#I've been working on his build for physical years
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Okay.
Why tf does the Knights of Favonius in Genshin Let lil ol Albedo hang out in Dragonspine?
Like, He's found corrupted blood and stuff, and they need SOMEONE to research that stuff, but like-
THATS HIS BROTHER!?
WHO WAS CORRUPTED!?!?
WHY LET ALBEDO HANG AROUND THE STUFF THAT MESSED UP HIS BIG BRO!?!?!?!?!?
#genshin impact#albedo#dragonspine#WHEN ALBEDO DESTROYS MONDSTADT ITS NOT HIS FAULT#THEY LET HIM DO THIS#Here Albedo have some cursed artifact#do do do what could go wrong?#EVERYTHING#Fun Fact! Albedo doesn't show up in the main story ONCE#BUT HE WAS FINALLY NAME DROPPED AT THE END OF ACT 5 IN FONTAIN#He also has one of the most voice lines in the game#I've mained him since the day he came out#My Albedo has over 3k Defense#All be friends fear him#I finally C4 him#I had like 150 wishes saved up#Klee was my first 5 star#I've been working on his build for physical years#Albedos flower thing when he puts it down does 20K#Wanderers burst breaks it and doesnt listen to the âEvery 2 secondsâ and it just SPAMS the 20k
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Emergency: Help Evacuate My Family From GAZA WAR
Dear Humanity,
I'm Haya from Gaza , from a family of 8 people: my parents, two sons, and four daughters (two of them suffer from allergies).
I've witnessed the evidence of the tragedy that has struck our lives in Gaza, where my family and I have survived amidst numerous previous wars. But today, we face the most dangerous and fierce battle in the current war. The urgent need intensifies for us, as we have nothing left and are unable to secure our basic needs such as food, water, and safe shelter.
Here is our story - On October 7th, our lives changed forever, my family and I evacuated from northern Gaza to southern Gaza, hoping to return soon, but it wasn't meant to be. Our home was surrounded, burned, and then completely destroyed, Our home, once a fortress of hope, now lay in ruins, a stark reminder of our shattered dreams.
The night before we left from the north to the south was terrifying. Shelling sounds were everywhere, making a loud noise that felt like it went through our souls. Every explosions shook the ground like earthquakes, sending shockwaves of fear through our trembling bodies. filling us with fear. The air smelled of destruction and blood, making it hard to breathe. When dawn came, we saw the devastation around us, realizing our home was now a symbol of loss and despair.
We ran into the streets and with each step we took into the unknown streets, we felt as if we were plunging deeper into the abyss of our shattered existence, leaving behind everything we own in our home: Clothes, important official documents, the car, and literally it's almost everything - the enormity of our loss weighed heavily upon us.
Our home it was where we found hope, safety, and made precious memories. Losing it felt like losing years of our lives, leaving us adrift amidst the wreckage of our shattered existence.
youtube
A brief video depicting the devastation that struck our home and our entire neighborhood in Gaza.
Desperate Plea: Escaping Gaza's Allergy Nightmare
I, Haya, suffer from severe allergy to penicillin-derived medications, and my sister, Amal, also suffers from severe allergies to medications from my family such as Paracetamol and Ibuprofen.
These allergies create a deep sense of fear and anxiety for us, as we live in a constant state of tension and fear of anything that may require a visit to the hospital. We fear being given inappropriate medications due to the unavailability of suitable treatments in Gaza because of war or lack of awareness and not informing the doctor of our allergies, which could lead to serious consequences threatening our lives.
MY Father Income
Our dreams are heading towards oblivion in the labyrinth of an uncertain future
My story, along with my siblings, represents a united team of four individuals, three of whom are skilled programmers and one graphic designer. We work as freelancers in the world of freelancing.
As for my younger sister, she is a student studying at the College of Architecture. She has always carried a big dream in her heart, a dream of being part of changing Gaza, of making it more beautiful and better. She looked forward to the day when she would receive her degree and start building this dream. But the beginning of the war changed everything. The destruction of infrastructure and universities cast shadows of despair over her dreams.
When I think of my brother in Belgium, I can't help but feel deep sadness. He has been suffering from unbearable anxiety and insomnia since the outbreak of the war. Sleep eludes him at night, and his physical and mental health collapses under the weight of these heavy burdens, negatively affecting his performance at work. Problems and challenges pile up in front of him without the slightest opportunity for rest.
We all feel psychological pressure and extreme anxiety. The war hasn't been limited to external attacks but has deeply infiltrated our daily lives. We search among the rubble for a little safety and the basic resources for survival. Every day comes with a new challenge that we must overcome.
As we sway amidst the rubble of shattered dreams, our souls wrestle and our hearts beat strongly challenging the ravages of war.
Our parents earnestly seek a way to rescue us from this hell, feeling the heavy responsibility for every moment we spend under the shadows of fear and destruction. They dream of a safe place where they can build for us a better future, filled with security and hope, for we deserve life in all its meanings of comfort and peace.
Perhaps this fundraising campaign represents a light in the midst of darkness, it is indeed the only hope we cling to firmly.
I appeal to the world as a whole to hear my cry and the mournful cry of my family in Gaza. We need the helping hand that reaches out to wipe our tears and build a bridge to safety.
Your donation is not just a donation; it's an opportunity to rebuild life and brighten a better tomorrow. Be part of our hopeful story, for we need your hand to start anew.
The purpose of the fundraising campaign
The goal of this fundraising campaign is to rescue my family - my parents, my siblings, and me - through the Rafah Crossing to Egypt, which currently requires $5000 per person. This campaign is our only chance to stay alive, and I humbly request your assistance at this critical time. I will provide you with a comprehensive breakdown of the expenses, committing to transparency and clarity.
All of our important links are here https://linktr.ee/hayanahed
Verified by :
âď¸ operation olive branch, number 26 on their spreadsheet. (On Master list)
âď¸ Project watermelon,line 249 on their spreadsheet. Or you could see it as number 212 here is the photo for more clear proof
Thank you for your kindness and support.
.؏زاŮŮ
اŮŮŮ ŘŽŮعاŮ
yours sincerely;
Haya Alshawish.
#palestine#free palestine#donations#donate if you can#please donate#gofundme#go fund them#donate#donation#go fund her#palestine gfm#gaza gfm#gazan families#fundraising#go fund me#fundrasier#save gaza#save palestine#please#please help#help gaza#mutual aid#donation match#charity#go fund him#gaza#gaza strip#emergency#hope#important
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You know, I think this ending would have been slightly less of a fucking disappointment if the heroes hadn't been so unfairly favored by Horikoshi compared to the villains. I mean, seriously
Deku destroys every bone in his body multiple times throughout the story and is warned that if he continues, he'll permanently lose the use of his limbs ? Everything's fine, his body's just got used to being reduced to a bloody pulp somehow so there's no consequences for him. In fact even when he literally loses his arms to Shigaraki, he gets them back two minutes later thanks to Eri because guess what ? Her horn still works even when cut off from her body. How convenient.
Gran Torino gets his ribcage obliterated by Shigaraki ? Don't worry guys, he'll survive that despite his old age and injuries, and this to have no particular role in the plot afterwards.
Bakugo dies heroically trying to buy time before Deku arrives ? Lmao, did you really believe it ?? No of course not, Edgeshot just uses his last-minute Deus Ex Machina to save his life at the cost of his own and- Oops nope he's fine too, my bad !
Hawks murders a criminal fleeing for his life in cold-blood ? The best Hori has to offer is him completely free and in charge of the HSPC.
And no, losing his quirk isn't a real consequence for him because not only it literally played a major part in saving the world with Vestige!Hawks raising an insurrection among AFO's quirks, but also because his quirk has always been the element through which people exploited him.
Endeavor abused his family for years and completely destroyed his eldest son ? No jail time and no media backlash for that, the only blame he received was due to the heroes' failure to stop the League during the Raid Arc.
And don't even get me started on this bs about facing hell or whatever for what he's done : He's literally free and wealthy ; he have Rei, Fuyumi, Shoto, his sidekicks and Hawks on his side ; and all the difficulties he's apparently going to suffer are off-screened.
Deku had to sacrifice OFA and his future hero career to save the world ? Guess what, Bakugo invested all his time and money to make him an Iron-Man suit and now he can still be a hero with everyone else.
There are plenty more examples of this but I think you get the idea. Now let's take a look at the villains' ending :
Toya is now a piece of charcoal kept artificially alive for the few years he has left, unable to move a finger, and whose few minutes a day during which he can stay awake will be spent talking to his father who abused him as a child.
Toga, a literal teenager, killed herself to save Ochako and because she knew it's still better than rotting at Tartarus her whole life.
And not only did she die but she did by bleding to death. Let me repeat for those who have trouble grasping what I've just said : In a manga where the heroes can survive having their heart blown to bits, being impaled Kakyoin-style or smashed against buildings like a fly on a windshield, one of the main antagonists died of a fucking hemorrhageâŚ
As for Shigaraki, after learning that his very birth and all the tragedies of his life have been orchestrated by AFO, after all this development and narrative promises about him being saved in the end... Deku just kills him.
Because despite all his speeches about saving him, it seems like the best he could do was beating him both physically and mentally until he crumbles to dustâŚ
Compress on his side is apparently locked up for life and kept alive by machines too.
A begging Kurogiri tried in a desperate attempt to save Shigaraki, only to be unceremoniously blown up by Bakugo and dying off-screen without anyone giving a shit, including Aizawa and Mic.
And Spinner will now spend the rest of his life struggling with the extra quirks inside him that affect his body and mind, while having to cope with the thought that his boyfriend best friend and companions have either died alone or are locked away for life in horrifying circumstances.
Clearly not the same as with the heroes...
Now don't get me wrong, even if they suffered just as much from the consequences of their actions or the plot as the League, this ending would still be a disaster in terms of writing but AT LEAST it wouldn't reek that much of hypocrisy.
#bnha spoilers#bnha 430#bnha#mha 430#bnha epilogue#endeavor#enji todoroki#izuku midoriya#tomura shigaraki#jin bubaigawara#toga himiko#shuichi iguchi#kurogiri#dabi#touya todoroki#hawks#takami keigo#league of villains#bnha meta#my hero academia
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The Healer
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viktor x anhedonic!reader [1.4k][AO3]
cw: implied/referenced depression, suicide, suicidal ideation, self harm
summary: Anhedonia set in and the idea of exiting life's stage became all the more appealing. But you've heard about The Healer and perhaps he can save you.
tags: gn reader, S2 Viktor, post-Act 1, anhedonia, angst, depression, suicide, SI, SH, viktor gardening?, reader's just admiring him atp, not betad, not encouraging anybody to join any cult
a/n: idk if vik's abilities extends to making plants appear but for this pretend it does
if you're unfamiliar with what anhedonia is, it's a symptom of a larger condition (can be depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, more), characterised by the inability to experience physical and/or social pleasure. makes existing difficult, like you're dragging so much pointless weight and everything feels high effort, so what's the point.
just a brief description (based on what i've learnt from it in research and experience), so i encourage learning more to get it more in depth if it interests you or sounds too familiar.
You prayed for an easy coax out of the darkness.
The little home of scrap fabric and heartbroken brick you built throughout the years was becoming more and more dilapidated, though its original state had never been of full health to begin with. And like it, your bodyâs ridges became prominent, visited by unexplained bruises, warmed by the thickened hair on your skin, and yet living on had always been the only option you sawâno, the only option you allowed.
Youâd breathed long enough to outlive many of those around you. Whether it was becoming grey-lunged corpses, enforcer punching bags, or a Promenade diver, everybody knew somebody who, sooner rather than later, knelt to kiss Deathâs feet. Surrendered. Be it by their own or anotherâs will.
Then it fell upon you: the swole blanket of indifference, of apathy. It cloaked your mind, buried your defences that was defiance, which had been the only source of survival youâd had left. But snuffed out now.
And how easy it is to think of self-inflicted inexistence when it seems nothing else matters.
Oblivion would whisper in the corner, a demented, deformed dog snarling yet begging your handâs comfort. Come to me. And you canât find good reason as to why you shouldnât.
This⌠healerâa man whose touch could gild any manâs sick and bestow him a new life, a new body, a new mindâyouâre not sure when he arrived. But the whispers morphed to murmurs which morphed to rumours and unfolded itself into your side of the cityâs underbelly.
Was he the answer to your prayer?
You made journey to the place youâd heard heâd made camp, and it unfurled before you and stole all expectation and put them to rest. Because for once, the Sumps had colour, had life.
At the centre stood a strange, globular⌠building? Just like stained glass, its surface was of mute Spring colours, translucent, swirling lattice-work reminiscent of butterfly wing patterns.
Heâs a tall thing. A beautiful thing. His metal body cloaked, careful, and coded with grace. Each movement was deliberate, no gaze shared unintentional. How had he come to exist? How had this world birthed your peopleâs suffering but, as well, him?
You want to laugh at the sick irony. Whoeverâs dealing the cards need their hands cut off.
âWhat ails you?â he asks, giving you such soft regarding you canât help but be rendered speechless.
In truth, youâre not sure. Physically, you know youâre lacking, but so was everyone so why are you different? In your head there sits a temptress, attempting to lure you to the edge of buildings or blades, but she had no name. No one speaks of her.
The healer tilts his head, seeming to take a better look at you. He looks so kind. Such eyes, opalescent, have seen suffering, and you know it.
âLife,â you give a one-shouldered shrug, smiling. âI⌠Iâm not actually⌠uh, I donât know what Iâm doing here,â you take a step back.
What had been the point of this? Attempt what? Healing? Whatâs this man to do?
âNo,â he steps closer, his voice swathed in a strange mechanical whir. âStay,â
Youâre sure that by the furrowed desperation on you, it convinces something inside him, as he turns and beckons you with a nudge of his head. So you follow.
Each step he makes creates a heavy thunk beneath him, and though you donât feel its impact, merely by sound you feel the weight of him. How had he acquired such a body? Modded fingers, let alone limbs, cost years of your wagesâyou canât imagine how much his entire body might have cost.
âI can feel something plaguing you,â he begins, shifting slightly to catch a look of you.
You scoff but it doesnât quite match your face.
âThen what brought you to me?â he shrugs and looks away, leading you to the side of the Sumps where a clear plain rolled out.
You watch as he kneels and reaches for the soil, taking it between metal fingers.
âIâm not sure,â you kneel beside him, shoulders bunching up. âWhat are you doing?â
He hums, smoothing the ground and creating indents, âIâm assessing,â
You lean forward, folding your arms and hanging your head to look at him.
The metal frames his face, just barely hidden by chestnut waves, curling beneath the jaw and around the ear.
Heâs got a rather angular beauty to him, something belonging to scrutiny and studiosity. Even his strong brows follow theme, arched forward in a focused furrow, over narrowed eyes homing iridescent irises. Youâre not sure if heâs from this world. Or if the world was gifted him.
Your attention trails back to his hand, and he digs his fingers beneath the soil. Then, hand glowing beneath the metallic muscles, the ground is imbued with a light, where then verdant stems spring alive.
You choke back a gasp, glancing about as the spindly bodies uncurl and reveal yellow petals. Roses?
Whipping back to him, you take note of the glow leaving his eyes, shock threading through your system.
When you glance back at the flowers, now surrounding the both of you, you canât help but think: logically, how you might have reacted would be with pleasant surprise, glee, even.
Such occurrences, the arcane or a mere flower field, was a coveted sight, and without a doubt you would have felt the surge of optimism. But instead nothing happens. Instead itâs unmet anticipation and expectation sitting at your belly, pooling into grey disappointment.
Itâs when you look back to the healer that you realise this disappointment must have shown on your face. He inclines his head so slightly, blinks, as if saying I understand. And he smiles. He smiles and itâs the gentlest thing ever given to you to hold and witness.
You want to crumple, to lay graves for your limbs and disassemble each part that ever dared to exist only to suffer. There used to be anger, and at the very least there was indignation. At topside for their neglect, your parents or finding each other, for finding something beyond the misery and creating you. Where had all such righteous resentment gone?
âViktor,â
You look up to see the healerâs hand stretched out, asking for yours in return. And you oblige, shaking it gently, before pulling away only to be held with soft restraint.
âYou are welcome to stay,â his voice becomes tender, becomes more human almost, aimed purely for your audience. âEven if what torments is not outright seen. I welcome all,â
Your breath comes out long, carrying with it the tired days in the dark. The healer⌠Viktor makes no acknowledgement of this but just another observant blink, the corners of his mouth slightly tightening.
âWasnât gonna die or anything,â you joke, flattening your lips and hoping it registers as a smile, however trying it may appear.
âEh,â Viktor shrugs, turning his attention to your hand and turning it about as if trying to see new angles. âA slow death is still a death,â
This makes you frown. Why has he assumed? But why is he right?
âThe slower it is, the more painful, I think,â he remarks, but he seems almost far away. âAs you watch what is left of you wither, and all you can do is⌠hm, watch,â
Then you understand. Something in your chest tightens as you take in once again all this stranger is. âYouâre well-acquainted,â you note, coming out barely as breath and observation, spoken clearer by the narrowing of your eyes than your own voice.
He looks at you again, and somethingâs changed. His eyes? It seems. Thereâs something more amber about them, more grounded in this singular hue. âMy longest companion,â
You hum, nodding.
Thereâs a safety in knowing youâre understood, even if theyâre not able to fix you. It cloaks you warmer than summer, than any consolation offered in pityâhe understands. And perhaps not the very same that brandishes you, but in some aspect he knows.
Which is what makes you ask, âCan you fix me?â
His eyes resume that pearl sheen once again and youâre mesmerised, gaze flitting between each eye in deep investigationâtell me who you are, how you are; tell me how youâll fix me. Like the field around, the sweet sunshine hues of the roses, to make your land more than just barren.
And he does. He raises his other hand, uncurling, coming to hover by your face. âMay I?â
You breath sweeps back in and you nod, leaning forward and connecting his cold fingers to your cheek.
He notes you for a moment, saying nothing, doing nothing. Itâs his gaze that makes you feel naked, removed of any pretence crafted carefully. But he shifts his attention and his fingers connected with your forehead, eyes overtaken by a white glow.
Your vision drowns in the white.
a/n anhedonia's been hitting me and this is the only thing i could muster to make so here we gooo. not my favourite, feel like i could've done it better but oh well, least i made something wahooyaaa writing is coping after all đŤľđźđđŁď¸
requests + taglist open!
[this is a reupload, i have no idea why the original post disappeared :''')]
#arcane#arcane spoilers#arcane s2 spoilers#arcane viktor#arcane fanfic#arcane viktor fanfic#vitya arcane#viktor x gn!reader#viktor x reader#viktor x you#gn!reader#nausicaas fics
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Cactus fascinates me, does it run on code similar to an existing instruction set or is it completely original on that front?
What can you do with it? What's it's storage?
Both the Cactus (the original wooden prototype from years ago) and the new PCB Cactus(es) are essentially derived from a minimal 6502 computer design by Grant Searle for their core logic. Here's what that would look like on a breadboard:
There isn't much to it, it's 32K of RAM, 16K of ROM containing Ohio Scientific's version of Microsoft BASIC, a 6850 ACIA for serial interaction, some logic gates, and of course a 6502 microprocessor (NMOS or CMOS, doesn't matter which). You hook it into a terminal and away you go.
Grant's design in turn can be best described as a distilled, modernized version of the OSI Challenger series of computers. Here's an OSI-400 and a Challenger 4P respectively:
The left one is a replica of the 400 circa 1976, also called the Superboard. It was affordable, endlessly reconfigurable and hackable, but ultimately very limited in capabilities. No BASIC, minimal monitor ROM you talk to over serial, but you could connect it to a bus to augment its features and turn it into a more powerful computer.
Whereas the OSI C4P on the right from about 1979 has more RAM, a video card, keyboard, BASIC built in, serial interface, cassette tape storage, and that's just the standard configuration. There was more room to expand and augment it to your needs inside the chassis (alot changed in 3 years for home computer users).
Grant's minimal 6502 design running OSI BASIC is a good starter project for hobbyists. I learned about the 6502's memory map decoding from his design. I modified and implemented his design on a separate cards that could connect to a larger backplane.
Here are the serial, ROM, RAM, and CPU cards respectively:
Each one is 100% custom, containing many modifications and fixes as I developed the design. However, that's only half of the computer.
I really wanted a 6502 machine with a front panel. People told me "nobody did that", or couldn't think of examples from the 1970s but that seemed really strange to me. Especially since I had evidence to the contrary in the form of the OSI-300:
This one I saw at VCF West back in 2018 illustrates just how limited of a design it is. 128 bytes of RAM, no ROM, no serial -- just you, the CPU, and toggle switches and LEDs to learn the CPU. I was inspired the first time I saw one in 2015 at VCF East, which is probably when this whole project got set in motion.
Later that year I bought a kit for a miniature replica OSI-300 made by Christopher Bachman, and learned really quickly how limited the design philosophy for this particular front panel was. It was a major pain in the ass to use (to be clear, that's by OSI's choice, not any fault of Christopher in his implementation)
So... I designed my own. Took awhile, but that's the core of what the Cactus is: my attempt at experiencing the 1970s homebrew scene by building the computer I would have wanted at the time. Over half of the logic in the Cactus is just to run the front panel's state machine, so you can examine and modify the contents of memory without bothering the 6502. I added in all of the things I liked from more advanced front panels I had encountered, and designed it to my liking.
Here's the original front panel, accompanying logic, and backplane connected to the modern single board computer (SBC) version of the machine:
And here's the new Cactus SBC working with the new front panel PCB, which combines the logic, physical switch mountings, and cabling harnesses into a single printed circuit board.
So, what can you do with it? Pretty much the same things I do already with other contemporary 1970s computers: play around in BASIC, fire up the occasional game, and tinker with it.
I've got no permanent storage designed for the Cactus as yet, it's been one of those "eventually" things. The good news is that a variety of software can be ported to the hardware without too much trouble for an experienced hobbyist. A friend of mine wrote a game called ZNEK in 6502 assembly which runs from a terminal:
Right now, you have to either toggle in machine programs from the front panel from scratch, burn a custom ROM, or connect it to a serial terminal to gain access to its more advanced features:
Here's it booted into OSI BASIC, but I have also added in a modern descendant of Steve Wozniak's WOZMON software for when I need to do lower level debugging.
I've also got a video card now, based on the OSI-440. I have yet to implement a keyboard, or modify BASIC to use the video board instead of the serial connection. Even if I did, screen resolution is pretty limited at 24x24 characters on screen at once. Still, I'm working on that...
Anyway, I hope that answers your question. Check the tags below to see the whole process stretching back to 2017 if you're curious to learn more of the project's history. I'm also happy to answer any more questions you might have about the project.
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Hello đ
All of your favorite horniest sex scenes?
Hello! I've been busy, so this has taken forever to get to!
I don't always need the guys to bounce around on each other and gyrate enthusiastically for it to out as horny. Oftentimes, I find myself more drawn in by the building desire between the characters, and the explicit acknowledgement of release. I like when the sex feels like it's also revealing something to us about the characters. I've highlighted many of these before, but it's fun to revisit.
Ghost Host, Ghost House Episode 4 Couch Scene
youtube
I will never get over this scene, and especially the director's cut of it. These guys knew they liked each other almost instantly, and it was so rewarding to see them reach a place where they could express that. Bonus points for discussing the logistics of gay sex.
This show has been on Gaga and YouTube for a while, but it's also now available on Viki!
La Pluie Episode 6 Floor Scene and Episode 7 Bed Scene
I liked this scene so much that I wrote about it. Again, there's a lot of anticipation between these two, and you can tell how far it's built up because Patts has to dial it back down when Saengtai wants to stop. It's especially important to me because Saengtai does blow Patts in the next episode. If you're on iQIYI, there's an extended cut of that at the end of the video lists.
Mood Indigo: The Post-Funeral Scene
These two are so horrible for each other, but damn are their sex scenes compelling. Theirs are the kinds of scenes only possible between two people you know can never work long term. I was so glad that we got back to Haruhiko in Playback, and the first thing he did was blow Rio in a car. If you haven't seen the Novelist, and you're itching for hornier BL, it's right there.
The End of the World With You "You're Soaked"
From the same team as The Novelsit, we got to experience baby's first fuckboy in this incredible show. Again, I love when we get scenes with couples who aren't ready to work, because they're allowed to have raunchier sex. They get to amp the intensity of the physicality because they need to give a reason why someone was so caught up and missed the warning signs. I actually love the car scene later as a more romantic intimacy scene, but we're focusing on horny here.
Jack o' Frost Birthday Sex
A common theme here with the Japanese offerings is that people are allowed to have more interesting sex scenes right before they split. This is true even in Jack o' Frost. We get a really great oner from the leads that precedes their breakup and Ritsu's accident. I think this might be my favorite of this list because the actors have to build the entire scene together since there aren't any cuts.
Gameboys 2 Bed Scene
Cairo and Gav are one of my favorite pandemic couples we got on screen, and I was quite relieved for them when they finally got to have this moment. We also confirmed they switch, and I love that.
Wedding Plan: Namnuea Showing Off His Stamina
No list for me would be complete without including them. I really loved seeing two gay men go at it after clearing out all of their misunderstandings. They had already had sad goodbye sex. It was thrilling to see them having enthusiastic, athletic sex. This also leads directly to one of my favorite emotional payoffs for a closeted character of all time.
Kiseki: Dear to Me Reunion
The second couple stole this show, but damn if I didn't love the way these two played out sex across multiple years between their characters. These two really suffered, and I really love the way Taro Lin and Hsu Kai captured the changes between these two as Bai Zong Yi grew and matured. This really was a solid sex scene.
Love Class 2: Sungmin and Joo Hyuk
I just really wanna thank them for reassuring me that if Korea wanted to, they could deliver.
Sleep With Me Jeans Scene
I am not a lesbian, but I share their beliefs. This scene was so good. I loved that these two, who have different kinds of disabilities, were able to have a very fun sex scene. I really like when it's clear both characters want to be there.
Only Friends: Boston and Top in the Car
Despite my eventual disdain for this show, I was impressed with Neo and Force for giving this incredibly selfish sex scene between their characters. This entire scene is about injured egos, and it's a standout scene from this show. We won't discuss the rest of the show here.
Thanks for the ask!
#answered#ghost host ghost house#la pluie#the novelist#pornographer#mood indigo#only friends#love class 2#wedding plan#kiseki: dear to me#sleep with me#gameboys 2#jack o' frost#the end of the world with you#bokura no micro na shuumatsu#japanese bl#thai bl#korean bl#taiwanese bl#filipino bl#gl series#bl series#bl recommendation#drama recommendation
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bloodshed, crimson clover
Pairing: Joel x Doctor F!Reader
Summary: You run a small practice in the Boston QZ, willing to treat anybody who needs it. After an encounter where you save the life of Joel Miller, you form an unlikely friendship with one of the most notorious, feared men in the QZ, a reputation you didn't realize existed until you come face to face with it yourself.
Warnings: Angst. Slow build. Mutual pining & tension (unresolved). Ambiguous ending. Game!Joel. Canon-typical violence. Reader captured with mentioned physical harm, Feral Joel with descriptions of torture/murder. Vague descriptions of injury treatments (bullet wound with cauterization, cleaning glass/debris from cuts, burn wound). Reader from California & Joel calls her Cali, Reader calls Joel Texas.
Wordcount: 12.1k
A/N: I've had this idea for a while, started it and it sat in drafts, and suddenly I was hit with inspiration again this past week. Also ty @cupofjoel for letting me scream about them to you and all your support, ily!!
In his own ways, Joel Miller was a complete gentleman.
A distinctly Southern one, with a show of selective manners from his upbringing before the world went to hell, paired with a charming ruggedness that pulled your attention to him from the very first time he stumbled through your little clinicâs doors.
You were one of the few legitimately licensed Pre-Outbreak medical professionals left in the QZ, and accepted each and every sick and injured person into your tiny practice. It took a long time and care to get a place out of the view of FEDRAâs ever-looming gaze, but even then you risked the possibility of having a target painted on your back if you treated the âwrongâ person.
Somebody always owed somebody else within those tall steel walls surrounding the poor semblances of a society that, in your opinion, should have been left in the dust with the rest of the world. In not discerning who you patched up, you put yourself in danger of getting on the wrong side of someone distinctly more powerful, more violent than you.
But through your diligent work over the years, youâd gained enough of a clientele for your hidden practice to remain largely untouched. There were a few instances with graffiti, but even that wasnât too terribleâimmature Fireflies pissed off that you hadnât accepted their offer to join them, most likely new recruits trying to earn their place in the rebel ranks.
So when the rickety old doors banged open hard enough to nearly tear them off the top hinge one night, you were up on your feet and running to assist the large body that almost fell to the floor with the momentum of how they had burst in.
There was not an ounce of anxiety in your body other than the familiar adrenaline of assess the damage, stop the bleeding, prevent infection and keep them alive as you wrapped your arms around their waist, using all your strength to pull them up and direct them to one of the two old clinic beds in the dingy old room that you sanitized as best you could between patients.
That was the first thing you noticed about Joel Miller, even though you didnât know him by name or even face yetâhe was heavy. Solid muscle underneath blood-stained fabric that you began to pull away from his torso, hardly paying attention to the low timbre of his pained grunts when the cloth stuck gruesomely to the gunshot wound you finally saw once you got the shirt off.
There were no questions in your mind other than how deep was it, was there an exit wound, did it hit anything vital, not caring how he had gotten it, who had given it to him, or why they had as you paced to your instruments, only taking a moment to make sure they were clean before pulling on a pair of gloves you were running dangerously low on, hoping that they wouldnât get too blood-soaked in the process of keeping this man alive.
Yes, you would do all you could to save himâbut you still knew in the back of your mind that two pairs of gloves spent on him would risk no gloves and losing somebody else further down the line.
It wasnât a thought you wasted the time to entertain now as you quickly got to work. There was nothing to numb the pain of the man who laid back on the clinic bed, teeth gritted and half-delirious from blood loss, not even bothering to try and say anything to you while you saved his life.
You werenât offended. In some odd way, it was a breath of fresh air.
Most, if not all patients you treated with this kind of wound, were usually tripping over fast anxiety-fueled words trying to explain to you how they had gotten into this situation. You supposed they were hoping you wouldnât turn them in for whatever they most likely werenât supposed to be doing, not knowing that the only thing you truly cared about anymore was keeping as many people as you could alive in this godforsaken dystopia.
This man though, he stayed silent. Not trying to assure you of his goodwill, whether he truly had any or not. He only stared up at the dilapidated ceiling, jaw practically wired shut, maybe to keep in the low grunts and groans that rumbled from his chest, exposed from where you had to remove his denim shirt to treat the wound on his torso.
Unfortunately, you did end up having to switch to a new pair of gloves, the bleeding slowing but stubbornly refusing to stop completely. You were reaching for more of your quickly dwindling supply of gauze to keep pressing against the wound when you heard his voice clearly for the first time.
âCauterize it.â
You looked back at him with your hand outstretched halfway to the gauze, eyes widening at the simple command that fell from the manâs chapped lips in a low drawl that rasped with pain and dehydration.
Blinking, you looked from his face that was still directed towards the ceiling down towards the wound, a frown pulling onto your lips as you glanced back towards him and began to protest, âI donâtââ
âCauterize. It.â He repeated firmly, jaw still clenched with the words hissed out through gritted teeth.
You stiffened, not particularly enjoying being ordered to make a medical choice in your own clinic, but then his eyes met yours, filled with an intense determination that had your hand pulling back slightly from its path towards a longer process that would've hopefully let the wound heal naturally.
Then there was a slight shift in the unfathomable depth of that gaze, a fracture in walls even more impenetrable than the ones that had surrounded you for almost half a decade, and his cracked lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them in a desperate attempt for hydration before he gave a quiet murmur of, âPlease.â
There was the first hint of those selective manners, emphasized with an underlying sense of unspeakable eagerness, and your face set into your own determination, nodding as you set about preparing for a practice that wasnât your favorite, but was sometimes necessary.
Maybe this man couldnât afford the time it would take to stop the bleeding completely, sew it up and let the wound heal on its own. Maybe there was something out there, somebody out to get him.
Or somebody he had to protect, to get home to.
That last thought is what urged you not stop even when the man grabbed the edge of the bed in a large hand, fingers curling so tight around it that you marveled if the rickety old metal would actually break under the strength of that grip. It's what spurred you to keep going even through the sharp shouts of pain muffled around the clean, rolled up washcloth you had gotten him to bite down on through the procedure.
Once the wound was forcibly closed by the red-hot metal of your sterile knife the best you could manage, you found your eyes drawn back to the manâs face, tracing the strength of his features as they relaxed a fraction from relief once the onslaught of pain from the procedure finished.
When you began the process of disinfecting the closed wound, his face had grown so blank that you worried he was on the verge of passing out, but he surprised you by placing his palms flat against the bed, pushing himself up with a loud grunt the moment you were done treating him.
âSirââ
Any protests towards his movements you were about to make were cut short as he swung his feet over the side of the bed, placing his boots on the ground, heavy-footed and nearly collapsing when he pushed himself up and strode forward anyway, powering through the weakness you would much prefer he would sit in before trying to leave.
âSir, I really donât thinkââ
But he was shaking his head towards your attempts to get him to rest, fingers fumbling with the buttons of where blood was beginning to dry on the faded denim of his shirt, managing to get it most the way fastened back up as he took increasingly more steady steps towards the door.
What flabbergasted you the most, though, was the way he turned his head back towards you, gaze meeting yours for the second time as he muttered a gruff, âThank you.â
The second show of those bizarre Southern gentlemanly manners, and you still didnât have a name for him yet.
And then he was gone.
Time passed, and you allowed the mysterious man with the dark gaze and deep drawl to fade into a memory.
Like with all your patients, you spared just enough thought in the days following his treatment to hope he was alive, even though you knew that any hope to ever get confirmation of survival was fruitless. There was no way to know how much longer somebody survived if you managed to save them.
Other than making that wish of wellbeing for yet another soul, you moved on with your life.
So when the door opened one afternoon weeks later, in much worse wear now than it ever had been from the time that patient had charged through it, you were surprised to see the very same man who was the cause of it standing in your doorway when you looked up.
When you saw him, you paused halfway in rising from your squeaky old rolling stool, remembering his face even from the way his head was turned to the side, observing how the top of the door was nearly coming off its rusty hinges before turning to find you.
With a nod, he stepped further into the room, surprising you with how carefully he shut the door behind him, a direct juxtaposition to his whirlwind entrance and exit when you had treated his gunshot wound.
âDoctor,â he greeted in that same low drawlâSouthern, maybe Texas, you thought somewhere in the back of your mindâas you finally rose fully from your seat, returning his nod and automatically moving towards your sparse supplies.
âTake a seat,â you said more kindly than firmly over your shoulder, not in a haste to stop him from bleeding out on your floors this time as he seemed to be relatively fine.
âSorry?â
You paused, glancing from one of the few pairs of gloves that remained back over your shoulder to see the man staring at you with a slight furrow in his brow, a pinch of confusion on an already severe face that pronounced deep lines of age.
He didnât seem that oldâin fact, you guessed he was perhaps around your age. But then, you supposed you were both old considering the world you had survived in, and even so, there was a haunted look to the manâs intensity that spoke of his longer years, one you werenât even sure he knew that he exuded as his presence seemed to take up the entire room and all your attention.
âYour wound,â you answered simply, gesturing towards where you remembered the gunshot you had treated to be on his torso, and he followed your gaze to look down at himself, the deep lines on his forehead relaxing a bit when you clarified, âYouâre here to have it checked on, no?â
âUhâno,â he replied, giving a slight shake of his head, his head lifting so his eyes could meet yours again. ââM healing just fine, maâam.â
There were the manners you had recognized the first time, more distinct this time, and they drew you a step closer towards the man, your body turning away from your small tray of supplies to face him fully for the first time.
âOh,â you said softly, head tilting as your own brows furrowed, confused as to what had brought him back to your clinic when he had seemed so desperate to get in, get treated as quickly as possible, and get out the last time. âWhat brings you back, then?â
There was another flicker of something across his face, some emotion you couldnât name before he shifted the backpack you just now realized he was wearing off of one shoulder. It slipped to his side, where he balanced it on his hip, drawing your attention to how his broad chest and large arms narrowed down to his waist as he began to rifle through it, the quick flare of some feeling in your stomach shifting to trepidation at his actions.
Oddly enough, you didnât get blaring warning signals of danger from this man. And besides, if he was trying to rob or kill you, he was going about it in a very odd way.
âHere.â His voice was gruff as he pulled something out of his pack, and you blinked rapidly, eyes widening at the same moment your jaw dropped at the sight of what he was holding out to you.
Supplies.
Medical supplies.
Gloves and bandages andâ
âJesus Christ, is that a stethoscope?â you gasped out, reaching forward to take the items before you could stop yourself, too thrilled by the notion of getting your hands on a crucial medical tool that had eluded you for years.
âThat it would be,â the man replied, but you werenât looking at him anymore, instead unrolling the worn leather pouch to see that there was, indeed, a stethoscope insideâone that had seen better days but, oh, the ways you were going to be able to properly diagnose more patients now because of this wasâ
You finally paused, back stiffening as you looked back up at the stranger who had so easily handed something this precious to you, a sense of unease finally curling uncomfortably in your gut as you took a step back.
âWhat do you want?â you asked quietly, uncertain as to the terms of whatever arrangement was happening, even as you were now holding the items close to your chest after rolling the stethoscope back up. Unwilling to give them back, even as you were suddenly daunted by the prospect of what he might want in exchange.
He watched you shift, eyes dropping to where you were nearly hugging the supplies to yourself now, and for a moment you worried he was about to try and take them back before his lips parted and he surprised you yet again by mumbling, âTo thank you.â
You blinked, taken aback by the shockingly simple sentiment. The desire to repay kindness with more kindness, despite the kind of world you both lived in.
Despite the fact that just one glance at this manâwith his hard muscles and intimidating presence, the grim set of his face and the way his muscles tensed not just with the anticipation of something going wrong at any moment, but almost an eagerness that it would happen, that there would be an outlet for that tension ready to snapâwould give one the impression that there wasnât an ounce of kindness in his body.
âThatâsâŚit?â you ask slowly, still wary, hardly able to believe that there were no strings attached. You werenât a pessimist, but being an optimist wasnât exactly an option either, not anymore.
But he just nodded, shifting back on the balls of his feet, hands raising with palms turned out towards you, as if to show he had nothing to take, nothing else to give other than this.
âI repay my debts, maâam,â he uttered with a deadly seriousness in that low drawl, and this time you definitely settled on Texas as being the origin of such a smooth accent.
âOh,â you said softly, nodding at the explanation, because now this made more sense. Kindness was a rarity, nearly nonexistent, and it wasnât what he was showing here.
All he wanted was to repay a debt, one that you werenât even aware existed.
Though you certainly werenât one to complain when this was the payment.Â
Clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest, you reel at how saving this man from an untimely death may have just saved even more lives down the line.
Youâre opening your mouth to thank him for his own thanks, but then heâs gone once again, leaving the same way he came in, with more tempered control and less chaotic storm than the first time.
You still donât have a name.
You settle on calling him Texas.
Not that you say it to his face, or that you even see his face.
More time passes now than those few weeks in between your first two meetings with the Southern stranger. One month goes by, then two, and you once again resign him to the confines of your memories, even though the image of him is much more adamant on breaking out since the second visit.
Second and last, you reminded yourself as you disposed of a used pair of gloves after seeing off a patient, seeing his face flash in your mindâs eye as the cause of why you were able to save this life. Why you could save yet another life after this.
And it wasnât just the gloves, but everything he had given you. There was still quite a bit of the stash left, as you were used to knowing how to make supplies last for as long as possible, dividing them and deducing who needed what the most as you saw to patients throughout your days.
You were thankful for him. Even if this was his way of settling a debt, washing his hands of you and moving on with his life, you still felt immense gratitude.Â
You also felt unbearable curiosity.
Every now and then, you found yourself wondering how he had gotten the supplies, and that much at that. Surely by no legal means, and none of your business at all, but you still couldn't help but wonder.
And so with the gunshot wound he had first stumbled into your life with, you tried to paint a picture of Texas in your head.
When your hands were idle, you created stories in your mind of the life heâd led that brought him from homeâor where you imagined his home to be, if you were even remotely correct in dubbing him Texasâto here.Â
It was an embarrassing pastime, really, and you had no business entertaining anything more than a passing thought of gratitude about him. But still, you imagined.
Sometimes that imagination was of an exciting life for him, one of travel to far places that you never got to go, pretending that this was a man who had lived through better times and had many tales to tell of them. Tales to tell you, if you were being particularly delusional.
Other times, you pictured him with a life much more humble. Born and raised in the Lone Star State, probably proud to be. A family man who yelled at football, loved barbeques and beers with buddies, working a simple 9-5 until the world went to shit.
You liked that imaginary version of him. You liked thinking that Texas wasnât too different from you, just trying to get by in the old world and the new.
So used to him staying inside of your mind, you were surprised the next time you actually saw him again.
In hindsight, you supposed you shouldnât have been. With the scars you had seen just on his torso when you were treating his gunshot wound, you doubted this man lived an easy life now, no matter what it had been before.
It was late, well into curfew hours, but your tiny apartment was just a few streets away from your humble clinic, and you knew the best methods to get back and forth without being seen. You liked to stay as late as you could most nights, just in case somebody needed tending to at the odd hours when nobody else would be able to help.
Your eyes were growing heavy, a few persistent yawns you failed to fight off your bodyâs way of letting you know you were definitely pushing it, but you held on for a little longer.
And youâd be forever grateful you did, when he was the one needing tending to that night.
The loud, metallic creak of those loose hinges pulled your attention up from where you were staring absentmindedly at your small desk, and you were jumping from your stool the moment you saw him.
There was no stumbling this time, but you saw the streaks of red well, cuts across his face and arms, worn flannel shredded around the skin embedded with glass that glinted in the low, fluorescent light of your lamp that lit up the confined quarters.
âSit,â you were saying before anything else, and you swore you heard a quiet chuckle under a pained breath as Texas moved to sink down onto a clinic bed.
âGood evening to you too,â he mumbled, and you glanced up at the unexpected humor, unsure if it was for your expense or benefit.
Nevertheless, your eyes narrowed slightly, and his mouth snapped shut then. He settled back as you pulled your tray with you, a neat array of the dwindling supplies from what he had given you waiting underneath your fingertips before you pulled on some gloves and began.
Much like the first time, the ruined shirt was removed so you could work, but the lack of the looming threat of immediate death and ample time to wonder about the man between his visits left you now with eyes that wanted to wander.Â
You hoped Texas couldnât see each time your gaze flickered across his broad chest in the low light of the lamp, observing the way it illuminated his scarred skin before quickly moving your careful attention back to picking glass and debris from the series of cuts across his body, doing your best to stop more scars from finding a home there.
âGotta stop meeting me like this, Texas,â you find the words slipping from your lips as you focused on your work, your mind not even catching up to what you had said, too focused on your work until he spoke.
âTexas?â
You pause, feeling a surge of embarrassment at what you let slip, only used to him existing inside your thoughts and not in front of you, warm flesh beneath your hands, the heat of him radiating even through the latex gloves.Â
Your fingers flexed from where you were bracing yourself against the center of his chest, swallowing thickly when you suddenly noticed the steady beat of his heart underneath your palm. You refocused your attention on picking another shard of broken glass from just below his collarbone, trying to gather your thoughts enough for a somewhat reasonable answer.
âI justââ You bit your cheek, struggling with what to say, a sigh held deep in your lungs before you exhaled it slowly and mumbled, âYou are from Texas, arenât you?â
Your gaze shifted up to his neck, gently cleaning the dirt from a scrape there, your new focus of attention leaving you with a perfect view of the twitch of his lips from the corner of your eye.
âGuilty.â You can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he mumbles the word, and you quickly lift your hand from it, not realizing that your touch had lingered there even when you had moved away from that area of his body. âJust surprised you picked up on it, sâall.â
A little smile turned up on your lips; part pleased that you had gotten it right, part embarrassed that you had even thought of it, thought of him, that much.
Quiet fell between you and Texas for a while, as you made sure the cuts on his neck were clean before finally moving up to his face.
Your eyes met with his for the first time since he had sat down that night, and it was also the first time you noticed their color.
All that time he had plagued your mind, and you realized you hadnât even really seen the color of his eyes. You had settled on brown, but sitting closer now, you saw the green surrounding the warmer color, creating a stunning hazel that was all you could see for a moment before your gaze snapped away, the heat of embarrassment filling you again as you pulled your focus back to his cuts.
You hesitated then, one hand hovering in the air before gently gripping his chin between a thumb and forefinger, tilting his face to different angles as you treated it, a remarkably easy task when he hardly winced with each piece of glass removed, seemingly unbothered by the pain.
Once again, you were sucked into the familiarity of the focus that came with your work, and it was Texas that broke it this time, your brain taking a moment to register what he had said.
âCalifornia.â
You paused, tweezers hovering over his cheekbone, eyes meeting that hazel again to see he was watching you, and you wondered just how long he had been doing soâthe whole time? Why did you hope he was?
âHowâd you know?â
Texas shrugged one shoulder, and you once again forced your attention back to your work, trying to ignore the weight of his gaze on your face now that you knew it was there.
âLucky guess,â he said in that low timbre, and you laughed softly, shaking your head as you pulled the last shard of glass from a cut above his eyebrow, eyes lingering on a scar near his temple before dropping the glass into your tin of medical waste, full of all the once painful remnants of whatever had brought him back to you tonight.
You felt like an awful person, being glad that it had brought him back to you.
Once all the cuts were properly taken care of, you leaned back with a sigh, snapping the gloves off your hands and dropping them into the rest of the medical waste. By some old habit, you patted Texas on the knee before standing, wheeling your tray away with you as you declared him free to go once again.
âIt was the accent,â he says, and you pause, looking back over your shoulder as he pushes himself to his feet, and youâre reminded once again of how big the man is when heâs not sitting still while you treat him. âYour accent gave it away. Sure as hell donât sound East Coast.â
Another laugh left your lips, curling up into a smile as you shake your head and look back towards your remaining medical supplies. Dangerously low again after tonight, but in this moment now, you found yourself not caring just yet.
âGuilty,â you repeated his own affirmation from earlier, and one glance back showed the corner of his lips turning up into a small smirk that had much larger consequences on your heart, racing now at the sight of amusement on his stoic face before you quickly looked away again.
âLong way from home, Cali,â he says slowly, and your heart skips a goddamn beat now at that drawled nickname, as if he wasnât doing enough already.Â
âSame as you, huh?â you try to sound casual as you kept your gaze focused on shifting through your supplies, reorganizing them just to keep your mind busy, even as it marveled at how he hadnât left already,
âNot nearly as much as you.âÂ
At the continued conversation, you finally turn, seeing him bent over at the waist and rifling through the beat-up backpack full of duct-taped holes that he had brought in with him.
You see the gun tucked into the back of the waistband of his jeans then, a sight that wasnât surprising given the injuries heâd come to you with, but your brows still furrow, mind continuing to create different stories to solve the mystery of him before he straightens up and turns back to you.Â
He holds out a bundle of bandages and gloves to you, and you try to hold back your excitement at the offering as much as you can, as thrilled by the promise they offered for your work as you were by the idea that heâd already had the supplies ready this time.
The idea that heâd been holding onto them for you.
Delusional, an inner voice chides you, but you smile down at the supplies anyway, rubbing a thumb across the box of gloves and sighing quietly as your mind brings forth a time long gone where you never would have thought twice about the availability of what was once such a common thing.
âItâs funny, isnât it?â you say slowly, pondering how you had recognized his accent, attributed him to a long gone place, as he did you. âHow even after all this time, we still remember those little things about a world that doesnât exist anymore.â
Heâs not looking at you anymore when you glance back up. The stoicism you had come to associate with him from just a few meetings was back, and you get the sense you had taken the rare offer of a conversation too far.
You thank him for the supplies, and he nods almost absentmindedly, seemingly half paying attention to you before he moves back towards the door, and you turn back to begin to organize your new supplies, eager to restock your workspace.
The only thing that stops you isâ
âWhatâs your name, Cali?â
Your head lifts, body half-turning around to stare at him in shock.Â
Nobody has asked for your name in years.Â
Itâs been so long since youâve said it out loud that the syllables assigned to you at birth feel foreign in your mouth. It taunts you with a time long past, like a bad taste you have to spit out, and when you do, he repeats it back.
The way he says it isâŚdifferent. He sounds it out just the same as you, but it sounds less wrong leaving his lips. He says it slowly, as if tasting each letter on his tongue, memorizing it before giving a nod and turning to leave.
âWait.â
He does.Â
For some reason, he stops when you tell him to, facing the door that he himself was the sole cause of its state hanging off its hinges, something he stares purposefully at when you ask for his own name.
Texas doesnât look back as his voice wraps around the sounds of his own name, distaste similar to yours when you gave him your own dripping from his mouth as it curves around his syllables.
You start to say it back. The name, his name, Joel leaving your lips quietly, but heâs already back out the door before you can even sound out the M of his last name.
It leaves your lips anyway, his name echoing alone in your clinic, clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest.
Somewhere buried deep in your thoughts, you ponder over the idea that, just from the sheer intensity that radiated from the man the few times you had met him, Joel Miller memorizing somebodyâs name feels like irrefutable danger, like youâre in for a very short life span. Itâs a feeling you ignore, an instinct you try to forget about as you recall no hostility in his eyes, the hazel sharp as shrapnel you once cleaned from his body with none of the lethality when he repeated your name back to you.
Somewhere, buried even deeper, your heart races instead at the thought that he intends to say it again.
Joel leaves, but he always comes back.Â
Itâs never a social call. The worldâs gone to shit; you donât have the time, and youâre sure Joel doesnât have the patience.
He shows up in your doorway when heâs injured, and leaves you with enough medical supplies to keep you going until the next time he comes along. At its core, it's a business transaction. Heâs just continuing to repay a debt to you so he doesnât owe you anything. Thereâs nothing fundamentally personal about it.
That doesnât stop you from looking forward to those visits. You never know when Joelâs going to show up next, and it does more than keep you on your toes; it holds you in anticipation, keeping those daydreams in the forefront in your mind rather than the back whenever you have time to yourself now.
Because each time he comes through, he leaves you with another snapshot of himself. Another glimpse into the lives he lived once and lives nowâusually the former rather than the latter, much to your surprise.
You hold every reveal of the aloof man close; purely off-hand, inconsequential things, like a love for going to the movies now rendered nonexistent, or the time he and his brother rode motorcycles cross country. Those things donât matter anymore, but you like hearing about them. You like knowing those things about him, fitting the real pieces of him in with your imaginary ones to solve a puzzle that only existed inside your head. It fuels your imagination, spurs on your delusion.
Youâre not actually sure if he realizes how much you know about him at this point, while simultaneously knowing nearly nothing about him at all. The important things, like why he keeps showing up with all those injuries, remain unknown.
Joel brings it up, just once, off-hand as youâre wrapping up his shoulder in a spot where you could tell a bullet had grazed him.
âYou donât ask.â
Your hands had paused, eyes lifting from your work to his face, glancing over his side profile before his head turned and he was looking down at you from inches away.
He was waiting for an answer, but your mind was having trouble keeping up with what he had even said, too startled by the swirling of brown and green in his eyes when they were right there. A color as warm and solid as the earth beneath your feet, grounding you to him, pulling you in with that same undeniable magnetism he had first stumbled into your life with.
His facial hair had gotten longer, dark whiskers of hair framing cracked lips, a split down the top one that you had carefully cleaned earlier. You hadn't even thought twice about it when dabbing it clean, but now you couldnât see anything else, not untilâ
âCali?â
You blinked, head snapping up as your back went ramrod straight, and you quickly turned back to where your hands had frozen mid-bandage.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
âAbout what?â you forced the words from your lips, trying not to think about how they ached to have his own pressed to them, split lip and all molding firmly and then gently against yoursâ
Oh god, no, what were you thinking?
âAbout any of it,â Joel grumbled, waving a large hand towards his face with a vague gesture, seeming to think you had just been observing his injuries even with the way youâre now staring at thick fingers, long veins, prominent and begging to be tracedâ
No! Stop!
âYou donât have a policy of asking your patients questions?â he asked, arching a thick brow down at you, and you curse the way your stomach flips at the sight.
âBelieve it or not, I actually have a strong one not to,â you finally answered with his shoulder now wrapped firmly, fingers grazing against the gauze before you pushed your stool away from him, gloves snapping off your hands and ignoring the ache to touch him without them. âYou do what you have to in order to survive. My job is to make sure you keep surviving. Not to ask questions.â
Joel hummed, and you felt the weight of his gaze on you up until he handed you a new bundle of supplies and left again.
Sometimes, you wonder if heâs picked up anything about you in turn, the way youâve locked away every small fragment you've learned of him. You wonder if he even cares to listen during those rare moments where you might let something about yourself, past or present, slip.
You dare to dream that he does.
Foolish.Â
You can almost say with certainty that Joel doesnât realize the things about himself that youâve picked up on. Like the movies thingâit had been revealed through slurred words at your last-ditch effort to distract him by asking him questions through a particularly painful procedure, and he had rambled in delirium about popcorn and previews for no more than half a minute before promptly passing out beneath your moving hands.
It had caused bubbling panic in the moment, but when the moment had passed and he had awoken with embarrassment about not being able to tolerate the pain, it seemed all recollection of what he had shared had disappeared.
Or maybe he was just embarrassed about that too.
You would surely never admit that the thought of the large, intimidating man even experiencing an emotion as mundane as embarrassment only endeared you to him more.
And the motorcycle tripâwell, that hadnât even been Joelâs choice in revealing.
A few years into gaining your most returning patientââwe have to get your picture on the wall,â you had jested to him about simultaneously having the best (can somehow survive a plethora of injuries) and worst (has a penchant to keep getting them) luck at one point, much to his silent judgment at your attempted jokeâhe had entered the clinic the same way he did upon that first meeting, and you winced at the way the door banged against the wall in the same place it'd once left a dent during that first visit from him.
A sharp disapproval at treating your humble place of work like this was on the tip of your tongue, before you saw that Joel wasnât alone, nor was he the one currently injured.
Any questions other than those pertinent for your new patientâs survival were rapidly dismissed from crowding your fast-moving mind, the same way as always. You helped Joel set the man down, hardly even realizing he was talking, that they were both talking, until after you had snapped on your gloves and assessed the burn wound on the back of the man's forearm.
âIt worked out, didnât it?â
âHardly,â Joel bit back, voice rough with a harsh disapproval bordering on anger, the sound of which made the hairs raise on the back of your neck as you busied yourself getting cool compresses ready. âIt was goddamn stupid, is what it was. Nearly got yourself killed.â
âBut it worked.â
âTommyââ
âLighten up, big brother,â this Tommy said while you checked his pulse and lifted his arm above his chest, and now you understood the energy filling up the entire space of the room.
There was a blood bond between the bickering men, tested by the fraying of nerves and something deeper, some unnamable tension that came from something you didnât know, maybe wouldnât even understand. Some after effect of the transition into this world you now lived in, something that was none of your business.
Even then, the way Tommyâs body was constantly shifting and Joel hovering over your shoulder as they kept arguing while you tried to treat the burn is what made you finally snap.
âHey!â
The clear echo of your voice layered over the argument, and instantly broke it, both men turning down to see your narrowed gaze shifting between the two of them.
âYou need to sit still because Iâm not fond of breaking burn blisters, and you wonât be either,â you ordered sternly, not wavering under the attention of the man finally focused on you for the first time since coming in, before you whipped around to Joel still hovering behind you. âAnd you!â
For a moment, you found a bit of humor in the utterly stupefied look on the manâs face that matched that of his brotherâs, before you stood from your stool so you were chest to chest with Joel.
âYou need to stop breathing down my goddamn neck and let me work,â you said firmly, pointing towards the far wall, the order clear in your eyes without even having to say it at this point.
You knew Joel saw it, and to his credit all you saw was his jaw ticking, a brief flare to his nostrils before he spun on his heel, marching towards the wall to lean against it heavily. His arms crossed across his broad chest while he watched you sit and go back to cooling Tommyâs burn.
Order was regained in your clinic, and you smiled a little to yourself at having established it, before Tommy shifted forward slightly towards you and muttered conspiratorially, but not at all quietly, âNo wonder you got even this hardass to like you.â
A tremor briefly overtook your fingers with the shock of the unexpected words before you flexed them, willing your grip to steady before renewing your focus on his burn injury as Joel snarled from his spot you had assigned him against the wall, âShut the fuck up, Tommy.â
Your gaze snaps up, making sure Joel hadnât moved, eyes narrowing when you saw he had pushed off the wall just slightly. When he notices your look, he shifts backwards, back hitting the wall again as his glare shifts off to the side, towards the loose hinges on the door now in even worse condition thanks to both Miller brothers.
Thereâs a chuckle from Tommy, more bristling from Joel, and the illusive taunt of hope wound tight in your chest, but nobody says anything else until youâre sending them off with the rest of your low supply of lotion that would be adequate for burn treatment, along with instructions on how to take care of the now loosely bandaged burn.
Tommy nods, thanking you when Joel snaps at him to show some manners. The younger brother leaves with a pointed look towards your door and an offhand, not unkind comment on getting it fixed, followed up quickly by an offer of doing the work himself to pay back your kindness.Â
Not a debt, but kindness, the exact verbiage he used himself in a Southern drawl a bit lighter, more intentionally charming than Joelâs rough allure.
Joel is still irritated, more than youâve ever seen, but he still nods at you with a mumble of âthanks, Cali,â before following his brother as the younger man is saying âso thatâs Cali!â
There's a hard smack to Tommy's shoulder to direct him away, Joel's reprimanding tone saying things you couldnât hear before they disappear around a corner.
It was then that you decided you liked Tommy.
You like him even more when he stops by a couple weeks later to actually fix the door like he mentioned, filling your head with stories about his older brother you could have only ever dreamed of.
Because of Tommy you have reasons to giggle into your pillow that night at the thought of the two born and raised Texas boys racing across the country on motorcycles, smiling stupidly against the coarse fabric at the image of a younger Joel Miller with wind in his hair and a carefree smile on his face.
Youâd only ever seen tiny twitches of those lips into halfway smirks, and so you dreamed of a time where they werenât chapped from the smog of QZ air or split from punches to the face, but soft and pink and curling up into a real smile.
You dreamed of making him smile again.
Sometimes it takes a while for a visit from Joel.
Weeks turn into months in-between those short moments where you see his face for quick patch-ups and restocks of supplies.
Once there was about a year that passed without so much of a glimpse of him, and you had tried to settle yourself into the likely idea that he may have finally gotten himself hurt so bad he couldnât even stumble into your clinic, when he proved your hidden, greatest fear wrong by turning up again.
He had limped through the door without a word, letting in a cold burst of snow laden air with him before it shut. A sigh of relief was exhaled from your lips, dry and chapped from the harsh winter months, and you hurried to him, slinging his arm over your shoulder as you helped him through the room to sit.
Peeling the blood caked jeans from his legs with a mumbled apology of the chill permeating your clinic this time of year, you barely got out one word out after of, âYouââ
âGotta stop meeting you like this, I know,â Joel sighed, avoiding your gaze as you settled on your stool with a familiar squeak of the old furniture, pulling on a pair of gloves you had set aside specifically for him months ago, ensuring that youâd have at least one left for him in the hopes that he could still make it back to you in one piece someday.
Even if that meant one less for someone down the line, potentially sacrificing a life for the uncertain possibility of saving somebody else.
It was unlike you.
Selfish, the inner voice of reason chides you again, as it always speaks in his presence.
And as always, you ignore it.
Your eyes flickered up from critically observing the stab wound haphazardly sewn above his kneeâhis own work, no doubt, and you were surprised at your frustration that he hadnât come to you instead. You figured it must have not been an option, some reason having kept him from you, but you still fixed him with a hard look that the surly man actually shifted under, wary under the weight of your scrutiny, for whatever that was worth.
Shaking your head, you turned back to set about the process of thoroughly cleaning the wound, checking for any sign of infection and treating his body properly, because somebody had to do it if he wasnât going to.
It wasnât like he was reckless. Despite your visits with the man being few and far betweenâif they could even really be called visits in the first placeâyou had caught enough of a glimpse of who he was to know he was far from irrational. He wouldnât have made it this far if he was.
Joel Miller could keep himself alive, of this you had no doubt.
But the repercussions that came with his survival, infection of the body or wounds that went deeper than that of flesh or blood, were things that you learned he merely shouldered as a consequence.
A burden you would lessen, even if all it meant was making sure one wound out of many wouldnât fester, if he came to you with it.
It wasnât until this one was treated and redressed, and he was pulling his pants back on while you stared down at the gloves on your handsâa pair that he had given you, that you had saved to save him, now speckled with his blood, a reminder that he was still alive but maybe just barelyâand the words you had actually wanted to say when he came in, the ones that you had held back when he interrupted you, echoed through your mind again.
You scared me.
They arenât spoken, not with words. Instead, your hand pats his knee again after his jeans are zipped up, fingers brushing against where his properly tended wound is now hidden beneath the heavy fabric.
The touch lingers, for just a second, before youâre up and moving away.
To your surprise, Joel follows.
He rifles through his backpack, and you notice a few new holes, more spots where thereâs recently applied duct tape. You absentmindedly wonder why he sticks with this one. If heâs able to find and trade other sorts of goods, couldnât he get a new backpack?
Thanks is given by reflex when he gives you the supplies, even though you know with this trade, youâre even once again. He doesnât expect your gratitude, maybe doesnât even want it, but thereâs a sure cause for it this time as you shift through the pile to observe the weight of what you felt sitting unassuming at the bottom, but couldn't discern until you saw it.
Gloves.
Not thin latex, but heavy fabric, fitting in the palm of your freezing hand.
Not medical, but practical, even as the promise of warmth had now become a luxury.
Not for patients, but for you.
Joel had gotten this for you.
When you look back up at him, eyes wide with shock, heâs already explaining it away with a dismissive wave of his hand and gruff drawl, âGotta keep those fingers in proper working condition, right?â
Your brow furrows then, more gratitude trapped inside your mouth as you notice something again that had lingered in your mind since he had shown up that night, something you couldnât ignore anymore.
That this Joel in front of you now was different.
Joel had never been a beacon of warmth, but heâs never been colder.
He wonât meet your eye, doesnât even seem bothered by his lack of ability to keep eye contact now. Heâs rigid and tense, something pent-up deep inside of him, worse than ever before, and thatâs when you know that whatever had happened since you saw him last had taken another piece of whatever he was. Another part of whoever you dreamed about once existing, gone.
âHey,â you mumble, and he glances back at you, surely seeing the way your brows are knitted above eyes that put your concern on full display, just judging by the way he stiffened.
He waves another dismissive hand, looks away with arms crossed over his chest in a way that youâd seen before. It was like he was physically containing whatever emotions he was experiencing to his own body, holding them in with the flex of his muscles through his beat up winter jacket. A silent show of his strength, trying to protect himself with it, even if it couldn't stop whatever it was he was feeling.
You expect him to leave then, but his weather and time worn boots are glued to the ground, unmoving.
Eventually, he speaks, and the two words with the flat affect shake you to your core.
âTommyâs gone.â
Fear blankets your body and sets every nerve on fire, pain flashing across your features as Joel sees it and quickly shakes his head, adding simply, nearly without emotion, âLeft.â
The daunting grief at the possible death of the younger Miller brother fades, even as an emptiness remains when you softly say, âOh.â
âYeah.â
Silence fills the space, and tension with it, setting you on edge with Joel in a way youâd never felt with him before.
âFireflies,â he finally supplies, and you nod, looking down to the winter gloves you still held tight in your grasp, even as you set the rest of your new stock down.
So that was what had happened. The last thread holding the brothers together had snapped, and Tommy had left, taking a part of Joel with him. Maybe the last part of him, of who he had once been.
No wonder the man before you was even more hardened than you had ever seen him before.
âI see,â you whisper, and neither of you says anything more after that.
Not until you look back up at his face, refocus on the familiar features, noticing a few new lines of age in the year that had passed since last seeing him, some white whiskers in the edges of his beard, andâ
Your hand is reaching out before you can stop to think, gripping his chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting his face down towards you in a way similar to when youâd treated him in the past.
Maybe by reflex from those moments, he lets you do it, even as the sharp clarity of his hazel eyes meet yours in confusion.
âWhatâs this?â you ask, fingers hovering over the new red line of scarring across the bridge of his nose, tracing the length of it without touch.
His eyes flash, not with anger, but with an emotion you donât recognize. He tries to pull away, but your grip tightens, keeping him in place as you wait for an answer.
âNothinâ,â he mumbles, your eyes narrowing at the evasive answer, the way his gaze shifts away.
âTexas, this isnâtââ
Joelâs hand finds yours then, thick fingers wrapping around your smaller ones to pull them away from where you were still holding his chin, and the warmth of his skin seeping into yours hits you with a jolt as you only then realize this was touch.
Skin on skin, the very thing you had been aching for, dreaming of, for years. Those thoughts of him that kept you going on lonely days and cold nights, longing for something you could never have, an impossible reality now on the edge of your fingertips as he enveloped them in a rough palm, in his touch.
Touch.
Touch you had instigated, without the barrier of medical gloves between you. Without the clear lines that defined all you were to each otherâdoctor and patient, business transactions, a debt repaid again and again. Lines that now blurred when he didnât drop your hand right away.
Blurring further, obscuring your vision in a rose-tinted blush when his grip tightened, and your breath caught in your throat at the feeling of him holding on to you.
ââTs fine,â Joel assures quietly, your fingers finally slipping from his, the clear hazel of those eyes you had spent a year waiting and hoping to see again, not meeting yours even once.
He hasnât looked at you even once.
Just like that, you snap from a slow motion daze back to true reality. Your fantasies hit the ground hard, leaving you shattered with the empty aches of your heart forever unfulfilled in the dark crevices of your mind.
But even then, you canât look away.Â
Again, you hear the admission aching to be revealed, slipping from the back of your mind to the forefront on waves of anxiety and need that grew larger, more disastrous, crashing through all your thoughts as you watched him looking away, but not leaving.
You scared me.
The words fill your mouth, waiting to be spoken.
But they arenât.
Even though you wanted to tell him how his absence had filled you with fear, terror that only abates whenever heâs with you until he inevitably leaves again, you donât dare to say it. Not when he doesnât even look at you, even though you canât bring yourself to look away.
The only thing you do say is an assurance that youâd make it home safe when he tells you to before heâs finally gone again.
Itâs the first time that you notice that each time he leaves you with a new piece of himself, he takes a piece of you with him.
âYouâre scaring my patients, Texas.â
âGood.â
âJoel.â
Itâs been like this since Tommy left.
Joel visits you now when heâs nothing less than the perfect picture of health.
At first, he brings you thingsâthe usual, necessary items that keep your unsanctioned practice running. You thank him each time, albeit with puzzled looks when thereâs no visible harm on his body, confusion that only furthers when he lingers.
Eventually, he drops by without anything at all. Nothing in hand, sometimes no backpack in tow, but always with that gun tucked into the back of his waistband.
For a while, you think nothing of it. Youâre glad that heâs showing his face, that youâre not glancing up with baited breath each time your door creaks open, hoping for just a glimpse of the man to assure you that he was alright.
Joel lets you see often enough now that heâs still in one piece, and for a while, youâre foolish enough to think that itâs purely for the benefit of your peace of mind.
Then one day, when heâs walking out, a patient is walking inâa younger man youâve seen more than once, treating wounds similar to those that Joelâs had, though not quite as severe.
What is severe is the look Joel instantly shoots at him as they pass by each other, your heart sinking when the injured man scurries towards the available clinic bed while the door shuts.
You try to push it out of your mind, try to ignore the way your patient keeps watching the closed door with baited breath, until he breathes out with certain trepidation, âThatâs Joel Miller.â
Pausing in the middle of splinting his broken finger, your brow furrows, glancing up at the nervous scrunching of his face as you reply slowly, âYes, it is.â
His gaze finally shifts from the door towards you, then back again quickly, like heâs afraid the mentioned man will burst through the moment heâs not looking.
âYouââ A gulp, and then the shaky question of, âYou know him, donât you?â
You finish bandaging his injury, gently placing his hand back in his lap and replying honestly, even with your uncertainty lingering at his tone, âOf course I do.â
He doesnât say anything more until heâs leaving, glancing back at you warily, seeming to struggle over what he wants to say before settling for, âHeâsâŚheâs got a reputation, you know. Lots of folks are scared of that Joel Miller.â
With a nervous wringing of your hands behind your back, and a calm smile on your face, you assure him, âThereâs nothing to be afraid of.â
Of course, you donât know that Joelâs been waiting.
Thereâs no way to be aware that heâs been in the alley next to the clinic the entire time you treated your patient, no way to know that he trails the man the moment he leaves the safety of your building.
Youâll never know that the man you treated isnât so good either. Or that heâs not nearly as bad as Joel.
Somebody always owed somebody else, after all. You knew it well, knew that Joel paid you back for this very reason.
But you didnât know what happened when you owed him.
Or what happened when he went to collect.
And Joel ensured you were never getting anywhere near it.Â
A sentiment made clear with another broken finger for the lackey of a rival smuggler late on a payment that had sought you out for the last time that day, along with a painful promise made that he and his buddies would never step foot in your clinic again.
There was no way for you to know what happened that day, but you noticed the shift afterwards.
The way Joel takes up residence along the wall of your clinic and doesnât leave when patients come in. How he watches them, the mere weight of his sole attention setting them on edge.
You tell them itâs fine, shoot him a glare that tells him to back off. And maybe it works for a little, but not for long.
You assure yourself that itâs fine. A reputation means nothing, and you know Joel Miller, donât you? Or you know all that matters. And you know that thereâs nothing to be afraid of.
Until there is.
Youâre gone.
Itâs the first time since meeting you that Joel stops by the clinic, and youâre not there.
Well into the morning, and youâre not sitting there at your little makeshift desk. At this time, you should be half-rising from your stool heâs been meaning to find a replacement for just at the sound of the door opening.
You're always ready to spring into action, to save a life or make one better. Like youâve done for him, time and time again.
Itâs also the first time since before Tommy left that the door is swinging off its hinges again, and thatâs when Joel knows.
Youâre gone.
He doesnât need to see the ransacked clinic, but he looks anyway. Searches frantically through the overturned furniture, your well-organized stock of supplies now a mess, some missing because he knows how much you have of everything, he silently keeps track along with you so he knows what to pick up when he and Tess go on runs.
Thereâs a panic settling in his gut, a burning ache crawling its way up his throat, and his hands twitch with the need to do something, to make somebody hurt, make them pay, make them talk to bring you back.
Back to the work that is your pride and joy, the four walls that have been your safety for years, a safety youâve only ever extended to others, one you offered to him.
Joel needs to bring you back to him.
No time is wasted when he gets back to Tess. She knows you by now, having visited the clinic herself with or without Joel, for injuries or for chats. Heâs noticed his partner always smiling after, the two of you forming a kinship that warms what fragments remain of his heart like so little else can.
Tess is taking charge in a way thatâs familiar, and Joel is grateful for that. He doesnât know what heâd do if left to his own devices right now, uncertain whoâd wind up dead in the streets if let loose to find you on his own terms.
But he takes solace in knowing that Tess will let him do what he does best when it's time.
And when it is time, when theyâve cornered the last person whoâs had your name leave their lips, the bone of their arm shatters underneath a brutal stomp and twist of Joelâs heavy boot after a series of ruthless hits that have left them begging for mercy on the ground.
But it gets them what they needâa location, information on a deal gone south for a specific kind of medicine that these smugglers had a monopoly on, medicine you most likely needed to save one patient, and deemed it a risk worth taking just for that.
Smugglers that Joel had very specifically warned to stay the fuck away from you.
The whimpering man under his boot gets a bullet to the head for not heeding his warning, for taking you from him, and theyâre on their way without another word.
Fear burns so hot that it singes his veins, making him move faster, hit harder when they get to the warehouse. Red is all he sees and itâs all he feels, running through his fingers as he pulls triggers and chokes windpipes before twisting, snapping. Blood, hot and metallic, staining his skin in splatters up to his forearms as he moves from one to the next.
Joel has lost too much to make it quick, and the thought of losing you too only adds to his rage, making his preemptive vengeance all the more deadly. He lays waste to them all, sparing not a soul of his brutality.Â
His shiv sinks into a neck, and he leaves it there for too long before pulling it out, leaving a streak of evidence of another life heâs stolen across his face as he turns, more than ready for the next one.
Movement catches the corner of his eye, and heâs lifting his gun towards where he sees legs pushing against the ground, a body scuttling away into a corner out of his sight, cowering behind a tower of boxes.
Joelâs finger is already on the trigger before he sees the shoes peeking out behind the cardboard, the tips of well-worn sneakers that he knows well, having seen them turn and move quickly around one tiny room for years.
Relief doesnât rush to him yet, not until heâs rounded the boxes, not until he really sees you.
Thereâs an angry purple bruise forming along your jaw, and fury burns hotter, seeping through the edges of sweet relief that youâre okay, although injured.
You whimper, and his heart breaks, reaching out a hand towards you to help you up, to bring you back to him.
At the movement, you press your back against the wall, cowering away even further as your eyes fix onto his face.
Joelâs brow furrows, anger and relief both ebbing away slowly, and he says your name, holding his palm out further for you to take.
You whimper again.
Eyes wide and clouded with fear, lip quivering as you shrink away from the hand that he had stained with blood again and again to find you, to bring you back.
Above where your back is pressed to the wall, there is a line of windows. They offer a view to the first floor of the warehouse, now littered with bodies he had left, a clear trail of evidence of his path of destruction from the moment he had entered the building.
And thatâs when Joel realizes youâre afraid of him.
The worst part is, heâs not surprised, not even in the slightest.
On the contrary, he thinks some part of him had been waiting for this. Waiting for you to finally open your eyes and see him for what he is.
Someone like you, who has spent her whole life patching up the kind of wounds he inflicts, who saves lives and gives while all he does is takes and takes, by his own choice or some kind of curseâof course youâre afraid.
Joelâs bloodstained fingers twitch, remembering the softness of your own the one and only time he had held them that cold winter night. His hand hovers in the air halfway to you, yearning to comfort a hand that heals with one that only knows how to kill.
But then you flinch at the twitch of his fingers, having witnessed their deadliness, and he pulls back.
When Tess arrives a moment later, you turn to her, allowing the other woman to pull you to your feet. You lean heavily on her as she helps you leave, takes you back, but not to him.
Because Joel knows now with certainty that it's a distance that was never meant to be closed.
He knows it's for the better.
Weeks turn into months once again.
Joel doesnât come back.
As time passes, you reflect on the man youâd known, and the one everybody else knew. You compare the image of those half-smirks that you always hoped would turn into a smile to the face splattered with blood as he ruthlessly murdered any man in his path.
You feel like a fool. For more reason than one, but mostly because you knew.
You had seen the signs of just who Joel Miller was from the first time you met him, signs that you had ignored every time they lit up right in front of your face, blaring signals that you replaced with the naĂŻve images you had created in your mindâs eye. Fantasies of a man that may have existed once, long ago, but not anymore.
It wasnât the killing that bothered you. You knew what people had to do to survive, and you had always known just from his injuries that this was an indisputable truth heavily ingrained in Joelâs life, no matter who you imagined him to be before.
No, it wasnât the killing that scared you, but the slaughter.Â
What you were afraid of was his lack of mercy. His lethality. His intent to make them suffer.
After days of being held at the whims of dangerous men, only to discover that the only man you had come to consider a safe space in years was just as, if not more dangerous than themâŚ
It rattled you.
Changed you.
Left a scar that even you didnât know how to heal.
In the days that followed, you were glad that Joel kept his distance. You needed time to recover, to process what you had gone through, what youâd seen.
After a few weeks passed, you found yourself staring at the door, waiting once again for him to come back. Waiting to talk to him for once, to say the words that had plagued your mind once again. Even if they had shifted, they still rang true.
You scared me.
Because he did.
Joel Miller himself scared you, and you didnât want him to.
Because you knew, you knew, that heâd done it for you. He'd done it to save you.
Heâd saved you the same way you saved him, in the only way that he knew how.
Maybe it was senseless. Maybe it was wrong, and horrible, and unforgivable.
But he had done it for you.
So you wait for Joel to come back.
Months fade into years; one, and then two, then five and still counting.
Joel Miller never comes back.
At some point, you hear that heâs gone. Left the QZ completely with Tess at his side and never looked back.
You hope that they made it, wherever they were going.
You hope that he doesnât think of you the way that you think of him. The image of him plaguing your mind every night, broken memories of everything you had memorized about him constantly shifting through your mind, a lonely ache filling in your heart that you knew was your own fault.
He had bloodied his knuckles for you, and you had turned away.
God, you hated yourself for turning away.
You missed him, with every breath, with every moment the door of your clinic opened and you glanced up with the automatic reflex of hoping it was him, even though he was long gone.
You know it's for the better.
Joel is not supposed to be here.
Any form of radio communication is strictly forbidden. He knows this well, knows that if heâs found here, he could be risking everything, even if his brother is married to the woman who keeps Jackson up and running smoothly.
But heâs here anyway, hands trembling with the cold and something else, something that settles deeper into his bones as he holds the microphone in hand.
Waiting.
Itâs his second time up here in a week, and though heâd been lucky enough to not be caught the first time, he wasnât an optimist.
Youâre a cynic, a voice echoes in the back of his head, and his eyes flutter shut with the image of you that never seemed to quite leave him, even with the years that have gone by.
But youâre not, his own voice, younger, replies to you in his memories.
I try not to be, you replied honestly, one of your first discussions when you had begun to settle into each otherâs presence. Donât think I could keep doing this if I was.
Joelâs gaze darts down to the small notepad he had brought with him, the pages where he had written one message only to cross it out, rewrite it, and torn pages of it to throw away in frustration.
In front of him was the one left uncrossed, his eyes scanning the words he could only hope had gotten relayed to you, the message he had left for the black market radio specialist in Boston earlier that week.
Found a nice place that could use a doctor, followed by a date and time for a conversation, not wanting to air Jacksonâs location without hearing confirmation from you yourself.
Following that sentence, another one, the last thing he had said: they could use you.
And another, crossed out after, the last thing that he would never say: I could use you.
Joelâs head lifts when the static on the old machine clears, a click resounding through the speakers of the radio, and his heart races with the weight of the microphone in his hands.
Itâs lifted halfway to his mouth before he hesitates. Your name hangs heavy in his mouth, syllables he had not sounded out in years, but when he finally says it, it feelsâŚnatural. Like not a day has passed since the letters of your name were hanging on his lips, the way he always longed for you to be.
There is a pause, long and heavy, and Joel feels his heart sink with every second that passes.
This was stupid. So incredibly stupid.Â
The last time he had seen you, there was fear in your eyes. Fear of him, well-placed at that, and surely he had taken up no voluntary thoughts of yours ever since other than your worst nightmares.
Surely you wereâ
â...Hey there, Texas.â
When your voice crackles to life through the speaker, Joel sighs, a sound filled with relief and a rush of longing he thought his mind had forgotten, but his bodyâno, his soulâhad not.
And then a whisper, softly in return, with a smile on his lips.
âHowdy, Cali.â
taglist: @darkroastjoel @thetriumphantpanda @dinsdjrn @cavillscurls @tightjeansjavi @dissentientss @harriedandharassed @ladyfiery47 (tag won't work!)
#joel miller x reader#joel miller x female reader#joel miller x f!reader#joel miller x you#joel x reader#joel x f!reader#joel x female reader#joel miller angst#joel miller fanfiction#joel miller one shot
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So apparently pitchpearl is a thing, I've been on tumblr for a while and if you know any history then you understand why selfcest doesn't surprise me in the slightest
Anyway...
dpxdc Misunderstanding that becomes reality fic: 1.5k
part 1
Warning: I plan on a very melancholic ending, its a good ending but also kinda sad
...
When Danny moved to Gotham, he really had thought he wouldn't continue his hero work in this dimension.
But there was a little girl in the street that almost got hurt during a rogue attack.
But some kind of gas went off at the cafe he worked at and it's not like he really needs to breath and there were so many people.
But his University, Gotham U, was in a lock down from a random winter storm that definitely wasn't natural.
So he did what he could when he saw it and kept off of the news when he was doing class work, letting the other "vigilantes" pick up where he couldn't.
However, after a few more months of class, work, and being a vigilante (the news station that first showed him used the correct name!!), he was right back where he had been in Amity before he'd managed to close the portal.
Exhausted and failing at everything other than hero work.
The year after he had graduated high school he stayed in Amity and was able to make amends with the ghosts, being the crown prince definitely helped. He thought the ghost attacks stopping would have lessened his pa- Jack and Maddie trying to catch one. In reality they only became more and more frantic to catch the last ghost, "Mini Phantom".
Revealing he had a daughter, that that daughter was half ghost, hadn't gone well in the slightest.
The one shot Maddie managed to hit had almost destabilized her. He had grabbed her and ran into the portal. He wasn't sure how he'd done it, but in a fit of blinding rage he had destroyed both sides of the doorway to the Ghost Zone.
Frost bite had managed to get her to retract into her core. She'd need some time before she'd have a physical form again, and she'd need Danny to keep her stable for some time, but she would make it. She'd be fine in the end.
It felt weird to have two cores in his chest, but other than needing to take ecto shots it wasn't a huge change.
The last time he'd been to frostbite Ellie's core had some sort of shake to it. It could have been nothing, but a halfa was rare enough. A halfa making a never-born hadn't even been thought of. Add on, that that never-born could possibly be born a halfa was... concerning.
So here he was, in an entirely new dimension, nervously chewing on the end of his stylus, waiting to hear back from Frostbite. His study sessions lately kept being interrupted by thoughts of her. If she really was okay.
Then there was an earth shattering BOOM, that shook his entire building.
As he floated upwards and through the wall he caught a glimpse of something he had never seen before in his afterlife.
A daemon. An actual daemon with red skin and horns and a flaming tail crawling out of the ruble that used to be his front door.
Danny could sense immediately that the being wasn't from the ghost zone, but it held just as much power as one of the stronger ghost.
He transformed and landed in front of the being, "Hey! That was my front door! What gives, Rudolf?"
The daemon shook the dust off his head and looked at Phantom, then at his chest, and back at him. "I do not fight those that carry child."
"Oh... uh." He was not expecting that. "Are you okay?"
It was the daemons turn to look perplexed. "I am fighting a hellblazer, he owes me something. Refuses to pay."
"That's annoying." He looked around to see some guy in a trench coat at the end of the street. The yet to settle dust cloud making it hard to figure out any other features. "I can help if you-"
At that a massive blast of magic hit him and the daemon, sending them careening farther down the street.
Danny's vision went double and he thought he was going to throw up. All he could focus on at first was the pain as he tried to stand on wobbly legs, then it was the emptiness in his chest.
Ellie.
He closed his eyes and dropped back to the floor. He focused on her core. He found it quickly, checking it over, turning it every which way incessantly until he heard someone groan in front of him.
When he opened his eyes he was looking at two much smaller daemons, one a bright red, the other a darker wine red, sitting in a massive indent in the road. One he very luckily was on the very outskirts of.
The two immediately started to bicker, swatting at each other, but not actually fighting.
He heard footsteps on the wreckage behind him, some magic words were said and the daemons' were hand cuffed and poofed out of sight.
"Hey kid, you okay?" Trench coat asked him, not bothering to give him his hand.
"No thanks to you, you ass."
"I just saved your life." He said with a blank expression.
"The daemon wouldn't have done anything to me. Unlike you, they have a moral code."
Trench coat huffed, that seemed to ruffle his feathers. "And what would those morals be exactly?"
"They pay their debts, for one. And two, they don't magically attack people carrying children." Danny stood up and wavered. Trench coat grabbed his arm to steady him.
He stared at Danny for a few more seconds, "You're not human." It wasn't a question. He sucked in a breath, "You're not fully human."
"Ding, ding, ding." Danny tried to shake of the hellblazer's grip. "Let go of me."
"I know where to get medical attention for non humans. You need to be looked over." He said, starting the motion to make a portal.
"Nuh, uh. No. I'm fine." Danny said, patting the hand still wrapped around his arm. Trenchcoat let go and shoved him lightly, Danny felt the world twist around him as the pavement came up to meet his face.
Before he hit the ground he stopped in mid air, not by his own volition, and was gently propped back up.
"That blast spell is designed to not affect humans. You shouldn't have felt more than a breeze." Trenchcoat went back to opening up a portal, it glowed an eerie red. "Come on, well check the little one too."
Danny let himself get pulled through the red portal, it quickly closed behind them.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-
His head was pounding.
"wha/t- morals- exactly?"
Talking.
"debts- two- atta/ckp/eo-ple- children."
Two voices. Two people.
"not human."
He feels empty.
"Letg/oof me."
He's hurt. His other half is hurt.
"You need to be looked over."
He opened his eyes, a man was holding his other half. His other half and his daughter.
"Nuh, uh. No. I'm fine." His other half swatted at the man.
The man pushed his other half to the ground.
He tried to reach out but his hand was barely a shimmering outline.
His other half didn't hit the ground.
There was ringing in his ears. The man would pay.
"Come on,- the little one too."
The man pulled his other half through a portal.
A sickly looking portal. A bloody color.
He floated up. Sped to the closing portal.
It closed too fast.
He wasn't fast enough.
...
It took Phantom 20 minutes to get his thoughts in order and another 10 before the ringing in his ears stopped.
He had been split in two before, but the ghost "dream catcher" the ecto-scientists made years ago had split his ghost half and his human half entirely. This was different.
He still felt a bit of his humanness. Transforming would suck though, he felt too low on ecto to do that.
His other half was in his human form when he looked. He still had Ellie nestled up against his core. But his core looked off. Although the silhouette was of a full sphere, he couldn't help shaking the thought that he saw some parts missing.
When Danny had been split before only his ghost had kept the core, it was what nearly killed them both. What made them promise to never split again.
Maybe if they both had bits of a core they'd be fine until they could reunite.
He tried to focus on his core but it made his head pound.
He'd have to hope his other half could manage as he tried to organize a rescue mission.
Although he'd managed to get a message from the Ghost Zone to Sam and Tucker, he wouldn't be able to get one dirrectly to their dimension.
He knew even trying to make a portal with his ecto as low as it was wasn't a good idea. And would be a waste of the ecto shots he had just chugged.
There was really only one hope of help he had left, one he really didn't want to ask.
A new friend he had made at the cafe.
Tim Drake-Wayne, son of Brucie Wayne. The very same Brucie Wayne that was definitely funding Batman's weird night life.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow this got away from me, honestly was planning on like 500 words. I want to continue this, but if anyone wants to pick it up and play around please feel free to add stuff in the reblogs! I adore reading peoples additions to posts
(As always please please please help me writing tags i never knwo what to do with them, the lack of structure here compared to ao3 confuses me)
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I'm in love with the immersion, world-building, and characters of your writing. I can't help but gush about how talented you are with your you are as it's obvious how much love you put in your work.
The routes that I've been going through with my mc and his love interest between Adam and Mason was intriguing, funny and sometimes left me flustered and secretly yearing for more as although the difference between the two is like night and day, there is also a sense of familiarity the two of them share as well such as when it comes to the people they cherish and how they can react when they're threatened especially when it comes to the mc when picked as a love interest.
My favourite moments in the series would be from your most recent book, book three. I was pensive and aching to reach out towards Adam, as I wanted him to realize that it's okay to feel vulnerable every now and then, and that it doesn't make him weak as I desperately tried to reach out to him, and how when I was about to confess that I had fallen for Mason until Felix came out of nowhere, cockblocking me, which led me to furiously mutter under my breath and mind "GOD F@#*ING DAMMIT, FELIX!!"
My heart also ached for how much Sin was in pain who didn't want to hurt anyone but felt like he had to, resigned and trapped with no way out. I didn't hesitate to find any way to help him in anyway I could to free him. That's why near the end of the book I let him leave to live his life the way he wanted to. I couldn't stop imaging about giving him something to not just remind him of our budding friendship, but to also remind him to stay true to himself, and remind him that although he did do some terrible things, they don't define who he is, and that he has the right to been and feel happy as well when the guilt of his actions starts to consume him, whilst I'll also run and shout towards him when he flies of and leaves as I wave with a smile, "Goodbye! Stay safe!" I wonder how he'll react towards the mc doing this.
I can't wait for book four, as this time the stakes are dire, and the mc can even fall for the villian! I can't wait!!
Sorry for my ramblings, but I truly love the series that you've created and I cannot wait for what you have in store for us all. I hope you have a wonderful day. đđ
Aah, what an incredible message! I honestly cannot even begin to tell you how much it means to me to read this! <3
It's interesting you saying about the similarities of A and MâIt's kind of why it's always fun writing them when they end up paired off for a mission or something.
M is very honest with A (as can be seen with that rather cutting statement by a BFF M to a romanced A at the end of Book Three! But A kind ofâŚgets M in some ways more than the others un Unit Bravo, and it's the same for M. They both know how in pain they areâemotionally or physicallyâand there's a very deep understanding and bond between them because of that.
I could go on about the unique bonds between each member of UB forever, so I'll stop not before it turns into an essay, hehe! :D
But yeah, I think Sin would love to hear that from the MC. No one has ever looked out for him or cared to before, so having someone they barely know do that for him would make a very big impactâand it does depending on your ending with him!
Thank you so so much for your wonderfully motivating message! <3
#the wayhaven chronicles#asks#interactive fiction#unit bravo#twc detective#romance#vampires#twc sin#choice of games#hosted games#choicescript#relationships#adam du mortain#ava du mortain#twc mason#twc morgan
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WIBTA for breaking up with my boyfriend because he likes my body?
TW for ED but please hear me out:
My bf (30m) and I (28f) have been together for a little over 5 years. When we got together I had an extremely stressful and physically demanding job. Shortly after our relationship started I relapsed with an eating disorder that had been a problem since prepubescence; I started restricting heavily at age 11 and had struggled with it on/off since then.
After quitting that terrible job and regaining some agency in my life, I spent a couple of years really focused on recovery. Without giving specific numbers (cause triggering) I'll say that I was extremely underweight to an unhealthy level for at least a year and experienced severe health complications because of it. I nearly died from heart problems and had a big wakeup call that caused me to change my whole life. I've done the work of recovery without medical help (history of omission with doctors) but have had support from my bf, and am currently at the highest weight of my life.
at a recent checkup my Dr talked a lot about "healthy lifestyle" and mentioned my weight gain over the past couple of years. I'm still within the "normal" range for my height and build, but the after visit summary/chart notes denoted risk of becoming overweight. Idk if my Dr would have brought it up if my history of ED was in my chart, (and I did switch primary care practices a few years ago, so they weren't treating me at my thinnest) but it still shook me a bit and I will admit to feeling very triggered.
The job I moved to is quite sedentary compared to the previous terrible one - I wfh, and very rarely have to be on my feet or do strenuous activity. In addition, I have chronic pain issues that make exercise difficult, and so historically have just restricted to maintain/lose weight because it's easier for me physically to just be hungry than to work out. I didn't want to go down that road again though because of how intense and scary it got last time.
My bf is a personal trainer and specializes in working with low ability clients and people recovering from long illness/injury. When I told him that I wanted to start exercising more often and get a good cardio routine going, he was really excited and started immediately putting together an "action plan" (what he calls it w his clients idk) for me. Then he mentioned how I'd need to add on a bunch of meal supplements and snacks to avoid losing weight and I got upset.
We're a plant-based (vegan) household and live with a roommate (bf's friend) so mostly eat/cook communal dinners and have various breakfast & lunch plans on hand, so we already eat pretty healthy and make sure to have a good balance of macro/micro in the meal plan. My intent was to eat the same but increase my activity level to get out of the danger zone without restricting. I don't generally snack and rarely eat dessert, just the 3 squares.
I told my bf that I needed to lose weight and be more active according to my doctor, and that I wasn't comfortable with having protein supplements, smoothies, and snacks in addition to regular meals because that would defeat the purpose. He got really sad and said that he likes the way my body is now, and while he supports being more active, he doesn't want the size of me to change. His exact words at some point were "you look so good now, I love the amount of you that there is and I like the way you jiggle." It kind of made me feel sick and wonder if he has like a secret size fetish or something?
So I've been thinking of breaking things off with him and moving in with a friend or back in with my parents, but idk if this is actually a red flag or just the disorder talking? He did help me a lot with recovery but if he's going to keep me from being healthy or wants me to gain even more weight then maybe it's better to leave - would this be an asshole move? I honestly don't know.
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Vantage Point | Meet the Characters & Series Masterlist
Status: Begins tomorrow (January 20)!
Pair: Mingyu Ă f.reader
Summary: Pulling off the "No Strings Attached" arrangement with his best-friend-turned-best-friend-with-benefits was easy, but when a new condition is added onto the mix, Mingyu didn't realise just how much he held onto you when you finally let go.
Genre: College au. BFFs to FWB trope. Fluff, Humor, Angst, Smut [chapters with smut will be indicated and will contain the necessary warnings]
Authorâs Note: Please take time to read this before starting the series âşď¸
Hello, my darlings! Finally getting round to posting this after missing the commited date last time due to covid. But welcome!!! 𼳠This is the first story to my Snap Shoot universe! Before you get into it, let me just point a few things. This is the first time I'm ever creating a universe with interwoven stories, and while I've done SMAUs before, this is the first one I've done for SVT and the first time I'm also this adventurous about it. It's definitely very different from what I post on here but I'm having lots of fun putting it together. I know it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, this is very much a work of fiction. This is an AU. While Korea may be the assumed setting for this series, it is not explicitly defined. I'm also trying to avoid using lots of Korean cultural references (maybe except for food) such as use of honorifics like "hyung". While many of my other works refrain from over-describing oc's physical features, you may find that in this series (and universe), oc's features will inevitably be defined. You'll find that the visuals of the characters and the aesthetic of the photos/social media posts will be Korean/ Asian. It's a SMAU, so i'll have to place photos and these photos must maintain consistent. I absolutely do not mean any ill intention of being non-inclusive (I don't even fit the same aesthetic as oc).
Again, it's a work of fiction, while I want you to relate to oc, kindly also allow me breathing space to build the character. If you feel uncomfortable at any point in the series, you are very much welcome to stop/unfollow. As mentioned, this is a SMAU, but it contains several chapters which are purely written narrations. All edits (texts, social media posts, etc.) were done by me, however some photos (esp those of Y/N) are from the web, if they are yours, please let me know so that I may credit you or remove the photo. The texts are all done on light mode. Deal with it. This follows a FWB trope, expect lots of smut and suggestive contentâ specific smut warnings will be available in chapters where they are present, along with other necessary warnings. This series will have lots of fluff and lots of crackhead nonsense humor. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Biggest shoutout to my dearest friend @wongyuseokie who has been nothing but supportive through all of this and through all my dramatic Mingy-induced meltdowns. I love you more than youâll ever know âĽď¸
Meet the Characters
Mingyu: Sophomore, studying Film & Photography, yn/Camie's best friend since childhood
Yn: Sophomore, studying Film & Photography with Mingyu, Mingyu's best friend since childhood. Nicknamed "Camie" by her group of friends for her highly concerning camera collection/obsession.
Seokmin: Sophomore, studying Film & Photography, same friend group as mingyu and yn, Mingyu & Wonwoo's housemate
Soonyoung: technically a year older than the 3, but currently a Sophomore with Gyu, Cam and Seokmin after shifting into their major
Wonwoo: Junior, studying Film & Photography as well, Mingyu's guy best friend and housemate in The Man Cave, a brotherly figure to OC, Soonyoung's former classmate in highschool
The Man Cave: shared house near their university where Mingyu, Wonwoo and Seokmin live, and Soonyoung often crashes.
â¨Other characters/members will come as the series progresses.
Series Masterlist
To be populated as each chapter is posted. There is no posting schedule. Chapters will just get uploaded as they come.
Teaser
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five đ
Chapter Six đ
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Tag List!
@strawberryya @idyllic-ghost @septemberskies @ladyblablabla
If you want to be tagged as each chapter comes out, do send me an ask or reply to this post so I could include you in the tag list đ
#paula writes â¨#Vantage Point#Snap Shoot Universe#svthub#mingyu smau#mingyu fic#mingyu x oc#mingyu smut#mingyu fluff#svt smau#svt fic
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Right to fear, wrong to believe
Just had a horrible realization and needed to meta it out.
How different they were before Edinburgh, when Crowley was sucked down into Hell.
Look at this flirty babygirl in the Bastille:
I mean could he climb that tree any faster?
(This is why I really like fics that place a more physical relationship here, pre-Bastille or just post-Bastille, because c'mon look at them. )
In S1 the next thing is 1862 and Crowley asking for insurance (with a cane ffs). And Aziraphale freaking out with his "fraternizing" BS. It's jarring, until we get 1827 filled in for us in S2.
@takeme-totheworld notes in this post:
Crowley sure went from "our respective head offices don't actually care how things get done" and "nobody ever has to know" to "walls have ears" FAST after Edinburgh. And Aziraphale went from looking at Crowley with hearts in his eyes to "I've been FrAtErNiZiNg" just as quickly. I'm more convinced than ever that Edinburgh was the first time Crowley ever actually got caught and punished for fucking around with Aziraphale/doing good deeds/whatever it was they yanked him back down to Hell for, and it scared the absolute shit out of both of them and changed the whole tone of their relationship after that.
Yes! - it's clear to me as well that the Edinburgh graveyard was a very bad turning point, where they both saw that Hell was listening and would intervene. And it did change their relationship drastically, for over a century and a half (really, until looming Armageddon loosened up the stakes for them).
But what about Heaven?
See the thing is, we know Azi's been worried about Heaven watching him for the past 6000 years.
But they haven't.
[GIFs posted by starrose17]
All this time, and Heaven had not seen them together. Hadn't noticed. Had not even LOOKED.
I want to mention what @starrose17 says about this here in this post:
What I love about this is her choice of words, âwent back through the Earth Observation files.â This implies that these photos were already filed somewhere meaning somebody had to have been watching them which meant somewhere in the depths of the bureaucratic heaven thereâs an underpaid angel clerk tasked with watching angels on Earth, and heâs been hording photos of his favourite Angel/Demon couple not reporting them to Michael because he wants to see what happens.
And that's exactly what this fic covers!: Spying Omens by @ednav
(Give this a read, it's fabulous.)
While I am here for this being exactly how that happens, the other scenario is colder and worse - there's no one watching, at all. It's just filing automatically and never seen until some Scrivener is called to pull a file.
From @fuckyeahisawthatat's comment here :
I found this scene to be quite chilling, actually. Not only is the idea of Heaven as a surveillance state brilliant (way to make âGod is always watchingâ sound way more ominous) but this is exactly how modern surveillance states work. They donât actively watch everybody all the time. Thatâs not physically possible for humans, and even if it is metaphysically possible for Heaven, itâs not a very efficient use of resources. Surveillance states watch people they deem âsuspicious.â And once youâve been put in the category of âsuspicious,â they have massive amounts of data that they can comb through to collect a lot of information about youâto retroactively build a case justifying why youâre suspicious, to collect information about where you go and who you associate with, etc.
Yes.
So we either have secret collusion in the rank and file, or we have a surveillance state that is constantly reinforced to its subjects for fear's sake, for control.
(Well, it obviously could be both.)
BUT my point is⌠Up until Edinburgh, Hell has not been watching (or caring at least). And up until near the end of Armageddon't, neither has Heaven.
Oh, my poor Angel. Thousands of years, of denying yourself, of pushing Crowley away, of carrying around a tension that is it's own constellation.
After 1827 you might have reason, but for the 5000+ years before that?
Thousands of years and Heaven was not watching nor cared.
You were right to fear. And you were wrong to believe.
And that just breaks my heart.
#okay gonna go reread Spying Omens again because that's my headcanon now#I hope Azi tears out the Earth Observation cams or servers or whatever it is#where's Murderbot when you need a good hack#good omens meta#aziracrow#ineffable husbands#good omens
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Lily of the Valley - (c.b. oneshot)
đ˘đˇđ˛đšđšđŽđ˝ (đśđ¸đťđŽ đđŁđ): âYes, what is all this baby?â You asked, motioning to the roses. âDid I forget somethin? Our anniversary isnât for another 2 monthsâ you asked a bit nervously. Carmen wasnât a stickler for dates, but it would break your heart if you were to forget something important. âNo- no. I justâŚjust love you- I wanted to show you, and especially after this week I know Iâve been crazy busy, and Iâve been cominâ in late and leavinâ early, andâŚI just wanted to show my best girl how much she means tâmeâ he kissed your forehead sweetly and you felt a blush creeping to your cheeks.Â
O/S INSPO:  Lily of the Valley Soothing, calming, draws peace and tranquility, and repels negativity. Assists in empowering happiness and mental powers. Married couples should plant Lily of the Valley in their first garden to promote longevity of the marriage. POSTED DATE:03/30/2024 W/C: 4,114
A/N: FINALLY!!!! I am so sorry this took forever! This O/S is based on this adorable request from the LOML @daysofyellowroses - please check out her blog! I hope this satisfies your Carmy Proposing idea! I'm sorry it took so long i've been sick, but weâre back baby!!! Requests are opennnn y'all!
WARNINGS FOR BTC: Smut, Swearing, NO USE OF Y/N - As little physical description as possible, fluffy Carmen, OC Carmy - (He's more emotionally grown obvi hahah)
You pushed the heavy, bulging tote bags full of groceries up your arm as you walked back to Your&Carmyâs shared Condo Building. The wildflower seeds youâd thrown on the little patches of grass on your walks to the train, along the sidewalk on your block had finally started to bloom. Adorable tiny little flowers in vibrant shades of blue, pink, purple, yellow, and white peeking out over the sidewalk's edge.Â
Spring had most definitely sprung in Chicago by this point. Your commute whilst walking to work down Michigan Ave, passing the stunning array of tulips, had told you that fiercely every time you walked to and from the train this week on the way to work. It was finally Friday, and you couldnât be happier.Â
Carmen had been so busy this week- busier than normal. Youâd usually just hang out with your best friends to fill that pathetic, lonely void while grading papers and doing your own assignments- but they were busy this week too! You were convinced the universe had bound you to loneliness this week, so naturally, all you wanted to do was get home, crawl into bed, and sleep- until Carmy came in around 2 to 3 am, and get that savored 15 minutes of cuddles after his shower, before exhaustion came over you again and you fell back asleep.Â
You used your special key fob to get in the door of your condoâs shared building, which to your standards was very luxurious- it included amenities youâd never even thought of. You and Carmy had moved in together 3 months ago, it took a lot of convincing on your end. You and Carmy had lived on opposite ends of town, so every time youâd see eachother, (which was very often) -Â it would be an hour's drive that he insisted- or, him losing the battle- and allowing you to take the train back all those stops.Â
You werenât particularly religious, it was more just a personal preference - that you would be at least engaged before you were to move in together. Especially before having a mortgage together. Youâd told Carmy this, and heâd given you the same answer each time over the last two years heâd been begging - âBaby we know weâre in love, you know weâre eachothers forever person - we tell eachother every day! Weâve been together 3 years, Let me take care of youâÂ
It wasnât that you didnât want to be taken care of- itâs justâŚyou liked working. You loved your job, youâd went to school and earned a masters degree for Christ sake, and were currently working on your PHD. You couldnât ever see yourself giving that up, and moving in with a boyfriend and him insisting on paying all the bills made you fear youâd fall pregnant, and then your professional life would be over.Â
But, Carmen had insisted to you he wasnât interested in children unless you were. You were sure at one point you never wanted them, but you were becoming more afraid, because seeing as amazing an uncle Carmen was, how naturally kind and understanding he was of children- it brought out something in you. It was so sudden that you could imagine turning your shared library / art studio into a nursery during slow time at work.Â
You walked down the hall, in no rush to be home. The only presence waiting being your cat, Truffle, Carmy had insisted on the name due to his deep black fur.Â
You approached the door, confused as to why you were hearingâŚmusic? From your apartment? You shook the hope of Carmy being home this early away, not wanting to be dissapointed. The neighbors downstairs must be blasting that same kind of jazz instrumental Carmy listens to so loud that you heard it through the floor.Â
You unlock the door, and sure enough the music playing softly through the condo gets a tad louder but the first thing to catch your eye was the white and pink rose petals making a trail to the kitchen. You heard Carmy humming lightly, the sound of chopping on the cutting board.Â
âBear?â You quickly nudge the door shut with your hip, not even bothering to take your shoes off and rushing down the hall into the kitchen. Sitting atop the breakfast bar, was a vase packed with beautiful pink and white roses.Â
He looks up from the cutting board âMy favorite girlâ he stops what he was doing immediately coming and taking the bags from your shoulders, setting them down before greeting you with a sweet kiss. He cupped your cheeks gently, pulling you in to him so you were flush together with his other hand. Â
âYou used our card fâthat right?â He asked softly when he pulled away. You roll your eyes a bit, he had insisted you get a shared credit card, and that you purchase everything with it- and at the end of the month, he will show you the statement, and only pay a quarter of the total, just another one of the ways he assured every financial burden of yours was eased significantly.Â
âYes, what is all this baby?â You asked, motioning to the roses. âDid I forget somethin? Our anniversary isnât for another 2 monthsâ you asked a bit nervously. Carmen wasnât a stickler for dates, but it would break your heart if you were to forget something important.Â
âNo- no. I justâŚjust love you- I wanted to show you, and especially after this week I know Iâve been crazy busy, and Iâve been cominâ in late and leavinâ early, andâŚI just wanted to show my best girl how much she means tâmeâ he kissed your forehead sweetly and you felt a blush creeping to your cheeks.Â
âThatâs so sweet Bear. Thank you I love you, this isâŚno oneâs ever done this- oh my god- are those balloons?â You giggled, seeing heart shaped foil balloons tied to your chair at the table and he smiled proudly.Â
âMmhmm, the lady at the flower place said that - we can talk about it later. You wanna cook wâme? You can just watch if you want?â He asked, gently brushing his fingers through your hair.Â
âI never turn down a lesson from the best, let me go get changed real quickâ you headed toward the bedroom and he stopped you by your hand pulling you back into his chest, kissing your neck with wet open mouth kisses earning a giggle that you couldnât contain.Â
âMmm- donât go in there right now, itâs for later. I already got your pajamas right hereâ he said going over to the couch and grabbing your favorite pair of sweatpants and his old âthe beefâ tshirt that to you was the most comfortable thing in the world, especially when he wore it to bed for a few nights before giving it back.Â
âFor later huh?â You muse, taking off your heeled booties and unbuttoning your slacks before peeling them off and trading them for your soft fuzzy grey sweatpants.Â
âMmhmmâ he hummed in response and took your pants for you and your blouse and bra as well, bringing them to the laundry room as you put the shirt on and got your hair situated into a bun.Â
âWhat are we cooking today, chef?â You asked, heading over to the kitchen to see there were little bowls of vegetables that have been precut and you gasp happily. âStop- are we really?â You giggled.Â
âI told you that itâs easy baby but you hate eggplant so ratatouille isnât gonna be something youâre a big fan ofâ he chuckled. You had watched the movie with him, and told him that the ratatouille dish looked insanely delicious and that you wanted him to make it for you, but he told you your aversion to eggplant would probably turn you off the dish.Â
âBut there isnât eggplantâ you said looking over the dishes filled with various vegetables.Â
âThatâs right, this is princess ratatouille. Iâve been figurinâ out different vegetables wâSyd that would work for it, we finally got it right. We have zucchini and a few different squashes, and we have onion and garlic, tomato, bell pepper, everything you like. I think youâll love it baby.â He said rubbing your back gently.Â
âOf course Iâm gonna love it bear, I love everything we make together you have the magic touch. So whatâs my job?â You asked eagerly.Â
âYou my special sous chef, are gonna help put the veggies in and Iâm gonna do the sauceâ He kissed your temple gently.Â
âOk! Let me get my apronâ You said, happily turning to the drawer you kept your aprons in.
âWait-â he said, holding your arm. You look back at him and he lookedâŚnervous.âIsâŚsomething wrong?â You questioned, brows furrowed slightly in concern.
âNo- no I umâŚ.i got you a new oneâ he said sheepishly, walking over to the island and opening up the cupboard beneath you never used.Â
âOh- ok..Leveling up are we?â You joked, happily leaning against the counter.Â
âJesus-â he chuckled, âClose yâr fuckin eyes- carnival psychicâ he teases and you laughed, obliging and closing your eyes.
âCarnival psychic?â you asked and he came over gently putting bundle of fabric in your awaiting hands.
âI swear tâgod- you went snoopinâ? Open your eyesâ he said. You opened your eyes, looking into your hands and seeing an apron. It was white, just like his, and folded perfectly. In thick black letters, intricately painted, â Will You Marry Me? â Adorned with a little red heart over the center pocket that had a square shaped bump.
You felt all of the blood leave your face, your knees feeling wobbly, your mouth gaping in to an O shape, as you stare down at the apron. âWhere did you get this?â you whispered, completely awestruck.Â
âI-IâŚumâŚmade it?â he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. âI- shit. Fuck- is this not how you pictured it? Iâm so fuckin sorry babe- I-I thoughtâŚI dunno- like.. You wanted it private? Cause I know you said youâd never-â heâs interrupted by your lips crashing on his in a fervent wanting kiss, a mix of spit and teeth and lips and tongues, he moans softly into your mouth, squeezing your waist.
You were pressed together so firmly that the small box dug into your ribs, eventually pulling away from him with shaking hands and reaching into the pocket, pulling out the small black velvet box. You ever so carefully opened it, your breath catching in your throat when you saw the absolutely breathtaking ring.
âI-itâs not uh..not a diamond- cause I know you said-â you interrupt him
âPrincesses and Queens donât wear diamonds, they wear crystalsâ you finished, staring at the beautifully cut opal, at least 8 carats, banded by a intricate edwardian band⌠nothing short of a ring for a Goddess.
âBut..But- this oneâŚit does- it has bothâŚbecause uhâ he swallows thickly. âItâŚin my mind- when I s-saw it, it represented your soul, and your physical body.. And I liked that. Cause- yâre my diamond, but youâre also my queen, my everything, baby. Like how - how you said thatâŚyou wished your aura was opal? It is. It is, angel. And every time you look at that, I want you to remember that youâre beautiful from your diamond exterior, to your opal soulâ he brushed his finger over the ring, before meeting your gaze once again.
He gently wiped the tears that were running down your cheeks freely, hot and wet and open. It was rare that Carmy genuinely used his words rather then his actions to express his love for you, so you were nothing short of savoring this. âHoly fucking shitâ you laughed, shaking your head and looking down at the ring box. âPut it on my handâ you held your left hand out.Â
He chuckled a bit, âso⌠yes? You will?â he asked carefully, pulling the ring out of the box.
âAre you kidding, YES! Put this ring on my finger and fuck me dumb- this is all iâve ever wanted, Bear, I fucking love you- and youre asking if I want you to be my husband?! Iâve wanted nothing more for two years- at least!â you shake your left hand for emphasis, a wide large grin on your face.
He carefully slid the ring over your manicured finger, and it just made you cry more how it fit perfectly. âHow do you know my size?!â you asked, since most of the vintage rings he'd bought you were adjustable so it didn't matter the size of the rings heâd gotten for you before.
He chuckled a bit, âso- yâre ringâŚyâknow the oneâŚyâthought you lost it at Chipotle likeâŚahhh- 8 months ago now? In the bathroom? Yâtook it off at the table, you wore it on your ring finger so I had to take my chance. You kept sayin how it was like- the only ring youâd found that fit without takinâ it to the jewler. So uhâ he dug in his jeans pocket, placing your beloved vintage ring with your starsign on it in your palm.
âI got that ring, based on the size. I got it uhhhâŚsorry dont be offended- itâs not new⌠I got it at an estate sale of this lady- it was crazy- the way I came across it babe⌠like fate. It was when Syd and I went to New York for that interview, she literally dragged me to this sale cause she said the lady who died was said to have a bunch of vintage fur and stuff she was looking fâsomethin- anyway. We met the ladyâs daughter- Stella? I think it was? Doesnât matter⌠but she um..said her Ma was some crazy astrology nut, also said she only wore crystals. So I took a look⌠that was the first box I opened. And yâring on my pinky, it fit perfect, so I tried it on- it fit like a glove. Iâm glad we don't have to size it. Asked her if it was real, she said - her Ma told âer someâŚ. Like life coach? Er- astrologer life coach author? Gave it to âer on a trip to Jamaica in the 60âs. Told âer âthis ring will someday be worn on a hand proudly as a devotion of true loveâ- Miss- No! Madame ! Madame Stardust. Nutty name right?â he chuckled a bit.Â
You smiled proudly at the ring, a devotion of true love indeed. âI thinkâ you turned to the counter, stacking the bowls of vegetables together and putting them in the fridge as you friskily countered âyou are not going in to work at all next week- wifes ordersâ you walked over to him, hips swaying. âAnd after you fuck me absolutely stupidâ you grabbed his collar, pulling him in so your faces were meer inches apart âOh- and we talk about how this mademe stardust? Confirms that our souls are indeed woven together like a fucking wicker basketâ you kiss him roughly, weaving your fingers through his dirty blonde curls and tugging firmly.Â
He moaned into your mouth, his hands trailing down and squeezing your ass firmly. You hummed in satisfaction, leaning against him and he stumbled back, back, back, pushing the bedroom door open with a squeak. You looked up, Breaking your kiss with wide eyes.
All throughout the bedroom, were printed photos of you and Carmy throughout the years, suspended with clear wire so it was as if the photos were floating midair. You clasp your hands over your mouth, admiring all the hard work and pure thought that had went into the gesture. You looked over all the photos, three years of memories hanging before you like a gallery of love surrounding you, all of your fondest happiest memories at every flicker of your eyes.
âCarmenâ you whispered, walking forward and admiring each and every photographâŚ
He comes behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his chin on your shoulder.Â
âYâknow how you said no work next weekâŚâ he said softly, kissing up your neck with wet, sexy, open mouthed kisses. âWe leave Sunday⌠FâCyprusâ He said hotly in your ear, his breath tickling your neck causing a moan to escape your lips as he gently lifts your shirt, palming your breast gently.
âIs- is that-â you breathe out
âWeâre getting a tour of Aphrodites Bathsâ he said softly, rolling your taught nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
âAh- y-you remembered?â you gasped, he let out a soft deep chuckle, Kissing the corner of your mouth and gently laying you down upon the soft sheets of your shared bed.Â
âIâd have proposed over a year ago- when I got the fuckinâ ring if i coulda gotten us the tour soonerâ he muttered into your skin, tugging off your- (his) shirt, leaving supple, gentle kisses over your stomach and up your ribs.
âMm- are we- can we swim?â I asked hopefully.
He gently wipes your tears away, âNoâ he said a bit sadly, âWe can dip our hands⌠some asshole ruined swimming for people years agoâŚbefore we metâŚbut- we were also gonna Parga Greece, baby. Weâre spending 2 days in Cyprus, then flying to Parga on a charter- we can swim, fuck, do whatever in those waters baby. Amidst the Goddess of the Underworld fâfive whole daysâ he smirked and you gasped, as if heâd gotten you the moon on a string.
âThe Acheron River?â you whisper and he nodded, gently rubbing his thumb over your lips.
âThat is the sexiest thing iâve ever heard in my life- youâre gonna make me cum in the 2nd most famous river of Hell?â you giggled and he snorts a laugh, pushing you on the bed gently.
âFuck yeah, you little fuckinâ freakâ he teased, tugging off your panties and sweatpants in one swift pull, leaving you soaked and bare before him.
You gasped at the rough action, quickly being soothed by soft, sweet kisses over your hipbones.Â
âI fuckin smell yâkitten fuckâ he growled, kissing the inner of your thigh in the way that made you creen.Â
âShit- good- right? If yâcompared me to a seafood market iâd break your noseâ you teased, hooking the crooks of your knees over his shoulders, shivering when he leaned in closer, his hot breath directly over your clit- his lapis blue eyes boring into yours.
âThat question doesnât deserve an answerâ he grumbled hotly, spreading your folds with his fingers and admiring the wet, slick, mess in front of him. âSâfuckin pretty princess- fuckinâ prettiest pussy in the worldâ he nearly moaned, burrying his mouth where you needed him most, eyes fixed on yours.
You couldnât even make a sound- a hot breathy gasp escaping your slack-jawed stance as your head flopped back on the mattress with a soft bounce. âMmmmm shitâ Carmy hummed, satisfied with your taste as if he was devouring his favorite dessert.
âF-Ffuuuckkkâ you whimpered out pathetically, voice cracking and bleeding out between the fracture lines of your hot intense pleasure.
âMmhmm-mmmhmmmâ Carmy mumbled confidently against your now firm clit, tongue flicking over it at a mind-numbing pace, bringing you right to the edge and hanging you there by a single finger.
âAhhhh-Ahhhh-Fuck!! Carmy! Oh- ohhhh!!!â You whined, spine pointing in an arch off the mattress, your hips and thighs quivering and shaking wildly as your orgasm crashed over you like hot lightning before you could even warn him, or know yourself it was so close.
âGoooood girl, thats it- mm- my good fuckinâ girl- Yâgonna be my fuckinâ wife baby? Mmm? Gonna be mine? Fârever?â He grumbled, placing a gentle kiss to your clit before placing gentle yet firm pressure over it with the pad of his tongue that made your hips buck with a mind of their own.
He chuckled slightly into your heat, the vibration causing you to whine pathetically. âY-yes-yes-fuck iâmfuckinyoursBear-yâgonnamakemeyâwife? Yeah? Gonna make me Mrs. fuckin Carmen Berzatto?â you slurred, pulling him into a messy wanting kiss, soughing at the flavor of your core coating his spit.
âFuckin- spit in my fucking mouth- claim meâ you groaned. He smiled against your lips, pulling away slightly, a thick hot string of saliva connecting the two of you.
âSo fuckin dirtyâ he grumbled with a smirk âOpen that filthy fucking mouthâ he ordered, getting quiet for a moment as he gathered saliva in the front of his mouth.
You obeyed him immediately - your jaw going slack, tongue stuck out ever so slightly and eyes fluttered shut. Then- you felt it, hot, sweet, salty saliva coating your tongue, you groan at the flavor as it continues pooling over your tastebuds. âDo not fucking swallow yet- greedy girlâ he tapped your chin firmly, before pulling your jaw open wider with Tthe pad of his thumb.Â
âStick out that pretty little tongueâ he grumbled, you obeyed with a smile, opening wide as you could, sticking your tongue out far, showing off the creamy white saliva heâd dressed your tongue in, so much it was seeping down onto your chin, threatening to coat the front and back of your throat.
âGood girl- that's my good little kittenâ he purred, âHow dâyou want me princess?â he gently collected the excess saliva from your chin on his thumb, sucking it off his digit hotly as he awaits your response while you swallow gratefully, the taste setting your soul ablaze.
âI want you to fucking claim me, Carmy, holy fuck- use me, worship me, fuck me like a goddamn animal- whatever you fucking want- pleaseâ you begged after youâd savored the taste while you swallowed, his sky blue eyes going dark as navy slacks with lust at the admission.Â
âYeah? Why not all three?â he pushed you down to the mattress by your throat, not hard enough to bruise- but hard enough for the breath to leave your lungs and your core to throb so hard you were clenching your thighs, trying to give any solace of pressure to your swollen aching clit.
âP-pleaseâ you stuttered, writhing against the mattress and he chuckled darkly.Â
âAre we a little needy? Mmm princess?â he pushes your knees apart with his thigh, aiding the throbbing pressure with his strong fingers, rubbing firm, slow circles into the twitching bud that made your hips snap into the mattress and head fall back to the bed, eyes rolling back with a sharp gasp of pleasure.Â
âPl-please-â you gasp out, spine arching sharply as he replaced his fingers with his mouth on your clit, 2 fingers slipping inside of you with no resistance due to the fact your core was so soaked it was beginning to pool at the dip of your bum and soak the sheets. The squelching as he pumped into your g-spot mixed with your high-pitched moans and frisky growls was absolute sin.
He opens his jaw wider, tonguing your entrance wildly and nuzzling his strong nose against your clit in broad strokes, randomly flicking back and forth quickly making you squeal in pleasure as you grind against his mouth, fully out of control of your movements as if you were a puppet on a string.
âH-Hooooo-iâm cumming- oh- donât you dare fucking stop Carmenâ you growled, grabbing his curls and pullinghim further into your core. âIâm cumming- iâmcumming-holy-holyfuck-imfuuuckiing-AAAH!â your thighs and hips shake and quiver, stars of ethereal white filling your vision.
âMmhmmmâ he grumbled, coming up and sucking your nipple with his slick lips, his chin and nose soaked with your arousal, so much so his chin dripped onto your ribs.Â
âH-Oh-yes Bearâ you whined out, head tilting to meet his gaze. âI need you- I-I need you inside- like- fuck- when you- you have my knees around your hips and y-you fuckinâ- just drill me Carmy- I need that- need you deepâ You reverberated wantingly, wrapping your thighs around his waist taughtly, making it easier for him to take you exactly how you wanted.
âJesus Christ- I canât fuckinâ stand yâbaby. Yâre like a fuckinâ drug- itâs like I fuckinâ function unless Iâve had a hitâ he nibbed your collarbone, quickly removing his jeans and boxers, aligning himself with your entrance.
You gave him a mischievous smile, inching your hips forward. âCâmon- I donât give a fuck âbout cooking right now- fuck me absolutely dumb- then take me to Samâs fâr chocolate chip pancakes- sure that waitress will be over the moon bout my ringâ you mused, capturing our lips together, as he scoops up your shoulders and holds you chest to chest, your third of many orgasms that night building throughout every muscle.
It was going to be a long nightâŚ.
#carmen berzatto#the bear fx#carmy berzatto#the bear fic#the bear hulu#carmen berzatto fanfiction#carmy berzatto fanfiction#the bear#the bear fanfiction#carmen berzatto fluff#carmy the bear#carmy berzatto x reader#carmy x reader#carmen x reader#carmen berzatto smut#carmen berzatto x reader#carmen berzatto x you#the bear fandom#borders & banners by saradika
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More Than Friends// Choi Seungcheol
Bestfriend!Choi Seungcheolxafab!Black!Reader
Word Count: 3.4k
Summary: You've been best friends for years. You can't imagine life without him. You don't know when the lines blurred, but you start to wonder are you the only one who feels this way?
Genre: Fluff, Smut
Warning: Spit play, Praising, Fingering, Oral Use of nicknames (good girl, princess, baby girl)
MINORS DO NOT INTERACT đ
A/N: Helloooo! Enjoy, like, and repost whatever you feel is right!- Cherry đ
I've been friends with Seungcheol for a while. He's been there for me when I needed him the most after the conversation at his apartment. The guy just finished practicing and wanted to eat and have drinks. Cheol called me and asked if I wanted to join them. I said yes of course. We were all sitting there listening to the stories of how Hoshi is intimidating while practicing for this comeback. I got up to get some food until Cheol stopped me and made me sit back down and made me a plate of food.Â
"You guys operate like a couple," Jeonghan said sipping his beer. Everyone hummed agreeance. Seungkwan looked at me.Â
"Your friendship dynamic changed. All we are saying is something changed."Â
"What if you guys are soul mates!" Soonyoung said. I laughedÂ
"What is it with you and the soulmates theory Soonyoung?"Â
"I mean everyone has one, platonic or romantic. What if you and Seungcheol Hyung are romantic soulmates"Â
"Ignore him he's drunk," Mingyu said
"Am not!" Soonyoung said pouting then turning to Wonwoo to kiss him. Wonwoo just patted him on the head.Â
No one said anything else, I knew they were right. I just don't know what happened to make the lines blurred. Was it before or after I found out my ex-boyfriend was cheating on me? That was six months ago:Â
Me and my boyfriend were supposed to meet up for a date until he canceled on me. He said he had a bad day at work so I decided to go to his house and cook him some food. That was until I got to his apartment only to find him in bed with a co-worker. Heartbroken and unable to see through the tears. I called Cheol who immediately came to get me. Of course, my ex-boyfriend follows me out of the building at the exact time Cheol is pulling up and getting out of the car.Â
"Oh of course you call him! You can't get mad at me for cheating when something is going on between you too!" He shouted out. Cheol helped me get into the car and then turned around to face the pathetic excuse of a man. I don't know exactly what was said, but seeing Cheol angry was not something you see all the time, but when he is. It's scary. After watching my ex-boyfriend's face change Cheol walked away and got into the car without saying a word and drove off. Playing with my bracelet trying to calm down, Cheol grabbed my hand and glanced over.Â
"Are you okay, Princess?" He said softly. I shrugged. He pulled into an empty parking lot when tears began running down my face unbuckling his seat beat then leaned his seat back
"Cheol what are you doing?" I questioned he just ignored me, picking me up and over the center console and onto his lap allowing me to cry in his shirt, which was white.Â
"Your shirt has makeup all on it," I said, sniffing.Â
"I don't care, you need someone to cry on, and I'm here. If you care so much I'll take it off" He said I hit his shoulder making him laugh. One of his hands was placed on my back and the other was running through my hair. When I was done crying I got back into the passenger side, laughing at the stain on his shirt.Â
"I'm sorry, about your shirts Cheollie" He looked down seeing the light stain on his shirt. He just laughed along with me.Â
"Let's get some food and you can stay at mine tonight," He said I nodded.Â
"Sounds good"Â
Was that when everything changed? Or was it always like that and I just just just noticed now? Cheol's always been affectionate. His love language is gift-giving and physical touch. He does it with everyone. Was it when your boyfriend forgot your birthday and didn't show up to your dinner but Cheol made sure that you knew he remembered? Especially when he pulled out the jewelry box
"Happy Birthday Y/n" The open box in front of me showed a pinky ring. It was white gold and wrapped in white and pink diamonds.Â
"S-seungcheol..." I whispered he just smiled at me gently taking the ring out of the box and sitting next to me tilting the ring a little so I could see the engraving on the inside 'To my princess, my best friend Y/N' and grabbing my hand to the ring on my pinkyÂ
"Y/N-ah, You are one of my best friends. You have seen me at my best and my worst. When you heard of my injury you dropped everything just to be by my side. You ensured I wasn't lonely when everyone went on Nana's tour and I thank you for that. I can never repay you for everything you did for me, but I hope this is a start."Â
I was playing with the ring on my pinky. Seungcheol comes back with food. I was placing it on the table in front of us. He handed me some chopsticks.Â
"I thought we could share if that's okay" He whispered as I nodded, smiling a little. He sat down next to me. Still, all in my head, he nudges my arm with his shoulderÂ
âYou okay?â He asked me, I just looked at him. When did I start looking at him differently, why havenât I recognized my feelings for him?Â
âY/n?â I snapped out of my thoughts. I was leaning forward to take a bite of the tteokbokki.Â
âMmm, good,â I said, covering my mouth and chewing. Glaring at Jeonghan and Shua who were laughing.Â
I ate in silence. I was listening to how excited they were about their comeback.
âYou should do the challenge!âI froze about to eat the pork belly then laughed and shook my head.Â
âNo way I seen the footwork and thereâs no way I can do thatâ I watched the video of the choreography and the break dance at the end of the song is insane.Â
âYou can do the bridge,â Seungcheol said they all nodded agreeing with what he said. I would deny it until he looked at me, pleading with his eyes.Â
âOkay, teach it to me?â I said looking at him, his eyes softened and he nodded. I smiled taking a sip of water. One by one everyone started to leave. First Soonyoung and Seungkwan. Shua next, Jihoon soon after. Vernon, Seokmin, and Minghao, and Junhu. Mingyu and Wonwoo left after they finished their last beer. Jeonghan and Chan were left. Jeonghan looked at Chan who was in his own world at this point and got up Helping the younger and the drunker one up.Â
âIâm gonna make sure he gets to his bed,â Jeonghan said leaving me alone with Cheol. We sat in comfortable silence for a moment until he looked at me.Â
âYou staying the night?â He asked I thought about it for a second then nodded.Â
âCan I borrow a shirt?â I said getting up and walking to his room. Knowing heâll say yes. I went into his closet and grabbed a shirt, then went to take a shower. After I took a shower, I dried off and put on the shirt. I left the bathroom and found him sitting in the living room. As often as I spent the night in Cheol's apartment, you think I would have extra clothes over here. The only clothes I have are actual day clothes, and undergarments not pajamas, simply because I like wearing his shirts they are big and comfortable.Â
âMovie?â I asked
âYou pick?â He said.Â
âI was gonna tell you to pickâ I grabbed the remote, turning the TV on. We both sat down after we cleaned up scrolling through Netflix trying to decide on a movie.Â
âHmmm, do we have to watch a movie?â I asked not finding anything interesting enough to watch and taking the remote from my hands and clicking on the TV Show category.Â
âHave you started watching Bridgerton?â He asked glancing over at me.Â
âHave you?â I said laughingÂ
âYou know that the only reason Iâd watch this is with you,â He said pressing select and starting the first episode of season 3. We sat in silence, Cheol grabbed my legs and rested them on his lap. Running his hand up and my calf I felt my heart flutter as his finger traced circles on my skin. Eyes focused on the screen. I couldnât focus on the show anymore, my mind drifted as I felt the warmth of his hands. I felt myself getting turned on as I watched his eyes move up and down my body. I knew I had to stop this, but I couldn't move away. Episode one is finished now on episode two Halfway through the episode you looked at Cheol.Â
âTell him..â a voice inside my head whisperedÂ
âCheol?â I said making him over at me.Â
âHmm?â He said still rubbing my leg.Â
I can do this! I CAN do this right?Â
It was the end of the episode and Colin and Pen kissed. I glanced over at Seungcheol who was looking at me.Â
âWhatâs wrong, youâve been quiet ever since I bought the food out.â He asked I shook my head the words stuck in my throat. I can do this. I guess.Â
âCheol, I-â I took a deep breath pulling my legs off of him and moving closer to him. He looked concerned. I was playing with the ring on my pinky again.Â
âPrincess? Whatâs going on?â He said grabbing my hands. I looked at him biting my lip. Closing my eyes.Â
âSeungcheol, weâve been best friends a long time, right? I canât imagine my life without you in it if Iâm being honest, Cheollie. I donât know why it took me so long even to realize this but. I-â Stopping to look him in the eyes.Â
âIâve been in love with you for so long. Youâre everything I could ever ask for. Caring, protective motivational, and understanding, you take charge when needed and become the one person in my life I know will be there. These last few months being able to be here and be a support system for you watching you work to be back on stage with your members have been inspiring and made in love with you even more. âÂ
He just stared at me. No words came out. I could decipher what he was thinking. I slowly moved my hands from his and got up.
âI should go. Iâll see you later?â Moving from him grabbing my phone off the table. His hand quickly grabbed my wrist. Getting looking down at me.Â
âWere you going to leave? Without me saying what I have to say. Just gonna run out and pretend those pretty words didnât come out of that pretty little mouth of yours.â His thumb ran over my lower lip. I sucked in a breath.Â
âPrincess... I have always been in love with you. Every time I tried to tell you, you were in a relationship or I was dating someone or having a fling, it has always been you baby. The first time you came to watch our concert and just seeing you in the crowd with that smile of yours singing along to all of our songs, you made sure to come to every concert just to show your support not only for me but for my members as well. Every show, every stage when I look at the carats cheering for us, Iâm looking for you, you are the one to calm my nerves. You have not only helped me go through one of the toughest times in my life. Babygirl I fell and I fell hard for you â He stepped closer to me hand on my cheek. I could feel my heart racing as I looked up into his eyes. He leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. I closed my eyes and kissed him back, my, heart full of joy and hope. We pulled away, our eyes still locked. He smiled and kissed me again, this time more deeply. I melted into his arms. He sat down pulling me into his lap. Cheol kissed me again, this time passionately. I was lost in the moment, my heart racing as I felt his hands exploring my body. His hands on my hips moving them. Letting me grind against him. He bit down on my lip I let out a moan of pleasure as his tongue slid into my mouth. We fought for dominance, which he won, of course, We pulled away panting. His shirt was over my waist his fingers digging into my skin. His lips met mine again, this time with more intensity. His tongue made its way into my mouth, exploring every crevice. I felt my body temperature rise as my heart raced.
âCheolâ I whimpered against his lips as he raised his hips to meet mine. He groaned his hand sliding down my thigh I felt myself getting wetter as my desire for him grew more intense. His lips moved from my mouth to my neck, leaving a trail of kisses behind. I arched my back to meet his advances, my heart racing as I felt my body trembling with pleasure. His fingers brushed against my clit, collecting my wetness with his fingers then start to rub my clit. His other hand moved higher, caressing my breasts as his lips continued to explore my neck. His touch was electric, sending waves of pleasure through my body. I let out a moan of pleasure as my body quivered. His lips returned to my mouth, his touch sending my mind into overdrive. I could feel myself getting closer and closer to climax,
âGood girl princess. Tell me what you needâ He whispered against my lips.Â
âI-I want your fingers, pleaseâ I whimpered body trembling with anticipation. He slowly inserted two fingers into me, his thumb rubbing my clit as his fingers thrusted in and out of me and I began writhing in pleasure. I felt my body tense up as I started to come undone.Â
âIâm cumming!â I said.Â
âThatâs a good girl, use my fingers to cumâ His lips returned to mine, and I let out a final moan of pleasure as my body shuddered in ecstasy. When I finally calmed down I tugged on the string of his sweatpants untying it. He quickly removed his fingers from my pussy and allowed me to take his pants off. He stood there naked, his erection jutting out proudly. âWow, heâs big.â I thought to myself as I looked up at him with admiration. I reached out and wrapped my small hand around his shaft, feeling it throb in my hand. I slowly began to stroke him, feeling him harden even more.
âShit, Y/n, make it wet baby. Spit on it, â He said taking his shirt off and tossing it across the room. Taking my hand and spitting on it wrapping it around him again.Â
âGood fucking girl,â He said panting. I smiled softly watching his face twitch in pleasure. Finally taking him in my mouth slowly watching his mouth drop slightly.Â
âFuuuuuuuck, baby girl,â He said once I took some of him in my mouth. My hand wrapped around the rest. He looked down at me, biting his lip. Learning what sends shivers up and down his spine. I pulled up to suck on the head of his cock. I started to move my head and hand up and down his cock occasionally deep throating him.Â
âOh, my fuck- so good at thatâ His raspy voice whispered his hand in my hair. My eyes never left his.Â
âFuck, you look so beautiful like this.â He said, then pulled me away from him. Bending down picked me up and placed me on the couch with him on his knees. Without a warning, his mouth attached to my clit.Â
âOh shit, Cheol!â I cried out my hands in his hair. His fingers slid into me again. Riding his fingers as his mouth worked on my clit had me arching me arching my back. He pulled away still fucking me with his fingers.Â
âYou donât know how long I wanted this, princess. To taste you and feel you around me. Now that I know what you taste and feel likeâŚIâm never letting you goâ He said curling his fingers and hitting my G-spot over and over again.Â
âFuck, right there!â I moaned, and he smiled teasingly and saidÂ
âRight here, princess? â I nodded biting my lip, which made him spank my clit lightlyÂ
âF-uck!â I screamed tightening around his fingersÂ
âOh- no baby you gonna cum? You need to ask sweetie, let me hear you begâ he said smirking and spanking my clit again.Â
âPlease, let me cum so you can fuck me Cheollieâ My hips meet his fingers in every thrust. His lips wrapped around my clit again making me gasp and whimper. I couldnât help myself, the aura he gave, the control he had. The word slipped outÂ
âDaddy! Please can I cum?â He smirked again before pushing his fingers deeper inside me and sucking and nibbling at my clit, making me moan louder. I felt my orgasm building, my body trembling with pleasure, and when it finally released, I screamed out in pleasure, my body shaking and trembling with pleasure. I gasped in pleasure, my orgasm finally arriving. He didn't stop, continuing his ministrations until I was spent. Only then did he remove his fingers and lips from me, leaving me in a blissful state.
âDaddy huh?â He said standing up and taking my legs in his hands wrapping them around his waist. Sliding his cock through my lips.Â
âMmmh, please donât tease me.â He leaned down kissing me. Biting at my lower lip pulling awayÂ
âBeg me to fuck you babyâÂ
 âPlease daddy, fuck me,â I pleaded. His lips curved into a smirk, pushing inside me., back arched gasping out as he bottomed out He slowly began to thrust in and out, his grip tightening on my hips with each thrust. I moaned in pleasure, my body trembling with pleasure. He leaned down and kissed me, his breath hot against my lips.Â
âYou, feel so good. Like you were made for meâ he groaned out kissing and biting my neck. I moaned out at the pain and pleasure he was giving me. He leaned up took my leg in his hand put it on his shoulder kissing it softly. The angle change made my mouth drop open,Â
âRight there daddy, pleaseâ I moanedÂ
âPlease what babygirll? Use your wordsâ he said his other hand pinching at my nipple. I couldnât think straight. My brain canât even form the thought of what I was asking for.
âPrincess, be a good girl and use your words,â He said hand traveling up my chest onto my neck.Â
âF-faster pleaseâ I cried out. His pace increased, and my moans became louder with each thrust. He leaned down and whispered, his voice low and raspy.Â
âSuch a good girl, taking all of me. Asking so nicely. I always wondered how much of a good girl youâd be.â I tightened around him making him groan out.Â
âFuck,â Him hitting my g-spot the way he looked like he could spend forever in this position. Turned me on even more. Making me clench around him.Â
âYou keep doing that Iâm gonna cumâ He said I smiled and did it again. He groaned his thrusts stuttering. His hold on me tightened, he reached down and rubbed my clit I gasped as I felt him release inside me. Which triggered my orgasm.Â
âDaddy!â I screamed out he continued to fuck me through it. He collapsed on top of me, our breathing still heavy. Once he caught his breath he pulled out. I whimpered at the loss of his warmth. I felt him get up he took me in his arms carrying me to his room and then the bathroom and sat me on the toilet.Â
âUse the bathroom princess,â He said grabbing a washcloth and wetting it. I used the bathroom grabbed some toilet paper, wiped myself, and stood up. Seungcheol quietly wiped me with the washcloth and cleaned himself off picking me up again and leaving the bathroom. Walking towards his bed laying down with me on top of him.Â
âYouâre mine now baby girl, and I donât plan on letting you go anytime soonâ
#seventeen imagines#seventeen smut#kpop smut#scoups smut#seventeen#seventeen scoups#seventeen seungcheol#seventeen fluff#s.coups x reader#x reader#black!reader
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Hi! I just read your post about your opinion on "AI" and I really liked it. If it's no bother, what's your opinion on people who use it for studying? Like writing essays, solving problems and stuff like that?
I haven't been a fan of AI from the beginning and I've heard that you shouldn't ask it for anything because then you help it develop. But I don't know how to explain that to friends and classmates or even if it's true anymore. Because I've seen some of the prompts it can come up with and they're not bad and I've heard people say that the summaries AI makes are really good and I just... I dunno. I'm at a loss
Sorry if this is a lot or something you simply don't want to reply to. You made really good points when talking about AI and I really liked it and this has been weighing on me for a while :)
on a base level, i don't really have a strongly articulated opinion on the subject because i don't use AI, and i'm 35 so i'm not in school anymore and i don't have a ton of college-aged friends either. i have little exposure to the people who use AI in this way nor to the people who have to deal with AI being used in this way, so my perspective here is totally hypothetical and unscientific.
what i was getting at in my original AI post was a general macroeconomic point about how all of the supposed efficiency gains of AI are an extension of the tech CEO's dislike of paying and/or giving credit to anyone they deem less skilled or intelligent than them. that it's conspicuous how AI conveniently falls into place after many decades of devaluing and deskilling creative/artistic labor industries. historically, for a lot of artists the most frequently available & highest paying gigs were in advertising. i can't speak to the specifics when it comes to visual art or written copy, but i *can* say that when i worked in the oklahoma film industry, the most coveted jobs were always the commercials. great pay for relatively less work, with none of the complications that often arise working on amateur productions. not to mention they were union gigs, a rare enough thing in a right to work state, so anyone trying to make a career out of film work wanting to bank their union hours to qualify for IATSE membership always had their ears to the ground for an opening. which didn't come often because, as you might expect, anyone who *got* one of those jobs aimed to keep it as long as possible. who could blame em, either? one person i met who managed to get consistent ad work said they could afford to work all of two or three months a year, so they could spend the rest of their time doing low-budget productions and (occasionally) student films.
there was a time when this was the standard for the film industry, even in LA; you expected to work 3 to 5 shows a year (exact number's hard to estimate because production schedules vary wildly between ads, films, and tv shows) for six to eight months if not less, so you'd have your bills well covered through the lean periods and be able to recover from what is an enormously taxing job both physically and emotionally. this was never true for EVERYONE, film work's always been a hustle and making a career of it is often a luck-based crapshoot, but generally that was the model and for a lot of folks it worked. it meant more time to practice their skills on the job, sustainably building expertise and domain knowledge that they could then pass down to future newcomers. anything that removes such opportunities decreases the amount of practice workers get, and any increased demand on their time makes them significantly more likely to burn out of the industry early. lower pay, shorter shoots, busier schedules, these aren't just bad for individual workers but for the entire industry, and that includes the robust and well-funded advertising industry.
well, anyway, this year's coca-cola christmas ad was made with AI. they had maybe one person on quality control using an adobe aftereffects mask to add in the coke branding. this is the ultimate intended use-case for AI. it required the expertise of zero unionized labor, and worst of all the end result is largely indistinguishable from the alternative. you'll often see folks despair at this verisimilitude, particularly when a study comes out that shows (for instance) people can't tell the difference between real poetry and chat gpt generated poetry. i despair as well, but for different reasons. i despair that production of ads is a better source of income and experience for film workers than traditional movies or television. i despair that this technology is fulfilling an age-old promise about the disposability of artistic labor. poetry is not particularly valued by our society, is rarely taught to people beyond a beginner's gloss on meter and rhyme. "my name is sarah zedig and i'm here to say, i'm sick of this AI in a major way" type shit. end a post with the line "i so just wish that it would go away and never come back again!" and then the haiku bot swoops in and says, oh, 5/7/5 you say? that is technically a haiku! and then you put a haiku-making minigame in your crowd-pleasing japanese nationalist open world chanbara simulator, because making a haiku is basically a matter of selecting one from 27 possible phrase combinations. wait, what do you mean the actual rules of haiku are more elastic and subjective than that? that's not what my english teacher said in sixth grade!
AI is able to slip in and surprise us with its ability to mimic human-produced art because we already treat most human-produced art like mechanical surplus of little to no value. ours is a culture of wikipedia-level knowledge, where you have every incentive to learn a lot of facts about something so that you can sufficiently pretend to have actually experienced it. but this is not to say that humans would be better able to tell the difference between human produced and AI produced poetry if they were more educated about poetry! the primary disconnect here is economic. Poets already couldn't make a fucking living making poetry, and now any old schmuck can plug a prompt into chatgpt and say they wrote a sonnet. even though they always had the ability to sit down and write a sonnet!
boosters love to make hay about "deskilling" and "democratizing" and "making accessible" these supposedly gatekept realms of supposedly bourgeois expression, but what they're really saying (whether they know it or not) is that skill and training have no value anymore. and they have been saying this since long before AI as we know it now existed! creative labor is the backbone of so much of our world, and yet it is commonly accepted as a poverty profession. i grew up reading books and watching movies based on books and hearing endless conversation about books and yet when i told my family "i want to be a writer" they said "that's a great way to die homeless." like, this is where the conversation about AI's impact starts. we already have a culture that simultaneously NEEDS the products of artistic labor, yet vilifies and denigrates the workers who perform that labor. folks see a comic panel or a corporate logo or a modern art piece and say "my kid could do that," because they don't perceive the decades of training, practice, networking, and experimentation that resulted in the finished product. these folks do not understand that just because the labor of art is often invisible doesn't mean it isn't work.
i think this entire conversation is backwards. in an ideal world, none of this matters. human labor should not be valued over machine labor because it inherently possesses an aura of human-ness. art made by humans isn't better than AI generated art on qualitative grounds. art is subjective. you're not wrong to find beauty in an AI image if the image is beautiful. to my mind, the value of human artistic labor comes down to the simple fact that the world is better when human beings make art. the world is better when we have the time and freedom to experiment, to play, to practice, to develop and refine our skills to no particular end except whatever arbitrary goal we set for ourselves. the world is better when people collaborate on a film set to solve problems that arise organically out of the conditions of shooting on a live location. what i see AI being used for is removing as many opportunities for human creativity as possible and replacing them with statistical averages of prior human creativity. this passes muster because art is a product that exists to turn a profit. because publicly traded companies have a legal responsibility to their shareholders to take every opportunity to turn a profit regardless of how obviously bad for people those opportunities might be.
that common sense says writing poetry, writing prose, writing anything is primarily about reaching the end of the line, about having written something, IS the problem. i've been going through the many unfinished novels i wrote in high school lately, literally hundreds of thousands of words that i shared with maybe a dozen people and probably never will again. what value do those words have? was writing them a waste of time since i never posted them, never finished them, never turned a profit off them? no! what i've learned going back through those old drafts is that i'm only the writer i am today BECAUSE i put so many hours into writing generic grimdark fantasy stories and bizarrely complicated werewolf mythologies.
you know i used to do open mics? we had a poetry group that met once a month at a local cafe in college. each night we'd start by asking five words from the audience, then inviting everyone to compose a poem using those words in 10 to 15 minutes. whoever wanted to could read their poem, and whoever got the most applause won a free drink from the cafe. then we'd spend the rest of the night having folks sign up to come and read whatever. sometimes you'd get heartfelt poems about personal experiences, sometimes you'd get ambitious soundcloud rappers, sometimes you'd get a frat guy taking the piss, sometimes you'd get a mousy autist just doing their best. i don't know that any of the poetry i wrote back then has particular value today, but i don't really care. the point of it was the experience in that moment. the experience of composing something on the fly, or having something you wrote a couple days ago, then standing up and reading it. the value was in the performance itself, in the momentary synthesis between me and the audience. i found out then that i was pretty good at making people cry, and i could not have had that experience in any other venue. i could not have felt it so viscerally had i just posted it online. and i cannot wrap up that experience and give it to you, because it only existed then.
i think more people would write poetry if they had more hours in a day to spare for frivolities, if there existed more spaces where small groups could organize open mics, if transit made those spaces more widely accessible, if everyone made enough money that they weren't burned the fuck out and not in the mood to go to an open mic tonight, if we saw poetry as a mode of personal reflection which was as much about the experience of having written it as anything else. this is the case for all the arts. right now, the only people who can afford to make a living doing art are already wealthy, because art doesn't pay well. this leads to brain drain and overall lowering quality standards, because the suburban petty bouge middle class largely do not experience the world as it materially exists for the rest of us. i often feel that many tech CEOs want to be remembered the way andy warhol is remembered. they want to be loved and worshipped not just for business acumen but for aesthetic value, they want to get the kind of credit that artists get-- because despite the fact that artists don't get paid shit, they also frequently get told by people "your work changed my life." how is it that a working class person with little to no education can write a story that isn't just liked but celebrated, that hundreds or thousands of people imprint on, that leaves a mark on culture you can't quantify or predict or recreate? this is AI's primary use-case, to "democratize" art in such a way that hacks no longer have to work as hard to pretend to be good at what they do. i mean, hell, i have to imagine every rich person with an autobiography in the works is absolutely THRILLED that they no longer have to pay a ghost writer!
so, circling back around to the meat of your question. as far as telling people not to use AI because "you're just helping to train it," that ship has long since sailed. getting mad at individuals for using AI right now is about as futile as getting mad at individuals for not masking-- yes, obviously they should wear a mask and write their own essays, but to say this is simply a matter of millions of individuals making the same bad but unrelated choice over and over is neoliberal hogwash. people stopped masking because they were told to stop masking by a government in league with corporate interests which had every incentive to break every avenue of solidarity that emerged in 2020. they politicized masks, calling them "the scarlet letter of [the] pandemic". biden himself insisted this was "a pandemic of the unvaccinated", helpfully communicating to the public that if you're vaccinated, you don't need to mask. all those high case numbers and death counts? those only happen to the bad people.
now you have CEOs and politicians and credulous media outlets and droves of grift-hungry influencers hard selling the benefits of AI in everything everywhere all the time. companies have bent over backwards to incorporate AI despite ethics and security worries because they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, and everyone with money is calling this the next big thing. in short, companies are following the money, because that's what companies do. they, in turn, are telling their customers what tools to use and how. so of course lots of people are using AI for things they probably shouldn't. why wouldn't they? "the high school/college essay" as such has been quantized and stripmined by an education system dominated by test scores over comprehension. it is SUPPOSED to be an exercise in articulating ideas, to teach the student how to argue persuasively. the final work has little to no value, because the point is the process. but when you've got a system that lives and dies by its grades, within which teachers are given increasingly more work to do, less time to do it in, and a much worse paycheck for their trouble, the essay increasingly becomes a simple pass/fail gauntlet to match the expected pace set by the simple, clean, readily gradable multiple choice quiz. in an education system where the stakes for students are higher than they've ever been, within which you are increasingly expected to do more work in less time with lower-quality guidance from your overworked teachers, there is every incentive to get chatgpt to write your essay for you.
do you see what i'm saying? we can argue all day about the shoulds here. of course i think it's better when people write their own essays, do their own research, personally read the assigned readings. but cheating has always been a problem. a lot of these same fears were aired over the rising popularity of cliffs notes in the 90s and 2000s! the real problem here is systemic. it's economic. i would have very little issue with the output of AI if existing conditions were not already so precarious. but then, if the conditions were different, AI as we know it likely would not exist. it emerges today as the last gasp of a tech industry that has been floundering for a reason to exist ever since the smart phone dominated the market. they tried crypto. they tried the metaverse. now they're going all-in on AI because it's a perfect storm of shareholder-friendly buzzwords and the unscientific technomythology that's been sold to laymen by credulous press sycophants for decades. It slots right into this niche where the last of our vestigial respect for "the artist" once existed. it is the ultimate expression of capitalist realism, finally at long last doing away with the notion that the suits at disney could never in their wildest dreams come up with something half as cool as the average queer fanfic writer. now they've got a program that can plagiarize that fanfic (along with a dozen others) for them, laundering the theft through a layer of transformation which perhaps mirrors how the tech industry often exploits open source software to the detriment of the open source community. the catastrophe of AI is that it's the fulfillment of a promise that certainly predates computers at the very least.
so, i don't really know what to tell someone who uses AI for their work. if i was talking to a student, i'd say that relying chatgpt is really gonna screw you over when it comes time take the SAT or ACT, and you have to write an essay from scratch by hand in a monitored environment-- but like, i also think the ACT and SAT and probably all the other standardized tests shouldn't exist? or at the very least ought to be severely devalued, since prep for those tests often sabotages the integrity of actual classroom education. although, i guess at this point the only way forward for education (that isn't getting on both knees and deep-throating big tech) is more real-time in-class monitored essay writing, which honestly might be better for all parties anyway. of course that does nothing to address research essays you can't write in a single class session. to someone who uses AI for research, i'd probably say the same thing as i would to someone who uses wikipedia: it's a fine enough place to start, but don't cite it. click through links, find sources, make sure what you're reading is real, don't rely on someone else's generalization. know that chatgpt is likely not pulling information from a discrete database of individual files that it compartmentalizes the way you might expect, but rather is a statistical average of a broad dataset about which it cannot have an opinion or interpretation. sometimes it will link you to real information, but just as often it will invent information from whole cloth. honestly, the more i talk it out, the more i realize all this advice is basically identical to the advice adults were giving me in the early 2000s.
which really does cement for me that the crisis AI is causing in education isn't new and did not come from nowhere. before chatgpt, students were hiring freelancers on fiverr. i already mentioned cliffs notes. i never used any of these in college, but i'll also freely admit that i rarely did all my assigned reading. i was the "always raises her hand" bitch, and every once in a while i'd get other students who were always dead silent in class asking me how i found the time to get the reading done. i'd tell them, i don't. i read the beginning, i read the ending, and then i skim the middle. whenever a word or phrase jumps out at me, i make a note of it. that way, when the professor asks a question in class, i have exactly enough specific pieces of information at hand to give the impression of having done the reading. and then i told them that i learned how to do this from the very same professor that was teaching that class. the thing is, it's not like i learned nothing from this process. i retained quite a lot of information from those readings! this is, broadly, a skill that emerges from years of writing and reading essays. but then you take a step back and remember that for most college students (who are not pursuing any kind of arts degree), this skillset is relevant to an astonishingly minimal proportion of their overall course load. college as it exists right now is treated as a jobs training program, within which "the essay" is a relic of an outdated institution that highly valued a generalist liberal education where today absolute specialization seems more the norm. so AI comes in as the coup de gras to that old institution. artists like myself may not have the constitution for the kind of work that colleges now exist to funnel you into, but those folks who've never put a day's thought into the work of making art can now have a computer generate something at least as good at a glance as basically anything i could make. as far as the market is concerned, that's all that matters. the contents of an artwork, what it means to its creator, the historic currents it emerges out of, these are all technicalities that the broad public has been well trained not to give a shit about most of the time. what matters is the commodity and the economic activity it exists to generate.
but i think at the end of the day, folks largely want to pay for art made by human beings. that it's so hard for a human being to make a living creating and selling art is a question far older than AI, and whose answer hasn't changed. pay workers more. drastically lower rents. build more affordable housing. make healthcare free. make education free. massively expand public transit. it is simply impossible to overstate how much these things alone would change the conversation about AI, because it would change the conversation about everything. SO MUCH of the dominance of capital in our lives comes down to our reliance on cars for transit (time to get a loan and pay for insurance), our reliance on jobs for health insurance (can't quit for moral reasons if it's paying for your insulin), etc etc etc. many of AI's uses are borne out of economic precarity and a ruling class desperate to vacuum up every loose penny they can find. all those billionaires running around making awful choices for the rest of us? they stole those billions. that is where our security went. that is why everything is falling apart, because the only option remaining to *every* institutional element of society is to go all-in on the profit motive. tax these motherfuckers and re-institute public arts funding. hey, did you know the us government used to give out grants to artists? did you know we used to have public broadcast networks where you could make programs that were shown to your local community? why the hell aren't there public youtube clones? why aren't there public transit apps? why aren't we CONSTANTLY talking about nationalizing these abusive fucking industries that are falling over themselves to integrate AI because their entire modus operandi is increasing profits regardless of product quality?
these are the questions i ask myself when i think about solutions to the AI problem. tech needs to be regulated, the monopolies need breaking up, but that's not enough. AI is a symptom of a much deeper illness whose treatment requires systemic solutions. and while i'm frustrated when i see people rely on AI for their work, or otherwise denigrate artists who feel AI has devalued their field, on some level i can't blame them. they are only doing what they've been told to do. all of which merely strengthens my belief in the necessity of an equitable socialist future (itself barely step zero in the long path towards a communist future, and even that would only be a few steps on the even longer path to a properly anarchist future). improve the material conditions and you weaken the dominance of capitalist realism, however minutely. and while there are plenty of reasons to despair at the likelihood of such a future given a second trump presidency, i always try to remember that socialist policies are very popular and a *lot* of that popularity emerged during the first trump administration. the only wrong answer here is to assume that losing an election is the same thing as losing a war, that our inability to put the genie back in its bottle means we can't see our own wishes granted.
i dunno if i answered your question but i sure did say a lot of stuff, didn't i?
#sarahposts#ai#ai art#chatgpt#llm#genai#capitalism#unions#labor#workers rights#capitalist realism#longpost
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Hi! If you donât have the capacity to answer questions like this thats totally okay but I was wondering if you have any thoughts/resources on house cleansing rituals? My family and I are soon moving into the home my parents will likely live in for the rest of their lives, and Iâm feeling drawn to consecrate the space with some cleansing and protection magic but unsure of where to start. We are of Irish and Danish descent living on Coast Salish land, Iâm sure thereâs some rich folk magic I could draw from but I have no teachers or guides to show me the way! I deeply admire your work and appreciate any advice you might offer :) Thank you!
Hello there, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond! I've got a whole bunch of messages I've been meaning to respond to.
I definitely get that urge to "magically nest" into a new home.
I'll start by addressing the cleansing aspect of your question. When it comes to a new home (or really, any new space or item that you're going to be exposing yourself to energetically over time) there is often an urge to cleanse in some way, which is understandable. However, I encourage you to check in with yourself and your intuition of the space, asking if it feels truly pertinent to cleanse it. I bring this up because, some thingsâand homes especially, in my opinionâcan actually benefit from and be strengthened by the accrual of energy in them. For instance, sometimes you move into a place, and it just feels gross and wrong on a visceral level, as if it was covered in "energetic grime." In a situation like that, cleansing makes total sense, as the goal is to remove that influence so that you can begin to imbue it with energy of your own. However, other times, you move into a place and immediately feel the warmth, love, and care that has been steeped into it, in which case, why would you want to remove such a rich and supportive energetic foundation from which to build upon?
As an example, when my in-law's first moved into the house we later inherited, it was shortly after the house's first tenant had died within it. She was a very kind and funny old woman who really liked my in-laws and helped make it possible for them to buy it following her death. For the first ten years or so of living in the house, they still strongly felt a sense of her caring nature present in the home, which makes sense given how long she lived there. What's more, though, any time my in-laws would argue or struggle with tension, they would begin to smell cigarette smoke and hear distant country music they couldn't find the source of (two things the original homeowner loved and indulged in daily), which would always lead to them laughing and patching things up. The energetic residue left by this woman could theoretically have been cleansed upon moving into the house, but I believe that would have been a sad loss for the house and the family.
With that little rant out of the way, let's say that you do have reason to want to cleanse the home and address that approach. There are many different ways one could use to energetically cleanse a building, but the main ones that seem worth mentioning here include Fumigations, Washes, and Recitations.
Purifying Fumigations involve invoking the excisive virtues present in a given material or mix of materials (such as Rue, Sage, or Vervain) and then burning said materials to release the ritually activated and aligned virtues of excision to aid you in cleansing the space. Practically speaking, this looks like wafting smoke through the home.
A Cleansing Wash involves steeping the excisive virtues of pertinent materials (such as Salt and Chile Pelper) into a solvent base (such as Water, Vinegar, or Oil), invoking and aligning said virtues ritually, and then using the homemade solution to physically cleanse the space (using the different solvents depending on your needâi.e. use oil for polishing wood, use vinegar for cleaning glass, etc.)
Recitations of Banishment involve walking through the house reciting or reading words of power aloud that call for the expulsion of unwanted energies or entities. This method will generally benefit from a close connection to the source material and/or a close working relationship with one's spirit allies.
In many cases, a mixture of two or more of these approaches will be used in conjuctjon to purify a home.
As for domestic protection magic, that's another subject with innumerable approaches. Additionally, most useful domestic protection magic I've encountered seems to focus on particular facets of protection (which is why my home is layered with multiple wards). As such, I struggle a little bit to think of a concise and clear way to discuss this aspect of your question. However, here are some links to previous posts in which I've discussed things like:
Protecting the home from Intruders
Protecting the home from Storms
Protecting the home from Fire
Protecting the home from Malefic Forces
A Generalized Property Ward
Additionally, I believe that developing a close working relationship with the spirirt of one's homeâcalled a Genius Domi in my traditionâis probably one of the best ways to establish magical guardianship of the house.
#anonymous#ask#protection#protection magic#domestic magic#domestic protection#housr protection#banishing#house cleansing#cleansing
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