#that last one isn't really story based

[whiskeyswifty]

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[undercover-bun-etc]

My brain created an entire gacha game for my dream last night and honestly I'm sad it's not real.

[morningmask27]

Hey so, do you ever feel.. Iffy? Bad? Disappointed? That the Fandom at large only became interested in whistlepaw thanks to faer ship with Frostpaw? I admittedly was feeling a bit like that when the ship first started popping up, although I understand that Whis is quite a background character aside from that (and up until then, more or less). So like I get why fae would gain more traction only now but Idk. I can't help but feel a little sad about it since you've made me develop an attachment to this cat. Just curious about your thoughts on the matter!

I get chronically attached to background nobodies, so I'm used to people not really caring about my faves and I honestly like it more that way because popular characters are A Mess of discourse and drama,

but yeah it is a bit sad that Whis is only really seen as a love interest for Frostpaw in the major fandom, but in a way that's also what fae is in the books. Whistlepaw does nothing outside of supporting Frostpaw (and that annoys me So Much for daily whis purposes, I want more material!!!) and I can't blame the fans for not latching onto background WindClan cat #78 and making up a whole world around them

in the end the fandom portrayal is kinda bland, but inoffensive at least. I made Whistlepaw my little silly and have never really cared about the fandom at large; Fae's basically my oc at this point and if a few people enjoy what I do then I'm content

[littlechivalry]

Robin had gotten a lot of things from becoming platonic soulmates with Steve Harrington. Rides to school, hair care tips, unrelenting trauma, slightly bitchy dating advice that to her eternal chagrin actually worked, and entree into a weird little family that she couldn't imagine living without.

But also... Robin had to listen to sex talk.

It wasn't bad at first, she had actually gleaned a lot of advice from his stories that stood her in good stead with a few select girls. But then on the Family Video bathroom floor Steve had asked if Robin would be okay with him talking about sex with guys.

She said yes one time and now it was her life.

Steve had spent most of their shift moving tapes around the store, shuffling them into different genres based on what he thought they might be about. It was his standard 'I have something to talk about but I don't know if I can say it' behavior.

"Look," she said flatly. "I'm stopping this now. You have five minutes to sum up the problem and then I don't want to hear it anymore."

Steve put the last tape, a copy of St Elmo's Fire, into the Action-Disaster section before coming back to the counter, sharing his head. "I appreciate the thought Robbie but I don't think you're ready for this."

Robin gasped, ready to take full and dramatic umbrage when a Tasmanian Devil made of leather jacket and cheap sterling silver jewelry banged into the store.

"Babe, did you ask her," Eddie asked, grinning madly.

"Not yet," Steve whined and before Robin could gather her thought she felt two sets of eyes settle on her, one steady and concerned and the other sparkling with glee.

Robin stepped back from the counter and held her hands out in front of her. "I don't know what's going on here but no, I will not carry a baby for you two. Get Steve knocked up the old fashioned way if you want kids."

Steve brightened for a moment before pouting, "You wouldn't want to bring a little Buckley-Harrington-Munson into the world? Wow, Robs."

Eddie lunged forward, pushing past Steve to plant his hands on the counter. "We'll come back to that Buckley, but we have a different issue. We need you to be a completely impartial party."

"We really don't," Steve said. "This is not a big deal."

"I disagree," Eddie said. "I happen to think this is a very big deal."

"Well, and--," Steve said. "Isn't 'big' the problem?"

"It's not a problem for me," Eddie said, leering at Steve.

Robin stepped forward and waved her hands between the two guys, interrupting their creepy eye contact. "Okay, fine, tell me what's going on but make it snappy."

Steve hummed but didn't say anything. Eddie grinned and looked from Robin to his boyfriend and back again. He opened his mouth but before he could say anything Steve's hand was pressed half over his face.

"Eddie wants me to try sitting on his face but I'm afraid I'll, like, suffocate him to death." Steve grimaced and pulled his hand away from Eddie before rubbing it roughly on his jeans. "Gross, Eds."

Robin shook her head while they started squabbling. Steve was her best friend and Eddie was a close second. Part of being a best friend was apparently arbitrating their weird sex arguments.

The squabbling had evolved into a slap fight so Robin took the opportunity to examine them. They were the same height but Steve probably had a few pounds on Eddie. Then again Robin knew Eddie was stronger than he looked. Given the way Eddie hadn't stooped smiling since he walked in he definitely didn't seem intimidated by the idea.

Okay.

"Okay," Robin said sharply. "Knock it off. I decided."

The two boys stopped, Steve's arm locked around Eddie's neck while it looked like Eddie was trying to either give Steve a wedgie or just straight up shove his arm down Steve's acid-washed jeans.

It took a few moments for them to separate and put themselves back to rights before they were finally standing in front of her waiting for a verdict.

Robin looked from Steve to Eddie, then back again. She nodded towards Eddie before winking at her best friend. "If he dies, he dies."

"Thank you, Buckley," Eddie crowed, before turning on his heel and heading for the door.

"Where are you going," Steve called out.

Eddie turned back. "I gotta do some stretches, baby," Eddie said, rolling his neck. "I have plans." Eddie blew Steve a kiss before rubbing his hands together and walking out the door.

Robin looked at Steve, his hand still clenched in front of him where he had 'caught' the kiss, a bright red flush on his cheeks.

"I'm gonna marry that man," Steve murmured.

[neoanedotheart]

Lazy thing i wanted to do!!! they're just silly :3

I think dave is a pretty princess and John is awkward

I'll be yapping below

I believe that Dave texts John right after he gets his ass handed to him DAILY. It usually plays out like this where they banter and Dave never really goes through the extent of explaining what thoroughly happens to him so John lives in forever ignorant bliss. And this leads Dave to feel like there's more of disconnect because he first of all doesn't really know how to articulate his feelings and second abuse doesn't seem like abuse to the victim. So he goes about everyday unknowingly yearning to be saved by someone greater than him, which is why I put the snow white reference at the end hehe.

Snow white as a fairy tale is extremely cliche, you got the prince in shining armor showing up conveniently on a horse and saving the girl. There's always this hierarchy placed upon the story where the damsel in distress is saved by a man, that man being portrayed as a greater being.

And with John taking place as the prince in this context paints him as this greater being. And I feel like a part of Dave envies and despises John for being this way, for being "perfect" or in a way. Greater than him.

The thing is in the original snow white story she's unconscious, that's undesirable. But it adds to the desperation of wanting to be saved, shining a better looking light on a person who isn't really there for reasons you want them to be. However John is a sincere person, it's more so the lack of communication or true understanding of one another that leads to this rift, this belief that John isn't there for Dave because he loves him, but because he's his friend and it's John's duty as a friend to save him. Which also brings me to the last line where Dave never corrects himself, and how he insinuates that he'll be unconscious due to being placed in a glass coffin much like snow white was when she was poisoned. He's at this stage where he doesn't want to be saved by an outer source, a greater person than him. He wants to be saved by himself he wants to prove worthy, but then conflicting within his mind is also this idea he isn't good enough to. We all know that Dave believes he isn't a hero and explicitly states John is the hero multiple times throughout homestuck. So he stays waiting.

John however, refers to Dave as Cinderella, Cinderella gets abused and put through plenty of torture from her step sisters and is saved through marriage of some person she just met. There's still this base line of being saved by man however there's this more mutual understanding of what they're getting into, a similar yearn for one another. Though he never caught her name he was still willing to find her, the real her. Which is John in this case, he probably understands he's missing something in the big picture but can never find out what and the best he can do is hope that the other half still held on to what they once were and was willing to share.

This is a pre-sburb interaction btw they're just unknowingly foreshadowing a shit ton.

Sorry if there's like bad shitty writing in here, I'm rambling and it's like almost midnight hehe

[b4ddprincess]

i wasted almost a year, i don't want y'all to waste more time too! — my void state journey so far

when you see, "the void state is as easy as breathing!" trust me when i tell you. it is.

last year, i was reading a bunch of void state explanations from different bloggers with different beliefs and it made me confused on whose to believe. sum were talking based on beliefs and theories, while others were talking based on facts. i never wanted to believe the facts, cuz it seemed so difficult to grasp an understanding of how it can be so... anxiously easy.

i definitely used to put the void state on a pedestal, thinking that it was an escape out of my old life into a new one, but it actually isn't. the first time i read about the induction of the void state was actually the basic way of inducing pure consciousness. i played a subliminal, tried it for the first time, got intense "pre-void symptoms" and bailed cuz i was suffocating under my blanket. i tried to induce pure consciousness again, but got no symptoms, focused on my body a lot, got impatient and bailed again. i tried waking up in the void state, and i woke up in the void state once last year, and i assumed it was the last time i cld ever wake up in the void state, even if affirming for days after was in vain.

i was just tht typa person.

i didn't mind doing a method over and over even if it was in vain. really, i was just wasting time.

i created a blog and began writing "void epiphanies" which, to me after thinking about it, were a bunch of misinformation, and many people believed them! i saw the term "pure consciousness", and never acknowledged its meaning. i always thought it was just another name for the void state, but the void state is another name for pure consciousness. not acknowledging it, definitely costed me 10 months.

i tried a bunch of different methods: affirming, states, psych-k, alpha state, silva method, dmt frequency, robotic affirming, affirmation tapes, subliminals, hypnosis, self-hypnosis.... all of this while viewing the void state as a magical escape plan.

i thought entering the void state meant tht my soul was leaving my body. i thought i was entering an empty dimension. yes. i did thought those thoughts. not realising tht i was just wasting my time.

seeing all those void state success stories with people "entering the void state by falling asleep listening to dmt waves" or "i robotically-affirmed for 2 days and i woke up in the void state!".... and all i was doing was overconsuming the wrong information and trying to think of a cheat code to "enter the magical escapee dimension." i was wasting time. i had the instructions i needed without a reasoning last year, and i managed to only use common sense this year, after going back to the same "method" i was running away from.

i wasted so many months running away from the traditional way of inducing pure consciousness, just to end up becoming the person encouraging it. i'm not saying not to do other methods, but with the mindset i had, i definitely wasn't able to induce the void state with other methods unless i detached. i did alpha state meditation many times, and i did induced pure consciousness many times in july and early august with it, but i still felt the need to change, cuz i was procrastinatin here and there, and i was fed up with waking up as pure consciousness and forgetting to affirm.

should i have persisted? well yea 😭

but i also don't regret knowing the truth about pure consciousness, and how easyyyy it is to induce. and i will keep advocating the traditional way more than any other method!

when i unintentionally induced the void state about 10 times inna row in june, tht was when it all clicked for me, but i still ran away from the traditional method after trying to induce pure consciousness. i played hfg's vid in the bg, focused on my body a lot, got impatient, then decided to just sleep with the vid looped in the bg.

it was only last week when i decided tht i was fed up. i decided to relax my body, take slow deep breaths, focus on the darkness behind my eyelids, affirm/daydream and then i induced the void state. i placed my awareness on my body and tapped out. but it was also at tht moment, when i realised the amount of time i'd wasted. i've took note of wht i shouldn't do, and ever since then i've been inducing the void state effortlessly. the only thing for me rn is to sustain it, to then affirm for my dream life, but at least i'm not struggling anymore

so guys! PLEASEEEE read my posts 😐

[royalarchivist]

Tubbo just did a Q&A for his newly announced Realm SMP!

Here are some key takeaways and highlights from it:

Tubbo emphasized that the "team" behind Realm is just himself and Tangofrags. It's a chill server so friends have a sandbox to tell stories, do lore, and have fun.

Tubbo: "I just wanna have fun with my friends, dude. I'm not trying to be the big 'bringing communities together guy'. I just wanna play with my friends. That's a lot of pressure." (57m 12s into stream)

These are the initial 25 players, but he plans to add more people in the future, and he already has 5 people in mind to add for the next event.

There is NO mod pack! Realm SMP is vanilla, it's just custom texture packs and plugins.

There are no set DND classes, but people can use their skill points to unlock certain things on skill trees and build their own classes. Realm SMP won't be 100% accurate to DND.

Tubbo hopes to have an event every week, but he reminds people to "manage their expectations" because he's only one guy – he can't do events like Purgatory because he doesn't have a massive team like Quackity had for that.

[ Continued ↓ ]

—

He has a 6 month timeframe in mind, but if the server fizzles out in a month, then it fizzles out in a month. Realm SMP will last as long as people play it!

There's no plans for an in-game translator because it's expensive and also Tubbo "doesn't want to step on Quackity's toes" :(

Lore is dependent on what the people on the server do, he likes more freestyle flowing RP.

There IS a life system! Players have 3 lives, but it's only "semi-hardcore" because other players can craft an item to bring people back at 1 life. When a player dies, their stats are set to 0 and they go into spectator-mode. When they're revived, they are brought back at 1 life with all their stats back.

The Nether IS enabled, but the End isn't enabled yet because Tubbo wants to make a cool custom boss fight.

There's no big team behind the server, it's just Tubbo and Tango helping him with some things he might not understand (however, he has a team he wants to use for the New Year Event he has in mind). He may look into getting some admins to help enforce rules.

Tubbo says he's happy to do anything himself, but if people really want to be an admin, it'd be voluntary like a Twitch mod kind of deal. (He already has a team of people he goes to for admin stuff, it wouldn't be random people being admins). However, he says if his merch does well, maybe he can get 1 or 2 people to help.

Tubbo says he's been overwhelmed by the amount of support it's received so far, but he's a bit nervous too.

He says the Realm SMP concept came to him in a dream.

Realm SMP will have proximity chat.

Events won’t be all PVP-based because he wants people to enjoy the events even if they aren’t a huge Minecraft player.

The only two banned items are mending books and elytra, which will be tied to future events (elytra can be won in one event).

An hour before the server launches on December 5, he'll be showing off more features.

Please note that many details will likely change / be clarified / updated by Tubbo at a later date!

Check out this post for the rest of his Q&A and more details.

[vaspider]

In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

****

*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

[deep-space-lines]

hey yknow what would be fuckin’ sick

This is technically an OC, though I’m not sure how much I’m gonna draw her considering... *waves hands*

her name is Vyšehrad (vee-sheh-rod). pronouns she/her but like a boat

basically the story in my brain (which takes a lot of liberties with canon because I can do whatever I want) is that she's one of the last earthmovers to shut down near the very end of the war/very beginning of the New Peace, and her people left to find a new home before she completely lost power

she ends up lying in a field, too weak to move but with just enough power to regain consciousness on the few rare occasions that sunlight made it through the clouds, and gets into a ~toxic yuri situationship~ with another much smaller machine (placeholder name Lancer, bc they're a scraphead who incorporated part of Vyšehrad's own lance into their arsenal) who kinda turns her into their home base and defends her from other machines while she sleeps, not really out of any care but mostly because she's a very large source of blood and Lancer wants that for themselves

Vyšehrad is lonely after years of basically holding an entire city on her back and appreciates the company as her waking moments become increasingly rare, and Lancer slowly begins to care for her, neither of them knowing which day will be her last. naturally this is ultrakill so they both die tragically <3

the cathedral aspect of her design isn't even all that important to her character tbh i just thought the concept would look really cool. of course i like gothic architecture i was born in prague

[harmonysanreads]

Hello !!! I hope you’re doing fine and enjoyed last patch quest! I really really love your writing, and especially like the way you write Ratio,,,,, that yandere Drabble you posted a while ago with Ratio and Aventurine sharing reader has been haunting me in the best ways <33

Since your request are open, could I ask for a one-shot of yandere Ratio and Aventurine? If it’s fine I’ll ask for reader to be shy/introverted but otherwise I’ll leave it up to your inspiration! Maybe about life at home, or visit in Penacony? Maybe they’re tormenting Reader through strip-poker? Maybe Ratio was inspired by the shrinking device and now they’re having fun with their pocket-sized darling? Anything you fancy I’m not difficult, I only ask you have fun!! <3

(I assumed your no-sequel rule only applied to one-shot, I deeply apologise if I was wrong fjekjdksjd)

Inure

yandere!aventurine x reader x yandere!dr ratio

cw(s) : yandere, forced proximity, slight dehumanization (but everything is sauteed in humor so bon appetit ✨)

wc : 1k

hi nonnie!! thank you so much for your sweet words<3 tbh every idea you presented was very enticing and i'll definitely keep them in consideration for later. for now though, i really wanted to write something soft for these two, i hope you don't mind :>

Inconveniences come in many forms.

Some more candid than most, while others lurk in the shadows of carelessness like hyenas ; ready to pounce on the unsuspecting prey at the opportune time. Trouble and tribulation eclipse the course of human life, masquerading as two sides of the same coin. What they are, in truth, a pair of mischievous twins who are always watching, evaluating and trapping their victims in elation-filled jumpscares. It is also true that woes differ based on the individual, some even see fit to opine that the source of misery is the individual themselves.

Your vexations however, are dictated by two idiosyncratic persons with interests as farther apart as two solar systems. Which isn't a lot if one considers the magnificence of the universe, but distanced enough to be the tillable land of your miseries. Said inconveniences usually arrive dressed as revoked privileges, confiscation of entertainment items and... movie nights.

A night where you're supposed to be enjoying a film as a group shouldn't have been such an adversity if the aforementioned individuals respected the bare minimum of being normal. On usual occasions, who you end up accompanying is maintained through a strict schedule as opposed to the much friskier notion of rolling-dices that was favored by a certain blonde (in which he always emerged victorious and was thus declared irrationally imbalanced by Veritas) — but, an unforseen lapse of management and chaos was bred.

In matters that concern you, it seemed as though even the most seamless co-operations failed to reach a simple consensus. So when the erudite Dr Ratio expressed eagerness to spend a ‘relaxing afternoon’ with your person, it clashed quite clamorously with Aventurine's desire to have you participate in one of his many adrenaline-high games. And because of the decrease in release of dopamine that came from being a frequent observer of their arguments, you ended up suggesting this dreadful activity ; Ratio's silent perusal by your left and Aventurine's equally quiet phone browsing by your right are all that remains of the earlier fiasco.

You consider it a shame, because unbeknownst to them, you actually were plotting ways to watch this particular film. But, when at approximately fifteen minutes into the story you realized you were the only one among you three that was paying it any attention at all — you felt, quite blatantly, deflated. Surprisingly though, that was not the main source of your current misery at all, no, no ; what was causing you distress was the deplorable portion of space that they alloted to you from the couch.

At least Ratio has the habit of crossing his legs subconsciously, making your life just a miniscule easier. Unlike Aventurine whose default setting is to be attached to any patch of your skin anytime you're within his radius and when he brings that to the cauldron of being compressed between him and Ratio — it perfectly justifies why you're dancing between the provocative lines of mild annoyance and a meltdown. You'd believe they forgot about your existence altogether if not for Ratio's definitely-not-intentional shifting and the without context headpats from Aventurine.

Their treatment, although (probably) not deliberate, suggest you to be the equivalent of the pampered housecat and if one was to generously point out the expression on your face at present, that allegation would be right.

You stifle a sigh that transitions into a yawn with your only friend in this dreadful world, your plush pillow. The dialogues exchanged by the actors in the movie gradually become unintelligible as your vision morphs into a kaleidoscope of black dots and patterns. You draw your knees closer until they become parallel to your chin, musing a scenario where you lean so into the couch that it swallows your form and hurls you into a wonderland free of covetous hands or hearts. Where you could roam without eyes attached to every move you make and most importantly, where the notion of inconveniences would cease to exist.

You've seen it happen in shows a younger you indulged in and a passing thought makes you smile sardonically ; the world is so bizarre that you've effortlessly found yourself in a situation as complex as your current one but, not bizarre enough to make fantasies such as these a reality. The noises from the screen, Ratio's nonchalant page turning and the fragrance of Aventurine's cologne make your lucidity sway, until darkness cradles you close.

That night, you found yourself having a rather tender dream. In your dream, the blonde promptly busied himself in positioning you more comfortably on his lap upon feeling your slumbering head hit his shoulder. You felt succinctly amused upon the ‘place the pillow under their head, moron!’ that left a certain virtuoso's lips. Said virtuoso, shifted the rest of your body to be rested on his lap with a gentleness that baffled even Aventurine. Some say that dreams are manifestations of the desires that stay stagnant within the crevices of our minds. If that theory holds even a fraction of credence, then the percipience of what your subconscious desires, leaves you feeling as solemn as sated.

By the hour you gain awareness of the waking world again, there is but silence surrounding the living room. Your first blink is followed by a series of more and your sense of feeling works faster before your sense of sight, it sticks quite insistently just above your knees and atop your head. You roll a bit and realize they are in fact the hands of Ratio and Aventurine respectively, holding you away from kissing the floor and cracking your nose. As your vision gains more clarity, you notice the purple-head, supported by the palm of his left hand and the arm of the couch. You rise up and notice Aventurine mirroring Ratio's position, you conclude them both to be asleep judging by their collective inertia despite your movements.

Your eyes shift downwards towards the pillow on which you rested moments before and seeing it positioned exactly atop Aventurine's lap, confirm your suspicions that the scene you witnessed in your sleep had, in fact, happened in reality. Perhaps the universe heard your hopeless plea and bargained it with this speck of generosity.

They really didn't move an inch — but the bubbling warmth was soon pushed down by — as if I was a cat they didn't want to disturb!

being treated like a cat by two of the most cat-like characters in hsr lol

[kinardsevan]

What is your opinion on Tommy coming back or not? And in they case we see him again, do you think it’ll be just for closure (ex: Abby in season 3) or maybe for a BuckTommy second chance?

fun fact: i was considering doing an entire breakdown with a bunch of Oliver's interviews from the start of this arc until now to point to my opinion:

Tommy is coming back. The romcom theme is still in effect, and we're only about midway through the 3rd act.

Long story short (and without sources right now), I think that the interviews were actuallly pointing in this direction with the wording for a hot second. We have OS telling us that he thinks the best relationships have a "will they, won't they" bit where the audience and the characters are pining. We've seen this play out on the show. And we also have to remember that Oli knew during this interview that the breakup was coming. We also have the interview (I believe it was the Decider one I linked last week) where he mentions choosing to fight for the relationship or not. I feel like a lot of people have taken the context of that and twisted it into "they didn't do it right away, so they're not going to". Except, there's ANOTHER quote of relevance, which is Oliver talking about how Buck's queerness isn't tied to Tommy or Eddie, and only to himself.

Obviously, there have been things said since 806 that would point towards me being delulu, except, here's the issue: TM, OS and LFJr are NOT going to tell us that Tommy is coming back if that's the intention. It would spoil the surprise of it all, and the win of it all. What fun is there in that? What TM has said is that Tommy is Buck's romantic past but that doesn't mean he won't turn up again in the future (all relevant and true facts which do not shut down a reconciliation). Lou never out-and-out said he was done with the show. He's said time and time again that he wants to come back. TM has mentioned Tommy coming around again. OS literally said in an interview "they may run into each other on scene and have it be awkward".

Now obviously we don't actually have the full story with how things went down and the show decided to go with splitting the boys up. I think the fact that Lou has called out the bullying but says he wants to come back suggests that it wasn't him saying it was too much. I have two theories that could honestly run concurrent with one another:

Evan and Tommy break up in 806 at the end of the episode. With 911 having 18 episode seasons, this quite literally only makes up the first third of the season. It set up the beginning of the year for us. We're now two episodes into the second part of the season with a pretty clear idea of where the next three will go and suggestions (by fans, nothing official) that the "soonest" we could see LFJr again is 812. This is reasonable, as it would be the end of the middle of the season. Knowing that TM has suggested he might do a multi-episode season finale, pushing LFJr back into the show in 812 (or even the end of 811 if we go with my theory that Eddie could possibly leave around this time and Tommy helps them pack up/his and Buck's first time spending time around each other again), there would still likely be something around this time period that would be around when they would open the doors to this. As it is, we know that 809 and 810 go together, and then we'd have 811 to really flesh out the end of Buck's fling. I think there's even more possibility of LFJr being in this episode as well because if the plan is to bring them back together (which everything has been suggested so far ON screen in terms of keeping Tommy "in" the story), three-episode arc gives us several things: a. it allows the show to make the point that Buck's queerness is not intrinsically attached to Tommy; that his interest in men is as equal as he know his interest in women is. b. it gives them the ability to also show that his feelings for Tommy are not based in Tommy being his "first", or Evan needing to "discover" more about himself. They're in love with each other, and the show has given us the pieces for that. LFJr has acknowledged it in an interview, Tommy loves Buck. We also know that Tommy's line to Evan is "you'd end up breaking my heart, and I don't think I could deal with that". When I hear that sentence, what I'm actually hearing is "I'm already in love with you, and if I let myself fall more in love with you by being with you every day all the time and this ends, I won't survive it". By relation, we have Josh ask Buck if he loves Tommy and Buck waffles, but I think this has more to do with his lack of understanding of what a healthy love is in a relationship, given his past relationships. He never got to tell Abby. Ali left. and saying I love you to Taylor wasn't about the core of actually being in love with her, which I think is another important piece for BuckTommy: they don't just love each other, they're in love with each other. Still, sometimes it's hard to quantify that feeling, and I think (as I've referenced before), for Evan it was easier to ask Tommy to share a living space with him than to share how he feels about him because historically, things haven't worked out well for him when he's been in love outwardly. Further, the questions Josh asks Evan are directly correlated with loving someone, and Evan answers yes to all of them. (I don't think I need to add this, but he also sees a future with Tommy, talks about being engaged or married. He's serious about Tommy in a way he never has been before.)

There's also the theory that the breakup happened because of scheduling conflicts. Now obviously the show could've found other ways to work around LFJr's scheduling issues by having Tommy go on a trip or what-have-you, but let's remember OTHER things that have been said by OS in prior interviews: a. back in June, he did an interview where he stated that he wanted and hoped that BuckTommy would go through issues that couples normally go through in their first year together. He wanted normal issues. This storyline IS normal. b. he didn't want to repeat Tarlos. By the very definition of what the show is doing right now, we're not. Tarlos and BuckTommy are their own things with their own reasonings.

One of the other things I also keep being pulled back to is these issues: first of all, we know how LFJr plays with the 911 demo, given that they got to see it last season. It's why he was written into more episodes after his initial four episode arc and brought back. ABC has also used BuckTommy in their own adverts, which suggests that they are very supportive of the relationship continuing because it draws in viewers. Truly giving that up for good feels like dousing yourself in gasoline and then considering striking a match. Second, people also keep calling out that TM only plans a few weeks in advance. I believe this is true with story beats. We know that the writers room has a general idea on character arcs, thanks to some of the discussion on the cheese page post-806. I really struggle to believe that TM didn't know going into going forward with the breakup whether or not he wanted to bring LFJr back. We know he waffled back and forth on the idea of the breakup, meaning he probably had other solutions on his mind for whatever LFJr's schedule needed adjusting for, and this is what he decided on. Also, even if 8b hasn't been broken down yet (we know it hasn't), they would still know at this point what they do or don't want, what their ideas might be. Solidification for why Tommy should be brought back is directly shown in the reaction by the GA and the fandom to the breakup. They may not know exactly how that reunion happens yet, but what they have suggested is that Buck's new relationship will be short-lived. That he's using it to cope. We also know he's still processing the break-up and still misses Tommy. These are all things that point to the story not being over. Plus, I feel (once again), if the story really was over and they didn't have plans to continue this in 8b, LFJr wouldn't be talking about wanting to go back. It be far more "yeah that sucked, but it's over now and what can you do? I'm off to this new show and I'll never be back." (I've commented also on the fact that the fangirlish interview comment about his "i'm going here, doing this, have some opportunities" statement is very run-of-the-mill. Obvs I could mean something. Or it could literally just be a canned answer.) (This might feel a little off-center, but I think his commentary on trusting TM and knowing what he's doing in one of his post-806 interviews directly suggests that he believes the story is going to be handled properly.)

I realize at the end of the day, all of what I'm piecing together could mean zilch and Tommy could possibly never come back. They could truly just drop the story and never circle back around, set fire to a beautiful arc and lose thousands (possibly millions) of viewers. I've certainly suggested myself being one of them. But I don't see BuckTommy only getting an Abby fix for two reasons. LFJr wants to come back and continue the story, and Connie Britton only ever intended to do one season. Also, the fling has been called out as being planned to be short-lived. Why bother mentioning that if you don't have other plans for the story.

The last thing I'll leave you with is my commentary from the interview Oli and Aisha did with the guy from Chicago. That reporter obviously liked the BuckTommy storyline and said he's choosing to believe that the relationship is paused, not over. By relation, we had Oliver say three things: (1 and 2) Buck is still looking for love, both in himself and with another person. (3)The season is only half over. Circle that back to 806-808. Buck is finding love in himself by dealing with it in a healthy way (so far) with the baking. We've also seen the "cracks" Oli mentioned with his continued urge to want to text Tommy, as well as him fighting it off by baking (referencing the "pendulum swinging"). Looking for love in others will likely be this arc where he tries to deal/move on. I feel like we collectively watched the end of 806, and then 807 and 808 yelling at the TV "you're in love with him, piece it together already!" (or maybe that was just me???). But truly, whether it's a fling, his therapist, or Bobby/Maddie/Eddie who finally spells it out of or him, I think there will be a point at which we see that come to fruition. The seeds were sewn in for it in the scene with Josh. Now it's just about watching those seeds sprout.

Final note: we've had a good run up to this point with these two. Did we truly thing that the honeymoon phase would last forever? (I didn't. Conflict and the pink bubble popping have to happen eventually.) If we really want to suggest that what BuckTommy has is real, they have to go through this and come out the other side. I think everyone is justifiably frustrated due to the 4 month wait on new episodes (I personally would not have left people hanging quite like this, but that's just me), but the narrative does lead us toward what the show is doing with the suggestion that it does have a natural (and good) conclusion. (Possibly with a helicopter/truck/jeep crash?!)

And just as my singularly LAST note, here's my other thing: Evan and Tommy both have abandonment issues. (Tommy's are clear based on the break up and we know Buck's.) By that correlation, when these two finally get back together, they're never going to fucking let the other go.

(This was so much longer than I intended it to be, but that's my answer ��😂😂😂😂😂)

[thewonandonly]

BE MY MISTAKE

PLAYLIST : spotify

PAIRING : ghostface!lee jeno (nct) x afab!reader

GENRE : horror/thriller(?), fluff, smut, angst (hurtfic)

SYNOPSIS : "happy halloween! time to play one giant insensitive prank on you like the popular movie franchise "stab!" lol it'll be funny dw"

WC : 12,670 words

WARNINGS : heavily based on the scream franchise. established relationship, strong language, jeno = billy and reader = sydney essentially, jeno and reader have sexy time with the mask on, oral (f. receiving), p-in-v sex, cunnilingus, dirty talk, um premeditation 😀, no happy ending. guys this is literally about a (fictional) murderer. there is a chasing scene. think scary movie 1 in the theater but more, like, serious.

AUTHOR'S NOTE : happy october :3 when you really think about it, isn't halloween time everyday? here's something i actually worked on bc im insane. also, there's a bit of an inconsistency with the writing; i said jeno already got tickets but obvi theyre seeing it at the theater party. i was already 3/4 of the way done writing it when i remembered so pls just ignore it plsplspls i beg. as always, please let me know if i forgot any warnings <3

DISCLAIMER : the characters in this story are to be allusions to real people, and none of the situations, personalities, and actions found here should reflect reality. i do not believe in any of the problematic actions displayed and mentioned. this story was created with zero intention to violate the images of the artists.

It was October, which meant another "Stab!" movie was going to be released within due time, which also meant, everyone was going to harp on about the events that happened last year; that happen every year. The "Stab!" movies that got rereleased in theaters every year for a week were really... not all that good, in your (unprofessional) opinion. They were poorly made "based-on-a-true-story" movies that influenced a worldwide prank across the world that caused a lot of actual real world deaths and trauma. But, your boyfriend, a film student, thought it was one of the best movies ever made! You remember you both started dating around this time almost three years ago and seeing the rerelease of the 1997 slasher film was quite unexpected. You didn't even know it existed until that time, when Jeno, your boyfriend, excitedly asked you out on that first date to see it.

You could remember your boyfriend shoveling buckets and tubs of popcorn into his mouth as you could barely stomach the thought of Sidney Prescott being harassed for years, decades. Your own judgement was being questioned that night and you ignored it.

Sitting at your laptop in the library, you let out a deep and long sigh as you stared at the blank word document. Given it was October and you were a criminal history student, it was only natural that you were given the assignment on criminal offenses that happened during the Halloween season. And of course, the first thing that popped up into your head was the Woodsboro Murders, after all the rewatches over the last year. The tabs open on your computer about the crime significantly slowed down your laptop that you were willing to opt for the books that rested on the library shelves.

And if it wasn't the cherry on top of your already obnoxious day, your computer crashed. Meaning, browsing the aisles for any information about your subject and writing the information down the classic "pen-to-paper" way was the only way you were going to get your work done, which was probably a blessing in disguise, considering you knew how easily you could get distracted.

You dropped your head to your hands, letting out a sigh before you lifted your head, your laptop slamming shut.

"I wanna play a game." Your boyfriend spoke in a sinister voice as he looked at you, holding a Billy the Puppet mask from the Saw films over his face, before he pulled it down to smile at you.

You sighed again, packing up the laptop, "Not funny." You grumbled.

Jeno laughed, turning his wrist to look at the mask, "What? Who doesn't love Billy the Puppet?"

You glanced at Jeno through your lashes and zipped up the bag you had, before walking over to the Windows Vista desktop your university refused to update and searched up your keyword: "Woodsboro." And you hoped your boyfriend wouldn't peek over your shoulder and-

"Woodsboro?" He perked up and looked at your face, "Are you studying about it?" He began to overload you with questions; "Why are you studying it?" or "How far are you along?" or "Can I help you with whatever you're studying this for?"

You couldn't blame him, you really couldn't. He was like a puppy who just found a stick in the yard. You knew that if you even slightly mentioned "Stab!" or the murders, you'd have to deal with your boyfriend bouncing off the walls. You were surprised he never decided to join your criminal history class, purely based on the fact he was the most knowledgeable person about the subject that you knew.

You looked at the top three recommended books, and erased the search from the results, wandering down to the section of the library. Jeno followed close behind. "It's for my criminal history class." Was all you said.

"I can help you!" He chuckled.

You stopped right at the final section pulling out the book titled "The Woodboro Murders" by Gale Weathers. It was a best seller, apparently, if the bright red font at the top of the book wasn't enough to tell you that. You held it in your arm before you pulled the second book out and placed in on top of the other. "Jeno, I know you're excited to help but it's history. This isn't some trashy movie about slashers."

Jeno winced as you criticized his favorite movie, holding his hand to his chest, "Come on, baby, you know I know better than anyone about this stuff." He smiled, "I can help you. I don't know just the trashy horror movie stuff. I know the psychology and the science behind it."

You attempted to walk away, but Jeno quickly pulled you back to smile at you, the Billy the Puppet mask still lingering in his hand.

Jeno was always handsome, and he knew it too. If there wasn't multiple times he was able to win you over with just his looks, you'd be lying. So, when he looks at you with his soft smile, and his soft eyes, you begin to fall all over again. You take in his features; the mole that sits under his right eye, his nose, how beautiful his eyes looked.

Fuck, you swore to yourself, here we go again. "Fine, you can help me." You almost grumbled. Almost. "But, I'm not using the movie as a source." You pointed at him, "Everything we include has to be in any of these books or reliable sources on the internet."

Jeno held his hands up once more, chuckling, "I got it. I got it. Consider the existence of Stab completely erased from my mind from this moment forward."

"Good." You continued down the middle of the book shelves, grabbing another book, your boyfriend following close behind, his hands brushing against the spine of the books.

Jeno perked up, "Hey, we've got a few days before our anniversary. I was thinking we could go see that rerelease on the day of."

You glanced at him once more, "I really need to keep a counter of how often you mention that movie."

As much as you hated the movie, and it's effects after the release, it was like you were reliving your first date with him. Last year, you guys went to the same theater, ordered the same snacks — a large popcorn with extra butter, gummy candy and one large soda you both shared — and you both were lucky to get the same exact seats as your first date. And you hoped that you could relive that day over and over again.

You glanced at Jeno, tilting your head to the side, "You already have the tickets, huh?" You asked.

"Yup." Jeno rummaged through his pockets and pulled out the tickets to show you, throwing his arm over your shoulder, "Same auditorium; same seats."

You smiled to yourself. Sure, he could tick you off mentioning "Stab!" ten to twelve times a day, but... you loved him. He was your boyfriend. And the attention to detail he always had was admirable.

You pecked his cheek, making his smile grow even wider, feeling your chest tighten as you admired his features silently once again, holding the books in your arm as you ran your fingers through his hair.

He was annoying, but he was also sweet. And he was all your own.

After a long and grueling study session, cramped hands, and an overwhelming amount of information that you weren't even aware of, it was now officially 8pm, and the university library was closing for the night, the librarian grabbing the books off your desk to add to the cart of growing stock. Despite Jeno's promise, he continued to cross reference "Stab!" while he read pieces from Gale Weathers' book. You swore, you couldn't get through a paragraph before your boyfriend said, "I remember that in the movie."

The sheet of paper that held your precious grade was zipped up into your bag, kept nice and neat in between your laptop and your textbook. Jeno held your hand as he walked you through the dark sidewalk down the University Road, where your shared apartment was located. Jeno and you have lived together since the second semester started in the last week of August.

The co-ed dorm you two lived in was fairly small — one floor and only 17 dorm rooms. It also happened to be the first place you met Jeno. Jeno originally stayed in the dorm room across from your own, which is the current one you both stayed in now. You remember him peeking out of his dorm room door with nothing on but a pair of grey sweatpants, shouting something at his friends as they ran down the hallway. You later found out they were his dorm mates — Mark and Donghyuck. When you stepped into the room, the striking contrast between the two sides of the room was nauseating. Jeno had action figures, replicas and movie posters decorating his side; something every movie buff held proud. Your side was almost empty. You barely had any decorations on the wall and the only decorated area was your desk. It wasn't much, but it was home, at least for now.

When the door to the room opened, you let out a sigh, kicking off your shoes and dropping your bag on the couch, you fell onto your tiny dorm bed. "Finally, nap time." You mumble.

Jeno set his own items down and sighed, "You should relax for now and then we'll pick up where we left off."

You had a routine of coming home from either work or school; kick off shoes, set stuff down, nap. It was the same every single day. Jeno had a very opposite routine. He always kept his slippers on, he neatly placed his items beside his desk and then he sat down, and watched a movie off his scratch away chart of the one hundred highest rated movies of all time.

Yet, today, he seemed to be in a different mood. He hung up the Billy the Puppet mask next to the plethora of other horror movie icons, before his hand brushed along his prized possession, the killer from the Woodsboro murders. It was a little odd that his favorite mask would be one from actual real life cases, but you know it wasn't because of that. It was because of "Stab!" but, you know if you try to explain that to someone, they'd just give you a dirty look and silently judge you, or more rather, your boyfriend. Maybe a little bit of you, as well, for trying so hard to defend your boyfriend.

Grabbing the mask of the infamous double killers, Jeno pulled it over his head, looking at you through the mesh eyeholes, crawling his way across the impromptu king bed, leaning close over your shoulder as you laid on your stomach. The smooth pvc plastic and the polyester fiber brushed against your skin, and you turned your head to look at him. "What do you think you're doing?" You asked with a bite.

Jeno shrugged, "I don't know. Aren't girls into this type of stuff?" He whispered through the mask, slowly lifting it over his head to look at you, "I thought girls were into the, like, masked guys and shit."

You scoffed, laying on your hand, "Some girls. And I don't think it's actual killers they're into."

Jeno shrugged, pulling the mask down once more, running his hands against your shoulders, his thumbs rubbing against your shoulder blades, "I don't know. I've seen some people into some pretty messed up guys."

You rolled your eyes again, "Some people are into that stuff." You shrugged, turning your head to the side as he ran his hands over your skin, "Fuck, I don't know, Jen. I hardly even know if I like my school major."

"Fine, fine." He scoffed, "But you don't even wanna try it with the mask on once?"

You rolled your eyes, "Take the mask off, Jeno."

Jeno sighed, pulling the mask off before tossing it to his side of the makeshift bed, "You don't even wanna spice up our sex life a little bit?"

You rolled over so you were on your back, his legs straddling your hips in some type of sick power play. He looks amazing up there, you thought. Your fingers traced the curve of his thighs, "I think our sex life is perfectly fine, if you ask me." You shrugged playfully, "Maybe some other time?"

Jeno groaned, "You're ruining this marriage." He responded sarcastically, "It's someone else, isn't it?" He crossed his arms.

"Yes, oh, my god, I completely forgot I was having sex with your manager from the theater." You gasped.

"With Jaehyun?" Jeon gasped, "I don't blame you. How'd you pull him?" Much to your dismay, he climbed off from on top of you, laying his head on your shoulder as you both laid down.

You shrugged, "You know, same way I pulled you."

Jeno rolled his eyes, "Okay, quit it. I'm actually starting to think you're fucking Jaehyun." He grumbled, "Speaking of Jaehyun, the Halloween Party. Are we going or what?"

"Yeah, sure. We have nothing else going on." You sighed, "I'd much rather go to a Halloween party at the theater than here at one of the sororities or frats." You rolled onto your side so you were facing Jeno, smiling sweetly.

"Sounds like a plan to me." He gave a dorky smile, "We could probably even skip the date night and just go to the party."

"You don't wanna see the movie?" You mumbled, "Wait, let me guess..." You cleared your throat, putting on your best "Jeno" voice, "They're actually showing Stab for the party, oh my god!"

"I don't sound like that."

"Um, actually, you do." You teased, nudging his shoulder. "Did I get it right?"

Jeno chuckled, shrugging, "It's the theatre's most popular re-releases. So, for them to close down early just so we can watch the movie for a party is pretty amazing." He wrapped his arm around your waist, pulling you close to him, "Plus, Halloween is our anniversary. It can be a two-in-one celebration."

"I guess you're right." You mumbled, "Pretty amazing." You repeated, fighting back a yawn, "I'm sleepy." You whispered as you curled up close to Jeno, smiling to yourself as you feel him cup the back of your knee to bring your leg over his hip.

His fingers brushed against the skin of your cheek, laying his head on top of yours, something he normally did when you'd nap so you had complete darkness, "Go to sleep, babe. I'll be here when you wake up." He whispered in your ear, barely above a whisper.

Your heart fluttered at his soft voice, feeling yourself already starting to drift to sleep, relishing in the feeling of his fingers brushing against your skin, his other hand pinned against the bed as it was wrapped around your back and placed on your hip. While you pinned his arm down to keep him from moving, he had your head pinned down with his own. It was your preferred cuddling position; your own pretzel twist.

You woke up hours after you had fell asleep to a loud clatter from the window behind you. Jeno was no where to be seen, and you immediately tensed up at the sound. Laying perfectly still as if you were still sleeping, you didn't dare attempt to put your life on the line.

Oh, god, you thought, is this really happening right now? Your mind began to race with a million different thoughts, "I don't wanna end up on Cold Case Files," and "I don't want to go out this way."

"Shit." You heard in a familiar voice, turning around to see your boyfriend climbing in through the window.

You sat up straight, "Jeno?" You called out through your gravely and sleepy voice, squinting your eyes as your boyfriend shined the flashlight from his phone in your eyes, your hand shooting up to block the light from your eyes, "What are you doing?"

Jeno pointed to the door, "Locked myself out." He grumbled, stumbling as he finished climbing through the window, quickly bending down as a metal jingling echoed between the two of you.

You just glanced as Jeno quickly shoved the keys into his sweater pocket, too tired to care, "Hm..." You hummed as you laid back, "If you went out with Mark and Jaemin, I don't mind." You sighed.

Jeno chuckled as he made his way around the room to set down his items, "Heh, you caught me." He rubbed his neck, climbing into the bed beside you once more, "I snuck out an hour and a half ago to go out and eat."

You could tell he was just as tired as you were a few hours ago, but he was forcing himself awake, "What'd you guys eat?"

"Meat." Jeno shrugged, "Nothing exciting. You know those two." He buried his face further into the pillow, his eyes closing, "Did you sleep well, baby?"

You nodded, "Yeah." It's all you said, reaching your hand up to brush some of his hair from his eyes, your thumb brushing against his cheek, "As much as I'd love to stay here and cuddle, I should get that paper done."

Jeno hummed, peeking an eye open, "Did you want any help?"

Your heart warmed at the question; not because he asked, because he was willing to help you even though he was tired, "No," You whispered softly as you took into consideration his restlessness, shaking your head, "No, baby. Just rest. I can handle it." You placed a chaste kiss to his neck, slowly sitting up. You grabbed a plush blanket to wrap around your shoulders, making your way to your desk as you pushed yourself off the bed.

This was normally how you and Jeno both functioned; one was awake at the crack of dawn and asleep by 9pm, the other was asleep until noon and up until 3 in the morning. It's a miracle that the two of you found a way to be with one another.

Sitting at your desk, pulling out your Holy Grail of a assignment and set it neatly on the top, opening your laptop to look at the screen as you slowly booted it up. Seemed to be running fine, so you decided it should be okay to use, even if you had to keep it plugged in. The previous document saved just how you left it — empty and barren. You didn't even have a sentence on the screen.

Maybe technology wasn't the right move for schoolwork, you thought to yourself as you compared the two forms of documentation. The sheet of paper was a little more than halfway filled, and although the pen ink smudged from your hand swiping across the paper, it still looked pretty damn good. Compared to the digital sister, the paper seemed like the one who had everything all together.

You decided to pick up where you left off on the sheet of paper, using your laptop for music and the pdf of the books you used earlier open on each tab.

You looked up from the paper, squinting your eyes as you looked at the laptop screen, highlighting the words with the cursor.

"That's interesting." You titled your head to the side, reading the line of text in your head.

"Sydney Prescott was unaware at the moment, but she noticed when the killer attacked, her boyfriend, Billy Loomis, and his best friend, Stuart "Stu" Macher were no where to be seen."

The line made you uncomfortable, shifting in your seat at the thought, clearing your throat as you read the line over and over again. Gale Weathers then goes on to describe how significant it is that Sydney Prescott should've realized, but then again, you sympathized with Sydney. After all, she loved Billy.

God forbid Jeno did something like that, you'd probably have to be thrown into an asylum.

You decided procrastination was the best option for the evening, using the pen as a paperweight and closed the laptop screen. You stood up from the desk and sighed, scooting over to the bed before laying down beside the sleeping Jeno.

Despite your previous nap, you laid your head down on the pillow and felt yourself falling asleep.

That evening, you thought about Jeno and your upcoming date night/Halloween party. You opened your eyes through the night, glancing over to check on your boyfriend, going as far to adjust the blanket over his shoulder and brush hair from his eyes to just make sure it wasn't an illusion.

God, you just wished he wasn't a maniac like Billy Loomis.

Despite your best efforts to go to bed at an early time, you tossed and turned, you shivered, your legs grew restless. And then the sun peeked in through your window, and you only glared. 7 in the morning and you were awake even before your boyfriend. Your eyes burned from the lack of sleep and you couldn't help yourself but to curse the sun as it extended across the skyline. You sat up slowly from the bed, looking wistfully out the window of your dorm room, the blanket covering your legs.

The thoughts you had in the back of your mind from a few hours before still lingered in your head, because it's entirely possible for something like that to happen. It's entirely possible for a significant other to go off the bend and be a crazed murderer. And it's entirely possible that it can be the person you share a bed with.

You sighed softly as you pushed the thought away and stood from the bed, the blanket wrapped around your shoulders. You trudged along to the bathroom inside your dorm room, shutting the door behind you as you looked into the mirror. The eyebags were a dark grey, your eyes blood shot and your eyelids hung low. You looked like death to put it simply, and you felt it.

Turning on the sink and grabbing your toothbrush, you squeezed a glob of toothpaste onto your toothbrush and began to brush your teeth. Although, you were sure you weren't really brushing as you felt your eyes struggle to open every time you blinked, your grip on the brush weakening every time your eyes weighed closed.

The bathroom door opened and Jeno stepped inside, placing a kiss on the side of your head, "Morning, baby." He whispered, grabbing his own toothbrush, "Stayed up all night again?"

You looked at him through the mirror, shaking your head before rinsing out your mouth, "No." You mumbled, clearly half asleep, "I was, like, half asleep, half awake the whole night."

Jeno chuckled, brushing his teeth, "You get anything else done on the paper?"

"Yeah, I got a lot done." You nodded, setting the toothbrush back in the drawer you kept it in, stepping off to the side, "There was a lot I learned."

"It's interesting, right?" He spit out a glob of toothpaste, scraping his tongue before starting to brush his teeth once more, leaning on his hand against the bathroom counter.

"Yeah. I didn't know it was that complex..." You mumbled, "Do you have work today?"

Jeno rinsed out his mouth, sighing, "Yeah, baby, I do." He placed his toothbrush next to yours, looking at you with a faux pout, "Unfortunately."

You nodded, pressing a small kiss to his lips, "Well, I'll be here when you get off." You grabbed his hands, squeezing them, "You should probably get ready to go."

Jeno chuckled, kissing your lips again, "You want me to go that badly?" He teased, "You inviting Jaehyun over or something?"

You laughed, "No. Just don't want you to be late."

Jeno's hands rested on your hips, smiling, "Don't worry about that." He kissed you again, lifting you in his arms to sit you on the bathroom counter, his hands brushing against your thighs, "I have plenty of time."

You pulled away from the kiss, smiling, "Do you though? You still have to shower, get dressed, and put gas in the car. Or were you just gonna make me pay for it again?" You teased, climbing off the counter, "Take your shower." You stepped out the bathroom, shutting the door behind you.

Jeno wasn't always the most punctual, which can be frustrating to you and to his co-workers. You wouldn't necessarily blame him, but you would blame his distractions. He has a lot on his plate; school, work, your relationship. He still needed to purchase a camera for his film class. He tries to act like it doesn't bother him, but you know on nights where he stays up a little later than usual, he's dwelling on it.

You sat down at your desk, trying to distract yourself from the exhaustion you felt by watching youtube videos your professor recommended and switching between that and writing your paper. Jeno stepped out from the bathroom and you felt the heat from the shower push into the room, and you smelt his conditioner in the air as he quickly got dressed for work.

"I'll be back later, baby." He pressed a kiss to your cheek, "Don't wait up, alright? Take a nap or something." He ran his fingers through your hair, and you turned to look at him.

"I hope you have a good day at work." You kissed his lips, smiling softly as he turned to walk out the door, "Why do you have that mask with you?"

Jeno paused, turning to look at his bag, "Chenle doesn't think it's an actual replica, so he said he wants to check it out on our break." He sighed, pushing his hair back with his hand, "I'll see you later baby." He smiled, stepping out the door and closed it behind him.

"Okay." You whispered, listening as his keys made a metallic sound down the hallway and the hydraulic door hinge squeaking as it closed shut.

Ever since last night, you actually sat down and read Gale Weathers' book, collecting the information from her eyes. Sure, she had a pretty shallow standpoint from it; This wasn't her trauma to write about. But, it was still pretty interesting as she pieced things together.

You were at least 5 chapters in, hunched over your laptop as you read, anxiously nibbling on your nails as Gale describes the beginning of the stressful months that were ready to approach them. Until, your phone rings. Of course it rings. First time you've actually read a book instead of skimmed the pages in months. You unlocked your phone, answering the call.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Y/N, it's Jaehyun." You could hear the popcorn machine popping behind him, "Jeno's manager from the cinema."

You chuckled, "I know who you are." You smiled to yourself, wondering if Jaehyun even knew the running joke that you and your boyfriend had; prevailing him as a God, "What's up, Jaehyun?"

"Well, Jeno's running a bit late. It's nearly been an hour and I haven't gotten a call or a text or anything from him." Jaehyun's voice shrunk, "Is he there?"

"No, no, he left a while ago. I thought he was heading to work." You put Jaehyun on speaker phone, immediately clicking the Find My app, scrolling to find Jeno, "I'm looking at his location right now and it says no location found." You mumbled.

"Alright, well, I'll try to give him a call or two. You should try, too. He might have had something happen to the car." Jaehyun spoke, "Just let me know. You have my number, right?"

"Yeah, I do." You mumbled, "I'll call him right now and let you know what's up." You quickly hung up and called your boyfriend.

Okay, he had awful sense of time and he wasn't punctual in the slightest but he's never been this late to work, especially when it helps him pay his bills and pay for that new camera he needed. You pressed the phone to your ear before it immediately was sent to voicemail with the automated voice telling you what you already knew: The number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time.

Seriously? You scratched the back of your head, setting your laptop to the side as you leaned against your elbows. There was one way to find him, something that he never left the dorm without.

You opened the Find My app once more, and scrolled to his AirPods. Or more rather, your AirPods that he's borrowed more than you used after you got them. If he opened them recently, you would've been able to find where exactly he was. So you did just that.

But, much to your dismay, he hasn't opened them since the night before, his location still reading as the restaurant he went to last night with Mark and Jaemin.

You called Jaehyun back, "He didn't answer the phone and I tried to see if I could see where he was from the AirPods he used, but no use."

Jaehyun sighed, "Alright, thank you, Y/N." He mumbled, "I hope he'll be able to get off the hook for this. He better have a damn good excuse."

"I hope he does." You whispered, "Sorry I wasn't much help, Jaehyun."

"Don't worry about it, Y/N. You did more work than I did." He gave a small "goodbye" and hung up the phone.

You really hoped he had an explanation for what's going on. You weren't the type of person to immediately jump to conclusions, saying that he cheated. You don't think he's stupid enough to pull something like that.

You sighed, laying your head down on the desk as you drowned in your thoughts, feeling the exhaustion take over your body as laid there.

There it was again. A clatter from the window being forcefully pulled up. You immediately perked up, the drowsiness from the nap you don't remember taking stuck to your body. Your back hurt from being hunched over the desk where you napped.

You leaned back in your chair to peek over at the window, ignoring your back begging for a little bit of leisure after you slept like a ball for the past 4 hours. It was a little after 11 o'clock, 18 minutes before it turned noon.

Standing from your desk, you approached the window and looked out the glass, shocked to find nothing, or no one. Just the dying bushes planted by the school's agricultural center, and some fucked up tanbark that kept the moisture in the dirt.

"Hey, baby."

You jumped, turning to find your boyfriend standing behind you with his prized possession covering his face. "Jesus christ, Jen." You swore, pushing at his shoulder, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Got sent home." He shrugged, lifting the mask from his face with a smile, "The car ended up breaking down, my phone died and I had to walk 4 miles down the road to get there.” He dropped his bag on the footboard bench at the end of the bed frame, setting the mask on top of it.

"Jen, you really gotta start going to work in time." You sighed, "What if you get fired?"

"Come on, baby, it's just a part-time job." He chuckled, pulling you closer to him, "I can find something else."

"Fuck, Jen, do you know how bad that'll look if they call the theater and they have to tell them you're unreliable for calling out or for showing up late?" You ranted, letting go of his hands, "You know I can't afford to pay for this dorm by myself, let alone my school payments."

"Jeez, babe, relax." He chuckled, "Come on, why don't you take some of that aggression out another way?"

"Jeno," You sighed.

"Y/N," He responded, "When's the last time you and I had nasty, angry sex, huh?" He chuckled, grabbing your hands again, "I miss you, baby." He whispered, pulling you into a tight hug, squeezing you.

You hated to admit you missed it, too. Especially when you were this annoyed with Jeno, you hated that this was turning you on, listening to him talk about it.

"Come on, baby." He whispered in your ear, guiding your hand to the bulge in his pants, "Seeing you all angry gets me worked up, baby, I can't help it."

"Jeno." You rubbed him through his pants, "Jen,"

"Hm?" He pressed open mouthed kisses to your neck, his hands brushing against your skin in a desperate attempt to soothe his thoughts.

"Please, baby, just listen to me for 3 seconds."

Jeno pulled away from kissing your neck, humming, "Okay, okay, I'm listening."

"Tomorrow, you're going into work and you're gonna be on time, with your phone charged and everything." You cupped his cheek, "I don't want you to lose your job because you're late."

"Okay, mistress." He teased, "You've have a little dominatrix hidden, don't you?" Jeno kissed at your cheeks, as he cupped them.

"Stop making it sexual."

He chuckled, "I can't help it, baby. I romanticize everything you do, babe." He whispered gently before he kissed you, sitting you down on the mattress of the bed, "It's cute seeing you act all tough and strict." He kissed at your skin, pressing you down against the mattress, straddling your hips.

His tongue brushed against your neck as he kissed you, his hands pushing your shirt over your head, letting your hands rest on his thighs.

Jeno pulled away from kissing at your neck, smiling down at you, "Do we have any condoms left?"

You sat up, looking at the bedside table, "Probably in the drawer."

Jeno crawled off of you to rummage through the drawer, clicking his tongue, "Damn." He mumbled, flitting through papers before he let out an exclamation, pulling out the foiled packaging from between the pages. "Got it."

"I knew you'd find it." You smiled, gasping as he pulled you closer to him on the edge of the bed by your ankles, watching him kneel down.

"Mmhmm," He hummed, pulling your bottoms down your legs, his lips kissing at your legs, "So pretty." He whispered, teasingly biting at your thigh, "Wanna taste you, baby."

You chuckled, running your fingers through his hair, watching Jeno's finger tangle in the waistband of your panties.

"That okay, baby?" He whispered breathlessly, his lips swollen from kissing at your legs.

You nodded, "That's fine, baby."

Jeno smiled, pulling your bottoms and underwear down your legs, kissing up your legs, his lips hovering over your cunt and his breath fanning against your wetness, "Fuck, you're already wet, baby?" Jeno's thumb rubbed at your clit, licking his lips.

"Jen..."

Chuckling, Jeno smiled, flattening his tongue against your cunt, moaning lightly as you drooled against his tongue, "Fuck, baby..."

You moaned sharply, your fingers tightening on his hair, "Jeno..."

Jeno smiled, kissing at your pussy as he continued to lick at your clit, his fingers slowly pressing into your entrance, pumping his fingers into you, "So tight, baby. So sweet." He groans, "You're so perfect, princess."

You gasped as his fingers brushed against your gummy wall, curling his fingers as his lips kissed your hip, a weak moan escaping your throat.

Jeno listened to your moans as he continued to pump his fingers inside you, sucking your clit and tasting you on his tongue. How sweet you tasted, how your slick drooled from the length of his fingers to knuckles, and how amazing your gasps and moans sounded to his ears; Like music, a symphony. If he could listen to your sounds on repeat, he would, over and over and over. He couldn't get enough, he wanted more, wanted you.

Giving a teasing peck to your slit, Jeno kissed your hip, your stomach and up your body until he stopped at your neck, taking in your scent as he struggled to unbuckle the belt he wore with his work pants. "Little help?"

You chuckled, running your fingers through his hair once more before you moved your hands down to unbuckle his belt, the echo of the buckle settling around you both, letting Jeno's lips meet your own in a desperate kiss, his tongue pushing between to rub against yours, a deep growl escaping his throat as your thumbs hooked around his bottoms, helplessly attempting to tug them down his legs. Parting from your lips, Jeno gave a breathy chuckle, his breath fanning against your face. He grabbed the condom he set down on the bedside table, keeping his eyes torn from your own for no less than a second.

Tearing it open with his teeth, Jeno gently pulled the rubber from the packaging, rolling it along his length, “Fuckin’ finally.” He whispered to himself, “I missed feeling you." He pressed kissed along your jawline, listening to the gasp leave your lips as he slowly pressed into you. "Shit, you feel so good." He whispered.

Jeno slowly started moving, and you've been thinking — actually thinking about something he mentioned that you couldn't possibly know if it was a joke or if he was serious. You dug your nails into his arm, “Wait.”

His hips immediately stilled, and he looked down at you, “You okay, baby?”

You cleared your throat shyly, “I’m fine, I just—”

“What is it?” He chuckled, brushing hair behind your ear, “You can tell me, princess.”

You couldn’t believe you were saying this, and you couldn’t even believe you were considering it. But, you can’t knock something until you try it, “I was thinking we could try it with… the mask on…” You love looking at Jeno when you were having sex. You love seeing his expressions, looking into his eyes as he was buried into you and you loved watching his brows furrow together as he gets closer to cumming. But, there was something alluring behind the idea of the mask. Almost like it was a mystery to how he’s feeling. It was sounding more exciting as every second passed. And, you could see just how excited Jeno was as he reached over to where he set the mask down, smiling at you as he pulled it on. Attempting to move, you rested your hand on his chest, “Ah, first, some ground rules.”

Jeno moved the mask to the side, his eye peeking at you, “All ears.”

“First, keep the freaky murders out of this, okay?” You started, watching him nod, “Second, this is just to test it out. I didn’t wanna just immediately cross it off the list of freaky shit we’ve done if we don’t do it.”

“Understandable.”

“Third, Roleplay is optional. But, I’m keeping anything too crazy off the table.” You looked at him, “Got it?”

“Got it, baby.” He smiled, leaning forward to press a kiss to your cheek, “I love you, princess.”

“I love you, too, Jen.” You cupped his cheek, kissing him on the lips, slipping your tongue along his own to reignite the fire that wasn’t completely snuffed. Jeno eagerly reciprocated, his moan vibrating against your lips.

“Damn, don’t know if I really wanna keep the mask on now.”

You giggled, pressing another kiss against his lips, “Better put it back on before I change my mind.”

Jeno placed the mask back against his face, his eyes showing the smile you couldn’t see through the barrier, “I’m gonna start moving, baby.”

“Mmhmm,” You nodded, biting your lips as you felt his hips moving at a slow pace, the moan caught in your throat bubbling over.

Jeno had some type of fixation with your hands, one hand tangling with your own as his other pinned yours against the mattress. He loved seeing your hands wrapped around his cock, his wrist, intertwined with his own. He loved feeling your hands tangled in his hair, grabbing his biceps and digging into his skin, sometimes around his neck, if you both felt that was the move. Your hands were his favorite part of you.

Jeno squeezed your hand in his own as his hips pressed into you deeper, swearing under his breath as he felt your pussy weep around his cock, “Feel so good, angel.” He groaned, throwing his head back, “Missed this pretty pussy.”

You whined, your chest heaving as you squeezed his hand in your own. Words attempted to escape, but only came out as gasps. Jeno always had a way of filling you to the brim, and bringing you to the edge quickly.

Jeno could feel how badly you missed his cock; squeezing around him, the choked moans and gasps, the way your body tensed, and how your eyes rolled behind your eyelids. Sweat lingered on his forehead behind the mask, his breath growing heavily as he watched you writhe in desperation, “Like that, baby?”

You nodded when your words betrayed you, feeling Jeno’s hands leave your own to grip your waist and move you along his length, “Fu-“ You moaned as his hips piston against your own, reaching your hand up to tangle in his hair under the fabric of the mask, “Just like that, Jeno.” You stuttered out to your best ability, the pleasure overwhelmingly covering your body in a sheen of sweat.

Jeno smirked under the mask, his thumb moving to rub at your clit to heighten your experience and bring you closer to the edge, “Such a good girl, telling me just how you want it.”

Every word Jeno said pushed you closer to the edge, your legs mindlessly wrapping around his hips, “Feels so good… I’m almost there, Jen.”

“Me too, princess.” He gasped, his eyes trained on where you two met, the white, creamy ring sitting at the base of his cock, “Fit together so perfectly.” He moaned out, his thumb continuing to rub harsh circles on your clit, “Feel it, baby? ’S like you were made for me. Such a pretty cunt for my cock.”

Your fingers tightened around his hair, tugging at the strands as he continued to speak, “Jen…”

“You cummin’ already, baby?” He chuckled, “Such a good girl, cumming on my cock. Wish I could fill you up and make you mine already. Wanna show everyone you’re my girl.”

As he continued his assault on your cunt, you hung onto his every word, your pussy clenching around him. The ability to form sentences with words and exclamation has long since been fucked out of your brain, the only thing repeating in your head was, “Jeno, Jeno, Jeno.”

Jeno let out a raspy moan, the mask brushing against your chest as you felt his cum fill the condom, the heat filling your belly with warmth. Your chests both raised in sync as you attempted to catch your breath. Pulling the mask off, Jeno stilled inside you, smiling down at you sweetly, "Good job, baby."

You smiled back, pecking his lips, "Good job to you, too." You hummed, leaning back on your elbows, "Okay, pull out. I gotta piss before I develop a UTI."

"I love when you talk dirty to me." He teased, pulling out of you slowly before he laid back on the bed, steadying his breathing. Laying his head on the arms he crossed behind his head, he glanced around the room while he waited for you to come back from the restroom, “Did you get any work done on your paper?”

Returning from the restroom, you laid down beside him, “No, because someone gave me a call saying some guy was missing and they didn’t know where they were.”

Jeno rolled his eyes, “Haha.” He laughed sarcastically, “I told you, the car broke down. I couldn’t do anything but walk there.”

“I’m just teasing.” You nudged him, curling against his side as he wrapped his arm around your waist, the both looking at one another sweetly.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

“For what?”

“I know I’m shitty with getting to places on time, and you have every right to be mad at me for this. You shouldn’t be the only one who needs to deal with this.” He brushed his fingers along your side, rubbing his thumb along your hip, “I’m gonna listen to you, okay? I know it seemed like I wasn’t paying attention but I was.”

You pressed your forehead against his, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips, “I know, Jen. And, I appreciate you for everything you already do.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, Jeno.”

You both settled for relaxing and enjoying one another’s company, especially considering you both rarely got days off together. Jeno played a movie on his charged phone, which you both cuddled and watched. And it wasn’t Stab much to your surprise. It was something you suggested. You used that as proof that he loved you, even if it was something small like this; Cuddling, watching a movie together, sharing kisses and random thoughts either of you had about the film. You couldn’t wait for another day like this, even if it was years away.

You don’t remember falling asleep, and you don’t remember Jeno leaving for work that morning. You don’t even think he said goodbye, and it didn’t smell like his shampoo in the dorm room, nor his cologne. Rubbing your eyes, you glanced around the room, for any sign he left for work; a note, a text message on your phone screen, or even a Tupperware bin with some food he made or ordered in. And after a long look around the room, you found the post-it note stuck to the paper of your notebook with all the information you could think to include in your report of the Woodsboro murders that read; “Be back later. Went to work. Make sure to finish your paper. Love you.” And in smaller hand writing underneath his already small lettering, he wrote, “P.S. Left some dirty clothes on the floor. I’ll do the wash later.”

Setting the note down, you sighed, walking around the small dorm room to find said clothes he left on the floor, but you couldn't find it. You checked the back of his chair, the bathroom, by the dresser, but you couldn't find it. You squat down, looking underneath the bed to find, lo and behold, the dirty clothes he left on the floor. You wondered how much of a rush he could've been in to kick them under the bed.

You reached under the bed, grabbing the clothes only to immediately drop it as soon as you pull it out, your hands covered in red liquid. It covered the floor where you had dropped it, a "splat" echoed in your head after you'd done so. It wasn't as thick and red as blood, and it definitely wasn't as thin and clear as water. You couldn't decipher what it was. It dried down quickly on your hands and the floor.

Horror aside, you rised from the ground, and grabbed a brush to clean the mess off the floor — you'd interrogate Jeno later — and scrubbed the living hell out of the floor. You were sure the finish over the hardwood floors were coming off by how hard you were scrubbing. You had to get the deposit back for the dorm room, even if you had to scrub the floor on your hands and knees.

Kneeling there, you felt tears brim your eyes as you thought to yourself, "What exactly am I cleaning up?" You felt your arms burn with each motion you made, you felt your breathing grow heavy. You could count this as your workout for the week.

"Jeno, you idiot." You whispered to yourself, the tears rolling down your face, gasping for air. "God, this is so stupid." You used your sleeve to wipe at your cheeks, a shaky breath escaping your lips.

You tried to push the thought from your mind, deciding to just focus on your other preoccupation, which was sitting inside your laptop, begging for any type of attention from you divided brain. So, you did. Cross-referencing your notes, reading the PDF of the books on your laptop and then switching over to Microsoft Word to type anything that came to mind, as long as it's relevant.

Yet, you could feel your mind drifting.

You sat there, pausing as you thought about everything you've read as if you could even begin to connect it to your life. There's so much Sydney Prescott went through that you couldn't even begin to comprehend. Rubbing your temples, you were reaching the final stretch of the paper, attempting to type out a conclusion that would make any type of sense for it.

The dorm room opened and you turned briefly to find your boyfriend walking in with the earbuds in his ears, "Hey, baby." He walked over, pecking your head, "How's the paper coming along?"

You tapped your pen against your notebook, "I'm stuck."

Jeno began to dress down from his work uniform, his eyes glancing at his side of the bed, the green and white heavy duty scrub brush laying on the ground, covered in the diluted red suds. "Did you grab the clothes?"

"I was trying to." You mumbled, "What was on them?"

"Why'd you do that?" Jeno voice was deeper and you can see his brows furrow as he looked at you.

You turned around in your seat, looking at him, "I was trying to help."

"I told you I'd do it." He shouted.

"Jen, I was just-"

"I said I'd pick them up and wash them."

You glanced down at the clothes on the floor, whatever was on them leaking between the floorboards and you winced at the thought of it staining the floor. "I just wanted to help! The laundry basket isn't far from where you put them."

"Well, I was in a rush. I didn't have time to throw them in the basket. That's why I left them on the floor."

You sighed, rubbing your eyes, "I just thought I was saving time by moving it to the basket."

Jeno pulled his work shirt off, groaning, "I didn't want to ruin the other clothes in there."

"And just leave it to soak into the flooring?"

"No— God, fuck." He threw his work shirt into the laundry basket before picking up the soiled clothes and placing them inside, "There, happy?"

You looked at him, "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" He grumbled, "Just wish you didn't have such lousy faith in me."

"I never said I did."

"You sure as hell implied it." He grabbed the basket and walked out the dorm room to the laundry room down the hall.

Your eyes narrowed at the back of his head before you went back to your paper, finishing it off in record time. It was finally time to prepare your paper to be printed, turned in and graded. You unplugged your laptop, making sure to save your finished paper before you shut it off and carried it out to the library.

You gave the two dollars and fifty cents to the librarian to use the printer, and stood by the machine to print out your report.

As the belt of the printer echoed through the library and watched each paper spit out after one another, the ink bleeding into the back, you were now preoccupied with everything you read about the Woodsboro murders, what exactly your boyfriend was upset about and whether or not, you should be the one to apologize. You didn't think you were doing anything wrong. You thought you were helping by grabbing the clothes. You really weren't concerned about whatever was on it anymore; all you know is you were happy it wasn't blood.

Maybe this whole report was getting to your head. You've read Sydney Prescott's encounters too much to the point you were scared what she went through was happening to you. How impossible is it?

You're just paranoid. You're being delusional and dramatic and you could only do your best to gaslight yourself into believing you're being a crazy girlfriend who had no reason to make your boyfriend feel like an idiot.

Drowning in your thoughts, you didn't draw your eyes away from the printer, unaware of the beeping it gave you to grab the papers it finished printing out.

Like you were a puppet, you grab the papers, tucking them under your arm with your laptop, and made your way to the hole puncher, pressing down on the lever after setting the papers inside.

Everything felt like ten tasks wrapped into one as you did them, like it was neverending.

You hole punched the papers, and placed them onto the counter, "Hi," you smiled to the librarian.

"Hi, what can I help you with?" She reciprocated the smile.

"I wanted to purchase one of the report covers." You nodded your head to the item, opening your wallet.

She rised from the chair, grabbing the cover.

You glanced down at the glass box you placed your laptop and papers on, eyeballing a newspaper that was displayed in the box. From what you could read through the glass, there seemed to have been some recent murders around the area. Jesus, you spent these last two days inside like some recluse and people have been dying.

“Can… Can I also get one of these papers?” You asked, pointing at it through the glass.

The librarian nodded her head as she set the items down, using the key on her keyring to open the glass case and grab a newspaper, setting it down beside the covers and your items, “All right, your total will be 5 dollars even.”

You dropped the bill onto the counter, grabbing your items and made your way out of the library. You anxiously hurried back to your dorm, opening the door to the room, setting the items down on your desk. The newspaper laid flat on your desk, your eyes reading over the article from a distance.

It was nauseating, reading over the details. Two people gone in two days… It was hard to stomach it.

You sat down on your chair, staring at the front page. To think you were perfectly fine while these people were living their last day being tortured. Obviously, you couldn’t have worn a cape and saved them, but, you wished there was something you could’ve done to prevent something like this from happening. The addresses seemed all too familiar. Like, you’ve seen them before. Somewhere familiar almost.

The door opened and you heard a sniffle from the doorway, “Oh, baby.” Jeno whispered, wandering over to you and wrapping his arms around your shoulders, “Baby, I’m so sorry. I-I had a rough day at work, hearing shit from Jaehyun and everyone about yesterday, and I took it out on you and I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be making a big deal over you helping, especially not since our anniversary is tomorrow.”

You rubbed his head as he nuzzled his nose against your neck, “It’s okay, baby.” You kissed his cheek, “Hey, have you heard about this?” You motioned to the newspaper.

“About what?” He lifted his head, looking at the front page of the newspaper, “Yeah… Yeah, I heard about it. Chenle was mentioning it at work today.”

“It’s sad.”

“It is.” He sighed, rubbing your shoulder with his hand, “All we can do right now is just be happy it wasn’t us.”

You felt the lump in your throat strain as you tried to keep your tears back, “I guess you’re right.”

Jeno pecked your cheek, glancing at the papers on your desk, “You finished the report?"

“Yeah.” You folded the newspaper up, setting it off to the side, flitting your fingers through the paper, “Wanna read it?”Jeno scoffed, “Uh, yeah.” He grabbed the paper, beginning to read through it in silence, as if he was absorbing the information. You sat there, waiting for his input, which was often accompanied by the mention of his favorite movie.

Jeno read the pages all too quickly, turning to look at you, “You always have such a way with words, baby.” He set them down beside you, “You’ll definitely get a high grade on it.”

You smiled, threading the paper through the loops, preparing it to be turned in, the cover with your name, title of the report, class, et cetera, et cetera at the top. “I’m glad you think so.”

“You put work into it. Compassion, care, intellect. You would deserve it.”

“How’d the wash go?”

“They’re in the dryer right now.” Jeno leaned back on the bed, pulling his phone out, “Should be done in 20 minutes. More or less.”

Your heart still ached from what Jeno said earlier, so you returned his answer with silence, not able to find words to express yourself. At least, not yet. You decided to keep it under wraps until after your anniversary tomorrow. After the party. After Halloween.

It was Halloween night. Jeno and you have spent the beginning of your anniversary cuddling in bed, whispering soft “Happy Anniversary”’s to one another. He took you out to breakfast, lunch and shopping. “Just to show you off,” Jeno tried to convince you. But, now, it was time to sit through the two hour long movie Jeno and you both shared every anniversary. Jeno thought it’d be funny to dress up in the Ghostface costume for the evening, since he was the “star” of the movie. He said that, “behind the mask, it wasn’t just Billy Loomis or Stu Macher. Together, they worked as one.”

“I got an A on my paper.” You briefly mentioned as Jeno drove you both to his work place. Turns out, his car just needed a jumpstart.

“That’s great, baby. I knew you’d get a good grade.” He chuckled, turning his head to look at you before looking at the road again, “What’d you get docked off?”

“Turns out, I was a bit too sympathetic in my writing. I got docked a few points for ‘appearing too biased’.” You shrugged, “It’s whatever.”

Jeno chuckled, “Well, I thought it was amazing.” He smiled as he pulled into the parking lot of the theater, “Just goes to show that you have a better point of view than other people. Not everyone will understand that.”

Unbuckling your seatbelt and grabbing your bag, you exited the car, “I guess, but I understand it from my professor’s perspective. It’s supposed to be an informational report, not an opinion discussion board.”

Jeno followed, locking the door behind you both, “Doesn’t mean you can’t share your opinion.” He grabbed your hand in his own and guided you to the front doors of the theater. The theater was covered in Halloween decorations, and it was unfortunate that it’d all have to come down after this evening.

Jaehyun and Jeno’s other managers were handing out drinks and popcorn to your boyfriend’s coworkers, who wandered off to the theater they were all familiar with. Approaching the counter, you heard a loud “Boo!’’ echo off the walls, causing you to jump and hold your hand to your chest.

“Chenle, what the fuck?” You scolded, glaring at him through your lashes.

“Dude, Chenle, I told you not to do that stuff tonight.” Jeno sighed, rubbing his temples, “I told you Y/N’s been freaked out cause of all the shit happening.”

“My bad. I meant to scare Jeno more than I did to you, Y/N.” Chenle chuckled, “Sorry.”

You sighed softly, “Doesn’t help that it already happened.”

Jeno wrapped his arm around your shoulder, silently comforting you as he spoke with Chenle, “We’re wearing the same costume.”

“We, indeed, are.” Chenle sighed, “You just can’t stop copying me.” He glanced down at the mask he held in his hand, “Is that the replica? Are you seriously wearing it to this?”

Jeno scoffed, “Where else am I gonna wear it?” He questioned, moving up in the line as it progressed, “I can’t keep it hanging up on my wall forever.”

Your heart settled in your chest as you walked up to the counter, looking at Jaehyun, mouthing a quiet, “Help.”

Jaehyun already knew the predicament you were in; forced to listen to the conversation of two movie buffs talking about “Stab!” He’s had to deal with it for the last 4 years the two had worked there. There was times he’s even had to apologize for interrupting their precious reminiscences of the movie. “Chenle, Jeno, Y/N, what can I get for you guys?”

“Jaehyun!” Chenle greeted him over the counter with open arms, “Be a doll and get the lady some Sour Patch. I scared her half to death trying to scare her boyfriend.”

Jaehyun sighed, glancing at you, “Freaked out about those things happening around town?”

“You could say so.” You accepted the candy the man offered, “Just found about it yesterday, too.”

“Yeah, she could hardly sleep last night.”

“Babe,”

“What?” Jeno shrugged, “Not saying it’s a bad thing. Just a little uncharacteristic of you.”

You sighed, letting Jeno grab the popcorn and the drinks for you two, “Thank you, Jaehyun.”

“You’re welcome, Y/N.” He smiled, nodding his head to you.

Jeno guided both you and Chenle to the theater the movie was showing in, letting you take the lead up the stairs. There they were, the seats you both sat in 3 years ago, still in the condition you remember them in. So many people have sat in these chairs and would never understand just how much it has meant to you and your relationship. You sat in the aisle seat, gently taking the drinks in your hand as your boyfriend sat down beside you. He was quick to lift the arm rest between you two to pull you closer to him, his arm wrapped around your waist with the popcorn bucket sat in between you both. He accepted his drink and set it down in the cup holder.

“Just like all those years ago.” Jeno sighed, resting his head on top of yours.

You smiled to yourself, grabbing his hand in your own, “As much as I pretend to hate this movie, it still has a special place in my heart.”

Jeno kissed your knuckles, watching as his co-workers and plus one’s fill their seats. The smell of butter on popcorn filled the air, and the quiet chatter between everyone echoed off the wall.

Jaehyun entered the theater, standing at the front near the screen, “Happy Halloween, everyone!” He greeted, crossing his arms over his chest as everyone repeated the words, “Much to my reluctance, your coworkers requested this movie to be shown because of the connotation that it is the halloween movie to watch.”

Jeno and Chenle both gave hoots and hollers at the mention of their suggestion getting picked.

“It also happens to be the first movie our favorite visitor saw with her boyfriend here at the theater.” Jaehyun motioned to both you and Jeno, everyone turning to look at you, “This is also a token of our appreciation to our team for the close end-of-the-year. We would not be here without all of your guys help and hard-work.”

The theater filled with clapping, cheering and sweet words called out to everyone’s favorite manager.

“Settle down, everyone.” He chuckled, “Alright, everyone. Presenting this evening is Stab! Please silence your cell phones and enjoy the movie.”

The lights turned down and you watched the film light up the screen. No previews, no movie trailers, just pure film. It started out how it always did; Casey Becker popping popcorn on the stove, the harsh lighting of her house bringing out the color of her blonde hair.

Despite watching the movie multiple times, every fake jumpscare, every fake gore still made you jump and turn away from the screen. Jeno chuckled, comforting you as best he could, pecking your head.

"I've got to use the restroom." You whispered, attempting to stand up.

"Wait, you'll miss it." Jeno focused on the screen as he watched the movie intently, absorbing everything.

"Jen, we see the movie all the time. I'm sure I know what happens." You stood from the seat, glancing at the row behind you, gasping softly.

The row that was once filled with Jeno's coworkers was now empty with a horrific scene that you couldn't stomach.

Heads slumped forward, bodies slack, popcorn spilling out on the floor as the hands they had on the paper bucket were loosened.

You nudged Jeno's shoulder, unable to speak, who only glanced behind him, a sigh escaping his lips, "He always does this."

"What?" Your brows furrowed, "Jeno, what?"

Jeno set the popcorn down on the now empty seat beside him, where Chenle was.

"You... You—"

Jeno covered your mouth with his hand, covering his face with the mask, speaking through the mesh, "You're too trusting."

You felt your bottom lip quiver as he looked at you through the eyeholes, the tears rolling down your cheeks. You were an idiot, such an idiot. The sneaking out despite having his keys, the car "breaking" down, the dirty clothes, the disappearing. How didn't you see it? How didn't you see that he was the problem this whole time?

"You seriously believed I wasn't doing anything against your wishes?" He whispered, "You're such a dolt. You'd think reading all the books on criminal behavior would have made you more aware of what you were getting into."

"Jen..." You mumbled through his hand, "Please, ju-just let me go. I-I won't tell anyone."

Jeno clicked his tongue as he nodded his head towards Chenle wandering around the ground floor, holding Jaehyun by the back of his neck, bringing you both face to face, "You're too cute, thinking you'll be getting out of this."

The movie continued to play in the background and you couldn't help but repeat all the lines in your head.

Jaehyun struggled against Chenle's grip, his brows furrowed.

"For what it's worth, I actually was in love with you." Jeno whispered in your ear, "Every time I was with you, I felt butterflies in my stomach and my chest ached every time I thought about being apart from you." He rested his chin on your shoulder, "Consider this orientation."

He wrapped your hands around a clip pointed blade, one you didn't even know he owned, guiding it to point at Jaehyun's stomach, yet not piercing the skin just yet.

"All you have to do is push this blade into his belly. Kinda like gutting a pig."

You shook your head, your face contorting as he explained it to you. The tears continued to roll down your cheeks and over the black gloves Jeno wore.

"I told you she didn't have it in her, Jeno." Chenle chuckled, "She's too humanitarian."

"Shut up." Your boyfriend — or rather, at this point, your ex-boyfriend — glared, "She's gonna have to get some blood on her hands if we don't want to go down by ourselves."

Jaehyun attempted to yell, Chenle's hand covering his mouth quickly.

During the little squabble the two wannabe Ghostface's were having, your hand loosened on the knife that Jeno had released to point at Chenle.

Jaehyun and you both made eye contact, silently communicating with one another. He nodded his head to the knife in your hand, you shook yours, and he looked at Jeno, raising his eyebrows. You knew what he was telling you to do. "Use the knife on your boyfriend who was actually a homocidal maniac and planned this whole entire thing."

Using the knife Jeno planted in your hand was you accepting that everything you put in for the last 3 years was over. That despite all your efforts to put him up on a pedestal as the "best boyfriend who might have an odd obsession with this slasher film" was all for nothing. That all those things people have whispered about him was true and that you were nothing more than enabler. That you were none the wiser to all these strange behaviors coming from your boyfriend.

It made you nauseous to believe that were put into this situation and you dragged innocent people into it.

Jaehyun was almost begging you, pleading you, to set all those feelings aside and to get the upper hand in this situation. He wanted you to realize that this may be the end of 3 years but that you'll be free from the gossip, from the worry of what he was truly doing, from spending an extra 3 years trying to convince yourself that Jeno is a good guy and not some maniac under wraps.

You shook your head, feeling your bottom lip tremble as you considered the options. You could either let the two toy with Jaehyun and yourself like you guys were fashion dolls, or you could attempt to end this now and give them a taste of their own medicine. It was hard to detach yourself from Jeno — you had spent every day of your life with him after that first day. You both moved in, you adjusted your schedules for one another, you shared bills, you shared chores, you shared one another. You drag your eyes along the mask that Jeno wore, silently wishing it was just some big, giant cruel prank that would end with Ashton Kutcher coming out with a camera crew and a team telling you you had gotten punk'd in this day and age.

I can't, I can't, I can't, you whispered to yourself as the tears were pouring from your eyes, gripping the knife and turning in Jeno's arm; which seemed to loosen out of habit; the knife meeting his abdomen.

"Ow!" Jeno looked at you, glaring, "You stabbed me!"

You held the crimson-stained blade in your hand, sobbing, "Please, Jen... Please don't do this!"

He looked to Chenle, then back at you, "I've never been stabbed before."

Jaehyun used the distraction as a way to make his way out of Chenle's grasp, blocking you with his body, "Both of you, you can walk away from this."

You let Jaehyun block you, exchanging the knife between your hands, allowing him to hold it out in front of him.

"Walk away?" Jeno's gloved hand covered the wound, "It's too late for that." He chuckled darkly, "You know why other killers get caught so fast?"

"Jeno, please stop!" You screamed.

"Because they don't take the extra precautions; different sized shoes than regular ones, different cologne, different clothes than regular. They never take the time to make a whole new persona."

The two walked up the stairs, pushing you both into the back row, Jaehyun's hand holding your shaking one in his, "Jeno, Chenle, please. Let us go. You already got everyone else in the theater. What does it matter if there's 2 left?"

"Because if she lives," Chenle pointed, "We're suspects."

"And if you live," Jeno whispering almost sinisterly, "She has a witness."

"I won't say a word, please... please, Jeno, you know I won't. You know I won't say anything." Your bottom lip wobbled, "Just let us go."

The movie continued to play in the background, the contours of the mask illuminated by the scene on the screen, "Don't you remember this scene, Y/N?"

You glanced at the screen briefly, being reminded of the first date you both shared; It was when Billy confronted Sydney after being arrested. Jeno was holding you close to his chest that first day together, like he didn't have a care in the world that it was your guys first date.

You shut your eyes, squeezing Jaehyun's hand in your own, which he reciprocated in comfort. Jeno spoke, but you tuned it out, trying to calm down from the anxiety attack that rised in your chest.

Jaehyun, Jeno, Chenle. Chenle, Jeno, Jaehyun. The conversation continued on and on, each arguing with one another as if it was over the last slice of pizza.

You weren't a final girl, and never did you have it in you to be a final girl. Like Chenle said, you're too humanitarian. But, you stood against the wall, your heart thumping in your chest as Jaehyun defended you both with the knife.

Everything was a blur; Jeno and Chenle teaming up against Jaehyun, Jaehyun receiving a wound on his cheek, You couldn't move. You were frozen. This wasn't a movie, it wasn't a stupid sequel to "Stab!". You were forced to watch this go on, and you could barely move.

Jeno gave a final look at you through the mask, before a thud echoed across the theater, Chenle falling right after.

You sobbed silently as you looked at your boyfriend laying on the floor of the theater, annoyed to see the cold pvc plastic of the mask and not his handsome face that you grew so familiar to seeing.

Jaehyun kneeled beside you, grabbing your hand, "Come on. We've gotta get out of here." He helped you up, and you half expected for Jeno to follow after you, not as this monster he became, but as your boyfriend.

"Jeno..."

"No, come on." Jaehyun whispered, letting you continue to stare at him as he lead you down the hallway of the auditorium. "Last time I hire Stab fanatics." He grumbled to himself, sitting you down at a square table in the lobby as he called the police on the theater's phone.

You glanced at Jaehyun, noticing the blood seeping through his work shirt, his breathing heavy.

"You're hurt."

Jaehyun quickly gave as much information as he could to the police, before he hung up and looked at you, "I'll be fine. First responders should be here soon."

You sighed, "I'm half expecting Jeno to come through the door and tell me he's ready to go home."

"It'll be hard to get used to." Jaehyun winced, leaning against the concession counter.

"I don't know if I want to get used to it."

Jaehyun sighed, "He tried to kill you." He mumbled, "He tried to have you kill me." He looked at you, "He didn't know you. Someone who loves you would never subjugate you to that."

The shock was enough to force you to stop crying, rubbing your arm with your hand. Jaehyun was right; if Jeno truly loved you, he'd never put you into this situation. The sirens and lights reflected and echoed off the walls just as the first responders arrived.

Jaehyun offered his hand to you, which you kindly took as he led you out the door.

It's been weeks since everything at the theater went down. Jaehyun and you met up frequently for emotional support. You're in therapy after everything that happened. You'd still find yourself thinking about Jeno, waking up in the morning questioning where he was.

That evening at the theater, after the police arrived, Jaehyun was transported to the hospital for treatment. Leaving you alone outside the theater, sniffling to yourself. They exited just as quickly as they entered.

"Didn't see anything." One of the police officers said to another and you whipped your head towards them, making it completely obvious that you were listening.

"You telling me there wasn't two adults in hooded robes with those cheesy Ghostface masks?"

"Nope. Only those victims in the seats."

You moved back in with your mother after that. You spent more of your time looking over you shoulder, in fear you'd see your ex-boyfriend with a knife, rather than enjoying your life as it is now.

You could hardly settle in your bedroom, laying on your side watching the movie on your television screen. Nothing too exciting, just a re-run of Mrs. Doubtfire. With your head leaning on your hand and your blanket over your shoulders, you heard a creak behind you.

You didn't dare look, but from the mirror you had angled to face your bedroom door, you saw the same pvc plastic you see in your nightmares, and the shine of the blade.

copyright © 2024 thewonandonly. all rights reserved.

[my-castles-crumbling]

hey I love your work!! you seem like such a gorgeous, thoughtful person.

I had a question, and you seem trustworthy—Cas have you seen the new ao3 privacy policy? the one with another checkbox? what’s that about? I’m a little scared especially with recent events and the actual documentation seems a little vague. what do you think? I live in the states

I have, and I come armed with research!

For those of you who don't know, the new policy states:

By checking this box, you consent to the processing of your personal data in the United States and other jurisdictions in connection with our provision of AO3 and its related services to you. You acknowledge that the data privacy laws of such jurisdictions may differ from those provided in your jurisdiction. For more information about how your personal data will be processed, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

To translate, this means you are consenting to your personal information (IE: e-mail address and IP address) being shared according to US privacy laws, not the laws of whatever country you live in or happen to currently be reading from. This is because AO3 is US-based.

This sounds scary.

However, if you delve deeper into AO3 privacy policies, it says:

We may share Personal Information if we:

are legally compelled to do so;

have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on the OTW; or

are cooperating with law enforcement authorities.

We will cooperate with all investigations conducted by law enforcement authorities within the United States when legally required to do so. Cooperation with law enforcement authorities from other countries and cooperation when it is not legally required are at our sole discretion. Our discretion looks favorably on freedom and justice, and unfavorably on oppression and violence.

Basically this means they'll share your info if they're told to by law enforcement, which has ALWAYS been a law. This isn't a change. I think they just added this to say "Hey, remember if you live outside the US, just know that we as a website have to comply with US-based laws because we live here, and things suck here right now!"

The last part of their statement is also really telling. The creators of ao3 believe in free expression and are not trying to get you in trouble or censor your work. You're not going to get in trouble for posting/reading gay fanfics. It's not illegal to do so. (If that changes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it).

I think the most important thing now is to advocate for the necessity of websites like ao3, because some people don't like websites like that. I think this shows that there will be probably more opponents to websites like this in the future. But I don't think the FBI is going to come and knock on the doors of everyone who reads bedtime stories on ao3.

Honestly, Ao3 is more transparent about this info than most people. all websites can share any personal info you put in if legally compelled to do so.

[keeksandgigz]

okay okay, but imagine an older!modern!eddie getting ticked off every time you have your phone on 'do not disturb.'

this was supposed to be a blurb but pls queens turn off your dnd this is loosely based on a true story

eddie munson x fem! reader

word count: 3k

cw: porn with a little plot, spanking with a spoon, oral (f receiving), unprotected piv (pls don't do that), use of nicknames (sweetness, sugar, baby etc), established d/s dynamic (even if there isn't much of it here), no physical description of reader, minors dni, smut below the cut!

Like, it starts off kinda funny like "Honey, c'mon I need you to return my calls if I know you're free. I needa know my girl is safe" he says, voice real sweet. You just apologize and turn it off.

Until it becomes a recurrent thing. He'll call you to ask if you still need to get picked up after class while you're out running errands. You don't see his call until after class and you hurriedly call him to come pick you up.

Or he's at the grocery store to pick up dinner for later and he's texting you to ask what he needs to get for you and you just don't answer him. You don't see his texts.

He tries to call. Voicemail.

He later gets home with whatever he was craving and just starts cooking.

"But I thought we said we were gonna do pasta, Ed? Why're you making chicken?" you ask, literally without a clue as to why dinner plans have changed.

"Well, sweetness, if you don't answer my texts or return my calls how the hell am I supposed to know what kinda pasta you wanted, huh?" he just shrugs, voice a bit hardened. You can tell it's starting to tick him off.

"Oh, shit. Sorry Ed, I don't even know where my phone is, really" you scratch your head, looking around but not really in search for your phone.

"Well, if you didn't have your DnD on you'd know where your phone is once I call or text you. It's starting to get a little frustrating, baby, can you please be a little more mindful and turn off your 'do not disturb' when you don't need it please?" you just nod sheepishly, like you've been scolded for not saying 'thank you' to a gift you didn't like.

And it does end up happening numerous times. Luckily, nothing too insane.

Sometimes he'd ask you if you wanted to call and you just sit there waiting for him to call. After ten minutes, you assume he's gone to sleep (he's a bit old after all), so you turn off your phone and tuck in for the night.

"Why didn't you pick up last night baby? I called you like six times" he asks the morning after.

"Wait, you called? I was waiting for you to call and then you didn't so I just went to bed" you explain, then clocking the issue there. Shit.

"You had your DnD on, didn't you, sweetness?" and he gets close to you. Close enough for you to hold your breath, too entranced by his big presence, filling up every bit of your vision. You feel suffocated by him.

You look down, too much to be looking at him right now, with the aura of calm and cool control that he exudes. It'd be easier for him to swallow you whole than for you to be making eye contact with him right now.

He just takes care of that promptly for you. He gingerly places two fingers under your chin, making you look at him in the eyes.

"You look at me when I talk to you. You know better, don't you baby?" and he puts on this fake pout that makes you blush all over. You imagine the butterflies at the bottom of your stomach tinging a pretty shade of pink with every domineering word that comes out of that man's mouth.

You just nod, he makes a clicking sound with his tongue and teeth, releasing you from the delicious torture of him invading your senses as he takes a step back, letting your chin go before he just goes back to what he was doing.

"Oughta punish you one of these days if you don't turn that damn DnD off" he mutters and then he's back on his computer.

The gruff words make your shaky legs stutter as you decide you cannot be standing anymore and you plop yourself on the couch.

His last straw, however, is when you're out at a club with your friends. You've had one too many drinks and you text Eddie to come pick you up. He has no idea where you are.

Yeah, baby I can pick you up. Where at? 12:34 am

Can't pick you up if you don't tell me where you are, sweetness. 12:42 am

You there? 12:50 am

Turn off your DnD PLEASE 1:00 am

I'm omw 1:03 am

And he pulls up in front of the bar you were helplessly staring out the door of. You're not drunk, just not having fun.

You run into the car, shivering from the biting November breeze.

"Had to call one of your friends to tell me where the fuck you were. Are you drunk?" he asks. Voice stern, laden with what you could only define as barbed wire. Cutting, angry, almost.

"'m not drunk." you mutter "I had, like, a shot, then I decided I wasn't having fun anymore. Didn't wanna go out in the first place" finding the creases and ridges of your hands very interesting all of a sudden.

"Trust me when I tell you you won't be having fun at home either. Fucking sick of that 'do not disturb' thing on. You had me scared to death." he seethes, knuckles tightening around the steering wheel. You notice he's wearing his pyjamas.

Fuck. You made him get out of bed. You shrink in your seat.

"Y'don't wanna be disturbed? I'll fuckin' teach you about being disturbed" and that's the last thing he says before he just speeds home.

There's thick tension between the two of you when he opens the door to his apartment. You sit on his counter, looking at the floor and getting ready for another scolding.

He's leaning on the wall opposite to you, arms crossed.

He breaks the silence "Floor's lookin' clean? You gonna look at me now?" you shiver, then look up to meet his darkened eyes.

He scoffs and takes a few paces towards you, until he's placed between your parted legs.

"What do I gotta do with you, huh? Do I gotta start checkin' your phone to make sure that damn thing is turned off? As far as I'm concerned after your classes you shouldn't have it on at all" he remarks, his hands caressing over the nylon of your tights, toying with the fabric of your dress.

You interject "I just forget, Ed. I'm so busy these days I forget to turn it off" you jut out your bottom lip, trying to coax a bit of sweet sympathy out of him. Something that'll make the punishment a bit lighter.

But he remains unmoved, his lips in a straight line as he moves his hands up, up, up to firmly hold your waist. "So forgetful, aren't you, baby? Maybe you need a reminder, carve some space in that big, busy brain of yours to remember to turn your DnD off, hm?" he chides, playing with the insides of your arm, skin sensitive and waiting as his thick finger moves up and down and you can't help but nod.

Your breath begins to pick up ever so slightly. But he notices, of course he notices. The way your mouth parts and your pupils dilate. The way your chest begins to get closer to him, rising and falling in anticipation.

"So pretty" he teases, his hand moving up to cup your cheek. You lean into the warmth of his palm, letting out a sweet humming sound that makes Eddie's stomach flip despite his hardened facade "Y'wanna play?"

His voice goes to a deep, dark timbre, the question making you shiver. You speak for the first time in what seems like forever.

"Yes, sir" voice thin and quiet as you keep looking at him, not wanting to worsen your precarious position as he undoes the zipper of the short dress you're wearing, helping him out by taking your arms out of the thin sleeves.

"Good girl," he remarks, tapping the sides of your thighs to make you lift your hips, removing the dress off of you completely.

He licks his lips when he finds you're wearing tights. He loves spanking you with the nylon barrier between his hand and the soft skin of your ass. A weird quirk of his.

You feel the hardened pressure of his bulge against the inside of your thigh as his body turns to litter a trail of kisses over your jawline and you keen into his touch, arch towards his chest demanding more, more, more. Even if you're in no position to demand anything.

A whine escapes you as you keep arching your hips towards him. Eddie's quick to stop you with a strong hand pinning you down against the marble of the counter. He tuts.

"Don't be greedy. Hop off and bend over" he commands, and who are you to say no to him as you comply with a meek "Yes, sir," resting your elbows on the cold counter.

His nose skims the length of your spine, taking in the way you smell. Sweet and musky, after a night of dancing among sweaty bodies. The thought intrudes Eddie's head. Did a body press itself against you? Is the scent of a random man now on the skin of your back, the fabric of your dress?

He shakes the thought away as he reaches the waistband of your black nylon tights.

"Pass me that wooden spoon, will you, sugar?" he says sweetly, snaking a hand in your hair. You shiver as you reach for the wooden utensil in the metal bucket next to the stove. You pass it to him, skin pricking up from the anticipation of not knowing what he might do with it.

"Thank you, baby" he kisses your shoulders, as the spoon comes into contact with your ass. Caressing up and down.

"Now, I hate to do this, you know me, but I gotta teach you a lesson, sweetness. Tell me you want this" he says, the utensil snaking its way between your legs, rubbing back and forth. A wicked smile appearing on Eddie's lips when you begin to helplessly whimper, your head lolling on its side against the marble counter.

"I- I want this" you say, loud enough to make him hear you.

And that's all he needs. A green light.

The wooden spoon lands on the meat of your ass. You hiss. The feeling is new, he hadn't spanked you with anything aside of his hand before, but the feeling of the wooden handle cracking on your skin makes your head reel.

"You gonna put your phone on DnD again?" he asks, a question he knows the answer to as he cracks down the spoon again.

"Ah- ow- No, sir. Thank you, sir" you say, sweet and compliant, hoping that it will relieve you of your penance earlier than he'd planned to.

His hand sneaks itself on the seam of your tights, knowing you never wear panties with them, feeling the heat radiating off of your core, a dampness that had been sitting there since you'd climbed in the car.

He chuckles to himself, a dark laugh, a notice that he will not go easy on you tonight.

"You're likin' this?" you can almost hear the wicked smile in his words. "You little slut, you're getting wet from this? Me smacking you with a spoon?" he taunts and your legs quiver as he administers two more cracks to your ass.

You have cotton in your ears. Your skin feels everything and nothing at the same time as you begin slumping against the counter.

"So horny you can't even stand, huh, sweetness?" Eddie smacks you again and then reaches his arm around your waist to pull you up "Little slut didn't want me to disturb her, hat true?" he asks, another smack, this time he expects an answer.

"Fuck- ow- no Eddie that's not-ah" another smack "t-true" you sob, tears beginning to well on the waterline of your eyes.

Your ass feels on fire while Eddie puts the spoon down next to your head. Your legs shaky in your heels as he kneels between your legs.

Two of his fingers hooked on the seam of your tights as he rips a hole in them, exposing you to him. You gasp, more at the suddenness of the motion than at the action itself.

Your tights never had a long enough lifespan when you wore them around Eddie.

"You got so wet, sweetness." He whispers, entranced by the way the skin glistens in the dull kitchen light.

His hands hook around your waist to keep you still as his face narrows into your pussy, and he begins to lick.

Broad stripes of his tongue, slurping and lapping up whatever he missed. Eating like a man starved.

Your back arching to get more, more, greedy in the best way possible as you mewled and cried for him to keep going. As you mewled and cried nonsense, feeling your brain turn fuzzy and your eyes becoming accustomed to going to the back of your head every time his tongue lingered long enough on your clit.

When he begins to suck harshly on it you have no choice but to grab the back of his head and push it further, if there ever was a further, as he is wedged deep between your legs, eating you out like his life depended on it.

He doesn't like it, though, the way you grab and push at his head like you're the one calling the shots.

He unhooks his arms from your waist momentarily to reach for your wrists to pin them behind your back, that's when he stands from his place in between your legs.

"Y'think you're a big girl, huh? Callin' the shots?" he lands a smack on your ass, turning you around to finally face him. Hands still pinned behind you as he pushes you towards him.

"I didn't- I don't-" you try and justify yourself, but he just delivers a smack to your face. Light enough to give you a slight sting.

His chin glistens with your slick, and you can smell it on him.

"Look what you did" he says, taunting you. His free hand comes to squeeze your cheeks, making you look at him.

"Clean me up, since you wanna be so fuckin' messy" and he squeezes harder, your tongue jutting out to lick at the clear wetness on his face, slight stubble scratching your tongue and chin. You lick around his mouth, under his nose, until he pushes you away from him.

"Greedy, greedy" he chants, as he places you on top of the counter, cold marble a relief against your aching ass.

You could clearly see the outline of his cock against his sweats, you bite your lip as he inches closer to you. “Look how hard you made me, baby," he mutters, low and dark "it’s impossible to be in your presence when you look like you want to get fucked all the time." he continues "Goin' out in that tight little dress like you don't want everyone to see your pretty tits" he says, grabbing a handful through the bralette you're wearing.

He moves the cups to the side as he toys with your tits, a hand reaching into your mouth to wet his fingers. You gag and sputter around his digits.

"Theeere you go, sweetness. Y'like having your mouth full?" he asks, Hardened stare urging you to answer. You nod and let out a weak hum in approval as his fingers keep pushing in and out of your mouth.

He removes his fingers from your mouth as he begins circling the sensitive buds of your nipples. You let out a desperate moan.

"So sensitive, aren't you? You wanna cum like that while I fuck you?" he asks, and you can't find the words fast enough to nod your head yes.

"Ask me nicely. You know better" he says sternly as he uses one hand to lower the waistband of his sweats, letting his cock spring free.

"F-fuck, pleasepleaseplease, fuck me, sir" is all you can muster, before he guides his cock to your entrance, sinking in all the way to the hilt. A gasp escapes you. It never gets old.

"That's a good girl. Wasn't so hard, was it?" he teases, both his hands returning to deliver their ministrations on your tits, thumb unforgivingly grazing your nipples. The motion makes you scream as Eddie sets a quick pace.

"That's right, sweetness, keep singin' for me. Lemme hear that pretty voice" he says, his words making you clench around him.

His hands come off your tits to place your legs on your shoulders, making you curl in on yourself as he leaned his body to make your faces touch.

"Kiss me, baby" and you kiss him with such fervor and need. He hadn't kissed you the whole night. You don't know how much you need him to kiss you until you do and it's like fireworks are going off behind your hooded lids.

His tongue slips past your lips as he keeps thrusting, unforgivingly, hitting your g- spot every. single. time. You whine into his mouth, he chuckles at how needy you sound.

"My baby just needed a good fuck to remember to not put her DnD on, didn't you?" he taunts, an especially harsh thrust follows as you feel his breathing become more ragged and his pace begin to stutter.

"Feels good, huh? Shit, baby you're so tight" he begins and you can't help but moan.

"Feels good Eddie- huh- so... so deep" you hiccup, and you feel close. "Hmm so ah big" you groan as your eyes roll to the back of your head when a particularly well- angled thrust deliciously hits your spongy walls.

"You like that, sweetheart? God- fuck- so gorgeous, baby. Look at you" he rambles. He's getting close.

"Oh fuck, Ed, 'mclosesoclose" you cry out and you're seriously teetering on the edge of orgasm. A few more thrusts and you'd be gone.

"Me too, sweetness, c'mon cum for me" he thrusts a couple more times and the coil snaps. You're clenching and whining and screaming his name while he follows after you, finishing inside you.

He stays there even after he's done, laying his head on your sweaty chest while you both try to stabilize your breathing.

"Feel free to disturb me whenever you want" you say, and he chuckles, giving a soft kiss to your shoulder.

taglist: honey-flustered, fracturedarkness, them-cute-boys, ancientcrone-blog, eveybitch, everythingtodayisthoroughly, jennathinker, @vampysstuff, rubyirene, floriscus, mrsmarch64, fairymunson, capricornrisingsstuff, sole-screws, helloweenfiend, flaminggarbagepail, @squigglebottom, @cozmiccass

[itsa-me-lily]

God I love this au, it's feeding me so good today. The last one with the part about only one bedroom has me thinking about a sick reader, the gross kind of sick where you're sweaty and wheezy and snotty, and the fact that if it were anyone else Simon would be quarantining them. But because it's his spouse, he wakes up to you nasally wheezing and mouth breathing while sprawled across him, and all he can think about is when you're due for your next round of medicine and if he needs to buy more tissues.

Sometimes love comes coated in mucus, and is reciprocated with an artificial cherry taste. Also do the guinea pigs have names and what do they look like?

I'm dying. This is the first ever ask I've ever gotten (that I recall) and I'm going to pass away. Also "sometimes love comes coated in mucus, and is reciprocated with an artificial cherry taste" that is such a good line, I'm apologizing in advance if I steal it.

Also warning for content of being sick, this is based off my last bout of plague.

Also Also Here's the Simon & Thimble playlist

Also Also Also Here's the Military Program Spouse AU masterlist

Bedsharing in general does not happen at first. (Now I want to percolate an idea about sharing the bed for the first time). You're way to use to having your own bed that sharing with someone means you're not sleeping easily and I think Simon would rather sleep with the guinea pigs in their cage than have another human being that close to him when he sleeps. (This was also not something he initially thought about when being told a spouse was to be picked)

So what's the solution? Obviously bunk beds! Kind of, sorta...okay not really but the look on Simon's face when you had suggested getting bunk beds had been entertaining. Who knew so much indignation could come through a medical mask. Really his eyebrows did so much talking.

With the dream of bunkbeds dashed, the next best solution was either two twin beds crammed into the bedroom with a bedside's worth of space between them, or a pull out couch. You managed to find a couch same day that didn't terribly clash with the artwork you have yet to hang up.

You two actually manage to come up with a schedule for who slept where. Obviously you'd get the bed when Simon was deployed, made no sense for you not to. And when he was home the bed was all his unless he was having a night that he knew he wasn't going to trust a deadbolt to keep monsters at bay. Then he made himself comfortable, TV playing low until he managed a few hours in the early morning before you try to leave a silently as you can for work.

(Funny thing, even if you aren't sharing a bed traditionally, you both most certainly have your own sides, along with bed stands that told two different stories)

The first time you get sick is when Simon is technically deployed. Well actually, the day he returns is the day you spike a 101.8 fever and work forces you to go home so you don't become a walking petri dish and expose the college kids that come into your office.

Once you're home you appease the little beasts demanding some sort of vegetal boon, change into the rattiest clothes you have, and then huddle under a staggering amount of blankets that have made their home on your bed. (Simon may have side eyed them when you first set them out, but you've seen the mountain he creates under them, you knew the magic of weighted blankets)

Sleep isn't peaceful, you hadn't broken out the Nyquil quite yet, but you do manage to drift off for a few hours. And then the coughing starts. It's the kind that's a bitch to deal with, dry and pushing your ribs to the limit with how often they can expand and contract. By the time Simon comes home you've steamed yourself twice, taken only a smidge over the recommended amount of cough suppressant, and slathered yourself with Vic's Vaporub. All in all, you were properly miserable.

You're in the kitchen, staring into the abyss of your over-steeping tea as if it will magically make you feel better if you only sell your soul to it, really a tempting offer, when the wheeks of the pigs announce that another person they know has arrived.

If Simon wasn't clued in that something was off at seeing you home before the end of your work day, the pungent smell of menthol would have been a dead give away. You're still communing with your tea when he knocks against the wall, pulling you out of the deal for your soul to meet him with bleary eyes and a flushed face.

You croak out a greeting that makes Simon wince in sympathy, though that's about all he really does. Simon doesn't really do pleasantries and doting probably wouldn't be the first word people use to describe him, so with your brain function reduced by an overflow of mucus and fever, the kitchen was rather silent.

Until you started coughing, face buried into the crook of your elbow to try to keep your contagion to a minimum and back bowing to nearly double you over. That drives Simon to action, coming to try to keep you up incase you collapse, grabbing your free arm.

When you feel him touch you, you try to pull away, shaking your head and finally finishing your bout, gasping a little as you try to daunting task of breathing and speaking to dissuade him from getting close lest he catches what you have. He clearly wasn't persuaded, hands clenching and unclenching like he simply wanted to pick you up and put you...somewhere.

How exactly Simon Riley would take care of you, he didn't know but he'd be damned sure to at least try. He'd been left to fend for himself while sick before and he didn't like the idea of you going through that. When it was clear that he wasn't going to just leave you to your suffering you relented enough to try to reach a compromise; if he'd be alright watching the pigs while you were sick that would be more useful than a nursemaid while you camped out on the couch.

That...that was something Simon could do. He'd watched how you took care of the boys, surely this was something he could do. And then his brain caught up to the rest of what you had said. There was no way he was going to let you sleep on some pull out couch, as nice as it was. Being Sick meant sleeping in a proper bed, on a mattress that didn't spend it's days folded up.

You tried to insist it was alright but he wouldn't listen to a word of it. Instead he practically herded you back to the bedroom, ignoring your murmurs of your abandoned hot beverage. He didn't lift you to plop you onto the bed itself but it was a near thing. He had to bribe you with the promise of a proper cup of tea for you to even lay your head on your pillow, eyes already heavy with the need for sleep. By the time he had actually made a cup you were out for the count, nasally mucus filled snores letting him know you hadn't perished in the time it took him.

The next few days were filled with mucus, the attempted escape of your lungs via coughing fits, and more Vics than the human body should be exposed to. And the entire time you insisted that you could fend for yourself. Simon didn't push to play nurse, but your tissues never ran out, a dose of medication was always ready on your bedside, and a warm cup of tea stood waiting for you after each nap, like a solider committed to his guard.

Edit;

I'm going to make a separate post for the guinea pigs, because honestly I'm torn on if they're based on my guinea pigs I used to have, or guinea pigs I'd want to have in the future

[evertidings]

— MAY 2024.

accomplishments.

hi everyone!! i hope you're all doing well hehe. i recently came back from a mini-grad trip (oh yeah, i graduated? like, i finished university? woah. weird) in europe and it was so so wonderful. i can only imagine living in places like that.

in terms of chapter eleven, rest assured that it is still being worked on! i didn't bring my laptop on my trip so i couldn't write for the past two weeks, but since i've been back, i've slowly gotten back on the grind. i'm still trying to adjust from the trip and just, well, overall living in general, but we're making progress! i don't want to give any set dates for when the chapter will be released yet in case i let anyone down if it doesn't come true, but i feel really good about the content so far.

all five ros will appear in this chapter in individual or shared branches. one of the combos is expected (they're kinda stuck together like glue) and the other, well, i'm really excited to have them interact more. it sets up a base for the friendship they're going to work towards in the later books, which is very exciting. can you guess who the two characters are?

on a similar note, flirting has reached an all-time high recently and it's, like... gahhh. so much fun. i think i mentioned last month that the romance lock is coming up (should be within the next two chapters ish) so i'm really ramping up the options here. one, it gives you a better idea of who you might choose and two, well, it's just fun isn't it? it makes the progression of your relationship with the chosen ro, whoever it may be, much more natural as well. (and also i just like writing about stoic characters like Blane and K, or flirty characters like Rylan, blush).

i hope you all know this, but i adore this story and i have no plans to abandon it. no matter how long ago the last update, i am still very much working on the next one. that said, i really appreciate everyone's patience. knowing that there are still so many people sticking by me despite the radio silence on my end is more than i deserve, really. so thank you. i really hope i can continue to live up to your expectations <3