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chansaw · 1 year ago

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YELLOWJACKETS ANIMORPHS AU????? i had to stand up. PLEASE share some details if you can because. well. the mere concept of this has me standing up and sitting down again.

oh i am so glad you asked anon. this is gonna get LONG so buckle in. animorphs and yellowjackets are the two most iconic stories about traumatized 90s kids so it only made sense to smush them together. it’s a war story. there’s never going to be a happy ending. we were kids, and it was awful. anyways, it goes like this:

it’s around halfway through the season when the team decides to hit the mall after a shutout victory against st. andrew’s. the girls celebrate over a round of orange julius and do some window-shopping. lottie even manages to nick a cute top from tj maxx with a five-finger discount.

and then the mall closes for the night, and it’s dark as hell outside. shauna’s the one who suggests taking a shortcut back to the parking lot through the abandoned construction site.

lottie balks. “i’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she says, but the team decides to take the shortcut anyways.

it’s laura lee who notices it first. “it’s a shooting star, you guys! make a wish!” she says. everyone looks up and sees a streak of light directly overhead, brighter than any other star in the night sky

“i don’t think that’s a shooting star, laura lee,” nat says quietly as the spaceship comes into full view, and nobody moves or says anything. they just watch as the ship careens through the atmosphere and crashes into a pile of rubble.

when the dying alien war-prince hobbles out of the ship, everyone tries to keep it cool. “this is first contact, so we have to make a good impression, right? like, we’re probably the first people ever to meet an alien,” jackie says.

and then they hear his voice. <i am not the first, and i will not be the last,> he says. he doesn’t have a mouth, but they still hear him in their heads. <they are already here, and your planet is in greater danger than you realize.>

his people, the andalites, have developed a shapeshifting technology called morphing, he tells them. it allows a person to absorb the DNA of any living creature, as small as a flea and as large as an elephant, and then transform into it. there is a strict law against sharing this technology with outsiders, but the prince is dying and desperate to defeat the yeerks, who have been infiltrating earth quietly and threaten to conquer the whole planet if they’re not stopped.

he charges one of the team members to go into the ship and grab a small blue cube, so tai grabs it and hands it to him. then he tells all the girls to put their hands on the cube.

shauna, jackie, taissa, van, lottie, nat, and laura lee look at each other. “this is insane. insane!” says nat. “we have to do this,” says laura lee. “we can’t just sit back and let them take over the world, we have to fight back!” van shakes her head. “but why does it have to be us? we’re not soldiers. we’re high school soccer players.”

<but you’re a team,> says the war-prince. and no one can argue with that. <now, please place your hands on the cube. our time grows short.> it’s now or never is what he really means. everyone’s eyes turn to jackie, but she looks lost and frightened, not at all the fearless captain she was just a few hours ago on the pitch. “she wants us to,” shauna tells the team. “let’s do it.”

and so the andalite imbues the yellowjackets with the power to morph. <this is a gift,> he tells them. <but it comes with a price. you must never stay in morph for longer than two of your earth hours, or you will be trapped forever!> all four of his eyes are trained on jackie. <promise me!> “uh, yeah,” jackie stammers, in a daze. “yeah, i promise.” the prince nods weakly. <now go,> he says. <they are coming! go!> and so they run, and they don’t look back.

the next day after practice, the seven of them hang back and hold council in the locker room. they start framing the outline of a battle plan.

van’s older brother has a friend of a friend who works at the zoo who’s able to get them in after hours. shauna acquires a wolf, tai acquires a coyote, lottie acquires a stag, laura lee acquires a falcon, van acquires a fox, and nat acquires a mountain lion (cue the cougar jokes).

and jackie? jackie has never felt more out of her depth in her whole life. she barely has a handle on leading a soccer team. she doesn’t think she’s anywhere close to being able to fight in an entire underground alien invasion resistance, let alone lead it.

shauna finds her pacing back and forth in the petting zoo cradling something in her arms. “is that a rabbit?” she asks.

“a hare,” jackie corrects her. “still cute though, right?”

“yeah, it’s cute,” says shauna, “but will it do you much good in a fight?”

jackie puts the hare down. “i mean… according to that sign over there they can run, like, 50 miles per hour or something.” she sighs. “i don’t know if i’m ready for what’s coming, shipman,” she admits shakily. “running strats for a soccer match is one thing, but this,” she says, gesturing broadly, “if we fuck this up then it’s game over for the whole planet.”

“i’m scared too,” shauna whispers. “but we’re in this fight together, okay? it’s you and me. you and me against the whole planet, jax.”

tai, van, and lottie take charge on reconnaissance. they figure out that the yeerks have a front group for recruitment, some “intentional wellness community” thing called “the sharing”. and wouldn’t you know it, kevyn tan just joined up.

lottie tails kevyn to a hidden entrance to the yeerk pool beneath the school in a supply closet. nat doesn’t believe her at first, refuses to accept that it’s true that her best friend is a controller - a puppet for a yeerk host.

they go into their first battle with no planning, no preparation, and no mission to accomplish. they just storm the pool in their battle morphs and try to free as many hosts as possible.

in the heat of battle, shauna feels something thrilling pulse through her as she tears aliens apart like paper dolls with the wolf’s terrible teeth and claws. she’s a killing machine, and she likes it. she enjoys it. and that scares her.

but the yellowjackets are forced to retreat when the yeerks bring in reinforcements. they barely make it out alive, and they lose contact with jackie. taissa drags a demorphing shauna, screaming and sobbing, away from the pool with tears in her eyes.

shauna stays at school long after practice lets out. she sits on a bench in the locker room and she waits for jackie to come back.

she’s not sure when or how she fell asleep, but it’s morning again when she wakes to the sound of jackie’s voice in her head.

“you’re okay,” shauna croaks. <i’m okay,> jackie repeats. she’s still in her hare morph, and shauna doesn’t understand why. “it’s over, jax, you can come back now.” the hare’s nose twitches. there’s an undeniably human look of sorrow in its wide eyes.

“no,” shauna whispers. “no, jackie, c’mon, please morph back, come on -” <i can’t,> jackie says. <i can’t, i tried but i can’t, i had to - i had to stay hidden or they would’ve found me. and you know what they would’ve done if they caught me.> shauna selfishly wishes she had let herself get taken. at least she’d still be human that way.

“so what do we do now?” shauna asks quietly. <we fight,> jackie says.

the sudden disappearance of jackie taylor rocks wiskayok. the yellowjackets keep fighting anyways. shauna’s mom was reluctant at first, but her new “pet rabbit” seems to be helping her cope with the loss well enough.

when misty fucking quigley shows up to practice bragging about the cool blue box she found at the abandoned construction site, it puts a target on the whole team’s back. they take a vote, and decide to bring her into the fold too. they’re ultimately glad for it - “she’d be, like, a zillion times worse with a slug in her head,” nat jokes.

they keep fighting. they don’t win a lot, at first, and the victories they do snag tend to be pyrrhic. but even the smallest victory is still a victory.

the war changes them - figuratively and literally. they can’t go back to the girls they were before. but they keep fighting anyways.

#hahahaha WOW this is so long and self indulgent #would anyone even read this if i made it into a full out Thing #yellowjackets #animorphs

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vaguely-concerned · 30 days ago

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just going about my day idly contemplating how some of the ways hawke can interact with a romanced anders are not at all unlike how they interact with leandra (and a bit of carver too, especially with a purple hawke), and then thought about my hawke in the timeline where he romances anders and was hit straight in the face with 'was he ever actually in love, or was he just desperately trying to renegotiate with his mother's ghost in any way he could' and now i need to lie down. this is the power of dragon age 2

#'you don't know my mother' haunting me through the years #dragon age #dragon age 2 #hawke #On second thought let's not go to Kirkwall; it is a silly place #there are of course as many ways to do/read that relationship as there are players to interact with it haha and all valid!#but my personal version of handers is sooo fucked up and bad times for everyone involved and I love it haha.#this is a relationship neither of them should have been in and that made everything worse and everyone unhappy in the end #locked tomb levels of the horrors of love. i ship it but in the way that I want to make it sadder and more gutwrenching each time #to be clear this is a very mutual two-way kind of fucked up but I think varric in his loyalty and love would downplay hawke's side of it #for huge swathes of their relationship anders is not in a mental place to be a good partner and the emotional blackmail is Not Okay #(but it's just like how mother used to make it! hawke's soul cries sadly as it reaches for it hungrily)#which is in some ways fair enough no one could accuse him of not warning you ahead of time fjskda #but hawke is messy about it in a way only available to a covert people pleaser who has never had a millisecond of therapy #with some added stuff that my hawke is always acespec in some form and when he gets together with anders...#is the sex something he doesn't particularly care to have or not have but it 'makes anders happy'/he longs to feel wanted *and* needed #and also a way he gets out of ever being *actually* vulnerable (which I think he'd had to be with varric for example if he Went There )#'you want the hawke who's in your head so badly and I kind of wish I were that hawke too. so let's be collaborateurs with that fantasy'#(and then maybe if I do it right every time you'll finally be happy hawke says in his heart looking at this leandra-anders phantom form)#(and echoing stuff in varric's relationship to hawke but I think the important distinction there is that varric -- is a craftsman haha #he KNOWS when he's lying/making up a story he KNOWS the difference between what is and what he wishes the world was #(I think there's some deep longing there to not know; for it to blend together or have the power to change things. but he always knows)#which ironically leaves him in a better position to actually see and understand hawke the person #even as he is creating hawke the literary figure. almost to protect him in some ways? god da2 is so full of STUFF!!! I adore it)#and of course anders gets so disillusioned with hawke's inertia and lack of action (you all but married this man anders!#you should know this about him he's already carrying the whole family and city on his shoulders if you add a gram more he'll collapse!)#and hawke feels so desperately hurt that the promise anders seemed to make that he'd be enough -- that he could fix things for him --#('I'm the one bright light in kirkwall and that apparently doesn't count for shit so I'm just slowly turning to ash for you')#turned out to be untrue. anyway. sad now. imagine them meeting like twenty years on what the fuck could you even say to each other then #(I can't imagine Hawke ever physically hurting anyone he loves so he just tells Anders to leave at the end of DA2. they COULD meet again

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daisyswift3 · 3 months ago

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Just found a playlist that my ex situationship from 3 yrs ago made that I’m like 99% sure is dedicated to me and now I can’t stop crying. It kinda confirms everything I already knew. The universe has impeccable timing truly

It’s these songs being on there and it being a divorce playlist that really made it obvious what it’s abt. We had a mutual friend named Katie. At least she’s self aware and acknowledges what the whole thing was like from my point of view 🙂

#mighttt delete this later #i mean u almost have to laugh #divorce babe divorce #i feel like i accidentally manifested this #well maybe not accidentally bc this is kinda exactly what i was hoping for #never get into a sapphic situationship don’t do it 0/10 would not recommend #3 yrs later and im still not over it #made a playlist in response to hers so maybe she’ll see it 😃#it has lots of taylor swift gracie abrams and phoebe bridgers #put moon song savior complex and full machine in there #hope ur ok amelie gold rush and 21 too #the thing is im not mad at her at all despite everything that happened #bc we never even had a falling out or anything it just fizzled out #sorry to anyone who reads this just ignore me #Spotify

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letbuckfuck · 6 months ago

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#alright these tags are super embarrassing but i needed to rant publicly so uh. you can read this but please don't perceive me too much #it is so fucking exhausting having nobody to share my life with #i have literally zero friends at this point bc ever since my grandpa died i've pretty much stopped trying to keep in touch with my hometown #friends and i cut off my 'friend' group that were racist assholes who treated me like a doormat back in october and haven't really made any #close friends at college since. and i just fucking hate that this is the same way i've felt for so many fucking years like you'd think it #would be bearable at this point and i'd be used to being alone and for a while i honestly was but it just hit me tonight how fucking lonely #i am and how tomorrow i have to keep on just doing the shit i have to do in life without anyone to talk to and share it with #other than my mom who's been pissing me off lately so i've been pushing her away too!#it's so tiring to have to go out and do things and have responsibilities everyday and not being able to share that with anyone idk it makes #it feel almost like i'm carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders which is SO dramatic i know #like today i wanted to talk about the stupid false alarm gas leak thing with my sort of friends in this club i'm in but i didn't get to talk #to anyone at the meeting bc everyone was just talking amongst themselves in their little groups of best friends and it just reminded me that #i don't have that and i've never fucking had that i've only ever pretended i had that #it's like all these years i've been pretending to be a person that has friends and knows how to live life normally but i never have #more than anything i just miss my friends from home bc they're the closest i've ever felt to having friends that are like family but. i #don't know how to talk to them anymore. i didn't tell any of them when my grandpa died and i think they just assumed that i've moved on so #they've probably moved on and i already know that they have their own lives and friends at their schools that are a lot more full than mine #wanna know the worst part about all of this? i just had therapy and basically told her everything's fine #and i won't meet with her again until 3 weeks from now so literally the only person i can talk to about this right now is my mom #which i am absolutely not gonna do bc she's gonna get so scared and worried for me and i can't have that rn #anyways yeah. this isn't even that big of a deal like i haven't had friends for at least the past 6 months it's not like anything's changed #i just feel extra sad about it right now. i need a distraction stat gonna go watch watch some tv goodnight #shut up hanna

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weaselle · 2 months ago

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i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

#villains #my life

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nieloxychen · 6 months ago

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not to have a moment in another posts tags so im venting in my own tags <3

#still on the “first human to know Tal” point like??#even when ive outed myself to others there were never questions like that #affirming questions would be a good term maybe?#but it was silence and maybe a clarifiying question #all i remember is silence from others and unease from me #at least in person #online is a different best because that mostly concerns things youre already volunteering #and like the obvious bad memory bias that brains have doesnt make it easier #i could name the people that inspired me to take another look at my gender - that showed me there was more than a strict binary #but i wish i had someone like that? a first human to know Lo #i mean i definetly do in the general sense #because every name is said a first and last time by someone #but it was almost certainly someone who never thought twice about it #who might not have even wondered #im not sure why it makes such a difference if the first person i told my name to knew thati had a different name before then #or if it matters if the person i first introduced myself to by my chosen name knows that my name is important to me #but i definetly remember the people who asked about where my name comes from #and i feel better about those conversations than i do with people who never had any reaction at all #maybe its that i want to be recognised in full? and a big part of who i am is informed by me being trans #and it feels like an important part of what made me who i am today is being ignored?#idk...#but if anyone has read this far id love to hear someone elses input on this? like is this something you understand or even recognise?

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why-animals-do-the-thing · 3 months ago

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average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

#big cats #tiger king #my research #news #big cat public safety act #animal welfare #big cat welfare #legislation and regulation #vent post #long post #crouchingtigerhiddendata #more on the problems with the bill in the future

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mariacallous · 5 months ago

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The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle is a brightly modern, four-story structure, with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street.

On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, it was being slowly locked down.

Red lights began flashing at the entrances as students and faculty filed out under overcast skies. Eventually, just a handful of people remained inside, preparing to unleash one of the most destructive forces in the natural world: the crushing weight of about 2½ miles of ocean water.

In the building’s high-pressure testing facility, a black, pill-shaped capsule hung from a hoist on the ceiling. About 3 feet long, it was a scale model of a submersible called Cyclops 2, developed by a local startup called OceanGate. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, had cofounded the company in 2009 as a sort of submarine charter service, anticipating a growing need for commercial and research trips to the ocean floor. At first, Rush acquired older, steel-hulled subs for expeditions, but in 2013 OceanGate had begun designing what the company called “a revolutionary new manned submersible.” Among the sub’s innovations were its lightweight hull, which was built from carbon fiber and could accommodate more passengers than the spherical cabins traditionally used in deep-sea diving. By 2016, Rush’s dream was to take paying customers down to the most famous shipwreck of them all: the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Engineers carefully lowered the Cyclops 2 model into the testing tank nose-first, like a bomb being loaded into a silo, and then screwed on the tank’s 3,600-pound lid. Then they began pumping in water, increasing the pressure to mimic a submersible’s dive. If you’re hanging out at sea level, the weight of the atmosphere above you exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). The deeper you go, the stronger that pressure; at the Titanic’s depth, the pressure is about 6,500 psi. Soon, the pressure gauge on UW’s test tank read 1,000 psi, and it kept ticking up—2,000 psi, 5,000 psi. At about the 73-minute mark, as the pressure in the tank reached 6,500 psi, there was a sudden roar and the tank shuddered violently.

“I felt it in my body,” an OceanGate employee wrote in an email later that night. “The building rocked, and my ears rang for a long time.”

“Scared the shit out of everyone,” he added.

The model had imploded thousands of meters short of the safety margin OceanGate had designed for.

In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions the next two years. But nearly one year ago, on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself.

The disaster captivated and horrified the world. Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGate’s choices, from Titan’s carbon-fiber construction to Rush’s public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation. Organizations that had worked with OceanGate, including the University of Washington as well as the Boeing Company, released statements denying that they contributed to Titan.

A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to WIRED by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development, from its initial design and manufacture through its first deep-sea operations. The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of Titan, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub project, although their work did not make it into the final Titan design. The trove also reveals a company culture in which employees who questioned their bosses’ high-speed approach and decisions were dismissed as overly cautious or even fired. (The former employees who spoke to WIRED have asked not to be named for fear of being sued by the families of those who died aboard the vessel.) Most of all, the documents show how Rush, blinkered by his own ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGate’s progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titan’s hull, which has not been previously reported.

A representative for OceanGate, which ceased all operations last summer, declined to comment on WIRED’s findings.

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mostly-imagines · 7 months ago

Note

Hi!! If you're up to it do you think you could write something about the first time Jason brings his gf to the manor. Like maybe he brings her in but doesn't tell anyone and so everyone is trying to sneak a glimpse of her??

meet the family

jason todd x fem!reader

aka jason has a girlfriend???

warnings: none

The manor sits full as ever—a cloud of mild boredom sweeping over the Wayne clan.

Dick sits perched on top of an armchair reading a catalog, Stephanie’s splayed out across the couch, Cass is bundled up in blankets atop the ottoman, and Damian leans up against the center table from the floor.

It’s a relatively slow afternoon, until Tim comes bursting into the room, out of breath.

“There’s a girl here!”

Everybody looks at him, disinterest scattered across the room. “There’s a couple of ‘em.” Dick says, flipping through the pages of the magazine.

Tim huffs, “No! In Jason’s room—he has a girl in there!” Eyebrows shoot up at that.

“Now I know you’re lying.” Damian mutters.

Tims head snaps over to Damian. “Dude, go see for yourself. I heard her!”

“You really think Jason would bring a girl here and not even introduce us?” Steph asks, unconvinced.

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Obviously.”

Cassandra nods fervently.

“Okay, yeah. Maybe.” Stephanie mutters. “I bet he’ll introduce me before any of you guys, though.”

Dick barks out a laugh, “You’re nothing short of delusional if you think he’s introducing any of us.”

“We’ll have to take matters into our own hands, then.” Tim says, decidedly.

Damian audibly sighs and rolls his eyes.

“I’m meeting her first.” Steph confirms. “I’ll put money down right now.”

“Meet her or see her?” Cass signs.

“Same thing.” Stephanie shrugs.

Dick shoots up from his seat, “First person to see her gets to be the ring bearer!” He announces, racing out of the room.

Knock knock knock knock knock…

Knock knock.

It takes a good forty seconds, but Jason opens the door, an annoyed frown already on his face.

Dick gives him his brightest smile. It beams of deceit in Jason's eyes. “Hey man. What’cha doing?”

He crosses his arms. “What do you want?”

Dick tries to peer around Jason into the room, but Jason made a point of barely opening the door and his large frame isn’t doing Dick any favors right now.

“Just wanted to say hey…You wanna hang out?”

“No.”

Dick lingers awkwardly. “…Are you sure?”

Jason shuts the door.

A couple minutes later, Tim comes running up the stairs. He opts to skip over the courtesy of knocking and go straight for barging through the door himself. Or he would’ve, if Jason hadn’t seen that coming from a mile away and locked it.

“Fuck off, Tim!” Jason calls from inside the room.

“You lost your right to privacy the second you walked in this house!” He shouts back, hitting his fist against the door.

And Tim swears he can hear a sweet laugh as he trudges away. The authenticity of that claim will be heavily debated downstairs for the next several minutes.

Not even a thirty seconds later, Stephanie comes a knockin’. Jason opens the door wordlessly, patience clearly dissipating more and more.

“Hey, Jason! I can’t find my comm, you wouldn’t happen to have it, would you?”

His face deadpans. “No, Steph.”

Stephanie clicks her tongue, “Can you check?”

He stares at her.

“Actually you’re right, it would be faster if I did.” Stephanie tries to push past him into the room, but Jason, unsurprisingly, doesn’t budge.

“Stephanie.”

“I just want to meet her!” She pleads. “I won’t even tell the others, I’ll just say you wouldn’t let me in either!”

“Bye.” He closes the door.

He doesn’t make it all the way back to the bed before the next knock, singular and short.

Jason snaps the door open again, looking down at Damian with a glare.

Never one to waste any time, “Is there a girl in here?” Damian asks, seeming thoroughly disinterested in the answer.

Jason shuts the door in his face.

Several minutes later, another, quieter knock. Jason’s groan can be heard from outside the room. He pulls open the door once again.

It’s Cass.

She stares at him.

He stares at her.

“Can I say hi to her?” She signs.

Jason sighs. “I’ll pass along the message.”

She smiles and turns back down the hall.

Jason closes and locks the door once again, trudging back over to the bed where you lay. He collapses onto your chest, your arms wrapping around each others bodies immediately.

“Cass says hi.” He mumbles, the sound obscured by his face-down position.

“That message would be a lot more meaningful if I actually knew Cass.”

He groans. “You don’t want to meet them.”

“I do.” You say, running your fingers through his hair. “And I think you do too, or you wouldn’t have brought me to the house where the world's best detectives live.”

“I’m starting to regret it now.”

“Come on. Please?” You plead.

He picks his head up to look at you.

“Are you sure?” He asks with a grimace.

“Absolutely.” You say, topping it off with a kiss on his cheek.

He sighs.

Well. It’s never been within Jason’s skill set to deny you, anyways.

You descend the stairs hand in hand with Jason, his energy mopier than usual. You can hear a gaggle of voices coming from a room ahead, all talking over one another.

“Okay, Tim, you climb up outside the window and—”

“—It’s your plan, you scale the side of the house.”

Jason drops his head and mutters a “Jesus Christ…” as you near the commotion.

You give him a reassuring smile and pat his back as you both move into the doorway.

Everyone’s heads snap to the doorway, eyes wide and waiting.

Jason takes a deep breath like he’s steeling himself for torture. “Guys…This is my girlfriend.”

“Hi.” You smile sweetly, waving to the room.

There’s a moment of still silence before the room erupts.

“Hold on—”

“—my god, she’s so pretty!”

“Oh wow—”

“Wait, what?”

”—You’re real?”

“—didn’t place that bet.”

Stephanie comes scurrying up to you and grabs both of your hands in hers. “Hi, I’m Steph!” She says with a beaming smile. “What’s your name?”

“I’m—”

But the others are right on her tail, crowding around you.

“We didn’t even know Jason had a girlfriend.” Tim says.

“Still not convinced.” Damian mumbles from the back.

Cass waves and signs something to you.

“She says we’re really happy to meet you, which we are.” Dick tells you.

Damian moves closer within the huddle and inspects you closely. You have no idea what he’s inspecting you for. You don’t need to dwell on it for long because Jason pushes his head away from you with mild force making Damian scowl.

Stephanie chimes in, “Did he bring you here to meet us? The others said—”

Jason cuts her off, already knowing exactly where that sentence was going. “I brought her here to show her my old room.”

Dick snickers, “Oh, is that what you were off doing?”

“Watch it.” Your boyfriend warns.

You nudge him with your elbow, be nice.

Tim moves closer to you, narrowing his eyes. “So you’ve like, spent time with him and everything? And you still want to be around him?”

“Okay and you’re done.” Jason takes your hand and leads you out of the room and back down the hallway.

“No wait!”

You’re already out of the room and into another and then another before you can even realize that you’re headed for the front door.

You stop in your tracks, pulling him to a halt as well. “What about—”

Jason shakes his head. “You don’t want to meet him.”

You lower your chin at him, “Jay. Do you want me to meet him?”

He’s silent and doesn’t look like he particularly does.

You sigh, “Okay, do you want him to meet me?”

“I—yeah…” he trails, and you give him your best sweet eyes, the ones that he knows he has no business saying no to. “I…okay. Okay.”

He leads you down another hallway, the sounds of his siblings clambering echoing in the distance. You end up in a room that looks like a never used study, where Jason pushes on one of the walls. It slides open with a bit of force from him, revealing a door with a keypad next to it.

He types a series of numbers into it, and opens it up to a narrow passageway that looks remarkably like a cave.

The passageway leads down to a set of stairs, and you can hear the loud sound of water in the distance.

You’re quite nervous about walking into the Batcave, but you know Jason wouldn’t bring you anywhere near it unless he was sure it would be okay. Okay for you that is, more so than his father.

“Careful. It’s slippery.” Jason holds your hand the whole way down anyway, making sure to linger no more than a step and a half in front of you.

You see Bruce Wayne, sitting at a desk with a large array of computer screens in front of it, and case files scattered all throughout the surface.

He doesn’t acknowledge your entrance, though you have to imagine if Jason got his observation skills from anywhere, it would be him.

As you approach, Jason switches your hands so that his left is holding your left. The result has his figure half covering you, you can only assume partially limiting Bruce’s view of you.

“Bruce.”

Bruce turns his chair around, regarding Jason with a raised chin. The greeting is somehow even more formal than you’d expected.

“Jason.” He readdresses his gaze to you. “Who’s this?”

Jason has a hell of a feeling that Bruce already knows exactly who you are. He’s probably known about you since you started dating. He would’ve had to, to not be pissed as hell that Jason brought a civilian into the cave.

Jason introduces you, his hand reluctantly letting go as you step forward to shake Bruce’s.

Bruce looks surprised, though pleasantly so. He smiles and shakes it kindly.

“It’s nice to finally meet you.” He says.

“You too, I’ve heard a lot about you.” You say, smiling.

He laughs, “Oh, I bet.” Looking to Jason, he says, “I can’t say I’ve had the same pleasure, unfortunately.”

Though Jason’s behind you now, you can practically feel him roll his eyes.

“No, I can’t imagine him sharing anything unprovoked.” Bruce smiles widely at that.

He opens his mouth to say something else, but Jason, who’s probably on the brink of losing his mind down here, interrupts.

“Alright. Time to go.” Jason says, grabbing your hand again. He doesn’t give you much time to protest before he’s guiding you by the waist past him and towards the stairs.

You let him nudge you out and call over your shoulder, “It was nice meeting you!”

He’s halfway up the stairs as you exit, only to be stopped by Bruce addressing him again.

“Jason.”

Jason stalls his steps, turning around slowly. You’re out of the cave now, and Jason’s not excited to be alone with his Dad for even a minute. It doesn’t help that he has no idea what he’ll say.

“She’s kind.” Bruce says, simply.

“Yes.”

He tilts his head at Jason, observing him. “You love her?”

Jason looks at the ground. “Yes.”

Bruce nods. “Good.”

He returns to his work at the computers wordlessly, and Jason has to take a moment to realign himself before he climbs the rest of the stairs.

Jason doesn’t particularly seek his fathers approval, nor does he place any definable value on it. However, hearing him give his own version of his blessing to you struck something inside Jason. Something deep in his chest.

He re-enters the study, finding it empty. He walks out into the hallway, where you’re nowhere to be found. Despite being halfway across the house by this point, he can distinctly hear his siblings chattering in the living room. Chattering. And chattering. And chattering…

Oh god, you went back to the living room.

As Jason approaches the conversation becomes clearer.

“—long have you been together, anyways?”

“Well—”

Stephanie gasps suddenly, cutting you off. “Oh wait, you have to meet Alfred!”

“Oh, we’ve already met.” You tell her.

Dick’s head snaps up. “What? When?”

Jason enters the room, draping his arm around your shoulder. “About six months before you met her.”

A chorus of gasps and shouts ring out.

“What?”

#jason todd loves his gf #jason todd x you #jason todd/you #jason todd imagine #jason todd/reader #jason todd fanfic #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd x reader #batfam x you #batfam imagine #batfam fanfiction #batfam fanfic #batfam x reader #batfam dynamics

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miaoua3 · 3 months ago

Text

Stay The Morning?

Pairing: CEO! scoups x f!reader

Genre: shameless smut (MDNI), one night stand, meet cute, rich ceo x normal girl, morning after, the whole encounter described through flashbacks, mentions of previous cheating

Description: after your previous boyfriend cheated on you, your friends allowed you three weeks of mopping and self loathing before they drag you out of the house and into a bar. little did you know that a certain gentleman will be there and that he will change your world for a night

Note: i went out with my friends, we jokingly went to our local perfume shop, i found cheols perfume (hermes h24), it made me ovulate….bon appetit.

Warning: barely proofread, read at your own risk lmao

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

to say that walking in on your boyfriend and his coworker shagging in your own bed after you’ve decided to come home earlier to surprise him with a warm and delicious cooked meal messed you up a bit was an understatement.

his apologies fell on deaf ears, partly because you didn’t want to hear it and partly because a sudden ringing appeared to be echoing in the shell of your ear.

overcome with rage, you packed all of his stuff in some plastic bags from previous shopping trips, all while he tried to talk to you and explain that ‘it isn’t what it looks like’.

what a bucket full of bullshit.

deciding that 5 bags worth of stuff should last him a few days, you threw them in front of your door before pushing your now ex in the hallway too.

in his boxers only.

but then, your bravery seemed to have disappeared. while your ex was trying to make excuses explain to you the situation, you haven’t let yourself feel a single emotion other than rage and betrayal.

the moment you slammed the door in your ex’s face though, you felt all the emotions suddenly hit you and you crumbled, letting the tears fall down your face.

in these situations, you always find yourself doing the same thing.

and that is call your two best friends.

in the matter of minutes they were in front of your door, with all the necessities like ice cream and tissues.

and they comforted you. for the whole nights.

and the rest of the week.

and the week following that one.

and then third week week too.

well, at least, until friday evening.

at 6pm sharp, your friend, sana, unlocked the door and kicked them with her foot, your other friend jihyo not far behind her.

only to find you on your couch, watching tv with dead eyes, a bucket of ice cream on your lap (now mostly in a watery consistency).

at the sudden outburst, you looked at the direction of your front door with shocked eyes.

sana, having had enough of your bullshit, marched up to you and pulled you up by your arm, “okay that’s it, go take a shower, we’re going out, i have had it with your bullshit. god, you stink, when was the last time you at least put on deodorant, bro? disgusting.”

you, still being in shock, had little space to let out a complaint at her rambling, until she basically pushed you in the bathroom, making you trip over your own feet, before she closed the bathroom door in your face.

after a second, she yelled “oh and shave your legs and everything else, we are getting you laid tonight!”

by the tone of her voice, you knew that you had no choice but to do as she told you. knowing her, she would make the heavens move just to have her way.

an hour later, you were dressed in a little tight cherry red dress, your makeup done by your two friends, hair perfectly done, a black leather jacket resting on your shoulders, your arms intertwined with the arms of your friends, pulling you out of your apartment and down the stairs.

something in your stomach was telling you that that night wouldn’t go as your friend had imagined it. realising this, you raised your concerns.

“guys, while i really do appreciate this, and im sure we will have so much fun, i don’t think i will be sleeping with anyone tonight. it just feels too soon and im not sure if it would be a good idea for me to do that.”

sana scoffs and replies “girl please, your heart is in your vagina, and currently it is broken thanks to the dumbass that you decided to date even when I specifically told you not to, it just needs to be a big dick that will sprinkle some of its fairy dust on it and it will be as good as new-“, she tried to continue, but jihyo decided to interrupt her by letting go of your arm and using the same hand to reach behind your back and smack sana across the back of her head, full force, making her head fly down.

“stop spewing nonsense, even if we wanted to we can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. plus, if she thinks it wouldn’t be a good idea then it probably isn’t, just because it would work for you doesn’t mean it would work for her.”, jihyo defends you as she intertwines your arms again and rubs the back of your hand with her other hand.

sana just mumbles “we will see about that” in response.

after a few minutes, you reach the bar that you visit semi-regularly aka whenever the stars align and all three of you happen to have a free day on the same day.

sitting at your usual place at the bar, sana orders for all of you before you can even try to protest about how you weren’t in a mood for heavy drinks.

as jihyo and sana are talking between themselves, you look around the bar, just to people watch for a bit, see everyone that is mingling in this bar.

and then you see him.

at the other end of the bar, there sat a man so beautiful it made all of those butterflies you felt on the way to the bar roar together into a chaos.

oh.

he’s so beautiful is the only thought that could cross your mind as you observed him. short black hair neatly styled in a way that it compliments all of his features, dark and thick eyebrows pulling your attention, big and plump lips set in a gentle smile. letting your eyes travel, they end up on his arms, observing how tight the black button up looks on him due to his buff physique. your wandering eyes come to his hands that are resting on the top of the counter, one crossed while the other is playing with the glass filled with dark liquor.

seeming that you have zero self control left, you let your eyes wander back up to his face, to admire the face that you could only describe as if it were sculpted by the gods themselves.

only to find his dark eyes already watching you.

quicker than a thunder, you turn your head towards your two friends again, feeling how hot your face feels due to being caught by the perfect stranger.

you try to go back to the conversation that your friends are having, as a distraction from the most perfect man that you have ever seen in your entire life.

what you fail to notice is that the stranger’s eyes stay on you, caressing your figure with his hot gaze, stopping every few seconds on one of your features, as a way to take not of every little detail and memorise it.

after half an hour, you finish your first drink (that tasted only mildly disgusting due to amount of alcohol it had in it). but it seems that with every sip you took, your self control would lessen and your eyes would stray in the direction of mr.perfect (as you started calling him in your head).

only to snap your head right back because he would already be looking at you, gentle smile playing on the edge of his lips.

the entire time you felt your cheeks burn with embarrassment, excitement and nervousness. to be completely honest, you forgot how it felt to be excited to have got somebody’s whole attention on you, and to have your own attention solely focused on them.

all the butterflies you felt as you were walking to the bar seem to only duplicate with every little exchange of glances between you and mr.perfect.

just as you raised your hand to get the bartender’s attention, a deep “um, excuse me?” came from your right, making you pause your action to turn your head.

and your breath catches in your throat.

because one and only mr.perfect was standing right there, towering over you due to you sitting and him being so very tall, clad in all black, the sleeves of his black button up rolled up to his elbows, the first few buttons undone, giving you a peak to his strong and defined collarbones, a gentle smile teasing the edges of his mouth.

and his gaze.

oh his gaze was burning you from the intensity of it, making goosebumps arise on your skin.

seeing that he got your attention, he continues with a boyish smile “i was just wondering if i could buy you your next drink? it’s just that- i saw you across the room and i thought that you were absolutely beautiful, and my mom taught me that beautiful women should never pay for their own drinks a-and im rambling aren’t i?”, he finishes with a low chuckle, shyly rubbing the back of his neck.

looking at him, it would seem that a cat got ahold of your tongue because you proceed to just stare at him, both of you waiting for you to say anything.

luckily, jihyo comes to your rescue, behind your shoulder smiles at the stranger and says “she would love to!”

breaking out of the trance, you look at her shortly to see her nodding her head encouragingly, before looking at the stranger again with a blushing face “um, yes, i’d really like that”.

he smiles at you, before calling the bartender over. you tell him your order before he directly gets to work.

as your drink is being made, the stranger smiles at you and puts out his hand for a handshake (his beautifully big, veiny and manly hand, adorned by a ring on his middle finger and an expensive watch on his writs) “my name is choi seungcheol, may i ask for yours?”

blushingly, you put your hand in his and introduce yourself. making some small talk, you learn that he is currently 29 years old, and that he’s here with some friends for a friend’s birthday.

just as you were about to ask him what he does for a living, your drink gets put in front of you, breaking the flow of the conversation.

seungcheol, seeing that the only reason why approached you is done, gets up from his sit next to you, “well, your drink is here, i’ll leave you ladies alone now, thank you for allowing me to pay for your drink, enjoy the rest of your night”. he smiles gently before he starts to go back to his friends.

you weren’t lying that alcohol messed with your self control, because in the time it took him to make three steps, you were up and out of your seat, way too loudly than necessary saying “um-!”.

hearing you behind him, he turns around and to see your flustered face, questionably looking at you.

seeing that the cat is already out of the bag and that you already embarrassed yourself as it is, you continue “y-you know, you could buy me the next drink too? o-or, well, you could just- you could offer me a longer conversation instead? um, actually, i-i’d prefer that to a drink.”, you finish with almost to none dignity left, your entire face burning from embarrassment.

seungcheol, in return just smiles.

and the butterflies go wild again.

oh, no.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

waking up, you notice that your room is suspiciously bright. like, way too bright for it to be your room.

the thought makes you jump and sit up automatically, only to notice the lack of the clothes on your body, making you pull the duvet over your chest.

looking around the room, you realise that you were in somebody else’s bed.

and looking to your right, you get the answer as to whose room it is.

seungcheol is sound asleep next to you, shirtless, laying on his stomach with his face turned towards you, his lips set in a cute little pout, his back muscles moving and flexing with every exhale that escapes his mouth.

and his back. oh. my. god.

there were nail scratches all over his back, making it look as if a wild cat had attacked him. but it wasn’t a cat that attacked him, was it now? no it was your doing.

looking around the room, you realise just how much more spacious it looks in the daylight. actually, everything about his condo is big and spacious (as well as everything about him-).

noting every little detail around the room and thinking about how much everything must’ve cost. but it probably didn’t make that much of a difference to him. no.

because choi seungcheol wasn’t just anybody.

he was a ceo of…some company whose name you can’t remember because you were…occupied with something else when he was explaining it to you (read: occupied by watching the veins in his forearms move with every move of his arms that he made).

the fact that he hid that from you up until the moment you walked into his condo makes you mentally scoff at your cluelessness, because who else would wear a watch that size if not a ceo of a company?

you were willing to ignore the big watch. you were even willing to ignore the ridiculously expensive-looking audi that he drove you in to his place. even the underground garage that he drove into.

but walking directly out of the lift and into the biggest condo you have ever since with the whole wall being just one giant window? oh, no way in hell were you going to let it slide.

turning around to look at him questionably, you feel his hand that’s on your back rub slow circles, and his smile turn into a sheepish one.

“so, just a businessman huh?”, you question his previous answer with a raised brow.

in return he chuckles, “well, i am a businessman technically, i just never mentioned that i was a ceo of a company”, he answers before he toes off his dress shoes and walks in what you were sure to be a kitchen.

you follow him, slowly observing the ginormous living room that you find yourself into, before stopping in front of the big window. his condo had to be the best in the whole of seoul, because the view that you are looking at right now is enough to leave you breathless. thousands of lights from all across the seoul make it look like the night sky.

after a minute you ask him “why didn’t you tell me what you really do? there wasn’t really a reason to hide something like that so i assume that you had a bigger reason for not telling me.”, you turn your head back to be able to see him clearly.

he stops pouring you two drinks for a moment, looks upwards with furrowed eyebrows for a moment, before looking at you with and with upmost sincerity answers “you just didn’t seem like the type of person who would care about things like that.”, he turns his head back to the glasses in front of him before he continues “plus, i was sitting in front of the most beautiful woman i have ever seen, i much rather talk about you and get to know you than talk about my boring work.”, he chuckles as he finishes his thought.

his answer was so simple, yet it got your breath catching in your throat.

you can’t remember the last time somebody really cared about you and who wanted to get to know you, to learn about all the little things about you.

your gaze finally falls on seungcheol’s back again, and on your artwork.

you feel the heat on your cheeks worsen, the longer you look at the marks on his big and muscular back. the heat to your face isn’t the only thing that looking at his back brings to you, but the memories of last night as well.

although your eyes are focused on the view in front of you, you can feel that seungcheol was walking slowly towards you, until he was standing directly behind you. slowly, you see his hand appear in front of your face, holding a glass of water. carefully, you take it from his hand, saying a quiet “thank you” before taking a little sip of the water.

you gently put the glass on the little table holding a vase to your left, before looking in front of you again.

ever so slowly, you feel him inch closer to you, until your back is brushing his firm chest. his smell has your mind clouded-he smells so good, not too strong like most men do, but just enough to have you taking a deeper whiff of it. such a pleasant smell, it had your eyelids closing in satisfaction on their own.

ever so lightly he places his hand in your hip, his hold on it getting firmer with each slow second. at this simple touch you find yourself gasping lowly, goosebumps raising on the skin of your arms.

you can tell by the precision of his moves and how he takes his time with each action of his what kind of lover he is. the type to make you feel safe and relaxed. the type that would put your pleasure in the first place. the gentle but firm type.

the type to be the best you have ever had.

another step, and his entire front is touching your entire back. there isn’t an inch of you that isn’t touching him. you can feel his breath on the back of your head, and your own coming to a still stand in your throat.

slowly, he moves his head until it’s right there, to your right. he lets his head dip a little lower, so his nose is grazing the skin of your shoulder and ever so lightly, takes a deep breath of your smell.

he inhales deeply, at the end of it a little groan rumbling in his chest. he then lets his instincts take over-slowly, he moves his head so his nose travels across your shoulder, up your neck (where for a few milliseconds you feel his lips brush across your skin too, making you gasp quietly), across your jawline, until his lips are right by your ear.

in what must be the deepest voice you have ever heard from a man, he whispers, “tell me to stop…”, he pauses, letting go of his self control for a moment and letting his lips leave a little kiss on the edge of your jawline, before he continues “…and i will stop”.

gone were all the thoughts from your head, which is probably why you find your head falling back on his shoulder, eyes closing on their own, feeling the lack of the air in your lungs getting to your head, and breathlessly, you say “don’t stop, please”.

which seemed to be enough for him, because in the next second he’s directing your face to his own with two fingers and kissing you like he’s dying, and you are the only antidote that could save him.

his tongue massages your own in such a meticulous manner, that it made a little moan escape you. quickly, you break the kiss for the second it takes you to turn around in his hold, not even realising that he now had both of his arms wrapped around your stomach, and kissing him with what must look like desperation to anybody else.

he sucks on your top lip for a bit, before he deepens your kiss, his hand flying up to hold your jaw in place, slowly turning your head a bit to the side so he can get even deeper.

you seem to be out of your mind, because your hand-all on its own- grabs ahold of his other hand that is resting on your back, and places it on the back of your head.

seeing what you probably must’ve wanted, seungcheol takes a second to push his hand into your hair. and then he pulls on it ever so lightly.

and then you moan loudly in his mouth.

and that seems to do it for him, because he groans deeply at your moan, before he breaks a kiss harshly to grab ahold of your thighs and pick you up as if you weighed nothing.

the action got you gasping, your legs automatically wrapping themselves around his hips. but before you had the time to tell him to put you down and that “you were too heavy”, he’s right back, kissing you like he was starving for it-starving for you.

with ease, he turns around and starts walking down the hall. but since he’s only a man, he gets a bit carried away, having to stop and push you against the wall, his kisses now fast and almost animalistic, travelling from your mouth, across your cheek and down your throat. at one harsher kiss to your skin on the neck, you let out a louder moan, which only fuelled his desire, his kisses getting faster, harsher, his tongue touching your skin with his open mouth kisses, the hold he had on your thighs getting tighter.

you couldn’t remember the last time you felt this wet, this satisfied, this hungry for more from a kiss alone. out of the window went all of your consciousness, your thoughts, the only thing that you knew at that moment were seungcheol and that you wanted him. more than you have ever wanted anything else.

gasping while he continues to attack your neck and collarbones, you moan a simple “more”.

and who was seungcheol to deprive his lady of what she wanted?

taking ahold of his actions, he gets a better grasp on your thighs, before he pushes you two away from the wall. in five big steps, he’s in front of his bedroom door, pushing them opened harshly with his foot, carrying you inside, before letting go of one of your legs to slam the door shut, all while still kissing you.

the thoughts that were playing in your mind like a movie got you slapping your face with both hands, covering your whole face with them.

not being able to sit still anymore, you gut up and out of the bed, quickly picking up a random shirt from the chair that was by the door, and out of the room.

you find yourself a bit lost, before you see the door to your left, on which stoop a sign that said “bathroom”. quickly, you run into the room and close the door behind yourself.

breathing out a sigh of relief, you look around to see just how ridiculously expensive the bathroom must look like.

and without any disappointment, the bathroom looks like it came straight out of somebody’s pinterest board- a big white bathtub to the left, to the right what must be the biggest shower you have ever seen, a toilet to the left in front of you, and a mirror so big there wouldn’t be a wall big enough to hang it in your own apartment. the tiles of the whole bathroom were this nice shade of beige, creating a harmony with the white furniture of the room.

noticing how badly you need to relieve yourself, you do yourself before getting up to wash your hands. as you finish, you look up to see just how bad your makeup must look.

and you gasp. because your whole neck is covered in hickeys, bigger part of them looking like they are connecting, making it look like one giant purple hickey that’s wrapped around your whole neck.

you just stand there for a second, in a loss for words as to how bad it looks. if you saw this sight on anybody else, you would think that they got mauled by a bear or some wild animal of sorts.

looking at the hickeys on your body got you blushing, and even more so as you remember how they came to be.

ever so gently, seungcheol puts you down on his big and fluffy bed. putting you down seemed to be the only thing he was going to do gently, because the very next second he’s basically pouncing on you, the kiss continuing after a brief moment it took him to lay you down. you feel his tongue battle with your own, before he pulls on your bottom lip with his own lips, lightly biting it to tease you just a little bit.

his hands go from resting next to your head to caressing your body, until they reach the hem of your dress. he breaks the kiss apart, starting to ask “can i-“.

but before he can finish the sentence, you are whining in his face, glossy eyes looking up at him “take it off, please, take it off take it off, please please please-“.

your begging seems to make him lose his mind just a bit more. quickly and with no care, as if he’s just as desperate to have this tight dress off of your body, he switches his hold to the straps of your dresss, harshly pulling it down your arms and chest, over your waist and over your hips, before giving it one final pull over your legs and tossing it over his shoulder.

for a moment, he sits on his heels and just observes you. he feels his chest tightening due to lack of oxygen, his heart beating so fast he thinks it could stop any moment.

your curves would get him kneeling in front of you if he wasn’t already doing so. and the little two piece lingerie- god, help him, for he is about to sin, big time.

he wanted to look at this sight for a bit longer, to have it embedded in his mind forever, but it seems that his girl is a bit impatient, because he feels your hand harshly pulling on his shirt and feels himself falling down on you before the sound of your whining even has the time to hit the shell of his ear.

you kiss him desperately, your hands everywhere- in his hair, on the nape of his neck, across his shoulders and scratching on his back.

all while whining and moaning in his mouth.

god help cheol if he wasn’t about to cum just from the pretty sounds you were making for him.

seeing as you weren’t willing to let him go, or stop kissing him for that matter, seungcheol opts to multitask and take his shirt off while still kissing you. the moment its off, your hands seem to have a mind of their own, travelling all over his back and shoulders before straying to his front, your firm touch traveling from his stomach to his chest.

deciding that he can’t wait anymore, he pulls on your underwear harshly, making them fly over his shoulder too, before he lets his lips leave open-mouth kisses over your neck, collarbones, chest, stopping for a bit to give you nipples a little nibble over your lacy bra, over your tummy, on your hip.

before he knows it, he finds himself laying between your legs, looking up at you through his thick eyelashes, his gaze hot enough to burn your skin.

he gently takes your thighs in his hands, before putting them on his shoulders. before he can even utter the words, you nod your head vigorously and enthusiastically, feeling your legs shake slightly at anticipation.

and then his mouth is on you. and you gasp.

he licks one long stripe from your hole to your clit, which he proceeds to suck onto lightly, making your hips buckle. his tongue then starts to lap at it, leaving little kitten licks on your clit.

your hand instinctively fly to his beautiful luscious hair, pulling on it, trying to getting him even closer if possible.

understanding what you want, seungcheol then lowers his mouth a bit, probing and pushing at your hole, twisting his tongue when entering you in ways you couldn’t think were humanly possible, sucking on your entrance every time before his tongue enters you again.

it’s embarrassing to admit, but you can confidently say that you have never been this close to the finish this fast.

which is why you try to pull him away by your hold on his hair. but he ignores your tugging, instead lets one of his hands that’s been holding your thigh travel up and take hold of one of your hands, before intertwining your hands and letting them rest on your hip.

such a simple action but it got your heart feeling so warm, you can for sure say that nobody ever made you feel this way by a simple action such as this one.

feeling your finish approaching quickly, you try to warn him, but he just looks at you with what looked like to be completely black eyes sternly, almost as if he was saying “don’t you dare stop me”.

and who were you to do as much?

suddenly, like a big wave, you feel the euphoria hit you, you back leaving the mattress, the hold you had on his hand and his hair tightening to the point you were sure must’ve hurt him, your thighs locking, squishing his face between them, all while moaning so loudly you were sure his neighbours were about to hate you.

seungcheol just continues to lap at your hole, drinking up every little drop of your cum as if it were nectar, closing his eyes in enjoyment, groaning as he makes sure to drink up everything you were giving him.

after a minute, you start feeling a bit overstimulated, whining in protest, which was seungcheol’s cue to stop. slowly detangling himself from your legs, he slowly climbs back up before he’s kissing you, your own taste greeting you on his tongue.

seungcheol breaks the kiss apart for a moment, his eyes as dark as night as he looks you directly in the eyes, before he asks you.

“are you ready to give me more, pretty girl?”

you again cover your blushing face with your hands, peeking just a bit between your fingers to look at yourself in the mirror.

seungcheol is so perfect, in every way possible, that you weren’t sure that he was real. maybe he was just a speck of your imagination, something you made up in your mind to make yourself feel better about your love life.

your hands slowly slide down your face as the reality of the situation starts to hit you, a sour look overtaking your expression.

seungcheol was so perfect. too perfect for you to have him.

knowing that talking to him again will just add salt to the injury, that it will make you realise just how out of your league he is, you decide that sneaking off would be for the best, for the both of you. after all, this was probably just a one time thing for him.

you bend down to pick up the shirt that you took from his room to put on until you find your dress, when suddenly, you feel a sharp cramp in your thighs, making you gasp.

you knew that you two went quite hard at it last night, but you didn’t think it would make walking hard for you the next day.

shyly, you peek at your thighs to see just how irritated the skin must look like, the recollection of the encounter yet again clouding your mind.

as you kiss, you feel one of his hands reach to the side before you hear him fumble with something, breaking the kiss so you both look at him struggling to find the condom in his nightstand.

after a few seconds he finally pulls out a pack, taking one out of the bunch before he pulls back entirely, sitting on his heels.

carefully he unbuttons his pants, pulling them and his underwear just enough for his cock go be freed. and oh god, if that wasn’t the biggest one you have ever had, he was so big and thick, it made goosebumps appear on your skin in anticipation. he rips the packaging with his teeth, and rolls it on himself, all while he still keeps the eye contact going.

seungcheol then lowers himself back onto you, before he teases your folds with his fingers.

in a raspy voice he says “your pussy got me so drunk that i forgot that i need to prep you before i fuck you”, and then he pushes one of his thick fingers in your hole, your gasp so loud in your own ears that normally it would make you feel embarrassed. he then continues “wouldn’t want to hurt my pretty girl when I’m supposed to be making you feel good, hm?”, he finishes and pushes another finger on the next time he pushes back inside of you.

if you had any mental strength left, you would’ve answered him, but there was literally nothing going on in your head other than how good his fingers felt, massaging your walls, scissoring you,his tumb gently massaging your clit in slow circles, pushing and pulling his fingers in a slow but steady pace, ever so often the til of his fingers grazing your g spot, making you moan in his face.

he fingers you as if he had tons of experience with your body, like he already knew how you liked it. and he does it all while looking at your face, his forehead slowly coming down to rest on your own.

after what you felt must’ve been hours when in reality it was just a few minutes, he seemed to be satisfied, pulling his fingers out completely.

and then he pushed the very same fingers inside of his mouth, eyebrows furrowing and eyes closing at your taste, humming in satisfaction as he licks his fingers clean.

you feel yourself clench as you watch him suck on his fingers. he looked like a god as he did it- his hair now messy and fluffy thanks to you, his expression looks like he’s having the best meal of his life, his tan skin glistening with sweat, his naked chest raising as he breathes in and out.

he looked so divine, it made you go just a little bit insane. just a bit.

he opens his dark eyes again, his face turning somewhat serious. seungcheol then slowly lowers himself down again, caging your head with his forearms that come to rest next to your head, making your entire focus shift to his eyes.

without much thought, you wrap your arms around his back, your legs locking themselves around his hips.

in the corner of your eye you see him his hand disappearing down, before you feel his cock teasing your folds, his head catching on your clit when he goes to pull it down back your folds. you gasp at this action, you eyes wanting to close themselves all on their own but your mind makes them stay open as you don’t want to miss a single thing.

his free hand comes to your face, pushing your hair back a little bit, before his tumb comes to wipe your bottom lip, your lips falling open on their own.

seungcheol caresses your cheek with the same tumb, and with gentle eyes and voice asks “ready?”.

to which you only nod your head slightly.

he smiles slightly before he lightly pinches your cheek “use your words, baby. i need to know you are 100% sure about this.”

a whispered ‘yes’ falls out of your mouth, your eyes in a trance with his own, the only things you are able to focus on are those chocolate orbs of his.

and then he’s pushing inside of you.

you both gasp at the burn, having difficulties fitting him inside of your tight hole.

his gasp turns into a rough growl, deeply saying “fuck, so tight, baby, you need to relax for me, otherwise i could hurt you”.

you try to listen to him, taking a deep breath in and out. kind of at the same time you both look down between yourselves.

only to see that he has only pushed his tip inside of you.

dear lord, may he help you survive this night.

as a minute passes by, you feel yourself slowly relax, seungcheol pushes himself a little bit more every few seconds until he’s completely bottoms out, his hips now touching yours.

he gives you a minute to relax, his hand gently rubbing your cheek, eyes lovingly looking at you.

as you give him a slight nod with your head, he slowly pulls out, before pushing back. he sets a slow pace for the start, carefully looking at your face for signs of discomfort, making your heart clench at his little signs of affection.

the pace continues for a few minutes, the thickness of his cock and how it massages your insides making you moan and him groan.

feeling like its not enough, you whine a little ‘more’ to him.

which was either the biggest mistake or the best decision of your life.

he quickens the movement of his hips slightly, the slapping of skin against skin now being added to the harmony that your moans and his groans were making.

his breath starts coming out heavier, the air that leaves his mouth lightly hitting your face as he’s fucking you.

you whine every time he pulls his hips back and moan every time he pushes them back, his cock repeatedly hitting your sweet spot.

but it seems like you are so desperate for more, so insatiable, that you pull him closer to you with your hold around his shoulders, his face falling in the curve where your neck meets your shoulders, your own doing the very same, whining “more, please, give me more, i want more, please please please-“ directly in his ear, your eyes closing in pleasure.

seungcheol stops for second, making you whine in disappointment, takes ahold of your thighs to hitch your legs higher on his hips.

and then he doubles the speed of his hips.

he sets an insane pace, his hips slapping against the back of your thighs, groans and deep moans falling out of his mouth. his dick feels so big, his head repeatedly hitting your spot, making your moans border on screams.

you can’t remember the last time you got fucked this good, and you were sure this will stay in your memory forever.

seungcheol continues with his merciless pace, your muscles clenching around him which in return makes him make more of those beautiful noises.

“you like that, baby? fuck, the noises you make- you are driving me insane. your pussy feels so tight- fuck, i can barely fit. and it’s so wet i- jesus. is this all for me? hm? so wet, just for me baby? fuck, i could fuck you for the rest of my life, never want to stop, want my dick inside of you all the time. you’d like that, wouldn’t you pretty girl? fuck- such a good girl-“

he continues to praise you and talk about you good you feel, how you are being such a good girl for him, and normally you would answer.

(un)fortunately, you have zero thoughts going on in your mind, only able to moan in his ear while he kisses and bites your shoulder, neck and collarbones, the sting barely noticeable in comparison to the slapping of the skin you feel on the back of your thighs. with extra effort, you successfully say through a moan “more, please, gimme more”.

seungcheol growls at this, before he pulls out completely out of you. he then harshly pulls you by your thighs and turns you over, pulling your hips up before you even have the time to let out a gasp. your chest that are now lacking all the air are touching the mattress while your ass is in the air, fully exposed to seungcheol’s eyes.

without any warning he slaps your right ass cheek, something between a scream and a moan flying out of your mouth. not giving you any time to even process the action, he’s already pushing his cock back inside of you, the new angle making the stretch feel even more delicious.

“fuck, my girl is so desperate huh? so desperate for this cock, moaning so prettily for me. fuck, you are going to be the death of me, you and this pussy”.

he basically lays himself on top of you, covering your whole body with his own, his firm chest pressed in your back, before he resumes his quick pace.

seungcheol pounds into you, so much so that you feel your pussy burn from the force of his hips that are slapping against it.

he continues to praise you but unfortunately you don’t hear anything anymore, only things that you can focus on is the delicious stretch of his dick and how it’s repeatedly hitting your g spot.

feeling your finish approaching quicker than expected, you moan out “im coming im coming im comi-“.

seeing that he is in the same boat, seungcheol groans in your ear, his hand quickly finding your own and intertwining your hands. squeezing your hands tightly, he growls in your ear “cum. cum for me pretty girl, fuck- make a mess on this dick”.

he uses his free hand to find your clit and rub it quickly.

and then you are screaming in pleasure. you feel your walls squeezing him harder than ever, milking him dry, which triggers his own release, a deep moan rumbling in his chest against your own back.

he fucks your slowly through both of your orgasms, your mind so cloudy that you don’t even feel the bite on your shoulder that he had to do in order to quiet down his own moans.

after a minute you feel your thighs shake slightly from overstimulation, lightly tapping him on his arm to stop, and he does. he stays inside as he uses his hand to slightly rub the side of your thigh in comfort.

as you try to regain your breath, you feel seungcheol kiss your cheek lightly like a feather, before he asks.

“ready to give me one more, baby?”

your cheeks burn as your thoughts take over your mind again. quickly shaking them off, you pull on the shirt over your head before leaving the bathroom.

as quietly as possible, you enter seungcheol’s room to find him still sleeping on his stomach, his back turned to you. sighing in relief, you make a quick search for your things.

as you pull on your dress from last night, you grimace at the fact that you will have to wear the same pair of panties from last night.

as you make sure that you have all of your things, you slowly head for the doors.

until a voice behind you stops you.

“leaving already?”.

you stop in your tracks before slowly turning around to see seungcheol looking at you through puffy eyes.

“yknow, if you wanted to leave in the morning, you could’ve just told me that last night, i would’ve prepared a car to drive you back, but i was under the impression that you were going to stay and have a breakfast with me”, he finishes as he lightly rubs his face.

you quickly look down, embarrassment and guilt washing over your face. you did want to stay, you wanted to stay for as long as he would let you, but you weren’t sure if that would be okay for him, or if you even deserved it.

seeing the expression on your face, seungcheol then asks, barely above the whisper, pleading looking at you.

“stay? please?”.

you quickly look up to see his gentle eyes, before you answer unsurely.

“would that really be okay with you? it’s just- i wasn’t sure if you wanted this to be a one time thing only or-or maybe- well, something more, so uh, i thought it be better to just leave a-and i-“

as you ramble, seungcheol feels his lips betray him as a small smile slowly gets bigger and bigger the longer you talk. deciding to make this easier for the both of you, he interrupts you.

“baby?”

you look at him with red cheeks, all and every thought you had evaporating from your mind.

seeing that he got your attention, he continues.

“take that dress off and get back in here, i want cuddles…and maybe something more.”

and who were you to deny him anything?

#seventeen #svt #svt x reader #fypシ #tumblr fyp #fypage #scoups #choi seungcheol #scoups x reader #smut #svt smut

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