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bluesidez · 9 months ago

Note

Can I request a Miguel O'Hara x Curvy reader where they both get intoxicated from sex pollen ??

[Sticky-Icky]

lab taster: @waterinthefire 🩻

pairing: Miguel O'Hara x Curvy!Reader

summary: He's a lot less irritating when he puts his mouth to better use.

content warning: a PWP but you guys know me (there's a little plot), this is so 18+ that it's crazy so MDNI, sex pollen (or more like Miguel is playing around and doesn't know wtf he's doing), unprotected p in v sex (WRAP IT UP 🫵🏾) manhandling, temperature play if you squint, standing 69, facefucking, creampies, wrong use of webs, biting, breeding, spitting, squirting, cunnilingus, fellatio, fluff if you squint...I think that's it. my god.

word count: 4.3k, halfway proofread

a/n: Listening to Sticky by Ravyn Lenae inspired part of this. Also watching several episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, Hell’s Kitchen, and Law & Order: SVU in the bg kept me sane. And one more rewatch of ATSV.

My duty as a fanfic writer is fulfilled as I give you this mandatory trope. 🫡

When you first started working at Spider HQ, you were amazed by the fact that one man was able to create all of this.

It was astounding, beyond what the gray tones of Nueva York could ever present to you.

Now, you think back to your glittering eyes during the first year working here and laugh.

Working for Miguel O’Hara was like squeezing a watermelon through a straw. He was impossible.

Nothing you did was ever satisfactory for him. Something could always be fixed. Sometimes, you wonder why he still kept you employed here.

Currently, he was turning his nose up at a salve you were working on for spiders whose healing time wasn’t nearly as quick as others.

“Run a new test. This batch is no good.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“The formula could be better, it’s too thick, and why does it smell like that?”

The scent was similar to one you wore often and a lot of the spider-people that swung by the pharmacy seemed to like it.

“Uh, jade tea.”

The pinch in Miguel’s eyebrows deepened as he sniffed the air.

“Switch it to something else.”

You huffed, already tired of this conversation, “Well, what smell do you suggest?”

“Anything but this.”

“How about lavender, then? Perhaps peppermint.”

“And now, you’re being childish,” Miguel put the tin down before placing his hands on his hips. “You know there’s spider-people who can’t smell too much of that.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

He plopped a giant file on your desk, “Deal with that later. I need you to work on something else. For some reason, villains across dimensions are obtaining access to a substance similar to rapture. Every time there’s a mission, the spider-person of that dimension has been left affected. I need something to subside the effects until we can get them back here.”

“Ok, well do you have the substance with you?”

“No. But I’ll get you something soon. For now, I have a year’s worth of research on rapture. It should be of some use.”

You took the rubber band off of the manilla folder, something so old school for this era of tech.

You saw a line of formulas that started to make your head spin.

“Are there a lot of people affected right now?”

“Only a few. They’ve used the leftover solution I made a long time ago. It’s only going to work for so long,”

“Good. I need to sleep on this.”

Miguel’s head knocked back an inch, “Are you refusing work? The state of the heroes of different universes relies on this research. It’s not some science project-“

“I understand completely, Miguel, but I’m off the clock.”

He stopped and checked his watch, the red six o’clock burning back on him.

“I only work the hours you pay me, Spidey,” you reach to pat his arm and regret it when his stern face doesn’t move.

“Not interested in paid overtime?”

You bit your cheek to stop the laugh from coming out.

“That’s nice and all, but I’ve got plans.”

“Like what?”

“Like resting, sleeping, not touching lab work with a you-sized pole. All of these are things you aren’t familiar with. Plus, I have a date.”

A pause went through the room as you started to gather your things.

“Since when do you date?”

You push your chair under your desk harder than you mean to, “Since when do you care?”

“I,” he follows to the elevator, “care about my employees.”

“Sure, Miguel.”

If it weren’t for your tired state, you would think he looks a little sad at your statement.

“See you tomorrow, then?”

The doors start to close as you nod your head, Miguel’s gaze stuck just above your head.

Weird. Just like his frequent stops to your lab.

The feeling doesn’t leave your gut even as you’re smiling in your date’s face.

One minute, you’re laughing at a story about some amateur skateboarders Downtown, and the next, an electric billboard is being covered in tiny nano-spiders across the street.

“So the guy just takes one step on the board and then he’s flying. A straight line across the park.”

“That’s,” the spiders start to crawl into different lines. Then a logo forms, displaying the spider on Miguel’s suit next to an exclamation point. “So hilarious.”

Your date chuckles then follows your gaze, the silence too long, “Is there something wrong?”

The nano-spiders flipped around, the regular billboard showing like normal. You squint.

“No, I thought I saw something. Must have been my imagination.”

“You did say you were a little tired from work. Should we raincheck? We can always catch a movie another time.”

You wanted to say no, you’d been looking forward to tonight.

The billboard flickered to a little picture of Lyla with “SOS” above her head.

“Yeah, I should probably get going. Sorry about this.”

The way he doesn’t sweat you practically ditching him makes your heart pang. You’re already dreading another night exhausted and alone. Your date seemed promising.

You wave at him from your taxi, the route leading back to Spider HQ feeling like torture. You unclasp your purse and check your gizmo.

40 missed messages.

It’s not until you’re walking into the regular lobby that you turn it on.

“What is so important that you waste Margo’s time to interrupt my time?”

Lyla pops in your peripheral, hands up and wary, “I’m only doing what boss asks! Don’t get mad at me.”

“Lyla, why am I back here right now?”

“Well, Miguel has gotten himself in some particular trouble.”

You punch the elevator button, “Get to the point, please.”

“He went into your lab to try and start the solution he talked about earlier. After his first accident, he’s never had any luck with lab work, so uh. He’s kind of made a mess.”

The elevator moves and you look at Lyla, “What kind of mess?”

The doors open and you can smell it before you see it.

It’s poignant, like perfume soaked roses and patchouli. The scent hits you hard enough to make you grip the metal opening as you come out.

“What exactly did he do?” you breathe out.

Your limbs start to shake, nerves drumming from the inside out. A weight feels like it landed on your core, your stomach twitching as you continued to take in whatever had transpired.

“Something about DNA splicing and plants. I can trace his movements back if you’d like, but I’m also currently trying to figure out how to reverse it.”

“Great.”

You swing open the door to a disheveled Miguel. He’s sweating profusely as he tries to clean up your lab desk.

Before you can even begin to yell he’s fussing, “Lyla, I told you not to call her!”

“But you obviously don’t know what you’re doing.”

He bites his lip as he tries not to look at you, fingers trembling as he starts to store materials back into their drawers.

“Thought you had a date.”

“And I thought I told you stay away from my station,” you feel like a baby deer walking over to him.

When you get closer he sucks in his breath like you cut him, stopping in his tracks.

“I don’t think you should be near me,” he grunts. His eyes are dark, lips swollen with the way he’s biting them.

“What are you talking about? I’m trying to help you.”

You round the corner of the desk, the image of you two almost comical. Miguel moves to the edge of the desk, chest moving faster, while you chase after him trying to get a hand on his forehead.

He felt extremely cold compared to the numbness of your palm, despite how flushed he looked. His eyes close as your hand slides from his head to his neck, muscles there tensing.

“Please. Don’t,” he whispers.

“Who else is coming here to save you?” you ask, frustrated. “What did you do anyway?”

He doesn’t answer as he peers at you. Your heart is beating faster and you can’t tell if it’s because of the air or because of the way he looks like he’s about to climb you.

Every move you made felt like sharp pricks in your skin, the tight material of your dress digging into your hips. It felt like the ends of burning flames and you wanted it off. Your breaths were picking up and you couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on other than Miguel being your cooling solution.

“Miguel,” you sounded like you ran a marathon when all you did was step into his space.

“It’s the shocking formula that I screwed up. That’s why everything feels-“

“Like I need you,” you interrupt. “Like I want you on top of me.”

The insides of your thighs were fighting against themselves to stay together, the urge to let your legs fall around him strong.

“That’s just the chemicals talking. W-we can get somewhere safe and separated.”

You grab the back of his neck and pull yourself even closer, his hands gripping the table like a lifeline as he groans.

“So you don’t want me?” you press against him, caging a knee around him right next to his hand. “You don’t think about me?”

You can almost feel his heartbeat matching yours as you pull yourself up.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t wonder how I feel when you come into my lab snooping around? How I feel when you come in here barking orders?”

Your face is in his neck and you feel yourself clench around nothing as you take a deep breath. He smells like coffee and fabric softener, but there’s an underlying wave of musk. Of something so unbelievably him and you want to keep that scent close forever.

“I imagine you’re annoyed. But a job is a job.”

“But you still come in here asking for things you know someone else can do,” your panties are soaked, and from the way his nose flares, you know he knows. “Why?”

His teeth grit as you start to grind on him, the feeling giving you an inch of relief that only makes you want more.

“I, I don’t- It’s because I,” the counter began to crack under his hands. His muscles were pulled taut. “Dios, ayúdame.”

Maybe you were wrong, and your hazy mind only brought thoughts from the subconscious one.

“Fine. I get that you don’t like me but could you at least give me some type of relief?” you were whining in his ears at this point, a complete 180 of how you left him earlier today. With every grind of your hips, you left noises in his skin, desperate.

The desk made a terrible sound as Miguel finally lets go and grabs around your waist. Your breath is slammed out of you as your back hits the wall, Miguel’s hand holding your head to stop it from crashing into the wall too.

Your throat makes a gargled sound as Miguel licks down your jaw, his talons ripping into your dress. His tongue swipes into your mouth, breaths rapid as he finally gets a taste.

“I do like you. More than I should,” his words were passed right into you. “You and your smart mouth.”

“Then stop talking and do something about it.”

A yank in your hair stops your complaints, Miguel kissing down your side. Every press of his lips left a chilly flutter. Your hips are moving frantically, patience wearing thin. Right as you’re about to say something again, he flips you, the layers of your dress falling as he rips into your panties.

The blood rushes to your head as he takes a bite into your thigh, sucking as your legs fall to his shoulders.

You moan his name, hands gripping at his thighs. His kisses led to your lips, swollen and dripping. From your clit to your entrance, he groaned as he covered you, drinking like you were water in the middle of the night.

You felt like you were going to slip, but Miguel’s arms were looped around your legs, not letting go. His suit was in your way, your mouth salivating as his crotch stared back at you. Your fingers could only dig as far as his suit allows and you have half a mind to call Lyla to disengage it.

“Please,” you sigh as you rub his bulge with your cheek. “I need it so bad.”

“Cállate,” he hums, face delving deeper into you. The sound of him licking up every drop echos off the cool walls and the light of his suit dims away letting you see what you’ve been waiting for.

His length hits your chin, precum spilling down and you’ve never been more excited for a man to go commando. You open your mouth and let your breath hit him as you take a swipe down to his balls.

Miguel’s grunts and shifts his hips back. His tip swerves around your face as he tries to find your mouth without unlatching his jaw from your sex. You help out with the last bit of sanity you have, and once you wrap your lips around him, his hips snap hard onto you.

All you can feel is Miguel entering you from top to bottom, his hands keeping you stationed in your position. There’s no room to do anything as he’s devouring you and taking your breath away at the same time. Two of his fingers sink into you, and you jerk from the difference between his skin and his tongue.

Miguel nibbles at the hood of your clit, urging you to be still. Whenever his fingers leave you, his pelvis fills your senses. Your throat gags around him, spit building to keep up with his thrusts.

“So good,” he hums. His pace picks up and the tears in your eyes fall to the floor. “Made for me. Only me.”

Your fingers wrap around his thighs and squeeze tight, your vision fading as you try to take in pockets of air. The shake in your legs and the broken moans that escaped your lips only ignited him.

“Bebé,” his hips stutter. He’s sloppy as he drools over the entrance, voice loud. “Bebé, you’re so, ngh.”

He cums down your throat, balls twitching against your face. You close your eyes and try to swallow everything, jaw aching. Miguel groans your name as he slides his dick out to the tip, a few spurts still landing on your lips. You cough, position making everything go north.

The taste of him was delicious, but you needed more of him elsewhere. Your mouth was as drenched as your cunt and yet you still felt empty.

When Miguel flips you back upright, you’re ready to pounce on him again. The state of you both is alarming. Your breasts have completely fallen out of your dress, that black thing barely holding on by its zipper. Miguel’s suit is phasing in and out in the most obscene places. There’s slick up to his eyebrows and his cum is all over your cheeks.

He grabs your jaw and runs his tongue over your face, cleaning up his mess. You let him live in his own bubble before that burning in your core came back.

Your nails dig into his shoulders and your whispers of “more” come to light. You’re clawing at him like a cat begging him to do something, anything, to make this feeling go away.

“Miguel,” you gasp as he sinks his teeth into your skin. “Miguel, it hurts. Fix it, Miggy, please.”

You guide his hands down your body and place them on your ass. His touch sates you for only a moment, but your body reacts as if he needs to be deep in your bones. He spreads your ass and groans as the sound of how eager you are for him follows.

“You’re not ready,” are the words that make you even more frustrated. Your hands pushing and pulling at him, ready to try and put him where you want him to go.

He clicks his teeth and flexes his wrists. His webs tie your wrists together, neon red strings leaving a buzz on your skin. He yanks your dress off and you stumble with the motions.

The clinical room doesn’t aid the building heat you feel, but Miguel turning you around and pressing you into the wall as he cuts the rest of your panties off does.

He squats and grabs two hands full of you.

He spits onto your hole, mesmerized as he watches it slide to your entrance. “Qué hermosa,” he whispers.

You bend, whimpering as your folds cover his nose, clenching and grinding.

“God,” you sigh. Something this small was going to bring you to the edge so quickly. “D-don’t stop.”

“Greedy,” Miguel says as if he’s not moving the fat of your ass to nudge his face into you. The arch in your back deepens as he continues and your whines get higher.

He smacks your right cheek, sound echoing off the metal tables, and you shout his name as you coat his tongue.

Tranquility clears your mind for a second, one where the flowery scent in the air is less strong.

The peace leaves just as fast as it came when Miguel gets rid of his suit and stands behind you in all of his glory.

His eyes followed from your dewey face to the curve of your hips to bitten thighs to feet with one heel still on.

“He didn’t deserve to see this,” he says.

“W-what?”

Miguel ignores you and pulls your wrists up straight, a confused noise leaving you. He wraps another web around your ankles and huffs. He sets your arms under your chest, your hands in front of you like a prayer.

When he picks you up by your waist, his dick lines up with your ass.

He groans as he grinds, watching himself disappear and reappear.

You try to move with him, “No, not there. Inside.”

“You’re always so distracting,” he growls. He slides his length between your thick thighs and you nearly scream as his hips hit your ass, his tip just barely passing over your clit. “Can never think straight when I see you.”

He rubbed over the bite he left on your shoulder, “So pretty. My pretty baby.”

His low voice right in your ears only made you wetter. He was holding you like you were his toy, fucking the inside of your thighs with ease.

Miguel could cry watching your ass bounce on his stomach. Your legs were soft and warm and he just couldn’t stop.

“Want you so bad. Need to fuck you again and again and again,” he said as your thighs quivered around him.

“Please, Miguel. Make me yours,” your voice crowded the sound of his grunts as he held you up and pounded away.

Those were the magic words to get him to lean back with a firm grip on you and release all over the wall. It was everywhere, from your legs to the wall to the ceiling.

He set you to the floor with shaky arms, and you started to sob.

All of this and you still wanted more. If this was making you feel this insane, you can only imagine the small relief Miguel was feeling after being exposed for longer.

“C’mere,” he pulls you to the bare floor and cuts the webs. You immediately try to climb him, legs wrapping around his waist.

He was painfully hard for someone who came twice now.

Your cries of “inside” slur together, tears running down your face. Miguel was no better, fangs dripping with venom and the hairs on skin raised.

The two of you tussle as Miguel tries to keep your hips to stay stationary. You kept jerking in order to get some sort of friction but he was baring his teeth to get you to quit.

You dip your nails into his shoulders and arms while he drags a talon down your sternum to snap your bra off.

A clatter of your stiletto sounds off across the room as he pinches your thigh, “Easy, beautiful. Let me take care of you, yeah?”

“Fucking hurry,” you whine.

He shushes as he plunges inside of you, the noise you both make as loud as a choir.

Your eyes roll back as Miguel presses, bending your body in half.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Miguel leans to whisper onto your lips.

Tight is the first thing that comes to mind and heat is the next.

He moves his hips up and slams back down, your ass shifting from the pressure.

“Miguel!”

“That’s it. Talk to me.” All of that chatter earlier and now you can barely get out a word.

“H-harder,” your hands don’t know where to go. They’re grabbing Miguel, they’re falling next to your head, they’re grabbing at your breasts as Miguel jerks your body.

Miguel goes to open your jaw, lips pulling on your tongue to suck. It’s tender and sensual compared to the way his balls are slapping against you. There’s a ring of white on his shaft getting thicker and thicker as he continues.

“Pretty thing,” he says as he lets your tongue go, a string of saliva falling to your neck. “Watched you on the cameras. Always.”

That stirs something in you, a spark in your chest as you see stars.

“Did you want to do this to me when you watched me?” you manage out.

“Yes.”

“I can put on a show for you next time.”

“Yes.”

“You can come in here. ‘N fuck me over the counter.”

“Sí, sí, baby,” his hands push your knees next to your head and he ruts against you. His thighs were straining as he took and took.

A yell pulls itself from your core, that burning feeling getting a crash of cold water. The dam bursts and you’re running all over Miguel, essence leaving every time he inches out and back in.

“Gonna fill you up,” he rasps, eyes glazed over.

You nod your head, clenching and pulsing around him.

His eyes don’t leave yours as he shudders against you. You suck him in, gaining a deep moan from him, “Así, bebé. Take it.”

It’s like you can finally think as his cum overflows, your heart rate finally slowing.

He stares at you as you both come back to reality. Your body is limp, the weight of Miguel making itself known.

“Holy shit,” you wiggle and he catches the hint. He lifts a bit and pulls out. The swirl of you two falls out of you in waves. “What. The fuck.”

“God,” Miguel mumbles. “No shocking way we just did that.”

“You can’t say that when the evidence is leaking out of me.”

Miguel groans as he watches you, your face pouty and your hole glistening. It was intoxicating.

His dick twitches, coming to life again the longer he watches.

“‘M sorry in advance,” he says as he pulls you into his lap.

“Just take care of it, O’Hara.”

The two of you sat in the middle of the floor, breathing hard. Pieces of consciousness were starting to come back.

“You looked stunning tonight,” Miguel said. He looked at your shredded dress on the floor. “I’m glad he won’t see you in that dress anymore.”

The snort that leaves your nose turns into a full-blown laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“You just took my soul ten times over and you’re worried about a guy I just met less than a week ago. I fear I’m ruined for anyone else.”

“Oh,” he smiles. “Good.”

“You still should take me on a date. You’ve got a lot to explain.”

Flashes of him confessing to his habit of watching you from afar come back, “O-of course.”

“And you owe me a new dress.”

“On it.”

Lyla pops up next to you both, a blindfold over her shades, “Is it safe to talk to you guys now?”

Miguel checks his gizmo, “I think we’re good for about forty minutes. The effects are starting to wear off.”

“Excellent!” She throws the fabric to the side, “Oh my god, this room is a mess.”

You look at the array of substances over the room and grimace. The entire hall will have to be on lockdown.

“Well, I managed to vent out the solution. You two should be ok soon.”

You lean on Miguel’s chest and close your eyes, happy to hear good news.

“Kind of sad that this is what it took for you to confess, Miguel,” she comments.

“Lyla!”

You laugh again, “Some confession.”

“That’s enough,” Miguel scowls.

Your giggles die down as you pull yourself onto Miguel’s thigh, bubbles in your chest molding into moans as you start to grind over his thigh.

“I’m starting to think you guys are just bluffing,” Lyla gags before she disappears. “Let me know when you’re done.”

“I think,” you nuzzle into his neck, “this’ll be the last time. I’m tired.”

“If not, we can take it to my house.”

The world blurs again as you and Miguel connect under the white lights.

Take a shot every time I say breath or breathe 😭. Anywho, as always, if you enjoyed, please like, reblog, and COMMENT!

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petermorwood · 11 months ago

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Recent article on NPR about the history of artificial light somewhat frustrated me -- they portrayed all of pre-kerosene history as dark and heinously expensive at all times. Thing is, the writers based their findings solely on tallow candles, & ignored oil lamps, beeswax candles, clever use of refraction & outdoor light including moon/starlight... Also seemed to ignore the ubiquity of hearths / cook fires. Was wondering if you'd be willing to talk about non-tallow light? This isn't to ignore that truly, artificial lighting WAS much more difficult & expensive for much of human history, but acting like tallow candles were the ONLY light source seems very silly! (Plus your other lovely post about bottles of water used to make those candles more efficient via refraction & focus)

I'm betting the article you mean is this one - which refers back to this one.

For matching reference, my own posts about period lighting are here, One and Two, including observations about painting walls white, how to light candles and lamps without matches, and several other matters.

*****

It didn't take too much listening before I got tetchy, because the first half of this podcast seems more about mocking how WEIRD and PRIMITIVE old-time people were, than passing on any useful information.

Despite the presence of Jane Brox (author of "Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light") whale oil only gets touched on in passing, and olive oil isn't mentioned at all.

Instead she starts talking about using oily seabirds (stormy petrels) as "candles", despite this scholarly study concluding that it was something talked about far more than done, besides being so very, very localised that its relevance to the history of lighting is very, very small.

But hey, WEIRD and PRIMITIVE, right?

*****

By contrast, making candles was so commonplace that it was another of those jobs which created surnames. Fletcher once put feathers on arrows, Cooper made barrels, Fisher, Miller, Baker and Farmer are obvious, and Chandler used to make candles.

Lampier, of course, made lamps, which helped keep those naked candle-flames away from anywhere they shouldn't touch. The man on the left is making the lantern bodies, the one on the right is shaving sheets of horn as windows.

It's cheaper than glass, less easily broken yet is translucent enough, when shaved properly thin, to give quite adequate light.

*****

The podcast has a digression about measuring the light output of a reproduction Ancient Babylonian lamp. Here's an original and a repro.

Yet that too says nothing about what fuel the lamp is or should be burning - olive oil, traded all over the Mediterranean by ancient olive-growing cultures.

These are Roman oil-lamps, from simple and cheap to elaborate and costly.

As for beeswax, so far as the podcast is concerned might as well not exist, despite being a by-product of honey, which was THE principal pre-sugar sweetener for centuries when not being made into all that mead whose existence, production and quaffing nobody questions.

Oh yeah, and then there was the amazed discovery (2:40 / 1:25, depending on which you're listening to) that melted beef fat "...smells really nasty, like, ANIMAL nasty,"

Why is this guy surprised? It's part of an animal!

*****

It's the same sort of infotainment ignorance as displayed by this TikTok twit, right up to complaining about the effort involved in preparation of anything because not having powered appliances was so labour-intensive, oh woe. Yes, it was, welcome to any historical period before about 1920. That's where "the daily grind" originates.

However the implication (listen, it's there) that cattle were raised just to provide fat for candles is ludicrous. The fat was a by-product, not a main one, and was often a butcher's side-line, while members of the Chandlers' Guild only worked with superior beeswax.

I don't think you could make candles like these with tallow:

...and you definitely couldn't make one meant to be hand-held.

Picture evidence shows, by their clothing, the class of society who bought these, and tallow-greasy fingers would have been a no-no.

A Chandler didn't make individual candles. By the time that fresh batch is hung up, the first batch away down at the end is cool enough to be dipped again.

A chandler's shop in a medieval city would look very similar, and often had a horizontal wheel on which to hang each batch of candles, rotating them up and around to cool, then back to the dipping pot. Non-modern people may not have had modern tech or time-and-motion studies, but they weren't stupid.

*****

By contrast, the podcast's disparaging attitude of WEIRD and PRIMITIVE is emphasised by what seems a deliberate avoidance of anything which counters it (examples of that in my own posts) and finally at 11.24 / 9:50 came this:

"Even when you get all the way to the 1700s (...) most people are still subsistence farmers, living in some kind of hut, trying to grow enough food not to starve to death (...) and light? Light still comes from finding stuff that's lying around and just lighting it on fire."

Some kind of hut...

Stuff that's lying around...

After making such a declaration, I'm surprised - since they'd been implying it for half the podcast - someone didn't just go ahead and announce that "there's some lovely filth down here..."

That's when I stopped listening.

Enough is enough, and I'd had it.

*****

ETA:

cc: @asmuchasidliketo :->

Here's a photo of what purports to be a Petrel (not petrol, that's something else) Candle, held in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford. It's mentioned in that scholarly article I linked above.

Just as "one swallow doesn't make a summer", so one - and only one - known example of this, which may have been a fake-up to spoof the Southerners, doesn't prove it was a common or even rare practice.

There's another reason to take this with a big pinch of salt, so maybe Jane Brox was on a low-sodium diet when she wrote her book.

Creatures with a layer of fat or blubber for insulation all have it like any other form of insulation, on the outside, where it does some good. A wick passed through the inside couldn't draw on it for fuel since there's a layer of muscle and another of internal organs for the oil to get through first.

The cropped-off bottle just visible to the left is a far more likely way seabirds became lamp fuel: by rendering out their oil. This oil is from the Northern Fulmar, Fulmaris glaciaris (or glacialis, I've seen both. Same bird regardless).

Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on European Storm Petrel mentions a supernatural connection, that the petrels were the souls of drowned sailors, and killing them is unlucky.

Not just killing them but making them into candles sounds like A Bad Idea, and is yet another reason why, IMO, the candle thing may be a folktale, or a deliberate leg-pull, or...

Let's just say "improbable" and leave it there. :-P

#period lighting #research #writer notes #too light too dark #worldbuilding

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lovetaroandtaemin · 5 months ago

Text

Don't Run Away

Lee Seokmin x Reader

Word Count: 4,498

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Rating: Some adult themes, MINORS DNI!

Summary: When unexpected circumstances lead to you sharing an apartment with your best friend's older brother, the transition from acquaintances to roommates is anything but smooth. Over time, however, the two of you realize that you truly care about each other. Will a drunk confession bring you together, or will you continue to run away from her feelings?

Content Warnings: Mentions of cheating/toxic relationships but no details, food, alcohol, misunderstandings. If you think I missed a warning, please let me know!

A/N: This fic is part of the Lonely Hearts Cafe collab, hosted by the incredible @camandemstudios! If you like this fic and want to check out the other incredible fics in this collab, the masterlist can be found here! Make sure to show all the other writers involved in this collab some love!

Taglist: @xomakara, @notyourjaem, @heechwe, @shadowkoo

Fic is under the cut.

When your best friend called you at 10 PM on a random Friday, you knew that your life was going to be turned upside down. The only thing that you didn’t know yet was exactly how. Well, you couldn’t really know until you answered the phone, so that’s exactly what you did.

“What’s up?” you asked.

“Hi, bestie!” Chaewon began. “You know how I did that thing for you that one time?”

“What do you want, Chae?”

“So, you remember Seokmin, right?”

“Yeah,” you said, suspicious of where the conversation was going. “Is he ok?”

“Jihyo dumped him and kicked him out of their apartment. Is there any possibility that he could stay with you until he finds his own place?”

You sighed, unsure of how to answer. On one hand, Seokmin was the bane of your existence. Every time he was around you and Chaewon, he did everything in his power to annoy the two of you. Your best friend never paid him any attention, citing typical sibling dynamics as an explanation for his determination to pester you two, but you just couldn’t let it slide. Everything he did got under your skin, and you really didn’t know if you wanted to be stuck in the same apartment with him for who knows how long.

On the other hand, however, you knew firsthand just how much breakups sucked when you lived with the person that broke up with you, and that made you want to help. Despite how much Seokmin got on your nerves, he was in a bad spot, and you were able to help him out of said bad spot. Plus, your old roommate had recently moved into her fiancé’s apartment, and you really couldn’t afford your apartment on your own.

Reluctantly, you said, “Yeah, he can stay here.”

“Thank you so much, (Y/N). We both owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it. I need help with rent anyway.”

“Can he start moving in tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that works.”

“Thank you so much. I told him he could sleep on my couch tonight, but I don’t have room in my apartment for him to stay here long-term.”

“I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

“See you tomorrow!”

You hung up the phone with a defeated sigh. Sure, you liked to help people, and you loved Chaewon dearly, but you were not looking forward to living with Seokmin. Still, you were determined to try to make the best of the situation. After all, you hadn’t seen Seokmin in years. Maybe he was different now that you weren’t kids anymore.

When Seokmin moved into your apartment the next morning, your hopes were shattered. The moment he saw you, he started making snarky comments.

“Wow, (Y/N). I wasn’t expecting you to still be such a loser,” he said, gesturing to the band tee you threw on after waking up.

“Do you really wanna talk that way to the woman whose apartment you’re moving into?” you asked, already tired of his shit. Seokmin immediately shut up after that, and you couldn’t help but smile. You knew that you were being an asshole, but sometimes that was necessary to get other people to stop being assholes to you.

Your hopes that Seokmin wouldn’t be as insufferable as he was when you were kids were ruined once again after all of his things were moved into your apartment. The two of you were standing in your living room, and with a shit-eating grin on his face and a voice that could piss off even the kindest of souls, he looked right at you and commented, “You look like shit today. Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you spat. “I look like shit because I woke up at six in the morning so that I could help you move all of your shit into my apartment. I’m really not in the mood for this today. If you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

Before Seokmin could say another word, you stormed off to your room and got to work reorganizing your bookshelf. You’d planned to start earlier in the day, but when Chaewon and Seokmin showed up at your apartment with more boxes than you thought humanly possible shoved into the back of Seokmin’s truck, you knew that your day would not go according to plan.

You spent the rest of your afternoon reorganizing your books while Seokmin unpacked, and for the most part, he left you alone. Occasionally, he would come into your room to ask for help moving something heavy, but for the most part, he kept to himself. You started to wonder if you’d been too harsh earlier, but in the end, you didn’t particularly care if you were. After all, Seokmin was rude, loud, and exactly the type of person that you didn’t want to be around

After that first day, however, living with Seokmin went much smoother than you thought that it would. Sure, he still had his annoying moments, like when he made jokes about the music you liked or the way you dressed, but for the most part, the two of you got along fine. You even started to enjoy his company, something that you never expected to happen

You also never thought that you would say that Seokmin was incredibly attractive, yet here you were, admiring every little thing about the way he looked while he told you about his favorite video games over dinner. You hated to admit it, but he looked good now that he was out of the awkward phase you’d witnessed in high school.

Seokmin also found himself enjoying your company far more than he thought he would. When he was younger, you were just his little sister’s annoying best friend. Actually living with you, however, introduced him to a different side of your personality that made you seem significantly less annoying. He was embarrassed to admit it, but he also thought you were absolutely gorgeous, and he occasionally found himself wondering if you thought about him the same way that he thought about you.

A few months after Seokmin moved in with you, Chaewon’s birthday arrived, and everything went to shit as you started planning her party. You’d planned parties before, and they’d gone well, but this time, every single thing went wrong, and it was overwhelming, to say the least. The decorations took far longer than usual to set up because all of your friends that had previously agreed to help bailed on you at the last possible second. The restaurant that you’d hired to cater the party called you to tell you that they couldn’t complete your order because of an ingredient shortage. And to top it all off, the morning of the party, Chaewon called you in tears because she’d caught her boyfriend cheating on her with his best friend. You were happy to be a shoulder for your best friend to cry on, but you couldn’t help but get angry at Heeseung for deciding that his girlfriend’s birthday was the right time to try to fuck someone else.

The last straw was when you asked Seokmin to pick up the cake that you’d ordered from Chaewon’s favorite bakery. He happily agreed to pick up the cake, but when he came home, he was empty-handed and angry. Confused and slightly annoyed, you asked, “Where’s the cake?”

“Nonexistent,” he spat, clearly frustrated but also clearly trying not to take it out on you.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the cake doesn’t exist, it-”

“I know what nonexistent means, Seokmin. Why the fuck isn’t there a cake?”

“They said that it isn’t ready, and they won’t have it ready until tomorrow.”

“But the party is tonight.”

“I know that!” Seokmin snapped.

“You didn’t have to yell at me,” you mumbled, tears starting to form in your eyes.

“God damn it. I’m sorry, (Y/N). I just-”

“No, it’s ok. I’ll be right back,” you responded, abruptly leaving the kitchen to go to your room.

You knew that Seokmin didn’t mean to lash out at you, and you knew that you would have to explain to him that he wasn’t the reason that you broke down, but you weren’t thinking about that as you collapsed onto your bed and sobbed. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, and you were just tired. You really wanted your best friend to have a fun birthday party, but every mishap shook your faith in your ability to pull it off just a little bit more.

Once you weren’t crying anymore and felt like you could breathe again, you decided to look for Seokmin and apologize. He was nowhere in your apartment, however, and you started to worry. Where the fuck could he possibly have gone? And why didn’t he tell you where he was going or even that he was leaving? You didn’t know, so you decided to text him.

Y/N: Where are you?

Seokmin: Out.

Y/N: I mean I figured, but where did you go?

Seokmin: I just needed to take care of something. I’ll be back in about an hour.

Y/N: Ok, see you then.

Slightly more than an hour after you texted him, Seokmin walked through the door with one of the most beautifully decorated cakes you’d ever seen. The frosting was Chaewon’s favorite shade of blue, and darker blue fondant roses surrounded the words “Happy birthday, Chaewon!” You immediately started to tear up again, and Seokmin promptly set the cake down and pulled you into a hug before he asked, “What’s going on?”

That was when the floodgates opened once again. In between sobs, you explained, “I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to snap at you. Trying to plan this party has just been too much, and I-”

“Hey, it’s ok,” Seokmin interrupted, rubbing your back as you cried. “I know you didn’t mean it. I was just worried about you. I figured you might be a bit overwhelmed, so I handled the cake. Seungkwan helped me add some more decorations after I got the cake from the supermarket.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The room went silent after that, and you found yourself finally starting to relax in Seokmin’s arms. As you realized just how calm he made you feel, however, you started to get a little bit frustrated as well. You appreciated the fact that he took the time to comfort you, of course, but the way his arms felt around you and the soft way that he’d spoken to you as he comforted you made your crush on him even more intense, and you were not in the mood to deal with that. Still, you did briefly consider ripping the bandage off and just telling him how much you liked him and how you felt when he hugged you, but you knew that it probably wouldn’t go over well. After all, you had a pretty strong feeling that he’d never see you the way you’d started to see him since he’d moved into your apartment.

Seokmin was happier holding you than he had been in a long time. Even Jihyo never made him as happy as he was in that moment, which was far from what he expected, but he didn’t really mind the feeling. He wanted to tell you exactly how he felt, but he knew that Chaewon’s birthday was not the ideal time to do that, especially when he considered how overwhelmed you’d been all day. On top of that, he was fairly certain that there was no way you could ever like him the same way he liked you. Regardless of his certainty of how you felt about him, he still let himself have the slightest bit of hope that your feelings would change one day.

At some point, the time for guests to start arriving at your apartment arrived, and you felt like a nervous wreck. Through it all, though, Seokmin was right by your side, and you greatly appreciated it. Not many people had been invited to Chaewon’s party, but that didn’t change the fact that the party would probably still be complete and utter chaos. After all, your friends tended to be very loud and very messy, especially when alcohol was involved.

The first person to arrive was Seungkwan, Seokmin’s friend that helped him decorate the cake. When you saw him, you greeted him with a smile and a hug and said, “Seokmin told me what you did. Thank you so much.”

“It’s no problem,” Seungkwan said. “Seokmin mentioned how upset you were when he told you about the bakery being run by idiots, and I’m always happy to help a friend out of a jam.”

“You have no idea how much I appreciate that.”

You let go of Seungkwan and waited for the other guests to arrive, which didn’t take long. As Chaewon’s closest friends filed into your apartment, you couldn’t help but smile and think about just how loved your best friend was by pretty much everyone that she met.

The birthday girl herself arrived last, and that was when the fun really began as people started dancing, drinking, and partaking in other activities that you had no real interest in. You loved Chaewon dearly, but she was much more of an extrovert than you were, and it showed as the party went on. While she was in the middle of the dance floor with a guy that you barely knew, you were off to the side enjoying your third glass of wine of the evening. Or your fourth, you weren’t really sure anymore. All you really knew was that at some point, Seokmin came up to you and asked, “Why aren’t you dancing?”

“Not really interested,” you answered. “Besides, I’ve never really found the right partner.”

“Fair enough.”

“Why aren’t you dancing?” you asked, hoping to get the attention back onto him instead of you.

“Haven’t found the right partner yet,” he answered.

The way he opened his mouth again made you think that there was something else he wanted to say, but nothing else was said. So, you didn’t press. Instead, without really thinking about it, you blurted out, “Maybe I could be the right partner.”

Seokmin’s eyes widened at your comment, and that was when you actually processed what you said. Before you could apologize or defend yourself, however, he smiled and said, “Maybe you could be.”

“Wanna find out?”

“I thought you said you weren’t interested,” he replied with a soft laugh.

“I wasn’t until you showed up.”

The expression on Seokmin’s face shifted to something that you couldn’t quite identify, but he still reached his hand out for you to take and led you to where everyone else was dancing. As your body moved in time with his, you thought about whether it would be a good idea to finally tell him how you really felt. On the one hand, he’d been incredibly receptive to your initial attempt at flirting, as evidenced by the fact that you were even on the dance floor with him at all. On the other hand, you had no way of knowing if he actually wanted a relationship like you did or if he was just trying to have a bit of fun while he was at a party.

Despite your concerns, the chemistry between you and Seokmin was undeniable. So, against your better judgement, you leaned closer to him and whispered, “You know, I have a huge crush on you.”

Seokmin didn’t respond verbally, but he didn’t need to. The expression of shock on his face and the way he abruptly stopped dancing told you all that you needed to know. So, wanting to avoid any further embarrassment, you went to your room.

When you finally made your way through the crowd of people in your apartment and got to your bedroom, you shut the door and collapsed onto your bed, crying over everything that had gone wrong over the course of the day yet again. During the first half of the party, you actually started to feel better about all of the mishaps that had occurred before the guests arrived. Once you saw the way Seokmin reacted to your confession, however, the emotions that you’d so carefully hidden away came right back to the surface.

You cried for what felt like hours before there was a gentle knock on your door. You quickly sat up and stopped yourself from crying just long enough to choke out, “Who is it?”

“It’s Seungkwan. Seokmin asked me to come get you, since we’re getting ready to have cake.”

God, he didn’t even want to talk to you himself. He had to send Seungkwan to get you instead. The thought hurt you, but after a deep breath, you managed to say, “I’ll be out in just a minute!”

You quickly collected yourself, pushing your tears away until you could cry uninterrupted and plastering a fake smile on your face. When you opened the door, you said, “Thanks for letting me know.”

You carefully walked back to your living room, where Chaewon was standing, a plate of cake in her hand and a smile on her face. The rest of the guests had just finished singing “Happy Birthday,” and she looked happier than she’d been in weeks. You had a strong feeling that it was because Heeseung was finally gone, but you didn’t want to ask and ruin the party by bringing him up if that wasn’t the case. So, you chalked it up to the party that you planned being far more successful than you’d expected.

As Seokmin and Seungkwan served everyone else at the party a slice of cake, you felt like you were going to start crying again. So, you slipped out of the room and onto your balcony for some fresh air.

You knew that you were probably overreacting, but your frustrations with the events of the day and your drunkenness were a perfect storm for an overreaction. So, while you hated yourself for crying over a guy not liking you back, you didn’t let the self-hatred stop you from feeling the way that you needed to feel, at least while you were outside alone.

You never went back to the party, so you had no idea what time it ended. When you went back inside, however, you figured that it had been over for a while, considering the fact that your apartment was spotless, and the only people still in your living room were Seokmin, Seungkwan, and Chaewon.

“Hi, bestie!” Chaewon began. “Where were you?”

“Outside,” you answered halfheartedly.

“But why?” Seokmin asked. You chose not to answer him, however. If you didn’t know better, you would have said he looked hurt, but you couldn’t wrap your head around why. After all, he’d made it clear that he didn’t want to be around you.

“Is everything ok?” Chaewon asked.

“Yeah. I’m fine, Chae,” you replied. “I’m just tired. I think I’m gonna go to bed. Good night, guys.”

Seokmin, Seungkwan, and Chaewon all said good night, and you trudged to your room. You’d thought that you were over what had happened during the party, but the tears that streamed down your face as you thought about the rejection again proved you wrong.

The next morning, you woke up to Seokmin’s voice calling your name from another room. You really didn’t want to go out there and see what was going on, but you knew that ignoring him would only make the situation worse. So, you hesitantly walked out to your kitchen and asked, “What’s up?”

“I just finished making pancakes,” he answered, his signature grin on his face as he held a spatula in his hand. “Do you want some?”

“No thanks. I’m not hungry,” you replied flatly.

“Oh, ok. Well, I’ll leave them on the counter in case you change your mind,” he said, the smile disappearing from his face as he spoke.

You felt bad for upsetting Seokmin, but you really couldn’t bring yourself to act like you were ok ater all of the embarrassment of the night before. He didn’t even speak after you told him that you liked him, and that hurt you more than it would have if he’d just told you that he wasn’t interested. So, you avoided him unless speaking was absolutely necessary.

Weeks went by with you avoiding Seokmin, and it killed him inside. All he wanted was to talk to you, but unless it was absolutely necessary or he spoke to you first, you just refused to give him the time of day. He desperately wanted to know if he’d done something wrong, but you wouldn’t even talk to him long enough for him to find out. So, he started to think about other ways to figure out what had happened.

It was Valentine’s Day when Seokmin decided to try talking to Chaewon and asking her if something was going on with you. He knew that he probably wouldn’t get much information from her, considering the fact that he wasn’t particularly close to his sister, but he really didn’t know what else to do. So, he sent Chaewon a text. Hopefully, he could find out what happened and actually get you to spend time with him to celebrate the holiday together.

Seokmin: Hey. Did something happen with (Y/N)?

Chaewon: Why do you wanna know?

Seokmin: Come on, Chae. She hasn’t been acting like herself lately. I just wanna make sure she’s ok.

Chaewon: She’s fine. Have you ever considered that she just doesn’t wanna talk to you?

Seokmin: It’s the only explanation I can think of. I just can’t figure out why.

Chaewon: Well, I can’t tell you.

Seokmin: God damn it. Fine.

When the conversation with his sister proved to be a wasted effort, he decided to try something else. He really didn’t like the idea of tricking you into telling him what was wrong, but he was at a loss for what else to do. So, when you came home from work, he approached you and asked, “Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure,” you replied, hesitant but curious. “What’s going on?”

“Something is wrong with your room.

“What do you mean? I haven’t noticed any problems.”

“The problem is that you’ve been spending more time in there than usual and avoiding talking to me unless you have to. What’s going on?”

Your eyes went wide at his question, but you quickly regained your composure and deadpanned, “I’m not avoiding you.”

“Yes, you are. Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Then why don’t you talk to me anymore?”

You didn’t want to answer at first, but when you saw the hurt in Seokmin’s eyes, you sighed and said, “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“(Y/N), I mean this with the utmost respect. What the actual fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about what happened at Chaewon’s party a few weeks ago.”

“What the hell happened at Chaewon’s party? I thought we got along great until you disappeared.”

“Do you seriously not remember it?”

“Remember what?”

“That I told you that I liked you.”

“Yeah, I remember that, but why would that make me-”

Oh.

“You didn’t even say anything after I said it. The way you reacted made me think that you were uncomfortable, and I wanted to deal with the way I felt about your reaction in private, so I left.”

“I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was just surprised. I’ve liked you for a while, so I really didn’t know what to say when I found out that you felt the same way.”

“So, I’ve been avoiding you for no reason this entire time?” you asked, shocked at how badly you’d misinterpreted his actions.

“Pretty much,” he answered with a laugh. “I’m sorry about how I reacted. I didn’t mean to make you think I was upset with you.”

“No, it’s ok. I just feel like an idiot for not talking to you about the whole thing sooner.”

“Hey, you’re not an idiot. You panicked, and that’s perfectly understandable.”

“So, you don’t hate me?”

“I never could. Actually, I think that I might love you.”

Your eyes went wide once again at the admission, and with a smile, you said, “I think that I might love you too.”

After you admitted that you felt the same way about him that he felt about you, Seokmin took the opportunity to pull you closer and kiss you. With a soft sigh, you relaxed into his hold, wrapping your arms around his neck. When he finally pulled away, he smiled and said, “So, how do you wanna celebrate Valentine’s Day, baby?”

You giggled when you heard the nickname and asked, “Can we just watch a movie and cuddle? I think that going out would be a little much for me right now.”

“Of course,” he answered as he led you to your couch and sat down.

You took a seat on your couch next to Seokmin and leaned closer to him, and he wrapped his arm around your shoulder and pulled you close.

There were no words that could possibly describe the amount of relief that coursed through Seokmin’s body now that you were actually talking to him again. Not only that, but you actually liked him the same way that he liked you, and he couldn’t have been happier as he held you close while the two of you watched a movie.

As the end credits rolled across your screen, you felt like you were about to fall asleep any second. Despite your exhaustion, however, you needed to ask Seokmin something. Hesitantly, you looked up at him and asked, “So, does this mean that we’re together?”

“I mean I would hope it does,” he answered with a soft laugh. “Otherwise, I think things might get awkward.”

You laughed at his response and said, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, baby.”

“Can we go to bed, honey? Please?”

“Of course.”

Seokmin smiled and took your hand, leading you to his bedroom. You were so tired that you didn’t even realize it until you saw the blanket covering his bed that was a different color from the one covering yours. Even when you did notice, though, you didn’t really care. All you cared about was the fact that you’d patched things up with Seokmin, and he was now your boyfriend.

After Seokmin moved the blankets out of the way, he carefully got into bed and reached his arms out toward you, a silent request for you to join him. You happily obliged, snuggling closer to him as he covered both of you with the blanket. Once you were both comfortable, he whispered sweet nothings into your ear until you fell asleep thinking about the best Valentine’s Day you’d ever had and how sometimes, a random call at 10 PM wasn’t that bad.

Thank you for reading! This collab has been so much fun! If you liked this, please like and reblog! If you wanna be tagged in future works, fill out the taglist form here! If you want to check out my other works, check out my main masterlist. If you want to see what else is in the works, you can check my upcoming works list! If none of that interests you, or there's something specific you want to see, feel free to send a request via my asks or dms!

Thank you again for reading! I hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day tomorrow!

#kvanity #keopihausnet #lonelyheartscafecollab #kpop fanfic #kpop imagines #kpop angst #kpop fluff #seventeen x reader #seventeen imagine #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fic #svt x reader #svt angst #svt fluff #svt dk x reader #dk x reader #dk angst #dk fluff

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harmonicakai · 1 year ago

Text

Like Real People Do

Pairing: Gyuvin x Reader

Summary: You find yourself falling for the cute boy whose writing assignments you proofread, and discover that your lives have been intertwined for longer than you thought.

Tropes: tutor!reader, basketball player!gyuvin, writers, soulmates, college AU, fluff

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings: literally none it’s so cute

A/N: This is a formal apology for my Beomgyu angst <3

“And isn't it just so pretty to think All along there was some Invisible string Tying you to me?” —Invisible String, Taylor Swift

Gyuvin certainly doesn’t need any help with English, but it gives him a good excuse to spend time in between classes and basketball practice staring at you.

If anything, your talents would be better suited to helping one of his classmates understand all the old poems or crazy novels that they get assigned, but he’s the one who lucked out when your former professor suggested you read her most promising student’s work.

From the first draft, you were hooked, and had somehow started a writer’s circle where just the two of you meet weekly to share your works in progress.

In no time, you’ve helped Gyuvin become one of the top students in Writing 101, and he’s worried you’ll notice that he’d be just fine if you stopped helping him. Still, the A’s keep rolling in and you keep meeting up with him anyway.

When Gyuvin’s latest short story gets nominated for a departmental prize, you’re over the moon for him.

“You are so amazing,” you smile up at him. “We should celebrate! That’s a really big deal. I was nominated last year, but didn’t come close to winning.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he points out, looking down at the ground and rubbing the back of his neck. “Really, Y/N. If I win, it would be just as much your prize as it would be mine.”

“Don’t be silly,” you say, packing up the rest of your lunch. You usually only see him in the library at your designated meeting time, but today, he sought you out in the courtyard to make sure you were the first person he told. “I’m just the editor. All of the ideas came from you. Plus, I’m only good at English because I grew up speaking it. It’s much more impressive for you to have learned it recently and write at the level that you do.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Y/N,” he replies, helping you up off your picnic blanket. Before you can do it yourself, he’s already reaching down to fold it, his long arms handling the fabric with ease. “You’d write circles around me any day.”

“I don’t want to get into another compliment war,” you giggle, swinging your backpack over your shoulder. Recently, it’s been filled with way too many books, and your classes are so jam-packed that you never have time to run back to your room in between them.

“Here, Y/N, let me,” he says, taking your backpack from you. He’s already got his own on, but he wears yours over his front, barely even flinching at the extra weight. “Where are you headed next? I’m done with my classes for the day, so I can walk you.”

He’s always been desperate to ask you to hang out outside of your brainstorming sessions, but every time he thinks he’s worked up the courage, you’ll laugh or smile or even just glance at him and his brain short circuits.

“I have a music class across campus in thirty minutes,” you reply. “Don’t you live the other way, though? You really don’t have to walk me. It’s pretty far.”

“I want to,” Gyuvin reassures you. He offers his hand. “Here. I walk pretty fast, so let’s make sure I don’t leave you behind.”

You hesitate for a moment before taking it. You’ve had a crush on Gyuvin ever since the two of you first crossed paths—he’s the literal embodiment of sunshine trapped inside a cute boy—but things have only ever been friendly between the two of you.

His hand is big, wrapping itself around yours almost entirely. The walk is silent, although you swear you can hear your heart about to beat out of your chest as you pull him along your usual route. Gyuvin makes sure to always let you lead.

“You know,” you start, still not looking back at him. “We’re kind of like Orpheus and Eurydice right now.”

Gyuvin lights up at the reference, with mythology being one of the first things you two really bonded over. “If you looked back at me, the only thing I’d probably die of is how cute you are, Y/N.”

You’re glad you’re turned away so he can’t see the bright blush that’s spread across your cheeks. His words get you so flustered that you don’t even notice you’ve stopped walking.

“Did I say something wrong?” Gyuvin asks, his voice laced with concern. He moves to face you, your height difference causing him to crane his neck down. Meanwhile, your gaze is locked on your shoes.

“Gyuvin,” you say, still refusing to meet his eye. You pull him over to a nearby bench. “Remember when I said I liked the love story you wrote the other day?”

“Yeah, I remember,” he confirms. “You complimented me on how realistic it was and I told you it was only because I based it off of real life.”

“Was it…” your words catch in your throat, unable to face the embarrassment of if you’re wrong. “Was it about us?”

“Yes,” he admits almost immediately. You finally turn to face him, greeted by a nervous look. “Listen, Y/N. I only wrote it because I knew you’d read it, and I thought maybe if you saw how good characters that were a lot like us could be together, you’d give me a chance in real life. But you didn’t really notice, or maybe you just wanted to ignore it, so I kind of abandoned all hope of us ever being together.”

You blink back at him. How could you be so oblivious? Your entire major was based on analyzing words, and you couldn’t even see that he wanted to be with you so badly that he had to write it into existence.

Words always come easy to you, except at this very moment.

“You abandoned all hope?” is all you can manage to get out. You try to pull your hand away, but he only grips it tighter.

“I tried,” Gyuvin says, his voice soft. “But you’re all I ever think about. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be capable of writing someone who even comes close to how wonderful I think you are, Y/N. There just aren’t words to describe all the ways in which you’re special to me.”

You laugh, his words making tears well up in your eyes. “You know, I used to go to basketball games a lot before we even met, just so I wouldn’t have to feel so lonely all the time. And I remember liking your smile and the way you always encouraged your teammates. I would go home and wish I had someone like you in my life.”

“You’re kidding,” he says, taking out his wallet. You knit your brows in confusion, watching as he pulls out a small piece of paper and unfolds it. “Here.”

He hands it to you and your eyes widen at the words printed out. It’s the poem that you had published in the school’s literary magazine last spring about wanting to romanticize your life. Talking about your feelings makes you anxious, but nobody reads those publications. Except for Gyuvin, apparently.

“I liked you before we even met, too,” Gyuvin confesses. “Your poem is actually the reason I got into writing in the first place. I used to read it before all of my games, but I know all the words by heart now, so I just keep it in my wallet for good luck.”

This all feels too good to be true, but his touch keeps you grounded in reality.

“Maybe I should start coming to basketball games again, then,” you think out loud. “I stopped going because I felt awkward not knowing anybody.”

“Well, now you’d know me, and I’ll make sure the whole team gets to know you, too, okay?” The way he smiles at you, his eyes so full of light, takes your breath away.

“Really?” you ask, looking at him in disbelief. The thought of meeting so many new people at the same time scares you, but if Gyuvin likes them, you’re sure you will too.

“On one condition,” he says, closing the gap between the two of you. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his hand settling on your cheek. “I get to introduce you as my girlfriend.”

“Deal,” you grin, inching closer until your lips are pressed against his. You’re nervous that he’ll somehow figure out that you’ve only ever read about kissing in books, but the way he melts into you tells you that he doesn’t mind.

“You’re going to be late for class,” Gyuvin reminds you, pulling away. He desperately wants to keep going, but not at the expense of your grades.

“Class can wait,” you say, leaning in for another kiss. Your fingers lace themselves through his soft, messy hair. “I said we’d celebrate your nomination, so let’s celebrate.”

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edwin-paynes-bowtie · 9 months ago

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Re: The DBDA fandom is dying (inspired by @crafteeauthor)

Can't speak for other creators but:

Am I uploading fewer fics than I used to? Yes! But what you don't see is that I'm writing a 100k word longfic in most of my writing time. This is true of many writers in the fandom, too! We all are devastated by cancelation and are working on long projects to get justice for our faves.

But for my shorter oneshots, fine. I have been getting fewer hits on my DBDA fanfic lately but the hits-to-kudos ratio is genuinely insane. Like, for every 2-3 hits I'm getting a kudo. I'm getting a veritable smorgasbord of comments at that.

(Also the hits are far from bad like I get 500 regularly still. They're just, like, not like the 2k-3k I'd get in the beginning.)

Plus, the fan events on here like @dbdpromptober (the one I've been doing) are immense successes!

Sure, some more casual fans are dropping off, but the fans who engage are staying. The fans who CREATE are staying, based on the sheer volume of wonderful fanworks (art, fics, etc) we're getting daily.

This is very obviously becoming a creative community that is here for the long haul. Which is wonderful, a rare and beautiful thing.

Also! The magnitude of people who are still discovering the show is awesome. Every day, I'm seeing new people in the tags going "just watched Dead Boy Detectives and learned it was CANCELED!?!?"

Like, the community is growing! Please!!

As someone whose other main fandom genuinely did die out after the last book was released, this is not what the death of a fandom looks like at all.

So don't worry! We're clearly in a Fireflyesque situation, and as Charles once said, we're not going anywhere.

#dead boy detectives #dbda #edwin payne #charles rowland #payneland

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olderthannetfic · 3 months ago

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It's interesting to find out some people think you're anti-lesbian/anti-bi women if you don't write f/f smut. As a cishet dude, I get called fetishizing for shipping two women or two girls, even if all I reblog is art of them holding hands or kissing. I can't imagine the response if I wrote smut for them. I've been told I objectify women and use them like mental fleshlights for saying I don't ship something but I 100% see why people do.

While the ultimate reason I don't write f/f smut is that I, lacking those parts of biology that come up in f/f smut, fear I'm going to write the worst, least sexy and least believable trash imaginable, I'm not going to lie. The "the EVIL man has infiltrated our sacred womening space!" reception in f/f spaces is why I don't write more f/f fic, and I say that as someone whose work is (I did the math) 43.7% f/f. So even if I was perfectly confident writing for anatomy I don't have - yaoi writers, teach me your secrets - I think the exhaustion I have with the backlash would make me hesitate.

Also it is very funny to me that you refer to your cishet dude readers as unicorns. We're here, we're just not complaining in your inbox as much because fandom doesn't suck as much for us. (In some aspects. Some suckitude, like ship wars, no one escapes from.)

The secret of BL writers is that we don't care if cis men find the porn realistic, only if our readers, whomever they may be, find it hot.

Honestly, if you even know what the clitoris is and more or less where it's located, you will already be doing better than the vast majority of porn written by cis dudes. Hahaha. (The things I read on the internet as a teen! My god! That South Park movie was right!)

People who wish to be enormous jackasses will do so no matter what you do. It's not worth worrying about how to placate them.

But if the objective is mainly blending in, that's about writing skill and copying the voice of a particular art movement and community. I assume not everyone writing about ball smell on Nifty is a cis gay guy and not everyone failing to find the clitoris on Literotica is a cis straight guy, but boy do those spaces have a distinct and pervasive style. I don't read enough AO3y f/f to know all the quirks, but I'm sure they're there.

Cis gay dudes who want to sell m/m books to the "M/M Romance" or BL audience have to learn the style that sells. Having the parts and real world experience doesn't automatically make you know how to write a romance novel or wuxia plus fucking or whatever.

We like to wring our hands about identities around here, but when it comes to the art, it's mostly about exactly that: art skills.

...

All that aside, as a 14-year-old, I read a lot of dreadful Nabiki/Shampoo that was extremely obviously by men, but it was pretty hot because it was far less bloodless than the other f/f I found in Ranma fandom.

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unreleasedwrites · 1 year ago

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hello my beloved writer <3 can I ask for a Gun oneshot in which we wear his perfume but he owns so many bottles that he don't actually remember that's his so he thinks that the scent belongs to someone else lol. the story goes after will be decided by you hehe <3 thank you <3

A Certain Scent

“just whose perfume am I smelling?”

summary: You had just finished getting ready for your date with your boyfriend, when he suddenly questions the perfume you had on you. He thinks it’s some other guy’s until you clear it up and you two go on your date, with him still thinking that you’re upset with him for suspecting you of cheating. But you really aren’t and you two eventually cuddle together in bed to end the day.

character(s) included: Park Jonggun x fem!reader

cw: established relationship, teasing, hints of jealous gun, kissing, soft, fluff, petnames / couple names (idk what they’re even called), cuddling, like all of my works— not proofread

unwrapped on: Sunday Midnight, June 9 2024

wrapped up on: Saturday Night, June 15 2024

published on: Saturday Night, June 15 2024 (at around 10 pm)

“Alright, I’ve finished getting ready! How do I look?” You announced as you walked into the living of room of your shared apartment.

Your boyfriend, Gun, was stood at the wall leading to the doorway, dressed in semi formal attire for your guys’ date that evening.

“I’ve told you before that no words can describe you, didn’t I?” He replied, tilting his head to the side while his eyes were wandering across your body.

“That’s corny but then again, I asked.” You scoffed at him while walking closer and closer to where he was stood at.

He only laughed at your response and pulled you in closer for a kiss. The kiss went on for a few good seconds until you broke it since you noticed that Gun didn’t seem intent on stopping there.

“Save that for later, we haven’t even left the building yet,” you scoffed at him yet again, earning another laugh from him.

He held your hand and just as you two were about to exit the room, he froze. His grasp on your hand became tighter.

He looked over to you, “baby?” to which you replied with a hum and he added, “just whose perfume am I smelling?”

You rose an eyebrow at the sudden interrogation, “huh—? What do you mean?” You said as you tilted your head to the side, visibly confused.

“What do I mean?” He scoffed, “that perfume you’ve got on is obviously a man’s. Who were you with before I arrived?” He said, with a more demanding tone.

“Gun..” You said, “are you serious or..?” You were skeptical with his sudden change in demeanor and tone, did he seriously not realize that the perfume you’ve got on was his own?

Gun obviously heard you but didn’t respond, he only looked at you and he hasn’t looked away since.

“It’s yours, you idiot.” You audibly sighed at him.

“Wha-? No it’s not,” he replied, seemingly growing confused as well.

“Yeah, it is! Let go of my hand and I’ll prove it to you.”

“Fine,” he finally let go of your hand and you walked back to your guys’ shared bedroom, where all of your stuff including makeup, perfumes, and accessories were at.

You opened one of the drawers to your vanity, revealing an extensive collection of luxury perfumes, many of which were your boyfriend’s. You took out the one you had just used and walked back to where Gun was stood at, only for him to look even more confused.

“Does this seem familiar to you?” You opened it up and sprayed it in his face from a safe distance where he can still smell the scent.

He took a few seconds to analyze what you just sprayed, only to realize that the scent was in fact from his perfume.

—…

“Well— Is that really mine though? I have so many bottles that I don’t know whether or not I own that. And plus.. What if some guy just left that here?”

“Gun. You bought this when we were on vacation in Japan, you even specifically told me that you like smelling your scent on me so you sprayed on me as well.”

Gun paused. He started thinking about that vacation you guys had and suddenly, that exact moment that you were telling him about started flashing in his mind. You could see his eyebrows rise slightly, signifying that he’s finally come to realize what you’re talking about.

“Fine fine. I’m sorry that I thought you were wearing some other guy’s perfume..”

You only pouted at him so he gave you a kiss on the forehead.

“If you forgive me now, I’ll kiss you on the lips instead.” He offered.

“Deal! I forgive you for basically accusing me of cheating!” You said, adding sarcasm towards the end.

He scoffed at your quick change in mood and gave you another kiss on the lips.

You returned the perfume from where you first got it and once you got back to Gun, he held your hand again but in a more gentle way. Then you two finally went on your awaited date.

“Don’t tell me…” Gun said after he took a sip of the drink he ordered at the restaurant you two were at. “You’re still upset at me?” He added.

“Hmph.” You only mumbled as you were chewing on the food that came from Gun, right after he spoon fed you the last of his food as you had just finished up with your plate.

Gun sighed, somehow seemingly amused too. He then spotted a waiter and asked for the bill, turning to you while the waiter left to fetch the bill.

“How can I make it up to you?” He asked with a smirk on his face, confident in his abilities to be fully forgiven.

“You wanna go shopping before we head back? Name any shopping mall you’d like to go and I’ll get you whatever you want there. How’s that sound, you little baby?” He added as he slipped in some teasing at the end.

“No, Gun.. You can’t just buy your way into forgiveness y’know,” you scoffed at him and you finished up what was left of your drink. He subtly pouted, his smirk faded as his confidence in getting you to forgive him went down.

The waiter arrived with the bill and without even taking the time to read through the receipt, Gun put his card in and the waiter took it away.

The waiter eventually came back with his card and you two stood up to leave, making your way back to the car.

“You sure you don’t wanna go shopping?” Gun asked as he opened the car door for you and you settled into the passenger seat.

You nodded in response and Gun shut your door, making his way to the other side and settling into the drivers seat.

You put the topic aside and chatted with him all throughout the way back to your guys’ shared apartment. And you two finally arrived back at the doorstep with Gun seemingly distracted.

“What’s on your mind, honey?” You asked Gun while he was removing his shoes and setting his coat aside.

“You, just as always.” He teased.

“Corny as hell, again, but then againnnn, I asked…” You replied and added, “no but what is it really?”

You were looking at Gun, whose coat was now removed and all of the buttons of his top were now undone— revealing his body.

But you weren’t looking at any of that , you were just maintaining eye contact and looking at him oh, so sweetly. He smiled at you genuinely, a sight that not many see right in front of them.

“M’pretty sure you’re still upset with me, and I don’t know how to fix it.” He blurted out as he successfully finished removing his top.

“You’re such a baby, I was barely upset to begin with.” You reassured him with a kiss on the cheek and left to take a shower so you could get into bed.

After your shower, you walked into your guys’ shared bedroom, only to see Gun on the bed. He’s already taken a shower as well and as per usual, he’s shirtless with some pajamas you bought him. You giggled, thinking how he’s actually wearing them and made your way onto the bed.

He put aside whatever he was just doing to cuddle you, completely sinking into you with all his weight. Which is why you had to shoo him off you to get some air. He pouted at the sudden kick out but was all happy again when you got on top of him to cuddle. You already were so exhausted, so in no time you felt like you were drifting away as your head laid in the crook of his neck.

Gun whispered, “I love you so much,” and he badly hopes that you heard him despite being seemingly asleep. Which you did, but instead of saying it back, you lifted your head and kissed him.

Then you sunk your head back into the crook of his neck, while he stroked your hair gently until you fell asleep.

notes: ik none of my works are proofread but this one really isnt as i worked on it during unholy hours and i might’ve been half asleep while writing some parts.. 🫠

so im very sorry for any grammatical and spelling errors but I hope that it’s still understandable 😭

I swear this would’ve been done much sooner but I really wasn’t sure what to do after the like main request about the perfume 😭

Anyways, tysm to the anon who requested this!! 💗💗 I hope it’s not too bad

- With or without proper credits, please don't try to steal or claim any of my works as vour own

I genuinely appreciate opinions, feedback, likes, and reblogs

Once again, I hope this isn't too bad for a request, and l'II be doing more characters in lookism so feel free to request but please read my pinned post !!

#lookism #webtoon #lookism fandom #lookism fic #lookism imagines #unreleasedwrites #park jonggun #jonggun park x femreader #jonggun park lookism #lookism park jonggun #park jonggun x reader #jonggun park #fluff #lookism x reader

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geopsych · 4 months ago

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The reason I saw those red-winged blackbirds out back and I saw the snipe in the park the other day is that much of the marsh by the park has been destroyed and when I went down there I saw a bulldozer and a huge dump truck loudly destroying the hill next to it, what I used to call Fox Hill because whatever vixen had a den nearby would hunt there among the grasses, weeds and shrubs for the abundant mice and voles, to support the kits in her womb and then in the den. Along with everything else that's going on, the loss of the red-wings in that spot where I've seen them for all these years and possibly the loss of a viable fox population in the woods at the park (the woods now bought by the borough so they can "improve" it) it's all making me incredibly sad. I used to love glimpsing foxes, especially seeing the young ones playing. I counted on hearing the red-wings there every February. But it also made me think of something I wanted to say here. Everybody probably knows I support people of various genders and preferences. I hope everyone knows I support trans people and count a number of trans people as my friends.

But more than that I want to say that I also support and love people who are messes, including people who can't decide what gender they are but also including people who can't get out of bed in the morning, people who other people consider ugly or overweight, people who can't get their acts together, people who struggle with disabilities and those who are just sad and lonely, people who think of themselves as writers or artists or musicians but can't bring themselves to do the thing. And of course the people whose minds are always on their blorbos.

Do you know how much I would rather share this world and this life with you than with the business assholes and the people who lord it over everyone with their work ethic or their beauty or their fitness or their money or whatever? Yes, we need people who get things done but we also need regular people to just be regular people with. I feel this so strongly! Life is really hard right now for a lot of people. It's difficult just to face each day even if your circumstances at home and work haven't changed, because of the stuff we're hearing on a regular basis. Meanwhile things like what's happening at the park or other bad things we want to rave about or mourn for keep happening and we hardly feel like we have room to react the way we need to in this environment of constant horror. Our personal horrors and griefs get overwhelmed by the news and we don't get to process them. So it's really okay if you find it hard to live in this world. It's really okay if you're not living up to other people's or even your own standards. I know you want a happier life and I want that for all of us but it's hard to see the way there when it feels like everything's being torn down. The thing where they had to go in and shoot thousands of snow geese in the quarries here plus the bulldozing of the marsh and the hill next to the park and the purchasing of the woods aren't big things in the context of the world but those were things that helped me feel like there were good things around me. Now I feel like anything might be next, nothing is safe. I think a lot of people feel that way right now. Sending you hugs if wanted. <3 I'm glad you're here!

#text post #off topic #tw bad things #tw sadness #it's okay to be a mess #i'm glad you're in this world with me #just remembered that bluebirds hang out and nest along fox hill :'-(

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suzukiblu · 4 months ago

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With regards to some older fic posts of yours, I have been wanting to write how much I love certain lines or sections, or just yell about how they make me feel, but I worry that too many comments on older sections of your work might be annoying if you get too many, or that I'll be replying on fics your aren't enthusiastic about at the moment and I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable. What would you suggest as the best way to let you know of my adoration for different sections without getting in the way of other things (i.e. not too often, only on Tuesdays, only on the latest post, don't do it, etc.)

(Sorry if this is silly but, I love your writing, and if I get blocked for being too annoying I wouldn't blame you but, I would be annoyed with myself haha)

. . . . . . . listen, I appreciate you asking, and I'm sure that THEORETICALLY someone could manage to comment/reply on my writing so much that I would parse it as them spamming me, but theoretically Elon Musk possesses a human heart somewhere in that black bitter soul of his, so like, the chances seem slim, hahaha.

Legit there is just about nothing I like more than people telling me what they think about ANYTHING I've written, whether I'm actively working on it or not, and frankly getting one single comment on a story I hadn't worked on in a while or had even straight-up abandoned has historically run the gamut from making me go "aw, that's nice, I'm glad people still like it 😊" to ". . . . . . I am immediately going to spend the next six months writing another 120k in this abandoned WIP and actually gd finish it this time", so like . . . BELIEVE me, I am not the guy you have to worry about hitting "too many" with, hahaha. Plus I have so many WIPs rn that I am MORE than used to getting comments on stuff I'm not actively working on and if anything it just gives me a better idea of what people wanna see more of. There are many, MANY WIPs on here that only got past the first thousand words because people repeatedly told me how much they liked them and several that I have only barely progressed in because people just weren't that responsive to 'em. I am just VERY much the type whose writing thrives on acknowledgment/feedback, that is SCREAMINGLY who I am as a writer, haha. Like I am the closest thing to "put comment coin in, get fic out!" you will get in most fandoms, I am pretty sure, lol.

( also-historically, I have only blocked I think two or three Tumblrs in my entire time ON Tumblr and they were all pornbots, so an actual person would have to get prettyyyyy nasty at me for me to decide I wanted to block 'em. like as long as you're not sending me hate speech or death threats we're pretty much good; "too many replies on old posts" is just not a thing that's gonna get me there, hah. )

#anonymous #rintalk

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 2 years ago

Text

You don't need to worry about the ATSV fandom dying. As someone whose been in the Marvel fandom over ten years - I can assure you this is natural.

The ATSV Fandom Isn't Dead: A brief look into the science of fandoms.

[me standing beside Hobie beaming my thoughts of love and adoration into his head like I'm professor x]

A lot of people are afraid of the ATSV dying - and I don't blame them.

In the era of shows releasing all in one day, or movies coming to streaming almost immediately - it's not hard to say we're in an era were content is consumed at ridiculously rapid rates.

I mean, this time last year Wednesday was breaking records on Netflix. Where's the hype now?

I know you see it too, there's less posts everyday in the Hobie tag, less screenshot breakdowns, etc etc etc.

But I'm here to tell you - The ATSV fandom is doing just fine. Better than fine. All of this is meant to happen.

Let me put it into perspective.

ATSV released on June 2nd - it's November.

ATSV released a little over six months ago.

For reference: The Avengers (2012) was released on May 4th.

The Avengers DVD wasn't available for purchase until SEPTEMBER 25th - almost SIX months later.

The time that the Hobie fandom has formed and existed - is the same amount of time people had to wait just to see The Avengers again.

Large periods of time where tags only get three posts a day TOPS was nothing to fear. xReaders and fanfics held the fandom over until the next trailer, the next sneak peek or leak.

Prior to the release of streaming, only a little more than ten years ago - it was NATURAL for a fandom to wait six months before even seeing the movie for a second time.

And mind you - streaming didn't exist. If you wanted to see The Avengers again, you had to go out and BUY it. $26.99.

If you wanted to order it online - you'd have to get it shipped to you. Before Disney plus, we watched on BlueRay Discs.

And the fandom was fine and healthy.

If a fandom that doesn't even have a DVD release can keep up content for six months, I think we'll be fine.

But I'll admit - there's still the question:

If the ATSV fandom is 'doing fine' then where is everyone going? Why are the tags getting slower?

The answer is simple:

FANDOM BIOLOGY

I LOVE social sciences and the systems people create and how they work - even unintentionally.

And I have a theory - one about the natural evolution and regeneration of fandom. Hear me out -

When it comes to ATSV:

We are leaving the Analysation Phase, the phase in which content creation is centered around deciphering and breaking down the most recent installment in the fandom.

During this phase usually see art of newer characters, new ships, meta breakdowns, easter egg point-outs.

We were in that phase.

Once the Analysation Phase dies down, usually main content creators may remain. The intermediate or liminal period.

The intermediate is usually when you'll see more x-reader art pop-up, the levels of fanart evening out as artists return to their favorite characters - usually incorporating any new ones they gained from the last installment.

Shitposts usually also become popular around this time, as the shock and weight of the story wear off, and we're more able to joke about the storyline a lot more light-heartedly.

That's why the intermediate point is often see as the passion 'dying out'.

When in fact, it is the fandom getting comfortable. Resting for the next phase.

And after a few months, the next phase comes:

The Speculation Phase:

The Speculation Phase cannot come until the Analysation Phase is over.

During the Analysation Phase the fandom begins to breakdown and digest the writers intentions. They integrate the new character into the story, and the fandom.

As the audience and fandom talk amongst each other, we get more solid ideas of who the characters are, what their motivations might be, and most important of all-

What they might do.

In the Speculation Phase we turn from the last installment - and start looking towards the future.

Let's take Hobie for example.

Looking at the timeline of the Hobie fandom, we can see a progression.

Originally taken as a punk-rockstar and little more, throughout the months the fandom began posting things about punk culture, the 70's, Hobie's motivation in the comics, and how that all correlates to him.

As the fandom analyzed, the collective zeitgeist and understanding of Hobie grew into something a lot more sound, and telling.

We looked at the parellels he provides in the story, and what kind of person he is.

And because if that we have seen a marked improvement in people's contextual understanding of Hobie - as a punk and a hero.

And now that we can understand him - we can predict him.

The same goes for Miguel - over the months, a lot of us have began to question if we know him as well as we think we do , if we really know the kinda person he is -

And if we really know what he's doing to do.

That's where the Speculation Phase comes in.

The Speculation Phase in fandom is when we see some of the most passion - and instead of tapering off overtime, it builds. More and more until the next release.

The Speculation Phase is when the fandom takes the analysis' and from there, they begin to theorize.

Now that we understand, we can begin to predict.

And this is arguably one of the most interesting parts in a fandoms natural ecosystem.

During the Speculation Phase, we can see a number of diverse opinions appear.

As more and more creators begin to gather their understanding, tips from the writers, new released news, and past comic book arcs, we start to see dozens of triguing paths the writers can take us on.

As more news releases, the more hype people get. I mean - imagine how you'll feel when they release the first new poster of Hobie, or Miles? Or when we get to see Miles.G in the trailer?

And with each new poster, or trailer, we're given clues. The theorizes develop more. And the plot thickens.

It's all natural.

So I can understand the fear. Only getting one or two new posts when you visit the Hobie tag can be a bummer. But it's natural and it's GOOD.

Y'all, we need to conserve our energy. We are in the liminal phase. And they never last long.

With the news of the voice actors back in the studio, and a cliff-hanger like we have - I can assure you, it's only a matter of time before we begin to see the theories, the trailer breakdowns, the people guessing what Miguel might do, or exactly how much tech Hobie is hiding.

And when that time comes we need to be READY. I can already feel it on the horizon.

I really wonder what they'll do with all that left over Hobie concept art.

Plus with explosion of Hobie approval, I wonder if they'll add him in even more. Hobie fan-service anyone?

Hmmm...

But chill y'all, we're on the right track -

-------------------------------------

If you read this far, as always THANK YOU SO MUCH!! And as a token of my appreciation, I hand you this Hobie. Hold him gently please

Bye 💗

#no proofread ever ever EVER #spiderman #atsv #spider man #marvel #across the spiderverse #hobie brown #spider punk #spiderpunk #Miles morales #miguel o'hara #miguel ohara #peter parker

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lemotmo · 2 months ago

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For the Eddie queen that you are 😊. Can't wait to read your addition to this.

Q. I think the show worked just fine without Eddie. I didn't even notice he was gone. I have no idea why so many people are acting like it was this catastrophic event.

A. And I have no idea whose inbox you thought you were leaving this in but you were wildly mistaken. How are we a year plus into this nonsense and you all still haven't figured out to do this shit remotely believable? Your desperation is showing, and while it's amusing, this act you all are clinging too is not. The GA has spoken. The people want Eddie Diaz. Don't worry though go to the nearest park and talk to a tree. I promise the tree will be as life-like as the person you're not so subtlety actually talking about. Be sure to stop back by though once Buck and Eddie touch lips. I will be more than happy to celebrate the occasion with you. Cheers to Buddie canon 🩷🎉

Thank you for thinking of me Nonny. 🤗

Okay...

Right...

Let's see...

Seeing that there is an outcry for Eddie Diaz on ALL social media platforms and how everyone is enraged that he wasn't in those two episodes?

I am going to take a wild guess here and conclude that the OP anon is very very very wrong.

We have seen, times and time again that when Eddie isn't in the 118, the others do miss him. He is a good friend to Hen, Chim and Ravi. He has so many things in common with Bobby. Their talks were always the highlight of the episode they were in.

And then there's Buck. It has been established since day 1 that Buck and Eddie GET each other like no one else gets them. They are there for each other through thick and thin.

So yeah, the people are outraged that they showed some nobody plot device guest actor reacting to Bobby's death instead of Eddie. They are outraged they had to sit through a boring helicopter scene that took up waaaay too much time WHILE also having to suffer the terrible non-acting by the formerly mentioned nobody plot device guest actor. All this while they could have had a scene of someone calling Eddie to tell him about Bobby and we could have seen his reaction as well.

Everyone got some kind of closure. Where is the closure for Eddie?

He is a main character, but keeps being side-lined because of some stupid half-assed Vertigo plot Tim set in motion in season 7.

It might surprise the anon, but Eddie is a much beloved character. When he first popped up in season 2 I fell in love. Not just because he looked good, but because he is a genuinly good kind and decent man. Next to that he is a great father, firefighter and medic.

You would think that the 'you can't kill Bobby' posts would far outnumber the 'we need to see Eddie' posts, but you couldn't be more wrong.

The fact that there is such an outcry for him and that people are insulted on his behalf that he wasn't in these episodes makes me so happy.

It is a message to ABC, Tim and the writers that we care about Eddie and we want him back in LA asap. It tells them that he is as important to us as Bobby is and that it is time for unimportant plot device characters to walk away forever. And that is a great message to send.

Also, whether the anon likes it or not... Buddie is happening. Eddie and Buck will get their happy ever after. Both of them will finally know what it means to truly love and be loved. Something neither of them has ever truly experienced.

No, not even with both of their very recent love interests anon. Don't get ideas. There was zero chemistry or romance to be found there. 🙄

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

#anonymous blog I love #eddie diaz #the audience loves him... deal with it #buddie #nonnies galore

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finelythreadedsky · 2 months ago

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heyy. I have a bit of a silly question, but I haven't been able to find enough information to get over it. I've been trying to learn more about how theatre took place in Greece, and all sources I looked at so far mention that in each of the the three days of the festival of the city dionisias, the contesting playwrights would present three tragedies and one satyr play each. but I'm not clear yet on how many playwrights that meant exactly, nor in how were these playwrights were chosen to be there. if it was only one a day, do you know if there were other competitions beforehand to filter them out, or should we assume there weren't a lot of people able to compete at that level anyway? or if more than one playwright presented per day (seems odd since it would mean at least 8 works a day, which is a lot), do we have an estimate on how many they would be? sorryy if this is like. a really stupid question. but no one has been clear on it in the texts I've been looking at.

I don't have any specific ancient texts or modern scholarship to direct you to as sources on this, but here's a rundown:

The Dionysia had three days of tragic performance and three tragedians competing with four plays each. On each day, one playwright presented his work in the form of three tragedies plus one satyr play, so one playwright and four plays per day. There's some disagreement over what time the proceedings likely started/ended, but the performances probably took about 4-5 hours each day. So we're not thinking of the audience as sitting in the theater from sunrise to sundown, but we should probably also assume a fair amount of coming and going as well as snacking and talking in the audience during the plays. At the end of the third day prizes would be awarded. I would assume that the playwrights drew lots for going first/second/third, and I also suspect that it might have been seen as an advantage to go either last or first, though I'm not sure which. (And then the next day, the four competing comic playwrights presented one comedy each, all on the same day.)

We do know that the archon chose which playwrights would compete in tragedy at the Dionysia and allotted them funding and a chorus, but we don't know exactly how this choice was made, and the mechanism was probably different at different points in time. It was likely pretty informal at the beginning of the fifth century and become more formalized later on, once playwriting became a more established profession with a lot of prestige, and also once certain families had established it as their family business. I would imagine that c. 490 or so, the archon and the handful of working 'tragic' writers (probably something closer to amateurs) likely all knew each other, and the archon might have just picked three he liked or whose work in previous years had been good, maybe with some indication of the subject they were planning. From at least the second half of the fifth century and likely for the majority of it, would-be competitors probably submitted some sort of proposal to the archon, whether this was titles, full or partial draft scripts, outlines of their proposed plays, or maybe the playwright performing a sample monologue, and the archon chose which three would receive a performance slot in the festival and the funding to train a chorus. The winner from the previous year may have been guaranteed one of the three spots. But the archon would not have been able to see performances of these plays in order to judge whether or not to include them in the festival, except for what the playwright (or a friend) might be able to perform himself, since a playwright had to be approved by the archon before he would get personnel like a producer/sponsor, a chorus, or, in the later years of the fifth century, potentially his lead actor(s).

#anyway this is also why i think that tragedians must have composed using the written word even if they taught their actors/chorus orally #the audience is aware of the script as a material written text even if that's not how the actors/chorus encountered it #even if it's not how anyone but the playwright himself encountered it #it exists as a written text and a material object as a necessary step along the way to becoming a performance #mine #ask #anonymous

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batnotes · 2 months ago

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Hiya! Noticed you’ve been posting about bats for a while. As a newer fan, I was wondering what are some things you love about Helena Bertinelli in particular or what’re things you think fans tend to overlook with her?

Aw, this is such a nice ask! Yeah, I'm recently returned to Tumblr after a long hiatus, but I've been a Batfam-fan for a verrrry long time. I've loved seeing your content---it makes me super happy to see others appreciating Helena Bertinelli. One disclaimer here I is grew up on the 90s/2000s comics and stopped reading after Flashpoint erased/retconned/de-aged/reworked-past-all-recognizability several of my favorite characters, chiefly Huntress and the Birds of Prey---while I've watched from afar the last decade-plus of stories, and have enjoyed a lot of Batfam fanfic set post-Flashpoint, my Helena is solidly pre-2011 Helena.

I had to give this some thought because I have too many reasons to love Helena. But I think the biggest thing that is overlooked about her is her astounding loyalty. Gonna link panels where I could find them easily because this became a bit of a manifesto as I was drafting it. Whoops.

Helena's loyalty to Gotham isn’t something she ever really articulates in words but it is there in all her actions. Both in her civilian life (Why else be a public school teacher? Why not any other kind of work? Why not just live on her inheritance?) and as a vigilante. Gotham is not good to Helena---personally and professionally, it repeatedly shows her the worst humanity has to offer (up to and including cannibals, not joking). But she continues to fight for it well beyond that of someone whose only loyalty is to themselves.

Leading up to the Quake and NML, Helena, who's been told several times at this point that she will not be getting an engraved invitation to the Batcave, is asked to assist in several major Batfam events. And she does! Every time! She might lampshade that very fact, but she never sits out when her help is needed. If she were only about her own agenda, she wouldn't respond as such. (Is this partly a product of the writers not knowing what to really do with her? Probably, but the effect is that for being a so-called loner with an all-consuming vendetta, she sure does help out a lot. And that's leaving aside all her multi-issue team-ups with Robin or her stint on the JLA....)

Fast forward to NML. 1) She stays in Gotham. Despite the perpetuated narrative that she’s a vigilante for vengeance (Babs’ narration harps on this in particular), the mafia has fled the city; there’s no personal gain for her in staying. But she does. (Without Barbara or Bruce's resources, I can't help but add.) 2) She becomes The Bat. For all the talk about how she wants Batman’s approval, he's not around to approve when she dons the cowl. She's not doing it for him. When she says, "he'll have to accept me," it's not that that's the goal, it's that she knows she's a worthy crimefighter and unquestionably committed to Gotham—Bats can’t gaslight her about that after this. She's verbalizing what no one is willing to ever admit (because NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT, even after she and Babs finally become friends), that she saw the city’s need and met it. Not what Helena needed, what Gotham needed. 3) She holds her ground when shit hits the fan. For all the talk that she "goes rogue" after her humiliating unmasking (and a frankly unhinged guilt-trip from Batman for not being able to do the impossible), she spends most of her time with the Strongmen reigning in Petit, not abetting his increasing insanity or abandoning his sector to his destructiveness, at the risk of her own life. (That this is exactly what Batman wanted her there to do...implying trust in her choices....GAH). And then of course her one-woman stand against the Joker and his goons, which speaks for itself.

Fast forward again to post-Cry for Blood (where Helena has again been mistrusted and left to fend for herself). We don't see much of Huntress for a while, but when she's back, I love that Helena can resent Batman with every fiber of her being but it never stops her from showing up: zero hesitation to come to Bruce’s rescue in Hush, when there's been no reconciliation between them. Bruce even acknowledges the enormity of that. She later throws herself out a freaking skycraper WINDOW when Checkmate tries to blackmail her into joining them and by extension sell out Batman. She says on panel this is something she would never do.

And of course it's not just Batman she shows up for. Within minutes of meeting Robin in Cry of the Huntress, she protects Tim from his own worst impulses; by their next team up, they're bantering about who owes who a rescue. When Babs calls Helena to ask her to rescue Black Canary in BoP, she goes, questioning only why Oracle is deciding to trust her with the mission, not the going or who it's for. And it's not just people she admires or likes! When she gets Oracle's distress call a few issues later---Oracle, who has held and expressed a grudge against Helena as much if not more than Batman has---Helena goes, immediately. Helena also subs for Arsenal (whom she barely knows, as they've never worked together) on the Outsiders for several months after he’s critically injured, even though it means dealing with an absurdly pissy Nightwing about it.

Her loyalty, despite all the horrors she's witnessed, despite the repeated ostracization, double standards, and lack of faith in her heart and her abilities, should nuance even her most cartoonish characterizations (looking at you, late 90s Chuck Dixon) and how we interpret her in-universe critics (particularly folks like Bruce and Babs).

Don't get me wrong. Helena is deeply flawed and I love that she's a character who grows and matures with many steps backward along the way. She's messy and complicated and I don't always love or understand her choices. But she also shows the hell up.

#helena bertinelli #huntress #i will never shut up about her #thank you for giving me an excuse to wax poetically about my fave #there are other smaller things I love about huntress that I think get overlooked but this is the hill I'll die on for her

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twst-hottest-takes · 5 months ago

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Am I the only one that thinks the character names in TWST aren't the greatest, and some of them outright suck? While some are perfectly fine like Azul, Rook and Malleus' full names to name a few, but some of the others...?

Why is there a character named "Deuce"? That seems too "on the nose" for a card suit character.

Leona sounds more like a nickname. It's not regal enough to suit a prince. While I know Leona's surname is some sort of pun that only makes sense in Japanese, Leona should have a Swahili last name. One, because it has always been tradition to use Swahili names for the characters in any The Lion King properties. Two, he's a fucking prince of an East African-coded nation, wouldn't he logically have a Swahili surname?

Ruggie isn't a real name. It sounds like a nickname, but it isn't, so it's fucking bizarre.

"Viper" seems more like a name that was forced onto Jamil's family by the Asims to sound deeming. It sounds fake. Wouldn't his real surname be something else?

Vil means "vile" or "horrible" in Portuguese and other languages. Who the fuck in their right mind would name their own child that? Wouldn't that more likely be a nickname, and his actual one be something else? It seems very out of character for Eric to give him such a name. While I heard it could be a spelling of "Ville", I still don't buy it. Because if that was the case, why not spell it like that? I think it's more likely that she was making an ill thought out pun with it. (Vil, villain? Get it?)

The explanation for Kalim's surname is hilariously inaccurate in both versions and genuinely makes it sound like he knows nothing about his own culture. (TLDR, it should be "ibn al-Asim" if we're going off of the canon explanation)

Why isn't Lilia spelt like "Lillia"?

Fellow Honest sounds awkward. Shouldn't it be Honest Fellow? Even that sounds like a stage name than his actual one!

Rollo seems stupid and lazy. It's just one letter off from the character he's based on. Plus, it's the name of a popular chocolate bar brand in a lot of countries, so why call him that

These aren't even half of my complaints in regards to this!

Granted, I'm knocking her too much for this. It's pretty common for Japanese content creators to have a hard time coming up with "western" names for characters like it's hard for some western writers to do the reverse. While, sure, she seems to enjoy making "punny" names, some of them work while others don't. I'm giving some leeway, since this is a fantasy story where people tend to make names up. But it's something I really stuck out to me over time with this game.

I think it's time to talk about what we would consider to be "good" naming conventions.

Also I'll defend the card soldiers' names to my dying breath. I like playing cards and I like how on the nose it is. (Literally, Ace of Hearts, Two of Spades, Three of Clubs, Four of Diamonds. . .lol, how do all these guys end up in school at the same time, and do they get made fun of for it?)

You're right that this is actually a pretty common thing to do when it comes to making up "foreign" names, so I don't know what you would expect from a game like this. As much as I think "Jack Howl" is a Monster High level name for a wolf-man, I don't know how you're supposed to improve on that when the idea is pretty clearly "describe the characters with their name" is idea here. They do it with Japanese characters too in a lot of Shonen series.

In the end my expectations are on the floor when it comes to Japan naming foreign characters, so I guess it just doesn't bother me as much. But here's an idea:

Reblog or comment whose name you would change, what you would change it to and why. Let's try to keep it positive though.

Thank you for your take.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst hot takes #hot take #twst hot take #ask response #twst jack #twst vil #twst leona #twst names #naming conventions #twst world building #world building #twst deuce #twst kalim #twst ruggie #twst jamil #twst rollo

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coraniaid · 11 months ago

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I don't know if someone asked this already but: AU where the final big bad of Buffy was the Council of Watchers. Or AU where Buffy *does* take Anya's advice on charging money, or a job in some way that's related to her slaying.

Oh, the Council as the Big Bads of Season 7 is kind of fun.

Trying to make this as different from my other S7 AU as possible, let's lean harder into the idea that no Slayer was called after Buffy died in The Gift. The Council know that Buffy died stopping Glory and (especially after what went down in Checkpoint) they're pretty pleased about it. No more Hell God and no more trouble-making, too-old Slayer. Win-win, right? Only ... they wait and wait all summer and no new Slayer is called to replace her, and then they learn Buffy is, somehow, alive again. How does she keep doing it? They decide that they're sick and tired of waiting for a new Slayer they can control and this time they're going to make sure they get one.

We start with the Council trying belatedly to patch things up with Faith. They start talking about getting her convinctions overturned and how she could be doing much more good out in the world, but she figures out pretty quickly that they're trying to get her to replace Buffy and tells them to get lost. So the Council decide it's time for Plan B. We cut to Ethan Rayne, somewhere in a military prison in Nevada. "Good news," his guard tells him. "You're getting extradited back to England. You can thank your new lawyer for that." Ethan is confused. What new lawyer? In walks Quentin Travers... As the season continues, Buffy still has nightmares like the ones we see her have in canon, but this time the girls she's dreaming about being killed aren't just Potentials. They seem to have full Slayer powers, though not much training or experience. Otherwise the first few episode of the season go mostly as in canon (except no First). Meanwhile Buffy herself [and also Faith, we later learn] starts to have moments where her powers start to fail her, just like back in Season 3's Helpless. In one of Buffy's dreams, the girl whose life she's experiencing is in the middle of a fight with some vampires when her own powers also fail her.

As Buffy and her friends soon work out what's going on. Somebody [spoiler: it's Ethan] is using magic to temporarily drain them of their powers and hand it to over to other Potentials. Only those Potentials aren't ready for it, the power transfer isn't stable, and the people don't seem to care that the new temporary Slayers keep dying. They track Ethan down (for handwaving reasons he has to be close to Buffy to do the spell), she recognizes some of the props he's using [the same crystals from Helpless, let's say] and correctly guesses that the Council are involved. While confessing, Ethan lets slip something about the Council being happy to keep doing this until "one of you" gets killed, and realizes that Faith is in danger. We cut to a version of Faith's introductory scene from Salvage: Faith's working out when she's attacked by another inmate. At first she effortlessly disarms her, but then suddenly her powers begin to short out. The other woman suddenly has the upper hand, but Faith is rescued at the last minute by Buffy herself, who has managed to break into the prison [possibly using that super jump from The Harvest the writers later forgot all about] to save her.

Buffy breaks Faith out of prison and they head back to Sunnydale. Lots of similar-to-canon vibes here [Buffy being very weird about Faith being back while blaming Faith for 'weird mixed signals', plus Faith being just as weird about the fact that Buffy once again chose to save her life]. For their part, the Council seem to have moved on to plan C: trying to get Faith and Buffy killed as quickly as possible. They use a mixture of their own agents and freelance assassins for this [maybe we can bring back the Order of Taraka too?]. Meanwhile Giles is in England and we learn that there's a growing split in the Council between Travers' faction and a group of people who aren't quite so willing to go along with all this dark magic stuff [can namecheck Gwendolyn Post here, maybe]. Ethan admits that he was just hired to demonstrate that the concept worked, and that Travers is working on a spell that will let him give and take away Slayer powers from any Potential he wants. He's already had dozens of Watchers send their Potentials to England for evaluation [and this is how we can meet Kennedy and any other Potentials we want to include].

Back in Sunnydale, the gang are brainstorming their next move when they get word from Giles that the anti-Travers faction have managed to kick him out and are inviting Buffy to England for (essentially) peace talks. Faith loudly insists that this a trap but when Buffy insists on going anyway because it will give them a chance to find Travers spell preparations and destroy them (and gives a big speech about how they have to do this, not just for their own sake, but for every Slayer who will be called after them). They go, and while it's not a deliberate trap -- and Buffy finally gets to meet the Potentials in person -- Travers does launch a final attempted coup; having his allies attack the Council headquarters to get rid of both Slayers and the rebel faction that tried to oust him.

The situation looks pretty bleak at first, as the anti-Travers faction of Council don't have much in the way of loyal fighters (all the hardline types like Weatherby have defected) and Travers has pulled together a small army of various minor villains from the history of the show. But Buffy and the others find Travers' ritual prepartions in a hidden part of his offices [maybe throw in something from Faith explicitly comparing Travers and the Mayor here?] and Willow is able to modify the ritual to cast a version of the spell she casts in canon in Chosen, activating all the Potentials who are then able to use their new strength to defeat Travers' allies. Standing in the badly damaged ruined headquarters of the Council building, Buffy tells the Council (including Giles) that they're not going back to the old way of doing things -- that the problem wasn't just Travers, but the whole institution he represented -- and this is the end of the Council giving orders. It wasn't just the Potentials in this battle that Willow's spell activated, but all of them. Then we segue into [a version of] the final moments of Chosen; Buffy and Faith standing where the Council used to meet and looking out over all the new Slayers. Dawn asks Buffy what she's going to do next, now she's not "the one and only Chosen anymore" and Buffy slowly smiles.

#btvs #asks #thanks for the ask

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