#easy click solutions

[easyclicksolutionsofficial]

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[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

Fanfic Thieves on Youtube

A collection of youtube channels have been uploading preexisting fanfictions in videos with little to no credit to the original authors. These are not podfics, these channels copy-paste the fics into text-to-speech readers then upload the unaltered audio over static or unrelated backgrounds, either art that is also stolen or mobile game footage. In addition to not naming the authors, they alter the title to make it that much harder for readers to recognize or find the original uploads. Some go so far as to pretend they themselves are creating the fics in question. Many claim that their stealing actually helps give fics "exposure" despite the intentional steps they take to conceal the origins of the fics they profit off of. However, this practice has lead many authors to discontinue fics after the frustration of having their hard work stolen. Many of these channels claim they will remove videos upon request, but will either argue with the author in order to keep it up, or simply unlist the video for a time until they think the author isn't paying attention anymore. And their solution to receiving strikes against their channels in the past has been to further obfuscate the origins of their content instead of even considering asking first.

”I got caught stealing, so instead of not stealing anymore, I’m doubling down on stealing even more so it’s harder for people to find out and prove I’m stealing. Stealing doesn't count if the specific person I stole from didn't call me out. I am the real victim.”

That, plus the incessant tag scumming in all the videos (spamming unrelated tags in order to appear in more search results) proves to me that these are lazy attention seekers who don't want to put in creative effort when they could just leech off of the passion of others.

In order to report them, go to their channel's "About" page and click the flag icon. Said icon might be behind the three dots in the top bar on mobile. Go to "Report User" at the bottom and tick the "spam and scams" button. This will allow you to list multiple videos as offenders instead of reporting them individually. Youtube's policy states that video spam constitutes:

Massively uploading content that you scraped from other creators.

Auto-generated content that computers post without regard for quality or viewer experience.

If you recognize one of your fics among the stolen, say so in the additional comments box, and perhaps call out the channel directly in the video's comments. If you recognize someone else's fic, please let the original author know so they can report the channel as well. Many have been confronted for stealing previously and refuse to admit wrongdoing.

Most of what I've found has been My Hero Academia fics since that's my fandom and those are the ones I can recognize as stolen, but there are many other channels that steal from other fandoms, so I invite anyone and everyone to reblog this with their own findings.

The reality is that this extremely low-effort content and new youtube channels are both very easy to make, so most likely they'll start new channels once the ones on this list are run through. But hopefully, if we all work together and keep whacking these moles, perhaps we can instill that same defeatism they caused so many creators who didn't deserve it, and eventually they'll give up.

My sincerest thanks to everyone who helped bring additional channels to my attention. A special thanks to ao3 user InArduisFidelis who brought the initial attention to the issue, and @owlf45 whose work was stolen.

Links under the cut.

YurikoFanfics - Not only stole content, but acted in comments as though they were the one writing these stories.

https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/@YurikoFanfics

What-IF-Anime - Has the exact same "disclaimer" about not being the original author as the one above. Either they're the same person or the thieves are stealing from each other.

https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/@What-IF-Anime

quirkywhatif7 - Either an alt of the above, or all these people are talking to one another because this one made a community post identical to a comment the one above made in response to being called out (the above screenshots).

https://www.youtube.com/@quirkywhatif7/about

DekuFanfic - It's the same fucking guy again.

https://www.youtube.com/@DekuFanfic/about

InfiniteParadoxfanfics - Nothing notable, same deal as the others.

https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/@InfiniteParadoxfanfics/about

WhatIfAnimeChannel - Admits in their community posts that other people write the fics they post but still doesn't give credit. Migrated to a new channel after issues with youtube, likely being flagged previously.

https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/@WhatIfAnimeChannel/about

WhatIfAnimeAll - Alt of above.

https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/@WhatIfAnimeAll

FWNWorld - Makes sure to tell you that the videogame footage is theirs, but can't bother to credit anyone else.

https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/@FWNWorld/about

WTFW - Claims to have "[A] team of talented writers, voice actors, and artists work together to create immersive fan fiction stories that are sure to captivate your imagination." Just the same test-to-speech stolen content over videogames. So straight up lying claiming that everything is theirs (and that anything they make is quality).

https://href.li/?https://www.youtube.com/@WTFW

MHA2.0Fanfics - Lots of crossover theft.

https://www.youtube.com/@MHA2.0Fanfics/about

Collerwhatiif - Pretty sure this one is the same guy as the previous 2, also has one for another fandom.

https://www.youtube.com/@Collerwhatiif/about

https://www.youtube.com/@GoJoFanfiction/videos

ko_sensei - Another that claims to have a "team" that makes the stories they steal: " passionate about creating compelling and engaging fanfiction that explores the various "what ifs" in the anime universe."

https://www.youtube.com/@ko_sensei/about

FantasticWhatIf - Multifandom stealing, uses the exact same bs disclaimer as many others.

https://www.youtube.com/@FantasticWhatIf/about

LettuceHeadFanfics - No credit, no acknowledgement of anything. Next one is an alt.

https://www.youtube.com/@LettuceHeadFanfics/about

brocollifanfics - Alt of above, once again admits to stealing with a declaration of "☆If you want to takedown any videos. You can mail us or leave a comment below the video☆"

https://www.youtube.com/@brocollifanfics/about

whatifofficial786 - Focuses on MHA/Naruto crossovers. Identical format.

https://www.youtube.com/@whatifofficial786/about

NotWhatIf - I've lost track of who's an alt of who but yet another identical format, descriptions, and bullshit claims of "enhancing the viewer experience" by putting a robot voice over bootleg fortnite footage.

https://www.youtube.com/@NotWhatIf/about

weebxds - Same again.

https://www.youtube.com/@weebxds/about

ItachiFanfics - Naruto channel, we can at least confirm that this one is run by a human given the rare different descriptions and a real voice at the beginning of videos before the robot comes back.

https://www.youtube.com/@ItachiFanfics/about

WhatIfDN - As if mockingly, a bunch of videos have a "credit" section in their descriptions that is of course blank.

https://www.youtube.com/@WhatIfDN/about

SpiceandBooks and spiceandfiction - Apparently Youtube itself has started picking up on the bullshit, because this multifandom channel is being dinged as ai spam so they started a new one.

https://www.youtube.com/@SpiceandBooks/about

https://www.youtube.com/@spiceandfiction/about

theoriginalastra - Doesn't even bother with disclaimers, the following are multiple alts/potential alts for different fandoms.

https://www.youtube.com/@theoriginalastra/about

SillySenpai12 - Highschool DXD alt.

https://www.youtube.com/@SillySenpai12/about

RosieRealms - Naruto alt.

https://www.youtube.com/@RosieRealms/about

DekuWhatIfs - Potentially another astra alt but not sure, doesn't matter because all these channels do the same thing anyway.

AnimeStark688 - No credits or disclaimers.

https://www.youtube.com/@AnimeStark688/about

Please take the time to report these channels, spread this post around, and reblog with any additional offending channels you find.

[homunculus-argument]

I know it would probably be a logistical nightmare to also make this accessible to the actual people represented, but I think it would be cool to have a game where the whole point is that every character has different limitations, that make it impossible or at least incredibly difficult to get past the whole game without switching them every once in a while, and the way you switch is by going to another character and asking their help with something.

Like you start out the game with one character and go "oh huh, the colour sceme of this game is really cool, really interesting use of such a limited palette", play through the puzzles for a while, and then encounter something where you're supposed to arrange some slightly differently coloured puzzle pieces to the right order by shade or something, and it's goddamn impossible. No matter how many methods you try, it's just not clicking, no matter how logical your solutions seem, no matter how clearly they can't be arranged in any other way that'd make more sense.

And maybe you go online to ask people "hey I'm stuck in the colour puzzle, what the hell am I supposed to do to get past this?" and someone tells you to go find one of the other playable characters and ask for their help. Which sounds patronising and stupid but you're stuck so you might as well give it a try. You go to one of the other characters, choosing the dialogue option to go "hey I need a hand with something, I can't do this on my own", and when they go "sure, let's go", your controls now switch to the other character.

And the colour scheme switches immediately. The aesthetic limited palette has changed to a far wider range, there's details in the environment that you hadn't noticed, like the muted faint flowers on the ground are actually bright red, the greyish shirt that your first character was wearing is actually striped with orange and green. The first POV character is colourblind, this whole time you haven't been able to perceive the difference between green and red. Solving the colour arranging puzzle with the other character is a breeze.

And this is the repeating theme of the game - every character has their own limitations, and while none of the puzzles are easy, you learn to think "maybe I should ask someone to help me with this" whenever you've been stuck for an unreasonable amount of time. You need to grab a buddy along for the quests, or you'll need to go back to get one eventually, and the way the game is structured somehow ensures that you can't just tactically dodge the limitation puzzles beforehand. Deaf character's POV doesn't have the audio clues that different pieces of the same puzzle make a different clicking sound, the puzzle with garbled numbers on it stops being garbled when you're not playing the character with dyscalculia.

You slowly get to know the whole cast, and occasionally help them out with things, too. You know which character could probably help with something you're stuck with, but while they'd be glad to come help, they're unfortunately stuck doing some task that could take you 20 minutes but is going to take them all afternoon, and you can offer help. Sometimes the helping-a-buddy-out minigames don't come with any direct transactional reward, you can just help a friend with something just because you can.

And the game's whole goal isn't to just illustrate how different people have different strengths, and sometimes things that are easy for you are hard for someone else, and vice versa, but to condition the player to think "maybe I should just ask someone to help, instead of wasting time struggling on my own."

[keksalot404]

Uh oh! Some BOZO decided to play UNDERTALE and UNDERTALE YELLOW at the same time (Both games FUN value was 66) and now the timeline is F*CKED (By about one year; It wasn't that long till Frisk came along)

This is the Guide to UNDERTALE ROM LEAK, mostly a frame of reference for me and you regarding this AU born from a doodle and a dream. Those who just want to see the art with no context, feel free to click the top pic and swipe down or something.

A Tale of 2.5 Souls

Seems like whatever the reason Frisk went to the mountain, they ended up tailing Clover, where the game begins. Control between the 2 fallen children is split, meaning that both Frisk and Clover are free to express their quirks and personalities more.

Adding to that, NarraChara is also here, being visible to Frisk, Clover, AND the player due to more determination in the area. Frisk still has higher DT than Clover, so they're in charge of LOADing and SAVEing as well as playing leader.

Prepare For Trouble, Make It Double!

Now obviously the timeline can't really be UT or UTY if all major events need to be dealt with. The universe's solution? Now every Major Character (and perhaps minor ones) are paired up with their cross game counterparts. While encounters for each monster can be seperate, eventually they will cross paths with eachother and the fallen humans.

With each section of the Underground now longer with even paired area newly connected (More on how that works later), it'd feel like even 2 player characters can't make it easy. Fortunately for a certain route, you may get some help...

Kanako

To fill a void for a Certain Short Scientist, seems fate pulled a few strings, and brought a new friend back from near-death! If you don't kill any monsters during RUINS, Kanako will sense your pure hearts and join the party, acting as the Ralsei to this Diet Fun Gang.

With healing and shield magic, she'll make your journey a lot more manageble, at the cost of not being able to kill any monsters all the way until Asgore (She will still allow you to spare monsters by lowering health but if she senses a chance to kill she will block the attack and scold you for it.)

Being a much more attentive protector than the Skeleton, she'll accompany Frisk and Clover through the emotional highs and lows of their journey, and perhaps maybe...

You'll find out the true reason she's helping you.

Stronger Monsters

For the characters of the 2 timelines being destined to meet, it is also true that destiny will point into blocking your path. For the Major Battles at least, you'll have to fight both of them at the end of each paired areas. An example being meeting North Star in Wild East only for Starlo's betrayal being calling Undyne to hunt you during Waterfall.

Expect combo attacks, fused soul modes, and complex strategies when facing the duel bosses. Some might even compromise Kanako from assisting. No fight has the same solution as the UT and UTY fights (except maybe Papyrus and Martlet), so be prepared and stay determined!

So have fun while you can, won't you? It's not likely you will get these games together again. You wouldn't waste this once-in-a-while experience just to do something you'll regret.

You wouldn't waste it just to see what happens...

...right?...

...

[pelova4president]

To your rescue

Lauren Hemp x Charles!Reader

summary~ You get into an argument with your girlfriend. You’re stubborn, and Lauren is too, but luckily another Charles is there to help.

Being Niamh Charles’ little sister you were meant to be a footballer too. You grew up playing all sorts of sports with your older sister. Your household was very competitive, not just sports, card games too and that’s what got you to where you are now.

Niamh always had your back. She joked and complained a bit about you whenever you were with her. But you knew she spoke highly of you to others. Your bond had grown even stronger through your shared love for football.

Niamh ended up playing for Chelsea where as you ended up at another blue club, Manchester City. You got to play with your sister’s bestfriend Lauren.

Lauren is a very interesting person. And that might’ve been what got you to love her so much. Nobody really knew what was going on in that head of hers, if there was even anything going on at all.

You honestly don’t remember when they started to be friends but Lauren was always near. Niamh and Lauren were always together, it was like they could know what the other was thinking without even saying anything.

Lauren was already part of the family by the time you started dating. No matter how many hints you gave her, she didn’t seem to notice them, Lauren was absolutely oblivious to them.

You’d absolutely had it by the time you admitted your feelings out loud. You had taken her out to a coffee shop after training, it wasn’t commen for you to get some alone time with her.

You sat her down after ordering and got straight to the point. “Lauren i really like you and i’d love to go on a real date sometime.” you told her.

Lauren was a bit shocked at your confession. “Uuh okay, yeah same.” she answered.

You had to laugh a little at that. She didn’t expect it but it didn’t necessarily surprise her either. But as fast as your question was answered she went to another subject.

Lauren didn’t have to think much about accepting your offer. She had talked about you a few times too many to your sister. Niamh caught on and asked Lauren about it. She may not have realised she was in love with you but when Niamh asked her it all clicked. She has loved you for longer than she knew.

Niamh was okay with it and there was nothing stopping her but she just didn’t have the balls to ask you out and she didn’t know if you liked her anyway.

But god was she happy you asked her, otherwise this would never have gotten any further than longing stares.

If you hadn’t asked her you wouldn’t be in a longterm relationship, footballing together, living with each other and loving each other so openly and passionately.

And if you’d ask what Niamh thought about your relationship she always said ‘Lauren was always like family now she’s just officially family’.

lauren_hemp

liked by leahwilliamsonn and 32.371 others

matching 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

comments

niamhcharles17 is that my watch?

↳ y/ncharles no it’s not, mine just looks like yours

↳ niamhcharles17 so it is mine

↳ y/ncharles nooooo just looks the saammee

sandy_maciver pookies

maryfowlerrr 💗💗💗

kerstin_casparij winning best matching couple award 🥇

↳ lauren_hemp thank you thank you 🤭

hempo11 ugghh i love them sm

mancitehh2020 they’re the cutest fr

You and Lauren never really have arguments, if there were any they were tiny. Those arguments were about what show to watch or what chocolate to buy and you’d just end up buying two different chocolate bars. There was always an easy solution.

But now it was about something important. You needed a new couch in your shared home and Lauren thought a mustard coloured one would look good. In your eyes this was fugly, yeah you said fugly and Lauren was beyond offended.

“Lau, baby i just don’t think a yellow couch would look good in our home. It just doesn’t match anything babe.” you pleaded with her.

“Yeah it does! Look, we have mustard in our fridge and yellow flowers!” she tried to convince you.

“Come on, that doesn’t even count!” you told her annoyed.

“I’ve let you pick out almost anything in the house, i just want the yellow couch.” Lauren said irritated.

“That’s not even true! We’ve done half half plus the couch is like a big deal, we can’t just buy one that doesn’t match anything Lauren.” you started to get a bit angry at Lauren. Why couldn’t she get that the couch would look so ugly with the rest of your furniture.

“Whatever.” Lauren said coldly and walked out of the front door.

You knew she went to your sister, she always goes to your sister. But right now it seemed like the right move, Lauren was never so upset about anything and it bothered you that you were the reason.

It was 10pm and Lauren still wasn’t home. The argument was really getting to you. You had texted Lauren about ten times but she didn’t answer any. Was she really that mad at you?

You just needed to know Lauren was okay and safe so you texted your sister.

you

is Lauren with you? You don’t have to tell me anything, just wanna know if she’s safe

charles #2

yeah, she’s safe

You texted ‘i love you’ to your girlfriend. That was really all you needed before you went to bed.

You woke up at 2am by your bedroom door opening. You turned your bedside lamp on and rubbed your eyes to your girlfriend standing in the door opening. Lauren held a bouquet of flowers in her hands and a little sad smile displayed on her face.

Looking at the ground Lauren broke the silence. “I have flowers for you.. because i’m sorry. I don’t want to fight. You can have your couch if you want.” your girlfriend apologised.

There grew a little smile on your face too. “Thank you Lau, i’m sorry too. Come cuddle with me please.” you asked her with your best puppy eyes.

The English forward gave in and crawled into bed with you. You clicked the light off and Lauren spooned you from behind, her face in your neck and your limbs tangled into each other.

You let out a happy sigh and closed your eyes.

“Do you really not want the yellow couch though?” Lauren asked tiredly.

“No baby, we can do something colourful just not yellow, okay?” you tried to negotiate with your girlfriend.

“That’s okay. I love you.”

“I love you too Hemps”

lauren_hemp, y/ncharles

liked by keirawalsh and 71.725 others

happy wife happy life

comments

niamhcharles17 happy to be your relationship therapist 😘

↳ y/ncharles knew i chose the right sister, she even came home with a bouquet of my favourite flowers

↳ niamhcharles17 you didn’t exactly choose me but yeah what can i say, best sister of the year award incoming??

↳ lauren_hemp stop bragging

leahwilliamsonn who’s your interieur designerrrr

↳ y/ncharles all me and a tiny bit hempo

↳ leahwilliamsonn when can i hire you

esme.morgan love birds 🦢

citysfaves11 they’re soooo cutee

l1ionnesses2022 best football couple

[jdsquared]

I have a theory why people have such a hard time seeing the campus protests’ anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic.

Even if we understand their attacks on bombing Gaza, why aren’t they calling for a peaceful two-state solution? Why are they anti-Zionist? This will take some explanation and I explain some things for non-Jews so you understand how your Jewish friends are feeling right now.

Someone recently put it this way, and it all clicked for me:

“We aren’t Jews because we practice Judaism. We practice Judaism because we are Jews.”

Think of it this way. The Cherokee have certain traditional rituals and spiritual beliefs. But it’s not those rituals or beliefs that define them as Cherokee. The Cherokee are a tribe – a people. Not a religion.

That’s why, like the Cherokee, Jews don’t proselytize. We’re not a belief system that’s looking to convince others to believe. Sure, there are ways to become part of the people, but simply deciding to believe what we believe and practice our rituals isn’t it. You can believe in the absolute truth of 100% of the Torah and the rest of the Jewish Bible, and that doesn’t in any way make you part of the Jewish people. That’s just believing that God gave certain ritual and moral instructions to the Jewish people. Just like putting on Cherokee garb and rituals wouldn’t make you Cherokee.

The category error comes from the fact that it’s easy to try to put Judaism into the same category as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. But it doesn’t really belong there. It’s like how Christians slip into categorizing Hanuakah as “Jewish Christmas” and think that their Christmas messages (e.g., Peace on Earth) fits with our Hanukah message (fight a war to resist assimilation). The easy – and seemingly good ecumenical thing to do is to look for our similarities. But it’s a mistake in this context.

Jews are a distinct people like the Cherokee, not a bunch of people with shared beliefs like Christians or Muslims.

The Left would surely be on the side of the Cherokee's sovereign aspirations, so why not the Jews?

[gay-dorito-dust]

HEYYYY

Soo I'm here to rq another Damian x reader(platonic). But real quick, I'm sorry if I'm requesting too much or being a nuisance. Pls lmk if I am so I can stop! It's just hard to find somebody that writes for him like dis.

Anyways, basically the same thing were theyre friends but this time it's a diff scenario. So Damian n reader are obvi friends but theyre also complete oposites. Like Damian is intelegent, focused and meanwhile has reader is a bit dumber, daydreams too much, and kinder. They also get walked over a lot.

So he invites reader over to the manor and she meets his brothers n dad. It's all fine n dandy but they can't help but notice how diff they are.

Bonus points if reader talks positively abt him to his brothers and they're all like "fym he's nice?" And readers all like "fym he isnt?" (They're just not used to being treated like a normal human being) ‼️

Honestly I love writing for platonic! Damian. So pls don’t apologise for anything bc I’m having so much fun rn. 🦦plus I don’t know if this will read well as I’ve written this late at night when o should probably be in bed.

‘Am I seeing things or has Damian finally made a friend.’ Dick whispered to Jason, his eyes unable to tear his eyes away from you and Damian followed Bruce through the manor.

‘Nope, I’m definitely seeing it too.’ Jason replied also looking at you and Damian as if he was looking at the human personifications of night and day.

‘The fact that the demon spawn managed to get a friend sure is…something.’ Tim piped up, having overheard his brothers conversation from standing in between them. ‘I can only hope he didn’t kidnap the poor soul.’ Dick added as he was quick to click onto how Damian kept a hand on your arm, tugging and pulling you along when you stop to stare at a painting in awe for a little too long, gently encouraging you to keep up with him and Bruce by promising to go back to the painting later. Jason then looked over at Tim, ‘any ideas on who they are?’ Tim shrugged. ‘Only the fact that they go to the same school as Damian, share the same art classes and is known for being a little bit of a daydreaming pushover, but despite all that they’re still a kind person.’

Dick smiled sympathetically as his heart ached for you. It wasn’t easy being nice in a city like Gotham, if anything nice ever wandered into the accursed city it seemed as though Gotham itself would stop at nothing to see it destroyed, decimated and become as miserable and as bleak as the city itself; So it was rare to find someone who genuinely could still bring it in themselves to smile whilst in a city like this. And for that Dick had to give you props for being brave enough -and strong enough- to be kind in a place that would gladly take pleasure in stepping over and on you at any inconvenience. For it was truly a sign of bravery at its finest.

‘That kid is sure brave.’ Jason signed, knowing that people like you don’t last in Gotham but it was people like you that Gotham needed the most, but how could a retched place like Gotham heal when it’s always been a rotten city since it’s very conception? He didn’t believe it could be possible but there were always solutions to fighting the problem that seemed impossible to overcome. So who cares if you weren’t the brightest bulb at school? The education system in Gotham was shit anyway the last time he checked and he doubted much had changed when he…well you know…

Tim was silent. He was too busy recognising the protective measures that Damian was taking specifically for you; mainly the hand tugging at your arm anytime he thought you were getting distracted or wandering off elsewhere and muttering about how you need to keep or you’ll get left behind, despite the fact that even if you did Damian would allow himself to fall behind just so that he could walk besides you. While he might be part of the majority that didn’t think he’s ever see the day that Damian brought a friend home, never less a friend who was the total opposite of him. He couldn’t help but feel a sort of relief that Damian finally found a friend, and he knew that both Jason and Dick felt similarly from the looks upon their faces, silently observing how you interact with one another.

The one thing that Tim was confident in was the fact that Damian needed you as much as you needed Damian because you were a beacon of opportunity for his younger brother in many ways that Tim was certain you weren’t made aware of just yet. So while he and his brothers may tease and take this piss about how different you were from Damian, they mean well and express their happiness the only way they knew best; teasing and taking the piss.

‘This library is beautiful Mr Wayne! Do you have any fantasy books?’ You could be heard asking down the hallway, followed by the sound of Bruce softly laughing as he showed you the grand library. ‘This library has any book you can think of and please call me Bruce, it’s not often that Damian brings anyone home for the weekend.’ He says as you looked the Damian confused and a little betrayed. ‘You’ve got friends other than me?’

Damian groaned. ‘No. I don’t, you’re the only friend I’m willing myself to have.’

You smiled and gripped his hand. ‘Aww Dami! That’s so sweet of you to say, despite how brash and blunt you may come across, I’m glad to say that you’re the only friend I’m willing to have too!’ You said without shame. ‘Everyone else isn’t a nice as you are.’ You trailed off while a rare solemn look appeared upon your face as Damian was quick to squeeze your hand reassuringly, Bruce smiled sympathetically. ‘I’m not smart like your son mr Wayne, I can’t help it if things don’t come to me as easy as they do others but I try! I try really heard to do my best at every test but…but people tend to laugh of me because to them I’m either slow or thick.’ Damian’s jaw clenched and his brows furrowed upon being remembered of what people tended to call you.

He hated it and whenever he saw it happen, he was quick to utter some threatening words before taking his usual position as your pseudo-bodyguard for the rest of the school day. At first he wasn’t bothered but when you became restless in your pursuit of being his friend, he remembered vividly how people were mocking and making fun of you for trying to be his friend, that he often regrets not accepting your friendship sooner if it meant being able to be there when it counts.

‘When will you get it that Damian doesn’t want to be friends with someone like you.’ One person said.

‘Then I’ll just have to keep trying.’ You rebutted, still smiling somehow.

Another person scoffs. ‘Get fucking real. You’re a weirdo, no one wants to be friends with a weirdo who so fucking slow at everything.’

You merely shrugged, even when someone’s insulting you, your brain doesn’t recognises it as such. ‘I’m sure he won’t mind.’

‘God you’re so fucking useless that I’m surprised that anyone bothers with you. Let me say this in a way you won’t have to try so hard to understand dipshit. Damian. Will. Never. Be. Friends. With. Someone. Like. You. Ever.’ A third slowly spoke and Damian had heard enough and within a blink of an eye had laid them out flat. You blinked before looking at Damian with a bright smile. ‘Hi Damian! Did you hurt these guys, that’s not very nice.’

‘They insulted you and yet you defend their honour.’ Damian asked incredulously as you both walked down the hallway, leaving the three bullies to groan from their injuries. You shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘They were insulting you.’ Damian reiterated. ‘They insulted your intelligence and your abilities. People like them often hide bigger insecurities than others.’ Damian replied, finding your ability to keep smiling after such things both annoying as it was admirable.

‘Are we friends now?’ You asked innocently enough and Damian knew he had sealed his fate, and so he sighs and looks up to the ceiling. ‘Yes, we’re…friends.’ He mutters and doesn’t do anything to stop you from dragging him to art class.

‘I was alone before Damian.’ You admitted as you looked at Bruce with a smile as you squeezed Damian’s hand in kind. ‘But now he’s here and he’s my bestest friend ever!’ Damian honestly wishes that you respect yourself more because you could claim that he saved you multiple times, but you’d never acknowledge the times where you have saved him by being unequivocally kind, sweet and over all a better person then all of Gotham’s civilians combined. ‘I was finding my first week at school horrid before I befriended l/n.’ Damian admitted as you softly cooed. The boy then swallows thickly. ‘Their friendship is much appreciated.’

‘Aww! Dami!’ You cried as you crashed into him, causing you both to hit the floor in a heap of limbs.

While Damian was cursing mom lethal threats and you were laughing, Bruce had already made his mind up about you and was certain to make sure to have Damian invite you over as much as possible. It was obvious for him to see that you and Damian were good for each other despite your vast and glaring differences, however that’s what worked in your favour, the power to have over come all odds was incredible; not to mention the fact that your friendship with Damian had lasted as long as it has was another impressive feet on top of that. Bruce knows it’s been hard for Damian to fit in and find a friend, but he couldn’t have made a better friend than he did in the likes of you.

You were more than defiantly welcomed back to the manor if Bruce had anything to say about it.

‘Get off of me!’ Damian shouts.

‘Damian, I think my foot is stuck with yours.’ You reply, scared.

‘That’s your own foot- how did you manage to tangle yourself up in yourself? You landed onto of me?’ Damian asked incredulously.

‘Sorry.’ You apologised.

‘Don’t be.’ Damian said.

Bruce smiled one last time before leaving you both alone in the library to untangle yourselves, only to be greeted by Tim, Dick and Jason. ‘Can I help you three?’ Bruce raised an eyebrow at the boys.

‘Nope.’ Dick started.

‘Not really, just…seeing how the little scamps are dealing.’ Jason followed after.

‘Damian? Nice? The same Damian who tried to, oh I don’t know…KILL ME?!’ Tim asked, revealing to Bruce all he needed to know, their breathing behind the library door was telling that they were clearly eavesdropping on the three of you. Jason and Dick looked at him displeased as Tim looked back at them. ‘I’m not the only one of us who thought that.’ He defended himself. ‘I mean it’s nice that he’s looking out for y/n but still that’s not something someone casually forgets.’

Bruce merely leaves Tim, Dick and Jason to their own quarrel, he loves his boys he truly does, but sometimes they’re more trouble than what they’re worth. He can only hope that they don’t scare you off from coming back for good because he was already planning your next visit.

[the-boy-meets-evil]

not according to plan | hjs (teaser)

summary: your ex-fiance is getting married and everyone you know is going to be there. when he calls to ask if you're coming, you accidentally mention a boyfriend. which would be fine, if you weren't very single. thankfully your best friend comes through with the perfect solution when he sets you up with a friend of his.

pairing: joshua x f.reader genre: fake dating, strangers to ?? | fluff, slight angst, smut rating: explicit (in the full fic), minors DNI word count: ~1.1k in this teaser (full fic ~22k) notes: johnny suh as the ex (sorry!), also includes other idols not in seventeen solely as face claims, there's a heavy focus on the fake dating, mentions of food & drink, warnings to be added to the final fic fic post date: friday, april 26th (full fic here)

a/n: i started this legit months ago as kind of a joke, talking about it with @shuadotcom but it's finally done (and a lot longer than i anticipated).

thank you to: @wonwussy & @kwanisms who read over this for me (too long ago), and to @cheolism @wooahaeproductions @hannieween, & sj for all the brainstorming help along the way. tagging: @aaniag @gyuminusone @crepecakeu

if you'd like to be tagged in this fic (or any of my fics), comment, click here for my tag list, or send an ask 💕

You still think this is a terrible idea, yet agree to meet Jeonghan’s friend, Joshua, anyway. Apparently, he’s somewhat new to the area, doesn’t know many people, and is incredibly easy to be around. There’s no mention of why Jeonghan thinks he might be willing to pretend to be your boyfriend. A part of you wonders if your friend even told him, but he’s not that cruel. So, whatever the case, Joshua must at least have some idea of what he’s walking into. 

Several days pass between the nightmare of a call from Johnny and you actually meeting Joshua, which only adds to your anxiety about whether or not this is going to work. Johnny is asking for a name for the seating chart and for dinner selections. Your mom wants to know when they’ll be able to meet this new boyfriend before the wedding (because “meeting him for the first time at a wedding is gauche” and we wouldn’t want that). Your sister is convinced that he doesn’t actually exist since you haven’t posted him on social media. That you can at least answer to say that not everyone posts their entire life online like she does. It doesn’t seem to allay her suspicions, though. 

Then, there’s the fact that you’re actually meeting Joshua for the first time at dinner. All you wanted was to go for coffee, yet he insisted. You couldn’t exactly press the point. Not when you’re planning to ask this stranger to pretend to date you just so that you can avoid the embarrassment at your ex’s wedding. On top of that, because Jeonghan really is a demon at his core, you don’t know what Joshua looks like. Don’t know who to look for. Which leads to you doing the only sensible thing and showing up 5 minutes late for dinner, hoping that he’ll already be at the table when you get there.

It works.

When you give the reservation name at the host stand, you’re immediately led back to a table. Without even thinking about it, you smooth your hands down the front of your dress, looking for a small amount of comfort in this situation. It’s not even that you struggle around new people, this is just…well, it’s a lot. It’s out of anyone’s comfort zone. Whatever you’re expecting, it’s not the man sitting at the table the host leads you to. He nearly stops you in your tracks. 

His black hair is perfectly styled down to the pieces on one side that come down over his forehead. The black dress shirt he wears is open at least one button too many, but he makes the exposed chest look work in a way models would envy. Even though his pants are black as well, he makes it look classic and effortless, rather than too dark. That’s all without even acknowledging the soft smile on his face. This man would break a thousand hearts without even saying a damn word. While you’re appreciating him, you miss the way his eyes rake over you appreciatively. Miss the way his eyes trace your curves and the way the dress clings to you. 

In one fluid motion, he’s standing up to greet you, a gentle kiss placed on your cheek. Is it weird if your knees are a little weak? Well, even if it is, there’s nothing you can do. You’re completely captivated. 

“You must be Joshua,” you say. Brilliant, you think. That’s obvious.

“It’s nice to meet you. Jeonghan had nothing but good things to say,” he answers with another smile as he pulls your seat out for you. 

“I feel like he hardly told me about you,” you respond. Joshua raises a perfect eyebrow at that.

“Then why did you agree to go out with me?” Joshua asks. 

“Go out with…is this a date?” The question comes tumbling out. 

Joshua’s eyes widen in genuine confusion. “Is it not?” 

“What, exactly, did Jeonghan say to you?” 

A lot and nothing at all, it turns out. Joshua tells you about how he’s somewhat new to the area, which you knew. About how he met Jeonghan through work, kind of. They work in the same building doing very different things and happened to run into each other getting coffee a handful of times before Jeonghan introduced himself. The two had hung out several times, something Jeonghan had not really mentioned, and gotten to know each other over drinks more than once. The very first time, Jeonghan had mentioned you and Joshua admits immediately being intrigued without pressing for more information. 

In any case, Jeonghan talked about you pretty freely, a fact that’s hardly surprising. Before Joshua texted you, Jeonghan had mentioned, in what Joshua calls an offhand way, that you were sick of dating the same people. According to Joshua, through Jeonghan, you were looking to possibly be set up. (Read: Jeonghan thinks he’s crafty and isn’t going to come out and tell this man what you’re really looking for. Typical Jeonghan, honestly. You know that “offhand comment” was anything but. And you had the audacity to think Jeonghan would have to tell Joshua what he’s getting into. Rookie move.)

Now you’re in a bit of an awkward situation because this man is honestly gorgeous, one of the prettiest humans you’ve ever met. And, already, he seems like he might be sweet with a pretty good sense of humor. It’s just…well, you’re absolutely not looking for a relationship and this is the last person you want to get involved in your mess. Thankfully, you get a moment to catch your breath when someone comes by to take a drink order and suggest an appetizer. It’s just enough time for you to talk yourself into telling Joshua the real story.

To his credit, he only looks mildly surprised as you outline your whole situation, inform him that yes, Jeonghan does know all of this, and clarify why you didn’t actually realize it was a date. It’s hard to miss the way his eyes seem to sparkle a bit when you also admit that he’s absolutely stunning in a way that hurts your feelings. Easier to miss is the way his face barely falls when you say that you’re not actually looking for something right now. Interesting. 

“So that’s the whole thing and now that I’ve embarrassed myself in front of you, I’m sure you’ll understand if we never see each other after tonight,” you finish.

“How am I supposed to go to a wedding as your boyfriend in a matter of weeks if we don’t see each other after tonight?” Joshua wonders.

let me know if you want to be tagged when i post the full fic next week 💕 (and what you think so far)

[ghost-proofbaby]

twenty four hours (modern eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR TWENTY ONE

in which you try everything you can to make eddie feel better after his encounter with chrissy - to make him forget, to make him feel cherished, to make him feel worthy.

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, a single use of Y/N, smut (p in v), oral (m receiving), voyeurism, edging, good old fashioned ball worship if you squint, maybe some sub!eddie if you squint even harder, upside down does not exist, minors dni

→ wc: 7.3k+

→ a/n: shout out to @hellfire--cult for the balcony idea. i knew i'd get them there at some point, little freaks. and everyone say thank you to @icallhimjoey for the early post 😏

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

21:00 ─────────────ㅇ── 24:00

HOUR TWENTY ONE - 12:00 PM

STEVE-O: why do you guys suck so much at providing photographic proof of being alive? seriously

You’ve been staring at Steve’s text ever since the two of you arrived back at the apartment. You’d reply soon enough, but for now, the message was a distraction.

Eddie wasn’t speaking to you.

Not in a brooding sense, but in a way that let you know he was too far gone in his own head right now for you to reach him. When you’d said those words to him, when you’d admitted that you found him worth it, you saw his eyes glaze over slowly. You’d watched in real time as he slipped away from you. It might be that he doesn’t believe you, it might be guilt that continues to gnaw at him for a past that can’t be changed — whatever it is, you hate it.

The easy solution would be to send Steve the photos from the cafe, but you’d already tried that. Your thumb had hovered over that photo of Eddie with a mouthful of croissant, still bright and brilliant before all his waves of self-hatred had gotten ahold of him, and you just couldn’t. It was selfish, it was ridiculous, but you couldn’t share that piece of him with others. Some small, childish, hopeless bit of you needed to cling to the man in that photo and keep him safely inside your chest. It wasn’t a new version to your friends, they’ve always tried to defend Eddie and convince you he wasn’t all bad, but it was new to you. It was all so unexpected and unforeseen, the look behind his golden eyes as he seemingly looked right past the camera and right into you. 

No, you couldn’t send that photo. It was for your eyes only. A souvenir you had greedily stolen. 

Eddie had excused himself to the bathroom when you two arrived at the apartment, and this time, there was no dirty intentions behind it. You left well enough alone — he needed a moment to be by himself and that was fine. You could entertain yourself until he was ready to come back to you, back down to Earth. Right now, you were currently picking apart an almond croissant as if it were the most interesting thing you’d ever laid eyes on. 

Croissant dissection — see? You absolutely could distract yourself in order to give him space. Absolutely no sarcasm there.

You finally sigh when you see a message bubble pop up with three little dots, signifying Steve is typing again. You don’t give him the time to properly finish out his message before you click on your camera icon, snap a shot of the picked apart croissant in front of you, and send a message with the image attached.

YOU: we were eating breakfast, eddie’s been in the bathroom. happy, mom?

STEVE-O: he’s been in the bathroom for an entire hour? 

YOU: oh, you know how you men get with toilet time. 

Despite the playful tone of your texts, your face is completely flat, chest still heavy as you think about Eddie behind the wooden door. Should you be giving Eddie this amount of space? What if it’s doing more damage than good?

You’re about to stand from the stool you’ve occupied for nearly ten minutes now and go try your hand at knocking, try and remind Eddie that you’re still here, when Steve’s next text comes through. 

STEVE-O: stop bullshitting me. what happened? 

You swear you taste metallic blood from how hard you bite down on your bottom lip, staring at the mocking message. You can’t even begin to explain to Steve what has transpired, not just this last hour, but the entirety of the time. The parking garage, the joking marriage, Chrissy showing up, Eddie’s painful vulnerability – you can’t find the words to tell him about any of it. The same as you can’t find it in you to send the photo of Eddie in Betty’s. 

YOU: nothing happened. do you need any more proof than that?

He only reacts to your message with a thumbs up. You assume that means you’re in the clear, for now. 

When you exit your thread of messages with Steve, a new thread that has been started catches your eye. It’s a new number, no contact on it. The only message sent is from you – the photo of you with your coffee, head thrown back and eyes shut with a wide smile boosting your cheeks. 

Eddie’s phone number. 

You look at the photo of yourself for a while, trying to not cringe at your appearance. To you, you just looked ridiculous. You don’t understand why Eddie wanted this photo preserved so badly. Your smile is too wide, your eyes are mere slits from the way your cheeks were squishing up with joy, most of your makeup you’d started the night with has long since faded due to a multitude of activities. You don’t feel like anything special in this photo.

But Eddie had wanted it. He had deemed this moment in time of you as picture-worthy, had gone so far as to send it to himself so that he’d have this memory even if you deleted it from your phone. 

Before you think too hard on it, you tap on that line of numbers and add a proper contact profile to it. 

EDDIE. You keep the contact name simple, eager to get it out of the way as you move onto the next step. A contact photo. You don’t even have to ponder on it – in a flash, you’ve selected the picture of him with the croissant. 

You’re back on the thread of messages – or, at least, the singular message – and don’t stop yourself as your thumbs begin to fly over your keyboard.

YOU: why were the almond croissants almost sold out? 

To be fair, you didn’t even know if Eddie had his phone on him. That green message stares back at you for a few moments before you get your answer. 

EDDIE: Excuse me? 

He has his phone. You lift your head, looking at the closed door of the bathroom before glancing back down at your phone. 

YOU: because everyone went NUTS over them. 

You perk your ears and listen for any sign of life from down the hall. Anything. A scoff, a pitiful laugh, him calling you stupid aloud. You’ll take whatever he offers. 

It takes a moment, and you truly have to strain to hear it, but you can hear the laugh that would better pass as a sigh. 

EDDIE: Is that supposed to be a joke? 

YOU: ‘supposed to be’. excuse me, it was definitely a joke. and a very good one, at that. 

EDDIE: Debatable. 

You find yourself smiling down at the phone. Your neck aches from the way you keep glancing up suddenly at the door, silently pleading for him to come back out. To come out and fight with you, come out and bicker with you, come out and ignore you. Anything, for him to leave the bathroom and do anything but keep that door shut between you two. 

He doesn’t, so you send another bad joke. 

YOU: what did the customer say when they looked at the croissant? 

This time, he plays along. 

EDDIE: I don't know, what? 

YOU: what a BREADtaking sight. 

This time, you hear a more proper scoff come from within the bathroom. 

YOU: i heard that. don’t even try to tell me it wasn’t funny. 

EDDIE: I’m not laughing because they’re funny. I’m laughing because they’re BAD. 

YOU: bet you wouldn’t say that to my face. 

Immediately, you discard the phone, facedown on the counter as you look up to the door with unbridled hope. He could always ignore the comment, choose to not respond and continue to sulk away from you. It’s entirely possible – but you pray to every star in the sky that that isn’t what he’s going to do. 

Please come back out. Please, even if just to sit in silence with me. 

Your prayers are answered.

Slowly, painfully slowly, you hear shuffling on the other side of the door and await for the click of the door unlocking. It never comes, though – the door was never locked in the first place. He opens it, and you realize that the entire time, you could have stormed into the small room with him and demanded that he not hide away.

But you didn’t. You gave him space, gave him patience, and it’s clear he knows this as he comes out. 

His eyes are red. As if he’s been crying. 

“Hi,” you meekly say, taking in his face past those red-rimmed eyes. The tip of his nose is a fading shade of pink, as if he’s been rubbing it incessantly, and he sniffs for good measure as he turns the bathroom light off and walks to where you are. 

“Hi,” his voice is rough around the edges as he greets you back. He won’t look you in the eye once he’s within reach – his gaze remains downcast, and you catch him fiddling with a few of his rings. 

You hadn’t considered what you would do if you got this far. In every carefully considered scenario, you’d assumed he’d shut you out. You never expected him to come straight to you, as if seeking out comfort from you, without you having to beg it of him. 

His eyes catch the croissants on the counter, torn apart and lazily picked at. He’s about to open his mouth and say something about it, probably questioning what you had done to the poor pastry, but you don’t give him a chance. You’re quick to snatch up one of the pieces you’d been picking apart to snack on for yourself and hold it out to him. An olive branch, an offering – a reason for him to sit and stay for a while with you. 

He takes it tentatively, finally looking you in your eye again as he takes a small bite. It’s nothing compared to the bite he had taken when you’d snapped the photo of him, mere crumbs compared to that mouthful. 

“Did you just… massacre our croissants?” he questions, squinting his eyes down at the crime scene. 

You shift your body jokingly, failing at blocking him from seeing the mess you made, “Absolutely not. I have no clue what you’re talking about.” 

He almost cracks a grin, “Right. Of course. I must be imagining things.” 

“Wanna hear another pun?” you blurt out, suddenly nervous as he continues to stand before you. You hate the incessant need inside of your chest that calls for you to comfort him, to make this all better for him. 

“I feel like you’ll tell me one even if I say no,” he raises an eyebrow at you, “So, sure.” 

“Why did the croissant go to the doctor?”

He hums, trying to peer over your shoulder again at the croissants you were badly hiding, “Let me guess. Is it because you tore it apart mercilessly?” 

“No,” you scoff, reaching behind you to grab another piece to offer to him as well as one of your own, “It was because he was feeling crummy, dumb ass.” 

A crack of a smile. It’s miniscule but there. It makes that terrible pun worth it, just to see him not looking quite as defeated is worth all the stars in the sky at this point for you. 

You’d certainly been the reason for his unhappiness in the past, and you surely would be again at some point. It all feels so inevitable; just as he believes that he can only bring you misery, you can’t imagine yourself bringing him joy. A belief that strikes something in your chest, something albeit more painful than you’d care to admit, but it’s true. You’ve crossed a line, you’ve changed everything, but the past still remains. 

You aren’t perfect. Neither is Eddie.

Heartbreak is imminent, but for this brief moment, you can make him smile. You don’t need to worry about the next time you’ll piss him off or upset him, you just need to focus on making that twitch on his lips more permanent. 

“I meant what I said earlier, by the way,” you decide to rip off the bandaid as he moves as if to sit beside you. Quickly, your words make him freeze. A bad sign, but you push through, because he needs to hear these things, “You deserve good things, Eddie. Good people, good things- you just… you deserve those things in your life.” 

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

He’s turning away from you. Turning and heading to the living room, walking away from you.

You don’t let him. In an instant, you get onto your feet and follow him, continuing despite him acting as if he’s finished with the conversation. You’re not.

“You’re a good person, Eddie,” you insist, reaching out for him before he makes it to the couch, “Don’t walk away from me.”

He spins easily in your grip. “Just because you say something, doesn’t make it true, sweetheart.”

He’s back to saying it like a curse. Like it’s a harmful title. As if it’s not a privilege to you and all your metaphors to hear that nickname fall from his lips. 

Right before your eyes, his defenses are on the rise. Brick by brick, he’s slowly reforming those walls to separate the two of you. Instead of defeat, instead of acceptance, it just makes you angry.

“Stop doing that,” you say quietly, carefully, firmly.

“Stop doing what?”

“That. Pushing me away. Locking me out,”  you tighten your hand on his bicep and watch the way his nostrils flare, “I fucking hate it.”

“Despite what you believe,” he takes a step closer to you, “Not everything I do is meant to piss you off.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying, and we both know it,” you can feel his muscles tense beneath your touch.

This time, his smile that emerges is cold. But you can still see the rubbage left by his tears — pink water lines and a new puffiness around his eyes. His words and his sudden cool demeanor can’t hurt you when you see it for what it is.

“Clearly we both don’t know it,” he chastised you, “We are very rarely on the same page. This isn’t a damn exception. You don’t have to prove your point, it doesn’t matter.”

He’s a wounded animal, striking out. He’s letting Chrissy’s words get to him.

“You’re worth i-“

“Don’t,” One of his hands shoot out to grip your waist, “Don’t fucking say that. Please. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.” 

He didn’t believe you. 

“I meant it,” you whisper, anger shaking out of your grasp inch by inch as you realize that your words can’t break through to him, “I mean it. You’re worth it, to me, to St-“

“This isn’t about Steve,” he cuts you off, “It’s not about Steve, or Nancy, or Robin, or fucking Argyle. No need to play dumb anymore.” 

It’s about you.

You both know it. For once, contradictory to what he’d just claimed, you’re both on the same page. And like he said, no need to play dumb. 

“You’re worth it to me,” you say it with more confidence this time, “You’re a good person to me.” 

“How can you say that?” he laughs out, void of amusement, “How can you say shit like that after everything we’ve been through?”

How can you not?

You only squeeze his bicep tighter, and he returns the action by gripping your hip harsher. “Because I mean it. I believe it. Whether you do or not.” 

For a moment, the cracks in his armor expose themselves. 

“You shouldn’t,” his voice should waver, “You shouldn’t believe those things, Y/N. You should hate me.” 

“But I don’t,” And I never did.

“But you don’t,” he echoes.

You’ve done the opposite of what you had wanted. His smile is gone, that sadness creeping back up. You hate that. You don’t hate him — you hate that world of mourning behind his eyes, that defeat that brings his shoulders down and makes his grip on you falter. So you do the only thing you can think of to distract him. Make him forget.

“Make me hate you.” 

His eyes widen briefly, “Excuse me?”

“Make me hate you,” you practically beg of him, “Show me why you’re such a bad person and I’ll let this go. I’ll drop the conversation, we can- Fuck, we can forget this entire morning happened. Make me hate you, Eddie, and I’ll stop reminding you that I don’t.” 

His fingers curl back into you, slowly and gently, as his brows furrow. He’s considering what you’ve just said — more than that, you can see him trying to untangle all the hidden meanings behind it.

“And how do you suggest I do that?” his voice is low and calculated. 

You shrug, stepping forward, letting your lips get even closer to his, “Not my problem. Just make me.” 

The fingers are no longer gentle as he pulls you into him, finally catching onto the emphasis you place on those two little words.

Make me.

When his lips meet yours, they’re rough and brutal, taking greedily what they want from you. The only thing on your mind is making him forget. Make him forget, carry the load for him — they’re both more important than making him smile for now. Both these driving needs burn brighter in your chest because it’s clear that’s what he needs. 

You’re willing to give him whatever he needs right now.

“You want me to make you hate me, baby?” he mumbled against your lip, practically drinking in the way you gasp as he starts to pull back, “Is that really what you want?”

It’s what you want. “Yes.” 

And maybe you do too, when he leans back in to bite your lip. There will be another time for you to convince him with words that you find him to be worth it. Both hands from wrap around you and rough start to guide you back towards that fucking couch.

“Not the couch,” you suddenly protest, digging your heels into the carpet at the center of his living room, “Anywhere but the couch.” 

And oh, the way he’s looking at you in that moment might be your new favorite thing. Your new favorite color is his eyes as they sparkle with a bit of life that had been missing since the coffee shops encounter. Your new favorite sound is the silence that encases the little breath he lets out. Your new favorite movie is watching him move in slow motion as his eyes dart behind you, towards the door to his balcony, before his lips finally curl up with a hint of the genuine warmth that had been hidden behind his walls.

“Anywhere?” he teases, beginning to walk you backwards.

You nod, grinning right back at him.

“I think I have an idea.” 

If you had known twenty one hours ago that Eddie Munson, your sworn enemy, would have you out on his public balcony and on your knees for him in only a matter of time, past you would have….

Well, you don’t really care what past you would have done or thought anymore. You’re making him forget, yes, all while making yourself forget. You don’t care what you, twenty one hours ago, would or wouldn’t do as you let the past slip through your fingers so eagerly. All you can focus on is the dig of concrete against your knees, the way Eddie’s hands grip the railing as he leans against it, and the way the early afternoon sun forms a halo around him as you look up through fluttering lashes.

You just want to make him feel good. Every action is intentional, doing everything in your power to erase whatever storming thoughts had been haunting him so cruelly since Chrissy had so carelessly said what she had. You want to make him feel worthy. You want to make him feel loved.

Loved. You certainly didn’t love him — you couldn’t possibly, could you? He wouldn’t let you. You wouldn’t let yourself. But for now, you could play pretend; you could worship his body, drag his shirt out of the way and place playful kisses across his hips, and you could pretend that only this moment exists. 

“You wanna know what makes me such a bad person?” he sighs out as you let your teeth graze his skin, shoulders rolling to shake off that shiver you elicit from him, “This. The fact that this is all I can fucking think about.”

“Hm,” you can only hum in response, nails taking over the denim of the jeans he currently wore. You walk your fingers up his thighs, moving closer and closer to his zipper. Your mouth is nearly watering at the prospect of worshiping him. 

And the fact that any neighbor could walk out at any given moment and catch the two of you. You should probably insist on it being fast, on him being quiet, but the thought sends a thrill through the pit of your stomach. Your thighs clench and your cunt aches at the thought of being caught. 

You want to do more than make him bite back mere moans of your name. You want to make him scream.

Suddenly, a hand tangles into the roots of your hair, pulling back and making you focus on him again.

“Eyes on me,” he instructs. Once you focus on him and only him, he continues, loosening his grip and letting those fingertips rub at your scalp soothingly, “You know why you should hate me? For all the nights I pictured this.”

“Yeah?” you smile innocently, playing along. He can talk all he wants, you know once you get your mouth on him, he’ll be lucky to remember his own name. “How many nights, hm? Tell me all about them, pretty boy.”

You catch the wobble in his knees, the way his breathing picks up, the brilliant shade of ivory his knuckles stretch to. You lean back on your haunches, and the hand in your hair slips as he glowers down at you. 

“What are you-”

“Take off your shirt,” you calmly command.

“Excuse me?” 

“Your shirt. I want it off.”

His hand that was once tangled against your scalp now comes down to your face, movement slow but not hesitant as he pinches your chin. His thumb tugs on your bottom lip, and you let out, even making a show of letting your tongue peek out to tap at it. “And who said you were calling the shots?” 

“I did,” you put it simply, completely removing your hands from him now, “Take off the shirt, or I’ll leave you out here with blue balls.” 

You close your lips around the end of his thumb and his knuckles dig in deeper to the skin below your chin as you suck subtly. He chuckles, but you can hear just how breathless he goes at the small action, even as he keeps up the act with a hard press of his thumb on your lower lip. Your mouth hangs open for him, waiting patiently for his next move. 

A game of chess, an exchange of power, a fight for dominance. All the lines of who is and isn’t in control are blurred. 

“Have you always been so mean, baby?” he taunts, trailing what spit you’d left behind on his thumb along your lip. 

His movement stops when your lips spread into a provocative smile, “I learned from the best, didn’t I?” 

The retort had potential to backfire. You wait for smoke and glory, for him to pull away from you further. He’d slam down a brick right in front of your face, lay the mortar to leave you high and dry. He’d push you away, and you’d have to retreat, tail tucked between your legs in the shame of trying when it came to him. 

No smoke, no glory. He secedes, but makes no move to add to his walls, only removing his hand from your face and taking off the shirt. Just as you had told him to. 

“Better?” he asks as he makes a show of tossing the shirt to the other side of the balcony. It could have even flown over the railing, for all you paid attention to the scrap of clothing. Maybe some innocent bystander is on the streets below, confused to all Hell as to why it’s raining obscure band t-shirts. 

You’re just a bit too distracted to consider that right now. 

With Eddie’s torso revealed, all words seem to evade you. You catch the sweat beginning to gather across his sternum, watching the way he’s flushing beneath your gaze, reveling in the pink chest exposed to you as the blush crawls wider. Instantly, your original purpose is forgotten, the primal urge to pepper kisses and bites alike across his skin almost lifting you up off your sore knees. You want to leave bruises – you want to make him scream, you want to mark him up, you want to make him feel worthy. 

You stay on your knees, but compromise with all your wants as you lift up and stretch a bit. Your lips start their trail a bit lower than you (or Eddie) would have liked, taking their time to get familiar with the spanse of his rib cage first. You don’t nip with teeth, not yet. Just chaste kisses, lining each bone you can hardly feel residing beneath the skin, feeling his lungs expanding against your affection. Your tongue swipes alongside one of his side tattoos, a large and detailed dragon you hadn’t paid much mind to before. Every time you’d seen him shirtless, you’d been a bit distracted.

Not now. Now, you’re focused, determined to learn every curve and dip there is to explore on Eddie. You want to know him better than the back of your hands, memorize him more intricately than your own palms. After all, in order to worship a deity, you must know them. 

You return back to the center line of his abdomen, kisses chasing after one another, even taking the time to suck his skin between your teeth but never bite down. You pause once your lips rest right beneath his navel, the tip of your nose brushing that rough patch of hair that leads down to your end destination. Your hands reach for his belt, toying with the buckle.

Through heavy lashes, you look up at him, staring down at you in awe, “You know, you’re not doing a very good job at making me hate you, pretty boy. Think I might just have to worship you instead.”

A deity of your own making. A deity for your own taking. 

With skill, your hands undo the buckle effortlessly. You unbutton and unzip his jeans as if you’ve done this part a million times, as if you’d spent every single Sunday of the last year right here and doing exactly this. On your knees, worshiping him. This balcony, for all its exposure, certainly knows how to serve as a holy place. 

He opens his mouth to respond, but you’re impatient. You still haven’t left him speechless, meaning you still hadn’t made your point, clearly. 

His jeans hang loosely as they creep down his thighs, abandoned for a moment as you occupy your mouth against his hips. The hips you once thought would look so pretty properly decorated. You decide you were wrong – they don’t need ink burying into the skin, they need your teeth digging in. 

You cover that skin with mirroring images of bursts of purple and pink, flowering bruises that you take your time to mark onto him. With each suck and bite, Eddie rolls his hips into you, head leaned back and throat straining with each moan he swallows down. 

With the last hickey finished, you finally lean back, proud of your masterpiece as Eddie whimpers above you. Blooms in the shape of your lips mingle with faint and quickly fading teeth marks. 

“Fuck,” he gasps out when your fingertip stops trailing over your markings and comes down to apply the softest pressure over the straining bulge in his boxers. 

“What was it that you said earlier?” your finger traces over where you know a vein is – you know it because you’ve felt it, been driven insane by it – before circling around the wet patch now forming. He’s desperate, hips bucking again and a moan finally escaping. You think he’s bitten his lips hard enough in an attempt at self-restraint that they might be bleeding, “You said I’m not calling the shots, right?” 

“You’re not,” he pathetically grits out, hands forming tighter fists on metal railing, as if the moment he lets go of it they’ll find their way home to you. 

You lean forward, breath washing over his crotch before you place a feathery kiss to his clothed tip, “I’m not?” 

You are. You both know you are. A constant battle of control, an ever-growing fight for dominance. 

He lets out something crossed between a sigh of relief and a whine of protest when you remove your lips and hand from him completely, only to let out a sharp yelp when your finger curls into the waistband of his boxers and pulls back the elastic, letting it snap back into place sharply. 

“Say I am,” you barter, “Say I’m in control right now, and I’ll put my money where my mouth is.” 

You don’t expect him to break so easily. You’ve underestimated just how tightly you’ve caught him beneath your thumb.

“You’re in control,” he gasps out, head hanging low to meet your gaze fully, “You’re in complete and utter fucking control of me. You’re calling all the shots, baby. You always are.” 

He didn’t have to sweeten it up with baby, but it spurs you on. 

You shove his boxers down, watching his cock spring out for the taking. And you do as you promised; you put your money where your mouth is.

You start softly, taking your time as you gingerly suck on his pretty pink tip as you had his thumb. Hardly hollowing your cheeks, letting your tongue circle his slit to gather up the precum. You let the taste of him completely cover your tongue, even hum in satisfaction when he lets out a loud groan. It motivates you, feeds your fervor as you let his tip fall from your mouth and trail the tip of your tongue down the underside of his cock. That vein you’d traced with your fingertip, yours for the taking, covered in a faint line of saliva as you let it rest on your forehead and graze your lips against his ballsack. 

He can’t hide his shiver, even as his fist flies to his mouth to bite down on. 

“Have I ever told you how cute you are?” you say low enough for just him. You can hear the sounds of traffic, a dog barking, birds singing — all reminders of the outside world and the looming threat of being caught. Warmth floods you again at the reminder of that threat, thighs clenching closer together in a desperate search of friction, “Just falling apart for me, acting so tough for so long until I got you alone.” 

He whimpers your name. It’s the prettiest sound you’ve ever heard.

You wrap your lips around the sensitive skin, sucking and pecking away on one side before moving to the next. His reaction throttles your movements. When his hand loses the fight of resistance, coming down to the back of your head, you laugh breathlessly against the now wet skin. 

“Let me make you feel just how worthy you are to me,” you praise, pulling back finally, letting your nose brush against his sack as you do so. The hand that was once merely resting now tangles up in your hair — a warning. 

You let the velvet skin of his cock drag down your cheek as each movement is deliberate, taking your time and in no rush. You want to savor him like this. Imprint him to memory. 

You want to make him forget while making yourself remember. 

You want to remember the way his hand flexes at the base of your skull when you finally kiss his tip once more, remember the way his abdomen tenses as you sink him further into your mouth. You want to remember every little sound that escapes him as he hits the back of your throat, as you constrict around him, as you moan around his base and the vibrations have him slipping out of control. 

Your nails dig into his thighs to balance yourself, eyes watering as you look up at him. One subtle nod. He doesn’t need more than that.

Your jaw goes slack, trying to steady your breathing through your nose as you let him take control. His hips thrust at their own pace, gentle enough that he only grazes the back of your throat rather than bruise it. The issue is you want him to bruise it. You want him to mark you from the inside out. Until there’s no part of you left untouched by him. 

You gag again, and he slows. Your fingers that grip his thighs immediately tap against him, and he mistakes it as a signal to pull back completely before you chase after him, pressing him onto your tongue until your lips are snug around his cock a mere inch from the base. Your nose is grazing those pubes in the dead center of all your love marks. Shapes of semi-permanent scars that whisper, you’re worth it to me. I want this. I want you. 

The last thing on his mind was Chrissy Cunningham and her words alluding to him not being worth it. 

You make sure of it when you finally release him from your mouth and begin to pump with an eager fist, ducking down and returning to pay attention to his balls once more. You nuzzle the soft skin, let the tips of your canines graze them before you suck them onto your tongue as you’d done his cock. He’s no longer containing his moans – they flow freely along with curse words, chants of your name, sounds you’d love to capture and play on repeat until the end of your days. 

“Oh my God,” he groans out particularly loudly, “Fuck, baby. J-Just like that, please- Fuck. You’re doing so good for me. Such a good girl, just for me.” 

Your hand is still wrapped around him, slowly coming up to squeeze hard around the tip as you whisper up to him, “Only for you.” 

“Yeah? Only for me?” 

You don’t know how to explain to him that it’s true: you’re only ever that mean for him, you’re only ever this eager for him, you’re only ever this desperate for him. 

You don’t answer him with words. There are none. Instead, you take him back in your mouth, and you solely focus on bringing your deity to climax. The man you were worshiping, the man who was worth the ache in your knees that surely told you they would be left bruised, if not skinned. 

“Is it just like you imagined?” you question as you break your lips off him. He’s close, leaking precum excessively and entire body taut, “Was it worth it? To picture this, to want this so badly?” 

He almost can’t answer you, but somehow manages between pants, “It was. It is. You’re- fuck, you’re worth it.” 

“Good,” you drop your hand from him, leaving him right on the edge as you rest both sticky palms on the tops of your thighs. You look up at him with relinquished control – the perfect image of submission, for him. “Then you get it. When I say you’re worth it, you get it.” 

He’s clearly still reeling from you bringing him so close only to leave him hanging, teetering on a cliff as he stares you down. 

His chest heaves as he questions, “What was it you wanted me to do earlier?” A deceiving hand comes down, tucking any baby hairs behind your ear and cradling the side of your face. One moment, his thumb is stroking a soft arch beneath your eye, the next that hand is pulling you up, “Make you?”

You know that if you hadn’t been so eager to follow his touch, you’d still be on your knees. Even as you watch him take the reins, you know you will always call the shots – just like he had said. 

“You really think you can make me hate you?” you whisper once you’re standing tall in front of him, leaning your cheek into his touch.

“I shouldn’t have to make you hate me,” he corrects, the thumb back to gentle strokes, loosening the touch to be more tender once again, “You should already hate me.” 

“Why?” 

He flips positions immediately, your lower back now curving into the railing as he presses himself up against you, his achingly hard cock between your bodies, “Because of this. Because I always want you on your knees for me. Because of all the fucking filth I want to do to you. I want to bend you over, right here, and take you where anyone could see. I want to have you screaming my name loud enough that every single person on the streets of this city hears you.”

With each word, a knot ties inside of you, desperate for release. 

“Because you’re fucking right,” he leans down, lips going straight for your neck, not looking you in the eyes, “All it fucking took was for you to get me alone for one night, and now? I’ll never get enough of you, I’ll never get clean of you,” he takes a deep breath, and suddenly, his lips latch onto you, sucking the skin between his teeth and biting hard. You can’t stop your fingers from latching onto his curls, tugging hard, body rolling into his. It hurts, it stings, you need more, “Everything changes. And that includes me.” 

His face finally leaves the crook of your neck, pulling back to look you in your eyes. Doe brown eyes search yours, wide and honest and pleading. You let everything else melt away; for a moment, it’s only him and only you. The tension, the last twenty one hours, the last year — you let it disintegrate and focus on him.

It never mattered if everything changed. 

It only matters that he’s changed, irreversibly, and so are you.

“How can I hate you for those things?” you press into him again, this time less desperate and more consciously, “Do it.” 

“Do what?”

“All of it,” you trail a hand up his chest, “Every single thing you just said. Fucking- Do them. Bend me over, make me scream, change me,” your voice breaks, shaking with anticipation and need. 

It’s all the encouragement he needs.

Every single thing he wanted, he craved, he does. A flurry of him properly discarding his jeans as he unbuttons yours to shove them down, spinning you and shoving you hard enough into the railing that it digs into your abdomen and leaves you breathless. You’re hardly aware of the way you step out of your pants and kick them to the side, looking out to the city skyline but not seeing it. It’s all a blur as you focus on the way your shirt rides up and he grabs your hips, bruising you finally as you have desperately needed. 

You wanted to be left haunted by the end of these last few hours. You wanted to see him every time you looked in the mirror for the next week, to remember the map of where his body molded to yours. You want to dream of the way he stretches you as your underwear is ripped to the side. You want to be followed by the sounds of his skin slapping against yours as he snaps forward with intention.

Changing you. He has no idea that he’s already ripped you open from the inside out, has already rewired your entire chest and set flames to your brain. 

Everything changes, and sometimes, everything is only two people. Just you. Just him. New versions that would have never met had it not been for this stupid fucking bet.

“Eddie,” you nearly sob, nearly choke on, his name burning in your throat like kindling embers. 

His hand walks up your spine, trailing wildfire even with a layer of cotton between you two. Burning and singing away all you’d assumed for far too long. When he reaches the nape of your neck, he takes care in wrapping your hair around his wrist, tugging back hard and forcing you to stand from where the railing had been bending you in two.

“Say it again,” his lips brush you ear with every gasping breathing, timing with the way his cock is sliding in and out of your warmth, “Say it louder.” 

“Fu-“ you start to moan, cut off by him pulling even harder on your hair, making his point so that you cry out, “Eddie!” 

He thrusts harder. You swear you could feel him in your throat. 

“Scream for me, baby,” an arm wraps around your torso, firm and solid for you to cling to rather than the warming metal of the railing, “Tell them who’s making you feel so good. Let them know. Be a good girl.”

Even when he claims to have control, it’s your actions, your reactions, that call the shots.

It’s the echo of your voice that spurs him on as you chant his name over and over, as if he were your only God. Primal worship dripping from every syllable. It’s the tremble in your thighs that has him pressing deeper into you, chest glued to your back as if he could never get you close enough. It’s the clench of your cunt around him, a vice that sucks him in as you drag him closer to the high he’s been dizzily chasing since you first dropped to your knees in front of him. 

It’s you. You’ve changed him, as he’s changed you.

He pulls your hair until you rest the back of your head against his shoulder, back arching and feet still spread as he only maintains his quick and brutal pace, leaning down to whisper in your ear one last time.

“You know the real reason why you should hate me?” he grits out between to particularly forceful thrusts, “It’s not just because I don’t deserve you. It’s because I’ve wanted you for so long,” you’re right on the edge, fluttering around his cock as his movements stutter. A tell tale sign. “I- fuck, fuck. It’s- God, I’ve loved you for so long, and I’ll never be fucking worthy.” 

You shatter around him in waves. Your entire body tenses as the words dig claws into you, piercing through vines and blooms. His body stills, warmth flooding you deep within as you continue to see stars. You can’t make a single sound, fingerprints surely left behind on where you clasp onto his forearm. 

I’ve loved you for so long, and I’ll never be fucking worthy.

When the waves recede, when the high has passed its peak, you both freeze. Your body tensed in his hold, struggling to process what he’d just said. 

Loved you. 

He’s frozen in place, scrambling to figure out how to undo the damage just done. 

I’ve loved you for so long.

He slips out of you, his spent dripping down your thighs. His forearm drops from you. Your hands don’t even try to stop him.

I’ll never be fucking worthy.

You should be worried of neighbors coming out to see the two of you on his balcony. If not worried, you should be embarrassed, or aching at the thought once again. Anything. You should feel something.

You turn slowly to him, entirely numb as you catch his rueful expression.

Loved you. He loved you.

His regret turns to pain as you whisper, “What did you just say?”

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[darklordofthesimp]

Anything V (König x Reader)

The 5th instalment in the Anything-Verse

Main Masterlist 

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Like the characters? 

Sunshine Masterlist  || Saint Masterlist

Series Summary:  A lack of information from the chain of command results in König mistaking you for an enemy sniper.

A/N: Ya’ll are in for a treat with this series. I just figured out the plot like 10 minutes ago hahaha

Category: Angst || Hurt/Comfort || Unrequited Pining || Tension 

Warning: Graphic Language 

You glared at the woman before you, fury simmering beneath your skin. You felt like you were on fire, you felt like you could commit heinous crimes- you knew that you could kill them.

“I understand that you may feel like this isn’t needed,” the stupid fuck soothed. “But therapy is a proven solution. I can help get you back up and running.” 

Therapy. 

Your fingers dug into the armrests.

“They told me this was training.” You were chewing on the words, jaw tight and eyes narrowed. Deep down you’d known that this was coming, you’d declined ‘help’ after the initial incident but now there was no hiding the darkness that plagued your mind. Everyone had seen it. 

Everyone.

“This is training,” the doctor smiled. “Training of the mind.” 

You visibly cringed. They’d made sure to give you the most disarming person they could find. Kind eyes, an easy smile and a relaxed posture. They looked vulnerable. If the doctor was the most fragile in the room, then it would encourage you to step out and spill your trauma with tears and snot bubbles. Not you. 

You sneered, leaning forward to rest your arms on your knees. “Being chosen to be my therapist is a shit go, Doc.” 

“Actually,” the corner of their lips curled upward. “This’ll piss you off more but I’m doing a friend a favour.” 

You blinked, surprise snatching the next crude words from your tongue. The doctor leaned back into their chair, clicking the pen a couple of times as if emphasising a point. As you stared at them, they stared back, and you suddenly realised that maybe they weren’t as vulnerable as they seemed. 

“Laswell?” You queried. 

The therapist snorted softly. “Price.” 

Your spine straightened, a deep sense of anger twisting violently within your chest. 

Price. 

“Ooh,” the doctor tutted softly, leaning forward in their seat. “Didn’t like that one, did you?” 

You sneered at them, your eyes narrowed and your walls higher than ever. What did they know about what you liked and disliked? What did they know of your relationship with Price? 

“I don’t want to talk about him,” you snapped, crossing your arms over your chest.

“If you had it your way, you wouldn’t talk at all,” the doctor frowned. 

“Then take the fucking hint.” 

Their gaze trailed over your body, taking in the way you leaned away from the conversation. You were an open book and no matter how aggressive the mask you wore was- you were readable. With a huff, the therapist tossed their notebook over their shoulder lazily. It clattered onto the bench behind them, scattering the miscellaneous items in its path. 

“Alright, Birdy. Let’s go off the record then,” they gave you a smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes. “You’re shitty with Price.” 

“I said I didn’t want to talk about him-” 

“You feel like he’s betrayed you.” 

You blinked, fingers trembling even though they were curled into fists. The overarching thought that had been plaguing you for weeks was picked apart by some random fucking doctor. The words were out, you weren’t the one that had said them but they were in the air anyway. It felt good to hear them aloud rather than the screaming thought over and over in the recesses of your mind. 

“Yes.” The confirmation was bitter on your tongue. You waited for the doctor to shut you down, you waited for them to monologue about how your feelings were childish and unprofessional. They were providing you this service as a favour to the Captain, you could only assume that they were friends. 

Instead, the therapist simply nodded. “I would too, Birdy.” 

You loosed a breath that you hadn’t realised you were holding. 

“What was your name again, Doc?” You rasped, eyes narrowing. They shifted in their seat, taken off guard by the sudden change in subject but willing to share nonetheless. 

The doctor shot you a smile- genuine this time.  

“They call me Saint.” 

____

While you didn’t appreciate being ambushed with it, therapy hadn’t been as bad as you’d imagined. Your fingers clenched and unclenched in an attempt to release some tension as you walked.

Every day, you were required to present to the doctors office for a psych appointment. 

Every day, Saint had picked your thoughts apart bit by bit. 

Although you hadn’t intended to talk, you realized quickly that Saint didn’t just look disarming- they were disarming. There was no judgement as you spoke, not when you told them about your murderous nightmares and not when you told them that you’d wanted to beat down the new sniper. 

They only nodded, explaining that it- surprisingly- was natural to feel like that after what you’d experienced. 

You felt validated. 

Less like a liability and more like a recovering victim. 

Your thoughts stuttered to a halt as you laid eyes on the kitchen, the light spilling from the open doorway and out into the hall. You raised a brow at the sight, knowing that only one person would really be awake at this time of night. 

Ghost. 

The flutter in your chest caught you off guard, the thought of seeing Simon had you excited. It’d been a while since you’d both last spoken, a hand on the shoulder as he muttered a “see you soon,” and a “be safe.” All that, right before he boarded a plane with Sunshine in tow. 

“Yeah,” the newest sniper had winked at you with a curved smile. “See you real soon, gorgeous.” 

You hated them, you were sure of it. They were nauseatingly glib, each word rolling off their silver tongue with all the ease but no truth. You couldn’t believe anything they said, you’d be stupid if you did. 

As you approached the kitchen slowly, you heard hushed voices. They were arguing- aggressive and quickly spoken. 

“Is this how it’s going to be?” Sunshine snapped, their words breathless. “For the rest of our time here, this is how you want it to be?” 

From what you’d seen, the new sniper had a reputation for being self-posessed and controlled. They wanted to watch you unravel beneath their sentences, but in order for them to do that they’d have to be unphased by whatever’s thrown at them. 

Right now, there was no sign of that person. 

“What “I want it to be” is you doing your fucking job and me doing mine." The hostility in Simon's tone had you taken aback. You’d never heard him so aggressive towards a teammate and for a split moment, you felt bad for Sunshine. 

“It was!” The sniper shouted, their exhaustion and frustration painstakingly clear. 

“You were reckless.” 

“I was saving you!” 

“I don’t need you to save me!” Ghost finally snapped. The sound of something clattering followed by Sunshine’s sharp breath had you tense. “I don’t need anything from you.” 

There was a soft touch against your shoulder and your heart stuttered in your chest. Fear electrified your body as you spun around. A hand pressed down firmly against your lips, suffocating the scream rising from your throat. 

König’s eyes were narrowed, his head ducked so that he could meet your gaze head on. The look he gave you was accusatory and shame quickly flooded your cheeks. Your fingers came to rest shakily against his wrist, pushing weakly against his hold. 

His brows pulled into a frown. 

“Are you asking me to just let you fucking die?” Sunshine rasped, their seething voice reminding you of where you were. König’s eyes drifted from yours to over your shoulder aimlessly as he listened to their conversation. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Ghost drawled. You could hear him struggling for control, the way he drew each breath like it was painful. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?” The sniper exclaimed. “If it was Birdy instead of me today you wouldn’t have an issue with it-” 

“But you’re not Birdy,” Ghost snapped, “are you?” 

Silence flooded the space between you all. 

You felt ashamed of yourself. You were somewhere you shouldn’t have been, you were listening to a conversation that you were never intended to hear. This was something personal, the hatred and electricity between Sunshine and Ghost forbidden for your understanding. 

König must have come to the same conclusion. The man shot you a hard stare, his hands falling from your lips to grip your shoulders. He guided you backward quietly, trying to provide an escape that wouldn’t alert them to your presence. 

“No, Sir,” Sunshine’s voice was faint now as you pulled away from the two. “I’m not Birdy.” 

You knew then that something had changed. It was in their voice, it was in the air, it was in the venom of their words- it was a suffocating emotion that you knew too well. 

They were hurt. 

But, hurt breeds bitterness and there was nothing but hatred in Sunshine’s final words. 

I’m not Birdy. 

König sucked in a breath and you knew that he’d heard it as well. When he finally managed to pull you both through the doors of your dormitory unscathed, he let you go. There was no gentleness in his expression this time when he appraised you. 

“What were you thinking?” He growled, running rough fingers through his hair. “That was wrong.” 

“I know,” you whispered, shaken. 

“You shouldn’t have been there,” König continued with a large step away from your quivering body. He was riled up and his anger stimulated your own. Who was he to lecture you? 

“You shouldn’t have been there either,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest. 

König shot you a stern look. “I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t find you eavesdropping, naseweis.” 

You rolled your eyes, turning on your heel. While you weren’t falling apart at the sight of him anymore, it didn’t mean that you wanted to be around him. You still wanted nothing to do with König, no interaction, no contact- nothing.

“I don’t need you, of all people, lecturing me on being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” you threw over your shoulder as you walked. There was a huff from the man behind you, then the fall of his footsteps following in suit. 

“Doesn’t the incident make me an expert on that?” König questioned from beside you, keeping pace as though it were a leisurely stroll. You glared up at him, forcing the growing rage clawing at your chest to stay caged. 

“You think it’s funny?” You hissed. “Am I a fucking joke to you?” 

“Of course not!” König’s voice hardened. You both rounded the corner towards your room, it felt like the quicker you moved the easier it was for him to keep up. Another infuriating feature that the Austrian possessed, you’d add it to the already mile-long list. 

“Then why can’t you just leave me alone?” You spun on your heel, facing the beast head on. “It’s like you’re everywhere, König. I can’t escape you, I enter a room and you’re there. I turn a corner, you’re there. I go to sleep and there you fucking are.” 

König raised a brow, leaning his shoulder against the frame beside him. “I’m not stalking you, Birdy. If that’s what you’re trying to imply.” 

“Is that why you’re standing in my bedroom doorway?”

The man’s spine straightened as he took up his own weight, emerald gaze pinning you to your place. It was as though he were surprised, as though he was just now realising that he had been following you. Your chest was heaving as you glared up at him. You wanted him to deny it, to tell you that you were imagining it all- you wanted to be angry. 

“You’re a worrying person,” König finally said. The words almost sounded like an admission, although of what you were unsure. You jaw tightened as you retreated another step back into the safety of your room. 

“No,” you corrected, “you’re a worrying person.” 

König sighed, letting the silence fall in between you for a beat. There was conflict across his expression before finally his eyes narrowed. He stepped into the room. 

Your heart leapt into your throat. 

“Do you think I want to hurt you?” 

There it was. 

It was the question that plagued you as you lay in bed every night, staring at your bedroom door. Or lack thereof, you should say. There was nothing on the hinges, not since König had kicked it down. 

He’d thought you were in danger. You lay before him, unconscious and dreaming. He could have done anything, he could have finished the job. 

But he didn’t. 

König’s head tilted as he observed you, watching you struggle for an answer. His fingers lightly brushed against your forearm and you froze, eyes wide as you stared up at him. He was so tall, dominating every space he entered. He was a giant amongst men, a god. 

“Do you think I want to hurt you, Birdy?” König said again. He didn’t lean down, didn’t drop down to your height this time. He wanted your answer, he wanted you to look at him and take him as he was- he wanted the truth. 

“No,” you whispered. 

The truth. 

Your body trembled as though the room had dropped to subzero temperatures but your skin was on fire. Heat bloomed across your chest, racing the length of your spine, neck and cheeks.

König’s eyes softened and he swayed backward lazily, as though he were drunk fighting for his balance. Neither of you said anything for a long moment. He didn’t ask why you were still afraid, he knew that was an unfair question. He never expected you to be comfortable with his presence. 

But the shift between you both was tangible. 

“Am I right?” The words tumbled from your lips before you could stop them, desperate and vulnerable. An offering, an olive branch an extension of trust. 

 Something washed over the man before you, something you’d never seen before. His gaze was ferocious, jade fire burning beneath those lashes as it scorched your skin. Determination tightened his jaw and his thumb brushed across the skin of your arm like a promise. 

An unspoken response. 

Yes. 

Your breath left your chest as you took another step away, suffocating in his presence. König inhaled heavily, his hands falling back to rest at his sides. 

“I still-” You began, twisting your fingers anxiously. 

“I know.” 

You still hadn’t forgiven him. 

There was a long way to go, but now the path had changed. Rather than there being a straight road, shrouded in hatred, there was a fork. A split in the path that required a decision, one that you weren’t quite ready to make yet. 

König cleared his throat, softening his stance with conscious effort. It was as if he remembered that he was meant to be disarming. Watching the huge man try to shrink himself for your comfort was surreal, nothing like what you’d imagined when you’d first laid eyes on him after your recovery. 

Ghost had never made himself smaller for you when you came out of hospital. He was slower, gentler, as though dealing with a frightened animal- but he never pretended to be something that he was not. 

“Do you think they heard us?” You changed the topic as your mind fell back to Ghost and Sunshine. “How would we explain that?” 

König blinked, clearly glad for the break in intensity. He shifted backward, moving to make his escape as your interaction came to a close. For once, he was the one running from you.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” he muttered, an ironic smile playing at his lips. “They won’t have a hard time believing that given our history.” 

 The man offered you a nod, fingers tapping against the door with finality- his own farewell. You were glad that he hadn’t said ‘goodnight’, that he hadn’t bothered with niceties. You were not friends. Not allies. 

You weren’t sure what you were. 

When he disappeared around the door, his footsteps retreating down the hall, you finally let yourself relax. Jitters skittered across your body, the remnants of electricity from your confrontation buzzing beneath your skin. 

Wrong place, wrong time. 

The words struck a chord of discomfort within you. 

They followed you through your night routine, plaguing you in the shower, lingering as you made a cup of tea, whispering sickness as you laid in bed. They made you nauseous, they made you dizzy, they were disconcerting. 

Wrong place, wrong time. 

The whole accident had been such a tragic coincidence, a monumental mistake. Almost impossible in an environment where communication is key, everything working in perfect tandem to ensure your demise. 

Throughout the length of your military career, you’d always been taught to never take anything as chance. If a bush rustled beside you, there was a possibility that it was an animal- but also that it could be an enemy. If there was a light beneath a door, it could have been left on or there was someone waiting for you on the other side. You were taught not to trust coincidence. 

The failure of comms, the false intel of a sniper on a roof, the unexpected of KorTac, the largest soldier of their team being sent to find you- all of it was a perfectly timed but tragic coincidence. 

You tossed in your bed, trying to drown the thoughts from your crumbling mind. It seems you didn’t need a nightmare tonight to bring on terror. Your resolve began to slip, the sudden sense of dread gripping you by the throat. 

Wrong place, wrong time. 

You wanted to rake the thoughts from your brain with your bare fingers. You wanted to rip out the connection you’d made and go to sleep in bliss ignorance.

Wrong place, wrong time. 

The way König had brought it up, the way he’d said it, maybe he was feeling it too. Maybe you weren’t as insane as you felt. Maybe your thoughts weren’t as unreliable as they seemed. You clenched your jaw, nails digging into the skin of your palm hoping that the pain would pull you back from the edge you teetered on. 

Wrong place, wrong time. 

Wrong for both you and König … but, as you lay staring at your missing door, you couldn’t shake the thought that maybe it was all just right for somebody else.

[disneyprincemuke]

mastermind * op81

oscar did not expect that he had to share a bed with you during his trip to visit you over his break

pairings: oscar piastri x fem!reader

word count: 2k

notes: guys omg i've just been so squashed mentally so i've kinda been struggling to write but no worries,, here is a long overdue and that promised forced one bed trope with oscar <3

(f1 masterlist)

leaving you behind so he could travel the world was never part of the plan that oscar had mapped out in his head. and you packing up to move several hours away for grad school also was not the plan.

it just makes it all the harder during his short breaks to come and see you. his breaks are truly barely considered one, always asked to come down to headquarters for meetings and strategy talks.

but this time is different. he’s finally managed to shake off his duties this one time, taking a train to finally go and visit you.

there’s a festival nearby, or maybe a concert — he can’t remember which specifically — that didn’t allow him to book a hotel room for himself. besides, the solution is easy when you’ve been friends your whole life; he was just looking for a room out of courtesy and respect for your space.

but when you stepped forward and told him he’s being silly for looking at hotels, he knew that was your subtle way of telling him that he will be staying with you during his stay.

so here he is, a heavy and bulky backpack over his shoulders as his eyes bore on the door of your apartment. he hears some shuffling on the other side before the lock clicks, followed by squeaking as the door is pulled open.

it reveals you, hair up in a bun with your glasses sitting on your nose. you’re still in your pyjamas, he’s guessing you never left your apartment to prepare it for him.

“oscar!” you squeal, throwing your arms into the air. “you’re here!”

he beams and holds his arms out. “you knew i was coming!”

“i know, but i’m just so excited to have you here!” you finally take a step forward and bury yourself into his chest. “it’s been a while — you’ve just been so busy and unattainable.”

“unattainable is a bit much,” oscar chuckles as you open the door slightly wider and beckon to let him in, “just didn’t have the time to come down to you. but i still talked to you.”

you shrug, “i know.”

“well anyway,” he says, putting his bag down on the empty spots next to your couch, “thank you so much for letting me stay. if i didn’t know any better, i’d assume that you somehow hijacked the odds of all the hotels not having rooms available for my stay.”

you laugh, looking over your shoulder to give him a bewildered stare. “i’m not that powerful, oscar.”

it’s only then he realises that your couch was not prepped to be a bed, unlike what he had been expecting when he took up your generous offer to stay in your apartment. it’s not exactly his first time sleeping over at your place, but you almost always prepared your couch to be a bed when he pays a visit, which does not seem to be the case this time around.

“hey?” he calls out hesitantly, looking over his shoulder to get your attention as you trudge the kitchen by yourself. “the couch isn’t made up like a bed… did you forget or something?”

you tilt your head, convincingly confused at him. your eyes trail to the couch behind him before realisation hits you. “oh!” you break into a soft laugh as you approach him. “well, you see… it’s a new couch and it’s so fancy and pink — you can’t possibly sleep on it!”

oscar scans your couch. and to your defense, it does look very pristine and new, and very pink. he can understand where you’re coming from when you claim that he should not sleep on it.

“so, you know,” you say in a slightly softer voice, looking down to the ground to avoid his gaze, “we can share my bed — it’s more comfortable anyway. you wouldn’t get a good night’s rest on this tiny couch.”

oscar turns to look at you before he shrugs. “sure, i guess you know best.”

“i swear!” you squeal, guiding him towards your bedroom to let him settle his things inside. “the couch is too small for you.”

he can only keep laughing at the way you continue to defend your decision to let him share the bed with you.

this situation is less than ideal for him. not only has he spent years of your friendship silently pining for you, but now he is forced to share a bed with you for a week.

though, arguably, this is the best way to finally ease himself into asking you out. but he just can’t be too sure unless he hears it from your lips, telling him that you feel the same. but you’re not saying anything directly to his face.

oscar tries to push away the nerves from sharing a bed with you for the rest of the day. you go out and explore the town you’ve spent the past couple of months in, trying new dishes and taking him to your favourite spots. he enjoys the day with you, not having realised that he missed having you around this much in the time you spent apart.

he couldn’t make it out for your graduation, which sucked, but you claimed that it’s okay because he’s got a big boy job unlike you.

he completely forgot about the situation at hand. the one he spent almost half the afternoon thinking and stressing over, but went away the minute you were laughing at a joke he had made nonchalantly.

it wasn’t until he stepped out of the shower and saw you already passed out on the bed that he suddenly remembered that he was going to have to share the bed with you for the next few nights. you were comfortably nuzzled into one side of the bed with the blankets pulled up all the way to your chin.

oscar almost bails on sleeping on the bed with you, weighing how much more painful it could be if he just made up some stupid excuse and slept on the floor instead. ultimately, he deemed that it would be completely not worth the body pain if did that.

so he sucks it up and dragged his feet against the floor to join you in bed. he tries to carefully lie on the bed without waking you up, suddenly feeling slightly claustrophobic even though you had pushed yourself so far to the edge of the bed that he fears you might fall out at some point in the night.

alas, when the bed dips, he flinches at the way your eyes fluttered open and a lazy grin stretches your lips. “hey,” you croak out before turning to the other side of the bed to give him his space.

“sorry i woke you up,” oscar whispers, hesitantly climbing under the blankets. “goodnight.”

“goodnight, oscar.”

it takes him a while, but he does eventually fall asleep. all he could think of until he passed out was the fact that he is sharing a bed with you for the first time in your friendship. he truly doesn’t know how to act knowing that your back was pressed up against his as he drifted off to sleep.

however, he does have a very good rest. perhaps it was how soft your bed was that contributed to how well he slept. or maybe it’s the pair of arms strewn loosely over his stomach or the face nuzzled into his arm and– wait a second.

oscar opens his eyes, hyperaware of the way your body is now tangled in his with the blankets loosely covering both of your bodies. he wants to move your hand away or excuse himself before he lets his heart take over his mind and do something he might spend the rest of his life regretting.

you don’t seem to be bothered, because as if you had sensed it out of him, you pull your arm back to rub your eyes. “morning.”

“uh,” he hesitates to look at you, “hi?”

you hum, squeaking at the end. “something wrong?”

“you were um,” oscar clears his throat. he should just ask you out, shouldn’t he? he tries to reason out with him as fast as he can without worrying you. you’ve practically cuddled — for god knows how long through the night — and shared a bed; what could go wrong, right?

he will deal with the consequences if your answer is not as expected.

“what is it?” you pull back slightly and furrow your eyebrows. “what do you think we should have for breakfast?”

he blurts it out, which is not the way he envisioned himself ever asking you out. he considers himself calmer than the average person but there was something about your somehow forced proximity. “i like you a lot.”

“what?” you laugh, pulling back even more as your eyes widen.

oscar stares at you as he feels the whiplash of his decision hit him. he knew it. he should not have asked you out now; the rest of his trip would definitely be awkward the rest of his trip. he should have just asked you on his last day so he could spend the time apart getting past the embarrassment of getting rejected.

of thinking that asking his friend out is a good idea.

“oscar,” you laugh again, scrambling to sit up. his cheeks heat up, clenching his jaw as the embarrassment consumes his body whole. “of course, i like you too.”

he looks at you from the corners of his eyes, arms folded over his chest. he hears his heart in his ears, his entire body running from the sheer adrenaline of finally confessing to you about something he’s had to keep in his chest for years. “seriously?”

“you are so cute,” you put a hand on your chest and tilt your head. “how can i not?”

oscar lets out a heavy breath, his airways clearing at the positive ending the situation is seeing. “so can i take you out on a date today? if you don’t mind that we stray from your itinerary, of course… i know you spent a long time coming up with it.”

you shake your head, unable to contain the growing smile on your face. “i don’t care — we’re going on a date!”

— bonus

oscar stands up from his seat, starting to gather the used plates that littered your dining table. he’s found the time to be the one to visit you once more, after a long triple header of races, so he came down instead of having you travel out for him.

your first date went well, of course, and that eventually led to a second date. by the third date, oscar mustered up the courage once more to ask you to be his girlfriend.

you’d been friends for so long that it didn’t really matter when he asked you to make it official. at that point, it just felt long overdue when you also admitted that you’d had feelings for him for a while.

he catches a glimpse of your neat couch, pillows and a throw blanket stacked in the corner again like clockwork. he hears you walk out of the kitchen, handing him a glass of cold water. “you know… if you weren’t so weird about your new fancy couch, i probably never would have confessed my feelings to you.”

you put your glass down on the table and walk over to the couch without another word, pulling the cushions off and throwing it on the ground nonchalantly. oscar’s eyebrows shoot up as you unfold the bed, revealing the sofa bed that you had owned this entire time. “i know!” you beam, throwing your arms in the air.

he stares at you. “you… what?”

“yeah!” you squeak, now returning the cushions to show him the set-up of the sofa bed. “i orchestrated it all!”

“you’re sneaky!”

@33-81 @darleneslane @namgification @nikfigueiredo @happy-nico

[jstor]

I saw something about generative AI on JSTOR. Can you confirm whether you really are implementing it and explain why? I’m pretty sure most of your userbase hates AI.

A generative AI/machine learning research tool on JSTOR is currently in beta, meaning that it's not fully integrated into the platform. This is an opportunity to determine how this technology may be helpful in parsing through dense academic texts to make them more accessible and gauge their relevancy.

To JSTOR, this is primarily a learning experience. We're looking at how beta users are engaging with the tool and the results that the tool is producing to get a sense of its place in academia.

In order to understand what we're doing a bit more, it may help to take a look at what the tool actually does. From a recent blog post:

Content evaluation

Problem: Traditionally, researchers rely on metadata, abstracts, and the first few pages of an article to evaluate its relevance to their work. In humanities and social sciences scholarship, which makes up the majority of JSTOR’s content, many items lack abstracts, meaning scholars in these areas (who in turn are our core cohort of users) have one less option for efficient evaluation. 

When using a traditional keyword search in a scholarly database, a query might return thousands of articles that a user needs significant time and considerable skill to wade through, simply to ascertain which might in fact be relevant to what they’re looking for, before beginning their search in earnest.

Solution: We’ve introduced two capabilities to help make evaluation more efficient, with the aim of opening the researcher’s time for deeper reading and analysis:

Summarize, which appears in the tool interface as “What is this text about,” provides users with concise descriptions of key document points. On the back-end, we’ve optimized the Large Language Model (LLM) prompt for a concise but thorough response, taking on the task of prompt engineering for the user by providing advanced direction to:

Extract the background, purpose, and motivations of the text provided.

Capture the intent of the author without drawing conclusions.

Limit the response to a short paragraph to provide the most important ideas presented in the text.

Search term context is automatically generated as soon as a user opens a text from search results, and provides information on how that text relates to the search terms the user has used. Whereas the summary allows the user to quickly assess what the item is about, this feature takes evaluation to the next level by automatically telling the user how the item is related to their search query, streamlining the evaluation process.

Discovering new paths for exploration

Problem: Once a researcher has discovered content of value to their work, it’s not always easy to know where to go from there. While JSTOR provides some resources, including a “Cited by” list as well as related texts and images, these pathways are limited in scope and not available for all texts. Especially for novice researchers, or those just getting started on a new project or exploring a novel area of literature, it can be needlessly difficult and frustrating to gain traction. 

Solution: Two capabilities make further exploration less cumbersome, paving a smoother path for researchers to follow a line of inquiry:

Recommended topics are designed to assist users, particularly those who may be less familiar with certain concepts, by helping them identify additional search terms or refine and narrow their existing searches. This feature generates a list of up to 10 potential related search queries based on the document’s content. Researchers can simply click to run these searches.

Related content empowers users in two significant ways. First, it aids in quickly assessing the relevance of the current item by presenting a list of up to 10 conceptually similar items on JSTOR. This allows users to gauge the document’s helpfulness based on its relation to other relevant content. Second, this feature provides a pathway to more content, especially materials that may not have surfaced in the initial search. By generating a list of related items, complete with metadata and direct links, users can extend their research journey, uncovering additional sources that align with their interests and questions.

Supporting comprehension

Problem: You think you have found something that could be helpful for your work. It’s time to settle in and read the full document… working through the details, making sure they make sense, figuring out how they fit into your thesis, etc. This all takes time and can be tedious, especially when working through many items. 

Solution: To help ensure that users find high quality items, the tool incorporates a conversational element that allows users to query specific points of interest. This functionality, reminiscent of CTRL+F but for concepts, offers a quicker alternative to reading through lengthy documents. 

By asking questions that can be answered by the text, users receive responses only if the information is present. The conversational interface adds an accessibility layer as well, making the tool more user-friendly and tailored to the diverse needs of the JSTOR user community.

Credibility and source transparency

We knew that, for an AI-powered tool to truly address user problems, it would need to be held to extremely high standards of credibility and transparency. On the credibility side, JSTOR’s AI tool uses only the content of the item being viewed to generate answers to questions, effectively reducing hallucinations and misinformation. 

On the transparency front, responses include inline references that highlight the specific snippet of text used, along with a link to the source page. This makes it clear to the user where the response came from (and that it is a credible source) and also helps them find the most relevant parts of the text. 

[shuttershocky]

Whenever I see posts about about the tech literacy of kids today it does surprise me that people write about it like teaching a kid how to use a PC is impossible.

It's clicking things. Clicking buttons on a screen is something they already do. You're not asking them to retrieve their files via command line, and even that is easy to understand once they know how folders work.

It takes a day to catch them up to the tech literacy of the average person from 2004 (which is not very tech literate at all), and then from there you can teach them the single most important skill for using a computer: how to google incredibly specific to you error codes / problems and trawl through 20 year old posts on dead internet forums for the one guy whose solution works.

You don't actually need good tech literacy to solve most computer issues, you just have to know how to find and understand the explanation of someone more tech literate than you online.

[cobaltperun]

Eternal Flame (3) - Scream

Cover by: @ortegalvr

Jenna Ortega x Female Reader

Summary: For her it’s a passion, for you it’s an accident. And as she continues shining brighter and brighter with each role you are left mesmerized, drawn to her flame and cherishing every time she lets herself be vulnerable with you.

Masterlist / First Part / Previous part / Next part

Word count: 2.8k

-Scream! When the fire burns me, when it's hard to break free-

This scene was going to be your undoing. Action scene? Perfectly done, easily done, but then this part. Where Ghostfaces had Tara and C/N captured? You just couldn’t get it right. Nothing felt right, either one of the Ghostface lines would get messed up, or someone would miss a que. Jenna’s voice broke once, and you were having issues getting into character as well, unable to get what C/N was feeling across.

And then it just clicked.

“Fuck you,” Jenna gritted out when Ghostface was meant to taunt Tara that C/N didn’t protect her and you felt the prop knife touching the left side of your back, prompting you to gasp for breath but not scream. You widened your eyes, acting like you were in shock and pain.

The focus was on Jenna as she expertly delivered the pain, the despair Tara felt as Ghostface told her she would need to shoot your character.

When the gun was pointed at you and Jenna whimpered you followed the cue and gasped, and while the camera focused on Jenna you quickly tossed the shirt you had on aside in favor of the more damaged one. You all wanted to do this in one take, so this was the solution.

"I'll do anything else, whatever you ask, just please not this!" you were amazed at how hoarse Jenna could make her voice. Not to mention all the emotional range she was showing right now. "Please, anything but this!"

The scene went on, uninterrupted, you felt like you had it, like this was the take you needed. "I don't know what you are screaming about, Tara. You got what you wanted right? You didn't kill Y/N," the words and the prop knife messing around Jenna’s bandaged hand were your signal.

You had no idea where it came from, but Jenna crying out pulled something out of you. “Stop that!” you raged, akin to a wild wounded beast, so intense it frightened even you and nearly made Jenna herself break the character. It wasn’t meant to sound that raw, but the scene continued.

She recovered, as great as she was, acting like she was having an asthma attack and you could see she researched it for days until she could get all the symptoms right.

“Tara!” and carried by the intensity of the previous scream you yelled, desperation you never felt before clear in your voice. It was a harrowing cry, of someone fearing the loss of their loved one, of the only person they had in the world. "You won! I can't fight back! Just let her go!"

And then, when it came the time to top even that, to escalate it even further, to have Jenna show Tara’s dedication to your character despite the asthma, she delivered. Jenna pleaded, her voice sounding like she was choking, drowning, unable to draw breath, yet just as desperate as you were. For a moment you even believed she was having an asthma attack, that was how good she was. The scene felt easy after that as you picked Jenna up, while faking that it was difficult and stepped back into the hospital room.

“Cut!” Tyler yelled and you dropped down onto the floor, emotionally drained from all the takes. The scene was supposed to go on a bit longer, but it looked like he had some mercy in him. “Great job! Jenna, Y/N, that was incredible. We’ll continue tomorrow, you both deserve to rest,” he said, before congratulating the rest of the crew present on the long day of work.

“Y/N?!” Jenna jumped to her feet from the bed, and you just gave her a thumbs up.

“I’m okay, just never had to film a scene that intense,” you gave her a slightly tired, but still reassuring smile and she relaxed, sitting back down on the bed, the exhaustion now present in her eyes as well. “And you’ve been doing intense scenes for years, damn, you’re amazing,” you got up and sat down next to her, before falling back onto the bed.

“I’m anything but amazing,” she dared to say and you abruptly sat up, in fact you sat up so quickly she turned and looked at you, her eyes wide as you watched her intensely.

“You are, and I’ll keep saying that until I get it into your head,” you promised, the tips of your fingers touching hers.

Jenna opened her mouth and then closed it, before finally regaining her composure. “Thanks, Y/N,” she muttered. “You’ll sleep really well tonight, you’ll see. Scenes like this are draining,” she promised, and you nodded, trusting her entirely. "And you were amazing as well," she spoke up, completely certain of her words.

"Happens every now and then," you grinned and she rolled her eyes, as if telling you: 'see, you do it too' but the fond smile on her face made your heart skip a beat.

~X~

Jenna was right, you just barely managed to get ready for bed. Hell, you were surprised you didn’t fall asleep on your feet. Your phone buzzed as you crawled under the covers and you nearly ignored it, but for some reason you reluctantly took it and saw it was a message on Instagram from Jenna.

Jenna Ortega: Hey, are you asleep?

Y/N L/N: Barely hanging on

Jenna Ortega: Oh, sorry, sleep well, Y/N.

That woke you up and you pressed the call button. It rang a few times and then she picked up. “Please go to sleep,” she opened with that and despite still being a bit sleepy you chuckled.

“Tell me what’s up?” you asked, sitting up so you wouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of the call.

“I just wanted to wish you good night,” for an actress she sucked at lying, and you just grinned.

“Jen, tell me what’s really going on?” you asked as you got comfortable.

She remained silent for a bit, before sighing. “I, I think I’m suffering from insomnia, I can’t fall asleep and I wasn’t sure who else to call. I don’t want to worry my family, and I just, I don’t know, I,” she huffed, frustrated, and you just gave her time, letting her sort her thoughts out. “We filmed so many scenes together, and I know you are tired, but I just impulsively sent that message. I was hoping you were already asleep,” she told you.

You nodded, too late realizing she couldn’t see you. “Do you want to talk? Maybe you’ll have easier time falling asleep like that?” you suggested, not really sure what would help with insomnia. You’d have to search that up tomorrow.

“You don’t mind?” she asked, prompting you to reassure her and tell her you definitely didn’t mind. “Tell me a bit about yourself? Something I don’t know? Like how did you get into cooking and martial arts?”

“Hm, let’s see. I spent a lot of my time at my neighbor’s house, playing with the siblings living there. Their mother was a great cook and would always make us snacks, either pastries or cookies, or cake, I never saw some of those recipes in my life. Well, it was natural, they emigrated from the Balkans decades ago, when she was a child if I remember correctly,” you began the tale of your childhood.

Jenna hummed, sounding a lot more interested than sleepy.

“I fell in love with the recipes, and she was willing to teach me. So, when I wasn’t playing with her children I’d learn how to cook from her, starting with easier things and gradually moving onto the various cakes and pastries. It was freeing, I needed to focus, I needed to be precise, to keep practicing so I could improve, and I guess I needed that at that age. Around the same time I began learning martial arts, pretty much for the same reason, and to find a better way to spend time,” and so you told her about your martial arts journey as well, about which martial arts you started with, about things you enjoyed, things you fond annoying, reasons you were passionate about them. And eventually, you caught the sound of Jenna’s breathing evening out. You still talked though, until you were sure she was in deep sleep.

“Sweet dreams, Jen,” you smiled and closed your eyes, letting the long-awaited sleep overtake your exhausted body.  

~X~

A few days later you were once again filming way out of order, going all the way to the end of the movie, or well, near the end.

“Are you okay with this scene?” you asked Jenna as the two of you sat in hair and makeup. Considering what the characters were going through makeup was mostly there to make both of you look more exhausted. You were alone so you took the chance to ask her.

Jenna looked at you and smiled as much as she could, but you could see a bit of worry in her eyes. “Of course, we already did a lot more than that,” she joked and well, you guessed that was one way to look at it.

You raised your fist up toward her and grinned, choosing not to comment on her worry. “If you feel uncomfortable at any moment, just tell me and I’ll get them to scrap it, say I don’t want to do it,” and you were completely serious.

Her eyes widened slightly as she looked you in the eyes. “You can’t do that, you’ll sound unprofessional,” she sounded more worried now, and it was not what you wanted to do. And she didn’t bump your fist, so you pulled it back, not noticing that she bit her lower lip a bit as you moved your fist away.

You shrugged. “I’d rather be unprofessional than have you feel uncomfortable,” there was no hesitation in your tone, no doubt, no wavering of your conviction. No matter what you felt like your priority was to have your costars be comfortable, now sure, you wouldn’t go up to the directors or writers and demand changes for any costar, but this was Jenna, and she, well in these past few weeks she became incredibly important to you. Important enough to act unprofessionally if needed.

You watched as Jenna looked down, a hint of a blush appearing on her cheeks as she refused to meet your eyes, but you could see a small, shy smile on her lips, proving to you that she did appreciate it.

“I’m comfortable with you,” she told you, finally meeting your eyes as more people came in.

~X~

This was it; this was the scene she was the most nervous about. She recently became a bit self-conscious about kiss scenes, she didn’t lie though. Jenna was truly comfortable with you, felt a connection she couldn’t deny, so strong and fast she almost didn’t want the shooting to wrap as soon as it would. You’d stay in touch, she had no doubt about that, but it always felt awful to separate without knowing if you’ll ever spend more time together or just see one another in passing.

You and she took your spots as the crew got ready to film, there weren’t as many people around, giving the two of you a bit more privacy for the scene. “Action!”

For once she didn’t black out, which was a strange experience, it made her feel more self-conscious, but she guessed it sold Tara’s uncertainty even better since no one was stopping her. She was to take the lead, your character not wanting to push Tara into anything. Funny how you took that approach with her as well, outside of your characters, outside of the movie, outside of being costars, and she did something unprofessional. She wasn’t reaching up with her right hand and touching C/N, she was touching your cheek.

You leaned into her touch, parting your lips slightly. “Tara,” you whispered, soft, protective, your voice filled with relief and love, exactly what was needed from you as you gently wrapped your arms around her shoulders and upper back, avoiding the injuries Tara was meant to have. Jenna hugged you, her right palm resting on the nape of your neck, tugging you lower as she placed her bandaged left hand on your back.

The question in your eyes, the one last chance for her to tell you she wasn’t comfortable, to back away, to quit being unprofessional was presented to her, yet she, against the script, ran her fingers through your hair, gently scratching the back of your head and raising her head. She kissed you, and for a moment she wasn’t Tara, she was herself, kissing you, and it scared her how right it felt, how soft your lips felt against hers. And under the lights and cameras filming the two of you she realized something she didn’t think would happen to her.

How easy it was to act with you, how easy it was to talk or randomly send you a text while she was getting ready for bed, how easy it was to forget herself and lean on you while watching a movie, before moving away, blushing madly only for you to nudge her a bit and close the distance so your shoulders would touch, a smile on your face telling her you didn’t mind. She had a crush on you. A tiny, still growing crush, but a crush nonetheless.

In the midst of the kiss, the soft and tender way your lips moved in sync, she remembered why this was happening, she remembered Tara was supposed to be in love with your character for years, that the kiss was meant to be hungrier, needier, raw and filled with emotion. That it was only meant to start soft, and she hummed into the kiss, channeling the desire Tara was meant to feel. The two of you parted for a second, with Jenna taking a noticeable breath and then kissing you again. She finally blacked out, letting Tara’s feelings take over. The kiss grew fiercer, more passionate, and that was when your part came in, to reign it in, prevent Tara from losing herself in the moment. And then you separated, breathing a bit labored as you pressed your forehead against hers and she leaned most of her weight on you.

“Cut! That was great you two!” Matt praised you as you and Jenna stepped away from one another.

Jenna nodded, but there was a feeling she couldn’t shake off.

How rushed the kiss felt, how much Tara and C/N went through. “It doesn’t feel right though,” she sent you an apologetic smile, hoping you’d understand it had nothing to do with the actual kiss you shared, it was just from the story perspective.

“How come?” Matt asked, puzzled, and maybe, and maybe it was just Jenna’s anxiety, just a bit annoyed. Well, this was supposed to be the big kiss of the movie.  

She wasn’t too surprised when you took her side immediately. “Tara just killed her toxic girlfriend, C/N just reconnected with Susan, they are both vulnerable, too vulnerable to get into a relationship,” you leaned back against the wall and glanced at Jenna. The smile on your face told her you were completely with her on this and she felt her heart beating faster, the realization of her crush on you returning full-force.

“Look, it’s a movie, we can’t exactly spend half an hour dealing with all the trauma between them,” Matt ran his hand through his hair. “I get your point, I really do, but we’ve been building this relationship up from the first scene you two have together.”

“And it’s built up, the kiss isn’t needed to establish them together. They’ve slept on the same bed, in each other’s arms, risked their lives for one another, C/N calls Tara ‘Love’, Tara killed for C/N, I don’t think anyone needs to see them kiss to know where their relationship is going,” you countered.

“So, if the sequel gets greenlit, we just jump into their relationship? That isn’t satisfying,” he sighed, looking at the couple from a commercial standpoint and not the story of the two characters that frankly weren’t ready for a relationship in this exact moment. In Jenna’s mind at least a few months would need to pass.

“Maybe we could make a short movie, make a storyline for them getting together and release it just before the sequel if we end up filming one?” Jenna suggested.

Matt nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, it’ll help avoid censorship at the very least.”

He stepped outside and you approached Jenna. “It had nothing to do with us, I was comfortable kissing you,” Jenna admitted, feeling like her face was on fire.

“I understand Jen, don’t worry about it,” you grinned, and she felt relieved as she raised her fist and you bumped your own fist against hers.

A/N: That took a long time. Hope you like it, tell me what you think?

Taglist: @lilbitdepressed27 @freakshow2501 @osnapitzmel1 @belatrixdragon @ijustlovemaths (It's been a while, I hope I didn't forget anyone 😅😅)

[sevenop]

Billie Eilish x Fem!reader: Aquamarine

A/n: You admit to Billie that you miss her presence while she's on tour, and she works with you to find the best solution to ease your worries.

"What about Blohsh? I can make him special, just for you," you feel Billie pulling you closer to him, making himself a little more comfortable on the bed than before: his back against the high wooden headboard, but his arms around your waist. The cozy rustle of the bedclothes and the warmth of the person next to you can't help but bring a smile, "something like engraving with my handwriting or new gems?"

"Sounds good, of course, but I'd like something more... mysterious? You know, something that's only understandable to you and me and no one else," you feel Billie snuggle her nose into your shoulder and snort contentedly. Her measured, warm breath tickles your skin even through the fabric of your voluminous T-shirt, sending a flock of goosebumps. Another, more vivid one follows, triggered by her intimate whisper:

"What do you remember most often when I'm not around?"

You hesitate, because to pick out one thing about Billie is something that's really maddeningly difficult. Eilish doesn't rush you, just strokes your naked thighs, draws patterns on your belly that only she understands, and just enjoys the night's silence, so rare for her, so mind-soothing.

"Your eyes. I remember very often the looks you cast at me."

"And what do my eyes remind you of? What do they look like?", Eilish almost purrs with pleasure as you rest your head on her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of her sly, squinting blue seas.

"Aquamarine? Or is it still blue topaz?"

"Thought about it that often?" - The singer clarifies, surprised by your so quick response.

"That's insulting, Eilish", you hum and lift yourself up a little, your palm fumbling for the phone buried in the huge blanket. It's not easy to do in the semi-darkness of the bedroom, but you manage it successfully, "I'm always thinking of you."

A gentle kiss on the top of your head as you assume your original position, returning to your girlfriend's arms. Compliment counts.

The pleasant click of the unlock takes you straight to the gallery on your phone, echoing your thoughts. A click on a recent photo, an attempt to zoom in with a gesture that almost immediately fails: Billy gently takes the phone right out of your palm. Followed by a click and a husky chuckle.

"You can look me in the eye, baby. Why do you need pictures when I'm literally behind your back?"

You freeze for a second, only then realizing the absurdity of the situation. Covering your face with your hands, you only provoke another wave of good-natured laughter.

"Look at me, my love."

The sheets rustle again: you turn obediently toward her, meeting her gaze. Then the silence fills the room again, broken harmoniously only by your breathing together. And the more you stare, the more the cool ocean blue in her eyes seems to be obscured by a misty haze, becoming several shades darker and more intense, which portends a storm of at least six points on the Beaufort scale - Eilish is getting excited, because the realization that all your attention and curiosity is now directed only to her is so pleasantly exhilarating. You realize that you feel as if you are the only white-sailed ship that the sea itself has allowed to ply her surface on this endless moonlit night. You realize you're about to drown. Because you want to.

"So what's the bottom line...?" - her whisper is practically at your lips. And even though she's lost all sense of patience, the gambling is much stronger now. - "What stone shall I present?"

"Aquamarine."

It's the last thing you say before you meet Eilish's hot lips, drowning in hot and assertive kisses.

The calm of your bedroom has been replaced by passion as quickly as the weather at sea.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Paradigm Shift 3

Warnings: this fic will include elements, some dark, such noncon/dubcon, and other untagged triggers. Please take this into account before proceeding. It is up to curate your online consumption safely.

Summary: you get transferred to a new position but it’s hardly a breath of fresh air. (plus!reader)

Characters: Loki, Bucky Barnes, this reader is known as Billie.

Author’s Note: Please feel free to leave some feedback, reblog, and jump into my asks. I’m always happy to discuss with you and riff on idea. As always, you are cherished and adored! Stay safe, be kind, and treat yourself💜

💼Part of the Bad Bosses AU💼

Dark roast, black. You're tempted to order one for yourself but the extra dose of caffeine might unhinge you after the morning you've had. Transfer, no desk, a firing, a stolen desk, and two painfully aloof bosses.  

You go back up to the office, the short reprieve offering some clarity but not solutions. There has to be some way to get more than a grunt and a closed door from these men. Geez, if you wanted to work with children you would've done so. 

You knock on Mr. Barnes' door. The one next to it opens first. Laufeyson considers you from head to toe and Barnes appears not a second after. He takes his cup without a thanks. 

"Mm, and where is mine then?" Laufeyson challenges. 

You blink, long and hard. Of course. Of course! You let out a slow breath, "what would you like, Mr. Laufeyson?" 

You don't miss the quiet snort from the other door and it closes before you can glance Barnes' expression. You have a suspicion he expected this. It's like your first job when you worked with a bunch of men in stocks. Their numbers were as bloated as their egos. 

“Matcha.” 

The door shuts in your face. Again. You bite down and stretch your fingers wide. It’s fine. It’s fine. Growing pains. 

Matcha... what? Iced? Latte? Hot tea? Smoothie? Wonderful, a guessing game. 

You will be getting yourself another coffee for the trouble. Another trip to Roasters and you settle on the simplest option; just tea. You’re certain if you’re wrong, he’ll let you know.  

You stand at the two office doors and contemplate your life decisions. Is this worth it? Can you beg Odinson to take you back? To send down another poor soul? You almost feel bad doing that to someone else. You’re about to give when that innate stubborn ticks in your jaw. It’s only been a few hours. You don’t just give up that easy. 

Knock, knock. There’s a delay before Laufeyson answers. You’re not put off by it. You know the tactic. It won’t work on you. If his tea is cold, it won’t be your fault. 

“Matcha, sir,” you hold out the cup. 

He accepts it and reads the sticker on the side. He narrows his green eyes and looks at you, “note for next time, I prefer Garcon’s to Roasters.” 

Click. Another shut door. You’re really starting to get angry. You laugh out the flurry of agitation and turn away. What else can you do but think of it as a joke? It has to be. It’s just that absurd. 

You sit at the desk and open your laptop. You get it hooked up to the monitor and refinagle the cords. That’s an accomplishment at least. A tiny morsel of victory. You glance around and frown. It’s like the waiting room in Beetlejuice; everyone looks miserable. Well, can you blame them? 

Your phone buzzes and you check the messages. Girl nights hangs like bait at the end of your day, keeping you swimming through dark waters. It’s a bit ridiculous. Your friends are all like you in one way but all vastly different in many other ways. You all spend your days taking care of men who couldn’t give a shit about any of you. 

You can already taste the Paloma; bitter grapefruit with the burn of tequila. You are dying to drink away this day. You look at the clock and nearly whimper. It’s not even one o’clock. Ugh. 

You plug away at your desk. You get the daily agendas templated then spend time scouring the web. You have something in mind. You’re pretty sure you can make it work. As long as those grumps can do the simplest of tasks. 

You customize the survey and send the link. You doubt you’ll get a response today or even at all. It’s a hail mary, really. Barnes’ door opens, then Laufeysons. Your chest fills with dread. Great. 

“Hello, sir and... sir,” you sit up as they approach. 

“What is the meaning of that quiz?” Laufeyson demands. 

“It’s not-- 

“Asking a lot, aren’t you?” Barnes crosses his arms. 

“No, I just--” 

“What business do you have about my dry cleaning?” Laufeyson hisses. 

“I have lunch when I have lunch. I'm not a child at grade school,” Barnes sneers.

“Okay, woah,” you put your palms out, “first, there’s an n/a column, you can choose not to disclose the information. Two, I need to know what to do. What do you want from me?” 

Both men frown and look at each other, then back to you. 

“I can think of one,” Laufeyson raises a finger, “don’t treat us as children who need you to put our socks on.” 

“Good one,” Barnes scoffs, “also, you could stop with calendar reminders.” 

“Those are automatic,” you mutter. 

“And the arguing,” Laufeyson points at you. 

You sputter, dizzy at their onslaught of criticism. They can tell you exactly what they don’t want but they can’t give you a clear answer as to why you are there. You calm yourself with a breath and sip of coffee. 

“Mr. Laufeyson, Mr. Barnes--” 

“Why him first? My name’s first alphabetically,” Barnes says. 

“I--” you stop yourself and take another taste of your coffee, “if my presence is getting in the way of your work, I will go back upstairs and talk to Mr. Odinson--” 

“Mr. Odinson? Thor?” Laufeyson says, “no, you won’t do that. In fact, that is another item for your list, no talking to my brother. Especially of me.” 

You could tear your hair out. You could hit your head on the wall. You could gauge your eyes out and drown yourself in your coffee. Instead, you smile. 

“Got it,” you say, “well, sirs, good luck with your meeting this afternoon.” 

“Yes, thank you,” Laufeyson intones. 

“Mm, sure,” Barnes says and they both turn on their heels then stop at once. They face you in sync with each other. 

“Meeting?” They ask. 

“Mmhm,” you nod, “it’s in your calendars.” 

They stare at you. 

“If that’s something you’d like me to brief you on,” you say tritely, “you can submit that in the survey.” 

Laufeyson hums dryly and Barnes growls. Neither says anything further as they retreat. You keep your eyes on the screen as your heartbeat races. You can’t believe you said that.