#but i have probably less than ten comments posted.

[evrewilleat]

pissed at social sites that won’t let me change my username anytime i want to. i don’t care about security or whatever shit is going on, i should be able to completely change the theme of my profile at the flip of a dime

[miclipse]

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ princess & the fish.

pairing: rafayel x fem! reader

synopsis: rafayel’s dream of turning into a human had miraculously come true! but things didn't turn out like he had expected…

word count: 3.7k

cw: afab! reader, rafayel is a fish (literally, but he turns into a human), reader is a princess, nicknames used (princess, your highness), rafayel struggling to walk with legs, rafayel hates toes, very slight and brief abysswalker! rafayel reference (just one line), reader finds rafayel half-naked in her room, fluff

dt: everyone that wanted fishy rafayel (aka fifi) to turn into a human + the person in my asks asking if i was continuing this.

note: reupload because apparently my post didn’t show up in the tags :( but unfortunately that means the ask got deleted as well, sorry anon :(

likes reblogs & comments appreciated! <3

this all had to be a dream, right?

…actually, no. this was most definitely a nightmare, if anything.

because why else would rafayel be standing naked in your bedroom, the fishtank he once called his home now nothing but shattered glass scattered across your study table?

there was no logical explanation for this, rafayel thought to himself while struggling to manoeuvre around your room with his new pair of human appendages.

he spent at least ten minutes stumbling over his toes while trying to make his way to your bathroom door.

…seriously, why did humans even have a need for toes? and ten of them, at that!

when rafayel had finally, finally made it to the bathroom entrance, he spent another five minutes figuring out the mechanism behind how to open it.

turns out, the grand secret behind it was that he had to push the door, not pull.

once in the bathroom, rafayel was tempted to fill up your bathtub with water and just jump in for a swim, but he figured seeing a naked man with a towel wrapped around his waist would be a little less intense for you than having to see a fully naked stranger swimming around in your tub.

thus, rafayel opted to grab a spare towel from the cabinet just under the sink, carelessly tying it around his waist to hide his indecency before you came back from your royal duties.

rafayel spent yet another ten minutes trying to walk out of your bathroom (he nearly slipped at least twice but he refuses to talk about it) and towards the nearest furniture he could sit on without it breaking due to his new physique.

looking around your bedroom to ensure that there were no maids around to witness this phenomenon, rafayel plopped himself on the edge of your soft mattress.

resting his head on his fist, his eyebrows furrowed in the process.

this was not how he imagined things to go at all.

in all honesty, rafayel was pretty satisfied living life as your pet fish. though there were many pros and cons that came along with his new domestic life, he wouldn't have wished for things to be any different than how it was.

of course, there were times when rafayel would ponder to himself how life would be for him if he were to turn into a human and be able to properly talk with you.

but out of all the exaggerated and cliche scenarios rafayel had fantasized about during his free time (which was whenever you were not around), being naked with only a fluffy white towel tied around his waist as he dreadfully waited for you to return was definitely not one of them.

well, it probably was. but it was not at the top of his list, that was for sure.

but here came the real question—

how did he even turn into a human? there was no logical or scientific reason behind how all of this was possible. rafayel had never heard others talk about stories of fishes turning into humans either.

well, unless you included ariel from that little mermaid movie. but ariel was a mermaid, so it really was not exactly the same as rafayel’s current predicament.

and besides, rafayel didn’t think he knew or angered any shady sea witches back when he lived in the waters.

there was nothing he could really do at the moment. as much as rafayel wanted to sneak to the royal library to dig out some sacred books in order to do some research about his condition, he dared not imagine the consequences he would have to face if anyone caught him sneaking out of the princess’s private chambers with only a skimpy bath towel covering him from waist-down.

just the image of him getting beheaded by the royal guards was enough to convince rafayel not to leave your private chambers, knowing it was the safest place for him to be in right now.

so his only option now was to wait for his princess to return to her chambers so that he could try to explain the situation to you in hopes that your naive little brain could understand and help him out.

he was your beloved fish afterall, so surely you would find a way to help him, right?

an ear-piercing scream echoed loudly through the room.

rafayel's eyes snapped open in panic and immediate dread, sitting up from the bed frantically only to be met with a big white thing smacking his face.

as he made a clumsy attempt to back away from the bed and nearly tripping over his newly grown toes (human toes be damned), rafayel’s eyes wandered to the big white thing that was thrown at him.

it was your polar bear plushie, he noted.

rafayel then turned to look at the door, only to see you standing there looking like a frightened kitten, now holding a thick, hard-cover book ready to launch at him once more.

it was only then rafayel realised that he had accidentally fallen asleep in your bed while waiting for you to come back.

this was not good. not good at all.

“who… who are you?!” you shrieked out, preparing yourself to throw the book in his face within the next five seconds if he didn't respond.

“me? i’m…” without even realizing it, rafayel darted his eyes to look at your study table as he fell silent, his lips pursing together.

you gave him a look of skepticism before slowly following his gaze. the man watched as you let out a horrified gasp when you saw that your fishtank was nothing but shattered glass on the table.

“fifi!”

running to your study table, you stared at what once used to be fifi's home for the past three months, now nothing but broken shards scattered all across the table.

“you! what have you done to my fifi?”

rafayel backed up into the corner of the room when you pointed an accusatory finger at him, feeling very wronged by your assumption.

what, did you think he ate your fish or something?

“woah!”

to prevent his nose from breaking tonight, rafayel quickly moved his head to the side to narrowly dodge the book in your hands that came flying towards his face.

that was a close one.

“let's use words, shall we?”

before you had a chance to frantically look around your bedroom for a new deadly weapon to fling at rafayel's handsome face, he had to think of something believable, and fast.

“i’m asking you one last time, where. is. my. fish?”

your eyes narrowed and your eyebrows furrowed as you glared at rafayel as an attempt to threaten him.

rafayel doesn't really have the heart to tell you that your glare was nothing more than a little fly trying to square up to a frog.

not the best comparison, but you get it.

“well, if you're looking for fifi, i’m right here.” rafayel responded as nonchalantly as he could, desperately trying to hold back his laughter.

you shot him an incredulous look, obviously doubtful with his claim of being your pet fish. rafayel felt absolutely scrutinized under your gaze while you looked at him up and down.

“do you think i’m five?”

“well, given how you spend your nights talking to a fish like it's your newfound soulmate, i wouldn't doubt it.”

man, rafayel wished he could describe how proud he felt when he saw your jaw slacken and you gawk at him with wide eyes.

it felt so good finally being able to talk back to you, and in a way that you understood him too. rafayel picks this over ‘glub! glub! glub!’ anyday.

you looked around the room cautiously, before your eyes landed back on rafayel.

no one really knew that you spent your nights telling your baby fishy little bedtime stories.

…not unless this man in your room was fifi himself. it was a secret solely kept between you and fifi.

…still, it wouldn't hurt to double check, right?

“oh yeah? tell me something about fifi then.” you challenged, crossing your arms over your chest. you still felt doubtful over this whole situation. “anything at all.”

i mean, it wasn't everyday that you got to see your fish turn into a grown man (that was also naked, you observed), now a head taller than you.

rafayel smirked at your demand. oh boy, where should he start? he had many, many juicy secrets that he could spill to you. ones that he knew were only shared between you and your beloved fishy (him) in these very four walls.

but he was determined to embarrass the hell out of you, so he was thinking what exactly was the most embarrassing moment you've ever told him.

maybe he should start with that one time you started weeping your eyes out in front of his tank because you thought he was sick and about to die since he wasn't eating the kibbles you poured into his tank? (you were overfeeding him).

or perhaps that one time you told him you accidentally broke your mom's jewellery box while trying on her earrings and blamed it all on the maid instead?

oh. he couldn't forget the countless amounts of times you fell asleep sprawled over the study table, your hair looking as neat as a bird’s nest, drool escaping from the corner of your lips and dripping onto the sleeve of your nightgown as you snored the night away.

but the most memorable one of them all was…

“...remember that time when you tried to cut a piece of strawberry cake and dump it into my tank?” rafayel questioned, a smirk appearing on his lips as his eyebrow quirked upwards, anticipating the kind of reaction you’d give.

the way your eyes widened in horror and the tips of your ears started to tint in a dark red hue was enough for rafayel to conclude that he had won this round.

“only fifi would know that…” you mumbled out in utter disbelief. was this man standing in front of you really your pet fish of three months?

“exactly.” rafayel puffed out his chest proudly at your words. “but if you’re not convinced, i can tell you about that time when you tried to bring my fishtank to your bed so you could hug me to sleep—”

oh. not that. you desperately cut rafayel off mid-sentence.

“stop! stop, stop!” your face felt hot, as if you just ran a whole marathon with no breaks in between.

there was an awkward and tense silence lingering in the air, with you looking at your pet fish dead in the eyes.

“s.. so it really is you, fifi…” you managed to mutter out, albeit still in disbelief that your pet fish was now a grown man a head taller than you.

rafayel doesn’t have it in him to break the devastating piece of news to you that his name was actually ‘rafayel’ before you came along.

“affirmative.” fifi— or, rafayel, nodded his head without a beat of hesitation.

you both then proceeded to awkwardly stare at each other without a word, waiting for each other to break the tense silence.

eventually, rafayel was the one that broke the silence.

“so…” he sheepishly rubbed the nape of his neck, feeling like a fish out of the water (literally and figuratively). “has the shock died down yet?” he asked, hoping you were calm enough to have a proper conversation with him.

you blinked and glanced back at the broken fish tank a couple of times to make sure that rafayel was not some kind of crazy hallucination stemming from your lack of sleep recently.

“well, not really.”

“good enough for me.” rafayel casually bent down and picked up the weapons you used for your assassination attempt (your books and polar bear plushie), making his way to your study table to put the books back where they belong.

“i know you probably have a lot of questions, your highness,” rafayel’s gentle voice filled the room’s silence once again. “but i, too, don’t have the answers to them. i hope your highness can forgive me.”

he briefly glanced at you from his peripheral vision, a faint and apologetic smile ghosting his lips while he slotted the books back into the shelf.

you were still standing in the middle of the room, your eyes following rafayel’s figure while he was putting back your books. you still had the dumbfounded and surprised look from this whole ordeal.

when rafayel caught sight of you meekly nodding your head in silent agreement to his words, he took it as a sign to continue speaking.

“since you’re free tomorrow, how about your highness help a fishy out to find a way to turn me back?” he asked with a chuckle, making a final stop to your bed and gently placing your polar bear down by the pillows, now reunited with the rest of your fuzzy friends.

“how’d you know i’m—”

oh, that’s right. you told fifi at the start of this week that you had tomorrow to yourself. the realisation that you spent your nights practically telling this man (in his fish form) the a to z’s about your life started to settle in, coupled with embarrassment.

“oh.. right..” the corners of your lips twitched into an uncomfortable smile, trying to keep your cool despite the absurd situation unfolding before your very eyes.

“also, do you mind if i borrow a hoodie of yours or something? walking around with only a skimpy towel around my waist is a little uncomfortable.”

“ack!”

before you could protest, rafayel strutted towards your wardrobe and began rummaging through it like a stray mouse in search of a slab of cheese.

attempting to recollect your composure, you stammered out a remark in hopes to gain back some sort of control.

“h..hey! is this how you act in someone else’s bedchamber?”

rafayel halted his scavenger hunt for a brief moment.

“… i’ll remember for next time.”

…and he’s back to digging through your wardrobe for one of your oversized hoodies.

in the end, rafayel settled with one of your gray hoodies coupled with a pair of sweatpants he miraculously could fit in.

“what’s this?”

a look of confusion washed over his face as the fish stepped out of your bathroom, finally properly clothed.

his eyes were glued to the unfamiliar scene before him. a thick woven quilt was spread across the carpeted floor not far away from your bedframe, accompanied by two pillows and a neatly folded but thin blanket sitting on top of it.

“your new bed for the night.”

your response was as casual as inviting a friend over for a sleepover.

you gave his new bed a few soft pats, a gesture to coax him over, before making your way back to your own cozy haven.

“since you don’t fit in a fish tank anymore, i figured we have to come up with an alternative.”

rafayel watched as you tucked yourself into bed and fluffed up your pillows, getting ready to drift to dreamscape anytime from this point forward.

“yeah, well what if your maids see me?” his voice was full of skepticism as he approached his new bed, lifting up the blanket to fit into the warm cocoon.

“then i can tell them that you’re fifi.”

one of rafayel’s eyebrows quirked up in doubt and a hint of amusement.

“and will they buy it?”

“no.”

“…”

well, that was reassuring.

rafayel’s head was resting against the pillows now, completely unimpressed with your response while also trying to get used to sleeping outside of the water.

“well, but that’s something we’ll both deal with tomorrow.” you laughed nervously, leaning back against the plush pillows and turning your body so that you were laying on your side; facing rafayel with a faint smile ghosting your lips.

staring into your eyes like this made rafayel’s heart swell in an odd way. he didn’t know exactly how to put it to words, but the atmosphere of your bedroom felt dangerously intimate right now.

in fact, way too intimate for an owner and her pet fish to be having.

rafayel was no fool— he could tell how you seemed to be holding back more now that he had taken the form of a human. how the gaze you directed towards him still held a hint of love and affection amidst all of your other mixed emotions. you looked at him as if nothing had changed between the two of you, like he was still that tiny fish you had brought back home (kidnapped) three months ago.

“yeah… we should get some rest. we’ll be ransacking our brains a lot tomorrow.” rafayel agreed with a nod of his head, breaking eye contact first by turning his head to look up at the ceiling, trying to get rid of the dangerously growing intimacy dancing between the two of you.

his arm slid beneath his head to get into a more comfortable position for himself, still in disbelief that he was actually a human now.

he tried. keyword, tried to ignore the lingering feeling of not being able to bury his little fishy body in his favourite coral reef to fall asleep, and instead having to settle with sleeping on the cold hard ground with a paper-thin blanket that barely reached to the tip of his toes.

but in the end, the thought still greatly bothered him.

“tell me a bedtime story.”

…the words flew out of his mouth before rafayel could even comprehend what he was saying.

“i beg your pardon?” your expression morphed into one of astonishment.

“what? don’t you always go on and on about your day in front of my fishtank?” rafayel scoffed, turning his head back to face you. he had been kept awake against his will, forced to listen to your endless ramblings ever since you first kidnapped him.

he had grown so accustomed to your excited life updates that it was part of his daily routine now. rafayel always relied on your storytelling to help him get sleepy and prepare for bedtime, and he definitely wasn’t going to let this routine stop tonight just because he had grown a pair of legs out of thin air.

“… how about you tell me a bedtime story this time, fifi?”

your soft voice almost made rafayel wonder if he misheard what you had just said.

“hah, me? as if i have any tales that would fascinate you.” rafayel was quick to dismiss the idea of telling you a story.

one, bedtime storytelling was your thing. it always has been, and it always will be. as a fish, rafayel was habituated to just listening. i mean, he was a fish, there wasn’t much he could say to you in the first place. asking him for a sudden role reversal to play as the storyteller was beyond his expertise and comfort zone.

and two, his life out in the seas wasn’t as interesting or fascinating as whatever you were expecting.

or in other words, rafayel had no stories to tell in the first place.

“oh come on, i’m sure there’s some interesting stories about your life before you started living here.” you continued to persuade him further, trying to give him a metaphorical nudge to get him to open up.

rafayel really couldn’t resist when you talked to him in that soft and persuasive tone. you might as well grow a pair of fins and live in the ocean as a siren with how easily you allured him to obey your words.

“fine, fine, let me think of something,” the fish grumbled, his eyebrows furrowing together as he dug through his memories for anything worth mentioning to you.

entertaining a princess was hard work— rafayel was finally starting to understand the pressure of being in the presence of a princess like yourself. it was like there was an invisible expectation for him to uphold. one that was unspoken, but still anticipated in a way.

“does me being chased by an octopus sound entertaining enough for you, your highness?”

the way your smile grew, and your eyes held a hint of curiosity made rafayel let out a breath he didn’t even realise he had been holding.

so that was how he began telling you about the instance where he was chased by an octopus back when he was still adventuring around in the stray waters.

rafayel’s storytelling skills wasn’t top tiered as compared to yours. his story began awkward, his tone unnatural. this was not his forte, so he was basically a fish out of the water (once again, literally and figuratively).

however, the sounds of your soft giggles, hums of acknowledgement and occasional small nods of your head served to be the main catalyst for him to improve as the story progressed.

by the time the story reached its climax, he sounded more confident and sure of himself. he also was more natural when speaking and somehow, without even realising it, managed to lull you to dreamscape.

“...seriously? just as i was at the good part too.” rafayel muttered, feigning mild irritation when he saw that your eyes were closed, facial features relaxed, along with your breathing deep and slow.

rafayel let out a defeated sigh, lightly shaking his head before he turned his head to face back towards the ceiling again.

he finally understood how you always managed to fall asleep so quickly after telling him about your day— talking in such an excessive manner was… tiring. and now, he was feeling the growing fatigue about to consume him too.

he briefly snuck a glance at your sleeping form through his peripheral vision, the corners of his lips gently tugging upwards into a smile.

rafayel’s mind was tired, but his heart was filled to the brim with nothing but affection. affection that you had been showering him with for the past three months.

“no matter what form i take, you’ll still love me just the same, huh?”

he wasn't expecting an answer. he didn't need your verbal response to confirm his thoughts in the first place. the facts were as clear as day before his very eyes.

his vision was getting blurry, his breathing slowing down and his eyes feeling heavier with each blink.

rafayel vaguely remembered letting out one final whisper before everything fell to the darkness.

“…at least now i can finally tell you that i love you too, princess.”

all rights reserved © miclipse 2024. do not repost, plagiarize, copy, modify or translate my works on any platforms.

[weaselle]

Let's talk chef knives

somebody in the comments on a cooking post is talking to me about knives and i figure, why not make a whole post about it

I worked in restaurants for two decades, and that means i was mostly too poor to buy expensive knives.. but i did learn EXACTLY what i was looking for in a knife, and eventually i did spend about $150 on one.

Now, you can easily spend $500 or more on a chef knife if you are the kind of person who cares about having the chef knife equivilent of a porche or lamborghini and i don't think many of you are looking for that, so I'm going to tell you what i looked for in my really-good-but-not-too-expensive chef knife

First of all, you don't need that block set of knives you see in like every kitchen ever. You know, this thing

You don't need that. Listen, theoretically each of those knives has a specific thing it is used for, but in all the restaurants i worked at, 99.9% of the stuff i did was done with one of these

We didn't go looking for a specific kind of knife, we just used one of these -- often a bunch of those were all that was provided. I uh, i didn't work at a lot of high end restaurants. But even in the nicer ones, most of what we used was a chef's knife.

So. In my opinion, instead of spending $100-$200 on a bunch of kind of shitty knives, spend the same money on one really nice chef knife, and a wetstone or some other sharpener you feel you can use. But really, like, just look at a wetstone tutorial on youtube, it's not hard, and it will make your life better.

NOW let me tell you what i looked for in my knife

This is the knife i use. It's a six inch Zwilling Pro

if you shop around, you can probably find it for close to 100 bucks. It's not Fancy™, it's just Quite Good. You can, if you want, find a chef knife for a couple grand, and that plastic-handled one in the first pic will run you less than ten dollars, so, this is a pretty good price point, on the low side of middle, with a knife quality on the high side of middle. If you take care of this knife, it could last you your whole life

Now let's talk about specific features I was looking for. First, inb4, metal quality. Zwilling is a good company, so the quality of their actual metal is pretty decent, and that's all you really need to know -- if you're getting your knife from a known decent knife company it's probably good enough quality. In this case Zwilling uses forged high-carbon German steel, which are some good key words to look for. That's all i have to say about that.

Now there are four specific things i was looking for that led me to choose this specific knife

1

Depth. This refers to how far the heel of the blade juts out from the handle (the heel of the blade is the part of the blade closest to your hand). When you have the blade resting with the edge flush against the cutting board, you want there to be plenty of room for the hand gripping the handle without knocking your knuckles against the board. A classic pinch grip doesn't need much room, but that's not the only grip you'll ever use, so give yourself some decent knuckle clearance. But not TOO much. Too much and your blade will kind of feel like it wants to flop over on its side when the edge hits the board.

2

Length. As an edgy 20 year old in restaurant kitchens, i always went for the biggest knife i could find, but because you're going to be using your chef's knife for everything, you actually want it short enough to use as a paring knife or whatever. The shorter the blade, the more control over the tip you have. Me, i never really need anything longer than six inches. I was a little bit worried when i first got it, but i've never wound up wishing it was longer.

3

Weight. Even though it's just about as short as a chef's knife can be, my knife has a good amount of weight to it. A somewhat heavy blade helps with chopping, and provides a good balance for other knife skills. When you are chopping and slicing, a decent amount of weight helps a lot. It doesn't have to be heavy heavy, but when you pick it up, it should definitely feel like a chunk of steel, not like a pressed aluminum toy. Plus, some of the weight will come from thickness, and a thicker blade will stand up to more sharpening and last you longer too.

4

Bolster Shape

If you look at the Zwilling Pro's bolster, it has a bolster that is sort of beveled into the heel of the blade with a nice curve. Right right, what's a bolster, hold on, here's the anatomy of a knife

on this knife, you can see that where the bolster meets the blade it makes basically a right angle where it goes from thick to thin. This is distressingly common in chef knives

now look at the bolster on the Zwilling Pro

and here's a similar bolster shape from a different angle

First of all, the bolster is diagonal, which is the right shape for me to hold in a classic grip. Every chef has their own grip, but it's always a variation on pinching the blade just above the bolster, and a diagonal bevel works better for my grip.

And just as important to me, it might be hard to tell, but the metal curves from the thickness of the handle to the thinness of the blade instead of using a right angled edge to go from thick to thin. This curve sort of follows the movement your knife makes against the knuckle you use to guide the blade when you do this

I tend to use the deepest part of the heel a lot, and, depending on what i'm doing with the knife, my grip can often be nearly off the blade it's so far back, so i have a tendency to knock a straight bolster directly against my index knuckle. Just a little, but after a few dozen times in half a minute it starts to irritate my finger. A curved bolster like on the Zwilling Pro sort of glides to a stop against my guiding knuckle instead of banging into it, provides a comfortable pinch, and makes my life in the kitchen better.

That might not be true for everyone, it's just important to pay attention to how you use a knife, especially if you find yourself thinking something like "it would be better for me if this part of the knife was different in this way" or "this knife would be easier to grip if it was shaped like this instead" or "i wish the shape of this knife didn't mean this was always happening" or whatever. Could even be how your knife fits in your dishwasher, just pay attention to what works and doesn't work for you personally so you know What you're looking for. But you for sure want to look at the Depth, Weight, Length, and Shape.

So. There you have it. Some things to pay attention to when selecting a knife that may allow you to get a good knife for yourself without spending tooooo much money.

[xdjville]

wayv and pda

pairing: wayv x gn!reader

cw: none

author's note: guess who's back from the dead! long story short i've been booked and busy, and since i started this blog purely to post if and when i have an idea and/or inspiration, i didn't want to push myself to put out just anything. i'll continue to write as motivation comes though, so please stick around 🫶

#kun

not really huge on pda. he prefers to keep intimacy for, well, intimate spaces, but still enjoys showing his affection for you to the level that says "this is my partner and i love them" without making any of the parties involved uncomfortable. that said, he prefers to do it with actions over touching, like opening the doors for you, walking on the side of the sidewalk that's closer to the street, or helping you out of your outerwear, but linking your arms or wrapping his hand around your waist is also very welcome. he's extremely observant too, so he'll move your necklace if the clasp has shifted to the front, fix your hair or head accessories, or take care of an eyelash that fell on your cheek. bonus: not exactly pda unless someone else is in the car, but he will put a hand over your thigh when he's driving.

#ten

honestly couldn't care less. not that he doesn't show pda, he does, a lot, but he never does it on purpose. he'd just casually put a hand around your shoulders when you're walking, on your thigh when you're sitting down, or place his chin on your shoulder when you're waiting in line out of habit. he'd touch your arm or shoulder when he's talking and lightly slap your arm while laughing because it feels natural to him. he's mindlessly reaching for your hand and intertwining your fingers when he's absorbed into telling a story, and give it a little squeeze when he's done and realizes it. most of those he would also do to his members or other close friends, but none of them would give him that familiar feeling in the stomach when reciprocating his affection like you do.

#winwin

not a fan, at all. not in front of strangers, not family, not the members. you'd have to take things slowly and look out for his reactions to get an idea of what he's okay with, or simply just sit him down and get it out of him. he will get shy and embarrassed, and that's the main reason for why he's not big on pda, but unless you plainly don't respect his boundaries he won't be uncomfortable to the point of getting annoyed either. he can handle a few teasing comments from his members and probably will gradually accommodate, but he still prefers when there's only one pair of eyes watching him. when it comes to holding hands, please link your pinky with his, for the sake of his heart (he also thinks it's cute).

#xiaojun

gets shy about pda but does it nevertheless. what can he say? he's whipped for you and he couldn't go an hour without a peck on your head, at the very least, and if someone happens to be in the same room at the time, then that's what the universe must have wanted. he's really just slightly less clingy in public than he is in private, and maybe will limit the amount of kisses according to who's there with you, but won't really complain about anything you initiate. will he blush all the way to the tips of his ears if anyone comments on his display of affection? yes. is he going to do it again in the span of the next thirty minutes? also yes. is he going to get over the shyness anytime soon? probably not.

#hendery

no amount of eyes can stop hendery from showering you with all the kisses and touches you deserve. he loves you and he's not afraid to show it - more than that, he might even get a slight ego boost from a stare or a teasing comment (to which he will respond with something along the lines of him being able to pull someone like you and make you embarrassed instead). he lives by the rule that if he can see you, he should be able to touch you and will sulk if you sit too far away for his liking. got past the stage where the members would tease him for pecking your lips by throwing shade back at them and now wouldn't even flinch if they walked into the room right into your make out session (which may or may not have happened).

#yangyang

he doesn't mind pda, but most of the time won't initiate it either. he's fine with more casual things like holding hands, hugging, or an occasional kiss on the cheek if that's something you're into, but he will get embarrassed and slightly uncomfortable if you do anything more without a warning, espacially in front of a bigger group of people. he has pretty strict boundaries in this matter but he's more than happy to communicate them to you and make sure he's aware of your own, as well as make sure that you don't feel pushed away. yangyang's also not a fan of showing affection in front of his members. he'll throw an arm around your shoulders when you're all watching a movie together if you've already been together for a while, but that's about it. you'll get all the cuddles and kisses in the world when you head to bed for the night though.

#taglist ➼♡ @0-hoony @suzayaaa

©xdjville

[ao3topshipsbracket]

prompted by nothing in particular, things I learned that I'd pass down as advice to anyone intending to do a large multifandom bracket tournament:

Imagine your bracket inspiring wild enough discourse that someone makes a Hall of the Mountain King edit. No, really, imagine it. Imagine that going down in your activity feed. Imagine being known across the site for that. Does this prospect fill you, on some level, with delight? If not, you may not be cut out for a large multifandom bracket tournament.

Do not try to do a large multifandom bracket alone. You need a team, and the bigger your audience gets the more of a team you need. You especially need a team if you're potentially working with a bunch of things you've never heard of. For a smaller bracket with an activity feed that's more reasonable to keep track of, you don't necessarily need multiple blog admins, but you at the very least need a groupchat so you aren't making all the decisions alone.

Your guys might lose. In fact, your guys will probably lose, since there can only be one winner. The sooner you accept this the better for all involved.

You are the mod. It is your job to be impartial, no matter what. You can hate and rage against one of your options in private. In public? The things you hate are valid contenders exactly like every other. If you really can't bring yourself to be at the very least neutral about something in public, just don't include it.

This also means that you have to be evenhanded. You can reveal your personal biases once finals are set in stone but if you're perceived as making policies that favor your guys that shit gets ugly and it gets ugly fast. Remember: everyone can see the vote percentages perfectly well on the post! The winner of the vote gets highlighted! People can see these things!

Keep anon off. If it looks like it's going to get at all heated, turn blog comments off and keep them off. Don't publish any type of ask you aren't okay with getting more of.

DO NOT RESPOND TO THE TAGS. You can respond to asks, if you really want to, and you've thought through the consequences, but do not respond to the tags. This is the other reason that you need a groupchat, ideally a groupchat full of likeminded individuals who have good takes and are fairly levelheaded: bringing bad or annoying or even just funny takes to the groupchat will give you the strength to not respond to the tags, the serenity to not respond to the tags, and the wisdom to not respond to the tags.

You cannot prevent voter fraud. You can accept voter fraud, or you can have a meltdown about voter fraud. In a small bracket (votes in the triple digits) you can ask people nicely not to fraud, and this will probably even work if you're not in mcyt fandom, but once you get to the tens of thousands it does not work at all. Even if nobody actually frauds, it's easy to accuse the other side of fraud and difficult to prove innocence; people can and will abuse this. Accepting fraud is literally always going to be less stress for you and I highly recommend it. Also, it's funny.

Try to establish policies before things come up, rather than reacting in the heat of the moment. Once you have made a policy, stick to it. Relatedly, when you are making policies, ask yourself very seriously if they're policies you're willing to stick to. Things you will likely need policies on: Do you publish propaganda? Do you reblog propaganda? What is the line for being an asshole beyond which you block? What do you do in case of a tie?

"There can't be that many fans of [whatever]" is always wrong. There can always be that many fans of whatever.

[narcjsistx]

𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃 | kaiser x reader

— part nine

plot: kaiser comforted you after a bad and slow breakup, but what will happen now considering what you two shared? is everything still unexpected or is there something you both simply have yet to realize?. fluff shit 'cause yeah!!

words: 2.7k (2711)

extra: it will probably become a multi part story, tell me if you're interested in a part ten!. This is my first time trying a chapter with images, but I need them for the plot

𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ; take a look, trust me!. you can find the other parts of the story by searching in the section dedicated to bllk

You look at your phone, your hands shaking every time you reread even just two or three of the comments on the post: it's incredible how everyone, everyone except Gabriel, has sensed your discomfort in his touch and his simple presence. Or maybe he understood it too, but he forced it because he knew it would bother you, which would be typical of him. On the other hand, there are also many comments that note Michael's presence at the fashion show, how he looked at you and how you actually looked back at him. Many also noted how he seemed angry when he saw that creep of your ex

You didn't think you'd make his presence so obvious, but you're obviously bad at keeping it under wraps. On the one hand, it's normal that he was at the show tonight, after all, for the media you're still best friends, but maybe it was the way you looked at each other that made someone have doubts, because in the midst of the sea of comments about Gabriel there are also some about Kaiser and his gaze towards you

The show ended less than half an hour ago, it's already midnight and the agency published the post, tagging you. The fashion show, beyond the unexpected, was a real success: you came back viral in less than a few hours, and now everyone seems to forget the hatred they poured out on you when you were still considered the one who cheated on Gabriel. You have many emotions in your body, such as joy and happiness, but also many similar to sadness and anger

But also a lot, a lot of confusion

Why didn't you know that Gabriel, who until a few weeks ago was your boyfriend, was one of the founders of this fashion agency. Why did he seem to be so in tune with the designer, that you swear he never mentioned you in all the time you were together? How could you not know these things?

Gabriel had an agency, yes, but an Italian one... the same one you worked for and from which you voluntarily resigned. You don't deny that he had often mentioned to you that he had some connection with some agency in Germany, but none of these involved being a founder. Also, the designer seemed to be the same age as you, so why didn't you know her? In the fashion world everyone knows each other a little, even you knew models or designers for whom you never actually worked, so why did this Ursula seem to have appeared out of nowhere for you but not for Gabriel?. Everything seemed to have a common thread, but you lacked the light to make it work and therefore understand it

A notification from your phone wakes you from your thoughts. You look down, at the screen

You read the message, and sigh to release some tension. Maybe having Kaiser to comfort you now would be nice, but hell, you don't want to look like someone who waits for the person you love only to unload on him all the bad you have inside

You look at yourself in the mirror: you are still wearing your makeup, your hair is loose and there is no trace of the dress, replaced by underwear and a simple white tank top. You left the clothes you were wearing before in the dressing room, but evidently they took them to be washed without your consent. You still have something else to wear to go home, but you don't have the physical strength when it comes to searching through the big wardrobe that the staff has granted you

Your phone keeps getting notification after notification, and you notice how the post has now been replicated on another social, where there are several people arguing in the comments

There are people who support you, others who have noticed Kaiser's presence, others who still believe the version that Gabriel gave of you where you are the one who cheated on him. It is precisely this last thing that bothers you the most, because you are probably one of the people in the world who viscerally hates everything that deals with cheat, physical and in the field of friendship. They called you a whore, a slut, but traitor is what bothers you the most

And now, seeing the situation you are in, you regret having abandoned everyone years ago to go to Italy with him. Italy has given you so much, you can't help but admit it, but you would have preferred never to have met the man who is now destroying you after you were back to square one after so much pain. You wanted to go back to being yourself, the same you were and always will be, but you wanted to do it with the knowledge that Gabriel can no longer do anything to you

But apparently, he still can

And that means you can't really start over yet

You sigh, resting your head on your folded arms on the vanity table. You have to be strong, because no one will be for you, or rather, you know that Kaiser would be, but you have always been an independent girl

Lost in your thoughts, you hear some female voices in the hallway. It's probably some model, but there's a voice that you can't quite recognize as a female. You raise your head when you hear the door suddenly open, and your eyes widen when you see who it is

Gabriel. You don't know how he did it, but he's here, with his usual dick face

"What?" you say, turning to him, nerves on edge. You watch him slowly close the door behind him, leaning his back against the finely crafted wood "Surprise". You look at him disgusted, while he seems absolutely amused by your behavior "I didn't know you were the founder of an agency in Germany. Not only do you tell false things about me, but also to me" you say in a sour tone, and he doesn't seem at all hurt by your words, which slide off him without hitting him "About you, to you... I don't see any difference, honestly. As long as you're in the middle it's fine, right?" he asks giggling, and you are tempted to take the perfume bottle next to you and throw it at him

"Seriously, what do you want?" you ask annoyed, and he seems serious again "You already know. Back together, you and me, back to our home in Italy. I'll say that I said things about you in a moment of anger and everyone will understand me because oh, they love me so much. And you'll go back to having a respectable life and a respectable boyfriend" he says

You swear you're fighting a battle with yourself to not throw yourself at him and beat them until he's dead. He knows all about the pain he's caused you, and now what does he want? To get back together? You and him back in that house? You'd rather puke until the day you die, which would be soon anyway. Gabriel has destroyed you, and you know that if you accept his apology he'll do exactly what he's done before. It's a wicked game, one he loves to play with his favorite victim, you

He loves the feeling of knowing you are beneath him, compliant, always ready to accept his screams at you. He knew from the beginning that you simply needed someone to love you, and he turned the situation to his advantage. But now he doesn't know that you don't want to play his games anymore, that you've finally understood that he has reached the limit of everything he can do. He doesn't know that the role of respectable boyfriend that he used to have is now held by Kaiser, who has always been the boy he didn't have to worry about and who he has always kept away from you since you've been together

“You’ve always been good at jokes, I’ll give you that” you say sarcastically, rising from the stool you’ve been sitting on, slowly walking towards him “But if you have any intention of making me be who I’ve always been with you, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m sick of all your fucking drama, your lies, just being you! You enjoy using me because you know you can do it, but hey, bad news, that girl you love is gone. Subjugate another person, another whore since you always thought of me as one, but don’t even joke about me getting back into a relationship with you" you say, walking towards him, your voice firm and confident “You’re a worm, one of those parasites. You only love the ones you can use, because no one really loves you for who you are, because you suck. You change people’s minds so much that you make them your lovers, and hell, I admit you did that to me too and you succeeded, it worked for our entire relationship. But parasites, if they come into contact with insecticide, they die" you say

You end up in front of him, a few inches away. You hold his gaze for the first time in a long time, and you have no intention of looking away. The pressure is building, but so is your desire to make him understand what a shitty person he is

"The insecticide is my self-respect, which you tried to take away from me. But you can't make me whore, a slut, yours anymore. And if you think that-" you keep talking, but you feel his hands coming to your jaw, holding you still. You remain paralyzed, trying to free yourself from his grip "What the fuck do you want to do to me? Shut me up? What do you mean, that I'm right, that you know how much you suck?" you say in a challenging tone, not wanting to stay quiet

His gaze is fixed on you, while his hands tighten their grip more and more. It's hurting you, but it's nothing you can't handle after everything he's done to you. "You remain a whore even when I give you the chance to fix it" he says, and moves his hand just enough to pinch your cheek, leaving a huge, painful red mark

"Who would be a whore?"

You turn to the door, behind Gabriel. Kaiser's slender figure looks like a miracle, and hell, from the look on his face he seems to have heard far too much of everything he's told you. You breathe a small sigh of relief, and your grip is released the moment Gabriel seems to hear Kaiser's voice. He turns, meeting the gaze of your secret boyfriend, who is clenching his hands into fists at his sides, making the veins in his hands stand out

They look at each other, and you see the hatred that has always united them. Gabriel has hated Kaiser from the first moment, and you know after reading the letters that Micheal has never tolerated him. Gabriel has forbidden you to see him for a long time, and Kaiser blames him for having taken you away from him. But now, beyond the hatred, you reflect in your ex's gaze a hint of fear, which he is trying not to show

"I only see one whore in this room, maybe two, but I don't have the necessary proof" he says, and you are surprised at how he still tries to play the role of the righteous one, even though he knows that everything is against him. Gabriel knows very well that Kaiser in terms of strength can even kill him, and yet he is acting as if he doesn't feel even a shred of fear, even though his eyes tell another story. Michael looks at him for a few seconds, even chuckling. His tattooed hand then meets the other man's head, who ends up lying on the floor with his head crushed "Whore? Me?"

It's a quick gesture, which takes you a bit by surprise. You rub your cheek with the pinch, from which you feel a trickle of blood coming out when you bring your hand in front of your gaze. Kaiser watches the scene, noticing both the blood and the red on your face, and this thing seems to ignite something in him: he picks the man up bodily from the ground, slamming him against the wall while holding him by the shoulders "What the fuck is wrong with you to do something like that to her? Isn't it enough for you to be a piece of shit?" he yells at Gabriel, who is now seriously starting to shake. You jump at the gesture, coming up behind Kaiser as you shake his shoulder to calm him down, but he doesn't even seem to notice you as he looks at the man in front of him with the same intensity he's concentrating on scoring. It seems like he's now venting everything he feels for Gabriel, lethal hatred

"Micheal please, don't overdo it" you say in a pleading tone, but nothing seems to stop his raging river "How the fuck do you call yourself a man if you don't even know how to treat a girl who until recently was your girlfriend? Are you really so disgusting that you don't know how to react to reality except with your hands?" he screams, and in a messy way he slams him against the wall. The situation seems to be seriously getting more serious than you think, and you shake his shoulders so as to at least make him understand that if he continues like this he will be the one to be in the wrong

"I don't care if you call me a whore, because I don't care what you think of me. But if you, who are shit, call her a whore, who only put reality in your face, it pisses me off. If you can't accept reality it's not my problem, but it's my problem if you try to put your hands on her" he says harshly, and only after a while can he feel your agitation. With a sigh full of tension he releases his shoulders, and Gabriel falls to the ground as he tries to catch his breath. The scene seems to play out in front of your eyes on repeat, as you tremble for some reason unknown to you. You look at Kaiser, who is still looking at the floor, where Gabriel is still sitting. He also seems to be tense, but you see him turn in your direction, putting a hand in front of you, as if he is waiting for you to recover. You gulp down a lump of saliva, taking a few steps forward as you grab his hand, a gesture that after that exit from the hotel, has become important to you. You squeeze it, and you feel it reciprocate from his fine fingers. “Go away" Kaiser says, his tone calmer now but still harsh. You watch the scene still shaking a little, but less than before. It was a bad and harsh experience

In this situation and after hearing your current boyfriend's words, you think about how he didn't hesitate to defend you, which is not a given. Michael had no problem putting your ex in his place when he crossed the line, and you realize how much he cares about you, which makes your heart explode. He had no problem being called a whore, but when he said it to you? Oh, he exploded. It does your heart good to think about how now someone finally genuinely loves you

Gabriel stands up hastily, straightening his suit as if nothing had happened. He doesn't dare look at either of you, but breaks this situation as he is about to leave the room, where he turns to you, completely ignoring Kaiser at your side

Gabriel hates you. He hates that you're finally realizing how shitty he's always been to you

Gabriel hates knowing that the old version of you no longer exists, that can no longer subdue you

Gabriel hates you

And you know the shit just started

tag(s): @rroxii ; @kittenish0 ; @bungoustraydogsno1fan (if you want to be tagged tell me!)

[allwaswell16]

A fic rec of One Direction fics where the characters miss an opportunity to be together but reconnect at a later time as requested in this ask. If you enjoy the fics, please leave kudos and comments for the writers! You can find my other fic recs here. Happy reading!

- Louis/Harry -

🩵 Next to your Heartbeat (where I should be) by jaded25

(M, 130k, cheating) All it takes for them to fall in love is one night. All they have to do is wait one year to see each other again.

🩵 I'll Fly Away by @juliusschmidt

(E, 122k, friends to lovers) Harry and Louis grew up together in Lake County, Harry with his mom and stepdad in a tiny cottage on Edward’s Lake and Louis in his family’s farmhouse a few minutes down the road. But after high school, Louis stuck around and Harry did not

🩵 Home To You by Crowsonthewire / @crows-onthewire

(E, 54k, friends to lovers) At fifteen, Harry wrote his first song for an oblivious seventeen year old Louis Tomlinson. Ten years later he’s a singer/songwriter who cant find any words for his second album and Louis is a closeted actor tired of LA.

🩵 Late Night Talking by @kingsofeverything

(E, 53k, famous/famous) Promo season gets underway with a stop at Late Night Talking, the late night show hosted by Harry Styles, and Harry Styles just happens to be the man who blew a chance to date Louis a decade ago.

🩵 It Had To Be You by @kingsofeverything

(M, 45k, When Harry Met Sally au) Ten years after their post-college road trip, Louis and Harry meet once again, but this time they become friends. Eventually, things get complicated.

🩵 Runner on Third by kikikryslee / @flamboyantommo

(M, 39k, friends to lovers) the AU where Louis and Harry were best friends growing up, but lost touch after Harry moved away. Ten years later, Harry has moved back to town, but he and Louis don't pick up where they left off.

🩵 Heart Beat by @allwaswell16

(E, 33k, kid fic) When Harry returns to start a music academy in his hometown, he finds himself face to face with his high school crush—and his charming daughter who wants to learn to play the drums.

🩵 With the Rising Sun by Tomlinsontoes

(M, 33k, sister's best friend) Louis had been living in NYC for two years now while studying at NYU, and was probably the least social 21-year-old ever. Somehow he got roped into his sister's brilliant idea of getting her college best friend to help him branch out and meet people. 

🩵 It's Been So Long by elsi_bee / @elsi-bee

(T, 31k, crush) Harry Styles' first crush was one of his sister's best friends, a certain someone named Louis Tomlinson. And Louis? He just vaguely remembers Gemma's younger brother from back in the day. A lot can change in ten years.

🩵 The Melody You Never Heard by bananasandboots

(E, 30k, camping) the one where Harry gets roped into a four-day camping trip with the boy who kissed him and never called back.

🩵 once bitten and twice shy by @pinkcords

(M, 19k, Christmas) in a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. Ten years later, Harry's a successful lawyer at Columbia Records, coming home for Christmas for the first time since he departed for college. 

🩵 What do you mean he's coming? by MediaWhore / @mediawhorefics

(G, 15k, wedding) Now, not only does he have less than two weeks left to find something moving and inspirational to say, but Gemma just confided in him that her old childhood best friend is going to be in attendance. 

🩵 through the jungle through the dark by YesIsAWorld / @louandhazaf

(E, 15k, ex-friends) Louis and Harry were best friends, until they weren’t. Five years after they last spoke they’re forced to drive cross-country to visit an injured friend. If they can’t get over the past, it will be a very long week together.

🩵 You Turned Up (Like a Friend of Mine) by @lululawrence

(NR, 10k, parallel universes) the one where Harry disappears on graduation day only to show up on Louis' door looking exactly the same ten years later. 

🩵 Read My Lips by superglass / @gaymoustache

(NR, 6k, friends to lovers) Old Uni friends Harry and Louis reconcile for the holidays after Louis’ early success as an indie singer. NYE 1999/Y2K scare au.

🩵 We're Getting Better With Time by @haztobegood

(T, 5k, social media) the one where Louis is single, Harry is recently divorced, and they reconnect on Facebook forty years after they first met.

🩵 Any Man of Mine by QuickedWeen / @becomeawendybird

(T, 5k, childhood friends) Harry goes to visit his old friend Louis at his ranch in Texas after they reconnect during the pandemic. He learns a thing or two about cowboy hat etiquette.

🩵 Seems You Cannot Be Replaced by QuickedWeen / @becomeawendybird

(M, 5k, swimming) Harry and the popular boy in school, Louis Tomlinson, share a tension-filled night together when they're young. Fifteen years later they see each other again.

🩵 Time will tell, I suppose, or at least, these pages will. by Spiralblissx

(G, 5k, pen pals) Harry goes to a public diary reading thing at his local coffee shop and gets more than he bargained for

🩵 On a Day Like This You Know It's Meant to Be by @allwaswell16

(T, 2k, fate) Harry is certain he'll never see him again, even if they did make a pact to reunite should the Chicago Cubs win the World Series.

- Rare Pairs -

🩵 It’s About A Boy by @missrefridgefreetorator / mynameispiaivy 

(G, 4k, Louis/Luke Malak) when a mysterious boy turns your birthday celebration into a night you will never forget, or when it's like, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas unless someone asks for your number and you just don't want the night to end.

🩵 Costumes Must Be Sexy, Slutty and/or Stupid by LadyAJ_13 / @ladyaj-13

(T, 4k, Louis/Nick Grimshaw) It's a bit of a blast from the past to get an invite to Nick Grimshaw's fancy dress housewarming.

[thankskenpenders]

And now for something new

So, here's something I was never planning on doing, but I just couldn't shake the idea... Thanks Ken Penders is gaining a sister blog featuring an entirely different comic franchise!

Introducing... Thanks Steve Ditko, a blog where I read the Earth-616 Spider-Man comics, starting all the way back in the '60s! It's gonna be much more casual and less thorough than how I run things here on TKP, though, which I'll explain in a sec.

If seeing me post weird bits from old Spider-Man comics sounds fun and you need no further info, then just head right on over to Thanks Steve Ditko. But for longtime TKP readers, I know you probably have questions...

Number one: Why?

Spider-Man's always been my favorite superhero, and with the Spider-Verse movies kicking ass and my excitement building for the new Insomniac game, I've been in a Spidey mood. Inevitably, a thought occurred to me: Maybe I should actually read the comics that everything else is built off of and see the wildly varying contributions of all the original creators, rather than filtering them through big budget adaptations. If I can power through One Piece and all these other manga with hundreds of chapters, it can't be that hard... right?

And, well, after a few issues I quickly realized that my options were to either clog up my other accounts with random Spider-Man panels for years, or to just make a side blog. And so the side blog was born.

Two: Will this blog replace Thanks Ken Penders?

NO!!!!!!!!!

Okay but prove it

To allow the two to exist side-by-side, Thanks Steve Ditko will have a different format than what Thanks Ken Penders developed. Rather than an in-depth guided tour that critically analyzes every story beat of every issue, TSD will just be a place for amusing panels and brief thoughts as I casually read the comics at my own pace.

If you've seen me make a few tweets about reading Spider-Man recently, I'm basically just moving that to a dedicated Tumblr. It's a place for me to dump these things so that it doesn't fill up my media tab on Twitter for the next decade. (You know, assuming Twitter is still around in a decade.) There will be many issues where I only post two panels that I thought were funny. There will be issues where I don't have anything to say at all. Maybe I'll reach a run that I just cannot get into, and I start skipping around more. Who knows!

This may sound similar to what I thought this blog would be before it blew up. Aside from the simple fact that there's already mountains of Spider-Man commentary out there and therefore less of a void for me to fill, one of the main steps I'll be taking to avoid repeating the past is not enabling an ask box on TSD. I do not need people to ask me to go into ten times more detail on everything. I do not need to write seven essay-length responses to questions about Spider-Man minutiae every day. I do not need a place for people to chide me for not covering certain scenes, issues, or ancillary series.

It also won't have any kind of update schedule. I'm trying to keep it very casual. I'm reading these comics at my own pace, and if I feel like sharing a moment or commenting on something while doing so? It goes there. That's it.

(On the subject of format changes, I'm also listing the issue, writer, and penciller in the body of every post. This is a thing I wish I'd done on TKP so that people didn't misattribute every weird Archie Sonic panel I post to Penders.)

Three: So when will TKP come back from hiatus? You said it'd come back after you finished SLARPG!

I don't know! Sorry. I have a couple things on the backburner right now for TKP, but I'm not sure when I'll get back to proper updates where I read more comics.

I wanted to bring TKP back this year, and that's still possible. The main hurdle is that I want to reread my own archive (again) as a refresher, which is, uh. A lot of posts. I've developed a high standard for myself on here, and I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job right if I forgot half the ongoing subplots and character arcs and didn't bring them up in my analysis. Especially when I'm discussing the work of an author as obsessed with continuity as Ian Flynn. Unfortunately, the nature of this blog means that every time I go on another long hiatus for Life Reasons I have even more comic continuity to catch up on than last time.

(This is a big part of why I'm making Thanks Steve Ditko an extremely casual blog instead of promising to become a Lore Expert on 60+ years of Marvel.)

Mostly I've just been very burnt out this year after having finally finished a video game that took almost eight years to make. I haven't really had the energy for any creative projects, including TKP. But I feel a little bit of a spark here with Spider-Man, so I'm chasing that feeling to try to get back into the swing of blogging about comics - no pun intended.

So, basically, bear with me on this as I start this low-energy side project. But hopefully folks will enjoy Thanks Steve Ditko as its own thing, too.

Look forward to goofy shit like this

[madi-writes-things]

Nobody Pt. 9

(C.Sturniolo X Reader)

Summary:

Chris and Y/N never seemed to get along, but sometimes help comes from the most unexpected places

Word Count: 1.8 K

TW: Cursing, SH (not in detail, but it is talked about), cyber-bullying/mean comments, SMUTSMUTSMUT (P in V, Fem receiving oral/fingering, hickeys, heavy making out, pet names, protection used!!!), you can not convince me that Chris isn’t a whimperer, self doubt, Not Edited

A/N: I’m sososososo sorry it took so long, I wanted it to be as good as possible. If anything doesn’t make sense, just chalk it up to my virginal status lol.

-Madi <3

“”“”“”“”“”

Y/N’s POV

After patching things up with Matt, me and Chris decided to hard launch our relationship. It’s been two months since we went public, and the fans just seem to get more upset about it every day. Yesterday was our ten month anniversary, and the comments on our posts were horrific.

@ sturniolo.police

Do y’all think he just stays so she doesn’t kill herself?

@ Chris-Sturn-girlie

@ Sturniolo.police Probably, she treats her body like a kitchen counter… I would be scared too. I bet that’s the only reason why he even asked her out lol.

It was like watching a car accident, I couldn’t stop scrolling. I knew that it was stupid for me to think that dress was a good idea, but Chris picked it out specifically. The dress was a tight long sleeved crème dress. The issue was that it was fairly short, showing a large portion of my upper thighs. It was the first time since eighth grade that I felt comfortable wearing anything shorter than knee length, and less than 24 hours later I was severely regretting my decision.

“”“”“”“”“”

Now I stand in front of our mirror wondering if I should even go out with them tonight. The boys have a really important colab dinner, and I would hate for it to be ruined by people who don’t know how to be kind on the internet.

I look at myself and see someone I hate. The black short sleeve dress accentuates the jagged scars running across my wrists. I always tried to avoid spots that were hard to hide, but in that moment of desperation I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I’m so caught up in my thoughts, that I don’t even hear the door open.

“Is everything okay?” I look up to see Chris behind me, with his arms wrapped around my waist.

“I um… I don’t think I’m feeling up to going tonight… sorry.” He rests his head on my shoulder gently as he gives me a questioning glance. “I don’t want to ruin dinner, and everyone is already saying stuff about the scars on my legs… and if people find out I tried t-” I cut myself off before I could say the truth.

Chris turns me around quickly, looking deep into my eyes. “I don't give a shit what anyone else has to say, you are perfect for me… just as you are.” I try to protest, but he stops me before I can even get one word out. “But… if you don’t feel like going out tonight, that’s okay. I can tell my brothers to just go without us.”

I can feel my eyes burning, not from sadness or guilt, but from the realization that the man in front of me doesn’t care about anything but me. “You don’t have to miss it because of me, don’t feel like you have to stay home.”

In less than three seconds he’s putting his phone into his pocket. “Don’t be silly, I already texted the guys.” I hear the guys yell a quick goodbye and feel better from downstairs before the door closes and the car drives off. “Now… do you need any help getting out of that dress?” He gives me a quick kiss before turning me around so he can reach my zipper.

As soon as the zipper stops, my dress falls to a puddle on the floor. When I turn around I notice Chris’s eyes fall to the matching green butterfly set I have on.

When Chris finally meets my eyes again, his cheeks are a shade of red that I’ve never seen on him. “Like what you see, pretty boy?” Chris is a sputtering mess, trying to respond. I cut him off by quickly connecting my lips with his. His hands quickly find their way into my hair as he lifts me up by the backs of my legs, carrying me to our shared bed.

This wasn’t the first time me and Chris had ever made out, but something was different about this time. There was a hunger in each of us, that kissing couldn’t satiate.

Chris tossed me gently onto the bed before positioning himself above me and continuing our make out session. His lips slowly traveled down my neck, stopping for short moments, then continuing their assault until they landed on my collar bone. A moan left my mouth, much louder than I meant to, as my back arched off the bed.

“You like that baby?” Chris groaned into my ear.

“mhm…” My brain went blank as he made his way down to the valley of my breasts. “Please…”

“please what, ma?” He looks up to me with a mischievous grin.

“Touch me… please.” I practically whine out, upset that he stopped kissing me. Chris quickly taps my side, signaling me to lift up as he unclasps my bra in one swift movement. My bra is replaced with Chris’s hands before I even register that he removed it. He continues to leave wine colored marks across my breasts, while his hands squeeze in the most beautiful ways.

After what feels like an eternity, i feel Chris's hot breath moving down towards my waistline. He glances up at me quickly before turning his head toward my inner thigh. I feel him lift my leg up, over his shoulder, before he resumes his mission. "Did you know that your legs are my favorite part of your body?"

“no they aren’t.” I accuse with a small giggle. I never realized how ticklish my legs are. He quickly sucks on a spot, that will surely be a dark shade of red tomorrow morning, causing my brain to malfunction.

When he stops, I look down to see him looking at me with his big, blue, puppy dog eyes. He toys with my waistline, before finally opening his mouth. “Is this okay?”

I've never responded quicker, nodding my head aggressively while mumbling out a quick please and thank you. It takes him no time to get my panties off, and onto the floor. “You’re sure? I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything.”

“yes… just please touch me!” I’m practically begging when he decides to indulge me.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, seeing as I’ve never even ‘helped myself’. Whatever I expected, this was much better. The second he latched his lips onto my clit, I was seeing stars. My whole body felt warm and tingly, and I think I’m close. I quickly intertwine my fingers into Chris’s hair, pulling with the rhythm of his tongue. All of the sudden I feel a long thin finger entering, and I can’t stop the sudden sensation that was building inside me. I couldn’t even get out a full sentence without a loud, almost pornographic moan interrupting me. The second I feel a second finger, I loose all control over my body. My back arches off the bed, as my legs slam shut around Chris’s head. Once I manage to calm myself down, Chris slowly removes his fingers from inside of me.

“Having fun?” I see him wiping his hand against his pant leg, his lips still glistening with me. I don’t think I have the strength to speak, so I simply nod. “Was it… was that okay?” I can see the yearning for approval in his eyes. “… Like, was it good for you?”

I don’t really know how to respond to that question, my brain is stiff fuzzy from my orgasm. “It was amazing baby…” I don’t want this moment to end. “I want to… can we do more… If that’s okay?”

I swear Chris has the condom out in less than three seconds. “Are you sure?” He’s looking at me like he truly doesn’t care what’s in it for him. “We can stop… or do other things, you don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

I do my best to find his eyes in my dazed state. “I’m sure… if it’s anything like what you just did, I’m not sure I ever want you to stop.” He nods quickly before getting up and stripping.

The second his waistband hits mid thigh, his member is hitting his stomach. It looks painful, so red and hard. I don’t know how it’s going to fit, but I trust him. He slides the condom on, quickly climbing back on top of me.

“Are you sure the at you want this?” This again. “We can stop whenever you want to… and you really don’t have to do any-”

I cut him off quickly by grabbing ahold of him and making sure that he knows that my motives are purely selfish at this point in time. He finally gets the hint and lines himself up.

“fu-ck…” Chris practically whimpers as he pushes into me. I unintentionally clench around him, who knew that a man whimpering was so sexy?

“Babe… you gotta stop squeezing me like that, I won’t last.” I mutter a quick apology, before giving him the go ahead to start moving.

It’s an interesting feeling. It’s not necessarily painful or uncomfortable, just different. It doesn’t take long for the feeling to melt into pleasure though.

The house is filled with sounds of whimpering and moaning, as we reach our highs. Chris reaches down and starts rubbing heavenly circles against my already overstimulated clit, causing my orgasm to crash into me without warning. I swear my vision goes out for a minute while Chris chases his own high.

Chris slowly pulls out, making me cry out in pleasure. “I’m sorry, but I have to get you cleaned up. I’ll be right back.”

The second he leaves it hits me all at once. What if it wasn’t good for him? What if he realizes that he only wanted me for sex, and decides the rest isn’t worth it? What if he-

“Are you okay?” He pulls me from my doom spiral, as he starts cleaning me up. He crawls into the bed next to me, looking deep into my eyes.

“Sorry… my brain is just trying to convince me that you’re going to leave.” I see his eyes soften, as he realizes what I’m saying. “It’s not necessarily like I believe it, I just worry sometime that all of my flaws outweigh the things keeping you here… like what if you leave, or you only stay because you feel like I’ll kill myself if you don’t?” Chris stares at me, looking like he doesn’t fully grasp the concept. “Does that make sense? I feel like I’m going crazy sometimes.”

“Do you really think that I would do that?” The way he asks it makes my heart break.

It’s not like I really think that he would do something like that, but my brain just refuses to let me be happy. “No baby… I just find it so hard to trust anyone who says they care.”

Chris just pulls me into his arms, promising me that he loves me more than words could describe. After a few minutes in his arms we decide to put some clothes on and order some food. After dinner, I drift slowly into a peaceful sleep in his arms.

“”“”“”“”“”

@unbruisable @bernardsbendystraws @sturniolo-fann @jnkvivi @stasiesturn

@h3arts4harry @slutforsturniolos

[justtwotired]

Whispers of the night Lloyd Garmadon x F!reader

(Credits to artist are in the picture)

Lloyd is getting to the 100 in this one🤭^

(Reader too but let’s not mention that)

Tag list: @cipheress-to-k-pop @whore-of-many-hot-men @bodieohbo @anyth1ngfor0urmoony @luvlloyd @viannasthings

GUYS. Guys… please forgive me I am so so sorry for not posing, I just lost motivation and don’t feel like writing anymore so I stopped, and everytime I started I lost motivation at the first word so I didn’t write on… so now, I finished this one, and the next is coming tomorrow, inalready have that completely written and controlled for errors, so I hope that makes up for my absence, I’ll try to post another one next week<3

Part 1 - previous - next

Your pov:

The next time I saw Lloyd was New Year’s Eve, we didn’t have time between Christmas and today because he had been on a mission with the others.

I had asked my parents if I could celebrate with him and his family and they were all for it, excited even. Ace wasn’t that excited, but he allowed it anyway. (I probably wouldn’t have gone if he hadn’t agreed).

So, late in the afternoon, Lloyd picked me up with his elemental dragon. He landed on our property at the front of the house and waved at me with a grin, making me wave back.

“You’ve got everything right?” My mom asked me and I nodded with an excited smile. We stood at the front door, I had a bag with me, containing clothes and a few other necessities, she had already triple checked it.

“Yes, I got everything, I don’t need that much, mom,” I assured and she pulled me into a hug, holding me tight.

“Promise you’ll call after twelve?” She put me at arms length and a laugh escaped my lips.

“Mom, I promise, don’t worry, it’s not like I have never spent new years away from you guys,” I said and she sighed sadly.

“Oh I know, but this is the first time you celebrate it with a boyfriend- let me worry about you!” She fussed and my father chuckled and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“Y/n will be fine, honey,” he reassured and than looked at me. “Take care of yourself and call us if things don’t feel right,” he said, turning serious for a moment before smiling again, “now go to your boyfriend, he’s waiting,” he winked and I stood on my toes to kiss his cheek, before running off towards Lloyd.

I crashed into his open arms, hugging him close to me. Five days apart where five days to long and I had missed everything about him. From his goofy smile to his flirty comments.

He chuckled when he caught me and pressed a soft kiss into my hair. “Missed me?” He asked teasingly and I took a step back.

“I haven’t seen you for multiple days, of course I fucking missed you!” I pointed a finger at him and he smiled before dipping down and catching me in a sweet kiss.

I closed my eyes and rested one of my hands on his cheek. “Ready to go?” He asked after pulling away and I smiled, a bit red in the face.

“Ready to go,” I repeated and he climbed back onto the dragon after taking my bag and he then reached a hand out to me. I took it and he pulled me up to sit behind him. My arms curled around his waist and I pressed my face into his shoulder.

He took off and in less than ten minutes we arrived at the Monastery. The moment we landed, the door flew open and Nya came running out. I jumped off of Lloyds dragon and seconds later was crushed into a hug.

“Hello to you too?” I laughed confused and she quickly put me at arms length, giving me a wide eyed look.

“Do you know how hard it is to live with these idiots without you around?” She questioned, sounding absolutely exhausted, “of course you don’t, because you couldn’t come on our mission!” Nya yelled and Lloyd covered his ears.

“Do you mind?” He asked, a tat irritated, but she ignored him and let go of my shoulders to take my arm and drag me inside. Lloyd scoffed and quickly followed after us. “Hey- she can walk on her own Nya!” He called but she ignored him making me chuckle.

“It’s fine Lloyd, we’ll get some girl talk in, besides, we need to get ready,” I chuckled at his baffled stare. “I’ll see you later, promise!” I waved at him and he huffed but let us be anyway.

Nya took me to her room. I’d seen it once before when Kai was giving me a house-tour, but I’d never really stepped foot in it. It gave me the time to look around a bit. I smiled at the pictures in her room and my eyes glittered when I saw the swords displayed in her wall.

I snapped out of it when she closed the door behind her and I remembered why I was here.

“You got everything? I brought some of my own stuff,” I gestured to the duffle bag hanging around my shoulder and she glanced at it before smiling.

“Oh no, I’m all set, but do show me what you’ve got,” she said excitedly. “We’re going to look so fabulous,” she grinned and I saluted her.

I opened my bag and took a small separate bag from it, handing it to Nya who inspected the make-up haul. I had also thrown in some hair decorations and skin care products.

“You know, sometimes I forget you’re rich, and then there’s moments like this and I remember,” she said in amazement and looked up at me. “This shit is awesome, sit down, I’m doing your hair,” she gestured to her chair and I raised an eyebrow.

“You promised I could start on you first,” I pouted and she paused for a second and sighed in defeat.

“I curse my past self for agreeing to that,” she mumbled before taking a seat in the chair herself, making me grin wickedly.

“Are you two done yet?” There was a knock on the door as Lloyd’s voice sounded on the other side and Nya groaned.

“No!” She yelled back, “be patient, we need our time to get ready, I’m almost done with N/n, you can have her to yourself after, loverboy!” She assured and we heard Lloyd huff on the other side off the door.

I snorted at the nickname she had given him and was scolded by her for moving, so I quickly sat up again. Maybe I should start calling him loverboy, I’m sure he’d love that.

Even though we were teasing him, I couldn’t deny that I did kind of want to leave this chair to go and spend time with him, but I had to have one patience.

“Give me some time, Greenie, I’ll be out in a minute,” I chuckled, trying to sit as still as possible while Nya gently held my chin, applying my mascara. I’d already done her hair and makeup, and she was just finishing mine.

“All done,” she took a step back. “You look beautiful, now, we just need a picture and then Lloyd can have you all to himself,” she announced. I knew she was extending her time with me to annoy Lloyd but I didn’t remark on it and posed as she took out her phone to make a selfie of the two of us.

“You ready now?” Lloyd asked from the other side did the door and I unlocked and opened it.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re done,” I teased, poking a finger into his stomach, but he didn’t react and just blinked at me for a second, mouth slightly agape as his eyes roamed my face, making me look at Nya with a questioning look. “Is he alright?” I whispered and she chuckled into her hand.

“He’s flustered beyond words because of you’re beauty,” she elbowed me slightly and I looked back at Lloyd who snapped out of it and smiled, a bit flushed.

“You look gorgeous, love,” he said and kissed my forehead, making my heartbeat speed up and I saw his grin grow at that, making me narrow my eyes playfully.

“Alright, get your lovey-dovey shit out of here,” Nya shooed us away and Lloyd shot her a quick glare before leading me to his room.

“We have dinner in an hour and than it’s just a night full of games, jokes and laughing,” he promised and I beamed at him.

“Can’t wait,” I said softly and followed him into his room. “How was your mission,” I asked and he meekly shrugged, making me lightly frown, “was it bad?”

“No, not really” he mumbled, looking at the ground, “you just weren’t there,” he admitted with red cheeks and I let out a small, breathy laugh.

“You cheeseball,” I poked his shoulder and he looked down at me with a grin, before dipping down to catch me into a kiss, but my hand shot up to cover his mouth. “Lloyd, you’ll ruin my lipstick,” I warned and he let out a sad noise, making me shake my head.

Suddenly his tongue licked my hand making me jerk it back with a yelp. He laughed and I scrunched my nose, wiping the saliva of on his hoodie, making him roll his eyes.

“Is my tongue that dirty to you?” He asked and I grimaced, glaring up at him. “Doll, my tongue has been on many more places than your hand, but only now you find it disgusting?” He raised a brow and my face flushed.

Without my permission, my mind flew back to James teasing me on Christmas Eve, making me slightly scold myself as my brain shamelessly drifted off to a lot of other things.

Lloyd looked amused as he watched my flushed face and could definitely hear my racing heart. He rested his hand on the back of my neck, gently pulling me forward as he leaned towards me, his lips gracing the shell of my ear.

“What are you thinking about, doll?” He whispered and my blush spread even further, he pulled back to look into my widened eyes and he chuckled, the bastard.

“Nothing,” I quickly answered, my voice high pitched, making him raise his eyebrows and smirk.

“If you say so,” he said with a smug grin before planting a whisper of a kiss to my neck and going to leave the room. “I’ll go see if mom and Zane need any help in the kitchen,” he casually strolled off while I stood baffled in his room for a few more moments.

We never really talked about topics like this, and technically we didn’t really talk about it, but we both knew very well where my thoughts had led me too and he had not hesitated to act upon it.

I swallowed thickly before composing myself and heading to the kitchen aswel, where Koko embraced me into a tight hug.

“Y/n! I am so happy you could make it,” she beamed at me and I smiled.

“Thank you for inviting me, I love being here,” I said and her smile grew, it surprised me that it was even possible. “Can I help you with anything?” I offered and she nodded.

“Lloyd is setting the table, do you mind helping him?” She asked, gesturing to Lloyd who just entered the kitchen from the dining room, I quickly averted my gaze, “we are with quite a bunch of people and with this much food, setting the table takes a while,” she chuckled and I nodded.

“Yeah, of course,” I said and quickly went off to grab some of the bowls of food Zane had finished and were ready to be moved. He smiled at me in greeting before returning to cooking.

I followed Lloyd out to the dining room and put the food down on the table. I looked up at him to see him already looking at me, he winked when I caught his eyes, making me quickly divert my gaze again.

I heard him chuckle, making me shoot him a glare while he gave me an amused look back. I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh to before playfully rolling my eyes and returning to the kitchen.

Ten minutes later all the others had joined and Zane had finally finished the food. The moment he sat down, the others immediately started digging in, causing Koko to scold them about their manners, yet they all just laughed it off.

“Here,” I looked at my plate where Lloyd just placed a few pieces of chicken. “You already love chicken, now let me tell you, this’ll be the best you’ll ever have,” he promised and I chuckled at him, shooting him a sceptic look.

I put a piece of chicken in my mouth and my eyes closed in delight. It was indeed the best I had ever had, if only I could eat here everyday.

The meal went on and eventually Jay picked up a conversation with me and I happily listened to him babble in about their mission. Koko and Wu had left for the kitchen with the promise of dessert, there had not been disclosed what it was exactly.

Unexpectedly, I felt a hand rest on my thigh and I had to clench my teeth while my breath hitched. I felt my face grow warmer and tried to make out Jay’s words but they were all a blur at this point.

I shot a look at Lloyd who gave me as mischief one back before winking. I quickly looked back at Jay who didn’t notice anything, Nya besides him, however, wiggled her eyebrows at me, making me bite my lip in embarrassment.

She laughed, throwing her head back while I gave her a scolding frown.

“Hey? What’s so funny?” Jay asked his girlfriend confused while she tried to breath trough her chuckles.

“Yeah, sis,” Kai began, “do you have something to share with the class?” He asked, a raised eyebrow and she quickly waved them off.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing, I promise,” she giggled and shot me a look while I just kept staring at my plate. Next to me Lloyd snickered, making me elbow him in the side.

“What ya doing with that hand there, Lloyd?” I felt Lloyd’s hand stiffen in its place on my thigh as his head shot to Cole.

“Im not doing anything!” He insisted quickly, yet his hand remained where it was. Cole, Nya and Kai laughed while Jay scoffed at them.

“Guys! Not at the dinner table!” He scolded. At this, Lloyd did pull his hand away in horror while I choked on my food.

“Jay!” Lloyd called out in shock while the others -except a rather confused Zane- where all dying of laughter.

“What is so funny here?” Wu entered the kitchen followed by Koko who carried a beautiful cake.

“Nothing,” multiple voices immediately answered as everyone stopped laughing and looked at their plates.

It was Cole breaking the silence, being a bit to excited to have a taste of that cake.

———

After dinner, the adults promised they’d clear the table, so me and the others headed outside, climbing onto the monastery roof to watch the fireworks in the distance.

I sat next to Lloyd and our hands were locked together, while I talked to Nya sitting on my left, I was telling her all the juicy gossip she was missing now that she had left school.

“Who’s up for a game of truth or dare?” Kai spoke up, making me and Nya frown and exchange looks.

“What kind of seventh grade sleepover is this?” Nya snorted making her brother let out an offended noise. “You know what’s fun? Truth or drink!” She said and Cole immediately protested

“Absolutely not, the evening just started, besides, Y/n is seventeen, she’s not allowed to drink,” he stated with his arms crossed and I huffed.

“Please, you think I never drank before?” I asked with a raised brow and he shook his head.

“Not happening, we are playing regular truth or dare,” he stated and Nya rolled her eyes while Jay cheered.

We played a few rounds, mostly truth was chosen, but when Kai chose dare, Nya dared him to jump into the pond, he refused so she pushed him off the roof.

Aren’t siblings just lovely?

“N/n, truth or dare?” Kai pointed at me as I sleepily rested my head on Lloyd shoulder, who was tracing figures on my hands.

“Truth, I guess,” I answered, “I am to tired to jump into the pond or whatever,” I smiled and he gave me a look before he seemed to think for a moment.

“Did you ever date someone before Lloyd?” He asked and Lloyd froze for a moment before hesitantly continuing.

“You want the whole list?” I joked, causing Nya to poke me in the side and I giggled, “just kidding,” I swatted her hand away before continuing. “When I was six, me and James had a relationship and it lasted a whole month,” I put up a finger in a matter of factly way.

“It’s the moment you think you like him but you’ve actually just found your best friend,” Cole clarified with a small smile, “I’m guessing,” he added and j nodded with a chuckle.

“Indeed,” I said before continuing, “and when I was fifteen, I had a boyfriend, but we broke up shortly after my sixteenth birthday because he had to move cities, we both didn’t want to do long distance because we where still young,” I explained, “Damon, that’s his name,” I added.

Lloyd was quiet and I wondered if he didn’t like me talking about my ex boyfriend, I would understand that of course.

“So, you two didn’t zekerste in bad terms?” Zane asked and I shook my head.

“No, not at all! We held contact for a while, but I haven’t spoken to him in months,” I revealed, “it didn’t take long for me to get over him, I don’t even think I ever really loved him, not now I know how that actually feels like,” I smiled up at Lloyd who gave me an excited smile back.

“You two cheesy little fuckers,” Kai whined, cause ing both Cole and Nya to calm him out on his behaviour around Skylor, making the others laugh at him.

Yeah, I liked celebrating here.

———

It was almost three when we sat alone in the garden. The others where playing video games on the X-box while Koko and Wu had already gone to bed.

Lloyd had asked if I wanted to go outside with him and I had agreed. There where sounds of fireworks in the distance, I could barely hear them, yet I bet Lloyd heard them perfectly well.

I felt my eyelids slowly grow heavier while my head rested on Lloyd’s shoulder and he was softly stroking my back.

“I think it’s time to go to bed, love,” he whispered and I groaned. I was incredibly comfortable here, curled up besides my boyfriend in a wonderful garden with faint firework sounds in the distance? Yes please.

“No,” I grumbled, “hmm, am comfortable,” I was almost worried he wouldn’t hear until I remembered my boyfriend is basically a Demi-god and could, in fact, hear me.

“It’s getting cold,” he whispered back, “and you’re almost falling asleep here, you still need to get ready for bed,” he said softly, lips close to my ear and he planted a kiss right above it.

I was silent for a moment before groaning. “Fine,” I tried getting up and stumbled a bit, causing him to chuckle and swoop me off my legs.

“My lady,” he said with a charming smile as he started to walk towards the door. I let out a tired chuckle and tried holding open my eyes to admire him but they fell close every so often, making me force them open again.

He stood still outside the living room door and quickly popped his head in. “We’re going to sleep,” he announced making a chorus of goodnight come from the room.

In his bedroom he gave me one of his shirts, making me squeal softly in excitement, he gave me an adoring smile before turning back to his closet to grab his own sleeping attire.

I pulled the shirt over my head and grabbed my sleeping shorts out of my bag. I felt like immediately getting into bed but he took my hand before I could.

I looked at him and really did my best not to stare as he was only wearing a pair of sweatpants. I blinked and my eyes traced the scars across his chest and maybe his abs too, making me turn pink.

“My eyes are up here, sweetheart,” he teased making me quickly look away while he lead me to the bathroom.

He dug up a spare toothbrush from the cabinet, put some toothpaste on it and handed it to me with a goofy smile. I tiredly took it, muttering a soft ‘thanks’ and started brushing my teeth.

I wobbled a bit on my feet, almost falling asleep right then and there and he wrapped his arm around my waist, keeping me on my feet while he brushed his teeth aswel. I heard him chuckle but didn’t comment on it.

After brushing our teeth, we headed back to his bedroom and I could finally get comfortable under the covers.

He pulled me into him, making us spoon and he hid his his face in my hair, making me hum in content.

“Love you, goodnight,” I whispered, or at least, I hope I said that, I’m not sure if it was coherent as I fell asleep seconds after hearing his ‘i love you’ he said back.

Lloyd POV:

I was almost asleep when I phone buzzed and illuminated the room when a message came in. I sighed and turned it around, deciding to ignore it, but with the second and third message I got curious.

I frowned when I saw it was an unknown number, though the questions flying around in my head where quickly answered.

Unknown

What is up Lloyd it’s the James

Send 03.08

I wondered why he would text me at such a time and why he would text me to begin with, but he was Y/n’s best friend so I didn’t mind.

Unknown

Yeah so as N/n best friend and best wignman I do have to live up to my name

Send 03.09

I wondered if he was drunk… because it wouldn’t surprise me.

Unknown

I was actually supposed to send this earlier so maybe the bitch is asleep but if she ain’t, Im very hapy to tell you that she is waiting to get laid

By you of course

Send 03.10

I paused my reading and looked down at the girl peacefully sleeping in my arms with probably the reddest face ever. I swallowed thickly, my heart hammering in my chest.

I looked back at the screen when I heard a new message come in.

Unknown

Yeah she will kill me if she finds out about this but we speaked about this christmas eev and yeah so I now evrything

I got your number frim hr phone btw, she dienst know so sshhhh

Send 03.12

I hesitated, what did I answer to this? Did I ignore it? It felt weird to ignore it, but I really did not know what to answer. Sure, I thought about it before but we had never even talked about it. I swallowed again and decided to just answer.

Me

She’s asleep

Thanks for the information?

03.14

Unknown

Damn to bad dude, but np np

03.14

I turned the sound of my phone off and put it away, resting my hand back on Y/n’s waist. My face still felt incredibly hot.

How could I sleep after this?

Your POV:

I groggily opened my eyes, being woken by the sun shining trough the cracks of the curtain. My head laid on Lloyd’s chest and my legs were tangled with his.

I moved my hands up to wipe the sleep from my eyes and I used my tongue to wet my dry lips. I lazily looked up at Lloyd who was staring up at the ceiling, having not noticed me waking up. His arm was wrapped around my waist, his thumb rubbed small circles in my side.

His shoulders leaned against the headboard of the bed as he sat up only half. It didn’t really look comfortable but whatever suited him I guess.

Tough it surprised me he didn’t notice me waking up, knowing him he’d definitely notice, seeing my heartbeat would change, plus he’d notice the movement.

“Morning, love,” I greeted and that was what grabbed his attention. He blinked for a moment and looked at me, a small smile appearing on his face.

“Goodmorning, beautiful,” his smile turned into a teasing grin as he assessed me and I narrowed my eyes.

“Are you poking fun at my morning hair?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and his just wiggled his and kissed my cheek. He then went to kiss my lips but I stopped him with my hand, making his lips hit my palm. “Stop, I have morning breath,” I said with a scrunched up nose and he rolled his eyes.

He reached up a hand and pulled away mine by the wrist. “I don’t care, give me a kiss,” he leaned down and I rolled my eyes but kissed him anyway. When we pulled away he scrunched his nose. “Ugh, morning breath,” he said and I looked at him in offence.

“Yeah, that was the end of your morning cuddles, bye, I’m going to get some breakfast,” I started getting up and he whined, grabbing my hand but shook it off.

“No, stay,” he pouted but I narrowed my eyes. “Please,” he begged and I rolled my eyes.

“Get up, loverboy, it’s time for breakfast,” I stated and he sighed but followed me out of the room anyway, quickly catching up to hold my hand, making me smile in content.

Little did I know about the scenarios plaguing him in his head.

[phoenixyfriend]

A lot has been happening today that rep calls could affect. UN vetoes, KOSA, Julian Assange, UNRWA's funding crisis and Israel's demands that it be completely dismantled, the large number of bills we just learned are on the docket for the coming week, and even the good news that is recent successes by the BDS movement.

And like... I care about this stuff. I want to talk about it. But it takes an emotional and mental toll to do it, and it takes time, and... there are two reasons to write up reference, update, information posts:

Compensation. I'm not a journalist, but if I were, I would in theory be getting paid for the information I collect and share to my audience. However, I am not, and am doing this for free. I have gotten maybe $5 in donations since I started this project, and while I recognize that this is probably because people are (quite rightly) donating instead to Palestinian charities or local campaigns or something, it's a basic fact that I am not actually being compensated for this work.

Promoting change and activism. This is in fact my main goal: to have a positive impact on current events by giving people a guide on the news and politics because there's so much happening that's hard to keep track of, and if I'm already doom-listening to half a dozen political podcasts, I might as well save other people the trouble, right?

The thing is, like... most of the reblogs on my guidelines and helpful posts are from me, to me. I am the one reblogging. I am desperately trying to get these things to circulate so I can make a difference, but... no dice. Some of the posts are admittedly pretty long (my 'how to call your reps, here's some verbiage' post is 3.4k words), and I can imagine some people are saving it for later, and then maybe forget, or they don't want to share something controversial, and like... I do get that. I do.

But it does mean the posts aren't circulating, and thus they're having less of an impact, and I can't help but feel like there are other things I could be doing to help that would be more effective. More bang for my buck, except it's my time and effort instead of my money. Like, maybe it would have more an effect if I hunted down a wider variety of elected officials I could bother instead of instructing other people on how to bother theirs? Maybe going to protests (which would be a huge commitment due to distance) would be more effective than trying to help ensure that the effectiveness of "I actually have a vote and you are losing it" of calls has the weight of numbers behind it.

Especially since I did try to blaze it, and tumblr mods rejected the post. I don't know why. It's not against ToS, since none of it was disinformation or election interference, which is the only reason given on the FAQ for why things might not be approved for blazing, but who knows.

Maybe tumblr just decided the possible blowback on them for blazing a pro-ceasefire post would be too much.

I don't know. I just... it's just really disheartening to try to help and it gets stymied because, as much effort as it might be, it doesn't reach more than a (comparatively) tiny audience, especially when my relatively low-effort polls and shitposts get easily ten times as many notes with way less energy put in.

EDIT: This is not a post that I need to have reblogged. this is just me bitching. This a vent post. What I am asking people to reblog is my activism posts that I spend hours on to try and help nudge things in a better direction. Please reblog THOSE. This one doesn't need reblogging unless you have an actual comment. Reblogging this post just to reblog, with neither useful comment nor encouragement, is not helping me with my issue of 'not paid, not making an impact' or helping with any important causes.

[shadowgast-recs-weekly]

A couple of changes

Hey all!

We've passed a couple of big milestones recently (Our 1000th rec! 5000 likes on tumblr! 69th themed week!), which seems like a good time to make a couple of changes!

The first, and biggest one: We're opening up recs to the general public! They'll work similar to the way that the gen recs and the not-quite-rarepair recs work - read the rules, prove that you've read the rules by submitting the password that's embedded in them, and then submit the rec. It's not foolproof, but it keeps bots away and hopefully convinces people.

We're doing this because, to be honest, two of the three people who are involved in this reclist aren't all that active on the discord this reclist is associated with, and I (Opera) think the reclist can be better if it has more voices involved, which means expanding the reccing pool.

Because of #1: 

2. We're changing the rules slightly. 

So, this reclist is anonymous. Unless you mention who you are in the comments of the rec itself, then we have no way of knowing who recced it.  Which in some ways is great! But it also means that when there's a potential issue, we can't send a quick DM to maybe clear things up.

One of the reasons why I was so hesitant about opening this up to everyone was that people tend to give people they share a community with more grace and good faith than randos, and because when there was an issue, I could put a message in the discord and - well, it didn't feel great, but at least it felt less like a call out post than putting it on tumblr where everyone can see it.

So, this is going to take some trust, but this is what we're going to do:

a. We will not allow any rec that is deemed, without a questionable doubt by the mods to be racist, transphobic, or mean spirited towards the work itself or the other works in the fandom. If the part that is racist, transphobic, or mean spirited can be excised without deleting the entire rec, we will do so. Otherwise, we'll remove it.

To be clear, we will still allow works that feature racism (for example, characters dealing with fantasy racism) or transphobia - it's that the rec itself should not be.

b. We will also remove any rec by author request. I've been hesitant to do this in the past, and we're not really equipped to ban any author from being recced, but will be willing to do so on a case by case basis.

c. When making a change, the default will be to make a change quietly. If you notice something's up, you can DM @operafloozy or @theusualjasper and we will let you know privately. I'm all for transparency, but announcing that someone was being weird on a rec on tumblr (where it can't be easily contained) is probably going to lead to bad feelings all around.

d. We're going to ask that everyone take things with as much good faith and grace as possible. I really, really don't want to remove anything, and this is asking folks who don't know the mods to trust us. I also don't want this reclist to become a vehicle of bullying or transphobia, but also I don't want people to get paranoid about their rec not being good enough or secretly transphobic somehow.

3. Also, we're putting the first ten themes back into the randomizer to be picked. It's been nearly two years, and we're down to only twelve unpicked themes. After ten weeks, we'll add the next ten themes back in, and so on.

Those themes are:

Cozy

Getting Nerdy About Magic

Professor Widogast

Culture Differences

Canon Divergent AU

Featuring Essek's Parents

Featuring Verin

Scourger/Evil AU

Featuring Astrid/Eadwulf

Wild Magic

[sergeifyodorov]

POLL RESULTS JUST DROPPED!!

My hockeyblr experiences are largely catered to my own personal tastes -- mostly Leafs, a little Penguins and Stars, one or two who post about Stevie Y and Sergei Fedorov. These are obviously not the only teams out there.

This study was designed to survey as much of hockeyblr as it possibly could, gathering data on which teams people like and to what degrees. There were five questions and a free space -- my attempt to ask people to rank the teams they enjoyed in three levels, from religiously followed to casually affectionate, and an additional couple of questions on love for players versus team. I received over 500 responses. Here are the results.

Yeah, yeah, you all want to know: The most popular team is the Penguins, by a long shot, then the Leafs.

Because my sample size (n = 523) is actually fairly small compared to the number of NHL teams there are, I find definitive rankings tend to be difficult. It’s also worth noting that, as a mainly Leafs blog, my numbers are definitely going to be skewed a little in favour of the Leafs.

Your Guys

These are the teams closest to your heart: the ship you go down with, metaphorically or, depending on how married your old men are, literally. For me, I picked just the Leafs.

The average respondent had 1.9 teams in this category. The most popular, by far, was the Pittsburgh Penguins. Below is a table of teams, arranged roughly into tiers by the number of respondents. Each team has the number of respondents in brackets next to their three-letter code.

I allowed people to pick as many teams as they would like; the average person picked 1.9 teams, but here’s a distribution of how many teams they picked:

4 people picked 0 “your guys” teams, and 2 people picked seven, nine, or ten each teams. Just about half of people had one main team.

I then wondered: what teams were people most likely to only follow? That is, if you hold [x] team in the closest part of your heart, are you more or less likely to also hold any other teams? Almost exactly 25% of picks were solo; I wondered if there was any correlation at all.

Only a little bit! Of the samples large enough to actually consider (so: nothing in that cluster at the bottom left, who all received fewer than 10 picks total, and a few of whom -- CGY, CHI, NSH -- received zero solo pickers), the most devoted fans chose the Sharks, the Bruins, and the Leafs. The fans who liked the most other teams chose the Avs, the Kraken, the Canucks, Panthers, Sens, and Ducks.

Probably a next step would be to look for correlations: if people are a fan of one team, are they more likely to be fans of another? THAT BEING SAID that’s a lot of regressions. Maybe keep an eye on that for the future, but I don’t know!!

Objects of Enjoyment, and Generally Nice

These two were successive tiers meant to distinguish teams that people like from the ones in the category above. I admit I probably could have phrased the questions better; I received several comments saying that they’d watch any hockey when they wanted to put a game on. The dynamics between Your Guys versus Objects of Enjoyment versus Generally Nice would best be described as devoted fan of versus casual fan of versus favourable opinion towards. 

As I said a few paragraphs back, people picked 1.9 “devoted fan” teams on average. Again on average, they picked 4.7 “casual fan” teams and 6.5 “favourable opinion” teams. Not all ratios are equal, though! Some teams had significantly more casual than devoted fans, and others still were much more liked generally than average.

I gave each team’s “devoted” count an index number of 1 and measured their casual and favourable count as a ratio against the index number. The teams assembled themselves into a few groups.

No Commitment

Arizona and Anaheim have decided to be soulbonded (Excel refuses to let them have different-coloured dots) and it took me three hundred million years to attempt to (and unsuccessfully) fix, so let’s ignore that. These teams all have a fairly high slope of interest -- a range of casual interest at about five times the pace of fervent interest, and good opinion at about ten times fervent interest. The Calgary Flames are an outlier on the entire graph, not just here. 

Casual Interest

I gave up on trying to colour teams according to their real colours shortly after the Anaheim/Arizona debacle. Please employ the legend. Nashville is included on all five graphs for reference. These teams all have a casual interest factor of about 3, and a favourable opinion factor of around 5; the same ratio as the casual fans of the teams in the first category to their fervent fans.

Saturated Market

These teams have a much lower ratio of hardcore:casual:favourable fans, at about 1:2:3. 

We Get It, Those Are Your Guys

Pittsburgh and Toronto; these teams have an almost equal ratio of all three categories.

...Whatever This Is

Every other category is defined by its ratios; this category is defined by its shape. While all teams have their rate of hardcore fandom set as 1, the other two tend to increase in a roughly linear form, without too much significant difference between the first interval and the second interval.

These teams, though (again, Nashville is for scale) don’t do that: they have a set increase between hardcore and casual, and a significantly smaller increase (or, in a couple cases, a decrease) between casual and favourable. This suggests perhaps some kind of divisiveness; if you’re not already in there, do you really want to get in further? Either that, or it’s something closer to what the Leafs and Penguins have: that is, a devotion. Like you’re in or you’re out.

Taking these values together

Because the casual:hardcore ratios are measured as indexes and not absolute values, they say nothing about the actual popularity of the team in question -- Calgary is one of the least popular, which is why I assume it’s so weirdly high up; small sample sizes lead to higher error values!

But we do have the absolute values, so we can measure them against each other.

If we consider the “In or Out” to be a category of its own while the other four are along more of a continuum, then we can absolutely see a correlation here -- larger fandoms tend to have more involved fanbases.

Players or Teams?

I also asked participants if their guys tended to be players or teams -- and if those they liked at a more casual level tended to be players or teams.

The results are… not particularly surprising.

On a hardcore level, people tended to prefer teams, although the variability was pretty slight. On a casual level, individual players were much more popular.

I also wondered if people who chose more teams in the hardcore fan question tended to do that because they prefer players.

On average, people who picked players on their hardcore level chose 2.1 teams. People who picked teams chose 1.7 teams. That’s definitely a difference!

Fun Shtuff

I got way more write-in responses on the hardcore player/team question than on the casual question, including this:

Three separate people answered “Minnesota Wild” for their guys and chose no other teams on any level. Hell yes. (One person also did this for the Kings.)

It took about 300 responses before the first Flames fan (at the hardcore level.)

On all three levels, the Seattle Kraken are really popular -- they’re in the top five in each.

What's Next?

If I were to update this survey, I would probably include a question about where all of you are from -- some people (like me) follow their hometown team, while some people most certainly don't (shoutout to the one person from Edmonton who dislikes the Oilers) and others still don't have a hometown team (shoutout to my brasilian + european + etc mutuals and everyone else!!)

Feel free to shoot me an ask if you want me to do anything else with this data -- examine a specific team, give actual casual fan/etc counts and total aggregate rankings, anything else!

[twopoppies]

I don't really have any active fandom friends anymore so I don't have anyone to share this thought with, but you're always so fair and lovely to Harry that it feels kinda. safe and appropriate to message you about it?

Maybe I'm spoiled because I mainly follow og larries here as far as I'm aware, and I feel like larries or at least the ones I've surrounded myself with have like... an extra layer of protection and respect towards Lou and Harry? So I was a bit shocked when I just stumbled upon a Harrie (update?) blog that posts all kinds of pictures and videos of him looking terribly unhappy, and since they don't post anything but these pics others have taken of him, like, there's no personality to the blog, no throwbacks even, it kinda allows you to just see this... disturbing timeline of Harry throughout the years just looking unhappy as all hell.

It's such a contrast because I mainly watch tour things or old clips and pics or the occasional new content where he doesn't look absolutely miserable. Anyway, seeing picture after picture of him looking tired, just exhausted, is so sad. I don't know. The world really isn't fair to him, he gets so much shit when really he's the sweetest little pea, he's radient, he's caring, he's the epitome of sunshine when he's surrounded by people with good intentions, his best at heart.

I don't know, I guess I've build this bubble around him and Louis and I so easily forget that there's the, well, public. The fame. The fans that care more for a picture than his comfort. The public at large with this perception of him as some sex symbol rockstar they can fancy and fantasize about. Like. It's sobering and horrible? The difference between Harry Styles™ and Harry feels so stark and. Yeah. Guess I'm just saying I wish he had it easier, had it fair. Not that his life is just a horrible tragedy, course not, but just. Wish it wasn't this harsh is all

Hi, darling. I can only comment generally without knowing the blog or what they post. But I think it's pretty easy to pick and choose photos where someone only looks happy or only looks tired and miserable, you know? I know there's a group of people who are convinced Jeff/Irving are torturing him and overworking him, so every time Harry looks less than ecstatic, they're handwringing. And context matters, too. What is he doing in the photos? Where is he going? Who is he with? What's happening behind the scenes? etc etc. Besides that, I agree with you that his life isn't always sunshine and roses. You can have all the money and fame in the world and still not always be happy. I'm sure his job can be very stressful; he's juggling a lot of things, tons of people's livelihoods rely on him, he's in the public eye constantly, and fans demand engagement from him constantly...it's probably tiring at times. And, yeah, thinking about the idea that tens of thousands of people are fantasizing about you and judging you and gossiping about you is bizarre and uncomfortable. I couldn't be famous for any amount of money. But my impression of him is that he is, overall, a happy person. And I think he knows how incredibly privileged and lucky he is to have the life he has. And I think he's learned how to protect himself from the weird/upsetting/dangerous parts of his career. At least as much as one can.

I don't know if that helps at all. I worry about him at times, too. But I think he has a good group around him who love him for real and not just for what he can do for them.

[luvtonique]

I realized something this morning.

This is probably gonna be a long post. (Edit, yep)

I'm a pretty fairly public figure on the internet, and I very regularly interact with a huge amount of people. From YouTube Comments to Discord to Tumblr Asks/Comments to Newgrounds Reviews to MMO Chat to Mic-Chat on Games to Twitch Chat to Stream Chat, blah blah blah.

I've, for years now, over a decade (hell over two decades) talked to probably thousands of people, and have been able to get a gauge on a pretty safe to say "average" of collective human intelligence on the internet.

I've come to realize that not everybody has that kind of experience talking to people online as I do. I've talked to literally thousands, probably near ten thousand, people online in my life.

This is a staggeringly high number and puts me in an outlier position among the rest of you, who likely have only interacted with a double digit number of people online in your life.

Now that you have that information in mind, here's what I realized this morning.

I realized that the reason I don't listen to people, ESPECIALLY when it comes to politics, is because I have learned through talking to all these people that fucking nobody knows what they're fucking goddamn talking about.

I study a lot of things in my spare time, and history is a huge one that I study. I very regularly read and listen to multiple sources talking about historic events, and I make sure to look at as many sources as possible, sometimes including reading encyclopedias in my own home that we've owned for like 40 years.

I cross-reference all of these things and paint a picture of the most likely truths through various means.

Why's that important? Because sometimes a 14 year old on Twitter, literally nearly less than a third my age, will occasionally come along telling me that I'm wrong. Not about history necessarily, but about some opinion that I have based on my own experience and my own knowledge that I've researched myself.

I usually ask them where they got their information, and I'm met with boldfaced idiocy. Completely braindead shit like "180,000 people said it on Twitter," or they link me a Tumblr post with 100k notes, or they say "It's common knowledge," (which is the biggest red flag of them all because not only does it prove they have no evidence to back up what they're saying, but as this post will go on to explain, "common knowledge" is quite literally the worst source of information on anything. People commonly think the earth is flat and that Scientology is real. People commonly think that walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror gives you bad luck. People commonly think that naturally blue food exists.)

In my life I have met thousands of people, and THOUSANDS of them are fucking idiots who very very smugly state completely incorrect knowledge. Earlier today someone tried to tell me that the creators of Beat Saber never sold the company to Facebook, and I showed them proof and they went silent for 3 hours and then went "Yeah so what, Facebook is still a good company" and I wanted to beat my head against the desk.

The internet is full of people who are fascinatingly ignorant. I'm not calling myself "better" or "smarter" than anyone here, I'm just saying that I have learned better than most people that people on the internet are not, and never fucking will be, a good source of information. I don't care if they're your best fucking friend, the coin-toss of them knowing what they're talking about or actually having the facts is so heavily weighted against them, it's seriously like a 98% chance they have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

I urge everyone to take a moment and realize that the internet is, in fact, a good place to find information and do research, but PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET, especially MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA, are NOT SMART PEOPLE AND ARE NOT GOOD SOURCES FOR YOUR INFORMATION.

These are angry, smug, annoying little idiots who are likely 14 years old with a 1st grade reading comprehension who aspires to be a TikTok content creator as a career, and under no fucking circumstance should you ever, ever, EVER listen to any social, financial, religious, gendered, medical or political advice they give.

The world has gotten vastly out of control with how much people think "A lot of people agree with me" is a good enough reason to solidify your opinions. "A lot of people agree" is the biggest red flag ever, because people on the fucking internet are complete fucking idiots, I'm sorry, but I'm someone with far more experience talking to people on the internet than literally any of you reading this. I talk to people on the internet as a career and have been doing this for longer than most of you reading this have been alive.

So what's the point of this? What's the take-away?

The take-away is that I'm saddened by how many people will attack each other vehemently, cut off friends and family members, label people as toxic or problematic, jump to conclusions, etc. based on complete and utter misinformation spouted to them by people who have never once in their entire life actually looked up what the fuck they're talking about. They treat random strangers on Twitter as "experts" because that person is well articulated or put together a YouTube video with really good editing that's softly spoken by a British accent guy and has scary music whenever some "evil" person is on the screen.

The take-away is that people, like yourself (don't you dare try to deny it) will just believe whatever they read on social media, or whatever their Discord friend-group is talking about, because they are living in a complete falsehood that people on the internet know better than they do.

You are not incapable of doing your own research. You are not incapable of finding the truth. You are not stupid. Just do your own research, look into things yourself, cross-reference, use the scientific method, go to a library, read books, for fuck sake please adopt the basic social skill of "If someone says it on the internet it is most likely not true and I should look into it myself."

Because the current state of people is monstrous.

Y'all get so fucking mad about things that are just plain not true, and you revolve your entire life around things you were told by complete idiots and/or children on Twitter and other social media websites.

Stop.

Look at yourself, look at how angry you get about things, and consider that there may be a possibility that anger stems from a complete lack of any foundation or truth in your own beliefs.

Consider the almost 100% guaranteed possibility that you have been blatantly lied to by people who have no fucking idea what they're talking about, and that you are violently upholding standards that are incorrect because you have placed trust in the word of untrustworthy people.

Look up confirmation bias, read about it.

Look up manipulation tactics, read about it.

Look up "Plato's Republic" and read about it.

Absolutely, under no circumstances, should you ever, EVER, form your social or religious or political or financial or gendered or sexual etc. opinions based on SHIT YOU READ ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

And while we're here, don't listen to the news either. They're just a bunch of parrots saying what needs to be said to get you all fighting with each other so that the government can fuck things up while you're distracted. Do your own research, check multiple sources, don't consider social media or regular media to be a 'source,' get every bit of information from every angle, and for fuck sake, stop attacking people for disagreeing with you when you, yourself, only believe what you believe because your friend group believes it and you know that if you disagree with your friend group they'll all attack you so you'd rather be on their side, which only further proves my point that y'all need to fucking chill.

"Democracy will never work. If 3 medical experts tell you that you must eat a ginger root to cure your ailments, but 100,000 idiots with no medical experience tell you otherwise, you're more likely to believe the 100,000 idiots. They are louder, there are more of them, and you will gamble on the hope that among those 100,000 idiots, there must be more than 3 medical experts. The voice of the ignorant will always drown out the voice of the educated."

-Plato's Republic, 375BCE (Paraphrased)

"I can't believe Jay just called us all idiots and expects us to listen to him"

-Someone in the comments of this (It's gonna happen)

PS: If you looked up "Naturally Blue Food," and found out it does in fact not exist, good for you for doing your own research!

[tencrushesperday]

Now I Can See You - Rutger McGroarty

summary : when did things get so complicated ? They always get complicated when you overthink. Maybe if you acted more with your heart and less with your head you wouldn’t be locked up in a room with Rutger.

pairing : rutger mcgroarty x junior! reader

TW: implications of sex, insecurities (idk if it’s really a tw but better to be safe than sorry)

a/n : you just KNOW i had to use a Taylor song name for the tittle. i wrote this one a few weeks/ months ago and @sillinger said i should post it so here it is. idk what i did here and honestly i’m not good with criticism so if u don’t like pls just ignore it <3

You and Jacob met in Algebra first semester of freshman year. Your friendship was strategic on both parts. You wanted to cut ties with your shy high school persona and become a free spirit college student who knows how to have fun. He needed to pass that Algebra class. It was a win-win relationship : you passed him your notes and explained to him what he didn’t understand and he invited you to hockey or frat parties. Getting along also kinda helped.

Therefore, for the next few years, you became inseparable at parties. Beer pong partners, couch interlocutors, he would always have his arm swung around your shoulder. If the sibling energy wasn’t so prominent your friends would have assumed you were a couple. But you always had each other’s backs and nothing even remotely ambiguous ever happened.

When in junior year, Jacob introduced you to the freshmen.

You thought Rutger was cute the moment you laid eyes on him.

You got to know later that the first impression was mutual because he would flirt with you any chance he got.

But he flirted with anybody anyway. You noticed after the few first parties that he was quite popular with the ladies.

Therefore you never took his comments seriously. You were looking for a serious relationship. He was probably looking for a new conquest to add to his list.

It wasn’t something you were interested in.

Until that fateful night. You needed to take the edge of that night. You’ve had a stressful week before, filled with presentations and assignments to turn in. So, you - just- needed to relax. You’ve had a few of whatever Nolan had concocted you. Rutger complimented your dress when you where sitting on the stairs together. Everything happened fast that damned night.

After that it didn’t take long for the dress to find itself on the floor, and what needed to happen happened.

~~

In that moment you hated Jacob more than anything. Why did he have to go and meddle. You realise you should have never told him about Rutger.

At least you had the decency to not tell him how much you actually liked the freshman. You would have never heard the end of it.

But now you’re stuck in this room with him and you know that whatever Jacob is doing right now he’s not letting you out of the room before you and Rutger talk.

Yet he doesn’t seem like he has much to say, so you keep your mouth shut as well. You want to know what he’s thinking. You want to apologise for running away in the morning, for leaving him with a cold bed, for ignoring him afterwards.

But you know it’s useless. He doesn’t care. He probably slept with at least another girl since then. What was it a week, ten days, since?

You’re the one who would have wanted to wake up in the stupidly warm arms, pressed to his stupidly toned chest. He was probably relieved when he didn’t have to kick you out in the morning.

But the silence is awkward so small talk it is, you decide.

Yet the moment you start talking to ask how he’s doing, he interrupts you.

“Why’d you leave in the morning?” he sounds disappointed.

Wait. Does he?

You don’t know what to say so you just say what you truly thought since the beginning, “I didn’t want to wait for you to kick me out.”

He widens his eyes at you. Really it’s comical the way his mouth hangs open for a second before he asks “Is it really what you think of me? That I would have kicked YOU out in the morning?” He insists on the word you and you don’t know what to think of it.

You’re left speechless. What can you answer to that anyway, except for yes. He looks so offended already, that wouldn’t help.

“I know I’m just a freshman hockey player. But i thought.. with you being friends with Truss and all… maybe you’d have a better image of me… I thought… i thought i finally got you to look my way…”

Now it was your turn to look at him with wide eyes as you only manage to say one thing. “What?”

“It’s okay I understand it was a mistake for you. I’m younger and you probably don’t have the time to deal with me but can we please remain…”

What? No, no, no. After the word mistake not much makes sense to you. You don’t hear him anymore. Where did he get that idea?

“Wait. What? No, no, no. It was not a mistake for me, not at all. I just… I thought you wanted me gone after you got what you wanted… I… I thought you’d get bored of me and kick me out and start ignoring me after we slept together…”

You’re ashamed to admit how insecure you are.

“Is you esteem of me really that low?” Rutger’s question really surprises you. And is it pain you hear filling his voice?

“I genuinely like you, did since the beginning. And i couldn’t get you to see me. You always acted like i was a kid and I almost lost hope honestly. But I wanted you - I want you - so I kept trying to flirt with you. The moment you followed me into that room, I’ve never been more happy, and when you started kissing me back I swear I’ve felt more awake than ever. I just had to remember everything about you, about your body. I asked you what seemed like a thousands times to me if you were sure of what you wanted and you just kept shutting me up with new kisses until I gave in.”

The images he was depicting, you knew them all too well. You had replayed the night in your head too many times to count. It still gave you goosebumps.

“I’m so sorry” You knew he wasn’t done but you had to say it out loud. Still, you didn’t know if it was enough. You had hurt him in order to protect your own feelings, you could see that now. It was unfair to him.

“I am so so sorry Rutger. I never thought of you as a kid… Really. Never. I’ve noticed you since we met…”

Jacob’s room wasn’t so big but in this moment, as you took small steps towards Rutger, it seems miles long. You didn’t know what to say anymore. You wanted to tell him just how much you like him and how much you want him but the words wouldn’t get out. Being vulnerable has always been difficult for you and you’re so used to doing everything to protect your feelings.

But this is not on him and you know it. He told you everything he had to say. He said he liked you, he said he wanted you. Yet you still can’t believe him. Damn those insecurities.

“More than anything I’m sorry for being insecure. I was convinced you would get bored of me so I shut you out from the beginning. It wasn’t fair to you”

How can you tell him you like him too? And now he’s so close, he is all around you, and all you want to do is kiss him again.

“Do you really mean what you said earlier?” It may sound pathetic. It probably does but you have to be sure.

He doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares at you. Then he leans in and it’s enough of an answer.