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almostempty · 9 days ago

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it’s not that deep but it is that serious!

(editing and reblogging to clarify a couple things at the end of the post - edited once more to combine the second reblog into one)

I just want to come to this app to talk about deep throating mean!Joel and to make friends with other hot freaks. But I need my fellow heathens to hear me out for a moment.

I’ve tried to keep this space a little escape from reality, but that’s not a realistic privilege because life and art are inherently political.

I've seen friends and mutuals receiving hateful, racist, and cruel anons recently. I know these issues aren’t new for our Black and brown peers.

I see a lot of folks jumping to offer support and to express their disgust at the racist remarks.

I also see a lot of shock and disbelief and I want to talk about that.

Racism, bigotry, and prejudice are not new issues for Black and brown folks. If you find yourself shocked, surprised, and outraged when folks share the hate they receive I ask that you reflect on this. It’s a privilege to be surprised, to not be used to navigating and experiencing that vitriol.

I know it’s well intended when folks say things like, ‘if you’re a racist piece of shit get off my blog’ or similar messages, and i understand the anger and frustration. (*i appreciate seeing solidarity and i also do not want to police (acab) how people respond to the hate they receive)

I also don’t think anyone who is aware and actively spreading hate will be deterred. I imagine there are 4chan incel type trolls that just thrive on the attention and reaction of using the most inflammatory language they can, and trolls will troll. They inevitably will pop up.

What I want to address is the levels below the overt and active hate. The accidental or inadvertent covert racism. The micro aggressions. The passive silence or enabling of rhetoric that lets folks perpetuate harm without even thinking.

Black and brown creators in our community have been disregarded or overshadowed when they speak up about diversity or inclusion in this fandom or feeling unwelcomed.

They wade through oceans of moodboards with faceless, thin, white women paired with our favorite characters. They power through reader inserts with freckles, red marks, and pink pussies that say and do things they might never feel safe saying or doing in those universes. They scroll through bad Spanish or fetishized latino caricatures and romanticized colonial values. And they still show love and support by commenting and reblogging and uplifting other writers.

Maybe there are footnotes about the moodboards only being for inspiration, but that doesn’t erase the constant messaging that it was easier to find those pictures and add a note than to search harder or leave the pictures out.

When I saw a fic with a detail about the pedro character having a confederate flag in his trailer I had to pause. This is a perfect example. I don’t read this as malicious or intentionally harmful. I understand the stereotype it’s rooted in and the general humor of the story as a whole. I get that it’s a small detail and that racism wasn’t a core part of the character or the story.

But if we sit with this longer.. what does this tell our Black and brown peers? When the reader notices it and it’s just as notable as a calendar on the wall? And she fucks him willingly anyway?

Hate symbols aren’t unserious. Background or not. Imagine writing a Joel fic and giving him a swastika tattoo just as a background detail. Sounds extreme right? Maybe you’re writing an AU felon Joel and just trying to show how hardened and dark he is. Maybe in your headcanon he only got it in prison to protect himself and he isn’t a racist.

But to nazis it says this is a safe place to be. To the general audience it says you don’t care if this makes them feel unsafe or invisible.

To folks reading that a confederate flag isn’t a big deal, it signals that it’s an acceptable symbol. It shows that people are reading and commenting and sharing this story and are unbothered. That maybe people don’t even notice.

I’m not asking anyone to send hate and I’m not writing this as an attack on the author or anyone who shared the fic. We don’t know what we don’t know, but we have the opportunity to learn!

I am asking my peers to step in and step up, because I think y’all are smart and capable of more.

I am not an expert on anything. But as someone who went to grad school for social work — a field that only exists to combat the societal harm of power, privilege, and oppression — I don’t take it lightly. I work in advocacy fighting discrimination and prejudice from institutions built on systemic racism daily. I’m aware that I have the privilege of training, language, and awareness around diversity and inclusion, and that not everyone has the same knowledge or experience.

I also know this fandom is full of incredibly smart and well spoken folks who craft moving stories and analyze characters with nuance and passion.

I’m not interested in censoring what anyone writes and I happily abide by don’t like; don’t read.

If I only wanted to read I would stick to ao3. But I’m here and I stay here because of the community. The friendships and the extra tag games and challenges and support and camaraderie.

I know I make mistakes myself. And I know it can be uncomfortable to be called out for something you never intended to hurt anyone with. I know it can feel like your voice won’t be heard or your experience won’t be validated in such a big space.

I shared a post a while ago by a creator that doesn’t write for this fandom. It was an ode to Black fanfic writers in general, and in the comments Black writers were tagging each other to show love. And I knew there was something wrong when I wanted to share it but felt deeply hesitant about tagging anyone because I didn’t want Black writers to receive hate.

One of my favorite things about this fandom is how global it is. Getting to make friends with folks around the world is such a treat. I also know racism and fascism are not unique to one region.

It’s Black history month in the states and in Canada. I know other countries observe Black history month in other months. It’s an intentional observation for a reason.

For us, this is a hobby. We’re here voluntarily, and mostly anonymously, but we’re all people. Community is so vital to thwarting the dangers of fascism and hateful rhetoric.

This IS a post about racism.

But racism is absolutely entangled with sexism, classism, ableism, ethnocentrism, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchal hegemony, etc.

This isn’t just a rant. It’s an ask. I’m asking my peers—writers, readers, gif makers, lurkers, etc.— to help.

Reflect on what you share and post. Think about how others perceive you.

I’m asking my peers to be curious and open to discussions. To ask questions if you see covert racism. To be willing to accept feedback.

We can be gentle with one another.

Like, ‘hey, I saw this and am wondering if you’re aware of the origin or the impact it might have?’ or ‘can I share how this may be misinterpreted or harmful?’

Be kind sure, but be an advocate!

If you see someone posting about a character being their ‘spirit animal’ — send them a DM! If you read something that stereotypes a race, let the author know! There’s plenty of online resources for writing characters from other races without falling back on harmful tropes.

And even better… support your Black and brown peers. Share their work. Show them you value their presence in the fandom.

I encourage folks to read fics with original characters or reader characters with explicitly diverse ethnicities and tell the author you appreciate that character! Recommend the work to friends.

I never shut up about how much I love Heat and the story is incredibly compelling *because* the reader is a Latina written by a Latina.

Anyway, I come to this hellsite to laugh and be horny—but at my core I am an ethical hater and I only wrote all of this because I care and I want this space to be inclusive.

I’m not speaking on behalf of anyone else and I don’t want to speak over anyone. I’m open to feedback or ideas.

I’m tagging some mutuals I interact with and some that I don’t know very well, not to curse y’all with reading my long winded post but to ask: when you have the capacity will you help take action to make this community stronger? Will you commit to being open to feedback and growth?

Bottom line I just wanna read about getting railed by that fictional guy and I want my Black and brown peers to have the opportunity to enjoy the same escape from reality.

I feel like this is worth posting because I think y’all can make a difference. So many of y’all write and analyze stories and characters with such nuance and passion and detail—and that’s why i believe you can help spot subtle and insidious forms of racism and make real changes.

TL;DR: I’m asking everyone to be proactive when you see microaggressions or covert racism in the fandom, and to be willing to accept feedback and learn from each other. Being passive is a luxury and a privilege our marginalized peers do not have. Let’s be more than performative or not racist. Be active. Be anti-racist.

some tags for folks (no pressure to share, I don’t want attention I just want to encourage folks to take time to reflect or let me know what you think idk): *not calling anyone out as having committed any offenses just feeling compelled to share the message i guess

@auteurdelabre @joelmillerisapunk @lotusbxtch @probablyreadinsmut @ace-turned-confused @baronessvonglitter @yxtkiwiyxt @slimybeth69 @bitchesuntitled @thundermartini @sin-djarin @strang3lov3 @mermaidgirl30 @for-a-longlongtime @mrs-hardy-hunnam-butler-pascal @evolnoomym @wannab-urs @sanarsi @yopossum @almostfoxglove @itwasntimethatdidit40 @syd-djarin @miss-oranje-disco-dancer

to anyone: please start conversations or reach out to me or send me an anon ask if you want to discuss something or share, idc but i’m begging y’all to listen to each other and advocate for one another and be open to self-reflection 💗 editing to add: if i tagged you it was not a callout that i think you've done something specific to reflect on-- just a general invite to join me in being intentional and to invite feedback if you have any! if i made anyone anxious i apologize! - to clarify when i said 'it's not that deep' i mean that maybe fanfic is easily brushed off as not that deep, but every blog is a real person (minus the army of porn bots) and we form real connections in this community <3

edit:

one more thing,

first and foremost! a reminder that i am speaking about the inclusivity in this fandom as a whole. i don't want to lose the plot over one specific example that blew up. my point is the bulk of the racism in this fandom is perpetrated through micro aggressions and covert racism EVERY DAY. we can make sweeping statements and tell racists to fuck off, but next week we will be back to the status quo (aka where many non-white folks feel unwelcomed, aren't represented, and are disregarded when they raise concerns, etc.) unless we commit to examining ourselves first and looking for the more subtle things that perpetuate the current culture (e.g. harmful stereotypes and racial tropes, fetishizing latinx characters, bad Spanish, writing reader insert fics with specifically white features and characteristics without tagging, using slurs or coded language, etc.)

(i am behind on everything today and haven’t gotten back to everyone who added insightful thoughts and considerations to my original post yet)

i did see some folks share examples of positive experiences calling-in peers or learning something new themselves and wanted to say thanks and highlight those positives.

maybe other folks have already brought up the rest of my points and if so i do not mean to speak over anyone, but i wanted to add on to my first post:

i originally asked everyone to step up and commit to advocating for each other— but i’d like to explicitly ask white folks to step up and look out for our Black and brown friends (who are tired and don’t get to check out irl or online). i am asking white folks to be open to learning and growing with compassion. i am asking white folks to be persistent, proactive, and brave enough to be uncomfortable or wrong.

when i say we can be gentle with each other i do not mean to minimize pain or anger. i gladly and willingly validate that everyone has a right to be upset and outraged by hatred and racism. i am not asking my Black and brown peers to soften their reactions or dismiss their experiences.

i am (again) asking my white peers to be mindful, to take a breath and listen to what BIPOC folks have to say. to sit with the discomfort and know that seeing hate or racism might be shocking but it is not surprising if you’ve been listening.

i am asking my white peers to be kind and also strategic. if you have the patience and capacity then do what you can to increase the odds that your peers will be willing to listen and learn. it’s free to try at least.

most of us that commit micro aggressions or covert racism don't consider ourselves to be racists. we see posts that say 'racists and bigots aren't welcome on this blog' and we agree! we reblog those posts! we pat ourselves on the back for being an ally and continue on without making any other changes-- not because we are bad people, but because we have the privilege of feeling welcomed, represented, and valued as a baseline.

this is also my call-in to myself because i’ve allowed myself to stay quiet. i’ve relied on the comfort that my close friends know who i am and what my values are, but i have been passive. i have seen comments or posts that i recognized were ignorant or offensive and continued scrolling. i felt like it wasn't worth the drama to speak up.

i’m fallible and open to feedback ! i am also comfortable being an example, being vulnerable and sharing my mistakes or opportunities for growth. i've gotten more comfortable because i have hours of training and practice but i don't expect others to feel good being called-in or to anticipate what might make them act defensively.

i know the core principle of cultural humility is that nobody is an expert on culture, that the best practice is to remain open and curious, to identify your own values and beliefs, and to confront stereotypes. it is an ongoing process of self-reflection and commitment to growth

and so i volunteer to be here for any of my white friends that want to make this fandom a more inclusive space, but are feeling uncertain or uncomfortable. (i am not offering to defend racism or excuse hate)

there is extreme cognitive dissonance in believing you are a good person, a not-racist person, and a friend and ally— and being confronted with the idea you are perpetuating stereotypes, inadvertently causing harm, or alienating folks you care about.

I know it seems like a safe option to stay quiet if you think you might say the wrong thing or make a situation worse.

I know it’s hard enough to send someone a friendly message or to know what to comment on a fic you loved, let alone to feel empowered to point out something that might make someone else react defensively. I’m not volunteering to be the morality police (acab) but i’m here for all of my friends, mutuals, and peers in the fandom who want support with calling-in others or learning. i encourage and welcome discussion and curiosity.

i ask white folks to make conscious changes so that when these conversations die down we don’t fall back into enabling white ignorance to infect the fandom and harm our friends.

bonus thoughts

i see and am grateful for the folks that called my first post eloquent and at the same time i am deeply aware of the ‘angry Black woman’ trope that undermines and minimizes Black women’s voices (especially when they are rightfully angry). i guess i’m just repeating that i don’t want to speak over anyone but i am committing to speaking up.

i don’t want to harp on the confederate flag example anymore, but i would like to be clear that this isn’t about censorship. Consider the context and don’t turn this into a straw man argument or dilute the message with whataboutery. It speaks volumes if you’d rather argue semantics than listen to your peers about the reality of impact vs intent with that example or others.

thank you for reading and being here <3

#discourse I suppose #pedro pascal fandom this is a call for advocacy #opportunities for growth and learning #I see a lot of well intentioned folks and also we can do better #let’s speak plainly and foster accountability #thank you for reading

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clarenecessities · 1 year ago

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He-man.org will close in 5 days.

He-man.org has been a staple of the Masters of the Universe community since the early days, originating as an email list that worked to document episodes before anything (not footage, not lists, nothing) was available online. It grew into a sprawling, multi-faceted beast of a thing, including an encyclopedia (an in-house wiki), merch lists, a marketplace, forums, anything you could think of.

Several years ago now, the main site went down for updates/maintenance. For a few weeks, we were told, maybe months. The forums remained open for fans to communicate, and barring a period of downtime earlier this year things were going smoothly.

Yesterday, the owner of the site, Val Staples, announced the site would be closed on November 14th, 2023. Six days later. We are currently attempting to contact him, to see if he’s interested in selling, and if he means closed as in “no new posts” or closed as in deleted entirely. Regardless of its eventual fate, the archiving of these forums is essential to preserving the history of the franchise, the fandom, and the brand.

TO SHE-RA (and MotU) FANS SPECIFICALLY: I have personally used these forums to answer questions that could be answered nowhere else. Had I not had access to them, I would never have been able to prove that Purrsia was fake, or found so much unpublished concept art, or discovered that Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich personally wrote Catra’s MOTUC bio (even if he’s put off answering my questions about it for over a year now). Forum members have conducted interviews with the likes of Jon Seisa, Cathy Larson, Janice Varney-Hamlin—essential figures in the very foundations of POP, and those interviews revealed and recorded priceless information for future generations (me! you! us!) to find. Did you know Cathy Larson named Adora? That she originally pushed for “Dorian”, after her own daughter? We cannot let this treasure trove disappear into the ether(ia).

TO THE UNAFFILIATED: Please help. Pretty please. If you’ve ever liked my art or my writing or my haphazard blogging, ever, at all, consider archiving just one board. Just one page. Literally anything helps. I am spiraling into madness & this is my library of Alexandria. The mythical one that was totally unique and persevered nowhere else and was destroyed in a single cataclysmic event. Pretty pretty please help.

HOW TO HELP:

Archive.org has several ways to upload shit but most of them are longer term than “a few days” so we’re focusing on two (which can be run simultaneously): Save Page Now, and browser extensions. From their help page:

1. Save Page Now

Put a URL into the form, press the button, and we save the page. You will instantly have a permanent URL for your page. Please note, this method only saves a single page, not the whole site.

We want to keep outlinks and screenshots wherever possible. The Archive does not keep your IP address, so your submission is anonymous.

2. Browser extensions and add-ons

Install the Wayback Machine Chrome extension in your browser. Go to a page you want to archive, click the icon in your toolbar, and select Save Page Now. We will save the page and give you a permanent URL.

One plus to installing the extension is that as you surf around, when you run into a missing page they will alert you if we have a saved copy.

More extensions, apps, and add-ons:

Firefox add-on

Safari Extension

iOS app

Android app

I strongly encourage you to use these tools even if you aren’t helping with this project/after it ends. Documenting and preserving information is essential in this day and age & The Internet Archive is at the heart of it. Please support them however you can.

I’m serious about paying you, though I may need more communication with folks I don’t know so we can coordinate/verify shit gets done. I think this is a worthwhile pursuit in itself but I recognize your time is valuable & like, people gotta eat. DM me if you’re interested and we’ll talk. I may need to adjust pay depending how many people bite but I’ll do what I can

#motu #he man #she ra #spop #pop #sorry for tag spam but this is important and relevant to you #catradora #it counts!#sorry also if the formatting on this is a disaster #i’m on my phone and haven’t updated my tumblr app in… a couple years #archives #archive #archive.org #wayback machine #help #org forums #neotag #brothers. this has nothing to do with you but don’t you wanna help a bitch out? do it for illusen #please signal boost if you can

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moki-dokie · 2 months ago

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there's been a bit of a Hot Topic going around bsky (and twt too i guess) about why my age group (particularly in the US) doesn't cook at home much anymore

and there's been a whole lot of takes ranging from dogshit to good and intelligent to total confusion from folks in other countries. neat stuff right. decided to throw my 2 cents in from my own perspective as part of the demographic.

the tldr of it being: there are *several* factors that make it not worth it nor cost efficient anymore where it once was. obviously that isn't gonna be the case for everyone, but it is the case for an overwhelming majority, me included. and this isn't even including, you know, a whole population of disabled people who are physically unable to cook for themselves but I sort of figured that was a given. but maybe not, considering...

then this absolute genius comes in

thank you buddy for having no reading comprehension and missing quite literally every single point i made that it isn't strictly about the dollar amount of the meal itself. like. okay??? good for you i guess.

sure, there will be some meals where that is very true. I could make a bigass pot of ham and beans that'll last me a whole week for about $10. hence why i added there will always be some meals cheaper to make at home. but that completely disregards every. other. point.

it is not, and has never been, about the direct cost of the meal itself. that's just one of a handful of reasons that factor into the whole conversation. there are going to be times that eating out will be more expensive price-wise, but when it checks off like 5 different boxes i couldn't fulfill myself for whatever reason, that price balances out. and we really are in an age where we're having to negotiate the worth of every action we take and every minute we spend on something. i don't know why thats such a hard concept for people to grasp.

legit nobody is arguing it *should* be this way. it shouldn't. we all recognize this. in the ideal world it would be both worth it and affordable to make every meal at home and leave eating out for special occasions, as was the case when i was growing up. and i totally get it that our parents, many of whom raised us by their lonesome, managed to do it fine so in theory we should be able to as well. sometimes, yeah, it really is a matter of sucking it up and doing it no matter how exhausted you might be. that's true for all facets of life tbh. but it shouldn't be that way all the time every time.

and, i don't know about the rest of you, but for us? it really was a whole fucking To Do to clip coupons and plan Shopping Day. I'd spend a couple hours clipping from a few different newspapers and the mail fliers we collected. then we organized them by store. then mom would plan out which stores we would go to for which items,the route we'd take since sometimes it meant going outside of town, the timeframe for everything since it was typically an all-day event. like, a whole day of planning and a whole day of executing JUST to grocery shop, and that was back in the 90s/00s. Inconvenient, yes, but still actually worth the trouble. couponing saved SO much money back then, especially if you knew the stores that would double them. coupons like those don't exist anymore. period. now the ones that do are like, pennies off or bogo deals and otherwise it's app this and app that for any sort of savings - which even then might only be like a meager 10% off the purchase. in no way is it worth my time and effort today to do the same thing we did when i was young.

anyway. so yeah. for a hell of a lot of us, sometimes going out to eat or ordering in is in fact the most worthwhile way, and sometimes even the most cost efficient way, to feed ourselves anymore.

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zot3-flopped · 11 months ago

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Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this! When Taylor Swift took the Grammys stage last month to claim her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, she saw that spotlight as an opportunity to announce her 11th studio album: The Tortured Poets Department. The follow-up cut to audience members—Swift’s music industry peers, mind you—told us all that we would ever need to know, and the collective disinterest across the crowd echoed through our TVs.

Folks from all walks of life took to social media to express a multitude of reactions. Swifties clamored to their beloved monarch’s forthcoming era, while others lambasted the terminally cringe title and artwork and ridiculed Swift for making a night recognizing musical achievements across an entire industry about herself—knowing perfectly well that it would send her fanbase into a surge that would, no doubt, overpower the excitement around the ceremony itself.

Quite a few people questioned whether or not that moment suggested that a critical—definitely not commercial—tide would turn against the world’s most-famous pop star. And, perhaps it has—but, to most, it will look like nothing more than a single ripple in Swift’s ocean of successes.

Swift remained relatively hush-hush about The Tortured Poets Department up until its release, leaving her fans, admirers and haters alike with nothing but an album title to ponder about. And it’s a bad title.

If you have never been in Swift’s corner, her taking the route of labeling her next “era” as “tortured” was likely catnip for your disinterest. If you are a fan—not necessarily a Swiftie, but even just a casual lover of her best and brightest work—you might be beside yourself about the first Swift album title longer than one word in 14 years.

In terms of popularity—certainly not always in terms of quality—no musician has been bigger this century than Swift, which makes it impossible to really buy into the “torture” of it all.

This is not to say that Swift being the most famous person in the world makes her immune to having multi-dimensional feelings of heartbreak, mental illness or what-have-you.

But, she has made the choice—as a 34-year-old adult—to take those complex, universal familiars and monetize them into a wardrobe she can wear for whatever portion of her Eras Tour setlist she opts to dedicate to the material.

Torture is fashion to Taylor Swift, and she wears her milieu dully. This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.

And, sure, there are parallels there, especially in how The Tortured Poets Department, too, is going to set the art of poetry back another decade—as Swift’s naive call-to-arms of her own milky-white sorrow rings in like some quintessential “I am going to take pictures of a typewriter on my desk and have a Pinterest mood-board of Courier New font” iPhone fodder. 2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!

Soaking our book reports in coffee or having our moms burn the edges with a kitchen lighter cannot come back into fashion; the cyclical notions of culture cannot make the space for such retreads.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them.

Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too?

Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire. “My culture is not your costume,” yada, etc.

The Tortured Poets Department does begin with a shred of hope that, just maybe, Swift knows what she’s talking about—as she sneaks in a cheeky “all of this to say,” textbook transitional phrasing for poets, on opening track “Fortnight.”

But “Fortnight” unmasks itself quickly as a heady vat of pop nothingness, though it isn’t all Swift’s fault. “I was a functioning alcoholic, ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” she muses, attempting to bridge the gap between a behind-the-scenes life and on-stage performance—only for it to occur while propped up against the most dog-water, uninspired synth arrangement you could possibly imagine.

Between producer Jack Antonoff’s atrocious backing instrumental and the Y2K-era, teen dramedy echo chamber of a vocal harmony provided by out-of-place guest performer Post Malone, “Fortnight” chokes on the vomit of its own opaqueness.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary,” Swift muses, and it sounds like satire. This is your songwriter of the century? Open the schools.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming.

Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Synths can be, if you use them correctly, one of the most emotional and provocative instruments in any musician’s tool-box. There’s a reason why keyboards defined the 1980s; they rebelled against the very oppressive nature existing outside of the cultural company they kept. There’s resistance in electronic music that, while they brandish an aesthetic that, to a layman’s ears, seems like technicolor hues for any infectious pop track, it’s a genre that aches to tell its own story. That is simply not the case here, and that electronica hangs Swift out to dry when she drags us through the lukewarm “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith’ / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots” lines, only to hit us with a softly sung F-bomb that sounds like a billionaire’s rendition of that one Miranda Cosgrove podcast clip.

I used to rag pretty heavily on Reputation—mostly because I thought (and still do, mostly) that it sounded like Swift had given up on making interesting, progressive pop music; that, in the wake of her (arguably) best album, 1989, it seemed like she’d lost the plot on where to go next. But as she’s put out Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department back-to-back, I find myself clamoring for the Reputation-era more than ever—at least seven years ago, Swift wrote songs like she had something to prove and even more to lose.

That was the always-obvious charm of Reputation, even despite the downsides—that she took a big swing from the echelons of her own musical immortality, that the comforts of winning every award and selling out the biggest venues in the world were no longer pillowing her aspirations. Even though that swing didn’t land, she still made it in the first place—and Swift is at her best either when she is clawing upwards (Reputation) or faced with nowhere to go but into the studio and noodle with the bare-bones of her own sensibilities (folklore).

You get something like The Tortured Poets Department when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.

The mid-ness of The Tortured Poets Department will not be a net-loss for Swift. She will sell out arenas and get her streams until she elects to quit this business (a phrase decidedly not in her vocabulary, surely).

She will sell more merch bundles than vinyl plants have the capacity to make, and rows of variant LP copies will haunt the record aisles of Target stores just as long as Midnights has—if not longer.

Perhaps, in five or six years’ time, we will speak of this record just as we now do of Reputation. But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Can Swift win another Album of the Year Grammy simply because she released a record during the eligibility period? The Tortured Poets Department reeks of “because I can,” not “because I should.”

On “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” Swift tries stepping into the shoes of the country renegades who came before her—the Tammy Wynettes and Loretta Lynns of the world. But her self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge, is backed by a minimal set dressing of guitar, drum machine and keys.

“Good boy, that’s right, come close,” she sings. “I’ll show you Heaven if you’ll be an angel—all mine. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No, really, I can.” On “Florida!!!,” Swift calls upon Florence + the Machine to help her sing the worst chorus of 2024: “Florida is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?”

Even Welch, who is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter in her own right, delivers a grossly watery verse: “The hurricane with my name, when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away.”

Not even the typos on the Spotify promotional materials for this album could have foretold such offenses. I won’t even get into the sonics, because Antonoff just rewrites the same soulless patterns every time.

What separates The Tortured Poets Department from something like Reputation is that, on the latter, Swift made it known what was at stake and who she was making that album for—herself, in the aftermath of her greatest long-standing criticisms (“Look What You Made Me Do” triumphs exactly because of this).

On The Tortured Poets Department, there is a striking level of moral nothingness. The stakes are practically non-existent, and the album sounds like it was made by someone who believes that they had no other choice but to finish it, as if Swift fundamentally believes that her creative measures are firmly embedded in the massive monopoly her name and brand currently hold on popular music. That’s how you get meandering pop songs about hookups, wine moms, Stevie Nicks comparisons, Jehovah’s Witness suit mentions, hollowed-out, tone-deaf nods to white-collar crime in lieu of empowerment and, topically, Barbie dolls.

(Don’t even get me started on the Anthology lyrics, which feature these absolute barn-burners: “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” and “My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid.”) This album and its hackneyed grasps at relevance exist as “Did I just hear that?” personified, but in the most derogatory sense of the notion.

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” features another low-point in Swift’s lyrical oeuvre, as she sings “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens, ‘cause he took me out of my box”—perhaps a measure of her capitalizing on the Barbenheimer mania that none of us could escape, not even the musician who spent most of 2023 flying across the world from one country to another.

But you, us, the listener—we want to believe that Swift makes these records because she has the artistic will, drive and interest to continue giving us parts of her story in such ways that they exist as an archival of her life.

But the problem is that, on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift is packaging her life into a form that is easily consumable for the 17 or 18 years olds who pour over her music. Just because her Eras Tour film is on Disney+ doesn’t mean she has to strip her songwriting (which we know can be, and has been, phenomenal) down for the sake of it being digestible by a wide spectrum of ages.

And, sure, maybe that makes the work accessible. But on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift makes Zoomer jargon her bag—titling a song after one of the most popular video games in the world and conjuring flickers of “down bad” and “I can fix him”—and it feels like she’s cosplaying because the Fountain of Youth was out of order.

Now that Swift is in her 30s, it sounds like she is infantilizing her own audience more than ever before—that singing to them at a level that could force them to reckon with something more akin with adulthood would be some kind of kink in the coil or her consumeristic threshold, that writing lyrics that sound like they were penned by a 30-year-old would, somehow, deter the interests of the billions of people who adore her.

If making one, continuous coming-of-age album is what Swift has been doing for 15 years, folklore and evermore were hiccups in the timeline—existing as the most fully-formed renderings of Swift’s own insecurities and concerns. They mirrored our platitudes towards an uncertain future with sweet, stirring remarks about isolation and heartbreak and the unavoidable, hard-worn truth about getting older. On those records, her larger-than-life living seemed, for once, to truly feel as close to the ground as ours.

Now, though, Taylor Swift is at the top of the mountain. Far better artists have made far worse records than The Tortured Poets Department, but you can’t read between the lines of this project. There is nothing to decipher from a place of quality.

Sure, Swift’s fan base will pour over these lyrics for the rest of their lives—insisting they know, for certain, which song is about who. But you cannot place a bad album on the shoulders of lore and expect it to be rectified.

We are now left at a crossroads. Women can’t critique Swift because they’ll run the risk of being labeled a “gender traitor” for doing so. Men can’t critique her because they’ll be touted as “sexist.”

And, sure, Swift is probably too easy a punching bag in this case—and most of the time, I would argue she is undeserving of being a victim of such barbs. But, you cannot write about someone being a “tattooed golden retriever” and get away with it and still retain your title as the best songwriter of your generation. You just cannot.

Sisyphus should be glad he never got the boulder to the top of the mountain—because Taylor Swift is showing us that such immortality and success ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, when you’re standing on the peak alone, who else is there left to hit?

In a recent interview with The Standard, Courtney Love said that Swift is “not interesting as an artist,” and I think The Tortured Poets Department proves as much. She has nothing to fight for, no doubters left to drown.

So where does she turn? Well, to boredoms of celebrity thinly veiled as sorrow everyone and their mother can latch onto—because we’ve all had to “ditch the clowns, get the crown” at some point in our lives, right?

The billionaire is having an identity crisis, but there are no social media apps for her to buy up. So she sings like Lana Del Rey and writes meta-self-referential songs about looking like Stevie Nicks.

What’s hollow about The Tortured Poets Department is that the real torture is just how unlivable these songs really are. No one can resonate with “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record, scratch as I scream ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.” And normally, that wouldn’t be an end-all-be-all for a pop record—but when your brand is built on copious levels of “I’m just like you!” as the demigod saying it to their fans does so from a multi-million-dollar production set, it’s hard to not feel nauseated by the overlording, overbearing sense of heavy-handed detritus we’re tasked with sifting through on The Tortured Poets Department.

Love’s words to Lana, her advice to “take seven years off,” should be applied to Swift. Now, that doesn’t mean that, to make a good album, you must sit on material for years and labor extensively through the sketching, shaping and recording in order for it to be transcendentally landmark. But it’s obvious now that not even Taylor Swift wants to be the head of an empire—that she, too, can’t outrun the damning fate of being plum out of ideas by hopping in her jet and skirting off to God knows where.

See you at the Grammys.

****

#this review is everything #anti taylor swift #taylor swift #travis kelce #3.6 !!!#hope Pitchfork comes for her too #jack antonoff #taylor swift reviews #the department of tortured poets #poets review #ttpd reviews

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copperbadge · 21 days ago

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how do you/have you handled Fandom Micro-Fame re: dating, especially people you meet through apps? I dither enough about whether/when to even mention fandom to new non-fannish people! and I'd imagine that letting new people know you've written some very popular fics & having thousands of tumblr followers would look different than casually mentioning your audience to your therapist, for example :P (this is purely curiosity about your position if you're open to talking about it, btw - not looking for advice!)

In all honesty, until last year no attempt I made at online dating ever got that far. I rarely got a swipe on the apps, and usually when I did it was either someone cheating on their partner or, memorably, someone wanting to play out their fetish fantasy nonconsensually (this happened at least twice that I recall). It never got to the point where you'd talk about that kind of thing. In the rare cases I met someone in brickspace and dated, which last happened in grad school, I didn't talk about it -- but partly that's because at that time I had three thousand readers, not thirty thousand.

Lucky in fanfic, unlucky in love :)

The person I'm currently seeing most often knows that I have a blog with a large readership but hasn't asked any further; I only mentioned it to them because I felt comfortable giving further details if they did ask. This is very much a friends with benefits type of situation (by mutual agreement) so I assume it's something we either won't discuss or something that will arise organically. In a way it's fortunate that they're also dealing with a certain level of micro-fame as someone who is prominent in their professional field, so they're not particularly weirded out by my situation just as I'm not weirded out by theirs; they're also familiar enough with fandom not to find it an alien landscape.

Generally speaking I keep fandom and brickspace somewhat separate, though that line has blurred more in the last five years or so. I don't really bring up fandom to family or non-fannish friends, and the friends I made beginning in fandom I now have strong connections to outside of fandom, so they're not Fandom Friends, they're friends I just met online. While fandom is obviously important to me, it's not something I really feel I need to tell people about unless I get an inkling they'd actually be interested.

It's just kind of a non-issue for me, which probably isn't very satisfying as an answer. I talk about fandom with fannish folk, and I talk about other stuff with non-fannish folk. If I feel like someone would understand the crossover I let it happen organically, but especially in dating I just haven't dated enough to develop any kind of policy about it.

#dating #fandom

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redgoldsparks · 22 days ago

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I went all out for Hourly Comics Day 2025! These took between 6-7 hours to draw across three days, and then another at least hour to scan and edit which I wasn't in the mood to do which is why they are a week late lol. Had a wonderful time at Lumacon though and I'm glad I was able to document it! Transcript below the cut :)

insta / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books / print store / bluesky

Page 1

7:50am: Alarm goes off

Morning phone: check eSIMs, insta, discord, Spanish vocab

El tiene pelo largo

Jonathan Van Ness, is that you…?

Drops App

8am: My friends gave me a delicious new black tea that’s very easy to over steep

3 minutes seemed too long, but 2:30 was a bit weak… I’ll try 2:45…

Honestly, I prefer a tea where I can leave the bag in the whole time I drink the cup…

For the first time in many years I’m actually doing something cool on hourly comics day! Today is Lumacon! This is the show’s 11th year- I think I’ve only missed 1. For the first time, it’s raining on con day!

Page 2

I’m so glad we had another avocado!

This bagel was so chunky I cut it into perfect thirds. Perfection

It’s so rare that I’m awake before my parents… SIP

Should I write about Larrupin sauce? My friend Alina buys this for me up in Humboldt since it’s hard to find…

Every object/moment suggests a story when I’m paying attention!

8 to 9am

Page 3

Pick up Martina! Very cute raincoat (@martinamonster-art )

Chatting and Ateez on the drive 9 to 9:30

OMG why am I drawing cars :(

LUMACON! 10-11AM

My newest zine is a recruitment zine for Authors Against Book Bans (AABB).

I zero in on folks I know to be authors–

Maia: I want you–

Author: Me?

Maia: To join AABB! (info zine)

Author: Oh thanks! I will!

Maia: This zine is so fun to hand out!

Page 4

Teen: Thank you so much for writing Gender Queen. I gave it to my mom and she credits it for a lot of her understanding. I came out as gender queer a year ago and she said “I love you.” I don’t know if that would have been possible without the book!

Maia: Thank you for saying that!

Different teen: I want to buy a copy of your book but I need to make more sales first.

Maia: Where’s your table?

Teen: Behind you

Look.

I spot some of the cutest round crochet bois I’ve ever seen including a nonbinary bee

Maia: Can I please trade you a book for that bee?!

Teen: OMG yes!

You know it’s a good trade when both parties think they got the better deal!

12pm

Page 5

I check in with Anna (@thebeanbaguette) 1pm

Maia: How’s the con so far?

Anna: Really good! I love how many furries are here!

Maia: Oh yeah it’s fun

Maia: I had never seen the skull fursuit head before this show… for the size event it’s impressive furry turn out

Cute goth/pastel couple

Anna: To be honest, I’d love to get a fursuit head one day… and the hands!

Anna: But I don’t know what animal…

(Table is covered in cute rats)

Later, another friend comments

Cynthia: So many furries here!

Maia: Yes, the per capita is very high… sign of a healthy ecosystem!

(we all wore masks all day I just forgot to draw them)

Page 6

My friend Nic comes to visit & cover my table during my lunch break- 2pm

Nic: Don’t worry I’ll do my best impersonation of you! I’ll even sign books with your name!

Maia: Okay, great, thanks!

Maia: (Has not had water, snack or bathroom break in 6 hours)

Later we chat with Gio, another friend about knowing when a story is done

Maia: I had a publisher reject a pitch basically saying “this isn’t fully baked yet” which… was true.

Nic: Unfortunately I’m doing that to myself! I’m on the 4th draft of this short story that just needs to be done.

Gio: But when it’s a personal project how do you know?

Gio: When it’s my own work, no deadline, no editor, it’s tempting to just keep putting it back in the oven. But at what point are you like, I’m making crackers. I thought it was bread but it turned into crackers!

Page 7

3-4pm last hour of the con

My parents came! My Taekwondo teacher came! A trans teen who came to my first Gender Queer event in 2019 came! I saw so many friends & my heart is full! Thank you Luma!

4:30

Maia: I think I’m ready to go…

Table: EMPTY

Martina: Me too!

Maia & Martina: LOOK

Anna- nothing packed, stuff fully out

Anna: Haha, you go! I pack slowly!

In the parking lot & rain

Maia: I’m really glad you came!

Martina: Thanks for talking me into it!

Martina: You’ve been manifesting this since September!

Maia: Haha yes,

(I talked both Martina & Anna into applying for this show; Martina’s first zinefest table!

Page 8

5pm I drive home

after all the rain, the ditches & fields are flooded

Maia (texting): I just got home

Anna (texting): I haven’t left the venue yet

Page 9

6pm I should be unpacking but I’m lying in bed looking at my phone!

Maia: Wow so many hourlies! I haven’t even started! I’d rather read them on tumblr & patreon later. How is my finch doing?

Nic incepted our entire friend group into the finch app back in January. I’m pretty hooked. In the finch app you make a little bird persona who travels the world & gains experiences. You give it energy & earn points by crossing items off your to do list & completing self care tasks like stretching or drinking water.

Maia: To be honest, I don’t really need an app to help me do tasks. But look how cute my bird is!!! Also! You can get pets for your bird! I have five! Owl, seal, caribou, ball of fluff, cow

Later, I pet my real cat.

Maia: Don’t worry you are my actual favorite pet.

Page 10

7pm: Dinner with my parents. Big salad, fried tofu. We talk about clay deposits in odd places.

My dad: There’s that Bentonite clay at Shell Beach! That’s the kind you want for poison oak rashes.

My mom: And the deposit at school by the office, some teachers have kids use that for crafts.

8pm: Formatting my January book reviews

I really like the monthly wrap-ups that Storygraph generates.

Books: 11 Pages: 2855 Average Rating: 3.91

LGBTQIA: 5 Fantasy: 4 Comic: 4 Contemporary: 3 Romance: 3

9pm: I fall into the trap of looking at the news which I’ve avoided all day. Escape to tumblr where I discover some amazing Ranma ½ fanart. Should I reread it?

10-12am: I draw the first 4 pages of these comics then go to bed!

In total, drawing these takes 6 or 7 hours across 3 days. -Maia Kobabe 2025

#hourly comics day 2025 #hourly comics #hourly comics day #maia kobabe #diary comics

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baronessvonglitter · 2 months ago

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Law of Attraction ~ Chapter 5

Rom Com AU divorce lawyer!Dave York x fem!Reader (featuring nightclub owner!Javier Pena)

Word count: 4,200

Summary: Dealing with emotions is difficult when you and Dave realize how you really feel about each other. When a night in turns sour, you seek help from an unexpected source.

(spoilers beneath the cut so beware)

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Explicit for smut. Feelings of angst about failed relationship. Fantasizing. Dave in gray sweatpants OML. Fix-it Dave ooh la la! Mention of sex toys/masturbation (f & m). Reader and Dave are down so bad for each other and feeling extremely guilty over it. Pineapple on pizza is its own warning. Fluff. Soft!Dave. Tipsy kissing/making out. Dry humping. You and Dave have your first big fight. Shower self-love. Sex with an Ex. (Sorry about that, but we all make mistakes, right?)

Author's note: We've reached the angst-y part of the story. The course of true love never runs smooth round here, folks. Thanks for everyone sticking through!

Series Masterlist

Despite your blossoming friendship with Dave, who's been a rock and a safe space for you post-divorce, sometimes intrusive thoughts come in the form of your ex-husband Javier.

You really can't help it - you'd been with him so long and he'd been the main man in your life, your first, your only. It still feels like infidelity when you try out a dating app just to test the waters. You imagine him doing the same thing then chastise yourself for thinking that Javier would even need to advertise himself just to get a woman. He's probably forgotten all about you by now, probably fucking every cocktail waitress in his establishment, not a thought or care for you while he's chasing tail.

It makes you angry when you linger on who's been in the bed you shared with him, rolled around in the sheets you picked out, whose moans were muffled by the pillows you'd bought specifically for their perfect fluffiness.

Whenever you get an intrusive thought about Javier, you simply think of Dave, and the first detail that comes to mind is his eyes.

You've noticed the subtle way they scan you from head to toe, making you hyper-aware of your chosen outfit of the day. He doesn't linger on any certain part, and you're grateful he can hide whatever thoughts he has. When you speak he seems to truly listen instead of waiting for you to finish so he can talk. And when he smiles or laughs, his eyes have the most adorable crinkles in the corners. You've caught yourself staring too long more than a few times.

If you let your imagination drift even further you think about his lips, how soft they look, the way his tongue swipes across them after a sip of your freshly brewed coffee.

It's easy to forget that he's married, especially when it's just so easy between you, so natural. You tell yourself not to get too sentimental over someone who has a wife and kids, an entire life separate from you that existed before you knew him.

Trying to put your new bed frame together, you realize you don't have you don't have the right tools to complete it. When he finally calls you back you can hear him out of breath on the other line.

"Did I catch you at a bad time?" you ask, a little flustered.

"No, just finished my run," he says.

You explain about your task, and lack of tools for it. He offers his own toolkit and says he'll meet you at your place in twenty.

When you answer the door for him, you're taken aback. Usually in a suit, or at the very least, trousers or jeans and a button-up, it's a strange thrill to see him so casual in dark blue t-shirt and gray sweatpants, toolbox in his hand.

...gray sweatpants.

Your eyes drift downward of their own accord, the quintessential female gaze. Dave waits patiently for you to let him in.

"Sorry!" Heat rushes to the surface of your skin as you lead him to your bedroom, offering water or anything else to drink. Less than an hour later you have the bed frame put together, boxspring, mattress, and sheets on top.

"You can shower here, if you want," you offer, bringing him a green apple Gatorade. He hesitates at first, then admits it'd probably be easier than having to drive back home in sweaty clothes.

While he's in the shower you wash his clothes, trying not to think about him under the hot spray. Has he left the door unlocked? Do you dare to test it? You tell yourself these are irrational thoughts, brought on because he's a new friend and you find him attractive. Once he leaves you're going to put your rose toy to good use for the rest of the night.

Of course he's perfect. He's a lawyer for god's sake. And he's kind, and gorgeous, and so smart, and funny. He likes old movies, he's a good dad, he remembers little things about me, he really listens when I'm talking, and of course he has a perfect cock. I haven't seen it yet, but I know it's big. Maybe even bigger than Javier. Ugh, don't think about him. Think about those gray sweatpants and how good they'd look on my bedroom floor, or maybe even slid down just low enough for him to slide right in-

"Sweetie?" your mom's voice cuts through your fantasy.

"Hm?" You sit up in your chair, swallowing the saliva that's pooled in your mouth, along with the tanginess of the mimosas your mom had made for brunch. Your mom and sister chuckle, exchanging a glance.

"You're on another planet," your sister remarks. "Mom's got a menopausal snail trail going. You're better off tuning out."

Your mother swats at your sister's arm. "I was just talking about that gorgeous Idris Elba. He's my hall pass, you know."

"Mom," you groan. "I don't think we need to know everything about you."

The Sunday morning conversation has turned to men, and you wonder if you've given off signals of your own romantic confusion. You cheeks feel hot and you blame it on the champagne cocktails.

"You've hardly touched your crepes," your mom says, fussing over you. "I hope you're not running a fever." She checks for a temperature on your forehead.

"I'm okay, I promise," you tell her.

"I hope you're not overworking yourself, dear."

You don't want the attention on you because you're sure your mother will tap into her trusty intuition and notice something's off, maybe even read your thoughts.

Luckily your sister takes over, talking about the art program she's starting next semester, and you mouth a 'thank you' as your mother gives her attention instead.

To properly thank Dave for his help, you invite him over for homemade pizza. You hold your own little contest to see whose toppings are better, You allow him the win, simply because he's the only other person you know who adores pineapple on pizza.

Dinner turns into a movie night, and you open up to him in a new way as you scroll through the streaming service app, giving him a glimpse of tv shows and documentaries you've not caught up on, and ones you listed as to-watch.

Over a bottle of moscato and a shared bag of Starburst (you disagree on your favorites when he says strawberry is best, when clearly cherry is the winner) you settle in in front of the warm glow of the tv as you play a movie.

You lean your head on his shoulder and Dave tries to ignore the way his body reacts to your closeness, the way your soft hair brushes against his skin, the subtle scent of your shampoo rising up to greet him, to tease him. He wraps his arm around your shoulders.

"I really like this.. spending time with you," you murmur, eyes on the tv before they flicker up to meet his. "I mean it."

"I like spending time with you too. You seem happier," he notes, eyes taking in every feature of your face from the sparkle in your eyes to the chicken pox scar right above your eyebrow that he finds so endearing. Technically, his words are a lie. He loves spending his time with you. The more he's with you the more he realizes the small things in life he's been missing out on, like seeing a painting for the details for the first time rather than the big picture as a whole.

You shrug. "I'm happy for the most part. I have mostly everything I want. I should be really happy with 'mostly.' Not everyone gets to have a 'mostly.'"

"That's true," he responds, feeling as if you're talking about his own life, the missing pieces somehow missing when you're together. "Maybe all life is, is just enjoying the 'mostly.'" Without thinking about it he brushes a loose strand of your hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ear. The small simple gesture makes you shiver as the air between you thickens with tension.

"More wine?" you ask in hopes of breaking the spell

He accepts, and you refill both your glasses, clinking your glasses together in a quick toast. For one brief moment as your lips touch the wine you allow yourself the audacity to think about his wife.

You open your mouth to speak then shut it, thinking better of it.

"No, say it," Dave smirks. "What's on your mind?"

Guilt, the kind only truly innocent people can feel, keeps you from looking at him when you ask, "Does Carol ever accuse you of anything going on between us?"

He honestly hasn't expected that question, the wine dulling his usually sharp perception. "No, she doesn't. I don't think she knows about 'us' at all."

"Okay," you nod. "Good.."

"Why'd you ask?"

"I just think if she had any suspicion then we'd have to take a step back, out of respect, you know?"

Suddenly the thought of stepping back into anything resembling the life he had before he met you sounds unpalatable. "Do you want to take a step back?"

"No, I don't," you're quick to reply. "But if she ever thought.." you sigh, leaving that thought unfinished. "I'm just projecting my trust issues where they don't need to go.."

"I see where you're coming from," Dave says. "But I'm telling you, I could leave town for a week and Carol wouldn't question it, so long as the money shows up in our joint bank account and as long as I'm on time for whatever black tie charity event she's spearheading that week."

You smile, stroking his arm. "See? This is why I like you. We hold our own little pity parties and drink wine and watch old movies." And when you rest your head on his shoulder again, it takes everything in him to keep from pressing his lips to the top of your head.

"Do you want to watch another one?" you ask. "Or do you have to get home?"

He's tempted, so tempted to stay, to bask in the lovely warmth that is you. But now you've put Carol in his mind and he's starting to sober up just a little. "I should probably get going. I've got a meeting tomorrow morning."

"Oh.." you try to hide your disappointment. "Of course. I understand."

Dave takes a breath to clear his dangerous thoughts, downing the last of the wine in his glass before he focuses on ordering an Uber. Though you'd promised you could drive him home, he didn't want to risk it as you'd also been drinking. "Should be here in fifteen minutes," he says, stumbling forward as he tries to stand.

"Whoa.. hey," you chuckle, holding him steady. He manages to stay on his feet, holding onto your shoulders. He feels the heat radiating off you, he can smell the freesia of your perfume. His body reacts on an instinctual level, one he hasn't allowed in so long. He needs to have you. Right now.

"Are you okay?" you ask softly, steadying him. "I can drive you home. Cancel your ride." Your hand cups his cheek.

The heat that's been building up in his chest has moved further down towards his groin, your touch only furthering his struggle to control his thoughts. "No, no.. better not risk it. We've both been drinking," he says, the one principle that hasn't been clouded by your proximity.

"I guess wine sneaks up on the best of us," you admit, feeling the effects after all. "I just want to make sure you'll get home okay."

His hands travel down, landing at your waist as he leans his head on top of yours. "I am home.."

Your eyes close, body heating up with the closeness of him, the familiarity that you've thought about but never acted on. Your arms wrap around his broad shoulders, bringing you close together, the beat of your hearts nearly tangible.

"No one's touched me since.." Since Javier is what you mean to say, but uttering his name feels sacrilegious in the intimacy of the space you share, and a sweet chill goes through you when Dave's hands wander down to your hips. His voice is husky as he says, "I don't know how anybody could keep their hands off you."

Lips parted as you gasp, you try to explain. "I meant touched as in something simple and nice.. like this.." You realize how needy you must sound to him. "..like, how you're holding me now. Just.. friendly."

There's a tightness in his chest at your word. Friendly. That word alone should calm him down, but it has the opposite effect, exciting him further. He wants to give you more than just a friendly touch. He wants to do more than just be friends with you. "Friendly? Is that what you want me to be? Just friendly?"

You nod. "You're my best friend, my only friend these days."

That word is like a knife in his chest, taking away all his restraint. Suddenly both his hands grip your ass, pulling you into an embrace that is more than just friendly. "Is that all you want me to be?"

"Dave!" you gasp as you're pressed close to him. And fuck he's hard. Maybe this was what you needed to finally cross the line, not just blur it. Desire pools in your abdomen, slick suddenly coating your panties as your mouths finally meet in a hot and hungry kiss, tasting of wine and candy as you roll around on the couch.

Every part of Dave's body that isn't touching yours feels empty. His tongue invades your mouth, hips settling between your thighs, grinding himself against you. Your fingers card through his hair, tongue dueling against his. He'd imagined this for weeks now, but was never sure he'd ever feel this with you. He wants more, he wants all of you. This fact is cemented as you pull his tongue into your own mouth, sucking on it.

"Wait.. wait.." you groan, pushing him away. "We can't."

He groans as well, all rational thought foreign to him as most of his blood has journeyed south, evident in the unmistakable bulge you'd just enjoyed him teasing you with. He gives himself some time to cool down as you move away from him. "Yeah.." he says eventually, head in his hands. "You're right, we can't."

Still worked up, you sigh deeply, still tasting him on your tongue, still feeling the rocking of his hips. "If I sleep with you then I'm no better than any of those bitches who slept with Javier."

There's a sharp look in his eyes as he pins you down with his stare, his pride wounded. "Hey. Don't ever compare me to that bastard. I am nothing like him."

"Dave, I didn't mean-"

He knows it's probably the blue balls talking, all the heat of the moment soured from its initial passion. He holds up his hand to stop you from saying anything further, from explaining what he doesn't want to hear. His mind starts to clear. He'd let himself get carried away. He's in your home, drinking your wine, sitting on your sofa, and getting ready to fuck you the way he'd imagined it so many times before. He stands and steps away from you. "If I was just like him I wouldn't give a damn about you. I'd have taken what I wanted and left without a single thought for you." To add salt to the burn he adds, "It would have been that easy."

Anger and hurt flares within you. "Careful, Dave. You're on the same path he started on, and it's a slippery slope for cheaters."

His eyes widen in surprise at your coldness, forgetting how icy his own words had been towards you. He'd come to you for fun and comfort, to shed the stress of work and life, not to get in your pants, though he's not upset it had nearly gone that way. "You think I came here tonight to cheat on my wife? You think I'm trying to be the next scumbag to break your heart?"

"You spend all this time with me instead of your own wife. And just now.." you release a shuddering breath, "you mean to tell me that if I hadn't stopped you we wouldn't be rutting against each other like wild dogs?"

Dave's anger dissipates, replaced by a sense of shame. You're calling him out big time, and he doesn't really have a response. He's spent more time with you in the past few months than he has with his wife in over a year. With a frustrated sigh he lets his head hang.

Through the living room window you see a pair of headlights pull up to the curb outside your house. "You should go. Your Uber's here."

"Yeah," he mutters, getting his jacket before he heads for the door. You watch him leave, so many other things you want to say are on the tip of your tongue, but you don't dare let them loose. You've already crossed a line with him, and you can't forgive yourself for the way you feel about him. His leaving is for the best.

The air is cool outside, letting the heat dissolve in his system, bringing some lucidity to his situation. But it doesn't help the gnawing feeling inside, his anger at himself for speaking that way to you. He's a ball of emotion right now. Before getting into his ride he casts one last glance at your window. There you are, the most beautiful woman he's ever known, the one he's fantasized about and lost sleep over. He came so close to having you to himself tonight, but you were right to stop him. It was a mistake.

He tries to compose himself in the backseat of the Uber, to make sense of who you are and what you mean to him. Of course you would attach yourself to the one man who'd been there for you to sever your connection to your ex. Maybe you had an innate gratitude, maybe you saw him as a hero. That's all it could be.

Suddenly his cell phone buzzes in his jacket pocket. Carol's name flashes on the screen.

"Honey, where are you?" she asks when he answers.

Dave pinches the bridge of his nose. "Hey, babe. I just went for a drink after work. What's up?"

"I just miss you," she says.

A wave of guilt courses through him, sharp and hot. Nauseating. "I miss you too, babe. I'll be home soon."

It's a surprise for him to be greeted by her as soon as he comes through the door. Even more so when she reaches up to kiss him. "You taste sweet. Like candy," she comments with a smile.

Her lips are soft, familiar, but they cause no reaction in him like they used to. Not like how kissing you felt. He gently pulls away, removing his jacket and putting it on the coathanger. "I had some jello shots at the bar," he lies.

Behind him, she puts her arms around his middle. "The girls are asleep. Want to come upstairs?"

Dave's body and his mind recoil, his guilt piloting his next move. Does she know? Can she sense it? "I'm a bit tired," he answers. "I think I'm just going to shower and go to bed."

"I could join you.."

A rush of heat is sent straight to his dick at her persistence. The thought of getting any type of action tonight is intriguing. But for some crazy reason he can't find the will to say yes.

"Not tonight, babe. I can barely stand straight as it is.."

"Oh." Carol is disappointed. "Are you sure?"

He nods. "Next time, yeah?"

"Yeah. Fine." She moves past him to the kitchen.

Once again he's disappointed her. What if it was a test? Things haven't been great between them, yet she's never accused him of having an affair. Not that he hasn't been tempted, heaven knows he's only a man. But you're the first person to actually make him want to cross that line.

He hates himself and he hates disappointing you and Carol.

Your scent is still on his clothes as he discards them before getting in the shower. He lets the water beat down on him, grabbing the soap and washing away any trace of you on his skin. But if only it could wash away the memory of the way you kissed him back, your body pliant beneath his on the sofa, the way he fit so perfectly between your parted thighs-

Without thinking about it his hand is already fisted around his cock, the soft suds a sad replacement for what he imagines the glorious slipperiness of your tight channel must feel like.

Carol's voice comes through the door, knocking him from his fantasy. "I have to go into work for a little while. I'll see you later."

He rinses the last of the soap off him before turning off the spray. "You're going in now? At this hour?"

"Dave, it's a hospital. They never close. I'll be back in a few hours."

"Okay.. bye. Be safe," he says, getting out and drying off his hair.

It's hours later and Dave still hasn't caught a wink of sleep. He's tossed and turned, punched his pillow, flipped it, punched it again. Carol is still gone. Once, Alice wakes up and asks him for a glass of water, which he happily obliges as it allows him to do something other than thinking. But as soon as she's had her drink she goes back to sleep and he's left alone with his thoughts again.

It's a few hours before dawn when he gets a text from you:

Hey, I'll pick you up later today to get your car from my place.

Dave exhales deeply. He can't just ignore you. He really does need his car back. But distance is the only way he can control himself right now.

Don't worry about it. I'll get Carol to drop me off and get it. Thanks though.

He waits for the read reply and gets no response from you. In this he feels more regret than satisfaction. Yet his thoughts still drift to the taste of your mouth, your body crushed against his, your hands in his hair. Desperate for release, the only way he's going to get any sleep is to take care of himself, to finish what he'd started in the shower earlier.

He'd left you so on edge, but it wasn't his fault. As Dave's Uber left with him in it, you hated yourself for what you did next. You picked up your phone and called the one person you shouldn't have.

Still wrapped in the bedsheets, you watch as Javier lights a cigarette and exhales a puff of smoke as he rests against the headboard. Both of you are still sweaty, the pleasure fading to a gentle throb between your legs as your breathing slowly returns to normal.

"I miss you," he says, running a finger along your bare arm.

"This was a mistake," you tell him, shaking your head. You never imagined that you'd feel disgust and shame after such a passionate encounter, but the life you've lived since leaving your husband has shown you a million more possibilities, and you're ashamed that you've fallen back into one that's already been proven not to bring you happiness.

"Don't say that, mi amor" he begs, stamping out his cigarette and reaching out for you as you reach over for your clothes on the floor. "You came to me for a reason. You must still have love for me in your heart."

"I came back to familiarity," you correct him, cursing when you can't find your underwear. Just moments before he'd had you in every position and even a few ones you didn't know existed. He'd counted out loud each time your cunt quivered around him, as if taunting you. "And now I'm truly done."

"Done? With me?"

"Javi, honey, you're only good for one thing," you tell him, shimmying into your panties.

And just to prove the universe has a sense of humor, in walks Cindy, the woman you'd found Javi cheating with in this very bed.

"Great.. just great," you mutter, getting the rest of your clothes on. "Don't worry, Cindy, I'm not staying, Not ever again, I hope you enjoy the house. I did all the decorating. But a little word of advice: give your relationship a second thought. If he cheated on me, he'll do the same to you. You can't build your house on another woman's tears and expect it to stand."

Cindy is still speechless at your presence, and Javi just hangs his head.

"Everything that's attractive and charming and fun about him now will eventually wear off. Cindy, you're young and beautiful. Find someone who isn't going to ruin that."

With one more look around, you leave, more confident than you've ever felt in your life.

dividers by @strangergraphics 👑

taglist: @penascigarette @joelalorian @la-vie-est-une-fleur29

@darkheartgatita @speaktothehandpeasants @rav3n-pascal22

@vickie5446 @mrs-pedro-pascal @zascal @sunnytuliptime

@mysticsuitcasealmondwombat @joelmillerisapunk

@almostfoxglove @itwasntimethatdidit40 @604to647

@milla-frenchy @everybodylovedcontractors @misstokyo7love

@ppascalq

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sindar-princeling · 7 months ago

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LOTR Newsletter 3 Shire Drift - FAQ

Hello everyone!

Just like last year: for those of you who are already familiar with The Lord of the Rings Newsletter, this serves as an announcement that I'm doing it again; and for those who aren't - an introduction to the project :)

What is LOTR Newsletter?

I'm one of the people who subscribed to Dracula Daily in May 2022, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do this too but with XYZ!" - XYZ being The Lord of the Rings. Because the events of LOTR also have specific dates ascribed to them, we're gonna be reading LOTR as it happened.

When does it take place?

Because of the way the beginning of LOTR is structured (read: because I don't want to leave six-month-long breaks between the first entries), we're gonna start on September 15th - a week before September 22nd, when the main events start to take place. It's also the publishing date of the Silmarillion, but that's just a fun fact for my own enjoyment.

From September 15th to September 19th, we'll read the prologue, and the fragments preceding Frodo's departure from the Shire. From September 20th, we'll be reading according to the dates in the book until April 8th. Then we'll be reading last parts of the book - which are stretched over a long time - once a week, to once again avoid lengthy breaks in delivery.

The Newsletter will last from September 15th to May 26th.

Where do I go if I want to post/talk about something related to the Newsletter with other readers?

We discuss current (and not only current) entries in the #lotr newsletter tag, and we have a Discord server set by the amazing @k-she-rambles! (I really hope this time I managed to generate a link that never expires...)

How do I subscribe?

Since the original platform I was using (TinyLetter) was shut down halfway through the second year of the newsletter, I had to figure out an alternative way to execute this project.

For the lovely people who joined the last edition of the newsletter, just a short announcement - I weighed all the pros and cons and decided to continue carrying out the newsletter the way I did after TinyLetter shut down.

For the new folks, a lengthier explanation: check out this post if you want to learn the details, but long story short: I can't send the newsletter as e-mails anymore, so instead I decided to provide you with a ready copy of the entire thing. I prepared formatted copies of the whole newsletter - September 15th to May 26th - as an .odt file, as a .pdf file, and most importantly as an .epub file, because I assume most of you are reading on your phones (if you don't already have an .epub reader, I use FBReader, and everything worked fine on my phone). At the beginning you'll find the whole table of contents with hyperlinks, so the navigation inside the document should be easy!

The MEGA folder can be accessed right here, and it's available for everyone!

In the folder linked, you'll also find a calendar file made by @none-ofthisnonsense that you can download on your phone and import into your calendar app so that all days when we read are marked in your calendar!

If you want to receive notifications about when there is an entry to read, you can also follow @is-today-a-lotr-newsletter-day and turn on notifications! This is a blog created solely for notifying you all when we're reading a new fragment of the newsletter, so all notifications you'll get will be about new entries, and nothing more. The notifications are meant to be the equivalent of sending e-mails.

Anything else I should know?

Please don't rat me out to Tolkien Estate/j, and have fun reading!

(And as a PS.: Thank you very much if you join - or join again! Last year was very tumultuous because of all the changes in the format, and I know the new way is not for everyone - but introducing more changes again felt like once more creating new chaos, so I decided to stick to a solution that mostly worked. I hope you understand!)

See you on September 15th!

#lotr newsletter #it's mine my own my precious #I'm already excited 💕#lotr #the lord of the rings

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changes · 2 years ago

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Friday, July 28th, 2023

🌟 New

We’ve updated the text for the blog setting that said it would “hide your blog from search results”. Unfortunately, we’ve never been able to guarantee hiding content from search crawlers, unless they play nice with the standard prevention measures of robots.txt and noindex. With this in mind, we’ve changed the text of that setting to be more accurate, insofar as we discourage them, but cannot prevent search indexing. If you want to completely isolate your blog from the outside internet and require only logged in folks to see your blog, then that’s the separate “Hide [blog] from people without an account” setting, which does prevent search engines from indexing your blog.

When creating a poll on the web, you can now have 12 poll options instead of 10. Wow.

For folks using the Android app, if you get a push notification that a blog you’re subscribed to has a new post, that push will take you to the post itself, instead of the blog view.

For those of you seeing the new desktop website layout, we’ve eased up the spacing between columns a bit to hopefully make things feel less cramped. Thanks to everyone who sent in feedback about this! We’re still triaging more feedback as the experiment continues.

🛠 Fixed

While experimenting with new dashboard tab configuration options, we accidentally broke dashboard tabs that had been enabled via Tumblr Labs, like the Blog Subs tab. We’ve rolled back that change to fix those tabs.

We’ve fixed more problems with how we choose what content goes into blogs’ RSS feeds. This time we’ve fixed a few issues with how answer post content is shown as RSS items.

We’ve also fixed some layout issues with the new desktop website navigation, especially glitches caused when resizing the browser window.

Fixed a visual glitch in the new activity redesign experiment on web that was making unread activity items difficult to read in some color palettes.

Fixed a bug in Safari that was preventing mature content from being blurred properly.

When using Tumblr on a mobile phone browser, the hamburger menu icon will now have an indicator when you have an unread ask or submission in your Inbox.

🚧 Ongoing

Nothing to report here today.

🌱 Upcoming

We hear it’s crab day tomorrow on Tumblr. 🦀

We’re working on adding the ability to reply to posts as a sideblog! We’re just getting started, so it may be a little while before we run an experiment with it.

Experiencing an issue? File a Support Request and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Want to share your feedback about something? Check out our Work in Progress blog and start a discussion with the community.

#tumblr update

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beartitled · 1 year ago

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✨🎊🎉 Narratorverse March is finally here 🎉🎊✨

youtube

Big thanks to everyone who joined the collab and made their animations ❤️💕💓

Shoutout to @blackkatdraws2 with coming up with the idea for the collab 🫵❤️

Lemme just briefly say my thoughts

I have never expected for so many people joining 💥 Omg you guys 🥹

I was so pleasantly surprised with how attentionate you studied the original animation, you guys caught every detail and adapted it into your animation

My huge respect to ppl who decided to do 2 animations 💪💪

It was a blast seeing your animations and working on this project, I hope everyone had fun and learned something new along the way❤️ You guys did great I’m so proud of you👏👏💕💓❤️💕

🎉🎉🎉ENJOY THE VIDEO FOLKS🎉🎉🎉

(Posting this in 2 parts, bc tumblr cannot handle the original, 👉if you want to see the full image here’s the link👈)

Be sure to check out creators who participated in the collab✨

Animation for:

Kevan Brighting, Black, Gray by @blackkatdraws2 (twitter/youtube: Black Kat Draws)

Narrator by @rick-ety

Solaris by @stylus427

Narrator by @neat-o-things

Narry the first by @braisedhoney

Narry the second by @insomniphic (Instagram: insomniphic_art)

Narry the third (Barry) by me >:3

Henry by @soulsquigg

Nikolai by @cha1nsawblood

Wes by @purpleskelet0n (Instagram: Purpl3kelet0n)

Narrator + Stanley by @horimasoshi

Nicolas by @souppye (twitter: soupyye / tiktok: souppye)

Cyril by @shy-blue-waters

Laurence by @visillantopng (twitter: _visillanto_png)

Nigel by @emcake1 (twitter: em_cake1)

El and Discord by @paradoxspir1tart

Mantra by @deviousnarrator

Violet by @xandyprojects

Agus by @thenamesmobu

Narrator by oughtlyofcrow on twitter

Naranja by @dirtylittlemuffin

Archie by @notmefoina

Narson by @codenamedgalahad

Nova @idunnowhattowriteheretbh

Narrator by @bullpup-blog

N4RR_V3 by @bog-mob

Virgil by @oswinunknown

N by @gamergirls427

Narrator by @mar00nharp00ns (twitter: harp00ns)

Narrator by - @Mellowing4ever on twitter

Narrator by @kelpiekidd

Don @bloody-dear

Edwin by @machines-art-shenanigans

Edward by @galacticatzzart

Curtis by @file-unknown24

Floyd by @5kiyo

Archivist and Percival by @crowv3xd (Percival belongs to @demonicrhythms)

Snarry by @semisocialporcupine

Baxter by @emile-tb

Narcissus by @roseaterougerues (twitter: RoseateRues)

The Space Narrator by @raccoontank

Arthur by @indigo-art (twitter: IndogoopArt)

Clive by accoleius on twitter

Ozzie and Aesop by @miiints-repostiory

Narrator by airyyria on twitter

Edgar V. Marlowe by @bucketfullofstrawberries

Pixel by @melancholys-inc

Ambrosius by @your4thwallbreakerdraws

Narrator by @junebug-dot-com

Grefă by @limelemonleaf (instagram: lime.lemon.leaf)

Entropy by @z-static-z

Nathan and Staney by @tumbling-turmoil (tiktok: clock-app-chaos, twitter: CreatorChaos2)

‼️Continuation in the reblog‼️ (bc tumblr only allows 50 tags per post)

#tsp #tspud #tsp fandom #the stanley parable #tsp narrator #narratorverse #narrator tsp #tspud narrator #animation collab #animation project #paraverse #the paraverse #narratorverse march #tsp au #tspud au #tspud fandom #tsp stanley #tspud stanley #the stanley parable ultra deluxe

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yuurivoice · 2 months ago

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Welcome to the YuuriVoice Tumblr!

A relic of a time long past, with echoes that remain ever present, you stand on the precipice of ground zero. This is where it all began. What was once a Yuri on Ice audio blog evolved into this wild thing we find ourselves strapped to.

Welcome! I'm Yuuri, a voice actor, writer, director, and maker of questionable noises. I'm part ASMRtist, part storyteller, part Vtuber, part smut peddler. I wear many hats, and to my shock they're not as ill fitting as I expected.

This blog is a wasteland of uncategorized shenanigans and information. I have not had the spoons to organize and maintain it in any other way than a vehicle for promotion and answering questions from the community that makes its home here on Tumblr.

You can find me and my work here:

YouTube for all narrative & SFW audios.

Patreon for behind the scenes updates + NSFW audios.

Twitter for more consistent nonsense updates.

Merch and other goodies here.

And basically every other platform you can think of @ yuurivoice.

How The YV Tumblr Functions

In general, you can send me questions through the Ask Box, and you'll spot me posting in the #yuurivoice tag plus additional tags for specific characters and series. That's about the most organization you're gonna get because my brain is capable of just about that much before I'll forget something and miscategorize things.

That also being said, be wary of various triggers. For anything big and obvious, I'll try and tag, but I won't be getting super granular in that regard. This also relates to my brain, because if someone asks "hey can you tag (specific thing)" I promise you I will end up forgetting then the person I said I'd look out for gets smacked in the face. So it's less about "idgaf" and more that in cases where I feel I cannot personally protect an individual, I'd rather them protect themselves and just know my big dumb ass will fail them.

Some general notes, boundaries, etc:

I'm literally just a guy checking his app at 3am on the shitter, there will be typos, I will forget things, if someone makes me uncomfortable I'll tell them

My tone may not always be clear, no I will not consistently use indicators, the best you're getting out of me is a lol or an emoji

My humor is dry, and my tolerance for nonsense is thin

Despite the above, I have had 99.9% positive experiences around here, most folks find me palatable, you may not and that's okay

Do NOT come to me slandering my peers, I have a zero tolerance policy for this

Do NOT press me for content of your specific blorbo

The list goes on, but genuinely if you are just chill there's never gonna be any issue, I am just a guy and you can treat me as such

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who is your favorite character to voice? A: Depends at the time you ask me, in general I enjoy them all a great deal because I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it. But in truth, Alphonse (and Charlie) are probably the easiest for me to slide right into and that makes doing the work easy. Not sure if that's a "favorite" but ease of work matters significantly to me because ADHD.

Q: When will you do a (insert character) audio? A: Bold of you to assume I know when I'm doing anything at all. I am always contemplating when the next audio for a character will be, but my interests come and go in waves. If you ask me kindly on any given day, I'll probably give you a genuine answer. If you ask this in relation to content getting posted that wasn't that character, I will tell you to go fuck yourself. It's all about time and place. lol

Q: When will the next (insert series) video be out? A: Again, bold of you to assume I know, but also the answer is always changing for every series. BitterSweet and its associated projects are the most committed and consistent I've been with any artist pursuit in my entire life. Again, if you just ask me how a project is going on any given day, I'll likely give you an update. Just know that I heap an immense amount of pressure onto myself, so ask gently otherwise I'll feel guilty and cry about it. Not really, but also, don't test me.

Q: Are you taking commissions? A: Nope, haven't taken commissions in a loooooong time, and don't foresee it happening again, with a few exceptions for fundraisers and giveaways.

Q: I have this headcanon that (insert character fact). A: Don't ask me to confirm your headcanons, I will forget what anonymous message a Tumblr user asked me one day out of the blue and what my answer was. I avoid giving factoids, granular details, etc. because I'll just absolutely forget it the moment I hit post. I encourage you to use your imagination and don't bother seeking me for validation, you should just have fun playing pretend because that's exactly what got us here in the first place! <3

Q: Did (insert character) do this because (insert idea)? A: Any question like this that specifically asks for deliberate information that would lead to a spoiler, character revelation, etc. is not worth asking. While I appreciate that you might be asking the correct question, the whole reason I wrote the plot to make you ask that question is that you'd get that answer in the content itself, not from some asshole on the internet on a Tumblr blog (aka me).

Q: Why did you start making audios/YT videos/etc? A: In 2016, the anime Yuri!!! on Ice was a phenomenon that took the internet, and my life, by storm. I started this blog to make audios for the protagonist Yuuri Katsuki, as a hobby and way to participate in the fandom. Eventually, people wanted to commission me. Then, other characters and voices, specifically Guzma (Pokemon), Sidon (LoZ Breath of the Wild), and Aizawa (My Hero Academia) exploded in popularity and increased my following. When the Tumblr apocalypse happened and NSFW content was getting nuked, I pivoted to YouTube. I began to create original characters to fulfill standard Boyfriend Experience and Erotic audios, and slowly a connective narrative started to take shape, eventually becoming BitterSweet.

Q: What inspired you to make BitterSweet? A: Alphonse was originally inspired by my Stardew Valley character, which also inspired the setting of his audios. Seth was created to be a rival to Alphonse, with a visual novel style branching path for listeners to enjoy if they wanted Seth. However, as I began to write, I discovered a much deeper story between the two characters and I chose to follow that thread over the standard moment to moment experience style scenario. Several episodes later, it became clear that this was a narrative series that wasn't quite like my past work. The themes and ideas largely spawn from my own lived experiences, wrapped up in two pretty boys and their listener as they experience the healing magic of love in all of its forms!

Q: Is the BitterSweet Trio polyamorous? A: During the course of BitterSweet, Alphonse and Boo share their unconditional love with Seth, hoping to nurture the parts of him that have weathered away with time and trauma. This love is explicitly undefined, so that listeners can interpret the relationship dynamic as best suits them, as the trio represents no one specific type of love, but rather the healing of unconditional love. For some that may be best experienced romantically, and others may prefer it to be platonically, or even familially.

The beauty of it is that there is no incorrect interpretation, and every possibility is equally valid. This medium of self insert audio content allows for a collaborative fantasy between creator and listener, and is a strength unto itself.

Q: I need clarity on this specific plot point/lore thing! A: I'm typically happy to answer non-spoilery questions, but also I am actively working on a Wiki that should help folks who need a quick reference for any particular character or story!

Q: Can I make fanart/fanfic/cosplay of your characters? Is it okay if it's NSFW? A: Yes, you can do as you please! I'm a big believer in not having a ton of control and say in what people do with my art once it's in the world. We've reached the point where they're not just my little OCs, but whole ass characters and stories that people engage with, and I believe in letting y'all do what you want without my approval!

Q: How do you feel about generative AI/character AI/etc.? A: I would appreciate all of my works being as far away from AI anything as possible, whether it's visual, audio, or written. This is the one thing where my "it's y'alls business" approach doesn't apply, and I'd appreciate the extra consideration.

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voxisdaddy · 11 months ago

Note

Hello~! I hope you are having a wonderful day and I would like to humbly request a part 2 of the Velvette x reader break up seeing how reader is holding up.

Are they watching Hella Novelas as well? Do they regret the whole thing? I love Velvette and really want to see how this would be affecting both sides

-🎨 anon

Ice Cream

Pt 2

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Pairing: Velvette x Reader

C/TW: cussing

Type: Headcanons + Drabble

In which we see from readers perspective on how they’re dealing with the break up.

Pt.1 Pt.3

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Opening up sinstagram, you scrolled past numerous posts on the discovery page. It seemed every other post was about your relationship with Velvette—hells most prominent fashionista and social media influencer. You huffed upon seeing another video of speculation on the status of your relationship.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ You had deactivated your account long ago, a few hours after getting rid of all the remembrances of your previous relationship with the overlord. The memories were too much, and people speculating all the time was getting unbearable. You knew deactivation of your whole account might’ve been a bit too far, it most certainly had people talking, but you’ve seen this shit happen before;

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ High profile couple break up, people speculate, lots of talk and gossip, even months and years after it’s ended people will still talk, they’ll compare their new partners to their old partners, insist it’s a “right person, wrong time” type bullshit and just ugghhhh

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “Do people have nothing better to do with their lives?” You’d ask yourself, liking a random post using your new account—a new and more anonymous account. You had made sure to keep it as less “HEY IM Y/N” as possible as to avoid any suspicions. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem to any other normal person. Though of course, your previous partner was no normal person and her associates were no normal folk either.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ it made you slightly paranoid at the thought that Vox could be aware of your new account—which was set to private—but considering he’s basically the king of tech, it wouldn’t surprise you that much if he had his ways. But it brought you some peace of mind that he probably doesn’t give a shit so he’d just leave you alone. Unless Velvette made him: then that’s an actual issue.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ You frowned when thinking of Velvette—getting slightly upset with yourself for thinking about her.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ It was hard not too though. You don’t just forget about someone who meant so much to you for so long, so quickly. Sometimes you wondered if you made the right choice. Did you regret it? Hmm…some days you did.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Some days you’d wake up and turn to the side to see a face you grew familiar to seeing every morning—she wouldn’t be there. Oh yeah. Of course she wouldn’t.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Some nights you slept just fine, not missing a familiar presence next to you or wishing she was there at all.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ It was very strange. It’s still strange. It didn’t help that considering she’s fucking Velvette—she’s everywhere. Every app you open; oh Velvette or the Vee’s are top of trending? Shocker! Leave your place for a little while to do some shopping? Oh look on the billboards—it’s fucking Velvette. Dating a celebrity as big of a deal as Velvette you were aware would have some draw backs but at the time you never considered what the end of the relationship would be like. Cuz I mean like, who would think about the ending of a relationship with someone you really liked to even get into said relationship with anyways?

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Somedays you opened your closet and yours eyes would drift to the clothing that Velvette had gifted you. Designed, hand made, complete with a spritz of her signature perfume to mark her scent on it—her own way of claiming you. You quirked an eyebrow at the clothing. It’s been… several weeks. Months maybe? Who knows but…

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “Can’t keep hanging onto this forever…” You mumbled, thumb circling on a corner of a shirt she made you. It be nearly impossible to move on if you kept onto these sorts of things. I mean, you suppose by now she’d probably move on…right? Velvette doesn’t get attached to most things so…she has to be over it now. Right?

The walk to the nearest thrift store was anything but simple.

Meaning you had to take the long and more dangerous way around, through random alleyways and parkouring your way about. Their was VoxTek cameras everywhere in Pentagram city so you tried to avoid those as much as possible since dumping Velvette. Out of… slight fear, if you’re being honest.

No one disrespects and humiliates the Vee’s, evident from the Vox and Alastor fiasco, so you were slightly paranoid what Velvette or her fellow Vee’s would do to you since you are the one who ended things. You’re the one who deleted evidence of your relationship with the overlord on your very public account—which you then deactivated which of course only got people talking even more. Fucking great!

“I’m a real genius getting everyone’s attention on us Vel, whoopy.” You muttered quietly to yourself, dodging a stray bullet in the process.

The thrift store was in sight now, and in a quick jogging distance. You stopped from your corner, looking around for any VoxTek camera. Surely Vox isn’t always watching, right? He’s the ceo of his stupid empire for fucks sake, he should be way too busy to be sitting around looking at a bunch of random ass citizens in Pride. You spotted several cameras, making you tense.

“Just act natural. Don’t fuck up.” You whispered to yourself, completely missing the quirked eyebrows of a couple of sinners next to you that you apparently didn’t notice.

Pacing your steps correctly, you tried to make it seem like you weren’t just obviously trynna avoid said cameras. Just gotta blend in with the crowd.

Unbeknownst to you however, three overlords sat in Vox’s office, all the monitors displaying all the nearby streets to this thrift store.

Vox scrolled on his phone as he sipped his coffee, giving the occasional “uh huh” or “that bitch” whenever he felt necessary as he was forced to listen to Velvette’s rant. He was doing his usual work until Velvette and Valentino walked in, well more so Valentino dragging Velvette in. Apparently Velvette went on another tangent about ex’s and how she’s soooooo over you now. Valentino was too high too care but found it amusing nonetheless so he dragged the young overlord and himself to Vox so Vox could deal with keeping up with her tangent while the pimp just sits there and watches in amusement.

Velvette’s rant comes to a sudden stop when her eyes catches a glimpse of the monitors.

“Vox, teleport me there, now!”

With a quick grin to a staff member, you placed the group of neatly pressed clothes in the big donation bin.

The feelings of parting with the clothes was difficult for you to describe. Peace that you could more easily move on? Anxiousness that you’re letting your past relationship go? Self doubt began to flood your soul again.

In an almost desperate attempt to cling onto something, you took one article of clothing and sniffed it—wait is that her scent? You sniffed it again more confused this time. Wha—but you washed it! You washed all of these before donating them, why is that scent lingering around? Another sniff before you realized it wasn’t the clothing that had the scent.

“You’re kind of a freak for sniffing clothes, you know that?”

You turn on your heal, nearly jumping back in shock at how close the other was to you,

“Velvette.”

I’ve had this in my drafts for so long and I had no idea how to end it I’m so sorry. I really wanted to finish at least one request though bc I have so many that’s just sitting there half done 😭

Thank you for the request! I wasn’t expecting anyone to want a part 2 of sorts but I had fun and I hope it isn’t terrible lol

#hazbin hotel #x reader #velvet x reader #hazbin hotel velvet #hazbin hotel velvette #hazbin velvette #velvette x reader #break up #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel valentino

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jrswritings · 4 months ago

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Tingles and Giggles - Chapter Twenty - Tyler Owens x Reader

Get caught up with the Chapters 1-19 on the Masterlist! :)

Chapter Twenty - Duke

It was a couple of hours after Auntie B had gone to bed when the fire finally died out. You were in the on-suite of the spare bedroom, brushing your hair as Tyler was in the bedroom getting changed into pajamas. You were still unsure how you felt about sharing a bed with Tyler while not even officially dating.

“Hey babe,” Tyler called out.

“Yeah, Ty?” You asked, shutting the door to change into your pajama clothes.

“It can wait,” he sighed, changing into shorts and getting into the bed.

“Oh, okay,” you sighed, sliding on your shorts.

After brushing your teeth you came out while tossing your hair up into a bun to not get strangled by it. Tyler was shirtless and sitting against the headboard with his phone in his hands scrolling some app. You walked over to the empty side of the bed, grabbed your phone charger you tossed on the bed and plugged it in beside the nightstand. Once you plugged your phone in you pulled the covers back and slid yourself under the covers.

“What time did you want to head out in the morning?” He asked quietly.

“Whatever time you think would be best,” you said, opening your phone to see the notifications that could wait until tomorrow.

“How far is it to your parents?” He asked, opening the clock app on his phone to set his alarm.

“About six hours or so from here,” you said, “We’d be there a little before they normally have dinner.”

“So, you want to leave at like ten,” he said, setting an alarm for seven.

“They eat dinner at like four, and usually are in bed by seven,” you said, turning and facing him, “They get up around 3:30 or 4 depending on what chores need to be done.”

“Do we need to help them with any?” He asked, changing the alarm to 6:30.

“Dad will probably just have you help load hay or something,” you said, “They do most of the bigger chores on the weekends.”

“Is your brother still in the area? I’d love to meet him and learn all your dirty secrets,” Tyler said while nudging your arm slightly, “I have to learn how to pick on my girl from the master.”

“Yeah,” you said softly, “He’s still with them.”

“Awesome, I can’t wait to meet him and your folks,” he said, adjusting himself to lay on his back.

“I bet,” you sighed, doing the same and leaning over to shut the night light off.

“Are you okay, babe?” He asked, reaching over and gently putting his hand on your arm.

“I’m just tired, babe,” you whispered, “Let’s just get some sleep.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, laying on his back with his hands under his head, “Goodnight, beautiful.”

“Goodnight, handsome,” you whispered while lying on your side to face away from him.

“If you want to cuddle, I’m more than happy to,” he said softly, “You know if you’re cold or something.”

“If you want to cuddle, then cuddle me,” you said, turning your head to face him.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said as you could hear the smile that was across his lips.

With that, there was a sudden warmth that overtook your whole body, his masculine smell, and the sense of being at home filled your heart. You adjusted how you were lying and he waited for you to get comfortable.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” He asked, his breath hot on your shoulder.

“If I’m not I’ll just scoot away,” you said quietly, “Don’t be so worried.”

“Well, I don’t wanna mess things up,” he sighed, adjusting to get comfy.

“You won’t,” you said, “If anything, I would.”

“Nah, you never could,” he said, kissing the back of your head.

“Just get some sleep, Ty,” you said, pulling the blanket closer to get cozy.

“Best night's sleep, here I come,” he said softly, nuzzling his nose into your hair.

You laughed slightly and had your hand on his arm while you stared into the darkness, trying to sort out all the emotions that were running laps inside you. It had been years since sharing a bed with a guy, the last time was with someone who treated you like garbage.

Within a few minutes, Tyler was lightly snoring and had turned onto his back. You grabbed your phone and checked the few texts you had, one from your mom, one from Willow, and one from Finn.

Your mom sent, ‘Hey, sweetie, do you think you would be able to help your dad and I haul hay from your uncle Oliver’s fields?’

You sent back, ‘I’ll ask if he’ll feel up to it in the morning, I’m up for it though.’

Willow sent, ‘You okay, (Y/n)? We’ve hardly said anything to each other since I left the team.’

You replied, ‘Yeah, just figuring out the whole chasing situation. Going to be at my parent's tomorrow and in that area for a couple of days. The boys and I joined the Tornado Wranglers so I’ve had to get to know Tyler better since he said I’d be their second leader besides him. It’s just been a lot to process since the team fell apart and then being caught in a tornado.’

The message from Finn said, ‘Hey, how long are you going to be gone? I’m worried about you since I’ve hardly seen you.’

You sent back to him, ‘I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen my family so it could be a week. I don’t know. I’ve been through a couple of hard waves with the team, the tornado, and being partnered with Owens. I’ll try and keep you posted more.’

You glanced up at the time at read 1:26 am, at this rate you felt like you weren’t going to sleep. Too many mixed emotions, along with being in the house of someone you just met made you uneasy even if it was Tyler’s aunt. You slowly slid out from the bed, grabbing the sweatshirt again as the night Texas air could get quite chilly.

You slipped on a pair of socks, grabbed your wireless earbuds, and quietly made your way out of the small bedroom to the stairway. You crept down them, taking one step at a time to try and not make them creak. After putting your boots on, you walked out the back door to Cash waking up and growling at you slightly.

“Hey buddy,” you said softly, bending down to rub his head which made him calm down and push into your hand, “I’m going for a walk if anyone asks you.”

He huffed and laid back down, stretching his legs out and laying his head against the bench leg. You smiled slightly and made your way down the steps to head out towards the pasture. You put one earbud in and turned on your liked music on Spotify. Shoving your phone into the hoodie pocket, you looked up at the almost full moon lighting your way.

“Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River,” John Denver sang in your ear, “Life is old there, older than the mountains, blowing like a breeze.”

“Country roads, take me home to the place I belong,” you sang, “West Virginia, mountain mamma, take me home, country roads.”

As you sang, one of Auntie B’s palomino horses walked up to you and nudged your shoulder.

“All my memories gather round her, Miner’s lady, stranger to blue water,” you sang to the horse, rubbing her snout, “Dark and dusty, painted on the sky, misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye.”

The horse neighed at you and pressed his nose to your cheek. This sent chills down your spine as your brother, James, had a palomino horse that did the same thing to you.

“If this is a sign that everything is going to be okay, and that this is the right decision for me, Jamie,” you spoke softly while rubbing the horse's neck, “Please make sure I know it’s you.”

While sitting in silence with the beautiful palomino in front of you, you noticed a rein that was marked with the name ‘Duke’ which happened to be the name of your brother's horse.

“Thanks, big bro,” you said, trying not to cry, “I really needed that.”

You kissed the nose of the horse, giving it a tight hug and it hugged you back by putting his head on your back. This was where the dam gave way, and a steady stream of tears flowed from your eyes. You slowly backed away from Duke and headed back to the bench swing by the fire pit where you would end up falling asleep for the night.

Want more? Here's Chapter Twenty-One!

Taglist: @fanboyswhore9 @faith719 @ummmeg @nerdgirljen @winterassassin1804 @smoothdogsgirl @xbox5angelx @ifilwtmfc

#glen powell #glen powell x reader #twisters #tyler owens #tyler owens x reader #tyler owens x y/n #glen powell x you #twisters x reader #tyler owens fanfiction #tyler owens twisters #twisters fanfic #twisters2024 #tornado wrangler

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yuzukult · 9 months ago

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from home 03 || jjk & reader

title: from home pairing: jungkook x reader genre: richkid!jk, baker!reader, fakedating!au, fluff, angst, e2l, smut in future chapters word count: 8.1k prompt: jungkook is the youngest of five boys, the last in line to truly inherit any his parents’ money. but what if his mom suddenly cuts him off due to his current poor behavior and he’s forced to learn how it feels like to be part of the working class? a/n: .......... LMFAOOOOOOOOO SORRY FOLKS I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE ORIGINAL... anyways hopefully i copied the right chapter hahahhahahah

“You going to the staff dinner tonight?”

Raising a finger at Hoseok, Jungkook slips his phone from his pocket, skimming through the pages before landing on an app, typing a few things in before he looks up with a saddened expression on his face. “... I guess not.”

“Why? What’s wrong? Why can’t you go?” He turns his phone to show the both of you.

JEON JUNGKOOKACCOUNT BALANCE: ₩33,258.75

“Jungkook!” You and Hoseok in unison exclaim in disbelief. “How the fuck do you only have $30 in there?” Jungkook shrugs, slumping his shoulders as he leans against the conveyor belt. “My mom hasn’t given me the modeling money yet. Our accountant is still calculating all of my earnings. You’d think with how much my parents pay him that he’d work a little faster...”

“We just got paid two days ago,” Hoseok points out, completely baffled as to how Jungkook was able to go through that money so quickly. “What did you do?”

Standing in the middle of Jungkook’s apartment, you and Hoseok just heave out a heavy sigh, shaking your heads in disappointment. He has new curtains, one that makes it easier for the sun to shine through in the mornings which has been an incredibly huge mood booster for him. His futons now have pillows and a blanket to claim their own. Then there was the fridge— full of almost every type of frozen meal from the aisles of the grocery store. And the pantry was an entirely different story; stacks of ramen, chips, cookies— they were practically spilling.

“Jungkook, you need to learn how to control your spending.” You say with great dismay, skimming through the labels of all the ramen bowls and packets that pile on top of each other. “If you keep going at this rate, you’re going to be so broke that you’ll be living on our couches on rotation.”

His face brightens. “You’d let me live on your couch if I needed to?”

Ignoring his question blatantly, you start browsing his apartment with Hoseok. His suitcases and boxes remain full of things that he brought back from the estate which has you going through them in pure amusement. “You guys... wanna help me unpack or something?”

“Unpack or something. Either or.” You pull out a velvet royal blue suit from one of the boxes that’s still in its clear plastic jacket for the outer protective layer. “Jungkook, want to give me a reason why you have this?”

“Oh. That’s this year’s Hugo Boss. Haven’t worn it yet, I needed to get it fitted.”

Your nostrils flare at the words. “... OK, so why do you still have it? You’re a lower middle class guy living in a studio apartment that’s still probably being paid by his parents who have a butt load of money so they honestly don’t even know they’re still putting money into this. Why they hell would you have a suit that’s...” flipping the label around, your jaw nearly pops off when it drops to the floor, “₩665,175,000.00? Jungkook, what the flying fuck—”

“What?” Hoseok drops the bag of chips he’s in the midst of opening from his hands. Despite also coming from money, he was never that rich in comparison to Jungkook. “Yeah, Hobi, you heard that right. $600,000.00 buckaroos. That’s the cost of a house right there.”

“The Jeon estate is actually—“ You place your index finger against Jungkook’s lips to hush him. “Don’t even. You need to sell this suit.”

“Sell—“ Breathless, Jungkook looks like he’s going to pass out. “I can’t sell a limited edition suit. It was hard to even get it in the first place! What makes you think I’m going to sell it?”

“Because you have 30 bucks to your name.” You respond bluntly before picking up another suit that he has lying underneath the first. “Or sell this one.”

“Not the 2021 Vintage Gucci Men’s Suit!”

“How— One, how can something be vintage if it’s in 2021? And it’s not even 2021 yet?”

The sun begins to set; the rays peering through the curtains gradually dissipates, leaving the three of you sprawled across Jungkook’s new apartment with clothes splattered on every possible surface in the poorly lit room. He still lacked another lamp, but the one his mother left was going to have to do. The staff dinner plans are cancelled, mostly because reorganizing Jungkook’s belongings has been an unanticipatedly gratifying yet a fraught chore that took up more time than predicted. Jungkook was hoping to attend the dinner, but after seeing how much effort you and Hoseok put in trying to make his living space a bit more comfortable, the hope for going to the event has been pushed to the back of his mind.

“Do you guys want to order take-out?” Jungkook suggests, and both you and Hoseok nod while sharing each halves of the futon. “But we’ll pay since you barely have any money. You can get us next time.”

Next time, which means that you guys want to hang out with Jungkook again.

To him, this is a huge step in the friendship direction. Throughout the entirety of his life, having friends had never really been a thing. Sure, he had play-dates per request from his mother, but those kids were fans of the stuff he owned, they didn’t even like him for him. It had become a recurrence up until high school, where the replacement for the need for friendship had been occupied with flings with women instead. People hung around him for the image, but he never felt a connection with anyone.

That was, until he met you and Hoseok.

Although he’d known Hoseok from showing up at the same parties, he never actually got to talk to him on this level until he visited the supermarket that fateful day. He was always the fun guy at parties; attention constantly gravitating toward him, whether he liked it or not, and he came from money as well, so Jungkook wasn’t sure if those people were surrounding him because of it. Sure, Hoseok’s parents weren’t as rich as Jungkook’s, but they were pretty high up there and could afford almost anything they desired.

Yet, he preferred this sight of Hoseok. Baggy hoodie and jeans, skin greasy from spending the day at work then coming to Jungkook’s apartment to unpack. He’s nagging at you for taking up too much space, covering the surface area that Hoseok had claimed to be his under an unspoken contract as you frown when he slaps your leg.

He likes this. There’s no gowns and tuxes in a ballroom with hors d'oeuvres worth the price of a car per bite; there’s no young people at a party, getting wasted and high, fucking in bedrooms that they weren’t sure who it belonged to; there wasn’t a dining room full of both family and strangers that attempted to start small talk about things he didn’t care about— there was none of that. Just comfort from people he genuinely wanted to impress and make proud of him. He’s not sure if he’s ever felt this way before and he’s barely even known either of you that long. Jungkook has been spending most of his life trying to fill a void in him and has been unsuccessful. He’s finally feeling like he’s going somewhere.

You and Hoseok finally agree on what to eat and he learns that it’s your favorite. Pizza. Extra cheese, pepperoni, sausage, spinach with an ungodly amount of jalapeño peppers, Hoseok mentioned earlier that night that your tolerance for spicy foods is stronger than the pits of hell.

“Jesus, how are you eating this?” Jungkook cries, snot dripping from his nose while Hoseok wipes his tears after taking another bite. You sit there, unfazed, picking up the abandoned slices of peppers that sit in the box, dropping them into your mouth. “It’s honestly not that spicy. Don’t be dramatic.”

“Bitch, we are not being dramatic, your stomach is made out of whatever Captain America’s shield is made from...”

Jungkook’s phone buzzes in the midst of your argument with Hoseok and just from the name on his lock screen, his heart drops. Jeon Junghwan.

There were a couple things in life that Jungkook wanted to attain— the acceptance from Junghwan and his parents being on top of that list. Ever since Jungkook was younger, Junghwan had been the golden child, the rest of the four were just barely making it, arduously following in his footsteps. But he failed, he hasn’t been able to win the approval from him.

Jeon Junghwan [7:55PM]: Mother is having a charity banquet on Saturday. She would have called you but figured it’d be best if I contacted you instead. Something about ‘inspiration’. Please be at the estate at 7:00PM sharp.

Jeon Junghwan [7:55PM]: Goodnight, Junghwan.

“Why does he text like an old man?” Jungkook flinches, head turning sideways to meet with Hoseok hovering over his shoulder. “Junghwan, I mean. But cool, I was supposed to go to that banquet too, until I got called on a shift. Luckily you’re not scheduled.”

“Yeah...” He says quietly, seated on the floor as he leans back against the sides of the futon. “This is the first time I’m seeing my family after moving out. I need to plan this out right.”

“Well, what’s the plan?” Cheeks full of fries, you’re munching away on the other side of Jungkook as he contemplates the next steps he’s going to have to make in order to reach his goal. “One thing is for sure. You’re going to be my date.”

The breath has been stolen away from his lungs and his heart feels like you’ve pierced through his chest cavity and squashed it into the palm of your hands. He doesn’t know what it’s called (maybe a blowout) but the way your hair cascades down to your shoulders is marveling. In a black long dress with a slit that exposes the entirety of your legs, his breath hitches when his eyes meet the skin of your thighs, the spaghetti straps drape over your décolletage with the v-cut neckline only finishing it off right. He thinks this is his fatal moment. He’s never seen you dolled up like this before; cheeks brushed with a peach blush, lashes emphasized with mascara, liner that makes you look even more fierce, and lips... so buttery pink and plump that almost wishes he could—

“Jungkook?” He shivers, immediately pushing the thoughts out of his head. You’d probably stab him in mere seconds if you knew what he was thinking about. “H-Hey. You look good.”

You grin, adjusting the fabric that hangs around your legs. “Thanks, you don’t look so bad yourself. Anyways, let’s get going. You said your brother sent a car for us?”

Even though Jungkook is a model and has posed in magazines in suits, it’s still a surprise to see how stunning he manages to look in person. He keeps his hair casual today, despite the formal attire, but when his fingertips rake through those luscious locks, it makes sense why he went with that decision. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t believe that this hunk was living off of frozen meals and instant ramen for the past week.

He’s pretty, yet there’s something that you can’t help but loathe about him.

Jungkook is still from money, despite the amount of times you’ve seen him in the supermarket’s uniform and apron. It’s something you’ve been trying to force yourself to remember when you feel yourself slowly falling into the traps of his smile and looks. The reminder is there when a Mercedes Benz S-Class pulls up and Jungkook isn’t as astonished as you are. The window of the driver’s side rolls down, revealing a middle-aged man who wears a chauffeur’s hat and a grin upon his lips. “Jeon Jungkook, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Hyungjin,” He dips his head in acknowledgement before saying your name, “... this is my date. This guy has been my driver since I was born. Park Hyungjin. He’s going to be taking us to the estate tonight.”

Jungkook opens the back door for you as you slide in with ease, completely in veneration at the characteristics of the vehicle. It feels luxurious, from the leather seats to the center console, and when you see Hyungjin beginning to raise the customized partition between the front and back seats, you’re shocked it can even do that until Jungkook halts him from doing so. “Uh, sorry, Hyungjin, she’s not one of those nights.”

Oh, you think to yourself, this was a routine. His preceding lifestyle is starting to unfold before you.

Arriving at the ‘estate,’ which was something you’d had been stuck with trying to adjust yourself in calling Jungkook’s family home, it’s an unreservedly different part of the home compared to your first visit however a sudden coldness hits your core from incredulity. How could anyone need a home this big? Jungkook guides you out of the car before you could even register the visuals of the home, waving Hyungjin goodbye and brisk “thank you.”

“Hold my hand.” His fingertips brush against the back of your hand discreetly, and as a reflex, you slap him away while he whimpers in pain. “What the hell was that for?”

“Sorry. Habit.” When you try to reach for him again, he opts for resting his palm on your lower back instead, keeping you close. “It’s okay. Is this alright?” You nod. “This is better anyway. We look close yet at the same time professional.”

When you step into the ballroom, you quickly learn that your previous time at the Jeon estate had only been a glimpse of what Jungkook’s sumptuous home had to offer. There’s something of a mezzanine or indoor balcony of some sorts with staircases that branch around the perimeter where a couple people stand idly. The chandelier that you saw in the dining room before was no comparison to what was currently hanging from the ceiling right now— there’s diamonds that hang like raindrops, intricately scattered with clear clarity that only the rich could identify and have the opportunity to see in person. The guests are dressed like those diamonds— sparkles and jewels of women that bathed in the crystals, accompanied by men who simply wore tuxedos and suits.

But the real stars of the show were the Jeons. With Mrs. Jeon’s hair in an updo, it accentuates her collarbones and shoulders where her dress lies; a beautiful detailed lavender gown that you can already sense the weight of when she drags it behind her. You see where Jungkook gets his genes from.

The filler music from the orchestra that plays in the corner stops, the chattering along with it as they all divert their attention to the Jeons that stand by the railings of the balcony— the four boys and their dates. All that’s missing is Jungkook who stands beside you, hand graduating from your lower back to your waist.

“Hello, everyone,” Mrs. Jeon greets, a pearly white smile upon her lips. “I am so thankful for your attendance here. As you know, tonight is dedicated toward the Cancer Research Foundation of Seoul, known as the CRFS, and I will be the host tonight but the true genius behind this all is my son, Jeon Jungsik.”

Jungsik approaches his mother from the side, dressed just as well as the rest of his siblings, shaking his head in disapproval. “Mother, I couldn’t have done this without you,” He says humbly, eyes browsing the crowd but pauses when he sees Jungkook with you by his side. There’s something hidden behind his stare, Jungkook hypothesizes, because his modest brother suddenly wants the spotlight whereas previously, he’d be standing in the audience. He can’t tell if it’s because it’s the first family event where he’s sober or if truly there’s something about Jungsik that’s different. “But tonight is a different kind of night. We’re here today not to just donate what we can to a good cause, but celebrating as well. I’m announcing my engagement with Kim Nari.”

An abrupt realization washes over Jungkook.

Kim Nari. The daughter of a tech mogul whose relationship with Jungsik would further advance the Jeon Corporation and skyrocket their profits. Her marriage with Jungsik would link the two companies together, creating possibilities for what seemed to be impossible. Which brings to question, why would Jungsik be interested in Nari? She’s a reflection in the mirror of Jungkook himself— uncontrollable, spoiled, and dependent with no future planned. Why would Jungsik, someone with passions, dreams, and stability want to be with someone like that? Something was up, and Jungkook can taste the bitterness in his mouth.

“Penny for your thoughts?” You ask, but you genuinely don’t care. Anything would be better than listening to conversations that were beginning to start up again at the hasty announcement. Nari has one of her hands sitting upon the rail, waving as if she’s the Queen of England, with a dress that may be deemed inappropriate for a setting like this. It seems that the rest of the family is hearing the engagement for the first time though because Mrs. Jeon looks like she’s going to faint and Mr. Jeon is holding in his anger rather than noticing Nari’s attire.

“Nothing, just... something weird with my brother.” He says before turning to give you his attention again. “Anyway, should I introduce you to my horrific bloodline?”

When Jungkook guides you toward his family members that have begun trickling down the staircase, you’re appearing to have heart palpitations from the suspense. The way the Jeons walk is intimidating alone; shoulders pushed back, straightened posture, and smiles that resemble authenticity on the surface but daggers will be pulled at their disposal if anything goes haywire.

“Mother, Father, this is my girlfriend...” You altogether miss when Jungkook says your name from the sight of his family up close until he squeezes your waist gingerly to capture your awareness again. “Oh, yes, hi,” You bow speedily, “I’m uh, Jungkook’s girlfriend.” Wait. Didn’t he just say that?

“Are you now? Last time we spoke, you said you weren’t,” Mrs. Jeon comments, and albeit her words sound harsh, the draw of her lips upwards say otherwise. It feels a bit forced, but you know it’s from the sudden news coming from Jungsik. There’s a façade of happiness when deep down, she’s disappointed. “We... we met after that night and he treated me to dinner for taking care of him. We’ve been... seeing each other ever since.”

Mr. Jeon stands there in silence, observing the conversation between you and his wife before unexpectedly speaking up. “Did you attend University? And have you graduated yet?”

Jungkook knows what this is. The Interrogation. Every Jeon child’s significant other has gone through this and you were next. He had completely forgotten about it— mostly because his other brothers had gone through it years ago, and Jongseok’s ‘girlfriends’ had never really been girlfriends, so their dad had given up on that until someone serious came by.

He never thought it’d be him before Jongseok.

“Yes, back in 2016.” You state, fingers fidgeting with the metal chain of your purse. It was a simple question yet the way it’s executed is as if he’s searching for a particular answer.

The older gentleman tilts his head, the space between his brows crinkling in perplexity. He looks so much like Jungkook, except matured with wisdom, and if Jungkook was of any replication of his father when he’s that age, he’d probably still have a line of women after him. “So you’re older than Jungkook.”

“No, father,” Jungkook chimes in, “... Quite the opposite. She’s actually a year younger than me. Graduated University rather early. Or... well, she finished high school early.” He can see from his peripheral vision that he has captured the ears of his other siblings that stand languidly. “Gifted, really. Child prodigy. Despite all the talented Jeon children, we’ve never had one of those.”

There’s a glimmer in his father’s eyes. He’s impressed. “Really?” His stiff tone has shifted to a lighter one. “Did you study in Seoul? What was your degree in?”

“No, uh, I actually studied abroad in New York after graduating high school. I was about... maybe fifteen at the time? I chose Food Science— I thought about being a Chef because my inspiration is Guy Fieri but someone told me to be a bit more realistic with my brain so here we are.”

Guy Fieri? Jungkook stifles a laugh at your secretive role model, rubbing your sides comfortingly. It’s something to tease you about later, but right now, you have a job to do. Swoon his father.

Mr. Jeon nods, hands slipping into the front pockets of his slacks. “Remarkable. We could use someone like you in the Jeon Corporation.”

Both you and Jungkook choke, clearing your throats at the sudden suggestion, glancing at one another. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m thinking about opening a chain of restaurants, something high end, something different.” Jungkook’s brothers are stepping in closer to listen shamelessly to the conversation, the look of disarray stamped onto each one of their faces as if it’s the first time they’re hearing this information, for the second time tonight. “I would love it if you gave me your take on how to proceed on some things, and help the chef formulate something that makes sense without him cheating me out on prices. Jungkook, tell Maeri to schedule something for us so I can discuss further details.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” You blurt, palms growing sweaty. “But you just met me, and Jungkook and I just started dating. Are you sure you trust me?” It’s another experience of déjà vu; Jungkook mirroring his father’s actions at the yacht party when he claims that he’d pay for your aspirations.

“Of course. Jeon Jungkook doesn’t have girlfriends.”

Just then, someone taps his shoulder and whispers something ineligible into his ear before he turns to you with his hand extended, and you take the offer with a firm shake. “I’m needed elsewhere. It was nice meeting you. Glad to know Jungkook chose someone fitting.” And with that, he leaves.

“Well, that was pleasant,” Mrs. Jeon comments, hand resting on Jungkook’s shoulder. “Seems that sending you off to live alone has brought nothing but good impressions on your father. Keep it up, Kook-ah. I’m going to go accompany him, so in the meanwhile, introduce her to your brothers, why don’t you?”

Turning your body to face Jungkook, you let out the hugest breath you’ve ever held in your entire life. “What was that?”

He looks equally as stunned as you. “I don’t know but that went so much better than I actually thought. I think that was the fastest he’s ever been fascinated by any of our girlfriends.”

Jungkook’s father had strict outlooks for the company, one of them being that he wanted nothing but pure Jeon blood leading the corporation. This meant that the significant others of any of his children weren’t allowed to be part of the trade. So why did he ask you particularly for a hand in the family business?

“Jungkook,” One of his brothers calls out, your heads sharply jolting at the sound of his voice.

Have you ever watched Boys Over Flowers? When the Flower 4 walk through any entrance, it’s like time slows down and their hair flows through the wind like they’re models?

That’s what pretty much happens.

“Hyungs.” He says; it’s their own version of a hello and the atmosphere between them is tense. “It’s nice to see you sober, Jungkook.”

His jaw tightens. “I wasn’t an addict, just you so know. Made it easier being around you all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” The one you assume is Jongseok from your previous google search waves his hand, disregarding Jungkook’s statement before pointing his finger directly at you. If only you could bite it off along with his rude mannerisms. “Girl toy?”

“Girlfriend,” Jungkook corrects him and his other brothers are intrigued. “This is my girlfriend,...” As he says your name, your eyes immediately are drawn to the woman behind one of the males; shiny caramel colored hair with the simplest white dress that hugs her small waist that still manages to make her look like a goddess with a smile that was so sweet your teeth start to hurt. You recall catching a sight of her in the same magazines that Jungkook featured in and on the posters at the mall whenever you’d walk into a store but how she looked in person was flawless compared to those photos. She was like the real life version of a photoshopped picture.

“This is Hayoung, my brother Junghwan’s wife.”

“Uh, H-H-Hi,” why does she make you so nervous? Do you get anxious around extremely beautiful women? “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” She hums, cheekbones high with her grin. “Kookie never mentioned he had a girlfriend, let alone brought anyone to meet his family before.”

“Kookie?” You reiterate with a mocking tone. He knows you’ll never let him live this down. Least he still had the Guy Fieri thing up his sleeve. “Noona, it would’ve been nice to keep that away from her for a bit. I’m trying to ease her into this madness. She’s probably still recovering from that conversation with our father.”

“As if!” Hayoung counters back. Her husband, Junghwan, wraps an arm around her waist before dipping his head slightly toward you. “I’m Junghwan, Jungkook’s older brother.” He then begins to point at the other gentlemen. “Jonghyun, Jungsik, and Jongseok, respectively.”

Frankly, it had been a lot to unpack for the night, and you assumed that the boxes back at his apartment were a lot, but this was truly a lot. Within an hour, Jungkook introduces you to almost anyone that plays a significant role in his life and elaborates on each of their backgrounds.

Junghwan, his eldest brother, is married to the international supermodel Na Hayoung, and he’s the next in line to inherit the CEO position when his father steps down from the company. He’s been trained all his life for this role, apparently, and it’s evident in how he carries himself. Jonghyun, the second oldest, stands behind Junghwan in the company, supposedly his right hand man when it comes to business, joined at the hip although their personal relationship with each other isn’t as close. He’s also married, Jungkook mentions, but his wife is currently very pregnant and at home. He skips over Jungsik, only because you’ve met him over dinner, but he doesn’t miss a beat when he says that Jungsik is purportedly the angelic Jeon. Lastly was Jongseok, the last sibling before himself, and was described as something along the lines of, “the most useless, right after myself, and if it weren’t for his involvement with the marketing department because of his diploma, he’d be living in a studio apartment downtown, cut off from this family too.” Jungkook’s words, not yours.

The night slowly reaches an end, people scattering to leave the estate, thanking Jungkook’s parents for hosting such a charitable event. Just before you’re about to step out along with Jungkook, his mother had her fingers wrapped around your wrist. “Jungkook, you and your lovely girlfriend should stay the night. Downtown is far and your siblings will be here as well. Maybe you can show her to your bedroom? I know you’ve been missing your bed and well... maybe show her around your childhood home.” She pauses for a moment as Jungkook hesitates as you eye him suspiciously before interrupting his thoughts. “Your father wants to speak to you and your brothers in the morning anyways, so it would be nice for you to stay for breakfast, dear.”

“Are you fucking dense, Jeon Jungkook? I do not want to stay the night here.” Contradicting your angry words, you’re already unlatching the attachment on the straps of your heels, sliding them off while seated on the bay window seats of his bedroom, rubbing the soles of your feet. “I’m sorry,” He mutters weakly, falling on the foot of his bed. “I don’t know how to say no to my mother.”

“Well, quit being a fucking momma’s boy and call an Uber. I want to go home, Jungkook.”

“Uber’s don’t run this late at night in the area. We live too far off the grid.”

“Well, then ask Mr. Hyungjin to pull up in his whip and take us home.”

His face drops, a guilty look pooling in his orbs. “We sent him home. He’s technically off on the weekends. Hyungjin only came out because Junghwan asked for him beforehand.”

You grumble, laying back on the cushions, locks tangling along with your mood. “What are we supposed to do here? Share a bed? What am I supposed to wear to sleep? Did you already ask your housemaids?”

“No,” He answers bleakly, standing up. “But I’ll go ask now. In the meantime, you can watch some TV? Then when I come back you can shower and do whatever you need. I think I have a spare toothbrush for you to borrow. As for the bed thing...” Jungkook looks over at that California King that he misses so much. “... it’s more than big enough for the two of us, I’ll keep my distance from you without a problem.”

Before you can counter the suggestion, he’s already out the door.

Perusing through his bedroom, you soon learn that this ‘room’ of his is the size of your childhood bedroom times five with a closet the size of your apartment with a connecting bathroom that was equivalent in surface area.

Then it has you thinking. Jungkook grew up like this, in a life of grandeur where everything he had, he had a plethora of. Whether it be education, belongings, or the aid of people who tended to every need he had, it never seems to run out. He had a driver since he was born while you struggled to learn how to take the bus alone at the age of 7. Or running out of money to pay for a new notebook for class since you’ve been using the same one for the past two grades in order to save cash so your parents could put food on the table. While Jungkook over here was probably tearing down trees in his yard to make all the paper in the world. What about noticing that you were ahead of the kids in your class? No one seemed to have realized it until you said to someone that you were bored, and needed more challenging material when you got sent to the Principal’s office per request, begging to be with the bigger kids.

If you had the money Jungkook had, you would’ve been able to pay off both yours and your parents’ debt in addition to opening your bakery all within the same year.

But you aren’t Jungkook, and jealousy just runs through your veins alongside the enmity.

Entering through the housemaids’ chambers was a nostalgic feeling that he couldn’t exactly say was his favorite. Sneaking down here during the late hours of the night for quick sex and running back up to his bedroom felt like such a teenager thing to do at the age of twenty, so he instantaneously gave up on that.

There’s two wooden doors to choose from. Nayeon, the house servant he slept with several times before realizing that she had falling for him while thinking it was some forbidden love, and Hana... also a servant that he had sex with until she also fell in love with him.

So which one of them would be less upset about him asking to borrow their sleepwear for his new girlfriend?

Answer to that question: neither because they both slammed their doors on him after asking. He should’ve figured that sooner.

Next stop: Junghwan’s room. Maybe Hayoung had something for you.

He hesitates when he’s standing outside of his brother’s bedroom door. It takes him back to when he was a kid all over again, desperate for his big brother’s attention who didn’t even have enough time to dedicate to him. Taking in a deep breath of courage, he does it yet again, his knuckles tapping against the wood that makes the same knocking sound.

Peeking out, Junghwan looks at Jungkook with a perplexed expression. “Jungkook, what’s up? Are you alright?”

“Uh, yeah. Is noona with you?” He nods. “Yeah, of course. She’s washing her face right now, wanna come in?” Jungkook steps into the room, ambivalent with each movement because he’s never been invited into Junghwan’s room before. It’s almost exactly what his room looks like, except all the shades are dark, varying from grey to navy, with his bed, closet, and bathrooms in the same locations.

“Hayoung, Jungkook is looking for you.”

“Kookie?” Coming out the bathroom with a robe on, her hair is drenched as she attempts to towel dry it, face pretty even without makeup. “What’s up, bub?”

“Uh, my girlfriend,” He starts, rubbing the back of his nape anxiously because he’s never said those words before, “She doesn’t have anything to wear tonight. I have some clothes, but I think she’d feel more comfortable if she at least has some pants.”

“Tell her to sleep in her underwear, what’s the problem?” Because she’s not really my girlfriend, is what he wants to say, but he takes a different approach. “We’re... still in the early stages. So, uh, you know. She’s shy.” She shakes her head with a smile upon her lips. “Okay. Give me a second. I have a bunch of clothes that I left when we used to live here.” With that, she disappears into the closet.

“I’m... proud of you, Jungkook.” Junghwan speaks up, protruding through the silence. Jungkook just stares in bewilderment, unsure what he even did to make Junghwan say those words he had dreamt to hear coming from his eldest brother. “Other than landing a girlfriend who is definitely way out of your league, you’re actually showing some progress living alone. I honestly didn’t really agree with the plan that Jongseok proposed but... I see it’s working well.”

“W-What do you mean?” Jungkook questions. He still can’t believe what he’s hearing.

Junghwan hums. “You were able to find a job yourself. I haven’t seen you coming back begging for money again, and you found someone who doesn’t have the facilities to give you the lifestyle that our parents gave us. You found love without money and I think it really makes a person humble.” He’s fiddling with the strings of his sweatpants now, comprehending that the two of them don’t really talk one-on-one. “I know I changed a lot when I met Hayoung.”

“Kookie, I think I have a couple options for you— whoa, why does it feel so sad here?” She remarks, stopping in the midst of her walk toward Jungkook. “You guys... alright?”

“Nothing,” Junghwan responds quickly. “I just wanted to tell Jungkook that I’m proud of him.” This does nothing but prompt Hayoung to roll her eyes, laying out a pair of shorts and a silky baby blue nightgown. “Junghwan is always proud of Kookie, just not always the decision he makes. Anyways,” She completely brushes off the topic that Jungkook wants to hear, but he’ll circle back to that later. He had a pretty girl waiting in his room who had the temper of the Hulk. “I have two options for you to give her. Maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll wear the night gown?”

Jungkook scoffs. “If I brought that to her, she’d probably wrap it around my neck and choke me within seconds. Keep the gown, I’m taking the shorts. I’ll let her wear one of my T-shirts.”

“Are you sure?” Hayoung sings and Jungkook tells her he’s almost confident that he’s going to die tonight if he so much reaches the door with that thing in his hands.

Jungkook chucks the shorts at your face while you’re laying on your back on his mattress. “Here you go, Mrs. Fieri. The girls wouldn’t lend me anything because well... I may have slept with them both and they were hopelessly in love with me. Hayoung noona gave me those shorts instead.” He’s babbling on about how rude the housemaids had been when he asked, but you’re canceling his voice out because the coolest chick you’ve ever met just lent you her shorts.

“... Are you even listening to me?”

“Huh?”

He snaps his fingers in front of your face but registers that it’s no use. You’re too busy trying to decipher how God decided to gift Hayoung the looks and the personality that you miss when Jungkook leaves the closet, throwing a plain white t-shirt at your direction. It’s huge compared to you, yet seems like it would fit him well. “Go shower. I’ll be in there after you.”

It’s awkward.

So goddamn awkward.

Jungkook is wearing a black T-shirt of some band you can’t recognize because the majority of the print has been worn off paired with grey sweatpants that hug his ass so beautifully. Scratch that. You never thought that. They look soft. That’s what you meant.

While you’re currently occupied with attempting to avoid looking at Jungkook, he can’t stop staring at your exposed legs and notice how small and cute you are. Soft. It’s tempting him to want to wrap his arms around your frame and snuggle his nose into the crook of your neck while inhaling the scent of his body wash on your skin. He wants to blame it on the dry spell he’s having because all he does is work nowadays that once he gets home, he’s completely drained. Alcohol doesn’t even appear in his mind either. Or maybe he genuinely thinks you’re pretty and having you in his bed doesn’t make it any better.

Sitting on the farthest opposite ends of the bed, Jungkook clears his throat. “See? I told you that the bed is way too big for the two of us. Should be easy to steer clear from each other.”

Wrong. Incorrect. You should’ve known that Jungkook would be fallacious.

The sun gleams through the sheer white blinds of his prodigious windows, illuminating your faces on an unironically Sunday morning, emitting a groan from a stiff beside you. Your body feels heavier than usual, almost like something was pressing down on you.

You panic. Were you having a stroke?

After forcing your eyes open from the dry boogers, you can’t believe the sight. Jungkook has his arms and legs tangled in the sheets with yours, nose brushing against your shoulder. He’s so cosy, the most he’s ever been, and the warmth from your body is like a different feeling of home for him. It’s comforting like a cup of hot chocolate during the harsh weather in the Winter or swaddling yourself in a blanket in front of the fireplace. Now knowing how it feels to be in your embrace, he’s not sure if he wants to let go.

“Jungkook, please get the fuck off me.” You bite. Cuddling was not what was discussed in the terms of agreement. Not that there was one but having a buff guy curled up beside you that wasn’t actually dating you was making your heart do cartwheels when it shouldn’t be. He doesn’t seem a bit rattled knowing that he’s snuggling up against you because he scoots even closer. “Five more minutes.” He mutters. His dreams of taking in the aroma of your natural scent mixed in with his shower gel were coming true.

You push him off with as much strength as your body could gather, yet you fail underneath those muscular arms. Those big, thick—

There’s one knock and someone just immediately flings the door open with a gasp.

But then you see them. Jungsik and Jongseok.

You don’t know why but you care about how Jungsik sees you, but you care. He’s the closest to your ideal type— as unrealistic as it is for him to ever have a relationship with you, especially since he has a fiancé now— yet at the same time, he knows you’re ‘dating’ Jungkook, and whether or not he believes it, you’re not sure, but your chances were already wearing thin as it is, even worse now that he’s witnessing you in the same bed as his youngest brother. You may have a teensy weensy little crush on your fake boyfriend’s brother.

“Cute,” He chuckles, already dressed in his daily attire; grey slacks that crop at the ankle and a navy dress shirt that doesn’t button up all the way, hugging tightly around his pecs that doesn’t leave much to the imagination. “Well, we’re sorry for intruding. Father wants us down for breakfast within an hour. Wake up your boyfriend for us, will you?”

“I’m not sorry,” Jongseok adds with a devilish grin before he quickly shuts the door and leaves promptly with Jungsik. Jungkook hasn’t even moved, not even twitching the slightest bit despite his brothers’ abrupt invasion.

You officially hate Jungkook even more... if that was even possible.

There's an abundance of choices for breakfast foods that sits on the length of the dining room table that you had gotten a glimpse of during your first visit to the Jeon estate, more food than you've ever seen in one place. They had waffles, pancakes, sausages, bacon, toast—all that’s expected of a typical American breakfast laid out like it’s a picture from the Food Network Magazine. He has servants, shuffling through in and out of the room, placing plates and utensils in specific detailed orders before they pull out the heavy upholstered wooden chairs for each and every member of the family in invitation.

"Uh, it's okay, thank you, I got it—" The woman who has her hands gripped on the framing of the seat tightly as she clenches her jaw, has a glare shooting lasers in your direction. Maybe you'd just take the offer and sit instead. She might be one of Jungkook's late night affairs, you never know what she'd do to your food if you didn't comply.

Sticking out like a sore thumb, you settle yourself by your now claimed to-be-boyfriend who sits comfortably in his own seat since he's owned it for two decades now. You, however, it's your first day and you're not even sure how to feel. Hayoung seems to be doing the opposite; eyes shiny from excitement at the sight of all the options that are laid out in front of her. You can agree to her interest, the Belgium waffles that's stacked at the center of the table with a square of butter residing on top makes your mouth water.

"Thank you all for coming," Jungkook's father announces, the chair he's rested on makes him look so tiny at the head of the table. "I want to discuss some matters with all of you and also invite Jungkook's new love into the family. Honestly never thought this day would come where I'd see my most troublesome child make such advancements in a short span of time."

There's reticence along the table, Mrs. Jeon beside him, eyes searching the table for something in particular. "The proceedings with this engagement with Kim Nari, Jungsik. What did you expect would happen with that?"

And there it was. The conversation that had been put off last night due to guests being on the residence. It's because of two of the things that Mr. Jeon stood by when it came to his family and business: no bloodline, no business entrance had been challenged and the Interrogation had never been in place.

"Father," Jungsik clears his throat, pressing his back against the cushion. "I'll have you know that I'm only thinking of the future of our company."

"Without talking to me about it?" He snaps, agitated. He doesn't even care that a complete stranger is sitting at the table with them. "What gives you the right to be the only person to know what's good or not for the company? Why not consult with Jonghyun and Junghwan? Why am I told that no one knew about this?"

"Well, I thought—"

"You thought wrong." He confirms, and the Belgium waffles don't seem as appealing anymore. His firmness makes your stomach queasy, despite not being his current victim. "Terminate your engagement. You don't love her anyways. I don't need any affiliation with a self-obsessed tech company."

"But father—"

"None of that." He shushes his son, laying a beige cloth napkin on his lap. "I'm tired of having to teach you how we run this business. I gave you a percentage of the company and I expect you to know what to do with it, which is not to share it with some airhead who doesn't even understand what her own father's company does." Jungsik's body stiffened at his father's lecture after he made a decision solely for what he believed was beneficial for the family business. "Anyways, let's eat."

"Why do you favor Junghwan over the rest of us?" Jungsik spits, fist slamming against the table. The cups, silverware, and plates trembled underneath his strength, startling you. "I can't believe that I let you walk over us for so long. I can't believe that any of us has let you do it. In reality, none of us get your fortune, just Junghwan. What about the rest of your children? Do you have the only one? Or did mother have an affair for the remaining four?"

Yum, drama. You admit you were getting a little bored last night at the banquet, but his conversation was perking you up in interest. Jungkook oddly remains cool, turning to tap one of the housemaids to pour you some apple juice, patiently waiting for the go to eat.

Jungsik is disparate in this light because he's not the compassionate and gentle soul you had assumed he was during your first encounters and what was seen on the internet. He’s fierce and competitive, in actuality, with this hidden duel behind doors against his eldest brother. The description written of him was all an image that was portrayed to the public and you start to see what Jungkook means now when he says "apparently" or "supposedly" whenever talking about his older brother.

And Jungkook... he's strangely distinctive as well when sitting amongst his siblings. He's quiet, actually, and attentive, but you take note that he mentions before how he often comes to these things under the influence, and that your presence was what halts him from doing so.

"Just eat. We'll talk privately later." Mr. Jeon says through his gritted teeth, tips of his ears fading red from Jungsik talking back.

"I saw you eying that waffle earlier," Jungkook says in a hushed tone, leaning into you. "Want one? I'll grab it for you."

OK, maybe he wasn't that bad. He knows what you like and he’s getting it for you. You’ve waited long enough.

The Jeons are awfully good at pretending the argument between Mr. Jeon and Jungsik didn't occur. Everyone sits in lull, occasionally exchanging comments with whomever sits beside them but consuming their breakfast with glee. It wasn't something you were used to.

When you're back into Jungkook's room, you slip on a jacket that you brought the night before, zipping it up. "Is that... normal?"

"What's normal?"

"That whole thing with Jungsik and your dad. Do they fight often? And do you guys normally just... sit there and forget it even happens afterwards?"

He slides onto the bed one last time, inhaling deeply in the scent of lavender, wishing he could take this bed with him as he absentmindedly responds, "Mmm. Yeah."

What kind of family dynamic is this? "Yeah? And you just... watch?"

"Well, what else are we supposed to do? Join in? Take sides? Hell no. It's a different sibling each meal and every time there’s always someone being jealous of someone else. We don’t really get along here and it’s just what we’re used to.”

Treading into Jungkook’s reality was starting to become comprehensible. Almost justifying the way he is, how he’s utterly clueless in basic situations and disconnected he was from the world. Because this is his world; his parents, four brothers, and house full of servants, and he knows nothing outside of it. Their home is completely off the grid, separated from people living regular lives, he even has his own tennis court (you learned from the view from his bedroom), and no one normal has their own private tennis court. His mother has been shielding him his entire life, letting him grow and become a shell of a man in an empty home.

Family isn’t family to him, is what you’ve come to terms with and something he hasn’t yet accepted because he hasn’t seen what a real family looks or feels like. His home isn’t a real home but brimming with employees who work for his family that probably see him more than the people who he called relatives.

It makes you pity him and want to show him what it’s like to be home.

#jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #bts #bts fanfic

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