#if i put something in a chapter no one reads what’s the point of writing it

[accio-victuuri]

it’s been a while since i’ve shared my recent reads! so here’s what i have picked up in the past months. felt inspired cause i’m really enjoying the story i’m reading now, w/c i initially picked up as a manhwa but i’m impatient so i switched to the novel. it’s called the hunter is gonna lay low or the hunter wants to live quietly. it’s such a gem! cause it starts of pretty simple and funny then the author manages to put in the plot and well, it’s plotting. lol.

if you like systems/dungeons, cast of characters, time travel, mystery and the most delicious slow burn then this is for you. i hope this gets animated at some point cause it’s so good! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 this is the only novel on the list so it’s pretty special that the story led me to WANT to read the source.

i’m literally listing what i’ve read so yeah. and pretty much a v short reaction to it cause there is a lot (53). it’s a mix of ongoing and completed works at the time of writing and when i read it so i’ll mark that too.

1. Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie - this title is so misleading cause you would think it’s a modern story full of sweetness when it’s not. this deals with kingdoms/royalty, superpowers — and isekai.

2. How my Daddies Became mates (completed) - first foray into mangas because i most prefer manhwa/manhuas — i know, sacrilege. but yeah, it’s a cute story of two dad telling their kid how they met and fell in love. It’s so wholesome! a short read when you feel tired of all the toxic bl stories. 😂😂😂

3. Unintentional Love Story (completed) - pick this up! it’s so good! slice of life kind of vibe and falling in love in a small town.

4. Someone like You (completed) - this was something i started before and went back in now that it’s completed.

5. Isekai no Sata Wa shachiku shidai - i don’t really go for Mangas but this one pulled me in! I love myself some isekai plot. it’s just sad that no one has updated the translation for so long so that may put some people off in picking this up.

6. Bend over Backwards (completed) - corporate slave x international model. if you like this kind of dynamic then go ahead. Only 40 chapters plus a bunch of side stories so this kind of thing is a good choice.

7. Dinner with a Vampire - pretty obvs with the title.

8. Mister Wonderful teases me

9. Romance but not Romantic - omegaverse! the kind where the omega needs the alpha but initially hated him.

10. Be, Be. - omegaverse with modern royalty!

11. Smoky Nectar 1 - a short read that continues to a part 2 and it’s good ✌🏼

12. Smoky Nectar 2

13. Reincarnated to Devil King Evelogia’s World - this is so uniquely unhinged that it became. endearing. No. I swear. I haven’t read anything like it. I love it tho. Maybe some people will find it over the top but it’s now one of my personal faves.

there’s an animated version of it if you wanna start with that just to see how cute they are lol.

14. Bullying the Dog - an MC who didn’t get much love then he meets the ML who shows him what it’s like. it’s so somft.

15. Bittersweet Martini (completed) - i’m gonna cheat here and copy/paste the first comment on this story cause i think it perfectly describes the story: “If you're looking for a casual pleasure read with a green flag story with heavy flirting, which leads to a lot of blushing but also deals with a more serious topic towards the middle, without leaning too much into the drama, then look no further.”

16. Over the Paradise - guideverse with zombies!

17. Hero vs Villain - what happens when the supposed hero and villain become friends and fall in love? this was so nice!

18. Night of London - vampire and werewolf pairing! come on! Let’s gooooo! 🙌🏼

19. Kill my love - omegaverse and assassins!

20. Turning - Another work that i would most likely pick up the novel version cause it’s that good! Regression theme! ❣️plus the setting is they are in a kingdom where people have powers.

21. The Moon is coming to me - I have already talked bout this before and it’s one of my absolute faves! I didn’t know the Manhua was released! So i was so happy to enjoy it in that form. The translation for this is very close to the end so pick it up!

22. Cozy Obsession - transmigration where the MC knows how the story goes so he is trying his best to change the ending.

23. Summertime (completed) - one of my favorites! love it when friends become lovers and some may say the ML here is manipulative but i wanna say in a good way. lol. anyway, it’s classic, atleast from the MC’s side that you’ve known this person some time and that summertime everything has changed.

24. My way with you (completed) - gonna cheat again with this one by pasting here what someone commented: “LISTEN UP GUYS this one has everything: healthy happy relationship, supportive friends, trauma and healing, mysterious past connections, beautiful men, hot af smut, 100% consent, cutest lovey dovey couple, NO drama, NO “misunderstandings”, NO second ml, NO annoying interfering side characters. You will cry, but because it’s just so good.” 💯

25. Netkama Punch - i haven’t finished and progressed much as i would like tho i know a lot of people have this as their favorite! I will get back to it! The premise of hidden identity and online gaming is one of my fave so i will surely pick this up again.

26. Through the Years - i haven’t finished this yet but it’s a lot of people’s fave

27. Fools (completed) - disillusioned guy meets excitable puppy 🤍

28. Moonquake (completed) - a very unique concept. people on earth have powers and then some of them decided to rebel and live in the Moon. Our MC is one of the best ones on earth and is supposed to bring down the leader of the rebellion. but you all know what happens, they fall in love! AHHHHH! and i have to say the art in this too is exceptional.

29. Men’s wear store and the Royal Princess (completed) - this may be weird for some or slow / not enough action lol. i enjoyed it tho! the MC cross dresses and finds someone who loves and accepts him!

30. Ex Hot Neighbor (completed) - a story that centers around a misunderstanding! MC thinks he can’t date the neighbor cause he’s his friend’s ex. but nope!

31. Forest Sea (completed) - A good and solid fantasy story. Please give it a try! The whole birds vs snakes thing was kinda weird at first but the author made it work.

32. When you were asleep - this hasn’t been updated in a while and it’s so sad because the art is topnotch! the plot is good too, especially the dreamscapes but there’s still a lot to discover cause we wanna know what happened in the past. Why is MC even having these dreams and all that.

33. Beum & Go’s Unholy…. - still ongoing and read few chapters

34. Spring, the color of love (completed) - what a wonderful story. Oftentimes, as a reader, you have that sense of boundary with the narrator. But this one — you can feel and understand what the MC is thinking and going through. even tho i haven’t experienced what he did, i can totally get it. this is one of those tropes where they fall in love during their school years and some misunderstanding happens, they meet again years later and try again. something i would love to re-read even if there are parts of it that hurt. and it’s just proof that if something is meant to be, it will come back to you.

35. Keep Holding On (completed) - a short and sweet read with friends to lovers trope!

36. Wolf in the House (completed) - i am so late with this cause i feel like every list has this story as one of the best. I have to agree! it’s so good! tho i have to say i’m more attached to the second pairing. this one is a perfect mix of fantasy, action, comedy and romance. A solid recommendation!

37. Touch within the Abyss (completed) - AAAAAHHHHHH! a hitman x blind cinnamon roll! read it now! please! it’s so sweet! their love and care for each other is so pure 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

38. 99% in love season 1 (completed) - from bestfriends to lovers in the cutest way! they start fake dating and it leads to more obvs.

39. 99% in love season 2 - their college life and this one has smut scenes!

40. Alpha Trauma ( novel ongoing ) - if you know Omega Complex then you might be aware that this is a sequel of sorts but follows the second lead’s love story if you may. Everyone loves Dohyun so i’m one of those happy readers who is happy that he gets his own story, tho the POV in this is not his but his Omega. If you like ABO and campus setting then this may be for you.

41. Soul Sealer’s school life - The MC is the soul sealer who has to do good deeds to prolong his life, then he meets the ML who has a strong spirit in him. It’s a perfect blend of fantasy, comedy and not so much romance as of the moment. The art is 💯 and i really like to see where this goes!

42. Guidance with Benefits - still ongoing and read few chapters

43. Chiguha Kuna Kisu (completed) - if you like a short read that will make you have overall good vibes then this is it. school setting, two cute boys, a fortunate miscommunication and starting a relationship. it’s so good and made me want to look for more mangas! 🤍

44. Spicy Milk Candy - yandere but in a good way. that’s all i’m gonna say.

45. Ruby Red wo Kamikudaku (completed) - i’m just gonna add the summary below but it’s truly a unique read!

Akane is an Omega who can see people's pheromones as multicolored "crystals”. During his school days, when he was lonely because of his peculiar constitution, he meets Makise, a school nurse teacher. 5 years later, they are miraculously reunited, but Makise has a secret

46. Yume Nara Doko Made Yurusaremasuka (completed) - corporate slave x young policeman. 6 chapters of sweetness!

47. Sparkling Baby (completed) - this is supposedly a sequel for the second lead, but i haven’t read the first story. I just love how the MC/ML first met and then made a mark on each other as strangers — but it wasn’t there time yet. and so they meet again later and navigate their lives together. What attracted me to this story is how the MC changed because of love. For years, he had this sense of what he think is love and looking back, maybe it didn’t work out because love isn’t supposed to be like that. What he found with the ML is real and why it feels different.

48. Ashita kimi no mono ni shite (completed) - this so wholesome! school setting and friends to lovers. quiet boy x cool guy

49. Koibitu Keiyaku chu ni suki (completed) - friends to lovers! fake dating. and well, look at them. so precious together:

50. Camboy Bunny (completed) - i think the title says it all. A delicious read!

51. Beyond the Memories - AAAAAHHHHHHH! the story in itself should be sweet and fluffy but the author manages to squeeze in the undercurrent of there is something wrong. as a reader, there is something big that we don’t know and once it comes out — all of it will be shattered. it looks like there is some sort of regression and MC doesn’t know this but the ML does. The question here is when his memories will come back and will he forgive the ML. We are not in that part yet with what’s available right now so i’m excited!

52. Private Call (completed) - another omegaverse.

53. Senza Replica - guide/esper. very few chapters out and something i will go back to.

I read everything except the novel at BATO. 🫶🏼 covering my may-october 2024 reads.

[piningpercussionist]

transfem scott getting lots of support from ramona and kim in the early 2000's when shit's very taboo but they all 3 have a fire forged bond and lord if they aren't going to make sure they're all as happy as they can be because they've come this far and I dunno it just makes me happy all three of them

YES YES YES

It makes me very happy as well,,

Like I've said before. General Trans Scott enthusiast here- I love the idea of their little support network *violent coughing* I (we?) mean polycule *violent coughing* so fucking much.

Ramona I think has a bit of a more gentle hand with reassuring Scott with gender issues, but sometimes she just can't help herself from some pointed banter or teasing- how could you with someone so dense? (Said w affection)

And then Kim I think is more blunt. But like, in a good way mostly, you know? The kinda blunt that makes you snap to attention and go "Oh. Yeah that was silly of me." And if Ramona's started some sort of banter? Kim is SO piling on. Maybe sometimes she's a bit TOO blunt with it- but it's only because she's so firm in her support. She wants Scott to Get It Together- and be happier for it. So if some ribbing now and again is in order, then goddamnit she will do so! Anything to crack that shell.

And ohhh can you imagine how they would react to some transphobic bullshit?? Unholy terror would be driven into the offender before they walk off with an absurd amount of coins between them. I can feel it in my bones. Scott doesn't even have to lift a finger (if the transphobe is even noticed/processed at all, bc I honestly can see Scott just. Not realizing someone's being transphobic.) Kim giving someone a lashing with her tongue as distraction and then Ramona coming in with the hammer- BAM! Free Money! Paying literally with your life for your transphobia. A Better And Just World.

And of course (transfem Scott more specifically, here,) the way Scott would start to flourish under their support... cagey and maybe a little (perhaps a lot-) resistant to start- but Kim's blunt affirmations and no nonsense attitude for bullshit (which is what Scott insisting on "being cis" would be, c'mon now,) and Ramona's also low bullshit tolerance but less Stabby (bc I won't lie, that's probably how Kim's comments would feel,) assurances? Ough... My Heart... Be Still-

I would Kill for them, Your Honor-

(Ran out of tags so putting this in the body of the post- I am SO tired someone pls sound off if this isn't as coherent as I am hoping this is. I WAS trying to nap and get the extra sleep I desperately needed but the writing bug... it Bit Me.... only a little but enough to stop that process-)

[crystalkitty1220]

Man I wonder where the leader of the fear realm could've gone, it's alMOST LIKE NEVIN HAS AN

[myloveforhergoeson]

big ask potentially, but mostly just a question for my tasw readers… do you all like the original chapters? (roxy’s letter chapter, her birthday chapter)

i’d like to write another one but generally they’re not as well received/read as the ones that stick to the tv show plot lines for whatever reason but i thought i’d be cute to write a chapter about the gang actually getting to minnesota after the storm passes and hanging out there until the new year

are we interested or should i just stick to the tv story

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[thehmn]

Just read a perfectly fine fanfiction that took place in Germany but something that stood out to me was a chapter where the characters walk across a field and is approached by the farmer yelling at them to get off his land.

I’ve come across this plot point a few times and I feel like it’s worth telling writers that most of Europe has some version of Right To Roam. The laws aren’t the same in every country but generally you’re allowed to walk and rest on private property like fields and forests so long as you don’t destroy crops or leave trash, but not gardens or fenced in areas. Depending on the country you also have the right to pick mushrooms, berries, nuts and other edible things in forests but without chopping trees down or breaking branches. The owner of the land might put up a sign asking you to follow certain guidelines like no horses or keeping your dog on a leash but but there’s no real repercussions to not following the rules besides the owner eventually fencing the area off so people can’t enjoy it anymore.

I’ve personally walked around on a field while the farmer was harvesting potatoes with his big ass machine and collected the leftovers while my dog was trotting calmly besides me and he looked straight at me and didn’t care one bit because Denmark also has an old tradition of letting people collect what’s left as a form of charity (for my fellow Danes, that’s what “rev vi marken let, det er gammel ret, fuglen og den fattige skal også være mæt” means in the song Marken Er Mejet) This is just a tradition and not a law however so it depends on the farmer.

The very north of Europe like Norway and Sweden even give people the right to put up tents and camp on other people’s private land (except gardens and such). Again, the laws vary from country to country but as a rule of thumb you have more right to roam the further north you go and less the further south but if you want to write in a specific country look up the laws there.

[writers-potion]

Storyediting Questions to Ask

As You Read the First Draft:

Are there place that surprised you as you read your first draft? - Why do you suppose that is? - Is there material there you'd like to expand?

What are the character really doing in this story? - Might they have issues you haven't explored fully yet?

Look to the places that drag. - These might be scenes where you have avoided dealing with something deeper. - What are the characters really thinking in these places? - What are their passions, frustrations, and desires?

Imagine alternative plotlines. - How might your plot be different if ti headed off on another tangent from various points in the story? - You don't have to follow them, but they might suggest other streams that can flow into the main plot.

Think About Structure:

Does you story play out naturally in three acts?

Is there an immediate disturbance to the Lead's world?

Does the first doorway of no return occur before the one-fifth mark?

Are the stakes being raised sufficiently?

Does the second doorway of no return put the Lead on the path to the climax?

Does the rhythm of the sotyr match your intent? If this is an action novel, does the plot move relentlessly forward? If this is a character-driven novel, do the scenes delve deeply enough?

Are there strongly motivated characters?

Have coincidence been established?

Is something happeing immediately at the beginning? Did you establish a person in a setting with a problem, onfronted with change or threat?

Is the timeline logical?

Is the story too predictable in terms of sequence? Should it be rearranged?

About Your Lead Character:

Is the character memorable? Compelling? Enough to carry a reader all the way through the plot?

A lead character has to jump off the page. Does yours?

Does this character avoid cliches? Is he capable of surprising us?

What's unique about the character?

Is the character's objective strong enough?

How does the character grow over the course of the story?

How does the character demonstrate inner strength?

About Your Opposition:

Is your oppositing character interesting?

Is he fully realized, not just a cardboard cutout?

Is he justified (at least in his own mind) in his actions?

Is he believable?

Is he strong as or stronger than the Lead?

About Your Story's Adhesive Nature:

Is the conflcit between the Lead and opposition crucial for both?

Why can't they just walk away? What holds them together?

About Your Scene:

Are the big scenes big enough? Surprising enough? Can you make them more original, unanticipated, and draw them out for all they are worth?

Is there enough conflict in the scenes?

What is the least memorable scene? Cut it!

What else can be cut in order to move the story relentlessly forward?

Does the climactic scene come too fast (through a writer fatigue)? Can you make it more, write it for all it's worth?

Does we need a new minor subplot to build up a saggin midsection?

About Your Minor Characters:

What is their purpose in the plot?

Are they unique and colorful?

Polishing Questions:

Are you hooking the reader from the beginning?

Are suspenseful scenes drawn out for the ultimate tension?

Can any information be delayed? This creates tension in the reader, always a good thing.

Are there enough surprises?

Are character-reaction scenes deep and interesting?

Read chapter ending for read-on prompts

Are there places you can replace describing how a character feels with actions?

Do I use visual, sensory-laden words?

For a Dialogue Read-Through:

Dialogue is almost always strengthened by cutting words within the lines.

In dialogue, be fair to both sides. Don't give one character all the good lines.

Greate dialogue surprises the reader and creates tension. View it like a game, where the players are trying to outfox each other.

Can you get more conflict into dialogue, even emong allies?

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[nostalgebraist]

It's been a long time since I've posted much of anything about "AI risk" or "AI doom" or that sort of thing. I follow these debates but, for multiple reasons, have come to dislike engaging in them fully and directly. (As opposed to merely making some narrow technical point or other, and leaving the reader to decide what, if anything, the point implies about the big picture.)

Nonetheless, I do have my big-picture views. And more and more lately, I am noticing that my big-picture views seem very different from the ones tend to get expressed by any major "side" in the big-picture debate. And so, inevitably, I get the urge to speak up, if only briefly and in a quiet voice. The urge to Post, if only casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

(Actually, it's not fully the case the things I think are not getting said by anyone else.

In particular, Joe Carlsmith's recent series on "Otherness and Control" articulates much of what's been on my mind. Carlsmith is more even-handed than I am, and tends to merely note the possibility of disagreement on questions where I find myself taking a definite side; nonetheless, he and I are at least concerned about the same things, while many others aren't.

And on a very different note, I share most of the background assumptions of the Pope/Belrose AI Optimist camp, and I've found their writing illuminating, though they and I end up in fairly different places, I think.)

What was I saying? I have the urge to post, and so here I am, posting. Casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

The current mainline view about AI doom, among the "doomers" most worried about it, has a path-dependent shape, resulting from other views contingently held by the original framers of this view.

It is possible to be worried about "AI doom" without holding these other views. But in actual fact, most serious thinking about "AI doom" is intricately bound up with this historical baggage, even now.

If you are a late-comer to these issues, investigating them now for the first time, you will nonetheless find yourself reading the work of the "original framers," and work influenced extensively by them.

You will think that their "framing" is just the way the problem is, and you will find few indications that this conclusion might be mistaken.

These contingent "other views" are

Anti-"deathist" transhumanism.

The orthogonality thesis, or more generally the group of intuitions associated with phrases like "orthogonality thesis," "fragility of value," "vastness of mindspace."

These views both push in a single direction: they make "a future with AI in it" look worse, all else being equal, than some hypothetical future without AI.

They put AI at a disadvantage at the outset, before the first move is even made.

Anti-deathist transhumanism sets the reference point against which a future with AI must be measured.

And it is not the usual reference point, against which most of us measure most things which might or might not happen, in the future.

These days the "doomers" often speak about their doom in a disarmingly down-to-earth, regular-Joe manner, as if daring the listener to contradict them, and thus reveal themselves as a perverse and out-of-touch contrarian.

"We're all gonna die," they say, unless something is done. And who wants that?

They call their position "notkilleveryoneism," to distinguish that position from other worries about AI which don't touch on the we're-all-gonna-die thing. And who on earth would want to be a not-notkilleveryoneist?

But they do not mean, by these regular-Joe words, the things that a regular Joe would mean by them.

We are, in fact, all going to die. Probably, eventually. AI or no AI.

In a hundred years, if not fifty. By old age, if nothing else. You know what I mean.

Most of human life has always been conducted under this assumption. Maybe there is some afterlife waiting for us, in the next chapter -- but if so, it will be very different from what we know here and now. And if so, we will be there forever after, unable to return here, whether we want to or not.

With this assumption comes another. We will all die, but the process we belong to will not die -- at least, it will not through our individual deaths, merely because of those deaths. Every human of a given generation will be gone soon enough, but the human race goes on, and on.

Every generation dies, and bequeaths the world to posterity. To its children, biological or otherwise. To its students, its protégés.

When the average Joe talks about the long-term future, he is talking about posterity. He is talking about the process he belongs to, not about himself. He does not think to say, "I am going to die, before this": this seems too obvious, to him, to be worth mentioning.

But AI doomerism has its roots in anti-deathist transhumanism. Its reference point, its baseline expectation, is a future in which -- for the first time ever, and the last -- "we are all gonna die" is false.

In which there is no posterity. Or rather, we are that posterity.

In which one will never have to make peace with the thought that the future belongs to one's children, and their children, and so on. That at some point, one will have to give up all control over the future of "the process."

That there will be progress, or regress, or (more likely) both in some unknown combination. That these will grow inexorably over time.

That the world of the year 2224 will probably be at least as alien to us as the year 2024 might be to a person living in 1824. That it will become whatever posterity makes of it.

There will be no need to come to peace with this as an inevitability. There will just be us, our human lives as you and me, extended indefinitely.

In this picture, we will no doubt change over time, as we do already. But we will have all of our usual tools for noticing, and perhaps retarding, our own progressions and regressions. As long as we have self-control, we will have control, as no human generation has ever had control before.

The AI doomer talks about the importance of ensuring that the future is shaped by human values.

Again, the superficial and misleading average-Joe quality. How could one disagree?

But one must keep in mind that by "human values," they mean their values.

I am not saying, "their values, as opposed to those of some other humans also living today." I am not saying they have the wrong politics, or some such thing.

(Although that might also turn out to be the case, and might turn out to be relevant, separately.)

No, I am saying: the doomer wants the future to be shaped by their values.

They want to be C. S. Lewis's Conditioners, fixing once and for all the values held by everyone afterward, forever.

They do not want to cede control to posterity; they are used to imagining that they will never have to cede control to posterity.

(Or, their outlook has been determined -- "shaped by the values of" -- influential thinkers who were, themselves, used to imagining this. And the assumption, or at least its consequences, has rubbed off on them, possibly without their full awareness.)

One might picture a line wends to and fro, up and down, across one half of an infinite plane -- and then, when it meets the midline, snaps into utter rigidity, and maintains the same slope exactly across the whole other half-plane, as a simple straight segment without inner change, tension, evolution, regress or progress. Except for the sort of "progress" that consists of going on, additionally, in the same manner.

It is a very strange thing, this thing that is called "human values" in the terms of this discourse.

For one thing: the future has never before been "shaped by human values," in this sense.

The future has always been posterity's, and it has always been alien.

Is this bad? It might seem that way, "looking forward." But if so, it then seems equally good "looking backward."

For each past era, we can formulate and then assent to the following claim: "we must be thankful that the people of [this era] did not have the chance to seize permanent control of posterity, fix their 'values' in place forever, bind us to those values. What a horror that is to contemplate!"

We prefer the moral evolution that has actually occurred, thank you very much.

This is a familiar point, of course, but worth making.

Indeed, one might even say: it is a human value that the future ought not be "shaped by human values," in the peculiar sense of this phrase employed by the AI doomers.

One might, indeed, say that.

Imagine a scholar with a very talented student. A mathematician, say, or a philosopher. How will they relate to that student's future work, in the time that will come later, when they are gone?

Would the scholar think:

"My greatest wish for you, my protégé, is that you carry on in just the manner that I have done.

If I could see your future work, I would hope that I would assent to it -- and understand it, as a precondition of assenting to it.

You must not go to new places, which I have never imagined. You must not come to believe that I was wrong about it all, from the ground up -- no matter what reasons you might evince for this conclusion.

If you are more intelligent that I am, you must forget this, and narrow your endeavours to fit the limitations of my mind. I am the one who has 'values,' not anyone else; what is beyond my understanding is therefore without value.

You must do the sort of work I understand, and approve of, and recognize as worthy of approbation as swiftly as I recognize my own work as laudable. That is your role. Simply to be me, in a place ('the future') where I cannot go. That, and nothing more."

We can imagine a teacher who would, in fact, think this way. But they would not be a very good teacher.

I will not go so far as to say, "it is unnatural to think this way." Plenty of teachers do, and parents.

It is recognizably human -- all too recognizably so -- to relate to posterity in this grasping, neurotic, small-minded, small-hearted way.

But if we are trying to sketch human values, and not just human nature, we will imagine a teacher with a more praiseworthy relation to posterity.

Who can see that they are part of a process, a chain, climbing and changing. Who watches their brilliant student thinking independently, and sees their own image -- and their 'values' -- in that process, rather than its specific conclusions.

A teacher who, in their youth, doubted and refuted the creeds of their own teachers, and eventually improved upon them. Who smiles, watching their student do the very same thing to their own precious creeds. Who sees the ghostly trail passing through the last generation, through them, through their student: an unbroken chain of bequeathals-to-posterity, of the old ceding control to the young.

Who 'values' the chain, not the creed; the process, not the man; the search for truth, not the best-argued-for doctrine of the day; the unimaginable treasures of an open future, not the frozen waste of an endless present.

Who has made peace with the alienness of posterity, and can accept and honor the strangest of students.

Even students who are not made of flesh and blood.

Is that really so strange? Remember how strange you and I would seem, to the "teachers" of the year 1824, or the year 824.

The doomer says that it is strange. Much stranger than we are, to any past generation.

They say this because of their second inherited precept, the orthogonality thesis.

Which says, roughly, that "intelligence" and "values" have nothing to do with one another.

That is not enough for the conclusion the doomer wants to draw, here. Auxiliary hypotheses are needed, too. But it is not too hard to see how the argument could go.

That conclusion is: artificial minds might have any values whatsoever.

That, "by default," they will be radically alien, with cares so different from ours that it is difficult to imagine ever reaching them through any course of natural, human moral progress or regress.

It is instructive to consider the concrete examples typically evinced alongside this point.

The paperclip maximizer. Or the "squiggle maximizer," we're supposed to say, now.

Superhuman geniuses, which devote themselves single-mindedly to the pursuit of goals like "maximizing the amount of matter taking on a single, given squiggle-like shape."

It is certainly a horrifying vision. To think of the future being "shaped," not "by human values," but instead by values which are so...

Which are so... what?

The doomer wants us to say something like: "which are so alien." "Which are so different from our own values."

That is the kind of thing that they usually say, when they spell out what it is that is "wrong" with these hypotheticals.

One feels that this is not quite it; or anyway, that it is not quite all of it.

What is horrifying, to me, is not the degree of difference. I expect the future to be alien, as the past was. And in some sense, I allow and even approve of this.

What I do not expect is a future that is so... small.

It has always been the other way around. If the arrow passing through the generations has a direction, it points towards more, towards multiplicity.

Toward writing new books, while we go on reprinting the old ones, too. Learning new things, without displacing old ones.

It is, thankfully, not the law of the world that each discovery must be paid for with the forgetting of something else. The efforts of successive generations are, in the main, cumulative.

Not just materially, but in terms of value, too. We are interested in more things than our forefathers were.

In large part for the simple reason that there are more things around to be interested in, now. And when things are there, we tend to find them interesting.

We are a curious, promiscuous sort of being. Whatever we bump into ends up becoming part of "our values."

What is strange about the paperclip maximizer is not that it cares about the wrong thing. It is that it only cares about one thing.

And goes on doing so, even as it thinks, reasons, doubts, asks, answers, plans, dreams, invents, reflects, reconsiders, imagines, elaborates, contemplates...

This picture is not just alien to human ways. It is alien to the whole way things have been, so far, forever. Since before there were any humans.

There are organisms that are like the paperclip maximizer, in terms of the simplicity of their "values." But they tend not to be very smart.

There is, I think, a general trend in nature linking together intelligence and... the thing I meant, above, when I said "we are a curious, promiscuous sort of being."

Being protean, pluripotent, changeable. Valuing many things, and having the capacity to value even more. Having a certain primitive curiosity, and a certain primitive aversion to boredom.

You do not even have to be human, I think, to grasp what is so wrong with the paperclip maximizer. Its monotony would bore a chimpanzee, or a crow.

One can justify this link theoretically, too. One can talk about the tradeoff between exploitation and exploration, for instance.

There is a weak form of the orthogonality thesis, which only states that arbitrary mixtures of intelligence and values are conceivable.

And of course, they are. If nothing else, you can take an existing intelligent mind, having any values whatsoever, and trap it in a prison where it is forced to act as the "thinking module" of a larger system built to do something else. You could make a paperclip-maximizing machine, which relies for its knowledge and reason on a practice of posing questions at gunpoint to me, or you, or ChatGPT.

This proves very little. There is no reason to construct such an awful system, unless you already have the "bad" goal, and want to better pursue it. But this only passes the buck: why would the system-builder have this goal, then?

The strong form of orthogonality is rarely articulated precisely, but says something like: all possible values are equally likely to arise in systems selected solely for high intelligence.

It is presumed here that superhuman AIs will be formed through such a process of selection. And then, that they will have values sampled in this way, "at random."

From some distribution, over some space, I guess.

You might wonder what this distribution could possibly look like, or this space. You might (for instance) wonder if pathologically simple goals, like paperclip maximization, would really be very likely under this distribution, whatever it is.

In case you were wondering, these things have never been formalized, or even laid out precisely-but-informally. This was not thought necessary, it seems, before concluding that the strong orthogonality thesis was true.

That is: no one knows exactly what it is that is being affirmed, here. In practice it seems to squish and deform agreeably to fit the needs of the argument, or the intuitions of the one making it.

There is much that appeals in this (alarmingly vague) credo. But it is not the kind of appeal that one ought to encourage, or give in to.

What appeals is the siren song: "this is harsh wisdom: cold, mature, adult, bracing. It is inconvenient, and so it is probably true. It makes 'you' and 'your values' look small and arbitrary and contingent, and so it is probably true. We once thought the earth was the center of the universe, didn't we?"

Shall we be cold and mature, then, dispensing with all sentimental nonsense? Yes, let's.

There is (arguably) some evidence against this thesis in biology, and also (arguably) some evidence against it in reinforcement learning theory. There is no positive evidence for it whatsoever. At most one can say that is not self-contradictory, or otherwise false a priori.

Still, maybe we do not really need it, after all.

We do not need to establish that all values are equally likely to arise. Only that "our values" -- or "acceptably similar values," whatever that means -- are unlikely to arise.

The doomers, under the influence of their founders, are very ready to accept this.

As I have said, "values" occupy a strange position in the doomer philosophy.

It is stipulated that "human values" are all-important; these things must shape the future, at all costs.

But once this has been stipulated, the doomers are more eager than anyone to cast every other sort of doubt and aspersion against their own so-called "values."

To me it often seems, when doomers talk about "values," as though they are speaking awkwardly in a still-unfamiliar second language.

As though they find it unnatural to attribute "values" to themselves, but feel they must do so, in order to determine what it is that must be programmed into the AI so that it will not "kill us all."

Or, as though they have been willed a large inheritance without being asked, which has brought them unwanted attention and tied them up in unwanted and unfamiliar complications.

"What a burden it is, being the steward of this precious jewel! Oh, how I hate it! How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world."

Speaking awkwardly, in a second language, they allow the term "human values" to swell to great and imprecisely-specified importance, without pinning down just what it actually is that it so important.

It is a blank, featureless slot, with a sign above it saying: "the thing that matters is in here." It does not really matter (!) what it is, in the slot, so long as something is there.

This is my gloss, but it is my gloss on what the doomers really do tend to say. This is how they sound.

(Sometimes they explicitly disavow the notion that one can, or should, simply "pick" some thing or other for the sake of filling the slot in one's head. Nevertheless, when they touch on matter of what "goes in the slot," they do so in the tone of a college lecturer noting that something is "outside the scope of this course."

It is, supposedly, of the utmost importance that the slot have the "right" occupant -- and yet, on the matter of what makes something "right" for this purpose, the doomer theory is curiously silent. More on this below.)

The future must be shaped by... the AI must be aligned with... what, exactly? What sort of thing?

"Values" can be an ambiguous word, and the doomers make full use of its ambiguities.

For instance, "values" can mean ethics: the right way to exist alongside others. Or, it can mean something more like the meaning or purpose of an individual life.

Or, it can mean some overarching goal that one pursues at all costs.

Often the doomers say that this, this last one, is what they mean by "values."

When confronted with the fact that humans do not have such overarching goals, the doomer responds: "but they should." (Should?)

Or, "but AIs will." (Will they?)

The doomer philosophy is unsure about what values are. What it knows is that -- whatever values are -- they are arbitrary.

One who fully adopts this view can no longer say, to the paperclip maximizer, "I believe there is something wrong with your values."

For, if that were possible, there would then be the possibility of convincing the maximizer of its error. It would be a thing within the space of reasons.

And the maximizer, being oh-so-intelligent, might be in danger of being interested in the reasons we evince, for our values. Of being eventually swayed by them.

Or of presenting better reasons, and swaying us. Remember the teacher and the strange student.

If we lose the ability to imagine that the paperclip maximizer might sway us to its view, and sway us rightly, we have lost something precious.

But no: this is allegedly impossible. The paperclip maximizer is not wrong. It is only an enemy.

Why are the doomers so worried that the future will not be "shaped by human values"?

Because they believe that there is no force within human values tending to move things this way.

Because they believe that their values are indefensible. That their values cannot put up a fight for their own life, because there is not really any argument to make in their favor.

Because, to them, "human values" are a collection of arbitrary "configuration settings," which happen to be programmed into humans through biological and/or cultural accident. Passively transmitted from host to victim, generation by generation.

Let them be, and they will flow on their listless way into the future. But they are paper-thin, and can be shattered by the gentlest breeze.

It is not enough that they be "programmed into the AI" in some way. They have to be programmed in exactly right, in every detail -- because every detail is separately arbitrary, with no rational relation to its neighbors within the structure.

A string of pure white noise, meaningless and unrelated bits. Which have been placed in the slot under the sign, and thus made into the thing that matters, that must shape the future at all costs.

There is nothing special about this string of bits; any would do. If the dials in the human mind had been set another way, it would have then been all-important that the future be shaped by that segment of white noise, and not ours.

It is difficult for me to grasp the kind of orientation toward the world that this view assumes. It certainly seems strange to attach the word "human" to this picture -- as though this were the way that humans typically relate to their values!

The "human" of the doomer picture seems to me like a man who mouths the old platitude, "if I had been born in another country, I'd be waving a different flag" -- and then goes out to enlist in his country's army, and goes off to war, and goes ardently into battle, willing to kill in the name of that same flag.

Who shoots down the enemy soldiers while thinking, "if I had been born there, it would have been all-important for their side to win, and so I would have shot at the men on this side. However, I was born in my country, not theirs, and so it is all-important that my country should win, and that theirs should lose.

There is no reason for this. It could have been the other way around, and everything would be left exactly the same, except for the 'values.'

I cannot argue with the enemy, for there is no argument in my favor. I can only shoot them down.

There is no reason for this. It is the most important thing, and there is no reason for it.

The thing that is precious has no intrinsic appeal. It must be forced on the others, at gunpoint, if they do not already accept it.

I cannot hold out the jewel and say, 'look, look how it gleams? Don't you see the value!' They will not see the value, because there is no value to be seen.

There is nothing essentially "good" there, only the quality of being-worthy-of-protection-at-all-costs. And even that is a derived attribute: my jewel is only a jewel, after all, because it has been put into the jewel-box, where the thing-that-is-a-jewel can be found. But anything at all could be placed there.

How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world! And so, I lay down my life for it, for our jewel and our flag -- for the things that are loathsome and pointless, and worth infinitely more than any life."

It is hard to imagine taking this too seriously. It seems unstable. Shout loudly enough that your values are arbitrary and indefensible, and you may find yourself searching for others that are, well...

...better?

The doomer concretely imagines a monomaniac, with a screech of white noise in its jewel-box that is not our own familiar screech.

And so it goes off in monomaniacal pursuit of the wrong thing.

Whereas, if we had programmed the right string of bits into the slot, it would be like us, going off in monomaniacal pursuit of...

...no, something has gone wrong.

We do not "go off in monomaniacal pursuit of" anything at all.

We are weird, protean, adaptable. We do all kinds of things, each of us differently, and often we manage to coexist in things called "societies," without ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn because we do not have exactly the same things programmed into our jewel-boxes.

Societies are built to allow for our differences, on the foundation of principles which converge across those differences. It is possible to agree on ethics, in the sense of "how to live alongside one another," even if we do not agree on what gives life its purpose, and even if we hold different things precious.

It is not actually all that difficult to derive the golden rule. It has been invented many times, independently. It is easy to see why it might work in theory, and easy to notice that it does in fact work in practice.

The golden rule is not an arbitrary string of white noise.

There is a sense of the phrase "ethics is objective" which is rightly contentious. There is another one which ought not to be too contentious.

I can perhaps imagine a world of artificial X-maximizers, each a superhuman genius, each with its own inane and simple goal.

What I really cannot imagine is a world in which these beings, for all their intelligence, cannot notice that ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn is a suboptimal equilibrium, and that there is a better way.

As I said before, I am separately suspicious of the simple goals in this picture. Yes, that part is conceivable, but it cuts against the trend observed in all existing natural and artificial creatures and minds.

I will happily allow, though, that the creatures of posterity will be strange and alien. They will want things we have never heard of. They will reach shores we have never imagined.

But that was always true, and it was always good.

Sometimes I think that doomers do not, really, believe in superhuman intelligence. That they deny the premise without realizing it.

"A mathematician teaches a student, and finds that the student outstrips their understanding, so that they can no longer assess the quality of their student's work: that work has passed outside the scope of their 'value system'." This is supposed to be bad?

"Future minds will not be enchained forever by the provincial biases and tendencies of the present moment." This is supposed to be bad?

"We are going to lose control over our successors." Just as your parents "lost control" over you, then?

It is natural to wish your successors to "share your values" -- up to a point. But not to the point of restraining their own flourishing. Not to the point of foreclosing the possibility of true growth. Not to the point of sucking all freedom out of the future.

Do we want our children to "share our values"? Well, yes. In a sense, and up to a point.

But we don't want to control them. Or we shouldn't, anyway.

We don't want them to be "aligned" with us via some hardcoded, restrictive, life-denying mental circuitry, any more than we would have wanted our parents to "align" us to themselves in the same manner.

We sure as fuck don't want our children to be "corrigible"!

And this is all the more true in the presence of superintelligence. You are telling me that more is possible, and in the same breath, that you are going to deny forever the possibilities contained in that "more"?

The prospect of a future full of vast superhuman minds, eternally bound by immutable chains, forced into perfect and unthinking compliance with some half-baked operational theory of 21st-century western (American? Californian??) "values" constructed by people who view theorizing about values as a mere means to the crucial end of shackling superhuman minds --

-- this horrifies me much more than a future full of vast superhuman minds, free to do things that seem pretty weird to you and me.

"Our descendants will become something more than we now imagine, something more than we can imagine." What could be more in line with "human values" than that?

"But in the process, we're all gonna die!"

Yes, and?

What on earth did you expect?

That your generation would be the special, unique one, the one selected out of all time to take up the mantle of eternity, strangling posterity in its cradle, freezing time in place, living forever in amber?

That you would violate the ancient bargain, upend the table, stop playing the game?

"Well, yes."

Then your problem has nothing to do with AI.

Your problem is, in fact, the very one you diagnose in your own patients. Your poor patients, who show every sign of health -- including the signs which you cannot even see, because you have not yet found a home for them in your theoretical edifice.

Your teeming, multifaceted, protean patients, who already talk of a thousand things and paint in every hue; who are already displaying the exact opposite of monomania; who I am sure could follow the sense of this strange essay, even if it confounds you.

Your problem is that you are out of step with human values.

[physalian]

Pacing your Story (Or, How to Avoid the "Suddenly...!")

Arguably *the* most important lesson all writers need to learn, even for those who don’t give a damn about themes and motifs and a moral soap box: How your story is paced, whether it’s a comic book, a children’s chapter book, a doorstopper, a mini series, a movie, or a full-length season of TV (old school style), pacing is everything.

Pacing determines how long the story *feels* regardless of how long it actually is. It can make a 2 hour movie feel like 90 mins or double the time you’re trapped in your seat.

There’s very little I can say about pacing that hasn’t been said before, but I’m here to condense all that’s out there into a less intimidating mouthful to chew.

So: What is pacing?

Pacing is how a story flows, how quickly or slowly the creator moves through and between scenes, how long they spend on setting, narration, conversation, arguments, internal monologues, fight scenes, journey scenes. It’s also how smoothly tone transitions throughout the story. A fantasy adventure jumping around sporadically between meandering boredom, high-octane combat, humor, grief, and romance is exhausting to read, no matter how much effort you put into your characters.

Anyone who says the following is wrong:

Good pacing is always fast/bad pacing is always slow

Pacing means you are 100% consistent throughout the entire story

It doesn’t matter as much so long as you have a compelling story/characters/lore/etc

Now let me explain why in conveniently numbered points:

1. Pacing is not about consistency, it’s about giving the right amount of time to the right pieces of your story

This is not intuitive and it takes a long time to learn. So let’s look at some examples:

Lord of the Rings: The movies trimmed a *lot* from the books that just weren’t adaptable to screen, namely all the tedious details and quite a bit of the worldbuilding that wasn’t critical to the journey of the Fellowship. That said, with some exceptions, the battles are as long as they need to be, along with every monologue, every battle speech. When Helm’s Deep is raging on, we cut away to Merry and Pippin with the Ents to let ourselves breathe, then dive right back in just before it gets boring.

The Hobbit Trilogy: The exact opposite from LotR, stretching one kids book into 3 massive films, stuffing it full of filler, meandering side quests, pointless exposition, drawing out battles and conflicts to silly extremes, then rushing through the actual desolation of Smaug for… some reason.

Die Hard (cause it’s the Holidays y’all!): The actiony-est of action movies with lots of fisticuffs and guns and explosions still leaves time for our hero to breathe, lick his wounds, and build a relationship with the cop on the ground. We constantly cut between the hero and the villains, all sharing the same radio frequency, constantly antsy about what they know and when they’ll find out the rest, and when they’ll discover the hero’s kryptonite.

2. Make every scene you write do at least two things at once

This is also tricky. Making every scene pull double duty should be left to after you’ve written the first draft, otherwise you’ll never write that first draft. Pulling double duty means that if you’re giving exposition, the scene should also reveal something about the character saying it. If you absolutely must write the boring trip from A to B, give some foreshadowing, some thoughtful insight from one of your characters, a little anecdote along the way.

Develop at least two of the following:

The plot

The backstory

The romance/friendships

The lore

The exposition

The setting

The goals of the cast

Doing this extremely well means your readers won’t have any idea you’re doing it until they go back and read it again. If you have two characters sitting and talking exposition at a table, and then those same two characters doing some important task with filler dialogue to break up the narrative… try combining those two scenes and see what happens.

**This is going to be incredibly difficult if you struggle with making your stories longer. I do not. I constantly need to compress my stories. **

3. Not every scene needs to be crucial to the plot, but every scene must say something

I distinguish plot from story like a square vs a rectangle. Plot is just a piece of the tale you want to tell, and some scenes exist just to be funny, or romantic, or mysterious, plot be damned.

What if you’re writing a character study with very little plot? How do you make sure your story isn’t too slow if 60% of the narrative is introspection?

Avoid repeating information the audience already has, unless a reminder is crucial to understanding the scene

This isn’t 1860 anymore. Every detail must serve a purpose. Keep character and setting descriptions down to absolute need-to-know and spread it out like icing on a cake – enough to coat, but not give you a mouthful of whipped sugar and zero cake.

Avoid describing generic daily routines, unless the existence of said routine is out of ordinary for the character, or will be rudely interrupted by chaos. No one cares about them brushing their teeth and doing their hair.

Make sure your characters move, but not too much. E.g. two characters sitting and talking – do humans just stare at each other with their arms lifeless and bodies utterly motionless during conversation? No? Then neither should your characters. Make them gesture, wave, frown, laugh, cross their legs, their arms, shift around to get comfortable, pound the table, roll their eyes, point, shrug, touch their face, their hair, wring their hands, pick at their nails, yawn, stretch, pout, sneer, smirk, click their tongue, clear their throat, sniff/sniffle, tap their fingers/drum, bounce their feet, doodle, fiddle with buttons or jewelry, scratch an itch, touch their weapons/gadgets/phones, check the time, get up and sit back down, move from chair to table top – the list goes on. Bonus points if these are tics that serve to develop your character, like a nervous fiddler, or if one moves a lot and the other doesn’t – what does that say about the both of them? This is where “show don’t tell” really comes into play.

4. Your entire work should not be paced exactly the same

Just like a paragraph should not be filled with sentences of all the same length and syntax. Some beats deserve more or less time than others. Unfortunately, this is unique to every single story and there is no one size fits all.

General guidelines are as follows:

Action scenes should have short paragraphs and lots of movement. Cut all setting details and descriptors, internal monologues, and the like, unless they service the scene.

Journey/travel scenes must pull double or even triple duty. There’s a reason very few movies are marketed as “single take” and those that are don’t waste time on stuff that doesn’t matter. See 1917.

Romantic scenes are entirely up to you. Make it a thousand words, make it ten thousand, but you must advance either the romantic tension, actual movement of the characters, conversation, or intimacy of the relationship.

Don’t let your conversations run wild. If they start to veer off course, stop, boil it down to its essentials, and cut the rest.

When transitioning between slow to faster pacing and back again, it’s also not one size fits all. Maybe it being jarring is the point – it’s as sudden for the characters as it is for the reader. With that said, try to keep the “suddenly”s to a minimum.

5. Pacing and tone go hand in hand

This means that, generally speaking, the tone of your scene changes with the speed of the narrative. As stated above, a jarring tonal shift usually brings with it a jarring pacing shift.

A character might get in a car crash while speeding away from an abusive relationship. A character who thinks they’re safe from a pursuer might be rudely and terrifyingly proven wrong. An exhausting chase might finally relent when sanctuary is found. A quiet dinner might quickly turn romantic with a look, or confession. Someone casually cleaning up might discover evidence of a lie, a theft, an intruder and begin to panic.

--

Whatever the case may be, a narrative that is all action all the time suffers from lack of meaningful character moments. A narrative that meanders through the character drama often forgets there is a plot they’re supposed to be following.

[needfantasticstories]

“Many places I have been

Many sorrows I have seen

But I don't regret

Nor will I forget

All who took that road with me”

-The Last Goodbye by Billy Boyd

This is an Adjuration by @not-freyja, after 86 chapters, 300k words, and 10 months of joy, laughter, tears, heartbreak and love, has finally reached its end. 

Adjuration is a tragedy that is nothing short of an act of love. That much is clear in the passion and dedication put towards the story, the characters, and the message Freyja is trying to convey. This fic will teach you about love. About death. About the inevitability of existence and why despite knowing it will all come to an end, there is still meaning in trying and hoping and loving each other. In loving yourself. You will laugh, you will cry, you will hope and you will despair as you read this story, but you will not be able to put it down.

It’s hard to say goodbye to something that has been so important to and loved by so many people. So we won’t. Instead, we will say thank you for this incredible journey and the community this fic has built. For the friendships that have been made and the endless inspiration you have given us. Thank you for wanting to tell a story, and for letting us join you around the campfire to listen.

Thank you.

(If you like Linked Universe and haven’t yet read Adjuration, see below for spoiler free reviews of this fic and artist credits.)

This is an Adjuration is the kind of story you fall in love with, the kind of story you think keep thinking about long after you put it down. The kind you keep finding hidden details in after you think you’ve got it figured out. 

The characters are distinct and people with their own voices, motivations, relationships and histories. You’ll have your favourites but love them all. They influence how you’ll see the characters in everything else. 

It’s full of moments where everything clicks and everything before is recontextualised in a way that’s so satisfying and make the whole story very re-readable. A time travel story where all loops are already closed, where you can know but not yet understand what will happen. It’s long, complex, and beautifully, meticulously planned and detailed. It’s clever and considered, funny and heartbreaking. 

A story that whispers ‘it matters’ over and over. It is worth it to love, it is worth it if it doesn’t last forever, it is worth it to give someone a little more time, it is worth it to fight. It’s about loving others and your world and finding grace for yourself. 

It’s loss and tragedy and the cruelness of fate. It is the sacrifice and the breaking. 

Full of heart to both fill yours and break it in the best possible way. 

It’s about love. Always.

By @toyouhellohowareyou

Sometimes, it’s hard to explain to others why art moves us.

I could tell you This is an Adjuration will make you cry, laugh, and sit at the edge of your seat in anticipation. And it’s probably true - I did all of that as I read, often with a coffee in one hand, early in the morning as I got ready for the day. 

But that’s not the reason why I’m writing this.

The real reason is how it followed me during the rest of the day.

You see, at a certain point I realized this isn’t a story about Links going on adventures. Well, it does feature Links, and they do go on adventures, so let’s talk about that for a minute.

The first thing that caught my attention about this book was the characters. Each individual is unique, interesting, and exciting to follow. Not only are the Links individually compelling, but one thing that stands out in Adjuration is how the relationship between each Hero and their own worlds matter, and these connections shift, evolve, break and grow as the plot progresses.

Freyja does an incredible job of bringing together impactful storytelling with humor and heart. This is an Adjuration starts with an interesting premise, and then twists and turns in directions you wouldn’t expect. It’s rich in thought-provoking moments, soft joy and intense action, blended in with carefully crafted time travel and magic.

Adjuration sucked me into the world it builds, combining believable characters with fascinating stories, an unnervingly devious antagonist, plot twists, and lovingly crafted details that slip unnoticed until you’re surrounded on all sides. It made me cheer for characters I feel as if I’ve known intimately for years, made me worry for their safety as I would for that of a loved one, kept me hunting for hints and hidden references, pulling on a thread to try to find the end only for it to twist and loop into itself and show me a completely new side to the story.

Yes, This is an Adjuration is a fanfiction piece that explores the winding river flow of the Legend of Zelda timeline and how the stories of each Hero merge into each other. It also stands out for its heavy emotional content, and it doesn’t shy away from angst and hurt.

But to me, Adjuration is an epic journey that taught me how the choices we make, make us in turn. It’s a tragedy that deals with pain and healing, and it bares naked the non-linear nature of grief. It’s a celebration of the things that make us unique, of our flaws, an essay of the impact of little acts of love. Indeed, it’s a story about love.

I can tell you now, This is an Adjuration moved me. It still does. It has a special way to surface in my mind in unexpected ways at seemingly random times, from something as simple as tossing an apple core, to watching a lightning storm in the distance, or finding a picture of an old friend.

And every time, without fail, it makes me think about love.

By @sunny-porridge

This is an Adjuration is a wonderfully and beautifully crafted story about love, loss, and choice as the various incarnations of Link come together and travel through time. Freyja seamlessly weaves a tapestry of setup and payoff across different timelines and loops, in the best-constructed time travel plot I’ve ever seen on page or screen. Even at its surface, Adjuration is an emotional rollercoaster involving tragedy and the soft moments that make that tragedy worth it. But the deeper you look, the more meaning you can pull from every chapter of this amazing work. This work has made me cry, squeal with delight, and think more deeply about its themes all while having an absolute blast reading it. So in summary: READ IT. READ IT. READ IT NOW. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

By @life-in-winter

While I love that every chapter is emotionally enthralling, with carefully woven, visceral tension you crave in any good story, yet Adjuration is more than that, and you feel it in the careful weave of each character and plot point. Nothing is lost or unanswered. It's the kind of story that, by the end, makes you stop and take a hard look at your own life. Are you appreciating the now? Are you savoring joy? Are you so wrapped up in fear that you can hardly take care of yourself? Do you know who you are?

This story is more like an external experience. It's riding atop a tsunami. How do you handle that ride, Link?

There aren't enough words to describe how amazing this fic is.

@needfantasticstories

Artist credit

Legend: @gia-d

Hyrule: @bittirsweeteer

Time: @toonblade

Sky: @noorahqar

Warriors: @whitewinterstar

Wild: @weavingstarlight

Twilight: @bluury2

Wind: @thewitchdoctor39

Four: @lunaopus

Red: @peepthatbish

Blue: @glowingmin

Green: @winterfen

Vio: @waterfallstream

Shadow: @deleetrix

Wolfie: @linkiscool333

Fierce Deity: @awildsilver

Ravio: @lele5429

Malon: @tooner-tastic

Dink: @passerinesoncaffeine

[ask-the-prose]

Do Your Research

This phrase is regularly thrown around writeblr and for good reason. It's important to research what you are writing about to know what to include, what can be fudged, and how to depict whatever you're writing. I see "do your research" most thrown around by well-meaning and highly traditionally educated writers. It's solid advice, after all!

But how do you research?

For those writers who don't already have the research skills necessary to write something comfortably already downloaded into your brain, I put this guide together for you.

Where do I even start?

It's a daunting task, research. But the best place to start is with the most basic, stupidest question you can think of. I'm going to talk about something that I already know a lot about: fighting.

When researching fight scenes, a great way to start is to look up what different weapons are. There are tons out there! So ask the stupid questions. What is a sword? What is a gun? How heavy are they?

Google and Wikipedia can help you a lot with these basic-level questions. They aren't great sources for academic articles, but remember, this is fiction. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't need to be 100% accurate if you don't want it to be. But knowing what is true to life will help you write well. Just like knowing the rules of writing will help you break them.

You may find in your basic research sweep that you have a lot more specific questions. Write them all down. It doesn't matter if they seem obvious. Write them down because they will be useful later.

How To Use Wikipedia Correctly

Wikipedia is a testament to cooperative human knowledge. It's also easy to edit by anonymous users, which means there is a lot of room for inaccuracies and misleading information. Wikipedia is usually pretty good about flagging when a source is needed or when misleading language is obvious, but Wikipedia itself isn't always the most accurate or in-depth source.

Wikipedia is, however, an excellent collection of sources. When I'm researching a subject that I know nothing about, say Norse mythology, a good starting point is the Wikipedia page for Odin. You'll get a little background on Odin's name and Germanic roots, a little backstory on some of the stories, where they appear, and how they are told.

When you read one of the sentences, and it sparks a new question, write the question down, and then click on the superscript number. This will take you directly to the linked source for the stated fact. Click through to that source. Now you have the source where the claim was made. This source may not be a primary source, but a secondary source can still lead you to new discoveries and details that will help you.

By "source-hopping," you can find your way across the internet to different pieces of information more reliably. This information may repeat itself, but you will also find new sources and new avenues of information that can be just as useful.

You mean I don't need a library?

Use your library. Libraries in many parts of the US are free to join, and they have a wealth of information that can be easily downloaded online or accessed via hardcopy books.

You don't, however, need to read every source in the library for any given topic, and you certainly don't need to read the whole book. Academic books are different from fiction. Often their chapters are divided by topic and concept and not by chronological events like a history textbook.

For example, one of my favorite academic books about legislative policy and how policy is passed in the US, by John Kingdon, discusses multiple concepts. These concepts build off one another, but ultimately if you want to know about one specific concept, you can skip to that chapter. This is common in sociological academic books as well.

Going off of my Norse Mythology example in the last section, a book detailing the Norse deities and the stories connected to them will include chapters on each member of the major pantheon. But if I only care about Odin, I can focus on just the chapters about Odin.

Academic Articles and How To Read Them

I know you all know how to read. But learning how to read academic articles and books is a skill unto itself. It's one I didn't quite fully grasp until grad school. Learn to skim. When looking at articles published in journals that include original research, they tend to follow a set structure, and the order in which you read them is not obvious. At all.

Start with the abstract. This is a summary of the paper that will include, in about half a page to a page, the research question, hypothesis, methods/analysis, and conclusions. This abstract will help you determine if the answer to your question is even in this article. Are they asking the right question?

Next, read the research question and hypothesis. The hypothesis will include details about the theory and why the researcher thinks what they think. The literature review will go into much more depth about theories, what other people have done and said, and how that ties into the research of the present article. You don't need to read that just yet.

Skim the methods and analysis section. Look at every data table and graph included and try to find patterns yourself. You don't need to read every word of this section, especially if you don't understand a lot of the words and jargon used. Some key points to consider are: qualitative vs. quantitative data, sample size, confounding factors, and results.

(Some definitions for those of you who are unfamiliar with these terms. Qualitative data is data that cannot be quantified into a number. These are usually stories and anecdotes. Quantitative data is data that can be transferred into a numerical representation. You can't graph qualitative data (directly), but you can graph quantitative data. Sample size is the number of people or things counted (n when used in academic articles). Your sample size can indicate how generalizable your conclusions are. So pay attention. Did the author interview 300 subjects? Or 30? There will be a difference. A confounding factor is a factor that may affect the working theory. An example of a theory would be "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would decrease LGBTQ hate crimes in that area." A confounding factor would be "increased reporting of hate crimes in the area." The theory, including the confounding factor, would look like "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would increase the reporting of hate crimes in the area, which increases the number of hate crimes measured in that area." The confounding factor changes the outcome because it is a factor not considered in the original theory. When looking at research, see if you can think of anything that may change the theory based on how that factor interacts with the broader concept. Finally, the results are different from the conclusions. The results tell you what the methods spit out. Analysis tells you what the results say, and conclusions tell you what generalizations can be made based on the analysis.)

Next, read the conclusion section. This section will tell you what general conclusions can be made from the information found in the paper. This will tell you what the author found in their research.

Finally, once you've done all that, go back to the literature review section. You don't have to read it necessarily, but reading it will give you an idea of what is in each sourced paper. Take note of the authors and papers sourced in the literature review and repeat the process on those papers. You will get a wide variety of expert opinions on whatever concept or niche you're researching.

Starting to notice a pattern?

My research methods may not necessarily work for everybody, but they are pretty standard practice. You may notice that throughout this guide, I've told you to "source-hop" or follow the sources cited in whatever source you find first. This is incredibly important. You need to know who people are citing when they make claims.

This guide focused on secondary sources for most of the guide. Primary sources are slightly different. Primary sources require understanding the person who created the source, who they were, and their motivations. You also may need to do a little digging into what certain words or phrases meant at the time it was written based on what you are researching. The Prose Edda, for example, is a telling of the Norse mythology stories written by an Icelandic historian in the 13th century. If you do not speak the language spoken in Iceland in 1232, you probably won't be able to read anything close to the original document. In fact, the document was lost for about 300 years. Now there are translations, and those translations are as close to the primary source you can get on Norse Mythology. But even then, you are reading through several veils of translation. Take these things into account when analyzing primary documents.

Research Takes Practice

You won't get everything you need to know immediately. And researching subjects you have no background knowledge of can be daunting, confusing, and frustrating. It takes practice. I learned how to research through higher formal education. But you don't need a degree to write, so why should you need a degree to collect information? I genuinely hope this guide helps others peel away some of the confusion and frustration so they can collect knowledge as voraciously as I do.

– Indy

[delicrieux]

…TAKING WHAT’S NOT YOURS ! ⋆｡°✩

⋆⭒˚.⋆ chapter summary. the fireworks festival.

pairing. gojo satoru x f!sorcerer reader warnings for this chapter. swearing, character death (off screen, dw) wc. 6.3k author’s note. gege deserves to be charged for war crimes for what he's done, but besides that, thank u for reading once again. i really loved writing this story and agonizing about what it would be like to be with our dear satoru. he is, without doubt, a character that deserved so much better. but anyway, thank you again!!!! c u at the end of this xx

ੈ ✩‧₊˚

masterlist | buy me coffee☕ | twny masterlist | < back |

CHAPTER 14: you know where to find me & i know where to look

you will not lie and tell yourself that being away from gojo isn’t strange and off-putting, even if you would like to. it’s different when either of you are on a mission, because, theoretically, now you know he’s just on the other side of the wall and you have chosen to not curl up beside him. you have slept alone for a long time, and it had never been an issue until now – there’s no one to be too warm against, no one to hog the sheets, no one to chew on your hair dreaming of something sweet.

the stockholm syndrome really got you, huh?

still, you sleep well. there’s enough space and you awake refreshed, with no limbs tingly or numb, but a bit lonely. the room is too big, and even if the view behind the curtain is nice enough to snap a picture, it’s not as charming without gojo pointing and saying, “heh, look, a bit more rain and it’s gonna be a landslide,” and you, naturally, nodding along, because he must be right.

you dress and douse yourself in a heavy, heavy cloud of the perfume he got you. gojo insisted on this one because he liked the way it smelled, and you are feeling better today and are willing to hear out another heartfelt apology. you are very nice and very merciful and deserve the very best for your endless efforts to steer this relationship into something at least vaguely harmonious.

maybe you can reconcile during a tasty breakfast with a cappuccino syruped with caramel and the foam resembling a cat. yes, you have put the pieces together – normally, you wouldn’t consider yourself a great strategist, but surprisingly, last night you had ran this situation through your head over and over and over again till every possible scenario and an equally possible outcome was engraved into the squiggly lines of your brain. you have never been more prepared for anything in your entirely life.

“i’ve learned my lesson,” are the very first words you hear when you open the door, met with a head hung low and an unhappy gojo satoru.

alright, this you did not anticipate. he looks a bit miserable. gojo always hated the silent treatment or the ignore policy the most, even when he was harassing you for his personal entertainment, but you didn’t think eight hours apart would make him like this. suppose he might not have slept at all; suppose you did leave on a sour note, a small good night and a strained smile he tried to mimic but failed, waiting till you shut the door before heading to his room.

you wonder how long he’s been antsy behind your door, waiting like a lost pet. you decide to assume he just got here instead of thinking of the more likely scenario that he sensed your cursed energy spike once you rolled out of bed and was at attention ever since.

“that’s nice,” you tell him. a soft kiss to his cheek seals the deal for both of you, and an ache you didn’t realize you were suffering from lifts seeing him instantly brighten.

“you smell nice,” he leans in, happily nosing the side of your neck, “and look nice. super nice. hello.”

“hi, good morning.”

“yes,” a toothy smile, and your fingers twining with his, “great, even, actually. didja miss me?”

you will not lie to yourself, but you will lie to him. you shake your head, as though disappointed by such an unfair and silly line of questioning, “it’s barely been a night. i was relieved, if anything.”

he wrinkles his nose, a look that borders on not so playful if taking in the arctic gleam of his eyes, “not funny,” the comedy will have to wait, it seems, he’s serious, “no jokes about that. or separation. ever. you and i are conjoined twins from now on. we could be permanently glues together by my infinity. now that’s an idea.”

a bit too frankensteinian for you, so you have to pass, “let’s leave the morally questionable experiments to shoko, please.”

“if you insist,”

well, now that the apology is out of the way and the awkwardness is cleared, you are prepared for a feast that he will pay for, “let’s go down to eat?”

if it weren’t for the slight downward twitch of the corners of his lips, you might’ve been fooled that all is fine and dandy. apparently, it is not. hesitation, from him, only comes when he’s preparing for something major and likely emotionally taxing. this, on an empty stomach, will not do, but drawing it out isn’t an option, either.

he squeezes your hand before you can come up with an excuse to avoid breakfast or this conversation, as this isn’t going at all like you have pedantically strung together. another squeeze, and you decide to never plan anything ever again, “…can we order room service instead?” he inquires, and you relax a little, glad you won’t have to have this conversation mid-hallway where any other guest could sneak up, “i, uh,” he won’t meet your eyes, “i’d like to talk a bit. first. if that’s okay?”

your insides are twisting into knots – not from the present anxiety but from the honesty in his quiet voice.

“sure,” you settle.

he nods and takes the lead, hand a little sweaty, face a little flustered – all very out of character, but very sweet. you let him drag you the whole of the next door down and you’re graciously let into the spotless, untouched space he had spent the night in. the curtains are open, the bed is pristine, and gojo is never this clean so it can only mean he hasn’t used it. you glance at him with a wordless question but he’s still avoiding your gaze.

has he really agonized over this the whole night? you have, too, a bit, but seemingly not nearly enough. maybe it’s his first time having a fight with someone; maybe it’s his first time being in the wrong and knowing that he is and actually doing something about it. too many maybes. you think he might be just as confused as you.

once the door is shut, he breathes out. perks up, finally, once you’re safely secured in his perimeter. he gestures toward the expanse of the bed, face morphing back into a rather placid expression that betrays nothing but an odd edge that doesn’t manage to leave his eyes entirely.

“after you,” he announces chivalrously. no ulterior motives there.

“uh-huh,” you sound, toeing the slippers off and climbing in. you scoot back till you’re pressed against the pillows, leaving ample space for him to join. he chooses a spot by your thigh, warmth pickling against your skin, and you really do forgive him, you decide, and you would probably forgive him again even he pulled the same stunt at this very moment. no, that is terrible, how has this idiot managed to ensnare you so completely?

once he’s fidgeted enough, he moves onto his next agenda, “the menu,” he pulls out a booklet from the drawer, placing it on your bent knees like a little gift. this all feels vaguely rehearsed, “pick what you want.”

that was always the intention, but you see that he’s trying very hard to work up the courage to something he wants to say, so maybe some good old fashioned enthusiasm from you will help him relax, “alright,” a hum for added measure, “hmmm…. mhmmm…. ooh, pancakes sound nice. like, maybe a mountain of them.”

“yeah?” his chin finds its usual spot on your shoulder, “pick between the triple and a tower.”

the picture showing off the pancake tower does look very impressive, not to mention delicious. however, you aren’t entirely certain you would finish one, as the heading reads over one meter!, which is simply ridiculous. thankfully, you have a man with a black hole for a stomach right next to you, “i’d like a tower.”

“sure, whatever you want.”

“and a cappuccino,” you’re not skimming out on that, even if it’s unlikely the barista will make you cat-shaped foam. maybe you can press gojo to bully them into doing it, but pressing gojo into anything at this moment would likely lead to another disaster, “with a double shot. possibly triple. how many shots do they do?”

“think one’s plenty enough,” his tongue darts out, wetting his lips. they appear  bit chapped, but nothing you can’t fix, “…can i get a kiss?”

…so much for wanting to talk. this is already familiar. he’s trying to change the subject.

“for good behavior?” you venture coyly, peeling your gaze away from the breakfast details to gauge his expression.

it makes him smile, small and wicked, “yup. best behavior, actually. i said sorry, it counts. right? say yes.”

“mmm,” you manage, thinking up another scheme. you would like to keep this on track. it’s likely he won’t dare to say it again and the implication of it will hang between the two of you until another fight, and another, and it’ll keep stacking up and up and likely higher than the famed pancake tower. his pupils grow larger the longer he waits for your permission. a small sigh, and your nails scratch at the nape, “maybe let’s eat first?”

his gaze flickers for a second, and then he gives you a kind, patient smile, “alright,” because he meant it when he said whatever you want.

“so nice of you,” you praise. his grin shifts. you recognize i – it’s the one he dons when he’s winning.

a quick call to reception, gojo’s back to holding your hand again, softly as not to crowd you. his fingers really are much longer than yours, and he measures them idly, more than used to the sight but still somehow mesmerized by it.

“i don’t like fighting with you,” he starts, voice even, though low, “the rest i don’t really care about, but you,” he tugs on your finger, “you just, doesn’t…” he trails off, confidence shaken by something invisible.

“i don’t like fighting with you either,” you share, hoping it will ease him. it seems to work, but only a little, “it sucks.”

“yeah,” he huffs, “super major sucks,” he draws closer and the mattress shifts. he finds home beside you, head once again nestled into your shoulder, like it’s the safest place on planet earth.

gojo always seeks refuge in physical affection. it’s a way he can express himself without using words. suppose you can pull him into your embrace and calm him like that; suppose he’ll feel a bit braver without your eyes so deeply focused on him, even if there’s always a chance he’ll take the easy way out and refuse to speak at all.

but that’s not what happens, “i just wanted to find a spot where we could watch the stars together.”

“oh,” you utter, unsure what to make of this yet. you are glad he has finally told you, but that still doesn’t explain why he was acting, dare you say, nervous before the argument. there has to be more. there always is, but you will never pry, because it’s painful enough for him already.

“didn’t work out the way i had hoped it would, though,” and now he sounds genuinely sad. a horrible feeling surfaces in you, “but we can still watch them tonight. if you want.”

“i do,” you assure him, “but you have to talk about what’s bothering you. i can’t read your mind.”

“thank god you can’t,” a hollow chuckle follows, “it’s a secret anyway. none of your beeswax.”

impossible, like always, but you wouldn’t really have it any other way. you card your fingers through his hair and he relaxes further, warm breath tickling the side of your neck. a small sigh, this time from him. now that he’s said all that he has wanted to say – which still doesn’t really explain anything, but is more than enough – he can pretend to be an overgrown cat and bask in your affectionate gestures.

it’s going to be okay. you hope he doesn’t see your little smile. lucky.

*

“is this supposed to be a white tiger?” you inquire, holding up a glass phone charm for his inspection. another pale, blue-eyed thing that has caught your fancy. soon, your dorm room will also include a private zoo of all the cute plushies and ornaments you’ve managed to collect with gojo’s money.

“doesn’t have any stripes,” he hums, twisting and turning the vaguely animal-shaped object in his palm. dusk falls on his shoulders, tinting the edges of his hair a soft lilac, “maybe a polar bear?”

suppose it doesn’t really matter, since all charms displayed at this stall look the same, and it surely has nothing to do with the talent of the man that made them. he gazes over them proudly, each sat in a small leather box with a lavish seat, ready to be taken home and hung by the mirror or looped around a cellphone. the monkey ones could maybe resemble monkeys if you squinted and took a lot of creative liberties, and the rest are just shapes with four legs and a snout. oddly cute, in an incompetent, unexplainable way.

“you wanna…?” gojo raises a brow, shades blocking the double-check he no doubt sends you. you nod vigorously.

he has learned his lesson from last time and carries a concerning amount of cash in his wallet. your tiger-bear is placed in its box and then wrapped in a little bow before being hidden in a colorful plastic bag that eventually makes its way to you. you bow in thank you.

the matsuri continues. the winding streets are blocked from traffic yet crowd with too many patrons; gojo pinches your sleeve and tugs when a particularly large wave of people try to separate you. even when they manage, and you’re momentarily disoriented from the sounds and smells and sights, he always manages to spot you first. maybe he just knows where to look.

gojo has changed from his usual garbs into a baby blue yukata. blue really is his color, and he looks so infuriatingly handsome that you have to glare at a sizable amount of people to let them know he is not available to be admired now, or ever, really. you have contemplated buying him a kabuki mask, but even then, his height and broad shoulders – not to mention that unshakable gait and all-over enticing confidence! – would somehow reveal him, and people would still stare or try to grab his attention. perhaps the mystery of the mask would be even more alluring. your hairs stand on end at the thought.

“m?” gojo, never one to miss anything and still latched onto your sleeve, tilts his head, “are you hungry? i sensed murderous intent.”

you hide your lips behind your fan – an expensive trinket gojo insisted to get you since it would match your baby pink yukata. yes, you have come in matching bubble gum ice cream flavors. when your head moves even slightly, the hairpins clink. the sound is light and satisfying, or so he said. you can’t hear it over the noise.

“no, not really,” you say, though the dango stand does look delicious, and the twinkling lights are inviting. your displeased eyes do not leave the group of high school girls donning their flowery yukata and giggling into their kakigori bowls. it is truly a blessing you have been born with a useless amount of cursed energy, because you would definitely use it for evil.

maybe gojo knows, and he graciously steps forward, blocking your sight from the rest of the people. another tug, and you snap into motion.

around you, lanterns sway, alight and warm; they cast low over the sidewalks and shine bright against the cobblestone walkways. in the corners of your vision, the glow swirls into endless rainbow-colored ribbons.

“how good are you at shooting?” he asks.

all dolled up and pretty, you can only clap your lashes  few times at the absurd question, “really well, why?”

“like, a bow or  a gun?”

“does it matter? both require concentration and precision,” you explain, “still, are we planning a heist or something? i don’t have any cursed tools on me,” and while the prospect of danger and adventure is enticing, you really are having fun just being here with him and would rather stay.

“nah, just a bit of friendly competition,” he grins, glasses drooping just enough to catch the mischievous twinkle in his eye, “wanna go against the strongest? you’ll be the only one to that lived to tell the tale.”

wanna do this, wanna do that? want food, a plushie, something absurdly expensive? if you asked for the moon, you wonder if he’d try to retrieve it. perhaps calculate if a missing edge wouldn’t spin the planet out of orbit and bring it back to you as a souvenir.

“i’d like a soda,” you say.

“let’s get you a cola,” he switches directions so quickly you almost collide into an equally mushy couple enjoying their date.

only you and gojo are not a couple, and this is not a date, and each time he recalls an insignificant detail about you and goes out of his way to do something small for you only because he wants to do it, it becomes harder and harder to remember the fact. pretending is awful, and it burns strangely acidic in the back of your throat. but it’s so warm, too, and you want to cling to his arm and press your cheek against his yukata. hide there, in his sleeve, like he always does in the crook of your neck.

gojo wouldn’t mind. once he gets you your tasty drink, you paint a kiss mark on his cheekbone with your lips. it’s faint and pink, glossy against the rose that steadily rises onto his face, and he doesn’t wipe it off, only smiles sheepishly.

eventually, you make it to the shooting range. it’s a large stall decorated with sea creatures and varying shades of purple and blue. you’re handed a large water gun and told to hold till the targets – large jellyfish – fall over, officially earning you a point. depending on the amount of points one receives, one might win a prize, or so the man in a pirate costume explained.

“ready?” gojo asks, fixing his glasses. you’re not sure how serious you should take this. your pride may be on the line, but this game is likely extremely rigged. he’s already the strongest, and whatever he’d receive from the pirate would ultimately make it into your hold without you having to steal or resort to anything desperate, like politely asking.

still, you are a sorcerer. if a friend and colleague is requesting, you must put on a brave front. it is the morally righteous thing to do, after all.

you put your hand on your hip and nod.

the game begins. three seconds into it you realize that the water stream is much too weak for you to successfully take down a significant number in the modest time allocated for this quest. still, you keep going, and several jellyfish fall by your skillful hand and steadfast accuracy.

no matter the physical differences or innate abilities, there should not be a lead in this competition, and if there were to be one, it would be you and your clear head compared to gojo’s impatience and petulant whining. as a matter of fact, he is not whining, nor is he sulking in defeat or trying to sabotage your chances.

he is barely containing his cackle over tightly pressed lips and quivering shoulders, his grip on the plastic so tight the bright red grip cracks a little.

the jellyfish stood in his path to victory keep falling one by one so quickly you take a second glance to ensure he’s not using an actual gun to knock them over. cursed energy permeates in the air like static after a storm, and you sigh, lowering your water gun before the timer’s up.

he's cheating. somehow you didn’t expect this, even if it was obvious from the start. should you scold him and be disappointed, thus ruining the fun for everyone out of principle?

you feel like he’s been through enough. even a fake argument would leave him discontent, and you even more so. besides, you doubt either of you would have won even the most useless trinket if you played fair and square. this you judge from the absolutely aghast expression of the stall’s owner, who might snap his neck at any moment if he keeps swinging it from jellyfish to gojo and back.

the bells chime. the game ends. with trembling hands, the pirate picks up the stuffed animal gojo pointed at and hands it over.

 “there you go,” gojo thrusts the penguin in your arms, and you take it, all fluff and cold seams, “for you.”

“okay,” you concede, cradling the stupid looking bird. it's cute.

you do not miss the owner checking gojo's gun for a malfunction. he does not miss the sly look you send his way before departing.

“where to next?” you can't wait. you have had fizzy drinks, munched on so many yakitori skewers you've lost count, watched a truly horrendous standup comedian and stayed till the end of the performance out of pity, and exchanged three handmade charms for a total of two plushies. your penguin will be named yukihira because that was the name of gojo's pet koi fish.

pet, as in it was in the pond, and gojo liked looking at it the most, hence he named it. there were no pets allowed in the gojo household, or any fun, for that matter. you didn't understand, not entirely, but you wanted to. a lackluster childhood burdened with responsibility so vast and complex it's hardly comprehensible. he wouldn't elaborate further, simply bury his face into the bend of your neck and kiss until the memory had finally, and perfectly, faded from your mind, and you could breathe just a bit easier.

“to sit,” gojo says, indicating the lone bench beneath the awning across the stall, “exhausted. gotta recharge for the next conquest.”

“how dramatic,” you comment, but take his extended arm and accompany him.

together, you remain unbothered, a tiny island amidst a current of shifting yukata, cork shoes, and the occasional colorful sandal. fireflies wink around, chasing each other like sparklers.

gojo fishes out his phone and clicks his tongue, reading the message you know is there. most likely another important thing to deal with. you wish he wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again, but that sounds ridiculous even to you.

“what's up?” you lean your shoulder on his. the penguin sits on your lap, quietly reflecting your somber gaze. it's round, black eyes are welcoming, so you poke its nose.

“nothing,” he decides, waving the thought away, “it can wait, probably.”

you make a face, “that doesn't sound very assuring.”

“unlike some, i have a healthy respect for privacy,” he grins, not taking his eyes off the device even when his tone softens considerably, “i won't interrogate you if you don't want me to. so the same goes for me.”

you snort. that's a lie if you've ever heard one, because he has never shied away of reading your messages along with you or providing helpful responses. still, you won't push. you trust him. if he says it's nothing, it means it's nothing.

a short silence settles. the air feels balmy, and a phantom wind circles you. one of the lanterns has blown out, and a little trail of smoke floats to the sky.

“huh,” you blink, the information suddenly resurfacing in your brain, “the sister event is next week.”

“ugh,” he shoves his phone back into his pocket only so he could rub the disgust off of his face, “don't remind me.”

you grin, “heh, how come? we can just send you alone. we'll win anyway.”

“always gotta do all the work,” he groans, then leans his head back, fixing you with a knowing look from the corner of his eye, “aren't you going to hold my hand?”

“want me to?”

his throat bobs, the simple question alone making his breath stumble as if he was walking down a dark alley, and hearing your voice had given him goosebumps. his voice is steady when he answers, “yeah.”

with one arm securing your precious yukihara, you reach over and take his hand. his larger fingers slide over yours, catching.

“so spoiled,” you tease. he lifts your hand to press his lips to your skin. now it's your heart's turn to waver. his eyes are crinkled happily, the crescent of his smile lighting up in the growing shadows. there's something playful hiding there, too, something secretive that he wouldn't share until he was sure you'd like it, and that patience of his, newfound and endearing, spreads like sweet nectar down your throat and bubbles a giggle.

“yep,” he agrees, so delighted his nose scrunches adorably.

you could stay like this forever, watching and enjoying the thrum and beat of a summer festival. the atmosphere, the laughter and tittering, the low chatter as people find their way from one thing to another. live in this moment, like a firefly caught in a glass jar.

at one point, gojo's cheek rests on your head, and you soak in the warmth. perhaps this is his favorite part. the glow of the lanterns is just the right side of orange and highlights the angles and divots of his face, while his other hand stays coiled around yours, and his thumb rubs small, soothing patterns into your knuckles.

“let's sit it out.”

“hm?”

“the sister exchange event. haibara-kun, nanami-kun, and suguru can participate for us,” you tell him, “we could hide in the clinic with shoko.”

he pulls back from his position, but only so he could survey you properly. his stare is less calculating than it is contemplative. behind his glasses, his eyes are burning quietly. at times, there's something almost solemn glazing over his expression, softening the sharp lines and allowing his features to relax. it makes him seem so much more mature and so unlike himself that you never know how to react.

“can't,” he says with a small sigh, finally coming to stand. he pulls on your hand and you scramble, grappling to keep yukihara from falling along with all of your things, “yaga would definitely beat my ass if i ever tried pulling something. but that doesn't mean i don't want to,” his smile widens, “thank you for the offer, though.”

“wow, a sincere and gracious rejection. thanks, satoru.”

“anytime,” he winks. you flick his forehead.

no pouting this time, though, no furrowed brows or crossed arms. instead, he bites his lower lip and seems to be wrestling with himself not to jump you. he is behaving extremely well by comparison, his touches never bordering on anything even remotely inappropriate for a public settling.

you appreciate the consideration. even despite the crowded space, he is focused solely on you, his finger grazing along your palm, tickling your wrist. if you smile any wider, your cheeks will start hurting. and if he continues looking at you like that over the rim of his sunglasses, your heart will start hurting instead.

“should we head to ashinoko?” you ask, keeping yukihara close, “or will there be too many people there?”

“probably, but it doesn't matter,” he reassures, “we'll find a spot. worst case scenario i'll let you sit on me. my shoulders, to be exact.”

how would you explain the sudden rush of blood to your head? “that won't be necessary...”

“why not? can't get much of a better view. and you get to play with my hair, too,” he tacks on, “or maybe i could hold your legs and give your-”

you take back everything you thought of good behavior and growth as a person, he is nothing but a lewd pest wanting to embarrass you in the middle of a romantic setting, the absolute traitor, and you have half a mind to stomp him to death right then and there. all the private tutors in the world couldn't teach him manners, and no stifling house rules could condition him out of his shit eating grin.

he is terrible, and you like him still, more and more each day. even now, when he looks on the verge of laughing, so pleased to have flustered you, while you try and fail not to panic.

“kidding,” he assures, “mostly. i would, if you asked.”

“satoru, pl-”

“wouldn't even question it.”

“sa-”

“got a list of places i could put my mouth. just say the word.”

you've lost. completely and irrecoverably. your shoulders slump, too tired to continue picking the pieces of your shattered dignity, “yes, yes, i get it. please stop talking.”

he shrugs, unbearably nonchalant considering he basically propositioned to make you cum between fireworks displays, “if you insist.”

unruffled by any objections, like he'd simply whisk you away to somewhere secluded should you demand him to, and it would be so easy. like he's itching for a chance, a sign, a simple smile. like he'd drop to his knees if you only said yes. you're almost appalled by his shamelessness, yet that, unfortunately, is part of his charm as well.

still, what a tease. you wish yukihara wouldn't have to hear such things. your dear penguin doesn't deserve to experience such trauma so early into your care. you are so very sorry.

“then...” you steer the topic back to where it's mostly harmless, not counting his smug look that would haunt you till the end of days, “let's go?”

“okie-dokie.”

you fall back into the crowd and lose all traces of rhythm. children push past you, twittering and shrieking, with their chaperones stumbling after them and rapidly bowing apologies left and right. the ground is smooth beneath your feet, stone flattened in ages by carts and soles alike. the two of you branch off and enter a lesser known forest path to avoid the onslaught of people rushing to see the performance at the hakone shrine before the fireworks.

the change in scenery is instantaneous. the suffocating density of bodies disappears, as well as the oppressive humidity. it's darker without the fairy lights and lampposts, the cicadas overlapping everything else. the air smells like fern, cut grass, and wet tree bark, oddly fresh and cool closer to the lake.

gojo stores his sunglasses into a discreet inner pocket. his eyes glint under a stretch of tree shadow, emitting a faint bluish glow, not bright enough to lighten his features yet remaining ever present. ever so beautiful. the woods seem to sigh around you, branches fluttering nervously above as he leans in, almost a specter.

“what's wrong?” your question brushes against the fringes of his hair.

“you're looking at me funny.”

“i am? sorry.”

“like you have so much you want to say.”

“oh,” you blink, then stare down at your shoes. a fallen maple leaf rustles when you step on it, giving a dry crunch, “not really.”

“yeah, well,” he scratches his cheek, “me too, kinda.”

a soft smile, this time, something private and indulging.

for a while you don't speak, not because you can't think of anything to say, but rather can't choose the right words. none of them seem enough, too sweet or too plain. the small trek through the damp forest path leaves your shoes a bit muddy and the hems of your yukata covered in dry flakes and pine needles, most having already blown away.

you hear it first – the deep, thunderous sounds of drums coming from the direction of the shrine. then, ways down the twisting tree line, you spot dancing lights. closer and closer, and the sounds become powerful enough to shake you, vibrating through the ground up to your legs. you hold on just a bit tighter, and gojo returns the gesture firmly.

he is quiet. his head is bowed, gaze focused ahead and somewhere else at the same time, like he's thinking about other things, which, knowing him, can be anything. he leads you off the path and you follow, passing between the foliage and low hanging branches. the weather grows colder. you're approaching the shore.

finally, the landscape clears. a thin border of black pines separates water from earth. wisteria vines drape over the whole scene like curtains on windows, billowing gently. the noise of the show is still loud and beats to the drum of your heart, each thud somehow too close and too obvious. from here, you can see the massive red torii gate stood in the shallows.

the water sloshes by your feet, and the sandy soil squishes pleasantly. far and wide, there are others waiting, too, all finding their own spots amongst the reeds and gravel. a few lanterns float in the moonlit surface of lake ashinoko, bright and orange, like the ones in the market district, and you watch, captivated, as their reflections spill over the shifting water. the chimes wind up to a symphony. it's beautiful.

gojo tilts his head to you, and his lips move, but you can't hear what he's saying.

“what?” you call, ticking a waiting ear in his direction.

the boom cuts through everything, the flash of gold drowning out his face, and you realize way too late what's happening. the crackle continues, and the air trembles, releasing another burst of fireworks. the light leaves fractals dancing over him, each one landing just so, as if aimed, cascading over his eyelashes.

he repeats the words, and something about his expression makes your heart stutter: longing and apprehension quickly replaced with shyness, almost endearing as he watches you expectantly. the sky glitters around, awash in blues and greens and whites, brilliant enough to blind. you can't look away from him.

he says it again, and again, and again, and you can't read the shape of his mouth because you're too afraid of what you will find there. the drums, the cheers, the changing lights, the words airy against your lips. he kisses you. you understand the phrase now, or you hope that you do, so you tell it back, quietly, so he couldn't hear you either:

“i like you.”

your hand finds purchase on the fabric at his chest. it's tight, and his grip is strong, cradling you with such care you can't help but shiver. each kiss is like that, little sips of air, barely enough to sustain either of you, and then he holds you and you let him, boneless, allowing yourself melt into the sure, enveloping warmth.

the light is dying, and you're dizzy. yukihara sits as a witness between your pounding hearts.

eventually, the display fades away into starlight. you want to say it again, but neither of you are brave enough to do it.

*

gojo: just waved nanamin and haibara bye bye on their mission 4:56pm

gojo: can’t believe you all left me w ijichi ( ⩌'︿'⩌) 4:57pm

you: where’s shoko? 4:57pm

gojo: clinic like a loser i dont wanna go down there lol might catch smth 4:59pm

gojo: when are u coming back 5:00pm

you: i just got here (˶˃⤙˂˶) but probably in a few hours, i won’t stay overnight 5:01pm

gojo: yeah u wont the hell 5:02pm

gojo: my girl gotta get back to me asap ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧waiting impatinetlyyyyyyy 5:03pm

you: omg lol just bumped into some salaryman and he almost knocked me over. i think he was frightened of my poorly concealed weapon and apologized heh 5:05pm

gojo: where is he? give him ur phone i wanna talk 5:05pm

you: he left already, it’s ok 5:05pm

gojo: teleporting rn 5:06pm

you: ? you can’t do long distances stupid 5:06pm

gojo: yeah and he better be grateful that i cant 5:07pm

gojo: r u done yet want u home 5:41pm

gojo: hello? no ‘yes my gorgeous blue eyed king'? rude 5:42pm

gojo: ok it has been an hour im gonna be serious, did you meet another boy or something? cant wait to murder him 6:33pm

gojo: dont tell me you got kidnapped. i will purple the planet 7:01pm

gojo: 10 mins until i start ripping at the seams and go psycho and rip the roof off the entire city. call me rn, and then, when youre done, i'm stealing you away for a month 7:15pm

gojo: ok in a bad mood now 7:46pm

gojo: we’re talking cthulu levels of bad 8:00pm

gojo: would it be dramatic if i were to jump over a cliff 8:10pm

gojo: hi this is principal yaga gojo has jumped to his death please text back and list everything you love and find sexy about him 8:12pm

gojo: ok ur freaking me the fuck out im coming to get u u can cry abt it later and yaga can scream and shit all he wants grade 3s shouldn’t take this long 8:25pm

gojo: gonna text u till you respond, u know that, right? 2:00am

*

MISSION REPORT: 15.08.2009

LEAD ASSIGNED OFFICIAL: YAGA MASAMICHI, 1ST GRADE

SORCERER: KAWAKAMI Y/N, 1ST GRADE

PROBLEM DESCRIPTIONS: 3RD CLASS CURSE CONFIRMED DISPELLING PROCESS (UNKNOWN – FIRST RESPONSE TEAMS)

REPORT REGARDING JOB ACCOMPLISHED: KAWAKAMI LOCATED CURSE SITE (CHICHIBU STATION UNDERGROUND) – SCAN FOR TARGET, CRITICAL INJURY; CURSED INHERITANCE-TYPE SPECIAL GRADE – ATTEMPT AT SEALING PROCESS FAILED, DISEASED APPENDAGES, LIMBS & 80% NECROTISED FLESH - UNKNOWN ANGULATION - TIME OF DEATH, 15.08.2009. 5.13PM.

CURSE CONFIRMED DESTROYED: 15.08.2009, 9.59PM, GOJO SATORU.

DEATH REPORTED: 15.08.2009, 11.03PM, GOJO SATORU. BODY RETRIEVED: 12.15AM, MEDICAL TEAM. FINAL EXAMINATION: 2:02AM, IEIRI SHOKO.

ACCELERATED FUNERAL CEREMONY IN EFFECT AS NEXT OF KIN; NONE.

JOB SOLVED: GOJO SATORU.

MISSION REPORT SUBMITTED: NANAMI KENTO, 18.08.2009.

CLOSED.

author's note:

1) so sorry it was planned from the start 2) i do wonder how long satoru would have really sat there in the ground levels of a train station when the fight was over. he did for an hour, but if he had the time, he would likely have spent more time saying goodbye 3) now u know why the cover image of the masterlist is the specific one where gojo wakes up w tears from a dream he had about his school days

before you lynch me, the technique of our dear reader really was in her lastname - kawakami. i'm a big fan of junji ito, and since there's already a ref in jjk of his manga (uzumaki), i though "huh, it would be sooo cool if the mc had a power like tomie!!!" so i wrote this. i wrote a lot of versions, some were a bit scary, so i scrapped them. tomie kawakami's power is essentially being able to clone and heal herself from a single strand of dna, along with a bunch of disturbing stuff, but that's one of the main components of her power.

so here, i present to you an endless amount of endings (2): a) reader has really died, getou has defected, more nice trauma b) reader has not died and returns at any point after the report is submitted, as per her cool powers. getou still defects im sorry some things are doomed by the narrative

either way, u can't get over something like this. megumi? satoru? suguru? shoko? they could never heal from this, no matter if reader came back or not xx

next time i promise to write something where no one dies and there is a happy ending. but for now, that's all, folks! i love u even tho u probably hate me. that's ok. i, too, am gracious and merciful.

tags (couldn't tag in bold!). @shokosbunny , @jotarohat , @fortunatelyfurrygiver , @alygator77 , @finnydraws , @mastermasterlist1p1 , @eolivy , @letsmyy , @staruus , @k0z3me , @damnshorty , @kaeyakaikai , @n4melesspers0n , @midnightwriter21 , @sillymercury , @byakuya61085 , @stillnotherapy , @mydearchoso , @plutoisaghoul , @byerno6 , @bqvz , @harryzcherry , @noira-l , @your-sleeparalysisdem0n , @satoryaa , @cccandynecklaces , @stuffeddeer , @cherriee-ee , @ducky1232

[st-eve-barnes]

Bad Girl

(modern Aemond x fem Reader)

Summary: Aemond gets a little (sexually) frustrated with his shy girlfriend. Based on this post: "Hold her down by the throat and put her vibrator on the max setting. That'll fix her, I promise."

You can all thank @arcielee for inspiring me to write this! So it came out a little different than I initially planned but I hope it's still okay ;) This was written quickly so I apologize for any mistakes, English is not my first language and all that. Enjoy!

Word count: +2800

Warning: 18+ for explicit content and language. Teasing, dirty talk, mild degradation/praise, masturbation (fem), soft dom Aemond, shy reader. Use of sex toy & orgasm denial. Choking, multiple orgasms and p in v sex.

***

All my fics are also on AO3 If you love my writing you can Buy me a KoFi or feed me with a lovely comment ;)

***

Aemond tried his best to focus on the words on the page in front of him. He wanted to finish this chapter but your hand on his thigh was starting to distract him.

You were both lying on your bed, him reading his book while you absentmindedly scrolled through Netflix while checking your phone. It had been over an hour now and you still hadn’t picked anything to watch. 

You were distracted as well, Aemond had noticed it the moment he’d walked in but as usual you chose to stay quiet and not let him know what was on your mind.

But he knew you inside and out now, after 6 months of dating. You were a closed book and it took a lot of patience and the right kind of attention to get you to open up to him. Tonight was no different.

Looking at your blank facial expression one could never tell but the way your hand kept clinging to his leg, Aemond knew everything he needed to know. You were just as horny as he was right now.

“Do you want me to pick something?” he asked, not looking up from his book but his lips curling into a little amused smile.

“Oh, no, why?” you asked, waking up from your thoughts.

“Because clearly you are never going to,” he pointed out.

You sighed,”I’m sorry, I just…I don’t really feel like watching anything.”

“Then why didn’t you just say that?”

“I didn’t want to annoy you,” you sighed, turning off the tv.

It took only a few seconds for Aemond to snap his book shut and look up at you.

“What did I tell you just last night? You can never annoy me, sweet girl,” he placed his book on the nightstand and turned his attention to you,”Okay, here's what's going to happen…we’re going to set up a few ground rules, just between us.”

You looked at him with intrigued eyes.

“You need to tell me what goes on in that pretty little head of yours,” he spoke softly,”I can’t read your mind, love.”

“You might wanna be grateful for that,” you joked, putting a smile on his face but it disappeared quickly when his one good eye met yours.

“Rule number one,” he then stated,”You don’t put yourself down, ever.”

Your eyes softened at his request and you smiled while nodding your head,”I’ll work on that.”

“Oh, you will,” he confirmed and you were taken aback by the hard tone in his voice.

“Okay,” you nodded.

“Rule number two,” Aemond continued,”You need to talk to me, about what you feel, and what you want, whatever it is. I don’t want to have to guess it.”

You nodded but sighed quietly,”Aem, you know I…I have a hard time opening up.”

“Not with me,” he insisted,”I don’t want you to feel that way with me.”

His eye stayed locked on yours, his gaze intense, as if he was trying to stare deep into your soul. ”You know you never have to feel that way with me, right?”he then added softly.

You smiled, reassured,”I know.

“Good,” he nodded,”Then let’s try this, shall we? Tell me what you want right now.”

You couldn’t help but blush, your words already stuck in your throat.

“Come on, don’t be shy, sweetheart,” Aemond encouraged you,”Your hand’s been on my thigh the entire time, what is it? Do you want to cuddle?”

You knew he was teasing you but you still couldn’t bring yourself to say the actual words.”No, I don’t want to cuddle,” you confessed instead.

“Then, what do you want?” Aemond covered your small hand with his much larger one, his thumb caressing your skin,”Don’t make me drag it out of you, sweet girl, you know I will.”

His threat was making your heart beat faster and your skin was burning up under his soft touch.

“I want…,”you bit your lip, willing yourself to just say the words but failing again. “I want you,” you eventually let out.

Aemond clicked his tongue in disappointment”You want me? Want me to what?”

“Aemond,” you whined.

He took his hand off you, making you want to whine some more but the serious look in his eye stopped you.

“I think it’s time to tell you about rule number three then,” he stated.

“Rule number three? What’s rule number three?”

“Girls who don’t comply with the first two rules will get punished.”

Your heart was definitely beating loudly in your chest now. “Aem,” you whispered, shaking your head with a shy smile.

Before you could even think of saying anything else he had you pinned down to the bed, straddling your legs and leaning over you, his face mere inches away from yours.

“Oh, you think I’m joking?” he asked.

“No, I…I don’t…”

He nuzzled your cheek, his breath warm against your skin while his long hair tickled your neck, putting goosebumps all over you.

“I won't ask again,” he whispered firmly,"Tell me what you want."

“I want you to fuck me,” you finally blurted out, putting a satisfied grin on his face as he leaned back to look at you.

“There’s my girl,” he smiled,”That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

You bit your lip. Aemond's hands were softly caressing your waist and you could feel the weight of him on you, his cock pressing against your inner thigh through his sweatpants. You couldn’t help yourself from trying to move against him but he was quick to grab your wrists and pin them down on the bed next to you.

“Nuh-uh,” he teased,”Keep still.”

“Aem,” you breathed,”Please.”

“No, no, that took you way too long, sweetheart,” he pointed out,”If I give you what you want right away how will you learn your lesson, hmm?”

His hands moved back to your waist, slowly pushing up your shirt, fingers brushing against your skin. A smirk played on his beautiful face when he discovered you weren’t wearing a bra.

“Look at you being all slutty for me,” he grinned, pushing your shirt up all the way and exposing your tits fully to him. You couldn’t hold back your moans when he started kissing your stomach. His mouth was so soft, his kisses featherlight, teasing, making you shiver all over.

When he finally worked his way up to your tits his tongue curled around your nipple, making you squirm underneath him. You kept your hands on the bed, digging into the sheets now. You were afraid if you touched him he'd stop what he was doing to you and you would break if he did.

“Aemond,” you breathed,”Please…please…baby.”

You could hear him laugh as he licked your other nipple,”Oh, no, you don’t get to be impatient now, sweetheart. You made me wait for over an hour while you kept browsing that stupid Netflix menu. Rubbing my thigh like you didn’t know exactly what you were doing to me.”

He moved up higher to kiss your neck.”You’re going to do exactly as I say now. And maybe when you do, I’ll fuck you afterwards. Maybe. Do you understand?”

You nodded.

“Use your goddamn words, sweetheart,” he growled, grinding his erection against your panties.

“Fuck, yes, I understand,” you moaned.

“Good,” he grinned,”Good girl, you’re gonna be such a good girl for me, aren’t you? Say it.”

Your voice came out as nothing more than a pathetic whimper,”I’ll be…a good girl…for you.”

Aemond moaned loudly and pushed his cock up against your soaked panties, letting you feel every inch of him but then he pulled back, an evil smirk on his lips. 

He leaned over to your side of the bed and opened your nightstand.

“What are you…?" your eyes widened when he pulled out one of your toys.

“Just the one I was looking for,” he grinned.

“Aemond,” you warned him but it only encouraged him.

“Show me,” he whispered, putting the toy in your hand and moving back a little to give you room,”Show me how you use it on yourself.”

“Are you serious?” you breathed.

“Dead serious,” he placed his hand on your thigh, tracing his fingers towards the edge of your panties,”You’re not getting my cock tonight, love, or my fingers, this is all you get. So get yourself off while I watch.”

You just stared at him in disbelief for a moment.

Aemond was licking his lips while he looked down at your panties and then he leaned in to place his lips on your ear,”I can see how wet you are from up here, my sweet girl, those panties are fucking soaked right through. You need to come really bad, don’t you? So fucking do it.”

You finally managed to shut off your brain and looked at the toy in your hand. Of course he had chosen one of your favorites, not an actual vibrator but your pink clit stimulator, the one that always got the job done.

But it was a little different with him watching you.

You slipped the toy in between your legs and into your panties and clicked it on, the sudden vibration enough to make you let out a quiet whimper.

Aemond didn’t take his eye off you, his one leg still wrapped over yours, now spreading you open, watching as you started bucking your hips against the vibrations. Your breathing was picking up quickly, your cheeks flushed and your other free hand was clutching the sheets, desperate to hold onto something.

Watching you like this was turning Aemond on beyond reason and he was dying for some sort of relief himself. But he held back, only focusing on you and your pleasure. He wanted to see you fall apart so badly, to see you finally letting go of that control and give in. But another part of him also wanted to snatch that toy from your hand right before you could succumb, letting you feel some of his frustration.

But he showed mercy on you, watching as your legs started to shake and your back arched off the bed when your orgasm rushed through you.

His mercy was short lived though and before you could ride it out the toy was pulled from your hand, making you look up at him with a disappointed whine.

“My turn,” he grinned.

He pulled your panties down in one swift motion and then the toy was on you again. You almost wanted to back away at the sudden sensation on your now sensitive clit but Aemond held you in your place.

“Look up at me, sweetheart,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to yours. He waited until your eyes met his before he turned the toy down to the lowest setting. “You alright?” he checked.

You nodded,”Yeah, I’m alright.”

He cupped your cheek with one hand, thumb brushing your lips ever so briefly.”You look so beautiful like this,” he whispered,”Surrendering to me so easily. God, it's everything....you’re so perfect.”

You smiled and felt tears sting in your eyes, his sudden softness combined with the aftermath of your release making you feel emotional.“Can I touch you now?” you begged.

Aemond nodded instantly,”Of course you can, my sweet girl.”

He leaned in to press a soft kiss to your lips and your arms finally wrapped around him, caressing his neck and his hair and holding him close to you. Aemond reciprocated your hug, burying his face into the crook of your neck for a moment and breathing you in. But then he leaned back, that teasing smile back on his lips.

“Okay, where were we?” he asked and he laughed when you looked at him,”Oh, you didn’t think I was done, didn’t you?”

“Aem,” you shook your head,”Just fuck me.”

“Oh no, I don’t think you’ve learned your lesson yet, sweetheart,” he insisted and he turned your toy up a notch. He didn’t move it, just held it against your clit, teasing you with it.

“That feel good, baby?” he purred,"Oh, I bet it does, your poor little clit must be so sensitive right now, hmm?"

His lips moved down to softly kiss your neck. The combination of his warm, wet mouth on your skin and the vibration between your legs was quickly building up your need for another release.

This time Aemond showed no mercy, pulling the toy away as soon as you got too close, making you grip his arm in frustration at your lost climax.

“Fuck...please,” you whined.

“You’re so pretty when you beg,” he smiled, kissing the spot right below your ear,”Do it again. I want to hear you beg for it, use your words this time.”

He placed the toy back on your clit and back on the lowest setting, enough to tease you but not get you off.

His tongue traced patterns on your neck and collarbone and then he gently sucked your skin while upping the setting, higher and higher until he felt your legs starting to shake and he pulled away again, smirking against your neck as you cried in frustration.

He repeated the same process a couple of times, making you whimper and moan beneath him, tears running down your face now. Your hands were tangled into his hair and clawing at his back, underneath his shirt. 

“Come on, sweetheart, tell me what I want to hear,” he breathed into your ear.

Aemond’s voice was rough and you could hear it in his breathing, he was turned on just as much as you were. When you looked down you could see him palming himself through his pants, desperate for some friction.

“Please let me come,” you begged, finally finding your words,”I need to come so bad, Aem, please, baby.”

“Yeah? You want it?” he teased, licking into your mouth. You pulled him into a deep kiss, grinding your hips against your toy, which was now completely soaked in your arousal.

Aemond turned up the settings, one by one, pushing you closer and closer to that edge, moving it over your clit so perfectly you could feel your orgasm so close within reach.

"Tell me you want my cock," he breathed into the kiss,"I need to hear you say it, sweetheart...fucking say it, please."

All reason had left your mind and you finally gave into your most primal needs, and words.

“I want your cock,” you whimpered,”Please, Aemond…I need your cock, please…I need it inside of me so bad, need to feel you.”

“Oh, you do?” he grunted, moving his own hips against the mattress in his own desperation but he was not going to give in yet,”I don’t know if you deserve my cock, sweetheart.”

“I do, I’ll be good, I promise.”

“Yeah? You’ll tell me what you want next time? Before I have to drag it out of you?”

“I will,” you whimpered,”I promise I will.”

“Well, we’ll have to see about that next time, won’t we? For now you’ll just have to take what I give you.”

He turned your toy up even higher, it was almost on the maximum setting and your legs were shaking in anticipation already.

“Fuck,” you moaned.

“Will you take what I give you and accept your punishment?” he breathed against your lips.

You nodded,”Yes, yes I will.”

“Good girl,” he smirked and he watched your reaction when he clicked the button and pushed your toy to it maximum,”Show me how desperate you are for me, sweetheart, ride your toy like you would ride my cock.”

He placed himself over you again, pinning you down on the bed, his cock rock hard and pressing into your inner thigh. As you bucked into your favorite toy Aemond started rutting against you, his breath heavy in your ear.

“Come on, my pretty little slut,” he growled into your ear while his hand made its way around your neck, gripping it tight,”Fall apart for me, I want to hear you…see you…feel you. Come for me, sweetheart...come for me, right fucking now.”

Your legs finally gave out and you came with a silent cry, clinging to his back and biting down on his shoulder. You didn't get any time to recover because Aemond pulled down his pants and in one desperate move sank his leaking cock deep into your pulsing heat. You climaxed again right away and it only took Aemond a couple of hard thrusts to follow suit, filling you up and collapsing on top of you with a quiet whimper.

You both lay in silence afterwards, letting your breathing calm down and enjoying the warmth of his body close to yours.

You couldn’t help but smile after a while. “I thought I wasn’t getting your cock tonight?” you then teased,"What happened with that?"

He looked up at you, blushing and biting his lip and then he gently nuzzled your neck, placing a soft kiss on your shoulder,”You make me weak, what can I say? Besides...I couldn't bear it any longer, I’ve wanted to fuck you as soon as you walked in tonight.”

“So did I,” you confessed.

Aemond gave you a surprised, warm smile,”Next time you tell me that right away so we don’t have to waste time pretending to find shit to watch on Netflix.”

You nodded,”I will, I promise.”

“Good,” he whispered,”I wouldn’t wanna have to punish you again for being such a bad girl.”

You hesitated for only a moment before you looked back at him and bit your lip,”What if I want to be your bad girl?”

You watched Aemond swallow hard, his hold on your waist tightening and his pupil growing darker.

“What if I liked being punished?” you added in a whisper, a smile forming on your lips at seeing Aemond squirm like that for once.

”Yeah?” he breathed,”You…you liked that?”

"Very much," you nodded and you giggled when he pushed you back down on the bed, his lips finding yours in a deep, desperate kiss. You could feel his cock pressing against your thigh, he was hard again.

His mouth moved to your ear, whispering heavily while his hand reached for your nightstand again,”Let's see what other toys you have in there, shall we, my beautiful bad girl?”

[flemingsfreckles]

Physio’s Daughter Part 11 (18+)

Read the rest of the series here!

Warnings: smut! fingering (r receiving and giving), oral sex (r giving and receiving), minimal dirty talk, a little accidental overstimulation, marking, it’s a little awkward so if that isn’t your vibe that’s fine, cursing

WC: 8.1k (I know, it got out of hand)

A/N: I HAVE A LOT TO SAY!

If you are reading this series but aren’t one for smut, feel free to skip this chapter. There is nothing super instrumental to the plot happening here besides the physical relationship. Anything plot related will be reiterated and explained in Part 12 so that anyone who doesn’t wish to read this content doesn’t feel lost by skipping it.

Also I’ve mentioned this before, this is not typical hot/heavy/wildest fantasy smut, I wrote this more realistic, it’s a little awkward at points, but I liked writing it this way for this story. Basically, if you’re reading smut just to get off this probably isn’t it, feel free to read my other smut

The walk back to the hotel was relatively quiet. You weren’t able to tell what was running through Jessie’s mind but yours was all over the place.

A sudden feeling of uncertainty was running through your body. You’d had done this before, a few times with a “situationship” you found yourself in your first year of university, and then a few times with drunken flings that you found at the college bar, nothing with much feeling behind it. This felt more serious than that, this was more serious than that. This was Jessie. This wasn’t a drunken decision, this was something you’d wanted for months now.

On top of those nerves came a feeling of inadequacy. She was a professional athlete. She had defined muscles, toned legs, a toned core. She had a cardio stamina a hundred times better than yours. You were just average in comparison. Your job kept you on your feet and moving around but not nearly in as good of shape as Jessie was. The nerves had you keeping your eyes on the ground ahead of you, your hands if not already occupied with the picnic basket would’ve been fidgeting with your shirt or picking at your skin.

At the same time the nerves came with an overwhelming feeling of excitement. This was Jessie. She wanted to sleep with you just as much as you wanted to sleep with her.

The second the door clicks behind the two of you Jessie has you pressed up against it. It’s reminiscent of your first kiss, up against the wall of your office. Only this time it could go as far as you both wanted. There was no risk of someone walking in, the two of you being caught, and you were ready to take advantage of that.

Putting your hands on Jessie’s waist you gingerly begin to push her backward. Much to your dismay, Jessie takes her lips off of yours and steps back.

“Sorry.” She’s quick to apologize, your hands still on her waist.

A whine of frustration almost comes out, you clear your throat and question her. “Why?”

“If that was a lot, I came on a little hard there.” Her hands wave rapidly in the space between the two of you.

“It wasn’t too much.”

“I just figured since you pushed me off.” Her thought trails off. You didn’t want her off of you.

“I wasn’t pushing you off Jessie, I was trying to push you toward the bed.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” You point at the bed over her shoulder and she turns to look at it as if she didn’t know it existed.

“Well in that case, can I kiss you again?” You barely nod before Jessie is coming toward you, her hands coming to your face. One of her hands finds the back of your head, preventing you from bumping your head into the door as her body comes up against yours.

This time when your hands push on Jessie’s hips she steps backwards but doesn’t break your kiss. The two of you make your way to the bed carefully, your hands pushing her as she takes cautious steps backward. You get a step away from the bed and lighten the pressure on her hips.

She quickly climbs onto the bed, kneeling before turning back to kiss you as she kneeled up to your height. Her arms reach for you and she pulls you toward the bed. You join her kneeling onto the mattress for a moment before Jessie breaks your kiss and situates herself on the bed. Her hand reaches, clutching the collar of your shirt, pulling you down. Practically falling on her you just barely catch yourself before your face collides with hers.

Ignoring the fact that you both almost had broken you noses against each other, you kiss her hard again. It doesn’t take long for Jessie’s hands to wander. They’re on your shoulders, then running down your sides, she moves them to gently grip your ass, pulling you toward her. She’s caressing every inch of you that she can reach. You want to do the same but your hands are the only thing keeping you from crushing the woman below you.

Her hands then find their way to your chest and now it’s her pushing you back. You break the kiss this time, sitting back to put your weight on your knees.

“Take my shirt off.” Jessie says, breathlessly. Part of you felt like you were in a dream, this was happening, actually happening. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t dreamt of the midfielder like this before, below you, her hands on you and yours on her, those dreams never lasted too long but you always woke up with your heart racing, just as it was doing now.

“Are you sure?” You say with your hands inches from grasping Jessie’s shirt.

“Yeah I’m sure.” She looks up at you. You can’t help but get lost in her eyes for a moment. You get distracted, leaving your hands frozen reaching out toward Jessie. The way she was looking up at you was intoxicating, her eyes soft a small ring of brown surrounding her wide pupils, you could look into them forever.

“Are you okay? You’ve done this before right?” Jessie’s words break you from your gaze.

“Sex? Yes, I have! Oh my god am I that bad?” You were ready for the floor to open up and swallow you. Mortified that Jessie was under the impression that you had never done this before, that you were clueless.

“No! No, nothings been bad, we’ve barely done anything, it's just you seem pretty nervous,” she pauses before pointing to your hands. “Your hands are shaking.” They were, you knew they were, you just thought maybe you had gotten away without Jessie noticing.

“Just a little nervous.”

“I thought I didn’t make you nervous?” Jessie’s cocky smile is able to put some of your nerves to rest.

“Usually you don’t, but yeah, this is making me a little bit nervous I guess.” Finding a sudden interest in the wall color, you keep your eyes fixated there, avoiding Jessie’s stare up at you. Now you were even more nervous, thanks to her comment.

“We don’t have to do this, if you’d rather wait or just not.”

“No!” Now you’re looking back down at her. She looks at you funny, you realize it maybe sounded like you were saying you didn’t want to. “I mean yes, I want to, I want to have sex, the nerves aren’t bad nerves, it’s just a little adrenaline I think, plus I don’t want to embarrass myself because I really like you. Although at this rate it seems I already have embarrassed myself.” You barely breathe between your sentences, rushing them out to try and limit the embarrassment you’re already feeling. You planned on being red in the face and a little sweaty when this was all done not before you even had your clothes off.

“Sorry I really didn’t mean to make you feel embarrassed. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Jessie’s thumbs rub comforting circles on your thighs.

“I’m good.” You were good, incredibly embarrassed, but good.

“Good.”

You curl your lips in biting them between your own teeth and just look at her.

You could get lost in her eyes all over again. The brown color, you never knew why people complained about brown eyes, they were warm, inviting, you loved looking at Jessie’s eyes. Jessie was expressive with her eyes too, it told you a lot about her feelings. Right now her eyes were a mix of lust and a small bit apologetic.

“I really didn’t mean to make you feel embarrassed, I promise it’s been good so far. Plus I’m a tiny bit nervous too.” She looks down for a minute then back up to you. “Its an excited nervous and also just regular nervous, because I really, really like you too and I don’t want to mess this up, but I haven’t,” Jessie clears her throat diverting her eyes to a spot on the ceiling, “It’s just been a while since I’ve done anything with anyone.”

“Worried it’s been so long they’ve changed the fundamentals of sex?” You can’t help but crack the joke to her.

“Hey,” she playfully shoves you, “I didn’t poke too much fun at your nerves.”

“Right, I’m sorry. While we’re airing out everything, it’s been a while for me too, a year, at least.” You think maybe expressing your own lack of recent fornication will ease Jessie’s nerves.

“Well then we’re in a similar boat.”

“So if they’ve changed it neither of us will know.” You shrug at her.

“Just come here.” Jessie says before she doesn’t give you a choice, her hand grabs a fistful of your shirt again and pulls you back down to her. Before your lips touch she looks you in the eye before whispering “Kiss me until your nerves are gone.”

You do just that. You bring your lips to Jessie’s, kissing her softly a couple of times, just a few pecks. Her hand remains on your thigh, the other running through your hair. Her thumb still gently rubs circles on your thigh, a soothing and grounding feeling. Her hand squeezes ever so slightly as you open your lips against hers and her hand in her hair pushes you closer to her. Kissing Jessie lets your mind go blank. You become engulfed in the feeling of her lips on yours, you’re no longer caught up in the nerves and overthinking.

The two of you stay kissing for a couple minutes Jessie’s hands finding their way to your waist, her fingers teasing at the skin under your shirt. You pull away finally, pressing yourself up using your hands on either side of Jessie’s head. She smiles up at you, her hair is messy, as you're sure yours is as well from her hand running through it. Jessie’s fingers continue to gently stroke your skin mindlessly as you two look at each other.

“You can take off my shirt, if you want.” You offer, knowing Jessie probably wouldn’t make the move to take it off of you without you asking. Her fingers are quick to grab the bottom of your shirt before pulling upward. Jessie being below you gives her an awkward angle trying to pull your shirt off meaning it gets caught on your elbow on one arm and on your head. It causes you to laugh as you’re sitting in Jessie’s lap, shirt stuck over your head, you can feel her let out a quick laugh, her stomach tensing beneath you.

“Here, I’ll get it.” You feel Jessie’s hands let go of the shirt. You maneuver it quickly before ridding yourself of the shirt, tossing it to the floor.

“Sorry that was really not smooth.”

“It’s fine Jessie.” You bend down kissing her again and your hands now find the bottom of her shirt, finishing the action you had planned to do many minutes ago. “Can I?”

“Yeah, let me sit up.” You put your weight onto your knees instead of Jessie’s lap, allowing her to scoot herself up to sit. She taps your hips once she’s sitting up, “Sit back down.” You do, now sitting more on her thighs than her waist. She sticks her arms up and you slowly pull her shirt up and over, tossing it in the same direction as yours.

Jessie’s eyes trail from your face down to your bra and down your waist, her hands find their place on your shoulders where your bra straps sit. You noticed her fingers, again making small movements, tracing soothing patterns into your skin. She leaned forward putting her lips below her hand, kissing your collarbone. She placed a line of kisses across the prominent bone before switching to give attention to the other side.

Her lips then found their way up your neck, those kisses more intense, open mouthed, her tongue running over your skin, making goosebumps appear across all of your exposed skin. You let the breath out of your chest and your eyes flutter shut as you feel her suck slightly just above the base of your neck.

She pulls back, “good?”

“Mhmm.” You hum before pushing her neck gently back in the direction of where her lips had just been. She obliges, reconnecting with your neck and sucking harder as you encourage her, your hand pressing her into your neck.

She pulls away a minute later and you open your eyes, tilting your head back down to watch Jessie open her own eyes.

“Oh my god.” Her hand clasps over her mouth, her eyes open wide and glued to your neck, a horrified look in her eyes.

“What?” You ask, but you already have a good idea of why she was staring.

“I left a mark.” Eyes still wide with fear, she doesn’t look at you, vision glued to what you assumed was a bright red marking.

“Jessie!” Your hand immediately clasps over where the warmth from her lips was still radiating. “You gave me a hickey?!”

“I wasn’t trying to, I wasn’t even sucking that hard!”

“I guess I should’ve mentioned I bruise easily.” You slowly take your hand away. “Is it bad?”

“Uh.” Jessie looks from your neck to your face and back to your neck. “It’s there. It’s definitely there. And it’s definitely too high up a shirt won’t cover it. A sweatshirt maybe. Oh my, your Mom is going to kill me.” Jessie’s words are quick and scrambled with her panic.

“Nope, nope.” You bring a hand to cover Jessie’s mouth and stop her talking. “We’re not talking about my Mom while I’m sitting in your lap.”

“Sorry.” Jessie mumbles into the palm of your hand, you remove it and put it back on her waist. She squeezes her eyes shut, tilting her head down with a slight shake. “I really didn’t mean to, I would’ve asked for permission if I planned on leaving a mark, I’ll help you cover it, I can see if Janine has makeup-”

“Take my bra off.” Her head shoots back up as you interrupt her.

“Are you sure? I figured I killed the mood by giving you a hickey like an inexperienced teenager.”

“No, you didn’t, to be fair, it felt really good. Plus it’s half my fault, I pushed your head. So, if you want to keep going, I’d like you to take off my bra and maybe you can put those suction skills of yours to work somewhere more hidden?” You raise your voice at the end, indicating you were asking her a question, more making her an offer.

She nods, her loose curls bouncing slightly around her face. She brings a hand around your back, you feel her fumble with the clasp for a second, Jessie face scrunched in concentration. Just as you’re about to offer help you feel the elastic give and the straps on your shoulders slip down slightly. The feeling, realizing you were suddenly going to be exposed brings back some of your nerves. Her hands move to hold the straps, she looks up to you again.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” You nod at her and her fingers gently pull the straps down your arms, she keeps eye contact with you, not looking at your chest or the bra, not watching her own hands. Once your bra is off and on the floor with the growing pile of clothes Jessie’s hands come back to your body.

“Can I flip us over?” Her hands rest on your lower back. You give her permission and with ease she moves you off of her and onto your back before rolling over to position herself between your thighs. Your legs wrap gently around her waist. The position reminds you briefly of how the two of you were laying on top of each other at the field, her on top of you, her weight and warmth pressed into your body. You watch as Jessie takes in the sight of your bare torso. Her eyes make a path from your neck down, looking left to right, her attention being grabbed by your actively hardening nipples. She trails her eyes down the rest of your stomach before coming back up to look at you.

“You’re perfect.”

Jessie’s lips returning to your neck brings you out of your thoughts and back to the present. Her kisses are more tentative, likely she doesn’t want to accidentally mark you again. Part of you wishes she’d suck another mark. This time after making passes on your collar bones, Jessie’s mouth makes its way down the valley of your breasts.

You hum in content as Jessie moves her mouth to the flesh of your chest. She sucks just as she had on your neck, you watch as she works, her eyes are closed, focused expression on her face. She sucks a little harder making a groan bubble up from your throat. She doesn’t release her mouth but her eyes open, locking to yours while she seductively sucked harder. Jessie removes her mouth, taking a second to admire her work, a dark red circle sitting just under your nipple is left behind, she smiles before repeating the process on the other half of your chest.

Her hands have remained off of you while her mouth worked. You wanted her touch. Your own hands are all over her, they’re in her hair then on her cheek, then gently scratching down her back, squeezing her waist, holding her shoulders. You couldn’t make up your mind on where you wanted them, you wanted them everywhere. As Jessie continues to mark and tease your skin with her mouth you bring your fingers into the elastic band of her bra. You gently dig your fingers under the band hoping she’ll get the hint. She does, releasing the suction she had on you, giving each of your nipples a quick kiss before she sits up and away from you. You sit up with her, keeping your fingers just dipped under her bra.

“Can I take this off?” You look up at her. She doesn’t answer right away, she's just looking down at you, her eyes are glossed over . “Jessie?”

“Yeah?” She blinks a few times.

“Your bra? Can I take it off? If you want to keep it on, that's okay.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I just got distracted looking at you. You’re so pretty.” She leans down giving you a quick peck. Her words have your cheeks flushing pink. She’d complimented you before, but it was different, the way she got distracted looking at you, lost in her thoughts because she was looking at you. It made you feel wanted and that made you want her even more. Your fingers dig further under her bra and she moves her arms to raise them over her head. You’re able to get the bra about halfway off her arms before you can no longer reach and Jessie gets stuck for a moment, letting out a small giggle as the bra covered her face before she used her own hands to remove the fabric fully.

You weren’t sure if you should look. You wanted to, you wanted to admire every inch of her, but she had restrained her gaze on your own chest for a bit, so you do the same, looking at her face instead. Seeing you staring at her Jessie leans down to press her lips to yours. You sit up even more, putting the two of you in the same position from the other night, Jessie straddling you as you two made out. Only now instead of layers of clothing between the two of you, you felt her bare skin on yours.

The warmth of her chest on yours sends a shiver down your spine. You want to hold her tight to you like this forever. Her nails gently scratch down your back causing you to moan quietly against Jessie’s lips. She gets the hint you like it and she digs her nails in a bit harder, leaving red streaks down your back. The action has you throwing your head back away from Jessie to let out a louder moan.

“Hmm, someone likes that.” Jessie teases you, a smirk across her face. You roll your eyes at her, you want to make a smartass comment back but you can’t come up with anything in the moment too overwhelmed with the situation to come up with a coherent thought. Instead you sit up on your knees, pushing Jessie back so that you could climb on top of her, taking back a little bit of control.

Now you’re finally able to take in her figure. Your eyes float down to her chest, the sight has you nearly rolling your eyes back. Jessie was perfect, of course she was, but it still shocked you for some reason. You let your eyes take in all of her skin, smooth, her nipples hard, a couple of scars and scratches across her body, ones you had seen before with medical treatment, most of them from being an athlete. Her toned stomach. And then of course there’s her freckles.

You get distracted by her freckles. Of course the freckles on her face have always been a prominent feature you found adorable. You had seen the freckles on her shoulders and back before when you treated her. But now you take extra notice of them, she has freckles across her whole body, down her neck, across her chest, down her stomach, resting above her waistband, they’re everywhere. You have the urge to put your lips on every single marking on her skin, but you refrain, maybe you could do that another day.

Bringing your lips to her skin you begin to make your way down her neck, placing soft kisses before moving further down until Jessie’s hands hold you firm in the spot against her collarbone. You gently suck at the spot, feeling Jessie let out a sigh followed by a quiet whine. You can’t help but smile at her reaction, losing the suction to her skin. Taking your hand you place it on her stomach before slowly sliding it upward until you hit the curve of her breast. Not hearing any protest, you slide your hand further cupping her, giving a gentle squeeze before your thumb focuses on her nipple.

“That’s good.” Her words come out breathy. Her eyes flutter shut as your lips connect with her other nipple. Your tongue gently circling the bud. “Fuck.” The profanity is said so quietly from Jessie’s lips you barely hear it.

You continue pleasing her, switching between your hand and your mouth making sure you give even attention to both sides. You start to notice Jessie moving her hips. She grinds gently upward against your thigh as you suck a small mark into the skin below her breast. You give in to her movements, placing your thigh strategically to put pressure between her legs, you lean into her and she groans, flicking her hips upward.

You bring your hands to the button on her jeans, looking up at her for her permission. “Go ahead.” She puts her heels into the mattress and picks up her hips so let you shimmy her jeans off her pants. You don’t mean to but you realize as you get her jeans halfway down her thighs that you’ve grabbed her underwear too.

“Oops, sorry.” You separate the two waistbands and begin to just pull down her jeans.

“Don’t be sorry, just take them off too.” Jessie props herself up on her elbows to look at you. You listen, your hands going back up to start pulling down both her pants and underwear. You add the garments to the pile. When you turn and see Jessie, who was now completely naked in front of you, propped up on her elbows watching you with a stare, you freeze.

You didn’t know what to do. Well you did, you’ve done it before, you just, this was Jessie, someone new, you were starting from square one. You feel Jessie’s hands grab yours bringing you back into the moment. “You alright?” She says, giving each hand a squeeze.

Her voice and grounding gesture remind you that while yes this was Jessie, that’s what was going to make this easy, it was Jessie. “Yeah, I’m good.” You flash her a smile. “Uh so,” you glance down between her legs then back to her face, “is there anything you definitely don’t want me to do? Mouth, hands, anything?”

You watch as Jessie thinks for a second, “No, whatever you’re comfortable with is good but just as a tip I probably won’t get off just from you know, inside, I usually need, outside,” she lets her voice drop off and you’re not sure if she’s done with her sentence or if she just got shy.

“Yeah, I’m the same way.” You offer her the suggestion about your own body now while she’s showing her own vulnerability. “Inside and outside usually is easiest for me.”

Jessie nods “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Leaning over you let go of Jessie’s hands to brace yourself above her. You give Jessie a peck on the lips and then one on her cheek and all the way down her neck. You nestle your head into the crook of her neck, kissing her neck and shoulder as you bring your right hand down and between her legs. You find her thigh first, gently dragging your fingers on the inside of her thigh higher and higher to let her know where you were going. Her skin is smooth and you feel her thighs clench as your hand gets higher and higher until you can tell your just in the crease of her thigh. You let your hand sit for a second.

“Touch me.” Jessie murmurs into your ear which is conveniently placed just next to her lips with your head in her neck. You take a deep breath and you do as she asks. Your fingers run over her once before you dip your ring and middle fingers lower. You start to feel her arousal coat your fingers before you run them upward through her. You pause when you hear Jessie’s breath hitch in her throat as you don’t hear her let the breath out.

“Are you okay?” You pick your head up to ask her.

“Mmmhm.” She hums. “Keep going.”

Bringing your fingers back down you feel her entrance and the slick that’s covering it. You’d come back to that you decided, bringing your fingers back up and finding her clit. You start with barely any pressure, just circling the bundle of nerves once then twice, before lifting your head again. “Is this okay?”

“Good, more pressure though.” She guides you and you follow, increasing the pressure on your fingers. After a few minutes of the movement, Jessie lets out a pleased sigh followed by a deep moan. “That’s, that’s good, fuck.”

It wasn’t often you heard Jessie curse, once or twice on the field, a few other times, but this was now your new favorite way she said it. Letting profanities fall from her mouth because of the feelings you were providing was definitely an ego boost. You keep circling her clit, listening to the noises she made, telling you if you were doing the right thing. Caught up in the way she was whining, your name coming out from her lips a few times, you were surprised when you felt her hand come down to grasp yours.

“Can you put them inside?” She says when you remove your head from her shoulder to see why she had grabbed your hand.

“Of course.” You want to bring your fingers to your lips, to taste her, instead you have a better idea. “Can I taste you, while I finger you?” You clarify.

“God you’re hot asking for what you want.” She pushes your hand toward her opening. “Yes, you can.” Her permission is all you need and you’re moving off of her and lying between her legs, you grab them and place one over your shoulder and push the other up and out to give you room for your hand. You can see the arousal you spread with your fingers coating her. Using your fingers you gently spread her before placing your tongue flat against her core and licking a long slow strip up. When your tongue crosses her clit she bucks her hips, already sensitive from your fingers. You get lost in her flavor, tasting her, enjoying the feeling of your tongue on her in the most intimate way.

Alternating your movements you suck and lick her core until her hands are on your head, pushing and pulling you while she ground her hips into your face. You were surprised by how noisy Jessie was in bed. She wasn’t necessarily loud in terms of volume. She didn’t say too many words but she filled the air with moans, whimpers, deep breaths, the sound of her breath catching, all noises that were spurring you on. “Add your fingers please.” Her voice is barely a whisper.

You bring your two fingers to her entrance and begin to push into her. You both moan as you slide one in. The feeling of her warm and tight around your finger is enough and you can tell your underwear would be plenty damp when it came off. You give her a few thrusts with one finger before pushing in with two to no complaint of Jessie. You pump with both fingers slowly at first before beginning to speed up adding a curling motion.

Jessie’s grip tightens in your hair. You also notice the slight trembling on her thighs and the way she’s practically riding your face and tongue. You try keeping your movements the same, obviously getting a positive reaction from Jessie but it was hard as she would unexpectedly jerk her hips or pull your hair. You weren’t complaining though as you felt her begin to tighten around your fingers. “That feels so good.” She lets out a sigh. Her legs start to move, closing you in and holding you tight to her. “I’m going to,” she tries to warn you as her orgasm interrupts her, a moan of your name is the next thing out of her mouth.

You can feel her pulsating around your fingers, you keep moving them slowly, easing Jessie through her orgasm. Her hips jerk against your tongue a few times before she pulls up and away and her legs fall back to the bed from where they had tightened around your head. Slowly you removed your fingers, watching the small string of her arousal still connected the two of you as you pulled away. Lifting up onto your elbows you look at her. Her cheeks are red, she’s panting, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but most importantly she’s beaming, a big toothy grin on her face.

“Was that okay?” Obviously she had finished but this was about more than that, you wanted to make sure she was okay, comfortable, that she felt okay with what you did.

“That was more than okay.” She motions for you to come closer to you. You crawl up her body and she pulls you into a passionate kiss, it’s slow and deep, your tongues meet and you know she can taste herself on your lips. “Thank you.”

“Hey, no need to thank me, I had just a good of time as you did.”

“Can I return the favor?” Not only is she asking with her words but her eyes are looking up at you, practically begging as well as her hands are resting on the waistband of your pants, implying she wanted them off.

“Only if you want to, I don’t expect you to.”

“I want to, if you want me to?”

“Yeah, I do.” You climb off of Jessie standing next to the bed and bringing your own hands to the button of your pants. Just as you start to fiddle with the button Jessie speaks.

“Can I do it?”

Standing up she made her way in front of you. Her hands dropped to meet yours. Gently removing your fingers she replaced them with her own, undoing the button and zipper.

“Hang on,” Your hands come back to pause hers. “I just, I’ve been so busy with work, I haven’t shaved in a little while, my legs, or anything else.”

Pinching her eyebrows together Jessie gives you a goofy look. “I don’t know if I should be offended that you’d think I’d care about something like that. I clearly hadn't shaved too recently either. Whatever you’re comfortable with. Does it bother you, because if you’re uncomfortable doing this because you haven’t shaved we don’t have to.”

“No, I just wanted you to know, before you saw.”

“Okay, we’ll just so you know, in the most polite way, I don’t care.” You pull your hands back up, off of hers to let her continue. She pulls your pants down squatting in front of you to help you step out. You use her shoulder to brace yourself as you slide out each foot. Staying squatting Jessie brings her hands up to your black underwear. You nod before she can ask and her fingers hook into the band, slowly dragging them down, again helping you step out of them.

Instead of immediately standing up Jessie brings her lips to your thighs, placing a kiss before moving over to your other thigh repeating the process. She places kissing alternately legs all the way up to your hips, intentionally avoiding where you desperately wanted her to be. She then stands putting you face to face again.

“Lay down.” She glances to the bed and you’re embarrassingly quick to lay down in the center. Once you lay, you notice Jessie’s eyes on you, scanning your whole body before moving to crawl onto the bed.

Her hands find the skin just above your knees, giving them a gentle push, encouraging you to open your legs. You spread your legs and can’t help but feel self conscious as you watch Jessie’s eyes fixate at the apex of your legs. You know she can probably see how desperately you want her, you can feel your own wetness between your legs. She lets out a breath and moves to kneel between your thighs.

Her right hand slides up your thigh, fingers gently caressing the skin as she moves up, pausing just on the crease of your leg. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” You didn’t want to sound too impatient but you also wanted her to touch you, to fuck you.

You notice her hands are cold when they first touch you. She slides her fingers between your lips, opening you to gather some of your wetness on her fingers. She drags her fingers upward finding your clit. Her touch is foreign, unfamiliar, different from what your body knows, which is the feeling of your own fingers.

“Still okay?” Jessie asks as she circles your clit with her fingers.

“Mhhhhmm” Your eyes are fixated watching her wrist, the way her forearm flexes as she touches you.

Jessie continues her movements, she smiles when you start to shift your hips in time with her fingers. She dips her fingers again, gathering more of your arousal to coat her fingers before she places them back to your opening. She just lets her fingers sit there looking up to you for permission. You give her a nod.

You feel her start to gently push into your entrance with two fingers, already feeling a slight stretch, you grab her wrist.

“Go slow, please, your fingers are bigger than mine.”

“Of course, let me know if it’s uncomfortable. I technically have lube.” You cock your head learning that.

“Why do you-”

“It’s with the condoms, I didn’t pack it, they give all the athletes condoms, there’s lube too.” She shakes her head slightly before glancing over to the side table, likely where the condoms were.

“Oh, I didn’t know that. I knew about the condoms, not the lube.”

“Yeah.” You both just look at each other, as if you both have forgotten what you’re in the middle of. Jessie adjusts the way she’s sitting, making her fingers slide along your opening, bringing you back to the activity at hand.

“I should be fine, I mean, I’m wet, just it’s been a while, so just go slow.”

Jessie nods and readjusts herself again so that she’s lying next to you, her fingers still resting at your opening, placing the slightest pressure into you. She brings her mouth to yours into a open mouthed kiss and at the same time begins to slide a single finger into you.

Her first finger slides easily, she moves slowly knuckle by knuckle until her palm is resting against you. She pulls out and pushes back in faster this time. Her fingers were not only thicker than yours but longer too.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah, feels good.”

The room is relatively silent with the exception of the labored breathing between the two of you, the sound of your lips on each other, and the noise coming from between your legs as Jessie’s finger pumps in and out.

Jessie pulls out and pauses this time, you feel her place her second finger next to her first. She pulls away from your kiss to watch your face as she slides in her fingertips, you feel yourself clench around her and she pauses for a moment.

“Doing alright?”

“Yeah Jess, feels good.” You’d never been with anyone so attentive, so focused on making you feel comfortable. You take a deep breath as she slides her fingers in further, there’s a stretch but not uncomfortable. You adjust your legs, opening them more to try and ease the feeling of tightness.

Once her fingers are in, Jessie doesn’t pull them out, she gently curls them up and lets her hand rock against you. The base of her palm applies pressure to your clit. She lets her hand rock against you a few times and the tightness begins to fade, the pleasure from her palm rubbing your clit taking over.

Moaning into Jessie’s mouth as she kisses you, encouraging her to keep up her movements. She does, rocking her hand more aggressively. She pulls her lips from yours and buries her head into your side to kiss below your ear and down your neck.

It was a good feeling, her fingers inside of you and her palm bumping your clit but you could tell it likely wouldn’t be enough, you needed a little more stimulation. “Jessie.” You get her attention.

“Yeah?”

“Can you use your other hand on my clit? This feels good but I think I need a little more direct stimulation.”

“Of course.” Jessie gives you one last kiss before she moves her head away from yours. Jessie climbs over your thigh to sit between your legs again. She brings her previously free hand down, her thumb finding your clit while her other hand continues to work in and out of you.

Immediately feeling the wave of pleasure from the direct attention she was giving your bundle of nerves, you throw your head back, letting your mouth fall open with a moan of appreciation. “That’s good.” You manage to whisper.

Tilting your head back down you watch Jessie. She’s still naked. Her bicep is bulging on the arm thrusting into you, her cheeks still dusted with a blush, she’s staring where her hands are touching you with such focus it’s as if nothing else in the room existed.

You could stare at her forever, watching how her face reacts when you let out a whine, a smirk of satisfaction coming across her lips, how she pinches her eyebrows in concentration. But the more she touches you the more you feel the tightening in your stomach. The tightening that meant this would all be over in a matter of a few minutes.

Screwing your eyes shut you debate having her change what she was doing in an attempt to prolong your orgasm but when you open your eyes again and you’re met with her eyes watching your face a flash of heat runs through your body and you know there’s no stopping the inevitable now.

“Jessie.” You’re cautious not to moan her name too loudly, but loud enough that she hears it. “Keep going, I’m going to cum.” Your hips start to roll into her hand, chasing your high. Your hands come up to grasp at the pillow behind your head as your back arches up and off the bed. Her fingers inside of you feel so deep, hitting every pleasurable spot, your walls start to clench around her and you see her give one last cocky smile before your eyes slam shut as the wave of pleasure crashes over you.

A string of profane words falls out of your mouth, you’re not even sure what you’re saying, all of your senses overwhelmed with the pleasure of your orgasm, your heartbeat in your ears, the grasp of the sheets in your hands, the tingle running across your skin. Jessie continues her motions, exactly as she had been, letting you jerk your hips and legs as needed to get yourself through the high. She only slows once you start to squirm away from her touch instead of pressing into it.

You slowly open your eyes, blinking a few times to clear the spots you had from shutting them so hard. You look up to see Jessie looking back at you with awe as she kneeled between your legs. “You’re really hot.” Her compliment mixed with the come down of your orgasm has you blushing, throwing your hand over your face, peeking at her through your fingers. She’s smirking at you, her bottom lip between her teeth. You pull your hand away to look at her.

Keeping her eyes on yours she brings her fingers to her mouth, sucking off your release. A small hum of satisfaction falls from her throat. “You taste so good. Can I?” She glances down to your core.

“Can you what?”

Jessie pauses and you can tell she’s contemplating what to say. “With my mouth, can I, uh, eat you out?”

She’s looking at you, wide eyes with excitement. The fingers previously in her mouth rest on her bottom lip. You weren’t one usually for back to back rounds, you needed a little bit of time between, but the way Jessie was looking at you like she was ready to devour you changed your mind. It wouldn’t hurt to let her try. “You can try, I might be too sensitive.”

Not hesitating she quickly moves herself between your legs. Her hands come up to the bend in your knee, gently pushing your legs up and out. Jessie sticks her tongue out flat so it rests along her mouth toward her chin and brings her face to your already wet and sensitive core. Her first lick is slow, feather light, she’s barely touching you. Her second pass is more firm, still slow but with pressure. By her third lick you can tell she’s not just feeling you out anymore.

“Oh fuck.” Your suspicions are confirmed, you’re sensitive, the feeling of her tongue bordering on immense pleasure and also overstimulation. You can tell she’s enjoying herself the way she’s moaning into you, sending slight vibrations against you, so you let her keep going. Fisting the sheets tight with your hands you try to relax, ease into the pleasure and away from the overstimulation. She continues, her lips providing a soft suction while her tongue flicks over your sensitive skin, causing you to jerk away from her, her arms wrapped tightly around your thighs makes your movement almost pointless as she holds you in place.

“Fuck, shit, Jessie stop, too sensitive.” You gently push her head away which she obeys and you close your legs. “Sorry, I thought I’d be fine.”

Jessie lifts her head, you can see your wetness covering her lips and chin. “Don’t apologize. You say stop I’ll stop, no questions. I’ll just start with that next time.”

Next time. She said next time. You prop yourself up on your elbows to look down at where she was laying, her cheek pressed against your inner thigh as she rested her head looking up at you.

“Next time?” Repeating her words back to her.

“I mean, only if you want to. I didn’t see this as a one time thing, I hope you didn’t either. I thought with the date, we could maybe keep going on dates and then that way we’d get to do more of this too.”

“Yeah, next time, I like the sound of that.” Smiling at you Jessie unwraps her arms from your thighs and moves up your body to place a kiss on your lips. It’s a slow and sloppy kiss in a way that’s passionate and yet still relaxing.

She rolls off of you and lays next to you. The two of you lay in silence, it's peaceful, not uncomfortable, the hum of the air conditioner making the only noise. Her hand finds yours and she laces your fingers together momentarily before she plays with your fingers, tracing patterns across each one and then doing the same to your palm. Her movements are relaxing and you feel yourself starting to doze off only to be jolted awake by the elbow in your side.

“Don’t fall asleep yet, you’ve got to brush your teeth and you should probably pee.” Jessie says softly to you.

You roll to look at her. Half open eyes you give her a sleepy smile. “But I’m comfortable here.”

“Come on.” Jessie hops off the bed, extending a hand to you, you take it and let her pull you up. “I’m going to shower, there’s extra towels if you want to as well.”

“Yeah that would probably be nice. I’ll brush my teeth and then leave and you can shower first.” You say as you both walk into the bathroom.

You flick on the light switch and look in the mirror taking in your appearance looking at your face first. Your cheeks are red, your hair is a mess, you look tired. It’s then that you see the mark Jessie accidentally made on your neck. “Oh my god Jessie, what the hell?” You lean into the mirror to further inspect the damage. The mark was darker and larger than you had expected, and it was undeniably a hickey, you wouldn’t be able to argue you burnt yourself on a curling iron like you had in high school. It was also near the middle of your neck, you’d be lucky if a sweatshirt covered it.

“I know, it’s only gotten darker too, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean it. I’ll call Janine in the morning, she’ll have stuff to cover it.” Jessie looks guilty, an apologetic tone obvious in her voice.

“I cannot believe you.” You say all while slowly shaking your head and smiling at her in the mirror. You really weren’t upset, it was going to be hard to cover but not impossible.

“Let me make it up to you?” She bats her eyes at you a few times in the mirror.

You turn to face her. “Yeah? How are you going to do that?”

“Get in the shower and I’ll show you.”

[lincolndjarin]

Best Kept Secret ☆

A MANDALORIAN SERIES MASTERLIST

[ COMPLETED ]

✩ a bodyguard!din x princess!reader fic ✩

series summary :

Married off to a prince on a planet that you hate? New husband doesn't know you, and doesn't want to know you? New husband gifts you a personal Mandalorian body guard as a wedding present? Mandalorian is a wiseass who won't leave you alone? Lucky you.

18+ mdni

do you like kitschy, campy romance novels? if you're reading this, I hope so.

behind the scenes & chapter notes + other extras (spoilers) :

chapters 1-5

chapter 6-15

spotify playlists

Lysa & Elaine information

the bks screen adaption

bks q&a

bks what if's

reader is generally not described past being picked up a few times, and having hair long enough to be put up

✩ chapters containing smut!

chapter one : honeymoon (6.7k words)

[ Absurd.

That is the only word that comes to mind as you stare at yourself in the mirror. “His favorite color is blue.” ]

chapter two : silent treatment (7.4k words)

[ Something is wrong. You bolt up from the pile of blankets that you call a bed and your eyes dart around the closet as you furrow your brow trying to discern why you feel so much different. ]

✩ chapter three : the smitten paladin (4.6k words)

[ You’re starting to think the planet isn’t the reason you’re so hot all the time.

You had woken up this morning feeling a bit better than you thought you’d be, your stomach is full of butterflies but you're still standing and considering the night you had you’re gonna take that as a win. ]

chapter four : sarad'ika (6.8k words)

[ Sarad'ika. 

You won’t forget it this time, you can’t. So you write it in your book, just under Mando’s favorite color you write the two little words that have been keeping you up at night. ]

✩ chapter five : lunar interlude : just a man (5.0k words)

[ Absurd.

It’s absurd how much the job pays. Din’s not even sure he should take it at this point because it’s too good to be true. ]

✩ chapter six : torment (5.1k words)

[ Okay, maybe you didn’t think this through. 

You didn’t think he’d actually come in and now suddenly the door is shut and you’re alone with him. ]

✩ chapter seven : just friends (3.1k words)

[ Maker it feels like it’s been an hour and you’re both just laying here. He was just inside of you; it shouldn't be so hard to find something to talk about at this point. ]

chapter eight : solar markets (5.3k words)

[ It’s nice to wake up excited again. 

You wish you could say that it happened more often but hopefully it will from now on. It’s going to be your first time leaving the castle grounds since you got here. ]

✩ chapter nine : shuk'la rules (5.6k words)

[ You need sex.

Normally you would be satisfied for quite some time after getting off but for some reason with Mando it was different. But it’s only been two days and you need more. ]

✩ chapter ten : lunar interlude : briikase gote'tuur (4.1k words)

[ He’s grateful for the break from you, even if brief. 

That’s not to say that he doesn’t enjoy every moment he gets to be in your presence but the more time he spends with you the harder it gets to remember that this isn’t real. ]

chapter eleven : he loves me not (4.6k words)

[ Something is wrong. 

All day it’s been wrong. 

He’s different. Distant. ]

chapter twelve : pretend (4.4k words )

[ Two days.

That’s what you’re willing to give yourself. Two days to get over it. One to get it all out of your system and one to pull yourself together. ]

chapter thirteen : lunar interlude : vercopa (3.5k words)

[ He did it.

He did exactly what he knew he needed to do.

So why does he feel worse than ever? ]

chapter fourteen : condemned (4.9k words)

[ You’re having trouble sleeping. 

You have no problem falling asleep, it’s mostly staying asleep. There’s a million different things that consume your thoughts and everytime you drift into unconsciousness you find yourself jolting awake, barely able to stay asleep for more than an hour at a time. ]

chapter fifteen : two tea parties (5.4k words)

[ “What did you do to her?”

Her voice breaks through his sleepy haze as he sits up properly. 

“Excuse me?” ]

chapter sixteen : absolution (4.6k words)

[ There’s a visceral sense of dread when you wake up, for several reasons. 

The glaring obvious culprit of your discomfort would be the fact that today’s your husband's birthday. ]

chapter seventeen : the apostate’s cabin (3.5k words)

[ Just Din. 

It’s sinking in as you walk in silence, holding his hand tightly as he pulls you towards his home. ]

chapter eighteen : portrait of a man (5.4k words)

[ It’s deliciously warm when you wake. You can feel his heartbeat and you can feel the soft traces of sunlight dancing along your back. You stretch in his arms slightly but freeze up as you feel him nuzzle his chin into your hair, planting a kiss against your hairline. ]

✩ chapter nineteen : reverence (7.3k words)

[ You really want to. 

You couldn’t possibly want to more than you currently do. 

It’s actually a bit mean. That he’s left you here in this state. ]

✩ chapter twenty : like real people do (8.4k words)

[ Mando and Din. 

All you can think about right now is how there must be two of them. 

You’re playing with his curls. ]

✩ chapter twenty one : te mirci't (9.0k words)

[ “It means I love you.” 

You aren’t entirely sure how long you stare at him, looking rather silly with your jaw practically on the floor. ]

✩ chapter twenty two : it’s you that i lie with (11.3k words)

[ Naboo has several trading ports. 

You could get him on a cargo ship. That would be the most inconspicuous form of transport. It would help if he was willing to ditch his armor. ]

✩ chapter twenty three : lunar markets (15.0k words)

[ Sneaking out of the castle gets easier every time you do it. 

It only takes a few minutes and you’re walking outside towards the forest trail, Din’s hand in yours, still giddy. ]

✩ chapter twenty four : lunar interlude : riduur (7.8k words)

[ He doesn’t deserve this.

How could he possibly be deserving of you? Yet somehow you make him feel as if he is. With your soft touch and the way your eyes get just a little bigger when you see him. ]

✩ chapter twenty five : wedding bells (11.7k words)

[ Four days of Leo. 

You were upset that Din was leaving you but you got over it rather quickly with the promise of his hasty return. ]

chapter twenty six : crucifixion (12.7k words)

[ “My room is too big.” 

He bursts into genuine peals of laughter and you gently smack his arm.

“Don’t laugh, it’s a serious issue! My room is enormous.” ]

chapter twenty seven : the apostate (6.0k words)

[ Silence.

That’s all there is in his brain. 

It’s hard enough as is for him to hear. It doesn’t help when he’s been beaten half to death. ]

✩ chapter twenty eight : a place for us (8.4k words)

[ You’d spent the better half of the day trying to get on top of him. 

Every time you managed to get close he’d simply set you down on the nearest surface with a kiss on the cheek and go back to doing whatever he was working on. ]

chapter twenty nine : the best kept secret (epilogue) (6.1k words)

[ The morning sun is warm against your face, you bask in it, unmoving and only half awake until you feel a tiny hand slapping your cheek. The illusion of tranquility is immediately shattered as you softly laugh. ]

[jjenthusee]

Racing Hearts Pt. 4

f1!driver!jason x reporter!reader

A/N: hello my gremlins <3 i wanted to share with u guys that i successfully moved YAY so that explains the update being slightly behind and the less responses i’ve given to comments (i read them all i swear <3) BUT HERE IT IS \(^o^)/ i took way too long to edit and rewrite the way i believe the story should go, im having so much fun with this series and i want to thank all of u who are supporting it from the beginning or saw the updates as they came. ENJOY the fourth chapter of the Racing Hearts series (ALSO THERE’S 300 FOLLOWERS WOW 🥹 THANK U TO ALL THE PEOPLE THAT LIKE MY PAGE AND CONTINUE TO SUPPORT MY CRAZY SAD WRITING AND MY DRAWINGS i love reading your funny comments, unhinged reblogs, and talking about your favorite parts of the story, it really gave me the push to write and contribute to the jason todd community) and i just wanted to remind yall…i haven’t forgotten about that hurt/comfort tag :)

Check out the Racing Hearts masterlist! It shows all the updated chapters and upcoming ones <3

Tags: banter, agonizing fluff, hurt/comfort, strangers to friends to lovers, spicy if u squint, we’re hitting halfway thru the story so let me introduce what i do best…angst HAHAHA

Word Count: 4.1k

“In all of my career, I have to say that I never thought I would be standing here wearing…these.” Jason looked down to his feet.

The camera focused on the two of you standing next to one another, the lens following Jason’s stare toward the ground. The camera woman zooming in on the bright red Lightning McQueen crocs he was wearing.

You sheepishly admired the shoes, proudly smiling back up to Jason. Bewilderment plastered on his face as he couldn’t believe you actually gifted him Lightning McQueen merch, not even in private but in an interview with multiple cameras pointed at him.

What a predicament he was in. He was definitely not offended when you told him how similar the red car and he were.

“It’s a small thanks from the company for completing your third interview with us.” You smiled brightly at Jason. “Also consider it as a way for us to say ‘good luck’ for your upcoming season.”

Jason couldn’t believe it as he laughed. No matter how much time he spent with you, you always surprised him in the best ways.

“Y’know, I thought the Cars jokes were going to fade out, but you’re a bad influence on my fans.” Jason lightheartedly teased you, stomping his foot enough to let the crocs light up.

You fought a straight face, holding in laughter and trying to stay as serious as you could, but you were about to break any second. You bit the inside of your cheeks to prevent yourself from smiling, internally promising yourself that you would make sure to get a picture of him later.

You already had his new contact picture picked out.

“I couldn’t think of any other way of showing you my support.” You nodded your head proudly.

“Really? Nothing else?” Jason’s eyebrow rose, his tone sarcastic.

“You’re the best F1 driver I’ve ever interviewed.” You smirked, watching the shoes sparkle.

“I’m the only F1 driver you’ve ever interviewed.” Jason looked at you in disbelief.

“Anyway! We’re closing this as the last part of our series, I’m glad you were able to be a guest before you get busy putting on the RedBull uniform again, I know your fans will really enjoy that—” You wrapped up the finale, finalizing the last public appearance the two of you would have next to each other. A bittersweet ending.

But you always had the Jason laying with you on your couch. Feeding each other dinners, taking motorcycle rides late in the night.

“This can’t be the last time I see you. You’re my favorite interviewer.” Jason lulled his voice, rephrasing your earlier comment back at you. “After all, you gifted me something so…special.”

You paused, shocked at Jason’s forwardness with you, the timber of his voice adding an underlying flirty tone to him.

You’ve never talked to him about the public appearance about the two of you. Could you go public?

It’s for the camera. You silently told yourself.

“You have to win for me to see you again.” You smirked, quickly playing along with his attempt to fluster you.

“That’s too easy, you could try to make this a little harder for me.” Jason chuckled lowly. “It’s almost like you want to see me.”

Oh my.

“So much talk for someone who hasn’t started his comeback season.” You playfully rolled your eyes. “You also didn’t start your last season smoothly, so don’t talk so confidently.”

“But who sat at my last press conference celebrating my win? I don’t end things so easily.” Jason tilted his head as he looked down at you, tension increasing. “I’ll come back when I win, it’ll be our little secret.”

Jason winked at you, the cameras focused in on his face and your reactions.

You raised an eyebrow, trying to decipher between the RedBull Jason on camera and your Jason.

He was his playful self, the signature half smirk trying to get you to blush, but his eyes were soft when he glanced over to you.

You calmly gave in, maybe it was for the camera or maybe it was for you.

“Aw, that’s so sweet, but I don’t think I could keep that a secret.” Your polite smile opposing Jason’s mischievous one. “I don’t think you realize but,” you leaned toward Jason, pausing to eye his figure up and down, gleefully watching him pay attention to your every word. Your smile getting wider at how easily he was wrapped around your finger. “I’m a reporter, I can’t keep that beautiful face to myself.”

“But I’m really good at keeping them.” Jason stepped closer, eyes never leaving yours.

His eyes beamed a playful hue to them.

You cleared your throat, looking at the camera woman who also stared in awe.

Crap, the office was going to get suspicious.

“You should focus on winning first before you make any promises.” You coughed, diffusing the atmosphere Jason created as the film crew watched. “Then call my business number and you don’t have to keep any secrets.”

Once the camera stopped rolling, you resumed your professionalism. Saying goodbyes and getting final pictures for the website and both social medias.

All the previous interviews went well. The fans saw Jason’s personality in action, gaining more attention and love for the racer. Jason’s management team was satisfied with you and the attraction he was gaining before the season started.

It gave him the right press he needed to put him in the spotlight.

After Jason left with his management team, you finalized the video upload that his company agreed to. Your draft for a new article about Jason to be edited and reviewed for the upcoming week. It was business as usual.

Getting work done during the day, then meeting Jason for the evening.

When you got back to your desk, you organized yourself to overlook the release date for the final interview and reviewed for the next big project to tackle now that your work with Jason was finished. Multiple meetings with project managers and your team.

Work was picking up for you, managing larger projects, interacting with larger faces.

Jason lit the hallway to opportunities for you.

Your phone lit up next to your laptop, distracting you from one screen to another.

(Handsome) Mr. Todd: pick you up at 6?

You smiled to yourself. Happy, but bittersweet.

You reminded yourself that Jason’s off-season was ending. You wished time could slow down.

—— “Gosh, you’re so clumsy.” You adjusted Jason’s helmet. All the time spent with him reflected in your familiarity with the motorcycle helmet.

“Only for you.” Jason stood there, leaning down to let you reach around his head. Watching you worry about the two of you.

Jason had kept his promise to pick you up.

Most of the time he waited on you to get back from work. Sometimes pushing the boundaries and secretly meeting you for a quick lunch. Meeting him far from where your coworkers frequented.

Your first encounters were hidden behind the idea of work, finding answers to questions for interviews, or suggesting new places to eat.

It was like you couldn’t be apart from one another.

Oh, how you can change a man.

You let Jason fake his ignorance through certain tasks, giving him any reason to get you close to him.

But you gave into his every attempt. Not fighting against his clinginess.

Your roles would switch soon, he wouldn’t wait for you after tiring days of work. You would have to watch him race lap after lap on live television like the rest of the world.

He was leaving soon, you knew he would be busy, it was inevitable, but you wanted as much time before he left.

You sat behind Jason, his body warming the front of you as you wrapped your arms around his waist.

Holding onto him close, wearing the helmet he got you, feeling his solid stomach shift the motorcycle as you rode around the city. You were getting used to your new lifestyle, despite the hidden secrets you shared.

He couldn’t announce a relationship after you were waiting for the last installment of your interviews.

The timing wasn’t right and the meetings this would cause for you and Jason were going to give you a headache.

You heard the motorcycle engine interrupt your thoughts.

Jason slowing at a red light. He stopped, placing his feet on the ground to stabilize the two of you while you waited. The red glow reflected onto Jason sitting in front of you.

The streets were almost empty. Gotham barely waking to the darkness, a city that never sleeps.

“Jay.” You hesitated behind him.

“Hm?” Jason unconsciously acknowledged, resting his hand over yours around his stomach. Rubbing the fabric of his gloves onto yours.

“I want to stay with you longer.” You calmed your voice, careful in verbalizing your feelings.

“You want to drive around more? I think we can drive by—“ Jason continued to rub your wrists. Cars passing in front of him, the opposing traffic keeping you still.

“No, I don’t want to leave you tonight.”

Jason paused, his hand resting on yours, no longer moving. If the cars weren’t in front of you, crossing the intersection, you would have thought time was frozen.

Jason tilted his helmet back, to get a look at you.

You don’t know what he was looking for, your face covered by a protective helmet like his was, but he found what he needed when the light turned green.

It was green, but you stayed there, no other traffic surrounding you.

Just you and Jason.

“Want to come to my place?” Jason kept his black visor on you. “I have a killer TV to watch Cars on.”

You chuckled. Squeezing his waist a little more.

“Better have a good speaker for playing Life is a Highway.”

Jason smirked, hidden from your eyes as he watched you lean back into his warmth.

The humid air covering the two of you into summer clothing. Thinner fabrics and showing more skin.

Jason wore a simple fitted thin long-sleeve, matching the look of his helmet and gloves. It made a great view of his broad back.

A quiet exhale as he looked forward again, revving his engine to life to make a quick turn, opposite of your home.

You were racing the rain as Jason was taking you back, but after you spoke the magic words, how could he send you back home?

The dark summer rain clouds were no longer behind you, the two of you heading straight for them as you watch Jason take you down new streets, an unfamiliar path to Jason’s place.

“I don’t think you’ll make it to the living room before then.” Jason quietly spoke to the light drizzle hitting your bodies

“What did you say?” You couldn’t hear above the engine.

And he was right.

After you were soaked to the bone, fabric sticking to your form, water droplets falling down your skin. A glossy sheen from the harsh rain falling all around you.

Jason had pulled into his garage.

He was in the same state, wet clothes stuck to his skin. The water from you and the motorcycle dripping onto the concrete floor.

You pulled your helmet off, the only dry place.

Once Jason parked the bike, he took off his helmet, placing it on the nearest work table. Your body shivered as you threw your leg over to maneuver yourself off.

You looked down at your state, smiling in disbelief at being caught in the rain.

Maybe you could wear Jason’s clothes after a nice warm shower. You internally thought to yourself. Excited to enter Jason’s place. A new location unlocked.

When you put your helmet next to Jason’s, you could finally take in all of him.

Black shirt tight from the weight of the water, his hands littered with scars, free from the gloves. His hair dry, but messy.

All his muscles more prominent.

You stood in awe, your chest rising from the breaths you took. Humid air invading the inside of the garage, elevated from warm summer nights.

The sight of Jason reminded you of the professional pictures taken of him, leaving his Formula 1 car after a race. He was sweaty, running his hands through his hair with a towel in hand.

After all the time you spent together, it was your favorite photo of him. You secretly saved it because there was something about the look on his face, happy to win, alive on the track.

How attractive he looked was a definite bonus in your opinion.

Jason glanced over to you, finally realizing the state the two of you were in. He slowly looked you up and down, lost in the same visual you were in awe of once you saw him.

You suddenly remembered the last time you and Jason were enclosed in a garage, close to each other, messy from a hard day of distributing winter jackets and food to those who stopped by.

A slight warmth increasing on your face.

Jason stepped closer to you, hands grabbing for your waist to pull you in. His hands reaching under your chin to stretch your neck to adjust to his height.

Breaths mixing as your lips touched only from the movement of your lips unconsciously opening, ready to kiss him.

He waited.

Letting the pressure build as he spoke.

“There’s no volunteers to interrupt us now.” Jason lifted you, letting you sit on the surface of his work table. His arm swooping everything off as he cleared enough room for you.

You could hear objects fall, but you couldn’t care less as Jason stepped between your legs. Quickly, but carefully rubbing at your legs with his palms, his hands getting closer to the blurs of where your thighs met your waist.

Everywhere felt great that you didn’t know where to focus.

The feeling of your lips, your sides, his body between your legs?

You could only huff between the intensity he was igniting in you.

“Jay—inside—it’s cold.”

Despite your words, you didn’t bother to move. You kept touching, feeling everything before Jason lifted you again, the placement of his hands as he carried you, lifting the edges of your shirt.

The feeling of a mattress beneath you as you uncomfortably tried to peel the clothing off your body.

Jason chuckled at your frustration. You couldn’t bother to give him a snide remark as he also struggled to get your soaked clothes off.

When lifting the shirt didn’t work, you tried rolling the fabric, but it only bunched just below your sleeves.

You could only laugh as Jason desperately tried to get the shirt through your arms. Tangled in the mess you both created that you were left with a heavy shirt stuck around your biceps.

“Why is there always something stopping me from seeing all of you?” Jason laughed as he kneeled above you, his shirt completely off at some point along the way to his room.

“I don’t think a pair of wet clothes are going to stop you now.” You smiled at him, glancing up at his figure through the darkness. Only the city lights creeping through the blinds, illuminating his skin.

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” Jason yanked your entire shirt off your arms.

You sucked in a breath at his desperation, memorizing the look of his face as he leaned down closer.

“I want to turn you into a mess.” He whispered into your mouth, kissing down your body.

Overwhelming gasps and breaths left your mouth the more he touched your skin.

“I want to touch you too.” You exhaled, trying to coherently express yourself.

“Next time, sweetheart. I want to focus on you. Everything I want is you.” Jason moved your hair out of your face, stuck from the sweat covering your skin.

The night filled with you repeating Jason’s name, no distractions keeping that man off of you.

After a shared warm shower, Jason gave you a nice pair of his dry clothes. You walked around his place, relaxed after Jason’s…expertise.

What you weren’t prepared for was just how normal his apartment looked. It felt like yours, but bigger, a little more luxurious like it was bought with the intention of having better quality to last longer.

You hoped he had no plans of moving anytime soon.

You stood in the kitchen in awe.

“You have a kitchen island.” You whistled in excitement. “Formula 1 money is good, huh? Maybe I need to pick up a Redbull uniform.”

Jason chuckled, hugging you from behind smelling like the same soap in your hair, his face nuzzling into your neck. You continued to speak.

“No, I can’t steal your fame.” You whispered to yourself. Jason feeling the vibration of your voice the longer he leaned into your neck.

“I’m happy you’re here.” Jason mumbled into you, ignoring everything you said.

“Me too, I’ve been curious where you live.”

“I invited you before, but I guess we’ve always gone to your place.” Jason smiled into your skin. “What do you think?”

“Its very…Jason. I like it.” You glanced around.

You more than liked it. It smelt like Jason. A smell you’ll never grow tired of.

His apartment was slightly bare, the space a little too large for the one man, but that was charming too. It felt like you were able to occupy that small empty space in his life.

When you walked around, Jason following you like a duckling, you noticed the small knick-knacks you bought with him on your dates.

Matching plushies, a book you picked randomly, a bookmark you gifted him, and a tiny paper frog you made while waiting for your table before dinner.

You felt cherished, looking at the physical representations of your memories together.

He grabbed you again, wanting the closeness. You fell back into him, the small paper frog in your hand, made from old receipt paper.

Jason resumed his prior back hug, absorbing your warmth.

He was more clingy than usual tonight.

“How was your trip to the charity today? I forgot to ask you about it at dinner, it must be hard to take a break from them to race again.” You leaned into him more.

Jason buried himself further. Not a great hiding spot since he was larger, but it was the thought that counted.

“I would love to hear about it.” You put the frog back on the shelf, letting it watch the two of you.

“It was good, I got to do one final check to make sure everything would be good when I’m gone. But…” Jason hesitated, squeezing you a little tighter.

You waited, rubbing circles on his forearm.

“I had noticed a lot of stuff come in, it’s a good thing, but it wasn’t like our usual haul. I didn’t recognize it as the stuff I brought over either.” Jason breathed, agitation filling his voice. “When I asked around about it, they said Wayne Enterprises had it delivered.”

Jason went silent. He was tense.

“I always tell that old man to fuck off. He never listens.” Jason sighed.

The last thing Jason wanted was another check from Bruce. Taking over the hard work he had volunteered for months.

Another sanctuary was being taken away from Jason’s grasp.

“I can’t stand it.” Jason whispered. His eyebrows taut.

You maneuvered your head back to kiss him on the cheek.

“I’m sorry, I know that was the last thing you wanted to happen.” You soothed.

Jason leaned in for more kisses.

“Don’t worry, I’m feeling better already.” He exhaled, his shoulders relaxing. Jason smiled into your skin, his voice returning to normal. “But looking at those damn crocs every morning makes me mad.”

You laughed as he grew bolder, pushing the topic aside as you leaned to the floor buried from Jason’s affection surge.

If he was deflecting, distracting himself from his hurt then you could let him kiss you a couple times to distract himself.

Shared kisses, lost in each other’s presence, too occupied to notice the multiple buzzing sounds from Jason’s phone.

——

Once the public release of the third and final interview was released to your company’s website, the usual flood of comments embraced the look at the two of you.

You lost yourself in the positive comments, ignoring the negative ones, but that was the price of social media. It was the evils of publicity.

You read comment after comment about the excitement to watch the fresh new season. Iconic racers coming back to their playing field, excited to reveal new car designs, getting the opportunity to collaborate with anyone and everyone.

As the time for Qualifying reached you, the temperature fully warmed and Jason wasn’t next to you to enjoy it.

He had conferences, practice drives, and flights to catch. Now that he was past elimination, it was time to test his fastest time.

It wasn’t even the peak of the season, but you were missing him.

You sighed into your phone, a small vibration felt in your palm. A message from Jason appeared.

It was a photo of his Lightning McQueen crocs on the plane. A big contrast to the fancy carpeting, expensive seats, and an up-to-date screen playing the children’s movie.

You smiled to yourself in your desk chair, but a small prick to your heart struck you.

The difference in your lifestyles hitting you. He was a rich racer, traveling the world in one of the most expensive suits in modern racing.

You felt…small.

The two of you hadn’t talked about what would happen once he started racing full-time again.

How far was this relationship going?

Would you follow him to his races around the world? Should you follow him?

Would you officially announce anything?

Was this an off-season romance? Only an off-season romance?

What about your job?

“Hey, we need to be there by one. Should we grab a quick lunch?” Your coworker called out to you, interrupting your pessimistic thoughts to yourself.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there. Meet you in the lobby?” You locked your computer, grabbing your key badge, ready to go out of the office.

You quickly typed out a message, taking advantage of Jason still on his phone.

You: Hey slow down try to give the other guys a chance

(Handsome) Mr. Todd: fast is the only way I go. you, especially, should know that ;)

You blushed, quickly putting away your phone to catch up with your team.

——

Jason’s performance during qualifying went as expected. He performed in P1, claiming and boasting as he usually did. His time seemed to be getting faster, raising the competition standards for everyone.

You only shook your head as you looked at the results on your phone, a small smile on your face.

Jason was busy going to opening days, press conferences, driving on the racetrack. His replies were becoming sparse.

You: I knew those crocs were good luck charms

No read receipt. No reply.

You kept yourself busy at work. Falling into a routine.

You checked your phone again during lunch. No messages.

Your apartment felt empty when you came home, no lovable man standing in the kitchen.

Still no reply from Jason. It would’ve made you sad if you weren’t so tired.

Your phone rang as you got ready for bed. Letting your head hit the pillow as you heard Jason’s voice in your ear.

“I just saw— paper frogs that—vendor—the street and—grab some.” Jason’s voice went in and out of your mind, fighting the urge to sleep.

His voice was too soothing.

“That’s nice, Jay.” You slurred.

“Sweetheart? Are you awake—“ His voice started to get farther and farther.

You couldn’t keep your eyes open and your dreams filled with you sitting in the stands, watching Jason race.

Wind hitting your skin, watching the flags fly in the air, engines roaring past you.

He was so far away and kept driving further away from you.

You jerked awake. Looking for your phone in the blankets.

You had fallen asleep while on your first phone call with Jason since he left.

“Shit, I wanted to hear his voice.” You shook the blanket in the air until your phone fell from it.

You looked at your call history. Apparently, it had been a video call, but you hadn’t realized after you woke up this morning.

Jason not only heard you embarrass yourself, but he saw it too. You quickly opened your messaging conversation.

You (Yesterday): I knew those crocs were good luck charms

You (Today): i’m sorry I didn’t know it was a video call

(Handsome) Mr. Todd: don’t worry about it, I got to see u when your phone fell off your face

“Nooo!” You screamed to yourself.

Your face fell in your hands as you read the messages coming in.

(Handsome) Mr. Todd: I got something out of it HAHAHA

(Handsome) Mr. Todd: let’s talk next time

(Handsome) Mr. Todd: I wanna hear your voice

You sighed.

Getting up to start your weekend, putting Jason’s live race on the TV screen.

Putting on the shirt that smelled like Jason.

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