#at you a general idea of what the setting is like

[retrosabers]

𝐰𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐝.

FICMAS DAY 5 - UNWRAPPING

A RETROSABERS X PANDAPETALS DOUBLE FEATURE

old man logan x fem!reader

summary: logan didn’t believe in exchanging christmas presents. so, you offer him something you know he can’t refuse. a night where’s he’s free to have you all to himself.

contains: 18+ content below the cut. MINORS DNI. making out, some dry humping if you squint, oral (fem receiving), implied age gap, a dash of angst, swearing

word count: 2.6k

a/n: you thought i’d let a whole season pass without a little taste of some festive smut? absolutely hilarious. this is my first time writing for old man logan, and i think i did pretty alright considering i have yet to watch the movie (i’m terrified of the pain it will bring)

any feedback is always greatly appreciated!

also, don’t be confused by the fact that this says day 5 when i still haven’t posted day 4, i’m writing these bad boys out of order

and finally, a huge shoutout & thanks to the wildly talented @pandapetals for agreeing to do a little collaboration! please go check out her blog and all of her amazing work! <3

FIND HER PART HERE

!! divider by @estrelinha-s !!

FICMAS MASTERLIST

“are you sure your eyes are closed?”

logan grunts. “they’re closed, darlin’. promise.”

he’s been sitting here for almost fifteen minutes now, waiting for you to bring out this so-called “surprise.” from the ambient lighting and freshly washed bed sheets, the man thinks he’s got a general idea of what it is, but you’ve been fiddling in the bathroom too long for him to be certain.

still, he appeases you, and waits patiently at the foot of your bed. even if it’s a little bit uncomfortable on his knees.

meanwhile you’re fussing over every little detail of your appearance in the groggy bathroom mirror.

this was your solution to getting around logan’s “i don’t need anything for christmas” rule. you always begrudgingly abided by it, save for the box of cigars that always mysteriously turnt up in his nightstand on christmas eve. you knew he could never turn it down, no matter how much he tried.

logan could never say no to a smoke break with a nice pack of cubans. and he most certainly couldn’t say no to you.

that's how you decided upon this whole scheme. dolling yourself up and donning a new set of lingerie themed to the occasion, knowing logan had no leg to stand on. because technically, you didn’t buy anything for him. you bought this for you. he just so happened to be the person who was going to help take it off.

or rip it off, knowing your man’s track record of impatience and eagerness.

you share the exact same sentiment, though your tendency to be anile overpowers all else. you know it doesn’t matter if you have a hair or two out of place, or if your lips are slightly over lined. perfection never mattered to logan, but it still didn’t stop you from doing everything in your power to be pretty damn close to it tonight.

even if it meant making him wait a few extra minutes.

you pay your reflection one final glance before sauntering out into the bedroom.

he smells you before he hears you.

your scent wafting into the room captures his attention more than anything else. logan’s senses may not be as keen as they once were, but the fragrance of you was something utterly unmistakable. a sweet yet sultry aroma that he ached to have on his skin, his clothes, anywhere, to keep him grounded. to remind himself that you were real and you were his. it only adds to the anticipation building inside, the mere seconds he has to wait dragging on like hours in his mind.

a wave of lust overtakes you as logan comes into view. somehow just the sight of him is enough to send a bout of arousal down to your core.

that crisp white dress shirt he always wears is unbuttoned at the top, sleeves rolled up to reveal those chiseled forearms you love to have wrapped around you. the soft glow of the lamp on the bedside table illuminates the weathered curves of his face so beautifully. a contrast to the ruggedness of his position; legs lazily spread wide and long, thick fingers tapping mindlessly against his thigh.

the picture of a real man. and he’s all yours for the taking.

the sound of your footsteps padding against the floor grows louder. obediently, logan’s eyes stay shut, despite the fact that the other aroma you carry is hot and heavy in his nostrils. his upper lip twitches with a knowing smirk.

so this is exactly what he had in mind.

on instinct, his thighs spread even further when he senses your approach, hands itching to find their place on you somehow. when your own stay glued to your sides, he takes that as his cue to do the same.

logan really hates to admit it, but there’s something about this little bit of mystery that’s got him going before you’ve even begun.

“you ready?” your voice comes out breathy, and if logan didn’t know any better he’d think you’re nervous. and truth be told, you were. not that logan wouldn’t get his kicks, you were certain of that. more so that you’d be unable to walk come tomorrow morning.

though neither of you would consider it a bad thing

“yes ma’am,” he grumbles in response, knowing exactly the effect it has on you. the cockiness on his face is inevitable when he hears your breath hitch.

tease. if that’s how he wants to play, you’re in for a long night.

with a quiet sigh, you splay your fingers over the expanse of his broad shoulders. the man takes it as permission, calloused palms wrapping around your calves and not daring to travel any further. he knows he’ll lose any remaining self control if he gets so much as an inch closer to the apex of your thighs.

“okay.” you murmur. “you can open your eyes.”

slowly, those dark irises begin to drink you in. his grip on you tightens as soon as he gets the whole picture, a visible tent forming in his dress slacks almost immediately.

logan thought you were the most beautiful women he’s ever seen under any conditions. didn’t matter if you were sick, if you were bare faced, none of that changed how otherworldly you looked in his eyes. but nothing, and i mean nothing, compared to the sight of you before him right now.

you look like something out of a dream. hair styled in a way that drives him particularly crazy, makeup done to highlight your features so elegantly in the dim light. the best, and quite possibly logan’s favorite part, however, is that your lips are painted a shade of red to perfectly match the ensemble adorning your body. it sparks a slideshow of rather lewd images in his brain, wanting the color scattered across his cheek, his chest, his cock. anywhere you’re willing to brand him.

he’s committed every inch of you to memory by now. countless nights of exploring, mapping out your curves with hand and tongue. and still, everytime he sees you like this, practically offering yourself on a silver platter, he can’t help but stare back as though this is the very first time.

especially when that crimson silk is accentuating your figure so nicely.

“do you like it?” you ask coyly, bottom lip tucked between your teeth like you’re not fully aware of the power you have over him.

logan scoffs out a laugh, dragging his hands higher and higher until they tug at your hips, pulling you to straddle his lap in one swift motion. you squeak at the sudden display of strength, forgetting that despite his age, he was still infinitely stronger than any man you’ve ever met.

even beneath the layers of fabric between you, the sheer size of him was impossible to ignore. fuck, and he wasn’t even fully hard. you bite back a moan at the outline of his length pressed between your legs.

“that answer your question?” he quips back lowly, smirking smugly.

you hum in content, pressing your hands further into his shoulders as you experimentally grind your hips. the pair of you preen at the contact, desperate for any form of relief after being pent up and waiting.

“careful,” logan grits out in warning. “gonna cum in my pants like a fuckin’ teenager if you keep that up.”

you tsk in response, cocking your head with faux concern. “can’t have that, now can we?”

logan shakes his head at your antics, eyes wandering back over your body once more. before tonight, his favorite set of lingerie you owned was a black lacy number. simple and classic. but the more time he spends inspecting what’s currently adorning your frame, the more he thinks that red might be his new favorite color.

something warm spills over him when he glances at your chest again. something different than what he normally experiences every time he catches a glimpse of your cleavage, anyways.

“is that a bow?” he questions, a little bit amused.

you let out a soft giggle, nodding in reply.

“wanted you to be able to unwrap your present.”

you can count the amount of times logan has laughed, really truly laughed, on one hand. and as much as it sounds like music to your ears, you’re rather confused as to why he’s laughing right now.

“what’s so funny?” you huff, brows knit together and bottom lip jutted in a near pout.

logan averts your inquiry, burying his face in your neck so you can’t see him grinning like an idiot. instead, he busies himself with dragging his lips up and down the column of your throat, reveling in the breathy moans spilling from your lips with each and every press against your skin.

from the moment you met logan howlett, you fantasized about that salt and pepper beard. longed to feel the delicious sting of scruff against every part of you. as addicting as it is, the sensation isn’t enough to keep you completely distracted.

“logan,” you whine, titling your head back to grant him more access. “m’serious.”

he doesn’t halt his ministrations, too consumed with making sure your neck is painted every shade of lavender under the sun. he only stops when you rake your fingers in his hair and physically pull him off, much to both your dismays.

you give him a look. that pursed lips, narrow eyed “what aren’t you saying to me” look that signals he’s going to have to fess up to whatever’s on his mind, or else the evening would be coming to an end right here and now. from the way he’s about to burst through the zipper on his dress slacks, you know he’s not considering weighing options.

logan sighs heavily. if you didn’t know all the variations of the sound, you’d think he was upset with you. but that was far from how the older man felt. he begins to examine your face, observing everything from the slopes of your bone structure, to the color of your irises. he studies your features like an artisan in a gallery, content on not missing a single detail.

after a moment, the corners of his mouth turn up a hair. eyes almost dopey; filled with a lovesickness he never thought could be possible.

“you’re somethin’ else, y’know that?” he murmurs into the air, rough fingertips tracing back and forth across your spine.

you speak the language of logan fluently, knowing exactly what the underlying message of his words were. in reality, he was saying, “what did i do in this life to deserve you? will you ever know how much i love you? i hope you’ll be mine for as long as you’ll have me.”

suddenly his round of laughter from before rings brighter in your ears.

instead of saying another word, you guide his face to yours, connecting your lips in a silent understanding.

logan always kisses you like a man starved, devouring you whole as though every kiss may be the last. there was nothing tame, or tender about the man they once called the wolverine, but you managed to slip between the cracks of his stony disposition, and bring forth all the parts of himself he swore he lost decades ago.

your hands encircle around the back of his neck, logan’s squeezing at the flesh of your hips. he pulls you impossibly closer, pressing the swell of your chest against his own. the feeling of your nipples pebbling through velvet fabric reminds him of the true nature of your current situation.

tonight was for him. his pleasure, his enjoyment. he knew you’d be heavily dissatisfied if he didn’t indulge in what you were offering.

and what kind of man would logan be, if he disappointed his sweet girl?

you’re not expecting him to be so gentle when he turns and flips you over, mouth never once leaving yours. a large hand spread across your back as he lowers you down onto the mattress with a care reserved for you and only you. a fact that adds to your current state of arousal. your legs open like second nature, and logan slots himself between them as though that’s where he was always meant to be.

the whine that leaves you when he pulls away would be embarrassing if it weren’t for the hunger in his stare. those normally hazel pupils now a brownish black that overshadowed bright white. he sits back on his haunches, glazing over your pretty little lingerie with a newfound appreciation.

he reaches to toy with the end of the bow tied snugly between your breasts, a teasing invitation that he graciously accepts.

at a tantalizing pace, he begins to unwrap his present, watching with lustful eyes as more and more skin becomes exposed. you arch your back the slightest bit to get the job done faster, the shoe of impatience now snug on your foot instead of his.

normally, logan would scold, spit something about “being a good girl and waiting.” but he’s just as riled up and eager as you are, and he gives the velvet one final tug that has your breasts springing free.

god you were absolute perfection.

he can’t resist running a thumb over your erect nipples, reveling in the way you squirm over such a small touch. your color coated lips swollen and shiny from his kisses. body already relaxed and pliant, willing to do whatever he so pleases.

a few minutes ago, he would’ve torn your outfit off without second thought and shown no mercy. let the shitty week he was having take control, guide him through the motions of achieving pleasure. but something inside logan urges him to be a little sentimental; take his sweet time on the off chance that he wakes up and discovers this was all a dream.

so he decides that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

the path down to your core was a familiar one, a route he knew like the back of his hand. sloppy, wet kisses trail down your stomach, a small crack in logan’s otherwise composed exterior. by the time he reaches the hem of your panties, tongue teasing beneath the waistband, you’re bursting at the seams with desire, unable to stop yourself from whimpering and bucking your hips upward.

“i gotcha honey,” he whispers against the inside of your thigh, rubbing soft circles with his thumb. “m’gonna take real good care of ya.”

logan knew you were soaked the second you walked into the room. didn’t need to see or feel it to know. still, he indulges his ego and stares proudly at the dark patch in the center of your underwear. knowing it was all his doing, that he was the only one who could get you like this.

when he pulls the fabric to the side and is met with your glistening folds, he can’t help the groan that rumbles in his chest.

“merry fuckin’ christmas to me,” he all but growls before diving right in.

it’s in moments like these where he wishes that photographic memory was his mutation, though he doubts he’ll ever forget this. his perfect girl, laid out so delicately beneath him, basking in the pale moonlight that seeped in between the curtains. his own personal utopia, paradise within the four walls of this rickety building you called home.

logan wonders if maybe he’s finally succumbed to the poison in his bones. because this sure does feel like heaven.

at the very least, it most definitely feels like christmas.

because having the privilege of watching you come undone was the gift that kept on giving all year round.

thanks for reading! <3

taglist: @alastor-simp @j4desblurbs @pandapetals @hextech-bros

!! if you would like to be tagged in the rest of the ficmas blurbs, please send me an inbox message or leave a comment !!

[deepdreamnights]

A shorter sum-up that may correct some of the inevitable misunderstandings from the rather loose use of the term "scrape."

A guy making low-rent audiobooks downloaded a huge chunk of AO3 content for his robots to read, in the precise same way creepypasta youtubers have been operating for years.

That's it, that's the whole deal.

Generally in AI conversations it means to harvest and process training data. Whereas here it's being used in the older, pre-AI term, of grabbing a bunch of data from an un-or-under-protected website via bot.

Which yeah, it's scummy, but it's analogue scummy, and well in keeping with a number of common copyright misconceptions. I can't tell you how many idiots I've met that thought fanworks had no IP protections because they were violations of the corporate owners' IP.

But this?

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation.

That's not how any of this works.

The OP is acting as though this is all being done through a single, automated system, and it isn't. Even the idea that this is Weitzman's AI is silly, as he's likely using off the shelf services. This scam is too petty to justify the cost of anything custom in either time or cash.

Here's what's actually going down, in all likelihood, on the pirate's side of things:

He figured out the most popular works via simple metrics and got a bog-standard website downloader go to work on it or he spent a night right-clicking.

The resulting files for the fics were loaded into word or some similar program and a macro was used to automatically fix formatting for the autoreader.

He ran each fic through an autoreader, and posted those like any other .mp3 file.

Meanwhile, he gave Chat GPT the story link and said "Summarize this and give me a cover prompt"

He takes the cover prompts and runs them in Midjourney with some standard formatting cues.

Now, what isn't happening at any stage in this process is processing the work into a dataset.

Generative AI systems do not continually harvest and incorporation information given to them by end users.

This is outside of their capabilities with a few specific exceptions ( Some AI services log user interaction for later processing into a training dataset, but that is a separate process, and Chat-GPT has features to webcrawl specific sources of "Trustworthy information" but in those cases its functioning as a search engine.) But incorporating data into the training dataset requires crunching the whole set of weights.

Even if one developed a generative AI system that could actively harvest and learn information, you wouldn't want to let it. Unfiltered junk data degrades dataset quality very quickly and is an open invitation to disruptive overfitting through users being generally repetitive. It's okay for more than half your users to generate pictures of dogs or cats playing in the clouds, but you don't want that to be half your dataset.

The situation being, the disagreeable aspects of this scenario are all forms of analogue jackassery, people have been swiping fiction off the net and turning it into shitty autoreader autobooks for long before generative AI came around.

The only difference here is the quality of the robot voice and the thumbnail art.

And as to worries about AO3's stories being scraped for AI training, well, AO3 is part of the generally indexed internet-

-the chicken is already in the nugget. ChatGPT gobbled it up ages ago, and Google and Bing had done so before that as part of their search indexing.

Now, every AO3 author who is upset is well within their rights to be so. Their work was pirated in a non-transformative way, and this guy's mistake was setting up with completed ebooks rather than hawking a "I will autoread any webpage" app.

But there is a certain irony to the real panic being that the work might have been turned into a dataset for the creation of new works when that panic comes from fanwork creators. If dataset training is theft then so are fanworks.

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

[directdogman]

Dialtown is the most USA-core game I've ever played. It's so fucking American that it's scary, and I've lived there my entire life! Like, this feels fundamentally tied with the game's themes and narrative, that's how extreme it is. And it's not even alienating OR nationalist?? It makes such genuine commentary? And then there's so much other shit to think about too; Dialtown has a very real identity outside this that anyone could love?

One: I am VERY impressed that you have done the USA and its people this well. I am actually astounded, bewildered, and chuffed. I've never felt so seen by a video game, culturally-speaking. I didn't even know there was a culture to see.

Two: WHY did you do that. Dialtown is like USA Culture Absurdified: The Visual Novel. What drove you to make a game this rich with American culture and ideas???

Hello!

It would've been odd for an outsider (non American) who enjoys reading up on history to make my setting nationalist or alienating. America is a country with a lot of serious issues. You can't really study how America is (and has been) internally run without facing glaring and obvious systematic issues. DT's setting is one of scarcity and most of the main characters you follow in DT are kinda just scraping by without much hope for true mobility/advancement. A lot of Americans (especially younger generations) would agree this sorta encapsulates the national mood of the country right now.

Of course, the systems that run a country don't define its citizens - many of the finest people I've ever known are American and are victims of the whims of those with power, not willing participants in this system. I could be wrong, but that's why I think the setting connected with a lot of people. We all know Randys, Olivers + Karens, people who've fallen through the cracks in some way. To them, America's spirit of self-determination isn't about individual identity - it's more "you're on your own."

Why I chose to set DT in America would be a novel length answer in of itself, but it mainly came down to history + narrative opportunity. I wanted to set the game in the epicenter of where the phone-revolution came from and Crown likely couldn't have pulled his plan off anywhere else and probably not during any other time. It had to be 1960's America.

Of course, some parts of DT are sorta universal and were inspired by the the Great Recession and what followed. I remember there was an area not that far from my house that was full of green fields when I was born and when I was a kid (and when real estate boomed), stuff started being built there. Parts of it looked really nice, not quite like anything nearby. Like the future was coming. Then the economy crashed and stuff was left sitting there, half-built for like a decade. Skeletal, unfinished buildings. DT is much the same.

There's a feeling that the city could've been something better and while things could be more equal, it does feel like there are no easy solutions to fix everything - unless someone very smart and determined somehow bypassed every safeguard that was set up to halt radical change and enacted a genius plan to somehow eliminate scarcity. It happened once and might never again.

I don't think most people understand the intricacies of stuff like global commerce all that well (myself included), but when you're sitting looking at a half built neighbourhood mere hours after speaking to a friend who just kicked out of rented accommodation and doesn't have a stable family unit to fall back on, you'd have to be a real dolt not to understand that things aren't great right now. Most people are scraping by and feel if they could just get affordable housing locked down, if they had maybe one good opportunity - maybe there's hope that things could change for the better.

The end of DT isn't really utopian, things don't massively change for the better and indeed, the town has a lot of rebuilding to do. But, a collection of lonely people are now looking out for each other and through the relationships they have, now feel like they have a place in this world. That no matter how bad things really get - they aren't truly by themselves anymore. Most individuals don't have the means to significantly advance change on their own - but you can live your life, love those around you and support others and plan for when the opportunity to affect change comes about.

I guess that's what life is, in America or anywhere else. Sorry I rambled for so long. Hope this answered the question!

[mmkclarkey]

We have a spare room- Part 3

When all goes wrong, moving in with three guys will solve it?

It had been three months since you moved in with three random men, all of which having their own weird affect on you. Chris had quickly become the person you went to when you wanted to talk about Taylor swift or Chappell Roan or anything of the sort, he loved the fact that you didn’t judge him for his feminine side. And you loved the fact that he allowed you to rant about anything to him, always giving the best rants back.

This however meant that you had to judge him for something else, now if there’s one thing you learnt about Chris, it’s that he’ll test his luck, he had the tendency to be a dick to his friends. Arthurtv told you about that one time in school when Chris told the girl Arthur liked that they were in a gay relationship, much to the girl’s dismay.

The way to combat this you may ask? Chris does something wrong, he has to put £1 in the jar, they stole the idea, some show called new girl apparently?

Besides Chris, Arthur was the best person to go to if you wanted something interesting, he had this amazing ability to be able to make you laugh at the most random times. Like the time last week where you were all arguing over the shared bathroom, having the biggest shower you tended to argue over who was going to use it when you go out. Arthur fully started to strip off naked, making you all leave as he shouted that he’d flash you all if you didn’t let him use the shower. In the end, you George and Chris sat on the floor outside the bathroom laughing for nearly an hour.

And then there’s George. George was the classic, blast music and go to parties and drink kind of guy. Somehow you found yourself roped into going to yet another influencer party at least once a week, however, you can’t exactly say that you didn’t like it. Aswell as this, he was absolutely amazing at giving advice, about anything, you had problems with filming? George knew what to do. you had no idea what to wear? he did. It was shocking how good the man was at just daily advice, it made you really appreciate the fact that you have him as a friend now.

~

You had uploaded a video three days ago where you were playing a horror game on Roblox, which you didn’t see an issue with and as usual got the views you were used to. But today? Today it peaked, around 9000 more people liked it in just the one day.

Then came the comments. and that’s where you realised your mistake. At one point you scream particularly loud and George (being the only other person in the flat at the time) shouts in from his room asking if everything was okay, to which you laugh and shout through that you are making a video and you’re okay. And this would be absolutely no issue if it wasn’t for the fact that your editor left it in, and your viewers, and just people people in general, did not know that you had moved out of your old flat let alone moved in with another man.

This caused a shocking amount of people to guess that you must have broken up with your boyfriend, and got with George almost straight away, and that’s why he’s in your house, concerned whether you’re okay. It didn’t take long for George to be knocking at your door, asking if you were decent so he could come in.

“I’m decent George, come in”

“So… I saw your comments” he says while sitting down on the bed, a bit of a red look on his face, clearly just back from being outside.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise my editor left it in, i’m making a tiktok literally in a minute to tell people that we aren’t together, it just means explaining why I’m here” you say back in an apologetic tone, aware of how overwhelming the fans can be sometimes.

“It’s fine, I promise, do you think we should get us all in the vid just to prove it a bit?” he asks with a curious tone.

You make the decision to do so, making everyone group together on the sofa as you set up your phone, pressing record.

“So… hey guys, i’m making a quick short video to address some things i guess? for reference, I made a video last week that was released three days ago, and in it, George here asked me if i was okay, which is lovely, but we aren’t just friends.”

Arthur giggles and says “We’re all just friends, she just wanted to hide from you guys that she moved out of her old place”

Chris chimes in “Yeah, so if anyone, preferably three girls and a guy want to come wife up this flat feel free”

“Chris shut the fuck up” All three of you say in response, yet all laughing too.

“So yeah, I moved in with Chris, George and Arthur and I guess that’s where I am now, hope this clears things up and I love you all”

I post the video and the comments come in immediately:

this quad is literally iconic

we all know why she moved in with three guys

chris is so Schmidt coded argue with the wall

i’m so glad to see you living your best life baby omg!!

they are such iconic friends we need more videos together

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N i am so incredibly sorry, i’ve been completely procrastinating this, i hope we like it!! also can we notice the fourth wall break xx

taglist: @loveheart-123 @ooostarwarsfandom501st @rougetv @le-le-lea @onlinesuzie @44-ilton @chilwellsancho @pretendyoucantseeme @theresglittleronthefloor @raekensluver @viagracex @neivivenaj @authortelevision

[prentissmultiverse]

Wrapped Up in You

Spending Christmas morning alone was never part of your plan, but neither was showing up at Emily Prentiss’s doorstep with a gift. Little did you know, Emily had a "gift" of her own to give.

tw: smut, age gap, power dynamics

words: 5155

The house was cold when Emily woke up. The central heating hummed faintly, but it always seemed to struggle against the chill of her old townhouse in the winter. She reached out to the other side of the bed instinctively, a habit she hadn’t been able to shake after years of sleeping alone. Empty. Always empty.

Emily sighed, running a hand over her face before sitting up. It was Christmas morning, but it felt like any other day. The quiet was oppressive, the kind that reminded her just how solitary her life had become outside of work. She loved her team—they were family—but Christmas mornings like this always reminded her of the stark contrast between the bustle of the BAU and the stillness of her own life.

She got up slowly, pulling on a thick sweater over her pajama top before shuffling to the kitchen. Coffee was her first priority, the smell filling the space and warming it in a way that the heating never could. As she poured herself a mug and leaned against the counter, her gaze drifted to the small Christmas tree in the corner of the living room. She’d decorated it half-heartedly a few weeks ago—ornaments, a few strings of lights—but it only served to amplify the sense of loneliness in the room.

Emily sighed again, taking a sip of her coffee and mentally preparing herself for the long day ahead. She slipped out of her pajamas and into slack pants and a comfortable silk blouse, but she had no plans, no calls to make. Just her and the quiet. She was about to retreat to the couch with yet another mug of coffee when a knock at the door startled her.

She froze for a moment, her brow furrowing in confusion. Who would be visiting her? Rossi, maybe? No, he had his family to celebrate with. Curious—and admittedly a little cautious—she set her coffee down and made her way to the door. Peeking through the peephole, her breath hitched.

It was you.

You were bundled up against the cold, holding a small, neatly wrapped gift in your hands. Your cheeks were flushed from the winter air, and you looked almost hesitant, like you weren’t sure if this had been a good idea after all. Emily’s chest tightened as she opened the door.

“Y/N?” she asked, her voice thick with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Your eyes lit up when you saw her, and that simple reaction made something in her chest ache. “Merry Christmas,” you said softly, shifting the gift in your hands. “I, um… I didn’t want you to spend the day alone. And I figured out that, well, I have no one to spend the day with as well… so yeah, that we could maybe spend it together?” You rambled.

Emily blinked, momentarily stunned. She had spent years building walls, learning how to be okay on her own. But here you were, standing on her doorstep with a shy smile and a gesture so kind it made her throat tighten. “Come in,” she said finally, stepping aside to let you in. “You must be freezing.”

You slipped past her, your coat brushing against her arm, and she closed the door behind you. The sudden warmth of the house seemed to relax you, and you unwrapped your scarf as you glanced around. “Your tree is cute,” you said, nodding toward the corner of the living room.

Emily huffed a small laugh, crossing her arms. “That’s generous of you. I haven’t had much time for decorating.”

You turned to her, holding out the gift with both hands. “This is for you.”

Her eyes flicked down to the box, and she hesitated before taking it. “You didn’t have to get me anything,” she said, her voice softer now.

“I wanted to,” you replied, your gaze earnest. “You deserve something nice.”

Emily swallowed hard, her thumb brushing over the edge of the wrapping paper. The sincerity in your voice caught her off guard, and for a moment, all she could do was stare at you. “Thank you,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.

You waved her off, looking down at your boots. “It’s no big deal.”

She smiled faintly and motioned toward the couch. “Come on, sit down. I’ll make us something warm to drink.”

You followed her into the living room, perching on the edge of the couch as she headed back to the kitchen. She busied herself making tea, the rhythmic clinking of mugs grounding her as she tried to process what was happening. It wasn’t often that people went out of their way for her, especially not someone like you. You were the youngest on the team, vibrant and full of life in a way that made her feel both protective of you and oddly envious.

When she returned, she handed you a steaming mug and sat beside you. The two of you fell into a comfortable silence, the warmth of the tea and the faint glow of the Christmas lights creating a rare moment of peace. After a while, Emily glanced at you, her curiosity finally getting the better of her.

“You don’t have family or a boyfriend to spend Christmas with?” she asked, her tone light but genuinely curious.

Your eyes flicked up to hers, and she saw something flicker there—something vulnerable, but not quite sad. “No family close by,” you said finally, setting your mug down on the coffee table. “And no girlfriend”, you corrected her lightly.

Her heart gave an involuntary leap at your words, though she quickly pushed the thought aside. “Well,” she said, her voice softer now, “I’m glad you’re here.”

You looked at her then, your doe eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her feel like the air had shifted. “Me too,” you said quietly.

For a moment, the only sound was the soft hum of the heater. Emily wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure how to navigate the emotions swirling in her chest. But she didn’t want to break the moment, didn’t want to pull away from the warmth you had brought into her home.

Emily sat back on the couch, her hands resting on the unopened gift in her lap. Her fingers brushed over the wrapping paper absently, as if hesitant to disturb it. You noticed her quiet reluctance and leaned forward slightly, smiling.

“You can open it, you know,” you said softly, nudging her with your knee.

Her dark eyes flicked up to meet yours, and a small smile tugged at her lips. “I guess I’m not used to getting presents,” she admitted, a bit sheepishly.

Your heart gave a little tug at that. “Well, you’d better get used to it,” you teased lightly, leaning back against the cushions.

Emily chuckled at that, her defenses lowering just a little. “Alright,” she said, carefully peeling the wrapping paper back, taking her time as though the gift was far too precious to rush.

When she opened the box, her breath caught audibly. Inside was a necklace you had chosen: a delicate gold chain with a small, elegant charm that glimmered softly in the light. Emily stared at it for a moment, her thumb brushing against the charm, before looking up at you.

“Y/N,” she murmured, her voice low and full of something you couldn’t quite place. “This is… it’s beautiful.”

You felt a flush creeping up your neck, but you kept your voice steady. “I noticed you always wear necklaces like that, and, well… it just reminded me of you. I thought you’d like it.”

Emily’s gaze softened; her usual stoic expression replaced with something gentler, more vulnerable. “I love it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you.”

You waved a hand dismissively, trying to brush off the praise even as warmth spread through your chest. “It’s no big deal, really. I just wanted to give you something nice.”

Emily shook her head, a small, almost wistful smile playing at her lips. “Oh, but I don’t have anything for you,” she said, her tone apologetic.

You waved her off again, laughing lightly. “I don’t need anything, Emily. I’m just happy to be here with you.”

For a moment, Emily didn’t say anything. She simply looked at you, her eyes searching yours as though trying to understand why you would go out of your way for her. Finally, she cleared her throat and held up the necklace. “Would you help me put it on?”

The question caught you off guard, but you nodded quickly. “Of course,” you said, taking the necklace from her as she turned around on the couch, her back to you.

You hesitated for a moment, your breath catching slightly as your eyes fell to her salt-and-pepper hair. Reaching out, you gently brushed her hair to the side, the soft strands slipping through your fingers as you exposed the nape of her neck. Her skin was warm, and you swore you felt a slight shiver run through her as your fingertips grazed her.

You fumbled slightly with the clasp, your nerves getting the better of you, but you managed to secure it after a moment. “There,” you said softly, letting your hands fall away from her as you smoothed her hair back into place.

Emily turned back to face you, her fingers instinctively brushing over the necklace as she smiled. “Thank you,” she said again, her voice thick with emotion.

Before you could reply, she reached out and took your hand in hers, her fingers warm and firm against yours. The gesture sent a jolt through you, and you froze, your gaze snapping to hers.

The air between you seemed to shift, crackling with an intensity that made your heart race. Emily’s grip on your hand was steady, her dark eyes searching yours with an almost unreadable expression. There was something there, something unspoken but undeniable, and it took everything in you not to look away.

“Y/N,” she began, her voice soft but certain, as though she was on the edge of saying something she couldn’t take back.

The tension hung heavy in the air, a palpable, electric charge that neither of you dared to break. Emily’s fingers brushed softly against yours, her dark eyes locked onto your face as though searching for permission, or perhaps reassurance.

She leaned in slowly, her dark eyes searching yours, hesitating for just a moment as though giving you the chance to stop her. But you didn’t. You couldn’t. The second her lips brushed yours, it was as if the world stopped spinning. Her kiss was soft at first, tentative, almost uncertain. But when you responded it was like something inside her shifted. The tentative softness gave way to something deeper, more assured.

Emily’s hand slid up to cup your cheek, her palm warm against your skin as her thumb brushed gently along your jawline. The contrast between her gentle touch and the intensity of her kiss sent a shiver through you. Her fingers threaded into your hair, tugging slightly to tilt your head. Her lips moved against yours with a quiet hunger, her dominance clear but never overbearing.

You melted into her completely, your hands instinctively finding her waist and clinging to her as though she were the only thing grounding you to the moment. The faint scent of her perfume filled your senses, mixing with the faint taste of coffee and nicotine on her lips. It was intoxicating. You couldn’t get enough.

When her tongue traced your bottom lip, asking for access, you didn’t hesitate. You opened to her, allowing her to take control as the kiss grew deeper, more desperate. She explored your mouth with a slow rhythm that left you breathless. Her dominance was palpable, the way her hand in your hair tightened just slightly, the way she leaned into you, pressing you back against the couch as though she wanted to consume you entirely.

There was an unspoken understanding in the kiss, a shared loneliness that neither of you wanted to name. Maybe that’s why you didn’t pull away, why you didn’t remind yourself of the things that made this complicated—the age gap, the power dynamics, the fact that she was your boss. None of that seemed to matter right now, not when her lips were on yours and her hands were grounding you in a way you hadn’t realized you needed.

When you finally pulled away, both of you were breathless, your foreheads pressed together as the weight of what had just happened began to settle over you. Your chest heaved, your lips tingling from the intensity of her kiss, and yet, your mind was a blur. Emily’s dark eyes searched yours, her gaze flickering with a storm of emotions—desire, vulnerability, and a touch of self-reproach.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. Despite her words, her hand stayed where it was, cradling your face like she couldn’t bring herself to let you go.

Her words made your stomach twist, a pang of fear slicing through the haze of warmth and intimacy. Your mouth opened to say something—anything—but your thoughts jumbled in the mess of emotions swirling inside you. “I—Emily, I…” you stammered, your cheeks burning as you tried to form a coherent response.

Before you could finish, her thumb brushed lightly across your bottom lip, silencing your attempt. Her eyes softened, the corners of her lips quirking upward in the faintest of smiles. “But I don’t regret it,” she said softly, her voice low and rich with meaning. “Not even for a second.”

Your breath hitched, and the words you’d been struggling to find seemed to evaporate entirely. You stared at her, wide-eyed and flustered, your heart pounding so hard you were sure she could hear it. “I… I don’t know what to say,” you admitted quietly, your voice trembling with the weight of the moment.

Emily let out a soft chuckle, the sound vibrating against the quiet of the room. “You don’t have to say anything,” she murmured, her hand cupping your face gently. “Let me...”

Before you could process her words, she leaned in again, capturing your lips in another kiss. This one was different—bolder, more certain. The hesitation from before was gone, replaced with a quiet confidence that only Emily seemed to possess. Her lips moved against yours, coaxing you into responding despite your overwhelmed state.

Your hands found their way to her shoulders, clutching at her blouse. Every nerve in your body seemed to hum with electricity as her hands slid down to your waist, pulling you closer until you were practically straddling her lap. The intimacy of the position made your cheeks burn, but you didn’t pull away. You couldn’t. Not when her kisses made you feel like you were floating, like nothing else mattered except the two of you in that moment.

She broke the kiss briefly, just long enough to whisper against your lips. “You’re trembling,” she said softly, her hands squeezing your waist gently, grounding you.

“I-I am not…” you started, only to falter when her lips brushed your jawline, trailing soft, featherlight kisses down to your neck. The sensation was enough to steal the air from your lungs, and you felt yourself melt further into her touch.

Emily chuckled softly at your obvious lie, the sound low and warm, vibrating against your skin. “Liar,” she teased gently, her breath hot against your throat as her lips lingered there. “I can feel it.”

You closed your eyes, overwhelmed by the way her words sent a ripple of warmth through you. Your hands clung to her blouse, desperate for an anchor as her lips continued their gentle exploration of your neck. She took her time, her movements unhurried, as though savoring the moment. It wasn’t just the physicality of her touch—it was the tenderness behind it, the care in the way her hands steadied you even as her kisses ignited a fire under your skin.

Minutes seemed to pass in a blur, the two of you losing yourselves in each other’s warmth. Emily’s hands moved with care but purpose, sliding under your sweater to trace the soft skin of your lower back. You shivered at the contact, your fingers instinctively tangling in her salt-and-pepper hair, holding her close as your lips moved together in a rhythm that felt natural and electric all at once.

But as the intensity built, you felt a shift—a need for more, for closeness beyond what the couch could offer. Emily must have sensed it too because she broke the kiss just enough to press her forehead against yours. Her breaths were uneven, her lips still brushing yours as she spoke. “Come with me,” her voice low and inviting.

Somehow, in the haze of kisses and soft touches, the two of you found yourselves moving. You weren’t entirely sure who led the way—Emily’s hands never left you, and your lips kept seeking hers, desperate to keep the connection alive. Her touch guided you, grounding you as the overwhelming emotions threatened to sweep you away.

The journey to her bedroom was a blur, your focus entirely on her—the way her lips moved against yours, the way her hands traced gentle patterns along your back and sides, steadying you yet igniting sparks everywhere they lingered. Between kisses, you stumbled slightly, letting out a soft laugh against her mouth when you nearly tripped over your own feet.

Emily chuckled in return, the sound rich and warm. “Careful,” she murmured, her arm wrapping securely around your waist to steady you. “Can’t have you injuring yourself now.”

“Sorry,” you breathed, though your grin betrayed your lack of concern. “You’re a little distracting.”

Her lips quirked into a smirk as she pressed another kiss to your temple. “Good,” she said simply, her voice low and teasing.

The doorway to her bedroom appeared before you, though you barely registered it, too lost in the haze of her touch and the way her presence filled every corner of your awareness. Emily nudged the door open with her foot, her hand slipping from your waist to brush against your cheek, guiding your gaze back to her.

You found yourself standing at the edge of the bed, your breath hitching as Emily pulled back just enough to look at you. Her dark eyes were full of unspoken words, a flicker of hesitation mingling with the undeniable heat. She brushed a strand of hair away from your face, her fingers lingering against your skin as though committing the moment to memory.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly, her voice barely above a whisper. There was a tenderness in her tone, a care that made your chest ache.

You nodded, though your voice caught in your throat. “I’m okay,” you managed, your hands gripping the sides of her blouse as though afraid to let go.

Her lips curved into a small smile, her thumb brushing gently along your jaw. “We don’t have to—”

“I want this,” you interrupted, surprising yourself with the certainty in your voice. “I want you.”

For a moment, she simply looked at you, her expression softening into something you couldn’t quite name. Then, without another word, she leaned in again, capturing your lips in a kiss that felt like a promise. She guided you onto the bed, her touch steady, cradling you as though you were something fragile and precious. The care in her movements made your chest ache in the most beautiful way, and you couldn’t help but surrender to her completely.

You gasped softly as her lips began to trail down your neck, the warmth of her breath sending shivers through you. Her hands were steady, sure, sliding beneath the hem of your sweater. She took her time, lifting the fabric inch by inch until it slipped over your head and was cast aside.

The layers between you fell away one by one, her touch gentle yet purposeful as she helped you out of each garment, stripping hers away in the process of it all. Her hands moved with a confidence that left no room for doubt, her fingertips grazing your skin in a way that made your breath hitch. Your shirt, your jeans, even your bra—each piece was removed with care, as though peeling back not just clothing but the walls you’d both held up for so long.

Her lips followed her hands, placing soft, lingering kisses along your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder, and the hollow at the base of your throat. Her hands, warm and sure, slid down your sides, pausing to rest at your hips as her lips ventured lower, setting your skin alight with every soft press.

By the time she finally pulled back, you were left bare beneath her, your chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Emily paused, her dark eyes meeting yours, and the intensity in her gaze stole whatever words you might have spoken. There was desire there, yes—but there was also something deeper, something raw and unspoken.

“You’re incredible,” she said softly, her voice thick with emotion as her thumb brushed over the curve of your hip. Her words, so simple yet so genuine, sent a warmth flooding through you, chasing away any lingering doubts.

Before you could respond, her lips found yours again, her kiss slow and deep, pulling you further into the warmth and safety of her presence. Her hands moved along your sides, steady and reverent, as if grounding you in a reality that was almost too overwhelming to grasp. The soft press of her bare body against yours sent heat flooding through you, leaving you breathless and trembling beneath her touch.

Emily kissed you with an intensity that made time seem irrelevant, her lips a perfect blend of softness and urgency. She shifted, her body pressing closer to yours, and you felt the heat of her skin against your own; the delicate golden necklace you’d given her catching the faint light as it rested against her bare collarbone. The sight of it—the only thing she still wore—made your chest ache with a mix of desire and tenderness.

She pulled back just enough to meet your gaze, her dark eyes searching yours. There was something in her expression—a rawness, a depth of emotion that left you unable to look away. Emily hovered over you, her body straddling yours with a mix of dominance and tenderness that made your heart race. Her eyes roamed over your bare form with an intensity that sent a shiver down your spine.

“This,” she murmured, her voice low and husky, “is my gift for you.”

Her lips found your jawline, soft and warm, leaving a trail of kisses that descended to the curve of your neck. She lingered there, her tongue flicking out to taste your skin before her lips continued their journey lower. Her mouth was gliding over your collarbone and down to the valley between your breasts. Her warm breath ghosted over your skin, her lips brushing the sensitive area with featherlight kisses that made you tremble beneath her.

One hand came up to gently cup your breast, her fingers splaying out to knead the soft flesh with care. Her mouth descended to the other, her lips placing a series of teasing kisses around your nipple before she finally took it into her mouth. The warmth of her tongue against the sensitive peak sent a gasp tumbling from your lips, your hands gripping the sheets beneath you as a wave of pleasure coursed through you.

Emily hummed softly against your skin, her free hand tracing gentle patterns along your side as she lavished attention on your breasts. She alternated between sucking gently and swirling her tongue over the hardened nub. When she switched to the other breast, her hand moved to replace her mouth, her fingers brushing lightly over the wet, sensitive skin she’d just left. Her lips and tongue began the same reverent exploration of your other breast, her gaze flicking up occasionally to watch your face, as if to ensure you were as lost in the moment as she was.

You couldn’t suppress the soft moan that escaped your lips, your body arching further into her touch. The way she moved, the way she worshipped your body with such tenderness, made it impossible to feel anything but adored. Emily’s name left your lips in a trembling whisper, and the sound seemed to fuel her. She hummed softly, the vibrations against your skin sending a fresh wave of shivers through you. Her lips left your breast with a wet, lingering kiss, and she shifted her attention lower, her hands gliding down your sides slowly.

Her dark eyes met yours briefly, filled with a mix of desire and tenderness that made your breath catch. “Spread your legs for me, baby,” she murmured, her voice low and commanding, yet laced with a softness that left no room for resistance.

Your body obeyed before your mind could catch up, your legs parting under her gaze. The warmth of her hands slid along the insides of your thighs, steadying you and sending sparks of heat coursing through your veins. Emily’s lips curled into a faint smirk, her fingers squeezing gently. “Good girl,” she praised.

Her mouth began its descent again, her lips brushing soft, teasing kisses along the sensitive skin of your stomach and hips. She took her time, savoring each moment as though it were a gift for herself as much as for you. Her fingers trailed light, maddening patterns on your thighs, her touch both soothing and electric, her movements slow enough to make you ache for more.

“Emily…” you whispered, your voice barely audible, laced with need.

“I know,” she murmured against your skin, her lips pressing a kiss just above where you needed her most. “Let me take care of you.”

The sincerity in her voice unraveled something deep inside you. Her hands gripped your thighs firmly, spreading you further, and she glanced up at you once more. The raw intensity in her gaze sent a fresh wave of warmth flooding through you.

Then, without hesitation, Emily lowered herself fully between your legs, her lips finding you with a softness that stole the breath from your lungs. Teasingly, she run ger tongue along your slit, tasting your arousal. Your hips buckled up at the first contact of her warm tongue with your wetness and a soft moan escaped your lips.

Emily hummed against your heat, the vibrations sending shivers through you. She continues her lazy, open-mouthed kisses along your folds, occasionally dipping her tongue inside to lap at your sensitive walls. “So sweet”, she hums, her fingers gently spreading your lips apart to give her better access.

Her tongue delves deeper, fucking your pussy with slow strokes. She sucks on your clit, rolling it between her lips as she eats you out. Her hands grip your thighs, holding you in place as she devours you. Each flick of her tongue, each gentle suction against your clit, sent electric jolts through your body, your moans filling the room with a symphony of pleasure.

“That’s it baby, let me hear how good I’m making you feel,” she murmured against you, her voice thick with desire, her breath hot against your slick, sensitive skin. Her words sent a fresh wave of heat pooling in your stomach, as her tongue continues it’s tantalizing dance, alternating between firm flicks against your clit and slow, deep thrusts inside you.

Your hands found their way into her salt-and-pepper hair, fingers tangling in the soft strands as you tried to ground yourself. “Emily…” you whimpered, your voice trembling with need.

Emily’s name is a sacred mantra on your lips as she worked you into a frenzy. She can feel your walls fluttering around her tongue, your juices flowing freely. With a growl, she buried her face deeper between your thighs, sucking hard on your clit.

Your hips bucked involuntarily, but Emily’s firm grip kept you in place. “Stay still for me, baby,” she commanded gently, her tone both soothing and authoritative, making your pulse quicken.

You nodded weakly, your hands tugging lightly at her hair as you tried to hold yourself together. The pleasure was overwhelming, your body trembling under her ministrations. Emily’s fingers soon joined her mouth, two digits slipping inside you with ease, curling upward to find the spot that made you cry out her name.

“Good girl,” she praised, her voice a husky whisper against your skin. Her fingers worked you with expert precision, each stroke perfectly in tune with the flicks of her tongue against your clit. The combination of her skilled mouth and fingers sent you hurtling toward the edge, the tension in your core tightening with every passing second.

Your breath hitched, and your thighs trembled as the wave of pleasure began to crest. Emily seemed to sense it, her movements growing faster, more insistent, as if determined to push you over. “Let go for me,” she urged, her voice vibrating through you as her tongue continued its sinful work. “I want to feel you.”

The sound of her voice, the intensity in her eyes, and the overwhelming pleasure of her touch shattered what little control you had left. Your orgasm crashed over you like a tidal wave, your body arching off the bed as you cried out her name, every nerve ending alight with ecstasy.

As you cum, your pussy clenching and unclenching around her fingers and tongue, Emily lapped up your cream greedily, drinking in your essence like it’s the most precious thing in the world. She kept eating you out through your orgasm, not stopping until you are a quivering, spent mess. With a final tender kiss on your sensitive mound, Emily sits back on her heels, admiring the view of your flushed and fulfilled body sprawled before her. A wicked gleam in her eyes, as she slowly licks your juices from her lips. “Mmm… You’re delicious sweetheart.” A new wave of heat courses through your body at her words and you could feel yourself getting even more flushed.

Emily crawled back up your body, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses along your stomach, between your breasts, up your neck. Reaching the corner of your mouth, she pauses, gazing into your eyes with a loving possessive look. “Merry Christmas,” she whispered. The older woman claimed your lips in a deep, loving kiss, pouring all her affection and desire into it.

Emily pulled back just enough to catch her breath, her lips quirking into a sly smile. “So…what are your plans for New Year’s?” she asked, her voice low and teasing. She nipped at your bottom lip, her smirk devilish. “Because I’m thinking we should start the year off with a bang.”

[hasufin]

Two things.

In my personal library I have a book published in 1907: The Negro Races: A Sociological Study.

Now, this book is replete with both wild falsehoods and incredible racism. It is an artifact of one of the worst eras of sociology and anthropology, and the ideas in it formed the foundation for some of the worst abuses in our history.

Generally when I mention having this, some well-meaning sort will assert I should destroy the book, or consume it in some art project against racism. But, I retain this book. Not because I agree with anything in it, but rather because I think it's important to understand how and why people did the things they did. The villains of our history were not, generally, mustache-twirling workers of evil. They were greedy, misinformed, and often looking for excuses to courses of action upon which they had already decided. But books like the one I have provided those justifications, and I think it's important to understand how that line of thought proceeded.

That said, I think there are people who deliberately seek out positions of authority with the intent of nudging people toward Good Choices. There are those who choose to become librarians because as a librarian they think it would be right and proper to make sure no one actually checks out the Evil Books. They become nurses to assure that women don't seek out abortions. They go into politics so that they might have the opportunity to put the 10 Commandments in schools. They know these are explicitly not within the scope or rights of the position, but they feel their morality serves a Higher Purpose and it is what they should do.

And you know the worst part? Sometimes they're right. Because we think ill of the nurse who intentionally lies about abortion... but what of the nurse who "can't find" any trans people in their system when the police come calling? We hope that when Trump starts trying to jail his political opponents, there will be people who, in violation of their oath and of the law, say "No. I will not do that. You have followed the form of the law, but you are violating the spirit and I will not allow this."

We do rely on people being willing to police their morals above the stated rules. But we sincerely hope that we and they share the same set of morals.

newbie asked if we're supposed to look out for 'red flags' in interlibrary loan requests in reference to a request a patron had made for a book about cannibalism. she was looking expectantly at me like she was expecting me to be equally aghast at this........girl why would you work at a library if you want to play book police

[morphids]

Enmies to lovers hange zoe

Pls🤗🤗

the worst neighbour, hange zoë

i love enemies to lovers, it’s probably my fave trope of all time—ty anon <3

nonbinary, they/them hange.

summary: hange moves in next door and ruins your peace, until a storm forces you together.

warnings: not many so idk storms?? very sfw—a bit silly and fluffy really, minus some suggestive themes throughout, and a heavy makeout sesh at the end. poc friendly!! weed smoking- stoner!hange. r has autism but its not an integral part of the story. hange is also a lil mentally unwell.

wc: 5.7k of pure yap, enjoy.

—

When you first moved into your own place, away from the helicopters that are your stringent and unpleasant parents, you were so relieved that you could've levitated. Thinking you'd finally have a safe haven of your own. To decorate, eat, dress and generally live life on your own terms. Bills be damned! It was that - for maybe a few weeks? Until you spotted the 'For Sale' sign on the lawn of the semi-detached connected to your own. When exactly did that get put up?

Internally groaning, you already were catastrophizing— what if it's a family with five kids and two twin newborns? What if they're a crazy dog person and the dogs bark every hour and set each other off? What if it's a group of college kids who party every night?

So imagine your relief when you see a single van pull up, and only one, very tall individual lifting boxes into the building attached to yours. Quite an attractive person, at that. Hair messily pulled back, glasses framing their face, clad in a tank top underneath an oversized blazer and some loose pants. You had been stalking observing the new arrival through the gaps in your blinds. Praying that your silhouette wasn't spotted from the outside. I mean, look.. we all have to be wary of our surroundings, right? Lest there be a creep move in next door and you're none the wiser.

A few hours later, the big van outside had already left its spot on the side. There was a knock at your front door, revealing the very hot neighbour on the other side, holding a plate of some homemade stew.

You made your introductions, Hange was incredibly friendly, you couldn't deny, a wide smile stretched on their lips as they almost pushed the stew into your hands, saying, "I read that this is a good way to greet new neighbours!" It was a short, courteous greeting. You both returned to your homes soon after. You wanted to kiss the stars that you got so lucky with a pleasant hot neighbour. The stew ended up being delicious, by the way, saving you the effort of cooking your own dinner for the night.

That relief very quickly dissipated once you realised just how loud Hange was. It drove you insane. If you were maybe four years younger, you probably wouldn't have minded so much, but as a working adult with a regular 9-5, you found yourself seething at how incredibly absurd it was. You had no idea what Hange did, mind you, and you cursed the architect's firstborn for connecting your bedroom wall to Hange's. It was as if you lived next door to a busy night cafe, the buzzing whir of what you'd assumed was a stupidly designed, industrial-sized coffee machine. Grounding coffee beans together, followed by bangs of metal against the counter as they'd dumped the old ones into the trash. The walls were so unbelievably thin you could almost feel their exact movements. Every night. At three in the damn morning. Who drinks coffee that late?

The whirring seemed to vibrate through the entire structure of the house, reverberating through the walls as you laid your head against your pillow. You had taken to banging against the wall as revenge once, not so nicely letting them know they were keeping you up. Crashing out by yourself in the solitude of your bedroom. If there had been cameras installed you would've looked so unhinged and probably been sectioned to a ward to live out the rest of your days. A part of you was so aggravated that being sectioned felt like it would be a gentle kindness. You tried getting ear plugs—didn't help. The noise-cancelling headphones that you used when you were experiencing sensory overload? Nope, didn't help, it was like it was in between the walls vibrating your floor, even if you couldn't hear most of it, you still felt it.

After a few nights of not so passive-aggressive banging against the wall, Hange seemed to get the hint. Well, that and perhaps also the way you glared at them when you made your way back into your house after your shift. You weren't the greatest at verbal confrontation, you'd probably rather die than actually go and confront them in person. So, the nastiest glare you could muster was enough. Hange had been mowing their lawn, white tank top tight against their well-sculpted torso as their built arms glided the lawnmower over the grass. Lifting their hand up to wave at you as you ignored their advance for a conversation, scoffing as you quickly entered your house. At least they weren't cutting grass at night, too.

Not to mention the smell of weed that travelled through the walls, almost thickening the air with a haze. Look, you didn't care what people did in their spare time, wasn't like you were gonna call the cops over a joint but... Hange had already pissed you off so much, to the point where this was just a rotting cherry on top of your least favourite cake. It clung to your clothes, for god's sake! You wouldn't have even noticed if it wasn't for one of your coworkers cheerily asking you if you were holding any because they hadn't smoked in a while, creating a very awkward, "I.. don't smoke?" on your part and an even more awkward realisation from your shocked co-worker. Embarrassed that they had accidentally outed themselves to someone who could potentially report them to the bosses. You would never, but they didn't know that.

That night, you got home and washed all your laundry, deciding to keep them in a different room where the smoke remnants didn't reach, not wanting to go through a similar situation with someone else another time.

Did I mention that they were apparently a guitar player, too? It's just hit after hit. Strumming strings late into the night and you wondered how someone could have so much nocturnal energy. They weren't unskilled, in all honesty, they were just incredibly annoying.

Fortunately, the coffee machine incidents had ceased. The relief returned as you settled yourself for the first good night's sleep in three weeks, finally feeling well-rested the next morning as you got ready for work. You should've known it wouldn't last long, though. How naive of you to think your neighbour would become reasonable overnight. This time, at around midnight, you heard drilling and the subsequent falling of wood against the floor. Perhaps Hange was doing it out of spite, unpleased with your glares every afternoon. You hadn't exactly been the nicest, but it wasn't like it was unjustified. This had been building up for almost a whole month, you had grown sleep-deprived and irritable, disgustingly moody.

Huffing to yourself, you lifted your body up off the seducing comfort of your bed. Throwing on a jumper that had been left discarded on the chair, and some slides. Mentally amping yourself for what you were about to do, trying to script how you were going to politely yell at them and burst all your inner feelings about their inconsideration.

You rapped a fist at their front door, noticing how the lights were on in each room through the window. There was silence at first, then you spotted the silhouette coming closer to the door. Revealing Hange, with a dark green woollen cardigan hanging off their slender shoulders, grey sweatpants that didn't quite cover their toned midriff. Hange puffed on a joint, leaning their weight against the doorframe.

"Wha-"

“I swear to god, if you make more noise at night, ‘m gonna set your house on fire.”

Well, you hadn't quite scripted that particular sentence. Apparently, arson had been on your mind! Great, now you look insane and actively threatened your neighbour!

Hange's eyes widened, shock falling over their features as their mouth opened and closed.

"But...wouldn't that burn yours, too?" They half joked, half didn't. At your lack of response, and clearly unimpressed face, Hange sighed, continuing.

"Alright, I'm sorry, but you don't need to be such a bitch about it," They brought the joint to their plump lips again, trapped between their ringed thumb and index finger, huffing on it before blowing it out, directly in your face. You would've kept staring at Hange's nice hands as they gracefully held the joint, if you hadn't just been disrespected by the amount of smoke that invaded your nose, and been called a bitch added on top of that. You were stunned into silence  for a solid moment before your anger reignited, scoffing at their audacity.

"Are you serious?"

"It's not been that bad..."

"Again—are you serious?!"

Hange didn't answer, looking at you blankly, which doubly pissed you off even more.

"You've kept me awake for the past month! Are you aware that people need sleep or d'you just not care?"

Hange ignored the pangs of guilt, although not really wanting to explain their inner workings to a pretty stranger. Initially, Hange thought there'd be a good friendship built upon that first meeting, it'd been cordial— thinking you were a cute, inviting person, even thought they lucked out with a pretty neighbour right next door. Unfortunately, Hange quickly realised you both definitely weren't on the same page as they felt the wrath of your glares every afternoon. Maybe they were more oblivious than they thought.

Hange didn't truly realise the walls were so thin and you heard everything, honestly they thought your banging on the wall had been… something else entirely. In hindsight, they now felt a bit silly with the realisation that it was a painfully obvious noise complaint—but it's not like they didn't have their reasons.

"Relax, man," Hange sighed, lifting themself off the doorframe and reached their arm out to offer you some joint, "You need some of this,"

Unbelievable, you gaped. Honestly, if you had to sit on a court stand to explain what happened next, you'd say you blacked out. Before you could even stop yourself, you plucked the lit joint from their fingers and let it fall down on the floor, making sure to aim for the small pool of water collected on the pavement from the rainfall earlier that day. Situation was made worse by the small hiss as the water murdered the flame, effectively soaking and ruining the entire zoot. You would've felt bad, realising they must've only sparked it a short while ago, as there was a considerable amount left— but if this was your one crime against a plethora of theirs, then so be it.

"Was there any need—"

"You're a dick, you know that?"

"I'm a dick? That was a peace offering 'n you thre-"

"Fuck your peace offering, keeping it down is the best gift you could ever give me."

Hange’s brows tilted up in mild amusement, blended with a healthy amount of irritation. That was the remainder of their stash, the very last zoot that they had saved until all their tasks were done, and no dealer would be active this time of night.

Hange studied you for a moment, your arms crossed and viscerally annoyed— your lips curved to the side as you blew out a single strand of hair away from your face that kept falling into your eyes. Undoubtedly, adding to your frustration. Still cute, they thought, even though you did just absolutely desecrate their last zoot. Hange paralleled your body language, folding their own arms up to match yours.

Now, Hange definitely knew better than to say something like this, knew this had a 99% chance of making the situation worse. Yet, could they help it? Evidently not. Words slipping from their lips before they could withhold it.

"Yes, mama."

Silence.

At their words, Hange's amusement grew as the hardness in your face fell. You seemed to be going through all the different stages of grief. Trying to mask the evident flustering that overtook your features, caught off guard by the sudden switch up of energy that hung in the vacant space between you. Hange would've regretted it, would've expected you to curse them out even more— deserved it, even, had it not been for the softening of your voice and the confusion glazing over your eyes. They could've sworn there was something else lurking in there, something subtly dangerous.

"I-I, you—"

"Won't do it again, dear," Hange muttered, ceasing, "You have my word,"

Hange seemed to have a proclivity for stressing you out, it seems. A crooked smile etched on the corner of their lips as they watched you, deep, brown eyes boring into yours— almost challenging.

"Right—well, I'm...gonna go home now,"

"Alright, then."

Stepping down from their front porch, you let out the breath trapped in your ribs. You had been geared up for a confrontation, not that. What the hell even was that? Hange's voice broke out from within the silence again, in almost a mockery of friendly neighbourhood conduct.

“Always lovely seeing you,”

—

From that point, the noise had considerably decreased. You were thankful that at least something positive came from that conversation. Though, it didn't exactly simmer the annoyance lingering in your heart for Hange. You thought they were an incredibly inconsiderate asshole. Yes, they may have stopped the noise, but you couldn't simply forgive and forget the way they spoke to you. Arrogant and disrespectful. Not to mention the cocky way they ended the conversation, you hated that you had faltered at their words. Cursing yourself for your lack of a quick response and staring at them dumbly. The grudge had remained, no hatchet buried. Even if they did look like that.

You were currently all wrapped up in your fuzzy blanket, burrito style as you layered up on fabrics. The weather had been harsher than most this winter—we have the rich and wealthy to thank for shitting all over the planet and ruining the climate. Winds had been howling, trees shaking trying to stand firm against its force as you threw on the local news on your television.

You managed to catch the late part of an announcement.

"—severe weather warning, as dangerous winds from the storm expected to strike around the area. It is advised that people stay inside their homes, charge their devices and stock up on canned food. Single-person households are heavily advised to house together during this time, to account for any potential casualties—"

The television cut out with a soft click, as the lights and electricals in your house switched off simultaneously, leaving you in total darkness. If there was ever any way to freak someone out, this would definitely do it. You gaped through your window at the heavily falling rain as it splattered against the glass. Shit.

Sighing, you blindly made your way to the drawers in your kitchen. You were a bit of a candle enthusiast, so at least you had some way of illumination. Lighting the wick with some matches, you filled the darkness with a candle in each corner. It was a bit of a haunting vibe, but you could manage for the night. What was worrying you more, was the way your phone was almost out of charge. You thought of a lot of things for times like these, yet a portable charger always seemed to evade you. It was one of those, i'll buy one next time, except next time never came.

Your thoughts went to Hange, you were both considered single-person households. Perhaps, it would be safer to band together. Maybe they have a portable on hand. Battling yourself, you considered the consequences of making your way over to Hange's, asking if they had any charge to spare. Would that be embarrassing? Technically, it's for safety, humans have an evolutionary tendency to stay together in times of crisis— it's the smart thing to do. Yet, you couldn't bite back the pain of succumbing first, they might use it against you. You made your peace with the fact that if life was a survival of the fittest, you likely wouldn't make it very far.

A decision seemed to be conveniently made for you, though, as a quick repetition of knocks blasted on your door. More eagerly than you'd like to admit, you stood and answered.

Hange was stood shivering, totally drenched in the five seconds that it took to travel from their door to yours, the rain had clearly won the fight. Glasses splashed with raindrops. Their slackened hair was sticking on their forehead and cheeks, no doubt lost the fight against the wind, too.

"You can say no, but can I borrow a blanket? Turns out houses get cold with no central heating,"

You bit back a chuckle, they were just now realising that?

Hange was stood pathetically at your door, the contrast of their drenched figure against your completely dry one, was almost funny. The expression plastered over their face wasn't, though, dark eyes held a seriousness you hadn't seen in them before. Almost fearful.

"I have a few you can take."

"Thank you,"

Hange took the cue to enter your space, feeling a sense of safety with the candles brightening up the room. Grabbing some from a pile on the arm of your couch, you handed them over. Hange gratefully taking them from your grasp as they made excruciatingly slow steps towards the door. They didn't want to go back into a dark house, embarrassingly unprepared for a situation like this, they hadn't anticipated buying some candles— heck, not even one blanket.

Noticing how slowly they were walking, you spoke,

"You could dry yourself off here? Maybe get warm again before you leave?"

A look of hope flashed across Hange's eyes, as you continued, trying to blurt the invitation out into the air as quickly as you could.

"The government says that.. single occupant households should stay together—so it's the smarter choice, anyway, really."

"Well.. if the government says so, right?"

"Right! Who are we to disagree..." You say this like you ever believed the government. No one needs to know the truth, definitely not Hange. It's not that you particularly fearful of storms, but the announcement had spooked you.

There was something intuitively nipping at your gut, that there was more to Hange coming over in such a panic for just a blanket. You didn't press it.

Snuggling into the plush fabric of your couch, right in the comfortable corner, you motioned your head to indicate that Hange could also take a seat. Seeing the awkward, stiff way they were stood against the wall in your living room, even made you feel uncomfortable.

Thunder cracked in the atmosphere, booming outside as the sky lit up briefly. You didn't miss the way Hange's shoulders jerked up before they hurriedly made their way to sit down, placing a fair distance between your bodies. As one would with someone they had an altercation with only a few weeks before.

"You alright?" You couldn't help but ask, feeling like an energy absorbing rock with how obviously uncomfortable Hange was. They grabbed the pillow they had sat on and nuzzled it between their legs, wrapping their arms around the soft fabric, fiddling their fingers around the cotton tag.

"Yup.."

Heavy silence filled the air amidst the thunder and rain, the wind filling the gaps in between.

Droplets of water dripped from Hange's loose strands of hair, splashing on the pillow, leaving wet blobs seeping into the dry.

"I'll get you some dry clothes,"

"You don't have t—"

"No arguing, I'm not letting someone get hypothermia in my house."

Hange nodded, their attention back to the tag in their hands.

You quickly came back from your room with a change of clothes. Hange being slightly taller than you, you weren't sure what was best for them, or what they'd feel comfortable in. Opting for a long pair of loose shorts you usually wore for working out, and an oversized tee with a faded Hello Kitty print in the middle.

"Here, I'll leave you to get changed."

"Wait!" There was that panic again, "Could you, uh, maybe, stay? You can just turn around or something.." Their voice lowering into a whisper as they muttered the last part.

Slightly odd, you thought, but you silently nodded and turned yourself around to give Hange some privacy. Only facing them again once they gave you a 'Okay, I'm done,"

"They alright for you?"

"Yeah—thank you, they're perfect,"

Nodding again, you placed yourself back on the couch, where Hange was already comfortably placed, legs crossed with a blanket thrown over. They looked pretty cute with your Hello Kitty shirt on, cozied in your living room, perhaps it was the warm flickers of candlelight on their skin.

The air was a little awkward, neither of you quite knowing how to interact with each other. Hange was antsy, shaking their leg beside you, causing the couch to slightly rock with their movements. They seemed to catch themself doing it and ceased the movements, glancing up at you to check if they had annoyed you with the rocking. They hadn’t.

"You've been really kind to me," they muttered, "Thanks,"

"Crazy what a good night's sleep does to someone's psyche," You joked, trying to lighten the mood, hoping it came across the way you intended.

Hange cringed at your words, face twisting, "I am sorry about that, I really didn't think the walls were that thin,"

You chuckled, looking down and plucking the balls of fluff that wear and tear does to a blanket, "It's alright, I appreciate that you stopped."

"Just a little confused why you came here, though, when you dislike me so much," Thinking about the way they called you a bitch, at the ease with which it escaped their tongue, perhaps you were acting like one and it was deserved, but you couldn't deny that it struck a nerve. Hange gulped, looking down at the wooden flooring, raising a hand to scratch at the nape of their neck.

"I don't dislike you," They answered,

"You called me a bitch." You stated, straight-forwardly, wanting to clear the air and actually communicate like an adult should, instead of running from confrontation like you usually do.

"I did, and I'm sorry for that, too." Hange didn't meet your eyes, sighing, "You were right about the noise, calling you that was uncalled for."

"Thank you," You let out a breath, a weight lifting from your shoulders, "I'm sorry about your throwing your zoot in the water,"

Hange laughed, rubbing their face at the memory, "I get it, I'd probably have done the same, so, y'know."

"So we good?"

"Yeah," Hange chuckled, "We're good."

Hange reached into the wet pocket of their damp jacket, left in a pile on the floor, feeling around for something.

"It might be too soon—I don't wanna ruin your hospitality and you can say no, but can I light up? I-it helps me calm down,"

You did consider saying no, perhaps in any other circumstance you probably would've. If Hange hadn't been so visibly on edge, their shaking leg and twitching shoulders with each crack of thunder, you would've said no. Yet, with the meekness in their voice and bashful look in their eyes, you couldn't find it in yourself to.

"Yeah, go ahead," You weren't sure what to make of the feeling in your stomach when Hange's eyes glimmered up at you at your response, "I don't have an ashtray, but I'll get you an old cup,"

Hange eagerly thanked you and pulled out a small tin from their pocket. Pulling out paper and some card to roll the contents ground inside of a grinder.

Sitting back down, placing the cup on the coffee table, you watched as they rolled the bud into the paper, folding it neatly into a tight cone with nimble, lean fingers. You couldn't look away as they brought the sticky part to their mouth, tongue poking out to lick at the residue to glue the paper down. You glanced away quickly as Hange caught your gaze, breaking eye contact as a wave of shame hitting you like you'd been caught doing something bad.

Clearing your throat, you took a look at your phone, checking the time, 9:08p.m with only 3% left on the battery. Great, you dropped it back into the couch, looks like you won't get much use out of that tonight. At least you were off work the following day, the weather deemed so bad that forms of transport were stopped, halting most workplaces.

Hange hesitantly brought the lighter up to meet the tip of the joint tucked between their lips, looking up at you as if to check if you had suddenly changed your mind before they sparked it. That's kinda sweet, you thought, that even with your permission, they still double checked.

Feeling satisfied that you didn't change your mind, Hange lit the joint, inhaling a few drags before releasing it out into your room. The thick smoke whirling in the air. They rested their head against the back of the couch. Allowing you to gaze upon their neck and the small exposed part of their collarbone poking out underneath the shirt collar.

Hange seemed to feel your eyes on them, tilting their head slightly to meet your gaze again with a curious expression.

"You wanna try?" Thinking that's why you had been staring.

"Uhm— I've never done it before," You rasped, truthfully you've never been against it, but living with your hard-ass parents, you'd had a pretty straight edge life, doing things most teenagers do whilst they grow their own— drinking with your friends in a park, clubbing when you were of age. The opportunity for a smoke hadn't ever come up, so you just didn't really think about it.

"No pressure, but the offer's there if you want,"

You nodded, mulling over it. Maybe you'd like to try, after all. It probably felt nicer than being drunk and messy.

"Maybe a little?"

"You sure?" Hange hummed, the zoot clearly taking effect, they were more relaxed, less jittery.

"Yeah, just don't laugh at me if I cough,"

"Oh, you definitely will cough," Hange chuckled, "But that happens to everyone, so, 's alright."

Hange passed the joint over to you, carefully placing it between your fingers so it doesn't get dropped on the couch, and ruin your blankets.

You looked at it for a minute, bringing it closer to your mouth, "Do I just breathe it normally?"

"Pretty much, just make sure you hold it in your lungs for a sec,"

So you did, pulling air through the roach as the weight of smoke hit the back of your throat. You tried to follow their instructions, holding it in for a few seconds before you couldn't anymore, letting out the smoke into the room with a few coughs. Hange muttered a gentle, there you go, saying that's how you know you did it right, before passing you some water.

"Ouch," You grumbled, feeling a hot wave in your chest and a slight burn at your throat, "It tastes like ass,"

Hange laughed, wholeheartedly amused at your baby lungs, "It does."

It didn't deter you enough, though, taking another drag and managing to hold it without coughing this time. You saw a proud look on Hange's face, that's it, they said, you blamed the weed for making your stomach twist at their praising words.

After a few hits, you began feeling lighter, joining Hange with your head rested on the couch. Hange looked at you, the white of your eyes bloodshot as they glimmered with the candlelight. You looked pretty, eyelashes curled upwards, casting shadows on the lids as you blinked up at them.

"You never answered my question," You hummed, fiddling with the blanket, rolling it into shapes. Hange took off their glasses, the weight of them becoming uncomfortable so they placed them on the coffee table.

"What question?"

"Why you came here, you were...scared." Your question was tentative, not wanting to ruin the amiable mood.

Hange took a second to answer, choosing to puff on the remaining amount of joint instead of answering straight away, plugging it against the ceramic cup to make sure it was dead.

"I'm—uh," a pause, "imscaredofthedark." They mumbled, timid voice coming out like they were speaking underwater. So barely audible, you couldn't hear a damn thing.

"Huh?"

"I'm... scared of the dark, okay? Storms, too, i-it freaks me out." Hange shyly huffed, crossing their arms over their torso, avoiding eye contact like the plague. Even in the minimal lighting, you could see the embarrassment tainting their cheeks.

"Oh."

There was a taut awkwardness that hung in the air at their admission, and you found yourself feeling slightly bad for them. Unsure of what to say back, not wanting to make them feel worse.

"Look—'s not a big deal, okay? But.. the darkness and the howling winds, thunder—together, doesn't help..." Hange tried to save themselves, try to make it seem like they hadn't been close to quaking in the pitch black rooms of their house. Their electric bill each month was ludicrously high, lights in the hall or the bathroom staying on each hour of the night until the sun finally came out enough to shine through the windows each morning. Their bedroom always illuminated with lamps and decorative Christmas lights all year round. Hange and their parents thought they'd grow out of it as an adult. That didn't end up being the case.

"Okay," You breathed out, "Well, I've got a lot of candles." You pointed at the flickering wicks placed in each corner of the room. "So we're not totally in the dark, thankfully."

Another momentary pause, Hange hadn't responded, so you added, "It's not embarrassing, you know?"

"Yeah—thanks."

"Is that you're always up at night?" That had been bothering you for a while, surely it wasn't healthy for someone to stay up so late each night. You wondered how often they slept.

"A little," The muttered, covering their mouth with a loose part of the blanket, "I've had insomnia since I was a kid, and frequent night terrors, doesn't mix the best, I guess." They chuckled.

"So I try to keep myself busy at night with tasks, drink coffee, anything to stop from falling asleep and have another one. Most people grow out of it—I just…didn't."

You hummed, the admission making you feel bad for having such a one-sided problem with Hange the last couple of months. You wouldn't have been so angry if you had known there was more to it.

Placing your palm over the back of their hand, you squeezed, Hange looked at you, the blanket shield falling down to their chest as they lifted their head, revealing their face to you once again.

"I'm sorry, I wouldn't have been such a bitch if I knew,"

"'s okay, I didn't exactly tell you, so."

You smiled at them, and attempt to be reassuring and maybe even comforting, Hange's lips quipped up, and you looked at each other longer than usual. Hange flickered their gaze to your lips, then back up to your eyes. You felt yourself doing the same. Chest growing heavy as the air fell tender, yet apprehensive.   Hesitation outweighing want, as you realised how close you both were. Barely inches in between, lips almost meeting.

You wondered how a friendship with Hange would've developed had it not been for the mess in between. The attraction to them was undeniable, you were intrigued as soon as you set eyes on them the day they moved in.

"I really wanna kiss you," You muttered, a fleeting moment of boldness, glancing down to their lips again, they just looked so kissable. 

"What are you waiting for, then?" The corners of their lips breaking into a soft smirk, challenging you to do it first.

"Fuck," You bit the bullet, fingers threading the hair at the back of their head as you brought your heads closer, connecting your lips together. Hange sprung into action, grabbing the back of your neck closer and humming with satisfaction into the kiss.

Lips melded against each other, you sighed as you felt how soft they were. Soft and plump. Tugging at their hair, you gently nipped Hange's bottom lip, jutting it out slightly, swiping your tongue against the reddened skin. Taking the hint, Hange's mouth split open, allowing you access to enter. Hange groaned as warm tongues connected, breathing heavily at the sensation.

Pulling the blankets off—they didn't need the extra heat anymore—their hands then wrapped around the supple skin of your thighs, placing you into a straddle over their lap as they held your sides firmly. Fingers digging into your skin as you placed kisses below their ear to the bottom of their throat, their head tilted back. Hange shivered at the contact, skin raising into goosebumps as your lips touched, soft moans from their lips with their eyes shut.

Hange lifted their head, chasing your lips to meet once more, one hand placed tight at your hips, the other coming up to rub the back of your neck. Kissing Hange was delightful, you discovered, finding that you would do this forever if it was physically possible. Eventually, your lips disconnected, forehead resting against forehead as you both breathed heavily, catching breath.

Hange gazed up at you, eyes almost doe and full of mirth. Holding on to every ounce of restraint they carried in their veins, to stop themself from acting impulsively and taking you right there. You were in a similar way, but you pecked their lips again, before nuzzling your head into the crook of their neck. A silent agreement that you both should stop, perhaps do things the right way instead of acting on instinct. Sighing as Hange wrapped their strong arms around your waist, pressing a kiss into your shoulder.

You stayed like that for a while, enjoying each other's embrace until you found yourself slipping into a sleep, the weed had suddenly made you feel tired and sleep was the only way out. You mumbled a quiet, "Sorry.." before falling asleep on them. Hange chuckled as they realised they were trapped in place until you moved, but it didn't matter too much as the thought of sleep was growing more enticing.

After a few minutes, Hange fell asleep, too, arms still wrapped around you—the storm was still raging on, thunder still thundering, but it was the first night in years Hange slept without a nightmare.

—-

AHHHH anyway— hope u guys enjoyed <3

[profoundbondfanfic]

More fic recs filled with holiday fluff!

-Part 4 of 5-

A Wish For Santa by hollyblue2 (Teen and Up, 4k words)

Dean has found friendship in the father of his daughter's best friend, one that he enjoys and wants more out of, but is afraid to ask. That is until Emma has a sleepover and she and Claire begin plotting.

Here's to Many More by wincechesters (Explicit, 15k words)

After a blowout at his parents' house on Christmas Eve, Castiel resigns himself to a lonely, miserable holiday. On his way home he finds himself at a dive bar, spilling his life story to the handsome, charming bartender he's just met. It's an unlikely set of circumstances, but when the bartender invites him to come home with him, Castiel says yes—and it looks like he might not be spending his Christmas alone and miserable after all.

I Love New York by followyourenergy (Explicit, 44k words)

When Dean’s brother can’t go on their planned trip to New York City, Dean goes alone. He meets Cas, a man who’s there to “do things differently” and invites Dean to do the same. Through their adventures, Dean expands not only his palate, but his idea of who he is, who he can be…and who he can be with.

Mistletoe Angel by PeachGO3 (Mature, 7k words)

In the last week before Christmas, countless mistletoes appear in the bunker. Dean jokes about it at first.

o little town of lebanon by saltyfeathers (General audiences, 3k words)

it's christmas and cas has a secret.

Say a Prayer and Light a Candle by tiptoe39 (Explicit, 56k words)

Dean comes home with Castiel for the holiday. Only the holiday is Hanukkah, and Dean's not Jewish. Which presents a problem.

sight of the sun by microcomets (Mature, 15k words)

Prompt: “Person A gets stood up by their date and ends up eating alone. Person B can be either a waiter at the restaurant or another person eating there.” Or, in which Dean is a bartender down on his luck and a stranger wanders in from the cold one night.

Strangers on a Bus by Terene (Explicit, 59k words)

Castiel is flummoxed. This is a social situation he is not equipped to handle. What is the protocol when the stranger sitting next to you on a bus, whom you incidentally find very attractive, falls asleep with his head on your shoulder?

[letskilltimetogether]

Omg I’m so sorry for leaving you hanging ;-; I can only offer the excuse of crippling school projects, but I’m back!

Dr. Stone Spoilers for most of the story

Okay so your point about him being a good leader actually opened up a can of worms in my brain. This is def kind of off topic? But I think it’s interesting so I want to write it down for my own sanity.

For a while know I’ve been coining Senkuu as a bad leader, or at least not ideal for personal writing purposes, but your comment made me rethink it. Looking at things with a fresh start, I realized Senkuu is a good leader, but not in the way I was originally imagining. (Doing my best to keep it as canon as possible) Senkuu 1. Cares deeply about people, not just his own 2. Is very strategic and thinks of the future 3. Does not want power. These 3 aspects make him a good leader, especially in the setting of Dr. Stone.

To use an analogy, He would be a very good science club leader, which is kind of what he is. He is dedicated to the craft, and can manage a small group of people with similar goals, and rather than excluding others, he encourages and fights for them to join his club of nerds.

However!

For the first part of Dr. Stone, that works fine. It’s just the Kingdom of Science and the Empire of Might. It’s like 140 people, who although need some coaxing, can work together. But once America hits and they have Zenos people how have very different ideas, and all sorts of other civilizations across the globe… people are going to have conflicting ideas. There’s always going to be Tsukasas, misguided people, and Hyogas and Homuras, people who don’t mean well and try to shape the world in their making. This is where I believe Senkuu is no longer the best choice, as I don’t think he could handle managing and keeping peace between all of these people, in addition to perusing and steam heading science projects. Obviously there’s people to help him do these things, but it’s a lot.

Many people instead make Ryusui the main leader, which is not a bad decision. He’s used to leadership and thrives in positions of power, and cares about the people around him, even if they don’t like him(most of this comes from his confidence/arrogance, but still). He is great at planning and managing people, and is decent at working with people who have different views than him. However he doesn’t really understand the differences between what people say/think they want, and what they need, and he could make bad decisions based on that misconception. In addition, Ryusui is pretty disconnected from the people around him as he had a very different upbringing, and can’t always relate to people. This makes him a caring leader, but unable to properly act this way.

Both he and Senkuu are decent leaders on their own, but still not great. In conclusion, I say the best solution is to have the 5 generals, so some other council, in charge. They balance each other’s faults, this sharing of power relieves the pressure of leading the entirety of humanity from 1 person’s shoulders.

Main tangent over lol.

I def agree about Senkuu trying to save everybody, including Tsukasa, with all of the stuff happening at the beginning of Treasure Island Arc being a lot to juggle. This means to me that his decision to give Hyoga and Homura to the “authorities”/legal system is weak evidence for him being lawful.

I feel like we’re running this thread dry, so I pose another question: How do you feel about the ending of the manga, and how would you change it? I have some strong thoughts about those last few arcs lol.

*offers microphone in one hand and a bag of chips in the other*

Also happy holidays!!

Your honor they're homosexuals

[tixdixl]

Happy Birthday, Bobbi - TWST Ficlet

Word Count: 688

Characters included: @ramshacklerumble 's Bobbi St. Robins and Deacon (mentioned), Emil Lehr

CW: None that I'm aware of.

A/N: This takes place before Sun Arrow is official, but wow is Emil crushing HARD. I did have to really consider what this would look like, considering the students are on Winter Break during Bobbi's birthday. Regardless, I hope you like this quick little thing!

The phone rang.

His impatient excitement ran through his fingers as he tapped them on the desk. Time Zones had been an issue certainly, but he didn’t think it was too late for Bobbi to pick up the phone. Unless of course he had darted off on a random escapade or had previous birthday arrangements, in which case he’d try again later, Emil hoped he would pick up.

It kept ringing.

What was only a few seconds felt like an eternity. The thunder of his heart roared with such ferocity that he wondered if the smartphone would pick it up too. He gnawed on his bottom lip anxiously.

Maybe it was a bad time. Maybe this was a bad idea. But he’d already committed to the bit. He’d already checked the tracking. He knew it had arrived on time. And distance be damned, he wanted to hear Bobbi’s authentic reaction to the gift.

“Hey!” finally came a cheery tone from the other side, “Haven’t heard your voice in a minute! How’s it goin’?”

“Hey Bobbi!!” Emil could barely contain his joy and excitement, “I’m doing okay. I’ve got a question for you.”

“Oh?” Was that intrigue? Was he teasing? He couldn’t read the tone aside from general interest and it low key drove him nuts. “Well, I’m at your service~. What can I do for ya?”

The NRC student couldn’t hide his smile. He didn’t want to, sure. But it leaked out of his voice and his expression like a fondue, overflowing and barely contained.

“Did you or Deacon get it yet?” he asked.

There was a brief pause.

“I’m sorry?”

Genuine confusion. As if the dots hadn’t connected yet.

“...I sent you something. Tracking says you should have gotten it,” Emil gently explained, feeling a bit deflated as he wondered if the package was sent to the wrong place.

“Oh! Hang on–”

The sounds of rustling poured out of the receiver. Immediately, they were followed by the muffled phonemes of a conversation held away from the mic. A brief back and forth, with a tenor voice the NRC student frankly didn’t recognize. After a couple minutes, an anticipatory pause drifted between the two connecting ends of the line. Emil genuinely couldn’t tell if the line had been dropped, but as he pulled the phone away from his ear, the seconds continued to wrack up on the minutes counter.

“OH!”

An eruptive squeak of excitement suddenly burst out from the receiver, albeit the distance between the sound of the fox beastman and the phone seemed to suggest he’d set it down somewhere. And a moment later, he could hear scrambling, as Bobbi clearly had picked up the phone from wherever he’d placed it.

“Emil- what is this!?” the fox beastman let out an excited cry.

“Made you a new shirt to wear with your uniform,” the ray of sunshine answered, “ and some embroidered patches if you wanna fix up your other shirt in a way that doesn’t look too weird.”

He hoped it was okay. Bobbi seemed to like it, but it was harder to tell over the phone.

“Wait, you made these!?”

“Mhmmm!!”

“Why?!” Bobbi asked incredulously.

“It’s your birthday,” Emil explained sheepishly, “I thought you deserved something nice.”

There was yet another brief silence on the other end.

“Happy Birthday, Bobbi.”

Still nothing coming from the other side. He was starting to genuinely doubt his choices. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he was being too forward yet again.

“...you still there?” Emil finally asked, the insecurity wavering in his voice.

“Yeah,” came a tiny voice from the other side. The NRC student had never heard Bobbi sound like that before.

“I– ah…” he awkwardly chuckled, “I’m sorry, if this was inappropriate, I didn’t mean–”

“No, not at all,” Bobbi interrupted him, “I just… don’t know what to say.”

“...Oh.”

“Ah- thanks, I should probably say ‘thank you’, shouldn’t I?” the fox beastman replied, also sounding sheepish, “Sorry, it’s hard to know what to do over the phone, a thousand miles away.”

The ray sunshine let out a genuine, though nervous laugh, “You’re welcome, Bobbi.”

✨️✨️✨️

Tag list: @ramshacklerumble @the-trinket-witch @elenauaurs @rainesol @winterweary

@cyanide-latte @inmateofthemind @theleechyskrunkly @thehollowwriter @boopshoops

@lumdays @twstinginthewind @twistedwonderlandshenanigans @starry-night-rose

Lmk if you want added/removed

[paradoxbeta]

de ce ai un rain world oc pe nume fat frumos please i must know (also zmeu. i see what you did there)

oh am i excited to talk about this. buckle in because it is a bit much

preemptive tldr: i have a rainworld adaptation of the făt-frumos tales where f-f stars as an overly prideful slugteen (pictured below looking moody) getting a body horror-y reality check

so! the name of this adaptation is the împărăție colony and as mentioned above its my little for-fun project based off of the original făt-frumos stories. for those who don’t know, f-f is a romanian folkloric character

some elements were changed (f-f is no longer the son of a king because there’s only one slugcat colony in this region, so i could only have a prince or a princess but not both if i wanted to keep the generic romance plot) but most were preserved, with f-f still having calul năzdrăvan (now a noble blue lizard steed inherited from his father) and with there still being the classic villains such as both balaur (infamous mutated red lizard) and zmeu (random iterator the slugcats abstracted into the Big Bad)

the story goes that the local iterator is collapsing and its bioprinters have gone haywire, so now it bleeds out nasty and highly mutagenic sludge. the local slugcat colony has not taken kindly to the deadzone and mutated fauna, but they also dont really understand what a bioprinter or hazardous chemical agent is, so they formed a mythological universe around the iterator

his name is zmeu, he’s a wretched 6 legged monster, he’s bleeding poison, he’s representative of all ill will and evil in the world, and all of his children are accursed nightmares. anything that’s been afflicted by zmeu gets the misnomer “child of zmeu” (misnomer because almost every "child of zmeu" was not born that way)

so in comes f-f: he’s the son of rege (who is again not actually the king), and rege was renowned for his incredible fighting prowess until the balaur got the best of him and left him unable to fight like he used to. f-f isn’t supposed to step up to his fathers position yet but his dad’s hand is forced, so he hastily passes on his trusted lizard (calul) and goes hey son, surprise! youre taking the mantle effective immediately

f-f eventually ends up on a mission to go slay zmeu and to find ileana, the colony leader’s daughter, who had gone missing very recently and who f-f also happens to have a fat crush on. so boldly he sets off with calul năzdrăvan

the story starts off very lighthearted and in its own head– f-f is young, rowdy, concerned with superficial things, and he’s had his ego gassed up by his colony which has its emphatic faith in him. he’s in a total fantasy world off to slay this big monster and come home as the hero with the girl, but as the story goes on, things get too real for him. balaur hunts him relentlessly and tests his grit, he sees the extent of the pollution and the environmental havoc, everything he's heard in mythos becomes less of a concept and more a frightening reality, and surviving in rainworld is just plain difficult, so his self confidence wanes. it reaches a breaking point when he eventually finds ileana, who is by now to his horror a child of zmeu

he does find his way to zmeu’s puppet chamber but it doesnt bring him any sense of completion. his only real options are to leave empty handed or to “kill” the puppet, both of which don’t solve anything... its all in all not a fun time but it teaches him some really important lessons about humility and about how small he really is in the world

its not a narratively complex or serious story and it can be cliché or even nonsensical at times, but i have a lot of fun with the characters, and im entertained by the idea of morphing a fun and shallow fantasy shindig into something frightening and slightly depressing over time

(also this ask reminded me to go back and add zmeu to the colony tag, thank you!) 

[nellielsss]

⋆꙳•❅‧₊⋆☃︎‧ Cԋɾιʂƚɱαʂ αƚ ƚԋҽ Fυʂԋιɠυɾσʂ!

Summary: It's Christmas-time at the Fushiguro household! Although not all the members of the house have the best impression of the holiday, everything is still merry and bright--no thanks to your grump of a husband and even more grump of a son... Ft: Toji Fushiguro & Megumi Fushiguro (reader is Mamaguro) Note: I am so incredibly sorry for going missing for months!! College A. Kicked my ass majorly, and B. made me extremely depressed, but we're back! ... for now. CW: light religious imagery, nothing too major! Pure fluff (I'm way too tired to do smutmas...)

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆ Toji never truly gave two shits about Christmas. The Zen'in Clan was anything but merry and bright, and until you and Megumi came into his life, he saw no reason to celebrate the holiday--that, and it was technically a christian holiday, and god knows Toji wasn't no saint who deserved presents.

Those were the two reasons he gave when it came to not celebrating Christmas, but there was a deeper, more painful reason that he wasn't fond of sharing...

Christmas reminded him of everything he didn't have.

He didn't have a loving family, he didn't have a warm home to decorate for Christmas, and he never had enough money to even buy gifts to begin with. He never had more than $100 in his checking account until he got a wife and a kid, even with all the money he earned from being a highly paid assassin. He also hasn't seen his family since he was 18 and was free of their legal guardianship, so suffice to say: he didn't give two shits about Christmas.

And that was where you came in!

Christmas was probably one of the best holidays in the whole entire world for you. It was fun and bright, always full of love and laughter and general excitement for you. Even if not every Christmas was great, you still did the best you could year round.

When Toji saw you decorating the giant tree that you'd (miraculously) set up all by yourself in the living room, he nearly spit out his drink. What the hell was an 8-foot pine tree doing in his living room? But when he saw the joy and excitement on your face, and Megumi's little hands playing with the ornaments you were going to put up, he bit his tongue.

Eh, sure, why not? Let the wife have her fun. Happy wife, happy life. What he didn't expect was for the antics to ramp up with every passing year.

Each year, the decorations would become bigger and better. There were more ornaments on the trees, more candles lit, more nutcrackers, more garland--more everything. It was like Hallmark came and threw up in your home and left. He knew he was in too deep when you swapped out the bedsheets for Christmas sheets.

He couldn't lie; he was also starting to go all out himself, at least on the presents. He found himself hitting up his handler, Shiu, for more jobs so that he could get Megumi and his little wife the stuff that they deserved. He'd never been showered in anything but hatred and disgust his entire life, and he'd be damned if his son went through the same shit he did.

Which is what led to Christmas morning, when said wife and said son were opening what they got.

"Look what Santa got you!" you chirped, handing a box to little 5-year old Megumi, who was trying to keep his best nonchalant grimace on his face (don't mind him--he's just going through an angsty teen phase).

"You don't have to say it was Santa, mom, I know it was you and dad," he answered while opening it.

That made you deadpan and go "ehh?" while looking at Toji. "Did that little punk from your homeroom say something to you again? Is he putting these ideas in your head?"

"Nah," he answered, opening up the stack of books that he was currently into. "It's hard not to confuse reindeers for dad's heavy footsteps, but I know reindeers wouldn't survive the Tokyo traffic."

"Hey, watch it, punk," Toji grumbled, reaching out to rub his knuckles into Megumi's head, making him whine and fuss.

Despite your son knowing that Santa Claus is, in fact, his mom and his dad, the little scene made you smile and laugh. You even reached out to take a photo of the little interaction between the two of them and save it for later. "Just hurry up and unwrap your presents, Toji. Let's see if daddy ended up with coal, hmm?" You teased, handing him a box with a smile on your pretty face.

"Yeah, I wonder what Santa got me," Toji said jokingly. His big hands effortlessly ripped off the pretty wrapping paper you so carefully wrapped, and he was met with the name "Rolex" staring back at him. His smile dropped for a second in shock, and he touched the wooden box as if it didn't truly exist. "Babe, you didn't have to-"

"Now I know you've got simple tastes, and I know you're a simple guy, but try it on! I'm sure you'll love it. Besides, I got a raise at work," you encouraged with a wink.

Toji opened the wooden box to see a beautiful silver Rolex watch with a green dial--perfectly matching his green eyes.

He was speechless for a second, earning a proud smile from your part. "I outdid myself, didn't I?" you giggled proudly.

"This is... I've never had somethin' like this before," he said, taking the watch out of the box. "Thank you so much, babe--this means so much to me."

"It's no problem- oof!" He cut you off by wrapping his big arms around your waist and pulling you in, all but squeezing you to death. He then put a kiss on your face and let go of you slightly. "It's n-no problem, really... although... those hugs of yours will give me problems."

Toji simply chuckled and handed you a box as well. "Now it's my turn to spoil my pretty wife," he retorted with a confident grin on his face.

His ogre of a dad calling his princess of a mom his 'pretty wife' earned a sideways grimace from Megumi while he flipped through his books, but he didn't say anything.

"I wonder what Santa got me," you wondered, mimicking his earlier words. You eagerly unwrapped the bow, took off the wrapping paper, and the words "Louis Vuitton" stuck out to you. "Toji, this is..."

"Yup," he said with a cheeky grin, puffing his chest out proudly. "Saw you eyein' this bag like it was your last meal, figured that meant you wanted it."

You slid the top off the box and gasped in excitement and childlike wonder. 6 years into your marriage, and you were still the same girly and excitable woman he first met. "Oh my god, a rainbow Louis!" You held it up with both hands and eyed it like it was, in fact, your last meal.

It was a black multicolor Louis Vuitton Alma bag, complete with a Hello Kitty keychain (that he took the liberty of picking out for you). "Oh, Toji!" You threw your arms around his neck and all but tackled him off the couch, and you pressed kisses all over his stubbled face. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love it so much!"

Toji grinned from ear-to-ear and simply patted you on the back while chuckling deeply. "Hey, only the best for my girl."

While you pressed kisses all over his face and hugged him tightly, Megumi looked over and grimaced once again. "Get a room, you two. And get off my mom, you ogre."

"Aw, shut yer trap, ya little grinch," Toji reached out and pulled his son into the hug, both arms wrapped around his beloveds. "I'll be damned if someone interrupts my time with either of you."

Despite Megumi's growing complaints and whines about wanting to be let go, you couldn't stop yourself from smiling and hugging Megumi as well. "Is my little Gumi mad about getting some hugs?" You asked the little boy, making him sigh dramatically and give up. He begrudgingly hugged the both of you, and he couldn't lie--getting a hug like this wasn't so bad. Not that the little sea urchin would ever admit that, of course. He had a reputation to uphold.

Looking up from his hug and loosening his grip on the both of you, he looked around at everything in the room, at the life he built for himself. He had a cozy home, presents under the tree, a beautiful wife and an amazing son. Toji truly was a simple man at heart, because this was all he needed.

"This is all a man needs to be happy," he muttered to himself with a slight smile decorating his face.

Christmas might've been rough for Toji growing up, but those days were behind him. Now, he had his loving family, and that was all a man needed to be happy.

© nellielsss on tumblr - get your own shit bitches | ca. 12/26/2024

[lorelune]

o4o: extended author's note

🎀 masterlist 🎀

WOW!! i genuinely... genuinely cannot believe i finished this piece 😭 like truly. around a year ago, i was cooking up the idea for an a/b/o collab and to think... almost a year later i have finished my piece :3c

o4o was originally just supposed to be a one shot featuring beloved omega jing yuan and his heat, but the idea expanded into much more fleshed out world, reader and dynamic. i truly never intended to go explicit with the mommy kink but you Know. sometimes things simply occur and you gotta go with the flow!!

omegaverse is so interesting to me in so many ways... the social workings of secondary gender, biology, and the relationships characters can have based on secondary gender too. i've had this very clear vision of scent gland anatomy in my minds eye for literally two years and it felt sooo nice to get it down in part iii for folks to like see. the vision. in o4o there is also this element of queerness that like... cannot exist in the real world! which is very fun and fascinating to me as an author to explore. both reader and jing yuan are omegas and the dynamic they with one and other is inherently informed by their secondary gender, but they express that secondary gender in very different, complimentary ways.

when i was cooking up o4o, i wanted to try and lean away from the reading of a/b/o which boils down to "alpha = stereotypical man" and "omega = stereotypical woman". femininity and masculinity are socially-informed concepts, and thereby change by concept and time, and i really wanted to (and attempted to) keep some amount of like... liminality to their expression. though jing yuan is perceived an alpha by the xianzhou alliance at large (because he is large, strong, and has a commanding presence), this is like... mostly coincidence and fabrication on his part. he cannot help that he is large (a great deal of which is soft omega pudge anyways!! and a slow metabolism adds to it), he's strong due to his lifetime of hard training, and his 'presence' is something he's like... constructed and honed because it is convenient and serves him well.

reader is more genuinely stereotypically in their world (at least what we see of them!!). they're a bit of a weakling, a lot of a crybaby, and very easy to coddle!! more like an omega kit than a grown one to be so real (see why jing yuan takes a liking to you LOL). but there's like embers of reader that distinctly aren't this stereotypical omega. they traveled to the Luofu alone, and settled without a pack or family unit. in part iii, we get a peak into reader's family, and you get a glimpse of reader's family, which is very non-traditional as well. they want to claim bite jing yuan. there's like!! in general lots of playing with perceptions in this piece. it's been very fun. playing with the expected bounds and outside of as well!!!

i DO have a sequel planned, a fun little spanking fic from reader's pov that truly i have been dying to write hehe. getting to do a deep dive on kink like o4o is very fun and like... rewarding. playing the long game on a kink to set up the Brain reasons why the characters involve enjoy it is like... long and hard. but very!!! gratifying. i'm excited to revisit these two, as both crybaby reader and milfy jy have altered my brain chemistry in unknoweable ways <3

finishing this piece would truly. TRULY. not have been possible without the cheering and support of multiple beta readers over each part. my pal honey helped out on parts i and ii and sadly doesn't have a tumblr anymore, but their jy thirsting and thoughts were VITAL!! @harmonydove was such huge help combing through part iii for clarity and cielo (@aimfor-theheart) did a much-needed final read through despite not going to hsr. and. AND!! truly truly TRULY this fic could not survived, lived and thrived with the continued, in-dms support of beloved mermie (@ofmermaidstories). she read this fic as i wrote and listened to my many questions and anxieties as this piece grew and grew. forever grateful. to all of these lovely folks!!!

thank YOU reader. for immersing yourself in this story and its world, and enjoying. truly there is nothing more that i desire as i writer. enjoy this piece this holiday season and be well 💗 🎀 💦

— lore 🩷

[danzinora-switch]

Bit of an odd question for you, but I can see you have more knowledge of RotTMNT than I do. Do you think Donnie lets people help him/be with him in the lab? I've seen it claimed in a few fics but I don't know how validated it is by "canon".

Oooh, it depends.

The best canon argument #1 is Mikey. In 'Bullhop', while they're talking to Bullhop while standing in Donnie's lab, there's a lot of orange cloth/clothes/fabric lying about, suggesting that it might be Mikey's stuff.

Mikey also assisted Donnie in building Todd's entire Puppy Sanctuary in 'Repo Mantis' - technically outside the lab, but still a large engineering project.

There's a dozen little details that imply how close those two are, working on various projects, schemes, etc. throughout the show. One of the most on-the-nose scenes that Mikey is the Igor to Donnie's Dr. Frankenstein actually comes from a script page shared by Ron Corcillo on Twitter for 'Gourd Almighty' (one of the axed-by-Nickelodeon episodes).

Mikey was totally in on whatever Donnie was working on.

So Mikey: definitely allowed to hang out and help out.

The second person would seem to be April, due to a lot of their shared projects. In 'Donnie vs Witch-Town' they scroll through a history of science projects they've worked on together. In 'The Purple Jacket' not only does Donnie help her out with her coding project at school, but he actively encourages her to use his tech. When she's flying the jetpack asking how it works, he replies "everyone's got their own style, just do what feels natural." I bank a LOT on this line: if everyone's got their own style, that implies that more people than just Donnie have at least used the jetpack. In fact, in 'Endgame' we see Leo riding one like a surfboard.

This segues into the general crux of Donnie's work: the VAST majority of his tech is not just for himself, but for others. The Turtle Tank features a chair specifically to Raph's lumbar settings, and motorcycles for Leo and Mikey. 'Donnie's Gifts' as an episode features presents backfiring spectacularly, but still shows him making tech for his bros. Shelldon is first presented as a gift for all of them, to help around the lair. Donnie is proud to present his tech and for people to use it. (What he doesn't like is for people to MISuse it; such as his brothers altering Shelldon, Splinter stealing the Turtle Tank, and Bullhop making a ruckus throughout his lab).

That, in my opinion, is the core distinction of Donnie allowing someone to help him out in the lab: that they are there to actually help, and not just be annoying.

In 'Mind Meld', when Donnie makes his brothers just like him, he is ecstatic at first, declaring it the greatest day of his life. And he's pretty surprised and impressed with what they come up with in his lab.

So yeah, Mikey seems to be there a lot because he genuinely wants to help out, and Donnie's good with that. But how often does Leo want to help out in the lab with the work? Less often, and so we don't really see him outside of being annoying (Leo tends to pan Donnie's work a lot, from talking about his pattern of failures in 'Smart Lair' to actually clarifying he's not being sarcastic when he says he things the Shellhogs are amazing in 'Stuck on You'. This implies he doesn't care as much about the nerdy things Donnie gets up to, and we also know Leo to value the lazy way of doing things, per 'One Man's Junk'). What about Raph? In 'Stuck on You', while we don't exactly know how they all ended up in a giant glue ball, to some degree it was planned by Raph as a teambuilding exercise. Not his brightest idea as no one was really happy about that. And in 'Cloak and Swaggart' it is further implied that Donnie's aware of a bad trend between Raph and shiny red buttons.

And yet, given how much Donnie makes tech with them each individually in mind, if ever Leo and Raph wanted to help Donnie out in the lab with a project I can't see why he would refuse them. He would probably be delighted that they're taking an interest in his work (as he shines EVERY TIME someone does), and would find something for them to do that matches their skill level and accounts for their accident-prone tendencies.

Really, the only people we see thrown out of the lab are the ones posing a risk or problem to the projects inside: Bullhop, indelicately breaking everything. Splinter, high on Rat Fever in Ninja mode, loose inside. Even Mikey triggers an automatic defense when he speaks while Donnie is accessing their mint-condition Jupiter Jim comic in 'Jupiter Jim Ahoy!' - something Donnie built to protect a thing beloved by all of them.

Tl;dr: whether or not someone would be allowed to stay and/or help Donnie in the lab depends on what they're there for. Here to help? Awesome, welcome! Here to break things or just be annoying? Get out.

[crownedinmarigolds]

A Golden Opportunity! - A Gary Golden writeup for @laughatlocksmiths!

A fly flits its way into the den of the spiders. A little red drop of blood cut straight from the vein, slipping down a white arm into his warrens. It’s probably not even aware of how futile its efforts are. Gravity dragging it forward by the toes, a shambling joke in its death throes. Hah. Well, the uninvited guest had managed to shake off the Sabbat abominations that kept he and his trapped. An impressive enough feat, he’ll give the little morsel that. It’s just too bad that the circumstances for meeting are so… tedious. Oh, he knew exactly why this freshly dead fledgling was here. The hotshot young Prince that decided to take a chair, put it up in the tallest tower and declare himself king, was throwing himself a little tantrum. A decorated old box with a dead body inside went missing on the car ride over, a common mistake! Can’t trust any delivery men these days, especially ones that aren’t paid well. Just because he’d been the one to set up the delivery, suddenly it was his fault the product got lost? He'd been tucked in at home, watching old films and having a good cry at the time of the crime! It was frankly insulting to be once again fingered for a burglary they have no proof he was involved in… though we can all be honest as we sit and chat in our heads, can’t we? Now, old Gary didn’t know what use LaCroix had for a corpse (a non-locomotive one at least) but he didn’t expect them to be playing tea party together. So when opportunity knocks, Mr. Golden likes to answer and give it a seat at his table. So he may’ve let slip (through a few channels and voices that weren't his) to a few mafiaso types where the box may be headed, and they made a pick up. These kinds of Kindred were always into the old things, thinking they can scrape off some spirit mumbo jumbo from it, of which he couldn’t care less about. The Prince throws a fit over a lost artifact for a while, but the city will swallow his complaints up and he’d move onto the next dusty object to obsess over. There's some extra funding for his kin to keep the lights on, as well as the added pleasure of annoying some pompous little young Ventrue. Unfortunately the box has been more trouble than its initial face-value worth. The Prince really into whatever it had inside like it was a lost Christmas present - and not to even mention the Kuei Jin and their underlings also starting to feel around with their nasty little tendrils. It makes his clammy skin get clammier to imagine what could even stir their attention, so he had a trustworthy and capable man try and take a look into what is really going on in Chinatown. His man was snatched up, something he should’ve expected to happen given the circumstances. He felt something awful about it, considering this merry band of freaks were his responsibility. There's no safety out there for his kin, and with how hard Los Angeles and its surrounding cities were becoming to navigate in modern nights, old Gary was needing someone to get into Chinatown for him. The Kuei Jin weren’t going to take snoops lightly, and he was already greatly unpopular over there. No no boss, this is a golden opportunity walking down their little tunnel hallways right to his room. The fledgling gets his glory by rescuing the old box from the evil thieving necromancers… with information so generously given by Gary as soon as his man is rescued from the clutches of the Kuei Jin and their kine help. It’s not the most multi-dimensional chess way to go about it, but a classic is always worth a rewatch in his book. Dirt makes way to cobbled stone, then to tile. Ruined shoes tracking mud into his party space. He is cloaked from the mind in the corner, a sharp smile in the dark as the little morsel has no idea what he’s looking for. Theatrics were his specialty, and it was time to make it worth the wait. “By the clack-smack cracking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

Thank you so much to @porcelainseashore for putting together the VTM Writer's Secret Santa event! It was challenging to get into a non-OC character's mindset but it was also very fun once the flow came! I love to write and don't get to do it often so this made me sit down and get to it. I hope I did Gary some justice!

[days-until-burnout]

hellow *looks at u with big ole eyes* i am in need of more scarishbeans pwease 🥺🥺🥺 the very fluffy type 🥹🥹 as always ur writings are wonderful and i hope u have a very good timezone 🎀

(can u guess who i am LOL 😔 hint: the only person that requests scarjoel💀)

*looks at you with even bigger eyes* scarjoel for u yes OH NO. I JSUT REREAD THE PRMPT YOU SAID FLUFFY NOOOOOOOOO I FUCKED UP. FORGIVE ME 😭 i had no ideas so i pulled a prompt generator and i got "Your character has big news but no one to tell it to." forgive me _____

📧 Day 114 (d) -

Characters - Scar/Joel Words - 638 Time - 30 mins Content - School setting

Joel jumps high in the air, clutching his phone tight as he fists the air. He cheers loudly by himself, beaming when gravity eases him down, even the wind brushes his cheek and ruffles his hair. Jealousy, he holds his phone to his chest, clutching his hand on top as he feels his heartbeat everywhere. 

His face breaks, hurting with a smile. 

When he looks back at his screen, re-reading the words over and over, his heart jumps every single time like the first time. Relief, a sense of achievement, suddenly fuller. 

Overcome with feelings, he falls to his knees, the joy shattering at the edges like waking up from a good dream. The curtains fall, the rug pulled from under him. His chest tightens, suffocating his heart where it once pounded with excitement. 

When he stares at the ground under him, thumbs across his screen, his reflection staring right back. His shadow falls over him, the world dimmer without the sun warming his skin. 

The tears follow shortly after.

This is pathetic, he knows. 

Oh, how he knows. 

“Oh, hello there!” 

Joel jumps, forcing himself to not turn around before rubbing his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve. It stings and scratches, burning over the scorching tears. He breathes in and out, willing himself back to composure. 

When he finally turns around, he sits on the grass, facing the sun blocked by Scar. He finds curiosity in twinkling eyes, something nice and gentle in his expression. Scar limps over, huffing as he drops his cane, carefully lowering himself on the grass in front of him. 

“Hi, Scar,” Joel greets, gaze dropping to his phone. His reflection stares back, but harder to tell apart from the sunlight. 

“Aw, you look very sad. What is wrong, Joel? Something you want to share with your good ol’ pal Scar?”

Joel chuckles, a little bitterly. They are not friends, and never were. In another lifetime, if they made different decisions, maybe they would have been friends. Now, however, Joel can only look up to the guy everyone wants to befriend. Such a cool guy, so approachable. 

Still, his mouth gets ahead of his head, “It’s nothing.”

“Oh?” Scar tilts his head, eyebrows raised with even more curiosity now. “So there is something to share! Do tell, Joel, do tell.”

Instead of talking, Joel unlocks his phone, handing it over. 

It takes a couple seconds for Scar to read it, and somehow, someway, his expression fills with excitement, almost pride. Joel tells himself he is imagining it, because surely he is. 

But then Scar is looking at him, right at him, smiling so wide. Joel freezes when Scar pulls himself over, pulling him in for a crushing hug. And he is saying things, praise and whatnot, nice things that he cannot even tell apart. 

Just sound. Everything is sound. Just the sound of Scar’s voice spoken into his hair and neck, nice things that sound so warm and soft and gentle. 

His heart is ready to burst, already forgetting the heartbreak of having no one to share the news with. His eyes gloss, prickling with tears again. They rain down his face, hot and wet landing on Scar’s shoulder. He raises his hands, taking fistfuls of Scar’s back as he buries his face into his shoulder, trying to bite back the sobs.

Scar places a hand behind Joel’s head, running his fingers through his hairs, his loudness taming at the change of moods. He holds Joel secure in his arms, smiling into his hair, and when he speaks next, his voice is softer.

“I’m proud of you,” he whispers, chuckling when Joel curls himself further into his arms. “You have done amazingly, Joel. You should be proud,” he nuzzles his cheek, lightly brushing his jaw with his lips, “very, very proud.”

_____

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 it ended fluffy at least 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 also, i *think* i know who you might be, but i cannot be for certain. no biggie going off anon or stayin, you can if you want. it does not affect anything, i promise well, for now, that's scar day for now 😌 i wanted to do convex but didnt get aournd to it. maybe anothe rday

[click for a random day]