#ticking off boxes on the checklist

[roses-and-elixir]

.

[p0orbaby]

So Boyfriend

summary: alessia is the poster girl for chivalry

warnings: none!

a/n: the minimum expected behaviour in any relationship, if you ask me

word count: 1.6k

-

Alessia’s wearing that black Adidas tracksuit again, the one that should probably have its own spot in the wardrobe by now, considering how often it makes an appearance. You’re not sure what her deal is with that thing. It’s like she’s conducting some kind of long-term experiment to see how many days she can wear it before it becomes a sentient being. But, somehow, it always looks crisp, like it’s just been peeled out of the packaging.

She’s sitting at the kitchen table, legs spread wide like she’s declaring ownership of every square inch of space. The air around her practically vibrates with readiness, like she’s an overzealous butler trapped in the body of a world-class athlete.

You watch her, knowing exactly what’s coming next. She’s eyeing the cupboard, which is already funny because you’re not even hungry, but you know if you so much as glance at the counter, she’ll be up and rifling through shelves like a one-woman search-and-rescue operation. You could have sworn you saw her measuring the exact amount of peanut butter left in the jar last night, like a tactical mission was involved.

If there’s a minute, microscopic part of her brain that suspects you’re craving peanut butter on toast, she’ll know before you do.

And sure enough, Alessia is up before you can even think of saying, “I’ll get it,” moving towards the cupboard like she’s executing a flawless play. She grabs the jar and hands it to you like she’s presenting a hard-won trophy, her eyes bright with that stupid, beautiful grin. You stare at her, trying to remember why you ever thought her overbearing attentiveness was annoying.

You manage a “Thanks,” which comes out more as a croak because, well, what else can you say when you’re so completely outmatched in the whole ‘being a decent human’ department?

Then, like clockwork, she’s clearing the table. It’s your turn, obviously, but Alessia’s got this compulsive need to do things for you, like it’s a moral imperative. You know it’s coming—the way she’ll rinse the plates with one hand while gently nudging you out of the way with her hip, so casual and practiced, like it’s something she’s been doing her whole life. You’re just standing there, one hand holding the peanut butter jar, the other uselessly hovering in the air, like a mime who’s forgotten their routine. The sound of running water and clinking dishes fills the kitchen, and you’re left marveling at how domestic she makes everything feel, how easy it is for her to slip into this role without a second thought.

And here’s the thing: you should be annoyed. It’s your job to do the dishes tonight. You should be doing something about it, like grabbing a towel or, at the very least, half-heartedly protesting. But you’re not. You’re just… watching. You’ve seen this movie a hundred times, but it’s so ridiculous you can’t help but watch again. You’re transfixed by the way she stacks the dishes like they’re precious artifacts, not remnants of your poorly executed attempt at dinner.

When she’s done, she turns around and hands you your phone. It was on the counter, and you weren’t even thinking about it, but of course, she noticed. Of course, she knew exactly when you’d need it. It’s like she’s a mind reader, but only when it comes to the most mundane, everyday things. Like there’s some part of her brain solely dedicated to making sure your phone is fully charged, your favorite snacks are within reach, and that you never run out of clean socks.

You should say something, maybe tease her a little, but you don’t get the chance. Alessia’s already moving on to the next thing—turning off the lights, checking that the stove is off, securing the perimeter. You half expect her to pull out a checklist and start ticking off boxes. Instead, she turns to you, that lopsided grin still plastered on her face, and before you can even think, she’s pulling you in for a kiss.

It’s not just any kiss. It’s slow and soft, the kind that says, Hey, I’ve got all the time in the world, and I’m spending it right here, with you. You melt into it, feeling every ounce of tension you didn’t know you had drain away.

When she finally pulls back, she’s still smiling, and it’s the kind of smile that makes you feel like you’ve just won something. Like maybe you’ve won her, but that can’t be right because it feels more like she’s the one who’s been winning you over, inch by inch, every single day.

Then, because apparently, she hasn’t done enough for one evening, she suddenly suggests, “Let’s go for a walk.” It’s not a question, really. She’s already grabbing a hoodie, even though it’s the middle of summer and the night air is perfectly warm. She throws it over your shoulders, and you know you’re going to sweat through it, but you don’t care.

She makes sure to lock the door behind you, even though you’re only going for a quick loop around the block. Alessia does that—locks up, checks windows, and generally acts like you live in a crime-riddled part of town. Even though you both know the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in your neighborhood is when Mrs. Patterson’s cat got stuck in a tree. And even then, it was a small tree, and the cat was more annoyed than scared.

As you start walking, she naturally takes the side closest to the road, like she’s in some 19th-century novel, guarding your virtue against runaway horse carriages or something equally absurd. You used to roll your eyes at this, but now it just makes you smile, like maybe there’s a small part of you that enjoys being taken care of in this overly dramatic way.

The night is quiet, the kind of quiet that’s comforting rather than eerie. Alessia’s arm slips around your shoulders, her fingers tracing the back of your neck in a way that sends little shivers down your spine. You sigh, and it’s not a sigh of exasperation; it’s the kind of sigh that comes when you’re trying to pretend you’re annoyed but you’re really just a puddle of feelings because she’s doing that thing again—making you feel like you’re the center of the universe.

You keep walking, letting her guide you down familiar streets. She opens the gate for you, then the door to the local café, where the barista already knows your order, thanks to Alessia’s meticulous planning. You’re not sure how, but she’s managed to get everyone on board with this whole ‘make everything perfect for you’ campaign, and honestly, it’s a little terrifying.

You sit down at your usual table, and she insists on ordering for you, even though you’re perfectly capable of speaking for yourself. But there’s something about the way she does it, with that confident ease, like she’s been rehearsing this role her entire life, that makes you just let her.

She returns with your drink, carefully placing it in front of you, making sure it’s exactly the way you like it—extra foam, no sugar, just a hint of cinnamon. You didn’t even know you liked cinnamon until she started ordering it for you.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” you finally say, and she just shrugs, that lopsided grin never wavering.

“I just want you to be happy,” she replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe it is, to her at least.

As you sip your drink, you watch her, watch the way she’s always so effortlessly present, always making sure you’re taken care of, and you realise that this is what it feels like to be loved so completely, so utterly, that it’s almost overwhelming.

It’s the little things she does, the way she’s always three steps ahead, always thinking about what you might need before you even know you need it. It’s the way she’s somehow managed to turn your entire life into a series of moments where you’re constantly cared for, constantly looked after, without ever making you feel smothered.

And maybe you’re starting to like it, more than you ever thought you would. Because being with Alessia is like being in a story where you’re always the main character, and she’s the one making sure the plot unfolds exactly the way it’s supposed to, with all the right twists and turns, and just enough drama to keep things interesting.

As you leave the café, Alessia’s arm finds its way around your shoulders again, guiding you back home, and you let her, because it’s just easier that way. It’s easier to let her do all the little things she does, the things that make you feel so loved and cared for, because deep down, you know you wouldn’t have it any other way.

When you finally get back, she unlocks the door, checks the windows again, and makes sure everything’s in its place. She pulls you in for another kiss, this one a little more urgent, like she’s trying to communicate something she can’t quite put into words. You kiss her back, letting her know you understand, that you get it, and that you’re not going anywhere.

You lie down together, her arm draped over you, and as you drift off to sleep, you realise that maybe this is what it’s all about. Maybe this is what it means to be truly, deeply loved—having someone who’s always there, always ready to do whatever it takes to make sure you’re okay, to make sure you’re happy. And maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to believe that you deserve it.

[hezenkossapologist]

Controversial opinion but I really like Taash’s depiction, as an autistic person who experiences all the things they talk about.

I know it’s not true for everyone but I AM a very stereotypical autistic person who you can go down the checklist of DSM5 and ICD10 (I was diagnosed via the ICD bc I am not USamerican) and tick off every box. They literally did that when they diagnosed me. The people in my family are all very stereotypical autistics with variable functioning and support needs: one of the things I really really liked about Taash’s relationship with their mum is that you can feel the intergenerational autism conflicts happening and causing such catastrophic communication issues!

And the reaction to Taash has frankly been a masterclass in demonstrating how people react cruelly and with no benefit of the doubt or grace for autistic people, especially people who have very strong stereotypical presentations (flat affect, bluntness, social impairment). I just left my autism support group today and we were talking about how people react to us, and it was all these different autistic people expressing that they have ALL experienced the exact kind of reaction Taash has gotten.

Like ofc the world finds Taash annoying, whiney, aggressive, rude, annoying, boring, repulsive; that’s literally how people like us are received everywhere, all of the time.

Do I have a long wishlist of disability studies texts that in a perfect world the DA team would all read before depicting disability, allowing them to think through the ways that disability is created and changed by the cultural context a person is encountered within? Ofc.

Is it also really satisfying to see this autistic-ass person living their life and having autistic struggles but also being able to function bc they have built a life that largely supports their needs instead of working against them? YEAH.

I have a long long long long long list of things I wish Veilguard had had the interest, opportunity, and freedom to do with DA. I was really disappointed by it, I won’t lie.

I’m also really excited to buy my 14 year old autistic queer family member this game, specifically because I think it will be transformative for them to meet Taash, someone who is so so like them, yes in their symptomology, and who is in a fantasy game.

Idk guys at a certain point complaining about a depiction of autism as too stereotypical is actually just complaining about autistic people like me and my family getting depicted!

[arc-misadventures]

Would You Care To Join Us? 2

Jaune: Nora, I need your… advice.

Nora: Oh?! Fearless Leder needs my help?! This is a glorious day!

Jaune: I’m already starting to regret this…

Nora: So tell me gloriously leader! What can I help you with?

Jaune: How does one… get a girl…? How does one make a girl your girlfriend?

Nora: Why are you asking me that; Couldn’t you ask, Rin, or Pyrrha?

Jaune: Pyrrha’s only been on publicity dates, meant to show off something, or someone. No romance in those at all. And has, Rin ever been on anything close to a date?

Nora: Ahh, good points. But, I’ve never dated before, why are you asking me?

Jaune: Cause it’s you, Nora.

Nora: Ahh! That’s why you’re the leader! Always coming up with the smart plans there!

Jaune: So… any ideas?

Nora: Who’s the girl you’re trying to win over?

Jaune: …

Jaune: Ms. Goodwitch…

Nora: Triple G?!

Jaune: Don’t call her that!

Nora: Sorry…

Jaune: Haa… Okay, so can you help me?

Nora: I can!

Jaune: Awesome!

Jaune: How…?

Nora: Hmmm… Oh I know! You should have sex with, Blake in her classroom!

Jaune: …

Jaune: The fuck?!

Nora: I know it’s crazy, but hear me out. So, you sleep with, Blake in, Ms. Goodwitch’s classroom, then she stumbles upon you, and then you ask her to join in! Simple as that!

Jaune: …

Jaune: That’s the craziest plan I ever heard…

Nora: But, it could work~?

Jaune: Even if I agree to this plan, answer me one thing: Why, Blake?

Nora: She’s kinky, she’d totally do it.

Jaune: …

Jaune: She probably would.

Jaune: Haaa… Fine I’ll do it… But, if this back fires, and I wind up in detention, you’re banned from having pancakes for a week.

Nora: You wouldn’t dare!

Jaune: Pray that you don’t find out.

~~~

Blake: Oh fuck~?!

Jaune: Honestly, I thought you slap me in the face for even suggesting we do this. But, you’re really getting into this, Blake.

Blake: Oh~! Can you blame me? You have no idea how many boxes this ticks off, and me on~!

Jaune: Really? Care to tell me? Maybe I can check off another item on that list for you~?

Blake: Doing it in a classroom. Ooph~! The possibility of being caught. Doing a human. Actually getting off~!

Jaune: Ouch, how many bad lovers have you had?

Blake: Too many! Oh! We should film this, and send it to them!

Jaune: Beg pardon?

Blake: Those losers would absolutely… Ohhh~! Would absolutely lose it if they saw me actually getting off, to a human no less! Oh gods~! We should have done this sooner~!

Jaune: I-I’m not really sure about…?!

Ruby: Blake, are you here? I want the next volume of… Ninjas in… love…?

Jaune: Uhh… hi, Ruby…?

Ruby: H-Hi…

Jaune: Uhh… Blake, and I are kinda busy right now… you can ask her for that book later.

Ruby: O-Okay… whoa that’s massive…

Jaune: But, in the meantime… w-would you care to join us?

Ruby: Yes!

Blake: A threesome?! Fuck yeah, another item off my checklist!

~~~

Nora: Ruby?

Jaune: Yeah…

Nora: How did it go?

Jaune: Blake got… kinky so I didn’t really do it a lot with her.

Nora: Makes sense.

Jaune: So, Ruby asked me to join her in the classroom again.

Nora: Oh cool! Treat her nicely!

Jaune: Don’t worry, I will!

~~~

Ruby: H-How are you… Ohh~! How are you so good with knots? Mmmm~!

Jaune: Boy scout, easiest badge I ever got

Ruby: I knew it! You’re a total boy scout!

Jaune: And, you’re loving it~!

Ruby: Hell yeah~! Ohhh~!

Jaune: Tell me; You like being tied up, how about being gagged?

Ruby: Oh fuck yeah!

Jaune: Alright then, let’s…?!

Weiss: Ruby, did you take my binder… A-Again…?

Ruby: N-No…

Jaune: Hmmm… That didn’t sound so sincere. Did it, Weiss?

Weiss: N-No it didn’t…

Jaune: Would you care to join us, Weiss? Maybe then we can get her to talk.

Weiss: …?!

~~~

Nora: Did, Weiss join in?

Jaune: Yeah… yeah she did…

Nora: Was it bad?

Jaune: Oddly specifically kinky…

Nora: Eh?

~~~

Weiss: Grrk! Grrk! Grrk!

Jaune: Oh, are you enjoying yourself, bitch?

Weiss: Mmmph~?!

Jaune: D-Did you just…? Who said you could do that?

Weiss: Mmm-mmrrry!

Jaune: Looks like I’m going to to have to puni…

Yang: Did someone say, ‘Pun?!’

Jaune: Uhhh…?

Weiss: …?!

Jaune: No… no they did not…

Yang: Oh… Uhh…? What’s going on here…?

Jaune: Exploring, Weiss’s kink…

Yang: Kink?

Jaune: Domination…

Yang: Oh… that’s unexpected…

Jaune: Yeah…

Yang: …

Jaune: Are you just going to stand there, or would you care to join us, Yang?

Yang: Oh~?

~~~

Nora: Yang? You got the wrong blonde, Fearless Leader.

Jaune: Yeah…

Nora: So… Are you going to try again with, Yang?

Jaune: Yeah, she asked me to help her explore her kink.

Nora: What’s her kink?

Jaune: Beats me.

~~~

Yang: Ohh~! Big bro! We can’t do this here~!

Jaune: I am so conflicted right now! I have seven sisters, and you look like all of them! And, you want to do this?!

Yang: Because, its so god damn hot~!

Jaune: That’s what makes it worse!

Yang: Forget about it, just focus on me, and the moment, big bro~!

Jaune: Gods… Why is my little sister such a…?!

Emerald: Shit, where did I place that…?! That…?

Jaune: Uhhh… Hi… Emerald…

Emerald: Hi…

Yang: Yo~!

Emerald: Hi… Uhhh… A-Are you two related…?

Jaune: N-No…

Emerald: B-But… L-Lil sis…?

Jaune: It’s… its her kink… So…

Emerald: Oh…

Jaune: So… so are you going to do whatever it is you were going to do, or would you like to join us instead?

Emerald: J-Join…?

~~~

Nora: A brother complex?

Jaune: Yeah, I thought only girls with brothers would develop a brother complex like my sisters. But, apparently not.

Nora: Yeah…

Nora: So, Emerald… How was that?

Jaune: Also into the brother complex thing too.

Nora: Okay…

Jaune: She asked for a second run.

Nora: She did?

Jaune: She said she wanted to play something out.

Nora: Oh really? What does she want to play out?

~~~

Emerald: I’m sorry!

Jaune: For what?!

Emerald: I’m sorry for stealing!

Jaune: No you’re not! You’re sorry you got caught!

Emerald: OHH~!

Jaune: Oh? You like that? You wanted to get caught didn’t you! So you could be punished you naughty butch!

Emerald: N-N-NooooOoh~?!

Jaune: You do~! Well, guess I’ll have to try harder to punish you, you slu…?!

Cinder: Emerald?! Are you here, we need to… to…?!

Jaune: Uhh…?!

Emerald: C-Cinder?! W-What are you doing here?!

Cinder: I was… I was looking… L-Looking for you…

Emerald: F-For what…?

Cinder: I… I don’t remember… oh gods… its so big…

Jaune: Oh… well would you like to join us maybe we can jog your memory?

Cinder: J-Join…?

~~~

Nora: So, Cinder joined in, eh?

Jaune: Yeah, Emerald really enjoyed it when, Cinder joined in on the action.

Nora: Must have a crush on her.

Jaune: I’d bet money on that.

Nora: So, did, Cinder ask you for a spin too~?

~~~

Cinder: AhhHhh~!

Jaune: I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?

Cinder: No. It’s just to so~!

Jaune: I’ll go slow… be nice, and gentle, just like you asked.

Cinder: Oh dear~! Hold me!

Jaune: I’m here honey, I’m here… eh?!

Cinder: Huw?

Neo: 🙂

Jaune: H-Hi…?

Neo: 😁👋

Cinder: N-Neo?! What are you doing here?!

Neo: 😍🍆💦

Cinder: You want to join us?

Neo: 🤩

Jaune: Whoa hey?! I didn’t say the line!

~~~

Nora: So, Cinder is into softcore?

Jaune: I think she’s more into the feeling of being loved, because she hasn’t ever experienced genuine live in all her life. In the afterglow she delved into to some… heavy stuff… she’s been through a lot…

Nora: Oh… I’m sorry to hear that… so… What does, Neo want?

Jaune: She’s mute, so she didn’t tell me.

Nora: So she’ll show you then?

Jaune: Probably.

~~~

Ruby: 🥴

Jaune: Okay… This is unexpected…

Ruby: 🚫❤️❔

Jaune: I didn’t say that. I will say, you certainly are tighter than her!

Ruby: 😏

Jaune: What’s that smile about?

Weiss: 😍

Jaune: Okay, now this is a semblance I would like to play with!

Nora: 🥰

Jaune: Okay, I haven’t done it with her, so this is kinda…??

Nora: Jaune! We ran out of…?!

Jaune: Uhh…?!

Nora: N-Neo…?

Nora: 😘

Nora: You’re fucking me… but, not me…?

Jaune: Uhh… yeah…? I-It was her idea!

Nora: 😇

Nora: I’m a little offended really… I mean, you’re fucking me, but not the real me? Why?

Jaune: Oh… Well, we can fix that… So, would you care to join us?

Nora: …

Nora: Fuck me… Literally~!

~~~

Nora: That was awesome!

Jaune: Glad you like it. I thought you would be unnerved with doing yourself… like that…

Nora: Naww it was fucking hot! You should do it again, but this time with, Blake! She’d really get into it!

Jaune: It worries me that she would…

Nora: So, up for another round fearless leader~?

Jaune: …

Jaune: Sure.

~~~

Nora: Ahhh~Haa~! H-Harder~!

Jaune: Oh? Of course you like it hard, and rough.

Nora: Hell yeah I do! Ohh~! What do you take me for, some pillow… Ahhh~! Pillow princess?!

Jaune: Like hell I would, I just expected you’d like things little… HARDER!

Nora: AHHHH~HHHHH~!

Jaune: That’s more like it~! Scream for me bitch!

Velvet: Yeah, scream for him you slut!

Jaune: AHHH?! What the?! Velvet, what the hell are you doing here?

Velvet: Waiting for my turn.

Jaune: Your turn?!

Velvet: Yeah, you fucked, Blake, then, Ruby showed up, and then you had a threesome with her. Now, I’m here, and I’m waiting for you two to finish so I can have my turn.

Jaune: Well,I’s happily ask if you would care to join is, but how the hell did you know we were doing this?

Velvet: Blake told me.

Jaune: Son’a bitch!

~~~

Nora: Blake blabbed?

Jaune: Yep.

Nora: Of course she did… I’ll go teach her a lesson. You go tame the rabbit. She’s going to lose it if she doesn’t get her fix.

Jaune: Should I bring a spare change of clothes with me?

Nora: Wouldn’t hurt.

~~~

Velvet: Ghack?! J-Jaune?!! Y-You’re… Oh fuck~?! C-Chocking me! Oh~?!

Jaune: That’s because I need to hold you in place you in heat bunny slut!

Velvet: Oh gods~?!

Jaune: Besides, you can deny it all you want, you got tighter the moment I squeezed~!

Velvet: OH-OHHHH~!

Jaune: He… squirter… that’s a first…

Coco: Holy fuck…

Jaune: Coco?!

Velvet: Co-co~? Heyyyy~! Would you care to join us, Coco~? I need help taming the big fella~!

Coco: Join you?

~~~

Jaune: Evidently, Velvet was in heat…

Nora: That’s a thing?! I thought that was some racist stereotype?

Jaune: According to, Velvet it only happens to females, and certain types of faunas.

Nora: Bunnies being one of them?

Jaune: Yep.

Nora: So did, Coco join you?

Jaune: Yep.

Nora: Really? I thought she was gay.

Jaune: Me too. But, she asked for another go so…

Nora: Maybe she’s curious?

Jaune: Maybe. I’ll do it, I just hope what happened with my sister-in-law doesn’t happen again…

Nora: Sister-in-what now?

~~~

Coco: Fuck!Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK~!

Jaune: Enjoying yourself?

Coco: Oh gods?! Why the fuck did I use those worthless dildos?! Ahhh~fuck~?!

Jaune: Ahh, crap. Looks like I did it again.

Coco: Did… Ahh! Did what aga-ahhhh~!

Jaune: Make a lesbian question her sexuality.

Coco: You’ve turned a lesbian straight?!

Jaune: Bisexual, but does that really matter?

Coco: You gotta… Oh fuck~?! You gotta tell me how that went down! Cause that sounds so hoOOOOOOT~!

Jaune: Maybe next time, for now lets just enjoy the…?!

Reese: Hey, guys do you know where the cafeteria… is…?

Jaune: Oh, hi Reese… The cafeteria is down here hall to your right.

Reese: Oh cool, thanks… But, uhh… I’m not that hungry anymore… Maybe you can help me gain a appetite~?

Jaune: Oh? In that case, would you care to join us?

Reese: Mmmm~! Please take care of me~!

Coco: Oh he will~! He will~!

~~~

Nora: Reese? That punk, scatter girl?

Jaune: Yep, that’s her.

Nora: So, did you help her get an appetite?

Jaune: She’s still hungry, so…?

Nora: So~?

~~~

Reese: I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m…?! Ohh~?! I’m sorry sir!

Jaune: Sorry for what?! That you were cheating, or that you were caught?!

Reese: Ohhh~?!

Jaune: There… I believe you have learned your lesson, Ms. Chloris.

Reese: W-What was the lesson, Professor Arc~?

Jaune: …

(SMACK!)

Reese: OHhhh~!

Jaune: Kids these days… they never learn…?!

Arslan: Reese! Where are you? We got some… training… to do…

Jaune: Oh… Hello, Ms. Altan. Ms. Chloris is currently in the midst of some supplementary lessons. Perhaps you could come by later. Unless, you would care to join us for some extra credit?

Reese: Extra credit~! Hehehehe…

Arslan: Your name is, Jaune Arc right? You’re Pyrrha Nioks team leader, and partner.

Jaune: That’s right I am.

Arslan: Interesting~!

~~~

Nora: What was interesting?

Jaune: I don’t know, and I’m scared to find out…

Nora: You sure, cause your friend says otherwise?

Jaune: I said I was scared, not that I don’t find this hot!

~~~

Arslan: Fuck you, Nikos!

Jaune: Oh, so is sleeping with me your way of one upping, Pyrrha?

Arslan: At first… Ohh~! But, this cock is something a girl can’t deny she wants~!

Jaune: Really? Then how would you feel if I said I haven’t slept with, Pyrrha?

Arslan: Seriously?!

Jaune: OH FUCK?! You just got so much tighter?!

Arslan: Ha! Take that bitch! I got your man first! And, I’m going to make him mine~!

Pyrrha: Not if I have anything to say about it.

Jaune: Huw?! P-Pyrrha?!

Arslan: Hey bitch~! Guess who just stole your man from you!

Pyrrha: Bitch please… Let me show you how a real woman pleases a man~!

Jaune: P-Please be gentle…?

~~~

Jaune: Oh gods… My body hurts all over…

Nora: Didn’t your aura protect you? It did when we went at it.

Jaune: They broke my aura! I’m just one man, do you expect me to handle a pair of Amazonian’s all on my own?!

Nora: Oh shit really? Why did they go so hard on you?

Jaune: Evidently the pair have some history back in, Mistrial. The number one, and two always competing for top place. I just so happened to be the ‘top place’ at the moment…

Nora: The top place being your dick right~?

Jaune: …

Jaune: I wasn’t going to say it, but yeah… it was the, ‘top place’ this time…

Nora: So, who won?

Jaune: Actually they both asked for a rematch…

Nora: They, what?

~~~

Pyrrha: Oh fuuuuuck~!

Jaune: Oh gods!

Pyrrha: How does it feel, Jaune~! I’m better than that cheap slut~!

Arslan: Oh you whore! Come here you bitch!

Pyrrha: Hey?! Hands of my man you cunt!

Arslan: Bring it whore!

Pyrrha: Oh~! You bitch~!

Arslan: Mmmmph~! Make be whore~!

Pyrrha: Mmmm~! You slut~!

Arslan: Ahhh~!

Jaune: Uhh…?

Arslan: Ohh fucck~! Right there~! Use your tongue right there you slut~!

Pyrrha: Mmmmmm~!

Arslan: I’m cumming~! AHHHHHooooh fuuuuuck~!

Pyrrha: Ha, beat that bitch~!

Arslan: With pleasure~!

Jaune: …

Jaune: Should I just go? Because it seems that, I’ve become the third wheel here so…?

PA: Come here you!

Jaune: Whaaa?!

~~~

Nora: So, do you think they worked out their relationship?

Jaune: I think so? The pair may not be competing on who the better fighter is anymore, but they’re still competing with one another.

Nora: The sexual tension between the pair is rather intense. I guess you just pushed the pair over the edge.

Jaune: Define edge?

Nora: Ehhh~! Nice!

Jaune: Thank you, I’m here all week~!

Neon: Oh, there you are, Jaune~!

Jaune: Ahh?! Neon, what are you doing here?

Neon: I was told that you are considered, ‘safe.’ I’m curious how, ‘safe’ you really are, if you catch my drift.

Jaune: Drift? No, no I don’t.

Neon: I’ll see you again at your… usual hunting ground. Till later~!

Jaune: Uhh… Okay?

Jaune: …

Jaune: Did you find it weird that someone wanted to do it with me without first catching me, and another person in the act?

Nora: Yeah, that was pretty weird.

Jaune: Yeah, weird. So, any idea who snitched on us?

Nora: Blake, or Velvet, possibly both of them.

Jaune: Damn their loose lips… Nora!

Nora: Yes, Fearless Leader!

Jaune: Teach those two a lesson! I will deal with the stray cat!

Nora: At once, Fearless Leader!

~~~

Neon: Never miss a beat! Never miss a beat! Never miss a beeeeeeAaat!

Jaune: How was that, Neo? Dis a miss a beat?

Neon: You his every beat right know yhe mark handsome~!

Jaune: Good, now then, let’s try things at a different… eh? May?

May: Uhh… H-Hey, Jaune?

Jaune: Oh hey, May. Need something, or would you care to join us?

Neon: Yeah! Join us~! You won’t regret it~!

May: Uhhh… M-Maybe… But, I have a word with you later, Jaune? I want to have a word with you.

Jaune: Uhh… sure. But, what did you want to talk about?

~~~

Nora: So, how was, Neon?

Jaune: I like it when a girl does her hair in pigtails.

Nora: Why?

Jaune: Handle bars.

Nora: Nice~! So, what does, May want to talk to you about?

Jaune: Beats me, probably wants to thank me for protecting her from that grenade you almost hit her with.

Nora: Yeah… she wants to, ‘thank you~!’

~~~

Jaune: Oh gods… They’re so soft~!

May: (Slurrr-Pop~!) And, you’re so hard, and big~!

Jaune: You’re one to talk? I thought you were a B-Cup, what are those, H-Cup? How the hell did you manage to hide those?

May: Lots of binding… (Slurp~!) Otherwise they get in the way… But, now they’re right where I want them~!

Jaune: I’ll admit, I’ve always wanted to a girl with a big chest to do this to me. Done side if be a hormonal teenager with seven sisters as big as you.

May: Mmmm~! Day ar?

Jaune: Mmmm~! Much bigger… I’ll show you a place later where you can get some proper restraining bras. Those binding’s will hurt your chest in the long wrong.

May: (Pop~!) Really?! Oh, thanks, Jaune! That means a lot!

Jaune: My pleasure.

May: But, in the meantime, your ‘little’ friend here owes me a make over~!

Jaune: Then get back to work, There’s a lot more I want to do with you than just give you a makeover~!

May: I’m looking forward to it the…?!

Penny: Amazing! Are most male reproduction organs so big?!

Jaune: Penny?! W-What are you doing here?

Penny: Friend Ruby recounted the tale of your sexual escapades, I was interested the validity of her words , so I described to authentic her tale for myself.

Jaune: So…? Would you care to join us then?

Penny: Sensational!

~~~

Nora: Ruby blabbed?

Jaune: Yep…

Nora: Shall I take care of her.

Jaune: You may.

Nora: So how was, Penny?

Jaune: She just watched us, she wanted to know what to expect before she did anything.

Nora: So you’re gonna pop her cherry then~?

Jaune: Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.

Nora: With that bitchbreaker? Yeah right!

~~~

Penny: S-S-Sen… Sensa-sa-sation-a-aalllll~!

Jaune: Penny?! P-Penny are you okay…?

Ciel: I think you short circuited her… And, it only took you: Twelve minutes, and thirty seven seconds.

Jaune: Uhh… Is she okay? I saw literal sparks fly off of her.

Ciel: She is in the midst of a reboot. She will be fine in ten to fifteen minutes.

Jaune: Are you sure?

Ciel: I am. Now, you have not ejaculated yet despite, Penny’s best efforts. So I shall offer you a fellatio to bring you to ejaculation. This should take no more than five minutes.

Jaune: Wait, what?!

~~~

Jaune: It did in fact take no longer than five minutes…

Nora: You sound disappointed by that.

Jaune: I couldn’t really enjoy it. Sure she went after me like a vacuum, but I couldn’t enjoy it. Besides, it feels weird to time how long you can bring someone to come.

Nora: That makes sense. It’s not a contest to see who can eat the most pancakes the fastest.

Jaune: According to, Penny, Ciel is very punctual. Basically everything she does is done to a schedule, and I mean everything, down to the last second is marked on one of her schedules.

Nora: Yikes, major control freak right there. Hmm… You two having another scheduled interaction together?

Jaune: Yeah, why?

Nora: It would be a shame if things didn’t go to schedule, if you catch my drift~!

Jaune: Oh really~?

~~~

Ciel: OH FUCK~?!!

Jaune: What was that~? Barely even a few minutes? Doesn’t it take you five minutes to have a orgasm?

Ciel: Y-Y-You…?! Oh fuck?! You disrupting mu p-p-pla-Ahhhh~!

Jaune: And, you’re absolutely loving it~!

Ciel: N-No! I’m not! I-I… Ohhh~! I hate…?! Oh gods~!

Jaune: You love it~!

Ciel: Oh~!

Jaune: Admit it, Ciel. You love it when I disrupt your precious little timetable~!

Ciel: I don’t! I-I-Ahhh~! i ha… Ha… I LOVE IT~! I fucking love it! I love not know when I’ll cum, when you’ll come! Oh gods~! This feels amazing~!

Jaune: Good girl~! You deserve a reward… I know, how about another one of these!

Ciel: Oh gods~?! It’s so warm! S-S-So warm~!

Jaune: Good girl~! Let’s spend… two minutes for you to catch your breath before we… Rin?!

Rin: H-Hey, Jaune… You looking… big…

Jaune: Oh uhh… Thanks. So… Ciel seems a bit out of it… Would you care to join us? Give, Ciel a chance to get her legs back?

Rin: J-Join you…?

Rin: …

Rin: Later.

Jaune: Later?

Rin: Yeah, later… I meed to prepare myself… mentally… and physically…

Jaune: Oh, okay. Let me know when you’re ready to do it.

Rin: Don’t worry, you won’t have to wait too long. Till then, Jaune~!

Jaune: Till then…?

~~~

Jaune: I’m… worried…

Nora: About, Rin?

Jaune: Yeah… the way she stared at me… there was something in her eyes that seemed… wanting, lusting, and… and, unhinged…

Nora: Hmmm… Yeah, I asked her about the two of you going at it. The way she rubbed her thighs, and bit her lip… There was something… there was something in her eyes that unnerves me…

Jaune: We won’t know until we do it… But, until then keep an eye on, Rin. Something’s fishy, and I want to know what’s going on.

Nora: Will do, Fearless Leader!

Jaune: Let’s hope nothing bad happens…

~~~

Rin: That’s it you magnificent stud!

Jaune: Whoa, Rin?! What’s gotten into you?!

Rin: Come on! Come on! Comeonecomeonconeobcomeone!

Jaune: Ahh, Rin?! What the hells gotten into you?!

Rin: Come inside! Come inside, and knock me up!

Jaune: Wait, what?!

Rin: Get me pregnant! Give me your babies! Make me a mommmMMMMMY~!!!

Jaune: Ahh fuck… Are you try to…?! What the fuck, Rin?!

Rin: Ahh~! I’m gonna be a mother~! Ahhhhhhh…

Jaune: Rin? Oi, Rin, what the hell was that?!

Glynda: A violation of several school codes, Mr. Arc.

Jaune: Ahhh?! M-M-Ms. Goodwitch… H-Hi…?

Glynda: I see you are having… fun…

Jaune: Yeah… fun…

Glynda: Fun…

Jaune: Uhhh…

Glynda: Clean up your teammate, Mr. Arc, then clean the spot where you… Where you had your fun…

Jaune: I’ll get right on that, Ms. Goodwitch!

Glynda: Good… I will see you tomorrow at detention, Mr. Arc.

Jaune: Detention? That seems… appropriate…

~~~

Jaune: So… Rin wants me to impregnate her…

Nora: Yeah… that’s… yeah…

Jaune: Yeah…

Nora: I made her take some, ‘morning after’ pills.

Jaune: Oh? Oh that’s good! That’s good…

Nora: Something wrong?

Jaune: I’m just confused on all of… that!

Nora: Are you against having a kid… a kid with, Rin…?

Jaune: …

Jaune: I’m not against it… It’s just… I never expected that, Rin wants such a thing… from me no less… But… I don’t know… We’ll need to talk with, Rin about this later… I just… I need more time to process all of this…

Nora: Okay… I’ll let, Pyrrha know what happened so we can all talk about this.

Jaune: Good idea. It’s best if she also keeps an eye on, Rin as well. Haa… Okay, I have to get going… detention, Ms. Goodwitch…

Nora: Good luck, Jaune.

Jaune: I’ll need it…

~~~

Glynda: So… Let me get this straight… In an attempt to whoo me, you had sexual intercourse in my classroom, hoping that I would catch you in the midst of the act where you would ask me: “Would you care to join us?” Is that correct, Mr. Arc?

Jaune: Y-Yes…

Glynda: Good. Let’s continue; You started this little plot with, Ms. Belladonna, where instead of me catching you in the act, you were caught by, Ms. Rose, then you tried it again with, Ms. Rose. Then you tried it again with, Ms. Schnee. And, again with, Ms. Xiao Long. And then with, Ms. Sustari. And, then with, Ms. Fall. And, then with her teammate, Ms. Politan. And, then with your teammate, Ms. Valkyrie. And, then with, Ms. Scarlatina. And, then with her partner, Ms. Adel. And, then with, Ms. Chloris. And, then it was, Ms. Arslan, which involved, Ms. Nikos in a competition of some sorts. Then, Ms. Katt asked you to join your… harem. And, then Miss Zedong ask to join you. And, then it was, Ms. Polendina, who was with, Ms. Soleil, and lastly it was your teammate, Lie Rin before I, Glynda Goodwitch finally caught you in the act…

Jaune: Y-Y-Yeah… That’s p-pretty much it…

Glynda: And, tell me, Mr. Arc… Why… Why didn’t you just ask me out on a date, instead of this convoluted plan where you started a harem after sleeping with seventeen different woman? If you just asked me out back then, I would be enjoying your massive cock between my breasts long ago!

Jaune: I-I’m sorry! I thought you would say no!

Glynda: Mr… No… Jaune… You promised to marry me when you were six… I waited twelve years for you to make your move, and instead of making your move on me, you slept with secenteen other woman! What the hell, Jaune!

Jaune: Uhh… E-Eighteen woman actually…

Glynda: Eighteen?! You’ve slept with eighteen woman before me?! That it! You may have slept with sixteen woman before me, but I’ll be the first to have your child!

Jaune: Y-Yeah… about that…

Glynda: What!! You’re already a father?! Who the hell did you…?! Adrian… You’re, Adrian’s father, aren’t you?!

Jaune: Surprise…?

Glynda: You slept with your sister’s wife to conceive a child?!

Jaune: It was consensual! They wanted an, Arc, so I gave them an, Arc baby!

Glynda: And, Saphron just sat there, and watched as you knocked up her wife, Terra?!

Jaune: …

Jaune: Nineteen…

Glynda: Motherfucker?!

Jaune: Technically true…

Glynda: That’s it! I don’t care about your harem, or the fact I’m number twenty! But, I’ll be damned if someone else has your child before me! I’m number two! Rin can become number three after me! So get ready, Jaune, you’re going to become a father again~!

Jaune: H-Help…?

Ozlyn: Ara-Ara~! Do you really think that I will allow that to happen, Glynda?

Jaune: Headmistress Ozlyn?!

Glynda: Ozlyn?! What are you doing here?

Ozlyn: Me? Why I was planning to get the number two spot, but I don’t mind being number three~!

Glynda: The number two spot is mine bitch!

Ozlyn: We’ll see honey~! But, before we begin, Mr. Arc?

Jaune: Yes…?

Ozlyn: Please say, ‘The Lline.’

Jaune: The line…?

Ozlyn: Yes, ‘The Line~!’

Jaune: Uhhh… H-Hello, Headmistress Ozlyn… would you care to join us…?

Ozlyn: Fufufu~! With extreme pleasure~!

~~~

Nora: Glynda Goodwitch, and Headmistress Ozlyn?!

Jaune: Yeah… both of them…

Nora: Whoa… How was it?

Jaune: Starved, to say the least…

Nora: Oh gods… So… Now what…? You started a harem with twentyone different woman, and all of us are ready, and waiting for a second run! So, what are you going to do, Fearless Leader?

Jaune: …

Jaune: Pancakes…

Nora: Pancakes?

Jaune: Yeah, pancakes. I’m hungry.

Nora: Whoo! Pancakes! Can we have sex afterwards?

Jaune: Sure.

Nora: Fuck yeah!

Jaune: No syrup in the bedroom though.

Nora: Dammit!

///

Haaa… Days of work… And it’s finally over!

Doing the bloody colour coding took forever…

Do enjoy~!

[lbxbx]

Blackmail 2 | KTH

Pairing: Idol!taehyung x reader

Genre: smut, angst. Five shot

Synopsis: being part of their staff meant you had to be around them all the time, Taehyung has a checklist of all the girls he slept with and filmed and you were next on the list, as he lures you using several ways one of them being actually showing you the content he films, before you finally give in and he actually films you to tick you off of his list. Little do you know it’s the biggest mistake ever.

Disclaimer: events and incidents in this fiction are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. This does not resemble Taehyung’s character whatsoever.

taglist: @idkdudewhy @wisebouquetbarbarian @tan-veee @pookiej @xstfudaisyx @junecat18 @whipwhoops @mother2monsters @lil0u0

previous | next

“Put more on the grill.” You whine at your friends, you’re a little greedy at this point and a little tipsy. You and your friends were at a nearby barbeque restaurant in the city having pork belly and alcohol for your last night before travelling away to London for the tour.

“You need to stop eating.” Luna slaps your hand down so you drop the tongs and your pair of chopsticks. “You’re going to get sick and we have a flight to catch tomorrow night.”

You roll your eyes and hold the tongs again and put the last piece of pork belly on the grill, your group of friends were arguing over a major heated topic that you barely could hear when you’re sitting at the end of the table. “I can’t hear you.”

“She’s talking about her night with Kook.” Luna pulls your chair closer for you to hear Sona speak. “He’s incredible and charming and romantic. I’ve never had anyone like him.”

“He doesn’t film you nor do any weird shit does he?” One of the girls asks and right away you could tell that she’s talking about Taehyung which makes you scoff, and speaking of the devil he texts you at the exact second.

9:24 | KTH:

Wyd?

9:25 | KTH:

Wanna meet up tonight?

Your fingers type back immediately.

9:25 | You:

Can’t I’m out with my friends.

As if that’s the only thing stopping you from meeting up with him.

9:25 | KTH

We’ll hang out in your place when you’re done. Deal?

You’re a little too drunk to say no, so you actually end up on leaving him on read, knowing damn well he will join you even if you refused.

You get to your place and the alcohol is now running through your system and your body feels hot to the touch, you’re drunk, but not drunk enough to pass out or anything. You just feel loose and sleepy.

You don’t recall giving him your address but when you’re about to close the door to your place, the foot that stood in the way back in Osaka is now standing in the way again, stopping you from pushing the door  further to shut it. Of course it’s him, this time you could easily recognize him with only a cap covering his head.

He doesn’t hesitate to invite himself in as he speaks. “I love your place.”

You eyes roll to the back of your head when you huff,  and you close the door after him before putting your purse and phone down. “Did I tell you it was okay to come?”

“You didn’t tell me to come over.” He looks at you confused and you nod your head. “Yeah, exactly.” And he pouts. “I was done early with the rehearsals I thought I should drop by and say hi.”

“Hi.” You fake a smile before straightening your face. “Goodbye.” And as if that’s his cue to make himself comfortable, he yanks off his shoes and lands onto your couch. “I’ll have wine please.”

“We’re flying tomorrow we can’t drink.” You didn’t think this through before you said it, he laughs and tilts his head. “Honey, I can smell the Soju from over here.”

“Damn it, alright.” You go to your kitchen and grab a bottle of wine and one single glass for him.

“I thought you threw it away.” He calls from the living room and you rush out to see him holding the box that was near your apartment door, opening it with a smirk on his face and looking through the stuff. “I’m glad you didn’t, those are actually expensive.”

“I’m not into your weird kinky shit, Taehyung.” You put the wine bottle down and sit down onto your couch. He takes the seat next to you and puts the box down onto the coffee table, rummaging through the stuff inside until he fishes out the butt plug. Or vibrator damn it.

“Have you tried one before?” He asks as he turns on the little purple device and it starts vibrating into his hand, he keeps clicking a couple times to change the pattern before turning his head towards you. “Y/N?”

“No offense, but I think toys are pathetic.” You laugh, of course he’s offended, he even scoffs and shakes his head left and right, denying the fact that you actually just said that.

And to prove you wrong, he clicks once onto the device and now it’s pulsating in a different pattern, before he presses it against your vagina through the dress you’re wearing, the sudden contact of the purple device makes your entire body stiffen right away, you’re not sure if you felt like that before, you even hold the fabric of your dress into your fists.

Taehyung seizes the opportunity and wraps an arm around your shoulder as he leans his forehead against the side of your head, inhaling your scent and watching you suffer to hide that it actually feels fantastic.

He dares to click onto the device again and the pattern changes right away making you flinch in your seat, this pattern was stronger and more frequent and  faster than the one before, your body heats up and you feel yourself clenching onto nothing in your panties. Your eyes expose you as they shut down and your head falls back against the couch, and as Taehyung’s head slips away from your face his eyes now lock onto your lips.

The lips he stared at all the time from a far are right here in front of him begging to be kissed and bitten, and he goes feral once you bite onto your lower lip trying to stop the little whimpers that are about to escape your lips.

You can’t control your body anymore, you press your thighs tighter against each other which makes the tiny stupid device press harder against your clit that’s now throbbing into your panties, you’re already soaked there and if you actually stood up you can see the damp little spot on the back of your sky blue dress.

And Taehyung can’t control himself too as he finally presses his lips against yours and kisses you, he feels himself finally getting satiated as he sucks onto them, he roams his tongue inside your mouth and you surprisingly kiss back, which again makes him seize the chance and moves the device under your dress and presses it against your panties. Your breath hitches and your head falls to the side, exposing your neck to him and he dives right in to lick all the way from your collarbone to the back of your ear.

Your body tenses and the grip onto your dress is getting tighter, your breath is quickening and your ears are starting to buzz, it feels so tight in your stomach and you know you’re about to let go. “Mmm.” Uncontrollably escapes your lips and you cover your mouth using the back of your hand. “Are you gonna cum?” His deep voice rings into your ear, his hand that’s holding the vibrator moves left and right to add friction onto your cunt, it’s too overwhelming to you and you feel yourself seconds from cumming, so you hold onto his wrist and try to stop him, your mind is telling you don’t but your body isn’t even listening, you could force him to stop but you physically can’t.

The orgasm takes over your entire body and you feel your lungs deflating, you gasp for a breath and dig your nails into his skin, your sharp breaths are driving him feral and he could go down on his knees right now and beg to fuck you. “Right there, that’s it, cum for me.”

“St.. stop.” You barely whimper, as if the alcohol wasn’t enough for your face to be flushed red and now the orgasm screws you up even more. Taehyung doesn’t even move his hand away as he sees your body shudder next to him, totally overwhelmed by the intense orgasm, your head turns towards him with your eyes half open, his glance meets yours with the dirty smirk on his face, biting onto his lower lip and switching his gaze to your lips.

And holy fuck you have no idea what went through you, your head no longer functions and you can’t comprehend anything but the fact that you’re willing to do anything he wants. The way this man stares at you made you feel like the true woman you are, it made you feel sexy.

“So a vibrator is pathetic but a makeup brush isn’t?” He steals a kiss from your lips and finally turns off the vibrator and throws it onto the couch between you two, you clear your throat and finally relax your legs still trying to catch your breath before you speak. “I’ll do it.”

Jackpot. Honestly he knew you’d agree at some point so he saw it coming, he thought it would take him more time but it happened a little sooner than he thought.

A satisfied grin lingers on his face and he finally gets up onto his feet. “Excellent, make sure you pack these in your luggage, we’ll need it.” He points his head towards the box that had the costume, you clear your throat and get up. “Can’t it happen without it?”

“Trust me, it’ll feel ten times better when you’re wearing it.” He sounds convincing as he pinches your cheek lightly. “I’ll see you in London.”

Let’s just hope you don’t regret this in the morning.

-

You spent your entire day packing because this trip was the longest, your stomach keeps constantly dropping and tickling you when you remember what you agreed on the night before, a part of you wanted to actually back away and call it off, but the largest portion of you was clearly careless since this is just a one time thing.

You grab onto the velvet ribbon and untie it to reveal what the box contains, even when the entire thing is catchy to the eye, but still the purple device is where your eyes lands first, you curiously grab onto it and twist and turn it in your hands, before pressing onto the little golden button and it turns on, you audibly gasp as if you did it by mistake, but clearly you didn’t.

Did he send every girl he slept with a vibrator or what? You scoff and turn it off before shoving it into your suitcase, along with the little piece of clothing before closing your bag and putting it near your door.

Getting to the airport has always been this chaotic, you honestly had no idea why’d they put up their schedule anyway but hey, to each their own.

Right when you get to the security and your suitcase goes in for inspection on the belt, your heart drops when the guards ask. “Ma’am, does this bag belong to you?”

A little dumbfounded and worried, but still you answer even when you’re about to choke onto your coffee. “Yeah, it’s mine.”  

“Do you have something that’s battery operated in this bag?” The security guard asks as he’s taking the bag out from the belt, his hands barely touching the zipper.

And holy fuck you know what he’s talking about and fuck you Kim Taehyung for such stupid “Gift.”

Think Y/N, you better think fast.

Worst case scenario he opens the bag and it’s right there hidden between your clothes and you’re exposed in front of the entire staff that are right behind you waiting for their luggage to be inspected, what else could happen? Of course the security guards have seen these things before and you’re probably overthinking it, it’s just a toy for crying out loud, and of course he won’t just take it out and show it to everyone, or will he?

Fuck, okay you’re nothing thinking Y/N, because your suitcase is already unzipped and the guard is inspecting through it.

What else could be battery operated? How could you even convince him when he’s seconds away from embarrassing you in front of your coworkers and supervisors. Fuck it hurts more that another guard is standing right behind him and watching your bag being inspected. You watch their faces carefully waiting for them to show a reaction. God your walk through the gate will be a walk of shame.

“It’s an electric toothbrush.” Luckily he finds your toothbrush along with your water floss which makes the guard yell, “Next.” And close your bag.

Your face has already gone pale and you broke into cold sweat at just the thought of being exposed in public, your pounding heart in your chest feels like you climbed up 10 floors running and it takes a hot minute to calm down and you promise yourself that this can’t happen again.

You’re not even entirely sure that this is worth it to begin with.

Even when the long flight there was truly exhausting, with two stops and over 16 hours flying, it was more than enough for you to rest and maybe try and forget what happened earlier, you were insanely jet lagged and your body can’t buffer anymore, you can’t comprehend anything but the fact that you desperately need a bed to lay down on like right now.

And again you promise yourself that once you get to London you’re throwing away the stupid purple device in the nearest trash bin to avoid going through what happened earlier again.

Finally you get to the hotel room and you were lucky to have a king size bed all for you, you’re almost 9 hours behind your sleeping schedule so you quickly get into the shower and dive into the bed to catch onto some sleep.

Everyone was jet lagged and exhausted, the concert was still a couple days away so everyone had time to rest and time to take a walk around the city, you made sure to get enough sleep in order to go and explore London with your friends, and as you were having fish and chips on the streets your phone buzzes a couple texts.

5:53 | KTH

Done with the rehearsals, see u at 8 in my room and put the costume on J

It doesn’t take you seconds to reply with only thumbs up and sliding your phone back into your pocket, you need to head back earlier to your room to get ready, the man has slept with so many women that you feel the need to stand out in some way.

As for him? The usual routine before hooking up with someone nothing too special, a shower and a little clean up shave before wrapping the bath towel around his waist before he walks towards his carry on.

The sound of the zipper being opened is the only sound that’s heard in the room before he digs in to take out what he needs.

A couple Go-pros, handcuffs, blindfolds, his Nikon camera and a couple massage oils, and most importantly, his belt that he slides out of his jeans that he was wearing earlier. He takes one quick scan at the room trying to figure out where to hide the cameras.

The Go-pros can easily fit behind the table lamps on each side of the bed, and one near the TV, his Nikon camera hides pretty well in the closet that he leaves it’s door slid open enough for the lens to catch everything. He puts the blindfolds and handcuffs on the bed before putting his carry on back down onto the floor.

Taehyung doesn’t even bother to bring along condoms, he’s very hygienic and he knows you’re safe too, he did have to dig deep into your medical record that’s archived in the company to figure it out, but hey safety comes first. He never believed in condoms and he’s very careful when it comes to pulling out.

He takes one quick glance at the time on his phone and it’s already 8, so he takes one last spin around the room to click the record button on all the 5 cameras he set up.

He even sets up one last Go-pro near the headboard of the bed and finally hits the last record button, before scanning the room again to make sure that they’re all well hidden. And they really are, he’s been doing this for over a year now that he got so good at hiding them.

As for you, you were standing in front of the bathroom mirror admiring the way you look, your body is reacting upon your reflection and that douche was right. It already feels great to know that you look really sexy. In the back of your mind you were questioning yourself, are you really doing this?

You grab the bathrobe and put it on before leaving your room, you look around the corridor and the hallway is completely empty since everyone is either sleeping or having a night out. You had to take the elevator up in order to get to his room and you were on your tiptoes hoping that you don’t bump into someone when you’re wearing heavy makeup and a red lipstick, oh and in a bathrobe. You think it’s really obvious that you’re meeting up with someone and it probably is.

You make your way to his room and knock on the door, and there’s no answer. You look at the time and it’s a little past 8:30. You’re not that late and you’re pretty sure he’s in his room.

He is. He’s on the other side of the door watching you through the peephole and waiting for an entire minute to unlock his door, it was his sick way of teaching you a lesson to never be late, and when he says be there at 8, it means you have to be there by 8.

“Hey.” He opens the door and tilts his head inside. “Come on in, how are you?”

You’re fuming at the fact that you had to keep knocking on his door for a good amount of time and he knows you can’t be seen, specially that in the room next to him is probably one of the boys or one of their managers.

“What took you so long?” You get inside and rush to close the door behind you, the auto lock immediately activating and you hear it clicking shut. You don’t dare to look up from the floor when you clearly see him wearing only a towel around his waist, the idea itself was intimidating to you, you’re about to have sex with the man that millions of girls love and adore, and holy fuck he’s standing right there trying so hard to draw an image of what you look like underneath that little bathrobe.

“May I?” He stands behind you, his fingers fidgeting with the rope tied around your waist, and you clear your throat and nod a hesitant “Yes.”

He loosens it around your body and pulls it off of you ever so gently, you feel his breath hitting the nape of your neck and it sends shivers down your body that you shrug your shoulders up and shiver clearly making him laugh quietly. “You’re so cute.”

That wasn’t what you were hoping to hear when you’re all dolled up in the costume he bought, his eyes pierce down your shoulders and back, slowly taking his time to look down your ass, he cannot believe his eyes that it’s right there in front of him.

Now Taehyung doesn’t usually do this, he usually cuts to the chase and immediately gets to work but with you he took his time, he knows you’re new to this, your past experiences were considered quite trash to him, so he felt the need to butter up his bread and be gentle at first, before showing you his true colors.

“Did you get the rest of the stuff?” He asks.

“Yeah.” You hand him the stupid purple device that’s been giving you nightmares, he grabs it into his hands and walks inside to sit onto the bed, man spreading his legs apart enough for you to clearly see what’s under the towel. You take a couple steps towards the bed and he grabs onto your hands before pulling you towards him to sit onto his leg. “Come here let me kiss you.”

He cups your cheeks and pulls you in to kiss you once, the second time he licks your lips and bite onto your bottom lip and gently tugging it back before kissing you, his other hand running up your thigh and his fingers tracing the suspenders you were wearing softly.

Your hands stay onto your legs when you have no idea what to do, he pulls back and wraps one arm around your waist to pull you down onto the bed and getting on top of you. “Is this good?” He whispers, making sure that so far you’re okay and you are, and you barely whisper a ‘Yes’ before he continues, he spreads your legs apart to position comfortably between them, the big clear bulge in his towel now presses against your clothed core on purpose and holy fuck he’s rock hard.

He proceeds to kiss you on the lips again and you kiss back, hardly able to focus when he keeps poking and grinding against the stupid leather piece that you wish didn’t exist. “Mmm.” Your hand runs down his chest and the other wraps around his neck, your mouths merging together into wet kisses that are slowly turning into a sloppy make out session.

The pressure against your cunt also turns into grinding, and you’re pretty sure if he doesn’t stop you’d cum in seconds as this was really arousing to you. The pressure increases against your covered entrance which makes you hold your breath and pull back from the kiss, your head falling back against the bed.

He buries his face in the crook of your neck and kisses your ear, grazing his teeth against the shell as he whispers. “I’m going to fuck you senseless Y/N, you’ve never been fucked like this believe me.”

The man knows the piece you’re wearing like the back of his hand, he knows where exactly to unbutton it and pull it off of your body, this time he’s not teasing or going slow, he’s going all in and sliding it off of your body, leaving you wearing the stockings and the suspenders that are holding them up. A satisfied smug smirk sits on his face when his eyes burn through your entire body, wondering where to start? He cannot wait to put his mouth on you.

He carries you up using one hand and throws you to sit in the middle of the bed, you gasp when you feel something cold underneath your butt and you look there to find the pair of handcuffs that he had prepared. Your stomach drops when you see that not only he had the handcuffs prepared, there was a belt and a blindfold. You saw girls wearing something similar to it in the videos he showed you. “Taehyung no.”

“Baby I wasn’t asking.” The same smirk getting bigger, he does try a little hard to persuade you into it. “It will feel ten times better trust me.”

“I can’t put those on.” You argue back which makes him laugh. “Come on Y/N, we’ll have a safe word if you want me to stop, okay?”

“A safe word?” You scoff. “I’ll tell you to stop and that’s it.” And he takes that as a yes, he doesn’t waste a second as he grabs the blindfold and wraps it around your head, tightening it a little and asking. “All good?”

“Mhm.” You hum, your body tenses the moment your eyes get covered and you get anxious when you don’t know what he’s doing or the mere idea of when or where he’s going to touch you next. “I’m right here.” He grazes the side of your shoulder with what feels like the back of his hand as if he knew that you’re worried. “Give me your hands.”

It takes you seconds to put both your palms up towards him, he puts the handcuffs around your wrists and tightens them enough for you to not be able to rotate them enough. “Fuck.” You mumble when you realize you can’t see nor touch anything around you, and honestly you would easily panic but you had no idea what went through you, you were never into kinky stuff but apparently you’re willing to do it now.

“Fuck!” You gasp again when you’re suddenly pulled so your back fully lands on the bed, your breath hitches and your chest rises faster when you feel your legs being spread open. Holy fuck you can’t see anything, you can feel his hands on the back of your thighs and you can feel his hot breaths getting closer to your inner thighs too, but you can’t see his face and you probably won’t be able to see him savoring you.

You feel the wetness and the warmth of his mouth when he licks a long trail from your entrance to your clit, then moving lower to the inner of your thigh, kissing and sucking on your skin until the color changes into a dark shade of red. “Shit.” You start fighting the handcuffs and you can hear them clicking and behind that is the sound of him chuckling. “You’re doing good baby girl.”

He proceeds to wrap his mouth around your throbbing clit and flicks his tongue against it, moving his head to add more friction as he runs his hand on the back of your thigh. You taste so good on his mouth, he doesn’t waste a drop leaking out of your cunt and he licks you clean.

Your clenched jaw finally drops when he slides two fingers inside you and curling them against your spot, your legs automatically close and he forcefully spreads them back open and starts thrusting his fingers while using his thumb to rub your clit in circular motion as he kisses your inner thighs.

His eyes spot the Go-pro that’s been sitting on the nightstand and he reaches over to grab it and film your clit being fucked with his fingers up close. “Mmm, fuck.” The sounds you make are the cherry on the top to the clip he’s filming, he comes in closer to suck onto your clit and turns the camera to show it clearly.

As for you, you now know why he uses the handcuffs and the blindfolds. The element of surprise was really arousing, it felt insanely good to not know where you’re about to be touch, you had no idea what’s coming up next when your eyes were covered, and your restricted hands basically stopped you from either touching him or touching yourself, he wants to make you feel good on his own and he didn’t need help.

Even the second you started grinding your hips against his face he used his full strength to stop you and dive into your cunt deeper than before, which made your chest heave faster, you’re so near you feel your stomach getting tighter and your pussy keeps clenching around his fingers. “I need to cum. Taehyung please, don’t stop.”

“Mmm.” He savors every seconds he gets to taste you and his eyes even shut close at how fucking tasty you are, he pulls back to spit onto your clit and dive back in, you were a drenching wet mess in seconds when you cum, your head falls back against the pillow and your sharp breaths are now louder, your legs fight the urge to shut close so they start shaking. “Holy fuck.” Even when your hands are cuffed together, you were still able to reach his hair and tug onto it tight enough to make him go insane.

It’s all caught on camera and you had no idea, Taehyung was more than satisfied on what he got so far because you look like a fucking porn star and you sound like one. He hides the camera back behind the table lamp on the night stand and climbs up to kiss you on the lips.

You wrap your legs around him and you can feel that the towel is still on him, and you’re cheeky enough to fidget the top of the towel with your fingers and slide it off which makes you earn a spank onto your ass that resonates through the walls of the hotel room. “Look at my little whore being all greedy for my cock, you wanna taste that cock that’s going to fuck you until you pass out? Hmm?” You can only hear him and he’s already breathless.

And on regular basis you would’ve fucked up his face if he called you a whore, but in bed everything is allowed, including what you hear ringing right near your ear, is it the belt you saw earlier?

“Fuck.” Your entire body is turned so you land on your face, your arms uncomfortably sit underneath you and in seconds he realizes the problem and fixes it, lifting your arms up to sit above your head. You can feel the mattress sinking when he gets out of the bed and gets onto his feet but again, you being blindfolded meant you cannot expect what’s about to happen.

Him on the other hand grabs the same Go-pro again and gets closer to your ass, spanking it with his large hand and digging his fingers into it to jiggle it. His obsession with the female body had him go insane. He moves down to your feet and films them as he’s running his hands onto them and up your calves, slowly moving up to the back of your thighs and gets closer with the camera to film your swollen pussy and perked hole from behind.

He delivers another spank to your other ass cheek this time and moves up to your back, tracing his finger up your spine to the back of your neck, moving to your hair to collect it all into his hand and lift your face up from the pillow. “Look at that beautiful face, this is where I’m gonna cum.” And he spits onto your lips before stealing a quick kiss. “I’m gonna cum inside this big mouth of yours.”

You hear the belt again which makes your stomach clench, you’re high key scared and fucking ruined at the same time, do you really want him to spank you?

“Ha! Fuck!” You yell, squeezing the pillows into your fists when he spanks you with the belt onto your ass, it’s mixed feelings really, both painful and extremely arousing. “Again, please, do it again.” And now you’re begging him to do it again?

He delivers another spank right away onto the same spot and you cannot see it, but it’s already marked onto your ass and it’s dark red. “Please Taehyung, again.” And he goes right in, this time onto your other ass cheek and it feels so fucking good, you’re startled when he helps you get onto your knees to put your ass up with your face still down onto the pillow, and this time he spanks again, hitting your cunt with the belt and making you arch your back and moan his name off of the top of your lungs.

He finally puts the Go-pro down onto the night stand and positions himself behind you, totally proud of the marks he left onto your skin. He spits onto his palm and strokes his cock before pointing the head to your entrance, slowly teasing you by trying to push it in but you were clenching repeatedly. “Relax for me, will you?”

You try and obey but you can’t, especially when he keeps rubbing against you and touching you all over your body, it’s already making you seconds away from reaching another orgasm and your stamina wasn’t that good to begin with. He tries to push into you again but you’re way too tight when you’re all clenched. He grabs you by your hair to pull you up forcefully. “Do you wanna be fucked or not?”

“Yes please.” You cry out, he pushes you back into the pillow and this time pushes inside you even when there’s resistance to begin with making you gasp and arch your back right away. Your cunt swallows him inside and you feel him stretching you with every single curve of his cock, he’s fucking you raw and you were completely okay with it because it felt insanely good.

Fuck, your body is acting up on the stretch of his head inside you, your stomach feels tight and with minimal amount of grinding against him, you cum again and relax around him. “Holy fuck did you just cum?”

He doesn’t get an answer, but you being fucked up on the bed and fighting to catch a breath is quite the answer he needed. He takes one look to your cunt and pulls back a little, you’ve already creamed on the head of his cock and drenched him. “Fuck.” He pulls his cock entirely out and slides in one finger to taste your cum, he’s cursing under his breath because this has never happened with him.

“Fucking god please.” You cry out again when he pushes back inside you, this time pushing further more of his cock , the stretch is nothing like you’ve felt before and you’re not even sure you can take him full. You’re over stimulated and you haven’t even calmed down from your previous high and he’s not planning to give you any breaks soon.

“Fuck, look at that little pussy wrapped around my cock, it feels so good to fuck you Y/N.” He grits onto his own teeth, he pulls back and pushes back in making you arch your back again, he takes up his pace and in seconds you feel yourself chasing another orgasm, and the only way you can announce that you’re about to cum is using your mouth and you’re already choking up on words, so you slam your fists against the pillow repeatedly, which makes him move inside you even faster and fuck you’re cumming again.

It feels so good but holy shit it burns, you cry out his name with your tears that are absorbed by the stupid blindfold you have on, you sob out his name repeatedly and he can feel it, especially with your cunt constantly tightening around him and driving him crazy.

Your body no longer functions and your limbs start shaking, your lower body collapses onto the bed and his cock slides out of you, your legs shut tight to ease down your sore pussy and you’re still crying. “Give me a minute.”

“Shh, you’re okay.” He gets up onto his feet and pours you a cup of water, he sits near your head and helps you sit up to take the blindfold off. You squint your eyes at the sudden exposure of the lights and lift your hand up to try and grab the cup of water but your limbs are shaking nonstop. “You’re okay, it’s okay.” He helps you take a couple sips of water before putting the cup down. “Better?”

You barely nod your head, he inches closer to kiss you on the lips and neck, moving down to your chest and kneading it into his hand. “Lay down.” And you lay your back down on the bed, he adjusts you to dangle your head on the edge of the bed and gets up onto his feet, his enormous cock sitting in his hand while he’s stroking it.

He takes a step closer to your face and brushes the head of his cock against the side of your face and lips before pointing the tip to your mouth and with no words needed you open your mouth and it hurts your jaw when you try and take him into your mouth, the size on this man is incredible and you haven’t seen anyone this big before. “Good girl, let me fuck that beautiful face of yours.” And with no hesitation he thrusts his hips against your face forcing more of his cock inside your mouth.

Your gag reflex was something you weren’t so proud of, just as the tip of his dick reaches the back of your tongue you audibly gag right away and pull your head back. “It’s okay, you can do it.”

He forces his cock inside your mouth again this time the head hitting a spot deeper inside your mouth making you gag again and panic to catch a breath. “Taehyung—“

“It’s alright, don’t move.” He grabs onto your hair and pounds right into your mouth, the head now hitting your tonsils and down your throat, you start kicking your legs onto the bed and trying hard to pull back, but he’s got a good grip of your hair and he doesn’t stop and can’t stop. It feels so good to fuck your mouth and watching you struggle to breathe is arousing him even more. “That’s it, you’re such a good girl.” He breathlessly pants and pushes in one last time and holds inside, your face is already turning red and your tears are streaming down your face. You keep coughing against his cock but he doesn’t pull out, he delivers a slap to your cheek and pulls back. Your lungs inflate with oxygen again as you’re gasping for a breath and coughing.

“Your mouth feels so fucking good.” He leans forward to kiss you on the lips before climbing back onto the bed and turning you on your hands and knees again, positioning himself behind you and rubbing the head of his swollen angry cock against your clit and entrance. “I wonder what it feels like inside your ass.”

Your body stiffens again when you know you’re still not ready, your swollen cunt was still sore and hurting, your hands are still cuffed to each other so you won’t be able to support your upper half if you cover up yourself, “Taehyung wait—“ You panic when you feel the head of his cock pointing towards your hole, rubbing against it and wetting it with his own spit, he doesn’t give you time to object as he already tries to push in inside you, the tightness is killing him and his eyes roll to the back of his head when your hole tightens around his shaft.

As for you, you could swear you feel him in your back, it fucking hurts so good. Your back arches and you don’t realize it yet, but you’ve been holding your breath the entire time. “Holy fucking shit Y/N where have you been.” He whimpers, reaching for the massage oil to squirt some onto your ass, he gets really impatient and unscrews the lid before dumping the entire bottle on your whole body and throwing the bottle away across the room. “Don’t move.” Your voice so low, tears are accumulating in your eyes again at the insanely good burn, and with every grunt you let out, your hole keeps clenching around him in a stroke like motion which makes him grab the belt and wrap it around your neck to pull you in closer.

 “Fuck-“ You gasp when he wraps the belt tighter around your neck, the closeness already pushing more of his cock inside you making you scream his name and throw your head back against him. He seizes the chance and bites the shell of your ear while whispering. “I’m going to fucking ruin you Y/N, no one will make you cum the way I can.”

You’re totally fucked you can’t form a sentence, only whimpers and grunts escaping your lips along with sharp breaths, your hard nipples grab his attention and he doesn’t think again before delivering a slap to your tits making you sob out his name, you’re fighting against the cuffs again when you feel them getting on your nerves, you have to use your hands, you need to pull onto something or touch him, your nails are already digging into the inside of your palm hard enough that you’re bleeding making it burn when it mixes with sweat.

You completely lose it when the purple device enters your vagina still turned off, you look at him over your shoulders in utter disbelief, you’re already over stimulated enough without the stupid vibrator. “Taehyung please—“ At this point you’re begging for him to stop, but he doesn’t. He presses onto the stupid golden button twice, knowing exactly what pattern to choose to drive you both insane, “Please, please..” Your eyes meets his, he’s more than satisfied when he looks at your face, all glowing and flushed red, tears are already messing your makeup and your lipstick is smudged. “Cum for me.”

It’s physically impossible for you to cum right now, but he insists on making you cum for the fourth or fifth time tonight, so he pushes the rest of his cock into your ass and starts jerking his hips up against yours, the sounds of your skin meeting fills the room, his thighs and hips meeting your ass cheeks and slapping them with each thrust, and before you know it you feel your orgasm approaching which makes you roll your eyes to the back of your head. “Don’t stop.” You want to reach your end now and you find yourself grinding your hips against his, he pushes you down to land back on your cuffed hands. “Fuck yourself, come on.” He delivers a spank to your ass, finally halting his thrusts, and it takes you a moment to gather some strength and start pounding against him.

Holy fuck this is like a dream coming true to him, he even laughs and keeps spanking onto your ass. “That’s it, keep going.” He throws his head back and clicks again to change the pattern on the vibrator, this pattern is strong enough even when it’s inside your pussy, he could feel it through your walls and it sends vibrations through to his dick. “Keep going.” He grabs the belt and spanks your ass again making you jump in your place and tug onto the bed sheets, crying even louder when you feel yourself seconds away from letting go, the overwhelming pleasure controls your body and you can no longer move against him, you collapse on the bed and fight against the cuffs again.

He loses his patience and holds your hips into his hand to stay inside you as he leaves the bed to get into his feet, he uses both his hands to spread your ass cheeks apart before pounding into it again, this time furiously and not stopping whatsoever, your walls clench around the vibrator once more and you push onto your own core when you finally release your orgasm, your squirt gushing against his cock and thighs making him call out your name. “There you go, good fucking girl.” He rubs your clit and keeps fucking you through your orgasm. “Fucking god, please Taehyung, please..” You gasp for a breath and your walls clenching pushes the vibrator out of you, finally.

He couldn’t fight the impulsive thought of pulling out of you and going down on you, licking every single drop that fell out of your cunt down your thighs, savoring every drop that sits onto his tongue and swallowing it, before sitting back up and pushing back into your ass making you whimper when you feel yourself stuffed to the brim. And he pounds right back into you until you feel his breath quickening and his grip tightening on both your ass cheeks. “Come here.” He pulls out and grabs you by your wrist to get down on your knees to the floor, he grabs the keys from the nightstand and finally takes the cuffs off of your wrists. “Hold your tits out for me and open your mouth.” And your fucked up and fogged brain can’t process anything he said until he man handles you and forcefully makes you obey what he said, sticking his fingers down your throat while he gives his cock the last couple strokes.

You throw your head back and fight the urge to close your eyes when you’re gagging just to look at him and watch him cum right before your eyes, he shoots the first white ribbon onto your face and his balls keep clenching while he’s shooting out the rest of his cum, some end up falling on your chest and the rest goes down your mouth and throat.

And it tastes fucking horrendous.

He looks down at you with his hair all frizzy and all over his face, with sweat dripping down his forehead and even the tip of nose, down to his neck and chest. “Swallow.”

And with his cum still in your mouth you shake your head, you need to spit it out quickly because you can’t handle the taste. People must be lying when they mentioned that it tasted good but that’s total bullshit. “I said swallow.”

You’re about to reject again but he forces your mouth shut and covers it with his hand. “Swallow Y/N.”

And you were forced to swallow even when you’re clearly gagging in front of him. “Good girl.” He grabs his towel from earlier and pats his face dry. “You can go back to your place.” And just like that he enters the bathroom and you hear his shower water running leaving you on his bedroom floor.

You crawl around the room looking for your bathrobe and struggle to put it on, before gathering enough strength to get up onto your feet and leave the room, luckily it’s still late so you won’t be seen around the hotel, and just when the elevator door closes you could swear you heard Hoseok shout. “Hold it.” From a distance, but of course you wouldn’t let him see you like this.

You click the key card to your hotel room and close the door shut behind you, rushing to the toilet and throwing up what you swallowed earlier. You were pretty sure it wasn’t staying in there.

-

You had to get room services twice so they can keep you nourished with soup and warm liquids, and 3 tabs of painkillers and couple hot showers away, you were able to go to work today but you had to walk slowly and get up slowly.

“Good morning.” Taehyung and Jungkook walk into the room with wide smiles on their face, Taehyung putting his phone back into his pocket before throwing his top off and taking his seat onto your station.

“Good morning.” The girls on the station next to you answer them both and you just get to work, nothing personal really, but your tonsils were killing you from what happened the night before.

“Good morning.” Taehyung repeats, looking at your reflection in the mirror and curving his lips up into a little smile, you mirror his smile and nod your head. “Morning.”

“She’s not feeling well today.” Your friend Leah elaborates while she’s working on Jungkook’s face. “Oh no what happened?” Jungkook snaps his head towards you, Taehyung of course knows why so he doesn’t ask.

“The weather got her and she’s having a sore throat.” She adjusts Jungkook’s face and proceeds to work, “I’m alright, she’s just exaggerating.” You force a smile and start dabbing some primer onto Taehyung’s face, while you’re too focused on your job he clears his throat and whispers. “You alright?”

“Mhm.” A simple answer that was more than enough. “If you need anything I’ll be glad to help.” He glances at your face, at this point he’s just feigning this caring personality just to get you to do it again with him when you two are back home. He regrets his promise that this is going to be only one time.

“And by the way, you forgot your uhm.. device, in my room last night.”

“Goodness, please keep it.” You argue right away before laughing. “I don’t think I need it anymore, and I don’t think carrying it around in my suitcase back to Seoul is a brilliant idea.”

He chuckles and leans his head back, “What do you think about last night?” And you nudge him when you feel Jungkook’s eyes on you, he absolutely heard him and now the two of them are waiting for your answer.

“The flight? It was exhausting.” You laugh awkwardly, clearing your throat and turning away to grab the rest of the makeup brushes.

But what you don’t see, is Taehyung smirking at Jungkook and winking him, making the younger nod and give him a thumbs up while mouthing him. “Good choice.”

Last night right after he was done with his shower, he looked around the room knowing it’s empty since he heard the door locking when he went in earlier. He takes a spin around the room to turn off all the Go-pros  and collect them along with his Nikon camera, he calls room service and they’re up in seconds to clean around the room like it was never touched, of course making sure to hide suspicious things before any of the staff enters.

He takes a seat around the little coffee table near the window and turns on his iPad to download the videos of the several different angles he filmed. And of course this isn’t his first time doing it, a quick touch to the movie maker with his apple pencil before he edits the clips, cuts some and mixes some, to produce your own sex tape.

He clicks his tongue at his own dick that’s sitting in his boxers when it low key twitches at the sight of the movie, he can easily cum again if he wanted to, but now is not the time. The tape is around 38 minutes even after cutting some clips, and holy fuck he could watch it again and again.

And on their way to the stadium this morning, him and Jungkook started sharing their experience the night before, Jungkook mentioned something about sleeping with two locals from London, and Taehyung of course had to share his own experience and explicitly mentions you.

“So did you get it on tape?” Jungkook asks and Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Of course I did, I have it on my phone you wanna check it out?”

“I don’t mind.” It was 10 in the morning but the younger didn’t mind watching a sex tape in a car that had staff in it, Taehyung unlocks his phone and dims the brightness before handing it to Jungkook along with one of the airpods.

Jungkook hasn’t seen anything as animalistic as this, of course he did see other tapes before that are made by Taehyung too, but you weren’t like any of them. The sounds you made, your body, your crying and your whimpers. “She can squirt?” Jungkook’s doe eyes pierce through the phone.

“Hey, I made her squirt.” Taehyung of course takes credit for that. He lost count of the women he slept with, but none of them squirted, none of them gave Taehyung a boost of ego like you did. “How many times did she cum?”

“I don’t know, probably four, five? I lost count.” Taehyung carelessly shrugs. “It was insane.”

“That’s incredible.” Jungkook skips the video for his own sake, totally not the time to have an erection and it’s still too early in the morning. “Do you think I can get her to do anything with me?”

“She gets weird about me telling anyone about it, but I don’t know you can try.” Taehyung grabs his phone from Jungkook and locks it.

And as they both got into the stadium and Jungkook sets his eyes on you, he looks at you differently now, wishing he would spend a night with you and secretly thinking about offering you money to do it.

“Good choice.” He mouths Taehyung and throws his head back to finish his makeup.

The moment Jungkook looks at you, Taehyung asks you again. “But no really, what do you think about last night?”

You take one last glance at Jungkook who’s attention is finally averted off of you before you answer. “Not bad.” Taehyung knows you’re teasing, so he laughs and nods. “I’m glad you think so. But you clearly have a limb from all the pounding, and your throat is clearly swollen from all the face fucking.”

“Shh.” You hit his shoulder. “Someone could actually hear us.”

“Alright. But hey, you have to have your device back, I’ll carry it in my luggage if you want to and I’ll hand it back to you when we’re home.” And you totally don’t mind, as long as you avoid any possible chances of embarrassment in public.

[thetriumphantpanda]

Beggin' For It | Joel Miller

The Checklist - Orgasm Denial

Chapter Summary | Your new boyfriend Joel, in the process of helping you pack up your apartment, finds your stash of porn, full of all the things you've been scared of asking for. He surprises you by offering to help you tick them off, starting by denying you the thing you always love the most.

Chapter Warnings | This is basically porn without plot. Explicit smut, oral sex (f receiving), fingering, unprotected PiV sex, talk of contraceptives, orgasm denial, creampie, dirty talk, pet names (baby), hair pulling, established relationship, No Outbreak AU, No Use of Y/N.

Word Count | 3.7k

Pairing | Joel Miller x F!Reader

Authors Note | Well here we go, the Joel Miller Kink extravaganza. I had SO much fun writing this and putting this together so I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I love writing it! If you do enjoy this, reblogs and comments are always appreciated, and if you'd like to support me further, you can donate to my Ko-Fi.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Ko-Fi.

Your face is burning hot, and your stomach is in knots of anxiety as you stand in the doorway to your room, two glasses of water in hand, watching Joel, who is sat on your bed with a spread of magazine’s spread out across the duvet. Those fucking magazines, stored carefully in the bottom drawer of your bedside table. Some are straight up pornographic, plucked from the top shelf of the store, paid for and shoved into the depths of your bag before anyone apart from you and the cashier knew what it was. Others are those silly gossip magazines, Cosmopolitan mainly, pages folded in all of them of the pictures you like the most, the ones that help you get off the quickest, the things you want to try the most. And they’re all spread out for him to see. 

“W-where did you f-find those?” You choke out, swallowing thickly, hands gripping the two glasses so hard you’re surprised they don’t shatter. 

Joel shrugs, “You asked me to start packing the stuff from the drawers into boxes,” He says, because you did, your apartment in disarray as you’re packing up to move into his home, “I opened the drawer and found them.” 

Joel was never planned. You’d been more than happy on your own. When you met him, on a random Sunday morning, you’d been out of your last relationship for almost a year. You’d been staring at different types of nails at the hardware store, cursing yourself that you hadn’t thought to research what the best nails for hanging pictures up would be, when his Southern drawl had pricked your ears. 

“Need any help, miss?” 

You’d turned, taken a step back because he was taller than you, broad, and definitely older too. Grey scruff peppered along his jaw, some in his hair too, and big brown eyes that screamed kindness at you. He was the most gorgeous man you’d ever seen. 

“Huh?” Was all you could manage to let out, cursing yourself for seeming like the typical dumb woman at the hardware store. 

“Been milling around gettin’ some stuff and you’ve been starin’ at that wall’a nails for a while,” He chuckles, stepping forward so he’s next to you, “What d’ya need ‘em for?” 

“Oh,” You breathe, he smells good too, woodsy and masculine, “I’m wanting to hang some pictures on my walls.” 

He hums in understanding, reaching over to grab a pack of nails that are miles longer than the ones you would have chosen. He holds them out to you, which you take, fingertips brushing against his as you do, “Thanks,” You smile at him, “I would never have chosen these ones.” 

“You got everythin’ you need to hang them?” He asks, “Tools and stuff?” 

You shrug this time, “I’ve got a hammer, is that going to do it?” 

The look in his eyes is akin to what you imagine someone would look like if you’d just kicked a dog in front of them, he shakes his head and reaches into his pocket, pulling out his wallet and then hands you card that he pulls out. You take it, the words ‘Miller Contracting’ and a phone number underneath it. 

“Usually, I’m more of a building from scratch guy, but you can’t hammer these nails into a wall, so give me a call and I can come and hang your pictures for you.” 

So, you do. Late that evening, you call him, tell him you’ve got the weekend free, and you’d like to get your pictures hung. He comes over, you watch him closely as he hangs them perfectly on your wall. You make him dinner as a thank-you, considering he won’t let you pay him, and then after two beers, you let him fuck you on your couch. It’s not usually your style, but nine months later, it seems to have worked, considering he’s moving you into his house. 

Like most things that had to do with your life and Joel, moving in this early had never been planned either. Sarah, his daughter, who you’d met multiple times, had her own life, her own home, and the lease to your apartment in the city was ending early. Something to do with the landlord wanting to completely redecorate. Joel had offered his place to you, which made sense, considering you spent most of your time at his anyway. So, you’d emailed your landlord, told him you’d be out by the end of the month, and were now packing up everything you owned to move into Joel’s place. Start a new life. 

“Don’t be embarrassed, baby,” He coos, “Some interesting stuff here.” He muses, reaching over to pick up a copy of one of the more explicit magazines, opening it on a page that’s got the corner folded over, the picture is a woman, bent over on her knees with her hands spreading the cheeks of her ass, an anonymous man pounding his cock into her, a look of ecstasy on her face. 

You can’t bare it anymore, so you put the glasses down on chest of drawers and made a beeline to snatch it out of his hand, “Now, hold your horses, baby,” He teases, managing to grab your waist to catch you off balance, pulling you onto his lap where you straddle him, the other hand holding the magazine out of your reach, “What do the folded pages mean?” 

You groan, letting your forehead fall onto his shoulder, grumbling incoherently into him in the hopes he drops the subject, but this is Joel, and you should have known better. He pushes his shoulder forward, forcing your head up, “I didn’t quite hear you, baby?” 

Dick, is what you think, “They’re things I like,” You mumble, “Think that get me off.” 

He turns his head towards the bed with a smirk, “Lots of folded pages, baby,” He teases, Joel lets the magazine in his hand drop to the bed, gripping your waist in both hands, “Don’t need to be shy baby, nothin’ wrong with any of it.” 

It’s not really that you’re embarrassed by what’s in the magazines, it’s more the fact that even though you and Joel have an extremely healthy sex life, not one you would necessarily call vanilla, but certainly not kinky, there were things you were scared of asking for. There was a mental list of things you’d read about in the advice columns of Cosmo, pictures you’d seen in the other magazines, that you were dying to try, but how do you bring up to your boyfriend of not even a year, that you want him to bend you over and stuff his cock into your ass? 

Joel brings a hand up to your face, cups your cheek and brushes the skin there with his thumb, “Why don’t you show me something you want to try?” He coaxes gently, his brown eyes meeting your own. 

Your eyes go wide. You had always been worried of asking for these things, worried it would scare him off, or that he just didn’t want to branch out into anything too kinky, but here he is, offering to help make your fantasies come true, “Go on.” He taps at your sides. 

You lean over, grab one of the issues of Cosmo and flick through it to the page with the folded corner right at the back. You pass it to Joel, who takes it, letting his eyes flick to the column of sex advice. He clears his throat and starts reading with you still perched on his lap. 

“Dear Angela,” he reads in his Southern drawl, “I’ve been with my fiancé for over five years now. We’re very happy and our wedding is in a year’s time, but I’m struggling to connect with him sexually now. I think the problem is that he’s too nice. Outside of the bedroom, this is wonderful, but do you have any advice on how we might be able to spice things up with our sex life?” He then clears his throat again before launching into ‘Angela’s’ response, “Dear reader, this is something I deal with often. You’re happy with everything but the sex, but don’t lose hope because this is fixable. If you want him to get a little mean with you, nothing says that like denying you the big one, the final ‘O’ if you will. Talk to him, tell him it’s something you want, and have fun!” 

You’re looking at his face as he ponders what that means. He’s putting the magazine down on the bed, bringing his hands back to your hips, looking into your eyes, “Am I too nice to you, baby?” He coos, “Need me to be a little mean t’ya?” 

His voice flashes straight down to your cunt. You wriggle in his lap, the seam of your jeans rubbing along the bulge that is prominent in his own lap. He holds you still, fingers pressing into your hips, “I don’t think so baby, tryin’ to get yourself off like that.” 

You groan a little as he lifts you off his lap, spreads you out on the mattress. You open your legs for him, let him settle his hips between yours, grinding his hips as he presses his mouth to yours. You can feel his chest pressed against your own, the entire weight of him smothering your body, his hands smoothing your hair from your forehead as you open your mouth for him, letting him lick into your mouth, tasting him as your tongue works against his. 

You buck your hips up into his own, your hands coming down to slip into the back pockets of his jeans, pulling his hips forward so you’re grinding together through your clothes, something skin to how you used to behave as a horny teenager. 

“You feelin’ needy, baby?” He whispers into your ear, teeth nipping at your earlobe as he does. 

You don’t want to admit that you are, mainly because you know he’s not going to fix the problem. You’ve asked for him to be mean to you, asked him to do nothing but use you and your body for his own pleasure and leave you wanted more, so you just let out a breathy moan, which makes him chuckle, makes him grind his hips into yours again before he pushes himself back on his knees, dragging you up with him so he can pull your t-shirt off your body. 

He pushes you gently back down onto the mattress, drags those big palms of his down your sides until he reaches the waist of your jeans. He pops the button, drags the zipper down and moves his body just enough so he can peel the material down your thighs and off your body, throwing them behind him to be forgotten now. Joel leaves your bra on, but drags your pantie down your legs, pushing your thighs apart so you’re bared to him, no doubt slick and shiny for him. 

Joel stands from the bed, drops to his knees and starts pressing warm, wet kissed to the insides of your thighs. Up the left side, down the right, but never right where you want it. He teases you slowly, like he’s got all the time in the world, and in moments like this you’re always in awe of how patient he is, always willing to defer his own gratification in place of getting you off first and, more often than not, multiple times, before he even thinks of sinking himself into you. 

His face finally makes its way to settle where you always love having it, right at the apex of your thighs, where you’re already wet with want for him. You can feel his hot breath skittering across your skin so, although you didn’t think it physically possible, you spread your legs wider, showing him your glistening, slick cunt. His fingers press into your thighs as his mouth presses a single, chaste kiss right to your clit. You breathe out in pleasure, letting yourself relax a little as you feel his tongue move slowly through your folds, moving from your entrance where your slick is pooling, just for him, all the way up to your clit. He teases you a little at first, small little kitten licks placed ever-so-gently to your clit. He knows this is what you like, when he takes his time to work you up to the edge. The edge you have to continually remind yourself you’re not going to get the opportunity to push yourself over. 

He pulls his mouth off you when you start moving your hips in time to his mouth, his palm pressing down on your belly to keep you still, “This ain’t for you,” He reminds, nipping at the delicate skin of your thighs with his teeth, “Just makin’ sure you can take me.” 

He sinks two fingers into you, curling them up just right, your back arching up off the bed to grind up into his palm as he works you open for him. It doesn’t last nearly long enough, much like with his mouth earlier. Normally he’d make you come on his tongue, then sink those fingers into you and make you come again, but he’s pulling them from your pussy, looking you dead in the eye as he presses his fingers onto your tongue. You clamp your mouth around them, licking your slick from his fingers, rolling your tongue over them in the same way you know he loves on his cock, your eyes training directly on his with no shame as you pull off them with a ‘pop’. You giggle slightly, biting at your bottom lip as Joel leans down to kiss you, tasting you on your own mouth, tasting yourself still lingering on his tongue. 

“Taste good, don’tcha baby?” He smirks, pushing you back, watching you intently as he strips himself of his clothes. 

You don’t think you’ll ever quite get over how beautiful a man he is when he stands in front of you naked. Defined and muscular at his chest, with those big arms that wrap around you, his belly, spattered with hair trailing all the way down until you get to his cock, hard, almost painfully so at this point. His strong thighs that you love to nestle yourself between at night. He is truly a spectacle and it’s moments like this that you still don’t quite believe he’s yours. 

He settles back on the bed, between your thighs, your hands grip at those broad shoulders as he reaches between the two of you, fisting the base of his cock, moving his hips slowly so his cock drags through your slick folds, the bulbous head nudging at your clit as he fists himself, spreading your wet along his length. You feel him settle himself at your entrance, pushing his hips forward just enough to give you just the tip. His nose runs along your jawline, kisses from his mouth trailing just behind, as he rocks his hips into your own, but only ever enough that it’s just the tip of his cock inside. 

“Beg for it baby,” He breathes into your skin, “You want my cock?” 

“Want it so bad, Joel,” You whine, moving your hips into his to try and take him deeper, but he’s gripping your thigh, warning you not to push it, “Please, Joel, please fuck me.” 

“Beggin’ for it even though you ain’t gonna come?” He teases, one hand moving up to your chest to pull the cups of your bra down, fingers taking your nipple and rolling. 

“Wanna feel you.” You say, burying your head into his neck, pressing your own kisses to his skin. 

Joel seems to find that satisfactory, slowly pushing himself all the way into you, dragging himself all the way out again. He leans back a bit, gripping you behind your knees to press your thighs as far into your chest as he can get them. Then he really does fuck you. He’s big, and although you know you can take him, it’s always a shock to you that it’s so easy. That he can pound into you with the ferocity he currently is, tip of his cock brushing against your cervix in that perfect mix of pleasure and pain. 

“Awful quiet baby,” He gasps out, watching you bite at your bottom lip, “Don’t like it when you don’t get to feel good?” 

You shake your head, Joel dragging himself all the way out of your aching cunt, flipping you over onto your belly. He presses his palm into the back of your neck, keeping your lower half pressed to the bed, whilst his other hand drags you up onto your knees, ass in the air for him as he guides his cock right back to you, thrusting back in all the way. You always loved it when Joel fucked you like this. The angle always managing to feel just perfect as he fucks you. 

The only sound in the room is that of your combined moans, little grunts from him and whines from your mouth, and the sound of his hips hitting yours, sweaty skin against sweaty skin. You’re starting to regret asking for this, because God it would be so easy for him to reach round, press his fingers to your clit and tip you over the edge in seconds. If it wasn’t for the way his hand was pressing at the nape of your neck, you could do it yourself, so desperate to feel the euphoria of coming undone around him. 

Joel’s thrusts are getting more frantic, even though it’s only been nine months of you together, you know he’s not going to last much longer. He slides his hand down and into the hair on the back of your head, gripping it tightly in his fist to drag your head up and out of the material of the bed. The sounds of yours once muffled by the duvet under you now let loose into the room, echoing around the walls and doing nothing but egging him on, getting him closer to the finish line. 

“You like this, huh?” He asks you from behind, “Like getting’ used, baby?” 

“Yes Joel,” Because you do, despite knowing you don’t get to finish, something about him being selfish with you, using you just get himself off, makes you unbelievably wet, “Still feels good.” 

You can hear him chuckle, fingers of his other hand gripping so hard to your hip that you’re sure he’s going to bruise you there. You don’t mind, not really, you love carrying him around with you like that. Secret marks on your skin, evidence that you’re his that only you know, only you can see, apart from when he bites at your neck, claiming you in front of everyone. 

“I’m close baby,” You can hear from behind you, the grip his hand has in your hair arching your back perfectly, angling him just so that if he just carried on like this for a few minutes you think he could make you come just like this, “You want it inside?” He asks, “Want me to fill you up?” 

This was new between the two of you, still exciting. After months of using condoms, never once a complaint from Joel, you’d held up the tiny packet of pills, the ones you’d been taking for a week in secret. Asked him to fuck you bare, fill you up with every drop if his cum, and the two of you were struggling to find a way of finishing that you enjoyed more than this. 

“Please,” You beg, whimpering as he gives another tug to your hair, pulling you back into him even further, “Please Joel.” 

“Ain’t no need for beggin’ now baby,” He groans thickly behind you, “Nowhere else I’d rather be.” 

You feel his hips slam into the plush of your ass a few more times before he goes still, groaning deep from his chest as you feel the warmth of his cum spread through your cunt. You can feel your own walls fluttering around him, taking his spend as deep as you can whilst trying to catch your breath. 

Fuck. You can hear him sucking in ragged breaths from behind you, hands still gripping your hips as he pulls himself from you. You whine at the loss of him, push your hips back trying to coax him into giving you what you want. God, this was such a stupid thing to want. Why would you want Joel to deny you the very thing he’d proved over and over again was the one thing he would give you without question? You’re desperate, and it wouldn’t take much, he’d have you screaming his name in less than a minute. 

“Please Joel,” You beg, “Please baby.” 

“What’s that?” He asks from behind, you can feel his chest lay across your back, pushing you down into the mattress, his cock still semi-hard against the cheeks of your ass, “You beggin’ for it, baby?” 

“Make me come.” You demand, like a little brat. 

“Awww baby,” He coos into your ear, hand coming to grip the back of your neck, “I’m such a mean man, aren’t I?” You nod your head, hoping it shakes his resolve, “Leaving you all wet and needy.” His teeth nip at your jaw, he pushes himself off you and then completely off the bed. 

You turn onto your back, watching as he picks up his clothes to get dressed. Why did you ask for this? You spread your legs, finger dipping down inside your pussy, dragging out the mix of slick and his spend to drag up to your clit. It wouldn’t take very long, already so worked up and sensitive, but he catches you before you can get there, hands tearing your own away from you. 

“Don’t be naughty,” Joel chastises, tugging on your wrist to get you to sit at the edge of the bed, he gets on his knees, loops your panties right over your ankles and drags them up, “Stand up,” You want to complain, but you do it anyway, hands on his shoulders to steady yourself as he drags your panties all the way up, pressing a kiss right where the waistband sits, “Be a good girl for the rest of the day and I promise I’ll make you come however you want later, okay?” 

It should embarrass you how quickly you nod your head, how your voice promises him you’ll be good for him. He kisses your forehead, helps you put the rest of your clothes on, passes you the glass of water you’d forgotten about earlier. 

“Come on,” He says, “Plenty more boxes to pack up.” 

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Didn't Anyone Warn You?

Pairing: Din Djarin x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: When you're tasked with bringing pastries to Parent's Night at the local school, a guest appearance makes quite a stir. Takes place after Season 3 when Din and Grogu have been living in their cabin on Nevarro. This is the third fic in my Sugar, Spice, and Starlight Series!

Tropes: Fluff, Bakery AU, Grumpy vs. Sunshine, Protective!Reader

Word Count: 6.2K

Warnings: Judgement, Small Town Gossip, Uppity Teacher?, Reader protecting her man, Din finds it hot watching the reader with Grogu (but she doesn't know 🤭)?, One or two curse words, Parent's Night Gone Wrong, The reader is really soft and likes to bake? Din being a little bit self-deprecating to himself? Din might be a little bit OOC. It's mostly just fluff.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is no use of y/n! I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite! I'm just starting to write for Din, so please be gentle.

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

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A/N: I needed to write a small fic about the reader being the protective one. I do have a protective!Din in the works that I am very excited about!

Reader POV

The sun warmed the dirt street beneath your feet as you wove carefully through the crowded streets of Nevarro City basking in the light as it slid over your skin and soaked into your bones. Your dark blue skirt swished pleasantly around your ankles with each step you confidently took in the direction of the small children's school on the other side of town, while you mentally ticked things off your checklist, and tried your best not to drop the oversized white box you were holding.

Despite hiring another person to work the front of your shop, you didn't have enough money to hire someone to do deliveries, hence the large box of sweets balanced precariously in your arms as you made your way down the sun-kissed streets.

Ms. Cross, one of the two teachers employed at the small building on the end of the street, had come into your shop just yesterday to place a large order of pastries for the parent's night she was throwing at the school. She expected quite a turnout and you had spent the better part of last night and this morning working dough, icing cakes, and basking in the warmth and soothing smells that wafted through your small kitchen while Jax, the girl you hired, helped customers up front.

Jax had offered to deliver the pastries herself, but you'd waved her off. You didn't mind the walk.

It was another beautiful day on Nevarro and it wasn't often that you got to see the city at this time of day. The sun shone brightly as it dipped behind the buildings, beginning it's lazy descent into the horizon and sending a honeyed glow over the world around you.

It was Nevarro in shades of gold, the city seen through a cool glass of whiskey, a world bathed in amber light.

The city had begun to slow down. People meandered through the shops that lined the dirt road, filling the streets with a mishmash of individuals some old some young, but all moving at a gradual pace.

There was a dull thrum of energy from the electricity that buzzed in the lights that were fitted on the sides of the buildings, a wisp of chatter on the wind from the people passing by, and the low rumble of thunder in the distance over the rocky plain where a storm brewed just enough to bring a graying haze to the horizon.

It made the city seem more alive, a colorful backdrop to a wonderful day.

"Excuse me!" You say steering yourself around a woman wearing a large purple robe covered in bells that jingle happily, and toting a basket the size of you on her back.

"Sorry!" You say again to another as you push your away between two men walking so slow you wondered how many batches of dough would rise before they moved out of your way.

Unfortunately as you pass, your sandal catches on a loose rock and you lose your balance.

No, No, NO!

You think to yourself as you begin to fall backwards, hoping that the ground is softer than it looks, and also while trying to mentally calculate how you can land without ruining the oversized box of treats in your arms.

Remaking in such a short amount of time wasn't possible and you didn't think that someone named Ms. Cross would listen to any excuses, especially not someone who probably listened to little kids all day trying to say that a Rancor ate their homework.

But you never find out how to save the sweets.

Two large gloved hands find your shoulders, grabbing onto you from behind, and steadying you before you can begin your descent to the warm ground beneath your feet.

You gasp in surprise, the feeling of the stranger's touch sending a white hot jolt of electricity through your body as they hold fast to your shoulders.

"Are you okay?" Din's familiar voice brings a blush to your cheeks.

You half turn to look over your shoulder at him.

The silver of his Beskar glints in the sun, sending a flicker of sunlight over your face, and his helmet is turned down towards you, much closer than you anticipated, so close you can see the reflection of yourself in his armor and it’s enough to make you wonder what it would be like to hear the real rumble of his voice against the gentle curve of your ear. To feel the exhale of his breath on the back of your neck as he held you steady and closer to him than he ever had.

It was good to see Din again.

His visits to your bakery had gone from once a week to every few days and you found yourself looking forward to whenever he'd show up toting the cutest customer in the galaxy with him.

And each time he stopped by, you could feel Din becoming more comfortable around you, and noticed him opening up more and more.

Well, opening up as much as a man wrapped in a metal shell on an almost desolate planet could.

Basically it meant that Din was now saying more to you than one sentence and you were trying your best to coax more out from beneath the hardened exterior.

It worked… sometimes. Din had told you that he was spending his free time working on his cabin.

The image of Din working hard on his home, sanding down wood to make cabinets, installing light fixtures, building a kitchen, and fixing the plumbing was one that lived rent free in your mind.

You'd always thought that a man who could do things around the house, a man who had hands rubbed rough from hard work was attractive and the knowledge that Din could do all those things made your heartbeat stutter in your chest and your throat tight.

By now you knew that the way you felt about Din was far past "just friends." You didn't exactly know when it happened, only that it had happened. You hadn't thought it was possible to feel so strongly about someone who you'd never seen, but you did. You liked Din and maybe that was crazy, but he was kind, honest, a good listener, and sometimes a little bit awkward, but you thought it was cute.

But there was a problem.

You noticed that despite everything Din told you about his cabin, he was hesitant to talk about what he did for work. You knew that he was still a bounty hunter and that he did leave Nevarro occasionally on jobs, but whenever you'd ask him about it, he'd turn the subject of the conversation back to you.

You weren't sure why that was, but you were more than happy to focus on Din fixing up his cabin.

As soon as you'd realized that Din didn't have a fully functioning kitchen back where he lived, you'd started making more savory things for the shop just so that you had something other than sweets to give him. You were worried that he was starving himself in his home so far from town and each time he visited you'd send him on his way with a bag full of treats and a polite squeeze on the arm.

The first time you'd done it in the street, you'd thought that you were overstepping, that it made Din uncomfortable, but then you noticed the next time you did it how he leaned a little bit more towards you, and how his shoulders un-tensed with your touch. It made your cheeks warm to think that he liked it as much as you liked taking care of him.

And despite Din's continuous attempts to pay you for the food, you'd refused every cent. He was your friend and you didn't like the thought of him going back to his cabin alone in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat or the thought of him going off into the cold reaches of space with nothing but junk to snack on.

"Yeah." You laugh, cheeks burning with embarrassment.  "Lost my footing."

Din nods his head once and releases your shoulders while you try not to notice how your body responds to the loss of his touch.

The people around the two of you continue to walk past, but you notice they give Din a wide berth and out of the corner of your eye you see a woman pick up her child and skirt to the other side of the street away from Din with wide eyes.

It pricked your heart to think that so many people thought poorly of him, that they weren't willing to give him a chance, and that they were unwilling to get to know him before they made judgements about him.

You remember the rumors you'd heard of the Mandalorian that lived outside of town, the ones that made him out to be a villain and a murderer.

In all the time that you'd lived on Nevarro you had not seen the Mandalorian the town described one bit. Because the man in question standing in front of you who just saved the pastries from the fate of being smooshed beneath your body could not be the same one the people feared.

Din's helmet tilts downward in the direction of the oversized box balanced in your arms in a silent question.

"Ms. Cross, ordered some pastries for parent's night at the school. I was on my way to drop them off." You smile at him. "Until I decided to get better acquainted with the ground."

He doesn't laugh, but you imagine a smile pulling up on the end of his lips. By now you were used to not seeing his face, but it didn't quiet the small voice in your head that longed to see what he really looked like.

It kept you up at night sometimes, running through the usual combinations of the possibilities of what he could look like. There was a part of you that thought Din must be handsome, someone with a voice like his had to be. But there was another part of you that didn't care, not when your burgeoning crush was attached to Din's personality and the way he treated you.

"Thanks for not letting me fall. It took me all of last night and this morning to make these and I don't want to see the look on Ms. Cross' face if I couldn't deliver." You continue, still looking up into the black t-shaped visor of his helmet. "Someone named Ms. Cross has got to have a hell of a stink-eye."

The soft chuckle from Din's helmet makes you smile wider. Making Din laugh often made you feel as if you'd swallowed sunlight.

Din takes the box from you gently without explanation, the rough material of his gloves brushing against your skin and sending a zip of electricity tingling up your arms.

"Din what are you doing?" You ask as you try to reach for the box to take it back from him, but he only moves out of your reach.

"I'm heading that way to pick up Grogu. I'll walk with you." Din hesitates, clearing his throat. “If that’s okay?”

"I’d love that,” You answer honestly as your blush deepens and you drop your eyes away from his helmet. “But you don’t have to carry it!” You try again to reach for the box, but Din moves effortlessly away from your reach.

“It’s not heavy.” He pauses. “And it’s probably safer for the pastry.”

Your lips turn up in a smile.

Did he just make a joke?

“Keep laughing and I’ll make you my official delivery boy.” You threaten.

“Oh no anything but that.” The buzz and monotone of the helmet replies but you can hear just a trace of sarcasm.

It makes you laugh and again you imagine Din smiling back at you through the polished metal.

“Fine, you’re hired. I’ll make you a little apron to wear over your Beskar.” Your smile turns into a smirk as you lean in towards him to whisper, "A bright pink apron."

Even though Din is still wearing his helmet, when he laughs this time you feel a wave of heat travel through your body and you decide right there and then that you’re going to spend every waking moment making him laugh. 

I wonder what it would sound like without the helmet.

You still hadn't been brave enough to ask Din why he didn't take it off. It felt too personal, and you didn't want to make him uncomfortable, not when you could see him starting to relax whenever he saw you.

"I'm sure it'll be very intimidating." You say with a giggle as you turn away and walk in the direction of the children's school. "I'm already making something for Grogu, but I'm always up for another project."

It was true. You were worried about the cold winters that would come to Nevarro in a few months and you were crocheting a hat to keep his little ears warm. There was a woman in town who sold imported Wampa fur in the market she stained with natural dyes, and it was a joy of yours to spend a few minutes in the early mornings when the city was just waking up seeing what was new in her shop.

You can hear Din’s heavy footfalls against the dirt as he catches up.

"What are you making for Grogu?" Din asks when falls into step beside you.

People part in front of the two of you so that you’re no longer stuttering polite excuses as you go, but you don't miss the wide eyes or the elderly women sitting on the sidelines that grasp at their necks watching the two of you in horror.

You hated that, hated that so many people were going to write off Din as some kind of monster, when he was one of the nicest men you'd met in your entire life. Not to mention you thought that he was sweet.

If you'd ever spoken that aloud people probably would think you were crazy, but Din was kind to you. You saw the way he cared for Grogu, how gentle he was with him, and how polite Din was to you whenever you saw him.

Right now was proof of that, Din was carrying a box for you without being asked because he saw you struggling!

"A hat." You stare down another man who you catch watching the two of you walking through town with an odd expression.

"A hat?" Din chuckles, adjusting the box in his arms.

"Yeah. He's got those big ears, and I know it doesn't snow here, but the wind sure does blow cold in the winter, so I thought he might need a little something to cover up. I'd make you something for your ears too, but you don't exactly need it. I'm sure they're plenty warm all the time."

"That's nice of you, but you've already given us so much food I don't think you need to-"

You don't let him finish. "I want to." You glance over at him and are surprised to see that Din' helmet is turned in your direction. You'd expecting him to be looking straight ahead at the path, not looking at you. "And I like giving the two of you food. There's nothing wrong with sharing what you have with your friends."

Din doesn't answer you, but you think your notice his hand flex where it rests against the side of the box.

"That's the way my grandmother was anyway." You look away from the man walking beside you, finding the heat of his gaze through the helmet a little too much for you. "She used to make extra of everything we had for our neighbors. Food, clothes, goods… It didn't matter that we didn't have a lot of money, my grandmother wanted to make sure that everyone was taken care of." You smile to yourself at the memories of afternoons you spent loaded down with boxes of food and handmade blankets that you helped your grandmother deliver to your neighbors. "And I've always liked doing that too. I think that everyone should have that kind of comfort, even if they're not used to it." That last part you hadn't expected to say, but it was true. You knew that Din wasn't used to that, and it was exactly why you liked doing that for him and Grogu.

You wanted Din to feel comforted, especially in a place where you were sure that he noticed the stares and heard the gossip about him. The last thing you wanted was for Din to move away because of the way people looked and spoke about him, the thought that you wouldn't see him anymore made an unwelcome feeling settle in the pit of your stomach.

And even if the two of you would be nothing more than friends, you still cared about Din and wanted him to be happy.

The outside of the school doesn't look like much, just a small stone building painted a fresh white, but the multicolored sign that says “welcome” hanging from the rafters above brings a pop of color to the plain building. The sound of chatter and children giggling floats out through the open door and you brace yourself for what’s inside.

When you walk into the building a hush falls over the small cluster of students and parents.

Heads turn in your direction, eyes skimming over your body before they flick upwards to where Din hovers at your elbow still holding the large white box printed with the sticker from your bakery.

Ms. Cross stands across the classroom crowded with small wooden desks, next to a young woman who bounces a small child on her hip, but even you notice the teacher's gaze flicker with something that looks a little bit like fear when she notices Din.

That welcome sign apparently came with fine print.

Your hand touches Din's forearm, feeling the cool smooth metal beneath your fingertips.

You were sure that Din had been in much worse situations than surrounded by judgmental parents and their children all staring at him like he was some kind of side-show, but there was something inside of you that wanted Din to know that you didn't care what other people said about him, and that you weren’t embarrassed to be there with him.

Din's helmet turns to stare at where your hand lays against his arm. If you could see under his helmet you would know that Din's eyes widen with the gesture, and that his heartbeat just stuttered a step with your touch as surprise threaded through his body.

"Come on. Let's see where Ms. Cross wants us to put these." You flash him another smile to soothe his nerves and earn a nod from Din who follows behind you in the still silence of the classroom, while you ignore the stares of the other parents.

There's a squealing noise that shatters through the terse quiet and you notice Grogu toddling towards to the two of you, hands outstretched opening and closing happily, oblivious to the shift of attitude in the room at his father's presence. 

"Hey buddy!" You smile at Grogu as you pick him up, scratching one of his soft ears. "Did you miss me?"

He gurgles something and nuzzles his head into your arm which you take as a yes.  Din still has his helmet turned in your direction, watching you with Grogu, a small smile hidden beneath his silver and leather.

"Hi Ms. Cross." You greet the teacher with a smile ignoring the way her eyes are still locked on Din’s formidable figure behind you.

Her graying black hair is pulled back in a tight bun, her body encased in a loose set of navy blue robes that make her look regal and deserving of attention. Her nose twitches once, twice, a nervous tick as her dark eyes survey the Mandalorian.

She obviously wasn't expecting him to come with you or really at all to parent’s night.

You wonder if she even invited him.

Probably not given her reaction.

"Hi-" She says your name through a tight lipped smile, twitching her nose once more. It's a little long for her face, coming to a rounded base that protrudes over her small mouth smeared with an awkward color of lipstick that smudges just barely at the left crease of her mouth. Her beady eyes shift up to Din again. "Hello Mando."

It was odd to hear people call him that when you knew his real name, but you'd noticed that he never seemed to tell anyone else that his name was Din. It made you feel special that he'd shared that with you.

"Hello.” Din's monotone crackles and buzzes through the silent classroom.

"He was nice enough to help me carry the pastry." You smile more to Din than you do to her. You didn't think that she deserved that, not when she was acting like Din was a stain on her perfectly pressed robes. "Where would you like them?"

"On the desk." She gestures behind her to the large desk at the front of the classroom where everything on top is stacked in neat piles and like her robes, nothing looks out of place.

"Okay. Do you have plates or-" You ask looking around the room. You hadn't thought to bring any, nor had she told you that she wanted any.

"Oh they're in the back. I'll show you." She offers, casting one more nervous glance at where Din stands holding the box.

The chatter in the room has begun to pick up again around you, the parents watching the Mandalorian who loiters by the teachers desk out of the corner of their eyes.

But as you walk away into the small back room that you hadn't noticed when you walked into the classroom, you can feel Din’s gaze following you.

He did that so often that by now you were used to it. Whether it be watching you sweep up your shop, knead dough for fresh bread, or you helping other customers, you could feel Din's eyes on you.

You didn’t hate it.

You got the impression that Din was curious about you and was still trying to figure you out. And you welcomed his curiosity and inquisitive gaze especially if it meant that Din was starting to see you as more than a friend.

Grogu is still in your arms, pulling at the strands of hair that have escaped where your tied your hair back that morning in a colorful scarf while you wait for Ms. Cross to reach up into the top cabinet for the plastic plates. But when she pulls out the package and you reach out with your free hand, she pauses half-way.

"Did anyone-" Ms. Cross hesitates, her nose twitches once more, beady eyes mapping your face. "Did anyone warn you?"

"Warn me?" You question, confused. Grogu coos in your arms babbling under the woman’s scrutiny.

Oh no I didn’t think about allergies for the pastry. She didn’t tell me about that!

It was the only thing you could think of that she was trying to warn you about.

Ms. Cross shifts her feet uncomfortably her lips pressing into a tight line. "Everyone has noticed that you've been spending time with that Mandalorian."

You frown at the way she says "that Mandalorian" as if Din is something unpleasant that has been brought down upon Nevarro, like a curse or incurable illness.

“Everyone?” You raise an eyebrow, confused.

“Everyone in town.” She amends.

Your body tenses with her words, trying to understand what she's implying the entire city has been saying behind your back.

Is she trying to warn me about Din?

"Um-“ You begin, but she interrupts you.

"Honey, don't you know anything about his past?" She whispers the word 'past' like a curse, her eyes widening as if she was present for the "past events" in question.

"What he's done?" She continues as if you couldn't understand the first part of her sentence. “Who he really is?”

Fear flashes in her gaze as her eyes flick upwards to the door behind you as if worried that Din is waiting to strike at any moment.

You feel your jaw clamp down so tightly that the sound of your teeth grinding together almost drowns out the roar of the anger that comes when you understand exactly what she was doing.

"I mean-" She continues in a tense whisper. " Everyone around him gets hurt or worse. Not to mention he kidnapped that kid and has been passing him off as his own. I mean he’s obviously not his father. Who knows what he's doing to him!” Her eyebrows pull together in concern looking at the child in your arms who coos softly and grasps at the tip of your finger happily.

"I'm sorry, I think I heard you wrong." You clear your throat, as you find your voice. Hoping that you did in fact hear her wrong and that this is just some kind of hallucination.

"Oh honey." She gives you a pitying look. "He's dangerous. And with you being new and all… I'm sorry that no one warned you.”

Ms. Cross has the audacity to smile and continues, oblivious to your rage. “But I’m happy that we can talk about this, because everyone has just been so worried about you. You spend so much time with him. And-"

Have they all been spying on us? Creeping around, gossiping about Din and me?

You hold up a free hand to cut her off. "I'm going to stop you right there."

It was difficult to keep your voice steady with the fury that had begun to burn under your skin, rivaling the fires in the stocked ovens back at the bakery.

Truthfully, you didn't like getting angry, didn't like to lose your temper. It reminded you far too much about the way your brother Ezekiel acted before he left you with your grandmother years ago, how quick to anger he was and how it didn’t take much for him to erupt before he was taken in by the Mandalorians and shown how to channel his rage.

That being said it took a lot for you to lose your composure, but when you did, it meant that there was hell to pay.

And right now, standing in this room with a woman who barely knew you and absolutely didn't know Din, your anger knew no bounds.

How dare she? Din hasn't done one thing worthy of this! He's not some crazy wild man who comes into town guns blazing! And how can she say those things about him not being Grogu's dad? He's been a perfectly acceptable father to Grogu!

"First of all, it is none of your or anyone else in this town’s business who I spend my time with nor do I care what any of you are saying of me or think of me for doing so! I do not have to justify my actions to you or any other nosy busybody on Nevarro!" You keep your voice in a low growl of a whisper. The last thing you wanted was for Din to hear what the two of you were talking about.

He doesn't deserve that.

Her mouth drops open in shock at your outburst, but you continue.

"Second of all, that Mandalorian, the one that everyone in this town is so afraid of, is one of the kindest, most caring people that I've met here on Nevarro, and I am honored to have him as a friend. Not to mention that he has been a wonderful father to Grogu. I have never met a father more caring and considerate to his son in my entire life. And you have no right to judge Din for adopting Grogu! And third, what he has done with his life is his business, he does not have to explain his life choices to you or anyone else on this planet. Or better yet, the whole galaxy!"

By now you were pointing an accusatory finger in her direction, eyes narrowed with your anger and frustration.

"So maybe instead of shoving your big nose into places that it doesn't belong, you should pull out the judgmental stick that you have shoved up your ass and worry more about your students!" You snap, eyes narrowing at the woman who blinks at you in surprise.

It obviously was not how she expected you to react to her “helpful advice.”

You push past her, plates forgotten, to make your way back into the classroom, but you hesitate and turn around to stare at her while forcing a false smile. "But thank you sooo much for your business. I hope that everything was made to your expectations and that you come again soon. Hopefully with a better attitude and a more welcoming outlook for my friend."

You stop back into the classroom with Grogu cuddling in your arms, but the anger you have is still bubbling up beneath the surface. All the parents turn to stare at you, but you huff out a breath and ignore them.

You didn't care if the entire town thought you were crazy, Din was your friend and a planet full of small-minded busybodies wasn't going to stop that.

Sure, maybe he was a bounty hunter, but that didn't make him a bad person. And as much as you wanted Din to tell you more about himself, you knew that he was shy and you didn't want to force him. You wanted Din to offer those things up because he wanted to tell you, not because you gave him an ultimatum.

Din is standing by the desk arms crossed over his chest. His helmet tilts in your direction and you hope again that he didn't hear what you whisper yelled at Ms. Cross.

You step confidently towards him, ignoring the cloying feel of the other people in the room watching you.

"Din can you walk me home, please? I'm kinda tired and Jax is closing up the shop for me." You smile, but it feels a little forced.

You were still buzzing with anger and you didn't want to stay here a moment longer to subject Din to the gossip and wide eyed stares of the other parents in the room.

He nods once and follows you out the door of the small building without looking back.

Grogu wriggles in your arms before resting his head on your shoulder as the final rays of sunshine warm his ears. He coos something softly, eyes opening and closing, until finally he begins to drift off. Put to sleep by the gentle rock of your arms with each step you take down the street.

You're trying to come up with something to say, but there's nothing in your head except the words of Ms. Cross that make the rage inside of you burn hotter.

There was no reason for her to say those things about Din! He's not some monster who preys on the weak people in town and enslaves them, he's a person! And all of those small minded people can just-

"Are you okay?" Din asks you, shattering through the silence between the two of you and breaking through your internal monologue.

"Huh?"

"You're quieter than usual."

"I think it's ironic that you're calling me quiet." It makes you smile a little bit. "Especially given that you have only one facial expression and if I were to look you up in a dictionary there would be a picture of you under 'strong and silent.'"

Din chuckles. "I'm sure there would be a picture of you under clumsy."

"Shut up." You snort hitting him on his muscular arm. "But yes there would be."

Under the word 'nosy' there would be a picture of Ms. Cross.

There were less people out now, most had gone home for the evening which meant that Din and you walked without feeling the curious eyes of the townsfolk around you. It was a welcome feeling after being jammed in that small classroom.

The twin moons had begun to rise from the horizon and the stars above spread across the open sky sending the silverly light over the buildings that lined the dirt street and reflecting off Din's armor.

Just as the sunlight had hardened the edges of the Beskar, something about the starlight smoothed the sharp lines of the formidable armor and made the metal look almost soft to the touch. It made the armor beautiful, like Din was washed in shades of silver and gray.

The silence grows again between the two of you the closer you come to your front door, and you can't think of anything to say without dwelling too hard on what Ms. Cross said to you.

"Thanks for walking me home." You offer a small smile, this one feels more genuine, and hold out Grogu so Din can take him.

He takes his son gently, who mumbles something in his sleep, but curls into his father's chest when Din cradles the small child in his arm. You watch as Din takes great care to make sure that Grogu doesn't wake and how Din adjusts him so Grogu's head is laying against the soft fabric of his father's cowl rather than the hard metal of his breastplate. It warmed your heart to see how Din cared for Grogu, and it only made you think about what Ms. Cross implied.

How could she say those things about Din if this is how he treats his son?

"You're welcome." Din's helmet tilts down to look at you, your reflection glinting in the brilliantly polished metal.

"I guess I'll see you around?" You ask hopefully.

He nods once.

You turn to your door, typing in the security code on the panel beside it, but you hear Din whisper your name. It comes out soft, the hiss of it through the helmet is just a buzz against your ear, but it still makes your cheeks warm. You turn back to look at him with wide eyes.

"You didn't have to say what you did." His voice comes out quiet, helmet still tilted down towards you.

Your heart sinks. You hadn't wanted him to hear what you’d said to Ms. Cross or what she'd said about him. You didn't want Din to believe for even a second that there was any truth to what she'd whispered to you.

"I did." You say firmly. "I don't care what other people are saying, Din you're my friend. And you don't deserve what they think of you. None of what they're saying is true."

"How do you know?"

His question makes you pause. It surprised you.

If anything you were expecting Din to nod his head and leave without another word, but he wasn't, he was waiting to hear what you had to say.

Before you can stop yourself, you reach out and touch his forearm, the one that he's holding the kid with and look up into his helm trying to catch a glimpse of the man you care for through the opaque visor.

"Because I know you and they don't. I see how you are with Grogu, how you care for him, how you always put him first-" Your mouth pulls into a shy smile, "And I also see how you are around me. You always do little things for me without being asked- like carrying that box today. And you're always so nice to me. You don't have to be, all I do is make pastry," You laugh a little awkwardly. "But it always makes me happy to see you, because you're kind and you go out of your way to make me feel comfortable around you."

Din doesn't reply and you're under the impression that he's speechless.

What you don’t know is that his cheeks have flushed beneath his Beskar and he's trying very hard to find the words that never seem to come easy to him. The ones he wishes to say to tell you that you don't just "make pastry" that you make him feel like he belongs for the first time in his life, but the words stick in the back of his throat.

"But I mean I-" You stutter, embarrassed. You weren't about to confess that you had a crush on him and you weren't sure if he'd ever feel that way about you, but you were afraid that Din's silence meant that you'd overstepped. “I don’t think someone who acts that way with Grogu and me is anything like what they assume you to be. And it's none of their business anyway.”

You start to pull your hand back from Din's arm, cheeks so warm you imagined that they could fry an egg, but Din's gloved hand comes down over where it rests on his forearm keeping your hand there for another few precious seconds.

"Thank you ner cyare." His voice modulator catches a little bit on that last word that you’re sure is Mando'a, and you had no idea what it meant, but the way he said it while holding on to your hand tugged at your heart.

"What does that mean?" You ask, curious.

He hesitates for a moment, before answering. "My friend."

"I thought Burc’ya meant 'friend?'" You question a little bit confused. You knew a handful of words in Mando'a from your brother and your friend Josh who took it upon themselves to teach you all the curse words, because they felt like that was important, but they had taught you a few simple words as well.

"It's another word for friend."

You weren’t really sure if you believed him because you didn’t think that there were that many words for friend in Mando’a.

But why would he lie about something like that?

"Oh." You nod, before flashing another wide smile at him. "You're welcome, Din. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

He releases your hand and waits patiently until you safely close the door behind you before he walks away down the darkened streets, disappearing into the night, with the thrum of your touch under his skin.

And you fall asleep that night hearing the soft sound of your name slipping through the helmet, and the buzz of his words in Mando'a sending you off into the sweet abyss.

Guide:

Burc'ya: Friend

Ner Cyare: My Beloved

Thank you so much for reading! Likes, Reblogs, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated! If you'd liked to be added to my taglist for fics in this universe please let me know!

Taglist:

@jollyhunter @scoliobean @pressedwater @littlebear423 @bookloverkat

@scorpio-echo @windsweptarmadillo @foxin5billion

[veturiusofserra]

when you know, you know | s. r.

𑁤 synopsis: in an interview she opens up about how easy it is to be loved by Spencer, sharing the story of how they met and how his love inspired her music.

𑁤 pairing: spencer reid x singer!reader

𑁤 words: 1.090

𑁤 disclaimer: This was 100% inspired by something my bf said a while ago, and I love the song. I hope you will enjoy it too <3

“As we reach the close of our conversation, one thing’s bugging me. In your song “Margaret,” there’s this line ‘when you know, you know.’ Like, how do you just know someone’s the one? I’ve been through my share of relationships, yet I haven’t experienced that kind of thing you sing about. In your song, it’s all so clear-cut, like you can predict the future. It reminds me of a kid believing in the tooth fairy – sweet idea, maybe not quite real. But that’s probably what makes the song so good. It talks about this perfect love where everything just clicks, and all your worries disappear. Maybe that’s what I’m still looking for, or maybe it’s just for some lucky people. Either way, your song paints such a strong picture of love that it makes me wonder if I’ll ever have a ‘Margaret’ of my own.”

“It’s funny, right? The answer everyone gives is so simple: “you’ll just know.” Like love hits you like a lightning bolt, destiny calls, happily ever after guaranteed. But maybe that’s the problem. We get this picture-perfect idea of love from movies and books, and then we miss the real thing when it’s right under our noses. We set these high expectations, these checklists of what “the one” should be like. And if someone doesn’t tick every box, we write them off. It’s like searching for a flawless diamond, forgetting that even the most beautiful gems have tiny imperfections. Because guess what? We all mess up. You make mistakes, I make mistakes, everyone does. Maybe that’s what makes a real connection so special – accepting someone, flaws and all. Speaking of which, there’s this story I wanted to share with you.”

“We're all ears!”, the interviewer and the crew smile with waiting faces.  

“For the longest time, I believed I was destined to give love, but never receive it.  Maybe because... well, let’s be honest, I can be a bit self-absorbed, lost in my own head and neglecting others. But even with the no love life mantra, there was always this yearning for a family, a deep desire for children I could call my own. The ‘what ifs’ terrified me, though. Would I be a good parent? Would they be happy? Could I provide for them? Eventually, I resigned myself to a life of music, making people happy through my art, having a few friends, maybe a tragically young death – you know, the artist’s curse. 

Then, I found him. We both know Penny, but run in different circles. He’s in law, I’m an artist – about as different as you get, except for maybe a shared love of fancy vocabulary. We met at Penny’s birthday party, and while he claims it was love at first sight for him, I just thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. But that was it. He was too shy to introduce himself, and I was sworn off men at the time. Funny how fate works, right?  We never crossed paths before, but after that night, it seemed like everywhere I turned, there he was. That’s when I decided to take a chance, and boy, I was so scared!

All those stories about soulmates and butterflies? They weren’t for me. Anxiety had been my constant companion for as long as I could remember. Butterflies just meant another battle brewing in my head. What I craved was peace, a steady hand to anchor me until I was ready to set sail. So, I built a friendship with him. We shared secrets, dreams, and vulnerabilities. He turned out to be a brilliant mind, a walking encyclopedia with an IQ of 187. Yet, he never made me feel inferior. He found humor in my quirks, and we seemed to complement each other perfectly. The more time we spent together, the more his words resonated: “We were designed for one another.”

And then, it hit me. Love. Deep, unexpected, and all-encompassing. It felt effortless, a perfect fit. But fear gnawed at me. It was all so new, so unfamiliar. Just as I was drowning in uncertainty, Penny, our mutual friend, reached out. She had something to show me – “Margaret.”

“She wrote it?” she asked, intrigued.

“Well, she started it,” I clarify. “Inspired by him, she penned the first lines that night after the birthday party. She couldn't shake the image of his longing gaze, a sight she’d never witnessed before. It felt sacred, a raw glimpse into his heart. The initial draft, rough around the edges, went something like this: ‘just writing for a friend. My shirt's inside out, and penmanship is messy. He met her on the rooftop, and she wore white. He said, ‘I think I’m in trouble.’ He saw flashes of the future.” A gentle smile graces your lips. 

“Seriously, that’s adorable.”

I nod, a blush creeping up my cheeks. “Right? Her words sparked inspiration within me. I wrote the rest, my mind consumed by-”

“By him.” she prompted, leaning in.

“He made love feel simple. Loving me was effortless for him, a stark contrast to the struggle I’d always imagined. It was like breathing, a natural and easy rhythm. He helped me discover the light that had been hiding within me all along.”

“There’s a saying,” the interviewer began, “to be loved is to be changed.”

I smiled. “I prefer a different one: to be loved is to be known. Because maybe, just maybe, he saw the affection within me all along, the part I couldn’t quite see myself.”

“You are indeed full of affection,” she said warmly. “Thank you for sharing this story with us.”

“Thank you for listening. I know it's a cliché, but there truly is someone out there for everyone. You never know what tomorrow holds, but deep down, a tiny spark ignites within us, guiding us towards that love. Trust it.”

“That wraps it up for our interview with the lovely Y/n! But before we say goodbye, there's one more message for her. Can we play it, Jonah?” A nod later, the studio fills with the sound of a familiar voice.

“Hey there, love. Just wanted to say congratulations on the album! You poured your heart and soul into it, and I’m incredibly proud. But hey, can you come home soon? Two days feels like an eternity without you. Miss my other half. Love you tons, sweetheart. And everyone listening, stream Ocean Boulevard! Dex says hi to mom, too.” A meow erupts in the background, eliciting a laugh from you and the studio crew.

thoughts? or prayers idk

[bloomstream]

contains: swearing, alcohol use word count: 3.3k

"get up."

touya groaned. it took him a couple of seconds, but when he finally came to he was instantly hit with a splitting headache. touya moved to bring a cooling hand to his forehead only to find that he could only feel a heavy tingling sensation in his arms— and in his hands and in his legs. all the telltale signs of a hangover— at least his typical (extreme) version of one. he even had tomura on his ass, all the boxes on the ‘i got totally wasted last night’ checklist were ticked off.  

“wake up.” 

touya heard a small thunk from somewhere nearby— probably tomura kicking something —and finally decided that it was time to blink his eyes open. 

immediately, he knew exactly where he was. touya could distinguish the coarse texture from the beat-up seven-year-old couch lying in the LOV staff room any day. the mixed smell of a dewy morning breeze and the lingering scent of touya's signature cigarette brand sent a pumping to his blood that couldn’t be ignored.  he grinned and lifted himself so he was resting back on his elbows, head tilted up in tomura's direction. “hey birdie.” 

tomura sucked in a breath through his teeth and spun around, going right back to sit at his desk. touya watched his blue-haired roommate, observing the way tomura put his glasses on before inevitably gluing his eyes onto his computer screen. tomura looked tired to say the least; his clothes were disheveled and his hair was a mess— as if he had been up all night.  “you went looking for me?” touya's tone was cocky. he reached for the water bottle beside him, the water bottle that somehow always ended up by his side after a long night. he never asked about it— the fear of a petty tomura deciding to take away his one princess privilege steering his decision.

but when tomura scoffed out a small, “no,” touya's grin faltered. “you were outside.”

touya took a sip of the room-temperature water, curious eyes on tomura. “outside?” 

“yeah.” tomura replied as he opened a drawer from his desk and skimmed through some documents. “wasted to shit asleep on the bench.” touya brows furrowed momentarily, attempting to skim through his drunken memories of last night. before touya could properly reconnect them, tomura spoke again. “you didn’t walk here?” tomura's red eyes met touya's blue ones, an intrigued expression shining through the lenses of his glasses. 

“shit, i don’t remember.” touya gained the courage to push past the tingling and move, swinging his legs off the couch. his boots hit the wooden floor beneath him as he gave a half-shrug. 

“you don’t remember?” tomura repeated, sounding annoyed. “where’d you even go?”

touya leaned back into the mustard-stained couch, hands pressing against its backboard. “that new bar.” his head fell back, smile pointed up to the room's ceiling. “moonlight.” the words fluttered off his tongue, the legacy of moonlight clear in his mind. 

“what the fuck!?” tomura’s chair let out a squeaky whine at its sudden movement. he had stopped typing his laptop, attention fully on touya.  "really?!"

“yep.” touya expressed with a pop of his mouth. “and i know their secret.” he said, sounding most obviously pleased with himself. it was the one thing touya had managed to remember from last night— he recalled repeating it out loud to himself for that exact reason. “young hires.”

[ ELEVEN HOURS EARLIER ]

keigo left three hours ago and you were still trying to convince yourself that you could last the final two hours of your shift on your own. 

the sky had grown dark, a lapis blue painting a beautiful backdrop for the lamp-lit city. the cool contrast created an orange-tinted scene inside of midnight. the constant clinking of beer glasses and clicking of heels against the bar floor had left a distant ringing in your ear— along with keigo's words about the nearby job opportunity. the rag in your hand scrubbed up against the surface of the wooden counter as you cleaned up a spill in thought. you were so deep in it that you almost didn’t hear a voice of question coming from beside you.

“excuse me. you— yeah you!” the voice gradually grew within range. you blinked out of your daze and turned your head in the customer's direction. the voice had come from a man who looked to be in his mid-30s and held a strong glare. 

“sorry, sir,” you muttered, tucking the rag under the counter and placing both your hands on the table, steady and attentive . “what would you like to drink tonight?”

“whiskey. neat.” he gruffed, resting his arm up against the bar's pillar.

you stopped a displeased expression from planting onto your face and forced a tight smile. “right up.” you reached for a glass on the shelf— along with the man's desired drink of choice —and began to pour. as you did, you were able to examine the customer. 

he was leaned right up against the counter, flannel jacket resting on the hardwood counter. he was a big guy with a big hat— the type of hat that reminded you of old western films. his bread wasn’t too long or bushy— it was just enough to frame his face in the right places, making him appear well-aged and rugged. using these observations, you put together that this man was from the countryside— and that’s before you accounted for his dirty hands, his worn jeans, and his manners. 

you placed the drink in front of the man and gave him a polite nod, hoping that would be enough to get him to go and bother someone else. but of course, it wasn’t. 

“hey.” he tipped his head a bit closer in your direction, fingers tapping along the rim of his freshly poured glass of whiskey. you gritted your teeth, mostly to mentally prepare yourself— another asshole encounter at work was the last thing you needed right now. the man then grinned, a large yet playful one. “this is a pretty nice city dontcha think?”

your eyes narrowed in suspicion. this could’ve been worse, way worse. 

“yeah, it is,” you replied matter-of-factly. you’ve been living in orion for just over three years now. and though you didn’t necessarily move here for the sights, you couldn’t deny that the town was beautiful.

what you liked about orion was it has a sense of community— and security. you’ve gotten used to the sound of kids calling to their friends in the streets while parents frantically chase them down. the song that slipped between your neighbors' windchimes remain a familiar melody in your mind. there was always some type of event, or function, or party. you liked it. it kept you, and everyone else, busy. distracted. 

the bearded man chuckled. he took a sip of the drink— face showing no reaction to the alcohol—before saying, “i’m actually new around these parts.” you knew he was lying. you’ve caught sight of him throwing up behind the bar twice within the three weeks. he had a reputation for those types of things.

what you hadn’t expected was for him to come to you tonight. he maintained a mindful eye on you, swirling the whiskey in his glass. “think i need someone to show me around the place— someone pretty like you.” he voiced. his lips curled up into a smile; one that showed he was confident that he’d win a date with you.  

you thought carefully, picking a response that would be respectful for an employee to use. “sorry, i really can’t. work has me really busy right now.” your voice tipped higher out of habit. you hoped your tone was clear enough. 

your hopes were quick to be crushed. 

the man winked and went on to declare, “you wouldn’t have to work with a guy like me around.” he flipped the bottom of his patterned sleeve up, leaving the material bunched up his biceps as he shamelessly flexed his muscles to you. it was clear to you now how drunk the man was. you could see it in the way his smile hung bright and his eyes sparkled like the wish from a million suns. 

you didn’t even have time to react before a separate voice got added to the equation. another man, a younger one who seemed to be in his mid-20s, walked up to your section of the bar. 

“can you fight with those things?” the demeanor of the dark-haired man was intimidating alone, in addition to his alternate style of clothing and his sharp facial expression, he came off as different. the lanky man hovered over the wannabe cowboy, shadowing him. “because these look pretty—“ the younger man’s hand slipped out from his leather jacket and cupped over the older man’s flexing muscle. “fake.” 

“hey— hey don’t touch me you goth— emo freak!” the countryman jolted out from under the latter's touch before he could make any lasting contact. “what the fuck is wrong with you!” he shot his arms up in complaint. "werido." he waved his middle finger to the man as he continued to back onto the crowded dance floor. 

the second man remained stoic as he watched the first walk away. “fucking idoit. i’m not even close to being gothic.” he scoffed as his arms crossed over his chest. the sway in his movement told you that this customer wasn't necessarily sober either.

“another jerk.” you muttered, the words slipping out of your mouth before you could stop them. you didn’t want to complain, considering that this guy just helped get that creep away from you, but this was turning into a stereotypical ‘the good guy is actually a bad guy’ plot twist, and you weren’t in the mood to get kidnapped tonight. 

a hard exhale fell from the younger man’s mouth, “what was that?” he sounded amused like he wasn’t offended that you just insulted him, but he sounded intrigued.

you felt a wave of hot shutter through your body, cheeks flaring up specifically. your face scrunched up, shoulders raising and eyes widening as you silently cursed the way your body reacted to embarrassment. then again, some things never change. “nothing.” you said, just as quietly as you said your last sentence. your hand urgently tapped for the forgotten rag under the counter to no avail. 

you held eye contact with the man until his crystal-lit orbs suddenly flagged down. his forehead fell to his forearm, which rested on the bar's marble counter, and his shoulders began to shake as he hickered out a string of loud laughs. 

you were baffled. 

“they really hired a kid to work here?” the man giggled.

“actually, i’m—“ 

“so, this is what midnight's been doing.” his eyes were back up on you now, gaze observing as his hair folded out of its side part and in front of his face. he was quick to swipe his hair back up with his galaxy-toned hand. 

“sorry?” 

the man just barely stumbled back, gripping the back of the bar chair before he could be considered a threat. he settled himself down on the chair. his body leaning against the bar's wooden structure, the same way the cowboy had done a moment ago. but this time it felt separate— for so many reasons you couldn’t narrow it down to just one. 

he looked at you when he answered, pupils dilated. “hiring college kids.” his eyes flickered close for a moment like he was making a mental note to remember his observation. 

you bit your bottom lip. you can’t deny it because it’s true, you are a college student. but the way he said it made it seemproblematic. before you could tap into that, you felt that something was off— you couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching you.

you stole a glance and to your concern, a pair of eyes were focused on you from the threshold of the staff room. instinctively, your body straightened up. your focus decreased on entertaining the customer and increased on actually doing your job. 

unsure if you were in earshot, you spoke again, calculated. “midnight is a good place.” you said. your fingers finally found the rag under the counter and your hands got back into the routine of wiping the counter, really trying to sell the ‘i’m too busy working to talk’ act… again. 

“yeah?” the man dabbled, like he was quickly losing interest in the conversation. but he went on, “what makes it so special then?”

it was such a strange question, but you’ve heard stranger before. “they have a cool looking website…?” 

it was the first thing that came to mind. 

the man laughed, but it wasn’t as loud and amused as before, just convinced. he slapped a hand on the table, using it as his pillar of support as he staggered back up into a standing position. you could hear him whispering something about “technology” and “young hires” as he stumbled off. 

just one strange interaction after another. 

ninety laboring minutes later you’re finally on your way home. on a breezy, autumn day like this one you found yourself extra appreciative of the close distance of your apartment. you knew that your roommate, rumi, was probably awake. not because she was waiting for you, but because she’s a biology major and you’ve come to learn they never sleep. 

still, on nights when you were the only one closing or had to run a quick errand before going home, rumi would call you to ensure your safety— and threaten to call the police to escort you if you didn’t get home soon. 

tonight ended up being was one of those nights. 

you had just turned the corner right around midnight’s back alley when you heard a sound. what started as a small cough quickly turned into hacking coughs and eventually the sound of splatters of vomit hitting the ground. you, silently, peaked around the corner of the alley. 

hunched over in the l-shaped corner behind the dumpster was your “hero” from earlier. 

he looked more battered down now, knees quivering underneath his weight as he pressed his head up against the rugged brick wall. your feet lead you closer. as you appporached, you could see how his dark hair adhered damply around the nape of his neck and how desperately his hands clung onto the wall. 

“oh my god, you’re the guy from earlier.” you blurted out loud, mostly to verbally confirm it to yourself. the guy's head just lolled against the brick wall, tipping down as he threw up another liter of liquor onto the pavement. your face grimaced as you glanced away. “you’re really drunk.” you commented, fingers anxiously fiddling at your sides. 

“no fucking duh.” the man spat. he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his leather jacket and then waved a flappy hand in your direction. “beat it.” he deadpanned, scratchy voice sending a chill up your spine. 

your mind now rushed with questions on whether you should leave him or not. you considered the factors. pro: he did save you from a potential creep. con: his attitude is intangibly rotten.

but there must be a reason behind it, right? like maybe he had a bad day— a lot of bar attendees do. the point was, even though you didn't know him, he did seem to have good intentions. 

you took a step toward him, “i’m gonna—“

“don’t.” his voice snapped into a growl, low and brisk. you remained calm. you could see him peeking at you from under his arm, checking to see if you had left or not. searching like he had already anticipated you to be long gone.

when his gaze met yours— seeing you still in your work clothes, clearly very exhausted from your long trip, and still willing to help him —he couldn’t do anything else but glance away. 

slowly, you put a hand out. you could hear murmurs of keigo's voice in your head saying that you were “being too nice.” you shook his words off of your mind and pushed forward. “i’ll just walk you down the block.” you stepped under his propped up arm, swiftly redirecting his weight so he was leaned up against your left shoulder and had his arm wrapped around your right shoulder. you heard his breath hitch as you altered his position. he didn’t protest, but rather flowed with your direction.

you took a deep breath, stabilizing yourself. “nightlife is.. brighter down there. so you can find your way home by yourself.” you took a step forward, delicately nudging his side. he took the physical indication and moved forward, taking a slow, but sure step. you let out another slow breath; most times your last-minute plans didn’t work well so you you were satisfied.

a couple dozen steps later the young man spoke— well slurred —“thought all your bougie alcohol was fake.” he tone wasn’t confident like the words he had said weren’t originally his. he swayed a bit, the scent of an indistinguishable amount of various alcohols spiking through your nose. “stupid trust fund kid company.” he grumbled.

you didn’t blame the man for the way he thought. midnight's popularity had shot up out of nowhere just a couple of weeks ago. you heard that they were doing so well in the market that other smaller businesses were shutting down because of it. at the time you didn’t think much of it. you didn’t know that people were genuinely upset about it. 

after a long hushed walk in the eerie wind, you stepped upon the brightly lit street of the plaza. thought most the shops on this side of town consisted of sketchy dispensaries and personal businesses, it was still safer than leaving him behind the alley of a well-known bar with a high-kept reputation. 

you led him to one of the benches facing the oversight of city buildings. the sky twinkled in each of the visible window's reflection, sparkles jumping and dancing across city rooftops. when you let go of the man's weight, he immediately melted into the bench below him. you huffed out a strangled breath, swinging back on to dust your hands off. you could hear club music threatening to spill out of a building across the street from where you stood. you placed your hands on your hips and countered your breathing, slowing it down as a celebratory smile crept onto your lips. 

the man sighed from his spot on the bench, catching your attention. “ya' ever looked at the sky?” the question was half asked, like it wasn’t even meant to be answered by you. you turned to him and sure enough he was staring at the night sky, eyes hazy enough to certify him as dreaming. 

out of curiosity, you turn to the sky. orion had the type of beauty that you couldn’t describe. it was the type of city you’d see pictures of on the front of postcards, painted and perfect— perfectly feel good. 

you do look at the sky when you have time, which isn’t often. it’s nice to wish on the stars and share sprinkled false hope with other people across the world. you always wished for one day to feel exciting the way you were promised every day should feel. 

another comment cut you out of your tangled mind. “next meteor shower is march thirteenth.” the man whispered into the wind. you could see it in his eyes that his message wasn’t necessarily said to inform you but because he needed to say it—  he needed to tell someone. 

a vibrating sound coming from your pocket stopped you from being able to reply to the man's drunken speech. you pulled your phone out and read the contact name, rumi.

for her to be calling it must be super late. you stuffed your phone back into your pocket, “i’m sorry but i have to go!” you told the man frantically. his head just tilted more towards the sky, fully consumed in its beauty, already acting like you were gone. “well, get home safe!” you gave an awkward wave to him— well his back —as you skipped into a jog, running back home.

to your luck, the days only got more interesting.

previous masterlist next

“it’s good in the dark, good in the dark” | LCD soundsystem

comment to be added to current taglist: @peachesvault @tlissablr @evilari111

[ayyy-pee]

Can we get some Nanami fluff where he’s caring for reader on her period?

hi bby!!! i am SO LATE with this one and it ended up being super different than what i first imagined it being lol but i felt like it fit the vibe of SIL so here we are with yet another Strangers in Love bit LOL (click the link if you haven't read SIL yet!)

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Pairing: Nanami Kento x Female Reader

Summary: Just a little drabble about how Nanami cares for SIL reader on her period...

Genre: Divorced to Lovers AU

What was it you had asked for again?

Nanami stands in the female hygiene product aisle at the drugstore, arms full of various items that he thinks may be beneficial for you. The confident air he exuded when he’d first entered the store has long faded and has been replaced with nothing but nerves. Nanami ticks off the boxes in his mental checklist, because it’s been so long since he’s had to do this for you, or any woman really, that he’s completely second guessing himself.

“Heating pad…” he murmurs under his breath. “Painkillers…chocolates…or does she prefer gummy worms now? Hmm…”

The large variety of products has his head spinning and he’s embarrassed to admit that he’s been standing in this aisle for far longer than he had intended. This is definitely not how he planned his day to go. 

Earlier That Day…

Nanami’s eyes watch the minute hand tick by on his wristwatch. It’s early Friday morning, and he should have left for work by now. But you haven’t gotten up yet, breaking the routine you two have picked back up on after all these years apart. It doesn't matter what day it is, or what time it is, if you're staying over at each other's places, you're up to say goodbye to one another. So you still being asleep is throwing Nanami off. Not that you can’t sleep in from time to time, but you just…don’t usually. 

And honestly, he doesn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to you. 

He can’t bear to mess this up again when your relationship has been going so well since dating again.

So instead, Nanami sets his briefcase down in your foyer and heads to your bedroom. When he opens the door, he’s met with darkness and silence. He can just barely make out your form beneath the blankets. You must be exhausted to be sleeping in and Nanami does not want to disturb you, so he quietly moves to close your door so he can head out. He’ll simply send you a text that he left while you were sleeping. That way it doesn’t seem as though he left without taking you into consideration.

The door is less than an inch from closing when Nanami thinks he hears something, the noise so hushed he almost misses it. He pauses, gives it a few seconds, and just before he moves to close the door again, he hears it once more. There’s no mistaking it, the quiet little sniffle coming from inside the bedroom, followed by an even quieter sob.

He’s moving before he realizes it. Nanami kneels beside your bed, gently peeling the blankets back and although he can’t see you in the dim early lighting, Nanami just knows. You’re crying. For what reason, he doesn’t know. But it kills him all the same.

“What’s wrong, my love?” He asks gently, a hand coming to caress your wet cheek. “Are you okay?”

His question makes you openly cry now, the tears flowing freely as Nanami quickly shuffles to the other side of your bed to lie with you, not caring that he’s ruining his suit as he scoots to hold you. His front presses against your back, large palm coming down to press against your stomach, and for some reason you sigh as though the warmth and pressure from his hand gives you some sort of relief.

Nanami nuzzles his nose into your hair, inhaling your scent. “Talk to me, love. What’s the matter?”

It takes you a moment, but when you finally speak, your voice comes out strained and tired. “Ugh…I started my period and I’m so damn miserable…” you groan, sniffling. “I think I’m dying…I need to run to the store but–”

“What do you need? I’ll go for you,” Nanami volunteers immediately. The last thing he wants is for you to go out in this condition. “I think I remember the products you use…”

You make a noise that sounds like a mixture of a laugh and a hiss of pain before you sigh out, “I don’t know if I should be flattered that you remember or I don’t know…disturbed? Are you that obsessed with me?”

“Yes,” he answers, instantly. He nuzzles further into you if possible. “I still remember the first time I ran to the convenience store to buy you products back in college. And the time I had to give you an extra pair of pants when you’d started your cycle unexpectedly, and–”

“Kennnnn,” you whine. “You’re so sweet and so strange. Why do you remember that?”

Nanami chuckles, softly rubbing his hand in soothing circles against your lower abdomen. “It’s not meant to be weird, but I remember these were big moments in our relationship. What I mean is, I want to take care of you.”

“What about work? You’ll be late…”

“I’m not going. You need me here.”

You curl into a ball before him and just a few seconds pass before he feels your body shaking, wracked with sobs. “Stop saying sweet things to meeeee,” you whine. “I love you so muuuuch.”

“Okay…okay,” he agrees. “I’m heading to the store, then. I’ll get you what you need, but if you think of anything else, just message me.” He kisses the top of your head, slowly peeling himself away from you, though he wants to stay in bed for as long as you’re there. But Nanami knows you need these essentials so that you’re comfortable. He’ll make the trip as quick as possible.

Currently…

This trip was not as quick as possible. His brown eyes stare at the selection before him. Did you use winged pads? Non-winged? Scented or not? Heavy flow or light flow? Or maybe you had grown to prefer tampons? Or…what the hell is a diva cup?

“Sir?” A soft voice calls out to him. Nanami turns his head to see a store attendant, an elderly woman, gazing softly at him. Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles. “I’ve passed by this aisle a few times now and you’re still here. Did you need some assistance?”

Well, this is beyond embarrassing. All that talk of remembering your preferences, being obsessed with you (not a lie), and recalling memories that made you feel confident enough in sending him out alone into the world to bring you back something useful. All that, just for Nanami to get to the store, standing in a wrinkled business suit, and having absolutely no clue what he’s looking at.

Not only that, but some poor old woman is now taking pity on him and offering her services. He wants to take her up on her offer, but he also stubbornly wants to prove to himself that he can take care of you. But while he’s being stubborn, you’re suffering and that is something Nanami can’t stand to let continue.

He gives the woman a tight smile. “Actually, if you could–”

His phone buzzing in his pocket cuts him off. He mutters an “excuse me” and he finds himself dropping whatever is in his arms to answer. Only one person would call him this early in the morning. He answers without question, mouthing an apology to the attendant who waits patiently.

“My love,” he answers, brows furrowing when he hears your giggles on the other end of the line. Much different than what he expected seeing as he left you in a puddle of your own tears before going to the store.

“How long have you been standing around at the store?” You ask teasingly, and Nanami purses his lips together.

“I’ll have you know that…” he sighs in defeat. There’s no point in denying it. “It hasn’t been that long.”

Your laughter rings through and Nanami can’t help the wide grin on his face. The attendant clears her throat politely, reminding him that she’s still waiting. He covers the receiver on his phone. “Thank you so much for your help. My wife is going to take it from here.”

The woman nods, making her way out of the aisle and Nanami resumes his call with you.

“You called me your wife…” you breathe softly. 

Nanami feels his heart drop into the pit of his stomach. It was just a habit that he supposes never died. He opens his mouth to apologize, but your giggles surprise him. He expected discomfort, maybe anger given your history, but you don’t seem to feel either of those things. You simply brush it off and keep talking.

“Okay, so, here’s what I need–”

- - - - - -

“It smells so good in here, Kento.” Your sweet voice carries through the kitchen, arms looping around Nanami’s torso from behind. The sun is slowly beginning to set now, casting a warm glow through the kitchen windows as Nanami finishes up dinner. You’ve been resting on the sofa most of the day with your heating pad and whatever strange snacks you’ve been craving. Your pain has finally eased up and Nanami feels like he can breathe easier now that your face isn’t constantly contorted from your cramps. It’s been nice to let you just sit around. He’s simply been helping around your apartment with taking care of some household chores while you recover.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, stirring one last time before tasting the soup he’s thrown together. He makes a mental note to pick up some groceries for you so that there’s a better selection of ingredients for him to choose from for the next meal.

“So much better. Thank you so much for everything today, Kento.”

Nanami switches the stove off, spinning around in your embrace and wrapping his arms around your waist. “Of course. I’m just happy I was here to help.”

You smile shyly, and it’s Nanami’s favorite of all your expressions. “Me too,” you tell him. You lay your head against his chest, sighing contently as you murmur something that sends his heart into full on overdrive... 

“You should move in.”

[papasbaseball]

The Wizard x Reader (Wonderful Wonderful Girl) | Chapter 2

Pairing: Wizard x F!Reader

Rating: Teen (Rating to Increase)

Warnings: Power Imbalance, Boss/Employee Relationship

Summary: Being a maid in the Royal Palace of Oz is not half so bad. Despite the meager wages, everything else is provided for you for an honest day's work. It can be unnerving working for the most powerful man in Oz, but you are able to avoid him most of the time. This changes during Lurlinemas, your paths soon becoming inextricably intertwined.

Word Count: 2,899 of 5,084 Prev | Next

AO3 Link

The Markets of Oz are normally packed during the daytime, ladies coming and going to get groceries and maybe a new dress or two, but they are flooded during the night markets of Lurlinemas. If you have the chance to look without getting swallowed in the waves of the crowd, you can see green lights strung from brick building to brick building (the bricks painted green for lack of renovation funds), newly built stalls in the main square that sold roasted quail for a quarter, and a great Spruce that had been brought in from Winkie Country, its top cresting just past the meager buildings that boxed in the square. Emily tugs me along as I admire the great golden star that was perched atop it, emeralds chiseled into the shape of snowflakes adorning each tip.

"If we move any slower they're going to run out of hot chocolate," she says, pulling me by my elbow.

The hot chocolate in the night market is one of a kind, spiced with warm cinnamon and sweetened to the point that it hurts your teeth. If I could have it year-round, I think I would like that very much, even if I did eventually get sick of it. I follow after her in our immediate quest, trying to shoulder oblivious men and women out of the way.

"How many presents do you need to get?" I ask as we get in line for the cocoa.

Emily pulls her green-gloved hands out of her pocket, silently ticking off her checklist on her fingers. "Six," she says.

I try not to drop my jaw at the idea of such wastefulness. I'm not sure there are six people that I could call friends, much less that I would be willing to spend my wages on for silly presents. In truth, there was one, but she would chastise me if I tried to get her anything. Still, I couldn't help but wish for something to get her.

We order our hot chocolate and sip it as we stroll through the sea, dipping and dodging any particularly rude costume choices. We had stuck to our uniforms, hiding them under the woolen pine-colored peacoats that were standard issue for when we had to lend an extra hand in shoveling off any balconies that got covered in snow during the wintertime. There was no option for us to have extra extra wide-brimmed hats or wired puffy sleeves that were the size of small dogs. Even if we had the option, I don't think that I would have done it on a regular market day, much less in the nights leading up to Lurlinemas.

Emily stops at an ornament seller and takes her time browsing the brilliant sun catchers and rhinestone-encrusted baubles. The glass and “sodering” (I’m sure it’s silver-colored glue) look far too flimsy, so I tell her I'm going to the next booth to look at ribbons and laces. The price of laces haven't gotten any better (in fact they had gone up by 6 cents) but I look at them anyway.

Most clothing could be mended, but there was only so much to be done about laces as they became more and more unraveled. If you had a friend in the mailroom, you could persuade them to let you borrow some rubber cement to stick the frays back together. If you didn't, you had to dip the tips of your laces in the wax of your candle at night. The wax didn't last nearly as long as the cement, usually cracking off within a day or two. I wasn’t friendly with anyone in the mail room, so I had slowly been shortening and dipping my laces until they just barely tied in a regular knot.

My eyes flicked over the shades of olive and forest and moss, until they had reached the box of ribbons. There is a skip in my heart as I remember how the Wizard had tied the ribbon in my hair just days ago. If I close my eyes, I can feel his hands guiding the ribbon up from the nape of my neck and the warmth that radiated from them as he tied the bow in place. If it is true or not, in my mind he has a smile when he looks at me after. I wonder if these ribbons would make him smile like the one I still have in my hair, if they would make him...

I have to look away from the ribbons for a brief moment. The thoughts I had of him since that day have not been pure and kind. They are selfish. I know that they will lead me down a path of trouble if I linger on them. I have my sister to think about and it would not do if I were to lose my job at the palace. I could not save her from the children's home, but they still let me visit her and send her things. I don't send her much, most of it disappears within a few days, but I bring her sweets if I have time to swing by the bakery after I am no longer needed for the day.

Looking back at the ribbons, I can't help but wish I could get one for her. I want her to feel as pretty as I did that day in the Wizard's bedroom. The kids would have a harder time taking the ribbon from her if I braided it into her hair, away from their jealous hands. My eyes flick up to the price card that is held in a coily golden wire stand. 200 cents! It's more than double the price of the laces.

I bite my lip, but my mind is already made up. I look at the shop lady, but she has her back turned attending to the till and adding pennies to it from a green paper sleeve. I snatch a pistachio-colored satin ribbon and shove it into the pocket of my peacoat. Quickly, I slip back out into the crowd of people, heading back to Emily in the ornament booth.

I'm jerked back, my forearm locked in an iron grip as it is hoisted high, so high above my head that I'm afraid my shoulder will dislocate.

"Hey!" I shout.

"There is zero tolerance for stealing in the Emerald City," The man says. I scrape my tiptoes against the ground to get a better look at him and realize that I've been detained by one of the Emerald City's Royal Guards. The green coat with gold trim and accents is unmistakable, accompanied by a sharp green officer's cap.

"I didn't steal," I lie.

He fishes into my coat pocket and pulls out the ribbon that I had stashed in there. "Is that so?" he says. My shoulder burns as he drags me back to the lace and ribbon booth, chucking the spooled-up ribbon back to the shop lady. "Sorry about that, Hazel. Street rat."

I can't help it as the words come flying out of my mouth, “I am not a street rat! I work at the palace!"

"Good," he says. "Then I know where to take you. Lets me get off my shift earlier at least."

He lowers my arm, only to twist it up behind my back, his other gloved hand grabbing hold of the collar of my coat. I shout at Emily, trying to fight against him as he marches us past the ornament booth, but I'm not sure she heard me. She has a confused look on her face as I'm dragged off, but she doesn't do anything to interfere. We may share a bed in this cold weather, but she's never been the type to stick her neck out for anyone, no matter how big or small the injustice. I wouldn't expect her to start with me.

By the time we get to the palace the hand behind my back is numb from the position and the cold air. The shame and fight has long since left my body, my mind trying to focus on how I will provide for my sister and me, or even if I will be allowed to see her again. Do they let criminals into the children's home? Would they even let me stay in the Emerald City? I try to remember what happened to criminals that were detained in the palace. There had been a boy in the kitchen who had been caught with a whole ham hock in his bag when the kitchen staff was closing up one night this past summer. It had been such a scandal -- it was all the staff could talk about for two whole weeks straight -- but in the end, I could not remember what had become of him, only his original crime that had been passed on by those who had been in the kitchen when the joint had been discovered.

We don't go through the main doors, neither the servant's entrance, but rather a side door that I had never seen before. It must have been for guard use only. They crawl the castle like an infestation of ants, so it only seems natural that they, like ants, would have cracks and crevices to aid their coming and going. It's dark, but soon I see that we are in the main entryway. If I can remember correctly, the guards' barracks and offices occupy the left wing from the audience room (convenience for removing unruly guests from the days of King Pastoria, I suppose). Most in the Wizard's personal service have no reason to go there.

The Wizard. There's a sort of heavy disappointment that sits like an oversized and cold jewel on my chest, deep beneath the layers of wool and scarves and uniform. It's not the disappointment that a child might feel under the disapproving eye of a parent, no. It is something entirely unfamiliar: an anger at myself that I might never see him again, that my last impression on him will be one of a thief. But wasn't that what I was? I had stolen the ribbon, no intention of paying.

The guard marches me up through the darkened emerald halls, passing the large pillars, the walls carved with their sharp geometric designs. I take in the sight of all of it knowing that it will be my last time seeing any of it. We're crossing the audience room, the heart of the entire palace, and nearly to the other side when I see him.

He's in a deep green almost black suit. The lapels of the jacket are peaked giving him the appearance of being even taller than he already is. He's talking to a stocky man, at least two heads shorter than him and twice as wide, wearing the uniform of the palace guards with a few additional golden cords strung over his chest that my jailer doesn't have.

I try walking faster, dragging the guard who had my arm pinned behind my back. I don't want him to see me like this. Better to just have all of my stuff gathered and thrown out the back door with me than to disgrace myself even further.

"Uh…Guard," a voice calls. I know it's his. I hate that I know that it's his.

My captor stops in his tracks, spinning us around to address the two men. "Captain," he says, giving a nod to the shorter man.

The Wizard has a confused if not irritated look on his face. I can tell that I've made him upset. How poorly must this reflect on the palace if members of his staff are getting arrested in the street? He says, "Are you going somewhere?"

The guard looks to the stocky man who gives him a subtle nod of the head. "Street rat," my captor says. "I caught her stealing in the market. I'm taking her to booking and calling the head of staff for the palace. She said she works here."

"Well, yeah," the Wizard says. "I can see that. Anyone can see that." He approaches me and pinches the thick wool of one of my coat lapels in between his thumb and forefinger. I try not to look too hard at the gold ring on his thumb as he drags it back and forth lazily against the material, stroking it as if to assess the warmth of the garment. "She's wearing a palace coat. Initials on it and everything."

My captor seems tongue-tied by this, I can hear his mouth open, a gasp for air as if to say something but nothing comes out. I dare to look up and see that the Wizard has his eyes locked on him. The way he's looking at him with those amber eyes reminds me of grade school, when we learned about the flora and fauna of Oz in biology. When talking of tigers, our teacher had told us that if you could see their eyes through the grass it was already too late. You had been stalked for hours before even noticing and they never got close enough for you to notice until you couldn't get away even if you tried. Foolishly, he tries, saying, "I need to take her to booking. She is a stain on the image of the palace."

The wizard drops my lapel and walks back to the officer that is now resting his hand on the pommel of his sword. It makes me nervous, but I'm not sure for who. Would they execute me right here in the audience chamber? I wouldn't be the first. The Wizard bends down and whispers something to the officer. I watch his eyes tick back and forth as he processes the secret.

"Guard," the officer says, "Leave her to me. I am sure you are wanted back in the square. Where there is one thief there is sure to be more."

I can't see his face, but I know that my captor is annoyed. He'd been hoping to clock out early and now he had to walk all the way back down to the market square. That brings a smile to my face as I hear the hesitant click of his boots and feel all the blood start rushing back into my arm as he lets me go.

We stand there, the three of us, until we hear the loud echo of the door shutting. The short man salutes the Wizard and makes his exit. The smile drops from my face as I realize what little law and witnesses there were had just walked out of the room, leaving me alone with the tiger.

"Stealing?" he says, cocking his head to the side. Immediately, he sets to pacing around me.

"It was just a ribbon, Your Wonderfulness," I say. My shoes have become infinitely more interesting to me, noticing the way even the stitching of the leather to the soles was starting to fray near the toes.

He laughs and it is quiet and deep, sending a prickling from my shoulders down my spine. "Did you like the first one that much? You could have asked for another."

"It wasn't for me," I say.

I can feel him tug on the braids that wrap my head. I had woven the ribbon into them earlier today. There hadn't been a day where I hadn't worn his ribbon since I got it. It was risky, and eventually Emily or someone else would catch on, but I didn't want to leave it in my nightstand and come back to find it missing, pilfered by someone's sticky fingers. So I had woven it into my hair where no one could take it, where the Wizard was now tracing its crooked and dashed path against my scalp.

"You are a terrible liar, missy" he says. "What are we going to do with you?"

Let me go? Kick me out of the palace? In truth, I wanted things to just go back to the way they were, no ribbon, no staff suspicions, just me and my chores and the shared bed with Emily. My voice quavers as I feel his finger stray from the twisted path of the ribbon, wandering onto the pulse of my bare neck, stopping underneath the corner of my jaw. "I won't do it again," I choke out.

"Oh, I have no doubt of that," he says. "But you can't be trusted. To have a thief in my staff... well, it would just cause too many problems. First ribbons, next other things..." He completes his circle around me and I find myself facing him again.

"Are you going to kill me?" I ask.

He smiles, revealing to me a flash of hungry white teeth. Too late. He says, "Do you want me to?"

I shake my head, my lips stitched together in case any wrong words should fall from them.

"Such a fascinating creature," he says, perhaps to me or perhaps to himself. "I'll deal with you tomorrow. Why don't you go upstairs and get some rest? I have... things to arrange."

He leaves me there in the audience chamber, shaking. If you see them, it is too late. I am standing there, head still on my shoulders, and yet I know that I haven't escaped. If you see them, it is too late.

[erabu-san]

You are literally French. What would you know about any of this, an issue and drama stirred up by anericans.

Blackwashing exists and is used by bigots that hate white people. Its used to erase the ethnicity of asians just because people dont think they are "poc enough" because of their pale skin. Its used to demonize people with pale skin because its becoming more and more the norm to view anyone with pale skin as evil. That anyone who is "too pale" isnt enough or a human being.

They arent real people, and their skintones are fine as is. You wouldnt go up to, for example an albino or mixed race black/poc person and tell them they arent "dark enough". They dont even need to be special like that to be pale. Some just are pale.

Whether you think there should be more characters that are dark or not is not the issue. Its that you think they wouldnt be/arent good enough as is with pale skin that shows how much of a bigot you are.

Blackwashing is not the progressive act you think it is. Its obvious that your only experience with it is through genshin drama. You obviously know nothing about how much red haired pale characters & asian ones are substituted with black characters. How characters are simply replaced in the name of "diversity". How this forced inclusivity and diversity is just bigots trying to "get revenge" on the white people they hate so much, and to tick off DEI boxes on their little bigoted checklist.

You tell me to educate myself but its actually YOU who needs to be educated.

Many are complaining about sumeru and natlan characters with names similar to gods in cultures of our world that are pale when their inspiration is dark skinned. Claiming they want representation and for it to be accurate, to reflect our world on a 1-1 scale.

Yet these same people will make xiao, zhongli, Ei, and many more asian characters darker " because asians can be dark skinned too". Yet so can mostly dark skinned races be pale.

So why cant you (gen) respect such characters, who are gods and divine beings based on a culture where pale is more beautiful, and gods of such cultures are pale?

There is hypocrisy in everything to do with blackwashing. Its okay when its done to pale characters because in real life black people have been oppressed? But these characters are not real, nor are they a reflection of our reality, as far as we have seen they dont even have racism in this fictional world.

It is one thing to explore a character like with the recent hatsune miku trend, atleast there most people arent going at each other's throats saying black miku is better than japanese miku(as far as i have seen)

Seriously how can you even begin to justify this. And who ever told you that dark skinned characters "scare white people" is an absolute fucking liar trying to justify their own bigotry towards white people.

No black washing IS just as disgusting as whitewashing. Neither should exist, and you shouldn't feed into the stupid circle jerk of bigotry that both of them are.

Aaaah that's what I like ! Yes ! Thank you for telling me your opinion, explaining what is wrong. I absolutely love to learn, and I prefer to read this long text calling me ignorant and explaining why that just a simple text of you saying you are annoyed by a fanart.

Thank you for telling me ! First yes I am french, and indeed my culture has more an european pov. But again, I also grow up as a minority "race" with my parents culture !🙏 in france, i don't look like a french. Well. Still I am aware that it doesn't remove anything from what I said

And I totally agree with you, some are just pale !! It just happens I draw Kinich black because I like it like this. Is Kinich true inspiration are actually pale ? Tell me more, I wish to learn !!

Tbh when you talk abt gods being pale is beautiful, I thought about Nahida. I did research when she were out and yes, I do agree, there is character who are fine as they are.

And because I live in France I also see "dark skin scare white" as a true fact. It happens and it is harmful. 🧍 not only in France tho, in country where pale skin is portrayed as beautiful, people who have tan skin are less represented even if it is the majority. I suppose the contrary happens too !!

"Character are not real" and yet you are annoyed, I guess it is the action of "blackwash" that make you mad, more than "a fictional character w diffent skin tone" tho! My opinion is fiction does affect real world, as do real life affects fiction, and this is something I won't debate on

"They don't have racism in this fictional world" sorry but it does in Sumeru. 🙏 about this one npc she is reject by forest and desert because of them being mixed, desert not being access to book and even Cyno said his scholarship was complicated because he is from desert

If you wish to continue, please send me DM with arguments. I don't know if I would change my mind of not drawing Kinich pale, but I am super interested about what you have to say !! 👍👍

[asneakyfox]

there's this thing you see a lot on the internet in fandom media discourse spaces where there's a fictional character, right, and they start as an unsympathetic antagonist and then they go through an arc that involves some personal change and they are presented more sympathetically and are no longer acting in opposition to the protagonists. and then maybe some people in the audience buy the change and some people find it unconvincing and some people are like but was it SUPPOSED to be convincing? (and some very tiresome people smugly insist that there was no change they were always presented a good guy actually) and it turns into this big semantic argument about the exact definition of a redemption arc.

let me solve this argument for you: "redemption arc" is not a term that has a strict definition.

now i know someone reading this is running off right now googling the phrase and coming back with some website that insists you have to check every box on this five point checklist for an arc to actually qualify as a redemption arc and if it doesn't it's actually a healing arc or an identity arc or a domestication arc or a recovery arc or what have you. those websites exist because hack writers fucking love story structure checklists. but i am telling you as a person who works in narrative, when a professional writer submits a pitch that says "this character will have a redemption arc," what they mean is "bad guy becomes good" and no more. if i said "well that's not a redemption arc because the character doesn't fully confront their wrongdoing and atone for it" or whatever they would have no idea what the fuck i was talking about, because nobody within the field defines the term that strictly. if you talk to anyone in academia whose field is film studies or media studies or comparative literature they will tell you those fields don't use "redemption arc" as a strictly defined term either. it is a loose term used casually in popular discussion of media, and as such it doesn't have a strict agreed-on definition, it just generally describes arcs where an unsympathetic bad guy character transitions into a character the audience is expected to root for.

i really just don't see the point of making this a semantic thing anyway, though. you can say "<character> went through some changes and is presented more sympathetically, but the change doesn't involve really confronting their culpability, and because of that, expecting the audience to act as if their past actions no longer matter rings hollow" and that's fine that's a stance we can talk about! that's what i would say if i got a pitch where a character was supposed to have a redemption arc but it didn't land! but just smugly saying "well it's not a REDEMPTION ARC because it's only a redemption if they tick every single box on the zuko checklist, otherwise it's just sparkling character development" like that's some sort of checkmate strikes me as pointless. i mean i guess if you're going to insist on defining the term "redemption arc" in an extremely narrowly restrictive way then sure that's true but i don't know that it's really saying anything useful.

i know what you're thinking but this is mostly about jaime lannister.

[gremlinmodetweeker]

New Recruit

So as it turns out, my big thing is just making a ton of different aus for cod and throwing König into the middle of them. Poor guy never gets a break when I'm around.

Either way, this is a super fun au I cooked up and I think y'all might really like it. Super fun campy paranormal goodness. I am so happy with how this is going!

Anyways, SFW but a relatively longer fic from me

2.6k wordcount

Story below the cut

New Recruit

Was this really the place? The old firehouse in front of you seemed rundown and decrepit in how it perched on the corner of the street, kept in place only by worn down concrete sidewalks with dandelions growing up from the spiderweb cracks interlaced throughout. It seemed to be ready to collapse at the snap of your fingers, which you kept safely tucked away in the pockets of your pants as you took in what was supposedly your new workplace.

Once, the big barn doors had been painted a bright crimson red. Now they were cracked and chipped and broken down by time and teenage vandalism that had been power washed away. You walked to the corner of the street and looked down the side to find a smaller, more reasonable green door that had been tucked away from your sight. You walked up, trying to ignore the smashed glass windows and instead buzzed the doorway.

“Hello?”

The sonorous tone of the voice surprised you, but you called your name and explained you were here for the interview.

“Oh right! Yeah I remember you. Come on in.”

The lock clicked, allowing you to push through to look inside. You traveled down the chipped linoleum floors to a grand opening surrounded in white over green tiles stacked haphazardly on the walls. There, in front of a rich wood cabinet that seemed to be bursting with files, a large man with skin like rusted ochre sat and typed away at a keyboard that seemed to be dwarfed by his leathery mitts.

“Just one second,” the man held up a finger as he typed rapidly.

With time on your hand, you looked around the room. The pillars holding up the caving ceiling were working wonders to give the whole place a strangely clinical feeling. At the far wall, a set of rusted black iron stairs crawled up to places unknown while a strangely ominous door sat quietly to the right of it, hidden just out of sight from casual observers. The big balls of light held up by stringy cords swung with an unfelt breeze.

“Alright,” the big man turned his chair to you, “c’mon in and take a seat here. Make yourself comfy.”

He gestured with one large hand to a ratty folding chair. With nowhere else to sit, you took your seat delicately, lest you crush it beneath your weight (in all fairness, you suspected a paperclip might do it in). Adjusting your clothes, you straightened yourself to meet the man’s eyes, or rather, the sunglasses he wore indoors.

“Alright. The name’s Darnell Hutchinson, but everyone ‘round here calls me Hutch. You’d best to do the same.”

You nodded quickly.

“Awesome. So,” the man leaned his elbows onto the hardwood desk, “you know the job title’s not a joke, right?”

You had already forgotten the job title.

“Oh yeah, I know,” you played it off.

“Alright. So you’re a firm believer that there’s things out there that science can’t explain?” Hutch continued.

You tried to not let your facial expressions squirm too much as you lied through your teeth, “Sure thing. There’s a whole world out there to explore.”

Hutch ticked a box on a checklist, “Good. So the whole thing about this job is that you’ll be pretty active around here. Lots of running, jumping, ducking, dodging, all that stuff. You think you’re fit enough?”

“I can be if you need me to be,” you chirped.

“Great,” Hutch nodded with a rewarding smile, “I like your attitude. Anyways, most important question of this whole shebang: do you believe in ghosts?”

“Ghosts?” you couldn’t stop yourself from reeling back.

“Ghosts,” Hutch confirmed solemnly, “poltergeists, banshees, spirits, phantoms, shades, things that go bump in the night. You believe in any of that?”

This interview was a joke. It had to be.

“I’ll believe whatever you pay me to believe,” you replied truthfully.

Hutch lowered his shades to give you a long look.

“Ma’am this ain’t no joking matter. If you want to survive in this place, you’d best understand that ghosts are very, very, real.”

“Then they’re real,” you couldn’t believe what you were saying. Were you that desperate for a job?

“I’ll hold you to that,” Hutch shook his head as he turned over the paper, “so do you have any sorta background in science?”

“A bit?” you offered weakly.

“Better than nothing,” Hutch nodded and scribbled onto his clipboard before putting it down, “alright ma’am, I just gotta clear this with the others, and then I’ll get back to ya. Based on the other applicants we got,” Hutch winked, “I think you got the job.”

Your smile split from ear to ear, the brightest one you’d felt in the past two months.

“So, when should I hear back from you?” you asked hopefully.

“When the other’s come ba-”

The big double doors swung wide open as a big white white cadillac came screaming in with blaring sirens casting wild lights around the room. As soon as the car screeched to a stop, four people peeled out of the car like it was on fire.

“We got a real fighter in here!” a man with a heavy Korean accent held up a swinging black and yellow striped box crackling with energy.

“Hey hey be careful there!” a (by comparison) smaller woman yelled at the man, “that’s a class five you got banging around in there!”

A big man in a shroud shook his head as he stomped up beside you.

“Hutch,” the man’s slow russian drawl caught your attention, “Horangi caught the specter. Please tell Mrs. Wilson that her home is officially cleared.”

“On it,” Hutch said as he twirled his chair back to the computer monitor.

You blinked as the russian man nodded and walked back to the other three as they all retreated upstairs.

“Are those the others?” you whispered inconspicuously.

“Sure thing ma’am,” Hutch grinned, “those’re New York’s finest.”

You watched as the fourth and final figure stumbled forth. If you thought Hutch was big, this man was massive. His black cloth mask stained with two red tear trails swung with every heavy footstep he took towards you. When he laid his arctic blue eyes on you, you gave him a small wave. He stalled, then turned to look at Hutch.

“You gonna go into the basement and do your weird biology shit?” Hutch drawled.

The giant looked peeved, but nodded and hurried off with the sparking black and yellow box to the smaller door on the ground floor.

“I’ll go talk to the others. If you wanna wait around, it shouldn’t take more than an hour,” Hutch offered.

You didn’t have anywhere better to be. It’s not like you exactly had a job you needed to go to. So, you took up the offer and started playing around with your phone while Hutch loped off to catch up with the others.

Left alone, you were given the time to really take in what had just happened. What sort of job did you try and apply for here? You were just sending in your application to anything that was posted on the five job sites you’d been scouring through. You just had an interview for garbage disposal yesterday, and the day before that as a secretarial assistant for a hotel. You weren’t exactly picky, and neither was your landlord. You were already two months behind and he was breathing down your neck for your rent as the clock ticked down on you. One month left, and then you’d have to pay it all back in full. You didn’t know what you were going to do.

You sighed and slumped in your chair. Ever since you lost your job at the diner, you were scrambling for anything to get you by. The handiwork you’d been offering on Facebook Marketplace was dwindling down for the season and you didn’t have any equipment or expertise in lawncare to offer your services to the more elite of New York City. You were getting too desperate to turn down a job just because it dealt with ‘ghosts’ or whatever.

You rolled your eyes. Who even believed in ghosts? What sort of nonsense was this all about? It seemed ridiculous and juvenile. But if there was some eccentric billionaire hiring ghost hunters for some bunk science experiment, you’d be down to clown. So long as you got paid, of course. Anything was on the table as long as the bills got paid.

You thought back to the four people who came out of that bizarre car. You turned to take a good look at it.

A white cadillac with a red trim sporting a siren and a megaphone on the top sat still, almost as though it hadn’t nearly shot your eardrums out just moments before. It looked like it had been modified in some way to give it more leg room, making it look decently spacious in size but you still couldn’t figure out quite how that big guy with the cloth mask fit in there. The thought of him crammed in there with his knees up to his chest made you snort.

“You don’t like my baby?”

You swung your head back around so fast you cracked your neck.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the man chuckled as he descended down the metal stairs.

“I wasn’t laughing at your car,” you defended yourself quickly.

The man raised an eyebrow above his sunglasses, his smile hidden by a camo face mask, “So what were you laughing at?”

You bit your lip, then admitted, “Thinking about that big guy trying to fit in that car.”

“Oh!” the man gave a deep belly laugh, “it can get tight in there, but not bad. It’s good enough to get us around.”

“So that’s your car?” you asked.

“A 1958 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Sentinel ambulance. It’s been hauling us all around town since I rescued it from a scrapyard a year ago,” the man slumped into Hutch’s chair and kicked his heavy boots up onto the desk. He looked at you for a moment then pressed a finger to his mask, “Don’t tell Hutch.”

You laughed, “Won’t say a word.”

The man nodded approvingly before reaching a hand out, “I’m Hornagi, the face of the company.”

“You’re the face?” a feminine voice called out.

Horangi turned to glare up at the lithe woman at the top of the staircase, standing as though she was liberty and strength incarnate. She looked down at you with a knowing smirk.

“Nice to see you, Roze,” the man peevishly grumbled as he swirled in Hutch’s chair.

“Don’t listen to him,” Roze sighed as she walked down gracefully, “Horangi’s an idiot.”

“I’m the one with the physics degree,” Horangi scoffed.

“You also blasted a hole through Mrs. Wilson’s cat tree,” Roze snarked as she rounded the banister, “you’re just lucky she was taking that cat to the vet.”

“Eh,” Horangi threw up his hands, “she can buy another.”

“You know that comes out of our salary, right?” Roze leaned against one of the pillars before looking up warily, “sure could use that money to help out here…”

Horangi was about to reply before he looked up at the ceiling.

“Maybe,” Horangi conceded.

“So,” the woman turned to look at you with a smirk on her scarlet red lips, “you’re the new recruit?”

“I’m the new recruit?” you asked in bewilderment.

“Yes you!” Roze laughed and swung her dark hair from her eyes, “Hutch was pretty excited about you.”

“I didn’t think I did that well,” you muttered under your breath.

“Hah! I like this one!” Horangi cheered beside you.

“You like everyone, slut,” Roze rolled her eyes.

“I have very high standards, thank you,” the man sniffed.

“Are you sure?” Roze snorted, “doesn’t seem like it.”

“And this is why you aren’t allowed to be interviewed anymore,” Horangi pointed at her, “you’re too mean.”

“I’m just mean to you,” Roze pointed out.

“Only for me? You’re too nice.”

“I’d shove you in a trap if I could,” Roze growled.

“I’d say you have the worst interviews, but König exists,” Horangi sneered.

Roze sighed as she pushed the heels of her palms into her eyes, “König can’t be allowed near a microphone ever again.”

“That was the worst I’ve seen him in years, you know,” Horangi ran a hand through the back of his short but fluffy black hair, “did you see that poor reporter trying to get her mic back?”

“I had to help her,” Roze groaned, “but he just kept going on and on.”

“Is König the russian guy?” you wormed your way into the conversation.

Roze’s dark brown eyes widened as though she only just noticed you were there, “What? No, Nikto’s great in interviews. He’s the face of the company.”

“I’m the face!”

“Nikto seems pretty scary, but he’s actually really cool once you get to know him,” Roze’s smile dropped, “just don’t ask about his mask.”

Hornagi turned to you and nodded solemnly, “She’s right. Don’t ask about the mask.”

“The halloween mask?” you asked, thinking back to the Scream mask that the man wore.

“He rotates,” Roze offered, “but yeah, Nikto’s nice. He’s funny and he works hard. He’s smart, too.”

“He’s the only one of us that didn’t have a background in science,” Horangi cut in, “he only took the job because he needed one for his green card.”

“Now he has to deal with all of us,” Roze grinned.

“So you all have degrees?” you asked, thinking back to Hutch’s questions about your educational background.

“Horangi has a masters in physics, I have a masters in chemistry and a doctorate in physics, and König has a doctorate in biology,” Roze offered.

“Hutch has a masters in cyber security and a bachelors in mechanical engineering, which is how he got into the military,” Horangi added, “so he’s really our ‘man in the chair’ here.”

“And Nikto?” you asked.

“Something in the military,” Roze trailed off nervously.

“Nikto was in the KGB, I think,” Horangi clacked his teeth together.

“Don’t ask about that either,” Roze declared.

“Don’t ask about his job back home or his mask,” Hornagi affirmed.

“Are they related?” you inquired.

Roze and Horangi shared a look before turning back and saying, “Yes.”

Ah.

The door up above swung open and Hutch walked through, “There you guys are!”

“Yeah, we’re just talking to the new recruit here,” Roze called up as Hutch came down.

“So both of you think she’s a good fit?” Hutch asked.

“Sure do,” Roze nodded as Hornagi followed suit.

Hutch walked up to his chair and yanked it back so hard that Horangi nearly fell out of his chair, “Out.”

Hornagi grumbled as he relinquished the seat and strolled over to stand beside Roze with an indignant huff.

“I was talking to Nikto upstairs, and he seems to think you’re a good fit too,” Hutch typed into his computer furiously, “so, you know, majority rules.”

“Does König know?” Horangi asked.

“König can suck an egg,” Hutch shook his head irritably, “he needs to get over himself.”

The printer whirred to life and started chugging through paper. Hutch gathered the papers and a pen and handed them over to you, the stack still warm in your hands.

“Whelp, looks like you’ve got the job,” Hutch smiled warmly as he handed over the forms.

You read through the papers quickly before signing and handing the papers back over.

Hutch stood and you followed suit. He held out a meaty hand and gave you a firm, welcoming handshake.

“Welcome to the Ghostbusters, recruit.”

AU Masterlist

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Richard R John’s “Network Nation”

THIS SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

The telegraph and the telephone have a special place in the history and future of competition and Big Tech. After all, they were the original tech monopolists. Every discussion of tech and monopoly takes place in their shadow.

Back in 2010, Tim Wu published The Master Switch, his bestselling, wildly influential history of "The Bell System" and the struggle to de-monopolize America from its first telecoms barons:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/11/01/the-master-switch-tim-net-neutrality-wu-explains-whats-at-stake-in-the-battle-for-net-freedom/

Wu is a brilliant writer and theoretician. Best known for coining the term "Net Neutrality," Wu went on to serve in both the Obama and Biden administrations as a tech trustbuster. He accomplished much in those years. Most notably, Wu wrote the 2021 executive order on competition, laying out a 72-point program for using existing powers vested in the administrative agencies to break up corporate power and get the monopolist's boot off Americans' necks:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

The Competition EO is basically a checklist, and Biden's agency heads have been racing down it, ticking off box after box on or ahead of schedule, making meaningful technical changes in how companies are allowed to operate, each one designed to make material improvements to the lives of Americans.

A decade and a half after its initial publication, Wu's Master Switch is still considered a canonical account of how the phone monopoly was built – and dismantled.

But somewhat lost in the shadow of The Master Switch is another book, written by the accomplished telecoms historian Richard R John: "Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications," published a year after The Master Switch:

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674088139

Network Nation flew under my radar until earlier this year, when I found myself speaking at an antitrust conference where both John and Wu were also on the bill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VNivXjrU3A

During John's panel – "Case Studies: AT&T & IBM" – he took a good-natured dig at Wu's book, claiming that Wu, not being an historian, had been taken in by AT&T's own self-serving lies about its history. Wu – also on the panel – didn't dispute it, either. That was enough to prick my interest. I ordered a copy of Network Nation and put it on my suitcase during my vacation earlier this month.

Network Nation is an extremely important, brilliantly researched, deep history of America's love/hate affair with not just the telephone, but also the telegraph. It is unmistakably as history book, one that aims at a definitive takedown of various neat stories about the history of American telecommunications. As Wu writes in his New Republic review of John's book:

Generally he describes the failure of competition not so much as a failure of a theory, but rather as the more concrete failure of the men running the competitors, many of whom turned out to be incompetent or unlucky. His story is more like a blow-by-blow account of why Germany lost World War II than a grand theory of why democracy is better than fascism.

https://newrepublic.com/article/88640/review-network-nation-richard-john-tim-wu

In other words, John thinks that the monopolies that emerged in the telegraph and then the telephone weren't down to grand forces that made them inevitable, but rather, to the errors made by regulators and the successful gambits of the telecoms barons. At many junctures, things could have gone another way.

So this is a very complicated story, one that uses a series of contrasts to make the point that history is contingent and owes much to a mix of random chance and the actions of flawed human beings, and not merely great economic or historical laws. For example, John contrasts the telegraph with the telephone, posing them against one another as a kind of natural experiment in different business strategies and regulatory responses.

The telegraph's early promoters, including Samuel Morse (as in "Morse code") believed that the natural way to roll out telegraph was via selling the patents to the federal government and having an agency like the post office operate it. There was a widespread view that the post office as a paragon of excellent technical management and a necessity for knitting together the large American nation. Moreover, everyone could see that when the post office partnered with private sector tech companies (like the railroads that became essential to the postal system), the private sector inevitably figured out how to gouge the American public, leading regulators to ever-more extreme measures to rein in the ripoffs.

The telegraph skated close to federalization on several occasions, but kept getting snatched back from the brink, ending up instead as a privately operated system that primarily served deep-pocketed business customers. This meant that telegraph companies were forever jostling to get the right to string wires along railroad tracks and public roads, creating a "political economy" that tried to balance out highway regulators and rail barons (or play them off against each other).

But the leaders of the telegraph companies were largely uninterested in "popularizing" the telegraph – that is, figuring out how ordinary people could use telegraphs in place of the hand-written letters that were the dominant form of long-distance communications at the time. By turning their backs on "popularization," telegraph companies largely freed themselves from municipal oversight, because they didn't need to get permission to string wires into every home in every major city.

When the telephone emerged, its inventors and investors initially conceived of it as a tool for business as well. But while the telegraph had ushered in a boom in instantaneous, long-distance communications (for example, by joining ports and distant cities where financiers bought and sold the ports' cargo), the telephone proved far more popular as a way of linking businesses within a city limits. Brokers and financiers and businesses that were only a few blocks from one another found the telephone to be vastly superior to the system of dispatching young boys to race around urban downtowns with slips bearing messages.

So from the start, the phone was much more bound up in city politics, and that only deepened with popularization, as phones worked their ways into the homes of affluent families and local merchants like druggists, who offered free phone calls to customers as a way of bringing trade through the door. That created a great number of local phone carriers, who had to fend off Bell's federally enforced patents and aldermen and city councilors who solicited bribes and favors.

To make things even more complex, municipal phone companies had to fight with other sectors that wanted to fill the skies over urban streets with their own wires: streetcar lines and electrical lines. The unregulated, breakneck race to install overhead wires led to an epidemic of electrocutions and fires, and also degraded service, with rival wires interfering with phone calls.

City politicians eventually demanded that lines be buried, creating another source of woe for telephone operators, who had to contend with private or quasi-private operators who acquired a monopoly over the "subways" – tunnels where all these wires eventually ended up.

The telegraph system and the telephone system were very different, but both tended to monopoly, often from opposite directions. Regulations that created some competition in telegraphs extinguished competition when applied to telephones. For example, Canada federalized the regulation of telephones, with the perverse effect that everyday telephone users in cities like Toronto had much less chance of influencing telephone service than Chicagoans, whose phone carrier had to keep local politicians happy.

Nominally, the Canadian Members of Parliament who oversaw Toronto's phone network were big leaguers who understood prudent regulation and were insulated from the daily corruption of municipal politics. And Chicago's aldermen were pretty goddamned corrupt. But Bell starved Toronto of phone network upgrades for years, while Chicago's gladhanding political bosses forced Chicago's phone company to build and build, until Chicago had more phone lines than all of France. Canadian MPs might have been more remote from rough-and-tumble politics, but that made them much less responsive to a random Torontonian's bitter complaint about their inability to get a phone installed.

As the Toronto/Chicago story illustrates, the fact that there were so many different approaches to phone service tried in the US and Canada gives John more opportunities to contrast different business-strategies and regulations. Again, we see how there was never one rule that governments could have used if they wanted to ensure that telecoms were well-run, widely accessible, and reasonably priced. Instead, it was always "horses for courses" – different rules to counter different circumstances and gambits from telecoms operators.

As John traces through the decades during which the telegraph and telephone were established in America, he draws heavily on primary sources to trace the ebb and flow of public and elite sentiment towards public ownership, regulation, and trustbusting. In John's hands, we see some of the most spectacular failures as more than a mismatch of regulatory strategy to corporate gambit – but rather as a mismatch of political will and corporate gambit. If a company's power would be best reined in by public ownership, but the political vogue is for regulation, then lawmakers end up trying to make rules for a company they should simply be buying giving to the post office to buy.

This makes John's history into a history of the Gilded Age and trustbusters. Notorious vulture capitalists like Jay Gould shocked the American conscience by declaring that businesses had no allegiance to the public good, and were put on this Earth to make as much money as possible no matter what the consequences. Gould repeated "raided" Western Union, acquiring shares and forcing the company to buy him out at a premium to end his harassment of the board and the company's managers.

By the time the feds were ready to buy out Western Union, Gould was a massive shareholder, meaning that any buyout of the telegraph would make Gould infinitely wealthier, at public expense, in a move that would have been electoral poison for the lawmakers who presided over it. In this highly contingent way, Western Union lived on as a private company.

Americans – including prominent businesspeople who would be considered "conservatives" by today's standards, were deeply divided on the question of monopoly. The big, successful networks of national telegraph lines and urban telephone lines were marvels, and it was easy to see how they benefited from coordinated management. Monopolists and their apologists weaponized this public excitement about telecoms to defend their monopolies, insisting that their achievement owed its existence to the absence of "wasteful competition."

The economics of monopoly were still nascent. Ideas like "network effects" (where the value of a service increases as it adds users) were still controversial, and the bottlenecks posed by telephone switching and human operators meant that the cost of adding new subscribers sometimes went up as the networks grew, in a weird diseconomy of scale.

Patent rights were controversial, especially patents related to natural phenomena like magnetism and electricity, which were viewed as "natural forces" and not "inventions." Business leaders and rabble-rousers alike decried patents as a federal grant of privilege, leading to monopoly and its ills.

Telecoms monopolists – telephone and telegraph alike – had different ways to address this sentiment at different times (for example, the Bell System's much-vaunted commitment to "universal service" was part of a campaign to normalize the idea of federally protected, privately owned monopolies).

Most striking about this book were the parallels to contemporary fights over Big Tech trustbusting, in our new Gilded Age. Many of the apologies offered for Western Union or AT&T's monopoly could have been uttered by the Renfields who carry water for Facebook, Apple and Google. John's book is a powerful and engrossing reminder that variations on these fights have occurred in the not-so-distant past, and that there's much we can learn from them.

Wu isn't wrong to say that John is engaging with a lot of minutae, and that this makes Network Nation a far less breezy read than Master Switch. I get the impression that John is writing first for other historians, and writers of popular history like Wu, in a bid to create the definitive record of all the complexity that is elided when we create tidy narratives of telecoms monopolies, and tech monopolies in general. Bringing Network Nation on my vacation as a beach-read wasn't the best choice – it demands a lot of serious attention. But it amply rewards that attention, too, and makes an indelible mark on the reader.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

[fishnapple]

As a professional tarot reader, I imagine you got a busy life outside of that whether it's another job or social obligations. I like how you conduct yourself both on your blog and when making personal interpretation reports for others. How do you tend to manage yourself, schedule, and energy to make the creative-spiritual content that you do? You seem to genuinely enjoy what you are doing. 🥰 Do you have any general or practical advice for people thinking of starting out in becoming a reader for others? 🤔

Hi, thank you for such a lovely message💓🌰 (I feel like sending some chestnuts). Somehow the word "conduct" reminds me so much of Saturn, and then Saturn reminds me of chestnuts.

Your question took longer to reply to than I expected. As I wrote, I realised that this is quite a broad topic. If I were to write to my heart's content then it would turn into an essay, so I will try to keep it concise as much as possible 👀

A bit of context: I quit my corporate job that used to take up more than half the time of day. After being a corporate clown for 9 years, now I just live as a hermit and do freelance jobs. Maybe I will stay as a hermit for the next 9 years then begin another journey, who knows. I'm not that good at self management, but my life right now is pretty simple, so it's easier to manage. I will share some of my personal experiences and observations about time management, creativity and spirituality here:

Time

Routine: Doing readings at a certain time of the day. I just found out recently that I do divination reading best at night time, rather than during daytime. I keep a general timetable in my head so I can have a general idea of when to do something (and not following it).

Checklist: I also keep a checklist of tasks I need to complete on time (PACs, personal readings), the feeling of ticking off boxes can be pretty satisfying 😆.

Space out readings: For PACc, I only read one group/day to keep the energy and length balanced between each group (if I do all the groups in one go, later group's reading length will suffer). For personal readings, I do the opposite, I tend to read all the questions in one go, but won't read for more than one person in one day.

Productivity

Enjoyment: Are you doing readings for your own enjoyment or as a duty? Do you genuinely like the questions, the topics? Do you feel comfortable doing readings for certain topics, for certain people? I don't think divination can be something that you can force yourself to do, especially when reading for other people.

Motivation: What are you trying to achieve when doing readings? for fun, for practice, for gaining knowledge, for digging out people's deep dark secrets, for money or for other reasons? Being clear on what motivates you will give you a better direction.

Perseverance: I like how every time I ask Tarot about my path, I always got the 8 of pentacles. Routine practice is good, don't compare yourself with other people, keep your gaze on what you're doing.

Guilt & Fear: I have productivity guilt sitting in the dark corner, ready to nag and whip any time I dare to be idle. Thanks to this, I was actually able to do lots of things. Doing something creative is also a good way to relieve stress for me, so the more stressed I am, the more productive I become *quietly, begrudgingly mumbling a "thank you" to Saturn aspects*. Guilt and fear, sometimes, can be such great motivators, with the right dose of course. (on the topic of fear, I once asked my friend if they didn't have any fears at all, what are the things that they would do? My friend answered "nothing, If I didn't fear anything, I wouldn't do anything at all")

Creativity/ Energy

Creative energy pool: Not to be confused with general energy pool. I don't know if other people feel the same, but for me, creative energy has a definite allotment for each day. If I use up that energy for one creative activity then I can't do another creative activity in that same day. So cramming many creative activities in one day can be counter intuitive. Doing divination, in my opinion, can also be a form of creative act, as it's about translating the messages inside you into a visible form of communication. So be mindful of that aspect.

The cyclical nature of creative energy: Some people are able to maintain a constant flow of energy, but in my case, it can be sporadic, it waxes and wanes like the moon so if I ever find myself feeling uninspired, I will just leave it and do other things, because I know it will come back later. If you find a topic or a question unappealing, maybe leave it for a while, read other topics then come back to it later.

Energy level: This is about the general energy level. Each person will have a different peak time for doing something during the day. Find out about yours and ultilise it. The tone and quality of a reading will reflect your energy, doing a reading when you're tired or physically unwell will have a negative impact on both the reading and you, not to mention the receiver of that reading if you read for others.

Interaction with energies: Be aware of your interaction with other people's energy, reading for others is a two way connection. Having your moods and thoughts be influenced by other's energy is real. Some will energise you, others can leave a bad taste but don't let that discourage you.

In the end, the most helpful advice I can think of is take it easy, keep doing what you enjoy and keep it fun & meaningful (even the soul searching, deep introspection readings needn't to be all dark and heavy, facing your demons can be like those dark fantasy novels, but it can also be slice of life comedy, none is less meaningful than the other)

I hope this can be helpful somehow. Have a great weekend ahead. 🌼🎐