#and i wonder to what extent it would have been more evident to people if there weren't the gender bullshit that comes into play

[spideyjimin]

what was i made for | jk

⏤ pairing: jungkook x female reader 

⏤ genre: strangers to lovers, fluff, and smut 

⏤ rating: 18+

⏤ warnings: a tiny bit of sad oc, alcohol consumption, oral sex (m receiving), swearing, some teasing, praising, penetrative sex, protected sex, rough sex, creampie, and multiple orgasms 

⏤ words: 8,833

⏤ summary: have you ever met someone with whom you instantly clicked? well yes, but never to the extent of how it happened with jungkook. in a matter of days, he made you feel like the prettiest and most special woman. right there and then, you understood what you were made for. 

 ⏤ author’s note: hi loves! here you have this fic! it was a pleasure to write it since it's been a while that i haven't written fluffy fics. i hope you enjoy it & it's always a pleasure to know what you think about it! have a wonderful day & week ahead!

MASTERLIST

Turning 30 wasn’t exactly how you pictured it to be. Since a very young age, you thought that by this stage you’d be in a long-term relationship and probably a mother. As years passed by, you simply hoped that you’d be in a relationship but all the dates you endured the past year made you realize that it would never be the case. 

Being single has never made you sad, you actually always enjoyed being on your own. Being independent is something you always sought to have, and you deeply treasure having it. However, this is quite a milestone in life and this time, being alone has a bit of a bittersweet taste. And it hurts. Although, in a way, you try to convince yourself that it’s better to be alone than in a bad relationship. 

As you’re looking at the people sitting at the table, most of them are engaged or married or living together, or having a child. Before, it used to not hurt you but today, it’s quite hard to look at them all with happiness. Nonetheless, the reason why you’re all gathered today truly makes you happy. Your best friend, Jin proposed to his girlfriend, Iseul and they reunited all their close friends to announce the fantastic news. You’re the only one aware of this because he asked for your advice for the proposal. 

The only other person aware of this is Jimin, Iseul’s brother. Jin prefers to have his approval since they are very close. He also asked for her father’s approval as the gentleman that he is. You got to meet Iseul’s brother quite a lot of times and he’s definitely a sweetheart. Jin and Iseul tried to set you up but between you, there’s only friendship, nothing more. 

While looking, your eyes land on a man who catches your attention. He’s honestly quite handsome, a kind of handsome you’ve never seen before. He looks innocent without looking innocent. It sort of doesn’t make sense but that’s how you’d describe him. Looking at his cute features makes him look quite innocent but then, his vibe definitely breathes ‘not innocent’. Maybe it’s caused by his short haircut. You’re not sure although that’s how you perceive him. 

For sure, you’re convinced that he’s probably already in a relationship. Guys like him are usually taken. They don’t stay single for a long time, they easily charm every person around them, and they can find their person quite fast. Your eyes meet and he offers you a little smile, one that you return. 

“Hey guys,” Jin says a little louder to get everybody’s attention. “Today, Iseul and I gathered you here to share some wonderful news.” 

A bright smile appears on your face. 

Iseul shows her left hand with her engagement ring and points it out. “We’re getting married,” she yells with evident joy. 

Everybody starts congratulating them for their engagement, and they all seem extremely happy with this announcement. It warms your heart to be a part of this big step in their lives. Getting married is quite something, and you’re deeply and truly happy for them. 

During the dinner, you find out that the hot guy’s name is Jungkook. He’s actually Iseul’s cousin. Him and Jimin are quite close. Jimin frequently mentions him and you’ve heard many stories about them. It’s great to finally put a face on a name. Especially since he’s a very good looking man. 

At some point, you realize that everybody is discussing in the living room, except for you, Jimin, and Jungkook. Throughout the evening, they slowly moved, leaving you alone with them. You’re having a very animated conversation about desserts. 

“Tiramisu is the best dessert ever,” you say. “There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

They are trying to convince you that chocolate mousse or lemon cheesecake are much better than anything else. For sure, those are good desserts but not as good as a tiramisu. Nothing will ever beat a good old tiramisu. 

“Pff, you’re saying nonsense, yn,” Jimin replies. 

You roll your eyes which makes Jungkook laugh. Honestly, it’s been fantastic to interact with them. They are super funny, they have a very good dynamic. Through that, you get to see that Jungkook isn’t just pretty on the outside, he definitely seems to have a good heart. That convinces you even more that this man isn’t single at all. A man like him isn’t on the market anymore. A lucky girl must be waiting for him at home.      

“Every word that leaves my mouth is only the truth,” you say with a little smirk on your face. 

Both men laugh even more. They aren’t convinced at all that you only say the truth, they actually don’t agree with you that tiramisu is the best dessert ever. 

“You’re very funny, yn!” Jimin says.  

You roll your eyes once more but you’re simply happy to share this moment with them. They manage to make you forget how sad you’ve been feeling for the past month. It’s been hard but you’ve been trying to cheer yourself up because it’s a feeling that is not easy to deal with. 

“I quickly need to go to the bathroom,” Jimin adds. 

You and Jungkook simply nod before your friend leaves you alone. For a brief moment, there’s a little silence between you but it’s not an awkward one. Then, his eyes meet yours with a little smile on his face. 

“I’m happy to finally meet the girl Iseul tried to set Jimin up with,” he says. 

“Oh, you heard about that,” you reply with a smile appearing on your face. 

“Of course,” he responds. “Iseul talked so much about it, she really wanted you to be together.” 

She told you that a million times but you and Jimin weren’t meant to be together. At least that’s what you believe. There’s a lot of love and respect between you but it will never be more than that. He’s simply a close friend. A friend you’re more than grateful to have in your life.  

“She’s terrible!” you shake your head with a little smile on your face. “I don’t get why she had to tell everybody about it.” 

For sure, it annoys you a bit that she had to tell the world she wanted you to be with her little brother. But she’s one of your bestest friends, and you cherish her friendship more than anything else. It was such a sweet gesture to try to help you out with your love life.  

Then, right there, you see in his eyes the pity appearing. He doesn’t need to say anything else for you to understand what he’s going to say. They all give you that look when they’re about to say that you’re single. 

“She wants to help her dear friend to find someone,” he mumbles. 

Your eyes glance down at your hands. It’s better that he doesn’t see the sadness appearing all over your face. Even though it comes from a good intention, it makes you feel like a pathetic girl that isn’t able to find someone, especially when you’re talking about it with a handsome man. 

“She’s also been wanting to do it with me,” he adds. “She keeps saying that a soldier shouldn’t be single. It doesn’t make any sense to me but I guess she simply adores setting people together.” 

A smile appears on your face before you look up. In a way, you feel like he said that to cheer you up but it still feels nice that he tried to not make you feel alone. However, you’re a bit surprised to hear that he’s a soldier. You would have never imagined him serving in the military. 

“Probably,” you reply. “But in my case, it’s mostly out of pity because I’m 30 and still single. All our friends are in relationships, married or parents.” 

“I’m sure that’s not the reason,” you instantly say. “Iseul is like that, she loves to help.” 

You take a deep breath, he’s absolutely right but it’s becoming heavy to be the only single one out of all your friends. Every single friend of yours present here is in a relationship. Most of them are already married, and a couple of them are parents. It’s not easy to look around and see everybody succeeding on all those aspects in life. The only thing you can brag about is your career. 

And because of all that, sometimes you wonder what you are made for.

“I know she just wants to help because she’s aware of how heavy the pressure from society can be,” you tell him. “And it has been quite heavy since I turned 30. It’s hard to look around and see everybody getting married or buying their houses or announcing a pregnancy while I’m extremely far from achieving that.” 

Jungkook nods. You’re not convinced he can understand you, you’re not sure he’s even single as he’s claiming. Society treats men and women completely differently. For a man, it’s totally okay to not be married or to have a child by the age of 30. It’s even remarkable if they put their careers first. But you’re fully aware that everything isn’t rainbows and sunshines for men as well. 

Nonetheless, it is surprising how comfortable this man has made you feel. This morning, you weren’t even aware of his existence, and now, you’re talking about how you’ve been feeling. What you ignore is that it's a shared feeling.

“I’m sorry to be talking about my problems,” you say. 

“No, no,” he says. “Don’t worry at all about that!” 

You swiftly start discussing other topics. At some point, you find yourself wondering where Jimin is but he has discreetly joined the others in the living room, leaving you alone. He noticed the way you were deeply talking, and he didn’t want to disturb you. For sure, you appreciated the opportunity because you got to learn a bit more about Jungkook. 

After the engagement party of Iseul and Jin, you exchanged numbers with Jungkook and since then, you’ve been spending your days texting him. It has been making you extremely happy. He’s making you feel seen, a sensation that has been absent from your life for a while. Not all the men you dated elicited that feeling in you, but it’s also not something new. However, right now, you don’t want to think about the ex that provoked that feeling.  

What you truly appreciate about Jungkook is the fact that he always warns you when he will take some time to reply. He always tells you when he’s going to do a certain thing that will cause him to go to sleep at 4 am and that he won’t be able to reply. Nonetheless, he always texts you before going to sleep, no matter the time. 

“How are things going with my cousin?” Iseul asks while you’re walking to her car. 

It truly amazes you how this woman ends up discovering everything when it comes to the dating life of someone. 

“How do you know?” you inquire. 

A smirk appears on her face. 

“Well, at my engagement party, you were all over each other, which made me extremely happy, to be honest,” she explains. “Since then, you’ve been smiling like an idiot all the time, and your phone crazily buzzes. It’s not complicated to understand that you two are flirting.” 

The word ‘flirting’ violently hits you. You never considered that you were flirting but now that she’s saying it out loud, it definitely is the truth. 

“I should have thought about trying to set you up together,” she says. 

You roll your eyes while shaking your head. She’s always thinking about setting people together but that’s one of her charms. She’s always so considerate of people around her, she wants people to be happy. 

“Maybe if you had that idea, it would have never worked,” you reply. 

The thought of being set up with Jungkook is weird because you adore the way things started between you. You can’t imagine it any other way. Now, you’re simply grateful he’s part of your life. For the past month, he’s been contributing a lot to your happiness, and you only hope that it’ll be the case for a long time. 

“Probably,” she quickly replies, “but I’m glad you’re talking and discovering each other,” she adds. “You deserve more than anyone else to be happy.” 

She takes you in a heartfelt hug, one that warms your soul. She’d noticed how sad you’d been since you turned 30, and it shattered her heart to see you like that. She’s seen how hard it has been for you to not find your person even though you said the opposite. She could see the pain behind the smile you were always showing. 

She’s fully aware that being in a relationship doesn’t determine the person you are, but she knows how it can sometimes make you feel lonely. When it happens, it hurts, and not just a bit. Iseul admires you. You’re so independent, you don’t rely on anybody else. Most of the time, when she needs to go somewhere, she calls somebody to not be alone because she hates that feeling. 

She drops you out at your place, and you enjoy a bit of your time alone at home. After being out with Iseul, you need a few hours of rest. Honestly, she exhausted you. Thankfully, tomorrow is Sunday and you’re planning on staying at home the full day. But someone ruins your moment alone by ringing at the door. 

As you open the door, you’re graced with a man holding a massive bouquet of flowers. 

“Ms y/l/n?” the man raises as he takes the bouquet down. 

“Yes,” you reply and frown. 

“This is a delivery I have for you,” he hands you the bouquet. “Can you please sign here?”

“Let me just put the bouquet down, please,” the man nods while you place the bouquet on your table. 

You come back real quick and sign the receipt. The man leaves, you close the door, and go to the living room to take a proper look at the bouquet. It’s a very impressive one but it’s definitely a wonderful one. There’s a little card on it which intrigues you. Who could possibly send it? 

‘A wonderful bouquet for the most wonderful woman, Jungkook. Ps: sorry I couldn’t hand it myself to you.’ 

Your heart melts right there. This man is slowly but surely making you fall in love with him. The bouquet is so pretty, it’s actually the prettiest a man has ever given to you. It’s for sure a pity he couldn’t have given it himself, you would have wanted him to be here with you right now. Nevertheless, it’s still a magnificent gesture. One that you’ll cherish for a long moment.

Jungkook is on a special mission this weekend which prevents him from returning home. Usually, he only works during the week but there was an unexpected event this weekend. To be honest, it kind of broke your heart because you were eager to spend some time with him. Since he works and sleeps in the barracks during the week, the only time you get to see him is the weekend. 

Being away from you doesn’t prevent him from speaking with you and calling you every day, but it’s very different from being together. Nonetheless, you feel like it also helps to build a stronger connection. Once you get to see each other, you try to get the most out of it.  

You grab your phone and send him a message. Jungkook told you that his phone will remain at the quarters and that he wouldn’t be able to speak with you. So calling him will be useless, it’s best to leave a message that he’ll see when he’s back. 

That night, you fell asleep with the brightest smile. Jungkook has been making you feel so special since the moment you met him. There’s no doubt that you’ll try to keep him around as long as possible. 

The next Monday, after leaving work, you find Jungkook at the main entrance. After this intense and tough work day, it definitely makes your day a hundred times better. As soon as he sees you, he smiles and walks in your direction to meet you halfway. While getting closer to him, you notice that he’s wearing his military uniform. The first thought that crosses your mind is that he came straight after leaving the barrack. In a way, it warms your heart he did it, however, you can’t help but think of how tired he must be. 

Also, seeing him with the uniform makes you weak. It’s the first time you’re seeing him for real wearing it, and let’s just say that he’s more than fine. Without sounding too horny, you’d even say that you’d open your legs right now if he’d ask.  

“Hey, Jungkook,” you say once you’re right in front of him. “What are you doing here?” 

The man in front of you kisses your cheek, causing shivers all over your body. Your smile grows bigger. This part of your life is filled with so much happiness, something you wouldn’t have imagined a couple of months ago when you turned 30. It’s so surprising how life can completely change in a second. Meeting Jungkook has drastically changed your life but you wouldn’t have wanted it in any other way. 

“Hello, yn,” his eyes don’t leave yours. “Just wanted to see your pretty face since I couldn’t for the past week.” 

Your cheeks instantly turn red but you take the compliment. Your eyes are lost in his, people around you completely disappeared. It’s just you and him. For a brief moment, his eyes look down at your lips yet you don’t notice it otherwise you would have maybe kissed him. His right hand caresses your cheek causing your eyes to close for a split second. 

“There’s a nice bar/coffee place where I’d like to take you,” he breaks this intimate moment with his words. 

You nod. He takes your hand to guide you until the place he’s talking about. It’s actually not too far from your workplace. As you step inside, you can’t help but find it extremely cozy. There are quite a few people, not a lot but still. At the end, you notice there’s a photobooth. A couple is leaving it with a bright smile on their faces before they check out the pictures they took. As you see them, you desire nothing more than to try it with Jungkook. It’ll create great memories. 

“Could we take pictures in the photobooth?” you ask pouting to get what you want. 

The man holding your hand doesn’t resist so he nods. A broad smile spreads across your face, filling you with happiness that he accepted. Now, you’re the one guiding him to the end of the bar. He’s also smiling as it brings a lot of joy to him to be with you right now. It’s his only free day of the week, and all he wanted was to be with you. You’ve brightened his life the second you appeared. 

When you open the curtains to get inside the little cabin, you freeze as you realize that there’s only a small stool. But before you say anything, Jungkook gets inside, sits on the tool and places you on his lap. It definitely surprises you but it also warms your heart. You close the curtain before taking a look at the man that has been making your heart beat for the past month. 

“Since we’re here,” he starts. 

You notice a little bit of nervousness in his eyes, and for some unknown reason, it increases the pace of your heartbeat. 

“The reason I wanted to bring you here,” he’s clearly nervous, especially since you’re really close to him. “Because I wanted to ask you if you’d want to become my girlfriend.” 

Now, for sure, your heart is beating like crazy and at the same time melting at his words. It’s incredibly adorable that he actually raised the question, none of your exes did it previously. On top of it, he looks absolutely charming. This man owns your heart. Honestly, it means the world that he took the time to raise the question. At least, it will be official the second you say ‘yes’. 

Since he’s scared to be rejected, he starts to fill the void. “It’s my only day off and all I wanted was to see you to ask...” Before he can even finish his sentence, you gently press your lips on his while grabbing his face in your hands. It’s a simple smack but one that says a thousand words. One that finally happens after all those weeks of flirting. One that finally resumes how you’ve been feeling. Hopelessly in love. 

“Yes,” you reply when you break the kiss. 

The largest and most radiant smile lights up his face. His smile is quite contagious as you smile back at him. The two of you are simply and utterly filled with happiness. Jungkook presses his lips on yours for a passionate kiss. 

The kiss is sweet and tender, there’s no rush or anything else in it. This moment has been desired by the two of you for a little while already. His strong arms wrap tighter around you almost as if he’s scared you’ll disappear.  

His lips are so soft on yours, the tenderness of the kiss making your heart melt completely. Never a man has kissed you like that. Your heart is pounding extremely hard on your chest while the butterflies on your lower stomach are making you feel completely alive. 

Your little hands cup his face while you kiss him passionately. There’s absolutely no doubt that he’s a good kisser. This first kiss with him will for sure be a memorable one unless he gets even better at kissing with time. Out of breath, you break the kiss. 

“Maybe we should take those pictures before people throw us out of here,” you say. 

Jungkook nods before inserting a coin. In a matter of seconds, the little screen shows that you should press play, and he follows the instruction. You strike a first pose, you’re both looking at the camera with a gleaming smile. For the second pose, Jungkook presses a kiss on your cheek which makes you blush. For the third one, he kisses you tenderly. 

This will be without any doubt a memorable day. 

Once the kiss is over, you leave the little cabin. Two sets of pictures are printed. You grab them and hand one to Jungkook. Your eyes stare at the pictures, they are wonderful. For you, they clearly show the way you feel about each other. The way Jungkook makes you happy. The way you love him. 

For the past 3 months, you’ve been in a relationship with Jungkook. It’s a bit odd to be dating a soldier. Honestly, you always kind of had a bad image of them when it comes to relationships. Yes, they are brave, and it’s truly admirable that they sacrifice themselves for the nation. But you always believed they were womanizers, something that your boyfriend has been proving you wrong. He’s actually far from being a Don Juan. Iseul has also mentioned it a million times. 

As you noticed, even if he’s assertive when it comes to you, he’s actually quite reserved. Hence, he never had a lot of girlfriends. It’s difficult for him to approach women but he confessed that with you, it was easy. He felt that he could be himself without feeling judged. He felt that he didn’t need to hold back to impress. He felt that he could simply be Jungkook. Sometimes, you feel that his shyness and his job are simply contradictory. But for you, it’s what makes him special. 

Today, Jungkook gets to leave the barrack a bit earlier and he invites you to spend the night at his place. Quite frankly, you’re a bit nervous. Lately, your conversation almost always deviates in a way into sex, you’re grateful to have those conversations. However, you realize that one day, you’ll make love. You haven’t done anything so far, even oral sex. None of you has really made it happen even though it’s quite obvious that there’s a massive physical attraction. 

Having sex is making you nervous because it’s been a while since you last did it. Of course, it’s naturally something you crave but you’re scared to be bad at it. You’re scared that this first time together will be a disaster which you don’t want. You don’t want it to be perfect too. All you want it to be is pleasurable.  

When you’re at the door of the building complex, you ring the doorbell. He lets you in so you take the elevator to reach the 5th floor. Jungkook is living in a little building complex, it only has 5 floors so his apartment is on the last floor. Per floors, there aren’t many apartments which makes this little complex quite cozy. When you reach the 5th floor, you walk until the door of his apartment. The door is a tiny bit opened, you still knock at the door. 

“Come in,” Jungkook screams. 

You do as he says, but you make sure to close the door behind you. The apartment is plunged into darkness, except it is lit with candles a bit everywhere. There are petals indicating you the path to follow, this is incredibly romantic. As you reach the living room, you notice that a table was put in the middle with dinner already served. Next to the table, Jungkook is standing tall with a bright smile on his face. In his hand, he’s holding a bouquet. It’s a pretty massive one but a wonderful one.

He looks absolutely stunning. 

Even in the darkness of the room, you can see how handsome he looks, and honestly, as long as he’s smiling, he looks stunning to you. With Jungkook, it’s not only about the looks. Most of the time, you find him stunning on the inside. The way he brings you comfort, the way he takes care of you, the way he treats you makes him absolutely handsome. His extremely hot physique is only an extra.   

A smile instantly appears on your face as you walk in his direction. 

“This is your monthly bouquet,” he says while handing you the bouquet. 

You take it, while plunging your nose in it to smell the sweet fragrance of the flowers. The bouquets that he chooses always have the best perfume. Your apartment always smells like heaven, and the sweet fragrance of flowers is something that you now associate with Jungkook. 

“This time around you went out of your way to offer them,” you teasingly say. 

The smile on your boyfriend’s face grows bigger. He looks particularly glowy today, something special irradiates from him. He breaks the tiny little space between you, you move the bouquet to your right so Jungkook doesn’t smash it as he gets closer to you. His right hand rests on your back, drawing you nearer to him. You look up at him, your faces barely away from each other, and before you can even comprehend he crashes his lips on yours for a gentle kiss. 

“I’ll do everything to make my girlfriend happy,” he whispers against your lips. 

Those words free some little butterflies in your stomach, and you can’t help but smile at his words. Never before have you been this happy. You rest your head against his chest. Every day for the past months, you’ve been feeling extra lucky. Jungkook holds you tight in this heartfelt embrace. 

“I’m so lucky to have you,” you mutter. 

Even if you thought he didn’t listen to you, he did but said nothing. All he did was smile like an idiot and feel even more grateful to have met you. 

His entire life he thought he’d never manage to find someone because it’s been hard to find someone that looks beyond his body. Every girl that he meets simply wants to have sex with him. The combo of being in the military and having a buff body has attracted many girls, but they crave something that he doesn’t want. Plus, he’s also quite shy so he feels awkward every time he’s around a good-looking girl.  

But he fell hard for you. And every day, he falls even harder, something he never thought possible. 

He presses a gentle kiss on your head. “We should start eating before it gets too cold,” he informs you. You nod before breaking apart from him. 

He suggests putting the flowers on the little coffee table that he put in one corner. You look once more around you, it astonishes you how wonderful his place looks when being lit up by candles. Jungkook takes the time to admire his marvelous girlfriend, you. You’re wearing a light pastel orange dress, it’s a nice dress you found in Zara. A bit expensive but a pretty one for a date. 

The dinner goes quite well, but you both drink a lot of wine. To some extent, it was a way for you to relax a bit, you’re quite obviously a bit nervous. Your boyfriend notices it. However, he understands it. The sexual conversations have turned him on, and his girlfriend is extremely sexy. Every time he lays eyes on you, he can’t help but think that you’re the sexiest woman he has ever seen. Even his exes don’t even get close to how sexy you are. 

And that dress you’re wearing, uff… he can’t even think properly. 

Jungkook is aware that you haven’t shared an intimate moment with a man in a while so he perfectly understands your nervousness. His last intercourse happened like 8 months ago, it was with a girl Iseul was trying to set him up with. Needless to say, a couple of days later, it ended. 

As the gentleman that he is, he doesn’t try anything nor does he say anything sexual. His priority is to make you feel safe around him. He can wait, there are other ways to relieve himself while he patiently waits for you to be ready. On your side, you’re genuinely thankful he exhibits great patience with you.  

In the end, you ended up falling asleep in his bed with him. Both of you wanted to spend the night together. For sure, you’re aware that there are some chances that you end up making love but with the alcohol in your system, it kind of makes you less nervous about it. 

In the middle of the night, you’re both woken up by a strange noise. At first, it definitely seems weird but quickly, the noise is accompanied by moans. You blush as you realize that Jungkook’s neighbors are having sex. You hide yourself under the blanket, and it makes Jungkook chuckle. 

“It’s not funny,” you tell him. 

“It is,” he says as he joins you under the blanket. 

There’s barely any light so you can’t properly see him. 

“It’s so embarrassing to hear people making love.” 

“Why so?” he raises. 

“Because it’s supposed to be an intimate moment and knowing that neighbors can hear you destroys the intimacy of the moment,” you answer. 

A little smile appears on his face. He undoubtedly finds you extremely adorable, and it’s incredibly obvious that it’s been a while since your last intercourse. When it comes to sex, sometimes, he feels like he’s older than you due to the obvious fact that he has some more experience. In reality, you’re older than him but most of the time, it doesn’t feel like it.     

“They don’t even realize that,” he says.  

“How could they? I mean, they should know that they are being loud.” 

“They are enjoying the moment and not realizing that they are moaning a bit too loud,” he adds. “Don’t you remember the last time you made love?” he asks. “Normally, you’re so absorbed that you don’t even comprehend if you’re making too much noise or not.”   

For a minute, you think about it. He’s not wrong, when you’re in the moment, you only care about the pleasure, not about the noises nor how dirty sex can be. It’s just you and your partner. 

“They definitely sound like they’re having fun,” he teasingly adds. 

You know that he’s trying to lighten the mood but you’re still slightly embarrassed. You try to relax a bit, this is a natural thing. Couples make love, even strangers have sex for fun. In any case, it’s normal. There’s no need to be ashamed or embarrassed. 

“For sure,” you reply with a little smile. 

Jungkook is glad that you’re replying to his little tease. Your boyfriend gets a little closer to you, his hand caressing your arm. 

“Even under the blanket, we can perfectly hear them,” he retorts. 

You chuckle at his words. You’re grateful that he’s trying to make you feel comfortable. For you, it proves once more how beautiful on the inside he is. 

“But let me tell you that they are even louder during the day,” he tells you. “They make love a lot of time.” 

“Oh, so you’ve been listening to this quite a lot?” you ask. 

“Yep,” he simply says. “On a Friday evening, when I come back from the army, I get to hear them all night long to my greatest delight. And don’t be here on a Sunday…” 

Now, it’s a little laugh that escapes your lips. This sound is what warms your boyfriend’s heart. He loves to hear you laugh, and what he adores more is to see the way your face lights up. Right now, he can’t see your face well so he pictures it.   

“It mustn't be funny,” you say. “It also explains why we barely come here.”

“Eeeh, you finally get it,” he states. 

His hand moves higher to reach your cheek and he keeps doing some circles to shoote you. It certainly works. 

“They are always on fire so it’s better to avoid being here,” he adds. “Especially when I was single.” 

“So now that you’re not single, it’s easier?” you ask while raising an eyebrow. 

A smile appears on his face. Having you has made everything easier. And for sure, it’s less of a torture to hear his neighbors having sex because all he can think about is you.

“For sure, I can think of my wonderful girlfriend to distract myself from this torture.”   

Now, your hand moves to his cheek to caress it. Your boyfriend closes his eyes when your soft fingers touch him. 

“I still don’t get how such a wonderful man like you had trouble finding someone,” you express. 

His hand places a strand of hair behind your ear. 

“Nice men have trouble finding someone,” he informs you. “Girls usually prefer bad boys over a guy that treats them right. I was shy too so it definitely didn't help and being in the army only attracted women who wanted sex. I was never interesting enough.” 

You can hear his voice breaking at the end. It hurts to hear those words, especially coming from a man with a golden heart. In just over 3 months, he has made you feel so special like no other man has before. 

But he only states the truth. Most girls chase bad boys, almost as if they hope to change them into nice boys but it’s never the case. They always end up breaking their hearts. Nice men are not seen enough, and it breaks your heart, especially since now you’re dating one. 

“You are more than interesting, Jk,” you say. 

You press a soft kiss on his lips. 

“You’re the first girl that truly sees me for who I am.” 

This breaks your heart even more. Jungkook deserves the world, and he deserves more than anybody else to be happy. 

“And you’re the first man that truly sees me for who I am,” you instantly tell him. 

His neighbors are still making love but now you don’t hear them, you are simply absorbed by each other. There’s only you. The world around you completely disappeared. 

Now, it’s Jungkook who presses a gentle kiss on your lips. His lips are so soft on yours, the tenderness of the kiss making your heart melt completely. However, this gentle kiss slowly turns into a passionate and fervent one. A kiss that speaks a thousand words. A kiss that says that you love each other. A kiss that makes you both feel seen. It’s a kiss that you both craved for years.  

You’re deeply kissing each other, and by the looks of it, this kiss is for sure going to take a heated turn. A turn that both of you want. You’ve been obviously nervous about this but right now, there’s nothing more that you crave. Your only wish right now is to feel even more loved by this wonderful soldier. 

His impatient hands move down to your waist to bring you even closer to him. They run up and down your waist, making you more than happy to have his large tattooed hands on your body. Your hands, on the other side, go to his hair to softly run through it. 

“I’ve fallen so hard in love with you, yn,” he says as he breaks the kiss. 

As much as you can, you look at him with an idiot smile on your face. There are millions of fireworks inside you caused by what he just said. There’s no more doubt that you’re madly in love with this man. He owns your heart. 

“Maybe not as much as I did,” you add.       

Jungkook presses a peck on your lips before he kisses the corner of your lips down to the underside of your jaw, causing little moans to escape your mouth each time his lips touch your skin. Jungkook is making you feel alive and also driving you into complete euphoria. Even though you’re starting to get lost, you’re slowly realising what is about to happen. You’re going to make love with your boyfriend.  

In the end, there was no reason to feel nervous to share an intimate moment with your boyfriend. He loves you. And he will obviously do everything to help you feel good.  

He drops his head to your neck, kissing the base of your throat. You moan as he starts leaving a trail of kisses, the feeling of his mouth on your throat is divine. Everything he does exceeds all your expectations. Regardless of your nervousness, you of course dreamt of what it would be to have sex with him. So far, he’s undoubtedly surpassing all of your expectations.  

Your hands run through his hair, tugging at the roots. A moan escapes his pretty lips, his voice vibrating against your skin. This slowly starts to feel like heaven. His lips move up again to meet yours for another fervent kiss. 

“It’s getting too hot under this blanket,” he affirms. 

“Yep,” you manage to say. 

Jungkook removes the blanket from your bodies, and you can finally see him somewhat better. His short hair looks messy, causing a bright smile to appear on your face. Instantly, the urge to run your fingers through his hair comes across your mind. There’s no need to say that you did it, and that he loved feeling your fingers in his hair. 

“You’re breathtakingly beautiful,” he whispers while his eyes scan your face. 

“Thanks, Jk,” you smile at him. “And you’re the prettiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.” 

The way you both make each other feel is so indescribable but you’re absolutely sure to have found the right person. You make each other feel special. 

“I want to make love to you, yn,” he lets you know. “I’m craving you so much.” 

You kiss him. You also crave him in an unimaginable way. His large hands caress your waist while you both look intensely at each other before you uncover your bodies frim the blanket. In a matter of seconds, you’re fully naked in front of each other. Your eyes glance down at his cock. In all honesty, it’s quite big.

“It’s massive,” you look up at him. “How have you been hiding it in your pants?” he giggles at your words.

“That’s something that I’ve been wondering every day for the past 3 months,” he says, clearly making you understand that he gets pretty hard around you every day. 

Without any warning, you wrap your hand around the base of his dick. This sudden move surprises him which causes him to whimper. Your eyes watch down at his impressive crotch. The head is red, precum running down his length and over that prominent vein that lines it. You rub your thumb over the tip before going down on his shaft, spreading his arousal all over him. A deep moan leaves his lips as your hands finally touch him, his head falling completely on the pillow.       

“Oh,” he growls. 

Slowly, you start pumping him, taking your time, your hand gliding up and down his length. A trail of groans leaves his lips while you pump him nice and slow, giving him a dreamy handjob. Every time your hand reaches the base, Jungkook shivers, loving deeply how you’re pleasing him.

Your boyfriend is a bit surprised by the fact that you’re doing this handjob quite amazingly. Sometimes, with your reactions when it comes to sex, he forgets that you had exes so for sure you have some experience. Maybe not a lot but it’s still something. And now, he’s realizing that you perfectly know how to do things.   

On your side, you want to give him more. You know your hand is just not enough, he needs more to come undone. So you dip down to kiss the head of his cock, his eyes instantly opening as this is unexpected. You lick his tip, his precum coating your wet muscle before you wrap your mouth entirely around his cock, sinking down fully on his length. 

“Damn, yn,” he groans, loving the warmth of your mouth around him. He swears that he’s about to fall apart, covering your mouth with his cum. 

Your eyes look up to meet with his. The moment they lock ⏤ both your eyes completely filled with lust ⏤ he looks away, too scared to burst right there. As much as he’d love to fill your pretty mouth with his seed, he doesn’t want to come right now. There’s still so much to be done. 

“Love,” he says while his hand moves down to your hair, grabbing it before pulling your head a little. “I don’t want to come right now.” 

Your lips leave his length, letting it slap against his lower abdomen before you crawl up his body to kiss him again languidly. Jungkook can taste his salty precum on your lips and he adores it. Damn, he loves everything about this moment with you. 

“Do you have a condom?” you whisper on his lips. 

“Of course, angel,” he replies. 

Well, he always has some condoms in his bedroom as well as in his wallet. He’s always prepared in case anything like this happens. Even if he adores you, there’s no way that he’s doing it without protection. Your health is more important than anything else and also, it’s way too soon to take the risk of having a baby. 

While he stands up to grab a condom in a drawer of the nightstand, you lay on your back, your eyes looking up at the ceiling. Strangely, you feel extremely happy that you’re taking this step in your relationship. It’s creating a deeper connection between you. A very intimate bond. When Jungkook gets back on the bed with his condom in his hand, he bites his bottom lip. 

“You’re so beautiful, love,” he whispers, scanning every part of your body. You’re even prettier than in his dream. 

The man doesn’t waste any time ripping the plastic and putting the condom on his length. Honestly, you ignore what to do so you simply watch him. On his knees, he gets closer to your body and he slowly and delicately spreads your legs. For a brief moment, he gazes at your core, causing him to bite his lower lip. While holding his cock, he brushes it against your pussy to get you wetter. He wants you to be as wet as possible to be ready for him. 

“Can I?” he asks. 

It melts your heart that this man asks for your consent before going any further. Rare are the men who did it before. Once again, it proves to you that you found the right person.   

When you nod, he slowly buries his thick cock inside your soaked core, stretching your velvety walls. His large hands find their way to your waist, caressing your soft skin while his doe eyes filled with lust look into yours. Both of you groan as he slowly pushes his long and thick cock inside you.  

“So good,” you mumble as your eyes roll back. 

You have to admit that it hurts a bit since it’s been a while since you last had sexual intercourse but the fact that he’s slowly filling you up to the brim helps. It gives time to your body to get used to this massive intrusion. But it feels so damn good to have him inside you. This is even better than in your wildest dreams. Jungkook leans closer, pushing his cock a bit deeper inside you and snatching a loud moan out of you. 

“It feels so good, love,” his deep voice groans in your ear. “Even better than in my dreams.” 

The fact that he has been dreaming about this too gets you wetter. In a way, it makes sense to you since you’ve had some heated exchanges. You kiss his shoulder before giving it a gentle bite. 

“Oh, looks like the prude yn hides a wild side of her,” he teasingly says while pulling back a bit. 

“Good girls are bad girls that haven’t been caught,” you sing, making reference to a band, 5 Seconds of Summer, that you love. 

“Couldn’t agree more with that sentence,” your boyfriend adds as he keeps pushing back to only leave the tip of his cock inside you. 

Brutally, he pushes his cock fully inside you, and a loud moan leaves your lips. For a little while, he doesn't move, hovering over you and watching you with delight. His eyes look down on your body. He’s surprised by how insanely perfect you are. Your body is for sure the prettiest one he has ever seen. 

Unlike what everyone thinks, he’s not fond of skinny bodies. He loves curves and imperfect bodies because they show life. They show that their owners eat to live, and your curves drive him crazy. He could come just by looking at your ass.  

His lips meet yours for a sloppy kiss before going down to your neck, leaving another trail of kisses on your skin. Needless to say, it makes you moan a bit more. Once he has tortured you enough, his eyes get lost in your body again, groaning as he watches himself buried deep inside you. 

“Uff, you’re driving me crazy, my love.”

You close your eyes, completely enjoying having him fully inside you. You’re completely euphoric at the feeling of him stretching your walls. Once he sees that you’re ready to take more, he pulls back brutally before slamming himself back into you. The bed under you squeaks, the headboard hitting the wall just behind you. The slick sound of your pussy soaking his cock as well as your moans quickly fill the room. 

“Jungkook,” you gasp while he thrusts into you.

This all causes sparks of pleasure to shoot throughout your body, your arousal dripping from your core and creaming his cock. Jungkook smirks as he notices the sticky mess you’re causing. You grip the sheets as hard as possible to steady yourself from Jungkook’s hard thrusts. 

Neither of you can believe that this is happening tonight. In some way, you’re grateful that his neighbors started having some nasty time. Without them, probably nothing would have happened. You can’t even believe you were so nervous and embarrassed minutes ago. And now, you’re making love with the man you love.  

“You’re so wet, love,” he hisses before biting his lower lip. His hands press harder into your skin when he feels your walls tighten around him. “And making such a mess on my cock.” 

Every time he pushes his hips back, he watches with delight the way his cock is completely covered with your arousal. Nothing drives him crazier than seeing this, it is as if your bodies were made for each other.  

Jungkook bends down, pressing a sloppy kiss on your lips while his thrusts slow down. A desperate whine gushes from you, a sound that he proudly swallows. His hands go up to your body, grabbing your breasts and squeezing them to make you moan with desire before his mouth goes down on your body to play with your nipples. 

“It feels so good,” you whine. 

His thrusts are slow and harsh again, and his teeth on your nipples are just too much for you. Gradually, Jungkook begins to thrust hard into you again, and you moan at the feeling of his brutal thrust. Your walls suck his cock as he slams his hips into you with more force. Everything that your boyfriend does pushes you closer and closer to the edge. 

His eyes look up at you, contorting with pleasure as it slowly builds within you. Little moans keep flooding out of your mouth, and Jungkook is adoring to hear you moan. His hands can feel the way your body quivers with each thrust. The way he’s torturing your body is only making you lose yourself further. He just knows how to pleasure you perfectly like he became a master of your body in just some minutes.   

“Your cunt is clenching so hard, love,” he says when he feels the warmth of your walls wrapping tighter around him

As you glance up at him, you can’t help but find him extremely attractive. His eyes stare down at you with passion and lust as his tongue licks his lower lips. He simply can’t believe that this is really happening. He can’t believe that he’s making love to the prettiest woman in the world. He leans forward once more to press another sloppy kiss on your lips. He loves to feel your lips on his, even if the kiss is a disaster. 

“Oh my god,” you barely manage to say while you have a first orgasm. Your body shakes crazily, and Jungkook is happier than ever to see you being overwhelmed by pleasure.   

The vision of you coming undone makes his cock twitch inside of you. However, he wants you to experience more orgasms. There’s no way that he’s going to end this moment without having you come more than once. One of his hands slowly goes down on your body, passing your stomach, and landing on your throbbing clit. His fingers start to rub your sensitive spot. 

To be honest, this action only makes your orgasm more intense and longer. Your arousal completely covers his cock and your walls squeeze him over and over again. This is heaven for him. He could stop right now and he’d be more than happy because he gave you a lot of pleasure. 

He speeds up the pace of his hips slamming into you. The coil in his lower stomach tightens inside of him, and it completely clouds his thoughts. His increase in pace causes you to have a second orgasm in a matter of seconds.  

Breathy whines escape his pretty lips as he looks down at the mess you’re making on his cock. A desperate moan leaves his mouth when his orgasm hits him hard. His eyes roll back with pleasure as his body tenses up and releases his load inside the condom. He collapses next to you, both of your bodies covered in sweat after this intense sex session. Your heavy breathing is now the only thing that can be heard in your bedroom. 

Jungkook throws the condom on the floor before laying again next to you on his bed. His eyes look at you with marvel. You’re so damn wonderful. 

“Uff, love! This was something,” he says as he presses a gentle kiss on your cheek. “Did you enjoy it?”

Even though you had 2 orgasms one after the other, he still wants to make sure that you loved this steamy session. 

“Of course!” you directly answer. 

Your lips find his for a little kiss. 

“I’m glad to hear that!” a bright smile appears on his face. 

As you look at your delighted boyfriend, you feel a wave of happiness wash over you. Yep, this is what you’ve been desiring for years. Being this in love and sharing such a wonderful intimate moment with the person you love is what you’ve been looking for. 

Right there and then, you comprehend what you were made for. You were made to fall in love with Jungkook.

[bennyden]

User hamatoanne's fic plagiarism

Hello, I’m the author of The Android, an AO3 Robot OC x Reader fic that was plagiarized by hamatoanne on Tumblr in her Aemond x Reader story, System Error. You can read my AO3 post for more info about the issue. As you can tell by the timestamps on AO3 and the screenshots of her now-deleted story, mine was posted months before hers. I didn’t want to make this public, but it appears Anne has not learned her lesson and is grasping at straws to keep her readers in the dark. She’s been deleting her stories to hide evidence of her plagiarism. I think you deserve to know who your beloved writer gets her words from.

I don’t know this fandom, but I’ve heard you guys can get pretty crazy. Control yourselves. The only one who needs to take responsibility is Anne. Don’t send hate to her mutuals. Don’t send hate to her followers. Don’t stalk or harass or dox anyone. Read through this post and form your opinion.

First bunch of screenshots: A side-by-side comparison of her story (now deleted) and mine (still up and linked above). I took screenshots in advance in case something like this happened so I’d have proof if I needed it. I decided to compare the first chapter of my fic with the first part of hers. I could do the whole thing, but I’m a busy college student and I think just a quick skim of the pictures below is enough for people to see the extent of her plagiarism. 

I have screenshots of her entire post, but I don’t want to make this too long to scroll through and Tumblr posts cap at 30 pictures. I’m assuming some of you have already read her story multiple times, so you’re familiar with the words. If you haven’t, then I should warn you that the fic that she plagiarized is very not SFW. I’ll let you know where the not SFW content starts so you can skip it. 

On the left is my story. On the right is what Anne posted (and took down).

Not SFW content starts here. 

Not SFW content over.

Finally, I DM’ed her. This was just before I posted to The Android on AO3 about the situation. To summarize, I wrote about how I would go about the situation and how hurt I was about a bigger creator stealing from me. I admit, I was too kind and too much of a pushover. I just wanted things to go quietly. She later replied with this and deleted her fic immediately. 

“I was completely stupid for not giving your credit” Why do they always play dumb? You copy that much and can’t even think to put my name there? You credit the artist but not the person who basically wrote your whole story? The story that gave you over 3k notes, so much more clout than any of your other stories has earned you? Total BS.

“I had every intention of giving credit where it was due…But I forgot” Right. Sure. Of course. If she felt guilty about plagiarizing, she would not be so shameless to accept praise like she did. I have examples of where she happily thanked people for complimenting "her work”, but didn’t want to bring other blogs into this, especially since they were none the wiser to her plagiarism. Ironically enough, someone even gifted her a badge for being a good writer the day she replied to my DM. She tagged that post “#a breath of fresh air on a horrible day”. I wonder why her day was horrible. Whoever gifted her that badge deserves their money back.

My thoughts when approaching her DMs were:

If she wants to keep up the story? Fine, just edit the post to say that it was heavily influenced by my story and leave a link to the original. I don’t mind. The readers will see that, click my story, compare the two, and think, “Hey, that’s not just inspiration! She plagiarized!” and her downfall would start from there without me having to do anything.

If she ignored me and didn’t fulfill that request, i would take matters into my own hands and expose her on her own post. Even more damaging.

In the end, she chose to delete the post entirely, getting rid of the evidence and her clout. I actually didn’t expect this outcome since I thought she’d like the clout too much, but I guess she decided this route would be the least damaging to her reputation. Everything was swept under the rug for now. 

And like a fool, I said thanks and went on with my life. But I decided to keep track of her. Because while I was too cowardly to do anything, I knew there would always be someone in the crowd who would take action. And it seems like people did. 

After reading the supportive comments from readers of my fic, I started to regret how lightly I handled it. I wanted to be mature even though I wanted her entire blog to fall and her reputation taken away. But I didn’t want to be a “bad person”. I wondered if I should keep pursuing the issue. I realized that my overly-people-pleasing behavior might lead her to continue her ways. I decided to speak out because others might’ve had their works taken by her and that my silence wasn’t helping. 

Next is her post, now deleted (I wonder why), about how she’s been so sad and how she’s going to be deleting her old stories and starting over. I’m likely not the only one she’s plagiarized from if she’s deleting other stories. At the time, I only saw supportive replies and reblogs on it, but maybe she deleted it after people started calling her out? Idk.

She’s playing the victim game pretty hard. Acting as a kind underdog even though she’s the big creator who stole from a nobody like me. I know I said on my AO3 update that people shouldn’t send hate to her (and even censored her name after she deleted her story) but I guess I’m a little happy that people sought to call her out on her shit. I wish I was as brave. 

Later, a nice person (we’ll call her Bob because she asked to remain anonymous) DM’ed me directly with a kind message. After seeing this, I decided I should take action and expose all of this since Anne obviously hasn’t learned and wants to keep it all hidden. Bob confirmed that I’m not the only victim of Anne’s plagiarism either.

Bob asked that I not use screenshots of our DM’s so here is a transcription of the important parts:

“Hey! I just found out that one of your fics had been plagiarized by someone in the HOTD community. First of all, I am tremendously sorry that happened…”

(For Bob’s privacy, I won’t explain her relation to Anne. Just know that Anne has refused to message her back).

“I definitely think you should make a blog post. with side by side comparison. I am still completely gobsmacked that she pilfered your entire story word for word and changed a few things. We found evidence that she had plagiarized multiple stories. Not just yours. We found out her mermaid!aemond fic was entirely stolen as well as a few others. She has quietly deleted them and hasn't spoken on them since.”

“We surmised that she takes ‘underrated’ fics from different fandoms and changes the name and that's it. It's almost like she believed that stealing from other fandoms was going to draw less attention than stealing directly from the HOTD fandom.”

So if you noticed that one of your favorite Aemond fics is gone, now you know why.

‘But benny, she still wrote her own sentences and just changed it around to fit aemond!’

Fanfiction is transformative. You know what the source material is and who created it. You know you’re not reading a copied and pasted text with maybe some words and sentences switched around. This wasn’t fanfic. According to Google, plagiarism is defined as, “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” (See what I did there? I credited Google. Is it so hard to give credit where credit is due?) She copied people's work, didn't give credit to the source material, and claimed it as her own. That's plagiarism.

I wouldn’t have had a problem if she properly credited me and linked the original story. I wouldn’t have had a problem if she didn’t blatantly copy and paste the entire text and premise. I wouldn’t even require getting permission to write a story based on my fic if she had satisfied those conditions.

She’s a 27-year-old grown-ass woman with enough free time to simp over some blond guy with an eyepatch. I’m a 21-year-old college student who only posts fics during the summer and winter because that’s when school’s on break. I’m too busy writing lab reports and essays to be an active writer online. The fact that she can disrespect smaller writers so tremendously should not be acceptable. The fact that she also deceived her devoted readers and friends about her "works" is also unacceptable.

What can you do about this? To be honest, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to deal with this before. I want to be a good person and say, “Don’t send any hate to Anne, don’t harass her. Just unfollow her and stop supporting her.” But that obviously hasn’t taught her anything. She’ll just make a half-assed apology, maybe go on hiatus, maybe disappear, and then pop up again under another name to steal from another creator. If you have any ideas on how to deal with this, please tell us. 

She can try to block me or delete her posts, but the evidence is out and the damage is done. Anything she does to hide this mess will only make it worse for her. I’d appreciate people bringing more awareness to this issue, especially if it can reach the eyes of others she’s taken from. 

Thanks for reading.

[miwiheroes]

Bylers, we need to talk about something…

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts pertaining to what will happen in season 5 relating to byler recently, as have we all, but I’ve also been wondering about the audience’s reaction to it if it happens.

Actually, i’ve been more concerned not about the GA’s reaction, but our reaction to how they handle it. I just want to say beforehand, that I might be projecting my issues with negativity and conflict (i’m a very very optimistic person it’s rough being on social media these days lmao) and I also very much believe that they will make byler canon in some way or another. It just makes sense with the narrative. But I fear we will never be happy with how they do it and we never learn from our previous mistakes lmao

Before season 4 came out, I sort of was a fan of byler, but i was very very casual, as in I didn’t interact with many fan theories, I wasn’t on twitter (still not on there because I have a phobia of negativity eek) and I wasn’t on tumblr, I would occasionally check out the edits and fanarts and I think I was just Aware of it, because I always root for the gay ship to happen ofc..

So when season 4 vol. 1 came out I was excited about the direction they were taking byler, and I could see that it was finally canon that Will was gay, rather than theorised. When season 4 vol. 2 came out, I had not been on sttwt or st tumblr during the time between the volumes because I had other fandoms prioritised around the time. I watched the Van Scene with my parents and suddenly I was acutely aware of just how gay they were (because I always get scared of watching anything queercoded around my parents lmao).

By the end of season 4, I was like YES! this season was amazing for a byler set up next season, although i was more focused on other characters too. I then kind of saw the byler script stuff but not the full extent of it, and I saw many edits and fanarts of them but that was it!

Now it’s 2024 and I have a major hyperfixation on byler, (due to the season 5 bts and the fact stranger things keeps popping up on my fyp it’s crazy) and now I’m on byler tumblr (not twt tho .. sorry) to find all the evidence I can and get all hyped up for s5! But I’ve also seen old posts from around 2022…

Literally every single one was extremely disappointed from season 4 vol. 2, and I was confused, seeing as I was very happy with it and I liked byler (my fave byler scene is from vol. 2 and no it’s not the van scene). If I’m being totally honest, and I might get some hate for this, I think we all had wildly, wildly high expectations and the disappointment was our own doing.

I personally never really judge a show before it’s finished (obviously not sitcoms and shows like that) unless it has really really terrible writing ofc, but I always choose to reserve judgement until all the character arcs are wrapped up and I can look back and see why things were made to be.

I understand the whole anger with Mike’s behaviour towards Will and how Will was treated poorly by him, but isn’t that the point? Mike loving Will back in season 5 would then be more satisfying after all that. It’s a set-up for the next season, no?

I don’t know why or how people thought that Mike would suddenly resolve all his internalised homophobia or something during that season, and I reckon if the whole season had come out at once instead of two volumes (i hate the two volumes thing sm omg) people would have been much happier because we wouldn’t have had time to create insane theories or unrealistic expectations that, let’s be real, were not in line with what we have seen so far with byler.

So, I just want to say that I’m a little afraid for season 5, because I know that byler will likely be canon, but people just won’t be happy because it won’t be in the exact way that they had theorised. Sorry to break it to you, but you, random person on tumblr, are not a screen writer. More specifically, you’re not a screen writer for stranger things.

I think it’s fun to theorise at the moment, but I just want to remind people that this pattern has happened before and we never learn? Like, none of our theories are coming true. Not one of them. Did I theorise the exact van scene? Did I theorise the part at the end where Mike grabs Will’s shoulder? No. But am I happy with those scenes? Hell yeah.

So on the build up to season 5, I just want to caution everyone to not assume that specific things are going to happen when it’s just a result of an echochamber (such as the milkvan breakup scene being right at the beginning or the painting being brought up). You’ll just be angry for no good reason.

The only reasons I’m personally going to be angry with how they handle byler is:

1. If it’s not canon and Will’s love goes unrequited/ he has another love interest somehow…

2. If either of them die after having a relationship during season 5 (bury your gays is stUPID)

3. If one of them dies before the other gets to tell them they love them/ kiss

4. If they get together without Mike apologising (it could be in literally any way, obvious or not) for his poor behaviour.

But that’s it, the rest of it is literally up to them.

Hope ur not too mad, but it just needed to be said.

[polutrope]

Just pure headcanons, what do you think happened during Maglor's reign as a king? I don't know if his reign was short or something but I remember it took some time before Fingon was able to save Maedhros and unite the noldor and there was still some division between the host of nolofinweans and feanorians. I wonder if he considered himself a placeholder until Maedhros returned or was he a reluctant king? Did the host respect him as a king, did his own brothers respect him as a king? I am so intrigued because, aside from Maedhros, I think Maglor deserved some shoutout lmao (No, this isn't a maglor-obsession-spree that I have been on, nu uh). Also, I feel like he would have some cordial relationship with Fingolfin, they could bond as the second sons having to take leadership because the eldest died/was abducted idk.

Oh no, starlitelwing. I hope you know the Pandora's Box you've just opened. King Maglor is one of my all-time favourite things to think about.

First of all: there's actually no canonical information on Maglor's position after the capture of Maedhros (in fact, we don't even know what Maedhros' title/position was after Feanor's death; all we know is that Feanor "claimed now the kingship of all the Noldor" in Tirion. Contested leadership is SO GOOD isn't it? anyway...).

The published Silmarillion glosses right over the question of who's in charge during the time between Feanor's death and Fingolfin's official assumption of the Kingship of the Noldor (which, if you ask me, Fingolfin effectively had been King since the time of Feanor's exile, and he was in any case Regent at the time of Finwe's death... he said he'd follow Feanor but the people following him were calling him Finwe Nolofinwe soooo... aiee, I digress again). The book gallops at such a breakneck speed that you don't really notice the gap in leadership. Or, I didn't.

But then you look at the Grey Annals (where Tolkien Gateway gets most of its First Age dates) and you see that there are 2-3 Tree Years and 5 Sun Years between Maedhros' capture and his rescue. Now, however you imagine time works in Tree Years when there are no Trees, that's still a long time. Maedhros was gone at a minimum 6-7 years, more likely closer to the equivalent of 30 "regular" years. (That's way longer, by the way, than the time between Feanor's death and Maedhros' capture, which was like, a day to a month, at most. Maedhros, if he even was King, was King for way less time than whoever followed him. And he sucked at the job, btw. But I digress. Again.)

So someone had to be in charge for those 6 to 30 years, but whomst? That the leadership would pass after Feanor's death to the eldest son is logical, and that it would then pass to the next eldest is also logical. I see no reason to refute that, but note: it would not be uncanonical to have someone other than Maedhros or Maglor in charge at this time. You can make King Celegorm a thing and still be canon-compliant!

This passage in the published Silm is basically the extent of the activities of the sons of Feanor during Maedhros' absence:

Then the brothers of Maedhros drew back, and fortified a great camp in Hithlum; but Morgoth held Maedhros as hostage, and sent word that he would not release him unless the Noldor would forsake their war, returning into the West, or else departing far from Beleriand into the South of the world. But the sons of Feanor knew that Morgoth would betray them, and would not release Maedhros, whatsoever they might do; and they were constrained also by their oath, and might not for any cause forsake the war against their Enemy.

The sense here is that all six sons acted as a unit. But in the 1937 Quenta Silmarillion, the text on which this passage is drawn:

Morgoth held [Maedhros] as hostage and sent word to Maglor that he would only release his brother if …

To Maglor! Excellent evidence that Tolkien was also making the logical conclusion that Maglor, the eldest, was in charge. (My best theory for why Christopher Tolkien took that out is Too Many Names, but it's an odd decision.)

All that was to say: We don't know, canonically, that Maglor was in charge at Mithrim. But it makes a lot of sense, and it's my headcanon that he was.

Now. More interesting headcanons.

I don't think Maglor was called King until it was politically necessary.

I see him as someone who is comfortable in command (one meaning of Cano is "commander", after all) but who likes to command collaboratively. Double-edged sword: he values the input of others (admirable quality) and he does not like being fully responsible for the outcomes of a decision (less admirable).

Unlike much fanon I've come across, I don't think Maglor was a particularly reluctant or incompetent leader or that he hated it. He was miserable, yes, because his father just died and his brother was just captured, and he wasn't thrilled to become a leader on top of that, but he keeps it together.

So how do I imagine it all went down?

The problem with Maglor being in command is that his "collaborative" style of leadership is not appropriate for a time of crisis or for his family. While the Silm often talks about "the sons of a Feanor" as a unit, I do not think they were of the same mind on everything. At all. They need a firm hand, and Maglor does not have that.

But who does have a firm hand? Who would be a more martial ruler, someone who could get people in order during a crisis? Celegorm. And he knows it.

So why did the Feanorians "get nothing done" during those 6-30 years (sidenote: I don't actually think they got nothing done, but it does seem they didn't get anything BIG done)? Well, for one, they were fighting amongst themselves.

Maglor could not get his brothers to agree on anything, and yet he did not know any other way of commanding, and over time he becomes more and more miserable as a leader.

Celegorm, meanwhile, is chomping at the bit to "relieve him" of the burden.

Around them, everyone else is picking sides.

Curufin is an interesting case. I headcanon he actually was fully behind Maglor at the beginning, because he respects the orderliness of succession. But as Maglor proves himself unsuitable for the role, he aligns with Celegorm.

Outside the family, I headcanon that the Mithrim Elves were actually quite taken with Maglor, the poet-king. Their alliance hinges on him. But the Noldor, especially the army, would rather follow Celegorm.

As everyone knows, a rival for leadership with the army's support is Bad News. And yet Maglor manages to hold on. He should definitely get credit for that.

But why hold on? If he is hating this ruler job, why not just let Celegorm have it? Couple reasons:

It's Celegorm. He may be able to perform well, but Maglor knows he's the most like Feanor in temperament and, well, Feanor's kingship didn't end well.

If Maglor gives up that crown, he will have admitted to himself that Maedhros is not coming back. This is the same reason he doesn't give it over to Fingolfin when Uncle Nolvo shows up. He is hanging onto that thing for dear life because, to him, it belongs to Maedhros and only Maedhros. He is the crown's custodian, never its rightful owner (this bleeds into my headcanon that Maglor does not "in his heart" agree with Maedhros' decision to cede the kingship — he'll never be as vocal about it as the others, though).

Now we come to another piece. What did Maglor call himself? Like I said up top, I don't think he initially called himself King. He was "head of his House", or maybe, "Lord of Hithlum," or maybe King Regent, but never King. If one of the Mithrim got mixed up and called him that, he would always correct them.

That changes when Fingolfin shows up. Now there's another claimant to the title of King. Possibly a more legitimate one than even Maedhros (as Maedhros later says himself).

By that time, Maglor has been keeping that crown out of Celegorm's hands for years; he is not giving it up now. And Fingolfin is less likely to challenge his leadership if he offers no room for ambiguity. If he dons the mantle of kingship and pretends Maedhros is dead.

So that is what he does... Does Fingolfin accept it? Well: "Then there was peril of strife between the hosts."

For three years, on opposite sides of the Lake, they're at an impasse. Fingon doesn't go looking for Maedhros because he thinks Maedhros is dead (and other reasons: the mission is insane and desperate not the least, and contrary to popular opinion Fingon is not a rash idiot).

How does Fingon eventually learn the truth? You'll have to wait and read what @melestasflight and I are cooking up for Silm Epistolary Week ;)

ETA: Despite this, I do think you're right that Maglor and Fingolfin could have bonded over their similar experiences! There's the personal and there's the political, and I love the idea of the tension between these straining what could be an emotionally supportive familial friendship between Maglor and Fingolfin.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Shamelessly spamming your inbox as well! Why do you think Kaz takes off his shirt in front of Inej? We know he likes to get a rise out of her (“something about the furrow between her brows was so satisfying”). Do you think he realizes he’s making her blush? Would you consider doing an analysis of your favorite parts of Kaz’s first POV in SOC and the CK bathroom scene? thank you so much!!

Hello and welcome to episode three of DK Finally Gets It Together And Answers Her Asks Because It's About Damn Time (working title)

Episode One - Episode Two

Hi, thanks so much for the ask and sorry that I've taken an eternity to get back to you, but yes absolutely let's talk!

Why does Kaz take his shirt off in front of Inej? The fact that Kaz takes his shirt off in front of Inej is kind of a strange one because it implies feeling a level of comfort around each other that neither of them are emotionally prepared to admit that they have - it's not that long ago (in fact I think it may have just been the previous chapter?) that Kaz told us "to say he trusted Inej would be stretching the point" and yet here he willingly removes his gloves and his shirt in front of her, a massive concession to his ability to be more vulnerable in front of Inej than he is anyone else. I think it's possible that, as you said, he enjoys getting a rise out of Inej however I aslo think this could be interpreted as yet another self-deprecating habit Kaz has collected around Inej to convince himself away from caring about her. I've talked a lot about the way his language separates them and famously the sarcastic delivery of "my darling Inej, treasure of my heart" to offend her even though the words represent, at least to some extent, his genuine feelings because he knows it will elicit a negative response (in this case pointedly referring to his cane and wishing him a long trip down the stairs before Inej herself slides down the bannister) and therefore he can somehow justify ignoring his feelings for Inej's because he had some kind of 'evidence' that she doesn't reciprocate. This is a damaging mentality to both of them, in Kaz with the evident self-deprecating qualities of the action and in Inej the belief that Kaz sees nothing in her except her monetary value to him (I believe the quote is something along the lines of "she was an investment no more no less" and is borne in Inej from the multiple times Kaz refers to her as such in his efforts to distance himself from her, unintentionally presently a massive and damaging misunderstanding of her trauma and the dehumanisation she went through - "bought her, and then sold her again and again"). the scene when Kaz removes his shirt in front of Inej is told from her perspective and we know she sees absolutely nothing beyond the practicalities of the moment as being any kind of vulnerability or romantically charged because she wonders what Kaz would think if she undresses and started washing herself in front of him, and comes to the conclusion "he'd probably tell me not to drip on the desk", and arguably this has a similar impact on her to the idea of being an "investment" rather than humanising terms because from her perspective he is acting exactly as he would if he were alone and with the way she's been treated and the kind of responses trauma and ptsd can cause in people this could to her feel like an extension of the dehumanisation tools that were used against her, effectively she may believe that he's willing to remove his gloves and shirt in front of her because he doesn't acknowledge himself as actually being watched by anyone - or at least not anyone of importance. Whilst this is obviously not Kaz's intention with the action I do wonder whether it's possible that it is to some extent another way of distancing himself from Inej. When Kaz removes his shirt Inej looks away from him, embarrassed, and pretends to study some of the papers on his desk. She comments that she had "lost most of her modesty at the Menagerie" but that there were still "limits". I think there's every chance that Kaz knows she will look away because she's uncomfortable with immodesty and the general vulnerability of the scene, as well as any relation she could reasonably find to her ptsd in this action, and that he is once again forcing himself to come up with this 'evidence' of her disinterest in him so he can bully himself into ignoring his feelings for her. I hope this made sense maybe it's just a rambling mess...

Also:

I have written an analysis of the CK bathroom scene so I will link that here

And when I was doing that series where I analysed my favourite quotes from each chapter I didn't get very far in because the posts took a long time to put together but I did cover chapter three (Kaz's first POV) split into a few different posts :)

Also, I'm back on my analysis nonsense right now so if y'all would like to see that series come back let me know, because I did have fun putting them together they were just also time consuming and I had a lot of other stuff to do at the time

Thanks so much for the ask! Sorry I took so long to respond, and the same to everyone else with questions in my inbox right now, but thanks for sending them in and thanks for reading this post - and don't let it put you off sending more asks if you'd like to! I am working my way through them, I promise :)

[highonmarvel]

Restless Heart [1] | Tricks

♩Steve Kemp

You thought you were dark, and you are, but the charming surgeon you’re becoming addicted to is testing the extents of your morality.

content warning: this is a dark fic, and this series explores taboo topics such as abuse and assault, abduction, deteriorating mental health and mental illness, graphic depictions of gore. Think of a trigger warning: it applies to my work.

addition content warnings here!

“I just don’t eat animals.”

People are generally vegetarian for two main reasons: health or ethics. Steve is a doctor, and evidently in very good shape, so maybe it was to do with that, but you guessed it was probably some moral reasoning. You nearly make a comment, want to ask, “So you don’t eat men?” but you manage to bite that back as you swallow down some chicken.

You nod, and he seems to anticipate your apology as he quickly assures you he doesn’t mind you. You had tried to be vegetarian once, when you were younger and so much more golden, and sweet, and never wanting to hurt a fly, but you abandoned that in less than two weeks, and grew out of that sunshine view. You aren’t super edgy or the “fuck everything” type, no, you just understand that a person can not be good 100 percent of the time, and you have grown to accept that. You know you aren’t holy, and that’s freeing, in a sense, makes you feel safer exploring darker thoughts, only on your own, though. It’s amazing to be at terms with oneself, it’s the ultimate peace.

“Hey, so, I was thinking…” Steve starts, setting down his fork, “If you’re up for it, we should go on, like, a trip or something.”

How long had you known him? Long enough to not think twice about hopping in his car. Or maybe it hadn’t been that long and he’s just the most addictive drug in the world. Steve is heroin personified—not even, actually, it’s so much stronger than that; the desire to be as close to him as physically possible is so overwhelming you have no idea how by any miracle you have managed to stay seated across from him at the table.

“What did you have in mind?” you try as a casual question, maybe a little playful, but even you can tell it’s not convincing. You’re not necessarily shy, maybe a little awkward, but not cowering at the thought of social interactions, but with Steve, there’s just something. Fuck, his defined jawline, smart sense of humour (despite a little awkward charm—in fact, that nerdy attractiveness may benefit him), and his high-inducing touches. He melts down your stubborn persona to a blushing schoolgirl with just a half smile. He knows, he has to, but he’s never mocked you for it. Is that something you would be into?

“A surprise, if you’re up for it.”

You’re up for anything.

The next evening, you’re at his home; it’s huge and gorgeous. You remember wondering if he had a wife and kids when you first started seeing him, but now a little more so—why would he have such a big home just for himself?

“You really don’t have a wife?” you ask, peering down one of the long corridors.

He laughs from another room, and you follow the comforting sound over to a sunken living area. He gestures to your glass on the end table of the couch opposite of him. You settle down and lift the glass to him before bringing it to your lips.

“I don’t,” he insists with a smile, taking a sip of his drink.

You don’t even remember what you asked for, but you drink it anyway, because it’s from Steve. It’s a little tangy, but not too strong, lingers on your tongue and coats your throat.

You hear your name called in a familiar voice. You lift your suddenly incredibly heavy head to look up at Steve; he has his left arm draped over the back of the couch, and his right forearm laying on his thigh, holding the glass seated on his knee.

“Why’re you sitting so far away?”

What a good question. You stand, and even though you attempt to do so slowly, you still rise way to fast, and the fancy wooden floor sways underneath you as you grip your head to stop it from falling forward. You take a step, and you’re out.

♡

You stir to consciousness but keep your eyes shut, turning over and pulling a thin blanket over your shoulder. But something doesn’t feel right. The light shining on you is too warm a colour, the sheet over you is as crisp as a hospital blanket, and it feels like you’re laying on the floor.

Your eyes rip open and you try to sit up with shaking arms providing little support. The wall opposite you is painted with blue and purple and yellow as a beach sunset despite the air of despair about the room.

Your attention is drawn at the sound of ice clinking against glass, finding Steve taking a sip of a drink, seated in a chair by a door.

“Steve?” you ask, trying to stay as calm as possible, “What’s happening?”

He lets out a breath, and says, “I’m gonna tell you but you’re gonna freak out.”

He looks down at you with a glint that could be slight boredom or amusement, and you struggle to properly read the situation.

You look down to your right, where a thick leather bracelet covers your skin, connected to a chain of silver looped through a hook in the ground.

“Take this off, please,” you ask between uneven breaths.

“I can’t do that.”

“Take. It. Off.”

“I. Can’t. Do that.”

He sets his glass down and stands up, causing you to immediately retreat into the corner.

“Don’t!” you shriek, kicking the sheets towards him in your attempt to cower, “Don’t touch me!”

“I’m standing right here,” he responds, holding his hands like he’s unarmed.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” you begin hyperventilating, your body tensing and chest restricting as he crouches before you, “… Are you going to rape me?”

He tilts his head in disappointment and drops his voice, “Why would you ask me something so ugly?”

“Oh my God, oh my God…” you begin again, over and over like a prayer to heaven as he tries to speak to you.

“I like you, and I’m not going to rape you. Listen to me, very carefully,” he says, calm but authoritative, but you continue with your panicked three words over and over again before he yells your name.

“There she is,” he gives a tight-lipped half-smile, like he’s trying to be comforting but doesn’t have the patience for it, “I’m gonna sell your meat, and your hair, and get a lot of money for it. I’m not gonna kill you… right away… because the fresher the meat, the better. I’m not gonna kill you… unless you act up.”

His words are hardly registering in your mind as your eyes dart around the room, looking for any escape points.

“It’s great here, and I’ll cook for you! I’m a great cook,” he steps back and gestures around him, turning to look at the mural on the wall, giving you time to prepare to stand, “And by the way, look at the sunset—”

You yell as your charge towards him, clawing at him with your left hand and trying desperately (and in vain) to pull your right free. He easily steps back from your attack and you swipe at air, leaping further to try to get to him but being tugged back by your restraint.

He manoeuvres himself around you and sweeps you off your feet by gripping your waist, either ignoring your thrashing or used to this response, expertly managing to lay you down as if he’s done it many times before.

His breathing is slightly heavier when he steps over you and makes his way to the door, but you can’t tell if that’s because he’s angry or if your tantrum took him a little more effort (still barely anything, though).

“Behave.”

He leaves you with that. The cage-like wooden door slides shut and an electronic noise from a keypad let’s you know it’s locked.

♡

There are two other women in the basement, Penny, and someone else, resigned to their fate, and you fear you’ll soon become like her, giving up once you’ve had enough taken from you. You can’t have been in the basement for more than a few days, only managing to keep track of time by the three meals Steve delivers you a day. At first you tried to lunge at him, but he didn’t even drop the bowl of cereal he brought down, promising he’d make you a better breakfast the next morning because he had something to take care of; you soon found out that something was the nameless woman whose cell was furthest from you seeing as she was taken away screaming and never returned.

You refused to eat the next meal he delivered, and he encouraged you for a bit but didn’t press too hard before leaving. When dinner rolled around, your temper had been building all day but you had tried to bite your tongue out of fear; you had learnt Steve was a man of his word, and even if you believed he liked you, you just as well believed he wouldn’t hesitate to kill you. Part of you was curious, however, as to how he had managed to keep this up for what you presumed to be years given his expertise without getting caught or even suspected, and the thought made you choke on a sob that you played off as a cough, remaining careful under his gaze. You had learnt Penny didn’t have many friends and family that she had become distant to, similar to yourself, and the thought of all the women who disappeared into thin air without so much as a news call made your stomach twist: you would be one of those women now.

When he set the tray down, you knocked the food aside and tried to scratch at his torso but his thick sweater kept you from it.

“You know,” he said as he sat crossed-legged on the floor only a little bit away from you after you had effectively tired yourself out with trying to get a single hit at him for what felt like an hour, “I knew you were batshit crazy pretty early on.” Your eyes snapped up to him as he casually admitted what you’d been trying so hard to hide for the few weeks you had been dating him. Admittedly, your erratic nature was something you’d eventually stopped trying to hide as you grew up finding the harder you tried, the more explosive you would become when the secret was inevitably revealed, but you really wanted to try keep some sanity about you, at least until you got to know him a little better and were secure in the knowledge it would be at least a little harder for him to leave you than it was in the early days.

“Like, bite-your-dick-off insane. It made me wonder how you’d react to this, if you’d be as violent as I see you are now, or maybe you’d see the appeal.”

“I’d mind it less if you were doing this to men, but you said you ‘don’t eat animals,’ so I guess that rules your kind out.”

He let out an amused exhale through his nose and bit his lip to keep himself from smiling too wide.

That had to have been a few days ago, though you can’t really be sure seeing as he had stopped bringing meals down for a bit after your tantrum, and you were left to scream out your frustrations on your own until you fell asleep. You didn’t hear him come down for Penny either and eventually the conversation between you two had fizzled out. You wanted to leave the mess to spite him but it started smelling rancid and you had to clean up the cell to stop yourself from vomiting even more than you already wanted to.

Finally, the basement door creaks open, and your heart starts beating fast, but you can’t tell if you’re excited to see him or dreading the reason he’s coming down. You’re prepared to swing at him again despite your many failed attempts, but you’re also so hungry you’re not willing to risk going without another meal.

“I need a shower,” you say the second he appears in the cell doorway.

“Hello to you too,” he responds dryly, but his demeanour is cooler than you want considering your emotions are running so high you feel you’ll die if you don’t lash out. Maybe it’s because you’ve missed a few doses of your medicine, but you swear you must have hallucinated his response as being positive when he leans down to unclasp your wrist and you flex your hand to get some feeling back into it.

You rise unsteadily to your feet, unsure if this is a dream or a test, but step out the cell when he motions you ahead of him. He closes the door and grips your bicep as he urges you forward, his hold not hard but firm enough to let you know he is still in control. You feel like a newborn deer and you walk down the corridor, seeing daylight for the first time and wobbly on your legs. Running is not an option, he’d catch you instantly and maybe kill you on the spot, but maybe you can distract him.

You turn suddenly and slash at his face with a roar, trying to claw his eye out. You manage to scratch his face and he’s startled enough to drop your arm in favour of cupping his injured cheek. Maybe the smarter thing to do would have been to run to the kitchen and grab a knife, snatch a lamp from the side table, a vase on the mantle, find a weapon of any kind, but in your fury you lunge at him, managing to jump onto his back and continue trying to rip his eyes out, screaming as your nails scrape against his forehead, but he catches your wrists to stop you. You wrap your legs around his waist repeatedly kicking your heel into his thigh as you try to land a kick at his crotch, but he suddenly falls backwards and you hit the ground with a cry as your back collides with the hard wooden floorboards. Pain shoots down your spine and you try to prop yourself up onto your forearms but are forced to fall backwards with a cry when what feels like white hot searing fire shoots across your nerves.

Steve stands with a foot on either side of your body, blocking the sunlight which you were just getting used to as he towers over you. Despite the few red marks across his face and a little blood running down some of them, he seems too calm for the situation, quickly able to regain a normal breathing pace after your attack. He leans down and grips your neck, pulling your face a little closer to his.

“Bad girl,” he whispers, the last thing you hear before your head is slammed into the floor and you blackout.

♡

Your limbs feel unnaturally heavy when you slowly stir to consciousness, struggling to open your eyes and feeling your lashes stick together every time you manage to part your lids just a little. The sound of ‘80’s pop music vaguely runs through your clouded mind, along with Steve’s humming. You recognise the song, Restless Heart, that you and Steve had danced to, and now he played the same special moment while you were… on his operating table? You groan as you finally manage to pry your eyes open, almost blinded by the bright white lights shining down on you.

“Steve…” you mumble, trying to shift a little from laying on your belly. You register a thin blanket covering only the upper half of your body and somehow manage to feel self conscious despite the horrifying implication of what he’s doing to you.

“What…” you want to ask ‘What are you doing?’ but you’re unable to get your tongue to move as it sticks to the roof of your dry mouth.

Steve seems to understand when he comes into your sightline and answers, “I’m taking your ass.”

It takes a moment for you to comprehend his words before you hear soft metal clattering, undoubtedly the sound of surgical tools as he moves around the room behind you, singing along with Peter Cetera to the song that was once a reminder of the happiest you’ve ever been, and now a macabre ballad to the worst moment of your life—at least thus far.

“No… no…” you mumble as your eyes well with tears.

“You broke my trust, honey. There’s got to be consequences. I wouldn’t quite say you did a number on me, but you certainly could have, and I can’t have that happening again, now, can I?”

“Steve, stop,” you manage to mutter, your throat dry.

“You see, I don’t mind you, I nearly admire the fight you put up when I come visit you, but it’s not so fun when you try to trick me when I’m doing something nice for you.”

Does he really think letting his captive have a shower is something nice?

“I’m not taking much,” he continues, and if you could think straight you would hate that this more talkative side of him comes out when he’s at his most evil. “You’ll be fine, and you’ll be lucky. And I’m a doctor, remember? But listen,” he sets his tools down and walks over to you, blocking the light as he lowers his voice, “If you ever try something like this again, you’ll lose a limb.”

You sobs slowly die out as you feel yourself slipping into unconsciousness again, the last words you hear being Steve yelling in time with the music, “Don’t leave me here with my restless heart!”

♡

When you wake up on the thin mattress back in hell, you sigh deeply as you consider how to even handle yourself. Now that the shock and anaesthesia has worn off, your back hurts more than ever, and not knowing the condition your ass is in, you wonder if you could use the toilet, even if you managed to pull yourself up. You feel frustrated and defeated, now knowing that when Steve comes around, you won’t even be able to try to assault him, futile as your attempt may be. Though you know your hotheaded decisions are more than unlikely to ever be successful, trying at least gave you some sort of power, or at least the illusion of it.

As you lay on your stomach, feeling your heartbeat through your ribs and against the floor, you can’t help but feel like you’ve a restless heart of your own. You want to kill Steve, you genuinely want to murder him, and painfully at that, you even want to torture him; you want to take one of his butcher knives and slash his dick off, shove it into his mouth and hack at his throat over and over again until his head lolls down the stairs. Or maybe you should repeatedly stab him, make sure he feels every tear until you land a dagger in his restless heart.

And… you almost like it. You almost like being able to get years of anger out and having a valid excuse as to why, you like the idea of being able to murder someone and it being justified. If you can survive this, you’ll have the chance to play out all your sick fantasies with the cover of self defence, you can finally unleash your darkest desires, on someone who deserves it.

♩

} next chapter: Painkiller

my beloved taglist: @cowboysnbugs, @buckys-wintersoldier, @cjand10

[denimbex1986]

'The actor and Baftas host answers your questions about facial hair, Doctor Who, Scrooge McDuck – and growing up as the son of a minister

How do you face the challenge of being this year’s Bafta host? practicalpanic I don’t currently feel particularly challenged because everything’s written down for me and I don’t have to worry about winning – or not winning – an award. If it was the first night of a play, I’d be curled up in a corner in the foetal position. But the fact that it’s not my day job certainly feels liberating. Who knows why they asked me; I must have been pretty far down the list. Expectations are pretty much zero. I don’t have anything to prove. Will I be phoning [previous Bafa hosts] Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry for advice? I might do. But I’m travelling in blissful ignorance at the moment.

What’s your sideburn policy? They appear to be sized in direct proportion to your characters’ confidence. DrHugbine That’s a very interesting observation, which I don’t think has any truth behind it, but it’s making me wonder …

Here are some examples … Fright Night’s Peter Vincent – long and bushy, confident vampire killer. The Doctor in Doctor Who – long and pointy, charismatic and charming. Broadchurch’s DI Alec Hardy – beard, no sideburns, introverted and suspicious. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’s Barty Crouch Jr – no beard, no sideburns, complex and a traitor. Good Omens’ Anthony Crowley – ginger, no sideburns, stylish but tempted Eve in the garden of Eden as a snake so a bit of a bad egg generally. TopTramp I don’t think you’re going to write a doctoral thesis based on that evidence. It’s very thin evidence, at most. I grew sideburns for Doctor Who because, back then, I was worried I was a bit young for it and I thought they slightly aged me. Which, of course, I then had to recreate recently when I’m almost certainly too old for it. I guess increasingly I am unshaven, in which case you don’t really have to worry about sideburns because they’re part of something else. Whatever length my sideburns are on the night of the Baftas has no reflection on how I’m treating the Baftas.

As a vicar with young kids, I wondered what influence being a son of the manse has had upon your work? RevdAl It’s hard to know, because you only know the influences you had specifically from your parents because they’re your parents – it’s hard to unpick. It certainly wasn’t a childhood filled with religious dogma or any kind of restrictions. It was more a moral guidebook.

What was it like kissing Michael Sheen [in season two of Good Omens]? And who enjoyed it more? carnies18 Who enjoyed it the most? Presumably Michael was thrilled. How could he not be? But it was another day at work. The most difficult bit was other people’s awkwardness. We thought it was quite fun, so it was fine. He’d brushed his teeth.

Would you accept a knighthood just to fuel an excellent argument with Sheen in the next series of Staged? Shirls Because he sent his OBE back? That predisposes the fact that anything that’s talked about in Staged is based on real life. We are in our own houses, acting opposite people we spend our life with. But that’s pretty much the extent of the reality of Staged.

Which is best – playing a detective, a murderer or a murder victim? JonnyMorris1973 Well, one of them solves the crimes. One of them commits the crimes. And the other one has a crime done to them. It probably depends which character the writer is most fond of and therefore the most fun to play. It’s not really in the gift of the actor, so much as in the gift of the scriptwriter. I think I’ve only played one detective, haven’t I? What’s my favourite way I’ve been murdered? Oh my goodness. I was shot in The Last September. I get murdered on stage every night in Macbeth, although that’s a spoiler. I sort of died in Doctor Who when I got shot by a galvanic beam in a radiation chamber that filled my body with more radiation I could cope with.

Am I as geeky as the Doctor who fans? Yes. As a Doctor Who fan myself of old, I can very much can plug into that. I don’t think I ever got in trouble at school. That is one of those stories that’s ended up on Wikipedia. I wrote an essay on Doctor Who, which some unpleasant newspaper found and printed. But I didn’t get in trouble for it. I think I got quite a good mark for it.

Who would win in a fight between Crowley, The Doctor and Scrooge McDuck? AlistairDionysus Probably Scrooge McDuck. He seems to be able to survive just about everything. He’s far more resilient than Crowley or The Doctor, who seem to end up staring destruction in the face. Scrooge McDuck, nothing seems to trouble him.

You have a lovely singing voice! Would you like to do a musical? Beatrice_Tate, gaityr, laibarra622 and Luigii I make a nice curry, but I’m not going to open a restaurant. Would I do the Masked Singer? I love The Masked Singer. Nothing has excited my eight-year-old daughter more than when everyone thought Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs was me, week after week. You can imagine how disappointed she was when it turned out I wasn’t.

If you were a cheese, what kind would you be? BrianBraddock I’ve got very into paneer curries. Paneer is neither hard nor soft, so I’ll say that because it makes me sound like I’ve really thought about it.

What’s the last item you snatched from a set? NataliaBCN I’m just going back through things I might have pocketed. Maybe this is the upbringing we talked of earlier. I’m very bad with nicking things. I’m plagued with guilt. The last time they released a new sonic screwdriver toy, someone gave me one but I gave it away because I’m so full of generosity, but now I slightly regret it.

Your portrayal of serial killer Dennis Nilsen [in ITV’s Des] was truly terrifying. How do you prepare for a role like that? YorkshireExPat With someone such as Dennis Nilsen, there is quite a lot of material that’s been written about him. There’s video evidence of him. So you immerse yourself as much you can, then join a line between that and the version of the character that’s in the script, because, ultimately, that’s the version you have to portray. One thing we were very careful to do on Des was to not make it from his point of view. I don’t think you can ask an audience to sympathise or understand someone like Nilsen. It’s the story of how he got away with all these things, then was caught. Hopefully the audience is left thinking: how can someone who is just another member of the human race be committing these extraordinary acts and the rest of us not notice or understand?

If you could regenerate as anyone else for the day, who would you choose? TopTramp My wife, just to see how annoying I really am so I could be properly objective and understand her pain.'

[moonlight-shadxw]

Do you remember when I said in my Headcanons monty turned his mom to diamond by accident

He keeps her statue somewhere safe ( was his hotel ) and cleans it everyday

I'll explain more in detail below,

Ever since he was a kid, he couldn't help stealing whatever he thought was worth keeping. It started off with small things, to the point even irrelevant things too ended up in his hands.

As the kleptomania developed further, it'd get him even more in trouble with his father who already disapproved of his entire behavior.

His mother had opened him the doors towards art ; music, dance, and literature, and his main ideal was Romeo and Juliet, hence the name. And while he was an art enthusiast, it still wasn't enough to satisfy what his father needed of him. His mother would cover for him, much to his father's dismay, to the point he decided to disown his own son.

Sick of his father's abuse and mistreatment, he didn't hesitate to leave as soon as he was told.

Several years later, he chose to return home ;

After getting his hand on the diamond amulet, he thought he might show it to his mother as an achievement. But that wasn't the only aim of his trip ; the one he'd seen first was his father ー sneaking through the kitchen window, he came face to face with him ; quickly grabbing onto a knife, he stabs his father to death.

Now covered in blood, he realizes his mother had been watching. Knowing she already had heart problems, he watches her fall to the ground. He reaches to hold her, and unaware of the full extent of the amulet's power, he turns his mother to diamond. He wasn't sure if her turning this cold was because she was already dead when he held her, or because she had turned to crystal.

But the fact he hadn't much reacted to her death made him think, that perhaps his own heart had stopped too, turning cold, yet shiny and sturdy like diamond, the first part of him to crystallize.

He realized that day that all his ideals relating to people were going to be disappointing anyway ; valuables such as money or jewelry would never really lose value and power ー and if lost, they could always be found again.

Hence, his mentality shifted to mostly caring for this side of him, thus neglecting his artistic side, burying it along with his mother.

He still has her statue intact. Sometimes he still wonders if he had gone to his mother first, and then to his father ; perhaps things would've been entirely different.

The reason he went to see his father first was because he had a specific goal in mind, to take revenge on him, not only for himself, but also for his uncle.

As a child, he had witnessed his father kill his own brother in order to inherit his wine producing company and be its new boss.

Montague's uncle used to be one of the very few people he looked up to aside from his mother, and it was him who had told him about the diamond amulet, as a farfetched fantasy, keeping him dreaming about it over and over.

All these thoughts were intermingled in his mind, causing him to choose revenge before sentiment, making him the legal new owner of the company. However, turning his mother to diamond was an unwanted side effect, leaving him confused about what to do next ー until he thought the loss of both parents would be too suspicious, especially that he had just returned.

He needed to get rid of the evidence as soon as possible.

[ tw for slight gore and accidental cannibalism ]

.

.

.

He decides to chop up his father's body into reasonably sized parts and turn them to diamond, changing their shapes in order to make them appealing enough.

The only thing he'd been too curious about was his heart. It felt like his true act of vengeance, and the first compulsive thought that crossed his mind was to eat it.

Distraught by his own actions afterwards, it didn't take too long for him to regret, and then continued with his initial plan of burying the evidence and having it spread around. Those cannibalistic tendencies will only show in random impulsive bits, especially after committing a murder.

His only witness had been his mother, just as he had been the only witness of his uncle's murder ー and the two of them will be quiet about them.

[bottlecap-joe-spooky]

How bad is the extent of Miles Edgeworth's mental state in rise from the ashes?

Tw: suicide, implied self harm

Obviously he ends up essentially leaving a suicide note of "prosecutor edgeworth chooses death", but that could be symbolic. He HAD already quit his job (one of the only things that had held his life together possibly since his father died) so him as Prosecutor edgeworth had essentially "died".

There's also the ambiguous definition of "dying" in the note. Did he mean it as in he would not be coming back (from death or to prosecution or to japanifornia or whatever) or as he would never come back as the same person (the "demon" prosecutor) or just to fake his own death for a little moral/mental break or whatever (everyone's allowed a little gay panic break every once in a while).

Who knows, and I genuinely love the ambiguity the game leaves.

Obviously, phoenix takes it as a serious suicide note, and is obviously absolutely wrecked by it for the next year. This is a topic often touched upon in fanfiction, though not in the game quite as much. Obviously it is hard to talk about mental health issues in a lawyer game, and they do it really well for a game not technically focused on it and from the early 2000s. Specifically for Maya and Edgeworth I think, as they both have loads of trauma that they deal with in fully different ways. Miles is more worrying though, as most of his coping skills are absolutely horrible, he has very little emotional support, and he's been pretty messed up in the head.

I honestly wonder a lot which people and relationships are meant to mirror the main characters, like phoenix saying shit like "that's so romantic- he saved you- I guess I'd fall in love too-" for the Delite's love story or edgeworth saying Adrian andrews codependent situation is very similar to how Franziska operates with her father or definitely Lana and ema reminding Phoenix of Mia and Maya or him literally telling Adrian andrews to kill herself in court. Specifically that last one. He specifically phrases it as "if you're going to say you would 'choose death', that is of no concern to me."

There is some especially worrying evidence in rise from the ashes, when he was at the most mentally unstable he's ever been. The only time that would compare was when his dad died when he was 8, but even then he had a new foster family to rely on (more or less). He's at his very worse, because, after 15 or so years, all of his past has just been dredged up and solved (by "that man" no less. Also, side note, does he only start saying Phoenix "saved him" after he came back from the dead?)

I really don't like any implications of why edgeworth would have traces of blood on the ground, especially at this point in his life.

So the options here are 1) it's someone else's blood, and maybe he fucking slapped someone so hard they bled or 2) it's his blood on his office floor for whatever reason. Neither imply anything remotely good for his mental state.

At this point it really could just be coincidence and ema is right or whatever. It's an easily missed peice, completely unrelated to the case and just an interesting tidbit for lore maybe. But sadly I found more evidence to support that that is not indeed the case.

I can't remember what the plot point for edgeworth's knife besides the fact that he had it in the car for Lana to find.

Mmm yeah ema. What is that little fruit doing with a knife? Very low chance that gay man knows self defense tbh.

Ema goes on to suggest he spends weekends "roughing it in the wild" and Phoenix basically laughs in her face (does this girl not understand what a homosexual man he is) as Edgeworth has probably never been in "the wild" a day in his life.

This doesn't feel like a coincidence anymore. There is cleaned up blood on his floor, enough for a nosebleed, and there is a knife in his car. One which he would probably never actually use on another person. This and then added to the fact that he had just quit his job and "died" shortly after. it's pretty obvious he is doing worse than even what he says, as he actually is kind of open about how he is doing throughout the games. Obviously he's always trying to hide his feelings (which Phoenix always sees right through), but during the case he does mostly explain to them exactly what is happening. Not that they do or even can help.

His entire career was based around punishing himself for something he didn't actually do. There is no way he isn't harbouring a lot of self loathing, and it's hinted at throughout the games (again, hard to touch on in a lawyer game). This game is so hard to tell what the writers originally meant, both beacause of it being looked at through translations and it being written in the 2000s (like how fruity they 'accidentally' made them in the first game lol) so that's not an angle I can look at this from.

So, to recap, he

had all his past dredged up, obviously very painful

he is open about talking about it, but doesn't show the true extent of how it effects him

has a knife in his car that no one has any real theories on why he has it (and the blood)

There is traces of blood on his office floor

he has spent his entire life punishing himself, and then can't forgive himself for it

he then chooses death

when he comes back, he repeatedly projects onto Adrian Andrews

No wonder he's always saying Phoenix "saved him" he sure needed a bit of saving.

This poor, poor man. His story arc is so beautiful to me.

[moonliched]

Sorry for the spam questions, I really like thinking about your fic. So, is there anything you'd like to ramble on about that I haven't asked?

you're good! i get screen fatigue and headaches, so i've been pacing myself through the asks. you can't imagine how exciting it was to open my inbox and see questions about my fic!! i love talking about it and this has been lots of fun, thanks so much✨☺️💕💕💕💕

rambling under the cut bc it's super long!

i've been trying to write this into the fic, but idk how well it'll come across, so i might as well say it here! Y/N refers to one of their parents as their 'guardian.' i picture Y/N's guardian as being a careless parent, not bc they don't care, but bc their culture raises children in a more independent fashion. with very little actual raising. they kind of just let them do their own thing, so their guardian was super uncomfortable that their weird hybrid child actually needed a lot of assistance to survive.

Y/N grew up feeling like a burden, and that asking for help or relying on others is evidence that they lack the intelligence and capability to do anything themself. communities are more for convenience than the necessary relationships that humans need by nature, so when people move away they don't keep in contact. this includes blood relatives. communities also scatter to rebuild elsewhere frequently, so by leaving their home planet Y/N understood that they would likely never see anyone from their community, including their guardian, ever again. no one they were leaving behind would see anything wrong with this.

Y/N was seen as bizarre for getting attached to people to the extent of wanting to keep in contact after they moved. as a consequence, Y/N generally fails to keep in contact with anyone they meet unless it's a requirement of work, and they figure everyone will think they're weird if they try to keep in contact. they have turned out quite asocial. you'll notice Y/N rarely seeks out Moon even though he's always coming to visit them. all the same, they can't quite kill the human part of themself that wants people to stick around even when they're drained from too much social interaction.

also, Y/N's other parent is a victim of this. they're human, and left one day for some reason - work, travel, to earn more money for their family. they returned one day only to find their partner and child gone, because their partner did not consider or particularly care that they might want to find them again😬 Y/N works this out as a teen, but there's no way for them to seek them out.

... okay let's do some nicer ones!🍰🍓

🍓 Y/N thinks about eating fish eyes a weird amount. fish skin too. this is because i am rabid about eating chicken skin and also raw meat (prepared ofc) and when i was a child i used to go into the butcher's shop or visit the raw fish on ice in the supermarket and breathe in the smell longingly, and freak out my parents :[

🍓 Moon's love language is biting, unfortunately

🍓 BON-BON sometimes wants to hug Y/N but he got no arms :( he also sometimes wants to fight them too

🍓 BON-BON sometimes just turns on the closest monitor and stares out of it silently while Y/N is doing stuff. he wants to hang out like when a friend comes into your room to chill on your bed without speaking. but all the stuff he does is digital, so Y/N can just see him blankly staring at them and it looks very odd from their perspective lol

🍓 Y/N runs funny bc they learned to run on a flimsy floating community that rocked with the waves

🍓 the Glamrock team are all aware by now that Vanessa is incessantly antagonising Y/N. generally they're wondering if Y/N may have done something before they arrived to trigger Vanessa into launching constant verbal attacks on them, and are feeling extremely uncomfortable on Y/N's behalf. no one wants to be the one to address it with Vanessa

🍓 Y/N has no idea what pizza is, but bc of the name they're picturing some sort of spiky dish like a sea urchin

🍓 Y/N is actually eating more seafood dishes as of late than they usually would bc Vanessa keeps commenting on it, and it makes them feel resentful. so then they cook more fish in rebellion and it becomes a cycle

thanks for reading!!😋✨

[apenitentialprayer]

hey, someone i follow here on tumblr recommended me this blog for questions about abrahamic religions, so one thing i always wondered is why is pork a big no for jews and muslims, but seems to be totally ok for christians, afaik they worship the same God and follow a lot of the same teachings, and i know theyre different in a lot of stuff but this one just stands out to me

(also sorry for getting in your askbox with this demonic themed looking blog i swear i just like creepypasta)

Hey! No worries about the blog theme, I'm always happy to interact with anyone interested in genuine dialogue. :)

So, I'm going to put Islam off to the side for now, because with few exceptions (Ibn Barrajan comes to mind), Muslims did not use the shared Judeo-Christian texts to explain their prohibition against pork. Most Islamic authorities would cite verses like Surah al-An'am, verse 145, which calls "the flesh of swine" either "loathsome" or "unclean," depending on your translation. When the issue is discussed among Jews and Christians, on the other hand, they would both cite Leviticus 11:7-8, which specifies that pigs cannot be eaten because any animal that does not both (a) have cloven-hooves, and (b) chew the cud, is ritually unclean. (Pigs have cloven hooves, but they don't chew their partially digested food a second time like cows do)

There are modern Orthodox Jewish perspectives (and very early Christian perspectives, such as that of the author of The Epistle of Barnabas) that explain this prohibition in allegorical terms. The consumption of animals that have both of the traits above are symbolic of traits that the Jewish community is supposed to emulate. But that doesn't explain why Jews who follow kosher laws follow the literal interpretation of the Leviticus verses while most mainstream Christians do not. So let's talk a little about the context in which early Christianity developed.

Christianity started as a movement that developed in a Jewish cultural context, but it did not remain a primarily Jewish movement for very long. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles depicts both Peter and Philip as integrating non-Jews into the nascent Christian community, but the mission of Paul of Tarsus seems to have been a turning point in Christian history. And as more and more non-Jews became involved in the Jesus movement, there was a question of to what extent they were expected to become Jewish in order to be Christian. Paul's answer was: not at all. But this would be an issue for the Christian community for a while, even with councils like the one held in Jerusalem around the year 50.

That council declared that non-Jewish Christians did not have to follow most of the laws listed in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, but it didn't really give a systematic explanation as to why that was. So from very early on it was understood that large sections of the Old Testament were not applicable to non-Jewish Christians, but it took a few centuries for Christian thinkers to articulate why that was not the case.

In its most mature form, we see the argument as follows: the laws of the Old Covenant (as Christians referred to the Covenant at Sinai) could be broken up into three broad categories.

(1) The Moral Law, which was binding for all people everywhere and for all time, laws that are pretty self-evident like "thou shalt not murder" or "thou shalt not steal." These are laws that are "written on their hearts," in the words of Saint Paul.

(2) The Ceremonial Law, laws God commanded Israel to follow because they had a symbolic meaning that in some way foreshadowed Christ in an allegorical way. These laws are "fulfilled" rather than "abolished" by Christ, but in common parlance that distinction doesn't seem to matter much, because either way Christ's life is believed to have ended their necessity.

(3) The Judicial Law, which were civil laws to be maintained by the Kingdom of Israel. Since the Kingdom of Israel has been non-existent since either 587 BC or 63 BC (depending on whether you count the Hasmonean dynasty as a legitimate successor state to the Davidic kingdom), these laws are essentially defunct.

Among Christians who believe the Law can be divided into these categories, they believe that the prohibition of pork is part of the Ceremonial Law, which has been fulfilled with the coming of Christ and is thus no longer binding on Christians. As such, Christians can eat pork. That's also why they can eat shellfish, wear clothing made from mixed fabrics, and cook meat and dairy together.

[batsplat]

Is there any evidence showing how the audience reacts to Jorge's celebrations? I'm wondering, like, what if Jorge and Vale swapped their celebrations, would the audience like it more just because Valentino did it? Is it actually about the celebration itself or more about the person doing it?

oh they sure would've liked it more if valentino had done it!! like, the answer is that it's about both those things: what the celebrations are and what performs them. and in 2007... the vibes were still broadly pro-jorge, but he did already have plenty of detractors, plenty of those who thought he was a cocky shit - if not as yet an actively hostile casual audience. still, he wasn't valentino. valentino was valentino, those celebrations would've of course been received differently from him

and yes, let's lead with the obvious here: becoming valentino's rival certainly didn't help his cause. in early 2008, the commentators have been talking up how he's finally winning the people over and he's had such a bright and promising start to the premier class... but then we have to put a bit of a pause on that while jorge more or less disappears for most of the rest of the season, spending most of his time licking various wounds. then you get 2009 and the title fight between the two of them... while jorge did have plenty of support, especially from his own country, and he wasn't necessarily hated yet by the casual audience.... well, going by his biography, he was a bit too aware of how he was perceived:

Jorge Lorenzo thought that he might come under fire for battling against Dani Pedrosa, the other rider fighting to be Spain's number one MotoGP favourite, rather than anything else. How wrong he was! On the Internet the majority of criticism has come from Rossi fans - even in his own country! It is definitely a subject that touches a nerve. Jorge is well aware of the discussions that take place on the Internet - he's a seasoned web surfer and he keeps m touch with what's going on on the forums, as well as interacting with his fans - so there have been plenty of occasions where his typing fingers have clenched into fists of frustration. 'It is amazing what you have to put up with in your own country. We have two guys winning races and fighting for the title, and still lots of people stand up for riders from other countries. Okay, I understand why they support Rossi, because he has won nine titles, he's an incredible rider and he has earned their respect - and mine. But there are these other scumbags - disrespectful and bad-mannered people - who are Rossi fanatics and get enjoyment out of insulting us. They almost want me dead! I hope I never have to hear any kind of abuse or insults towards another rider from a "Lorenzista". That would really sadden me.'

obviously, no athlete should read what people write about them on the internet, like that's just a fundamental case where somebody on his team should be telling him 'no, don't do that :)' and get him to practise some social media hygiene. but of course, it is interesting that it kinda makes him the first rider who was like... online... what does it change, if the rider themselves is up to date with the discourse

so. I have been known to peruse motogp forums myself. it's hard to get a great read of fan sentiment at various points in time beyond what the journalists and the commentators and the occasional relevant book can tell you. forums are obviously not particularly representative either BUT it's still kinda interesting to give yourself a sense of the discourse at the time, what talking points existed and so on. which brings me to my other point: while the rivalry with valentino inevitably exacerbated the situation, jorge already had some baggage with viewers going back to his 250cc days - where he was inarguably a lot. just to give you a taster, from april 2008:

a rich text!

so, to some extent, the narrative of jorge as 'the villain' was something that already existed in early 2008. it wasn't unrelated to emerging as a valentino rival, even then, but it was also not entirely about that. like, the main opponents jorge was linked to in people's minds back then were dovi and dani! (and john hopkins, apparently.) the other narrative you already find here that became quite common over the next few years: okay, jorge was 'the villain', but it's also good for a sport to have something like that. someone to root against. someone who comes across as a bit arrogant, a bit full of himself... even if he doesn't mean to be seen as that

and yes, this stuff does definitely get worse in 2009, which is how you get jorge reading stuff along these lines about himself online - including from his compatriots. he didn't think he'd be unpopular for fighting valentino! he thought it'd be about dani! and the thing is, jorge isn't happy whatsoever with this tag of 'villain' that had followed him since his 250cc days. it's something that comes through a lot in the biography as well as his 2010 title winning season documentary: he feels misunderstood, he wants people to get what he's really all about. he spends so much time worrying about how people will perceive him, attempting to figure out how to better communicate with them... but in reality, a lot of people had already seen all they needed to see. fighting valentino wasn't the starting point for that, and it's likely jorge would have always ended up in a bit of a heel role anyway - but obviously, being valentino's teammate didn't help

then 2010 came, the relationship between the pair of them finally deteriorated publicly, and after valentino's injuries jorge was dominating his way towards his first title. this is when things really begin to change for him. he still had the early season celebrations, drowning himself in jerez and the yellow chair of le mans, plus of course the title celebrations - but, well. I think at a certain point, if you're jorge, you can worry about what people online are saying as much as you want... but you have to figure out what's more important to you: being popular or winning. because maybe, it's just not going to be possible for you to have both. maybe, however much you want to find out a way to connect with the people, to charm them, to bring them on your side with your joyous and creative celebrations, to get them to love you the way you feel you deserve to be loved... maybe they've already made up their minds. maybe, there's only so much you can do... the dorna-produced documentary may be defiant, but it is also frustrated. jorge knows people don't see him how he wants to be seen, and he has run out of things to try to change that

to give an example of how warped perception of him had become by end of 2010:

So at Sepang, Lorenzo was the object of intense scrutiny, his every action dissected and discussed like a presidential candidate's acceptance address. And naturally, when Lorenzo pulled over on the cool down lap after finally securing the championship that had been his life-long goal, the fact that he missed Ben Spies' hand offered in congratulation was jumped upon by the voracious pack and imbued with a significance normally reserved for the actions of mystics and gurus. It was a Deliberate Act, said those whom Lorenzo had angered by stealing Rossi's crown, a Snub. It was aimed at Establishing the Pecking Order in the Yamaha garage for next year, the conspiracists insisted, kicking off the 2011 season within seconds of the 2010 season being settled. Lorenzo, the angry mob proclaimed, deliberately ignored Spies to show him who was boss. Watching the video in isolation, you might even be persuaded that the conspiracists had a point. Spies pulls up next to Lorenzo, tries to shake his hand, which Lorenzo does not respond to, then Spies rides off shaking his head. Proof positive that it was a deliberate and malicious act, say the conspiracists. Like all conspiracy theorists, those who say Lorenzo deliberately snubbed Spies overlook one major factor, however: Human nature. When Spies pulled over to congratulate Lorenzo, the Spaniard was in a daze. Members of his fan club had started the preparations for the complex and impenetrable celebration they had planned before the race, and Lorenzo was clearly struggling to remember what it was he was supposed to be doing. He had marshalls, photographers and his friends all around him, all slapping him on the back, poking him in the gut and touching his arms. There was a lot going on. Most of all, though, this was the moment that it all started to sink in for Lorenzo. After a tough race in stifling tropical conditions - the race had been shortened by one lap at the request of the riders, because the Sepang race is so physically demanding in the heat and humidity - Lorenzo had finally crossed the line in one piece, and with enough points to win the title. He had achieved a lifelong dream, a goal he had dedicated himself to for at least the past 15 years. A goal that he had sacrificed his relationship with his family, his relationship with his manager, and even his relationship with the only girl he ever loved to achieve. Finally, for the first time in his life, he was MotoGP World Champion. He had gone through several harrowing weeks before finally reaching this goal: He had lost points to Dani Pedrosa three races in a row, putting Pedrosa back in with a chance. After Pedrosa injured himself at Motegi, and Lorenzo could have wrapped up the title, he was surprised to be given a good old-fashioned smackdown by his teammate, reminding him that the title is never certain until it's officially in the bag. Those fairing-banging passes between Rossi and Lorenzo reminded the Spaniard of his vulnerability, that a simple mistake can cause a serious injury, and undo all the hard work of a season in a fraction of a second. Finally it was over, and the title was in the bag. At last, after weeks of pressure, Lorenzo could relax. As he pulled over, the emotions washed over him, elation, relief, exhaustion. Within seconds, he had fans around him starting on the Spaniard's meticulously planned celebration. He had barely gathered his thoughts to start dealing with the complexities of that celebration when Spies pulled up beside him, tried to shake Lorenzo's hand, then rode off shaking his head, probably in bemusement at the state of Lorenzo, a reminder of his own emotions at winning the World Superbike title last year. By the time Hiroshi Aoyama shook Lorenzo's hand (the third rider to do so), he had recovered enough of his composure to act as expected, and acknowledge the gesture appropriately.

and here:

There is no question that Lorenzo's actions are open to interpretation. The video only shows men whose faces are hidden by helmets, and whose intentions are therefore much more difficult to interpret. It is entirely possible to read the entire event as a deliberate snub to Spies, and a warning for the future. Occam's razor, however, suggests a simpler explanation: that Lorenzo was overwhelmed, and not completely aware of what was going on. Later, once Valentino Rossi arrived to congratulate the Spaniard, Lorenzo had fully recovered his composure. He accepted the Italian's congratulations in the spirit in which they were offered: begrudgingly and half-heartedly. Once in parc ferme, the childish rivalry continued, with Lorenzo trying to hog the limelight after winning the title, and Rossi trying to steal it after winning his 46th race for Yamaha. They both may ride the same bike and bear the same colors, but Rossi and Lorenzo are still a very long way from being teammates. The rivalry between Lorenzo and Rossi is much of the fuel feeding the conspiracies about Lorenzo's behavior. With such a fierce rivalry between the current teammates, surely this must continue into next year, when Ben Spies takes the place of Rossi in the factory Yamaha garage? That is surely the driving force behind Lorenzo's behavior in those few seconds, the conspiracists ask. Lorenzo himself today responded to questions on the issue on Twitter, posting the following response to the many people who had asked him if he had deliberately ignored Spies at Sepang: "I had some messages asking me why I didn't pay attention to Spies when he wanted to congratulate me. I have to say that I didn't see... ...And feel he was there at that the moment of our celebration. I just told this to him. He is a good guy and we have a good relationship."

it started before valentino, it became worse as a result of valentino, it extends beyond valentino. but, as ever, valentino is inescapable - and in the end he is so to jorge even around the time of jorge's greatest and sweetest success. to jorge there are two wars going on during that time period: one for the title and one for the hearts of the people. he has won one of them, but he keeps finding himself frustrated in the other. still. he might not have openly admitted as much in as many words, but there was one war that was always going to be more important than the other. if given the choice, he was going to win

so then. after that, jorge settles for his defiance, becomes a hardier, steely version of himself as the rest of the alien era unfolds. it is an era of motogp that is deeply unpopular at the time - and so, increasingly, is he. it is not universal dislike, of course it isn't. but it is definitely a feature of motogp during those years. he becomes readier to lean into that role, over time, prepared to play the heel if that is the role he has been cast to play. but the desire to be understood never entirely went away... there aren't many riders who have studied valentino so closely, certainly few who are so fascinated by the secrets by valentino's enduring charisma and popularity. perhaps none who were so determined to capture some of that magic for themselves. if anyone on this planet was aware, then, of how much better any of these celebrations would have been received coming from valentino - well, it would most certainly have been jorge himself

[aquarii-if]

Hi, I really liked your game! My favorite character so far is Vega, I’m interested to learn more about them. I have a couple of notes/questions.

First, when you meet your godly parent, they refer to you as “$lastname.” I assume this is because I never had the option set a surname during my playthrough; the option to tell the kidnappers your name only sets your first name, and both choices when you meet Estelle and Amare lead to your character refusing to give their last name, saying "I think my first name will suffice for now."

Second, is there a reason that if you decide Liviana should know about the mind control, you have to tell her right there and then, directly in front of Vega? My immediate instincts during that scene were to play along during that conversation and then pass on that information later in private, either during the security meeting or afterwards when MC is hanging out alone with Liviana. There’s no reason to think that telling her in the moment would change anything about the current situation, or that this is your only opportunity to speak to her, right? Vega already said that there’s not enough evidence for Liviana to arrest them, and Izar just told you you’re free to go. MC doesn’t indicate any doubt or suspicion about either of these things, and isn’t characterized as a particularly brash or impulsive person that would still blurt it out regardless.

Especially if MC has been acting cooperative with Vega and Izar so far, they seem willing to trust you and talk about their plans. It seems like an unforced error to immediately play your hand 30 seconds later and lose that potential tactical advantage, letting the ‘enemy’ know both your true allegiance and what intel you’ve gotten from them. There doesn’t seem to be a clear in-world reason why you can’t try to play both sides for a while, or even just test the extent of Vega’s control/access; If MC betrays them in private, but Vega still seems to know about it the next time they meet, that would be a good indicator of some form of spying/surveillance. I totally get if that’s not what you’re going for though, it’s just what I thought while I was reading!

This is a long post, so I put it under the cut.

1. Thank you for pointing that out to me, that’s a bug. I’ll send out a bug fix for that later. Apologies.

2. I want to preface this by saying this is not a permanent choice. MC will have the multiple other chances to tell Liviana about it in private without Vega knowing. Now, onto your question. If you choose not to tell Liviana, MC states that it’s because they don’t want to ruin Vega’s trust in them and also because they’re aware they don’t have any proof for their claim. Yes, they feel guilty afterwards, but that’s a natural feeling when you’re withholding information that could potentially help keep someone out of jail. MC does not have another chance to tell Liviana as she is more concerned with the meeting with the guards and making sure MC is safe. Maybe they could’ve told her in the aircraft, but if they wish to continue having a positive relationship with Vega, then telling Liviana that information right in front of the driver who is clearly on Vega’s side is probably not the best idea. The conversation after the meeting wasn’t very long, MC was still recovering after everything that just transpired, and didn’t have a chance to talk about any of it because they were interrupted by the announcement.

3. As for why the MC can decide to shout it out then, it’s an option for the MC to be more impulsive. They can cooperate with Vega and Izar, yes, but at that point MC is with people they feel safer around, and has no reason to continue going along with Izar and Vega if they have no interest in playing for both sides. If they wish to make it clear they side with Aquarii, this is the perfect chance to do so.

If you’re wondering why the allegiance stat goes down even if you plan on telling Liviana later, that stat is purely based on the other characters opinions of you, as well as the groups they stand for. In that moment, Vega took MC’s silence as them siding with Chronos. Thats just how Vega is, they’re quite irrational and impulsive. You’ll win those points back if you tell her later. Liviana on the other hand will not have any negative reaction if you decide to tell her during your second chance of informing her of Vega’s misdeeds. After that, however, you do risk a relationship drop with her.

Hope this could clear things up for you, I understand if you don’t agree of my reasoning here, but this was my thought process while writing the scene. Thank you for your insight and your praise, as well as the notice about the bug, sorry about that again! ❤️

[player-1]

Oh…That’s a wonderful piece of lore but now that’s going to be a doozy to fit into the main story (mostly figuring out how long each Abyssal were alive before they were killed by the Guild or Lateria). Also ignore the different avatar, I did encounter this convo before in my playthrough but didn't get the chance to get screenshots :')

And HC Abyssal timeline below

Venefelis (1,000-0): The real polecat (HC that she has phantom paws cause she has Pummel in her skill list :) and Operation Kill the Witch. Of course, after being forced to stay in the timeout corner for 1,000 years, she became really existential about her own existence, her creator's absence and trying to figure out why the Abyssals were made except being overpowered cannon-fodder.

Rotramus (700 [-300 yrs.]): Considering that the Guild would be at its infancy and still aware of Venefelis' impact, it makes some sense if they started hunting down Rotramus to prevent a repeat incident. Also consider he's a twisted mirror to Nara's personality (anti-human but will possibly answer any question to anyone that finds him) and might've been a rip-the-bandage creation due to Nara's infamy with her family's downfall.

Pluvean (500 [-200 yrs.]): Yet another pacifist Abyssal that was found by Palmaya and just waited for the Guild to kill him (but I like to believe he discovered Cadium at some point and was disgusted by the humans "corrupting the waters"). Even if he's the contrast to Arqua's short temper and drive for human adoration, Pluvean is also a bit snippy about stating the obvious and being revived past his expected lifespan.

Inominox (400 [-100 yrs.]): And just when the Guild develop a false sense of security with dealing with the Abyssals, Inominox comes in with the big guns and starting picking off any weak tamers he could find (possibly making the Frozen Tundra his main hunting ground). But with Ventra's pride and cockiness spelled his downfall when the Guild intervened during one of his attacks. But whether the victim was too traumatized to recall his trigger or the information was lost to time, the Guild was back to square one when the Abyssal was revived.

Helevolk (350 [-50 yrs.]): Of course, there's not a lot to say about Helevolk besides being a more unstable version of Fona despite having a surprising amount of mental/emotional strength (mainly with him breaking through the N1 Nightmare mind-wiping to an extent), but it's a bit of a mystery on how he got his name despite being just as mindless and violent as a normal Nexomon [Hele: "to hide" + volk: "army" or "person/people"]. And I assume Lateria killed the beast by redirecting his tunnels or cornering him in the tunnels.

Caelesa (310 [-40 yrs.]): But to make matters worse for the Guild, they have to deal with another pacifist, human-avoidant Abyssal that will surely make them doubt their anti-Tyrant campaign. Of course, there's no real explanation how she was taken out or how long she evaded the Guild (and/or Lateria), but she clearly had enough time to believe that humans were dumb and violent brutes that have nothing better to do in their lives besides hunt what threatens them (though mostly directed at Finn the second he explains the Guild’s history with her). And fun fact, despite Caelesa being Normal-type (like Metta), she has a interesting set of elemental moves under her belt (also like Metta) so do with that info as you will :) [Base moves: Rocknite Blast, Thunder Blast, Plasma Star, Psy Field]

Volcel (280 [-30 yrs.]): Then after that wild-goose chase comes the giant electric moth(?), also being human-avoidant but will also mock everything and everyone below him for being simple earth-dwellers (really embodying Luxa’s superiority complex, huh?). While there isn’t any concrete evidence on how he was caught (since the Guild jumped to making a standard Tyrant bait), I’ll assume it was Lateria and their extremely heavy ordinance.

Braccus (260 [-20 yrs.]): Here comes the boy~! :D And unlike the older Abyssals (and being the second-youngest), he’s the only one that specifically mentions hearing his creator’s voice and learning his mission to attract the world’s attention by any means necessary; which he easily turns to destruction and carnage (becoming the Grunda he was meant to be) until Xanders “Bare Hands” Nexomon killed the beast and earned his Gold Tamer promotion. Also his dex entry mentions him destroying multiple cities before reaching Lateria and/or Grunda’s Chasm, so I’m betting he started his rampage at Royalle City since a “unnamed Tyrant” was the reason for its downfall.

Kroma (250 [-10 yrs.]): And finally, Operation Kill the Witch: Electric Boogaloo. And what better way to complete her life's mission is to plop her right into the Immortal Citadel while having the handy-dandy ability to mind-control ghosts. Whether she can control both human and Nexomon ghosts is up to debate, but I'm all for her being a tiny menace using the IC residents, the Greater Drake Krainnull, and Ulzar himself when the going got tough with Deena the one-woman army.

Either way, I mainly followed the Abyssals locations on Precursor Mountain from furthest left to right (apart from Venefelis being past Kroma's position), though it's extra funny that both Braccus and Kroma's places are almost melded together (with the haunted woods being halfway through the Braccus’ maze) so that's kind of where the idea came from. Either way, how in the world was I supposed to expect that these two were the YOUNGEST!?!?

And I love that this were the first thing I thought of (if anyone’s willing to make an artist’s representation of the disaster siblings, I’m all for it :)

[deconstructingchabad]

I was wondering, what percentage of Chabad would you say views the Rebbe as the Messiah? Also, do you view the aim of trying to get secular Jews to practice Judaism as a bad thing that they do?

Thanks for responding if you choose to!

I wish I had data on your first question, but from my research there hasn't been a polling specifically on that. From anecdotal evidence from my own and others' lived experiences, I would estimate that a majority of people who identify as being in the Chabad movement believe to some extent that the Rebbe is Mashiach, although there is a spectrum of belief ranging from "the Rebbe had prophetic powers and was ushering in the Messianic age but wasn't Mashiach the person" to "the Rebbe is Mashiach and while his body is deceased, his spirit is still alive and able to communicate with us". A conversation on Mi Yodea has some anecdotal responses, for example, and one response estimates that around 60% of Chabad believe that the Rebbe is/was Mashiach. The thread concludes, like I do, that there hasn't been an official polling, which is unfortunate. As soon as there is, I will rush to examine the data, but until then, we really can only rely on anecdotal testimonies.

As for your second question, I don't believe the aim to increase Jewish observance to be a bad thing. I think increasing Jewish observance and pride is a good thing, especially in today's society that seeks to suppress Jewish expression and practice. I think Chabad does provide an invaluable resource for Jews in areas without a solid Jewish support network, especially on college campuses and more remote parts of the world, and I myself still utilize Chabad's resources when I need them.

But that's part of the issue- when Chabad is the only resource available, when Chabad takes advantage of the fact that they're often the only exposure to Judaism for a good number of Jews and non-Jews alike to promote the idea that they are the archetype of Judaism. Messianic beliefs aside, I have an issue with Chabad presenting itself as the ultimate authority on Judaism. I don't like the monopoly Chabad has exercised over Jewish life. If they were just a fringe sect that didn't seek to dominate all of Judaism, I would still think they had concerning beliefs, but I wouldn't consider them to be a considerable threat to Jewish diversity of thought and practice. The issue with Chabad is the way it seeks to homogenize Judaism into a single way of thinking and practicing, when Judaism has always been diverse, going all the way back to the fact that we started out with twelve tribes.

In short- educating less-involved Jews about Judaism and seeking to increase Jewish observance and Jewish pride is not a bad thing. It's a good thing! The only problem is that Chabad generally doesn't give the whole picture of Judaism to those they educate and promote only their brand of Judaism specifically while suppressing other Jewish traditions and communities.

[aita-blorbos]

(not original, but very non-canon)

AITA for being kind to someone when we ruined each others' lives?

This is quite the long story. Please do bear with me.

Several years ago, I (now 32 M) found myself in an unfortunate situation. The exact details aren't important, but in short, I was robbed. A success which was rightfully mine was wrenched from my grasp for no reason whatsoever. Instead of me, the opportunity was given to an idiotic fool (now 33 M) who relies on luck to push his way through life. Henceforth, we will refer to this imbecile as W. The man was doing far too well. He saw success after success after success despite his shortsightedness; despite how little he tried. I'd known of him before, and he had always irritated me. And now, the bumbling buffoon had taken something from me.

So, I did something about it. I won't bore you with the details, but think of it as something akin to fabricating a malpractice incident. To secure my reputation; nothing more, nothing less. Losing his position effected him immensely, for he devoted himself to little else. However, it wasn't as though his life was over. He got plenty of wonderful things out of it. He adopted a wonderful daughter as a result of the situation, whom he loves more than anything. He still had his friends. He still had himself. He still had the people he did all he did for. And of course, he had me.

In a move originally meant to keep him close, I struck up a friendship of sorts with W. It went swimmingly. I visited him at his job. He helped me out here and there. I gave him advice. He gave me a listening ear. I helped him financially. He helped me by giving me company. I found myself greatly enjoying his presence, in my own way. I did nothing but be kind to the man. I was everything he could have possibly wanted in the situation.

A fascinating man, W is. At least, this is what I believed at the time. The longer I spend around him, the more my feelings began to change. From fury, disgust, disdain, to something... more. Something I do not believe I've felt before or since. At first, it frightened me. Almost made me hate him, for whatever he did to make me feel such a way. However, I soon realized that this was nothing bad. Indeed, it stands to reason that those who love would want nothing less than happiness for the object of their affections. And who, pray tell, was making W happy? Me. His friends showed a startling lack of support (or at least, he failed to tell them of the extent of his situation), and his former infatuation was off gallivanting across continents, leaving him completely alone.

I was there for him. I offered my unconditional support. To no surprise of mine, he picked up on how I felt. Shortly after, we began a relationship. This relationship lasted for multiple years, and both of us were plenty happy. At least, I assumed that was the point we would end up at. However, W insisted on ruining it all.

W got me convicted for murder. All those years, he'd been lying in wait. Searching for whoever had ended his career, looking for evidence that would prove his innocence. And when I attempted to secure my safety, I paid the price. Even when I was already in jail, he turned my former employee against me to convict me again. It seems he hates me, now, though I fail to understand why. He was the liar, HE was the one who pretended to be something he was not.

Just the other day, he visited me for the first time since my second incarceration, on my request. I simply wished to see him. I wished to know how he was doing. Not well, to put it bluntly. Though his name has been cleared in favor of sullying mine, he's had trouble adjusting to his life again. Quite simply, he's not doing well without me. I said as much, and he screamed in my face. Hurling out such accusations as stalking him, manipulating him, taking advantage of his situation. As though I would ever do such a thing. Perhaps I silenced a few people who knew exactly what I'd done, but I was under the impression that he was not among them. Not once did I force W to do anything he did not want to do. He only ever made the decisions that were best for him, and his best option was always me. I cared for him, supported him, stood by him when no one else would. He could have plenty happy remaining disgraced, with me. Yet, he refused to do so. Now he is the one suffering for it. Now I am the one who is miserable, because I have no idea how much he knew, or for how long, or how much of who he is was a lie.

Yes, perhaps I caused W's downward spiral, but it was just business. After that, I only improved his life. I gave him everything he could have asked for. I did not ruin his life; I only gave him a new one. I did not make things worse, only changed them. How, then, have I done anything wrong? How, then, am I the proverbial "asshole" in this situation? I was merely looking out for the both of us.