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j-graysonlibrary · 7 months

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Heartbeats; Paradise Chapter 1

Title: Heartbeats; Paradise

Author: Jay Grayson

Word Count: 112K

Genres: Psychological thriller, drama, sci-fi, LGBT+

Available on: Kobo and my website

Synopsis: Melvin Hardy and Kade Axel appear to be a match made in heaven. After a meet-cute in the rain, the two quickly find themselves in a burgeoning, wholesome relationship.

Yet, things feel…off. It isn’t the ghosts of their pasts that resurface to test the strength of their partnership—no—it’s something nebulous. Something indescribable. Melvin can’t put his finger on it but, the more time he spends with Kade, the more he starts to wonder what’s real and what’s pure fiction.

Full chapter 1 under the cut:

Chapter One:

The sun sets.

I adjust the rod of my umbrella, cursing under my breath at the stiffness of the thing due to a long period of inactivity. It hardly ever rains here but I always carry the umbrella with me. Just in case.

Many of my colleagues rush past me, braving the drizzle before the storm really hits. They can have fun getting wet but I’m wearing one of my more expensive jackets. Probably not the best idea, in retrospect, to wear my designer suit on an overcast Thursday but I had needed some sort of pick-me-up this morning. And that just so happened to be dressing nicer to motivate myself to get to work.

My umbrella finally releases and the fabric pops open before me. I raise it above my head and step out from beneath the overhang.

With my apartment a few blocks away, I have time to think about what I’ll make for dinner as I walk. I wouldn’t say I’m a good cook but I have some staples under my belt—a necessity born from living on one’s own. A large portion of my meals may come premade but I still add a pinch of seasoning or a twist here and there. There are definitely some microwave dinners in my freezer which, at the rate this day is going, will probably be my answer.

After that, I think I’ll pour myself a glass of wine and relax some. It’s not the end of the week yet but it is close so letting loose, or, as loose as I allow myself to get, isn’t a bad idea. I’ll avoid the news stations and search for something more relaxing on the TV and, if not relaxing then at least mind numbing.

I could check my personal e-mail as well, I consider as the clouds darken and the rain pours down in sheets. The thumping against my umbrella lets me know they are big droplets and I’m even gladder that I always carry the thing with me. My mind quickly bounces back to my after-work agenda and I think of the possibility that my mother might have sent me something. It was my twenty-sixth birthday not too long ago and I have not checked my e-mail for a time.

I sigh instinctively when the woman comes to mind. She would probably have sent something vague and/or generic if she sent anything at all. With, perhaps, a slight passive-aggressive note on the state of my love life.

There is a far off rumble of thunder as the rain rages even harder and I’m forced to slow down next to a bus stop. My glasses are fogging and I have to either take them off or wipe them clean. I attempt to hold my umbrella in the crook of my elbow while I fish out my glasses case from my pocket.

I whip out the small cloth and run it quickly over the glass—it isn’t perfect but at least I can see in front of me again. I’ll clean them more thoroughly once I get home.

I check the road, finding little traffic between me and the pavement across the street where my path continues. There aren’t a lot of cars in town or, at least, there aren’t a lot of reasons to drive them. I, myself, have a car but it’s more out of want than need. My commute to work can easily be done on foot and more places in town can be reached by a bus or on bike.

Though I am sure the poor soul across the street wishes they hadn’t taken their bike out today. They have no coverage and the rain beats down on them without mercy.

As I rush over the crosswalk I notice something even more unfortunate. Their front wheel is loose and there is no way the bike is useable anymore unless the rider is less than fifty pounds. And, while they may seem petite, I doubt they’re that light.

I step onto the sidewalk and my presence alerts them. Their head rises, facing the rain, to look up at me and the world at large freezes.

Even if we aren’t the only two people on the sidewalk, it certainly does feel that way.

It’s hard to tell what gender they are but I do know one thing for certain—they are beautiful. Their hair, wet and heavy, falls past their shoulders and their eyes shine with the light of the nearby streetlamp. A pair of gorgeous blue-green irises, like the Mediterranean Sea, stares into me and I am struck by a feeling foreign to me.

“I could fix that,” I say without meaning to. While it might be true that I can fix their bike, I usually wouldn’t approach a stranger in such a way. Normally, I would think on how unlucky they were and continue my trip home but I am mesmerized by their face and I can’t seem to control myself any longer.

“You can?” They ask with a lower, almost boyish voice. Their eyes, somehow, get bigger at the prospect and their lips curl into a smile. Their pink, full lips that compliment the shape of their face as if they were created with the intent to ensnare me…

I nod eagerly. “I have a model similar to that so I have some spare parts.” I then realize what helping them entails and I worry they will be frightened by the idea. “I…it’s all at my apartment though. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure!” That brightness doesn’t fade and they look even more excited about the situation.

I lean my umbrella over their head and shield them from any more rain though they are already quite soaked. I keep my eyes on their face rather than the white shirt that clings to their body.

“Oh…thank you,” they remark cutely and inch closer. “I don’t want to get your nice coat wet though…”

“It’s alright,” I let them know, “I can get it dry cleaned over the weekend if needed.”

I keep the umbrella over us though my right arm is left out to get wet as well as some of my right side in general. My new companion drags their bike along and the rain becomes our soundtrack as we walk to my apartment, alone on the sidewalk. Even the volume of cars slows to nearly none as we get closer.

“So…” my company speaks up as if to fill the silence but maybe they are uncomfortable about long pauses. “Can I ask your name? I don’t want to keep having to refer to you as ‘handsome stranger’ in my head.”

We share a chuckle but I do feel my cheeks grow warm. This beautiful person finds me attractive as well? The odds maybe aren’t that bad since many people have commented on my looks before but still…it is a wonderful feeling.

“I’m Melvin Hardy.” I glance away, unbelievably shy at the exchange but I hope to hide it well. My heart is beating as if to leave my chest and my head is spinning just from this little bit of interaction. Just as I am ready to hear who it is I’ve become enamored with, I remember. While I feel it is obvious with one look that I am a man, I still say out of politeness, “Oh, and my pronouns are he/him.”

“Mine too!” he replies with a bounce in his step. “My name’s Kade. Kade Axel.”

So perfection has a name and it’s Kade Axel, I think. Somehow, I feel I already knew it but I’m happy to be told.

We come upon my apartment complex and I quickly lead Kade to the stairs where I can finally remove the umbrella. I shake it off and fold it back into it’s compact form while, at my side, Kade props his bike against the bricks under the stairs.

“My apartment is upstairs,” I tell him, “I hope I have a spare part…if not, you can just borrow my bike.” I add the last part and point to the bike nearby.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Kade shakes his head and raises his hands in protest.

“Only if I can’t fix yours.” I offer a smile. Plus, I add mentally, if he borrows something of mine, he’ll have to come back to see me.

“Well…okay.” He bites his lip, pulling both the skin and my attention.

I have to snap myself out of it and lead the way up. I’m relieved, momentarily, that I cleaned not too long ago. Though, to be honest (and a little proud) my place never gets too dirty anyway.

I allow Kade inside first and I shut the door after us, turning only the deadbolt lock. My part of town isn’t dangerous though I can’t say any part of town really is. People truly keep to themselves here.

“I have a hair dryer if you need it,” I say when I notice Kade fussing with his wet hair. He looks genuinely upset to have tracked so much water into my home. And, if it were anyone else, I might be irritated but it also isn’t his fault he’s soaked. “…And dry clothes too…though they might be a bit big.”

A pink blush rises to his pale cheeks and my heart swells at the sight. Kade brings his hands together in front of his chest and asks, “Are you sure that’s okay? I feel like I—”

I don’t let him finish. “It’s alright. Really.”

He still looks a bit bashful but he agrees to take some of my old sweats and dry out his hair. Before he shuts himself away in the hall bathroom, I ask,

“Do you have any food allergies? I’ll make dinner while you’re in here.”

“Y-you really don’t have to.” He flushes even more and part of me wants to continuously offer him things to see just how flustered he can get.

But, I restrain myself. “Well, if you’re getting dry then you don’t need to go out in the rain until it’s slowed down at least. And, if that takes a while, you shouldn’t go hungry. I was going to make myself dinner anyway…what’s an extra serving?”

His stunning eyes blink a few times and his brow furrows together, forming only one, small crease between them. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

Well that’s a loaded question. I can’t even be sure myself and saying ‘you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen’ already sounds creepy in my head—I can’t even imagine how it’ll sound coming out of my mouth. But if I say that he was in need and I help those in need I’ll be lying.

I open and close my mouth a few times before still, sort of, lying, “I’m not sure.”

Kade clearly isn’t expecting that as his eyes bulge and he steps back. “You…you don’t know?”

“It was an impulse,” that is a little more truthful at least, “Once I saw you there, I couldn’t leave you.”

This response brings his blush back and he avoids my eyes. Such a shame as I’ve found my new hobby in staring into his lovely irises.

“Well…t-thanks. I don’t have any food allergies, by the way. I’ll eat whatever you make.”

I leave him to head to the kitchen, worrying that I still, maybe, laid things on a bit thick. I adjust my glasses and then take them off entirely. My vision is a little blurry without them but I know my kitchen and pantry well enough to navigate it partly blind.

I settle on a simple rice dish and, while everything is cooking, I take the time to properly clean my glasses. In a way, I’m almost scared to see Kade without the streaks and water droplets in the way. How could he possibly be more gorgeous? And will I be able to handle it?

As I worry about possibly making a fool of myself even more than I already have, I check my hall closet to see if I have the parts Kade needs for his bike. I do, thankfully, but that also takes away his reason for coming back. Though, if I let him leave with my old clothes then that could be something?

I grumble to myself at how desperate I am. If Kade doesn’t want to see me again, it’s within his rights to. Just because I’m completely taken with him doesn’t mean he’s obligated to hang around. I’d be no better than a love struck teenager if I think otherwise.

Dinner is ready so I turn my focus to setting the table and making the meal look as presentable as possible. I’m slightly frustrated at myself for not asking what Kade wants to drink but I hope he’ll be alright with a glass of water.

I sit at the small table that straddles both the kitchen and the living room and I wait for a few more minutes. Maybe his hair takes some time to dry? It is quite long after all. I think on it and begin to feel anxious. There is no direction or cue so I simply wait a bit longer.

Finally, Kade emerges from the hall. He’s all but lost in my sweats but that makes him, painfully, even more adorable. His hair is shorter and blonder now that it’s dried, though it still brushes against his shoulders and looks so soft to the touch. He pulls the sleeves up on the shirt and his pace picks up when he sees the table. “Sorry I took a while—I had to call my sister.”

“Oh…no problem.” I swallow the nerves down and glance from him to the food as my mind whirls with questions and prompts. “…Do you live with your sister?” I settle on.

“I do,” he responds quickly and gets comfortable in his chair. “She’s letting me stay with her while I finish college and I help out at her café as payment.”

Finish college…he’s at least twenty-two in that case. Unless he graduated high school early, of course. He could also be older if he took a gap year or simply waited to go. It is hard to tell his age by his face as it’s so smooth and young looking—unlike me who has always looked like a grown man since middle school.

“That’s sweet of her,” I respond and urge him to eat with a simple hand gesture. After he takes a bite, I risk sounding like a creep to ask, “What café?”

Kade smiles and swallows before answering, “It’s actually the one right down the block from where we met today. Back the direction you came from.”

“Caramel café?” I question with doubt but Kade nods in confirmation. “I go there on my breaks all the time…I’ve never seen you.” If I had, I’d definitely remember.

But he laughs, covering his mouth and hiding his face. “I…it’s a new thing. I just started this past week.”

“Oh…I haven’t been this week.” I feel slightly embarrassed by my mini-outburst. I clear my throat and change topics, “So, what are you in school for?”

“Psychology,” Kade says as he drops his hand. He seems comfortable talking about this so I think it’s probably something he’s passionate about. After he takes another bite of dinner, he continues, “I want to be a grief counselor.”

“Wow.” I’m a bit taken aback. I had not expected something like that. “That’s a tough job.”

“But necessary,” he responds and, as swiftly as I had, he shifts the question onto me, “So what do you do, Melvin?”

“Nine to five office work. I got my degree in business so I went straight into the grind.” It’s boring to do and even more so to talk about.

Lucky for us, mother nature also wishes to move on from the topic. A loud crash of thunder shakes the building and a flash of lightning illuminates the room.

Kade jumps. “I guess I’m not heading out anytime soon…”

I shake my head. “You can crash on my couch if you want. I don’t mind.”

He smiles and pokes at the remainder of his food with his fork. “…You’re so nice. I’m almost waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

I raise one of my eyebrows. Does he think I’m hiding some horrible secret? Or that I’m really out to get him? I can’t exactly blame him with how odd the circumstances are and I truly do have no reason to be going out of my way to help.

“I’m not really a serial killer, I promise,” I say with a smirk, breaking some of the tension.

Kade laughs and shakes his head. “Well, I wasn’t thinking that…exactly. There just…there must be a downside to you. No way you can be so perfect. Handsome, nice, good cook, considerate, good and stable job…”

I’m thrown off guard. He had called me handsome before but I did not expecting to hear it again. “You like dinner then?” I decide to focus on that instead.

He chuckles again. “Yeah. It’s really good.”

Thunder crashes once more and I nearly jump myself this time. I use the shot of adrenaline to stand and collect our now empty plates. “Thank you,” I respond, “after I wash the dishes, I’ll grab you some blankets for the couch.”

I dip into the kitchen and quickly wash up, not wanting to leave Kade by himself for too long. My heart beats faster at the mere thought of him and I’m almost scared of how I’ll feel when he’s gone. This new cacophony of emotions can’t simply disappear, can it?

“Um…Melvin?”

His sweet voice spins me around and I take him all in. He truly is beautiful and more than a little cute bundled up in my clothes and nervously scratching at the side of his face.

“Yes?” I ask with a hitch in my voice.

He doesn’t notice or he doesn’t say anything about it at least. Instead, he starts to smile and he meets my eyes. “Thank you.”

It’s so honest and so warm that it fills my chest with a fuzzy, comforting sensation.

I don’t want him to leave.

#heartbeats paradise #my novel #my writing

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pocketramblr · 2 years

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Everything I see about stormlight is exactly the kind of thing I'd love to read I think except there are so many books and I have no fucking clue where to even start. So... suggestions pls?

Local libraries (I have 5 library cards for different cities) unfortunately have very little Sanderson, but I do have a £10 voucher for waterstones that I need to spend in the next year sooooo

oh hohoho ok yes i can answer this question very normally while vibrating an average amount

So, Stormlight Archive itself is a (fairly) straightforward series, but it's part of a bigger Cosmere series that is, uh, less so. I do recommend reading Mistborn at some point, since it's kinda his breakout series and will be important but uhhh i haven't done that and when in doubt you can look everything up on the wiki so anyway, here's Pocket's Reading Order

1- Warbreaker. This one is set on a different planet than Stormlight, but it's first for a couple reasons. One: it's free to read online at Sanderson's website. Two: four characters (so far) show back up in Stormlight after Warbreaker and i love them so you should know about them going in. Three: it does a good job kinda breaking down a lot of the magic workings in the Cosmere.

read it here

2- Emperor's Soul. I actually read this before i read Warbreaker but it does a REALLY good job at breaking down the magic more. I'd say this one is optional though, it's a shorter little novella and doesn't really impact the main Stormlight storyline (it's on another different planet). I'd say it kinda helps you grasp Sanderson's reading style more, because you're kinda gonna need to trust him going into Stormlight. but if you already are sold, this one isn't too vital since it can be harder to find. (on its own for audiobook, or in Arcanum Unbound collection)

3- The Way of Kings, Stormlight Archive Book One. Look. this book has three prologues and is much bigger than Warbreaker or Emperor's Soul. You've got to trust him but it's worth it. Honestly if you skipped ES, a lot of the magic explanation gets there anyway through the book, just broken up a bit more.

note: DO NOT read Way of Kings Prime, his first draft of the book. its um. its really a first draft. noncanon, a lot of the cool stuff wasnt in it yet.

4- Words of Radiance, Stormlight Archive Book Two

The sequel!

5- Edgedancer, a Stormlight Novella. Yeah you don't want to move on to book three without reading this one. Um, you can find Edgedancer in Arcanum Unbound, the same collection that Emperor's Soul is in. There are probably standalone versions of it somewhere but im not sure where. all else fails, the Coppermind Wiki has very good summaries if you want to read those to move past it. (thats uh,,,, what i did with the first mistborn trilogy oops)

5- Oathbringer, Stormlight Book Three

6- Dawnshard, a Stormlight Novella. (Lie! it's actually just long enough to be a novel but everyone very politely pretends its a novella. this one you can get by itself and ahem. if you want to borrow my copy you just let me know once you get there.)

7- Rhythm of War, Stormlight Book Four

im uh. not gonna lie to you. this book is kinda the 'lowest of lows' emotionally, it gets real dark. im p sure Brandon actually published it with a trigger warning. but its REALLY GOOD just ugh. delicious.

That's all the Stormlight books that are out so far, but uh, book Five releases 2024 and there'll probably be another novella between four and five since there was a 2.5 and 3.5 novella but thats it so far.

so yeah get started with Warbreaker maybe? then see what libraries around you have the other stuff.

#theres a joke about the true cosmere reading order being the warbreaker reading order #where you read warbreaker between every single book as you go through #its not a joke i love warbreaker and i LOVE the characters that show back up in stormligt #mmmmmm Nightblood my adored #i wont say who the others are bc warbreaker spoilers of course but #they're my little squeaky toy and my utter adored and my clown guy #but of course the real star of Stormlight is kaladin and his drift compatible fairy princess sylphrenaaaaa loves loves loves #anon #pocket talks to people #i hope this answer was. helpful. more helpful than it looks kjhgjk

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justabitsp00ky · 1 year

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Victim #1 Original Image - Found media!

Oh this image. This image used to haunt little me when I first learned about the M A R I O rom hack. To say it was a creepypasta wouldn't entirely be accurate. For those not in the know, on the rom hacking website, SMW Central, a rom was uploaded that was a bit unusual, as one of the moderators, Adam, play testing would find- and he would post his reactions as he played along. The rom had no music, and all text boxes were replaced with messages such as "I hate you" and "This is the selfish way out". After defeating the first koopaling, the game would show Mario with the Yoshi egg outside of the castle and blowing up, like usual in the game. Only, instead of the Yoshi egg thanking Mario, the text box read, "Victim #1. Eyeballs were unable to be found. The victim was found laying on her carpet. Causes of death unknown, hand marks with unidentifiable fingerprints were found all over the corpse." Along with the rom, was a text file, and when converted would show this image.

Except, that's only the most popular use of the image, and also how the image came to be known as "Victim #1". The image came far before the eerie rom hack, and actually originates from a 4chan post.

And it was a start to an ARG. The among things like sound files that gave hints to their debut album's themes, the biggest hint is the file name was actually found to be a Myspace ID for an industrial metal band called Common Man Down, with the lead singer being Jordan Davis. As it would turn out in another post, Jordan Davis revealed he made this entire ARG simply to experiment with his creative ideas. So, that's cool. He would also explain that the image was heavily distorted and edited in Gimp. So he'd be able to give us the original image he used, right? Well, no, unfortunately. Of course it was lost to time, and this image wasn't even supposed to "blow up" in the first place. All he could offer was that it was a Japanese girl in makeup from a black metal type of photoshoot that he found on google way back when, he just cropped and edited it "to hell".

Eventually, a discord user by the name of G O D had found the image, without much of a known explanation for how they found it, to which the image was forwarded to Jordan Davis, and he would confirm with "Holy Fuck ... I can 100% say yes, this is the original", finally ending the 14 year search for the image. Finally here it is.

It turned out, it was a person cosplaying the singer Kyo from the band Dir En Grey. The image does completely match up, as you can see the shapes of the fingers line up with the placements of the shadows on the "Victim #1" image, what bit of hair isn't cropped out follows the same shape, and most notably the makeup under the eye matches with the mass of darkness below "Victim #1" eye.

As someone who was scared by the M A R I O "creepypasta" (actually, it was a small piece to a larger ARG that was made out of spite because the creator made a rom that was poorly received) when I had watched a Youtuber talking about it, finally seeing a close to the image has been greatly satisfying. From theories of a real corpse to a photoshopped mango, to a Fatal Frame ghost, it's nice to see that all along it was just some spooky looking cosplayer, and all with the confirmation from the guy who made the edit. For some time, the creepiest part to me wasn't that it was a pretty shocking image, but that there wasn't a very clear source on what the original image was. Younger me can finally be satisfied.

#creepy mystery #creepypasta #mario creepypasta #victim 1 #internet mysteries #photography #long post

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deadcactuswalking · 9 months

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FAQ: REVIEWING THE CHARTS

Hi, i'm cactus, I maintain a primarily chart music-based review blog that is direly unsuccessful. I figured that I'd take the time today to note down some answers to some questions about me and my blog series REVIEWING THE CHARTS that mean I don't have to explain things week by week and new readers can have everything in a nice comfy place.

Q: What is your real name?

cactus. As far as you know I was Christened cactus, so call me cactus.

Q: Why the UK Singles Chart?

The UK is the country I unfortunately live in and as a result I know the most about its popular music traditions and trends. Additionally, it's also the country whose pop music affects me the most, i.e. listening to the radio or talking to friends and family about music.

Q: Why the UK Top 75?

For years I have covered the top 75 instead of the top 100 and this isn't so that I have less work to do. I used to cover just the top 40, but I expanded this into the top 75 in 2020. This is because, firstly, acharts.co is a pretty cool website and secondly, the British Market Research Bureau, considered to reflect the "official chart" during its existence by the Official Charts Company, had a top 75 for a moment. This was in response to rival record industry publications publishing top 100 charts, and therefore I decided to stick to the top 75, because if there's anything that represents the UK to me, it's trying to one-up your rivals doing something objectively better than you by being only 25% less inadequate.

Q: You're just a Spectrum Pulse rip-off.

That's not a question and yes, yes I am. Except with somehow even worse takes (love you Mark).

Q: Do you ever talk about anything else?

No. And I never will. On a serious note, whilst I do pride myself in how my chart review episodes go into... weirder territory than most chart reviewers, I don't often talk about non-charting music on this blog. I do have a RateYourMusic account however, and in my listening logs, I talk about music I listen to inside and outside of the charts as well as some movies. You can see those at the account exclusivelytopostown.

On this blog, outside of the UK Singles Chart, I've also done a vintage year-end 'best hits' list these past two years for years in the 2000s, using the Billboard Hot 100, and I'll probably end up doing the same this year. I've also talked about SpongeBob and will have a Pokémon-related post out in the next month, and honestly I want to broaden the scope of this blog sooner more than later. However, this is primarily still a weekly chart review blog and will stay that way for a while.

Q: Why Tumblr?

I started it on Tumblr, I'll end it on Tumblr.

Q: When does this series end?

When I or Lewis Capaldi dies.

Q: When will you die?

(checks diary) Tuesday the 6th.

Q: Why should I read your blog?

Because what other angry lesbian talking about the nuances of D-Block Europe could you possibly find on the Internet?

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy whatever else you end up reading on here.

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themedicalstate · 2 years

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17 things about Porn

What are the effects of porn use?

Here are seventeen key things from the book “Your brain on porn” by Gary Wilson:

1. We are what we repeatedly do (Aristotle)

Neuroplasticity is how the brain changes with activity and if you are watching porn, it is changing in a very specific way. The porn users’ brain maps for new and is rewarding you for what it sees as highly valuable. Orgasming is nature’s natural reinforcer and in the brain, nerve cells that fire together wire together.

Aristotle, the original philosopher/wanker.

2. Relationship dissatisfaction

With the brain mapping for new, sadly long term relationships seem less appealing. Humans are in the 3–5% of mammals who can form long term bonds but can be externally lead by novelty. After giving up porn, respective mates who will make better long-term partners seem more attractive.

I’m sorry but if we can’t do a Wordle together it’s a no.

3. Photos > videos

Videos replace the imagination in a way that at still images don’t. As far as the brain is concerned, it can’t tell videos are not real life. Your brain is tricked into thinking you are impregnating multiple females and sacrifices later well-being for what it equates to a survival situation.

I am the most impressive sex machine the world has ever seen, move over Genghis Khan, I will live on for eternity — brain on porn.

4. Supernormal Stimulus

Exaggerated versions of natural stimulus are falsely perceived as valuable and diverts the viewer from pursuing normal mating behaviour. This type of stimulus is called supernormal stimulus. A celebrated example of this is the male jewel beetle who ignores real mates in favour of a dimpled brown bottom of a beer bottle (to a beetle, a beer bottle looks like the biggest and sexiest female in the world).

To be fair, dem bottles be thicc.

5. Dopamine is where the action is

This very natural neurochemical is responsible for rewarding you for seeking things such as food, sex, love and friendship. It spurs you on to do all the things critical to your survival. Fishing is a great example of a dopamine driven activity that drives and excites you to search for the natural reward of food.

You mean I can’t find love watching porn? but there are so many hot singles in my area.

6. We search more then we are satisfied

We are continuously hit with dopamine spikes when we are searching for that perfect porn video. When we finally finish the search the amount of opioid released is small in comparison. Porn users enjoy porn the same amount as non-porn users but just start to crave it more.

The perfect video DOES exist, I just can’t remember where I saw it. It was on Xhamster, no Pornhub, hang on give 2 hours.

7. We all have a trigger

One user reported that the click of the front door when his parents left the house was his trigger to start watching porn. Like Pavlov’s dogs starting to salivate when they heard a whistle, every porn users has a trigger. For some it is just their phone or for others the icon from their favourite website.

“Honey, I’m just going to the shops, do you want anything?” “No thanks.” CLICK.

8. A little is a lot

Watching porn at less frequent intervals does not necessarily help. Porn users’ who indulge once a fortnight report similar levels of symptoms as more frequent users. These results were discovered by a survey that recorded higher then expected results from religious (faith) users’ of porn, whose guilt kept them from using it more frequently.

I also use porn religiously.

9. The limit does not exist

Unlike junk food there is no physical limit to how much porn you can watch. Your brain has natural ways of lowering your reaction to the same porn and without the novelty you would loose interest. Unfortunately the porn website’s developers can always go to a new level, when it is brain vs brain, the brain getting paid will always win (the website creators brain vs your brain).

There is a physical limit for junk food?

10. What late stage porn addiction looks like

Multiple tabs of videos, compilation videos, straight porn for gay people and gay porn for straight people. The brain thinks it has seen it all and the only way it can get more of a hit is to be shocked with a new genre. Feeling guilt, anxiety, and shame are other ways to escalate things brain chemistry wise.

One must never look at thy browser history in thy cold light of day — Aristotle

11. Lack of eye contact can be a symptom

Porn rewrites and hijacks the “brain real estate” needed for social interactions. Human beings are tribal animals and need each other to help regulate mood. One symptom that some porn users’ reported was a reluctance to make eye contact with others, a key for communication and connection with community.

…but real life people look back at me.

12. Porn is the new junk food which was the new smoking

Society has been here before and will be again. Here is the cycle:

Step 1. Exciting but bad long term behaviour is introduced

Step 2. People get hooked

Step 3. Precise scientific backed research takes decades to finish

Step 4. Hooked people start to be educated

Step 5. Behaviour eliminating commences

Rinse and repeat. Smoking, fast food, porn, ellen.

13. Edging is it’s own thing

Some people don’t get addicted to porn but to edging. The practice of going right up to the edge and then stepping back and restarting, is different to regular masturbation. Edging is when your dopamine is at a high and this is also when you are likely to develop fetishes.

I watch a lot of porn and don’t have any fetishes. (that was the joke)

14. Addiction is not about drugs, its about brains

The four fundamental brain changes that occur in all types of addicts are:

1. Sensation — An unconscious super memory of pleasure

2. Desensitisation — numbed response to that pleasure

3. Dysfunctional prefrontal circuitry — weakened will power + hyper reactivity to addiction cues

4. Malfunctioning stress system — amplified cravings + magnified withdraw

In other words: 1. Hey I know what you need 2. I can’t get no satisfaction 3. Bad idea but I can’t stop you 4. I need something now to take the edge off

15. There is an escape route

Did you know that Pavlov also untrained his dogs. The method he used is called “Exposure response prevention therapy”. There are ways to undo the behaviour that pornography has reinforced.

Sweet what’s the silver bullet? Shit, is it going to be like exercise, socialising and focusing on long term stuff? Yes.

16. “115 days later I was free”

If you can’t remember the last time you went a week without porn, let a alone a month, no good news for you. To really see the effects of your porn use, you will need to go a bit longer to compare results. The good news is it is only a matter of time before you reset your neural pathways and break free.

“Rebooting” in other words. You know, like a computer. CLICK

17. There will be a flat line

After giving up porn your brain goes without the supernormal stimulus. This can cause some to be a little unresponsive downstairs while the brains resets. A supportive partner can be vital in aiding a recovering porn user to help them get back to more natural ways of orgasming.

Sweet, all I need is one of those.

By James Greene (Medium). Image credit: ra2 studio – Fotolia.com.

#science #medicine #neuroscience #medblr #academia #health #mental health

511 notes · View notes

slightlymore · 3 years

Text

what am I now?

for @notnctu’s collab “beginnings”. thank you again for letting me participate in this and I’ll miss you so fucking much :((((

real estate agent doyoung x fem reader

genre: romantic comedy, +18

warnings: few istances of doyoung smoking, he also punches someone lol, mutual pining, explicit sexual content [a lot of teasing and sexual frustration, dirty talk, solo m and f, orgasm control and denial both, overstimulation both, oral f, unprotected)

other characters mentioned: kun (sorry baby)

words: 10.6k

---READ PART 2 HERE---

______

Hunting for an apartment sounded very fun in theory: a cute adventure in the big city on your own, staring at nice places and imagining how you'd decorate them.

You were a sucker for interior design and you were ashamed to confess that you spent more time on The Sims than with real people having a conversation.

But hunting for an apartment was not fun at all in reality.

After the fourth place you’ve seen in a row, either ugly or far too expensive for what they were offering, feet hurting like hell as you had to walk around in the snow, you finally decided to get help from an agency.

You searched for the best-reviewed ones for days, deciding that money was not really an issue if they could help you find a place with windows towards the south so you wouldn’t cry that your apartment was dark as hell at 2 pm.

While doing so, you saw the best little place on some fancy-ass looking agency website. It looked so perfect that you got sudden tears in your eyes.

“And what’s your partner’s name?”

You were biting your nails, sitting on your old kitchen chairs in the dirty apartment you had to escape from.

The monotonous voice that answered the call went by the name of Kun.

“My partner’s name?” you straightened your back.

With the corner of your eyes, you saw your reflection in the sticky oven at your right and you patted your head to make sure your hair was alright as if the dude could actually see you.

“Like my- my lover?” you asked again.

“Yes, ma’am. Boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, lover, partner-”

“Yeah, okay, okay, alright,” you interrupted him. “Why do you need this information?”

The dude sighed. “Are you aware that this offer is for couples, ma’am?”

Your eye twitched at his insistence on calling you ma’am. “Sorry, I was actually not.”

“So, you’re single,” he asked precisely.

“Yes,” you almost whispered, feeling more of a loser than usual.

Monotonous Kun sighed. “It is a special price for Valentine’s Day and-” he started to recite. While he was talking you squinted at the computer and read the minuscule description under the apartment information you unfortunately missed.

“Great, thank you anyways,” you let him finish before bidding goodbye since you were no Karen.

You sighed and closed your eyes.

Since when did real estate have special prices for Valentine’s Day?

As you threw yourself back on the chair and silently screamed, wobbling all of your limbs around, the doorbell interrupted your dramatic scene. You kicked the empty card boxes you took from the grocery stores, since spending money for those seemed too much for you and reached the musty uncleanable front door.

“Good evening, dear,” you opened to see the face of your neighbours across the street.

They were an old couple, always on the balcony minding other people’s business and always in the mood to pick a fight.

“Just popping in to say that, first of all, you’re very beautiful,” the woman smiled fakely and you returned the same vibe by thanking her, your brain already fuming while trying to understand what the issue was that time, “but my husband can see your nipples through your pyjama top when you’re in the kitchen. I think you would agree that it is highly inappropriate.”

You felt one vein pulsing on your left temple.

“To watch young women do their thing in their own house through the windows? Yes, it is highly inappropriate. Good talk.”

The lady furrowed her eyebrows at your remark and opened her mouth to add something you couldn’t hear over the door slamming.

You had to get out of that place as soon as possible.

___

It was a few days after Valentine’s Day and the apartment was still on the website.

It drove you mad that you couldn’t have access to it for no real reason so you decided to creepily check the agency out.

The first day you walked around it, your beanie low to cover your features and sunglasses when there was not a single ray of sun out. You noticed a few distinguished people going in and out of the glass door and you wondered which of them was Kun. Some people whispered past you as you kept trying to see inside, so you chickened out and went home.

The second day you were tempted to dress as a man and go talk to some agent, the thought of not having any other possibility afterwards if they refused you while looking like yourself, giving you the courage to be stupid.

But you didn't. The beard you drew on was horrible and you couldn’t possibly buy the house if they accepted to sell, as no bearded guy was on your documents.

So you did the next best thing.

There were all men inside of that satanic place and although not everyone possibly liked women, a fair share of them did. Ignoring the cold, you put on the sexiest dress you had in your closet, some high boots and finally tried out that eyeliner look you saw on TikTok. With a few drops of perfume, you felt irresistible in your soft coat and if they didn’t want to give you the apartment because you were single, at least a few of them would definitely try and date you.

“No.”

You felt your chin tremble.

“What do you mean, no?”

The man, who unfortunately was still Monotonous Kun you talked to on the phone, sighed.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. The price offer is for couples. If you’re that interested, we can sell it to you. But for its full price.”

“But I don’t have all of that money," you let out a tiny whine.

Kun smiled politely and you sensed he wanted you out of his office.

“Then please check out our other options.”

You closed your mouth because if you opened it you were afraid you’d start to sob.

“And if I bring my boyfriend in?” you finally asked quietly after a few moments.

The man sighed again. “Then we can do something.”

He knew you had no damn boyfriend.

You inhaled and exhaled deeply and got up from the office chair Kun offered.

“Then, I’ll come back as soon as possible,” you announced, putting maybe a bit too much fierceness in those words as it sounded like a warning.

Kun opened his mouth to say something but no sound escaped it as you turned around and felt a literal wall hit you straight in the face.

Your pained whine reverberated in the whole agency and you almost cried on the spot.

"Oh. That must have hurt," the Wall talked and you took a little step back, hands quick to cover your forehead with another whimper. Behind the tears veiling your pupils you noticed a face. And some eyes too, a nose, oh, and definitely lips that smiled.

At you, because you were a clown.

"Oh! Here you are!" you exclaimed, not missing a beat.

The smile died a bit in confusion but the eyes got brighter in curiosity.

You turned around and grabbed that person's hand, pulling them roughly towards you.

Kun furrowed his eyebrows at you both, arms crossed on his chest.

"What does this mean?" he asked, not looking at you but at the person you basically just kidnapped.

"This is my partner,” you explained. “We're a couple. Means I can have access to the place for its special price," you lifted your chin bravely. “I wasn’t sure he could come in after work today.” You cleared your voice and fought the urge to roll some hair on your index finger.

Kun turned his head slightly to face you, then again towards the dude whose hand you were nervously holding. His fingers were relaxed as they were intertwined with yours, though, and you thanked god he didn't freak out on the spot.

"Sorry Kun, I should have told you that my girlfriend would come today," the Wall said.

"Why do you even need me for an apartment though? Do it yourself," Kun replied. You turned towards the kidnapped dude to fully take in the view and he giggled.

Your shocked eyes fell on his chest where neatly and quite visible was a bright silver tag: Real estate agent Kim Doyoung, it said.

___

Kim Doyoung’s office was just as clean as the other agent’s one and you wondered what kind of perfectionist freaks they hired.

“Alright. I guess I’m sorry,” you mumbled all of a sudden after sitting down in front of his desk. Doyoung was still walking around it when he laughed.

“You guess?” He opened the black blazer’s button and tugged his dress pants a bit higher on the thighs to sit more comfortably.

He was a very good looking young man. His clothes looked high quality, his wristwatch seemed expensive as fuck and his hair was so neat you fought the urge to lean in and ruffle it for him.

“Well, I’m not really,” you crossed your legs and arms. “Are you mad though?”

Doyoung took in your body language for a moment and shook his head. His feline eyes twinkled with amusement. “It was the highlight of my week.”

“What funnier thing happened to you last week then?”

“Okay, fair,” he replied with an eyebrow movement, fingers already very quick to tap on his computer keyboard.

“Also thank you,” you added in a different tone. “For not kicking me out of the building.”

The man smiled at the screen, then with one last click, he looked at you. “I would never kick someone out."

“Yes. You do look like a good man-”

“Because everyone is a potential customer I could sell to.”

“-ah.”

You leaned back in your chair. Then you sighed.

“So, you wanted the couple's apartment?” Doyoung asked.

“Yes.”

“For the discounted price.”

“Yes.”

“I can give you some other options," he tried.

You rolled your eyes, ready to have the same experience you had with Kun. Now that his colleague thought you two were dating, you wouldn’t just go on the street and ask a random person to act as your partner as you planned.

“Or we can pretend we’re dating like in the movies - so I get the place.”

Doyoung’s lips moved as if trying hard to suppress a smile. His index finger slowly pushed his glasses on the nose.

“That would be against our rules,” he specified in a neutral, obvious tone.

“I mean, and if I walk in with a random dude in 5 minutes? Are you not going to give me the place?” you uncrossed your legs and leaned in. Your voice got deeper as if sharing a secret. You hoped your eyes were seductive enough.

The man put his tongue inside the cheek for a second.

“I wouldn’t trust you anymore, no.”

You scoffed. “I mean, no one can prove you anything though. What if two friends walk in pretending to be a couple?”

“It hasn’t happened yet.”

“Right. Because that apartment was waiting for me,” you indicated your face with one finger. “It’s fate.”

Doyoung moved ever so slightly in his office chair from side to side. The wheels on it were the only sound in the room as he pondered.

“But first of all,” he professionally intertwined his fingers on the desk. His eyes darted from your hair to your dress, to your nails and bag that was resting on your knees. You thought he would have looked under the desk to look at your shoes as well if it wouldn’t have been rude.

“Even if I sell it to you for a discounted price, how do you intend to pay?”

You secretly bit your inner cheeks. “I have almost all of it already. The couple's price. Not the original price.”

He nodded, pensive.

“What contract do you have?”

You felt your throat itchy. “Self-employed?”

“What do you do? You have a business?”

“Uh, do I have to say?”

Doyoung was already fumbling to find the right papers for you to sign, so he stopped at your hesitation.

“I’m obliged by law to not share any personal information. You can be honest. All I care about is that you have enough money.”

His careless attitude should have helped you, but it made you even more nervous.

“Do you have an OnlyFans?” he then asked nonchalantly, thinking he was actually helping.

You were mortified.

“Do I look like someone who could have an OnlyFans?”

Doyoung blinked once before taking in the view of your body again with the corner of his eyes. For the first time, he seemed to waver in his confidence. If he said yes, it would have been rude. If he said no, it would also have been rude.

“I mean, everyone can have one. There are no specific requirements. There are so many things one can do. Classic stuff, feet, armpits-” he went on in a casual tone.

“I’m a writer. I write stuff,” you spurted before it could get too weird. Your hands on the bag handle fidgeted.

“Oh,” he relaxed, placing the papers in front of you. “What do you write? Novels? Sorry, maybe you’re even famous but unfortunately, I don’t read much.”

“Erotica.”

Doyoung’s nostrils flared. It was going to be a long day.

____

“Had no idea erotica was so popular,” Doyoung commented.

You were driving towards the couple's apartment.

“We’re just going to take a look. There are other nice places I want you to see as well.”

You shrugged, signing your contract with him. He did seem a bit nicer than Kun and perhaps, perhaps, if you worked hard enough, you could even reach the original price. This, if no one snatched it before you.

“You take 10%? From the whole price?” you almost yelled, reading all of the clauses.

Doyoung bit his lower lip as if a bit embarrassed. “It’s our policy,” he explained, hands a bit fidgety on his glass desk.

“Yet your knowledge on porn is pristine,” you commented.

He inhaled as if about to argue then changed his mind. “Touché.”

It was a nice day driving through the city. You didn’t have enough money to invest in a car but Doyoung obviously had a very luxurious one. The warm air conditioning felt like an angel’s touch and the seats were more comfortable than your own bed.

“I use it for work too,” he explained, looking at you briefly before gazing at the road again.

“Why? Do I look like I’m judging you right now?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Well, if you get 10% from each deal…,” you drifted off.

Doyoung opened his mouth and you interrupted. “Yeah, I know, I know. I only get a small percentage of the 10% because some of it goes to the agency and some of it goes to pay the OnlyFans of all of my favourite people,” you imitated his tone.

He nodded for the first part and stopped for the second with an amused frown.

“No. But I would have subscribed to you.”

You turned your head towards him with a snap. “Uhm, unprofessional much?”

“You literally asked me to fake date you so I could sell you the apartment."

“And that’s a good fucking idea!"

“In that case, I should sign the contract too. I don’t want to buy an apartment. That’s insane."

"So what? The money still goes to you and the agency. Who cares if we fuck in it or not? Do you not trust me?"

Doyoung's lips opened after a quick smile. "Honestly?"

"No. Don't be honest. It's okay," you stopped him.

"I'll sell it to you."

"Really?"

He nodded.

“Really? For the couple’s price?”

Doyoung sighed as if about to enter a lion’s cave. “Yes.”

You screamed, leaning in and wrapping his neck with your arms. You were about to leave a big red smooch on his cheek as well when he lightly drifted to the left, losing control of the wheel at your sudden movement, and the gravity pushed you back into your seat instead.

He cleared his throat and you hoped he didn’t change his mind.

____

Your high heels clicking on the wooden floors made you cringe.

Doyoung waited in the corridor in silence, letting you take in the view of the apartment before he could start giving you any information about it.

You inhaled and looked at his hands, absentmindedly playing with the key and thought how nice it would be if he just handed it to you. He had very nice hands, you noticed. And body.

You looked away.

“Any neighbours?” you finally asked.

The apartment was pristine. Absolutely everything you’ve ever wanted. So beautiful you just wanted to grab his necktie and drag him back to the agency to go through with the deed. And kiss him on the mouth for being a saviour.

“Only one on the left. A young man. Works in a bank."

“Oh!” you raised your eyebrows as you slowly made rounds in the rooms. “Sounds very promising.”

Doyoung didn’t comment on that.

“The heating is autonomous. You also have an autonomous water meter so you pay what you use.”

You nodded. “Great. How much for the condo a month?”

Doyoung took out his papers and started to read them to you. You listened to his voice as, hands loosely clasped together behind your back, you let yourself finally dream.

New apartment for a discounted price and a hot rich neighbour you could have a fun and sexy adventure? You felt the luckiest Y/N in a fanfiction in the world.

_____

“What do you mean the apartment is sold?”

Doyoung sighed into the phone before he could repeat with a heavy tone. “A couple bought it from Kun.”

You were packing the last of your boxes. The documents should have been ready that day. The money you borrowed from the bank felt heavy in your account and you couldn’t actually wait to get those damn keys from Doyoung’s sexy hands the day after.

With a giggle, as if still in high school, you were drawing stupid hearts with the marker on the cardboard near “kitchenware” when he called to drop the bomb.

He had the decency to sound sorry and it drove you even madder.

“And you just let him? You know how much I wanted that place!”

“Y/N, listen-,” he tried to speak but your head was light with the amount of blood that shot to it.

“No, you listen to me. I waste my time doing stuff the way you said to do and now there’s so little time for me to empty my own apartment and there’s nowhere for me to go because it's not like I was looking for other apartments while I know I already have my own!”

"I'll help you find something else."

"I don't want your help. Enjoy the money you got from me that gave me nothing in return!”

You heard your name called once before you ended the call and threw the phone on your nude mattress laying in the middle of the apartment.

_____

Doyoung called many times that evening although you wouldn’t know since you turned off your phone.

The loud bang on Kun’s desk attracted many eyes when Doyoung heard the news and barged into his colleague's office.

“You’re behaving like a madman. What’s the matter with you?” the other tried to keep calm, eyeing Doyoung's wide palms pressed on the glass.

The latter’s eyes were two tiny cracks under his now unstyled fringe. “I was working with that apartment. And you knew. I had a client that had to finish paperwork tomorrow and it was sold."

Kun sighed and relaxed in his chair.

“Yeah. That client. You wanted to sell it for the discounted price. I know you're not dating."

Doyoung retrieved his hands from the desk and slowly adjusted his posture.

“And?”

“I sold it for a very good price instead. They actually paid more than the original not discounted price for that. They wanted it that badly. If your cute short-dress-and-fuck-me-eyes client wanted it that bad, instead of sucking your dick or whatever she had to do to make you decide on selling it to her, she could have just offered mor-”

Unfortunately, Kun couldn’t finish that phrase as his head abruptly turned to the side thanks to Doyoung’s fist.

_____

He knew he had no reason to do that. But for fuck’s sake, everyone was driving Jeeps and Land Rovers in that place. No one would have missed the tiny little money you couldn’t provide for that apartment.

“I wanted to let you off more but Kun was kind enough to calm me down,” said the Director, a short and far from intimidating man against Doyoung’s office glass door.

Everything in that place was made of glass and it drove him insane.

The old man took a napkin from his pocket and tapped against his sweaty forehead, his breath so loud that Doyoung felt the need to punch him as well.

He didn’t bother to look up from the box he was filling with his stuff and didn't reply.

“Honestly, my boy, you’ve been incredible all of these years so it breaks my heart to see you take this pause-”

“I’m not coming back.”

The man coughed once and Doyoung sighed, hands on the hips, looking around to see what else he should take home with him.

“What do you mean you’re not coming back?” The director took a few alarmed steps inside the office and Doyoung hoped he didn’t want to grab his hands and beg.

“Consider these two pausing weeks, as Kun kindly suggested, as my two weeks' notice.”

“What are you going to do now?”

Doyoung wore his jacket and the man’s shocked eyes followed him around as he grabbed the box and walked the distance from the desk to the door.

“I don’t know,” Doyoung shrugged. “I think porn.”

_____

When the doorbell rang that night you were ready to grab your neighbour’s head and smash it on the wall.

“My nipples are out, yes, but I don’t care! Just don’t fucking look at me!” you yelled into the person’s face.

Doyoung’s mouth was open and his eyes inevitably darted towards your white t-shirt.

“They’re not completely out though,” he replied with a tiny voice.

You felt your face scrunch in a mad but surprised expression.

“And you? What the fuck do you want?”

“Brought you the money,” Doyoung simply replied.

You looked down at his hands where the envelope containing the down payment looked back at you. His right hand’s knuckles were bruised and he was quick to pass the envelope in his left hand and put the other in his pants pocket. Then you noticed how he was dressed.

You tried not to take a step back in shock.

Grey sweatpants and converse? If he weren’t such a piece of shit it would have turned you on.

“I thought those were lost money.”

“They’re not. If I sell you the house then this money is taken away from the total and if I don’t, for my fault or the agencies’ fault, this money is yours. You don’t pay anything.”

You sighed. Seeing his dishevelled hair and college boy appearance softened your anger towards him and it irritated you.

“And if I want to see other places? Can you keep it and use it as a down payment for one of those?”

Doyoung’s eyes twinkled in surprise. He probably thought you didn’t want him to work for you anymore.

“Just keep it and give it to an agent then.”

You bit your lower lip and leaned on the door. “You don’t want to do this anymore? I know I was mad at you over the phone but I really need a house very quickly and I don’t have time to search for another agent.”

“I’m not an agent anymore,” Doyoung said.

You blinked at him then grabbed his forearm, dragging him inside.

“And what are you now? What the fuck did you do?”

“I quit,” he replied, eyeing your full packed apartment.

“Why?” you walked around him after closing the door and searched for a stool for him to sit on.

“Oh, it’s not about you.”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m not that self-centred.”

“Seriously. I’ve always wanted to quit that hell place,” he accepted the small stool and looked up at you after sitting down.

He looked so tiny on it that you were dumbfounded at the situation.

“What did you do to the hand?” you walked over and grabbed it. He hesitated as if wanting to retrieve it.

“I've always wanted to punch the shit out of that dude too,” he mumbled.

You scoffed incredulously. “Wait here.”

Crouching down near the bathroom door, you opened a box and looked for something.

“A man is looking towards your window right now,” Doyoung said, eyes fixed on something outside of it.

“Yeah. It’s the creepy neighbour.”

“The one obsessed with your nipples?”

“Yeah,” you finally found what you were looking for and came back to face him.

“Medicate it after I go visit him, would you? If you do it now, you’ll have to do it twice.”

He looked up at you from his stool as he said that and he didn’t look tiny anymore.

“Easy, macho man,” you looked away and concentrated on his hand instead. It felt soft in your palm as you examined his busted knuckles.

He didn’t flinch as you disinfected the wounds but you blew on them anyway to make it less painful. Doyoung watched your pouty lips as you did so and didn't add anything else for a while.

“Do you want me to help you out with the bed?” he asked. "I can assemble it back together."

“No, I’m good. I’ll just keep it on the floor.”

You were both almost whispering from the vicinity.

“Do you want to spend the night over at my house?”

You hid the sudden embarrassment with a choked laugh. “How can you ask that so casually?”

He blinked as if suddenly realizing what he actually said.

“But would you? I feel bad,” he added.

“No need to feel bad. You were just doing your job.”

“Not well enough,” he moved his fingers after you finished medicating, flexing them ever so slightly.

You walked around the boxes just to realize you didn’t have a trashcan anymore. “So you’re really not an agent now?”

“I mean, I am. The skills are there. I’m just unemployed for the moment.”

“What do you plan to do?”

Doyoung got up and took the cotton from your hands and put it into his pocket.

“I’ll probably open an agency.”

“That’s so cool!”

He intertwined his fingers with yours and grabbed the jacket you kept on the hanger near the door. Your apartment was so tiny that Doyoung didn’t have to move much.

Your breath stopped.

“That fucking asshole is going to drive me insane,” he explained and you turned your head back to see the old man still staring from his balcony.

“Stay with me until I find you a home,” he made you wear the jacket.

You wondered if that was a good idea but then relaxed. As he zipped the jacket for you, the butterflies in your stomach made all the previous anger just die. You looked at his expression and wondered what he was thinking about.

Was he dangerous? He did just punch a man at work.

Or did he possibly like you? Probably not.

Did he maybe want to fuck you? Okay, no. He was probably the last man to want to fuck you.

_____

Doyoung had a wicked desire. It was made of your whines and soft pleas, his hand around your throat and your thighs pressing on his ears. When did it all happen? He had no clue.

He knew you probably didn’t find him attractive at all, especially after the whole apartment fiasco, but he didn’t sleep well for two whole nights after meeting you the first time and letting you go without helping you out at all made him sick to his stomach.

That night, staring at your cute nape as you looked outside the car window, hands loosely clasped together, eyes wide to take in the view, he felt like hugging you instead of doing whatever nasty things he imagined.

The used napkins thrown around on the floor of your apartment that probably collected all of your tears after his call, made his heart sting.

Near your knees he eyed the fortune cookie he had just a few weeks before, the day your face bumped into his chest.

Change is coming. Don't be afraid.

Were you the real change that was coming along? Was that a coincidence? Was he doing the wrong thing? He did feel a bit stupid but maybe you just inspired him to do something that he's already wanted to do.

_____

Waking all of a sudden in a new environment, you almost gasped, looking around and taking in details before remembering where you slept last night.

The car ride was mostly silent and the packing made it easy for you to just grab the bag you prepared to live off for the next few days. If only your dream apartment hasn’t already been sold.

Meet me for brunch at the café at the corner, the note near your pillow said.

The thought of Doyoung entering the guest room and seeing you sleep made your guts twirl on themselves.

When he offered to help you find another apartment the previous night, not really as an agent but with an agent’s skills, you were so tired that you just shrugged. He was giving you a warmer comforter for your bed as he spoke and you grabbed it, not thinking much of the situation.

Now, face puffy and your hair smelling like his laundry detergent, you tried to force your brain to understand just what that meant.

"Did you have any water today or do I have to spit into your mouth?" you heard his sweet and slightly breathy voice.

You rolled your eyes after jerking your head up, hiding your flustered expression with the tall glass Doyoung pushed towards you.

"I did," you replied, but still took a few sips. "Did you?"

Doyoung sat in front of you at the café table and leaned back in his chair, fingers slowly fumbling with his shirt. He scoffed once, not looking at you, concentrating on rolling up his sleeves.

He didn’t tell you where he went that morning but his cologne was mixed with a sweeter perfume and you didn’t need much imagination to know that he wasn’t the one to open the first buttons of his dress shirt. You tried to not bit your lower lip in jealousy.

Others always mistook your kindness for attraction and now there you were, roles reversed - just a dude feeling guilty towards you and you falling for him like a fool.

"I gather you want to spit into my mouth."

His silver watch shone under the sun as he moved, calling your gaze upon it.

"Maybe," you mumbled, the flirting suddenly not doing it anymore for you after imagining his neck kissed by some other lips.

He placed his hands on the table and finally looked at you.

You exchanged looks for a long silent moment.

"Do you know what you're supposed to do after buying a new home?"

"Hm," you pretended to think about it, "knowing you, it's something around the lines of fucking on each surface."

Doyoung smiled.

“Knowing you. I read some of your books and fucking on every surface is your thing.”

You choked on your water. The tears pricked your eyes as you coughed and Doyoung actually had the guts to look worried.

You gently refused his napkin. “You read some of my books? When?”

“Last night. I mean they’re quite short,” he leaned back in his chair again. His foxy expression irritated you. “Very educational.”

He read your porn while you were sleeping in the room next to his?

The waiter materialized near the table with your coffee and a courteous smile. You jolted, so lost in your thoughts, and Doyoung’s grin widened seeing you so on edge.

“Thank you,” your voice sounded feeble as the blood made your ears whistle.

“I especially liked the part in <<lean on me>> where they’re in front of the mirror and she’s getting fingere-”, he talked loudly as if you were having a conversation others could listen but your sudden kick on his shin under the table made him bit his lower lip in silence.

“Thank you, sir,” Doyoung said instead after a moment with a breathy voice, eyes staring at the way the waiter finished placing the cups on the table.

“You’re crazy,” you whispered loudly, eyes out of the orbits as soon as the man left you alone again.

Doyoung’s hands were quick to grab the leg you used to tell him to shut up. You inhaled sharply and held onto the table’s edge as if afraid of falling to the side.

“You’re crazy,” he smiled, his fingers sliding the shoe from your foot and dragging it into his lap. His touch on your bare skin made you gulp.

Perhaps you were crazy, but only for wearing converse in February since all of your other shoes were packed away.

“My pants are all dirty now. What should we do about it?” he fakely pouted. Was he really flirting with you after fucking some girl before seeing you?

You exhaled and tried to move your leg away.

His grip got tighter.

Your head got light with anxiety. What if someone could see it under the table cloth?

“Doyoung, don’t be stupid.”

He didn’t reply.

The gaze you were exchanging for a long minute now just added to the sensation of his palms slowly caressing your ankle. It went up to your calf and then stopped right under the knee.

“You’re too far away,” his voice got low and for once he actually whispered.

You silently cleared your voice and tried to reply but he cut you off.

“But if I tell you what I would do, would you be able to imagine it?”

His lips curved in a teasing smile, moving slowly to ask that question, made you want to just start yelling.

“Doyoung.”

You wanted it to be a warning tone, but you could tell that you failed from his delighted expression.

It was a problem.

Doyoung was a problem. He was there flirting with you. For what? He was not an agent anymore and you weren't his client. You weren’t his friend. You weren’t someone he liked. Then, what the hell were you?

“Take me with you.”

He blinked at the sudden request and his fingers stopped.

“Where?”

“I want to come with you to your refresher course.”

His confused expression made you feel a bit guilty for eavesdropping. “I heard you book it last night.”

He still didn’t reply.

“I mean, you want to help me find a house,” you shrugged.

"Yes but-”

"There are rules you have to follow if you’re working for me. Now there's no contract binding us together so you can fully help me out," you explained.

“Yes, but-”

“I’ll learn something new while being there,” you tried to convince him.

He sighed and gently let your leg down from his thigh.

“About what?”

“Real estate.”

“Real estate,” he was suspicious.

“Real estate-,” you nodded. “-men.”

He rolled his eyes with a scoff and the tongue in his cheek made you secretly sigh. He drove you insane.

“I’m just trying to find a good real estate agent to sell me a good deal,” you tried to sound nonchalant.

"Me."

"Uhm, sorry but-,"

"I'll give you an apartment."

"Like gift it to me? Oh my God, Daddy," you chuckled and playfully hit his hand with your fingertips.

He grabbed them tightly and didn’t let go.

“Stop joking. I mean it.”

His serious tone made your smile die.

You sighed again.

“You don’t have to do all of this only because you feel guilty.”

Doyoung let go of your hand and leaned back.

“You think I’m doing all of this only because I feel guilty?”

“The short answer would be yes.”

“And what’s the long one?”

“You tell me. Why are you helping me?”

Doyoung looked away.

“I spoke to a landlord selling privately this morning. She agreed for us to see the apartment whenever we want.”

You blinked at him. A landlord? So no woman opened his shirt buttons? Or did she?

“We can go tomorrow. On our drive to the course. It’s going to take a few days so I’ll drop you off at your place to pack now. You’ll be able to meet many great men willing to help you out if you don't like the apartment I chose for you.”

_____

The drive was silent that morning too.

The first rays of spring sun were out and you dared to finally wear a cute floral dress under your raincoat.

You secretly wanted Doyoung to comment something about it but he barely looked at you. Obviously.

His expression was hidden behind his sunglasses and for some reason, you felt guilty about something you couldn’t quite point out.

The place he had to take his course was a few hours away but the apartment he wanted you to see was just a few minutes away from his house.

“You can go in,” he handed you the keys.

You eyed them in his palm and bit your lower lip.

“Are you not coming?”

He opened his mouth to reply but you interrupted him.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll be quick.”

When you found the number of the door you were looking for and opened it, you inhaled deeply and smiled.

What a place.

You imagined Doyoung looking for apartments the previous night instead of sleeping and your heart felt tight. You imagined him taking notes and well, reading your dirty books.

Walking around slowly, head full of questions, you looked down the low window in the living room. It was almost touching the floor, wide enough to take the whole wall and it made you laugh that an apartment could look this way. It was a short window though, so you knelt on the cold floor to be able to see outside.

"Hey," you giggled.

Doyoung was resting with his hips on the side of the car, the cigarette he was smoking making it difficult to see his face.

He looked up when he heard your voice and saw your head poking through after a moment of searching. His lips let go of the cigarette and he blew the smoke out.

"Is that a window?" he asked, calm but slightly surprised.

"Yeah. Isn't it cool? I love it!" you giggled again. “Do you want to see? Please come."

Your expression made him sigh, gaze on the pavement as he threw the butt on the concrete.

"Doyoung! Don't litter around!"

The young man smiled a bit, loving the way you would yell at him. It made his hands tingle with the desire to grab your face and taste your lips.

"I'm coming up," he announced, ignoring your orders.

The window arrived at his collarbones and when he placed his palms on the edge of it you slid back on your knees to give him space.

"You couldn't have used the door like a normal person, could you?"

Doyoung grunted once and lifted himself up, slithering inside the apartment through the tight window until resting on his stomach, feet still dangling outside.

You grabbed his jacket and pulled it towards you with a chuckle.

"Come on," you tried again but he was dead meat.

"Don't be stupid!"

"Impossible," he mumbled and you were ready to leave him there before he moved towards you in a single movement, letting his shoes click on the tiles and pressing his face into your stomach.

It took you a few moments to realize that you were touching each other.

And the way you were doing it.

You were sustaining yourself on your elbows, legs spread for Doyoung to bury his face into your stomach. He was warm, especially his breath on your dress, but his palms felt cool on your thighs. He was hugging your legs, shoulders rising and falling at a steady pace as if he suddenly fell asleep.

"Doyoung," you wanted to call out, say his name, but your throat was dry. Instead, you lifted your bust a bit but not enough to make him move his head away. It had nowhere to go besides up or down and you didn't know which one was making you feel hotter.

A single sigh escaped your mouth as you looked around the room, as if unable to stare at your new particular friend's nape any longer.

The rumble of the cars right down the street sounded far away and Doyoung's deep voice felt so loud that your head snapped down.

He was staring at you, eyes piercing under his ruffled black hair and his breath, caressing places that gave you goosebumps, made you tighten your legs a bit in embarrassment.

"The lights are great," he had to repeat himself, your empty expression giving away that you were thinking about anything besides what he was saying.

"Yeah."

"And it's a weird apartment. I know you like weird things so this is perfect. Do you like it?"

"I like weird things?" you wondered where that came from.

"You like me," he replied as if it were a normal explanation.

The look you exchanged made you gulp and your first instinct was to laugh it out.

Of course, you liked him. You liked to be around him. As friends. As a human.

But you also liked the way his thumbs started to circle the softest part of your thigh. They were moving up ever so lightly, taking the edge of your short dress with them. Not like friends and not like a mere human.

You weren't naive. You expected at least a kiss any time soon. In a day, a week or a month, if you ended up still talking by then.

You were still two grown-up adults and even if he didn’t like you the way you ended up feeling about him, something was bound to happen with all that flirting going on.

But you didn't expect that first kiss to be somewhere else other than the lips.

It was slow and sensual. Doyoung's eyes were closed as if savouring it - he kissed your thigh, so close to your underwear line to make you jolt.

Then he kissed you again, another open mouth kiss, this time going upwards.

Then another one as he shifted ever so slightly, getting more comfortable on his stomach.

You didn't dare to say anything. You were mute, letting your increasing breath do all the conversation.

And when he reached the little white bow on your panties, kissing the skin right above it, your hand flew to his hair. Your fingers slowly slid between his locks. His hair was curly that day and it made him look wickedly angelic as his gaze caressed your expression.

"Tighter," he smiled, lips still brushing your skin, teasing you until giving your whole body goosebumps.

You pulled a bit and he winced.

"Sorry," you let his hair go quickly and he chuckled, taking your wrist and placing a kiss on your pulse.

"No. I like it rough."

Your heart was pumping hard inside your throat, watching his plush and pink lips press on your fingers. What did all of that mean?

"Doyoung," you whispered, watching him intertwining his fingers with yours.

"I'm going to make you cum in a more comfortable place," he said with a light tone.

He lifted his bust and he let out a short laugh at your overwhelmed expression.

"Come. Let's see the apartment." He got on his knees then he stood up, pulling you by the hand.

His other one patted your butt a few times to get rid of any dust and he dragged your dress down.

Kiss me? Kiss me. Kiss me, please.

He didn't.

_____

You were in bed when the light sound of the hotel room’s door opening announced Doyoung’s return.

He didn’t question why you still wanted to go with him to the course even if you already liked the apartment he showed you. And you hoped he didn’t inquire too much either.

“I’ll think about it. I’m still coming with you though,” has been the final verdict and Doyoung didn’t comment.

Why? You had no idea. But the thought of suddenly not seeing him anymore after he was done with helping you out to get rid of his guilt was unbearable.

“Hey,” you placed the book you were reading face down on your chest.

“Gathering information on the competition?” he asked as a greeting, eyeing the spicy cover.

“Oh, it’s just a random novel.”

That had the one bed trope since, well, you were in that same situation and you had to refresh your memory on what to do next.

Doyoung took off his blazer and put it on the back of a chair in silence. His back looked wide as he turned it to you and your eyes naturally fell on his spine as well, going down to meet his waist. Your fingers tightened their hold on the book and when he turned sideways to take off the belt you felt your mouth dry. The black leather belt slid quickly out of the loops and just as quickly he unbuttoned his sleeves.

“You might as well start taking notes,” he said with an amused tone, eyes focused on his left wrist before he could look up at you. “For your next book.”

You looked away just as quickly but you noticed the glint of mischief in his gaze.

Doyoung walked towards the bed until reaching the nightstand on his side of the bed and with expert fingers, he opened the buckle of his watch with a metallic sound and slid it up then off his wrist.

His movements were hypnotizing and this time you couldn’t look away.

Doyoung sat down on the bed and slowly took off his rings. They all went near his watch, one by one.

If he felt the bed move as you got out of the covers and crawled towards him, he pretended he didn’t.

You stopped on your knees behind his back and delicately traced his necklace with your fingers. The clasp was easy to open but you pretended to have a hard time.

Doyoung didn’t look bothered and patiently waited for you.

His breath looked steady by the movement of his shoulders.

Yours was all over the place.

When the necklace slithered on his collarbones like water, he gathered it in his palm and placed it neatly on the side.

“Thank you,” his voice was warm. “I’m taking a shower,” he announced before getting up in a light swoosh of cologne.

_____

Too much.

You abandoned yourself on the bed like a rich lady in a Victorian novel, the back of one hand thrown on your forehead and said forehead hurting like a bitch from sexual frustration.

No, you weren’t about to masturbate in a shared hotel room while someone else was in the shower.

Someone that looked like the wettest dream you’ve ever had in your whole life and it drove you insane how composed he looked around you?

No.

Yes?

No.

You closed your eyes and took in a deep breath.

You could just go out and take a walk, maybe visit the hotel gym and pretend you like working out. Or maybe watch something. Wait, where was your book again? Did you even know how to read? Because you felt pretty illiterate at that moment.

The running water worked as nice white background noise and you could barely hear the bed sheets rustling as you shifted underneath them.

Your breath was shaky when you inhaled silently, your right hand teasing at your thighs as if it wasn't yours. Then your fingers gently slid under the cotton of your panties until you gasped, back arched and head pushed back into the pillow.

You swallowed and listened to your own panting. The shower kept running so you felt safe proceeding.

Your mind was already so hazy that for a moment the only thing you could think of was how insanely wet you were. Your slick fingers made you bite your lower lips as you flicked your clit slowly, then as your toes curled, quicker and quicker. It got so hot so fast that with a rough movement you threw the covers on the side.

Then the bathroom door closing with a soft thud made you jolt and you opened your eyes in panic. Doyoung’s eyes weren’t panicked though.

"Sorry, I interrupted,” he said with a calm tone.

All the blood in your body went to your face and you thought you'd pass out from embarrassment. You grabbed the covers and rolled in them like a burrito with a loud whine.

"Shit," you mouthed.

Doyoung chuckled, walking towards the centre of the room towards his luggage.

And then you noticed.

Wet black hair on his forehead, hand pushing it back, absolutely nothing on his body beside a towel.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you thought. Or said. No. You definitely said because Doyoung smirked.

You couldn't breathe and the covers were slowly sliding away from your body as you recomposed yourself.

He let his clothes hang on the back of the chair and you watched his back as he walked towards the table in front of the bed and served himself a glass of water. He brought it to his lips, and your gaze could not stop from wondering which place on his neck you should leave a hickey. A few drops collected in his collarbones from the wet hair and then they slid down his pecs as he moved, resting his hips on the table.

Then he blinked languidly, taking in the view of your overwhelmed face.

"Take them off," he ordered.

Fuck.

You knew he meant your underwear.

Wait. Really?

You gulped and looked down to your thighs.

"Lean with the back on the bed frame."

You inhaled and shifted backwards until feeling the wood on your blades.

"Now take them off," he repeated.

You felt like saying something. But you had no idea what to say.

With shaky hands, you slowly hooked your thumbs on the sides and slowly slid the fabric off your legs.Then with a quick movement, you closed your legs and he smiled.

"Good girl."

You closed your eyes to not see him but hearing only his voice was even worse.

The tiny whine escaping your throat at the praise felt very loud in the silent room and Doyoung chuckled softly.

"You want to touch yourself so badly, don't you?"

"Yeah," you quickly breathed out, opening your eyes in time to see his gaze dancing on your body.

"Open your legs for me."

Like a puppet, your limbs moved just as he requested and the raspy “fuck” you heard was almost enough to throw you over the edge.

"Keep the shirt on," he instructed. "Touch your body, start from your neck and go down."

You bit your lower lip and slowly complied, caressing your throat then collarbones, going over the cotton of the shirt to grab your breast and squeeze. The soft moan on your lips travelled to Doyoung's head and he tightened the hold of his fingers on the table. Then your hands went on your stomach and as you held in your breath, a single "no" froze you.

"Caress your thighs," he instructed.

Your body contracted and you decided to lock eyes with him. Your breath was heavy and your hand hovered over your needy clit and touched the softness of your legs instead.

Doyoung was visibly hard in his white fluffy towel and it was driving you insane.

"Please," you gulped, the saliva in your mouth making you almost choke.

He took a step towards you and you inhaled sharply. His eyes were deep and dark under the wet strands of hair and you desperately needed to feel how cool his lips would be on your hot body.

“Just drop the fucking towel,” your voice sounded strained.

Doyoung smiled and slowly let his veiny hand palm his covered cock. You bit your lower lip at the sight and the wet hot mess between your legs just got worse.

“You’re going to touch yourself for me, alright baby?” he cooed, his low whisper making you clench.

You nodded desperate, amusing him far too much for your liking.

“Show me how you do it when you think of me,” his husky voice ordered and your hand has never moved quicker. "You think of me a lot, don't you?"

Your fingertips felt how hot and wet you were and you inhaled sharply, spreading all of that slick and rubbing your clit for him to see.

You nodded.

Doyoung hummed pleased, his own hand lazily palming himself at the sight. Your already irregular breathing became fast panting and your toes curled. Your hips rutted upwards as your back curved, your whole body sliding on the sheets to fully rest on the bed. You've never been watched and it was driving you insane. The pillow engulfed the side of your face you pushed into it as Doyoung ordered something else.

“Insert a finger for me, babe.”

“Fuck,” you moaned at his tone, your middle finger already eager to feel yourself. It slid so easily that you actually gasped from surprise, your feet abandoning the bed as you pushed your knees up. The new view made Doyoung swear and you thought you’d add to it by sliding your other hand down to rub at your clit at the same time.

“You’re such a good girl, putting on a show for me,” you felt his touch on your ankle and you felt electric. “Another one.”

You locked eyes as you inserted your ring finger as well and you loved how his tongue licked his lower lip and shifted his gaze to your core.

Usually, you could reach your g spot once every full moon and you thought that day wasn’t one of them. The desperation made your forehead shine with a thin layer of sweat as your lips mumbled incessant pleas. And then your fingertip grazed something inside of you that made you roll your eyes so hard that you almost convulsed.

“That’s right,” Doyoung cooed with a very heavy breath and between your lashes you could see him spit in his palm and slowly pump his cock. The view drove you crazy and the wet sound he added on top of your own was enough to make you cum.

“I’m about-” you mumbled.

“Yeah? I’ll count it for you, alright babe? You’re going to cum when I say one.”

You nodded frantically, your hands almost getting cramps by how fast you chased your orgasm.

“Good. Now, listen to my voice,” he said. “Ten.”

“Fuck,” you pushed your head back into the pillow, the burning inside your veins urging you to just cum in that instant.

“Nine.”

You whined loudly, chest rising and falling and head already spinning.

“Eight. Don’t cum yet baby. You want to be a good girl for me, don’t you?” Doyoung’s sweet tone made you grit your teeth.

“Seven. Say it.”

“I-,” you choked, “I want to be a good girl for you.”

Doyoung exhaled, his cock looking absolutely delicious poking out of his fist almost as fast as your fingers were pumping inside of you.

“Six,” his voice trembled and the view of him pleasuring himself in front of you, his head thrown slightly to the side, his neck and collarbones so nicely on display, made your legs tremble with desire.

“Five. Keep going,” he smiled through his panting and you begged him.

“Please, please, Doyoung, faster?”

He chuckled.

“You want to cum so badly? Yeah?”

“Yeah, please-” your body twitched. You’ve never felt that kind of buildup and it was driving you insane.

“Four. Good girl.”

You kept going, your body shifting back and forth in front of his eyes.

“Three-” his tone lifted and you moaned, then his voice deadpanned. “Stop.”

Your eyes shot open and your hands stilled, making your body shake so much that the bed frame hit the wall repeatedly.

“Fuck fuck Doyoung please-” you begged, unable to think anything besides how badly you wanted to cum.

He chuckled at your state, his own hand still around his cock, lips open to let his heavy breath exit as if after a strenuous run.

“Hands above your head,” he ordered and you felt tears prickle your eyes at his instructions, your sensitivity pulsating as you clenched.

He clicked his tongue as your thighs touched and finally you felt his palms on your knees.

“Open up.”

Arms thrown on the pillow around your head, vision blurry and blood fueling everything besides your brain, you stared at Doyoung, kneeling between your legs with that smirk on his face.

His hands palmed your calves, pushing your legs on your chest.

And finally, fucking finally, you felt his hot breath on your skin.

He kissed the underside of your thigh, slowly, languidly, looking up at your face and chuckling as you lost your mind in his hold. Then another kiss, slightly lower. Then another one on the other thigh.

His arms snaked around them, holding your hips down with one of them as you twitched, while the other caressed your side until reaching your breast. His fingers squeezed the softness of it then pinched your hard nipples, making a jolt escape your body as his mouth sucked on your skin as well.

He was humming as if feasting and your fingers grabbed the sheets around you when you sensed you could move your arms.

“Fuck me,” you locked eyes. “Please? I want you so badly.”

He laughed right above your clit and dived in quickly with absolutely zero warning.

You yelped and your muscles almost hurt from how hard you tensed.

Hips up to meet his mouth, you slid your fingers into his damp hair. Doyoung looked up as he licked a long stripe between your lips, and you whimpered when he stopped to kitty lick your clit. His hands roamed your body, pinching, squeezing, caressing you, your stomach, breasts, sides, hips, ass. He sucked on you and licked and slid his tongue inside, taking short breathing breaks that just hit your sensitivity just as much.

His name felt so right on your lips as you chanted it, pulling him down, even more, rutting your hips to get more, digging your nails into his forearms to say just how good he made you feel, things you couldn’t say with your mouth.

And then you gasped, the build-up reaching the overflowing point and you begged please please please make me cum.

He never stopped and your airflow went missing. Your shaking body went limp for a moment and you tightened your thighs around his head. Doyoung’s arms flexed, keeping your hips down as you orgasmed, his tongue still mercilessly lapping at your incredibly wet pussy.

You gasped for air as your head spun around and perhaps you mouthed that you couldn’t take it anymore because Doyoung slowly kissed your clit a few times, sucking on it gently, before pressing his lips on your stomach, peppering wet kisses all up to your torso.

You mewled at the godly sensation, his lips and hands worshipping you like that, and when he finally reached your face and kissed you deeply, your sweet taste lingering on his tongue as he languidly slid it around yours, you were ready to orgasm a second time.

Finally, the kiss you’ve waited for so long, arrived and your tired arms were quick to wrap his shoulders, fingers tangling themselves in his thick hair, legs welcoming him between them.

He stopped to breathe and his aftershave scent made you squirm. His body felt the right amount of heavy on top of you and you pressed him down even more until your breast got squeezed under his chest. Doyoung chuckled and kissed you again, one hand to wrap your thigh and lift it better around his hip.

“Just put it in, please,” you breathed on his lips and he hummed teasingly, sliding his cock between your folds, as slowly as humanly possible. He groaned and you loved the sweet pain of his fingers squeezing your leg. Then his hand moved to the sheets near your head, the pillow underneath it long thrown to the side. You stared at his veiny forearms as he flexed his arm, filling you up until you choked.

He kissed your jaw and under your ear, thrusting inside of you sloppily a few times until building a rhythm he enjoyed. Your nails scraped his back when he picked up the pace and by his higher soft whines, while he messily kissed your lips, engulfing your own moans and the orgasm denial from before, you knew he was close as well.

“Cum wherever you want to,” you breathed out and it visibly drove him insane. He pulled out with a few last thrusts, and you whined, staring at his pretty hand pump his cock. He swore with a few groans and you bit your lip at the feeling of his cum coating your stomach in sprouts.

“You look so fucking hot,” you mewled, wanting his cock inside of you again.

Resting on his knees and a few drops of cum still sliding down off the tip, he pulled you towards you by the underside of your legs and filled you all up in one go again.

You pushed your head back with a surprised moan and grabbed his wrist with both hands as he held you in place by the throat.

“I’m not done with you yet,” his voice accompanied his arm, lifting one of your legs higher on his hip. He leaned down enough for you to hear his grunts reverberate in your chest mixed with the sounds you emitted.

The hotel bed should have technically been made for rough sex yet it wasn't, because the frame hitting the wall could probably be heard by everyone.

Were all of his agent colleagues able to hear that he was rearranging your guts? The thought made you dig your nails into his forearm, his fingers alternating pressure on your throat to just resting it there. You didn't know which sound was dirtier, the loud bed or his skin repeatedly slapping against yours.

"You fucked with my mind since day one," he suddenly said and you felt your eyes roll back in your head by the vigour he accompanied his phrase with.

"Yeah? Should have bent me over that clean desk of yours and make a mess out of me," you managed to reply and soon after gasped as Doyoung let your leg down and roughly kissed your lips. You wrapped your thighs around his hips and he slowed down with a groan that you swallowed.

Foreheads touching and lips never wanting to let go, he thrust deep inside of you, making you grunt each time.

"You think so?" he whispered near the corner of your lips.

“That way the house should have been mine by now," your fingers slid on his nape and tugged when he sucked on the soft spot of your neck right underneath your ear. His nasal whimpers felt divine and you were about to urge him to go faster.

"So you just want to use me," he said and for a moment you opened your eyes. Your palms descended to his face to make him look at you.

“You really think that?”

His panting calmed down a bit at your expression.

“Is it not the truth?”

“By that logic, I should be in some other dude’s room now instead though.”

“You came here for that.”

You bit your lower lip. “You’re here to build up your future career. Don’t you think your-," you hesitated," -girlfriend should be beside you in times like that? Making sure you’re not all tense?” you palmed his flexed arms.

The amount of courage it took you to say that made your head light. If he was about to get all soft inside of you, it would be a good indicator that he didn’t care about you like that.

But sis eyes softened at your whispering instead and you took it for a good sign.

“And you can also make sure I’m not tense while I’m thinking how to decorate that new apartment I got thanks to you. You got it all wrong. I don’t want to use you, but your cock," the little smile on your face made him roll his eyes with a scoff.

"I'm not making you cum," he announced.

"Make me cum, please," you cooed. "I know you have a soft spot for me."

"You have a soft spot for me."

"No, you."

"I have a hard spot for you," he brushed your lips with his and chuckled at his own bad joke.

The hard spot was indeed hard as he resumed moving, the smile that bloomed on your face becoming a frown of pleasure in the crook of his neck.

"Alright then," his raspy voice added in a different tone, "do you want your boyfriend to take care of all of that paperwork?"

#doyoung #doyoung smut #nct-writers #neosmutcollective #nct #nct smut #doyoung imagines #doyoung scenarios #nct imagines #nct scenarios #doyoung fanfiction #nct fanfiction

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cassandraclare · 4 years

Note

I'm sorry to hear that your hard work was leaked but I was curious about what happened. I hope the person faced consequences because that was a very selfish thing to do leaking your work like that :(

I haven’t taken action against the person who leaked the book. I know who they are, since they uploaded the page I signed for them, and I was able to match that against my records.

I haven’t refrained from taking action because I feel sympathy for them. I don’t. It’s beyond shitty behavior to receive an early, signed book as a gift, and to then leak the entire book online. It’s a shit thing to do to the authors and an equally shit thing to do to other fans. However, I don’t want to put myself (and Wes) through the exhausting, grim and expensive process of legal repercussions. It doesn’t mean what this person did isn’t horrible, and it doesn’t mean they haven’t cost the entire fandom any chance of there ever being an early contest giveaway like that again. They did. There never will be. There will be no ARCs of Chain of Iron, either, and you can thank them for that, too.

Part of what makes piracy such an issue for authors goes far beyond the individual assholes who upload and distribute and translate stolen books. It’s that the whole system is set up to make it incredibly difficult for us to do anything about it. Publishers do little to nothing to prevent piracy, and authors shoulder the entire burden of searching out and reporting illegal copies of their books. And even then, we’re dependent on whether or not the reported website feels like complying with copyright laws or not. Twitter is incredibly slow to respond, Tumblr is about fifty-fifty on bothering at all. They’re legally required to take action, but they also know that the effort of doing something about it if they do not falls on exhausted, overburdened artists who often can’t afford to follow up with a lawyer’s letter.

And like, I get being broke and wanting to read books; there were a lot of books I had to pass up reading when I was broke (I will be forever grateful to the library system of New York and Brooklyn, which is how I read books at all from about 2001-2004.) I was broke enough that I slept on a bare mattress because I couldn’t afford sheets, but I’m pretty sure if I broke into Bed, Bath and Beyond and stole a bunch of fitted percale bedding I wouldn’t have encountered much sympathy if I got caught.

I talked about this on Twitter before, and I’ll say it again here though I know it will make very little difference: pirating books doesn’t just hurt the author of those books. It hurts everyone at the publishing company, where the margin of profit is razor-thin (and yes, publishers should do more to protect themselves against piracy; I agree there); it hurts bookstores, especially indie bookstores (I remember doing an event at a store that told me, sadly, that they were likely going to have to close because people “came into the store, looked at the books, took notes, then went home and pirated them.”) It hurts libraries, who rely on circulation for funding, and the shutting down of libraries hurts people who actually can’t afford books.

Now, I know is no way to talk people out of piracy; the internet has normalized it, and besides, people will generally do the cheaper, easier thing — you can’t talk people into not doing something they want to do by telling them it’s wrong, in my experience. They’ll find ways to justify it, whether it be that they can’t afford the book or it isn��t yet available in their language or that they find the author “problematic” and this is the way they’ve chosen to punish them.

The reason I put “problematic” in quotes is because yes, of course you can read and enjoy work that has problematic elements. Pretty much everything has some element that’s going to be found problematic by someone — which is exactly why deciding that it’s morally excusable to steal from people you think are creating flawed work is more than problematic. Holding creators accountable for their work means critiquing that work, not stealing it.

I listen to a lot of political podcasts, and some of them review work by extreme right-wing politicians etc. who have written books that the podcasters find morally despicable but wish to, or need to, review and discuss. Since they don’t wish to give money to the authors, they buy second-hand copies or take the book out of the library. They certainly don’t steal, translate and distribute copies of the books because they genuinely do not like them and do not want more people reading them. That’s what it looks like when you have an actual moral problem with a book or author.

However, running multiple fan accounts for a book series, naming your internet identity after characters from that book series, and talking endlessly about “your favorite parts” and how this is “your favorite book” entirely invalidates any argument that you’re doing this because you think the books are bad, evil, etc. If you claim a book is actively homophobic or racist but are so desperate to read it that you’ll steal it, so excited about it that you’ll share that stolen copy, so obsessed that you’ll illegally translate a whole book and provide that stolen translation to as many people as possible, and so dedicated to the fandom that you’ll name yourself after the characters in the books and write poetry about them, I have to tell you: the last thing that looks like is that you actually find the books problematic, regardless of what you say to the contrary. It looks like you like them but don’t want to pay for them, because in fact, that’s the case. (Either that or it looks like you’re really into racist, homophobic books, and making sure as many people read them as possible, which is your problem.)

One of the issues I have with piracy is that it teaches you to hate creators. You have to hate them, because you’re doing a fucking awful thing to them and you have to justify it. This results in lying about creators — about their process, their translations, their research — as if somehow, even if they were bad researchers, that would justify widespread theft. (It doesn’t.) Those who steal books wind up in a headspace where they are obsessed with the content of the books, and entirely unwilling to accept the reality that those books were created by a real person that they’re really harming. It encourages the mentality that I didn’t create Jem or Magnus or Will or Cordelia: they came from some kind of sparkly outerspace planet and I was just lucky enough to get to write down their adventures. It invalidates the hard work creators put into what they create, and in fact, erases their very existence. The internet attitude toward creators is already incredibly toxic (especially if they’re women, LGBT+ and/or BIPOC) and the feeling of entitlement to free content, and vicious hatred toward those who aren’t providing it (even though a lot of creators, me included, provide a great deal of free content) contributes to that. Genuinely, if you’re stealing someone’s work, the least you could do is not also be an asshole about them. (Or pretend you’re Robin Hood. He stole from the rich who had taken property and goods from the poor, and returned that stolen wealth. He didn’t steal from artists and independent bookstores and use that stealing to benefit himself and his friends. The idea is actually kind of funny.)

I understand there is a pressure to be up to date on the books that are being released so as to participate in fandom, and I do get that. Unfortunately, piracy has real consequences that stretch beyond just hurting me and Wes. Because LGBT+ books are pirated at such an incredible rate, and we’ve definitely seen that with TEC, I am left wondering if there will ever be an actual Spanish translation of TEC, or whether the publisher will decide not to bother because it’s already been so thoroughly pirated in Spanish. I have to wonder if there will even be a third book of TEC at all, or whether publishers will feel it isn’t worth doing. And I have to wonder why the people who create this situation so often have usernames that include Jem or Magnus or Alec or Cordelia or Julian or Tessa. What an incredible misunderstanding of those characters, to imagine a world in which Will Herondale or Magnus Bane or James Carstairs would approve of stealing books and harming writers. And why name yourself after a character who absolutely couldn’t stand you? I don’t know. I don’t get it, any more than I get hating someone who provided you with something you claim is your favorite book.

That was a much longer answer than you were probably expecting or hoping for, and I know I’ll get yelled at quite thoroughly for writing it. Writers always do, when we engage with the issue of piracy. I know most of you reading this acquire your books honestly; most of you are not like this at all. But like most things on the internet, a small amount of people really do have the power to make things pretty rotten for everyone else.

#brother-sixpackariah-carstairs #piracy #tda #tlh #tec

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booksarelife-stuff · 3 years

Text

Godric’s Hollow’s 286th Annual Lawn Competition

My entry for the August Jily Challenge! @jilychallenge

Prompt: my mother hired you to mow the lawn but can you put your shirt back on its distracting me, and omg stOP grinning at me like that I’m swooning (I did not follow this at all)

Between adjusting to her new town and the hot rude neighbor, Lily is determined to prove herself in Godric’s Hollow by winning their annual lawn competition. Featuring both shirtless Lily and James.

My partner was the amazing @joyseuphoria, whose creativity and ideas really helped me write this fic! She came up with so many fun ideas and was a great partner!

Word Count: 5,075

Read on Ao3 Masterlist

When Lily opened the door to her small cottage to the outside, she took in the fresh air.

Godric’s Hollow was so different from her and Marlene’s old apartment back in London. She could open her door and find a bright blue sky and fresh air instead of the stale smell that the hallway had reeked of. It was a nice and welcomed change.

She pulled the door behind her, taking a second to lock the door. Just as she turned to walk down her small concrete path to the sidewalk, she heard a sudden exclamation.

She whipped her head around just as the words “Dibs!” left the tall man standing on his own walkway right by some overgrown bushes.

He was looking right at her. There was no mistaking what or who was talking about. His eyes widened dramatically as Lily met his eyes. The man’s friend in front of him doubled over with laughter.

“Did you just call ‘dibs’ on me?” she asked, anger coloring her voice.

“No…” The man said, his tone culpable. His friend shook his head, still holding back laughs. “Well okay, yes, but not in the way you’re thinking!”

Lily didn’t want to hear whatever half-assed explanation the man was going to stammer out to her. She just rolled her eyes and continued on her way to the sidewalk, not paying attention to whatever the man was saying to her.

As Lily stomped her way to her first day at her new job, she hoped she would lose the bad attitude and that man was not her neighbor.

But of course, Lily’s hope meant nothing.

That very night, there was a knock on her door shortly after she just got back from work. Lily groaned slightly, pulling herself off her couch and navigated through the maze of boxes she still hadn’t unpacked.

She stubbed her toe on her entryway table and was holding back curses as she opened the door to see four men standing on her stoop. One of which was the man from the morning.

“Hello,” the shortest man said, smiling. He was pale blonde and seemed to have not lost the baby fat on his face even though he had to be at least Lily’s age. “We’re your neighbors and we wanted to introduce ourselves after the little mishap this morning.”

Lily’s eyebrows shot up.

“And we want to know what to call you besides Dibs,” the man with shoulder-length wavy black hair said. He had a smirk on his lips that Lily knew just meant trouble. The dibs man, who was trying to hide in the back besides being one the tallest, smacked him lightly on the head.

“What Sirius meant to say is that we want to welcome you to the neighborhood. I’m Remus,” the tallest of the group with a light white scar across his face. “This is Sirius. Peter’s over to the right. And the one who called dibs is James.”

James groaned. “You guys said you weren’t going to do this to me!”

“And you trusted us?” the blonde, Peter said, innocently.

“The last time that I do,” James said, glaring at Peter. Sirius rolled his eyes and Remus’s smile didn’t waver.

“Are you guys just going to bicker on my doorstep?” Lily asked, leaning in the door jam, her arms crossed. Three pairs of eyes flickered back to her, James looking at the ground.

“No, sorry. We really are here to make introductions,” Peter said, smiling.

Lily assessed the men for a second. Her eyes stopped for a moment on James. She took in the large square frames and his curly hair. She moved on when she realized that she had spent a moment too long on him.

She took a deep breath and made her millionth introduction for the day.

“I’m Lily,” she said.

“Well, it was nice to meet you. If you ever need anything, just call ‘Dibs’ really loudly and James will come running,” Sirius said, his smile seemingly sincere.

“Man, fuck you guys. I’m getting new flatmates!” James said, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

The ribbing on their mate brought a smile to her face, but the man was far from forgiven.

~~~

Lily wondered if her own small town had oddities like Godric’s Hollow. From the people to some of the town events, there seemed to be something that broke her brain a little bit.

Like Bathilda, the sweet old woman who came into the library where Lily worked every day.

Bathilda would come in, walking faster than Lily did, but with a walker, to where the new movies were placed. Ever since Bathilda found out Lily wasn’t from Godric’s Hollow, Bathilda would tell Lily all the town history she knew. From claiming there was magic or a coven of witches here to what the last mayor did to get impeached, Bathilda told Lily all of it.

Like a true customer service worker, Lily just smiled and nodded. She enjoyed Bathilda’s stories but she didn’t really believe them.

“Ah, it’s summer!” Bathilda said, giving Lily a bright smile, a stack of movies balancing on her walker as she approached the circulation desk. “The lawn competition should be starting soon.”

“Lawn competition?” Lily asked, reaching forward and grabbing the movies when they were in reach.

“Aye,” Bathilda said, her white hair that was in a bun moving as she nodded her head. “It started right after they burned all the witches here. To bring back nature to the area.”

Lily just nodded, not knowing what else to say to Bathilda.

“You best be planning for it. Some folks here take it really seriously,” Bathilda warned.

Based on everything Lily knew about the population here, a lawn competition is exactly something the people would take seriously.

Lily didn’t think much of the lawn competition until she got home and saw a colorful flyer on her doorstep with her newspaper.

Godric’s Hollow’s 286th Annual Lawn Competition- Bringing native plants and beauty back to the Hollow.

Lily frowned as she inspected the poster. She needed to pay closer attention to Bathilda’s stories.

She heard the jingle of keys coming from the boy’s house and she looked to see if it was Remus.

Unfortunately, it was James leaving. He had his running clothes on, shorts, and a fitted t-shirt. He had a sweatband holding back his bangs.

She had come to like her neighbors in the month of her being in Godric’s Hollow. She was particularly fond of Remus, but being fond of him meant that a fondness had grown for the others as well, even with their stupid nicknames for each other.

Lily was even fond of James too. Just a little bit. The dibs incident wasn’t forgotten and though he apologized, he never fully explained what it was really about.

He was better with his friends, in Lily’s eyes. With his friends, he was goofy and outgoing. He could make the whole group laugh to tears. But whenever he and Lily interacted alone, it was painfully awkward and he almost always managed to insult Lily in some way.

She sighed and called out anyway just as James was putting his headphones on.

“Hey, James!” she yelled. James jumped and turned, pulling a bud out.

“Hello, Lily,” he said, politely. “Need something?”

She waved the flyer and James' eyes followed it, trying to see what it was. Even with his glasses, he was still blind as a bat.

“What’s this all about?”

“The lawn competition?” he asked, walking across his small yard to the waist-high fence that separated their land.

“So it’s a real thing?” she asked, frowning. James nodded as he leaned against the fence.

“The old tale here is that it started after the last witches were burned,” James said. Lily blinked at him in disbelief, but James looked as neutral as ever, so she decided to just move on.

“What do you do for it? Water your grass or something?” Lily asked. James let out a breath of air like a silent laugh.

“No. It’s all about bringing plants native to the area back. And in the last decade or so, it’s kinda turned into a competition of who can do the most ridiculous things.”

“You’re fucking with me,” Lily said, rolling her eyes. “Ridiculous things like what?”

James looked amused, his hazel eyes sparkling. “I think the winner last year made some constellations out of corncockles.”

This town was crazy. Grade A, certified crazy.

“It’s optional though. You don’t have to participate,” James continued. “People here spend years planting to just win one year. You’ll have some stiff competition.”

Lily felt the flare of anger at his words. “So you don’t think I can win?” she asked, crossing her arms and crushing the flyer. Lily knew she was being a bit competitive, but everything to do with James set her on edge.

James seemed to have picked up on Lily’s temper flaring. He stopped leaning the fence and straightened up.

“I didn’t say that. I just said some people spend years planning to win,” James reiterated.

Lily narrowed her eyes.

“Well, I’m going to win,” Lily said. James huffed.

“Good luck with that,” James said, turning away and popping a headphone into his ear.

Lily let out a noise. “I’d like to see you win with those overgrown hedges!”

James turned around and smiled brightly. “Those are for the competition!”

Lily stared at his back as he started off in a jog down the street. Once he was out of view, she took a survey of her yard.

There wasn’t much. Just grass and a small tree. She looked back to the boy’s yard and it did look like it had a lot more potential than Lily’s. Greener grass, some shrubbery, and window boxes that have yet to be filled.

Lily headed up to her front door, determined to spend the night researching plants and grass. And why witches getting accused and burned would start a lawn competition.

~~~

There was a plant nursery in Godric’s Hollow. There was no website, no place for her to browse the catalog before making any purchases. Just a Facebook page that got updated once a month with grainy pictures.

It was better than Lily expected when she finally dragged herself there after work. There were a few people browsing, one man had a large cart filled with pallets of various plants. Like a lot. Lily wondered if he was the corncockle constellations guy.

Google only took Lily so far with her research, so she looked in the gardening section at the library and had found out that someone had written a book about native plants, specific to the region; The Southern England Guide to Native Plants and Shrubs by Euphemia Potter. She had that open in her hand as she walked around the nursery.

She did a quick walk around, trying to identify what plants were in the book. Most of them she could find, but based on the care instructions, her yard wouldn’t be good for them.

She paused in front of a plant labeled “Pitcher Plant”. It looked weird, but she supposed it would do. She was flipping through the book, trying to find out what the care instructions were when she felt someone beside her.

“Don’t use that plant,” James said, making Lily jump. She glared at him as she rightened herself.

“And why is that?” she asked.

“It’ll discount you from the competition,” he said, touching one of the stems. “It’s an invasive species.”

Lily tore her eyes away from James, back to the plant.

“This plant also eats insects,” he pointed out. “Bad for the bees.”

“Oh,” Lily breathed. “Yeah, I don’t want that.”

She closed the book and sighed, and looked back at James to see him staring at the book in her hands.

“Nice book,” he said with a small smile. She looked back down to it and made the connection.

“You wouldn’t happen to know Euphemia, would you?” she asked, her eyes trailing the Potter after Euphemia on the book cover.

“I knew her very well,” James said, his eyes turning soft for a quick second. “I think there’s a section in there, around page 203. Most of those plants work with our yard type.”

Despite the sincerity in his voice, her eyes narrowed. She took in his lanky form and his hair that was getting frizzier by the second thanks to the humidity.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked, crossing her arms. James laughed and ran a hand through his hair, making some curls stick straight up.

“I just don’t want you to start an invasive plant plague here,” he said, smirking. “It would ruin my lawn too.”

“I wasn’t going to use it if it wasn't in the book!” she pointed out. James gave her a look and Lily rolled her eyes. “I’m not some saboteur!”

“Yeah, I didn’t peg for the type,” he said, frowning. “I was just trying to be nice.”

“Your nice is rather pointed and mean if you haven’t noticed.”

James just let out a laugh. “Only to you, Evans.”

~~~

The sun was hot and beating down on Lily’s shoulders as she was on her knees, squinting at a piece of paper that was just getting dirty as she tried to dig the appropriate depth for the honeysuckle bushes she bought.

She still had no idea what she was doing with her lawn, but she figured she could just add in some plants to spaces anyway to liven up her yard.

It was kind of relaxing, she had come to realize. All the research aside; she was able to just dig and place a pretty thing down in her yard. Tomorrow she could look out the window and admire her work.

And it was something to preoccupy her time. Normally, her weekends had been full of just sitting on the couch, reading, or watching something on the television. Boredom would creep in usually, or the overwhelming feeling of missing her friends.

But so far, gardening had kept her preoccupied. She didn’t feel that same loneliness creep in as she neared the two-hour mark of her being out there.

She also talked to Remus a bit, telling him about the newest book she read. She shared a wave with Sirius as he hopped onto his obnoxiously loud motorbike.

It wasn’t until her fourth honeysuckle was in the ground, that she looked up at the sound of humming and instantly regretted that decision.

There was James, headphones in his ears and humming away. He had an assortment of his gardening tools with him and tons of flowers all spread out in plastic containers along their walkway.

But what made Lily regret her life was the fact that he was shirtless.

It wasn’t a secret that James was the most attractive out of the bunch at his house, though Sirius did give him a run for his money. With his curly hair, infectious smile, and his ability to make everyone laugh. You could look over his lanky limbs and knobby knees. Marlene, after she had come to visit one weekend, had even made Lily admit that if it wasn’t for the whole “dibs” business, she would have probably fancied him.

It was true, but it was rude of Marlene to point out.

He wasn’t buff or had any defined abs by any stretch, but Lily thought he was still well sculpted. His arms looked nice too, as she watched him unspool the garden hose.

She tore her eyes away and tried to focus on her honeysuckle.

Lily stole a few more glances but overall was dedicated to her honeysuckle plant.

Just as she patted the last of her dirt down around the roots, she suddenly felt the blast of cold water rush down her head.

She let out a yelp and quickly raised to her feet as the blast continued to drown her newly planted honeysuckles. In the field of her vision, she saw James scrambling with the other end, trying to pull it towards him and out of where Lily was in the line of fire.

It sprayed her one more time before James finally got it to stop. He ran over, an apologetic look in his eyes.

“Lily, I’m so sorry. I forgot the handle is stuck on the nozzle and I didn’t know you were over there,” he said.

Lily sighed deeply as she pulled her t-shirt that was sticking to her skin away from her body, the fabric heavy.

“It’s fine,” Lily said in a defeated tone. “Why was your hose over here anyway?”

“I was making sure there were no tangles before I watered the hedges,” James said.

Lily barely registered his words and she pulled her shirt off, not wanting to deal with the heaviness on her while she tried to garden. She threw her wet shirt on the ground next to her, leaving her only in her black sports bra. She looked up, running both hands through her shoulder-length hair to stop it from sticking to her face.

James was rooted to his spot on the other side of the fence. His gaze locked onto her face. It was only then that Lily realized she had just casually thrown her shirt off in front of him.

“It was an accident,” she said. “You didn’t point the hose at me with intention, unlike the dibs. At least you watered my honeysuckles for me.”

James let out a laugh that could be mistaken for a sigh of relief.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m still sorry. For this and the dibs incident.”

She laughed. “I think you’re going to have to apologize for that as long as we’re neighbors.”

He smiled, amused, and nodded his head. “Yeah, I’m never living that down. Doesn’t matter that it wasn’t actually what I was doing.”

Lily tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “What were you actually doing?”

“The truth is only slightly less good,” he admitted, his smile falling a bit. “I—Well, no we—No, I. I noticed you when you were moving in and I did make a comment—” Lily’s eyebrows raised. “—A respectful comment!”

“What’s a respectful comment?” she interrupted.

“I said ‘I think our new neighbor is beautiful’,” James said, a hand coming to the back of his neck. “That’s respectful, right?”

Lily’s heart decided to skip a beat and she felt a blush start to rise on her cheeks. She played it off with an eye roll.

“Anyway, we happened to be leaving at the same time and Sirius turned to me and told me to make a move ‘before someone else did’, were his exact words…” James said, making a face. “And then I said ‘What do you want me to do? Point at her and call ‘Dibs’?’”

Lily started laughing. “So all I heard was ‘dibs’.”

“Yeah… I probably shouldn’t have yelled it for emphasis,” he said.

She shook her head. Her opinion of him changed slightly, but not enough to be okay with the way her heart was racing as she looked at his shirtless form again.

~~~

The summer seemed to breeze past. Lily spent almost every moment of her free time working outside after she had formed her plan for her entry to the lawn competition.

There were a lot of times where James was outside too and they would talk sometimes. Most ribbing each other like petty housewives about the state of their various lawns. It brought a smile to her face more than she would like to admit.

They had some nice normal discussion too. Lily had walked to the fence, holding the library’s copy of The Southern England Guide to Native Plants and Shrubs by Euphemia Potter. She wanted to ask James a question about one of the ivy species that was mentioned.

He had gotten that same soft smile on his face when he saw the book and Lily had to ask again.

“Did you know the author?” she asked, looking into his hazel eyes.

He nodded. “My mum. She was a botanist. She came to Godric’s Hollow to observe how the competition was helping with local pollinating numbers. Met my dad, that year’s winner, and ended up staying.”

“That is so sweet!” Lily said, smiling a little before it fell. “Are your parents still around?”

He shook his head. “Dad passed away during my first year of uni. Mum passed away last November.”

“My dad passed away in sixth year,” she said. “It gets better, but it still hurts.”

They continued on, both talking a little more but still refusing to disclose what they were doing for the competition, even though Lily’s was a little more obvious with every passing day. James seemed to just be doing normal landscaping, besides his overgrown hedges.

Lily began to notice a lot of things about James. Besides his tendency to speak without thinking, his heart is always in the right place. It caught Lily off-guard most times.

Something shifted in her over the weeks as they worked on the lawns.

It was two days before the competition when Lily got home to see James outside, hedge clippers by his feet as he examined his four very tall and overgrown bushes.

“I hope you’re not planning to win with those,” Lily called.

James smirked over to Lily. “Just wait until I give them a trim.”

“Nicely trimmed hedges aren’t going to beat my lawn.”

James looked at the monstrosity of Lily’s yard. There were lines of primrose flowers snaking through her front lawn and turning to the back.

Lily had spent back-breaking hours and an embarrassing amount of money to make a maze of her yard. It wasn’t like a true maze, you could see every aisle because the primroses didn’t get very tall, but it was the end that really made it worth it.

Lily had converted her small back patio to a fairy garden. She used hanging planters, climbing ivy, and lights to really make it special.

James hadn’t seen it yet. She was going to show him once she had won the competition.

It wasn’t until the morning of the judging that Lily saw that she actually had competition.

Standing proud at the edge of his lawn were four perfectly cut hedges in the shape of a deer, a dog, a wolf, and a large rat.

Lily stood in awe by her window as James was taking small scissors and cutting more details and cleaning up lines.

She opened up her front door and walked to her fence. James turned and met her with a smirk.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“Good morning to you, too,” he said. “I watched a million Youtube videos.”

Lily brushed a strand of hair behind her ear as she inspected the hedges behind me. “What’s the inspiration?”

“Have you heard Sirius call me Prongs?” James asked.

Lily had heard their stupid nicknames in passing. She thought Peter was the worst but all of them were stupid.

“Your stupid nicknames, yeah.”

“So I’m Prongs, Sirius is Padfoot, Remus is Moony, and Peter is Wormtail,” he said. Then made a sweeping gesture back to the hedges.

She blinked in confusion as she looked back at the hedges.

“I’m a little lost,” she admitted.

James sighed. “So, I’m Prongs because Peter once told me the way my hair stands up looks like antlers. Sirius is Padfoot because he is the king of sneaking around. Remus is Moony because he exclusively wore those weird shirts that have wolves howling at the moon when we were 12.”

Lily let out a loud laugh, picturing a small Remus in those kinds of shirts.

“Peter?” she asked in-between laughs.

“We were sworn to secrecy for that story,” he said. “He would actually murder me if I said it.”

Lily laughed and James joined in.

The judging wasn’t until the afternoon, so Lily did some last-minute weeding and watering. She made sure the lights in the secret fairy garden still worked and made sure there were no dead leaves insight.

James was standing on his lawn, talking to two of the most oddly dressed people Lily had ever seen.

The woman was dressed in what Lily could only think of as a robe. It was a bright blue, with belled sleeves. The man was in similar clothes, but a blinding yellow with a long white beard. They both had hats that looked like top hats, only decorated with flowers. They also had clipboards in hand.

Yet another town oddity that Lily would just have to brush off.

James caught sight of Lily and waved her over.

“This is another competitor. She just moved here about three months ago,” James told them as she neared.

“Hello, I’m Lily,” she said upon arrival.

“I’m Albus Dumbledore,” the man with a smile and twinkle in his eye.

“I’m Minerva,” the woman said.

Lily shook both of their hands.

“We’ve been judging this competition for, what? Forty years, now Minerva?” Albus said as Lily raised her eyebrows, impressed.

The woman pinched her lips and nodded. “Twice as long as these two have been alive.”

Lily, James, and Albus laughed. “Pleasantries aside, let’s get to judging.”

James and Lily stayed behind as they went and started looking at James’s hedges, inspecting it with great detail.

“Still using those silly nicknames?” Minerva called, as she began writing down on her clipboard.

“Of course,” James answered. “I would have put a mouse for you, Minnie, but we ran out of room.”

Lily nudged him as Minnie shot him a glare. “Unwise to insult the judges, James Fleamont.”

James frowned and Lily laughed. “Fleamont?” Lily asked.

“That was my father’s name,” James replied. “And I got stuck with it as a middle name.”

“I take it you know Minerva pretty well if she’s using your middle name?” Lily questioned.

“Yeah, she was one of my mum’s best friends,” James sighed. “And before you think that means I have some kind of advantage, don’t. She’s going to judge mine ten times harder.”

It took about ten minutes before Minerva started snapping pictures and Albus stopped writing on his clipboard.

“I think we’re ready to move on,” Albus said smiling.

They came around the gate and Lily looked at them to the entrance of her lawn maze. James hopped the fence to join them and Lily laughed as she heard Minerva call him a showoff under her breath.

“This is a maze made entirely out of primroses,” Lily said before stepping away from the entrance. “See if you can get to the end.”

“Normally, it’s customary not to be able to see all the different paths,” Minerva pointed out, looking across the tops of all the lines of flowers she had made.

“Ah, but most can still get lost with directions in front of them,” Albus said, wisely. “Let’s see if we can win, Minerva.”

They started off, Albus in the lead, who turned left towards the dead end. Minerva tapped him and made him go in the right direction, following her lead.

Lily stayed by the entrance with James. He turned his back after a few seconds.

“I want to do it by myself later,” he said.

It took them about ten minutes before Lily saw them take the path that led them back to the secret fairy garden. She smirked at James when she heard Minerva’s surprised gasp and Albus’s appreciative chuckle.

It took another ten minutes to take notes and pictures of it before they were saying their goodbyes.

They were down the lane before James turned to Lily.

“I’m doing the maze now,” he said, his eyes shining with amusement.

Lily wandered behind him, laughing as he took the wrong turn that led him to exit that made him start all over.

But eventually, he got it. And suddenly it was just her and James on her back patio, surrounded by ivy and twinkling lights. She even found a used metal patio furniture set that she placed. It smelled good too, from the extra honeysuckle she placed back there.

“Pretty nice, Evans,” James said, looking around. “And really good for your first year.”

Lily’s stomach swooped with praise. “Thank you,” she replied. “Your hedges are pretty nice too.”

It was shady in her garden area, so she invited James to sit until they announced the winner.

James told her the story about how he ruined his family’s competition entry by squishing a whole patch of Lily of the Valley’s because he thought they would be comfortable. Lily told him that her sister’s name was Petunia and that her mother was Violet.

The hours flew by as they sat there and talked. Around six is when a moment of bravery came to Lily.

“Want to go get dinner?” she asked him.

A bright smile appeared on James’s face. “Like, just the two of us?”

“Yeah, just the two of us.”

“I’d love that,” James said, a hand coming up and raking through his hair.

They stood up and were about to leave when James’s phone pinged. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked down before gasping.

“It’s Minnie!” he exclaimed.

“With the results?” Lily asked, taking a step forward and invading James’s space.

He didn’t seem to mind. “Yep… it looks like… Oh! I'm the runner up!”

“Who won?” she asked, frowning.

James unlocked his phone and pocketed it. He looked at Lily with a soft smile. “Lily’s Maze and Enchanted Garden.”

“Really?” she asked, stepping closer. James nodded and their eyes locked.

In the heat of the moment, Lily stood on tip-toes and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

Lily could have sworn that the world had slowed its rotation for a minute as pulled away and their eyes met again. It definitely stopped when James cupped her jaw and pulled her in for a real kiss.

They both were smiling when James pulled away. She didn’t know how long they stared at each, smiling like loons until she found her voice again.

“So, uh… Dinner?” she asked. James let out a breathy laugh.

“Yeah, dinner.”

They just entered the maze again when Lily stopped and turned around. She got close to him again and he smiled, thinking she was going to kiss him again.

Instead, she put a finger to his chest.

“Dibs.”

#jily #James Potter #Lily Evans #Lily Evans Potter #James Potter/Lily Evans #jily challenge #august jily challenge #hp #marauders #lawn competitions #jily fic #jily fanfic #Harry Potter fanfic #Marauders era #James x Lily #jilychallenge

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shijiujun · 4 years

Text

Time for some BL/Danmei novel recs!

You guys have probably (maybe) seen my novels list here - [X] - but it’s more for my own tracking than anything else, so here’s a brief list (I’ll probably do full ones of the ones I really love in another post, probably on Minmo).

The ones elaborated on below with the asterisks are the novels I’ve actually finished reading.

*since everyone more or less knows MXTX’s works - TGCF, MDZS and SVSSS, I’ll skip those!

1. SCI 迷案集 | SCI Mystery Series by 耳雅*

Summary: Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao are childhood friends and rivals that end up working together under the newly established SCI unit as co-leads, with Bai Yutang providing the brawn as Captain and Zhan Zhao the brains as Vice Captain and the team’s resident genius psychologist. They solve cases together and slowly unravel a wider conspiracy that involves their parents’ generation and beyond. At the same time they also realize that they’re meant for each other!

Other CPs: Bai Jintang (Bai Yutang’s older brother) & the medical examiner, Gongsun Ce, Bai Chi (Bai Yutang’s younger cousin) & magician Zhao Zhen, and at least three other gay pairings, one of which is considered another main couple of sorts from Vol. 2 onwards

Status: Incomplete (Began in 2010, author is still going on strong with one chapter every one or two months, we’re halfway through Vol. 5 right now and it’s been 10 years ;-; Love that the author is going on strong!! Everyone on JJWXC are like “please author it’s okay if you go slow as long as you keep going we’re here for you” and jfc I understand the fear of this not completing, also when will Vol. 5 be completed and printed?!! I need to complete the collection)

Translations: Unfortunately, only the first volume has been translated well so far on novel updates. The one on Wattpad seems to have caught up, but I would not recommend that one.

Drama/Live-Action: Season 1 was filmed and released in 2018 under the same name with slightly changed names for the characters. Season 2 was supposed to start filming this month but... oh well. First season basically covered Vol. 1 novel from start to end.

*I love this one only because it was my very first danmei and so it’ll forever have a special place in my heart, and also because it’s still ongoing so ya know, I relive how much I love this every month

2. 成化十四年 | Cheng Hua’s Fourteenth Year (The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty) by 梦溪石*

Summary: Tang Fan, a prefectural judge, and Sui Zhou, a high ranking officer in the Embroidered Uniform Guards, meet while trying to solve a murder case. Both of them end up partnering very well together, Sui Zhou ends up inviting Tang Fan to live with him, and the rest is history. Through their days living together and solving cases + a larger conspiracy involving the royal palace, they fall in love. Adding to this mix is also Wang Zhi, a powerful, young eunuch who befriends the pair, and the three of them basically help the crown prince to overcome challenges and his enemies to become the next Emperor

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: Ongoing on several websites. I’m only translating relationship highlights, but here’s an introduction post I did for it, if you guys would like somewhere to start without getting too invested - [X]

Drama/Live-Action: The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty was released earlier this year, directed by Jackie Chan and starring Darren Chen and Paul Fu, but cases are a little different and there are new characters in the show that weren’t from the novel etc.

3. 杀破狼 | Shapolang by Priest*

Summary: Set in a steampunk universe where flying boats named ‘kites’ and flying armour exist. Young teenager Chang Geng lives with his mother and stepfather - the former abuses him and the latter neglects him, and the only person that he cares about (and cares about him) is Shen Shiliu, his (very young) godfather. He realizes his identity as a royal prince when the Man tribe invades his city and Shen Shiliu, whose real name is Gu Yun, turns out to be an army general whose duty was to protect Chang Geng in secret (among other things).

Chang Geng has been critically poisoned by his mother (who’s not actually his birth mother, if I recall she’s an aunt) which leads to him getting terrible dreams frequently with the end result of him being driven into insanity, while Gu Yun is half blind, half deaf due to poisoning + injury when he was much younger, and he can only regain his hearing and sight fully when he takes a medicine that is slowly losing its effectiveness with every dosage he has.

The both of them navigate learning about each other again, falling in love a few years later when Chang Geng is all grown up and also unravel conspiracies and fight bad guys (both external threats and internal as in the current Emperor and other parties) XD

*Note: The age old debate is that Gu Yun ‘preyed’ on and also ‘groomed’ Chang Geng, but I disagree and stand by the fact that Gu Yun was 90% of the time not around while Chang Geng grew from a teenager to a young adult as he was fighting wars elsewhere, while Chang Geng refused to stay at the Gu manor and insisted on running around, travelling on his own and seeing the world for a few years before they met again. And it was Chang Geng who’d always loved Gu Yun and devoted himself to caring about him, making advances on him etc. when he became an adult

Other CPs: Shen Yi (Gu Yun’s second-in-command) & Chen Qingxu (a renowned physician who ends up healing both Chang Geng and Gu Yun of their ailments)

Status: Complete!

Translations: Fully translated the last I heard, it’s up there in the list of holy grail BL/danmei novels, so I’m sure it’s done hahaha.

Drama/Live-Action: Filming in progress!

*This is up there in the hall of fame for danmei novels for more than just the amazing content and writing - It’s also famous for being one of the most complex novels ever. I don’t know how the translations team did it because DAMN it was complex and I read all my novels in Chinese without much issues but I was honestly STRUGGLING WITH this one and I went through some existential crisis while reading because I was like ‘did I ever learn Chinese, am I even Chinese’ XD

4. 默读 | Silent Reading by Priest*

Summary: Luo Wenzhou, a police captain, and his team including best friend and partner Tao Ran, face a few challenging cases that end up being small parts of a larger conspiracy, and end up having to consult with Fei Du, a flamboyant, charming and flirty, young and rich CEO, who Luo Wenzhou describes as someone who is an expert at ‘crimes’. Not deduction, not solving crimes, but someone who is familiar with how the murderer or culprits would commit crimes. Both Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran know Fei Du well, because they first met when Fei Du was in high school, when he called the police because his mother had hanged herself in the house, and since then Tao Ran and Luo Wenzhou look out for him, spending holidays with him, giving him presents here and there. Luo Wenzhou and Fei Du overcome their misunderstandings of each other and fall in love while solving all the cases and the larger conspiracy behind it.

Other CPs: Tao Ran and someone he knew first from his school days or was a neighbour when he was younger, I can’t remember, but they meet again at a blind date and end up living in the same building on different floors XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: Complete!! There’s a huge post floating around on Tumblr with all the links (I can’t find it right now) and on Twitter you can also find the collated, epub versions etc.

Drama/Live-Action: Rights for a live-action was signed, no casting confirmation or set dates yet

5. 犯罪心理 | Criminal Psychology by 长洱*

Summary: Police captain Xing Conglian drags psychologist Lin Chen out of seclusion/hiding to solve a case that is indirectly tied to him. Lin Chen was involved in a case a few years ago that led to four deaths - these four victims were the sons/daughters of four of the five huge old-money (super rich) families in the country and these family members sought to make Lin Chen’s life very difficult for him afterwards by making him lose all the jobs he can find, by surveilling his every move and ensuring that he’s not happy etc. Because of that, he backed out of the police force as well and quietly lived as a school dorm administrator, which is where Xing Conglian finds him a few years later. Lin Chen fakes his death after the first case (not deliberately but kind of a by-the-way thing), but as fate would have it, he ends up meeting Xing Conglian on another case, and he decides that he’ll move in with him and also involve himself again, consequences be damned, and they fall in love!

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet.

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of.

6. 死亡万花筒 | Kaleidoscope of Death by 西子绪* (MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE)

Summary: Supernatural setting where people who are about to die get a second chance to live. These individuals are either in the midst of a dangerous situation (for e.g. a shootout or a deadly mugging incident) or are about to get into accidents (for e.g. an entire bus going off a bridge or a chandelier dropping from above and crushing the person underneath) or are ill (recently diagnosed with cancer or are terminally ill with a condition for e.g.) - The list is endless, and in the situation between life and death, 12 doors will appear before them.

It is said that once these individuals finish all 12 doors, they will truly get a second chance at life and survive whatever cause of death they were imminently facing.

Each door represents a creepy, supernatural mystery, and Lin Qiushi finds himself in a strange place after opening a door when he was trying to enter his apartment one day. He meets Ruan Baijie, a beautiful, tall woman who he happens to meet, and they realize that in this strange world, he and other individuals who came through the door have to complete a given task, find a key and an exit door, and make it out alive. The others in the team (some of which have already gone through several doors) explain to Lin Qiushi, who is a first-timer, what the doors are about.

The catch is, if they die inside the door, in the real world, they’ll die immediately, by accident, throwing themselves off a building, or just throwing up blood until they die (just to name a few)

On the first night, however, three people are slaughtered and eaten by a long-haired ghost/creature. The good news is, Ruan Baijie isn’t all that she seems to be (for one, she’s not exactly a woman) and she takes a liking to Lin Qiushi immediately.

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet!

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of, but honestly, this novel would be fricking EPIC as a live-action, and really creepy, but this is my all-time favourite novel, I kid you not!!!!

*I’m definitely doing a longer and more detailed to-read for KOD on my translation account, gosh you guys have no idea how much I love this.

7. 当年万里觅封侯 | Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine by 漫漫何其多

Summary: Yu She and Gu Wan were close friends for a short period of time when they were younger, but unfortunately their identities and positions meant that they were opponents. Yu She’s family was for the Second Prince and Gu Wan was taken in by the Sixth Prince’s family, but in the end it was the Second Prince who ended up getting to the throne, while the Sixth Prince was accused of treason and died somewhere far away at war after being captured. Gu Wan’s only wish was to keep the Fifth Prince’s children - Xuan Rui and a pair of twins, Xuan Yu and Xuan Congxin safe, and so he moves them to another province and asks the Emperor (the Second Prince) to demote Xuan Rui’s status to prove that they are no threat to the Emperor, if only to stay alive for another day.

However, their days of hardship have only just begun, and Gu Wan decides to namedrop Yu She, whose family is so powerful now, and claims that Yu She loves him and that he was wooing Gu Wan back in the days they knew each other so that officials and others would treat the children under his care better. A few years pass and Yu She doesn’t expose Gu Wan. Gu Wan thinks they can go on like this forever, until the Emperor asks Xuan Rui and the twins to head back to the palace for a visit.

Gu Wan meets Yu She again, but the boy he knew, who was gentle, a stickler for rules and a proper, well-mannered person, has changed almost completely. Cue palace conspiracies again, brothers fighting for the throne, scheming consorts etc. XD

Other CPs: None XD

Status: Complete!

Translations: I think it’s not complete yet but I’m not super sure on this

Drama/Live-Action: None that I know of!

*They came out with a new reprint edition three days ago and it’s gorgeous! And comes with amazing freebies, and I am a sucker and read it on the day of the printed novel release because I saw the art and loved it, wanted to see if the story was any good, and damn after chapter 2 I WAS GONE and then I checked out two copies from different stores for the two different sets of freebies

A list of those I haven’t read but I see are highly raved about:

1. 二哈和他的白猫师尊 | The Husky & His White Cat Shizun by Meatbun

- I’ve already been spoiled and I know what goes on mostly, and there are a lot of warnings for a reason, but I’m still a fan, and let’s not get into the debate on the content, I know I have to read this but the angst level is apparently ridiculous, so I need like some mental preparation before I sit down for it.

2. 千秋 | A Thousand Autumns by 梦溪石

3. 烈火浇愁 | Lie Huo Jiao Chou by Priest

4. 将进酒 | Qiang Jing Jiu by 唐酒卿

- A really good group of translators picked this up initially on Twitter, but then assholes were complaining that they were being too slow and insisting that machine translation (MTL) did an equally good and faster job, so the OG dropped it, and then another nice team picked it up, but MTL team is still being an asshole XD I’ve heard really good things about this one, it’s apparently quite complex as well, I’d liken it to Shapolang level? But it might be even more complex (with a lot of politics and stuff), so much so that apparently the printed novel comes with a relationship/character chart so readers are at any point in time clear on the characters which is like amazing XD

#danmei #bl novels #novel recs #sci谜案集 #kaleidoscope of death #silent reading #shapolang #犯罪心理 #成化十四年 #the sleuth of ming dynasty #2ha #priest #梦溪石 #meatbun #西子绪 #耳雅 #长洱

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ddarker-dreams · 4 years

Text

Aspiration. Yandere Chrollo x Reader [COMM]

click here for part 2!

Watching others has always been a hobby of yours.

There’s a lot to be learned from observing and watching how people behave and interact. Whether it be for your own simple amusement, or for the sake of gathering information. While some may find it creepy to keep such a keen eye out for others, you don’t look at it that way. Understanding human nature has an endless list of advantages, after all.

It started as a small side project. When you’d stumble across information on the Phantom Troupe online that wasn’t at a ridiculous price, you found yourself looking more into them. Possible members, possible motivations, surface level stuff. The more you looked into the more you descended into a minor obsession. Questions plagued your mind about their goals, the theories you found too shallow for your taste.

Through carefully studying their past hits, you came to the conclusion there were no patterns to be found. Nailing down the next possible heist felt like searching for a needle in a haystack, a part of you losing hope at the prospect of ever being in the same area as them.

So you busied yourself in other ways. From digging through hours of forums and pricey information, you pieced together the most possible members. While they’re all unique in their own right, the apple of your eye has always been their mysterious leader. There have been no solid leads on his real name, much to your chagrin.

But the leaked autopsies from what’s assumed to be his victims are fascinating. The cause of death was always different! For most nen users who kill, the method of death was typically similar with minor discrepancies. But for whoever this leader was, it almost felt like he had an unlimited amount of abilities. Was that even possible?

The morality of his actions had never been a strong concern of yours. Wanting nothing more than an opportunity to learn more about him, you brainstormed all you could on how to gain any form of contact. That’s when you got the idea of posting information online yourself, but not about the Troupe.

From guessing where they might strike next, you posted on hunter websites about information that they might find helpful. Important figures to expect at the events, bodyguard’s abilities that had been confirmed from previous employers. Whether or not the Troupe actually looked and used the information is a mystery, but the prospect of assisting them felt… thrilling. Like you were almost a part of them yourself.

That leads you to where you are now. A mini road trip of sorts, your last exit approaching fast.

The Troupe’s realm of possibilities stretched throughout the entire globe, but never close enough where you could investigate in person. But that all changed when rumors of some of the strongest hunters being hired popped up, for a museum exhibit that would be opening tonight. In your city, nonetheless!

Securing an invitation to the event was a tedious matter, but the possible payoff was enough to keep you motivated. Though being in attendance for too long could be risky if they do actually strike, running surveillance throughout the area would be easier without having to sneak around bouncers.

Checking your glove department, you find a blurry photo that serves as your hope. It had been posted on a hunter information website earlier today, a credible one at that. Even if obtaining it cost you a pretty jenny, you didn’t think much of it. In the image is what’s believed to be one of the members. A girl wearing a dark turtleneck with equally dark, short hair.

Having driven around the back of the museum, you lean back into your chair. Stretching your aching muscles, you see why this area is such a hot spot. While the actual exhibit itself didn’t interest you much, it’s evident a lot of effort went into preparing this event. Limousines had lined the entrance, important individuals emerging in expensive outfits; waiting to be escorted inside.

It’s quieter back here though, with no flashing cameras and chatty socialites. The silence gives you the opportunity to think through your plan once more.

‘I shouldn’t go in unless one of the bodyguards gets suspicious at my loitering. If I’m lucky, maybe, just maybe… I’ll see the Troupe tonight. And their mysterious leader.’

Rolling down your windows, you keep a sharp eye on your surroundings. Boredom never gets the opportunity to set in, your own rapidly beating heart never once slowing down. Having flung yourself into a possible lion’s den, the last thing you need to do is relax your concentration; it could be the death of you.

The exhibit opens at 8:00, and it’s currently 7:30.

The exhaustion from the day starts to weigh on you against your will. All the preparation and anxiety leads to your eyelids feeling heavy, leading you to lightly slap your face. The last thing you need to do is loosen your concentration. That’s when you suddenly feel a strange sensation.

Perking up almost immediately, your rapidly eyes dart around for the source of this ominous feeling. Only to find nothing out of the ordinary, your car is the only one in this parking lot. Checking your mirrors again, you catch a glimpse of what appears to be dark fabric.

‘Am I just imagining things?’

As far as you see, you have a finite amount of options ahead of you. One, to ignore whatever it is you just saw. Two, to drive off as fast as you can. Three, activating your En to see if anyone is in your immediate area. Staying without doing anything doesn’t feel wise in the slightest, and driving away wouldn’t matter if it is indeed the Phantom Troupe. They’ll catch up to you before you can set any solid distance.

That leaves using your En.

It’s risky, but everything about this trip is. Taking a deep, shaky breath, you close your eyes. Activating your En, you feel nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe everything is getting to you after all? It is late, after all. There’s always the possibility that they’re out of your range, but if you were able to see it in your mirror they couldn’t have been that far away.

“So you are a nen user after all?” An unknown voice breaks any semblance of peace you have, scurrying your mind into action.

Snapping your head to your left, your eyes widen at the sight of a stranger. Not bothering to take a second look, you immediately react by going to start your car. Before you get the opportunity, your car door is pried off by them with ease; their presence threatening. Hands twitching over your keys, you realize they’re faster than you are.

“There’s no need to be hasty,” A deep voice says next to you. “Move back, slowly. What happens to you all depends on your next actions.”

All you can hear is a mantra of cursing within your own mind. Leaning back as you were told, you hesitantly look to see who your possible assailant is. Much to your surprise, it looks to be a young man around your own age. Wearing a long, leather coat with fur; raven black hair slicked back.

‘Could this really be…?’

Given the tense situation, this individual doesn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. Is this the confidence a Troupe member normally exudes, if that’s who this is? You can’t help but feel a sense of admiration, that would undoubtedly be stronger if not for the dire circumstance.

He helps himself to your glove department, rummaging through your insurance information.

“Ah, your name is [First] then?” he inquires, finally breaking some of the tension in the air.

It’s a rhetorical question, so you don’t humor him with a proper response. He studies your defensive position with analytical eyes, taking in as much information about you as you are about him. You get the feeling that in comparison to him, you’re more of an open book.

“Do you want my wallet too?” you can’t help but inquire with sarcasm, almost immediately regretting it as his eyes widen. Why you can’t ever keep your mouth shut is beyond you, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“This gives me all I need to know for the time being,” he states with minor indifference, waving your insurance paper with a smile. “But I appreciate the offer.”

Humming in response to his words, you can’t help but throw in another cheap quip. “Something tells me you’re not a police officer.”

He laughs in good humor at your biting words. “Well, you’d be correct.”

Before you’re given the opportunity to ask who this person is, he speaks as if he knew what you were intending to ask.

“I’m surprised you don’t know who I am, [First]. Seeing as you’ve dedicated so much time into researching me.” With this, he places the paper back into the glove compartment with a click. Giving you his full attention, you feel like every aspect of you is being scrutinized. It takes all your will power to hold eye contact, his dark eyes unlike anything you’ve even seen before.

Mouth agape, you speak without thinking. “I take it my VPNs weren’t good enough then.”

Another chuckle leaves his lips at your comment.

“At first they were. Shalnark had difficulty finding out your identity for a while, but everything can always be traced back to its source,” he leans closer to you, tilting his head. “You’ve been an enigma to me to say the least.”

“I feel like I should be saying that, not you.” you mumble breathlessly, the reality of the situation hitting you like a ton of bricks. This is either the worst prank in existence, or you’re actually speaking face to face with a member of the Phantom Troupe. While them tracking you down was always an unfortunate possibility in the back of your mind, you never paid much attention to it.

“You’re free to say what you like. I don’t have any intention of killing you… unless you try something stupid,” he explains to you, straightening his posture. “But you haven’t given me reason to believe you’d do that.”

A shaky sigh leaves your lips, your attention turning from him to the fists in your lap. Everything in your body is screaming to run, to do something, but you know it’ll be for naught. While he said he wouldn’t kill you, it’s not nearly enough to comfort you. There are fates worse than death, after all.

“Don’t you have a crown to steal or something? Why waste time with me if you’re not going to kill me?”

He blinks at your question, before amusing you with an answer. “I’ll get to that later. I’m more interested in seeing what you’re going to do, if I’m being honest.”

“What I’m going to do…?” you repeat his words back aloud, hoping it’ll help you process the information better.

Knitting your eyebrows together, your mind races to make sense of the implications in his words. This must be how jesters used to feel back in the day, you surmise. Is he expecting you to do something entertaining? Well, given as there’s a solid chance you’re going to be dead in five minutes, why not.

“Alright, I’ll bite. Since I’m likely dying soon, why not tell me your name? It’d be cool to know that much in the afterlife.”

He considers your words, before responding. “Didn’t I say that as long as you don’t act foolishly I don’t intend on killing you?”

“I figured talking this much to a Phantom Troupe member counted towards my ‘acting foolishly’ points.”

“Maybe it does, yes. And to answer your previous question, but my name is Chrollo.”

The name is one you’ve never heard before. Despite only having met Chrollo a few minutes prior to now, you feel that his foreign name suits him well. Practicing the pronunciation on your tongue in a low tone, you feel a sense of pride at having uncovered this newfound information. It’s more than anyone else has learned.

Chrollo looks down at his watch briefly, before returning his attention back to you. It’s uneasy being incapable of hiding your feelings as well as he does, but you still try your best. Straightening your posture, you try to think of what to say next. This situation is one you never expected to be in. If you had known this would’ve happened, you would’ve prepared some questions at least…

He’s toying with you, you know that much. But it doesn’t seem to have any malicious intent behind it. Rather, a genuine intrigue towards your motives. It could just be hopeful thinking, but you feel like Chrollo wants something from you. Though you’re unsure what.

“Since I shared my name with you, I believe it’s only fair if I asked you a question of my own,” Chrollo insists, your heart racing for whatever comes next. “Why is it you spend so much time assisting the Spider?”

You blink. It’s actually a question that you’ve seen before in responses to your posts. People wondering if you were just messing with others by spreading false information, or if you’re an undercover hunter trying to fool the Troupe or something. The question never really sat right with you, since you couldn’t give a good answer to it yourself.

But now that you have a captive audience, you need to think of a coherent response. Vocalizing feelings that you don’t even understand yourself, while under pressure, is certainly anxiety inducing.

Placing a finger to your chin, you articulate your response to the best of your abilities. “I don’t think I have a solid reason. I just found you guys interesting, in a way. No one really knows your motivations, for example. It just adds this mystery element.”

Chrollo takes in your answer with a slight frown, seemingly not expecting such an unsure response. Since you have no reason to lie at this point, you assume he doesn’t think you’re being untruthful. He’ll undoubtedly call you out on it if he thought you were being dishonest.

“And what do you think our motivations are?” Chrollo continues to press, not settling until you give a satisfactory response.

‘He really isn’t letting me off the hook easily, is he?’

“Well, that’s always been a hot topic. Typically people guess that you do it to spite the rich, or to assert power. I even read one theory that you guys were under a curse and the only way to be free is to steal rare items for the person who cursed you! Weird stuff.” you let out a shaky ramble, scratching your neck with an airy laugh.

“Is that what you believe then?”

“Not really,” comes your response with a dismissive wave. “I could be wrong, but… I’ve always thought that there isn’t a special motivation. That you do what you want, only for the sake of doing it. There doesn’t always need to be a solid reason for a person’s actions. Sometimes… people just do things.”

Much to your surprise, Chrollo’s interest remains on you despite your long-winded rant. Why your opinion means anything in the slightest to him is still beyond you, but he seems to be taking in every word seriously.

“For the sake of doing it, huh…?” Chrollo repeats your words back to you, considering them himself. Whatever you said must've struck a chord, as he appears in deep thought by your side. A few moments of tense silence go by, causing you to frown.

‘Hopefully I didn’t upset him. I didn’t think I said anything that bad, though.’

“You may be right,” Chrollo breaks the brief silence, causing you to jump. “You’re a very strange person, [First].”

“S-strange? I don’t think you have room to talk,” you blurt out before you can think twice, Chrollo smiling in good nature at your curt response. “I guess you’re kinda right though. Any normal person wouldn’t have been in this situation. I think.”

“Anyways… since we’re doing some question give and take here, I have some of my own. If that’s okay with you.”

Amusement flickers in his eyes at your unabashed interest. “Do your worst.”

“So, there’s always been rumors of one member that I’ve found to be the most intriguing. I’ve seen the most speculation that it’s the leader of the Troupe, but of course no one really knows for sure.” you begin to ponder aloud, Chrollo letting out a soft chuckle at the word leader.

“Basically, the cause of death is almost always different! I’ve heard of people having a few different types of Hatsu, but never more than two or three. It’s almost like his nen is having unlimited nen abilities? I don’t know, it’s just really fascinating. That’s the only reason that could explain it.”

“Anyways, you’re probably not too keen on sharing Troupe abilities with a stranger. But like… blink twice if I’m right. Throw me a bone here.”

Throughout your entire explanation, you paid extra attention to picking up body language. Just anything to see if Chrollo would subconsciously give a hint or two towards your theory being correct. But his ability to control himself is unparalleled. He only looks highly entertained at everything you say.

“You’re almost right,” Chrollo confirms, making your eyes widen in surprise. “I would know. I’m the boss of the Troupe, after all.”

His last sentence repeats like a mantra in your mind, your jaw loosening as you realize the full impact of them.

Not only are you speaking to a member of the Phantom Troupe, but you’re speaking to their leader? This definitely wasn’t what you were expecting when you woke up today. Had you have known you were speaking to the leader, you may have been more polite.

‘Oh god I’m so fucked.’

“Okay, uh, Mr. Chrollo. Sir. I now just realized I’m definitely gonna be disposed of. So. I have a business proposition. I have a pet cat at home, and if I die, he’s gonna starve. If it’s not too much trouble, can you set him up with like a meal service or something? Here, let me get my venmo…”

“I’m still not planning on killing you,” Chrollo refutes with a shake of his head at your insistence on the matter. “Though I suppose it’s understandable why you would be worried about that.”

“So torture it is then?”

“It hadn’t crossed my mind.”

“Oh…”

Pursing your lips, you lean back into your seat with a deep sigh. This entire ordeal has been the most stressful time of your life, if not the most notable. The sides of your head feel like they’re pushing against your brain, a massive headache on the way. Sliding down in your seat, your eyes flicker to the time.

7:43.

‘It’s felt like hours! Only thirteen minutes, huh? I guess time doesn’t fly when you’re speaking to a murderer.’

“I do believe it’s my turn to ask you a question now.” Chrollo states, leaning back into the passenger’s seat as if it were his own car. The way he speaks commands such respect, you wonder if it would be impossible for anyone to refute him. You certainly weren’t going to test your luck.

At your lack of rebuttal, he continues. “Why go through all this trouble if not for money? Or prestige?”

‘Why is he so intent on giving me a midlife crisis?’

“If I had wanted money I would’ve posted detrimental information about you guys,” you respond with an unnatural ease. “But most of the people who do that end up dying. And prestige? Who cares what a bunch of strangers think about me. It’s not gonna do me any good at the end of the day.”

Shaking your head at the thought, you continue. “No, none of those things matter that much. I only wanted to appease my own curiosity. To learn what others tried, only to succeed where they had failed.”

Chrollo hums in response to your heartfelt words. He takes a moment to consider them himself, before leaning in closer to you. At the sudden, unexpected movement; you can’t help but flinch.

Instead of causing you any harm, he gently places a strand of stray hair behind your ear. Your face ignites in warmth at the tender gesture, your tongue failing to form any coherent words. His cologne almost dulls your senses, overwhelming presence leaving your eyes wide as saucers.

He looks at you with a knowing smile, before retracting his hand and sitting back in the seat. Your hand shakily touches the same area he did, in wild disbelief.

‘What just happened? Am I dreaming?’

“To be truthful, I’ve known about you for a while before now, [First]. I’d been intending on meeting you at some point. It just so happened that everything fell into place the way it did.” Chrollo informs you, serving only to befuddle your feelings further.

“You’ve fascinated me in the same way I have you. Observation can serve an important purpose, but I’d longed to pick your brain in person instead. Thank you for indulging me.”

“I-I really don’t know what to say,” you stutter out in response, swallowing thickly. “I knew spending ten dollars on a VPN wasn’t going be enough.”

“I would’ve found you regardless.”

‘Good god what is happening? When did breathing become so difficult?’

“Oh... well that’s... good to know I think?”

Chrollo looks at his watch yet again, and you wonder if it means anything detrimental for you. Realistically speaking he probably needs to rekindle with the rest of his group before performing whatever heist they have planned.

“It looks like our time together has almost run out,” Chrollo says, a soft sigh leaving his lips. “I hadn’t realize how much time went by.”

Your hunch now confirmed, you once again go over your options. Should he try to do anything to you, there’s still a chance you could make it to the front of the museum in time to alert the bodyguards. If you’re crafty enough, that is. Whether or not you can think coherently in this state is up in the air, as your eyes flicker momentarily to the door handle.

Hand twitching, you exhale shakily at the thought of your backup plan. What else is there for you to do? Although you’re afraid to test out who’s faster, since you get the feeling it isn’t you.

Chrollo shakes his head at your obvious thoughts, reaching forward to lock the doors with a dreadful click.

‘There goes that idea.’

“Still thinking of how to get away, hm?” he asks in a chiding tone, a blush returning to your cheeks at his words. Chrollo seems capable of reading you without even having to try, as frustrating as that is.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do exactly?” you counter, your words coming out shakier than you had hoped. The underlying sarcasm is still there, even with your waning tone.

“You could come with me instead.” Chrollo offers, in a way that seems too genuine to make any shred of sense.

“What?” you choke out, spluttering at the implications of his words.

“Exactly as I said. I’m interested in you, and you know enough now to be considered dangerous,” Chrollo states as if it were obvious. “I know I phrased it like a question, but it’s not exactly a choice."

“In that case, I can’t really say no can I?” you mumble, grasping your hand to hopefully stop it from shaking. Control of your body had slipped through the cracks, leaving you in a constant state of alertness.

“You could, but I wouldn’t recommend it,” Chrollo looks at you in a way that shows he’s already won. “Instead, you’ll do this.”

“I already have someone monitoring you here -- so running won’t do you any good. Sit here and wait for me to come back. You can do that, can’t you?”

Biting your lip, all you can do is nod your head. It’s better than dying, you figure.

Chrollo seems content enough with your obedience, sliding over to leave the same way he had came in. Before he leaves you to your own thoughts, he offers a final quip.

“We’ll have a lot more discuss while we travel together, [First].”

#chrollo lucilfer #chrollo #chrollo x reader #chrollo imagine #chrollo lucilfer x reader #HunterXHunter #Hunter X Hunter #hunter x hunter imagines #yandere hunter x hunter #hunter x hunter imagine #yandere #yandere hxh #hxh imagine #hxh #my stuff #commissions

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j-graysonlibrary · 7 months

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Heartbeats; Paradise XVII

Title: Heartbeats; Paradise

Author: Jay Grayson

Word Count: 112K

Genres: Psychological thriller, drama, sci-fi, LGBT+

Available on: Kobo and my website

Synopsis: Melvin Hardy and Kade Axel appear to be a match made in heaven. After a meet-cute in the rain, the two quickly find themselves in a burgeoning, wholesome relationship.

XVII:

It actually stays dark this time though I brace myself for a sudden, bright light to be switched on. Some lights do come into view and a few of them are bright and neon but none of them are so vicious that they hurt my eyes.

Large buildings stand all around us—all dark with those neon pink and yellow lights acting as accents. The forms of the buildings are solid when I look at the ground level but then they fade together and disappear out of view the further up I stare and it’s like they meld into the night sky.

I return my gaze to the group and check in with everyone. We’re all here and with a little bit of Nate on all of us, unfortunately.

Kendra is a bit of a shock though.

I don’t realize it’s her at first but when she asks, “Are you all alright?” I’m able to put the pieces together.

She has an all black body that’s almost skeletal in nature and her face is a bright yellow smiling face. It’s something that wouldn’t look out of place on a sticker or in a text message but, in real life, it’s unsettling.

“Fuck, Kendra, what happened to your body?” Kade asks, fidgeting with his hands. His smaller axe is gone—still back with Anika—and I’m sure he’s upset about it.

“This was my anonymous guise when I came over to hack,” she explains, her voice taking some getting used to. It’s overly mechanical and robotic and there is a persistent static that carries throughout. “You’ll see a lot of people who look like this. I’m just glad you all kept your bodies. Looks like the meddling I did in your code worked.”

“But we’re still dead, aren’t we?” Oz asks, sounding resigned to his fate.

Kendra tugs at a cord that extends from the back of her head. It disappears into the air but she pumps a fist after she’s touched it. “I still have my tether!”

“That didn’t answer my question,” Oz mumbles. He’s right beside me so I touch his arm in a show of silent solidarity.

“I…” Kendra checks behind each of our heads, her smiling face blinking and turning into a pouting face. “I don’t feel any tethers so…you can’t come out through an IVAR pod since you aren’t connected to one.”

“Are we stuck then?” Starla asks with a frown.

I feel her sorrow. To have done so much and to have gotten so far to only be at a dead end is too cruel. I’m not ready to give up though. I believe Kendra will find an answer and, even if she doesn’t, we’ll figure something out together.

“I’ll have to work on it…” Kendra steps back and her face changes again to a pondering expression. “At the least, I can bring you all to my homestead and work from there.”

“What’s a homestead?” I ask.

“My own personal bubble in IVAR so to speak.”

I’m not sure I quite understand still since this entire place baffles me but, if we’re safe from Anika and her ilk, then I don’t mind.

“Alright, lead us there,” Oz says.

We follow in a huddle behind Kendra’s odd form and walk into the dark city. I glance over my shoulder as we leave our prison and I see the scale of the destruction.

A large building stands—barely—and a huge hole is blown out of the side. The signs all around the place are broken and most hang languidly from their posts. Pictures of Kade and I, hugging and kissing are accompanied by huge, bubbly letters spelling: Heartbeats; Paradise. The biggest picture of us flickers and goes out as I’m staring at it and I take that as my cue to turn back around.

The explosion has done more than offer us a means of escape, however. Like Kendra said, there are many other dark figures with bright faces and even more regular looking people. Others are dressed as cartoonish animals or in exaggerated humanoid forms. There is a lot of variety in those who aren’t the basic smiling people like Kendra but they all look over at the blasted building and at us as we attempt to flee.

I hold onto Oz’s hand, keeping contact as we enter the stream of bodies since I don’t want to lose him. I can see that he’s grabbed onto Kade in front of him and I bet Kade has a hold of Starla who is holding hands with Kendra.

The sudden pushing and pulling of strangers against me makes me even gladder that I reached out to Oz when I did. I frown as anxiety starts to inflate in my chest at the sheer amount of people around. I hear them all muttering to themselves about the explosion but I can’t make out individual words.

There are just too many.

We manage to squeeze past the densest area but, waiting for us, is a clunky robot with a siren blaring from him and a flashing light on his head. I rush closer to Kendra and the others but I also don’t let go of Oz.

“State your I.D. numbers, users,” the robot demands of us.

I look between everyone and see the same confused expression reflected back at me. Kendra stands between the robot and us. She lets go of Starla and produces another one of those translucent screens only, this time, it’s a little more solid than see-through.

It also appears to be coming from the robot.

As soon as she’s done, the siren cuts off and the light dies. The robot slumps over, lifeless.

“Alright, we have about five minutes before he reboots and calls for backup so we need to go and fast.” Kendra reaches down and grabs Starla’s hand again. “Don’t let go and keep up!”

I have no idea what’s going on but I run behind Oz while gripping his hand tightly.

Buildings and bright signs pass us by as we rush through crowds that wax and wane in density depending on where we are. We step onto a roadway that’s lined with flashing arrows and, as soon as we’re on it, I notice what’s different about it as we are propelled forward at a faster speed.

Still, we run.

Most people are parked on the moving walkway but we push past them all and keep our momentum going. My head is spinning at this point and it’s all I can do to just keep my legs working.

I don’t allow myself to take in the scenery like I might otherwise want to. It’s mostly fueled by curiosity anyway rather than genuine interest in the workings of IVAR.

Honestly, I’d go as far as to say I hate this virtual reality shit. As massive and, otherwise, impressive as it might be, I can’t feel anything besides bitterness in my heart toward it.

Oz’s hand tightens around mine as we ride the walkway into a new area. I hadn’t even realized we were passing through a tunnel until we’re exiting it.

A brighter expanse opens up around us and I see that we’re several hundred feet above a completely different city. I make the mistake of looking down and I nearly stumble over myself trying to wrap my head around it.

Up above, several other pathways wind about and some of them are occupied by trains that speed by in a flash. I would worry about one of those trains coming to mow us down but the fact there are other people on the walkway eases my nerves.

The closer we get to Kendra’s homestead (I assume) the more often that cord from the back of her head flashes into view. I guess it’s like a beacon to lead users back home no matter how far into the system they travel.

The walkway ends and Kendra takes us to a platform that she smacks some buttons on in a hurry. I just make it to the square and Oz has to let go of my hand so he can pull me closer by the waist. I grab his shirt and pull against the fabric as we’re suddenly dropped to the ground level.

“Sorry, it’s a bit fast,” Kendra apologizes only after the fact.

“I’ll yell at you when my fucking brain catches up with me,” Kade replies and we all grab onto each other again, forming a chain.

If the streets around Heartbeats; Paradise were crowded then these streets are infested. I can hardly breathe with how packed it is. Kendra has to check people with her shoulder and elbow to get through and she loudly encourages us to do the same.

“They don’t care! Just push and shove!” she shouts back at us.

I have to take her advice and throw people off of me as we squeeze through. It’s absolutely suffocating and my heart jumps up into my throat when I hear the last thing I want to.

Shouted above the deafening chatter is a crystal clear voice that pierces our ears. “IT’S MELVIN FROM HEARTBEATS; PARADISE!”

“RUN!” Kendra yells just as loud and starts to pull us harder.

I’m yanked forward but then I’m pulled back with equal force. I look over my shoulder, against my better judgment, and I’m met with a wide eyed, cartoon girl with a little, cat-like smile on her face. She’s got cat ears too which stand at attention as her large, yellow eyes sparkle with a flourish.

“It IS you!” She squeals. “Are you doing a promotional thing? Can I get a picture?!”

She’s got a vice grip on me and, even when I try to pull her off, she doesn’t budge. I also realize in that moment that I’m prying her off (or attempting to) with the hand that is supposed to be holding Oz.

He’s gone.

I’m alone.

The panic swallows me and I scream. I start to hit the girl in front of me, desperate to be free of her. “GET OFF ME!” I throw my hand down against her arm repeatedly. Even then, she doesn’t budge.

“MELVIN!?” More excited shouts come and I can see the crowd shifting with the incoming stampede.

My heart thunders in my chest and I do the only thing I can think and I throw a punch at my captor’s cartoon face. It finally loosens her hold on me but I’m aware that my situation is still hellish. I can start running but I no longer know which direction anyone has gone.

Every inch of me shakes with a type of fear I’ve never known until now.

I’ll be devoured by these people.

I’ll never see the light of day.

An arm snakes around me and I scream again, ready to peel them off of me and land what hits I can until I’m overrun. I turn on my heel and my scream tapers off immediately as I’m met with Oswald.

I’ve been happy to see him many times but this one might be the most dramatic of the bunch. I nearly let my relief wash over me too early—I have to remind myself that we’re still, very much, in danger here.

“It’s Oswald!” the cartoon cat-girl shrieks just as the other fans finally catch up with her. There are at least twenty of them and they glare at Oz with matching ferocity.

“GET HIM! BEAT HIS ASS!” one of them shouts and is joined by a chorus of rallying cheers.

Oz pulls me back, putting himself between me and the mob. He’s ready to face this alone but I’m not ready to watch what is about to happen. Already, I can imagine this group latching onto him and taking him down like a pack of wolves against a stag.

But he’s not alone for long.

After only a split second, before any fan has the time to charge forward and lead the assault, Kade emerges from behind me. His presence is almost like a tonic, stopping the crowd in their tracks. Many of them start shouting in excitement again, no longer acknowledging that Oz is even here.

“Oh my God, it’s Kaddie!” A human-dragon hybrid shoots their scaly arms into the air.

“Sweet angel Kade!” Another cat-girl with an all pink coloration mewls and clasps her paws together as if she intends to pray.

I feel slightly better now that I’m not by myself anymore (and even better still that Oz is no longer the object of their ire) but I still don’t see how we’ll escape this nightmare.

Kade is the creative type, however, and he unhooks the huge battle axe from his back and holds it in front of him. I can’t see his face but I imagine he’s grinning like mad.

“Sweet angel?” he questions and chuckles deeply, “Come a little closer and I’ll show you what your sweet little boy thinks of all of you.”

As he swings the axe at them, they finally realize something is amiss. One of them screams in legitimate terror while the others shuffle back in bewilderment.

Before he can actually hack any of them apart, a bright, rectangular blockage appears between us and them. A few more pop up, separating us not only from the fans but from the rest of the crowd as a whole.

I glance behind me, taking a second to settle on Oz and give him a small nod in thanks for coming back for me. I’m not sure when he noticed we had been separated but he could have just left me. He’s not the kind of man who would do such a thing, I know, but it still fills my core with warmth to have him come to my rescue in such a manner. Kade, too, could have left us and, out of the two of them, I might have expected it more from him. Yet, he chose not to leave us behind…

My gaze drifts back even farther and I see Starla and Kendra running toward us. Kendra’s face has a blue tint cast over the eyes. “This barrier won’t last for long,” she warns, “We’re almost there!”

Since there is no worry of the crowd splitting us up again, we run side by side and Kade keeps his axe in his hands, ready to start swinging once the blockers dissipate. I hope they stay until we’re in Kendra’s homestead—I can’t deal with another situation like the one we just escaped.

I’m exhausted from it.

My body begs me for respite but I push on.

As the rectangles begin to flicker, the crowd also begins to thin significantly. I let out a sigh in relief and then grab Oz’s hand again. Just because there are less people doesn’t mean I’m still not worried about being separated.

We approach a bridge where, from underneath, a steady flow of people seems to be appearing into thin air. Kendra points with her free hand at a pillar and we all slow down as we come upon it.

“Here—my homestead is just beyond here!” she exclaims with a happy face now on display and then rests her hands on her knees. It’s hard to believe she’s out of breath when she looks the way she does but I don’t linger on it. “I’ll open the portal and you can follow me in.”

She fiddles with some controls in a panel she’s manifested. A door sized hole appears in the pillar and Kendra jumps through, showing us it’s safe.

Starla steps forward next but she runs, face first, into the cement.

I didn’t even see when it happened but the door is gone already. I blink and shake my head.

“What?” Starla rubs her injured face with one hand and the pillar with her other.

“Kendra!” Kade screams and slams a fist against the surface.

“Maybe she’s working on a different portal for us,” Oz suggests, sounding unusually optimistic. It’s what I would normally say, though, this time, I’m starting to let the negative ideas nip at me.

What if Kendra has no intention of helping us? What if she can’t?

Kade raises his axe up and promptly slams it against the pillar. “OPEN UP!” He screams and strikes it again.

Oz pulls him off, having to hold his hands to keep him still. “That’s not going to help!”

“You don’t know that!”

“You almost chopped my finger off!” Starla points out, cradling her hand close to her chest.

“I didn’t,” Kade huffs. He’s not struggling against Oz nearly as much as I would expect him to but he’s probably exhausted. Or, more likely, he’s gearing up for another attack. “Wait…”

I glance down at him and see that he’s staring at the pillar with a frown and narrowed eyes. I follow his gaze and see, where he’s axed the structure, a faint light shining from the crack.

“What…is that?” Starla asks and leans closer. She reaches a curious hand out toward it and my heart jumps up into my throat as she lurches forward.

“Starla!” Oz shouts and lets Kade go to grab her.

Kade grabs Oz and I reach out and touch Kade before we all get sucked through. It’s more vertigo inducing than the ride on the moving walkway and I take several minutes to collect my thoughts.

It doesn’t help that it’s bright in this new place.

I open my eyes, almost expecting to be back with Anika again but, luckily, it’s not the same space.

Lush, green grass stretches out under us and we’re surrounded by thick, vibrant plants. Large, green, fan-like leaves block our path and birds chirp around us. The air is humid and a moist sheen settles onto my skin.

While the scenery is quite breathtaking, I’m frozen in place.

Fear sinks its fangs into me and I feel tears well in my eyes.

I remember this place.

#heartbeats paradise #my novel #my writing

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apricuscity · 2 years

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Mayor Lowell Presents: Wildlife!

“Did you know that the only egg-laying mammals are the Duck-Billed Platypus, and the Echidna? Fascinating but not really relevant since we don’t have either here! I’m Mayor Lowell and welcome to “Mayor Lowell Presents: Wildlife”!”

“I’m here today to talk about some of the wonderful wildlife you may encounter in various parts of Apricus, and the surrounding areas. We’ve talked a bit about cryptids already so we won’t be going over and animals that may or may not exist. No, these are all very real. We’ll also be avoiding chimeras so we can focus on the “natural” wildlife.”

“It may be best to start with some of the aquatic creatures. Captain Larsen, and his marines are in charge of protecting the docks, and surrounding areas from some of the more vicious marine life but that doesn’t mean they don’t come close every now and again.”

“Captain Larsen tends to classify them all as “Leviathans”. Yes that’s where the Hecaball team name comes from. Truth is there are many different types of these beasts. Some resembling giant octopus or squids. I believe that’s where the whole “kraken” myth originates from. We may have some extraordinarily large ones but I’ve yet to see one that could drag a ship down. Captain Larsen might have though.”

“The most common Leviathans tend to resemble giant serpents, quite nasty creatures really. We’ve also seen our fair share of ones resembling whales, or sharks. Some of those comprise the largest in recorded history. It’s rare to see them anywhere close to the docks but the further you travel into open ocean, the more chances you unfortunately have.”

“We’ll move on to something a bit more tame. You’ve no doubt seen your fair share of smaller creatures around Apricus. Raccoons, rabbits, various types of squirrels, things of that nature. You’ll see ducks, and geese around areas with plenty of water.”

“Occasionally something may wander further into the city from the Smokey Gardens district or from the mountains. These usually get reported quickly, tranquilized, and returned back to where they belong. Sightings have included bears, wolves, and mountain lions.”

“It’s possible you’ve seen a cayote or two considering they are pretty common in some areas of Smokey Gardens.”

“We’ll turn our attention to the forest areas, and the mountains. It’s here where you’ll find several types of wolves, and bears. A few of these species can get substantially larger than what is considered “normal”. You may wonder if that’s a big deal but if you’ve seen what’s considered a large bear or wolf you’ll realize that ones larger than that are nothing to be trifled with.”

“You normally don’t have anything to fear as they larger species tend to avoid populated areas. The folks living far in the forest or far up in the mountains have learned how to deter these beasts.”

“We all know that several types of chimera can be poisonous but did you know that we have a few natural animals that must be looked out for as well? Sure a few species of snakes can be found but nothing that will likely kill you. It won’t be pleasant but you’ll live. Unfortunately though we do have things like the Wolfbane Spider which lives in the colder regions of the mountains.”

“A rather large arachnid with venom potent enough to bring down an alpha wolf. Luckily for most of the city, they tend to stick to the cold.”

“There are plenty more things to go over so this presentation will have a follow-up if there is enough interest. Meanwhile if you want to know more about Apricus Wildlife I suggest checking out the Mayor Lowell Presents website which will link you to more info. You can also attend courses at Apricus University or visit any of our libraries, or the city archives!”

“I’d like to thank you all for your time. I’m Mayor Lowell and this have been “Mayor Lowell Presents”!”

#Mayor Lowell Presents #Flavian Lowell

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crow-in-a-teapot · 4 years

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tower of nero spoilers

i have just finished the tower of nero. and before i go searching for other people’s thoughts and art and more of the characters i love so much, i want to write down some of my own thoughts because i know as soon as i delve into that ‘ton spoilers’ hashtag there are going to be complaints and criticisms and so much that i don’t want to hear, or essays that’ll make me upset, or things that’ll change my perception on the book (because on this website people really love to hate the trials of apollo).

i want to start with: i loved it. it didn’t feel earth-shattering or huge and momentous like some of my favourite riordanverse books (house of hades, the blood of olympus, the last olympian and maybe some of the magnus chase books take those pedestals for me) but it was satisfying. and i think it was satisfying because it in no way felt like an ending. whether because eventually rick will write that will-and-nico-go-through-tartarus-and-save-bob novella, or because we (or at least i) will continue writing and imagining and creating for this world i don’t know. he didn’t wrap up the story in a perfect little bow like ‘nineteen years later’, he simply put it on pause. gave us a glimpse of where every character was at at the end.

the only thing that makes me so angry and upset is that i did manage to get some spoilers for moments that i know would have been so good to experience for the first time if i hadn’t been spoiled for them. the moment where rachel mentions penguins in a mansion near her house, nico getting mental health advice from mr d, the fact that will and nico were going to be in the book for so much of the story, but the big thing was literally spoiled for me two days ago, it was the reason i sat down to read it as fast as possible because i was terrified of getting more spoiled and not being able to experience the moments for myself, was that piper had a girlfriend. i know that reading that for the first time would have been so cool and surprising, and the fact that when it came up for a moment in the last couple pages all i felt was disappointment because it was spoiled for me and because it was now tinged with whatever that person was saying about her having a girlfriend.

but i still had some warm fuzzy moments, the two parts where apollo thinks he’s going to die but nico comes up behind him - so good. impeccable.

Leader Guy spat. ‘Now, I kill you.’

He raised his sword... and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands.

Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo.

and

Nero raised his hand, ready to give the kill command, when behind me a mighty BOOM! shook the chamber. Half our enemies were thrown off their feet. Cracks sprouted in the windowsand the marble columns. Ceiling tiles broke, raining dust like split bags of flour.

I turned to see the impenetrable blast doors lying twisted and broken, a strangely emaciated red bull standing in the breach. Behind it stood Nico di Angelo.

gods. poetic brilliance. i can’t believe i’m still a nico di angelo stannie in the year 2021. in five years i have not changed (ever since the tv show announcement last summer i have managed to morph into myself from 2017)

from here i’m not sure where to go next i kind of want to go through everything, except it’ll be more difficult than my tyrant’s tomb reaction because i wasn’t reading on a kindle and thus can’t just do funny little reactions to screenshots of quotes, so i’ll just skim through the book page by page and see what i can comment on (i’m not planning on doing analysis today, no thank you, just enjoying the end of my childhood and trying to squeeze as much out of it as possible)

i have an emotional attachment to mr. snake from the very first chapter, and am very upset that he’ll never get off on his baltimore stop and get to see his wife, lu had no reason to shoot and kill him like that.

that brings me to lu, i liked her, it was interesting to see how rick kind of brought in not only the overarching theme of abuse, but also people who let the abuse happen, i have more i could say on this i’m too lazy to right now, and i promised no analysis - or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show non-lethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than - oh, I don’t know - refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors.

And are you any better? taunted a small voice in my brain. How many times have you stood up to Zeus?

Okay, small voice. Fair point. Tyrants are not easy to opppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.

the parallels to meg and lester heading to percy’s apartment, and then to camp half blood to the hidden oracle was so cool to read, every callback to the hidden oracle just there to remind us readers exactly how far apollo has come and how he’s changed; the entire chapter with sally, paul and estelle just felt sickly sweet, it just didn’t seem real how wholesome and good that family is, like i get why apollo broke down and just sobbed in that shower.

also rick really saying acab again in toa, i thought he was done after that elf cop chapter in magnus chase (the magnus chase series is a masterpiece) but apparently not, with A ‘good cop’ is still a cop... still a part of the mind game.

the grey sisters, i forgot about them completely but this threw me back into was it the sea of monsters when annabeth summoned them? i’m not sure, it could have been the lightning thief either, they really remind me of the disney hercules movie. the whole ganymede paragraph was gold, i love gods being canonically confirmed lgbt in the riordanverse. i also love the whole eye-tossing part -

‘He will crush our eye,’ Anger cried, ‘if we don’t recite our verses!’

‘I will not!’

‘We will all die!’ Wasp said. ‘He is crazy!’

‘I AM NOT!’

‘Fine, you win!’ Tempest howled.

also, the explanation for why dionysus chooses to look the way he does was perfect, because it was something i often wondered about and wasn’t expecting to get an explanation for, and i imagine the whole mythological dionysus to look like.. well like a more feminine apollo i guess, beautiful in a gender non-comforming way.

Other Olympians could never comprehend why Dionysus chose this form when he could look like anything he wanted. In ancient times, he’d been famous for his youthful beauty that defied gender.

...

In retaliation, Dionysus had decided to look and act as ungodly as possible. He was like a child refusing to tuck in his shirt, comb his hair or brush his teeth, just to show his parents how little he cared.

every scene with nico at camp just BREAKS ME, i would throw in screenshots of every damn quote but unfortunately, as said above, cannot and would rather not type every one; we’ll start with, obviously apollo confirming to him that jason is dead.

He didn’t look angry exactly. He looked as if he’d been hit in the gut not just once but so many times over the course of so many years that he was beginning to lose perspective on what it meant to be in pain. He swayed on his feet. He blinked. Then he flinched, jerking his hands away from Meg’s as if he’d just remembered his own touch was poison.

ugh then will talking about how nico’s doing, confirming that he’s suffering with ptsd, mr d giving him advice, helping him sort though what voices in his head are real and which ones aren’t, then the paragraph that just recounts every horrific thing poor nico has been through, how will has to reassure him that he’s okay and ‘with friends’ when he wakes up after shadow travel

will’s kindness to apollo, buying him clothes, and apollo finding seymour the leopard’s head in his bed, put there by mr d aaaa AAAA A A A A A THE ORDINARY, EVERYDAY CAMP HALF BLOOD THINGS..

i could go on for years and years about how much i appreciate rachel having a big role in this book, and the visit to her apartment, everything, her art, the fact that she got what she wanted, she’s going to PARIS to study ART, she isn’t forced to be someone she’s not by her dad, and gets to be a big part of a demigod mission and not stand on the sidelines for once.

i love that her landscapes are still visions, that she still paints the quests demigods go on - the burning maze, jason’s funeral pyre, caligula’s ships; and how nico ~appreciates art~

‘And, hey, di Angelo -’ she pushed him playfully away from the canvas he’d been ogling - ‘don’t brush against the art! I don’t care about the paintings, but if you get any colour on you, you’ll ruin that whole black-and-white aesthetic you’ve got going.’

i. love. rachel.

WILL GLOWS!! THE HEADCANONS FROM LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO THAT YOU’D SEE FLOATING AROUND ABOUT HIM MANIPULATING LIGHT!! CONFIRMED!! CANON!! AMAZING

I AM OBSESSED WITH THE TROGS, I LOVE THEM, THEY ARE GREAT, not gonna lie, i was expecting something more dramatic and spooky with how worried will was and how dionysus was going.. visiting the cavern-runners isn’t ♫ good for your mental health ♫ but the little hat frog gremlins were a good addition. i like them very much and their funky little soup shenanigans. quoting the ghost king himself: trogs good. nice hats. (IM SORRY I KEEP MENTIONING HIM BUT I JUST) also how apollo starts wishing for breadsticks a s ajoke and theY STRAIGHT UP HAVE BREADSTICKS? HUH? WHERE DID THEY GET THE BREADSTICKS FROM??

yeah, i’m also still very much upset by every mention of jason grace, it’s funny how ever since his death in the burning maze i have grown to love him more and more and that’s not fun for me, for that boy to become one of my main comfort character’s and have his death and sacrifice and nobility mentioned every few chapters. i’m pretty sure i cried when he appeared to talk in apollo’s dreams, and this time the tears weren’t from the effort of keeping my eyes open and working for hours straight reading this book (i remember staying up until 2am to finish the sequel to beautiful, broken things, it was very much worth it)

‘All right, Jason. We miss you, though.’

ALSO. THE FACT THAT THIS KID. THIS CHILD. HAD TO THINK ‘BUT IF A HERO ISN’T READY TO LOSE EVERYTHING FOR A GREATER CAUSE, IS THAT PERSON REALLY A HERO?’ A KID ISN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND BE READY TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES FOR THE GREATER GOOD,, i,, ugh,, he’s supposed to be finishing school and designing temples not being the perfect hero and soldier,, spain without the s,,

as @couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name said: ‘thinking about how ghost! Jason didn’t seem to understand why Apollo was so upset about his death because he’s been raised to believe a hero’s sacrifice is noble and his life doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and also if he doesn’t understand why the person who watched him get horrifically killed is so torn up over his death he probably doesn’t even realize his other friends are grieving him..’

IM SO UPSET THE ARROW OF DODONA IS DEAD D: IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS ALL THE FUNNIEST MOMENTS WERE BECAUSE OF THAT ARROW AND IT'S DEATH WAS SO SAD WTH LIKE WE FIND OUT HOW USELESS THE ARROW FELT AND HOW THE GROVE OF DODONA ALL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CRAP AND WOULD FAIL APOLLO AND THEN ONCE WE FEEL BAD FOR IT, IT DIES??

the entire python battle was pretty grim, there is a part of me that's like because this is the last book series i would have loved say the magnus chase and kane chronicles gang in a giant battle with everyone like the battle of manhattan but even more dramatic, but even so, i did appreciate that python battle and the whole almost-falling-into-the-depths-of-tartarus thing.

him talking to artemis was cool, but JESUS: 'I turned and strode out of my room, trying to recall how the god Apollo walked.' like that HURTS. it was such a huge culture shock for apollo to go throught this huge character arc and be so human and understand the pain of others, to be around gods again who are so.. apathetic. also, zeus. 'Interesting how he put that: I had done him proud. I had been useful in making him look good. My heart did not melt. I did not feel that this was a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation with my father. Let's be honest: some fathers don't deserve that. Some aren't capable of it.'

OKAY OKAY SO THE END?? CHIRON TALKING TO A CAT (BAST) AND A SEVERED HEAD (MIMIR) ABOUT SHARED PROBLEMS WITHIN THE PANTHEONS!! WILL AND NICO RECEIVING A PROPHECY FROM RACHEL TO GO TO TARTARUS AND SAVE BOB!! THE HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS, INCLUDING THALIA AND REYNA BEING BEST FRIENDS (qpr.. qpr..) HUNTING THE TEUMESSIAN FOX!! PERCY, ANNABETH AND GROVER, THE ORIGINAL TRIO, GOING ON A CHAOTIC ROAD TRIP TOGETHER!! - SO MANY STAND-ALONE SET -UPS PFSJSJSJ

okay quick word on the reunions at the end: funny little elephant visitation program with livia and hannibal. love that for them. calypso and leo's relationship seems rocky and complicated, but that's to be expected, i think even if they do get properly back together again it might not last long, because it does pretty much feel like a teenage relationship where the two aren't very compatible, but we'll see. hazel and frank are so funny with their gold plated necklaces. lavinia - tap-dance icon. almost cried at the mention of jason's temple-extension plan again. percy not being sure about what he wants to do in college is accurate and i like that that's left to be up-for-interpretation (rick does THE MOST for the fanfic writers pfsjsj). i am OBSESSED with aeithales, like i hate deserts so the burning maze setting is not my favourite but GOD that HOUSE, the vibes are off-the-charts. i'd love a house made of living trees that's also a greenhouse filled with dryads. meg gets a unicorn. that is so great.

i kind of wish the book hadn't ended with 'Call on me. I will be there for you.' because every time I imagine the friends theme song and i don't think that's the vibe he was going for, BUT i do love him talking to meg, that was genuinely emotional - 'You'll come back?' she asked. 'Always,' I promised. 'The sun always comes back.' ; i really wish it had ended with that, but i guess apollo does tend to break fourth walls and talk to the readers, like a lot of the protagonists of riordanverse books.

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