Mingi’s neck behind you, to clutch Yunho's hair. His mouth was relentless, muscular hands holding your thighs over his shoulders. You never knew a man could moan like that from eating pussy but here he was, his noises creating vibrations against you.

You didn't quite know where to pay attention to, Mingi’s mouth and fingers abusing your nipples or Yunho's onslaught of licks and sucks on your clit.

You slumped against Mingi again when Yunho prodded two fingers at your entrance, your hips cantering in acceptance. “You're so wet, Angel. Bet I could just easily…” Yunho trailed off as his middle and index finger finally pushed in. They dug deep within your walls, a long moan echoing around the deck. “Knew it.” He curled his digits, the pads of his fingertips tapping against the spongey wall he was looking for.

It elicited a sharp cry from you, Yunho mumbling a small ‘found it.’ before his mouth latched onto your clit again, tongue flicking in tandem with the thrusts of his fingers hitting your sweet spot.

By now, your sounds of ecstasy were no secret, pleas of their names desperately calling out as you writhed in their grasp. “Please!” You begged, Mingi lifting his head to watch your expression.

Mingi made a sound of disappointment as he was met with the sight of your head thrown back and your eyes closed. “Watch him, ____.” it wasn't a request. His tone held no room for debate, and so you peeled your glazed eyes open, tilting your head down to watch as Yunho devoured you.

You felt your orgasm building the faster Yunho's fingers abused your g-spot. Your moans rising in pitch. You didn't even give him a warning when your lower abdomen tensed, toes curling as the sound you let out was almost animalistic. Your thighs shook around Yunho's head, attempting to close, the fingers in his hair tightened to pull at the roots harsher than you meant.

When Yunho's head finally lifted from between your legs, he was grinning ear to ear at you as you slumped breathlessly against his best friend. You could feel Mingi's erection against the base of your spine from where you were laid.

“We're not done with you yet, Dollface.” Mingi cooed mockingly, looking down at your fucked out figure. He pressed a kiss to your forehead when you looked up at him, shaking his head gently and guiding your eyeline back to Yunho.

Your whole body froze. Yunho's swim trunks were chucked haphazardly onto the other chair, his hand slowly jerking his cock. He was huge! Probably the biggest cock you'd ever seen… his girth was impressive alone but you worried if he would even fit.

“____, you good?” He asked encouragingly. Yunho could see the apprehension on your face give way to a determined squint.

“Mhm. Fine, m'good.” Mingi's palms rubbed your sides as you answered.

“Okay, you need to tell Yunho if it's too much.” He stated. “You can make sure to do that, can't you?” He sent you a dazzling smile when you nodded.

You will yourself to relax as the fat head of Yunho's leaky cock makes the first press against you. Just the tip was stinging from the stretch. Mingi hugged your back to his front, kissing up and down the left side of your face and neck. “Relax. Stop tensing.” he demanded softly.

Mingi continued to whisper sweet nothings into your ear. Praising you, touching you, telling you how much you drove them both crazy. It relaxed your muscles enough to accept Yunho's length, pushing into you further. His teeth harshly bit into his bottom lip, his hips rolling slowly forward to sheath the final few inches in you. The garbled moan you made was accidental, but you were thankful Yunho stayed still to give you time to adjust.

“Holy shit.. are you all the way in?” Such an odd question to ask his best friend, but Mingi was never brash about such things.

Yunho nodded, his voice strained as he answered. “Our Angel’s a good girl. Of course, she took it all.” He grunted at the squeeze of your heat at his words. “I'm so deep.” He marvelled.

Mingi, as if to test his words, pressed his hand on your lower stomach. His eyes bulged out of his head, free hand reaching for your own for you to feel the outline of Yunho's cock. You whined, trying to roll your hips as a signal.

Yunho's thrusts started gentle, light taps of his hips against your thighs. Until you get used to his size, the initial discomfort makes way for blinding pleasure. His movements grow more calculated and hard. Mingi's hand stays on your lower stomach, feeling the way Yunho’s cock nudges your insides.

“Y-Yunho.. Yuuunhooo!” Your throat was hoarse from screaming his name repeatedly. “You're s-so deep!”

His thrusts get firmer, fingers digging into your thighs harder than before. This man was literally rearranging your guts in the best way. Mingi lets his hand glide from your stomach to toy with your clit, circling it with his fingers. It hadn't been long since your last orgasm but you were fast approaching a second. Yunho wasn't much better himself, his pace quickening. He felt his skin prickling as he approached his high.

The moment you fell apart around him, Yunho lost it. His thrusts grew sloppy, hips jittering as he spilt into you. “Fuck, Angel.” he panted. “You're gonna kill me.” Yunho pulled out slowly, taking his time to watch his release leak from you. He felt hot and sweaty but nicely sated.

Mingi manoeuvred your body back to the lounger as he slipped out from under you. The noticeable tent in his trunks caught your eye briefly. “Can you take one more?” He questioned you.

Yunho planted himself back on his own chair, sitting back to watch the two of you. He watched the obedient nod you gave, messy hair falling in front of your face.

Mingi tapped your cheek gently, pushing your hair back before connecting your mouths. The kiss was full of desperation, tongues curling around each other. You protested when he pulled back all too soon. “Turn over.” He helped you roll onto your stomach.

Unlike Yunho, Mingi didn't give a warning that he was going to thrust into you. He still gave you time to adjust, though, that much you were grateful for. His thrusts were brutal from the start.

Mingi wasn't holding back anymore. He wanted you ruined for anyone else but them. You were theirs and theirs only. He had a bruising grip on your hips, guiding them as you bounced back to meet his hips. Your moans and screams for him were constant, you'd surely have a sore throat in the morning.

He was pounding into you much harder than Yunho had. You had the pillow of the lounger in a death grip, back arched. Mingi watched the way your ass cheeks rippled with every bounce against his pelvis. You started to feel overstimulated, this was the quickest in your life you'd had an orgasm build up. Though, it was aided by the previous two and the mass amounts of tension between the three of you. Your lips parted on a silent cry as you came. Your body began to violently tremble.

Mingi pulled out immediately, his hand gripping his cock to empty his come over your ass, pruning deep in his chest. “You did so good.” He praised, breathless.

Your brain felt like it wasn't working. All you could do was dazedly giggle in reply. Thoroughly fucked.

“We broke her.” Mingi laughed, using the same towel you dried yourself with earlier to wipe your ass and lower back. He was sweet enough not to drag the rough material over your sensitive pussy. You were too overstimulated for that and he picked up on it quite quickly.

Both Yunho and Mingi pulled you into the en suite bathroom in Yunho's room a few minutes later. Your legs felt like jelly, and the two were cautious with how they handled you.

After they had showered you, Mingi wrapped you in a big fluffy towel. His arms held you to his body. You still hadn't said much, but your blissed out expression meant that the two men weren't worried.

“C'mon Dollface, you need rest.” Mingi said as he stroked your damp hair behind your ear. “We've got so much more in store for you.”

[ssavaart]

Sometimes You Have to Make 100 BAD Drawings To Get 1 GOOD One

(Earlier this year, a publisher asked me if I'd be interested in writing a book on art. As we discussed it... they asked me to "give it a try" and this is one of two tests I did. I don't consider myself a writer, really, so this is just "in my own voice". I wound up turning down the offer... but would love to know your thoughts on this. Thanks)

Drawing something good. Something you like. It’s… elusive. Especially when you’re just starting out.

But, here’s the thing. You have good art in you. I promise. You just have to get to it and it’s stuck under a bunch of bad art. Really bad art.

When I was younger, I would draw every day. Filling up sketchbooks with doodles and sketches and I hated ALL of them.

Page 01: Crap

Page 02: Crap

Page 03: Crap

Page 04: Worse than Crap

Page 05: What even is that?

Page 06: Ugh

And it was just downhill from there…

But… somewhere around like page 100… I made something that… “wasn’t crap”. I actually didn’t hate it.

And that gave me courage to keep going. That one drawing made it all worth it. I was cured. I was now an expert. All of my art would be great from now on.

Oh… if only.

The next drawing was worse than any other drawing before it.

How??? I just made ART! like 5 minutes before that. I got all the bad drawings out! How did my art just go from Van Gogh to Van NO???

Honestly? I… got lucky. That one good drawing? Total fluke. Dumb luck. Sheer Happenstance.

Doing 100 drawings didn’t suddenly make me an expert. It couldn’t.

Have you ever heard of the saying “If a million monkeys type on a million typewriters for a million years, they’ll eventually write Shakespeare”?

I was those monkeys and that drawing was my Shakespeare.

I just pooped out enough bad art that eventually sheer luck was going to mean I may make something really good.

And I’m TOTALLY okay with that. I was 11. I’m not a prodigy. I don’t have any special gifts. But what I did have was… a taste for how making good art felt.

Seeing that one good drawing made me want more. Like my first time tasting chocolate ice cream. I was hooked.

So, I made 100 more bad drawings. Maybe more. And, guess what? ANOTHER great drawing emerged!

Another Shakespeare from this 11 year old monkey!!!! Huzzah!

From then on… I knew that all I had to do was keep banging away at that typewriter (I’m still on the million monkey thing… bear with me) and I would get rewarded with another masterpiece.

Week after week. Month after month. I would fill up my sketchbooks with the most horrific, amateurish, incomprehensible art… and, sure enough, 1 of every 100 drawings would not suck.

I would show it to my mom and she would say “Oh! That’s wonderful!” and when she tried to turn the pages to see more, I would quickly SNATCH it out of her hands and run back into the shadows like Gollum hiding his “Precious” from prying eyes.

I dare not let her see the monstrosities that came before the work of genius.

And… this went on. For years. Predictably. Rhythmically.

Until, one day… my 75th drawing was really good.

How? It was 25 drawings early! That’s not how it was supposed to work. That wasn’t the plan.

But there it was. A really amazing drawing of a spaceship I came up with out of my head. It had lasers and a cockpit and wings and…It was glorious. And it was totally unexpected.

Maybe NOW I was an expert and I no longer needed to make bad art? Would today be the day I would only make masterpieces?

I quickly turned the page and began to draw what would soon be my second greatest work of art and… NOPE.

Still crap.

Hm. But… something was different. It was still crap. But… it wasn’t as “crappy” as the other crap.

I grabbed my previous sketchbooks and looked at the bad drawings from previous years and… guess what? My older bad drawings were WORSE than my newer bad drawings!

Apparently, the more I drew… the better my BAD drawings got too.   

Okay. So. I drew 75 more “not as crappy” bad drawings and… predictably… I made another great drawing!

I was… IMPROVING.

This went on for years. I went to high school. Then art school. I hated MOST of my art… but as I practiced… the number of BAD art I had to make to get to the GOOD art got lower and lower. Soon it was 50 bad pieces for 1 good one. Then 25. Then 10.

It took decades when I noticed… I liked my art more often than not.

It was a complete surprise. I was in my 40’s when this happened. I was SO conditioned to just accept I was going to hate my art that I hadn’t noticed that I had made 5 paintings that didn’t suck. IN A ROW!!!

Unheard of!

But, there it was. 5 good paintings. One right after the other.

The 6th one was complete trash. Tossed it in the garbage.

But, the 7th one? I liked. And the 8th. And the 9th.

I’m now 54 and I know I still have SO much bad art in me. I can feel it. Always ready to pop up and ruin my day.

But, I “pooped out” so much bad art over the years that I’m not really worried about those pop up bad art surprises. I know it’s just temporary.

I like my art now. And that’s because I got MOST of the bad art out of me and into those old sketchbooks.

I know it may seem daunting doing 100 bad drawings just to get to 1 good one. But… if you love that feeling of making that one GOOD piece of art… you need to be patient and get the bad ones out. They’re blocking the good ones. Keeping them deep inside you.

So, crack open that sketchbook. Poop out those bad pieces of art and never look back.

You’ll thank me in like 40 years or so. I promise.

(Oh. And sorry for all the poop references. I’m still that 11 year old when it comes to humor)

Poop.

[aethon-recs]

This Week in Tomarrymort (7 – 15 August 2024)

Testing out a new format for recs! Trying this out as I don’t always have time to put together detailed themed rec lists, and there’s always SO MUCH good fic getting published every day on AO3. So these are all either ongoing Tomarrymort fics that I’m subscribed to or new one shots that I found while browsing that were updated in the last week. 

My goal is to compile these lists on Fridays, so that everyone has lots of juicy fic to read going into the weekend 🤍 I find myself missing updates all the time, so I hope this will be a helpful compilation of updates of must-read ongoing fic that you may have missed! Happy reading. 

Also, I didn't even realize so much Tomarrymort fic gets updated every week until I sat down and started doing this. Like, this is why I don't have a life, because I spend all my time reading AO3 (and I'm sure many of you feel the same way 😅) The incredible range of talent and insane output in this ship is absolutely awe-inspiring and breathtaking.

*

Tomarrymort One Shots and Completed Fics

One Shot | Heartbeats by @cyandenial

One Shot | yours forever, harry by i_am_a_tree

One Shot | Quid Pro Quo by anonymous

One Shot | Expelliarmus Red by @poljupci

One Shot | Black Fire by sparrowshellcat

One Shot | Let's never wake up (Stay With Me) by @blackseatwenty

One Shot | And all the devils are here by @i-dream-of-libraries

Chapter 9 (complete) of Fourth: The Ritual's Consequence by @ramabear

Chapter 2 (complete) of Tom Riddle's DIY Disaster by @sri-verse

Chapter 9 (complete) of Still Into You by @moontearpensfic

*

Tomarrymort Ongoing Fics

Chapter 7 and 8 of Sits the wind in that quarter by @mosiva

Chapter 5 of Ills of Murder by @shadow-of-the-eclipse

Chapter 23 of would that i'd loved (long ago) by @sprst1tion

Chapter 21 of Paved With the Best Intentions by @perhaps-sunlight

Chapter 17 of A Simple Request by @shyinsunlight

Chapter 2 of Cane Sugar by @blogalinda @cindle-writes @reggieblk @telectronique

Chapter 9 of Catching up by lemonchase

Chapter 9 of Shattered by Flipdarkchill

Chapters 1 and 2 of Saint Harry by @alenablack @chaos-bear

Chapter 3 of Anytime, Anywhere, Always by @moontearpensfic 

Chapter 9 of a touch of fate by @virgil-anon 

Chapter 1 of Atonement [Tomarry Edition] by @just-a-whorecrux

Chapter 3 of the scar remains by @noctelier

Chapters 5 and 6 of we made universes out of bitten lips and broken hands by @boyneptunee

Chapter 14 of When time and reasons fail by citrumade

Chapter 7 of Every Trick in the Book by tomrddle

Chapter 17 of Occultation by TimaeusKosmou

Chapter 2 of the vault by @milkandmoon-ao3

Chapter 16 of Pledged by @moontearpensfic 

Chapter 7 of A Snake in the Grass by @teaandsweaters9

Chapter 11 of Outrunning the Villain in You by @zenyteehee

Chapter 3 of Moon Rite by @isalisewrites

Chapter 2 of These Fragments We've Shored by @rowena-rain

Chapter 110 of Liquida Tenebris (Remastered) by @dymis

Chapter 36 of Revolution of Configured Stars by @tollingreminiscentbells

Chapter 28 of Part One - The Solitude of Suffering by @iseliljathedreamer

Chapters 11 and 12 of Learning to love by @l-archiduchesse

Chapter 9 of sandpaper kisses, paper cut bliss by @xodahafez

Chapter 5 of Do It Over by @thefangirlibrarian

Chapter 1 of Dark Water by Dariahn

Chapter 17 of What In Me Is Dark, Illumine by @telelli-writes

*

[trashywritestrash]

Short and Sweet

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x Reader

Word Count: 853

Warnings: Best friend’s brother— is that a warning? This is just a short lil thing for Valentine’s Day

A/N: The poem and response in this came from Thomas Richardson’s “Gentleman’s Valentine Writer” which wasn’t actually published until 1828 but I needed ideas, okay? Also, I wrote this when Bridgerton was still the lead in the poll lol

Living beside the Bridgerton household had many advantages. Being close in age to Daphne gave you the perfect excuse to spend time with her. However, spending time with Daphne meant also spending time with the rest of her family, which allowed you to form a close bond with them all. One Bridgerton in particular being Benedict.

Benedict was a few years older than you, but within a perfectly reasonable range that made it acceptable for you to fancy him. How could you not? He was sweet and sensitive, but he had a playful side that brought joy any time you were fortunate enough to witness it. Although, you never dared to dream that Benedict might return your affections. You were the best friend of his younger sister, surely he would not think of you in that way.

Initially, you had been excited to be presented before the queen and sent out into society. But while Daphne had been deemed the season's incomparable, you had fallen into her shadow. You were happy to see your friend receive many visitors and gifts, but some days it would hurt to see a line of men outside her door while you waited in an empty sitting room.

Waking on Valentine's Day brought nothing but sorrow. It was only one month into the social season and you already felt that you were destined to become an old spinster. With no prospective husbands in sight, you would likely have to face a second season. You did not expect that you would receive any callers that day, yet you waited in your sitting room in a fine dress, as you did every other day. Your mother sat in a chair at the far end of the room, leisurely reading until something would happen.

Early into the day, your butler entered the room with a calling card in hand, "A Mister Bridgerton is here to call upon Miss Y/L/N."

"Send him in," You replied, feeling your chest constrict. It was possible that one of Daphne's brothers had come to pass along a message for her, but a gentleman visiting while you were accepting callers still brought you a shred of hope.

Moments later, you saw Benedict step through the doorway, holding something behind his back. He smiled, "I see I have gotten here before the rest."

You returned his smile, nervous, yet calmed by his presence. "I think you will find that the gentlemen are coming to your door today, not mine."

"Then they are fools and I am lucky to have you all to myself."

"What can I do for you, Benedict? I find it hard to believe you would be here as a suitor." You spoke the words in jest, but felt your throat tighten as you said them all the same.

Benedict's smile fell into confusion, "What is so hard to believe about that?"

Taken aback by the genuine confusion in his tone, you clarified, "I only mean to say that I would not have expected it."

"If that is the case, I hope that you find this to be a good surprise," For just a moment, you heard a bit of nerves in his voice as he tried to present a confident image. "Unfortunately, I cannot stay long. But I wanted to bring you these and to officially declare my affection."

Finally, Benedict moved the hand behind his back to reveal a beautiful bouquet of morning glory and myrtle. You smiled wide at the sight, "Thank you, Benedict. They're lovely."

Shortly after, Benedict had to take his leave, although he promised to come back the following day. Once he had left, you reached for a book on the language of flowers. You found that morning glories are used to represent affection, meanwhile myrtle is used to represent love and marriage. Learning that brought a blush to your cheeks, finding the meaning to be a little bold, but not unpleasant.

It was then that you noticed a small folded piece of parchment beside the flowers. When you unfolded the paper, you could see the painted design done in watercolors. A man and a woman stood beneath a tree, which was situated between a lovely cottage and a church. The image was small, but you could tell that the couple was you and Benedict. On the other side of the parchment was a simple note.

I boast not eloquence, dear Miss, Nor do I write exceedingly fine; Therefore, I bluntly ask you this-- Pray, will you be my Valentine?

As you looked down at the note, you felt your heart swell. You held it close to your chest, feeling as if you could burst from happiness at any moment. Your mother then looked up from her book. "What is that, dear?"

"It is nothing!" You responded quickly. Luckily, your mother did not push the issue further.

That night, you folded the note once more and placed it in the drawer of the nightstand beside your bed. As you attempted to fall asleep, all you could think of was that you could not wait to see Benedict again.

----------

Want more fanfic? Check out my masterlist!

If you enjoyed this, please consider liking, reblogging, or tipping my Ko-Fi!

[drdemonprince]

At one point he was down in between my legs, fingering me, and he made a throwaway comment about probably being Autistic. 

I leaned back, trying to relish what pleasure I was getting. “Well, we can talk about that subject, if you like,” I said vaguely, not really wanting to bring my professional life into things. 

He kept working away at my body, kissing between my lips and thighs. “Oh I know who you are,” he said suddenly. “Your book changed my life. In a way, I guess this is me thanking you.” 

I made him exit my body and we went to the kitchen to hash it out. It turned out he was a big fan of many things I’d written. 

“I’ve seen you around the neighborhood many times,” he confessed. “But you posted online that you don’t like when people come up to you, and so I always decided to leave you alone.” 

He said, “Your book is the reason I got divorced, actually. My ex-husband was a therapist, and when I showed him your book and said I thought I might be Autistic, he didn’t believe me. We have been separated for a year.” 

He asked, “Did I just make this weird, telling you when I did that I was a fan?” I told him that if he’d said it sooner, I would have never fucked him at all. 

People never realize that when they approach me, what they are doing is dragging me into work. It doesn’t matter whether I was at breakfast, or an orgy. I was just some guy standing there, enjoying his beer, but now they have made me the known scholar and author. And sure, my job might be meaningful, but that doesn’t mean I like to work. 

I tell my friend that I no longer want to be a public figure, and that I am planning how to make it all end. She tells me, “You’ve got to do what is the best for you, even if it’s something that the rest of us wants and can’t imagine giving up.” 

I ask myself, did I want this? It would be more flattering to say I didn’t, and play the role of the hermetic author whose work developed its own life purely because it was so good. But that isn’t true. 

From the moment I got a Myspace account in high school, I was publishing essays about my political views. I serialized multiple novels on Tumblr, guerilla marketing them with giveaways and custom-made images until they hit the Kindle sales charts. I have made memes, tried starting viral trends, coined phrases, and given hundreds of hours’ worth of media interviews. I write prescriptive nonfiction, for Christ’s sake. Of course people seek guidance from me. I offer it up! 

I have been strategic about how I dress, and my video backdrops, and retaken clips of myself speaking over and over again until they sounded right. I’ve hosted debates with my most vicious critics while I’m in the shower, started public beef with creators who had larger accounts than I did, and rushed to my keyboard when upsetting news broke, because I alone was possessed of the most correct take on it.

I wanted this. I didn’t know what this was, this internet fame I was chasing, but I did all I could to make it mine. I thought that by writing so much, I would one day be able to escape myself, maybe really feel connected to other people. Instead it has meant never being able to stop thinking about myself: how I am seen, what I am working on, how it all fits together, what comes next. It has also meant being spoken about, theorized about, and criticized, and developing a firm exoskeleton of disdain between myself and the world. 

I believe now that that it is immoral for any person to be listened to by ninety thousand other people. Holding authority and status like that runs counter to my anarchic ideals. I am not more important or correct than anyone. I should not be trusted to tell people which commodities to buy, which companies not to support, what to read, what to think, what words to use, or how to conduct their lives. 

All the other animals know there is no one way that a creature “should” live. There is only the way that it does. The world has no consciousness, no beliefs. It cannot pass judgment. We only feel so watched and evaluated because we have covered the planet with so many millions of our eyes. But we can stop performing dignified human goodness at any moment. 

I think that celebrity is an evil, corrupting force that pits the human instinct for bonding against itself. Instead of appreciating the singing of our friends around the fire, we stream Chappell Roan until stalkers break into her house. Rather than playing card games together, we stan Twitch streamers, filling up their chats with highlighted messages until they acknowledge us. We long to be famous novelists because then we would have the social permission to write, and we don’t have the money or time to enjoy the activity on its own. 

I wrote about Chappell Roan, stalker stans, and how turning art into content creation ruins the work, and the creator's life. It's free to read in full (or have narrated to you by the app!) on Substack.

[lynnlovesthestars]

Hi! I’m new to your blog and have been loving all of your works!

If you’re comfortable with it, I was wondering how you think Astarion would react/feel about a virgin tav/reader who went through SA when they were younger, and wish to wait until they are both completely ready and comfortable with being intimate?

Hii, I can definitely do it, though i will merge it with another ask I received- asking to write hcs about Astarion learning Tav is a survivor.

I will say, making it with the hc has been a little easier on me, usually when i write about SA i spend an insane amount of time making sure i'm comfortable and you (readers) are as well, and i hesitate a lot before publishing it *(queue up scars and blood, that I wrote on an impulse after a nightmare, and it took me a solid week before publishing it)*

ANYWAYS.

ofc I hope this will be of comfort to you, and it won't trigger you.. sometimes all we want is to find solace into our favourite characters, so i wish tonight this will in a way comfort you...

and if anyone needs to vent, or talk, feel free to hit up my dm's, they are a safe space for anyone and i'll always offer up comfort.. we don't need to struggle alone, and sometimes being heard is what we need to make a new step forward<3

As always, my little stars, excercise kindness! we don't know who's gonna pass by this, and we don't know how hard it can be for them.

This being said, I hope you'll like it!

Headcanon: Astarion learning Tav is a survivor.

Pairing: Astarion x reader. Warnings: mentions of past trauma and SA. wc: 1.7k

-He starts suspecting something about it around the time of the tiefling party. He had offered to sneak out while everyone was asleep to "enjoy yourselves", but you refused right away. He definitely picked up some involuntary movement you did that told him there was more to the "I'm not ready". You probably flinched or jerked away, usually it would go unnoticed, but Astarion could recognize the subtle harshness hidden behind your reaction.

-He doesn't want to pry into it, as much as he needed to know as much as possible about you- he says for the sake of his undead skin- he wasn't entirely confident you trusted him enough to share your past. Also he wasn't sure he could handle someone confiding in him, but he would never admit it. At the end of the day, all he knew about social interaction were faint memories of his magistrate life, or means to survival. He simply wasn't sure he could have the empathy to deal with someone else's emotions, both in good and in bad.

-When you meet the gur, and you start peering into his past, he can't hide the very obvious rock in the shoe, Cazador and his spawn life, and it is because of the gur that you actually open up to him. When he starts going deeper and deeper into Cazador's orders to him and his repulsion towards sex, you do feel like you can share something so intimate, that's been heavy on you, well since it happened. 

-The first time you mention it though, you are very blunt.

-"And honestly I don't know anything else besides disgust for it" He'd admit as he bit the inside of his cheek.

"I'm sorry, Astarion" You'd start, you wanted to hold his hand to comfort him, cause that kind of pain you knew. "I understand how you feel though. If you need—" He cut you short, anger was bubbling quickly in his stomach. You swore his face almost reddened in anger as he raised his voice.

"No, you don't" He was one sound shirt from hissing at you. "You cannot understand what it feels like" He'd sneer at you. "No one can understand what it feels like to be stripped of your bodily autonomy". In a way the harshness in his voice was like a slap to your face, cause you did in fact know. From the other, you didn't expect your brain to beeline directly towards that sealed drawer in your brain where you tried to hide the haunting memory. 

“I went through it myself, you shithead” You got up, uncaring of whatever reaction he could have in that moment, and you just left.

-He was taken aback, on different levels, both because of your sudden shift in mood, because of the blunt reveal, and deep down because he was sorry, though again he’d never admit it out loud.

-You ignored him for the rest of the day, avoiding his stare and disappearing in your tent right after you were done setting camp, and that unsettled him so much that he was weighing the possibility of apologizing cause, of course, he didn’t know.

-You skipped dinner, and even when everyone else was asleep, you didn’t come out from your tent to take your usual nightly walk. The pang of guilt was becoming more like a stab as he saw the light in your tent still burning, and the faint shadow of you moving around restless.

-He prepared a peace offering, a bowl of the leftover stew, as he had to muster the guts to apologize. 

-”Sorry, I was an asshole earlier, I brought you food” He blurted out right after he knocked on the wooden support of the tent, and he was surprised when you still let him in.

-Initially it was awkward, cause you were eating and not saying anything, but after a while he mustered up the courage to offer his shoulder to you. “If you even wish to talk” He’d say.

-You told him a bit of what happened, without going too much into detail, since you were still shaken from the memories that resurfaced.

-Since then he started to learn your boundaries: how to catch your attention without startling you, what were triggering topics for you, how you liked physical touch, and how it triggered you as well.

-In a way he becomes very protective of you, especially if you open up more often about your trauma, and you can see it.

-He made sure everyone respected your boundaries, whether it was Gale with his weave thing pulling you too close, or a stranger breathing on your neck, he was always ready to remind them of their place. 

-”Don’t you see our dear captain doesn't want to be that close?!” “Keep your hands to yourself, they don't like being grabbed by the wrists” “Get away from her, before I stab you” 

-He noticed how you always double checked the perimeter of the camp before the sun would set, and before getting in your tent you’d always look around in the distance, trying to spot if something was out of place. So he joined you in your routine, helping you check around and make sure you were ready in case anything could have happened.

-As you get closer, and you both open up more to each other, he even suggests he moves his tent closer to yours. “I can keep an eye around” Was his explanation, when he first brought it up. 

-And it helped so much with your sleep, you felt a little safer.

-If you didn’t feel safe at night, he’d suggest putting your tents together into one. Maybe it was a way to keep you closer, or he needed reassurance, but he made sure you knew you could place your bedroll anywhere as far or as close to him as you liked.

-Eventually as your bond would deepen and deepen, and you’d grow fond of each other, you found yourselves rediscovering your touch together. It started with your fingers tapping on his arm as you were walking, or a strand of your hair being pulled behind your ear. Some nights you’d sit close in your tent, and would hold hands, caress each other’s cheeks, and slowly even reach out for a kiss or two.

-It was a slow process, where you really got to know each other like no one else ever did. You could read each other like a book, yet you never shied away from asking each other for consent for anything.

-”Can I hold your hand” “Can I kiss your cheek” “Can I rest my head on your chest”

-The thing you both struggled with the most, was falling asleep holding each other. You’d panic very quickly when you would feel your chest becoming tighter. He’d move away as quickly as possible, and give you the space you needed.

-When he confesses he has been falling for you, it’s time to approach the very delicate topic of sex. You opened up about the fact that you wanted to wait ‘till you were ready, and he agreed without hesitation. Of course because he understood where you came from, he never asked for any help either, if he’d feel like he needed some release, he’d disappear for a bit and deal with it himself, without making you feel like a burden.

“I just want to make sure we are on the same page on this” You’d say as you crossed your arms, almost as if you wanted to fold yourself in and away. “If you want to have sex, I can’t right now” You’d start saying, but stop on your tracks for a second. “Wait, not that I can’t. I don’t want to have sex at the moment” You’d correct yourself, confident in your statement, he wasn’t even thinking about it, though he respected completely.

“I get it, and it’s okay my love” He’d say, patting your shoulder, and wondering whether he wanted to hold your hand or kiss it, he wanted to let you know he truly understood. “I don’t want to either” He smiled, and in that moment it was like both you two finally breathed. You’d reach for his hand to hold it in yours.

“It’s not because of you though” You wanted to explain to him, you were so close it was something you were ready to share, especially since you were slowly walking towards a different level of intimacy together, he had to know. “I want to do it when we are both ready” 

“I understand, my sweet, there’s no need for explanations” He’d smile again, one of his fangs slightly poked out against his lip. “You said you don’t want sex yet, so it’s no” 

“I’m a virgin” You’d blurt out, and that was something he didn’t entirely expect.

“Oh” He’d say at first, but as he noticed your cheeks slowly warming up, he pulled you closer to him, his forehead against yours. “It’s okay, I don’t care about it” He’d exhale. “As long as it’s you, I don’t care about anything” 

-When you reach Baldur’s Gate and finally you settle in the elfsong tavern, you made sure you always had a corner of time dedicated to helping each other relearn touch. 

-You'd lay next to each other in different levels of nakedness depending on how you felt at the moment, and you'd spend your time tracing each other's features. Whenever you'd feel comfortable enough to venture into a new thing, he'd ask for permission. 

-"Would you feel comfortable if I touched your hips?" "Can I trace your scars with my fingers?” “May I pull you closer?”

-You didn't fight time, you didn't rush towards sex. It came slowly and it was a process full of ups and downs. Some attempts ended up with you both sobbing, too overwhelmed. Other's ended up with panic attacks. Eventually though, after a lot of work together, you reached a point where you'd be able to make love.

-it was a very soft moment between you two. It involved a lot of comforting, kisses and patience, but it was something so profound, it wasn't only about shared pleasure, but it was about connecting your bodies and your souls. In a way it was like a wedding for you two it was the peak of trust you could have with each other. 

-He'd whisper so many times how proud he was of you, how much he loved you, and how glad he was that you were the one that would spend their life with him.

-Tears eventually arrived, they were the tears of two souls that finally had reclaimed a bit of their freedom. It was the cries of someone that was finally healing. 

[usedtobecooler]

hey, squealer | virgin!eddie x fem!reader

part one // part two // part three // part four

Pairing | Eddie Munson x fem!reader

Warnings | sexual content (18+ minors dni), oral m receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!!), fingers in mouth, blowjobs, dirty talk (a lie, reader is just mean and likes to make fun of him), taking of virginity, mocking, fluff, mentions of horror movie scenes, mention of death.

Word Count | 3k

A/N | i'm back again and none of you can stop me!!!! virgin!eddie has me in a fucking chokehold and i couldn't rest until i wrote and published this. i've linked all parts to this series at the beginning so we have on place for everything. enjoy!!

It'd been a few days since your bathroom encounter and things were so much better this time. You were back to goofing off at work, speaking about anything and everything and you even had taken an interest in Eddie's D&D campaign that he'd been buzzing on about.

It was cute watching him be so passionate about the things he enjoyed doing, the way he'd excitedly tell you about how Erica had defeated his campaign again all whilst mocking Lucas for being useless, how Will had joined Hellfire since returning from California and fit in perfectly, how Gareth finally had a girlfriend.

It was so endearing to watch him like this, you were pretty sure if he paid close enough attention to you he'd see the hearts in your pupils.

"You wanna come to my house tonight?" You'd asked him after your Saturday shift, twirling your hair in your finger as you leaned on the cash counter, watching him bounce around slotting vinyls into their correct places.

Eddie's movements halted abruptly, looking at you and narrowing his eyes, "Your house? To do what?"

"Watch a movie?" You ask hopefully, a glint in your eyes, "Do you like scary movies?"

"I love scary movies, sweetheart," Eddie places both of his hands over his heart, fluttering exaggeratedly at your words, "what movie were you thinking?"

"I rented Halloween from Family Video," You smile all giddy as you watch Eddie's movements, so endeared by how goofy he was, "the first one, of course. No other compares."

"You're right about that," Eddie smirks, "give me your address and I'll be there, seven okay?"

"Perfect."

-----------------------------------------------------------

Seven came around pretty quickly and now you were getting a little nervous. Your parents were out for the night at some fancy event for your dads company that was out of town, so they were in a hotel for the night and you were home all alone.

You hadn't asked Eddie if he wanted to stay over, but you sort of hoped you could reel him into staying with your sweet words. Especially after watching a horror movie like Halloween, what an awful idea that was.

The doorbell rings and you very nearly shoot out of your skin, making to the door and opening it to find Eddie standing there looking all dopey and tired.

"Thank God this is the right house, I got nervous I was somehow on the wrong street," Eddie sighs, stepping into the house without an invite and toeing off his Reeboks as you shut and lock the door behind him.

"Nope, you're right where you need to be," You say, lips popping on the 'p', "the VCR is in my room, my parents hate movies so I get it all to myself, you okay to come up to my room to watch the film?"

Okay, so maybe that's a bit of a white lie and maybe you had spent the last half hour dragging the VCR upstairs and fiddling around with all the cables to make sure it was set up in your room, but Eddie would be none the wiser.

Eddie looks at you with wide eyes, nervousness apparent in the way he balks at you, "Uh, are you sure?"

"Course, we'll be comfier on my bed anyway," You smirk, grabbing hold of his hand and tugging him upstairs with you. Your bedroom door is already open, to reveal your pretty made up bed with a baby blue comforter effortlessly tucked in and a million pillows.

Your room is small, like the rest of the house really, so your TV is pretty close to the end of your bed, only a dresser and bedside table as other furniture.

"Make yourself at home," You shoo Eddie away to sit on the bed, watching as he removes his denim jacket just leaving him in his shirt and loose sweatpants, "don't think I've ever seen you in anything other than jeans."

"Oh, uh, I wanted to be comfortable," Eddie says, voice nervous and slightly sheepish as he gets cosy on your bed, "Jesus, how many pillows do you need, sweetheart."

"I like to feel like I'm on a cloud." You giggle, sliding onto the bed and automatically resting your head on Eddie's lap. You choose to ignore the sharp intake of breath he takes when you get comfortable, your big oversized shirt riding up to reveal a little expanse of your panties.

The TV was already on, video tape in and ready to go, so once you're sure you're both comfortable you press play and the movie starts, soon enough little Michael is walking through his home in Haddonfield to murder his sister in the front bedroom.

You lay in silence as you watch, in no mood for teasing as you lose your focus on Eddie and become engulfed in the movie playing out in front of you.

Eventually, it gets to the part where Lynda and Bob sneak into Annie's home to get it on, and you're trying to ignore the way Eddie is squirming under your head, when all of the sudden-

You shoot up from your place in Eddie's lap, "Are you seriously getting a hard on over Lynda's tits? She's about to die a horrible death, you freak." You're mocking him but your mouth is watering a little as you watch his cock strain in his sweatpants.

"They're nice tits," Eddie shoots back, voice weak and strained as Michael strangles Lynda with the telephone cord, "not as nice as yours though."

You lay a hand over your chest, acting all bashful, "I'm flattered, but you haven't even seen my tits outside of my top."

"Show me then." Eddie says, raising his brows as if to challenge you. What he doesn't expect is for you to actually pull your baggy shirt off over your head and expose your bare breasts to him, nipples hardening from the cool air right away.

"There," You say all triumphant and pleased with yourself, "I don't wear a bra at home, so jokes on you, pretty boy."

He's all flustered, wide puppy dog eyes drinking in the look of your tits, hand coming out hesitantly until you nod, letting him cup one in his palm, thumb rubbing over the hard nub of your nipple. A sweet sigh escapes your lips and you shudder from the contact.

"Can I help you with that at all?" You ask sweetly but still mocking, nodding towards his straining cock in his pants, "Looks like you don't wear underwear in the house either."

Eddie barks out a nervous laugh, "You caught me, princess." Your heart flutters over the nickname, core quivering as he stares at you intently, "I suppose, uh, I suppose you can if you wan'. Don't feel like you have to."

"I don't, I want to," You confirm, changing position so you're sat on your knees between his spread legs, "can I blow you?"

He chokes on his tongue, face going beet red, "Are you sure? Shit, you don't have to-"

You cut him off by digging your fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants, forcing him to lift his hips up so you can pull them to his ankles. His cock springs up all proudly, flushed red at the tip and already leaking a little.

"You're such a virgin," You sigh, just a little teasing coming out behind the admiring way you say it, all happy with yourself that it's only you who's ever done this for him.

"And you're such a slut." Eddie quips back, though there's no heat behind the words. You look up at him, furrowed brows and a dumb look on your face, all quiet for a second to make him squirm.

"I didn't mean that." He says eventually and you laugh at him, leaning down and gripping the base of his cock, spitting on the head to get it nice and wet.

"No, you're right," You admit, hand jerking him up and down and you don't miss the way he starts whining right away, "just a slut for your massive fucking cock."

A broken moan escapes Eddie's lips as you sink down on his cock, hot mouth gliding over the flushed skin and tongue licking over his head, hand twisting over what you can't fit in your mouth - which is a fair amount, and you're disappointed in your own skills now.

You force yourself to take a bit more of him in your mouth and your throat closes up, gagging a little as the head hits the back of your throat and Eddie shoves his hips up and cums with an embarrassingly loud shout.

You choke and splutter on his cum but still swallow it down, a little dribbling out the sides of your mouth as you pull off of him, "Could've warned a gal, Jesus Eddie."

He's embarrassed and you feel bad at the way he clenches his eyes shut and cringes like he's about to cry, "I am so, so sorry," he stumbles over his words, voice raising an octave, "I didn't expect you to, well, try to deep throat me and it caught me off guard."

You're smiling all pretty at him now, "Don't say sorry, I'm not mad," you say it sincerely, no mocking as you shrug, "that was kinda hot. Gives me a bit of an ego."

You slide off of the bed and retrieve a muslin cloth from your dresser, plopping back onto the bed with a huff as you clean him up, wandering hands ghosting all over his limp cock and his balls for him.

You pretend not to notice the hiss of breath he takes in and the way his eyes wander down to where your hands are taking care of him.

Eddie's back is pressed firm against your plush headboard and he's all flushed red, clearly still orgasm drunk from his first blowjob -- if you could even call it that.

"Do you trust me?" You ask gently, making to hover over his lap but not quite settling, still on your knees to keep distance.

"Of course I do, sweetheart," Eddie's eyes have a little twinkle in them, a dopey smile spreading across his face as he gently reaches his hands out to settle on your waist. You melt into it, body going a little lax and keening into his touch.

"You can absolutely say no, but," Your fingers dance over the front of his Hellfire shirt, the first time you'd seen him in it since you were both in high school, and it's making you feel a little juvenile, "I was thinking it was maybe time for you to pop your cherry."

You inwardly cringe at your words, you were hoping to be a little softer with him and a bit more serious but you can't help the teasing, it's like your brain is hotwired to automatically make fun of him.

"You're, wha-," Eddie's stuttering over his words, at a bit of a loss, "I didn't bring a condom."

The barking laugh that escapes your lips sounds mean, and you know that, but he's just so precious, "Honey, Eddie, baby..." you coo at him, "I'm on birth control. I'm totally clean too, trust me, surely you'd want to feel everything the way it's meant to feel for the very first time, right? So I'm sure the condom doesn't matter, unless it's what you want."

You can feel Eddie's cock pulsing between you both, clearly perking up at the thought of getting buried in your tight cunt for the first time. His face isn't so easy to read, though, you can tell his brain is running at a million miles a minute trying to soak in everything that's going on.

"You can say no," You say helpfully, a little bashful smile tugging at your lips, "I don't want to pressure you."

"You're not," Eddie says it in a rush, sitting up a little, "you're not rushing me. I just - I'm worried it's gonna be shit for you and over as fast as that was." He's clearly referring to the blowjob you just attempted to give him, face screwing up as he cringes.

"Hey, second orgasm usually doesn't come so fast," You shrug, like it's no big deal because it isn't, "you'll get better with practice, last longer, find what you like and don't like. It's normal, handsome."

"God," Eddie clenches his eyes shut momentarily, like your words are throwing him through a loop, "what'd I ever do to deserve a gal like you being so understanding."

"You were yourself," It's honest, that's what captivated you from the get go, just the way Eddie was in himself was enough to pull you in, "and now I get to mold you into my perfect little sex god."

You sink down a little now, your still panty-clad pussy dragging hotly against Eddie's cock, now fully erect again and slapping at his stomach. His eyes shoot open, biting at his bottom lip to stifle a groan.

And maybe this would be over quicker than you thought. But you were okay with that, the night was young and round two and three were always an option.

"I'll move these to the side," You say, voice quiet as you motion toward your panties with your left hand, "and then I'll do all the work, 'kay? You just tell me what you like and what you don't, and when you're close."

Eddie's mesmerized by your cunt, watching as you loop your fingers into the black material and tug them to the side, exposing yourself to the cool air, "Do you not-," he struggles, "do you not want me to... get you off first?"

"Trust me, honey, I really don't need it," You smirk, grabbing his hard cock by the base and hovering over it, slipping the head between your slick folds. You watch his eyebrows furrow, his mouth fall open as his head falls back and hits your headboard, clearly overcome with pleasure.

Eddie's silent, all words caught in his mouth as you let the tip of his cock breach your hole, sinking down little by little, gasping at the stretch of it because Jesus he's massive, until you're fully sat and nestled.

"Tell me when you're ready for me to move, Eds," You whisper, a whimper dying in your throat as your hand comes up to tug at the collar of his shirt pulling on it until he's looking at you, just to make sure he's listening and still okay.

He's really big, not that you didn't know that when you got your hands and mouth on it, but it feels bigger nestled inside the tight heat of your cunt, like you can almost feel him in your stomach.

Eddie nods eventually once his breathing evens out and you don't waste any time in getting started. To begin with you take it slow, only lifting yourself up just enough for a few inches to come out before sliding back down again, gauging how he reacts. His mouth falls open in a broken moan, eyebrows furrowing as he gets used to the feeling of your wet cunt gripping him so well.

He risks a glance down to watch your bodies meeting, the way his cock slides in and out of you and maybe it was a mistake because you're feeling his cock twitching already, whilst he watches your creamy release pool around his thick expanse of dark pubes, matting it down.

"You're - fuckfuck - making a mess," Eddie's voice is so whimpery and subby it makes you shudder in a breath, a whine coming from your throat as you swipe two fingers through the mess, picking some up and forcing your fingers into his mouth until he's sucking them clean.

"Shut up," You moan, finally bouncing up and down properly now, never taking your eyes off of his own, big and wet and perfect, your cunt gripping him so deliciously, sweet spot being abused with every stroke, "rub my clit."

Eddie lets your fingers slip from his mouth, thumb coming down to rub messily at your clit, absolutely no fucking rhythm to it whatsoever but at this point it didn't matter because you could feel your stomach tightening already.

"You're so wet," Eddie sighs, all mesmerized and struggling to rip his eyes away from his thumb on your cunt, until he catches your tits bouncing up and down and he leans forward to latch onto your nipple, licking and sucking it tentatively.

"You're gonna make me cum," You whine, crying out as you continue bouncing, trying to ignore how Eddie's own hips are fucking up to meet your thrusts and how it's driving you crazy, "Jesus Christ."

"Nah, just me," Eddie moans, and it would've been funny if he didn't sound so fucked out, "m'gonna cum, shit, fuck."

The sounds are so fucking hot it's driving you wild, the loud slapping of your skin connecting in this delicious smack, your sopping wet cunt sucking him in, the panting and whining escaping Eddie's lips and you are gone, clenching around his fat cock as you cum, shoving yourself down so he's all the way in to the hilt.

Your pussy clenching like a vice around Eddie's cock is enough to have him shooting off, grip on your waist so tight it almost hurts as he cums, buried deep in you. His orgasm face is so pretty you watch the whole thing without blinking, the way his curls fan his face wetly from sweat, his glossy eyes pricking with tears, his swollen red lips parting in a constant string of moans.

There's silence for a moment and as usual you ruin it by letting the intrusive thoughts win, "There's no way any other woman is allowed to have this fat cock. It's mine now."

Eddie barks out a little laugh, looking up at you with this big dumb smile, rosy cheeks flushing even darker, "Yours if you want it, sweetheart."

You lean down with hands on either side of his face to pull him in for a kiss, giggling and smiling against his lips whilst his softening cock slips out of you.

(i was gonna do a taglist but for some reason the tags wouldn't work send help - i hope everyone who wanted to find this does!!)

[beaniegaebie]

i don't really have any solid conclusions about this yet but i noticed A Thing in a rewatch and i haven't found it mentioned elsewhere yet so here we go

(apologies for the appalling image quality you're about to see, i can't screenshot easily rn pls bear with)

OKAY so in the scene where crowley confronts gabriel about "shut up and die", something about the arrangement of book stacks caught my eye a little

the majority of the books are angled so that we mostly just see the page edges and not the spines clearly, EXCEPT for a particularly shiny and familiar colour combo right here-

but nothing too weird going on there, i thought, crowley coloured books in a bookshop so what? right up until i registered crowley's line when we get a closer look-

hhhhmmmmMMmmmm yes yes "everything just the way you wanted" huh, very interesting considering that we know how much thought goes into props huh

and for most of the shots we get of crowley in this position those freaking books are just quietly nestled right there in the corner-

look at that god damn framing i fuckin see you, you glorious bastards

so i paused to see if i could figure out what the hell was up with those fuckers and this is when i absolutely lost my mind, your honour

A and C you say?? in crowley colours???? framed like this?????? localised entirely within your kitchen???

anyway long story short they're two books from an Agatha Christie Crime Collection set (24 volumes, three stories per volume) and guess whats on the mfing front covers I'm-

(its a rant for another post but when paired with this other set of initials spotted in s2 i want to scream actually)

ANYWAY back to the books, through an absolutely unhinged comparison of the formatting of gold text blobs i reckon the two we have here are:

(on top) The Pale Horse; The Big Four, The Secret Adversary

(on bottom) 4:50 From Paddington, Lord Edgeware Dies, Murder in Mesopotamia

(I'm fairly confident but if anyone has a better image to confirm/correct this pls do)

now here is where I'll need a bunch of help from some Christie-heads out there bc I haven't read any of these and I've only seen the tv adaptation of one of them, so i dont know for sure if these are like A Clue, or A Cool Thing, or if I've just fully brainrotted myself into a fun lil corner here? wa-hoo

but here's some initial stuff that jumped out at me after skimming the basics:

(some of) the titles: Pale Horse/Big Four - death's horse ofc, the four horsemen mayb? the them+adam?? ; Mesopotamia is a very biblical choice bbz ; 4:50 From Paddington- azi likes trains i guess? idk that one's tenuous lmao ; honestly no idea with the other two but Secret Adversary feels a tad ominous

iirc Big Four just has kind of an unusual history, it was initially twelve short stories that she later compiled into one, and it was published fairly soon after christie's mysterious disappearance/reappearance

in Big Four, poirot fakes his death at one point and doesnt even let hastings in on it and I'm hoping sure its totally irrelevant to the ineffable bois

part of the Pale Horse story is a group of assassins that basically try to pass off all their murders as being actually caused by like ✨satanic powers✨ which is interesting

christie knew a fUCkton about poisonings thats why she wrote so many into her work and, while i don't believe the poison coffee theory myself, it sure is an interesting link with how cyanide is associated with almond smell/flavour and that metatron chooses almond syrup in particular

(ALSO random side note that is mostly meaningless but I've worked in a good few uk coffee shops and have never worked anywhere that stocks almond syrup; almond milk yes, hazelnut syrup yes, but never almond syrup...? prob just the places i worked though lmao)

EDIT forgotten point: I've seen some speculation that the bently's plate reading "CURTAIN" could be a reference to poirot's last story, along side that alternate scene of crowley ordering the sherry for "miss marple", its just one too many agatha christie references for my melted brain to handle and I'm SUS

so this is where i run out of idea steam and hand it over to you lot because i have no clue what this could mean, if it even means anything other than a cool set feature

is there something here actually or am i yelling into the void just for fun?

who knows, who cares!

[gender-trash]

(i am seriously late in posting about this due to The Problems BUT whatever! its here now!!)

somewhere around late november 2022, i asked my dad "hey are there any out of print technical books you'd like a reprint of for christmas?"

he linked me to a dubious black-and-white pdf of Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy. now, i wound up checking out a copy through link+, and the original edition is a really nicely put together book! the chapters are themed around various types of measurements (length, angle, etc), and they all have these cute little diagrams which the endpapers reuse in a lil repeating pattern... the image captions are done in this really lovely dark red that did not scan for SHIT... tons and tons of diagrams and illustrations and images (both color and b&w)... just, all around, a fucking nice book!! (see also @morrak's post about it here.)

and that made me feel kind of bad about the crappiness of the pdf, which is where the Problems began. i used my phone to take pictures of all the photos and color diagrams in the original and went about replacing them in the pdf, using what turned out to be the world's worst pdf editing software (i also got through replacing all the image captions in chapter 1 of 5 before my dad convinced me to give up). i did NOT finish the pdf editing before christmas 2022 (i was going somewhat off the deep end, because both my housemates were away visiting family and i had zero external structure in my life so it was just me and my cat and this stupid FUCKING pdf wrecking my sleep schedule together); i poked away at it for most of the rest of my time off and then got so goddamn sick of it i put the project away for months. "it'll be a birthday gift instead", i said optimistically (my dad's birthday is in april! it should have been enough time!)

gentle readers, i did not finish the pdf editing by april. mostly because it was such a miserable slog that i put it off until the last possible moment and then tried to make up for it with another death march.

hating both myself and the project again, i decided i was Not going to let myself typeset Anything Else before it was done, and then took a break to bind my immortal (using the renegade publishing typeset! i didn't do any typesetting!!). SURELY, i said, i can finish this in time for christmas 2023.

i'm sure you know where this is going.

in my defense i DID finish the pdf editing by christmas, despite first doing every other possible procrastination project (including a second edition of the little second century warlord book), because by this point my dad had managed to convince me to lower my standards. on the evening of the 22nd i kicked off the print job and said to myself "this will finish printing overnight and then tomorrow i can work on sewing the textblock!"

late on the 23rd, after lots of babysitting and using at least one cartridge of every color ink in my printer, the print job was finally done. (my sweet and lovely cat wants SO BADLY to hunt and stalk the printer while it is printing -- more specifically, the printed pages, i think because they tend to make noise and move and then STOP moving. for this reason, the printer is kept in the craft room, because the cat can be shut out of the craft room and thus prevented from chewing on the pages when i have an all-day book printing job going. unfortunately the craft room was also being pressed into service as a guest room at the time so 80% of the floor space was consumed by an air mattress which i had to repeatedly trip over in order to reach the printer and replace the ink cartridges.)

then i went to my parents' house on the 24th and 25th and apologized to my dad (again) for not having the book finished. but this worked out well because we finished putting together my awesome new book clamp:

(the feet still aren't done being painted so they're just dry-fit on for now but you can still clamp books in it and that's what matters!!)

i came home, sewed the textblock (french link stitch over four linen tapes, with sewn endbands made of variegated embroidery floss over linen cord, and kozo paper glued over the spine)

... and promptly realized i SHOULD HAVE PUT IN MORE OF A GUTTER because some of the text was getting reeeeeeal close to the spine. "it's fine!" i said. "i just have to make sure it lays flat!! what better time than to try out K118 binding, a technique i have literally never done before and which people on the bookbinding discord notoriously have a hard time pulling off first try! i even have tyvek tape for it!"

so it turns out that tyvek tape isn't actually tyvek with glue on it, it's tape FOR attaching pieces of tyvek TO EACH OTHER, which maybe i could have guessed if i'd done even the slightest amount of research or planning. at this point i think it was the 27th and i was still angling to get this thing done by new year's, so no time to order Actual Tyvek.

fortunately, i had ALSO received An Package in the mail with yarn for a totally unrelated knitting project... shipped in a tyvek envelope.

i peeled all the shipping labels and stickers off my tyvek envelope, cut that shit up, and glued it on there.

and THEN it was time for gluing on covers, which i thought was going to be easy because i had actually thought ahead and ordered materials (specifically acid-free museum board), except when i cracked open the box of museum board i decided i Didn't Like It because the surface was too soft and easily dented, so i glued onto it the too-thin board material i'd previously been using (so that the cardboard goes on the outside of the book). this worked super well (the cardboard stuff has a tendency to curl up from the glue moisture, but the museum board doesn't!) and i'll probably use it on other stuff in the future.

i thought the blue bookcloth i used was kind of boring but i showed my dad the available cloth options and he really liked it, so... what do you know? i cut the piece i used on the back cover very slightly too short but it wound up being covered by the leather, so you can barely tell.

and the leather... a scrap just baaaaarely big enough from my bag of leather scraps from discount fabrics... and this the first time i'd ever attempted to put leather on a book... AND YET the only complaint i have is that i didn't manage to put an even amount on the front and back. it's reasonably square and straight!! amazing!!

i am super super happy with how this project came out (especially given the number of problems i encountered) and oh my god check out how much the spine bends

AND, AS A NEW YEAR'S PRESENT, I FINALLY MANAGED TO GIVE IT TO MY DAD

[sailoryooons]

fae au where human oc who doesn't know that she works in a normal looking restaurant but it's exclusive only for faeries to formally offer their human mates a lifetime in fae world also serves as common place for faes. possibly a fluffy soft fae yoongi? idk what to do with him but i trust you 😅

❀ Pairing: Fae!Yoongi x human!reader

❀ Summary: Every day, Yoongi works at the coffee shop in his little corner of the world. Every day, you come in and order the same thing, sitting in the same booth. The only problem is, Yoongi is pretty sure you don’t know that you’re one of the few humans in a faerie coffee shop. 

❀ Word Count: 1,249

❀ Genre: Urban fantasy, secret crush, pining 

❀ Rating: SFW

❀ Warnings: Light pining, Yoongi has an unspoken crush on reader, that’s really it 

❀ Published: August 20, 2023

❀ A/N: Hi anon - I am so stupid and I did not realize until I finished your entire request that you asked for reader to work at the coffee shop and not Yoongi. Please accept my sincerest apologies, I got them switched around and wrote this entire thing with Yoongi as the worker and reader as the patron. I hope that this will work anyway, but please no I am so sorry for getting it wrong, I had to edit this author’s note because I did not realize I swapped it until I went to post this just now. AGGHHHH I’M SO MAD AT MYSELF LMAO. 

❀ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

| Masterlist | Ask |Hali’s Happy Agust |

“Have you guys ever been sued by Coffee-Mate?”

Yoongi looks up when he hears your voice at the counter. He nearly spills the matcha latte in his hand, not expecting to see you, ready to order. Usually, Yoongi sees you come in. He’s always ready for it, looking up as you enter the room like clockwork. The times that you catch him off guard are few and far between, his senses always alerting him to your presence before you do. 

Today, though, he’s a little bit busy. With Hoseok out on vacation, it’s just Yoongi and Jungkook manning the shop and Jungkook is better behind the scenes baking than up front taking orders. It’s left to Yoongi to make all the coffees this morning, and of course, everyone in the world seems to be at Coffee Mates on an early Saturday.

“Uh,” he tries to put together a sentence, thoughts pulling together sluggishly at the sight of your pretty smile and vanilla perfume. He swears when he goes home to fall asleep at night, he smells vanilla. “Not that I’m aware of. I’d have to ask Jin.”

“Hmm, seems like a conflict of interest.” 

Yoongi’s mouth quirks a bit as he fastens the top to the matcha in his hand and slides it on the serving counter to Namjoon. The gentry fae nods in thanks at Yoongi and shoots you a raised brow before looking back to Yoongi, a silent question. Yoongi gives the tiniest shake no before turning back to you as Namjoon sighs and retreats. 

Namjoon has been trying to get Yoongi to ask you out on a date for the better half of a few months. Every day you come to Coffee Mates at the same time, with the same order. You always sit in the same booth, which Yoongi might have put a glamor on to keep it open for you, and you always pop open your book to read for hours, coffee in hand. 

Yoongi supposes he could ask you out. You’re friendly enough and you seem to enjoy what few interactions you have. He’s caught you looking at him at least once or twice, though he worries it’s because his glamor has dropped in your presence or you’re seeing a waver in the magic that hides the nature of most of the shop. 

Because unlike most patrons at Coffee Mates, you are blissfully unaware of all the magic that surrounds you. 

At first, Yoongi thought it was a joke. Humans don’t just come to this coffee shop without knowing what it is. A bridge between worlds, a little haven for faerie suitors to offer their human counterparts an invitation to Faerie. Or for fae like Namjoon and Jimin, a place to hangout among other creatures of their kind.

Coffee Mates welcomes all fae creatures and their human counterparts, which is why you’re unusual. You have no faerie partner, no knowledge of magic. You don’t notice the floating lights in the shop or the pointed ears hidden behind Yoongi’s dark hair. A steaming cup of hot chocolate levitates just a few feet away from where you stand now as Taehyung draws on a napkin, and you’re none the wiser. 

It makes little sense. But it doesn’t have to. The patrons and the workers of the cafe have accepted you all in some unspoken agreement. Watching you curiously, making eyes at Yoongi whenever you laugh particularly hard at something he says. 

“Almond latte?” Yoongi asks, already typing in your order on the screen. You hum and nod, handing over cash. Yoongi goes through the motions of putting it in the register, but unknown to you, the money always appears in your wallet once more. He’s been pretending to accept it for weeks now, unable to bring himself to charge you. “Give me ten.”

“Hmm, I think I’ll only give you nine.”

He smiles. “Challenge accepted.” 

You leave the counter and sit in your booth. Yoongi watches you from the corner of his eye as he makes your drink, hands memorizing every ingredient and heating it just the way you like it. Normally when Yoongi makes the drinks, he uses magic to help him. He gets much more done that way, but with yours, he always does it by hand. Takes his time to froth the cream for the design on top, always careful when he pours in the cream to make a leaf, or a heart, or something else cute on the top of your coffee. 

Yoongi likes to personally bring it to your table. Every time that he does, you chide him and insist that you can come to the counter. He doesn’t mind, though. It gives him a moment to stretch his legs and escape the heavy hum of machinery and the buzzing energy of magic. 

Today, you’re leaned against the window, an open book in your hands when he approaches. You sense him and look up, smiling and shaking your head as you snap the book shut. “Eight minutes exactly.” 

He smirks. “When have I ever let you down?”

“You couldn’t possibly, Yoongi. You are singularly gifted in making my day.”

Yoongi gestures to your book to hide the fact that he’s blushing from the tip of his ears to his cheeks.  “What are you reading today?” 

“It’s a romance book about soulmates.” That throws him for a loop. If you notice the way he blinks in surprise, you don’t show it. “It’s a really fun read. Do you believe in soulmates?” 

He swears half the cafe turns to look at the two of you. Namjoon leans a little out of his booth, tilting his head to eavesdrop. Taehyung has dropped his pen and placed his chin in his hand, watching with a goofy grin on his face. 

Of course the entire cafe full of sharp-hearing creatures is listening now, interested in your mention of soulmates. Yoongi clears his throat awkwardly, pulling on his apron. “I guess?”

“You guess?”

“I don’t see why not?” 

“Hmm.” You look him up and down and for a second, he swears you see right through his glamor. See down into the core of him, heartbeat thumping a two-syllable rhythm: soulmate soulmate soulmate. “I hope to find mine one day.”

“I think you will.”

“Yeah?”

Yoongi feels his cheeks warm. Chews on his lower lip a little as he nods. “I definitely think you will.” 

“Thanks, Yoongi.”

Everyone watches him return to the counter. He hides from their gazes by busying himself with wiping down one of the machines even though he could flick his fingers and be done with it. He needs the distraction to steady his hands and breathing. 

Yoongi certainly believes in soulmates. The fact that you believe in soulmates sets him on fire. Ignites something in him that is nervous and excited. Something like hope, softley burning. For faeries, soulmates are quite common. It’s why Jin made the cafe in the first place, a haven for faeries to help bridge the world between the fae and their sometimes human mates.

When Yoongi looks up at you, rain splattering on the window, crowning your head, he thinks maybe he will take Namjoon’s advice, finally. Maybe he will ask you out on that date he’s been dreaming about. Because if you believe in soulmates, maybe you can believe in magic.

And maybe you can believe that the reason you’ve found this little invisible coffee shop is because your soulmate makes you almond lattes every morning. 

[saltofmercury]

As someone who has just fallen for König, thank you for the reading material. He's just more adorable now. May I request a 'there was only one bed' trope with König? If you don't feel comfortable with it or need anything else please let me know. <3

First of all, very very special thank you. You are the first to make me think of TWO ideas for this prompt but I will be publishing that one later.

Second, I’m surprised I never thought of this prompt for myself!

Anyway I love u and I hope you like this version and I’ll tag ya in the second one.

“There’s only one.”

At the start of your relationship, König was polite. Too polite. Maybe it was the cultural differences or the military instilled in him but between you two but he always kept his distance from you.

He asked to hold your hand when many other men would just simply grab your hand and intertwine their fingers against yours.

He asked if he could have a kiss, it was cute, almost innocent the way he asked as if he would get in trouble if he stole one.

Further down your relationship when you spent the night at each other’s houses he would leave you in his room while he took the couch. Same thing when he stayed at your house. He took your couch and never gave it a second thought.

You always respected this, even appreciated that he was so gentle with you, he was never one to be so forward with you, but it was just eating you up inside… does he really like me?

*

One afternoon while you two were building a puzzle together he casually brought up a “holiday” for you two.

“It’s not far, it’s technically up north from where we are now.”

You looked up at him from the table still holding a blue piece clearly not finding its spot. Was this extra?

“You want to go up north?” You say, still concentrating if the manufacturer had given you 501 pieces instead.

“I think it would be fun. A change of environment” he had said simply. He looked down now hoping you would say yes. He was fidgeting in the middle of the puzzle. König was so backwards to you. He worked on the middle of the puzzle and then slowly worked out.

You thought it over.

It was harmless, you needed a break from work and you craved a little more interaction, affection from him.

“Okay let’s do it.”

*

The ride up north should have been long, tedious, and never ending. Surprisingly it had become a great window of opportunity for the two of you. He told you about his childhood. A restless, dangerous, and tornado of a child in his backyard.

You loved when he talked to you about his childhood, it helped you piece together the guy that he was today. You laughed and smiled at all his expressions, his concentration to storytelling.

When you had arrived at the hotel, he took the opportunity to unpack for you and carry your luggage as you went to reserve a spot for dinner.

You requested an outside table, the wait would be about 30 minutes, right as the host called out to you, and he appeared in front of you half an hour later.

“Jesus,” you said sarcastically.

“Was pretty sure you abandoned me.”

He smiled at you, “No, just last minute details I needed to fix.”

You wanted to ask what details he was referring to, but the waiter approached your table to discuss specials.

*

It wasn’t until after dinner that you noticed him off. He kept fidgeting and finding an excuse to not go to the hotel.

“Do you want to see the park?” “Maybe there’s a fun event happening tonight.”

It has been a pretty long drive and a long day. What you really wanted to do was unwind for the day, shower, and wear cozy pajamas.

“No, maybe tomorrow, why don’t we go back?”

He looked nervous. Took a deep breath and agreed.

“Okay, let’s go back.”

*

You approached the hotel, rushed upstairs with him. Commenting on their choice of artwork.

Would you look at the rug? Gosh it makes me feel dizzy.

Look at this picture, it’s teal and the carpet is red!

He responded with small hums.

He opened the door for you, you ran inside the bathroom. You needed to wash away the sweat and grime of the day.

Once finished, you stepped outside, looking for your lotion and pj’s. You saw König sitting at the edge of the bed, elbows to his knees, rubbing his hands in circles.

“Are you washing your hands there?” You joked.

He said nothing. You kneeled toward your suitcase, got ready for bed in the bathroom.

“You okay there?” König kept fidgeting with his hands. Why did he seem ..Anxious? You approached him.

“Are you alright?”

He spoke softly, “There’s only one bed.”

“So?” Then it hit you.

Bed. (Singular)

One bed. (Sharing?)

König was sitting at the edge of ONE bed.

Maybe the universe had finally pushed aside the boundaries that König had been so fixated on. You had secretly said a small prayer —thank you so very much.

“Is that a problem?” You asked.

“No.” He was firm, but quickly added “I just want to make sure you’re comfortable. I didn’t plan this.”

You laughed. Only König would think because you shared one bed with one another it was malicious on his part.

“Would you stop it?” You shook your head and pulled him up towards the bed. You pulled back the sheets, nestled the pillows up around you. You pat down the side next to you and wiggled your eyebrows. He settled in. You settled yourself right next to him, a leg over his, an arm over him.

“This is okay. This is more than okay. This is the best..” you yawned

He was stiff. “… dove”

but as he peered down at you, seeing how relaxed you were, you closed your eyes against him, he then got comfortable with you.

“This is okay.” He says back. A confirmation. “The best.”

His heart warmed up with the thought of you being so comfortable, so at peace with him. You didn’t even think twice about sharing a bed with him and he did. Maybe he needed to shut off his brain when it came to you because this felt like home. This felt better than the couch.

He made a mental note of this moment.

It isn’t until weeks later that he confesses to you one night as you snuggle up next to him at his house —

“I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner…Sleeping next to you is easy.”

[unofficial-underfell]

Hey guys, I've been thinking about making this post for a long time and I think its finally time I do so. After realizing that some of my last work was done over a year ago, I don't think I can really ignore it anymore. While I haven't quite thrown in the towel on this quite yet, it's pretty evident to me and I'm sure to everyone who still follows this blog that my fervor for the project has drastically decreased. And has been kind of dead for a while. The comic has not been a priority to me, or posting online much at all actually. I did some soul searching and found that I'd started relying on outside approval for my art instead of doing art for the sake of wanting to tell a story and express myself throughout my work. I have limited energy and depression and sometimes it feels like i get such little progress done even though it takes all of my energy. While I'm trying to go to the gym more and build better habits my energy levels and mood still have a lot to be desired, and I'd rather use the limited energy I have to work on something I'm more passionate about.

I've been trying to grow my skills and absorb more stories and I've moved around a lot and started to listen to what I really felt, and I found that a lot of the art I want to focus on deals with heavier and more mature topics. I do love this story, and all of the characters and I feel like I could make a really clever subversion of what is expected from an Underfell comic. But I feel like in these uncertain times with the world and with all of the stuff going on right now, I'd like to use my energy to work on stories that hit closer to the things that I feel are important. So that's why I've not been posting much.

I'm working on a book, and I've actually got quite a lot of progress done on it, but because of all the horror stories online about people stealing author's original works, I'm kind of holding off on publishing any chapters before I can copyright the first draft of the novel. So my online activity will still be pretty scarce for a bit, though I'll still post occasionally on my @cosmicpixel01 account. I'll try better to not be so radio silent though lol. Even if that means I'll post something boring about my dog or books I'm reading just so everyone knows I'm still alive.

I don't want to call it quits on the story. But I also feel like you guys have been kept waiting to see what happens for a really long time, and that makes me feel so guilty. I will try to finish up the pages I have in the works, and I'm probably going to switch to a different format that is some drawings, some writing to finish the story. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to finish it the way I intended for you guys, even with all of the support and kind words and even the fanart that I've kept in a folder on my desktop. I am letting a lot of you down, but I feel like the radio silence is probably more irresponsible than just going out and saying something. And I'm sorry I've kept you all waiting for a not-so-happy update on the blog.

I hope that some of you will continue to follow me for some of my other exploits and see whatever other things I have going on, but I understand that you all followed me for Undertale so I don't want you to feel any sort of guilt if you decide not to. I'm just happy you all supported me for so long.

I'll try to work on this blog again soon, and if anyone has any questions, my asks are open, though I'll probably keep the asks private. Until then I hope everyone stays safe out there. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

-Avery