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heeology · 9 months

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god, you're annoying | l.hs

synopsis → ever since you and heeseung have come into each others' lives, he has been asking you out and flirting with you nonstop. for years, the cycle of him confessing his feelings to you and you rejecting every single one of his advances seems as though it has gone on forever. being fed up, you develop a plan to pretend as though you already have a boyfriend (spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well). after years of continuously trying to get heeseung off of your radar, you just can’t seem to get rid of him and suddenly (to your surprise), you find yourself not being bothered as much by his presence.

feat. → yeonjun (txt), yunjin (le sserafim), beomgyu (txt), minjeong (aespa), jake (enhypen), sunghoon (enhypen), jay (enhypen)

genre → university AU, enemies to lovers, romance, smut

pairing → nonidol!heeseung x fem!reader

warnings → MDNI, kinda long but bear w me pls

w.c. → 9k

disclaimer!! → any other idols mentioned in this story (that I portray are dating) i do not ship irl; this story is a work of fiction a.k.a. something derived from my delusions and imagination, take this story lightly pls and thx.

!!DO NOT COPY OR REPOST!!

Everyday you walk onto campus and make sure you avoid eye contact with a “certain someone” and even though the outcome always remains the same, you still hope that one day it will actually make a difference. Unfortunately for you, on your campus, there is only one way to get to your morning class which makes this “certain someone” rather happy to know that you practically have to see him everyday. Although you try your best, he never fails to call out your name, even if you try hiding behind other people; he can spot you from a mile away. This, you find to be annoying. He, however, looks forward to this moment every day because what other reason is there to get up early in the morning if it means he doesn’t get to see you?

You hear him call after you as you try to quickly make your way to your first class which, luckily for you, does not include him. You can hear his footsteps hurrying towards you making you break out into a light jog to your classroom door that is just ahead. You reach for the door handle and open it just enough to let yourself in and as you are about to close it behind you, a hand from the other side stops you, forcing it back open enough for you to be face-to-face with the one and only bane of your existence: Lee Heeseung.

He gives you a cocky smile receiving an eye roll from you as you can already hear his irritating voice begin to say a bunch of sentences and words that you couldn’t care any less about because you couldn’t care any less about him. Heeseung is fully aware about how you feel about him and although some most of his actions are–-yes, he’ll admit–-advertently creepy, he means no harm. You, of course, don’t see it that way, but that doesn’t stop him.

“You didn’t hear me calling your name?” he asks, knowing that you did and also knowing that you ignored him, but he just wants to hear any snarky reply you have because that’s the only time when you actually acknowledge his presence.

“Nope, must’ve missed it.” you say in a fake sympathetic tone.

He lets out a “hmm” and you mock him. He smirks, leaning a little closer to you. You would move away, but then you figured he might take that as his chance to open the door more, so you decide to stay put.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to go out to dinner with me. There is this restaurant that my family and I only go to on special occasions and I think you’ll really like it.”

There it is, him asking you to the same stupid restaurant that you have said no to many (and you mean many) times before. You know what restaurant he is talking about, some way overpriced place that only really rich people go to. You clenched your jaw as your hand gripped the edge of the door a little tighter. He smiled at you, which you thought was him being smug, but rather it was him anticipating your answer. He meant what he said and he just wants to be given a chance to show you how much he likes you.

Him asking you out to this restaurant, always offering to buy your lunch, pay for your snacks, or buy you some other object just felt as him rubbing his money in your face, making all of his attempts seem as though they are a joke; that you are a joke. Ever since middle school, when you and Heeseung had first met, he made his “crush” on you apparent, which all of the other kids found to be funny and ridiculous. You know he doesn’t actually like you and you hate him for still acting like this even though you both are now grown adults and not eleven year old children who still ride in the car with their parent on their way to school everyday.

“Well, if you think I’ll like it, then I’ll surely hate it.” you reply.

“You’re only saying that be-”

“No, Heeseung, I will not go out with you and for the last time: stop bothering me.” you say sternly.

You scowl at him and he can’t help but find you to be adorable. He knows you’re annoyed by him, but there isn’t anyone else he would rather spend his time with other than you, even if his only way to spend time with you is by pestering you constantly.

“I’m just going to ask you again tomorrow.” he says with a smile.

You knew he wasn’t joking about that and that made your blood begin to boil. You hated having to be bothered by him, you hated feeling like a joke, you hated seeing his stupid face everyday, and you hated how it seems like he doesn't even care. You have to put a stop to this, you simply can’t take it anymore. But how? You’ve tried everything, what other way could there possibly be? Then it clicked. You stood up straighter, looking him directly in his eyes. He found himself a little taken aback by your sudden eye contact, but didn’t want to show it; to show how you make him flustered and blush just by simply looking at him.

“Heeseung, I have a boyfriend.” you say, trying not to smile.

You don’t know how you didn’t think of this before, but you’re overjoyed that the idea finally came. His smile drops–for a split second–as he felt the wind practically get knocked out of him like someone had just suckerpunched him in the gut. You were bluffing, you had to be…right?

“Pfft, I don’t believe you.” he says, letting go of the door, only to cross his arms and lean against the doorframe.

You feel your face become hot as you stand your ground, “And what exactly makes you say that?”

“I’ve never seen you with your “boyfriend”.” he says, making air quotes.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have one.”

“Well it surely doesn’t mean that you do.”

“I know you stalk me because you have nothing better to do with your life, but that doesn’t mean you know what I do every second of the day.”

He shrugs his shoulders, not buying a word that you are saying. He keeps telling himself that you are lying, but what if that small percentage of possibility actually means you are telling the truth? He doesn’t want to think about that, he has to believe that you are lying.

“Okay, what’s his name, then?” he asks, confident that you won’t have an answer.

Shit. How do you answer that? You try not to show your worry in your expression and quickly try to come up with an answer. You open your mouth to speak, hoping the words that do end up coming out make sense.

“Yeonjun.” you reply.

Well, you said a name and that’s all that counts. Sure, it’s the name of your best friend’s boyfriend, but she won’t mind if you use him for a lie…right? Now it’s Heeseung’s turn for him to clench his jaw. He scoffs, rolling his eyes before looking back at you.

“Then how come I’ve never seen you with him on campus?”

“Because he goes to another school, idiot.”

“How did you two meet?”

“Through my best friend; they go to school together.”

You could see him become more annoyed with your answers as you tried to say them with as much confidence as possible.

“I still don’t believe you.” he says, less certain of what he is saying than before.

You��re so close and you know it, you just need to say something that will make him back-off once and for all.

“I’ll have him bring me to school tomorrow.” you said, now being the one to cross your arms as you smiled smugly.

Heeseung felt his blood run cold, terror now coursing through his veins. Were you actually telling the truth? He didn’t want to see you with some other guy, most definitely not someone who you are claiming to be your boyfriend. The thought made him both upset and annoyed. What do they have that he doesn’t? He’s the one who has been trying to show how much he likes you for years now and some rando comes in and sweeps you off of your feet? Over his dead body.

“Okay,” he says while standing up from leaning on the door, “I can’t wait to see you and a bunch of air walk into school tomorrow.”

“You still think I’m lying?”

He shrugs his shoulders, looking away before looking back at you.

“I just find it hard to believe.”

“That I have a boyfriend?”

“You could say that.”

Man, you couldn’t wait to prove him wrong (even though he is technically right). You fake laugh at his reply and stop as you grab his hand. He feels butterflies erupt in his stomach from your sudden contact and is so distracted that he isn’t even paying attention to what you are doing, which is putting his hand on the door frame. You plaster on a fake smile before quickly swinging the door shut. He snaps out of his daze and moves his hand out of the way just in time before it could have been smashed by the door.

Beomgyu didn’t think to even hold back his laughter once the words left your mouth and although the music in the club was blaring through the speakers, you could still hear his piercing voice. The others, however, were a little more surprised to hear what you had said, especially Yunjin and Yeonjun. You had a guilty smile on your face as you exchanged glances between the two and then Yeonjun scoffed. He raised his glass in a ‘cheers’ manner and Yunjin slapped his shoulder.

“It’s honestly not that bad of a plan,” Minjeong says, trying to defuse the tension, “Yunjin, you know better than any of us here how badly this guy bothers her.”

Yunjin sighs before she chugs the rest of her drink from her cup. “You can borrow my boyfriend on one condition: it doesn’t go too far.” She says, pointing between you and Yeonjun.

You both look at each other and cringe. Yeonjun puts his arm around Yunjin and she smiles. He kisses her temple, “As if that would ever happen.”

“So how exactly are you going to convince him?” Yunjin asks.

You chug the rest of your drink, wincing as the alcohol burns your throat. “Is it cool if Yeonjun takes me to school tomorrow? I was thinking all he has to do is walk me to my class and just essentially tell Heeseung to back off.”

“He’s not going to do it unless he believes it.” Beomgyu points out as he leans back into the booth.

“He’s right, him walking you into school isn’t going to be enough to convince him; he sounds persistent.” Minjeong agrees.

“The most he is allowed to do is kiss you on the cheek to make it believable, but that’s it.” Yunjin says looking at Yeonjun to make sure he understands.

“I don’t get a say in whether or not I agree to this?” Yeonjun asks, looking at everyone, but landing on you.

“No.” the rest of you say in unison.

He laughs before finishing his drink. “Okay. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty.”

Even as Yeonjun pulls his motorcycle to a stop in front of your campus, he can still feel your fingernails practically digging into his stomach.

He lifts up the visor on his helmet, “Can you please stop trying to claw your way into my intestines?”

You let go of him all together and he lets out the breath that he has been holding in.

“Sorry.” you say, it sounding muffled under the helmet. He smiles, taking off his helmet after getting off the bike. He sets his helmet down and holds out his hand for you to take. You take it, him helping you off, before he helps you take off the helmet. “Thanks.” you say and he shrugs his shoulders as a reply.

He glances over his shoulder, noticing people looking at him and you, whispering. “So, which one is the stalker?” he asks, trying to be discreet.

You turn your head to look, not seeing Heeseung anywhere, oddly enough. You scoff, “The one day he isn’t here is the day that you bring me.” you roll your eyes and Yeonjun shrugs.

“Well, see you later.”

“Woah-wait. I still need you to walk me.” you say, grabbing one of his shoulders to stop him from leaving.

“What? Why? You just said he isn’t here.”

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t need reinforcements.”

Yeonjun groans, but turns back around to face your campus. You clear your throat before reaching to hold his hand. You intertwine your fingers, looking at each other through the corners of your eyes, confirming that you’re ready to go. You walk hesitantly at first, but the further you get, Yeonjun releases his hand from yours to put his arm around you. Low and behold, once you made your way to the front of your class, Heeseung was there waiting right beside the door.

He, of course, hadn’t been there the whole time. He was pacing back and forth in the bathroom before working up the courage to actually make his way to your class, a part of him hoping he had just missed you so he wouldn’t actually have to see you with someone else. Yet there you are, walking up to him (well, your class), with some dude who looked like he was trying too hard to be cool with his arm around you. He felt sick and the closer you came, the more he felt like vomiting.

You smiled, stopping in front of your class door with Yeonjun.

“Oh Heeseung, you’re actually here, I thought you chickened out.”

He smiles, annoyed. His gaze shifts over to Yeonjun and Yeonjun smirks.

“So this is Heeseung?” He asks, eyeing him up and down.

Heeseung pokes his tongue in the side of his cheek. He looks back at Yeonjun and eyes him up and down before crossing his arms. Although he currently feels sick to his stomach, he’s still a little suspicious.

“Am I supposed to believe you’re her boyfriend?”

Yeonjun scoffs, crossing his arms, “You can believe what you want,” he steps closer to Heeseung, leaning close to his ear making Heeseung tense up, “but you better stop messing with her regardless.”

He pulls back, smiling at Heeseung and patting one of his shoulders. Heeseung scowls, wiping off his shoulder as Yeonjun turns to you. You smile at him, ignoring Heeseungs glares.

“Have a good day, babe.” he says before kissing you on your cheek. He glances back over his shoulder before snickering at Heeseung and walking away.

You smile proudly at Heeseung while he looks at you in complete and utter shock. Did he just see what he think he just saw? He couldn’t believe it, he didn’t want to believe it.

“Well,” you say, making him snap out of his thoughts, “you heard him: stop bothering me.” you say before going into your class.

“I heard from some people that he has a motorcycle and he brought her on it today.” Jake says while taking some food off of Sunghoon’s tray, earning a glare from him.

Heeseung rolls his eyes, clenching his fork harder in his hand. “I don’t get it, he’s not even her type.”

Sunghoon laughs and Heeseung scowls at him. “How would you know? You’re not exactly close with her.”

“I think it’s time for you to just leave her alone, you’ve been bugging her since we were kids.” Jay comments.

Heeseung goes quiet. Should he give up? He reminisces about the time he first saw you, laughing with your friend, and the only thing he could think about was how pretty you look when you smile. He isn’t the type to hide how he feels and he thought you would be pleasantly surprised by how open he is about how he feels about you, but when you rejected him after he bought you your favorite drink, he was confused. He didn’t want to give up, though, because all he wanted was to be able to make you laugh just like when he first saw you.

“Jay’s right, the joke has gone on for long enough.” Jake adds.

Heeseung looks up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Joke? What are you talking about?”

Before Jake can answer, a girl walks up and takes a seat in one of the open chairs at the table. Everyone’s eyes go to her as she smiles.

“Hi,” she says shyly, “Heeseung, can I speak with you privately?”

“No, thanks.” he replies, continuing to eat his food.

Jake tries to suppress his laugh and Jay kicks him from under the table. Jake’s smile falls as he kicks Jay back.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish.” Jay warns.

“You started it.” Jake mumbles.

“Well, I was just wondering,” everyone looks back at the girl, momentarily forgetting she was even there, “if you would like to get coffee with me after school.” she says, moving some of her hair behind her ear.

“No, thanks.” Heeseung says in the same uninterested tone as before, not bothering to spare her another glance as he continues eating.

She sits there, a little taken aback as an awkward silence settles. Sunghoon clears his throat before taking another bite of his food. The girl stands up and walks away, not bothering to push back in the chair; Jay and Jake watch her as she leaves.

“She was cute, why did you say no?” Jake asks.

“We know why.” Jay says, drinking some of his water.

“You’ve been turning down every girl that asks you out for years, don’t you want to at least try and date someone?” Jake asks.

Heeseung groans and sets down his fork. “What’s the point? No one else is worth the time.”

“You all should have seen his face.” Yeonjun beams as you and your friend group continue roaming throughout the mall.

“So, it worked?” Minjeong questioned and you nodded your head happily.

“I didn’t see him for the rest of the day and he didn’t say anything else once Yeonjun left.” you replied happily.

“And there was nothing more than a kiss on the cheek?” Yunjin questioned.

“Of course.” Yeonjun says, kissing her quickly.

You and the others groan as they both just smile at each other.

“Oh!” Minjeong says, grabbing your hand. You look at her and then the store she was looking at, “They finally restocked the perfume I was telling you about.”

“I can’t afford that.”

She rolls her eyes, “You can’t, but I can, now come on.” she says, pulling you with her.

“I’d rather not be stuck with you two sickos, so I’m going to go with them.” Beomgyu states to Yunjin and Yeonjun before heading off to follow you and Minjeong.

Yeonjun grimaces and mocks Beomgyu as he walks off and Yunjin laughs.

As much as Heeseung would rather have gone home straight after classes than come to the mall to help Jake pick out a new keyboard, he came anyway due to his friend’s consistent pestering.

“You’re paying me back for gas money, I hope you know that.” Heeseung mumbles.

Jake scoffs, “You’re richer than I am, besides, friends carpool other friends.” Heeseung rolls his eyes as he and Jake make their way to the store. Heeseung opens his mouth to say something, but is caught off guard by loud giggling coming across from where he and Jake are. Both of them look in the direction of where the noise is coming from to see Yeonjun and Yunjin laughing, her hitting his shoulder playfully and him scattering kisses on her face. Heeseung stops dead in his tracks. Jake stops walking and looks between Heeseung and the couple. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

Heeseung could feel anger surging through his body. Isn’t that guy your boyfriend? Why was he so publicly flirting with this other girl? Is he cheating on you? Unknown to him, Heeseung was walking towards the two, blinded by rage. Jake tries to call after him, but it just sounded like static to Heeseung. Jake rushes to catch up to him, trying to figure out what he was going to do and why he was even doing something in the first place. Heeseung stands in front of Yeonjun, making both Yeonjun and Yunjin turn their attention towards him.

“Shit.” Yeonjun mumbles.

Heeseung didn’t have the patience to ask any questions, he knew he was right in the first place. This guy had some nerve to hurt you like this, so before anyone had another chance to say a word, Heeseung clenched his hand into a fist and punched Yeonjun in the face.

“What the hell!?” Yunjin exclaims, grabbing onto Yeonjun’s arm as he falls to the ground.

Heeseung didn’t pay any attention to the throbbing pain from his hand and raises his fist to punch him again, but Jake stops him. Yeonjun touches his face, blood dripping from his nose as he looks up at Heeseung, clenching his jaw in anger.

“You son of a b-”

“Don’t start with that, you’re the one cheating.”

Yunjin scoffs and stands up to slap Heeseung. “You have some nerve to punch my boyfriend, asshole.”

“What the hell is going on?” Beomgyu questions as you, him, and Minjeong come out from the store.

You look around to see the chaos that has ensued as well as people starting to crowd around all of you.

“This idiot punched my boyfriend because he thinks he’s cheating on you.” Yunjin says shooting you a glare as she helps Yeonjun off of the floor.

“You did what?” you turn to Heeseung.

“Isn’t he your boyfriend? Why aren’t you upset that he’s cheating on you?” Heeseung asks, confused and starting to feel the pain from his hand as the adrenaline and anger start to subside.

You open your mouth to say something, but Yunjin interrupts you. “Maybe because he isn’t actually her boyfriend.”

Heeseung looks between you and her, confused.

“Bu-”

“They only pretended to be dating because she wanted you to back off.” Yunjin seethed.

Heeseung wasn’t sure how to process all of this information, let alone, he wasn’t even sure if he was.

“Yunjin-” you try to apologize, but she pushes past you with Yeonjun. You try to grab her hand, but she pulls away and turns to you.

“It went too far.” she says, trying to control her temper before turning around to walk away with Yeonjun.

You turn to look at Minjeong and Beomgyu, but they both just look at each other awkwardly.

“We should probably go with them.” Beomgyu says.

Minjeong nods her head, agreeing, but before they both walk past you, she stops, “I’m sure if you try talking to her tomorrow, she’ll forgive you.”

You bite the inner part of your cheek as they walk away. The crowd starts to disperse, still earning a few questioning glances from those passing by. You glare at Heeseung and begin to walk away.

“Look, I didn’t-” he tries to explain, but you cut him off by turning around, now face-to-face with him.

Tears sting as they begin to brim your eyes. There are so many things you could say to him right now, so many things to yell, but for once you find yourself to be at a loss. He too, is also at a loss for words. Seeing you look at him this way, tears in your eyes, he feels so ashamed and embarrassed.

“Just leave me alone.” you say through shallow breaths, trying your hardest not to cry in front of him.

You knew to him this was all some sick joke, so you doubt he would actually listen to you, but you hoped there was some small part of him that would finally see you never found any of this to be funny and that he has finally taken it too far.

You have never dreaded walking to your class this morning more than you do at this very moment; you just don’t have the energy to put up with Heeseung now or even ever again. You tried texting Yunjin, but she never replied let alone even opened the messages. You were so wrapped up in your emotions you didn’t even realize you made it to your class in peace. Relieved was an understatement about how you were currently feeling, but you also felt oddly sick.

Although you didn’t want him bothering you, you couldn’t help but feel annoyed at the fact that he didn’t even try to apologize once while you were on your way to class. It was the least he could do, afterall. He pretty much destroyed your friendships with your closest friends and now that he’s had his fun, he no longer felt the need to keep up the act? The more you thought about it, the more angry you became. You knew you hated him before, but you’ve never been this furious with him, not even at his attempts to rub his wealth in your face by buying you things. No, this was a new low, even for him, but you keep trying to tell yourself you should’ve seen it coming.

“Oh hell no.” Yunjin mumbles before standing up from the steps she and the others were sitting on. Heeseung approaches cautiously as he feels their eyes burning into him with their intensive stares. “You really are a stalker, how did you even know what university I go to?” she asks, crossing her arms defensively.

“It’s in our high school yearbooks, everyone put where they were going.” he replied. Yunjin scowls, hoping he would get the idea and leave once and for all. “I came to apologize. I just-” he pauses, looking away while clenching his jaw before looking back at them. “I’m sorry I punched you.” he says to Yeonjun.

Yeonjun looks at him, unimpressed.

“You suck at apologizing.” Yunjin states.

“I thought he was cheating! I didn’t know-” he groans, becoming frustrated. He tries to calm down, running his hand through his hair before speaking again. “All I want to say is that I really am sorry, I was just trying to look out for your friend, okay? She deserves better and when I saw who I thought was her boyfriend kissing someone else, I just…handled things poorly.”

Yeonjun gets up to stand next to Yunjin, draping his arm around her shoulders. “I get it, you didn’t know.”

Yunjin scoffs, “You’ve officially taken this joke of yours too far, so stop acting like you care about her and just admit it already.”

“Why does everyone think I’m joking?” he asks, both frustrated and genuinely.

“Everyone in school knew you were joking. I thought you took it too far back when you bought her a pair of some new, expensive shoes.”

Is that really how everyone saw it? Is that really how you see it?

“I bought her the shoes because she had her old ones for years and had bandaids for the blisters she was clearly getting. I also bought her extra bandages, did you forget about that?”

Yunjin stops scowling, “So you aren’t just messing with her because she rejected you?”

“Of course not, I really care about her. I know I annoy her, but I never thought she would think I was doing all of this just to hurt her feelings.”

Yunjin stands there for a second, questioning whether or not she believes him.

“You’re right,” she starts, making eye contact with Heeseung, “she deserves the best.” It falls quiet again for a moment, mainly because Yunjin is wondering whether or not she wants to give him a chance to prove himself to you. “We’re going to meet at the club downtown around ten, if you really mean what you say, you should come.”

Heeseung stands there, stunned. Does this mean she believes him? Does this mean they all believe him? Does this mean you’ll believe him? As they walk away from the steps, they all look at him, but not the same way they did when he first came over; skeptical. They all looked at him like they wanted what he said to be true and tonight is the night he is going to prove it.

You walked into the club, anxious, yet grateful that Yunjin finally responded to one of your messages. You wanted tonight to be like any other night that you all hang out here, like everything was back to normal; like it was before the whole debacle with Heeseung at the mall. You made your way past the crowds of people through the darkly lit club, over to the booth you all usually sit at.

“Hey.” you say, trying not to sound awkward.

Yunjin sheepishly smiles, “Hey.” she says.

“Are you guys going to kiss and make up now?” Beomgyu asks, honestly over all of the drama.

Everyone laughs and Minjeong hands you your usual drink as you all make your way to the dance floor. From there, you move your body to the music, just wanting to let go of all the stress you’ve been under lately. Dancing along with your friends, having a good time, is all you care about at this very moment. You were enjoying yourself, feeling confident in the outfit you chose to wear paired along with the light buzz from the alcohol you were drinking. You closed your eyes as you soaked it all in; it felt like nothing could disrupt this feeling.

“Wow…” you hear someone say before they trail off.

You open your eyes and freeze. You know this voice a little all-too-well. Your grip on the glass you are holding in your hand becomes tighter as you slowly turn towards the person who was speaking. Your eyes lock with Heeseungs as he looks at you in awe. You look stunning and he felt like all of the air from his lungs had escaped the second he saw you; breathless. You walk closer to him, so he wouldn’t get any crazy ideas and try to do something else to your friends, but as you got closer to him you couldn’t help but think about how nice he smells. You shake the thought from your head as you look up at him, your eyes meeting once again.

All thoughts you previously had were now gone; he made your mind go blank. Have his eyes always been this pretty? No…what the hell are you thinking? Pull yourself together.

“Do you take nothing I say seriously?” you manage to blurt out.

He smiles, happy that you’re talking to him (and just because he’s happy to see you in general).

“For all the years you’ve known me, you should know better than anyone else that I can’t stay away from you.” he replies before smirking.

That smug attitude thankfully snapped you out of whatever weird thoughts you were having earlier and brought you back to reality: he’s a prick. You roll your eyes and push yourself past him as you head to the bar to return your glass. You set the glass down a little harsher than you anticipated and Heeseung follows you as you make your way out of the club. He calls after you, but you ignore him. Nothing is going to change, apparently. But as you’ve said to yourself before: you really shouldn’t be surprised.

Heeseung stops calling after you and instead catches up to you, grabbing your hand gently so you would stop walking away from him. You turn to face him, looking down at your hands for a split second, feeling a different kind of buzz result from it. You try to shake his hand away, but he doesn’t budge. You meet his eyes, feeling your heart begin to race. As much as you tried to stop, something was happening, and you were certainly not a huge fan.

“I spoke with your friends earlier and apologized.”

He did what? Wait…have you been hallucinating this whole time? That would explain why you suddenly feel this way because you know, not in any lifetime, would you possibly have feelings for Lee Heeseung.

“How?” is all you could manage to say.

Your mind was running a thousand miles a minute, not really in any shape to hold any kind of conversation, but especially not one with Heeseung.

“I made a mistake. I have a lot of things I want to apologize to you for.”

He spoke so gently and sweetly; it was like he was hypnotizing you. The streets were oddly quiet, not too many people, but you could still hear the music from the club. You found yourself staring at him in amazement. The fluorescent lights from the signs of stores nearby and the streetlights felt as though they were shining on the both of you, like you two were the only people who matter.

“What?” is all you can think to say.

“I’m sorry I’ve been bothering you to the point where you felt like you had no other choice but to lie.” he says, taking a step closer to you. “I’m sorry I made you and your friend fight.” he takes another step closer to you. You felt your breath hitch as your eyes traveled along his figure. Has he always looked this good in a black button up and black pants? It doesn’t help that his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and you find yourself staring at his arms.

He waits for you. He waits for you while he clearly sees you checking him out and it’s turning him on. God, you look so beautiful and the way you are looking at him, slowly taking in everything about him as if you are seeing him for the first time makes him want to kiss you; it makes him want to do a lot more. When your eyes meet his again, he takes this as an opportunity to step closer to you, placing his other hand on your cheek, gently cupping your face. He wants to be gentle because you are one of the most precious things to him. He leans close to your face, each others’ breath scattering lightly along one anothers face.

“And I’m sorry,” he whispers as he rubs his thumb back and forth on your cheek, still looking into your eyes, “for making you feel like a joke.”

You feel yourself tense up. “Was it? All a joke…” you trail off, not necessarily sure what you want to happen next.

He continues looking into your eyes, never looking away because he wants you to know that he is being serious; that he means every word he says.

“Not for a second.” he replies.

You think back to everything he has done for you in a new perspective. How he would leave your favorite snack on your desk on test days, notes telling you how well you did after a presentation, volunteering to be your partner because he didn’t want you to feel alone or left out, buying you your favorite drink if you forgot to bring money for it, and asking you out to a restaurant that holds a special meaning to him and he only wants to share it with you.

You want to kiss him, but you find yourself pulling away instead. He looks at you, confused, as you separate yourself from him, letting go of his hand.

“I should get home. You know how early my morning class is.” you say while looking at the ground.

“Are you walking home? This late?”

You step back a little bit, finally looking back at him and you smile nervously. “I usually take the bus, but I think I missed the last one, so yeah, I guess I am.” you say kind of bunched together. Are you nervous?

“I can just drive you home.” he says, not really offering, more like telling.

You shake your head as your eyes shift to one of the cars in front of the club. You recognized it as his since he drives it to school everyday. A small, small part of you would love to ride in it, but you can walk home yourself (even if you also know it’s a bad idea).

“Yeah, I’m not letting you walk home alone this late.” he says, no longer wondering why you pulled away from him, but more concerned for your safety. He reaches for your hand and you let him take it, even if you keep telling yourself you shouldn’t. You both walk over to his car and he opens the door for you to get in. You look at him and he looks back at you, not intending on budging from his offer. You roll your eyes playfully as you get into the car. He closes the door and walks over to get into the driver's seat. He gets in and closes the door before starting his engine. You sit there, a little surprised you were even in his car in the first place. “You kind of need to put on your seatbelt.” he says, nodding his head towards the seatbelt that you left untouched.

You laugh nervously, but for some reason, you still don’t think to move to put it on. He sighs, smiling to himself at your cuteness, before leaning over to grab the seatbelt, slowly extending it over your body before clicking it into place. He looks at you, your faces inches apart, and you feel your breathing quicken once again. His heart begins to beat faster, but he can’t stop looking at you; you’re stunning. He manages to pull himself away, worried he might make you feel uncomfortable, before putting on his own seatbelt and putting the car in drive.

“Do you want to tell me how to get to your house?” he asks as he pulls out of the parking spot.

Your eyes widen. Right, your house. A house that--you assume--is nowhere near as nice as his house. What if once he sees just how different you two are he will stop liking you? What if he was lying before and this was his final cruel attempt to make fun of you? You shake your head.

“I would rather not tell you.”

He steps on the brake, turning his head to look at you.

“You…don’t want to tell me?”

You shake your head, hoping he’ll give up and let you out of the car. You hear him let out a tut, making you turn your head to look at him.

“Would you rather I take you to my place?” he asks, trying not to sound nervous.

Not particularly, you kind of already planned on going to bed once you got back home, but you stayed quiet, leaving him to answer his own question. He sighs, releasing his foot off the brake.

Heeseung pulls up to a gate that guards a huge house behind it. Your mouth falls a little agape as you look at it, thinking about how the driveway is the size of your own home. He puts in the code, opening the gate, and driving up the huge driveway. He parks the car and turns off the engine, unbuckling his seatbelt before looking at you.

“Do you need me to unbuckle it for you?” he asks while smirking.

You kind of want him to, but you opt for doing it yourself. You both get out of the car and he waits for you before he begins to lead the way. You can’t stop looking around as you two walk up the stairs leading to the (in your opinion) oversized doors, to which he opens and lets you walk in first. The house is even more luxurious on the inside than it is on the outside, which you honestly didn’t think could be possible. He shuts the door behind him and you both take off your shoes. You feel out of place, starting to feel insecure. The guy with all of this money to have this grand living room with a huge television, windows covering the walls and expensive furniture littered everywhere claims to like you? And has for years? You were starting to find it hard to believe again.

“I hope this is okay.” he says, breaking the silence.

You weren’t sure what he meant, but you assume he’s hoping it’s okay that he brought you here. He starts heading for the staircase and you follow behind, still taking in your surroundings. He leads you to his room, and you decide to stand by the doorframe. To you, it doesn’t seem like the downstairs even needs a living room since he already has a couch and t.v. in his room along with a big bed laying on a platform and more windows for walls. A beep is heard and the curtains for his windows start automatically covering them and the two lamps on his bedside tables turn on. He looks back at you, smiling at your expression that he finds to be adorable.

“You can come in, you know.” he says as he rummages through some drawers.

You hesitantly walk into his room, somehow just noticing how nice it smells, and find the confidence to walk up the few steps to his bed to take a seat. You turn your head to look around some more and Heeseung looks up, stopping what he is doing upon seeing you on his bed. You are on his bed. Is he dreaming? He honestly never thought this day would come and he clears his throat to try and calm his nerves, making you look at him.

“What are you doing?” you finally ask.

He grabs what he came in for and walks over to you holding out the clothes he picked himself.

“The guest rooms don’t have any clothes in them, so you can borrow mine.”

Did he just say “rooms” as in plural, like multiple?

“Right, naturally.” you tease.

He smiles and you stand to grab the clothes from him. You hold them as you look up at him, once again meeting his eyes. That feeling starts to form again, the one where you don’t want to stop looking at him and certainly don’t want him to stop looking at you.

“I forgive you.” you whisper.

He looks confused for a second before he understands what you mean. He smiles.

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that.”

You aren’t sure if it’s the atmosphere, the way he smells, the way he’s looking at you, or all three combined, but before you can even process what you are doing, you are tossing the clothes he handed you onto the floor and pulling him by the collar to kiss you.

Holy. Shit. You’re kissing him. You’re kissing him. One of your hands moves to hold the side of his neck while the other moves to the back of his hair as you start running your fingers through it, gripping it here and there. He moves his hands to hold your waist, squeezing them lightly from anticipation, as he kisses you back. He gains more confidence, pulling you as closely as possible to him, as he deepens the kiss. He is desperate for you, he is desperate to show you how he feels. He lifts you up and your legs wrap around his waist, him carefully carrying you and placing you onto his bed. He lays you down as you two continue to kiss, him pulling away from your lips and beginning to leave a trail of light, breathy, kisses from your jaw down to your collarbone. Your chest raises from the deep breath you take and he swears he is going to lose his mind from looking at you in your current state. The state he is currently leaving you in.

His hands roam your body, wanting to feel every inch of you.

“Heeseung…” you say breathlessly, practically sending him over the edge.

He can feel his erection growing and you saying his name like that makes his cock ache harder. He pulls away from leaving hickeys along your chest, pulling you up by the waist so he can lift your dress off of you. He pulls it over your head and you help him, throwing the dress off to the side. He rests his forehead on yours, trying to calm his breathing and you begin to palm his erection. He whines, moving your hand away before laying you back down. His eyes scan your body, now realizing you were never wearing a bra. There you are, laying on his bed in nothing other than your underwear and he has to try and collect himself before he cums in his pants at just the mere sight of you. His right hand begins to travel up your leg, his fingers lightly running along your skin as he continues to look at you, look at every inch of you. His fingers travel past your hip up to your breasts where he cups one of them, earning a small gasp from you.

He bites the inner part of his cheek, trying to contain himself as he fondles your breast, playing with your nipple, watching how your face contorts in pleasure. He leans down to leave light kisses on your shoulder, looking at your face between each one, going down and stopping at your other breast before latching his mouth around your nipple. You bite your lip, one of your hands comes to grip his hair. He moans as he swirls his tongue around your nipple, occasionally flicking it. He felt drunk and so incredibly turned on. He stops fondling your other breast with his hand and lightly trails his fingers down to your underwear, sticking his hand inside. You gasp again, his fingers feeling a little cold as he runs them along your wet folds.

Fuck he was making you feel good and you let out a moan, making him smirk. He sticks a finger in, making you grip his hair a little harder, and so he sticks in two. You moan again and he pulls away from your breast to kiss you as his fingers pump in and out of you. You’ve become so wet that you start to cover his hand in your wetness, the sound of his hand coming in constant contact with your pussy starting to fill the room. You feel yourself become close and your mouth falls agape. He stops kissing you and pulls back as well as pulling his fingers out of you. You open your eyes, the dim lights suddenly being so bright as you try to process what is happening.

He brings his fingers to his lips, licking off your arousal from them. His eyes close as he inhales deeply, consumed by the taste of you.

“Please, Heeseung…” you start to plead.

He opens his eyes and figures he can’t leave you without what you want. So, in honor of a fair trade since he feels intoxicated by your taste, he takes off your underwear and throws your legs over his shoulders as he positions his face in front of your pussy. You swallow harshly as you feel his breath on you before he licks a stripe along your core, causing your eyes to roll back a little bit and your back arch at the sudden contact. His hands grip the sides of your thighs as he indulges in you, licking up every last drop of you before making his way to your clit and sucking on it.

“Fuck, Heeseung…” you moan out breathlessly.

He’s too consumed by your taste to notice and he pulls you more into his face. He moans into you, one of his hands leaving your thigh as he starts to finger you again. He hears you moaning and gasping, prompting him to open his eyes and look at you. Just the sight of you causes him to pick up his pace, his fingers rapidly going in and out of you and the more you moan, the more turned on he gets. You feel yourself become closer, gripping the sheets as you call out his name. That mixed with the taste of you on his tongue makes him moan. You taste so good, you look so beautiful, he feels like the luckiest man alive to have you call out his name. He sucks harder and pumps faster as he moans into you, cumming in his pants.

Your head falls deeper into the pillow you were laying on as you release yourself all over his fingers, mouth, and face. His movements begin to slow down as he calms down from his high and he pulls away, seeing your legs shaking a bit. He sits back, taking your legs off of his shoulders and you look at him. His face is flushed and shiny because of your cum, which he didn’t mind. He licked his fingers again, trying to catch his breath afterwards and you find the energy to sit up.

You pull him in for a kiss and his hands land on your ass, squeezing it. You moan and reach your slightly shaky hands up to the buttons on his shirt, unbuttoning them. You pull away as you take the shirt off of him, throwing it to the side. This time, you leave a trail of kisses from his jaw to his neck, his mouth falling agape from pleasure. He was becoming hard again and so you started to undo his belt as well as the button and zipper on his pants. You can hear him let out shallow breaths, and he pulls you back to kiss him on the lips. You kiss each other with so much need, and as you start taking off his pants, he pulls away to take them off himself.

You watch as he does, seeing his bulge through his underwear along with the cum stain from earlier. You smirk, which makes him feel a little shy.

“Come here.” you say, your eyes flicking back to meet his.

He listens, and you move each other so he is now the one laying back as you sit between his legs. He swallows harshly, completely turned on by the sight of your bare self looking at him in such a sinful way. Fuck, he wants you to ruin him. You keep eye contact with him as you lightly grab the edge of his boxers. His breath hitches as he becomes increasingly more nervous and he bites his lip as you run your pointer finger over his v-line. You smirk, slowly pulling his boxers off of him and finally letting his aching cock free. You cast aside his boxers, lightly running your fingers along his length, making him let out little moans, trying to decide what you want to do next. Seeing him like this, you decide you can’t wait any longer, so you position yourself over his cock, one hand holding onto his shoulder as the other guides it into your cunt.

You both throw your heads back as you let out a moan in unison. You slowly sank onto his length and he watched in awe. He couldn’t believe this was actually happening and when you finally settled fully onto his cock, his mind felt fuzzy. You felt so fucking good and here you were, riding his dick with hickies all over your chest and neck made by him. Consumed by his thoughts, he gripped your hips a little bit harsher as he let out a stifled breath. You look at him, wondering what was happening, but feeling his cock twitch inside of you and him letting out a string of moans and apologies answered your question quickly as he came inside of you.

His breathing settled after his release and he looks at you, eyes a little hazy, but full of pleasure; he looked so fucked out.

“I’m so sorry.” he half whispers and half exclaims.

He really meant it and to be honest, he was kind of embarrassed. You shake your head.

“Don’t be,” you say, starting to rock your hips, causing his eyes to roll back in pleasure, “it was hot.” You pick up your speed and call out his name from how good he is making you feel. “Shit…” you whine as you start to lose momentum from the pleasure. He notices and adjusts himself so he is laying a little bit lower to which he slings his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him. You let out a small yelp as he hoists his hips up, thrusting into you, fast and deep. “Fuck…” you call out into his ear, making him pick up his pace.

Moans mixed with the sound of his cock rutting into you fills the room and you grip the sheets as you feel yourself clench around him.

“Fuck-” Heeseung starts, but is cut off by his own moans from being close to his climax.

He thrusts into you faster and you clench around him harsher, your legs shaking as you cum all over his dick. He grips your waist harsher and clenches his jaw, breathy moans still escaping through his teeth as he cums–once again–inside of you. He does a few more thrusts to ride out his high before pulling out of your throbbing cunt. You both lay there for a moment, you still on top of him, trying to catch your breath.

“So…” Heeseung starts. You lift your head slightly to look him in the eyes and he smiles sheepishly, “does this mean you’ll go on that date with me?” he asks, hopeful.

You roll your eyes, “God, you’re annoying.” you say before smiling.

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catnippackets · 2 months

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disclaimer: as a sex-repulsed aroace person myself--

on one hand, there is definitely a bit of a double standard when it comes to handling canonically queer characters like, from what I've seen in the circles that I frequent (if you've had different experiences then great but I'm just telling it how I see it). for example, you're morally reprehensible if you ship a canon lesbian with a man or refer to a canon bi character as a lesbian. people will be so angry with you. and it's understandable, since there's so little queer rep in comparison to cishet rep that when there IS a rare actual queer character, the unofficial rule is "don't take that away from them when you add more headcanons to them". like, respect that this one is REAL and NOT just a headcanon. I think it makes perfect sense to feel upset when people take that away, even if it is just fiction and not even canon to the original source. and yet, whenever there exists a canon asexual character suddenly it's all "oh well asexual people can still have sex so it's fine if we headcanon THIS canon sexuality as something different". it makes me feel so genuinely heartache-y and depressed to see ppl ignoring that aspect of a character.

and by "canon" I'm also including characters that were never specifically referred to with a label but are very obviously coded as something, because those characters will still get the "even if it's not stated it's pretty obvious!!" treatment when it comes to showing attraction to the same gender, but not when they DON'T show attraction to any gender. like aro and/or ace coding just doesn't count. I understand that it's kind of hard to represent an absence of something, especially when you're only implying it and not even directly showing it, but it's not impossible. there's a lot of characters that you could argue are aroace coded the same way you could argue a character is gay coded. obviously to a degree every queer identity gets disrespected in fandom and it's something you just kinda have to deal with, but it's easier to notice when it's something you personally relate to. I don't think it would bother me as much if we didn't have that unofficial "respect the canon" rule and everyone just went wild with whatever, but the double standard does genuinely hurt me, especially when I see people I thought were cool about this stuff participating in it. so whenever I see someone fiercely defending an asexual character it really makes me feel good, like I'M being defended, not a random fictional character that I might not even recognize the name of. I feel safe, like that person will respect ME.

THAT BEING SAID,

AS a sex-repulsed aroace person who enjoys thinking about the entire spectrum of intimacy and where a character may fall exactly on that spectrum, ALSO as a person who is aware that "asexual" simply means "does not experience sexual attraction" and not necessarily "is violently repulsed by anything sexual", sometimes I DO want to play out scenarios for my own enjoyment. sometimes I DO want to think hm I wonder where this ace character's line is, compared to a different ace character. I wonder if there is anyone who would be an exception for them, and how they could go about dealing with that exception. I wonder if they're favourable, neutral, or repulsed. if those aspects of their character aren't explicitly stated then what's to stop me from playing around with them and working through my own issues in a controlled and non-canon environment? if they have the same identity as me, I am way more likely to want to play around with them like a doll and perhaps play out scenarios that I might have thought about before but don't actually want to do for real. I'm not taking away their identity, after all; I'm just, in this scenario, imagining this ace character as an ace that might have sex on at least one occasion for whatever reason. either just to try it, or because they do have someone they'd make an exception for, or if they got bored enough, whatever the reason. it isn't quite disrespecting their truth unless it's explicitly stated either in canon or by word of god that it's something they're uncomfortable with. and to be honest, if I see another asexual creator headcanoning a character as somewhere on the asexual spectrum and depicting them in sexual situations, it makes me almost happy, to know that they're still acknowledging that character's canon identity and accepting and exploring the nuance that could come with it, even if I personally believe that this specific character would be repulsed instead of neutral or favourable. there's this understanding of "I'm doing a character study exploration thing", and not "I don't care I just wanna sexualize this character"

but I literally feel GUILTY when I want to write what is essentially a thinkpiece disguised as a fanfiction or original story on asexuality and take an asexual character (canon or coded) and involve them in sexual situations to explore different avenues of the spectrum. I feel like I'm betraying everyone who's like me and is frustrated with how aroace characters are treated within fandom. I'm like "am I being just as bad as those other people who will disrespect a character's canon sexuality just because they think that character is hot and want to ship them with someone? do they do the same thing with other types of queer characters? how does this reflect that person's view of people, if they're explicitly told someone feels a certain way and decides to ignore it for their own amusement? or is it just because they're fictional and not real people and I'm being really sensitive and thinking way too much into it? am I not doing the exact same thing? do I have more credence to explore scenarios like this because I am aroace and sex-repulsed myself and therefore have a pass to do whatever I want and it won't come off as a little weird the way it might if someone who's allosexual did it?"

and these two opinions are at war in my mind constantly. like both of them can and do co-exist but I still struggle to accept that lol

#ramblings #asexuality #I almost kinda wanna make a video on this bc I feel like just writing does not even explain what I'm trying to say

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anachronistic-falsehood · 1 year

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Vash and Femininity: Trigun Stampede and its Themes of Bodily Autonomy, Exploitation, and Vague Gender Fuckery

alright sit the fuck down. we're gonna talk about THEMES

I was on Twitter- terrible idea usually, but a couple people I follow made some tweets that got me thinking about Trigun's overall themes, and here we are. So let's talk about some themes in Tristamp! And I'll take a couple looks at Trimax as well, just for fun :3

Let's look at how the showrunners utilize gender roles and exploitation of feminine characters to show how unhealthy Knives' obsession with his ideal of Vash is, and how horrific his exploitation of Vash and the Plants is.

Vash, from the beginning of Tristamp, is someone who cares about people's choices. When people kill others in front of him, he reiterates that whether someone lives or dies is not another person's choice to make. This is something he learned from Rem (a prominent female figure in his life). He refuses to kill people because that is not his choice to make. To kill someone is the ultimate removal of their bodily autonomy. They can no longer make any choices at all; they're dead.

Vash is also someone who has almost no choice in what path his life takes. He's constantly dragged around by outside forces, namely situations that are caused by Knives (which we'll get into later). Vash doesn't make things happen, things happen to Vash. The majority of events that occur are not his fault. He's pushed and pulled in a thousand different directions. His entire life is completely out of his control.

This can be seen as early on in his life as the Fall, something he had no control over and had no idea he even had a part in. Even later, in the ship with Luida and Brad, after he's been rescued from the desert, he's kept in handcuffs right up until he's shown to be of use to them and the Plant on their ship. After that, he could theoretically say "no, I don't want to go to other ships and heal their plants," but he doesn't. He's Vash. He's helpful and nurturing at his core, and these people have done so much for him just by letting him stay, so he'll do whatever they ask, no question.

This carries over into his adulthood. At Jeneora Rock, he goes to look at their Plant at one simple request, doesn't protest when he's dragged into a duel-- he doesn't take initiative unless someone's life is immediately at stake. He lets people tell him what to do and lets himself get dragged around by the wrist. He doesn't even pretend to have control over his life like Trimax Vash does, which I mean. Fair. Why pretend to have a grip on your existence when it's impossible to do anything without a gun pointed at your head?

Vash is a very passive character. He's nurturing, kind, gentle- he's a guy that fits a lot of very typical feminine character stereotypes. If you wrote this same story but made him a woman, I wouldn't bat an eye (but I would definitely be looking at it a lot more critically, what with the amount of stereotypically nurturing/motherly female characters in media already.)

This contrasts directly with Knives. He makes a decision and carries through no matter what stands in his way. He takes initiative. If Vash is a passive character, Knives is an active character. Wherever he goes, he leaves a lasting imprint. He makes shit happen! If outside forces make things happen to him, he'll go out of his way to make sure that particular force doesn't affect him again.

These two tweets I saw are what got me thinking about this originally. I just feel like here's a good place to put them as a segue into talking about episode 11.

Episode 11 is where a lot of this feminine imagery really just. Explodes in your face. IT'S RIGHT THERE. You can't dance around it if you try. And it kind of reaches a peak when the connection reaches 100%, the gate opens, and. well. THIS happens to the Plants.

Plants, in both Trimax and Tristamp, are almost always typically feminine-looking. Knives and Vash are the only two who are male or even masculine at all. Knives, as the most masculine out of all of them, is the one trying to take charge, and mould the world as he sees fit, to a degree that is detrimental to both him and everyone else. And Vash-- passive, feminine, kind and nurturing, whose Angel Arm in the manga always sprouts decidedly feminine-looking Plant parts-- is the one being exploited for Knives' plans. It's no mistake that they made the giant plant formation at the end of ep 11 look like a giant woman that almost resembles Rem.

Vash wants people to make their own choices and keep their autonomy when it comes to their bodies and lives. Knives is the exact opposite. He wants all Plants to become independent and he uses Vash to achieve that goal, without asking what Vash wants or even knowing what the Plants themselves would prefer. He exploits Vash for the soul purpose of trying to make these Plants have Independent Plant babies. He's completely incapable of seeing that his choices are not for the greater good! He thinks he's saving them, but none of his actions are for the good of anyone but himself. He’s just violating them for his own gain.

They're really leaning into gender roles for these guys, but in a way that screams "HEY, LOOK AT THIS! ISN'T IT FUCKED UP? LOOK AT HOW FUCKED UP THAT IS. LOOK AT THIS, AND BE UNCOMFORTABLE, AND KNOW THAT IT IS FUCKED UP."

Because it is! It's so extremely fucked up. They're using this imagery and these roles, something that makes most of us intrinsically uncomfortable, to drive home how unhealthy Knives relationship with his ideal of Vash is. That's the point. We're supposed to be uncomfortable with this.

Now of course there's some nuance to it. Like, you could see Knives as somewhat of a feminine and/or queer-coded figure as well, ESPECIALLY if you look at some of his panels in the manga, which could in turn lead to themes about infighting and control within marginalized communities, but that might be something for another post. :3

And there's definitely different ways you could take this! Vash, with all this feminine imagery, could be either transfem or transmasc coded, depending on what way you'd rather see it, which could lead into themes of how people outside the norm constantly face a lack of bodily autonomy and are exploited for purposes outside their boundaries. We could also look at Wolfwood and his lack of choice over joining the Eye of Michael and becoming the Punisher, and how masculine men (particularly men of colour) are often forced into violent roles against their will. If we look at Trimax, the exact same could be said for Livio/Razlo and people with disorders such as DID/OSDD.

There are many different ways you could spin these themes, some of which I don't feel personally qualified to discuss. If anyone who is qualified to talk about Wolfwood or Livio/Razlo or even other characters related to these themes, then god PLEASE add onto this post or make a post and tag me or something. I would love to read it!

Anyway, in conclusion: Vash is a feminine figure constantly taken advantage of and exploited and and he's so incredibly trans/nonbinary-coded that it drives me insane. Thank you

#whiskeys word soup #trigun #trigun stampede #HI. HELLO. THIS DRIVES ME INSANE PLEASE READ THIS #and seriously if anyone wants to make a post about wolfwood or livio/razlo or any other character exploring these themes of bodily autonomy #on GOD. lemme know i wanna read it #well aware that some of this is probably me digging too deep for things that aren’t there but still!!! fun to look at #what is media analysis other than putting on ur queer glasses and picking out trans allegories within stories #it’s been a while since I’ve made a full analysis essay kinda post!! this is how i normally format them bc it’s easier for me to read

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catboygretzky · 20 days

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Exyblr Dashboard Simulator based on what I personally see on sportsblr:

1/?

👑 girlbossriko follow

how many bro jobs do you think it took before riko moriyama and kevin day realized that uh.....maybe this wasn't just a bro thing

👢exyinaphonebooth follow

how many times do they have to come out and say they're like brothers before you freakos stop shipping them

👑 girlbossriko follow

????? do i know u

#it's a tumblr post about two exy players that you'lll never meet in your life it really isn't that deep

558 notes

💃fox-me-up follow

ngl that newest fox is kinda 👀

#psu lb #exy lb

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👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻 talk-exy-to-me

The NARRATIVE that kevin day and neil josten have........son of exy! scouting the rookie-est of rookies from fuck knows arizona........no listen you dont GET IT winning is EVERYTHING TO KEVIN and he would risk it on the foxes? And NEIL? who has only played exy for a year! NEIL Gets his attention!!!!! And hes good and he's getting better every game and he keeps bitching about kevin's ex on live tv BUT WAIT!???? NOT QUITE WHAT YOU EXPECT! Bc then neil shows up with a number on his cheek BECAUSE WELL it turns out they've known each other since they were KIDS! how is everyone not insane w me THEY'RE LITERALLY PERFECT

#where r my fellow njkd truthers #how r u all not here with me this isnt even the start #kevneil #210 #psu #njkd

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☀️ usctrojanny

every smiley blonde striker (jeremy knox) needs a brunette wet cat emotional support backliner (jean moreau)

#jerejean #usc trojans #i'm just saying 🤷‍♀️

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👸🏻 kevindazed follow

did he just......

👸🏻 kevindazed follow

guys please tell me i'm not insane

👸🏻 kevindazed follow

HE'S NEVER BEEN????? SKIIING???? KEVIN WHAT DOES THAT MEAN ?????? KEVIN PLEASE

#i i'm going insane i will literally die if someone doesn't explain this to me HE'S NEVER BEEN SKIING?!!!!

407 notes

🧚 goalie-stan

oh....i'm feeling so weak......it'd sure be nice to have a big strong goalie (renee walker) hold me up (renee if you're free on tuesday i am also free on tuesday.........on tuesday this tuesday, any tuesday?)

#literally passing out just thinking about her holding me don't call don't text i'm busy

84 notes

🌄 softkevinday follow

do u think if u offered kevin day essential oils to heal his hand he'd beat you to death

#it'd be hard for him bc he only has one hand but he could probably do it #legally this is a joke don't do this

284 notes

🗣️ jeremyknoxes follow

feeling normal

215 notes

📜 realexyblog

actually exy rpf is fine, i asked kayleigh day herself and she told me it was fine

112 notes

🐋 sexyexy

'exy is a stupid name for a sport' have you considered that a) i don't care and b) it's named that solely so i can make sex jokes about it

11 notes

🏳️‍🌈 gay4stickball follow

is he, ya know *mimes jerking off* an ncaa exy player

#i don't believe that straight exy players exist

56 notes

🙈 ittybittyminny follow

Andrew Minyard!!!!!!! 🥰🥰 short king!!!!🤏🤏😋😋 Awwwwwwww the scrunkly!!!!! 🤗🤗🤗 My boinky boy!!!!!🥺🥺 Crinkly doo,,,,shronkle scrimblo......🥺🥺🥺 rb if you'd scrunkle!!!!!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

📖 sapphic-exy follow

he literally killed someone

🙈 ittybittyminny follow

And? God forbid women do anything

#also no proof he did that #yeah there's proof his twin bro killed someone but that's not the same bc theyre different people #almost killing someone doesnt count

807 notes

🐦‍⬛ edgarallenexy

got told i'm problematic for liking the ravens? THAT'S LITERALLY MY SCHOOL OH MY GOD

2 notes

🌸 softexy

Kevin Day - A Study

#kevin day #psu foxes #palmetto foxes #exy #web weave #poetry #psu foxes #palmetto #edgar allen

378 notes

#i'm not taking criticism bc i am on sportsblr and this is literally what it's like #all for the game #neil josten #kevin day #andrew minyard #renee walker #jeremy knox #jean moreau #aftg #the foxhole court #jerejean #kevneil #the web weave is the most accurate part of this post #exyblr #riko moriyama

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

Text

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

#pluralistic #moral injury #enshittification #worker power #google #dont be evil #monopoly #sam altman #openai #vocational awe #making a dent in the universe

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theminecraftbee · 8 months

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so a thing this fandom does that remains FASCINATING to me, as a function of the fact a lot of this fandom is people's first fandom or only current fandom, is just... assume a lot of things it does is a scourge that this fandom has invented or doesn't exist outside of it? or like, is uniquely bad here? and i won't deny that sometimes mcyt fandom is a bit more intense by virtue of numbers, but like...

duo names: confusing fandom-injokes to describe duos and groups tend to be an anime fandom thing specifically for many historical reasons, but they're not uncommon. hey quick--if you haven't been in KHR fandom, can you guess what 1827 is? no? i'll give you a hint: that's actually a ship name. or, ygo fans, tell me the difference between puppyshipping, prideshipping, violetshipping, and rivalshipping. my hint is that they're all kaiba ships and two of them are actually the same ship. good luck!

reducing characters to a specific trait: have you read fic in another fandom before? i would recommend you go do so and come back to me. my example here is "sasuke likes tomatoes", for the record.

common au fanon that's confusing to outsiders: my deep cut here is "when i got into certain tv fandoms i was baffled by the existence of sentinel/guide fics", which is a slightly older tv fandom thing so many of you probably don't know what i'm on about. but trust me: in certain fandoms it's ubiquitous and unless you've watched a completely different tv show you're gonna have to entirely pick it up from reading fic. oh hey, hybrid aus and watcher!grian, nice to see your relative here,

fanon being treated as canon: did you know there's this whole bnha character, naomasa, who is treated as canonically having a lie detector quirk? did you know that, best i can tell, that's not in canon anywhere, it just got echoed through fanon enough that everyone treated it as canon? 'fanon trait becomes so ubiquitous everyone assumes it has to be there' is not a new thing. also, batfamily fans, i have been lead to understand the tim and coffee thing is also this.

characters being treated badly to make a different dynamic look better: the fact we have the term 'character bashing' tells you all you need to know, here. if anything my one complaint on this front isn't even that it's happening--it's that i wish bashing and/or "not [character] friendly" was tagged a little more frequently, haha.

characters being reduced to their family dynamics: tale as old as time. "even the family dynamic thing" yes even that. just because this fandom tended to be particularly ship-adverse in the past didn't mean it didn't do basically the same behaviors as any fandom with shipping did with those dynamics, just gen. and other gen fandoms also do that. yes, down to the "and shipping reduces them to a ship, unlike my gen dynamic, which is very in-character; why can't people just be friends?" thing. some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

characters being reduced to their ships: some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

The Discourse: yeah this is an "actively running show" fandom thing, but also a hiatus fandom thing. ask a homestuck about vriskourse sometime. as much as i hate to say it, it probably made doomsday discourse look cute.

and those are just like... some things i've seen people complain about on my dash recently. idk it just hit me there are probably fans in mcyt fandoms who are assuming that some things (like hybrid aus or duo names) are the kind of things that only happen here, so i thought i'd offer some examples of other places they happen! i also have even more examples if you'd like.

to be clear: this isn't shaming anyone for complaining about any of these things. lord knows i go complain to my friends about it all the time, just the other day i was complaining in the category of 'they keep bashing my guy'. it's more of just... a gentle reminder that maybe we're big, maybe we're loud, maybe we have problems... but these problems aren't always unique.

so uh. we're all suffering together i guess...?

#discourse #<- because. yeah.#this isn't meant to start a discourse this is more me laughing about Fandoms Is The Same #its also why i'm not bringing up the More Serious types of Fandoms Is The Same because i don't want to make light of it #and am instead bringing up the pettier ones #this sparked initially by someone acting like duo names are a this-fandom only phenomenon after years of being a ygo fan #and i was like. oh i've done this song and dance many a time.#and then i was thinking about posts complaining about things like fd and ships and everything else and i was like. oh that's an OLD song #so here. so we all remember sometimes that we all suffer together lol #this isn't a vague of anyone in particular i just constantly waver about making this specific post #anyway back to my usual discourse-free self

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rayne-astrophile · 3 months

Text

Special oneshot before Valentine's Day ends :D

Buttons - Rayne Ames x F!Reader

Notes - inspired by a comic I read when i was a child where japanese students give their shirt's button (the one in the same level as their heart) to their crush because it kind of means they give their heart to them!

- highschool!au & ooc rayne

You have a crush on Rayne Ames even before he becomes the Student Council's president. He might not remember you, but he had helped you with your homework when you first attended Easton.

Since then, you fell in love with him.

And today is Valentine's day. Students start to give their shirt's button to their crushes.

You grip yours in your hand. You want to give it to Rayne, but you're still considering it. What if he doesn't accept it? What if he doesn't like you? What if he doesn't remember you at all?

But you have promised yourself to confess your feelings for him today, on Valentine's day. It doesn't matter if he rejects you, you just want him to acknowledge your feelings.

In the end, you come to a conclusion to give him your shirt's button.

It is lunch break when you try to find Rayne. You look around the school, and finally you catch a glimpse of half blonde and half raven hair behind the class building.

Your eyes lit up as you take a step forward, but-

"Please take my button," You widen your eyes when a girl's voice reaches your ears. You immediately hide yourself at the other side of the building as you listen to the girl's confession for Rayne.

Your heart aches in pain, as the possibilities of him accepting the girl's confession still exists. You peek silently from the other side.

That girl is the student council's vice president, Judy. She is the beauty of the school, and she didn't get that title for nothing. Her blonde hair and her ocean eyes... she's just perfect. She also performs well in academics, adding to her popularity.

You're doing well with your academics, too, but you're more low key. You always hate attention.

Despite both of them being the dream partner, the students can't help but ship them. "Perfection is for perfection", they say.

That makes you ponder,

What if Rayne accepts her? Do you have no chance at all? Does he---

"I appreciate your feelings for me," Rayne's smooth voice cuts you off from your train of thoughts. "But I can't accept it. I'm sorry," he apologises as Judy slowly retreats her button. "It's fine, Rayne." She smiles as she puts her button into her pocket. "I just want to get over this feeling and focus on studying." She runs a hand through her hair.

Judy lets out a sigh as she looks at Rayne. "So, who's the lucky one? I see you already took off your button." She asks in interest.

Her sentence makes your heart shatter into pieces. You lower your head and your feet finally take you away from the scene as you put your button into your pocket.

Rayne stays silent as he looks to the side; at your previous hiding spot.

"I'm going to give it to her now."

You enter the empty class, while the other students are busy giving their buttons to their crushes. Everyone is laughing and smiling, while you're alone, doing your own things.

It is not long after that you hear the door of the classroom being pushed open.

What you do not expect is your crush walking in.

Your heart skips a beat as your eyes meet his golden ones, which you immediately look away. Even so, you can see him entering the class from the corner of your eyes.

"Why are you here? Don't you want to give your button to your crush?"

You raise your head to look at him as he is already (surprisingly) in front of you. You look around the class before pointing to yourself, "You're asking me?"

Rayne visibly frowns. "Who else would I be talking to if it's not you? Do you see anyone else in this class, (Last name)?"

You gape your mouth, "Y-You know me?" You ask in disbelief. His frown darkens as he furrows his eyebrows. "What's that supposed to mean?" He mutters. "We've been classmates since our first year."

You look away timidly as you brush a strand of your hair to the back of your ear, only for it to fall back. "I didn't think you'd remember me," you whisper softly, which is audible to him.

"And why'd you think that?"

Is he always this talkative? You are already screaming on the inside.

"I..." you trail your eyes away from him. "Have... have you given your button to your crush?"

His frown is even more visible when you change the topic. He lets out a sigh, but he wants to get over it anyway.

"I was going to give it to her," he murmurs. "Do you think she'll accept it?" His question makes you confused. Why would he want your opinion?

"Of course she will. You're everyone's crush, you know?" You mumble, your voice is barely above a whisper.

But he still can hear it.

"Is that so?" He asks, and you can barely see the corners of his lips lift up as he reaches out his fist to you. "Then, you'll accept this, right?"

He opens his fist, revealing a button in his palm. Your eyes widen as you look at him in disbelief.

"W-What?"

Rayne trails his eyes away from you. "It's okay if you don't want to. I see you, too, have taken off your button." He lowers his hand, only for you to take it into yours.

"N-No! I..." you stutter as you take out your own button from your pocket. Hesitantly, you put the small object on his palm. "You can take mine. I-I can't possibly take yours,"

Rayne stares at the two buttons on his palm before locking his eyes with yours. "Why not?" You lower your head as you fiddle your hands on your lap. "I-I just can't believe it. You can't possibly have feelings for someone like me-"

"Let me prove it to you, then."

You flinch when his warm hand cups your cheek and lifts your head up to face him. Before you knew it, his soft lips pressed against yours, taking your breath away.

He moves his lips with a gentle, delicate movement as his other hand rests on your nape, allowing him to deepen the kiss. You find yourself lost in his kiss as you grip the hem of your skirt, your cheeks burning and your heart beating faster than ever.

Seconds feel like eternity for you until Rayne finally pulls away. His tongue runs on his lower lip as his golden eyes stare into yours.

"Is that enough?" He asks breathlessly, his own cheeks heating up as you are already as red as a beautiful rose. "I-I..." you stutter, struggling to arrange your words.

"It's still not enough, I see."

You gasp, "Wait-"

Before you can finish your sentence, he presses his lips against yours once again. His hands move from your nape to your waist, pulling you closer, earning a gasp from you, and he takes advantage of your parted lips to slip his tongue into your mouth.

He tastes every inch of your mouth as he turns your bodies around so that your back is against the desk. His hand on your waist moves onto your desk, trapping you as he kisses you passionately.

After what seems like forever, he finally pulls away. He looks over to the door before looking back at you. "Seems like the other students are still not coming back," he hums. "I've been waiting to do this since our first year," he mutters, his thumb brushes against your lower lip. His eyes stare into yours as he leans in, hungry for more.

The moment the sentence escapes his lips, you figure, that him, too, has fallen ever since your first encounter.

BYE

#mashle x reader #mashle #rayne ames #rayne ames x reader #magic and muscles

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the-ace-with-spades · 2 months

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I need a fic where Ghost and Soap are on the run but like, framed and on the run.

They're on an assignment, just the two of them, to co-lead a team for the prevention of assassination for some big-name politician (dunno, I like to think this would happen either in usa or in the uk...) and it's all done and they're about to pack their shit and go back to base when Soap gets an encrypted call from Price to tell him that a video of Ghost killing the same big-name politician is on the telly

It's not Ghost, obviously, but it's someone of Ghost's posture, in Ghost's gear and Ghost's mask.

Also obviously, Soap doesn't believe it.

They get surrounded pretty fast by the local SWAT-like team and Soap makes Ghost use him as a hostage so they can escape with a minimal amount of maiming -- Soap is pretty sure Ghost could escape on his own, but it'd be a bloody mess that would follow him after he was proven to be framed.

Of course, Ghost tries to get Soap to leave once they're out of the danger zone. He does not.

Cue Ghost and Soap on the run while Price, Gaz and Lasewell try to find out who is framing him.

Simon's existence was erased so much that there are no pictures of him anywhere so instead, his APB has a sketch and a description. Problem is, the scars on his face were included, and way too characteristic to miss them (whether it's the glasgow smile or other scars, dunno, but you get my point). At first, it's really hard to move around because scars/mask + Simon being like 6'4 and built like a tank scream 'notice me'. Simon grows out a beard - it's red-ish blond colour so he ends up dying his hair red too. He absolutely doesn't care but Soap mourns because he's barely started being able to see Simon's face and hair and now it's all changed up.

Soap doesn't have an APB at first, but after a couple of days he is named as complicit (because he's seen helping Ghost run) and his photo is out. He has to shave the mohawk because it's too eye-catching (he's fucking bald and he hates it). He has to rein in his accent because he is described as glasgowian scottish. He can't call his maw so he sends her a random postcard he picked up a few towns ago and sends a short and cryptic message, hoping she believes he's not a terrorist.

Soap also finds out Ghost knows way too many shady people and knows way too easily where to look for even more shady people if he needs something the former people don't have. They steal shit out of necessity, often clothes and food, but sometimes they pickpocket cards and wallets. Some days they sleep in the car, some days they stop at questionable motels or hostels, and some days they don't sleep at all. They have burner phones but don't contact Price at all.

There would be a mandatory 'taking care of each others' wounds' scene (no bandages, please, you rarely use bandages in healthcare nowadays) after a dangerous run-in, a mandatory 'pretend to be a couple to lose the trail' and after that, an awkward 'there was only one bed' scene where things happen for the first time and they have a sloppy handjob or two.

They're probably trying to escape the country but can't do it via air because of the APBs and have to make their way to some shady port and even shadier ferry or cargo ship that won't run their fake passports in the system if they pay well enough.

Ghost is surprising Soap once again with an off-shore bank account and a knowledge of whichever country they're in's language. They move somewhere less crowded but not small enough that two Brits would be weird. Some people refer to Ghost as Soap's husband.

Weeks or months go by.

"What if they can't prove I didn't do it?"

"You faked your death once, love, I think you can do it twice."

#ghostsoap #ghoap #cod #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #q

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ivryne · 1 year

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late night, telephones ˖ ࣪

⋆ ᳝ ֺ alhaitham x gn!reader | modern high school!au

— in which Kaveh made it his life mission to find out who is his roommate’s secret lover. [ pt two here ]

“Yes, goodnight darling. I’ll see you tomorrow. Yeah, love you too.”

Accidentally overhearing Alhaitham’s late night phone call was one thing Kaveh didn’t plan on. But hearing those words spur from his literally cold-as-ice tongue made him question his existence. Alhaitham?? Being affectionate with someone???? Saying ‘I love you’ back??? Was Kaveh about the be called up to celestia and live his remaining life with the primodial one??

Okay it’s not even about the fact that he called them darling. OR THE FACT THAT HE SAID I LOVE YOU BACK. Even though those facts alone were something he desperately need to talk about later. But one thing Kaveh was mostly surprised at was the fact that someone wanted to be affectionate with him.

That made him wonder. Like the green haired moron does literally nothing but sit and read. Without his pretty face, perfect brawns, and outstandingly smart brain, he would be nothing. No but seriously, did you ever see Alhaitham taking a step forward to start a conversation? No, exactly! In fact he’s the one that takes the initiative to stop them.

So from now on, Kaveh decided to make it his life mission to find out who exactly is willing to suffer for the sake of being with Alhaitham.

Going to his lists of candidates he has…uhm. He can’t really think of anyone right now rather than the librarian that spends 24/7 in the library. I mean he guessed they do have one thing in common. But no let’s cross that out.

Oh yeah! Alhaitham was in the student council. He was there as secretary! Okay that opened up a few spots for some people Alhaitham could be dating.

Okay so far here is his list:

1. Vice president of the student council, Cyno

Notes: possibility 40%. Seen them talk before but they hate each other sm. Honestly giving enemies to lovers vibe but didn’t Cyno had a thing w Tighnari? Idk need to check again.

2. Student council head of social media department, Nilou

Notes: possibility 60%. Very very pretty, single too (I think??) Seen them talk but I think only abt student council matters (or is it??). Kinda too good for Alhaitham. She doesn’t seem to be the type that likes cold guys. Does that cross her out??

3. Student council head of sports department, Dehya

Notes: possibility -100%. Definitely not. Rumour spreading around that she’s dating Dunyazard. Ship them sm ngl if she turned out to he dating Alhaitham I’ll kill him for ruining my ship. But overall definitely not.

4. Student council president, [ Name ]

Notes: possibility 25%. Nah bro they too good for him. They’re literally the definition of social butterfly and he’s likes the opposite. So many ppl chasing after them fr so if they turned out to be taken by Alhaitham, I’ll personally go back to celestia myself.

So far that was the list! It was okay so far but he needed more evidence. The one with most percentage on his list was Nilou. He’ll have to ask around to find more candidates too. But he was sure that the list of candidates wouldn’t be more than 5.

Before you questioned Kaveh to why didn’t he just asked Alhaitham, it’s because he would just stare at him blatantly and said “It’s not your problem” ! Honestly, getting an answer from Alhaitham aside for calculus matters is extremely difficult.

He did his research and observations. Alhaitham goes to the library every day (literally). He spends his time there reading the same kind of shit he does at home, staying quietly at a remote corner, away from all the other students.

There was no way this man is taken. The problem is he doesn’t even try. Like at all. 0 efforts. If Kaveh was his lover, he would’ve dump his ass in public and let him suffer the embarrassment. The worst part about that is the fact that he probably won’t even care!

After what seemed like 30 minutes, Kaveh decided that all was hopeless and finally went his merry away. Ah, if only he stayed just a minute more. Then he wouldn’t have missed your approaching figure heading towards the man whose nose is stuck in a book.

“Hi.” A small smile graced your lips, your eyes melt into those turquoise hues, one that reeked of fondness and admiration.

No words of greetings has yet to leaves his tongue, but the way he scooted over to the right, indicating you too sit by him was more than enough.

“So, when are we going to tell him?” Alhaitham averted his gaze from his book unto you. His eyes slightly squinted, showcasing evidence of him clearly thinking.

“Is it really equivalent for him to know?” Your boyfriend asked, earning a soft chuckle from you.

“Statically speaking, not really. But the way he’s searching for candidates is so hilarious and amusing to watch, don’t you think, darling?” Alhatham lifted his book up to eye level, covering the dust of pink that shimmered around his features.

He pondered awhile before replying “Ah you’re not wrong. It is quite the fun to see him run around chasing for some bit of evidence. A mastermind are you, my love?” Now it was your turn to flush shades of red. You can see the smile of adoration on his eyes cascading through the shades of his irises.

Times like these are where you love him most. Where the two of you sit in the presence of one another, quietly scheming and watching that friend of yours running around like a detective on a case. Seeing him desperately looking for the answer when it is right in front of him, sitting cross legged and maneuvering the most amusing smile.

do not repost, share, or copy ! Reblogs and likes very much appreciated!! Thankyou for taking ur time to read this hope you enjoyed it! Follow me for more xx

©️ shrslair.

#genshin x reader #alhaitham x reader #alhaitham #genshin impact #genshin imagines #genshin x you #al haitham x reader #genshin x y/n #genshin headcanons #genshin kaveh #al haitam x reader

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lacrimosathedark · 3 months

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I need the comic book fanfic writers to be made very aware of something:

Roy Harper is the only one to EVER call Jason Todd "Jaybird".

This isn't a family name that he picked up on, or that Roy made and the family has adopted. Roy is literally the only person to call him that. Dick doesn't, Babs doesn't, Bruce doesn't, nobody but Roy does.

The others call him Jay sometimes, in old comics Jace was said a few times (which I actually like and wish people would use literally at all). Bruce has said "Jay, lad" like once and fandom adopted him calling Jason "Jaylad" but that's not horribly egregious so I tolerate it. Dick occasionally calls Jason "little wing". That's about it.

Jaybird is very specifically a Roy Harper thing.

(Honestly yall better appreciate me actually looking back in RHATO 2011 because BOY do I hate this comic. It's not only poorly written, but in my opinion, ugly as fucking sin and I need to burn my retinas now)

That is the first instance of Jason ever being called "Jaybird", and it becomes a lowkey running gag that Roy calls him that and Jason "hates" it.

And then we get this post Heroes In Crisis

This whole thing may have been poorly written because, again, Scott Lobdell sucks, but the intent is to evoke intimacy to make Roy's death hurt. Jason is supposed to have just lost his best friend and was told by Bruce Wayne whose last appearance in his life was beating the shit out of him and, oh yeah, who saved Jason? Roy Fucking Harper.

In addition to the fact that Roy only left Jason to get help for himself. He was supposed to be in rehab/therapy, somewhere safe, and he fucking died because of handwavy Speedforce shenanigans or whatever it's been retconned to now because nobody liked Heroes in Crisis. Roy was supposed to be getting better and he died ostensibly in an accident. Like if that's not the worst fucking bullshit--

This scene of Jason calling himself by what he deems a stupid nickname would mean jack shit if everyone and their goddamn cat called him "Jaybird". But it being a Roy-specific thing makes this scene distinctly about Jason being vulnerable and actively grieving. It's such a cliche trope, and a real coping mechanism, to call a deceased loved one's phone just to hear their voice in their inbox message again. He probably has no thoughts that Roy will ever hear it so this is just for him, but he's letting himself accept this dumb nickname Roy gave him now because it was Roy that gave it to him and Roy is fucking dead.

Like, in fairness it probably frustrates me more because I ship the two and parallel it with Oliver calling Dinah "pretty bird", but like...even as just a cheeky friend nickname, nothing romantic behind it, having everyone else call Jason that feels wrong. Especially his family who he still has so many issues with and, like it or not, he's closer to Roy than literally any of the Bats at this point.

This isn't the only time I've seen the fandom do this (this being giving nicknames between characters that just don't exist); Jason calling Tim "replacement" is absolutely rampant in the fandom and I hate that too because he never calls Tim that, and refers to him as such like once. I have a whole list of actual nicknames and insults these motherfuckers call each other somewhere, but maybe another time.

In short

STOP HAVING EVERYONE CALL HIM JAYBIRD.

Thank you and have a nice day. <3

#DC Comics #Jason Todd #Red Hood #Jaybird #Roy Harper #Arsenal #I am losing my goddamn mind #I'm just so tired #RHATO #Heroes in Crisis

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20dollarlolita · 9 months

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My friend is getting some crap on instagram about perceived classism in the lolita community, and as someone who runs a budget-focused lolita fashion blog, I'm going to rehash some of the old "but I can't afford burando!" conversation.

For some background reading, here's where I bought three "lolita" "dresses" off ebay, and what I actually received for my money. And here's a breakdown of one of those specifically. I'm linking to these because I want everyone to remember that the pictures on ebay, amazon, wish, etc do not represent what the actual piece you receive will look like.

Lolita fashion can be expensive, but the less expensive end of legitimate lolita fashion is not actually as expensive as many people think it is. It's not all $300 for a dress and $60 for a pair of socks. There are options that bring the price down to other fashions. It cannot compete with the hyper-fast fashion of Shein and H&M and other places where the clothing is designed to be disposable. This is because lolita clothing is not disposable. Even modified or damaged, lolita fashion pieces have resell value. It's very common for people to be wearing garments that are over ten years old. There's also a lot of documentation about how hyper-fast fashion is damaging to the environments where it's made and the people who made it.

Okay, so that's all very fine and well, but it's true that recognizing that something is worth the money doesn't actually get you the money to buy it. There's a lot of things that I recognize are worth the money it costs to buy them, but that I don't have the money for. I don't drive a high-end electric car, even though I think it would be a better choice for me, because I don't have the money for a high-end electric car. So I do, very distinctly, understand that. I'm not about to tell someone "just save up for it!"

But, when someone tells you that you cannot buy lolita fashion on wish dot com, they're not actually saying "you won't be accepted in a wish dot com dress." They're saying, "any money you spend on a wish dot com dress will be wasted, because you will not receive a usable garment." Let's play pretend for a second. You come up to me with $20 and say, "I'd like to buy clothes." I say, "Good. I'll sell you some clothes." I then take your $20 bill, rip it into small pieces, eat all of the pieces, and say, "that's your clothes." Now, you didn't actually get any clothes from that, and there's no way you're getting your $20 back because I have consumed it. Your friend comes up to me and says, "Hi, I'd like to buy clothes." You say, "Don't give her that $20! It will be a waste of money!" Your friend says, "That's classism, because I only have $20." That's the conversation that's happening right now on my friend's instagram.

Classism does exist in the lolita fashion community. It can even come from people with good intentions. But, when it comes to buying on Ebay and Amazon and Walmart.com, people who are saying, "you can't buy lolita fashion on walmart dot com," aren't saying, "we won't accept your walmart dot com dress, because it was cheap." What they're saying is, "the thing that the site is telling you that you're buying and the thing that you will receive are going to be two different things. The thing you will receive will barely be a garment." There's a reason why, when I say "lolita dress from ebay," I have to typeset it as "'lolita' 'dress' from ebay," because it will probably be neither lolita nor a dress.

If you're new to the fashion and want a good shopping resource, 42lolita is a reseller/shopping service that will tell you what the shipping will be up front. Many other resellers will send you the shipping costs after you make the purchase, which makes it harder to predict what you'll be paying. You won't be getting a dress for $20 on 42lolita or anywhere else, but the prices they charge are more in line with shopping at a department store, rather than shopping at a big name designer store. There's a lot of other ways to purchase lolita fashion, and I just used 42lolita as one example.

The number of people who genuinely want the fashion to be as expensive as possible is not all that big. Even people who occasionally buy a $300 dress enjoy finding inexpensive accessories and support pieces. Finding lolita-usable jewelry on the Walmart clearance rack is a thing that's exciting to most people in the fashion. If there was a secret to buying $20 dresses on ebay and getting something that could be used in the fashion, people in the fashion would absolutely already be doing that.

So anyway, yeah, there's classism in the lolita community, but telling someone that they should not give me $20 for clothes when experience shows that I'm just going to rip it up and eat is not classism. Friends don't let friends spend money on badly made replicas on aliexpress.

#lolita fashion #20dollarlolita

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sailor-aviator · 3 months

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Fool's Fare: Chapter Six

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader

Summary: Captain Jake "Hangman" Seresin had come close to swinging from the gallows more times than he would care to admit. He's stolen, cheated, even killed. The worst thing he's ever done? Broken the heart of a woman. Having broken the heart of the woman whom Davy Jones himself had fallen for six years ago, Jake is now cursed to live as something not dead, but not alive. He's doomed to live a half-life for the rest of his existence unless he manages to obtain the treasure Davy Jones deems most valuable. The problem? He has no idea what it is, and he only had seven years to obtain it.

Trigger Warning: Brief mentions of loss of loved ones, Guppy has a meltdown (justified), Talks of Curse, Talks of the supernatural, Sword Fighting, Flirting, Someone gets stabbed (like run through with a sword), Descriptions of blood, Mentions of alcohol, Swearing, Assault but not really (you'll see), Smut (knife play, dry humping, groping, dirty talk, both get off), angst, a smidge of fluff. I think that's it, but let me know if I missed anything!

Word Count: 5.8k

Series Masterlist || Moodboards || Playlist || Jake "Hangman" Seresin Tag List

It was strange how time changed everything and yet nothing all at once. Time changed the seasons and the tides, caring not for whom it affected. It changed the day to night and back again, it changed youth into age. Yes, time changed. It changed and it took.

It took stone and weathered it away. It took the air that the flame of your candle needed to breathe. It took your happy life and turned it into nothing but distant memories, and it took lives, leaving nothing but others to mourn.

Time had taken your father and then your mother, and now you had to dread the day it would take Bradley away from you too. Time was greedy, and it would take and take and take until you stopped it. Time was your greatest enemy.

“Look alive, Guppy.”

You turned to see Jake strutting across the deck, barely catching the movement of his arm as he threw something to your feet. The bundle landed with a dull clang and you glanced down from your spot at the side of the ship where you had been watching the water race past as it sailed in the open waters.

It had been two days since Jake had revealed the curse to you, and you were still coming to terms with what you now knew.

“You have less than a year to break the curse?” You had breathed, eyes growing wider at the blond’s words as they hung in the air between the two of you.

“I can’t break the curse,” Jake responded, leaning against a stack of crates. “I have less than a year to find the treasure.”

“What’s the difference?” You huffed, shooting him a glare. He rolled his eyes, scoffing as he folded his arms over his broad chest.

“The difference,” he all but spat, “is that even if I have the treasure in my hand, the curse won’t lift until Davy Jones gives his seal of approval.”

“But how are you supposed to know that you have it? What happens if you don’t have it?”

“I imagine that’s part of the punishment, Guppy,” he sighed. “I’m left to sail the ocean for seven years looking for a treasure that could quite literally be anything, and I won’t know if I’ve succeeded until the end of those seven years when I meet him back on that beach.”

“And your crew?” You asked, crossing your own arms as you stared at him, fear clutching at your stomach and forming a pit as you thought of your brother. “How does this curse affect them?”

“That depends,” Jake answered, eyes darting to yours for a brief moment before looking away.

“On what?” You pressed, irritation clawing to the surface at his dodginess.

“On how loyal they are to me.”

“What?” You balked, head jerking back at his words.

“The more loyal a man is to me,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face as he continued to pointedly look away from you, “the more the curse affects them. From the moment a man signs his name over in service to me, the curse will affect him until his time of service is up or until the curse is lifted.”

“But Bradley signed up with less than a year left,” you pointed out, words met with a heavy silence. You stared at the captain in front of you, his face giving nothing away as he stared out over the sea. The realization hit you all at once.

“You knew,” you breathed, a sinking feeling coming to rest in the pit of your stomach. “You knew that he would have to see it through to the end. He would either be free once the curse is lifted or he’d be doomed to sail with you for eternity.”

His eyes met yours then, mossy green swirling with a mixture of emotions that you couldn’t even begin to try and place. No, you were too angry. Angry at the man in front of you for tricking your brother into the possibility of eternal servitude. Angry at your brother for his casual recklessness by signing up for a crew he knew nothing about. Angry at how little time you had to fix all of it.

“You looked at me in that pub, knew how desperate I was for him to not go, and still you let him sign away his life to you,” you seethed, hot, angry tears gathering in your eyes. Jake had the decency to look ashamed by your words, but still you continued. “He’s all I have left, did you even stop to consider that? If something happens to him-”

A sob ripped its way through you, the harsh, ugly sound of your anguish jarring to your ears. Jake’s eyes widened as he watched you, and had you not been feeling like your world was crashing down around you, you might have laughed at the uneasy expression on his handsome features. Sucking in a breath in an attempt to calm yourself, you clutched at your skirt, fingers tensed so hard you feared they might freeze that way.

“If something happens to him,” you croaked, your breaths coming out in shuddering waves as you once again locked eyes with the blond in front of you, malice pouring from you with such vitriol, you saw him physically recoil away from you, “I will have nothing. Do you hear me? I will be all alone in this world, Jake Seresin. Nothing to my name and no one to call home. I will be forced to find some way to provide for myself, knowing that there was nothing I could do to save the only family I had left in this world.”

You took a step away from him, scrubbing furiously at your eyes and cheeks, desperately trying to pull yourself together.

“Guppy.”

Your eyes snapped open, head whipping towards the stairs leading to the galley. Bradley stood at the top step, a pained expression on his face as he watched you. Watched as you came to the realization that your lifeline, him, was slowly disappearing with nothing you could do to stop it. No, that wasn’t true. You just had to find the treasure that Davy Jones deemed worthy, and then this whole nightmare would be over. Jake already had his hands on the Soul of Polaris, which was as good a thing to place your trust in as any.

Sucking in a breath, you shot one last glare to Jake, noticing how he had schooled his features to show no hint of emotion.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Captain?” You snapped, hands clenched back at your sides, venom dripping from every word. He studied you for a second more before shaking his head slowly.

“No,” he murmured, voice thicker than before. “You’re dismissed.”

Without another word, and without sparing another glance at Bradley, you stalked off towards the cabin, feeling both sets of eyes on you as you slammed the door shut behind you.

And now here you were two days later, having not talked to much of anyone save for a few clipped responses. You eyed the bundle distastefully, glancing up to see Jake shrugging off his coat, leaving him in his simple, white shirt and trousers. The top few buttons were undone on his shirt, exposing the broad expanse of his chest to the midday sun, and you tried to ignore the way you could see the hairs of his chest peeking out from behind the fabric. You would certainly never admit to how your mouth watered at the sight.

“What?” You snapped, crossing your arms as you glared at the captain. He smirked at you, green eyes twinkling as he dropped down to peel the sleeve back from the bundle. His hands wrapped around the silver hilt of a sword, the metal gleaming in the sun as he lifted it, weighing it in his hands before handing it over, the hilt side towards you.

A breeze rushed through, rippling the fabric of his shirt and revealing more skin in the process, and you could feel your cheeks heat up at the sight of more of his golden skin on display.

You were snapped out of your trance by the sound of chuckling, glaring up at the blond as he grinned lasciviously at you.

“See something you like?” He asked, a knowing gleam in his eyes as you huffed.

“Something I’d like to run through with this rapier, maybe,” you scowled, grabbing the hilt perhaps a little too forcefully.

Jake chuckled, stepping back and allowing some distance between the two of you. You stared at the sword in your hand dumbly, wondering just what exactly he wanted you to do with it. Your question was soon answered when he settled into a fighting stance, feet planted firmly on the deck while his right hand stretched out, sword pointed at you.

“What are you doing?” You asked dryly, a frown tugging at the corner of your lips as you looked at the sword in your grasp before glancing back up at him. His smirk remained steadfast as he relaxed back into a normal stance, gesturing at you with quick flicks of the metal in his hand.

“A little birdy told me that you never learned how to use a sword,” he explained, scowling slightly as he repeated the information. “That’s unacceptable from members of my crew.”

“A little birdy told you?” You repeated with a hum, eyes glancing over towards the area of the ship where you last saw Bradley. He was pointedly looking away from you, inspecting the ropes on the side of the ship, his only giveaway being the red at the tips of his ears. Looking back at Jake, you arched a brow.

“Yes, a little birdy,” he affirmed, a face of faux seriousness now stretched across his features. “It amazes me that your father never thought it wise to teach you this skill.”

“Yes, well,” you sneered, “he didn’t think it prudent that I know a great many things, as it would turn out.”

“A shame,” Jake hummed, nodding solemnly. “It’s a good thing that I’m here to rectify the situation. Imagine if word got out that the daughter of the legendary pirate captain Maverick Mitchell couldn’t even use a sword properly.”

“Legendary, huh?” You snorted, rolling your eyes with a wry smile. “Somehow I doubt that.”

Movement around you seemed to stop as the words left your lips, and you glanced around to see several members of the crew giving you odd looks. Your eyes trained back on the blond in front of you as he arched an eyebrow at you.

“You really have no idea, do you?” He hummed, chuckling at your blank expression. He took the few steps across the deck and back towards you, so close that you could feel the heat radiating off of him. “Your father is one of the most well known pirates to have ever lived. Some who fear him and others who revere him.”

“And where do you stand?” You asked him, cursing how small your voice sounded as you gazed up at him.

“Well,” he smirked, “I wasn’t on the seas long enough to fear him, so I suppose you can count me as one of his admirers.”

“Tell me about him?” You asked before you could remember the fact that you were supposed to be angry with the man in front of you. His smirk turned devilish as he looked you over from top to bottom, teeth catching his bottom lip before humming and backing up once more.

“Practice first,” he declared, shifting back into his fighting stance, arm once again outstretched towards you. “Now copy my stance.”

You eyed him, slowly moving to copy him, hoping that you were doing it right. Jake’s lips pursed as he studied you, the disapproval dashing any hopes that you had managed to copy him correctly. He let out a sigh, dropping out of the stance to walk over towards you. He circled you, stopping at your back, and you waited with bated breath. His hands slowly slid to hold your hips, causing you to nearly jump out of your skin at the unexpected contact.

“Easy, Guppy,” he chuckled, the low sound sending a shiver up your spine and heat to your cheeks.

Slowly, Jake repositioned you, and irritatingly you noticed the difference in balance as he did so.

“You want to angle your hips like this,” he murmured into your ear, his breath fanning in warm waves across your cheek. “Feel the difference?”

Not trusting yourself to speak, you gave a jerky nod, pointedly refusing to turn and meet his eyes.

“Good girl,” he hummed, lips brushing against the shell of your ear. You felt him smirk against you as you let out a gasp. His fingertips lingered on your hips for a moment before he moved to reposition your arm. Once he was satisfied, he took his spot in front of you once more.

“How’s about a deal, Guppy?” He asked, brow arching once more as he watched you. “For every hit you land on me, I’ll tell you something about your father.”

“What about when you land a hit on me?” You questioned, frowning lightly. His smirk grew as he readied himself.

“For every hit I land on you,” he drawled, lifting his sword, “I get a minute of your company.”

“That’s ridicul-”

Before you could finish, he lunged, catching you off guard and managing to land a tap at your shoulder. You blustered, staring at him with mouth agape as he smiled at you smugly.

“That doesn’t count!” You cried, glaring at him. “I wasn’t ready.”

“Rule number one of pirateering, Guppy,” he grinned, “always be prepared for the unexpected. That’s one minute of your time for me.”

You scowled at him, lunging forward with your sword, a strike he easily blocked. The clashing of metal rang out across the deck and the crew gathered to watch with growing interest.

“You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that if you want to land a blow,” he mocked, lunging forward once more. You attempted to dodge, veering right clumsily. You let out an indignant squawk as he hit your ass with the broad side of his blade, shooting him a murderous look as he laughed at you.

“That’s two minutes.”

The two of you carried on for about half an hour before you finally asked for a break. Your chest heaved with exertion, limbs and lungs burning for oxygen as you hunched over against your knees. There had been a couple of times where you could have landed a blow, but it had been too risky. The chances you had would have led to serious injury, and you weren’t keen on seriously injuring or maiming your captain just yet. Jake seemed to know what you were doing, as each time you didn’t take the shot, the smile from his face grew smaller and smaller until he was openly glaring at you.

“Again,” he commanded, whipping his blade to his side with a loud thwip as it cut through the air. “And this time act like you want to land a blow.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” You snapped, straightening up a little in indignation.

“There were twelve times where you could have landed a blow on me,” he scowled, “and you didn’t. Quit wasting opportunities to strike at me.”

“Apologies, Captain, if I’m not in the mood to take another plunge overboard for maiming you,” you sneered. Jake barked a humorless laugh, a wry smiling curling on his lips.

“Is that what this is about?” He asked, a dangerous glint in his eye. “You think you’re going to hurt me?”

You said nothing, watching him wearily as he took slow, measured steps towards you. You straightened up as he drew near, raising your sword, uncertain if he was going to strike. He paused, glancing down for a brief second before back up at you, something akin to pride sparked in his eyes before flashing back to the ire he now directed at you.

“At least you learned something,” he snickered, drawing closer, and in your uncertainty, you raised your sword higher, trying to put some distance between the two of you. His lips curled dangerously, causing your heart to race for a completely different reason now. He took another step towards you, and you pressed the tip of your sword into his stomach, cursing the small tremor in your hands.

Pausing, Jake once again glanced down at the blade before locking eyes with you. He took another step, the sharp blade piercing his skin and allowing rivulets of scarlet red to run down his golden skin in sharp contrast. You inhaled sharply as he took another step, further impaling himself on the blade. Jake let out a quiet grunt as he took yet another step, eyes never straying from yours as he did so. Finally, he stopped, and you stared with horrified fascination as the stream of blood soaked his shirt and trousers, some dripping onto the wood below him.

“Neither alive, nor dead,” he murmured, something else mixing with the anger now. “I can feel pain, but no harm will come to me while this curse ensnares my soul, Guppy.”

He reached out a hand to brush your face, and it was then that you realized that you were crying. Fingers danced across the apple of your cheek, trailing down to tilt your head back. His thumb rested on the pillow of your bottom lip, stroking slightly.

“You can’t hurt me, Guppy,” he continued, a look of solemnity now on his face as he studied you. “But things can still hurt you, and I’ll be damned if I let you continue on not being able to defend yourself.”

He stepped back, taking the sword with him as it fell from your grasp. With a hiss, he pulled it from his gut, wiping the blade down on his already ruined trousers. He glanced around at the crew, features shifting to one of annoyance before settling on cold.

“Get back to work,” he snapped, and with that the crew scurried to occupy themselves. Jake didn’t spare you another glance before stalking off towards the cabins, the door slamming shut behind him. It was the loud sound that set you in motion, whirling around to once again take purchase by the railing of the ship. You scrubbed furiously at your eyes, making a point to ignore the crew members who walked past you, shooting you sympathetic looks as they prepared to dock for the night. You settled on the railing, curling in on yourself as a figure saddled up next to you, facing the sea as the ship raced toward the shore.

“Guppy,” Bradley sighed, glancing over at you with worry clear on his face.

“What?” You mumbled miserably, refusing to meet his eyes. The two of you stayed in silence for a moment. You, wishing that you could disappear, and Bradley, waiting for you to acknowledge what happened.

“You can’t stay mad at him,” he said finally, looking back out at the water. You shot him a glare at that.

“The hell I can’t.”

“You can’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “Because he’s not the one you’re really mad at.”

“Of course I’m mad at him,” you protested, eyes shifting back to the sea. “None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for him!”

He looked back at you then, a condescending look on his face.

“Guppy,” he chided. You glanced back at him, frowning at the knowing smile on his face. “You and I both know you’re lying.”

You glared at him, pressing your face into your arms where they rested atop your knees.

“Fine,” he sighed, grasping the railing and leaning back, head tilted toward the sky. “You can pretend that he’s the one to blame, but you and I both know that the one you’re really mad at is me.”

“What?” You frowned, sitting up to look at him.

“You’re mad at me for choosing to leave,” he continued, shrugging as if it didn’t bother him. “You feel like you can’t blame me though because you think it’ll push me away and you can’t stand the thought of losing me. So instead, you focus all the anger you have for me on the next best thing, but I’m telling you, he’s not the one to blame here.”

“You want me to be mad at you?” You asked, brow furrowing in confusion. He gave a one sided shrug, peering at you past his nose.

“I want you to be honest with me about how you’re feeling,” he replied. “I want you to be mad at me if that’s what you’re feeling. It was my choice to sign up for the crew. It was my choice to leave. I made choices, Guppy, and you can’t be mad at other people for it.”

You chewed over his words silently, feeling some of the tension slip from your shoulders. Bradley gave you a soft smile, knocking his shoulder against yours.

“Anyway, he’s right,” he added, looking at you seriously. “You need to be able to protect yourself, and that’s why I picked up this at the last port.”

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small dagger, the hilt a simple brown and the metal shining in the afternoon sun. You took it from him, eyes widening with intrigue as you inspected the gift.

“Come on, kid,” he chuckled, stepping back away from the railing and gesturing for you to follow. “We’ve got work to do.”

The pub was crowded as you sat wedged in between Bradley and Mickey, several different groups singing their own shanties off key. The room smelled of stale beer and old piss, and you inspected the mug in front of you with weary eyes. Wrinkling your nose, you pushed the glass back, eyeing the room around you. Your pub back home would never be this dirty.

“Having fun yet?” Mickey called over the roar of the crowd. You rolled your eyes, giving him a half-hearted scowl as you gestured to the people around you.

“You call this having fun?” You asked him, causing his head to tip back in laughter as his dark curls bounced around his face.

“You get used to finding amusement after years of not being able to get drunk,” he explained, shrugging good-naturedly. “Besides, best to make the most of a rotten situation, right? We all have to be here to show strength as we get new recruits.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” You frowned. “Knowing that those men have no idea what they’re signing up for?”

“Does anyone really know what they’re signing up for?” He countered. “I mean, really, truly know. Sure you have an idea, but anything can happen when you’re out at sea.”

“I suppose that’s true,” you sighed, absentmindedly rubbing at your shoulder, the muscles still sore from your impromptu sword fighting lesson from that morning. Mickey watched you for a moment, concern shining in his eyes.

“You look like you could use some rest,” he murmured, moving to stand and catching Bradley’s attention in the process. “Why don’t I take you back to the ship?”

“You’re leaving?” Bradley asked, studying you for any signs that something might be wrong. “I’ll come with you.”

“No, no,” you said, waving them off. “You two should stay. Wouldn’t want the captain getting angry that I stole two of his men away.”

“Guppy,” Bradley started, a scowl dancing across his face. You put a hand up to stop him.

“I mean it, I’ll be fine. Besides,” you chirped, pulling out the dagger that Bradley had handed you earlier that day, “I have this. If anyone tries to mess with me, I’ll just stick this where the sun doesn’t shine.”

Bradley eyes you wearily, looking like he was going to argue, but stopped when something caught his eye. He pressed his lips together before slowly nodding.

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “Yeah, okay. Just be careful, alright?”

You gave him one last smile before pushing your way through the crowd and out into the streets.

It wasn’t surprising how quiet all seemed around you given how late it was. The only sounds to be heard coming from the pub and the neighboring brothel. You began your trek back towards the docks, relishing in the cool, night air that blew around you. Humming a tune to yourself, it was a few minutes before you noticed the sound of footsteps behind you. You slowly and carefully reached for the blade at your side, wrapping your fingers around the hilt just as fingers wrapped around your upper arm, twisting you around. You sucked in a breath of air as you moved to stab your assailant in the groin, wincing as they gripped the wrist that held the dagger, pushing you up against the nearest building. You let out a grunt as your back hit the wall, closing your eyes at the sharp pain running up your back.

“Just because you can’t kill me, doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt, sweet girl.”

Your eyes snapped open to lock onto mossy green. Jake stared down at you, an amused smirk on his face as he watched you catch up to what was happening.

“You,” you breathed, brow pinching in confusion.

“Followed you out of the pub to make sure you didn’t get into any trouble, but it took me a minute to catch up with you,” he explained, sounding bored. His hands wrapped around the hilt of the dagger, taking it out of your hand and holding it up to the lamplight. “This is cute, is this new?”

You were suddenly keenly aware of the position you found yourself in. Back pressed against the wall, Jake’s hips pinning you there as he held both of your wrists in one hand, the other still examining the blade.

“Just got it today, Captain,” you huffed, scowling up at the man in question. The corner of his lips twitched as he turned his attention back to you.

“You should be careful about how you throw that word around, pretty girl,” he smirked, twirling the knife before pressing the flat of it to the tip of your nose in a quick tap. “You’d be surprised at the kind of effect it has on a man.”

You gasped as he pressed closer, the hard planes of him settling against you as his breath washed over you. Gazing up at him, you jutted your chin out in a challenge.

“How’s that, Captain?” You pressed. Jake’s smirk grew as he dragged the knife from the tip of your nose, down across your lips and chin, over the swell of your breasts, and stopping at the string that held your shirt together. He dipped the dagger under the string, pulling quickly so that the fabric cut in one, swift motion.

“Hey!” You cried indignantly, glaring at him as he did the same to the next three strands.

“I had to ruin a perfectly good shirt today in order to teach you a lesson,” he drawled, eyeing you with a purse of his lips. “Seems only fair that I get to return the favor.”

“I think this is hardly an equal punishment,” you gritted, squirming against him as a flush of heat rose to your cheeks. Your shirt did little to cover you from any eyes that might see you in that moment, but that was a thought that twitted at the back of your mind. No, you were too focused on the way Jake’s own eyes roamed over you, hunger growing with every swipe over your exposed skin.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he murmured, eyes locking back onto yours. He leaned forward, his lips grazing yours, smirking as he pulled back slightly only for you to chase him. “But, I do have thirty minutes of your company to claim.”

His lips were on yours before you could respond, molding against yours as you moaned at his touch. His free hand dragged up your side before groping your breast through the scraps of your newly destroyed shirt. Squeezing, his tongue dove into your mouth as you gasped into him, practically devouring you whole. You arched into his touch, using your now free hands to run through his surprisingly soft, blond locks and dragging him closer to you. You were barely aware of him tucking the dagger into the band of his pants as he grabbed the back of your thighs, hoisting your legs up and around his waist.

His lips left yours then, hot open-mouthed kisses placed furiously across your jaw and down your neck. You tilted your head to the side, giving him more access that he freely used to nip and suck at the skin you offered him.

“So soft,” he breathed, nuzzling your shoulder as his right hand came up to squeeze your breast once again. “Never felt anyone so soft.”

You let out a loud cry as he gave a rather harsh bite to your shoulder, your hands tugging on the strands of his hair in a manner you were sure had to be painful.

“Make the prettiest, little noises, pretty girl,” he hummed, looking up at you long enough to see the devilish smirk that worked its way onto his handsome face. “Don’t even have you around my cock yet, and you already look this fucked out.”

“Jake,” you breathed, gasping as he pressed his hips further into you. You could feel the hard length of him through his trousers and from where your skirt had ridden up.

“You feel what you do to me?” He asked. “You’ve been doing this since the first moment I laid eyes on you. Been thinking about how tight your pussy is going to feel wrapped around me. Been fucking my hand at the very thought of you milking me dry.”

You moaned at his words, rolling your hips into his as you peppered kisses across his face. Jake closed his eyes, seeming to relish in the attention you were bestowing upon him, one hand moving around to grab your ass as the other lavished attention at your nipple. He hauled you against him, grinding you down onto the prominent bulge.

“You like the sound of that?” He murmured, ducking his head back down to your neck, biting a particularly sensitive patch of skin then quickly laving it with his tongue. “Like the sound of me filling you up? Dirty girl, I bet you love the idea that anyone could see us right now. See how you’re falling apart for me even though I’m barely touching you.”

His teeth dug into the juncture of your shoulder and neck, and your cry of pain quickly dissolved into a moan of pleasure. Jake hummed, running his nose up and down the length of your neck.

“My pretty girl likes pain, huh?” He hummed. You were too lost in the sensations of pleasure he was pulling from you to notice his hand letting go of your ass to reach for his trousers. You jumped as the cool sensation of metal once again dragged across the swell of your breasts, your eyes popping open to stare down at where Jake ran the tip of the dagger across your skin. Not hard enough to cut, but enough for you to feel the pressure.

You hissed as he pressed the tip of the blade into the skin of your left breast, the sting quickly giving way to a wave of pleasure as he placed his lips over the cut, his tongue swirling over the skin. Your head hit the wall behind you as you let out a wanton cry of pleasure, feeling Jake smirk against you.

“My dirty girl likes that, huh?” He crooned, tossing the dagger to the ground and using the same hand to wrap in your hair as he forced you to look at him. He ground his bulge into your beating core, moaning at the heat radiating off of you as he crashed his lips to yours.

“Such a good girl for me, Guppy,” he moaned as he pulled away, bringing his right hand up from your breast. His thumb rested on your bottom lip before pushing the tip into your mouth. You suckled at it on instinct, never breaking eye contact as he groaned at the feel of your tongue laving over the digit.

“Fuck,” he hissed, picking up his pace. You let out quiet cries as the coil in your abdomen began to tighten, Fingers falling to his shoulders and leaving angry, red welts in their wake.

“That’s it,” he groaned, rutting into you. “Mark me, sweet girl. Show everyone who I belong to. Wanna wear your marks for days.”

You sucked harder at his thumb as you attempted to meet his thrusts, chest heaving with exertion. Jake saw the look on your face, taking his thumb out of your mouth to push your hair back.

“Come on, Guppy,” he crooned, losing himself in the sensations of you as he chased both of your highs. “Be a good girl for me, yeah? I can see how close you are, can practically feel your pretty little cunt fluttering against me. Can’t wait to be buried balls deep inside of you, feel you squeezing around me. Feel me leaking out of you. I’s okay though, I’d just push it back into you, and then I’d fill you up again and again until you’re swelling with me.”

You moaned at his words, jerking when a particularly hard thrust hit the sensitive nub at the juncture of your thighs, sending you over the edge with a loud cry. Jake thrust against you a few more times before stilling, sinking his teeth into the skin of your neck as he panted his release.

His hands rested on your thighs, smoothing up and down the exposed skin in gentle strokes as the two of you calmed down. Your hands ran through his hair gently, humming your content as you placed soft kisses to his temple.

“I’m sorry.”

Your brow furrowed as you glanced down at him, fingers stilling in his hair.

“For what?” You asked. His fingers stilled at your hips, gripping a little tighter as he stayed wrapped in your embrace.

“For all of it,” he whispered, pressing his face tighter to you. “For being an ass. For tricking Bradley into signing. For not saying something sooner about the curse. For being the reason you might be all alone.”

He trailed off near the end, and for a minute, neither of you said anything. Instead, you scratched the back of his head, earning a contented hum that almost sounded like a purr. Sighing, you rested your cheek against the top of his head, holding him closer.

“Bradley made his own choices,” you whispered, closing your eyes.

A/N: I don't think this is my best smut, which is disappointing considering this was supposed to be alley scene 2.0, but alas, it is what it is. As always, reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! You can also find my works on AO3 under the username sailor_aviator.

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