#the topic was knowing how to describe a schedule

[nizhspo]

pairing: megumi fushiguro x f!reader

synopsis: megumi fushiguro has been quietly, hopelessly in love with you since the seventh grade. you were soft-spoken then, a little like him, but by junior year, you’re loud, popular, dating sukuna ryomen—the guy everyone’s a little afraid of, and megumi is still just as in love.

content: teenage dirtbag, high school au, pining, megumi is shy and obsessed and down bad, established sukuna x reader, emotional cheating / physical attraction.

he’s been in love with you since the seventh grade.

not the cute kind. not the cinematic, slow-mo, lights-down kind, either. more like a slow, stubborn thing, rooted so deeply into the past five years of his life, he can’t imagine not being a little bit in love with you. like tripping over his words every time you ask for a pencil. like accidentally staring too long in homeroom and spending the rest of the day convinced he made you uncomfortable. like watching you laugh in gym class, and hating that it makes his stomach twist like it does.

because back then, you were different. or—no, maybe just closer to him.

you used to wear hoodies that swallowed your hands, doodle in the margins of your spiral notebooks, hum songs only two other people in school probably had on their playlist. you weren’t quiet, exactly, but you were quieter than you are now. sharper, too. more sarcastic. he remembers the way you chewed your erasers and how your backpack was always falling apart at the seams and littered with buttons from hot topic.

you were never friends, not really. but he remembers the day a group of kids made some shitty joke about him not having a dad, and you, from the back row, snapped: “you’re all being dicks, you know that?” loud. unfazed. and then went right back to sketching skulls in your math notes like you hadn’t just stood up for a boy you didn’t even know.

and after that, something shifted in megumi.

not between you, no—he still never worked up the nerve to talk to you outside of forced group projects, or the one time you told him you liked the band on his t-shirt and all he could muster up was a measly “thanks” that sounded more like an i-hate-you than a i’ve-been-in-love-with-you-since-you-stood-up-for-me.

but nonetheless, the shift was in him. in the way he started sitting up a little straighter when you were in the room. the way he noticed you more. the way the crush crept up on him like a fever. the way that when yuji would bother him about his type in girls, he would describe you every time.

and by eighth grade, you’d started to change. not suddenly. just slowly, bit by bit. you stopped wearing your headphones in the back of class so much, started leaning forward instead, laughing louder, answering more questions. you traded chipped black nail polish for fresh sets of acrylics, glossy and almond-shaped, white at the tips. you didn’t doodle on your sneakers anymore. you didn’t carry your sketchbook to lunch.

your friends changed, too. no more kids with scuffed backpacks and cracked DS screens— now it was girls with phones tucked into the waistband of their leggings, saying we’re going to the mall after school, not wanna come over and play left 4 dead? they didn’t care about boss fights or easter eggs. they cared about lashes and lip liners and rumors.

and megumi never hated you for it. never resented the way you changed. he just kept watching, quiet, steady, like someone observing the tide roll back. watched you drift farther and farther out, while he stayed where he’d always been, ankle-deep at the edge of it all.

because you were still you, in the ways that mattered. you still smiled at him in the hallways, on the rare mornings you weren’t surrounded by a crowd of people all clawing for your attention. you still ducked into the art room between periods to say hi to the teacher you used to adore, even after you dropped art for drama just to match your schedule with your friends.

sure, you were different now. shinier. louder. harder to reach. but megumi still saw those small pieces, and he still admired you for them. because even when everything else shifted, you stayed genuine. and that made all the difference to him.

and by ninth grade, you were gone completely.

well, not really. you still went to the same school. had a locker two rows down. ended up in the same english class, same gym period, same fucking homeroom.

but you were popular now. or at least known. loud, bright, magnetic. the kind of girl who caught the eyes of guys like sukuna—who drove a camaro with the windows down no matter the weather, who lived two houses down from megumi his entire life and yet had never once spoken to him like a person. you were the kind of girl who got invited to every party, showed up late but somehow made it better, left before curfew and still managed straight a’s without breaking a sweat. the kind of girl who, objectively, shouldn’t have even seen a guy like megumi.

and for a while, you did see him. but then slowly, you stopped. no more quiet smiles in the hallway. no more eye contact across classrooms. no more borrowed pencils or mumbled thank yous.

he couldn’t even blame you.

and yet, even now, with all the polish and confidence and charm, he still sees her. the version of you from back then. in the way you pull your sleeves over your hands when it’s too cold in the classroom. in the way your fingers still drum against your thigh when you’re deep in thought. in the way that, every so often, when you and he end up at your lockers at the same time and the hallway’s empty except for the hum of the vents, he can hear the faint pulse of your headphones, muffled basslines and distorted vocals that sound like his playlists, like his bands, like the kind of music most people outgrew. he sees it in how you still glare when someone says something cruel. how you still tilt your head when you're curious. how you still laugh with your whole mouth, like you're not trying to be pretty, just happy.

and he knows. he knows it’s stupid. knows you’re different now. knows you’re out of reach in all the ways that matter. but some part of him, some hopeless, hormone-addled, teenage part of him that still believes in maybe—still hopes.

by junior year, megumi wasn’t bullied anymore.

not exactly.

people mostly left him alone, too busy nursing their own breakups, GPA anxieties, and hallway dramas to care about the quiet kid in the back row. he wasn’t popular, but he wasn’t invisible either. just… peripheral. the kind of presence you register like background noise, familiar but unmemorable. he was that weird, dark-haired kid who used to get in fights freshman year—whose knuckles always looked a little bruised, whose hoodie sleeves were always tugged down, whose eyes flicked sharp and narrow at the first hint of confrontation.

but now? he mostly kept his head down. sat in the back of the classroom. answered only when called on. went to the nurse’s office more often than he went to lunch. had one very loud, very pink-haired best friend who never seemed to care how little he talked. he wasn’t a total outcast. he still had girls approach him every once in a while, usually the ones who thought quiet meant mysterious, or who wanted to collect a new personality to polish up like a thrift store jacket.

but they never stayed long.

and megumi wasn’t at the bottom of the social food chain. he just wasn’t sure he was on it at all. not the kind of guy you laughed at. just the kind you forgot to notice. the kind of guy who ate in the art hallway because the cafeteria made his skin crawl. the kind who walked slow between classes to avoid brushing shoulders with too many people at once. the kind who had more unexcused absences than contacts in his phone. the kind girls whispered about in the way people do when they think pity sounds like kindness— “he has so much potential,” they’d say, sighing, already dreaming of everything they’d change about him.

you, though—you were everything he wasn’t.

the kind of girl who could walk into a room and shift its gravity. the homecoming court type. loud, laughing, lip-glossed. you had your own table at lunch. friends who actually liked each other. a boyfriend who played football, who seemed to be a dick to everyone but you.

and you were nice. like, actually nice, so when you got with sukuna, it had everyone doing double takes, especially because sukuna was a dick, full stop. the kind of guy who wore his temper like a badge and didn’t care who saw it. football captain. the kind of boy who'd rip the rearview mirror off your car because you parked too close. you’d never had a boyfriend before, and sukuna? he’d broken at least three hearts the summer before sophomore year even started.

no one saw it coming.

but megumi did. kind of.

because he noticed the way sukuna looked at you. the way he got quieter when you were around, not soft, not kind, just… less sharp. less willing to swing first. he’d still glare, still breathe anger like oxygen, but he held it in his fists instead of throwing it, like somehow, just being near you was enough to rein him in. and megumi hated that it made sense. that of course you’d be the exception. of course even a guy like sukuna would bend around you.

because sukuna commanded attention—walked into rooms like he owned them, like people existed to be looked down on or used up. he didn’t ask for the spotlight. he was the spotlight.

and megumi, on the other hand, was the kind of guy who slipped beneath it. the shadow in the corner. the quiet one. the boy no one looked at twice unless they needed help on homework or wanted to ask if he was “mad about something.”

and if sukuna ever knew how often megumi thought about you— if he ever knew the way megumi watched you, soft and aching, like a boy too close to a sun he wasn’t meant to touch, he’d probably beat the shit out of him. wouldn’t even hesitate.

and megumi knew that, which is why he didn’t say anything. just sat quietly through every shared class. math, english, gym. homeroom every morning like clockwork. you’d walk in, laughing with your friends, gloss catching the fluorescent lights, your backpack always slipping off one shoulder, your hair always perfect in that messy-on-purpose way, and megumi would freeze. would still. would go so still it felt like maybe if he didn’t move, the pounding in his chest would dull itself down.

and yuji noticed, of course, because yuji always noticed.

he’d elbow megumi in the ribs during passing period, eyebrows waggling like a clown. “bro,” he’d whisper, “you’re doing it again.”

megumi would frown. “doing what?”

yuji would mimic his stare, all wide-eyed and stiff. “‘oh, wow, look at her, she’s so pretty, i wish she’d step on me—’”

“shut the fuck up.”

“—‘i want her to punch me in the face with love—’”

“yuji.”

“i just think it’s weirder to keep staring from the back of the room like a creep,” he’d say, shrugging like he wasn’t the most annoying human alive.

megumi would roll his eyes when yuji called him out. act annoyed. mutter a shut up under his breath. but he wouldn’t argue, because it was true. he was staring. and yeah, maybe that did make him a creep. but he couldn’t help it, because he was so deeply, stupidly in love with that version of you—

the one who used to draw skulls in the margins of your notes and roll your eyes at pre-algebra, and the one you’d become, who walked with confidence, flirted without meaning to, and danced like nobody could touch her. and every version in between, too. every shift. every year. every soft evolution of you, he’d watched unfold like it was something sacred.

but he’d never say that part out loud. not with sukuna prowling the hallways like a pitbull off-leash, not with your world orbiting somewhere far beyond his reach.

so he said nothing, even when it hurt. especially when it hurt.

and then there were the nights, the low ones. the gross, shameful ones. the ones where he’d spend over an hour doomscrolling through instagram models and x-videos, trying to find someone who looked kind of like you. someone with the same tilt of the eyes. the same mouth. the same slouch of confidence and softness and everything you were to him.

but it never worked.

and he’d end up frustrated, disgusted, slamming his phone face-down on his nightstand. and then his brain would fill in the blanks anyway, and he’d hate himself for it every time. for letting it go that far. for thinking about you like that—like you were his, like he had any fucking right.

it wasn’t his proudest habit. wasn’t something he’d ever admit, either. but he was a teenage boy. a teenage boy with too many feelings, too few outlets, and a crush so deep it had settled into the marrow of his bones.

so yeah, he stared. and yeah, he thought about you. and he hated himself for both, but he never stopped wanting. especially not tonight.

megumi hadn’t wanted to come. he told yuji no at least six times, each more irritable than the last.

“i’m not going,” he’d said, flat. “why the hell would i go?”

yuji just grinned, like he was in on some cosmic joke megumi hadn’t been let in on. “because it’s her party, duh.”

megumi had scowled. “yeah. her party. not mine. not ours. she didn’t even invite me.”

“she put the flyer on everyone’s locker.”

“it wasn’t on mine.”

yuji rolled his eyes. “because yours is halfway to hell in the north wing by the industrial closet. stop being a coward.”

and so here he was, standing in your kitchen like a fucking idiot. in his best pair of jeans—barely a step up from his worst, and an iron maiden shirt he’d owned since middle school. it was soft with age, a little frayed at the hem. the collar hung too loose and the graphic was faded, but it was his favorite, and he’d thought maybe if you noticed it, you’d say something. if he even got close enough for you to notice him.

which, at the rate he was going, seemed unlikely.

he’d been standing in the kitchen for twenty minutes pretending to sip from a red solo cup that had nothing in it. didn’t even want to drink, didn’t trust half the shit on the counters. the music was loud, the floor was sticky with god-knows-what, and there were way too many people bumping shoulders and laughing like they weren’t all going to delete half the night from their memory tomorrow.

his palms were damp. his heart was pacing for no reason. he was thinking about leaving—slinking out the back like a ghost and texting yuji some half-assed excuse, when he heard it.

“megumi?”

his name. your voice. his heart dropped.

he turned too fast, the blood rushing to his face before he could even look at you, and god, you were glowing. gone was the glossy prom dress and rhinestone heels from earlier. now it was a black tube top you kept tugging at, and cotton shorts that made his mind short-circuit. socked feet on your kitchen tile. hair a little messy, makeup smudged just enough to make him dizzy.

you looked real. you looked perfect. and somehow, impossibly, you were standing close. looking at him.

“i never knew you were the party type,” you said, half-grin curling into your cheek. “you’ve always been more… brooding.”

he blinked slow, like maybe this was some kind of fucked-up hallucination, the kind that hit after one too many nights of laying back in his room, headphones in, hand around his dick, the idea of you warped and glowing behind his eyelids. like maybe he was actually half-dead from shame, from guilt, from the limp embarrassment of finishing to the thought of someone who barely even looked at him anymore.

“uh. yeah. i guess,” he said, voice catching halfway between disbelief and dread.

your eyes drifted lower to his shirt, and you tilted your head. “iron maiden?”

his throat worked. “you—you know them?”

you lifted a brow. “of course i do.” 

and behind you, because god hates him, yuji stood over your shoulder, grinning like a devil and mouthing something that looked suspiciously like say something you loser.

megumi ignored him. focused on the way your lip gloss caught the overhead light. how close you were.

his mouth went dry. he was about to ruin this. he was about to absolutely ruin this.

“i, uh,” he started, and immediately wanted to jump out the nearest window. “i have… tickets.”

you blinked. “tickets?”

“to iron maiden. they’re playing next month. i mean—” he cleared his throat, tried not to look directly at your collarbone, “i just figured, like, if you and your boyfriend wanted to go—”

you laughed. soft. amused. “he’s not big on iron maiden,” you said, tugging gently at your top again. “but you seem to be.”

megumi flushed so hard it felt like his brain was melting. “yeah, i— i just thought… i have two. so if you wanted to go. or—if you had someone you wanted to take. i'm not, like… attached to the tickets or anything.”

he was spiraling, and he knew it, but you were still smiling, biting your lip, tilted slightly, eyes amused in a way that made him want to scream into a pillow for the next decade. you looked at him like he hadn’t just embarrassed himself in 4k. like maybe he was kind of… cute.

“are you asking me on a date, fushiguro?”

he stopped breathing. his heart stopped beating. eyes wide. ears hot. he stared at you like a deer in headlights.

“…no?” he said, voice cracking somewhere in the middle. “i mean—maybe? i don’t know. whatever you want it to be.”

and for a second, one suspended, shining second, you just looked at him. really looked at him. and then smiled, wide and pretty and full of something almost like interest.

“hmm,” you hummed. “well, if it is a date… i’ll have to check my schedule.” and then, because you were cruel, and he was already on the verge of dying, you touched his arm. just lightly. just enough.

and megumi, poor hopeless megumi, thought he might actually fucking faint. meanwhile, yuji, across the room, pumped both fists in the air, but megumi didn’t see it. he was still staring at the place where your hand had been. he’d remember this night for the rest of his life, and it hadn’t even really started yet.

and he shouldn’t have said it. he really, really shouldn’t have said it. he should’ve just let the conversation end when you touched his arm, but it came tumbling out of his mouth anyway, low and nervous and awkward as hell—

“i’m not, uh—i’m not scared or anything,” megumi mumbled, fingers twitching around his empty cup, “but is sukuna gonna beat my ass for… taking you?”

he meant it to be kind of light. jokey. ironic. but it came out sounding exactly like what it was—completely, utterly sincere. and he braced for it. the shift in your expression. the look. the oh no, he’s one of those guys face.

but you just smiled, tilted your head, amused, like you’d been waiting for him to say something like that.

“well,” you said, tapping your fingers against your thigh, “i don’t think he has to know that.”

megumi blinked. “huh?”

you slipped your phone out of the tiny back pocket of your shorts, screen already lighting up in your palm. you tapped something fast, thumbs flying like muscle memory, and then turned the screen toward him to put his contact information in.

he stared. then looked at you. then back at the screen. then at you again. his chest felt tight and too small for his ribs, like someone had opened him up and dumped a cup of warm soda in the cavity behind his lungs.

“you—” he cleared his throat. “you want me to put my contact information in?”

you grinned. “unless you want me to forget this whole thing ever happened.”

“no!” he blurted. then winced. “i mean. no. i don’t.”

you slid the phone into his hand and turned on your heel, and megumi, still standing in your kitchen like a kicked puppy in a band tee, looked down at the glowing screen in his hand, and promptly forgot how to fucking breathe while fumbling with the keyboard.

and when he handed it back, it was maybe five seconds before you were already halfway toward the door.

“i’ll text you,” you called over your shoulder, sing-song and smug. “unless you’re scared of that too.”

you walked away after that. someone called your name, maybe a friend, and the music surged again, swallowing your laughter as you disappeared down the hallway.

but megumi just stood there. frozen. dumbstruck. still holding his empty red cup like it was anchoring him to the floor. his heart wouldn’t calm down, his palms wouldn’t stop sweating, and his shirt suddenly felt two sizes too hot.

she smiled at me. she smiled at me. she fucking smiled at me.

his whole brain had compressed into that one impossible moment. his number in your phone. your voice in his ears. your fingers brushing his arm like it was no big deal, like he was someone to touch.

he was still in a daze when yuji popped into view like a gremlin in a hoodie.

“okay, so. wow. i really thought you lost it there a couple times, but—” he clapped a hand to megumi’s shoulder, grinning like a maniac, “you did it.”

megumi blinked, mind still reeling, heartbeat still rattling in his chest like a fucking bird trapped behind glass. “i think i just asked sukuna’s girlfriend on a date,” he said, voice thin with shock.

yuji didn’t even blink. just whooped like he’d won a goddamn raffle and tugged hard at megumi’s arm. “that is really great, bud, but let’s get the hell outta here because he just came back downstairs and i swear one of his friends just pointed at you.”

megumi’s stomach dropped.

“what?”

“doesn’t matter. run.”

and so they bolted. full-on sprinted out your front door like a pair of idiots in denim and adrenaline. shoved past a couple of seniors at the door, skidded down the front steps like their lives depended on it—because they probably did. megumi didn’t even think about it. didn’t look back. just clutched the half-empty bottle yuji had somehow swiped off the counter and ran like the house was on fire.

by the time they made it to megumi’s car, breathless and laughing, hearts still racing for very different reasons, he could barely feel his hands. he dropped into the driver’s seat, mind still halfway in your kitchen, when his phone buzzed.

[unknown: twinsies?]

paired with a photo of your bed, comforter rumpled, pillows slightly askew, and right in the center, an iron maiden shirt. the same kind as his, actually. he stared at the photo. then down at his own chest. 

same shirt. same band. same dumb, aching feeling in his chest that had haunted him for years.

and he didn’t answer right away, just leaned his head back against the seat, grinning like an idiot, letting yuji babble beside him about how that was the most insane shit he’s ever seen.

and megumi? he just sat there, heart still pounding, thinking—maybe he wasn’t completely invisible. maybe the universe wasn’t entirely cruel. maybe he was just a teenage dirtbag.

and maybe, so were you.

[cacoetheswriting]

what can i say after i'm sorry? | chapter four from right where you left me.

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader (modern day au) word count: 6.3k

summary: The sentence comes out a little more flirty than intended, but then again, you stopped thinking about what you sound like when his hands made home on your waist, under your t-shirt, over the skirt. Eddie’s smile doesn’t falter. His eyes search yours as his digits trace along the denim waistband. He then loops his index fingers in the belt hoops of your garment and pulls you even closer; flush against him.

content warnings: forced proximity, friends to enemies to lovers, slow burn, angsty, suggestive & mature themes, adult language, mentions & descriptions of underage alcohol consumption / substance abuse, recreational drug use, discusses sobriety, emotional hurt / comfort, we're entering the realm of fluff, mutual pining, also touches on topics of: death, grief, toxic relationships, self-doubt / insecurities, love triangle?, unrequited love, & i'm sorry but chrissy is a bit of a bitch here — pls let me know if i missed any!

psa: any images used in chapter headers don’t depict readers physical attributes! these are also vaguely — if at all— described in the story.

Chrissy’s blue eyes are glistening in the afternoon sun. She’s smiling at Eddie, but the metal-head doesn’t seem to register her presence. He’s standing still as a rock, yet to address her, greet her, anything.

You’re frozen too. Unsure whether to intervene or make yourself scarce, although you’re leaning towards the latter because having a catch-up with the preppy blonde is frankly last on the list of things you’d like to do. Especially since her ex-boyfriend is right here and he’s your… exactly what is Eddie to you now?

Thankfully, Nancy appears. She comes looking for you and the brown-haired boy, reminding the two of you to be ready in twenty for the scheduled evening activities, then she halts when her eyes land on Chrissy. She glances between the three of you and you think how comical the scene in front of her must seem. Comically awkward, that is. Jesus, you think, if only the ground would swallow you whole.

“Wow, Chrissy, hi!” Nancy tries her best to appear cheerful. “We weren’t expecting you.”

The blonde shamelessly takes this as her queue to enter. She slides in past Eddie and gives Nancy a half-hug. She’s still to notice you standing in the corner, or if she already has, she’s yet to point you out. Eddie on the other hand, well, his attention is back solely on you. He looks apologetic. Brown eyes downcast, sad. As if Chrissy’s intrusion is the last thing he needed — and it is, if only he could tell you.

“I hope you don’t mind. I’ve been trying to get a hold of this one—” the blonde points behind her at the metal-head. “— but he’s been dogging my calls. I still had the details of this trip, so I thought I’d catch him here and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Finally, Eddie speaks.

“A little out of your way, no?” He asks, head snapping from you to the blonde.

She playfully rolls her eyes, but you can see her mouth twitch. She’s annoyed that he’s annoyed that she came. Clearly not the welcome she’s been expecting.

“Don’t be silly, Eds.” Chrissy chastises, trying to keep her tone easygoing. “You remember, I have a college meet one city over. That’s why I couldn’t come with you this weekend.”

“You couldn’t come because we broke up, Chris.” Eddie states coolly, hands on his hips. “Hence, you were uninvited.”

She waves him off. “Semantics.”

There’s a beat of silence. The two exes are having some sort of stare down and you think maybe this is a good chance to make your escape. As you take a step however, the floorboard creaks and Chrissy shifts to look where you’re standing.

“Hmm,” she muses, not even a measly hello, “Eds said you were invited. Frankly, I didn’t think you’d show, but here you are.”

“Here I am,” you say, plastering on a blanket smile. “It’s good to see you, Chrissy.”

And because you’re suddenly feeling territorial, not to mention petty, you turn to Eddie. The smile you give him, as opposed to his ex-girlfriend, is genuine. Edging on a tad bit flirty. 

“Find me after, okay?”

In a hushed whisper, Nancy later tells you that the look on Chrissy’s face was priceless. Clearly you missed it because you were too focused on the metal-head himself. The way his brow arched, surprised. The way his mouth parted and the tip of his tongue rested plush on his bottom lip. The way he cleared his throat, perhaps in an attempt to regain some composure.

Up in your bedroom, you exhale a breath you were holding for that entire interaction, then text your parents individually to check in.

Your head is spinning.

From previous light stalking, you knew Eddie and Chrissy were a thing, and you also knew they broke up. The first fact bothered you endlessly. The second selfishly made you quite happy. 

Eddie Munson is the guy. The one who knew how to make you laugh without even trying. The one who you could talk to for hours without getting bored. The one who always looked out for your best interest. The one who picked up the pieces until they shattered him. The one you still care about so much it physically hurts. 

Now he’s here with Chrissy. Even though he doesn’t seem too happy with her presence, the thought of them together under one roof — if only for a few hours — is bothering you endlessly.

Curious to learn more about their relationship, you decide to question the vault of knowledge concerning your friend group: Steve. Once you finish getting ready for the evening, you go to find Mr. Gossip and you do so outside, hanging around by the cars, a little stoned.

“I heard the big commotion, sweetheart.” He greets you, offering you his cigarette. “You alright?”

Bopping your head, you take the dart off him and place it between your lips, inhaling. You then lean against your red Jeep, next to the tall brunette.

“They seem to hate each other,” you point out, exhaling the smoke.

Steve snorts and lights another bum for himself. “Well, they didn’t exactly end on the best of circumstances.” He says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Someone’s feeling nosy,” Harrington teases, nudging your side with his elbow.

“Excuse me for caring,” you defend, taking another puff from the disease stick. “Guess I’ll go back to this morning when I didn’t give a shit about his stupid life.”

Steve laughs and throws an arm over your shoulders, pulling you in closer. Resting your head against his broad frame, you instantly relax. That’s the beauty of Steve Harrington. A walking meditation session.

“As if you never gave a shit,” he calls you out on your bullshit.

He then nuzzles his head closer to yours, until his mouth is at your ear. “You look hot, by the way.” Harrington admits, “And I know that’s not for me or any other guy who’ll look your way tonight.”

“Fuck off, Steve.” You mumble lightheartedly, after blowing out another puff of smoke.

He laughs again while leaning back, although his arm remains around you, hugging. The two of you finish off your retrospective cigarettes in this position, waiting for everyone else to gather outside.

One by one, they appear and walk down the gravel. Jonathan and Nancy are first, with Argyle on their heels. He says something about canoeing and Nancy has to remind him that was this morning, now you’re all supposed to be going to the local carnival ground. Robin is next. She’s wearing an outfit not too dissimilar to yours — an oversized vintage band tee and a denim skirt, though yours is shorter — and she squeals with excitement how this is just like high school.

“Is Eddie coming?” Buckley asks, sticking out a hand in Steve’s direction to bum a smoke. “Heard the hurricane is here.”

“He’s coming,” Nancy answers, then proceeds to look at you before adding, “Chrissy is coming too.”

“Jesus…” Steve groans, gently bumping his head into yours. You can’t help but giggle at his dramatic reaction and think how grateful you are he’s here. Especially now that the unwanted guest has inserted herself further into this group's plans.

A few more minutes pass before Eddie joins. Your heart skips a beat at the sight of him, palms clammy. He’s got his own stuck in the pockets of his leather jacket. His head hangs low, one would think he’s watching his step but you can instantly tell he’s upset. Steve senses you stiff in his arms and squeezes you reassuringly — just in time for the metal-head to look your way and witness it.

His jaw locks. Upset turns to something different, something darker. You notice the strain on the material of his pockets, as if his fingers turned into fists. Here he is, once again catching you in the arms of his best mate, Steve. Only this time, he can’t give you crap because a few steps behind him is his personal demon, Chrissy. She waves. Jonathan is the only one to wave back, and Robin mutters how the older Byers boy is always so fucking polite. 

“Girly pop over here doesn’t deserve it for making us late.” Robin adds. She’s talking to her shoes, kicking the small stones around, but everyone in her close vicinity can hear.

This makes Steve snicker into the side of your head and you nudge him to stop, having to also bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from having the same reaction.

“Be nice,” Nancy says, shooting Eddie an apologetic glance. 

The metal-head just shrugs and you’re instantly filled with regret. If it wasn’t for Steve’s hold on you, you’d cross the path and take Eddie’s hand in yours because fuck Chrissy and her sudden appearance that’s dampened the mood. Tensions were high, but now they’re plain depressing and you hate to blame one person, except it seems like everyone else is doing the same.

Jonathan is designated driver number one. He calls out Nancy, Eddie, and Chrissy. You’re designated driver number two and the older Byers orders Robin, Steve, and Argyle to jump into your Jeep. 

You share a look with Eddie as he holds the car door open for his ex-girlfriend. Something between longing and regret, or an imperfect mix of both. 

You don’t have to guess what he’s thinking. It’s written all over his face. Sorrow. For his encounter with Billy, for not trying hard enough to tell you, for not trying hard enough to help you through your grief, for pushing you when you weren’t ready to be pushed, for solely blaming you when it came to the breakdown of this friendship, for not trying to contact you when you left, for the last three years, for how he reacted when he saw you yesterday, for Chrissy and not getting to finish your earlier conversation, for everything. The whole thing, visible on his facial features.

The brunette can read you too. The facade of the last few days has fallen. Drowned under that canoe earlier. You’re exactly who he knew back in high school, matured but otherwise unchanged, and he can get inside your head without trying.

What you’re telling him with your eyes, because you couldn’t say it with words earlier, is: forgiven. There’s no blame to be held over Billy’s last night and the fact Eddie didn’t tell you when it happened. Fresh start, that’s what you’re after. You told him so on the canoe and now you’re confirming it with your honest stare.

When the metal-head reluctantly breaks eye contact and slides into Jonathan’s car, you shudder, close to tears. 

Argyle asks if he can light up in your car. Buckley answers for you with an, “Only if you stick your head out the window.”. He does. Steve follows suit and the two of them pass the joint back and forth in the backseat, giggling into the dusking air.

Watching them, through the rear view mirror, you’re reminded of high school with Eddie. Of sitting in the back of his beat up van, essentially hotboxing the thing, always giggling. A smile circles your lips at the memory. You’ve shoved the good times deep down. Afraid to think of him in such a light because of what happened in the end. One hand on the steering wheel, the other creeps up slowly to the chain around your neck and the small red guitar pick. You squeeze your fingers around it and think, now you’re moving forward. Your therapist would be proud.

“She’s such a bitch to him,” Robin breaks the silence.

You drop your hand. Reposition it on the wheel.

“Who?”

“Chrissy,” she says, obviously. “All sweet and charming? That changed sometime after graduation and a little into their relationship. She chastised him for every little thing he did that she didn’t agree with. She mocked his hobbies and sometimes even his dreams, to the point he even left the band—”

“But that band meant everything to him.”

“—She hated how he decided not to go to college, even though she’s the one that shat all over his application. She pushed him into that local radio station job and then envied him for becoming so popular around Hawkins.”

“I didn’t know he worked at WSQK,” you say, although how could you know since you’re the one who cut all contact with the group. You didn’t even know he left Corroded Coffin.

Robin nods. “Yeah. He’s damn good at it too!” She says excitedly, “Does their midnight call-in thing and boy, do people call in. He’s especially popular with middle-aged ladies. That deep sultry voice he puts on, they eat it up.”

You laugh. An image of Eddie getting approached around town by women old enough to be your mom, fawning over him and asking for his autograph like he’s some sort of playmate. Eddie loves attention, so you know he’ll play along. Take a couple of pictures and sign whatever receipt they have on hand. If you were there, you’d egg them on then tease him endlessly about his new-found fanbase. Seems Chrissy was the opposite and it makes your heart ache just a little bit more for the metal-head.

“Why did they break up?” You ask, hoping to not come off as desperate as earlier, when you were fishing for information from Steve.

Robin doesn't seem to care if you are. In fact, she seems as though she’d been waiting to give this information up.

“Well,” she begins, “what Miss Priss hated most of all is Eddie’s inability to get over you.”

You scoff because you don’t believe her. “Oh please, Rob. That’s ludicrous.”

She shrugs in the passenger seat then looks behind at the boys, who are still lost in their own little world, before focusing her attention on you.

“She asked him numerous times to move to Indianapolis with her. Each time, he said no. He’d rather be long distance than miss an opportunity to bump into you; if you ever came back to Hawkins. Then, Nancy decided to plan this getaway - I think she was just sick of seeing him so miserable - and the first thing she told us was her guest list, which of course included you. The next day, Eddie and Chrissy were finished.” Robin explains, “Wild coincidence, if you ask me.”

You open your mouth to refute her reasoning, but you close it just as quickly. There’s no such thing as coincidence, is what you want to tell her, but that only seems to prove her point. So the conversation ends there and moments later, the carnival grounds come into view.

Jonathan’s car in front. You follow him through the parking area and pull the break next to him. Before jumping out, Robin ensures the two boys in the back have rolled closed their retrospective windows. Argyle says, “Yes, mom.”, which makes Steve smirk, then your own laugh follows. Next, the four of you hit the ground in fits of giggles and smirks — while the other four seem downright depressed.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but before I can hop on any rides, I need water.” Steve says, holding onto your arm for support as the joint works its magic. “A lot of it. I’m pretty sure Argyle just tried to poison me.”

“Hey, man!” The other guy drawls. “All consensual, my friend. I have witnesses.”

Robin snorts, sneaking her arm through your free one and you find yourself in a Harrington-Buckley sandwich. No hope of speaking to Eddie alone with these two attached to your hip, but maybe that’s the whole point with Chrissy here. Maybe, considering everything you just learned from your blonde friend, you’re supposed to pass like ships in the night for a couple more hours.

Eddie on the other hand wishes the two of them would fuck off for a moment. Three, if you count his clingy ex-girlfriend. While your ride over seemed to be smooth sailing — he assumes — his was one from hell.

Chrissy wouldn’t stop questioning Nancy and Jonathan about your arrival to the lakehouse. Fishing for information to corroborate what she’s thinking: that Eddie cheated. Emotionally maybe, but never physically. He tried to tell her that on numerous occasions. You two never reconnected over the last three years. Chrissy however, doesn’t seem to buy it. “What kind of loser pines over a girl that blatantly rejected him?”, her words.

She says she’s here because she learned their dog is sick. Her dog. Eddie just walked it a couple of times and suddenly it’s their baby or some shit. The real reason is far more sinister. She’s here to make his life hell by cutting you out of it once and for all. He just hasn’t figured out how exactly she plans on doing that in such a short amount of time, aside from not leaving his side which will make it impossible to catch you alone.

“I could get a drink too,” he announces and of course, Chrissy says the same a split-second later.

“Alright.” Jonathan nods. “The three of us will get some tokens and we can meet by the Ferris Wheel in fifteen.”

Robin leads, arm still linked with yours, while you drag Steve along as he babbles about how nice you smell. Eddie and Chrissy are a few steps behind.

Everything inside of you screams to turn around because you can feel a pair of chocolate-button eyes stuck firmly to your frame, but you don’t, afraid of also catching daggers from a certain blonde.

They take it upon themselves to go and order. Rather Eddie does and Chrissy sticks to him like a leech. Considering this is a place you bring your family, water and soda are the only items on the menu — and it’s a bottle of still for Harrington while you and Robin opt for a Diet Coke.

Soon enough, Chrissy wanders back with your drinks. She says Eddie is paying and lifts her own soft drink to cheer. Politely, you do just that and proceed to bring the plastic cup to your lips. Your movements halt when you sniff the liquid beneath.

“Is there alcohol in this?”

“Why? Do you want there to be?” Her eyes full of mischief.

Before you can answer her, Robin takes the soda from your grasp and takes a sip. You watch her make a face and your suspicions quickly prove correct.

“Chrissy, this is laced with vodka.” Robin exclaims which gets Harrington’s attention, who up until this point was walking around in circles, staring at the darkening sky. He motions for Robin to put the cup to his mouth. Rolling her eyes, she does just that and he spits the dark liquid out just as fast as he sipped it.

“Jesus, Chrissy!” He wipes his mouth. “Are you trying to poison her?”

The blonde’s gaze narrows, albeit momentarily, as she looks between the three of you. The accusation hangs unspoken, although you’re all thinking it and Chrissy knows she’s been caught: especially since Robin tries her own drink next and it turns out to be exactly what she ordered, a Diet Coke. Un-spiked.

To make matters worse, as you continue to stare at her in somewhat of a disbelief, Steve’s slightly sobered up (thanks to his magical water and an appetite for vengeance). He’s raising his voice, trying to get her to admit what she’s done, but she’s adamant that she handed you the drink exactly as it was handed to her. To an outsider, the picture paints itself. A guy shouting at a girl. The crowd begins to point and murmur. You hear someone question, “why are her friends just standing there?”.

“What the fuck is going on?” Eddie slides in between Chrissy and Steve.

“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?” Harrington says in an accusatory tone, pointing towards the blonde with his now half-drank bottle of water. “Then again, she won’t tell you the truth, so why don’t you try this drink here and tell me what you think.”

Despite Chrissy saying his name, Eddie does exactly what Harrington’s requested and instantly his eyes snap to you. You, who’s still staring at his ex-girlfriend, unable to move, while Robin rubs your shoulders and repeats for the hundredth time that it’s all fine, you never took a sip so everything is okay.

Anger bubbles inside of the metal-head. He faces Chrissy, fully blocking her from your view, and practically shoves the cup into her grasp, spilling some of the fizzy liquid in the process, all over Chrissy’s white Converse.

“What the fuck, Chris?” Eddie grits through his teeth, “And don’t you dare deny this shit with me. Nancy just told you that she—” He points to you. “—is sober and suddenly there’s a drink in her hand, provided by you.”

“It’s just some harmless fun,” she defends, “You’re all being overly dramatic.”

Eddie’s fingers are at the bridge of his nose. He exhales before dropping his hand and glancing at you from over his shoulder. You blink then meet his gaze and immediately his expression softens. He mouths, ‘are you okay’, to which you nod because what else are you supposed to do? His fucking ex-girlfriend, who appears to be quite psycho when it comes to you, just tried to knowingly end your sobriety streak. This is nuts, even for your standards.

“Why don’t you apologise, so we can go have some actual fun.” Eddie orders, addressing her head on. He then steps aside, although he makes a point by standing closer to you than the blonde.

Chrissy rolls her eyes, but obliges. “I’m sorry.”

And you’re about to say something stupid like, ‘No harm, no foul.’, when a smirk spreads across her otherwise perfect lips and she continues with, “I just remember how much fun you used to be when you drank. At my graduation party, for instance. No one's going to forget that girl.”

“Oh for fuck sake, Chrissy.” Robin’s the one to jump to your defence before the other girl can say any more. 

You don’t stick around to hear the rest. You don’t want to. Hastily, you excuse yourself and before anyone can stop you, you leave them behind in search for Nancy and Jonathan — who appear to be the only sane people in this group.

Although, when you hear that stupid moniker being called out, you stop immediately and turn on your heel. Eddie’s right behind and the way he’s looking at you as he approaches, stopping just as his toes touch yours, might make you burst.

“I’m sorry about her,” he says.

You shake your head. “She’s a grown woman. You shouldn’t have to apologise for her actions.”

“Well, it’s my fault she’s acting this way,” he reasons.

“Eddie, I think we both know that it’s me.” You counter but don’t elaborate because this doesn’t feel like the right time to unpack all of… that. “Robin told me you work at WSQK. Congratulations. Sounds like a fun gig.”

He smiles, seemingly unbothered by the change of topic, and as the light dimples form at the bottom of his cheekbones, you wish you could be the reason he smiles forever — like the good old days.

“It pays the bills,” he says.

“I think you’re being modest. Robin made it sound like half the town’s eligible bachelorettes want to be the next Mrs. Munson.”

This gets him to laugh. The sound is music to your ears and fuel for your beating heart. The organ swells inside your chest and skips a beat or two, but who’s really counting. Definitely not you since, instead, you return his happy expression.

“So, can anyone call into this show of yours or is the requirement to be over the age of forty with a mortgage and three kids?”

“Married or divorced?” He counters.

“Depends how scandalous you’re feeling.” 

The sentence comes out a little more flirty than intended, but then again, you stopped thinking about what you sound like when his hands made home on your waist, under your t-shirt, over the skirt. Eddie’s smile doesn’t falter. His eyes search yours as his digits trace along the denim waistband. He then loops his index fingers in the belt hoops of your garment and pulls you even closer; flush against him.

“Definitely scandalous,” the metal-head replies in a hushed tone.

Seconds pass and neither of you makes any attempt to move. The rest of the carnival fades into nothingness.

“To answer your question,” he continues, “Anyone in the great state of Indiana can call in.”

You smack your lips together, pondering his answer. “I’ll keep that in mind, hot shot.”

He raises a brow. “Hot shot, huh?” Tasting the new nickname on his lips, Eddie lets go of your skirt and therefore, of you. However, you don’t get a chance to miss his touch as he delicately twirls you around and throws one arm over your shoulders. “I think I like that.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks as he leads you through the crowd, towards the Ferris Wheel. 

A thought crosses your mind, that perhaps whatever this is, is too soon into rebuilding the foundations of your friendship. You’re all for moving forward, but perhaps step-by-step would be better than jumping in head first. Then again, haven’t you regretted not jumping for the last three years?

“Where’s everyone else?” Jonathan questions as the two of you approach. 

“They’ll catch up,” Eddie says plainly and fishes out a handful of tokens from the older Byers. “See you from up there!” He shouts while walking away, with you still under his arm.

On top of the big wheel, Eddie catches you by further surprise when he retrieves his phone and snaps a picture of the two of you together. He doesn’t comment on it, so you don’t either. Instead, you enjoy the moment.

Afterwards, he leads you to the bumper cars, then the carousel. He holds your hand on the Freefall and the Scrambler. He pulls you through the Haunted House, keeping you close — by your waist, your arm, ring-clad fingers stretched on your lower back. You’re floating. Unable to process exactly what’s happening, but loving it nonetheless. Every damn second.

Soon Eddie’s feeling competitive and decides to try some games. In balloon darts, he wins his first prize: a small pink plushy that kind of looks like a rabbit, but also not really. The two of you laugh at the deformed animal in his grasp, until he gives it to you and it’s no longer funny.

“He belongs to you,” Eddie says simply and suddenly, the little toy holds a lot of weight.

The rest of the night, you spend as a group. You’re sharing a portion of fries with Robin, she’s across from you at the picnic table. Steve’s on your right, Eddie on your left — and you can’t help but chuckle at the irony of this sandwich. A few years ago, you know it would have sent the metal-head into a spiral. Hell, a mere twenty-four hours ago he flipped a lid when he walked in on you hugging Harrington. Now, the rugged brunette’s hand is on your thigh, his leather jacket is draped over your shoulders, and he’s yapping away to Steve (best buds).

On the other end of the table, Jonathan and Nancy are talking about being in the final stages of buying a house. To which Argyle says he’ll take over the lease of their current apartment and Robin jokes he first needs to hold down a job. He throws a rolled up napkin at her head, she catches it with ease and chucks it back at him.

“You’ll have a room,” Nancy addresses you, “If you ever decide to step foot back in Hawkins.”

You smile at her, though your focus is on Eddie’s fingers tightening against your bare thigh. He continues his conversation with Steve, but one ear is perked to what you’re going to say to Nancy’s offer. And the words that slip disappoint him slightly.

“Thanks, Nance. I’ll think about it.”

Even Chrissy is playing nice, though every time you look her way, she’s not too pleased. She probably didn’t think you’d spend the whole evening with her ex-boyfriend, being forced to watch the two of you have the fun she thought she was entitled to. Well, she ruined it for herself, you think, she shouldn’t have spiked your drink.

Later, back at the house, Chrissy exacts her frustration. It’s suddenly too late for her to drive anywhere and she weasels her way into Eddie’s bedroom, not giving him a chance to protest. The metal-head doesn’t have time for anger because his gaze finds yours and his heart sinks. The sadness in your eyes is palpable. You’re doing your best to hide it by offering him a timid smile, clutching the pink plushy in your arms, but he knows better. You’d hoped she’d leave and frankly, he did too.

Eddie was hoping to talk about Nancy’s comment from earlier. He’s a rational man. Obviously he didn’t think you’d suddenly move home. There’s a whole life you’ve built for yourself in Las Vegas. One he wasn’t a part of and even now that the two of you were somewhat back on track, he’s unsure how he fits into that part of you — if at all.

Chrissy’s continuous lingering presence is making the whole thing more excruciating.

“She’s never going to go for you,” the blonde states matter-of-factly. “You’re once again getting your hopes up and she is going to hurt you. That’s what she’s good at.”

Eddie closes his bedroom door and instantly regrets it.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Chris.” He grumbles and spins on his heel to look at his ex-girlfriend. 

“I want you to realise that she’s not the girl for you,” she states, approaching him. “I am. I’ve been in your corner since our graduation party, if not longer. I’ve supported you, I’ve loved you. A-and you don’t even have the decency to be honest with me when you break things off.”

“I was honest, Chris.” Eddie replies. “Not my fault you don’t believe me.”

Chrissy rolls her eyes. “Oh give me a break! You’ve never stopped loving her, that’s the part you haven’t been honest about. You just hoped I’d be stupid enough to not care and settle!” She yells, arms thrown to the wind. “And I would have, Eddie. I really, really would have. But then she had to make an appearance and fuck me does she have you by the balls. It’s pathetic.”

Never in his wildest dreams did the metal-head think you’d come back into his life. Sure, he hoped, but daydreaming never got him anywhere. And despite what Chrissy might think, Eddie didn’t end his relationship for you. That would be insane considering you’ve turned him down once before, plus he held this ridiculous grudge…

“So what? I don’t love you like you want to be loved and it’s my fault for ending things? You deserve better than someone like me, Chris.”

She scoffs. “Right.”

A beat of silence passes by.

The staredown evolves from one of animosity to inexplicable sadness. Chrissy’s eyes fill with tears and Eddie hates himself for not realising sooner how much he actually hurt this poor girl. He didn’t think he led her on. Truthfully, he really thought they’d be together forever, or whatever the phrase kids use these days.

Eddie broke up with Chrissy because he realised he’d rather be alone and miserable than with anyone else other than you.

“I hope you find someone worthy, Chris.” Eddie means it.

“I’ll be out of your hair by morning.”

He slowly bops his head and without saying anything else, he slides out of the room.

Guilt bubbles and Chrissy’s words start to haunt him. “She’s never going to go for you.”. Doesn’t matter if the blonde said it out of spite, she still put it out into the universe. Of course he’s not delusional. It’s barely been twenty-four hours, that’s hardly enough to warrant any… feelings. But when you smile at him or cuddle into him like you did all evening, you don’t pull away when he takes your hand or hugs you. There’s familiarity in these actions. Shit, there’s feelings. Logic goes out the window.

He leans one arm on the fridge door and stifles through the contents. The kitchen is dark aside from a light bulb above the cooker. The house is deadly still too. Seems everyone has gone to sleep and that’s what Eddie intends to do after he drowns his anxieties in a couple of beers — might also make the couch more comfortable considering Chrissy has probably already locked his bedroom door.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

His fingers tighten around the glass bottle at the sound of your voice and after he straightens, closing the fridge, his eyes catch yours like magnets.

He lifts his beer. “Tea time.”

Letting out a soft chuckle, you cross the kitchen towards him, only to stop at the kettle. With a flick, the vessel begins heating up water and you reach for a mug.

“I like tea.”

Eddie can’t help but smile. Even more when you add, “I had a good time tonight.”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Me too, angel.”

Dropping a tea bag into your cup, you also drop your gaze and clear your throat. Immediately, the metal-head stiffens in his spot, although neither of you have any reason to be nervous about what happens next.

“We do have to talk about some stuff though.”

And you do. All night. 

High school, Billy, that godforsaken graduation party, to you leaving without a goodbye, finally life that happened in between now and then. Thoughts, feelings, all explained and out on the table. Wounds reopened and poked until dried blood is fresh again. Tears fall. More apologies. Endless forgiveness. Then laughter. So much laughter.

By the time two o’clock in the morning comes around, you’re lighter. Almost… free. You also feel closer to the metal-head in an unexpected way. Sure, the two of you were best friends back in school, but this, right now, seems different. Stronger.

He’s matured. Changed for the wiser and you’re not quite sure what to do with his mind. He’s not the act-don’t-think Eddie you remember. Yes, even he admits there are times his mouth works before his brain can, but that’s just down to his heart doing the deciding. He appears more relaxed, confident. Not the facade he used to present to hide his true self, but actually confident. Kinda hot, you think. Although, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed about the metal-head.

You’re admiring the way his light locks frame his face, adding to the charm of his dotted freckles and timid frown lines. Dimples present themselves when he smiles because he knows you’re watching him from the other end of the sofa, observing, analysing. The shadows created by candlelight only make him more alluring. You don’t feel ashamed for staring. He’s really quite picturesque. Crafted by something of divine nature.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie repeats your earlier question, only with a little more flare. He lifts his head from his phone and meets your wandering eyes.

You bite the inside of your cheek as you smile.

“Thinking about all the ladies who are missing you on the radio tonight, hot shot.” You tease, nudging his calf with the ball of your foot.

He laughs all velvety and fine — music to your ears.

“I’m sure they’ll survive.” He says, hesitantly wrapping his fingers around your painted toes. “Plus, I have a good second-hand man. He’ll keep them entertained.”

You arch a brow.

Eddie elaborates, “Henderson.”

Now, it’s your turn to laugh. You drop your head in a fit of giggles, captivating him in the process. He grows consumed by the melodic sound and the light in your eyes as your perfect smile grows wider. He fixates on the curve of your jawline, and the curve of something else as his gaze wanders downwards. He swallows, pulse increasing. The feel of your bare skin under his grasp isn’t helping.

“Angel?”

Your gaze lands on the brunette once more. “Hot shot?”

There’s a beat of silence. You’re grinning at one another, giddy, like a couple of kids who had too much sugar. Except, Eddie’s also wondering if he should tell you how beautiful you look (since that’s why he called for your attention in the first place), and you’re suddenly thinking that returning to Hawkins — even if only temporary — might not be such a bad idea.

“I had a really good day today. With you.” The metal-head admits.

The smile on your face shifts slightly to something more sweet. You reach for the coffee table. Rather for the mug atop of it, previously filled with tea and now filled with water, and lift the ceramic in his direction.

“Here’s to many more, I hope.” You say earnestly and decide then that since second chances are hard to come by, you’re not about to ruin this one by disappearing from him again. “Maybe even back home.”

Eddie’s gaze widens at your words, but he doesn’t ask exactly what you mean by them because he knows better than to count his blessings — especially when it comes to you.

Instead, he pulls you closer by your ankles while you pathetically contain a squeak. He drapes your legs over his lap and slides one hand under your t-shirt, around your waist, and up your spine. A shiver runs through your entire being. Then again when he removes the cup from your grasp, fingers zapping yours. He sets it aside once again, not breaking eye contact, and riding the high of bravery, Eddie holds your jaw.

“Sounds good to me.” Voice dark, eyes darker.

And throwing caution to the wind, he dips his head forward.

as always, thank you for reading & please support your writers by reblogging <3

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[mediocre-shark-tales]

My Chosen Family is My Forever Family

Doohan Sister Reader F1 Driver Reader Cadillac Formula 1 Reader

Yes this has two titles, I couldn't pick one cause both are perfect. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter as I thought it was time for a break from most of the extremely heavy angst style writing and topics. Story Y/n needs a break too right? So enjoy this extra sweet fluffy chapter! (Also I know I said in the update that none of the romance will be described to be a specific driver - but some driver interactions may seem romantic within specific chapters - if its not the driver you want y/n to fall for then pretend the interaction is in a more platonic light than potentially romantic one)

I had fully expected the first week of my mandatory break to be soul-crushingly boring. And not just the kind of “bored scrolling on your phone in bed” boring—no, this was a special kind of frustration. The kind that claws at your skin and makes your chest ache because you know there’s work to be done, training to be completed, sim sessions to suffer through, and races to be run… but you’re stuck. Grounded. Benched.

The doctors told me I’d only miss one race this season, which—on paper—should have brought me some peace. But it didn’t. Because every second I wasn’t behind a wheel felt like I was being peeled away from everything I loved. I couldn’t even enjoy the distractions I normally turned to in moments like this. Reading was hard with my dominant arm injured, playing any of my instruments or sim work was out of the question, and even cooking—something I did just to feel normal—was off the table unless I wanted to risk re-tearing the stitches, popping my shoulder back out before the tendons have healed back over it, or even just put too much stress on the forearm fracture.

I hated it.

I hated relying on others. I hated how slow everything suddenly felt, like the world had pressed pause for me and only me, while everyone else got to keep going. I hated the silence of my apartment. The empty hours. The ache that wasn't just physical but emotional—rooted in the idea that I wasn't useful, wasn’t doing anything. That somehow, this forced pause was proof I wasn’t strong enough to keep up.

And so, when I sent a simple message to the group chat I had with the boys—just something like “If anyone’s around this week, I could use a hand, I guess…”—I didn’t expect anything to really come from it. I’d barely hit send before the notifications started flooding in.

Within an hour, they’d sent me a color-coded schedule. One of them would be with me every day—just to hang out, help when needed, or keep me company. And if by some miracle none of them were available, Nico, my ever-patient manager, would step in for the day.

At first, I dreaded it. I assumed they’d hover, fuss, and treat me like I was made of glass. I thought being babied would make everything feel worse—like I was confirming all the fears that I’d become too fragile to be the version of myself I’d worked so hard to be.

But they surprised me.

They didn’t force help on me. They didn’t smother me in pity. Instead, they came over like it was just another afternoon, acting like nothing had changed unless I asked them to. And somehow, that was what I needed more than anything. It didn’t feel like they were coming to take care of me—it felt like they just wanted to be with me.

And in those moments, I didn’t feel broken anymore.

Each of them brought something different to the table—something comforting, something uniquely them. Little acts of care that didn’t feel overwhelming or patronizing, but thoughtful, effortless, and real.

I didn’t expect to enjoy any of it. But I did.

And now, thinking back on each day of this first week, I can’t help but smile. Because each of the boys gave me a piece of myself back without even realizing it.

Charles was the first one, naturally. He had insisted, texting the group chat three times the night before to make sure no one else would try to swap with him. “I’m going first. Non-negotiable.” It made me laugh more than I had in days, and honestly, knowing it would be him kind of made everything feel… easier. Charles had a calm about him—gentle, warm, grounding. Like a deep breath you didn’t realize you were holding until you let it out.

He showed up right on time, two coffees in hand and a paper bag from my favorite bakery tucked under one arm. “For the champion in recovery,” he said with a soft smile, leaning in to kiss the top of my head before I could even mutter a sarcastic thank you.

From the start, the day felt weirdly domestic in a way that both comforted and unnerved me. Charles moved through my apartment like he’d lived here his whole life—kicking off his shoes by the door, putting the pastries on a plate instead of leaving them in the bag, and checking in on me constantly with soft touches and even softer words.

“Need anything? A pillow? Blanket? Another croissant?”

At some point, I was seated on the couch, cradling the warm mug between my legs while he shuffled through my bathroom cabinet in search of my brush.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I called, already dreading the answer.

“I know,” he answered simply. “That’s why I’m doing it.”

I heard him walking back before I saw him—his footsteps light but purposeful. When he rounded the corner, brush in hand and a scrunchie looped around his fingers, I gave him my best unimpressed glare.

“You’ve planned this.”

“I might have practiced,” he admitted, crouching beside the couch with a playful grin. “Carlos has long hair too, you know.”

“You practiced brushing Carlos’ hair?”

He winked. “That’s not important.”

I rolled my eyes but turned around, letting him settle onto the couch behind me. My injured arm stayed close to my chest, and I winced slightly trying to shift, but Charles noticed instantly. His hand came to my good shoulder with a tenderness that stole the air from my lungs.

“Relax,” he murmured, voice low and smooth. “I’ve got you.”

And he did.

His fingers threaded into my hair, separating gentle sections before beginning to brush. His touch was delicate, each stroke deliberate and slow, like he was afraid of hurting me or pulling too hard. The brush moved through the tangles patiently, occasionally catching on a stubborn knot, but Charles never tugged. Instead, he used his fingers to work them out, fingertips grazing my scalp just enough to make my eyes flutter shut.

“Feels nice, hmm?” he teased quietly, clearly noticing how still I had gone, how I was just breathing and existing beneath his touch.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Because it felt too nice. Too comforting. Too intimate.

And then he laughed—soft and warm, the kind of laugh that made you want to curl up inside it.

“You’re going to fall asleep,” he said. “Then I’ll have to carry you to bed, and you know I’ll complain the whole time about my back.” I turned just enough to shoot him a crooked smirk. “You act like I don’t know you’d gladly carry me anywhere.”

His eyes met mine, and for a moment, neither of us said anything. The air between us settled—quiet, safe.

He finished brushing with a final little tug and then gently pulled my hair back into a low ponytail, securing it with the scrunchie. His fingers lingered just a second too long against the back of my neck, and I swear I felt the warmth of his breath before he leaned back. “There,” he said softly. “Perfect.”

Later, while I was napping with my legs stretched across his lap and his hand absentmindedly tracing patterns on my shin, I realized something.

He never once treated me like I was broken. Not even for a second. He just made sure I didn’t have to do it all alone. And that meant more than I could ever put into words.

The second morning of recovery started a little differently.

I didn’t wake up to pain, or to the dull frustration of being limited by my injuries. No. I woke up to the faint clatter of pans and the unmistakable scent of something warm and buttery drifting in from the kitchen. My brow furrowed as I blinked awake, arm still tucked securely in its sling, a blanket half-hanging off the bed. It took me a few seconds to remember that no—I hadn’t left the stove on. I hadn’t even cooked in days. I mean, I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

Oscar.

Of course.

I should’ve expected it. He had the spare key from a couple months ago when I struggled with my panic attacks the most and he’d insisted on “emergency access” in case. Plus, the boys had agreed on him hanging out with me today.

I pushed myself up slowly, groaning at the dull ache in my side. My ribs still hated me for breathing too hard, and my forearm protested every time I shifted. I considered calling out to him, but the sounds in the kitchen only got louder—along with what I assumed was him humming softly to himself.

Padding out of the bedroom with one socked foot and the other dragging a blanket behind me, I turned the corner to find Oscar in the middle of what I could only describe as controlled chaos.

The counters were littered with ingredients—half-used eggshells in a bowl, pancake mix in a measuring cup, a bottle of orange juice open and half-poured into a glass, and Oscar standing in the center of it all, wearing one of my aprons like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He hadn’t heard me yet. I watched him lean down to check the skillet, spatula in hand, eyes narrowed in pure concentration. He flipped a pancake with the kind of careful deliberation usually reserved for high-speed turns on a track.

And the best part?

Nothing was burnt.

Yet.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed—a soft, surprised burst of sound that startled him just enough to make him jump and spin toward me.

“You’re not supposed to be up yet!” he exclaimed, eyebrows shooting up. “I was going to surprise you.”

“You did,” I smirked, leaning against the doorway. “Surprised you haven’t set off the fire alarm.”

Oscar rolled his eyes, cheeks dusted a light pink as he returned to the stove. “You’re hilarious. I’m actually doing fine, thank you very much.”

“You’re doing great,” I teased, eyes twinkling. “Even if it looks like a tornado hit my kitchen.”

He gestured dramatically with the spatula. “A small price to pay for gourmet breakfast.”

I walked over slowly, settling into one of the barstools with a wince as I adjusted my arm. Oscar glanced over immediately, eyes scanning me like he could somehow absorb the pain for me if he just stared long enough.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Don’t even think about helping. You just sit there and look pretty, alright?”

I blinked.

The words were said with a teasing lilt, but his eyes held something quieter. Something real. Something sincere and steady.

“I mean it,” he added, softer now, pouring the last of the batter into the pan. “Let me take care of you today.”

I didn’t argue.

Because the truth was, Oscar was one of those people who didn’t need to be loud to make you feel safe. He didn’t hover. He didn’t pity. He just existed beside you, making space for you to breathe without asking anything in return.

Once the pancakes were done, he plated them carefully—fruit on the side, syrup in a little ramekin like he’d seen me do once. Then he brought the plate over like it was a five-star meal, setting it down in front of me with a proud grin.

“You made this?” I asked, trying not to look too impressed.

“Every last slightly-lopsided pancake,” he replied.

I took a bite. It was fluffy, warm, and surprisingly good. My eyes flicked up to his and I nodded once. “Not bad, Piastri.”

“I’ll take that as a Michelin star.”

Later, after we’d eaten and he’d forced me onto the couch with a blanket and another coffee, I caught him washing dishes without being asked, sleeves rolled up, humming again under his breath. Oscar made even the dull ache of healing feel a little bit sweeter.

On the third day, Max arrived like a storm disguised as calm.

No dramatic entrance. No teasing comments or sarcastic remarks like I half-expected. Just a knock on the door, a quiet “It’s me,” and then the gentle thud of his backpack hitting the floor as he stepped inside like he’d done it a thousand times before.

I hadn’t realized how much my body had begun to ache from sitting awkwardly all morning until Max gently guided me back to the couch, fixed the pillows behind me, and placed a blanket over my lap—tucking it in with a care that didn’t match the usual intense persona he carried on race weekends.

“What?” I asked, arching a brow as he stood above me with crossed arms, eyes scanning me like he was memorizing a damage report.

He shrugged. “You look tired. And grumpy. That’s my job, not yours.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Uh huh.” He didn’t look convinced. “Have you taken your meds yet?”

I blinked.

Shit.

He sighed, pulling out his phone and tapping the screen once before showing it to me. “I set alarms. You’re officially on the Max Verstappen Recovery Program.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, eyes widening slightly.

“Nope.” His voice was steady, almost playful, but there was something under it. Something fierce and unwavering. He reached into the side pocket of his bag and pulled out the familiar orange bottle, the one I always seemed to forget in my frustration with being… well, this version of me.

The version that needed help just to function.

“I was gonna take them—”

“Sure you were,” Max said, cutting me off with the smallest quirk of a smile.

I opened my mouth to protest, but he stepped closer, expression softening as he crouched in front of me. His fingers reached up, slow and careful, and tilted my chin gently so I had no choice but to look at him.

His blue eyes—always sharp, always focused—held something different now. Something quiet. Protective. Real.

“No excuses,” he murmured. “You don’t take care of yourself, I’ll do it for you.”

The pill bottle was pressed into my hand, and for a second, I just sat there, stunned into stillness by the tenderness in his voice.

This was Max. Max who never sugar coated. Max who rarely let emotion crack through the armor of being a two-time world champion. And yet here he was, setting alarms to make sure I didn’t forget my meds. Holding my gaze like the sky might fall if I didn’t take care of myself. Acting like my well-being was the only thing that mattered in the world right now.

I swallowed the pills without another word.

“Good girl,” he said softly, before standing and ruffling my hair in the most annoyingly affectionate way possible.

“You’re lucky I can’t punch you right now,” I muttered.

“You’re lucky I know that.”

Later, he sat beside me, our legs tucked under the same blanket as we watched mindless TV. He kept half his focus on the screen and the other half on me, occasionally checking the time or asking if I needed anything. Not hovering—but always there.

Not once did he make me feel like a burden.

Just someone worth showing up for.

And in the safety of that simple, quiet evening, I let myself lean just a little into him—into the warmth, the presence, and the overwhelming peace of being taken care of by someone who rarely let the world see how much he actually cared.

—

The knock on the door came earlier than expected, just as I was halfway through the frustrating, one-handed battle of pulling on my hoodie. The pain in my shoulder had flared up again, throbbing in time with my heartbeat, but I wasn’t about to call for help—not yet. I was stubborn, if nothing else.

“Don’t rush,” Franco’s voice called from the other side of the door, light and teasing. “I come in peace. And with croissants.”

I smiled despite myself.

By the time I shuffled to the door and opened it, he stood there grinning, one brow raised and a paper bag balanced in one hand. His hair was a little windswept, sunglasses still on, as if he’d sprinted over without a second thought.

“Morning,” he greeted, stepping in. “I hear we have a mission today.”

I sighed and tilted my head. “Please don’t tell me Nico sent you with a checklist.”

“Something like that,” he chuckled, setting the croissants on the counter and pulling off his sunglasses. “He wants people to see you. Remind the world that ‘Ghost’ is still very much alive and kicking.”

“Barely kicking,” I muttered, glancing down at my wrapped arm.

Franco didn’t miss a beat. “Barely is still enough.”

He was already moving toward the hallway, grabbing the gear bag I hadn’t even asked him to bring and pulling out my helmet. He held it like it was something sacred, brushing his fingers along the top before turning toward me.

“C’mere,” he said softly. “Let me help.”

I hesitated, but he gave me that warm, patient look—the one that always made me feel safe, even when everything else was chaos. So I stepped forward, and he carefully guided the helmet on, making sure nothing tugged too hard against my injury. His fingers brushed my skin as he adjusted the padding, gentle and deliberate, and I caught the way his eyes softened when he saw me wince.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Just hate feeling like this.”

His hand paused against the side of my jaw, thumb grazing lightly before he pulled back. “You’re allowed to hate it. Just don’t let it convince you that you’re weak.”

Once I was dressed—slowly, awkwardly, with Franco helping me get the shoulder support back on without making a production of it—we headed out to the team headquarters. Just like Nico wanted, everyone got a chance to see that “Ghost” was up, alive, and recovering. Franco stayed by my side the entire time, making it seem natural, like he was just there because he wanted to be. Though I am sure he did want to be with me, just not here where I could easily mess something up in my healing. 

He didn’t treat me like a porcelain doll. He let me lean on him if I needed to, but never hovered or made me feel helpless. Just present. Grounding.

After enough smiling and pretending to be perfectly fine for the cameras and the team, we ducked out early. “You’ve earned the rest of the day off,” he said, nudging me with his shoulder as we got into his car. “What’s next? Grocery run?”

“God, yes. If I eat another instant noodle cup I might scream.”

We wandered the aisles like two university students who barely knew how to shop for real food. He made fun of my oddly specific snack preferences, and I teased him for the fact that he apparently can’t function without a very particular kind of olive oil.

When we got home, we cooked together—well, I supervised while Franco did most of the cooking, reading the instructions with exaggerated concentration. He looked so serious trying to make the sauce just right, even though it was something so simple. I sat at the counter, legs swinging slightly, letting the domesticity of it all sink in.

The soft sound of the simmering pan, Franco humming under his breath, the occasional “Try this and tell me if it’s too salty”—it was the kind of quiet intimacy I didn’t realize I’d been craving. It wasn’t about being cared for, it was just… being with someone who wanted to care.

By the time dinner was done, my arm was aching again and I was half-asleep at the table. Franco cleaned up without asking, humming that same soft tune he’d had going all day.

Before leaving, he leaned down and gently bumped his forehead against mine. “Tomorrow’s Lando's shift, but text me if you need anything. Or if you just want more pasta.”

I didn’t say anything until after the door clicked shut and the apartment returned to stillness.

Then I whispered it to the empty space he left behind: “Thank you.”

And I meant it more than he would ever know.

I had barely rolled out of bed when my phone buzzed. A FaceTime call from Lando. Not a text. Not a “hey, you up?” warning. Just a full-blown, front-camera assault first thing in the morning. I sighed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and accepted the call.

Lando’s face filled the screen instantly���grinning, eyes bright, clearly way too awake for how early it was. “Good morning, sunshine!”

“You are way too chipper for this hour,” I groaned, flopping back into the pillows.

“I’ve got a surprise,” he said, practically bouncing in place. “Nico gave the okay. I got you cleared for something fun today.”

I blinked. “Cleared for what?”

“Quadrant. Video shoot. You and me. Karting track. But—” he raised a finger, “—don’t freak out. You’re not racing. You’re coaching. Like a proper boss. You get to wear your helmet and everything. Total mystery. Maximum ‘Ghost’ vibes.”

My heart fluttered at the thought. It wasn’t racing, not exactly. But it was a toe back in the world I loved. A toe that wouldn’t risk undoing the progress I’d made. A smile crept onto my face despite the dull ache in my shoulder.

“I’m in,” I whispered.

“I knew you’d say yes!” Lando grinned like he’d just won a bet with himself. “Be ready in an hour. I’m picking you up.”

Exactly sixty-two minutes later, Lando was in my apartment—letting himself in with the spare key Oscar had reluctantly given him, armed with a large quadrant hoodie and one of my helmets already polished and tucked under his arm.

“You’re a menace,” I told him as he helped me pull on the hoodie. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m your menace today,” he shot back, grinning as he gently fixed the collar so it wouldn’t irritate the sling. Then, softer, more sincere: “You look badass. Even with one arm fully out of commission and the other only half as bad.”

He helped me with the helmet, adjusting the straps like he’d done it a hundred times. His fingers were careful, brushing under my jaw as he worked.

“There,” he said when he was done, stepping back to admire his work. “Ghost is back.”

The shoot was at a private karting track, nothing too intense, but buzzing with energy. Lando had already worked it out with the Quadrant team: he and I would each coach one half of the group for the day. It wasn’t about speed or competition—it was about chaos, laughter, and low-stakes fun. And somehow, even though I wasn’t driving, it felt like coming home.

Lando stuck close to me but never hovered. He made it look natural, like we were just teammates riffing off each other—his chaotic jokes balancing my deadpan commentary. He made sure I had a stool to sit on whenever I needed, slipped water bottles into my hand without saying a word, and every once in a while, he’d shoot me a look across the track—a grin that asked you okay? without needing the words.

And every time, I’d nod. Because I was.

One of my favorite moments was when a member of his team spun out dramatically and Lando nearly lost his mind laughing. I leaned into his shoulder, laughing just as hard, and he slung his arm around me without hesitation. It was instinctual. Natural. Like it had always been this way.

By the end of the shoot, we were both exhausted but glowing. He helped me out of my helmet and immediately fluffed my hair like a brat.

“You were incredible today,” he said softly, his voice almost lost beneath the fading roar of the track. “You know that, right?”

I nodded, cheeks warm. “It felt good. To just... be seen again. Even if no one really saw me.”

“But I did,” he said, eyes soft. “And you were you. All day.”

We rode home with the windows down, wind tangling our hair, laughter still lingering in the car like an afterglow.

That night, as I lay in bed with the ache in my shoulder reminding me I still had a ways to go, I smiled. Because today, I wasn’t just recovering. I was living. And Lando made sure I didn’t forget what that felt like.

—

When the knock came at the door, I knew it was Ollie before I even peeked through the peephole. There was something about his timing, always perfect without trying. He knew when to give space, and when to break the silence.

I opened the door and he immediately grinned, holding up a bag of pastries like some sort of peace offering.

“I bring sugar and distraction,” he said.

I chuckled and stepped aside to let him in. “That’s my favorite combo.”

He kicked off his shoes at the door and wandered inside like he’d done it a hundred times—which, honestly, he had. My apartment didn’t look like much now that I was practically living on the couch full-time, but it was still my space. My comfort zone. And today, it felt better with him in it.

“I figured we could start looking at places,” he said, setting the pastries on the coffee table and flopping down onto the rug like it was his natural habitat. “Kimi already sent me a voice memo from a mountain he hiked up at 6 a.m. to tell us how much he wants to freeze to death next week.”

“Oh god,” I groaned, easing onto the couch with a soft wince. “If he tries to make me hike, I swear I’ll fake a rib puncture.”

Ollie snorted. “I’m already making the executive decision to veto snow.”

He leaned back on one arm, looking up at me with that lopsided smirk of his, and for a moment, I forgot about the weight in my chest. About the way healing felt more like surviving these days. About how this break was supposed to be a rest, but mostly felt like punishment.

But then we passed the hallway later on our way to grab my laptop, and it all came crashing back. He stopped. I didn’t have to look to know why.

The display shelf by the hallway had always been a quiet little timeline of my career—my first F4 helmet, the one I won my first karting championship in, and a couple others from standout races. But now… now there was another.

My most recent one.

The one from the crash.

Still blackened at the edges. Still scarred by fire and dirt and desperation. I hadn’t touched it since it was returned to me. I didn’t know why I left it there—maybe to remind myself I survived. Maybe because I hadn’t figured out how to hide it.

Ollie stood frozen, staring at it like it had personally insulted him.

I turned to say something, anything to break the tension, but then he spoke—and it hit like a punch to the ribs.

“You kept it like that?” His voice was quiet. Unsteady.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I... I guess I couldn’t bring myself to clean it. It feels like—like proof that I got out, you know? That I made it.”

He didn’t look at me. “I thought you didn’t.” My breath caught.

His hands were balled into fists again, just like they had been in the medical room.

“You were moving,” he said, voice raw. “I saw you crawling out. I kept telling myself, she’s out, she’s out—she’s gonna be okay. And then it exploded again. I only saw it in my mirrors. Just... flames. You disappeared. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t go back. I didn’t know if you were—”

His voice cracked. I stepped forward, gently placing my good hand on his arm. “Ollie.”

“I couldn’t do anything,” he whispered. “I just kept driving and praying they’d pull you out in time.”

“You don’t have to carry that,” I murmured. “You didn’t leave me. You were racing. You didn’t abandon me.”

He finally turned to look at me, and there it was again—that same look from the hospital. Like part of him still hadn’t let go of the moment he thought I was gone. “I’m here,” I said softly. “I made it. And you’re here, too.”

He didn’t say anything, just let me pull him into a hug. He wrapped his arms around me carefully, holding tight but not too tight, like he didn’t want to cause more damage.

We stood there for a long moment, the silence more healing than any words could’ve been.

When we pulled apart, his eyes were a little glassy, but his voice had steadied. “Okay. No more crash talk for today. We’ve got a vacation to plan.”

“Finally,” I said with a smile, wiping at my cheek. “Something that doesn’t involve ice packs or medical tape.”

Back in the living room, I curled up on the couch with a blanket, and Ollie sat on the floor beside me, laptop open between us. He pulled up a tab with about ten bookmarks already waiting.

“I did some scouting. Don’t worry, I filtered out anything colder than 10 degrees.”

I laughed. “You’re a saint.”

“Obviously,” he said with a grin. “First up: this little seaside villa in Cinque Terre. Gorgeous view, private terrace, walking distance to gelato.”

“Sold.”

“Wait, wait—next one’s even better,” he said, scrolling to a cozy mountain cabin in Switzerland. “Fireplace. Hot tub. Comes with a dog named Muffin, apparently.”

I gasped. “Muffin??”

He grinned. “Now you’re invested.”

We kept flipping through options, laughing and bickering like we weren’t two people who’d almost lost each other. At some point, we ended up side by side on the couch, sharing a pastry and debating which place had the better vibe for “healing, but make it cute.”

By the end of it, we had a list narrowed down and a tentative plan to leave in three days with Kimi.

And for the first time since the crash, I felt something like normal again. Not just alive—but living.

—

I didn’t realize how nice it would be to have Kimi around until he showed up with an armful of empty duffel bags and a determined look in his eyes.

“No offense,” he said, stepping inside and immediately kicking the door shut with his heel, “but your packing system is a crime. This time, we’re doing it properly.”

I blinked at him, leaning against the doorway of my bedroom in an oversized hoodie and a sling. “Hi to you, too.”

“Hi,” he replied, grinning in that boyish way that made it hard to stay annoyed. “Now sit down and point at things. I’ll do the rest.”

And he did.

Without hesitation, Kimi opened drawers, folded clothes, sorted toiletries, and somehow managed to get all my essentials into a suitcase in a way that looked almost... aesthetic? I couldn’t decide if he was just naturally organized or if he’d learned how to be useful from traveling nonstop with F2. Either way, he didn’t need to be asked. He just did things. Quiet, capable, and oddly comforting.

“You’re scarily efficient,” I said as he zipped up the second bag.

He shrugged. “You need comfy clothes, beach things, and at least one outfit in case we go somewhere nice. Everything else is overthinking.”

“I am overthinking,” I muttered.

“I know,” he said, eyes flicking to mine, teasing. “You always do.”

That made me roll my eyes and throw a sock at his head. He caught it without looking, like some kind of casual ninja, and smirked. “Is that your way of saying thank you?”

“Sure. Also, you’re lucky I can’t throw properly right now.”

“I’m lucky either way,” he said quietly, almost too casually—but the way he said it made me freeze for half a second. I opened my mouth, ready with a sarcastic reply, but he was already standing, stretching his arms behind his head like nothing had happened.

“Alright,” he said. “We need food before I start unpacking things out of boredom.”

We ended up ordering our usual takeout from the Chinese place two blocks down. Kimi set up camp on the couch while I shuffled over with the food, and even though I knew I looked like a gremlin in sweatpants and messy hair, he didn’t blink. Just scooted over, fluffed the pillow next to him, and patted it.

“C’mon, your side of the couch looks lonely.”

I plopped down and groaned dramatically as I got comfortable, which earned me a quiet laugh from him.

“You’re so needy,” I joked.

“You love it,” he shot back, unbothered. Then he handed me my drink without even looking. Like he knew exactly which one was mine.

We ate in comfortable silence for a while, trading bites and throwing in the occasional “this is so good” or “okay that chili sauce is illegal.” After eating, Kimi picked up the controllers and waved mine in front of my face.

“I updated your save file. You’re welcome.”

“You what?”

“You were stuck on that one level. I fixed it.”

“Are you trying to one-up Oscar’s breakfast day?” I asked.

“No,” he said, eyes bright with amusement. “I’m trying to make sure you never get rid of me.”

Again, the words landed softer than they should have, sitting somewhere in the back of my mind like a puzzle piece I hadn’t quite figured out.

The night went on like that—lazy and warm and full of inside jokes. We played a few rounds of our favorite co-op game, him carrying us through the boss fights and me screaming every time we nearly died. When the controller finally dropped out of my hand and I leaned my head against the couch in defeat, he just chuckled and tugged a blanket over both of us.

“Movie time,” he said, already scrolling through the streaming options. “You get first pick. But choose wisely, because I will complain the entire time if it sucks.”

“I thought you were supposed to be helping me heal, not raising my blood pressure.”

“Stress builds character,” he deadpanned.

I laughed, sinking deeper into the couch. We eventually settled on an old comfort film, and somewhere between the opening credits and the halfway point, I felt my eyelids growing heavy. Kimi didn’t say anything when I rested my head lightly against his shoulder. He just shifted slightly so I could fit better and kept watching, one arm resting casually along the back of the couch.

He smelled like clean laundry and citrus shampoo and something that was just Kimi—familiar, steady, safe.

As I started drifting off, I heard him say something under his breath.

“Might be my favorite day of break so far.”

I didn’t say anything.

But I smiled.

Masterlist

Taglist: @widow-cevans @honethatty12 @wierdflowerpower @imlonelydontsendhelp @thatsnotaddy @freyathehuntress @angelluv16 @littlesimps-world @dozyisdead @mizzy-pop @lost4lyrics @anunstablefangirl @nikfigueiredo @reiluvr @mymmyrym

[muntitled]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐃𝐨𝐨𝐫

Summary: He wants to be your only one... the fact that you've barely said a word to each other is irrelevant.

Warnings: Language, Humor, Unedited, Fluff, Neighbours to fuck buddies to Lovers, Leehan as his own warning, Jealous!Leehan, Possessiveness, Smut +18 (Minors DNI), Cunnilingus, Needy sex, Grinding, Premature Orgasm, Masturbation, Degradation Kink, Rough Sex

He's wrecking so very badly, Send help

Donghyun was going about his day perfectly fine until he set his foot over the kitchen threshold, and the first trickle of a moan came in from the adjacent walls. He immediately recognized the very specific, very airy octave of your voice.

The panting, the gasps, the very scheduled short exhales that ran through the conduit of your throat. He tries to stare at the fish through the aquatic looking glass in peace, hoping to alleviate the sound of your moaning that continues to bleed from the insulation in the thin apartment walls.

He finds himself quite vexed which is incredibly rare for nonchalant, unbothered Donghyun. For the longest time he thought he was broken. Never being able to forge any special connection with anyone that didn't sport a fin or gills.

When he met you though…

“No-” Donghyun shakes his head, hoping the movement might wash away all the mental images threatening to implode his head in. The memory of your passionate, albeit short history as neighbourly fuckbuddies threatens to rear its ugly head… Donghyun tries to distract himself and these new and complicated feelings of jealousy (definitely jealousy) by focusing on the underwater scavengers swimming blissfully about their makeshift prison. Every time he tries, you moan a particularly loud ‘F-Fuck’, and now he's hard and damnit, he can't focus on the fish. Your moans ascend to a higher octave, an octave that gives him unfortunate flashbacks of the night he first met you.

Then, it had been him who drew those sounds from your throat.

Donghyun didn't always believe in fate but there was no other way to describe that evening. You would have both continued on as oblivious neighbours were it not for your roommate accidentally locking you out of your apartment for the 100th time. Donghyun reminisces on how he found you seated outside your door. A tipsy, blubbering mess.

Thinking that he wouldn't like to go to hell, Donghyun decided to pick you up from off the floor after inquiring whether you were comfortable with fish (he wouldn't like to invite any stranger into his apartment that was even a little bit hostile towards the fish) and thereafter, lumbered you over the threshold.

You had been mumbling about a variety of topics that Donghyun would kill to have you relay back to him right now, but one after the other, the topics dwindled into you enquiring about more alcohol. Claiming that you couldn't wait for your roommate on an empty stomach.

"Food," he had said in a deep and dreary monotonous voice, "If you're hungry, you should eat some food,"

"Food is boring," you whined.

"It really is," he found himself agreeing almost automatically.

"I have an even better idea," it was then, that you uncovered three bottles of soju from your purse with a conspiratorial drunken smirk on your face. The evening had inevitably ended with the both of you getting inebriated under the dim blue lights shining from his tank. And under those very same lights, while Donghyun droned on about the cardiovascular system of freshwater fish, your lips met his in a sloppy, unceremonious kiss.

He did not know this when you kissed him, but he would soon become obsessed with you. That could be the only thing he could describe this as.

"Ugh, how can you stand to listen to the sounds of our neighbors fucking," Donghyun is pulled from his reverie by Sungho who strolls into the kitchen. His roommate's messy head of hair is tipped back in distaste at the scandalous sounds emanating from the next door apartment.

"Neighbour." Donghyun says, "We only have one and she lives alone," Donghyun appears seemingly unperturbed by the sound of your moaning. If not for the subtle whitening of his knuckles against the tabletop upon which his fish tank sat, anyone could've sworn he didn't feel a thing.

"I don't even wanna know how you know that-" Sungho begins to rummage for his pots and pans, all while Donghyun drones on.

"I spoke to her. Once." Donghyun says "Only once. We had sex."

A clamouring of metallic utensils ring throughout the small apartment as Sungho whips his head around to stare at the monotonous boy with amazement.

"Is there anything you ever think of keeping to yourself?"

Donghyun ignores his statement, "But now she's doing that..." he says, in that same difficult-to-interpret, monotonous voice. Donghyun gestures to the blank wall that divided the apartments, "With whoever that is..." A tense silence prolongs before Donghyun; quite suddenly, stands up. "Should I go over there?"

Sungho's shakes his head as he says, "You should absolutely not go over there-"

"I think I should go over there," He's already backing out of his chair, bidding the fish goodbye.

"Donghyun, I will disown you as a member of this apartment if you go over there-"

"It'll be quick,"

"Donghyun."

He's not sure why he'd wanna torture himself, nor did he care to know. All Donghyun is concerned with is the sound of your pleasure being caused by someone else. Someone that isn't him. And so he thinks nothing of it as he drifts towards your door stationed right next to his and he knocks.

There is a bump of furniture and a swear until you're racking the door open, the very vision of pre-orgasm jitters. Donghyun observes you in this very familiar glow. Your eyes are wide and wayward. Your hands are fumbling with the belt of your robe and there's a slight tremor moving through your entire form. You may appear disheveled to any other passerby but to him, you were the very object of his desires.

When your eyes land on him, your shoulders deflate in an unimpressed stance. You are just in the middle of scolding him lightly as you say, “No, Donghyun, I don't wanna volunteer to clean the beach with yo-”

You're not able to finish your sentence because he's rushed towards you in an instant, capturing your lips against the soft plush pillows of his own, and your words die right then and there. He cradles your face with both hands and you yelp in shock as he nips at your bottom lip, all while pushing himself into your apartment.

“I didnt-” he whispers, unable to tear his lips fully away from yours, “I didn't come here for that-”

He mindlessly kicks off his shoes at the doorway which proves to be exceedingly difficult, given the fact that he's hellbent on keeping your lips attached.

“D-Donghyun-” you try to mumble but his lanky fingers curl into your cheeks, forcefully keeping you there. He kisses your roughly. So roughly it nearly knocks out every single sliver of sensibilities you had left. His tongue is long and eager as it drift over the outside of your lips and on the inside, seemingly wanting to eat you whole.

“Donghyun-”

“What-” he whines, stomping his socks-clad feet against the wooden floorboards. “Why are you ruining the moment?” He dips his head down to try and capture your lips once more, but now that you've escaped his forcefield, you've sobered up a bit.

“Why are you, in my apartment?!” It's the only thing you manage to say, with your hand pressed firmly against his sternum. You're both panting loudly. Both caught in a very dangerous state.

Donghyun swallows thickly.

For some reason, you drop your hand to grip your robe tighter, as if not trusting yourself to keep it on in his presence. It is a baby pink robe that Donghyun finds surprisingly erotic. With the scent of sex hanging in your living room, it was difficult not to find anything erotic. He sees you watching him with wide, baggy eyes. Those were erotic too.

“Donghyun.” You begin, with a voice lowered in warning. “Why are you here?”

He swallows once again before straightening his spine and running a hand through his mid length brown locks. He fights to regain some sense of control as he racks his brain for all every plausible excuse.

“So-” he clears his throat, “I'm a father of fish,”

“Famously,” you mock with the roll of the eye. He has to stop himself from kissing you again, choosing to lift his left hand to push down his right twisting in a fist at his side.

“And I’m thinking of adopting a few cichlids.”

“That doesn't explain why you kissed me?” Instead of answering your question, Donghyun ventures to stroll towards your couch as he says, “And the males, famously, cannot be put in the same tank as other aquatic fish. They're unnecessarily hostile and territorial,” he lowers himself fo your couch, “Kinda like you are right now,”

Before you shout at him, he continues

“And I was wondering if you have a spare fish tank around here by any chance.” he nods his head, throughly please with his awful lying skills, “Thats why I'm here.” Donghyun’s eyes are still coasting around your apartment, waiting to hear the voice of the male that was making you moan so loud just a second ago.

“You expect me to just have a fish tank?” You deadpan, “By chance?”

“I don't think my question was so difficult to understand.” Donghyun watches you with a cocky open mouth smirk as he pushes his back against your couch, “This conversation would've been wrapped up so easily if you just-”

“Well, thanks for the weird nature lecture,” you're charging towards him, robe billowing. He sits up, excited. “And the kiss-”

“We could do that again if you want-”

“But I have to study, Donghyun, and you're distracting me,”

You're latching onto his forearm, hellbent on pulling him off your couch but Donghyun digs his other hand into the seat, letting it act as an anchor, keeping him there.

It is then, that your hot pink vibrator rolls out from underneath a cushion and right against the side of his hand.

You stop your pulling.

He stops his mumbling protests.

You both stare down at your vibe sitting comfortably against his hand in the dip of the couch.

“I-”

“Studying, huh?” the smugness in his voice is borderline sadistic. Now it's your turn to scan your brain for every possible way you could detangle yourself from this web of embarrassment. “I like this kinda studying-”

“Donghyun-”

“Leehan-”

“Whatever.” You sigh wistfully, “Just, get out, please.”

“So you don't want my help then?” The question rocks you to your core, a core which you unfortunately realise is still soaked and begging for release. You were just on the precipice of diving headfirst into your orgasm when the knock on the door came and you were overflowing with anxiety. Honestly, being bombarded with a kiss from the weird guy next door shouldn't have been as pleasant as it had been, but your needs evidently took priority of your senses.

“H-Help?” Your voice is barely above a whisper, “How?”

“Lemme show you,” he whispers with all the allure of a Disney prince, and the sensuality of a crimson ribbon. He wraps his hand around your forearm; twirling you quite ceremoniously into his lap.

“You must be so needy right now,” He whispers into your ear while he moves at snails pace, to lower your back against the couch, “I promise to be so good. Better than last time-”

“We were drunk,” you say, utterly captivated by Donghyun now peppering kisses along your legs. He makes his slow descent down the hill of your thighs, while everything in him craves to just attach his lips to your clit until you're riding his face dismally.

Donghyun groans then into the open air. “Fuck, I wanna eat you out,” he admits gravely. He lifts his eyes, hoping to relay to you just how badly he wanted this.

“We were drunk then, so let me do a better job now, ‘kay?” Donghyun rubs dizzying circles against your stomach, still very much covered by your robe.

“O-Okay-” You whisper your consent and it completely throws him over the edge. You yelp when Donghyun grabs ahold of your calves, almost immediately fighting your leg over his shoulder as if your weight was nonexistent.

“Don't blame me if I like… cum in my pants or something, alright?” He says, lowering his face to your exposed as he spready your legs wider.

“P-Please just eat me out, Donghyun,” you were asking him to as if you needed him. That thought solidified itself in his stomach and wrenches your panties to the side, immediately attacking your pussy with his puffy lips.

“F-FUCK, LEEHAN- NOT SO FAST-” Your hands fly to his locks. Your mouth hangs open and you watch in disbelief as he hums against your vagina.

“You called me Leehan-”

“You're- so-” A gasp steals itself from your throat as Donghyun sticks his tongue out to lick a thick strip up the length of your pussy, “s-trange.” you say, unable to chase his lips with your hips.

"You're so hot- fuck,” Donghyun immediately shifts onto the floor so he’s kneeling before you. Your cunt weeps for him and he gladly obliges.

“What a leaky little girl,” he whispers, instantly feeling your hips stutter upwards, “You like that? You like it when I call you my leaky fucking girl-”

You're moaning again, and Donghyun can't help but smirk.

“Y-You're such a pretty little slut, you know that?” Donghyun Isn't sure where that came from, but he's rutting into the couch now, at the same pace you're fucking his face and he knows he needs to say it.

“Oh my fucking God- Donghyun!” You're utterly amazed. Amazed because you didn't remember your last time with Donghyun being so visceral. You nearly see stars when he wiggles his tongue against your entrance, begging for entry.

“F-Fuck my face, baby,”

“D-D-” His name is lost in your mouth and you're lost at the sight of him kneeling for you, fucking helplessly against the couch as he kisses your cunt oh so sloppily. You slip into your orgasm with a shallow gasp and Donghyun's eyes flutter closed, smooching your pussy in pure fucking bliss. He's mumbling incoherently info your cunt, telling her soft nothings until his own hips stutter-

“G-God your pussy is so precious,” he whispers, “So fucking precious-”

You're breathing heavily, but Donghyun decides he's not done as he rises from between your legs. Through your half-lidded gaze, you can spy the wet spot against his sweatpants, and yet he still seems driven by lust. That was one thing you did remember from your last encounter. Once you had Leehan revved up, it was nearly impossible to turn him off.

“I wanna fuck you,” he says monotonously while already pulling at the drawstring of his sweatpants, “I wanna fucking merge into you, L-Like a fucking anglerfish-” he lowers himself on top of you, “D'you know that once the males find a suitable female they merge into-”

“Give me five seconds.” You beg, still in the process of catching your breath, "Or fifteen,"

© to @mphountitled on tumblr; do not repost

[semisgroupie]

finding a middle ground

jotaro kujo x fem. reader x noriaki kakyoin

wc: 3.7k

warnings: college au!, modern au!, dubcon (kakyoin plans this out and both are hesitant before agreeing), threesome, oral sex (f! and m!receiving), facial, cum eating, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, creampie, praise, rough sex, jotaro is mean to reader but softens at the end, kakyoin is a mastermind

synopsis: sometimes you need a third party to help you solve unnecessary tension

a/n: this is a commission piece that I wrote for @jctaro!! cherry my love thank you for trusting me with this idea and being my first ever commission!!!

Jotaro Kujo is the biggest asshole on campus—well, to you he is. You don’t know what sparked it between you two but there was no possible chance for you two to get along whenever you were near each other. Which was quite often since you had to fulfill the same requirements he did for his major.

It was honestly quite childish but neither of you could just put whatever aside to get along. Whenever he saw you, he would mutter something under his breath or send a nasty glare your way. You would do the same back to him, pointing out whenever he messed up in class (which was a rare occasion). Sometimes the glares would turn into longing glances on both ends but nothing to really dwell on. It was always a back and forth, a tit for tat, just nonstop. It was even worse when you both got paired for a project, the name calling and the taunting in private escalated to new levels. But it was never anything to take to heart.

Today, you were sitting in your biostatistics class listening to your professor describe what was needed for your upcoming midterm, focusing as they went over what topics you should study and what the grading procedure was. The class was passing by pretty quickly and once you were dismissed you gathered your things and started making your way to the door. You walked out of the classroom and stopped on the side to find your phone to see if any of your friends were free to hang out while you had a break between classes. You were interrupted when you heard someone clear their throat. You looked up and saw green eyes glaring down at you. “Sorry Kujo, I don’t have the time to set up a private study session for you, not like you’d benefit from it anyway.” You fixed your bag over your shoulder and crossed your arms over your chest as he scoffed.

“What makes you think that I’d ever want help from you? And is there a change of plans for the test this time? Didn’t have enough room in your schedule to blow the dean?” You rolled your eyes at his words and sighed, he would often insult things like your intelligence or bring things up like this to try to get under your skin. “Or did he find someone younger and prettier to focus his time on? Is that what it is? He must have found a pretty little freshman and got tired of your loose holes. Too much cock will do that to you.” Your eyes widened at his words and you were taken aback. He never stooped this low before.

“You’re being a dick, Kujo.” You adjusted your bag again and he just raised an eyebrow, “It’s not my fault that you’re just not interesting to anyone anymore, tell you what. I’ll get you a paper bag and you can decorate it all pretty so when someone is desperate enough for some pussy, they can just cover your face and use you.” Tears brimmed your eyes as he spoke and you quickly blinked them away, “fuck you, Jotaro.” You pushed past him and made your way out of the building your class was in, the tears you were trying to hold back finally spilled out.

Jotaro, on the other hand, stood there and watched you leave. He walked out of the building and the only thing that filled his mind was how hurt you looked. He didn’t want to go that far but you were there and you were just at the right place, at the wrong time. He combed his fingers through his hair and cursed himself as he made his way to his next class. He knew he should have apologized because that’s not how his mother raised him but distance would probably be the best thing for you.

After the encounter with Jotaro, you made your way to one of the dorm halls and went straight to one of the rooms, knocking on the decorated door. “It’s me, please tell me you’re here.” The door quickly opened and you buried your face into the chest of the man who lived in the dorm room. “Noriaki, I hate him. I hate him so much, he’s such an asshole. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.” Your words were muffled by his chest and Kakyoin wrapped his arms around you tighter. He kept you close to him as he walked with you inside of his dorm and shut the door behind you both. “Hey, what happened?” He led you to the couch in his room and helped you sit down, you moved back to lift your head from his chest and sniffled. “That bastard called me a slut and just kept digging more and more. He said I blew the dean for my grades and so many other things. I hate him.” You felt the tears brim your eyes again and he lifted his hand to wipe at your eyes. “Don’t cry anymore, I just want you to forget about him and today. How about we order some food and then you can stay here while we watch some of your favorite movies? It’ll help you get your mind off the day and I hope it’ll make you forget about what happened with him.” You nodded and leaned in to rest your head against him, while mumbling, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Kakyoin had known you and Jotaro for years which meant that he also knew that you two couldn’t stand each other. He heard of all of the name calling, bickering, just all of it. He was the middle ground, always calming either one of you down after a heated encounter. He was honestly starting to get tired of hearing everything going on between you two, he knew that you two wouldn’t mend things on your own and he had to get involved in his own way. He could see right through everything and he knew that there was something lingering whenever you two went at each other’s throats. Neither one of you would admit it but he just had to get the ball rolling. That way he could also get his payment for being a therapist for the both of you.

As the days passed, Kakyoin was getting his plan ready for action. In a week everyone on his floor would be gone for an art gallery exhibit for some extra credit. He didn’t need to go because the professor he was an assistant for already excused him. Kakyoin had reached out to you and Jotaro, inviting you both over to hangout and spend the day together. It was something you both quickly agreed to because 1) finals were beyond stressful and 2) neither of you knew that the other would be coming. Ever since that day you and Jotaro avoided each other like the plague and deep down you both missed each other.

Finally the day came and Kakyoin was finishing with setting his dorm room up when you came and knocked on his door. He opened the door and let you in. “So, what do you have planned for today?” He wrapped an arm around you and led you to the couch, “I was thinking that we could just do something a little different today. We always order some food and watch movies until you fall asleep but I think we need a little change of pace.” You furrowed your eyebrows and looked up at him, you opened your mouth to question him but you were interrupted by Kakyoin’s door opening. There stood Jotaro and his cerulean eyes instantly found you.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jotaro’s deep voice boomed through the room as he stepped in and shut the door behind him. “I could ask you the same thing, Kujo. But for the record, Noriaki invited me over.” You crossed your arms over your chest and glared at him, “he invited me over too.” He raised an eyebrow and both of your eyes went to the redhead with a wide smile on his face. Both of your expressions were the same, waiting for him to answer the questions that haven’t been asked. Kakyoin looked at you both and sighed, “I just think that this was the best way to get you two to talk things out like normal people. Just hear me out. You both have been avoiding each other and ever since you two met you’ve had this animosity towards each other for no reason. Jotaro crossed a line and he’s more than aware of that. You were hurt and I think that with some talking and action then you two could be civil.”

You looked at Kakyoin and then looked at Jotaro before sighing. He wasn’t wrong, you two haven’t even thought about talking things through or trying to figure out what caused a rift between you both. “Fine, but if he says something out of line then I’m leaving.” Kakyoin nodded before looking over at Jotaro who just nodded. The silent agreement was enough for Kakyoin to continue. The redhead moved behind you and placed his hands on your shoulders, gently rubbing them as he looked at the raven haired male. “Jotaro, I think you should apologize to her. What you said to her was beyond offensive, humiliating and just rude. Even you admitted to me that you crossed the line.”

Jotaro looked at his friend then looked at you, “I’m sorry.” He mumbled the words and you rolled your eyes, scoffing. Just as you opened your mouth to say something, Kakyoin beat you to the punch. “You call that an apology, Jotaro? You could be more heartfelt and honestly, I don’t think words are enough. Words are what got us into this mess in the first place, maybe some actions could help mend the wounds you caused her.” His hands moved along your shoulders and toyed with the thin straps of your dress before sliding his hands along your body, touching and caressing all of your curves. You were in shock to say the least, but Kakyoin’s hands felt so good. You couldn’t deny that Kakyoin was attractive and you have had unsavory thoughts about him, along with the dark haired male who watched his friends hands along your body. “Don’t you think she’s beautiful? But her body just feels so tense, I think the best way to apologize is to help her destress.” Jotaro licked his dry lips and watched how rough Kakyoin’s hands moved along your body, he heard the mewls and whimpers that escape your lips and he couldn’t help but groan.

Kakyoin leaned in close to your ear and you could hear the smirk grow along his lips, “tell Jotaro how he should apologize to you, tell him that he should make you cum over and over until you forget about all the harsh things he has said to you.” You couldn’t say something like that, especially to Jotaro, you hated his guts, right? But as you opened your mouth to say something, one of Kakyoin’s hands moved to your chest and started to grope your breasts and the other hand moved to lift the skirt of your dress to your hips. He moved one of his legs to kick your legs open to spread them for the man in front of you both. “Don’t you see how wet she is? She’s practically soaking through her panties and you’re just standing there. You could be touching her, indulging in her. But don’t you want more? You just need to let him know.” He continued to grope and caress your body and you looked at Jotaro with half lidded eyes. “Jotaro…please.”

Just with that, Jotaro moved from his position and took a few long strides to get closer to you. He moved one hand up and hesitated for a moment before placing it on your hip, he looked down at the wet spot on your panties then looked into your eyes before looking at Kakyoin. “What do you gain from all of this? This was a disagreement between two people, not the three of us. And why are you still touching her?” He raised an eyebrow and his grip on your hip tightened a little as Kakyoin’s hands slowed down. “I’ve been the middle man this whole time, making sure you two just stick with throwing verbal jabs at each other. I mean if I leave you two alone, who knows what could happen? Plus, it's not up to you. My dear, do you mind if I join in?” You turned your head to look at Kakyoin and nodded, “I want you with us, please Noriaki.” Kakyoin pulled you closer to him and started leading you to his bed, Jotaro following close behind.

Just as you three reached the foot of the bed, clothes were taken off and strewn all over the floor. Kakyoin got on the bed and leaned back against the headboard and ushered you to lean back against him, he put his arms around you and reached down to spread your legs. Jotaro got on the bed and leaned in between your legs. His cerulean eyes trailed along your pussy, seeing how wet you were for both of the men in the room. Jotaro licked his lips and leaned in close to lick up your slit. He groaned at the taste and placed his hands on your inner thighs as he started to lick and suck your cunt like it was his last meal. Your back arched and you brought one hand down to Jotaro’s hair, threading your fingers through the soft, dark strands as he dipped his tongue inside you.

Kakyoin moved one hand to your chin and tilted your head up to look at him. Moans and whines left your lips as you looked into his eyes. “You just look so pretty when he’s eating your pussy. The way your body moves and writhes is a sin that we are blessed enough to indulge in.” He leaned in close and pressed his lips against yours. Kissing you passionately as Jotaro loudly slurped and sucked on your pussy. Your legs started to quiver and shake around his head as he kept your thighs spread for him. Jotaro moved one hand up to rub your clit with his thumb and dipped his tongue in and out of your messy cunt. You had never felt this good before, none of your toys could bring you the pleasure that he’s bringing you now. You broke the kiss with Kakyoin and your chest started to rise and fall quickly.

“Gonna cum!” Kakyoin moved his hands to your breasts and started pulling on your nipples while he started to trail kisses along your neck and shoulder. “Cum, make a mess all over his face, pretty girl. Soak him in your juices until you can’t anymore. It’s what you deserve.” You arched your back and threw your head back against Kakyoin’s chest and cried out as your orgasm hit you. Your body trembled and Jotaro held your legs open as he drank all your juices, slurping even louder. He continued to drink you all in until Kakyoin moved one of his hands down to Jotaro’s forehead and started pushing him back. Jotaro looked at you both and your juices covered his lips and chin. “What happened?” Kakyoin chuckled and shook his head, “I want a taste too, stop being so greedy, Jotaro.”

Jotaro licked his lips and pulled back from you. Kakyoin gently moved you up from his chest and helped position you on all fours before moving behind you. Jotaro moved in front of your face and your eyes widened when you saw his cock. It was massive just like him, thick in all the right places and it looked so heavy. You were practically drooling at the sight and Jotaro wrapped his hand around it, stroking it a few times. “Let’s see if you can do more than just bitch and whine with this pretty mouth of yours.” You looked up at him and narrowed your eyes as Kakyoin’s hands moved along your ass, spreading you for him as he spit on your sensitive pussy. “Fuck you, Kujo.” He laughed and gripped the base of his cock, tapping it against your lips, “you will soon. Now open up.”

Kakyoin leaned in and started licking along your slit then wrapped his lips around your sensitive clit. Your mouth fell open and Jotaro took advantage of your open mouth and pushed his cock inside. Jotaro threw his head back and placed his hands on either side of your head as he started thrusting. He set a rough and hard pace, each time he thrusted his cock hit the back of your throat causing you to gag each time. He didn’t relent, no matter how many times you gagged it was just more pleasurable for him. Kakyoin held you open and ate you out with the same fervor as Jotaro. Your body trembled and you moaned around Jotaro’s cock, giving the raven haired male even more pleasure. “You taste so fucking sweet, I can’t get enough of your taste.” Kakyoin rasped out and continued to eat you out like a man starved. You were already sensitive from your first orgasm and you already started to feel the knot tighten in your stomach. Kakyoin moved his hand to your entrance and pushed two fingers inside you, curling them to press right against your g spot as he suckled on your clit.

You brought your hands up to Jotaro’s thick thighs and dug your nails into them as you reached your second orgasm of the day. Your body trembled violently and you cried out around Jotaro’s cock as you drenched Kakyoin’s face in your juices. Jotaro pulled out of your mouth and pumped his cock a few more times and thick ropes of his cum landed on your face. He grunted and his hand continued to move up and down his thick length. A few more ropes landed on your face and you opened your eyes to look at him, a smirk grew on your lips. “Wow, didn’t think you would cum quickly like a virgin, Kujo. Was that your first blowjob?” He grabbed a napkin and cleaned off some of his cum from your face and tossed it in the trash bin.

“Shut up, I’m not done yet.” He wasn’t wrong, his cock was still rock hard and bobbed as he moved off the bed. Kakyoin gave your pussy one last kiss then moved in front of your face. His cock was big but not as thick as Jotaro’s so it would give your jaw some relief for a moment. Jotaro gripped your hip with one hand and gripped his cock with the other then he slammed into you. You cried out his name out loudly and looked back to glare at him, “shut up, this was what you wanted.” He held your hips tightly and started drilling into you, if felt like his cock was splitting you in half in the best way possible. Moans and whines left your lips and you looked up at Kakyoin before sticking your tongue out for him.

“So pretty begging for cock like that. Fuck.” Kakyoin bit his lip and slowly pushed his cock into your mouth. You started sucking and you started bobbing your head up and down his length. He was much gentler than Jotaro, giving you time to get adjusted to his length. “Look at that, you’re such a good girl. Sucking so good like that, think you’re ready for more? For me to be a little rougher?” You nodded as best as you could and Kakyoin placed one hand on your head and started thrusting. He moved in sync with Jotaro, every time Jotaro slammed into you Kakyoin pulled his cock out only to the tip then when Jotaro only had the tip inside of you, Kakyoin buried himself down your throat.

You were beyond sensitive from all the orgasms and the way Jotaro hit all your sensitive spots was just driving you closer and closer to the edge. Jotaro’s hips continued to snap into yours as he fucked you relentlessly. Your eyes rolled back and you cried out around Kakyoin’s cock as your orgasm ripped through you. Jotaro held your hips tighter as he continued to snap his hips into yours almost animalistically. Kakyoin continued to thrust into your mouth and held your head in place as he started to cum, “don’t waste a drop. Swallow it all, pretty girl. Just swallow it all.” You greedily swallowed around his cock as he continued to pump his cum into you. Soon Jotaro followed, he pressed his hips against yours and started to fill you with hot, sticky ropes of cum. Kakyoin pulled out of your mouth and you dropped your head against the bed as Jotaro continued to fill you up.

Kakyoin got off the bed to grab water and grab a rag to clean you off with and Jotaro slowly pulled out of you and helped you rest against the bed completely. He laid beside you and pulled you closer to him. “, I just wanted to apologize for how I’ve been treating you. I crossed the line that day and that wasn’t called for, none of it was called for. I did a lot of fucked up things and said a lot of fucked up things, you didn’t deserve that.” Kakyoin walked over to you two with a wide grin on his face and handed the water bottle in his hand to you then started to wipe you down with the wet rag in his other hand.

“You’re welcome.” He spoke as he continued to wipe you down and both you and Jotaro looked at Kakyoin with furrowed eyebrows. “My plan, if I didn’t think this through then you two would still be on no speaking terms and I would be the one to try to convince you two separately to try to work it out or just get over it.” He shrugged and Jotaro shook his head, “I’m not too sure about that. I think we’ll need a few more sessions of this to really make sure everything is mended.” You smiled and nodded, “that I can agree with.”

taglist: @enchantedforest-network

[hwaslayer]

wildfire (cs) | intro.

—spotify playlist | series masterlist

—summary: assistant professor in bioengineering, incredibly attractive, lonely and divorced; that’s how most people describe san. but despite the events that have happened in his life, san has a lot going for himself. he’s a successful, sought out professor due to his brilliant contributions to science at just an early age of 32. he worked hard to get where he was now; head deep into his research, his publications, building his lab and creating a name for himself. everything was good and smooth sailing— until it wasn’t. because when he meets you, a bioengineering grad student interested in rotating in his lab, he finds himself ready to risk all the blood, sweat and tears he put in throughout the years just to keep you close— his need for you spiraling out of control like a wildfire.

—pairing: asst. professor!choi san x grad student!f. reader

—genre: (18+ - minors dni) strangers to lovers, grad school au | fluff, angst, eventual smut

—word count: 2.0k

—warnings: nothing much; cussing, very general description of research topics/neuroscience experiments including mentions of mice research (no details)!, mentions of infidelity (not oc or san)

—a/n: ty for being patient with me <33 here's the lil intro to professor choi 🤪 i think i'll keep the same update schedule i've had (every other weekend) but ofc will let everyone know if i cant update for whatever reason!! enjoyyyy this rideeee 🖤

Clunk.

San throws his glasses onto his desk before leaning back in his chair, hands coming up behind his head for a stretch. He had been working on his progress report for one of his grants since this morning, and he was starting to feel the migraine come on.

"Fuck." He mutters, pinching at the bridge of his nose before he gets up to grab another cup of coffee from his Nespresso machine— popping in a pod with a level 9 intensity into the slot and pressing start. It's around dinner time, but quite frankly, San isn't too hungry. He'll eat something small. He's just tired, especially because of this progress report. But, it's due next week and he needs to finalize his class schedule for the upcoming quarter at the same time. He won't have as much time to get through the technicalities if he waits any longer.

He's pretty immune to the different intensities of coffee at this point; having eaten it for breakfast, lunch and dinner during his postdoc years. It won't do much for long, but it'll at least keep him going for the next couple of hours before he calls it a day and lays in bed. 

When his coffee is done, he pours some creamer into his mug and gives it a good stir before settling back into his office. His house is too big for one person, but he enjoys the stillness. The quiet. He used to hate it. He used to hate when every corner reminded him of his ex-wife. Now, he's gotten used to it. He's learned how to live alone, how to enjoy his peace. He lets out a small sigh, taking a sip of his hot coffee as he resumes to look at the computer screen to his side. Suddenly, his phone goes off and he's quick to shift his attention to it because it's slightly odd for this time of day. People don't normally call him unless he's settled on a phone call meeting ahead of time, and he doesn't remember booking any calls tonight.

"Hey." San picks up when he realizes it's Jongho. Okay, so he maybe he lied. He does take a few calls from close friends, most who are also professors at the same university. "What's up?"

"How's your T15 report going?"

"Long. It's terrible."

"Well." Jongho laughs. "Perks of being you, I guess." San rolls his eyes. 

"Yeah, thanks. Very enlightening."

"Anyways, I wanted to call really quickly. I figured you hadn't seen it yet, but wanted to put it on your radar. I looped you into an email for a possible collaboration. We're trying to meet this week if you're free. Might be good to see what it's worth, could get us more funding. Open more collaboration opportunities in the future." San presses the phone against his ear, holding it with his shoulder as he navigates to his inbox on his computer. He has a bunch of unread emails that he'll eventually respond to, paying a tad more attention to the pressing ones when he has a moment. He's not gonna lie, he does ignore a few if it's not of interest to him, or something he doesn't feel like he can contribute much to. He'll typically respond with a 'so sorry, no can do' if people get pushy and constantly follow up, but for the most part, he does his best to keep up and respond where it's warranted.

San sees the email Jongho is speaking of, but right underneath it, he sees another email from a student inquiring about rotating in his lab for the upcoming quarter. He's always interested when students reach out to rotate in his lab, but he can't accommodate all, especially when he doesn't feel like his research aligns with their goals. He usually takes 1 per quarter if it fits, otherwise, he doesn't have any at all. 

Out of curiosity, he clicks on the email since it has been awhile since anyone rotated in his lab. 

From: yn@atz.edu To: choisan@atz.edu Dear Professor Choi, I hope this email finds you well. My name is Y/N, and I'm currently a bioengineering grad student who is interested in rotating in your lab for the upcoming quarter. I have been thinking about diving deeper into computational analysis, mice behavior, 2-photon excitation and opto-stim work. I've spoken to your postdocs, Sunwoo and Belle, about their current projects and potentially collaborating since they seem to be touching up on all these aspects. I was hoping we can find a time to meet and chat a bit to see if it would be a good fit. The deadline to submit my rotation selections is coming up, so I'd like to make sure we meet beforehand. Let me know, happy to work with your schedule! Best, Y/N Y/L/N

The thing about San is that he's pretty good at picking up on a student's vibe through their emails. It's the tone, the professionalism, the way they write and carry themselves. He can tell when some people are a little more egotistical and ignorant, and he doesn't want people like that in his rather small, but mighty lab. His current grad students and postdocs all get along well, and they're bright people who are very passionate about their work and studies. He doesn't need people thinking they're above the others. In addition to that, he can also tell when students are just trying to get their name on a published paper doing work in his lab, or when they're just trying to wing their way through grad school. It's a shame, but he definitely has come across a few students in his inbox. They��do exist.

You, though? He's intrigued. You seem bright. Genuinely passionate about the specific areas you're interested in diving into. Poised. He appreciates that. He quickly scans over your CV and the little blurb at the bottom that highlights the work you've done in your undergrad years and internships. Your work history. He sees that you've already dipped your toes in a few of the different areas you've mentioned. Worked with a few professors he knows. You've volunteered at a couple of places.

An all-rounder.

"Did you see it?" He almost forgets he's on the phone with Jongho.

"Mm, yeah. I'll respond in a bit, I think I can meet on Thursday. Sorry, I just got a little distracted. Saw another email about a potential rotation student."

"Gonna take one on this quarter?"

"Maybe. If it fits. She seems to be interested in a lot of the work we do. She knows Sunwoo and Belle."

"Oh, nice. That'll be cool."

"What about you? Taking on a rotation student?" Jongho is an assistant professor in the electrical engineering department, and he is often bombarded with inquiries himself. He usually always has a rotation student, and they almost always choose his lab to work in after their rotation program is up. San doesn't blame them— Jongho is brilliant, and his work creates a lot of different pathways for students to navigate and try. San's can be a hit or miss; it's quite niched, and students often find that it genuinely is tough to play around in his field.

"Yeah. Think so." 

"Alright. Thanks for giving me a heads up. I'll check my calendar and respond in a bit for sure." San eyes the email. "It does sound like a good collaboration."

"Figured you'd say that. Thanks, my guy! Take it easy and good luck on your progress report."

"Appreciate it." San gives off a toothless smile even though Jongho can't see him. He slides his phone off to the side and checks his calendar, upholding his promise to Jongho about responding to the email ASAP. He keeps his email short, letting the group know he can make the meeting at the desired time on Thursday to talk about the potential collaboration across labs.

Then, he pulls up your email and checks his calendar once more.

From: choisan@atz.edu To: y/n@atz.edu Hi Y/N, Thanks for your email - for sure! I think there's a lot of possibilities we could visit, especially with Belle and/or Sunwoo's projects. Can you pop into my office on Tuesday morning? 10am good? We can chat then. — San

"Oh shit." You slow your chewing when you see the email notification pop up on your screen during dinner.

"What?" Felix asks, turning his attention towards you and causing Jiung and Eunchae to do the same.

"Professor Choi answered my email."

"That was quick." Jiung takes forkful of food into his mouth.

"Professor Choi as in San or Jongho? Cause they're both hotties." Eunchae swoons and twirls her hair, making Felix scrunch his nose.

"San." 

"I'd kill to be a rotation student in their labs." Eunchae giggles. "What'd he say?"

"To meet him at his office on Tuesday to chat more."

"Well, that's good! Which other labs were you looking at?"

"I'm not sure. Song Mingi, Kang Yeosang, Jeong Yunho. Kim Namjoon—"

"Isn't Professor Choi's ex-wife with Professor Jeong now?" Jiung looks up with a squint.

"Yeah, apparently when it all went down, it was a mess." Felix chimes in, and you continue to type away at your phone. "Imagine your wife having an affair with your bestfriend."

"Harsh." Jiung does a head tilt.

"I guess they don't interact much anymore, do they? Seems to be water under the bridge."

"I don't think so, but Professor Lee works in the Chemical Engineering department so they might have to from time to time if students in her lab wanna be co-advised or collaborate with him. Professor Jeong, though."

"Awkward. At least they can keep it civil." Felix shrugs at Eunchae's response.

"They lowkey have no choice." Felix looks up in thought before shrugging. "Still sucks to know your bestfriend was involved."

"Seriously." You add.

"Either way, those are good labs to possibly rotate in. It'd be cool if you could get into Namjoon's lab. Heard he's cool as fuck even though he's the department chair." Felix tosses his napkin into his empty paper bowl.

"Yeah, same. I'll keep you guys updated." You send off your response to Professor Choi with a small sigh. "There. Hopefully my rotation will be settled for the quarter."

From: yn@atz.edu To: choisan@atz.edu Hi Professor Choi, Yes, I can meet you at 10am on Tuesday. Thank you, and see you then! Best, Y/N

"Maybe you'll get more out of the rotation, especially with Professor Choi." Eunchae nudges your side and you let out a small yelp before you playfully pinch her bicep.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jiung snorts.

"I'm just saying, he's successful. A hottie. Young. Single—"

"Here she goes." Felix lets out a breath.

"Bro. Calm down." Jiung laughs. "He's still a professor."

"What if you two get close during rotation and he falls in love with you?" She looks at you ever so seriously. 

"Relax." Felix laughs. "What kinda movie did we fall into?"

"Eunchae, please." You poke her cheek. "You know we rarely ever see the professors in lab. We get like.. five minute meetings with them and that's about as much of a personal interaction we'll get. They're busy people. Sorry to burst your bubble, bae." She shrugs.

"It was fun to think about." She giggles. "But no, that'll be a good experience for you if you get to join his lab for rotation. The others are great, too. Is he your first choice for a dissertation advisor, though?"

"As of now, yeah. But, we'll see how it all goes."

"Keep us updated." Jiung sips some water. "I think I need to reach out to one more professor for this quarter. Needa figure out my shit before classes start."

"Same." 

Meanwhile, San sees the notification from your email pop up in the corner of his screen and he immediately presses on it. He smiles a bit when he realizes how easy scheduling that meeting was— most of the time, people say they'll work with his schedule but end up pushing back. He slots you into his calendar before he can forget and switches his attention back to the progress report he's close to finishing up. 

San thinks it'll be nice to host a rotation student again, as the experience has always been useful, eventful, productive. He thinks it'll be like any other time; the experience being useful, eventful. Productive. He trusts in his group, the students, to come up with great ideas and be able to execute from start to finish.

So, he doesn't think much of it. He thinks he can hand you off and trust you with Belle and Sunwoo.

Little does he know that's where he gets it all wrong.

—taglist: @asjkdk @interweab @woojirang @svintsandghosts @cheolliehugs @persphonesorchid @mxnsxngie @jycas @cowboydk @vcutparis @chngbnwf @struggling101 @sanhwalvr @lynnsqueendom

[hyunjinsjeans]

He knows (Han ver.)

Felix ver.| Seungmin ver. | I.N ver.

MASTERLIST

Synopsis: after an unfortunate event you decide to tell Jisung that you are ready to give it another go.

Type: Fluff 🧸, angst ❤️‍🩹, female reader 💃, SFW 👍

Warnings: mentions of pregnancy, description of medical emergencies and health issues, mentions of mental health issues. Uhm there is mentions of dogs being horny(?)

Word count: 3111 words (your honor, I plead oopsie daisy!)

AN: This one is a little heavier, please don’t read if you are sensitive towards the topics described in the warnings. Something about my favorite soft boy Han made my brain go “pain” and here we are, BUT I promise it gets really cute and comforting in the end. Again, I couldn’t stop writing 😭

You cleaned up the kitchen after finishing eating dinner and drank a tall glass of water. You rubbed your stomach and looked around the house. Jisung was going to be home in a few hours, probably tired from his trip to Paris. 

He had been gone for only a couple of days, not even an entire week. 

You knew this was hard on both of you, but felt like maybe he was making it harder than it had to be. It had been over a year already… he should relax a little now. But he could not, he still felt guilty every time he walked out the door with a suitcase in his hand.

With a sigh, you decided to head to bed. His flight would land almost at midnight and then Ji would have a couple days off. He was most likely going to come home and slide into bed beside you, quietly attempting to cuddle you without waking you. It always failed because you missed him too much to not notice his warmth and his gentle touch when he wrapped his arm around you and kissed the back of your shoulder. 

It all happened the year before. The boys were promoting a single and had been invited to a fashion show in New York, their schedule was crazy, they were away for a little over a month - which was odd, since they were not touring or playing shows. 

You and the other girls, the significant others, had a group chat, “SORacha”, was the name given by the boys. Everyone was a little on edge with how the American media was treating the boys, especially the disrespectful and downright racist paparazzi who seemed to start following them around everywhere. For you the worst part was coming home to a sad looking Bbama, both of you obviously missed Jisung.

You were only 8 days away from seeing Han again, things had been normal around the house. You went to work and then came back home to walk Bbama, having dinner with the fluffy dog eating behind you from their dish on the floor. Some days you went out for drinks with your friends, most of all you kept in touch with the other girls. It was like a support group while your boyfriends and husbands were away. You would help each other in the most mundane things, and you would also reach out to each other to keep everyone's spirits up.

That night you had gone out for a drink with your coworkers, but you were not drinking much since you needed to get home to read some materials for your Japanese class. Jisung had insisted it was fun learning a new language as an adult and you signed up for the course only to find that it was more demanding than you anticipated. Regardless, you were a diligent student so you prioritized your study time over having that second bottle of soju.  

It did not change much, by the end of the night you found yourself blinking away tears in confusion as you were blinded by the bright lights shining atop of you inside the ambulance. 

Your emergency contact, LeeKnow!Reader arrived at the hospital in her checkered pj’s. You were already in the ER by then and she was not allowed to see you until after the doctors were able to get you stable. Everything happened too fast, two of your drunk co-workers (sobered up by the scare and adrenaline) explained to LeeKnow!Reader what had happened. You did nothing wrong, you said your goodbyes and went to cross the road during a red light, following the zebra lines on the pavement but a car drove past disregarding the stop light. They hit you so fast you were pushed into the air a few meters to everyone’s shock. Thankfully, you landed against another car’s hood. Although it broke a couple of ribs, it meant you did not hit your head on the pavement. 

You required surgery for the internal bleeding and the doctors were clear you would be in the hospital for at least a few days to make sure you would be okay since you did get a neck and back injury. 

LeeKnow!Reader did not even ask you, she signed the papers and arranged for you to have the emergency surgery, without questions she picked up the phone to immediately call your husband, and then your mother. She knew you were not going to want to interrupt Han in whatever he was doing but this was serious. So she called him. 

When you woke up in a hospital room after the surgery, he was there with your mom and your sister sitting next to him. 

You felt awful. Not only physically but also mentally. All he ever asked you to do when he left home was to take care of yourself (and his fur baby). And you managed to get yourself ran over by a drunk driver. 

Recovering was not easy, you had a cast around your middle and on your left leg. You had to wear a neck brace for a couple of months and even after you dealt with a lot of pain from the simplest things like sitting or laying down for too long. 

Jisung was worried, to an extreme extent. He felt guilty he was not there with you when it happened. He liked to think that he would have picked you up and that he could have avoided you needing to cross the road. It did not help that you became so weak so quickly. He knew you to be independent and strong but during your recovery you were unable to walk the stairs of your two story home. You could not go out to walk with him and take Bbama to the dog park. You could no longer turn to the gym for an outlet for your anxiety, and you felt useless. 

You were different. It was obvious to your friends and to your husband. He could tell, he was not stupid and he was also not blind. He saw you shut him out, you were shutting everyone out in fact. You stopped singing around the house because you were not doing chores. Instead you could only sit and read or knit in absolute silence. You were no longer looking for playlists to have as background noise while you went outside to take care of your garden - hell, the garden was a mess you did not even touch anymore. You slept so much too, sneaking naps here and there. You avoided phone calls and texts too. And you began losing weight fast, no longer having an interest in food. Jisung had to knock some sense into you, get you off of autopilot. You could not help it when he was face to face with you, pointing out that you were in pain and it was easy to see. He felt guilty you had been hurt in his absence and he was feeling guilty maybe he was doing something wrong now that he was home. Han demanded to know if it was him and his work or both. He felt like somehow he had let you down but he wanted to make it better. 

It was not him, you were depressed from the feeling of confinement within your own body. Like you had a broken thing that did not work but you had to still push it around as if it did, only to be frustrated when even breathing was painful. You had cried to him, and he held you with the gentleness no one but him knew to have with you. What made things worse in your head was the idea that this accident had indefinitely put a pause on your lives… just when you and Han decided it was a good time to start your family. Of course you were not in shape to have a baby, this broke your heart as it added up with all the other “can’t”s that began appearing in your life since coming home from the hospital.

And while you were better today, well over a year after the accident, you still saw the hints of guilt in your husband’s eyes every time he left home for a trip somewhere far away. If he could, he would bring you along, but you were still waiting for your citizenship and couldn’t leave the country until your paperwork was processed… it would be at least another 6 months.

You took your necklace and earrings off and left them near your vanity, you twisted your wedding ring in your finger and left it there. At night, you liked to keep it on as a reminder that your husband would always be there for you even if he wasn’t in bed with you.

Jisung got in the car at almost 1:00 am, he was tired and a little jet lagged. He wanted nothing more than to sleep in the comfort of his own bed, next to his favorite girl. 

He wondered how your day had been, since you only went back to work a couple months ago. He knew you were excited about it, about getting your life back. Han was also excited about seeing you shake the gloomy attitude, and it began the second you got your casts off and started your physical therapy. Jisung loved how determined you looked, a small girl fighting a 2lb weight in each hand. But he was so proud to see you face recovery with courage. 

As of late, you were able to do everything you used to although some days you had to take it easy thanks to your back injury that was still healing. 

Jisung entered the home and was met with silence. Not even Bbama made a sound, he knew his dog must have been sleeping with you upstairs. Upon entering your shared bedroom he could see he was correct, as you slept with a peaceful expression and an arm wrapped around the fluffy white dog. 

You heard the sound of light footsteps on the floor and the sheets moved behind you. Jisung’s scent of flowers and fresh rain reached your senses and the familiar weight of his arm around your waist confirmed his presence to you. A deep sigh left your body, all muscles in your body able to relax in his company as if he was a warm bath to drown all your worries in. 

“Didn’t mean to wake you, Y/N” he whispered against the exposed skin of your shoulder before laying a soft kiss there. “You should sleep.”

“I missed you,” you confessed with your hand leaving your little dog to hold onto your husband’s hand. “You should sleep too.”

“Mmm,” he nuzzled against your neck, “I’m sure I missed you more.” He babbled a little, exhaustion taking the best of him. 

You did not reply to that, already swallowed by sleep in his comforting embrace. 

***

“Oh my God…” Jisung ran to his small dog, pulling him away from the other small dog. “Where are your manners? How are you not embarrassed?” He talked to his own dog and you laughed at it from the bench. 

“Look at this,” Jisung’s ear were bright red as the other dog’s owner approached, “it’s not a female! Put that away!” He urged his dog to calm down. 

You laughed harder as your husband apologized for Bbama’s behavior. He had been humping other dogs a lot lately, you thought it was fair to either let him have a girlfriend or neuter him. Jisung was unsure of what to do, the scene at the dog park might be the wake up call he needed. 

You covered your mouth with your hand and fake-coughed to hide your laughter as Jisung walked back with the small dog on the leash again.

“Why is he so horny?” He whisper-yelled. 

This only fueled your amusement and you giggled. “He wants to get some, let the poor guy have sex!”

“I know he humps the duck plushie regularly, but this is a lot…” Jisung complained, “and why is he humping other male dogs?” 

You looked down at the innocent looking little white ball of fur and offered your husband a kind smile. “Love is love, Ji!” 

Jisung rolled his eyes but he put his hands up in defense, “not that I don’t respect that… but seriously, what’s up with him?” 

You shrugged, looking away you saw a couple with their big labrador and a little boy. The boy held the dog’s leash and the dog seemed to know it was better to pretend the boy was guiding him. 

“Maybe he knows I want a baby…” you said before registering that the words in your mind had left your mouth, “wait!” You snapped your head back in Jisung’s direction.

You felt all color drain from your face and your blood rushed to your feet. Jisung’s eyes were opened wide and round like plates, his lips pursed together made his cheeks look even larger and more comical. 

“You want a baby?” He blurted out with incredulity. 

To him it was the single craziest thing you had said ever. Why would you want a baby? You were technically recovered from the accident but you still lived with some reminders of it. He still lived with reminders of it too. And a baby? You carrying a baby? No. He felt his mouth go dry. It was not that he did not want you to have a baby. He would be thrilled to have someone as amazing as you be the mother of his kids; but he was not sure you were in good enough condition to do it. He would be scared to see you as affected as you had been after the accident.

“Well, I said it out loud, didn’t I?” You laughed nervously. 

Han swallowed and stared, paying little mind to Bbama pulling on his leash to smell some weeds growing around a bush.

“Now? Do you want it now?”

You sought his hand and intertwined your fingers together. He looked down at your hands with the same wide eyes. It was like you were playing with his heart. 

When he felt how cool your hand was and how regular your pulse felt against his skin, while his heart raced his thoughts and his palm became clammy in an instant… he wondered how it was possible you were this confident. 

“Of course not now. Not right now,” you shrugged further, leaning your chin on your shoulder to look back at him to your right. “But last year we were ready to try, right? I want to try again, Ji.” 

Jisung let out a quiet sound and squeezed your hand in fear. He could not bring himself to shut you down, he tried to think of how to say it. 

“I don’t think we should yet.” He decided to say, pursing his lips he looked down at his lap, “it’s still too soon for you. I don’t want you to get hurt having a baby.” 

Your heart sank and your small smile slipped from your face. Would he ever let it go? He could feel your hand go limp between his fingers, his gaze fell on your features and he sighed. Everything in him wanted to say yes, to give in to your every desire… but he had to be reasonable, he had to take care of you. He loved you too much to risk losing you because he got selfish, greedy and horny. 

“I’m-” you fought yourself not to cry, this was not a temper tantrum; this was a grown up conversation, you needed to remain calm. “I’m okay. I’m not going to get hurt.”

Jisung saw right through you, he pulled you into his side and let go of your hand to wrap his arm around you, smelling the soft fragrance of your shampoo as your hair flew in the air. Lavender and vanilla. He kissed your forehead. 

“Y/N, I love you. But you just got back to work, your tomatoes are going wild in the garden and there’s yarn everywhere; I think you have enough on your plate without adding a baby into the mix.”

You looked up at him and pouted, “I want a baby quokka to dress up in that yarn all over the house!” You admit with watery eyes. 

Jisung’s eyes lit up with realization. 

You had been knitting for weeks. More like months. Not even once did he stop to appreciate or wonder how and why you kept making little pieces of clothing. If he ever had to explain it to himself he would assume they were for your pet. And now he felt stupid. So stupid. 

This was something you had been thinking about for a while. A long while. 

“Babe…” he cried as he hugged you to him with both strong arms, “why didn’t you tell me before?!”

You wrapped an arm around his slender waist. 

“I didn’t think you were that oblivious,” you admitted. “Seriously, d’you ever notice what I knit?”

Your husband shut his eyes closed and held you, placing his chin on top of your head. You were not going to drop the subject. 

So he did the best thing he could think of: throw the ball to another player.

“...we need to hear from the doctor, Y/Nie…I need to know that you’ll be okay if we get pregnant.”

You pulled away from him with hopeful eyes, unable to get past the fact that he said “if we get pregnant”. 

“Is that a yes?” You asked in a small voice. 

Han pointed a finger in your direction, “that’s a maybe.” 

And although you tried to hide how excited it made you that he was in on it, you could not help but also feel nervous about what the doctor might say. You knew you did not want to wait much longer, but if there was really something going on with you that did not allow for the two of you to have a baby soon you would be disappointed. Jisung wouldn’t want to admit it, but seeing how bright your face became at his words and how the tears you were fighting spilled freely now as you kissed his cheek…he was kind of hopeful your checkup would turn out alright and all of his fears would go away. He did want so bad to have a baby with you.

————

Likes, Reblogs and Comments are welcome! Thank you for reading!

[qmrzi]

BREAKTHROUGH ; LEE JIHOON

PAIRING; lee jihoon x gn!reader.

GENRE; a bit angst, fluff, established relationship.

WARNINGS; jihoon cries (im sorry 😭), kissing (?), a happy ending btw, I wrote this piece at 3am so I'm sorry if it doesn't make any sense 💀.

ABOUT; here.

WORD COUNT; 730.

There's something.. off these days.

After he went drinking with his members, you haven't woken up next to Jihoon anymore due to his very early schedule that makes him wake up early in the morning to work, Jihoon sometimes stays in his studio for days working without coming home to you.. well, it's common for him to not come home for days but he updates you every hour-ish and tells you he's gonna be late so you can sleep without waiting for him to come home. You tried to ask his members what has gotten into him but they don't know anything and he's being kinda closed off with them too, so you decided to know on your own.

You're now sitting on the couch in Jihoon’s studio, waiting for him to finish his work and talk to him.

Since you entered his studio he hasn't looked at you or talked to you, just humming when you greeted him and when you told him you wanna talk with him about “something very important”.

After 30 minutes, jihoon finally finished working, removed his headphones, and sat next to you on the couch keeping a space between both of you.

“What is the “very important” topic you wanna talk about with me?” he said quietly while looking at the ground, not daring to look at you.

“Jihoon..” you gulped before continuing and Jihoon’s eyes widened a little cuz it was your first time calling him by his full name without any nicknames, “you have been awfully closed off these days, what's wrong? Are you okay?”

You hold his hand as you look at him with worried expressions.

Jihoon doesn't know what to tell you, more specifically, how to tell you.

“Y-y/n..i-i..god, I don't know how to tell you..” jihoon sighed as he barely got the words out of his mouth.

“T-tell me what? 'Hoon, please talk. I'm getting more worried,” you said quickly as you got closer to him and squeezed his hand tight.

Jihoon knows his tears will fall sooner or later, so he hid his face on your neck and wrapped his free hand around your middle pulling you closer to him then he began saying all the emotions that have been hiding from you.

“I-I love you so, so much, I can't even describe my love to you. But, w-when I went to drink with my friends, it suddenly hit me, I'm not as affectionate as you, I'm not as opened up as you– you nearly know nothing about me while I know everything about you ‘cause I'm so s-cared opening up to you and you'll-..” jihoon stopped talking and pulled away from your neck to take a heavy breath and you saw his tears on his cheeks.

Jihoon was about to hide his face one more time on your neck but you cupped his cheeks a bit firmly so he wouldn't hide anymore. To be honest, it's your first time seeing Jihoon like this, crying.

“hoon, I might be the worst at comforting, but this wouldn't stop me from saying the truth, I really don't give a single shit if you're bad at showing your love, really, just sitting next to me is more than enough, you don't have to be opened up and affectionate! I love you for who you are, Lee Jihoon, not Jihoon or Woozi– no, Lee Jihoon himself, I love every single thing about you, even if I don't know some of them. Also, You don't have to be scared about opening up to me, you need your space, I get it, I wouldn't force you to open up to me– just have your time okay? I'll be with you with every step.” You smiled at the end and made eye contact with his wet eyes.

“I- I don't know what to say, I'm so lucky to have you in my life, seriously,” Jihoon murmured quietly as he nuzzled his face more in your palm. You kissed his cheek slowly then he smiled back at you and continued “Thanks for your kind words, y/n, I really needed this. I'll try to be the best boyfriend you've ever had in your life” Jihoon giggled quietly at his cheesiness and you chuckled then kissed the tip of his nose “You don't need to try, you're already the best boyfriend in the world~"

Belongs to @qmrzi , DO NOT REPOST OR TRANSLATE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND CREDIT.

[formulampreg]

✨Welcome to the Formula mpreg fest✨

Welcome everyone! and welcome all kinds of mpreg!

We know and understand mpreg is not everyone's thing, so please don't hang around if you're sure you don't like and don't be rude to those that enjoy it ✨

That being said...

Welcome everyone ♥️ 

These are some tentative dates that will be put up for voting:-

Prompting: January 6 to 26

Claiming: January 27

Check in: February 21-22

Posting: March 8-9

Reveals: March 10

Links for you ♥️ 

The Collection

The prompt form

The claiming form

Further info is on the collection's dashboard but let me add it down here as well

What's mpreg? Whay counts as mpreg for the fest? Mpreg is a term used to describe situations where a man becomes pregnant, resulting in a Male Pregnancy. The fest welcomes all kinds of mpreg: cismpreg, transmpreg, intersex mpreg, a/b/o dynamics, magical pregnancies, fics that go into the carried gene variant, you could also not offer an explanation and just have the world be like that.

Prompting & Claiming FAQ

Is it necessary to submit a prompt to claim one? Do I have to claim a prompt to submit one? No! You don’t need to submit prompts in order to claim them, and you are not required to claim prompts to “be allowed” submit them.

How are claims done? Once we set up the schedule, you will be able to start claiming by pressing on the “Claim” button next to the prompt you want and then filling out the Claim Form. Please remember that If you don’t fill it, your claim will be deleted.

Can more than one person claim a prompt? No! Only one claim per prompt will be allowed. It will be on the “First come First serve” basis, and any secondary claims will be deleted. Anyone that wants to use any other media that isn't writing doesn'tneed to claim it on AO3, just please fill out the form so I can know <3

How do self-prompts work? Right before the ending of the Prompting Period we will post a bunch of “Self-Prompt” prompts. These are for people that have their own, original ideas they want to write or make art for but that they still want to share inside the Fest.

How are self-prompts claimed? The exact same way! Except more people can claim each one. You’ll be able to claim one and that will count for the three claims per person limit.

Remember friends: you can always drop out if life gets messy or if the inspiration runs away!

And now some RULES

1. All Works must include some form of mpreg - this mean that if your story has past or future "off-screen" mpreg, then it still counts! 2. Gen fic is welcomed! Not everything has to revolve around romantic and/or sexual relationships. 3. Minimum word count is 1k! Chaptered fics are, of course, allowed, you'd just have to make sure that the first chapter (or chapters) you post hits 1k words. 4. All works - especially those included sensitive topics and/or smut HAVE to be properly tagged. We will read over the fics before allowing them into the collections and we will ask you to tag properly if we detect a missing tag. 5. Ships must include at least two (2) paddock individuals. OCs or Non-paddock characters are not allowed for final ships. Y/N fics are not allowed. 6. No plagiarism allowed, no unauthorized reproduction allowed. If someone sees a prompt or a work that you suspect was copied from someone or somewhere else, please let the mods know.

RESTRICTED THEMES The only restricted themes the fest will have will be: Pedophilia, incest and underage.If you want to include an aged up character that had a kid when they were teenagers, you can. But you cannot have underage characters engaging in sexual activities in your fic.

[tubular-wave-jpg]

Non-political Female YouTubers!

Some were deleted and will have ❌️ at the end. I am still leaving their usernames in case you want to search for them on some other platforms (in case they have accounts there).

Brattyxbre - zine making. She teaches how to make zines as well as shows off her own zines. Literally so nice and soothing, I love a lot of her works.

RetroGeek Crafts - toy restoration and customisation. Usually it is MLP toys but sometimes she does different toys like Polly Pocket but it is still amazing.

LeanBeefPatty - workout, she's really funny. My favourite work out of hers so far is probably the 10 min abs one.

Vewn - beautiful and unique animations. You cannot imagine how much I love Vewn. Her animation transports me into another dimension and despite them having dark themes, I find them comforting.

Okana Nanako - life blogger on Japanese. Usually she cooks and does small short sketches. She is obviously on Japanese but has english cc

Morenikejis vlog - Nigerian girl vlogging her life. She describes herself as an introvert and has videos of her going on about her daily life. They are extremely comforting and nice. She puts a lot of love in them.

Real horror - talking about horror and true crime. I have not watched much of her, but I really do recommend her stuff for true crime and mystery lovers ❌️

Rightchoiceshearing - two wives who have a shear company and take videos of their work. Mostly shorts, but they're still enjoyable. I love the stories they share about animals they shear, from llamas to sheep.

Cleancasual - video game icebergs, extremely detailed. I usually dislike icebergs because how some do not provide necessary information regarding information, but she has everything perfectly researched. My favourite so far are her Pokémon icebergs (obviously).

ElectraSoul - law of assumption and manifestation content. Ok this one is not for everyone but I really love her energy <3

Hyler - loa and manifestation again. and again not for everyone, but she has shorter vids compared to electra and I really like her content.

Undefined - tech related content. I think she has revived Frutiger aero from its deep sleep and introduced it to everyone including me. Her videos are also somewhat concentrated on design aspect of technology.

Namiのくらし - Japanese office lady living all alone and vlogging her life. She has a bit of asmr feel to her videos.

Caitlin Koi - Splatoon content, not for everyone but I love Splatoon so I am recommending her for all the ink blob fans here. Or squid I guess. She usually "translates" (interprets inkling gibberish) in official songs and makes music videos. She also streams. I have been watching her since 2019 cause I am a Splatoon freak...

Momo in Amsterdam - Japanese student in Amsterdam vlogging her life. She is very nice and even has videos on english. Usually they are about living in Netherlands and student life, as well as hanging out with friends.

Reignbot - horror and true crime, sometimes internet mysteries. Ok, I actually used to watch her a lot back when she had a regular posting schedule and it was amazing. She refrains from overly edgy stuff and presents topics in an interesting manner.

ASMR PPOMO - asmr channel. Ok not everyone's cup of tea, but she is amazing I think. I used to watch her and sort of dropped after a while, but she did help me deal with some stuff I had going on lol

Hwaufranc - asmr mostly related to journaling. I personally love journaling and her channel was a goldmine for such stuff tbh. I LOVED it.

Atrocity Guide - mysteries, horror, cults, crime you name it, she has it all. She makes extremely detailed videos about the situations and has nice narration style.

MOONLIT † Страшные истории † - this is for all of you who know Russian. Scary story channel where a woman narrates stories. Sometimes she does feature her husband (another horror narrator) during stories as a character, but it is not that often. Stories are usually Russian creepypastas or VK stories or those from Mrakopedia.

hopeful asmr - only recently found her, but she has asmr videos where she either does your makeup or has random language word triggers.

valoulette - another asmr channel (sorry), makes a lot of weird/creepy girl RP videos.

Gamer Grandma - self-explanatory, a Japanese 93-year-old grandma playing video games. She recently played Resident Evil Village! Recommended by a friend.

tibees - math youtuber, also discovered very recently. So far she has an entertaining content related to mathematics, recommend if you are a math freak (in a good way lol no offence)

Asinastra - Ukrainian woman who makes art videos. Usually they are on Russian/Ukrainian. I really loved her content when I was younger and found her art cute and endearing<3 her videos are always cozy and nice. Discovered in 2018 while trying to learn how to make stickers. She does have english cc tho!

maleeka, is my guardian angel - another manifestation related YouTuber, has soothing videos with good narration and visuals. Really nice to those who want to start manifesting. I even have posted her here multiple times!

hobbikats - a woman and her oriental short hair cats having fun! I really LOVE this breed and I love her kittens as well<3

Manifest It, Finesse It - another manifestattion channel, who explains things really well, helped me get through some bullshit I had irl, recommend her 100%

Amy Hewett - she is an animator at CalArts, her famous and my fave animation so far (Jan 2024) is Apocalypse YASSS, which I found out several months ago when she just uploaded it. Her style is reminiscent of Vewn but is still CLEARLY distinct

kylie boggly - so far one of my fave lost media and internet mystery YouTuber. While her schedule is not really consistent, it's usually quality over quantity.

lostpalette - another journaling YouTuber. She has a bunch of cute journaling videos, they are extremely aesthetically pleasing and her videos have asmr quality to them.

iCharly - self-improvement (hypocritical cause I complained about them... but she's different), fashion and vlogging. Has funny skits in her videos, recently discovered and recommended by a friend

현미야 Hyeonmiya - sorry (not sorry) for featuring another cozy journaling youtuber. ❌️

Mother The Mountain Farm - 2 sisters living in Australian rainforest in connection with nature. On the channel they document their travels, life in the nature and sometimes even paint! Recommended by @intothewings

vintweety - vewn's second channel, more concerned on short videos and some personal vlogs, it also has some of her early animations. Recommended by @pootypootytangtang69

ghosttundra - creator of the lacey series, a horror series about a lost video game whose main protagonist is a traumatised girl. Channel features animati0on related content but also some music too! Reccomended by @pootypootytangtang69

Kitten Lady - Recently discovered, she posts videos about taking care of kittens and rescuing them, she has her own foster home for cats and helps them find their forever home. Sometimes she features different animals.

ailaughatmyownjokes - comedic videos and gaming alongside some vlogs, recommended by @emofthewired

Tamara Michael - art youtuber, who mainly does doodles and watercolour. Some of her videos teach doodling and painting techniques for dealing with anxiety and stress, really lovely and cozy. Recommended by @emofthewired

wAmy - want some good advice on studying? She got you. Bunch of amazing productivity hacks on how to study effectively. Despite this she is honest about the studying methods and other related things. Recommended by @emofthewired

Leslie Stroz - watercolour youtuber, who specifically does small canvas paintings. She actually has been uploading for a rather long time (14 years as of time of writing!) and has even videos of her singing, travelling and tips of painting.

fayefilms - another productivity youtuber concentrated on helping students. It goes from getting better grades, effective note making and avoiding burnout. Recommended by @emofthewired

Tiff In Tech - recently discovered tech youtuber, makes videos about learning skills in tech, AI, jobs in tech and more. I haven't seen much of her. Recommended by a friend.

Estefannie - she makes things and machines! She also has some old videos on math, not that active, but it is pretty entertaining to watch her. Recently discovered.

Strawberry Nightmare - horror stories animated. I have been watching her for a long time and LOVED a lot of them. Some used to scare the shit out of them but hey, just says how good her narration and animation is!

Sapphire Sandalo - She used to be a narrator on SNARLED and now has her own animated horror story channel. She tells both the Filipino myths and myths/horror stories from all over the world.

Useless Farm - she is ANYTHING but useless. She has a farm where she has ostriches. "basically a woman making silly videos of her rescue farm animals who all have human names and an ostrich that tries to kill her anytime shes near her lmaoo" as said and recommended by @jaehyurb

小芊枫 XiaoQianFeng - channel dedicated to making beautiful things. From cyberpunk katana and traditional chinese bow down to the entire house. For those of us who love seeing women build and create stuff.

little tiny egg - art and sketchbook tours, as well as art studio vlogs. She is an illustrator who is inspired by naturalist guides so her artwork features a lot of the similar elements. Usually uses gouache and other traditional painting toold. She also had a website under the same name.

Kanae Nozawa - extremely talented erhu player. Covers music from video games and anime as well as makes her own original compositions! She also has concert and gig videos on her channel. My favourite cover of hers is Zelda TotK cover and her original melody Little Happiness!

Simone Giertz - a mechanical engineer who builds random stuff. She even spent 3 years designing a compact coat hanger for her house and before she used to make extremely short videos showcasing her machines! Recommended by @acidbathcat

Dr. Becky - An astrophysicist with tons of videos about space. As a sort of space nerd myself, I really appreciated this recommendation by @acidbathcat

Up and Atom - coincidentally once @acidbathcat recommended her to me, I get her in my YouTube feed! So basically she makes videos explaining things regarding physics, mathematics, astronomy and paradoxes. This one is for all the other science nerds.

Angela Collier - woman explaining physics and sometimes talking about her experience in the field. So far, my fav video has to be her talking about Pokémon and physics of their evolution. Again, recommended by @acidbathcat

tarantula kat - her channel is about tarantulas and taking care of them. If there are any tarantula enthusiasts or owners here, thank @acidbathcat as it was recommended by her.

SoupySoup - want some horror in your life? Well, Soupy does exactly this by making videos about random internet horror, as well as real one. She even has tumblr @/soupysoupx, so check it out if you want.

D i n L i f e - I don't even know how I forgot her! She makes adorable crafts from cotton dolls down to notebooks. Her channel is sort of about zero waste and making things out of what you have to prevent any waste. She has nice atmosphere and sometimes does vlogs.

Bear Soongnyoong - ASMRtist from Korea who features her cats in the videos. Uploads are not as frequent as before due to her having to undergo a surgery. Still, extremely adorable and nice atmosphere especially in that video where she treats her cat actress for a spa lol

HannahTheHorrible - horror Youtuber talking about unsolved mysteries, internet criminals and horror as well as makes icebergs relating to the subject. Sometimes she explores scary side of tiktok.

It's Time to Travel/ 旅する時間 - woman travelling around Japan, she has no narration in most videos but has English subtitles! She even made videos inside Japan's women only hotels!

EATRIP* Pyon Chan - another Japanese woman travelling, but this time she does so around the world too! She has narration but also subtitles on her videos and a wonderful atmosphere. Recently (Apr. 2024) she even visited Iceland and England!

5minBS -五分钟嗑研馆 - Chinese woman making short videos of moments from lesbian, femslash and GL movies from all over the world and different time periods (1950s to now!). Usually has subtitles on both Chinese and English.

Rumbo Mercy - South African artist talking all about being an artist, giving out tips to other artists, vlogging and maybe some reviews of different media.

Movie Monarch - she does short movie reviews. Sadly, she hasn't been posting in a while. Found her through Song of the Sea review she did.

Tokyo Simple Eco Life - Japanese woman talking about minimalism, decluttering and sustainable life. If you are interested in such, her channel is perfect for this. Her videos have subtitles on English and Japanese. Recommended by a friend. ❌️

The Internet Investigator - horror, mystery, internet mysteries and disturbing stories. All on her channel. I usually watch her videos on internet weirdness and tragedies.

Sinister - She has horror stories on her channel. Fully on Russian and I do not think she has any subtitles. I used to watch her before.

Tamakid - Her name is Evelyn and she has a bunch of cute videos relating to fashion, hauls and other random things. I really love the retro aesthetic she goes for!

Lydia Loves Timelines - videos about Family Guy, South Park, American Dad and other animated shows.

Gutsick Gibbon - specialises in human evolution and debunking creationism.

GEO GIRL - geoscience, extinct animals and history of the earth. She makes videos about tons of other subjects too like geobiology and even touches upon environmental themes.

[broomsick]

any tips for starting out when working with deities?

Hi, friend! Thank you for the ask, and sorry for the late reply. I've posted tips for beginners many times in the past, most of which you can find via links in this post. But now, since we're talking about working with deities more specifically, I'll list a few quick tips in a point form!

The golden rule to deity work, in my opinion, is respect. Everyone interacts with their deities with varying amounts of familiarity, but one quality always remains no matter the worshipper, and that is respect. But that goes without saying, right? 'Treat others how you want to be treated' makes no exceptions, even with non-human entities.

To me, the first step to respecting a deity is acknowledging their depth and multi-faceted nature. Mythological sources may describe this or that deity as the 'God of this or that', but in the context of religion, they are much more. The believer views the God as more than a mythological figure, but as a complex existing being.

For this reason, another tip I'll give is to get to know them. Learn as much as you can about them, and never stop learning. Not only about the deity/deities themselves, but also (and I think it's crucial not to neglect this!) about the cultural context in which they were first worshipped. I can't stress enough how big of a difference this makes when it comes to understanding a God. If you're interested, I've linked here a few of my favorite sources pertaining to nordic cultures, religions and history!

To me, offerings are not transactional. That is just my own belief, of course, but I don't adhere to the idea that 'one must give to the Gods in order to earn blessings and vice versa'. Paganism is not a trade market, but rather a way to experience spirituality. I believe in making offerings when you can, if you can, as a gesture of gratitude and not as a way to somehow 'earn blessings'. As a pagan, you do not "owe" anything to the Gods they do not "owe" you anything either.

Do not be afraid to simply spend time with them. While we may not always feel their presence, you can have faith in the fact that they watch over you. And for this reason, it's perfectly okay for you to sit down at your altar, or in the outdoors, to simply talk to them, symbolically sharing a drink/meal, telling them of your troubles or of how they inspire you. Developing this habit can help make you feel connected to a deity, even on a tight schedule, or during times when you feel disconnected from your spirituality.

In the same vein, it can be fulfilling and fun for you to dedicate certain activities to a deity of your choice! For example, practicing your instrument in honor of Bragi, or hiking in honor of Jörð, etc... What's more, whenever you dedicate an activity to a deity, you can invite them to partake in it, as I've described in this previous post!

Start to notice what things in your life reminds you of them. Maybe a certain smell? Or a song? What animals, meals, stories of else bring this deity to mind? Either because of the similar feeling they instill in you, or because you think this or that deity might enjoy them.

As a beginner, you needn't feel bad about how many deities you work with, or which deities you reach out to (so long as they are not part of a closed practice). I've always thought it weird how in some books centered around witchcraft, they'll rank deities in order of 'how experienced you need to be to reach out to them'. If you want my own honest opinion, anyone is free to reach out to any deity. No God is more difficult to work with than others. It all comes down to the individual, their values and the way they choose to work with the deity in question. I'm also not a big fan of such sources encouraging calling out to a deity during a ritual/spell like they're a tool for a magical working, if the practionner doesn't plan to really get to know them. But that's a topic for another day.

It can be greatly fulfilling as well to simply ponder a deity from time to time. What do they teach you? What can you learn from their example? What do they represent in your life? I listed in this post a few ideas of questions to ask yourself in order to better understand a deity and their presence in your life.

Take it step by step, day by day, and don't feel bad if you think you've made a mistake. We are all constantly learning. The Gods know we are human, and they reflect us in that way: they themselves have their strengths and weaknesses.

I hope this helps, but please do keep in mind that these are all my personal views on paganism, and that not every practionner will resonate with them. In any case, don't hesitate to ask if you have any other question(s) regarding practice or belief in the nordic path. Have a good day, my friend.

[melanieph321]

Ruben Dias x Reader - Risk It All Part 2/6

The way I described this outfit 🤣. Hahaha I really didn't know how else to describe it 😅

Read to find out!

Reader gets pregnant by Ruben. Although the two are not together Ruben promises to support her through the pregnancy, eventually letting reader stay with him until the child is born.  (This fic includes alot of angst and serious topics)

Enjoy!

You were ready to quit school too, but Lina convinced you that your belly wouldn't show for at least three more months. The plan was to still attened classes, eventually blaming the changes in your body on a poor diet. You wouldn't be stripped of your dancing scholarship for that, at least not right away. Nevertheless, you didn't really feel like dancing anymore, or attend classes for that matter. But right now going to school was the only thing that felt normal about your life.

"Y/N."

"Ruben?"

You were on your way, leaving campus, when suddenly you bumped into him.

"What are you doing here?"

He knew your schedule, at least which time your classes ended.

"I think we need to talk."

He came disguised, wearing a plumbers jacket and construction boots. A working man's outfit. People on the streets were passing him by, only throwing second glances at his black Mercedes that stood parked along the sidewalk.

"Ruben, I can't...."

Lina wouldn't like this. Not at all.

"Please." He instead, nodding his head towards his car. You hesitated at first, but let him hold the door open for you as you slipped into the passenger seat.

"Where are you taking me?"

He was driving fast, maneuvering past cars that were slowing you down.

"Ruben?"

Eventually he stopped, the car having pulled up to a...

"Family Health Clinic?" You read it off a large sign. "Ruben are you serious right now?"

He had been quiet up until now, turning to you with a serious look on his face. "I wanna see you take the test."

"Wow." You exclaimed. "So you don't believe me, you don't think I'm pregnant?"

"No."

"Why would I lie?"

"I dunno." He shrugged. "Some women lie."

It was laughable, disgustingly laughable. "Ruben, you're the one who came on to me, coming to the café every day, asking me to go out with you. I make the mistake of letting you fuck me without a condom and now I'm the liar. How is that anyway near fair?"

"Y/N, you're pregnant, telling me I'm the baby's father, with no proof. What am I suppose to think?"

"You know what, fine." You fumbled with the door, desperate to get out of his car. You almost had it when...

"Wait."

Goosebumps covered your forearms as Ruben grabbed a hold of your wrist, preventing you from leaving.

"Wait, there's people in there." He said, eyes trying to see through the cars tinted windows.

"So?" You tugged his hand away. "There's people everywhere Ruben, so what?"

"Exactly." He said. "I...I mean we, can't be seen going in there....together. This has to be done in private."

You pinched the bridge of your nose, irritated. "Ruben, if it's so difficult for you I'll just go in there by myself."

"No."

His hand returned to touch you, this time your knee.

"Ruben?"

He sighed. "If the baby is mine, then...."

"Yes?"

He looked to you, eyes sincere. "Then I have to be accountable. I want to be accountable."

Your heart reacted by making an attempt to leap out of your chest. "I..." What could you possibly say in that moment? You had pre-made the assumption that Ruben would leave you, wanting nothing to do with you or the baby. Lina even advised you to make it easy for him, easy for Ruben to walk out of your life. However, he wasn't that kind of man.

"I'll take you home." He muttured. "There's tests that they can send us. Then we'll know for sure."

He sounded unhappy. Why did you want him to be happy? Maybe because you were happy, happy that Ruben was the father and not some random guy you met on a drunk night out. Believe it or not, at some point the thought of fucking Ruben in the back of his car sounded like a good idea to you.

It still did.

[arrowfleur]

“What was that for?”

Some more thoughts on Darlin’s love languages and Sam’s HBS. Part 2 headcanons yay!

@darlin-collins <3

Darlin feels like they are never close enough to Sam, they will be laid directly on top of him and still trying to figure out ways to get closer

Sam, although quite outwardly stoic, does not only use his ‘pretty prose’ on Darlin’ (although they get the most and the best ones). Since his turning he is so aware of how short life can be and when he truly admires something about a person he’ll let them know.

This is usually with close pack/clan and also always when he’s just on his own with the person he’s talking too. But, if the timings right, he lets out these poetic observations, usually leaving the other person speechless before he quickly changes the topic. Not always realising the (positive) weight of his compliments.

On multiple occasions Sam has used words to describe Darlin that they didn’t know. Not because they’re dumb but because some of his vocabulary is rather niche. And upon looking it up they almost always perfectly describe Darlin’ in whatever situation he was talking about.

Although not the best at giving compliments, Darlin’ does tell Sam that he’s beautiful, gorgeous etc depending on the vibe he’s giving at the time and they’re the first person to ever call him anything other than handsome or hot.

‘You’re so pretty’

‘Pretty?!?’

‘Mhmm’

‘Darlin’ I ain’t-‘

‘Especially right now, with your hair like that’

‘Alright…. Well, thank you.’

I’ve mentioned before in a head canon post that they like it when Sam runs a finger up and down the bridge of their nose. Darlin’ will also full on nuzzle into Sam when cuddling/hugging. Especially into his collarbone/neck

Although comfortable with (platonic) touch from people they know, Darlin doesn’t like it unexpectedly, nor will they usually initiate it.

Unless someone they love is upset, then they’ll be getting a hug or an arm wrapped around them without any hesitation (if that’s what they like ofc)

Sam feels like he’ll never be able to fully voice how much Darlin’ means to him, Darlin’s heart practically skips a beat when he simply calls them beautiful. (Or when he makes a joke or complains or laughs or….)

When comforting Darlin’ about something, Sam often adresses problems/reasons for their behaviour/feelings that Darlin’ hadn’t realised themselves yet. He is so careful with his wording and extremely observant of them.

Darlin’ although previously independent to a fault, realised that the best comfort they could give Sam was to let him help them. On multiple occasions Darlin’ has let him heal paper-cuts and small bruises (which is a ridiculous waste of magic in their opinion) because otherwise he’s not going to stop thinking about it.

Sam knows all of Darlin’s tells by their body language and Darlin’ know Sam’s by his tone and the amount he’s speaking for example: if he says he’s ‘fine’ then he’s not but if he says he’s ‘alright’ then he probably is

The same way Sam felt bad about not being able to give Darlin every physical action that they wanted Darlin feels bad that they can’t verbalise their feelings for him correctly.

Sam found a scrunched up love letter from Darlin’ and keeps it in his wallet. They’d wanted to write down their feelings so they wouldn’t mess it up when sharing them with him but ultimately hated the end result.

They do however leave little notes for him sometimes while he’s sleeping , since they tend to work on different schedules, that Sam also dearly treasures and keeps in a shoe box.

Sam is really good at writing professional emails and has on multiple occasions written some for Angel and Babe when they’ve had problems with their bosses

The perfect mix of polite, professional and passive aggressive

Another way Darlin’ helps Sam is by reminding him of his talents/abilities and how he uses them for so much good, they will not let that man be humble. His #1 cheerleader FR.

Even with all of this in mind both of their most comfortable ways of communicating their love is through acts of service. That way they get to keep up their grumpy outward personas that the pack/clan have long since learned to see right through.

[ineffable-endearments]

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Wow. There is...there is so much here.

First, a caution about the book itself: there is significant sexually violent narration, and lots of torture as well. This post is going to discuss these topics only in general terms - I don't think I need to go into detail to discuss what they mean for the story - but take care of yourself when you're deciding whether to read it. If you have any questions, always feel free to send an ask or message.

I am going to need to make multiple posts about this book. For this first one, I'll focus on summarizing the book and its main themes, especially the ones that I think relate to Good Omens. As always, I can't summarize it in a way that will give you a better understanding than simply reading the book, but summarizing it will help me put my own thoughts together and hopefully help you follow along as I try to articulate them.

Because it's impossible to miss, I think it is best to confront this issue at the outset: there is a lot of especially blatant misogyny on Winston's part in Nineteen Eighty-Four. This is not meant to be a good or sympathetic thing. It is a demonstration of how messed up he is, and how messed up everyone in that society is.

The Society

The plot of Nineteen Eighty-Four is tied up very much in the story's world. The characters are at the mercy of their society in this story, much more than in most. It will make sense to describe the world first. Indeed, a massive portion of the book is just information about Oceania itself.

In the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the entire planet is supposedly ruled by three perpetually warring authoritarian states: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, conglomerations of Earth's former independent nations. Through the novel, it is revealed that all three states have governments that are structured in largely the same way with approximately the same quality of life for their people, and the perpetual war is itself a way of controlling each population.

Technically, we don't know for sure that the war is really happening. In fact, we don't know that anything is true, because almost all the information the characters have comes from the Party, the government of Oceania, and the Party's operations revolve around reality control. The Party's "leader" is an enigmatic figure referred to only as Big Brother, who, of course, is watching.

Our protagonist, Winston, lives in Oceania. There are Inner Party members, who are the highest-ranking, with the highest responsibility and the highest quality of life. There are Outer Party members, who work for the Party, are heavily surveilled, and whose daily needs are all provided for with low-quality supplies; they have a highly regimented daily schedule. Inner and Outer Party members have telescreens, which broadcast Party propaganda but also have cameras to monitor all Party members. It is incredibly difficult to get away from telescreens, since there's at least one in every home and they're everywhere in public. Altogether, the telescreens form a panopticon that is hard to evade.

Then there are the proles, a shortened term for proletarians, who are the lower classes of Oceania and make up the majority of the population. The proles live in poor conditions and are constantly manipulated by State-generated propaganda. However, they have more freedom than Party members, in the sense that they are also largely ignored by the Party because they have no real power and are assumed to be incapable of engaging in revolutionary behavior. For this reason, proles get to have human relationships and enjoy pleasures, wherever they can find pleasures, in ways that Party members are not allowed. In reality, the Party's perpetual war is a way of grinding through resources in order to keep people, especially the proles, buried under work without improving their quality of life. This is because when people have free time, they can use it to learn and organize, and they might become a threat to the Party.

Winston is one of the Outer Party members. He works in the government department that rewrites history. See, every time a fact or anecdote in the media is inconvenient for the Party, the Party goes back and destroys all old copies of newspapers and books, all old video content, all paperwork, any scrap of evidence that anything was different. Newspapers are routinely reprinted with "updated" (falsified) information. For example, Oceania is always either at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia, and as far as the Party is concerned, this has never changed. Every single time Oceania's alliance changes, the newspapers are updated so that the current alignment has always been true. Every time someone becomes a disgrace to the Party, their previous deeds are rewritten.

On the surface, this sounds difficult to implement, but over the story, one realizes the vast majority of the Party's operations revolve purely around the constant reshaping of history, control of people's memories, and control of people's emotions for the purpose of maintaining power eternally. Art produced by human beings is actively discouraged; instead, the Party mass-produces art, including novels, using machines, to control what kinds of ideas people are consuming.

The Party is essentially a machine that controls reality, or at least, what the people inside it consider to be reality. There are people who specialize in managing the thoughts of the public: the Thought Police. While they may technically not be able to literally see inside one's mind, they watch everyone carefully and are excellent at noticing everything: every facial expression, every eyebrow twitch, and every breath.

The Party rules through a series of four "ministries." These are the Ministry of Truth (like an educational ministry, responsible for producing propaganda), the Ministry of Peace (like a military, responsible for warfare), the Ministry of Love (like the correctional system, responsible for jailing and torturing dissidents), and the Ministry of Plenty (like the treasury, responsible for rationing).

When it suits the Party, anyone can be "vaporized." This means they are secretly murdered and all evidence of them - any existing record whatsoever, any news story, any list or database entry - is erased.

The Party has a new language they're developing as a method of thought control called Newspeak. The purpose of Newspeak is to make it impossible to articulate certain kinds of thoughts. The following is a character named Syme describing Newspeak:

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. ... In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

It's worth noting that Syme is later vaporized, presumably just for being too insightful out loud about Newspeak. In Newspeak, people who have been vaporized, if they must ever be referred to at all, are called "unpersons." In this way, no one has ever been killed by the Party, because those people have never existed in the first place.

There's a key Newspeak word that appears over and over: doublethink. It's the ability to believe two contradictory things simultaneously, and unlike the way we usually experience cognitive dissonance, there is no urge or attempt to reconcile what is really true. With doublethink, the existence of two contradictory ideas at once is itself exploited to help Party members serve the Party.

The Party (and its equivalents in Eurasia and Eastasia) uses perpetual war to control the population by squandering the resources produced by human labor and keep people in a perpetual combination of patriotic fervor and fear. The war is infinite and can never be won; the whole purpose of the war is to be at war.

Socially, the Party has destroyed family life. Winston was married years ago. He and his wife are so estranged that he is no longer sure if she is alive. They did not have a good relationship. The Party does not want close emotional relationships between its members, so while they are strict about who is allowed to marry (not for love, strictly for procreation), they don't care if people continue to live together. However, the Party does not want people forming new relationships, so divorce and extramarital sex are also illegal. The Party has also turned children against their parents by encouraging children to report their parents' potential thoughtcrimes. All in all, family members are generally afraid of each other.

We see, over and over again, how the Party does its best to frame human beings as both inherently untrustworthy and as objects to be used. Pitting people from individual family members to entire classes, sexes, and races against each other is one of the Party's many techniques for controlling people, and it has seeped into Winston's everyday thought processes. Only actual experiences with other human beings even begin to break these ideas down.

Eventually, it becomes apparent that the Party's motivation is immortality through the denial of the individual. Human beings are denied their own personal thoughts, feelings, and bodies. Only their ability to be assimilated into the Party is permitted. Even thoughts and feelings about the greater good are unacceptable because these lead to regime changes and interfere with the raw totalitarian power of the Party. Every Party member in Oceania is meant to strive exclusively for the continued power of the Party. Dissidents are denied even the ability to be martyrs, because the Party does not kill people while they carry hatred for Big Brother; they simply change their thoughts until they are good Party members again, and then kill them later, when they are no longer dissidents and have no legacy of resistance to leave behind.

Winston's Plot

Winston has a secret desire to be free of the Party. He does get swept up in the Party's fervor when he's in the middle of it, but he also longs for the extremely basic pleasures and freedoms that have become taboo. For example, Winston secretly buys an old pen and journal to write in - a completely forbidden act that he has to conceal from the telescreen in his own apartment. He finds himself almost unconsciously writing things like "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" in that journal.

There is an Inner Party member named O'Brien who Winston admires greatly from a distance despite knowing only his appearance: "intelligent" with a "prizefighter's physique." Winston perceives that he and O'Brien "understand" each other somehow, and even believes O'Brien has spoken to him in a dream, saying they "shall meet where there is no darkness." Eventually, Winston imagines he is addressing his journal to the mysterious O'Brien, believing him to be an ally.

Winston has an acquaintance at work named Syme. Syme is very passionate about revising the Newspeak dictionary. However, he is a little too openly insightful about the true purpose of Newspeak for his own good. Even though Syme does not seem to have any intention of betraying the Party and in fact is extremely taken with Newspeak, Winston is convinced he will be vaporized, and sure enough, he is.

There is a woman Winston thinks he hates because she looks like the perfect Party member who would turn him in to the Thought Police. Actually, the narration outright states that he doesn't like women entirely, because he thinks they're too committed to the Party and enjoy betraying men. However, it turns out that this woman observes Winston by the shop where he bought his illegal notebook. By simply observing Winston in that shop, the Party would suspect he's committing thoughtcrimes, and Winston panics. However, the woman later bumps into Winston at work and passes him a note that says, "I love you." Winston then instantly decides he wants to be with her; the idea of not being with her never even occurs to him.

The woman's name is Julia. It turns out Julia is putting on an incredibly convincing act, but she hates the Party, too. Winston is technically married, so he can't legally marry Julia, and any kind of non-procreative sex is illegal anyway, so their relationship is entirely forbidden.

Winston and Julia meet up and have sex in secret. It's worth noting that during their first meeting, they enjoy listening to a thrush singing. During this first meeting, they go out to the countryside, where there are fewer telescreens and microphones; Winston comments that it's like the "Golden Country," his symbolic dream-place where people are free.

A man named Mr. Charrington owns the shop where Winston had bought his notebook, and he also owns a room for rent above the shop. It's an old-fashioned prole room without telescreens and with a great number of old-fashioned fixtures. Winston and Julia rent it to get away from Party life for a few hours every now and then. When they first start staying in the room, Julia observes a rat and throws her shoe at it. Winston is utterly terrified, showing that he has a serious phobia of rats; it is vaguely implied that he had a traumatic moment related to them as a child. Julia takes the rat in stride; they are everywhere. She promises to block up the hole so the rat does not return.

Julia and Winston spend time in their prole room knowing for sure that it will eventually lead to their capture, torture, and death, but they decide it will be worth it. Winston voices some interest in trying to work against the Party; Julia does not believe this is possible whatsoever, and is not interested in trying. She believes people are better off putting on a convincing act and getting away with as much as they can for as long as they can.

Meanwhile, during the workday, O'Brien speaks to Winston. He mentions Syme without using his name, which is incredibly unusual, since people who are vaporized are never ever acknowledged again; all their work is erased from history. But O'Brien mentions Syme's work on the Newspeak dictionary and gives Winston his home address so that Winston can borrow the dictionary. Party members also don't often give each other their addresses. Because of these unusual cues, Winston infers that O'Brien is inviting him over to conspire against the Party.

While Winston and Julia meet up and have sex, they also indulge in other pleasures of the world, like real coffee and chocolate, and proles singing outside their window, and art that hasn't been generated by the Party. Observing the proles and their richer emotional lives, Winston and Julia decide they are going to worry only about their feelings. The Party can coerce them to do anything, including to confess, but as long as the Party can't make them stop loving each other, they agree, they will never have betrayed each other. Julia says that for all the things the Party can do, they can't get inside their heads.

So seized are Winston and Julia by their conviction that they decide to go visit O'Brien together and confess to wanting to destroy the Party. O'Brien tells them they may join the Brotherhood, a mysterious group of dissidents working to bring down Big Brother, but they must be willing to sacrifice everything; they must be willing to not only suffer and die, but to murder civilians, to spread disease, to sow discord, to do anything the Brotherhood asks of them. They even, O'Brien says, must be willing to "separate and never see one another again." This is the only thing Julia and Winston are unwilling to agree to. O'Brien accepts them anyway and, many days later, gives Winston a book through a secret messenger.

This book contains the writings of Goldstein, the supposed leader of the Brotherhood, outlining the Party's core philosophy. Winston reads this to Julia, who is hinted to not be all that interested, but she does listen a little.

While they look out the window and contemplate that the proles are alive and the Party members are already dead, Winston and Julia are captured. It turns out Mr. Charrington was a member of the Thought Police and the room had surveillance in it. Winston and Julia are separated and dragged to the Ministry of Love.

While at the Ministry of Love, Winston spends a lot of time waiting, watching other prisoners pass through. Some of them are proles, and some of them are people he knows. The waiting room is enormous and brightly lit with telescreens on all walls. There are essentially no shadows.

Another familiar face appears at the Ministry of Love. It's O'Brien. Winston first thinks O'Brien has been captured, but it soon becomes apparent that O'Brien was masterminding this whole operation and is in charge of Winston's torture. They have, indeed, met "where there is no darkness" - because of all the telescreens and artificial lighting. O'Brien and other Party members even wrote Goldstein's book as yet another propaganda piece. O'Brien states the description of the Party in the book is true, although the book's implication that the Party can be defeated through a prole uprising is false because a prole uprising will never happen. (Note that Winston did not actually read the part of the book where "Goldstein" outlined how the Party should be defeated.)

Winston is tortured for an undetermined amount of time. He discovers that he is a prisoner of his body; his torturers can get him to say pretty much anything through punishment and reward. In fact, they can force him to feel certain ways, too. O'Brien and the Party aren't only trying to get Winston to give away information; they want him to really internalize sincere belief in the Party doctrine, like doublethink, symbolized by the concept that 2+2 equals 5.

Winston starts out promising to himself there are certain things he will never agree to or say out loud, but torture proves an effective method at getting him to say whatever O'Brien wants. Winston vows that he will recite the Party lines, but will not actually believe them. If he lies to get the torture to stop but still retains his ability to reason for himself, Winston believes, then he can beat the Party.

However, O'Brien and the torturers are slowly able to break that down, too, as they are good at reading Winston's emotions, and they torture him every time he recites their desired lines without the sincere belief they're looking for. Winston is highly resistant to the 2+2=5 idea, but as he is tortured over and over, he does come to believe that because the Party can define his reality through brute force, then 2+2=5 could very well be true. They can force it to be true. He has no choice but to believe it, because only believing it might possibly end his torture, and the torture must end.

In other words, Winston and Julia were wrong. The Party can, in fact, get inside your head.

When Winston starts to believe 2+2=5, O'Brien does indeed start to improve his treatment of Winston, providing him with food and comfort, allowing Winston to become much healthier over time. This bonds Winston to O'Brien and makes him feel attached. However, Winston has not forgotten Julia, and in an unguarded moment, he cries out for her. This prompts O'Brien to ask Winston his feelings, again, about Big Brother. Winston states that he hates Big Brother.

It is at this moment when O'Brien sends Winston to the notorious Room 101.

In Room 101, prisoners face their worst fears - which, of course, the Party knows, because they know everything about everyone. Winston, who we know has a phobia of rats, is shown a pair of cages with starving rats in them. He is told that the rats are, as everyone in this world knows, flesh-eaters, despite being rodents. Winston is restrained, his head held in place, and O'Brien informs him that the rats will be released to eat his face.

Winston realizes what O'Brien wants to hear: he realizes his torturers will probably not allow the rats to eat him if he is willing to inflict the torture on Julia instead. They want Winston's betrayal of Julia to be complete. They want him to stop caring for her, the one thing he and Julia had once agreed they would never, ever do. And Winston has reached his limit: he cannot tolerate the idea of being eaten alive specifically by rats. So Winston says, "Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia!"

And then he is finally let go.

We continue with Winston once again living on the outside. He has seen and spoken to Julia, who was also let go. But the bond between them is completely broken. Julia admits she also betrayed Winston when she was faced with Room 101.

"Sometimes," she said, "they threaten you with something---something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself." "All you care about is yourself," he echoed. "And after that, you don't feel the same toward the other person any longer." "No," he said, "you don't feel the same."

In other words, by demonstrating to Winston and Julia that they ultimately cannot escape their own self-interest, O'Brien has caused them to reject each other.

At the tail end of the book, Winston is sitting in his usual spot at a place called the Chestnut Tree Café, pondering a happy moment from his childhood before pushing the memory away, believing it to be a false memory. When an enormous military victory is announced on the telescreen, Winston realizes that he finally, truly loves Big Brother.

Interpretation of the End

Although the events at the end of the book are pretty straightforwardly described, I found them slightly confusing on an emotional level. Winston and Julia aren't really angry at each other for their betrayals, it doesn't seem - in fact, they admit to each other that's what happened, and they agree on their mutual experience. But they don't love each other anymore, and Winston loves Big Brother instead.

So, here is my initial thought on what the characters went through:

For people to love each other, both need a sense of individuality. There needs to be a connection, but there also needs to be a specific You and a Somebody to love, to connect to.

Through torture, O'Brien has effectively torn away Winston's individual sense of self. I know that's a weird thing to suggest when the book repeats "all you care about is yourself" multiple times, but I think that by so completely obliterating Winston's ability to make anything resembling his own decision, O'Brien has essentially made "Big Brother" and "Winston ('yourself')" the same person. Big Brother's wishes are Winston's wishes. Winston has been assimilated into Big Brother. Winston and Julia's conversation at the end describes what it feels like to be liquidated as a person and assimilated into a collective.

Winston now knows that the one core impulse he can never escape is self-preservation, and the only one who can provide that, with infinite military might and an infinitely-deep torture repertoire, is Big Brother. Julia represents the ideal that caused Winston to estrange himself from the safety of embracing and trusting Big Brother. And because Big Brother is both eternal and almighty, giver of both life and death, he is the only one it is safe to trust.

By betraying Julia, Winston discovered that his own will inherently had limits; because he would always, eventually, revert to self-preservation, his will and therefore his identity became synonymous with the force that decided whether to preserve him. That's why the end of the novel involves Winston imagining that he has finally been shot in the head and killed; he has experienced the death of his sense of self. And this is exactly how "Goldstein's" book indicated the Party's operations work: eliminate individuals and assimilate them into a collective to achieve immortality.

Character and Faction Parallels Between Nineteen Eighty-Four and Good Omens

The Party and Heaven and Hell

They're both the one overarching power over everyone's existence. The inner workings of it are mysterious to the characters and even moreso to the audience. The main characters are agents working for these entities, and they are controlled through surveillance, punishment, and reward.

Although Heaven and Hell give the impression of being two large overarching powers, it seems apparent to me that the whole thing is really just one system that has intentionally split its workforce into factions. Ultimately I think we will see in the most explicit way possible that whoever is actively calling the shots in Heaven is also actively in charge of Hell.

Winston and Julia, Aziraphale and Crowley

Both pairs are agents who are in love with each other even though they're not supposed to be, who enjoy Earthly pleasures and experience the joys of humanity before getting arrested and dragged away by their authoritarian "employers."

It's tempting to try and figure out which character mirrors which - Aziraphale mirroring Winston, Crowley mirroring Julia? - but I think, sort of like with Nina and Maggie, the reflections work in every direction. The characters aren't literal stand-ins for each other, but they are exploring similar themes, including what happens to people when a society forbids intimacy.

O'Brien and the Metatron

"More even than of strength, he gave an impression of confidence and of an understanding tinged by irony." This line describes O'Brien from Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it sounds quite a lot like the Metatron's manner as he enters Aziraphale's bookshop. Confidence and an understanding tinged by irony indeed.

O'Brien seems to appeal to Winston's ideal in authority figures, appealing both intelligent and physically strong. The Metatron seems to have tailored himself to appeal to Aziraphale's ideal of an authority figure: someone who is calm and in control, but also has an exceptionally gentle manner (and this isn't really true of the Metatron, but he can make it look like it is).

There are more similarities. Winston thinks and hopes O'Brien will be a helpful figure, and O'Brien convinces Winston he's a helpful figure, but in the end, O'Brien is the mastermind behind Winston's capture and torture. Additionally, Winston assumes, during his torture, that the Party's drive for power is for the Greater Good. But O'Brien tells him this is stupid, and the Party's drive for power is just for the pure sake of having power, because that's the only thing that will guarantee the Party's immortality.

This reminds me a little bit of the Metatron telling Aziraphale the point of the war is to win it, not to avoid it. It also hits me as a potential motivation for Heaven - like, why do they do what they do instead of doing something else, since the universe seems perfectly capable of running itself? "Power" or "immortality" could be a reason, and it would also be a reason that would resonate with very human themes, since power and (symbolic) immortality are among the motivations that can drive real-life authoritarians.

The Proles and Humanity

The common people. The populations who are considered by the main characters' societies to be "beneath" them, but who the main characters become fascinated by, and whose lifestyles the main characters come to prefer.

Both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Good Omens contain in their narratives the notion that the prole or human way of life is where true meaning can be experienced. Winston and Julia go as far as to announce that proles are alive and Party members are dead. And at the end of Good Omens Season 1, Aziraphale outright tells Adam that being "human incarnate" is better than being Heaven or Hell incarnate.

This mirror is probably the one that brings up the richest speculation possibilities for me. I won't go in-depth here, but I see in both stories the main characters developing this love for the proles and humans while continuing to separate from them - even trying to turn around and exploit the very power structures that have oppressed them in an effort to fight against the oppression.

It's worth noting that in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Charrington, the man who Winston and Julia rented their secret love nest from, and whom they thought was a prole, was actually a member of the Thought Police who helped capture them, whereas in Good Omens, so far, the humans have just been humans, and while Adam Young started out as an incredibly powerful non-human, he later chose to be a human and used his power to reject authoritarianism.

The Themes

Authoritarianism and Power

Obviously, the whole overarching cautionary tale in Nineteen Eighty-Four is about authoritarianism and the insidious ways it affects populations. The Party's power is almost as absolute as it can possibly be. Big Brother really is almost always watching; there is almost always a telescreen somewhere nearby. Even when there isn't a telescreen, there are microphones. And unorthodox ideas and behavior are punished with annihilation - not just death, but the total annihilation of the self.

Doesn't this sound like a version of Heaven and Hell in Good Omens?

At first glance, it appears Oceania's Party is more aggressive about surveilling its Party members than Heaven and Hell are about surveilling Aziraphale and Crowley. One has to wonder if perhaps Heaven and Hell are just as aggressive with surveillance in the Upstairs and Downstairs themselves, but are less aggressive or maybe even less capable on Earth, just like the Party's surveillance is less in the countryside (although it is still a significant threat there).

But still, we see Michael pull out those photos of Crowley and Aziraphale through the ages, and we hear the Metatron refer to reviewing Aziraphale's "exploits," and we see Hell drag Crowley down in 1827, and we see both Crowley and Aziraphale anxiously glancing around throughout history with the assumption that someone might be listening, and we see how ready Heaven is to erase Gabriel's memories (his identity! his entire self!) from existence. We also watch Heaven and Hell try to make Aziraphale and Crowley disappear in a gout of hellfire and a tub of holy water after realizing that Aziraphale and Crowley do represent a threat to the current celestial order. Heaven and Hell's Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque insidious threat is clearly established in both seasons.

Vaporizing Dissidents

In fact, Heaven and Hell's arrest of Aziraphale and Crowley reminds me a bit of Winston and Julia's arrest, in the sense that the protagonists knew what was probably coming but not exactly when. And Heaven's attempted execution of Aziraphale in particular reminds me very much of the Party choosing to vaporize a dissident. They were going to try to disappear him. No angel or demon other than the ones who were involved would have known what happened to him. Hell's attempted execution of Crowley, meanwhile, reminds me of the Party's public executions of war prisoners.

Finally, the Party will attempt to erase people from existence by killing them and then erasing all records related to them, down to the very last detail. Meanwhile, the Archangel Michael threatens Aziraphale with being literally written out of existence in the Book of Life. There's lots of speculation about how possible this is. I wonder if maybe, it's a flawed process. Maybe erasing someone from the Book of Life can cut a hole shaped like them in the universe - but maybe it isn't that simple, and they don't actually get taken from anyone else's memories. Maybe, as people in Oceania haven't quite lost the ability to remember their dead, Heaven cannot actually erase the fact of anyone.

Social Disconnection

I see a lot of complaints online about the characters of Nineteen Eighty-Four being impossible to like. What tends to make characters likable? Their behaviors toward others, especially humor, compassion, individual quirks, and affection. Their moral strengths, like a sense of justice, might appeal to us, too. And what has the Party been systematically beating out of people for decades now? Anything that could possibly make fictional characters likable.

One of the Party's primary modes of social control is to keep people from having individual, intimate relationships outside of the Party. Each individual regards every other individual with distrust at all times, and only the Party is capable of providing safety. Winston mentions many instances in which he believes parents are afraid of their children, for example. There are also a number of people who he thinks would report him for thoughtcrimes.

This is getting into heavy speculation territory, but it hits me as a major motivation for the Fall in the first place. It's a great way to instantly divide Heaven itself in half, make everyone instantly suspicious of everyone else, and set up a whole bunch of rewards and punishments to hold over people's heads related to Falling.

One thing that's obvious, though, is the total lack of social connection in Heaven. Michael and Uriel are constantly treating each other with barely-suppressed contempt. Muriel wants approval so badly, but nobody has any patience for them. The "friendliest" any angels get are Gabriel and Sandalphon in Season 1, and that's still like, corporate-coworkers-style friendliness. Gabriel outright tells Beelzebub that no one has ever given him anything. Although it's...theoretically possible Gabriel is an outlier, I think his experience is probably representative of all the angels.

Bodily Experiences, Physicality, Gross Matter

There is a moment that made a big impression on me. Winston observes a prole woman outside singing a silly popular song at the top of her lungs as she works. This woman is not an attractive person by Winston's or Party standards; she is older, she is fat, she has a "lower-class" accent, her skin is weathered and reddened from working outside. But Winston, self-admitted misogynist who came of age on the Party's feminine ideal, thinks she is beautiful. He has a moment of realization that she's beautiful because the very things that theoretically would make her "unattractive" are evidence of a human life fully lived.

We also have Winston and Julia enjoying the world through their senses together in a way that they simply cannot in the grips of the Party. From listening to a thrush in the countryside to drinking real, delicious coffee, they experience pleasures that are denied to them and cause them to feel peaceful in a way that is denied to Outer Party members. As they experience life in a way that is much closer to the ways of the proles, they decide that only proles are alive; Party members are dead. It is at the moment when they speak this out loud that the Party chooses to capture them.

There's a darker side to the bodily experiences explored in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and that's experienced in the Ministry of Love. Here, Winston and Julia discover that their thoughts and feelings are indeed controlled by their bodies. There is only so much pain a human being can withstand before they will comply with their captors just to get the torture to stop. In fact, if the Party's psychological manipulation tactics haven't worked thus far to indoctrinate the population, then the body can be used to brute-force an attitude change.

The connection to Good Omens here is obvious. Aziraphale and Crowley are just like a couple of Outer Party members who haven't experienced real pleasure before, and then they discover wine and ox ribs and music and nice clothes and all those delightful human experiences that the other angels sneer at. It seems Heaven looks down on Earthly pleasure as a morally inferior, dirty pursuit, while Hell looks on Earthly pleasure as a kind of weakness, a pathetic softness. But Earth is where Aziraphale and Crowley have found meaning. Physical existence is where they've found themselves, where they've connected with each other, and where they've connected with the stuff of the universe itself.

Memory Manipulation and Thought Policing

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, there are massive governmental departments dedicated to revising all printed records, including reprinting newspapers as needed. Private writing is also not allowed. This means that even if a Party member has a memory, there is no physical evidence of it. Even if there were physical evidence, something a person had stuffed away in a safe place, there would be another, more "official" source to prove one's personal source wrong. Of course, anyone trying to make any kind of fuss about official sources being wrong would disappear, too, so no one will even try.

Winston mentions often in his narration that he has trouble remembering large portions of his life because of the way the Party has controlled the public narrative and obscured any fact that would once have been a point of reference for him. For example, Winston estimates that the date his journal starts would be April 4, 1984, but he actually isn't certain, not even about the year, because time isn't kept track of by those dates anymore. Historical facts, like events that led to the Party's ascent to power, have been rewritten so many times that Winston can no longer know what really happened. He can be sure there was chaos in the streets, followed by violence, and then proclamations from above about what was supposedly true, but one individual human being usually can't judge the big picture of what's going on in their entire society without a relatively objective source of information for major events.

Nineteen Eighty-Four also has literal thought police, Party members who study their fellow citizens for any sign of even the most remote disagreement with Party doctrine. If someone proves to be a problematic thinker, as Winston and Julia both did, they are dragged to the Ministry of Love to be violently re-educated. Using a series of punishments and rewards, prisoners are slowly broken down until they are unable to think for themselves at all.

Although it's unclear what Heaven is like in regards to spreading information, we've got the Metatron and the Archangels literally ready to erase Gabriel's memory. In Good Omens, since it's all dressed up in Heavenly attire and the characters have their unique attitudes, it comes across as less dystopian, more quirky and fantastical. But they are fundamentally threatening exactly what is done in Nineteen Eighty-Four. And based on Beelzebub's comment about how Gabriel's memory is "all your...you," the same identity issues would be at play. To erase Gabriel's memories would be to erase everything that makes Gabriel himself - an execution by another name.

Reality As A Construct (Or Not)

The Party's stance on reality is fairly simple: human beings perceive reality, so if human perception can be altered, reality can be changed and turned into whatever the Party wants it to be. This sounds wrong because it is wrong, but people who the Party has targeted for thought control don't get to think for themselves about it, because they can't withstand the torture.

This might be Heaven's approach to reality as well. Look at how questioning is discouraged, and how the angels choose to believe whatever is most convenient for Heaven, or whatever they believe should be true ("there are no back channels").

More importantly, though, we have characters in Good Omens who actually can change reality. In particular, this is what Adam Young does - and what he actively chooses not to do for the majority of the world, in the end. He only adjusts reality enough to be allowed to make his own decision: he's not the Antichrist anymore. Otherwise, he restores the world to its state from before he ascended to power (aside from a couple of tiny little eleven-year-old-boy-ish tweaks here and there; hey, you can't blame a kid for adding a few extras of his favorite books to the world).

Proles as the saviors of society

So this one is complicated because repeatedly through Nineteen Eighty-Four, we come across this feeling from WInston and Julia that the proles have some almost mystical connection to True Humanity which Party members have lost. However, there is also the repeated assumption that the proles are incapable of revolution on their own. And in a practical sense, this appears to be true. The intellectuals of their world look down on them for it, but the truth is that just as in real life, the proles are living in poverty and are far too desperate for their basic necessities to ever gain the class consciousness needed to overthrow the Party. This is, of course, by design.

Winston goes as far as to believe the proles might possibly rise up and overthrow the Party, but he never considers working with them. He goes straight into the jaws of the Inner Party instead! This seems to be for a couple of reasons, but primarily because Winston has formed this sort of attachment to O'Brien, his Inner Party member of choice.

In Good Omens, Season 1 and the book, humans do eventually save the world. Well, Adam - technically an Antichrist - saves the world by thinking like a human and accepting humanity as his true "side."

Free Will

"Free will" as a theme really ties into humanity as a theme in Good Omens, since Earth is neutral ground between Heaven and Hell and humans aren't born to a particular Side. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, of course, the Party's goal is to eliminate free will, while in Good Omens, Heaven and Hell are looking to eliminate humanity.

Individualism Versus Collectivism

Oh there it is! There's my pet theme!

I've always argued that in Good Omens, the core of the dualism explored between Aziraphale and Crowley is individualism and collectivism, with Crowley the dedicated individualist who nonetheless would like to belong somewhere, and Aziraphale the nervous collectivist who is secretly desperate to have an identity and belongings to himself. Good Omens has already touched on the notion that working together as a collective is necessary to keep the world turning, but it's also important to preserve individuality, so we have people to keep us company and meaning to live for. I think this will come up again.

Meanwhile, Nineteen Eighty-Four explores an authoritarian and destructive form of collectivism in which human beings are not allowed to have individual interests or experiences; everything flows toward the power of the Party. Individual identity is viewed as a weakness. With that said, Nineteen Eighty-Four does consider the potential power of collectives to overcome authoritarianism.

Mortality, Immortality, and Change

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, O'Brien eventually reveals that the goal of the Party is to become immortal through collectivism. While the fate of an individual human being is always to die, the Party believes a collective that is single-minded enough about maintaining power can live forever. In that way, people who submit to the Party's power can live forever, too. One has to wonder about the real point of all this, of course. The Party regards change as its downfall. For the Party to succeed, it must keep everyone moving toward the exact same goal of maintaining power forever.

In Good Omens, many of the characters are naturally immortal, as angels or demons. They don't have to change, and Heaven and Hell don't have to change. However, existing as immortals in Heaven or Hell, not experiencing any of the things mortals do in the physical world, all seems pretty obviously pointless. Aziraphale and Crowley, and then Gabriel and Beelzebub, and then Muriel, all start to find meaning on Earth among mortals. And I think this is all yet to be expanded upon, especially with the looming Second Coming.

Where Good Omens is concerned, the notion of change as a type of death and/or death as a type of change may be important (and ties into The Crow Road by Iain Banks as well).

By coming to Earth, the immortal characters are essentially doing the reverse of assimilating with the Party or Heaven and Hell: they're discovering themselves. With self-discovery comes the risk of change - changing from who they used to be in Heaven or Hell - and the reward of meaning.

The Party of Oceania wants to assimilate everyone into the same goal of maintaining the Party's power in order to make the Party immortal. While "maintaining power" is a "purpose" of sorts for the collective, on an individual level for any specific human being, it is nihilistic, since there is no place for the individual other than ensuring the success of the Party's destruction of the individual.

Freedom in the Natural World

In both stories, we've got the notion of nature as a place of freedom. The countryside where Winston and Julia first meet up lacks telescreens, and there are fewer microphones as well, allowing them to act naturally in a way that isn't usually permitted in the city. The room that Winston and Julia rent from Mr. Charrington is also so old-fashioned that it doesn't have a telescreen; they believe themselves to be momentarily safe in their own little world there. Unfortunately, Mr. Charrington is not really an ordinary prole, but a member of the Thought Police, which allows the Party to invade Winston's and Julia's space.

Of course, in Good Omens, Earth is the ultimate place of freedom. Heaven and Hell are both awful in their ways, hyper-controlled and devoid of real meaning. It's on Earth that Aziraphale and Crowley can begin to truly live. Of course, the safe little place they create together, the bookshop, is eventually invaded by Heaven and Hell.

I'd like to leave you with a pair of quotations.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face---forever. ... And remember that it is forever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands---all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease." O'Brien Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell Part Three, Chapter III

"If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends. If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot . . . no, imagine a sneaker, laces trailing, kicking a pebble; imagine a stick, to poke at interesting things, and throw for a dog that may or may not decide to retrieve it; imagine a tuneless whistle, pounding some luckless popular song into insensibility; imagine a figure, half angel, half devil, all human . . . Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield. . . . . . . forever. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

[evelhak]

Would anyone be interested in beta-/proofreading my KnB fic series?

(Spreading the word helps too. 🙏🏻)

Unfortunately I lost both of my beta-readers due to dramatic life changes a couple of years ago, and I've been doing my best to manage on my own but it's becoming a struggle.

There must be someone out there who craves for the same kind of intense longfic as I do, to get immersed in, and would like to be a part of it.

Plus there are some new/returning KnB people around recently, so who knows? Maybe one of you, who would already be interested in reading an insanely long fic for your own enjoyment, would like to devote, probably a few hours a month or so (I don't have a strict schedule), to relieving the writer's anxiety before they post a new chapter? I'm not looking for anything super in-depth. Basically just another pair of eyes to help me fix:

1. Scenes/sentences/word choices that are too confusing.

2. Factual errors.

3. Typos, grammar mistakes etc.

Low pressure, basically just anything that catches your attention as out of place or needing clarification. Definitely not asking for perfection or anything that you wouldn't catch on the first round of reading. I'm just looking to reduce mistakes I can't catch on my own.

I guess the chances of me finding anyone who is already reading the series (since to my knowledge my long-term readers never came from Tumblr in the first place) are pretty low, so

What will you get if you take a chance on me/The Other Things series?

Aside from a devoted friend (who will also always be ready for in-depth KnB talk)...

🏀 basically a lifetime supply of KagaKuro, seasoned with AoMomo, MidoTaka and other less prominent and at times rare ships (Stay tuned for Yagi Yuuta/Male OC) and also a lot of supporting OCs who exist for reasons other than shipping, including several characters' family members

🏀 one detailed and elaborate version of the main KnB characters' life journeys/basically an enormous character study

🏀 a very psychologically explicit story <- a pair of words (reader approved xD) I recently came up with to describe the emotional intensity that sometimes takes people by surprise

🏀 so much slice of life, so much dialogue, so much angst and fluff, so, so much character development that is definitely earned the hard way

🏀 snail speed slow-burn, I am not kidding, but intense love scenes and also no smut for over a million words but once we get there I promise it's worth it

🏀 so much intertextuality, myths, fairytales, analogies, symbolism that you can reread and reread if you want and I'm sure you'll keep finding new connections

🏀 a lot of fun stuff like our dorks in a group chat, disaster house parties and basketball idiots playing quadball, tons of everyday silliness

🏀 heart wrenching stuff and psychological depiction of hardship, personal growth as well as different kinds of relationships

🏀 deep-dives into topics including mental and physical health, dysfunctional family dynamics, a variety of queer experiences, neurodiversity and more, and particularly characters struggling with how complex things are

🏀 at times counterintuitive interpretations of canon but everything is in one way or another, canon-based or canon-inspired

🏀 to read seven fics before you actually get to beta-read the new stuff😇

Send me a DM if you're interested! 🩵

You can also try and decide it wasn't your thing. The series can be found here on AO3.

[campbyler]

ik part of it is that life and work just Be Like That sometimes, but every time i check back on your blog it seems yall are going through chronic ao3 author syndrome. sending love and good vibes your way i hope all three of you are doing ok and can catch a break soon!! (ik suni and thea yall are the ones writing the rest of it but sending love to andi as well)

also any tips on writing longer chapters without them sounding like they’re dragging on? i’m a (more casual) fic writer and my chapters always end up a little shorter than i usually hope they’d be

awake at 3am in a fit of jet lag and laughed aloud upon reading this bc you’re not wrong 😭 i feel like part of it is just timing, like thea’s work has a big busy season during the fall every year and her schedule also varies week by week and even day to day so i know some stretches are more difficult than others by default (rn she has been having to work from home on her weekend or after she clocks out which has been extra rough). my work tends to have bursts of insane work days every few weeks or so, and i just have a shitty daily commute on top of that and will sometimes get home like 12 hours after i left in the morning or something. so honestly there is a nonzero chance one of us is having a subpar time on any given workday i fear, and that schedule is pretty unpredictable given the nature of our very full time jobs. i also think it’s just statistically more likely that when we are active there is a reason for our Grievances to be brought up, either organically because we are coming out of a slump and are complaining about the Horrors or because someone checked in on us in a period of absence and we are giving a quick update, but either way, thank you so much for your wishesssss! thea will be getting a break soon (thank god) and i’m actually entering a bit of a busy stretch at work for the next week or so because we have a grant deadline to meet, which always means 10000 last minute experiments that i have to work into my schedule in the middle of the week and it’s really fun and lovely and great. woo hoo. 🙂

as for chapter lengths, i wish i had more solid advice but my problem is genuinely that i can’t for the life of me seem to trim them down 😭 i guess a part of it is largely how your chapters are structured — i only have a couple chaptered fics outside of acswy, but all of them are planned so that each chapter is quite meaty in terms of content or what i want each scene to accomplish. i will say that the singular thing that consistently drives up my word count is DIALOGUEEEEE!!! a blessing when i’m in a rut or have writers block and am trying to get something down on the page, a menace when im editing a scene transition i left to fill in for later and my wc is right at 29k and im sweating watching the number tick up. i find there’s absolutely nothing wrong with shorter chapters if it’s accomplishing what you hope for and i honestly am working really hard on trying to be more concise, but i do find dialogue to be a good way to slow down a scene that’s maybe rushing or is paced a little quicker than you intended. real conversations often stray off topic, people ramble or get sidetracked or get interrupted by things they’re doing — i love describing people talking while doing chores or eating or whatever because you can break up the dialogue with bits of action — and at least for me, it’s a lot easier to work in some narration or description in with dialogue than it is to just write a couple paragraphs of it straight up, which also sometimes feels a little more blunt and Quick than i intend it to be. one thing we both do a Lot is script out dialogue between characters and then go back in to fill in things like speech tags, action descriptions, inner monologues and thoughts, etc. literally just like:

character 1: ___ character 2: _______ 1, (note on how it’s meant to be said or what they’re thinking/intending to say to cue us in later): _____ 2: _____________ (small description of them moving around/something happening in the background to give a visual for describing later)

so on and so forth. it helps a lot either when we want to establish the setup of a dialogue heavy scene before we forget our inspiration, or we’re feeling a bit too blocked to be able to write more descriptively at the moment, etc etc. it’s a really natural way to focus on the flow of conversation without getting caught up in transitions and repetition of dialogue tags and stuff, and usually is the culprit for a scene taking way longer to finish than expected for me.

all that being said, the times i have actually felt like a chapter is paced too quickly is usually either when the dialogue exchange is too fast and feels like the conversation could be more fleshed out, or maybe likeeee a transition happens a little too immediately and it reads a little bit like one thing happening after the next after the next without much of a pause for expansion. if you’ve managed to get your point across in fewer words and your main concern is driving up the word count, i really wouldn’t worry about it! you could always have someone look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and ask for places they feel could use more explanation or detail (maybe describing a setting more vividly? or giving more insight to some of their thoughts at a certain point?) but genuinely — conciseness is a Skill, and seeing how i have once again accidentally answered an ask with one million words, i’ll actually just trade you some of my internal word vomit right now. here you go -> 🎁