#''plug it in the battery might be low''

[notbecauseofvictories]

not a great day for my heating to stop working.

[foone]

Robot girl sits alone in a rented storage unit with her charger in her hands. It's an old unit with freyed wires, and she can't keep her hands steady as she resolders it. Is it just the servos acting up again, or the tension of needing to get this thing fixed before her battery dies? It's at 3% now but the reading isn't reliable this low, she could power off at any moment. There's so many junctions to fix, and her vision is getting dark. She shuts off her fans to try to last a little longer, and there's an unnatural silence. Her fans have been going full speed for years now, and there's nothing quite like a sound you no longer consciously hear suddenly disappearing. She keeps soldering, the only sound a slight hiss of excess rosin evaporating from the melting solder. The concrete and metal of the storage units seems to close in around her in the oppressive stillness of the uncirculated air. If she breathed, she'd worry about how much oxygen was still in this air. She wonders about closing the door. If she runs out of power, no one will find her for weeks, but at least no one will try to salvage her for parts. On the other hand, if it's open, someone might try to help her... Oh well, it's a purely hypothetical question anyway, she's pretty certain her legs won't move at this power level anyway. She's stuck here unless she's able to charge.

The last few wires are soldered. Her vision cuts out, and she reaches to plug it in blind. Where's the outlet? She finds it, and reaches to plug the other end into her neck. Her arm glitches and stops. No... No like this. I was so close. She does a quick calculation, sighs silently, and leans, falling towards the plug and her now dead arm. The plug is shoved against her neck by her body falling onto her unresponsive arm, and she prays to the god of calculators that it's close enough to magnetically attach. Her battery hits 0% as the loud clanging thud echoes through the storage complex, and she powers down, hoping that she'll wake up with a full battery in a few hours. Hoping she'll wake up at all.

The silence returns. No one is there to hear it.

[skzstannie]

“They hate me”

SKZ Drabble

Ot8 x insecure! 9th member! Reader

TW: none?? If you see something, lmk

Hi everyone! This is my first work on here, and I’m excited for more to come! I’d like to start off by saying this in no way represents SKZ/Yunho in real life; they are simply face claims for the characters.

Please comment or interact in some way so I know how you guys liked it!

“Yunho,” you sobbed, curling into his side from your spot on the couch, “they hate me.”

“Sweetheart, they don’t hate you. I can assure whatever you could’ve done could not make them hate you.” He tries to sooth your shaking form by running his hand through your hair, but you abruptly sit up.

“How do you know that? I was messing up all the choreo last night, and Chan had to re-record my lines for the new song 7 times.” You hold up seven fingers to add a bit of emphasis. “And 7 times is a lot. And then to top it off, I threw up in the practice room because of how anxious I was feeling about it all,” you finish.

“Why does any of that warrant them hating you? So what, you made a few mistakes. I’m sure they’ve all messed up the choreography before, too.” He brings you back into his side by wrapping his long arm around your shoulder. “As for you getting sick, how are you supposed to control that?”

“You should’ve seen them, though. They all had steam coming out of their ears. I don’t even think the 7th recording was any good, but Chan just couldn’t stand to deal with me anymore so he sent me out of the booth. Lee Know looked like he was gonna rip his hair out if he had to correct me one more time, and I could feel the looks from everyone during the whole dance practice.”

“Did you ask them about these things before you left? Or did you just leave yourself to deal with these awful assumptions about the people who love you endlessly?”

“I left right after I got sick, never even told them where I was going,” you huff.

Once you’ve said it out loud, you realize how royally stupid you’ve been, and you immediately jump out of Yunho’s arms to find your phone. “Shit, have you gotten any calls or messages from the guys? I’ve probably worried them sick.” You wrestle around with the contents of your bumbag til you found your, evidently dead, phone. You fumble with your charger before hurrying to the kitchen to plug it in.

“No, I haven’t. Nobody really knows about… us, or this thing going on between us, so I wouldn’t have expected them to.” He gets up from the couch and walks to stand behind you, peering over your shoulder at your phone.

“Come on, come on, turn on you stupid thing.” You repeatedly press the power button, only getting the low battery symbol in return. Your heart’s beating out of your chest with anxiety as your phone finally starts to boot up. “I’m literally an awful person. They’ve probably just about raided the whole city trying to find me.”

“Maybe not, they might still be calm and figured you just needed a night to collect yourself.”

With that, your phone comes alive, and immediately you’re overwhelmed by the buzzing of missed calls and unanswered text messages.

17 missed calls from Channie 🤞🏻❤️

11 missed calls from Leebit 🐰

20 messages from BinBin 😘

15 missed FaceTime calls from Hyune 🫶🏻🫶🏻

11 messages from Jisung 🐿️

37 messages from Sunshine ☀️

24 messages from Menace 🙃🙂

13 messages from Innie 🦊

“Oh my gosh,” you gasp. The longer you stare, the more messages flood your lock screen.

“It’s alright, don’t panic. Just give Chan a call, I’m sure they’ll understand.” He rests his chin on your shoulder and hugs you from behind, trying to provide you comfort. “Or they’ll come around eventually, anyway,” he mumbles under his breath.

You’re quick to find Chan’s contact, and you immediately press the ‘call’ button. You put it on speaker phone, not wanting to be alone in this conversation. “You don’t have to say anything; I just feel more comfortable this way,” you explain, not wanting to unnecessarily drag Yunho into this conversation.

“Y/n! We’ve been calling you all night and looking for you everywhere! Where the heck are you? We’re coming to get you right now,” you hear Chan fidgeting with keys before he yells to Hyunjin, telling him to come to the car.

You sigh before relenting and apologizing for being so irresponsible. “I’m so sorry I worried you guys like that, just another thing I’ve messed up.”

“I don’t know what you’re on about, but we’ll talk about it more when you’re home safe. Now, where are you?” You hear the desperation in his tone. He just wants to know you’re safe.

You realize the slight predicament you’ve come to, and glance up at Yunho, but he just shrugs his shoulders at you.

“I’m, uh, at Yunho’s?” It comes out as more of a question, and you hear a squeal from the other side of the phone.

“What the heck are you doing with Yunho?” Hyunjin screeches, seemingly grabbing the phone from Chan’s grasp.

“That’s enough, Hyunjin. We’ll be right there.” He promptly hangs up, leaving you to anxiously await their arrival.

“Why Hyunjin now? Why not literally anyone else?” Yunho slightly panics, pacing around the kitchen in circles.

“What’s wrong between you and Hyunjin?” You raise an eyebrow, suddenly interested in this new information.

“We don’t really have any bad blood, per sé, or at least I don’t think we do. He’s always giving me dirty looks and I don’t really know why.”

While you wait for Chan and Hyunjin to arrive, you explain to him not to worry about Hyunjin.

You and Hyunjin have always been the closest out of all the members since the very beginning, and he quickly became extremely protective of you. You told him about some of your past traumas, and he made it his personal mission in life to never let anything bad happen to you again. This apparently entails him giving every male you’ve ever interacted with dirty looks.

Speaking about this makes you feel even guiltier knowing Hyunjin has probably been out of his mind since last night, hence why Chan wanted him to go with.

You hear a pounding on the door that breaks up your story time, and you rush over to open it, leaving Yunho hiding in the kitchen.

Chan bursts through the door, with a fiery looking Hyunjin right behind him.

Chan gathers you in his arms, holding you so tight you think all your ribs might crack. You wrap your arms around him, too, holding him with all your might.

When Hyunjin storms in, all he sees is red. “Where is he, huh?” He goes straight for the kitchen, and you tense in Chan’s arms.

“Hyunjin, he did nothing wrong. I came to him last night. Please just, take a deep breath.” You know it’s wrong to try to console him, after all, you’re the reason he’s like this in the first place.

“Why weren’t you answering our calls or messages? Did he take your phone? Did he have you trapped somewhere?” He rants, his hands clenching in tight fists.

You unintentionally gasp, thinking about how horrible this must sound to Yunho knowing he could hear every word. “Hyunjin!” You yelp, “nothing bad happened to me here! My phone was dead, and I was a crying mess all night and didn’t even look to charge it.” You exasperate, pulling away from Chan to go comfort him.

He meets you halfway, meeting you just in front of the coffee table in the living room. He puts his hands on your shoulders, closely inspecting every inch of your skin. You grab his hands and wrap them around yourself in a hug, squeezing him tightly.

“I’m fine, I promise. I’m sorry for disappearing like that. It was really dumb of me. I just needed somewhere to clear my head, and Yunho was the first person I thought of.” You rest your head on his shoulder, loving the feeling of the way he was soothingly rubbing your back.

“Why’d you come all the way here? The guys and I were right with you in the practice room; you know we’ll listen to you any day.” He pulls away slightly, enough to bring one of his hands to your cheek, wiping a stray tear away.

“Because I was scared you guys were upset with me.” You mumble, shying away from his gaze.

“What on earth made you think that? We were so worried about you all day yesterday, wondering why you weren’t acting yourself. And then when you ran off, we had no idea where to look. Had no idea what was wrong.” Chan joined the hug, pressing his face warmly into the back of your hoodie.

“I thought because I was messing up so much yesterday, you all hated me. I saw the looks everyone was giving me. You’re trying to tell me they weren’t looks of annoyance?” You question. Pulling away from them both so you could better have the conversation.

“They weren’t looks of annoyance, well, maybe Seungmin’s was, but you know how he is. They were looks of concern, we couldn’t figure out what was going through that pretty head of yours. We were not upset with you. We’re all aware everyone has bad days, you were bound to have one eventually.” Chan explains, feeling sorry that you’ve had these awful thoughts since last night.

“I’m really sorry I worried you guys. Next time I’ll talk to you before I rush to conclusions.” You give them a shy smile before, once again, you’re pulled into a hug and squished between the 2 of them.

“It’s ok, we forgive you. Now, let’s get you home before the rest of the guys drive over here themselves.” Chan grabs your hand and starts to lead you to the door, but Hyunjin stops you guys.

“I still wanna know why, of all places, you came and spent the night at Yunho’s,” he raises an eyebrow at you, crossing his arms. You hear a cough from the kitchen, and you call Yunho out to the living room to officially introduce him as your boyfriend.

“I’ll tell you two, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else.” You wait for them to give you a nod, squinting your eyes at Hyunjin until he gives in with a huff. “Yunho and I are dating.”

Yunho finally reveals himself from the kitchen and you wrap your arms around his arm. He gives them a tight-lipped smile, not entirely sure how they’re going to take it.

Their eyes get really big, surely not expecting that kind of news. “Why’d you never tell us?” Chan pouts, looking between the two of you. Hyunjin stays silent.

“Because I wasn’t sure how you guys would take it. It’s only been a couple of weeks.” Chan nods his head in understanding before stating that it’s time for you guys to head home.

You give Yunho a hug, and he kisses you on the cheek before you follow Chan out the front door.

You don’t miss, however, the way Hyunjin stays behind for a moment.

“Don’t hurt my best friend.” He says with a stoic expression on his face. He gives Yunho another once over before leaving the house, closing the door behind him.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Rat Bastard - Part 4

Pairing: You x Kyungsoo

Rating: M (Mature)

Word Count: 9000

Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Cahoots envy, UST

PSA: this couple is called the Rat Couple and their individual names will be Rat Princess and RatSoo (or Rat Basard when we are mad at him)

Tag: @ilovemyapopbaby

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

You were playing a game. It involved lots of fast moving and tricky words that this small group of people shouted out with cheers or groans depending on how good or bad they felt the words had been. You didn’t really get it. The explanations at the beginning went too quickly and you might have nodded off during the vital parts.

Obviously you were losing this game. It was a drinking game but you had nothing invested as your drinks no longer contained any alcohol. You had almost no other reason to keep playing except for boredom which, you were surprised to learn about yourself, was a pretty good motivator.

You’d been given a virgin drink to sip on by a thoroughly-scholded, Javier. He could hardly meet your eyes after being accused by his coworkers of ‘nearly killing the only girl we have.’ The marker board had come out again. There was now a ‘wall of shame’ section and Javier’s name was written in angry looking capitalized red letters.

‘A category five!’

‘I just didn’t expect an adult to have such a low alcohol tolerance.’

‘How could you tell her where the patio door was?’

‘Why were the drinks so strong?’

‘You told me to get her drunk!’

‘Just last week some guy died from falling off a stool. People have died from much less.’

‘The wall of babies conceived during the Serenity Sands Resort Singles Retreat is something to be proud of. Adding a death toll to the wall is not.’

‘Cat-Te-Go-Ry Five!’

‘We add to the population, we do not subtract.’

‘To be fair, it’s as if she has almost no sense of survival.’

Your mumbled and slurred declarations of how completely fine you were had gone unheard.

You’d long been eliminated from this game by the time your mind began to sharpen to what was actually happening. It was after Kyungsoo won a prize. You hadn’t even realized there were prizes, but the whole group of people were gathered around a table with various odds and ends, one of which was up for grabs each time a game was won. Because the seven of you were trapped here in this bunker for a week with minimal possessions, a few items had been brought over from the hotel, things that normally would not be so valuable but given the current state of things, these items suddenly had a whole new appeal.

There were a few emergency ponchos for the rain, pairs of waterproof rain boots to keep muddy flood water from seeping inside of your shoes, bug spray, lip balm, ear plugs, wet wipes, a big bag of marshmallows and lots of other snacks, a powerful flashlight and separately, a big pack of batteries for the flashlight or whatever other item needed them. The winner would need to either win both or be in cahoots with the person who won the other. Your eyes zeroed in on the high thread-count luxury blanket with real down feathers and beside it, a cheaper and lighter blanket with such a low thread count the package didn’t even advertise it. You remembered that your beds back there were made up with the bare minimum, just a fitted sheet, a sad pillow and a bed sheet that was so thin it would have been transparent if that room had any windows other than the tiny ones in the bathrooms.

Your now sharper mind began to really understand the stakes. This wasn’t only a drinking game. You’d be stuck here for a week. The small radio that Kyungsoo just won put a blinding smile on his face and you looked around the room at the stacks of items the other people had won. Sara won a neck pillow and an eye mask for sleeping. Mr. Chen, ever the diplomat, won a pack of bar soaps that he promptly ripped open and passed one around to everyone, leaving one sad little bar down at your feet with a pitiful smile. Roxy had won a jumbo pack of ramen and a camping stove and Jun had won butane fuel for the stove. It seems some cahoots were already in the works. The pair didn't even bother to separate their stacks of prizes.

Then and there you made a promise to pay attention to the rules of the next game and you actually felt a wave of relief pass through you when you realized that the next game wasn’t one that required much difficult thinking but only required you to be quick with your hands. Or more specifically the tiny stretchy sticky hand that you’d been given. Everyone got one and the smallest white button that had fallen off of Javier’s sleeve was placed on the surface, in the middle of the big table.

The object of the game was simple. First one to grab the button wins. There were a few practice throws allowed before the battle began and the table erupted in quiet chaos and giggles as everyone quickly realized that these things had very little control or aim to them. You simply threw it vaguely in the direction of the button as fast as you could and if you got lucky you might grab something other than some other player’s sticky hand.

The practice round was declared finished. Not a single hand grabbed the button on the table and clear reminders of the rules were announced before a countdown was called out and it was time.

You needed to win something. Once the go was given, you and everyone else was frantic with it. Slapping sounds echoed all around the room and there was screaming and yelping as hands came close to the button. You were moving so quickly you hadn’t realized you’d bumped up elbows with the person beside you and in the excitement you’d reached a hand out to hold him back. Kyungsoo was creeping into your space. The only thing you could do was fight him off with your free hand. You reached for his forearm and pulled him back, trying to get his tossing hand back enough so you could break through. The sound of everyone’s laughter was like a drug. The mood of the game was so fun and exciting you hadn’t even noticed that it was the sounds of Kyungsoo’s giggles that paired so well with your own. That it was a sound you’d never before heard in your life, the mixture of both of your laughter with his laughter and the two voice tones blended so beautifully together you had to force your eyes to look away from the giggling profile of his face so you could focus on the game.

Through the struggle and the giggles when you pulled your sticky hand back quickly you shot it forward again and to your absolute shock your hand landed square on top of the button in the center of the table and quickly whipped it backward, trapping it right in front of you on the table. You reached down with a shout and gripped that button and you stood up in happiness as the entire rest of the table groaned at the loss.

You’d done it. You’ve finally won something. You were jumping up and down with excitement and you couldn't help the drift of your eyes over to the man who sat beside you with a pretty smile still on his face. He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, letting the straight black strands fall back into place slowly and his dark eyes watched you for a few moments with that breathtaking smile taking just a bit of your oxygen and making it stutter inside of your lungs. You’d been denying it to yourself, refusing to admit even inside of your head just how beautiful he was, but again and again you would lose that battle. It had been getting worse lately, the longer stretches of time you got to actually look at him and the longer stretches of time when you actually held his brown eyes with your own.

Someone steered you to the big table of prizes and handed you an enormous multipack of batteries. Batteries that would power any one of these hand held devices such as the flashlight and even that small radio that Kyungsoo had stashed underneath his chair.

The weight of this prize brought a change inside of you. You had won the power, quite literally. Everyone who won an electronic device needed you. You had what might be considered currency.

“Roxy, I’ll give you the batteries for your portable fan for one pack of ramen,” you said as you sat down and her eyes widened and she nodded her head, ripping open the multipack of noodles and tossing them over to you in exchange for two small batteries. You had so many of them and curious eyes were now offering small trades.

Once the trading had started you noticed others making small deals as well. Kyungsoo gave Roxy a can of spam for some ramen and you looked at the several cans he had left and then down at his powerless portable radio but you lost the nerve to say anything to him when he looked at you. You just looked away and avoided his eyes until the next game started. The sticky hands game was quick and popular, more prizes were handed out, and you all played it again and again until all the sticking power wore off and nobody was able to grab ahold of anything anymore.

If you were meant to be avoiding this man those plans went out the window with the announcement of the next game. This one would be played in pairs and your eyes touched upon every single person in this room except for the man sitting beside you begging to God they hadn’t already settled on their person. Of course they were all taken, the dirty rats.

“Okay so you, and Kyungsoo,” Mr. Chen clapped his hands, “excellent, that works out perfectly.”

You’d cooperated with him already. You’d both worked quite closely and very well together in the kitchen when he was cooking blindfolded, but that was before the blowup outside. Before you hurt his feelings for real this time, he called you an asshole, and you drunkenly tried to blame your cruel, hateful words on the actions of the other people in this room when you got caught by him. Even as upset as he had obviously been, he still swooped in and caught you before you could fall off the patio and hurt yourself. But he’d not said a single word to you since, and even only looked at you when absolutely necessary.

This game was more physical. There was a big bowl of flour and two spoons and the task was to hold the spoon with your mouth and use it to scoop flour. You were then to transfer the flower scoop to your partner’s spoon and they took it to another bowl which sat on a scale. The fastest team to transfer 40 grams of flour won. The prize was the pair of blankets and while you weren’t about to share your new high thread count luxury blanket with this man, you could be convinced to give him the cheap one.

“There’s a catch,” Mr. Chen explained and you groaned in annoyance as you took the spoon back out of your mouth to listen to the added condition of the game that was being explained. “You must both stand within the same square on the tile during the flour transfer. Touching each other is allowed.”

You both looked down at the floor, realizing that these floor tiles were tiny. Maybe your feet and his feet would fit if you stood exactly on one side of the tile but it would have to be very close. In fact, everything about your bodies would need to be close for this.

Sara had her hand raised and Mr. Chen quickly added that pregnant persons with big bellies could use up two tiles. Everyone else was limited to one.

When the game began, Kyungsoo was standing closest to the flour supply so you simply stood at the halfway point, placing your feet carefully within your tile. From the looks of his shoes, it was likely he could manage to fit one foot between your two, and the other on the other side while remaining within the perimeter lines. He was coming with his spoon suspended in his mouth and a mountain of flour filling the spoon. He was coming with a big white spot of flour on his chin and several white spots down his cheek and what was probably hidden all over his white shirt and when he reached you, you felt him place his first foot in between yours and carefully place the other within the tile. With his feet in place the warmth of his body quickly followed and you felt the length of him pressing up against your body from thigh to chest. Oh god.

Your eyes were wide open and he looked into them with a quiet urgency in the small grunt he gave you. His head tiled the smallest amount, not enough to spill his flour but enough to tell you that your spoon was not at the right angle to receive and that you should tilt your head.

You could feel your heart beating inside of your ears with him standing so very close to you and you had to remind yourself that this was only for the game. This was only to win the prizes, your blankets. You would sleep warm and comfortable tonight if you won those blankets.

A commotion beside you called your attention briefly and you began to turn your head. Someone had coughed a faceful of flour on their partner and someone was coughing and laughing noisily.

Kyungsoo’s hand reached up and you felt the warmth of his palm land over your cheek, pulling your face to look at him again. He’d lifted his other hand just high enough to wrap around the small of your back and you felt the gentle pull there as he pulled you in closer to where he stood inside this tile. He was just refocusing you. He was only directing your face so you could tilt your head into him to gather all of the flour he brought to you and you held your breath as his head tilted further and the white flour fell into your own spoon.

He let you go and he stepped back, inhaled a deep breath as he moved, his eyes widened with a nod of his head and you quickly turned around to take the spoon to the scale. You had more than 10 grams already. You only had to do this three more times to win. You glanced around at the other teams, one who was still transferring, and the other who had gone back to square one covered in white flour all over their faces and hair.

Your waist and your face felt all dumb and tingly, your skin was acting unreasonable to be so undeservedly affected by his touch. He wasn’t even touching you because he wanted to. This was for the game. It has just been so very long since a handsome man actually put his hands on you.

When you returned to your tile, Kyungsoo was already coming with another spoonful. He was less careful with his touch this time and you felt the strong warmth of his hand that he placed on your waist the second he reached the tile and situated his feet. Your hands lifted to lightly touch the side of his waist to keep your balance and this time as he was turning his head to dump the flour, half of the flour seemed packed on his spoon, refusing to budge. You had to touch him more, you lifted your hand and guided his face more. You could see the moment the powder dislodged and plopped neatly inside of your spoon and you were glad you were holding your breath because you nearly laughed in excitement to see it fall. You were rushing to the scale, careful to not jostle your precious cargo any more than necessary.

This had been a bigger spoonful. Your totals were 25 grams already, much more than any of the other teams.

You gave him an encouraging nod of your head and he had a smile in his eyes that sent him rushing back to the bowl before you could even make it back to the tile he was waiting with both of his arms outstretched for you, hands falling easily into place now, faces tilted in a position with him that to anyone who might be viewing this from the back may seem romantic. It was definitely close enough to kiss his pretty lips if not for these blasted spoons.

You had your flour scoop secured and his eyes widened marginally when you lifted a hand to lightly brush stray the white powder off his cheek before you turned to deposit your spoon.

You were almost there. The sense of urgency moved your body and you rushed back to where he stood waiting for you with his spoon positively loaded up with flour.

You collided with him with more force than you had before, your desire to win clouding your judgment and with the impact you felt more of his firm body pressed against you. You felt more of the hardness of his thighs that flexed when you placed your own over him, straddling his legs so you both would fit perfectly in this tiny space. When his hand pulled you harder into him he used his entire hand and forearm and you were reminded of the position he caught you in out there in the rain when the thumping of your heartbeats seemed to scream even louder than the torrential rain hitting the roof of the patio; when the heat you felt between his legs pressed into you sent an overwhelming wave of warmth and attraction radiating through your belly and brought along a damp flush to your skin.

You didn’t have time for all of this. He was tilting his head into you and his hand was on your face, cradling your cheek, your jaw, your ear, slipping down the smoothness of your neck and his eyes were closing as he lightly exhaled through his nose. The flour moved. You caught the bit of some of it falling off the spoon and you felt the tickle as some of it fell over your bare chest.

Impossibly and as if he had been possessed, you felt the smallest brushes of his soft, warm fingertips along the skin below your collarbone, brushing away the little mess he had made of you there.

When his eyes pulled up you were staring into his face and you didn’t have time to decipher any of this because you needed to be moving. You hoped it would be enough. You spun carefully on your heels and you could feel the shadow of him following your journey as you made it to the scale and poured the contents of your spoon.

“43 grams!” Mr Chen shouted and you heard groans of disappointment from the other two teams, you heard the metal clanging as discarded spoons fell to the floor or landed and echoed on a table and your body felt as if it might be on fire from just how much Kyungsoo had been touching you during the game. Every single cell that his skin had touched felt electrified and when you spun to look into his face you caught the most beautiful smile of genuine happiness there.

It pulled the smile of celebration from your own chest and you laughed and leaned into him, lightly bumping your shoulders against his bicep, not quite trusting yourself to openly celebrate so freely with this man.

You felt it then, the smallest reach of his arm that he lifted and wrapped lightly around your waist, you felt the small pull of him there as he did it and you gasped in surprise to feel the brush of his fingers that landed over your hair. He was grinning and brushing flour out of your hair. He was happy and he was so beautiful and you smiled back at him, tapping away some of the flour that had fallen from his chest and when his eyes reached into yours you caught the shift as the smile slowly flattened out and he cleared his throat, pulling his eyes quickly away from your face and pulling both of his hands back to himself.

If you hadn’t been holding them together your hands might have been trembling.

It was time to claim your prizes so you steadied your expression as quickly as you could, making excuses about how sometimes the nature of celebrating wins involved tiny touches and achingly deep eye blinks with each other and trying to ignore the longing you felt to feel the temperature of his skin pressed up against yours like that again. This was getting out of hand.

You both looked down at the two blankets, one of them clearly more superior than the other and Roxy suggested you both have a competition to see who got the good one.

Someone said arm wrestling, someone else suggested a straight up fight for it and Kyungsoo snorted with laughter and reached out to grab ahold of your wrist, wrapping his fingers easily around it he lifted your arm and shook it wildly.

“I could snap her in two,” he said and you pulled your wrist back from him forcefully, not quite having the strength to fully break free from him until you felt his grip relax and he just let you go. You knew he was right but that didn’t stop the wave of undeserved confidence that surged through you; foolishly believing deep down inside that if you fought dirty enough you could probably take him in a fight. You’d go for the weak points first, obviously the crotch shot, then the eye balls, and you’d end with a throat punch that would send him to the hospital. You’d completed two self defense courses in your life and you knew if you hit him right now, when he wasn’t expecting it, you could win. As long as you didn’t give him any advanced notice of what you were up to.

You’d always had trouble with intrusive thoughts. You reached for him quickly from behind and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, reaching your hands around for his neck and he gave the smallest grunt of genuine surprise to find you so suddenly and aggressively climbing on his back like a flying squirrel might stupidly try to attack a gorilla. His grunt of surprise changed into a small grunt of effort and you felt a sudden but definite shift inside of his back muscles.

You should have known better than to attack from behind. Not someone with such a strong back as he had. You felt his arm muscles contract and he reached his hands around to grab you, you felt him bend at the waist and you felt him spin right inside of your arms. He had the upper hand in less than a second and you could yourself fully encased and trapped well inside of his arms as he casually lifted you right off of your feet and plopped you back down, lifting you up easily just to show you that he could. He took two quick steps with you trapped completely inside of his arms and you moved like a puppet. His hands had reached down, squeezing you tighter when you struggled against him and he grabbed ahold of both of your hands, keeping you from being able to tickle him or pinch any of his skin, as you had instantly tried to do. You were completely trapped.

“See,” he whispered into your ear, the heat of his chest laid against your back and you fell back into that same familiar feeling of being pressed up against his body, “you can’t beat me, Princess.” His voice skipped over your neck traveling slowly up your earlobe until his words sunk down deep within your ear.

You turned your head toward his voice and you felt the softness of his cheek press against your own and as he spoke you could smell the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. You might have been the more sober of the two right now. You were also the most desperate. You wanted that blanket badly. You moved into the head turn and you let your lips land against his skin, just high enough on his cheek to find his ear with your message to him.

“I’ll give you batteries for your radio,” you whispered against his skin, using the same low tone and sultry whisper he had used on you seconds earlier and you allowed your lips to pop the smallest bit, letting the softness of your lips play every so lightly with the softness of his earlobe. “Please let me win,” you whispered into his skin. The effect moved through him like a wave. It rippled through the muscles that held you tightly within his arms. You felt the nearly silent groan that originated somewhere deep inside of his chest that echoed throughout your back and with the groan you felt him cave in.

“Come on, that’s not a fair fight,” someone shouted from the back of the group, “he’s a man, and she’s a woman, how is that fair?”

But you could feel it, he had been ready to give in. He was relaxing his grip and you leaned against his back, pushing lightly against him as if you were really fighting this strong man off of you for show. As if you even wanted to get the heavy weight of his entire body off of you.

“Rock, paper, scissors,” someone else shouted, “ play for the blanket.”

He had let you go. You’d taken a step away from him and you turned back around to look into his face. His breathing seemed just a little bit hard for such a tiny struggle with you and you noticed his cheeks were quite pink as he looked into your eyes. You saw the smallest movement there. He blinked his eyes once as he lifted his chin the smallest degree. It felt like a gesture of agreement and you caught another motion as he lifted his hand and made a discrete fist with it, lifting his chin once more with a nod.

He accepted your terms and he was going to play rock.

The others were already shouting the commands to begin the rock, paper, scissors round and you had to quickly play your hand. You shot out a flat hand for paper and it landed squarely over his closed fist as he played the rock that he had promised you he would play.

“She’s the winner!” Javier shouted and you smiled wide and genuine — your evening was finally beginning to look up a little bit. You jumped up and down in happiness and you rushed to the table to grab your blanket and curiously you could still feel his brown eyes watching as you did it. There was an odd expression on his face for someone who had lost the round. His eyes followed you around the room as you’d celebrated your little win and you could have sworn you could see the smallest smile on his lips when he went to the table to retrieve his loser’s blanket. You couldn’t quite understand why he would have looked pleased by this. You won and he lost.

Oh right, his batteries. He must have been happy about getting batteries and a blanket out of this deal. If you were a blanket-less pauper, you might have also been happy to receive such a low quality crappy blanket.

You couldn't quite remember the last time you felt so happy to win something so dumb. You just knew this would solve all of your nighttime problems. You skipped up to him holding your prize and you quickly stuffed it under your seat next to the other goodies you’d either won or traded to obtain, feeling pretty damn good about how the rest of the week might go. If you had to, you’d just spend the whole week in bed under this blanket and catch up on all of the missed sleep you’d ever missed in your life.

When you stood up, Kyungsoo was standing right behind you with his hand outstretched toward you in a surprisingly congenial gesture of a handshake for a job well done. ‘Good job,’ his posture said, with a pleased smile on his smooth face. You reached your hand forward fully ready to make this change in your relationship with the man. Like a pair of coworkers who got along sometimes. Not friendly by any means but still able to get the job done if they were being paid to. You’d accept his congratulations. He was right, you had done a really good job of winning this and he should be thankful to you for how well you could walk with a spoonful of flour and dump it into a bowl without spilling a speck. If only that was a skill you could market. Your balance and coordination should be studied.

The second the skin of your palm touched his and you gripped your fingers around his hand to shake it, he pulled his hand back abruptly and came back hard with a swift smack of his hand against yours. Was this some sort of trendy side-five, not a high-five or a low-five, but a side-five?

“No, idiot. Batteries.” He said gruffly after swatting away your hand shake. He wasn’t here to make peace at all. He was here to claim what was his. His face didn’t look as grumpy as he usually did, but he seemed to be back to calling you names.

“I’ll give them to you in the room.” You said under your breath, a little bit of your earlier joy from having won something so precious deflated by the return of his crappy behavior.

He leaned his head closer to where you stood, “don't want the others to know that you’re a cheater?”

“I didn't cheat. I just made a deal. Something I wanted for something you wanted,” you said with a flippant dismissal and all it got from him was a doubtful scoff.

“Always playing a game, huh,” he remarked under his breath and it pulled your focus back on him for a few moments. There was something under the surface with his words. Something darker than the golden aura of winning.

Your memory flashed to the blurry drunk view you had of him and the actual hurt you saw in his eyes. The hurt you had trouble really understanding because it felt so unwarranted. There had never been any pretense to the way you felt about each other. You hated him and he hated you and people who hate each other don’t get to look that hurt when someone says something hateful, it’s a given. He said awful things to you all the time although now that you really got to thinking you were having a hard time finding an example of something truly mean he said to you. Something that wasn’t just a reaction to something you did first. Try as you might, you couldn’t bring up anything concrete. The nature of your very specific problem you had with him, that he had so callously rejected you back then kept you on edge around him so much that nearly every interaction you had with him had you on the attack. You always came out swinging first and asked questions later.

“Hey, Kyungsoo — I really, really didn’t mean all that stuff I told Sara about you —” this was difficult to get out but you really hated sitting on an unspoken apology when you had done something wrong.

If Kyungsoo’s unwavering focus was what you wanted — if his deep dark brown eyes looking into your face with every bit of his attention focused up close on every single centimeter of you from your eyes down to your lips, then you certainly had gotten what you wanted. His eyelids pulled wider when he realized what you were saying. His lips parted and his tongue darted out to moisten his bottom lip.

You inhaled to continue, “I was … drunk, yeah, but I still don’t — I didn’t —,” you couldn’t get any more details out, not with as closely as he was looking at you.

“I-It wasn't for you to hear, it was for her. I’m sorry if that was super mean of me.”

“It was,” he agreed, “mean,” he added for clarity and he inhaled to speak again, lifting his chest and shoulders with the breath and lifting his hand to run over the length of his face. You could feel the agitation in every motion of his body. The drink he still held in his hand rattled with the movement.

He half spun with it and came back, his voice teetering along the edges of anger, “it wasn’t for me to hear? That’s it? I was supposed to hear you saying all of that shit? Is that your apology attempt?”

“No, that’s not — that’s not what I mean,” he had to be the most difficult person to make your point with.

“Then what do you mean?” His lips closed as he pulled his bottom lip inside his closed mouth, his eyebrows lifting in question, “hmmm?” he prodded again. You figured you had about five seconds before another argument and another fight erupted and this time you didn’t even have a high balcony to hurl yourself off of.

“I know we don’t get along, but I don’t even really hate you. Not really. I mean, we got off to the worst start ever, not that there ever was anything to start, that’s not what I mean,” you sighed in frustration — this was so difficult to explain.

“I don’t hate you. I don’t think it’s the absolute worst thing in the world to be here with you. Actually working together on these games today, it seems like maybe we work together well, at least.”

Some of the wildness you’d seen in his eyes a few seconds ago had left with your rapid explanation. He still watched your face with rapt attention and the burdensome feeling under the scrutiny of his eyes had your face blushing and your voice cracking a little bit. You felt silly for having such a strong reaction to something as simple as a conversation with the goal of clearing the air.

You chuckled lightly to yourself, both with how silly you felt being this nervous and with the very beginnings of the thought that crept through your mind.

“This is only the first day,” you laughed lightly to yourself. Kyungsoo did not laugh or even smile. His lips were pulled into a flat line and he didn’t respond right away with any indication of what he was thinking.

“Maybe,” you closed your eyes and inhaled a breath, “maybe we could just be … f-friends?” You could feel the shape of your mouth pull into a grimace when you said it. The upward inflection put the ball squarely in his court to decide what he thought about your call for a truce and maybe even some of those cahoots you’d been dreaming about.

Kyungsoo didn’t respond right away. His eyes watched your face very closely and you caught the hard clench of his jaw and the half lidded blink as his eyes closed down. He inhaled the smallest breath and just under that tiny breath and using only the air and almost no volume of his voice you could barely make out a response from him

“‘Friends’” he whispered and you thought you might have heard a follow up response “friends is the last thing I want to be with you.”

He said it so quietly you doubted you’d even heard it the second the next inhale sounded out from his lungs. He cleared his throat at a normal volume and opened his eyes, that same pretty pinkness coloring his cheeks as he inhaled again, deeper and more committed this time and on the exhale he spoke. The words were slightly tinged with the alcohol on his tongue.

“Friends,” he said with more commitment, “umm, maybe… let’s just hold off on that for now.” His eyes formed a squint that matched the grimace you’d had on your face earlier and with his soft but decidedly sharp denial you felt the heat slip up your neck and touch along both of your cheeks. “It's just — the things you do and say always feel like a trick and I’m getting a little burned out tonight.”

His rejection of you time and time again burned against your skin but you needed him to expand on the first thing, that whispered, just under his tongue response that set off weird bubbles inside of your stomach with the strangeness of the sound of those exact words.

You had to speak. “What did you say the first time?”

He shook his head slowly back and forth as a response.

“‘Friends is the last thing I want to be with you’ — does that mean you really do hate me?”

His lips were closed and his head was pulled back. The pretty hair layed flat atop of his head after the distraction of his hand running through it had taken your attention from his dark eyes for a split second.

“I think I’m the drunk one now,” he said as a final response to your questions and you could feel the door slam shut. He downed the last of his drink and headed away from you toward Javier at the bar who was already ready with another one.

You watched him walk away from you and he didn’t turn back around.

You felt almost ready to give up. Ready to crawl into your bed, under your new blanket and block out the rest of the world for a solid week. You’d just avoid him entirely to save yourself any more humiliation. Not only did he not want to go on that date with you, but this handsome, charming, funny, and talented man didn’t even want to be friends with you. Even that was unbearable to him. How awful of a person were you?

You reached down beneath your seat and gathered your things, catching Sara’s worried eyes as you made your way toward the door to this kitchen that led back to that dark and scary hallway that would take you to your bed.

“We're calling it a night — already?” Mr. Chen’s voice broke through the laughter and giggles from the others who were still hallway through their drinks and clearly not ready to call it a night. You were fresh out of any more ability to be social and happy when you had been so obviously put in your place again and again.

“She’s feeling a little done so we are taking her things to her room — might settle in already,” Sara spoke up for you and soon was by your side linking her arm with yours as she helped you with the door, “don’t stay up too late, we might have a long stormy night ahead of us!” She called behind her toward the group in a cheerful voice. You heard an agreeing sound from Mr. Chen as he declared the same sentiment to the rest of the group.

Apparently the eye of the storm was supposed to come ashore within the next few hours and nobody knew how much sleep was possible with such a scary and loud event happening outside. Once through the doorway a click sounded out and your pathway was illuminated by a tiny flashlight she had in her hand. You knew for a fact that she hadn’t won that in the games and she gave you a knowing smile and a wink.

“Shhh, I got you one too. Nobody would dare search a pregnant woman,” she giggled and her brightness paired with the little metal cylinder she slipped into the palm of your hand brought your rotten mood up just a tiny bit.

You’d both made it all the way down the long hallway to the door of the bunks and you were thankful for the bathroom light Kyungsoo had left on before he left this room because it was empty, deserted, and quite spooky even with the lighting, you couldn’t imagine what it would be like at night when the lights were turned out. You looked all the way down to the end of this enormous room where his bed waited for him and you wondered just how many spiders stood between you and him in this big room.

“What happened? Did you two argue again?” She pleaded with her kind eyes, you could see the sincerity in her face and you sighed deeply as you unwrapped the new blanket and spread it out over the top of your bed. Something about your mood made this pretty, comfy thing feel just a little bit less than before.

“Yeah. No. Not really. I don’t know. I apologized to him for what I said. He neither accepted or denied it. I asked if he wanted to at least be friends and he doesn’t. So—” you lifted your eyebrows with a hopeless shrug.

“It’s the first day.” She said with a softening of her voice. She didn’t offer any promises or give you any more false hopes. All she had was a flimsy fact that you knew as well.

“I think I’ll shower before he gets here,” you grabbed your clothes and bath towels, also grabbing your swimsuit just in case the man happened to walk into that bathroom as you were sudsing your hair in the open layout wall of showers with no doors layout of this bunker style bathroom.

Sara said her good nights and you quietly changed into the solid black bikini you’d been toning your body and dieting for months to look amazing in and when you caught the reflection of yourself after rinsing the shampoo of your hair in the industrial mirror that was half rusted and cloudy with how old it was, you were thankful that at least you could still pull off a look this sexy even if your ego was thoroughly shattered by him.

That you could still look and feel pretty even after being rejected over and over again by the only man you’d ever agreed to be set up on a blind date with; the only man you’d ever been interested in enough to even consider deleting your dating profiles for and the man who you’d drive a solid hour facing the setting sun to reach the east side location of the swankiest restaurant in town to meet him that evening even if it meant braving rush hour traffic on the hectic and terrifying freeway to get there.

These showers worked on some sort of a timer. You pressed the button for a good amount of water pressure and flow and after several minutes the water would wind down, asking for another press of the button if you wanted more. You’d finished cleaning and rinsing and you were toweling off your legs after wringing all of the wet out of your hair. The water was still running noisily but had been winding down when you took your first steps out of the showering area and made your way toward the concrete tiled bench built into the wall where you’d left your folded clothes and the sound of the winding down trickle of the shower was replaced with a different and unexpected sound. It was the sound of a gasp, the quick intake of air made through the open mouth of an adult human being, a man. A man you knew.

The sound startled you enough to spin around and the towel you had over your head and nowhere near covering your bikini clad body slipped out of your surprised fingers and pooled down at your feet.

Burning into your skin was the deep brown of his eyes and he stood at the open space just at the foot of where his bed ended and the bathroom began with a true deer caught in the headlights look on his face.

He must have been pretty drunk. His eyes sank slowly down from your face, slipping lower and his mouth hung open, that same look of genuine surprise still spelled out all over his face.

“S-Shit, I’m,” he inhaled through his open mouth, using every last morsel of willpower left inside of him to pull his eyes up from where they’d been lazily lingering around your hips and with the single word he had left to squeak out you got the smallest, “sorry.”

You bent down to pick up the towel and spun around turning your back on the man. You weren’t in the mood to open up another hateful conversation with him right now. All you wanted was to have the strength to ignore that look you’d seen in his eyes just now so you could slip past him and go hide under your covers.

It was uncomfortable to put dry clothes over your wet bathing suit but the alternative was to strip down naked with him standing right there so you could dress yourself properly.

You felt too flustered and too much in a hurry for that and Kyungsoo was still very much frozen in place in the doorway. Drunk and slow. An immovable object.

You slipped on the silky nightshirt over the bathing suit. It would dry eventually. This nightshirt curved the shape of you and hung down to the middle of your thighs, it didn’t come with shorts and you didn’t usually mind. You hadn’t packed your bags with the idea that you’d be haunted by this bastard all night long and you might be better off sleeping in grubby sweat pants and an old t-shirt.

You needed to leave the bathroom. You’d made the requisite numbers of steps to reach the doorway and in any other situation with a normal, not inebriated, drunk or not, non-friend that he proudly proclaimed himself to be, the expectation was that he would bow his head, stop looking at you like he’d just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and move out of the damn way.

When you reached him in this doorway; he did not move and his eyes remained fixed on you. Something must be wrong with him. The look in those eyes felt different from any looks he had shot you before and something warm and achingly slow tickled a path down the length of your spine starting somewhere in between your shoulder blades and landing softly and deeply, well inside of your belly.

Kyungsoo was not moving out of the your way, you had to touch his arm lightly to push against the warm weight of him and when you did it, his hand moved, his soft rounded fingertips reached forward and you felt the smallest brush of them over the back of your hand, you felt the smallest touch from his reaching fingers that sent the biggest jolt of electricity through your startled brain because this was not allowed. It was not expected and it was not something he would ever be caught dead doing to you.

Why? Why would he touch you here and like that when he in all other places was filled with so much disdain for you. The shockingly noisy thumping inside of your chest echoed inside the hollow of you and you felt the stickiness of the gravity that must have been holding him here in this place. That gravity grabbed ahold of your feet so tightly and the stubborn things refused to move. You could see your destination but his fingers were touching the back of your hand and there was a burning just below your eyelids pulling your lids open, demanding that you open your eyes and look into his face.

He was watching you with the slowest blinks of his eyes and his lips were parted as he breathed through his mouth. His breathing felt so light and careful you wondered if he could manage to get any oxygen from it at all the moment you were caught inside of his eyes you felt like a prisoner here.

That warmth that has spread over your spine flooded and surged inside of you, finding a home between your legs and you felt not only trapped but now helplessly compelled.

You were leaning. The breath from his lips smelled like liquor. You were leaning and the brush from his fingertips moved as he touched lightly at first over your waist and then his hot palm was resting just over your hip and he took the smallest step into you, taking what was left of your air from you when the heat from his body cascaded into your much colder skin. The silk nightshirt did nothing to insulate his temperature and you could not escape this. The moment he lifted his hand and laid a palm just over your jaw you felt too lost to keep your eyes open.

The millimeters of space that separated the two of you evaporated when the warmth of his soft mouth touched your lips and when he pulled your bottom lip into the space of his open mouth and sucked, his hands clenched hard into the flesh of your hip, slipping around to dig roughly over your ass, his hand slipped around behind your neck and his mouth devoured and demanded from you as that unimaginable heat you felt between his legs pressed into you, begging you to have mercy on him; have mercy on yourself; put both of you out of your miseries.

Your skin felt aflame. You couldn’t remember another time in your life when you’d felt so desperate and completely consumed by another person in such a short amount of time.

You wanted him. You’d give anything to have him and yet the small gasps for air from his lungs in between the kisses had the tiniest grunts of complaints under their tones.

Tiny curses came from deep within his chest. Your mind reeled and sharpened to the sounds he made and that same desperation reminded you of the very last thing he’d said to you. That he wanted nothing to do with you. That he didn’t even see the possibility of being friends with you. That you would always only be an enemy to him. Untrustworthy and unlovable. You felt it then, it broke through the rough nibbles of his teeth against the soft skin of your neck and you gasped in a breath to ask him a question — your conscience could not let you stand for this without asking.

“Kyungsoo, I thought — that you didn’t want this — what — what are we doing?”

You were an idiot. It felt like it had to be asked and yet your body clung tightly to him despite it all — just because of the possibility that he didn’t mean any of this, that it was just the alcohol driving this desperation, that this was the kind of mistake that would destroy the both of you in the morning — you simply could not let this happen if any of those were a possibility.

“Kyungsoo, is this — a mistake?”

Your questions pulled his face up and the darkness had built inside his eyes to such an extent that it took him several seconds of looking into your face for you to see the shift of understanding to break through. With the understanding came the painful and horrible when he pulled his hand up to cover over his parted mouth and mumbled the quickest “I’m sorry,” before he covered up any other terrible words he might have been about to say to you.

You felt his retreat with the temperature drop.

It had been what you feared. It was only the alcohol taking ahold of his body and making it betray his heart. For inside of his heart, there would never be a place for you. The crushing feeling you felt inside of your stomach pulled your shoulders down and you were sure the look on your face would be close to tears but he wasn’t looking at you anymore.

He had separated his body from you and your wounded feelings flared up hot, desperate for something to ease some of the pain. You found none.

Kyungsoo was shaking his head back and forth and another soft apology landed with a dull thud against your hollow chest. The echo sounded like the beat of a funeral drum.

“I — I’m going to bed,” you whispered with what last bits of your voice you could find to work and paused briefly to ask something else just for the sake of your own wounded ego, “Does this make us even?” His eyes pulled up from his dazed focus down on the floor and he looked into your face when you asked the question.

“And I know it didn’t mean anything, Kyungsoo. I knew it was just the alcohol. I was just drunk then and you were just drunk now.” You pushed the corners of your mouth up as hard as you could stand and they may have even moved up a tiny bit.

You hoped to God he was too drunk to have noticed the wetness that settled heavy inside of your eyes and you were suddenly and eternally thankful that your bed was as physically far away from his bed as possible.

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

[lesbianpepsi]

Fuck it I love you | part III

pairing: sam carpenter x fem!reader

summary: when paired with Tara Carpenter for a project you were expecting a B or maybe even an A. Not falling in love with Tara's older sister, Sam

series masterlist

words: 1.642k

warnings: bad writing

authors note: a short one but next chap will be much longer :)

You let out a shaky sigh as you grab yet another tissue soaking in the tears rolling down your cheeks at an alarming rate.

Your heart feels as if it was cracking at the borderline cruel words that were said; the word 'why?' in your mind the entire time.

A ring from your phone distracted you from your heart momentarily, sniffling as you grabbed it and answered the phone.

"Hey Y/n, did I leave my watch on the coffee table?" Melanie asks you in a rushed voice as your eyes glanced over the coffee table to see the watch that Melanie owns.

"Yeah it's here." You croak out in a broken voice making Melanie's eyes widen dramatically.

"Y/n? What's wrong? I'll leave this party right now if you need me." She says seriously in a more hushed tone.

You shake your head as a watery chuckle escapes your lips. "No, no it's fine, stay." You insisted as your eyes glanced at the TV screen.

"Why're you crying?" Melanie asks you worriedly, fearing the absolute worst possible thing has happened to you. 

And it has. The fucking worst thing.

"I just finished Fleabag again." You inform her as more tears started swarming in instantly at the mention of the show.

Melanie groans loudly. "Fucking hell, Y/n, I thought something actually happened!" 

"Something has happened, Melanie. He told her 'it'll pass' that it'll fucking pass!" You sob again as you grab more tissues, your heart cracking even more at the still raw memory.

"You've watched that show so many times how the fuck does the ending still make you cry?" She asks you with a laugh now clearly finding your heart break hilarious.

"She said 'I love you' and he said 'it'll pass.' before saying he loves her too! How could I not cry?" You defended not finding your heartbreak over a TV show humour. 

She laughs again. "You and your shows. Chads coming over with shots, I'm off. Toodles."

"Toodles." You sniffle making her let out another laugh before hanging up the call.

You glance at your phone and roll your eyes at the low battery. Typical. 

Yeah, it's a Saturday night and here you are, alone in your apartment finishing Fleabag and experiencing the heartbreak that hurts just as much as it did the first time. 

Some might say depressing, you say it's the way to live.

With an exaggerated sigh you turn the TV off with the small remote before standing up, heading towards your bedroom to charge your phone.

You reach your desk where the plug is at but frown when you don't see that your charger isn't plugged in.

Where else can it be-

Fuck sakes you forgot it Tara's apartment.

Groaning you grab your phone which only has 3% and shoot the girl a quick message.

Me (20:47pm): hey tar, is it cool if i come over quickly? i forgot my charger there 🙄🙄

Tara🙃 (20:52pm): yeah ofc but-

Before you can see the rest of the text message your phone shuts off to a completely blank screen.

With an annoyed huff you stuff your phone into the pocket of your joggers and go to look for your shoes near the front of the apartment.

At least you saw the permission text you think as you shove your feet into your dirty, broken trainers that you refuse to throw out since shoes are so expensive. 

The walk to Carpenter's apartment is only twenty minutes and since the sun hasn't fully set outside you decide a walk won't do any harm. 

You're a bit annoyed that you can't listen to any music on the walk so you decide to do the second best thing, think about Sam.

She's just so gorgeous and so sweet with her friends and Tara, how could anyone not constantly think about her?

You've seen Sam a handful of times since the gym, all of them being at their apartment as you and Tara worked on your project. 

Tara and you have actually gotten through most of the project so unfortunately you only need to head over there around three more times till the two of you have completed the project. 

You can't help but feel relieved to be able to actually finish a project in time before the due date, but there's also a deep pit of disappointment lingering in you too. 

What if you never see Sam again after it? There'll be no excuses to come over there anymore unless Tara would invite you over. 

Wow, that quickly spiralled into just not happy Sam thoughts. 

Thankfully you stop yourself from thinking the worst case scenarios as you've arrived at the apartment complex.

Like routine you head up the stupidly long stairs since the elevator is still broken and after what feels like an eternity you reach their floor.

Knocking on the door three times you patiently wait for Tara to come open the door for you but to your joy it's Sam, looking as annoyed as ever; your heart swoons at the sight.

"What." She grumbled as her eyes travel you up and down, furrowing her brows at your shirt. "What the fuck is your shirt?" She questions before you even get a chance to answer her first question.

You look down at your shirt and giggle not remembering what shirt you're wearing. It's a yellow shirt with a pineapple in the middle wearing a pink thong, under it is the simple word 'Slut'. A shirt you got after your third re-watch of Brooklyn Nine Nine.

"It's from a show, you don't like it? It's actually really soft." You tell her with a smile instinctively feeling your waist to feel the soft texture. "Seriously, for around fifteen dollars and free packing this was a bargain." 

Sam hums as she stares at your shirt questioningly before raising her eyes to meet with yours. "And you decided to wear a shirt saying 'slut' in public?"

You nod your head proudly. "Why wouldn't I?"

"People will clearly judge you. Stare." Sam answers speedily as if she already knew what she was going to say.

You shrug your shoulders, a weak laugh escaping your lips. "People who are complete strangers? People who I'll never see again?" You say with a soft smile. "People will always judge, it's our instinct to judge whatever we come across. But you can't let that control your life and stop you from being you; stop that from letting you wear what you want or even like what you like. At the end of the day they're people who I'll never see again."

Sam doesn't say anything for a moment as if she's digesting your words, her eyes never leaving yours for a second. You don't say anything as you gaze back into Sam's cold eyes lovingly.

She leans against the doorframe as she runs a hand through her hair. "Why're you here, Y/n? Tara's not even in." 

Your eyes widen as you mentally groan, that was probably the rest of the text message she sent but you couldn't see. 

"Shit I'm sorry I didn't know. I sent Tar a message asking if I can come over to get my charger but when she texted back I only saw part of the message of her saying I can come over before my phone died." 

Sam sighs as she nods her head weakly stepping back into her apartment as she walks over to her couch, you take this as her letting you to which you do ever so gracefully, shutting the door behind you.

Your eyes avert to Sam's figure sitting on the couch as her back faces you with the TV playing on a low volume, one of your favourite movies playing on the screen.

"I love Little Miss Sunshine." You express with a smile walking towards Sam, resting your hands on top of the couch as you stare at the screen. "It absolutely changed my life, and the first movie I actually loved. Like fully loved." 

"It's okay." Sam says with a small smile on her lips as she watches the movie from below you. "I hated it in the beginning but I guess it's sorta growing on me." 

"There's a thin line between love and hate." You express your attention only focused on the movie playing on the screen.

Sam tilts her head up as she gazes at your side profile. "I wouldn't say I love it but I definitely like it."

You chuckle at her words, your eyes lighting up in the reflection of the movie that Sam couldn't help but focus on.

"It's growing, right? Give it time and you'll love it like there's no tomorrow." Sam hums very swallowing her eyes and focuses no longer on the movie.

"Did you love it right from the start?" She asks you. Finally you look away from the screen to look into her eyes, a gentle smile grazing your lips.

"Pretty much. You'll love it soon too, I bet you will." You tell her, thinking you're still talking about the movie. 

But Sam isn't, Sam isn't thinking of the movie at all.

"But I still don't like some parts of it or even understand it, how're you so sure I'll love it?" Sam tries again, blinking slowly.

You shrug your shoulders before moving around the couch to sit next to her, your thighs touching as you smile at her.

"Give it a chance, this is your first time watching it right?" Sam nods her head. "Then give it a chance, you might surprise yourself and actually really like it in the end."

"Go on a date with me." Sam abruptly asks, barely giving you time to finish your sentence. Her eyes gazed into yours as a small smile nervously appeared on her lips.

Holy fucking shit. 

[stuffdtothemaxxarchive]

A thought I had the other day that made me horny so here it is but with more words

Tags: weight gain, USSBBW, (nearly) immobile fat, female reader

TW: mobility issues, medical issues, light humiliation

Imagine one day, while living with your caring feeder partner, you wake up starving. Your partner is at work, so they can’t feed you. So, you realize, you need to feed yourself. But you quickly realize that this might be a problem: the last time you weighed yourself was when you were at the max for your scale, 650 lbs., and that was at least four months ago. You’d definitely gotten bigger since then. So this is going to be a challenge.

You first begin by shuffling your body along the mattress of your bed, slowly getting your fat-swollen legs off the side of the bed. Once you’re sitting, you pause to catch your breath. Even doing so much as sitting up takes tons of effort. Once you’ve caught your breath, you begin the new effort of getting to a standing position. It’s difficult to get enough momentum when you’re struggling with this much fat, but you manage to after nearly ten failed attempts. You can feel your gut slap against your blubbery legs as you stand up, and your boobs slap against your gut. You groan as you give yourself another moment to catch your breath. Getting winded this easily… you might want to invest in getting an oxygen tank.

You take hold of the cane that sits against the wall in front of you. These days, there was barely a chance that you could walk around without needing some kind of support. Unfortunately, your scooter didn’t fit into the bedroom, so until you got to the hall, your cane would suffice.

Now began the hard part: slowly taking steps toward the hallway. Well, it wasn’t really steps, it was more like a shuffled waddle forward. You only manage to get forward a few inches at a time, and your pudgy hand is holding onto your cane for dear life. The fat on your legs wobbles and slaps together, and the fat in your arms sways in time with them. The hunger in your stomach is slowly starting to worsen, especially now that you’re moving so much.

Sweat begins to bead and drop down your forehead as you continue your lumbering stride. You quietly whine to yourself, wishing that your partner was here to rush you back to the bed and get you food. But no such luck.

Finally, you reach the door, and you sigh with relief. The worst part of the journey is almost over. Knowing that there’s no way that you’d get through the door facing forward, you waddle around so that you’re exiting the door from the side. You shuffle slowly to the side into the hallway— and then you’re not moving.

You turn your head around as much as your fat neck and chin can manage to try to find the problem, and it’s immediately apparent. Your butt crack is wedged in the door. And since your stomach is already pushing into the doorframe ahead of you, it’s difficult now to move. You groan with irritation as you try to think of a plan forward. Something that’s definitely more difficult to do when you’re out of breath, sweating like a pig, and starving.

You take in as large of a breath as you can manage, and grab your belly as low as you can reach, lifting it up and back by just a few inches. But good news, it’s the few inches you need to finish getting through the door! Once you’re out on the other side, you sigh with relief. You let go of your huge gut, and it falls with a loud slap back to hanging over your legs.

Thankfully, getting into the scooter just requires you to sit in a seat and swivel to the controls. Once you’re sat down, you flick the button to the motorized scooter on.

Nothing happens.

You try again.

Nothing.

It’s still plugged in— did the battery die during the night?

At this realization, you nearly burst into tears. Just getting here was hard enough, and the distance to the kitchen isn’t that far at all! But the thought of walking more just makes your legs hurt even more. And as you contemplate your situation, your stomach gurgles to get your attention.

You’d have to just push through the pain. It was worth it to get something in your belly.

Thankfully, you still have your walker, which you used before switching over from the scooter. It’s sitting folded right next to you. With a heavy sigh, you heave yourself off of the scooter and back to your feet. You unfold the walker and set it in front of you. Your fat-swollen hands grip onto the handles for dear life, and you begin to trudge forward again.

This walk is still very similar to before— a very slow waddle forward. You can feel your hugeness with every step you take. Every part of you is constantly jiggling, constantly moving around. Sometimes you can feel your hips brush against the hallway walls, reminding you of just how much space you take up. The only sounds you can hear is your fat slapping together and your heavy, labored breathing.

Yeah, you definitely needed to invest in an oxygen tank.

After what feels like hours, you finally make it to your kitchen. You almost start crying from joy as you excitedly waddle toward the food-filled room. You stop right at the fridge, opening it and letting the cold air inside escape to cool off your skin. Your fridge is at least quadruple the size of any normal fridge, and in the door you see the holy grail: gallon tubs of ice cream.

Hastily, you grab a spoon, and you collect all the containers from the top half and drop them to the ground. You then slowly bend down and set yourself down on the cold tile floor. You pop the first lid off and begin to devour it like you haven’t eaten in days.

Time starts to go by in a blur. This ice cream is now the center of your attention. You greedily take in spoonful after spoonful, trying to get all of it in your stomach before it melts. The first tub is gone in mere minutes, though it looks like at least a third of it was covering your face and gut.

You keep eating and eating. You’ve never felt more happy to be filling your huge belly with food. The second container is finished off. Then the third. And then the fourth.

You start to come to your senses when you are halfway through your eighth tub. Discarded gallon tubs surround you, and there’s bits of ice cream smeared almost everywhere. Your stomach feels heavy, and you eat much slower than you did before.

When it’s finally empty, you simply drop the tub back onto the table. Your stomach feels more full than it has in a while; and a quick rub with your hand confirms your fullness. You couldn’t pack anything else in there even if you wanted to. You lean back in your chair, now almost in a haze. You feel your stomach gurgle, now protesting being this full so quickly.

As you wipe some of the leftover ice cream onto your hand to lick it off your fingers, a sudden belch erupts from your mouth. It gives your stomach a bit of a relief, though, so you barely pay it any mind.

Through your haze, you hear the sound of the front door opening and footsteps approach. With half-lidded eyes, you look up to your partner and manage to mumble, “when’s….. dinner….?”

[chiquitafresa]

~Vox headcanon~

Artist here! These are my personal headcanons and headcanons that I stole from others! So enjoy :)

-Vox often like to go on days working in his office and can forget to take breaks -When this happens Val or a Velvette will come in and drag him out, They only do this when Vox try to talk his way out -Wait wait! I need to finish this! -Vox you have been in there for a week. You’re coming with me and it final. -Vox absolutely have a aquarium filled with all type of sharks, and he knows the name of each one by memory -Vox why you have 100 different sharks? They all look the same- -THEY DO NOT, see! Ava and Levi look totally different! -Vox there’s no difference at all, how the fuck you know which one is which? -Vox will fight you if you touch his food, doesn’t matter who you are he will fight -Valentino is a example of this(hint:look at his antennas) -Vox doesn’t need to eat like other demons but it helps keep his battery at 100% -Sleep also helps with this, and so is eating battery’s Don’t ask how he find out -Vox mistaken a battery pack as chocolate bar -Vox have a cable tail (am not explaining) -said tail can be use to plug into a outlet and let him charge -main reason why he can stay up for countless nights -But the tail can be hidden, so Vox only let it out when he’s low on energy or is comfortable. Bonus: it’s every sensitive when touched -Someone please do a fanfic on this- -Vox eyes are connected to every camera of his, so he constantly watch and see everything in hell But do to this he can get easily overloaded or overwhelmed, so he doesn’t do it often -Vox likes to play with Val fluff -Val really likes it when he does -Vox helped Velvette and Valentino to become overlords when he first find them -So both of them view him with respect and high admiration -but their assholes when showing it -they never go too far tho -Vox have a whole mansion for a closet like Barbie in the dream house -but it all the same suit with different colors -Vox have many jobs before, shown in “stay gone” -Vox lies when it comes to these jobs but they believe him because how good of a business man he is -he most definitely started a cult -The cult only got bigger in hell without him knowing -Vox actually have a huge fan base, they constantly fighting against Alastor fans and their winning since Alastor hasn’t been there in over 7 years -most of them actually come from Vox old cult and continue it In his name but in hell -I mean who else is going to buy a 9000$ cereal -Valentino got really close to making a p0rn movie of Vox, for himself of course (Vox didn’t know this) -but Vox back out in the last minute because of work, so there’s Val Dream -Val was mostly mad about this, often trying to get Vox to reconsider -Bro cry over that for a whole week in his room,and is still sad about it till this day -Alastor and Vox have a equal obsession with each other -I don’t care if you think it one sided, Al is obsessed in seeing this man break and how much attention his getting

-Alastor will watch Vox in the shadows if he been inactivate for a while -Vox some how got his brand in heaven, but he can’t go there though the technology. But he still gets the money from there so it doesn’t matter for him -The other Vee’s doesn’t know this, it was part of the deal he made with Lucifer -Vox does feel sorry for accidentally for damaging Val antennas, Val on the other hand doesn’t really care about it that much -Am…sorry Val -For the least time Vox, it fine! It might take a while to heal but it’s fine -Vox watch Val all the time though the cameras in hell, do to his bad vision and damage antenna -Val doesn’t mind being watched and even likes it at times -Vox and Velvette will have days where they replace their parts together, Vox helps removing her limbs while Velvette helps repair/replacing wires -When Vox first replaced his head with a whole new TV he needed to heal for a whole month before he can walk around -Velvette and Val make sure Vox was never alone and help him with everything -Vox is such a sugerdaddy for Val And Velvette, he buy them anything they want -Vox, Velvette, and Valtino have matching rings, they sometime wear it and sometimes not -Vox likes all type of radio, but he can’t show his love for them because of Alastor -Vox 100% record all of Alastors radio shows as soon as he got here, over 200 recordings -Vox was a fan of Alastor when he was alive, and he still like listening to him (before he left for 7 years) -During those 7 years, Vox slowly got more paranoid by the next day, making his reaction with Alastor coming back… weird -Vox take anxiety pills to help with this, he also have ADHD medication that he takes everyday ———————————- Sorry if this was short! I just wanted to put down all my ideas somewhere for others (and me) to see! (can someone explain what happened to the bold words? It appears like that and I can’t undo it)

[stuffdtothemaxx]

Random belly thoughts [repuload]

A thought I had the other day that made me horny so here it is but with more words

Tags: weight gain, USSBBW, (nearly) immobile fat, female reader

TW: mobility issues, medical issues

Imagine one day, while living with your caring feeder partner, you wake up starving. Your partner is at work, so they can’t feed you. So, you realize, you need to feed yourself. But you quickly realize that this might be a problem: the last time you weighed yourself was when you were at the max for your scale, 650 lbs., and that was at least four months ago. You’d definitely gotten bigger since then. So this is going to be a challenge.

You first begin by shuffling your body along the mattress of your bed, slowly getting your fat-swollen legs off the side of the bed. Once you’re sitting, you pause to catch your breath. Even doing so much as sitting up takes tons of effort. Once you’ve caught your breath, you begin the new effort of getting to a standing position. It’s difficult to get enough momentum when you’re struggling with this much fat, but you manage to after nearly ten failed attempts. You can feel your gut slap against your blubbery legs as you stand up, and your boobs slap against your gut. You groan as you give yourself another moment to catch your breath. Getting winded this easily… you might want to invest in getting an oxygen tank.

You take hold of the cane that sits against the wall in front of you. These days, there was barely a chance that you could walk around without needing some kind of support. Unfortunately, your scooter didn’t fit into the bedroom, so until you got to the hall, your cane would suffice.

Now began the hard part: slowly taking steps toward the hallway. Well, it wasn’t really steps, it was more like a shuffled waddle forward. You only manage to get forward a few inches at a time, and your pudgy hand is holding onto your cane for dear life. The fat on your legs wobbles and slaps together, and the fat in your arms sways in time with them. The hunger in your stomach is slowly starting to worsen, especially now that you’re moving so much.

Sweat begins to bead and drop down your forehead as you continue your lumbering stride. You quietly whine to yourself, wishing that your partner was here to rush you back to the bed and get you food. But no such luck.

Finally, you reach the door, and you sigh with relief. The worst part of the journey is almost over. Knowing that there’s no way that you’d get through the door facing forward, you waddle around so that you’re exiting the door from the side. You shuffle slowly to the side into the hallway— and then you’re not moving.

You turn your head around as much as your fat neck and chin can manage to try to find the problem, and it’s immediately apparent. Your butt crack is wedged in the door. And since your stomach is already pushing into the doorframe ahead of you, it’s difficult now to move. You groan with irritation as you try to think of a plan forward. Something that’s definitely more difficult to do when you’re out of breath, sweating like a pig, and starving.

You take in as large of a breath as you can manage, and grab your belly as low as you can reach, lifting it up and back by just a few inches. But good news, it’s the few inches you need to finish getting through the door! Once you’re out on the other side, you sigh with relief. You let go of your huge gut, and it falls with a loud slap back to hanging over your legs.

Thankfully, getting into the scooter just requires you to sit in a seat and swivel to the controls. Once you’re sat down, you flick the button to the motorized scooter on.

Nothing happens.

You try again.

Nothing.

It’s still plugged in— did the battery die during the night?

At this realization, you nearly burst into tears. Just getting here was hard enough, and the distance to the kitchen isn’t that far at all! But the thought of walking more just makes your legs hurt even more. And as you contemplate your situation, your stomach gurgles to get your attention.

You just have to push through the pain. It was worth it to get something in your belly.

Thankfully, you still have your walker, which you used before switching over from the scooter. It’s sitting folded right next to you. With a heavy sigh, you heave yourself off of the scooter and back to your feet. You unfold the walker and set it in front of you. Your fat-swollen hands grip onto the handles for dear life, and you begin to trudge forward again.

This walk is still very similar to before— a very slow waddle forward. You can feel your hugeness with every step you take. Every part of you is constantly jiggling, constantly moving around. Sometimes you can feel your hips brush against the hallway walls, reminding you of just how much space you take up. The only sounds you can hear is your fat slapping together and your heavy, labored breathing.

Yeah, you definitely need to invest in an oxygen tank.

After what feels like hours, you finally make it to your kitchen. You almost start crying from joy as you excitedly waddle toward the food-filled room. You stop right at the fridge, opening it and letting the cold air inside escape to cool off your skin. Your fridge is at least quadruple the size of any normal fridge, and in the door you see the holy grail: gallon tubs of ice cream.

Hastily, you grab a spoon, and you collect all the containers from the top half and drop them on the table. You then slowly bend down and sit down in the kitchen chair. It creaks dangerously loud underneath your heft. You pop the first lid off and begin to devour it like you haven’t eaten in days.

You keep eating and eating. You’ve never felt more happy to be filling your huge belly with food. The second container is finished off. Then the third. And then the fourth.

You start to come to your senses when you are halfway through your eighth tub. Discarded gallon tubs surround you, and there’s bits of ice cream smeared almost everywhere. Your stomach feels heavy, and you eat much slower than you did before.

When it’s finally empty, you simply drop the tub back onto the table. Your stomach feels more full than it has in a while; and a quick rub with your hand confirms your fullness. You couldn’t pack anything else in there even if you wanted to. You lean back in your chair, now almost in a haze. You feel your stomach gurgle, now protesting being this full so quickly.

As you wipe some of the leftover ice cream onto your hand to lick it off your fingers, a sudden belch erupts from your mouth. It gives your stomach a bit of a relief, though, so you barely pay it any mind.

Through your haze, you hear the sound of the front door opening and footsteps approach. With half-lidded eyes, you look up to your partner and manage to mumble, “when’s….. dinner….?”

[asukaskerian]

prompt 4 for moshang with the mood "incensed" would be hilarous i imagine

Mythology - Foretold by the gods - moshang

--

So he might have, maybe, at some point -- some late at night or maybe very early point -- tried to figure out an OC for Mobei-jun to ship w fuck. Dude was so perfect, it was a shame his dump truck ass and sequoia thighs remained unembraced. (Also the whole "he's so mysterious and never opens up and unveils his deep thoughts and tender feelings except for me" fantasy but never mind all that.)

He'd gone exactly as far as 'Meeting: why tf would he notice anyone. Dashing rescue? Why does he need a rescue he's too cool and basically untrappable anyway, what are they rescuing him from socializing with his cousins lmao???' on his notes before giving up on making it realistic. The next scribble was 'cuz i said so ok next'. 

There had been no 'next'. His battery had died and when he managed to get home and get his laptop plugged in it was time for another word vomit on the topic of Bing-ge's meat truncheon.

[Secret side-quest: Easter egg! 1/536 discovered. Keep going!][Category: "is it a headcanon if you didn't think it up with your upper head?" 1/413]

'System-bro, what the entire fuck!?!' Airplane screeched inside his heart of hearts; ass on the floor (bruising), clothes askew (from sleeping in them!!), and the most gorgeous, terrifying man he'd ever seen staring down at him from the bed they'd crashed into (Mobei-jun first, because unconscious, Airplane later, because idiot) the previous night.

Because he had expected being sneered at; being talked down to; being attacked on sight. Being haughtily ignored, after sufficient groveling at crotch level.

But his most perfect, most unattainable creation, that Himalayan peak made flesh, saying that --

--

The problem with Airplane was, he didn't trust people. He didn't trust them to share their feelings and decisions with him freely instead of leaving him reeling at yet another swerve of which he was merely collateral damage. He didn't trust them not to lie to themselves, or even know they were lying to themselves, so even if they did tell him what they thought or felt he assumed they were doing the polite 'the real reason is none of your business but telling you to fuck off is rude' thing at best.

So yes, his favorite game from childhood had been to pick someone in the crowd and tell himself stories about their life. This guy is a grandfather of seven and doesn't know the birthday of a single grandkid and his eldest son just pointed it out to him, but not even angrily which is worse because that's how low the bar he failed to clear was, that's why the fancy package and the gloomy expression. That girl just broke up -- she's so angry though -- he was fucking her sister. No wait, her nails are short, it was a girlfriend for sure; she fucked her brother, a double betrayal. It had evolved into telling himself stories about his classmates and his half-siblings and his parents, since they were never ever gonna bother to invite him to take a real glimpse inside, anyway. 

He was fully aware that statistically speaking he was probably wrong a lot of the time, but 1. coming up with coherent narratives was satisfying enough to smother the jealousy and loneliness and 2. as far as he was concerned it was true until proved otherwise, which was never.

But a guy who gave him nothing to work with. That was a challenge. That was fascinating. 

....

But a guy who greeted him by "You are to be my husband?" with a tone of dismay?!

What the fuck! What the fuck!! What the flying dick-flapping fuck!!!

He was so shocked, he forgot to kowtow. 

"You uh. My king?" He hadn't made the guy so above it all that he landed straight back into a a naive ingenue, right? "Just sleeping on the same mattress doesn't -- people don't have to be married to share--" 

The muggy air of the inn room went so cold so fast that condensation rolled cold drops down his back. 

(The effect didn't last; there was a haze in the air, briefly, and then a suffocating breeze from outside ruined the surprise air-con.)

"You will not speak to me like an idiot child," Mobei-jun-to-be rumbled threateningly, and then ruined the cool by continuing in that wtf vein. "My husband will show respect to his wife or his wife shall reign as a widow."

Holy shit, now Mobei-jun was the wife???!?!??? What? What! Airplane was dead. Again. For good. 

He stayed down there sitting on his ass, waiting for the world to make sense. It didn't happen. The man of his masochistic dreams had crossed his arms over his massive bara titties like a barricade and was now sulking up there like an offended wi-- no, he couldn't even think it. 

"My -- my king? It's only, ah, your humble servant doesn't... recall... getting married...?"

Eyes as blue as the afterimage of a lightning strike speared him through, metaphorically.

"Not yet. But we must." 

He let out a long sigh; and his face didn't twitch when he moved to aggravate his wound, but the way he stilled for a breath was telling. Shang not-yet-Qinghua winced in reflexive sympathy.

"There is a prophecy."

"... Ah?" A prophecy. About his king. That he hadn't put into the story. That he hadn't even scribbled into the margins or thought about. 'System?!'

[Yes, valued User?]

"There is a prophecy for each generation, and most of them don't matter," the ice demon using that shitty inn bed as his throne said with a bitter tone. "But the eleventh ruler of the Northern Desert will be heralded by his foretold spouse; that is how he is confirmed."

"Ohh," Airplane said intelligently and with characteristic eloquence. 

"'You will know them by these things," his king quoted sourly, "first, they will heal you; second, share your bed; third, offer their hand, and service, and their soul."

'Their soul! Their soul!! I was offering my sneakiness and maybe my dick, ah?! System!!! Who told you to mess up my creation with made-up prophecies?!'

[The easter egg category: "is it a headcanon if you didn't think it up with your upper head?" belongs to the third rung of canon : Word of God.]

But he hadn't told anyone--

But he'd written it down, he remembered now. 'Cuz i said so.'

Oh god. Oh immortals ascended before him. Oh little ancestors in both and either worlds. Someone fix this for him. "My king. Haha. My king, that is -- so vague! So vague?! How can there not be a dozen candidates with criteria so -- so stupid? And if the prophecy is common knowledge then people knew them in advance?! How were you not sabotaged right and left--"

...Oh no. He was gorgeous when he smirked like this, slow and feline, satisfied. My king, so unfair.

"This prince has long since made it a point not to sleep where others may catch him." A delicate pause. "He has also made it a point to return misplaced agents to his most obstinate siblings's chambers at a time his elders may not miss them."

"--Oh. Disqualifying them for trying to disqualify you -- so smart, my king!" For a moment, he had gotten enthused. But then he remembered that they were discussing his sudden non-canon matrimony, and then he started poking it for plot holes. "But -- just anybody can share your bed."

"The language is old, and clear. The prophecy speaks of the only person to ever share this king's bed."

... Hhghhhk.

That stare. So hard. Offended. Those cheekbones. So cutting. That nose, regal; that hair.

"My king," Airplane said as he climbed up to his feet, eyes trained on the floor and his knees and the things spread on the table and anything else at all. "Have you ever thought that the 'sharing a bed' section was metaphorical?" 

He met the demon's eyes then, incredulous and angry, buoyant with it. "You haven't even shown me your dick and you think I should be making recompense?! What the fuck! Passing out on the same shitty mattress doesn't mean getting deflowered! I didn't knock you up with a snowball ass egg, why the fuck should I--"

Oh, he was tall. Also wide. Especially wide. Flatten me daddy indeed. 

Oh, he was angry.

"It is not. Metaphorical. Though if all you need is to see my body--"

His hand landed on his belt. Shang eventually-Qinghua stopped breathing, body hot and bubbling with too much emotion--

It read like one of his waifu plots, the Joan of Arc types, unconquerable holy virgins except via the pressure of greater good.

A vague scrying over some random-ass kingdom, a little prophecy and welp! Nothing to it, just gotta fuck it out for the marital bed and then never again. At least you getting lawfully reamed has saved Bumfucknowhereistan.

'System. Demerit if I say hell no?'

[The bonus Mobei-jun questline remains optional, and brings User no penalties on opt-out.]

'Great.'

Like hell he was jumping into marriage because he liked some guy's face and didn't want to be bothered by geriatric busybodies tittering over his lack of wedlock. Who was he, his mother?

"I'll pass. Sorry, my king, at least I'm ditching you long before the altar?"

And with a sweep of his hand, he dumped all his things off the table and into his qiankun pouch, and was jumping out the window and doing a sick flip trick on his trusty borrowed blade. Airplane over and out, bro! 

Thanks for nothing. Now his spank bank was forever tainted.

--

Three days later he was still dealing with bursts of anger and anguish and other moronic emotions, which didn't help navigating his miraculous return to the sect ("I was so scared!" lost its impact if he broke a sneery judgmental Shixiong's ankle with a well-placed kick) or the medical peak's nosiness ("Who cares about the bruises, my biggest injury is my blue balls and broken heart, thanks!") or Shen not-quite-Quingqiu's scalpel eyes.

His king's eyes were prettier. 

His king was never going to be his king. Optional quest line. Yeah. He vaguely wondered how the System planned to make him betray the sect, then, who for, and then decided it wasn't his problem. Fuck it. He was sure it could do blackout poetry with his notes and pull out some contrived justification that would amount for half as much incentive as Mobei-jun's everything. 

His fierce determination, his fearlessness, his skill, his -- his body.

His body that was extremely too visible on Shang in-his-soul-Qinghua's disciple bed, shoulders draped in furs and bountiful meaty muscle on full frontal display.

"I will not," he growled low and quiet, "be discarded by my spouse."

"Hhg."

He had snow leopard rosettes on his flanks in dusky blue, secret patterns never appeared in any cover art Airplane had commissioned. 

[Secret side-quest: Easter egg! 2/536 discovered. Keep going!]

... Oh god, it turned out Shang Qinghua was exactly as stupid as Bing-ge's most ice-cold chaste wives. Because 'lie back and think of England?' Yeah, he was going to think of England and that dick.

[ms-demeanor]

Oh hey since you just reblogged a post about this, can I get some tech advice? I have two old Dell laptops that are running slow bc (I suspect) dell has some chip installed that can tell if the charger is Dell brand and throttles the cpu if not. And they have since stopped recognizing their chargers. If I install linux, will that fix the issue? Or is it a hardware problem?

So there's not really a way that Dell can do that but realistically the computers are probably just running slow because they're old (5 years is the usable time we estimate for business laptops; after that they may continue *working* but they'll likely be too slow for our customers to consider them good work computers without some significant upgrades). But if they aren't recognizing the chargers there are 3 possibilities I can think of off the top of my head:

1 - It's a battery issue, not a charger issue. Over time batteries fail and will stop holding a charge no matter how long they're plugged in. The solution to this is to replace the battery, which you can usually do for between 20-45USD on amazon

2 - It's a charger issue. Your AC adapters may have both independently failed, it's possible! Low-cost non-OEM chargers often don't have particularly long lifespans, and replacing them may be the way to fix this.

Second possible charger issue is that it may be the wrong power level for the batteries. Sometimes you might look up something like "Lenovo e15 charger" and you'll see one that looks right but it turns out you've ordered a 45w instead of a 90w, and that is a pretty big problem. You need to make sure you're getting something with the exact specs for your specific computer. Here's an article about it. 

3 - It's a charging port issue. This is one of the more common problems we see on older computers; basically over time with enough plugging and unplugging the port that connects your charger to the motherboard comes loose. This is something that can be a relatively cheap and easy fix in some cases, or a really difficult fix if the thing is soldered directly to the board. Here's a video of someone replacing the charging port on a Dell Laptop for a general idea of what kind of work might be involved in fixing this.

Okay! Now for some basic troubleshooting! Please test for the following:

If the computers don't power on at all while the AC adapter is plugged in then the issue is either the AC adapter or the power port.

If the computers power on while plugged in but they don't hold a charge, the issue is the battery.

If the battery holds a charge for some amount of time (over an hour) but takes forever to charge, then the problem is that you aren't using the correct AC adapter.

If the battery doesn't charge, the computer doesn't come on, and it's the correct AC adapter you can possibly test the adapter with a voltmeter, test the adapter on another computer with the same power requirements, or disassemble the computer and check the power port connection to the motherboard.

But yeah if the computers are powering on at all, right off the top of my head I'd guess either it's a battery issue or a voltage issue with the adapter.

Linux would not help at all with those issues (though hopefully you've got someplace to start looking to resolve those problems now), but if your computer is running slow because it has older hardware that was designed for a different era of computer use (which can be as recent as 5 or so years ago depending on the specs) then a Linux install will likely help. Though keep in mind that if you do an OS swap you will not be able to run any of the programs you currently have for those laptops on those laptops. I think that Linux is good and want more people to use it generally, but I recommend Linux to new Linux users primarily when the computer they're thinking of installing it on is used mostly as a web browsing machine. An old computer with Linux Lite will generally run faster than an old computer with Windows, but if you're trying to get the old computer to play modern games it isn't going to be fast with either OS.

[withered--s0uls]

Idk if I'll ever finish this doodle page so

After seeing @marcygoo (hope it's ok to tag you as the idea inspo :3) draw Cyn (workers in general, but back then I just saw a few Cyn posts!) with charger plug tails I initially had some ideas for the concept. I doodled DAS!Cyn with it to try and figure out how I'd like it to look.

I started brainstorming some headcanons for the idea at the time:

Idk if the person in the 3rd picture who replied is comfortable with me tagging them so I censored their name to be sure 👍

Since then I've come to the following idea, based on the fact that all manor drones likely had defects considering Tessa got them off the dump;

Many probably had technical problems, including issues charging in sleep mode or having a low battery life

Cyn is one who had those issues, and had a charger already from her previous owners

N also had the issue, but originally had solar panels instead, the AS later changed that when starting its experiments

The charger can be anywhere on the body really, doesn't need to be in the position of a tail

Cyns charger was at the position of a Tail, Ns is between his shoulders right below his neck (its inside a compartment if not in use for N! Cyn sometimes has it tucked in but sometimes let's it just hang out - usually when around Tessas parents is tucked in to look more proper)

I'm debating on whether or not to give V battery issues too, if I do, they might present differently from the siblings (habit of eating a lot of batteries to try and stay charged maybe?)

Ig you could count this as a type of disability for Drones!

The type of recharging (solar panels, cord etc) usually was determined by the type of work the Drone was originally intended to do when first built & the defect was discovered

[arvensimp]

Content

Look I made you some content! Simp made you your favorite, open wide. Here comes the content. It's a beautiful day for a silly little ficlet to warm back up to writing again lol

gn!reader, no gendered pronouns used. Pure fluff. Slightly suggestive themes, nothing explicit.

-

Arven isn't a furnace, per say, but he's definitely warm. You learn that quickly during your first night together. He's warm and soft in all the best ways. His kisses are gentle, tentative, hesitant. It's only when you press his cheeks between loving palms, your thumbs rubbing smooth circles along his stubbled skin as you tell him explicitly: "Hey, you're good. I like you, and this is fun." That he starts to gain a bit more confidence.

He's still not quite...boisterous. That's not really him. But he's present, not as nervous or flighty.

You don't "make love" that night, but you're certainly loving to one another as you learn your bodies. Timid caresses gain traction, and whispered sighs get louder. Kisses become a bit more heated.

No, it wasn't love making, but love was there.

That's why the next morning, you feel for his warmth, that soft rigidity and stability of him under your hand.

You're met with soft, cool pillows and blankets instead.

Your eyes blearily open.

Arven isn't there.

You roll over.

He isn't in your bathroom if the ajar door is anything to go by.

Had you pushed him too far?

Your mind panics, going over the details of the night again. You'd both checked in with one another constantly. Had...had he not felt comfortable? Was he not comfortable enough with you to say no?

You flop over again, rather ungracefully to try and grab your phone, but it was away from the charger overnight and died. Fainted? What...what do rotom phones do exactly? Was there a rotom buzzing around your apartment right now, escaped from the confines of a smart phone?

Whatever, there's more pressing matters.

You plug the device in with near shaking hands.

It slowly starts to charge, and you heave a sigh as you stand. You can't turn it back on with such a low battery anyway. Might as well grab a bite from the kitchen. Maybe bread and jam or something. Maybe you could make Arven something...like a peace offering? Something to show you didn't mean to upset him?

The man can be so unsure of himself at times.

You pad softly into the kitchen and are met with the sight of your Pokemon out of their balls and bouncing around the dining area. You jolt in surprise as they rush you.

"Well good morning!" You greet the one who made it to you first.

"Good morning!" Comes a voice from around the kitchen corner.

You nearly jump out of your skin at the sound of it, barely holding back an embarrassingly high pitched noise of surprise.

Arven rounds the corner, his fluffy hair pulled back into a low ponytail, though there's still his usual bit of fringe falling over his face. In his hands is a silver mixing bowl and one of your whisks.

"You're good with omelettes for breakfast, right?" He asks you, easy as anything.

You only realize you're staring when he pauses, a bit of color dusting his single visible cheek.

"Is...is this okay?" He asks, and you can almost see the confidence of earlier drain from him like sand through a sieve.

"Uh..." You falter. "Y-Yes!" You try to snap back quickly before he fully retreats into a shuckle shell. "Sorry, I just... Haha, I... I woke up alone..." You shift your weight a bit, then move closer over to him, approaching the breakfast bar that divides you.

"I thought maybe I scared you off or something? I was already plotting ways to, I dunno...try to win you back or something."

Arven laughs, and the confidence seems to return. Good. It suits him.

"Win me back? Huh... Maybe you should make breakfast then." He sets the bowl down on the countertop, leaning over it a bit with a smirk on his face.

It's then that you notice the frilly apron covering his otherwise bare chest.

He must've found the thing in the back of your pantry, some gag gift that you'd been given ages ago.

Once again, you can't help but stare, making Arven laugh all the more.

"What? You don't like it? I dunno, I kinda feel like Saguaro in this, ya know?"

He flexes comically, but you absolutely can't deny the muscle he's built up over the years. He might not be as jacked as your teacher was, but...

Well, there's a reason you keep staring.

He picks up on this easily enough, laughs, and takes the bowl and whisk back off the counter.

"Don't worry. I'll finish breakfast this time, but you owe me an omelette next time, kay?"

[desertfangs]

I might be a little late here on the question prompts so no pressure but:

“ where have you been? ” - Marius/Daniel?

I am not doing these in order, but I am trying to do all of them! Also this one got a little smutty. Vampire smutty, but still. About 1300 words.

“Where have you been?” Marius demands. He’s at the door of his apartment before Daniel can even get it open. 

Daniel blinks at him. “In Paris, with Lestat. I texted you.” 

“You did not,” Marius says, anger flaring. His blond hair is loose and wild around his handsome face and his blue eyes are intense as they bore into Daniel like a laser. “Nor did you return any of my texts.” 

Daniel frowns at his phone. The screen is black and none of the buttons he presses bring it back to life. It was low on battery when he left—he’d forgotten to plug it in before bed yesterday—but he hadn’t realized it had died. He walks through the rooms that make up Marius’ space here at the Chateau, big and elegantly furnished, and heads into the bedroom, Marius on his heels.

“You can’t go off without telling me!” Marius is not quite yelling but he’s on the verge of it. 

“I did tell you,” Daniel protests. He plugs his phone and a little dead battery icon flashes on the screen, along with the charging symbol.

When the screen finally loads, Daniel pulls up his text messages and sees that the text he tried to send while Lestat was whisking him through the air did not actually send. And the failed text is followed by over a dozen new texts from Marius demanding to know his whereabouts. He shows Marius the screen, abashed. “Guess it didn’t go through. I tried.” 

“That’s not good enough,” Marius says. “It’s irresponsible! I need to know where you are all at times!” The last line does come out as a yell and irritation pricks at Daniel. 

“I’m not a child. If I want to go hang out with a friend—” 

“Lestat is the Prince and he has duties to fulfill!” 

Daniel glares at Marius, whose arms are folded over his chest, fury radiating off him in waves. “Jesus Christ, is that what you’re mad about? That I took Lestat away from work?” 

Marius turns away. “I didn’t know you were with him. Though I suppose I should have guessed when the two of you vanished at the same time.” 

Daniel runs his fingers through his hair, tugging at the short blond strands. “You need to chill out. We just went hunting together.” He drops his arm to his side and lowers his voice. “We weren’t even gone that long.”

Marius sighs. “I had no idea where you were. If you’d wandered off, if you were lost…” 

The word ‘lost’ sends uneasiness worming through Daniel. 

“I’m fine.” Daniel taps his temple. “You know I am.” 

Marius doesn’t answer, which makes Daniel’s nerves burn. The idea that Marius might have thought he had some kind of relapse is harrowing and frightening. Daniel has been better for years now and though sometimes he himself fears the darkness overtaking him again, he wants to believe he’s healed. 

“I worry,” Marius says, voice soft.

Daniel laughs, ignoring the way Marius narrows his eyes. “Understandment of the year, old man.” 

Marius drops his arms and his face softens slightly. “I have good reasons.” 

Daniel sighs, annoyed that it’s true. “I know.”

“Not just about your mental state.” Marius steps closer and strokes Daniel’s cheek with his long, pale fingers. “There are enemies who would move against members of this Court. We all need to be cautious and none of us should be running off alone without telling a soul.” 

“I wasn’t alone,” Daniel points out. 

“No, but Lestat ditched Cyril and Thorne as well. Everyone was up in arms about that. Even he shouldn’t be so careless.”

“Nothing can hurt Lestat,” Daniel says. 

Marius is silent, his jaw tight. 

Daniel puts his arms around Marius’ shoulders and leans in close. He presses his lips to Marius’ mouth and it yields as he kisses him. His tongue is hot from the blood he’s drunk and Marius’ mouth is cool. The contrast of their temperatures sends tingles down Daniel’s spine. His hand slides up, cupping Marius’ face, pulling him closer. Marius kisses him back fiercely and then trails little kisses down his chin and neck, up and down his throat on both sides, his lips feather light and leaving little impressions on Daniel’s immortal skin.

Then Marius pulls back and meets his eyes. “You can distract me all you want but you still need to check in when you leave the Chateau.” 

Daniel rolls his eyes but he knows beneath the nagging and anger, Marius was scared. It’s fear that makes him demand such constant updates of his nightly actions, fear that makes him send so many texts even as they go unanswered. Fear that causes him to yell and rant about Daniel being careless. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Daniel says. “I’ll make sure my phone is charged next time. And that the damned text message actually sends.” He presses his forehead to Marius and their noses touch, which makes him tingle again. He wants Marius’ lips back, wants his fangs in his throat. 

“Yes, you will,” Marius murmurs. He’s already kissing Daniel again, unable to resist the heat of his blood-warmed skin against his cool lips. Marius pulls back and tears off Daniel’s sweatshirt and the t-shirt beneath, tossing them aside. 

His eagerness makes Daniel’s pulse race. Marius kisses his neck again and this time, his fangs sink through Daniel’s flesh, piercing his throat. He gasps at the sharp pain. Then he closes his eyes as his blood floods into Marius’ mouth, hot and rich and stolen from some Parisian bastard just hours ago. The movement of Marius’ lips as he drinks is as intoxicating as the swoon that comes over him. Marius’ heart hammers against his. 

Daniel rubs Marius’ shoulder encouragingly, eyes flitting open and closed as the world fades and he sees Marius standing at an easel, filling a canvas with blood red flowers. Everything is red. His heart slams into his ribs matching the rhythm of Marius’ heart. He breathes heavily, the feeling of Marius against him steady and strong even as he draws the blood from his veins. The pressure builds and his heart resists the pull, fighting back, tugging against Marius as he drinks. 

He thinks his heart might explode when Marius finally releases him. Then his mouth finds Daniel’s again. His tongue is coated in blood and the kiss tastes of iron and copper and heat. When they finally part, Daniel smiles at him. “You know, if this is your way of teaching me a lesson, I’ll never learn.” 

Marius smacks him playfully on the shoulder. “Next time I’ll resist your temptations. Perhaps that will be more effective.”  

Daniel shakes his head. He sits down on the bed, his heart slowly returning to normal. Marius heads for the door. 

“Where are you going?” Daniel asks.

“To have words with Lestat,” Marius says. 

“Lucky him,” Daniel mutters as Marius retreats. 

Daniel picks up his phone and scrolls through the increasingly panicked texts sent by Marius. He wonders what kind of lecture Lestat will get, and is almost tempted to go see, but he doesn’t want to be dragged into whatever argument might ensue, so he fires up Plants vs. Zombies on his phone instead.

[mariacallous]

The phone or computer you’re reading this on may not be long for this world. Maybe you’ll drop it in water, or your dog will make a chew toy of it, or it’ll reach obsolescence. If you can’t repair it and have to discard it, the device will become e-waste, joining an alarmingly large mountain of defunct TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, cameras, routers, electric toothbrushes, headphones. This is “electrical and electronic equipment,” aka EEE—anything with a plug or battery. It’s increasingly out of control.

As economies develop and the consumerist lifestyle spreads around the world, e-waste has turned into a full-blown environmental crisis. People living in high-income countries own, on average, 109 EEE devices per capita, while those in low-income nations have just four. A new UN report finds that in 2022, humanity churned out 137 billion pounds of e-waste—more than 17 pounds for every person on Earth—and recycled less than a quarter of it.

That also represents about $62 billion worth of recoverable materials, like iron, copper, and gold, hitting e-waste landfills each year. At this pace, e-waste will grow by 33 percent by 2030, while the recycling rate could decline to 20 percent. (You can see this growth in the graph below: purple is EEE on the market, black is e-waste, and green is what gets recycled.)

“What was really alarming to me is that the speed at which this is growing is much quicker than the speed that e-waste is properly collected and recycled,” says Kees Baldé, a senior scientific specialist at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and lead author of the report. “We just consume way too much, and we dispose of things way too quickly. We buy things we may not even need, because it's just very cheap. And also these products are not designed to be repaired.”

Humanity has to quickly bump up those recycling rates, the report stresses. In the first pie chart below, you can see the significant amount of metals we could be saving, mostly iron (chemical symbol Fe, in light gray), along with aluminum (Al, in dark gray), copper (Cu), and nickel (Ni). Other EEE metals include zinc, tin, and antimony. Overall, the report found that in 2022, generated e-waste contained 68 billion pounds of metal.

E-waste is a complex thing to break down: A washing machine is made of totally different components than a TV. And even for product categories, not only do different brands use different manufacturing processes, but even different models within those brands vary significantly. A new washing machine has way more sensors and other electronics than one built 30 years ago.

Complicating matters even further, e-waste can contain hazardous materials, like cobalt, flame retardants, and lead. The report found that each year, improperly processed e-waste releases more than 125,000 pounds of mercury alone, imperiling the health of humans and other animals. “Electronic waste is an extremely complex waste stream,” says Vanessa Gray, head of the Environment and Emergency Telecommunications Division at the UN’s International Telecommunication Union and an author of the report. “You have a lot of value in electronic waste, but you also have a lot of toxic materials that are dangerous to the environment.”

That makes recycling e-waste a dangerous occupation. In low- and middle-income countries, informal e-waste recyclers might go door-to-door collecting the stuff. To extract valuable metals, they melt down components without proper safety equipment, poisoning themselves and the environment. The new report notes that in total, 7.3 billion pounds of e-waste is shipped uncontrolled globally, meaning its ultimate management is unknown and likely not done in an environmentally friendly way. Of that, high-income countries shipped 1.8 billion pounds to low- and middle-income countries in 2022, swamping them with dangerous materials.

High-income countries have some of this informal recycling, but they also have formal facilities where e-waste is sorted and safely broken down. Europe, for example, has fairly high formal e-waste recycling rates, at about 43 percent. But globally, recycling is happening nowhere near enough to keep up with the year-over-year growth of the waste. Instead of properly mining EEE for metals, humanity keeps mining more ore out of the ground.

Still, the report found that even the small amount of e-waste that currently gets recycled avoided the mining of 2 trillion pounds of ore for virgin metal in 2022. (It takes a lot of ore to produce a little bit of metal.) The more metals we can recycle from e-waste, the less mining we’ll need to support the proliferation of gadgets. That would in turn avoid the greenhouse gases from such mining operations, plus losses of biodiversity.

The complexity of e-waste, though, makes it expensive to process. As the chart above shows, even an ambitious scenario of a formal e-waste collection rate in 2030 is 44 percent. “There is no business case for companies to just collect e-waste and to make a profit out of this in a sustainable manner,” says Baldé. “They can only survive if there is legislation in place which is also compensating them.”

The report notes that 81 countries have e-waste policies on the books, and of those, 67 have provisions regarding extended producer responsibility, or EPR. This involves fees paid by manufacturers of EEE that would go toward e-waste management.

Of course, people could also stop throwing so many devices away in the first place, something right-to-repair advocates have spent years fighting for. Batteries, for instance, lose capacity after a certain number of charge cycles. If a phone can’t hold a charge all day anymore, customers should be able to swap in a new battery. “Manufacturers shouldn't be able to put artificial limitations on that ability,” says Elizabeth Chamberlain, director of sustainability at iFixit, which provides repair guides and tools. That includes limiting access to parts and documentation. “Repair is a harm-reduction strategy. It's not the be-all-end-all solution, but it's one of many things we need to do as a global society to slow down the rate at which we're demanding things of the planet.”

At the core of the e-waste crisis is the demand: A growing human population needs phones to communicate and fridges to keep food safe and heat pumps to stay comfortable indoors. So first and foremost we need high-quality products that don’t immediately break down, but also the right to repair when they do. And what absolutely can’t be fixed needs to move through a safe, robust e-waste recycling system. “We are consuming so much,” says Baldé, “we cannot really recycle our way out of the problem.”

[cryssyd]

A Love Beyond Hell

Previous: Chapter 1

It is an adaption to "Always and Forever" by ChaoticDoll (MadamMimic505) at Quotev.com.

Pairings: Alastor x Reader (Julia) Female

Summary: In the months following her husband's death, Julia has started to rediscover herself since the old radio started to play her favorite tunes. As she starts to get her life back together, strange shadows have began to follow to her around. Along with a mysterious visitor she witnesses in the yard.

Warnings: 18+ Content, Established Relationship, Violence, Death, Graphic Details, Pregnancy and Birth, Smut, Minors DNI

Chapter 2

In the months since her husband's sudden passing, Julia hummed with a smile on her face. Since the old radio she owned began playing those lovely tunes, she no longer felt so alone since he was there in spirit. It was concerning that the radio continued to play without being plugged in. As soon as the static started, any normal person would have thrown it away. Perhaps she was still in disbelief, the radio might have just had a short circuit. Or perhaps it was powered by batteries. It used to belong to Alastor; she had no clue how the thing functioned. However, a part of her remained hopeful that his presence was still around. Even though he had passed away, she was convinced he hadn't truly left. He had promised to never abandon her as long as he was alive, and maybe even beyond that. She strolled along the street, humming a familiar melody. She parked Alastor's car at the far end of the street, enjoying the leisurely walk to her favourite little shop.

Julia greeted the people she encountered with a cheerful wave and a skip in her step. Some of them gave her curious glances, while others simply returned her wave and continued on their way. However, a few individuals couldn't help but pause and take a second look when they noticed her shadow. It appeared completely unnatural. Unlike Julia, whose movements were graceful, her shadow stood with its arms folded behind its back, sporting long, horn-like protrusions from its messy hair. Its figure was much slimmer than Julia's, with broad shoulders that seemed to stretch wider than hers.

“Oh, my goodness, did you just witness that?!" The woman exclaimed to her sister, completely astounded by what she had just seen as Julia strolled by. She couldn't believe what her eyes were telling her.

Julia stepped into the cozy shop, her eyes immediately finding the familiar sight of the little old woman seated at the register. With a warm smile, Gladys returned Julia's wave. Basket in hand, Julia strolled down the aisles, browsing the shelves for her favourite treats. She reached for a loaf of bread and a couple of packs of muffins, knowing they would make for a delightful breakfast. As she continued her shopping, she added a carton of milk and a bag of fresh vegetables for her beloved critter friends waiting at home.

Not forgetting herself, Julia also picked up a carton of eggs, planning to whip up some delicious French toast for dinner. She had learned to take care of herself, even in the face of past sadness, knowing that her dear Alastor would want to see her happy. Finally, she made her way to the cashier counter, placing her basket in front of Gladys. The old woman smiled and adjusted her glasses, ready to ring up Julia's purchases.

"What's got you all cheerful today?" She simply shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. "Oh, nothing much. Maybe I just woke up feeling extra lucky today." She handed over a twenty-dollar bill. Gladys returned the change and placed her hands gently on her lap. "Well, whatever it is, it's a delight to see you smiling. You've been feeling low for quite some time, my dear." Julia expressed her gratitude to Gladys before taking hold of the bag of groceries. As she made her way past Gladys, a sudden burst of static interference erupted from the small radio sitting on the counter.

"Oh, you troublesome thing! I might just throw you out!" Gladys exclaimed; frustration evident in her voice as she forcefully tapped her fist on the radio. It let out a hum before momentarily faltering, only to resume playing the jazzy tune it had been playing before.

Stepping out into the crisp autumn air, Julia couldn't help but shiver slightly. The gentle breeze caused the bottom of her dress to sway as a few colourful leaves danced around her penny loafers. Balancing the bag of groceries on her hip, she skillfully spun the keys on her free hand's fingers as she made her way back to the car. Oblivious to the frustration of passing drivers, who were struggling with interference and static on their car radios, Julia hummed a cheerful tune. Once settled in the driver's seat, she leaned back and adjusted the mirror, only to be startled by a pair of intense crimson eyes staring back at her. They were unlike anything she had ever seen before, but when she blinked and turned to look in the back seat, there was nothing there.

Julia couldn't help but feel like she had spent a bit too much time under the scorching sun. Shaking her head, she focused on staying alert as she inserted the key and ignited the car's engine. As she cruised along the cobblestone streets, there was no need to adjust the radio dial. The familiar static hum filled the air, causing her heart to skip a beat.

¯ Forever my darling, our love will be true, always and forever. I’ll love just you, just promise me darling, your love in return. ¯

¯ Made this fire in my soul dear, forever burn, my hearts at your command dear, to keep, love and to hold, making you happy is my desire, dear. Keeping you is my goal. ¯

¯ I’ll forever love you, for the rest of my days. I’ll never part from you, and your loving ways. My heart sat your command dear to keep, love, and hold. Making you happy is my desire dear, keeping you is my goal¯

¯I’ll forever love you, for the rest of my days. I’ll never part from you and your loving ways~ Forever my darling, our love will be true… always and forever. I love just you¯

With a gentle smile, she let out a contented sigh, swaying her head to the rhythm of the music. The car no longer felt empty; she was accompanied by a faint fragrance of cologne and a hint of metallic spice that enveloped her senses. Julia found comfort in the familiarity of the scent, even though it was barely noticeable. As she glanced at her wedding band, she continued driving deeper into the woods, where the refreshing aroma of pine welcomed her. Leaves danced in the air, lifted by the wind created by her moving vehicle.

As the song came to an end, she finally pulled her car into the gravel driveway. The sight of a few deer scampering off into the fields greeted her arrival, followed closely by a group of rabbits. Stepping out of the car, she closed the door with her left arm clutching the bag of groceries. Climbing up the wooden steps of her home, she felt a weight lifting off her shoulders. Every time those songs played; her heavy heart found solace. After unlocking the door, she entered the house and made her way to the kitchen. Taking extra precautions, she locked the door behind her, feeling a sense of unease without Alastor. Switching on the light in the kitchen, she placed the bag of groceries on the kitchen island and leaned against the sink. Gazing out of the window, she raised an eyebrow as she noticed a few deer returning, but one of them appeared different.

The buck stood tall, its antlers boasting an impressive eight points. Yet, it caught her attention with its unique features. Its fur, a deep mahogany brown, almost appeared black, and its gaze seemed fixed on her. Julia had never encountered such a sight before. The buck's eyes shimmered with an amber hue, captivating her. Standing a few feet away from the other deer, who were busy feasting on the feed she had scattered earlier, it remained motionless. Its fluffy ears perked up, and its orange eyes seemed to penetrate her very being. The buck remained still, proudly displaying its fluffy tail. It was an extraordinary spectacle. Julia silently hoped for its return, longing to catch another glimpse of its magnificence. Leaving the buck undisturbed, she turned her back and began organizing the groceries in the refrigerator. When she glanced out the window again, the deer had vanished. Perhaps it had rejoined its herd or ventured off in search of more sustenance. As she turned around, her shadow transformed into something entirely different, sending a pleasant shiver down her spine amidst the coolness of the kitchen. She looked behind her, only to be greeted by space once again.

Julia's heart ached as she whispered, "Oh, Alastor. If only you were by my side." The longing in her voice was palpable as if she could almost feel his presence. Suddenly, she gasped in surprise as she noticed the amber-eyed buck standing just outside the kitchen window. It seemed as though Alastor's spirit had brought him here. The buck held a single daisy in his mouth, the very same flowers that had adorned Alastor's final moments.

“I’m only two steps behind, my dearest.”

Next: Chapter 3

[lensman-arms-race]

Skibidi Toilet headcanons, part 2

A TV-head displaying a test-card pattern in public is sort of the equivalent of walking around with your flies down -- except not quite as rude as that. It's quite like when a cat bleps because it got interrupted mid-groom and forgot to put its tongue away.

Hardware-heads sometimes need a touch of percussive maintenance (when you lightly slap a machine to reseat a connection or something). They can ask a friend to lightly bonk their head in the same way that a human can ask a friend to scratch their back.

Related to the above: if you're close friends with a TV-head, they might permit you to pretend to slap them on the side of the head, to which they'll obligingly spin their head a few times so that it appears to an onlooker that the force of your slap made their head spin like a Looney Tunes character. (In TV woman's case, she might pretend that you slapped her head clean off.) Occasionally TV-heads will do this to each other to amuse the other alliance members.

For hardware-heads, going for a WD40 break is like going for a smoke break or a tea break.

Since TV-heads see in infra-red* and speaker-heads have no photo-reception at all*, they don't need the lights on. Sometimes camera-heads are startled to walk into what they thought was an empty room (because it was dark) and discover it was occupied by some speakers and/or TVs chilling. * AFAIK neither of these facts are confirmed for sure; this is speculation on my part.

TV-heads don't hear very high-pitched sounds (hence why their voices are so low). They can hear sounds lower than humans can hear too.

Hardware-heads sort-of sleep and dream. They have to periodically plug themselves into a power grid to recharge their batteries. They can just sit and chill or do light tasks when they're plugged in like this (like you do with your phone when it's plugged in and charging), but often they'll use this downtime to defragment their hard drives, which is analogous to sleeping and dreaming. Relatedly, they don't die if they run out of power; they just can't be revived until someone plugs them in and they get some juice back.

Part 1 / Add yours if you want.