#what else can i tag to get it across this is satirical

[im-trash-lol]

If vapes are so bad for you how come when I'm bawling my eyes out over a boy, considering reducing my life sentence of living, i take a pull and 30 seconds later its like I was never even crying B)

[chloeangelic]

the paper salesman

Brother's best friend!Jim Halpert x f!reader Rating: 18+ My masterlist I Max's masterlist

Summary: You spot your childhood crush at a birthday party and end up in his room together.

Warnings: Smut, AU where Pam does not exist, alcohol, oral (f receiving), handjob, semi protected PIV, creampie, squirting.

A/N: Well, well, well, if it isn't me and my froggy friend @macfrog back with another fic. But this time, it's not satire - this one is actually serious, and we are taking full advantage of everyone's teenage crush on season 2 Jim.

Word count: 6k

You pick at the edge of your wine glass, nodding along as the sound of your brother’s girlfriend talking about work turns into a low, buzzing sort of hum, indistinguishable from the other voices in the room. It seems that turning thirty was the catalyzing event for your older brother’s birthday parties to turn from all-nighters at clubs to barbecues at his new house. The attendance changed too — what used to be a crowd of girls in tight, short dresses has been replaced by a landscape of coworkers and childhood friends that he has reconnected with over the past year. 

There’s a couple people singing karaoke by the TV across the room, and although neither of them are singing in tune, you cheer them on as you half-heartedly listen to your future sister-in-law’s story. People are scattered around in groups of two, three, or four, chatting amongst themselves against the tapestry of multicolored string lights and framed photos. You can’t imagine your brother had much to do with the interior design choices, and assume Stacie took him to the department store and filled a shopping cart with lights and lamps and frames that would make the living space for two thirty-year-old men a little less bland and sterile. 

But still, despite the obvious decorative touch of Mark’s girlfriend around the room – you can’t help but wonder which parts were chosen by his roommate.

Jim Halpert – your brother’s best friend for as long as you can remember. Six-foot-something, polite and awkwardly charming. Lingering on your front steps to walk with Mark to school, backpack slung over one shoulder, or waiting patiently in the kitchen doorway while your brother finishes eating dinner, a basketball sat in the ‘c’ of his elbow. Making a whole lot of nothing conversation with your mom about school, about how his brothers were doing, growing bashful when she’d bring up girlfriends.

He’s five years older than you, but that ten-year-old ghost of yourself would sit twirling the fork in her fingers, mindlessly dragging mashed potato around her plate. Watching the way he’d toss the flicks of fringe from his eyes, cross one foot over the other as he answered every incessant question of your mother’s with the dutiful respect of a well-raised boy. Your crush was obvious back then, easily spotted by her whenever Jim stayed for dinner. You’d look away, bite back your smile and try to stifle your laugh at his jokes, hoping he wouldn’t notice. That little crush stayed with you, despite the boys you went on to date in high school, and the ones you slept with and tried to get serious with in college to no avail. Every time you came back from the holidays, Jim would inevitably show up for dinner one day, and you would revert back to that shy ten-year-old, sitting in the same seats as you did back then. 

You watched him become a man in front of your eyes, and by the time you started getting physical with your first boyfriend, little thoughts began to weasel themselves into your mind about Jim. It was entirely inappropriate, and that curiosity should have directed itself exclusively to the boy who had taken you out to the movies, to prom and to homecoming, but you wondered what Jim looked like shirtless, you wondered about his experience, about the size of his cock. One weekend in your freshman year of college, with nothing else to do but to visit your parents, you tagged along with Mark to his basketball game, and sat on the bleachers with your eyes glued to Jim, to the sweat that darkened his jersey and the undeniable bulge in his shorts. He came up to say hi after, his brown hair drenched with sweat as well, looking at you through stunning green eyes as he asked how school was going. You made him laugh with a story about a professor, and the sound of his chuckles echoed in your mind the rest of the night. He had moved out of his parents’ house by then, and started working as a salesman at a paper company in town. 

He still works there – as far as you know, at least, based on what he told you the last time you saw him, picking him and Mark up from their high school reunion two years back. 

Mark had drank a little too much and had needed Jim’s steady arm around his shoulder to direct him to your car. You swallowed down the butterflies which quickly took flight in your stomach as you watched the two figures stumble towards your Honda, the taller of the two lending you a small smile as he slotted your brother into the front seat. You kept your composure right up until he closed the front door, and then you sped all the way home with your heart racing and your blood pumping.

“Some people are just allergic to receiving help,” Stacie announces, yelling a little over the screeching of the karaoke mics. She’s rambling to one of Mark’s coworkers – Hal? Sal? – about one of her co-workers, some new kid fresh from college who can’t work the printer by himself and refuses to let her show him.

You’re about to get up for a refill when a weight slides onto the couch by your side, nudging you with a sweatered elbow.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he mutters, and when you turn, your breath catches at the sight of those familiar green eyes and flicks of brown hair.

“Hey,” you reply, fingers awkwardly lifting to tuck some hair behind your ear. You feel a heat flush into your cheeks and pray it doesn’t show in an embarrassing dewy glow to Jim. “Cool party. Karaoke’s a nice touch.”

“Eh,” he shrugs, giving you his signature smirk. His voice is so deep, a little husky even, as he sits close, “It’s an easy way to keep the guests entertained without me having to do much of anything, or your brother, for that matter.” 

You hum in response, reluctantly annoyed that Mark is already at the front of his mind when he sees you. “Are you still working that paper job?”, you ask, raising an eyebrow and hoping that your nerves don’t come across, that he’ll simply consider you as flirty to everyone if your attempts don’t land.  

“Yeah,” he says, nodding, picking at the label of his beer bottle for a moment. 

“Salesman of the year?” 

“Well,” he chuckles, his head tilting to the side, a little unsure, “Maybe sometimes.” Is he embarrassed? Shy? You watch his eyes as they flicker up and scan the room. “What are you up to these days?”, he asks when his eyes land back on you, flaring open for a split second before they settle on yours. 

“You know,” you shrug, eyes looping once around the room, “Working, the usual.” You feel your chest tighten with an urge to come up with something more fucking interesting than work. Your fingers hooked behind your ear again, you sputter, “Got my hair done last week.”

Jim smiles, reassuringly so. “Yeah,” he says, nodding, “I can tell. It looks good. I like the, uh –”, he points a little haphazardly, “The way you styled it. Suits you.”

“Thanks,” your cheeks swell in a genuine smile, averting his gaze as the compliment seeps into your skin. You twirl the stem of your glass in your fingers, and Jim knocks a knuckle against the rim.

“You need a top up?”, he asks, standing up.

“Yeah, actually,” you reply, taking his hand when he offers it and pulling yourself to your feet.

You follow him through to the kitchen, dodging the erratic arm movements of some guy chittering to Mark about stocks, and over to the fridge. You lean your hip against the counter, watching as Jim carefully refills your wine and slides it back across to you.

You take a tentative sip under his watchful gaze, and raise your eyebrows, nodding subtly in approval as you swallow, “This is pretty good. What’s a guy like you doing with decent wine in his fridge?” 

He lets out a nervous laugh and looks around, takes a sip of the glass he poured himself. “I actually got it for a, uh- a date, a couple weeks ago,” he doesn’t look at you as he speaks, looking out through the dining room, “She said it was good so I figured I’d get some for tonight.” 

Oof. A tinge of jealousy makes your stomach curl, and you take another large sip, forcing it down as you think of what to say. You can still hear the out of tune melodies from the living room, though the silence between you and Jim drowns out the noise. “What did you do?”, you ask, hoping you can mask your jealousy with a sneaky tone. 

“Took her to dinner a few times, walked around a bit, came back here and had some wine.”

You want to gag, just a little bit. “And how come she’s not here tonight then?”

“Didn’t really, uh– didn’t really work out, so…” 

“So you’re just sitting here day in and day out with her wine in the fridge, waiting for her to come back?” 

Jim breathes a laugh, pushing the air from his cheeks, “Alright. Wow. That one stung.”

You giggle, taking a step closer, “I’m just messing with you,” you say into your glass. Each splash of alcohol over your tongue filling you with more courage.

He tilts his head, eyebrows cocked, “Tell me about your love life, then, up on your high horse.”

You stifle another girlish giggle, using it to mask your reaction to the awkward question. Your love life – if you could even call it that – has been even more miserable than Jim’s sounds. Messages left on read, painful first dates with jocks still stuck in their high school eras, with uptight career men who only cared to talk about themselves, or with guys who had weird hobbies and left you to pay the bill for a date they asked you on.

You’ve gotten good at avoiding the topic with your mom, turning it instead into conversation about Mark and Stacie, framing it into a question of, When are they thinking of getting married? Having kids of their own, right, Mom?, but standing in front of the one guy you’ve been shamelessly crushing on since you were ten years old – it becomes a little harder to divert.

“Uh,” you mumble, the rim of your glass balanced on your bottom lip, “I’m – I’m just taking some time to myself right now, you know? Focusing on me.”

He grins, almost gleeful. Electricity pulses through your veins. “Nice save,” he tells you, tipping his glass towards you, “I hear what you’re really saying.”

“Oh?” 

“Yep,” he says, matter-of-factly, “You also got dumped at Red Lobster.”

You snort, then apologize, closing your eyes and trying to stifle your grin as you try to collect yourself. “Red lobster,” you clear your throat, “That’s pretty bad. At least it wasn’t Chili’s. And I would know, cause I got dumped at Chili’s.” 

The two of you keep it together for a few moments, looking at the floor, until you meet each other’s eyes and burst into laughter, having this absolutely pathetic little thing in common. The sound of his laugh makes your chest flutter, the sight of his smile and his hand running through his hair. He wipes the tears from his eyes as he looks at you, and you bite the tip of your tongue, trying to halt the uncontrollable giggles that make your stomach hurt. 

When you’re composed, a couple more swigs of wine down your throat, you settle back against the counter and say, “So. When’s the tour leaving?”

Jim’s eyebrows lift, “The tour?”

You nod, “House tour. Mark hasn’t shown me around yet. The most I’ve seen is your downstairs bathroom.”

He scoffs. Pushes off from the counter, the wine in his glass splashing, “He’s a terrible host. C’mon, I’ll show you around.”

Your heels click along the tile floor as you squeeze between bodies, heading for the hallway where Jim pauses. “Bathroom,” he says, nodding to the door right by the stairs, “But you already knew that.” He steps back against the wall at the first step, holding a hand out to usher you up first. “Ladies first,” he says, smiling genially.

You snort, but waltz by his body, holding onto the handrail as you climb the stairs carefully, the alcohol mixed with your shoe choice making it a dangerous feat. Jim’s close behind, footsteps slowly echoing your own, and you can’t help but think of the tight, short skirt of your dress, the way it hugs your thighs, the placement of his gaze as he wanders up behind you.

Reaching the top of the stairs, you look around at the assortment of doors, waiting for Jim to tell you which room serves as the first stop. You can sense him right behind you, slightly to your side, and out of the corner of your eye, you see him looking down at you, swallowing slowly. “Mark’s room,” he says, nodding to the right and waiting until you look up at him before he takes a step over and opens the door. He lets you peek inside, look around until you nod and step back, before he urges you forward, towards another door. 

“Upstairs bathroom,” he remarks, and you give the room a similar examination, noticing the streak-free mirror. 

“Looks… clean,” you say, as if there’s anything better to say about a typical bathroom. He gives a muttered thanks in return, then points to the last door. 

“And that’s my room.” 

“May I?”, you grin, then step fully inside, looking around at his bed, his dresser, and finally, his desk. You sit down in the office chair and give it a test spin, before your attention is caught by the art on the wall. “What’s this?”, you ask, while he steps in as well, hesitating for a second as he looks at the door, opting to leave it open before he comes over and sits down on his bed. 

Jim’s head wobbles as he searches for an answer. “It’s – well, it’s – you know. It’s…a print that I…liked.”

“You have no idea, do you?”

“Not a clue,” he responds, quick as a bullet. “I saw it at a yard sale – thought it went with the colors of my bedsheets. That’s how interior design works, right?”

You smile, “Sure. You’re no Stacie, but – sure.”

Jim nods. Your eye is drawn to the dip in the bed where he sits, the weight of his wide frame on the mattress. His open thighs, his elbows resting on his knees, wine swirling as he slowly rocks the glass. He slowly lifts it to his lips, taking a sip without breaking your stare.

You cross your legs by instinct. Your skirt rides a little higher. Jim glances down, and then straight back up. You can feel your blood thrumming through every limb, every part of your body sensitized and alight. It doesn’t help any when he stands from the bed and wanders over, towering over you as he looks at something on the desk.

He reaches over your shoulder, and you can smell his cologne on his sweater, sharp and fresh, a hint of something sweeter. He pulls a photo frame from the shelf behind you and turns it around.

“Graduation,” he says, and your eyes are drawn down to the cheesy grins of him and your brother, donned in black mortarboards and sweeping gowns.

You nod, pretending you’re paying attention. But he’s so close that his jeans rub against your bare legs, so close that you’re staring up just to meet his eye. Your palms begin to perspire, his voice turning into a blur as he points to a couple other frames, photos of people you didn’t recognize in places you couldn’t quite place. The rest of your wine is downed in a single sip, the glass carefully placed behind you, on the surface of his desk. 

Jim seems to have finished recounting memories to you, but he doesn’t move. Stays stood over you, his own drink forgotten on the floor by his bed. A silence falls between you – but not the thick, awkward kind of silence you’re used to around guys. It’s lighter, it’s breathable. It swirls around your limbs like the fluttering feeling in your belly, wraps tightly around them and pushes you to your feet, the back of Jim’s chair rocking against his desk.

You’re eye-to-eye, your chest pushing gently against his. He glances down to your lips, wet with wine and the dabbing of your tongue, and then back up. He leans in, curving around your shoulders to set the photo frame still in his hand back on the desk. When he straightens up again, your hands find his chest.

You stare at one another, seemingly a thousand words exchanged between your soft, drunken gaze and his – and yet, none of them pass your lips. There’s a weight on your waist – Jim’s hands either side of your body, squeezing the tight fabric of your dress. You tilt your head, moving closer, lips parting. And he leans in.

He kisses you, slow at first. Your hands lift to cup his jaw, steady yourself on the weight of him. All of your past selves begin to bubble to the surface, each one lighting your skin, pulling on every nerve. Jim feels warm, his lips wet and sweet from the alcohol. Your nails sift through his hair, tugging gently as he pushes his tongue deeper into your mouth. He groans lightly, seemingly as hungry for you as you are for him, holding himself back, handling you with a care and gentleness you hope he might set aside. You’ve wanted him for so long and you’ll let him do anything, you want all of him, you want him to ravage you and fuck you until you stumble down the staircase and until you can never look your brother in the eyes. 

There’s a smashing sound from downstairs and a squeal, followed by a chorus of disappointment from the other guests. It splits the two of you apart, bumping teeth as your lips disconnect. You’re both panting, hot breath occupying the space between you. You can feel the hardness of his bulge pushing against you, and your arousal building, spreading to the tips of your breasts as your nipples harden. He’s huge, you can already tell, and you swallow around a lump in your throat, trying not to think of how long it’s been since you felt a man inside of you. 

Jim smiles, still holding you close to his body. Your hands wrap around his wrists, and you lean into him again to whisper, “I think we should close the door.”

He nods, and steps back to let you by. You close the door slowly, letting it thud into place as quiet as you can, despite the obvious chaos happening downstairs. When you step back towards him, his eyes are on yours, hands reaching out to pull you closer, one around your waist and one around the nape of your neck, letting you melt into his hold while he locks his lips with yours. You hope he can’t feel the rapid beating of your heart or the dampness of your skin, letting your hands fall to the edge of his pants and starting to fumble with the button. 

You start to unzip his jeans while he walks you back towards his bed, licking into your mouth and nibbling on your lower lip. You slip a hand down over his clothed cock, carefully palming it and feeling the girth and contours against your skin. He lets out a slight grunt at your touch, moving his hand down to squeeze your ass cheek through your dress, his large hand grabbing your flesh and kneading it with the aggression you’ve been hoping for, just a hint of it coming through in the firmness of his grasp. 

He reaches the bed as you draw your hand out of his pants and dip your fingers behind his waistband, feeling the goosebumps spreading across his skin, grabbing hold of the stretchy fabric and lifting it up, over his erection, pulling it down alongside his pants to see his cock hanging free, flushed and wet at the tip. You bite his lip before you pull back to look, and can’t help a whimper escaping your throat as you brush your fingertips along his length. It feels endless, long veins bulging out that you trace with your nails. He's so thick, wide at the root, all the way to the tip. He can't possibly fit inside but you clench at the thought of him trying. Another pearly bead of precome spills out from his slit at your touch, and with his hands still grasping your neck and the meat of your ass, you gently rub the pad of your thumb over this head, feeling the slick slide of his spend beneath your finger, then wrap your hand around him, fingertips not even close to meeting, and stroke him slowly.

Your breaths are shallow, rapid, and when you feel your mouth start to water at the sight of his cock sliding through your hand, Jim pulls you back in to kiss you, grunting and groaning while your hand slides rhythmically up and down, making him throb with arousal. He moves his hips, fucking into your grasp with hushed moans that send your head spinning, your cunt pulsing.

Jim begins to peel the dress from your shoulders, slipping the fabric down until your breasts are exposed, the chilly edge of the air hardening your nipple. He pauses, watches the rhythmic movements of your soft, supple tits as your hand pumps up and down, the rise and fall of your chest with each breath. His fingers dig deep beneath the ruffled fabric, tugging it lower and lower until he’s lifting your hips, disturbing the lace of your panties as he discards the dress to the floor.

You pause as he strips the sweater from his shoulders, tossing it to some corner of the room before he’s back on you, the slick tip of his dick leaving sticky trails on your lower stomach.

“You’re so, so good at that,” he murmurs against your lips, sentence broken in two by another hot, wet kiss. Your eyes roll at the taste of him, the strength of his tongue against yours, the hunger with which he takes your bottom lip between his teeth and sucks, letting it go only to fill your mouth with himself again. You push at the edge of his jeans and boxers, bunching them up in your hands and tugging at them until he takes over, bringing you with him while he takes them off, leaving him bare and you in only your little scrap of fabric you call your panties. 

He pulls you in as he sits down on the bed, placing you on his lap, letting you wind your hips, dragging the silky lace of your thong up along his hard length while you lick across his tongue, while you swallow his saliva and feel the ridges of his cock bumping against your clit. At the sound of your whimpers, he picks you up in his arms, lays you down on his bed, and settles between your legs, leaving wet kisses up and down your neck, trailing down to your chest, taking your nipple into his mouth and licking it slowly. Your back arches, the slick of your arousal beginning to seep out into the panties he teases with his fingers, hooking them under the thin straps and slowly pulling at them as his lips trail down between your tits, slowly over your stomach, reaching the very top of your mound before he drags the straps over your thighs to reveal you for him. 

You open your legs and Jim presses into the underside of your thighs, pushing them wider. His eyes focus on the sight of you, spread open in front of him, his tongue lifting to run along his lips. You sit up on your elbows, glossy eyes watching as he leans in, a trail of kisses dotted along the seam of your thigh, until his lips are hovering over your throbbing cunt.

“Jim,” you whisper, sifting your fingers through his hair, moving it from his face.

He looks up and you share a glance, a message sent wordlessly from your eyes to his. A smirk pulls across his lips, reading your mind instantly. He lowers his jaw and his tongue drags a long, soaking stripe up your slit.

Your grip tightens in his hair, head thrown back to the blue sheets. Your throat catches a lewd moan before it has a chance to cut through the air, exposing you both to the guests downstairs. Sorry, you whisper, but he shakes his head. “You don't have to be quiet,” he reassures, leaving his gaze on you as he leans back and gives your clit a few wet licks, kicking up your sensitivity and making you clench. He must be able to tell, because just as you tilt your head back into the pillow while he kisses and licks at the part of you most sensitive and needy for his attention, he pushes two fingers into your pussy, stretching you gently as he curls them. He presses into a spot so tender you can't catch the moans spilling out between your lips, begging for more when you're already so close, having fantasized about this for years – his tongue on your clit and his fingers inside of you, softening you for the inevitable stretch of his cock, so much thicker and longer than you could imagine, big and hard and bound to let you feel him tomorrow.

He begins to suckle, swirling his tongue until you grip his hair and moan that you're close, so close, and he releases you from his mouth, still sliding his fingers slowly in and out, moving to place kisses to the inside of your thigh. You let out a huff, and hear a faint chuckle from between your legs, licking and kissing at your skin, right beside your outer folds, close to where you need him. 

Another wave of arousal crashes through you when he makes contact with your clit again, a wet drag of his tongue making you whimper and pull at his hair harder, trying to keep him right where he is until he lets you come. Jim pulls around your clit, lips sucking and tongue flicking as his fingers pump in and out, winding your orgasm like the tide withdrawing, only to let it crash forward in a flood of pleasure.

Your back arches, breath freezes to nothing in your throat until your climax passes, washing over you in heavy, shuddering ripples. You pant, your chest heaving as you look down at the smile on his face, the evidence of your satisfaction glistening on his lips.

Jim pushes himself up from the mattress, knees planting firm between your open legs, fisting his cock over you. You blink the room back into focus slowly, feeling the bed dip by your ear. He settles on top of you, looking down to guide his cock to your needy and spent sex. His tip presses against your hole, sensitive and soaking, and he glances back up. 

“Jim?”, you whisper, chest heaving when you feel the subtle intrusion at your opening.

“Yeah?”

“I want you inside me, I want you to fuck me.” 

Mhmm, he teases the tip around your entrance, lets the thick head of him slide up to your clit before he glides back down, gently pushing in, a tiny little bit of pressure, not enough to make you wince but groan instead, hating and loving how he teases you. Another push, his tip lodged inside, stretching you open further than you thought possible, while your pussy drools down his shaft, sucking him in and covering him in your wetness. He grunts quietly, not immune to the wet, warm clutch he’s sinking into, inch by inch, while you wrap your hands around his jaw, looking into his bright green eyes, lids hooded, breaking the eye contact to glance down at where he enters you, letting out a breathy moan when you suck him all the way in and he reaches your cervix. He hisses when he retracts, gliding out so slowly, covered in your shiny slick. 

You arch your back when he reaches the end of you again, leaning down onto his elbows so his lips can press into your neck, kissing you like he has all the time in the world, little licks to your skin while he glides out and presses back into you, letting you adjust to his size, making space for himself and soothing you as you’re overwhelmed by him. Your legs come to wrap around his waist, tilting your hips slightly upward to let him reach deeper, moaning his name and incoherent curses, grabbing the back of his neck and his broad shoulders, feeling your clit rub against his pelvis, bringing you closer so slowly you barely notice it happening. 

You lower your arms, slipping your hands under his and lacing your fingers. Your knees bend, resting against his ribcage. With each brush of his hair against your clit, he moves faster, thrusting harder, pushing deeper. Tiny yelps leave your mouth the more he fucks you, the more the bed rocks, the headboard knocking against the wall. Your head turns, moaning delicately into his ear as he sucks on your skin.

“I know,” he whispers against your pulse, “You feel so good, sweetheart. So tight around me.”

“Jim,” you’re whining, gasping for air each time he pushes all the way in. You let go of your grip on him and drape your arms over his shoulders, fingers toying with his hair, slowly dampening with sweat. Each glide of his cock inside you ends with a sweet bite of pain, his tip hammering roughly into the edge of your cunt.

His teeth graze the sensitive skin below your jaw, leaving behind marks you’re silently hoping will still be visible in the morning. His hands travel downward, taking hold of your waist and lifting you up to his body like you weigh nothing at all.

“Here,” he says, slipping out of you, thick white thread dribbling between your pussy and his cock. He motions for you to sit up, beckoning you with a flick of his fingers. “Come here, put your feet on my calves.” You oblige, planting each foot behind his thighs as he kneels. “Now lay down, just relax,” he coos, wrapping both hands around your waist to pull you up into a bridge, letting you dip your shoulder blades onto the sheets. He lifts one hand away from your side and guides his cock back into you, giving a few slow strokes with his palm, pushing gently on your stomach. 

Then his hands grip your hips tightly, he pulls you back onto him and gives you a moment to stabilize before he fucks into you even deeper than before. Your tits slide up and down your chest with every single one of this deep thrusts, and you watch his eyes as they stay glued to your body, his mouth hanging open, panting, grunting, digging his fingers into your flesh, trying to hold back while you squirm and writhe, moaning and whimpering, not giving a fuck who might hear it, trying to keep his name out of your mouth in case someone needs to use the bathroom next door. 

He pounds into you, hitting the softest, most tender spot inside of your body, your head rolls back on his pillow, tiptoeing the line between pain and pleasure, feeling him in your stomach. “I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come, fuck, fuck,” the words are forced out of you just as a warm stream of liquid squirts out of you, drenching his groin and making him groan. Your orgasm is so intense you nearly howl, feeling more and more of your arousal dripping down his shaft and spurting onto his pelvis, soaking the sheets beneath you, getting wet and sticky with your come and his sweat, watching his hair stick to his forehead while he continues to fuck you, needing every last drop of your climax. 

You’re fucking spent, but he won’t relent quite yet, flipping you over and onto all fours, yanking you back by your hips. He enters you from behind and you groan in satisfaction, needing him right there, just like that, feeling your eyes roll to the back of your head. His hand twists in your hair, wrapping it around his palm and tugging at it while he grunts, rough and loud in your ear, nearly drowned out by the lewd smacking of your ass against his hips. 

Your hand dips between your legs, fingers rubbing messy circles around your swollen clit, thinking how many times you’ve dreamt of this exact scenario with your fingers buried inside, bringing yourself to the brink of orgasm by the mere thought of Jim. And now, feeling him, the tug on your hair, the ache between your legs, the hoarse cries jumping from your throat.

“Not gonna last much longer,” Jim grunts, wet slaps cutting between his words, “Fuck, sweetheart, that feel good?”

“Yes, Jim,” you whine, your hand jerking with each meeting of his hips on your ass. Come dribbles down the seam of your thigh as you feel your second high begin to wind, white heat flooding downwards. “So – fucking – good. Ah, I want you to come inside me.”

“You sure?”, he pants, holding on by a thread. 

“Yeah, I – I’m on the pill.” 

Jim pulls you upright by the hair, flush against his stomach, and places his hand over yours to rub your clit together. You lean your head back against his shoulder, body freezing as you come for him again. He groans when you pinch around him, movements becoming sloppy.

“Oh – oh, fuck, I’m – I’m coming, I’m coming,” he moans, lips pushing hard into your neck as he twitches and then stills, and you feel the warm spurts of his come deep inside. The two of you groan, strangled and drawn out, collapsing on the bed with his arms around you and his cock softening inside. You listen to the sounds of the party downstairs, the two of you trying to catch your breaths, and he kisses along the back of your shoulder, brushing his thumb back and forth where it rests over your waist. 

“What are we gonna tell Mark?”, he asks.

You pause for a beat, then turn your head to him, “We’re telling Mark?”

“Yeah, I mean, you’ve wanted it, I’ve wanted it. I don’t want this to be a one time thing, I want it to be more than that, so at some point–”.

“More than what?”, you respond, your heartbeat returning to its heightened state earlier in the night. 

“More than just sex.” 

“Oh.” 

“I’m really into you,” he whispers, “I didn’t know if you felt the same way about me but it seems like you do, so–”. 

You shift around to face him, push his sweat damp locks away from his face and look into his eyes. Shy heat floods your face as you smile at him and nod carefully, biting the inside of your cheek. 

“You wanna go back downstairs?” he asks, fingertips ghosting down your spine before he reaches your thigh and hooks your knee over his leg, “We have Islands in the Stream on the karaoke machine, I know you like that song.” 

“Sure… In a bit.”

[post-punk-revival]

“It’s obviously valid to be bugkin but you also can’t just expect people to get over it when they have a genuine fear!”

I’m afraid of dogs.

Dogs put me extremely on edge. I avoid them while outside and if one’s in a room with me I’ll try to leave or else start to panic. Especially medium-sized and larger breeds. Mere images of dogs may not give me a panic attack, I will admit that, it's not a phobia. But if you want to talk hypocrisy, if you're opening up that discussion:

Hey dog therians, dog otherhearted folks and clinical cynanthropes, what if everywhere you went, the unspoken attitude of the alterhuman community was—

Don’t post dog photos or talk about being a dog in the main alterhuman tags. Don’t talk about your shifts, your instincts, or your kind in the main tags. If you’re a CZ, don’t talk so openly about your biological reality. It’s extremely triggering for people with cynophobia. The idea of physically being or becoming a dog grosses them out to briefly think about, so try not to discuss your literal existence. If you must, at least trigger tag yourself with #tw dogs or #tw dog mention so people can stay safe by censoring things that will hurt their mental health. It’s okay if you’re dogkin but in my DNI I'm going to write something like, don’t follow me if your blog hosts too many graphic close-up images of dogs doing dog things, even if you censor them. Don’t add dog photos to open posts in the alterhuman tags, you have no idea who might be sent into a panic attack by images of yourself so you should play it safe and only put them on your own posts. And stop being so offended by people who comment on posts about pet dogs or dog facts saying they want to bleach their eyes or kill it with fire, they can’t help having a phobia.

Not great, is it? Fortunately, and I do genuinely mean that, this is a sentiment you will only see once, on this post, completely satirically. Except it’s just a real sentiment for bug therians/hearted and other invertebrate alterhumans. Of course what I said was satire. But if it pissed you off when you thought it might not be, please, contemplate on that reaction, really spend some time on it.

Also, if you're wondering what I mean by "other invertebrate alterhumans", (and I'm sorry for how heated I got when I was writing this part last night even after editing it down)

You know I’m a bug zoanthrope too, not just a bird? And see above if you're wondering why I never said shit about it, just said I was a centipede therian and even then said I was just questioning and didn't really talk much about it. Am I allowed to talk about it without tagging it #tw body horror, even though I obviously don’t fucking find my own body to be horror? Can I talk about it without tagging it #tw bugs like just the very thing that I am needs to be censored for people's well-being? I'm sorry if I come across judgmental. Offline I constantly interact with people saying they’re a nature lover but centipedes are the only thing on Earth that they still hate. And I have to come online knowing that any of those people could be bloggers in the alterhuman tags and it’s my responsibility to tiptoe around them. “Because centipedes are scary and disgusting.” Because I’m scary and disgusting. My brain is not capable of hearing a difference and I can’t change that. It is so much my reality that it's the same emotional mix of anger and anxiety and hurt that would be (has been, lol) triggered by someone ranting about how much they hate Jews or trans people to me.

[akaeijis]

What's your AC? Because I need to hit that

prompt: library books and pouring rain x “Just five more minutes.” tags: spamano, vaguely high school au, pre-relationship

“Just five more minutes.”

“Lovino, I’ve never seen you read so much before.” Antonio frowned, “Is it because it’s raining outside?”

Lovino flipped to another page and said without missing a beat, “Sorry that you’re too stupid to ever notice, but I do read.”

Antonio sighed. He thought that staying at the library after school was booo-ring, but it was raining outside and no one else was free to entertain him. Francis had left as soon as school ended and Gilbert was at band practice. There was no soccer practice today because of the rain, so he thought that it was the perfect opportunity to spend some time with Lovino!

He was not expecting to be ignored the whole time. Antonio groaned, leaning back dramatically against the beanbag he was sitting on. He began counting the books on the shelf behind Lovino. He couldn’t make it to ten.

“Lovino, I swear it’s been five minutes already. Can we please, please do something else now?”

Lovino checked his phone quickly and turned back to his book. “It’s only been two. Let me finish my chapter and maybe we can do something else. Maybe try thinking of what you want to do since it’s raining.”

And like that, Antonio was chopped liver.

Antonio hated the rain. He hated anything that wasn’t a beautiful sunny day with a bright blue sky. Fall was a bit tolerable, but gloomy and pouring rain might as well be his circle of hell. He didn’t really have any great ideas on what to do on a rainy day. Usually, he stayed in and played some video games. Sometimes he would bother Francis and Gilbert and they would get up to something, their latest adventure being that they stole wine from Francis’ parents and played poker.

And what could be so interesting that Lovino was reading anyway? He didn’t even try to look at the title, since the book was one of those older ones with no cover and just some imprinted letters on a dark background. The book was Gulliver’s Travels.

Antonio racked his brain trying to figure out how he had heard of that book before. “Why are you reading that book? I remember Arthur talking about it in class, but he’s annoying and I tune out everything he has to say.”

Lovino rolled his eyes, “You tune out everything.”

“That’s not true. I listen when I think it’s important. Like with my friends. Or with you.”

“What, am I not a ‘friend’?” Lovino grumbled, but put the book away. Antonio was gleeful from the newfound attention. “It’s a satire from the 1600s. It’s about this stupid sea captain and he travels the world.” Lovino said flatly.

“Mhmm. But I asked why you’re reading it. See, I’m aware of stuff.”

To Antonio’s shock, Lovino stayed quiet. Antonio smiled, he finally figured out what he wanted to do for the rest of their afternoon now.

“What, are you hiding something? I can’t really think of what you’re shy about, but I won’t make fun of you. After all, it’s just a book.”

Lovino was scarlet. Antonio was terribly intrigued. He swung his feet from under the table, waiting for Lovino’s answer.

Then, Lovino whispered. “It’s for my D&D group.”

“What? D&D… Isn’t that…”

“Yea,” Lovino nodded slowly. “Dungeons And Dragons. We’re doing a campaign where our PCs travel across the sea, and I wanted to check out old-timey adventure books on the sea for inspiration. Our DM recommended it to me.”

Antonio sat. He had no idea how to take in this information. Lovino, sweet Lovino, who almost fell asleep in every class. Lovino, who had very high standards when it came to, well, everything, was… a nerd?

Instead he focused on, “What’s a DM?”

When he took a peek at Lovino’s embarrassed face, Antonio’s heart almost burst out of his chest. “Dungeon Master.”

Antonio grabbed Lovino’s hand and watched with delight as he turned a bit more red. He asked, “When is the next game?”

Despite his flush, Lovino rolled his eyes and said, “We call it our campaign session. Why?”

“Please let me come with you!”

[...]

“What the hell is he doing here?”

Antonio ignored Arthur and observed his surroundings. They were in Arthur’s basement, which was pretty dim and decked out with a lot of candles. Antonio wondered if it was a fire hazard. The table was hollowed and had a map in the center. Inside were little figures of trees, ships, and other impressive details.

“He wanted to check it out, so stop your bitching.” Lovino said, sitting at the corner. He pulled up a stool and pointed for Antonio to sit there.

“I didn’t know we could bring guests,” Lukas said, who was sitting next to Antonio. “I would’ve brought Emil.”

“No guests aren’t allowed. This is a closed group, Lovino!” Arthur scowled. “We cannot start with him here!”

Lovino replied with heat, “This is not a closed group. You bastard, you literally brought Alfred here two months ago! All because you let him hit.”

Antonio covered his mouth to stifle his giggles. Across the table, he saw Elizaveta and Matthew laugh a bit.

“Fuck off, that’s not true. He wanted to join that day to get inspiration for our other campaign,” Arthur rolled his eyes. But he let Antonio sit without question and Arthur went to plug his laptop.

“It’s true,” Matthew spoke up. “Our campaign was getting a bit dull. Even I was getting bored.”

Lovino inched closer to Antonio and whispered, “Arthur, Matthew, and Alfred have another campaign with Yao from math class. It started because they’re all neighbors, but I hear Yao likes to go too much into the lore.”

Antonio barely heard what he said. He was too focused on Lovino’s hot breath by his ear.

Lovino took out a little figurine. His character had a sword and a shield.

Antonio asked, “So this is your character? What’s his name?”

Despite the chatter, the room seemed so silent. Antonio waited.

“His name is Don Quixote.”

“Uhm… Lovino isn’t that-”

Lovino turned to look at him with eyes wide with emotion. “Shut it, dumbass. I know what you’re going to say. Yeah, whatever it’s like a satire so was the other book I was reading today, I got a brain. Anyway, I just thought that I could give him another life on the board. See his dreams get fulfilled or whatever.”

Antonio was taken aback. He sat there in silence, processing everything Lovino had said. He heard Lovino grumble, “Whatever, if you don’t have anything to fucking say.” He then went back to setting up his papers and whatnot.

Antonio put his hand on Lovino’s shoulder as if he had no control over his body, and said, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Instead of turning into the lovely shade of red that Antonio was expecting, Lovino furrowed his eyebrows. “This is what makes you fess up? What, you have some kinda nerd fetish or something?”

Without a beat, Antonio said, “Yes. When it’s you.”

Lovino rolled his eyes and swiftly pecked him on the mouth. “You are so fucking weird.”

a/n: i might post this on ao3 but not sure. I'm trying to do this thing where I post drabbles & one shots as writing exercises. anyway, looking for more of my writing? here's my ao3 I'm working on a spamano romcom :) this was so fun to write! i don't know anything abt dnd LOL and it took a very long time to research stuff abt it anyway this is inspired by romano's adventure w paladins & knights & don quixote

[i-aint-nothin-but-a-nasty-dog]

Happy Cursed Event!

thank you @naughtystiel for hosting this and happy 28th birthday!!; I didn't write this with the intention for posting but it fits right in so I thought I'd share this wretched little thing @youmakemewishicoulddisappear and I wrote at 4 in the morning :) is this cursed enough for you?

1089 words, can be read below the cut or here on ao3

rating: Explicit

tags: Crack, a/b/o, non-traditional a/b/o, dom/sub undertones, dom!cas/sub!Dean, blow jobs, bad dirty talk, riding, shameless smut, crack filth, office au, office sex, overuse of ~ symbol, satire, not serious, daddy kink

absolute cringefest travel at your own risk but it's a fun cringefest I assure you

have fun! 🥰

The Boss’ Omega

Dean was the only omega at the office. Castiel was the most powerful alpha there was. He was the boss.

“I need to see you in my office.” Castiel said in a gruff voice.

Dean followed his sexy boss to his office, trembling at the scent of Castiel's pheromones. He had no choice, really, but to follow the orders. Castiel’s alpha nature was too overwhelming to ignore. So, with his tail between his legs, he walked through the door, looking at the ground.

His tail was the most sensitive part of him, and all the alphas in the building loved to tease him for it, coming up behind him to pull it, touch it. No matter how many times he snarled, “Don’t fucking touch my tail,” they ignored the whimpering omega.

Once in his office, Dean took a seat across from his boss’ desk, impatiently waiting for the other man to speak. He was shaking in his seat, his eyes, which change color depending on his mood, were a dull gray-blue, showing just how anxious he was for this talk. Though, the dark colors hid the pink around his irises. He was attracted to this alpha.

“Dean,” The alpha began, “Do you know why I called you in here?”

“N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-no…” He stuttered out.

“Gah, you’re so pathetic. Just a whiny little omega who can’t even speak properly. You can’t speak or do your job well, can you?”

“N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-no sir, I can’t. I can never do anything right. I’m not like the other guys. I’m not big or strong. You probably think I’m ugly, too.” He sighed and looked away. 

“You’re right. I called you in here because your performance has been lacking.”

“W-w-what d-d-do you m-mean?”

“I mean,” He started darkly, “I need you to change your performance. Do you think I need to punish you? I think I should…”

“A-a-a-a-a-alpha please…how are you going to punish me?”

“You can start by coming over here and kneeling before me.”

Dean trembled but obeyed the alpha’s orders, wobbling on his feet and stumbling over to where the alpha was sitting with his legs spread in his chair, thick cock already tenting his slacks. Dean licked his lips and knelt in front of him between his feet, looking up at his alpha with glossy, doe eyes.

“Take me out.” He ordered.

Dean gulped hard and went to work. He reached forward and unbuttoned the man’s pants, slowly tugging the zipper down to reveal his long, hard, thick. veiny cock. It sprung out and tapped Dean in the nose, earning a surprised gasp from the trembling omega. He let out a soft whine at the sheer size and girth of his cock. The alpha let out a rumbling groan at his cock finally being free and exposed to the cold air of the office. 

Dean gripped that cock tight and raised it from the perdition of not being touched. 

“Suck it.” The alpha snarled, gripping onto his omega’s hair, pulling harshly. 

Dean whimpered at the order before cautiously taking Castiel’s cock into his mouth, his eyes watering from the stretch of wrapping his lips around the entire girth of it. Castiel got impatient and shoved the omega’s head down, savoring how he gagged around the cock 

“A-a-a-alpha please i can’t take it that hard~ You need to be gentle…”

“You will either choke on my cock or you don’t get it at all and we can be done here. Your choice~.”

“Ngh alpha~”

“Do it or else, little omega.”

Dean moaned aloud and went back to sucking that huge cock. He lapped at the head, making his way down the shaft to where the alpha’s knot was steadily growing. The omega lapped happily at the swollen knot, appreciating the loud groan he earned from his alpha when he did.

“Oh, such a good little slutty omega for me, aren’t you. You’ve wanted to be in this position for a while, haven’t you? I could smell your slick a mile away, always so strong when i’m near. I know you have, little omega, always such a filthy whore for me, huh? Can smell it even now, wanna see how tight that little ass is for me.”

“Oh~ Alpha please~”

“Get up here.”

Dean knew what he wanted and quickly stood to shake his pants and boxers off, sitting himself in the alpha’s lap and slammed himself down to the alpha’s knot, both moaning in unison.

“Oh~ alpha, your cock feels so good.”

“So wet for me, little omega, so tight on my cock. You feel so good on my knot.”

Dean started slamming himself down frantically, riding his cock like his performance depended on it, which it did. 

“So good for me, gonna knot you, fill you with my alpha sperm.”

“Please, alpha, want your alpha sperm, only yours. Never wanted anyone else’s, oh–alpha im–”

“Good omega, cover me in your omega sperm~”

They climaxed in unison, Dean whining with a high voice and Castiel groaning lowly. Dean fell limp on his alpha, satisfied and taking in the smell of his alpha’s pheromones, the scent intoxicating.

“How’s that for work ethic improvement?” Dean asked coyly.

“Not bad.” Castiel grumbles, clearing his throat, embarrassed of how good that felt.

“Good enough.” Dean grunted in reply, slumping further against his alpha.

Then suddenly Gabriel busted in the room with a stack of papers in his hand, ready to throw them on his boss’ desk, planning to stay and chat for a moment. But, no. Instead, he was met with the sight of his boss and coworker, both covered obscenely in each other’s sperm.

“Oh cool I’ll leave you two to it, but lock the door next time.” He left as quickly as he had come in.

“That was your first lesson: no more doing stupid shit like forgetting to lock the door. Next time you do, I’m firing you for real. Dick or no dick.”

“N-next time?”

“Keep talking like that and there won’t be a next time”

“S-sorry.”

“Get out.”

“W-w-w-wha?”

“I said get out. What did I just say about talking like that to me?”

“No! Please! I’ll do anything! Daddy–”

“...What did you call me?”

“D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-daddy?” He gulped nervously.

“Nevermind. Stay.”

“Yes, daddy alpha.”

“Good boy.” He placed a kiss on his omega’s head, Sighing happily. They relaxed in one another’s arms, enjoying the other’s company. Work could wait, they’re paid a salary anyway. 

Boss makes a dollar, worker makes a dime, that’s why they fucked on company time.

[sugaroto]

@theallstore You are completely right, this is greek mythology

And @asinine36 if you're still interested

Allow me to introduce you to Menippos, Hermes and Charon

Well, not these ones

These ones

Ουκ αν λαβοις πάρα του μη έχοντος (ancient greek for= You cannot take from the one who doesn't have) is a greek animated satire tv series that came out back in 2010-2011

And then got canceled cause it was mocking politicians

It's based on the myth that Menippos, a cynic philosopher, who was really poor and died without an obol (coin) couldn't go to the underworld

So they made a show of it

Charon and Hermes try to get him to work but he always messes it up

Some of the jobs he did was: fast food employee, vampire hunter (specifically sent to kill Edward Cullen), taxi driver, politician, football player, fake Santa Claus, detective who finds lost dogs etc

Hermes keeps killing him any time Menippos is annoying him and archangel Gabriel sends him back down (the man doesn't know sleep)

Funny thing is. Menippos is an ASSHOLE. ΜΑΛΑΚΑΣ he is the epitome of MALAKAS

I think it's hilarious that people said he's NTA

Maybe in the specific case he seems like a victim ok, but his whole personality in the show is being an asshole and he knows it

In this clip, he made a political party called A.S.S.H.O.L.E

Let me translate the conversation:

Add: "are you a right-wing?

No?

Are you a left-wing?

Neither?

On the center? You laugh?

Maybe you're just an "ASSHOLE"?

"Big indecisive folksy independent and unincorporated coalition"

We dont discriminate except pedophiles ex and current dictators and family members of Bush"

Menippos: *laughs*

Hermes: no tell me I didn't tell you so

Charon: you told me so

H: no no tell me I didn't tell you so

C: you- you told me so

H: and what do you have to say now?

C: You're right

H: I know I'm right, but what do you have to say?

C: he's an asshole. The lad is an asshole

M: not only I am. But I am also their political leader. Certified, first instance and advertised on television *continues laughing*"

Ps: in greek malakas, means someone who jerks off/ masturbates and the dick is also called "bird" so. The icon of the political party MALAKAS was 100% on purpose (also yeah malakas can't really be translated I think but we use it similar to the way English people use asshole so we've agreed that's the translation even though asshole means κωλοτριπιδα)

So yeah, the show is about an Asshole trying to find 1€ in the bad economy of Greece 2011 in order to pay mister Anger Issues and Crybaby so they can retire and go on vacation

Also, greeks today are in fact Orthodox Christians (the majority at least, I mean look at the flag) and that's where the joke of "changing religions" comes from

There's also a bunch of random stuff that I love about the show, like Charon being in love with Cinderella but she keeps rejecting him

And a lot of reoccurring characters, whether fictional (like Lassie, ET, Cinderella, Avatar(blue) Snow white, Pluto, the twilight cast) or real (Madonna, Obama +lots of politicians, The Pope, Queen Elizabeth) etc

Also, I almost forgot, some people in the tags said Hermes (or someone else) should have paid for him, that's not how it works. Hermes' job was to bring the souls to the underworld and Charon's to take them across the river, Hermes couldn't be paying Charon for every dead soul he brought

Am I the asshole for not paying and dying?

So, I (M???) Technically died thousands of years ago. The thing is at that time my country and religion had the rule that the dead were buried with a coin to pay the dude that was taking them to the underworld.

But I was (and still am) really poor. So the God (M???) who collected the souls (We're gonna call him H) and guides them to the underworld left me at the side of the river where I had to take a boat

Then a boatman, let's call him C took me to the other side, when he asked me to pay I didn't have any money to pay him and actually enter the underworld

I suggested that H should pay for me since he was the one that brought me there but he said something like "As if I'll make any money from this business if I start paying for the dead too"

Well since I couldn't pay, I never really died and have been wondering around earth for a while now.

But recently my country officially changed religions and since the old gods gave everything to the new ones H and C had to do some paperwork in order to actually get retired

But they can't get retired since I am an unfinished business from the ex administration. Any time H tries to kill me (that guy has a lot of anger issues and hates my guts so it happens a lot) I'm sent up to heaven and an angel G(M?) has to bring me back down since I "am not a Christian and unfinished business" etc etc

H and C have been trying to find me a job so that I'll get paid, pay them and die so they can retire

So far I haven't been able to get paid, I guess I'm kind of sabotaging the whole thing since I don't want to die but also the country and the economy is shit, where would I find 1€ in this time and age?

So am I the asshole for not helping them retire by paying them and dying?

[ahtsumu]

long shots ; miya osamu

pairing: miya osamu x f!reader

synopsis: miya osamu is the teacher’s assistant for food chemistry i. you can’t stop thinking about him.

tag(s): college!au, slow burn, TA!miya osamu, grad student!reader, fluff, reader is a go-getter!! ; warning(s): profanity, suggestive themes, talk of insecurities and imposter syndrome ; wc: 5.6k

a/n: happy birthday to @starrysamu​! i love u. pls excuse any errors. i’ll weed them out later! btw this fic is not a sugar daddy au LOL

HIS NAME IS Miya Osamu and he always looks like he has it all figured out. Comes in every class with his black hair perfectly tousled, the sleeves of his dark button-up rolled to his elbows, a cup of coffee in one hand and the strap of that black messenger bag in another.

“He drives a BMW, did ya know?” Isla says in your ear one morning. Your only friend in Food Chemistry I gives you a pointed look before sitting back in her chair in the lecture hall with a smirk on her face. “Saw it this morning. Bet he’s loaded.” The two of you watch the subject in question walk across the classroom and settle in his seat at the table in the corner.

“Shut up,” you whisper with wide eyes. A grin–– far from innocent–– makes its way onto your face. “Imagine being Miya Osamu’s sugar baby.”

“He’s not old enough to be a sugar daddy.” Isla looks at her nails disinterestedly. “And that’s too many AUs in one. He’s already the TA, for god’s sake. This isn’t some shitty Wattpad novel.”

A light giggle slips out of your lips. “I can see the title already. My Sugar Daddy is the TA?!”

Now, if anyone had been listening in on your conversation, they would’ve assumed many things about you. The first being that you’re both gold-diggers. This is untrue–– at least, in your case. Isla, you’re not so sure about, given how your friendship only goes back about one month. But she tags you in memes on Instagram so maybe it’s as real as real gets. Their second assumption would be that you have a big fat crush on your TA. That one’s complicated, mostly because it’s true, but only kinda. It all started in the second week of school when Isla caught you staring at Osamu and slipped you a post-it note with both your initials encircled in a heart. And, because you’re shameless with a good sense of humour, you made a show of kissing it while she was looking. And thus began your meaningless but incredibly entertaining, satirical, co-written fantasy about Miya Osamu.

It also didn’t help that on the first essay you got back, Isla’s paper had been marked up with “are you sure?”s and “this is a jump”s, while yours had “excellent reasoning” and “insightful analysis”. You’d even gotten a little comment at the bottom: y/n, fantastic work. you should speak up in class more often. –– OM

But Miya Osamu doesn’t play favourites because the next week you’d gotten another essay back, this time with another comment at the bottom: y/n, not your best work. you could’ve done better by connecting your first paragraph with the second using grant’s reading. conclusion lacked punch, too. all the best. –– OM

Every time you’d read the words scrawled in blue ink, you’d felt a pair of eyes on you. But you chalk it up to Osamu being a careful grader. A good TA. Someone who cares about his students.

Isla calls bullshit on that. You’re not really sure how to feel about her stance.

The classroom door opens and shuts again. You don’t have to look at your phone to know that it’s nine on the dot. Instead, you and Isla straighten your backs, pull out your notebooks, and focus. Your no-nonsense professor says “good morning” in her usual perky manner before jumping right into her keynote presentation.

“Did you all find the reading okay?” Professor Lee asks an hour into the lecture.

A chorus of “yes”s fill the air. You bite your lip, wondering if revealing that you didn’t understand shit will out you as the class idiot. Or maybe your silence is telling enough–– maybe the people in the seats beside you have noticed the grimace on your face and are having thoughts like ‘gee whiz, am I glad I’m not dumb like her’. Heat rushes to your cheeks. Sometimes you really wonder if you’re smart enough to be here. Occurrences like these do nothing to dispel your insecurities.

You vaguely hear her ask something like, “Any thoughts about the reading?” It’s not that you’re actually dumb. It’s just that this class is ridiculously hard for an introductory course, even for a graduate programme. From the start of the semester til now, fifteen people have dropped the class. There’s just twenty of you left. Guess a ridiculously hot TA can’t save a course’s drop-rate.

Before you can make your mind up on what to say, your professor moves on from her question.

As you look off to the side of the room for a break from your thoughts, you find a pair of blue-grey eyes pointed in your direction.

Everything about you, from the expression on your face to the way your muscles tense, makes you look like a deer caught in headlights–– even though he was the one caught staring in the first place. So maybe your shamelessness works on a scale.

Miya Osamu lifts one corner of his mouth.

And as if the exchange hadn’t happened at all, he looks back down at his laptop and continues typing.

The rest of the lecture goes through one ear and out the other.

“Everyone, I believe Osamu has something he wants to say,” Professor Lee says as everyone begins packing their bags.

The raven-haired TA slides out of his seat and sits on top of his desk. “Yeah.” Osamu clears his throat and crosses his arms over his chest. You notice how the muscles in his arms bulge from the movement.

“Whipped,” Isla mutters, grinning mischievously.

“Him for me,” you whisper back, though your eyes do travel back to his face where they should’ve been all along. Osamu catches your gaze and holds it. And then he looks away again.

“Now, I know you’re all Nobel prizewinners in the making,” he begins, garnering a round of snickers and giggles from your classmates. Most people say that cliques dissolve in college. That there’s no such thing as popularity amongst graduate students. That much, you agree with. But no one ever said anything about popular teacher’s assistants. Especially smart, attractive, witty teacher’s assistants like Miya Osamu. “But in case you didn’t understand the reading or would like to develop a deeper understanding of it, don’t hesitate to email me. I’ll try to host a review session all of us can attend.”

Professor Lee smiles appreciatively at Osamu, adding, “That’s a wonderful idea, Osamu. Guys, please take this opportunity if you struggled with the reading. I know eighty pages is a lot, but our next three classes are structured around the concepts in the reading and the mid-term next week will almost exclusively be about it, too.”

Well, shit.

To: m.osamu@hqu.edu

Hi Osamu,

I was wondering if I could get some help with the reading from last class. To be frank, I couldn’t make it past page 15 and I’m lost like a snot-faced five-year-old in a shopping mall on Black Friday. Sorry. Thanks in advance!

Regretfully,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: m.osamu@hqu.edu

no problem. is 5 pm tomorrow at jack’s okay? we start on the concepts from the reading next class so i want to get you up to speed asap. let me know. thanks.

OM

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

It’s five minutes to five when you pull into the parking lot of Jack’s Diner. The shiny, retrofuturistic eatery is a university favourite but the empty parking lot tells you it’s completely deserted right now (and rightfully so–– who eats dinner before six?). The black BMW parked a few spots from your car, however, says that you’re not alone.

Osamu’s figure comes into view as you reach for the handle to the front door of Jack’s. The twenty-six-year-old sits by himself at one of the bright red tables in the back, typing away on his dark grey laptop.

His head lifts up at the sound of the opening door. Osamu calls out your name and waves you over.

“Hi,” you greet with a smile, sitting down across from him.

“Hey.”

You look around before leaning forward on the table. “Is anyone else coming?”

“No.” Osamu sits back in his seat. “I thought about hosting one big group, but then I realised that it’d probably be stressful for the staff here.” He nods his head in the direction of the kitchen. “And I had a hunch that everyone would have different questions. Forcing everyone to review concepts they already know is a waste of time.”

At first, you nod. That makes sense. But then you furrow your brows. “So how long have you been here?”

Osamu blinks. He hadn’t expected you to ask about him. “Hmm? Oh.” He taps his phone to check the time. “Just a while.”

Quirking a brow, you ask, “And how long is ‘a while’ to you?”

“Seven hours,” he admits, chuckling lightly when he sees your jaw drop. “A lot of people had questions. They just don’t act like they do. Anyway, time flies. Really, it does.” Quickly, he clears his throat and sits forward. “So, about your email.” He grins. “Not sure if you meant it to be funny, but it was.”

“I’m glad my distress was entertaining for you. Do you TA just to watch grad students suffer?”

“Perks of the job,” Osamu says. His grin widens when you giggle. He’s never heard you laugh before and he realises at that moment that it’s really nice. And then that same grin falters. Gracefully, of course, and imperceptibly to you. But not to him. Is it okay for him to be… thinking things like that? About a student? But you’re not really his student since he’s just the TA. Right? Osamu ignores the weird feeling that comes over him and clasps his hands together at the edge of his laptop. “Back to your email. Can ya tell me what you’re confused about?”

Three hours and two Impossible Burgers later, you suddenly understand everything about food molecules so well that you wonder why you’d even been confused in the first place. But besides that, you’ve also picked up things about Osamu. As a person and not an idea. Not that you’d been actively searching for fun facts about your TA. But they’d stuck to your brain like gum at the bottom of a desk. He likes to slip sarcastic quips into a conversation every now and then. Eats burgers upside down (“The right way,” as he’d said, smirking). Is friendlier than he looks.

“You’re really good at explaining things,” you comment as Osamu shuts his laptop closed.

“Well, I kinda have to be,” he says. And maybe it’s the mental fatigue catching up on him or the fact that he’s real fond of the reason why he can break big concepts down into morsels but suddenly, the rest of his thoughts spill out his mouth like wine. “I have a twin brother with potato salad for brains.”

“Oh?”

And before he can stop himself, he tells you about Miya Atsumu, the pro-athlete you’ve definitely heard of but never gave too much thought. And then you hold onto the fact that they were both on the volleyball team and you ask of which school, so then he tells you about Inarizaki, the high school he attended, and then his decision not to go pro to go to college, and then––

“Sorry,” he laughs, cheeks turning pink. “You probably didn’t need to hear all that.”

“No, it’s fine,” you say–– and you mean it. “Your life is interesting.”

Osamu leans back in his chair. “Well, I’m sure yours is, too.” He holds your gaze like it’s the key to your presence. It’s an invitation. The kind that comes from people who don’t really know if they want you around but also don’t want you gone.

You take it.

Osamu shouldn’t–– he really shouldn’t–– but he wonders about the things you didn’t tell him the entire drive home.

Isla laughs when you tell her about what happened at Jack’s. You lay in bed with your phone next to you on speaker, your face turned on your pillow so that you’re staring out the window at the city below.

“He wants you,” she sings.

“Or he was just being nice.”

“Methinks not!” Isla giggles. “He’s intrigued, girl! You’re like that cute little new mystery in his life and he just wants to get to know you.”

“I think he was just being polite.”

“Or he’s crushing on you!”

“In your dreams.”

“You mean yours? Boo, you’re no fun today. Usually, you go along with the jokes.” Isla’s tone is playful on the surface but full of implications.

A few silent seconds pass. Yeah, you think, agreeing. I do.

“Girl,” Isla drags out the word in a high pitch, saying it like a scientist says ‘eureka’. “You’re not playing along anymore because it’s real now. You're actually catching feelings!”

“Am not!” you laugh.

“The Y/N I knew would’ve said ‘nah, bitch, he’s catching feelings’ and I think that says all there is to say.”

“Okay, I think he’s cute but it’s not a crush,” you concede, grinning. “And he’s the TA, Isles. It’d never happen.”

“Not while he’s still a TA in a class you take.”

“Isla.”

“Ask him out once this semester ends! Unless you’re chicken.”

“I’m not asking him out.”

“Knew you were––”

“Have you seen me? He’s asking me out.”

Miya Osamu walks through the door at eight-fifty as usual that next morning, dressed in his usual button-up, holding his usual cup of coffee. But this time, as the rest of his tall frame passes through the doorway, Osamu’s eyes subtly scan the faces in the lecture hall, lingering for just a while over yours. The corners of your lips turn up. You hope he saw that.

“Bitch!” Isla whisper-screams. The students sitting around you turn around at the noise and grin at each other when they realise it’s just Isla being… well, Isla. She shoos them away jokingly.

“What?” you whisper back.

“Care to explain why our TA was literally eye-fucking you?”

“That was hardly eye-fucking,” you retort. “Maybe like an eye-handshake.”

“Yeah, a naked eye-handshake where his thang is handshaking your––”

He does it again the next class.

And the next.

And then he doesn’t. Miya Osamu walks through the door to Food Chemistry I at eight-fifty in the morning in a navy blue button-up with a cup of coffee in his hand and looks through the rows of seats in the lecture hall for your face, only to find it missing.

He debates pressing the matter.

To: m.osamu@hqu.edu

hey osamu,

i wasn’t in class today because i’ve been sick with the flu (no big deal, just feel like i’m dying). a classmate sent me pictures of the slides from today so i think i should be fine, but is it okay if i email you with any questions? thank you very much!

miserably,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: m.osamu@hqu.edu

y/n,

of course. sorry to hear that you’re sick. let me know if i can do anything to help you. the midterm is next week. get well soon.

OM

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

“You writing that the midterm is next week did not offer me any peace of mind, by the way,” you say, spinning around in your chair as Miya Osamu enters your pod in the library.

He offers you a wry grin. “Hello to ya, too.”

“Was that an accent?” You thought you’d heard one at Jack’s, but you couldn’t be sure because it’d been so spotty.

Osamu slips into the seat beside yours and pulls out the laptop in his messenger bag. You catch a whiff of his cologne–– something spicy and woody, but clean. It suits him. “Nice catch. Yeah, I speak a regional dialect. Took me a while to smooth it over but it still resurfaces every now and then.”

“Why?”

“It just didn’t seem fitting for a PhD candidate, I guess,” Osamu explains, opening the slides from the class you missed. A day after your initial exchange, you’d emailed him again (with a much clearer mind) and asked if he could go over the slides with you in person.

i literally feel like i’ve been given the homework from russian lit, you’d written. except the russian has been translated to hieroglyphs and my task is to choreograph an interpretive dance based on the hieroglyphs.

Osamu had snickered when he saw your email. that doesn’t even make sense. must be the fever talking, he’d been tempted to write. But that strange feeling had come over him again, the one that’d screamed at him to keep it professional, goddamnit, so he’d played it safe instead and sent is eight pm at the main library okay? He hates that you’re getting a watered-down version of his personality. Osamu swears he’s a lot more interesting when he’s not, well, a TA.

“I think it’s fine,” you say, smiling. “I like it. It’s you.” And suddenly, you’re wondering if it’s okay to be complimenting your TA. If it’s okay to say that you like things about him, or if that crosses some grey, unclear line. Is it weird to treat your TAs like they’re your friends? It’s not like TAs are real teachers. Right?

A grin–– wide and genuine and almost excited–– grows on Osamu’s face. He rubs the back of his neck as his eyes flit over to the laptop screen. “Thanks. Really.”

You nod. But you feel like there’s more that he might want to say, so you wait.

“I got a lot of shit for it when I came here for my master’s, y’know. Not to my face, of course, but people would refer to me as ‘the guy with the accent’. A professor once said it made me seem crass. Said it’d hold me back in my career.”

“So you changed.”

“Adapted,” Osamu corrects. “It’s hard to admit but conforming is sometimes all you can do when you don’t have the power to change the system. Can’t really make everyone suddenly respect a dialect.”

“And after you’re finished with your PhD, you’ll go back to speaking in that dialect?”

Osamu looks out the window and smiles, probably imagining the plans he’s already made about the future. “Yeah.”

“What if you have to speak the standard language at your job? Like, your boss is all, ‘hey man, if you don’t speak––”’

“I’ll be the boss.”

“Oh?”

And with a little more prodding, Miya Osamu tells you about the restaurant chain he plans on opening after graduation, the slides about food additives left completely untouched.

The librarian knocks on your pod a few minutes before eleven to tell you they’re closing.

“Shit,” Osamu murmurs, running his hands through his hair. You’re still laughing about something he’d said before the librarian interrupted him–– one of his stories from high school–– and he thinks that you’ve completely forgotten that the reason you came to the library was to catch up on the material you were already behind on. And now you’re behind on that. But you look so carefree right now and, actually, you’re very pretty and you’ve got such a good heart and it’s a lot for him to process but he knows he just wants to see you happy a while longer. So Osamu just slumps back in his chair and laughs along with you.

He says your name as his chuckles grow softer. “It’s pretty late. How’re you getting home?”

“I’ve a bike,” you reply. It’s good for the environment and is a pretty solid form of exercise if you do say so yourself. Sometimes you just don’t feel like driving. 

Osamu presses his lips in a thin line. Would it be too much to offer you a ride? “I can drive you home. It’s really not safe for you to be alone outside, especially near midnight. You can get your bike tomorrow. Or I’ll get it for you.”

He drives fast. Not the unsafe fast that speed demons drive at, but the kind of fast where you know he’s got some edge to his character. You bring it up to him–– especially since it’s nighttime, for god’s sake, he could hit something–– and all he does is remind you how there are lamps as bright as the sun lining the entire road to your dorm. And the fact that you live in the least accessible dorm on campus.

“A twenty-minute drive?” he’d exclaimed when he saw the GPS monitor.

“A bunch of roads are closed for construction. It’s a ten-minute bike-ride because I can cut through campus.” And suddenly feeling a little burdensome, you’d added, “Sorry. I can still bike––”

“No.” He’d held his hand out in front of you, gesturing for you to stay in the passenger’s seat. “It’s not a bother at all.” Because it wasn’t. Osamu was… happy. Not that he’d admit that.

“So this BMW,” you start in a teasing tone.

Osamu smirks. “A gift.”

“Can I guess from who?”

“Sure.”

“Atsumu.”

His brows rise. “Colour me impressed.” He hadn’t expected you to remember anything he’d said about Atsumu. Or maybe he had but told himself otherwise to lower his hopes.

“I’m smart like that.”

He snorts. “Not if you keep distracting me and using your review time to…” hang out with me, get to know me, tell me things about you… “…goof off.”

You grimace. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Osamu makes a turn down a familiar street. It dawns upon you that you're ten minutes away from your dorm and suddenly you wish he’d just make the wrong turn at the next intersection so that you could talk to him some more. It can even be about the health benefits of fish or the molecular makeup of kale–– you don’t mind. You just want to be around him longer.

“I think you’re really smart,” Osamu says quietly. “I think you’re not processing the readings because you’re distracted, or just not fully applying yourself. Obviously, last class’s slides are a different thing, since you were absent. But you really are smart. I’ve seen your papers.”

You bite your lip to hide your grin, feeling heat rush to your cheeks. “Thank you.” You look out the window, too jacked on dopamine to think straight. “I think I still need you, though.”

And that innocuous little sentence floats right out your mouth into the air, settling between you like a little wedge before either of you even realise it. Neither of you says anything. You marinate in the awkwardness before stuttering out a clarification. “To, um, to explain things. Y’know, since you’re, uh, so good at… explaining things.”

Osamu clears his throat and chuckles stiffly. There’s a slightly pink tinge to his cheeks. “Thanks,” he says, looking straight ahead. He can’t even look at you. Fuck. It’s so awkward. “I’ll try to keep… explaining things.” Fuck. What does that even mean?

A few uncomfortable minutes pass in silence. The night can’t end like this, you think. It can’t when everything else had gone so well. You still have to see him for a few more months. “Did you know,” you start, catching Osamu’s attention, “that Jack’s Diner has a location in Italy?”

“Oh?” he asks, making the final turn to the street where your dorm is. He actually hadn’t.

“Yeah. I asked the owner about the chain a while back. Have you ever been to Italy?”

Osamu shakes his head. “I’ve been to Paris, though. To see a friend. He’s a chocolatier.”

Now, if Osamu had been your friend, you would’ve said something like well, let’s go to Italy together, except he’s not. He’s your TA and you’ve been reminded that enough tonight. So instead, you say, “When you open that restaurant of yours in Italy, let me know.”

“That’s gonna take a while,” he laughs. He appreciates how you said ‘when’, though. And he tucks that little bit of confidence you have in him somewhere deep in his mind so that it doesn’t get lost.

“Isn’t that just seven hours?” you shrug, grinning. Osamu’s BMW pulls up outside your dorm and parks as he marvels at what you just said. You’re amazing. You unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to face your driver.

“Thank you for driving me,” you say, offering him a smile.

“Yeah,” he replies.

You stretch out your hand. With a puzzled look on his face, Osamu grabs it and shakes it. Firmly. You can’t help but notice how nice his hands are. Calloused for sure, but they feel nice.

“Goodnight, Osamu.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

He watches you jog into the building before driving away. And it’s like you’ve possessed his car or something because the smell of your shampoo and perfume is everywhere and it’s too much but it’s also not enough at the same time and he can feel your palm against his as he spins the steering wheel to make a turn and for the first time in his life he doesn’t turn on the radio to fill the silence in his car. Osamu replays everything you said in his head.

But he especially thinks about that part where you said you need him.

Weeks melt into months. You turn in essays after essays for Food Chemistry I, each coming back with detailed commentary in an all-too-familiar blue scrawl. All your other classes go well–– extremely well, actually. You might just end the semester with a 4.0 if Food Chem doesn’t fuck you over. Isla still tags you in memes on Instagram. You still tell her about everything that happens with Osamu.

Speaking of.

“That’s the wrong equation,” he says behind your ear as he settles in the seat beside you. The sound of his low voice so close to your ear sends a small shiver down your spine. “You gotta switch the hydrogens.” Osamu knocks on your skull lightly. “What’s goin’ on up in there? Ya got somethin’ on your mind?”

You laugh and elbow him in the side. “Shut up, ‘Samu.” He’d told you during one of his office hours that he’d gone by that nickname because he had a teammate with a foreign name in high school. It sounded so cool, he’d said, grinning.

I think Osamu sounds pretty cool already, you’d teased.

And he’d replied, Let’s trade. I like yours, you like mine, why not share?

You teeter on the line between friends and less-than-friends and, oddly enough, more-than-friends. Sometimes you still play it safe. Sometimes he pauses between texts and real-time conversations, no doubt to scrap an instinctive reply for something more “professional”. Sometimes you say things that make him look at you with the ghost of a smile at the corners of his lips. Sometimes he calls Atsumu to scream about you.

“S’not a no,” Osamu points out. He’s dressed in a black sweater and grey trousers today. You’re suddenly reminded of how the weather’s been getting colder when someone opens the door to the university café and lets in a gust of chilly autumn air.

“Okay,” you admit, setting down the pencil. “I just… don’t really feel prepared for this next test.”

Osamu frowns and looks down at your worksheet. “Your process is correct, though.”

“Right, but… I don’t know. I’ve just not been feeling great about myself lately,” you laugh, looking down at your feet. “Food Chem’s the toughest class I’ve ever taken. And remember how I completely embarrassed myself in that class discussion last week? It’s not really making me feel like I belong here.”

“Imposter syndrome,” Osamu remarks.

“Correct-o.”

He says your name softly and puts a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Maybe you’re not the smartest, but you’re definitely smart. And you belong here. I’ve seen your papers. They’re just as great as anyone else’s and I don’t hand out compliments for nothin’. You’re gonna do some great things but ya can’t improve if you ever give up.” Osamu searches your eyes for a sign of your understanding.

There’re a lot of things you want to say but you don’t know how to put them into words. “Can I hug you?” you finally ask.

Osamu doesn’t even think about it. “Of course.”

He feels you smile against his chest and wonders if you can feel his heart beat faster.

Isla camps out in your dorm as finals come around the corner.

“I don’t understand shit!” she wails, throwing her notebook into the air.

“Isles, it’s okay,” you laugh, slipping out of your chair and walking over to her nest in the corner. “You gotta chill, dude.”

“Not fair! I didn’t have a hunk holding my hand through this course all semester,” she retorts, humour glittering in her dark eyes. “I had the Organic Chemistry Tutor and his accent’s cute enough but, girl, you had Miya Fucking Osamu!”

“You’re literally the worst.” You giggle and sit down beside her. “Tell me what you’re confused about. I’ll try to explain it to you.” The way Osamu does.

You text him that you’d channelled his brains later that night.

His reply comes seconds later. all you, einstein.

From: osamu

good luck on the exam

you’re going to kill it

To: osamu

would u like to divulge any… information about it? 😏 😏 😏

From: osamu

bye

To: osamu

i was kidding :(

From: osamu

fine. tip #1: write your name

To: osamu

not very helpful. 0/10

From: osamu

keep running your mouth and 0/10 is what your score’s going to be

i’m kidding

you got this, y/n

“Holy fuck,” Isla groans as you cross the street to head to lunch at Jack’s. “If you don’t see me next semester it’s because I’ve gotten my grade back and decided to drop out.”

“What would you do?” you ask, amused.

“Maybe move to New Zealand. Raise some sheep. Marry a hot, blond shepherd and fuck off to a cliffside cottage.”

“Solid plan.”

“What about you?” she asks.

“What about me?”

“Remember that conversation we had at the start of the year? About your man?” The two of you reach another red light for pedestrians.

“We’re friends. He’s not my man,” you laugh. Though it pains you to. Something about being Miya Osamu’s friend doesn’t really sit right with you, but you don’t know how to not be his friend. You don’t know how to move out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into.

“But you wish he were! And now you can finally hit him with that ‘Hey, Osamu, I’ve been madly in love with you since the start of the semester, wanna fuck like rabbits and then open that store in Italy?’ and he’ll be all––”

A throat clears behind you. With wide eyes, the two of you turn around.

Holy fuck.

Miya Osamu stands behind you with his hands in his pockets and an enormous smirk on his face.

“He’ll be all what?” he asks, eyes fixed on you.

Isla murmurs an excuse and starts walking on her own to Jack’s.

“Um.” You swallow nervously and shrink in your coat. “You heard all of that, right?”

“Yep.” Osamu grins. He grins. He’s grinning. He’s smiling like he’s won the fucking lottery and you honestly don’t know what to do with that information.

“So, like,” you look down at the sidewalk and kick at a pebble, “what are your thoughts about that?” God, you could die. “‘Cause I know you’re a TA and it’d probably look pretty bad and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you because I like you and it’s cool if we just…”

Osamu interrupts you with a laugh. “My thoughts,” he says, “are that I want to kiss you.” His fingers lift your chin up. “What are your thoughts about that?”

Well, shit. “I think that’s pretty cool, yeah,” you breathe, eyelids fluttering shut as his face comes closer to yours.

He tastes like mint. And his lips move softly, slowly against yours like he’s savouring the moment. And then you feel his hands snake around your waist to pull you closer–– closer because you both are tired of forcing the distance between bodies that want to be near each other, closer because he’s thought about kissing you just like this for so long, closer because you remember the last time he’d touched you was three days ago and it was just a brush of his fingers against your arm and that feeling of wanting more haunted you for the entire night. But holy shit, Miya Osamu is kissing you. He’s kissing you.

And then he pulls away. His dark eyes flit over yours. “I,” he breathes, “I need your course load next semester.”

“What?” you ask, disbelief written all over your features, chest rising and falling as you try to steady your breathing. You just kissed, for God's sake, and he's––

“I need to know which courses not to apply to TA for,” he grins, cupping your face in his hands. “Can’t be teachin’ in a class with my girlfriend as a student.”

“So we’re official?” you ask, beaming.

“If you want,” Osamu replies with a smirk.

You grab the front of his coat and tug him down for another kiss. “Hell yeah, I want to be official.”

[krabmeat]

☊⏃⋏ ⟟ ⏚⟒ ⟒⋏⎅⟒⍀⋔⏃⋏ ⏃⋏⍜⋏? ⏃⋏⊬⍙⏃⊬⌇ ⋏⍜⍙ ⏁⊑⏃⏁'⌇ ⏃⌰⌰ ⍜⎍⏁ ⍜⎎ ⏁⊑⟒ ⍙⏃⊬. ☌⍜⎅ ⍀⟒⏃⎅⟒⍀ ☌⟒⏁⏁⟟⋏☌ ⍀⟒⎐⟟⎐⟒⎅ ⎍⋏⟒⌖⌿⟒☊⏁⟒⎅⌰⊬ ⏚⊬ ⎅⍀⟒⏃⋔? ⟟⏁'⌇ ⌰⟟☍⟒ - ⏃ ⍀⟒⏃⌰⌰⊬ ⏚⏃⎅⏃⌇⌇ ⏃⋏⏁⏃☌⍜⋏⟟⌇⏁ ☌⍜⎅ ⏁⊑⏃⏁ ☌⟒⏁⌇ ⌿⎍⌰⌰⟒⎅ ⍜⎍⏁ ⍜⎎ ⏁⊑⟒ ⎍⋏⎅⟒⍀⍙⍜⍀⌰⎅, ☊⏃⌰⌰⟟⋏☌ ⎅⍀⟒⏃⋔ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ "⌇⏃⎐⟟⍜⎍⍀" (⏚⎍⏁ ⟟⋏ ⏃ ⋔⍜⍀⟒ ⌇⏃⏁⟟⍀⟟☊⏃⌰ ⍙⏃⊬ ⟟⋏⌇⏁⟒⏃⎅ ⍜⎎ ☌⟒⋏⎍⟟⋏⟒⌰⊬ ⌇⟒⟒⟟⋏☌ ⏁⊑⟒ ⋔⏃⌇☍⟒⎅ ⋔⏃⋏ ⏃⌇ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ ⊑⟒⍀⍜ ☊⏃⎍⌇⟒ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌿⏃⌇⏁ ⏁⊑⟒⊬'⎐⟒ ⋔⍜⌇⏁ ⌰⟟☍⟒⌰⊬ ☊⏃⌰⌰⟒⎅ ⟒⎐⟒⍀⊬⍜⋏⟒ ⏁⊑⏃⏁ ⊑⟒⌰⌿⟒⎅ ⏁⊑⟒⋔ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ ⋔⟟☌⊑⏁⊬ ⊑⟒⌰⌿⟒⍀ ⏁⍜ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌿⍜⟟⋏⏁ ⍙⊑⟒⍀⟒ ⏁⊑⟒ ⏁⟟⏁⌰⟒ ⎎⟒⟒⌰⌇ ⍜⎐⟒⍀⎍⌇⟒⎅ ⏃⋏⎅ ⎍⋏⎅⟒⌇⟟⍀⏃⏚⌰⟒). ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⍀⍜⏃⋔⟒⎅ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌰⏃⋏⎅⌇ ⍜⎎ ⏁⊑⟒ ⌇⋔⌿, ⏚⍀⟟⋏☌⟟⋏☌ ⏁⟒⍀⍀⍜⍀ ⏃⋏⎅ ⊑⟒⌰⌰⎎⟟⍀⟒ ⏃☊⍀⍜⌇⌇ ⏁⊑⟒ ⍜⎐⟒⍀⍙⍜⍀⌰⎅, ⌰⟒⏁⏁⟟⋏☌ ⏁⊑⟒⟟⍀ ☍⟒⌿⏁ ⟟⋏ ⍀⏃☌⟒ ⌇⏁⍀⍜⌰⌰ ⎎⍀⟒⟒. ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⟒⋏⎅ ⎍⌿ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ⏁⎍⋏⎅⍀⏃, ⏁⊑⟒ ⏚⎍⍀⋏⟟⋏☌ ⎎⌰⏃☍⟒⌇ ⍜⎎ ⏃⌇⊑⟒⌇ ☌⟒⏁⏁⟟⋏☌ ⌰⍜⌇⏁ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ⊑⏃⍀⌇⊑ ⌿⟟⌰⟒⌇ ⍜⎎ ⌇⋏⍜⍙. ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⊑⏃⌿⌿⟒⋏⟒⎅ ⏁⍜ ⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⌇⏁⎍⋔⏚⌰⟒⎅ ⎍⌿⍜⋏ ⏁⊑⟒ ☊⍜⏁⏁⏃☌⟒⌇ ⍜⎎ ⏁⍙⍜ ⟟⋔⋔⍜⍀⏁⏃⌰ ☌⍜⎅⌇ ⏁⊑⏃⏁ ⏁⊑⟒⊬ ⋔⏃⊬ ⍜⍀ ⋔⏃⊬ ⋏⍜⏁ ⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⎍⌇⟒⎅ ⏁⍜ ☍⋏⍜⍙. ⍙⍜⋏⎅⟒⍀ ⍙⊑⏃⏁'⌰⌰ ⊑⏃⌿⌿⟒⋏? ⟟ ⍙⍜⎍⌰⎅ ⌰⟟☍⟒ ⏁⍜ ⌇⟒⟒ ⊬⍜⎍⍀ ⏁⏃☍⟒ ⟟⋏ ⏁⊑⟟⌇.

- ⟒⋏⎅⟒⍀⋔⏃⋏ ⏃⋏⍜⋏

𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚋𝚎𝚗𝚝

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜: philza, techno, Wilbur,(next few only mentioned)Mexican dream, schlatt, dream

𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚜: they/them

𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: fire, death, arson, betrayal mention, being used, reference to drugs, slight cursing

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚜: translation vvvvv

Can i be enderman anon? anyways now that's all out of the way. God reader getting revived unexpectedly by dream? it's like - a really badass antagonist god that gets pulled out of the underworld, calling dream their "saviour" (but in a more satirical way instead of genuinely seeing the masked man as their hero cause in the past they've most likely called everyone that helped them their mighty helper to the point where the title feels overused and undesirable). They roamed the lands of the smp, bringing terror and hellfire across the overworld, letting their kept in rage stroll free. They end up in the tundra, the burning flakes of ashes getting lost in the harsh piles of snow. They happened to have stumbled upon the cottages of two immortal gods that they may or may not have used to know. Wonder what'll happen? i would like to see your take in this.

 - enderman anon

AHHH IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I DONT KNOW IF YOULL EVEN READ THIS STILL BUT TY FOR THE REQUEST IT ISNT THE BEST QUALITY IM SORRY :[[[

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You almost don't recognize the sensation of grass against your calloused and rough hands. You were in the void playing solitaire with Schlatt and Mexican Dream, and the next thing you knew you were suddenly pulled harshly by the back of your collar, falling on your spine. The looming mask of Dream is what stood above you, but he looked different. Longer hair, smelly, wearing a stained lime green jumpsuit with ‘0001' sewn into it and covered in cuts, scars and bruises. But before you could even question why Dream was suddenly there, he stepped back into the void, the void slowly surrounding and consuming him the further he went backwards. His now bony hand is still tightly gripped onto the back of your shirt, so while struggling your body is also enveloped in darkness. All it took was one blink and there you were on a patch of grass, staring at the pale blue sky.

"Huh."

Was all that came out of your mouth. You were still shocked at the turn of events that just happened, but no longer grounded. A running river nearby stunned your senses. How long had you been dead? It felt like years, but when you look around at the familiar forest you died in, not much had changed except for a couple newly planted saplings here and there. The swirling ashes you remembered before you died had all settled and compressed into the soil.

The river showed a strange reflection of yourself- your features have clearly sunken into your skull and there's a streak of white hair coming from your scalp along with words in fancy gold letters on your arm reading,

"May thy woes and hurt of the past no longer eradicate the upwards of this lost souls future. Allow thine to be praised by Ender themselves and be granted another chance at mortality."

Scrubbing or picking at your arm did nothing, so onwards you went walking along the forest to what you remember being a bustling "community".

Each mound of dirt you saw only brought memories of your death, of the place and people who sought to treat you like you were disposable. And now that you’re alive, you hate that they technically ended up being right. Your death; alone in a forest. Running away from the unexpected attacker, ashamed and too prideful to die in the prying eyes of your enemies. It fills you with rage, all the lives taken by your hands and for what? You weren’t overreacting, you knew that for sure. And before you knew it, you stole some fresh flint and steel from a random chest and got to work. 

You had always wanted to touch the fires you set. The soothing feeling you got from watching wood burn to char and ashes satisfied you. And it made it all the more euphoric to know it was trees of your manipulator's land. Running across the land, with flames as far as you could see when you looked behind you. The heat swirled around your neck and went into your nose, but the feeling was muscle memory at that point. You were still riding your high when a voice reached out to you, luckily when you were finally calm.

"What- Y/n? Hold on, is that really you Y/n..?"

You spin on your heels to the familiar manipulative British voice of a person you haven't seen in a long time. 

"Wilbur?! Man, I haven't seen another person's face other than those two addicts in a while- you look different." 

His eyes much like yours are sunken deep into his skull, purple-pink bags under his eyes and dull skin. Wilburs shocked lips fade into an opened mouth smile when he walks up to you with his hands momentarily confused on what they should do. Eventually, his right hand settles on clasping your left shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze.

“Y/n it is so good to see you! You look quite different yourself, wouldn’t you think-? Oh, look! We’re matching!”

The grey streak in your hair seems to make another appearance when Wilbur briefly smacks it with his middle and pointer finger. 

“Ay, it’s nice to see you too Wil, but back up for a second alright? I've got something to ask you by the way…”

Wilburs head peaks in interest, urging you to go on.

“I’m guessing that little streak in your hair wasn’t a fashion choice- and if it was it’s a bit strange- but how’d you get it? You died when you blew up L’manburg! I mean c'mon, people don’t just, well…REVIVE!”

He starts to walk. You aren’t quite sure where, but stumbling along with Wilbur while his arm is draped lazily atop your shoulders seems to suffice. 

“Ahh Y/n, you’d be surprised. The most WONDERFUL thing happened, actually! Years and years in my hell of a train station; do you know who was at the subway door when it finally opened, Y/n? Dream!”

“Wh- Dream?!”

Appalled, you try to stop in your tracks but fail when wilburs arm is still pushing forward. His storytelling voice dies down to curiosity and excitement.

“Wait, did he save you too? He did, didn’t he? Oh, this is wonderful!”

Wilbur emits eagerism and you suddenly realize what you could do with his desperacy to be socially accepted. Putting on the most exaggerated and animated voice, you speak. 

“Oh my god yeah! Gosh, that Dream guy is my hero! Thanks to him, I get to have another chance at living again, and isn’t that just…swell.”

In all honesty you didn’t really try hard to sound sincere but by the look of Wilbur, it seemed to work just fine. 

“Right?! I’ve been meaning to visit him in the prison if you’d like to tag along with me the day I go? I’m sure he’d love to see you, since he revived you and all.”

Oh, you were sure Dream wanted to see you. He wants a boon- a trade. Why else would he revive two of the most historically significant people on the server if not to make some sort of deal with them? Sure, Wilbur is as gullible and carefree as ever but you at least still had scraps of mental stability and level-headedness that made you all the more a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention Wilbur doesn’t know that Dream killed you, but telling him that now would blow your act. You decide to keep your thoughts to yourself.

“Yeahh, sure! I’d love to go, just tell me when.”

And that’s the end of that conversation. The two of you walk to wherever Wilbur is going. It honestly surprised you how he couldn’t see through your apathy. From what you remembered, he was keen on being wise about people and their intentions but you guess years and years in hell do things to a person.

Somehow, you’re stuck in your mind for long enough that only now do you feel the sharp winter air making the hairs on your arms and legs stand straight up. 

“Wait, snow?”

The tundra was a drastic contrast to the void you were once in with schlatt and Mexican Dream. Instead of black as far as you could see, it was a blinding powdery white. 

‘Mexican Dream would’ve liked it here, probably would have tried to snort the snow like coke.’

You weren’t built for the snow, though. Hell- you didn’t even have a memory of anyone living in a tundra when you were alive! Why was Wilbur even in the tundra? You didn’t have the energy to ask, still feeling brittle and tired, back aching from laying on the dry dirt longer than expected earlier. 

“Yeah, just figured I’d show you around! Plus I already need to grab a couple things from an ender chest and this was the closest by. I’m a very busy man, after all.”

But why were there so many footprints in the snow? As far as you knew, Wilbur was the only one who lived out in the tundra- and he didn’t seem like the active type at all. There were strange shapes as well, large hooved footprints. However, all thinking comes to a halt at the same time Wilbur does.

“We’re here! You might see some familiar faces cause I live with people.”

Well, that answers the footsteps as well as the tall red-caped piglin hybrid giving leftover bones and raw meat to a polar bear.

“TECHNO! TECHNO, HEY!”

He tenses up for a second, you could tell he wanted to be left alone but that didn’t really bother Wilbur. But you recognize him. The name and the apparel- that guy is Technoblade. The same Technoblade who stood by your side while the two of you blew L’manburg up for the last time, and now the Technoblade who resides in a cottage shrouded in snow.

“Technoblade?!”

Hearing your voice being carried by the crisp winter air, he turns around immediately to see you and Wilbur a few feet away. Techno stood there dumbfounded, but he didn’t know why. He wasn’t particularly joyed or ecstatic to see you, but he was at the very least happy to see an old ally back. 

“Y/n? Oh my god, now we’ve got TWO of you? We don’t have room for another one, alright?”

For some it might be hard to see the meaning behind his words. Luckily you’ve talked to him enough to where you can tell he’s being playful.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just build directly on top of your house. Besides, who WOULDN'T want to be near me 24-7?”

“Me-“

“Oh f*ck off.”

You would’ve thought that that was Wilbur due to the similar accent, but there was something off. The slight gruffness and age, yet still succeeding in sounding mellow.

“Phil! How’s my favorite old bird doing?”

He gives you a face. Not a happy one like you expected, rather a face that says ‘really?’ Probably because of the old comment. The two of you briefly hug, Phil’s tattered wings stretching out slightly.

“I’m doing alright, are you okay? Here, would you like to come in? It’s pretty cold outside, you probably haven’t seen snow in a couple years.”

He wasn’t wrong after all. You were freezing your toes off and were itching for lemon tea. The kind Phil used to make when he, Technoblade and Dream discussed plans on destroying L’manburg. Ah, the good ol days…

“Of course! We’ve got a lot to talk about- you still have that old chess board?”

“Yes, but first you have some explaining to do about the fire over in that tree, Y/n. You just got back and you’re already burning down forests?!”

“Did someone say fire?”

Techno has an eager stride in his step once he also looks back to see the raging lights of orange and red in the nearby forest.

“Don’t worry Phil! It’s just- ahh, a controlled burn..?”

Your tone of voice is unsure when a black crow shoots down from the sky into the snow in front of you. It’s left wing is charred and has smoke dancing from the burn. Philza looks at you with a stern glare.

“Oh my f*cking god…that’s it! We’re all going inside now, you too Techno. I don’t want you and Y/n going on a rampage.”

[thebibliosphere]

[ID: a gif of John Oliver the comedian splaying his hands wide and saying, “Welcome to whatever this is…”]

Hello! My name is Joy Demorra, I’m an official 2x International Best Selling Author, Vampire Romancer and Shitpost Producer Extraordinaire, and yes, I am the vampire nipple erotica editor who just wants to rest , thanks for asking!

You may know me from such posts as the infamous Crucifix Nail Nipples (x), Robin Williams Punching Death Eaters Dream (x) or one of my many, many, many vampire shitposts, chronic illness/advocacy posts, or my ADHD posts. However you found me, I hope you enjoy your time here. Please have patience if you are sending me messages either here or somewhere else on the Internet. I am but a humble smut peddler, peddling my weres. I am also multiply disabled with at least one genetic disability and several chronic illnesses and mental health issues that make keeping up with a high traffic blog very difficult. I never expected to become a hub for shitposts and chronic illness/ADHD resources, but here we are!

If you ever get tired of seeing my personal health posts, you may wish to blacklist the following tags: ‘#chronic health tag’ & ‘#chronic health tag: teeth’, that way I can bitch and moan into the void and you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.

Due to Tumblr successfully tricking me into becoming a professional author, I have several hundred ongoing projects at once, most of them vampire themed. 

My international best selling debut novel, Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites is available for purchase on Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and several other places still updating as I type. It was supposed to be a short paranormal polyamorous satirical romance featuring a vampire, a werewolf and all other manner of creatures that go bump in the night, but has since morphed into a paranormal polyamorous gaslamp fantasy romance series with potentially 5-6 books planned. Don’t ask how, I do not know. Also yes, ha ha, I’m so bisexual I couldn’t even pick a genre. 

The series follows the antics of three main characters, a disabled and partially deaf werewolf known as Nathan Northland, a 400yo mad-scientist-dandy-styled vampire named Vlad Blutstein, and Ursula, who goes only by the mysterious moniker, The Lady Ursula. It’s set in a pseudo-regency-steampunkish gaslamp era, and the characters inhabit a world much like our own, excepting of course the fantastical ideas of magic being real, vampires living among us, and government bodies being held accountable for their actions.

The book will also be available in paperback, and will also come in two editions: one with the sex scenes for those who like a little bite with their fangs, and one without, for those who like a little bit more fluff. Links coming soon! There’s also already a fandom tag, which is #Phangs and #Phangdom and because I’m a weak creature and easily lead, AU fanfic on my Ao3 under original works, most of which is Adult 18+ in nature.

You can read more about my other ongoing works by clicking on my blog Welcome Page (x), and also at www.joydemorra.com for any upcoming news and announcements. Alternatively you can subscribe to my Newsletter (x) which I do promise I’ll update soon.

Given the nature of my work, if you are under the age of 18, I do ask that you respect my boundaries and refrain from interacting with anything on my blog that is labelled 18+

I try very hard to keep my blog as safe for everyone as I can and respect your boundaries. No mean feat when you’re known across the Internet as “the crucifix vampire nipple lady” :P

If you need me to tag something for trigger purposes, no matter how silly you think I might think it is, please let me know, I will be more than happy to do so. Also while I do try very hard to be conscientious of the things I do and say, sometimes I will inevitably make mistakes or misspeak, and it is important to me that it be brought to my attention so I might correct my behavior and apologize. So please don’t be afraid to tell me when I’ve got my head up my ass. I make no pretenses at being a good person. I’m just trying my damnedest not to be an awful one.

Other places you can find me on the Internet include:

Patreon! (x) where things are about to get a drastic shake up.

Twitter (x) where I occasioanlly yell at clouds and retweet all the funny and poignant things you lot say.

Facebook (x) where I mostly hide and don’t interact with anyone because it’s Facebook, but will be more active once book stuff starts going live.

Twitch (x) where I occasionally stream surviving the apocalypse in the frostbitten world of Frostpunk.

Ao3 (x) where I post my fanfic, sometimes even of my own work because I am weak-willed and easily led astray.

I also have a Ko-fi (x) where I cross post my Patreon work for anyone who doesn’t like Patreon. It also functions are my general tip jar, so if you like what I do here and would like to help me keep doing it, tips are deeply appreciated though by no means expected. I do what I do on tumblr primarily for love, and I’ll keep doing it for as long as I can, for as long as I’m capable.

Thank you for reading this far, and remember, take care of yourselves and each other. You’re more important than you’ll ever truly know. 

[thescorpioracer]

Tagged by @inmyarmswrappedin to post the movie posters for my 9 favorite films.

Can I share a deep dark secret? As someone who works in the film industry, I'm a TERRIBLE movie buff. There are so many "classics" that I have not seen (and would have no interest in if they weren't supposedly iconic). I tend to watch more TV.

But here's what I came up with:

1 - Arrival (2016) - I'm not a person who usually loves fiction about space. I don't gravitate towards it, and so I begrudgingly went to see this with a friend. But I just LOVE the way the narrative deals with time and linguistics and humanity. Usually, alien movies are grossly patronizing or patriotic, but this movie has near-perfect execution on all fronts.

2 - Atonement (2007) - I wanted to watch this for years but kept waiting to read the book first. It's an amazing adaptation, with the perfect cast, music, editing, and cinematography. Keira Knightly in that green dress? The 5-minute single take across the beach at Dunkirk? 2007-era James McAvoy? It's a yes from me to all.

3 - The Man from UNCLE (2015) - This movie is the perfect blend of period drama and action/spy comedy, with amazing music and stylized editing to boot. I watch it probably twice a year and am choosing to ignore the fact that Armie Hammer is in it because I loved this movie before he was outed as a creep.

4 - Miss Sloane (2016) - This movie didn't get the box office praise it deserved (because the NRA was not a fan), but I love it. It's so well made, Jessica Chastain is a powerhouse as usual, and it depicts a powerful woman going after what she wants but in a less-than-ethical way.

5 - Jojo Rabbit (2019) - I saw this movie in theaters 3 times. THIS is how you do satire. Each segment of the film emulates a different genre, and it keeps things light and sweet in the moments right before it reminds you it's a story of war and doesn't allow us to forget the atrocities it portrays.

6 - Man On Fire (2004) - This is one of my dad's favorite movies and I've loved it since he first showed it to me. I love how stylized it is, as well as the half-English, half-Spanish dialogue. And the bond between little Dakota Fanning and Denzel Washington is perfectly done.

7 - Moonlight (2016) - This is one of the few movies adapted from a play that truly utilizes its new medium to tell the story. I love how it's divided into 3 chapters, with a new actor for each stage of the lead character's life (who did not watch each other's performance while shooting the film). The music, acting, and cinematography are all excellent.

8 - From Up On Poppy Hill (2011) - I'm not 100% sure this belongs on this list, but it's my favorite Studio Ghibli film. It has a world I'd want to live in and gives space to quiet characters. But if I had been tasked with writing it, I'd have executed one prominent plot point VERY differently, because there's no reason for that trope to have been included. So while it's a favorite, I don't agree with all the writing decisions.

9 - Yarına Tek Bilet / One-Way To Tomorrow (2020) - There were so many films that I considered for this #9 slot, but I think they become more niche-genre favorites versus overall top pics. This may be my favorite Turkish movie, though. So simplistic but well-acted and executed. A perfect balance between light and heavy topics.

Tagging @teamnick @carogables @kachoobu @tidemakar and whoever else wants to do it!

[mumblesplash]

ok so I was scrolling though your blog trying to see if there were any more parts to the dp comic and I saw your tags talking about you forcibly ordaining a friend during a flirt fight??? I NEED the context for this, I am begging you

ah, yeah. that.

there was. a lot going on there, and i don’t remember how much i included in the tags, but basically back during junior year there was this cute guy, right. i’d liked him since the previous year, which he knew already because i told him the exact second i figured out it wasn’t a stomach bug (i am very stupid) but he explained that for various reasons he wasn’t in a good place to date at the time, so i dropped it.

but then we started hanging out all the time, and he seemed to be fairly miffed about the fact that he kept wanting to hang out with me, and i kept trying to politely but firmly explain to him that he was my boyfriend, which caused our dynamic to devolve into what i can only imagine was a completely insufferable amount of passive-aggressive flirting.

the other major piece of this is that all my closest college friends have/had a shared group chat, and there was a running Thing where we’d use the ‘request money’ feature to demand compensation for emotional damages when someone said or did something stupid.

one day he broke the seal and actually paid the requested money, and things sorta got out of hand. there was an increasing amount of money being chucked back and forth, and we were both broke as hell so it was not really very wise. at some point one of my friends starts telling me how unwise i’m being so i send her money too, and then there’s more money flying around, and someone tells me and cute boy to get a room. my specific social circle is chill but our college is near like, satire levels of conservative christian so someone else sarcastically says we aren’t allowed to get a room unless we get married first, at which point another friend points out that if anyone in our group was ordained we could do that.

up until this point i had been alone in a rec center with yet another friend, but suddenly Boy comes storming in from across campus, sits down across the table from us, looks me dead in the eye and dms me ‘wanna make out’ to which i reply we can’t because we’re not married. meanwhile the terrible, wretched enablers back in the main group chat have discovered the price of those online ordinations you can buy, so he sends a third of that sum to my best friend (who i believe was asleep in his dorm at the time) with a memo somewhere along the lines of ‘priest money’. i pitch in just slightly more money than he did, and he tries to one up me again but his card gets declined. at this point Best Friend is awake and begrudgingly agrees to the ordination if he gets the money. i tell him that sadly Boy is just too much of a coward to send any more money tonight, at which point Boy sprints out of the rec center. a few minutes later Best Friend informs the chat that he has barged into his room with the remaining money in cash, and true to his word purchases himself a priesthood. i don’t really remember what happened after that tbh, just that almost everyone else in the group chat eventually trailed into the rec center by the time he got back. the presence of other friends and the successful acquisition of a priesthood had mostly diffused the tension, so i count the whole ordeal unsuccessful in terms of flirting, but it was pretty fun and we all wound up eating mozzarella sticks in a parking lot at 1am so overall i give it 4 stars.

[aahsoka]

So having been on tiktok for a bit I wanna talk a little about it.

What I like

It’s actually rather entertaining to scroll through up to 30 second videos one after the other. Sometimes the humor falls flat or it’s not your taste, but the algorithim is quite good at recommending the kind of content you will like.

I joined right when there was a big trend going around about sharing your culture, and soon after a Blackout trend where non-Black creators stopped posting for a day & spread/supported videos by Black creators. So I ended up with a fairly diverse fyp or “for you page”. It also quickly gathered that I am bisexual, so I get plenty of lgbt+ content. There’s some art mixed in there, some cosplay, some historical costuming/seamstresses, lots of avatar jokes lately, musical theatre content, fashion, girls in bikinis on rollerskates (in outer space), commentary on political issues, body positivity, all the kinds of stuff I like. To get a feed that caters to your interests you just have to watch & like videos you’re interested in & eventually it gets a feel for what you’ll watch and what you won’t.

Theres a trend where people say which ‘side’ of tiktok they’re on and I get ‘science side of tumblr’ flashbacks but I’ve mostly avoided the “straight” and conservative sides of tiktok. I would be considered a part of “woke”, “alt” (as in alternative) and lgbt+ tiktok (there are separate ones for each letter of the acronym). Possibly also “theatre” and “cosplay” tiktok. These categories are nebulous and you’re usually part of multiple communities; its just as arbitray as ‘science side of tumblr’ was.

The format reminds me of snapchat a little, and I love to talk to myself on video & post dumb thirst traps for my friends (none of which I’m attracted to so idk what my goal is there) and make stupid jokes. So this app is kinda perfect for my attention seeking side & hyperactive tendencies. Its very easy to consume on a short attention span, though not as easy as vine was.

Being in quarantine, its a way for a lot of people to engage in hobbies that involve community. Cosplay is pretty popular, as its a fun way to show off a costume & dress up & have fun without having to attend a convention. I enjoy the way lip synced audios can be used to emulate the character someone is dressed as; that’s something you couldn’t really do unless you were really good at impressions. Its a nice succinct way to show the process of creating a cosplay as well.

Those who enjoy theatre, but cannot perform in shows at this time, are able to create mini-monologues & sketches as well as sing parts of their favorite songs. Its an avenue through which to perform without putting anyone at risk of the virus. It’s also an easy way to show off your talents without having to go through the audition process & actually get cast in a show as a prominent enough role that someone will notice it.

It’s a convenient format for discourse and educational videos. Nice, short, easily digestible tidbits that stay in your mind. This extremely catchy song, for example: “Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime, and white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime. And all of those stupid stats you keep using are operating off a small sample size. So, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up”.

As well as other videos where people take the time to explain historical events, satirize racist arguments to demonstrate why they are wrong, talk about prevalent tropes in movies, teach a few signs in ASL, share facts about their culture, etc, etc. I have found there are quite a lot of people there from unique and fairly unknown cultures and backgrounds- and this is a place where they’re able to share their culture & existence with people all over the world. There are a thousand different viewpoints. Their videos are doing far more for diverse representation than any other platform, I’d argue, as everyone is extremely visible on the app. (‘Their’ as in the creators, not the app itself).

I also have enjoyed coming across new artists on the app. It’s really fun to watch the process they go through, as most art videos deal with the whole creation of a piece. It’s inspiring. I have also come across a painter who’s work I’m in love with, and a woman who makes and sells the CUTEST ceramic mugs, and I need to purchase some stuff from them both.

Now onto the bad:

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have much in the way of a filtering or warning system. I talked about that tiktok of the kids coming across human remains? That was just on people’s fyp. Just popped up. No warning. No reason for it to still be up. Traumatizing.

You can click on a video and say ‘not interested’ (I do this to literally every video I get where some girl is thirsting after kylo ren 🤮..... like I want the star wars videos just not THOSE videos). However, it doesn’t seem to know exactly why you weren’t interested, because I still get those videos from time to time. There’s no content filter where I can blacklist the kylo ren or any other hashtag.

There’s some very shitty content. There are racist conservatives. Misogynistic teen white boys. Really weird thirst traps. Videos where people lip sync to something with a straight face and tag it with #acting. Harmful body image trends. I thankfully stay very clear of this, but this kind of content makes me worry for the minors on the app. The one’s who don’t have enough of a concept of self yet to realize they don’t need to be able to do the newest pointless beauty trend to be beautiful, to realize it’s ok for them to be gay, to realize how predatory some adults can be, etc etc.

It is extremely easy to come across minors on the app who don’t look like teens. One time I went to a girl’s page and it said she was FIFTEEN. I’m usually good at guessing ages but something about this app messes that up. I wish there was a way to separate people under 18 and adults. Where I don’t have minor’s thirst traps popping up on my fyp. Where pedophiles don’t get a chance to curate that fyp intentionally. If anyone reading this has kids, I highly recommend they make their tiktok private or only viewable to friends.

Just like any site, there are plenty of bigots. Lots of racist comments. Plenty of transphobia. Any hatred you’ve seen elsewhere, of course it exists on tiktok. I have actually zero clue if you can report people & if it works. Most people seem to send a video commentary to their haters or duet a video of a racist pointing out their racism. I’ve heard of creators blocking people, however. I remember a tiktok of a Black woman who’s video somehow went fairly viral in Poland and now she gets a lot of racist comments from this large group of random racisf Polish followers she has and its extremely time consuming to block them all, as there’s no mass block feature.

The rumors about what works with the algorithm and doesn’t abound. I’ve heard well lit videos get more views. Many people suspect they have been shadowbanned for speaking out about current events. TikTok will remove the audio from videos sometimes if they deem it controversial enough. Most of us know they were criticized recently for intentionally keeping Black creator’s videos from being seen (a catalyst for the Blackout, actually). Or you may also recall when it was criticized for widely removing lgbt+ content. Those creators are fighting to be seen the same amount as straight cis white creators are allowed to be seen with no effort.

The effects some trends could have on teen girls. So many of them are already so uncomfortable in their own skin simply because of societal standards, but the absolutely meaningless challenges people come up with on tiktok make it so much worse. One trend was based around whether your finger touched your lips when you put it in your nose. Or if you could get your clasped hands around the back of your legs and over your butt (if they get passed, you have a flat ass, if they get stuck, its big). These completely arbitrary signifiers of the things you need to have in order to be pretty, are far more ridiculous that anything I have seen yet in my life. I worry about little girls taking these ideas to heart. There is a very kind body positive community on the app & I hope more people can find that.

There’s also that thing where they steal your data. Like most apps. But apparently they got a lot more invasive than usual, so I would look into it before making an account; if you want to do that.

I think the apps users can be great & its a pretty intuitive set up. It certainly deserves its popularity solely as a creative form of social media. That being said, its owners are so so insidious & do the worst things. Just like all other social media, its controlled by the worst kind of people. Who can never figure out how to effectively get rid of nazis or keep kids safe from adult content.

These are my less serious gripes with the app:

1) Lip syncing

When people lip sync and don’t do any kind of skit, joke, etc, just look as if they’re saying what someone else said; I hate that. I have to go back and find the original tiktok so I can like it instead. You literally did nothing interesting by ripping off someones audio and moving your lips along to it. So many people on this app are creative and so many others lack any semblance of creativity.

Also people are too easily impressed by lip syncing to kinda-fast songs. I lip synced to like....10 seconds of the devil went down to georgia and two people praised my lip syncing abilities. Like, I can also sing and talk fast, out loud, isn’t that more impressive? more skillful? The fiddle playing in that song is impressive, not the fact I can lip sync ‘the devil went down to georgia, he was lookin for a soul to steal, he was in a bind, cause he was way behind.’ Have you ever seen someone play Johnny’s fiddle solo????? It’s insane!!!

Rather than see someone lip sync to the verse in Stressed Out 2x faster than normal (which is, extremely simple and the song was overplayed and ingrained into our collective consciousness) and go WOW what about someone.....doing the verse out loud. You can litterally just mouth random words and look like you’re saying the right ones. It’s driving me crazy lmao. I’m set to become a God of tiktok because I have a repertoire of fast songs and rap verses memorized. It’s not even an uncommon skill to speak or sing quickly, people literally make rap music for a living! Listen to it maybe.

2) “Acting”

I am begging you to stop making me sit through those horrible POVs. I cannot take another girl not quite fake crying towards the camera as she lip syncs the words from a song that apply to the random situation she decided she was in. I cannot take another boy who thinks its sexy to stare into a camera and smirk in every single situation he creates.

Back to lip syncing, making facial expressions along to words isn’t really acting. Try saying the words out loud perhaps? The inflection you use with your lines is a pretty big part of acting. Like you can lip sync all you want, just stop tagging it with #acting.

3) Comedic timing, or lack thereof

You don’t need the entire intro to sit there looking at the camera waiting until the first line starts and you can lip sync to the part that’s the joke. You could cut off at least 15 seconds. Brevity is the soul of wit.

When your joke involves both reading text on screen and listening to the song for the punchline, if it isn’t done prefectly, its so difficult to follow. I can’t read a paragraph in 5 seconds. Paraphrase.

4) self deprecating artist audio

the audio thats like ‘this wont get views’ ‘I suck’ ‘you probably won’t see this anyway’ LOVE YOURSELF

It sucks when people dont enagage with your art but it sucks worse when your value in yourself and you art is based solely on receiving that validation. Please find a healthy medium.

Also you’re asking for pity, and you don’t want that. You want people who genuinely love your art for what it is.

5) editing videos is really hard how do you make such cool & smooth transitions????

please help me I don’t understand

Finally

here’s my account if you’re interested

[nico-drives-badly]

Dumb* Headcanon #93716

*Disclaimer: My angst brain got carried away when I made this and it’s actually really meta instead of dumb...buuut I only have the #dumb headcanons series tag for my headcanons right now, so it’ll have to do. For those who don’t like long, rambling meta posts and are only following me for the laughs, I also tagged this as #long post and #meta for blacklisting. Thanks y’all, happy scrolling :)

Contrary to popular belief, Fortuna is NOT an autonomous island with an oppressive religious government that heavily censors everything because of the Order’s influence. In fact, Fortuna functions under the same basic laws as everywhere else in the DMCverse.

Then why is Fortuna the way it is? The answer is simple.

Fortuna is just Like That™️ because it’s a small town.

As someone who literally was born and raised in a small town her whole life, allow me to paint a semi-satirical picture of what this might entail:

Everyone knows each other in Fortuna, because there’s only like 2000 people total and NO ONE wants to live there. Anyone who does want to live in Fortuna was either a) raised there, or b) has family who was raised there.

At least half of Fortuna’s residents are related somehow — or, at the very least, their families all know each other personally — because the population is just that stagnant and homogenous. They’re not inbred or anything like that (though there’s always one or two “clans” that probably are), but Fortuna is definitely a close-knit community. And like any other small town, nepitism plays a significant role in that closeness.

Because of nepitism and family ties, native Fortuna kids almost always form cliques as they get older, typically with other like-minded kids whom they were born and raised around. Any kid who comes in from outside of Fortuna is automatically at a disadvantage when trying to fit in and make friends, because Taylor’s mom and Sophia’s stepmom were BFFs in high school and roommates in college, and Larry, Moe, and Curly all had the same babysitter and have had playdates together since they were toddlers. These outsiders are often isolated, singled-out, and even bullied by their peers.

Contrary to popular belief, Fortuna isn’t 10 years behind everyone else — at least, not on a superficial level. All of the technological crazes, cultural trends, and popular fads that you find on the mainland can also be found in Fortuna, and they go in and out of style just as quickly and arbitrarily as they do everywhere else.

When it comes to societal norms, however, Fortuna is far more resistant to change. There is an unspoken moral code in Fortuna that is silently upheld by everyone who lives there, and anyone who violates this status quo is met with criticism and judgement.

Lastly, word does spread fast in Fortuna — that small-town stereotype is definitely true. All it takes is one person to start a rumor, and within days it can spread by word-of-mouth across the whole island. And if those unsavory rumors are ever proven true...well, looks like you just made ~2000 new enemies.

How does all of this relate to Nero?

On a superficial level, Nero’s childhood was just like that of any other 90’s kid: he watched the same cartoons, played with the same toys, and joined in on all of the same trends as the mainland kids, albeit to a lesser degree due to the orphanage’s financial limitations. The content in Fortuna’s TV and printed media was completely normal and uncensored, and the products in Fortuna’s markets were completely normal and uncensored.

The government doesn’t control people in Fortuna. That’s not what they use to oppress others.

The real oppression in Fortuna comes from nepitism, elitism, and overall closed-mindedness. The real oppression in Fortuna comes from the people who live there, from the families who have lived there for several generations — unwavering, unmoving, uncompromising, unforgiving.

That’s why Nero was treated like he was in the orphanage. He was seen as an outsider, whose very existence was the result of his unknown parents breaking the status quo. He was the culmination of everything Fortuna didn’t like, everything they didn’t agree with, everything they tried to weed out.

From the moment he was born, Nero was a prime target of Fortuna’s unspoken societal oppression. And he was a victim of that oppression until the day he left.

.....Yeah this was supposed to be a dumb headcanon, but I got carried away with it and now I just made it sad. wELP TOO LATE TO CHANGE IT NOW SORRY Y’ALL ENJOY MY UNWARRANTED ANGST

[foxlady3]

Fanfiction Ask Game

I was tagged by @lalaurelia. Thanks, this was fun!

At what age did you start writing fanfiction? 40.

Who is your favorite author? I wish this was a Top Twenty list, that would definitely be easier. I shall name two:

Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld novels and Bromeliad Trilogy (Truckers, Diggers, Wings) are excellent. His stories are full of humor in the face of adversity, satirical, great storytelling, compellingly quirky and memorable characters. The pinnacle of fantasy to which I can only aspire.

P.G. Wodehouse, writer of the stories featuring the cheerful hair-brained Bertie Wooster and his brilliant, unflappable manservant Jeeves. Loved them since I was a child, and incidentally a great education in 1920s slang. So incredibly funny. Bertie or one of his pals gets into a fix, Jeeves figures out how to bail them out again, a tried and true formula with endless silly variations that never fail to entertain.

What is your favorite fanfic? I need a Top Fifty list for this one! I've read so many wonderful fanfics that they've almost ruined regular books for me. Here's four:

Filigree by Hunger4Righteousness ( https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6878198/1/Filigree  ) A retelling of the Megamind movie, mostly behind the scenes action involving Roxanne, so it's a lot of absolutely awesome stuff. Riveting. Rated M.

The Overlord's Lady by @joanhello2 ( https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10224583/1/The-Overlord-s-Lady) A divergence from the movie in which Megamind, instead of creating Tighten, begins meeting with Roxanne as he struggles to deal with his remorse, and consequently becomes a true leader of the city. Superb worldbuilding, great action. Rated M.

Dreams of Lace and Satin series by @pamdizzle (  https://archiveofourown.org/series/1024157 ) Collection of Gotham fanfics. Oswald begins a journey of self-love and acceptance, with a little help from his collection of male lingerie, and builds a loving relationship with Jim Gordon. It is glorious. Sweet and sexy. Mostly rated E, some works in the series rated M.

Imagination Infection series by @lalaurelia (genmitsu on AO3) (  https://archiveofourown.org/series/1060598 ) Another fabulous collection. It starts out with some anonymous sexting between Oswald (unaware of who is really on the other end of the line) and Jim (who is completely aware), and quickly expands from there. True confessions, hurt/comfort, guilt and angst, heady passion, the works. Ratings vary from T to E.

What tags do you avoid like the plague? I tend to avoid tags with Nygmobblepot, and Death of a Major Character.

What AU do you wish to write but feel like you won't manage?  I haven't done many AUs, but sometimes I get the urge to combine Gotham with the Hunger Games. A herculean effort beyond my energy levels.

What has been your favorite story to write so far? Stepping Out, my teen Megamind tale. There's a lot of fun stuff in there, and it was my first major multi-chapter story. And for the Gotham fandom Cease-Fire was a lot of fun, though it gets a little angsty.  Has a happy ending!

Do you prefer to write one-shots or multi-chapters? Why? I feel I've gotten a little better at one-shots, but they constantly keep trying to grow into much longer tales. I prefer multi-chapters, mainly because it gives me more time to tell the story.

What is your favorite kind of comment? All comments, but I especially love it when someone mentions one specific thing that they thought was funny, or something that struck a chord, or just liked.

Why did you start writing fanfiction? Why are you still writing it? It all started with the Megamind movie. While searching online for news of a sequel (sadly not forthcoming) I stumbled across LiveJournal and discovered the wider world of fandom. Growing up, I was a lonely girl geek, and I never even heard of 'fandom' or 'fanfiction' or 'shipping' in my entire life, until Megamind and LiveJournal came along. I was forty years old. Perhaps it was a midlife crisis, but if so, it hasn't stopped yet.

I adored Megamind and Roxanne, was blown away by the stories and art, produced by regular people just like me, which were heartfelt and brilliant. Ideas came to me. I wrote them down. I started writing stories to go with those ideas. And it has continued from there. I am still writing fanfiction because I love it, even when it's hard, and I love the characters about whom I write. When Gotham came along I was seized with similarly powerful feelings for Oswald Cobblepot as for Megamind (in some ways they’re very different, and yes I realize Oswald is an unrepentant murderous little shit, but I love him anyway) and when I saw the Gobblepot tag on AO3 my immediate response was YAS THIS IS MY SHIP, and I began getting story ideas for the Oswald/Jim pairing as well.

I tag @elf-kid2 @pamdizzle @sunlitroom @joanhello2 @thegreenfairy13 and anyone else who would like to join in. (I’m sure I’m overlooking someone...)

[chikkachu]

Summery:  Chill time between Zoro and Luffy in a world that invites death around every corner. Dystopian AU. Ficlet.

A/N: This can be either platonic or romantic ZoLu. I just wanted to write this headcanon. @seehunnybees and I are drowning in their beautiful relationship whilst watching the anime together. It inspired me to write for the first time in months and this is my first OP fanfic.

Playlist:

Thin Line – honeyhoney

Ashes – Maggie Bjorklund

-x-

The world had gone to shit and he’d be damned staying sober for the finale.

At least that’s what Zoro told himself before he called the Sunny home. A place that housed a group of people just as fucked up as him.

“Cheh, right…” Amused at his passing thought, Zoro dipped his hand into the water of the lake, the flicker of a wince pulling his cheek. His fingers wrapped around the curved neck of a wine bottle, lager was his favourite but this would do for now. Beggars can’t be choosers and he was gasping for the sweet oblivion at the bottom of a bottle.

Deep scar tissue had damaged the nerves across his left side, a remnant of his past. Being visually impaired served as a constant reminder of the sacrifices this godforsaken place demanded. Not that he would make a different decision if he was placed in the same position. Zoro knew he’d find a way to fight even if the monsters ripped out his remaining eye. Monsters, creatures, ghouls, zombies, he didn’t give a fuck what they were but if they got in his way…he wouldn’t show mercy.  Then again, before the events of this so-called apocalypse happened, the same principle applied to people. Still did.  

Popping the cork out the bottle he chugged the bittersweet liquid, relishing the tingling sensation as it passed through his gullet. Zoro leaned back into his tree, wiping his mouth before cursing. He’d forgotten to bring a fishing rod again. Sanji would laugh knowing he called a tree his but fuck him. Zoro knew exactly what frying-pan to give a nail implant if the blonde wanted to kick off about small comforts.

As much as he cursed the annoying quirks of their bizarre group, he found himself growing fond of them. Making sure the dumbasses didn’t get themselves killed was a fulltime occupation, especially when it came to the captain. Luffy was a law unto himself and a ticking bomb when it came to last-minute spontaneity, that to a normal person spelt a death wish.

Good job he was far from normal. Zoro understood that the strong had to push forward. Risk a necessity rather than an optional side mission when it came to the chaos surrounding them. The goofy man’s willingness to fight to the death in order to achieve a goal is what saved Zoro’s life.

Surviving required walking the thin line that challenged morality, pushing a man to test his metal in upholding a fleeting sense of self. Today he’d killed hordes of things that used to be people with hopes, dreams, families and not once did he stop to think of their previous humanity. No, he sliced through their flesh, severing their heads with ease of movement akin to cutting paper.

A result of honing his body for years, his mindset becoming primal instinct – his thirst for blood a tangible metallic film on his tongue, the excitement dancing through each nerve, making his muscles contract. In those moments it’s predator and prey. He’d be lying if he denied the high of complete victory in battle.

“Zoro,” A singsong tone with a playful inflection meant his straw hat wearing captain had found him. Not that it was hard considering this was his spot. Usopp loved to remind him that not getting lost on his way to a spot ten minutes away from their camp is a miracle. He’d take it to the grave that he had, in fact, got lost several times attempting this simple journey. Zoro’s excuse being he decided to go scouting for resources and that’s why he turned up for dinner two hours late.

Hazelnut eyes popped into Zoro’s view, his captain’s face invading his bubble uncomfortably. Typical Luffy. He never learned. Hand whipping out from it’s resting place supporting his neck, he grabbed the man’s arm. A quick sharp tug sent the dangling limber body mass tumbling to the ground with a dull thump.

“Ow, Zoro. What was that for?!” Luffy huffed, sitting up rubbing his forearm that took the brunt of his impromptu landing.  

“You’ll live.” He sighed, leaning back into the bark and peering with interest at the fishing rod clutched in his captains’ hand. Luffy moved to sit on his haunches, the angry red puckered scar tissue on his torso contrasting with blue denim. At first glance people thought they were opposites, but the reality is, Luffy understood him on another level. They had thought together in war, spilt blood side by side.  

The clinking of the dog tags around his companion’s neck a familiar sound that accompanied being up shit creek without a paddle. Neither of them bothered to take them off and neither felt it necessary to discuss why. Tags were a necessity for soldiers, and they weren’t peaceful civilians, not now or in the immediate future. However, Zoro knew neither of them would mind the warrior’s death. As long as they died fighting for a worthy cause.  

Leaning to the side Zoro dipped his hand into the lake finding another bottle and threw it. Luffy caught it in one swipe, settling down on the grass. For anyone else, his personal stash was a no go, but he’d make an exception this time. Cold drinks and male bonding. Zoro scoffed at the thought.

‘How poetic.’ Satire dripping through his thoughts as he took another swig of sherry.

“Let’s go clear out the dealership tomorrow,” Luffy said, brow scrunching together lips tilting downward. No doubt in his tone, no hesitation as he declared their next step. Zoro smirked knowing the energetic man couldn’t stay in one place. Neither could he. The call of the adventure ran through their veins, end of the world or not.

“We’ll need a bus to bring the others.”

“Then that’s what we’ll get.” Zoro laughed at his captain’s nonchalant shrug and bored tone.

That’s what he liked to hear - Luffy being Luffy.

[simpsonsnight]

Episode #141

WHAT THIS?

Two Bad Neighbors Season 7 - Episode 13 | January 14, 1996 President Bush Sr, fresh off of no longer being president, moves in across the street from The Simpsons. In retrospect this episode might be actually bad. I can feel myself leaning towards that notion the same way I did with Bart of Darkness, from season 6. Both episodes I watch and enjoy on nostalgic levels. This one does have a very fun and funny first act at the tag sale, a scene that gave birth to Disco Stu. I think the saving grace with this one is that the character stuff is still decent. Even Bush has nice moments and becomes a fun, buyable character in the universe of the show. Harry Shearer famously dissented on this show, but I’m having a tough time finding an actual quote from him. There’s almost no actual political satire, instead going for a riff on Dennis the Menace. The plot is a bit sitcommy without much of a twist (light irony as a twist seems like a cop out to me). I don’t know, man. I like this episode just fine. JUST. FINE.

THE B-SODE:

Tiny Toon Adventures: "Washingtoon" Season 3 - Episode 11 | November 4, 1992 Some anti-cartoon action league tries to SHUT DOWN the Tiny Toons, causing Babs and Busting Bunny to go to Washington to plead their case to congress. I chose this episode because It’s basically the only cartoon I could find to portray a caricature of president bush in such an extended capacity (though his scene comes and goes fairly quick). The Simpsons was the only cartoon willing to take on the Bushmeister post-presidency. Is that a good thing? I have no idea. This episode was especially memorable to me because I found it endlessly amusing that they portrayed Dan Quayle as a childish buffoon who loves Tiny Toons. I remembered the “Desert Storm Action Figures” gag, where he opens a door and actual military men run out. I remember relaying this joke to friends at school and utterly bombing. Nobody else thought it was funny. I was like, “Guys, you don’t get it, they were disrespecting a politician” and they just kept crossing their arms and making their mouths all small and tight and shaking their heads no. It sucked.