#homespins

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tagged by @starkovzova to share six non-selfie photos <3

tagging @duckingduckofduke @penguin-purple @coffeealwayshelps @khrogerswrites @peachypitt @smolfangirl just if ya want.

Happy new year!

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I’m having the urge to write a kingdon friends to lovers roommates fic after reading the SWEETEST hollanov roommates fic. Somebody tell me to finish king hunt before kingdon week please!!!

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for the first time since finishing needs met in march I am getting excited about a potential kingdon piece. no details yet but I will impart these three images from the moodboard.

(gorgeous fanart by @catjacket-scribbles; thank you for the inspiration)

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I’m getting really into my original fiction novel (more tennis romance🎾☺️) but fanfic has spoiled me with support and cheerleading and fun. Basically: writing a first draft by oneself is so lonely.

What are people doing for this? Are there any fun groups out there that would extend me an invitation? Would anyone be interested in forming a group?

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would love to hear more about needs met! how did you decide to write ace!mel, what research did you do, what is Frank thinking throughout all this (👀), or anything else u think we should know🫶

I would say a free use smutty fic had been brewing in me for a long time, but I didn't actually want to write it. I truly see myself as an action/adventure writer but then all i produce is smutty fanfic. 🙈 what is that about!! to be honest, sometimes that incongruity feels weird on a personal level.

So there I was, bottling up the free use pervert within myself, suffering, when two things happened. @langdonmels posted a snippet of their free use fic, and reading that was the equivalent to injecting five hour energy into my veins.

Then Taylor Dearden, when asked about kingdon, said something to the effect of: "I don't think she thinks about romance" and many of us in the fandom took that to mean that Taylor was playing Mel as aro-ace. The germ for Needs Met grew from there. I wondered what it would take for a Mel who identified as aro-ace to change something so integral to herself and fall in love.

I was a horndog from a young age (probably surprising no one lmao), so I don't claim personal experience with this, but one of my best friends identifies as "nearly asexual." This same friend got married last year, is planning to start a family, etc. etc. And as a person in her 30s, I have weathered several life events that lead me to believe that huge, life-changing shifts in identity are certainly possible as we age. It would be kind of a bummer if we remained static as people after age 25. it's obviously NOT prescriptive in any way.

I still didn't want to write needs met. the day that I posted the first chapter I really went back and forth on posting it anonymously. So far I'm glad I didn't. :)

anyway thank you sm for asking Mari! 🫶 here's the first scene of the next chapter if anyone wants a snippet (the nsfw nintendo switch scene, my fave):

Relaxing felt… weird. 

Historically, Mel King hadn’t had much time to relax since... oh, probably since she’d taken a towering load of AP courses in eleventh grade, while simultaneously working on her MA certification so she could get a well-paying job at the memory facility where her grandfather lived. She clocked in at Morningside Heights on weekdays after school. After evening med pass, she habitually sat in the parlor with Grandpa and worked on her AP Physics homework. Her mother’s father had been an aerospace engineer at Boeing, and the Air Force before that. 

He was so helpful with her homework on thermodynamics and wave theory that Mel didn’t mind that he usually didn’t remember who she was. 

Needs met for needs met, right?

After high school, she went to college in-state. Freshman year was a stressful conglomeration of pre-med coursework and confusing social opportunities. Mel watched her peers blossom with the new freedoms of college life: going to the 24-hour cafeteria and eating whatever you wanted, any time of day; skipping class because you stayed up too late the night before or just didn’t feel like going; flirting with boys and girls. In the absence of boundaries, Mel kept to the proverbial shallow end of the pool. She declined her roommate’s invites to frat parties and stayed in her dorm room studying. She set the curve on her chem tests. She set timers on her phone to spur her to go to the cafeteria, even though she always took the styrofoam box to go. 

She went on dates because she felt bad saying no. She had sex a few times--not for any real desire on her part, but to get the experience. Those encounters were uninspiring enough that she began identifying as asexual after she took Human Sexuality as a psych elective. One crucial lesson she learned in college: how to say no quickly and clearly. It was much easier that way.

Then her mom got her cancer diagnosis, which neatly tossed Mel’s self-imposed social pressures out the window. She lived at home for the next three years of undergrad, commuting an hour each way for her mandatory labs and taking online courses for the rest. Mel’s dad was no help with Mom. Becca—bless her—tried. But the brunt of the caretaking fell to Mel.

She definitely didn’t set the curves on tests anymore. She felt fortunate to claw a decent GPA and MCAT score from her university experience.

Becca moved in with Mel after the funeral, then, obviously: medical school. Residency. 

Not a lot of time to cultivate hobbies or interests outside the hospital.

So when Frank asked her to relax, to stop being productive, to play, Mel resisted. She privately thought that the video games he installed on her new Switch were a waste of time. Even the fantasy books that she loved were meant to be sipped from, meting out a few chapters before bed to facilitate a good night’s sleep, not guzzled over the course of a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Frank reminded her of a cat, lounging in the Winter sun. When she lived at his apartment over the weekends, comfort and leisure were top of mind. You wouldn’t call a cat lazy—it was just its nature. Mel thought the same of Frank. 

He lounged on the couch and watched her puzzle out the plot in Animal Crossing. They spent hours in the kitchen, baking sugary confections or cooking elaborate meals for two (no leftovers; what a poor return on time investment!).

Mel rationalized with herself that this was all just “part of the sex.” Elaborate acting over the course of their weekends together to spin a fantasy, to set a mood. If it turned Frank on to watch her enjoy her new hobbies; well, he was paying her credit card and rent, so enjoy she would.

And okay, yes: there was typically some element of sexiness during the aforementioned relaxation. When Mel unglued her eyes from the tv screen after adding a villager to her Animal Crossing colony (okay, so this one was kind of fun), Frank had his dick out. He was stroking himself and staring at her. During their misadventures in baking, she invariably ended up bent over the granite countertop, making snow angels in the flour while Frank fucked her from behind. Playing house was part of the fantasy to Frank, maybe? Mel strived to not think too hard about it. 

Here was a rainy Saturday in February. All of Pittsburgh had been seduced by a false Spring all week, with the residents walking laps on the roof of the parking garage during their lunch breaks to enjoy the brilliant blue sky. But a storm had brought in a cold front last night, and now rain pelted the windowpanes of Frank’s apartment in sheets. Thunder rumbled at regular intervals, and the sky outside was dark as dusk even though the clock neared noon.

Italian Wedding soup simmered in the crockpot in the kitchen, making the whole apartment smell amazing. They’d slept in that morning, put the soup ingredients together, and now they lounged on the sectional. Mel and Frank had absolutely nothing on the docket to do. 

So Mel wasn’t surprised when Frank eased himself up from behind her.

“Keep playing,” he said. “I’m just going to mess around a little.”

“Don’t distract me,” Mel groused, as if his hand hadn’t been down her shirt for the last ten minutes. She had finished Animal Crossing last weekend and now she’d started a Switch game where she unpacked boxes and organized the contents into various rooms. Mel loved organizing, so she had gotten pretty into it.

“Me? Distract you? Never,” said Frank. (In fact, Frank had distracted Mel just a few hours ago as she peeled the carrots for the Italian Wedding soup. This had precipitated a contamination incident, so their soup was now, lamentably, carrotless.)

He slithered down from the couch to kneel on the ground in front of her. 

She was slouched down on the sectional, bare legs splayed out before her. He made himself comfortable between them and pressed kisses to her creamy, soft thighs. Then he tapped at the waistband of her tiny shorts. “Lift up.”

Mel sighed, already lifting her butt off the couch to acquiesce. “Can’t you wait five minutes, Frank? I’m about to finish the boxes in this room—“

“Come on, baby. You’re great at multitasking,” Frank cajoled. 

This was so patently untrue (Frank knew that Mel was a horrendous multitasker) that she huffed and resolved to ignore him entirely. She focused on the game as Frank slid her sleep shorts and panties down her legs. He threw them over his shoulder where they landed caddywompus behind the tv console. That made Mel’s eyes twitch, but she kept them stubbornly on the screen.

Frank spent what seemed like an eternity playing with her cunt— pressing open-mouthed kisses to her clit and long, lascivious licks up and down her lips. Blowing puffs of air at her; how cruel! Her thumbs started to shake as they pressed the buttons. Her rate of unpacking slid to a crawl. She really couldn’t focus. But Frank danced around her clit; he avoided getting into a real rhythm where she could actually consider an orgasm.

After ten minutes of this treatment, Mel’s resolve snapped. “Why are you doing this to me?” she wailed. She pressed the Switch to her face, focusing on the cool plastic against her cheek.

“Because I want to,” said Frank, between kisses. “And you let me do whatever I want with you. Right?”

Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes now. She was too overwhelmed to answer.

“Isn’t that right?” Frank pressed, circling her clit more insistently. 

She whimpered, overwrought. 

“Mel,” he said. 

“That’s right,” Mel said in a broken voice. “Whatever you want.”

“And now I want you to finish the level so I can fuck you,” said Frank. 

“Fuck the level,” Mel begged. “Stop torturing me.”

Frank hid a wicked grin by pressing his mouth into her cunt again. He loved it when she cursed, which was hardly ever. “No, no,” he said. “I insist. Finish the level. I’ll just entertain myself here until you’re done.”

So Mel unpacked the pixelly boxes as Frank licked her cunt. One would think this game didn’t require much coordination—it comprised unpacking household belongings into rooms, finding a tidy place for everything. There was no time crunch, no battles—it was simply organizing. But Mel’s fingers shook and her clicks were sloppy. 

“Please,” she begged. She still had two boxes left to unpack in the kitchen and she couldn’t take this anymore.

Frank popped his head up from between her legs and grabbed the Switch, surveying her progress. “Hm,” he said, unimpressed. “You really can’t multitask, can you?”

“I can’t.” Mel agreed eagerly. Finally, he would agree to quit this farce. “I tried my best, but I can’t.”

“Oral is probably too much stimulation. Why don’t we try hands and knees? I think you’ll focus better that way.”

Mel’s face dropped. Was he actually going to fuck her on the couch while she played? “Frank, seriously. It’s okay to pause. It’s not like your old games where you lose your progress.”

He barked a laugh. He was already guiding her body, hands on both hips, lifting her up and turning her so she could kneel on the couch. “You calling me old, King?”

“No! No, I just—” Mel’s mind felt like it was stuck in honey. She propped herself up on her elbows as he grabbed luscious handfuls of her ass, the disregarded Switch in her hands in front of her. “I think you’re being mean.”

“I’m not being mean. I just think you should finish what you start,” said Frank conversationally. He slid into her cunt to the hilt. It was absurdly easy, considering how she was dripping for him. “And this way I can see you play. Speaking of which,” He pulled her hips back onto his dick to better peer over her shoulder. “Are you really gonna leave those kitchen appliances out like that?”

“Oh my god,” Mel groaned. How could this man’s cock feel so perfect within her while he was being so annoying? “My backseat unpacker.”

“It just makes the countertop look kind of cluttered,” Frank continued.

“This is hell,” said Mel. She tried her best to unpack the next box, jolted rhythmically by his thrusts. She was unbearably aroused; his cock was hitting a delicious spot deep within her, but not at a pace to actually get her anywhere. “This is the bad place.”

“For me,” said Frank. His hand slid up her back in a languid caress, his big thumb pressing into the dip of her spine. He folded his body over her to press a kiss on her shoulderblade. “It’s heaven.”

--

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I was rereading Needs Met today and it struck me how WILD the story would be in the last chapters solely from Frank’s POV. He goes from thinking Mel is going to break up with him and he made her uncomfortable, finding out she likes to have sex with him and wants to have sex with only him, then he finds out she wants to be in a relationship with him and meet his kids, and then he’s 30 seconds into plotting their long distance relationship and convincing her to move to FL and Mel’s like “yea ok, there’s a beach and it’s warm. I’ve already thought about it and I’m in.”

AND THEN. she does actively move for him and want to have kids with him.

i mean obv there’s like signs and conversations along the way, but i just love seeing frank be happy in that fic. thank you so much for writing xx

🙂yay.

The way I read those characters is that frank is in the torture nexus in chapters 1-2, then Mel is in the torture nexus in chapters 3-4. They each get their turn! But Frank falls in love with Mel off-screen before the fic starts, then we see glimpses from Mel’s POV of his devastation in learning that Mel won’t return his feelings in chapter 1. Then they start having sex anyway in chapter 2 and you catch quiet glimpses of the franguish (frankguish? Workshopping). But by chapters 3-4, he is a mature king with reasonable boundaries—he is taking what he can get from their arrangement but not allowing himself to imagine more with Mel. Enter Mel’s crashing out as Frank’s lines and boundaries create friction with what she starts to desire.

The last chapter in Frank’s pov would be so sweet! He is just thrilled to be in a relationship with Mel but still a little cautious imo; waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the final scene on the beach I think he is on top of the world. Honestly a wonderful idea.

Needs Met🧸

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So obviously every comment received on ao3 represents a gigantic dopamine rush (obviously not ideal, homespun was told good job too much growing up, we’re working on it, etc.) but imo the all-time best comment is the re-read. Like “hey, I left a comment months ago, but I read this again and I still like it.”

WHAT AN HONOR AND A PRIVILEGE to take up space in your brain FOR A SECOND TIME.

so please always do this when you revisit your faves. it is so meaningful.

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tagged by @stemelwithme. thanks for tagging me!

1. The last book I read: Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali. wanted to love it; it was okay!

2. A book I'd recommend: this is my "hear me out", bc maybe two of my tumblr moots would actually really fuck with these. There is a fated mates/ shifter romance series deeply beloved to me called Five Packs by Cate C. Wells. Each book is named something crazy like The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate, The Heir Apparent's Rejected Mate, The Moon Blessed Wolf's Rejected Mate, etc. They also used to have insanely kitchy covers but recently got rebranded (thank god). But I genuinely love these books y'all!!!! They are NOT a guilty pleasure, they are actually good!!! Everyone should read them!!!

3. A book I couldn't put down: Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson. Just a wholesome action/adventure set in space/fantasy land. Loved it.

4. A book I've read twice or more: gotta shout out my high school copy of Jane Eyre which still has visible teardrop marks. Before phones, when I couldn't sleep/was upset at teen stuff, I would just read and reread passages of that book to self-soothe. god the youth are missing out.

5. A book on my TBR: Parable of the Sower - you know what, @stemelwithme, same! it's looking at me from my bookshelf.

6. A book I've put down: Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson :( I will pick it back up, I swear I will. Just gotta watch a 40-minute Cosmere recap YT video first.

7. A book on my wishlist: I would really like to have the full matching set of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, my Roman Napoleonic Empire.

8. A favourite book from childhood: soooo many, but Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is the first that comes to mind. the blueprint of ditzy magician meets practical wench, a favorite snack.

9. A book I'd give to a friend: I have this notion that every book I buy should be read multiple times to maximize hourly return on investment (clearly I am very chill and normal). I try to buy physical books only and pass them to a friend after I've finished. Just did this with Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett (highly recommend).

10. A book of poetry or lyrics that I own: sadly not a big poetry person; my partner was reading me passages from Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey the other day.

11. A non-fiction book that I own: my brother just gifted Eve by Cat Bohannon for my bday, so that one comes to mind.

12. What I'm currently reading: short stories by Franz Kafka and Raymond Carver, betwixt my hearty diet of phm and da pitt fanfic.

13. What I'm planning on reading next: It's gonna be an Andy Weir summer! Give me sci fi recs you love, please.

tagging @penguin-purple @something-to-confess @duckingduckofduke @bonjas @starkovzova @musing-and-music