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adelaidedrubman · 1 year

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and also! “Let me take care of you, yeah? I’ll do the work.” and/or “Patience, love. We’re getting there.” for faith/jenna?👀👀👀

HI VERBS thank you for sending and sorry that 1) this particular prompt took me so long to get to, and 2) it ended up being the sacrificial lamb for the bad head fic valentine’s day event. whoops.

summary: faith gives jenna a valentine’s day surprise after work that may or may not actually be self-serving. ( “let me take care of you, yeah? i’ll do the work.” + “patience, love. we’re getting there.” + faith x jenna | set pre-reaping | bad head valentine’s day event )

wordcount: 4k

warnings: explicit nsfw. some mild passive aggressiveness and manipulation. bad head! disparity in partner satisfaction. jenna does at least get to nut as decided by the voters, but it’s kind of mid and faith doesn’t actually help much.

Jenna believed that what constituted ‘romantic’ was — as almost all things in life — a subjective matter, with no real right or wrong answers.

Hegemonic culture established messages about what was or wasn’t labeled ‘romantic,’ communicated in the microsocializations of its members to shape personal expectations, individual psychology making cultural messages a reality in internal perceptions, therefore feeding back into larger society and culture to reinforce shared definitions of romance.

There was no such thing as ‘inherent romance.’ If a culture, or person, decided something was romantic, well, then it was. Simple as that.

All this to say that Jenna herself had never particularly considered flowers to be romantic.

Now, they weren’t unromantic to her either. They were certainly pleasant. A day spent gardening together with a lover or taking a long stroll to identify wildflowers ranked among her preferred date activities. For that matter, she thought a freshly filled vase sitting on the kitchen table added an undeniable level of cozy charm. Her own home was filled with plant life, much of it flowering.

But flowers as tokens, flowers commodified. Mass clipped bouquets, flowers bundled to be handed out as a symbol of romantic love on special occasions. Well, flowers in that context had never really been Jenna’s thing — even before her endeavors in chemistry had gained a prominent botanical component, so that bouquets equated ‘work’ in her mind.

Yes, even before there were constantly flowers filling her lab — which she said a not-so-romantic goodbye to now, flipping off the light switch and placing a hand against the railing as she descended the steps of the Jessop Conservatory — she had always found flowers to be, well…

She reached the bottom of the steps to find thick floral perfume assaulting her nose even more relentlessly than in the lab she’d left behind, casting her gaze around the room to search for the source — finding it completely surrounding her, in a room packed and overflowing with bunches of pink and red tone bouquets.

Not particularly romantic, she finished the thought, just in time to see Faith excitedly prancing towards her from her place fluffing petals. She’d always found flowers to be not particularly romantic.

“Do you like it?” she questioned brightly, pulling an additional handful of petals seemingly from thin air to toss over her head, raining like confetti to land in Jenna’s hair. “Isn’t it romantic?”

“Subjectively,” Jenna answered judiciously, shaking the petals from her hair. “What inspired the redecorating?”

Faith’s shoulders rose, as if pushing up laughter even as she made a show of muffling it behind slender fingers. “You don’t know?” she giggled, tilting her head as Jenna shook hers. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

Jenna blinked, patted the front pocket of her lab coat to pull out her phone and press in the button at its side to illuminate the screen and display the date.

So it was. February 14, 2018.

Well, that explained the color choice. Jenna belatedly noted the flowers scattered about seemed to be arranged in the rough shapes of hearts, paired with rows of candles lined against the wall, a pile of pillows and plush scarlet blanket sprawled on the ground at the alcove of the window.

“You certainly put a lot of work into this,” Jenna said, quirking an eyebrow. “Is Valentine’s Day even a holiday the Project at Eden’s celebrates?”

Faith lowered her eyelids as she let out a sigh, feathery lashes kissing the swell of her cheeks. “You’ve been a member for years now, Jenna,” she said, shaking her head. “When are you going to stop talking about our family in the third person?”

“Of course,” Jenna replied, holding up a palm. “Do we even celebrate Valentine’s Day, then?” she revised. “Joseph’s sermons on the evils of consumerism would have lead me to believe ‘no.’”

“There’s no reason we can’t celebrate Valentine’s Day,” Faith answered, reaching out to hold Jenna’s outstretched hand with both of hers to indicate the ‘we’ she referred to meant just the two of them, expertly evading the substance of Jenna’s question in that airy, appeasing way of hers. “The flowers are all homegrown and handpicked,” she added with a rise. “No consumerism to it.”

Jenna nodded with a relaxed smile, finding no purpose in pointing out she hadn’t answered the question. Instead she swept her gaze around the room once again, allowing the added context to help her view it with more appreciativeness.

A room filled with flowers was generally considered romantic, it wasn’t Faith’s fault it had never matched with Jenna’s definition of romance. And it had been rather thoughtful of Faith to gather the spectrum of festive pinks and reds that filled the place rather than just use bliss flowers from failed potency strains as she usually did for decoration — she at least knew Jenna did like to compartmentalize enough to not deal with the bliss crop off the clock.

“I would have rather set the surprise up at your home,” Faith added, eyes meeting Jenna’s as they trailed along the room. “But I was worried you would work so late you’d miss the sunset by the time you got there.”

Jenna hummed in understanding, taking note of the way the sunlight filtering through the window began to grow saturated with heavy orange. “Smart judgment. The way we’ve been ratcheting up bliss production lately, I’m beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t both just move in here,” she said with an understated laugh. “It would certainly make finding time in our schedules to spend together easier.”

It was offered as a joke, but Jenna didn’t miss the way the sparkle in green eyes dulled to sorrow at the statement — their being perpetually busy in different spheres of the Project has caused their relationship to run dormant more than once, the timing of which must be why this was the first year she realized Faith cared about Valentine’s Day.

“But for now, let’s just enjoy it for the evening, hm?” Jenna said, shifting the hand Faith held to fold around the fingers of her own, pulling it to her lips to press a kiss. “You went to so much thoughtful effort.”

She bent at the waist, further evening the extra height she was granted by the bottom step and her lab shoes by tracing a finger under Faith’s jaw to tilt her chin up, leaning down to meld their lips together. A creak of the floorboard announced Faith rising to her tiptoes to wrap arms around Jenna’s neck, parting her lips to deepen the kiss; a delicate, careful manner of prying to demand more.

It was a demand clear enough for Jenna to not waste a second’s time upon breaking the kiss, hurrying to lavish promises before Faith could even finish her complaining whine at the loss of contact.

“Just one more thing for me to slip off to officially be out of work mode,” Jenna said, shrugging her shoulders to allow her lab coat to fall from them, tugging at the sleeves to remove it then draping it over the banister as she stepped down from the final stair to follow Faith as she skipped and motioned her towards the bay window. She held her place in front of the staircase for a moment longer, stepping on the heels of one shoe, then the other to slip off her oxfords.

“Come on!” Faith chimed with a familiar impatience concealed as enthusiasm, holding out her arms to do a quick twirl as she reached the nest at the center of the artificial garden she had built, gracefully plopping down on its cushion at the ending arc of one of her spirals. She patted the pillow in front of her. “You’re going to miss the sunset!”

Jenna crossed the length of the room, flicking her eyes towards the window behind Faith in gesture. “I think you’re facing the wrong direction for that.”

“Or maybe I just want you to see it,” Faith replied, tugging at Jenna’s hand to pull her down the moment she was close enough to do so, her knees landing on cottony fluff that softened the fall.

“That might be difficult to do,” Jenna tsked, wasting no time intertwining her legs with Faith’s atop the makeshift bed. “There’s a beautiful girl blocking my view.”

She kissed Faith again, this time more leisurely, with a slow caress of her tongue as she savored the embrace with every sense — only briefly pausing on smell as she realized they were surrounded by a potent cloud of sharp aerosol bite; followed behind by sight as she blinked her eyes open ever so briefly to look at the arrangement surrounding them and realize that she had been mistaken about Faith having picked flowers outside the readily available crop. Aside from a few stray roses that Jenna recognized from her own personal garden, the decorations appeared to be all bliss flowers coated in spray paint. She wondered a second later if the blonde really had even added the color herself, or merely ordered a hoard of Angels to do it, but either way it really was the —

“Is something wrong?” Faith asked breathily against her lips, making Jenna realize she’d paused the kiss as she pondered.

“Not at all,” she answered, brushing her nose against Faith’s as she shook her head in the negative. It was the thought that counted, really. “Just wanted to enjoy the view even more.”

With that Jenna snaked a hand up Faith’s thigh, lace scratching against her knuckles as the fingers of the other tugged at the ribbon on her back to untie the bow cinching her waist, making the frock loose enough to pull over her head with ease.

Jenna raised her eyebrows as she pulled away, gaze settling on dark blonde curls as she saw Faith hadn’t been wearing underwear with the usual ensemble. “Something tells me you had more than just watching the sunset in mind.”

Faith caught Jenna’s hand at the wrist as she tried to reach between her legs, holding it tight before sliding it up to the bend of her elbow, the other mirroring its grip on the opposite arm. “May-be sooo,” she answered in playful sing-song. “But not for my benefit.”

“Hm?”

Faith applied a sudden, unexpected force to jerking Jenna’s arms to the side, then throwing her down against the mountain of pillows.

“Well,” Jenna offered as Faith’s hands crept up her sweater, unhooking her bra before pushing the clothing up over her head. “That’s a change of pace.”

“I thought you would have realized I’m more than what you’d expect by now,” Faith laughed, nimble fingers making quick work of the buttons of Jenna’s slacks and pulling them down her legs.

“I do expect the unexpected,” Jenna replied, rising on her elbows to better see her. “Although I am wondering to what I owe the —”

Faith pushed her back by the shoulders, so that she was back to laying flat. “It’s Valentine’s Day,” she said in something between laughing and singing a taunting melody, placing hands on Jenna’s knees to better part her legs. “Let me take care of you, yeah?” she added in a huskier whisper, leaning forward. “I’ll do the work.”

Jenna sighed, bleeding into a moan as kisses were littered along her thighs. This really was a change of pace. Not that she had any complaints about their sex life, but if she did have to quantify which of them expended more energy during their encounters, it would be —

A hot gust of air fell against sensitive skin, causing Jenna to crane her neck up just enough to look down to see that Faith’s cheeks were puffed full and her lips were pursed into a perfect pink circle, confirming to herself that it wasn’t just the fumes from the spray paint making Jenna hallucinate — the blonde was, in fact, blowing between Jenna’s legs from clit to asshole, then making her way back up again, and then back down, like an oscillating fan.

Jenna fell back on her pillow, focusing on the hollow white hanging over her head (had the Victorian style home really been painted over with popcorn ceilings? she added to her befuddled musings) and assuring herself that cultural messages were hard to overcome, and everyone learned strange foreplay moves from some source or another, and Faith would run out of breath eventually.

(Although she was a little confused why she didn’t just do what Jenna usually did to her in the first place. Going down really wasn’t that complicated.)

Regardless, it was only a few more seconds of Jenna staring at bumpy white plaster before Faith did blessedly run out of breath, a last weak choke of air falling below Jenna’s clit before she finally had to inhale, breathed back out as a series of giggles vibrating against her hip.

A demanding shiver rippled through Jenna with the hopeful prospect she was soon to be touched, goosebumps forming on her arms from the anticipation.

And the reaction of her body was nothing if not accurate, her clit aching with fresh want as warm lips pressed a kiss against it. Finally.

…Finally?

It was one kiss, before Faith broke out into giggles again, this time pressed slightly lower, against her left lip.

Jenna cleared her throat, opened her eyes to gaze back up at the ceiling. “Faith, my sweet?” she called out, drumming her fingertips against blanket-covered hardwood. “Just out of intellectual curiosity, were you — ah, were you planning on eating me out?”

More laughter. Traditionally speaking, not the kind of attention one would want paid to their sexual organs.

“Patience, love,” Faith whispered, breath steaming and making Jenna’s skin pitch hotter. “We’re getting there.”

There was another kiss placed against Jenna’s clit, although this one could at least be counted as progress — lips more firm pressed against her, and lingering for longer, not fading into air as they broke contact, instead trailing down.

Although they paused, again, upon reaching her entrance, shifting away so that another laugh could slip between them. Again, not the ideal reaction.

But Jenna didn’t have time to dwell on it, as lips were replaced by lively and eager tongue dipping inside her with ease, wriggling there just long enough to count as actual teasing before gliding upward, flooding Jenna with such sudden and intense pleasure she had to gasp for air in spite of herself.

Faith had made a path to her clit before Jenna even successfully caught her breath, somehow knowing the exact right amount of pressure to apply in circling it, the steady swirl of her tongue building an eddy of pleasure inside her, swelling to what she thought would certainly be a quick peak, until —

Until the slick, pleasurable glide of her tongue vanished abruptly — fading into bubbling laughter yet again, and a few more teasing kisses.

Jenna untensed her muscles, shifting her hips to relax back into place. It was only fair, she supposed. She had taken her time edging the blonde on plenty of occasions before, and it wasn’t like Faith was going to —

Faith separated completely from Jenna, the floor shaking with a thud to her right as her body landed beside her.

“Um, Faith?”

“Yes?” Faith replied.

“You…” she coughed. “You stopped.”

“It’s my turn,” Faith laughed, reaching for Jenna’s hand, guiding it towards a breast. “Why? Is there a problem? I did a good job, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Jenna responded flatly. She really had, for the brief time she had done a job of some kind. “It just, well…” she trailed off, resuming her study of the ceiling’s texture. “Empirically speaking, it takes people with vulvas an average of fourteen minutes of stimulation to achieve orgasm.”

Oh, Faith exclaimed with the appeasing interest she usually showed when Jenna shared an extended lecture on obscure scientific facts, pressing harder against the backs of Jenna’s fingers to cause them to pinch her nipple tighter, guiding them to roll the flesh.

“Well, in that case,” Faith cooed, shoving Jenna’s hand further down to slip between her legs. “You better get started if you still want us to get to watch the sunset together.”

Jenna sighed, bemused, shaking her head at the antics before using the hand not already shown to its place to push herself up to rise. Any disappointment she might feel at the promise of being ‘taken care of’ going unfulfilled was pushed out by awe at Faith’s ability to lure her in.

So she didn’t waste time in slipping the fingers Faith had already guided downward inside and pumping them in practiced rhythm. “Maybe you are predictable after all?”

“I don’t think so, Jenna,” she replied, an almost dark bite to it as she twined fingers in her curls and pushed her head down.

“Of course not,” Jenna laughed, not bothering to retribute the drawn out teasing Faith had visited on her, instead pressing her mouth to her without delay.

And the pleased sigh Faith gave in response was reward enough, making heat rise to Jenna’s cheeks as the salt of the woman’s dried sweat settled against her tongue, licked clean as she worked her mouth against her.

Fourteen minutes — that was an average, and although Jenna had never properly timed it, she’d always subjectively felt she was usually able to get Faith off in slightly under that, particularly when the length of their relationship and time apart since last sexual encounter increased concurrently.

And based on how tight she felt around her fingers now, the speed at which she bucked her hips against her, well… She expected to be on the left of the bell curve, to say the least.

Jenna’s own ache for attention grew stronger at the thought, causing her hips to cant forward on instinct to search for friction — blessedly and unexpectedly finding it, in the form of one of the pillows Faith had piled along the floor, fitting neatly between her thighs for her to grind herself against as she worked fingers and tongue against her partner.

The hand Faith had buried in Jenna’s hair fisted tighter, almost pulling too hard, and Jenna broke the seal of her lips around her to pull back, look up.

“Jenna,” Faith panted, pushing herself up slightly with her free hand to look at her as she slowed the stroke of her fingers along her walls to a crawling pace. “You stopped.”

“Is there a problem with that?” she asked, the steady drone of her voice not betraying the frantic buck of her hips against the bedding, pressure building all the more deliciously now that she’d resigned herself to it being the source of her finish. She studied the bright pink dusting Faith’s cheeks, a gorgeous blending of sunset pouring through the window and dark flush of blood gathering beneath the skin. “Not long enough?”

Faith let out a complaining hmph, threw herself back against the pillows — all the surrender Jenna needed to resume lavishing attention, replacing the flat of her tongue with the pad of her thumb to rub tighter circles.

Faith’s petulant huff faded quite nicely into a long, trembling moan, a sharp hum that pierced and vibrated deep into Jenna’s marrow, shaking her every fiber.

Jenna squeezed her thighs together harder around the pillow she thrust against, pressing more firmly — feeling the slick of herself smear on it to ease her glide against the fabric, driving her towards a last hungry, tight clenching drag to send those flurrying sparks of pleasure boiling over to ignite her entire being in release; muscles of her back flexing and rippling under the warm, gentle weight of the sun’s rays streaming in, as if the pulsing wavelengths of light rolled straight through her.

“God,” Jenna mumbled against the ample curve of Faith’s thigh as she rode it out, willing the muscles of her hands not to melt and go limp with the rest of her body and instead continue winding Faith to that same bright flaring pitch. And Faith’s pleading whimper, the clawing of her fingers to grasp the blanket that clung to her skin, the quivering of her thighs against Jenna’s lips all screamed a promise of soon, almost there.

And perhaps, had the sun not been setting — and the prospect of watching its deep orange disappear over the horizon with Faith held tight in her arms so appealing — Jenna would have drawn it out, brought her to her finish in a slow creeping bloom of pleasure rather than a sudden flourishing burst. Maybe she would have allowed Faith to stew at the precipice, until she was squirming and hungry and the dark knell of demanding seeped into her voice. Maybe she would have pricked away those sharp as thorns pants of Jenna to calmly whisper back that if she wasn’t just going to take what she wanted, she would have to use her words, bask in the satisfaction of unraveling candied layers to reach the Faith who was merciless and devouring.

But as it was, the prospect of allowing Faith to blaze out and fall to cooling stillness in the same fading pull as the sky was too lovely to deny — especially when her back arched, and the flushed to rose slopes of her breasts bared themselves upward to be kissed by pink rays. And all Jenna could think was gorgeous; was ethereal, magical, in the way only a sight that was in fact fundamentally natural could be.

She savored the vision, willed the still dazed neurons of her brain to encode it into her memory as Faith tightened a final time before she collapsed, melted and sank back into the tangle of bedding with a fading flutter of breath, of herself around Jenna’s fingers.

And she was still all airy labored breathing when Jenna felt the familiar tug at her wrist, reeling her in for more contact. She tensed against it, clicking her tongue against her teeth in chiding as she pulled back, shifted to sit upright.

“The sunset, darling,” Jenna said, leaning forward to wrap an arm around Faith and pull her closer, slotted between her legs and facing the window, back against Jenna’s chest. “Can’t let all your careful planning go to waste.”

Faith gave a soft trilling hum in reply, reaching back to twirl one of Jenna’s curls to spin tight around her finger.

And as Jenna kissed away a petal clinging with sweat to Faith’s back, the paint now melted from it to leave a crimson smear along her shoulder blade, it occurred to her that perhaps flowers for Valentine’s Day could be romantic — it was, as all things, subjective, contextual.

Her musings were interrupted by a thoughtful sigh from Faith, a tilt back of her head before she spoke. “I think you might have had a good idea.”

Jenna craned her neck forward, admired her profile silhouetted with muted sunlight. “About what, in particular?”

“That we should both just move in here,” Faith answered, lips curving at the prospect. “It would make spending time together easier.”

Ah. Jenna nuzzled against the crook of her neck, a single impressed laugh vibrating against its column. The notion had the gentle ease of a foregone conclusion she’d been carefully strung along to, all the meticulous trappings of romance suddenly making sense.

“You know,” Jenna pulled back the curtain of fine-spun gold to kiss against Faith’s jaw. “You could have just suggested it yourself.”

“What do you mean?” Faith asked, breathy with laughter. “You’re the one who mentioned it. But if you don’t think it’s a good idea anymore…”

“I stand by it,” Jenna sighed, shaking her head in defeat. “Very creative thinking, on my part.”

Faith nodded against her cheek in agreement. “We can even make this our first night here,” she offered with an excited rise. “Don’t you think that would be romantic? Our first night living together being Valentine’s Day?”

Jenna shifted back to better view her with daylight officially faded — the soft orange glow of the candlelight flickering warmth along her features, the lingering flush of pink, the warm gold of her hair framing her face all seeming to replicate the now passed sunset.

“Contextually,” she answered with that same generous neutrality. “Under the circumstances,” she added matter-of-factly. “Very romantic.”

She pressed a kiss to the top of Faith’s head, cradling to her chest.

Romance was, after all, subjective.

#oc: jenna swann #otp: a neurochemical con job #bad head valentine’s day event #writies and wordies #(unfortunately)#nsft #q

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adelaidedrubman · 1 year

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JENNA SWANN & FAITH SEED || JOHN SEED & JESTINY ROOK

i was tagged by my loves @direwombat @dihardys @indorilnerevarine @florbelles to make some hallmark babes for my naturally hallmark level wholesome couples. (i made some of these last year for johnjess actual hallmark au, but decided to do them for the kiddos canon this go). there is nothing ominous to see in either of these do not read into anything. holiday fun only.

this has made the rounds pretty well i think but i will send some tags out to @unholymilf @henbased (threat) @belorage @heroofpenamstan @confidentandgood @snake-in-the-garden @marivenah @purplehairsecretlair @shallow-gravy @strangefable and anyone who wants to tag me! meiker versions here: f/f | m/m | m/f | nb

#i actually used the nb version for johnjess due to it having more jessie canon fashion looks + almost correct name.#otp: stop bothering these nice folks #otp: a neurochemical con job

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adelaidedrubman · 2 years

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5 SONG OTP PLAYLIST

was tagged by @bluemojave my beloved to list five songs that fit my ships! (i also added lyric excerpts because i’m an insufferable menace.) sending tags out to @blackreaches @florbelles @henbased @heroofpenamstan @belorage @marivenah @ishwaris @dihardys @strafethesesinners @jackiesarch @shallow-gravy @beautiful-delirium @confidentandgood @purplehairsecretlair @snake-in-the-garden @schoute @poeti-kat @indorilnerevarine and anyone else who wants to play, as usual head empty + on mobile

1. cosmonauts - fiona apple

your face ignites a fuse to my patience / whatever you do, it’s gonna be wrong / there’s no time to interrupt the detonation / be good to me before you’re gone / when i met you, i was fine with my nothing / i grew with you and now i’ve changed / what i’ve become is something i can’t be without your loving / be good to me, it isn’t a game

2. pink steam - sonic youth

i just come by to run you over / i just come by to see you quiver / you can come, you can slip inside, babe / killer eyes and a burnin’ heart, babe / don’t you know you need no other / i’m the man who loves your mother

3. that don’t impress me much - shania twain

i never knew a guy who carried a mirror in his pocket / and a comb up his sleeve — just in case / and all that extra hold gel in your hair oughta lock it / ’cause heaven forbid it should fall outta place

oh-oh, you think you’re special / oh-oh, you think you're something else / okay, so you’re brad pitt

that don’t impress me much / so you got the looks, but have you got the touch? / now, don’t get me wrong — yeah, i think you’re alright / but that won’t keep me warm in the middle of the night / that don’t impress me much

4. in spite of ourselves - john prine ft. iris dement

she thinks all my jokes are corny / convict movies make her horny / she likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs / swears like a sailor when she shaves her legs / she takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’ / i’m never gonna let her go

he’s got more balls than a big brass monkey / he’s a whacked-out weirdo and a lovebug junkie / sly as a fox and crazy as a loon / payday comes and he’s howlin’ at the moon / he’s my baby, i don’t mean maybe / never gonna let him go

in spite of ourselves, we’ll end up a-sittin’ on a rainbow / against all odds, honey, we’re the big door prize / we’re gonna spite our noses right off of our faces / there won’t be nothin’ but big old hearts dancin’ in our eyes

5. you so done - noga erez

touch without leaving traces / scar me in hidden places, inside / don’t get my mom all worried / not now (kids these days) / losers outplay other losers / guess what that makes the two of us? / rooftop, city shines at sunrise / i’ll let you watch while i jump

what a joke, what a joke you made me / what’s a queen to a joker? tell me / what’s a laugh to a self-destructive me? / what’s a prayer to a death wish? / you so / joke, joke, a jo-joke you made me / a queen to a joker, tell me / what’s home to a claustrophobic? / what’s a sea to a dead fish?

1. seasons bloom - kacy hill

and now i’m seeing your face in the moonlight / i swear that i couldn’t love you more if i tried / but now i’m seeing your face in the moonlight / oh, and you’re making me cry

it’s all the world that i could want / you make me feel like i belong / it’s all the world that i could want / seasons blooming in your arms

2. chemicals react - aly & aj

were you right? was i wrong? / were you weak? was i strong? / yeah, both of us broken caught in a moment / we lived and we loved and we hurt and we jumped, yeah / but the planets all aligned / when you looked into my eyes / and just like that, the chemicals react / the chemicals react

3. angels - the xx

and every day / i am learning about you / the things that no one else sees / and the end comes too soon / like dreaming of angels / and leaving without them / and leaving without them

being as in love with you as i am / being as in love with you as i am / being as in love with you as i am / being as in love, love, love / love, love, love / love, love, love

and with words unspoken / a silent devotion / i know you know what i mean / and the end is unknown / but i think i’m ready / as long as you’re with me

4. omg - gryffin & carly rae jepsen

no chemical could recreate our chemistry / got what i need, need, need / i’m technical but i lose sensibility / when you’re next to me / i feel a boom, feel a bang / inside my soul, love / when you lay me down / when you do it that way i lose control of / all my senses now

5. somebody like me - st. vincent

paint yourself white / clip on the wings / climb high to the top of a building / does it make you an angel / or some kind of freak / to believe enough / in somebody like me? / baby

oh, i (oh, i), guess we’ll see / who was the freak

dress up in white / slip on the ring / walk straight down the aisle / to the violin strings / does it make you a genius or / the fool of the week / to believe enough / in somebody like me? / baby

#also tried to do a decent amount of songs my characters would actually listen to here #that don’t impress me much was actually the hardest to pick an excerpt on.#replace car with plane in the third verse and they literally all fit. but ultimately the hair gel roast won out.#otp: stop bothering these nice folks #otp: a neurochemical con job

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adelaidedrubman · 1 year

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i'd like to hear more about the johnjessie hallmark au :)c or even jenna and faith in the hallmark au whichever you feel more like doing (--direwombat)

THANK YOU BELOVED! sorry this took so long it got buried in my asks, but digging it back out in the spirit of the season. also apologies i got really carried away and did both and they’re both super long (partially bc i realize i’m running out of time to actually get anything written before christmas and still want the ideas Out There). DO NOT feel obligated to actually read any of this shit. also warning for sex and drug references on both. you know hallmark

so the johnjess hallmark au actually does in fact exist in full story form for anyone who would like to read it. the concept behind it was basically to be a fun little experiment in parodying and playing with genre conventions the characters don’t fit with, both general and fandom specific. but the basic outline of the story is:

takes place pre brothers reunion, whilst john is still john duncan and in midst of gentrifying his hometown. (play on the hallmark returning to your hometown thing).

in this universe jestiny’s family never moved from kentucky to north dakota when she was 17. and with the appalachian trail still in reach, she decides to blow the small college fund she’d built for herself on living her dream of hiking it instead.

she ends her journey in december in rome, georgia (this is technically ~70 miles away from where the appalachian trail ends irl, but it was close enough i decided to fudge it), wandering into a hotel that had previously (at the time jessie had started her hike) been a motel 6, but had since been torn down and replaced with a luxury hotel. and she doesn’t realize it’s christmas eve!

she knows she can’t afford the hotel, but asks to use the phone because she just wants to call her mom to wish her a merry christmas<3 she’s america’s sweetheart<3

the hotel owner (john, naturally) Takes An Interest, and offers her a free room and invite to an extravagant dinner in the spirit of christmas.

uh-oh! genre subversion time! jestiny is real life aware of how extremely predatory and disingenuous this all is and goes on a long winded diatribe dragging john for it and telling him he’s a selfish creep and no one will actually be thankful for anything he does ever and will only resent him and everyone like him.

he’s like “so true!” and gets a boner about that.

jessie explains to the reader she hasn’t gotten laid in 6 months due to the appalachian trail thing and will be meeting john for dinner.

they spend an hour or so verbally berating each other and being divorced. john pries into jessie’s actual reasons for avoiding her family and calls the dutiful daughter act out for the fraud that it is, possibly ambiguously admits to murder; jessie calls john out for gentrification while not actually knowing the word for gentrification (this was legitimately so annoying to write it honestly could have saved me 3k if she knew the word), calls him cringepathetic for needing to trick someone into having christmas dinner with him in the first place. somewhere in the middle jessie mentions she likes when it snows on christmas, john tells her he’s never seen that happen in georgia. they go back to fighting. it is not very hallmark.

they resolve to hatefuck.

on the way to do that they cut through the courtyard.

re-engage hallmark mode: just in time, it’s snowing! they pause the hatefuck to experience childlike wonder and share a hallmark moment kiss and sit out and watch the snow instead. (another fun fact i found out while researching is that rome, georgia did receive snowfall on christmas eve for the first time in over a century in 2010 — which is another slightly off for their timeline but close enough i could fudge it thing.)

to share new johnjess content with anyone who has read the original: i’ve also kicked around writing a morning after Christmas Day sequel to the hallmark fic proper but still just in the brainstorming stages because there’s a few different plots i’m considering. but here’s the possibility that’s been on the mind most. (and now that i’ve basically outlined it i feel obliged to go with this version…)

they wake up the next day sick as shit because they sat out in the snow (what did you think was going to happen idiots this isn’t a hallmark movie) and have to spend all christmas day in painsuffering because they wanted their romantic snow watching time. (and also realistically probably fucked raw in the freezing cold five minutes after the camera cutaway because they can’t engage gratification delay long enough to make it to a bedroom in any universe ever).

they still spend it together and attempt to take care of each other while bickering and dying.

jessie screams at john for suggesting they order soup via room service because she’s taking a definitely principled and not just contrarian stance that he’s satan for having anyone staffed on christmas day at all. she berates him and storms out of the bedroom and starts rifling around his cabinets.

he tantrums and yells and pouts by doing a line and chugging some scotch and storming out of the suite altogether to go for an angrywalk. it ends at the front desk and he (while visibly intoxicated) tells the kid at reception to go home, it’s christmas to Prove A Very Important Point to jessie. kid says it’s fine he doesn’t even celebrate christmas and john yells and tells him to shut up and start celebrating it because he’s spreading the christmas spirit.

scene of john trying to high and drunk and fever delirious work a minimum wage job for the first time in his life.

he (probably while ignoring guests) makes a series of angry phone calls to his own room to brag to jessie he’s working the front desk himself on christmas, while sick, he hopes that proves to he’s not the spoiled, helpless elitist she thinks he is.

she doesn’t answer, in his room or hers, which causes him to have a second freakout that she’s left entirely.

probably right as he’s in the middle of max panic tantrum and getting ready to throw the lobby christmas tree into the fireplace because this is his worst christmas ever and he no longer believes in the holiday season, jessie arrives and asks what the fuck he’s doing.

and she has soup! It Was All A Misunderstanding, jessie explains she was making homemade soup and didn’t answer the phone because she was trying to find where the fuck he was to give it to him.

john changes his mind again and decides this means the woman he’s known for twenty-four hours and spent most of those twenty-four hours fighting with is the love of his life and his personal Christmas Miracle after all.

they eat soup in front of the fireplace and cuddle.

cut to new years. jessie in fact never left the hotel and they’re still “happily” (you know. by their standards) together, dressed up at a party and just finishing up a regularly scheduled fight to share a midnight kiss!

the front desk kid from the scene before walks in and interrupts them to serve john with a religious discrimination lawsuit for demanding he celebrate christmas. fin.

AAAAAND i’m doing faithjen too because i do want to write them a hallmark fic too even though i probably won’t in time. same idea as johnjess, this is mostly parody and the absurdity of fitting the characters into the setting because they are Not A Hallmark Couple.

their hallmark au would start basically the same as their canon story though — jenna is a hardworking grad student who travels to the offbeat but picturesque rural paradise of hope county for an important project for her thesis, and finds herself increasingly charmed by its residents and smalltown values. (read: researching a cult and wants to stay there and continue studying them like bugs and starts helping them with unethical drug experiments too.)

also since it’s hallmark, rather than jenna and her previous girlfriend from california having broken up over six months before she ever left for hope county when her gf moved to nyc for art school, they’re still together and she’s the Evil Current Partner from the Big City.

cue opening scene phone call between jenna and Big City Gf (i’m sorry i never named her), gf is complaining jenna is still stuck in that Stupid Town and Nothing There is worth studying because it’s a Dumb Hick Town, she should just hurry up phone in her thesis and fly to new york in time for the Swanky Nondenominational Holiday Party. on the nose shot of jenna watching from the window of the chemistry lab as faith dance around barefoot in the snow outside and saying “i think there’s lots of interesting things to study here.”

end call. jenna continues to stare wistfully out the window as she injects someone with terribly painful experimental research chemicals.

she turns her attention back to the station where she’s producing the evil experimental research chemicals and does more science stuff, faith walks in and says she shouldn’t be working this late on christmas eve. jenna says she has to, chemistry has no holidays and matter changes at its own schedule she can’t just rush, the whole bliss batch would go to waste if she left now. faith says let it, there are more important things, playfully chastises jenna for not having christmas spirit and asks her to please come to the christmas eve gathering she and her brothers are having at john’s ranch. jenna considers it, gets a text notification from Big City Gf, then declines.

faith leaves disappointed and jenna gets back to work, but shortly after she does there’s an explosion at her lab station and she’s knocked out.

while she’s passed out, she has a vision in which she’s visited by Three Ghosts.

the first, the ghost of christmas past, who is a woman named lana she’s never actually met before, shows jenna the last few christmases she spent — writing journal articles alone in her apartment while Big City Gf parties. a woman named selena she’s also never met takes over to show her the last christmas she was happy, making christmas cookies with her sister.

the second ghost, the faith seed who jenna knows, shows her a vision of christmas present — the seed family at the ranch. they’ve gathered in the kitchen to see dinner was burned save for one dish. joseph gives a speech about how it’s alright, what really matters is that they’re together for christmas. they all dine on nothing but watery mac and cheese, but they’re happy. a christmas lesson.

the third ghost is one of the angels, who brings jenna to a church cemetery to see joseph officiating a funeral for an out of town scientist who died alone in her lab. a tearful faith sings a dirge, then places a bliss flower on a grave, which is — gasp, jenna’s! (and Big City Gf was too busy to come to the funeral…)

jenna is woken by faith shaking her to consciousness, asks what day it is you know the drill. faith says it’s christmas eve and explains she heard an explosion and came back in.

jenna tells her about the dream she had while she was passed out.

faith says it must have been a special christmas vision, given to her from a divine source to show her she needs to have faith in christmas. (actually that’s probably the fic title. have faith in christmas. ha.)

jenna says logically speaking she’s pretty sure it was the high volume sudden burst of gasses from the hallucinogenic drugs she was producing being released into the air. but it did give her an idea.

cut to montage of them going around town replacing all the regular mistletoe with bliss mistletoe to secretly dose people. ends with them reaching for the same doorway to hang blisstletoe in and ending up beneath it. hallmark kiss under the mistletoe fadeout. fin.

#SORRY FOR REAL THESE ARE SO LONG. if only i wrote my real fics.#otp: stop bothering these nice folks #otp: a neurochemical con job

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adelaidedrubman · 1 year

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33-36 for JohnJess AND FaithJen? - fourlittleseedlings

HIII THANK YOU MOLLY love to talk about both of the toxic pairs:3

33. Who is the big spoon and why?

jessie the (physically smaller) big spoon. she prefers the feeling of security from having more freedom of movement during their cuddles, john prefers being full body held and wrapped up in her big strong arms. she gets to feel like she isn’t actually being that vulnerable he gets to feel cherished and protected. big win for annoying people.

34. What’s their favorite nonsexual activity together?

answered here!

35. How do they deal with being away from each other for a long time?

by tormenting the rest of the county:/ also ig as preface “a long time” to them is ballpark a week but god is it the most miserable week for everyone involved including them. john #deals by incessantly torturing hostages to get any scrap of information about jessie or just to take his anger about her being gone out on them (this is really all joey’s fault for not learning her name while they worked together, when you think about it,). jessie deals by slaughtering half of jacob’s chosen in a single night as a Fun Distraction to Not Think About Him then still actively hallucinates him on the daily. they’re great we love them right

36. What is their favorite place to kiss the other? (Cheek, hand, closed eyelid, neck, nose, etc.)

jessie likes kissing john’s forehead and temples, particularly along his stray freckles. less chastely, she likes lavishing kisses along his collarbones and thighs. john has several favorite spots on jessie’s face for littering kisses, her dimples are probably number one but the tip of her nose and along her jawline are also top contenders. he also loves pressing kisses to her fingertips. less chastely, boobs in his mouth please

33. Who is the big spoon and why?

they do a fair amount of tradeoff, but jenna ends up as the little spoon far more often. when shoes are removed from the equation she is slightly shorter/smaller and more in little spoon territory. plus jenna tends to be more restful and detached during sleep time while faith tends to initiate more cuddles, which often means draping herself over jenna to hold her close.

34. What’s their favorite nonsexual activity together?

long strolls in nature where faith can ask jenna lots of questions about local plant and animal life and hear her infodump and discuss it with her are probably number one. cooking together at the end of a long day is also one of their favorite simple pleasures. (and, you know, by “cooking together” i mean jenna cooks while faith sits on the counter and “helps” by “keeping her company” and making occasional suggestions, maybe holds a spoon.)

also, even without directly interacting one of their favorite activities together is just watching the other working and in their element. faith loves to hover in the doorway of the lab and watch jenna nerd out over her beloved evil experimental research chemicals, jenna loves blending into a crowd so she can watch faith charm and manipulate them. you know just softgirl shit!

35. How do they deal with being away from each other for a long time?

well enough, it’s often required during the long stretches of time they’re working on parallel but discrete aspects of the bliss. it has occasionally caused their relationship to fizzle out and go dormant during the periods they can’t maintain a natural connection, but never with any hard feelings once they’re back in an “on again” stage. for her part faith does tend to grow a little more disconcerted with the lack of attention and attempt to rectify it, particularly once they’ve been together for longer.

36. What is their favorite place to kiss the other? (Cheek, hand, closed eyelid, neck, nose, etc.)

faith loves getting up on her tiptoes to kiss the top of jenna’s head. she also loves wrapping her arms around her waist from behind and kissing along the back of her neck and shoulder blades. jenna likes to loll her head back and turn to kiss faith’s cheeks when she does this, and her cheeks are also one of her favorite places to kiss generally. jenna also loves kissing faith’s wrists and trailing kisses up her arm.

#otp: stop bothering these nice folks #otp: a neurochemical con job #otp asks

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adelaidedrubman · 1 year

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🕸️🌺 for both jessjohn and jennafaith 💜

THANK YOU LICI I LOVE YOU. love providing the contrast with them sjdhsjkdjldkl

🕸 - What does one do that scares the other?

jessie’s willingness to self-destruct purely to spite john scares the hell out of him on the regular, particularly once he’s gotten himself so deeply invested in the intricate social rituals it requires to coax her into being even mildly contained and amicable that he’s convinced absolutely no one on earth is capable of handling her and she will get herself killed on anyone else’s watch. (honestly? he’s not totally wrong. mostly luck to thank for her surviving in the mountains.) this is naturally exacerbated by the fact she “dies” at least once a season like jughead. you would think john would learn they’re trapped in the narrative and stop freaking out every time the weekly rumor of her death is spread, but he doesn’t.

jessie is decidedly Not Fucking Scared of john, or anything he does. she tends to be so deep in Escalation Mode during any of his outbursts that she doesn’t really take time to stop and feel fear, she’s focused on matching him. she can throw things too, asshole! the scariest thing he does? know and understand her. develop emotional intimacy with her. shit is terrifying. when she realized she was comfortably making small talk with him? most freaked out she’s ever been.

🌺 - Do they send cutesy or grossly sweet/romantic texts to each other?

wym they are audibly kicking their legs twirling their hair giggling every time they radio each other to yell threats and bicker about whatever the latest wartime updates are..... but really even in aus where they have texting usually not. in no reaping au jessie actually giving john her number is one of their Weird Standoffs, he just has to engineer scenarios to run into her. when he does unlock the achievement of getting to text her it’s mostly her sending cryptic non-sequiturs or photos of her holding fish she’s caught that are somehow supposed to be thirst traps, like a 2015 tinder fuckboi. then blocking him again. twenty minutes later unblocking him to answer one of the fifty frantic phone calls he made since the blocking. very healthy and mutually satisfying thing they have going.

🕸 - What does one do that scares the other?

NOT WEARING SHOES IN THE DAMN LAB!!!!! the lab safety precautions thing is something of a meme but it does genuinely stress jenna out more than anything and is the number one source of their Measured Tone “of Course We’re Not Fighting, We’re Just Discussing It” fights. jenna is a very non-judgmental person and as much as she accepts faith for who she is and how she lives, the points at which she won’t do simple things to take care of herself (shoes) can be a source of worry for jenna.

faith on the other hand is extremely confident in jenna’s competence in managing her operations, if faith fears anything it’s for jenna’s future in new eden given her lack of actual spiritual belief. it’s something of an open secret left on the backburner that while jenna complies with all the projects expectations for members, she is doing so, well. faithlessly. faith is quietly holding out hope that changes, but it does concern her.

🌺 - Do they send cutesy or grossly sweet/romantic texts to each other?

nothing overly gushy, faith is not a big texter and jenna’s texts tend to be dry and down to business. occasionally faith will throw a few sweet nothings out, but mostly their texts are “romantic” in more. subtle ways. faith will send jenna a photo of the sunset on evenings she’s working late in the lab, jenna will hit faith with the “have you eaten today?” text. small things like that.

#otp: stop bothering these nice folks #otp: a neurochemical con job

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adelaidedrubman · 1 year

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3, 7, 30 -> for the ship ask

THANK YOU THANK YOU BELOVED i decided to do these for faithjen:3

3. Was it lust at first sight?

there was a mutual recognition that the other was attractive, but it was more of a background note and not the primary focus of either of their attentions at first. jenna was preoccupied with studying the cult in general and maintaining her role as an as-neutral-as-possible observer, and faith was. well. also a bit more concerned about jenna doing that than with the fact she was hot.

7. What is something they’d want to change about the other if they could?

nothing, really. their relationship is markedly defined by mutual acceptance, even when passively accepting each other’s traits and behaviors actually isn’t the most healthy thing and they should be challenging the other to grow and be better instead. the one exception to this is that faith occasionally worries about jenna not believing in joseph in a more spiritual sense, but she also appreciates and accepts jenna’s approach to the world for what it is and understands that she does believe, in her own way.

30. Do they enjoy dancing?

jenna very much prefers to watch faith dancing than participate herself, but she’s also not opposed to it and will easily give in if faith asks her to join in.

#otp: a neurochemical con job #otp asks

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adelaidedrubman · 11 months

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❤️‍🔥💧👁️ for John/Jess, Faith/Jen, and Sky/Sher/Jess (one for each or all of them, your choice!)

THANK YOU SIERRA!!!! why not do all three for three:3

❤️‍🔥: Who tends to take the lead with showing affection?

john is definitely more outwardly doting and willing to openly express his adoration, unlike jessie he will label his affection as affection instead of declaring that giving forehead kisses and gently holding pinkies and reverently tracing freckles is like. enemy power play behavior.

that being said jessie doesn’t particularly like to be outdone by him in anything, so she returns physical affection (or at least, physical contact) quite enthusiastically and readily initiates (see above), ostensibly for the sake of being in control but in actuality because she is just spoiling him and enjoying doing it. (explicit verbal affection is more difficult to goad her into, although she is not above praise and pet names in heated moments. sarcastically. obviously.)

💧: How well do they comfort each other when they’re upset?

uh. depends what is meant by comfort. i think they... provide an emotional outlet for each other when they’re upset that is ultimately comforting, but neither of them are actually like. skilled at soothing.

jestiny is a provocateur first and foremost and rather than try to calm john down she pushes buttons and escalates. but then he has an excuse to have a full outburst so ig that’s comforting for him? and similarly jestiny derives comfort from the way john just rolls with the punches when she’s having a tantrum. like take for example wildfire she freaks out dragging a corpse around like “we HAVE to have a daniel funeral RIGHT NOW” and john is like “oh ok bye everyone i have to go to the daniel funeral now” and it makes her feel like that’s a normal thing she’s doing.

like obviously none of this is healthy but they give each space to be completely insane and that feels good feels organic to them.

👁️: What exactly do they want with their future with each other? Is that something they think of often or do they just stay in the moment?

answered here for wildfire! for hl&s, they hope their future is winning their exes back and breaking up and never speaking to each other ever again.

❤️‍🔥: Who tends to take the lead with showing affection?

faith tends to be more forthcoming on both physical and verbal affection, jenna readily flirts and compliments but she’s less expressive of her own emotions, so she can come off rather cold and disengaged at times even when she’s being pleasant. but jenna returns physical embraces pretty readily and can be more touchy in quiet, private settings and downtime, and while she’s less of an initiator she definitely tends to be more giving during intimate moments (service top).

💧: How well do they comfort each other when they’re upset?

fairly well, when the other is actually open about being upset in the first place. they both tend to emotionally obfuscate in their own ways, so coming to each other openly seeking comfort is not something they do often. but the non-judgmentalness of jenna’s cool aloofness is a source of stability and comfort to faith in and of itself, and faith knows how to recognize when jenna is stressed and force her to relax and take time for herself even when she insists it isn’t necessary.

👁️: What exactly do they want with their future with each other? Is that something they think of often or do they just stay in the moment?

they tend to pointedly avoid it, for all of jenna’s meticulousness she also tends to be a very go with the flow and see what happens person. she doesn’t put pressure or expectations on relationships or feel the need to define things, she enjoys them as she experiences them. she and faith have been on again, off again several time as their responsibilities outside of the relationship dominated their lives, and they’re comfortable with the natural ebb and flow and ready to see what happens and let things unfold on their own.

❤️‍🔥: Who tends to take the lead with showing affection?

none of them are particularly shy about physical affection, i would say jessie is often the initiator in that she’s very direct and a reach out and touch person. jestiny and skylar are both a little more closed off about expressing affection verbally, so sherri tends to take the lead there.

💧: How well do they comfort each other when they’re upset?

yeah, sherri and skylar are much better at comforting each other than they are at calming down jessie or jessie offering any sense of emotional support to them. although for what it’s worth jessie is very ready to crack a joke and try to lighten to mood when either of them are upset, but actual emotional nurturing is out of her wheelhouse.

👁️: What exactly do they want with their future with each other? Is that something they think of often or do they just stay in the moment?

answered here!

#otp: stop bothering these nice folks #otp: a neurochemical con job #ot3: fish catching girlfriends (and yes‚ they catch fish)

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