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#single post + explanation below
snailsnaps · 1 year
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PROGRAMMED OBSOLESCENCE [intro]
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The basic premise? Villain Donnie.
There aren't enough Villain!Donnie AUs, at all.
In Rise, I think Dee has a lot of villain potential, but is kept in line thanks to his family. And still, he treads around the 'chaotic good' area. (Let's remember the Uranium, how he almost shot down his father, shooting a tranquilizer to his brother out of curiosity, inserting sub-cutanean trackers on his brothers without consent...)
So... what if his brothers weren't there? Do you realize how far he could go? I wanted to explore that.
Here, his brothers were never there to keep him in line, they never met eachother, well, until now. How have they never met though? A basic 'separated au' kind of situation. He was left behind in the lab explosion, thought dead, never mentioned to his brothers. Growing up alone, the silence being replaced with the worst kinds of thoughts.
But there's still a lot I need to explore, develop, etc...
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sexybritishllama · 4 months
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strap in folks it's time for another neopets drama update
some background reading before we begin: back when neopets wanted to introduce customisation (i.e. dressing up your pet) in 2007, they decided to 'convert' all existing pet art to align with a rigid body structure, rather than all having unique poses. it was just not feasible to create new pieces of art for hundreds of different pet poses every single time they released a new clothing them
customisation had been highly requested up until this point. however, the conversion was NOT popular. in some cases, particularly for basic colours, the change wasn't huge, but in other cases.... uh....
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you get the idea. the more expensive colours like plushie, faerie, grey, royal and darigan got the worst of it because they had the more unique poses pre-conversion, and therefore it was largely agreed that the change to the stiff 'samey', frankly kinda goofy converted look did not look great
most users did not get a choice in having their neopet converted and it was done automatically, but if you had one of these colours where the change was huge, you were given the choice of converting or retaining the old pose (but not having the option to customise your pet). those pets that retained the old, pre-conversion poses are therefore referred to as 'unconverted', or UC for short
once a pet is converted, there's no returning to UC. you also couldn't create UC pets anymore, making UCs a limited resource that would only increase in value with time, particularly as people abandon their pets, leave the site, get frozen, etc.
i could write an entire dissertation on the drama that UC pets have caused for the pet trading economy, the neopet account black market, and general retention of the userbase, but to sum it up, people REALLY want UC pets. they are the single most coveted status symbol on the site
we skip forward now to 2023
the neopets team are planning to introduce UC pets back to the site, so that people will be able to create their own UC pets again for the first time post-converstion (legally at least)
they drip feed bits of information over the year about what this will look like. the main points are
changing a pet to UC will be done via some kind of item bought with neocash, the premium currency on neopets that you need to spend real money to get
putting this item on your pet will give it the UC art style appearance
so. not much really known. but expected release is set for january 2024
yesterday, they hosted an AMA focusing on the new UC pet system and how this was going to work. noticeably absent is any explanation of how much this is actually going to cost and whether it is going to involve any kind of gatcha mechanic, so that's causing our first lot of concern
second lot of drama is that the new UCs aren't actually going to be COMPLETELY the same as the old art, as they're making some small changes for style consistency, see below (old on top, new below):
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the biggest drama, however, comes from how they're dealing with the 'original' UC pets. ALL pets will be getting forcibly converted on the 23rd, with anyone who has a pet that is already an original UC immediately receiving the UC neocash item. there's mention of possibly some kind of trophy or badge recognition for particularly old pets, but it's vague, and generally seems like it won't be possible to distinguish between the original UCs and these new ones
the people who already have OCs are not happy about this
people are allegedly pounding their pets, cancelling their premium, and quitting the site in protest. the boards are flooded with people complaining about the changes and laughing at the downfall of the 'neo-elite' in equal measure
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it's t-minus 5 days until the second great conversion goes live. let's all pray for our souls
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The Hugo Awards nominating statistics don't add up
tl;dr Along with works arbitrarily being deemed ineligible for the Hugo Awards the underlying numbers for the nominating data don't add up. The nominating statistics are junk.
Yesterday the Hugo nominating statistics for 2023 were released. Initial discussion focused on several nominees including R.F. Kuang's Babel being deemed ineligible for seemingly no reason.
After people started looking at the actual statistics a number of oddities were apparent. Heather Rose Jones has released a blog post with some graphs neatly illustrating this.
She suggests a number of hypothesis for what's going on: bloc voting, certain nominees below the cut-off being omitted or the one I now think must be true "The math is bogus. That is, the reported nomination statistics include large numbers of nominations attributed to the "top group" that do not arise from an actual nomination process."
In a previous post I discussed Peter Wilkinson's comment that showed that there are mathematical impossibilities in the statistics:
As (I think) a quite separate final remark for now, I think I have found a small mathematical impossibility in the Best Novel nomination statistics as given. Because of the way EPH works, every valid ballot gets counted in the first round of an EPH count, but ballots get eliminated as and when the last nominee on the ballot gets eliminated. It is therefore quite impressive that, of the 1,637 ballots received for Best Novel, 1,652 remained after all but the final 15 candidates had been eliminated.
To elaborate on this each nominators is given a single point divided equally between the works they nominate. In the first round the number of points equals the number of nominators.
In subsequent rounds if a work is eliminated the point is redistributed between the nominators remaining nominees. If no nominees remain it isn't redistributed. In essence the number of points represents the number of nominators who have nominees remaining on the ballot.
The number of points should never be higher than the number of nominators.
The only explanation I can see is that the statistics are made up.
Following on from Peter Wilkinson's comment Marshall Ryan Maresca ran the numbers for all categories:
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His results match the ones I have previously checked. I posted about novel and fanwriter in the previous linked post and had checked novella as well.
I've now checked the other two categories where he showed the result is over 100% and my numbers add up to the same as what he has shown.
I've posted my workings below for reference.
First lets look at best novel which had 1637 nominating ballots:
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My calculation matches what Peter and Marshall found.
Best novella had 1393 ballots:
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This again matches Marshall's result and is the only category I checked where the points sum to less than 100% of the ballots.
Best short story has 1500 ballots but 1568.96 nominating points, again matching Marshall's results:
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Best fan writer which I discussed yesterday has the largest relative difference with only 241 people nominating but 364.01 nominating points (again matching Marshall's results).
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Finally let's look at the Lodestar which had 280 nominating ballots:
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Again my result matches what Marshall found.
Heather Rose Jones has illustrated why the nominating statistics are anomalous. Peter Wilkinson showed that the numbers for best novel reflected a mathematically impossibility.
Yesterday after seeing Wilkinson's comment I ran the numbers and got the same result and found the even larger discrepancy in the fan writer category.
Marshall Ryan Maresca separately saw Peter Wilkinson’s comment and went through the categories much more systematically and has shown several are unusually high and that four have impossible numbers based on the reported number of ballots.
I've double checked the categories where Marshall demonstrated that there were over 100% of votes being reported and got the same results.
I do not see how the above is possible without extra votes being added to the totals. The math doesn't add up.
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sundrop-writes · 5 months
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Better Than Sleeping
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Jason Todd x Fem!Reader
Summary:
You and Jason are friends with benefits. Though you have come to realize that the relationship doesn’t always ‘benefit’ you when he ends up annoying you after a long, tiring day of training.
(He quickly makes you come to see that his annoying persistence can benefit you, even if you would never admit it aloud.)
Jason Todd x Fem!Reader. Friends with Benefits. Smut. Set during Season 2.
Word Count: 5,300
DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link
THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.
Warning: This fic contains Dubious Consent. One character ‘wears down’ the other and ‘convinces them’ to have sex, and both of them display verbal consent that goes against their true actions and desires (they say no to having sex when they do truly want to) and they think of convincing the other person to agree as a kind of ‘game’. It is a relationship that is playful in nature, and this consent is based on bodily queues, facial expressions, and knowing a person’s safety and comfort based on being in a relationship with them for a period of time. If this makes you uncomfortable, please don’t read the fic.
List of detailed warnings and author’s notes below the cut.
Warnings: friends with benefits, this is primarily a smut fic, the reader character uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina, Jason is more dominant and the reader is more submissive (once the sex begins), the reader could be considered a brat, Jason calls the reader ‘babe’ (it is a canon event), Jason calls the reader ‘baby’, Jason calls the reader ‘good girl’, dubious consent - coercion (please see the above for an explanation about this), mentions of masturbation (watching someone masturbate), mentions of fucking someone to sleep/fucking someone while they are asleep, mentions of free use kink, mentions of cumming inside someone/unprotected sex, marking/biting, groping/touching through underwear (reader receiving), orgasm denial (toward the reader), ‘just the tip’,teasing, there is a point where Jason’s dick is inside her without a condom but he doesn’t cum, and he puts on a condom before fully penetrating (what would you call that?), begging, slight mentions of subspace (but it’s more so described as a lustful drunkness), there is implications toward the end of fucking someone to sleep/fucking someone while they are asleep with their permission. I believe that is everything.
A/N: This is definitely one of my favourite things I have written. I thought maybe I was going to edit it some before re-posting it, but I was rereading it the other day and I actually realized that it's really good the way it is, so here you go - some random cocky Jason smut, inspired by the 'just the tip' trope. I hope you enjoy!
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You knew that becoming a Titan was never going to be easy. 
But fuck, this was a lot harder than you imagined it would be. Dick Grayson was quickly becoming your least favorite person. Between the 5am wake up calls and the endless workout routines, paired with the bland ‘nutrient filled’ meal plans he had everyone on to ‘fuel your bodies’ for training - he was becoming a menial drill sergeant that you couldn’t get away from. One of the only things that made it better was the fact that you had friends around - the ability to joke about him with Rachel, Gar, and Jason behind his back. Was it a bit mean-spirited? Yes. Did you feel less guilty about it whenever he added more onto the training routine? Also yes. 
You had no clue when these skills you were working so hard on were ever going to come into play. Every single night, Dick retired himself into the comms room full of computers to ‘monitor the city for threats’ - but he seemingly never found anything worthy of the team’s attention. At least not yet. So you went about the routine of training hard, becoming exhausted, falling into bed to sleep and then doing it all over again. 
Oh - and there was the other thing. The not so occasional part of your routine where Jason fucked your brains out. The fact that the two of you had developed a mutually beneficial relationship to help ‘relieve’ each other when you were horny, a quintessential friends with benefits situation. But with your muscles sore from training and your entire body so exhausted, that was the farthest thing from your mind on this night. 
After a long, hard day of training, the last thing you wanted to hear was a knock on your bedroom door. You hoped that it was simply Gar asking to borrow some of your body wash again (because he liked the smell), or Rachel asking you to kill a spider in her room, and not Dick alerting you to some surprise training drill that he had suddenly thought up. 
You shoved your pajama top over your head, finishing getting changed for the night, and rushed across the room to the door. When you opened it, you barely had time to gauge if you were pleased or displeased at seeing Jason before he spoke. 
“I’m horny.” He announced abruptly, being very abrupt about delivering his feelings. 
But it was in character for him, and didn’t surprise you in the least. 
You hated that your stomach jolted at his words, even if just out of Pavlovian habit. It had been only two days since the last time he had fucked you. He had caught you in the shower in the morning, snuck into the bathroom with a condom between his teeth and opened the shower door to join you while you were distracted meditatively washing your hair. It had been steamy, soapy, slippery, and goddamn wonderful. 
But it had left you sore and stiff before training, and you were wondering how much give and take there was - if you truly needed his cock. 
“Hello to you too.” You said, your tone just as dead tired as you felt. 
You wouldn’t admit that you were a bit horny too. You were tired, and you wanted to go to sleep. So that made you annoyed with his presence. (It should have made you more annoyed than you were.) 
Jason bit his lip, raking his eyes up and down your body with an intense heat lurking there. You glared back at him. 
Jason was intensely attractive. He was a good looking guy, that was just a fact. And while you did enjoy the way he was looking at you, staring you down like you were a porn star when you were slumped with exhaustion, wearing baggy old pjs with mascara smeared on your face with sweat, your hair a mess from the day - there was barely a spark stirred in your stomach at the idea of fucking him right now. You were just too damn tired. Dick had been running you all into the ground, instituting the same training that Batman had given him, and it was fucking exhausting. 
“So - can I come in?” Jason asked. 
He gave you a very expectant curl of his lips and tilted his head toward you when you didn’t say anything for a few seconds. You just stood there and stared at him bitterly. 
You sighed hard through your nose, not wanting to answer the question. 
Fucking him might be nice. A good orgasm before bed. But you needed to put what little energy you had left into your nightly routine and then get a good, long sleep before Dick woke everyone up at ass o’clock again. 
“No.” You finally told him. “I’m going to bed.” 
You turned and walked back into your room, but left the door open. You hoped that he would get the hint to leave on his own. You grabbed your bottle of makeup remover and a cotton pad and began taking off your makeup. 
You weren’t so lucky. 
“I’ll go to bed with you, babe.” He announced proudly. You could practically hear the smirk in his voice. 
He then came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist from behind. You felt the half hardness of his cock pressing into your ass as you wiped away your makeup with stern hands. You tried your hardest not to let him wear you down, even as you felt a tingle between your thighs. He was used to training this hard, so it wasn’t as exhausting for him. Clearly, he didn’t understand how tired you were - how badly you needed the rest. 
“Go get in your own bed.” You barked, your tone becoming more strained. 
As you leaned closer to the mirror to inspect your face, to make sure that you had gotten all the tiny specs of makeup off, you unintentionally arched your back, pushing your ass much closer to his crotch. Jason let out a quiet moan and you caught him smirking at you in the reflection of the mirror. 
He leaned in close, draping his warm body entirely over your back, trapping you there as he put one hand on the dresser and the other on the wall and leaned his body weight on you. You could have shoved him off you if you wanted to - but as you felt a tingling heat creeping up your back, you weren’t entirely sure if you wanted to. 
“Come on, babe.” He sighed into your neck. 
His hot breath on such a sensitive place caused a shiver through you that you would deny. 
“Why are you being like this? You know if you want a good sleep, getting fucked nice and hard is the best way to get it.” He told you, so entirely cocky. “My cock will put you right to bed, baby.” 
The words sent a hard jolt of electricity through you, settling a hard heat through you from your gut all the way to your face, burning uncomfortably through your skin. Combined with the way he ground his increasing hardness against your ass, you were forced to suppress a whimper. 
It made you even more annoyed with him - the fact he could play your body like an instrument he had finely tuned. And you reacted with that intense annoyance. 
“Why can’t you just masturbate like a normal person?” You scoffed at him, entirely firm, not giving away an ounce of weakness in your voice. 
“As if.” He held intense disgust in his voice at the very idea. 
He gave another firm dig of his hips, causing you to be pressed into the sharp edge of the dresser - a small twinge of pain that only added to the heat growing in your stomach. 
“Why the fuck would I resort to touching myself when I have the sweetest pussy ever to fuck right down the hall?” Jason explained. “But ya know, if you want to watch me jack off, that can be arranged.” 
Instead of responding to that, you just rolled your eyes. You hoped that he wouldn’t notice that subtle shift of lust in your features that said this was definitely a new fantasy of yours because he had brought it up. 
“You can’t deny that you need it too.” Jason whispered into your ear. 
“I need sleep.” You grunted in return. 
You then shucked out of his hold, using one of the evasive maneuvers that Dick had taught you in training, ducking under Jason’s arm when he wasn’t expecting it. Before he could blink, you were across the hall and in the bathroom. It was mostly because you knew that if you stood there any longer with his warm body pressed against your back, you would have given in far too easily. 
Naturally, Jason followed you. 
He stuck by your side through your entire night time routine, trying to wear you down. You weighed the pros and cons in your head without truly listening to him as the exhaustion seeped into your bones and battled with the lust growing inside of you. 
Jason brushed his teeth standing next to you in front of the sink while you brushed yours, all the while mumbling excuses through his toothpaste about how the sex would be good aerobic exercise to help with your training. By the time you got to doing your skincare, you ended up putting a face wash and moisturizer on him just to mentally drown out whatever he was saying - something about orgasms and endorphins and how it helps mental health. 
As you pulled back the covers to finally settle in, he snuck his way into your bed under the guise of ‘just cuddling’. Though you weren’t anywhere near convinced of that sentiment, you didn’t kick him out of the room or protect. You were surprised, but grateful when he took off his shirt, laid down, and seemed to finally shut up. You weren’t sure which you were more grateful for - the quiet or the stunning eye candy of his tight body on full display. But you didn’t question the fact that he had finally stopped nagging you. 
You crawled into bed beside him and settled into his arms. You gave him a kiss on the cheek as a goodnight (knowing that if you kissed him on the mouth, it would turn into something more heated). It was only about two minutes after you shut off your bedside lamp, shrouding the room in darkness, that the talking began again. 
“You could sleep through it.” He noted quietly. 
You sighed with deep annoyance. 
“If you want to. I could be gentle about it.” 
His voice continued on from behind you as he spooned you, one arm under your head underneath the pillow and the other laid almost possessively around your waist. 
Of course, he didn’t even have to be too descriptive for you to know what ‘it’ was. 
The idea of him gently fucking you while you fell into a lazy sleep was entirely too appealing. But he didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to win. Especially not after you had put so much of your very little remaining energy into deterring him all night. 
“Go to sleep.” You told him with a huff, shoving your head further into the pillow. 
He simply chuckled. 
You hoped that if you just ignored him, he would shut up and go to sleep. 
You would never admit to him that heat bloomed in your stomach at the idea of Jason crawling into your bed when you were already in a deep sleep, using you for his own selfish pleasure and leaving you sore and full of cum to wake up to in the morning. 
“Hmm… no.” He replied, as easily as a petulant child, his breath fanning out over your neck once again. 
Your heated thoughts easily blossomed into a moan from your lips when he latched onto your neck without warning. He picked a particularly tender spot, sucking hard with teeth and the fullness of his lips, easily knocking the wind out of you. You shoved your heated face tightly into your pillow, praying that he wouldn’t notice your reaction. That he wouldn’t realize he so blatantly had you like putty in his hands. If he knew that, he would know that he could just take whatever he wanted and you wouldn’t protest. Not in the slightest. 
Jason already knew that. But he wasn’t just going to pull down your shorts and slam his cock into you. As much fun as that would be - he wasn’t barbaric. Plus - now that he had one of your sweet little sounds in his ears, he wanted more. He wanted to hear you beg for it after denying him for so long. 
He moved his arm from being so tightly around your waist, and pushed your shirt up. You tried your best to put up a wall of indifference toward this. He began skimming his touch oh so lightly along the roundness of your stomach, right above the band of your shorts. You knew he felt the shiver that ran through you, but you refused to say anything. You weren’t pretending to be asleep at this point, but it was a game to the two of you. You still refused to give in. 
But he was playing to win. 
He shoved his hand into the waistband of your shorts, touching you outside the fabric of your underwear. His skin felt like he could have burned you, even through the fabric. You had to make a conscious effort not to buck forward into the touch. When his fingers skimmed across your hotly beating clit (when had you gotten so turned on?) you swallowed another whimper and steadied your voice. 
“Jason.” You said his name firmly, like a warning bell. “If you don’t behave yourself, I’m gonna kick you out.” 
“I don’t think you will.” He whispered into your neck, defiantly cocky once again. 
He sucked another hard, hot mark onto your skin as he cupped your pussy whole in his palm and began grinding the heel of his hand against your clit. 
You let out a wobbling moan and your body thrashed, your energy so depleted that you could no longer hold back your body’s natural reactions to him. You were met with the hard wall of his body behind you, so firm and perfectly hot as he pressed himself tighter into you. 
He gave a satisfied grin into your skin and only doubled down, putting more pressure on your throbbing clit and causing hot waves from that point, adding to the rolling boil that raged under your skin. 
With the beautifully firm pressure and Jason’s talent, the way he knew your body so well, you could have come from this alone. Especially as the pleasure throbbed through your core, your underwear became more soaked through and it was all so beautifully smooth and wet. 
Jason began grinding his cock - still trapped inside a pair of sweats - against the back of your thigh. He groaned into your neck when he felt a pleasurable tingling of his own spreading through his gut, though he craved to be inside of you. As much as he was enjoying this - the sweet, needy sounds falling from your lips, the way your thighs clamped around his wrist, as though desperately trying to keep him in place while your hips humped against his hand like a bitch in heat - he knew that he needed more. 
And he was going to make you beg for it. 
When he felt the signature twitch of your legs that said you were about to cum, he stopped. He held his hand completely still, his strong arm easily pinning your hips down to the bed to prevent you from humping against him and simply taking what you needed. In that moment, he even curled two of his fingers up to shove the fabric of your underwear inside of you slightly, creating a sharp sting that reminded you just how empty you were feeling. 
“Jay-!” You let out his name in a petulant whine, about to scold him for the ruined orgasm, but he cut you off. 
“You gonna ask me nicely now?” He rumbled into your ear. “Admit you were wrong?” 
You wanted to bark out ‘either make me cum, or go to your own damn bed’ - but you knew that Jason was just as petty as you were. At that point, he would have gotten up and left for his own bed just to prove a point. 
“You’re keeping me awake right now.” You huffed out, trying your best to sound annoyed. (Which wasn’t too difficult, considering how badly the ruined orgasm had frustrated you.) “My point still stands.” 
Of course, sleeping was the farthest thing from your mind now. The sexual frustration had injected a new wave of energy through you, and you knew that you wouldn’t be able to rest until you were truly satisfied. 
Unfortunately, Jason knew that too. 
“Okay.” Jason sighed quietly, giving a click of his tongue. 
He then completely pulled his hand out of your shorts and pulled away from your body. It seemed like he was moving to get out of the bed - you worried you had accidentally triggered that signature pettiness in him. 
But as usual, Jason Todd surprised you. 
You bit your lip to hold back a cheer when he reached for the waistband of your shorts and underwear pulled them down all at once, exposing your hot, soaked cunt to the cool air of the room. (At some point, the blanket had been accidentally shoved off you.) You took a glance over your shoulder and of course, he was shoving his pants down to his knees. You caught a glimpse of his long, thick, hard cock bobbing out of the fabric in the darkness. But you didn’t dare to spend too much time admiring it, for fear of making him too cocky. 
You relaxed against your pillow in satisfaction, waiting for Jason to grab a condom out of the bedside table’s drawer so that he could literally fuck you to sleep. 
You were surprised when he scooted back toward you, pressing himself right up against your back once more. He proceeded to simply press his hips against yours - his cock laid flat against the bare folds of your leaking pussy, immediately becoming slick with your wetness. But be made no moves to grab a condom or even tease you by pushing inside of you raw. 
(Which - yes, the two of you had agreed to always use condoms, but it was secretly a fantasy of yours that he would go against the rule because of his overbearing need to feel you raw - or even the need to cum inside of you). 
But instead of doing any of that, Jason seemed to be settling in to relax. 
Jason draped himself across your back, wrapped his arm around your waist again, and gently laid his head on your shoulder. But he made no effort to move, or fuck you. Your pussy throbbed with need, feeling the hot, hard length pressed against you, entirely unmoving. When you clenched around nothing, you let out a wave of slick that you knew he could feel right on his cock. You felt a groan catch inside his chest, but still, he didn’t move. 
“Jason.” You breathed out, having to question him after a few more moments of silence and stillness. “What are you doing?” 
“Going to sleep.” He answered, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I thought you wanted me to just shut up and leave you alone so that you could get some rest?” 
That. Little. Shit.
You resisted the urge to elbow him in the face. 
Obviously, being so close to you, he felt your entire body tense up with anger and annoyance. He was only able to partially hold back his satisfactory laughter. When the quiet snickers met your ears, you became even more annoyed. 
“Jason.” You scolded him gruffly. 
“Oh? I’m sorry,” He said, entirely sarcastic. “Did you want something?” 
“Did you want something?” You parroted back, mocking his words in a childish voice. 
Essentially, you had no more clever comebacks left. He had won. 
“I guess I can give you something for your troubles, babe.” Jason sighed, as though it were a grand inconvenience to him. “Maybe just the tip, though.” 
“Just the tip.” You sighed, finding yourself repeating his words once again. Though this time your voice was dead and sarcastic rather than mocking - mostly because you didn’t believe him. 
You knew that in Jason land, ‘just the tip’ meant slamming his entire cock into you after the tip lingered in your entrance for a moment. You clenched down on nothing again at the thought. 
Once again, you were expecting him to grab a condom so he could fuck you freely without worry. You were surprised when he peeled his body away from you slightly and reached down to grab his cock. After a moment of rubbing the fat cockhead along your folds to get it nice and wet, he did as promised and pushed the tip inside. 
It was the first time he had ever been inside of you without the barrier of a condom, and feeling his hot, raw skin touching yours - even just a little bit, made you gasp. 
“Jason!” 
Your voice was whiny even to your own ears, so needy for him after so much teasing. Upon instinct, feeling that painfully empty ache coming from deep inside you, you arched your back and attempted to shove your hips toward him - attempted to pull more of his thickness inside of you. But Jason was quicker, and he had his hands on both your hips, shoving you down onto the bed so hard and fast that the tip of his cock fell out of you with a wet pop. 
It was a sound that made heat beat through your cheeks, and the feeling of his wet cockhead brushing against the backs of your thighs took your breath away. 
“Oops.” He chuckled, and moved to slot himself back into position.
You had no clue why it was so dizzyingly hot. 
But this time he held you down firmly so you couldn’t simply fuck yourself back onto his cock. You moaned as the thickness of the cockhead popped back inside of you - you yearned for more, but he stayed still. 
After a moment, he began to move his hips so slightly, feeding no more than an inch of his cock into your throbbing cunt before pulling it back out. It was an entirely careful movement on his part where he fed you the first inch, and didn’t let the tip pop out again, in pathetically shallow thrusts that could barely be called sex. Your pussy ached, tingled, yearned for more. 
You mentally cursed Batman for teaching him such good self discipline and him using it for this.
“Jason.” You whined, trying fruitlessly to fight against the firm grip he had on your hips in order to fuck yourself on his cock. 
“What, babe?” He chuckled, leaning down to kiss a line across your shoulder. 
“You know what.” You replied, your tone even more frustrated and whiny. 
You wiggled your hips desperately, trying to get more of him inside of you. You yearned to feel the perfect ache of his thick cock splitting you open, hitting all of those perfect spots so deep inside of you. 
“No, I don’t.” He told you, his voice somehow steady and confident. “You’re gonna have to spell it out for me.” 
You couldn’t see it or feel it, but his hips were trembling and his abs were tight with the pure resistance of his self control. All of the energy he was using not to slam his cock into the tight, warm velvet of your cunt, especially as he felt it leak so freely around the tip of his cock, knowing how badly you needed him. He wanted nothing more than to watch you whine and babble and fall apart on his cock - but he wanted to win just a little bit more. 
There was a distinct pause. The last shreds of your own stubbornness hanging in the air, even as your cunt throbbed with need. 
Even if Jason couldn’t see your face from this angle, he could feel the warring in your body. He knew you too well. And he knew how to break you down so perfectly. 
“If you want anything more than this,” He told you, emphasizing the point with another pathetically shallow thrust. “If you want anything more than just the tip of my cock,” His voice was low and silken and creating even more heat that almost drowned you. “Then you’re gonna have to beg for it.” 
“Fuck you, Jay.” You whined out in protest, once again trying to fight his grip on your hips to fuck yourself against him. 
He viciously dug his fingers into the fat of your hips, causing a sharp sound from your throat at the beautiful pain. 
He leaned down and pressed his lips to the back of your neck, and growled out his next words in a low tone that dragged through your insides in the exact spot where his cock should have been. 
“Come on.” He urged you on. “Fucking. Beg.” 
That was when you broke. 
At least you hadn’t given in too easily. 
“Please,” You whined out breathlessly. “Please, fuck me! Fuck me, Jason! I need it.” 
“What else?” Jason asked expectantly. 
You could have killed him. But when your desperate cunt unconsciously clenched down on the fat head of his cock and you felt yourself growing only more hot and needy, you knew that there was only one thing to do. 
“I’m sorry, Jay, I should have - I should have just asked nicely in the first place. I do need it. I need your big cock inside of me so badly.” You poured it on thick, emphasizing the last words in the most pornographic voice you could muster, hoping that he was running low on self control as well. 
And he was. So he was very satisfied with this. He grinned into your skin, leaving a surprisingly tender kiss on the back of your neck before he mumbled out ‘good girl’ - something that made you moan out sharply. 
You let out a sharp noise of disappointment when his cock popped out of you again. 
“I need a condom.” He told you, giving you a reassuring pat on the ass. “As much as I’d love to cum inside you, we do have an agreement.” 
You weren’t sure which was hotter - his sex-thick voice admitting that he shared one of your deepest fantasies, or the fact that he was caring so deeply for you, making sure that he protected you with a condom even when you were in that floating headspace and willing to let him do just about anything do your body. 
Your mind was swimming contemplating it, and next thing you knew it, he had the condom on successfully. He then slammed his cock inside of you in one firm, smooth movement. Any thoughts were easily pounded out of your head by the practiced movement of his hips.
“Better now?” Jason grunted into your ear. 
You could practically feel his smugness radiating through his cock, spearing into you. 
But you were now alight with intense pleasure, warm satisfaction rolling through you - so you couldn’t bring yourself to truly care about how smug he was. Every bit of cockiness he had, he did back it up with a pretty big dick that he knew how to use well. Not that you would ever say those words aloud to him. Not even on your deathbed. 
“Just shut up and fuck me.” You ordered, though it was breathless and had no bite. 
“As you wish, babe.” He replied, and then doubled down - his hips fucking into you with an intense fury. 
You moaned like a whore at this, finally feeling that dizzying fullness that you had been craving since he had snuck his touch into your shorts. Jason drank up your sounds and easily wanted more - more of your perfect pussy squeezing around his cock, more of that wetness coating his inner thighs, more of that filthy wet smacking as he fucked into you. 
He leaned down, draping his body fully over yours once again, creating a pleasantly smothering weight on top of you as you laid on your stomach on the bed with your face nearly drowned in the pillow. He slowed the pace of his hips to a dangerous torture of a grind, fucking you so deeply now that you were sure you could feel him coming up inside of your throat. You let out a wounded noise, and he hushed you gently. 
“Shh, babe, I’ve got you.” He whispered into your ear. “Gonna make you feel so good.” 
He moved one of his hands from your hip and shoved it between your body and the bed, and once again he was cupping your mound fully in his hand - but this time there was no fabric barrier, and he was settled deep inside of you. It was filling your whole body with lava, turning every place he touched you to boiling ash. You were sure that you would have dissolved into nothingness if not for the anchor of your cunt hanging onto his cock, keeping you grounded in reality with that slight nip of pain as your muscles clenched onto him. 
“Now say thank you.” He told you, his voice so gruff in your ear, so thick with desire that it made you dizzy. “Thank me for giving you my cock.” 
He used two precise fingers to rub circles on your neglected clit, immediately sending shockwaves through your body that made your muscles jump and jolt. 
You gulped for air and struggled to move your face out of the fabric of the pillow, and Jason saw this. He moved his other hand and slid it under your cheek, gripping under your jaw to fully lift you up. 
He stilled his hips completely once again, causing a pained sound to emanate from your lungs as you clamped down on his cock deep inside of you while he continued to relentlessly work over your tender clit. He gave you a couple of seconds to catch your breath. But you were so cock dumb that you had to be reminded of the goal. 
“Come on, baby.” He encouraged you, pressing his lips to your cheek that he wasn’t holding onto. “Say ‘thank you’.” 
“Thank you.” You easily repeated back, now completely pliant to his desires. “Thank you for-for your cock.” 
“Good girl.” Jason praised you once again. 
Then he began fucking into you once more - it only took a few careful thrusts of his hips and the talent of his fingers on your clit to finally bring your orgasm to life. He shoved his tongue into your mouth as you screamed through it, imitating some sloppy version of a kiss while you flailed and creamed on his cock, your body becoming truly boneless and tired as the orgasm rocked you. 
When it was finished, he was still throbbing hard inside of you, and you let out a whine of disappointment. You were absolutely dead tired now, and you couldn’t even think of how much energy it would take to finish him off. Mister ‘Twice In A Sunday’ could last quite a long time, and that didn’t exactly work for you in that moment. 
“You can go to sleep now, babe.” He whispered into your ear. “I’ll clean you up when I’m done.” 
He began thrusting into you once more, and you couldn’t help but let your eyes drift closed. 
It ended up being a good night for both of you.
...
If you enjoyed this fic, check out my DC Titans Masterlist for more of my other fics!! And please consider reblogging and commenting on this fic to tell me what you liked about it.
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I made some funny comics a little while ago about the potential effects of Fukuzawa's ability on Chuuya's, and how it perhaps could make it revert to a pre-Arahabaki state.
I realized later that some of you lack the context for where that came from, and that I might be creating confusion, so this is a (hopefully) comprehensive walkthrough of things we learned in Storm Bringer that lead to this conclusion.
tldr; The lab created "Arahabaki" by manipulating an ability into a destructive force. That ability existed before the lab, and the nature of that ability is heavily implied to be the power to enhance other abilities through touch.
Explanation and sources below (so you can judge yourself) ⬇
- spoiler warning for Storm Bringer, hopefully written in a way that you'd understand even if you haven't read it yet -
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In Storm Bringer, Chuuya meets the scientist that was responsible for Project Arahabaki, Professor N.
Project Arahabaki, N explains, was the Japanese government's secret project to create an ability singularity they could have control over and freely use as a weapon.
What are singularities? Singularities are what happens when abilities clash in specific ways and create a new, unforeseen reaction. The easiest way to create a singularity is to pit two contradictory abilities against each other to create a paradox; examples included the ability to always deceive and the ability to always perceive the truth, and to have two ability users who can see into the future (*coughs* Oda and Gide) try to one-up each other. The result is usually much more powerful than the original abilities on their own.
Some singularities are said to have been explained as god-like interventions, because of their often destructive nature. This is what inspired the name "Arahabaki", after the mythical being (here's a post of the subject and I'll it link at the end too) These events are described as very rare.
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Like mentioned in that passage, there is another way to create a singularity: to have a single ability user use their ability in a way that contradicts itself. This is what the lab was trying to do.
For that explanation, Professor N gives an example. He first shows a video of a child, whose face is hidden from the camera, holding a coin (described as having a certain melancoly to it), with a moon and a fox engraved on it. The video is from one of the lab's tests. The child is made to recite some activation lines, which are directly taken from one of Nakahara Chuuya's poems, Upon the Tainted Sorrow (which does mentions a fox, as a fun fact).
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The coin then starts glowing, the glow turns into a black mass, and from there the experimentation goes bad: the coin starts attracting things and absorbing them, the space gets distorted, the child's vitals flatline, panic spreads and someone calls for an emergency stop, we hear a scream. The video ends.
N explains that the child in the video had the ability to enhance the ability of others. That child then used that ability on themselves, effectively enhancing the enhancement which enhanced the enhancing, in an infinite loop. That loop created a lot of energy; the surplus of energy was so intense its mass deformed space (physics!) and it created a black hole.
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Here's where it gets tricky: N claims that child died during that accident, that the child was absorbed by the black hole created by their ability. We never actually learn their identity.
But N is a lying liar who lies; he said about one and a half truths the entire book. The only reason he was telling them any of this was that he thought he'd get rid of all of them within the next few minutes. His objective was always to regain control over Chuuya, his pet project.
Plus, during the epilogue, we learn that Chuuya was assumed to have died during the war. That's what his parents think. That's what is officially recorded.
Furthermore.
Project Arahabaki was based off French research papers; someone else had done this kind of experimentation before, and their result was Verlaine.
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Verlaine's gravity-manipulation is a singularity. Better yet: Verlaine also has a Corruption state, named Brutalization. Their abilities are the same, because the lab copied the techniques that were used to create Verlaine when they worked on Chuuya.
Here's a passage of Dazai nullifying Corruption, at the very end of SB:
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"The self-contradicting skill, which was supporting the energy of a singularity". This passage confirms that the source of Chuuya's ability is, in fact, like the child's and Verlaine's, if any doubts remained. "[...] weakening the singularity's output. It wasn't long before it returned to its normal state, and the Gate closed." The Gate refers to releasing Arahabaki, it's basically a limiter, just like the passage above when talking about Brutalization. When Dazai nullifies Corruption, he gives that limiter the opportunity to come back and seal Chuuya's power away again, but does not stop the singularity, only allows it to go back to its stable state.
From all that, we can say that Chuuya's ability wasn't always gravity manipulation, but that it was another, unconfirmed ability that was exploited in such a way that it became a permanent, stable singularity that allowed him to have control over gravity.
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Bullet point recap:
Chuuya's gravity manipulation comes from a singularity, like Verlaine, like that child;
You need a self-referencing/self-contradicting ability to create that singularity;
Such an event is rare;
There is a substantial amount of time spent describing a "random" child that was experimented on during the war;
That child created a black hole through their singularity;
That singularity was activated using a passage from Nakahara Chuuya's poems, while holding a coin that references it;
That child supposedly died;
Chuuya's parents think he died during the war;
N is a pathological liar with an agenda.
So no, there is no "confirmation" that Chuuya's ability was ability enhancement before the lab took him. But an author writes a story with an intent, so I am asking what Asagiri's intent was when writing all this, and if perhaps we weren't indirectly given the answer already.
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What is Arahabaki (Fifteen and Storm Bringer lore, with too many citations)
My own perceived timeline of the true events behind Storm Bringer (was originally gonna be part of this part, also with too many citations)
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fiveht · 2 months
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Proof of life (Adore pt 3)
Hello my sweet angel babies ♥️
I'm not going to be able to adequately express my gratitude for the steady stream of love (and concern, sorry) I've been receiving over the past couple of months. I'm so sorry I've been AWOL, it will definitely happen again. Because see, for me, I usually have to make a choice between social and creative fandom participation. My battery is small, and takes a long time to charge.
Thank you to everyone who's left comments and asks and DMs since I've been gone. I don't think I can respond to all of it, but rest assured those messages ping my cold, dead heart every time I see them.
So I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I did this same thing months and months ago, when I was working on Head Over Feet, and let me be clear: posting even a single word of a WIP goes against my every instinct and principle as an author. I am someone who likes to finish an entire story before I post any of it, and on top of that, I am NOT a fast writer, so the expectations that I'm setting up here might not be advisable. But I did it before and managed to finish the thing, and I want to give you guys something in exchange for being so unbelievably awesome, so here I am again.
This will probably be the only time I mention this story in public until it's finished and posted, and inquiries about my progress are unlikely to help with the writing process, I'm just saying. I reserve the right to change every last word of this before the final draft, and I also reserve the right to fall off the face of the planet and simply never finish it, as much as I will strive to prevent that from happening. Please be patient with me.
Anyway, here is my paltry offering to say thanks for the love: the (VERY rough) first ~1300 words of the third instalment of The Adventures of Soft Daddy and Danger Twink.
Sirius secures his handheld shower head to its holder at the edge of his clawfoot tub, and steps out carefully onto the bathmat. He shivers in the cool air outside the shower curtain; it's about twenty degrees below zero outside, so even if he could afford to run his ancient radiator at full blast, it probably wouldn't help much.
He dries himself off and checks his reflection in the mirror, turning his face this way and that as he tugs his hair out of the bun he'd piled it into to keep it dry during his shower. There's no need for makeup tonight, not when he's not even planning to put on clothes.
It's incrementally warmer when he steps out into the main room of his apartment. He gathers an array of splayed text books and notes from his bed and dumps them carelessly onto the couch, then closes his new laptop and places it delicately on the coffee table. It's the most expensive thing he owns, save for the Gucci backpack currently sitting in his wardrobe with a three-inch berth around it like his shoes and other bags might somehow contaminate it. It's weird owning rich-people stuff when you are still, objectively, broke as fuck.
He perches on the edge of his bed and sets his phone to charge, because his battery doesn't even last a day anymore, and he's going to need it this evening. He tucks it in next to his pillow and picks up his new toy.
The plug isn't much larger than the one he already has. A little longer, which is appealing, but no wider, so it shouldn't be a challenge to get it in comfortably. He disconnects it from its charger and hefts it in his hand, feeling the added weight from the electronics inside.
He picks up his phone, and hesitates when he sees the notification waiting for him.
Rieka: let's go out tomorrow
Rieka: the fact that we haven't been drunk since the term started is criminal
Rieka: we've had two chem labs and zero drinks
Sirius purses his lips, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. There's a fine line here, and he hasn't quite found it yet.
Me: got plans
Me: raincheck?
So complete avoidance is the best strategy, right?
Rieka: booooo 👎
He sighs, but at least she's not asking for an explanation. He opens a different conversation then, pushing all thoughts of Rieka Lupin into a tidy, sealed compartment, not to be opened during certain activities with a certain relative of hers.
Me: i'm ready
Me: are you in your office?
Daddy: Yup, I've got a few minutes
Daddy: Want me to call?
Instead of answering, Sirius hits the call button himself.
"Hey baby," Remus answers. His voice is already smooth and honey-sweet, and just from that, Sirius knows he's planning to lay it on thick tonight.
"Hi daddy," Sirius says with a smile. "Should I put it in now?"
There's a low chuckle over the line. "Are we feeling eager?"
"Always," Sirius says, laying back on his bed.
"Use the good lube I got you, it's gonna be in there a while."
He switches the call to speaker, and snags the bottle from his nightstand. "I threw out the old stuff, you've got me ruined for cheap lube."
"Only the best for that ass," Remus says, and Sirius can hear his smirk.
He gives the plug a liberal coating, running his fingers along its shape, his dick twitching just at the feel of the silky-smooth silicone, at the anticipation of what's about to happen. He spreads his legs wide, drawing one knee up to give himself easier access.
"Take it slow," Remus says, succinctly heading off Sirius' impulse to just shove the thing inside himself in one go. "Rub the tip against yourself, so you're nice and wet."
Sirius shuts his eyes as he obeys, sliding the slick end of the toy over his entrance. "Okay."
"Are you going to be a good boy for daddy tonight?"
"Uh-huh," Sirius says, teasing the very tip of the plug in and out of his hole.
"Tell me how."
"I'm not gonna touch."
"You're not gonna touch, and you're not gonna come."
"Yeah," Sirius says. His cock is starting to harden as his body tries to draw the plug inside. "Can I put it in, daddy?"
"Slow," Remus reminds him, "Slide it in nice and slow for me, baby."
Sirius catches his lip between his teeth and tries to push the plug in slowly, the way he knows Remus would do if he was here. 
The shower has left him relaxed and more than ready, and it's hard not to take advantage, just press the toy in to its limit because he can. But he's working on his patience -- under Remus' careful tutelage -- so he shuts his eyes and tries to savour it, the tease of the plug's rubber tip at his entrance, the slow stretch as he eases it past the slight resistance before he sighs, and his body eagerly accepts the intrusion.
"Mmmm," Sirius sighs as he settles the base of the plug flush against his entrance, shifting his hips and feeling the constant, dull pressure against his prostate.
"How's it feel?" 
"Good," Sirius says, splaying his legs out and just enjoying the pleasant fullness. It's been almost a week since Remus last fucked him, and that's just way too long. Christmas really spoiled him. He tugs the blankets up around him, because it's going to take some time before his body temperature is high enough to fight against the chill in his apartment.
"Have you tried out the settings at all?" Remus asks him, and Sirius picks up the phone, switching off speaker and holding it to his ear.
"No," he says, grinding his ass down against the bed to test the plug's reach inside him. "I thought you'd rather do the honours."
Remus hums, and Sirius hears the phone shifting in his grip. "I'm gonna turn it on, okay? Lowest setting."
"O--" Sirius stutters as the plug buzzes to life inside him, nestled snug against his prostate and sending little zings of pleasure down his legs. "Fuck that feels good. That's the lowest setting?"
"It is," Remus confirms. "Want to run through them all, see how high it goes? Or would you rather be surprised?"
"Mmmm, surprise me."
"Surprise it is," Remus says, and Sirius hears shuffling papers in the background as he prepares for his night class. Psychology 1001, Thursdays, 7-9:30PM. Two and a half hours of a lecture that Remus swears he's given so many times he could recite it in his sleep, so why not give himself something fun to focus on while he goes through the motions? 
Being privy to all of this brilliant, upstanding man's secret perversions is a privilege Sirius does not take lightly.
"You can turn it off from the app if you need to," Remus is saying, "Or you can call me and I'll switch it off. My phone's on vibrate, so I'll see it right away."
Sirius smiles to himself. "Got it," he says, though this is a rehashing of the rules that Remus had laid out when he'd brought the plug over last weekend. He'd called it a "late Christmas gift", as if he hadn't already given Sirius several thousand dollars worth of presents on Christmas morning.
There's more rustling over the line, the squeak of a chair. 
"Tell me again how you're going to be good tonight."
"I'm not gonna touch myself, and I'm not gonna come." The toy is still buzzing away inside him, making everything a little fuzzy at the edges. 
"Tell me why."
"'Cause daddy's in charge, even when he's not here."
"Good boy."
Sirius squirms with pleasure, his cock smearing a little drop of fluid on his belly as the toy hums insistently at his prostate.
"I have to head out," Remus says. "How do you feel?"
"Good," Sirius says, his abs tensing as he shifts his legs and the angle of the toy changes. "Excited."
"Me too," Remus says softly. "I'll talk to you soon, beautiful. Send me some pictures." With a low beep, the call disconnects.
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jeonqkooks · 8 months
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our beloved summer | jjk (07)
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You made a vow to hate Jeon Jungkook ever since he packed up and left you without a single explanation, but when he shows up at your door after years of radio silence, it turns out that maybe your resolve isn’t as strong as you thought.
pairing: producer!jungkook x songwriter!reader genre/warnings: exes au, fluff, angst, eventual smut, swearing, mentions of oc's mother because we know girlie is hella traumatized, mentions of drinking, mentions of an almost physical fight, abandonment issues, jk forgets to practice safe driving for 2 seconds, and uhmmm kissing 🤫, anddd that cliffhanger? 👀 rating: 18+ (minors dni) word count: 10.8k note (1): this is the longest it has taken me to update obs and i do feel pretty guilty about that. but it's finally here now and this is one of the chapters that i'm the most nervous about posting. massive thanks to @daechwitatamic and @wintaerbaer for beta-ing this for me or else i would've screamed cried thrown up and scrapped the whole thing, and to @jeonwiixard for being a wonderful cheerleader as i was writing this, and to everyone in my beloved obs discord server for always being so sweet and kind and putting a smile on my smile every day since the server was created. also to my sunshine ☀︎ for introducing me to the song mentioned below bc HELLO is it not just one of the most obs coded songs ever. love you all my babies <3
series masterpost / playlist ; moodboards ; taglist join our OBS discord server ✨
as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡
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Somewhere in the multiverse There's a me and you that works We never fuck it up We're out there still in love Somewhere in the multiverse Maybe that's enough
multiverse - Maya Manuele ft. PEMRBOKE
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Sometimes, whenever you look up at the moon at night, you wonder if Jungkook is doing the same thing.
Even when you fall out of love with someone, it still hurts. It hurts because you once loved them so much it felt like the sky would collapse if you couldn’t be with them. It hurts because the love wasn’t taken from you, but rather it started slipping away on its own, more and more each day until you realize you’re holding onto nothing when there once was everything.
You can’t say that you’re too familiar with that kind of hurt though. You’ve never fallen out of love before.
You don’t think Jungkook is too familiar with it either, at least not when he left you.
You wonder if he thinks about you from time to time and gets sad. You think he does, because you know that he loved you. Something ended for him too. The memories that you shared were his memories too.
You hope that it’s painful for him whenever thoughts of you cross his mind, because that would mean that he cares. That a part of him still cares.
And if he still cares, then he might come back.
Despite the front that you try to parade around, there is a part of you that will always leave your heart vacant for him, regardless of whether or not he would return. It’s a scary thought, one that you would rather avoid at all costs, one that says there will be no one that you love more than you loved Jungkook. Maybe there can’t be another person that you will love at all.
You can come back quietly, like the wind slipping through the crack I leave in the window at night; or you can announce your return resoundingly like a sudden downpour quenching the summer heat. I don’t care. I kept your side of the bed empty and warm, waiting for you to come back. Hoping that you would come home.
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[08:47] Yoongi: sure you don’t want me to drive you there? [08:48] Yoongi: i can pick you up in 30 [08:52] You: positive 🤧 i told you i already booked the train. it’s only 4 hours away [08:53] You: i’ll survive, yoongs [08:55] Yoongi: did you not watch Train To Busan? [08:56] You: ? [08:57] Yoongi: what if there’s a zombie apocalypse [09:00] You: yoongi if there’s a zombie apocalypse, how is your CONVERTIBLE supposed to keep me safe [09:01] Yoongi: i’ll put the roof up [09:02] You: stop talking [09:02] You: please stop talking. [09:03] Yoongi: 😡😡😡 [09:03] You: 😇 [09:03] You: gotta get dressed now though. i’ll see u when i get back? :) [09:05] Yoongi: fine [09:06] Yoongi: safe travels. text me when you get there :)
You plop onto your bed with a sigh, glancing at the bag that’s already packed and sitting near your wardrobe, lonely. You stay like that for a while, contemplating whether or not you should bail at the very last minute.
It was not on your bingo card that you’d be here, agonizing over your ex-boyfriend’s brother’s wedding. Nope. Absolutely no one saw it coming.
For fuck’s sake, why would they invite you to a wedding? A celebration of love? It feels like you’re being forced onto a prank show, just waiting for someone to jump out and scream in your face.
You learned that the wedding was for close friends and family only, so it would be a relatively small event, which makes it even more confusing why you were also asked to join. Maybe the world is changing too rapidly and you’re just a little old-fashioned for it, but you really don’t understand why your ex-boyfriend’s family would want you there.
Taehyung and Jimin were invited too; they’re Jungkook’s best friends after all. They’re practically an extension of the family, Jungkook’s brothers by choice. But Taehyung doesn’t come back from his work trip until the day of the wedding, and Jimin… Well, he just doesn’t want to go to a Busan wedding in the middle of winter.
So why are you even going?
You could’ve declined. Said you couldn’t attend because the invitation came in so late. Made up a work trip or a family emergency. There’s a plethora of excuses you could’ve used.
Or you could’ve simply said no. That would’ve been perfectly fine too. No one would even need to ask why.
But maybe it was because his mother had customized the invite with her own handwriting in the back. You would’ve missed it if you hadn’t spent hours meticulously studying the card like someone was going to quiz you. It wasn’t anything special - just We hope to see you there - but you think you’d feel really bad to decline after she’d made the extra effort to ask you to come.
When you told Yoongi that you would be attending Jungkook’s brother’s wedding, he didn’t seem upset. Still cool as a cucumber. Although if he was bothered by the announcement, you don’t think he would’ve let it show. It did take him a minute to take it in, but then he just pecked your cheek and asked if you could bring a plus-one. You both knew that you wouldn’t even if that was an option.
Pushing your body off the bed, you drag yourself to the bathroom to splash some water on your face. Then sunscreen. Then change into the clothes you’d already picked out last night. Your train doesn’t leave for another hour and fifteen minutes, but you want to be there at least twenty minutes early just in case. This is one of your only good habits.
You rub your eyes when you finally haul yourself outside, thinking you must still be dreaming because what is Jungkook’s car doing here?
You blink a few times, expecting the vehicle to disappear in a puff of white smoke.
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.
The car is in front of you, but the man is nowhere to be found.
You stand there dumbfoundedly, contemplating whether you should wait it out for a little bit to see if he’s actually here. He comes running up to you a couple minutes later, holding two paper cups in his hands, one of them a chai latte. A memory you’d buried long ago comes rushing to the surface. It’s too early for you to be feeling.
“Hi,” he says, his warm breath coming out in a huff of smoke in the crisp morning air.
“Hi?” you mutter dumbly when he trades the bag in your hand for the drink. There’s a moment where you’re genuinely baffled, wondering if this is a memory reel playing right before your eyes. This is your Jungkook, wearing that same old smile whenever he used to come bounding up your dorm building so you could walk to the library together, where he would hang out with you during your shift if he didn’t have classes. “What are you doing here?”
You don’t remember telling him what time your train was, so he’d probably badgered it out of Taehyung or Jimin somehow.
“I thought I could drive us there,” he says. “I texted you about it.”
Well, that explains it. You don’t bother with his dozens of messages anymore. “Oh, uhm, I already booked the train.”
This doesn’t seem to faze him at all. “Free cancellation up to 15 minutes before departure.” Jungkook grins, clearly eager despite your obvious reluctance. It’s too early for this, whatever the hell this is.
When you told him that you had RSVP’d yes to the invitation, he was surprised that you even knew about the wedding. He even seemed nervous that day.
“What if I’d already left?” you ask.
He blinks, then stammers like a confused child. It’s cute, and you have to mentally slap yourself over the head for even thinking that.
“Then I’d go after you.”
How? you scoff internally. Unrealistic.
Regardless, not even an hour ago, you were declining Yoongi’s offer to drive you there. Now, you’re standing here, in front of your ex-boyfriend, contemplating whether or not you should go with him.
“Let’s go,” he says after a minute. “We don’t wanna be stuck in traffic.”
“I haven’t said yes.” Yet. “It’s a 4-hour drive.”
You don’t have to clarify what you mean. He understands it.
You both just stare at each other for a moment, the tension suddenly thickening with every passing second. Four hours on the road. Four hours alone in a car with Jungkook. That’s about two hundred minutes more than you think you can handle.
It’s like he can see right through you. “Don’t think about it,” he says, voice dropping lower. “It’s just a weekend. Everything will still be here for you to think about when we get back.”
In your head, it translates to: All of our shit will still be here when we get back. You can keep being mad at me then.
You hope that’s not true. You hope that when you get back, the things that keep you up at night will simply cease to exist. That in the two days you’ll be gone, a genie will materialize and solve all your problems for you.
Either way, it’s probably for the best that you aren’t mean to him this weekend. You’re stuck with him for the next 48 hours or so; it’ll only stress you out even more if you channel all of your energy into tormenting him. Besides, you’re already the ex girlfriend who has no place alongside his family. You don’t want to be the dark cloud raining on everyone’s parade too.
Maybe you’d already made up your mind when you let him take the bag from you.
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For the first half of the drive, you were unconscious.
It’s a useless superpower that you have, the ability to fall asleep anywhere - literally anywhere, including in the passenger seat of your ex-boyfriend’s car while he escorts you to his hometown. Melatonin gummies manufacturers hate you.
You could’ve slept the whole drive, but around the second hour mark, you were startled awake when your body jostled forward, straining against your seatbelt uncomfortably. There was an arm trying to hold you back, despite the seatbelt having done its job well.
“Fuck,” Jungkook curses before he turns toward you, worry written all over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, are you okay?”
You blink, still half asleep. “I’m okay,” you say. The minivan that Jungkook almost rear-ended continues on its merry way, carrying what seems to be a family of five. “What happened?”
He sighs, his outstretched arm retreating back to his side. “I got a bit distracted, that’s all.”
You take in your surroundings then. There’s barely any other cars in sight, no tacky billboard that sticks out like a sore thumb to catch your attention. There’s just the freeway, stretching on empty for all you can see.
“By what?” you ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there.”
See, you have the superpower of falling asleep anywhere and everywhere, but once you’ve been woken up, it’s not as easy to fall back asleep.
That, and the fact that you’re hungry as shit.
You open your mouth, about to say no, about to offer to drive the rest of the way if Jungkook is tired, but your stomach doesn’t let you get a word out. It growls, filling the space of the car, making you want to chuck yourself out the fucking window and run all the way back to the city. This wouldn’t have happened had you taken the train, because if you had, there would’ve been food services and no one would be subject to hearing your stomach sing like it’s chewing out a small puppy in there. Life is nothing but an endless pit of embarrassment and despair.
Your arms hold themselves tighter around your frame, practically squeezing into your abdomen as you will it to please, please, please be quiet. Jungkook stares at you, and you can tell by the teeny tiny quirk of his lips that he’s trying to bite back a smile. He’s relaxed, but there’s still something hesitant on his face. It takes him a minute before he finally throws the question out.
“Do you want to go to that guksu place that we used-” that we used to go to, “you know the place. The one that’s right off the freeway?”
The sun is out today. The sky unfolds endlessly just outside the window, coloring blue everything your eyes land on. There are strips of clouds scattered here and there, like delicate strokes of white paint on an azure canvas. Even the winter cold has to soften.You bite into your cheek. Don’t think, that’s what he had told you.
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Not much about this quaint restaurant has changed. The quirky decorations are still where they used to be, the windows still the same unique stained glass that you never came across anywhere else. You remember the elderly woman who runs the place, even if she doesn’t have a single clue who you are. The golden retriever you used to fawn over every time you stopped by, sits quietly by the door and watches the cars pass by, his fur now graying as weariness begins to settle into those old bones.
You would’ve been displeased if the place had changed, because, well, you don’t like change. But then again, this familiarity is dangerous. It tricks you into thinking that everything is still the same, even you and him. Deludes you into believing that you’re still in love and that he’ll walk out of here holding your hand.
Regardless, the first spoonful has you biting back a smile.
“How is it?” Jungkook asks.
It makes you feel all warm inside, and then a little sad, nostalgic.
“Tastes just the same,” you tell him simply.
“Hmm.”
He lets you satisfy your hunger in peace. It’s the least he can do anyway.
There’s a wall near the back of the restaurant, where people could hang polaroids of themselves and cute handwritten notes. You think if you dig through the hundreds of photos scattered across the space, you might be able to find you and Jungkook there, if you two haven’t already been thrown out long ago to make room for new memories.
He pays for your food after you’re both finished, despite some protesting on your side. As you leave, you’re busy thinking that if you could have a moment to marvel at that far-back wall of memories, if you could find a photo of you and him there, you would probably sneak it into your coat pocket.
It’d be another thing to add to your pile of Jungkook memorabilia - the old clothes in the back of your closet, the stack of dusty polaroids at the bottom of your drawer. You wonder if he keeps anything of yours, maybe an old t-shirt that you forgot to take back. It’s probably unlikely, but a girl can hope.
You miss the way Jungkook glances back, thinking the exact same thing.
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You survive the rest of the drive with more ease, probably because of the food. You spend most of the remaining 2 hours leaning against the window, humming to the radio, closing your eyes but not really sleeping. You even forget to be nervous about what is to come.
That is, until the car pulls up to the venue.
It’s absolutely gorgeous, and a lot bigger than you imagined - a modern beach house overlooking the waters. It’s not as extravagant as one would expect to see when they come to a wedding, but considering the small crowd in attendance, this is more than enough. You see people rush in and out of the place even from far away - planners, caterers, the bridesmaids and groomsmen, probably.
You feel a bit comforted just watching this. His family seems to be doing a lot better than before. It’s nice to know.
You barely make it out of the car before someone calls your name, and pulls you into a hug that knocks the wind out of you. Although, when you catch the scent of her hair, you instantly know who it is.
Parents usually have a scent that’s distinct to only their kids, a scent so cozy and homely that no perfume can ever mask. You can only describe your mom’s scent with a feeling, specifically the feeling of your chest tightening, tingling with a bittersweetness that you never found elsewhere. 
Strangely enough, Jungkook’s mother has always made you feel the opposite. She makes you feel relieved to be in her embrace, like she accepts you for who you are even if all you are to her, at the end of the day, is a stranger.
You hug her back awkwardly, hesitantly, in front of Jungkook’s dad, his brother Junghyun, and a girl you don’t know. You assume that she’s the bride-to-be, the main character whom this weekend revolves around. Sooji, you remember that was the name on the wedding invitation.
You get choked up suddenly, eyes turning glassy though you quickly blink it away. You’re not sure if you’ve had someone be so happy to see you. Bypassers might even think that you just found the cure for cancer.
For a second there, you wonder if your mere presence has ever made your mother this overjoyed.
You look at Jungkook for help, silently asking him to rescue you. Who else are you supposed to turn to if not him?
He understands that look. “Okay, mom,” he says, entangling her arms from you with ease, “Y/N’s tired from the drive. Let’s let her rest, yeah? I’ll show her the room.”
She ignores her son. “Honey,” she says, brushing your hair away from your face so she could see you better. “Thank you for coming.” She used to insist that you call her “mom”, or at least by her first name because “Mrs. Jeon” was too formal for someone she considered family.
You now have to opt for the latter, because “mom” isn’t an option for you anymore.
“Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Jeon,” you tell her with a smile. You’re not really sure what else to say, but it makes you a little sad just calling her that.
She opens her mouth before closing it again, seemingly about to jokingly scold you for the formality before she recognizes the bittersweet look in your eyes. She just smiles at you then. There’s not much to be done about it.
You don’t know if anyone else sees how the moment is weighed down. Probably not. Maybe it’s just you and her who share this sentiment.
Jungkook doesn’t wait for his mom anymore. Sons, typical. He wedges himself between the two of you like a bulldozer and leads you inside the house. 
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Even though all you have is an overnight bag, Jungkook carries it for you all the way up to your room, which is only down the hall from his. Then he disappears pretty quickly afterward, saying something about his best man duties and putting out fires. He seems apologetic as he tells you this, but it’s not like you’re expecting him to babysit you all weekend.
You bore yourself to death in your room for a while, before you remember you have to text Yoongi to let him know you got here safely. Though, you stop short of telling him that it was Jungkook who drove you here. It’s trivial enough, right? You don’t want Yoongi to feel bad over nothing. You do, however, inform Taehyung and Jimin when you text them about it, to which Jimin only responds with a preemptively disapproving ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
When you get too stir-crazy, you wander outside, hoping to explore the beach before it gets dark and colder. You try to stay out of everyone’s way, because a good guest is a quiet guest. You seem to be doing a good job. No one notices you, not even Jungkook’s mom but that’s because she’s the person you actively want to avoid the most. You don’t know what you’d even say to her if she gets you alone.
Everything is hectic, as one can probably imagine when it comes to wedding preparations. You haven’t had anyone close to you get married yet, so it’s safe to say that you’re pretty much clueless about all of this. You wonder what it’ll be like when your big day comes around, if you even ever get married. You haven’t thought about it in a long time. Why would you? You don’t really have a reason to think about this. It’s much easier to picture Taehyung’s or Jimin’s wedding day than your own.
Your opinion on having kids still remains the same, and you were never one of those girls who daydreamed about having a big and extravagant wedding, but it’s not such a bad idea to ponder about. You still think marriage is a scary thing - it’s one of the biggest commitments a person could ever make - but you’re not entirely opposed to getting married. 
Why are you even mulling over this? Your time might never even come.
When you round the corner to get the steps that would lead you down to the beach, you run into Sooji and a woman holding a thick binder - must be a wedding planner. You give Jungkook’s future sister-in-law an awkward smile in greeting, which she returns much more gracefully before she tells the woman that she’ll be with her in a minute.
So now you’re stuck here, about to make small talk with a person you have never met before, and will likely never see again. Great. 
“Hi,” you say, extending a hand. “I haven’t had the chance to introduce myself. I’m Y/N.”
“I’m Sooji,” she replies warmly as she shakes your hand, and you have to stop yourself from being a little weirdo and thinking about how silky her hair looks up close. “You’re Jungkook’s… friend, right?”
You purse your lips before nodding with a chuckle. The pause tells you that she knows, and you wouldn’t be surprised if she’s uncomfortable having you here. 
“I’m sorry if this is weird. You probably don’t want a complete stranger at your wedding.”
Sooji shakes her head instantly, waving her hands around to dismiss your apology. “Please, it’s totally fine. Junghyun’s mom talked to me about it before we sent out the invites. I wouldn’t have agreed if I was really bothered. Don’t worry about it, seriously.”
“Why did you agree?” you ask, trying to sound as polite as possible. “You don’t know who I am.”
“I guess I was curious.” She shrugs, before laughing lightly as she says, “I used to think you weren’t real.”
“Huh?”
“She talks about you constantly. Never in front of Jungkook, of course. But she’s really fond of you, and you probably already know that doesn’t happen very often. She really does see you like a daughter. She made you sound too good to be true.”
You’re not sure how to respond to that. His mom still thinks about you, still talks about you after all this time. You’re just his ex-girlfriend, but she considers you her family. You don’t know what to do with this information nor the way it pinches your heart.
“I-” You purse your lips, fumbling with the responses in your head. You settle on a light laugh, because Sooji can probably tell that you’re struggling with the words too. “I have to be honest. I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just thought you should know that you’re still very much loved here.” She gives you a kind smile, and it looks like she wants to tell you something else but decides against it in the end. Sooji’s eyes land somewhere behind you before she points in that general direction. “I have to go take care of an issue with the flowers, but look, Jungkook is here. Why don’t you ask him to show you around?”
And then she’s already off. Overall, what a… strange interaction.
You turn around to see Jungkook standing near one of the entrances to the house. As you watch him talk to someone - a bridesmaid, you assume, or just one of the other guests - you try not to think about the fact that there’s a stirring sensation in your stomach, and that it only intensifies when she throws her head back in a pretty laugh, a perfectly manicured hand landing on his arm like he’s the most charming person she’s ever met. 
You don’t give it a name, don’t label it green in color even though you’re blue and he’s golden sunshine. You don’t acknowledge that it’s a feeling, because doing so would make it real and there are certain truths that you’d rather delude yourself into thinking are lies.
When Jungkook’s eyes catch yours and he cuts off the woman mid-sentence with a curt excuse me, you don’t acknowledge that feeling either, but it’s warm and it blooms in your chest as he makes his way to you. It’s something victorious, something that tickles your ribs.
He comes to you like you’re a destination he’s been waiting all his life to reach, and you certainly, adamantly don’t acknowledge the spectacularly dizzying feeling that swallows you whole when he places a gentle hand on your arm, his voice soft as he says, “There you are. I was looking for you.”
The familiarity, it’s catastrophic.
“I was just walking around,” you tell him. “There’s not a lot to do here. I was bored.”
“You have me,” he says. Probably not in that way, but you’d like to think that’s how he means it. “I don’t have any more fires to put out. What do you want to do now?”
You glance over your surroundings, still set on your original plans. You wanted to go alone, but you suppose you can let him accompany you. You check the time on your phone before asking, “Can we go down to the beach? I wanna see if we can catch the sunset.”
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You used to do this whenever you came here to visit - walk along the beach, hand in hand, sunlight in your hair and the cool breeze holding you tight in the afterglow.
The keyword here is “used to”. Now, you have to stuff your hands in your pockets just so you don’t reach for him every time you shiver.
It’s late enough in the afternoon for you to see the moon faintly shine against a blue and orange backdrop. Sun and moon, together in the same frame. It feels symbolic somehow. You’re not really sure.
“The moon looks like an egg,” Jungkook observes astutely, taking casual strides next to you. It makes you burst into easy laughter, which makes him laugh with you too. You stop walking when you reach what you think is a good spot to watch the sky. 
“Let’s sit here for a bit,” you say. It’s not the greatest idea - sitting idly by would only make you colder - but you just want to stop and look at the sunset. Once you’re seated in the sand, you respond to his moon remark, “That’s true, y’know. NASA said so.”
“Yeah,” he says, settling down beside you, “you made me read that.”
You’d forgotten about it, and you didn’t think that he’d remember. It’s freezing cold and the moon looks like an egg, but you’re not thinking, and you feel safe. Nothing can hurt you here, or at least that’s what you’d like to tell yourself.
You wrap your arms around yourself to keep from shivering, but you still shiver anyways.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
“A little,” you admit. “I should’ve worn a thicker sweater. But it’s o-”
He doesn’t let you finish the sentence, just smoothly takes off his jacket to put it around your shoulders.
You put your hands atop his to stop him. When you touch him, there’s an electric tingle that almost makes you flinch. He feels warm, still resembling a human furnace. 
“No, you don’t have t-”
“Take the jacket, Y/N,” he says. “It’s just a jacket.”
The jacket smells like him. It only makes you want to crawl further into the warmth.
He seems more self-assured here, that’s what you notice. More like the version of himself that he used to be. Confident, sometimes borderline cocky. Annoying but oddly endearing, you came to love that about him.
His relaxed demeanor is understandable. You’re merely a visitor here, while this is his homeground. 
“I’m curious about something,” he says after a while.
“Okay.”
“What’s the deal with Wednesdays?” he asks. 
“You know how they say bad things come in threes?” You purse your lips, thinking it over, feeling something bitter in your mouth as you recall the events that led to this. “My parents got divorced on a Wednesday. I moved out of mom’s house on a Wednesday. And…” You hold your knees close to your chest as you hesitate to utter this last part, “we broke up on a Wednesday.”
You see the exact moment Jungkook mentally slaps himself, paling a couple shades as he tongues his cheek, not expecting his question to inadvertently lead back to this. It wasn’t your intention to guilt trip him. It was true that he dumped you on a Wednesday, but you don’t want the mood to turn sour, to have to mull over this again. Like he said, it will still be there for you to worry about when you get back. You’re not looking forward to returning to a shitshow, but what you’d hate even more is to tarnish the memories of this place just because you can’t keep from being vindictive for not even a weekend.
“I was born on a Wednesday too, so I guess bad things come in fours sometimes,” you continue, chuckling to yourself humorlessly.
A frown appears on his face almost instantaneously. “What is that supposed to mean?”
You shrug. Jungkook turns his body toward you, which makes you spare him a glance before you return your gaze to the horizon. His face is so serious that it’s almost funny. “Y/N,” he presses. “Why would you say that?”
“C’mon, it’s a joke. I was just being self-deprecating. Lighten up.”
“Why are you talking like that?”
“Like what? Contrary to popular belief, I don’t walk around with a thundercloud over my head all the time,” you laugh lightly. “I figured if there was a day to be nice to you, it should be today. And tomorrow, I guess.”
“This is you being nice?”
Funny how just a few weeks ago, you were fighting with him and calling him a hypocrite. Now, you’re sitting together, watching the sun set, trying not to be mean to him.
“I’m not picking a fight with you,” you say. “This is nice enough.”
“It’s not even my wedding.”
“Okay.” You glance at him again, letting words flow without a single thought. “I’ll be even nicer to you on your wedding day then.”
You don’t know where that even came from, but something aches the very second the words leave your mouth. The thought of him getting married one day makes you just nauseous, even though you always knew that it was a possibility. It might even be inevitable.
You clear your throat, waving the sullen feeling away. Your body shivers then, even after the added warmth of his jacket. Maybe you’re not shivering because of the cold anymore.
He doesn’t say anything, but you can feel his eyes linger on the side of your face. The both of you keep tiptoeing around an elephant that follows you wherever you go. 
You hug your knees close to your chest, watching the blue sky melt into the golden horizon, splattered with ribbons of cotton candy clouds.
You want to scooch closer to him and have him wrap his arm around your shoulders. This isn’t the spot where you used to draw your names in the sand, enveloped in a giant heart like two lovesick kids, but wouldn’t it be nice to imagine that it is?
“I was always really happy here,” you mumble to yourself.
You were, truly. This city was your pocket of hope, your piece of peace.
Being here brings back so many memories.
It’s the same feeling you get every time you pass by somewhere you used to live. The nostalgia of walking down the same road you used to walk every day until your shoes wore out. The familiarity of your surroundings. The bittersweetness of looking into a past you cannot hold anymore, of remembering the person you were at a certain period in your life, of knowing the things you do now that you didn’t back then.
You long for things you cannot change.
Nostalgia only grows stronger with time, you can always count on that.
He hums in agreement, before admitting quietly, “I miss you.” One pulls, the other pushes. The water wavers, like it’s touched by his words, simple but earnest. You’re touched too, somewhere in your heart, where you know you should be writing someone else’s name now.
Should?
“You’re pushing it,” you say softly.
“I know.”
You look at him. Maybe it’s because you’re back in the city that holds only good memories of you two. Maybe you’re hypnotized by the way the pink and purple hues kiss his side profile, making him feel like a fever dream and not someone you loved. Maybe it’s the cold, making you yearn for any source of warmth. But instead of returning his sentiment, you say, “It’ll pass.”
He meets your eyes. There’s something pleading in his gaze. All things pass eventually. Time moves forward, people move on. Bad things will pass sooner or later. Your worst heartbreak, your most arduous trials, your saddest moments, they will all pass.
And good things… good things will have to pass too, whether you like it or not.
Your fingers twitch from where they’re still holding onto your body. You itch to reach for his hand. You don’t tell him what he wants to hear, even though here’s a part of you that wants to say it back. In a better world, you would be telling him I love you too, instead of having to suppress an I miss you too.
“All things have to pass eventually. This will too.”
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[20:05] Taebear 🐻: we could go to that bar near the gallery. Y/N likes the cocktails there [20:06] Mimi 🐥: kay kay [20:06] Mimi 🐥: soooooo next friday? [20:09] Mimi 🐥: why is y/n reading our messages. shouldn’t she be at dinner [20:09] You: i approve of the bar choice [20:11] You: if you didn’t want me reading your messages, you shouldn’t have sent them to the gc [20:11] You: and if you must know, i’m skipping dinner. i’m avoiding Jungkook’s mom [20:12] Mimi 🐥: understandable. i figured you would do that [20:13] Mimi 🐥: how’s it going? are we regretting going yet? i told you to just stay home and we could binge watch the office together [20:15] You: and EYE told you that you could be a good friend and go to this wedding with me but nooooo baby doesn’t like the cold [20:16] You: you could’ve visited your parents while you’re here you know. two birds with one stone [20:18] Mimi 🐥: babes my parents stayed with me for a whole month last month. i reached my quota for family face time  [20:19] You: son and friend of the year 👏 [20:20] Mimi 🐥: 😎😎😎😘
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[20:22] Taebear 🐻: hey [20:23] You: uh oh. am i in trouble? why is this not in the gc? [20:25] Taebear 🐻: lol shut up [20:26] Taebear 🐻: you okay? [20:28] You: feels like that could’ve been a perfectly good question to ask in the gc [20:29] Taebear 🐻: because it’s a serious question and we both know Jimin can’t be serious for one minute to save his life [20:32] You: why does it have to be a serious question? 🤪 [20:32] Taebear 🐻: 😕 [20:33] You: stop pouting. i’m fine [20:35] Taebear 🐻: are you? [20:36] You: i am! you don’t have to go all mama bear on me [20:39] Taebear 🐻: ha ha ha. you’re so funny [20:40] Taebear 🐻: want me to call you? [20:42] You: i said i’m fiiiiiine 🙄 [20:43] You: but also no because i told everyone i was tired and i’m pretending to be asleep in my room right now [20:43] Taebear 🐻: okay [20:43] Taebear 🐻: did you eat something at least? [20:44] You: i have a cup ramen in my room [20:45] Taebear 🐻: okay [20:46] Taebear 🐻: how was today? did JK make you wanna strangle him? [20:48] You: okay Kim Taehyung at least act like you have some faith in your friend lol [20:50] You: but mmmmmm it was ok. he was mostly behaving himself [20:51] Taebear 🐻: mostly? [20:54] You: we were down at the beach and he just told me he missed me out of the blue [20:55] You: Mimi is asking why no one is replying to him  [20:57] Taebear 🐻: i can see that [20:58] Taebear 🐻: what did you tell JK? [21:01] You: i quoted fleabag to him [21:09] Taebear 🐻: i had to google that [21:10] Taebear 🐻: i still don’t know what that means [21:11] You: i know you don’t lol. you’re adorable [21:11] You: i’ll tell you when i get back.  [21:13] You: ok bye i have to sleep early or i’ll look like ass in the morning [21:14] Taebear 🐻: oh. okay [21:15] Taebear 🐻: sleep tight. remember not to gorge yourself on booze tomorrow [21:17] You: thanks for the reminder. love you mom 🙄💕 [21:17] Taebear 🐻: :) [21:20] Taebear 🐻: you won’t look like ass btw
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You clocked out right after you told Taehyung that you would. It wasn’t a peaceful sleep though. The anxiety simmering in your belly woke you up a few times throughout the night. You don’t even know why you were anxious. It’s not like you were the one who was about to walk down the aisle.
When morning finally came and you managed to untangle yourself from the surprising comfort of your familiar bed, you practically dragged your feet for the subsequent two hours, trying to get ready. As if that would actually slow down the passage of time.
You had to compartmentalize the things you needed to do in a mental checklist. Makeup. Hair. Dress. Stare at yourself in the mirror for half an hour and internally freak out while waiting for Jungkook to come get you from your room.
Now you’re sitting in the wedding hall, watching people filter into the room. It’s not even a lot of people, but you’re still overwhelmed regardless.
You feel so exposed, even though he’s the only one looking at you in this room of strangers. He’s been looking at you like that ever since he first saw you this morning, in a dress that you got just days before the wedding. You still don’t know if it’s entirely appropriate for your ex-boyfriend’s brother’s wedding - maybe a bit revealing - but it was the only one you could find on such short notice.
When you tried on the dress for Taehyung and Jimin a few days ago, Taehyung said you looked beautiful. Jimin said you looked decent, “six point five out of ten,” which translated to “pretty nice” in Jimin-lingo. That would’ve been enough if you were going to any other wedding, not one where Jungkook would also be attending.
You had wanted him to see you and regret ever leaving you.
It was a silly thought, just a tad adolescent.
You had wanted him to see you in your dress and be consumed with thoughts of you until he couldn’t even see straight. To be the only thing on his mind, you didn’t think it was a lot to ask for.
That was before he told you not to think about it and you’d been convinced to just go with the flow just for two days. It was before he actually did see you earlier today in your dress - a simple midnight blue satin cowl neck with a slit in the thigh - but you were the one rendered helpless and speechless. He had stared at you for a minute when he came to walk you down from your room, then he’d said, all breathless even though both of you were just standing there, “You’re beautiful.”
You’re beautiful, not You look beautiful.
You don’t know why, but you appreciated it.
It made your cheeks burn underneath your artificial rosy blush. Stupid, you thought to yourself when you two made your way to the main hall. Stupid for letting yourself get dizzy because of a single compliment from him.
You’re seated with his parents, which makes sense because you don’t know anybody here except for them. Well, maybe you know one of his cousins whose kid you and Jungkook used to babysit whenever their family was in the city, but you doubt that he even remembers you anymore.
When the ceremony begins, your heart instantly feels like it’s about to drop to the pit of your stomach.
You can’t lie to yourself. It stings.
It stings just sitting here next to his parents like a daughter-in-law, like a member of their family, watching his brother solidify his happy ending.
It stings that Jungkook is standing up there, looking as handsome as ever, but his eyes aren’t on the couple. They keep flickering to you no matter how much you try to pretend that they don’t.
It stings that even though you don’t think about marriage often - or maybe you just don’t allow yourself to - you can’t deny that the thought does cross your mind from time to time. Any time that you’d wander the corridors inside your head, you’d pass the doors that you keep unopened on purpose but there’s always that one door marked with a bright red X that you can never sidestep.
You watch Junghyun and Sooji with their teary smiles and shaky hands, shaky but happy. There’s a sudden clarity that this could’ve been you and him in another life. Forever is a lie, but you would’ve perjured yourself a thousand times for him. I do - you would’ve meant it.
You imagine yourself in Sooji’s place, and Jungkook, standing right on the other side, holding both your hands in his. A beautiful and radiant bride terrified of the altar. A dashing groom with a smile that could rival the sun and shoulders weighing heavier than he lets on.
It would’ve looked clumsy, but it could’ve been right.
You wonder if he’s wondering the same thing. Maybe he is. You hope he is.
When the ceremony ends with a kiss shared between the newlyweds, you wipe away the tears that well up in your eyes. The people around you do the same thing, but they’re doing it for the right reason, out of genuine joy for the happy couple. You don’t think you can say the same for yourself.
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Some of the bridesmaids fawn over him. It’s reasonable, you suppose. One tends to do that in the presence of Jeon Jungkook.
You watch as they come up to him one by one to ask him to dance, watch as he politely declines until they’re all stalking away with similar pouts on their faces. You watch him until his eyes lock on you, sitting at a table near the back, nursing a glass of champagne.
He weaves himself with ease through the people making their way to the dance floor. When he’s in front of you, he holds out a hand.
“Dance with me?” he asks, his doe eyes working overtime to lure you in with their sparkles, though you’d rather stay here where you can easily go unnoticed until the night ends. “One song?”
“I don’t know how,” you say, even as you’re taking his hand and standing up.
“I showed you how, remember?”
“That was a long time ago.”
He squeezes you reassuringly. “Just follow my lead,” he says, walking the both of you to the floor. “C’mon.”
Once the music starts, your heels stomp on his feet at least three times before you start finding the beat to move along to. Muscle memory, or whatever, is bullshit. You remember absolutely nothing of what he showed you.
You’re grateful that the song is slow, because it makes it easier for you to follow the beat with your two left feet. He takes one of your hands in his, the other settling on the small of your back, guiding you to move in a steady rhythm.
You feel his mother’s eyes on the two of you, because she must be somewhere nearby, watching you like a hawk. You feel his gaze on your face while you keep yours on the knot of his tie, just trying to keep your composure and to not step on his feet with your heels.
The blur of white that you catch from the periphery of your vision makes you turn your head. Sooji and Junghyun are close by, swaying together slowly to the soft music, both of them glowing with happiness. She must sense your eyes on her, because she lifts her gaze up to meet yours. She smiles at the sight of you and Jungkook, and you smile back, because you don’t know how else to respond to that.
You don’t say it, but you do think it. Your fingers tighten around his hand ever so slightly.
Could that have been us?
If the answer is yes, then it would hurt.
If the answer is no, then it would hurt.
The point of your story is that it’s painful however you choose to look at it. There’s no other way to frame it. It’s just painful, because you’re never going to get any of it back.
You bite your lip, then turn away from the happy couple but you still don’t look at Jungkook. You look at your hand in his, and that’s when you see it.
“How’d you get that?” you ask, gently tracing the inch of slightly raised skin on his knuckles. You never noticed the scar until now.
“It was four years ago, I think? After Taehyung and I almost got into a fight, I went outside and… punched a wall,” he says, wincing as he recalls the memory.
His answer takes you aback. “You and Taehyung got into a fight?”
“Almost,” he corrects. “It was a long time ago. Didn’t they tell you?”
“No, they didn’t say anything. What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“If it was really nothing, you wouldn’t have punched a wall.” You frown. It makes you miss a few beats, but the song isn’t what’s important now, even if Jungkook is still trying to steer you back into the dance. “Taehyung isn’t violent. You aren’t violent.”
“I’m serious,” he says finally. “It’s nothing. We were just drunk and stupid.”
You know there must be more to it, that something must have happened or been said to trigger such a reaction from both of them. But you also know that you won’t probably get anything out of Jungkook if he doesn’t want to tell you.
You give up, for now. “Fine. If you say so.”  You’ll just have to weasel it out of Jimin later.
The song comes to an end, before another one comes on. If Jungkook remembers that he only asked for one song, maybe he’s counting his blessings that you’re still here and dancing with him, because he doesn’t mention it.
For some reason, you pull your hand away from his, only to slide up his shoulder to lock both of your hands behind his neck. He seems surprised, but he does the same around your waist.
Jungkook’s gaze flickers to your lips briefly, then back to your eyes again. You find yourself doing the same and wonder what he tastes like after all the time you’ve been apart. Is he still as sweet as you remember? You used to tease that it was because of the excessive sugar he put in everything, but you knew it was really just him. The few inches between you are so inviting that it’s practically tempting you to close the gap. You could, easily in fact. Blame it on one too many glasses of champagne later if you want.
He looks younger like this, like the boy you loved, starry eyes and dimpled smile. His shoulders are always the most comfortable resting place, the crook of his neck your long lost home. This is nice, you think, to see him again even though it feels like a fever dream. Memories of your first date, your first kiss, come to life before your eyes so realistically that you could almost touch them.
Loved? That sounds funny to you.
The people you used to be, souls wrapped in innocence, when the world was nothing but the arms of the person you loved. You reach out, and the memories quickly fade from view. The only trace they leave behind is a speck of gold on your fingertips, a memento of charming naiveté for you to tuck neatly away in the corner of your mind, but also a reminder that ah, they only exist in the locket of your heart now. Because he has changed, and you think you must have too. Life, as they say, goes on.
“We made it. Kind of. That’s crazy,” you find yourself saying.
“Did we?”
“You don’t think so?” you chuckle. “We’re in a group chat with the Kim Seokjin who spams it with bad jokes on a daily basis. I’d call that a win.”
That makes him laugh. “If you put it like that, yeah, maybe. Sure.”
Other people might be fooled, but it doesn’t sound at all convincing to you. The light doesn’t really reach his eyes. You bite the inside of your cheek, thinking of how to translate the sudden poignant turn of the moment.
“It isn’t everything you hoped it’d be?” you ask.
His shoulders rise then fall quickly in a second-long shrug. “I thought it would make me feel more… fulfilled. But it doesn’t. Not really.”
The way he says it and the way he’s looking at you makes your heart dive. You understand what he means. You’re good at what you do, and you don’t need reassurance from anyone to recognize that. But sometimes, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. Doesn’t feel like it’s real, like it’s validated.
When you landed your first big project, even before Yoongi, you were so proud of yourself. You were bursting with excitement but you weren’t happy, and you knew what the reason was. Something was missing that couldn’t be filled, not even with all your friends’ hundreds of messages of encouragement. 
It’s beyond stupid, this feeling like your wins amount to nothing at all just because of one person. You wanted him there to celebrate every achievement with you and he wasn’t, and the milestones seemed incomplete without the presence of him. It doesn’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything because this always used to be a dream you thought you’d make come true together.
“It’s lonely,” he concludes.
It sounds like he feels the same way, like he wanted you to be there too.
He suddenly holds you tighter than you think he needs to, like he’s afraid to let go of you. You imagine that he doesn’t want to let go of you, and it makes you feel better for a second. But it doesn’t change the fact that he still did in the end. And he will have to when this ends.
What was the point of this? Why did he bring this upon yourselves when he seems to be as hurt as you are? All of this time, all of these years, lost to what? You could’ve been happy together but instead, you were both lost and miserable.
When the music stops - you lost count of how many songs it’s been - you pull away from him. He looks disappointed, maybe even a little hurt for some reason.
“I’m gonna get some air,” you say, already turning away from him.
“Y/N-”
“I need some air.” Then you’re weaving through the dancing couples despite Jungkook calling your name. How did he manage it? How did he not look back when you called out for him?
You hastily grab your coat on the way out. It’s not going to keep you warm, but that’s not something you’re even remotely concerned with.
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It’s everywhere, you feel it down to your bones.
The wind wraps itself tightly around you, intertwining in your hair, slipping through the cracks of your fingers, caressing your face in a chilling touch. You greet the cold like a long lost sister, shivering violently with nostalgia. It was there for you more than your own flesh and blood.
Is that why you like the sea at night? Because it reminds you of mom?
It’s dark out here, barely anything is visible except for a lighthouse sending out light in the quiet of the night. You can’t see much, but you can certainly hear it. You’re not sure if the music is coming from inside the venue, or if it’s still ringing in your ears. It’s probably the latter; you’re too far away to be able to catch the music anyway. But regardless, the tune is quickly drowned out by the sea.
The waves crash violently against the shore like it’s out for blood. There’s a magnetic pull, as if it’s calling out for you. You want to go to it, to reach out and feel the cold outside of your body for once, but you stay there despite your legs itching to stand up and run straight ahead. Into the water and down under.
You could lie down and close your eyes for a moment. The sound of the water, as sharp and brutal as it is, nurtures a part of you somehow.
You just want to be alone. You don’t want to talk to Taehyung, or Jimin, or even Yoongi.
Oh.
Yoongi.
It’s a terrible feeling, knowing that you’re going to hurt Yoongi. Knowing that you’re going to kill this even before it has a chance to truly begin.
Truth be told, you can’t envision a future with Yoongi. There isn’t anything wrong with him, because he’s not the problem here. Yoongi is fun, he’s considerate, he keeps things light on purpose for you, until you’re ready to initiate something more serious. He’s good for you, even Taehyung thinks so.
But you can’t love Yoongi, not in the way that he wants you to. Not more than you love Jungkook.
There you go. Ruining things again.
Did you ruin Jungkook? Is that what happened?
The layers on you are no match for the sea at night. The wind hisses relentlessly, biting at any part of your skin that’s exposed.
It takes you back to that night. Almost everything does, actually.
Maybe that’s why you never even stopped to consider starting anything with anyone, because it always ends. If there’s a beginning, then there will be an inevitable ending. Love isn’t made to last and you aren’t meant to carry love with you. You’ve been abandoned twice. If it happens a third time, it’s a pattern, and then your hypothesis will only be proven. That the problem here is you.
You’d be lying if you said you haven’t wondered when it’ll finally be Taehyung’s turn to leave. He eventually will, right? That one’s gonna hurt.
Then, you’re startled when someone calls your name.
“What’s wrong?” Jungkook asks. The wind and the waves masked the sound of his footsteps walking up to you. When you turn around to face him, his eyes grow worried, almost panicked. “Why are you crying?”
You breathe out irritatedly before you hastily wipe at your cheeks. You didn’t even realize that you’d been crying. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” you say, though you both know it’s a lie. “I’m just tired. I’m going up to my room.”
He catches your wrist in a firm grip when you try to walk away. You wish he’d just leave you alone, but you knew he wouldn’t drop it just like that.
“I said I’m fine,” you insist.
“You were crying,” he says. “Did I do something wrong?”
He didn’t, at least not tonight.
God, you really don’t want to do this right now.
“Jungkook,” you warn. “Let go of me.”
You try to free yourself from his grip, hoping that he’ll get the hint and back off for now. Instead, he pulls you into his chest, where you struggle to escape from his hold until you realize your efforts are futile. He takes the wind’s place, wound tightly around you, so tightly that it’s nearly impossible for you to move.
You hiss out his name, but he doesn’t budge. 
“Jungkook, can you just- Fuck!”
Damn him.
You realize he’s not giving up, which in turn makes you give up struggling, hoping that if you let this be a moment, then it’ll be something that can pass.
You’re just standing there, letting him hold you, letting yourself be held by the person who broke you in the first place. This feels exactly like where you’re supposed to be - in his arms, with your face hidden in the crook of his neck, his gentle fingers stroking your hair. There’s not a lot that you could do but lean into that feeling the same way you lean into him. One foot in the sand, one foot in the past. A hand on the doorknob of time, wondering if you should look back or look forward.
You want to be alone, but that never used to apply with him.
The wind stills, the sea calms. You remain unmoving too, locked in his embrace. You feel the faint rhythm of his heart, beating faster than you think it should. If you could, you would bottle this moment up and live there forever.
I miss you, you think.
I miss you.
I miss you.
I miss you.
Then your arms are around him too. It only makes him hold you tighter, and all you can think about is how much you miss him, how painful it is to miss him, how you feel like you’re being pulled apart at the seams from the weight of missing him. 
Fuck.
Can you pretend that the last few years never happened? Is there a higher power that would allow you to go back to the night before that wretched Wednesday, when everything was still perfect? Hundreds of days of your life, can you pretend that it was just one long nightmare? When you wake up, you’ll be back in his humble apartment, tangled up together in his bed. Warm sunlight, your silken youth, and him. It was all you ever needed.
Again with the devastating familiarity. The city, the beach. His mother’s warmth that always made you reminisce about your own mother’s coldness. How Jungkook used to find you in moments like this and just stayed by your side until the dejection passed. He understood that he could never understand it the way you did.
You hear yourself sniffle, then you feel him press a kiss into your hair. Home is comforting.
Oh, you never want to leave.
You don’t want to leave, and that’s terrifying.
You allow yourself to stay there for one more second - one endless second - so you could commit to memory what it’s like to be with him. Back and forth. It’s always so easy to fall into him.
Jungkook releases you when he feels you loosen after a while, and you reluctantly meet his eyes as he tilts your head to face him.  His fingers cradling your jaw, how warm and delicate they feel on your skin.
You swallow thickly, your mind going blank. He’s the only person you see, the only one that matters. His eyes flicker south, and even then you don’t make any move to run away, despite his loose grip on your waist telling you that you can if you want to.
You told him that it would pass, and maybe for him, it will. For him, it’s the city and the moment, making him feel like he’s caught up in a page that he’s turned over a long time ago. He was fine with leaving, and he’s been fine without you. It will pass for him, as much as it hurts you to admit it.
But not for you. For you, there’s only him. There’s nobody else but him. It’s always been him, no matter how hard you try to tell yourself that there will be another person you can love as much as you love Jungkook. You might only be a page, perhaps even a chapter, in the story of his life, but he’s your entire book. He’s volume after volume after volume, until he takes up the whole shelf and leaves no room for anything else, not even for yourself.
And now here he is - at the biggest turn in your career.
He’s a bad blood cell you can’t ever get rid of.
You’ll never be able to truly let go of him. How could you? When you truly love someone, those feelings will carry on forever. They’ll always have a piece of your heart despite an ending. When you look back on a certain period in your life, you’ll think to yourself, You’ll always be a part of me. I loved you then.
But Jungkook is a force of nature. He has your whole heart.
Years and years from now, when you look back on your life, you know you’ll see him everywhere. Even when you’re old and gray, and when faces all just blur together in a mosaic of broken memories and long lost youth, you know you’ll still remember him - the person you loved, the one whom you let slip through your fingers. The great love of your life when you were young.
Sometimes, you regret that day. You can’t help feeling like it was your fault too. Maybe you should’ve tried harder to keep him. You should’ve fought harder, should’ve held onto him instead of standing there and watching him leave.
He lit the match, and you let the house burn. It takes two to tango, two to break a heart.
You’re quick to let people leave. Oh, how you wish it could be that easy to let them go too.
It isn’t until your eyes mimic the flicker of his gaze that he leans in. You meet him halfway. For the first time in years, you feel like you could breathe, truly breathe. It’s achingly slow, like neither of you can believe that this is happening. 
You sigh against his mouth when his tongue brushes your bottom lip, slips past the seal to devour you. It feels like a perfect dream. You could stay in this bubble with him forever, pretend that you’re the only two people who exist in the world and there’s nothing else, no one else, waiting for you in a city that seems so far away right now. The thought of him never left you, not even for a second. He’s always been with you everywhere you go, no matter what you do, always in the back of your mind.
He tastes like your youth, like remembrance. He kisses you like he’s still yours when deep down you know that you’re still his. The hand on your jaw is gentle but firm, and it makes you repeat a thought, I miss you.
Then a feeling, I love you.
Not then. Now.
I love you now.
I love you even when I shouldn’t. Even when it hurts. Even when you leave me. Even when you don’t love me more than I love you. If there comes a day where you love somebody else, I will still love you then. There will never be another person for me but you. My first and only love.
When he pulls away, you think it’s too quick, even though your lungs are grateful for the breath that you instantly inhale. You stare at his lips like you’re in a daze, mesmerized, wanting to chase them again. You don’t even know how you have it in yourself to utter these next words, but you hear your own voice saying them anyway.
You’re holding onto him now. Doesn’t that count?
“Let’s…” Your fingers tighten on the collar of his dress shirt. ���Let’s go up to your room.”
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note (2): so... what do we think?? will they?? won't they?? 😵 stay tuned for obs7.5 which will be dropping 29.09.2023! also i'm gonna pause obs muse asks for a little bit! 😬
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all rights reserved © jeonqkooks. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted september 24, 2023]
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juliasgoodusername · 1 year
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Sometimes a girl has to go a little crazy. Sometimes a girl has to make a book-accurate floorplan for 300 Fox Way. These things just happen, sometimes.
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Obsessive annotations under the cut ✨ but be warned, there's a LOT
Exterior
Okay first of all, I'm no architect, and my only knowledge comes from work experience in the real estate industry + a lot of Sims. The style is sort of neo-rural French colonial. I didn't set out to adhere to that standard so much as I made an amalgamation of homes in Blue Ridge Mountains-adjacent towns in Virginia. Specifically, my headcanon Henrietta template is Orange, VA (I'll save that explanation for another post) so I took inspiration from real estate listings from there.
Alright alright I know there is supposed to be one bathroom, but I simply can't tolerate that in a house with 6+ residents. I can't. There was a possible contradiction in the descriptions of "the single shared bathroom" that I used as an excuse to add a 3/4 bath, and I threw in a powder room for free. Because technically there is still only one full bathroom! But seriously with that many women over 30 most of them probably have IBS or chronic constipation and I'm not making them all share a toilet.
Officially we only have 4 bedrooms listed in text: Blue's, Persephone's, Maura's, and Calla and Jimi's shared one. Everyone else gets rooms that don't qualify as bedrooms via Virginia residential building codes (such as the attic, obviously, which falls below the combined ceiling height and square footage requirements). That really just leaves Orla unaccounted for but I'll get to that later. Other aunts and friends seem to visit during the day and live somewhere else, because in The Raven King only Jimi and Orla were described as needing to move out of the house during the demon stuff.
I designed the entire interior floorplan before I even touched the exterior, so there's a few issues, like how I'm totally missing shutters on the windows that functionally need them most. 🫶 I didn't feel like making the windows smaller to fit them, and I could have added faux-shutters but I think those are stupid. 😘
First floor
"This house is lovely. So many walls. So, so many walls," Malory said as Blue entered the living room a little later.
- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Chapter 30
Right off the bat, we have an insane number of doors and walls. Old colonial houses are pretty much the opposite of open concept. Functionally I believe that's because it's easier to control heat with closed off rooms, but Virginia is not particularly cold so idk. As for the number of doors, I mean....😤😤😤 I prefer archways/doorless frames in small high-traffic spaces, but every time I thought I could get away with it Maggie would specifically describe doors opening and closing (For example BL,LB Ch 41 gives the reading room double doors, and even the living room gets one in Ch 11. What kind of living room needs a door???). I'm actually missing one of the doorways described in canon, but if you know which one I'm talking about I DARE you to find a place to put that thing!! But I digress.
“Mom," she said as she jumped down the crooked stairs.
- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3
I'm liberally using "crooked" to establish the corner turn stairs. Blue steadies herself on the stair railing when she identifies Gansey for the first time (TRB Ch 15), so I wanted the stairs to have good visual access to visitors. It also sort of has a feng shui-ish effect of separating the public and private energy zones in the house. If that statement made zero sense, I think one of us doesn't know enough about feng shui 👀 and it might be me.
I'm also using that quote to establish Maura's room downstairs, if Blue generally expects to find her mother there, but mostly because everything else was upstairs and it was getting hard to fit. Granted, at one point Blue leads the boys "up the stairs to Maura's bedroom" (TDT Epilogue) but since they were just arriving at 300 Fox Way those stairs could easily be the outdoor ones. There's a handful of little things to support me here, such as Adam grabbing a scrying bowl from Maura's room to use in the reading room (BL,LB Ch 41) implying that her room was the closest place to find one. And speaking of Maura's room-
Calla was overwhelmed by how much shit Maura had in her room at 300 Fox Way, and she told Blue this.
... The mess was taking years from her life. ... Maura liked chaos.
... The psychic hotline rang in the room next door. Calla's concentration fluttered away.
- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Prologue
Maura is my favorite hypocrite. She claims to detest clutter (TRB Ch 34) and yet her room is literally described as chaos. She probably treats her room like a college student and moves the furniture every time she gets bored/stressed. Thus, I gave her the most insane furniture configuration I could think of while still matching all the contents described.
The phone ringing next door might imply that she neighbors the phone/sewing/cat room, but that area is pretty well described and Maura's room is never mentioned there in any other instance. That leaves us with the kitchen phone (TRB Ch 27) which I put in the hallway with kitchen access as a compromise so it would technically still be in a room next to Maura's.
In the reading room, the man looked around with clinical interest. His gaze passed over the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally landed on a framed photograph of Steve Martin.
- The Raven Boys, Chapter 13
There are so many quotes about the reading room that I just don't feel like citing them, but other details include the mismatched chairs, the shelves, doors etc. It's also described specifically as Maura's "front room" (TRB Prologue) so it's one of the cornerstones that I designed the rest of the layout around. Because of the plants, it makes sense that this room would be south-facing too. (Although idk how much light they get with the wraparound porch awning in the way. Oops lol!)
The outside suddenly seemed vivid in comparison to the dim kitchen. The April-bright trees pressed against the windows of the breakfast area, ...
- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3
Blue Stormed into 300 Fox Way's kitchen and began a one-sided interrogation with Artemus, who was still hidden behind the closed storage closet door.
- The Raven King, Chapter 9
Likewise, I'm using the particularly dim kitchen to place it on the north side, where we also know there's trees in the backyard.
I'll say the kitchen layout is weirder than it strictly needed to be because in the Virginia homes I referenced I adored all the strange kitchens, especially with old timey 'servants area' vibes where laundry kitchen and pantry are all connected. Instead of a kitchen island, they get one of those rolling kitchen carts which I doubled as a bar cart for the drinks they have in the living room.
The kitchen has a doorway to the hall (TRB Ch 13) and the living room is within view when Blue's on the kitchen phone (Ch 27).
Speaking of chapter 27, that's when we get the description "The morning light through the windows turned the drinks a brilliant, translucent yellow." So I put the living room on the east side of the house, where the rising sun would cast really strong light like that.
Second Floor
When she woke up, her normally morning-bright room had the breath-held dimness of afternoon. In the next room over, Orla was talking to either her boyfriend or to one of the psychic hotline callers.
- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3
Blue headed toward the red-painted door at the end of the hall. On her way, she had to pass the frenzy of activity in the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and the furious battle for the bathroom. The room behind the red door belonged to Persephone, ...
- The Raven Boys, Chapter 11
Blue's room and the Phone/Sewing/Cat room are our cornerstones for this floor. In several examples we know that the Phone/Sewing/Cat room faces the street and has a window (TRB Ch 15, BL,LB Ch 4). While Blue's room is "morning-bright," we also get descriptions of guests at the front door "backlit by the evening sun," (TRB Ch 15) so once again we're probably talking about south windows if it's sunlit at both times of day.
Adam sat awkwardly on the edge of Blue's bed. It felt strange to have so easily gained access to a girl's bed- room. If you knew Blue at all, the room was unsurprising - canvas silhouettes of trees stuck to the walls, leaves hanging in chains from the ceiling fan, a bird with a talk bubble reading WORMS FOR ALL painted above a shelf cluttered with buttons and about nine different pairs of scissors. Against the wall, Blue self-consciously taped up the drooping branch on one of the trees.
- The Dream Thieves, Chapter 49
We get some great descriptions of Blue's room (especially TRB Ch 43), although the above one is my favorite (#wormsforall). Every piece of furniture is accounted for exactly as described except the desk which I added because it seemed practical, and Blue is nothing if not practical™.
Persephone's room is also very well-described, all the way down to the furniture and lighting placement (BL,LB Ch 4 and TRB Ch 11) and it's surprisingly similar to Blue's room, if not a bit smaller. Her room gets strong afternoon sunlight, so I put it on the south too (BL,LB Ch 43).
Calla and Jimi share a room that's also upstairs (TRK Ch 16). Because they are the only two who have to share a room, I have justified that it must be the "master bedroom" (sorry for using that term) and is far bigger than the other bedrooms. I managed to fit two queen beds in there, but some scholars [me] would argue that Jimi and Calla might also share a bed because they are in love. Can you prove me wrong? No, you can't.
As for the bathroom, remember when I mentioned a possible contradiction? Famously, Maura draws the ley line symbol in the steamed up shower door (TRB Ch 1). However, much later we get Maura, Orla, Calla and Jimi all sitting in the bathtub for some kind of ritual (TRK Ch 9). No matter how I picture it, I can't put 4 full grown women in a bathtub together without someone partially sitting on/spilling over the side. But that would be impossible in a combo bath/shower enclosed by glass doors!! Thus, I gave The Bathroom a nice tub and put a small shower in the en suite of Jimi and Calla's room. I know this is a stretch but I don't really care.
Attic
Blue had never been a big fan of the attic, even before Neeve moved in. Numerous slanting roof lines provided dozens of opportunities to hit your head on a sloping ceiling. Unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with prickly plywood were unfriendly to bare feet. Summer turned the attic into an inferno.
... In one of the narrow dormers, two full-length, footed mirrors faced each other, reflecting mirrored images back and forth at each other in perpetuum.
- The Raven Boys, Chapter 34
Trying to fit the attic access in after everything in the second floor was my biggest challenge, because stairs normally take up a lot of space and you have to be careful about head room. I'm the end, I decided it was one of those fold out attic doors that you have to reach from the ceiling of the hallway. We might get a lot of instances of the attic door being opened (😤 seriously, Maggie... 😤) but technically a trap door in the ceiling is still a door!
Dormers pretty much cemented the French colonial style for me. And you know the drill by now: a hot room probably means a lot of sun, which means I give it a south facing window!
Mud Room/Cellar/Basement
This cellar has absolutely zero mention in the text, but my justification is based in the architecture. So far we've got a funky old colonial house, built without a garage, lots of walls etc. Especially in a low-income/semi-rural area, it's not crazy to assume that 300 Fox Way was built before most residents had refrigerators (1930s-40s). Besides iceboxes, a major way to keep food fresh was root cellars. Modern renovations for old homes convert these to concrete basements, but that's why the basement is so small and connects to the kitchen.
My headcanon is that Orla originally shared a room. Pick whoever you want: Maura, Blue or Persephone, any of them would easily be such a chaotic roommate that Orla snapped and in a fit of teen girl rage moved herself down to the crummy dark basement. Over time, she made efforts to glamorize it, such as a vintage dressing screen to hide the flood drainage pump. The privacy also allows her to bring boyfriends over, even sneaking them through the mud room.
This is really just my artistic license, but I swear it makes a surprising amount of sense in context. There's cases of Orla sneaking into the kitchen (easier if she has a back entrance) and she's almost always using the phone upstairs or in the kitchen (because a basement would get bad reception) even though her calls get kinda ~intimate.
Aaaaaand I think that's everything. Sorry it doesn't look like the photo from the wiki at all, but I couldn't find a source for it and Victorian style wasn't super common in the areas I researched. Let me know if I missed anything major! I'll probably cry myself to sleep if so.
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pixiecaps · 3 months
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The Betrayal • A Full Breakdown
This post serves as an in-depth explanation of everything that occurred with the Betrayal arc regarding qRoier at the beginning of the server. Everything is split into 10 separate sections detailing what exactly happened as well as explaining qSpreen's side of this arc. Below the "Context" section you'll find a compilation of clips all of which are translated and captioned into English. Anything not shown in the video or lacking context is explained in their respective sections. In these sections you'll also find transcribed pieces of conversations not shown in the video translated into English as well.
— Context —
VOD 1 | In order to properly understand how this all unfolds I must explain some things first. Roier had set his mind on making a taqueria on the SMP which is a Mexcian restaurant that specializes in tacos for those unaware. To do this he had to, well, make tacos. Crafting tacos took a decent amount of ingredients but one ingredient in particular proved difficult to find. The tomatillo. After 1 hour and a half of search and calling out for Osito Bimbo's help, with no response, Roier finally found a single crop of tomatillo which gave him a single seed. He's ecstatic and starts making his way back home.
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3 minutes later after he found the tomatillo and acquired the seed by himself Osito Bimbo makes an appearance. Roier quickly informs Osito that he came a little too late and questions why he now appears after having found what he was begging for minutes ago. Osito Bimbo doesn't offer any response and after lingering for a bit Roier decides to ask him something else.
Roier: Since you arrived so late, could you give me a lot of tomatillo? A lot, a lot of tomatillo. I think this is the only way I could forgive you.
Osito Bimbo: Maybe.
Roier asks Osito Bimbo for specifically a stack of tomatillo seeds, which commences a deal being inevitably struck.
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Osito Bimbo tells Roier that, in exchange for the seeds, he has to do something for him. Roier, with a mischievous tone, agrees without hesitation and without knowing what it would be that he had to do. Osito then gives him a book instructing Roier to make him 10 tacos and 3 chimichangas. Osito then hands Roier 62 seeds of tomatillo. Roier thanks him graciously and sets off home to make the long-awaited tacos.
After he arrives home and begins preparing the tacos, he realizes he doesn't have salt or lettuce, so once more, Osito Bimbo appears, and he asks Osito for the missing ingredients. This time, however, instead of food, Osito Bimbo asks Roier to give him information on Vegetta in exchange for his help. Osito was of the belief that Vegetta was plotting something that Roier may know of. Going to the extent of using gunfire on Roier to threaten information out of him, however, Roier did not budge and instead acted aloof to what Osito Bimbo may have been referring to. Osito believed his act and handed him 17 seeds of lettuce and the coordinates of where he could find salt on the island. He sets off to the coordinates and, in fact, finds the salt where Osito Bimbo had said it would be.
Roier once again returns home and begins crafting the ingredients needed for the taco, such as cheese, salsa, tortillas, etc. During this time, Roier first sees two Cucurucho's at once. One in his kitchen and another in his garden. And finally, after 3 hours and 6 minutes, Roier crafts the first taco. He hands the taco to Osito Bimbo (The one in the kitchen) and he eats it. Roier makes a joke and Osito Bimbo shoots him. To this, Roier reacts negatively and says, "It's not cool for you to treat me like that. ... You can't just shoot me then simply leave like that." As a consolation of sorts, Osito Bimbo hands Roier a poppy. Roier informs Osito that he has to leave and won't be able to make the rest of the tacos for him that day. Osito Bimbo exclaims "No!" repeatedly. Roier challenges him and says, “Oh. You won't let me leave? You won't let me leave? Are you sure?" He then spits at Osito and throws the poppy back at him. After this, Osito Bimbo replies, “Finish what I told you.” Roier then, visibly irritated, says, “You know what, Osito? You know what, Osito? I'm tired of you treating me badly. I'm tired of you treating me badly. You and I are no longer friends." And he logs out without giving Osito Bimbo a second to respond.
VOD 2 I The following day, Roier logs on and finds a trail of poppies in his home, which leads to the upstairs of the house. Following the trail, he finds a chest with 3 tacos and a book inside.
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Roier reacts to the letter warmly, declaring that he wants to keep spending time with Osito. He begins writing his own letter back as a response.
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Roier leaves the book in the chest, knowing that Osito is likely watching him in that moment and will read the book later. Then Roier commences his day by gathering ingredients and crafting more tacos.
VOD 3 | Now, before this occurred and before Roier had logged on for that very day, Spreen was also on the server exploring when he was approached by the Devil, who proposed an alliance between the two of them.
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Devil: I come here to propose an alliance. You and I, what do you think?
Spreen: What type of alliance?
Devil: An alliance. You do bad things for me and I do good things for you.
Spreen: So, I do bad things for you but it's going to be your fault?
Devil: No, because-
Spreen: So l have to take the blame for my own actions?
Devil: You just have to- No, you just have to play carefully and not get caught doing bad things.
Spreen: So I have to play with people's feelings?
Devil: Exactly, that's what I like, that's what I like.
The agreement goes as follows: Spreen will do whatever bad things the Devil asks, if Spreen so chooses to accept them, in exchange for whatever he desires. The greater his desires, the greater the sin he'll have to commit. The Devil says that there's only one condition to their alliance, which is that Spreen can never tell anyone that he's had contact with the Devil, and if in any situation the Devil is implicated, then he will rain hell on Spreen's life, like destroying his home and so forth. Additionally, if Spreen agrees to do a misdeed prompted to him by the Devil, he must complete it in the given time, or else he'll have to punish him severely. It is important to note that while talking to the Devil, Spreen mentions Roier being his "great comrade" and saved a cat from being burned alive by the Devil. The devil then conducts an interview with Spreen to see if this alliance is truly beneficial to him, and this is where Spreen reveals some information about himself.
Devil: I'm going to ask you first, who is the person you like best from this world?
Spreen: From this world?
Devil: Yes.
Spreen: My comrade Roier I honestly really like him a lot. We live together for now. And there's Missa too... My bros at home are the ones I like the best.
Devil: And would you betray Roier and Missa?
Spreen: Yeah, no problem.. Depends on what cost.
When told to list the first three acts of misdeeds that come to his mind that he could commit against his fellow islanders, he includes on the list killing one of their pets. When asked by the Devil what he'd do to someone he cherishes, like Roier or Missa, Spreen replies that he'd kill them to the point of exhaustion and to where they log off the server. Spreen asks the Devil what he'd give him in exchange for such a misdeed, and this is where the Devil proposes a plan.
Devi: Wait a moment. Does Roier have any type of pet?
Spreen: I really don't know. I think he has a cat but I don't know if it's his or Missa's.
The Devil says to find out specifically if Roier has any pets he cherishes and if that pet has a name. Giving him a piece of paper and telling him that if the pet doesn't have a name, then either name it himself or ensure Roier names it. Stating that if Spreen gathered that information he'd give him the sky and anything he could ever want. He also mentioned he'd be observing and watching Spreen from the other side while he tries to gather that information from Roier.
Now after this, Spreen heads off to his home with Roier and Missa, and Roier offers him a taco, which he gladly accepts.
— The Clips —
Further details on what is going on in the video are in the sections below. These sections include additional context and information that was not included in the video itself, which are vital to grasping the full picture of this arc.
— The Lie —
Spreen begins telling Roier that he's decided he wants to be a veterinarian and open a vet on the island. However, he wants to take a count of who on the island has pets as a form of data to see if the business would do well. So he asks Roier if he has a pet of his own. With the context provided, we know that this was a lie to find out the information assigned to him by the Devil. Roier replies that he has a dog in a cage that he has yet to tame, then proceeds to set it free and tame the dog. He names it Firusflais. Spreen tells Roier that, as a veterinarian, he shouldn't leave the dog inside a cage all day, but Roier disagrees, saying that his dog is different and likes being left inside the cage in his backpack. Spreen prods Roier further about the matter, and Roier reveals that he prefers keeping his pets in his inventory and not out in the open, like Missa's cat, out of fear of the pet being killed by someone else. Spreen disagrees, saying that Roier has a keypad door, so it's unlikely to happen. Roier then mentions that the only people who can enter the home through the keypad door are Spreen, Mariana, Missa, and him. A symbol of those that hold his utmost trust.
— The Deal —
Spreen uses and mentions a bubble blower, which reminds Roier of the turtle racing bet in which he lost it to Spreen. They laugh about it, and Roier asks if Spreen would like to do another turtle racing bet. However, Roier questions Spreen's trustworthiness when it comes to how these races are done and the possibility of them being rigged. This is right when Spreen receives a private message from the Devil telling him he has 5 minutes to return to the bar alone to inform him of what he has learned.
Spreen quickly shuts down the accusations and says that Roier can pick the turtle himself and where the race takes place. Roier then suggests the idea of doing a test race with a taco on the line. Spreen says he doesn't want to do all the work of setting up a turtle race for a simple taco. Roier defensively says that the taco isn't something to be taken lightly and took a lot of work to craft. Spreen sarcastically agrees and says it's only 5 ingredients. Roier decides to challenge Spreen to go gather all the ingredients and craft a taco himself in just ten minutes if it's so easy, and if he somehow accomplishes this, then he'll give him 100 subs. Spreen quickly agrees, stating that he'll bring all the ingredients to Roier and craft the taco in his face.
And just like that, a bet is made.
After Spreen leaves to find the ingredients, Roier reassures the voices that there is no way that Spreen could find all of the ingredients in time. The only possible way would be if Spreen sneaked into his garden to gather the ingredients.
Some further reasoning as to why Roier so confidently bet 100 subs can be looked at through two lenses. Through the meta-explanation and through a character analysis. In meta, Roier fully knew that the previous day he had spent hours trying to gather the proper ingredients to craft that taco, so logically, he knew there was no feasible way for Spreen to do the same in just ten minutes. Through his character, it makes sense for him to fully trust qSpreen in this bet, as they had done previous bets when turtle racing and qSpreen had proven himself to be an honorable man. Not just that, but qSpreen and qRoier held a tight bond in which he never could've imagined his friend lying and deceiving him. We see evidence of this bond several times days prior, but specifically in moments where you realize the importance of Roier allowing Spreen to live with him and have access to that keypad door. The same goes for Spreen when he states that one of the two people he values most is Roier.
While Spreen is off, Roier decides to complete his deal with Osito Bimbo and craft the 10 tacos and 3 chimichangas.
As Spreen exits the house and walks towards the bar, he states that now he knows what he'll ask the Devil in exchange for killing Roier’s dog. In other words, he'll ask for the taco ingredients. When he arrives at the bar, Spreen informs the Devil of everything that occurred with the dog and the deal and says that he'll do anything to that dog as long as the Devil helps him with the taco. The Devil says it's a deal as long as Spreen kills not just Roier's dog but also Missa's cat with the taco in his hand. As well as Spreen gifting 20 of those 100 subs to him. Spreen seems taken aback by this for a moment, questioning the addition of Missa’s cat to the chaos before regaining his composure and saying it seems like a good deal. Spreen talks to the voices for a moment, reassuring them and informing them of his plan.
Spreen: I don't want to kill Missa's cat, dude. I'm going to do something. I'm going to do something people, this is a round deal. I'm going to kill Missa's cat without Roier seeing and I'm going to replace it with a cat of the same breed. The issue is that when Missa comes he won't see it so l'm going to put it in a cage and I'm going to leave it placed inside the cage there, okay? Then when he takes the cat out of the cage Missa is going to say, "Hey why didn't I adopt him?". And he's going to start thinking and he's going to be suspicious but he's not going to understand what's going on. So we're going to replace Missa's cat, and then Roier's dog I'm going to fuck him up right there with the taco in my hand. And while we're at it, we're going to fuck up Roier too by getting 100 subs out of him with this taco thing. So don't worry. I've got it all figured out.
This moment in particular is one of the times where you can see how much of a mastermind qSpreen really is and how his mind works. Someone not to be messed with. However, the one fatal flaw in this entire ordeal is that he underestimated Roier's experiences with that taco. With the knowledge of what happens after all this occurs when Spreen is explaining his plan you realize they were all doomed the second he agreed to that deal. It was just a matter of time.
After the Devil hands Spreen the ingredients for the taco, he informs him that he only has 15 minutes to kill Missa's cat and Roier's dog. He sets off back to Roier in a hurry, as he only had 5 minutes left to complete the taco deal with Roier. The Devil then quickly reminds him that if he doesn't complete the misdeed, he'll be punished.
— Doubt —
Spreen arrives at Roier's home immediately, telling him that he's awful at making bets as he hands him the ingredients for the taco. Roier is incredibly shocked and confused before quickly starting to question how and where Spreen had found all the ingredients. Spreen doesn't budge and starts claiming Roier had simply done a worse job looking for the ingredients than him and that that was all there was to it. He asks for the 100 subs and the taco itself; however, Roier continues to question him specifically about where he found the tomatillo, salt, and what he needed to craft the salsa. Spreen continues to lie, and Roier takes note of this. Roier then begins calling Spreen a liar as Spreen continues to not inform Roier of how he honestly got the ingredients.
Roier: Who gave you all of this? Where did you get this, asshole?
Spreen: Dude I got it on my own. Stop lying. I find it disrespectful that you're lying to me with the fact that-
Roier: I find it disrespectful that after what we've been through, Spreen, you're lying to me, dude.
Spreen: You're lying to me, asshole because you bet something and you're not delivering.
The situation quickly escalates as Roier hands Spreen his globe and tells him he's allowed to take it from their home before he beats him up for lying to him. This globe Spreen had specifically acquired his second day on the island and was a valued item of his. *(1) Spreen tells him not to start with him as he pulls out an enchanted diamond sword as an intimidation tactic. The only enchantment on the sword being bane of arthropods.
Considering the qRoier spider hybrid depiction, | thought that detail was quite coincidental and ironic.
To which Roier responds by equipping a set of enchanted diamond armor with all but a pair of boots. Spreen sees this and hands him his own pair of enchanted diamond boots, taunting him. Spreen then demands to be paid the subs, and Roier refuses and spits on him. Spreen continues to demand for Roier to complete his part of the deal, but Roier suggests fighting for it instead. Spreen refuses to do this, as this wasn't part of the original deal. Soon after this, Roier finally says fine and that he'll gift Spreen the subs; however, he tells Spreen that he never mentioned when he'd gift him the subs. Spreen, upset by this, questions if this is really how Roier is going to handle the situation.
Spreen then swears to Roier that he had planned offstream to make tacos for his bar days prior, which is why he had the ingredients for the taco already. To back this up, he states that he had also, while offstream, made a structure for his new home, which he could show Roier as proof that he had been doing things offstream. Roier doesn't believe him but complies when Spreen offers to show him this supposed structure. As Roier follows Spreen, he says he wants to contact his lawyer Quackity. Spreen then shows Roier the structure and continues with his lie, stating that the same day he was constructing his home, he spent 5 hours online and went looking for the tomatillo. Roier's suspicions do not subside, and he says again that he'll have to speak with his lawyer since he doesn't believe him. Spreen isn't particularly fond of the lawyer idea, saying that Roier is complicating his day and he just wants the issue to be resolved quickly. In the context of the deal, we know this is because he still needed to kill the pets and is wasting time with this dispute. He had wasted 8 of the 15 minutes he was given to kill the pets at this point.
— The Court Case —
After Roier messages Quackity for assistance with the situation, Quackity promptly arrives at Roier and Spreen's home. And Roier hands Quackity a taco as a gift. At this point, Spreen had 5 minutes on the clock to kill the cat and the dog. The Devil starts striking lightning around Spreen as a warning. Roier and Quackity become alarmed and question what is causing the lightning, while Spreen remains silent and tells them to hurry this up as he would like to leave for the day. Spreen tells his side of the story to Quackity, leaving out everything to do with the Devil, of course, and is once again reminded that time is ticking by the Devil. Specifically, he has 3 minutes to complete his side of the deal, or else the consequences will be severe. As well as to remember their blood pact.
Roier then begins to tell his side of the story while Spreen excuses himself to go to the bathroom. The Devil messages Spreen again, telling him that for every minute he exceeds the given time, he'll have to give away 1 more sub to him, or else his home, the one in construction, will completely disappear forever. During this bathroom break, Spreen walks into the home, apologizes to the cat, and kills it before quickly heading back to Quackity and Roier. 2 minutes left. The Devil reminds Spreen to kill Roier's dog with the taco in his hand as he had forgotten to kill the cat with the taco.
Quackity hears both sides of the story and calls for a testimony from a witness. The witness being Quackity himself, who was not present for the situation when it occurred. As a witness, Quackity states that Roier is in the wrong, as obtaining a taco is not difficult at all. He comes to this conclusion because, having logged in for just a couple minutes, he had acquired a taco. This taco, of course, was the one Roier had gifted him minutes prior. This leaves Roier shocked and betrayed by a friend who he trusted would take his side in this dispute. Roier then questions Quackity about how he got the taco, knowing full well that he had given him that taco.
Roier: And how did you find that? How did you find that Quackity?
Quackity: It was very easy, very easy. I grabbed a tortilla and put the ingredients inside. It was very easy.
Now from Roier's POV this may seem very coincidental and perhaps a planned action by Spreen and Quackity but to clarify not once did Spreen whisper to Quackity to help him or tell him to choose his side for some type of a reward. This was purely their actions lining up and causing a massive impact on Roier and his trust in them.
Spreen states he's hungry and asks Quackity for the taco and Quackity hands it to him. Spreen does this so that he could have a taco to kill the dog.
Quackity now serving as the role of the judge comes to the conclusion that Roier should be annexed for three weeks and would have to go to jail. Roier is left shocked and bewildered by this conclusion. Spreen quickly steps in and tells Quackity that those extremes would not have to be necessary as Roier is his comrade and that all he asks is for Roier to complete his side of the deal. The Devil starts counting down 30 seconds to Spreen so he adds that he would also like Roier to give him his dog on top of the subs. Roier confused asks why his dog and Spreen just says he wants the dog again.
After some discussion Roier agrees to give Spreen his dog as long as he doesn't have to pay the subs. Spreen refuses to accept this negotiation. Roier states that he doesn't have the dog with him and that it's currently at the vet. Spreen however knowing this to be wrong as Roier earlier placed the caged dog in his backpack in front of him continues pressing further for the dog. Quackity then says Spreen is entitled to take physical and violent action against Roier if he refuses to complete his part of the deal. Roier starts exclaiming that Quackity is corrupted and that he had trusted him. That he had trusted both Quackity and Spreen. Asking whats wrong with them and saying that they aren't normally like this. With 3 seconds on the clock, Spreen, having heard what Quackity said about being allowed to take violent action, takes this as a green light and begins attacking Roier.
— The Hunt —
Spreen hits Roier first with his iron axe and Roier begins fleeing stating that he won't pay anything and that they're in the wrong. Spreen shouts to Roier saying that he has to help him. Roier then shouts saying this isn’t how things work. Spreen hits him again and he whimpers. 17 hearts. Quackity following behind Spreen tells Roier to pay him so that this will all be over. Roier says he won't keep discussing or hand over the dog until Spreen calms down. So Quackity tries to ask Spreen to calm down but he doesn't. Another hit. 14.5 hearts. Roier exclaims that he's going to die and begins running out of flat space to run. Hit. 12 hearts. Quackity says that he knows he's meant to be his lawyer but to give up the dog already. Hit again. 9 hearts. And another one. 7 hearts. And another. 4 hearts. Roier begins shouting that he had trusted Quackity over and over. Quackity once again says to hand over the dog and Roier refuses. He says that they're wrong again. Then Spreen downs Roier. Spreen begins shouting at Roier saying to hand over the dog or else he'll kill him. And right as Roier gives up and agrees to hand over the dog Spreen lands the final blow killing Roier. The chase takes 1 minute and 34 seconds.
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Spreen then takes the cage from Roier's body and starts killing the dog with the taco. Quackity tries to protest and get him to stop but it's ineffective and the dog dies anyway. Spreen tells Quackity that it was inevitable and he had to do it. As well as that Roier would not find out. Unbeknownst to Spreen that Roier got notified in chat that his pet had been killed. As Roier begins to feel saddened by the death he tells himself that he cannot get like this. Spreen in the meantime receives a message by the Devil telling him to meet him at the bar in less than 5 minutes.
— The Hurt —
After being killed, Roier spawns thousands of blocks away due to having set his spawn in a dungeon he had done days prior, so he breaks the bed and allows a zombie to kill him. In fact, he begins begging for the zombies to kill him, exclaiming that he's tired of this life. When his death to the zombies is shown in chat Quackity types laughter as a response in chat, and Roier takes note of this behavior, stating that it's fine and that he had trusted Quackity. He goes on to say that the hurt he feels isn't even because of the loss of his pet, but because of the trust and friendship he lost with Quackity and Spreen. Describing the situation as a betrayal he never would've expected of Quackity and even less of Spreen.
Roier: If he (Spreen) wanted money I could've given it to him, I hope it'll be more worthwhile for him to have earned that money now that he has lost my friendship.
After Roier returns to his body, a few snarky comments get thrown by Spreen before he leaves.
Quackity: (Looking through Roier's backpack) My god 40 diamonds! Only diamond armor bro.
Roier: Go on. If you want to rob it from me, rob it from me if you want to. It's fine.
Spreen: No, my friend, nobody is robbing anything from you. Not like you who tries to rob from others with your fake bets. (Walks away)
Quackity sticks with Roier, trying to ensure that his friend isn't too mad at him for the events that unfolded. Roier, however, remains clearly upset. When he gets his backpack back from Quackity, he notices that he took all his food and tacos. He asks Quackity if he has taken his food, and while blatantly lying, Quackity says no. Quackity then offers Roier his own food back at him.
Quackity: Do you want food? Look I'II give you some. (Gives Roier 31 toast)
Roier: Yeah I'd like that. A bit of food.
Quackity: No worries, no worries. You know thats what friends are for.
Roier: What did you say?
Quackity: You know thats what friends are for Roier. Don't worry.
Roier: What friends are for?
Quackity: Yeah, to give food to one another-
Roier: For what you did back there? Is that what friends are for?
Quackity then asks where his thank you is for having helped him with the dispute with Spreen. Roier doesn't say thank you. Quackity then tells Roier that he won't charge him for the legal representation.
Quackity: For the legal representation. I'm not going to charge you because you're a close friend. You're a close friend.
Roier: It's a good thing I'm a close friend, because if I was an enemy, just imagine.
Quackity: Oh shit yeah, no, imagine! No, no, no.
Roier: Imagine how it would have gone.
Roier continues to be noticeably upset through his tone of voice, and Quackity once again asks if he's doing alright, and Roier continues to act as if everything is fine.
VOD 4 | Meanwhile, Spreen goes to the bar and finds the devil waiting for him. He's quickly informed that he passed the test and that the contract between them has been finalized. The Devil expresses that he's forgiven for going over the set time because he killed the dog and Roier as well. Which was done in such a brilliant manner that it satisfied the Devil.
Devil: You have literally sold your soul. You have done evil against a friend you love and I love that, so congratulations you have passed the test.
The Devil leaves swiftly, and Spreen decides to return to his friends.
This is when the Angel appears in front of Roier and Quackity, saying that he's looking for someone who doesn't belong to this world, specifically a red being. Roier then shows that he has a red hoodie, and the Angel asks him to step closer so he can get a better look at him. As he steps onto a block closer, the Angel breaks the one below Roier, and he falls to his death and is downed.
Spreen decides he wants to apologize to Roier for acting impulsively. Right then, he sees the downed message in chat and stumbles upon Quackity laughing as the Angel comes up with excuses for his actions. Spreen tells them he wants to apologize to Roier over what occurred with the bet and where he could find Roier. Quackity, still laughing, doesn't answer quickly enough before Spreen notices Roier had been tricked and is down below them. Spreen water drops and misses landing on two hearts. He picks Roier up, hands him food, and says he's there to say his sorries. Explaining that he was acting impulsively and let the situation overcome him. He then hands Roier his globe as a gift. And in a way for Spreen, it served as a symbol of his honest apology to his closest friend. Roier, however, is unfazed.
The Angel then decides to take Quackity, Roier, and Spreen on a fun adventure. During this, Roier remains in an upset mood while Spreen and Quackity try to mend whatever is left of their friendship. In one moment, Spreen asks if Roier wants any food, and Roier says no, but Spreen still hands him a golden apple. The Angel decides to gift Roier a pet dog so that he can feel better and because animals make people happy. Roier says thank you, and then Spreen and Roier stare at each other in silence as Spreen blows bubbles. As some meta commentary, Rubius plays both the Devil and the Angel and his decision to gift Roier a dog as the Angel after having orchestrated the entire plan to kill his previous dog as the Devil. Sick and twisted. I was jaw-dropped by this the first time watching. Love it. Quackity then gifts Roier two tacos to try and make him happy. It doesn't work.
The Angel asks the group what'd make them happy, and Spreen says confessing his sins, so they begin doing a group confession. Spreen begins by sharing that he killed a dog, a cat, and a friend. And additionally mentions the illegal turtle racing. The Angel forgives him. Quackity then goes to the podium and confesses to doing a poor legal job representing someone. The Angel forgives him. The Angel then encourages Roier to confess, as he sees darkness in his soul that needs to be purified. Stating that God himself told the Angel on WhatsApp to help Roier. The Angel tells Roier that he needs to do something good for someone who wronged him today. Specifically, he needs to gift Spreen a named pet. Saying that doing this will benefit him in the future. Roier agrees. Spreen already had a tiger in his backpack that he wanted as a pet, so he sets it free and allows Roier to recapture it so that he can gift it to him as a pet. Roier names it Algodón de Azúcar or Cotton Candy. Spreen is grateful then logs off at this point. It is important to note that he doesn't end up doing the replacement plan of Missa's cat.
Roier then continues to hang out with Quackity. Whenever Quackity wasn't talking, he'd give him a death glare, which would quickly shift into a smile with a joyous tone of voice when it came his turn to speak and continue the conversation.
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Had to include a gif. It's too good.
As they arrive at Quackity's home, Roier pulls out an enchanted iron sword with murderous intent before putting the sword away. They spend the rest of the day together, and Roier is able to act perfectly fine around Quackity while still holding onto that anger and grudge by the time they say goodbye.
— The Aftermath —
VOD 5 | The following day, Roier continues to show his distrust for Quackity and with Spreen stating at one point that one of the few people who hasn't betrayed him and who he can truly trust is Vegetta. As well as Missa and Mariana. Mentioning that he does believe Mariana could betray him at some point, but as of that point in time, he had not, so they're on good terms. He considers whether he should tell Vegetta about what happened to him with Spreen and Quackity. While on the way to Vegetta's home, he gets attacked by a mob and gets overcome with sadness, saying that it reminded him of the day before when he was being attacked and killed.
After greeting Vegetta, he offers him some tacos as a gift, telling him that they were quite difficult to craft. And Vegetta looks at the recipe and agrees, deciding to cherish them. This is a direct contrast to Spreen's reaction to them.
Roier then tells Vegetta he was betrayed and asks for advice and if Vegetta would like to know who the people are. Vegetta says no, saying he'd rather not involve himself too much so he can offer unbiased assistance. Vegetta does agree to help him and then advises Roier to place a bunch of mines in the homes of these people.
Vegetta and Roier then set off to do dungeons together. After they finish, they find Quackity at spawn with Fit, and Roier decides to tell Vegetta that he's upset with Quackity but is going to act friendly when in reality he wants to kill him. Vegetta understands and goes along with this. They spy on their conversation but once they're caught Vegetta and Roier decide to shower Fit and Quackity with gifts, while Roier purposefully keeps referring to Quackity as his friend.
Roier keeps playing the act of being on friendly terms with Quackity until Vegetta logs off. Once he's back home, he removes Spreen from the keypad door whitelist. Then, after some thought, he re-adds him to the whitelist as to give off the impression of their friendship being intact while he plans to stab him in the back.
Quackity then shows up at Roier's home, and they have a conversation.
Quackity: The other day something happened that has greatly separated your friendship and mine.
Roier: Of course, of course.
Quackity: And I just want to make sure that there are no future problems between us. And I just wanted to reassure that part of our friendship.
Roier: (Crosses fingers) Rest assured, rest assured.
Quackity: Perfect. Because if anything happens to me... (Steps closer) I'll have someone to blame.
Roier: Of course, don't worry.
Quackity: Do you have enemies?
Roier: No, not at all.
Quackity: I hope it stays that way. I'm leaving. And remember not to mess with me.
Roier: I won't mess with anyone.
(Quackity leaves)
Roier: Don't worry Quackity. Don't worry Quackity. I won't be the one to do anything to you no, no, no, no, no, that's going to be you Quackity. That's gonna be you. Don't worry. I'm not even gonna touch you. I'm not even gonna touch you Quackity. You'll see. You'll see.
— The Cat —
Missa logs in after a few days of not being online and quickly notices his cat is missing. He looks around the entire house and doesn't find the cat, so he asks in chat where Roier is. Roier says he's on the way to talk to him.
Roier returns home to greet Missa and is immediately questioned by him about the whereabouts of his cat. Roier decides he has to break the news to him about what occurred with Spreen and Quackity. He tells Missa how he was betrayed, humiliated, and had his dog killed, which is likely the same fate Missa's cat suffered. Missa doesn't take this well and shouts what his cat had to do with any of it. Roier says he doesn't know, but that they were betrayed. Missa says that there's probably a misunderstanding. Since the cat had brought nothing but peace to their home, how could someone have hurt him? Roier agrees, saying that his dog too is gone. Missa shouts to hell with his dog since he never met him. Roier then starts retelling everything that happened to Missa, from the start with the tacos to the end with the axe in his back. Missa isn't understanding: instead, he begins blaming everything on Roier because surely there has to be a misunderstanding.
Missa: Spreen is my brother. Spreen wouldn't do something like that.
Roier: But he did. He did Missa.
Missa then starts considering every possibility except reality. He wonders if it was even the real Spreen and Quackity; perhaps they were imposters, but Roier tells him to accept that it was them. Missa doesn't stop; he says that something is wrong; something must have happened, as Spreen would never. Then he says that maybe their dream of making a taqueria shouldn't be done. Roier doesn't accept this, however, saying that even Vegetta understands that they must do a taqueria. Roier then tells Missa that he'll get revenge on Spreen and Quackity, even if Missa doesn't want revenge because they were the ones that beat and hurt him. He continues telling Missa that he's going to keep pretending to be their friend and, when they least expect it, betray them as they did him. Missa says not to do something he'll regret. Missa, in his fit of despair and sadness over the loss of his cat, says that he cannot keep living in that home with Roier. Once again Missa blames everything on Roier, he goes on to say that this was all because of Roier's desire for tacos.
Missa: All because of your desire for tacos. Roier this is all your fault if you hadn't- if you hadn't planned on making a taqueria..
After saying this, Missa goes to leave, but before that, Roier asks if Missa is really going to leave him alone like that. Missa says that he isn't alone; he has his tacos and then walks out of the house they built with a future together in mind. A future that no longer existed from that moment forward.
Roier stays silent for a while before he says, "Not you too, Missa." He, in a fit of rage, starts breaking the trail of poppies Osito Bimbo had left him. In disbelief that any of this had happened.
Roier: Missa, Spreen, Quackity, who's next? Mariana? Is Mariana next? I only have Vegetta and Mariana. I only have Vegetta and Mariana.
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In the end, Roier is left alone without his dog, without the cat, without Spreen, and without Missa.
VOD 6 | Missa, after having composed himself, concludes that while he doesn't believe Spreen would hurt his cat, he also doesn't want to fight with Roier. So he runs to their home to say sorry, but once he arrives, Roier is no longer there. Minutes too late, as Roier had logged off. So instead, he leaves a chest with a poppy inside as a sign that there's no bad blood between them. As well as a sign saying it's for Roier.
What's important to mention is that Missa had a heavy amount of trust placed in Spreen because it was his brother, and he couldn't fathom Spreen doing something so terrible. Something quite ironic about the cat is that Roier was the one who warned Missa not to adopt a cat in case anyone used it against them. *(2) Explaining that an emotional attachment to a cat would only open the possibility of hurt in the future. And in the end, that is exactly what happened.
— Citations —
*(1) VOD | Spreen finding the globe. 1:42:32
*(2) VOD | Roier warning Missa about adopting a cat. 4:15:13
All the other information can be found in the respective VODs linked.
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fuckyeahisawthat · 2 months
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thank you so much for that excellent chani post. i've seen some annoying takes on twitter about how not making her totally devoted and subservient to paul makes her 'unlikeable' and i'm like. buddy. i think that speaks more to how you see women. than anything about her. this chani is very dynamic and interesting to me.
i'll be honest and say i've not read the books. this is me speaking from what i've seen of summaries, but i think giving her a real cause to fight for yet also genuinely loving paul gives her an interesting struggle, and also plays into how the portrayal of the fremen (seems to me to be) more diverse and nuanced. as in, the fremen themselves seem to have more of a push-and-pull to them. the clarification of how different fremen believe differently (the south being more fundamentalist) is a very important thing to include in a movie where you can run into the danger of saying that all adherents to a foreign, islam-adjacent (in coding) religion are all fundamentalists. that can (in less nuanced hands) be a pretty irresponsible thing. so showing that there's also more secular/pragmatic/less dogmatic sectors of the culture seems a pretty good counterweight.
so yeah. this is how i processed it as a movie-goer. and having chani represent that aspect (believing in people over prophecy, action over religion) and having stilgar as the humanized face of the southern peoples (showing that yknow, regardless of being fundamenist beliefs, theyre still PEOPLE with the capacity for love, friendship, honor) makes total logical sense. you're not just "telling" us that there's different aspects to fremen culture, you're SHOWING us by showing different characters who represent those aspects, without demonizing either or turning either into a one-note stereotype.
Thank you! I'm not someone who was a long-term fan of the books before the movie came out (I tried reading Dune as a teenager when I was reading a lot of classic sci-fi but found it too boring) but I did read Dune and Dune Messiah after the first movie came out, both because I wanted to know what happened next and because I wanted to have an opinion on how the movies worked as adaptations.
(book and movie spoilers below and also I basically ended up writing a whole essay in response to this)
My single biggest frustration with the book is that after they arrive at Sietch Tabr and Jessica drinks the Water of Life and becomes Reverend Mother...the book up and skips two years of the story and when we next see Paul he's already got Fremen followers who are ready to die for him and he's in an established relationship with Chani. Oh I was SO MAD when I got to this part. I was like FRANK. FRANK!!!! Did you seriously just skip two years of the most interesting part of your own story???
The thing is, even though I know that Frank Herbert's intention was to write a critique of the idea that oppressed people need an enlightened external (white) savior to liberate them...if you don't provide an alternate explanation for what's happening then you end up falling into some Orientalist tropes anyway. And because, in the book, we don't see the process of how your average background fedaykin comes to trust Paul as a military and political leader, there is nothing in the text to counter the idea that the Fremen are a bunch of unquestioning religious fanatics easily swayed to do violence by belief in a prophecy.
My second biggest frustration with the book is that we're given no reason at all why Chani would fall in love with Paul. While she has some memorable scenes, she doesn't have a lot to do as a character in the book, and she's missing from a whole chunk of the end...because she's in the south...because she and Paul have a baby, Leto II, who's then killed off-page when the sardaukar attack the south. (I'm honestly really glad they cut this from the film, because it never seemed to be given the narrative weight it deserved in the book.)
So you can imagine how happy I was when the Villeneuve movies figured out how to address both these frustrations by tying them together. The fedaykin don't just blindly accept Paul because of some prophecy. They come to trust him because he proves himself as a fighter, and because he starts out from a place of genuine solidarity and humility--which it is possible for him to do because he has no structural power over them at that point. And Chani falls in love with him for the same reason, in that heady environment of fighting side by side for a political cause, and maybe for the first time in a while starting to believe that you can win.
I think the Villeneuve movies improve a lot on what's in the book in terms of how the Fremen are portrayed...when we're with the fedaykin and/or Chani and Stilgar. There we see political debates and discussion and the fact that not all the Fremen think the same way. And we also see little humanizing moments of folks just hanging out, celebrating after a victory in battle and just shooting the shit and being friends.
I do wish the movie had extended this to more parts of Fremen society. If there's one thing I could have added, it would be seeing more of daily life in Sietch Tabr. It makes sense that when we're seeing things from Jessica's POV, she is more distant from and suspicious of the Fremen, seeing them as a force to be manipulated, but I wish we had even one or two scenes of people just being people in the sietch. It felt kind of weirdly empty and not particularly lived-in as a place, and I think they could've easily countered this, with scenes from Chani, Stilgar or Paul's POV, and that would have made it hit even harder when the sietch is attacked.
If there were two things I could have added, I wanted more exploration of the people of the south. Why are they more fundamentalist than the Fremen who live in the north? (We get one line about how "nothing can survive [in the south] without faith" but I wanted more than that.) While I think the movie did a fantastic job of humanizing and differentiating the Fremen we see around Paul, when we get to the south it does backslide a little into "undifferentiated mass of fanatics." Surely the people of the south also have some diversity of political views.
I think there are some interesting threads they could have pulled on in terms of how proximity to direct colonial violence shapes people's ideology. Sietch Tabr is one of the closest Fremen communities to Arrakeen, the seat of colonial control. They have probably had to mount some kind of armed resistance for generations just to keep from being wiped out. I can see that producing skepticism of the prophecy ("well I can't sit around waiting for a messiah but I do have this rocket launcher") as well as resentment at the idea of someone swooping in and taking credit for a struggle that you've put your life on the line for, and probably a lot of people you know have died for. There seem to be some generational differences, too, where young people of Chani's generation put less stock in the prophecy, while the true believers are mostly older. I can see faith in the prophecy coming out of despair--when you've been fighting for decades with no change, maybe you draw the conclusion that only an outside power coming to your aid will make a difference. While the people of the south are still under colonial rule, maybe being generally outside the reach of direct Harkonnen violence (the Harkonnens don't even know they're there) makes the concepts of both oppression and liberation feel more abstract and more receptive to being filled in with Bene Gesserit mysticism. It seems absurd to want more from a movie that's nearly three hours long already...but I wanted more of this.
Still, I do think they managed to improve on a lot of things that frustrated me or are simply dated about the book, while keeping the political thriller/war drama/epic tragedy elements that I think are the heart of the story, and in some cases drawing them out more clearly and effectively than the book did. The best kind of book-to-film adaptation imo is one that has a strong point of view in terms of what the story is About, on a large-scale thematic level, and is not afraid to change individual elements of canon in service of telling that story the most effective way possible in a cinematic medium. While there are always things I want more of, I feel like Denis Villeneuve really, really understood the assignment in terms of the overarching themes of the the story and he delivered so fucking well.
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mediocre-shark-tales · 3 months
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Colby Brock x Reader
Summary - Colby didn't realize that another girl had been trying to pull him away from you. He fucks up big time and has to earn back your trust, earn back that unconditional love he's close to losing.
WARNINGS - angst, mentions of cheating, depressed thoughts, self hate, arguing, mentions of light violence, and swearing.
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You sat in your room, tears cascading down your face. You were currently living with Sam, Kat, and Colby in one large house. You and Katrina did have your own rooms, but they had been transformed into small office spaces where you both could do work from home or anything you needed to do without distractions around. Your office space did involve a small single person bed for the nights where you would get lost in work, or so overloaded that you would stay locked away in there. But Colby did have a key to your room and would usually carry you away to his room. That was where you normally stayed, since you two had been dating for so long. It was typical by now for any couple to be comfortable with sharing a room. So you two did.
Today had been your 25th birthday, Katrina being your closest friend had planed you a big party inviting all the friends you had made over the last few years. Seeing everyone was so great, especially Jake and Tara. Even though they were no longer together, they still were my close friends. On a scale they would sit together right below Katrina. As the night went on, I had become more and more frustrated. There was still no sign of my boyfriend, the one person I should have been guaranteed to celebrate with.
It was only 3 hours into the party when he posted on his instagram. It was him and Stan, they were hanging out together at some random bar or nightclub. I didn't pay attention that much, only that Colby was with Stas. That he forgot my birthday and had gone to a bar with another girl without telling me before hand.
Some may think that is insecure and jealous of me to expect him to tell me when he hangs out with girls. However when both of us are popular YouTubers who have fans watching and theorizing about our every move on a daily basis. Honesty about where we are and who we are with is the best way to keep our relationship happy and stable. I was already getting spam from comments trying to tel me Colby must be a cheat this time for hanging out with Stas on my birthday without me. They knew I wasn't there cause all of my friends and I had made a post about my party. Them wishing me happy birthday on different socials.
After seeing that text, I had begun overly drinking trying my best to get wasted. Jake, Tara, and Kat were keeping close eyes on me the whole time. Sometimes they tried to slow me down, or calm me down, anything that would get me to stop pushing myself. Sam had even told me that he was on my side about this whole mess up from Colby. He was trying his best to get in contact with his friend. But all of that was to no avail.
Which is why I now laid in my bed, locked away in my own room. I had stolen Colby's key to my room from him. He always kept it in the same drawer in his room. It was rare that he needed to use it so he always left it in the same place. I had thrown it onto my desk with my own key after locking the door.
It had been 1 hour since everyone told me goodbye and left back to their homes. I stared at my ceiling, the time I had spent crying had finally begun to lull me to sleep.
However when the front door opened, I could hear the footsteps of someone coming closer and closer to my room. When they tried the door handle, that is when I knew it must have been Colby. He tried knocking on the door, but I continued to ignore his attempts.
I even heard Sam talking to him. "Leave her alone Colby" He said with venom dripping from his voice. "You fucked up, and while you do owe her an apology and explanation, she had an emotional breakdown. You know what that means right? Maybe you don't since you had the audacity to forget such an important day. Well she went and got herself wasted, I was sure she would blackout or throw up in a matter of minutes after she started. So even if she was awake, she would be in no way able to talk to you." Sam finished. "But I-" Colby started but sam cut him off. "she could barely get up here by herself Colby. Jake, Tara, and Kat had to convince her in anyway possible to stop drinking and go to bed. You know what she talked about the whole time?" Sam asked. I heard another pair of footsteps come up, Katrina. She spoke finishing Sam's story for him. "She started to talk about everything she 'thinks' is wrong about herself. Don't you remember how many guys broke her heart like this Colby? You and I were her closest friends at the time. The way she came running to us back then, well that's exactly what happened tonight. She's in there probably covered in tear stains thinking the worst of herself. Until she found out where you were, she would ask us if we had heard from you yet. In a room of all her favorite people she still looked for you. She wouldn't have cared if you were just late, she just wanted to celebrate her birthday with you." I heard Katrina scoff before continuing. "And to think, she had spent a week preparing for your birthday, spending all of her time that day with you just last month. You couldn't even remember her birthday."
Sam spoke up once more. "Colby we are so disappointed in you, You better fix this, make it up to her. For now though, just go to bed and leave her alone for the night. She deserves that much from you." Colby said nothing more before walking off. Sam and Katrina also leaving to their room moments later. My body slowly gave out only a few minutes later, succumbing to the sweet release that accompanied well earned sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, my head had a dull small ache. Looking at myself in the mirror across from my bed. I saw that I looked like a mess. So I got up, changing into a pair of sweats and a random hoodie of mine. I then brushed out my hair and put it up into a messy bun. Checking myself over, I grabbed my phone and room key before heading out. I locked the door behind me, before waltzing down to the kitchen. I was in need of some water, I felt the dehydration buzzing through my system.
Turning the corner into the kitchen I saw Sam and Katrina. Across from them sat Colby and Stas. Colby looked like he slept horribly, Stas never once faltered the smile on her face. Katrina was scowling at them but gave me a sympathetic smile. Sam was the one to speak seeing me. "Hey y/n, there's some water bottles in the fridge for you. We left some medicine to help with the hangover on the counter over. The two burgers next to it are also your to help the hang over." He pointed to the counter where the meds and burgers sat. I nodded. "Thanks Sam."
Within the next two steps, Colby was already trying to get up and come over to me. "Y/n I'm so sorry-" I put my hand up towards him and he stopped mid step. "Now is not the time Brock, We will talk later, not while I'm suffering from a hangover. Especially when I have barely had any real time to process what the fuck you did last night. So sit you ass back down and continue with your conversation that I so terribly interrupted." He returned to his seat sadly, watching me with worry.
With that Stas got up coming over to me. "What is your problem y/n? he's just trying to explain himself, he deserves more respect from someone who just let their insecurity take over on some random night." I shook my head and rolled my eyes. She didn't deserve shit from me. In the next second my head was forced to the side, my left cheek slowly increasing in a hot burning sensation. The others yelling at Stas for slapping me. When I looked back at her, I watched her face fall from the angry smirk she gave me. I looked at her with the exact same blank stare I was giving her before. No reaction to her actions like she wanted.
"Actually Anastasia, I wasn't insecure about him being with you. I could care less because I know Colby has long gotten past whatever minuscule amount of adoration he held for you. The only girl he wants to be with is me. What I am upset about is that my boyfriend, forgot my birthday and instead spent the day with someone else. He could have hung out with anyone else in the world, I would still be the same way. Oh but keep trying to steal him away sweetie, maybe if you are lucky enough he may change his mind. However if you have a brain behind those eyes, then you would know to give up now and move the fuck on." I spoke to her in the same dead flat tone that my face showed.
I picked up my burgers and meds, grabbed a water bottle and walked out of the room. On the way back up to my room I could hear Kat yelling. "Stas, get the fuck out of our house. I don't want to hear from you or see you for a long time. Maybe until you know how to get your act together and move on from your hopeless love. Y/n used to be your goddman friend, how could you hurt her happiness just cause e you were crushing on her man!? Nope! Don't even try to explain yourself right now! OUT!" I smiled, I was glad to know that Kat would pick me over her without hesitation. I never wanted her to have to pick between me and Stas when the two of us fell out. But right now, it was nice to know someone had my side.
I opened the door to my separate room and went in. The door shut behind me as I sat down at my computer. After taking the meds, I began to edit some footage for a vlog I had gotten last week. Occasionally I had some bites of burger, this was how I was going to destress and calm down from that whole interaction. About 30 minutes later there was a knock at my door. "Come in." Glacing back I saw Colby open the door and peek in. "is it really okay for me to come in babe?" I sighed. I would have to get this over eventually.
"Alright, I can take a break, come in and sit." I turned around and watched him walk slowly over to my bed sitting down next to me. I looked at him and spoke first. "You have 5 minutes tops to explain yourself or whatever you wanted to tell me, then it's my turn to talk without interruption no matter what I say." He nodded and began.
"y/n, I am so sorry for what I did. I completely forgot the one day a year to celebrate you and just you. I wasn't actually planning to meet stas that day, I was actually attending a sponsorship meeting for Sam and I. She texted me asking if I had time to go to the bar with her and hang out. After that long and boring meeting I was in need of a stress relief. But this isn't my excuse or my way to push the blame of me. It is my fault for forgetting in that moment about you. I promise you that I love you and only you. Whatever it takes and no matter how long it takes, I will make it up to you. I only want to see you happy. I'm sorry." With that Colby finished what he wanted to say.
I took a breath and began my speech. "Colby I can forgive your forgetfulness but it's gonna take a lot for me to forget it. Right now I just need you to be honest with me, Do you still want to be with me or not? If you have lost the feeling we used to share then we can end it right now, it will hurt a lot less." Colby shook his head. "No! I love you please don't say otherwise." I sighed at his words. "Okay, then you better stick to you words cause I have spiraled for the last 12 hours, I didn't know if I could ever try love again had you really lost love or worse cheated. I have been through that too many times. You are literally my last hope." I felt ears brim and fall from my eyes again. Colby's expression softening more.
He held his arms open and I hesitantly fell into them. He slowly moved to lay us together on the small bed meant for one person. He pet my hair as I cried into his shirt. "I'm so sorry for making you feel this way. I really fucked up. I will make it up to you. I will show you how much I love you, how desperate I am to be with you, all the reasons I love you. I will do this till the day I die. I love you y/n" His words slowly soothed me to sleep. Cuddling with him as we both napped in each others arms.
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buckets-of-dirt · 1 year
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(ID: A screenshot of tags that read "#Prev what are some alternatives to the word primitive that are less derogatory" /end ID.)
@panicdeleter I'm responding to your question on a new post so that the op of the original doesn't get this in their notes because answering in good faith is going to take a lot of explanation.
Short answer: there isn't one.
Long answer: as you say in your tags, "primitive" is a derogatory term with a very loaded meaning. Removing it from your vocabulary is less a matter of finding a more PC alternative, and more a matter of understanding why it's derogatory and changing your perception of what's being discussed. To do that, we're going to have to look at archaeological theory for a minute. Stick with me, I do have suggestions at the end.
Archaeological theory is a complicated subject and there's no way I'm going to try to summarize all of it in a Tumblr post since it's a topic arch programs devote at least a semester (if not longer) to. So we'll focus on the relevant bits.
Essentially, in the bad old days when archaeology was starting to become a discipline instead of a thing rich dudes did on the weekends, there was this idea that certain European societies were the peak of civilization and everywhere else was less evolved and therefore primitive. It was based on the misunderstanding of the theory of evolution that was common at the time. Like so:
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(ID: a diagram drawn in pen. It's titled "Ye Olde Arch/Anth Theory TM". The next line says "Primitive = simple, less evolved, bad". Below it there is a vertical arrow pointing down, with the words "one way line" next to it. Under the arrow there is a line of text reading "Advanced = complex, most evolved, good". /end ID.)
These early archaeologists believed that all of humanity lived on a hierarchy with the "advanced" societies they lived in (and their ancestors like Ancient Greece) at the top and all the "primitive" past and current societies (destined to either become like them or die out eventually) at the bottom.
It's been a long road for archaeological theory. The 20th century was fraught with theoretical movements and debates that sometimes literally devolved into fistfights. But eventually we all ended up more or less here:
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(ID: A hand drawn diagram in a similar format to the one above. It's titled "Arch Theory Today (Short Version). Below the title there is a single line of text centred around a horizontal line with arrows at both ends. The left side of the arrow reads "simple" while the right side reads "complex". The line itself is labeled "continuum or spectrum". /end ID.)
While you'll still find some archaeologists who disagree, the main consensus appears to at least be on the same page that instead of the old primitive vs advanced hierarchy, societies exist on a spectrum that ranges in complexity. In the most basic terms, because I'm glossing over A LOT of nuance here, hunter gatherer societies tend towards the simple end of the spectrum while big state societies are on the more complex end. This is not meant as a value judgement of these societies, but merely an attempt to classify them so other people have a frame of reference for what you're talking about. Even so, there's considerable debate about the language used for certain terms and societies, and I am not necessarily qualified to go into that in this post.
I say all that to help you understand why I can't give you a catch-all term to replace "primitive", because if one did exist it would be just as derogatory. In certain contexts there may be more appropriate words that you can use, such as simple (as in the case of the meme that inspired this post) or old. But a lot of the time an alternative just doesn't exist because we are not better or 'more evolved' than our ancestors any more than people living in big state societies are any better than people still living as hunter gatherers.
I know this has been a very long post, but I really am just scratching the surface here. For more information I suggest looking at podcasts like The Dirt or A Life In Ruins, youtube channels like The Welsh Viking or Archaeology Tube, or the blogs of any of my fellow dirt lovers here on Tumblr like @chaotic-archaeologist, @micewithknives, @art-thropologist, @archaeologistproblems, and @rhysintherain to name just a few. Archaeologists are generally a bunch of nerds who will take any opportunity they can to talk about the human past, and we rarely bite.
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rosyronkey · 6 months
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hi! i wrote an essay about rosy ronkey and her clothes, and i hypothesized what time period i think shes from/inspired by ^^ below if you wanna read more :))
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ive been fixated (or had a special interest or whatever you want to call it) on rosy ronkey for a YEAR today. i've always been pretty interested in her outfit from an aesthetically pleasing point of view, but recently i wanted to see if i could find any trends and time periods in the inspirations of her clothes, which is what this essay is about! it’s going to be an explanation of most of her clothes, top to bottom, from what i can assume with the research i've done. i say research, but i probably don’t have the best sources? they’ll be linked below, but it was really more cross-referencing than anything else lol
i reached out to annie montgomerie for comment/criticism, but she’s obviously very busy and i enjoyed my research from a subjective point of view :)
basic specs on rosy (no one else but me cares): looking at rosy, the only zoomorphic, or animal looking, aspect of hers is her head. judging by proportions and cross-referencing, she looks to have the body of an american girl doll. this is just what i’ve noticed, but annie’s most recent stuff is way less anthropomorphized compared to rosy and the group she was made with. looking at annie’s most recent exhibit, hand me downs, every single piece is completely animal, with hand-sculpted claws, paws, wings and hooves. some of these dolls legs still look like american girl doll legs, but most everything else is animalistic. this isn’t important, but i just thought id mention it because artists’ growth over time is cool!
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starting with her coat, it looks like a double-breasted red childrens’ coat with two rows of two buttons each. these kinds of coats are still available today, but i could find the closest matches by looking at 1920s childrens’ coats, specifically rothschild coats. the rothschild family has a long and complicated history, but all that’s important to know is that they are new york based (which doesn’t totally fit my assumptions about her; in general i assume all of annie montgomerie’s dolls are british because of her nationality) and they’ve been in business for over 100 years. by cross-referencing the growing style of double-breasted coats in the 1920s, and the style of rothschild childrens’ coats in ads from the time, i feel like it’s easy to assume rosy's character has this coat, or at least was very heavily inspired by it.
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a theory i’ve seen before is that the ticket on her coat is a luggage label. these were used during WWII to evacuate british children during the blitz. the history press site says luggage labels listed “name, school and evacuation authority,” and is also where i got most of my information. i want to tentatively deny this theory. i'm pretty sure the ticket is an annie montgomerie staple opposed to a part of rosys' character. she's shown with the tag in the yorkshire sculpture park video, and on gerard way’s website, but she’s missing it in all the photos posted by annie montgomerie herself on facebook and instagram. almost every single annie montgomerie piece on display or for sale has a tag as well. i love this theory, and it’s probably what got me interested in researching her outfit in the first place, but i don’t think i could prove it if i tried.
other than the ticket, she has white roses on the left side of her coat and some smaller twigs? sticks? pinned to her collar. white roses symbolize purity, youthfulness, innocence, and in some contexts, respect for the departed. i couldn’t find any historical photos of children with roses in their outfits, but across the board that was the result i got for their meaning. i can’t discern what she has on her right collar for the life of me, if someone else can figure this out, PLEASE tell me
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her dress is pink, with a cinched embroidered waist and a peter pan collar. peter pan collars became popular in the 1920s, and have been a staple of childrens’ dresses since (sources for this one were a few blogs and wikipedia, but also some ads, so i feel pretty confident with it.) some ads for girls’ dresses in the 1920s had the same soft pleats and embroidered waist as seen on rosys’ dress. i don’t think there’s a meaning behind the color, except that it compliments the red coat and her fur.
her stockings are standard, I couldn’t find much special meaning behind them, british children have been wearing stockings forever, and for girls especially, stockings became more popular in the 1920s as dresses got shorter. usually they were sheer and nude, and rosys’ look like the gray kind kids wear today, but i think it’s still period appropriate to an extent. her shoes look like red mary janes for american girl dolls, just more scuffed and dirtied. mary jane shoes themselves have been around for a while (called “bar shoes” originally,) but they got their name in 1904. in one of the first drafts for this, i read the fairy tale “the red shoes” to see if it offered any insight. i thought it’d be fun to relate, but it’s just a popular danish fairy tale, and it was hard for me to entertain the idea for long.
TLDR: i think rosy ronkeys outfit is inspired by british 1920s fashion!
that’s all I have! i apologize if this was underwhelming or overwhelming or whatever, i had no model to base this off of and the only tumblr essays i read are from my friends <3 i hope you enjoyed! i love rosy ronkey!
link to my dumbfuck google doc with all the links and braindump on it :)
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lightwing-s · 1 year
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𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊__ 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐏𝐓 𝐈𝐈
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pairing: jason todd x villain! fem! reader
summary: they should hate each other, but from how long they each stay on the other's mind, they clearly were not paying attention to that. they took I'll fuck you in the complete opposite direction.
rating: 18+ (MDNI)
word count: oh god 6,8k warnings: smut, unprotected sex, chocking, dirty talk, oral sex, foreplay, language
a/n: so yeah, here's finally to part 2! thank you to every single message i got about pt 1, i was so overwhelmed by the response to it that i had to make some time to wrap up the story. also, special thanks to @igotanidea for being the most supportive person I've ever met online and for handling me breaking down over this week while trying to finish this post. to you i owe so much ♡ a/n 2: guys, pls, go easy on me as this was my first attempt at writing smut. so so sorry if this ends up looking ridiculous lol
reblogs and interactions are always appreciated ! ♡
pt i
⌜masterlist⌟ ⌜requests⌟
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For the past 48 hours, Jason had been absentmindedly searching for Y/n. Searching for signs that everything that happened two nights ago was real, and not just a product of his imagination.
Two mornings ago, he woke up confused, not knowing exactly where he was or how he had gotten there in the first place. He woke up in his brother's living room, laying in his brown leather sofa, shirt missing and head banging from pain, with the extra addition of the sun beaming its morning rays straight into his eyes. 
Handing him a cup of warm milk, Dick filled in on how he found him passed out on top of an abandoned building, just as the sun was coming up in the horizon and he was ready to drop his vigilante outfit for the night. According to him, he was already missing his shirt then, his broken helmet was beside his body, and he was the only thing in the otherwise completely empty building, not even his motorcycle in his line of sight. He couldn’t figure out what had happened to Jason earlier, and he only wondered just how the hell did he get there?
Jason couldn’t offer him an explanation, though. 
He had a hunch of just who had put him there. But he wasn’t sure. Everything that happened that night, the kisses, the touches, they couldn’t just not be real. They had to have happened, the memories were too clear in his mind for it to be just a dream. It felt too real to be just a hallucination.
It had to be real, or someone had been playing with his mind way too well. The Mad Hatter is known for his devices, Ivy had been on the loose for a while. Or his mind had simply just acquired the skills to produce extremely realistic scenarios in his head, better than any porn he had watched recently.
That or he was just too addicted to Y/n.
It felt massively wrong. Like he was committing the worst of sins, or something like that, he wasn’t really religious to understand. She was a thief, a villain, someone he was supposed to hate and fight against, throw her in jail and never think of her again until she eventually fled Blackgate just like every other criminal in this god damned city. 
But here he was. Standing atop some old factory in Gotham, heavy traffic not flowing just below him, while he looked for any clues or indications she was still around. 
Someone just radioed GCPD that there’s a drug trade going on in Tricorner Island, he heard through the coms.
I overheard two guys talking about it. Oracle, send me the location, I’m on my way.
Just did it, Robin. Nightwing, how’s north Gotham doing?
Er… Going, his brother answered through the sounds of grunts and punches.
Where’s  Jason? Haven’t heard of him all night and…
Before Barbara could say anything else, Jason turned off the coms, not wanting anything else adding up to his bad temper. He didn’t even know why he had come to patrol tonight, as fighting crime was the last thing he had on his mind. Returning his gaze to the traffic below, he let his thoughts wander elsewhere.
The loud sounds of honks and engines reverberated in the air, with the screams of angry drivers rushing their ways home to rest for the night playing along. The muffled sound of an ambulance siren got lost in the distance, hopefully driving someone with a chance of survival to Gotham General Hospital. All of those noises entered Jason’s ear on one side and left on the other, seemingly going unnoticed by the tall man. It was like he wasn’t there. Physically he was standing on top  of that building, mentally he was somewhere else. Where, he didn’t know. With whom, though, he had a clear answer. 
She had been missing from the streets for a while, but very much present in his mind. Cupid, Y/n, or whatever she went by, lived in his thoughts. The whole entire day, every second he wasn’t busy with something, he was thinking of her. And for that he was a goddamned loser.
Fortunately, or not, he was constantly thinking of something else he was missing too. His precious motorcycle had been MIA since the incident, and was, for some reason, untraceable by the Cave’s systems. Not riding it for two full days was getting to his nerves, and added to the agonizing feeling he had been under lately. 
Riding was his therapy, the cure for every troubled time he went through. There was no anxiety attack, no emotional turmoil, no stupid  fight with Bruce that couldn’t be erased by a 100 mph drive along Gotham’s damp streets. Not doing so made him feel like at any moment, anything, even the smallest of words, could make him explode.
Alone, he sometimes could hear the roaring of the V4 engine coming from nowhere. He’d look left and right, searching for it, but finding nothing. Loud, explosive, distinguishable. A hallucination, a very realistic hallucination. Very real. Very… Real?
Speeding up the road, he saw it. Cutting through the traffic, dodging cars and other vehicles, he recognized his motorcycle making its way in his direction. It was it, he was sure. There was no universe where he couldn't identify his favorite thing in the world, even from  afar. Moving closer to the parapet, almost flying over it, he tried to get a glimpse of who was riding it, but if anyone asked he’d have a guess.
Her. It had to be.
Whoever was on it was dressed all in black, and as it got closer he saw the same jacket he had seen two nights before. Hooded just like his. And, as the vehicle drove past him, the dark helmet turned, looking directly at him. As if she knew he was there. As if she knew he was waiting.
She definitely knew. She knew pretty well all his movements at this point, understood him well enough. How she learned all that, how to manipulate him like this, he didn’t know, but he knew her intentions. As much as she knew him, he got to know about her. She knew he’d recognize his motorcycle  anywhere, and she knew he’d want it back. 
So, somehow, he followed her.
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The neighborhood he found himself in was dark, the streets were wet and the air was humid. Light rain had just started pouring down on him, as he followed the trails left by the mucky tires of his bike, leading him further down the road. He should’ve been more careful, hiding in the corners and studying the place before making his way in. But tonight he simply couldn’t, all sense of carefulness completely gone, being replaced by hot tempered decision making. 
Jason arrived at an old abandoned parking garage. The first two floors were empty, dark and smelled of mold and trash. Climbing the ramps to the last floor, though, he spotted the red motorcycle right in the middle of the lot, parked and with its light still on, blinding anyone who’d go in its direction. They stopped him from seeing much else in the area, but considering that the only sound he could hear was from his own boots hitting the concrete floor, he quickly understood he was also alone.
His footsteps echoed through the walls, the muddy lines left by the tires beside him. As he reached the vehicle, for the first time in days, he felt a portion of tension that he was holding onto for a long time, leaving his body. With a heavy sigh in relief, he turned off the lights before quietly caressing the scarlet tank, the leather seat,  admiring his most faithful partner in its long awaited return.
“I took good care of her, don’t worry” he heard someone say. Startled, he lifted his head from where it was looking down, and instantly recognizing the voice, he searched for the source of the heavenly sound.
Then, he found her.
Resting against a concrete column at a far end, Y/n watched the outside, the falling rain and the night sky. Where she stood, the moonlight hit her precisely, like a spotlight in a play, like the moon knew no one else but her. Like she was a favorite. The light made her skin glow, her eyes sparkle. It made her look like a goddess.
He didn’t remember her ever looking this good. Maybe he was too blind by anger he didn’t notice, or there was something different tonight. He knew she was pretty, really pretty for that matter. But he was still so intoxicated from last time, so captivated, bewitched. Looking at her now, he knew getting rid of her thoughts would only get harder. Damn it!
Wearing a similar outfit to the one she wore on the underground, he noticed her jacket was open, and a silver necklace decorated her collarbone. The wind blew at her hair,  exposing her chest, her neck, her jaw, her lips. Speechless, Jason stood there, admiring her, for way longer his conscious self would be proud of. 
Following his silence, he heard her chuckle, bringing him back from his land of dirty dreams.
“You took my bike” he simply stated, mentally slapping himself for not being able to form a coherent sentence.
“A bit obvious, isn’t it?” she replied, finally looking in his direction, smirk glued on her glossy lips. Licking his own, he didn’t know how to reply, preferring to thank her for delivering back his vehicle  scratch free. “It wasn’t difficult. I took care of you, didn’t I?”
So it was real, he thought. He wasn’t going crazy. Or was he? One could argue that. Y/n was driving him insane.
“Thank you… for helping me that night” he said. “How did you know I was there?”
“I was following you.” she replied.
“Why?”
Shrugging, she gave him her answer. 
Truthfully, Y/n didn’t know why she was following him that night. After they left the subway tunnels she could have gone home, done with the last favor she owned Cobblepot. However, deep down her mind, he was there. And she worried about him. She knew Penguin well, she knew what he could do. And she didn’t want harm getting in his way. So she followed him.
She wanted to make sure he was alright. Why? God knows why. Y/n doesn’t. Or she refused to admit the real answer.
Jason. The sweet name stuck in her mind since he’d given it to her, and she urged to know what he looked like behind the mask. Put a face to the name, as they say. Did he look as fine as his name sounded? As his voice did? As his body would let on?
“You were pretty quiet these past few days” he said, circling the motorcycle and moving her way.
“I took some time to think.” she replied, returning her gaze to the rain.
“About what?”
“Curious much?” she joked, entertained by his need to get to know her. “About my life. Or what’s left of it”
“Hmm. Could have guessed you were working on another plan.” he joined in with a light joke.
“I got plenty of time for that, too.” she threw him a smile, blinding him for a second. “There’s just so much going on right now. Its…”
“Exhausting?” He cut her. “I guess working with Penguin does that to you”
“I don’t work with him” she threw back at him, her tone a bit sharper.
“For him, with him. It all sounds the same to me.” he said, opening his arms in contemplation.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, shaking  her head.
“Then explain it.” he requested. “Why do you do that? Why do you…”
“Steal, rob, trade, cause chaos” she cut him off. “I’m broke”
Pushing herself from the column, she moved to rest her hands on the window opening. The way she licked her lips and shook her head. The way her voice sounded ever so slightly broken. How she uncomfortably shifted on her feet after that comment. It wasn’t much of a choice, her way of life was perhaps the only solution. Jason felt sorry, he wanted to get closer, but he knew to stay away for now.
“I’m fucking broke. My family is gone. I don’t feel like working my ass off all day just to get paid in crumbs. So I decided to take my life in a new direction, and it turns out I’m good at that.”
“I’d say, really good at it.” Jason complimented. 
“I don’t think you’re supposed to enjoy that” Y/n looked at him over her shoulder and, shaking her head, gave him a smile.
Shrugging, he said: “I like a good challenge.”
Jason liked whatever this was much more than the angry, frustrated talks they had while chasing each other. It was light, fun. He could work well with that.
“By the way. I took it for a ride, hope you don’t mind” she said, resting her elbows on the short wall, and her cheeks on her hands. “That’s a really, really, sweet ride you have there” 
Gulp. With air tightening at his throat, he opened his helmet, taking it off and placing it on the tank of his bike. Jason's sweaty hair stuck to his face, cheeks still puffed from the heat after running all the way to the parking deck. 
That’s something I would like to take a sweet ride on, Y/n thought, but shook it away as soon as possible.
“What was that?” Jason asked her.
“What was what?” she pretended not to know, begging the universe he didn’t notice.
“What were you shaking your head at?” Eyebrows arched, she knew he noticed. “Like what you see?”
“You’ve been staring at my boobs from the moment you got here and I haven’t commented a thing” she said, turning her face so he couldn’t see her cheeks growing red.
Raising his hands in defeat, Jason tried to change topics.
“It was custom made.” he explained.
“Then you’ll have to tell me who did it, because I might be interested in getting one myself”
“I built it” Jason proudly informed. “It took me a while, but I got it done just how I wanted.”
“Wow” she moved one more time, facing him fully now, and crossing her arms over her chest. “You must be great working with your hands then”
Looking down, Jason stared at his own hands. Calloused, with a few bruises here and there, and desperate to have them exploring all over her. “I have my talents.”
“I see.”
A moment of silence followed. Not awkward, not tense. Just quiet, as both tried to stray their eyes from each other.
“Just don’t put anyone in danger, alright?” was all Jason asked, turning around to leave. 
“So you’re really leaving?” Y/n blurted out, not proud of sounding desperate, but desperately not wanting him gone. “Just like this?”
If he was stupid, he wouldn’t have noticed the slight tint of sadness on her voice, or the light touch of desperation ingrained in it. But he wasn’t, he heard it. And mysteriously, it boosted something deep inside him, an ego he didn’t know he owned.
“I have work” liar.
“Do you?” she questioned, walking in his direction. 
Jason was already mounted on his motorcycle, ready to turn the engine on. But the sight of her getting closer stopped him from doing anything else. He felt trapped somehow, like something was keeping him tied there. But there was no rope, not chains, not guns pointed at him. Just her.
All the way, her eyes never left his, looking at him through seductive eyes, challenging him, inquiring the truth. However, he saw, deep down, they were also begging him to stay. Watching her every move, lips sore from biting, his mouth hung open when, upon reaching him, she crossed her right leg over the tank of his motorcycle, sitting on it.
Her knees touched his thigh, the space between them minuscule. She was close, oh so close to him. His hot breath hit her face, making her eyelashes move. Her own blowing directly at his lips. 
“Do you really have to work tonight?”she questioned him one more time, hands sliding up his tights, eyes hanging low and falling on his lips. His own hands traveling to her waist, as Jason saw himself drawing her even closer. 
“Not if I don't want to” he stated in a breath, voice weak and desperate. He could feel his pants getting tighter, and heat building up from his neck.
“Don’t then” she whispered against his lips, hers dangerously close, almost touching his.
“I won’t” he said, one hand flying to the nape of her neck and finally, finally, closing the space between their mouths.
Ferociously, Jason’s mouth wandered over hers, tongue immediately sliding in. He held strongly at her neck and waist, as her hands laid and caressed at his tights. The kiss was wet, hot, and desperate. He wanted to drown himself on her lips, lose himself in her touches. And Y/n was just as needy, as her hands traveled up and down his tights, and her sweet moans filled Jason’s ears like a soft lullaby.
Lifting her legs over his, tangling them around his waist, she drew her body closer, locking the small gap they still had between them and grinding on his clothed crotch, while her hands dangerously made their way to where he wanted them most. Palming his dick, Y/n let out a surprised gasp, as her small hand barely cupped his size entirely. 
Y/n already expected him to be big. Looking at his body size, it was an easy assumption to make. Sometimes when they met, she would notice the bulge in his pants and spend the rest of the night just thinking about his potential. And, when they were making out on her guest room bed, she could feel just how big he was. 
With Y/n massaging him up and down over his pants, Jason would release deep guttural noises, but never bothered about ever ungluing their mouths. His kiss was sloppy, wetting even her chin. He’d suck at her bottom lip, biting it occasionally. The silvery taste of blood filling his taste buds.
As she tightened her hold on him, he grunted loudly into her mouth. Taking both her wrists with one single hand, he took them away from his crotch and held them tightly behind her back. Lowering her onto the panel, being careful to not hurt her head, he stood on his feet as he dry humped her jeans. The thick fabric of her pants adding to the feeling on her already sensitive clit. WIth her legs still wrapped around his waist, she assisted his movement with some of her own, moaning out his name like a prayer, as nibbled at her neck. 
He kissed his way down her neck, sucking and biting on it, certainly leaving his mark on her skin. Knowing the bruises she would have by the next morning only grew his lust, a sense of power in having her marked as his own. With his big hands, he wrapped them around her breasts, picking at her nipples over her shirt. Y/n moaned, arching her back and exposing her neck even more for him to reach places he couldn’t before. 
He wanted her stained, body covered in purple, as his little art project. He wanted her mindless, no thoughts in her head, drunk from pleasure. He wanted her under his power, dependent, addicted. He wanted her so bad, so good, so wet for him. He wanted to fuck her here and now.
But he had to wait. Against his own nature, he had to stop, before it was too late.
“Get off” he demanded, raspy voice making shivers run down her spine. Pushing away, he unhooked her legs from around him and with the back of his hand, he tried to clean his lips. 
Upon his words, her eyes shot open, confusion and disappointment evident in her irises. Jason had to hold himself as to not fuck her then and there, as she looked fucking desperate for him. Needy of his touch.
“I’m not fucking you on my motorcycle.” he state, handing her his hand to help her off his bike. “I know a way better place for us to go.”
“Are you gonna be able to wait till we get there?” she asked, still breathless from seconds ago.
“You made me wait two days already. I guess I can handle a few more minutes. Can you?” he traded a question, raising one eyebrow at her.
Biting her lips, she rolled her eyes at him and shook her head, looking all messed up still. A part of her told her to go, leaving him hanging with his own ego she knew pretty well was getting inflated by each second she spent under his touch. But her horny side, the one speaking the loudest tonight, just wanted to get its release. 
Climbing over the back of his bike, she wrapped her arms around him, feeling the ripped muscles of his well shaped abdomen, and rested her cheek on his back.
Turning on the engine, he looked at her over his shoulder. “Hold tight”
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A fan of speed, Jason had a feeling he had never driven faster. 
All over the city, he had secret hiding spots where he’d store weapons, money, and gadgets he needed for patrol. Small spots, needed mostly for storage and the occasional stitching up after a tough fight. But one of them was larger, his safehouse, built from two stacked up containers at an abandoned port storage lot. Jason considered it almost like a home, being there most of the time while out of patrol and not being busy with his civilian stuff.
He knew it was dangerous to bring her there, she could very well be tricking him, trying to get deep within his skin and rip something out of it. But every ounce of carefulness left his body the moment he crashed his lips to hers.
Parking outside in the dark lot, they climbed out of his vehicle and Y/n waited as he opened the container’s door. Inside, she was surprised by the tidiness of the place, not something she was expecting to see. It was clean and well organized. It contained a small kitchen, a living room and a bedroom on the opposite side to the door.
Y/n curiousness was heightened. This was so different to what she expected his home would be like. She thought he’d be like every other guy she had met, with a messy bedroom, unorganized book shelves, clothes hanging from everywhere. Sure, she hasn’t been with the type of guys that wouldn’t be messy, but his bunker was a very welcome surprise.
A stack of books decorated his coffee table, the only slightly “messy” thing in the entire unit. Taking the one from the top of the pile, Y/n was satisfied to see the early edition of Jane Austen’s Emma among his recent reads.
On the wall, a display showed a series of guns, knives and other weapons, drawing Y/n’s interest in seeing them from up close.
“Admiring the knives, Y/n?” Jason asked, breaking the silence hovering between them since they arrived in the place.
“You have quite the collection.” grabbing a larger knife in her hands, she turned back to him and continued. “No ropes, but knives. I see you’re into some kinky shit, Jason”
“We all have our thing” he didn’t deny. “Fire, isn’t it?”
Y/n liked cocky and fun Jason so much better than the angry annoying one she’d get most nights. Although she enjoyed annoying him, seeing how frustrated he’d get every time they met, this new calm, tranquil version of him was growing in her heart. 
It was hard to admit she had a thing for him, the guy who so desperately wanted to take her behind bars. She didn’t blame him, she knew what she did wasn’t that great. She didn’t have to do it like that, there were other options that wouldn’t have been as “easy”, but wouldn’t certainly get her into this much trouble. But all his trouble led her here, to his home, or she so assumed this unit was.
Almost every night, they’d meet, even if briefly, between all the other chaotic events in the city of chaos Gotham City. And every time they meet, religiously, Y/n would spend the rest of the night with him on her head. There was something about his hooded self, the mystery behind the mask, that attracted her. The fact he would do anything in his power to send her to Blackgate or any other prison added a risk factor that only made him hotter.
Then, she became obsessed. She'd learned his watching spots, always making sure to show up just around the corner. On the day of the Tiffany’s robbery, she knew he was close, and decided to strike before anyone else got close.
She didn’t think he’d like her back though. That night in her apartment came as a very welcoming surprise.
Everything that led to this event came as a surprise too. She was supposed to go home, rest after being done with her last debt to Penguin. But she saw him on her way, tiredly looking beyond at, seemingly, nothing, just waiting for something to happen. And then, she just stood there, watching him under the bridge, watching him fight with the two idiots she had met before at Penguin’s club, and watched him almost getting beat by Solomon Grundy. If she didn’t intervene soon enough, he’d have. But she wouldn’t let him, not under her watch.
Taking him from the floor, she carried his body with much difficulty to her apartment. Not all the way, as she stopped to rob someone’s car to drive him there, ensuring the driver she’d would return the car the very next day. She did, and even left him a thank you letter. 
Bringing him home was a stupid idea. At least at first. But when he looked at his cuts and scratches, she couldn’t help the primordial instinct of taking care of him. And when he looked all hot and needy, and when he kissed her passionately, bringing him home was suddenly the best decision she had made in a while.
But she couldn’t let it happen then. She was a criminal, but she still had a moral code. Don’t steal from the poor, only the rich. Help those around if you can. Don’t fuck anybody with the slightest level of unconsciousness due to alcohol, meds, drugs, or whatever. Basic human ethics everyone should know.
She regretted it, of course, as him doing things to her body were all that clouded her mind the entire day, her hands and toys not doing enough to send those thoughts away.
There was also the thought in the back of her head telling him he only wanted to fuck her because she was “hot”. Sure, maybe she wasn’t the prettiest, or had the hottest body, but it seemed like was more attracted to her than into her. She couldn’t say the same, feeling exactly the opposite. She imagined once he’d fucked her, he’d fuck with her and had her trapped and sent away.
She didn’t want him to break her heart. Yet, where she was now, she was waiting for it.
“Penny for your thots… Er-hm thoughts” he coughed, worrying about her sudden silence.
“Nothing important.” she replied quietly.
“Really?” he questioned again, wanting to be sure she was fine. “Anything I can help with?”
He was walking closer ever so slowly. Reaching her, he set his arms around her, on the same table she was holding herself against, trapping her in place and forbidding her from getting away.
Just fuck me out of this thoughts, she mentaly replied, for some reason too ashamed to say it out loud. 
His face rested mere inches from hers, and she could feel his minty breath once again.
“I want to kiss you” he admitted. “Can I?”
Biting her lower lip seductively, eyes glued on his, Y/n closed the space between them one more time. This turn, though, the kiss was softer, more contained, yet still as hot. His hand flew to caress her cheek with his thumb, palms resting on her jaw and the nape of her neck.
This slower pace, although really enjoyable, from Y/n perspective just wasn't enough. Her underwear felt sticky from the arousal she had earlier, and her core still twitched in desire. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him even closer and speeding up their kiss, becoming slowly as sloppy as it had been before.
He held onto her thighs, wrapping them around his waist. The close contact between their cores heating up their surroundings. She grinded on him, begging for some attention down there, as his lips wandered from her mouth to her neck, leaving bites all along. 
She could feel his hardening member growing inside his pants, the junction of his bulge and the hard fabric causing the friction against her clit to feel even better. Her moans were becoming louder and couldn’t stop fleeing her lips. Jason, on the other hand, kept his composure.
The tables were turned now, and Y/n was the one desperate for release. 
Sliding his large hands under her shirt, he pulls it up her head with ease. He watched her chest heaving under her pink lacy bra, the sight driving him closer to the edge. While he stared, Y/n swiftly slipped her hands down to take off her jeans too, as Jason took the hint and removed his jacket and his shirt too.
Y/n pulled him by his belt, ending their distance to kiss him once more. His hands flew to her boobs, tightening his hold and playing with her hardened nipples. Slowly, he made his way down to the valley of her breast, kissing and sucking every inch of skin he could find. Looking up, they locked eyes, Jason making sure to not look away as he pulled the cloth covering her tit with his own teeth.
The sight couldn’t have been sexier, Y/n not noticing the moan she let out just at that. 
Mouth clashing against her soft skin, Jason sucked violently on one boob as his hand played with the other, causing Y/n’s head to roll back and hit the knife display on the wall. Her sudden move dropped a few of his knives onto the table, but they couldn’t have cared less, both letting out breathy laughs over the incident.
When he felt he was done with her breasts, he licked his way down belly, sending shivers down her spine. When he reached the waistline of her panties, Y/n’s breath hitched. The hot air from his breath hitting her core. She watched him attentively, waiting for his next move.
“I can smell how excited you are, Y/n” he commented, eyes glued to her core. “I wonder how you’d taste like”
Y/n had to hold tight onto the table to not let out a scream, Jason’s warm tongue sending jolts of electricity up her spine. He licked up and down her folds, one stroke at a time, driving Y/n nuts from impatience. He noticed her despair, and he enjoyed it thoroughly, slowing his pace even more, taking his sweet time licking at her clit.
“Jay…” Y/n begged, a hand moving to grasp at his hair.
“Pantience, sweetheart.” he mumbled between her tights.
“P-please”
Deciding to attend to her pleas just this once, Jason shoved his face down her soppy pussy, tongue moving at a much faster pace. Y/n’s legs went instinctively to rest over his shoulders, and he grabbed them tight to keep her trembling body from moving. Y/n’s lower abdomen twitched, as Jason devoured her intimacy like a hungry man. 
Jason was focused, himself enjoying every moment he spent licking her cunt. Sometimes he would give some much needed attention to her clit, and watch her squirm and shake above him. Her warmth overcoming him, her liquids sliding down his jaw, face all wet from her pleasure.
“Ah, you’re doing so good!”
“We’re just starting, Yn.”
And dropping her legs down, he stood up from the floor, shin glistering. Confusion and disappointment much more evident on Y/n face this time, frustrated with being so close to release. 
Jason breaks them apart, Y.n’s head rolling backwards immediately, as she begged for air. For a few seconds, he took some time  to admire her pose, boobs hanging out, face crunched from pleasure. But he didn’t waste any time before shoving his mouth on her nipples, drawing a surprised scream from the back of her throat.
“W-why did you stop?” she asked under heavy breaths.
“C’mon Y/n. I’ve never been easy on you. What made you think I was gonna do it this time?”
A smirk on his face, he spread her weak legs apart and stood in the middle, cupping her cheeks and leaning in for a kiss. Y/n could taste herself in his tongue, his soaked face staining her own with her juices.
“Do you wanna go to Blackgate?” he suddenly asked. Not understanding a thing, Y/n just stared at the muscular guy ahead. “Answer me Y/n. Do you wanna go to Blackgate?”
Y/n just shook her head.
“Good” he said, giving her a chaste kiss. Reaching behind her back, Jason grabbed one of the fallen knives. “I guess you won't be needing this tonight”
Gliding the blade carefully up her tights, Jason cut her panties and with a swift movement threw them aside. He grabbed the back of her legs and wrapped them on his waist, propping her up to carry her to his bed.
As she laid in his bed, exposed and vulnerable, she took some time to admire his strong body. Ripped muscles modeled his arms and abdomen, and basically every body part she landed her eyes on. Standing at the edge of the bed, staring her down while holding a knife, he looked dangerous and borderline frightening.
“Tonight, Y/n, I’ll be giving you a sentence.”
Slapping hard at her cunt, Jason’s hand massaged her clit with his thumb as two fingers slid inside of her. “And you’ll leave here a good, reformed citizen”
Y/n couldn’t hold back the loud moans that escaped her mouth. Arching her back, she screamed his name like a prayer. Hands grabbing onto the bed sheets, Y/n saw her mind go blank with her first orgasm of the night.
“Such a good girl”
As Y/n heaved and panted, trying to ease her breath, she listened to the sound of his belt falling to the floor. When she looked up to face him, Jason was  stroking his dick, grunting by himself as he watched her struggle to keep herself together. She observed his red tip drip with pre cum, her tongue instinctively hanging out.
“Do you wanna lick?”
She nodded innocently, moving to stand closer, but he pushed her back to fall on the bed again. 
“No. Not tonight.” pulling her to him, he slapped his dick on her soft cunt, teasing her entrance with his own tip. “Tonight I’m fucking you”
With one hard movement, Jason slipped his entire length inside of Y/n. She cried out his name, as his thickness stretched mercilessly, the sharp sensation causing tears to form in her eyes. He thrusted hard into her, the sound of skin hitting skin filling the room.
“Oh, god. F-fuck!” she cried out.
He held her tight for support, pulling her and he pumped his cock deeper, getting lost in the warm sensation of being wrapped inside her tight wet cunt. 
“Sweetheart, you’re so fucking tight. You’re making me feel so good.”
He watched her clothed tits jumping up, and angrily removed her last clothing item from her body. Palming her breast, he played with them as his thrusts started getting sloppier. H could finally feel his frustrations fading away with every thrust, and as she sang out his name he could feel his release getting closer. 
With one last hard thrust, he pushed himself out.
“Turn around” he demanded, and she quickly obeyed.
His hard hand hit her ass, surprising her and drawing out a loud cry. He slid his hand once more between her folds, watching her tremble under his touch.
“Jason, please, please. Just make me cum”
“Not yet, princess” he warned, as she cried in complaint, but as he kept stroking her clit she came undone on his fingers. “Tsc tsc tsc. I told you not yet.”
“I’m s-sorry, Jay. I just couldn’t… you were making me feel s-so good. Aah”
Jason pushed her head down onto the mattress, holding her in place by the neck.
“You better keep yourself together. Or do you want me to send you to Blackgate right after we’re done”
“No, please”
“Then wait till I let you cum” she nodded her head, tears soaking the bed.
He lined himself at her entrance once more, teasing it with his tip and he felt her cum melting on his tip. Snatching her hands from where they were supporting her up, he held them fiercely behind her back, as he made his way deep inside of her.
His cock hit heavily at her cervix. Her wall is tightening around him, sucking him even deeper. He was losing himself on her while he fucked her dumb. After so long trapped in intrusive thoughts and in unholy dreams, Jason felt in heaven. He grunted out her name, thankful for choosing a safehouse so far from everybody.
His thrust were getting clumsy, his dick missing entrance her a few times. As she placed him back where she wanted him most, she thrusted back, giving him a moment to rest before returning his moves once again.
“Jay” she whispered out. “I getting close”
“Shhh. Not now, baby. Just a little bit more.”
Grabbing her by the neck, he yanked her up to meet his chest. Her head rolled back to rest on his shoulders as he gained speed, the new position making him hit her favorite spot. Y/n cried out in his ears, when he fingered her clit for a third time.
He bit and sucked on the skin of her shoulder, holding back moans of his own.
“Jay, I-i” she tried to speak, but he cut her off by crashing his lips to hers. Still clutching her neck, he sucked on her tongue as he felt her nail dig into his ass.
“I’m almost there” he announced, sucking on earlobe. “Just tell me. Tell me you’ll stop.”
His drive never seeming to slow down, he requested, voice muffled her neck. he requested. 
“Tell me you stop stealing, robbing, dealing. Tell me you’ll stop, then I’ll let you come”
“I’ll stop. Yes, please. I’ll stop, I’ll stop. Jason, please let me come.”
“Look me in the eye tell me this again. Like you mean it” he demanded, capturing her chin and moving her look him deep in the eye.
“I’ll stop. I’ll be a good girl… just for you.”
Jason’s hands rubbed her harder, his thrusts making her mind go blank from ecstasy as her body melted onto his. The know below his stomach coming undone as he filled her with his seed, her own orgasm makes her body spasm against his hold.
Riding out his high, he pushed in at a much slower pace. Leaving butterfly kisses on her back as he lowered them both to rest on the mattress.
When he pulled out, Y/n groaned, already missing the sensation of him filling her up.
After cleaning themselves, Jason watched her back rising and falling, breathing finally even , her eyes closed as she laid on her belly. It wasn’t a sight he expected to see anytime soon, or ever, really. But he was glad to be seeing it, he was glad she was here. With him.
Getting back on the bed, he pulled her and hugged her from behind. He laid a soft kiss behind her ear, hearing the quiet sound of her breath.
“Do you bring many of his villains here?” she gently asked.
“Only the potentially dangerous ones.”
“I hope you have tapped your night with the Joker then. I’d be really interested in watching that”
Throwing his head back, Jason blurted out laughing. Y/n’s heart beat faster at the sound, wishing to hear it more often.
“Relax. He didn’t catch my attention like you.” he confessed, returning to leave kisses on her skin, something he found himself addicted to. “No one did.”
“Good!” she said, and she tightened his hold onto her middle. “I don’t want your attention anywhere else.”
. tag list (i can't believe i've got one of those lmao, thank you so much for the love you've given this story ♡
@dolliezxo @stevesdick @miraculous-panic @kk00789 @alecmoress @parkjammys @biggetywitch @jasontodd-artemisgrace4life @dakotali @theendofthematerialgworl
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comicaurora · 6 months
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Hey, no idea if you've covered this, bit I've recently wondered if Achilles being raised as a girl was a weird mythos explanation of him either being transmasc or perhaps a woman that was rewritten as a man in history? I don't know if this has any actual basis in fact and I don't think it changes much about that myth, but thought it was an interesting possibility?
It's a fun theory, but I think it's kinda like…… zooming really far into a super crunchy jpeg that's been photocopied twice to see if you can read what's written on a sign four blocks behind the focal point, you know? We're looking for information at a granularity well below the expected data loss we've already been through. To get to "the historical Achilles was perhaps not a cis man" we need to get through a LOT of layers of historical and mythological fuzziness, like the basic unlikeliness of there having been a single historical Achilles at all. While someone with something like that name likely lived, and probably participated in one of the historical Trojan Wars, as soon as he became a folkloric figure, people could assign his name and archetype whatever feats or stories they felt fit, like how he went from being badass but eminently stabbable to being 99% indestructible in the post-Iliad folklore.
Also, "our extremely badass hero spent some time passing as a woman, or at least very much not presenting as a man" is something of a staple trope in a lot of indo-european mythology, like Thor's wedding incident, or in the Mahabharata the year Arjuna spent as "Brihannala", described as either a eunuch or a person of a third gender depending on who you ask. Apollodorus's Bibliotheca also says Dionysus was raised as a girl to misdirect Hera's wrath.
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maniculum · 6 months
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Bestiaryposting: Wutugald Results
All right, time to see what everyone came up with for the Wutugald! Again, if that statement confuses you, you may find an explanation at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting . If you want a refresher on the description the artists were working with, here is the original post:
This was a pretty good creature to start with, I think; the random number generator did us a solid with this one. It laid to rest some concerns I had: will people be able to put aside their real-world knowledge of these animals and draw as if they had never heard of them? Yes, apparently -- a number of comments and notes indicated that several participants had guessed what the Wutugald was, refrained from sharing that information, and drew something that fit the description while being nevertheless a fully distinct animal. I was also concerned about some of the upcoming entries that specify a type of animal (bird, serpent, &c.), wondering if that constraint would be a problem -- but a number of people drew some Very Good Birds for this one, so I feel reassured that future entries that are Explicitly A Bird will still be material we can have fun with.
So, let's see what people created. I'm putting these in roughly the order in which they appeared, below the cut:
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@cosmic-flora (link to post here) produced this in Paint pretty shortly after the original post went up, and posted it with a brief explanation of their design decisions -- they were the first but not the last to interpret the rigid spine as spikes and the single tooth as a beak, and also to provide the creature with claws for digging.
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@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) was also quick off the mark, posting this the same evening along with an explanation of their design process. I'm genuinely impressed by how quickly they were able to draw something so naturalistic -- this went up within like four hours of the original post. This was also the first (but again not the last) to include an apparent reference to the Wutugald's ability to change sex by including both male genitalia and noticeable teats. Also, I wonder if the coat pattern on the baby is a sneaky reference to the animal this is based on, as Silverhart does indicate that they figured it out.
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@elodieunderglass (link to post here) created this rendition, which I think does a good job at capturing the vibe in the bestiary entry, of a creature that the medieval author clearly sees as discomfiting and somewhat sinister. That is a grin that makes me worry about the critter's intentions.
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@geeoharee (link to post here) posted this along with a brief explanation of their design decisions. The human face and the speech bubble are great, I think -- it makes me smile. I think this is the first non-mammalian Wutugald, but several more come later.
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@sweetlyfez (link to post here) drew this with a dip pen, apparently, which is cool. Also this might be the cuddliest-looking version, but my desire to hug it probably says more about my own sense of self-preservation than anything else. That is a cute face, right? It's not just me?
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@cinqueform (link to post here) produced this wonderfully medieval-styled image. We can see here the ruler-straight spine and the depiction of the Wutugald's sexual ambiguity, as well as a human-like face for imitating speech. Also a very nice stylized letter W.
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@rautavaara (link to post here) has also done a medieval-style rendition, which is excellently sinister in presentation. That is a Worrying Creature. It's also the first (but again not the last) avian interpretation of the Wutugald, which I think really works. Also I'm not sure if this is a sneaky nod to what the animal actually is, or just a case of "great minds think alike", but Rautavaara's interpretation of the rigid spine is very similar to the one in the actual Aberdeen Bestiary illustration I will show y'all at the end of this post.
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@spontaneousmusicalnumber (link to post here) posted this along with a brief explanation of their design process. I think they're right about the side pattern being appropriate for a bestiary critter.
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@strixcattus (link to post here) did another avian rendition of the Wutugald complete with a fantastic lengthy reinterpretation of the bestiary entry through the eyes of a modern naturalist. Seriously, go check that out, it's very good.
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@fidgetyhands (link to post here) provides this image of the Wutugald along with an explanation of their design choices. They also note that limitations in terms of artistic material are probably relevant to a lot of bestiary drawings.
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@jamiethekeener (link to post here) gives us this Wutugald in the act of digging. She instructs that we should not ask why her interpretation of Wutugald ended up being so unsettling, which I cannot deny that it is. (That smile... that damn smile.) I also want to highlight the interpretation of the rigid spine as a shield-like plate along the back.
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@thewhetherman (link to post here) gives us this rather-frightening-looking creature, along with a brief commentary that definitely ups the spook factor on this whole thing.
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@bruncikara (link to post here) also went with a medieval stylization, with a very period-appropriate pose and frame. We can see again some digging claws and a nod to the animal's sexual ambiguity. Wicked-looking single tooth, also.
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@mobileleprechaun (link to post here) has given us what I think is our only invertebrate Wutugald by interpreting the rigid spine as a shell and the single tooth as a radula. Shown here with its half-lion offspring.
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@illogarithmil (link to post here) has also taken inspiration from medieval bestiary art, noting the unusual color and perspective choices typical of the genre. Note the straight tail, the skull, and the doorway in the background -- presumably into a tomb of some sort. The diamond-pupilled eye is striking.
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@qwertyprophecy (link to post here) gives us this Wutugald who manages to strike an excellent balance between "cute" and "villainous". Like, I would expect to see these hopping around to signal that the Protagonists have entered the Sinister Fantasy Kingdom, but it's also kind of adorable. I think the gemstone pupil helps with that vibe. Vulture face is for easier eating of corpses, I assume.
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@aaclysm (link to post here) provides both a final version and a "messy bus sketch". We can see the stone-like eyes, the single tooth interpreted as a beak, and the rigid spine interpreted as a carapace. Kind of griffin-like vibes, which I'm enjoying.
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@scarlettbookworm (link to post here) gives us this drawing, which has some delightful details. I like the lines on the shadow, which I assume is meant to indicate the magical effects associated with it. Also love that the Wutugald's ability to change sex is acknowledged by giving it a little trans-pride flag to wave with its tail. I believe the text in its speech bubble is intended to be word-salad, demonstrating that it imitates but does not understand human speech.
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@pachelbelsheadcanon (link to post here) gives us another very cute Wutugald. (More of these than I expected are downright cuddly.) I'm particularly delighted by the attempt to take the whole "single tooth that closes like a casket" thing at its word and make it work. They provide in their post an explanation of what's going on with that and some other interesting zoological details of their creation. I also enjoy the idea that the Wutugald talks like bot-generated spam.
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@changeinenthalpy (link to post here) has produced this fairly-intimidating-looking critter. This definitely looks like something that could dig up and eat a corpse if it wanted. Nasty claws on that beast. The shiny gemstone eyes give it an unsettling gaze also.
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@aethergeologist (link to post here) gives us this creature, which I both want to pet and also want to keep a healthy distance from because those claws look like they could mess you up. They provide an explanation for their design choices in the linked post.
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@karthara (link to post here) has added to our store of avian Wutugalds, and includes a brief explanation of their design choices in the linked post. I like how happy it seems in the side view -- all excited about its corpse-digging plans for the evening.
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@moustawott (link to post here) created this delightfully prehistoric-looking beast, and provides a detailed account of their design choices in the linked post. I think the snapping-turtle face really works here, and this is probably one of the most dangerous-looking interpretations of the Wutugald.
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@cattorneyatlaw (link to post here) has drawn an unusually porcine Wutugald. Probably one of the spookier pig drawings I've seen. They provide an explanation of their design choices -- including "why a pig" -- in the linked post.
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@curiouslyodd (link to post here) has given us a Wutugald with a very unsettling face and an interesting fur pattern. In the linked post, they not only provide an explanation of their design choices, but also a detailed and well-written reinterpretation of the bestiary entry based on the animal as they have drawn it. Go check that out.
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@treesurface (link to post here) has done an interestingly chimeric Wutugald, and includes a brief explanation of their design choices in the linked post. I like the head particularly.
And... hm. We're not going to be able to fit all of the images in one post. The limit is thirty, right? Stay tuned for a bit, I guess. The remaining Wutugalds will be in a reblog of this post, along with the reveal of the animal's identity and the Aberdeen Bestiary's interpretation of the creature.
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