#this show has a fuckton of people

[eorzeashan]

i'm sure everyone has imagined their ocs as cats at some point but imagining Eight as one kills me bc it means Jadus tried to get a agent cat at some point but the rest would always fucking run away or hiss at him or cower in a corner and then this one saw him ignoring it one time and immediately loitered outside his door and screamed until he adopted it

[awordwasthebeginning]

.

[softgrungeprophet]

You are allowed to do hobbies for fun! just fyi!

[cornfieldsrambles]

YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO INFODUMP PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT WIGGLY'S SIBLINGS???? THAT HE APPARENTLY HAS????

omg ok SO

Meet the Lords in Black. Charming, aren't they?

Yes, Wiggly does indeed have four brothers who all do different things, so I'll cover them one by one, in order of introduction (since we've already met each of them in Nightmare Time at least once). BTW Nightmare Time has a fuckton of lore in it that I won't go into here, so even though I am about to spoil significant parts of it for you, I do recommend watching it, it's really good and if there's enough interest they might make a third one!

(Also you might notice they're all in doll form in this picture. This is how we knew them up until NPMD introduced us to what I call their Tumblr sexyman forms. Which are rad as hell by the way.)

So you already know Wiggly. That little green fucker, Wiggog Y'Wrath, the Capitalist Cthulu who does uwu-speak and starts a cult by invading people's minds. This will become a bit of a reoccurring theme with these guys. He's also the only one to successfully start an apocalypse, and the only one to have attempted to birth himself into our reality. (Or is he? We'll get to that...) He does seem to have some kind of dominion over the other LiB, as whenever all five of them show up there's always emphasis placed on him, like in NPMD where he does most of the talking while his siblings occasionally butt in.

Now for Bliklotep. Blinky seems to have slightly lower-scale ambitions than Wiggly, but don't let that fool you. Eyeball Boi is still incredibly dangerous. He runs an amusement park, WatcherWorld, deep within the Hatchetfield Witchwood. But it's not for the amusement of the patrons. Oh no. It's for Blinky's own amusement. Once you step inside, every insecurity, every shred of potential conflict will be ripped to the forefront, turning people against each other to the point of trying to kill each other until he's fully infected their minds. It's implied that, if not all, but a significant chunk of the workers at WatcherWorld were once patrons before having their minds taken over by Blinky. He's also implied to be the thing in Trail To Oregon that Jack Bauer sees during his venom-induced hallucination, as Blinky is referred to as "The Watcher With 1,000 Eyes", which is exactly what JB says he sees? Making Blinky the only LiB to induce a Starkid crossover. My headcanon is that the Dikrats founded Hatchetfield. But regardless.

Next up on the roster is Tinky. T'noy Karaxis, the Time Bastard. You may be wondering about that one line in NPMD where he recognised Pete as a Spankoffski, and said he "could have the whole set in his toybox". Has Tinky gone after Pete's relatives?

Well. Um. You know Ted, right? Yeah, his name is Spankoffski. He's Pete's big brother. We actually got the surname reveal before the brother reveal, lol. And that's not the only reveal we got about Ted. Our boy Teddy Bear has this whole entire tragic backstory and it turns out he gets fucked over in literally every timeline! Isn't that fun?

So, to summarise an entire episode: Tinky makes travel fuckery happen, Ted wants to go back in time to fix his life, accidentally goes back to before the time machine was created and gets stuck in the past, literally. Tinky is watching and laughing at the whole thing, then shows up to blow Ted's brain to smithereens with his weird little magic box, the Bastard's Box, where he stores all the people he toys with. Anyway Ted eventually catches up with the present by aging, except now no one knows who he is, he's... actually I won't spoil that. But once he dies he ends up eternally trapped and tortured in the Bastard's Box. Yaaay.

Fast forward to Nightmare Time 2 and we get introduced to Nibbly, in possibly the most unexpected way imaginable. He's revealed to have been behind a whole episode literally right at the end of said episode, and even though it was kind of foreshadowed, it hits you like a freight train in the best way. Remember when I said Wiggly was the only one who tried to birth himself into reality? That was kind of a lie. Nibblenephim can sort of do that anyway. Every year, he can possess a bunch of carcasses and create a living form to walk the earth for one night. He also has a cult of followers who provide him with the carcasses, as well as a sacrifice to feed on. There's a little more to it, specifically with how the sacrifice is chosen, but again, I'm trying to spoil as little as possible. Go watch Nightmare Time. Nibbly also seems to have a "pig" motif, and his theme song, The Nibbly Ditty, is a banger, easily my favourite of the three LiB theme songs we've heard so far.

And finally, we are introduced to Pokotho, in the very last episode of NMT2.

Except no. We were formally introduced to Pokey there, yes, but we've seen his apocalypse already. Long before NPMD, before Nightmare Time, even before Black Friday.

Yeah, remember me saying that Wiggly was the only one to successfully start an apocalypse? That was also a lie! Pokey already did that, and he did it without ever showing his masked face. Remember The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals? The blue spores that came down in a meteor and turned everyone into singing zombies? That was Pokey's doing! That's his blue spores! That's his apocalypse!

This also provides an explanation for why blowing up the meteor didn't work. Emma and Hidgens were right about the hivemind thing, but wrong about the location of the central brain. It wasn't the meteor - the meteor was just the vessel which carried the spores to Earth. The central brain was sitting safely up in the Black and White, laughing as Paul blew himself to smithereens. The central brain was Pokey, the Singular Voice, the most uncompromising of his brothers. The one who hates every voice that is not his own, hence the hivemind and making all of his zombies speak in HIS voice.

Anyway in NMT2 he's happily collecting musical zombies by taking on a human form and infiltrating a fighting ring of superpowered children until he has enough to kickstart another apocalypse. (Don't question it, we're almost done). He also calls himself Otho, not Pokey, making him the only LiB to have two different abbreviations of his name. Hannah is also there (remember her? Lex's little sister?) and she is like incredibly important to this whole thing, she has a super powerful mind, but that's a whole other thing.

But I did mention Hannah for a reason. Because you said "Wiggly's SIBLINGS". And while the Lords in Black are always referred to as brothers, they do have one more sibling. A sister. A Queen in White. And her name is Webby.

Yep, Hannah's imaginary friend isn't imaginary, who could have guessed? She's benevolent, always trying her best to combat her brothers' antics, but given that there's one of her and five of them, this is a bit of an uphill battle. Webby doesn't have a full name that we know of, nor does she have a doll. We don't know much about her. And she may not be all-powerful - but then again, neither are her brothers.

Infodump concluded. Hope this helps, it was very fun to write.

[patches-the-sock-monkitty]

tv shows and the tv industry as a whole went to shit once they introduced streaming services, they should abolish all streaming services and bring back cable to what it was in its golden age i am being completely serious

[aidaronan]

The years go by. The retail jobs that Steve thinks are temporary keep piling up, but he has no idea what else to do with his life so he just keeps on keeping on.

Until a large tree falls on the lawn of the little house he managed to buy and he gets the quote on removal and the number literally hurts his soul.

He buys a small chainsaw instead. Over the course of a few weeks, he gets most of the branches cut up. He collects some large rocks from down by the quarry and digs out a fire pit in his backyard. On his days off, his friends come over and they sit out back and have a few beers. The pile of wood dwindles. The giant trunk is another story though. His chainsaw isn't big enough for it. Burning it would take forever, and Steve's terrified he'd disappoint Smoky the Bear. He's at a loss.

Until he sees another giant trunk in someone's yard carved into a bear.

He knows what to do then. Not a bear, but something else. Through trial and error, the trunk becomes the rough shape of a woman, the remnants of the branches like a crown on her head. It's not as amazing as the bear he saw, but it's his. He finds he loves the smell of sawdust and the feeling of creating something.

Just like that, Steve realizes what he wants to do. It takes several months and a lot of yard sales, but he scrounges up the tools he needs to start woodworking. He learns to measure twice and cut once. He makes tables and chairs and carves them with art and designs that get better and better the more he learns. Shockingly, people actually buy his pieces.

Even more shocking comes the realization that he's making enough money to do it full time. He puts in his two weeks notice at Melvald's and hands in his assistant manager badge.

He's not sure he's happy, but he is content. It feels good to work hard and actually have things to show for it. It also feels good to work muscles he hasn't used since high school. He carries on for a few years like that, creating and learning and creating some more. Then Eddie Munson blows back into town. Invited back so Hawkins can have their most famous alumnus sing the national anthem at homecoming. Steve's honestly surprised he shows at all. "Can't believe you didn't tell them kiss your hairy ass," Steve says. Because of course Eddie ends up around his fire pit, sipping on Steve's cheap beer like he doesn't have three Grammy awards on his mantel. The years fall away with each drink, reminding Steve of just how much it had hurt when Eddie left. He'd wanted Eddie so bad back then, more than he'd ever wanted anyone. He can feel the echoes of that deep ache across time.

"Pfft. Don't you know all famous people wax our asses now? All the rage in LA." Eddie cuts a look at him and smirks when Steve rolls his eyes, grateful for the lighthearted moment to snap him out of his maudlin nostalgia. "Really though I thought about it, but then I thought it would be way funnier to donate a metric fuckton of money to Hawkins High with the stipulation that it go to the theater and band programs. Kind of bummed they couldn't honor my other request though."

"Which was?"

"My old Hellfire throne. I miss her, but apparently she's not around anymore. Something about water damage."

"Oh yeah. Water main busted a few years back and flooded the theater. I remember that." "Yeah. Had to settle for the promise they'd make a game lounge and stock it with all the supplies a budding young nerd needs."

"That's really nice, Eds."

Eddie shrugs. "I've been known to be nice on occasion. You'll come to homecoming, right? Moral support?"

Steve hasn't been to homecoming in years because he sees the other people who stayed in town all the time, and he has no interest in seeing the people who didn't. He can only answer the same questions so many times. Oh, I'm doing woodwork now. Yep, I still live right here. Nope, still not married, no kids.

He goes though, and he answers the uncomfortable questions. Because Eddie asked him to. Because no matter how long it's been, Steve can't deny that some part of him still...

He says goodbye after, and Eddie leaves again, and Steve tries not to think about that too much in the following days.

He's halfway into the project before he realizes what he's building. He'd seen Eddie's throne quite a few times back when. What he doesn't have memories of, he makes up. He adds his own touches too, making it a throne fit for a rock star, a nerd, a friend.

He carves ornate patterns, he creates scenes of dragons being beaten back by a man with a guitar, crowds of people that could be knights or concertgoers.

It's his favorite piece he's ever done, and his hands are shaking when he dials Eddie's number. He gets an answering machine and stumbles through a message.

"I made you something. I guess it's kind of silly, but it's here in Hawkins if you want it. Or I'm sure you can afford the shipping if you don't want to come. Just, I made you a chair. It's more of a... Well, you'll see. Unless you don't want to... It's Steve by the way." He hangs up before he can embarrass himself even more.

Eddie doesn't call him back. One day passes and then another. Steve tries not to let it get to him. He works on orders and new projects. He enjoys his little backyard oasis. He rents a few movies and thinks they're okay.

He's debarking some wood in his driveway when the rental car pulls up, Eddie stepping out in ripped jeans and an old Metallica tee. "Hi again, Stevie."

"Oh." Steve clears his throat. "The thing's in the garage. I'll..."

Eddie doesn't say anything for a long time, circling the throne, running his tattooed fingers over each little detail.

"You made this whole thing?"

"I did."

"For me?" Eddie looks at him then, one hand still touching the wood like he doesn't want to let go. Even under the harsh lights of the garage, his eyes are such a warm shade of brown that Steve forgets to breathe.

He nods. "For you."

"Why?"

There are a hundred answers Steve could give, but he spent so long not knowing who he was or who he wanted to be. Too long. "Because you'll always be the one that got away. Because some part of me will always want to make you smile no matter how long it's been."

Eddie falls into the throne like he just got the wind knocked out of him.

"You don't have to respond to that," Steve says. "You can just say thank you and take the chair."

"I can." Eddie blows out a breath. "But that would be incredibly stupid considering half my early ballads are about you."

"What?" Unfair. Steve doesn't have a chair to fall into.

"Oh sure, I changed the hes to shes for a while there because..." Eddie waves his hand. "But they're about you, Steve. God, I should've asked you out. I just thought..."

Hearing those words is a lot like seeing that carved bear all over again, something clicking into place that wasn't quite right before.

"Go out with me now then," Steve says. "Or stay in. I've got a frozen lasagna and I rented Contact."

"Steve Harrington? Asking Eddie 'the Freak' Munson on a date? Did hell freeze over?"

"Pfft." Steve takes a step closer toward what he wants most. "Hell froze over in 1986, Eddie. You were there."

Five months and a lot of long distance phone bills later, Steve opens Harrington Woodworking in Los Angeles. That same day, Eddie takes photos for Rolling Stone posing in an ornate throne in his living room. He tells the reporter exactly who made it and what he means. At concerts, he starts singing those ballads the way he always wanted to. More often than not, Steve stands in the wings singing along.

[karlachismylife]

Yeah, but what if you're a character in a game they like to play? A pre-existing townie in a life simulator that helps them reconnect with normal life outside deployment? The one they somehow always tend to romance in every savefile, courting you through the clumsy mechanics?

Soap would absolutely spam interactions, interrupting any of the tasks you are trying to do. What do you mean your relatonship progress starts going down after he chose "tell a flirty joke" twenty times in a row? Why are you falling out of the conversation and going to water your plants or play on the computer? Does he have to delete it out of the game for you to stop getting distracted? Hmph. If you were a real person, you would be already swooning at his jokes, that he knows for sure. C'mon, bonnie, don't leave the lot for work! If you accept his proposition to move in, you'll never need to work a day in your pixel life! He also has a fuckton of savefiles, because he wants to try every single thing the game has to offer, but turns out mastering all 158 skills and 73 careers isn't that easy in one go. He still goes after you in each and every savefile. What can he say? You're just the prettiest of them all.

Gaz has the strategy nailed down. He knows your pre-set preferences and makes sure his character caters to them (good thing you seem to be generally into him, all he needs to do is add your favourite colour to his outfit, and it suits hm too!), he can calculate the shortest route to have a romantic meter above your head in one conversation. Juggling the interactions with ease, never making the mistake to bore or upset you. He knows you'll have the best family tree in that game, and he'll make it happen. Also has quite a few savefiles, but only because he enjoys the storytelling aspect and always prepares some elaborate plot, filled with drama. Takes inspiration from the hundreds of episodes of different TV shows he manages to watch, also plays with mods to add as much flavour to the game as possible.

Price tries to court you like he would a real person. Inviting your character out, putting a lot of thought into which conversation theme choose out of what game offers, bringing you gifts. Unfortunately for him, the game isn't registering his actions as actually trying to woo you... so he just takes the gloves off and fucking cheats your relationship status. His in-game self needs a pretty partner to look after the pack of three dogs, named Ghost, Gaz and Soap respectively. He's not above cheating your babies (whether your character carries them or it's the science baby option) to be triplets. Only starts new savefiles when you both grow old and pass away in the previous one, maybe because he can't bring himself to live out your kids' lives (they should be their own little virtual people and decide for themselves), or maybe because he doesn't understand that he actually can keep playing even if his character's dead.

Ghost starts with adding himself to your family and setting your relationship status as spouses. Oh, you have some in-game pathetic weird looking prick as your pre-set partner/husband? Too bad, evicted, deleted from the game, forgotten. If he is in the mood, he won't straight up delete that poor bloke, but will set up a pool with no ladder and drown him in it or lock him in a separate room to starve. Nothing you should see, though, you'll be plenty busy drowning yourself, not in a pool, but in his affection. Doesn't spam interactions, but really enjoys just watching you go about your day and making it so that his character takes care of your needs - if you start to get hungry, he's already slamming the "call to meal" button on the giant ribs plate his in-game self just roasted. Probably has one savefile where he keeps cheating any death back.

Or are you a cute tamagochi pocket friend/pet they enjoy taking care of, because having a real pet is impossible with their lifestyle? An NPC with an everyday quest of collecting produce in a chill farm simulator? A weekly boss they lose fight to as much times as they can afford to, just to see your opening cutscene replay over and over? A companion whose personal quest they have memorized line by line, but never skip dialogue to hear your voice and look at every expression you make?

Whoever you are, what if one day something in your code changes and you suddenly start recognizing them?

[setsugekka]

❥5 weeks (m)

↳ In which a freelancing stylist gig puts you between a rock and a hard place.

The rock being ‘never slept with a client before and not looking to start now,’ and the hard place being a younger than you and much too daring for his own good, Jung Wooyoung.

jung wooyoung x older stylist fem!reader — coworkers to lovers, mutual pining, porn with plot, explicit sexual content. [12.1k wc] cws: unspecified age gap!! they’re both down atrocious but he is the one making all the moves, mutual masturbation, a metric fuckton of dirty talking, praise, humiliation, pet names including ‘mommy,’ and the use of ‘noona’ but really it’s his kink and not hers (a drop of ‘daddy’ too but it’s more for comedic purposes than anything), drop of a breeding kink (also kinda comedic), oral sex (m+f), unprotected penetrative sex, creampie, wooyoung has a Big Dick and is wildly kinky and confident.

“Oh, give me a break!”

Shoulder sling of your bag dropping from you in exasperation and barely caught by your hand as to not allow your belongings to fall to the floor, you roll your eyes briefly towards the man informing you of the terrible news of the day. Of the month.

“Are you kidding me? This isn't what my contract said.”

“It sort of is,” the man reluctantly replies, avoiding eye contact that he knows will not help make the situation any better for either of you. “Blah blah blah 'in the event of a personnel shift then we have the freedom to place you wherever we need you.”

You knew, you were lying in hopes of being able to get out of it.

Unfortunately, when you took the job and signed the contract, you did know that this would be a likely outcome. Freelance stylists were able to choose three groups of which they had preference in working for throughout the show — bigger groups come with their own stylists and full slots majority of the time, but occasionally need additional hands on, which is where you come in. Smaller groups have less on board staff and require more freelance help on set — also where you come in, although, not ideally.

Of the six groups on broadcast, you had worked with four. three you enjoyed, they went on the list of preferences.

The one that you didn't enjoy working with, along with the other that you hadn't become acquainted with, were left off. Nothing against them, just better to play it safe with what you're familiar with.

And now you have to find out which group you got assigned for the next five weeks.

Slinging your bag back onto your shoulder with a huff, you thank the man for his time even in spite of not really being all that thankful, and make your way down the white walled hallway, the names of groups you're familiar with passing you by — slowing down as you pass the ones you had wished to work with and happily waving towards the members as you carry on — it's a brief relief, you'll still get to see them and have fun with them, just not as much as you would have given alternate circumstances.

And then you reach the room number, 3B.

ATEEZ.

Squinting slightly, you recall that you're actually not completely unfamiliar with them, and happily, they're not the group you didn't enjoy working with. You already know the names of everyone in the group, and you think you remember doing some behind the scenes broadcast work when they were still in their first year, albeit, not much.

It could have been worse.

Walking into the room, you first introduce yourself to the entire lot of people, then focus towards managers and the other stylists — all very welcoming and happy to receive the help, it seems.

Then, the members.

All of them gathered around, clamoring to accommodate you in such an overwhelming way that you can't hardly make out a single word being said one way or another, Hongjoong finally shushes the rest to get a word in edgewise and calmly welcomes you on board, along with apologizing in advance for whatever it is that may take place as a result of working with the lot.

You don't know what he means by it exactly, but you're familiar with working with boy groups — some things are pretty standard across the board. The dirty jokes, the messiness, the crudeness — if you're lucky, it mostly ends there, immature young men just trying to fit in having a good time in the midst of their otherwise busy schedules — you're used to giving it a pass.

But you sift through your mental rolodex of stories that you've heard about groups through the grapevine — water cooler among stylists type talk — and fail to land on anything in particular about them.

When it comes to this sort of stuff, no news is good news.

The boys scatter back to where they had come after the warm welcomes, and you dart your head around in an attempt to find a place to put your personal belongings. Truthfully, the room is small for the amount of people in it, and you're seemingly the last to join the crew. You wish not to place your purse down on the floor next to the door, but without another option at hand, you resign yourself to the fact that this will have to make due. Phone and wallet sticking out of the top, you kneel down to scoot the items against the wall when a strong hand comes from the side, taking you by the wrist. It's gentle even in it's abruptness, and takes you by surprise all the same.

“Sorry, didn't mean to scare you,” he says, quickly letting go of you but remaining in his knelt position next to you. “Don't put it there, I got a place.”

Eyebrows furrowing at the words, and the implications, you cock your head to the side before responding to him. “Problem with thieves? I mean, I know it's a pirate concept—“

“Oh, very funny!” he says, matching your playfully mocking tone with wide eyes. “No, but the door has loose hinges and if someone comes through that thing fast enough it's going to destroy everything you've got in there.”

Come to think of it, you had noticed that upon entry. Not as funny as what you had said, though.

The both of you stand, your items in hand again, and he leads the way towards a small area of the room that he appears to have made out for himself. It's simple: two folding chairs, one for sitting, and one to serve as a table, with his food already set out on it — the man points towards under the table-chair. “Put it there.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you know my name?” he asks, no discernible tone to it, but you can't recall an idol ever asking you the question outright — especially knowing that you're a freelancer.

You watch him only break eye contact with you long enough to seat himself back down, taking his lunch into his hands and nodding towards the makeshift platform, communicating to you that he wishes for you to use the chair for its intended purpose now.

“Is this a test? Or some kind of, I don't know—“ you pause, leaning back comfortably. “Am I like, supposed to?”

And he laughs in response, a sudden chuckle as if not having expected the retort at all. You watch him wipe his mouth with a napkin and take a sip of his drink before settling in to respond to the comment. “No, I was just curious because I wouldn't introduce myself again if you already had. I'm Woo—“

“Wooyoung, I know who you are.”

“Wow, all of that just for you to already know who I am?” he questions, wide eyed again — you can tell that he's enjoying the banter between the two of you. You'd be lying if you had said you weren't doing the same. “Enjoy playing games, is it?” he asks.

Typically, you would say no. But right now?

There had been a handful of idols that you had worked with over the years where the two of you hit it off naturally, comfortably. A welcomed lack of professionalism in an area of work that didn't normally allow for any room for it, being able to meet people that truly allowed for you to simply be yourself — it made going to the job everyday just that much easier.

“So,” you begin, not wanting to allow the conversation to die down as the man with the two-toned hair in front of you continues his meal with all eyes on you as you speak. “Who has the problem head in this group?”

“Problem head? “ Wooyoung exclaims, having never heard the verbiage before.

“Yeah, like who is going to be the biggest issue. Who doesn't wash their hair like a normal person or never brushes it or whatever.”

“Oh!” he yells, finally having caught on, and wipes his mouth with the napkin again before pointing across the room and loudly calling out towards another member. “It's Seonghwa! It's 100% Seonghwa! Never seen that man brush his hair in my life!”

Laughing, you turn to look behind you at Seonghwa seated in front of a mirror, another stylist going to work on his hair — roughly, at that — and as you make eye contact with a Seonghwa who is shaking his head, you move your eyes up and towards the stylist behind, solemnly nodding in accordance to Wooyoung's claims.

You turn back, Wooyoung shoving more food into his mouth. “Told you,” he mumbles between chews. “You got a boyfriend?”

You had let the conversation die down, and just as quickly, Wooyoung sparks it up again, still gnawing on the chicken in his mouth as he gets the words out.

“No,” you carefully reply, question lacing your tone that the man is sure to pick up on, but he only grins, swallowing, wiping and leaning forward towards you so that he doesn't have to carry his voice in more than a whisper.

“Good.”

By the end of the first week, you had a good idea that you might have sex with this guy.

On a surface level, you weren't too thrilled with the prospect, though. In all of your years working in the industry, you had never crossed that line. You knew colleagues who had, and worked with idols that regularly did, but despite not being morally or fundamentally opposed to the idea, it seemed better for everyone to just not. It was easy enough, usually. You had met some people that you had hit it off with and sure, the thought had crossed your mind occasionally — the sneaking 'what if' of a fling with someone, but it never felt especially in grasp. You weren't going to go out of your way to make it happen, and as far as you could tell, no one else had on their end, either.

Until now.

An entire week of friendly banter and heavy flirting that only came on stronger and stronger with each day, it's the first friday when you have Wooyoung in your chair and hair in your hands that the glances shared felt especially loaded.

Pulling on his hair slightly at a particularly tricky knot, you apologize, watching him wince vaguely in the reflection — only for him to glance up from his phone with a half grin and a wicked pointedness to his eyes.

“It's fine, I like it.”

And you want to be able to ignore it. Ignore the implications of the words. Feeling foreign eyes on you, your vision quickly darts over to make contact with Hongjoong's — seated next to the two of you and being dealt with on his own. He chuckles under his breath, having overheard the comment, and you pull on Wooyoung's hair again, this time on purpose.

A silent insistence for him to behave.

“How old are you, noona?” Hongjoong suddenly asks from beside you, eyes glued back down to his phone screen, and you're not sure why he's asking.

You have your suspicions, though.

“Older, old enough,” you respond. It pulls another chuckle from the leader of the group.

“Makes sense,” he says, finally receiving the go ahead to get up from the chair after having been finished with. “He likes that. Good luck with this one.”

Feeling heat rush to your face, and not particularly enjoying the fact that everyone in the room seems to be in on the situation at hand, you look back at Wooyoung in the reflection: still grinning with not a care in the world related to the topic.

'Play it cool,' you tell yourself with a deep inhale. “You do this often? Flirt with your stylists?”

“I wouldn't say often,” he responds plainly. “It's not unheard of, though.”

“You run off a lot of stylists?” you laugh, playfully pulling at his hair again.

“No,” he says, a certain cuteness taking his tone before leaning his head back against the headrest and looking up at you directly. “They don't run off.”

You want to be better. Stronger. Able to ignore it. Not to be like them, you don't flirt with idols you work with and you certainly don't sleep with them, either.

But you're guessing Wooyoung has plans for that, as well.

On the next Wednesday when filming runs late, with the majority of the staff having left, Wooyoung, Yunho and Yeosang are kept behind to refilm some shots. For only three members needing attention, and the normal staff for the group having to accompany the rest to their other schedules, you're left in charge of the three — along with their managers.

Which is simple enough: Yeosang, as off the wall nutty as he is, is relatively easy to work with, and Yunho being so kind and willing to do whatever it takes to make your job easier, you're only left with the one problem-child, as it were.

When filming for the three finally wraps at a quarter past one in the morning, you thank everyone for their time and willingness to accommodate you as they all head out to meet up with the rest of the members...until a PD comes in last minute once again and requests for another shoot for Wooyoung.

“It's fine, I'll catch up with you guys later,” he tells the rest, including his manager — tired and worn no doubt from a hectic schedule of, well, managing Wooyoung.

“How are you going to get home?” you ask him, confused about his dismissal of his handler as he hurriedly shakes his black and blonde hair free of the half ponytail it had been put into as they were leaving.

“I know how to get home, I'm an adult,” he laughs in response.

“I mean with the fans.”

“Oh,” he pauses, slipping on the shoes from wardrobe that they had had him in prior. “That's easy to deal with, honestly. Already scoped out the escape!”

For some reason, you don't even question that to be the truth. It sounds like something he would have already had planned.

“Are you leaving now?” he asks, rushing out towards the hallway, only lingering in the doorway long enough to catch your response.

And you know that deep down, you should — that the best way to avoid trouble, and subsequently Wooyoung, is to leave while he's caught up, with no chance of roping you into some nonsense that you wish you didn't want to be roped into.

But at the same time...what could it hurt?

What's a little adventure?

And the way that his lips curl at the response is devilish — has you second-guessing your choice already. Evidently, a man with an extremely devious plan that he has every intention of putting into action with the older stylist that he barely knows anything about.

Suddenly, you recall Hongjoong's words just a few days prior. A warning. 'Good luck.'

“Be back soon!” Wooyoung chimes, “and then we can get out of here.”

As if the 'we' wasn't bad enough, it's the way his bottom lip catches on his teeth as he exits the room, eyes locked with your own before disappearing into the madness of idol life once again.

You had sort of hoped that something would have come up that barred this scenario that you had originally agreed to. Now darting and weaving through dark, empty hallways of the entertainment building — quite possibly the last people in there that night besides overnight security, when Wooyoung finally brings you to the VIP entrance that he had briefly mentioned before, dual hearts sink at the sight just beyond the large, glass doors.

Pouring rain — unable to be heard from inside of the massive concrete building, but now plain as day in front of you, Wooyoung huffs at the sight, scanning the scattered construction equipment also littering the outdoors — not taken into account, but now definitely hurting the escape plan that had already been set into action.

“I guess we just make a run for it,” Wooyoung sighs, raking his fingers through his hair. “This wasn't really part of the plan, you know.”

“I gathered, but—“ you pause, bringing his attention down to the three bags of your heavy and also quite expensive belongings that you would rather not get soaking wet. “I'm not running anywhere, not well, at least.”

He huffs again, looking up again to stare back out of the window pane. “Well, we can't stay here, don't think we have much of a choice.”

You had already accepted the fact, but hearing the words only causes a pleading sigh to drop from you. “Yeah...where are we running towards, anyways? What's the plan?”

Bringing a hand up, Wooyoung points out towards what appears to be just large equipment for moving and storing concrete and other such things, before elaborating further.

“Across the parking lot and then across the street there's a small, 24-hour convenience store where we can wait and call a cab.”

“How is that safe?” you question, dumbfounded. “How is it safe for you to be seen running around in convenience stores in the middle of the night with a random woman?”

“No one is going to see us, first of all, the weather is terrible and no one knows about this exit,” he begins, “second of all, my friend owns the place, so we'll hang out in the employee lounge until it's time to go.”

You visibly frown at the plan, still worried about your work items, but Wooyoung catches it — gently placing his hand on your wrist just as he had the first time the both of you met.

“We'll...figure it out, okay? Trust me. But we gotta get out of here before security calls security.”

Darting through the doors, Wooyoung holds your hand tightly into his as the two of you slosh through the downpour of the great outdoors — cold and windier than you both had anticipated, when the wind catches you and the bulkiness of your belongings just right, Wooyoung tightens his grip even more as he feels you veer off of the trail. You call out to him once, pulling your things against you as best as you can and he only calls back, “I know!” before finding some sort of shelter where you can hide for the time being.

And once inside, you realize how cramped it is.

It's a totally spur of the moment decision obviously, and not much else to work with, you know this — crammed face to face between two metal sheets in an otherwise packed construction shed — but you're able to shrug your bags off of your shoulder and push them to the side with your foot to grant you a bit more space as you attempt to wring out your hair, dress, and cardigan.

Eventually, when Wooyoung comes back to mind, you look up at him — thin, wet, t-shirt clinging to every curve and dip of the muscle in his chest, hair windswept and just as wet as everything else — and you try not to take notice, or allow your eyes the freedom to trail down, because you remember that he left in sweatpants, and that's plenty good enough to go off of.

But with not much space between you and the hastiness in which you arrived, Wooyoung's thigh ends up not so gently crammed just between your legs.

You notice. You can't help but to notice, you can only hope that he doesn't.

However unlikely that may be.

The first violent shiver of the cold air taking the wetness of your body, you insist that Wooyoung ignores, and he does, at your request — but by the second, he's not so willing to listen to orders.

Taking you by the wrist, the man pulls you forward and against him, your hands only able to catch yourself on his shoulders to keep from falling completely flat against his body, and you have no choice but to force down the sound that being pulled up and along his leg threatens to elicit.

'Bite it back, bitch,' you tell yourself in thought.

“Don't be difficult, it's freezing out here,” Wooyoung finally says, wrapping his arms around your waist to keep you pressed into him. “Keeping you from catching pneumonia isn't really my go-to move.”

You chuckle, the only thing you can do at the ridiculousness of the situation. Turning to look outside as the rain beats loudly against the shed that the both of you take shelter in, Wooyoung shifts again, causing the top of his thigh to press upwards and harder against you. Eyes screwing shut, you try to steady your breathing — it's so dumb, you think as the situation unfolds, feeling like a teenager who can't keep it in her pants but in a situation where it otherwise wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that the hot guy that you work with — who almost definitely wants to fuck you — is currently lodged against your pussy with either not a clue and therefore doesn't have the knowledge to keep still, or very much aware and no interest in keeping still.

You didn't even really want to know which one it was, you just had to wait for the rain to lighten up.

“Hey.”

You turn your head to match Wooyoung's gaze, air finally drying out his hair a bit to leave it more air dried than soaking wet. He looks good, you hate that.

“You ever hook up with anyone you worked with?”

Mind reader? Gross.

You choose to ignore the implications, answering in a way that doesn't satiate the curiosity that he's hoping for. “Yeah, I used to date a guy who worked for the same company I did before I went freelance.”

“That's not what I mean,” Wooyoung frowns. Of course he wouldn't let you get away with it. “I mean an idol. The talent.”

Clearing your throat, you find that your proximity to Wooyoung that once offered a comforting warmth was now emitting far more of a scalding heat, and with your palms pressed to his shoulders, you manage to free yourself from him slightly, back against the metal sheet behind you and creating space between you and the nosy man just in front of you.

“No, I have not.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know!” you snap, not angry but unsure of what it is that he's fishing for. “Just...never been in a situation where that was a realistic thing that could happen, I guess. It's not really something that I seek out. I'm there to work.”

“You've never wanted to?” Wooyoung then says, tone dropping slightly and a small shift of his leg. It's enough that you can ignore it, but with your face fully visible to him now, you're not sure how much you can fake it if he starts to catch on and get braver. “Never desired someone?”

He's extremely perceptive.

“And what about you?” you ask back, table turned to grant you some proverbial breathing room. “Hongjoong sure made it seem like this was the sort of thing you do often.”

“Hongjoong is terrible at keeping his mouth shut, that much is for sure,” Wooyoung chuckles, then reaching forward with one hand and finding the hem of your dress — pressed up the length of your thigh only slightly due to his own having your legs agape. “But he is right, I do like older women.”

“So you just hit on every stylist that comes into contact with you?” you laugh, trying to ignore the burning sensation of his fingers playing with the cloth on your thigh, or the way that his eyes are smoldering and locked onto you.

“No, of course not, I'd have had a reputation that you'd have heard of by now if that were the case.”

That was true.

“So no, hitting on the stylist isn't a first for me, if you must know,” he adds coyly, hand now slowly sliding up and against your bare skin. You freeze against his touch. Is this really happening? Here? Now?

“I play with a lot of them for fun, and they play with me, but rarely does it leave the fitting room.”

You swallow hard, and when he shifts again suddenly you aren't prepared — his words, his touch, it's all too distracting for when the press against you comes — breath hitching in your throat for a split second before biting your lip in an attempt to pull the involuntary reaction back.

Too late, though.

Wooyoung looks down, seeing the positioning of his leg between your own and finally makes the connection with a devilish grin — looking up at you from through eyelashes, he hums in response, hand that had once begun a journey up your leg now stilled at the outer side, fingers playfully dipping into the elastic of your panties as if having a plan in mind all along.

“Oh, I see,” he sing-songs at you, deliberately pushing up and into you for the first time, and it certainly makes the difference — your head falling back against the steel lightly. “You know it's funny, I genuinely did not mean to do that.”

“Don't laugh,” you sigh out, now on your last leg of having the composure to not give in to him, and to yourself. “I'm not going to have sex with you, I don't have sex with clientele.”

Humming again, the man begins a steady, slow pace of flexing his thigh up and against you, hand coming around to feel what he can of you that isn't taken up by the space of his leg, and with his fingertip only finding slick wetness that water doesn't have, he smiles again.

“Fine,” he responds with a tone that's only just above a whisper. “But I can still make you come.”

“Shut up,” you whimper out, knowing that your resolve is falling away with every second that you're near him and even faster with every word that he says. You say that you won't fuck him, but truth be told: you're not completely convinced of it yourself. “I—, I—“ you attempt to say, always cut off by the way he feels against you, and even distracted by the lone finger that gently rubs at you from the side as best as he can.

You open your eyes, an attempt to come back down to earth from how quickly you're giving yourself up to this man, but your eyes immediately drop to catch the protrusion in his sweatpants — still wet and fabric clinging to the girth, you swallow hard and bring your eyes back up fast.

That knowledge was the last thing you needed if you were to make any sort of strong attempt not to have sex with him.

“Like what you see?” Wooyoung says playfully, a nod to the silly line often heard in comedies or pornography.

Unfortunately, you do.

You feel him shifting again, having to mull up the braves to allow your eyes to fall back down that way to find out what it was he was up to, and once the courage is mustered, you grant it to yourself.

It was a mistake.

“God,” is all you whisper out at the sight — Wooyoung's beautiful hand wrapped loosely around himself, lazily stroking in time with the ministrations of his leg up and against you, and it's all just a little bit too much.

“Watch,” he says, this time no jest in his voice and the pace of his thigh picking up just slightly. “You don't want to watch me?”

In the moment, you think that you would literally not ever want to watch anything other than that ever again.

Eyes coming back down, first to meet his own — half-lidded and mouth slightly parted, a beautiful sight before you, the visual of him palming over himself for your viewing pleasure — getting off on nothing else but the sight of you riding his leg.

The visual serves to be more stimulating than you'd have liked to admit, feeling the familiar bubbling in your abdomen, you try to find something that you can brace your hands on to give yourself more leverage — since the both of you are now resigned to letting this moment play out — and Wooyoung catches on quickly, choking out a “use me,” between steady, rhythmic pumps of his fist along himself.

You lean forward, hands on his shoulders again — now able to feel him work himself beneath you as you rut against his leg and if you weren't already so worked up, you might have been embarrassed about how quickly your orgasm approaches you.

“W—Wooyoung, I—“

“Good, good girl,” he groans, rhythm of his arm beginning to give out at the implications of your orgasm fast approaching, but it's the next words that truly wreck you. More than you may have ever anticipated outside of that singular moment in time.

“Use me.”

And it breaks you. Orgasm washing over you — it's not particularly hard or overwhelming, the circumstances not exactly granting themselves to having an earth shattering sexual experience, but Wooyoung follows you shortly after — high pitched whine escaping him as his eyes screw shut, ropes of cum painting his fisted fingers as he gently finishes himself just next to you.

Taking his messy hand from himself and into your own, you bring it up and to your lips, the man before you catching on quickly despite a hazy come down and shortened breath; two of his fingers part your lips and press inside shallowly at first, then slightly deeper as he feels the way that your tongue wraps around him to clean his cum from them.

All the while with unbroken eye contact, when Wooyoung finishes imagining the way that your mouth would feel around his cock, he snorts, pulling his hand from you and grinning.

“Nah,” he begins, gently attempting to dislodge himself from between your legs. “You're definitely going to fuck me.”

With two weeks down after that late night stuck in the rain, without so much as a single sly comment about the goings on of that evening, you resign yourself to the understanding that he had gotten the interest out of his system.

And you suppose now, with the imminent danger of potentially going where you've never gone before and crossing that line, you can admit to yourself that deep down, you're a little disappointed in that fact. He had made quite the compelling case, after all.

And a beautiful cock, at that.

You do, however, find it charming that his behavior never really changes towards you. Even in spite of the bizarre intimacy that comes with watching the other come without having ever so much as shared a kiss, Wooyoung plops himself into your stylist chair just as he always has — hair a mess and tank top a bit too loose for your liking given your coming to terms with not ever having sex with him, you allow yourself one good look across the expanse of skin he's happy to show, and even with knowing that he sit in the reflection watching your eyes rake over him with a slight curl of his lip, you still can't help yourself.

Besides, what's one more good look? It's not the only part of him you've seen.

Tapping on his phone as you begin brushing into his hair from behind, Wooyoung asks you how you are today, just as normal. No suspicious tone, seemingly no ulterior motive.

“The same as always, how are you?” you respond, still tugging at the strands.

“Better now that I get to see my work wife,” he quickly responds, as if the entire premise of the conversation had simply been a set up for him to lay this one on you.

And if his intent was to trip you up, you were ashamed at how well it worked, freezing up instantly just before shaking it loose and carrying on. “Work wife? Is it okay that you joke like that?”

“Why not?” Wooyoung chuckles, looking up at you through the reflection of the mirror in front. “Also, your legs look crazy in those jeans.”

Heat rushing to your face, not wanting to look to either side at whether or not another stylist or member is listening in on the conversation, you lean down toward him and rush to a whisper. “Okay you definitely can't say that!”

“Of course not,” Wooyoung whispers back, turning his head just an inch to nearly meet your skin with his mouth. “Let me see you.”

Instantaneously, you pull back from him — back into working position and fight back the embarrassment of what's taking place. Wooyoung only grins again, looking back down to his phone and not pushing the topic any further.

When the guys begin exiting the room one by one to begin shooting, Wooyoung exits last, but not before stuffing his hand into the back pocket of your pants and maintaining a knowing eye contact with you for far too long.

You want to think that he left something in your pocket, but knowing him, just wanting to touch your ass isn't a possibility you can completely write off.

When the rest of the staff leave besides the other stylists, you manage to pull away just enough to check your pocket, feeling the presence of a small slip of paper — clearly what Wooyoung had intended on you finding, with a phone number scribbled on it. Nothing else.

Sure, you wish to be stronger than to give into the allure of the sexy, younger guy that you work with, but you'd be lying to yourself if you said that you weren't delighted at the prospect that he had not, in fact, lost interest just yet.

>you: hey, it's me.

It's all you send. Playing it cool and not at all desperate being paramount in this exchange now in order to maintain your dignity.

After all, you said you wouldn't have sex with him and now here you are, texting him knowing fully well that that is precisely what he's after. Perhaps you just needed a push in the right direction, but not without being able to feign a lack of interest, first.

It's only fifteen minutes later that he responds, and given you know they're recording, you expected it to be longer.

>big trouble: who is this? who is me?

You roll your eyes, but immediately move to reply.

>you: you know who, the woman whose ass you just groped so that I would contact you.

The signal of his typing pops up just as quickly.

>big trouble: you'll have to be more specific :p

He begins typing again.

>big trouble: kidding, what do you have me saved as in your phone? don't use my name!!

>you: oh darn I actually had it saved as group name plus full name and flashed it around when you replied, is that going to be a problem?

You become hyper aware of how you're smiling at your phone in the presence of other people, you try to bite it back as to not raise any awareness, but relatively unsuccessful in doing so.

He is so fucking charming, and fuck if you didn't enjoy his company.

A few more minutes pass before he begins typing again, close to ten when a response finally comes through.

>big trouble: sorry replies are gonna be spotty until we get out of here. let me see you.

You realize now, upon him saying it to you again — that you're not even entirely sure of what he means by that. See you: naked? Date? Outside of here? Too many options to just assume, but you also hate to ask — stomach bubbling with anxiety at the prospect of what it could mean, you realize that even you have to figure out just what, exactly, your intentions are with this guy.

But if you want to know something, all you can do is ask.

>you: what do you mean “see me”

Immediate typing again.

>big trouble: not at work, preferably with your legs over my shoulders and my face buried in your pussy.

Locking your phone you immediately press it face down and into the couch cushion next to you. Inhaling deeply, you close your eyes for a second to recollect yourself; steady breathing, and desperately trying to ignore the ache growing between your legs from just a single line of text.

You feel your phone vibrate again and can't even be sure you're ready to read whatever insane thing he's sent next, but suppose you can't just leave him on read. Not on that note.

Not when you're particularly interested in the proposition yourself.

Slowly picking your cell back up, carefully looking around to make sure no one can spy in — now not necessarily about it being who you're texting but generally speaking sexting is frowned upon in professional settings — you illuminate the screen to confirm that the incoming message is indeed, from him.

You open it.

>big trouble: i'm flexible though, actually hope you are too <3

Sick with how you can hear his tongue in cheek tone even through text, you get it together enough to finally begin typing out a response — not entirely sure what to say, given you don't necessarily want to agree to doing anything with the man just yet, and especially not like this.

>you: is that a good idea?

With some time having passed since his reply, you know that he's probably off working again — setting your phone down you exhale heavily, leaning your head back against the couch.

But all you can think about is Wooyoung's sandwiched between your thighs.

The buzzing from your phone brings you back, and you open it in more of a hurry than maybe you would have liked — much too eager to find the next insane thing that the man has to say to you.

>big trouble: oh no it definitely isn't

>big trouble: that's kind of the fun of it though

>big trouble: get into a little trouble with me, but i'll make it worth your time if you let me

You don't doubt him for even a second. Another text comes in.

>big trouble: I think you want to play with me, like a little bit

In the moment, the only thing that you can offer in response is that you'll think about it, still not completely willing to give yourself up to the desire of having him, or letting him have you — an obvious conquest of sorts on his end, of which he seemingly stacks up notches on his bed post — but you need time to decide if you're willing to make peace with being just that in exchange for getting what it is that you want from him, anyways.

Mutually beneficial? Absolutely. You just have to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze.

Two days out from wrapping filming, backstage is hectic — corridors lined with people running back and forth, darting in and out of rooms and racks of clothing and shoes serving as a make shift obstacle course everywhere you go, it's nothing you're not used to, and despite working for ATEEZ as a group, in ways you found yourself assuming the position as Wooyoung's handler in particular — occasionally Hongjoong's as well, enjoying his quips and stories as sort of an old soul in the body of a young man who took comfort in placing himself in otherwise awkward scenarios between you and the man you were almost definitely going to have sex with — you could only assume that Hongjoong had caught wind, and not because Wooyoung told him, but because he was quick on the uptake.

And he found it humorous.

Winding through the halls pushing the both of them out and ahead of you towards where they need to go, it's Hongjoong first who greets the senior idol exiting their dressing room to the left, then Wooyoung, and then you.

But you know them already.

One of the idols of the groups that you already get on with quite well, it's a friendly greeting, and you certainly can feel Wooyoung watching it all too intently — as if trying to poke a hole in a story once told to him in fabrication.

Saying your goodbyes, the three of you push forward again, not long before reaching just back stage and to your destination. You pull Hongjoong first, doing some last minute touches on his hair and eye makeup before sending him on his way, then Wooyoung — pouting like a baby as you press fingers into the sides of his hair that had fallen and now needed retouching.

“Oh geez, what?” you huff out quietly, thankful for the goings on around you that no one would hear you even if any one had time to stop and eavesdrop on the conversation.

“You two were cozy, huh?” he says — playfully, but you think it might be a ruse.

Wiping excess hair wax from his temple and shoving a clip into your mouth due to lack of hands, you look him dead in the eyes. “Wooyoung, I haven't slept with him, oh my God—“ you exasperate, slicking more product into his head, “and even if I had, none of your business.”

You watch as his eyes narrow, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth at your bitter words and begins to curl his lips into a smile just before telling him that he's finished and to go do his job.

“I know,” he says under his breath, leaning forward momentarily. “Was just hoping to hear the story if there was one.”

It's sinister in tone, like he's already getting off a little on the prospect of hearing about you getting fucked by another man, and the more you think of it in that split second, the less you would even be surprised if that had been the case. But Wooyoung continues to look at you as he steps backwards and towards where it is he needs to go — a display of power, in ways.

You're not sure you could run this guy off if you tried.

Hours later into the evening and close to midnight, you just about finish packing up your things, placing bags by the door next to all of the other stylists and managers items also eager and ready to head off and get rest before the last day of filming before you catch from the corner of your eye — phone laid out on the table and face up, illuminated in the dim lighting of a room soon to no longer be occupied for the day. Stretching your arm out and reaching towards it, almost immediately you recognize the length of name on the screen that alerts you of who it is that's contacting you.

You glance around yourself, just to be sure.

>big trouble: let me see you tonight.

Stomach jumping into your chest, to say yes to him is a big step. You're aware that at any point in time you can rescind said yes, but all the same — even just the logistics of getting him into your place to begin with comes with it's own set of worries and challenges and truth be told; you hadn't put any thought into such a plan.

But you still kind of wanted to.

>you: how?

He begins typing just as quickly as your response sends.

>big trouble: i'll take my managers car, just say yes if it's yes don't worry about the rest.

Realistically you know that it's him on the line. Sure, it wouldn't look great for you as a freelancer if it started getting around that you take home men from work, but not nearly the same career expectations are in place. You take a second to mull it over before attempting to respond. He sends another text through in the meantime.

>big trouble: please if I have to see you in those jeans again and not suffocate in your cunt I think i'll fucking die.

You appreciate his eagerness, as does the throb between your legs in anticipation. He sure knows how to talk to a lady.

And despite the reluctance, you give in, sending over your address in the next text, along with the demand that if he not be there by 12:30am to not bother showing up at all, it's a long work day the next one, after all.

An immediate reply again, you pull your bags onto your arms and head out of the doorway before reading his response.

>big trouble: I have every intention of putting you to sleep.

When 12:18am ticks on the oven clock in your kitchen, one glass of wine down in anticipation and an attempt to calm your nerves, you start to assume that he's not coming. Perhaps he had come to his senses, or got held up and wasn't able to make it.

But just as suddenly as the thought comes to you, a buzzing on your door sounds, and your heart drops to your stomach — bubbling in anxiety and the possibility of what's going to happen now. Now that the both of you will be properly alone. Now that...he's here, and with hours to spare.

Setting the glass down onto the table, you clear your throat and make your way towards the door, checking the peep hole despite knowing precisely who it is that you will find — it's charming, in a way: Wooyoung standing there in baseball cap and mask, heavily bundled in an attempt to not be found out on his naughty little rendezvous. He's brave, you gotta give it to him.

Opening the door slowly, Wooyoung slips in, pulling both adornments from his head before you're even able to close the door completely, then moving to kick his shoes off. He looks at you, shrugging his jacket off and placing it onto the rack just next to him.

“I can't believe you're still wearing those fucking jeans.”

And as taken aback as you are by it being the first words to leave his mouth upon entering your apartment, more than that, you're taken by being immediately pushed back and towards the couch — his eyes flat and narrow and completely darkened by lust as your behind eventually finds the cushion and Wooyoung immediately falls to his knees between your legs.

Pulling himself up and beginning to grapple with the button and zipper of your jeans, he leans up and finally kisses you — for the first time, you're reminded again — plush, hot lips messily pressing into your own, it's evident just in that contact alone how much he's been wanting this moment, greedy and quick and not at all making a point of taking his time before pulling away to loosen the fabric from your legs and toss it elsewhere on the floor beside him.

Wooyoung comes back up, kissing you again and just as hungrily as before — feeling his fingers dip into the elastic hip of your panties, before once again pulling back to release those of you as well.

He breaks the cycle then, bringing up the flat of his fingers against your pussy to feel the heat radiating off of your skin before looking up at you and resuming said cycle — pressing his mouth hard against yours again, trailing down the corner and along your jaw — teeth grazing lightly against the skin as the tip of his middle finger gently dips between your folds to tease at you. Breath hitching in your throat at the contact, you feel him grin into your skin.

“W—Wooyoung,” you choke out, intensity of the situation all consuming and somehow more heavy set than you had even expected.

“What?”

But you forget what it was you were even planning on saying once his finger makes proper contact with your clit — perhaps it was nothing, just an airy exasperation of his name altogether, but just as quickly as everything else the man between your legs pulls from you and pulls you down by the legs, ass edging on the side of the sofa and propping your legs up on his shoulders just as he had said he would — wasting no time thereafter going to work on you.

And you didn't expect him to be lying about what he would or wouldn't do if given the opportunity, but his eagerness right then and there — tongue pressing hard circles into your clit just before applying ample suction against you with his lips, not unwilling to make a mess of himself in the process and, from what you can tell, all the more delighted in doing so as his face glistens with each time that he pulls away to reposition — with eyes screwed shut and one arm tossed over your face in an attempt to stay grounded, the other reaches down, finding its way along the top of his head, fingers curling into hair that only hours earlier you were neatly decorating and clipping into place — hair now entangled and tightly gripped as Wooyoung makes alarmingly quick work of your body from your living room floor.

Bringing a hand up, he delicately presses one finger in, finding little resistance, and adds a second upon his following drive into you. Hand pumping into you at a slow, almost excruciating pace, Wooyoung focuses all of the attention on sucking you harder, faster with the way that your breaths pick up and become weaker, whines higher pitched than before — and if you weren't close before, the additional stimulation gets you climbing that peak all that much faster, gripping hard into his hair as you whimper out his name again, this time far more broken than the time previously.

But like a good man, he doesn't stop — bringing his eyes up to watch as you fall apart above him, you open your eyes only briefly to take in the sight, his eyes smiling back at you with the pretty little adornment of the beauty mark just beneath one.

You cuss, grinding hard down and against his mouth, and come undone against him just like that. Wooyoung sucks you through your orgasm, shallowly pressing fingers into you before removing them altogether as your high dissipates. Chest heaving, you lie in the afterglow of your peak, eyes still closed from exhaustion in the aftermath.

Wooyoung chuckles from between your legs. Cracking open your eyes, you find him settled back and on his heels, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he looks at you with unbridled satisfaction.

“I've been dying to do that,” he finally says, leaning forward and snaking the palms of his hands up your bare thighs, thumbs catching on the hem of your shirt and pressing upwards with insistence that you allow him to remove it. You grant him the access, pulling your back off of the couch long enough for him to pull the fabric up and over your head and watching as he happily tosses it elsewhere before leaning down and pressing his mouth against your own again.

The kiss is brief though, before a man on a mission makes his way back down from where he came but with stops along the journey — nimble hands reaching around the back of you and working to remove your bra — before you even have a moment to settle, plump, warm lips and tongue press into your now exposed flesh and the feeling of him; so encompassing and overwhelming has you squirming in desire beneath him as if you hadn't just come already.

“I need you,” he whispers into your skin, tongue circling your nipple between commentary. “Please, I need to feel you so bad, you drive me crazy.”

You're not sure what it is, the unabashed neediness or just the fact that it's him or maybe even the combination of the two — a man so young and famous and sexy that he could have anyone he desired and yet right now, in this moment, he makes you feel as though the only person or thing he's ever desired so badly in his life...is you.

It's as if the burning throb of arousal never even left you.

“Noona, please.”

It wasn't typically something that did it for you, and in fact, you never understood why it really 'did it' for anyone — but you had to be honest, it was working for you now.

Needy whining, begging, spilling from Wooyoung as his mouth lingers across the expanse of exposed skin. You ask him to take his shirt off and he follows through immediately, only to come back up to pick up where he had left off, but the feeling of his own hot skin against your own only serving to light you up even further.

“Switch places,” you whisper to him, and he follows order without question, pulling up quickly and allowing you space between his legs. Palms grazing over the top of his thighs, you smile up at him at the sight before you. “Same sweats as that one night?”

“Coincidence,” he answers, voice already slightly broken at the implications of what's to come, so you waste no time gripping into the waistband of his pants and pulling down his legs, freeing him and finally becoming more acquainted with what it was that had your interest really piqued since that night only a couple of weeks prior.

“Don't seem so tough now, you know,” you mock, taking his length into your hand and lazily pumping him, his eyes glued to the way you make contact on him.

“Wait until I get you in the bedroom,” he answers, tone lower and less broken now — as if snapping back to reality to assert some form of dominance that had never really had a place in the interaction prior.

You inch forward, taking him into your mouth shallowly, tongue wrapping circles along the tip as he melts into your mouth — both hands coming forward to hold onto your hair. He's not rough, and not assuming the pace, but with every press down of your mouth along him you take him deeper and deeper, his mouth dropping open just that much more at the feeling of your warmth along his shaft.

“Feel so good, you feel so good,” he chants under his breath as you bob along him — a steady rhythm but not so fast with intent to get him there, Wooyoung's head falls back to take in the feeling. “That's it baby, you take it so well.”

The praise has your pussy throbbing all over again, pace on his cock quickening unbeknownst to you just at the prospect of what other filthy things will fall from those beautiful lips.

So, you play along.

Pulling off of him briefly and replacing the sensation with your hand, you look up at him, quickly fisting him and occasionally licking a circle around the tip. “Yeah? That why you like older women? Like the experience?”

Wooyoung groans at the words as if you accidentally stumbled upon some kink that he hadn't made you all that privy to to begin with, hips bucking up into your hand as his eyebrows furrow, “Yeah, know your way around a cock, don't you?”

“I do,” you answer, stuffing him back into your mouth without warning and taking him down a few times just to listen to him groan deeply at the sight and sensation before pulling back up. “Hoping I fucked that guy back there just so you could be sure?”

“Little bit,” he chuckles through a whine as you continue to jerk him off along side the conversation. “Kinda like hearing about it, too.”

“Nasty boy,” you tease in reply, licking a stripe up his shaft before circling around the head of his cock again and watching the way his eyes roll back.

But just as suddenly, Wooyoung snaps forward, pulling your hand off of him and standing up to pull you with him towards the bedroom. “This one?” he asks, simultaneously shoving you inside of it as if the answer you provided wouldn't have matter to begin with, but you assure him that it is, in fact, the correct room as he continues pulling you towards the bed — turning to lie himself on it first before reaching for your wrist and pulling you down to straddle his hips.

You assume the position, grinding gently against his length as he brings you into a sloppy kiss again, you pull off of him not long thereafter, hands flat against his chest as you slide against him.

“All this talk just so I can ride you, eh? Lazy boy,” you say with the same teasing voice as before.

But Wooyoung shakes his head, hands quickly making their way up the length of your thighs and settling on your waist as you hover above his aching cock.

“I just have to see you ride my cock, please, I'll fuck you stupid afterwards, I'll have you begging for it, baby—“ he pleads, one hand slipping down between the two of you to align himself with your entrance, other hand gently pulling you down onto his shaft as he continues on. “—Wanted me to fill you up that night, but I'll do it tonight instead.”

It's an unfortunate giveaway the way his words have such an affect on you, already nearly fully seated on him when the nasty implications of the plans he has for you that evening drop from his sinful lips — walls clenching hard around him, so much so that he groans at the feeling as you sink down to fully take him in. Wooyoung's fingers dig into the skin of your hips as you gently begin to rock against him, thick girth of him tugging at you in all of the ways that you knew it would when you saw it — so full and stretched that even the slightest movement pulls at your clit as you ride him ever so delicately. You whimper shortly thereafter at the feeling he provides you, your nails now digging into the skin of his chest as he watches the space between the both of your hips — watching how your cunt struggles to accommodate his size and yet does so regardless, he allows his head to fall back against the mattress, taking in the feeling of the moment as you bite back your pathetic, flustered, sounds.

“Feel so good, baby,” he finally says, rubbing your thighs as you attempt to ride him to any useful degree. “Is it what you wanted? When you thought about it, is it better?” he adds, pressing his hips up ever so slightly to meet your own as you drop down onto him, a louder hiss dropping from you at the added friction.

“Awww,” he coos teasingly as he watches the way you struggle on top of him. “Mommy's good at talking but not so good at taking it, huh?”

You're not proud of the way that sentence goes straight to your pooling arousal.

And just as quickly, Wooyoung pulls you off of him to switch you places, pressing your back to the mattress as he adjusts himself between your legs.

“I can come in you?” he asks suddenly, and it feels almost random, as if breaking scene in a film. So sudden that you almost don't catch it, but coming back to reality, you nod.

“Uh, y—yeah.”

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun,” he replies, leaning back down and pressing his chest into your own to kiss you — head of his cock teasingly dangling just against your pussy and occasionally grazing your sensitive clit, you press your hips up and into him in an attempt to make the contact that you want, Wooyoung chuckling devilishly against the skin of your chin and neck as you struggle to achieve what you set out for.

“Not as good at taking my cock as I thought you'd be,” he playfully pouts, lips attaching into the skin just at the juncture of your neck and shoulder to suck red and purple blotches into it. “But mommy, you were supposed to be so good.”

The tone in which the words drop from his lips, quite evidently mocking, playful, toying with you and the idea of the age play of it all. You knew that this was part of it for him, you had been warned.

But you didn't know it was going to do it for you, in addition.

“Guess we have to try again,” he whispers, lips trailing up a bit higher and just under your ear. “Probably better off if I'm in control, huh?”

With that, Wooyoung begins his slow drive into you once again — for a man that talks so much about your inability to take him, and being in control, you find his attention to your comfort almost surprising — not taking it quickly and giving you ample time to adjust to the intrusion even in spite of it not being the first time that night that you had taken him, once bottomed out, he settles for a few moments; kissing and sucking along your neck, along with babbling words of affirmation and encouragement all the while before pulling his hips back and slowly pressing forward once again.

The fullness of him is almost stifling, though — and paired with the fact that he won't shut the fuck up through it.

Five or six more delicate drives into you and Wooyoung begins to settle into a more fluid pace, rocking his hips against your own with hard impact but not entirely quick, every push of his cock into you more brutal than the last as he hovers above you and watches the way your face contorts with glee.

“Look at you, so good,” he groans in between snaps of his hips, hands flat against the mattress and on either side of your head to watch the way your cunt takes him. “Aww, I was wrong, you take my cock so well, I knew you would.”

Clenching hard around him with praise, your hands clasp around his arms, nails digging into the tan, hot skin with every drive of himself against you — the sound of wet skin against skin reverberating through your bedroom, and more than that, the sight of Wooyoung's bottom lip sucked up and between his teeth — arms and chest flexing with every movement of his hips.

The familiar feeling of your impending orgasm felt building once again at a particularly hard thrust from him, you cry out, catching his attention. Wooyoung slows, not entirely sure of how to take the sound, but is just as quickly met with your babbling and begging of him not to stop, to which he grins and resumes his rough pace into you.

Leaning down and wrapping an arm up and under your shoulder for more leverage to pull your body down and against him, chest to chest like this, Wooyoung continues his previous ministrations on your skin with his mouth, nipping and sucking at the skin of your neck, collar bones, jaw and mouth as he fucks hard into you — harder now with the positioning, you cry out again and louder even, much to his delight.

“Fuck, Wooyoung—“ you whisper against his mouth, feeling your orgasm threatening in the not so distant future.

“Yeah baby?” he coos back, so gentle in tone and completely opposing the brutality of the way he's fucking you. “Gonna come? Gonna come for me? Just from my cock, nothing else?”

You nod wildly, the way he's talking to you bringing you to the edge even faster — muscles tightening in your abdomen and losing the ability to verbally communicate to much extent at all.

“Good, good, you're so good,” he babbles into your skin, grip on your shoulder tightening even more. “Love it when you say my name, God you're so perfect.”

You whine, pulling forward to press your mouth into his shoulder just in front of you.

“Want me to come inside of you now? Make you mine? You know I want to so bad, want to fill you up so bad.”

Your insides twist at the way he's nearly begging to, despite already having been given the go ahead to do so. All a part of the game, you figure.

It's working, though.

You nod again, but Wooyoung brings his free hand over and to your clit, taking it between his fingers and thumb to force you into eye contact with him.

“Gotta say it, noona, can you say it for me?”

Your fingers dig into him harder, you're reaching inevitability much faster than you had originally intended with the way that he's talking to you, and the anticipation of just what it is he'll say next.

You knew he was gonna be a wild ride, but you didn't anticipate him to be this much of a freak.

“God, noona, please say it, please noona say you want me to come in you, I want to so bad.”

“Wooyoung, Jesus, I'm gonna—“

But he stills, cock buried deep inside of you as you whine at the loss of your incoming peak, shocked at the fact that he would do it.

You're not proud of your next step, either.

“Wooyoung, please, please, don't stop—“ you beg, trying to fuck yourself onto him in an attempt to reach your orgasm, and he does start a drive into you again, albeit much more delicate and less hearty than previous.

“Wow, so whiny,” he chides against your ear, shallowly thrusting into your soaking wet cunt with no intention behind it at all. “I'll give you what you want noona — thick, young, cock to come around, yeah?” he whispers, the words sending chills down your spine paired with the way that the tip of his length dips in and out of you teasingly.

“That what you want?” he whispers again.

“Yes,” you whine in response.

“Want me to come in you too, don't you?” he adds, nose nuzzling into the side of your face as he begins a proper push of his length back inside of you. “Fill you up? Pump a nice, hot load into your tight little cunt?”

It's the first time in the night that his dirty talk had been so lewd, so filthy. Slow drive of his cock back into you and even with the tiniest friction that it provides, just the words alone have you building back up to that place that only moments ago he had stripped from you just as quickly.

You'll do and say anything, now.

“Yes, Wooyoung, please,” you whisper, his hips snapping into you two, three times at the words. “Please daddy—“

The both of you stop as a point of both shock and confusion, neither expecting the word dropping out so suddenly, and not one typically on your repertoire, but Wooyoung seems to take it happily and in stride with an accompanying small giggle, quickly falling into the role that is required of him and driving hard against your hips at the pace once lost all over again — teeth baring against your cheek as he does so.

“Daddy? Well I wasn't planning on it but if you want it so bad,” Wooyoung grits out, reaching down with one hand and pulling one of your legs up and out. “I can fuck a baby into you, too. That why you want me to fill you up so bad? Want me to give you one?”

“Oh my God, Wooyoung, I—“ you groan, nails digging so hard into his skin that you fear you may actually hurt him, muscles in your abdomen tightening so suddenly, so hardly that it takes you by surprise — thick cock still pounding hard into you at an even better angle now, and Wooyoung begins kissing against your skin again.

“Feel so good around me, God, noona, come for me baby, milk me dry, wanna feel you come around my dick.”

muscles locking up, sound catching in your throat, your orgasm rips through your body with little more warning and nearly silently — stilling beneath the man as he continues to fuck you through your high, chasing his own and praising you through it as you do.

“Gonna come baby,” he groans at the impending orgasm of his own. Pulling up and off of you slightly he looks back down between the two of you before meeting your fucked out gaze again and screwing his own eyes shut. “Fuck, noona, fuck you full of me, God I'll ruin this pussy, yeah?”

Two, three more drives into you, Wooyoung buries his cock deep before stilling, head dropping as he growls through his release into you — gentle, shallow thrusts accompanying him as he begins to pull himself out of you. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—“ he whispers as he finally expels his body from yours completely at the feeling of the overstimulation on his dick, flopping over onto the side of you and clenching his eyes shut for a moment as he attempts to steady his breathing in the aftermath.

Even having had more time to settle than him, you're not that much better off.

Silence takes the room beyond heavy breathing, you look over to take in the sight of the light sheen of sweat adorning the man's beautiful body, unsure if you'll ever even get the chance to enjoy this again — if you were to want to, that is. Wooyoung cards his fingers through black and gold hair, pulling most off of his slick forehead before turning to you to meet your gaze. Somewhat embarrassed upon having been caught looking at him, he only smiles gently, as if to tell you that it's okay. That the two of you are past such silly formalities, as it were.

“Hey,” you whisper, searching for his stray hand among the crumpled sheets beneath you.

“Yeah?”

“You're kind of a sicko, you know that?”

Wooyoung laughs, so much so and with such a dry throat that it sends him into a coughing fit as a result. You reach for a bottled water that you have on your nightstand and hand it to him for him to lubricate with, clearing his throat and handing the bottle back to you before attempting to respond to such accusations.

“Maybe so,” he finally says. “But you sure liked it. What's that say about you?”

“Who knows,” you reply, staring at the ceiling as if soul searching for the answers to such questions. “Maybe we're just particularly, disgustingly matched.”

“Maybe so.” Wooyoung nods, adjusting comfortably into the bed beneath him.

On the last day of filming, everything carries on as normal.

You're not entirely sure what story Wooyoung told the others as to why he never came home last night — having slept the rest of the night with you and the two of you having to devise quite the plan to leave from the same place and arrive to the same place without anyone being in on the pick up, but you figure that you manage with no bizarre or questioning looks upon your entry — and Wooyoung already seated and waiting, ready for you to begin to get to work on him.

As he ticks away on his phone, you lean down towards his head questioningly.

“Did you use my shampoo?”

“What was I supposed to use?”

“Probably not the thing that smells like me?”

You watch in the reflection as he stops for a moment to mull the concept over, quite evidently having not thought about it prior to this moment, only to shrug and go back to typing on his phone.

After shooting wraps and everyone is saying their goodbyes, you thank the members and their staff for the warm welcoming and all of their help to make sure that the work environment was comfortable and smooth for you. For Hongjoong and Wooyoung especially — who you worked with most closely — the two hug you, sending you on your way, but not before Hongjoong makes some snide comment about finally being able to escape Wooyoung.

It was true, that you would finally escape the grip of that man, however, wanting to escape? You weren't so sure.

Gently tossing your belongings into the back of a taxi, you climb in and pull your seatbelt over you, reaching towards your purse and pulling out your phone to see what your next schedule would be for the upcoming weeks, only to find a text on your phone that had come in hours prior.

>big trouble: let me see you again (not just sex way)

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ hope you enjoyed! please check out my navigation for more (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)

—this is a oneshot, there will be no part 2.

[darkshrimpemotions]

I'll never understand the Nandermo Is Over stuff because...what? You think five seasons of obvious love and devotion and Harvey and Kayvan's incredible, nuanced performances of two fucked up people in love don't matter because of how it might end? Like first of all, you're basing this off what? A hiatus interview? When we all well know that writers cannot be trusted to say anything substantively true during hiatus?

But really...you think the metric fuckton of beautiful fanart and fic and meta and all the fanvids and conversations had and glorious cosplays and gifsets and web weavings that deal untold psychic damage are less beautiful or meaningful if it isn't validated by some guy?

From a certain angle, I get it. Being baited sucks. If anything, it sucks more from a show that has so much queerness built into its DNA, because...just, why? And IF the worst happens, of course I'll be upset because we do deserve a good queer slow burn, goddammit!

But shipping itself has never been dependent on or limited to what's canon, and canon has absolutely no bearing on when or if a ship is declared "over." And as someone who's lived through the literal Worst Queerbait of All Time, I promise you, nothing was over.

So like. Nandermo Forever, actually.

[undreaming-fanfiction]

Steve and Chrissy as two internet-famous chefs/bakers, Steve with a channel focusing on (not always) easy homemade and nutritious meals, Chrissy with a baking channel full of body positivity to spite her mom.

They both get invited to something like Phoning It In from the Try Guys - a baking/cooking competition where they have to guide the actual chefs only through a pay phone. As the TG's show says: "the mind of a chef paired with the hands of an idiot". And the idiots in question are their best friends - Robin and Eddie. Which shouldn't be that bad, but then...they actually have to swap them. And they can't tell them what they're making.

It's a holiday episode so the theme is gingerbread.

Steve is slumped in the phone booth, sometimes covering the receiver and asking Chrisy why, why would her best friend refuse to measure ingredients in anything more precise than "a bit", "a bit more", "kinda enough", "oooh might be a bit too much" and "a fuckton".

Chrissy tries very hard to explain to Robin that artistic expression is an amazing thing, but hot sauce and gingerbread might be too artistic for the judges. Robin disagrees. Chrissy pleads with her and eventually talks Robin into just including some chilli flakes in her batter and not the hot sauce as a topping.

Eddie spends half of the prep time complaining to Steve that a gingerbread house is lame, it should have been a gingerbread castle. Robin agrees.

Robin deciding to give her tiny gingerbread men flannel shirts and spending way too much on decorating them. She runs out of time very soon and just writes "THIS IS FLANEL" into a shirt-shaped blob.

Steve and Eddie shamelessly flirting despite having never met each other and then threatening violence in equal measure to get the other one do what they want. "I bet your eyes are more beautiful than the entire sky full of stars Stevie, also I might have dropped one extra spoon of spices into the gloopy thingy and I don't want to get my hands more dirty than they are so I'll just leave it in-" "Eds, you vile seductress, your voice could charm many a seaman but if you don't get that spicy glob out of the batter I swear I will shave your head."

Robin somehow going from following the instructions into a full rambling mode and before they know it, she's just cutting hipster-shaped gingerbread flanelmen and telling Chrissy nearly her full life story, basically turning the prep into a therapy session. Chrissy listens and nods and just sometimes interjects with "people can be such jerks just because you're different, can you just quickly check that the temperature is still the same? Thank you Robs, now back to that asshole in your uni class-"

In the end, they finally meet at the judging table and present their work, bullshitting their way through explanations of many choices that were made (because the two actual chefs are not permitted to speak, only the great minds).

Steve almost sobs when he sees piped (and very melted) bats on toothpicks around the gingerbread castle, because of course Eddie made a castle. "I meant for that to happen, for the shock value" he announces when one of the bats starts a domino effect and knocks down the rest.

Chrissy's smile gets a little bit stiff when she sees attempted man buns on the gingerbread men's heads - ones which have unfortunately melted and they now have flowing ponytails. Slightly burned.

Steve confidently claims that the reason why his gingerbread house is black and has spires is because his little brother adores Dungeons and Dragons and he wanted to give him a cool prop for the final encounter with the big evil. When the castle crumbles because Eddie didn't bake it long enough, Steve just dramatically stands up and announces that the evil warlock has been defeated. Eddie almost faints behind the screen and unceremoniously asks Robin if that gem of a man is taken.

Chrissy explains how the gingerbread men are wearing flanel in honor of her best friend's uncle who is the flanel overlord. When the judges bite into the figures and taste the chilli flakes, Chrissy earnestly tells them that Eddie's uncle is a man with hidden depths and spicy personality (Eddie chokes on his own tongue at that) and Robin was kind enough to reflect that.

In the end, it doesn't matter who won. Eddie asks Steve (after he tastes the gingerbread bat, gingerbat) if he's still about to shave his head and Steve says it would be a shame, but he can make it up to him by inviting him for coffee. Robin awkwardly thanks Chrissy for listening to her and Chrissy admits she loved her rambling, that she hates it when it's quiet.

It all ends well (except for the gingerbread).

[vidavalor]

Stars Crashing Down

For @tickety-bippity-boo and @thavron, who wanted thoughts on why the same musical cues play when Death spreads its wings as during the Jesus scene and the 2.06 kiss.

The questions posed to me were: What's the deal with Crowley and Death? Is Crowley Death? and the answer is... well, um... kinda... just read it and you'll see what I mean. 😉

You have sought The Black Knight, foolish one, but you have found...

...your death.

So, you do not have to read it first but, over here, I talked about the connections between why the same musical cues are playing in the 2.06 kiss scene and the Jesus scene. What we're going to do here is expand those thoughts out to include Death spreading its wings having the same musical cues and talk about why that might be.

The 2.06 kiss/Golgotha scene meta talks about how the show is using different meanings of the word passion and how Golgotha is contrasting romantic passion with the suffering and death of Christ, aka The Passion of the Christ. This isn't the only instance of a comparison between destruction and death and passion in the series. Looking at more of them will probably help clear up what's going on with the parallels between Death and Crowley (and Aziraphale) in the series, so, that's what I'll be doing here and you can let me know what you think, yeah?

Passion is, by far, not the only word that has such wildly, contrasting definitions, but it's one of the strongest examples of it because of how its definitions illustrate how people make comparisons between the experience of erotic love with the agony of suffering and death. The word is an example of something we could call a destructive sexual metaphor or sex and death.

Throughout history, humans have sought words to explain the experience of sex and many different common metaphors have arisen from this. Crowley and Aziraphale, for instance, also have a whole thing about one of the other most common ones in the arts, which is the sea. Linguistically-speaking, though, the most common ones have always been death and destruction. Why?

Well, some people see an orgasm as a rebirth of sorts and the closest thing a person experiences to death while still remaining alive. Both sex and death come with a sense of a lack of control. They are on the opposite ends of a spectrum when it comes to experience, with one being an example of intense pleasure while the other being possibly painful and an ending from which you do not return. This draws contrasts between them. Similarly, something being destroyed-- like a crumbling building, say-- is seen as metaphoric for the feeling of coming apart that can accompany an orgasm.

As a result, across many languages, there is a metric fuckton of linguistic overlap between words related to death, destruction and violence and words related to love and sex. The French phrase that means an orgasm, for instance, is la petite mort which, when literally translated means the little death. When Hozier sings the song that is on Crowley's playlist and offers his life in exchange for "that deathless death," the "deathless death" in question is an orgasm. He is using death as a metaphor for the sexual pleasure about which he is singing, which is currently one of the most well-known examples of sex and death/destructive sexual metaphor in modern music, if nowhere near the only one.

If you start thinking about slang words for sex, I'd wager quite a few of them are going to fall into the category of a destructive sexual metaphor because they're also words related to a sense of destruction. Bang. Smash. Wrecked. Nailed... Would you sleep with him? Yeah, I'd hit that... Even puppy love is destructive sexual metaphor, as it's a pash (short for passion) or a crush. The word that we use to say we have a little thing for someone-- a crush-- is the same word we use to say someone was killed within the rubble of a bombed building. Both a little disturbing and quite interesting, right?

If you've ever written or read erotica that was at least purporting to be a little literary 😉, you know that there's usually a lot of writhing and thrashing involved-- words that are originally rooted in flailing around in pain that are being used to describe how the body moves in the midst of sexual pleasure. These words, too, are a form of destructive sexual metaphor.

As anyone who has gotten back from seeing Deadpool and Wolverine improve the sales of Hondas for the foreseeable future can tell you, using violence and destruction as a metaphor for sex is not going anywhere. It's not new-- it's actually very, very, very old. How old, you say?

Well, how's this for homoeroticism: the word weapon comes from the Old English waepen, which was a word meaning penis, you guys. Dudes literally invented swords and the like to kill each other and then went 'this is just like my dick' to a point that they just called them the same fucking word. 😂

It's a truth universally acknowledged that nearly all Good Omens fans have seen Our Flag Means Death-- a tv show whose title is an example of sex and death happening, let alone the rest of the show. This also means you've all seen the most blatant example of destructive sexual metaphor on screen maybe ever and, if you have seen OFMD, you already know exactly what scene I'm going to say... 😂

It does not take much to infer that, perhaps, Stede's sword was standing in here-- so, was metaphorical for-- his cock and what Ed really desired here was to get done into the following Tuesday. The sword is a very overt metaphor for penetrative sex. This is what very blatant, destructive sexual metaphor looks like. More subtle ones exist-- it would be hard for them not to, by comparison lol-- but this is it a nutshell.

Ok, I can hear you saying: alright, I love the sadly departed queer pirate show, Vida, but what does this have to do with Good Omens?

As we'll see, Crowley and Aziraphale are fucking obsessed with death and destruction as a sexual metaphor, that's what, and sex-and-death is a theme of Good Omens.

Crowley and Aziraphale are supposed to be hereditary enemies. For thousands of years, when they've been in a place where someone could overhear them, they've had to sound like they dislike one another. To sound like a good angel and a bad demon, there needs to be talk of being on opposite sides of what is ultimately supposed to be a large-scale military conflict. Heaven and Hell are places of violence and destruction that are full of talk of war and Armageddon, right?

As we'll look at, you can use those words of death, violence and destruction to mean sexually euphemistic or, depending on the word, even romantic things... which is what Crowley and Aziraphale do.

Crowley and Aziraphale's language exists to mask their speech in public but the way they use it is to take those words of aggression and use them as flirtation. They're wonderful dorks who get off on seeing how cleverly they can wordplay each other into bed. Their little birdsong mating dance-- whether in public or private-- involves a ton of sex and death and destructive sexual metaphors. I've picked out a few of what I think are great examples but this is in no way all of them.

Receipts time. 😉

In 1.01, a drunk Crowley and Aziraphale are, on a surface level, talking about the destructive devastation that will happen to Earth when Armageddon happens. In reality, Armageddon here is a metaphor for a top notch time in bed. It's the end of the world so it's an irresistible metaphor for a really, really, good end, if ya get me.

Crowley flirts with Aziraphale with a bit of destructive sexual metaphor that is actually made even funnier retrospectively by 2.01's Before the Beginning scene and that's this bit here: "Stars crashing down!"

Making someone "see stars" is an example of destructive sexual metaphor in language because if a boxer takes a punch and starts to wobble, someone might say "oh, he's seeing stars"-- meaning, he's probably a bit concussed or, at least, disoriented from the punch-- but you can also want to make someone "see stars" in bed, which is descriptive for giving them pleasure. It comes from how many people see flecks of light when they orgasm. Crowley is taking this one step further by referring to them as the stars, which is made funnier by the fact that they set the stars in the sky and the first things he ever showed Aziraphale were literal fucking stars 😂.

And what are these stars doing? They're crashing down.

Crowley is comparing the stars falling out of the sky in the final destruction of Armageddon-- so, the destruction of the universe-- as metaphorical for the two of them in bed later on. Aziraphale gonna be so gone, he'll be like what are they putting in bananas these days? (The bananas are another post. Do not distract me while I'm on a roll here lol.)

Aziraphale comes back not long later when he's gotten enough drunken synapses to fire and he's got a destructive sexual metaphor for Crowley that wins at life by their standards because it also encompasses the sea which, as we looked at in the Fish meta (I'll link it later on in the post), they've been using to talk about sex seemingly ever since they first started having some literal and metaphorical oysters back in ancient Rome.

Aziraphale's metaphor? The Kraken.

The Kraken is a mythological sea monster that was often seen as something of a sea serpent, even if historians believe that it was based on giant squid and octopi before those were more well understood. Hmm, I wonder what long-limbed sea serpent could be The Kraken in Aziraphale's metaphor here? 😉

And what's supposed to happen to "The Kraken" that is Crowley during Armageddon?

Oh, it's supposed to come up from the sea to the surface "in the end, when the sea boils." When it all gets too hot because the sea in the mother of all boils here and "the end" is in sight, The Kraken is going to come to the surface.

This is Aziraphale using Armageddon as destructive sexual metaphor. He's comparing sea creatures trying to escape the boiling waters of Armageddon and dying trying to Crowley's near-future orgasm.

They managed these drunk so imagine how filthy they are sober! 😂

We don't have to, actually, as there are lots more...

When Crowley and Aziraphale crossed paths in The Kingdom of Wessex, how did Crowley flirtatiously greet Aziraphale?

"...you have found (dramatic beat while he poses) your death."

Crowley is amusing them both by using the words he has to say to sound threatening while posing as the seemingly violent Black Knight to actually refer to the fact that he's not Aziraphale's literal death-- he would never harm him-- but he is very much Aziraphale's metaphorical death, in that he is Aziraphale's lover.

It's a play on death and destruction as sexual metaphor, in that Aziraphale arrived expecting an encounter with violence, potentially, and, instead, he's found "death"-- pleasure.

For a pretty basic example, there is Aziraphale's "sitting on it" joke and that smirk 😂 to Crowley...

...this is a pretty surface-level but still very funny joke equating the sword with a cock and illustrating that Aziraphale is making the comment innuendo intentionally for the amusement of his partner, who more than gets the joke. Hell, his partner originated the damn joke...

Destructive sexual metaphor is also why Aziraphale references The Titanic when promising a great time at The Meeting Ball and why the theme song to the 1997 movie is on his playlist in S2.

The Titanic is the greatest nautical disaster that has ever occured. By Crowley and Aziraphale standards, that makes it metaphorical for best of the best sex. (Unfortunately, Aziraphale accidentally manifested an actual disaster instead lol.)

One could also say that positively destroying some barbecue is destructive sexual metaphor, especially when one looks one's partner dead in the eye in the middle of it and uses it as euphemistic for other things onto which one might like to go down.

Whew. Good thing Crowley has the constitution of an ox...

Now, you might say... but what do these two care about death and destruction? They're immortal! Except... they're not. Not entirely.

Their relationship is dangerous as all fuck and if they got caught, they could be killed. They do fear actual destruction and Aziraphale uses the word destroy to refer to that with Crowley in earnest more than once when expressing his fear over it.

The spectres of holy water and hellfire looms over them because they could be killed if they are caught. How they end up surviving that risk at the end of S1-- swapping bodies-- is a sexual metaphor in and of itself. The point is that there is risk to them so they understand the human comparisons between sex, destruction and death.

This is really why Aziraphale is so excited about The Bullet Catch in S2. There is nary a more frequent example of a weapon used in destructive sexual metaphor than a gun and, as I looked at a bit in the Fish meta, The Bullet Catch is a metaphor for the history of their sexual relationship and Rome, in particular.

In 1941, The Bullet Catch was Aziraphale's answer to the destructive sexual metaphor Crowley had made when redirecting the bombs in the church by finding an equally sex-and-death magic trick that they could perform together. They both were well-aware of the metaphor.

Understanding this and destructive sexual metaphor in general helps to make clear what it is that Aziraphale actually mouths at Crowley:

When Crowley is struggling to actually fire the gun because he's anxious and, ya know, doesn't want to kill Aziraphale (kinda understandable lol), what Aziraphale mouths at Crowley helps him focus and fire the literal gun that they could not possibly be using more euphemistically if they tried (and they are trying lol.)

If you look at the above gif, you will see that "trust me" are not the actual words that Aziraphale was saying, as those words do not match the movements of his mouth. What he says means "trust me" to Crowley, as Crowley later states, but those are not the words that Aziraphale actually soundlessly said to Crowley on the stage.

Instead, it's pretty evident that what Aziraphale actually mouths is "come for me." He got Crowley to fire the literal gun with some words that do it for Crowley in the situation for which the literal gun is a metaphor. Aziraphale having a gun to his head and using language he'd use in bed is the most sex and death thing that has ever sex and deathed.

This is referenced in the Chateauneuf-de-Pape scene afterwards, when they're still talking about The Bullet Catch as if it was sex, both well-aware of why they spent their date night using a gun-firing performance as foreplay.

Aziraphale referring to what it was he actually mouthed:

Finally, if The Bullet Catch is the king of destructive sexual metaphor scenes between them, then the queen is The Seeds of Destruction.

On the way to Tadfield in S1, we have this scene in which Crowley was giving Aziraphale a few more details about when he dropped off the baby eleven years earlier and started to feel down about how the whole thing is a mess and Armageddon is days away. Aziraphale then starts in on this little monologue using a religious teaching to talk about the nature of evil that gets quite a response out of Crowley.

A lot of people already see the end of the scene for what it is, as it's fairly overt:

You don't have to be looking at wordplay too heavily to see that Crowley's saying that what Aziraphale just said has him hard and that is emphasized by the shot we hold on of Aziraphale to end the scene being that he is clearly checking out the fruits of his labors. So, what, exactly, about what Aziraphale says in this scene is so hot that Crowley is trying to be cool but is very glad in this moment that the car can drive itself?

What Aziraphale is doing here when they're obviously alone is using the slightly pompous angel voice he uses when they banter in their speak in public and he is paraphrasing a religious teaching-- one that Aziraphale doesn't believe in or else he wouldn't be here in this car in this moment-- as the basis for wordplay. What is he doing with that wordplay? He is dirty-talking Crowley in blasphemous destructive sexual metaphor.

Aziraphale sounds like he's talking about the religious teaching that states that evil will always falter, no matter what, simply because it is evil, which means that it is doomed to always cave to good. He is actually using that teaching as a metaphor for how he will "win out" over Crowley the next time they have sex. To do that, he adds destructive sexual metaphor to the very hot blasphemy of using religious language to talk about sex because raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and all that but if you mash up etymology, blasphemy, destructive sexual metaphor and the pompous angel voice, these are a few of Crowley's favorite things.

How does he use destructive sexual metaphor here?

Aziraphale is talking about how Crowley keeps the seeds of his destruction-- the impetus for what turns him on-- quiet and doesn't let people close to him and to know him is to know just what he likes and oh Aziraphale knows what he likes (like word flirting while he's driving lol)... and also that one of the things that Crowley likes to contain are the other way the "seeds of destruction" can be taken, which is the literal seeds of his destruction (yes, this is scene #543 to make an orgasm denial reference) but doing that, Aziraphale is saying? It's going to be no use, Crowley...

Among the wordplay in here is that Aziraphale is saying that Crowley might think he's going to last but he's wrong because, eventually, Aziraphale is going to have him metaphorically crashing on the rocks in a shipwreck ("founder on the rocks") and "vanishing"-- a word that means to suddenly disappear. A vanishing, in and of itself, is destructive sexual metaphor but the verb 'to come' is also the root of the words appear and disappear, making to 'vanish' doubly-euphemistic for a sudden, dramatic, ah... "disappearance."

Aziraphale is literally sitting there in the passenger seat chatting away in religious speak, wordplay-happy euphemisms, and with those he is saying, among other things: I know you and what you like and what you need and I'm going to have you dying for it and no matter how much you might try not to give in, eventually, you're going to give yourself up to me and I'm going to make you come so hard.

It's a little more detailed and more clever if you go word-by-word but, basically, that is, in summary, why Crowley is trying not to drive off the road at the end of this scene-- and it's destructive sexual metaphor to a point that there's a vanishing and a shipwreck-- plus, the word destruction literally in it.

Finally, the extent to which they use destruction and death as sexual metaphor is actually best summed up by a moment in which Crowley used it-- but not just as a flirtation.

In 1827, as Aziraphale debated healing Wee Morag, he thought he had more time than he actually did. Crowley, who could sense Wee Morag dying, tried to interrupt him to tell him:

Aziraphale continued for a second in which he says: "I will brook no argument"-- a phrase that implied through its use of a word that also means a type of body of water that he thought he had enough time to flirt with Crowley for a moment before doing anything. The whole exchange is only a few seconds long and Crowley knew that it was over before Aziraphale had even proposed healing Morag and that there was really nothing Aziraphale could have done.

He turns Aziraphale and they witness Wee Morag die. This is the first scene we've seen where the two of them see death happen before them, even though we know they've obviously seen it happen on Earth before. Both of them are understandably upset by Morag's death.

As Aziraphale then speaks to Elspeth, he starts to stammer, emotional over Morag's death and feeling guilty that he didn't save her. Crowley steps up to comfort him before moving to help Elspeth. Crowley wants Aziraphale to know it wasn't his fault and to not feel guilty for flirting while the young woman was dying, as there wasn't a way to save her. He does so by combining the comforting tone and pat of Aziraphale's chest with further flirtation, picking up where Aziraphale left off to show him he doesn't think badly of him.

The comforting flirtation? Is some sex in the face of death.

Crowley says something about grief to Aziraphale that also sounds an awful lot like something someone might say to a lover. The result of the scene is that it has the effect of sounding like Crowley is referencing something once said between them and that was likely something Aziraphale once said to Crowley after a very different sort of "death"-- likely, the first time they performed the The Bullet Catch together.

"It's a bit different when it's someone you know, isn't it?"

So, why does the same music play when Death spreads his wings and when Jesus is nailed to the cross as plays when Crowley and Aziraphale kiss in 2.06? Sex and death. Crowley is death in the sense that he's Aziraphale's death-- and Aziraphale is his.

These two are supposed to be thrilled to bits to one day defeat one another in glorious battle in the final war of Armageddon but they're really in love. They have no desire to hurt one another and every desire to give each other all the pleasure they can. They've developed and enjoy a mutual kink for figuring out increasingly clever and inventive, word-nerdy ways to say they want to fuck each other senseless by way of using words of God, violence, destruction and death to do so, underscoring a theme of sex and death in the Armageddon show.

After all, this is how Crowley once faux-told Aziraphale he wanted to commit murder, so... is it really a stretch? 😉

I'm pretty sure that is about neither goats nor kids, aren't you?

[hoetao]

sooo sort of a masterpost of info about Wriothesley.

about his character:

hes basically incorruptible, is said to be "low profile and dependable"

‌mostly just cares about the peace and tranquility of the inmates (he's a protector at heart!!)

treats everyone equally and generally prefers to be "reasonable" rather than use more forceful methods

‌doesn't really like cruelty and violence but if the need comes, he will use it

‌he thinks of himself as "neither a good person or a villain, just another soul still living on in this world"

‌hes basically just interested in every bit of knowledge any person shares and in their unique talents

he says that he himself doesn't have many abilities, but he "knows how to find people who do and get them to work for him"

his past:

‌wanted to be convicted and spilled everything about how he killed his adopted parents (cough cough child traffickers), even though some wanted to treat him with leniency

‌learned to lockpick and create small gadgets as a child

gained Coupons in the arena of the Fortress (while injuring himself considerably)

‌when he got his vision after going to prison he just. hid it between the fabric of his clothes so that no one would know and/or steal it. and then he kinda just hid it some more, for years, until he went to the Palais to receive his title.

‌how he actually became the Administrator:

accumulated a fuckton of Coupons

got everyone's respect by being so rich, "observant, persuasive, humble and reasonable"

got his account emptied in retribution by the former administrator

‌convinced other ppl to protest and challenged the previous administrator to a duel

the former administrator run away from the fight, leaving Wriothesley on the last day of his sentence without anyone to sign his exit papers

‌"so he walked into the office and took over all relevant duties"

about his role as a Fortress Administrator:

‌has a private information network and many connections

‌rejected having a ceremony for his title of the Duke. no spotlight for good old duke.

‌basically his management style just helps the Fortress make money (with one of its main clients being the Palais); he even jokes that his title was basically bought because he's a leading tax contributor

‌after dealing with the Fatui spies he went for a swim. near primordial water. and he didn't say shit after realizing that the prophecy may be coming to pass, he just started preparing his funky ship.

relationships with others:

‌Clorinde actually admits that no one really knows all of the methods he uses to keep the Fortress up and running; it is stated that "very few people know him in his entirety"

he seems to think of Neuvillette as some sort of a. higher power that cannot show concern (BUT HE DOES OH HE DOES)

‌he indeed held out the umbrella for Neuvillette in the rain. the Iudex was polite, but distressed.

‌gifts a lot of tea to Furina.

‌got Neuvillettes trust (i think what he implies is that he got it by his actions, not words?) and the Iudex "fought hard for the title and reputation he now has"

‌when he went to prison Neuvillette told Sigewinne to take care of him and they frequently exchanged letters about his progress (and Wriothesley called her Neuvillettes spy…)

info that i find especially funky:

he's a big softie when it comes to animals and kids

‌may or may not go outside the Fortress incognito to buy snacks sometimes. he's actually too incognito to know really

‌doesnt treat boxing like a hobby, "more like a necessity"

‌melusines put stickers on him and he rarely notices them do so. they are just too good. and besides, it doesn't bother him. they also have bets on who will pit more stickers on him.

‌he would like to have a happy childhood and maybe the ability to trust people (i am BAWLING)

‌might be "a bit taller than Neuvillette"

drinks coffee with milk and tea with two cubes of sugar

‌he thinks Sigewinnes milkshakes taste of desolation

Sigewinne spiked his tea with anaesthetics when he was younger because he always refused them out of fear that they would fog his brain

[jewish-sideblog]

hey, so im Palestinian and a strong activist for my people's liberation. i wanted to ask for some info/advice on avoiding antisemitism in my activism for Palestine. im on anon bc i don't want to be called a racefaker for caring about Jewish ppl. i know antisemitism is on the rise right now (and generally over the past few years) and i want to make sure i'm not unintentionally contributing to it.

Hey there! I wanted to start by genuinely thanking you for asking this question. Partially because I don't actually get any well-intentioned or helpful questions in my inbox anymore, but also because I understand the amount of bravery it takes to reach out with a question like that at a time like this.

Next, I want to apologize to all my followers who hate long posts. Judaism is a very complicated ethnoreligious group, antisemitism is a very complicated form of bigotry, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is arguably the most complicated international issue that has ever existed. I'm going to try to go through everything as succinctly as possible below the cut-- I am also going to ask other Jews to contribute to and make edits to this list as needed.

And finally-- I'm writing this as though I were speaking to someone with very little knowledge of the subject. I understand that as a Palestinian, you probably know a lot about what's going on here. But I want to make sure that I'm covering bases for anybody else who might need to use this post. So if you're like, Yeah, Obviously I Knew That. Please remember that a fuckton of people on tumblr are engaging in Israeli criticism without obviously knowing that.

There are two primary forms of antisemitism in anti-Zionist spaces-- antisemitic conspiracy theory, and criticism of Israel that no other country receives. The first kind is the easiest kind to pick out, and it makes a nice bulleted list, so we'll start there.

Dual Loyalty. A global stereotype that has skyrocketed since the establishment of Israel, but it's been around for a lot longer than that. Simply put, it's the idea that Jews are more loyal to Israel (or some global secret kabal) than we are to the countries we currently reside in. With I/P, it manifests as the idea that All Jews are directly responsible for Israel or the idea that All Jews secretly support Israel. If you see a Jew who isn't directly engaging in I/P topics, don't ask them what their stance is. Plenty of us have never even been to Israel, and it's fucked up to assume that we're all experts in geopolitics.

The Holocaust was a Fabrication or a Lesson. The idea that Jews made up the Shoah has been around since the Shoah was still happening, and it's always been ridiculous. Today, you'll see three primary lines about this. Either it's that Jews made up the Shoah as an excuse to establish Israel, that the Jews deserved the Shoah because of what's happening in Israel today, or that the Jews "should have learned their lesson from the Holocaust" because now Jews are "the new Nazis". Frankly, I wish goyim would stop treating the deaths of millions of Jews like a TV show. Palestinian deaths are genuinely horrible, but this isn't some kind of "narrative parallel" to the Shoah.

The Kazars Theory, or All Jews are White. This is the DNA test nonsense. The idea is that Israel (or Jews at large) are only pretending to be indigenous to the Levant and that secretly Jews as a whole are actually indigenous to Eastern Europe. It's a lie, started by a German professor of Russian history in the early 1800s. Meanwhile, the vast majority of genetic, historical, and archaeological evidence points to Jewish origins in the Israeli/Palestinian region. There have been literal hundreds of genetic studies on this. Most of them suggest that Jews, even "white" Ashkenazim, are nearly genetically identical to Palestinians.

World Domination. The idea that Jews control the world began with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1903. If you're encountering criticism of Israel that suggests that world governments, particularly European or American ones, are being controlled by Jews, you've got yourself antisemitism. White supremacists like to use the term "Zionist Occupied Government" or "ZOG" as shorthand for this conspiracy. The next two points are born out of this same ideology.

Controlling the Media. The idea that Jews are in charge of Hollywood and/or major news organizations around the world. Regarding I/P, I've seen a bunch of people say something like "Western media outlets won't cover this! (Because you know who controls them!)" only to look online and see... Western media outlets covering it. See also: "My source is tiktok! I don't trust the news!" While it's obviously a fair criticism to say that some Western news outlets certainly have a pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias, it's certainly not every single one of them. Reuters and the AP are once again my go-to's here.

Controlling the Financial World. I haven't actually seen this come up regarding I/P, but considering how things have been going, it's only a matter of time. We don't control the banks. We don't control the stock market. We're not in charge of American aid being sent to Israel. HaShem knows that if we controlled all the money, I'd certainly be living larger than I am now...

Those Bloodthirsty Jews. This one arguably started with Blood Libel in the 1100s, when Christians started accusing us of stealing and eating their babies. Straight up, I have met Christians who still believe this in 2023. You see this a lot with I/P-- the Al Ahli Hospital is the biggest example. More than a month later, most reliable intelligence organizations agree that a misfired Hamas rocket landed in a parking lot, killing about 100 people. But a ton of people are still saying that Those Bloodthirsty Jews intentionally bombed the hospital dead on, killing 470 people. I want to be clear-- Israel is killing a lot of civilians. But if you see a bandwagon of people focusing on the one group of deaths that Israel probably actually didn't cause? Consider why.

Causing wars, revolutions, and calamities. Hamas has straight-up got this one in their founding charter. No, the Jews are not responsible for any major global conflicts, revolutions, or counter-revolutions that don't directly involve Israel. We didn't do WWII. We didn't do the October Revolution. See above-- we're not secretly plotting massacres on Shabbat. A lot of people are saying that Netanyahu and Likud let Hamas in to justify the invasion of Gaza... I'd be shocked if that was the case. All evidence points to a classic intelligence failure. We're not orchestrating bloodbaths.

Section 2: Criticisms only levelled at Israel

It's important to recognise that Israeli civilians are no more collectively responsible for the actions of the Likud coalition than Palestinians are collectively responsible for the actions of Hamas. No Palestinian deserves to be stripped of their rights to self-determination in their ancestral lands because of the October 7th attack. Likewise, no Chinese person deserves to be displaced from China because of the CCP's human rights violations in Tibet, Uyghur and Hong Kong. No Russian person deserves to be ethnically cleansed from Russia because of the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. But plenty of people do believe that Jews should be stripped of their rights to self-determination in historically Jewish indigenous lands because of the actions of the Israeli government.

After October 7th, I've seen people argue that Israeli babies deserved to be kidnapped because of their national origin. I've seen people argue that Israeli women deserved to be sexually abused because of their nation of origin. I've seen people argue that the seven million Jews living in their ancestral homeland deserve death or displacement because of their nation of origin. Justifying or allowing brutal harm against people because of their national origin is hateful.

I want to make this part very clear-- I do not have an issue with calling out Israeli war crimes or crimes against humanity. But I do have an issue with treating Jewish civilians differently than civilians of other nations responsible for similar horrors. Amplifying bias against a particular group because of that group's nation of origin is called bigotry. Taking a stand against Israeli settlements in the West Bank is anti-Zionism. Collectivizing the label of "white colonialism", and forcing that label upon refugees forced to move to Israel, or Mizrahim with uninterrupted 8,000-year histories in Israel, is antisemitism.

Part 3: Moving Forward

So where do we go from here? If advocating for the destruction of Israel is advocating for the elimination of Jewish self-determination in our ancestral lands, but advocating in favour of the Israeli government is advocating for the elimination of Palestinian self-determination in your ancestral lands, then we must find some middle ground. A solution that allows seven million Jews and five-and-a-half-million Arabs to share the same holy land, without fear of persecution, displacement, or death. For me, this means a few things.

First of all, the recognition that most Israelis disagree with Netanyahu's approach to Palestine, and most Palestinians disagree with Hamas's approach to Israel. And that brings up a question-- why are Likud and Hamas in charge of Israel and Gaza respectively if most people disagree with them? Without getting into the complicated intricacies of the Knesset and the PNA on an already very long post (and without explaining your own government to you), the simple answer is international funds.

Israeli crimes against Palestinians are bankrolled by American Evangelical Christians, who believe that when Palestine is gone, all the Jews will go to Israel, and Jesus will come back to kill the world's infidels. They actually fucking believe that. Meanwhile, Hamas is bankrolled by Iran, which believes that the more often Jews and Sunni Muslims kill each other, the easier it will be for Iranian Shiite Jihad to take over the world. They actually fucking believe that.

So what steps can we take during our advocacy? Not for the destruction of Israel nor the destruction of Palestine, but for America and Iran to get their noses out of our damn business. I genuinely believe that a defunded Likud and a defunded Hamas will allow Israelis and Palestinians to work together for a peaceful two-state or joint-rule solution. Something that will keep my Palestinian friends from feeling like they can't safely travel from Jaffa to Tel Aviv. Something that will allow my Jewish family to visit and pray at the Cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca and the Temple Mount. Something that will let Israeli children from Kibbutz Nirim and Palestinian children from Khan Yunis play on the same playgrounds together, instead of sheltering from missile fire.

Frankly, we nearly had that when the Supreme Muslim Council and the Assembly of Representatives began collaborating against the British Mandate instead of against each other. Clearly, it's possible, we just need to stop being pitted against each other by foreign powers.

[massiveobservabletidalwave]

Anyone saying the live adaptation of ATLA was bad, does not remember the series well and/or does not understand how adaptation from cartoon to live action has to function. Is it identical to the original? No. Should it be? No. It's called adaptation not remake/remaster, dummies. I loved shifting more of the Zuko/Iroh relationship earlier and to the forefront. Y'all do not remember Iroh well from season 1. His ass got a whole retcon/rewrite to gloss over the very anime trope of "gluttonous pervy old man" to "talented and emotional statesman who is playing a role". THAT is this Iroh, just from the start.

Is the series "darker"? Yes. Is it ANY different from the darkness of the original? Nope, we just freak out watching real people burn to death. Because yeah a FUCKTON of people burned to death and most of the characters are orphaned, lost one parent, or were traumatized by their parents (or all three Zuko you over achiever). If you just now realized that or disagree, go rewatch the series. The message was always "the world is bleak but the youth will always fight for a better one, so we should listen and help them". In what way was that altered?

Oh you didn't get to see the canyon crawlers or elephant seal riding?? Ooooh poor baby, you miss the filler arcs. Yup, they were fun episodes, but they were very much episodes about teaching little kids morality. That's not this show. It is clearly geared towards an older audience. I am rewatching the ATLA cartoon and I skimmed most of season one, watching it but doing other stuff, because it was a bunch of filler. And the live action literally name drops that those things happen!!!! They just do not have the time or inclination to make a shot-for-shot live action remake. Because that's not what this is. Again, ADAPTATION.

It is more blatant about the message now, and somehow y'all still missed it. It added more lore from the books, cooler fights, more spirit world, more relationship movement. All the things from the original, just moved up a season. Which, my sweet ding dongs, will mean MORE OF THE SEASON 2 AND 3 CAN BE DONE SHOT FOR SHOT. Starting emotional arcs sooner rather than later could mean we get more later, when there is less filler! We could get the swamp benders episode in full. We could get the entire wrestling match. Hama. Boiling Rock. EMBER ISLAND PLAYERS. We could get everything! Yeah I could be wrong, but I could be right. And isn't the god damn Jeezy creezy point of the show that it's not all bad? To find the good?

In closing, any adaptation that gives me this June, Azula, Kyoshi, and the hottest tribe ever (how is everyone on the water tribe so attractive?!?!?) is not bad in my eyes. The acting was great, bending was sick, writing was solid as the original (y'all don't remember how corny and dramatic the show was so you? EIP were there for a reason). Give this an honest chance. It's not the original, but it shouldn't be. Because we already have that, we don't need another.

[b1mbodoll]

idk but nicholas as an avid hentai fan? i just know that man has a secret folder on his phone of pics and videos the world is not meant to see

pairings: nicholas wang x f! reader

warnings: stepcest + corruption + cervix fucking + noncon + creampies + dacryphilia

💌: pls forgive me for making this stepcest but it had so much potential

stepbro! nicho has a fuckton of stepcest hentai vids saved to his phone and yeah the girls sort of look like you but that doesnt mean anything..right?

he didn’t mean for you to find his collection but it happened and now he has to deal with you asking what the people in the video were doing and if it really feels that good.

he decides to show you just how good it feels, says it’s okay for the two of you to have sex because it’s just some sibling bonding <3 but when he breaks your hymen and begins to thrust you get a little nervous, trying to pull away from your stepbrother because “nicho it’s wrong”

he’s so mad because how dare you tease him. you can’t let him get a little taste of your cunt and then try to take it from him, that’s not right.

so he shoves you into the bed and drives his cock deeper, the tip pressing right into your womb. he ignores your cries and whimpers, only focused on pumping you full of cum and making you cream ‘round his dick to show you that, yeah, sex really feels that good.

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

God speaking of morally grey characters and FMA. It is SO funny how 03 managed to simultaneously make Mustang like... More evil, and also more woobified??

Like, ok, look at Mangahood Mustang right. Yeah, obviously he's a horrible person who did a fuckton of murder. He's also aiming for the presidency specifically with the goal of holding himself and other Ishvalan genocide veterans responsible for their crimes. In his post-war era, he also does his best to minimize unnecessary harm to others even when it would be easier not to (e.g. telling his men not to shoot to kill against Central's troops, coming up with a convoluted plan to fake Maria Ross' death) and is noted to go above and beyond for his subordinates. He has nuance! He's complex! He's a horrible person, yeah, but they're pretty up front about And That's Bad, and we also see what it is that makes other people support him. He doesn't get any sort of reward at the end of the series other than furthering his aforementioned political goals.

Meanwhile in 03, like... He's just outwardly a dick to everyone around him. He made Ed organize Tucker's research after the Nina incident, for fuck's sake! He never seems to do anything actually nice, he openly uses those around him for his own personal gain without doing anything for them. I don't remember them ever providing any reason as to why people should like him or what sets him apart from the rest of the military.

Except somehow, the narrative treats him like a hero. His subordinates all follow him unquestioningly for like, no discernible reason. He never faces any particular consequences for anything; He does lose an eye while fighting Pride, but this is more part of the #grimdark thing the show has going on than any sort of karma or anything, and we later see him dating Hawkeye. Dating! Hawkeye! HELLO???????

Like straight up 03 has Mustang kill Winry's parents instead of Scar and then they just use this as like... sadboy angst fuel. It's WILD. That's his motivation for wanting to become Fuhrer btw- When he killed Winry's parents he like, felt sooooo bad about it (AND APPARENTLY NOT ABOUT KILLING ALL THOSE ISHVALANS???) and tried to kill himself, but he was ~too much of a coward to do it~ or whatever, so he wants to become Fuhrer so that He Specifically will never have to follow orders he doesn't like. He just wants to be a dictator for the sake of being a dictator because they made him kill some Amestrians once and he didn't like it. Anyway did they write him like this