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pseudowho · 2 days ago
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It was an average Monday morning when you, Nanami Kento's wife, were turned into a cat.
"An unusual Curse," Shoko had said, "not longer than a week, surely--"
"Not--not longer than a week?!" Kento spluttered, his glasses lopsided, and, dangled in front of him beneath the arms (legs-- legs, he reminded himself)...you.
You, with two pointed ears, a long whippy tail, your many toe-beans and a perturbed little head-tilt. On the doctors' office couch, a neatly folded (if a little furry) pile of your clothes.
"Meow," you had said.
"Don't 'meow' me," Kento spluttered again, fixing you with a stern look that barely overlaid his concern. You simply stared up at him, long, and feline, and unblinking...and reached out one little paw, pressing it onto the end of his nose.
Kento sighed; a bone-deep, weary sigh. Shoko put out her cigarette, speaking through a haze of smoke.
"Like I said. Give it a week, and Mrs.Nyanyami will be back to nor--"
"What did you just call her?'
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Mrs.Nyanyami, the cat formerly known as Nanami Kento's wife, wanted for nothing.
"I think that tuna's more expensive than anything I've ever eaten," whispered Yuuji to Gojo. On the other side of the conference room, you sat upon the desk before Kento, waiting patiently for the next lump of tuna (meticulously cut into cat-appropriate cubes) to be delivered in his chopsticks.
As Kento's hand approached, you held it close with paw and claws, to steal the pink fish from him. He looked like a surgeon performing heart surgery.
"I just...dont know how he can look so serious while he's doing that," Gojo whispered back, to Yuuji's frantic nods. Still, they watched this freakish nature documentary with quiet obsession.
A higher-up sat down beside Kento, waiting for the meeting to begin. Jolting back, and grumbling, he did a double take.
"Young man-- you can't bring a cat to a Sorcerer's meeting--"
"That's not a cat," Kento snapped, frosty, "that's my wife."
And so began the rumour amongst the higher-ups, that Nanami Kento had gone mad.
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"You should leave her at home--"
"--absolutely not--"
"--really, Nanami...just put the television on, she'll be fine--"
"--unequivocally, no--"
"--why not?!"
Silence. An awkward shuffle on Kento's thick chest. You peeked your head out of the pocket of the cat-carrying hoodie that Kento wore over his shirt and tie, and turned to Gojo with narrowed eyes.
"Meow," you had said, batting at Kento's strings, and hooking his tie out with your paw, to kick it to death with your legs.
"I agree," said Kento, whispering and scratching you beneath the chin until you purred, "he's wrong, isn't he? Stupid Gojo. You'd get lonely. You'd get bored. Yes you would..."
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"Oh my god...he's gorgeous...you should get his number--"
"--I'm not brave enough...you go. I'll get our coffees."
"--okay, okay..." The woman cleared her throat, sweeping her hair behind one ear with her best smile. Kento looked up from his coffee, with one finely raised eyebrow.
"Can I help you?" He lied, unwilling to help anyone at all before he'd finished his croissant.
"Hi, yeah, I just...can't help but notice you're sitting alone, and my friend-- well she-- she just wondered if she can have your number, and--"
The woman broke off into shrieks. Climbing up her leg, all claws and furry vengeance, was you. She shook her leg, shrieking. You hissed. Your cup of steamed milk clattered over the table, slopping everywhere.
"--o-oh my god-- oh my god, what the hell is this cat doi--"
"I'm sorry," Kento sighed, not sorry at all and dabbing his mouth with a napkin and doing absolutely nothing to help, "it's my cat. She doesn't like company--"
Hisses. Claws. Dirty feral yowls.
"Get this fucking thing off me--"
"I can't take you anywhere. No more steamed milk for you."
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At times, you seemed so human. At others, undeniably cat.
Kento would wake to clattering from the kitchen, bleary and feeling around for you, only to remember, and trace his hand up to the furry, round little patch you'd leave behind on your pillow. He allowed himself just a moment of misery, before getting up.
He followed the sounds of cups and kettle and coffee machine, and leaned against the doorway with sleep-mussed hair and a squinting, teenagerish glare.
You were up on the counter, all four paws and determination. You had gotten as far as switching the kettle and coffee machine on, and heaving the cupboard open with your tiny limbs. Kento watched as you tipped your head sideways, managing to drag two mugs out in your teeth. He winced as they almost smashed upon the counter.
"Come on," Kento rumbled, his voice rusty with sleep, "let me do that."
You meowed at him, batting at the air with one angry paw when he stepped closer. Kento huffed, raising his hands in surrender.
"Fine," he tutted, "but I'll pour the water."
"Meow."
"Why? Because you don't have opposable thumbs, darling."
The fur stood up along your spine. You turned around, and around, in a circle, then sat upright. You turned your back on him while you waited for the kettle to boil. Your tail flicked from side to side, irritable. Kento waited, too, reaching out one hand to stroke your ears.
You nudged your back paw out, and pushed his mug off the side to smash on the floor.
Silence.
"...what is wrong with y--"
"Meow."
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Skitterskitterskitter.
Distant meows.
Kento groaned, rubbing down his face. He checked the clock, frog-blinking; two in the morning. He groaned harder.
Skitterskitterskitter.
Thunk.
More distant meows.
"Please just come back to bed," Kento moaned into the hands pressed over his face.
SkitterskitterskitterSKITTERSKITTER-- rustlllleerussstle--
Directly over his face.
"Meow--"
"I am begging you--"
RustlerustleTHNKskitterskitterskitter.
Distant meows.
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"I miss you."
You raised your head to look at him. Your purring hitched. Your ears tilted.
Kento had murmured, his low voice barely audible. The only light in the living room was the ever-changing light of the television screen. Laid on his back on the sofa, with you curled on his chest, Kento stroked down your back with longing.
You crept up his chest, pressing your cold wet nose to his, and purred. Nose to nose, and cross-eyed, Kento could have cried.
"I really miss you," he repeated, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Your claws dug into his chest, just a little. You rub, rub, rubbed your warm furry head along his jaw until he sniffled, and gave a choked little chuckle.
He fell asleep with you on his chest that night. In so many ways, it was familiar; home. In so many others, you were gone forever.
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"Meow."
Kento shuffled. His chest felt heavy...warm. His belly felt warm, too. And his lap, and--
Kento's eyes shot open, his head lifting up from the couch.
You bit your lip, naked on top of him, and smiling. Human. An angel.
"Oh, my love," Kento moaned, crushing you to him in a bear hug from shoulder to toes, "you're back-- I missed you, I was so worrie--"
You batted an arm out, swiping last night's wine glass from the coffee table beside you, to shatter on the floor.
Silence. Kento blinked slowly, looking from the wine glass, to you. You felt your cheeks grow hot, swallowing hard.
"God, I...sorry, Kento. Force-- force of habit--"
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kirammanswifey · 2 days ago
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helloo!! can you please write about ‘arcane characters when you get in an argument’? i absolutely love ur writing btw!! 🫶🏻
arguments with arcane characters x fem reader
characters: viktor, jinx, vi, caitlyn, jayce, ekko, silco, mel and sevika.
writer's note: i love when you guys request this kind of interesting dynamics, it's so fun to write about it! also my favorite this time was sevika's, I meannn it was kinda hot and spicy. requests are open ;)
Viktor
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The sound of the keys under his hands seems to fill the air, but what resonates most is the silence between the two of you. The room is steeped in an unsettling calm, while he keeps working as if nothing else exists. It’s been days since he last rested, and you know it. His skin is paler than usual, his eyes glassy, as if all the world's exhaustion is about to devour him. The scent of machine oil and metal permeates the room, but what hurts you most is the fragility of his being, the one he insists on ignoring.
Slowly, frustration begins to simmer within you. You love him more than anything in the world, but watching him so neglected, so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t even stop to eat, burns you.
You approach him, and suddenly, you can't take it anymore. Your tone isn't raised, but the fury is felt in every word. "Viktor, stop," you murmur, almost pleading. "You’re killing yourself. You haven’t eaten in days, not even slept. Do you know what you're doing? You're letting yourself go. Your body is crying out for help, and you're ignoring it."
He doesn’t look at you, doesn’t react. He keeps working as if your words don't reach him. Frustrated, you step closer. "You can't keep going like this, Viktor! What are you expecting? For someone to come and save you from yourself? This isn't just about your work, it’s about you!"
Finally, he looks up, but his eyes don’t seem to truly see you. Only a shadow of exhaustion. "I do it for them... for the people. The work... my research, it’s all that matters now."
"And you? Don’t you matter?" The anger mixes with something much deeper. Something that has to do with fear. "Your lack of self-love is so evident, Viktor, even I can see it. You're losing yourself in this obsession."
The words come out harsher than you intended. But seeing the flash of pain in his eyes, you realize what you've just said. A lump forms in your throat.
You fall silent, feeling the air grow thick. Guilt quickly invades you, and before you can think, you kneel in front of him. "Forgive me," you whisper, the anger already dissipated, replaced by sincere pain. "I didn't mean to be so harsh. It’s just... I don't want to see you like this, so lost. I don’t want you to hurt yourself because you are what I love most, Viktor."
Your hands tremble as you take his face in yours. "Please, take care of yourself. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to see you like this anymore, fighting alone against everything. Because, to me, you are everything."
Viktor says nothing at first. He just watches you, the conflict in his gaze. Then, as if releasing a sigh he had been holding for too long, he responds softly, "I’ll try... I promise I’ll try."
You look at him with a mix of relief and sadness. Finally, you stand up and take his hand firmly. "Now come with me. I’m going to make your favorite dinner. You need it."
The change in his expression is almost imperceptible, but it’s there. Something in his face softens, and for the first time in a long while, he gives you a faint smile. "You know, that sounds wonderful," he says with a tone that mixes surprise and gratitude.
As you prepare dinner, the atmosphere changes. The tension slowly dissolves, but there’s something else in the air, a silent understanding between you two. After dinner, you look at him with a mischievous smile.
"Viktor," you say, your voice full of complicity. "How many days have you gone without bathing? Because, honestly, I think it’s time you do."
He visibly shifts in discomfort, his face taking on a pink hue. "Honestly... I don’t know," he replies, as if trying to evade the question, looking down. "The truth is, I haven’t had time to think about those things."
Your laugh is soft but teasing. "I think you’ve forgotten a bit about yourself. So, what do you think if after dinner, we take a bath together?"
Viktor blushes even more, but before he can say anything, he has already conceded, and with an exaggerated formality only he can pull off, he responds, "Well... that... that would be very pleasant. If you don’t mind, of course."
The tension from before has transformed into something softer, lighter. You, amused by his so formal response, take his hand and lead him to the bathroom, feeling that, in that moment, all that really matters is that he’s finally willing to take care of himself.
Jinx
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The sound of the spark igniting the fuse fills the room. Jinx has a playful smile on her face, but something isn't right. The bomb is making strange noises, as if it's about to fail. The sparkle in her eyes fades for a second, but it's accompanied by a nervous chuckle.
"What's wrong, Jinx?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. The moment feels out of place, and for a moment, you sense that something is very wrong, very out of control. "That... doesn't sound right."
But she just stands there, watching the bomb intently. She doesn't move. The air grows heavy, and suddenly, the bomb makes a terrifying click.
Your eyes widen as you see the timer on the bomb speeding up. A chill grips you, and in an instant, you act on instinct. You leap toward the table, your breath quickening, and deactivate the bomb just before it fully triggers. The explosion is seconds away from ringing in your ears, but you manage to stop it.
A sigh of relief escapes your lips, and you quickly turn to face Jinx. She’s still there, motionless, her eyes fixed on the deactivated bomb, as if hypnotized. She doesn't look scared or relieved, just... empty.
"Why didn't you do anything?" you confront her, your voice trembling with a mix of anger and disbelief. "Why did you just stand there? You could have died, Jinx! We could have both died!"
Jinx stares at the floor, her demeanor shifting in a second. The mockery dissolves, the mask falls, and in its place appears the scared girl she so often hides. "I... just wanted to see what would happen." Her response is soft, trembling, as if she doesn't know how to process what just happened.
Those few seconds of silence feel eternal. The air around you grows heavy, as if the whole world is waiting for something else to explode. And it does. You can't take it anymore. Fury takes over, and you lash out at her.
"What did you want to see, Jinx?" Your voice is harsh, filled with frustration. "Did you want to see us both die because of your stupid curiosity? Is that what you wanted?"
Jinx shrinks, her expression transforming into something so fragile it burns your heart. Her face is filled with regret, but her eyes can't meet yours. Tears begin to well up in her eyes, but she keeps staring at the floor, feeling small and scolded.
"I didn't mean to... I swear..." she murmurs, almost in a whisper, her words choked by the pain of having gone too far.
Your rage starts to dissipate, replaced by something deeper. An irrational fear, the anguish of watching Jinx destroy herself. You walk toward her, kneel to her level, and gently take her chin, lifting it so she looks at you.
What you see stops you cold. Jinx's nails are deeply embedded in her palms, red marks that have hurt her, as if she wants to punish herself for something. You stare at her intently, the pain reflected in her eyes and her gesture.
Quickly, you take her hands, without saying a word, and kiss them softly, your lips touching the small wounds on her skin. The blood from her hands stains your lips, but you don't care. "You know I hate seeing you destroy yourself," you murmur, your voice broken by the fear you still feel. "Please, Sweets, don't do this to yourself. Don't do this to us."
You stay still, waiting for her reaction. Finally, the door that had closed in her heart opens, and Jinx lets out a deep sob. Tears fall down her face, like an unexpected rain, and her body trembles.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Jinx sobs, clutching you tightly. There are no more laughs, no more jokes. Just pure pain. And you hold her with equal intensity, rocking her in your arms, trying to soothe her, to erase the suffering she always carries inside.
"Pain isn't the solution," you whisper, stroking her braided hair, trying to convey all the love you feel for her. "I'll always be here for you, Sweets. You don't have to carry all this alone."
She remains silent for a moment, her sobs calming, but her embrace is still desperate. Finally, after a few seconds, her eyes lift, and with a small smile, she says:
"So... want to make bombs, but in a fun way? With less blood this time!"
The laughter that follows fills the room, and even though you know the battle isn't won, this small step in her recovery gives you renewed hope. Taking her hand, you lead her back to the table with the tools, ready for another night filled with madness... but this time, with a little more care.
Vi
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The air in the Undercity feels heavy tonight, a cold that seems to seep into your bones. The sound of metal echoing through the structures, the distant murmurs of shouts and laughter, mix with the echo of your footsteps on the iron bridge that crosses the dark, grimy avenue. You walk in silence, but the tension in the air is palpable.
Suddenly, a drunk, staggering with a vacant stare, approaches you. The stench of alcohol wafts from his breath, and his eyes settle on you in a not-so-friendly way. His rough, hollow laughter resonates in the air, as if nothing he was about to do mattered.
Before you can react, his hands touch your backside without warning, sending a wave of revulsion through you and a shiver down your spine.
A choked scream escapes you, but before you can push him away, you feel Vi’s furious gaze, like a storm about to break loose. The anger on her face is palpable, and not a second later, the drunk is on the ground, receiving blows that thunder like hammers. His face is soon covered in blood, and the sound of fists pounding against his body leaves a disturbing feeling in the air.
Vi doesn’t stop; each punch is more brutal than the last. People in the distance quickly disperse, leaving only the echo of the hits. Your heart races, worry consumes you as you watch Vi unleash her uncontrollable fury.
"Vi, stop!" You lunge toward her, but in the process, one of her fury-fueled punches lands directly on your lip. The immediate pain stuns you, and when you touch your face, your hand is filled with blood. The split lip burns. Vi stops abruptly, looking at her bloodstained knuckles—her own, the drunk’s, and now yours.
She stands frozen, her face, once filled with rage, now shows a look of horror. “Oh, God…” she murmurs, seeing what she has done.
You tremble, not just from the pain in your lip but from the brutality of her actions. You’re not used to violence, not on this magnitude. Fear knots in your chest, and you let out a shaky sigh as you watch Vi, her face now wrecked with guilt.
"I didn’t mean to!" Her voice is broken, as if the guilt is overwhelming her.
“Let’s go home,” you respond coldly, more out of fear than anger, "and when we get there, we’ll talk."
The walk home is silent, the tension hanging between you like a taut string about to snap. When you arrive, you enter the kitchen and quickly tend to your lip, while Vi watches silently, unable to articulate a word.
Once you finish, you turn to her. The air is thick with the weight of what’s unsaid. “Vi…” you begin, your voice soft but firm. “You need to learn to control your anger. This time, you just didn’t hurt someone else. This time, it was me too. Me, the person you love the most. Do you realize that? Do you realize how I felt when your blows landed on me?”
Her eyes fill with tears, and her throat tightens as if she wants to say something, but the words are stuck in her chest. “I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry,” she whispers, her voice breaking.
You continue, your words coming out with more pain than you expected. “Sometimes… I’m afraid of you, Vi. Not because of what you might do to others, but because of what you might do to me. I don’t want to live in fear of your rage hurting me. It hurts so much. It hurt so much.”
Vi collapses in front of you, breaking down. Her tears fall one after another, and she throws herself into your arms, holding you in a desperate embrace. “I don’t know why I’m like this… I don’t know how… how to control it. I always have this rage inside, and sometimes I don’t know how to stop it. When it explodes, everything goes to hell, I know…” Her voice cracks as she clings to you. "I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt you."
The softness in her tone hits you harder than any punch, and in that moment, you know she understands. "Vi, I… I don’t want you to hurt anymore," you murmur, caressing her back. "I don’t want that rage to control you."
She pulls back slightly, looking into your eyes, her face soaked in tears. “I’m so sorry. I swear it wasn’t my intention… but sometimes…” her words trail off in a sigh.
A small, sad smile forms on your face. “Have you thought about boxing? Maybe it’ll help you release all that. And I’ll go with you! But promise me you won’t use me as a punching bag, okay?" you joke with a smile, trying to lighten the moment.
Vi finally laughs, a laugh that feels like relief. “I promise. Just, please, don’t leave me, okay?”
You approach her, tenderly kissing her, careful to avoid the wound on your lip, and you feel the softness of her lips, the calm that finally settles between you. “I would never leave you, babe,” you whisper as you both embrace, knowing that, even though everything is complicated and painful, there is something between you that always keeps you together.
Caitlyn
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The door bursts open, and Caitlyn enters the room with a face marked by a fury that seems to burn inside her. Your eyes lift from where you're sitting, a little surprised by her abrupt entrance, but you quickly see what has been happening.
"I can't believe what I had to hear today," Caitlyn throws out, her voice cold and cutting as she drops her jacket on a chair. "All because of your... damn ideas of justice. Do you have any idea what that means in this place?"
You stand up slowly, the tone of her voice making the air grow denser, heavier. "What happened, Cait?" you ask, though part of you already knows it has something to do with her ideals.
"It's not just what happened, it's what's happening. All the damn time," she responds, walking toward you with contained rage. "You go on and on about doing what's right, without understanding that ‘right’ isn’t always what people in high places think. You think you can change something, but all you're doing is making it worse."
Your heart races, and a spark of frustration rises in your chest. "Make it worse?" you repeat, feeling indignation begin to spill out of you. "Is that what you think? That my actions aren't worth it? You're so blinded by your perfect view of the world that you can't see what's really going on in the streets! Evil isn't just in the ‘high society,’ Caitlyn. It's everywhere."
Caitlyn looks at you with an intensity that almost seems defiant, but also wounded. "I'm not blind, the problem is that I can't understand why you keep going against the whole system. Every time you do, you just feed more chaos. You have to think about the consequences, about the people who can't afford those ideals you're defending like you're some fairy-tale hero. Not everyone can afford that luxury."
"A luxury?" Your voice rises slightly, now stronger. "What you call 'luxury' should be a right. Do you really not understand that people are suffering? That your 'system' is letting all of this crumble just to maintain power? I can't just stand by because you think it's fine because it looks neat from your tower."
Caitlyn steps back, as if your words hit some deep place inside her. "Not everything is as simple as ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ Sometimes things aren’t black or white. Sometimes you have to make concessions to move forward. What you’re doing is just putting yourself in the center, without understanding that there’s more at stake."
The words hang in the air between you two, and the intensity of the argument seems to rise with every exchange. Caitlyn is so convinced of her point of view that you can't help but feel frustrated by the barrier between you.
"What I understand, Caitlyn," you finally say, with a tense calm, "is that sometimes you do more harm by trying to follow the rules than by breaking them. And I know your intentions are good, but I can't stay silent watching you justify the unjustifiable."
Caitlyn closes her eyes for a moment, as if taking a breath to calm herself. When she opens them again, something has changed. It’s not that her anger has disappeared, but she seems more exhausted, as if all this is wearing her down. "I’m not asking you to agree with me. I'm just asking you to understand that sometimes, even if it hurts, decisions aren’t as easy as you see them."
There's a long silence between you, the air thick with discomfort and tension. You both know you're not going to come to an agreement this time, but you also know that won't change what lies between you.
Finally, Caitlyn sighs and sits on the edge of the table, letting the exhaustion take over her. "Sometimes I feel like I can't do anything right, no matter what I try," she murmurs, more to herself than to you. "And you... you make me see everything that's wrong with me."
You move a little closer, calmer but still hurt. "Cait, that's not what I want. What I want is for you to realize you don’t have to carry all of this on your own. You don’t have to keep walking down this path if it doesn't make you happy. I’m here for you, even when we don’t agree."
Caitlyn looks at you, her eyes reflecting some vulnerability, something she doesn't usually show. "I know. I just… I’m scared that I could lose everything I’ve built because... because I don't know when to stop."
You sit next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You’re not going to lose it, Cait. No matter how much we fight, what matters is that we’re in this together. But you also have to learn to take care of yourself, not just the world."
Caitlyn nods slowly, and for the first time in a long while, a small smile appears on her face, though it’s sad. "I guess sometimes I forget that."
The tension begins to dissipate, although the brush of differences is still there. Deep down, you both know that these kinds of discussions won’t end anytime soon, but you also know that you're both moving forward for something bigger than the disagreement.
Jayce
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There was something heavy in the air that night. An uncomfortable silence that hadn't been able to break for the past few days. Despite being in the same house, in the same room, you felt farther away from Jayce than ever. It wasn't just the lack of physical contact, it wasn't just the absence of the small gestures that usually made everything work between you. It was something deeper, something that had been growing inside you without him realizing it.
Finally, you couldn’t hold it any longer. You sat on the bed, staring into the emptiness in front of you, and when he walked in, that feeling of discouragement completely overwhelmed you. Without looking at him, you started.
“Jayce, I don’t know what to think anymore,” you said, your voice quiet but firm. “It’s been days since… since we’ve had anything. And I’m not just talking about sex, I’m talking about everything. I don’t even feel like you desire me anymore.”
Jayce, who had been in his own world as usual, looked up at you, confused by your words. “What are you saying, honey?” Surprise was evident in his voice, but it wasn’t enough to calm the torrent that had been unleashed inside you.
“You don’t get it, do you?” You stood up from the bed, walking towards him, words pouring out like a torrent. “Every day, I feel like I’m just here, fitting into your perfect life. Everything we do, everything we plan, it feels like you’re doing it because you have to. What about what I want, Jayce? What about us?”
Jayce took a step towards you, opening his arms as if he wanted to get closer, but something in your gaze made him stop. “No… I don’t understand. What do you mean by fitting into my perfect life?”
Your breathing quickened. “What I mean is that sometimes, I feel like I’m just an accessory, another piece in the puzzle you’ve been putting together. Like what matters most to you is making everything look right, fitting, but not us. I don’t feel desired, Jayce. I feel empty, like I don’t matter, like I’m just here because I fit into your life, not because you actually want to be with me.”
The pain in your voice was palpable, and although Jayce tried to step closer, you moved away from him. “I’m so tired of feeling like we’re nothing more than two people sharing a space. There’s no passion, no connection… Just the idea of what’s expected of us.”
Jayce looked completely lost, like he never imagined you felt this way. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You know how important you are to me. But I… I’ve been so focused on work, on everything we need to achieve, that…”
“That what?” you interrupted, unable to keep bearing what felt like a pile of excuses. “That you’re too busy to see what’s right in front of you? I have my own problems too, Jayce. Not everything revolves around your projects, your perfect image. I’m a person too, and my feelings matter too.”
The words hung in the air, between rage and pain. Jayce didn’t say anything, and that only increased the feeling of abandonment you were experiencing. Frustration and sadness took over you more and more. Finally, the silence was broken, but not in the way you expected.
“Honey…” Jayce started, his voice softer now, but still full of confusion. “I didn’t want to make you feel this way. I didn’t realize I was leaving you out. I didn’t want you to feel… unwanted.”
Your eyes filled with tears, the emotional pressure of being unheard for so long finally bursting. “I don’t want to be just another option in your life. I want to be loved, I want to feel desired, I want you to look at me like you’re afraid of losing me. And I don’t feel that from you. I feel like everything we do is a routine, just fulfilling what’s supposed to be.”
Jayce slowly approached, now understanding the gravity of your words. “I… I don’t know how I didn’t see all this. I’m sorry, honey. I really am. I don’t want to lose you. I’ve been so focused on everything else that… I’ve failed you.”
A heavy silence fell between you. You didn’t know what to think, just felt a knot in your stomach, but when Jayce took a step towards you, taking your hands, you couldn’t help but look him in the eyes, searching for some sign that he truly understood how you felt.
“Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, his tone full of sincerity. “I promise I’ll change, I won’t take you for granted. You’re the most important thing to me, and if I made you feel like you weren’t, it hurts me deeply.”
You looked at him intently, seeing in his eyes the truth of his regret. “I know… but I need you to act instead of just saying it.”
Jayce nodded, a glimpse of a smile appearing on his face as his hands caressed yours. “I will. From now on, you and I… we’re a priority.”
Your heart lightened hearing those words, and when he hugged you, you held him tightly, knowing that the road to healing that disconnection wouldn’t be easy, but at least, finally, there was a beginning. And that promise to rebuild what had been lost was all you needed to start healing.
Ekko
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That afternoon, it felt like the tension between you and Ekko was thicker than ever. You had been working together on a project, and the small jokes and dismissive attitudes from Ekko, which you usually let slide, began to affect you more than you expected.
"Wow, did you really think that was a good idea?" Ekko said, his biting tone making the sarcasm leave a bitter taste in his mouth.
Your breath became heavier, and although you tried to ignore it, something inside you snapped. You looked at him, furious, and without thinking twice, dropped the tool you had in your hands. "You know what? I'm leaving."
Ekko looked at you, somewhat surprised by your reaction, but before you could walk away any further, he let out a light laugh, as if nothing was happening. "What's up, got your period or something?"
That was the breaking point.
You stopped in your tracks, feeling a lump form in your throat. You turned to him with eyes shining with frustration. "You know what, Ekko? It's because of you. Because sometimes you don't seem to think about what you say, and you don't care how I feel."
Ekko furrowed his brow, trying to understand what you were saying, but before he could speak, you continued venting.
"You make me feel like my problems don't matter, like everything I do isn't up to your standards. Always so... so carefree, like you never have to think about how your words affect me. Have you ever thought about that?" Rage and pain built up in your voice as you spoke, but the words kept pouring out like an avalanche.
And then, without warning, what you hadn’t been able to say before came flooding out. "You know what's the worst? That I feel insecure, Ekko. I feel like I'm not good enough for you, like I'm not smart enough, not attractive enough... Because you never show jealousy, you never show anything. Like you never care. And that makes me doubt myself."
Ekko went silent, looking at your face in surprise, an expression that showed he finally understood what you had just said. The mockery from his previous joke faded, and his face shifted from confusion to deep seriousness.
"I... I didn't know you felt that way," he said finally, his words soft and filled with guilt. "I never meant to make you feel that way. I'm sorry, really. I'm not good at showing what I feel, I've never been."
He slowly approached you, not trying to interrupt the flow of your emotions. "You know, I grew up in a world where showing emotions was seen as weakness. Life never gave me time to process them. Since I was a kid, I was always at war, always on the move, always worried about surviving. But I never wanted that to affect you."
Your eyes softened a little as you listened to his words, and for a moment, the weight of frustration lifted slightly. "I... I didn't want you to think I cared less. It's just that sometimes, I get so caught up in my own stuff that I forget that the people close to me also have feelings. And I don't want you to feel belittled, I don't want you to feel like you're not enough."
There was a tense silence between you both, but something in his tone softened the atmosphere. "I'm sorry, really. It was never my intention to hurt you. You're incredible just as you are, and you make me feel like I can be more, like I can improve."
For a moment, everything seemed to calm down, but Ekko, with a mischievous smile, added, "And if it helps, yeah, I do worry a little when others look at you. But I'm not so good at showing jealousy."
You couldn't help but smile a little, even though you still felt the open wounds. Ekko, seeing this, moved a bit closer and gave you a gentle hug, as if it were a small gesture of comfort you so needed.
"I really care about you. I don't want you to feel insecure. I don't care if you're smarter or not, because what really matters to me is that you're you."
And before you could respond, Ekko joked with his usual playful attitude. "Although, if I ever catch you with someone else, you'd better be ready, because I’m not going to sit still."
You laughed despite everything, feeling the tension slowly disappearing, as if everything you had kept inside had finally found a way out.
"I love you too," you replied, as you hugged him again, knowing that, although the path wouldn’t always be easy, at least you both understood each other a little more.
Silco
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Silco's office was shrouded in shadows, barely illuminated by the dim glow of a lamp on his desk. The phone conversation he was having was filled with frustration. "No, that won't work. We need something more decisive, something more substantial," he growled before hanging up with a sharp click that echoed through the wood.
From your position at the door, you could hear every word, feeling the tension in the air. You couldn’t help but intervene. "Maybe you could try..." you began, suggesting a plan you had come up with after hearing his problem.
Silco looked up at you, his cold, calculating eyes locking onto yours. "Shut up. You don't know anything about this," he snapped with disdain, his words cutting through you like a knife.
The coldness in his voice felt like a blow to the chest. Without saying another word, you turned around and stormed out of the office, slamming the door with a force that resonated down the hallway. Frustration burned in your chest as you climbed the stairs to your room.
Surprised by your reaction, Silco followed. Reaching the closed door, he knocked forcefully. "Open the door immediately!" he shouted, his tone a mix of anger and confusion.
"I won't! Go away!" you replied from inside, your voice trembling with both rage and pain. A sound from inside made his heart race. Fearing the worst, he broke down the door without thinking twice.
Inside, he found you packing your things with trembling hands. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, his eyes fixed on you, trying to understand the magnitude of your decision.
"I'm done, Silco. Done with you not seeing me as someone capable of helping you, done with you constantly underestimating me," you declared, your voice trembling but resolute. "I’m a human being, just like you, and I can handle matters and plans. I’m not just a decoration in your world."
Silco scoffed, crossing his arms in impatience. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Do you want me to buy you something? You look hysterical."
That was the breaking point. You turned to face him, your eyes fiery and filled with tears. "Silco, remember where you found me. I was a worker in that horrible brothel, sold by my parents at eleven. I thought that by freeing myself, I would have a voice, that finally someone would see me as an equal. But it’s not like that. You don’t even listen to me."
Silco looked at you, his eyes softening as the weight of your words sank in. He approached you cautiously, his fingers touching your cheek with an unusual tenderness. "It's not personal," he murmured, his voice heavy with regret. "I’ve always been like this, I prefer to work alone. I’ve been through so much to earn respect in the Undercity that sometimes I minimize the opinions of others. But I never meant for you to feel this way, not you."
The wall of pain you had built began to crack under the weight of his words. "I’ll change. From now on, I’ll listen to what you have to say. In fact, tell me that plan you were going to propose earlier."
A pause lingered, but then, with a sigh, he added: "But before that, there’s something more important."
His words echoed in the silence before Silco took you by the waist, pulling you toward him. He kissed you with a passion that overflowed with unspoken apologies, a fire that spoke of promises of change and a renewed understanding between you both.
Mel
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The luxurious bedroom was bathed in soft lights that enhanced the golden and ivory tones of the walls. You turned in front of the mirror, admiring how the dress flowed around your body, highlighting your curves and cascading elegantly in a fabric waterfall. The excitement of the night reflected in your eyes, waiting for Mel's approval.
When you stepped out of the dressing room, the smile on your lips quickly faded as you noticed the disapproving expression on her face. Mel looked you up and down, her gaze critical and stern. "Take it off," she ordered in a cold, distant tone. "Put on the one I chose for you."
You frowned, surprised. "Why? What's wrong with this one?"
"It’s not that there's anything wrong with it," she replied, crossing her arms with an air of authority. "It’s just not what I want for you tonight. Change your makeup and hairstyle as well. Something more sophisticated would be better."
The heat rushed to your cheeks, a mix of embarrassment and anger. "Nothing I do is good enough for you, right?" you exclaimed, your eyes sparking with indignation. "It feels like you always have to correct me."
Mel raised an eyebrow, her voice firm and unapologetic. "You should be grateful. I'm helping you make the most of your appearance. I need us to be perfect tonight."
"You mean you need to be perfect," you corrected, unbuckling your heels and throwing them to the floor with a sharp sound. "Because I'm not going anywhere."
Without waiting for a response, you made your way to the terrace, needing fresh air to calm the whirlwind of emotions stirring inside you. The cool breeze caressed your face as you leaned on the railing, trying to hold back tears.
It wasn’t long before Mel appeared behind you, her elegant silhouette illuminated by the moonlight. "Why are you acting like this?" she asked, her voice softer now, but still tinged with confusion.
"Seriously, Mel?" you turned to face her, your voice shaking with frustration. "Nothing I do seems right to you. You always correct me—the way I walk, the way I talk, and now even the color of my lipstick. It’s extreme and stupid."
Mel looked at you with a mix of surprise and reflection, as if your words had struck her for the first time. "I hadn’t thought of it that way," she finally admitted, her voice quieter. "I guess... I’m really hard on myself, and I project it onto others."
You took a deep breath, your eyes still shining with contained emotion. "I don’t want you to be like that with me. I’m not an extension of your standards, Mel."
Silence stretched between you for a moment before Mel took a step forward, enveloping you in a firm, comforting hug. "I’m sorry," she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. "I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. You’re fine just as you are, and I apologize for projecting my insecurities onto you."
You leaned into her, feeling the tension slowly fade. "I understand," you replied softly. "I know you were raised to be perfect. But please, when you feel those things, communicate them in a different way. Don’t impose them."
Mel nodded, her gaze meeting yours with a mix of regret and affection. "I will," she promised. "Please, come with me to the party. Without you, I won’t have the strength to go."
You hesitated for a moment, looking at yourself with insecurity. Mel noticed and gently cupped your face in her hands. "That dress looks amazing on you," she said with a warm smile. "It highlights everything I love about you."
Her words and the kiss that followed dispelled any doubt, filling you with renewed confidence as you agreed to accompany her, knowing this time, you would go as yourself, not as a perfected version to satisfy Mel's standards.
Sevika
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The apartment door opened slowly, revealing Sevika's figure in the dim light. She walked in with tired steps, the weight of the night reflecting on her shoulders. You, who had been waiting patiently for her return, stood up from the couch with relief, but as you approached to embrace her, something stopped you. A strange scent, sweet and foreign, emanated from her skin, a fragrance that didn’t belong to any perfume you knew her to wear.
Your heart raced as you took a slight step back, your eyes fixed on her. "Who were you with?" you asked, trying to keep your voice calm, although a mix of anxiety and distrust began to rise within you.
Sevika looked at you in surprise, not understanding the reason for your unease. "I was at the bar, drinking. My ex joined me, we talked a bit, had a good time." She said it with such casualness that every word pierced you like a poisoned dart.
Anger began to bubble up inside you. "Why are you talking about it so casually?" you spat, feeling your voice start to tremble.
She frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"
"You shouldn’t have gone out with your ex!" you exclaimed, frustration coloring your words. "You owe me respect."
Sevika crossed her arms, her gaze hardening. "I do what I want," she replied coldly. "If you don’t trust me, maybe you should leave."
Your eyes widened at her comment. The idea of walking out that door tempted you, but sadness and rage kept you rooted to the ground. "Is that what you want?" you whispered, your voice shaking. "For me to leave?"
Sevika seemed to realize the weight of her words. She took a step toward you, extending her hand as if trying to stop you. "Wait, I didn’t mean that," she murmured, her tone softer, almost pleading. "You know I’m impulsive."
"Of course, impulsive... and nostalgic too," you replied bitterly, your eyes burning with contained pain. "You miss your ex, don’t you? You want to get back together with her?"
She frowned, stepping closer until her hands rested on your shoulders. "What’s your problem?" she asked, her voice low but firm. "Why are you saying all these things?"
The emotions you had kept under control for so long finally exploded. "Because I’ve been cheated on before!" you confessed, tears beginning to well up in your eyes. "I know the patterns when I see them. I don’t want to feel stupid and used again."
The hardness in Sevika’s expression melted away, replaced by deep understanding. Her hands, once firm, slid down your arms in a gesture of comfort. "I’m not those people, you shouldn’t compare me to anyone," she said, her voice firm but full of empathy. "If I didn’t want to be with you, I would tell you. I don’t need to lie to anyone. I love you, only you."
Her sincerity pierced your insecurities, breaking down the wall of fear you had built. Still, doubts lingered. "Then why did you go out with her?" you asked, still needing an explanation.
"Because it was a coincidence," Sevika explained, her gaze sincere. "We ran into each other by chance, and I thought there was nothing wrong with sharing a couple of drinks. But now I see it bothers you, and I don’t want to do anything that makes you feel this way."
Her words resonated within you, slowly calming the internal storm. You nodded, allowing the warmth of her promise to envelop you. "I want to believe in you," you whispered.
Sevika stepped closer, her lips finding yours in a deep kiss, full of promises and silent regrets. When she pulled away, her soft voice broke the trance. "Are you better?" she asked, gently caressing your cheek.
"I'll be better when you take a shower and get that cheap perfume off," you joked, your tone still slightly irritated but with a hint of humor.
Sevika laughed, a low, guttural sound that echoed in the space between you. She pulled you by the waist, drawing you even closer. "Then I’m going to need your help," she whispered in your ear, her voice laden with seduction. "Tonight, I feel especially incapable."
Your smile widened, a spark of mischief lighting your eyes. "I guess I can help with that," you murmured, letting the intimacy of the moment take over, knowing that despite everything, you were in the place you wanted to be: by her side.
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verushkak70 · 3 days ago
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I got the way more practical justification, not inheritance - as if there's a manor to be born to in my family, hahaha! - probably for class reasons
What kills me is the utter presumptuousness of the "Who will take care of you when you're old??" response I get when I say I have no kids
Because
1) wtf, do I need kids as "free" (not really) labor to help me sow & plow & harvest & thresh & then take care of me when I'm too old to do all that? No I do not - we get our food at supermarkets, or the corner shop, or go to a restaurant, or delivered right to the house, or from the food cart on the corner etc etc - point is, we don't have to grow & harvest, fish for or hunt it down & kill & slaughter it ourselves anymore)
&
2) do you have ANY idea how many sick people I took care of in the ER, who had children, who did not come to them in the ER because they were unable/unwilling?? eg they live in another state/moved there for work/spouse; they're disabled themselves; they're in the military; they work a job where they don't have cell reception or can't have a cell phone on them 24/7; they're undomiciled addicts now; they hate/are estranged from their parent; their parent abused them as a child; they're off their meds & no one knows where they are; they predeceased their parent/the parent outlived the child/ren; they were kicked out & disowned by the parent for being LGBTQ+whatevs, etc etc
Used to be, you had kids for those 2 main self serving reasons (& the usual "perpetuation of the species" urge to procreate) - but all those reasons are obsolete
& if you do have kids? Yeah, and? So what?
You can "do everything right" & raise them right & not abuse them & they still won't necessarily be able to help you when you're old & infirm for all of the above reasons
So cultivate your friend network & chosen family, be kind to neighbors & strangers (for those angels you entertain unawares may just be your only help when you need it) & ffs don't be an asshole to your kids (& by that I do not mean give them everything they want/ask for, or try to be their friend - you're the adult, you can't reason with a 3 year old (their brain literally has not developed abstract reasoning yet) - I mean don't use/abuse them emotionally, sexually, psychologically, or physically; don't live your life through them; don't try to right the wrongs of your childhood through them; don't divide & conquer them if you have more than one; don't helicopter/smother them & cause them to be dependent/helpless/ineffectual; don't treat them like they're your prince/ss & you're their servant & then wonder why they don't help you when you need it, etc etc)
On the first day of pediatric nursing in nursing school, my pediatric nursing instructor said: your job, as a parent, is to teach your kids how to live without you
You could've heard a pin drop
It was clear no one (in a classroom of 90+% females) had ever considered this before -
and for shame, really; how is it that squirrels & rabbits & coyotes & foxes & deer know to do this & humans don't?
The point is, parenting is teaching your kids how to get along in life when you're gone - not how to take care of you when you're old -
because you can count on the former but not on the latter
Above all, do not place all your "when I'm old..." eggs in the "but, I have kids" basket
You don't yet know what life has in store for you or for the hypothetical kids
You could have child/ren & still not have someone to care for you when you're old
Trust me - I saw that a lot - constantly, actually
& anyone who tells you that you 'need to' have kids, you have my permission to tell them:
"really? because this ex-ER RN* on Tumblr said... [all of the above]"
& carry on with your child free life
(Or, you know, just rec they watch S1 True Detective... & Matthew McConaughey will lay it all out for them by way of writer Nic Pizzolatto's plagiarism of Thomas Ligotti (& yeah I'm calling it plagiarism because that's what it was in spirit, if not by the letter of the law)
*I'm still an RN, lol! - just not ER
The older generation's fixation on forcing you to have kids is something they absolutely refuse to unlearn. You can give the calmest and most reasonable explanation for not having kids and the only thing they can think to say is, "But what of the heir to the lands?" "Who will inherit the throne?" "Please sire upon your barren death there will be a parochial schism that will soak our soils with brother-blood." They literally hate to see you happy with just a cat.
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fairytaleendingss · 2 days ago
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Room for One More?
Chapter 9
Summary: Secrets are revealed on New Years Eve.
CW: Alcohol consumption, sexual references, mention of cigarettes, swearing, lots of drama.
Pairing: Poly!Marauders x fem!reader
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8
--
"YOU SLEPT WITH SIRIUS?!"
"Shh! Mary keep your voice down," you uttered, looking around to see how many of your coworker's heads had swivelled towards you in response to Mary's loud exclamation.
"Sorry," she grimaced. "I'm just.. I'm in shock."
You sighed and leaned back where you were perched on the corner of her desk. "I think I am a bit as well."
There was a pause.
"Well, was it good?"
"Mary! Oh my god!" you groaned and threw a hand over your face to hide your mortification.
"What? I'm just asking. I can't say that I haven't imagined it once or twice myself-"
You slapped her gently across the shoulder with the back of your hand. "You're distrubed. You know that?"
She smirked. "You know you love me."
You rolled your eyes affectionately at your friend. "Anyway, we'd been drinking and it was Christmas and we were having such a wonderful time. I think we just got swept up in it all and now I don't know what to do. Things have been kind of... weird between us."
"Well have you guys talked about it?" Mary inquired.
"That's the thing. Afterwards he just kind of moved on like it never happened. I don't know if he thinks it was a mistake or something but it's stressing me out."
"Hmm," a thoughtful look crossed Mary's face as she took everything in. "Well how are you feeling about it? Do you think it was a mistake?"
You bit the inside of your cheek. "No? I-I don't think so. I dont know."
A look of realisation washed over Mary's face. "Do you like him??"
"I mean, of course I like him. I'm just not sure I like like him."
Your friend sighed exasperatedly. "Oh my god! We're not in Primary School, just answer the damn question!"
"Fine! I guess the answer is... yes?" you sighed. "But whatever! Does it even make a difference? He's made it exceptionally clear that he doesn't feel the same way."
"Look," Mary huffed, her expression growing sincere. "Sirius is great. He's fun and friendly and a total flirt but he's also been known to be a little emotionally constipated. Just be honest with him. Talk to him about it. He's not going to be able to pick up on any signals you're trying to send him."
You squeezed your eyes shut and let out a breath throught your nose. "Ugh fine."
"Good girl," Mary smiled. "Now go away. I actually have some work to get done today."
"Oh fine. I suppose I know when I'm not wanted," you teased, getting up and walking back towards your desk.
"Love you!" Mary called lightheartedly as you walked away.
"Yeah, yeah," you joked in response.
As you arrived back at your desk and slumped down in your chair, prepared to get back to work, a head peaked down at you over the cubical.
"Oh, you're back, I see."
You jumped slightly at the unexpected voice and looked up to see its perpertrator.
"Yes, Glenn. Hi. Is there anything I can help you with?"
Glenn was a new employee in your office and he sat in the cubical opposite yours. He was only a few years older than you and he was tall and fit with short blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. In the few weeks you'd known him for, he'd been particularly friendly towards you and recently you'd been getting the idea that he had taken a liking to you.
You weren't interested of course. He was an attractive guy but not really your type. And with everything going on with Sirius over the last week, you'd been making a effort to put some distance between you. You definitely weren't looking for anything of that nature right now and you didn't want to give him the wrong impression. However, Glenn was nothing if not persistant.
"Actually, I was just wondering if you had any plans for new years tonight? A few of my mates are throwing a party and you're welcome to join us if you're interested."
You sent him you're most empathetic smile. "That sounds lovely but unfortunately I already have some plans with my friends."
He sighed, flashing you a grin that looked suspiciously rehearsed. "Oh well. No problem. It was worth a shot. You have fun tonight."
"You too, Glenn."
As the man dissapeared back over the divider, you let out a heafty sigh. Tonight was surely going to be interesting.
--
The view was impeccable from the bar where your friends had gathered to spend New Years. In fact, seated beside a huge floor to ceiling window, you suspected you'd have a clear view of the New Years fireworks.
It was a classy joint, one that Dorcas had managed to get you access to through one of her fancy lawyer contacts.
Everyone was assembled on stools around a table, looking out over the London skyline. It was about four hours until midnight and the group was chatting excitedly in the lead up.
"I've got shots!" Mary called out and everyone cheered as she returned to the table with a tray.
She passed the drinks around and then took her seat beside you.
"Well, I suggest a toast!" James called out, grabbing the attention of the group. "To a wonderful year ahead, and many more memories with old, and new, friends!"
He emphasised the last line with a pointed look in your direction and you felt your cheeks growing hot.
"Cheers!" Marlene shouted enthusiastically and the others echoed her sentiments, clinking glasses and swallowing their drinks.
The burning of the liquor was welcomed as the drink ran down your throat. You'd been thinking a lot about what Mary had said to you in regards to your situation with Sirius. And as he sat beside you, laughing animatedly at one of Peter's stories, it only confirmed your worst fears. Maybe you were starting to develop feelings for your roommate. You grimaced at the thought. Things were bound to get messy in situations like this.
"So guys," Sybil piped up from across the table. "Let's all go around and say our New Years resolutions."
"Oh, I'll go first!" James volunteered. "I hope my team continues to play a great season annnddd... I want to work out more."
There was a collective groan.
"Come on, James. That's not a real one!" Mary complained.
Sirius chuckled, taking a pointed sip of his drink. "Yeah! You already work out like 7 times a day!"
"Ugh, okay fine!" James responded with groan. He thought for a moment. "How about this one. I'd like to fall in love this year."
You didn't miss the way his eyes flickered across the table towards Lily and you felt your heart sink. Lily seemed to take notice a well as she averted her eyes, taking a heafty gulp of the drink in her hand.
"Aww, James. Always the romantic, aren't you?" Marlene chuckled.
"Shut up." James rolled his eyes playfully. "Your turn then, Marls."
"Okay," She took a deep breath. "My goal this year is to become super rich and famous and sucessful."
"I second that!" Mary called across the table and you giggled as they clinked their glasses.
"Y/n. Your turn," Dorcas announced.
"Oh okay, um..." you thought for a moment, your gaze flashing to James and Remus across the table, then over to Sirius, who was watching you expectanly, a playlful glimmer in his stormy eyes.
You then looked back towards the rest of the group. "This year, I'd like to spend some more time with you lovely people."
A round of cooing echoed across the table and Mary threw her arms around you.
"Well aren't you just the sweetest!"
"Oh, and I'd like to work more on my novel," you added.
"Alright, alright. Sirius, you're up!" Marlene chimed.
The boy beside you pursed his lips, looking off into the distance as if deep in thought. Then, after a long moment, he turned back to all of you with a mischievous smirk on his lips.
"This year, I want to have lots of amazing sex!"
"Ew. Sirius, you're so foul," Lily exclaimed, followed by a symphany of similar sentiments from the other members of the group.
While everyone else was distracted, grumbling and groaning about Sirius' bluntness, the man leaned down towards you.
"You look great tonight, by the way." He whispered into your hair.
You gulped thickly, not quite sure what to do with yourself. You opted for downing the remainder of your Vodka, Lime and Soda.
--
As the evening drew on, you found yourself growing more anxious in Sirius' presence. You weren't quite sure what his game was, whether it was the alcohol or he was just feeling extra bold tonight, but he'd been suspiciously flirtatious.
You didn't know how to respond. Part of you wanted to let him. To let him woo you and go crawling back for more of what you'd had together on Christmas Night. However, the other, more logical part of you, told you that was a terrible idea. He was your roommate afterall. The last thing you wanted was to start some complicated friends-with-benefits situation with a guy you lived with, especially one that you had sort of, maybe, possibly had caught feelings for.
You downed another drink, feeling the alcohol grip you and hoped it would help to ease the nerves ever so slightly. You realised then, that you were staring.
Sirius had gone to the bar to order another round of drinks and you'd been watching with bated breath as he sent his signature smile to a girl wearing an explicitly tight black dress. You noticed the way she leaned forward, pressing her cleavage up against the bar as she spoke to him. God, could she be anymore obvious?
"Calm the hell down, y/n!" You thought to yourself. "It's not like you guys are together. He can flirt with whoever he wants."
"Hey, are you okay?" you raked your eyes away from the scene as a voice came from beside you.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," You muttered absently, too distracted to notice that it was Remus who asked the question.
"Okay, never have I ever... made out with more than one person on the same night!" Mary's voice rang out and you forced your attention back to the group.
You weren't sure when this game had begun but you suspected it was suggested by one of the girls (likely Mary or Marlene) as a way to pass the final hour until midnight. You hadn't participated in this game since probably highschool, but you were all a few drinks in at this point so you figured, what the hell?
You watched as Marlene, James and Dorcas all took a sip. Then Lily sent Mary a pointed look.
"Come on, Mary. That's not how the game works. You have to say something you haven't done."
"I haven't!" Mary responded. Then she paused. "Oh wait, yeah I definitely have."
Everyone chuckled as she took a drink.
"Alright! Dorcas! Your turn." Mary nudged the girl in the side.
Dorcas rolled her eyes. "For the record, I just want to say, I think this game is stupid."
"Come on babe. Don't be a party pooper!" Marlene exclaimed, leaning in towards her girlfriend. "How else are we supposed to learn everyone's deepest darkest secrets."
Dorcas sighed and shook her head but there was a hint of a smile on her face. She really could never say no to Marlene.
"Ugh, fine. Never have I ever stolen something."
"Well that's a hard one," Mary muttered. "What do we count as stealing? Because I've stolen stuff from James a ton of times."
"Oi!" James shouted, looking positively affronted. Mary sent him an apologetic smile.
"No, not like that," Dorcas clarified. "It had to have been from an actual shop."
You all sat up straight for a moment, curiously looking around the group to see if anyone had. Hesitantly, Peter lifted his glass to his lips.
"Pete! What the hell!" James exclaimed.
"I don't know, I went through a phase in highschool!"
"What sort of stuff did you take?" Marlene pressed.
Peter shrugged. "Chocolate and ciggarettes, mostly."
There was an eruption of laughter that rippled across the table at Peter's revelation.
"Wow, I didn't know there was a degenerate among us," Lily teased, watching Peter's face flush bright red.
"Okay, okay. My turn!" Marlene said, once the laughter died down. "Never have I ever... gotten really sloshed and fallen down the stairs at my 18th birthday party"
"Hey! That's not fair!" James moaned, taking a sip of his beer. "You can't do targeted ones!"
Marlene just shrugged. "Sorry, but I don't think that was established in the rules."
James smirked. "Fine then! Never have I ever had sex with someone at this table."
Your blood ran cold for a moment as you glanced back towards the bar. You sighed in relief when you saw that Sirius was still over there. In that case, you technically hadn't slept with anyone at the table. You were off the hook for now.
Marlene rolled her eyes at James and took a drink, as well as Dorcas, Peter and Sybil, however, you watched James' eyes widen as Mary also took a long sip.
"Mary!" Lily hissed across the table. Your heart plummeted.
"What?" Mary shrugged, the alcohol clearly having gone to her head. "We have to! It's the rules."
"Wait! Hold on," Marlene murmered, her eyes drifting between the two girls. "Did you guys..."
There was a heavy anticipatory silence that hung over the table as you all awaited Lily's response. The girl grimaced, as she tried to muster some kind of explanation.
It was then that her eyes drifted up to meet James' pleading ones.
"Lily?" the boy asked softly. Your heart broke for him.
"So I guess the cat's out of the bag huh?" the girl sighed. "Mary and I have sort of been seeing each other. Romantically."
"Holy shit!" Marlene shouted, candid and straight to the point as she usually was in these situations.
"How long has this been going on?" Dorcas questioned.
"It's still really new," Lily explained.
"We were just trying to figure out the right time to tell you guys," Mary added.
"So you're the one Mary has been seeing?" James murmered.
"Yes," Lily responded. "I'm sorry James but you had to know it was never going to work out between us."
The boy sighed, running a hand through his unruly curls. "Yeah, I know."
Then he started to stand. "I think I just need some air for a minute."
"James, wait-" Remus reached out to grab his arm but James shook him off.
"I just need minute," he repeated, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair and hurrying towards the exit. Part of you wanted to go after him but the other part recognised that he probably needed some space to process things.
"Sorry, everyone. I didn't mean to ruin the night," Mary murmered folornly.
"No hun! you didn't ruin anything," you comforted.
"Yeah, we're really happy for you two," Dorcas added.
"Really?"
Everyone nodded.
"Absolutely. You both deserve to be happy," Remus confirmed.
Wide smiles crossed over the girls' faces.
--
It was two minutes until midnight and Sirius was nowhere to be seen. Despite your better judgement, you couldn't help but feel slightly disapointed. You supposed that there was some small aspect of your mind that hoped Sirius would be your New Years kiss.
You knew it was wishful thinking, especially when you hadn't even spoken about what happened between you, but with how he'd been acting towards you throughout the night, you'd allowed yourself to nurture that flicker of hope.
As people crowded around the window and the countdown began, you found your eyes searching the room for the dark haired man, wondering if just maybe, he'd make a last minute appearance.
"Five, four, three, two..."
You scanned the space one last time.
"One!"
You're last flicker of hope died out as your eyes finally landed on his form.
"Happy New Year!"
The shouts and cheers faded into the background as you watched Sirius press his lips to those of the boob-y blonde you'd seen him flirting with before.
The moment seemed to go in slow motion. You watched from afar as he tangled his hand in her hair, just as he'd done in yours only a week prior.
"Of course," you thought. "Typical"
It was Sirius Black you were talking about. You were stupid to think you meant anything more to him than a casual night of fun.
In an instant, you turned on your heel and walked towards the door, the sounds of the party fading into the background. You decided, instead of bumming around waiting for Sirius to notice you, you'd go look for James, just as you should've done much earlier.
The cold hit you like a block of cement as you stepped outside onto the street. It didn't take you long to find him.
He was sitting on the curb, outside of he bar, arms resting on his knees as he looked up towards the sky. Another explosion sounded and a flash of colour filled the air. In the distance, you could hear the cheers of excited people all around as they celebrated.
"Happy New Year, James."
He turned to look at you and in the flash of light, as another firework flickered across the sky, you were able to notice the faint tear tracks that lined his cheeks.
"Oh hey." he sniffled, rubbing a hand beneath his glasses and trying to regain a semblance of composure.
BANG!
You flopped unceremoniously onto the ground beside him as another flash filled the sky. You gave him a sympathetic smile. Funnily enough, in that moment, you knew exactly how he felt.
"Are you okay?" You asked him gently.
He let out a dry chuckle. "Yeah. I will be."
BANG!
"Good."
You both turned your gazes back to the display, taking in the beautiful array of colours filling the air. It wasn't quite the view you'd expected for the night, but somehow, that didn't seem to matter.
As you continued to watch the fireworks, you felt the gentle touch of a hand wrapping around your own. You smiled slightly as your fingers intertwined.
BANG!
Slowly, you shuffled closer and leaned into him, gently resting your head on James broad shoulder.
You stayed like that a while, just taking in the show, and each other's company.
--
Taglist:
@hisparentsgallerryy @navs-bhat @shushbruv @magicwithaknife @eeviee4 @notapoetjustscar @gugggu6gvai @robertsmithclone @ilovesugurugeto69 @taytayy178 @its-notkiee @bugworldsworld @switchingfandomslikecrazy @evangelquill, @delusional-4-fake-people, @ch4rlotte35, @insideoutjulie, @hiireadstuff, @laniirackssss, @starrystormwritings, @strategicsweetheart, @1800brat, @sammyreid, @frootloops1213, @ill-be-okay-soon-enough
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vexxandra · 2 days ago
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25 predictions for 2025 (pick-a-card reading)
happy new year sillies <3 01-01-2025 ☆
disclaimer: all of my readings are just for fun, you write your own story every day of your life, dont let me tell you how to live it
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pile 1 > pile 2 pile 3 > pile 4
pile 1
biggest theme: change
reflexion and redirection are major elements of the new year
breaking free of past shackles : discarding old things
miracle year, a lot of wonderful things are coming
be selfish. you are in charge of your own happiness
you will learn to love yourself this year
fulfilling year especially in terms of career or academics. make sure to properly prepare in order to gain an edge over others
early bird gets the worm mentality
"winter arc" mindset the whole year. "lock in"
first six months will be very busy, you'll focus on yourself and not have the time for romance
learning how to collaborate with others
big lesson: learning how to work through burnout
august 2025 will be a very happy month for you
potential summer fling, will reginite flames you didn't know you had
some kind of soul fulfillment, could potentially be romantic or personal
imbalanced feminine energy, learning to reconnect with your divine feminine
a turbulent period will occur (im hearing mercury retrograde)
last half of the year might be grey
sleepy energy, taking things slower
make sure to rest, dont push yourself to move when sluggy
you're going to end the year with a nice energy. i see you surrounded by lots of family, friends and people you hold dear
if last year did not feel chrismassy, dont worry, because this year will
an extra message about children and new families. pregancy within you or another may occur
releasing all anxieties caused by this year, and a lot of reflexion
overall a pretty good year, some guidance i might give would be to not push yourself over the edge, and try not to drink too much caffiene <3
pile 2
biggest theme: self love
i get the feeling you've lost someone very important this year, most likely a break up, but you still have feelings for them
disillusionment and prioritizing yourself are big themes for this year
you're going to recognize that this person was pretty toxic and will take them off of their pedestal
learning how to fall in love again, with yourself and with life
reconnecting with your femininity
a lot of themes about toxicity and distancing yourself from people that don't have your best interests at heart
crown chakra healing by taking one day at a time (a LOT of light purple imagery in this reading)
very tumultuous first few months of the year, you'll feel like your life is flipping upside down and rightside up for a while
reconnecting with your spiritual guides and your spirituality/religion will bring you peace
if you're not religious, exploring some concepts may occupy your time
potential new romantic interest, but you must fall in love with yourself first
advice i can give would be to start something new, and to spend a lot of time by yourself. take yourself on dates and spend time with loved ones
sleep is very important this year, maybe consider starting a dream journal
i feel like most of you will get into some kind of artsy hobby this year. this can be anything from visual to musical to physical, but i can see it becoming a big passion
learning how to be more flexible in your thoughts and actions is a big lesson
springtime (particularly may) will be an amazing period
indie movie life in the spring, it'll feel like your life is straight out of a book
productivity, creativity, and happiness will be at an all-time high
you'll meet so many new people during this time, and im seeing some travelling too
child-like energy, almost like a giddy joy
make sure to not forget your responsabilities, i can see that you might be too caught up in your excitement and forget to balance work and play
overall very good year. it might not feel like it right now, but things are guarenteed to get better <3
some guidance i would give would be to reflect on your past, but never to dwell in it
pile 3
biggest theme: new beginnings and hope
amazing potential, i can see you're carrying something precious from 2024, and wanting it to grow in the new year
it will, but be sure to wait for the right time and approach it with dedication, consistency and care
strong foundations are laid, but be sure to not be reckless
good communication and problem resolving skills are going to be very important this year
flexibility and detachment are going to be vital too, dont try to control situations and dictate outcomes
forgive others for their mistakes but be sure to be assertive too
for those in a romantic relationship: this relationship will last a long time <3
messages about changing your identity, there will be a time when you dont recognize yourself, take some time to reconnect with your inner values
"lucky girl syndrome" mindset. you'll be attracting so many blessings this year
abundance really is yours this year, the cards are showing so many blessings coming your way
affirm to yourself that you have everything you desire, and it will appear
summertime will be an extremely happy period for you. i see a lot of happy memories being made, and a lot of productivity as well
the end of summer and fall might be when things slow down a little, i see a little more uncertainty and anxiety, but it will all pass
big emphasis on relationships this year, but mostly romantic
for those currently in a relationship, here is confirmation that your person is a soulmate and will be in your life long-term
for the singles out there, you'll soon meet an amazing person (timeframe: june or july)
in terms of academics and career, your year will be pretty tame
there will be important decisions to make, and that might stress you out, but the outcome will be good
bottom line: the ending of this year will be good, and there's nothing you can do to change that
important lessons you will need to learn will be to think things through before acting upon them, hanging with people you feel truly appreciate you, and walking away when you feel they don't
appearances may be deceiving, make sure the people you surround yourself with have your best interests at heart
do not compare yourself with others, this year will hammer in that lesson time and time again
overall a very good year, some guidance i would give would be to guard your heart from people with negative intentions. there are snakes and backstabbers everywhere, keep yourself safe <3
pile 4
biggest theme: self-improvement
this year you'll return to your roots, fully shedding your old life to try and reconnect with your innermost values
reassess what works for you and what doesn't, i sense a lot of toxcitity in your life
this year you'll develop many new relationships with many new people
these relationships will provide interpersonal insight: remember that you are who you surround yourself with
this year, you'll practice setting boundaries
its never aggressive to be assertive, and those who matter won't mind
despite the heavy focus on new relationships, prioritize yourself
going on walks, meditating, journalling and going on solo dates are all amazing ways to start to feel comfortable alone
this year will be full of endings, dont resist it, embrace it
change isn't inherently bad, just like how difference isn't inherently bad
very financially stable year, you'll be more open to taking career risks
if there were any financial struggles in the past year, take comfort in knowing there will be little to nothing of the sort in the future
be careful to not be boastful about your finances though, as its better to succeed in silence
you create your own happiness, you are the main character, stop relying on others to save you
this year, you'll stop seeking others validation and look inside of yourself to find what you've been searching for in others
you'll be stepping into a bad bitch energy this year, one that feels comfortable being alone or with others
strong leadership is something you'll be developping this year, as well as strong manifestation skills
you want it, you're going to get it!!
go after all of your goals this year, hesitance will do you no good
i can see that at the end of the year, you'll emerge a totally different person
you'll be more confident, self-assured and more joyful (i sense that autumn is an important time period)
overall, this year will be a fresh chapter in your life
you'll shed the old you, bad habits, and negative aspects to make way for a life and personality that's authentically you
some advice i would give would be to not be afraid to stand apart, dont worry about the opinions of others
speak of success, and it will come to you <3
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witherby · 18 hours ago
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Part 7 of mer!reader?🫣🫣🫣
Of course! I think it's time to get you and Damian back together.
Human!Damian x Mer!Reader Part 7
Masterlist with all parts Here!
Content features upsetting Mer behavior and unsafe diving practices. Wear your protective gear, people!
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It takes another month for your routine to settle back into a semblance of normalcy. The specialists Bruce told Damian about had spent three days observing your behaviors and drew up a detailed care plan to help you recover as best as you could, which the facility follows with great enthusiasm.
You wake up and swim to the entrance of the tank to receive breakfast from Jon. Afterwards, he and Clark gently roll you out of the tank to apply weird-smelling salves to the patches on your tail, encouraging it to heal correctly and for new scales to grow. You sit and wait for the salve to absorb, then you get back into the water to play a little, and then it's Attention Time.
You swim all the way to the bottom floor of your tank, where visitors come admire you through the tunnels under your tank for several hours. Sometimes you have the energy to do a trick or two.
Then, it's back up to the top of the tank for dinner, more playtime, and then you get to sleep until tomorrow where you do it all again.
But the lethargy remains. The stinging, empty space in your chest only seems to grow the more you see Damian dispassionately leading tours and refusing to look at you. Of all the people that come to admire you, the one person whose attention you actually want, you cannot get.
Jon, bless him, is trying so hard to keep you happy. He talks to you every day, he gives you tons of treats, he swims with you as long as you want him to, and he's given you so many new toys that they've overtaken your cute rock collection. His effort is why you're doing your best to hide how bad you still feel.
And his company does help! It does. You can comfortably call him a friend, and mean it. But you are so tired. You miss Damian so much. You feel drained, and the urge to remain inside your little hideout gets stronger every passing day.
Every night, in the comforting darkness of your castle spire, the old bricks pressing against your body and shielding you from the rest of the world, you allow your thoughts to drift back to the boy with beautiful, emerald eyes without fail.
You think of the first time you met him, and how he looked at you as just another dumb animal in the aquarium for him to care for. You think of the first time you made him realize you were so much more — how you'd done every trick he commanded with such attitude and even mocked him back that he actually cracked a smile. You think of the first time you pulled him into the water to show him your favorite parts of your habitat, and then how he reassured you it was fine that you almost drowned him by accident because he knew you hadn't meant to. You think of all the times he snuck in after hours to spend just a little more time with you, to play just one more game, to ensure you didn't feel like another part of his job he had to do but someone he genuinely looked forward to seeing.
You think of the pretty blush on his face when you mustered the courage to give him your scales.
You think of all the gifts you left him afterwards, and how you didn't get any back.
You think of his dispassionate expression as he leads another group of visitors into your enclosure, day after day after day.
Your chest burns. You weep into the water and succumb to fitful slumber.
--
"I need a dive team to the Mer tank please! Right now!"
Damian furrows his brow, momentarily pausing his work. He's in the dolphin exhibit currently hand-feeding them when the announcement comes over the speaker system. He wonders what you're doing to have freaked Jon out, but it's not his place to care anymore, so he tries to push the curiosity from his mind and refocus on his task.
One dolphin in particular is pretty bad about taking food from a handler. It's also just food aggressive in general, bullying its pod-mates out of the way to get to the food first. Damian can't help but compare how much smarter you are to these animals. He sighs.
"Doctor Kent to the Mer exhibit!"
Hmm. Did you breach your tank again? Or maybe you bumped your body against the spire you like to sleep inside. Damian tried to tell his father that the rough brick texture could hurt your more vulnerable top half if not careful, but Bruce was certain you'd be alright. He wonders what kind of fuss you're kicking up today, if it's a real issue or if Jon hasn't been around you long enough to realize that sometimes you fake a problem because it's funny.
"All divers to the Mer exhibit please!"
Tim rushes through the door into the dolphin exhibit, startling Damian into dropping the bucket. He quickly backs up with a gasp as the dolphins swarm to the food and start gobbling it up. He faces Tim with a glare.
"Does nobody know how to follow protocol anymore? You're supposed to knock before you —"
"You need to get upstairs," Tim says, holding up an access key to your enclosure, "like right now. Vitals on our mer are really bad, we can't extract them from the spire and —"
Damian doesn't stick around to hear him finish that sentence. He snatches the key and sprints through the aquarium like the devil's on his fucking heels. His heart is racing and not from the exertion. He forgoes the elevator and starts rushing up the stairs three at a time, climbing floor by floor by floor to get to you as fast as he can.
It was a real emergency, then? What had happened? Jon was supposed to be taking care of you now. You were supposed to be recovering. You were supposed to be happier without him, now.
What was wrong with you?
There's no time to head into the locker room and get a wetsuit on. He jams the key into the exhibit door and throws it open, rushing into the room with single-minded focus.
Jon is in a wetsuit and treading water, relaying information to his dad with a worried frown. Clark is kneeling next to the tank and giving him instructions on how to get you to the surface. Dick is sitting on the lip of the tank and wiggling into a suit of his own, very unfamiliar with the gear as he doesn't dive with Mers. Bruce is on the phone and standing by Clark, looking more and more concerned as the situation develops.
When Damian bursts in, Dick startles and looks up at him, fumbling with the clasp on his flipper.
"Dami, go ahead and get a suit on. We need you to — DAMIAN!"
He doesn't think. Doesn't stop to listen to whatever Clark's rambling on about. Doesn't wait for permission before he kicks his shoes off, takes a running start, and dives into the tank in his plainclothes. He pedals his arms and kicks his feet as hard as he can and goes down, down, down, deeper into your vast tank and towards your favorite resting place. The effort is tremendous without the slim, hydrodynamic suit to aid him and a rebreather to allow him to stay down here for long periods of time. He pushes past it all and keeps going. You are in trouble and he is going to help you.
When he makes it to the spire and swims around to the entrance, he immediately sees the issue. Your body is curled into the mer version of fetal position; your arms are locked around your waist in an embrace and your tail is coiled underneath you in a tight spiral, twisted around itself and wedging you deeply into the cramped space. The angle of your body, coupled with the tight spacing of the hideaway, make it nearly impossible to pull you out.
In the wild, a mer found in this position is an almost universal signifier that they are near death.
If there's no intervention, you are going to die today.
Damian climbs into the spire with you, squeezing his body inside with a low grunt. A burst of bubbles escape from his mouth. If he can't pull you out — a dangerous move which would damage your tail and break your fins if they tried — he has to unfold you.
His back scrapes against the bricks and pain rockets down his spine. Another bunch of bubbles fly out. He grits his teeth and starts carefully pushing at you, gingerly moving your upper half, then your lower half, around and around and around to create enough space to safely push you free.
His chest is heaving. Damian is exhausted and quickly running out of breath. He cannot stop. If he stops, you won't make it.
He jerks when something jabs his ankle, arms wrapping protectively around you as his head snaps down to see what happened.
Jon is hovering just by the spire opening, holding a rebreather in his hand and shaking it insistently at him.
Damian reaches around you and makes a few grabs at it, finally curling his fingers around the device and pushing it into his mouth. He clicks the button to turn it on and almost coughs when oxygen starts to flow into his lungs. He slumps against you briefly, taking in your closed eyes and face twisted into agony.
What happened, he thinks. How did this happen to you, Princess?
His ankle is jabbed again. Damian looks back at Jon, who has his hands out in an offer of help. Damian gently starts to maneuver you around again, slowly but steadily unfolding your body, and when Jon catches on, helps do the same thing from your opposite side.
It is painstaking work. Dick eventually gets into the water to join in, but there's no room for him, so he hovers to the side ready to help carry your body to the surface when you're finally free.
It feels like it takes hours, but can't be more than twenty minutes. Twenty minutes too long in Damian's opinion. Eventually, your body is unwound enough to ease you out of the spire without injury, and the three men rush you to the surface where Clark and four other vets are waiting to take you. It becomes a flurry of activity after that.
Damian spits out the rebreather when his feet are back on solid ground. He pants and doubles over, limbs shaking from exertion, and watches the medical team assess your condition and fret over you. You're loaded onto a special stretcher and whisked from the room, and he's about to follow suit when a hand clasps over his wrist.
"No," he rasps, already gearing up the breath to scream at his father, but Bruce just shakes his head and presses a towel into his hands.
"Here," he says, voice soft and knowing. "Here, Tadpole. I just want you to get dry before you follow them into the medical bay. You can't help anybody if you get sick."
Damian clutches it, staring at his father with no small amount of trepidation. Bruce just sighs.
"I'm sorry, Damian. I am. We'll talk about it later, but I won't separate you two again. You have my word." He jerks his head toward the doors. "Go dry off and change in the locker room. I'll call Medical and tell them to let you in when you're done."
Damian throws his arms around Bruce, uncaring about how he's soaking his dad. Evidently Bruce doesn't care either, if the fierceness in which he hugs him back is any indication.
"Thank you," Damian whispers, then pulls away to head to the lockers.
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sundemonlord · 2 days ago
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Are we talking about all men?
Or white cis able bodied men?
Because like research on autism or anything else -- many studies are centered on WHITE CIS ABLE BODIED MEN
and white women.
So I wonder what other demographics and social shit is at play here.
Are there less gay, trans, disabled men going to college?
Last but not least: patriarchy isn't ONLY internalized by men. Men aren't the only ones capable of oppression/abuse.
So I'll ask again:
Is it just men?
Edit: I was right (found out after reading) -- GAY MEN weren't as affected by male flight.
We need to talk about how masculinity isn't just something men perform.
We are masculine.
Some of us are also feminine.
Or gay. Or trans. Or disabled.
But we are still masculine, too. We are still men.
Our ideas about ourselves and our existences don't exist in a vacuum.
We live in a larger society and men alone don't hold the power to how manhood is perceived.
It's a community/social process just like anything else.
Yet we are stuck here because people are obsessed with the idea that it is only a male problem. And only for specific sort of men to solve in a particular way.
A lot of yall have internalized toxic masculinity and then you push it onto guys, too
And you don't even realize what you're doing.
Anyway: I've always been more or less comfortable in my masculinity. It's not ever been much affected by the society at large because I saw the normative society for what it was..
Sick, abusive, and regressive. And I haven't been able to find any people who can meet me where I'm at yet (for a romantic relationship)
A lot of women and queer people I've met still perpetuate those ideals, too. Because you think masculinity IS those things.
Welp. Let's see how this goes ig
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Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? (Celeste Davis, Oct 6 2024)
"White flight is a term that describes how white people move out of neighborhoods when more people of color move in.
White flight is especially common when minority populations become the majority. That neighborhood then declines in value.
Male flight describes a similar phenomenon when large numbers of females enter a profession, group, hobby or industry—the men leave. That industry is then devalued.
Take veterinary school for example:
In 1969 almost all veterinary students were male at 89%.
By 1987, male enrollment was equal to female at 50%.
By 2009, male enrollment in veterinary schools had plummeted to 22.4%
A sociologist studying gender in veterinary schools, Dr. Anne Lincoln says that in an attempt to describe this drastic drop in male enrollment, many keep pointing to financial reasons like the debt-to-income ratio or the high cost of schooling.
But Lincoln’s research found that “men and women are equally affected by tuition and salaries.”
Her research shows that the reason fewer men are enrolling in veterinary school boils down to one factor: the number of women in the classroom.
For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied.
One more woman applying was a greater deterrent than $1000 in extra tuition! (…)
Since males had dominated these professions for centuries, you would think they would leave slowly, hesitantly or maybe linger at 40%, 35%, 30%, but that’s not what happens.
Once the tipping point reaches majority female- the men flee. And boy do they flee!
It’s a slippery slope. When the number of women hits 60% the men who are there make a swift exit and other men stop joining.
Morty Schapiro, economist and former president of Northwestern University has noticed this trend when studying college enrollment numbers across universities:
“There’s a cliff you fall off once you become 60/40 female/male. It then becomes exponentially more difficult to recruit men.”
Now we’ve reached that 60% point of no return for colleges.
As we’ve seen with teachers, nurses and interior design, once an institution is majority female, the public perception of its value plummets.
Scanning through Reddit and Quora threads, many men seem to be in agreement - college is stupid and unnecessary.
A waste of time and money. You’re much better off going into the trades, a tech boot camp or becoming an entrepreneur. No need for college. (…)
When mostly men went to college? Prestigious. Aspirational. Important.
Now that mostly women go to college? Unnecessary. De-valued. A bad choice. (…)
School is now feminine. College is feminine. And rule #1 if you want to safely navigate this world as a man? Avoid the feminine.
But we don’t seem to want to talk about that."
12K notes · View notes
jinxyjinxer · 2 days ago
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˗ˏˋ SLUT ˎˊ˗ fucking the bratiness out of you
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⟢ characters : Jayce Talis
⟢ warnings : fem!reader, semi-public, p in v, usage of "slut" and "whore", degrading, creampie
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"Fuck, if you can't keep your pretty mouth shut we'll get caught for sure", Jayce groans as he drills his dick deeper and deeper into your tight core, his hips slamming against you, your moans and the slapping of skin on skin bouncing off the walls.
The two of you weren't actually supposed to be in this position right now, fucking like wild animals in a cramped storage room at a gala hosted by the Kiramman family inside their mansion. You had been such a teasing brat all night that Jayce couldn't help but take you to the next best room to fuck your sassiness out so the two could resume with the celebrations in honor of the young Kiramman girl's birthday.
It all started with some innocent gestures, rubbing your chest accentuated by your dress against his arm as you hugged it, bending over so the fabric around your ass would stretch when you picked up a snack from one of the tables and letting your hand "accidentally" brush over his sensitive spots.
As the evening progressed and the more alcohol you had in your system you grew bolder, your hand resting on his thigh dangerously close to his hardening cock trapped within its confines, letting the tips of your fingers roam over his clothed skin as the two of you conversed with other nobles of Piltover at one of the tables. When no one would look you'd get onto your tippy toes, whispering sweet nothings into Jayce's ear.
"You look so good in that suit, but I know you'd look even better without it."
"Imagine bending me over one of the tables and showing the whole room who I belonged too, how does that sound?"
"Do you like the dress I chose? It's showing off everything so nicely, I wonder how many of those old geezers wished they were in your position right now."
These and other teasing words left your mouth whenever your breath fanned over his ear when you leaned in.
Your initial plan was to tease Jayce until you two came home so you'd finally get that rough pace you had begged him to put on whenever you two fucked, but to your chagrin — or should you say thanks to your luck? — he granted you your wish way earlier than you had anticipated, dragging you into some empty storage room in a remote area of the Kiramman mansion, not even caring to look or even properly close the door before he hoisted up your skirt and let his pants and underwear fall to his knees, slamming his dick into your already wet cunt without any preparation, his thickness splitting you open painfully but Jayce didn't care, not when you've been such a slutty brat all evening long.
"This is what you wanted, no? Wanted me to fuck you in some dirty chamber for anyone who's walk past to hear?", he growled into your ear as he set his thrusts at a brutal and relentless pace, fucking you like he had never before.
"Yeah, you slut can't even talk right now. You're really just all bark but no bite", Jayce mused at how fucked dumb you already were, his lenght slamming into your cervix any time he pushed back in, making your eyes roll back and drool drip down the corners of your mouth onto your cleavage.
"Better keep your fucking mouth shut or I'll have to shut it myself", he growled as loud moans kept slipping past your lips from how dizzy his penetration made you feel.
"Fuck we're going to get caught because of a slut like you", he rasped, dick throbbing between your walls from how tight you were gripping him. Every word that left Jayce's mouth somehow degraded you, calling you various words he'd never dare to say to anyone, not even you, if it weren't for the situation the two of you were in.
"I'm gonna fucking fill you up and you'll walk around with my seed in your pussy, got that? And don't you dare to try to get it all out of you behind my back. When we're home I expect you to be still filled up so I can remind you once again what a fucking dirty whore you are", he leaned in and whispered into your ear, hips beginning to stutter as he nearest his orgasm, his hips thrusting into you at an inhuman pace and making you tip over the edge, creaming all around his shaft.
With a last groan leaving his mouth he buried himself until the tilt, painting your walls white in thick ropes.
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pedge-page · 2 days ago
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Joel Dealing with Preggo Wife: Save Me From Your Brother, Tommy!
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Summary: you call Tommy to save you from your husband's wrath...
- - - -
Maria just finished making popcorn, tossing one towards the couch where Tommy expertly managed to catch it in his mouth. She sits down next to him as he wraps his arm over her shoulder. They settle in together for a lovely, quiet, romantic evening watching TV when--
Her phone starts buzzing.
Tommy grasps it next to him and checks the ID. It's you.
Maria shrugs and let's him answer.
"Yello?"
Your frantic, desperate, hushed voice carries over the speaker: "Tommy? TOMMY! You have to help me..."
Tommy sits upright. Maria pauses the TV, wondering why her boyfriend has stiffened. "What is it. What's wrong? Are you ok?" Chills run down his spine. He's never heard you like this.
You sniffle, holding the receiver closer to your lips. Your fast, panicked breaths are shaken. "He's... he won't let me go. Please Tommy you have to get me out of here..."
Tommy puts it on speaker, looking at Maria, fear creeping into both of their souls. "Who? Where are you? Where's Joel?"
"Its... its Joel!" You squeak. They can hear more shuffling, like you're crouched somewhere small and enclosed. "I'm home. I'm hiding from him... I'm in the bathroom..."
Tommy's heart is escalating. He knows Joel. There's never been a single fiber inside that guy that could give way he could cause someone such fear. Let alone his own wife. Who he loves to death. Who he's obsessed with. Something must be horribly wrong for you to call so scared...
"What is he doing? Where's Sarah?"
"She's sleeping...she's ok...she's spared from him... from his..."
Suddenly, they can hear Joels voice calling your name distantly from another room. You audibly gulp. "Tommy, he's gonna make me--!"
"Make you what!?"
"Hes calling for me... i have to... he's gonna come looking," you whisper desperately. You turn on the face time screen, and Tommy can see you clearly. You're hiding in the bathroom, the lights off. Your bedroom door connecting to the bathroom is closed, but there's a bright light shining underneath, and Joel's voice calling for you again.
You open the door, and Tommy and Mariah hold their breaths....
Only to see Joel is lying in bed casually, his waist tucked into the covers and back resting against the headset. When he sees you, he smiles and waves. "Baby! I paused it for you, so you don't miss anything." He pats the bed next to him, opening the sheets for your invitation. His toes swish under the sheets, unable to contain his giddiness and joy. Even Spoon, who is lying on the bed, has her paws over her ears, face tucked into the sheets as if she is being subjected to the torture you're referring to.
Joel doesn't seem threatening or menacing or... really anything out of the ordinary that should make you as upset as you are, so what the...?
"Joel...please...." you plea, near tears.
"What? It's the Hallmark Christmas in July marathon!" He cheers excitedly.
Tommy and Maria look at one another and then burst into laughter.
You cry out, stammering your feet like a kid having to finish homework before play time. "Tommy, he's making me watch these fucking Hallmark movies!!! THERE ARE SO MANY. IT NEVER ENDS. Get me out of here!!
Maria is laying fully back on the sofa, nearly capsizing on the edge from her giggles. Tommy is trying to hold her up with his leg, but his hand is clutched over his heart, purple in the face from not being able to breathe from how hard he's equally laughing.
"Tommy, its not funny!"
"You on the phone with Tommy?" Joel asks curiously.
Finally Tommy responds, albeit wheezing through his words. "I didnt know Joel liked Halmark movies..!"
Joel looks at you with a frown. "You said you wouldn't tell anybody..." He says softly, a mixture of embarrassment and betrayal.
"Oh Tommy counts as someone?" Tommy stops laughinh for a moment, now deciding against helping you.
You slouch your shoulder and whimper poutily, trudging your body towards him. "Do we HAVE to?"
Joel rolls his jaw. "If only i did things for YOU, like a loyal, devoted husband, willing to do ANYTHING for his wifes happiness," he growls sternly.
You KNOW hes the best, and even now pregnant with his second baby, and going through the torture of being... well, you in this state. He really doesn't ask for much. But this specifically is payback for earlier today when you made him drive you 2 hours for your favorite bubble tea, only to find it closed because you didn't Google their week schedule beforehand. And then made him drive 2 hours back to your second favorite place, only to find they ran out of boba for the day. To which Joel started lecturing to the poor girl about how a boba tea place can be open and not have any boba. He was already exhausted, angry, and frustrated, and definitely deserved a reward for having to chauffer you around.
But THIS?
"Okay so this isn't an emergency. This is just the consequences of your actions," Maria explains. She always knew you were a dramatic bitch but this really took the cake.
"I dont deserve this torture! Tommy, he's your DNA!"
Tommy shrugs. "And you married him. Have fun!" Tommy and Maria wave through the screen before ending the call.
Your lower lip trembles as you stare at the black screen. You only chance to get out of here, gone.
You look up to Joel, who slaps your empty spot on the bed twice, very firmly, very threateningly. His jawbone flexes. You dragged him around all day, and now ratted out his guilty pleasure, something you SWORE you wouldn't tell anyone. You earned this punishment.
"Still got Christmas House, Christmas on Cherry Lane, and 12 Dates of Christmas! Now.... Come. Here."
You cry but hang you head low, dragging your feet to put up with the fifth day in a row of cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies in July.
- - - -
@jeewrites @harriedandharassed @lola8888673 @its-nebuleuse @zliteraturehoe @merz-8 @joeldjarin @pascalscoffin @pedroshotwifey @ghostslillady @innerpersonunknown @missladym1981 @mrsoharaxx @survivingandenduring @milla-frenchy @cockykookiee @fairytale07 @daddy-din @pedropascalsbbg @spookyxsam @somehopeatlast @millercontracting @pedrostories @mishala005 @theoraekenslover @animez96 @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @puduvallee @cassiecasluciluce @loohoop @himboelover @callsignwidow @wintersquirrel @fluffygoffpanda @picketniffler @bbyanarchist
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twig-tea · 2 days ago
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2024 BL/GL/QL Round-Up Post
Since I did this last year, I thought for posterity I'd post another reflection on everything I watched that completed in 2024. For me, that means anything that started in 2023 but the last episode was in 2024 is on this list, but anything that was still be airing after 31 December 2024 11:59 my time (EST) is not on this list, even if the bulk of the show did air in 2024.
A few stats:
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[The image is TL;DR for what follows lol]
I watched ~150 discrete pieces of new QL content in 2024 (series/films) that I tracked [It gets complicated with specials and split seasons but I did my best to be consistent]; plus 10 things that I would consider "adjacent". For contrast, I listed 110 pieces of discrete content in 2023; that's a 45% increase year over year!
This clocked in at an est. 900 hours of new BL/GL and adjacent content (up from ~600 in 2023--which also tells us that the content I tracked was a little longer overall because that's a full 50% increase in terms of hours spent).
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The new content I watched came from 9 different countries [same as 2023]: (Cambodia [1], Philippines [2, down from 3], Hong Kong [1], Japan [32, up from 18 in 2023], Korea [20; was 19], Myanmar [2, up from 1], Taiwan [12, up from 6], Thailand [75; up from 56], Vietnam [4, down from 7]), China [5], and then 3 joint effort productions from Thailand/Korea [2] and Thailand/Taiwan [1]
This means just under ~47% of the content I watched on this list is from Thailand [close to the 50% in 2023]
So many more shows had multiple or varied distributions this year, but like last year ~85% of my content was on 3 platforms: YouTube [38%; down from 40%], GaGaOoLaLa [30%; up from 23%] and iQIYI [17%; down from 21%] Note: I'm in Canada and my access routes are sometimes affected by that.
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As unbelievable as it sounds with all that, I did actually drop shows this year! I dropped 9 shows, which is I think more than I've dropped in my entire previous 20+ years watching queer asian media combined (that might be an exaggeration but I do really hate dropping shows); 4 Thai, 3 Filipino, 1 Taiwanese and 1 Japanese (listed at the very bottom of this post if you want to be messy). I didn't track any dropped shows in 2023.
And if you're wondering how many shows there are in the world in total, I am aware of an additional 11 shows I just did not have time to even start (2 from Cambodia, 4 from the Philippines, 3 from Thailand, and 1 each from Korea and Myanmar). That does not include the vertical short reels that I didn't track this year--see @ellsieee 's tracking post for these--as well as several GL shorts from JPC media YouTube channel and Sastra film app YouTube channel that I just have not had time to try or even keep track of, though I do peek in on them to see if there's anything that looks particularly good, and I do always link these folks in my GL round-ups.
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All of this doesn't include re-watches or catching up on old shows, or non-QL queer media, or non-queer media (the hets sometimes do deserve rights); but does include films as well as shows.
I hope you all appreciate that with this much content, and with my general brand of being unable to make decisions, I really struggled to narrow down a top 10 list. What follows is the best I could do lol
Top 25 QLs I'd Recommend From This Year:
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[Links are self-indulgently to what I thought was the most relevant post I'd made this year relevant to that series/media, mostly spoiler-free pitches]
She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat S2 (Tsukutabe) [GL]
Love in the Big City
Love For Love's Sake
Tadaima Okaeri [anime]
Ossan no pantsu ga nandatte ii janai ka (Oppan)
Marahuyo Project
Knock Knock Boys
Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo
Love is Like a Poison (Doku koi)
Ossan's Love Returns
Twilight out of Focus [anime]
At 25:00 in Akasaka
Cooking Crush
Cherry Magic [anime]
Cherry Magic Thailand
Takara no Vidro
Soul Sisters / Twin Rabbits [GL]
Perfect Propose
Unknown the series
Paradise of Thorns [film]
Blue Canvas of Youthful Days
The Secret of Us [GL]
Mr Mitsuya's Planned Feeding (Mitsuya-Sensei)
The Time of Fever
A Man Who Defies the World of BL S3
I tried to put these in some kind of order but honestly if you asked me to rank them the numbering would change all the time and I would combust. The ones I liked best are closer to the top of this list. I also debated back and forth on whether Paradise of Thorns counts as QL so many times. But in the end I decided the main character was queer and queer romance of a sort was at the heart of the drama, so I've left it in this list even though technically it should probably sit with the 'adjacent's.
Worth noting that though only ~20% of the content I watched was from Japan, ~45% of my favourites were from Japan.
+5 notable pulp offerings worth mentioning:
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Bagan Beginning (Myanmar)
City of Stars (Thailand)
Gym Affairs (China)
To the Ex Who Hated Me (Korea, GL)
Under the Oak Tree (Vietnam)
I think I'll do a top 10 GL post separately since we had enough content to warrant a top 10 (yay!) but this is already long enough. I just want to take a second to acknowledge that this year was so much better than in 2023 when I didn't feel like I could recommend any of the new GL shows. Thank you content creators for better and more GL in 2024, please keep that energy for 2025!
Bonus: Not a QL but worth calling out:
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How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Thai film)
I saw both this and Paradise of Thorns in theatres during the Toronto International Film Festival and they were both so powerful! Extremely different tones but they surprisingly hit on similar themes, and very beautifully filmed. HTMMBGD was a complicated film filled with very rounded and complex characters, and I still think about it all the time. Very excited for more folks to have access to both of these soon.
Sidenote: The fact that I watched 45% more shows in 2024 than I did in 2023 and still managed to keep my rec list to 30 (*cough1cough*) does seem to back up the general feeling that though we had more content, we didn't have a proportional rise in good content. I do want to crunch those numbers in another post.
Double Plus Bonus: Best Older QL Content I watched for the first time in 2024:
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Life as a Girl / Joshi-teki Seikatsu (Japan, 2018; I'm so sad I missed out on this one for so long due to misinfo, it is fantastic! Thanks to @so-much-yet-to-learn for helping propel me to this one)
Iron Ladies (Thailand, 2000; thank you for the rec, @happypotato48)
Nacchan's Secret / Himitsu no Nacchan (Japan, 2023; thank you @furritsubs for making this watch possible)
Can I Buy Your Love From a Vending Machine / Sono Koi, Jihanki de Kaemasuka? (Japan, 2023; thanks to @nicks-den for making this watch possible)
I Fell In Love with the Villainness (Japan, 2023; watched because of a convo with @pilanthitasanilaphat)
Doi Boy (Thailand, 2023; this one I had on my list and just had to work up the energy to watch, but it was a beautiful film and I'm glad I did)
BL Metamorphosis (Japan, 2022; another thank you to @furritsubs)
Dear Dad (India, 2016; thanks to @neuroticbookworm for the rec!)
Salty Blue / Kakenuketara, Umi (Japan, 2023, thank you again @nicks-den!)
[I can't believe I forgot this at first] The Miracle of Teddy Bear (Thailand, 2022, thanks for going on that journey and writing great meta with me and for calling me out for forgetting @lurkingshan!)
There is so much good content in the world and despite my best efforts I haven't seen everything! So grateful to the fansubbers and people who write about past shows so that those of us who missed them the first time still get a chance to see them.
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In terms of my output based on all this input, I continued not lurking this year, and have enjoyed it very much; see my Top 10 posts from 2024 here as well as the content I linked in my recommended shows above--going through the process of adding those links really highlighted to me how much more I've written this year, and how much more motivated I am to write about shows I love. It's no surprise I had dedicated posts for most of my top shows! To highlight a few specific projects this year that I'm proud of, I participated in the Love in the Big City Book Club read and watch-alongs organized by @lurkingshan, which was such a fun project that I am grateful for, and I started my GL Odds and Ends posts (tagged with #gl recs) that I am still feeling out but am really enjoying seeing the impact whenever someone watches a show because they found out about it through one of my posts. I also made an appearance on several episodes of @the-conversation-pod and had an incredible time trying out different things in a quarterly 'Dispatch' and having some really rich conversations with @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup. I love this corner of tumblr that we've carved out for ourselves as a QL watching community, and I just want to say to everyone I've interacted with in 2024: Thank you, and wish good things for you all in 2025!
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Full list of 2024 shows under the cut for anyone curious! [Mostly in order it completed but may be slightly off--if a special aired immediately after the final episode I only list them as one thing and count the airing of the special as the end date, for example].
Bagan Beginning
Love Senior the Series
After SunDown
VIP Only
Twins the Series
Last Twilight
Night Dream the Series
My Universe
Bake Me Please special episode
Sahara Sensei to Tori Kun / Mr Sahara and Toki-kun
Love for Love's Sake
7 Days Before Valentine
Happy Ending
PitBabe the series
For Him the series
Cooking Crush
The Sign
Chaser Game W
Playboyy the series
Perfect Propose
Ossan's Love Returns
Tsukuritai Onna to Tabetai Onna S2 / She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat
Cherry Magic Th
Dead Friend Forever
Sukidoya / Although I Love You and You / Sukiyaken kedo dou yaroka?
Healing Thingyan
Love You in Every Multiverse
Cherry Magic (anime)
Please Teach Me
Anti Reset
Jazz for Two
Blank the Series
A Secretly Love
To Be Continued the series
Love is Better the Second time around / Koi wo Surunara Nidome ga Joto
City of Stars
Sea You Soon
Human Too
Man Who Defies the World of BL s3
Gray Shelter / Gray Currents / Grey Current
Gym Affairs
1000 Years Old the Series
Love is Like a Cat
To the Ex Who Hated Me
Lady Boy Friends the series
Deep Night the series + Special Episode
Unknown the series
Memory in the Letter
You are My Star
Lonely Girls
Boys Be Brave / Roommates / I Can't Confess
Blossom Campus
Two Worlds
VIP Only special episode
Pray In Love
I Fell In Love with My Male Best Friend
Friend With Benefit
Stay By My Side special episode
23.5
You Made My Day
Living With Him
City Boy Log pt3
Anti-Reset special episode
The Time of Huan Nan
Xiao Xiang Yi Jiu
Inverse Identity
At 25:00 in Akasaka
Only Boo!
Tadaima Okaeri
Love Bully (Club Friday)
Blank the Series S2
Marahuyo Project
The Two of Us
Blue Boys
OMG Vampire!
My Stand-In
We Are the series
Ossan no pantsu ga nandatte ii janai ka / Oppan
Wandee Goodday
Under the Oak Tree
The Rebound
Love Enemy
Love in the Apocalypse
Bad Guy
My Marvellous Dream is You/ Dream the Series
Century of Love
Knock Knock Boys
Be Your Star
Meet You at the Blossom
BOYTOY
The Secret of Us
Ayaka is in love with Hiroko / Ayaka-chan wa Hiroko-sempai ni koi shiteru
My Love Mix-Up!
This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans
Love Sea the series
Cosmetic Playlover
City Boy Log s4
Sunset Vibes
Mr Mitsuya's Planned Feeding
Takara no Vidro / Takara's Treasure
Paradise of Thorns
I Hear the Sunspot
The Time of Fever / when your temperature reaches my fingertips
4 Minutes The Trainee
Twilight out of Focus
Happy of the End
The On1y One
Live in Love
Heaven'sxCandy
The Two of Us s2
Addicted Heroin
I Saw You In My Dream
Monster Next Door
Our Golden Times
Affair
First Note of Love
Battle of the Writers
Reverse 4 U
Unlock Your Love
Chaser Game W s2
Let free the Curse of Taekwondo
Uncle Unknown
The Hidden Moon the series
Love in the Big City [the series]
Smells Like Green Spirit
Red Whisper
Eccentric Romance/PT is Love
My Damn Business
Apple My Love
Dominant Yakuza and Wimpy Corporate Slave
The Nipple Talk
Kidnap the series
Every You Every Me
Jack & Joker
People Come Later
Blue Canvas of Youthful Days
The Loyal Pin
Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2
Love is Like a Poison / doku koi: doku mo sugireba koi to naru
Bad Guy My Boss
Haunted Hearts
Seoul Blues
The Renovation
Love Sick 2024
Love in the Big City [the film]
Spare Me Your Mercy / Euthanasia
Soul Sisters / Twin Rabbits
My Hot Butch Roommate
Whisper Me a Love Song / Sasayaku you ni koi wo utau
Boys' Christmas
Bonus: FuFuKnows bi-weekly shorts [every other week they post a short film, almost always a QL storyline; there were 23 in 2024]
And those QL-adjacent shows I mentioned [these are all adapted from QL media or starred QL actors or were part of a QL franchise but did not have a canon queer romance at the core of its storytelling]:
The Spirealm
Close Friend 3 - Soju Bomb
How to Make a Million Before Grandma Dies
Man Suang
High School Return Of A Gangster / I, a Gangster, Became a High Schooler
Kimi to Yukite Saku: Shinsengumi Seishunroku
Hoshikuzu Telepath
A Balloon's Landing
Peaceful Property
My Strawberry Film
The shows I dropped:
Time the series
Beside You
Sugar Dog Life
The Whisperer
Kiseki in Tokyo
Q18
Sky Valley
The Fate Trap
Dear Miss Becky
And as a shout-out in penance, the shows I had on my list to get to but haven't yet watched:
A Blue Sky (Cambodia)
Ending Friend (Cambodia)
Pretty Boys (Philippines - requires an access fee on VivaMax+)
Oh My Boo (Philippines)
The Perfect Heartbreak (Philippines)
Where I found You (Philippines)
My_ the series (Myanmar)
What's In My Bag (Korean GL - requires an access fee on Vimeo)
Complicated (Thai)
Club Friday: Hot Love Issue (Thai)
2nd Chance (Thai; not to be confused with Second Chance, this was a smaller 3-episode short series from this year)
Thank you for reading!
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vampire-connoisseur · 38 minutes ago
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this has actually been pretty helpful in making me realize where the disconnect is.
it is true that introducing pasteurization significantly cut down on infant mortality, and that not all pathogens can be eliminated without pasteurization (which is just heating the milk up but not enough to boil it), AND that claims that pasteurization reduces the nutritional value of milk are, at best, exaggerated, but I still like raw milk. at least in the summer, it tastes a bit nicer. that's the only real benefit of it.
so the risk associated with drinking something kind of tasty has to be pretty low for it to be worth it.
a pretty anti-raw milk article here: https://www.popsci.com/health/is-raw-milk-safe/
explains that out of the 3.3 million Americans drinking raw milk (a number from 2022), an estimated 730 of them get sick (a number from 2017). that is a 1 in 4,520 chance. according to this: https://www.ddlawtampa.com/resources/car-accident-statistics-you-need-to-know-in-2021, out of the 243.35 million licensed drivers in the US, 6 million get into car accidents per year on average. That is a 1 in 40 chance. That includes minor accidents though. There are an average of 38,000 fatalities in accidents per year, a 6,400th of the number of drivers-- but this includes passengers, so this is harder to directly compare. additionally, I suspect people with drivers licenses average more time driving than raw milk drinkers spend drinking raw milk, and this is comparing an injury to a disease. this should give a general sense of the rate of actual sickness from drinking raw milk. it isn't a super-present part of life, constantly killing raw milk cultists, but it does occur.
still, car crashes are the leading cause of death to Americans, so if drinking raw milk is equally dangerous, that's still really bad. But it isn't, because as the same earlier source explains, healthy adults will probably just have a bad time for a few days and make a full recovery from milk-borne diseases, and most of the danger is to vulnerable populations such as immunocompromised people, pregnant people, children, the elderly, and so on. I am not in any of these categories, so I feel reasonably safe drinking raw milk.
...I mentioned before that research has not clearly supported any health benefits to drinking raw milk, so this is purely anecdotal, but people in my family who are mildly lactose intolerant say they are able to drink raw milk without pain, and switching to raw milk from regular milk seems to reduce eczema for some children- again, in my family, and not under conditions appropriate to draw any real conclusions from.
that aside, raw milk is definitely not viable on a large scale. industrial agriculture involves animals very close together getting minimal attention and investment. you CANNOT operate a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) without introducing a serious load of antibiotics into animals-- so if you're avoiding raw milk to avoid these antibiotics, I would avoid grocery store milk altogether, even though it's pasteurized. animals in more spacious, sanitary (-ish.it's still a farm, there are limits) conditions with more monitoring and veterinary attention available have a lower need for antibiotics. Another fear regarding CAFOs is that the overuse of antibiotics in such an otherwise pathogenically sketchy environment will lead to antibiotic resistance among potentially very dangerous bacteria. plus, even with all the antibiotics they use, I would absolutely not drink raw milk from a place like this.
when I wondered why raw milk discourse was a thing, I was wondering why raw milk specifically has become this battleground issue when it's really just a slightly risky food item. I can't find statistics on how many people eat raw shellfish, but the CDC estimates that 80,000 people get sick every year from vibriosis alone, which is just one of the pathogens found in raw and undercooked shellfish such as oysters, and 100 people die from it: https://www.foodsafety.gov/blog/oysters-and-vibriosis
but for some reason raw milk specifically is seen as irrationally hazardous to consume. I personally as a healthy adult am comfortable eating raw milk, raw shellfish, and raw eggs depending on their sources, but a lot of people, including healthy adults, are not comfortable with one or more of these things.
to me it feels like a personal choice regarding the amount of risk you want to take just to have a tasty meal, keeping in mind your own health and history. I figured it was because of its association with science skepticism because Pasteur, the father of modern microbiology, invented it and it sounds scary enough that someone who also doesn't want to be vaccinated could start avoiding it, but the discourse around it isn't even educating anyone because it's just as full of misinformation-- albeit less dangerous misinformation-- as that of the Pasteur-fearing camp.
BY THE WAY, I might have gotten some of this information wrong because I'm not about to research and write a whole essay about milk. Also, I haven't had raw milk in years because it's pricier and sours if you look at it too hard, but I like it and still would if given the chance. It's a bit like oat milk actually.
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literaryvein-reblogs · 2 days ago
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Thank you for all this WORK. I so appreciate the time you are putting into this resource.
Was wondering if there are some good ways to keep information from the character without being knocked out, amnesia, or a drunk black out that would be cause for them to not remember. Thank you!
Writing Notes: Memory Lapses
Healthy people can experience memory loss or memory distortion at any age. Some of these memory flaws become more pronounced with age, but — unless they are extreme and persistent — they are not considered indicators of Alzheimer's or other memory-impairing illnesses.
Some Normal Memory Problems
Transience. This is the tendency to forget facts or events over time. You are most likely to forget information soon after you learn it. However, memory has a use-it-or-lose-it quality: memories that are called up and used frequently are least likely to be forgotten. Although transience might seem like a sign of memory weakness, brain scientists regard it as beneficial because it clears the brain of unused memories, making way for newer, more useful ones.
Absentmindedness. This type of forgetting occurs when you don't pay close enough attention. You forget where you just put your pen because you didn't focus on where you put it in the first place. You were thinking of something else (or, perhaps, nothing in particular), so your brain didn't encode the information securely. Absentmindedness also involves forgetting to do something at a prescribed time, like taking your medicine or keeping an appointment.
Blocking. Someone asks you a question and the answer is right on the tip of your tongue — you know that you know it, but you just can't think of it. This is perhaps the most familiar example of blocking, the temporary inability to retrieve a memory. In many cases, the barrier is a memory similar to the one you're looking for, and you retrieve the wrong one. This competing memory is so intrusive that you can't think of the memory you want. Scientists think that memory blocks become more common with age and that they account for the trouble older people have remembering other people's names. Research shows that people are able to retrieve about half of the blocked memories within just a minute.
Misattribution. This occurs when you remember something accurately in part, but misattribute some detail, like the time, place, or person involved. Another kind of misattribution occurs when you believe a thought you had was totally original when, in fact, it came from something you had previously read or heard but had forgotten about. This sort of misattribution explains cases of unintentional plagiarism, in which a writer passes off some information as original when he or she actually read it somewhere before. As with several other kinds of memory lapses, misattribution becomes more common with age. As you age, you absorb fewer details when acquiring information because you have somewhat more trouble concentrating and processing information rapidly. And as you grow older, your memories grow older as well. And old memories are especially prone to misattribution.
Suggestibility. This is the vulnerability of your memory to the power of suggestion — information that you learn about an occurrence after the fact becomes incorporated into your memory of the incident, even though you did not experience these details. Although little is known about exactly how suggestibility works in the brain, the suggestion fools your mind into thinking it's a real memory.
Bias. Even the sharpest memory isn't a flawless snapshot of reality. In your memory, your perceptions are filtered by your personal biases — experiences, beliefs, prior knowledge, and even your mood at the moment. Your biases affect your perceptions and experiences when they're being encoded in your brain. And when you retrieve a memory, your mood and other biases at that moment can influence what information you actually recall. Although everyone's attitudes and preconceived notions bias their memories, there's been virtually no research on the brain mechanisms behind memory bias or whether it becomes more common with age.
Persistence. Most people worry about forgetting things. But in some cases people are tormented by memories they wish they could forget, but can't. The persistence of memories of traumatic events, negative feelings, and ongoing fears is another form of memory problem. Some of these memories accurately reflect horrifying events, while others may be negative distortions of reality. People suffering from depression are particularly prone to having persistent, disturbing memories. So are people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can result from many different forms of traumatic exposure — for example, sexual abuse or wartime experiences. Flashbacks, which are persistent, intrusive memories of the traumatic event, are a core feature of PTSD.
An occasional memory slip is normal, says Johns Hopkins geriatrician Sevil Yasar, M.D., Ph.D. But as you age, these “senior moments” may leave you wondering whether you’re heading for dementia—the loss of memory and thinking skills severe enough to interfere with independent living, often due to Alzheimer’s disease or other brain changes.
“Stress, an extra-busy day, poor sleep and even some medications can interfere with making and recalling memories,” Yasar says. “And we all have moments when a name or the title of a movie is right on the tip of the tongue, but those events are different from the kinds of lapses that may be warning signs for dementia.”
Most of the time, memory lapses are nothing to worry about.
“But any time you’re concerned about yourself or a loved one, it’s worth talking with your doctor,” Yasar says.
So how can you tell the difference between simple slipups and something that may be more serious? The important thing to look for is persistent change in our ability to think and function. Below are 5 clues. 
Are you losing things and just can’t figure out where they went? We all misplace things. And yes, on a busy morning we may even put the cornflakes box in the refrigerator if we’re moving too fast. It’s normal to put things in the wrong spot, and it’s normal to catch the mistake or retrace our steps to find the keys sitting on top of today’s stack of mail.What’s not: Being unable to figure out where lost belongings might be, putting things in more and more unusual places and starting to suspect—without evidence—that people have stolen your missing possessions.
Do you get lost in familiar places? Losing the way while driving, walking or taking public transportation to a new place is normal. So is getting so absorbed in your journey (or your thoughts) that you have to reorient yourself to figure out exactly where you are.What’s not: “Driving or walking for a long time without realizing you’re lost or completely forgetting where you are, and not asking for help in these situation could  be a sign of dementia,” Yasar says. You may also forget how you got to a new location, become easily disoriented in familiar places, or lose the ability to read a map or follow landmarks and traffic signs.
Do you lose track of the time, date or season? Once in a while, we all forget what day of the week it is, but we usually remember or figure it out quickly. More troubling: not knowing what day it is, the time of day or how much time is passing—and not realizing that you’ve forgotten. Additionally, unable to remember appointments or even missing them despite putting it on the calendar or having received numerous reminders by family. These may be signs of dementia, according to Johns Hopkins experts.
Are your conversations getting stalled? We all have to search for the right word from time to time. “And it’s normal for this to happen more often as we get older,” Yasar notes. What’s not: extreme difficulty remembering words, calling things and people by the wrong words or names and withdrawing socially as a result. Having more and more trouble following, joining or continuing a conversation (you may stop talking mid-thought and not know what you were going to say next) or even following plot on TV may also be a red flag for dementia risk.
Do memory slipups interfere with daily life? Forgetting the name of your neighbor’s dog is normal. What’s not: No longer being able to do everyday activities the way you used to, and you now need help of your family or professionals, “If you used to balance your bank accounts to the penny and now you’ve lost track of where your household money is going, bills have not been paid and as a result electricity or phone service has been turned off. Similarly, you feel lost and overwhelmed making, or even worse, being unable to make, Thanksgiving pumpkin pie with your favorite longtime recipe, it may be a sign of early brain changes,” Yasar says.
And one of the biggest concerns, from a doctor’s point of view, is the issue with medication management, such as forgetting to take medications or taking them incorrectly.
Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs
Here are some possible causes your character may not remember things (apart from those you mentioned). Choose which would be most appropriate to incorporate in your story. Hope this helps and thank you for such kind words!
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sheeple · 2 days ago
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Puck you!
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Genre(s): Modern!au / Ice hockey!au Fandom(s): Harry Potter Pairing(s): Ice hockey player!Mattheo Riddle x Reader Summary: You decide to go to an ice hockey game on your own and end up with a broken nose, a round trip to the ER, and a boyfriend. Warning(s): Broken nose (obvs) / kinda rushed A/n: Is it kinda inspired by a Saturday evening of mine? Who knows? [Masterlist]
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It was stupid. Who goes to their very first ice hockey game all alone? Well... apparently you. You've tried to ask your friends and even your parents. But your friends were all busy and your father said, "I'm not going to spend my Saturday evening anywhere else except at home, on the couch." Spoiler alert: he and your mother went to a dinner with their friends that evening. Hypocrite.
So here you are, all alone and being very cold. You're having a great time nonetheless — even preferring ice hockey above soccer (don't tell your manager) — but even though you went with a sweater and one of your thicker winter coats, you are so damn cold! And seeing people pass by with steaming coffee you decide to get a hot beverage for yourself once the second break starts.
As soon as the buzzer sounds, you're out of your seat and off to the coffee corner. Smiling at the lady, you order a hot cocoa with whipped cream on top.
"How are you liking the game so far, dearie?", she asks with a kind smile.
Swallowing a big gulp of whipped cream, you wipe your mouth. "It's great! It's my very first one and way more brutal than I thought but it's so awesome. The cold's something I have to get used to", you laugh.
"Well then", she reaches behind the counter and pulls out a bright green beanie, "take this, love. Think of it as a welcome-to-the-sport present." She winks and you thank her profusely.
Seeing as the fifteen minutes are almost over, you quickly hurry back to your seat. But once you approach you see someone else sitting in it. No big deal, enough space. Moving further down, you spot an empty seat between two families and decide it's good enough for you.
Thanking the people who get up from their seats to let you pass, you quickly take place and put on the beanie. To your surprise the combo of beanie and hot chocolate does wonders.
The players skate back on the rink and the game starts again. Your hometown team the Green Snakes stand with 7 to 2 points before the Godrick's Lions and the crowd is electric. You know there's some age-old rivalry between the two teams — two cities really — that you never really understood. But hey, people need something to be competitive about.
For the so many-ith time, the game stops and number 86 is sent to the penalty box. Again. He's been playing rough all game, really firing his pucks at the opposite goal and knocking other players to the side. You pull up his profile on your phone to see who's behind the mask.
Number 86. Riddle, Mattheo. Hmm... he's rather handsome with his dark curly hair and, if you dare say, adorable smile. According to the Green Snakes' website, he's known for playing rough and getting up just as hard as he's knocking people down.
While you're distracted by your phone, you don't see how said player misfires a puck at the goal. It bounces off the sides before launching over the rink walls and into the stands. Straight at you.
With full speed, the black mini-missile lands right in your face. It bounces off your nose to be more precise. You feel it crack under the speed and pass out almost exactly directly.
Meanwhile, on the ice, Mattheo winces as the puck he shot hits the very cute girl straight in her face. He's been eyeing you the whole game that's also why he's getting so much time in the penalty box — to look at you but he won't admit that.
He wants to immediately rush off the ice and run over to the stands where paramedics are loading you on a stretcher. But the hand of his captain stops him and he shakes his head. "We can visit her after the game. It's only ten minutes left and then you can make sure she's fine."
Mattheo knows his captain is right but he can't focus on the game anymore. His coach switches him out for Malfoy and he sends the remainder of the time on the bench. As soon as the buzzer sounds the game is over, and he's off to the dressing room to have a quick shower before sprinting towards the medical bay.
When you came by, you were lying in a slightly warmer room than you remember. Wait... what do you remember? Hot chocolate, the beanie, 86, the puck. THE PUCK!
You shoot up and immediately regret it. The room spins around you and your head throbs. Your nose hurts like a bitch and you have an unrelenting runny nose. A nurse rushes over to you with gauze in her hands and presses it to your nose.
"Oh dear. Try to breathe slowly and through your mouth. I'm afraid your nose is broken. I've already called the doctor to set it straight for you".
"It's broken?", you say softly, not believing what you're hearing. Reaching up with a hand, you touch the tender flesh and hiss as pain flashes through your body. And now your head throbs, amazing...
As the nurse cleans up the bloody rags he turns towards you with a soft smile. "I'll tell your boyfriend that you're awake so he can come in."
"Boyfriend?", you echo perplexed.
That makes the nurse frown deeply and scribble something on the chard she's holding before exiting the room.
Since when do you have a boyfriend? You've surely hit your head pretty hard. How else could you forget a whole-ass boyfriend?
The door opens and a head with dark curls peeks around, scanning the room until his eyes fall upon you. As he closes the door behind him you recognise the guy. The one and only number 86 standing before you with a guilty look on his face. That puck for sure did a number on you.
"How are you feeling?"
"Considering I've gotten a puck against my noggin? It hurts and my nose is broken. And apparently, I've got a boyfriend in the time I was KO."
He sucks in a sharp breath, gripping the edge of the hospital bed pretty harshly. "Yeah... Sorry about that. They wouldn't let me stay if I wasn't family or involved with you." You can see him cringe with the way he phrased that. "I'm really sorry about the whole puck incident. Coach always says I play too roughly and this just proves it..."
Before you can answer, there's a knock on the door and in walks a doctor followed by the same nurse. "Good evening Miss, how are you feeling?", asks the doctor as she shines a light into your eyes.
You throw number 86 a glance. "Despite that my nose is crooked and my head hurts, pretty okay."
The doctor hums. "So no dizziness, vagueness, or forgetfulness?"
You shake your head, slightly regretting the motion.
"Good. Good. I'll grab a colleague from ENT to put your nose back how it belongs and then you are free to go home. Sounds good?"
You nod and soon you're left alone with number 86 again. Breaking the silence, you hold out your hand and introduce your name. Even though he broke your nose, you still have manners.
He's quick to take your hand to shake it. "Matt. Is there any way to make it up to you?"
"You could let me break your nose in return?", you joke, but quickly backpaddle as Matt legitly seems to consider it. "No, you're crazy! It was a joke!"
Matt chuckles awkwardly and scratches the back of his head. "Can I take you out to drink once your nose is fine again?"
A small smile grows on your face and you nod. "Yeah... I would like that."
Around an hour later you let yourself fall on your bed; your nose bandaged and yourself still a little woozy because of the anaesthesia they gave you. You hold your phone dangerously above you as you stare at the text that has come in.
Hey! Looking forward towards our date next week! I promise you we'll stay off the ice (for now) This is Matt btw :) Goodnight
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cherry-smokes · 1 day ago
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I Want You So Bad
AKA the time you got tired of waiting. Based off of I Want You So Bad by Heart. Pairing: Steve Harrington x bassist!reader Word count: 1.5K Warnings: Sugar is uncharacteristically soft for a man.
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Two dates. You've been on two dates with Steve and he's been perfect.
On your first one he took out to dinner. A fancy restaurant that you would never take yourself to. Steve insisted you order whatever you want, when you blushed at the price he just brushed you off.
"Steve this is...very expensive."
"You deserve expensive."
You learned a lot about Steve across the fancy table cloth. He's witty, he doesn't flinch when you bite back at a quip. Which you found undeniably attractive. Excluding Buckley, one of his closest friends is a high-schooler, Dustin, who you've heard about through Eddie. He calls him a dork, and a nuisance. The way he smiles when talking about how 'annoying' it was when Dustin and his friends would make him sneak them into the theater lets you know he loves the kid. When you ask about his parents he dodges the question. You don't press, but you can only assume he isn't close with them. You find yourself sad when he asks about you, just because you want to know so much more about him. You want to know what his favorite songs are, what side of the bed he sleeps on, how he takes his coffee, what he was scared of as a child. You want to know exactly how many moles he has and what his hair would feel like if you were to run your hands through it.
He said all the right things. Asked the prefect questions and clung to every word you said. Opened every door for you, he even let you pick what tape you wanted to listen to in the car! Then, he walked you to your door, and kissed you on the cheek. Which was sweet! At the time you assumed it meant he wasn't just looking for a hookup.
Then the second date came around. You walked around town, and went to the record store. You shared headphones in the listening booth. He listened to your favorite albums, never said an ill word about them even though you could tell he wasn't particularly enjoying Metallica. He even bought a Zeppelin tape to play in the car for you. Afterwards, he drove you home, walked you to your door with an arm around your waist, and he kissed you. On your cheek. Again.
You'd be lying if you said you weren't starting to feel frustrated. After he left, you freaked out for about an hour. It made you feel silly, and ridiculous because it’s just not something you do! You’ve never let yourself lose sleep over a guy. Then again you’ve never liked someone the way you like Steve.
He's sending every signal that he's into you, but why won't he just kiss you? Steve doesn't have the reputation of a guy who takes things slow. It’s hypocritical of you. You know better than to base his actions off of who he used to be. Yet, there’s this ridiculous part of you that likes him so much you can’t help but overthink every single move he makes, or doesn’t make. Was he not as into you as you thought? Maybe he wasn't looking for a relationship? Maybe he's just a really...attentive friend?
You plagued yourself with doubts until he called you up and asked you if you wanted to go see a movie. You said yes, obviously. How else are you supposed to figure out if he’s trying to be more than friendly with you?
So now you're standing in front of your mirror wondering if you should wear jeans or a skirt. You hate that the question of what he would like most even crosses your mind.
When he knocks at your door you almost trip over your feet as you rush to open it and you have to take a moment to get your shit together.
Your hands shake as you grab the handle and open the door.
The cold autumn air hits your face as you swing it open. It works in your favor as it cools your flushed face when you see Steve. His hair looks as perfect as always. His sweater wraps around his arms in a way that makes you feel warm inside. You feel jealous of it as you wish you could wrap yourself around them like it does. Worst of all he smiles at you, and seems so genuinely happy to see you. Friends don’t do that right?
“Hey.”
You gasp for air. “Hi!”
This is ridiculous. You sound more excited than you’d like to. Any air of mystery you wanted to keep is gone.
“Uh- let me just grab my shoes I’ll be out in a second.”
“Take your time, I’m in no rush.”
You quickly lace up your boots. The door stays open and you try not to fumble over your laces as you feel Steve’s gaze on you. When you stumble onto your feet and walk out towards him, he lays his hand on the small of your back as you lock your door.
You try to ignore the shiver that crawls up your spine but it’s impossible when you can feel his warmth pressed against you and the smell of his shampoo reaching your nose. Even the hairspray isn’t enough to turn you off, everything about him is intoxicating. Dizzying. He makes you feel so foggy it’s embarrassing.
“This is a really nice sweater.”
His hand dips to the hem, he fiddles with it as he speaks. “It’s soft.”
You turn your face him, he doesn’t move his hand.
“Thanks.”
His lips quirk up as he tugs at your sweater to guide you to the car.
You’re so fucked.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
He insisted he didn't mind sharing a straw, and put his arm around your shoulder. He leaned in and whispered soft jokes and comments about the movie in your ear and you felt his arm tense up when you giggled at his words. An attentive friend doesn't do that.
A friend doesn't tell you he doesn't want you to go home yet. He doesn't play Heart in the car while he drives you both to lovers lake. He sure as hell doesn't look at you like that when you're talking.
“What?”
He shrugs. “Nothing.”
You give him a disbelieving look. “You’re looking at me weird.”
“I’m just looking at you. Nothing weird about it.”
You lean against the headrest facing him. You smile at him like you did when you first met him. Hoping to make him blush the way he did then. “You’re looking at me like you like me or something.”
“I do like you…or something”
His words are quiet. If you weren’t listening so intently you might have missed them as they flew under the music from the radio. His car is warm, the heat is on and you can still smell popcorn on him. He’s so close but not close enough and the way the moonlight hits his face makes you desperate to touch him.
“Then why haven’t you kissed me?”
There it is. It’s too dark to see him blush, but you see the way his shoulders tense. He looks down and cowers into himself. He’s so curious to you. He can be so sure of himself, so cocky. He’ll grab at your clothes and whisper sweet nothings to you in the dark of a theater. Yet, the moment you force him out of that shell he turns so shy.
“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
You raise an eyebrow at him. He chuckles and you see his fingers start to fidget against his steering wheel.
“I just- I wanted to earn it I guess.”
“I think you earned it the moment you called me sweet Steve.”
He looks up at you then. His fingers tense around the steering wheel again and his gaze gets so intense you hold your breath. It must have been seconds but it feels like ages when he leans in. He hovers, and you can feel his eyelashes kissing your cheeks.
Suddenly. You feel like yourself again, and you reach your hand up to the back of his head. His hair feels just as soft as you imagined it between your fingers as you pull him in. His lips are soft against yours and you feel him gasp softly as you press against him. His hand finally leaves the wheel and lands on your thigh. It sends sparks through you as he digs his fingers softly into the flesh there. Not intrusive or invasive, almost like he’s trying to keep himself grounded.
You never believed people when they said they felt fireworks when they kissed. You don’t now. Kissing Steve is tender. It feels more like a bonfire after you’ve been in the snow too long. It envelops you like a weighted blanket and you curse whatever power created you to need oxygen to survive when you have to pull away for air.
His hand travels up to cover yours behind his head. He holds it there, like he’s scared you’ll pull away.
“Have I earned another one yet?”
Friends definitely don’t ask that.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
a/n: Sugar and Steve are so back. This was shorter than I wanted it to be but I’ll have my asks open for anyone who wants to send in requests or questions. I’m so thankful for everyone who shared their support for my last post! This is a project I want to continue and expand and I would love to hear from y’all:)
the images used are from Pinterest once again!
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Warden: You've never killed an innocent?
Zevran: Now there's an interesting word, "innocent." How many men do you know who can claim to be truly innocent?
Zevran: But if you're talking generalities, such as children and relatives and bystanders and such… never on purpose, but it happens.
Zevran: It's unfortunate, but death comes to us all. If not me, then some wasting disease. Or a fall down the stairs. Or at the hands of a darkspawn. It's all relative in the end.
Zevran: "Death happens," as we like to say. And when I get paid for it, death happens more often.
-
Zevran: In Antiva, being a Crow gets you respect. It gets you wealth. It gets you women… and men, or whatever it is you might fancy.
Zevran: But that does mean doing what is expected of you, always. And it means being expendable. It's a cage, if a gilded cage. Pretty. But confining.
-
Davrin: Lucanis, how do you decide when one of your targets deserves to die?
Lucanis: Usually when the client pays up front.
Davrin: I'm serious. Do you just kill anyone?
Lucanis: No. There has to be merit.
Davrin: "Merit?" Who decides that?
Lucanis: The Talon of the house.
Davrin: And then you just carry out the order?
Lucanis: It's my job.
Davrin: Must be tough to sleep at night.
-
Lucanis: You kill for a living, too, Davrin. How do you sleep at night?
Davrin: Like a baby. The things I hunt are pure evil. Monsters. There are no shades of grey with darkspawn. But you...
Lucanis: Provide a service.
Davrin: What if your target doesn't deserve to die?
Lucanis: Who does? Good, bad, everyone dies eventually. We just speed things up.
-
Emmrich: Do you have any say in your... targets?
Lucanis: You want to know if my victims deserved it.
Emmrich: Forgive me, I shouldn't have asked.
Lucanis: Everyone wonders.
Lucanis: I've never killed an innocent, by my count.
Lucanis: I cannot say if yours would agree.
-
Emmrich: Lucanis, do the implications of your work never trouble you?
Lucanis: Everyone on this team has killed before. I'm hardly unique.
Emmrich: Yes, of course. But in your case, it's a profession, rather than an act of necessity.
Lucanis: I'm not sure the Venatori or the Antaam see the distinction as you do.
-
Emmrich: I find it extremely interesting, Lucanis, that you consider the point of view of your enemies in battle.
Lucanis: I have to. It's much more difficult to find and kill them, otherwise.
Emmrich: Exactly! A utilitarian attitude towards death, and yet you extend empathy to your victims.
Lucanis: Not that much empathy.
Emmrich: Enough to wonder how the Venatori and Antaam view your actions.
Lucanis: Death comes to everyone, in time. I get paid to deliver it. Like a letter not everyone wants to read.
-
I think about this a lot. I'm always... surprised when I see the talk that they're supposedly trying to make Lucanis into the perfect "cinnamon roll" in Veilguard, because his sweet personality doesn't "match" his profession and background. Like, no? That's a very surface level of looking at it, I think.
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Zevran is like this, too. He is an incredibly chill guy, and when you romance him, he is also very sweet and vulnerable, despite being an assassin. They're not that different in that department. They were both trained to be assassins since they were children. They're both traumatized in various ways. But neither of them acts like a bloodthirsty, evil freak. But they both also take pride in the job they do (or did), and how well they can do it, and have no intention of stopping. And yet they both express surprising empathy. (Zevran argues against annulling the Circle! Quite extensively!) And they make pretty much the exact same arguments about being killers for hire, as shown above.
Death is a natural part of life. Sometimes it just comes sooner, because we're there to deliver it. There's (almost) no such thing as an innocent person, so my victims aren't innocent people. Therefore, I've never killed an innocent in my entire life, as far as I know. (At least not intentionally.)
And that's interesting and fun about them! It's beautifully deranged. Lucanis completes an assassination mission, slitting somebody's throat or what have you, and then goes on his cosy coffee break, satisfied with a job well done.
The fact that they both say that they've never, in their opinion, assassinated "an innocent", so it's all good, doesn't automatically make it true and doesn't mean it's not complicated, however. Not every line of dialogue can be taken at face value. As video game players, we're rather desensitized to this, but hearing this should normally be at least a little alarming. For a regular person, at least. And it is for the people in the game! Like Emmrich and Davrin. Davrin has several banters with Lucanis about it. Like, who decides when somebody deserves to die and which contract's going to get carried out? Well, the "CEO" of "the company," of course! What could ever go wrong that way? Emmrich tries to coax Lucanis into saying that he does feel something about the whole thing, because he really wants it to be true. While Lucanis is very matter of fact about it. He knows what the Crows are, and that's it. He doesn't glamorize or demonize it.
So, it definitely isn't that "Veilguard says that Lucanis has never done anything wrong ever in his life," just like Origins doesn't do it with Zevran. Both the men's attitude towards killing is warped in an interesting way, completely in line with their background and upbringing. It shows when Lucanis argues with Davrin about them both being killers, because it completely escapes him (or maybe he ignores it for the sake of the argument) how the killing he does (contracts where the targets tend to be people) and the killing Davrin (a monster hunter, a darkspawn slayer) does is of different kind entirely. His logic is flawed at that point. But to him, it boils down to the fact that "it's just a job," and "killing is killing," and "death is death" regardless of form, and that rightfully baffles Davrin to no end. If anything, it shows how the Antivan Crows are taught to hand wave the issue, because the arguments Lucanis and Zevran both present are too similar to be anything else.
Of course, Lucanis, unlike Zevran, as the grandson of the First Talon and her favourite, might have had some extra privileges and wiggle space in comparison, which might have allowed him to bend the rules sometimes, give him space to show more compassion and act more heroically, because people are complex and there are many layers to what each person might consider right and wrong (e.g. killing is okay in various circumstances, and slavers in particular can get fucked - hell, we do it in video games all the time), but still. The fact that his grandmother wanted to tap a new market, so she made Lucanis specialize for hunting mages, which ultimately led to him killing a lot of Venatori and blood mages, makes it cleaner, which is nice, but then again, we hardly know the full extent of all his work. Moreover, when you ask Zevran to tell you stories about his jobs, you don't get much dirt out of him, either. He talks about some of the goofiest ones he's had. One of his targets that he (unsuccessfully) participated in taking out, a royal that got his position through plotting and murder, he also describes as somebody so immoral he basically deserved it. Also very clean. (Compare both these guys with somebody like Blackwall who truly committed a despicable act of murder for money that we do know of. And this single crime sounds so much more upsetting than anything either Lucanis or Zevran describe. None of the things Zevran says is as awful, besides the murder of his lover, which is framed like it wasn't really his fault, because he was misled.)
It's also worth noting that Zevran talks about how he was the best the Crows had before he left and how it brought him respect, wealth, women, men, or "whatever it is you might fancy." All in all, it comes with benefits. By his own admission, he was well off. But of course that came with a catch, as well. The "gilded cage" Zevran talks about. But that's not what made him leave. It was the plotting, backstabbing, and ever present distrust in the end, which led to the biggest mistake he'd ever made. Much like him, Lucanis also mentions that he had a comfortable life before getting captured, in the same quest where he also talks about how he didn't actually have full control of his life. ("Even before I was captured, my life was not really my own. So much had been determined for me.") The gilded cage comes up yet again. And it was plotting and backstabbing that made him lose a year of his life in the underwater prison.
My point is: Lucanis and Zevran are both assassins, because that's what they've always been, they were trained to be assassins since they were kids, they have a very pragmatic approach to death and killing, which they were most likely taught or perhaps were forced to develop, and they both take pride in how good they are at their job, and express no intention of ever stopping. And yet they both show that they have a good heart in various other ways, turn out to be friendly and incredibly loyal, and even very sweet as lovers. Because people can be complex, and so can be fictional characters. Yes, they're very different men, with different problems and personalities, yet also not that different.
You can't think that Lucanis is "too good" without also thinking that Zevran is "too good." You can't have this problem with Veilguard unless you also have it with Origins, is what I'm saying. And I think this may also apply to some of the other Crows we meet in Veilguard.
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igotanidea · 1 day ago
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The talk : Dick Grayson X reader ( with Bruce Wayne)
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A/n : it's a snippet, I might consider writing it fully
Warning: suggestive but not explicit
Summary: it's time for the bees and bird talk with Dick
***
Bruce walking in on a young adult! Dick and his girlfriend y/n getting cosy between the sheets.
Obviously, as a normally functioning adult and a father, even if just a foster one, the batman takes it upon himself to have a talk about bees and birds with his favourite son.
He got it all planned out, schemed, thought out to avoid surprises and misunderstandings.
He actually had the contingency plans from A to Z drafted for a while, only hoping that those would never come to use.
Unfortunately, seeing y/n, with her blouse undone, hair a mess and Dick's hands (and apparently more) on her, forces Bruce to retreat to hide the blush creeping on. The last piece of his dignity is gone and he is pretty sure there's no good way to recover from such a failure.
He had reached the ultimate botttom.
"Hey B, you good?" Hours later Dick found him in the batcave, engrossed in some feigned, quickly fixed work. It was too easy to figure he would hide there to avoid seeing or - god forbid - hear anything.
"Hm."
"You wanted to talk to me about something, didn't you?" He grinned, delighting in a way Bruce seemed to develop an eye twich.
"Hm".
"Great. I got some time before I get back to y/n, so?"
"Get back?" Bruce turned to face his son and immediately regretted it. He seriously wished to erase the sight of lipstick and love bites on his neck.
"Something wrong?" Once more dick flashed a smile, trying to force a reaction out of Bruce.
"hm."
"we're being safe"
"Amazing"
"and she's okay with it"
"Great"
"And I've studied female anatomy so I know a thing or two about --"
Oh dear lord...
"Dick." Bruce was an inch from having a spasm. How ironic it would turn out to be if gotham lost its protector because of certain golden boy growing up.
"hey did you know that --"
"Get out, Dick."
"But I thought you wanted to--"
"I said get out"
"-talk?"
"I believe you got it all wrong. It was Alfred. Yes. Alfred wanted to talk to you. Not me."
"You sure about it B? You want me to talk to Alfred about -"
"yes. Absolutely. Now go. I'm sure time is of essence"
"it is. Though Alfred took some time off, thanks to your generosity, Bruce. So I'll go, sure, but I've already got so many questions that I don't want to search online and--"
"Dick?" Y/n voice sounded dangerously close to the batcave entrance "Where are you? I'm gonna have to go soon and I need a proper goodbye --"
"coming!!!" Dick yelled rushing off the room " great talk, Bruce. We'll continue it later."
Dick left and Bruce was finally able to let out a groan. The masterplanner forgot to acknowledge the fact that sweet kids tend to turn into feral, hormonal young adults and require actual upbringing.
***
"you're so mean to him, you know that?" Y/m muttered, once again with his lips on hers
"mean? Who, me? Ouch! You're hurting my heart here princess."
"you are. He could easily be a DILF, yet is alone and you're tormenting him."
"but if you saw the look on his face --"
"you're only proving my point of you being mean".
"I'm sure he'll get some, some day--"
"but still- mmm!"
"I remind you that you enabled the plan baby.... Played quite an important part in it." Dick started kissing her a little harder, not even trying to hide where he was heading. "Wonder why that is..."
"cause you're also a -- ohh!"
"you were saying?" He smirked, looking up at her.
"-prick"
"Am I?" His hands moved where she liked it "what else?"
"liar..." She gasped. While it was true he didn't tell her why he invited her over and that his father was in, his movements were serving as a pretty good apology.
Even if knowing Dick it was obviously also a way to boost his ego and prove his point and complete his twisted and deranged plan.
"you know what, I've already had one talk, I don't really need another.... Rather keep my lips occupied with something else --"
***
Bruce came out of the batcave only after making sure it was safe.
Mentally cursing himself for having not one, but four boys under his care.
Which meant that this - whatever it was-- was about to happen again.
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