#i think writing out this answer was very productive for me in that way :')

[astradyke]

I swear every dnp fan feels the equivalent of massive catholic guilt over being a fan of them . Like its a phenomenon I haven’t seen to this extent in any other fandom I can think of . Phatholic guilt if you will

Phatholic guilt is crazy anon 😭

yeah, that is definitely a phenomena. mm, i have a lot of thoughts about it, but i guess all i'll say is like... my perspective is, we're having a fun time, and dan and phil are having a fun time, yeah? and while fan culture definitely impacted them back in their roughest years, of course it did they weren't exactly insulated from it, there was so so so much more they've described going on in the 2012-2013 years alone. so while i understand a lot of guilt folks feel about like... Past Phandom Crimes, like, dan and phil can just tell us if our jokes about sister daniel's thighs or about them fucking nasty are crossing a line. so that's kind of my own thing on the guilt front just being like, well. they're happy now, things are really good. and trying to cross-examine 12 year old mare for reading wattpad fanfiction or whatever is kind of pointless, given that i am no longer 12, and 12 year old mare most certainly had bigger issues in her life than dan and phil RPF discourse. like geometry homework. and other such things

which is why i kinda think like, yeah, they'll bully us as TIT. they'll joke about us and our oh they're touching jokes, right. but i don't think they're out to punish us. i genuinely think they find all of this beautiful, us and them and our dynamic, and i think TIT is so much more of a celebratory reclamation than a "fuck you for what you've done to us" reclamation.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

for whom good omens is being written

Hey maggots and the rest of the fandom, it's the Good Omens Mascot here. Today I read a post about this tweet:

The accompanying video genuinely made me cry. And I've been thinking about this for a long while, as far back as February, when I saw a lot of conflicting opinions on what people wanted from the third season. It really is true that no matter what you do, some people will be dissatisfied. But what matters is that Neil is writing this for Terry.

And I was reminded of some paragraphs from the Good Omens TV Companion, which I'd read in Amazon's sample excerpt of the book. I know this is a long post, but I really truly do think you all need to read these, I've done my best to select only the most important parts. Here you go:

'His Alzheimer's started progressing harder and faster than either of us had expected,' says Neil, referring to a period in which Terry recognized that despite everything he could no longer write. 'We had been friends for over thirty years, and during that time he had never asked me for anything. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from him with a special request. It read: “Listen, I know how busy you are. I know you don't have time to do this, but I want you to write the script for Good Omens. You are the only human being on this planet who has the passion, love and understanding for the old girl that I do. You have to do this for me so that I can see it." And I thought, “OK, if you put it like that then I'll do it."

'I had adapted my own work in the past, writing scripts for Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman, but not a lot else was seen. I'd also written two episodes of Doctor Who, and so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Usually, having written something once I'd rather start something new, but having a very sick co-author saying I had to do this?' Neil spreads his hands as if the answer is clear to see. 'I had to step up to the plate.' A pause, then: 'All this took place in autumn 2014, around the time that the BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens was happening,' he continues, referring to the production scripted and co-directed by Dirk Maggs and starring Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap. ‘Terry had talked me into writing the TV adaptation, and I thought OK, I have a few years. Only I didn't have a few years,' he says. 'Terry was unconscious by December and dead by March.'

He pauses again. 'His passing took all of us by surprise,' Neil remembers. 'About a week later, I started writing, and it was very sad. The moments Terry felt closest to me were the moments I would get stuck during the writing process. In the old days, when we wrote the novel, I would send him what I'd done or phone him up. And he would say, "Aahh, the problem, Grasshopper, is in the way you phrase the question," and I would reply, "Just tell me what to do!" which somehow always started a conversation. 'In writing the script, there were times I'd really want to talk to Terry, and also places where I'd figure something out and do something really clever, and I would want to share it with him. So, instead, I would text Terry's former personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, now his representative on Earth. It was the nearest thing I had.'

(...) As Neil himself recognizes, this is an adaptation built upon the confidence that comes from three decades of writing for page and screen. But for all the wisdom of experience, he found that above all one factor guided him throughout the process. 'Terry isn't here, which leaves me as the guardian of the soul of the story,' he explains. 'It's funny because sometimes I found myself defending Terry's bits harder or more passionately than I would defend my own bits. Take Agnes Nutter,' he says, referring to what has become a key scene in the adaptation in which the seventeenth-century author of the book of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Antichrist is burned at the stake. ‘It was a huge, complicated and incredibly expensive shoot, with bonfires built and primed to explode as well as huge crowds in costume. It had to feel just like an English village in the 1640s, and of course everyone asked if there was a cheap way of doing it. 'One suggestion was that we could tell the story using old-fashioned woodcuts and have the narrator take us through what happened, but I just thought, “No”. Because I had brought aspects of the story like Crowley and the baby swap along to the mix, and Terry created Agnes Nutter. So, if I had cut out Agnes then I wouldn't be doing right by the person who gave me this job. Terry would've rolled over in his grave.'

And, finally, this paragraph:

"Once again, Neil cites the absence of his co-writer as his drive to ensure that Good Omens translated to the screen and remained true to the original vision. 'Terry's last request to me was to make this something he would be proud of. And so that has been my job.'"

I think that's so heartwrenchingly beautiful, and so I wanted you all to read this, too, just in case you (like me) don't have the Good Omens TV Companion. It adds another layer of depth and emotion to this already complex and amazing story that we all know and love.

Share this post, if you can, please, so that more people can read these excerpts :")

Tagging @neil-gaiman, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @orpiknight, even if you've definitely read these before :)

[euthymiya]

Starting an internship at the company Satoru’s father owns but you don’t know who he is just yet.

He’s annoying. He always comes back from lunch late, lets his phone ring at his desk (that’s conveniently placed next to yours) past the three ring policy, writes emails with silly and immature sign-offs, cracks jokes during meetings, and somehow, despite always finishing his paperwork late, he never manages to lose his damn job.

You try to mind your own business. But you can’t help but feel him slowly grate at your nerves as he acts so unprofessional and for some weird reason, not one person seems to care.

He seems pretty intrigued with you, too, if matters couldn’t get worse.

“Hey,” he grins. You try to ignore the tilt of his lips in amusement as you just barely fight off rolling your eyes.

“Can I help you with something?” You sigh, “I’m currently in the middle of something that requires my full attention, but maybe we could—”

“You really love your office jargon,” he hums, cutting you off with a wider grin, “so dedicated.”

“Oh, my apologies,” you smile tightly. He seems to straighten a little, some sick, twisted form of excitement rushing through his system at the way he seems to get under your skin. “Allow me to use simpler language for you to understand: go away, I’m busy.”

Someone has to stand up to this prick, you think. He puts in half the effort, and somehow, you’re pretty sure your boss has a soft spot for him. You don’t understand it, and quite frankly, you’ll be damned if a lazy, lackluster man snags a promotion before your hardworking self.

“Oh wow,” he snorts, “breaking your strictly professional streak, are you? You must be really occupied. I guess I’ll borrow your stapler later.”

Gritting your teeth, you give him yet another tight lipped smile before grabbing the stapler off your desk and handing it to him. (A small part of you resists the urge to throw it square at his face. Maybe the image of him on the floor with a bloodied nose would make your day a little easier, but then you’re sure you’d be jobless).

“Here you go,” you say with as much kindness as you can muster. (It’s not a lot). “Please do bring it back when you’re done. Some of us actually complete paper work, so the stapler is a necessity.”

“Oh yeah?” He tilts his head, eyes sparkling with mischief, “don’t worry, I won’t hold your stapler hostage for too long. I wouldn’t want to disrupt the flow of your productivity.”

You watch with wary eyes as he walks back to his desk, stapling some small, tiny note of sorts before walking right back, handing the paper and the stapler to you.

“What’s this?” You raise a brow.

“Some paper work for you to fill out,” he grins, the vagueness of his answer making a vein all but pop in your forehead.

Before you even have a chance to tell him that you most certainly will not be entertaining whatever silly prank he’s playing, he walks right off, sagging into his chair as he does an obnoxious little spin and goes back to typing at his computer. Probably yet another email with a ridiculous ending, you think to yourself.

Against your better judgement, you stare at the note, eyeing the small flap he’s stapled over an index card. You lift it up, quickly scanning over his scribbled writing.

Want to grab coffee during lunch? Check your answer:

▢ yes! ▢ absolutely! ▢ most definitely!

Your eye twitches.

Grabbing a pen, you quickly add a box underneath his (very confident) options, checking it off and writing in neat, pristine handwriting:

▣ not a chance!

You stand, walking over to his desk and ignoring his perked up, excited little smile as you drop the note back on the table and head back to your own desk. A tiny wave of satisfaction weaves through your body when you notice him read over your response and deflate, a small pout forming over his lips.

Regretfully, a small part of you can’t help but acknowledge that he’s actually…kind of cute when his lips are curled like that. But a larger part of you shakes that thought away and cringes internally. It’s a shame his personality ruins the genetic blessings he seems to have been bestowed with.

And you think that’s the end of it—but of course, with someone like Satoru in the office, there’s never the end of anything.

You watch as an email pops up on your screen, opening it only to stare blankly at his name and roll your eyes at the subject line:

────────────────────────

Follow-Up on Submitted Paperwork

Greetings office neighbor,

Thank you for submitting the paperwork. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help but notice that it does not fully align with the outlined guidelines. Could you please provide clarification or revise the submission accordingly?

Thanks a million,

Gojo Satoru :)

────────────────────────

And there he goes again with those obnoxious sign-offs, you think bitterly. Instantly, you’re clicking away at your keyboard as you type back an agitated response. Of course, you really shouldn’t entertain his ridiculous schemes, but something about him gets under your skin enough that you simply can’t help yourself.

You huff in approval at your response as you read it over before hitting send.

Instantly, as if he was waiting, you see his hand reach for his mouse and click on his screen to open your email as his eyes scan over your reply:

────────────────────────

Thank you for reaching out,

Unfortunately, I was unable to fully adhere to the outlined guidelines, as they are not viable in this situation. To address this, I adjusted the submission to align more effectively with a more practical outcome.

Hope that helps!

Your office neighbor :)

────────────────────────

Just when you think he’s given up, he rolls his chair over to your desk, causing a couple of annoyed heads to tilt up and glare at him for the noise before turning their attention back to their work. You pinch your nose as his chair rolls to a stop in front of your desk.

“Yes?” You grit through your teeth.

“Hey, office neighbor,” he hums, “just wanted to clarify your most recent email with you. I’m a bit confused.”

“Which part confused you?” You bat your lashes in faux charm, sarcastically smiling at him as he hums, grabbing a piece of candy from your little bowl of sweets at your desk and helping himself.

Your eye twitches a little at the gesture. Those are for you to enjoy throughout a miserable work day.

“Um…” he trails off as he pretends to think, “I’d say all of it.”

“I see,” you nod slowly, fighting every bone in your body not to snap at him with a colorful choice of words. “Essentially, the options in your original document did not highlight a plausible set of deliverables, so I corrected them for you with a more realistic one. Make sense?”

“Not really,” he sighs dramatically, pretending to scratch his head in confusion. You want nothing more than to grab those snowy locks and slam his face into your paper shredder. “Could you go over it one more time? I’m still lost.”

You’re just about to lose your patience with him when suddenly, the entire office seems to collectively take in a sharp breath, everyone scrambling to look as productive as possible while a tall, older looking man with suspiciously familiar white hair and blue eyes walks through the office. Something in your brain sets off alarm bells, but you can’t quite completely piece it together what it is about him seems so….recognizable.

“Who’s that?” You frown, scrunching your nose in confusion as everyone straightens up.

“That would be the final boss,” he snorts. You roll your eyes at his word choice before blinking and straightening up yourself.

“Oh my god,” you gasp, voice a panicked whisper as you ask, “you mean the owner of this company?”

“Yeah,” he drawls, raising a brow at you in amusement. “Never seen him before?”

“No,” you hiss, “I’m just the intern! Now go back to your desk before he thinks we’re goofing off, I’d like to keep my job, please.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he hums.

You send him a nasty glare, just about at your wits end as you whisper-yell, “I am going to throw my stapler right at your—”

“Satoru, I need you in my office,” comes a stern, deep voice, interrupting you as you quickly shut your mouth.

“You got it, old man,” he salutes in mock seriousness. Suddenly, your spine goes rigid and your eyes widen. The man walks off with a firm nod as Satoru stands, giving you an innocent smile.

Suddenly, it dawns on you just why he looked so strikingly familiar.

“Did you just call him old man?” You blink, mouth agape.

“Yup,” he winks, walking backwards as his eyes stay trained on you while he heads for the elevator. “I’ll put in a good word for you when he’s in a better mood at home tonight. I think we can discuss the specifics over coffee during our lunch hour, yeah?”

[ryin-silverfish]

So You Want to Read More about Chinese Mythos: a rough list of primary sources

"How/Where can I learn more about Chinese mythology?" is a question I saw a lot on other sites, back when I was venturing outside of Shenmo novel booksphere and into IRL folk religions + general mythos, but had rarely found satisfying answers.

As such, this is my attempt at writing something past me will find useful.

(Built into it is the assumption that you can read Chinese, which I only realized after writing the post. I try to amend for it by adding links to existing translations, as well as links to digitalized Chinese versions when there doesn't seem to be one.)

The thing about all mythologies and legends is that they are 1) complicated, and 2) are products of their times. As such, it is very important to specify the "when" and "wheres" and "what are you looking for" when answering a question as broad as this.

-Do you want one or more "books with an overarching story"?

In that case, Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) serve as good starting points, made more accessible for general readers by the fact that they both had English translations——Anthony C. Yu's JTTW translation is very good, Gu Zhizhong's FSYY one, not so much.

Crucially, they are both Ming vernacular novels. Though they are fictional works that are not on the same level of "seriousness" as actual religious scriptures, these books still took inspiration from the popular religion of their times, at a point where the blending of the Three Teachings (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism) had become truly mainstream.

And for FSYY specifically, the book had a huge influence on subsequent popular worship because of its "pantheon-building" aspect, to the point of some Daoists actually putting characters from the novel into their temples.

(Vernacular novels + operas being a medium for the spread of popular worship and popular fictional characters eventually being worshipped IRL is a thing in Ming-Qing China. Meir Shahar has a paper that goes into detail about the relationship between the two.)

After that, if you want to read other Shenmo novels, works that are much less well-written but may be more reflective of Ming folk religions at the time, check out Journey to the North/South/East (named as such bc of what basically amounted to a Ming print house marketing strategy) too.

-Do you want to know about the priestly Daoist side of things, the "how the deities are organized and worshipped in a somewhat more formal setting" vs "how the stories are told"?

Though I won't recommend diving straight into the entire Daozang or Yunji Qiqian or some other books compiled in the Daoist text collections, I can think of a few "list of gods/immortals" type works, like Liexian Zhuan and Zhenling Weiye Tu.

Also, though it is much closer to the folk religion side than the organized Daoist side, the Yuan-Ming era Grand Compendium of the Three Religions' Deities, aka Sanjiao Soushen Daquan, is invaluable in understanding the origins and evolutions of certain popular deities.

(A quirk of historical Daoist scriptures is that they often come up with giant lists of gods that have never appeared in other prior texts, or enjoy any actual worship in temples.)

(The "organized/folk" divide is itself a dubious one, seeing how both state religion and "priestly" Daoism had channels to incorporate popular deities and practices into their systems. But if you are just looking at written materials, I feel like there is still a noticeable difference.)

Lastly, if you want to know more about Daoist immortal-hood and how to attain it: Ge Hong's Baopuzi (N & S. dynasty) and Zhonglv Chuandao Ji (late Tang/Five Dynasties) are both texts about external and internal alchemy with English translations.

-Do you want something older, more ancient, from Warring States and Qin-Han Era China?

Classics of Mountains and Seas, aka Shanhai Jing, is the way to go. It also reads like a bestiary-slash-fantastical cookbook, full of strange beasts, plants, kingdoms of unusual humanoids, and the occasional half-man, half-beast gods.

A later work, the Han-dynasty Huai Nan Zi, is an even denser read, being a collection of essays, but it's also where a lot of ancient legends like "Nvwa patches the sky" and "Chang'e steals the elixir of immortality" can be first found in bits and pieces.

Shenyi Jing might or might not be a Northern-Southern dynasties work masquerading as a Han one. It was written in a style that emulated the Classics of Mountains and Seas, and had some neat fantastic beasts and additional descriptions of gods/beasts mentioned in the previous 2 works.

-Do you have too much time on your hands, a willingness to get through lot of classical Chinese, and an obsession over yaoguais and ghosts?

Then it's time to flip open the encyclopedic folklore compendiums——Soushen Ji (N/S dynasty), You Yang Za Zu (Tang), Taiping Guangji (early Song), Yijian Zhi (Southern Song)...

Okay, to be honest, you probably can't read all of them from start to finish. I can't either. These aren't purely folklore compendiums, but giant encyclopedias collecting matters ranging from history and biography to medicine and geography, with specific sections on yaoguais, ghosts and "strange things that happened to someone".

As such, I recommend you only check the relevant sections and use the Full Text Search function well.

Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studios, aka Liaozhai Zhiyi, is in a similar vein, but a lot more entertaining and readable. Together with Yuewei Caotang Biji and Zi Buyu, they formed the "Big Three" of Qing dynasty folktale compendiums, all of which featured a lot of stories about fox spirits and ghosts.

Lastly...

The Yuan-Ming Zajus (a sort of folk opera) get an honorable mention. Apart from JTTW Zaju, an early, pre-novel version of the story that has very different characterization of SWK, there are also a few plays centered around Erlang (specifically, Zhao Erlang) and Nezha, such as "Erlang Drunkenly Shot the Demon-locking Mirror". Sadly, none of these had an English translation.

Because of the fragmented nature of Chinese mythos, you can always find some tidbits scattered inside history books like Zuo Zhuan or poetry collections like Qu Yuan's Chuci. Since they aren't really about mythology overall and are too numerous to cite, I do not include them in this post, but if you wanna go down even deeper in this already gigantic rabbit hole, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

[nanamiscocksleeve]

heyy ray! first things first, i LOVE your writing. that's all i have to say like i literally go nuts every time

sooo this is not a kinktober request and i know you probably have TOO many things to write lol butttt if it's in your taste i'd really like to see your take on the lads man reacting to their lady not wanting to have sex because she hasn't shaved while being away on a mission or something and is feeling insecure about that ig???

and! if i can ask to be the little moon emoji🌙 then i'd like to, please! as always thanks for all the stories you're aMAZING

Hi there! Yes you can be moon anon. Thank you for the kind words! It makes me happy that people are enjoying my work.

Soooo it's actually such a coincidence that you mentioned the body hair thing because I have a story wip for Zayne involving that particular area and hair 😆😆😆 Keep an eye for it btw!

As for the general reaction of the men, I genuinely think all of them are mature enough to handle a little hair and they're not bothered by it. This is how I think this would go.

Sylus: He'll look at reader quite suspiciously. He knows she's not on her period and after trying to get an answer from her, he'll stop when she tells him to quit asking. For a little while anyway. They have a shared home delivery app and when reader makes a purchase later that night he sees all the hair removal products and instantly makes the connection. He'll seek her out, tell her he doesn't care and that his kitten can't be a kitten if there's no hair on her pussy 🤭. When reader protests, he'll pull her close and tell her he missed her and if it really bothers her, she can get a bikini wax tomorrow. He'll even pay for it, but he's needy for her NOW and nothing in his view can change how beautiful she is, hair or no hair.

Xavier: Will assume she's on her period and brings over stuff for her like tea, chocolate, and some selfcare stuff like scented candles and face masks. Reader will be amused at Xavier's assumption and after a few shy moments, she'll tell him in a very vague way that she feels unkempt and that's why she doesn't want to have sex. Xavier thinks unkempt = hasn't bathed and asks if maybe she wants to take a quick shower together. At this point reader shakes her head and admits that she hasn't had time to self-groom down there because of her mission. Things finally click in Xavier's head and he'll ask if he can look and if he doesn't think it looks unkempt then they have should have sex. Of course Xavier gets pussy drunk the minute he sees it and they end up having sex.

Rafayel: This man will straight up pout if you tell him you don't want to have sex. And he'll try to guilt you as well. He'll say you must not love him anymore or that you're hiding a secret from him. Then finally in exasperation, reader will ask him if he wants to fuck a shag carpet because that's what it looks like down there. And of course Rafayel, with his sarcasm and playfullness will say something like "A shag rug for a pussy? I've never heard of such a thing I have to see it now!" And you'll have to show him before he throws another fishy tantrum. When he looks at it he'll sigh dramatically and say "It's not even close to a shag carpet, you exaggerate everything. Now that it's out in the open, let's just have sex."

Zayne: Without giving too much away from my fic...Zayne doesn't care. He's a doctor. He's seen his fair share of hair on body parts and isn't fazed. Also, the vibe I get from them seems to be more of a long-term couple and they've seen each other through their ups and downs so reader will straight up tell him she feels self-conscious about having sex because she hasn't shaved. Zayne will say he respects her decision but removing the hair can cause ingrowns and itching and he doesn't want her to do it incorrectly in order to have sex as soon as possible. He convinces her that they should have sex at least once before she removes it because there's no telling how she might feel after the exhaustion of removing all the hair. You can remove it on your own time but right now he wants you and let's face it, you've popped pimples off his back and he's seen you trimming your toenails, are you really going to let a little hair stop you from riding this man? 🤭🤭🤭

[muntitled]

𝐇𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞 ♡

Summary: Taking care of your touch starved boyfriend proves to be more difficult than you initially thought...

Warnings: Established Relationship, Sickeningly sweet Fluff, Heated Making Out, Smut +18 (Minors DNI), Touch Starved!Wonbin, Groping, Dirty Talk, Choking, Daddy Kink, Slight!DDLG, Praise Kink, Fingering

Literally no one asked. But I just had to write something sweet and domestic

A melody that is equal parts romantic, equal parts horrifically tragic bleeds from the strings being coaxed by Wonbin's long fingers. You watch dreamily as he plays you a tune, while you both lay utterly defeated on the couch.

The Friday night lights scattered around the city, bleed in through the cracks in the curtain and your entire front is warmed by Wonbin's back. Your eyes had fluttered closed sometime in between his playing and so you would never know that his eyes were trained on you, as his head rested backwards and his fingers played away.

“Why are you always playing me some Orwellian shit?” You attempt to sound annoyed.

Your eyes are still closed but a light chuckle reaches your ears and you smile, satisfied. Wonbin peers down at his fingers, mindlessly dancing ober the cords as he says,“I think it was supposed to be romantic,” His voice is like gravel and thunder and your stomach warms inside you.

“Almost as romantic as two teenagers killing themselves for one another.” Your eyes flutter open as your fingers find their way at the tips of Wonbin's messy hair, “Would you die for me, Binnie?” his answer is grim in its intensity and instancy,

“Die? Probably not. But I would probably attempt to hurt someone very, very badly for you,” his gaze is still lowered to his strumming as he softly says, “not just physically, but there's plenty of other ways to hurt someone. I'd probably do that, instead of actually dying for you.”

You were forced to get accustomed to Wonbin's morbidity because it almost came as a by-product of his various other terrific attributes. He speaks with a near constant air of grimness that makes your irrational heart swell.

He continues his morose little tune until you cut him off quite abruptly, quite rudely when you say:

"When was the last time you did some hair care?"

That had probably been the very last question he expected to hear (and perhaps maybe even wanted to hear) so early into a rainy Friday evening. His limbs were laden with post-performance exhaustion and all he wished to do, was continue laying between your legs, his head cushioned by your breasts. He was in absolute bliss with your hand patting down his head nearly coaxing him into an early slumber.

It was the perfect way to end a stressful day, until you invariably decided to choose violence.

Wonbin cranes his head back slightly and he narrows his sleepy eyes as he groans out, "Is this your characteristically nice way of telling me my hair looks bad?"

You try to coax his head back down onto your chest, and he steadily complies as you try to pepper him with reassurances, "This is my characteristically nice way of telling you that you need some hair care."

And he concedes, almost immediately with a daft little shrug. He's not sure if it's the affect of the softness of your chest pillowing his cheek or the softness of your body underneath him but Wonbin chooses to see this as the universe gifting him with the possibility of being seated between your thighs while you weave your fingers through his hair to your heart's content.

The thought effects him in ways he did not anticipate and soon, he is turning his face into your chest and nuzzling into the cleavage. "When do we start?"

An obnoxious, borderline unladylike laugh pushes its way through youre throat as you try to shrug the boy off of your chest but to no avail. Wonbin's kisses along your cleavage are unrelenting and you release a breathless little chuckle. "I proposed that we do your hair-" You finally succeed in pushing his head back, "Not that you end up inside of me on the damn couch."

"Why can't you do my hair…” Wonbin turns to ease his fingers along the waistband of your sweats, “...After you let me inside.” He continues to splay wet, needy kisses along your chest.

While he distracts himself, you inconspicuously hook your fingers into the hair tie securing his raven hair back and you pull, letting his hair fall like a across his face while he continues to assault your skin with hickies. You're momentarily stunned by the sheer length of Wonbin's hair as he continues to lap hungrily at your skin, deciding to stretch his bravery and let his hand crawl up under your loose shirt.

"Your hair is so pretty, Binnie,"

"Your everything is so pretty, baby," He groans and you can tell from the low panting in his voice and the hand skimming the underside of your breasts that he is getting himself worked up.

While Wonbin shifts his weight on top of you so that he begins to straddle you, you're very alarmed but not surprised to find him already completely hard.

A very familiar, very distracting bulge pushing against your thigh brings you back to earth.

"I need to fuck you now," He affirms robotically with a curt nod of his head of hair spilling around his face.

"Down boy,” you shoot out a hand against his chest. Keeping him at arm's length. “We need to wash it now,"

"I need to fuck you now,"

"You're insatiable today,"

"You say this as if it's something new."

"Fair enough," you murmer, letting your head fall on the armrest as you watch your boyfriend seated above. His bushy eyebrows scrunch up until he's racking his fingers through his hair, attempting to detangle the web of raven locks and failing horribly.

"Hurry up, so I can tie this back up," he grumbles in apparent vexation. "I hate having it like this." You throw your head back as you wrestle to wriggle yourself up from underneath him but he stays put.

"Afterwards, you let me give you the most mind blowing orgasm you've ever had,"

"Afterwards," you grumbled back, using his distraction to knock his balance of kilter, "-you let me put some of my hair clips in."

He had been a grumbling, moody mess throughout the entire process. Washing his hair in the bathroom sink while Wonbin sat on a stool had been a nightmare filled with you having to swat away at Wonbin's hand whenever it got too bold and decided to attack you while you were hovering over him, letting the water wash the suds away. You were pleasantly surprised by just how much you were enjoying running your fingers through his scalp, stirring up the shampoo until it created a halo of bubbles on his head, all while you were humming steadily to his latest song.

"You're very pretty," Wonbin said suddenly as you proceeded to towel down his hair. Your heart squeezed with adoration inside its cage.

"You're very pretty, too."

Your reply released a whirlwind of butterflies scattering inside his stomach, threatening to climb out his oesophagus and spill out of his mouth. The exchange was perhaps so tender it almost felt unreal.

His eyes, as dark as they are, as endless as they are, bore into yours. You're still hovering above him, but the towel falls gently to the floor, and soon, you're being pulled into that spindly web that was the force of Wonbin's entire freaking aura and you're leaning in close.

“I have to finish up.” It comes out as a whisper.

You immediately know when your eyes flit down to his lips, thay you're already too far gone.

“Why are you leaning in then?” He whispers back with a lazy smirk spilling across his lips.

“Because you're making me,” whispering is all you're both able to do, in fear of shattering this incredibly charged energy between you.

“Am I?” He asks with a slight tilt of his head with his own eyes now staring up at your lips. He is feeling less apologetic for his unsavoury thoughts because Wonbin's has been forced to endure all of 5 minutes of you scrubbing at his hair, while your breast pushed right against his face.

Apologetic is the last thing he feels right now.

“You're a fucking tease,” he breathes out. And his large hand is slithering up the back of your neck until your lips are crashing onto his with a surprised yelp.

As your lips move in tandem with one another, Wonbin's hand never leaves your neck. Instead, he chooses to prolong the kiss by breaking away in short intervals. Never straying too far.

Wonbin's mouth is all encompassing. He slithers his tongue in almost conspiratorially and you gasp at the sudden yet swift intrusion. Both your tongues meet in a fiery, borderline barbaric kiss and you swear on everything you love that you could cum off of making out with him alone.

How utterly embarrassing that would be.

When the faintest moan slips out of your mouth Wonbin abandons all other inhibitions. He rises from the chair like lightning and you nearly roll backwards from the sheer size of him.

His heavy shoulders are bent down to keep your lips locked against his as he pushes you against the sink. With one more kiss, Wonbin spins you around until your front is facing the foggy mirror, and his front is pressed against your back.

He leans his head down, pressing his lips to your ear as he says, “Are you gonna let me in now?” His fingers slide against the waistband of your sweats and you immediately know what he means.

A wanton sound bleeds from your chest and you push your ass backwards, pressing it against the bulge in his sweats.

Wonbin's other hand finds the front of your throat as he cranes your neck backwards.

“You gonna be good for me, Princess?” He asks in a vaguely condescending manner as he juts his bottom lip out and gazes down at you, mirroring your pained, wanton expression.

“You finally ready to be a good little girl, huh?”

You couldn't stand his infuriating teasing any longer and so you make the daring decision to push your own hand into the front of your sweats- or perhaps you try to. Wonbin's hand locks around your wrist and squeezes until you're wincing in pain. His gaze is unfazed as he releases the grip on your wrist and pushes his own hand down your pants.

“You're so fucking stupid sometimes, Angel.” His words run like rain on the forest floor and your eyes flutter shut when his fingers push past your drenched underwear.

“You're fucking soaked, baby,” He croaks, keeping his nose nuzzled in your neck as he swipes his fingers along your folds. Wonbin soon loses himself the movements of his own fingers, until his bucking against your ass while muttering dirty nothings into your ear in a dizzying amalgamation.

“M-More, please-”

That immediately rouses him from his pleasure filled state. Wonbin blinks away the pleasure and straightens his slightly hunched frame.

“You want my cock inside you baby?” His eyes are trained on the side of your face while swiping his hands across the mirror so you could see the mess he's already made of you.

Your lips hang open and Wonbin's damp hair falls over his face as he towers over you.

“My good girl wants me inside of her so badly,” he whispers, almost robotically, as if he were chanting the words to himself as he pushes his hand in his sweats. As he begins to fist his aching cock Wonbin lazily brings his hooded eyes up to your reflection and you both watch each other through the mirror.

He looks so incredibly hungry and so you do nothing but comply as he places a hand on your lower back, forcing you over the sink.

“You're gonna be good for me?” He looks visibly pained when you nod slowly before allowing him to pull your sweats down enough to accommodate his cock at your centre.

“Tell me you'll be good,” his voice shook with the force of his own arousal and you could tell, from his voice alone, that he was already slipping into domspace.

“I'll be goo- fuck!” He's already easing to you with little to no preparation and from his shallow thrusts alone, you can tell how needy he is.

“Ah-fuck, you're so tight…”

Wonbin loses himself in the warmth of your cunt. He paws at your breasts, his fingers tweaking your nipples as he cock fucks you deeper and deeper. He breathes heavily as he pulls the hem of his shirt up, dead set on watching his cock disappear inside your wet folds.

And you watch in the mirror: his flat stomach glistening and moving in tandem with his needy thrusts while his hand swipes obliviously away at his bangs.

“F-Fuck you feel so good- You feel so fucking good, baby,”

You're clenching around him in the wake of his endless praise and your moans are amplified inside the bathroom.

“F-Fuck- Binnie-”

“Binnie?” He pants out with his fingers latching onto your hips, pulling you back to meet his furious thrusts, “Who the fuck's ‘Binnie’?”

You squeeze your eyes shut and your arms grow particularly weak when Wonbin hits that incredibly sensitive bundle of nerves inside you. You're so completely cock drunk but Wonbin holds your weakening frame up with his hand around your throat.

Wonbin's lips tickle your ear as he says, “You wanna call me Daddy, don't you?”

You're absolutely fargone, and you're muttering incoherently while he uses you. In a moment like this, you would say yes to damn near anything.

“It's too m-much, Daddy,”

He's shaking his head, big eyes boring into yours as he tuts in a faux baby voice, “It's just the right amount, baby,” His thrusts grow irregular as he gazes down at your fucked out expression, “Daddy's fucking you just right, isn't he Princess-”

“Daddy, I'm gonna-”

“It's okay, Baby,” His melodic voice succeeds in bringing you to the crevice of your orgasm and melt into him, “You're listening so well, aren't you?” His voice cracks as he spills his seed inside of you, “S-So fucking good.” Wonbin buries his face in the crook of your neck as he shoots his cum inside of you. The hand on your neck never eases away and you're still caught in throes of pleasure when he splayed multiple drunken kisses against the side of your head

“God you're such a good girl.” He whispers before splaying one final kiss to the back of your head.

You would always be terrified that one day, you would wake up and realise that this big hearted raven haired boy had been a fragment of your imagination.

Nothing but a dream.

A really, really good dream.

That thought, no matter how irrational, never left you without a wave of unease.

"Now I need to brush your hair,"

<3

© to @mphountitled on tumblr; do not repost

[mnnuni]

Domestic

Sam Winchester x Reader

Summary: Dean's perspective of Sam and Reader's relationship; Sam and Reader are two cutie patooties Words: 1450 Warnings: none, very fluffy Author's note: I actually don't know if I love this or I hate it

A solid faithful relationship into the hunters' field was almost rare: if they were married they were either consummed for loss or full of affairs and if they had boyfriends or girlfriends they will fight for the distance or the different visions of life. And then there was the rarity, the true love cases, the one in which they would share their life of hunters as easily as a piece of bread.

Dean Winchester never really believed in those rareness, never really believed in love in general... that was untill he really saw Sam and (Y/N) together.

Their love started slowly, it was one of that things that people would say "we already knew" when they eventually announced their relationship.

Dean was convinced that Sam's heart decided from the very beginning of their story that he would beat out of his ribcage only for her in his entire life; Dean saw it in the way Sam didn't just pass (Y/N) the milk and sugar for her coffee for her second cup of that day on their first case together, but he put them in her mug while she read out loud some articles for Dean. Sam didn't put much thougth in that action, but when she realized (Y/N) blushed because he remebred the exact order and amount of products she used after only one time.

But Dean also knew that he approved of their relationship when it was him that proposed to Sam to pick the impala and take (Y/N) somewhere special, just because she deserved all the effort his brother could put in a date and even more. Sam wasn't so surprised about that because he also saw how Dean had grown fond of (Y/N), to the point she was the only girl ever that didn't receive the "hurt my brother and I will end you" speech but it was the other way around.

When (Y/N) confined in Dean one night he really wasn't expecting what she was telling him, after more than an year of being officially with Sam.

"I know he loves me" that was her premise, and Dean could have screamed "WE ALL KNOW" but he let her keep going "but sometimes i whish things were easier" at this the Whinchester quirked an eyebrow and Y/N started rumbling then "I'm not saying it isn't easy with Sam, I just want to say that ... there's never a period of peace in our kind of lifes and we all accepted this when we decided to be hunters, but sometimes I find myself of dreaming one night together without running from something or cleaning up eachother scars... I need normality"

Dean knew that this was also Sam's dream, his little brother wanted this since Stanford, but he also knew that both of them needed to hunt because that was what gave them the hope to make the world a better place and the adrenaline that every man and every woman would need to go throu life.

After this conversation with (Y/N), Dean almost ran to Sam to order him to organize something special for his lady; he wasn't surprised to find him already writing a list of things he wanted to do with her, "I know I didn't give her the right amount of attention these past weeks, shoul I go for a picnic or romantic restaurant?". Dean tried not to smile at his answer, even if he really admired how Sam could know how his girlfriend felt withouth even say anithing and his commitment to their relationship; "The picnic is cute, but not for this time of the year. No reastaurant. She needs something calm, be domestic dude"

He left him like this to think of something, he was sure his brother would have find the right thing.

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

The next day Sam was adjusting one of the bunker's biggest room, he bought a projector and a too big amount of movies -even if he thought that he could never do too much for (Y/N)-

He asked Dean to help him put her favorite couch in there and order a lot of her favourite snacks.

Dean was really proud of how Sam behaved with (Y/N) and for (Y/N), never saw him so whipped for no-one.

When (Y/N) got out of her shower, she was ready to jump into Sam's bed and sleep for two days if she could; instead she found Dean in the kitchen with a blindfold in his hands, "I promise, you will lovee what you'll see after this" he winked and then put it on her face.

"I swear to God Dean, if you're tricking me..." they were walking a pat she never did in the bunker "oh please you love me too" "if you think so...", Dean stopped her in front of a purple metal door and took the blindfold off "oh i know so" he whispered and then proceeded to walk away from there.

(Y/N) was left to wonder what the hell was going on when Sam opened said door and smiled "Hi", it had the same emotion he carried during their first date, (Y/N) smiled too and got on her tiptoes to give him a light kiss. He grabbed her hand and walked her into the room, she would have cried if she realized sooner everything there was in that room.

"You did all this for me?!"

It was clear in her voice that she was emotional in that moment and Sam hated the fact that she underestimated her value for him, "baby, that's nothing. Perhaps I should have done something sooner when I first started to notice you needed some time alone" "thank you". Sam smiled and gave her a kiss.

When they finally settled onto the couch (Y/N) was analyzing every detail there was in Sam's preparation: he put three blankets on the couch 'cause he knew he was too tall to tall for them both be covered entirely just by one and also added few pillows because (Y/N) loved the fluffy feeling of them while watching a movie; he made a little table with every kind of chips the market sold and four bottles of her favorite soda, on the shelf under it there were two or three packages of cookies too. Sam also organised something like fifteen movies, all divided by genre and number of stars (Y/N) gave them when they first talked about it.

Sam chose the first movie of the night -obviously a musical- and settled next to his girlfriend. She was so fucking happy about all Sam had done for her.

(Y/N) put her head on his chest while Sam's arm was around her shoulders, drawing figures on her arms to make her relax some more.

Dean snuck in after the first two songs of the musical and rested with one shoulder leaned on the doorframe to look at them: they were adorable. At first when they were on their honeymoon phase Dean felt the need to puke every two seconds, but now he loved to look at them from afar and be happy of their happiness

(Y/N) lifted her head to look at Sam: he was so focused on the screen,the lights of the scenes illuminated his face in a way that made his eyes sparkle.

"I love you", she whispered and Sam's face turned instantly. She still blushed when Sam looked at her that way, "and I love you".

Dean didn't see the kiss because he closed the door immediately after his brother said those words, that was another of the things that made Dean root for them: they never said "I love you too", like they had to say it just because or to not be in an embarrassing situation; every time they proclaimed their love for eachother they made sure to let the other know how much they actually loved eachother and how they really believed in what they said with that "I love you".

Sam and (Y/N) watched another movie and a documentary, they finished almost all the chips and sodas. After about the half of the documentary (Y/N) fell asleep snuggled up to Sam, who was massaging her head -he already knew that after one cookie she was about to pass out, so he made sure to get her in the most comfortable position and help with his hands in her hair to allow the sleep to finally set-

Dean never got back in that room, because he knew that they would have fallen asleep eventually. He made himself a burger and drank one too many beers, but it didn't matter because that night Dean too slept so well knowing that his brother and his sister were okay.

[lymtw]

hello hello! i don’t know if you’re comfortable with writing this, but if so are you open to writing a toji x reader fic involving period sex? thank you!!! and p.s. i love your writing 😫❤️

A/N: Thank you for reading my works ☺️🫶🏼 I am totally comfortable writing this! I should really put up a post with my do's and don't's. I'll get to that as soon as I find the motivation 😃👍 Anyways, thank you for sending in this request 💙

| cw: period sex |

You don't like making a scene out of that time of the month when it comes to spending time with Toji. You don't like mentioning it to him, so whenever he wants to start removing clothes with you during that time, you always make up some excuse. You say you're not in the mood or that you're too tired or that you can help him out, but that's all, and thank god he never pushes it. He would rather take what you offer him or suck it up and bear the horniness in silence, than make you uncomfortable.

Toji knows the basics of basics of menstruation. He knows that you bleed out of your vagina for a few days, and that often times, it's an uncomfortable and painful time for your body. He knows that the fluctuations of your hormones brings on mood swings, and that you have to buy certain products to prevent you from getting blood everywhere.

"Ma," he calls, as soon as he walks through the door of your apartment. He's holding a bag of food in each of his hands. Food that you were craving and requested for him to pick up once he finished his job. Your door was unlocked so he knows you're not out, but you didn't answer him. He put the food down on the dining room table and went on to look for you. He didn't have to look too hard, because you were in your bedroom, the first room he checked.

"Doll?" He calls, again. "I brought the food you asked for. Don't you wanna eat?" He watches you from the doorway. You look down, very much so, and he knows there's something wrong because you answered him with the smallest shake of your head. He hates seeing you all curled up and seemingly lifeless like this. Your body is drowned by one of his hoodies and you're wearing your baggiest sweatpants. Though it looks comfortable, it's way too hot for you to be so covered up. He makes his way over to your bed and sits beside you. "What's up, mama? Why aren't you hungry, anymore?" He gently squeezes your hip a couple times, hoping maybe it'll make you turn to face him, but you don't. You stay curled up.

"My stomach hurts," you say, unsure of whether he heard you or not. All you know is that if he asked you to repeat yourself, you wouldn't out of frustration. You would just shake your head and go back to hurting in silence.

"Did you eat something bad?" He pauses, a small smile curling onto his lips as something else comes to mind. "Baby... have you eaten anything at all, today?" He knows sometimes you forget to eat because you get so distracted by everything else you have going on, and that pit in your stomach often makes you nauseous.

"No, it's not that. I'm on my period." You internally cringe at the use of the word. Despite the power behind being able to put up with this every single month, you can't help but feel fragile and weak at the thought of letting Toji in on it.

"Oh, doll... You should've told me this before. I would've showed up with much fuller hands." He lays on his side, and wraps his body around yours. His leg goes over yours and his hand goes beneath your hoodie and presses against your stomach. "So, your guts are mad that I didn't put a baby in you?" He says, into your back.

"Yeah, a bit," you say, thinking of the stomach clutching cramps you've had for the past couple hours.

"Damn, that's terrible. What about you, huh? Are you mad that I didn't put a baby in you?" He asks, a smile on his lips forming through the unserious question.

You can't deny that, occasionally, you've wondered what your DNA would look like mixed with Toji's in the form of a child. You always envision the cutest little boy with Toji's intense, green eyes and your beautiful hair, and Toji's sharp nose, and your pretty skin tone. You think of how much you would love him, and how you would take on that role of being a devoted and loving mother. You think of how attached you would become to the little munchkin, enough to assume that you would be the one crying on his first day of school, not your child.

"Of course not. I'm not ready to be a mom," you respond, lowly.

Toji would be lying if he said he didn't see himself having kids with you. He often imagines how you would look holding a baby girl that shares a mixture of his and your features. Part of him hopes that your graceful beauty shines, prominently, through those tiny features, but he also knows that it wouldn't be the end of the world if the child ended up looking more like him. To see you holding a mini him would heal something that runs deep in his soul. Regardless of whether your child looks like him or you or it's the perfect blend of both of you, he knows that he'll be begging to cradle them again and again, even if they are the reason he'll be losing sleep. He'll lunge towards them when they stumble and fall, he'll soothe them when they can't sleep, and he'll bear with the messiness and the unstable emotions.

"Good, 'cause..." he sighs and coils even tighter around you. You're starting to feel hot with all those heavy layers on and the additional source of heat that clings to you from behind. "I need to keep you to myself for a much longer while. I can't imagine sharing you with someone else." He smiles when you laugh quietly at the small poke offered to your stomach. "At least, not right now, 'kay?"

"Yeah, okay," you respond, genuinely glad that he feels the way he does. You don't feel ready to take that enormous step either.

"I know that means your periods will keep coming every month, but I can help you in any way you ask me to. You just have to let me know, mama." His voice conveys sincerity and concern. He's serious about you, but he can't stand being shut out like this on things that pertain to your wellbeing.

You wiggle out of his hold and flip over to face him. You smile at him as best you can, despite the storm you feel in your stomach.

"You look small, doll." He chuckles at the way you bring a sleeved hand towards his face. The sleeves of his hoodie are enormous and puffy around your arms.

"Yeah... your sweater was the only thing that was helping, earlier. I felt like the cramps were gonna kill me so I curled up in this because it smells like you."

His smile is so soft. He loves hearing that he was your best source of comfort while you were in pain. "Well, i'm here, now, so you can take that off and curl up with the real thing."

"Mm..." you drop your hand to his chest. "This is keeping me warm and it fits huge on me, so i'm comfortable."

"Come on. I'm warmer and I fit so much bigger on you than this." He grabs the material of his sweater and extends it away from your waist, before letting it go and watching it melt back into a bulky pile on you. "Yeah, this is nothing compared to me, doll. When i'm on top of you, you completely disappear."

You sigh, as if he isn't tempting you at all, but you can already picture the warmth of his body heat and it sounds absolutely divine. "Fine, fine," you grumble, sitting up to pull off the enormous blanket you had been wearing for the past three hours and tossing it towards the end of your bed.

"So, that's why you didn't wanna take it off?" He's no better than the strangers who ogle your body when he takes you out for a date night. Your chest is holding his attention like a puppy with its favorite toy.

"Told you I was comfortable," you say, fixing the twisted strap of your bra before laying back down.

"Did you not want me to see you like this?" He asks, feeling the bare skin of your waist beneath his palm.

"I just feel really gross, Toji. I showered twice and I still feel like I stink, my skin isn't clear, and my body hurts. I never want you to see me this way, but I can't stay away from you every time I go through this."

He sees this as the perfect moment for him to become your heat radiating weighted blanket, and he seizes the opportunity, splaying over you like a net before contracting his limbs around you. He really is bigger than that hoodie with the way he makes your entire body vanish beneath his.

"This..." you laugh, the sound coming out a little choppy due to the newly added weight. "...is much better," you say, your voice a little strained.

"Listen," he says. What he wants to say to you is really important, and he needs you to absorb the information as clearly as possible, so he thinks it's best if his lips are right beneath your ear, just so you don't miss a word he says. "You smell reallyyy good, but you shouldn't be scrubbing your skin raw with too many showers. Also, I didn't even notice the little pimples on your skin 'til you pointed them out. Not that it matters to me, but your skin will clear up in a couple days." He grins at the little giggles that leave you and the slight shake of your shoulders that accompany the sound. "And about the pain... just tell me what you need and I'll get it for you. Anything but a heating pad, because I like whaling on you like this." He pulls away and takes note of the beaming smile on your face. "You heard all of that, right?" He asks, making sure you're not just letting his words go over your head.

"Mhm." You hum, in response. Your hands cup his jaw and pull him closer to you. You pause when he's mere centimeters away from you and just look up at him, adoration clear in your eyes. His gaze flits between your eyes and your lips. You've always been so enticing and appealing to him, regardless of the nonsensical remarks you make about yourself. Toji has every intention of proving that he'll love you the same all the time. This time of the month is no exception.

With a lick to his bottom lip, he takes the leap and kisses you first. You smile as his lips move slowly and gently in tandem with yours. You feel a lot better with Toji around. It feels like he actually melted away your cramps with his presence. You can enjoy him because the pain in your stomach isn't as intense anymore.

He can feel the change in pace of your affection. You're kissing him faster, your hands are balling up the back of his shirt, and your breathing is getting heavier. He decides to take it step further and slides his hands beneath the cups of your bra.

"Does that hurt?" He asks, knowing that it's possible that your breasts feel tender.

"Not at all. Please, keep going. You can even squeeze a little harder," you say, a small laugh following.

"Alright, baby. You wanna take your bra off so I can get in there real good?"

You're a little nervous about where this is headed. You can feel the neediness growing between your thighs, and him touching your breasts like that is only fueling the flame. You don't know if he's innocently trying to soothe the tenderness that vanished a day before the waterfall of blood began or if he's just trying to cop a feel. All you know is that it feels good and that it's a risky decision to take your bra off even if you've already decided to remove it.

"Yeah, I'll take it off," you say, using your elbows to assist you in sitting up. He sits back on his knees as you reach behind you, towards the clasps of your bra. You take a little longer when you notice how he's staring at your chest in anticipation, practically hypnotized as he waits for you to free your tits. You swear you saw his tongue peek out to lick his bottom lip. Those naturally bright eyes of his are dark, the color almost entirely swallowed whole by his enlarged pupils. You have to try not to laugh at how strong his focus is as the cups slide down your chest and the strap ride down your arm.

"Fuuuck, look at you." He's practically drooling as he reaches his hand out to touch. He instantly feels the warmth and softness of your right breast engulf his hand. "You've got a really pretty body, doll. You know I love taking care of it," he purrs, crawling back onto you. You're pushed back onto the bed. Your head falls into the pillows, and you're instantly surrounded by Toji. He leans down, his lips brushing over your jaw while his hands busy themselves with your breasts. "You can't scare me off with a little bit of blood, pretty girl. You can't scare me off at all," he murmurs, letting his lips roam towards your neck. He rolls your buds between his fingers, smirking at the way you shudder at the more intense stimulation. "That feel good?" He asks, hearing the low hums coming from you.

"Mhm... it does." Your cunt throbs with need as he continues tweaking your nipples, brushing them with his thumbs, rolling them with index fingers before pressing them a little. He sucking on that sensitive spot on your neck, really putting in the work to make you want him, badly. "T-Toji..." you whimper.

"Yeah, I know, sweet girl. Just wanna help you feel better." A deep chuckle rumbles through his chest at the feeling of you squeezing your thighs around his waist, chasing friction for your needy cunt. "Need some help with that? Want me to rub your little clit?"

You're too distracted by the pleasure you derive from grinding against his lower abdomen to notice his hand leaving one of your breasts and trailing down your stomach. Just as his fingers go beneath the waistband of your sweatpants, you snap out of your daze.

"No, wait- That's dirty," you say, scooting backwards.

"What are you talking about?" He asks, rhetorically. "It's a part of you. I don't care if any part of me gets covered in your blood."

You look away from him, flustered by his admission. You've never allowed him to touch you down there while you're on your period. This might have been the first time you've directly told him about it, too, so before then, he was just left to assume.

"I'm not a pea brained little boy, and you're not gross for this, baby. Just let me help you feel better."

You contemplate it for a few seconds. You've never done it like this before. The mess would be extreme. You'll be overthinking the things that run through his mind the entire time. Would you even be capable of getting into the mindset necessary to enjoy it when you're so worried about what Toji's thinking?

"Please, mama. Let me make you feel good." He runs a hand over your shin, hoping to soothe your nerves about this.

Your thoughts were starting to loop from how much you were overthinking it. A whole lot of 'what is Toji going to think?' and 'what if he can't go through with it after seeing all of it?' swirling around in your head. The thoughts were going nowhere but down, so you eventually just let yourself go. "Okay," you respond. "Can I just have a minute before we..." you raise your brows, allowing the gesture to finish your sentence.

"Yeah, of course. Take your time." He retracts his hand, allowing you to rise off the bed and make your way to the bathroom.

You're nervous. You don't know what would compel Toji to want to do something like this. You'll accept that it's for your benefit, but what does he gain from this apart from getting a blood covered dick? You know he won't put on a condom. He practically whines every time you tell him to either put a condom on or pull out. Neither of those options are viable for him, so he sweet talks you until you let him go in raw and cum inside you. He always thanks you for staying on birth control. His appreciation is genuine, too. It's not just some douchey speech where he says 'thank you for taking pills so I don't have to stress about cumming inside you'. It's a real, hug and kiss, 'I love you' deserving, appreciation.

You walk out of the bathroom after removing your menstrual product, wearing just the panties you had on and your darkest colored towel wrapped around your hips. That pair of underwear is not your prettiest pair, so you're fine with ruining them so that you don't ruin your carpet on your walk back to the bed.

"Everything alright?" Toji asks, eyes glued on you the second the bathroom door opened.

"Yeah. All good," you assure, sitting on the edge of the bed. You felt as anxious as you did the first time you and Toji had sex together. It was visible in the way you kept your eyes on your folded hands and how you toyed with your thumbs.

"Don't be nervous, baby. It's just like every other time." He smiles at you as you continue to stare at your lap. "You wanna put the towel down?"

"Oh, yeah." The second the towel is unwrapped from your lower body, you feel your anxiety double, knowing that the stain on your underwear is visible. He can see you crossing your legs to try and hide the stain. It's cute, but futile, since he'll see it much more clearly in a few seconds. You're unnecessarily straightening the corners, as if the towel isn't going to be moving around once things get going.

"Good. Now, lay down for me," Toji instructs, the words making your heart drop. "Need you to get all comfortable."

You hesitantly crawl onto the towel and lay on your stomach, concealing the stain on the front of your underwear.

"Flip over, doll. Wanna look at that pretty face." He can tell you're doing everything you can to hide what he expected and already saw. You flip onto your back and cross your legs. "Come on, pretty girl. Don't be embarrassed. It's just me."

You sigh and uncross your legs. Seconds go by and your cheeks are scorching, embarrassment coursing through you so fluidly, not knowing that the sight makes Toji feral. The color, the fact that you're free bleeding and the stain is growing as time goes by, the shame it brings you from not being able to stop it. It's all going straight to his dick. It was already straining in his boxers, but now it's throbbing.

"Good girl," he praises, running his hands up and down your thighs. You feel hot under his gaze. He's not making his attention to your stained underwear subtle at all. You just want to put a pillow over your head and let him do what he has planned.

"You're so cute," he says, reaching a hand towards the loud color between your thighs. He feels the warm wetness beneath his thumb as he tests the waters and rubs your clit through the scarlet tainted garment. He watches you squirm at the touch, your stomach rising and falling erratically at the stimulation. "So warm, baby." He can see the color adhering to the edges of his thumb as he continues to stroke your throbbing clit.

"Toji..." you gasp.

"Yeah, baby. I know."

The smallest pinch between your brows appears as the stimulation continues. It's slow enough to keep you comfortable, but you want more, so you attempt to trap his hand between your thighs so that you can get off on it.

"Open, doll. Keep your pretty legs open for me." He grins at the shuddered breath you release as you release his hand.

"P-Please, Toji. Please, more," you whimper, feeling yourself get closer and closer to your peak.

He's notices how the blood reached higher up the front of your underwear. Right over where he's rubbing your clit, the material is soggy beneath his fingers.

"I'm gonna make you cum all you want, but not like this," he says, abruptly stopping the movement of his fingers. He bows forward and kisses from your slightly heaving mid-center to your lower abdomen. The irony smell of your blood is heavier as he nears the elastic of your panties.

"Let's get these off," he murmurs, hooking his fingers into the garment. Your heart is racing all over again at the thought of him seeing the whole thing, uncensored. The uncontrollable drip of your blood, the messy aftermath of it being smeared and played with by his fingers over the thin barrier of your underwear. It's not presentable, compared to what he got from you every moment before this one. Far from it, but he proceeds with his fearless curiosity, dragging your panties down your hips and thighs, above your knees and swiftly down the rest of the way. He puts them down beside you on the towel before carrying on with you.

In no way would he ever try to embarrass you over something like this, especially since he knows you're more emotionally sensitive right now and even the smallest amount of teasing might hit a little harder than intended. He looks at the overload of red smeared all over your cunt, on the folds, lathered over and through your slit, and streaked over your inner thighs. All he can think about is how cursed you must feel every once in a while to have to go through this every month. He's not stupid enough to think alike to those men who say they would bear the pain a lot better than women and that it's nothing compared to being kicked in the balls. He would take the pain for you in a heartbeat, but since science hasn't progressed so far to make that option a reality, he'll do what he can to help you in other ways.

You watch, intently, as Toji observes what he's seen plenty of times before. You feel different from every one of those times, despite him telling you that this time will be no different. You feel like your heart is about to lurch from your chest because all he's doing is looking. You know it's unappealing. You would give yourself to him entirely clean in this moment if you could.

"I wanna bury my face in there so badly. You know that?" He's so hard at the sight. His dick is twitching at the thought of using his tongue to clean you up. "I'll make it up to you in a couple days," he says, working his constricting boxers off. "Gonna feast on you. Hold these pretty thighs back when you try to crush my skull."

You don't think you've ever felt so withheld by him. Here he is, about to fuck you during one of the few days you refrain from letting him touch you this way, while talking about how badly he wants to devour you. You wouldn't call it unfair of him to tease you with this promise, he just has no other choice. Normally, his mouth is the first thing he gives you when things are getting hot and heavy, but for now, he can only use that mouth to kiss you and verbalize his desire.

"Don't look so nervous, doll," he says, his voice honeyed and his touch gentle on your skin, like he's shooing away all those negative thoughts that threaten your ability to enjoy this. "This is me taking care of you."

Toji did a good job of making you forget that this wasn't just normal sex. You were fed assurance, visually, audibly, and tactically. The second he thrusted into you and felt your incredibly warm and wet walls cling around him, his gaze darted up to meet your eyes. He looked back down for a split second when his hips pulled back, just to see the way you coated his shaft.

He understands that this is intense for you, that you're presenting yourself in a vulnerable state to him, but he's determined to make you understand that he will always try for you. It comes down to him knowing your wants and needs, and when they aren't so transparent, he counts on you to trustfully tell him about the things he can't openly assume.

He's overly generous with your pleasure, going on and on for you, chasing your orgasms with no intention of stopping until you tell him you've had enough. "Come on..." he groans, a deep chuckle following when he sees the way your arms are thrown over your face. "Come on, doll. Give me some attention." He's saying this because he's about to cum, again. He wants to look at you as he spews another load into you. He wants to see the expression on your face when you feel his cum overfill you, again. You lift your arms above your head and expose the way your chest heaves even more to him, but more importantly, the weary and glassy eyes he loves so much.

"Yeah, fuck... Just give me those eyes for a while, gorgeous." He's panting and his hips are stuttering as he stares you down, his lust-filled gaze giving you the illusion of being pressed into the mattress. One hand splays over your waist while the other focuses on nudging at your clit.

The added stimulation makes you jolt beneath his touch. It's heavenly and you want more, and you're right there. "F-Fuck... Fuck, please... Please!" you beg, feeling like you're melting beneath his touch. Your nails dig into the pillow beneath your head in an attempt to stay still for him.

"I know, mama. I know. I got you," he coos through choppy breaths, rubbing your clit fast enough to have you squirming against him. He watches dazedly as fresh crimson decorates his fingertips, anew. The pace of his hips becomes sporadic with his own peak nearing. He's about to bust again with the way your gummy, lubricated walls snuggly wrap around him.

With just a couple more thrusts and the ongoing stimulation offered to your clit, you gush all over him again, a mixture of your cum and blood rushing out of you and onto him before dripping onto the towel beneath you. "Oh my- T-Toji, oh fuck!" Your back arches off the bed, your head thrown back into the pillow as you cry out in pure ecstasy.

Toji is pulling you into his quickened thrusts, putting your tired, pretty body to work so that he can finish, too. He's following after you just a minute later, a deep, growl-like groan leaving him as more of his thick cum is shot into your ruined cunt. His chest rises and falls, long, heavy breaths exhaled through his parted lips. his neck glistens with sweat and dampened strands of hair stick to his forehead.

"How are your guts?" He asks, his words still somewhat breathy as he works to recompose himself after pulling out of you.

"Good," you respond, echoing back that tiredness. "Out of place, but good. That... that did it. No more pain." You think that if you shut your eyes for longer than ten seconds, you'll doze off. As if Toji would let you wake up feeling dirtier than you did before you let him get his hands on you.

"Hey," he calls, tapping your outer thigh. You hum in disapproval of having to open your eyes again. "Doll, we have to get you cleaned up." He taps you again.

"Five minutes," you whine, shutting your eyes tightly before pulling the pillow out from beneath your head and throwing it over your face.

"None of the whining, mama. It's for the best and you know it." He doesn't go on because you don't respond, presumably dozed off. He pulls the pillow off your face and becomes the target of your pointed gaze when light floods your vision again. "I'm not gonna stop bugging you until you get up." He's fighting the urge to tease you about wanting a kiss for that alluring pout on your lips. "Don't you wanna take a nice and cool shower with me?"

"I'm stuck," you groan, exaggeratedly dropping your arm after your feigned weak attempt to move more than a couple inches. "Can't... move."

"Your level of drama outshines the best actors, doll. I see right through it."

You can't even hold back a giggle at that. You clutch your chest and continue on with the theatrics. "Ouch. My stomach doesn't hurt anymore, but there's suddenly a really sharp pain in my chest. So, this is what taken back love feels like, huh?"

Toji snickers at the sound of your pathetic words as he crosses the ends of the towel over your lower body. Once the towel is wrapped securely, his arm goes beneath your knees, and the other settles on your lower back. With one swift motion, he lifts you off the bed and starts for the bathroom. He knew you had no intention of moving on your own, so he took the initiative. "Now you're a poet? You would never make it through heartbreak poetry." He looks down at you with a sly grin. "You would be making it all up, because you know how much I love your dramatic self."

You laugh. "Yeah... i'll never be a heartbreak poet." You don't sound like you're at a loss at all. You said it with a smile on your face. You've never been more happy to have lost a path like that.

"That's too bad, isn't it?"

[unoislazy]

Changes

Vi x Reader

Vi has attachement issues and needs a hug.

A/N: get ready for me to write a whole bunch about attachment issues Vi. She just needs a BREEEAAKKK

————————————————————

You sat quietly on your makeshift bed in your dust filled room as you looked up at the ceiling. Finding a house in such a place as Zaun was no easy feat, so of course it wasn’t glimmering with a pristine shine. It was all you had and that was enough for you.

Well, it wasn’t ALL you had. There was another room attached to the apartment that you happened to find that you shared with someone else.

Your friend Vi.

It had been left unused for a while, but once you found out she had been let out of jail and had nowhere else to go, you offered your place without a second thought. Vi, hellbent on insisting she doesn’t need help, declined at first. However, upon realizing that a lot had changed since she had been arrested she soon came back and took you up on your offer.

You two had been great friends when you were younger but now there was a sort of shift between you. Nothing too unexpected though, she had been away for god knows how long, of course things wouldn’t immediately go back to the way they were. But part of you wished it would.

Despite the fact that you two lived together, you rarely ever talked. Not because of any one particular reason, but mainly because it just felt awkward too. You didn’t want to ask about what had happened to her when she left, you heard what you needed to about the incident through general gossip and word of mouth. Vi, on the other hand, seemed like she had things she wanted to ask you as well, but she always pushed it off for some reason.

You continued to stare at the ceiling above before pushing off the bed and leaning on your arms. You hadn’t done anything productive by this point so you decided to change that. With one swift push, you were standing on your feet in front of a cracked wall that seemed stained with smoke and water damage. A staple of the lives of those who couldn’t afford much else.

Life like this always made you wonder what it was like for the Pilties.

You sighed, putting a hand up to your head as you rubbed your face, mentally preparing yourself for whatever task you’d give yourself for the sake of pretending like you actually did something useful with your day. As you walked out of your room, you were met with a very familiar face sitting in the little common lounge area the two of you had set up.

“Hey.” Vi greeted, looking up towards you for only a moment before looking back down at something she held in her hands. You noticed she wasn’t wearing her usual red jacket which wasn’t totally out of the ordinary, but it caught you a bit by surprise to see her arms just on display. You shook your head ever so slightly before quickly responding with your own gentle,

“Hey.”

Silence then returned between the two of you as you walked past her to try and find something to occupy yourself with. Unfortunately for you, the deathly still air around you began to weigh on you, urging you to say something to the girl who now sat behind you.

“So… what’s it like being back?” You asked, not looking back at her as you moved to a box of your things that was just sitting on the floor. What better time to sort this than now, you guessed.

Vi sighed a little before answering,

“Disorienting.” She said simply before pausing for a moment or two. “It's as if I landed on another planet or universe or something.” She continued, still fiddling with whatever was in her hand. You hummed in response.

“A lot changed when you left.” You added which earned a dry chuckle from Vi.

“Tell me about it.” She said, now leaning back on her chair as she looked up at the ceiling. The freak of the chair caused you to look back at her for a moment. It seemed you both had that habit in common, just looking up at the ceiling whenever you needed to think. You wondered if she was always like that or if it’s something she gathered while in prison.

Another silence fell over the two of you before you spoke up.

“Jerichos is still there though.” You said, still looking at her for a moment before turning back to rummage through your box of belongings. You heard her shift in her seat as she sat back up.

“Really?” She questioned with a more egear air about her. You looked at her over your shoulder with a slight smile as you nodded.

“Yeah. We could go check it out now if you want.” You offered, now taking your hands out of the box as you fully faced her. “For old times sake?” You added on.

You watched as her eyes softened even the slightest bit at your words, a smile making its way onto her lips as she nodded.

“For old times sake.”

It didn’t take long for Vi to get ready as she grabbed her usual jacket and waited for you by the door. Once you were both ready to head out, you noticed that the awkward tension that riddled the entirety of your apartment seemed to have dwindled even the slightest bit.

“So what have you been up to?” The pink haired woman asked as she walked casually at your side. Her hands were tucked into her pockets as she looked over to you.

“Eh, stealing stuff, making money where I can. Really anything to get by.” You answered with a shrug. Vi nodded before a smile graced her face once again, her eyes scrunching ever so slightly, naturally indicating that the smile was genuine. The first one you’d seen from her in a while.

“Remember that time we tried to steal food from that one stall that was on this street?” She asked, looking in the direction that the stall once resided years ago. This thought slowly but surely brought you joy as you remembered what had unfolded.

You snickered a bit to yourself before saying,

“Yeah, and I remember how you fell and practically ate concrete. Wasn’t funny then but you know, I think it’s been long enough to say it’s funny now.” You taunted a bit as you looked over to her to which she rolled her eyes.

“Hey, it’s not like you haven’t had your fair share of slip ups Sunshine.” She teased with a smirk before turning her head to look at the other side of the street. She extended her arm and pointed at the remnants of a poor attempt at graffiti.

“Remember when you tried to prove to Mylo you could be daring so you tried to vandalize the shop we used to go to, and you ended up spelling half of it wrong?” She laughed, realizing she was still able to read most of what you had painted on the wall many years ago.

“Live life wiht no regerts, how poetic of you.” She teased to which you lightly shoved her shoulder with a smile.

“Shut up, I was more focused on trying not to get caught than whatever I was writing.” You laughed. You both continued reminiscing on things you had done, or failed to do, together when you were younger. Finally it felt as if that wall between you had fully gone down.

You two were so busy having fun and laughing with each other you almost ended up passing by Jericho’s stall. You quickly corrected that course of action as you both sat down at the counter, ordering the same orders you used to order when you were younger.

“His stuff is still just as good as you remember, I can promise you that.” You smiled, turning back to look towards Jericho who was busy slicing and dicing his dishes, preparing them just how you liked them. When you turned back to face Vi however, you noticed she had a much more nostalgic look on her face as she stared at you. You raised your eyebrow as you looked back at her,

“What, is there something on my face?” You asked, confused as to why she was staring. Upon hearing you speak She simply looked away from you, acting as if she hadn’t been staring to begin with.

“No, no there’s nothing on your face.” She answered quickly. Before you could question her further, Jericho placed your dishes out in front of you, just as cheerful as ever. You both said your thank yous before digging in, Vi much more eagerly than you. She tactically inhaled her food, clearly having not been satisfied with whatever prison slop they had been giving her.

“I missed this.” She said gleefully, practically drowning in the bliss she felt from her meal. As she finished up her meal, she placed the bowl back down before looking back at you for a moment or two. Inc wagon you were going to ask her what was wrong but she beat you too it as she spoke,

“I missed you.”

This caught you by surprise. You simply stared at her for a moment before moving to answer,

“I missed you too.” You replied, earning a small smile for Vi before she continued,

“It feels good to know that at least some things haven’t changed.”

Her words, although coming from a place of warmth, held a melancholic weight to them as well. You hadn’t changed, you were one of the only things in Zaun that stayed the same, and you didn’t know it but Vi took immense comfort in that. Everything else was out of her control, she wasn’t there to see it change, and there was no way for her to stop It either. So knowing you, someone she cared for oh so deeply, was still alive and well, it helped her sleep even the slightest bit better at night.

She wanted to tell you. She wanted to tell you all the things she felt about you. In fact, before everything had gone south with the enforcers, she had planned to tell you. She planned to get everything off her chest and let you know just how much she cared about you.

But she never got the chance.

Until now. Here you were, sitting two feet in front of her, laughing and smiling the same way you always had, the same way she always adored.

And she was hesitating.

What if you never felt the same? What if you had but it’s been so long that those feelings have dwindled? What if she makes it awkward again? She didn’t want that, she didn’t want any of that. You both had finally reached a point of comfort again, everything felt right again with you, she didn’t want to mess that up.

Little did she know, you were feeling the same. You always had feelings for Vi that remained over the years. Sure they dwindled in strength after not seeing her for so long, but the moment you set your eyes on her that first day you knew she was back, the feelings came rushing back like a dam had broken into a river.

It almost made it impossible to focus at times, she looked so different and yet so similar. You couldn’t help but stare at her features from time to time.

As your mind wandered, you couldn’t help but muttering,

“I like your hair.”

You hadn’t realized you said it outloud until Vi looked back at you once again from her bowl. Quickly, you went to remedy the situation before it had the chance to be once awkward.

“It looks good, well you look good, but specifically your hair. It’s nice.” You stumbled over your words a bit in the process of getting that one simple sentence out.

Good Job.

Luckily, this only made Vi smile more as she laughed a bit at what she thought was adorable stumbling.

“Thanks Sunshine.” She replied, in almost a cheeky manner as she smirked at you.

After a bit more talking, and what neither of you would admit was just straight up flirting, you both decided you had spent enough time out and wanted to head back. As you walked back, you two continued to reminisce on old stories with the group, but mainly focusing on the memories you two shared on your own.

You both laughed at another memory as you walked back through the door of your apartment and plopped down on one of the few chairs in the main room. Vi followed after you, sitting just across from you as She slouched on the seat, stretching her legs out as far as she could. There was a smile on her face, but it was clear she was keeping something hidden.

“Vi?” You spoke up, looking directly at her. “What’s up?” You asked, not giving an explanation to your question but just by her facial expressions you knew she knew what you meant.

“What do you mean?” She tried to play it off, but that only made you double down.

“Vi. You’re making that face, you know the one where you’re struggling to keep your thoughts to yourself. I’ve been around you long enough to know when you have something to say.” You explained, crossing your arms in front of your chest as you looked towards her with a very unfazed expression.

Her smile didn’t drop, but it changed to less of a joyful one and more of the disappointment of someone who had just been caught.

“Nothing ever gets past you does it, Sunshine?” She asked in a slightly teasing manner as if to draw away the attention from herself. This was a tactic she often used when you’d start getting on her case about opening up to you. It never worked and yet she tried it every time. You raised a brow at her before she let out a slight sigh.

“Fine, you got me. I was just… thinking.” She answered vaguely, no longer making eye contact as she stared at the wall behind you.

“About what?” You asked. Leaning a bit forward, showing your clear interest in how she was feeling. It seemed as if she gave in as she began to speak,

“About… Everything.” She spoke quietly, she was always so ready to keep her thoughts hidden if it meant keeping others safe from worrying, but she didn’t need to do that here. She didn’t have to worry about that with you.

You could see she was deep in thought as she leaned forward a bit now leaning against the small table that was between the two of you. Clearly she was thinking about what to say and what not to say, so to ease her nerves, you moved your hand to cover hers.

Vi always seemed to calm down at your touch, and now was no exception to that. She seemed to visibly relax as she felt the warmth of your touch cover her own hand. Her eyes softened before she let out a sigh. You always knew how to get your way.

“I was thinking about how I don’t want this to change. I know this whole time we’ve been focusing on how things used to be and how everything has changed since then but, now that I’m with you again everything else doesn’t really matter as much to me.” She began. You sat silently as you listened to her continue,

“Don’t get me wrong, it's upsetting to see how much has changed over the years I’ve been gone, but I know that you haven’t changed. I don’t know where my sister is, Silco is in charge of everything, so just knowing that you’re still here, it’s like a quiet peace in all the other chaos I have to deal with.” She explained with a slight chuckle, now looking back at you.

“You’re the only thing that makes sense to me right now.”

You couldn’t help but feel loved by her words. She clearly valued your presence more than you realized, just as you valued hers.

Before you even knew it, you had stood up from your chair and walked towards Vi. In a mere few seconds you were standing in front of her, and without a second thought you engulfed her in a warm hug. The warmest you could ever muster as you rested your chin on her shoulder.

She hesitated for a moment before eventually grabbing back, her arms wrapped around your torso as she stood up to properly hold you. The force in which she stood up caused the chair behind her to knock back and fall over as she desperately clung to your warmth.

“I've missed you…” She whispered to you, her entire body feeling as if it was powering down against you. For the first time in a long time she felt truly safe. She felt as if she could put her guard down and leave down when she was with you.

“Vi?” You lightly called as you eventually pulled away from the hug and looked back towards Vi’s eyes. She had the look of that of a wounded puppy. Her usual tough looking scowl that was used to keep unwanted attention off her back was replaced by a soft, hopeful and almost loving eyes. It was a look you had seen many times before but you never truly realized what it was. You could finally put it into words. It made your heart flutter whether she did it intentionally or not.

Maybe this wasn’t the time to share your feelings. Maybe it was better to keep them hidden. But you had already called her name so… you at least needed to come up with something.

Screws it, whatever happened to honesty. You took in a deep inhale before closing your eyes. If you can’t see it, the possible rejection isn’t there.

Before you could even fully make a decision about whether or not to say what you wanted, you felt as Vi’s hand lightly went up to your face, the feeling was unexpected but not unwanted as you leaned into her rough touch slightly.

“I love you.” She said, finishing your thought whether she realized it or not. Her words caused you to freeze as you finally reopened your eyes. When you did, you were met by the same blue eyes still staring at you. The warmth had never vanished from her gaze as she kept her eyes trained on you.

“I’ve been wanting to say that for so long.” She chuckled slightly, you could feel her hands beginning to shake a bit as you stayed silent. Her hands then left your face as she continued,

“You’ve been my best friend for so many years and I know we didn’t really interact for a little while but honestly I was scared. I was scared to come to terms with the fact that you might’ve changed just like everything else. Sure you’ve changed physically and maybe your personality has changed in some aspects but, you’re still the same person I was in love with you even when we were kids.” She was clearly rambling at this point as her hands continued to shake. You didn’t know Vi was capable of feeling fears over such a trivial thing, but there it was, staring you right in the face.

As she continued to speak, you could hardly focus on anything, you let your body act on its own as your brain took a moment to catch up. Your hands slowly made their way up to Vi’s face, silencing her as you leaned in slightly before hesitating.

“Can I?” You asked quietly but without even answering, Vi leaned forward and embraced you in a long awaited kiss. It was everything either of you could have dreamed of. Your hands began to leave her face as your arms wrapped around her neck, pulling her closer to you. Her hands lightly traveled down to your waist to keep you in place as she leaned into you more.

After a little while, you both broke the kiss, looking at each other as you both slightly panted before breaking out into laughter. You didn’t know why, you just… felt like laughing. Vi eventually leaned back into you, resting her chin on your shoulder as whispered,

“Can we just… stay like this? Please?” She asked, pulling back a bit so you could see her hard blue eyes softening as she looked towards you, her hand slithering into yours, holding it with care as if you might shatter with even the slightest squeeze. You, the ever loving being you are, smiled softly at your now partner.

“Of course. I guess the question is though, your room or mine?” You asked, to which Vi quickly responded

“Yours.”

So without any argument, you both made your way to your room and laid down together in a tangled mess on the bed. Your arms were wrapped around her neck once again as she held a tight grip on your torso. It was clear she needed an embrace of any sort.

It was no secret that she had been through so much and while you couldn’t go back and change the past, you could do what you could to help her heal.

“Thank you.” She whispered quietly, moving closer to you.

[daenysx]

imagine giving james a skincare sesh where reader is seated comfortably (on his lap ehm) and he lets her put all sorts of moisturizers, face masks and even lip balm on him and he secretly LOVES it and after they eat homemade cookies and watch their comfort show

thank you for requesting!! i had so much fun writing this, it's my skincare routine applied to james. i guess that means he's literally my boyfriend now (support my delusions please <3333) you can send me requests for james!

james potter x fem!reader, fluff

"are you ready?" you say, grinning. you carried most of your skincare essentials to living room, ready to give your tired boyfriend a nice spa day.

"yes." james walks out of the bathroom. "i washed my face."

"with the cleansing jel?"

"yes, baby." he sits on the couch next to you. you place yourself on his lap expertly, his face looks dry and clean. you lean to give him a kiss on his cheek, james settles down on couch with his back to pillows.

"okay." you say, clapping your hands. you're excited to give him a nice treating, he deserves all the best. you've never understood how boys have clear and smooth skin naturally, james certainly doesn't use as many products as you do, but he lets you do anything you want to him. skincare is like a therapy for you, quality minutes you spend on yourself. it's relaxing, taking care of your body without a single thought in your mind, you want james to experience it, too.

"let me just pull your hair back first." you say quietly, using tiny hairclips to secure his curls.

"why are you whispering?" he asks, whispering.

"i wanna create a relaxing ambience for you." you answer. "whispering is a part of it."

"oh." he teases. "okay."

you take your face toner in your hand, pouring some of it on a cotton pad. "close your eyes, jamie." you say, start applying it on his skin.

james relaxes into the pillow, his hands keep you balanced on his thighs. he likes how excited you get to take care of him, he likes being spoiled by you. your fingers are gentle on his face, almost invisible.

"now i'm gonna put on a face mask, handsome." you say, tearing the package of the mask. "it can feel a bit cold."

"that's okay." he mumbles. you place the mask on his skin carefully, adjusting the sides to cover his entire face. "what does this do?"

"um," you read the package. "it's for hydration mostly, and it has vitamin c in it."

"cool." he has no idea what vitamin c does for skin.

"we're gonna wait for 15 minutes." you say. "can i massage your hands while we wait?"

this must be some kind of special heaven for james. he gives you his hands blindly, you put on hand cream on the back of his hands and start rubbing it nicely on his skin.

james sometimes complains about how rough his hands feel, he washes them a lot and always neglects applying moisturizer. the cream feels good, like he has the skin of a baby now. you're being really sweet on him, he likes the way his muscles loosen up under your fingers.

"you're an angel." he says, a deep sound coming from his throat when you press a tight spot between his thumb and forefinger. "my fucking angel."

you smile, giving the same care to his other hand. james feels his hands go numb when you're finished. you clean the remnants of the cream on your hands before taking the mask off his face. "there you go." you put the used mask aside. "feels good?"

"i feel like a baby."

you laugh. "you're gonna be like a baby when i'm done."

it's a nice promise, james likes it very much. "i'm gonna apply some under eye cream now." you whisper. "you have no dark circles, i'm so jealous."

"it's because i actually have a sleeping schedule, lovely girl." he smiles. "something you lack, you know."

"hmm."

you massage his face a little bit before applying some moisturizer. you don't think any more products are needed for james, his skin is already perfect and the mask takes care of a lot of things. you want his face to be relaxed, so you keep your fingers on his cheeks. he smiles a lot, there are little lines on the corners of his lips and eyes that start forming. you can't help yourself, you kiss his lips softly. he immediately reacts but you pull yourself back, focusing on your work.

"what's the point of relaxing if i'm not gonna get a kiss?" james frowns.

"you'll get your kisses." you promise. "when i'm done."

applying moisturizer is so easy, his skin is glowing now. you make sure you cover every little spot on his face. "it smells good." he says. you nod even though his eyes are closed. "it really does." you say.

"and now," you put the cream away. "lip mask."

"lip mask?" james opens his eyes. "how will i kiss you if i have something on my lips?"

you laugh at his dramatics. "it never stopped you before. you always ruin my lipstick, remember?"

"not the same thing."

"come on, be a good boy for once." you tease. james parts his lips in shock. "once? this is a vile accusation."

you stop him, putting on a tiny bit of lip mask on his lips. he presses his lips together clumsily. "it tastes nice. is that strawberry?"

"you're not supposed to eat it!" you laugh. "leave some of it at least."

"mm, okay." he says. you fix his hair, and put a kiss on his cheek. you hand him the remote before leaving his lap. "i'm gonna bring you some cookies, can you pick a show?"

james nods, watches you clean up the mess through sleepy eyes. his skin has never felt this soft, he wants to pinch his own cheeks. he opens up the show you both like as he waits for you.

you come back with a plate full of cookies. james pulls you into his lap again. "i'm gonna eat just one." he says smugly. "i can't ruin my lip mask and i don't want crumbs on my face."

you laugh. "you're getting really good at this skincare thing."

"thanks to my angel." he says, he kisses your cheek three times. "i love you so much."

"i love you, too, baby." you say, your hand in his curls. "i can do it anytime you want."

"good, because i don't think i can go on without this anymore." he says like it's so obvious. "now, i remember i was promised kisses."

you settle down on his lap. "i don't wanna ruin your lip mask."

"it's not ruining, babe." he disagrees. "i'm willingly sharing my lip mask with you."

you laugh until your chest hurts.

[teaboot]

Forgive me if you’ve already answered something similar but how do you deal with crushing guilt when you did fuck up but there’s not really anything you can do to like make amends or you’ve already done anything you could and still feel guilty?

Like I know the guilt isn’t productive at all, if anything it’s just paralyzing me, and mentally beating myself up over it isn’t actually helping anyone. But I don’t know where to go from there. Idk how to actually forgive myself, or at least be able to move on

CW FOR SELF HARM

Okay, so this is something I've had to work through for a very long time myself, and there's a few different strategies that I've used to cope and process with varying levels of success.

What I used to do was handle the "I've ruined everything and hurt people and am never going to be forgiven" feeling by hurting myself in a number of creative and stupid ways, from physical hurt (Everything you'd expect) to mental hurt (wallowing, speaking badly of myself, going over the bad thing over and over again in my head) to passive hurt (neglecting my health, not eating properly, failing to pursue good living conditions, letting others hurt me, deliberately wandering into risky situations) and despite any short-term relief or peace I got, none of it ultimately fixed anything.

At the end of the day, making myself suffer as retribution or apology didn't fix the thing I'd done and didn't make the guilt go away, and all it gave me was an additional sense of shame and isolation because now not only was I a garbage person, I was a garbage person with something to hide from my loved ones. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.

The stuff that DID help was harder and is going to sound stupid because *I thought it was stupid* until it worked for me.

First: Learn the difference between GUILT and SHAME.

GUILT is how you feel about your choices.

SHAME is how you feel about yourself.

"I was late to a date again, that was inconsiderate": GUILT. The issue can be resolved by analyzing the reason behind the action and planning steps to avoid repeating it in the future. Guilt is productive because it motivates us to improve our choices. Once you've corrected the behaviour, it's over.

A"I was late to a date again, I'm inconsiderate": SHAME. The issue can be resolved by asking ourselves:

What negative thing to I believe about myself?

What other experiences support this belief? What evidence do I have that the bad thing is true?

Do those previous experiences have anything in common? Where they actually proof of a personal lack, or did someone just tell me they were? Were my choices and actions understandable? Did I have a reason? Was I trying to hurt others, or was it a mistake, accident, or learning experience? Have I grown from that experience?

Can I forgive myself for the past? What do I need to do to forgive myself for those past events? Was I really at fault at all, or was it out of my control?

Accept that.

Your present traumas and shames often have roots in beliefs you had about yourself before the new shameful thing occurred. When you dig into resolving the issues that led to today, you can use those conclusions to work through tomorrow. This is something I learned in cognitive behavioral therapy.

There are a number of ways of unpacking these questions, but as I felt I was deliberately avoiding my thoughts and feelings, I chose to jump into them directly, and found it to be effective.

You can write things down, talk to someone, paint something, draw something, whatever. Whatever at all works for you.

My solutions was to find a comfortable place on the floor, sit down, close my eyes, and do box-breathing (in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4) while deliberately thinking about every upsetting memory attached to a specific bad belief that I could recall until I had nothing left to go over.

Judge and jury. Was I a bad person, or did I make a mistake? Did I have malicious intentions, or did someone accuse me of malicious intentions? Am I bad, or have I been conditioned to believe I'm bad? And at the end of it all, am I capable of better? Do I want to be better? And would a truly bad person care?

It was more emotional than I expected the first few times. Cried a lot, actually. But if I can liken it to a common feeling, it was like getting out of a very thorough shower and realizing you didn't know how dirty you were before.

The process sucks ass, no lie, but it's worth it. Like draining pus from a gnarly wound to get it healed up properly.

I'm not an expert, of course, but life has gotten better since I started. I'm better at forgiving myself, at least.

Also: Some people will never forgive others even for tiny things. Sometimes once you've done your best, you've just gotta say "fuck 'em". C'est la vie, mon amie.

Good luck, yeah?

♡

[anadiasmount]

https://www.tumblr.com/anadiasmount/766146994146295808/could-you-write-something-about-jude-realising

I loved the only jude pov idea so could you write something about jude telling his (and/or your) parents that he wants to marry you and he’s been thinking about it for a while and that he’s convinced you’re the love of his life and he will do anything he can to prove it to you every single day

this might be a little rough but hubby jude has my heart… 😕😕

“here’s your morning juice and vitamins, don’t forget we have a dinner tonight,” you half understood jude as he spoke quickly, he was late for training like usual, but he never left without saying goodbye. whether you were awake or not, a kiss on your cheek and he was gone for the day. though today seemed different, felt different but you brushed it off.

jude was running late to his appointment, he had no training today but you didn’t have to know that. he went to a small yet very popular jewelry store in downtown madrid, where he had picked out your dream engagement ring. he needed your friends help and they were more than willing to make that trip and helping out a nervous jude.

the ring was set to pick up, and he would ask for your parents blessing tonight when you visited them. you were oblivious, they were oblivious. only your friends and him knew about this. yet all he wanted was the scream that he was closer to marrying you. he had no doubt that you’d say yes. jude knew you wanted to get married, with him. you had drunkenly confessed after a night out and reminded him weeks later when you said your first “i love you’s”.

so jude was ready. you were ready.

you had graduated and landed your dream job. he considered you as his wife already. you knew him from the back of your hand but with jude, he wouldn’t fail to answer any questions related to you. whether it was from your favorite foods, to a movie, to a makeup product, to a favorite memory, he knew all of you. inside and out.

your friends had gasped and covered their mouth, eyes tearing up when jude showed them the ring. they all were in awe, jude especially since it was getting real for him. he couldn’t deny that feeling in his chest, getting choked up with his own emotions, knowing you were his forever home. the only home he wanted to be in, in this life and the other. “it’s absolutely gorgeous jude!” one of you friends reclaimed.

“our y/n is going to love it!” replied your other friend to while jude let out a breath of fresh air. “when do you plan to pop the question?” they asked, “after international break, we have a couple days together and i want to take her on a small getaway. but i want to get her parents blessings first, which we’re doing today because we’re going over,” jude nodded, hearing them let out a small squeal of excitement.

“look mom…” jude whispered, his dad sitting down next to her as jude pulled out the red velvet box from his back pocket. “is this what i think it is?” she gushed, opening the box gently, her hand resting against her chest as she admired the ring. “having this around me is so tempting you don’t understand. all i want is to ask her to marry me,” jude smiled, immediately thinking of you.

“i don’t even have to ask if you’re sure, your eyes and smile say it all,” his dad said making jude look at them. “we’re happy for you both. there’s no doubt in my mind that the two of you are made for each other. while marriage can be hard, it’s also the most beautiful thing that’s ever been created. she’s your soulmate, protect that forever,” his dad continued, standing up to give jude a hug. where he couldn’t contain his emotions.

“thank you guys for everything…”

on the way back, jude had picked up a few groceries and snacks for you. along with his bouquet of flowers since it was time to get a refresh. making sure to stock up on waters and different beverages as well.

after a while jude had returned back to your house, immediately looking to see where you were. “y/n? darling?” he asked, “in here! i’m in the study!” you yelled, meeting jude by the doorway where he engulfed you into his arms. “god i missed you so so much,” he murmured, smelling the sweet scent of your hair. you tippy toed and pressed a small kiss on his lips.

jude laughed at the small state you were in, hair in rollers, and he was guessing setting powder beneath your eyes and nose. “i’m almost done getting ready, i just had to quickly take a call because they needed me to give authorization for something. do you know what you’ll wear?” you say as you walked into the kitchen and drank water.

“yes i do…” jude couldn’t stop staring at you, that look he gave you full of love and respect. “i know i look funny but it’s just the powder,” you laughed, “stop! why are you looking at me like that!” you exclaimed walking over to where he sat. “because i love you, but you do look a little goofy with this on,” he joked feeling the playful slap on his shoulder. “go get ready! now before we catch traffic!” you said seriously while jude just nodded.

while jude anticipated to be nervous, he wasn’t. the sense of comfort yet worth filling his head. this was a huge deal, asking your parents for their blessing. but jude could radiate the answer from a mile away. the love you had together was so traditional and old school, the two of you loved that. it didn’t exist much these days, but the love you and jude had made everyone around you feel alive and happy.

as the night filled with laughs and talks of the past, you had taken over and helped your sister in law with the babies. jude knew this was his chance so he booked it, watching as you disappeared and went upstairs. “could i talk to you both?” he whispered seeing how their faces pulled into confusion but followed him either way. the three of them sat in the living room, jude pulling the ring back out from his back pocket.

“i’ve never in my life been so tempted to risk it all for a person. y/n is my person. my happiness. my home. my all in this world. i never knew if i’d find that. but with y/n it was a quick and undeniable feeling. i feel like i’ve known her my whole life. she knows me more than i know myself, and i knew she’s the one for me since she’s stood and sacrificed for our love…” jude said, your mother letting out a few tears as she looked at the ring.

“it would be an honor if i could have your blessing to marry your daughter. i promise you now i will take care of her forever. not just for marriage, but it’s because im giving you my word. because i love her with my entire heart…” jude asked shakily, knowing how much this meant to you and him. knowing this is just a step closer to finally having your happy ever after.

“you have my blessing jude,” your dad said, standing up and hugging him deeply, knowing there’s no hesitation because jude has never given them the reason. that he knows jude isn’t lying and will stick to his word. “yes you can marry my little girl,” your mother gushed going to jude and hugging him tighter, the two men laughing. “you did an amazing selection with the ring… she will love it,” she said.

“i’m willing to prove whatever it takes to show her how much i love her…” jude sealed. “what are you all doing without me,” you came back with a huge smile, joining your parents and boyfriend.

“i want in on whatever it is…”

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook

𝐒𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐬 𝐓𝐨 𝐋♡𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 [Tension]

You're both not who you pretend to be.

Tags/Warnings: Fuckboy!Jungkook, Fuckgirl!Reader, Angst, Misunderstandings, Friends/Enemies to lovers, Very suggestive, adult, hurt and comfort, smut, did I mention angst? It's worth it in the end tho promise,

Length: 4k Words + Next Chapter preview

There is no taglist for this fic.

-> Masterlist

A/N: Idk anymore I'll write what I want.

♥━━━━━━━━━━•.♡.•━━━━━━━━━━━━♥

While Jungkook isn’t pushy, he definitely isn’t letting go either.

Any chance he can get at spending time with you, he takes- just like now, as he’s kneeled on the floor, currently taking apart some of your furniture for you since you’ve cut one of your hands by accident a day prior, Yoongi having spilled the info of that accident to Jungkook. You’ve made it very clear that you take this as an act of betrayal- but Yoongi didn’t seem to really care.

“I don’t think you can really put this up another time.” Jungkook mentions, tapping the hinge connecting to one of the doors of the small dresser with the screwdriver. “It’s been glued a couple of times already. I don’t think it’s gonna survive another try.” He tells you, and you just shrug.

“Well, then we’ll throw it away.” You just sigh, having watched him from the sidelines ever since he started working.

Jungkook suddenly moves, back of his shirt a bit damp from having worked admittedly pretty hard to take down your bigger furniture earlier. He sits in front of you, legs crossed, looking right at you- and you instantly cross your arms defensively.

You know what he wants. You won’t give it to him. “talk to me.” He says again, and it’s not really a demand, but more so him pleading. Asking.

Trying to get through.

“Nothing to say.” You shrug, and his eyes narrow at that, before he gets up and takes a hammer, offering it to you. “what?”

“Smash it.” He nods towards the small dresser, and you hesitate. “Come on.”

“I can’t.” You deny, pointing at your bandaged hand, and he nods, taking the hammer from you.

“Right. I’ll do it then.” He admits, arm lifting to gain momentum to deliver the hit to the side of the dresser, when you call out in panic, having gotten up as if to protect it-

But jungkook clearly never intended to really do it, instead just looking at you now with an unreadable expression.

“Listen.” He gets down again, setting the tool aside as he watches you look at the wooden furniture, decorated with faded stickers. “just.. at least tell me if you’re in any trouble?” He asks, and you look up at that. “do you owe someone money? Or is someone stalking you?” He worries, and you shake your head.

“No- God no, none of that.” You deny, and he sighs.

“see, that I believe.” He tells you. “your whole body language, the way you answered- that’s believable. But everything else is bullshit.” He denies you, and you get up at that, walking out of the room. “and now you’re running away- again!” He calls out defeated, getting up himself to follow you into your bathroom where you put all your skincare products into a box. “I’m trying hard to figure out what the fuck I did. Am I being too pushy?”

“No..” you mumble, putting more stuff away, avoiding interaction with him as much as you can. But much to your dismay, he’s got the audacity to take items out again. “Jungkook-“

“are you scared you’ll hurt my feelings if you shut me down?” He asks, and you roll your eyes. “stop that and talk to me-“

“as if anything could scratch your ego!” You tell him, feeling too pushed into a corner right now. “There’s nothing anyone could say that would ever really hurt a guy like you.!” You huff, not noticing the way he froze up for a good moment until a few seconds later when you’ve noticed him no longer reaching for anything.

“ouch.” He comments. “care to explain what you mean by that?” He asks, arms crossed.

“You’ve got like, everything!” You rant, folding your towels, avoiding eye contact. “you’re hot, you got the looks, great at flirting, you-..” you cut yourself off before you can ramble too much, accidentally revealing anything that could blow your cover, but it’s clear from his next words that his suspicions have been awoken.

“if I’m all of that, why not be with me?” he asks, watching you like a hawk now. “you’ve fucked Jimin, and stayed friends. So don’t come at me with that ‘Our friendship will be ruined’ bullshit.” He calls out, and you swallow.

He’s onto you.

“Thats different.” You say, avoiding the topic now, pushing past him out of the bathroom, but he doesn’t let go.

Following you around into the kitchen, giving you no chance to escape or even somehow make up new excuses in your head as he suddenly speaks again.

“Because it didn’t happen?”

You’re frozen, standing in front of the opened fridge, staring right at a bottle of water and a pack of shredded cheese as you feel your blood cool down- and it’s not from the temperature inside the device. Not even the beeping of the big device telling you to close it to save energy wakes you out of that trance, as your thoughts go wild.

How does he know?

How much does he know?

Does he even know at all or is he just bluffing?

“I knew you’d never fuck him.” He chuckles, closing the door for you, arm over your shoulder slowly retreating as he sits down at your small kitchen table, waiting for you to turn around. “and his story was always inconsistent. So was yours.” He explains how he caught the lie. “if you want to make shit up, at least agree on a Version to tell everyone.”

“so what?” You sigh, trying to keep up your act as you turn around- taken aback by the horribly soft look on his face, head leaning on his hand while his elbow rests on the table.

“Exactly. So what?” He asks you, visibly relaxing now that he’s got the confirmation he needed to know that what he’s been thinking. “But that’s not the only lie, is it?” He questions, and the way your eyes move away from his gives him an answer already. “Is that it? You lied and now you want to run away from it?” He questions, and you just let yourself go, sitting down on the floor in front of the fridge, defeated. You don’t care if you act like a child right now, it’s not like there’s any dignity left to cling to anyways.

You’re tired. You can’t keep this shit up anymore, you can’t deal with the stress of leaving even though you don’t want to, you can’t take the whole situation any longer.

“Yeah go on now. Laugh.” You mumble, hugging your knees. “close the door on your way out.”

“Now why would I do that?” He shakes his head as he sighs, moving to sit down in front of you again, on the floor, though he keeps some distance. “what made you... create this whole charade? Was it me?” he asks, visibly interested.

You shrug. You just want to vanish right now.

“I don’t.. it’s stupid.” You mumble, avoiding his gaze as you feel yourself begin to cry from the embarrassment.

“Hm yeah, kind of.” He admits. “how much of it was a lie? I mean, I have an idea, but I just.. would like for you to come clean yourself.” He shrugs, carefully tapping your knee with his finger, careful not to push you too far.

“everything.” You say. “I’ve.. the parties. And jimin. And everything else.”

“So you don't find me hot?” He teases, trying to lighten the mood a little, seeing you glare at him with watery eyes. “Hey, come on. Yeah it’s stupid, but we all did stupid shit sometimes.”

“Not as bad as me.” You deny. “I literally lied.. just to get your attention.” You say quietly, and he tries hard not to grin.

“Which is kind of cute, I have to admit..” He teases, but you don’t seem up for the joke. “But why did you think you had to make up that stuff?”

“Because.. You’re you. And I’m just.. an awkward virgin who acts a lot more confident than she is.” You say.

Jungkook falls quiet at that. While he knew to some extend that a lot of your stories were lies- mostly because the finer details didn’t add up or made any sense- he didn’t know how far exactly it went, so this info definitely changes some things.

“I’m sorry you.. fell for a fraud.” You mumble, and he shakes his head.

“I don’t think I fell for a fraud-“ he denies, “-because I never fell for any of that anyways.” He shakes his head. “I fell for the way you basically recite your dreams to me whenever something interesting happened in them. How you helped me find a good present for my mom’s birthday when I almost forgot it, even though you don’t even know her. Your laugh, your sense of humor, fuck, the way you greet me with a hug even when you’re pissed at me.” He sighs. “What made you think that sex was all I cared about?” He complains, and you feel even worse now.

“I just.. we don’t have anything in common.” You sniffle. “nothing. And I wanted you to like me so bad..” you confess, making him shake his head.

“we love Disney movies.” He responds. “we both love banana milk. We collect stickers. We like the same scents. We’re both dog people.” He gives as examples, before he runs a hand over his face. “so that’s it? That’s the big thing?” He asks, and you nod. “I mean.. yeah. This isn’t.. I hope you can understand me too here. I’m going to be a bit suspicious of stuff in the future until I know you’re not making stuff up again.” He says, and you look at him at that. “but that’s no reason to run away from me.”

“it is.” You deny. “I don’t.. I have a horrible crush on you.” You admit freely now, hiding your face in your knees. “I really like you.” You confess, and he moves closer at that, hands on the sides of your head gently forcing you to look at him.

“and that’s a bad thing?” He wonders, wiping your cheeks. “show me the real you. I’d love to fall for that instead.” He offers.

“There’s nothing to fall for.” You deny.

“Well, I’ll decide that for myself.”

♥━━━━━━━━━━•.♡.•━━━━━━━━━━━━♥

“Did you ever have your first kiss?” Jungkook asks randomly, hands shaping the pizza dough into the- somewhat- appropriate shape. Your a little hypnotized by the way his hands move, fingers digging into the soft dough to move it around, turn the outside corner in for the crust to later rise, having made it his mission to somehow figure out how to put cheese in the crust like your favorite delivery service. Suddenly though, one of the hands move, inked fingers snapping in front of your face. “Hey, I asked something.” He laughs, making you look at him.

“I- Oh, yeah.” You nod, before you shake your head. “what was the question?” You correct yourself, and he laughs more at that, shaking his head.

“I asked you if you’ve ever kissed anyone.” He repeats himself, moving to put the sauce on the bare dough now.

“I uh.. yeah. But it’s, I don’t know. Awkward.” You shrug. “not really my thing.” You admit, and he nods.

“Not really your thing, or, just had weird experiences?” He wonders, and you think for a bit.

Most of the time, you’ve been kissed, but you yourself have never kissed anyone. It was ever really.. asked if you wanted to be kissed- the moment had just been chosen by your partners back then, and it had put pressure on you to just go with it as to not make it awkward.

“I mean.. I’ve never made out or anything.” You admit. “and I never kissed anyone. I always got kissed.” You say.

“so you can ask for it at least, that’s good.” He nods to himself, before he notices you being quiet. “you.. did ask for it, right?” He questions with an oddly serious tone, and you shrug.

“the timing was always right I guess.” You answer. “I never asked, no. It just.. you know, when you’re being driven back home from a date, that’s when you kiss.” You tell him, and Jungkook shakes his head.

“No, hold on there, wait.” He denies. “They asked you though, right?” He questions, but you shake your head.

“Like I said when you-“ you start, but he shakes his head, hands on your shoulders now.

“No, none of that.” He presses. “You’re not obligated to do anything just because someone took you out. You’ll never be obligated to do me a favour just because I take you out. Got it?” He asks, and you nod, a bit taken aback by how serious he is. “if you don’t want something, you’ll have to say it. Please, promise me that.”

You nod. “I promise.” You say, and he sighs, relieved, before he brushes off the faint marks of flour on your skin.

“I’m sorry, it’s just..” he shakes his head as he resumes his task of preparing food for you both. “..nothing. Anyways- never kissed then, got it.” He nods to himself. “so we’re basically starting from scratch.”

“we’re?” You ask, unsure as he nods.

“We’re. I know of your secret, I know you like me, I like you too- so, what’s speaking against it?” He wonders, before he looks at you. “Do you want to be with me?” He asks, and you think for a second, before you nod.

“I’m just-” You start, but he just laughs.

“Not what I thought you were, I know. That’s why I’m saying we’re starting from scratch- I'm basically going to get to know you for real this time.” He tells you, putting the toppings onto the pizza that you both agreed on earlier.

He’s taking this so lightly. Like it’s nothing.

“I’ll still leave.” You remind him however, but again, he only nods to himself, sprinkling the shredded cheese onto the pizza he’s preparing. “And you’ll.. If we’re like.. Together, you can’t hook up with anyone else anymore.” You say, and he sighs, moving the food into the oven.

“I don’t know when that thought grew in your head, but let me get something straight.” He starts, setting up the right temperature and time before he braces himself against the kitchen counter you sit on, face turned towards you with a serious expression. “Yes, I enjoy sex. Yes, I have had it a lot.” He explains. “No, it’s not everything I always think about. Neither is it something that I absolutely need every day of the week.” Jungkook tells you, and you feel a bit guilty with the way he phrases it. “What made you think that’s all I’d want from you?” He wonders.

“Nothing, just..” You shrug, looking down at your knees. “I guess it was the easy way.”

“Let’s just start over then. Entirely.” He proposes. “I’ll get to know you- and you’ll get to know me. Because its pretty obvious you don’t know me either.” Jungkook says, and you nod, a bit ashamed.

“Sorry.” You apologize, but he instead puts a handful of shredded cheese in his mouth, before he offers it to you-

Laughing when you stuff your cheeks with it as well, finally breaking free.

♥━━━━━━━━━━•.♡.•━━━━━━━━━━━━♥

“what’s wrong, hm?” Jungkook says, entering your apartment after you’d texted him that you didn’t feel good.

He first thought it might be sickness- but from your tearful eyes and the blanket around your shoulders, he now realizes that you’re not feeling mentally good. And he’s happy that you reached out for him, that you finally jumped over your shadow and sought him out, proving that you seemed to be truthful in trying to be more honest with him.

“I don’t want to leave.” You say, crying again as you sit down on your living room couch, the only thing still left untouched.

“Oh baby..” jungkook laughs a little to himself, sitting down next to you to run a comforting hand over your back. “didn’t you say that you could just work for the office here?” He asks, and you nod, though shrug too.

“they’ll be mad when I say.. that I wanna switch back again..” you mumble, hiccuping still here and there. It breaks his heart a little to see you this upset- but he also knows that you dug yourself into this mess all by yourself. This is just the consequences of your own actions.

“Well, that’s going to just be the punishment you’ll have to take.” Jungkook tells you, and while his tone is teasing, his gaze is still kind and comforting. “I’ll have your back too- you can stay at my place until you found something else, since you’re already supposed to be out of this apartment by next week.” He reminds you, and you sigh.

“But I’ll impose, don’t tell me I won’t.” You argue looking at your feet. “I’ll just have to go through with it-“.

“I wouldnt be offering my place if i wasnt comfortable with the idea of you around all the time.” He playfully denies. “maybe try and not run around in your underwear and I’ll keep my hands to myself too as a bonus.” He flirts, and you can’t help but giggle a bit at that.

“Maybe I don’t want you keeping them to yourself?” You ask, making him grin a little.

“Careful there. Don’t start something you can’t finish.” He teases, before he moves into a more comfortable position, pulling you closer. “Well figure this all out. You’re not alone, alright?” He tells you, and you nod.

“Jungkook?” You wonder randomly after a good moment of just silence, and he hums as a reply before you talk again. “how do you ask for.. a kiss? Or like.. I don’t know. Forget it.” You mumble more or less to yourself making him chuckle.

“No can do. Now you’ve got my attention.” He teases a little, hands on your arms running up and down in reassurance. “You want a kiss right now?” He wonders, and you shrug.

“I’ve never.. like, made out with anyone.” You admit.

“And you want to do that with me?” He wonders, making you nod- before you shake your head.

“Yes? I don’t know.” You admit. “I don’t know what it’s like, so I don’t know if I like it. What if I don’t?” You worry, and he sighs.

“Then you don’t. Simple as that.” He shrugs. “What if you just gave me a kiss? See how that feels?” He offers as an option, and you bite at your lips for a second, before you move around to face him, eyes moving from his lips to his eyes for a moment.

“right now?” You wonder, and he smiles.

“If you want to.” He answers, still relaxed as ever. It reassures you, the fact that he’s so at ease- you don’t want to fuck this up, and you also don’t want to seem dumber than you actually are. His experience is a little intimidating to you- what if he thinks you’re lame? You most likely are. Anything you both will do will be boring to him, you realize. “hey- talk to me.” He snaps you out of your thoughts, and you pull your attention back to the situation at hand. “what’s worrying you?” He wonders.

“I want to impress you I guess.” You huff impatiently. “I want you to be like, ‘wow’ at something I do but I don’t have any idea what to do to like, get that reaction from you.” You explain, making his eyes soften.

“What makes you think that you need to impress me?” He wonders, and you look down at his chest.

“I don’t.. Taehyung once said that.. you know, you get bored easily..” you mumble, and Jungkook’s eyes widen for a second, before he clocks his tongue.

“you know, I envy you a little bit because of that.” He tells you, and that answer catches you off guard. “once you.. have a lot of sex, and have kissed a lot of people, it all loses its spark, you know?” He explains almost melancholic. “it’s like a book. You can only read it for the first time once- after that, you’re always prepared for what’s to come. It’s no longer new. Nothing exciting. Only.. maybe comforting at best.” He shrugs. “I wish I could have those early experiences back. That spark.” He admits. “i don’t want or need to be impressed. Not like this, at least.” He offers you. “I just.. want something permanent. Something real.”

“Why.. havent you been in a relationship before then?” You wonder. “if you want something permanent.”

“because no one wants that with someone like me.” He explains to you. “I’m exciting. I’m wild, and adventure. But I’m nothing someone wants to stay with.” He shrugs.

You frown at that. What?

Suddenly, a sentence jimin said years ago slaps you right in the face, full force.

“He falls in love easily, with everything around him. I wish the world around him would do the same for once.”

“Jungkook?” You ask, and he nods, looking at you. “can I kiss you?” You wonder, and he nods.

“Sure.” He teases, and you feel like it’s more of a defensive mechanism at this point. “impress me.” He jokes.

But he quickly seems caught completely off guard when your hands hold his face, before you put your lips on his. He’s truly surprised in that moment- because this is, indeed, new. He’s never been kissed like this before- with so much gentle care and attention, with such warmth that he feels like he’s actually melting right into your hands. It’s one kiss, another, and a third- and his eyes are suddenly only half-open, all words lost as he stares you down. You’re not sure if that was something he liked- but the moment his own hand finds your cheek as well makes you wonder if you really did it right.

“can I kiss you?” He asks quietly, almost a whisper, and you’ve never heard him so fragile before. But you nod- and the moment you do, his lips are on yours- a lot more confident in himself, but slow, soft. He���s taking the lead, easily so- but it’s not overbearing, instead simply an act of adoration. “You know-“ he laughs, out of breath even though this wasn’t ‘steamy’ or heated at all. “-I was joking when I asked you to impress me.”

“You dont have to lie.” You giggle, but he shakes his head, pecking your lips once, twice, again just for good measure.

“I’m not.” He denies. “this is the first time I’ve been kissed like that.”

“like what?” You wonder, unable to look away from that unique expression he’s got on his face.

“like someone's in love with me.”

♥━━━━━━━━━━•.♡.•━━━━━━━━━━━━♥

NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW:

“I’m sorry, but I won’t just let myself be some body you can practice on so you can know how to drive and move on to someone that interests you more.” He barks out, agitated, and you’re completely caught off guard, staring him down in disbelief. “I won’t let myself be used like that..” again, he wants to say, but he can’t bring himself to expose this like that. He doesn’t feel safe, he feels like a cornered animal, and the worst part is that he knows he doesn’t even need to say it, because you know what he’s hinting at.

“I’m sorry.” You say, and again, there it is; this stinging pain in his chest at your gentle tone, trying to soothe his wounds with salt it seems like.

“Why are you sorry?” He wants to know, tone dangerously low as he expects you to reveal your intentions to him, at last. “ What are you sorry for?” He wants to know, and you just shake your head.

“I’m sorry I never really looked at you properly.” You admit, and he frowns again, once more left without any control over the situation. “I’m sorry I never noticed you were hurting.” You tell him, and he swallows hard, turning away from you. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.” You say, defeated, and he slaps his kitchen counter in agony, turned away from you.

“Stop apologizing.!” He gets out between clenched teeth, agitated over the fact that he’s got no grasp of the situation.

“I don’t know what else to do.” You say, the soft whine in your tone making it clear that you’re hurting just as much as he is. “I’m.. I’ll stay with jimin-“ you offer, thinking he might want space- but he just groans out, and holds his head, marbled kitchen counter doing nothing to cool his temperature.

“I don’t want you to leave-!” He almost growls, before he braces himself against the counter top, sighing loudly. “fuck.. That’s the last thing I want, ’m just- I’m the one who should say sorry.” He says. “I just.. God I’m so fucked up..” he laughs bitterly, and you do whatever you feel like might help him- leaning against his back, arms wrapped around him. And for a moment, as he lets himself be held for just a moment, you can feel him shake a little under the weight of his own emotions finally seeping through the cracks-

And you’re determined to put his pieces back together, however long it’ll take you.

[cassandraclare]

*sighs a bit* Okay. Guys. I have been asked this question a lot, and answered it a lot. I don't know how to give a better answer — Dru & Ty&Kit share significance as main characters — so I guess I'll talk a little about comparison and structures.

First, all series have different structures. I don't think it's super useful or predictive to try to map an upcoming, unknown book series onto an existing series. In TLH the main character was Cordelia, everyone else was secondary to her, and people's roles and the significance of them altered from book to book. It was a big ensemble cast and they mostly stayed put in London especially in book 1.

TWP focuses on a smaller group of people. It also has a very different structure. In book one, Dru is not with Kit and Ty. They are in different places, both of which have their own stories that are significant to the plot. There is no way to see Place One without following Dru. There is no way to see Place Two without following Kit and Ty.

I know that TWP is a long way off. I know there are people who are very angry with me that there's such a gap, but there isn't anything currently I can do about that, or about the fact that I don't yet have the schedule for my upcoming books. That rests in the hands of several different publishers who must coordinate the release times and production schedules for four different series. I am not withholding any information about when these books come out. I simply don't know it yet.

I understand that TWP being a long way off makes for anxiety, and that those who are worried Kit and Ty will somehow be secondary are looking for tiny clues in microscopic details — micro-reading the of placement of the word "and" in my newsletter and such — that are meaningless, but I get that it all comes from anxiety. (FTR, those worried Dru will be secondary are equally anxious.)

I think there is only so much I can say. Because there's a big gap between TLH and TWP everything I do say or every image or hint about it is freighted with a weight of assumption it can't really support. Anxiety is always going to trump reassurance. And truly, at the end of the day, if you only care about Kit and Ty and find the idea of a Dru story tiresome, you will feel like they got shafted because when you absolutely hate a plotline, you will always feel like it's taking up way too much space. That's just how our minds work.

I've been doing this long enough that I know no book can survive a hostile reading. I know that Book Three of a trilogy is the one people hate until they don't. (When Clockwork Princess came out people hated it so much I considered quitting writing!) I know that it's wonderful to love a character but can also be a problem for people when I put out books that aren't about that particular character or dynamic. I know that for a lot of people, Sword Catcher and Ragpicker King are just tiresome things that have no business on my schedule because they're not Shadowhunter books. And I get it. But I also have to block it out, because I've been writing a long time, and I've gotten to a point where I know that I have to write the thing I want to be writing, because if I don't, if I sit down and try to force myself to write something I'm not feeling like writing at that time, I'll be making myself physically and mentally sick. And that's no good for anyone, really.

I suppose the positive thing is that, while this would not have been true five years ago, I am at the place where I want very much to be writing Wicked Powers. I missed these characters and am glad to be back with them. I consider this a story in which there are three main characters. And that is all I can say right now because it's all that I know.

(And this was much more of a general response to a lot of things than a specific response to this question, but I did feel like it was stuff that I needed to say. Creators are at the end of the day, just people. Sometimes we are powerless to reassure. Sometimes we are tired. Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we try things and they don't work. Sometimes we can't explain to you what our story is going to make you feel, because only reading it is going to tell you that. This may be one of those times.)

[velvetures]

Doesn't Crease

A/N: Thanks to everyone supporting this new blog I've started working on. I'm really happy to see so many new people and get the chance to write some more. <3 Summary: You're just trying to keep Ghost from losing his eyesight from being purposefully ignorant. T/W: none :)

Looking out for the guys of the 141 typically meant doing things for them that most regular people wouldn’t even think twice about doing on a normal day. They often took care of weapons and missions far better than themselves, and it often resulted in you finding out that they appropriated objects or products for uses that had not a damn thing to do with what they used them for. And the most frustrating of all of them came from how you came to learn about Ghost’s eye paint, and how it stayed on so well for days on end.

You’d been in the Middle East for nearing five days and after being holed up in a cave just on the outskirts of a little town, a safe house was cleared for your use until the end of the mission. It was so damn good to have a shower and put on some clean clothes that you couldn’t have been in better spirits as you walked out of the bathroom into the living area and noticed Ghost sitting in a change of clothes and a much less dirty mask with his face half-painted in that unidentified stuff he used. You watched with an admitted interest as he dipped a couple fingers into a small plastic container that held the substance before smearing more over the bridge of his nose towards the uncovered left side of his face.

“Quit starin’.” he muttered lowly, still very focused on the task at hand and getting the stuff smeared over his eyelid and up to the waterline of his eye.

You didn’t particularly care to listen and just sat down across from him and pulled your bare feet up into the chair and watched just as raptly. It wasn’t the first time you’d seen him do this for sure, yet every time filled you with a sense of… excitement. Like you were watching the man under the mask slowly transform himself into The Ghost right in front of you. Certainly a childish kind of thrill, yet you never missed the chance to watch Ghost do anything, really. Curiosity always got the better of you when it came to the mysterious Lieutenant, and that black stuff he smeared on his face wasn’t exempt from your silent questioning.

“Will you leave me the fuck alone?” He growled, steely eyes darting right to you with a harsh edge to his posture.

Ghost always had a prickly attitude about everything, good or bad. Fuck, you could tell him that he’d won a million dollars and he’s just grumble about how paying taxes on it would be a bitch. Never seeing any bright side of a situation. But that also didn’t come as much of a shock. The Lieutenant always put you in mind of this black shadow just floating around wherever he pleased or was needed for the time being.

You’d made jokes to Gaz and Soap about his sandpaper-like disposition and shitty attitude before, oftentimes enjoying a short moment before sleeping -without Ghost present of course- where you mimicked him for entertainment. It always got you a bunch of laughs considering the stark contrast between your own character and the Lieutenant’s. You didn’t mean anything negative by it, Ghost just made it too easy to poke quiet fun at him every so often.

“If you answer a question, I’ll leave.” You bargain quickly, already knowing exactly what you wanted to ask about. Ghost just growled in frustration, leaning his forearms on his massive thighs and looked pointedly at you, silently demanding you got on with your foolishness so that you could go off somewhere else and be a pain in the ass for someone else.

“What is that?” You nod to the small container holding his eye paint.

“I mean… the stuff you put on your face?” Unconsciously the question comes out of your mouth a tad bit nervously and hesitant. Not that you had the slightest fear of Ghost being upset with you in a dangerous way, but more so that you were prying into something that he felt was too personal to discuss. That kind of assumption wouldn’t have typically been far off with how private he liked to keep things.

Contrary to his typical behavior Ghost gave a small huff of something close to laughter. Apparently amused and puts the lid on the small jar to toss it across the room for you to get a better look at it. Unscrewing the lid of the small plastic travel-jar, you were met with a very familiar smell. And it wasn’t the kind of cosmetic fragrance you were expecting it come from it.

“Gun grease,” Ghost answered quite offhandedly, acting as if that wasn’t a totally ridiculous idea. Speechless and naively shocked, you look up at the Lieutenant with wide eyes and your mouth a little agape. The look on your face only amuses Ghost that much more and a little flash of it shows in his dark eyes.

“You put slide action lubricant on your face!?” You almost hiss the words out, disbelieving and in total awe of how Ghost hadn’t lost his eyesight, got chemical burns, or some other type of injury from doing something so unheard of.

Ghost shrugs noncommittally. “I prefer Hoppes. Theirs lasts the longest.” He said standing up and stretching his neck side to side.

“You have a fucking brand preference?” Your mouth really does drop open now.

“Brand and color.” He replies smugly, striding over towards you and grabbing the small container and opening it back up to dab more over his eyebrow which hadn’t been fully covered earlier.

“Hoppes…” You repeat the word, thinking for a moment. “You mean that kind that comes in the syringe?” The image of the component and how it hangs in a little package in the gun care and cleaning aisle at every store. you’ve ever been to.

“One and the same.”

Your eyes roll skyward and you can’t help but groan out. “Good god…”

For weeks after that conversation, your mind revisits the thought of Ghost using a ten-dollar tube of gun grease not only as weapon maintenance but also as a skincare product. Surely he’s not stupid enough to think that it’s not harmful to his skin right? He’s got to know that when it gets into his eyes it can cause damage? It comes to a breaking point when you go into a local drugstore for a prescription painkiller for a recent on-mission injury and notice an End Cap display showing a new line of gel eyeliners that have come out boasting 48hr smudge resistance and an almost instant, comfortable dry-down.

You stop dead in your tracks, almost totally forgetting about needing to pick up the week-supply of pills for yourself as you gather up every single one of them in the color black and shove them at the woman working behind the register. The look she gives you is one of masked concern, but you just hand over the cash for it and your prescription before heading back out to your car with a sense of hopefulness that your Lieutenant won’t lose his eyesight prematurely if you can help it.

The following day you’re to report in to HQ for a meeting with the team for a pre-op report review, and have the chance to give Ghost your… gift of sorts. You’re walking out of the meeting, purposefully walking beside of him instead of talking to Soap or asking Price some lingering questions you have so your opportunity doesn’t slip by you.

“Hey, uh do you have a minute?” You nudge his arm with your elbow, looking up at him out of the corner of your eye. Ghost’s eyebrows raise, and he silently gives a stiff nod, not caring to elaborate any further.

Instead of peeling off towards his office down the corridor to your left, he keeps following you silently until you get out to your vehicle parked outside. Although he doesn’t say anything about it, you can feel his questioning look burning into your back as you unlock the doors and reach into your passenger seat for a small black bag that rattles with the sound of thick glass knocking up against each other inside. Even when handing it to him, he’s reluctant to uncross his arms and accept the bag from you because he’s much more comfortable just staring at you coldly. No doubt expecting you to do what you’re best at and waste his time for something inconsequential.

“Here… I really don’t want you going blind anytime soon.” You give him a half smile, dropping the gift bag in his hand. With that, you give a small goodbye and go around to the other side of your vehicle, and drive off before the Lieutenant can open the bag or question you about what the fuck you’d just given him thirty small jars of.

Once home you go about getting some clothes washed for the upcoming mission and take some time to make a call to your neighbor to ask if she can look in on your home and plants while you’re away and pay the water and electric bill since you’ll be out of town when the bills will be mailed. You’re halfway through telling the older woman that you’ll go ahead and write a couple of checks that she can take to the bank with her own bills when you feel your phone vibrate against your ear.

Your elderly neighbor gives her happy acceptance of helping out and gets off the phone so she doesn’t miss her nightly show while you check the notification you’ve received. It’s from a number not saved, but it’s not spam text or one of those random kinds of messages you get when someone uses the wrong number. It’s short, sweet, and to the point. The verbiage and almost awkward tone give you all the information you need to know that the Lieutenant had not only opened his gift but asked someone for your private cell so that he could give his… thoughts.

-Dries down a lot quicker. I like that it doesn’t crease.-

Reblogs & Comments are Appreciated <3

[thesiltverses]

Hello! Writing first to thank you for such an extraordinary creation - as a piece of writing and even more so in performance. Every episode manages to somehow build on and outdo the last; you navigated that transition from a smaller scale story of grisly mysteries and personal crises of faith to a grand scale of war, revolution and political satire with absolute aplomb, and never lost that throughline of exceptional characterisation and sharp writing, always steering to the most interesting conflicts. You are always very humble in your public comments, but I hope you allow yourself a little pride, because this is absolutely top notch stuff.

I was struck by Paige's final words, that she hopes what they left would be found 'flawed, inadequate, yearning'. As the show went on, I was surprised - in a good way - that the show's politics gradually crystalised into a full-on nihilist anarchism, something perhaps even along the lines of Monsieur Dupont. (Muna used the 'a' word in one of the Q&As but it was pretty evident even before that). Taking these gods as a metaphor for ideologies and social systems, the scope of it becomes pretty universal - and unsparing. And, equally, hard to answer.

I wondered when the Many Below/Wound Tree was introduced what answers they would find: what political movement could truly resist cooption or becoming its own horrible self-sustaining egregore. And in the end the answer you express I suppose is a negative one: that even Paige's god of victims is a tool, one that must eventually be discarded to go into some unknown place beyond it all (to walk away from Omelas), towards something that narrative fiction - as a form of the 'endless words' that are derided so much in the third season - can no longer address. Which I respect - to pose the question is vital, even if the tools can't reach any answers if they even exist.

I think this struggle exists in many stories that address themes of making a break from the rapacious society that created them (and take it seriously) - your Baru Cormorants and Mononoke-himes. We can describe the problem vividly, but since we do not have a counterexample to hand, any story we tell about ~what is to be done~ and what it will look like when it is feels like it will be just as hollow as the spins and angles and parasitic fantasies that so many characters advance in the Silt Verses. (How could there possibly be a time where it finally works out, after we have seen all this? But then, what are we living for?)

To try to make this a question and not a ramble, I wanted to ask - what do you see as the role of fiction in addressing the horrible machinery of this world? Is it enough to pose the question particularly sharply, skewer the bad and inadequate answers, and leave the readers/listeners to figure out how to make the killing of gods concrete? How do we punch through the bounds of it all being Content, another product to be bought and sold? What does it mean to sit here and fantasise about people making that revolutionary break when there is no revolution to be had?

I don't know what answer I'm hoping for here, but given the themes of the show, I feel like this must be a kind of thing you've thought about, and probably have a far more developed line of thought than I do. And if this is a bit too much to drop in your inbox on a Saturday morning, I will say again thank you for writing this story and all the actors for making it so strikingly concrete - it truly means a lot, and I will treasure it.

Hi, and thank you for listening and for a beautifully written and thoughtful ask! ('Horrible machinery of the world' stopped me dead in my tracks.) And I am very proud, genuinely.

I don't have a good enough answer to your questions, and for me a lot of TSV is very much about trying to figure those answers out, but let me try and sum up my perspective bit by bit.

Is it enough for fiction to pose the question, without also proposing the answer?

I don't think it's enough for fiction as a collective body of work.

I'd argue there's probably a tendency towards open-endedness and irresolution in these individual narratives simply because it feels like a more honest acknowledgement that in real life, the foe has yet to take a real body blow and will not go down easy; that the foe, in fact, is the marketplace for the work itself and ironically profits from the popularity of stories with easy heroic victories over villains who represent capitalism. That these stories inevitably become a pleasant consumable that serves our complacency within the belly of the beast, a kind of daily tonic to reassure us that good always triumphs and regular people always come out on top.

I also think that the sheer scale and scope of the topic creates its own challenges; you probably can't engage thoroughly enough with both the dystopian question and your ideas for a utopian answer all in a single story, without ultimately turning the latter into that false reassurance, a quick handwave of a happy ending.

You mention Omelas, and I think we could illustrate the problem by looking at how LeGuin handles her two successive masterpieces:

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, which gives us the titular resource-rich u(dys)topia built on invisible suffering, and the dissidents who turn their backs on that world and walk out into the inhospitable wilderness in search of something better.

The Dispossessed, which as its premise gives us Anarres, an imperfect but sympathetic anarchist society whose adherents turned their backs on a neighbouring world of capitalist plenty to live out in the inhospitable wilderness in search of something better.

Anarres can very reasonably be viewed as LeGuin's direct answer to the question posed by Omelas, and she would have likely had it in her mind already as she wrote Omelas. But if the short story had ended with 'I hear that against all odds, the ones who walk away have successfully founded an anarchist utopia where hardship is everywhere but it's shared as equitably as possible. THE END', the amount of lazy shorthand and empty comfort involved in that happier ending would inevitably make it a dishonest and unserious offering.

Instead, Anarres is a starting premise to be interrogated at length over the course of a separate story, rather than a happy ending to simply reassure the reader that better things are possible - and even at the end of the novel LeGuin's unresolved questions are still very similar to the ones that we're left with in Omelas (and the same questions that I feel like we were knocking about in The Silt Verses, and which I guess you could argue are all lingering concerns at the end of Mononoke, as well): how and where can we find space to create and sustain a genuine alternative when the narrative environment of capitalism is so powerfully all-subsuming and constantly growing to fill the space? Do we need to disconnect entirely, vanishing as if dead? If we disconnect, how can we possibly survive and what inhumanities or ethical compromises will be required of us? If we do survive, is our isolationism a dereliction of human responsibility to those left behind?

All of which is to say that I think present-day fiction absolutely can make the attempt to meaningfully explore potential alternative-utopian solutions in more depth and with far more tangibility than we attempted with TSV - but that dystopian fiction like ours which concludes with the unexplored promise of a revolutionary utopia and the vague reassurance that the irrepressible human spirit will figure things out from here on out (Chewbacca gets a medal, everyone's in the streets wearing a Guy Fawkes mask) doesn't do much more than dramatically undermine its own goal of disrupting the audience's comfort.

That said, one of my big regrets this season was that we didn't succeed in more engagingly exploring and articulating the Woundtree camp's development into a flawed but functioning society in Dispossessed fashion ahead of the ending. That was my intention, but what quickly became clear was that in a dramatic format, with a limited cast, it was just endless static meeting-room scenes with Paige and Elgin discussing difficult responses to impossible challenges, while everyone else was out having dynamic and exciting adventures with lots of fun and exciting gods. Dystopias remain too entertaining for utopias' own good.

What do you see as the role of fiction in addressing the horrible machinery of this world?

I believe that absurdist horror fiction specifically, founded on the principle of 'people in a world that makes no sense, deluding themselves that it definitely does make sense' can play a very powerful role in that stated purpose.

Many horror traditions carry the baggage of inbuilt or inadvertent conservatism - the concept of a peaceable, passive, safe, middle-class Normality which is then disrupted by a terrifying outside threat (alien, ultra-foreign, ultra-low-class, underworldly, wild, etc). But absurdist horror very directly identifies Normality as the true source of our terror and very directly confronts our human response to it. It creates the right environment for us to ask all of the good questions. Isn't this an unsustainable nightmare we're living in? Why are we expending so much energy pretending it isn't? How do we get out and what do we do if we can't?

Probably the only listener reaction that's genuinely frustrated me about both of our shows is the folks who come away turning their noses up at the bluntness of that approach and acting like they've Solved The Art simply for figuring out where our broad sympathies lie. "Hm, just listened to The Silt Verses and I understood it at once; it's clearly trying to say that capitalism is bad. A little heavy-handed in its messaging for my liking, hm-hm!"

Not to go full Garth Marenghi, but for me the directness of the provocation and the obvious outrageousness of the nightmare is the point; it then allows us to go to places that other genres (or more understated critiques) generally can't.

How do we punch through the bounds of it all being Content, another product to be bought and sold? What does it mean to sit here and fantasise about people making that revolutionary break when there is no revolution to be had?

God, I don't know.

Maybe it means nothing; maybe we can't punch through; maybe there is no story unruly enough to be truly unco-optable, and therefore even the most radical fiction ultimately serves as a distraction, a placebo, a reassurance (that we are not alone, that better things are possible) which will impact the wider world more by keeping us subscribed to the Kindle app than by any action we might feel inspired to take.

Amazon is paying Boots Riley to make TV shows. Disney won much praise for delivering a revolutionary fantasy in a Star Wars shell. Apple is funding excellent, discomfiting and furious corporate satires about how we happily ignore invisible worker abuses for the sake of our own lifestyles, but they also cannot be considered accountable for the deaths of Congolese child-labourers in the global cobalt supply chain. The Dispossessed is in development as a limited series and the LeGuin estate are closely involved.

The master doesn't just own the tools, he's been buying up the guillotines as well.

What if, as with the unknowable nothingness outside of Omelas, the only art that cannot be reduced to product in net service of the status quo is the art that's so invisible and inaccessible and disconnected as to not exist at all? Does being relatively small and ramshackle really lend us any ideological purity, any genuine detachment? You can listen to The Silt Verses on Apple and Spotify and Amazon Music. Brought to you by Acast.

Chapter 36 with Dev and Seb was to a large extent intended as an articulation of that worry. To what extent can we still trust in the integrity of a sincere love story (one that we want to believe in) it if takes place in an insincere and predatory environment? Can any meaningful story be told honestly within such a space?

This stuff really worries me. I think it's probably right to worry. I don't know the answer. I do know that there are some folks for whom the show has made a tangible difference in terms of their life's direction, and that's a huge comfort to me.

There was someone who said it helped them find their faith, strangely and wonderfully. Someone else who said it contributed to their decision not to go down a more lucrative career path within what they view as an exploitative industry. (I hope they don't regret that decision; I hope it makes them happy.)

So there's something there. Maybe.