#oh and other important plot stuff happened too

[keferon]

Chapter 2 of Blurr storyline >:D

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head is all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Part one

Holy shit I actually managed to finish it…..Oh. My god.

Under the cut⤵️

Is it stupid to miss someone who doesn't even exist?

Probably yes, but hey, Swerve already has several degrees, might as well get another one. A degree in Stupidity or something. Who cares?

For the first few days after waking up from his coma, he feels like he's going crazy. Everybody has realistic dreams, right? The ones where you can scrutinize every angle, memorize every face and smell and sound. The ones that make you lie still for a while after waking up, grasping at every thing you can. Trying to memorize everyone you meet, imprint them in your head.

Because apart from your mind, they don't exist anywhere else. So that's your only way to keep them.

It never works. Obviously. Details slip away. Impressions fade. Just a couple days, and you won't be able to recall anything but the main events from memory.

Wait, hell, not days. Cycles.

His life is a weird, pathetic, fantastical circus. Earth term. Heh. There are no circuses on Cybertron, haha!

But Swerve remembers. And the word circus, and the smell of asphalt, and rains that were made of water not acid. Remembers the English language. Can speak it fluently, even if you wake him up in the middle of the night.

Remembers his work schedule and remembers which company makes the best details. And Tailgate with his bright blue uniform and Wheeljack with his endless experiments and Swindle with his expensive coat and of course...yeah, no, don't think of Blurr, don't think of Blurr, don't. Don't.

He'd heard about it. Read about it, too. Mechs waking up from comas and doing wild things. Some forgot how to speak at all, some gained a new skill, some lived a whole life while they slept.

Articles tell Swerve, don't worry, what you've experienced isn't unique. The doctor tells Swerve that the same thing has happened to others before you, it will be okay, it will pass.

Swerve isn't sure he wants it to pass.

He's been in a coma for who knows how long. The medic said it was caused by an internal trauma that decided to suddenly get worse. One minute he's recharging , the next he's gone. Internal injuries are insidious.

So it turns out. One day he just disappeared from the world because he was busy slowly dying in his room and no one noticed until a thief tried to sneak in. The only one who came to him was a Mech who wanted to steal his stuff. Huh.

That feels revolting. Swerve liked to think he had enough friends. Or at least enough good connections. Enough those who should have noticed his absence, right?

Apparently not. His shifts at work were reassigned, his contacts never texted him first, his...

His small persona wasn't important enough for anyone to notice his disappearance.

Would his human coworkers notice? Would Tailgate have noticed? Or Jazz? Swindle?

Jazz would have noticed, he was always surprisingly attentive when it came to his friends. And he was friends with just about everybody.

Swindle would probably get upset about the money he'd lost.

It's amazing how much his brain-- wait, no, his processor. How much his processor could create to entertain him. It's a more elaborate world than the most complex series Swerve has ever known. And that scrap had forty-six seasons and fifteen encyclopedias!

People, Earth, a bunch of new languages and rules and all for the sake of the end being like, OOPS! ...it was all a dream. Hilarious. Worst plot twist ever. Swerve hates it when stories go in this direction even more than when they kill off their characters.

In his humble opinion, death is better than the revelation that none of the experiences made sense or had any value. In terms of writing scripts obviously. Haha.

He's busy roaming haphazardly through his own memory. He's looking, comparing, trying to find inconsistencies or things that don't make sense. All the stuff that usually gives away the fact that what happened was a dream.

Most of his memories are occupied by--No. Frag.

Don't think about Blurr, don't think about Blurr, don't think..

He's thinking about Blurr. A lot.

Blurr occupies a surprisingly important role in his comatose dreams.

In the time he spent just looking at him, you could hand-build an entire Mech. Maybe even three. Swerve remembers picking up every bit of merch he could reach with his paycheck. Watching hundreds of videos and buying every new themed drink even if it was a flavor he didn't like.

Then spent a surprising amount of time resenting Blurr for not living up to his fantasies.

Blurr's behavior hadn't helped either, of course, but now, looking back at the past himself Swerve thinks that.. Oh wow. You weren't just annoyed at him. You blamed him for ruining your beautiful fantasy. You were having so much fun entertaining yourself with thoughts of this marvelous image, and he came along and corrupted it. Poisoned the well you drank joy from.

But that's not quite true, Swerve thinks.

Blurr was more complicated than that. But exactly how, he'll never know. All he has are his memories, and those memories are cut short at the most interesting point.

Swerve knows this plot twist. The asshole character that no one loves at the last second turns out to not be what everyone thought, but it's too late.

Oh no, he's not an evil jerk, he's actually traumatized. Oh no, he wasn't bad, he was actually secretly helping everyone. You thought he was awful? Well now you're going to feel awful reading fanfics.

Serevus Spayne didn't actually betray the main character's dad, no no, he was in love with him! Bam. Drama.

Swerve isn't a big fan of this stuff. He likes his characters developed properly. But he can't deny the appeal of a character leaving behind a bunch of questions you thought you knew the answer to.

Uggh.

The doctor was wrong. These thoughts don't go away. These memories don't dull.

Swerve just boils in them, constantly getting stuck in his own head. Sometimes he puts English words into his speech and everyone looks at him strangely. Sometimes he reflexively says some inside joke and no one gets it and he's left standing there with an awkward smile. Because. Guys, you don't understand, if my coworkers were here they'd think it's hilarious. I promise, in my fantasy world, it's funny.

When he gets a job on one of the Autobot ships, he accepts it thinking it might be a good distraction from his thoughts.

When he happens to see Prowl with a tiny human on his shoulder in the corridor of that ship, he thinks he's lost his mind.

The whole thing. The whole load-bearing structure on which his picture of the world has been held suddenly gives a lurch. Living your life in a super realistic dream is wild, but meeting a character from your dream in real life??

Freaking cursed.

Jazz looks puzzled by his reaction, but all Swerve can think about are two things.

One, if Jazz is here, does that mean everything else was real, too???

Two - holy shit, Jazz is tiny.

It never occurred to him. But he didn't really know what size humans were. Well, sure, he could measure it in numbers. But he was among humans himself. And about the same size. He was generally even shorter than most of them.

If Jazz is so small, he can't imagine how tiny Tailgate would be. Or--

He can feel his spark freeze. In fact, he can almost hear the sound of a string breaking in his processor. Does that mean Blurr is real too? Real and just as tiny and currently dead? Because Swerve was there but was too convinced it was all just a dream to help?

He's going to get sick.

He needs to talk to Jazz right now.

____________

Swerve taps his fingers nervously on the countertop. Come on. You're good at talking. Talking is your greatest skill. All you have to do is tell someone else about your comatose hallucinations and hope they don't think you're crazy.

They're sitting at a table at the bar. More specifically Swerve and Prowl are sitting at the table, and Jazz is sitting right on the table. (God he's so small).

“So uh. I got injured a while back and...uh...well, it got worse, turned out important systems were affected and I kind of. I was in a coma. For a really long time.”

Jazz frowns

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He speaks in a mildly wonky Common, Swerve notes to himself. He waves his servo a little too cheerfully in response.

“'Ay it's no big deal really. I saw a whole other world while I was asleep and like. See, I thought it was just my fantasies, but it seemed very real and...”

Swerve mentally crosses his fingers.

“And it was about this planet called Earth and about people who were building their own inanimate huge robots to fight huge aliens and their boss wanted to launch Mechs into space, so he picked the best of the pilots named Jazz and sent him on this test mission and...”

Jazz looks at him with huge eyes before switching to English in surprise.

“Mech, what the hell?”

“...And we lost him...” finishes Swerve with a sad smile.

Before thinking for a bit, and adding.

“I'm going to show you a trick I can do.”

And then projects his holoform onto the table in front of him.

This. It's weird. Not in a way that would tilt it in the direction of unnatural. More like walking around in his comfy indoor pajamas right in the middle of the street. Being human is familiar to him, but being human amongst huge Cybertronians? Strange. And a little creepy.

Prowl looks confused.

Jazz looks absolutely frantic.

“SWERVE????”

Swerve doesn't even manage to respond, only to smile in relief before Jazz rakes him into his arms. In his holoform, Jazz feels right again. He's taller than Swerve and oh boy, he's alive and unharmed. To think everyone thought he was dead, staying up nights trying to find what was left of him, and he was on the other side of the universe the whole time?

Swerve chuckles into Jazz's shoulder. Then picks him up and spins him around a couple times just because he needs something to get his energy out. Man, it's nice to hug people. Warm and soft, eight out of ten.

Jazz pulls away but still stays standing very close. Swerve can literally see the happy stars in his eyes.

“Dude, I'm not complaining but what...how???? You just kinda..."

Swerve laughs and twitches his eyebrows playfully.

“I still speak English, you don't have to torture yourself with Common.”

“Oh thank fuck.” Jazz throws his hands up dramatically “you're my favorite person right now.”

There is a polite click of the vocalizer resetting above their heads.

“I” Prowl says “very glad you two are happy but I'd like some explanation”

Swerve presses his head into his shoulders guiltily. Prowl has the unique ability to always sound like you've done something wrong in front of him.

Although Jazz doesn't seem to feel the same way?

“Short version - I sleepwalked my holoform to another planet.”

He pauses dramatically.

“The long version is...”

Jazz raises his hand

“What's a holoform?”

Swerve sighs.

“It's a holographic avatar that I can project using a holomatter generator. Sort of like a remote controlled game character.”

Jazz whistles impressed. And then immediately turns back to Prowl

“Have you been able to do that all this time too?“

Prowl hums

“I can create an avatar, but it takes a lot of practice to make it at least believable. And to fully perceive the world through it takes even more. It's a whole new technology. What Swerve does is essentially an art form. Sophisticated and impressively detailed may I add.”

Swerve shrugs shyly. He's still using the holoform to stand on the table next to Jazz. Looking up to speak to Prowl isn't exactly comfortable, but Jazz definitely looks like he's been missing the human presence. Swerve isn't human, but he might as well be.

“Thank you. Yes! Uh. Anyway, it seems while I was in a coma my processor projected my avatar onto Earth and I...let's just say I lived there for a while.”

Jazz laughs

“Dude. So you're telling me you were basically sleepwalking the whole time?”

“ I was.”

Prowl frowns.

“But the range limit of the holomatter generator is only four hundred miles...”

“.... I had a lot of practice...”

Jazz claps his hands.

“You learned a whole other language! Got an ID!. You had a job!!!”

“I got carried away,” Swerve admits.

Jazz scratches the back of his head, still looking very amused

“How many degrees did you get? Haha wait no, I have a better question, did you pass your driver's license?”

“Two. And I failed my driver's exam.”

“Dude you are literally a car without a driver's license!” collapses Jazz on the table with laughter.

Swerve blows the hair out of his face

“Says you who retook the physical several times. You couldn't pass the "being human" exam.”

Jazz just wheezes incoherently in response. Prowl looks alarmed.

“Don't worry, that's him getting excited. So...where have I been...”

Swerve nervously shoves his hands into his pockets

“...Do either of you two know where Earth is?”

Prowl twitches his door wings

“No. Since Jazz was teleported we don't have much clues.”

Swerve grimaces. Scrap. Of course nothing's going to be that easy. He's also been, like,....teleported.

He stands there for a couple minutes and just feels fifteen different emotions rise up in his head at once. A crooked, unsteady smile creeps across his face.

He's thinking.

Oh hell, yeah! I knew it wasn't a dream!

Then he remembers the mess he left behind.

Oh, no, it wasn't a dream.

Jazz puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Swer... Swerve? Dude, are you okay?”

“Ah frag..” Swerve says weakly ”it wasn't a dream.”

Jazz looks...puzzled.

“Is that bad?”

Swerve remembers his friends. Remembers the Mecha program. Remembers fire and smoke and screams and rumbling and crackling flames. Ashes flying through the air and the smell of burnt wires. He remembers blood and debris and...

“It's...complicated.”

This wasn't just a stupid plot twist he'd dreamed up because he'd watched too many shows. This wasn't a hallucination or a disembodied fantasy that just happened to linger in his head. This was real. His friends exist out there somewhere. His work and his collections and his little apartment...

And Blurr. Was real. Or still is? Swerve doesn't know. Blurr wasn't a product of his imagination. He was real and what he did was real and Swerve left him there alone, bleeding and trapped in rubble and tiny and...

Hahahahah oh fUCK.

He doesn't like this plot. It's too much. Too much to handle, too complicated, too ambiguous.

It's also probably too late.

But he can't leave it like this, right? Blurr went into the damn burning building just because of the possibility that there might be someone alive in there.

And Swerve doesn't even have to go through the flames. He has to look. He has to try at least.

Jazz glares at him with a worried look on his face

“ That expression you have...”

Swerve puts the smile back on his face.

“I need to get to Earth.”

___________________

Swerve is not an idiot.

Or maybe more accurately an idiot, but with several degrees.

He's well aware that finding Earth in space with only a description of it is impossible. Which leaves him with two options.

Ask the Quintessons. Or look for it himself.

The first sounds like death. The second like coma. Swerve has exquisite enough taste to know which is better.

He just needs to do some preliminary reserch.....

Jazz, now back inside his Mech looks doubtful.

“You're not going to die suddenly and for no reason, are you?”

Swerve laughs.

“Pfffff what, no of course not, would I kill myself hah. No no, look I'll just put myself in stasis for a bit. Send myself to Earth. And try to figure out where it is from there. Get the coordinates. If I'm lucky, I can see what Space Bridge the local Quintessons use. All you'll have to do is wake me up after a while.”

“It's not harmful?”

Swerve makes an uncertain gesture with his hand...servo.

“If I have enough fuel. And an additional connection to an external generator.”

Jazz tilts his head

“ Why are you so eager to get to Earth? Don't get me wrong, I miss it too and want to go back, but.”

Swerve bites his knuckles.

“ I have some unfinished business?”

“Pshhhh you sound like a ghost.”

Swerve only laughs in response.

_______________

Concentration is tricky.

Swerve tries to think about Earth. And not to think about the fact that he doesn't know where it is. If he's already been there once, he might as well go there again yes? In theory? Perhaps?

Except for the possibility that his sleepwalking just takes him to random planets. That would be very inconvenient. It would be a whole new level of lost

Shit. No. Earth. Think Earth.

What's he even gonna do when he gets there? How far away is it? Swerve is very talented with his holomatter generator, but if it's really far away... maybe he should reset some settings.

He mentally starts going through his options. Does he need tangibility? Probably not. Come to think of it, it would only make him more vulnerable and take a lot of energy. Yeah, the tangibility has to go. What else? Touch, too. Sight and hearing should stay, that's not even a question, but colors and textures are not really necessary.

The amount of detail and picture quality can be reduced as well. His holoform will become colorless and grainy and will probably ripple with static, but he'll survive it.

After he finishes making changes to his holoform he thinks about his old stuff left in his house. Then about the posters. Then reminds himself that he needs to focus on the goal or he'll never find Blurr and...oh FUCK his phone! Where was his phone when he disappeared? Was it found?? There were so many personal things on that phone, he's hoping the phone was burned under the rubble. Either that or the arriving investigators will find his browser history and he'll go into another coma from pure embarrassment.

He blinks dazedly when he realizes he has loads of rocks in front of his eyes. Oh..Did he screw up? Did he end up on the wrong planet? Is it a cave or--

Then he notices the odd shape of the “rocks” and. Oh, no. It's not a cave. It's charred concrete debris.

This is the place where he was last.

He hastily looks around. Anxiety creeps up the back of his neck, makes him feel like something slippery and cold is crawling over his skin. There is nothing but ruins all around.

Blurr is not here. The place where his Mech was lying is empty.

Which means he was at least found and dragged out. Dead or alive.

Swerve's bites his knuckles. Okay.

All right.

He's got things to do.

_______________

He's trying to stay out of sight. Which isn't hard, considering he's just a hologram. At first, he just sneaks around in the quiet areas. Then proceeds to do a facepalm and start teleporting. Think, Swerve. Did you read all those comic books for nothing? Superheroes who couldn't really use their superpowers creatively always annoyed him. And he does, in fact, have a superpower. Gotta get creative, right?

He stops and looks at himself again. His holoform is going static and is a dull white color. He thinks for a bit, and then shrinks himself. Thinks some more, and makes himself almost transparent. There's no way he could pass as a normal human right now, so he'd better just do his best to avoid being seen by anyone.

He looks around thoughtfully. Hmm. Even if he's going to be absolutely tiny, he needs to make sure no one sees him, otherwise the whole base will think the Quintessons are now spying on them through holograms or something.

Breaking the rules feels...it's exciting.

All his ..human life here he hadn't thought about it, but if he threw away the rules he was used to about what people could or couldn't do...

He looks up in a sudden rush of sly genius. All people look under their feet when they walk, but how many look up? And how many of them notice the barely visible tiny holoform hiding just behind the blinding lamps?

The answer is probably none.

Swerve projects himself onto the ceiling and mentally pats himself on the shoulder for his impressive intellectual accomplishments. A creativity degree should definitely be a thing.

A degree in spying on the Quintessons' ships wouldn't hurt him either.

Fortunately sneaking onto their ship turns out not to be that difficult. Swerve makes himself absurdly tiny and hides in the darkest corners that no one would ever think to look into. Why hasn't anyone thought of using holoforms for spying before? Could he be the first to think of it? He doesn't know, but he mentally decides to patent the idea.

Finding the Space Bridge is surprisingly easy. The local Quintesson fleet is clearly used to being the dominant force in space. And that's generally logical. Even if humanity collects a mountain of money from somewhere to throw a dozen Mechs into space - there will be thousands of monsters waiting for them. In such a situation, you don't have to hide, the guards are enough.

Well done, well done, don't hide, Swerve thinks, copying the coordinates and address of the space bridge to himself. You have absolutely nothing to fear here, he thinks, so stay where you are and don't move. Please and thank you.

Once the coordinates are obtained, he... has some freedom to explore. And he uses it for probably the most boring-sounding thing in the world. He returns to his usual workplace.

It’s simple. As damning as the Mecha program was, Swerve loved his job in it. He loved his position in the assembly shop. And he missed his friends.

He quickly teleports through several rooms, continuing to hide close to the lamps. Tailgate is here. Alive and unharmed. Wheeljack is too, though his face has some scars added to it. It's great to see them again, even if he can't talk to them right now. No one will probably react well to a grainy unexplainable hologram. He's just glad to know they're okay and honestly, the last thing he needs is paranoid Onslaught installing extra signal jammers.

It takes time to find Blurr. Partly because Swerve is terrified of what he might find if he started looking. So he goes to check the death lists first, and only after flipping through and re-reading them three times does he finally exhale in relief.

Blurr's name isn't there.

So his smug, shiny ass must be around here somewhere.

He checks the hangar. Flips through the Mech launch logs and feels an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his chest. Blurr's Mech has never been repaired or launched even once since the incident. Its plating has been replaced with new, well polished, and put in a prominent place where anyone who wants to can take a picture of it. But all the internal systems are destroyed. This machine hasn't been used for anything other than being a beautiful exhibit.

That's...something's wrong.

He checks offices and schedules as well as eavesdropping on a few conversations and ends up secretly following Swindle, who is arguing loudly with someone on the phone. He says something about deals and how he doesn't need anyone meddling in his business. Then he talks about how he's got everything under control and the person on the phone is “a dumbass who's making drama out of nothing” and that “he doesn't need anyone's handouts". Then he sighs and says, “you know how celebs are. Dumb and dramatic. You can't take their words literally.”

Then drops the call and for a couple seconds looks like he's just had a large bill taken right out of his hand. Curses again, but in a quieter voice. Leafs through his contacts and stops at the one signed 'free ice'.

“Blurr? Where are you? Wha...ah, no wait. No, the advertising agency called. No, liste...Can you shut up for one second?Where are you?

Uh-huh....... Uh-huh.Okay.

Give me half an hour...okay, yeah.”

This is it, Swerve thinks.

He shrinks himself further and teleports under the collar of Swindle's coat.

He wants to take a look. Just. Just a peek. Make sure everything's all right. Then he can go about his original mission in peace. He watches Swindle get in his car and drive off somewhere. Swerve doesn't recognize this part of town. The houses here are much nicer than where he lived. The streets are cleaner.

He tucks himself further under the coat collar. He's not going to be a stalker or anything, but he's worried and he doesn't have time to wait for Blurr himself to show up for work. Just one little look and that's it.

Swindle's car stops outside a beautiful, shiny hospital. Swerve nervously tries to bite his knuckles, but remembers he's disabled touch in his holoform. Shit? Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shi

Blurr looks like a mangled corpse.

Okay, not really. His left side that faces the door to the hospital room looks like a mangled corpse and that's the first thing that catches Swerve's eye when he's inside.

Blurr is pale and thin and his hands are covered in bandages. The left side of his face has been turned into an absolute ugly nightmare. A piece of his ear is missing. In the place of the left eye is a creepy empty hole.

Suddenly Swerve realizes why Blurr didn't show up for work. You can't even show him to his coworkers like that, not just to the public.

Blurr turns his head and the spell breaks. His lips stretch into a cocky smile.

“'Got bored without me Swindle?”

Swindle doesn't show the slightest emotion at the gruesome sight. He casually pulls a chair over to the hospital bed and sits down.

“Shockwave is trying to sneak a new project into the program. And he's slowly swaying investors to his side, using you as an excuse. Tells everyone you're a poor martyr he can save if only he's given the green light from above.”

Blurr wrinkles his nose.

“Not that he's wrong. The doctors say I need to pick a new career because with this...” he jerks his head to the left implying his damaged half, ” neither racing nor piloting is an option for me anymore. I'm out of your project.”

Then he stops talking for a few seconds and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“You wouldn't have come here in person just to say that. Why are you really here?”

Swindle adjusts his glasses

“Have I ever told you why I made the contract with you?”

“Because you like money” Blurr says without hesitation.

Swindle lets out a quiet chuckle.

“Fair point. But money wasn't my only priority.”

He pauses for a second. Gets up. Draws the curtains in the room. Checks to make sure no one is outside the door.

Goes back to his seat.

“You didn't see what the Mecha project was like before. Brutality and absolute disregard for human rights multiplied by a thousand. People were desperate and no one cared to maintain any decency.”

He raises his hand when Blurr rushes to say something.

“No no, listen to me. If you think things are bad now, you're right. But it used to be much. Much, much worse.”

Swindle sighs and adjusts his glasses again

“Vortex was taken as a boy. He wasn't even out of high school when they shoved him into the lab. Me and Onslaught were pulled right out of the college exams. The others were no better, although they were usually a little older. My point is that it was allowed. It's what the superiors could do and no one told them no.”

Blurr tilts his head and gets a little all turned around to see Swindle better with his right eye.

“But you... found a way to change that, didn't you?

Swindle rubs the bridge of his nose

“I have no power over my own superiors. But Onslaught and I have come up with a plan. Look. I'll put it in simple terms for you. Above me is my boss, and above him is another boss, and so on but at the very end of that chain are people from the government. The investors. So we figured out a way to cut through the chain of command and influence them directly. Make them worry about us. It's a kind of social shield. Onslaught is a genius.”

Blurr blinks.

“Why are you telling me all this.”

Swindle takes off his hat and just. Crumples it in his hands. The back of his head shows numerous scars and the glint of tiny metal implants barely visible behind his hair.

“You're that shield right now, Blurr. You can't leave.”

Blurr's eye widens

“Is that why you insisted on ‘befriending’ me with all those bullshitters?”

“I needed to make sure that in their minds we weren't just a military unit. To keep them thinking that we're as human as they are. So I gave Project Mecha a face.” He tugs on the hat again, “Your face.”

Blurr runs his fingers through his hair

“Shockwave can't do whatever he wants cause...because of me his efforts would risk going public and people wouldn't like it and it would ruin the reputation of our investors-and-they'd-cut-off-his-funding.”

Swindle puts his hat back on.

“Exactly.’ That's why he's being so persistent right now. He knows you're vulnerable and he wants to capitalize on the opportunity. Make you part of his new project and tell the world about it. Make publicity his weapon, too.”

The lamp above them flickers faintly. Blurr takes a breath. Long and tired and exhausted and. a bit doomed.

Swindle puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Please. Don't leave. At least not now. And don't let Shockwave get to you. That would open the way for him to get to the rest of the pilots you represent.”

They just. Sit in silence for a while. Blurr quickly taps a finger on his knee. A rapid tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Swindle moves his hand away and gets up from his chair.

“There's a press conference coming up. I need you to be there. I've told everyone who needs to know that the problem is exaggerated and you're fine but they need to see you.”

Blurr smiles sourly.

“My lawyer is going to charge you such a handsome sum for that stunt.”

Swindle laughs, but his cardboard advertising smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“We’ll see about that. Seriously though. I need you there.”

Blurr bites his lip.

“I..don’t know...”

Swerve...doesn't know what to think of that.

Blurr shows up for the press conference. Late, but he makes it. Just as Shockwave is presenting his new project in his amazingly well-pitched voice. Blurr swings the door open and waltzes lazily inside, skillfully pretending not to notice the many cameras and eyes instantly directed at him.

Swerve, whose memory is still fresh thinks for a second that no, no this can't be the same person. Past Blurr looked like a wreck. Past Blurr was tense and tired and hunched over. Present Blurr couldn't look more alive. His shoulders are squared proudly, there's that cheerful springiness and grace in his stride. He moves with ease and confidence. Smoothly.

The left side of his face is neatly covered with fresh white bandages. Carefully, without leaving the even the slightest gap through which his injury could be seen. His hands are hidden under a fancy jacket. He smiles wide and bright and squints playfully toward the table.

The very embodiment of nonchalance. The few pilots sitting in the audience roll their eyes.

Swindle breathes out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Swerve, once again using Swindle's collar as a tactical cover, can't help but let out a silent triumphant laugh. Maybe slightly more nervous than he is supposed to be.

Blurr sends Swindle a sly, sharp smile and even knowing it wasn't meant for him, Swerve feels his cheeks heat up.

Ah, damn it.

Swerve breaks the rules. He tells himself that peeking is fraught with consequences when it comes to military organizations, but he can't stop himself from being curious. And from worry, too.

And now that he knows where to look, he sees things he'd rather not see.

Blurr ... is crumbling.

Swerve doesn't know all the details and consequences, but that incident did leave a mark.

But every time Swindle calls him and says “I need you at some place in two hours” he gets up and assembles himself into a human being. Like a goddamn puzzle. Tapes and covers the burned half of his face. Covers up the bruises and hides the stitches. Fixes his hair and sets off on shaky legs to pretend he's fine.

He smiles so bright and carefree, laughs so sweet and beautiful that no one would ever think that even standing up sometimes hurts.

And continues to act like a jerk of course.

The only difference is that this time Swerve mentally gives him the presumption of innocence before he starts judging.

Blurr does a lot of things that seem rude. He also does a lot of things that are actually rude and figuring them out without resorting to alien superpowers would be nearly impossible.

When the pilots see Blurr sitting right on the table while negotiating with investors, they roll their eyes and make comments about his terrible manners. Or when he stops showing up for even the most basic, rudimentary training.

Or when he develops that stupid habit of leaning his elbows on people standing next to him.

It's the model behavior of a rich, spoiled brat.

It's also an inconspicuous way to stay upright.

Employees say “that dumbass has never heard of personal space.”

Investors say, “I think he likes me.”

Blurr leans on Swindle's shoulder and through a charming smile says “Don't move or I'm gonna fall.”

Swindle also keeping up the smile discreetly holds him back, pretending it's a friendly half hug.

Swerve feels like yelling at both of them, but he's not sure what for exactly. For one thing, Blurr in his condition is very VERY VERY contraindicated to even get out of bed, let alone participate in social activities.

On the other hand, without Blurr, everything is going down the pit.

Without Blurr, all the government sees are dry reports and spreadsheets. Without him, all the high command has is numbers and a sense of impunity. Swerve is sickened by how easily people tend to forget that numbers represent other people.

Most pilots are able to draw a parallel between deteriorating working conditions and Blurr's sudden fondness for staying home instead of working. But they think the rich jerk got scared and ran away. Considering the way Blurr has always behaved at work - Swerve can't even judge them too much for it. They assume Shockwave getting more freedom is the cause of Blurr's absence, not the result.

Blurr's influence only becomes noticeable when it slowly starts to fade away. It's like switching from expensive tea to a cheaper one. The awful flavor only becomes noticeable in contrast.

Blurr doesn't lead the development of new technologies or go out to fight in the field. He doesn't make plans and reports, he doesn't participate in drills, he doesn't cover anyone's back in battle.

But he's the one who puts his hand on the government's shoulders when they're about to sign the next piece of paper. He's the one they have to look in the eye before they have a pen in their hands and a document authorizing Shockwave to stick more needles in people's brains.

It makes a difference. Small one. But still.

It turns a disembodied imaginary “combat units” into a tangible person.

From “do you want to accelerate the combat training of new soldiers” to “are you willing to tell the living, breathing guy standing in front of you that shoving poison under his skin is an idea you approve of.”

More importantly (And Swerve actually admires Swindle for this) Will you be able to explain anything to your families later on, when this same guy is on TV all over the country saying that's what you did to him?

There have been two fronts here all this time, Swerve realizes.

While the pilots were protecting people from monsters wearing teeth and armor, Blurr was protecting the pilots themselves from monsters wearing ties and lab coats.

After another conference, Shockwave stops Blurr in the hallway.

“Good show.”

Blurr laughs. Soundly and proudly.

“Thanks darling~ Sorry I interrupted you. Your speech sounded like something important, but I don't really know much about nerd stuff.”

Swerve, hiding on the ceiling again, snorts.

Shockwave doesn't move. Doesn't give any indication at all if he's offended or upset or whatever.

“It must have been hard getting here with your injuries.”

Blurr shrugs and lazily turns his head around distracted.

“It's just a few bruises here and there. Not the end of the world.”

Shockwave nods slowly. His voice and posture and all, Swerve thinks, looking very uncomfortable.

“Of course it isn't. But hardly good for your career.”

Blurr freezes.

No, Swerve thinks. Shit. No, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't

“Your brilliant achievements have always been a source of admiration to me” continues Shockwave “it would be a pity to lose them.”

Blurr makes an indifferent face and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“Like I said. Not the end of the world.”

Swerve imagines choking Shockwave. Dropping a lamp on his head. Maybe jumping on top of him himself. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, stop fucking talking.

Shockwave with a nice, slow gesture pulls out a notebook from somewhere and flips a couple pages.

“Multiple burns, cracked ribs, poisoning from carbon monoxide and combustion products of toxic chemicals...”

Blurr visibly shivers and looks away.

“...loss of vision on one side...” Shockwave continues reading, ”and partial hearing loss. Finally, the impact of neural link malfunctions. And this, if I'm not mistaken, is on top of the already existing memory problems?”

Shockwave takes a step closer. Not fast enough to make it look threatening, but enough to hover.

“It may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of you.”

He writes a set of numbers on the same page, tears it off, and hands it to Blurr.

“You are broken. I can fix you.”

Blurr frowns, but takes the piece of paper.

“That fixing would involve giving you consent to mess around with my head, wouldn't it? It's brave of you to think I'd go for that.”

Shockwave tucks the notepad into his pocket.

“I can assure you, neither I nor anyone else is interested in your brain. I just want to give you back what you're truly valued for.”

Blurr flinches.

“I don't need your help.”

“ If you say so,” Shockwave agrees easily. Nods, slowly and smoothly. Then starts to walk away “But you do need your fame.”

...

“By the way, you might want to wipe the blood off.”

Blurr waits until Shockwave's back disappears around the corner, then quickly pulls a tissue from his pocket and brings it up to his nose.

____________________________

Swerve wakes up looking up at the ceiling of his room. The high, metal ceiling, of a metal room on a metal spaceship.

Holy shit...

Jazz pokes him gently on the forearm

“Are you alive? You've been gone for like quite a while...Did it work?”

“Hey Jazz” frowns Swerve “what do you know about Blurr?”

Jazz laughs

“What are you fanboying over him again? Still??? Dude's smug and arrogant. Good boss though. I was hired to perform at his parties before I became a pilot.”

Swerve sits up and rubs the back of his head.

“Ah...”

“So it worked?”

“Wha...ah! Yes! Yes, it worked! I managed to get the number and codes from the space bridge the Quints used on you. We just need to find another space bridge and we'll have a pretty much direct route to Earth...well. Or rather, to the Quint ship that's located near Earth. You get the idea.”

Jazz rubs his hands together happily.

“I'll take it.”

Swerve jumps to the floor and heads to grab an energon cube. Man, these holoform exercises are burning energy like crazy.

He stares at his metal hands like an idiot for a couple minutes. Just...Contemplates how non-human they are.

He has eight fingers again instead of the human ten. Huh.

Prowl downloads the information he's gotten and immediately runs off to plan a route to the nearest working space bridge and for a while Swerve is just.

Left to himself.

He tries not to think about Blurr. What would he even say to him? Hey, look, I'm sorry I accidentally set you up, see, I'm actually an alien who was sleepwalking and thought you were fictional, surely this won't affect our non-existent strictly professional working relationship? Nah, screw that. If he's going to sound crazy, he needs to at least come up with a good presentation for his insanity.

....

Is it weird to think humans are beautiful if you're not human? If you're kind of human, but only in your soul and only half human?

He looks at Jazz and Prowl.

“You two get along really well.”

Jazz chuckles, sitting on Prowl's shoulder.

“Right now, yes. But we got on each other's nerves quite a bit when we first met.”

Swerve looks up at Jazz's chattering legs from his height and thinks. This is working somehow.

On the other hand, Jazz is the exception rather than the rule. He's friendly with everyone, he's easy to get along with, he's the soul of any company and most importantly, he was a little too much into robots before he discovered they could be alive. If anyone could find common ground with the Cybertronians, it would definitely be Jazz.

_____________________

”Are you a ghost?”

Swerve shrieks in fear and gets covered in static. He hadn't planned on talking. He hadn't planned on being noticed at all. Blurr was supposed to be asleep! And Swerve just wanted to close the curtains and leave, because there's some noisy party going on outside and bright illuminations are very bad for a patient already suffering from neural connection withdrawal.

He freezes in place like that dude from Jurassic Park. Like if he's still enough, he won't be noticed. Oh, or was that from another movie?

“I'm just uh” he awkwardly reaches up and closes the curtains “Lights. Bad for...you...now.”

Blurr chuckles. It sounds suspiciously joyful. His whole posture and facial expression. He looks very relaxed for someone who had a ghost materialize into the room out of thin air.

Swerve traces the line of the IV with his gaze. Oops, that looks like painkillers.

“Yes I am. Uh. A ghost watching the curtains. And now the curtains are fine, so I guess I'd better go?”

Blurr squints amusedly.

“You can walk through walls?”

“Uh, I can teleport into the next room?”

He backs up his words by making himself disappear and reappear in another corner of the room.

“Cool!” says Blurr cheerfully.

Swerve is involuntarily infected by his mood and makes a couple dramatic bows as if he were some kind of magician.

“ Show me more?”

“Hehehe okay eh” Swerve spreads his arms like he's presenting something and then makes himself the size of a soda bottle and teleports to the edge of Blurr's bed “Ta daaaa~”

“Wooooo look at you, you're like an action figure~”

Blurr immediately makes an attempt to touch him, but fails to reach and drops his hand back on the blanket.

Swerve chuckles and steps closer. It's funny to see the usually incredibly agile Blurr struggling with something so simple and ridiculous.

“They really drugged you huh?”

“It's not the drugs” snorts Blurr ”...it's my eye.”

He raises his hand once more and hesitantly pulls it towards Swerve until it bumps into his hair

“... depths Per…percen.. ah, shit. I can't tell how far away things are.”

Swerve just. Lets Blurr fidget at himself, while starting to feel really bad at the same time.

"If you can't tell how far things are, how are you going to drive?

Race???”

He must have a plan right? Something? Let’s-prove-Shockwave-wrong tactic???

Blurr drops his hands back on the blanket

“I won't.”

He freezes when the all too close fireworks rumble outside the window. Then points to his head.

“With this. I can't drive, I can barely walk at all, and I look like horror movie material. Pathetic heeh.”

Swerve sits down quietly cross-legged on the blanket.

“Well...at least you're alive....”

Blurr shakes his head.

“If I had died, it would have been epic. You know? Dharm...dramatic! It would be big news and everyone would be talking about what a hero I was or...or something...”

“...”

“Swindle would be so angry, but he'd figure out a way to make money out of it. He'd make a commercial about how people should be heroes. I'd be remn..remembered for being cool and brave and stuff.”

Fireworks can be heard from the street again. Swerve notices that there is a thin slit between the closed curtains through which a slim, flickering strip of multicolored light streams into the room.

Blurr frowns and leans back against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.

“I've turned into a boring wreck. My records will be beaten, my career forgotten , and all the guys from work will remember me as a brat. In a--in a--in a way, it's worse than death. Shockwave's right.”

Swerve isn't sure what exactly would be an acceptable gesture of comfort, so he kind of just. Places his hand on the blanket covering Blurr's lap.

“Hey, don't say that. I think what you're doing is great.”

“Liar” smiles Blurr crookedly ”You hated me. I saw your posters collection.”

Oh shit. The ones he ripped off the walls and destroyed in a fit of fan frustration? He didn't even hide them, just shoved them in the back corner. Aw, man...

Swerve folds his arms awkwardly across his chest.

“I can be mad at you and think you're cool at the same time. I'm a multitasker.”

“You're a very specific kind of ghost.” says Blurr. Then, apparently inspired by the painkillers, decides to drop the conversational equivalent of an atomic bomb on Swerve's head “You died because of me?”

Swerve stiffens.

“I...Wwhat?”

“You know.” he makes a gesture with his hand that's ..unclear what it's supposed to mean. “You were working there with everyone else, and then there was that fire and I was sure I saw you down there under the rubble.”

He's silent for a couple seconds before he hesitantly continues

“And then no one could find you so most assumed you either burned or ran away. And now you're here with all your weird ghost stuff, so you must be dead.”

Swerve has.No idea what to think about it. And what to say? He's been so busy blaming himself for Blurr getting hurt that it hasn't occurred to him to think about what it looks like from Blurr's own perspective.

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head’s all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Swerve wants to run around and bang his head against the wall.

Instead, he gets up from the hospital bed. Carefully.

“You're high. I'm not going to explain things to you while you're high, you won't understand or remember them. Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night.”

“You'll tell me later?”

Swerve hums quietly and pulls the curtains all the way closed.

“If future, sober Blurr would want my company.”

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

Jazz looks at him. Very intensely.

“Are you going to tell me who this mystery person you keep coming back to Earth for?”

Swerve snorts.

“What makes you think it's anyone in particular?”

“You're right, you're right~” raises his hands in surrender Jazz “So are you going to tell your friend the whole thing?”

Swerve crosses his ..metal arms over his metal chest.

“Is it that big of a deal? He thinks I'm a ghost or something.”

Being a ghost...somehow better, he thinks. If you're a ghost, it kind of automatically implies you're human. Or was a human.

“Sooner or later, he'll put the facts together~” says Jazz in a chant.

Swerve laughs.

“That's unlikely. He's got a pretty bad memory.”

_______________

His plans to stay out of anyone's sight combust with a dramatic pop the next time he projects himself to Earth. He doesn't plan to interfere, he doesn't even plan to linger. He just wants to see what's going on.

He actually just quietly sneaks into the hospital to make sure nothing's happened to Blurr since last time, but when he finally finds him then...oh shit, is that Pharma in the same room with him??? This can't be good.

They don't speak, but Pharma has clearly locked his eyes on Blurr and starts making his way towards him with the relentlessness of a industrial metal press.

Swerve does some rough math in his head. If he briefly gives his holoform back its detail and voice, will that be enough to fry his processor? He's not sure.

Pharma gives a believable impression of a shark getting close. The staff, as if sensing something untoward is about to happen, leaves the room in a hurry.

Blurr looks indifferent, but Swerve's attention is drawn to the way he squints tensely. Man, the lamps are too bright in here.

Pharma smiles sweetly and reaches out for a handshake

“Mind some company?”

Swerve's mental processes fly out the window. Oh no no. Not Pharma. Not in his fucking fanfic. He quickly changes his work clothes into a slightly more business-like looking shirt. Thinks for just a moment and adds a cap to his head to blend in more strongly with the attendants and hide his face to an extent. And then projects himself around the nearest unoccupied corner and runs out of behind it looking as anxious as he feels.

“Blurr!!! Sir, there you are!!! I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Pharma wants to say something, but Swerve doesn't even let him start. He stands in front of Blurr separating him and Farma expressively waves his hands trying to keep his head down.

“The guys you were talking about didn't bring the new hydraulics! It's a disaster, we'll have to use the one on the old models!”

Blurr, to his surprise, backs up his act almost instantly

“Really? But I thought there was nothing to take from the old models?”

“That's exactly the point! I got the paperwork this morning and...oh those assholes are going to screw it up if you don't step in as soon as possible!”

Pharma tilts his head

“Can it wait? We were actually talking here!”

Oh no, thinks Swerve I'll show you who's talking.

“Sir, no offense but this is a matter of extreme urgency. Are you implying that the safety of your patients is not important?”

“What do you mea...”

“Old faulty hydraulics, that's what you want?” raises an eyebrow in horror Blurr.

“No I'm just...”

“I had a better opinion of you, to be honest.”

“I...” opens his mouth Pharma “...WHAT...?”

Swerve shakes his head.

“And I thought his profession was to help people, can you imagine?”

“Wh..”

Blurr rolls his eye.

“Any idiot can get an important position these days.”

“Wait..”

“Tell me about it. Especially doctors.”

Pharma looks like he's about to start pulling the hair out of his head.

“Can at least one of you shut up??”

Swerve adjusts his cap in a businesslike manner

“Sir, I understand you're a bit detached from reality spending so much time in your department, but you need to take better care of your reputation.”

He raises his eyebrows knowingly

“Wouldn't want the rumors about you to turn out to be true. You know what I mean?”

Pharma doesn't even answer anymore. Pharma just looks like a discarded fish.

“…..Wha....there's rumors?”

“Of course” shrugs Swerve ”Ask Norman, he usually knows everything about everyone. And about your interesting tricks with safety, too.”

He leans in conspiratorially, effectively pulling all of Farma's attention to himself

“So if I were you, I'd stay out of any more things you don't understand.”

Pharma wants to say something. Swerve can tell by the look in his eyes. Pharma tries to come up with a witty and context-appropriate response, but this whole conversation has no more context than a typical episode of Teletubbies.

“Where does this Norman guy work?” finally finds the ground beneath his feet Pharma

Swerve shrugs.

“Block C, if he hasn't been transferred yet. He's already been fined several times for spreading harmful information you know? The guy can't keep a secret.”

Pharma throws his hands up angrily and storms away. Probably looking for context. Or revenge.

A quiet cough sounds behind Swerve's back.

“So. Should I be worried about Norman's health?”

Swerve feels the hair on the back of his neck shiver and slowly turns to face Blurr while still looking somewhere on the floor.

“Uh...only if you're concerned about the fate of fictional characters. I made up Norman's wife, she'll be upset if he gets fired for gossiping.”

Blurr chuckles. Then goes silent. Then, after a couple seconds, starts laughing again. That's a good look for him, Swerve thinks. It's not like Blurr's usual velvet-smooth laugh that he uses at social events. It's more like a quick, jerky giggle, and in Swerve's subjective opinion, it's pretty damn cute. He can't help but grin.

Blurr snorts one last time, cutting off the laughter.

Then he reaches out his hand to him.

Swerve reaches back, expecting a handshake, but Blurr ignores his hand and instead goes for his cap and lifts it by the brim.

Swerve, not expecting this, freezes with his hand outstretched.

Blurr freezes as well, still holding the cap in his hand and looking...like he's rethinking his life. A little.

Ugh, and how to explain it all to him....

“Uh...you...uh...probably don't remember me. I...it's...”

Blurr shifts his gaze from Swerve to the cap in his hand. Then back to Swerve.

“You're real???”

Swerve awkwardly waves his hands in front of him

“Ah not.., not really. Do you know why Pharma was looking for you in the first place? He doesn't work with patients anymore, he's been reassigned to the research department, right?”

Blurr shrugs.

“Last time I saw him, he said I might have implant rejection in the third ..uh..what? stage? or something? I think he's trying to get me in for a checkup.”

Swerve twitches.

“Third??? How are you still standing???”

He then quickly reaches up with both hands to Blurr's head and tilts it so he can see his face better. Using one thumb, he pulls his lower eyelid slightly and mentally catalogs. Temperature normal, pupil normal, eyes are steady, no darkening or trace of blood on the eyelid. Implants? He puts both palms up and gently feels the places behind Blurr's ears. No signs of rejection or malfunction.

“No no no” sighs Swerve ”You're fine, it's only stage two. I mean, second sucks too, migraines and all, but you just need to rest and no bright lights and...” he finally notices his hands are still on Blurr's head and pulls them back as fast as if he's been burned ”I MEAN I'm uh...sorry, I didn't mean to, I...”

Blurr laughs quietly.

“I'm glad you're back.”

_____________________

He wakes up in his quarters and can feel his face burning.

When he goes out to get the energon, Jazz throws him a look.

“Is something wrong? You're all kinda...shaky.”

“Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu” imitates signs of life Swerve “Say, doesn't it bother you that Prowl isn't human?”

Jazz smiles

“ Oh, I went crazy when I found out. But we figured it out.”

“Like...on a scale from ‘bad grade in school’ to ‘an asteroid is coming to Earth’ how crazy was it?”

“Worried about what your human friends will think?”

Swerve swings back and forth on his heels

“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. Whatnooooo, no of course not. I'd be worried if I planned on telling them at all.”

Jazz frowns

“No offense, but keeping secrets isn't your strong suit.”

“Haha” Swerve waves his servo “ Watch me.”

[pyrrhiccomedy]

A DM’s Fair Play Guide To Plot Twists

I love running a game with a lot of surprises. The challenge to pulling this off well is that, unless you’re playing a one on one game, your players outnumber you: and between them, they have a good chance of figuring out what’s going to happen, no matter how sneaky and clever you are.

The first way of dealing with this - which I’ll just call the bullshit way - is to not give your players the information they need to solve the mystery. Don’t let them find out about the secret society until it’s too late. Don’t give them any reason to suspect that their NPC ally is planning to kill them. Don’t let them find the murder weapon, don’t let them locate the witnesses, don’t give them the chance to skip to the end of their investigation.

This sucks, and if you run your games like this, you’re going to piss off your players. Because it isn’t fair.

In mystery literature, a “fair play mystery” is one where the reader is given all of the information they need in order to figure out the solution before the Big Reveal. It’s what makes the reveal good: that GASP, the “oh shit, the knife! the knife from the party! that was hers! I forgot!”

Pulling off a twist in a fair play game is an incredible feeling. Your players will think you’re a genius (or an absolute dick bastard, which is just as good) and they’ll respect it more when they land in hot water that they plausibly could have avoided. So how do you run a fair play game without your players figuring out the twists ahead of time, given that you’re definitely not smarter than all of your players put together?

By fucking with their expectations.

Here are some things that I keep in mind, to keep my players guessing. And it’s important, with all of this, that if your players see through something, let them have it. They should figure out a lot of things on their own! But if you’re regularly seeding your stories with all of this stuff, eventually your players will miss something. Those are somethings you can build on. The same way that a low level enemy who gets away once can keep coming back again and again until they become an important antagonist, a misapprehension your party proves to have a blindspot for can grow and develop until they get smacked with a breathtaking twist. 

What’s a twist if not the sudden overturning of an assumption you never thought to question?

1: Make your powerful friendly NPCs know a lot...but not as much as the players think they do.

Player characters often end up with powerful allies. It would be very convenient for the party if those allies always had accurate information. Make sure they don’t always enjoy that convenience.

It’s a balancing act: you want your powerful NPCs to be powerful. You want this alliance to be meaningful and beneficial to your players. But give your NPC an Achilles heel of some kind, when it comes to the information at their disposal. The Noble General commands powerful forces and knows the lay of the enemy’s land well...but that doesn’t mean he knows what every squadron and scouting party is up to. The Political Mastermind may know the ins and outs of the court, and have keen insight into the motivations of others: but he has an enemy who pisses him off so much that he loses all objectivity around her. The Powerful Wizard can call upon great magic to aid the party: but his divinations aren’t as accurate as he thinks they are, and he’s prone to finding, in his signs and omens, what he wants to see, more than what’s actually there.

Most of the time, their information should be good! That will make it more likely that your players will trust them the one time when it isn’t.

2. Let (apparently) less powerful NPCs sometimes know more than the players think they do. 

Most NPCs aren’t the Noble General or the Powerful Wizard. Most NPCs are Daves, designed to get the players from place to place. Most of those Daves know about as much as you’d expect them to. But some Daves have plans of their own.

You don’t always have to signpost with big blinking lights which of your NPCs are ‘important,’ and which ones are ‘unimportant.’ Sneak in a crafty Dave from time to time. That assistant they talk to, every time they go to see the prince? That bitch knows everything, and she’s almost ready to make her move. 

3: There is no such thing as a completely reliable witness. 

If the players only get information from one person, that information should be flawed in at least one, potentially small, but important way. Smart players will seek a second opinion, or at least allow for the possibility that their information may be incomplete. But even smart players get out over their skis sometimes.

4: Let your NPCs be aware of the power of a first impression. 

If an NPC gives a strong first impression of being a particular kind of person, it’s because they’re comfortable giving that impression. That might be because it’s who they are. But maybe not.

One of the first characters the PCs met in a VtM campaign I ran was Gawaine. Gawaine was a good old pine-scented man’s man, with salt and pepper stubble and a blue Ford truck. He listened to AC/DC, and talked about the war. He was affable and honest and willing to lend a hand. You already know Gawaine. Everybody knows a Gawaine. Gawaines are trustworthy, salt of the earth types. You don’t necessarily think to question a Gawaine.

That’s exactly why Gawaine was such a useful persona for Krystiyan, the Tzimisce Voivode, a cruel and alien sculptor of flesh who “never left his haven.” There were plenty of clues that they were the same person, but that campaign was in its endgame before the players put them all together.

5: Sometimes, dangerous and villainous NPCs should be helpful and cooperative. 

Not even necessarily because they’re manipulating the players, or even deceiving them about their true natures, but because their interests and the players’ interests genuinely align...for the moment. 

One of the easiest levers in your players’ brains to exploit is the expectation that people who help you are your friends. Even if your players know, consciously, that they shouldn’t trust this person, most of the time they kind of can’t help it, if the NPC is genuinely helpful to them and at least a little charismatic. 

6: Sometimes, good and valuable NPCs should be unhelpful and uncooperative. 

No matter how mature your players are, there’s a natural tendency to react to uncooperative NPCs with a reflexive, “Hey, fuck you! We’re the protagonists! This guy is an asshole!” so from time to time have a helpful, honest, good-aligned NPC have a wholly justified but as-yet-unknown-to-the-party reason to flatly refuse to deal with them.

7: Every NPC should have a secret. 

Not necessarily a bad secret. Were it to be revealed, it might even make the party like them more! But for their own reasons, the NPC does not want their secret to come out, and they will lie to the party to protect it. Players go crazy when they realize they’re being lied to, and often jump to some wild assumptions about your NPC’s motivations. I’ve had an NPC lie about the opening hours of a shop, and had the PCs assume that they were black market dealers for the villain when the dude just wanted to be able to close early so he could go smoke weed in the park.

8. As a DM, it’s polite to remind your players of the common knowledge their characters would possess...even when it doesn’t reflect the truth.

We all know it’s tedious when the DM calls for a roll when you’re just asking for common knowledge. I shouldn’t have to make a roll to know the dumb space word for plastic in a Star Wars game. I shouldn’t have to make a roll to know who the Holy Roman Emperor is in a game about medieval vampires. The DM should supply common knowledge for free, whenever it comes up.

That doesn’t mean common knowledge is true.

This is different from just lying to your players, because you don’t put the weight of DM word-of-God behind it. It’s not “You would know this guy is a Ventrue, based on XYZ.” It’s “it would be a common assumption that this guy is a Ventrue, based on XYZ.” He might not be a Ventrue. It might in fact be extremely important that he is not a Ventrue. But if it is commonly assumed that he’s a Ventrue, that is - word for word - something you can share with your players. If they don’t look any deeper than common knowledge, that’s on them.

9. Obviously untrustworthy NPCs provide great air coverage for less obviously untrustworthy NPCs.

The obviously untrustworthy NPC might or might not be planning to betray the party. But if you introduce two untrustworthy NPCs in the same storyline, and one of them seems normal and cool and has a genuine plot-related reason to be there, and the other one is Jaffar, Jaffar’s gonna get clocked, but Susan over there will probably slip under the radar, and might even get tapped to help out with the whole Jaffar situation. They might get Susan’s number, by the end of the session. Susan might become an ‘ally.’ Susan might even get romanced by a party member. Play your cards right, and Jaffar might just end up a footnote in the introduction of Susan, Scourge of Worlds and most hated NPC in the entire campaign.

10. Your villains should always have a secret plan B.

Your villain isn’t stupid, right? And your villain probably isn’t so arrogant that it is inconceivable to them that their plan might fail. They’ve been planning this ritual for ten thousand years, after all. It’s always possible that some plucky band of heroes could show up at the last minute and murder your high priest, or steal your amulet, or seduce your second in command. So what does your villain have in his back pocket to make the players go, “Oh, shit - he planned for this!”

This may mean that there is a whole separate plot happening, running alongside the main story. This is great, because when weird things happen, the players have to figure out whether this is part of Plot A or Plot B, and working out who did what and why gets a lot more interesting. If they end up foiling Plot A, great - your villain was also secretly behind Plot B the whole time, and will transfer all of his resources over to that. 

Sometimes your players will figure out that Plots A and B were both the same plot the whole time, with the same villain at the head, and they’ll feel like the smartest people on the planet, and it will be their favorite moment of the entire game. That’s great! You gave them that!

Sometimes, they won’t. And when the villain of Plot A, apparently defeated, starts laughing and reveals that he was also the mastermind behind Plot B, which is now too late to be stopped, that will probably be your favorite moment of the entire game.

[evanpeterswhoresblog]

Innocence

Remus Lupin x f!reader

warnings: smut, oral (female receiving), oral (male receiving), fingering, slight hand job, virgin reader, purity ring 😮‍💨, making out, underage smoking, mention of underage drinking, slight innocence/ corruption kink, lmk if i missed any!

summary: remus learns the ring you wear everyday is called a purity ring, and he develops a strange obsession with it… and wanting to take it off you…

word count: 4.6k

a/n: guys.. dw there’s gonna b a part two but like omgggggg this made me feel so many things i’m in love with this. lmk what you think :) also i’m not religious so if any of this is not accurate i’m sorry lol it’s for the plot

part two is posted!!! here

~~~

Ever since he knew you, Remus noticed that one thing you always wore. It was plain, a simple gold band on your left ring finger, the marriage finger. Typically, such nonsense wouldn’t cross his mind twice, but you wore that ring damn ring every day. Since the first time he ever saw you, that ring was on your finger. He never saw you without it. So, his curiosity got the better of him.

Why would such a simple ring be so important that you never took it off? It couldn’t have been because you were married. No. You wore it even at the young age of eleven. Could it have been a family heirloom? That idea was plausible, however to him, it didn’t feel like the correct answer. And Remus Lupin always needed the correct answer.

So, he eventually decided to ask you.

During dinner one night, when you just so happened to be sitting next to him, his eyes caught sight of the ring and he eyed it suspiciously. You noticed this.

“Something wrong Rem?” You asked.

He looked up from the ring on your delicate finger to meet your confused eyes. “Why do you always wear that specific ring? And always on that finger? Is it special?”

“Oh.” You laughed for a few seconds. “Yeah, it’s stupid really, an old muggle tradition.” You composed yourself and looked up at him, a slight red tint to your cheeks. “It’s called a purity ring. Basically, I wear it as a reminder that I pledged to wait till marriage.”

Remus was confused, and he hated being confused. “Why would anyone wait till marriage?”

You shrugged. “Muggle religion is quite weird. They value keeping teenagers pure until they’re married. I think it’s stupid, but I still wear it.”

“So, you’ve done it but continue wearing it as a... symbol?” He questioned.

“Oh no, I haven’t done it. I might find it stupid, but I still plan to keep my promise. It’s sort of a nice accomplishment don’t you think? I’ve gone through two years of everyone shagging around me and I haven’t given in,” you answered.

He stared at you for a few seconds. You were still a virgin, and that ring was the reason. He thought for a moment. How could you be a virgin? He swore he had seen you go off with a bloke from Ravenclaw a few months ago during a party. But then as his eyes trailed over your small figure, he realized the idea wasn’t completely impossible. He’d never seen you with hickeys, he’d never seen you dress improperly, and he surely had never seen you enter the common room after a long night with someone. For some reason, it made a strange feeling bloom deep inside him.

“Surely you’ve at least done other stuff, right?”

You simply shook your head and took a bite from your sandwich. “Furthest I’ve ever gone is having some Ravenclaws tongue down my throat.”

Ah, so he was right about that.

“Besides, I don’t really even know much about any of that stuff. I mean I know biology, but that’s about it. And of course, what Marls and Mary tell me from their extravagant experiences,” you added after swallowing.

So that meant...

“You haven’t done anything?” He was surprised, it was clear in his tone.

“No need to sound so flabbergasted. Besides, why do you even care about what I’ve done? I always thought you were the modest type too,” you replied with an eye roll.

Remus looked away from you, and the urge to smirk took him over. He thought back to those countless nights over the summer breaks he’d spent with muggle girls. The feelings, the sounds, the tastes, all experiences he’d never forget. But by no means was Remus Lupin a player, oh no. He was nothing like his mate. However, he also wasn’t a saint like everyone painted him out to be.

“I may be modest but that doesn’t mean I’m a virgin,” he said after a moment, his eyes finally turned back to you. He liked the way you looked at him. “That went away a few summers ago.”

You smiled, though something about it was off, almost as if it were forced. “Well, cheers to that.”

“Cheers.” He nodded in agreement.

You turned back to the group conversation before he could say anything else.

~~~

Remus had thought after finding out what the ring's importance was, he would let it go and move on. Unfortunately, he had thought wrong. Ever since that conversation with you, he couldn’t get any of it off his mind. When he’d see you, he’d always look at your left hand, almost making sure that ring was still there. It always was. And for some reason it made him feel almost relieved. He needed more answers.

Thankfully, another opportunity came not too long after the first.

The two of you had been paired together in potions. Typically, he would be a bit upset with the fact given you were never the best in the subject. But for the first time, he was pleased with the pairing.

He watched as you cut up some of the ingredients, that stupid ring shining from the lights. Questions filled his head. Where had you gotten it? When did you get it? Who gave it to you? Did your parents know what it meant? What were you supposed to do with it when the time finally came? He needed to get the answers.

“So, when did you get it?” He casually asked his eyes on the cauldron.

“Get what?”

“The ring.”

You chuckled. “You’re still on about that? I suppose you aren’t too accustomed to muggle things. I got it right before I came here actually. My parents wanted to give me a reminder about life at home, and they wanted to make sure I knew where my ‘loyalties’ lay. Though, I was only a little girl. Did they expect anything to happen at that young?”

Three questions were answered. Good.

Remus dropped his chopped ingredients into the cauldron. “Does that mean you give it back to them when you finally do it?”

“Oh no. I give it to my husband of course,” you replied. “Do these look alright?”

He finally turned his head in your direction and looked over your cutting board then he met your eyes. “Perfect. You can put them in.”

“You don’t know how good that makes me feel to hear. Master of potions Remus Lupin says I’m perfect, I could faint,” you said as you scrapped your work into the cauldron, a hint of laughter in your voice.

He rolled his eyes. “I said your cutting was perfect, but if it makes you feel good, I suppose you are too.”

You looked up at him with a glint in your eyes that made an odd feeling form in his chest. You looked so damn innocent. How had he not noticed it before? You had always been one of the shyer members of Gryffindor, but he always brushed it off as nothing important. He never would’ve guessed just how innocent you were.

“How sweet of you.” You giggled.

“ ’Course, anytime love.”

He noticed the shift in your body at his words. How odd. You looked away from him for a few seconds, that familiar rose tint returning to your cheeks. Did you always do that? Did such simple words always make you blush and turn away? Or was it just him? He watched you bite down on your lip and fiddle with your ring.

You were teasing him.

It was then he decided he was going to get that ring from you.

And you were going to love it.

~~~

Getting you to that point was going to take some time, Remus knew that. But it didn’t stop him. He started simply. When the two of you were hanging out in the group, he made sure to at least say a few words to you alone. When eating meals, he made sure to get a spot next to you. Most importantly though, he started making sure to leave subtle hints. Lingering eye contact, small touches that weren’t necessary, comments that made your face turn red. He could tell all of it made you flustered, and he loved it.

During all of it, his obsession with your innocence only grew. He wanted to take it away. He wanted to taint you, to make you not so pure anymore. He didn’t understand the feeling, he never cared much for such stereotypical nonsense. But each time you looked at him with those curious, innocent eyes, it only made his patience strained.

The first breakthrough came during one of Sirius and James’s parties. The common room blared with music, and people laughed and danced. You were among them. Remus leaned against the wall next to the staircase to the boy's dorm, a cigarette between his lips as he watched you dance with Mary and Lily. Your smile was bright, your body moved to the rhythm almost perfectly. You wore a pretty little dress. But he couldn’t focus on any of that because that damn ring caught his attention.

It had become quite a distraction. He found himself staring at it far more than normal. During class and dinner, it consumed most of his thoughts. He needed to get it off your finger before it caused his grades to slip.

From across the room, your eyes suddenly found his. You gave him a questioning look; he only smirked back and released a cloud of smoke into the air. He watched you say something to the girls before you began to walk in his direction. Perfect.

“Why do you always stand on the sidelines?” You asked once you were close enough. “And if you’re going to stare at me all night you might as well just dance with me.”

He chuckled and took another drag from the cigarette. “I’m not the biggest fan of these parties and I definitely don’t dance.” He offered you the cigarette, and you shook your head and pointed to your ring. “Come on, that applies to cigs too?”

“And alcohol, pretty much whatever is considered sinful. Though, I have indulged in a drink or two. Mommy and Daddy don’t need to know about that,” you answered.

Merlin, he needed to do something with you. It was almost unbearable.

“You’re saying alcohol and cigs are sinful but intense snogging isn’t? Seems a bit hypocritical to me,” he eventually said.

You smiled and shrugged. “That’s muggle religion for you. It’s pretty much up to each person's interpretation and what they value. I value being sober more than refraining from a snog occasionally.”

“But a shag...”

“That’s universally seen as a big sin. Most of us would agree not to do it until marriage.”

He released another breath of smoke. “Most of you?”

“Well, not everyone agrees of course. Like I said, it’s technically up to everyone’s values. Murder is also considered a sin, you know. But even some people commit that,” you explained. He watched you blush. “I don’t think I should compare virginity to murder though.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a fair comparison,” he replied, his lips turned up into a smile.

You turned even more red. “Sorry. But you get what I’m saying, right?”

“Everything is optional is what you’re saying.” He let his eyes trail over your body, making sure you noticed. “So really, you could fuck someone before marriage.”

“I mean yeah, I could, but I don’t think I will,” you said. You began to fiddle with the ring again. “It’s sort of always been with me it would feel weird giving it to someone else.”

“Do you have to give it away for anything? Or just actual sex?” It was another question he’d been dying to know. He watched you think for a moment.

“I think just the full thing. I don’t know. I don’t even really know that much about it like I said when you first asked me. I mean, I know people use their hands and mouths but... sorry. I shouldn't be talking about such things.” You put your face in your hands, Remus couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sorry.”

He needed to do something. Now.

“Don’t be sorry love, it’s alright. You know you can trust me; I wouldn’t dare tell anyone about your sinful thoughts,” he spoke. He turned and dropped his cigarette into one of the many ashtrays in the common room. When he looked back at you, you were already looking at him. “But you know if you ever wanted to indulge in something like that, you can come to me.”

You were beyond flustered, and it showed. “Oh! That’s very um... generous of you, but I don’t think I’ll do any of that I mean... I don’t plan on it.”

He casually shrugged. “We all get a bit curious at some point in our lives.”

For a moment the two of you only stared at each other. He could tell exactly what you were thinking. You were curious. You wanted to try things. He observed you carefully. He could sense the conflict within you. Value versus desire. It was a tough battle, but you didn’t cave. At least, not yet.

“Perhaps, but I made a promise and I need to stick to it,” you said. You looked over your shoulder at your clearly intoxicated friends. “I should get back to Lily and Mary.”

“Right, it was nice talking,” he replied with a smile.

You nodded. “I’ll see you later.”

“Till then love.”

Even as you walked away and joined your friends once again, he could see the way his words affected you. You could deny the feelings all you wanted, but your body craved the unknown. It was only a matter of time till you caved, and Remus would wait.

He was never one to give up easily.

~~~

You came to him faster than he expected. He understood why though, you were on edge about all of it. In the few days it took for you to go to him, he noticed how different you acted. You were more tense, you fiddled with your ring far more than normal. He imagined the inner conflict you faced was stressful, but he was glad about the turnout of it.

After dinner, as he was walking to the library for a study group, you found him. He was a bit surprised at your approach, but nevertheless, he welcomed it with joy.

“Hey Remus, could I talk to you for a second?” You asked.

You were a bit behind him, but he stopped instantly and turned to face you.

“Yeah, what’s going on?”

Your little bit of confidence quickly vanished. You avoided his gaze, focusing suddenly on your shoes. “Um, are you busy? It’s not really that important so if you have something else to do it can wait.”

He fought the urge to smirk. “I was just going to Lily’s little study group, but it can wait. Is something wrong?”

You shook your head and looked up at him, those big innocent eyes staring into his. “No uh... nothing's wrong. It’s just about... well... you know.”

“About what?”

“You know...”

“I don’t think I do love, you’re gonna have to use your words and tell me.”

He felt bad for teasing you, but it was too fun not to. The way your cute little eyes looked around the hallway to make sure no one else was around, the way you fidgeted, it was far too entertaining to stop. A moment passed before you finally spoke in a much softer tone than before.

“It’s about what we talked about at the party last weekend.”

“Oh?” He questioned. “What about it?”

He watched as you slid the ring up and down your finger. “You said um if I ever wanted to you know, indulge, that I could come to you.”

“Yes, I did say that.”

“So... um yeah,” you said. You looked almost uncomfortable. He knew he needed to be nicer.

“Are you asking if that offer is still there?”

You nodded eagerly. “Yes! I mean, um, is it?”

He glanced around to make sure nobody else was around before stepping closer to you. You looked up at him with wide eyes, your mouth parted ever so slightly. He touched his fingers to your chin, lifting your head gently.

“How about you come find out?”

You didn’t fight it. He was glad.

Not too long after that, Remus found himself in a position he’d desperately wanted for almost a month. You were laid out on his bed, open like a flower, and he was on top of you. Your robe, shirt, and tie were thrown to the floor. He kissed you hard, the reward of your gasps kept him going. He let one of his hands travel up your soft thigh, you were so warm, so inviting. It took all his self-control to keep him from moving too fast.

Before it began, you told him you had only ever snogged. That meant no boy had ever touched you. Not with a hand, not with his tongue, nothing. No one had ever even felt up your breasts. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t pleased with the information. He wanted you to be his, he wanted to be as many of your firsts as he could be.

“Can I touch you?” He eventually whispered on your skin; his lips were by your ear.

“Yes, please,” you replied, your breath ragged.

He continued to press soft kisses to your neck as his hand moved between your thighs. You were wet, very wet. He could feel it through your panties. It made him even harder than he already was. He slid his hand under your panties and began to rub soft circles on your clit, you gasped and lifted your hips in response.

You were perfect.

With every flick of his fingers, you let out little whimpers and moans, and one of your hands gripped his shoulder hard. He caught a few glances of your face between kisses. Your cheeks were red, your eyes squeezed shut. You were beyond beautiful.

After a few minutes, he moved his fingers down to your entrance. He made sure to collect your wetness and ask if it was alright before he began to slowly push one of his fingers inside you.

“Remus,” you mumbled as he started thrusting his finger in and out of you at a slow pace. “Fuck.”

“Does it hurt? Do you want me to stop?” He asked.

You lightly shook your head. “It feels so good, do not stop.”

“Do you want another one?”

“Yes.”

He complied instantly and added a second finger. You responded just the way he wanted. In only a few more minutes he was fucking you with his fingers, touching that spot inside that made your thighs clench around him. He kissed you hard, he loved how you struggled to kiss him back. When he also began to press his thumb to your clit, you became a mess.

“Fuck Rem, I-” You paused, your nails dug into his shoulder.

“You’re close.” It was a statement; he could feel your walls clenching around his fingers. He knew you weren’t going to last much longer.

“I am,” you practically whimpered.

“Let go, love, it’s alright.”

Only seconds later you did. You came hard. Your back arched off the mattress, your mouth hung open wide, and your thighs tightened around his hips. Remus had never felt anything as good as the feeling of your walls pulsating around his fingers as you came undone beneath him. He made sure to keep going till you were fully done. At that point, he pulled his hand out of your panties and up to his lips. He knew you were going to taste good.

You sat up, breathless. “Oh my god. I can’t believe I just- you just- we just... I’m going to hell.”

“Relax, it’ll be fine. People do this all the time and nothing bad happens, I promise it’s just a normal thing,” he said. He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, he thought you looked so beautiful. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried about being judged or anything, I’m worried because I don’t feel guilty. I should feel guilty for it but I just... don’t. In fact, I think I...” You looked down at your hand, specifically the ring. “I think I want more.”

Remus couldn’t help the smirk that formed on his lips. “More?”

“Yeah, I mean it’s only right that I return the favor.” He watched your eyes move to his pants; your cheeks turned red. “You’ll have to show me how though.”

“Alright, only if, you’re sure. Don’t feel like you have to because I did something for you,” he replied though he really did want you to touch him. But he could wait if he had to.

“I want to.”

He didn’t question you further. Instead, he guided you through the process of getting him off with your hand. You were a fast learner, though the act itself wasn’t that hard to get the hang of. He found it funny the way you gasped at the size of him. Merlin, you were so innocent. Either way, you made him feel extraordinary. Your hand was much softer than his, and warmer too. You touched him gently, almost teasingly. But that changed fast.

“Can I try something else?” You asked, your hand stopped.

He almost groaned from the lack of motion. “What?”

“Um, can I try using my um...” You pointed to your lips.

“Your mouth?”

“Yeah.”

How could he ever refuse?

It was sloppy, it was rushed, but it was everything he could’ve wanted. As he laid back on the pillows, one of his hands moved through your soft hair. He didn’t dare push you. No. He only stroked your hair gently and whispered praises. He knew you liked it from the way you hummed on his cock each time he told you how good you were doing or how good you made him feel. And when you looked up at him with those eyes, those damn innocent eyes, he could barely contain himself.

He was shocked you even did it to begin with, but he was even more shocked when you let him finish in your mouth. You had him halfway down your throat when he came, and you didn’t pull away for a second. You swallowed it all. Somehow, he became even more attracted to you than he had been before.

“Was it good?” You questioned after you pulled back. You were kneeling beside his legs, a nervous expression on your face.

He smiled. “You were amazing. Are you sure you haven’t done that before?��

“Never even saw one in real life before this,” you replied with a laugh.

“That’s hard to believe,” he said. He sat up and pressed a kiss to your lips before pulling back slightly to look into your eyes. “Do you want to try one more thing?”

“Depends on what thing.”

“I’ll do what you just did to me but on you,” he answered, loving the way your eyes widened at his words. Despite everything that happened already, you were still so innocent. He adored it.

“Oh yeah okay,” you spoke after a moment.

He kissed you again. “Lay down.”

You did as he said and soon it began.

He started by kissing your lips while his hands pulled your skirt and panties off, leaving you only in a bra. Once those were off, he kissed down your neck, and your chest, only pausing for a second to unclip your bra and take one of your nipples in his mouth. You moaned, he stayed there for a few extra seconds. He then moved his mouth further down your body, relishing the sounds you made each time his lips made contact with your skin.

When he started to kiss up one of your thighs, you twitched. You were so sensitive, so untouched. He was obsessed with it. Every few kisses he sucked your skin to leave dark purple hickeys. He had made sure not to leave any on your skin that would be visible to the world so that no one would see the evidence of your sinful acts. But the skin that would be covered by clothing, that was his to mark.

A few minutes of this went by, and it was all on purpose. Remus could tell how eager you were for him to get on with it, but you were far too shy to tell him to do so. So, he didn’t dare touch you where you so desperately wanted him to. He wanted to hear you ask. But you said nothing, so he decided you needed a little push. He gave you one single lick then returned to your black and blue thighs.

“Remus,” you whispered. “Please.”

He looked up at you and almost felt bad. Your desperate eyes were already looking at him, he could tell how much you needed it. He didn’t wait any longer and gave you what you needed; you certainly earned it.

In all his experience with sex and everything surrounding it, Remus enjoyed pleasing his partner as anyone did. He didn’t mind going down on women, in fact, he sort of enjoyed it. At least until you. With you, he quickly realized having his head between your thighs and his tongue on your clit was not just alright, it was heavenly. He never enjoyed the taste of a girl like he enjoyed yours. You were sweet and the sounds you made as he played with you were their own type of reward.

So, it was no surprise how quickly you came undone on his tongue. He devoured you like he had been starving his whole life. Truthfully, he felt as if he had. You were spectacular. You were perfection. You were his. He was crazy about you.

After you finished, he wiped his mouth on one of your thighs before moving to lie on the bed next to you. He laid on his side facing you, his eyes examining your face. Your eyes were closed, and your cheeks were pink. Your hair was messy, and your lips were ever so slightly lifted into a smile. He swore he never saw anyone as beautiful in his life.

“I feel stupid,” you mumbled.

“Why?”

You opened your eyes and looked at him, your smile then undeniable. “I should’ve taken you up on your offer sooner. Now I understand why everyone’s so mad about this stuff, it’s unbelievable.”

“You don’t regret it then?” He asked.

“How could I? You’re just... Remus I...” You turned to your side to face him fully, one of your hands pressed against his chest. “I think we should do this again if you’d want to of course.”

He grinned and let a hand fall to your waist, he pulled you closer, so your bodies touched. He rested his chin on the top of your head, and you buried your face in his neck. For a moment he felt almost victorious, he had gotten you right where he wanted you to be. It would only be a matter of time before you let him take you fully. But then he realized, it wasn’t about taking your virginity so much anymore. He just wanted you.

“I wouldn’t want anything more,” he eventually said, then he pressed a kiss to your forehead, while the cold feeling of your ring on his chest lingered in the back of his mind.

Soon, it would be his. And so would you.

[markantonys]

My Mom Reacts To: wheel of time season 3 episodes 1-4 (no book spoilers)

season 1 (book spoilers)

season 2 episodes 1-4 (no book spoilers)

season 2 episodes 5-8 (book spoilers)

she found her handwritten list of characters from when we watched s2 back in 2023, i couldn't believe it haha below is her summary of some of the gang as she was trying to jog her memory

lan: the one i really love mat: the one who got recast perrin: the big guy nynaeve: the healer rand and egwene: the ones who should be a couple but probably won't be

(i don't know if she meant that *she thinks* they should be a couple, as her personal opinion, or if she was just describing the general narrative framing of them as "should be together but won't be". we'll see what, if any, reaction she has to all the mess between them this season!)

ahead of s2, we rewatched all of s1 to prepare, but this time, we just watched the 20-minute recap of the first 2 seasons by unraveling the pattern. i get the sense that my mom is more lost and struggling during s3 than she has been in prior seasons, probably due to a combination of not doing a full rewatch first and to s3 just being so much more packed with Stuff than the first 2 seasons. but she knows all the main characters well and cares about them, it's mostly other stuff like plot and terminology that's hard to keep track of! and she did seem to settle in more once the hectic first episode was done and once she could focus more on the new storylines that are happening right now instead of trying to remember setup from previous seasons.

beginning of the recap: it's easy to get lost with all the different characters and terminology my mom: that's for sure!

during the recap my dad asked "is the dragon good or bad?" and i was like "that's kinda the big question of the whole series" haha

onto the episodes!

3x01

mom: didn't moiraine get banished from this city? me: yes, that's why she's hiding mom: she's not doing a very good job

me to my dad (who used to work in local government) at the beginning of the meeting of the hall: it's like town meeting dad later during all the shredding: town meeting never got QUITE this violent

mom: how did they not know there were this many bad guys lurking inside the tower? me: that's exactly what siuan is wondering too

my dad at some point during the street fighting: they need that guy who thinks he's a wolf to come and help

could perrin emerge as a fav for my dad if he was his first thought for somebody who would be useful in a situation? watch this space

mom after liandrin gets healed from double-stab out in the streets: ugh, she's unkillable!

huge gasp when ihvon died

mom when lan went to find nynaeve amid the rubble: oh yeah, they're in love right? [i will say, the recap was highly plot- and lore-focused and left out quite a lot of important info regarding interpersonal relationships!]

rand's line about "you know what prophecies are like, nothing's clear" got a chuckle

loial's line about leaving at dawn got a big chuckle!

mom: [smiling] he's one of my favorite characters me internally:😬

the girls' gossip session was instance #1 of my mom going "who's that???" about elayne because she "looks different" this season and she didn't recognize her (i suspect it's the hair throwing her off, in this scene especially it looks REALLY blonde and pale)

she definitely had some grumbling about it being stupid of the boys to go around town while so many bad guys are looking for them, though i forget exactly what it was

then later on she said "considering how many people are after them, they keep engaging in some pretty risky behaviors" (but this comment was just when mat was going to get himself a midnight drink at the inn, let him live, mom!)

mom: does rand know selene is evil? me [seeing my opportunity to get her sympathetic to rand's perspective early]: he knows she's lanfear, but she's been manipulating him hardcore, so he still thinks maybe he can fix her and help her be good again

i think it was during siuan's convo with egwene and nynaeve about being prepared to stop the dragon that my mom quietly said "...........is rand the dragon?" evidence of how overwhelmed this poor woman is with everything going on this season haha she's questioning everything she thinks she knows!

elayne delivering letters out on the street was instance #2 of going "who's that????" about her

no comments at all on any of the rand-avi, avi-elayne, or rand-elayne interactions this episode. i don't think she's particularly invested in either elayne or avi at this stage since they're newer characters compared to the OG crew, but we'll see!

moiraine: where do you really want to go? rand: where do i REALLY want to go? home mom: i was going to say, i bet all he wants is to just go home

she gets him!

rand: i was there [scaring egwene in her arches trip], wasn't i? mom: he's too smart for his own good

first time anybody has ever said that about rand dkfjgh but she's right! he's a lot more perceptive than much of show fandom gives him credit for!

mom: that guy perrin killed [bornhald], was he a bad guy? me: well, he was a whitecloak, so yes, but as whitecloaks go, he was better than some dad: a fitting description for his tombstone

mom during the inn attacks: it's so dark, i'm glad i can't see everything [because it's scary]

mom when lanaeve are saying their goodbyes: oh, why can't they just stay together?!

relatable to all of us who watched our favorite ships part ways in this episode!

"since perrin is going home, does that mean he won't be in the story anymore?" perrin wishes that was the case!

me: rand could've at least told moiraine the change of plans before she spent all that money on the boat mom: i know! it's like they think she has bottomless pockets! me: well to be fair she kinda DOES have bottomless pockets

dad after the episode: that felt like a lot more than just one episode

mom: will lan and nynaeve see each other again? me: not this season, but they should if there are more seasons mom: [sighs sadly] i just want lan to be happy

she followed this up with "this doesn't seem like an easy world to be happy in" you can say that again!

"if you counted how many times these 5 people got attacked throughout the show, i wonder how many it would be" very dangerous new WOT drinking game just dropped courtesy of my mom

the next day, she said "dad said he'll be home after [whatever time] and we can watch more then, it sounds like he really doesn't want to miss any" could've fooled me since it's never obvious that he's paying attention let alone invested, but it IS rare for him to even so much as imply that he wants us to wait for him to watch something!

3x02

me: this is elayne's mom pregnant with elayne mom: but she has two kids already me: yes, elayne has two older brothers mom: so why is elayne the one inheriting the throne? me: it's a matriarchal throne succession mom: i'm glad i have you here to explain things

huge gasp when the assassinations happened. "elayne is so nice, but her mom is so terrible!"

my dad's thought on the assassinations was "now this DID happen a lot in town meeting" lmao

as soon as they showed gaebril my mom went "i think i've seen him before", it turned out she was mixing him up with ishy since they have similar hair/beards, but i was cracking up imagining that rahvin had compelled her through the screen to remember him being in previous seasons

the music got a shoutout from her in this episode during the travel montages! there's some particularly groovy tunes in this episode's travel montages

several chuckles over galad getting made fun of in various scenes, as is only right

another chuckle at "the prophecy does not say i must enjoy the task"

elayne: that's the first time anyone's accused this room of being big mom: it looks pretty big to me!

first my mom was upset that no one was coming up to perrin to say hello when he arrived in the village, and then after finding out the whitecloaks have a bounty on him, she was upset that he was walking around out in the open and so many people had seen him arrive

she was also like "why did moiraine just let him leave and go home?" and i pointed out that moiraine's goal was to separate rand from his friends and that she really kinda only cares about rand at this point and not the other four so much, which my mom semi-accepted haha

mom after finding out min's viewing of dead aes sedai & warders wasn't referring to the 3x01 battle but was actually another battle still to come: is there ever any hope at all in this world?!

much appreciation for chiad's line about asking the lion to protect you from the bear and ending up in one belly instead of the other

perrin: i'll turn myself in mom: oh perrin, you're too good for your own good

once again my mom asked "does rand know she's evil?" about lanfear, so i took another chance to explain that rand knows objectively that she's evil but she's been careful not to do anything evil in front of him as a way of manipulating him, and that he really loved her during the months they were together so it's hard for him to just turn that off. i'm doing my best to seed in Rand Sympathy! we'll see if it pays off in the remaining episodes.

then my dad sneezed really loudly and distracted us all from the quick reveal that lanfear is disguising herself as renna to torture egwene, so i had to catch them up on that. classic dad behavior.

mom: [trying to jog her memory] was min romantically involved with anyone? me: no mom: she and mat might make a good pair me: NO they're like siblings to me!!!!

if she makes any kind of shippy comment during the CPR i'm going to pull out the "rand's the one who gave him CPR in the books, would you have considered THAT romantic too?" card hahaha

after gaebril told elayne about the trouble in andor, my mom was all "why would the queen leave the country if there's trouble?" "why is she leaving all her advisors behind at the tower if there's trouble?" she was starting to pick up on Something Fishy Going On Here

the scene of siuan taking the horn from mat was a big hit, naturally!

elayne: i learned from the best [morgase] mom: i don't know, i don't think SHE would ever kill her rivals dad: *i* think she would

mom about elaida: is she evil? dad: no one in this show is fully evil or fully good, they're all some of both

continuing his tradition of remaining mostly quiet and seeming not to pay much attention and then coming out with completely accurate takes

3x03

at first when my mom saw "gaebril" skulking around she was laughing because she thought morgase accidentally forgot him at the tower and left him behind, i was dying and am going to think about that every time i watch this scene forevermore

at the reveal that he's evil: "ugh! of COURSE!"

then i was explaining that he's not just evil, he's a forsaken, and explaining more about how he planted fake memories, and also giving her the list of all the forsaken we've met so far to add to her notes. we did pause for most of this, but sadly sammael's rug line got talked over so they missed that one, alas!

while nynaeve and elayne were walking through the streets my mom said she thought she saw somebody lurking around - it must have been the gray man, i was impressed! i hadn't caught him myself!

mom after hearing elaida's plan to cage rand: [unhappily] there are so many different groups of bad guys, and only one of good guys

she remembered the tuatha'an well from s1! she said she remembers s1 better than s2 since she'd watched it twice (and also said that s1 was the easiest one to follow since it was only about the main small group of characters)

we both keep fretting about wanting to know exactly how much time has passed, so in the scene with laila's tree we were like "well i guess however long it takes for a tree to grow that tall is how much time has passed" (and then in the later scene when perrin was like "don't you remember what happened at bel tine?" my mom was going "five years ago? last year?" trying to prompt him to specify haha)

she thinks it's very foolish for nynaeve and elayne to go off to tanchico on their own with so much danger afoot

"they're like paris fashion models" about liandrin & co's new getup in tanchico djkjfg

"i've never seen someone try to turn themselves in and fail" was a big hit!

though later my mom wondered if faile might be lanfear in disguise, which i accidentally shot down because first she just asked "is that lanfear?" and i said "no, it's a new character" thinking she was just mixing them up, not that she was suspicious lanfear might be in disguise as faile

mom about galad and gawyn: they remind me of, we used to call them "big men on campus", pompous and arrogant but also popular

mat: LIANDRIN?! nynaeve: keep your voice down! mom: he's always shouting about things that should be kept secret!

mom: i don't think elayne will be happy if mat kills her brothers me: he's not going to KILL them

3x04

mom while moiraine is watching lan and rand spar: why is she just sitting around? me: there's not a whole lot else to do in the desert

over the course of this episode, aviendha progressed from "that girl" to "aviendra" she's getting there!

me: [mentions something about the car'a'carn] dad: speaking of, were you able to find a parking space for the car'a'carn at the dentist earlier?

rand: tell me you won't try to stop me or use me moiraine: i will do nothing to hinder you from fulfilling your destiny mom: [disapprovingly] that's not what he asked

whether she'll understand rand's perspective in his upcoming conflict with egwene remains to be seen, but she does seem to understand his perspective in his conflict with moiraine! and kinda always has, i think, i remember her expressing distrust of moiraine in the prior seasons too.

"rand sure has a lot he needs to get done before he goes mad" WOT: A Summary

the first sight of the dragon tattoo with rhuarc got a "that looks cool" stamp of approval

earlier in the day she'd asked whether everything in the show was from the books or if some stuff was made up and i'd said the show made up/altered some stuff, and here i gave an example of how in the books mat is part of the waste trip and he's the one to go to rhuidean with rand and to get the moment of pulling a bunch of different knives out of unlikely places and my mom said "ha! i can see mat doing that. more than i can see moiraine doing it." i agree!! [cries in Mat Being Yoinked Out Of The Waste And His Silly Character Quirk Moment Given To Another]

[shot of rand's broad shoulders from behind as he's walking] "he looks like he's gotten a lot more muscles since the first season"

as rand is stepping into the columns: "i bet he's wishing he could just go home to his farm"

i gave a rundown of what to expect for the visions, with rand seeing real events from the past through the eyes of his biological ancestors starting with the most recent and getting further back and with moiraine seeing many possible but not definite paths for the future, because i feared she might get confused otherwise and i thought she would appreciate the experience more if i clarified this firmly ahead of time

and she did appreciate it! not much commentary (aside from "he should get an award for playing all these different characters" and "it's like they were on drugs when they wrote this episode" djkjfgkh but i think this was Complimentary rather than Derogatory), she was mostly just quiet and taking it all in

although she was very indignant about moiraine "stealing something from the tree" haha she was like "that can't be allowed!" and i said "moiraine doesn't really care about what's allowed"

and of course she was horrified by the future vision of lan dying and hastened to seek assurance that these are not definite futures

rand: [collapses in exhaustion after all the visions are done] dad: i agree

aviendha: as you wish, wetlander mom: [chuckles] like the princess bride me: [silently giggling in avirand]

i don't know if this episode struck either of them as particularly noteworthy or standout the way so many WOT fans feel about rhuidean, but if they make any additional comments on it later, i will be sure to note them!

[sweetfuchsia]

situationships & scandals ft. itoshi rin , namey name

locker room gossip . ✦ . series masterlist

summary

rin is never a part of online drama and scandals. he won’t let some girl change that.. or will he?

notes:

mostly written parts aside from the text screenshot <3 btw, i’m kinda using tifa as like.. a fill-in for reader pics because i love her so much !! BTW BTW!!! this doesn’t rlly follow most of the bllk plot so like.. it’s just… blue lock facility and games and stuff but none of that is really roo important .. meow

click on the screenshot and the full img will pop up !

to say that rin was confused is an understatement. he woke up just like any other day, yawning softly to himself as he sat up.

but when he opened his phone, he was met with the sight of a notification— not like that’s uncommon, but what is uncommon is some girl sending an angry message.

he sighs, figuring that you’re probably just attention-seeking. rin doesn’t even bother looking at your profile— to him, you’re not important. he has other things to do.

but when he hears his name pop up in the changing rooms before training paired with something that sounded so familiar, he really couldn’t help but listen in.

“yeah, name’s like, really hot.”

“yeah.. but i heard she’s into rin or something. people say she’s copying his workouts or whatever.”

“come on, that’s the dumbest thing i’ve heard all day!”

“i dunno.. what if she’s trying to flirt with him?”

“too bad. i think i’ll send her a message..”

what the fuck are these idiots on, rin thinks to himself. he shakes his head, closing his locker with a ‘slam’! before turning to his teammates.

sometimes, he wonders why he stays in blue lock if he just has to deal with a bunch of braindead monkeys every day.

“i can hear you.” he states, narrowing his eyes at the group. they weren’t even trying to hide the fact they’re talking about him— and… name, was it?

“you haven’t said anything about it, though.” isagi notes, tilting his head just slightly. he can’t lie, he’s pretty curious about this. “have you even heard of what’s happening online? dude, you’re literally at the centre of it right now.”

centre.. of.. what?

“what do you mean?” rin blinks, eyes widening a fraction. “..i’m never a part of drama. they must have the wrong person he adds with a scoff, turning his head away from the group.

“no, no. apparently some girl’s copying your workout routine!” bachira says, popping up like some sort of mole from a carnival game. he’s just like that sometimes. “apparently she’s into youuuu . . !” he teases, leaning closer and raising an eyebrow.

“oh.” rin mumbles, plucking his phone out from his pocket. he pulls out the messages, narrowing his eyes at the name on the top of the screen— and sure enough, it’s you.

name.

“her?” rin mutters, flipping his phone to show bachira who just nods excitedly, a grin stretching across his features as he snatches the phone from rin.

“look! they’re flirrttinnngg,” bachira exclaims, waving the phone around like a madman. i mean, it’s not his phone so why should he care? “he totally like her!”

“lemme see, bro—“ isagi tries, a hand reaching out in attempt to take the phone from the fidgety bachira. “give it!”

“my phone’s not a damn toy.” rin huffs, grabbing his phone and tugging it away. “we weren’t flirting and i doubt that she’s into me.” he states firmly, turning his phone back off and stuffing it into his pocket.

otoya grins, “so i can message her—“

“no.”

extra : next chapters will probably be longer <3

[toxic-libra]

moth to a flame pt.2 - csb (m)

pairing: soobin x fem!reader word count: 6.6k genre: friends with benefits-ish (he helps her with dating tips and stuff), angst if u squint really hard, smut, fluffy, inspired a bit by moth to a flame - the weeknd warnings: 3rd person pov (as always), mentions of reader in love with another guy (haechan <3), slight fwb dynamic, mature content (big dick!bin ofc, oral sex, brief fingering, mirror sex hihihi, protected sex bc yeah important) tagging: @once27, @pageriviera, @gyuzlover, @kookley77-blog, @sendhelpiloveyeonjun, @bunnyspeach, @pagesoobinie, @acidsoju, @cheekycountesschoi, @pinkbabi

[a/n]: part one here, for those who want to read.

Feeling his stomach swirl as he entered Y/N’s apartment wasn’t common, but so wasn’t having a heart-to-heart with Beomgyu minutes before going to a party… And both happened.

Soobin cursed his gullible mind and male weakness. All those weird thoughts and flutterings had nothing to do with real emotions, they were just his head clouded after crossing the line between friends and something else, plus a good blowjob – Beomgyu’s words, minus the ‘good blowjob’, for Soobin preferred to be ran over and buried alive than telling his best friend about his sex life.

Yeonjun was laying on the couch, reading something on his phone. “Y/N’s in her room.”

“Alright.”

The muffled music made him hesitate in knocking. She was listening to some old EDM tracks, something she did whenever getting ready to go out. After the third knock, the noise stopped and he heard the low ‘Come in’.

Opening the door, he put his head inside. “How long until you’re ready?”

Turning around, she smiled. “Oh, hi Bin! And, uh… Five minutes at max.” She pointed to her jewellery box. “Just deciding on accessories. Why?”

“We’re all waiting for you.”

“Mimi too?”

“Yeah.”

“Good Heaven’s, I’m late then.” She chuckled. “Just give me a second.”

He stared at her dressing table, noticing an open bottle of soju. “Drinking already?”

“I’m quite nervous, so...”

“Just try to relax, everything’s gonna be fine.”

If by ‘going to be fine’ Soobin meant ‘dancing instead of trying to flirt with Donghyuck’, then yes, everything was fine. Because from the moment she arrived, until then, Y/N had barely talked to Hyuck, resorting to her own cowardness and seeking refuge at the safety of the dance floor.

It was too soon.

She wasn’t ready for it yet.

She’d probably never be ready for it.

Walking towards the bar, she asked for a shot of vodka. It was her third, and maybe by the fifth she’d be a bit more confident. However, while waiting, a pair of pretty hands rested on the counter by her side, the slender fingers and pale skin catching her attention.

“Choi Soobin.” She forced a grin.

“What are you doing back there? I thought we were supposed to put our plan into action!”

“I kinda… Chickened-out last minute.”

“I already told Hyuck a thousand times how pretty you look today, and how plump your ass looks in this dress, but if you’re not around, there’s no way he can see it!” Soobin rolled his eyes.

Y/N’s breath caught, cheeks warming. “You said that?”

“Of course I did! Wasn’t this the main…”

“You think I look pretty today?” She cut him off, wanting to sound cheeky, teasing even, but it came out shaky, laced by that unwanted shyness and self-doubt.

He frowned. “Of course I do.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Isn’t it for the plot, then?”

Soobin moved before his mind calculated the pros and cons of doing such. Hand on her chin, he tipped her face up, thumb trailing her lower lip. “Not everything I do is aiming at our plan, Y/N. You look pretty every day. You are pretty.” He stated as if telling her the sky was blue.

They stared at each other, atmosphere changing and charging with confused, risky thoughts. The way his palm smoothly flattened on her cheek, his finger still on her lip, eyes tender but darkened, and the absolute warmth that came with Choi Soobin himself… Y/N wanted to dive in so bad.

He was her safety-pin.

But before she could act on any emotion, someone tapped her arm, breaking their connection.

“Your shot, miss.” The bartender didn’t look guilty for interrupting.

“Oh, thank you.” Y/N cleared her throat, putting some distance between her and Soobin. Taking a deep breathe, she downed it and turned to him again, holding his hand and intertwining their fingers. “Ok, I’m good now. Let’s go. I’ll try to talk to him a bit.”

Soobin hummed, swallowing an annoyed sigh at the impulse to tug her closer.

First, they stopped by the dance floor so Y/N could tell her friends she’d rest for a while. Walking there wasn’t easy, for the crowd kept blocking their path. Twice, Soobin got elbowed for trying to protect Y/N against the dancers, who moved carelessly to the rhythm – each time, the feeling of her body pressed against his was enough to make the pain of being hit worth it.

Their table was pretty close to the side they got out, but Y/N felt the pang of insecurity again and dragged Soobin to the bathroom area, saying she needed a minute.

Knowing better than pressuring her, he stood at the hall, calmly waiting.

Once alone, she took a deep breath and went for the sink, where the mirror was.

“Get a grip of yourself.” Y/N murmured to her reflection. “Focus on your goal. You got this. Go there, bat your lashes, crack some jokes, smile prettily and go home.”

With Soobin.

She scowled, telling her mind to shut the fuck up.

However, it made sense. If she left with Soobin, they could sleep together and she’d be ready to finally pursue Donghyuck. It was exactly the reason she sought his help, wasn’t it?!

All her resolve crumbled when the first thing she saw after opening the door was a girl all over Soobin. As if on cue, his eyes found hers and he frowned in annoyance, silently pleading to be rescued. Y/N’s mouth twitched in some unexpected anger and possessiveness, jealousy slowly boiling up her blood. The nerve of some girls!

“I’m back, baby.” She smiled wickedly. “Did I take too long?”

“Not at all, love. Let’s go?” Barely looking at the girl, Soobin offered a bowl. And not missing a beat, he took Y/N’s hand.

“She looked like she was bothering you.” Although she didn’t need to explain, she did it anyway.

“She was.” He nodded, fingers intertwining hers. “Are you ready?”

“You want the honest answer or the expected one?”

“Hyuck’s a good lad, you two already talk, so no need to fret.”

“We talk, yeah, but we don’t flirt… I don’t know how to flirt!”

“He’s gonna do all the work, trust me. You stay there just being pretty, looking at him with your starry eyes and perfect mouth and he’ll be sold.”

Soobin thought she was pretty!

Though her eyes starry and mouth perfect!

God, why was her heart racing?! Why did she feel so proud of herself?!

Taking a deep breath, Y/N tried to push those sensations away. “Ok. Let’s do this.”

“You make it sound like a penitence.”

“Being insecure sucks.”

“Just try to relax, I’ll be by your side.” He squeezed her hand tenderly.

“Give me a second, then. Just a second.” She stalled, still quite far from their table.

“You’re overthinking again.” Soobin murmured. “You don’t have to jump his bones, love, but just... Try to interact a bit more, touch his arm while you talk, brightly smile at him and stuff.”

“I can’t.”

“Why’s that? You do it with me, with Yeonjun…”

“It’s different.”

“Because Yeonjun is your kindred spirit and I’m a mere best friend?” He jested, though his face was slightly serious. She rolled her eyes, recognising the banter.

“No!” Y/N groaned. “I mean, in Yeonjunnie’s case, yes. But in yours… It’s different too. A good different.” She quickly added.

“Such as…?”

The same words she uttered to Yeonjun not a day ago floated on her mind. Saying them to Soobin was a risky move – he shouldn’t be her focus here. However, Y/N hated when he acted like Yeonjun was more important to her.

“With you, things are easy. I don’t feel anxious, nor insecure. On the contrary.” She stared at the floor, quite embarrassed of herself. “I feel… Seen. Cared for. Special. It makes sense.”

Soobin blinked, surprised by her words. He never expected that whatever they were doing would affect her this way – she seemed so sure it would help her with Donghyuck and not change anything between them. He knew he’d prefer an easy, calm love over any turbulent feeling, but…

Oh, fuck.

He shut the thought before it fully took form.

“Well, love…” He cleared his throat. “It’s easy because you don’t have a crush on me.” It wasn’t a 100% true, for there were people that fell in love quietly (his parents, for example), but it didn’t apply to their reality. “So, naturally, since you do like Hyuck, you feel more pressured.”

Their eyes met, and her gaze didn’t hold the same assurance it did when she first asked him for help. No, it held a foreign emotion he had yet to see on her – it looked like a mix of confusion and agony… Like she was trying to decipher what she was really feeling.

Like she was second-guessing her crush on Donghyuck.

“How can I help you get more confident to face him now?”

Y/N knew it wasn’t ideal, but he’d proved her once that it didn’t mind how inexperienced she was. She just needed… Reassurance.

“Would you give me a kiss?”

He hesitated. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s cringe, but whenever we kiss, I get that adrenaline rush as if I’m actually a femme fatale or something like that… I don’t know. It stuck in my head ever since you refused my blowjob…”

Thankfully, before she could utter more nonsense, Soobin covered her mouth with his.

The mention of the night he fingered her, but the recent memories of the perfect blowjob, and whatever weird emotions brewed between them were enough to get him into action.

His tongue found hers immediately, a satisfied sigh leaving her lips as her fingers caressed from his long arms to his shoulders and neck, wrapping around his nape. He crowded over her, too tall that even being on her tiptoes wasn’t enough to ease the distance, so he needed to bend a bit more. He circled her waist, pressing her body against his and relishing at her warmth.

They kissed until her mushy brain gave in, deciding she wasn’t ready for Hyuck yet. But she was ready for Soobin. She had been since that night in his kitchen.

“Take me home.” Y/N murmured against his swollen mouth.

Putting some distance, he frowned, unsure if he heard right. “What?”

“Take me home.”

“Are you sure? What about…”

“Home, Bin. Now.” She cut him off, her clipped tone indicating only one thing.

He couldn’t refuse her. Not when the confusion on her pretty eyes had dissolved into lust.

They preferred to leave quietly, mostly because both were trying to ignore what that ‘impulsive’ move actually meant. The silence wasn’t heavy, but it did bother them a bit.

Instead of going to her apartment, Y/N went to his.

Through the darkness, they walked to his room and Soobin thanked God the city lights peeking through the window were enough for them at the moment. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise (not exactly a surprise, but anyway).

She turned to him, vexed, confused and desperate.

“Choi Soobin, I really, really want to sleep with you tonight.”

Although he felt the blow of her confession on his whole body, the only thing he did was suck a breath, letting each word perforate his heart like sharp claws.

“Are you sure, love?”

“Yes.”

And if he was keen to melodramatics, he would’ve fallen to his knees at her consent.

He closed the distance, mouth on hers before she got to say anything else. Before she could even think of regretting what she said. It was manipulative and wrong, but Soobin wanted her too much to give her enough space to think thoroughly about their situation.

Her head fell back mid-kiss, body limp and pliant to his ministrations. Lips closing on the skin of her neck, he prayed the marks would last for weeks. And at the thought of seeing them, he was reminded of the new decoration of his room… The whole reason why he kept themselves in the dark until now, standing at the door like two fools.

Soobin’s hands trembled a bit as he took her dress off. Her skin was ablaze, although goosebumps rose everywhere his fingers touched. He kissed her shoulder, cupping her boobs and pinching a nipple – the moan she let out was pornography, reaching his dick and making it twitch. “Lay down and close your eyes, love.” He ordered, reaching for the lights. When she thumped on the soft mattress, he took a deep breath, expectant. “Now open.”

Y/N was met with her reflection on the ceiling. “A mirror?”

“Got it installed yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Because I liked it?”

“That’s… Very kinky of you, Choi Soobin.”

The dimples showed up, warming her heart at the sight of his boyish smile. “You’re the first one to see it. I didn’t think much when I bought it, but you’re here and it makes sense now… You were right. Everything makes sense with you.” His knee dipped the bed. “Wanna try it?”

Thank God she was laying down, or else her wobbly legs would give in.

Everything makes sense with you.

“Of course I do.”

He gave her another one of his cute smiles, those that didn’t mirror any of his naughty intentions, and took off his shirt, throwing it on the floor. “Then keep looking up and see the magic happen.”

She giggled, for his words were a bit cheesy, but her smile died as soon as his mouth touched her collarbones. He left some tender bites while his hands kneading her boobs, then, as her fingers threaded between his dark locks, his lips circled a nipple, sucking and licking the hard bud. Y/N moaned, eyes begging to close, but too entranced by their reflection to do so. She could see his tall frame over her, the way her legs rested at each side of his hips, her own face filled with pleasure.

Soobin kept trailing her body with kisses, until he reached her navel. His teeth scraped near her panties’ waistband, his large hands fondling her chest before coming down to her thighs, grabbing them and keeping them open. Y/N held her breath, attention fixed on the mirror – his head was so close to where she wanted it, she could even feel the warmth of his breath. Then, he sucked her over the fabric, and her back arched, heart fluttering at the sensation… But it still wasn’t enough.

“Fuck, Bin.”

“Is everything ok, love?” His voice was tinted with mirth.

“It’ll be when you take my panties off.” She confessed, too hypnotised by him and blinded by her neediness to be bothered of expressing it.

“So impatient.” But his fingers rolled them down, tossing them somewhere on the floor. Before Soobin could dive in, he glanced above, seeing her now naked body splayed on his bed. “Isn’t it such a nice view?” He mused. “I wish I had eyes behind my head to witness everything.”

And then his mouth was on her, not wasting even a second.

His tongue rippled against her clit, soft, curious. His fingers dug into her thighs, pushing her legs as open as he could. Pleasure sparkled on her veins, the feeling of his lips on her pussy so good, so annoyingly good. She moaned, eyes glued to the mirror above, entranced by the erotic sight and caress. She could see his head moving, could feel his smart tongue bumping her needy bud, drawing figures and learning what she liked, what she tasted. Her hips found enough strength to move together with his ministrations, making one of his hands detach from her plump thighs and force her belly down, trying to keep her still.

Y/N’s eyes couldn’t stay open, no matter how wicked and delightful it was to see everything reflected. Her mind went blank at the buzzing of his mouth on her cunt, lapping and coaxing her orgasm. It was all too much – the weird night they had, being with him, the desperation she felt for him, the need to let him rearrange her insides if he wanted to.

A small cry escaped her lips, mixed with his name, body moving as the high crashed on her like waves at the coast. Soobin groaned in pure satisfaction when her thighs closed around his face, suffocating him a bit, but her release was too sweet of a death for him to mind. He kept licking her, drinking every drop, pussy drunk on her ectasis… Until she forced his head up, pulling at his hair with a painful but delicious tug.

“Fuck, sorry, I–”

“I’m good, love.” He purred in reassurance, knowing he couldn’t give her insecurity any space. “You good too?” He grinned sheepishly.

“Shut up.” She couldn’t help but chuckle, despite her racing heart.

“Is this the kind of treatment I get after making you cum?!” He tsked. “Maybe we should stop, then, if you’re going to be rude…”

“No!” Her eyes widened. “No, I’m sorry.”

His adorable dimples deepened. “Well, if you want to keep going…”

“Please! Please, I’ll be good!” Y/N shook her head like a little girl.

“You really want me to fuck you, huh?”

“Desperately.”

“Or else you’ll go berserk?”

“Exactly.”

“We can’t let that happen.” He moved a bit, lips touching her belly, then the valley between her breasts. “Think you can take my fingers now, love?”

“I can take anything you want me to.”

“Just two fingers, then, or if you’re feeling generous, three.”

Y/N softly hummed. “Anything you want, Bin.”

“Here, suck it for me.” He patted her mouth with his index and middle finger. “Get it wet.”

She obeyed, holding his wrist while her tongue coated his skin with glossy, warm spit.

His eyes never left hers, drowsy and hungry. And when he sunk his digits inside her, without as much as a warning, Soobin couldn’t help but get hypnotised by the way her breath hitched, head falling back on the mattress and legs trying to close around him again. She looked so pretty like that, all pliant to his ministrations, vulnerable and desperate for him.

He was rather uncomfortable in his trousers, but stretching her was his priority – it had to be good for her, she couldn’t get hurt or feel any pain that didn’t hint at pleasurable. He knew he’d feel amazing regardless, so there was no need to rush.

Their figures reflected on the mirror made Y/N’s skin tingle with need. She blinked, dazed by the overstimulation, her belly coiling at each steady move of his hand. Her mouth hung open, lewd moans and whines of his nickname leaving her ever so often.

“Feeling generous?” Soobin kissed her ear, then her neck.

“Magnanimous.” Her voice came out hoarse.

He grinned against her collarbones, inserting a third finger and feeling the immediate clench of her wet cunt. It took his breath away, too. “So fucking snug.” His dick twitched, impatient. “You want to cum again, love? Want on my hands now?”

And as much as she appreciated a second orgasm, she wanted to cum together. Finding his gaze, she shook her head. “Want it with you.”

“With me?” He echoed, biting another smile. “How magnanimous, indeed.”

“Please, I’m ready. I know I can take you!”

There was her clipped tone again, and Soobin knew he had her where he wanted. Brows furrowed in frustration, Y/N stared at him like a princess on the verge of a tantrum out of sheer pettiness. He slowed down until stalling completely, not holding back his smirk.

“You’re cute when you’re mad.”

Y/N supposed that being called ‘cute’ after begging for a guy’s dick wasn’t exactly the most flattering eulogy, however, her heart warmed at the compliment. She didn’t get to comment, though, for he left the bed, unbuttoning his jeans and dropping them on the floor, briefs coming along. Going for his nightstand, he took a condom off – although he knew Y/N offered him no danger (and vice-versa), it’d be better if they kept it wrapped for the time being.

She tried not to ogle him while he put the condom on, tried not to feel wetter at the expectation of having him inside her… And failed miserably.

When Soobin hovered her again, cradling her jaw and tilting her face up, stealing a slow kiss, any inch of doubt for the decisions she took that night left her like lightening.

It had to be Soobin.

It made sense, indeed.

And she wanted that more than she wanted a lot of things before.

He rolled around, bringing her body with his, putting her on top and ending the kiss with a bite on her neck. “You want to ride me? That way you can control how much you’re gonna take and I won’t hurt you.” He suggested, a hand pushing her hair off her shoulder so he could kiss there better. “And I get to enjoy the view a bit.” His chuckle was wicked.

“Hmm… We can try…” Her heart soared on her chest as he laid down against the headboard.

Well, they were doing that.

She was finally having sex again after ages.

Y/N spat on him over the condom and smeared it as she pumped his shaft. Frowning slightly, she wondered how he’d fit – yes, he was the famous cliché ‘big and thick’, not at all like the other two guys she had slept with. With wobbly legs and a pinch of insecurity, she circled his hips and aligned him on her hole. Soobin tried to keep his attention on the mirror, but as she sat on his dick, his focus diverted – he couldn’t help the deep groan that left his throat at her snugness and warmth. He was only past the tip when she stopped.

“Too big.” She gulped. “It hurts.” Her eyes weren’t teary, but they stung.

“Slow down, love. Don’t rush.” He gritted his teeth, remaining quiet despite the urge to thrust fully in. “Look up, it’s one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.” Maybe the visual stimulation would get her wetter and make it easier for him to slide in without the pain. She obeyed, her head falling a bit as she faced above. Before she could move again, one hand rested on her waist and the other on her boob, pinching a nipple. “How’s that?”

“Good.” Her voice came out breathy.

“Maybe if I…” His mouth landed on the beak, sucking it.

Y/N immediately moaned, sinking a bit further on him. “So good.”

He changed sides, and her fingers threaded on his hair, tugging at the locks. She was mesmerised by the sight, as he predicted. There was something rather intimate in seeing themselves on the mirror – his face buried on her bosom, her sitting on him, her pleasured expression…

“It’s taking everything in me…” Soobin swallowed a groan, hands now on her ass, groping the flesh with too much strength. “Not to thrust in fully.”

She let out an airy chuckle. It was painful for her, but he probably was having it way worse. So, gathering the remains of courage she still had, she forced her hips down, trying to get most of his length in. “Maybe if you weren’t so big…” Her voice came out strained, bottoming down. “God, this hurts. It’s like I’m a virgin all over again.”

Soobin moaned, dick twitching at the primitive idea of being her first. It was quite an outdated thought, but he was quite possessive and romantic himself, so he couldn’t control his own mind.

“Hi.” He murmured against her jaw, leaving small bites there, hoping they would distract them both – for completely different reasons.

“Hi.” Y/N smiled.

“You’re unbearably so tight, love.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no, don’t say that. It’s not a bad thing!”

“Just hang in there for a second, please? Just until the burn goes away.” She stole a peck, thumb caressing his cheek. “I promise it won’t take long.”

This time, instead of a peck, she kissed him. Their tongues met in a sensual dance, her torso pressed against his while his hands didn’t know whether to stay on her plump ass or go back to her waist. His digits left fire where they touched, and Y/N melted on the kiss. Instinctively, she rocked her hips just a bit… Soobin’s grip tightened on her.

“Love, don’t. If you’re not ready, don’t.” He warned.

“I think I am. Eventually, it’ll get better, right? So...”

They looked up briefly, grinning at the sight. Her moves were sloppy, slow, only testing how to work that out, how to ease the pain so it would become pleasurable. Then, Soobin kissed her neck again, leaving purple marks without caring about the aftermath. She found more stability, hips going up and down as he helped her, pushing her ass in sync.

“You’re driving me insane.” Soobin groaned, searching her mouth.

That made Y/N smirk. It was so weird how he made her feel this good. At his every reaction, she felt her confidence awakening, felt some sort of inner power brewing together with pleasure. The kiss was messy, teeth and tongues clashing unnaturally, while she tried to conceal her pace and the caress. She tugged at his hair, nails burning his scalp and making him see stars.

“Help me go fast.” Y/N begged. “H-How?”

“I’ll take charge now, ok? Feeling good?”

“Ok, yes. Please. Fast.” She panted against his lips.

Soobin let his weight on top of her, hands at each side of her face, the good ol’ missionary. The new position offered a perfect angle to hit her sweet spot, not to mention how intimate it was. Sure looking at their reflection was hot, however, witnessing her expression of pure bliss was hotter. And knowing it was him who made her feel that way was… Surreal. Picking up his pace, he tried to go as fast as he could, tried to make every wish of hers command.

She held onto his forearms, back arching with each thrust. It had been so long since she felt this good, and later on she’d regret wasting so much time with her ‘celibacy’ – but right now… Right now, she didn’t want to think of anything other than Choi Soobin.

She couldn’t.

Everywhere she looked, every breath she took, every one of her cells were filled with him. Pleasure boiled together with her blood, buzzing through her body, raw, conquering. Their gazes locked, her name leaving his mouth in that husky timber he had, his hair damp and sticking to his forehead, lips swollen from the millions kisses they shared…

It was too much.

“Bin,” She panted. “I’m coming.”

God, he almost collapsed at her words. Sneaking a hand between them, he found her clit, circling it and rubbing it just right. Y/N’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, legs trembling as her pussy clenched repeatedly when she reached her climax, moaning his name like a prayer.

Hypnotised, Soobin followed like a moth to a flame. If Y/N was the deathly light, he’d perish proudly, peacefully. Lost in her, he spilled inside the condom, thick, strong, intense. Her name on his lips like the only language he knew, her face the only memory he would dare to remember.

And in the afterglow, he secretly wished it could last forever.

Y/N didn’t know much about ‘morning after’s to act like a normal adult woman would. As soon as she woke up, with Soobin’s tall frame pressed against her back, she started scheming how she could flee to her apartment without raising too much suspicion. If Beomgyu was already awake and at home, she was doomed – however, if he was asleep, she still had a chance.

Untangling herself from Soobin’s embrace, Y/N cringed a bit at her sore muscles. He stirred in his slumber, a delicious groan escaping his throat as he turned to the wall’s side.

Oh, dear Lord.

Not even aiming to the bathroom first, she opened the door and poked her head out, looking to both sides and listening to the quietness of the flat. Walking on tip toes, she reached the hall, noticing neither Beomgyu’s nor Mimi’s shoes and coats were there.

Excellent.

She couldn’t go back home because they were there.

Locking herself on the bathroom wasn’t her smartest idea, but she needed to pee and wash up. When she looked at the mirror, her reflection told her everything she didn’t want to know. The glow on her face, Soobin’s marks on her neck, her dishevelled hair… What a fantastic, dangerous night she had. How was she supposed to get back on track?

Was it even possible?

Turning on the shower, she ordered herself to breath. People had one-night-stands, there was no need for her to fret. Actually, when she asked for Soobin’s help, she had that in mind… So why was she so… Antsy? Confused? Dazed?

And then, after the kitchen episode, they agreed to talk about whatever made them awkward. How could she talk about last night?! When ‘awkward’ was absolutely the last thing it was, but…

She needed some time alone.

She needed to think.

Turning off the shower without even getting inside, she decided dealing with Beomgyu was easier than dealing with whatever was going on with her right now. Gathering her dress and panties from the floor, Y/N made to the door, wrapping herself on her coat and putting on her shoes.

It wasn’t the dreadful ‘walk of shame’, however, it wasn’t a prideful one either.

She knew Soobin would be disappointed at her for running away first thing in the morning. Well, he’d have to let her off the hook for this one.

Typing the password, Y/N made way to her bathroom, safely locking herself up. Drawing a bath would be better than showering, and so she did, promising to deal with happened later on.

The cold, short replies on their chat made Soobin’s belly churn unpleasantly. Well, he only had himself to blame. Was it too soon to push her to another man’s arm? Maybe. But if he didn’t do it now, he’d want her all to himself… And she didn’t want him the same, as his empty room so kindly illustrated when he woke up alone near lunch that Sunday (not even a goodbye message left!).

In trying to play cupid, he scheduled another PC Bang meeting. And as they walked there, side to side, avoiding to touch each other, Soobin realised he lost her. The nonchalant girl by his side wasn’t his best friend anymore, and he didn’t know what to do with all the emotions that brewed inside him – from last night, from this night, from the tragic but obvious future…

The PC Bang was too crowded for their liking, so they ditched it for fried chicken and beer. Instead of taking her usual place between Yeonjun and Soobin, this time, Y/N waited for Soobin to sit and sat in front of him. Although the distance was inexpressive, she felt a bit… Safer.

It was already difficult to focus on Donghyuck when Soobin was nearby. And now that she had slept with him, it was ten times worse. Before she could get a grip of herself, her restless mind was flooded by flashes of last night; and when their eyes met, she felt her stomach tighten.

Was he thinking about it too?

Was he aware of her uneasiness towards him?

Was he trying his best not to touch her at any given chance?

Because she felt like fighting a lost battle.

“Yeonjunnie texted.” She looked up from her phone. “They’re almost here. I’ll wait outside!”

“It’s quite cold, stay inside.” Soobin reached for her hand, stalling her.

“He’s a bit sour that we left yesterday without warning, so I want to appease him.” She explained, hoping the goosebumps were from the chilly air. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“You spoil him too much.”

“I spoil everyone I care for, Bin.” She held his gaze for a heartbeat later, then forced a giggle and left – hoping they haven’t noticed how desperate she was to be alone.

Going there was a mistake.

Soobin’s attention remained on Y/N until she disappeared through the entrance door. With a resigned sigh, he took a sip of his beer and relaxed against the booth.

“You two could stop eye-fucking each other in public.” Hyuck chuckled next to him.

“What?”

“Y/N and you. I get it’s the beginning and everything’s quite out of control, but I’m feeling weirdly shy here. Like I’m intruding.”

“What about Y/N and I?” Soobin frowned, somehow knowing where that was going.

“Dating, duh. Everyone knows it already, you two aren’t exactly subtle.”

God, that was so wrong. That was so, so wrong and it would come to bite him in the ass later, but Soobin couldn’t help it anymore. “Everyone noticed, then.”

“I don’t know how you planned to keep it a secret when you two are going on dates non-stop, and I saw you making-out next to the bathrooms yesterday.”

“Oh, fuck. Sorry you got to see that.” His chuckle was forced, since he fought against despair for ruining Y/N’s plan and the unwanted triumph for people thinking she was his.

“Nah, it’s ok. I thought something was fishy when you started bringing her to our meetings often, and you just couldn’t stop talking about her… I just had to put two and two together.” Hyuck shrugged. “She’s a nice girl, bro. I’m glad you found someone good for you.”

“Thanks.”

He was so, so fucked.

Three days later

Y/N had given it enough thought. For the past three days, she witnessed Beomgyu arriving at her flat with brownies, cookies and another Nutella bread… Apparently Soobin was thinking, too. About what? She wasn’t so sure. As for her, she went through all the pros and cons of ending their agreement, of still pretending to want Donghyuck. She knew maybe that was all she would get from Soobin – maybe her mind did play tricks and he actually didn’t like her back. She knew she probably would end up with a broken heart, however, she couldn’t keep that going.

It made no sense anymore.

Not when her feelings for Soobin bloomed like ivy, getting her covered in them.

That’s why, like the day she suggested their agreement, mid-Anime episode, she muttered:

“I think we should stop.”

Soobin didn’t react at first. He was so enthralled by the story, fingers mindlessly playing against her thigh, drawing figures and reminding her why that conversation was necessary. “Mhmm. The episode is almost finished, we can do something else later.”

“No, Bin. We should stop.” She put some distance between them. “Us.”

“What?” He looked at her, confused. “Why?”

“I… I think we should stop seeing each other for a bit.”

Dread pulsed through Soobin, turning his body rigid. Her face dropped, and he read all the wrong emotions there. Shaking his head, he forced himself to stand up, rage and guilt finding their way to his mouth. Before he could articulate any proper thought, his impulsiveness got the best of him.

“You promised nothing would change between us!” He quipped. “You promised we’d still be friends after everything, Y/N. You swore!”

She felt her eyes burning, but as always, she didn’t cry. “I know what I said, but…”

How could Soobin come clean, anyway? She wanted to stop seeing him, probably because after letting him fuck her in the best way possible, she really noticed how strong her feelings for Hyuck were… Although Hyuck thought she was his girlfriend.

They were doomed from the beginning.

“Now I’ve lost you twice.” He turned around, ready to flee from that overwhelming bubble of unsaid feelings. “I knew things wouldn’t end up good, but I still did it… And now I’ve lost you again.” Not even a step was taken when he felt her fingers on his arm.

“Bin, wait.”

“I don’t have the energy to deal with this now.”

“But if we don’t talk, then how…”

“He thinks we’re dating, Y/N.”

“P-pardon?” She froze.

“Donghyuck thinks we’re dating, that’s why keeping this is pointless. He won’t be interested in his friend’s girl.” Soobin looked at her over his shoulder. “But we’re not dating, are we?” He knew exactly what was going through her mind, knew those turbulent eyes better than anyone else. “And I didn’t correct him.” The words came out heavy, poisoned. “Aren’t you asking me why?”

She gulped. “Why?”

“‘Cause yeah, he might be a good match for you, you might have something in common and he’s a nice dude… But will he help you out of your shell like I do? Will he be alright with Yeonjun’s place in your life like I am? Will he…” ‘Love you like I do?’. It was on the tip of his tongue, however, Soobin remained silent. It was too soon for that. “I’m sorry things ended up this way.”

The hand around his pulse tightened. “Aren’t you going to fight for me, then?”

“What?”

“So you tell me all this, but don’t say the only thing that matters?! And you expect me to do what?! How can I feel safe enough to confess my feelings for you when you’re about to leave with a lame ass ‘sorry, I can’t deal with this’, as if it wasn’t obvious I feel the same?!” She sounded angry, and Soobin turned around, finding her scowling at him. “God, Bin, it stopped being about Donghyuck the moment I had your fingers inside me! I get I was kinda slow to notice, but you could’ve guided me to the right path! You’ve been guiding me all along anyway!”

“You realise you just confessed to me, right?” He was half amused, half confused.

Y/N hesitated. “I do.”

“You don’t get to take it back.” He shook his head, coming for her.

“I don’t.” She agreed.

“Say it again, full words now.” Soobin held her chin up, eyes locking with hers.

“I’m not being the one to take the first step again, Bin. I did it twice, it’s your turn now!”

He had some cheesy lines on the tip of his tongue, but she was right. She deserved something genuine after being brave enough for both of them.

“I love that you trusted me to take you off your shell, to help you find confidence and bloom. I love that you were crazy enough to cross the line for both of us, because if you haven’t… I wouldn’t be here now.” Without warning, he stole a peck, relishing on her surprised moan. “I love that you showed me all your versions and let me fall in love with each of them. I love that it’s you and that I get to tell you that it’s you, Y/N. I love you. For real.” She blinked, and Soobin’s eyes winded. “W-Wait a minute! Is this… A teardrop?”

Y/N chuckled, feeling the wet drop on her cheek. “Well, you can’t get all poetic and expect me to be unphased by it! Not after trying to give me up like the hero of a sappy book would!”

“I didn’t know, love.” He shook his head, wiping another tear. “I didn’t know you felt the same. You’re so good at channelling everything, I misread it.”

“I can’t hide much when it’s about you. You make sense, and you make me special.”

“You are special, love. To me.”

“You’re special to me too, Bin. Thanks for deciding on helping me despite the risks.”

“To have you in the end, I’d do it all over again.”

“I love you, Bin. Sorry it took so long.”

“It didn’t take long, we both were just… A bit blind.”

She smiled, agreeing and kissing him again. Now, with honest feelings out in the open, she noticed that the anxiety from before had disappeared. It wasn’t that she was insecure and shy, she was just focusing on the wrong gamer guy.

thank you all for reading <33

as always, english is not my first language, so any mistakes please feel free to tell me!

[alena-draws]

Aha! I have now read the last (??? probably?) chapter of Mha. Thoughts to this chapter and the whole ending itself, and obivously spoilers under the cut!

Ok so first, I don't think it's a bad chapter per se? There are some pretty cool pages in there, and I love seeing the grown up characters! Whatevery happened to Monoma and Denki, they are looking GOOD. I love the little scene between Tsuyu and Ochako, just because we get to see that they are besties, hanging out and telling each other about their lives!

Also Kacchan got a racing car (or something fancy at least)? I didn't really expect him to go for such appearance-things, but maybe just because I'm not a fan of cars myself. And hey, despite the threat Kiri gets to eat in his car, look how far he has come *sniff*

Now coming to the obvious, the Ochako/Deku part. I love Ochako as a character, and I think Ochako/Deku is still really cute. It's a sweet pairing, it has just never been my main interest because I always found the dynamic between Izuku and Katsuku so much more compelling. ^^ I would have preferred not to conform any ships though- I thought the last chapter was ok as an ending, with the way you can now make up your own ideas about how and where everyone will end up. As it seems, Hori did have other plans for Izuku and wanted to close that ambiguous, open Izuku/Ochako part. It's his character, and he can do that.

But there are some things that do leave me unsatisfied, from the ending in general and this chapter.

First- what do you mean Izuku won't join Katsuki's hero agency??? Like----what? And not just from a shipping perspective, but from his whole character arc? I'm not sure if I read too much into it, but over the course of the whole manga, Izuku's main rival has been his friend, and they have been shown again and again as acting as this hero duo - winning to save and saving to win. That was a whole theme!! Where has that gone? Which leads me to my second and biggest unsatifaction with the ending: Where is that important talk between Katsuku and Izuku? Look, I don't need any romantic special talk. What I want though is some kind of closure of their whole dynamic. It was a big fucking plot point that Iuku would go beserk if something happened to Katsuki, a way he didn't react to for anything else. And that happpened not only once or twice but at least three times- the kidnap, the stabbing 1, and the death scene. For heaven's sake, Izuku saw his best friend laying on the ground. That stuff does something to you!! And the only thing we get is a (sweet, but still) hospital scene. And, during all these interactions (at least later, not the fight on ground beta): the hospital at the end and the apology of Katsuki, Izuku only ever reacts but doesn't really say much aside from that? He doesn't start and look for any conversation, and he doesn't really tell us what he feels in these moments. I as the reader would at least expect some kind of talk between them how that last battle made them feel. But no- so now, it leaves me with the feeling that Izuku is either A) not actually that close to Katsuki which however contradicts everything we've seen until now, or B) emotionally really really repressed and oh my god get that boy some therapy and help him figure out his stuff. Or, C) they did that talk behind the scenes which would really suck. Izuku is still the main character. You want the reader to identify with him and confront complex emotions that result from all those hardships together with him- how are we supposed to do that if HE NEVER FUCKING TALKS ABOUT HIS FEELS. I mean, this is kinda what Kacchan gets at in the car. Another interesting scene!

Is this a confession or a push for Izuku to notice potential feelings from Kacchan? Well, we don't know. That's left open and I guess we're really free to interpret. It would be a Kacchan thing to say I guess, and we also have that offer to become hero partners (which you didn't accept Izuku because you have brain damage). Also possible is that the intention of this is that we get that Izuku/Ochako scene. They might be fucking with us and it could be both, because you still can't have someone openly declaring any gay feelings in a shounen manga. I don't want to speculate too much, it's of no use anyway *shrugs shoulders.

So yeah...what I'm miffed about is not really the confirmation about a the Izuku/Ochako pairing. What really bugs me is that this special relationship that exists between Izuku and Katsuki, where they both kind of motivate each other to be the best they can be, in such an intense way they we don't see them have with any other character- that THIS never gets addressed and that we're left hanging in the air, not really knowing what the relationship between these two is now- THAT pisses me off. (again: if you best friend died and came back, you would maybe want to address that in some way?) It feels like the writer left one big theme of the series infinished, and now with this chapter, it feels kinda dismissed to the side. I love Izuku but that passiveness and the lack of insight to his feelings during those last volumes (for the reader and by himself too) does make him feel...a bit hollow at the end to me. Last short topic: I'm also just a tiny bit disappointed that the only conclusion of the quirk theme was that they now start early to teach kids and help communication. Good thing of course, but with the way we heard "Quirks are getting stronger by each generation" and the quirk evolution, I thought there was something bigger coming, so that's been a bit of a let down. Nothing big, just an "oh, that's all?" moment)

But yeah...I think that kinda sums up how I feel about this now. Anyway, no hate for the IzuOcha part, they're pretty cute together!

[selineram3421]

Hello! feel free to skip this request if it makes you uncomfortable, but I just came up with what I think is a really funny concept. What if it is an Alastor x Reader (romantic or platonic) where the reader is watching a show like Euphoria, which has a lot of sex scenes and stuff. The reader isn't watching it for them, they just happen to be an important part of the show. Alastor walks in on the reader watching it and is just like 0-0.... and the reader is just like "I swear I can explain!!!"

Hmm... What if instead of a show, they were reading a book?

Deceiving Cover

Small Oneshot

Alastor X/& Reader

Warnings ⚠

⚠ implied/suggestive-book, italics = thoughts, red " " is reading, flustered deer man ⚠

(Romantic or Platonic)

You were the book worm of the hotel.

Always with a different book every few weeks. So often that the Princess offered you to take care of the library in the hotel.

At first you declined, but then accepted it after realizing that no one really goes into the library. It would be quiet, peaceful, and you could take naps in there if needed.

Or that is what you thought at least.

.

It was a cold, foggy night.

The fog was so thick outside that a demon could barely see their hand in front of their face.

Alastor took a quick stroll around the hotel, the other residents having been asleep in their rooms hours ago. The Radio Demon hummed as he made sure all was well.

Only making a stop once he noticed a light coming from the library.

What demon could be awake at this hour?

He used his shadows to travel into the page scented room, quietly emerging behind the demon sitting on the couch, covered in a soft blanket and holding a book.

Still in the shadows, he went around to see the late night reader and cover of the book.

It was then he realized it was his companion, the soft spoken demon who always held a book wherever they went. Glancing down, he saw that the book in their hands had a picture of poisonous plants.

Poisons and Care.. Well, this sounds interesting~ He thought with a grin and moved to look over their shoulder.

They had flipped the page that they finished reading and leaned closer into the book, making him have to lean in as well.

He read..

"..on the desk. Hand gliding up her thigh, fingers edging their way under the seducing red garters on her plush skin. His other hand sliding up her stomach, gently caressing the side of her ribs as it got closer to her brea- "

The deer demon ripped himself away, feeling a blush come up on his cheeks. Hiding his face with his hand as he turned his back on the literature.

He didn't notice that he made such a racket, or that he got out of the shadows.

"Alastor?"

Glancing back, he can see them sitting up confused.

"What are you doing up so late?", they asked.

Moving his hand, he cleared his throat and fixed his suit.

"Forgive me.. I was just making sure that everything in the hotel was spick and span.", the deer said, still not making eye contact. "I'll let you go back to your...late night reading."

Noticing his odd demeanor, they glanced back and forth between him and the book, putting two and two together.

"Oh, oh my-!", they covered their mouth quickly before resting their hand back on the couch. "Um.. I don't know how much you read but this isn't just some smut filled thing.", they looked away. "This is..somewhat important to the plot and character development. Though it could just imply what happened.", they laughed nervously.

"I-", he cleared his throat again and straightened up. "I'll take your word for it."

His ears were pinned back as he made with way out of the room.

"Don't stay up too late dear.", Alastor said before bidding them a good night.

.

You waved as he left, staying still for a moment before sliding down from the couch and onto the floor with a groan, covering your face with the book.

I won't be able to look at him for at least two weeks..

Another noise of embarrassment left you.

*reading ahem a fic* I will not say which one that inspired this.

~Seline, the person.

Taglist@

@c4rved-pumpk1n @scary-noodlesblog @stolas-thebirb @naelys-the-aster @biromanticboba @lbcreations-blog @ducky-died-inside @kiraisastay @pooplyface1423 @line-viper @117s-girl @spiderlegsling @alastorsgoldie @repentant-repeller @kcsketches @lofasofabread @kotaleee @im-coolrat @superzombiewho @speckle-meow-meow @jammcookie @dilucragnvindr-my-beloved @trashbin-nie @koioli @fatherlesschild2 @mmik3yy @just-here-reading @nealeart @hudiexiaoying @crystal-multiplefandomlover @glowinggoldfish0 @tiredgamerhere @fluffy-koalala @valenfawkes @willowshadenox @aria-tempest @alastor-simp @nonetheartist @gallantys @i-3at-kidz @+?

ML II Alastor🎙

[boundbyeclipse]

Smut prompt #2 with Kirk IM BEGGING YIU IM ON MY HANDS AND KNEES

your touch, i crave

genre : smut

word count : 1479

tags : rob and james included in the plot, dom!kirk, loud!reader, a bit of fingering, no protection, semi-public sex (if that counts?)

from the prompt list : 2. “quiet, baby, the others will hear”

You were never quiet when it came to making love with Kirk. It didn’t matter if he went slow or fast, he always made you feel good and hit the right spot nevertheless. He loved the way you sounded when those sinful moans slipped past your lips, it was his favorite sound in the world. Of course, along with the sound of his greeny. He loved his guitar. But the way his name came out of your mouth in a sinful melody had him weak in the knees. Kirk absolutely loved hearing that.

You found yourself drifting away with these thoughts, completely forgetting about the fact that James and Rob were right in front of you, talking while they wrote lyrics down in the notebook. They quickly noticed you were spaced out, waving hands in the air to bring you back to reality.

“Hello?? Earth calling over here” Rob leaned in closer, scanning your perfectly still face. James let out a small laugh, noticing how big your eyes were.

“Oh, she’s out” he commented, but right then, you blinked and returned.

“Shit” you mumbled, shaking your head side to side, “sorry, I zoned out a bit”

“And what made you fall into another dimension?” James asked, closing his notebook and placing it aside on the table.

“Uhhh,” you froze for a moment, “nothing too important”

Both males hummed in response, exchanging looks and shrugging at each other. You most definitely were not going to tell them you were thinking about having sex with Kirk. Knowing you won’t be home alone tonight since you’re having a friendly gathering, made you think about how to possibly shoo the lust away. Because obviously, you craved Kirk after a week of no physical contact because they were doing interviews. And why did this happen right when you had no privacy? Why did you have to think about your husband fucking you into oblivion exactly when others were home?

“Hey, guys, I got this” Kirk came back from the kitchen, bringing some cola over.

“Exactly what I needed to cool off” Rob said, taking the can from Kirk’s hands.

“Think that’ll help with writing?” Kirk asked, looking at James. He nodded in response, opening up the drink. You glanced over at the curlyhead, giving him a soft smile.

“I have an idea, actually” you said.

Kirk sat next to you, his hand resting on your thigh.

“Yeah?”

“How about we both watch a movie tonight? A horror movie. I haven’t watched Friday the 13th for ages”

Kirk stopped to think for a moment, giving a nod of approval.

“Sure thing. What about the boys?”

You nudged him on the shoulder, speaking through your teeth quietly.

“It’s supposed to be a date”

Rob and James laughed in sync, almost as if they were twins. You could only roll your eyes at them, hating the fact that they were probably thinking some silly stuff. Come on, it’s a date night. You need some time as a couple.

A few hours later after dinner, you and Kirk said your goodnights to the guys and headed to your room. Getting under cozy blankets, you cuddled up to your man, listening to his heartbeat as your head laid atop his chest.

His hand innocently rubbed your leg as you had it thrown over his body, reminding you about the same things that you thought of earlier. The need was only growing stronger and you weren’t sure what to do about it. If by any chance he wanted it too, there was no way you could hold back your moans.

But as if he could read your mind, Kirk slid his hand up to squeeze your ass, causing you to bite your lower lip. You needed him so damn much it was killing you inside.

“Babe?” he called.

“Mhm?” you looked up at him, staring at his lips for a moment before meeting his brown eyes again.

“I cannot concentrate on the movie. I’ve missed you way too damn much”

You cleared your throat.

“But… But the boys are home. I have missed you too, though. Been thinking about all kinds of crap while you were gone”

He snickered, slipping his hand under your loose shirt, his fingertips brushing against your bare skin ever so gently. Goosebumps covered your body in response to his touch, and heat began to rise in between your thighs.

“Oh yeah? And what did you think about?”

“You…” you whispered, “just you and how much I miss your touch, your presence, your voice, the way you kiss and fuck me”

He smirked at your words, hand coming back to your thigh, then travelling down to tease your aching clothed core.

You took a shaky breath, biting your lip and bucking your hips up at the need of more friction. You were so wet already that he could feel it through your pants.

“Want me to kiss you and fuck you?”

“Y-yes, please” you begged with desperation, herring impatient within seconds.

“But you’re going to have to be really quiet, okay?”

You nodded and he leaned in to kiss you, his fingers pulling on the waistband as he found his way underneath the fabric, finding your swollen folds that he missed touching so badly.

“My fucking god, you’re soaked” he whispered as he laid you down on your back, now sitting in between your legs as he pulled your pants down together with your underwear and threw them away, quick to continue rubbing your sweet spot again. He watched your needy face, eyebrows furrowed in pleasure and ache, lips parted as you took deep breaths. He inserted two fingers with no warning, causing you to gasp as he hit the right spot with the pads of his fingers.

“Fuck” you writhed under him uncontrollably, only wanting more of him.

Pumping his fingers in and out he watched your expression, loving how your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

But he couldn’t wait any longer. He unbuckled his belt, the metal rattling as he took his jeans off, his hard length springing free as Kirk fully undressed himself.

Kneeling at the end of the bed, he pulled you closer by your hips, a soft gasp escaping from you.

The long brown locks fell in his face as he aligned his length with your soaking core, strands sticking to the bottom lip as he had it parted from the top one. His piercing gaze burned through you as he looked into your eyes, a smirk curving on his mouth as he slipped himself inside, watching how your eyes rolled back from the feeling. You were filled up with his throbbing cock in a second, the tip brushing against your most sensitive spot. Kirk was so big. He stretched you out so good after you had almost forgotten how he felt like.

Things went slow and gentle at first, wet kisses were peppered all over your neck that he bit and sucked afterwards, leaving purple spots on the shivering skin. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to do that, but Kirk didn’t care at all. He missed you and wanted you like never before, so he wasn’t going to stop himself from doing something a little more than just kissing on the neck.

When he picked up the pace, your back arched and your head flew back into the pillows, legs shaking and eyes rolling back. His hips met yours in a quick pace, the sounds of skin slapping filling the room, but not too loud. In fact, you found it impossible to keep your voice down.

“Kirk, fuck” a loud moan rang through the bedroom, leaving you embarrassed and angry at the same time. You were embarrassed because the others may just have heard you, but angry because you couldn’t fully enjoy the intimate time with your man.

“Quiet, baby, the others will hear” he shushed you, placing a hand over your mouth as he continued to thrust his hips mercilessly. Your eyes were watering from the euphoric feeling, pupils dilated as you moaned into his palm.

“Shh, just a little bit more”

Kirk moved his hand away, replacing it with his lips that were now connected with yours. The heat built up in your lower abdomen and you exploded, cumming all over Kirk’s length, coating it with your juices. He followed right after, pulling out to pump his cock, the white liquid squirting on your stomach.

“Fuck, I think they might have heard me” you said, panting.

“Even if they did, it’s a bit embarrassing, but it’s not like they haven’t ever done the same”

You giggled, trying to catch your breath.

“I’ll go get something to clean you up, stay right here”

After leaving a kiss on your hot lips, Kirk threw his clothes back on, leaving the room to grab what he needed.

[tiredwishes]

Can you explain carcar to me as a ship? I'd really love to get it, but I don't 😔

oh anon, where do i BEGIN

carcar is a little phenomenon that happens when two magnets, against all odds, repel and attract. they push and pull, they're permanently entangled, always hovering in each other's orbit.

(disclaimer: i'll probably miss out a bunch of moments, but here are the ones that really pulled me into the carcar agenda)

but it starts with the fighting on track, which is terrible but also happens to make for really good tension and plot.

case in point, spa 2023

in order for enemies to become lovers they must unfortunately be enemies first. their radios about each other throughout the 2023 season are so incredibly entertaining

and the 2024 season seemed pretty tame for the first couple of races...... then miami happens and we're all proved wrong

carlos' interview about it

THEN we move on to monaco, where everything finally comes together

there's the umbrella moment, which is so incredibly funny because everyone else around them is in the sun but oscar's got the umbrella and yeah sure, it's kind of sheltering lando too but oscar holds it with his right hand and so it's really for him and carlos :)

then the race starts and it's kind of a disaster with them as 'it was at the first corner that Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz went side-by-side and banged wheels.'

but neither of them were taken out of the race and went on to finish 2-3. and the post-race interviews are hilarious because there's charles', who's just won his home race for the first time, and there's oscar and carlos, with their tension and overall hostility

oscar finishes his interview and it looks like he wants to hand the mic over to carlos but carlos already has one and the lack of words makes it all the more entertaining when oscar seemingly goes 'nope? whoop okay.'

and so we're left with this interaction, thinking they're back to their 2023 ways........

when the press conference picture drops. a.k.a the ultimate carcar moment

like what. what happened to hi?? what happened to hello??? we're just tossed this moment between the two of them charles is off commemorating his win and jumping into the ocean BUT the real important stuff is happening back in this damn room.

there's also that moment in one of the conferences when oscar and charles are talking about AdoptionGate (charles offering to adopt oscar on twitter, something i wouldn't believe if not for the fact that i witness it unfold with my own two eyes) and carlos says something that has charles going 'do you want me to adopt you as well? don't be jealous carlos'

and i'm choosing to take that as carlos being jealous because charles has oscar and he doesn't like that because he wants oscar, and so hostile takeovers was written :D

but i digress,

because then we get to the soulmates part of this thesis

when carlos is asked about his recent string of conflicts with with carlos, he said, and i quote, "oscar and i, we seem to have a magnet recently between each other, for some reason that i don't understand but we get on well and everything is ok, but we seem to always find each other on track'

which is crazy because it's literally what we've been saying since their string of collisions in 2023

there's simply no reason for them to keep finding each other on track. 'for some reason i don't understand,' carlos says, and sometimes fate doesn't have a reason, or maybe fate is the reason.

Every magnet has a north pole and a south pole. Placing two unlike poles together causes them to attract. When you try to place two like poles together, they will repel each other.

and so, as mentioned in the beginning: carcar is a little phenomenon that happens when two magnets, against all odds, repel and attract. they push and pull, they're permanently entangled, always hovering in each other's orbit.

and that's what makes them so compelling to me <3

[scaredofstyrofoam]

Thinking about watching transformers… where do I start? (Love your art btw)

HIIII!!! OMG I CAN HELPPPP!!!

As far as Transformers go, the best one to start with for newcomers is actually the newest animated movie, Transformers One (found on Amazon, I think). It's an origin story movie and will get newcomers used to the decades' worth of lore this franchise has, haha.

TV shows you might wanna watch are:

Transformers Prime: (better for teens. Good for lore. One of the most highly praised in fandom. I think it's on Netflix, but pro tip: MOST of these shows can be found for FREE on Tubi)

Transformers Animated: (This show is an interesting concept. It deviates from the regular plot, but I quite enjoy it. Blitzwing is the best part of this show, haha. For younger audiences, but I loved it still, I wish it wasnt cancelled.)

Transformers G1: (The OG 80s cartoon. It's silly. It's classic. It's the basis for everything. It's mostly nostalgia and base grounds for funny references in other stuff)

Transformers Cyberverse: (A good, on-Cybertron show. A lot of shows take place on Earth, and I don't prefer it considering their own planet is goated)

Transformers War For Cybertron: (Again, another cybertron based show. It's darker. Good for teens and lore.)

Transformers Earthspark: (Cute. For younger kids, but I still liked it. It actually takes place Post War, which is interesting. Newer show. It's on Earth. I recommend only watching the 1st season, tho. The company switched by season two, and it gets... not good😭)

Transformers Rescue Bots: (This is just a cute watch. It's for younger kids. But it has a special place in my heart. Same universe as Transformers Prime strangely enough, haha)

Live action Movies you can watch are:

Bumblebee: (Oh, this one is so cute. You get an actually good mix of Cybertron stuff and Earth stuff. The human characters are actually likable, and the designs are faithful to their original G1 designs)

Rise Of The Beasts: (newest movie. Takes place after Bumblebee. This one is really good for lore. I love them using Mirage for a change. Again, humans are likeable.)

Bayverse: (...So, I guess you can watch this. They're controversial among the fsndom at best. It's important to note that these films did help bring important plot points to the fandom. However, they're not faithful to the source material. The robots mostly punch each other and are hardly characters outside of that. Female characters are like...😭 not good. You can tell Micheal Bay hated this franchise bahaha. Anyway, you can tell I don't like them. But there is some value in it for some people. If you just happen to like 3 straight hours of explosions and Optimus being super violent for some reason, and Starscream looking like a dorito, this is for you!)

Comics To Read Are:

OH MY GOD, PLEASE READ MTMTE/LOST LIGHT ITS SO GOOD-

And the rest of IDW ig😒 haha

Anyway! I hope this helps! I love this franchise and want people to love it too haha!

[kaeyaswifefromsnezhnaya]

I like how Nene combines her flaws with her good traits in a balance that suits a heroine well. I like when she's called a heroine because that's what she is. But about her traits

Kou seems to be kind-kind, self-sacrificing, but in a painful traumatic way, Nene, what about her, she has all of this too, but not so brightly, partially, in the most difficult situations, not out of the blue easily, she can stop and think about herself and others. She's willing to die to bring Aoi back, but that's an extreme measure, she doesn't base her self-esteem on self-sacrifice in general. On weekdays, you won't find her immersed in a control complex caused by the desire for attention, even though she's the "beloved heroine." She's just joking, really. I don't blame Kou, but I can only feel sorry for him, the boy is deeply affected by what's happening. Nene knows how to just live and enjoy life, even though she knows she's going to die soon. Isn't that incredible?

Hanako knows how to pretend to be cheerful and hide everything, he is a master at this, aaand Nene can do it too, so well that she fooled him(!), at the same time she is emotional and natural girl. She often laughs, screams, and cries, which can't help but make you sympathize with her as a natural character. And with all that, she often tries to pull herself together when it comes to important things. The way she pretended to be asleep to find out more information, how she set conditions for Tsukasa even though she was very afraid of him, how she kept herself together to negotiate with Hanako on the far shore. Oh, she understands the situation she's in, Nanaban-sama, she's pretending to be cheerful for both of you.

Tsukasa, let's say, is physically strong and knows how to find a way out of any situation, that's how he taught Mininene, but she tried as best she could before that, she jumped on Yako's dolls, she took Shijima hostage, how she tried to escape from the palanquin in Sumire's border, how she crawled through a narrow pipe as a fish, and these officials arts where she carries Amane in her arms. Because she's strong girl, she does gardening and can handle heavy gardening tools so she pumped up lol. She will not be left completely helpless in many situations.

Aoi, like, with external gloss, values the inner, but Nene too... she just went towards this for some time in the plot, that's all, she is quite able to value good personal qualities in people qualities, but the way she still enjoys the wrapper makes her more alive, and not an attempt at being sigmagirl, which is not like these others pickmies, but we are all sinners 🙏🏻 let girl have a hobby. It stinks of this "I'm not into guys, makeup, and all that stuff because I'm not like other girls" thing, but like, what about not liking it without elevating yourself above others. Because if a girl starts liking "all things girly" she automatically becomes a disgrace in the eyes of those people. But Nene doesn't have to change her hobbies for "cooler" ones, why can't she just be herself, hmm?

Teru, for example, has information, and Nene also tries to manipulate the pieces of the puzzle that she has. She often draws very good conclusions from the little she has. And yet, it must be said that everyone is constantly hiding things from her. Hanako hasn't told her about the death threat, how he's going to deal with it, who he is, what happened in his past, what's really behind the history of this school, although it ultimately doesn't help her, because Nene is already involved enough to know something that would help her. Aoi constantly pretends to her and hides everything, which is why her breakdown in the Shinigami boundary comes as a shock to Nene. But is it fair to Nene to wait for her to figure it out on her own and not say a word, forcing her to believe in a false image that she created for herself due to the lack of truth? And yet, Nene still believes Aoi, is drawn to her, and is willing to sacrifice herself for her. Kou is also very secretive in himself. Nene is caught in a whirlwind of dangerous and unfamiliar events, knowing the bare minimum, and still copes. She builds chains in her head every time she gets into a situation. She's not wrong that Hanako is not indifferent to her, and she still did not believe it until she was sure of it. She's not wrong that Tsukasa is angry that Amane killed him, or that she is the main character, because she is, or that Tsukasa kidnapped her with some purpose of using her work and spite Amane. She thinks.

It's just that none of these qualities are pumped up to the maximum, it seems that Nene is not good at any of this, but she does not need to, the point is that she has this soup of everything at once, also with shortcomings, which, by the way, are not so much hyperbolized and do not radically stop the plot. It's just that Nene can actually do a lot of things, but no one is interested in it, the main attention is drawn to her shortcomings. But this is Aidairo's writing... such double standards in fandom, to be honest.

Not letting Kou deal with his savior and control complex, tormenting Mitsuba with his presence on the near shore when he no longer wants it, to show Aoi as a beautiful decoration of the plot, to merge Akane into Aoi's simp, not to give Hanako retribution for his actions, all this does not cause even half of the indignation that the next gag about Nene, who got stuck on some handsome passerby, does. Yes, this is once again, and it is not very funny, perhaps, but what about the listed list? It's not just Nene who is exposed through some old and no longer relevant jokes. It's not just Nene who can't fully understand her behavior.

How all the reasons for Nene's hate are just a lead-in to "I don't like how unreasonable she is at her age" but she was never meant to be a young genius heroine. She is the most simple and ordinary, and at the same time beautiful in her own way, as each of us can be. This hatred for schoolgirl characters so often stems from some of their own complexes. I love Nene and always have. Even when Aoi was my favorite, I didn't want to scold Nene, because why 😭😭

[hellobitchlet]

Thoughts on paralogism:

- starting off the 'expecting everyone to know event lore' quest strong with having you show up in the middle of the Windblume Festival.

- god, Genshin is SO bad at subtly. You go straight to Katherine and she TELLS you that somethings off and the game FORCES you to watch npc's act Not Normal for a good 5 minutes to set the tone as Something Is Off.

- what is the point of the storytelling mode? Is it really just to add Windblune decorations to Mondstadt and make a court room? It's not like Mondstadt's aq didn't temporarily change the city's appearance already without it. And the Wibdblume festival is largely irrelevant to the plot anyways.

- "A trial? But, this is Mondstadt, not Fontaine..." Paimon what are you talking about?? Other nations have legal systems too, obviously???

- the first trial was just talking. There isn't even the stupid court minigame they had you do in Fontaine or a thinking minigame because Traveler wasn't participating in it! Thankfully, though, it wasn't that long by Genshin standards.

- ...Amber knows that there are two Albedo's. Eula knows that there are two Albedo's. Bennett knows that there are two Albedo's. Two of those people are with the Knights of Favonius. We SAW that Eula was a part of the investigation team working on this case before the trial even started! The didn't-play-the-event bandaid recap even acknowledges this! Even when making a trial 10 minutes long instead of an hour, and the investigation was seemingly finished BEFORE the trial (fuck you for being so bad at your job Neuvillette), the mystery is still appsurdly obtuse if you think about it for more than a second.

- (I know that Eula was taking part in the plan, but you were still supposed to think that an actual investigation was going on. The whole purpose of the investigation stuff was still pointless with how obvious it was that Albedo wouldn't be the killer)

- the writers will forget that they had Rosaria say something as suspicious as "Time is like the wind- it waits for no one" about Venti, with all the connections between time and wind. Rosaria is one of those 4 stars who just... randomly says stuff that makes her sound suspicious/important all the time and nothing comes of it. This isn't important to this quest- the sus line just reminded me of it.

- I'm not sure how I feel about Dahlia. He's an unnecessary addition to the cast, and the concept of his role being to 'communicate Barbados's will to the people' doesn't fit in with Mondstadt's story. What happened to Venti letting his people choose their own path unless something goes horribly wrong? He doesn't tell his people what to do- if he wants something done he does it himself. I want to be happy that new Mondstadt characters feel more important than most other new characters from older nations, but there is so much more you could've done than... basically ripping the concept of Venti's friendship with Rosaria and Barbara away from them.

- also I liked Dahlia's original design more. The only reason I was ever interested in him was because the original metal design on his chest looked similar to an Abyss enemy, and despite everything, I had the tiniest of hopes that it was actually intentional. I don't know why I ever thought that.

- there's finally an upstairs in the kof headquarters!! Rejoice!!

- HOW DID IT TAKE SO LONG FOR TRAVELER TO EVEN REMEMBER THAT THERE WAS A SECOND ALBEDO- "oh, I almost forgot!" HOW DO YOU FORGET THAT?????????????

- it also sucks that the return of Albedo's plotline- and arrival to permanent content- is Traveler casually walking into a situation that has been happening for years off screen. The fact that most of the quest is boring exposition of what Traveler missed is expected but disappointing.

- Albedo KILLED Subject 2 off screen. Are you fucking kidding me. I and many others have been interested in him for YEARS. He was one of the main focuses of Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, one of the best written quests Genshin has ever made, and one of the VERY FEW plotlines that actually had a chance to START going somewhere. And you. Killed. Him. Off. Screen. I am so pissed off. Fuck you.

- the sudden explain-a-thon of "actually, nothing went wrong and everything is under control and here's what's actually happening" did not help my investment in this stupid quest. This quest is 80% explaining what's going on 20% pseudo substance.

- still annoyed at the treatment of hilichurls. Nothing else to be said here that hasn't been said before.

- the Ragbros.... Genshin has been dumbing down and retconning their relationship conflict and personal conflicts since Diluc's skin event in Inazuma AT LEAST, to avoid actually writing their conflict. How do people still think that there's a conflict to be resolved.

- and of course, we had to throw in some hints of "Diluc doesn't mind the knights now, let's not acknowledge how he acted towards them in the beginning" as well. Give me ONE reason why he would've stopped using any excuse to insult them off screen, in the time between his story quest and paralogism.

- I feel like they mostly just put Kaeya in the marketing for 5.6 and made him Albedo's 'lawyer' bc ppl expect him to be a part of important Mondstadt stuff, and Kaebedo is Albedo and Kaeya's most popular ship. He didn't appear nearly as much as Albedo, Venti, and Jean outside of the trial.

- a team of just Amber and Mika was. Not fun. I had to use an attack boost food and I was fighting two normal hilichurls.

- it occurs to me that this is Mika's first appearance in permanent content. Mika himself is a plot point you were supposed to know about from events lol.

- the tripartite conference confuses me severely. When tf did Venti wake up in present times if he was around while Varka was still here? It's really hard to talk about the timeline of events in Genshin, but it feels like Venti wakes up whenever there's a disaster in Mondstadt that his people are struggling with, which made it seem like he woke up bc of Dvalin to me. But surely Varka didn't go on his expedition in the middle of that, right...? Surely the events of the manga (where he had already left) didn't take place at the same time as the situation with Dvalin that was never mentioned...?

- and again, this sudden angle of "Barbados doing stuff for Mondstadt as Babados in modern times" is very specifically NOT how Mondstadt works??? They're the nation that ISN'T led by their god in any capacity. That was a big thing.

- that is how you're choosing to introduce Varka? Over a bomb shaped phone? It was actually kind of funny that he casually mentions "I'm surrounded on both sides with a group on my tail looking to turn me into mince meat" and the writers chose to focus on him having a stash of alcohol. He sounds like a fun character. Please please please let me like him Genshin...

- I groaned out loud when Toy 'Durin' showed up. I'm sorry, but Simulanka sucked and I don't want some random new character who is not Durin but is named after him and was tacked onto Scara solely because he's popular. Just give me real Durin as himself, not a new character. I mean, the writers clearly didn't care about Toy Durin either, since they immedietaly shoved them into the stupid amalgamation of Durin and Subject 2 as well.

- they really made a Dodoco version of Alice to avoid showing us what she looked like. In this case, it's actually more funny than anything else, especially since no one (Paimon) is being all over-the-top surprised about it. I wonder if showing up in odd forms is just a normal Alice thing? If so, I like it.

- aside from the part where they're trying to drag the kof into it for no reason, I do like that they're doing something with Venti's relationship to the Hexenzirkel. It's nice to see Venti and Alice interacting on screen, and casually acting like friends. I was certainly more interested in that between Venti and Alice + Varka than I was in a new character.

- wait, this is the first time we're hearing Alice in a permanent quest too, isn't it? It's almost amazing how incomprehensible this quest is going to be to new players joining after all of this stuff. Like- they made a 'recap' of Shadows Amidst Snowstorms, but didn't realize that you ALSO need to know 2023 Windblume, Weinleslfest, and Simulanka AT LEAST to truly understand the quest. The writer in the Nod Krai video wasn't lying when he said that they couldn't keep track of what ppl do and don't know.

- Alice saying to Albedo "I find you facinating" is also so cute to me. That's how I think about my favorite characters too!

- I also like the concept of killing Durin again and reviving him as a human to prevent Mondstadt's destruction. I just hate Genshin killing off Subject 2 (possibly bc they could actually make proper ch vs ch conflict, now that I think about it), and then fusing Durin with him and the stupid fake Durin. Like, that's just making a new character. You made a new character out of the remains of older characters. If you liked any of the characters used in this process- fuck you! You don't get to have them! How the fuck did the writers even come up that and how did they think that was a good idea????????

- this weird not-Durin is like 50% boring Toy Durin, 40% unrelated matter, 10% the Durin this actually SHOULD be, 0% Subject 2.

- even with my anger at the treatment of Subject 2, I would have pulled for a human Durin SO hard if only it was the Durin I actually cared about. This Toy Durin, I... I never want to see Toy Durin become playable, ESPECIALLY if it comes with us acting like he IS Durin.

- imagine what they could've done with Subject 2 and humanoid Durin as separate characters that were still themselves! Imagine Durin having to get used to his new body and face everything he and his corpse did to Mondstadt unknowingly! Imagine him meeting Venti and Dvalin! Imagine Subject 2 actually getting to fuck shit up!

- Dodoco Barbeloth looks cool too, but a Barbeloth intro without Mona :/?

- I thought Albedo saw all of Rhine's creations as his siblings? I swear I remember him saying that. I didn't hallucinate that, did I? What would be the point of retconning that? I mean, he immedietaly started calling Durin his brother again at the end of the quest!

- wait, why did Albedo make human Durin in the city?????? Why was it so flashy and big??????? Why wasn't he anywhere near Toy Durin or the materials he was using the entire time???????? How did a song and some fireworks prevent people from noticing that something was going on???????? Why did he do it in the city?????????

- of course the answer of the important mystery "what did Rhine mean when she told Albedo to "find the truth of this world"" was that she was just telling him to get a life. Of course. We wouldn't want a playable character to be involved in something actually interesting. Of course.

- that was the most random and boring way to reveal that Rhinedottir ATE THE SHADE OF LIFE they could have possibly made.

[max--phillips]

Okay here goes

First, the spoiler free stuff:

Ridley Scott knows how to make a fucking film.

If I don’t see fics of Acacius x reader x Lucilla I will begin biting

If you are going in it for Pedro, I will warn you his character is very important but kind of… idk, shallow is too strong of a word, but not very fleshed out. I don’t think that’s an issue in the greater scheme of the movie though, it makes sense in the plot and doesn’t feel out of place or bad in the universe.

If you are going in it for Paul Mescal, you will not be disappointed.

Please watch the first movie first. The story will not make any fucking sense if you don’t.

Just the right amount of flashbacks and footage from the first movie . Chefs kiss

Ridley Scott really said “all emperors and tyrants are nasty little freaks with terrible vibes”

Oh also if you’re squeamish about gore and stuff like. It’s a movie about gladiators so set your expectations accordingly. There is an instance of a disembodied head used as a prop. So y’know

Okay, spoilery stuff below the cut

Arishat was hot :( rip

Monkeys at the beginning? Terrible. 0/10 did not enjoy that. Also did not enjoy seeing and hearing Mr. Mescal BITING ONE

I love Ravi I would watch a whole movie just about him tending to gladiators’ wounds quite frankly. Give me that story

We love to see bisexuality on screen (even though that wasn’t a social identity at the time but we’re not here to talk about that) what with the concubines and drunk as fuck Macrinus

Speaking of drunk as fuck Macrinus: that whole scene was so fucking funny. They’re like that meme about people getting high. You know the one

Speaking of Macrinus—Denzel Washington stole the show. When TIME magazine pushed a story to me today headlined “Gladiator II Belongs to Denzel Washington,” I was like, pshhhh, nah. But it really does. It’s not about him? But it’s his fucking show.

The politics . THE POLITICS

It feels a little heavy handed right now but that wasn’t probably how it was intended, given it was made before. Y’know. The election. But the whole dream of Rome being a place where everyone is equal and cared for but you can only whisper it or it’ll shatter? Yeah.

Oh, right, Acacius: that dude is so tired he does NOT want to be there. Let him go home to his hot wife. Alas, his hot wife is the way she is and like… no good deed goes unpunished.

And I fucking called it with my text post a few months ago. Two (2) movies now where Denzel Washington (either directly or indirectly) kills Pedro Pascal. Brilliant

Admittedly selfishly I would’ve liked to see more of him. But it felt like the correct thing in the context of the story. If he didn’t die then, if he wasn’t the inciting event for the uprising of the people of Rome, it wouldn’t have made sense and it would’ve just been fan service and “look, we got Pedro Pascal!” at that point.

I would’ve liked to see a more in-depth exploration of the change in relationship between Lucius and Lucilla—it seems like they went from Lucius screaming at her to get out to them hugging it out without any real development between the two of them specifically. Obviously a lot had happened in the world of the movie at that point but nonetheless

Macrinus shooting Lucilla was his Icarus moment. There was no coming back from that. “But what about Geta” “but what about Caracalla” no. It was Lucilla. If she’d gotten got by the praetorian guards or something else, it would’ve been fine. But because it was Macrinus there was nowhere he could go from there other than [checks notes] getting his hand chopped off and then gutted in a dirty irrigation ditch.

Remember kids, the people in power who are causing all of the things going wrong in the world have names and addresses and are mortal <3

Also another takeaway from the movie: imperialism, religious extremism, ableism, and authoritarianism will be the end of us all <3

Anyway. Good movie. Can’t wait to watch it again in my own home with subtitles so I can actually like… process everything everyone was saying LMAO and take better reaction notes.

I’m still sitting in the theater parking lot it’s been like 30 minutes LMAO okay thanks for coming to my tedtalk or whatever

[fictionnatic]

(No title yet)

Pairing: Prisoner!Mikey x Criminology Student!Reader Summary: You and your class were given an assignment to interview a criminal—assigned to you—in your local prison. For safety reasons the school only allowed transactions through letters. It just so happened that you were assigned to possibly the most dangerous one. But, what you didn't expect is to fall for the criminal.

Tags: Age gap(Mikey:28, You:21)

Setting: Bonten timeline(but they get caught, obviously)

A/n: Idk how criminology works ngl, I just thought that it would fit this plot and I assume psychology is still involved. Also, I think this also works with a psychology student reader. Oh and you are a top student here:)

•(' ') will be used for thoughts

College has been hectic. All you wanted to do was rest and catch up on sleep. But alas you are being given an assignment. Well, top students need to relax too. That luxury would have to wait.

"So your assignment is to interview an imprisoned criminal. Our local prison was kind enough to sponsor you for this assignment. You will be assigned one person to interview for the purpose of finding the reasons of their actions and other possible important information. Do you have any questions?" your professor explained.

You raised your hand. "Yes (name)". "Uhh..so how long will we be doing this? And, how will we stay safe while interviewing? I mean they are criminals". A reasonable question considering that they are most likely capable of doing what a sane person can't.

"Ah I seem to have forgot to tell you, so for your information this assignment will take about a month's time, you will begin the assignment next week and will end about 4 weeks from there. As for your safety, the only mode of interaction you will be having is through letters. This ensures nothing unpleasant happens to any of you."

You nodded at what she said.

.

.

.

Well..this will be interesting.

You were holding the file of the criminal assigned to you. It's some guy named Manjiro Sano who was a leader of a gang and president of the infamous criminal organization "Bonten".

You've seen his name on the news before. All the vile things that his organization had done. A sour look formed on your face, you think it's great that they caught someone like him—and his people. Looking more through his file you see a picture of him. A man with white hair, a short and skinny stature and looks like he hadn't slept in years with absolutely no light in his eyes...just jet black.

'Damn..what happened to this dude' you thought. 'I guess that's the point, we need to know stuff about these people'. You hurried along and prepared questions for the possibly most dangerous man that they can assign.

.

.

.

(A/n. I literally forgot 1 did this and made a poll about it, I swear it was on accident. School has been very busy lately so idk when I will be able to finish it. Anyway, I saw this in my drafts, I'm wondering if people are still interested. Should I continue?)

[ilikekidsshows]

Let's not forget that he also reuses plot points so often it's not even funny. How long is the butterfly going to be used for evil? How many times is Marinette going to lose to Miracle Box? How many times is there going to be some Super Important Adult (both good and evil) that turns out to be some loser because they need Marinette to be the specialest most important person to ever exist? Wow, Felix is an abused child who lashes out and does some bullshit with the Miraculouses? We definitely haven't seen that in any other blonde teenager with a shitty family and we're def not gonna be getting that exact same story with her sister later in the season despite the fact that we been knew about that shit, it was literally her intro, so idk why they're repeating it again. Ivan's new side story is literally just Adrien's story but also why are we getting it now? We don't keep an official count but considering every episode has "Marinette make a mistake" then every episode should apply in the "Episodes Where Marinette is Upsette and Cries About It Until People are Forced to Comfort Her" counter. Etc. Etc.

Currently they're doing that whole "oh no, this huge secret is something Adrian can't find out because it involves his family and so his parent is """""haunting""""" the narrative" which is just a repeat of basically the whole series except instead of Emilie like in the first five seasons, it's Gabriel. And it was shit with Emilie back then and it's shit with Gabriel now.

---

Yeah, like, I just don’t care about “Adrien can’t know anything about anything ever because the world will end otherwise”, because it’s just a cheap excuse to maintain the status quo. It just brings more attention to the fact that there even is an unshakeable status quo when they give excuses for why the characters willingly maintain it. Seriously, Miraculous is starting to resemble an animated adult dramedy with how much of the status quo is maintained by the protagonist willingly, repeatedly and constantly doing stupid shit and absolutely refusing to self-reflect.

And that status quo is the reason that, even when we get long-awaited plotlines, they get handed to unimportant side characters so that it won’t actually impact anything in the long run. What’s that, you’ve been waiting for Adrien to deal with his dad being a villain and his friend supporting him since the first episode? Fuck that shit, that entire plot is now a single episode dedicated to Ivan! Did you say lovesquare identity reveal? Oh, hell no, we’ll have the two bit parts where one of them has only been essential in two episodes so far confess to each other exactly like you might imagine the lovesquare doing it, which means that, if we do eventually get a lovesquare reveal, it won’t be like that! It’ll probably be god-awful on purpose to “subvert expectations” and make you wish they never did the reveal after all!

We couldn’t possibly have anything actually meaningful happen in this story, because the writers are too lazy to do anything but have the same stuff happen but more and worse to pretend escalation is the same thing as development. It makes me want to punch drywall.