#(the distance I had to drive in the US for my shows) from their closest show

[cowboylikedean]

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[venerablemonk27]

I've done a lot of birding the past couple months and not a lot of posting, so I'm going back to our Tucson, AZ trip from April. I hadn't been to the Western US since picking up birding or wildlife photography, so I knew I was going to pick up a ton of lifers. One of our target species for the trip was also my fifth Owl species ever: the Burrowing Owl.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt. They are facing left and looking toward the camera. The sun is low in the sky off to the right, which illuminates the right side of the Owl's face and their back, while casting the rest in shadow. They have striking yellow eyes and a furrowed brow that gives them the appearance of a permanent scowl. Their oval-shaped head transitions naturally into a slender cylindrical body covered in mottled tan and white feathers. About half the bird's height is body and folded wings, with two naked grey legs planted on the ground. End ID]

This was the morning we had picked for me to do some solo birding, so I drove out to a spot west of Tucson where eBird indicated that Burrowing Owls were likely to appear. It was just after sunrise when I found the road cutting between farm fields where the Owls were reported. I drove slowly down the side of the road in my rented Dodge Charger, stopping occasionally to inspect a suspicious clump of dirt with my binoculars. I had not seen any sign of the Owls when a Land Rover pulled up behind me. A group of three folks in their 60s with binoculars piled out of car, clearly more birders here to do exactly what I was doing.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt, facing the camera. The sun is still low in the sky, but now the bird's face and chest are more brightly lit, showing the transition in feather colors from tan to mottled tan to white as they progress downward from collar to belly.]

They introduced themselves as coming from the UK, and had been visiting Arizona for several weeks in search of all the unique birds the state could offer. The driver was particularly puzzled about the location of the Owls, saying he was "absolutely foxed" that this place with no real habitat could host Burrowing Owls. I showed him the recent sightings on eBird and explained that it was possible the birds just hadn't emerged from their burrows yet.

After another 15 minutes of searching the fields, I offered to lead them to an alternate site nearby. We got in our cars and slowly drove back the way we had come. Just as we were approaching the end of the road, I spotted a small tan creature standing right on the edge of the irrigation ditch along the near side of the field. A Burrowing Owl! I swung the Charger around and flagged down my companions, who had also spotted the Owl.

[ID: A pair of Burrowing Owls stand on a mound of dirt. The one in the foreground looks decidedly sleepier and plumper than the one in the background (seen in previous images). Both Owls are similar in coloration, but the one in the foreground has an aluminum leg band for identifying them. End ID]

We got out to take a look and grab some photos from long distance, then slowly crept forward with my Charger as a rolling blind. There turned out to be four Owls spread out along the irrigation ditch, likely close to their burrows which were out of sight. They were surprisingly unbothered by the cars rolling up to them, probably because they see trucks and farm vehicles driving past all day every day. Once we were directly across the irrigation ditch from the closest pair, I climbed into the passenger seat to take some better photosm. Mostly the Owls just stood on their tiny hill and looked around. Though I did witness one of the pair above fly down to pounce on a grasshopper, then return to feed it to their partner.

[ID: A pair of Burrowing Owls stand on a mound of dirt. This photo was taken midday, with the sun directly overhead. At least one of these individuals is different from those above, as they have two leg bands instead of one. It's also apparent in the photo that the Owls are standing at the edge of a farm field from the row of green plants out of focus in the background. End ID]

I had such a great view of the Burrowing Owls that I had to bring my family back to see them on our last day in Tucson. Because we were heading out of town in the middle of the day, I was confident we'd find them right away and avoid testing the patience of my kid. It turns out I didn't have to worry. Not only were the Owls right where I left them, but the kid had fallen asleep on the drive, so we had to wake him up to see them! And seeing as I already had the camera within easy reach, I had to take a few more photos.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt. This one is looking alert in the midday sun, standing and scanning the area around the edge of the farm field. End ID]

On a trip full of exciting views, long hikes, and thousands of photos, it was nice to finish the trip quietly sitting in the car just a few yards away from such a compelling bird. And it always feels good to track down a lifer and share that experience with others!

[nayeonie99]

Momo x Nayeon / Ex-Girlfriend

Nayeon's POV

When I woke up, I slid my hand to the other side of the bed. I felt the cold mattress against the palm of my hand and let out a sigh.

Right I forgot.

Momo and I broke up.

I sat up and stared into nothingness for a while.

I decided to get up from bed to walk around the apartment we used to share.

It's been 2 months since we broke up.

It felt so empty without her. I would be lying if I would say that I don't miss her.

What's even worse is that I can't really avoid her, since we both share a close group of friends and go to the same university, we even share almost all of our classes together.

I got ready and drove to my morning class.

When I parked my car, I saw Jihyo and Jeongyeon already waiting for me.

"Nabongs". I heard Jeongyeon say and smiled a little. She pulled me towards her by my waist and shook me from side to side.

"Stop". I whined and started giggling a little.

"Good Morning guys". I said and they smiled at me.

They helped me a lot for the past two months. The problem is, that they are both dating Momo's best friends Sana and Mina.

Which means when they saw their girlfriends, Momo was always close around.

Momo and I haven't talked since the breakup.

I heard a loud engine roaring over the parking lot and I didn't even need to look. I knew it was Momo, rolling into her parking spot on her motorcycle.

"Yah Momoring". I heard Sana scream.

Sana was the closest to Momo. Momo and Mina were basically the sisters she never had. She engulfed the girl in a tight hug, Momo wasn't even halfway off her motorcycle yet.

"Do you want to go inside ?". I heard Jihyo ask next to me.

"No, it's okay". I said and she smiled slightly at me.

She was always really caring.

I leaned against the back of my car and saw Mina and Sana walking towards our direction. Before Momo and I broke up, it was always Momo and Me, Jihyo and Sana and Jeongyeon and Mina.

"Hey Baby". Sana said and pulled Jihyo closer to her, to give her a peck on the lips.

Sana was always bold. She didn't mind showing skinship in front of us or in public in general.

"Hey Babe". I heard Mina's soft voice say and she pecked Jeongyeon on the cheek.

They were the whole opposite of Jihyo and Sana.

My eyes darted in the distance, Momo was leaning against her motorcycle. She was watching the whole scenario going on right now, just like the past two months.

"Hey Yeonie". Sana greeted me with a gentle smile.

"Hey". I said and returned her smile.

"How are you feeling?". Mina asked and leaned her head on Jeongyeon's shoulder.

"I'm good". I said, but Mina could tell I was lying, she didn't question it any further though, which I was grateful for.

I got along with Sana and Mina really well.

"Okay, we are gonna head back". Sana said and they both kissed their girlfriends one more time, before walking back to Momo.

I saw Momo quickly nodding towards our direction while Sana whispered something in her ear, making her nod again.

When we walked into class I tried to concentrate as much as I could, but just the presence of Momo in the same room was too distracting.

"Ms.Im, are you paying attention?". My professor asked.

"Y-Yes". I stuttered and mentally facepalmed.

"Okay, can you tell me what Ms.Hirai just said?". He asked.

My eyes shot down towards Momo's seat and her eyes were staring at me already. Those beautiful chocolate eyes that always made me feel week in the knees.

I grew even more nervous.

"I-I- No, I'm sorry". I said, clearly embarrassed.

"You should pay attention more, this isn't the first time I caught you daydreaming now". He said and I nodded my head.

When he continued, I let my face fall onto my arms.

Fuck me.

After the class was finally over I just wanted to drive back home.

"Are you coming to the party tonight?". Jihyo asked me.

"What party?".

"Tzuyu, Chaeyoung and Dahyun are throwing a party at their dorm tonight and since it's Friday I thought you would like to get out of your apartment for once".

"Yeah, maybe you should really come with us Nay. I know you don't really like partying, but maybe it will get your mind off things". Jeongyeon said.

"Okay". They looked at me, clearly surprised that I agreed that quickly.

"Umm...okay, great see you later then". Jihyo smiled and they both waved at me before walking to their cars.

I drove home as well and let out a sigh when I walked into my apartment.

It still smells like Momo.

My heart clenched and I quickly shook my head. I walked into my kitchen to eat something before I got ready for the party.

I was wearing a black, tight dress. One arm was sleeveless, while the other arm was covered.

Momo got this dress for me when we were still together, she really liked this one. I put on my black heels and sprayed some perfume on my neck.

I got in my car and drove to the address the party was at. You could see a lot of cars from the distance already. When I found a free spot, I parked my car and walked into the house.

I began to search Jihyo and Jeongyeon, but since they're my best friends, it wasn't hard for me to find them at the bar.

"Hey you really came". I heard Jihyo say while she pulled me into a tight hug.

Drunk Jihyo was really affectionate.

"Yeah". I giggled a bit and patted her back.

When I looked to the side and saw Mina and Sana, my eyes widened slightly.

When they're here, that means Momo is here as well.

Lord have mercy.

"You look hot". Jeongyeon said and Mina slapped her arm softly.

"Not as hot as you". She saved herself and pulled her in for a kiss.

"I heard that Tzuyu is looking for you". Jihyo whispered in my ear.

"Really?". I asked surprised.

"Yeah, some people say she has an eye on you". She wiggled her eyebrows.

"That's ridiculous". I said and poured myself a drink.

"Is it? Because I see her walking towards your direction". She said and I almost spilled my drink.

"Nayeon". I heard a seductive voice say and turned around.

"Oh, hey Tzuyu". I smiled slightly.

"I'm glad you decided to come. I think it's the first time I see you here". She said and took a sip of her drink, while her eyes shamelessly darted down my body.

"Yeah, party's usually aren't my thing". I said.

"What a shame". She breathed out and looked into my eyes. I gulped a little and took a nervous sip from my drink.

"Do you want to dance with me?". She asked and I looked towards the dance floor. When I saw Momo talking with Dahyun, I felt jealousy fill my body.

My grip tightened around my drink.

"Sure, I would love to". I said and placed down my drink, to take her hand in mine. When we reached the dance floor, I felt her arms slide around my waist.

"You look beautiful today". She breathed into my ear.

I smiled and placed my hands on hers. Her chin was placed on my shoulder and we were moving in sync to the music. When she turned me around, she wrapped my arms around her neck, which made me gasp slightly.

"You're so hot". She said and grabbed my hips with her hands. I felt eyes on my back and soon after Tzuyu was pushed away from me.

"Back off Chou". I heard an all to familiar voice hiss.

A voice I missed more than I would like to admit.

"Woah, Hirai chill. We were just dancing". Tzuyu said provocatively.

Momo was a person who easily felt provoked.

"Bullshit. Fuck off". She said and pushed Tzuyu's shoulders.

"Why should I? If I recall correctly, you two broke up". Tzuyu said and smirked.

"Momo don-". I was about to say when her fist collided with Tzuyu's jaw.

"Are you fucking serious?! I'm going to kill you". Tzuyu screamed at her and when her two best friends Chaeyoung and Dahyun came I got nervous.

"What's going on here?".

"This bitch fucking punched me". Tzuyu said and pointed at Momo.

"Yeah, because she was making a move on Nayeon".

"And?". Chaeyoung asked.

"What do you mean and?". Momo scoffed.

"You two broke up". Dahyun said and Momo glared at her.

"Fuck off Hirai". Tzuyu spat and walked away.

"Yeah, you better leave". Chaeyoung said and looked at Momo.

"Momo what happened?". Sana asked when she rushed towards her best friend. She grabbed her fist to see if she's hurt somewhere.

"Nothing". Momo hissed and pulled her hand out of Sana's grip. Sana looked at me, she was counting one and one together.

"Can you leave me alone with her?". I asked her.

"Yeah sure". Sana said and walked away.

Momo's back was facing me.

"Baby- I-I mean Momo". I said and my eyes widened. I grabbed her shoulder to turn her around.

She couldn't even look at me.

I grabbed her hand and walked with her into the kitchen to get some ice. I placed it down on her knuckles.

"Can you tell me why you did it?". I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?". She asked and rolled her eyes.

"Don't give me your attitude. Not right now Momo". I said and she quickly shut up.

"I'm sorry". She said and looked down to my hand. "I know you don't like it when I get violent".

"I hate when you get violent". I said.

"I couldn't help it. The way she was touching you. I wanted to murder her". I bit my lip to hide my grin.

"You never change, do you?". I asked.

"I know that I'm the problem". She said and looked at me for the first time that night.

My eyes got lost in her chocolate eyes.

"You had every right to break up with me because of my anger issues. I just can't stand it when people look at you and treat you like a walking porn magazine".

"Yeah that's true, but that doesn't give you the right to punch everyone Mo". I said and removed the ice from her knuckles.

"I miss you". She said and looked to the side.

"I miss you too". I breathed out.

"You do?". She asked surprised.

"Of course. I love you Momo. We were together for years. I can't unlove you in just 2 months". I said and folded my arms over my chest.

"I really like this dress". She said and slid her finger up my arm.

"Shut up". I laughed and pushed her shoulder slightly. She smiled at me and my heart started beating faster.

"Be honst, you wore it on purpose". She said and came closer.

"I didn't even know you would be here". I scoffed and she smirked.

"But you knew that when Jihyo and Jeongyeon are here, that Mina and Sana would also be here, which means I would be here as well". She said and caged my body against the table I was leaning against.

"Please don't flatter yourself". I said and her face was dangerously close by now. She pressed her forehead against mine, my breath slightly hitched.

"Only I get to touch you. No one else". She mumbled and pressed her crotch against mine.

"We aren't together anymore, remember?". I breathed out and when she slid her arms around my waist I gasped slightly.

"I really don't care right now". She breathed out and took my lips in hers. I sighed into the kiss and wrapped my arms around her neck.

God, I missed this.

I missed her.

When she pulled away, she grabbed my wrist to pull me up the stairs of the house.

"Where are we going?". I asked and when she opened a door where clearly 'Tzuyu' was written on I gasped.

"Momo, no". I quickly said and turned around.

"Momo, yes". She said and pulled me into the room, locking the door behind us.

"I will teach her a lesson for touching you like that earlier and I will show her, that I'm the only one who gets to fuck you". She husked out and I felt my pussy getting wet.

"Now let me take that fucking dress off". She said and pulled me closer, to quickly remove the tight dress from my body.

"Shit, I missed you so much". She kissed me again.

Her hands slid up my back to open my bra. I kicked my heels off, which left me only in my thong. My hands quickly pushed off her leather jacket, letting it fall to the ground.

"Get on the bed". She said and spanked my ass.

I sat down on the bed and watched her taking off her shoes, shirt and pants. Her boxers came next, leaving her completely naked.

My eyes shot down to her cock.

I felt my pussy clench and bit my lip.

"Did you miss it?". She asked and started pumping her cock up and down. I nodded my head, I could feel my heart hammering against my rib cage.

"Mhm, I bet you did". She said and let go of her cock.

"Take off your thong Baby". She said and I quickly pulled the thong down my legs. She kneeled down in front of me, grabbed my legs to put them on her shoulders.

"Mmm fuck". She hummed and parted my wet lips with her thumbs.

"I love how quick you get wet for me, I see that still hasn't changed". She smirked and leaned down to lick through my folds.

"O-Oh my fucking god". I gasped and let my back fall against the mattress, while my hands clenched into her hair.

"Mmm". She hummed against my clit, my mouth opened in a silent scream.

"Fuck, I love your tongue". I moaned and threw my head back when she flicked it against my clit. She kissed the inside of my thighs, while she rubbed my clit with her thumb.

When she bit into my skin I let out a moan.

"Fuck, I love when you do that". I panted out and felt her smirk against my skin.

"I know". She said and stood up.

"Hold your legs up Baby". She said and I did.

She slapped her cock against my pussy and slid her tip up and down my folds. She looked up at me and smirked.

"Fuck me already". I said impatiently.

"You're so impatient love". She said and slammed inside of me. My eyes rolled to the back of my head.

"Oh fuck yes". I breathed out and her hips moved in perfect sync.

"Just like that". I moaned and clenched my hands around my legs. Her hands pushed my hips down against the mattress.

"You always take me so good baby, such a good girl". She breathed out and I let out a whine. She removed my hands and pushed my legs down against the mattress.

"Mmm fuck yes". I cried out and clenched my hands in the sheets.

"Cum for me Baby". She said and slowed down the pace, but thrusted even harder inside of me.

This took me completely over the edge.

I didn't even had the chance to recover, when I felt my body getting flipped over. She pulled my hips up and spanked both of my cheeks at the same time.

"Ass up princess". She said and I felt my wetness dripping down my thighs.

"Do you want my cock baby?". She asked and spanked me again.

"Fuck, yes please". I moaned out and pushed my hips back. She pushed back inside of me with ease. Her nails scratched down my back and her hands slammed down on my ass again.

She instantly began pounding me, our skin was slapping together.

"Mmm, yeah". She moaned and spanked me again.

"Fuck Momo, I can't take anymore, please". I begged.

"A little bit longer Baby". She panted out and grabbed my hips to thrust even deeper.

"Mmm fuck, so tight". She groaned and started jackhammering my pussy.

"Yesyesyesyes don't stop, please don't stop". I cried out and clenched my hands in the sheets again.

"Cum". She said and after one more thrust I climaxed.

"Mmm, good girl". She mumbled.

"Get off the bed, hurry". She said and pulled out of me. I slid down the bed, because I couldn't even walk properly. She was jerking off quickly and then came onto the sheets, covering the bed with her cum.

"Mmm fuck". She moaned out when she slowed down jerking off.

I was watching in pure bliss.

"Come here". She said and pulled me up. Her body was pressed against mine, her hands grabbed my ass tightly.

"That was so hot". I breathed out and she smirked.

She slid her fingers in my pussy.

"F-Fuck, what are you doing". I stuttered out.

She pulled her fingers out, to push them into her mouth.

My mouth slightly opened.

"I love the way your cum tastes". She whispered in my ear.

"Fuck". I breathed out and bit my lip.

"Hurry up, let's get clean and dressed". She said and we quickly got ready.

"Let's get back to our place. I need to fuck you again". She whispered in my ear and grabbed my hand, to pull me downstairs.

When we rushed past our friends, I quickly waved at them, and the look on their faces were priceless. To say they looked flabbergasted was an understatement. She walked me to her motorcycle and put the helmet on for me.

"Take me home". I whispered in her ear and slid my hands down her thighs.

"I will". She said and I could tell she was smirking.

Then she started the engine and took off.

[oneshotnewbie]

Embrace my heart - Part II

Emily Prentiss x Reader

ᕚ---ᕘ

After a very quiet and nerve wrecking drive, you arrived near Arlington. In silence, you walked the last bit together into the big cemetery, where other FBI agents were already buried. Hotch, Rossi and Reid were already waiting for you, a sad smile changing their facial expressions as they saw your figure progressing from a distance.

You meandered together through the narrow paths between the graves until you arrived at the selected spot for her grave. Everything was prepared, Emily should be laid to rest right where you could always come and talk to her, ask her for advice when you needed her smart and genius mind on a new case. She would have loved the place between the almond trees that were in full bloom and you liked the idea that the trees would drop their bright pink blossoms annually for her, showing the vulnerability of life.

A hole about a square meter had been dug and a heavy old white chest was floating over it, around which you had all gathered in a small semi-circle in front of it. It was just a small community you invited to her funeral; only her team had lined up and a few colleagues with whom she maintained regular contact were there. Her closes friends and her family. You.  

There was an awkward silence for a long moment before you walked around her coffin, tears already streaming down your cheeks, ruining your specially applied make-up so that you would not let the sleepless nights show. "You all know I am never really comfortable speaking in front of people," you said hesitantly, a small smile breaking your lips. In the painful minute you could still get a little giggle from everyone out. "But today, I will make an exception."

Your friends smiled at you encouragingly and you continued, JJ holding your hand and squeezing it gently to continue to show you that she was with you.

"We are here today to pay our respect to our beloved friend, partner and soon to be wife: Emily Prentiss," only trembling did these words fall out of your mouth. Swallowing hard, you tried to pull yourself together, gently stroking your fingers over her face and smile, which which shone bright and broad on her lips through a large black and white photograph in a silver frame. "Even though her body is not actually here, there is no doubt she will ever come back. I have to.. we all have to accept that"

You looked up into the faces of the people closest to her. Rossi looked older than ever, saddened by the death of his working daughter. Derek had his arm around Penelopes waist, whose eyes glittered between the blue eyeshadow. Reid´s gaze was distant and you guessed that his thoughts were with another sorely missed person. Hotch gave you a sad yet encouraging look while JJ also had tears in his eyes and kept them from dropping. It broke the blonde´s heart to hear you talk about her best friend and your fiancee like that when she knew the whole truth about Emilys death.

It was freezing cold due to the strong wind. But the little group at the cementry did not mind. For a brief moment, you figured that the cold front was actually Emily coming to visit an cheer you up. "We can not really bury Emily, but we can give her something that will remind us of her," you met your friends deep and dull eyes once again before pulling something out of your pocket and pointing it in front of you. "And whenever we return to this place, we will know what we left behind"

Everyone present looked intently at the little bundle that you were holding in your hand and carefully unwrapping it from the cloth. It was a snow globe. "Em," you began in a low voice. "You gave me this snow globe on our first Christmas together. You saw my collection and had one specially made for me. I want you to keep this snow globe as a token of the everlasting bond and love between you and me"

You leaned towards the pit and carefully lay it in. You crouched down on the ground for a moment, staring into it, lost in thought. Then you got up and immediately fell into JJ´s arms, who hugged you tightly. Nobody moved for a moment, but then Penelope stepped forward. "I will keep going," she whispered and you could tell right away that your words had taken their toll on her. "I was thinking about what I could give you, Agent Badass"

Like you, she addressed her words to the surroundings as if her friend was standing right next to her. The computer specialist also pulled somthing out of her handbag and held it in front of her. Softly giggling, she started to tell the story to her object. "It should be something to remind you of me and I think this broken mug right here will do the trick. You know it is my favorite mug. Remember when you picked the pieces out of the trash and glued it back together for me as best as you could?"

One by one they all stepped forward and placed something on the white coffin that reminded them of their friendship with Emily. You were very grateful to them for being with you today; you knew how hard it was to lose people you loved. Especially when it made you lose a piece of yourself.

[lurkingshan]

Hi Shan!

I hope you're doing well and thank you for all your metas and recs. They are always such a great read!

I have realised that I am quite anxious about currently airing shows not sticking the landing (IFYLITA mostly, I only seem to care about this one recently). You may have previously written about it(?), but which dramas (BL or otherwise), do you think have the most satisfying endings?

Oh, and bonus question, do you have an ending that you approve of, was really good and all, but you would never ever rewatch it because of *too many feels*?

Hey Kat! Thanks for the ask. I totally get the fear of a bad ending, it has soured many a drama experience, and sometimes it really does take you off guard. I feel like when most dramas end I'm just happy if the ending doesn't retroactively ruin anything, let alone it actually being meaningfully good. I had to think about this for a minute, but I do think there are some dramas where the ending is so good it actually enhances the overall story and watch experience.

First, a few that I would classify as having really lovely happy endings that feel very well-earned after lots of pain and strife

My Lovely Sam Soon

This drama is a classic from 2005, and it caught me off guard with how invested I got. It's a pretty standard romcom about a quirky "fat" (*stares into the camera*) woman who gets hired by a chaebol restaurant owner. They start out adversarial before eventually falling in love, with the hero working through his surprising feelings for this woman who does not fit his image of his ideal partner and the heroine overcoming her own body image and self-esteem issues. Sounds basic, right? But something about it just works. At the end, the heroine sings a love song to her beau with her terrible singing voice while he looks on adoringly, and something about it was just so touching that I actually burst into tears.

My Mister

One of my favorite endings of any drama ever. Our heroine Ji An has been through it, and via a platonic relationship with her older boss, she gets the support she needs to turn her life around. I spent half of this drama white knuckling in fear that they would try to turn the relationship romantic, but they stayed true to the purpose of this narrative. Instead of a romance, we end with the two of them running into each other on the street after a time skip. They meet eyes, he sees that she is happy and well and they just smile gently at each other. Perfection.

The Untamed

Possibly a controversial pick, given that this is significantly altered from the novel, which has a much better resolution to the romance. But given the constraints this adaptation was under and the need to keep the relationship ambiguous for censorship reasons, I think this show did a remarkable job of getting the romance across. This ending where they meet again on a hillside, Lan Wangji calls his name, Wei Wuxian turns and we see a smile slowly light his face up is absolutely beautiful and a very romantic note to leave us on.

This second group of endings are more bittersweet resolutions, but ones I thought really added to the poignancy of the stories and made the relationships feel all the more epic

Bad Buddy

Something that always surprises me about the way people talk about BBS is they often seem to...forget that the ending is actually really fucking sad? I guess because the couple is together and still happy with each other, folks overlook the deep melancholy of the circumstances under which they are able to maintain their relationship. So let me remind you! Pat and Pran are in a long distance relationship, they are still not out to anyone but their closest friends, and they are forced to put on a charade in front of their families so everyone can carry on pretending. They are still hiding, their family relationships are irreparably altered, and we know it's a constant strain on them. It's a perfect bittersweet note to drive home the serious sacrifices they are making in the name of filial piety even as they refuse to give each other up.

Crash Landing on You

Switzerland, the true MVP of this story. Se Ri and Jung Hyeok do not have the option of simply choosing one of their home countries to live in together, and both have obligations they cannot abandon at home. And so in the end they settle for being mostly apart, taking time together in neutral territory as often as they can manage. Is it enough? No, but it's better than moving on from each other.

Goblin

This story is a tragedy and it stuck to its guns on that while also finding a way to give the characters (and the viewers) some kind of happiness to hang onto. Shin is doomed to live forever and watch Eun Tak die over and over again, but at least he also gets to meet and be with her before each death. Him meeting her again in her second life, with the looming knowledge that he will outlive her again and be left alone, is a perfect combination of joyful and mournful, very appropriate for this story.

I Promised You the Moon

One of my favorite romance endings ever, because it does what the genre rarely allows in acknowledging that the couple may not, in fact, stay together forever, and that's okay. Oh-Aew decides to take Teh back because he wants to be with him and he hopes they may be better equipped to deal with their issues in the future, not because he feels confident things will not go wrong again. In fact, he directly acknowledges that they probably will. It's a very mature resolution and a fitting end to a coming of age story.

Someday or One Day

This time travel story ends with the leads deciding to break the loop they have been living in, sacrificing their romantic relationship in the process. It's a brave and selfless choice made to protect others, and the narrative rewards them by giving them some hope of another path to each other in the future. We leave them meeting again at a different time with a significant age gap and no memory of each other, and a hope that they will find a way to each other in this new reality.

These next two kind of stand on their own as unique, as I have not seen other dramas that pull off what their endings do

The Glory

The best thing about this drama is that it's a revenge story where the revenge is fully carried out, no one is given unearned redemption, and every character gets exactly what they deserve. That probably shouldn't be revelatory, but in my experience, it is! Asian dramas love to hand out unearned redemption to villainous characters, but this drama was simply Not. Having. It. It was such a satisfying watch.

Utsukushii Kare

The ending of this one pulled off the neat trick of reframing everything that came before it, flipping the perspective so that nothing about previous events actually changed, but our understanding of what it all meant was turned on its head. This is a difficult writing trick that requires deep understanding of your characters' psychology and full command of every detail of your story, and it was incredibly impressive. It instantly turned it into one of my all-time favorites.

Bonus question: Dramas with endings that were fantastic, but that made me never want to watch again because of the feels

I had to think on this one a bit because I actually really enjoy getting into my feelings over dramas and regularly torture myself by rewatching sad shit. But I did come up with two dramas that I probably won't ever watch again for different reasons: The Red Sleeve and Secret Love Affair. With TRS, it's rooted in a specific kind of pain that I found quite brutal as a viewer: the total denial of any moment of happy catharsis, which was an intentional and appropriate choice to underline its message. This is a love story that the heroine did not want or choose, and so she never gives in and embraces it, and neither can we. The show refuses to romanticize the concubine life and I respect it, but boy was it hard to watch.

With SLA, it's more a matter of the anxiety it provokes. That drama was, hands down, the most stressful watch experience of my life, even more than thrillers that are intentionally trying to stress me out! The romance is actually super compelling but you can't relax for a moment because everything is on a knife's edge. And the ending was not at all happy, but somehow still managed to feel like a breath of fresh air for both the heroine and us, because we finally escaped that confining dynamic she was trapped in. A perfect ending to a brilliant drama and also a watch experience I am not looking to repeat.

[apprenticestanheight]

More - Adam Stanheight x gn! reader

Alllllllll right!! It is my birthday and that means that I am officially one year older yay!! I'm not really big on celebrating my own birthday and instead of doing some big like, event type thing I wanted to just write a couple thousand words a week or two in advance so that I didn't have to worry about editing on the day of, and that's what this is!

This is a college-adjacent AU (Adam is canonically a hs dropout but I've been thinking about maybe working my way to a creative writing PhD lately and projected so thats where the college part comes in) bc I headcanon that Adam grew his hair out in his early twenties and also: recovery era leigh whannell my dearly beloved.

Fic type- this is fluff that leads into smut!!

Warnings - this fic is meant for audiences of 18+. Minors, do not interact. Other than that, religion is referenced once (in the context of the reader saying adams name like it's a prayer lol), the word cunt is used a few times, and the reader is gn for all intents and purposes but I wrote the fic with AFAB anatomy in mind as that is the anatomy I know best. Petplay is also kind of present here (the puppy nickname has wormed its way into several of my fics bc I try thinking of gn petnames and my mind goes completely blank oops)

As it turned out, it was easier than one expected to get someone who wasn't an attendee into your college library. You'd snuck Adam into it without a care in the world, yearning for someone to lean against when you hit a breaking point in your studying while your closest friends were two-thirds of the way into breaking points of their own.

Adam was happy to leave the crappy apartment he lived in, though. He worked forty-hour weeks but his boss had mentioned that there was unclaimed PTO so Adam took the four days he was offered from the 186 days that had been accrued and relished in the fact that he was being paid not to work for approximately a day and a half before he yearned for fresh air.

When you'd asked him to come with you to finish up the last of the work you needed to do to finish up your thesis on your 22nd birthday, Adam had jumped at the opportunity and agreed to meet you near the charity shop that was a fifteen minute walk from his apartment and a fifteen minute drive out from your campus.

Of course, in his delight he'd ended up showing twenty minutes before the time you'd agreed, so he ducked into the aforementioned charity shop and looked around to occupy the time he had before you'd meet up with him.

He found a camera for fifteen bucks, three rolls of film and a camera bag included in that deal and couldn't resist. Scott gave him $200 a few times a month for printing up a hundred copies of his bands posters to hand out, and his paycheck had run in time for the rent and groceries to eat it completely, so the two hundred was something like lifesaver.

He'd gotten $400 that January because Scott and his band were doing a lot of gigs, which came as a bit of a surprise--Adam had heard Scotts band play before. Scott was lucky most people didn't pay much attention to bar music.

That $400 was originally going to take purpose at least partially as gas money because there were some distances that it just wasn't worth walking, maybe the purchase of a pack of cigarettes from the corner store that always had deals on them--$3 for two packs was the typical deal going on, and something Adam had used to his advantage more than once in the year since he'd become legally eligible to smoke and drink--and not much else, but the camera seemed like a decent enough purchase. If he got good enough, maybe he could display the photos he took somewhere or sell them as prints to make up for the money he lost to rent and a few groceries during his first paycheck of the month, keep him from going hungry until the second paycheck of the month came in.

He dips out of the charity shop and grins when he spots you, lets you drive him and steals the rest of your energy drink when you talk about the fact that you're not sure why you thought you'd like the peach flavor, and that gets you where you are--sitting in the darkest corner of your college library, face pressed against Adams shoulder as he laughs meekly.

"You can do this," he says. "You have another, what? Three pages left and then it's done. Then you can go back to whatever else your creative writing PhD entails and worry about your dissertation next year, yeah?"

"That doesn't work," advises a close friend of yours, Aurelie. She's been studying for a masters in biology and has known you since 1993, when you were both eighteen and freshly new to the college campus. "I've tried it numerous times, Stanheight, and it doesn't."

"I should've gotten my bachelors and masters before I jumped into this," you mutter, words muffled by the sleeve of Adams baggy black sweater. "But of course the only PhD option within two hours of work was an accelerated course. Ugh."

Adam laughs pitifully, pulls your face away from his shoulder to kiss your forehead before he gets up and you give him your card to get you, himself, Aurelie and her girlfriend Samantha a coffee.

When he returns, Samantha is pulling a strand of bright green hair behind her ear and watching you struggle, eyes narrowing at the book you're trying to focus on reading to get something you need for your thesis. Aurelie is offering you a bite of the sandwich she'd brought, telling you that a bag of chips also has the potential to be yours if you can get the last of your necessary research done in time to meet your February 18th deadline.

Adam presses a kiss to the top of your head as he maneuvers back into sitting down, gesturing at the coffees to tell Aurelie and Sam which ones are theirs and which ones are yours and Adams.

Adam wraps an arm around your shoulders as you thank him, taking a sip of your coffee, the order for which Adam had memorized at some point in the four years of your relationship to that point. He kisses your temple in response, grabbing his own coffee from the tray and checking the time.

It's not until six grueling hours, sunrise and four mental breakdowns have surpassed that you're officially done with your thesis. Adam asks if you want to spend the night at his place--you're not going into classes tomorrow if the way that you talked about sleeping in is of any indication--and Aurelie gives you a high five and mentions one of the bags of Doritos she'd brought along to munch on as she studied but hadn't ended up touching.

"You officially owe them a thousand kisses, you know," Aurelie says as you tuck your notebooks into the satchel you've been using since Adam had gifted it to you when you'd walked across the stage and graduated high school three and a half years prior. "You've gotta do it. It's what they deserve."

Adam laughs, blue-green eyes meeting Aurelies hazel brown ones. "I know," he says. "Though, to be fair, I don't think they really expected three pages to turn into fifteen more tacked on."

"They did not," you state affirmatively. "Professor Mason better fuckin' love me for it, though. I hadn't expected to meet his maximum page count and I managed to, just barely. Give me the chips."

Adam and Sam both laugh at the come-hither motion you make with your finger as Aurelie gets a bag of Doritos from her bag and tosses them at you, laughing a bit herself.

"Gremlin person," she says, shuddering a little for dramatic effect. "I surrender an offering to thee."

"The gremlin thanks you for it means the gremlin can put ordering dinner off for like, an hour and a half," you laugh a little, breaking open the bag of Doritos as Adam steals your two-litre water bottle from the table and takes a sip, leaving it open if you should decide to take a sip within the following thirty seconds.

You do, taking a break in your Dorito munching to take a sip of the water while Adam steals a chip from the bag and all of your preparations to leave are temporarily put on hold.

"I'm serious about the thousand kisses thing," Aurelie says. "Four breakdowns, fifteen pages and six different books in six hours. You have to do something to celebrate that."

Adam laughs, runs a hand through hair that he has yet to cut because he can't usually afford it and when he can, there are always better ways for money to be spent.

"I know you are," he says. "For the record, I am, too. I have a plethora of plans to make Y/Ns productivity feel worth it tonight, trust me."

"Gonna let me in on one of them?"

"I set aside $200 over my last few paychecks," Adam says. "Your birthday presents await, one of which is dinner."

"Two hundred from your paychecks--even multiple--means you have less grocery money, idiot," you scold lightly, glaring at him. Adam laughs, shakes his head, uses humor to fend off the anger issues that have a tendency to come up and bite him in the ass.

"Scott gave me $400 this month to print band posters," Adam says. "Also designed them, helped hand at least two and a half dozen out to people, but--you don't need to worry, okay? I have stuff covered and I had four hundred I could spend. I didn't spend it on groceries because I didn't need to, so it's okay."

Adam knows you only get defensive because of how his pay is and how his rent and groceries are in direct correlation. He works forty hours a week, brings in six hundred and fifty dollars every two. Rent eats four hundred during that first monthly paycheck and the other two hundred and fifty gets eaten by groceries.

The second pay period of that month is swallowed by other expenses. He sets aside gas money for the rarer times wherein he has to use his car, some money for cigarettes and other pop-up expenses as well as groceries for those two weeks.

His landlord had raised the rent in January of 1997, though. All he had left of his first monthly paycheck was a measly 100 dollars, which he couldn't buy very much with as it were. Scott had given him four hundred dollars for his efforts in graphic design and his access to a printer though, so he was cool as an ice cube in the few days before the second monthly paycheck he got was deposited into his bank account and he could afford to get a couple more things to last him through until next month.

"You promise it has no harm even though your landlord raised your rent to a stupid amount?"

"Rent being raised to a stupid amount means renovations," Adam throws you a cheeky smile. "The heater works, my showerhead isn't busted like it used to be, and the fridge, microwave and oven aren't running on fumes. It has it's perks."

"If I have to force you, you will be dragged by your gorgeous hair to the college apartments one of these days," you say. "They let non-attendees rent out the units year round for three hundred a month. You could actually afford to live if you went that route."

"You'd also be able to afford a haircut," Samantha chirps. You glare at her and Adam has to laugh, pressing his forehead against your shoulder and kissing it as he does.

You part ways thirty minutes later, waving goodbye to Sam and Aurelie as Adam asks who's place you want to go to.

You end up choosing to go to yours--you live in one of the apartment buildings owned and managed by your college. Its one of the many perks attached to the full ride scholarship you earned. It wasn't an easy feat, but you earned it from doing a collaborative photo and written essay that your english teacher called 'completely and totally heartwrenching' on the emotional support stray cats have proven to offer the homeless and those otherwise down on their luck.

Your apartment is nicer than Adams by half a mile, at least. Twelve hundred square feet, two bedrooms for the off chance someone has to move in. White walls, dark brown hardwood flooring, marble countertops in the bathrooms and kitchens, up-to-date appliances wherever such appliances are necessary. It's a good place, ten minutes out from your college campus by car, and you have every intent to keep living there and paying the rent attached once you're done with your PhD.

You and Adam debate dinner but decide to eat it later, go to your room while you talk idly. Adam tells you about his job, you tell him more about the professors who you like, and life carries on.

Adam relaxes in your room while you shower, happy to test the camera he'd bought in the charity shop by taking a photo of a polaroid you'd snapped the previous weekend. Adam has a love-hate relationship with the polaroid because of how goofy it is--it's a photo of him with two cigarettes in his mouth, one behind each of his ears, and one in his hand. They were horrendous cigarettes so the photo wasn't a waste, and he knew you loved it so he let it be.

You come out after fifteen minutes, hair damp as you wear one of Adams shirts and not much else. He grins as you settle into bed, head tilting at you before the question befalls his lips.

"How would you feel if I were to do what Aurelie practically demanded of me?" He asks, unawares as to whether or not you'd heard her remarks. "If I kissed you a thousand times?"

You ghost your teeth over your bottom lip, laughing softly. "You really think you'd be able to keep track?" Adams hand finds your thigh as he nods, palm running across it until he reaches your hip.

"I do," he says. "And besides--I think we kiss at least two hundred times when I wear the gray sweatpants in autumn anyway."

Your tongue juts out to wet your lip. "Okay," you say, realizing very quickly that 1000 kisses is basically the gateway to bliss. "I'm in."

"Really?" Adam asks, grinning like a fool. "Even if I take it slow and you start despising me for it?"

You nod, laughing a little as Adams lips find yours.

The first kiss is deep and intense, one of Adams hands on your hips as the other moves to up your face.

Adams tongue moves expertly around your mouth, thumb rubbing against the skin of your hip gently as he angles your head so that he can kiss you deeper. You moan into his mouth and he laughs a little, only pulling away when neither of you can breathe.

"999 to go," Adam whispers against your lips, smiling when the sound of your laughter meets his ears.

He kisses along your jawline.

998, 997, 996, 995

And then down your neck, tongue joining his lips as his hands move from your hips to your stomach, slowly and steadily inching up your chest.

You're happy to let Adam do as he pleases--it's a good enough gift for hitting twenty-two and because of studying and school getting in the way, you'd not really had much of an opportunity to give him anything significant for his 22nd birthday in the weeks before anyway.

One of your hands finds his hair as his lips remain focused on your neck and you undo the low ponytail he's got it in, moaning out his name as he keeps on going with his kisses.

994, 993, 992, 991, 990, 989, 988, 987

His hands keep their steady incline upwards, stopping to tease your nipples as he presses kiss after absolutely intoxicating kiss back up your neck and your jawline, grinning against your jawline when a soft moan falls from your lips and he tucks his knee between your thighs, pressing it against your core.

986, 985, 984, 983, 982, 981, 980

He captures your lips in his own, one hand moving up to cradle the back of your head and allow the kiss to deepen. The other one stays carefully focused on your nipple, and you laugh into his mouth as you realize he's fighting the urge to smile.

He pulls away to kiss down the other side of your neck and you manage to regain some of your breath thanks to your best efforts.

"Any regrets yet?"

"None at all," Adam laughs against your neck. "Oh, you're gonna be such a mess when I'm done with you. This is amazing."

979, 978, 976, 975, 974, 973, 972, 971, 970

You pull the shirt you'd stolen from Adam off your torso, fighting every single urge you have to grind against his leg as his kisses now start traversing down your chest.

He's the kind of person who commits to an action and it's a very good thing, ordinarily. He wants you to be so kissed up you forget your own name, only really remember his if you remember anyones name at all, and he's committed to that. His kisses will keep slow, his lips glorious and the pressure he puts onto your clit and aching core just enough to make you want to start grinding against him.

He kisses your breasts carefully, takes so much time with your nipples that you're almost completely sure there's a wet spot in his sweatpants from how wet the action has made you, laughs slightly when you moan loudly and become embarrassed.

969, 968, 967, 965, 964, 963, 962, 961, 959, 958, 957, 956, 954, 953, 952, 951, 950

"I love it when you get loud for me, baby," he whispers as he moves his lips down your chest and to your navel. You know he's going to take an absurd amount of time to kiss your hips, but you don't mind that.

You've always been particularly insecure about your hips and Adam has spent the majority of your relationship kissing them and holding them and telling you he loves them when your insecurity shines through. You hate your hips and you hate the hip dips you've been saddled with but Adam? You tell Adam he can't kiss your hips and he spends the next hour kissing you and telling you that you and your hips are fuckin' perfect.

He kisses down your navel and, of course, finds your hips. He glances at you for a second, waiting for your consent to kiss them because he knows it's an area of insecurity for you. When you nod, Adam can't fight his smile as he kisses across your stomach to your right hip, which he spends more time on than is probably worth.

He presses kiss after kiss there, probably leaving a hickey in the wake of his lips from his tongues involvement, murmurs an "I love you so much, baby," against your skin as he kisses across your stomach from your right hip to your left.

He takes his time with your left hip just as well, chuckles at the fact that you're so turned on that you've mindlessly let your moans go from quiet to average in terms of sound level because you've mostly stopped caring.

949, 948, 947, 946, 945, 944, 943, 942, 941, 940, 939, 938, 937, 936, 935, 934, 933, 932, 931, 930, 929, 928, 927, 926, 925, 924, 923, 921, 920

He kisses down to your dripping cunt, laughs when his lips press themselves against your clit because he knows just how wet he's managed to make you within maybe thirty minutes.

He moves his kisses from your wetness to your inner thighs, happy to kiss them for as long as he wants because he loves your thighs as much as he loves your hips--he loves them wholeheartedly, tells you as much as often as possible.

"Love your thighs, puppy," he whispers, breath ghosting against you in a way that makes you shiver. "You're so fucking perfect, yeah?"

You hum a response, unsure of how you're still even slightly coherent.

919, 918, 917, 916, 915, 914, 913, 912, 911, 910, 909, 908, 907, 906, 905, 904, 903, 902, 901, 900

He kisses from your right inner thigh to your left, once again taking his time because of how much he loves them. His hands slip under your thighs to find your hips, and you laugh a little, flustered because the fact of how much he loves your hips and hip dips when they're one of your biggest points of insecurity will never cease to turn you into a blushing idiot.

He laughs against your thigh, eyes keenly watching you. He's always been a bit voyeuristic so the fact that he's watching you is of little surprise, but you don't hate the way that he watches because he looks at you like you're the love of his life.

Granted, he always looks at you like that, but still. It's a nice emotion to register within the levelness of his gaze, the focus swimming in his blue-green eyes muddled by the love and adoration that rears itself upwards whenever he so much as glances in your direction.

899, 898, 897, 896, 895, 894, 893, 892, 891, 890, 889, 888, 887, 886, 885, 884, 883, 882, 881, 880

"So perfect," he whispers, kissing from your thigh back to the area just above your clit. He kisses from there back up your stomach, stopping once more to pay an absurd amount of attention to your hips and hip dips before he's kissing over your chest and you're another minute, maybe two, away from being so blissed out that you lose any and all senses of coherency onto which you've previously held.

"Adam," you whisper, saying his name like it's an unanswered prayer in an empty catholic church. "Adam, please."

His knee finds a spot between your legs again, and you moan as he presses it against your clit while his kisses move from your chest back to your neck.

879, 878, 877, 876, 875, 874, 873, 872, 871, 870, 869, 868, 867, 865, 864, 863, 862, 861, 860, 859, 858, 857, 856, 855, 854, 853, 852, 851, 850, 849, 848, 847, 846, 845, 843, 842, 841, 840

One of his hands finds your hip, the other one coming up to your lips. He presses his thumb against your bottom lip you take it into your mouth without a second thought, holding Adams gaze.

"Good puppy," he whispers, moaning lowly and pressing his forehead against the left side of your neck. "Oh, you're so good for me."

You moan, rutting your hips against his leg before you can stop yourself. The movement makes Adam grin, lift himself up so that he's staring down at you.

"You're desperate, aren't you?" He asks, a teasing grin on his face. "Keep doing that, mm? Grind against my leg, puppy. I know you want a release."

You moan, setting a pace with your hips as Adam slips his finger from your mouth and moves it to your chest, lips returning to your neck.

839, 383, 837, 836, 835, 834, 833 832, 831, 830, 829, 828, 287, 826, 825

Adams lips remain on your neck, occasionally drifting to your collarbone, upper chest and shoulders. He's relentless with his praise because he knows it's bound to make you melt, and make you melt it absolutely does.

"You're ethereal," he whispers, nipping gently at the skin of your collarbone. "I'm so proud of you, puppy. Workin' so hard to finish with your PhD program, you're fuckin' amazing."

You moan in response, needing more friction. Adam presses his knee against your clit further, adding just a bit more pressure--enough pressure to almost make you lose it.

You moan lewdly, hands slipping underneath his shirt to grip the skin of his back. The action makes Adam laugh, his kisses becoming more slow and deliberate as he starts kissing along your neck and eventually tilts your head up to reach the underside of your jaw.

"You're so perfect," he whispers.

824, 823, 822, 821, 819, 818, 817, 816, 815 814, 813, 812, 810

His kisses traverse back down your neck for what feels like the millionth time, and he kisses your shoulders and collarbone in a way that he knows makes you want him inside you more than will ever be reasonable.

When his kisses move down your chest and he adjusts so that he's not stuck in an uncomfortable position, you whimper at the loss of contact as his leg moves.

He's quick with it, though--one of his hands moves to your clit, rubbing slow circles as he tells you to grind against it in place of his knee.

809, 808, 807, 806, 805, 804, 803, 802, 801, 800

Before you can really register it, his lips are pressing kiss after senseless kiss against your inner thighs and you're moaning, begging words falling from your lips because all you want is to feel his tongue pressing flat against you while he slowly thrusts a finger into your folds.

He presses a few kisses against your clit, watching you through his eyelashes.

You look like a picture of bliss--one of your hands clutches the sheets, the other one has pulled itself through your hair so many times that a mess has been made of it, and you're biting your lower lip with anticipation.

His hands slide themselves under your thighs and over your hips, finding their favorite spot as his tongue presses flat against your clit. You press your head into the pillow it rests upon, moaning lewdly at the contact.

799, 798, 797, 796, 795, 794, 793, 792, 791, 790, 789, 788, 787, 786, 785, 784, 783, 782, 781, 780, 779, 778, 777, 776, 775, 774, 773, 772, 771, 770, 769, 768, 767, 765, 764, 763, 762, 761, 759, 758, 757, 756, 754, 753, 752, 751, 750

Adams tongue is skilled--eating you out is one of the things that gets you both off the quickest, and because of Aurelies words, you have zero doubt you're in for at least another few orgasms before Adam is done, but the way that his tongue feels against you is so good that you remain entirely unbothered by the idea, focusing on the way that his tongue feels when he presses it flat against your clit and the way that his hands feel as one locates your nipples and the other remains on your hip with the aim of keeping you steady.

When you start helplessly grinding against his face, Adam doesn't stop you. He moans, burying his face in your cunt and letting you ride his face paceless and senseless, clearly just wanting you to cum all over his nose, mouth, and chin.

When you come for the first time that night, you do so with a moan of Adams name before you release over his face. He keeps his tongue on your clit and works you through the aftershocks before he pulls away, lifting himself up to your level again and kissing you soft and slow, letting you taste yourself on his lips.

He cleans his face after your kiss, gets back into bed and presses kiss after kiss against your face, neck, and shoulders, delivering praise to you like it's nothing, and you can tell he means every word.

"You're amazing," he whispers. "You did so good for me, puppy."

Forty minutes of kisses go by, and you're happy to let Adam keep kissing you for the rest of time if he wants to.

749. 748, 747, 746, 745, 744, 743, 742, 741, 740, 739, 738, 737, 736, 735, 734, 732, 731, 730, 729, 728, 727, 726, 725, 724, 723, 722, 721, 720, 719, 718, 717, 716, 715, 714, 713, 712, 711, 710, 709, 708, 707, 706, 705, 704, 793, 792, 701, 700

"How many kisses down?" You ask, practically swimming in post-orgasm bliss.

"300," Adam grins cheekily at you. "It's been an hour and a half. That basically sets us up for another four hours."

"What time is it?" You ask. Adam checks the clock.

"About to be six thirty," he says. "We'll be done by around ten if you're still wanting me to actually kiss you a thousand times."

"Do you still want to?"

"I wouldn't tire of kissing you even if I gave it my all, so I'd like to, yeah."

You grin at him, nod. "Please kiss me again."

Adam does as you ask of him, smiling a little bit into the kiss as your hands slip underneath his shirt with the aim of eventually slipping the shirt over his head.

He pulls away to take his shirt and pants off, momentarily feeling guilt for being completely clothed while you were completely exposed.

The guilt fades when you're pulling him back into you by the neck and laughter bubbles up from his throat as he calls you a kiss fiend and moves to press kisses along your jawline.

You let him kiss you senseless, counting down the kisses while you have half the mind to do so, before he's taken you and turned you into a thoughtless, brainless version of yourself that's so clouded by bliss that any other emotion pushing past the weightlessness of how you'll feel is completely and totally inconceivable.

Adam has kissed you one hundred and fifty five more times across forty-five minutes by the time that you lose focus, as he's telling you to turn around so that he can kiss your back and you're doing as he asks because of how good the kisses feel and the fact that you never want them to stop.

He kisses along your shoulder blades, down the backs of your arms and the back of your neck, praising you and making sure you're not completely and totally blissed out by asking you to use your words and tell him how good it feels.

He kisses the backs of your hips, smiles against your skin and then turns you back around, kisses your lips sweetly as his hand trails down your chest, past your stomach, to your clit. He laughs, presses a kiss against your forehead when he presses his finger against your clit and you moan because it's throbbing and the touch feels amazing.

"Adam," you whisper. "Please."

Adam nods, rubs slow circles around your clit as his lips press themselves against your neck.

545, 544, 543, 542, 541, 540, 539, 538, 537, 3537, 535, 534, 533, 532, 531, 530, 529, 528, 527, 526, 525

The pace he sets with his finger is slow, his lips pressing kiss after kiss to your neck as you slip further and further into the bliss of it all. You're pretty much content to let Adam do whatever he wants to you at this point, all of the stress from completing your thesis and trying to figure out plans with Aurelie and Sam to celebrate your birthday melting away with every single one of Adams kisses and the pressure of his fingers.

524, 523, 522, 521, 520, 519, 518, 517, 516, 515, 514, 513, 512, 511, 510, 509, 508, 507, 506, 505, 504, 503, 502, 501, 500

Adam replaces his fingers with his thumb, pulls you into an open-mouthed kiss as he slowly thrusts his fingers into you.

You moan into his mouth, grinding against his fingers slowly.

"So good for me, puppy," Adam whispers against your lips. "God, you're so perfect."

You moan again in response, and Adams lips dip to your collarbone, paying attention to it like he hasn't since the kisses began. He fucks you with his fingers as his lips press kiss after fervent kiss against your shoulders, collarbone, and chest, dick throbbing because he hasn't let himself come yet.

When you're coming for the second time, Adam is kissing you and you're practically floating, willing to do any and everything he asks of you. His kisses are perfect and he knows how to make you teeter on the edge of release until he's ready to let you go, and he does such, kissing you senseless until he curls his fingers inside you with each of his thrusts and you're coming undone around his fingers within five minutes after those ministrations had begun.

You moan his name into his mouth, and he pulls away from the kiss as you clench around his fingers.

Clean up is simple enough--after he's kissed you through the aftershocks and pulled his fingers out of you, he simply licks his fingers clean while you watch him, dazed but mesmerized.

499, 498, 487, 496, 495, 494, 493, 492, 491, 490, 489, 488, 487, 486, 485, 484 483, 482, 481, 480, 479, 478, 476, 475 473, 472, 471, 470, 469, 468, 467, 466, 465, 464, 463, 462, 461, 460

"Adam," you whisper. "There are condoms in my nightstand. Need to feel more than your fingers."

"Y/N--" two times across three hours feels like a stretch, and he knows you have zero intention to go to class for the rest of the week because you've finished up with your thesis and thus, there's no point until you have to pass it in on it's due date, but still. Adam doesn't want to leave you so sore that you can't walk when you're a college student with more things to worry about than he.

"Please," you whisper. "I'll be fine, I promise. I had hoped the 1000 kisses thing would mean I got fucked senseless anyway. I already told my professors not to expect me for another week because of how much work I've done, and how badly I need a break. I need to feel you and you're throbbing because you've only fucked me with your tongue and your fingers, so it's a win-win situation."

Adam presses another two kisses to your forehead before he rolls over in the bed to grab a condom. He takes off his boxers as you tear the condom open, rolling it onto his length and relishing in the way that he moans at the contact of your hand with his cock.

"Fuck, Y/N," he moans quietly.

You let him position himself at your entrance, moan at every inch he pushes into you because of how good it feels. Adams cock is long and thick and nothing you'll ever get tired of.

Once his full length is inside you, he moans, pressing his forehead into the pillow to the right of your head as one of your hands finds his hair and the other rests on his neck. Your thighs move to wrap around his waist, and he kisses the side of your jawline as he waits for you to adjust.

459, 458, 457

When you give Adam the okay to start moving, he does so, his lips pressing kisses just about wherever they can reach.

It doesn't take Adam very long to make you see stars, the kisses that he delivers adding to the mindlessness of the way you feel. Every single minute that passes and you get closer and closer to forgetting what your own name is, Adams name the only clear thought that runs through your mind, repeating itself over and over like a mantra that only barely manages to keep you from floating away.

456, 455, 454, 453, 452, 451, 450, 449, 448, 447, 446, 445, 444, 443, 442, 441, 440, 439, 438, 437, 436, 435, 434, 432, 431, 430, 429, 428, 427, 426, 425, 424, 423, 421, 420, 419, 418, 417, 416, 415, 414, 413, 412, 411, 410, 409, 408, 407, 406, 405, 404, 403, 402, 401, 400

Adam keeps going after you've released and you're happy to let him, the feeling of him inside you too good to do anything but relish in. He moans your name in between his kisses, chasing the high of his own orgasm while also wanting to bring you to the edge of a fourth.

"Fuck," he moans. You're practically brainless beneath him, a cock-drunk mess of moans as your nails dig into his back and the hand that's kept a hold on his hair holding it so that it doesn't fall to the side because you'd taken the elastic out of it without thinking.

"Adam," you moan, his name the only coherent thought you have.

"You feel amazing," he responds, kissing your forehead. "Fuck, baby. You feel so good around me, mm?"

You moan in response and his kisses return to your neck, kissing along the underside of it and up to the underside of your jaw before his lips move back to your shoulders again.

399, 398, 397, 396, 395, 394, 393,392, 391, 390, 389, 388, 387, 386, 385, 384, 383, 382, 381, 380, 379, 378, 377, 376, 375, 374, 373, 372, 321, 370, 369, 368, 367, 366, 365, 364, 363, 362, 361, 360, 359, 358, 357, 356, 355, 354, 353, 352, 351, 350

He's apologizing lightly for a hickey that forms on your neck as he continues thrusting, and you're so blissed out from being fucked into the mattress that you tell yourself you'll give him a response later.

He slows the pace of his thrusts enough to drive you up the wall just a little, keeps that pace while he kisses you senseless for a long fifteen minutes before he kicks the pace back up again, dialing it from a six to an eleven within seconds.

349, 348, 347, 346, 345, 344, 342, 341, 340, 339, 338, 337, 336, 335, 334, 333, 332, 331, 330, 329, 328, 37, 326, 325, 324, 323, 322, 321, 320, 319, 318, 317, 316, 315, 314, 313, 312, 311, 310, 309, 308, 307, 306, 305, 304, 303, 302, 301, 300

Adams pace is quick, evenly timed, and perfect. You can hardly control how loud your moans start getting and Adam loves it, laughs when you press your forehead into the side of his neck in a break where he'd stopped kissing you because of your embarrassment.

"You're cute when you're embarrassed, puppy," he whispers, kissing your forehead. You hum your disagreement and he kisses you as deeply as either of you can manage, hand cradling your neck to allow the kiss to be so deep.

He pulls away and presses his lips across your chest again, keeping count where you've lost the ability to because of how fucked out you're starting to feel.

One hundred more kisses pass you by, and by that point Adams kicked the pace up just enough.

You come with a whisper of his name, saying it like it's the most meaningful word you'll ever speak. Adams teeth bite gently against your neck and he moans your name as your fourth release triggers his first, and he releases into the condom.

After thrusting into you through the post-orgasm aftershocks, Adam pulls out. He disposes of the condom while you go pee to avoid a UTI, and when you're back in bed, Adams lips are kissing you again and you're so blissed out that all you can do is stare at him lovingly.

The last two hundred kisses go by within fifteen minutes, Adams lips soft against your skin as he delivers whispered praise and sweet nothings in between each of the kisses he drops over your face, your arms, your hips, stomach, and thighs.

When he leaves, you're smiling like a buffoon and so happy your heart could melt with the joy you feel. He gets a bath going and then helps you to the bathroom, helps you into the bathtub while he reaffirms that he's proud of you for all the work you'd done with your thesis and acknowledges how hard it's been for you.

You let Adam wash your hair, exhausted and still not very coherent as he does so. It's very easy to melt into him and the way that his hands feel, and you let yourself do so without a second thought.

You agree to order pizza as a late-night dinner--it's nearly ten o'clock by the time you're both discussing it--and Adam helps you out of the bathtub, gets you to sit on the toilet while he blowdries your hair and leads you back to the bedroom.

He laughs when you point out the drawer of clothes you have that belong to him, kissing your forehead and making a remark about a pair of sweatpants he's not seen in close to two years. He gets dressed in the clothes from that drawer, helps you do the same because every single one of your limbs feels like Jell-o--completely and utterly unstable.

He grabs your phone from where you keep it, on the television stand in your living room, orders your birthday pizza while the two of you lay in your bed.

"Happy birthday," he says after the phone call is done and the pizza order is placed.

"Thank you," you hum, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. He grins a little, runs a hand through your hair and hums contentedly.

"I love you," he whispers after silence has settled.

"I love you more," you respond, half-asleep but so content your chest aches with it.

Adam presses a kiss to your forehead, holds you close and for a minute, feels as though letting you go is an impossible feat, hopes that nothing ever comes around to separate the two of you from one another.

His gaze shifts from you to the window, hand running through your hair as he watches the sky and listens to the sounds of the outdoors at two hours before midnight.

He's so content it makes him ache, and he knows you feel the same.

All in all, you have to think, as you drift off, that it's your best birthday yet.

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

Submitted:

Camilla Long in today’s Times, “The biggest threat to Harry and Meghan isn’t paparazzi on bicycles. It’s their own paranoia”

https://archive.is/N1OMS

Awhile from now, when it is all over, I think we may view the Royal Car Chase not as a silly bit of tabloid fluffery but as a turning point. You may feel differently; you may think there were other, bigger moments when you knew it had gone terribly wrong for Harry and Meghan. Oprah, or “recollections may vary”, or Netflix, or the tights catfight. The Fijian market freakout, the MBS diamond earrings, the suicidal thoughts at Cirque du Soleil, or the penis-heavy contents of Spare.

But never before have I actually thought: well, that’s it — it’s over; they’ve gone the full Imelda Marcos now. They’re literally crazed, on a one-way flight out of God knows where, stuffing diamonds into nappies as they flee the presidential palace, children howling, soldiers falling off collapsing walls, choppers, gunfire, pearls scattering, everyone watching agog as these glittering creatures, once on top of the world, now look washed up and hopeless, like bedraggled fallen despots.

also

the couple hysterically used three separate cars. They left the ceremony in a 4x4 with a police escort, circling for 75 minutes to give the paps the slip, before fleeing to a nearby police station when they didn’t. At the station they hid for 15 minutes in a garage until someone called a taxi. When the taxi got stuck behind a rubbish lorry, they went back to the same police station, where they got into a final vehicle, which took them on to where they were staying … just two blocks away.

As I said: mad.

All these places were within walking distance; nothing could have been easier. But still, we’re meant to believe it’s the paps who were behaving like demented animals, driving on pavements, endangering pedestrians, causing “multiple near collisions” as they pursued them with “cars, scooters and bicycles”, bringing the duke “the closest I have ever felt” to understanding how his mother died.

and

The truth is, that taxi chase is Harry and Meghan. It is their mindset, their paranoia, their chaos, their attempt to label themselves as victims again. If you watch their Netflix series you can see how they egg each other on to the point they forget how to behave normally. During one short car journey Meghan tells Harry where each paparazzo is, effectively notifying him when to be scared, while he nervously whispers, “We’ll be with friends in less than ten minutes.” I blame him as much as her.

They’re now in a lunatic downward spiral of fiction and fantasy. Ironically, you just think: “Are you OK?” Why, for example, did they feel threatened when they had a police escort the entire time? Should Harry’s obsession with photographers be the police’s problem? If Meghan is truly a “woman of vision”, why couldn’t she envision a simple, problem-free trip to the Upper East Side, where they were staying with a secret “friend”?

Finally,

When Meghan arrived on the scene, we all thought the same thing. Finally, an intelligent, worldly, sophisticated woman who was in love with Harry. And if she was the activist she said she was, so much the better. She could quietly show up the royal family for what it was: snobby, backwards, uncool, mediocre, unfair. And then, who knows what? She could have been a truly subversive figure and cratered it from the inside (my dream). But none of that has happened.

What’s happened is the royal family has, conversely, shown Meghan and Harry up for what they are: a pair of wayward hangers-on with unhealthy egos. The more the family trundles on, the more enraged the couple seem. For three weeks we had been waiting: how would Meghan punish Charles for daring to have the coronation? And here’s the answer. What must the royals think when they see the grotty pictures of the Sussexes in a grim taxi on their mercy flight out of Manila — sorry, midtown?

[atorchzagreusandtris]

I may or may not have made an entire AU surrounding Morro and a resurrection/redemption arc because let's be real Ninjago fans, Morro deserves it. The writers did him so fucking dirty.

I will eventually maybe be writing a fanfiction about this, but if anyone wants the rundown of my AU - most of the events pre-season 5 don't change, just get strung together a little better to make the plot flow more coherently. (Ie, the Ninja feeling creeped out in the Caves of Despair - the place where Morro died initially.)

Resurrection: It is around Day of the Departed when he is resurrected, though the Ninja don't find out he's alive until I want to say season 7. The Ninja think they see him in the distance but brush it off. There's no way, pfft, Morro is dead. The Cursed Realm is gone. Right? WRONG.

Redemption: While trying to figure out stuff about Krux and Acronix, not only do the Ninja find out that Morro has been alive, but that Morro has spent his new life living it the way he would have if Wu had never found him. He has a job and an apartment, he doesn't want to be a ninja. After everything Wu put him through... he just wants to be happy. He wants to live the life he never got to live. He doesn't care about being the Green Ninja anymore.

UNFORTUNATELY, the Ninja need as much help as they can to take down Krux and Acronix and are forced to try and get Morro's help. While there is a very VERY rocky start between the Ninja and Morro, they will eventually grow to trust them (Cole takes the longest surprisingly. It isn't until season 8/9 that he BEGINS to trust Morro)

Bass?: "But Tri where does this bass thing come from?"

Oh yeah either in Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu or VERY early Prime Empire - Jay and Cole accidentally introduce Morro to music and musical instruments. Morro falls in love with playing the bass and by the time of mid-Prime Empire, he's damn well near a pro at it to the point I already have a minigame planned for Morro to show off his skills with.

Souta?: It means "Sudden, sound of the wind" and "thick, big, great". It's a Japanese surname. Morro gave it to himself because he felt weird about the fact that everyone had surnames but himself. (And also he probably needed one for his job.)

Ghost Blade?: He may not be dead anymore, but because he WAS dead for so long, a lot of his energy is still connected to being dead, so bam. He can manifest a PHYSICAL ghost weapon. Might be a little OP, I don't care.

Also explains his gi, there are some changes to it BUT he remains very attached to his dead gi design + all gi designs I come up with for the different seasons will be based on his Possession gi. (the ninjargon letter M where his weird animal brooch used to be (which he wears on his shawl instead) pants/sleeves cutting off halfway down his calves/arms!)

Lloyd: Morro and Lloyd grow to see each other as brothers. Morro, having been in Lloyd's body and mind has a deeper understanding of him than anyone else could. Morro becomes VERY protective over Lloyd and due to this his relationship with Kai is one of the first ones he forms. Morro hates Wu and Misako (and S8+ Garmadon) for the way they've treated this boy. Morro isn't afraid to argue with Wu on certain things regarding Lloyd. Morro becomes the big brother to Lloyd whom he always wanted in his own life.

Islands, Seabound, and Crystallized: Oh boy, this will be fun because technically all three of these COULD have been connected to Morro (Islands and Seabound DEF were and Crystallized SHOULD HAVE BEEN). Anyways, I kill off Morro at some point in either Master of the Mountain (which I would LOVE to do the most because Cole at this point is one of the closest Ninja to Morro and it would HURT HIM SO FUCKING BAD, and be more of a driving force for his character arc), Islands, or Seabound to make it easy on myself plot-wise BUT he gets resurrected by Harumi in Crystallized because this dumb bitch thinks that just because he used to be a villain means she can convince him to become a villain again. Morro becomes a double spy.

Euphrasia?: Her element in the show is white. Morro's is green. She's not the new Elemental Master of Wind, she's the fucking Elemental Master of AIR and I will stick by that. Even canonically, I refuse to acknowledge it. If I get far enough as writing for Dragons Rising, I will definitely give Euphrasia and Morro a sibling dynamic.

Anyways! Yeah! This is but a preview of what my Resdemption-AU has to offer. If anyone wants to hear more about it, I could talk about it for FUCKING hours.

Oh!!! And I want to give credit to @sunfloraas because I took A LOT of inspiration from her Morro design because it's that good!!!

[kjmcotton]

Have a soft spot for me | Osh

Oh Sehun x fem!reader

Plot:from your attitude no one would tell that you love Sehun,but things are meant to change soon

Warnings:none

This story is a request

Masterlist

Author’s notes:here’s a new request! I tried my best so I really hope everyone will like it and that the anon who asked for this story will enjoy their reading! Have a good day/night!♡

Tumblr works with reposts:if you enjoyed my story please repost and leave a feedback! Help me growing!♡

“Because you’re different to me,but in a good way”

With your check-out done you could finally take a breath of relief as you were back in Seoul.

Six beautiful weeks of studying abroad,in Sweden,had finally come to an end and you couldn’t wait to meet your friends.

You crossed the hallway of the airport,reaching the entrance,where Junmyeon was waiting to pick you up and drive you to the welcome party.

As soon as you saw him a jolt of happiness shook your whole body

“Junmyeon!!” you exclaimed out loud,running towards your friend to hug him. Your luggage fell on the ground as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and your legs around his waist.

Your friend,who was taken by surprised,held you by luck

“You want the both of us to fall” he giggled

“I missed you so much” you showered his face with kisses;he then put you down. Everyone’s eyes were on you two:probably people were thinking he was your boyfriend,but the truth was that you simply used to be warm with your closest friends

“So you are my taxi for today” you teased him,looking as he collected your luggage

“For today? Six weeks were enough to make you forget who used to drive you around Seoul,I see”

“Of course not…I could never forget Irene”

Junmyeon turned around and glared at you:his eyes became two thin lines in the disappointed face he was showing you. You laughed and hit his shoulder with a friendly fist

“Calm down I’m joking,no need to think about leaving me here the whole night”

“I hope so” he replied,sliding your luggage in the trunk of his black car

“So…where’s the welcome party?”

“It’s a surprise” he said,and with that he spent the drive avoiding any kind of question.

It took you around an hour to get to the party. Your friends held it in your favourite karaoke bar in Hongdae. Everyone was there:all your boy friends and girl friends.

“Joy! Yeri! My girls!” with a happy smile you ran toward your friends,hugging them and placing a kiss on their cheeks

“Seulgi and Irene couldn’t come tonight,but the present is from them as well” the younger brunette said,giving you a giant bouquet of flowers

“Thank you all so much,I’ll call them later. You’re amazing” you smiled,putting the flowers next to a bunch of other presents before greeting the friends who had come

“Baekhyunee! My favourite trouble maker” you squished him in your arms

“Jongin,my bear! Magic handshake?” with a laugh the boy stretched his arm out,doing the well know greeting you two had invented;then you hugged him just like you did with Junmyeon earlier

“Minseok! Jongdae!” you locked them in a double hug as they both ruffled your hair

“We thought you would’ve moved to Sweden after spending six weeks of telling us how amazing that country is” the older looked at you with sweet eyes

“I could never live there without you all” you smiled,moving to greet Chanyeol

“Hello giant” you pouted as he playfully lifted you up to greet you

“I’m not a giant,you’re just too short for me” he teased you. You jokingly hit his leg with a kick

“I was trying to be sweet!”

“Try again” he winked as he watched you walking to Yixing and Kyungsoo. You hugged and kissed them as well.

There was one last person you had to greet but as soon as you saw him you froze. Oh Sehun:the prettiest man alive,but also then one who made you the most nervous…it didn’t matter if you had been knowing him for years.

“Hi” you said unintentionally cold,greeting him by a safe distance. There was only one word to describe the scene:embarrassing. Everyone was silent,staring at the two of you or exchanging a few “I wish I were somewhere else” glances;only Baekhyun faked a cough and pushed you towards the tall guy

“Hi” Sehun replied,his voice was flat,uninterested…but what could you expect from him if you had always been so shy when he was around that all you could do was avoiding any kind of friendly interaction? Hate,that was the answer.

You gave him a fast hug and stepped back,grabbing the bag full of gifts from Sweden

“As you know,while studying abroad I’ve joined a pottery club. Now guess what’s in there”

“Biscuits” Baekhyun giggled

“Candies” Jongi talked,randomly rising his hand

“Alcohol” Chanyeol crossed his arms with a satisfied face,probably he was thinking he had just made the joke of the year

“What a perceptive trio,especially Chanyeol. In fact I’ve made personalised mugs for everyone!” your voice was excited

“Gotta expect a bunny on mine I guess” Junmyeon rested his shoulder against the wall

“Not a simple bunny…-you picked up his mug-a bunny swimming in a sea of carrots” you handed him the gift. The boy looked at the object and burst into a laughter

“This looks like a dog swimming in a sea of golden fishes with green tails,but I’ll appreciate the effort” he joked

“Fuck off Kim” you rolled your eyes as you started handing out mugs to everyone

“Is this an astronaut cat or…” Kyungsoo was confused

“Bingo! You see,my drawing skills ain’t that bad”

“They’re not bad,they’re awful” Joy teased you,exchanging a fist with Junmyeon

“Go make Junmyeon your new best friend then,he’s good at lingerie shopping on Saturday”

“What?” Junmyeon’s cheeks became as red as apples

“Nothing!” Joy yelled

“Do you have a specific day to do that?” Minseok asked amused

“She’s talking nonsense” Joy mumbled nervously shaking her hands in the air

You laughed,grabbing the last mug in your bag:it was Sehun’s. You froze again,looking at the present. It was pretty but extremely plain compared to the others:you knew you weren’t actually good at painting,that was why you had planned a different personalisation for his mug. You were too scared he wouldn’t have liked any of your dumb drawings,so you went for a simple pattern;however,just like your behaviour towards him,the energy of that present was pretty cold.

Sehun looked at the object and mumbled a fast “thanks” before abandoning it on a nearby table:it hurt you. Why weren’t you able to give the best of you when it came to that guy? Why you liked him so much that all you could do was ruining every chance to get closer to him?

You smiled,hiding the pain rising from your heart,and then suggested to officially start the night.

You ordered a few drinks and chose the songs to perform at karaoke.

The first one singing was Baekhyun,with his beautiful angel voice,who chose a Michael Jackson song, adding even a few nailed dance moves.

Everyone clapped and laughed,cheering the next in line:Jongdae. He was a classic guy,so he went for a more emotional performance with Hello by Adele. Joy randomly burst into tears during the chorus,but probably it was because of the alcohol which had begun to hit.

You clapped at Jongdae,ordered a bunch of Soju shots and went on with the night.

Around midnight,besides the few friends who had to drive,everyone was drunk.

“It’s too hot,I need some fresh air. I’ll be back” you said,leaving your drink on the table

“Shall I come with you?” Minseok asked,but you shook your head

“I’m fine don’t worry” you smiled,and walked outside.

As soon as you closed the entrance door of the karaoke bar you noticed Sehun standing a few steps away from you. He was resting against the wall while scrolling through his phone.

You gave him a glance,shivers crossing your spine,but even tho you wanted it you had no chance to leave as he saw you

“I didn’t notice you’ve left the party” you murmured,trying to broke the tension,but you made it worse

“I’m not surprised” Sehun shrugged his shoulders.

You didn’t know what to say:you felt sorry for him,you had never meant to be perceived as the petty bitch,but any time you tried to change things you only made it worse by accident. It had been like that since day one and you had lost hope by then.

You sighed and scratched the back of your neck

“I didn’t mean it in that way” you murmured,looking at him

“Okay” he replied,shifting his attention on the phone again.

The silence fell,only the sweet sound of the night breeze could be heard. You knew it was the right moment to talk to him,tell him that,at least,you didn’t hate him like he thought

“Sehun-“ you called him

“Mh?” he murmured,eyes still stuck on the phone

“I-you were about to speak when you felt a retch coming up from your stomach-I need the bathroom” you spat out and ran away.

Sehun looked at you confused for a second,but as soon as he understood you were sick he followed you.

You held onto the sink of the bathroom and threw up. You weren’t feeling dizzy,but probably your stomach wasn’t used anymore to the amount of Soju you had drank that night. After all,you had spent six weeks in a place in which no one knew what Soju was,you should’ve predicted it.

“Are you okay?” Sehun pushed your hair back while massaging your back,you couldn’t see his eyes but a ring of concern had replaced the usual shine of his pupils.

Once you felt a little better you washed your face and sat,resting your back against the sink.

Sehun sat next you,waiting for you to feel better. Once again the embarrassing silence fell,and you hated yourself.

“Shall I call someone else? Maybe Junmyeon or Jongdae?”

“No I’m fine” you shook your head

“Thank you” you said in hope to make it less uncomfortable

“Nevermind” he replied.

Again,silence.

You sighed,sure it was time to talk

“I don’t hate you,you know?” you said,rising your head to look into Sehun’s eyes. The boy furrowed his eyebrows,then he shifted his eyes away without saying anything

“I’m being honest” you kept on talking,scanning the boy’s features. By the small changes his expression went through, you knew he was feeling so many emotions all at once.

“I don’t care if you hate me or not. I never asked you anyway” he spat out,coldly. At those words your heart shattered into a million pieces. So that was it:he didn’t care about you while you were so worried of hurting him;or…was he saying that just because he was already hurt? Maybe even more than what you expected. You felt so confused.

“You may not care,but I do”

“You should’ve showed it earlier” he scoffed

“I’m not good at it” you sighed

“Not good?-Sehun rose his voice-am I blind to you? So you think I don’t see how you treat other people? I wasn’t there but I am sure you hugged and kissed Junmyeon as soon as you saw him at the airport,you always do it with everyone…or,at least,everyone but me. However,I don’t care. I don’t need your approval to live happily” he was about to get up and leave,but you grabbed his wrist and dragged him back on the floor.

“You matter to me!” you exclaimed

A “tsk” escaped Sehun’s lips,followed by a sour laughter

“Stop fooling me” he shrugged your hand off and tried to leave again,but you didn’t give up.

You jumped on your feet and pushed the brunette against the sink;one of his hands held your arm while the other the sink itself. Your eyes chained together while your faces were a few inches away.

“I would never fool you Sehun. You can tell me you don’t care,but I know that’s not true,you always care about everything and everyone. That’s the thing I like the most about you because,as I said earlier,I do like you”

“Then why you barely talk to me? Why your behaviour is always ice cold?”

“Because…-you paused-because you’re different to me,but in a good way”

“You’re talking nonsense”

“I’m not! It’s so hard,there’s so much to say”

“Then say it”

“I can’t Sehun”

The boy rolled his eyes: “Why?”

“Because…” you stayed silent,words didn’t come out

“Because what Y/n? Can you be clear for once? I’m tired of always trying to understand what’s going on your mind. It makes me mad…as mad as seeing you being sweet with everyone but me!”

The last phrase unintentionally escaped Sehun’s lips,you could tell by his expression:he had been trying to not show how much jealous and hurt he was,but he wasn’t good at lying.

You looked at him for a second,then you finally opened up:

“Because I think I’m in love with you!” you spat out,regretting it as soon as you realised what you had just said.

Sehun blinked confused while his grip tightened around your arm. You couldn’t stop looking at him,you were waiting for a reaction,but,at the same time,you wanted to disappear.

“Forget about it! My mistake!” you exclaimed,trying to run away,but this time it was the brunette who held you back:it didn’t matter how much you tried to free yourself from his grip,his fingers wouldn’t let go.

“Y/n!” he called you,you turned around.

You thought you had officially lost any chance to build an actual friendship with him when,suddenly,he brought you closer and kissed you. Your heart skipped a beat and your body was suddenly crossed by shivers:what was happening? You didn’t realise it immediately,it took you a while to process.

“If you were in love with me why you avoided me that much?” Sehun spoke in a warm,gentle whisper. His face was no more contracted in a disappointed expression,otherwise he was now relieved.

“Having you around made my nervous,and I’m not good at handling emotions” you mumbled,as red as a strawberry. Sehun smiled and ruffled your hair:

“You don’t need to worry about it anymore”

And with that,things changed faster than what you expected:the boy’s presence started to feel like home while his hoodies became your new favourite thing,that thing you couldn’t get tired of. His smile became your ray of sun and his hugs your most effective medicine. Sehun was constantly by your side,both in the good and the bad,while you were there for him anytime he needed.

To summon everything up:you were finally happy,so happy that,soon,none of you tried to hide your relationship,nor to explain it;so,at a certain point,all your friends noticed but never said anything. They would simply cheer for you in silence,watching you two holding hands in front of them,exchanging kisses;they would watch how you two sat together,linking arms,or how Sehun paid for your drinks and carried your bags…and they would be grateful for that because,finally,there was no more heavy silence,just lots of love and affection.

[quicktimeeventfull]

hello my beloved mutual. i saw u tag matsuda & soichiro in a recent Post about Unhinged Dynamics and i would LOVE for you to say more about them if you have thoughts. because now that im thinking about them it is driving me a little insane. like how matsuda was the closest with soichiro and yet was willing to kill for his sake, totally diverging from soichiros ideals...

hello my beloved mutual! sorry this took so long -- this dynamic is so important to me i wanted to spend actual time on it. (also i would love to hear your thoughts on any and all of this because you are the #1 matsuda expert.) SO i think soichrio has something of a paternal relationship with the whole task force, but this is especially true with matsuda. (i am using paternal very lightly, as i don't think their dynamic is particularly unusual even in professional settings, but it's definitely not universal.) even prior to the major events of the kira investigation, matsuda looks to soichiro for guidance and reassurance, and soichiro seems quite happy to provide it.

also, from the same scene, you can see him quite literally running after soichiro to get his advice. soichiro had enough time to walk leisurely out of the office and stretch before this, so it looks like matsuda saw him departing from a distance then went jogging after

so soichiro is someone he feels close to, and in some ways dependent on. he would prefer not to trust his own judgement without soichiro's backing, and he can't wait until the next morning to get it. imo this is still within the bounds of a professional relationship, particularly one between employees of such varying ages, but it's on the very outer bounds of what's normal. also, as time goes on, the task force as a whole becomes much more isolated and dependent on one another. they basically can't see anyone outside of their circle, and soichiro is doing his best to protect them from death. then of course in the end it's soichiro that matsuda cares about the most, not the hundreds or thousands of people that light killed, or even the fact that light had just tried to kill HIM.

(as a sidenote i don't think light is nearly as callous as he seems -- you can see even a panel later he starts calling soichiro by familial terms again, and he uses a less formal word rather than just parroting what matsuda had said. so he still thinks of soichiro as 'dad.') also: although matsuda is clearly deeply affected by this, he doesn't start shooting light because he killed his father. he starts shooting him because light has begun to write near's name. what he actually does after this whole speech is hesitate.

so did this speech convince him? maybe! it's possible that he actually would have shot the entire task force so soichiro's death didn't go to waste. he sure seems ambivalent about the whole situation in the final chapter. at minimum he was willing to consider what light had said. it's even possible that he saw light writing near's name and chose not to interfere, since he doesn't start shooting until aizawa and ide start shouting and jolt him out of his reverie. the manga puts the paper and light's hand dripping blood right around matsuda's eyes, but doesn't zoom back to show is where he's actually looking, so it's all left to interpretation. anyway!! i think this is such a fascinating and extremely intense relationship. imo it's interesting on its own, but there's also loads of potential to exploit in transformative works.

[trashbag-baby666]

Lore drop for my favorite twink <3 i love you sm Ken 💕💕 brought to you by me and @mangokittokatsu

MOTA Masterlist!

•Kenny was born to two philanthropist, entitled, classy, rich people. But he was an accident that neither of them wanted to take care of really. They hired a nanny and she quite literally raised Ken until he was 12. That’s when his parents decided that he was old enough and fired her. This is what really starts out the, “here’s your monthly $10,000, go to school we’re going on our second cruise this year.”

•His grandma tries her best to take care of him from a distance since she lives in DC. She does call him nearly daily and they’re pretty close.

•Although, Ken’s a year younger than the others he joins a theater company when he’s 11 and meets Rosie. The Rosenthals quickly take pity in Ken and they give him rides to and from theater, let him come over and stay with them, feed him dinner. You know, actually loving this child.

•Ken and Rosie are bestie westies they would spend a lot of nights sitting in silence or talking about the boys Ken liked. Or they would make up their own theater performances and play dress up.

•The Rosenthals invite Ken to their family Hanukkah celebration. During Christmas they let him come over and Mrs. Rosenthal made Ken’s favorites and even got him a few presents. They’re really the closest thing Ken has to a family.

•So, when Ken gets his drivers license he’s left with his dad’s garage full of luxury cars. But his motorcycle is what really and always had caught his eye.

•His father tries to use this as an opportunity to love his son. Or you know, using expensive gifts to show their love. His dad teaches him how to drive it but it was really just Ken figuring it out by himself while his dad took business call after call.

•This is shortly before Curt started eye fucking Ken in gym class till he came over and talked to him. They were so down bad for each other, Curt giggled like a fucking school girl the first few times Ken took him for rides on his bike.

“Curt texted me last night telling me that Ken took him on his motorcycle!” John blabbed across the lunch table making a kissy face and sound at Curt.

Curt literally just reaches across the table and smacks him with a sandwich.

•Ken’s super super interested in engineering he picks up occasional shifts at the same garage Curt’s mom works at. Ken really knows his way around a car, he was super into them when he was younger. He’s just the kinda twink who can pop your hood and fix your problem for you.

•Ken tries out for the football just so he can spend more time with Curt. Think Kurt Hummel auditions for the role of kicker. Just look at this post lmao.

•Him and Curt listen to music together on the bus to and from football games. Corded headphones and each has one, they have a collaborative playlist together. Some of their favorites are Deftones, Mac Miller, Childish Gambino, Arctic Monkeys, etc. check out this playlist for more :3!

•Their ideal date night though is a hand selected bottle of wine from Angela Lemmons wine cellar, a cheesy movie or Marvels movie(they’re watching them in order), and a puzzle or a Lego set, sometimes they paint together.

•Usually, they finish the puzzle or lego set but sometimes they’re too wine drunk to finish or Curt’s carrying Ken up to his bedroom ;).

•If it wasn’t obvious yet, Ken is a wine connoisseur. He really likes white wines and anything a little fruity.

•Brady wants to learn his ways.

•Ken is an avid painter as well!! He liked doing it in art class and brought the interest home with him. So of course, his parents bought him the most expensive paints and brushes and canvas’s. Because that’s how they always were. He’s pretty much self taught aside from art classes. He paints this in high school and it now hangs in their house 15 years later.

•The only time Curt and Ken ever really fight it’s about money. Ken has more than plenty and Curt’s literally working every single day and pulls open to closes every weekend. Curt had been running on nearly no rest and three Red Bulls a day. He couldn’t afford to not work. over the course of five months, He watched Curt’s health decline and he was losing weight like crazy. He’d come home from work at 11 and pass out in Ken’s bed after stumbling out of his work clothes. That or he would sleep on the couch at his apartment. His back was hurting and he was so tired and nauseated.

•Flash forward it’s been too many months of this. Curt had called Ken around 8:30 asking him if he could come pick him up. He had kinda given into his body and left Ham and Dickie to man the Taco Bell without him. However, Ken was relieved that Curt maybe was coming to his senses.

•Curt literally stumbled out the door and regained his balance a little bit before getting into his car. Curt opened the passenger door and threw himself in and just said.

“Take me to the er.”

•This is when it really started, Ken had kept offering Curt money. But Curt will not take handouts or money from anyone. He feels like he needs to earn everything himself and he provides for his family at the ripe age of 18.

“Just take it, it’s not like I’m missing any of it.” Ken ripped the check from the checkbook and slid it across the table.

“No, I’m not taking your money. It’s fine I have it under control.”

“Curt, you were in the hospital.”

•Thus leads to Ken putting money into his account without him knowing. It’s never enough at a time for it to be super noticeable or he tucks it into a savings account.

[mariana-oconnor]

Black Peter pt 3

After my last letter, you may have assumed that the case was entirely concluded with the arrest of John Hopley Neligan by Inspector Hopkins, however it was not so!

You don't say!

"Stanley Hopkins's methods do not commend themselves to me. I am disappointed in Stanley Hopkins. I had hoped for better things from him."

Oh, Stanley Hopkins. And you were doing so well. Alas, alack!

“What, then, is the alternative?” “The line of investigation which I have myself been pursuing."

Is this the thing where he was stabbing a pig corpse with a spear? I'm not sure that will stand up in court. But also he was saying that he couldn't do it in a single thrust, so I'm guessing that means that someone must have shot Captain Carey with a harpoon gun, rather than stabbing him with the harpoon, especially to stick him to the wall like that. They could have shot him from a distance away. Or he shot himself and this is all an accident.

We literally only have one named suspect at this point, though, and he can't have done it because he's already been arrested for it.

"‘Sumner, Shipping Agent, Ratcliff Highway. Send three men on, to arrive ten to-morrow morning.—Basil.’"

OK, so yes, this has to do with the stuff he was doing before.

The young detective was in high spirits at his success.

“It seems to me to have only one drawback, Hopkins, and that is that it is intrinsically impossible. Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir..."

Yeah, Stan. How could you have gone through this entire case and not attempted to stab a pig with a spear? Shoddy police work. Buffoonery. Utter clown show.

The precursors here of the modern forensics you see being performed on crime shows to this day. Literally down to using pigs because they're the closest equivalent to human flesh available.

But yeah, Stanley. Go stab a pig. It will also help you take out the anger you undoubtedly feel right now.

"My friend Watson could tell you that I spent a whole morning in that exercise."

This makes it sound like Watson was watching him do it. Which... different kind of date, I've got to say. Watson would probably do it, though.

His hopes and his ambitions were all crumbling about him. But he would not abandon his position without a struggle.

Come on, Stanley. You're better than this. Don't risk putting an innocent man in jail.

The first who entered was a little ribston-pippin of a man, with ruddy cheeks and fluffy white side-whiskers.

OMG it's Father Christmas! Was this his response to Carey's daughter's Christmas wish. Full service Santa Claus to the rescue.

I'm not sure if this is a first, but it feels like it: a character being compared to fruit rather than an animal. (A pippin is an apple). This is honestly kind of an adorable description, so I automatically don't think it's the guilty party. But he's great. Love him. Perfect character, no notes.

The second man was a long, dried-up creature, with lank hair and sallow cheeks.

Are these guys going to get progressively more unpleasant descriptions? Or is it going to be more the good, the bad, and the just right. Goldilocks and the Three Sailors.

The third applicant was a man of remarkable appearance. A fierce bull-dog face was framed in a tangle of hair and beard, and two bold dark eyes gleamed behind the cover of thick, tufted, overhung eyebrows.

Clearly a criminal. Although usually 'bull-dog' is reserved as a descriptor for police officers. Is this guy related to Lestrade?

Seems kind of mean that Holmes lured them all in with promise of a job, though. Rude. While they're busy running after an opportunity that doesn't even exist, other positions are being filled. They need to make a living, Sherlock.

Holmes leaned over his shoulder and passed both hands over his neck.

Did Holmes just come up behind the guy and put his arms over his shoulders? Really? That's such a weird way to do this. How do you even get handcuffs on a guy that way? Wouldn't it have been easier to do that from further down?

“I must really apologize, Hopkins,” said Sherlock Holmes; “I fear that the scrambled eggs are cold."

Cardinal offence. Cold scrambled eggs are practically a declaration of war.

“I make no complaint of being man-handled in this fashion..."

"You say I murdered Peter Carey; I say I killed Peter Carey, and there's all the difference."

There is a distinction, that's why there are different words for it and everything.

"I knew Black Peter, and when he pulled out his knife I whipped a harpoon through him sharp, for I knew that it was him or me."

Self defence. Well, I'm fine with that. Seems pretty cut and dried. He had a knife. Really, he did only have himself to blame.

"Peter Carey was master of the Sea Unicorn..."

"So far as I know, the man's name was never mentioned, and on the second night he disappeared as if he had never been."

Seems a likely story.

"Only one man knew what had happened to him, and that was me, for with my own eyes I saw the skipper tip up his heels and put him over the rail in the middle watch of a dark night, two days before we sighted the Shetland lights."

I mean, technically that's two men: you and the murderer. Unless the Skipper was a woman... which I'm pretty sure they weren't because it was Captain Carey, so... two people knew what had happened to him. Three including the dead guy, who probably doesn't count as he was dead, but he knew while it was going on. So... not to be pedantic or something, but really 'Only one living man knows' or 'Only three men knew'... Not that I'm pedantic at all.

"I guessed that he had done the deed for the sake of what was in that tin box, and that he could afford now to pay me well for keeping my mouth shut."

Oh no. Like, rule number one of being in a murder mystery, my dude. Don't do blackmail. It's the most direct path to death in these things. The second rule is never say out loud something that indicates you might have seen something but 'just need to check' before you tell anyone. Either way, you're dead.

This guy actually survived, but he did become the culprit, so... blackmail. Never worth it.

Though I think we're all agreed that he did the world a favour.

“Now I'll tell you the queerest part of the whole story."

You mean that wasn't the part where you admitted you didn't mind being tied up and manhandled by three other men? Seriously?

"For my part I walked ten miles, got a train at Tunbridge Wells, and so reached London, and no one the wiser."

I have questions. For instance, earlier Cairns says 'I stood there, with his blood splashing round me...' And he doesn't mention cleaning himself up at any point. Did he miraculously not get any of the 'splashing' blood on him, or was he just exaggerating the gore (although it was stated earlier to be a very gruesome crime scene) or did everyone just ignore him on the train covered in blood because this is the British public transport system and it's none of their business?

"I say again that if I killed Black Peter the law should give me thanks, for I saved them the price of a hempen rope.”

I mean... this is once again the old 'if you kill a killer the number of killers in the world stays the same' thing. You'd have to kill more than one murderer to actually save them any rope, if they hang you. At the moment they're just even. And given that they wouldn't have caught Carey anyway, they're technically down if they do hang you.

"This room is not well adapted for a cell, and Mr. Patrick Cairns occupies too large a proportion of our carpet.”

The reduction of carpet space is, of course, the main reason why keeping a prisoner in your sitting room is a bad idea.

"I was convinced that the initials ‘P.C.’ upon the pouch were a coincidence, and not those of Peter Carey, since he seldom smoked, and no pipe was found in his cabin."

I did forget about the initials on the pouch. Even though I remembered the pouch because I thought Carey didn't seem like the kind of man to share his tobacco.

"If it were a seaman, it could only be a seaman who had been with him on the Sea Unicorn."

"I spent three days in wiring to Dundee, and at the end of that time I had ascertained the names of the crew of the Sea Unicorn in 1883."

Every. Time.

I therefore spent some days in the East-end, devised an Arctic expedition.

Hey! You know what creatures you might see on an Arctic expedition?

?

Do you know?

??

Do you?

???

What? What did you think I was going to say?

“You must obtain the release of young Neligan as soon as possible,” said Holmes. “I confess that I think you owe him some apology."

Do they make cards that say 'Sorry I imprisoned you for a crime you did not commit?' Also... when did gift baskets become a thing?

"If you want me for the trial, my address and that of Watson will be somewhere in Norway—I'll send particulars later.”

Are they... actually going on the Arctic expedition? Are they taking Mr Lancaster of the apple cheeks? Are they going to explore the fjords?

Did you really organise an actual Arctic expedition? Are you going to pretend to be Captain Basil the whole time?

(Also, does Watson still have his practice, or did he just give that to the guy who lived next door?)

I believe I have read The Norwood Builder, which is coming next, because I recognise the title. We shall see how much I actually remember. Probably not a lot, going by what I've remembered of the ones I know I've read so far.

[futureheartswithbooks]

As I was rewatching episode 3 (for about the fifth time), I noticed something new about Lockwood, Lucy and George's reactions to the fallout of what happened a Combe Carey Hall. I think I had vaguely registered it before, but it really stuck out to me this time, and it wouldn't get out of my head, and someone has probably already said this, but I needed to talk about it.

Lockwood is far more concerned with the fact that they can't talk about what happened there. It's all that matters to him when he's signing the NDAs and while they're driving off. In the show it seems that perhaps he hasn't lost agents on the job (unlike with the almost throwaway mention of Robin from the Screaming Staircase). He seems so unbothered by the fact that he was almost killed by the red room, the monks and Fairfax most likely because he does have a death wish in many ways, and is far more concerned that no one will know as evidenced about how he is still going on about it in the kitchen scene and in the next episode with the whole Kipps thing. Its as though once it has happened, he forces it to the back of his mind and his ambition strives for their recognition for what they have accomplished at Combe Carey Hall. He gets tunnel vision, hyperfixating on the disrespect he feels is being thrown his way by the lack of acknowledgement and not the fact that he along with his two closest friends almost died several times in one night.

Lucy, on the other hand, has lost people on cases before and very recently in the context of the show (and the book as well). She knows full well the horror of watching people die on the job and while Lockwood & Co have been in dangerous situations (i.e. jumping from a burning building into a bush) they haven't been in as bad a situation as either the red room and by the well. Lucy however has, and has seen these effects first hand at Wythburn Mill and she rightly is relieved that they're all alive at the end. It is far more important to her and she doesn't seem to care about the fact that no one will know about Combe Carey Hall, or at least is no where near as bothered about it. She seems disinterested with Lockwood's annoyance when he goes on about not being in the Times, which partially stems from her desire not to be in the spotlight, and more focused on the events that almost killed her. As well as that, she seems to be almost grieving Annabel's loss too, defending her and snapping at George before taking away the goggles he was examining. It is the end of a pseudo relationship between herself and the ghost and is very much weighing on her while the boys are eager to move on. As for George, he is far more used to Lockwood especially his ambition and his reckless behaviour by now, and seems more in shock rather than anything else when they're in the van. He doesn't say that much and gets distracted by the crates, as if trying to distance himself from the whole thing. By the time they're all back at Portland Row after the funeral, he is happy about the fact that their debt has been cleared and doesn't care about them not being in the paper. However, judging by the way he talks about Annabel's ghost, it is still weighing on his mind, though he has mostly moved onto a new obsession with Fairfax's goggles. In addition to this, when they are at the hall, while Lockwood and Lucy are often silent, he isn't, he can't seem to contain his fear or apprehension or even his disbelief after Lucy unleashes Annabel's ghost on Fairfax. I just found it fascinating to see the different reactions of them all with Lockwood on one extreme and Lucy on the other with George somewhere in the middle. This show and the book series (especially the books, Jonathan Stroud is a fantastic author) are just so detailed and I love how you can see the differences between all of the members of Lockwood & Co.

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 6: The Visit From Upper Management

Now I am no stranger to getting visits from head office reps. I happened all the time during my run at Teavana, just as it does at most retail stores. When I was at Teavana it was usually just the regional manager, who at the time was a real piece of work. He was the type of person that made you nervously sweat just from walking into the store, so you know, not a very good manager.

He was an average sized man with a shiny balled head and I remember he had this ability to make it seem as though he was staring into your soul. He had these big wide bug eyes and when he would speak to you, his stare got deeper and his eyes got wider every second. He was a real putz.

I remember he used to give the female staff members a hard time for "not looking work appropriate" either cause their skirts or shorts were too short or showed too much cleavage or whatever. Again, he was a putz. But I remember the day we were expecting his visit and we saw him walking on up the hallway to the store wearing a collared gold shirt and tiny black tennis shorts that were so short they barely covered his thighs. I looked at him and said to my co-worker, "so she got in trouble for showing to much leg, and here he is with a full on hairy man legs and shorts so tight they outline his package?".

We were glad the day he announced he was leaving the company.

So when I was given the message that the head of operations wanted to come and visit the store, I wasn’t too worried. The store had only been open for a few months now and he likely just wanted to meet me and the team and see how things were going, especially since we were a “special” store. By that I mean, my store was the closest of any of the other stores to head office and the warehouse. Actually we were within a twenty minute driving distance. This meant my store would be able to get supplies or assistance more easily then other stores. I know how that sounds considering how long it took for a proper ice machine and a locksmith.

It also meant that we were the first store to try new ideas and products before being sent off to the other stores. Often times we would just have things dropped off to us by reps from head office since we were so close. But what made this upcoming visit different and more worrisome was that not only would the head of operations be there as well as the rep who had initially trained me, but so would the head of accounting as well as the head of tea development and merchandising. I had a whole pack coming to visit my store. Great!

I had to make sure that the store was perfect as you could imagine. I had to make sure all the shelves were full of stock, which wasn’t easy considering all the issues surrounding getting stock. Luckily about a week before their visit I was informed that a store from another province was closing and that the merchandise stock from their store was going to be sent over to my store. I had no idea what was in it or even how much there would be, so when the boxes arrived it was kind of like opening a present on Christmas morning.

This is what the company did whenever a store closed. Instead of selling the store stock at a reduced price, they had the staff box it up and ship it out to other stores. And as you can imagine when the stock arrived it wasn’t very well packaged or organized. This was no exception. I received around four large boxes full of stock. However, many of the unpackaged, ceramic, display pieces has been wrapped in paper towels and stacked on the bottom of the boxes. This resulted in countless broken mugs, creamer and sugar sets, and other damaged product I wouldn’t be able to use. I boxed all these items up and set them aside to show management when they visited.

But now it was the big day of the big visit. I was really nervous like you would expect anyone to be. Luckily it was a very quiet day so there weren’t any customers to get in the way. This was especially good since I only had enough hours to book only myself in at the time, with no counter coverage since at this time the company only allowed me equal number of hours as the mall was open to book my team. Meaning at the time the mall was open for only 9 hours per day, 63 hours per week, which is all I had to book my team with. And since I needed to book myself in for a minimum of 40 hours per week to keep my salary it left very little to use.

All four reps arrived at the same time. They all walked over to me at the tea counter and gave a quick introduction and shook my hand then they scattered around the store like ants looking for sugar. The rep from accounting walked over to the tea bar and started picking up spoons and checking under towels, and looking through boxes of hot cups? What was he looking for? He looked like Sherlock Holmes trying to find a clue.

The rep from tea development and merchandising nosed around the tea wall and picking through stock on the shelves. He was the least talkative of the bunch and dressed in leather boots, with bleached denim jeans and matching denim, button down shirt. The head of operations was very easy going and easy to talk to. However, he wasn’t happy when I showed him the box full of broken and damaged stock sent over from the closed T.Kettle store. He immediately pointed the finger to the rep who trained me as she at the time was the only one communicating with all the stores on daily operations due to lack of a proper regional manager.

He was pissed but thankfully not at me. I asked him what should be done with all the odd pieces that could no longer be sold due to the other half of sets being broken or missing. I was told to leave them in the backroom and they would send me a communication. They never did. After a few months I ended up throwing out anything broken and letting my staff take home any odd pieces they wanted. Until they day I left, the box of broken product was never discussed again.

After roughly 30 minutes, the group said their goodbyes and left. No comments at all other then “everything looks good”.

Odd considering usually when higher ups visited stores they usually had a list of changes they wanted done, or had some tips or advise to give. Nope, not this time. I never saw most of them again after this, besides the head of operations who would pop in on occasion to say high and grab an iced tea. The one thing that did come out of this meeting was the news that we would soon be carrying and serving T.Kettle brand Matcha. This was exciting and something that customers has been demanding. Soon a communication would going out to each store with more details and tea bar instructions for making Matcha...

to be continued...

[trickstarbrave]

🔎 FIND THE WORD TAG GAME 🔍

i was tagged by @boethiahspillowbook to find the words SUN, BLACK, BLOOD, BEAST and SOUND.

used moon and star for this bc of how long it is. i was able to find these relatively okay but it was fun to pick which passages i wanna use (i avoided the smut lmao)

i tag: @nocturance, @orfeoarte, and anyone who wants to.

words from me are: BLADE, RAGE, LOVE, QUIET, and OBLIVION

SUN:

When the sun slid beneath the horizon and they set up camp for the night, it was awkward for Nerevar. Surreal. Alien. But somehow, at the back of his mind, familiar.  His sleeping roll was laid out beside the young lord in his tent, the others once again hurling insults about his worth as a guard if he needed special treatment. A few, in hushed whispers, wondered why the young lord of House Dagoth bothered to keep him alive in the first place if he was such dead weight. When they began to speculate why, their voices were too hushed for him to make out the words, not like the words had any value. The scent of his sleeping roll was different from ones he had as the Nerevarine. But why was it that his mind didn’t register it as new? Why did it instead make him yawn and want to curl up and sleep like the dead?  Why why why why why why— “You’ve been quiet, my friend.” Voryn said, laying on his own sleeping roll.  “... My mind’s a mess, Voryn.” He couldn’t be more honest if he tried, though the other elf didn’t fully grasp his circumstances. “You’re still recovering.” Voryn reassured him. “Once we return I’ll have the best healers look you over.

BLACK:

A fire crackled, embers occasionally flying upward like red stars against the black of the night. Aside from a few wild guar and nix hounds the camp was mostly peaceful, further from where the nords may attack. Nerevar glared into the fire as though it was the source of his problems, body tight from stress.  Nerevar honestly wished he was mad about the war, stressed out and tense because he was deep in thought about battle or how to keep his men safe. He’d feel like a proper captain then, at least, and it would justify his foul mood. Most of his battalion were doing well all things considered with only a few injuries they were sleeping off and downing healing potions for.  The real reason why he was in such a bad mood had very little to do with the war though, a fact which left him feeling like a selfish asshole. Instead, Nerevar was angry he had been so far away from Voryn for so long it felt like he was going mad.  He thought he would have been used to it. Nerevar would often go on trips for months at a time as a canvasari after all, and he knew to expect this with the war. But it was different now. The distance rubbed his heart raw until the pain in his chest was all he could think of. Sleep was harder and harder to get as he laid awake in his sleeping roll wishing his head was laying on Voryn’s chest listening to his heartbeat.  Before, he hadn’t known the comforts of Voryn’s arms wrapped around him, nor the sweetness of his lips. He didn’t know intimately what it would be like to run his hands through his hair whenever he pleased, to sit with him in the bath, to be surrounded by his scent and presence in the comfort of his bed. Nerevar actively sought out distance before to try and distract himself from the thoughts about his closest friend, but now without that need, the distance was painful. A few weeks were fine. A couple of months he could manage. But they were coming up on a greater part of a year and he was losing it.

BLOOD:

“Hmph.” Voryn snorted. “I expected you to take it worse.” “I did at first.” Again, Vivec’s candid honesty at times was unnerving and strange to Voryn who was used to hidden meanings and sly words. “I only know very few ways to show love. When he told me he loved me, not as a lover but as something different, it was bitter like trama root.” That Voryn had expected much more. Nerevar was too loving—too soft and open. Wouldn’t that drive a harlot who only knew how to love with his body mad? “Yet… I could see he meant it. It was—” Vivec winced, rubbing between his eyes. “Damn third eye… It always does this when I think back to what he said lately…”  The heir of House Dagoth raised a brow. He was well aware of the other chimer’s supernatural abilities after Nerevar explained it to him in passing years ago. But if he had seen something it might be important—something related to Nerevar’s dreams, even if Vivec didn’t know.  “What happened with what he said?”  Vivec stopped eating now, staring at his food as he contemplated the question, an almost otherworldly look in his eyes.  “He said that he would love me, even if I killed him.” Vivec answered, his voice trembling softly near the end. “When I remember… All I can see is my own hands covered in blood and my chest hurts. I don’t know why.” Vivec may not know. But Voryn knew. 

BEAST:

The Hortator was good enough as a warlord, but as a lover or a husband? Not in the slightest. He only existed to rip people apart, not love and be loved. Voryn swore loyalty to him only because he knew Nerevar was the best mer to unite Resdayn with his strength and clever tongue. No more and no less for the pragmatic grandmaster of House Dagoth. Nerevar was good only as a weapon, not a bedmate, nor a loving spouse, nor as a father either it seemed. All his hands were good for destruction; why did he expect anything less than being treated like a wild beast? What kind of life could he even give to a child anyways when all he could do was destroy? Nerevar continued to scowl as he turned on his heel, stomping toward the door.  “Do as you fucking please then.” Nerevar growled. “Don’t expect me to ‘appreciate’ it though.” He gave one last look at Almalexia. “And don’t expect me to keep up appearances by going to your bedchambers either.”  He slammed the door on his way out, ignoring the tears stinging his eyes.

SOUND:

“Come back soon, Neht.” He said, voice light and joyful like it was only when he spoke to Nerevar.  The sound of his heartbeat grew even louder as his body lurched, pure rage coursing through him.  He was not going to fucking die here. Voryn was still there, waiting for him back in Kogoruhn. He was not going to return as a corpse—or worse, with just an offhand comment that he’d died from Uthol. He’d taken all of Resdayn back from the nords, made himself king and warlord of this land, and slayed gods. One fucking daedra wasn’t going to do him in. Never.  Nerevar gave a loud roar as he pushed the daedra off him, jumping to his feet with fire in his eyes and raw power coursing through his veins. He moved a hand down to rip the dagger out of his thigh, tossing it aside.  Mehrunes Dagon stared in anger and confusion, before his facial expression changed to surprise. Then the daedra’s head was thrown back in laughter, the ground trembling under him.  “It has been so long since I have last seen you,” Dagon bared his teeth in an excited grin. “Lorkhan!”

[crimswnred]

Imagine this. You are on Love Island. You went on the show for the money, but you hope to find love along the way. You didn't click with any of the boys, rejecting them left, right, and center. You shared a bed with another Casa girl. You thought that you'd be going home for sure. You packed your stuff. Suddenly, one of the boys that you have rejected decides to bring you to the villa with him. You can only assume that it is, because he feels unhappy and insecure in his current relationship. Maybe he overheard you saying that if you have to pick a boy, you'd go for him. You see him talking with the Casa girl that you shared a bed with. You wonder if he knows that she wants a chance to be with you if you both stay on the show. You wonder if they made a deal beforehand.

Once you are in the villa, you agree to give his ex partner a chance to win him back, because you already told him that she'd be a better match for him when you talked to him in the casa. She may be a jerk to you, but she just lost the guy that she had feelings for and most of the friends that she has made on the show. She is hurt. You want nothing to do with the mess between them as it was never your intention to drive them apart. However, your partner seems to believe that you may have developed feelings for him. You don't want to lead him on, so you take the fellow Casa girl to the Hideaway, thinking that will put an end to whatever delusions your partner has about the relationship between you. You know that you are probably not going to find real love on the show. You are unsure about your feelings for the Casa girl that you hooked up with. You feel guilty that you gave the guy that you are coupled up with the wrong impression. His ex-partner is trying to turn everyone against you.

That's when a gorgeous bombshell shows up. You try to keep your distance, because this will only complicate things, but secretly you hope that she will seek you out. She knows what she wants and she says that she wants you. You can't help but bump into her wherever you go and she steals you away from your partner during your first recoupling on the show. You have seen this happen a thousand times in the past seasons, but you never imagined to feel about someone you have just met. Your new partner feels threatened by all the people that are trying to get a moment alone with you, but she knows that she has no right to demand anything from you. Everything is new, exciting, and anxiety-inducing.

For someone else this recoupling would be a test to overcome or a temptation to avoid, but you feel relieved. You decide to explore this new connection. The Casa girl that has been your closest confidant in the casa can't hide her jealousy. She thought there was something between the two of you. The Casa boy that's newly single throws his hat in the ring as well. Your ex partner's ex has one final chance to win him back. The bombshells complicated everything, but this is your chance you have to find happiness. It's also a chance for your ex partner and his ex girl to find some closure, no longer haunted by all the what could have beens.  

I’m sorry. I saw OG boys fans saying that the bombshell drama is unnecessary. I thought I should share my point of view. It's not a popular opinion and I don't want to be eaten alive. I feel like some people tend to forget that not all players are interested in the OG boys. For some of us the real love island drama has only just begun and the bombshells are a vital part of it. S2 had an overwhelming amount of drama and the disaster recoupling was a fan favorite episode. There is no such thing as too much drama on an interactive reality show.

I'm begging the fandom to give the players who aren't privileged enough to feel included in the main storyline a moment to enjoy the game as well. We are a part of the fandom as well. I'm really sorry that the OG boy fans can't share every single moment with their love interest, but I'm begging them to understand that some of us have completely different gameplays. The bombshell drama may seem pointless in their personalized story, but that's just one possible route to play. I don't care about the OG couples' relationship drama that I've been dragged into against my will. I've rejected the OG boys. I'm happy that there are multiple storylines this season. We can choose how MC feels about most of the situations that she is forced in. There is no correct way to play the story.

I'm so happy you're able to enjoy the drama like we are, anon! I'm always up for drama and I'm really enjoying the season and I'm so sick and tired of all the complaints. people are sooooo annoying. if they aren't enjoying the game, just... don't play it? why you have to ruin everyone else's experience too.

but some people just like to complain. don't let they ruin your experience. we can always chat if you want someone to share your playthrough with

I'm all about be gay do crime so please let me know about your shenanigans in the Villa!!!! because I'm living for this drama oh my godddd