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leahsfavefics · 10 days ago

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Mr. Park is an Asshole

Author: leahsfavefics

Rating/Genre: M (18+); reverse tropes: nice guy who hates only you, academic rivals, but it's two teachers competing to have the best class. Both reverse tropes come from this post: https://www.tumblr.com/out-of-jams/747204416306806784/reverse-trope-writing-prompts

Pairing: Jimin x Reader (f)

Word Count: 11.5K

Author's Note: Part of the In Bloom collaboration with @kithtaehyung, @yoonia, @syllviere, @kpopfanfictrash, @suga-kookiemonster, and @cybrsan. Sorry, I'm bad at moodboards.

Summary: Ever since you joined the team as Darling Elementary's new art teacher, you've been welcomed with open arms. By everyone except Mr Park, the music teacher. Jimin seems to be the school's golden child, beloved by all (except you), and the organizer of the school's most popular event, the annual Spring Recital. When the school's poor budget planning requires Jimin to enlist your help on the recital, you wonder how you're going to manage working with your sworn enemy.

Warnings (explicit content): hot tub sexy time, fingering, Jimin talking you through it, 'good girl,' penetrative sex

Y/N:

“Winter break just flew by so fast, I can’t believe it’s already mid-January. Hopefully the rest of the year goes by this quickly,” you said, pouring two cups of coffee from the break room coffee pot. Despite the cheap and horrendous taste, the caffeine was a necessity and the warmth of the drink helped stave off that bitter winter chill that fought through all layers of cloth and skin to get right to the bone.

“Ugh but the second half of the school year always drags,” Heather complained, taking the mug you offered from your hands. “At least we’ll have the spring performance to look forward to. Jimin always does such a great job working with the kids to put on a good show. And it helps that spring break follows right after.”

“Winter break ended not two weeks ago and you’re already anxious for spring break?” you replied with a laugh, ignoring the bit about Jimin she mentioned. Mr. Park, the music teacher, was essentially the school’s golden boy. Beloved by everyone, faculty and students alike, kind, warm hearted, generous, talented beyond belief. Or at least that’s what you’ve been told. While you have witnessed that side of Jimin, it’s never been directed at you. In fact, you didn’t really seem to exist in his world, though you had no idea why. You’d seen him go out of his way at holiday parties to talk to everyone, including newcomers that he makes feel welcome. Yet ever since you accepted the role as art teacher at Darling Elementary he has not spoken more than two words to you.

“I’m always anxious for the next break. Oh, hi Jimin. Good Morning!” she turned her focus to the blonde haired teacher that just entered the break room. He wore a suit, his usual work attire, and his straight hair was tucked behind one ear. You hated how handsome he was. It was harder to dislike someone that was so beautiful.

“Good morning Mrs. Bailey!” He said, a charming smile on his face as he looked at her. “How did yesterday’s spelling test go? The kids were so focused on throwing words out to each other to spell during music class that we barely got to learning the songs for the spring recital.”

Heather winced, “Sorry about that! It went well, all that practicing during music must have helped.”

“No apologies necessary, it’s nice to see the kids excited like that about a test of all things. We’ve got plenty of time to learn the songs.” He poured himself a coffee of his own as he spoke. Once he was finished, he glanced at the black watch around his wrist. “I better head back, I have to meet with the principal about the budget for the show before class starts. I’ll catch up with you later.” He ducked out of the break room, leaving you and Heather alone once again.

“He hates me,” you said sullenly.

“What?! Oh my god y/n no, Jimin is the nicest guy ever. There’s no way he hates anyone.”

You rolled your eyes. “He’s the nicest guy to everyone else. He just ignores me.”

Heather laughed. “That is ridiculous, he was just talking to you.”

“No, he was talking to you,” you retort. “Didn’t you notice that he didn’t address me once? He barely even glanced at me!”

“Well have you talked to him much? It’s a two way street.”

“No,” you grumbled. “How am I supposed to? I’m still kinda new here, and he has made no effort.”

“Y/n, this has got to be in your head. He’s literally an angel. Just try talking to him.”

You checked the time on your phone, internally celebrating when you realized you could use it as a way to weasel out of this conversation. “Oh, look at that, class is going to start in 10 minutes. I better get the supplies ready in my room!”

Heather laughed, seeing right through you. “You can avoid it if you want, I just think you’re being silly.”

“Yeah yeah,” you waved dismissively. “Whatever. Have a good day! Send me calm children when it’s art time.”

JIMIN:

“We just don’t have it in the budget this year, I’m sorry.”

Seething, Jimin sat across from Principal Walker and tried to keep his shit together. Flying off the handle wouldn’t solve anything; it wouldn’t get him the funds he needed to get decor for the annual spring recital, nor would it prove his point. It would only get him into trouble. He took a deep breath, his knuckles white where they gripped his knees beneath the desk.

“Mr Walker, the kids look forward to this show every year. The parents, the faculty, so many people look forward to this show, despite the fact that I’ve been funding it personally every year. You promised after last year that it would be worked into the budget this time. I can’t afford to keep paying for everything myself with a teacher’s salary.”

Mr Walker at least had the decency to wince and seem apologetic. “I know, and like I said, I’m sorry. What exactly do you need the money for again? Decorations?”

“Loads of decorations. It’s a winter turned to spring theme, we need dozens of snowflakes and flowers to sprinkle across the stage. I want it to be interactive this year, so the seats will start off with snowflakes and the kids will go around and hand flowers to the audience during one of the songs.”

“Well why don’t you ask Miss Y/L/N for help? Maybe she can add these snowflakes and flowers to the art curriculum.”

“No,” Jimin bit back sharply, bristling. He didn’t want that job thief anywhere near his recital.

“It wasn’t a request, Mr Park. Talk to Y/N and tell her to work it into her curriculum. You have months, the kids can make the decorations.” He spoke with resolve that left no room for argument. “This will be better anyway, they’ll get to hand out flowers they made themselves to their parents and everyone. And then you don’t have to spend your own money again this year.”

Glancing out at the snow through the frosted window, Jimin sighed, clenching his jaw. He didn’t want to ask Y/N for a favor, he didn’t even want to talk to her. He found it difficult to even be in the same room with her, and it was only partly because he found her to be the most gorgeous woman he’d even seen. Erick had been let go for no reason and she had the audacity to come into school after taking his job, acting all nice and chipper with no remorse whatsoever. “Do I really need to ask Miss Y/L/N? Is there no other option?”

“You could buy the decorations yourself, but once again it has not been approved in the budget. I suggest you stop pressing the matter.”

“Fine,” Jimin said, grinding his teeth.

“I suggest you get going. Class starts in just a few minutes.”

He was being dismissed, and Principal Walker did not seem happy. That was only fair, Jimin wasn’t exactly happy either. Why did she have to be the art teacher? He would be fine asking literally anyone else at school. He stood, gave one sharp nod to Mr Walker, and left for the music classroom.

Y/N:

A knock at your door startled you, causing you to drop the bean salad you’d been all but shoveling into your mouth, trying to finish in the short lunch break between classes. You cursed, grabbing a napkin and whirling in your chair to face the intruder.

“Jimin?” You balked, eyebrows creasing as you wonder why on earth he is in your classroom.

“Miss Y/L/N. Do you have a moment?” he didn’t look any happier to see you than you were to find him at your door. Now that you knew he was the culprit of your spilled salad, you were even more irritated. Not only was he interrupting the one bit of time in the day you have to yourself, but he made you lose nearly half your lunch!

Grunting in response, you gestured to the many chairs in your classroom. He eyed them dubiously before finally strolling over and taking an uncomfortable seat on a chair meant for an 8 year old. If you weren’t so annoyed, you’d find it comical.

“Why are you here?” you finally asked after a moment of awkward silence.

He cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably. “I need to ask a favor.”

You couldn’t help the bark of laughter that came out of you. “A favor? From me?”

“Look, I don’t like it, but I don’t really have any other choices here.” He took a deep breath and leaned his elbows on the table before him, hunching awkwardly to try to get comfortable in the elementary furniture. “You know the recital?”

“The one you put on every year that everyone raves about, that is a glorified choir concert?” you said. “Of course I know it.”

His brows furrowed angrily at your description. He opened his mouth to retort, but seemed to think better of it, closing his mouth and clenching his jaw until you could see the muscles twitch. It was… unfortunately, extremely attractive. Why does the biggest asshole at work also have to be the hottest? You thought.

“Well,” Jimin started, snapping you out of ogling him. You looked away, embarrassed. He continued unphased, his voice low and angry. “Despite being promised some sort of budget to put on the show this year, I’ve been left high and dry again. Principal Walker told me to talk to you about making decorations for the performance. We need snowflakes and flowers, at least two of each for each kid but likely more if you have time.”

“You want me to make decorations for your show myself?” you asked, incredulous.

“No, of course not,” he answered. “The kids should make them. Work it into the curriculum. You already have supplies- glue, construction paper, pipe cleaners, and so on.”

“Jimin,” you said, setting the remains of your salad to the side to focus on this absurd conversation. “I already have the curriculum planned out for the rest of the year. We only have time for a few more projects, and especially clay will take at least a few weeks. I don’t have time, sorry.” You added the sorry as an afterthought, not really feeling the sentiment but following the urge to be polite despite your dislike of him.

He cleared his throat, fidgeting awkwardly in his seat again.

“What?” you barked, wanting him to spit out whatever he was clearly fighting with himself about saying.

“Mr Walker told me that it wasn’t a request. That the kids will like making the decorations and will be proud of them. We’ve been tasked to work together on this.”

You gaped at him and he looked down, refusing to meet your eyes. Swirling rage welled up in you. “So I have to re-plan the entire rest of the year?”

“The recital is in March, so not the whole year,” he offered. “Just like, the next two months.”

You rolled your eyes. “Oh okay, just half the remaining year then, as if that’s so much better. Unbelievable.”

A moment rolled by, tension thick in the air as both of you sat glaring at each other.

“Miss Y/L/N?” your head whipped over to the door, where one of your students had arrived early. Her face broke out into a grin when her eyes landed on Jimin. “Mr Park?! My two favorite teachers are in one room!” she exclaimed, bounding over to her seat.

“Mr Park, will you be here for class today?” she asked.

Jimin extricated himself out of the small chair and stood. His face was lit with a smile, an expression so wholly different from the way he’d just been looking at you that it was hard to believe it was even the same person. “No, I’m sorry, Anjelica. I was just leaving. But I will see you tomorrow at music class! Your favorite.” He shot the words over this shoulder with a smirk. All the kids always raved about music class with Mr Park, but since you took over the art class there’d been rumblings that the kids were doing the same with your class. You bristled, feeling competitive. If he was going to behave this way- always cold, demanding favors- you were going to do your damndest to steal his title of ‘Favorite Class.’

Y/N:

A long conversation with Principal Walker confirmed what Jimin had told you. Despite your protests, he refused to budge from his decree and you spent the entire weekend re-writing lesson plans and rearranging your curriculum for the remainder of the year. When you weren’t working on school stuff or sleeping, you were on the phone with your long distance bestie, Lisa, complaining ad nauseam about Jimin and the fact that you were being essentially forced to help him.

By the time Monday rolled around, you felt as if you hadn’t even had a weekend. That exhaustion made you angry, and that anger fueled you as you stomped over to the music room before the school day had started and banged on the door.

“Wha- Oh.” His expression changed from curiosity to a barely concealed glower as soon as he opened the door and saw you. “What do you need?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, bristling at his tone whilst simultaneously trying not to let your eyes dart down to his plump lips. They looked so soft, you wanted to bite them and draw blood.

Clearing your throat, you met his dark eyes and tried to focus on why you were there. “If we’re going to have to work together on this, I need some direction.”

“Why? Do you really not know how to teach kids to make snowflakes and flowers? How did you get the art teacher gig if you don’t know that?” He sat on the edge of his desk as he spoke, black pants stretching across what were surely muscular thighs. He folded his arms, mimicking your stance, and you couldn’t help but notice as the sleeves of his jacket rose revealing veiny forearms. Focus, y/n. Focus on how much of an asshole he is.

“Of course I know how to teach kids to make that stuff. What I need to know are details. Do you need one or more specific kinds of flowers? Is there a color theme we need to stick to? Should the snowflakes be plain like made with white paper or should they have glitter or other decorations? Do you want me to keep going or do you get it now?” you finished, trying to refrain from grinding your teeth. He just made you so angry with this condescension. It was almost better when he wasn’t talking to you at all.

“I see,” he said pointedly. “The kids can do whatever they want with the snowflakes, glitter, string, whatever else. As long as they stay mostly white. For the flowers, they need to be spring flowers. Tulips, daffodils, lilacs, lily of the valley.”

“A bunch of 7 year olds are not going to be able to make lilacs out of elementary art supplies.”

Jimin rolled his eyes. “Okay well you get the picture. Spring flowers only.”

“Got it.”

“Don’t screw this up, y/n. This performance is the highlight of the year for some of these kids. I’m trusting you with this huge part of it. The decorations better not wreck the show.”

If this were a cartoon, red would be rising up your body, whistling steam coming out of your ears. “My decorations will make the show. They’ll outshine your songs. And art class will become the new favorite class.”

He smirked, gesturing to the door. “It’s a contest then? May the best man win. Class is about to start, I suggest you head back to the art room.”

JIMIN:

“2 Iced Americanos for Jimin!” the barista announced over the cafe loudspeaker. Jimin got up from his seat to grab his drink. As soon as his hands closed over the iced coffees he regretted his choice. It was far too cold outside, and it would have been nice to wrap his hands around a warm drink. But, Erick always drank iced no matter the weather and Jimin had panic ordered, being too stressed with work to put any thought into anything else. Even something as simple as a coffee order.

Just as he resumed his seat, a familiar face walked through the door. Jimin held his hand up to catch Erick’s eye, who smiled and took his seat across from his old university roommate.

“Chim! It’s been a minute. I’m glad we found time to grab a coffee and catch up,” he said, beaming at his old friend.

Jimin took a sip of his drink and shivered. “I know! We’ve barely had time to see each other since you left Darling. I miss working together.”

Erick winced. “I do and I don’t miss it. I hated that job. I was so happy when they let me go.”

“What?” Jimin coughed, choking on his next sip of coffee. “You were happy? It was so slimy though, letting you go so they could hire a new art teacher instead of giving you tenure.”

“Well, yeah, it was slimy, but it was a relief. I was thinking about quitting anyway. Stacey and I want to start trying to have kids, and I just couldn’t imagine being around kids all day and then going home and taking care of more kids. I needed a career shift.”

Jimin sat for a moment, reordering events in his mind. This whole time he had been villainizing Y/n in his mind, thinking she came in and stole Erick’s job right from under him. Now he was finding out that Erick was not only relieved to go, but was likely going to quit anyway?

“What is that look for? What are you thinking so hard about?” Erick asked.

“I just didn’t know that.”

“I told you we were trying to have kids.”

Jimin waved this away. “I knew that, you guys told me at your holiday party. I didn’t know you wanted to leave Darling. I didn’t know you were happy to get laid off.”

“Yeah it was honestly great.” Erick said with a shrug. “But what does that matter?”

“Well…” Jimin cringed. “I haven’t exactly been very nice to your replacement…”

Erick’s jaw dropped. Jimin was almost never not nice.

“I thought she stole your job!” Jimin said, defensive.

“Dude, even if she did, it wouldn’t be her fault that the school did something shitty.”

Jimin wanted to fold into himself, suddenly ashamed for his behavior the last few months. Sure, he hadn’t been outwardly mean to y/n, but he had pointedly ignored her. Given how friendly he was to everyone else, surely she would have noticed.

“You should probably fix that,” Erick said, laughing. “Also, if you’re that upset at how they treated me, maybe you should look for another job.”

“I was over winter break. Right now I’m so focused on the recital it’s hard to think about much else.”

Erick paused, then chuckled again. “I can’t believe you weren’t nice to someone. We roomed together for 2 years in college, I never saw you be anything but nice.”

“I was trying to be a good friend. Loyal,” Jimin whined. “Now I feel like a dick.”

“You might have been a little bit of a dick, but it’s not too late to fix it. You see her every day at work I’m sure, just start being nice.”

“Not too nice though, she is trying to steal my thunder at the performance.” Jimin explained to Erick that he once again got no budget for the recital, and had to resort to asking y/n for help from the art class.

“So let me ask you this,” Erick said, once Jimin had told him the entire story. “Is this girl hot?”

Jimin blinked. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Um,” he coughed, unsure how to answer. “I mean. Sure, she is attractive.”

Erick smirked. “I think you have a crush on her.”

“What?! No, I don’t even like her.”

“You thought you didn’t like her because you thought she stole my job. She didn’t. You think you’re annoyed at her for saying her decorations will outshine your songs, but you don’t hear yourself talk about her. She’s helping you with the show.”

“Because she has to-”

“Sure she has to but she clearly wants to do a good job. I don’t know, Chim, maybe I’m wrong, but the only other time I’ve seen you be this animated talking about someone was when you dated Clarissa back in college. I think there could be something here with this girl if you pull your head out of your ass.”

“Ughhh,” Jimin groaned, disliking nearly everything Erick was saying. But, as one of Jimin’s oldest friends, Erick knew how to read him better than most, despite the fact that they hadn’t spent much time together since Erick left Darling Elementary. Maybe he was onto something… but that was a possibility Jimin didn’t feel like considering at the moment.

“Let’s talk about something else,” he grumbled.

Y/N:

You leaned against the break room counters, blowing on your coffee as Heather walked into the room.

“Hey!” Heather said, grinning. “Will you be at the teacher’s retreat next weekend?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there. I’m still so new, I don’t want to skip out on things like that and inadvertently ruffle any more feathers than I’ve already ruffled just by being here.”

She rolled her eyes, laughing as she poured herself a cup. “Are you referring to Jimin? You’re still convinced he doesn’t like you? I thought you were working together on the recital or something.”

“Is that what the rumor mill is saying? It’s more like I’m being forced by him and Principal Walker to rearrange my curriculum for the rest of the year to have the students make all the decorations.” Several weeks had passed, and each day the students were getting more and more excited about the spring performance. They’d made all their snowflakes and were working on their flowers now, and it hadn’t cut into your normal curriculum as much as you’d thought. However, it was still disruptive to your flow and you were determined to stay annoyed at Jimin and Jimin only for it.

“Oh that’s cute! They’ll be personalized and have more meaning. Plus I’m sure it will save Jimin a lot of money. He was determined after last year to have the school supply some funds for the show. I’m guessing they didn’t if he’s asking for homemade decor.”

Your attention was caught on one thing she’d said. “What do you mean, ‘save Jimin a lot of money’ ? Shouldn’t the school be funding this show each year? I assumed the budget was just a bit lower this year.”

“No,” Heather glanced around, making sure the room was empty before leaning in and lowering her voice. “This district notoriously does not give a shit about the arts. Despite all the praise the show gets every year, and how much students and parents and everyone look forward to it, the school has never provided any budget. Last year Jimin told me he ended up spending over $600 out of his own pocket on decor and set designs trying to make it perfect for the kids. But it made the rest of the year difficult for him financially. He put his foot down after that, saying he wasn’t going to spend a dollar of his own money anymore.”

“Oh shit, I didn’t know that,” you murmured, feeling guilty for giving him such a hard time about helping out. You just thought he didn’t get as big of a budget as he wanted or was being over the top. If you’d realized he’d been funding this all himself in years past you would have been more willing to help. Still irritated at reworking all your lesson plans, but you would’ve at least been nicer about it. “That sucks.”

“It does. He works so hard on it each year. I’m sure it’s hard for him to not be spending money to make it the best show possible, but I’m also sure the kids won’t care. They’ll love it anyway, especially if they get to feel like they’re helping with it by making the decorations during art class.”

“Mhmm,” you hummed, lost in thought. This put Jimin into a different light. You’d always just thought he was kind of an asshole. And he was, sometimes, to you. But a true asshole wouldn’t almost bankrupt himself to spend hundreds of dollars on a recital for 2nd graders. Maybe Heather was right, and you did need to lighten up a little when it came to Mr Park…

JIMIN:

Heaving a sigh, Jimin collapsed on the bed. A whirl of conflicting feelings about the weekend’s retreat overwhelmed him. On one hand, he needed a weekend away. He spent nearly all day during the week at school, running the music class as normal and preparing for the recital. On weekends, he stressed about not being able to be at school and get more work done. He hadn’t even chosen the final song yet, let alone taught the kids how to play it on their recorders. He’d just been so focused on a loose script and some makeshift set designs. While he was determined not to spend his own money, that commitment required more time to handcraft. Although y/n was helping immensely by providing the snowflakes and flowers needed, there was still a lot that fell on Jimin’s shoulders, and he alone would bear that burden.

However, as much as he needed a weekend away he would have rather it have been to visit his own friends or family versus spending the whole weekend with the colleagues he saw day in and day out anyway. And y/n. He’d continued to avoid her after his conversation with Erick, not wanting to face her and too embarrassed to admit that he had made a mistake. There would be no avoiding her on this trip, unless he wanted to still send the message he’d been sending since day one, but that wasn’t fair to her. None of it had been fair to her in the first place, and he knew he owed her an apology.

“Ughhhh,” he groaned to himself, dragging himself off the bed.

The school must have used the budget they’d refused to give him for the recital on this retreat- it was a nice hotel in the mountains about an hour away from the school. He’d heard some of the rooms even had jacuzzis, but was disappointed to find that his did not.

While many of his colleagues had carpooled, Jimin drove up himself, wanting to arrive later so he could spend a bit more time getting work done. As much as he appreciated a getaway in a beautiful location, it stung that they were willing to spring for this but not for the kids’ beloved performance. But why would they, when Jimin had always foot the bill himself? They expected that, and intended to take advantage of his desire to do best for the kids as they had always done.

He shook off the thought, it left a terrible taste in his mouth and he hoped to actually use this weekend as a relax, recharge, reset. There were a few teacher workshops sprinkled into the schedule, and dinner as a group each night, but otherwise the teachers and school counsellors, psychs, and other admins had time to themselves. Jimin intended to spend the majority of that time in bed. But before he could do that, he needed to get ready for dinner.

The first night’s dinner was informal. Rather than a suit such as he wore to school each day, he donned belted black jeans with a white t-shirt loosely tucked in. It was cold, so he slung an oversized yellow flannel and a leather jacket overtop. He slipped into a pair of black boots and pulled a beanie over his blonde locks. Patting his back pockets, he confirmed his wallet and room key were secured before leaving the safety on his room.

Y/N:

Upon finding your name card on the dinner table, you groaned. Sure, you understood why assigned seats are nice for group events in theory, but when they placed you next to Park Jimin, you cursed their existence. You grabbed your place card, about to whisper shout to Heather across the table to ask her to move, when you heard his voice beside you.

“Hi.”

You froze, turning slowly. Jimin was actually looking at you with something that resembled kindness in his eyes. Blond hair fanned out over his eyes beneath a black beanie. You’d never seen him outside of school, where he was always dressed formally. Your voice caught in your throat, addled by how beautiful he looked and by the shock that he was paying any attention to you.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his dark brows furrowing in concern as more time went by without you uttering a word, just staring at him dazedly.

“Yep!” you said, a little too loudly. You glanced away, needing to take your eyes off him to be able to string a sentence together. You set the place card back down. Now that he had seen you, there was no escaping the seating arrangements. With a sigh, you took your seat. You saw him hesitate for a brief moment out of the corner of your eye, but then he took his seat beside you.

Sitting stiffly, you remained silent as your mind raced. Why was he talking to you? Why did he seem… nice? Something weird was going on, you wondered if you’d somehow fallen into an alternate universe.

As you awkwardly sat there taking sips of your water just for something to do, the table began to fill with your colleagues. As more and more people joined, everyone had to scootch in a bit to make room until your arm brushed Jimin’s every so often.

“So,” Jimin said beside you. “How was your week?”

You glanced over, expecting him to be talking to whoever was seated on his left. However, his dark eyes were fixed on you. “Um,” you cleared your throat, fiddling with the napkin in your lap. You defaulted to talking about the common ground between you, thinking maybe he was just trying to find out where you were at in terms of progress for his show. “It was fine. The kids are excited about making the decorations. Principal Walker was right, they like feeling like they’re included in the creation of the production. And we’re making good progress, we will definitely have everything ready by the time you need it.”

He smiled, and being on the receiving end of that crooked tooth-ed smile took your breath away in a fashion you had not expected. “That’s great, but I wasn’t fishing for information on the status. I just wanted to check in. I-”

“Good evening faculty!” Principal Walker stood at the head of the table, and Jimin grimaced and shut his mouth. You wondered what he’d been starting to say, but didn’t dwell on it long as the principal gave a brief speech about the importance of community and an overview of the weekend’s schedule.

The food was delivered shortly after the speech and you got to eating. Conversations flowed all across the table, and you found yourself chatting along with Jimin and others normally, as if there had never been any tension or frost between you. Though baffled by this change, the more wine you had the less you cared, just glad to avoid the awkwardness you’d been dreading ahead of the retreat. If Jimin was going to actually play nice for once, you weren’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth. You were, however, still determined to ‘win’ the little not-so-friendly competition between the two of you and be labeled ‘best class.’

JIMIN:

As the weekend progressed, Jimin found it was just what he had needed. Sure the little work exercises were annoying, but he was finding himself spending more and more time with y/n and, to his surprise, enjoying it. He’d only been able to interact with her in group settings, however, and still hadn’t had the chance to really talk to her one on one and apologize for his prior behavior.

He didn’t know how to approach that. He couldn’t exactly ask her to come to his room for a talk. That would be wildly inappropriate, and frankly now that he had admitted to Erick, and himself, that she was attractive he didn’t think he’d be able to handle being alone with her. He’d get all giggly and nervous. So, he’d spent his free time taking naps or watching TLC in his hotel room, trying not to think about her.

The final night of the retreat had come, and everyone was meeting at the hotel bar for a final mixer. It was the only ‘formal’ event of the getaway, and Jimin had donned black slacks and white button up with the sleeves rolled up past his forearms due to the blasting heat in the bar. He was one of the first to arrive and ordered a glass of champagne. He was whirling it in it’s glass, taking the occasional sip, when y/n strolled in.

He froze, swallowing thickly as his eyes roved over her body. Though technically her dress was appropriate in that it did not violate any school dress codes, the way the black satin clung to her curves should have been illegal. She caught him staring and smiled as she raised a hand to wave. He sent her a thin lipped smile before promptly downing the rest of the champs and turning around to order another. If she was going to look like that all night, he needed some more alcohol in him to survive.

As the night wore on Jimin continued to mingle, making sure to talk to everyone at least once. At the start he was carefully avoiding y/n, afraid that he would say something stupid. However he could not deny the draw he felt towards her, especially not when he’d been continuing to drink.

Before long they found themselves leaning against the bar side by side, lost in conversation. One by one their colleagues returned to their rooms, but Jimin and y/n couldn’t pull themselves away until they were the only patrons left in the bar.

“So do you have one of those, uh,” he floundered, searching his mind for the word he was thinking of. “Those things in some of the rooms. Scuzzis?” Jesus Christ, he couldn’t even talk, he was so dazzled by her.

She laughed, and the sound was like the ringing of the most enchanting bells in Jimin’s mind. He couldn’t help but grin, despite the fact that he’d just made a fool of himself. “You mean jacuzzis? Yeah, I do. I haven’t tried it yet, though.”

“I’m jealous. When I heard they were in some of the rooms I hoped I’d get one, but alas. You’ll have to try it tonight and let me know what you think.”

“Excuse me,” the bartender interrupted, sliding two bills before them. “Sorry, but we’re closing.”

“Oh shit,” Jimin cursed, checking the time on his phone. Sure enough, it was nearing bar close. He didn’t know where the night had gone. He didn’t want it to end. He slid his card over onto both bills. “I got this,” he said when y/n started to reach for her own wallet.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. It was really nice talking to you,” he said, trying to get himself to say goodbye.

“It was,” she smiled. “Um. Would you want to come to my room for a nightcap? You could try that scuzzi.” She added with a wink, and he couldn’t help the ‘Yes’ that burst from his mouth as soon as she finished speaking.

Y/N:

As you slipped out of your dress and into your bikini, you couldn’t believe how bold you’d been at the bar. You just couldn’t handle the thought of the night ending quiet yet. Jimin was not what you ever would have expected. Before, you knew he could be kind, but being the focal point of his soft voice and his smile had butterflies erupting in your stomach. But he was also silly, stumbling over his words occasionally and whining about how the timeframe in Rings of Power is too compressed, though the cinematography was magnificent. You’d never seen this side of him, dorky and hilarious, and you wanted to see more.

So you invited him to your room before you could stop yourself. Now, though, as a knock sounded at your door, the nerves were setting in. You took a deep breath and opened the door.

Jimin stood before you in naught but black swim trunks, a white towel slung over his shoulder. Your eyes roved over his body unwittingly, snagging on a bold lettered tattoo scratched along his side. You’d never even considered that he may be tattooed under those suits he always wore. You had to forcibly drag your eyes away from the way the words stretched over the taut muscles of his abdomen.

He smiled, catching your gaze. “I’m here for the jacuzzi” he emphasized. “Is that still alright?”

“Of course,” you said, swallowing your nerves and stepping aside from the door to let him in. “I’m ready.”

“I can see that,” he said, eyes darting down and back up as he took in your bikini clad body.

“Well, let’s get in,” you said, closing the door to your room. The jacuzzi was situated just across from the bed, a button on the wall behind it to start the bubbles. You pushed the button, hoping the bubbles would somehow help dissipate some of the tension in the room. The air between you felt electric with attraction and champagne.

You slipped beneath the water, groaning as you sunk deeper, becoming encased in warmth.

“Don’t do that,” Jimin said, shuddering as he climbed in and sat across from you. “It sounds sinful.”

“Sorry,” you said, giggling. “So what do you think? Worth it?”

“Worth what?” he said, eyes half lidded in bliss.

“Worth coming all the way to my room? For the jacuzzi?”

“It was worth coming all the way to your room just to see you in that swimsuit. The scuzzi is just a cherry on top,” his eyes flew open as he spoke, seeming to take even himself by surprise with his words. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “That was inappropriate. I’ve had a lot of champagne, my filter is-”

“It’s okay,” you cut him off. “It wasn’t exactly appropriate of me to invite you here anyway, either.”

“But I’m glad you did,” he said.

“Are you?”

He gazed at you for a long moment, no sound but the bubbling water between you. Finally, he moved, sliding over until he sat by your side. “Is this okay?” he murmured, barely audible above the bubbles.

“Yes,” you whispered back, breathless with his proximity. He leaned closer until his lips were hovering over yours, nearly touching. Your eyes fluttered shut, breathing him in before closing the small distance. As soon as your lips touched, the tension in the room, between you, burst through whatever dam was holding it back and overwhelmed you both. It was a soft kiss for the briefest of moments before Jimin deepened it, slipping his tongue into your mouth and pulling you into his lap.

“You looked,” he groaned between kisses. “So fucking good in that dress tonight.”

You shivered at his words, heat that even trumped the warmth of the jacuzzi pooling between your legs. “You looked amazing too. So handsome. You always look so handsome.” You ground your hips against his, seeking friction.

He placed his hands on your hips, holding you still. “Please don’t do that unless you want to take this further. I can’t handle it.”

You pulled away just long enough to start peppering kisses along that sharp jaw of his. The one that had fallen open now, despite always being tightly closed in annoyance in your presence. You moved your hips again.

“Do you really want this, y/n?” he said, placing two fingers beneath your chin to make you meet his eyes. They were darkened with lust, his lips red and swollen already from the force of your kissing.

“Yes,” you said, twisting your fingers around the blond strands of his hair and pulling him close again.

“God,” he moaned, reaching between your bodies to slip his fingers beneath your swimsuit bottoms. “How are you so wet?”

You laughed. “We’re in a jacuzzi, everything is wet.”

“Not like this,” he said, biting your shoulder before licking the same spot. “I can tell the difference between you and the water. The water isn’t so slick. It isn’t even so warm,” a finger slipped inside you and your head fell to his shoulder. “So tight.”

You felt his firm length beneath you and reached down, needing to feel him in your hand. “You’re so hard already,” you moaned. His fingers began to pump slowly inside you, his thumb swirling over your clit in a way that made it hard to think. “Do you want me that bad?”

“I want you. So bad, baby,” he said, shivering as you wrapped your hand around his cock and began to pump. “But I don’t have protection. So I’m going to have to get you off like this. I need to see you cum, I want to see the face you make. I bet it’s so pretty.” You didn’t answer, too lost in the feeling of his fingers inside you, over you. Your eyes fluttered shut as heat began to swirl in your belly.

“Close,” you whimpered, grinding your hips faster to chase the high.

“Come on baby, you can do it. Come for me. Just like that. So pretty.” The encouragement sent you over the edge along with his voice, low and husky with lust. You trembled as you came apart, gasping at the overwhelming pleasure. When it was over, you slumped against him, taking a moment to catch your breath. Your hand had stilled on his still hard cock, and as soon as you had even remotely recovered, you wanted it.

“I have protection,” you said. “I always keep a condom in my suitcase. Just in case.”

He smiled, leaning in to kiss you. “Smart girl. Responsible girl.” He looked at you carefully, gauging your reaction as he continued to play with your pussy. “Good girl.” He must have felt as you gushed and twitched at his praise, for his smile widened sinfully. “Let’s get out and get on the bed to do this. There has to be some sort of health hazard to sex in a hotel jacuzzi.”

You laughed as you regretfully pulled yourself apart from him to exit the water. That laughter died as soon as his fingers slipped out of you. The sudden emptiness was entirely unacceptable. After rushing to dry off as quickly as possible, you rifled around in your suitcase until you found the condom and tossed it over to Jimin, who was running a towel over himself. You both peeled off your wet swimsuits and hung them up like responsible adults before crawling onto the bed. You glanced down to confirm Jimin had slipped the condom over himself. His dick stood firm, long and thick and ready for you.

“I need you,” you whispered, sliding under him and pulling his face down until his lips met your own. You slanted your hips upwards, brushing your pussy against his length.

“So impatient,” he said, running his dick over your folds. “Can you take me? Are you wet enough? I can go down on you first if you want.”

You didn’t answer, couldn’t, so focused on the way his cock was running along your sex. He took your lack of response as a ‘no’ and began to pull away, but you grabbed him. “No, no. I don’t want to wait. I’m plenty wet. Trust me. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this turned on.”

“Me either,” he answered, breathless as he pressed inside you. “God, you feel so good.”

“So do you,” you moaned as he settled his hips against yours, fully inside.

“Are you good? Can I move?”

You nodded, “So good. Please move.”

He didn’t waste another second, slowly pulling out before pressing back in and gradually increasing his speed. He pumped with a smooth roll to his hips that had you briefly wondering if he was a dancer. The control he had over his body, the way he was able to reach the innermost parts of you with fluid strokes, had you guessing he was. But then he hit that spot deep inside you that rendered you unable to think much of anything other than the feeling of him.

He grabbed one leg, hoisting it up and resting it over his arm before leaning down to kiss you. “You look so fucking incredible. I wish you could see how well you take my dick. How hot my girl is.”

You could do no more than mewl at his words as he pounded into you, the new position allowing him to reach even deeper. He hammered against your g-spot with every stroke, and you felt yourself almost vibrating with your impending orgasm.

“Are you close, baby? I can feel you getting even tighter.” You closed your eyes, pushing your head into the pillow when he grabbed your chin and slipped his thumb into your mouth. You sucked on instinct, opening your eyes to look into his own hungry ones. “That’s it baby, I want to see that pretty face again. I need to see how your eyes roll back into your head when you come.”

You bit down hard on him when the wave crashed into you, drowning you entirely in pleasure. The world shuddered black and white as you trembled, coming apart so entirely on his cock that you didn’t know if you’d ever be able to put yourself back together. A few more pumps that you barely even felt through the power of your orgasm and Jimin finished, collapsing beside you.

“I need,” you slurred, drunk with pleasure (and a little bit of champagne, still). “To sleep now. That was incredible.”

Jimin huffed out a breathless laugh. “You have to get cleaned up first, babe.”

“I don’t think I can walk.”

He pressed a kiss to your brow. “Then I did my job well. I’ll take care of it. Just go to sleep.”

You curled into the covers, drifting away almost as soon as he was finished speaking. You vaguely felt as he cleaned you up with a warm, damp cloth, but that was all before you slipped into a deep, restful sleep.

JIMIN:

Jimin was yanked from the best sleep he’d had in ages by the alarm blaring on his phone. Eyes flying open, he felt disoriented as he glanced about the room. He sat in a ruffled, empty bed, but this wasn’t his hotel room, was it?

As soon as he laid his eyes on the jacuzzi, drunken memories came back in a rush. This was y/n’s hotel room. He and y/n had…. Wait. Where was she?

“Y/n?” he called out, climbing out of bed and checking the bathroom. He checked the closet, there were no clothes. No sign that she had ever even been here. Surely he hadn’t imagined the night before. Even in his wildest dreams he couldn’t have come up with sex that good. And how else would he be waking in a different hotel room?

Guilt gnawed at him as he thought of her, and why she may have vanished without a word in the morning. He’d never had the chance to explain why he had always been cold to her before. They’d been lost in conversation all night and then… well. Alcohol had lowered his inhibitions and his thought processing. He should have explained, ironed everything out, before jumping into bed with her. What must she think of him? Rude, until he had the chance to fuck her? He cringed, hoping that wasn’t the case. But why else would she be gone now?

He grabbed his phone, hoping to send her a message before realizing he didn’t even have her number. He was just starting to really like her, becoming more and more enchanted the longer they’d talked, and he already royally fucked this up. With a sigh, he pushed his hand through his hair and grabbed his still damp swimsuit, pulling it on just for coverage before heading back to his room and packing up to head home.

Y/N:

You’d fought off tears the entire drive home from the retreat, filled with regret. How could you sleep with Jimin, who had always made it clear he didn’t like you? And worse, after spending the weekend with him, getting to know him, you were actually starting to really like him.

Your first instinct when you got home was to call Heather and tell her since she was only friend of yours that knew you both, but you thought better of it after careful consideration. You were still new to this school, after all, and though you didn’t think Heather would tell anyone else, you didn’t want to risk word getting out that you’d had a one night stand with a coworker.

So, you picked up the phone and called Lisa instead. Sure, she didn’t know Jimin directly, but you had complained to her enough in the past about your hot asshole coworker, so she had the background to understand the gravity of what had happened.

“Hey,” Lisa said, answering on the first ring. “‘Sup. How was that retreat? Are you driving home?”

“I’m home now, but I actually called to talk to you about that. The retreat was fine, but do you remember that colleague I told you about that was nice to everyone but me?”

“The music teacher?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course. What happened? Was he a dick to you this weekend? I bet it was awkward having to be at a retreat together.”

“Well that’s the thing. It was weird. He was nice all weekend.”

“What? That is weird. Maybe someone talked to him and told him to stop being an ass?”

That thought had not occurred to you, but you brushed it aside for the moment, focused on telling Lisa the rest of the story. You rushed through it, divulging all the details about how he’d been friendly since the start of the weekend and you’d decided to match his energy to avoid conflict. How you’d been lost in conversation at the bar that final night and drunkenly invited him up to your room for the jacuzzi. How he’d fucked you better than you’d ever been fucked, and lastly how you’d slipped out of bed the next morning and rushed out the door, panicking.

“Holy fucking shit,” she said when you were finally finished. “So you didn’t say anything?”

“No, I left while he was sleeping.”

“Has he texted you or anything?”

You pulled your phone away from your ear to check for notifications from an unknown number. “No. I’m sure he’s feeling the same way I am this morning. Embarrassed. Maybe he’s also repulsed.”

“You don’t know that, I’m sure that’s not the case. Does he even have your number to reach out if he wants to?”

“Now that I think about it, probably not. I don’t remember ever giving it to him.”

“So he doesn’t even have the opportunity to contact you.”

You merely hummed in response, unsure how to feel about that.

“What do you want to do now, do you like him?”

You chewed your lip, weighing your answer. “That’s part of the reason this sucks. I think I do like him. Especially after last night. I’ve never had that sort of chemistry with someone, especially not the first time having sex. It was crazy. But, he hates me.”

“You don’t know that,” she reiterated. “Maybe whatever was up his ass earlier in the school year died and fell out. I don’t know, y/n, but I think you should talk to him. If you want to. If you don’t, then fuck him.”

“Thats the problem, Lis, I did fuck him,” you said, laughing despite yourself. “I’ll have to talk to him eventually, we’re working on this annual music performance thing together. But that’s not for another couple of weeks, so I think I can avoid him for a while.”

“I’m not sure if avoiding him is the way to go, but I support women’s rights and wrongs so I’ll back you whatever you do.” You smiled, grateful to have someone like her in your corner. “Look, I gotta go, but think about it. And call me tomorrow after you’re back at school, I want to know how it goes.”

“Will do,” you said, hanging up the phone and heaving a sigh. You had no idea what you were going to do.

JIMIN:

The past week had been agony for Jimin. At first he was looking forward to getting back to school, hoping to see Y/n and speak to her, maybe ask for her number and take her out. But he hadn’t had sight or sound of her on Monday. On Tuesday he bumped into her in the break room before class. His heart soared until he caught the look on her face- pure panic- as she abruptly stood from her seat and rushed out of the room without a word.

That happened a few more times throughout the week, enough that Jimin got the message that Y/n was avoiding him loud and clear. Clearly, she needed space after what happened. She must regret it, must dislike him after the way he’d treated you for the first half of the school year, and who was he to blame you? He probably would have felt the same way. But that didn’t make it sting any less.

By the end of the week he simply couldn’t take it any longer. It pained him, he wanted to see her smile again, wanted to hear her laugh and talk to her again. But instead she rushed out of any room he walked into. So he picked up the phone and called the one person who knew about the situation.

“Erick, I fucked up,” he said as soon as his friend answered the phone. “That teacher I told you about, the one that took your job. You were right, when you guessed that I liked her. I didn’t know it then, but we had this retreat last weekend and long story short we had a few drinks and may have ended up hooking up.”

“Really? So you made up for the way you acted before?”

Jimin cringed. “That’s the thing, I didn’t get a chance to talk to her about that. To apologize.”

“What do you mean you didn’t get the chance? If you hooked up clearly you spent some time together. You could have said it then.”

“Well, yeah, I should have said it then. Before having sex with her. But we just got lost in conversation, I didn’t want to spoil the mood. I was enjoying getting to know her.”

“Okay, why didn’t you talk to her after?”

“She’s been avoiding me like the plague ever since. She was gone when I woke up, and I don’t have her number.”

“Get it from someone else. Surely someone at work has it.”

“I don’t want to overstep. She is clearly telling me, without actually telling me, that she needs space. I’ve already crossed a line by sleeping with her. I don’t want to make it worse by disrespecting her boundaries.”

Erick laughed, and Jimin scowled at the noise. “What?” he snapped.

“Jimin, you’re an idiot. You’re giving her space because you’re afraid to talk to her and you’re making excuses to make yourself feel better about it.”

Jimin was silent, stewing at the truth in the words that he didn’t want to accept. When he didn’t speak for a moment, Erick continued. “You shouldn’t be giving her space right now unless she explicitly asks for it. You were a dick to her all year, then you two slept together, and now you’re not making any effort to talk to her about it? The ball is in your court, man. You need to fix this if you want to get anywhere with her. Even if it’s just to be cordial coworkers.”

“Now that I’ve…” he hesitated, trying to choose the right words. “Now that I’ve been with her, seen a different side to her, I don’t know if I could handle just being coworkers. That night would always be seared into my mind whenever I looked at her.”

“That good, huh?”

“The best.”

“Then you need to fix it.”

Y/N:

The door to the music classroom stood, menacing, before you. You’d been staring at it for the better part of five minutes, trying to work up the courage to knock. Taking a deep breath, you shifted the bag full of the flower decorations the kids had made to one arm and lifted the other, making a fist but stopping just short of the door, freezing once again.

Abruptly the door swung open, leaving you face to face with a startled Jimin. “Oh,” he said stiffly. “Hi.”

You awkwardly laughed, putting your hand down. “Sorry, I was just about to knock. I have the decorations, the kids finished at the end of last week. The flowers are in this bag, the snowflakes in the other. I had them put their names on the backs so they can pick them out and give them to their families.”

His eyes darted down to the two bags in your hands. “Great, thank you. Um, do you want to come inside for a minute?” He asked, stepping aside from the door to make room for you to pass.

“Uh, okay, sure…” you said. “Where do you want these?”

“I’ll take them,” he said, grabbing both bags from you. He opened one, peering inside and smiled. “These are perfect, Y/n. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you said, shifting from foot to foot. You didn’t know if you’d ever felt this uncomfortable before. However, at the same time your body was reacting to being in the same room with him for the first time since you’d left the hotel. Your skin was hot, and you felt tingly in your lower belly. Why did he have to smell so good? Like eucalyptus and winter.

You needed to get out of here before you did something stupid. “Is that all?” you said. “I should go.” You took a step towards the door but he rushed forward, grabbing your wrist loosely with one hand.

“Wait, Y/n, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“We don’t have to talk about what happened,” you said, trying and failing to laugh it off. “It’s all good.”

“No, it’s not. Please, just let me explain some things.”

“I-” you hesitated, looking towards the door. You wanted to rush out the door and escape the tension of the situation, but you knew that wouldn’t make anything better. The least you could do is hear him out. “Okay.”

“Alright,” Jimin dropped your hand and stuffed both of his in his pockets before leaning against his desk. “When you got hired, it was on the heels of one of my closest friends being let go.” Your mouth opened in shock, but Jimin held up a hand to stop you from speaking. “Just let me finish, I want to get this right. He was up for tenure, but instead of giving it to him, they laid him off and hired a brand new art teacher.” He gestured towards you. “I… obviously didn’t handle it well. I was angry on his behalf, and rather than taking it out on the school board who was actually responsible, I took it out on you. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m sorry.”

You paused for a moment, digesting his words. “I had no idea, that’s really shitty of the school to do.”

“Yes, it is. This district doesn’t really give a fuck about their teachers, but that’s beside the point. The point is that I was an asshole and I shouldn’t have been. Erick didn’t want this job anyway. When I told him how I’d been acting, he scolded me.”

You couldn’t help but smile. “You deserved it.”

“I know. Y/n, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Especially after getting to know you better this weekend. I- I think you’re a great person. You’re interesting, and beautiful, and were kind to me even though I definitely didn’t deserve it.”

“Thank you,” you said, feeling your cheeks flush hot with the praise. “I really appreciate it. I’m sorry as well, for being kind of a brat when you asked me to help with the decorations. I know it must have been difficult for you to ask, and it sucks that the school left you in the lurch this year. I should have just helped without complaining. And I’m sorry for saying my kids’ decorations were going to outshine your show. That was childish of me.”

He grinned. It was perhaps the most beautiful smile you’d ever seen. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

You sighed, feeling lighter. “So we’re good?”

“We’re good.”

JIMIN:

The big day had come, and Jimin wiped sweaty palms on his pants nervously. No matter how many times he put on this show, the nerves never got better. Kids were unpredictable, and he always felt pressure to improve upon the year before. That was difficult this year, considering his refusal to spend his own money again.

For the last couple of months, the main focus of each music class was learning the songs and the structure of the performance. The kids had been doing wonderfully at practice the last two weeks, and he could tell how excited they were for the big day. He’d taken the decorations the kids made and sprinkled the snowflakes throughout the seats in the auditoriums. The kids all had their own flowers, so they would give those to their families during the last song, symbolizing the end of winter and the coming of spring. Though they weren’t all perfect, Jimin hoped that the personal touches of the decorations would make up for any flaws.

“Alright everyone!” Jimin said, addressing the 2nd graders in their choir stands. He whispered behind the curtain, trying to avoid being heard by the audience. “We’ve gone over this, you know these songs like the backs of your hands! Let’s make this the best performance Darling Elementary has ever seen!”

He gave the cue for the music to start and as the children began to sing, the curtains slowly opened. Jimin rushed off to the side, not wanting to block the view. He’d be right there to step in if he was needed, but he felt confident that the kids could rattle off the songs without him. His eyes scanned the crowd, smiling as he gazed out over the grinning faces of teachers and parents.

His smile widened when his eyes snagged on Y/n out in the audience. He’d felt better since their chat a few weeks back, ironing things out. But, he still had not said everything he’d wanted to say, and he had been too busy with any last minute preparations to slip over to the art room during school. And, damn him, he still hadn’t gotten her number.

While he knew he should really peel his eyes away from her and focus on the kids, he just couldn’t. She looked so beautiful, eyes shining and lips curled up into a smile as she watched the kids sing and do their hard-practiced little dances. Throughout the entire performance he simply couldn’t take his eyes off her.

As the last song started, the kids pulled their flowers from their pockets, making their way down into the audience to find their loved ones while still singing. They gave them their flowers and returned back up to the stage as the song came to a close, ending the show. Jimin stepped out to bow along with them, addressing the crowd for the first time.

“Thank you all for coming! We hope you enjoyed the fifth annual Darling Elementary spring recital.” His eyes followed Y/n as she stood, preparing to leave with the crowd. Compelled to speak to her at once, he rushed off stage to catch up with her. Parents immediately surrounded him, congratulating him on another job well done, another great performance this year, what a wonderful touch having the kids create the props, and though he was grateful, he really was, all he could think of was y/n leaving. He’d missed so many opportunities to say everything he wanted to say, he’d be damned if he missed another.

“Thank you so much,” he said, smiling and trying his best to be friendly though he felt rushed. “I just have to speak to someone quickly, but I appreciate everyone’s kind words!”

He slipped through the crowd, trying not to be rude as people tried to stop him. He chased her all the way out to the parking lot, shivering in his suit jacket as he called her name. She stopped, hand stretched towards the driver's side door of what must have been her car.

“Jimin?” she looked startled, brows pinching in confusion as she put her gloved hand above her eyes to block out the sun.

He jogged over, murmuring a breathless “Hi” when he finally reached her.

“What are you doing? You should still be in there, talking to people.”

“I know, I-” He turned, shooting a glance back towards the school. “I just saw you out there, in the audience. And I knew I needed to talk to you.”

“Okay?”

“People were complimenting the decorations. Thank you again for helping with those.”

“You said thank you already,” she replied, and if he didn’t know better he’d think she seemed… disappointed. Like she’d been hoping he would say something else.

“I know. That’s… not really what I wanted to come out here and say.”

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

“Look, Y/n, I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the retreat. I think you’re amazing, and I want to spend more time with you. Get to know you more.”

Her cheeks were flushed pink, and Jimin wasn’t sure if it was the chill or the effect his words had on her. “I would like that too, but-”

“But?” his heart stuttered in his chest.

“I don’t know how appropriate it would be, us being coworkers and all. If something happened, if it didn’t work out. My reputation could be on the line. What happened at the retreat was amazing, but it was unexpected.”

He smiled. “Is that all? Well I haven’t told Principal Walker yet, but I received an offer from another school. It seems word of the recitals has gotten out, I was approached by a music school. After what happened with Erick and the budget this year I’ve been hoping to switch schools, so the timing seemed perfect. Plus, there’s this incredible woman at my current school that doesn’t want to date a coworker.”

“Jimin,” you gasped. “Really?”

“Really. This will be my last year at this school. So, that being said, will you go out with me?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling up at him. “When?”

“Right now?”

“Now?!” she balked, laughing.

“I’ve been waiting to spend more time with you for weeks, I don’t want to wait any longer. So let’s go grab a drink. We can celebrate the recital.”

“And your new job,” she added. “I’d love to go grab a drink with you.”

“Amazing. I just have one more question.”

“Hmm?” she hummed as he inched closer. He reached up and lightly ran his fingers over her jaw. He did not miss the way her breath hitched at his touch.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered, his lips brushing hers. He felt rather than saw her smile before pressing her lips to his. It was like having water after a drought, getting to touch her again. He’d only had one taste but that was enough to have him addicted. He couldn’t wait to find out what the future would bring for them, together.

#jimin #jimin smut #jimin fluff #jimin enemies to lovers #bts fanfic #jimin fanfic #jimin fanfiction

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jolenes-doppelganger · 3 months ago

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Winter Wonderland

Larissa Weems x Fem!Reader 18+ Minors DNI or you will be blocked

Summary: The ever inevitable mid-winter brings a quiet snow in, trapping your best friend and sometimes lover in your quiet residence up in the snowy, intimate New England hills.

Warnings: Smut, G!P, Mommy kink, grinding, reader gets squished under Larissa, cheeky ear invasion, arousal gel, mild overstimulation, unprotected piv

A/N: Like a lot of my WIPs, this was a kinktober concept I never managed to finish due to the unbearable weight of massive academic dedication. (2024 was a fucking shithole and I'm so glad to be back to posting regularly). Ear invasion inspired by this art from @gayzone24.

Word Count: 3k

Reblogs and comments are very appreciated!

The soft crackle of the fire mixed in with the soft ambience of Larissa’s voice as she phoned Nevermore Academy. She was snowed in, stuck in the hills of New England due to a late January storm that had come over the weekend. Visiting you, visiting her sometimes lover and best friend for one weekend wasn’t common. But now, in the morning light, blue-grey from the overcast snow, Larissa was grateful she had decided to take up your offer for a late night dinner and a quiet night in.

Her soft footsteps drew closer as she gently settled back into bed with you, her breath tickling the back of your neck. Neither of you were hungry, last night’s meal had been more than enough to hold you over until mid-morning. As if unconsciously agreeing with the unspoken sentiment, Larissa’s hand trailed lower, grazing your nightgown covered tummy. The soft satin felt good over your skin, a personal touch made by Larissa. She liked the finer things in life; she liked seeing you in them, even if only for a few nights out of a long school calendar year.

The morning intimacy held no immediate rush, no agenda to be filled. Her arms were soft and firm around you, the subtle weight of her torso pressing down as she nuzzled the back of your neck. A break, yes exactly. Larissa sighed in contentment, and you followed her example, taking a deep breath in and releasing it. From your field of vision you could see the tiniest sliver of the outside world, peeking through poorly closed curtains. Snow. It sparked all kinds of desires, the desire to top off the fire, bake cookies, perhaps even take a winter stroll. But those festive impulses faded away as Larissa grew bolder.

One of her hands slowly crept down from your tummy, fingertips kissing the curve of your hip as it bent to meet your pelvis. She pressed her face more insistently into your neck, and with that, her lips. Larissa’s breath on your neck was scorching now, so warm in the otherwise cold room. Larissa didn’t like a warm bedroom. She preferred her bed warm, and filled with something to maintain that temperature.

“Larissa…” you sleepily mumbled, melting into the tender kiss at your neck.

“Yes, my dear?” she murmured back, voice low and gravely; sensuous.

The hand that had been merely stroking your hip moved down, softly sliding across your inner thigh.

“You’re awfully touchy so early in the morning.”

Larissa hummed once, a hint of a chuckle tapering the end of it. Again her nose grazed the back of your neck, tickling the hairs there.

“It’s hardly early at all. I just phoned in that I wouldn’t make it. This was after they called the late start last night… It’s almost ten, love.” she husked, finishing her sentence with another soft kiss to the back of your neck.

“Mmm… I guess we could get up.”

Larissa chuckled, shaking her head. Her voice was warming up, slowly working towards its usual gentle alto, and with that tone, the accent that made your stomach churn.

“No, I want you right here. And for as long as possible.” Larissa murmured, softly nibbling at the nape of your neck.

Her hand gripped your hip tighter, her other hands angling up as she carefully, delicately maneuvered you onto your front. She took great care positioning your head, manicured nails gently scraping the skin of your cheek as she stared down at you. Now you finally had a look at her, long blonde hair mussed and frizzed from sleep, out of her usual updo. The nightgown she brought in her overnight bag gaped, your line of sight following the skin down, down, down until you could see no more.

Larissa’s face was a little flushed, a make-up free face decorated only by the natural redness of her pale skin. She leaned forwards, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek as she lay her body down, down down, until her weight comfortably pressed against your smaller frame. She was all soft planes and forms, her breasts pressing into your back, tummy against your butt. On either side of you were her thighs, warm and soft as they squished yours in.

“Such a sweet little thing.” Larissa cooed, pressing increasingly open mouthed kisses to your neck and jaw.

She could feel your rapidly increasing pulse against her lips, the tender gasps as you processed her gentle adoration. You squirmed, against the warm sheets, the give of the mattress, the softness of her weight atop you. And you found the hardness, pressing insistently against your lower thighs, proof of the ever present tension between you two. Larissa was enamoured by the way your breathing accelerated, as you processed the precarious position you were in. She let it sink in, let her weight sink in above you. Trapped. Pinned. Exactly where she needed you to be.

“You can’t imagine how vexed I was last night, watching you drift off to sleep on the couch while we were watching that movie… A big dinner was just too much for you, huh?” Larissa cooed.

“I was too stuffed.” you managed, looking up at her through the corner of your eye.

“Stuffed?” Larissa grinned, white teeth flashing in the low light. “We didn’t even get that far if I remember.”

You opened your mouth to protest, she’d been in just the same state as you without doing any of the clean up. The hand that curled around your shoulder squashed that protest. The threat, or moreso the promise of what was to come held a weight that made your cunt throb. She hummed sensuously at your obedience, leaning down to press more kisses up to your ear.

“What’s wrong, kitten?” Larissa cooed. “Cat got your tongue?”

She chuckled at herself, amused at her pun. You tried to turn, tried to catch a glimpse of her, maybe even weasel out enough to catch her lips in a kiss. You were desperate for the softer elements of foreplay that paved the way to penetration. But that wasn’t what Larissa had in mind.

“Push your hips up.”

The weight of her hips against yours, the press of something familiar and hard and potentially organ rearranging was too good to argue with. Using more strength than you thought you had so early in the morning, you pressed your hips up and she pressed down.

“Oh… God.” Larissa moaned, grinding her newly shifted cock against your clothed ass. “Stay, for just a minute.” she wheezed, face pressing against the back of your neck as she savored the friction.

The drag against your pajama clad bottom, the morning grogginess that made your mind ever so blank… It was wonderful how soft it all was, how ever achingly sure the two of you were. Larissa grunted with a bit of effort, pulling your bottoms down. Her mouth fell against the nape of your neck, breathing in and out with hoarse excitement as she stroked herself to full attention above you. There was the wet sound of her palm dragging over the weeping head of her cock, and you tried to turn to look, only catching the side of Larissa’s body through your peripheral vision.

“Unnghh… Grab the lube, wait no, fuck…” Larissa cussed, her highbrow accent making her words seem dirtier than they were had her accent been muddier, less pronounced.

Your inflamed lover reached for her bedside table, manicured hand rifling about in the drawer for lube, something to aid the stretch of your body so early into the day. Coming back to you, she huffed against your turned cheek in impatience as she returned to her straddle. The squirt of cool jelly against her fingers mixed with the sound of her heavy breaths, the rest of the world too quiet to hear. You could feel your body heat up, the buzzing in your lower tummy turned to throbbing, a little bit of aching as you prepared for her attentions.

“Stay still, and breathe…” Larissa coaxed, softly kissing the tender skin behind your ear.

Two fingers moved, pressing the cool jelly against your relaxing entrance. Your hips jutted up at the shock of cold, but it was quickly forgotten; the pads of Larissa’s fingers spreading it around your clenching hole, lathering it in distracting gel. There was some tingling, a heightened awareness of the flesh around and just inside your vagina. You moaned aloud, hole clenching against her fingers, preparing yourself for the wonderful agony to come.

“Mmm… I knew you’d figure it out, my smart little minx.” Larissa cooed, leaning forwards and taking the lobe of your ear into her insufferably hot mouth. “Your pussy just creams when I use the special gel on you.”

Your soft whimpers fell against the pillows as you felt the tingling sensation of the gel grow, the throbbing, the unbearable stimulation placing all of your waking focus on your buzzing entrance.

“I know, I know bunny.” Larissa murmured, letting the tip of her tongue wiggle inside your ear as her fingers dragged up, rubbing some of the gel upwards, swirling over your swelling clit in insensitive, torturous circles.

“Rissa, please!” you whined, thighs squeezing together around nothing as the dull throbbing of your pussy heated up into a consistent pulse.

“Not my name, bunny.” Larissa chided, nipping at your neck in jest. “Spread your legs, come on now.”

A bratty whine left your lips, but you obeyed, lifting your hips up for a few more brownie points. Larissa hummed in satisfaction, dragging her lube coated fingers around your clitoris once more. It was derisively insufficient, mean. Nowhere near enough for you to cum, but more than enough for you to ache.

“Say my name, bunny.” Larissa repeated, tone firmer.

“... Please touch me more, Mommy.” you whispered, cheeks flushing an embarrassed pink.

Larissa’s approval came quickly; a devastating thwap of her cockhead against your inflamed folds.

“Fuck!” you yelped, feeling your cunt throb, ache, practically begging for more.

“Naughty words, baby.” Larissa clicked her tongue, another thwap, harder and aimed directly at your clit causing you to jerk against the pillows.

You ached for her cock. It was early, your mind was fuzzy, and the arousal gel was making your vulva buzz with insufferable heat. There were no words good enough in your muddled brain to please her, to satisfy her urge for submission. So you pressed your hips up as best as you could, aiming to return to the earlier doggy pose you’d been in before.

“Not what I’m after, bunny love.” Larissa chuckled. “Say you want it.”

Larissa was always insistent about consent. Not just a ‘yes’ or ‘okay’. Always a ‘please’ or ‘now’. And in the moment it was infuriating, feeling like you were begging, but the intimacy, the deliberate attention to boundaries, and trust within the dynamic was safe. It was touching. It was why you felt safe enough to let her lay atop of you and fuck you into the bed like a doll.

“Please Mommy, please…” you whimpered, shame killed by the urge to fuck, to be claimed, to be pressed into the bed and take it.

Larissa shuddered, grunting softly as she aligned the tip of her dripping cock with your ever inflamed entrance she pressed in, gently at first, and then firmer. You felt the subtle sting of your entrance as it stretched, and your grunts and gasps echoing hers.

“Fuck, tight.” Larissa groaned, pressing in and out in rapid little humps, gently stretching you open with her heavy cock.

Shifting above you, Larissa wiggled a bit, finding the perfect position for her knees and hips. You knew she’d found it when she fully sank down, pressing herself forward, sinking every inch of herself down, down, down until you were stuffed. Larissa let out a long exhale, her breath stained with last night’s wine, sour and sweet against your neck. Her breasts smushed into your shoulder blades and tummy pressing into your back. All of her crushing you down, pressing the air out of your lungs, pressing your head into the pillows, heavy, heavy, heavy-

“Breathe.” she commanded, stroking hair out of your eyes.

You forced your lungs to comply, and with effort they did, ballooning air back, bringing sensation and touch, the eroticism of being trapped beneath the woman you so loved.

“There’s my good bunny.” Larissa cooed, leaning down to nibble at the shell of your ear with mild attention.

Her gentle presence, the adjustment period allowing your cunt to relax, to shape itself around her cock, to learn to breathe with her weight atop you… It was just the calm before the storm. With a throaty sigh Larissa lifted her hips up, lifted her ass in the air, pulling her cock out of you at a deliberately enticing angle only to bear down in a heavy thrust.

In and out, in and out, she fucked herself into you, the squishing of your meeting flesh filling the quiet bedroom with sounds intermingled with cries, with moans. And Larissa loved every second of it.

“Good bunny, good girl.” Larissa moaned, scattering heavy kisses over your flushed cheeks, your gaping mouth sucking what little air you could into your mouth.

“Gah… Huh… Mmmph.. Puh-lease..” you whined, incapable of full words beneath her gravid thrusts.

She was breathing heavier now, the exertion catching up to her this early in the morning. But Larissa wasn’t finished, not even close. Her thrusts only got heavier, emphasizing the rapid stretch of your cunt paired with the ever agonizing withdrawal, dragging against your g-spot, against spots that were deeper, those without names that brought hers clawing out of your lips.

“Mo-mm-my, please!” you whined, struggling for air, for pleasure, for more of her.

The arousal gel brought a terrible, maddening tingling to your clit, the lack of attention almost as worse as being attended to; they were both pleasurable but could become too much. Your lover understood, Larissa pausing her thrusts to fumble in the drawer for something more. Her breath returned, hot and heavy on your neck as her fingers slipped down to press something small and deliciously vibrating underneath your clit.

“You’ll take it for Mommy, won’t you? You need the highest setting, I know you do.” Larissa smirked, kissing your temple patronizingly.

The highest setting?! No god, please, no, no, no, no-

“Lari-” you gasped, mouth agape and searching for oxygen as she pressed her full weight down once more.

The vibrator sat at the perfect angle to nudge against your clit with each of her down strokes. Combined with the arousal gel, it was enough for your vision to white out. The pattern was perfect, not enough to completely overstimulate you, but enough to feel your brain melt. Larissa continued on unbothered, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as you felt your entire lower body go limp.

“So good, such a sweet bunny for me.” Larissa gasped, staring down at you as the whites of your eyes rolled. “I can feel you squeezing my cock, you’re close, aren’t you darling?”

You were close. Close to cumming or levitating into the next dimension, you weren’t sure. All you could really focus on was the rhythm; hard and unyielding, bringing forward the inevitable conclusion, the natural climax to your passionate encounter. You managed to turn your head to catch her out of your peripheral vision, and what you saw completed the experience. Beads of sweat dripped down her flushed red face, Larissa’s hair falling out of its curl as her hair gathered sweat. Larissa’s lips were wet and agape, brows cinched together as she pressed on, pressed forwards, grunting and concentrating on not cumming, not blowing herself and this experience away before you felt pleasure.

“Please… Cum for me, cum for me baby.” Larissa whispered, biting her lip to hold out a little bit longer, long enough for-

One slap of her balls against the end of the slipping vibrator pushed it up, directly atop your aching, pulsing clit. You felt your entire body go tense, eyes popping out of your skull as you careened forwards and into la petit mort, meeting her there as she spilled herself hot and wet into your aching hole.

“Oh god… Little darling…” Larissa moaned, fucking herself slower, pressing her cum back inside your rapidly shuddering entrance.

The vibrator still sat against your clit, buzzing at an unbearably intense degree. It prolonged your orgasm, but as you came out of it, spent and shuddering, the ever buzzing sensation brought forward painful, devastating contractions that alerted Larissa to your plight.

“Shh, shh. I’ve got it.” Larissa cooed, reaching her hand down to pull it away from your engorged clit.

The removal of the vibrator brought the relief of the incessant buzzing, but not the relief of emptiness.

“... Mmm… Larissa, too sensitive.” you whined, trying to shift your hips.

Larissa tutted once, brushing your sweaty hair out of your eyes. Her softening cock slowly eased itself out of you, and with a gentle shift of her hips, slipped out of your tired, spent hole. Your cunt wept with relief, spilled essences dripping out of you and onto the sheets below.

“Stay still for me, hmm, darling?” Larissa murmured, still laying atop you. “Let me spoil you for a minute.”

She trailed soft kisses up your neck, tracing the natural path of your tendons. Your gentle lover pressed soft kisses to your ear only to trace the shell of it with her tongue.

“I think that was a successful start to the morning. Perhaps we should find other ways to occupy ourselves?” Larissa whispered into your ear.

You thought she was being sweet, offering an alternative to another round. But as her breath drew nearer, as she pressed her tongue out of her lips, tracing your inner ear only to press inside your ear, you knew it was all a play.

“I think I could use the attention of your lovely mouth next.” she smirked, biting the shell of your ear in jest.

The slow shift of her body, the shrinking of her cock upwards and into her body was your only warning. The shapeshifter had plans; it was going to be a long, long morning.

Tags: (Tagged my Rebecca people, sorry if this isn't your thing), @ilovehotactresses @marvelwomenrule @midnight-lestrange hmu if you want to be tagged in future works.

#lesbian #larissa weems x reader #larissa weems x you #larissa weems smut #larissa weems #wednesday netflix #larissa weems/ you #larissa weems/ reader #gwendoline christie x reader #gwendoline christie x you #gwendoline christie/ reader #gwendoline christie/ you #wlw #gwendoline christie smut

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frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 3 months ago

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you | for @steddiemicrofic January prompt new

pairing: steddie (duh) | word count: 517 | rated: M | on AO3

The next morning, Steve finds himself awake much earlier than he would’ve liked; the light of the new day filtering through the blinds is still tinged with early morning darkness.

For a moment he just breathes it in.

Only a handful of hours before, he was alone.

Only a handful of hours before, he was convinced that the thing he wanted most in this world would always be an impossibility.

Now though, these wholly insignificant amount of hours later, he feels a shift in gravity beneath him, the warm body beside him pushing up to turn over.

“Sorry,” he whispers, “Did I wake you?”

Eddie blinks blearily over at him; his brow is scrunched in confusion, like he’s not quite sure how he got here.

“You okay, Ed?”

Eddie grunts, letting his weight fall unceremoniously onto Steve’s chest. “Mrmph.”

Steve chuckles, and Eddie shifts again, tilting his head up to poke his chin into the meat of Steve’s chest instead of his nose. “You’re thinking too hard.”

“Hmm.” he hums, snaking an arm out from under his boyf– lov– frien— out from under Eddie and over the soft planes of his back. “Go back to sleep, Teddy.”

Eddie’s nose smushes into his pec once again, and Steve can’t help but laugh, his chest causing Eddie to bounce slightly.

“Mmrughph!” he complains, louder this time, flopping an arm over him and pressing down slightly to stop him moving, “Tryin’ t’sleep, here.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Steve chuckles, squeezing Eddie tight to him. He shifts, and Eddie presses himself the rest of the way to him, his leg hooking over one of Steve’s and settling between them.

Eddie soon goes boneless again, Steve feeling each point of him as it gets heavier with sleep.

He lies there, with Eddie in his arms, and thinks.

Thinks about how they would never have been here now if not for Eddie’s penchant for popping up at Steve’s house randomly. That if he’d had anything else to do tonight, he wouldn’t’ve waltzed in just after dinner. That if Steve had any better hearing than he does, Eddie wouldn’t’ve walked straight into Steve’s room mid-jerk.

The utter horror of being walked in on (by his newfound crush no less), did absolutely nothing to quell the heat blazing through him, nor did it deter Eddie from recovering quickly enough to shut the door, lock it behind him, and climb onto the bed between Steve’s legs.

“This all for me, big boy?” He’d asked, voice low and eyes dark.

And for some reason, all Steve could do was laugh.

Laugh at being caught, laugh at Eddie’s complete acceptance of what was happening, laugh at his complete lack of hesitation.

Steve laughed, Eddie’s face started to shift from sultry to panicked, and Steve had sat forward and pulled Eddie to him, kissing him soundly.

They’d moved against each other for hours; kissing, grinding, coming, laughing some more.. It was the least scary a new thing had ever been.

Eddie shifts beside him again, “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?” his leg hitches higher, feeling the effects of Steve’s reminiscing.

Steve smiles, “You.”

i haven't done a microfic in a while.. nor have i even writen/posted something in a while!! brushin off the cobwebs today apparently lmao

buy me a coffee? ☕

#steddie microfic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington x eddie munson #eddie munson x steve harrington #eddeve #steveddie #st #st ficlet #steddie ficlet #stranger things #noelle writes

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niuttuc · 1 year ago

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Weird Magic: the Gathering effects

Magic has a lot of cards and mechanics, so kinda wanted to try and see how well people both in and out of the community could fare at one of these. For fairness, I limited things to paper, tournament-legal cards, none of the joke sets or digital exclusive ones. Using current versions of each card's text, presented here as excerpts. Order for the poll was randomized. Reblog for a bigger sample size hopefully outside the magic community.

Edit: Now that the poll is over, let's put the solution under the cut!

The poll is over! This message will go through all the different options, talk about the purpose it serves and maybe add a bit of trivia about the card. This will be a long post, so I'll put most of it under a read more. Hope you enjoyed this poll, and there's definitely enough material for a second one at some point if people are interested!

But first, the correct answer(s)! Technically two of them aren't on tournament-legal cards, because one hasn't been released yet, but I included it because the text was funny and weird, and also to get an idea of how much of the sample were people that played magic but didn't follow things very closely. After all, the poll was aimed at non-magic players, for which it doesn't matter when the card releases.

If you would begin a turn, skip that turn instead. (19.3%)

This text as presented does not exist on any magic card, though Time Vault gets close. Some have pointed in the comments that it COULDN'T exist on a magic card because that would mean you never take a turn again, and that's not true. As with other examples in this list, other text around the one quoted could limit its application, or it could be a huge downside for a powerful effect. Epic exists as an ability that stops you casting spells altogether after all.

You control no suspected Skeleton. (17.6%)

This one was a double-whammy, not only is the card not released yet (people will start playing with it early February, this poll was made mid-January) and just revealed when the poll was made, the conditions for Cases like this one are written in a way that isn't really matched in most magic templating. And why would anyone suspect a skeleton?

Non-Human Werewolves you control... (3.7%)

While all the Werewolves in magic are humans that turn into wolves (at least the ones we know about) and principally from Innistrad, the ones from that plane have a quirk: When in Human form, they count as Human Werewolves, and on their Wolf side they just count as Werewolf. Immerwolf was a support card from the first Innistrad block that stopped your powerful Werewolves from flipping back to their weaker human form.

Coincidentally, this also means Immerwolf stops Werewolf partly mutated by eldritch horrors to finish their transformation, as a total coincidence because those wouldn't be released for another 4 years!

Roll a d12. (18%)

A popular option, even more than the skeleton! What kind of card game would ask you to randomly bring a d12? Well, this one does, at least if you're playing the specific card that requires it. For the longest time, dice-rolling in magic was confined to its joke, non-tournament-legal sets, but with the crossover Dungeons & Dragons set, dice-rolling was brought to the main game! With that said, the main sets of these that were meant for actual tournament play limited themselves to only using D20s, that magic players very commonly already brought to track their life totals (players start with 20 life.)

But in the supplemental sets associated with the D&D ones, that people would mostly play in more relaxed ambiences, designers experimented with the entire lineup of dice available. On top of D20s, we got cards with D4s, D6s, D8s and D12s in there!

You can't win the game and your opponents can't lose the game. (4%)

Be careful with demons! Years prior to this card, a card was printed that did the opposite, stopping your opponents from winning and you from losing, the idea being your opponent had to get rid of it to actually win the game. Then, in 2010, we got this one, using this text as a downside. In exchange, you got an overstatted demon that your opponent would HAVE TO deal with... Or stop you from dealing with it, if you don't have the means to get rid of this demon after you play it when you're ready to win, your opponent will get plenty of time to come back and kill you.

Cowards can't block Warriors. (4.7%)

A very famous line within the magic community, it actually appears on more than one card! Creatures in magic have "creature types" that are roughly separated into species and classes, but they all function the same as far as the rules are concerned. "Coward" is a type that no creatures had at the time of this card's original printing, but it made for a very flavorful statement of a rules text. It was beloved enough to come back on a couple cards since.

Put a card you own from outside the game into your hand. (4%)

This card was part of a cycle (one card of each color) of Wishes in its original set which all had a variation on this effect. Most colors' could only grab from a subset of cards, but the black one got to get anything at the cost of a hefty drawback. This effect has come back semi-regularly since, and is known in the game as a "Wish" effect. In tournament play, thankfully, it is limited to grabbing cards from the "sideboard" you bring to tweak your deck between rounds of a match, containing a maximum of fifteen cards, and not an entire multi-thousand card collection.

In the aforementioned D&D crossover set, it made for a very clean implementation of the Wish spell that spoke immediately to magic players... Though I've heard some D&D players found it lackluster for such an iconic spell.

Each player votes for death or taxes (5%)

Conspiracy sets were built on multiplayer and politics, and as such introduced a new voting mechanic that would let players around the table discuss the end result of you casting a spell. It was iterated upon in the second Conspiracy set, and then a few more times incidentally since. A lot of the voting cards have players choose between two options, so they were given names, but since the name don't really change anything gameplay-wise, designers had fun giving them some flavor. You can vote between death and taxes, between time and money, between wild and free.

Count the number of cards in your library. (9.1%)

Your library is your deck during the game in magic (which I intended to specify but forgot). Counting the cards in it is tedious and usually not something you have to do, but a few cards make you do it. This one is the only one to actually say that, and thankfully it's a bad card, pure lifegain usually isn't good in magic, but there's a couple spells that affect half of a person's library, and while they're not common sights, when they happen, it's counting time...

Chaos ensues. (7.8%)

Oh hey, one of those votes again! Chaos ensuing (and planeswalking) are tied to the Planechase variant of the game, that isn't played in tournaments, where the location you're in can change and affect the game during it. With that said, a few tournament-legal cards were printed last year (a cycle of these voting ones, and Missy from Doctor Who) that actually just make Chaos Ensue. Though that text doesn't do anything if you're not playing Planechase, the cards are still legal to play.

Cascade, Cascade, Cascade, Cascade (2.5%)

Most keywords in magic don't do anything special when repeated. Most. When they're an action like Cascade, you can just chain them together! A few cards were made over the years with double cascade, but to amp it up a notch, a few years back this card was made that is just huge and Cascades 4 times.

If it's neither day nor night... (4.2%)

The Midnight Hunt set introduced a Day/Night cycle to magic, that switches depending on players' actions, and it can be pretty annoying to keep track of. To avoid polluting games that don't need it across formats with it, the Day/Night cycle starts inactive and only starts when it's introduced by a card, until then, players are in a limbo of neither day nor night that does nothing gameplay-wise. Most of the ways to introduce the cycle start during the day, but a couple notable cards can bring about the night directly, and by themselves.

#mtg #magic #the gathering #poll #rules text #kind of experiment #card games #weird effects

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fatchance · 5 months ago

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I start my holiday travels tomorrow, and will not be posting again until I return to Arizona in mid-January. I wanted to take this opportunity to wish a very Merry Christmas to those who observe the day, and a happy and prosperous New Year to all my Tumblr friends and followers.

Charles E. Martin produced this illustration for the December 3, 1960 edition of The New Yorker. He was a prolific contributor of cartoons and covers to the magazine.

#away message #Charles E. Martin #The New Yorker #vintage magazine illustration #Happy Holidays!

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mythmerth · 4 months ago

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from my December readings, I’ve collected a few more merlin fic recs for the people…

For favorite long (80k+) fic, I would have to choose Drink my Pain, Swallow Your Pride by Lex18. I’ve read another fic I love by this author and if you’re looking for just the most fan fiction fan fiction that hits the spot, READ. It’s got sexual tension, it’s got vampires, it’s got werewolves, it’s got familial secrets, its canon era, it’s everything you want to indulge in and more. I, for one, love the vampire Arthur agenda and please give me more 🙏🏻

For favorite mid length (30k-80k) fic, I would have to stretch the boundaries a bit and choose the 85k A Summer in Delphi by rotrude. I went on a spree of reading this authors work and their variety is amazing. This was full of self acceptance, beautiful love blossoming, some tears, and a whole mountain of emotion with the characters in a 1950s Greece setting. Definitely recommend!

For favorite short fic (<30k) I would have to pick this short smutty fic called Beware the River by I_ran_out_of_books. if you’re into some magical being (?) smut I definitely recommend, it’s a little wild but the concept is great (and, in my humble opinion, underused). A succubus/siren creature in canon era morphing into what Arthur desires the most, aka merlin, and then merlin seeing this go down? sign me up

I’ll fire off some other fics I enjoyed this month here~

You have got to be kidding me by Diamondmask, painful but still so good modern slice of life merthur fic. A LOT of up and down emotions with this guy

Two Hundred A Heat by SauraUnderscore, smutty modern omegaverse tropes for a quick and fun read

A West-Country Romance by rotrude. really had me so soft by the end, them being so desperate for each other gets me misty eyed. a great historical forbidden romance vibe

Midnight Dragon by rotrude also had such a fun premise, modern enemies to allies, opposites attracting, yummy yum yum

I’m 100% serious when I say I’ve read heaps of rotrude’s merlin fics this past month. if you don’t know what to read, go through their works! There’s 168 of them and they’re all unique and wonderful. I was hard pressed to not keep repeating their name over for my recs this month, and I guarantee they’re showing up in January recs again too!

For my favorite reread in December I’d have to go with Arcane Asylum by new_kate. It’s another popular one, but I started rewatching the show prison break recently and it got me in the mood for this kind of gritty modern magic fic. Merlin is extremely BAMF in this and Arthur is his grounding center. beware of the tags but it still is a great read if you haven’t checked it out!

That’ll be all for this month! I’ve been relaxing over winter without my computer so when I have access to that I’ll be making my list of my merthur 2024 fic recs. rest assured I have a lot to say and a lot to love, and I’ll be back in a few weeks with January’s recs too!

(which… god, if I keep up this pace the 2025 stats will be just as insane as the 2024 ones)

how insane, you may ask… Check out my 2024 merthur stats here!

want more recs? Check out some of my other posts!

<< prev month next month >>

#mythmerth fic recs #mythmerth monthly merlin #merlin fic recs #fic recs #ao3 #bbc merlin #merlin #merthur #arthur pendragon #merlin x arthur #bbc merthur #merlin emrys #bbc merlin fan fic #arthur #bbc merlin fanfiction #ao3 recs

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 1 year ago

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Do you know what season each of the books takes place in? Also, when does Grim start his own club? Was that part of a vignette or was it part of the main story? I can't really find any information about it on the wiki so...

Based on context clues:

Autumn — prologue and book 1 (September; Yana confirms this is the beginning of the school year), book 2 (probably October, since this is when homecoming games usually are held irl), book 3 (most likely November, as this is when most fall semester finals would be administered + winter break is shortly after)

Winter — book 4 (winter break, probably mid-December to early January to cover the span of the holidays), book 5 (opens on the new year and there’s roughly a month of training), book 6 (happens shortly after book 5 and lasts a few days total)

Spring — probably book 7 (takes place an unspecified amount of time after book 6, but characters express surprise when Malleus’s bad mood makes it snow, so the winter-time weather must be over by now); it is explicitly stated that 6 months have passed)

Summer — technically, the main story’s timeline has not even hit summer yet (otherwise the students would be going home for vacation)

As for Grim and his extracurricular (Gourmet Foodies Society/Gastronomy Research Club), it's definitely not explored in the main story since it holds no relevance there. The founding of it isn't really covered in the current vignettes or bonus materials either, it's just casually mentioned every now and again, such as in Ortho's College Gear vignette (where Ortho is exploring potential clubs to join). Since Ortho's College Gear vignette is tied to post-book 6 events, Grim must have founded/joined the Gastronomy Club before this point in time. Most schools irl tend to have club fairs to promote their extracurricular organizations early in the semester to get new members, so... My guess is Grim likely got his start in the club all the way back in early autumn, just off-screen/not explicitly shown to us.

#twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #Malleus Draconia #Grim #notes from the writing raven #question #Ortho Shroud #book 6 spoilers

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nohoperadio · 13 days ago

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What do I want to read? This is the question @perdvivly asks us to consider in a recent book meme thing. This is not something I'm very orderly about most of the time, I don't really have a list (untrue but we'll get to that) I just possess a lot of unread books always and when I finish one I just kinda look around and see what seems good. I guess I'll be doing the post version of that here. I might not end up with 10 categories and they might not all be proper categories, dunno let's see what happens! Stuff I want to read in 2025:

Three English women I've mostly read and need to finish off who have not a ton else in common

So obviously we have Iris Murdoch, whose novels I've been deliberately rationing at 1-2 per year for the past 15 years; currently at 21 out of 26 read. I'm not gonna finish them all this year but I am thinking of picking up the pace a little bit, it would be embarrassing to die or something without getting to the end, the above numbers don't even include the philosophy and other bits that I intend to get to too, and I mean I'm obviously just going to keep rereading one or two per year for the rest of my life anyway so the sense of "oh no there'll be no more left" is maybe a little silly? Like it's cute that I've made her last this long but come on. Anyway I love her I love her I love her I love her.

There's less Jane Austen to get through, I read Northanger Abbey in January thus finishing the novels so it's just the incomplete Sanditon and then the juvenilia so I can say I've read all of her. Looking forward to seeing her get silly with it in some of this stuff. Oh and maybe there's some letters but I don't think very many?

And Virginia Woolf, again already finished all the novels as of this year but then there's--well there's a lot, I'll obviously finish the short stories soon but there's a lot of essays and stuff and I'll have to play by ear how deep I want to go there, I read vol 1 (of 6) of her diaries a while back and it was like half-fascinating half-boring, which I guess is the best we can hope for from unedited diaries... I possess the second vol but we'll see, we'll see. Do I care about her book on Roger Fry? Who knows. I wanna read Hermione Lee's biography of her too, I read the one by Quentin Bell (her nephew) which was pretty entertaining but I want to read a proper one too.

It's weird I'm pretty obsessed with her but like, you have to really get on her wavelength to actually enjoy her fiction ime, and getting on her wavelength is a mental trick I'm... kind of mid at? Like when I do fall under her spell it's like nothing else, you can really get swept up in her evident sincere conviction that every single thing that happens to everyone is intrinsically fascinating, but when the spell fails to work, I can't lie to you, it can be pretty boring? But I keep coming back to her because I crave the magic and probably always will.

(A year ago on this very tumblr I linked one of her (actually pretty unWoolfian!) stories and two people actually read it and liked it and that felt really good. If anyone's reading this please check it out and tell me what you think and I will give you. A little kiss.)

17th century British history

Fuck I gotta make these shorter than that. Alright well I've never really been a history reader tbh but I've randomly become a bit fascinated with the period around the civil wars and I'm seeing how far I can ride this, aside from like wikipedia and podcasts I've read Jonathan Healey's The Blazing World (which is kinda bleh, pretty loose narrative that often is just jumping around various anecdotes and quite shallow-feeling analysis), started Blair Worden's The English Civil Wars (much much better so far! It's short but feels way more grownup and less documentaryish). Have also bought but not started The Noble Revolt by John Adamson, intimidatingly long but highly regarded, and then for a primary source I have my eye on Edward Hyde's History of the Rebellion, written by Charles I's chief advisor and supposed to be fun... yeah we'll see how all this goes.

All this fucking poetry I have

I had to ban myself from buying poetry a long time ago because I kept falling in love with volumes in the bookshop and then when I get them home I just can't get it up for them somehow. I know I can like poetry because I can tell you poems I love but they're always isolated encounters, somehow sitting down with a book of poetry and spending real time with it is, not a thing I can really do? Or not a thing I can do on purpose very often. But like I don't believe that's my heart, this feels like it should be a solvable problem. So this section represents, I suppose, an intention to have another stab at solving it. Oh I guess I should mention some actual books right? Well this here anthology of Metaphysical Poetry is surely a promising start because the metaphysicals are clever and I value cheap cleverness extremely highly. Don Paterson's collection Rain is one I did actually succeed in getting deep into back in the day so perhaps I'll try his 40 Sonnets which I have here, a lot of it looks annoyingly avant-garde though (wrong type of clever). Two of my favourite bands have written songs about John Berryman which is probably as good a reason as any to pick up The Dream Songs. TS Eliot because I still know the first couple pages of Prufrock off by heart although I couldn't really get a handle on The Waste Land.

Muriel Spark too! Fun fact one of my earliest original posts on this account was just me posting a Muriel Spark poem I really loved and it didn't get any notes, go read it and give it some notes. I will give you a little kiss.

Phenomenology?

Okay this one is like, I'd be pretty surprised if it happens in a big way this year. Sad as fuck to say but I'm not sure the version of me that has a full time job is capable of accessing the requisite levels of not-being-tired to read long dense philosophy tomes, but I mean it's not like I've really tried lately. When I was a teen I started-didn't-finish all three of Being and Nothingness, Being and Time and The Phenomenology of Perception, and while they did technically defeat me this stuff was what convinced me philosophy was important, it's still really the only philosophy I've ever read whose value really seems beyond question. I've never really touched Husserl but at some point last year I impulse bought Ideas so clearly some part of me wants to do it. I don't know man! Maybe.

I want good nature writing to exist

This one is mostly not about specific books and is more of a cry for help, I ranted in the tags of this post about how frequently nature writing seems to go out of its way to like, be about anything other than nature? And I know it can't all be like that but I've been burnt a lot of times... I guess I've had more luck with the ones that are more pop sci branded than "nature writing" branded so maybe that's the way to go. But yeah if anyone has any recs for who is the anti-Helen MacDonald please do let me know.

Should I start reading the cool kid books?

In a way, I work in a bookshop, and I hope to keep doing that actually, so it might be professionally prudent to know something about like RF Kuang or Sally Rooney or whoever the fuck. However, I don't really care. So it's a dilemma!

I want to re-read Claire-Louise Bennett,

which might actually be doable this year because it's only two books and they're not very long or slow, but fuck she's good. The only really recent author I truly love I think? If I were asked to write a quippy quote to go on the back of her books I'd say she was equal parts Woolf and Tristram Shandy and then they wouldn't use my quote. I quoted Pond at some length in this post, I actually think Checkout 19 is probably better but there's not much between them. If you go with Pond don't be put off by the prose-poem shorts, I can take/leave 'em they're not really representative of the rest.

Weird depressed Europeans who go on about stuff too much

Some years ago I walked into the bookshop that would eventually become my workplace in a mood to find something totally new-to-me and fall in love with it, I came across Laszlo Krasznahorkai and something about War and War really grabbed me and for some reason (apparently about a guy whose suicide plans are interrupted by his randomly discovering an unknown ancient epic and his felt duty to make sure it's preserved? Sounds cool right) I bought everything they had by him (four books). And for some reason I started reading The Melancholy of Resistance instead of that one, a very unhinged and sprawling philosophical novel with no paragraph breaks that was hard-going but compelling, then I lost the book halfway through. Months later I found it again but by then I had gotten too sad about it and it's not the kind of book you can really dip back into after a long absence so like, that was kind of the end of my Krasznahorkai thing. Well I'd like to try again. And I want to start with War and War this time since that was clearly what fate intended in the first place.

The other guy in this category is Knausgaard, who I feel like I don't gotta talk about as much cos everyone has already heard about how great he's supposed to be, I read the first volume of his struggle and yeah it's pretty great. Wanna get to the second vol soon.

I want to start writing in my diary again

I'm a firm believer that every list should contain at least one item that doesn't belong on the list, so: I've proven that keeping a regular daily diary is something I can keep up for at least like a three-month continuous period, I proved it last year. If I can keep it up for three months then I can keep it up forever, right? Three months is a long time, it's like a small forever. And there's a lot of reasons why "a few words per day of record-keeping/minor self-expression that no one gets to look at" is a really useful thing for me to have, but after that initial run got derailed I never managed to get it back for more than brief episodes. Well, I hope it wasn't a fluke and I hope I can find my way back into it this year.

Oh I don't know, maybe my actual fucking list of books I want to read that I actually supposedly have? Hmm what about that? What about that maybe

So I do have a goodreads (Viv I want to be your goodreads friend but last time I looked through my read shelves like a ton of the ratings made no sense to me and I'm just kind of embarrassed by it, I've been planning to start a fresh account for a while, when I get around to that I shall add you; it looks like you went through a similar thing so I trust you understand!), and I do add stuff to the Want to Read list on there occasionally. I never look at this list, so it serves no purpose at all. I'm looking at it now and I don't even know what half this stuff is. Like wtf is South Wind by Norman Douglas, with only 314 ratings? I'm sure I've never seen this book in my entire life. Who is Witold Gombrowicz? I recognize Elias Canetti as the name of a guy who might have slept with Iris Murdoch I think but that doesn't seem like a good reason to want to read him. Yeah this is a completely useless list and I will continue to never look at it. Oh sometimes at work I take photos of books that momentarily catch my interest, and those photos are like, another one of this.

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Okay that's ten! Hey Viv this was actually a lot of fun thank you for tagging me, I'm not really proofreading it because it's too late so uh, sorry about how it is. Everyone else, obviously I'd enjoy seeing you talk about books if we're mutuals, I hate tagging people but I'll do some anyway: @lloke @medlinka @autogeneity @jerkeline @robustcornhusk @wellmetmat @abodywithorgans, if I didn't mention you you should take it as a calculated insult obviously

#an ask meme #nohopereadio #uninteresting

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aloesarchives · 1 year ago

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Jujutsu Kaisen Lore Headcanons for "Toji Lives/Megumi Cock Blocks Toji" AU

Warning: Female/Afab! Reader, Author(me) being a really fucking annoying narrator, Swearing, Inaccuracy to the anime and manga, Things that don't make sense but are trying to, Switching between reader and you, Mentions of OCs but reader is not one, Reader is highkey a marysue/OP

!!Disclaimer!!: These are my PERSONAL headcanons, thoughts, and opinions on how Toji would be like if he was alive and would act after the Hidden Inventory arc. Or how the events of Jujutsu Kaisen would be different b/c of reader and Toji being alive. These headcanons also explain Reader’s role and place in this AU how her presence changes many things.

Series: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Toji x Mama!/Fem!Reader

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 5.5k words

Summary: Headcanons for the “Toji lives”/”Megumi cock blocks Toji” AU, and Mom!Reader being a part of and affects each timeline.

(A/N: I will have a separate post that will further explain the Shibuya arc and post Shibuya onwards with the “Toji lives” AU very soon! I know I said I'll have some posts ready after my lastest one but I was having fun and enjoying myself with the holidays that I kinda forgot about them. I promise I'll upload those posts within January! I apologize for my inconsistency!) [!!Unedited and not proof-read as of December 31 2023 12:05am!!]

General Reader Headcanons:

Reader is roughly around 33-34 during the Plasma Star Vessel arc(Year: 2006). Reader is also around her mid 40s (45-46) in present day Jujutsu Kaisen. Toji is roughly around the same age.

Reader’s technique is exclusive towards her, but the only time someone shared a technique like hers was during the Heian Era/Time Period where one of her ancestors is said to have the exact technique like hers but with personal different methods.

Reader hates the Jujutsu elders and higher ups for the schemes they have brewed. One which ultimately caused the Japanese faction of her clan to dwindle in size when she was around 8 years old. Reader is a certified hater of the elders and higher ups of Jujutsu Society, it runs in the family.

Reader's sorcerer grade is officially recognized to be around Semi-grade 1 to Grade 1 sorcerer. But in actuality, Reader is classified as a Special Grade sorcerer b/c of the rarity, nature, power, and versatility of the technique itself.

Reader is a mentor/motherly figure to Satoru. You are the closest thing Satoru has to a parent/guardian so Satoru favors you over many adults/older people.

Reader is considered a part-time sorcerer as she holds down a full time job in the real world after graduating. This is mostly due to her not wanting to be at the beck and call of the higher ups and Jujutsu Elders doing their bidding, but occasionally does help and do favors for certain people like Yaga. She only became a part-time Jujutsu High teacher shortly before the Hidden Inventory Arc.

Reader met Toji around her early 20s when he freshly exiled himself from the Zen’in clan. She ran into him during a favor she was doing for Yaga. She was on a retrieval mission to get a curse tool for Jujutsu High’s inventory. On her way to the location, she was ambushed by a curse. Before she could exorcize it, the curse sputtered and coughed up its blood as a blade pierced its chest and it dropped dead. With no curse energy, Reader was prepared to fight only to see a strongly built man with a small scar on his lips. She meets Toji, and funny enough he had the curse weapon she was looking for. She was trying to negotiate with him to get the weapon. She didn’t have to for long as Toji just straight up gave it to her and said, “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you? I’ll give it to you because you’re cute. Until I see you again, Ms. Sorcerer~.”

Then Reader randomly runs into Toji both on assignments and in real life. It was at random but in a consistent way. Eventually, Toji starts living with Reader because he is lowkey homeless. Reader first fell for Toji but Toji fell HARD for Reader. Always accompanying her when she has to run errands. Always watching out for her and in the shadows. Hell, he started asking Shui for information on certain people to make sure you’re not getting yourself into trouble. He also starts asking Shui for better paying jobs that he could do in a day then take a few days to complete.

Toji falls hard because of Reader’s understanding and compassion towards him and his past, which she was more than understanding of his feelings towards the Zen’in clan for their god awful mistreatment and ostracized Toji from Jujutsu Society. Yet he couldn’t understand why you had tears in your eyes when you pulled him in for a hug, saying that you’ll be his family now and he can rely on you. Thus, that’s when Toji said, “I need to fucking marry this woman or I swear to God I will assassinate every sorcerer in the world.”

After a few years, Reader and Toji get married and Toji takes Reader’s two last names: (L/N) Fushiguro. Fushiguro wasn’t originally a part of Reader’s last name, but decided to take it up as an alias when Reader briefly left Jujutsu society to live among non-sorcerers. The last name came from a distant relative a few generations back that was married into the family.

After around 29, Toji and Reader had Tsumiki. Then a year later, they had Megumi at 30.

Though your place is small, it was homey and cozy for your little family. Life was good until the year where Tsumiki turns 4 and Megumi turns 3. Toji started having missions where he was coming home less and less frequently. It was starting to bother you because he was starting to miss out on Tsumiki and Megumi growing up. More so, it was devastating to you when Megumi told you he could barely remember anything of Toji, he even faintly describes Toji’s looks but it is starting to get foggy.

It was becoming hard to support your daughter and son on your own, so when Toji came home one night you told him your thoughts. Then an argument happened, not a loud one to wake up the kids, but you were putting Toji in his place. Toji was trying to justify that it was his work and they have been demanding him recently, that it was the good of your family as they were paying him more money to do them. This was when you started questioning Toji’s occupation and what he does. Toji gets irritated about you questioning his line of work and tries to repeat again that it was for the sake of your family and nothing more.

However, Reader is unaware that Toji made a deal with the Zen’in clan to sell off Megumi when he’s around 5-6. He couldn’t tell you this because he knew how you would react so he was going to keep it a secret for the time being. However, he would never tell after the argument the two of you had.

The next thing you know, Toji drops an envelope on the kitchen table and grabs his packed duffle bag as he heads towards the door. You tried to stop him but he says that he needs to leave for a while but he promises he will be back. Kisses reader on the lips and forehead before leaving their apartment.

Reader is hurt and confused until she opens the envelope to see a check that’s already signed. It has $5000 dollars in it. It would last you at most 5 weeks for you and your children. Yet, that was the only check received from Toji as he went completely off the grid. No amount of resources would amount in a helpful way to finding what happened to your husband.

That was when reader was assigned an important mission for the first time in years. Where you and another teacher, Maho(JJK OC) would act as guardians/chaperones to Gojo and Geto. Your jobs were to oversee and supervise the two students and report anything about the mission.

“Toji lives”/ “Megumi cockblocks Toji” AU:

So basically in this AU, not only does Toji live. But mostly everyone else does live, or somewhere along the lines of dead and alive. Well, minus Junpei and Mai. But that’s just me being blissfully ignorant of the canon timeline and canceling most of the events out and just changing them.

So everything in the Plasma Star Vessel arc happens but the only thing that changes is Riko and Kuroi being alive. The way that it happens is you were sent ahead to do some investigating of the Jujutsu High area to see if it’s safe. Then out of nowhere, you were asked to speak to Tengen themself. Unbeknownst to you, you were unaware that Toji, your estranged husband, had attacked Gojo which forced Geto, Riko, Kuroi, and Maho(JJK OC) to run and leave Gojo to fight him.

You were basically told by Tengen to respect the last wishes of Riko Amanai before they merged. But they popped that statement out, you responded with, “what if her last wish is to continue on living and not merge?” At first, Tengen opposed you for your question. Saying it would throw off the balance of their stabilization and balance of Jujutsu Society. However, you countered by saying it’s respecting Riko’s wish and the girl's wish to keep on living. Meaning that technically you’re honoring her wish and you believed that she deserved to live her life.

Plus you argued that there are few Plasma Star Vessels out there, like Yuki Tsukumo, who didn’t merge with Tengen are completely fine. And Tengen didn’t suffer from not merging with her or the other vessels. So after some thought, Tengen briefly allowed Riko to live and not merge with her. However, in exchange, you would have to find a substitute host in place of Riko. While it wouldn’t be the same, Tengen said it would be easier to merge with another host that had curse energy or was a Jujutsu Sorcerer.

Meanwhile, Geto, Kuroi, and Maho escort Riko in front of Tengen’s chamber. For a bit, Geto offers Riko a choice to leave with Maho and him. To not merge and live her life out. Riko expresses this but before she could allow Geto to take her hand, Maho gets shot in the throat. The bullet was meant for Riko but Maho’s change in positioning took the hit for her instead unintentionally. Toji reveals himself from the shadows and says he’ll take Riko dead or alive. Geto tells Riko and Kuroi to run while Geto fights Toji with Maho supporting him the best that she can after learning Toji killed Satoru.

Suguru and Maho get defeated while Kuroi is knocked out by Toji and takes Riko to the Time Vessel association. You come out of the chamber to only find Geto and Maho bleeding out, you take them to the infirmary and have Shoko heal them. Suguru tells you that a man with no curse energy ambushed them, killed Satoru, and took Riko. ‘Wait, a curseless man? But. . . that can’t be’ You snapped out of it and left Suguru to find Gojo’s body to take back. You found where you assumed you would find his body but all you would find was a large blood smear on the pavement. So you went to find Riko in the association. What you didn’t know is that Gojo beat you to it. You snuck in and when they were about to kill Riko, you snatched her away and brought her back to Jujutsu High. However, you asked Riko about Gojo’s whereabouts. She said she last saw him fight a tall man with a small scar on his right lip. Your blood runs cold as you continue to drag her towards the school. She didn’t understand why you stopped talking, but the look of fear on your face told her something.

As Gojo and Toji duke it out for the second time, it was Suguru that caused Satoru to misfire his Hollow Purple at Toji and narrowly missed him. Toji knew that he lost the fight because he would’ve died if he got hit. Let alone, get defeated one-way or another. Since Suguru told Gojo that Riko’s retrieval was a success, Toji knew he wouldn’t get paid for the job and just gave up. He, surprisingly, surrendered himself to the two and was taken to an underground bunker where Toji was heavily sealed and chained up. Doesn’t even bother fighting back at all. Though the mission was a technical success, Tengen didn’t merge with the chosen vessel and there was a sorcerer killer on the premises of the school.

Since you were in charge of the mission and the only one uninjured, you were held accountable and take full responsibility for what has happened. The Higher-ups and Elders were not happy, to say the least, with the results. But specifically that you allowed the rest to get hurt and let Tengen’s vessel free, ceasing the merging. However, they weren’t on Reader’s ass for the first two. They were mostly on her ass because they discovered the identity of the sorcerer killer is Toji. And somehow figured out Reader’s marriage with him. Because of this, they were going to execute Toji and put Reader on trial.

This was also the moment reader’s suspicions were right with Toji doing all of this. She was going through the ringer of emotions when revealed the information in the same room with the very people she despised. So she kept to herself and remained calm. She proposed a deal to them that she knew they would consider. In exchange for Toji’s life and freedom, the reader gave these conditions:

Toji’s weapons would be heavily sealed and hidden away where no one can obtain them. Their whereabouts will be unknown and Reader and a select few would know about the location.

Toji cannot enter Jujutsu Society/High without Reader. For at least a year, Toji can’t be near any sorcerer or enter any Jujutsu building. Reader is essentially Toji’s handler and responsibility. Toji has to be with Reader at all times when on Jujutsu Premises.

If Toji acts out of line, he will be immediately executed. Reader will also be executed or exiled from Jujutsu Society. However, if Reader dies, Toji will be executed. If Toji somehow dies, Reader would be somewhat safe. But if Reader dies, Toji will die with her. Reader’s life is in the hands of Toji’s behavior and actions. While Reader’s entire life and existence is the reason why Toji lives and her dying means he dies too.

These conditions were simple enough but the higher ups were still doubtful. But Reader also adds that after a year, Toji could go on missions if it involved a reward. Mentioning that Toji would be a vital asset to them and keeping him on house arrest wouldn’t be ideal. Reader tells the higher ups that Toji was exiled from the Zen’in clan years ago and would only listen to her. She implies that Toji could wreak havoc on Jujutsu society if it wasn’t for her.

With reluctance, the higher ups agreed to Reader’s terms but warned she would be on a watchlist. Reader just waves it off. Yet after she leaves the room and goes outside, the weight of her emotions get the best of her and she cracks under it all. This was a lot of process and bear but she was the only one to do this.

Strangely enough, a distant relative of reader’s contacted her about moving into an old home of theirs. No prices or charges, they just needed to give the house to her since they were moving back into the clan’s main residence. Reader was like okay, thanks for the free house. Since there wasn’t much at the old apartment, they didn’t need to pack much.

Once Satoru and Suguru were healed up, Reader tasked the two of them to bring Megumi and Tsumiki to the dorms temporarily until the house was ready and Reader dealt with Toji. Satoru may or may not have slipped about Megumi’s true heritage, causing Suguru to bonk him on the head. Megumi doesn’t want to go with the two men but after telling him and his sister that Raeder sent for them, he and his sister followed them.

Reader basically was taken to where her husband was held. She only had less than an hour to talk to him so she had to speedrun their talk and leave some things out. It was strange to her to see her husband, the notorious sorcerer killer, chained up and not fighting his restraints. It looked like he hadn’t eaten in days and the color in his eyes was dulled out. But when you entered the chamber and made your presence known, he perked up because he recognized your footsteps.

As much you wanted to comfort and coddle him, you were furious and beyond disappointed with him. Toji admits his faults and was okay with dying. During which he reluctantly revealed to Reader that he sold Megumi to the Zen’in clan for his technique. With this newfound information, Reader is heartbroken and slaps Toji square in the face. Though she didn’t want to, he did deserve it. So Reader explains the conditions she made to grant Toji his freedom and life back, if he so chooses. Or he can get executed, the choice is his.

Toji doesn’t deserve a second chance but Reader offered one to him. While putting herself and life at risk for a bum who ended up abandoning his family. Reader said he can clean himself up, to step up as a husband and father. The only term she was willing to give Toji if he chooses to come back. In a way, Reader was giving signals to Toji that she still needs him and doesn’t want him to die. Toji thinks about it. He would be restricted to being at home and the outside world, while being on a leash by Reader when entering Jujutsu Society which he doesn’t mind the thought of.

Toji makes his decision by agreeing to the conditions while also promising to pull himself up. Although it made you smile, it disappeared when you remember how your children would react to seeing their absent father again and trying to adjust to his constant presence. Toji said he’ll try his best, but he wouldn’t guarantee Megumi and Tsumiki’s approval. But it didn’t matter to him because his family needs him and he would damn to waste his second chance knowing many don’t get any.

So it was settled. Toji is freed because of Reader with the somewhat of an approval from the Higher-ups, the house was ready to move with the kiddos, and everything was starting to set in motion. It was a hard adjustment for the kids in this new chapter of their life. Moving into a new, nicer, and bigger home than the previous smaller apartment was a big change. Another big change was seeing their father for the first time in almost months. Tsumiki was a little happy to see Toji back at home with them but Megumi was different. In fact, he was indifferent about Toji’s return and tried to completely ignore him. You and Toji completely understand Megumi’s feelings about his dad suddenly popping up again out of nowhere after months of not coming home. You reassured your son that Toji’s staying for good and that it’s okay for him to not accept his dad's presence right away or force himself to.

It wasn’t what it used to be but Reader didn’t mind it. Since Toji was on house arrest in the meantime, he was on house-husband duty. Since you were now working as a full-time Jujutsu teacher(2nd-3rd year teacher) and Sorcerer, you were away from home a lot during the morning and afternoons. Toji struggled in the beginning but he really managed and became good at it. He was an excellent cook, cleaner, errand runner, and even handyman. You still handled the money but Toji never asked you for more than what was needed. He started picking up Megumi and Tsumiki from school, making the other parents drool over him. He honestly likes the domestic aspect of this part of his life, something he never imagined when he was younger.

You knew it was bad but you asked Satoru a big favor. Since Megumi’s sale to the Zen’in clan was still up, you asked Satoru to postpone it or intervene in a way. Reader would have the power but her clan faction isn’t what it used to be and the Zen’in clan hates her guts for marrying Toji. Satoru agrees to help but it would mean that he would have partial guardianship over Megumi. That was fine with you but explaining this to your young son would be hard, considering he will be training and spending some of his time with one of his mother’s student.

Satoru and Suguru become older brother figures to the kids and Shoko being a big sister. They would come to your house to visit just to see the kids. It was challenging at the start since Toji was there and a constant reminder of their weakness. But you talked with them about it, saying that they don’t have to care for your husband and hate him all they want. But never hate the children. This was helpful to Suguru since Riko and Kuroi were living on Jujutsu Tech grounds as a safety precaution since there were still hits on Riko. You also noticed Suguru's depression while soul-searching. You always told him that you considered him family and let him know to come to you for help when he needs it.

Reader is the sole reason Suguru hasn’t fallen to the dark-side and became a curse user. However, he and Satoru almost became one a year later.

A year after the Hidden Inventory incident, Nanami and Haibara were sent on a mission to exorcize a grade 2 curse. You accompanied them because you knew the area better and felt the need to watch the students. However, the information was completely wrong as the curse they were facing was a grade 1 curse that manipulated the earth and surroundings. While Nanami and Haibara had minimal to mild injuries, you were badly injured and bleeding everywhere. While you were able to exorcize the curse, you were hanging on by a thread because your main priority was the safety of the two students. Though you were healed, you did have a faint scar and you were out from doing missions for about a couple of months. Highkey traumatized the two students because their teacher was about to be murdered and they couldn’t do anything about it.

What they didn’t know was that the mission was a ploy to have Reader be assassinated while carelessly adding kids to the mix. All done by the Higher-ups and encouragement of the Zen’in clan. The only reason this information was spilled out was Toji was visiting you in the infirmary and his super hearing heard a low grade Zen’in sorcerer spill it out. He, along with Satoru and Suguru, forced the sorcerer to spill anything they knew. The sorcerer revealed that Reader had been on a watchlist and knew she was dangerous to them so they tried making her death a tragic accident. Surprisingly, Toji and Satoru had this moment of truce between each other. It was interesting to Suguru because both of the two men hate each other’s guts but decided to work together if it involved you. They would’ve stormed in and decimated the Higher-ups and Zen’in clan, which Suguru didn’t mind.

It was Shoko that retrieved them, saying that you were awake and wanted to talk to them. The three begrudgingly made their way to your room. Reader essentially argues that going on a killing spree would make them curse users, they are just tools for the higher-ups and would turn on them at any given chance. She reminds them that if Toji kills in Jujutsu Society, she would die or be completely exiled and Toji would be immediately executed. Leaving her children all alone with both parents gone and possibly dead. Reader admits she wants to change Jujutsu society and take down the current higher-ups and dismantle the old system. But she doesn’t want to drag Tsumiki and Megumi into the mix, especially since Megumi possesses a technique that has been sought after for centuries.

This weighed on the four of them as Reader continued to talk. It doesn’t help that if they do succeed in killing the higher-ups, not many people would follow behind them, like the big three families. She advises that they need to wait, which she is aware that time won’t change anything. But something needs to happen in order for the change to happen and work in their favor. Suguru understands but doesn’t really agree because keeping them around for longer will just continue what’s happening. Reader points out that if they kill the current higher-ups now, possibly the worst people would take their place. A greater evil replacing a mild evil, pick your poison.

The men don’t go through with the killing but are on legit bad terms with the higher-ups. Toji couldn’t give two fucks about them and the Zen’in clan, but he loves you so he’ll abide to your rules. Similar to Toji, Satoru is the same. He does have the power to do all of this, he knows it would put many people at risk. Suguru was the only one who was conflicted about it, they could do it now so why wait for later? But Suguru is only doing this for his friend and you, not for Jujutsu Society.

Reader is aware of Suguru’s breaking point with what’s been going on. She tries to help but knows Suguru has to make that choice to reach out for help as well. He has been sent on mission after mission, breaking him down even more. One night when you were still on mission leave, there was a knock on the door. Opening it revealed Suguru holding two twin girls in his arms. After dragging him inside, giving the girls Tsumiki’s old clothes, patching him up, and making him tea, you asked what on Earth happened? Anxiety gnawing away as you assumed the worst. Then Suguru explained the situation, his latest mission in a village where he found the mistreated twins by the villagers. He didn’t kill them, to your relief, but he was mad and angry how non-sorcerer people could be more cruel than them. These are the people they were supposed to protect and save but they pull off the most heinous crimes, putting a hit on Riko then torturing these innocent girls.

You didn’t deny Suguru was right, why protect non-sorcerers when they have the ability to be as cruel as the curse spirits they fight? But it was not about being the better person and letting them get away with it, no. It was about would it be worth it in the end for Suguru to kill off random humans who they’ll never see again? The village was remote as it is. So for torturing the girls, Jujutsu tech and other Jujutsu sorcerers weren’t allowed to do assignments for the village. Leaving the villagers vulnerable to curse attacks and incidents. While it still was a bad decision to leave them to fend for themselves, you couldn’t let Suguru go on a killing spree.

So Reader helps Suguru take care of the twins along with Satoru and Shoko. The twins had a hard time adjusting but got used to living with Suguru as their guardian/dad. The Twins grow up with Tsumiki and Megumi as they would have play dates and hangout with each other whenever they were at Reader’s home or Reader brings Megumi and Tsumiki to Jujutsu Tech.

With that, Suguru and Gojo become teachers at Jujutsu High. Shoko became a doctor, Yaga became the principal of the school, Haibara is a full-time sorcerer while Nanami left the Jujutsu World after he graduated but eventually returned a couple years later. You still teach at the school but more of a substitute teacher and only going on retrieval and investigating missions.

During this time, you tried your best with your children to mend their relationship with Toji. While Megumi took a little longer than Tsumiki, they recognized that their father was staying and not leaving anytime soon. The household was a lot healthier because of that, putting Tsumiki and Megumi in a better mental state. With Megumi having developed his curse technique, Satoru trains him and spends time with him after school to help him better understand his technique. Though you do help your son, it seems like Satoru had teachings that stick with him more. Megumi recognizes Satoru’s presence, though annoyed for the most part, and sees him as an older brother figure but he’ll never admit it. Toji is more involved with his kids' lives as they get older, making up for their earlier years. They have good figures in their lives, making their lives better. While Megumi still has that surface-level brooding antisocial personality, it’s credited to him being an introvert and picking up bits of Toji’s personality.

Though Toji and Megumi’s relationship got better over the years, they have their little banter moments here and there. It was more for annoyance and teasing between the two. You allow it to happen only if it’s meant to be a joke and not a cruel insult disguised as a joke. Sometimes Tsumiki intervenes but you tell her that’s how Megumi and Toji show their love for each other. Especially when Megumi gets older and doesn’t show his vulnerability as much compared to when he was younger. Megumi grew to appreciate his dad more and Toji values from what his two children have taught him.

With the events of JJK 0, since Geto is alive and a non-curse user, let’s just say that the villain who attacked Jujutsu High was Kenjaku but in a different body of a powerful person. So Reader meets Yuta and the other first years and is shocked to see a Zen’in with no technique. She makes personal note of this while also helping Satoru and Suguru teach them. Reader was also there for the attack that took place on Christmas Eve, which pissed her off because she was supposed to be at home with her family but some powerful bozo wanted to conquer and see the whole world in shambles. Nanami and Haibara were serving on the battlefield. Gojo was literally giving hands to Miguel while Suguru was helping in exorcizing and stockpiling curses.

Kenjaku gets heavily injured and flees the scene, proclaiming that this wouldn’t be the last time they would see him. So after convincing forcing Miguel to come to your side, Reader and Satoru sent Yuta with him to Africa in hopes of finding more of the curse rope Miguel’s clan makes.

Meanwhile sometime later, Megumi was of age to go to Jujutsu Tech. He had a lot of resistance from you to not go there, let alone be a sorcerer. But Gojo talked with you and convinced you that Megumi would become a better sorcerer if he went. Yet it meant dorming at the school and Reader was reluctant about it. But when Megumi showed interest and talked to you about it, you agreed to it but it meant that Satoru would be responsible for his well-being during school hours. Toji also was on Megumi’s side, saying the boy needs to spread his wings and kick ass. Plus Tsumiki will be home too. He’s becoming a young man and you hate to admit it but your husband has a point.

Also in this AU, Tsumiki doesn’t get cursed and goes into a coma. Long story short, you had a gut feeling that something bad was gonna happen. But it wasn't like the air shifted or felt different. Nah, you had this impending doom and you felt so sick that Toji was concerned for you. When Tsumiki left for the bridge, Toji secretly followed after her and saved her just in time. However, one of her friends ended up getting cursed instead. Tsumiki feels guilty but Toji explained about your concern for her safety which is why he went.

Everything still happens as per usual. Megumi meets Yuji, Yuji eats Sukuna’s fingers, Yuuji becomes Sukuna’s vessel, Megumi, Nobara, and Yuuji become a team, etc.

Megumi never really mentions Reader/You, his dad, or sister to Yuji and Nobara because they never asked him. But also, he still is a well-reserved person and doesn’t let information like that slip, especially what he knows about Reader’s status in the Jujutsu Society.

Yuji and Nobara don’t meet Reader/you until after the Kyoto exchange event because Reader/You were in Hokkaido for a bit. But let’s say Reader/You were not pleased with the treatment of Yuji and the Jujutsu Tech students from Kyoto. Todo gets a pass but he’s the only one, Miwa does but she’s a different story.

Reader brings up Maki to Toji and Toji seems interested to see another person that’s very similar to him. Reader brings Toji to school and this is one of the times he is actually well-behaved and watches from afar as he sees the second-years train. He observes Maki quietly as you await his response. Toji just stands up, saying there’s another foil to the Zen’in clan’s plans before leaving the school grounds with you.

Toji does go on missions for Jujutsu Tech but he’s not considered a sorcerer. He’s very similar to Mei Mei in terms of only doing a job if it bleeds money. Due to his Celestial Restriction, he is sent on more dangerous missions. But he doesn’t mind because the paycheck he gets is a fat one that could provide for a year for your household.

Now with the Shibuya Arc, it will be completely different with Toji being alive and an ally. Though tragedy and destruction will occur in Shibuya and afterwards, Toji’s being alive does change the tides against Kenjaku and his evil plan. This is also where Reader starts doing her own thing and pulls some strings that’ll help the main cast. Even if it’s not on legal terms.

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potahun · 3 months ago

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WPS Boys' Birthdays

making a post for this in case people have Thoughts, but: Depending on whether you consider WPS canon, the birthdays for furuya, hiro, matsuda, hagi and date can be narrowed down to 6 months (give or take) of the year, between beginning of october and end of march:

the police academy course for university graduates in Japan is apparently only 6 months long. and

Conan straight up says WPS is a story about boys who joined the police academy "in the spring" (narration at the start of WPS), so even if we give it a margin of doubt, they joined around late March tops. But-

Conan plainly states that the police academy primarily accepts students in April, and October. Usual academic years in Japan start in April too. So it's very likely that the course started at the beginning of April for them. This would place its end in September.

All five of them are said to be 22 at the beginning of WPS and still 22 again at the very end, when they graduate. So the months left for their birthdays are October, November, December, January, February, and March.

Falling cherry blossoms is the setting we see for matsuda and furuya decking each other in the face at the start of WPS. In Tokyo, cherry blossoms usually bloom in late-March and fall by mid-April (see e.g. here) So it places that scene somewhere between start of April and mid-April. If you take into account that Matsuda and Furuya's fight didn't take place on Day 1 of the course, then you have some leeway to include early April in the birthday range (but not much of April since cherry blossoms disappear by mid April).

Meanwhile, assuming that the course started in late March instead for an exceptional reason, then you might have leeway to include late September in the birthday possibilities (aka if they finish the course late September and immediately turn 23).

But yeah. As long as time did pass normally back then (and it could have, after all it was before Conan existed) that'd be it for them!

WPS is generally considered more "canon" than ZTT since GA wrote it , instead of just vetting the drafts like for ZTT. Of course GA can choose to retcon this anytime, but otherwise it seems those would be the months we can pick for WPS boys birthdays!

If you believe in horoscopes maybe you can choose according to that. If you dont believe in it maybe you can pick according to preference like "do i want him to be a winter, fall or spring child.... " idk. but in any case, that does narrow the possibilities down quite a bit for all 5!

#dcmk #meitantei conan #matsuda jinpei #furuya rei #hagiwara kenji #date wataru #wps #detective conan #detco #i personally really like early march or early october for hiro but im not picky #im not very picky for furuya either. i like the idea of winter child furuya as much as i like spring child furuya #and i think it's stereotypical but id enjoy an aries matsuda + sagitarius hagi combo #and i have ZERO opinion on date lol sorry

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gallavichthings · 5 months ago

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Hello, Gallavich fandom!

I'm organizing the calendar of events for next year and I'd like to get some input from you all before finalizing it. Please check my questions at the end.

Here's a rough draft:

January - Guessing for the Masquerade taking place up to the 31st

Mid-February - Appreciation week / Lovefest (The idea is having an event to talk about everyone's favorite Gallavich related things, including fandom stuff. From favorite episode to favorite fanart, for example. So kind of a mix between the appreciation week and the Lovefest, two events we've had in the past.)

Late February - Sign-ups for the gift exchange start

Early March - Sign-ups close and prompts are chosen

Late April - gift exchange postings

Mid-May - Gallavich Week themes revealed

Mid-June - Gallavich week

July - Summer Camp event is coming back! (Not hosted by this blog though, just adding it to the calendar to avoid overlapping the events)

August - A.U.gust

September - Reverse Big Bang posting (again, not hosted here)

October - Kinktober

November (mid to last week) - Masquerade opens

End of December - Masquerade posting

Now, here are my questions:

1) I've seen some people posting secret Santa gifts recently. I moved the gift exchange in favor of the Masquerade and also so it wouldn't be yet another gift exchange for those of us who participate on several fandoms. So the gift exchange is (was?) scheduled for next year. But now I'm wondering if you even want another one? I don't know if the one that just happened was open to anyone in the fandom or if it was a closed community, I literally just found out about it when people started posting, but if it was for everyone, are there enough people who didn't participate or that would like to do another one so soon? Would you prefer to maybe cancel it or postpone it? Or have another event instead?

2) On a similar note, I know everyone's always excited about A.U.gust and Kinktober, but those events can also be moved around a bit if it would help. Would you prefer to have the Kinktober in March instead, for instance? (with another name, or course lol). Basically, the AUs event and the smut event can be moved to different dates, it's what I'm saying. I think it would be nice not only to have some variety, but also so that they're not alongside similar events for other fandoms (the Kinktober especially, not to mention there's also Inktober for fanartists and other stuff). Plus, it gives us more varied content throughout the year. We only have to be careful not to overlap with the events being done by other blogs.

3) Are there any other events you'd like to see that I haven't mentioned? Or any events you're tired of that you think could be swapped or maybe shortened? Feel free to send me suggestions. I promise to take everything into consideration.

That's all for now. Thank you to everyone who read it this far and especially to those who are going to give me an answer. 💞

#Gallavich #Ian X Mickey #Shameless #Shameless US #Gallavich events #Mod post

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bambi-kinos · 6 months ago

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What do you think of Paul and John 's relationship in 1980? Personally, I think they had at least some sort of consensus of the relationship (I mean, a formal romantic relationship) in 1980, and I don't think Paul started thinking about the nature of the relationship after John's death, i think they both took it seriously in the'70s and decided that what they wanted from each other. It wasn't the Beatles anymore, it was John and Paul, but John's death stopped it.

I don't know what to make of John and Paul in 1980 to be perfectly honest. There's a lot of rumors and conjecture swirling around it like the Crazy Days and Nights post. A lot of the interpretations around 1980 are based in wishful thinking because no one wants to believe that John died without some sort of plan in mind with regards to Paul. The fact of the matter is that there's too much we don't know.

What we do know from the 1970s is that John and Paul's relationship really split down the middle and they didn't want anything to do with each other. They did still care about each other but they had pissed each other off too much. Paul did start reaching out in the mid-70s trying to talk to John but John, and especially Yoko, didn't want this contact. That's why John turned him away from the door when Paul tried to show up (alone!) with his guitar. John regretted that later but I don't think it's wrong to see their relationship as very dead in the water.

And the truth is that Paul didn't actually pursue John that much contrary to some bitching that took place last year in the fandom. Paul's heaviest overtures to John were when he was out of Yoko's immediate presence during the Lost Weekend and then when John went back, Paul kept him at a distance again. The communication eventually became infrequent phone calls (since many were blocked by Yoko on purpose) and that often turned into them shouting at each other. Paul eventually stopped calling John frequently and when he did he was careful to keep their conversations very light and stilted. Otherwise John would just get angry at him. Paul had other things going on in his life, he had to raise his children, be a husband, keep making music, and arrange tours.

I can imagine that John and Paul hooked up occasionally through out the 1970s but the truth is that when John said "leave me alone" Paul did.

I don't think John's last interviews wouldn't be so laden with regret towards Paul if they had something planned in the background.

Paul never forgave John for leaving The Beatles or for giving his life up to Yoko. He did want John back in his life and away from her once Paul realized what she was doing to him, but I don't believe that he was willing to stick his neck out again for John's sake. He didn't know what he was going to get in response. I would think that's why they booked the studio in January 1981, to see if they could operate with one another on neutral ground. But that was a test balloon.

It's possible they did have something happening in the background but John seems too torn up about Paul in 1980 for me to really believe that. He was actively trying to leave Yoko but I think he would have been in the wind a bit if he had, Paul wasn't riding to his rescue this time. And he was right not to.

We just don't know enough to make any firm pronouncements about 1980. Whatever John wanted from Paul it was vague and undefined because they were rebuilding their relationship from rubble. Paul was wary around John and trying to figure out if he could really trust him this time.

Idk I just don't get the "we are together again" vibes from everything that was happening in the Dakota at the time.

#john lennon #paul mccartney #mclennon #beatles meta #my meta

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aesethewitch · 1 year ago

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Shufflemancy 101: A Brief History & Analysis

Hey! If you like my work and want to support me in my quest for divination theory, digital tools, algorithmic quandries, and research into niche divination tools, consider throwing dollars at my Ko-Fi tip jar! Every contribution helps me keep making posts like this one. (You can also read this post over on Ko-Fi!)

The difficulty with researching something like shufflemancy is that it's a relatively modern phenomenon. I haven't yet found anyone (online or in a book) specifically talking about the origins of shufflemancy as a term or where it might've come from.

So, we start from square one.

What is Shufflemancy?

According to Wikipedia, shufflemancy is divination "by the use of an electronic media player such as an electronic playlist, iPod, or other medium wherein one skips a certain number of songs and the lyrics and/or tune of the song is the answer to the divinatory question."

Simple enough. Use an electronic collection of music that's been shuffled to divine.

This did lead me to the question: What counts as shufflemancy? Does tuning into a radio station count?

It's my opinion that radio divination does not count. There's no shuffle function. Yes, it has an element of chance, and that's what makes it divination. It certainly falls under the wider umbrella of divination via music, too. But it isn't shufflemancy if it doesn't make use of a shuffle function.

So, to make things simple, for something to be shufflemancy, it must:

Use an electronic medium

Involve a randomized shuffle function

Be something the shufflemancer can interpret to answer a question (pretty much anything)

Early Shufflemancy

The earliest form of shufflemancy as we understand it today, using the above requirements, would probably be tape players capable of shuffling music. With the nature of tape, it would take a while for the thing to wind and rewind to find the cue on the tape which signaled the start or end of a song, but it'd work.

With that said, shuffling as we understand and recognize it today would've started with CDs in the 1980s. There were CD players that could hold three to five disks at a time. They could shuffle songs between all disks held in the player, creating a random mix of tunes for listeners to enjoy.

Using either of these methods for divination would work, technically. The results would be somewhat limited, but that doesn't mean it's a bad method to use. Especially if your CD player could hold 5 disks, you could easily put in 5 albums from different artists with all different vibes for a wider variety of outputs.

I certainly remember using my little blue radio that held two CDs at once like this. I'd put in two albums and hit shuffle, and the first song that played would be my vibe and advice for the day. It was divination -- some of the earliest I'd ever done consciously, at the young age of nine. And when I got the bigger one that held three CDs? Game changer.

So this puts shufflemancy's origins somewhere around the mid-to-late 1980s, when Sony put out the first CD player with shuffle. As we moved into the 1990s, CDs became more popular and cassettes faced obsolescence.

The Shuffle Revolution & Early Modern Shufflemancy

In 2005, Apple changed the game again. It had already debuted the iPod in 2001, providing an easy, pocket-sized music experience as a direct challenge to the CD's cultural domination. On January 11, 2005, nearly 20 years ago, Apple announced the iPod Shuffle.

And oh, boy, did it change everything.

I could talk forever about the iPod's impact on the music industry, the death of the in-order album, and the eventual rise of music streaming services. But others have done that to death, so I'll focus in on our topic of shufflemancy.

This is where we start seeing shuffling music as it is now, in the modern day. In my digging, I found mentions of the term "shufflemancy" as early as 2007 -- just two years after the iPod Shuffle was announced. Someone proposed the concept and terminology of "shufflemancy" as we understand it today on a Halfbakery Forum "Idea" post on October 3, 2007.

It's difficult to say whether this is the first instance of the term. In reality, shufflemancy seems to have emerged as a natural by-product of the evolution of music technology. Where there is innovation, witches and diviners will mold it to their purposes. We're a resourceful bunch like that. It grew organically as we moved from buying albums to buying singles to streaming music without buying at all.

People were offering public shufflemancy readings as early as 2009 in places like TarotForum.net. It's spoken about during this era as a "silly" and "new" form of divination that people were trying out. There aren't any dates in that link, but according to the website's data, the first post in the thread was published on June 16, 2009.

From there, shufflemancy saw a gradual rise in popularity. It evolved from using iPods to iTunes, Napster, and eventually Spotify as these new applications emerged.

Shufflemancy Now

If you look up "shufflemancy" using Spotify's search function, you'll receive dozens of results. Many of the top playlists are public ones curated by shufflemancers for themselves and others to use. Options range from general playlists to "mega mixes" containing upwards of 200 hours of music from all different genres, artists, and eras. There are some with a paltry five hours of music, while one that I've seen goes up over the 600 hour mark. (If I can find that one again, I'll reblog it, because... damn.)

Select a "messages from your guides" option from the search or curate your own -- the choice is yours. For one-time shufflemancers, using a pre-made option may be the best, most economical choice. But dedicated shufflemancers sometimes boast multiple hundred-hour playlists for different purposes, all personally curated.

Clearly, it's popular. There are shufflemancers on Tumblr and Etsy offering free and paid services using their specially curated playlists. A quick search is all you need to find someone receiving a divinatory reading via song lyrics, meanings, and vibes. And it seems to work -- sellers on Etsy boast hundreds of positive reviews. Some even offer playlist curation services for personal shufflemancy or messages from deities and/or spirits.

It all begs the question, how does shufflemancy work?

Shufflemancy Methodology

Finding this is significantly easier than pinning down the history of shufflemancy. This post from Tumblr user orriculum, sums it up fairly well. So does this one by the-daily-diviner.

To do shufflemancy, the basic steps are:

Create or find a playlist of songs. A large collection seems to be the most favorable option for a wide spread of possibilities.

Ask a question. Divination 101 -- figure out what you want to know and ask it. Simple enough.

Pick a number. Choose any number and shuffle that many times or skip that many songs.

Listen to the song. Write down lyrics that stick out, messages that come through, and anything else that seems relevant (genre, tempo, vibe, etc.)

Interpret. Take the information gathered during the song and use it to draw conclusions, just like any other form of divination.

Simple enough. Shufflemancy is the sort of method that requires a high level of intuitive thinking. It's very mutable and suits a good amount of personalization.

This is both good and bad, I think. It would be incredibly easy to create a bias in your shufflemancy playlists by selecting songs with primarily one genre, artist, album, emotion, or through-line. The ideal playlist really does have a wide variety of music, and this means selecting songs that the shufflemancer doesn't necessarily like. We all have a genre or artist we hate; excluding an entire genre skews results. Impartial selections of music are critical to the success of good divination. Otherwise, we risk interfering with the outcome.

And speaking of interfering...

The Algorithm Problem

(Note: I'm focusing in on Spotify since it's very commonly used and because it's accessible to me. Shufflemancy can be (and is!) done with plenty of other apps like Apple Music.)

When Spotify was originally launched, it used a version of the Fisher-Yates Shuffle to perform its shuffling of music. In essence, this algorithm takes a finite sequence of data, picks an option from that selection of data, and removes it from the pool. Then, it picks another and another until no more options remain.

At first glance, this seems great! It creates a fairly random output. But as is the nature of randomness, there were clusters. The same artist would play four or five times in a row from a large playlist, and Spotify users complained. It was random, but it didn't feel that way.

The human brain is wired to find connections and patterns. When the same artist plays over and over again despite a playlist being on shuffle mode, it creates a pattern that the brain recognizes. Therefore, the "true" randomness of clustering outputs was unsatisfactory.

So, in 2014, Spotify updated it. Their new algorithm would detect and remember the song it just played and, in shuffling, account for the artist and album to provide a more random-feeling result. The new algorithm detects what's already played and selects accordingly to prevent the same artist from playing twice in a row, just as it prevents the same song from playing twice. It spreads artists out evenly (though not perfectly, to maintain the illusion of randomness) to provide an enhanced listening experience.

What does this mean for shufflemancy, then? If Spotify's algorithm is interfering in the output provided from a playlist, does that mean it's not a reliable form of divination?

At first, I wasn't so sure. I adjusted my thinking -- if a tarot app was preventing certain cards from being drawn (or from being drawn in a particular order) because I'd already drawn them that day or week, would that render the app unreliable? And the answer was yes. It would! It removes the random element from the method, therefore making it not true divination by my definition.

So shufflemancy with Spotify isn't (good) divination, then. Right?

My Opinion & Theory

In thinking about this further, I think it comes down to personal opinion. People certainly have success with shufflemancy via Spotify, or else they wouldn't do it. They definitely wouldn't offer their services (free or otherwise) if they weren't confident in the results it provides.

Thinking that way, I believe there's a way to off-set the algorithm's interference. With enough songs in a playlist, the random element is enhanced despite the algorithm. Not by having the same song multiple times (Spotify would surely detect this and prevent it from playing), but perhaps the same song covered by different artists. Songs with the same vibe, the same meaning, similar lyrics... AND songs from a wide variety of artists and genres, regardless of whether the shufflemancer likes the songs or not.

The person with that 600+ hour playlist for shufflemancy has it right, I think. That's the key. Variety and volume to make up for Spotify's algorithmic shuffler.

Additionally, in listening to my many, many Spotify playlists, I noticed something. If I'm listening to a playlist on shuffle and decide I want a specific song, I can choose to play it immediately. Afterwards, songs I've already heard might play. It seems as though doing this resets the shuffling algorithm in some way. Doing this in combination with a large and varied playlist might be the key to making shufflemancy in Spotify truly, fully reliable.

My Next Steps

Obviously, scholarly research only goes so far in situations like this. In order to properly gauge the accuracy of shufflemancy, I'll have to do it myself.

First, I'll need a playlist. I have a handful of playlists that sit in the hundred-hour range, but they're curated with friends for specific vibes. They're not really suitable for shufflemancy. So making one for myself is step one. I'll use premade playlists as a springboard for ideas, but the end result will be my own. For transparency, I'll make the playlist public and share it as part of the next edition in this series of posts.

The next step is to just... do it. Do the divinations, and do them regularly. Instead of a daily tarot card, I'll do a daily shuffle. I'll form "spreads" and put together a more in-depth methodology that fits my style as it develops.

Then, finally, maybe public ones? For reviews and feedback, obviously. It's one thing to do divination for myself -- confirmation bias and all -- but to do it for others and to be open for immediate feedback is entirely different.

Last, it's a matter of compiling my findings into a coherent document. Easier said than done, but done it must be.

Resources

I pulled from a lot of places for this one. Massive thanks to the Crossroads Discord for listening to me yell about divination for the last several weeks. It will continue.

In any case, here are all the resources I referenced for this leg of research:

Wikipedia - The Fisher-Yates Shuffle

Wikipedia - Methods of Divination

Wikipedia - The iPod Shuffle

PopSci - History of Shuffling Music

Engineering at Spotify - How to Shuffle?

The Verge - The Mixed-Up History of the Shuffle Button

Auntie PanPan (YouTube) - Shufflemancy - What IS It?!?

Halfbakery - Shufflemancy Idea Post

Fox and Faith Wordpress - Radio Divination and Intentional Living in Your Day to Day

Scientific American - How Randomness Rules Our World and Why We Cannot See It

PC World - The CD Player Turns 30

Make Use Of - How Spotify's Shuffle Feature Really Works

Orriculum on Tumblr - Post on shufflemancy technique

The-Daily-Divinre on Tumblr - Post on shufflemancy technique

Empirical Zeal - What Does Randomness Look Like?

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