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Reaching out to young minds the old, traditional way by telling stories. With these videos, we wish to bring to you old stories for our young children that all hold a lesson in the end and hope to achieve that children would learn something meaningful from these stories. Along with stories, we aim to teach some simple concepts through animations and videos. Hope you all enjoy watching these videos as much as we enjoyed making these.

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I Want You to Stay (01) | JJK

Pairing: Jungkook x (f.) Reader

Genre/Tags: boss!JK x assistant!reader; idiot strangers to lovers; slow slow burn; k-drama feels; angst, drama, fluff, smut

Chapter (Series) Warnings: foul/explicit language; alcohol consumption & passing out, unhealthy coping mechanisms; family drama; minor injuries; power dynamics (JK starts off as a jerk); work-related anxiety, feelings of helplessness, insecurities; childhood traumatic experiences, nightmares; sexual harassment, prior incidence of domestic violence (PLS PLS BE CAREFUL WHEN READING); arts and business/property devt talk that’s probably inaccurate; commitment issues & emotionally constipated characters; cold and detached JK; explicit sexual content (specific warnings stated per chapter) (18+)

Chapter Word count: 12k

Series Masterlist

Status: Ongoing

Series summary: Working for Jungkook isn’t the same as working for Hoseok. For starters, Jungkook doesn’t smile, he doesn’t appreciate you, and he gives you too much work. It doesn’t help that he’s incredibly handsome and has women at his beck and call. But as the tension grows, it becomes impossible to resist him. You’ve dedicated yourself to your job for 8 years so when you finally decide to put yourself first, he asks you to reconsider. And while you know that leaving is difficult, you learn that when it comes to Jungkook, staying is always so much harder.

Playlist 🎶: on the way home

A/N: Happy 2024, everyone! 🎉 Dropping this tonight as a welcome to the new year and the start of the wild journey that is this story. It's a different JK that I'm used to writing. It's also a different arrangement for me as the story is still being written, so just a heads up that updates won't be as regular compared to before, but they'll definitely come (pls don't come at me hehe 😁)! This is also a painfully slow build-up with lots of details and office talk so please be patient! I don’t know how this will turn out and be revived but I hope you enjoy! 💕

Also my biggest thanks to @wonwoonlight as always 🥰

Jung Hoseok’s smile is like a ray of sunshine - warm on cool mornings, radiant on sunny afternoons. It’s light and infectious, but more than anything, it’s genuine. There’s comfort in the way his entire face beams and how the rest of his body follows; there’s this sense of openness that makes it easy to be around him, that makes it easy to work for him.

It was 10 years ago when you first encountered that smile - bright and encouraging as he welcomed you and the rest of the interns to his family’s company. It slowly dissolved the anxiety you were feeling over being 1 of 12 chosen students to work for one of the leading real estate and property development corporations in the country. You’d see it again two years later as an employee, and you recall how he perked up at the sight of you, having remembered those eight weeks you spent preparing the conference room for their meetings and serving the executives their coffee. 

You wouldn’t have expected that five years after that, you’d be seeing that smile everyday as his executive assistant, and it was one of the things that made the job bearable. Despite the long hours and the amount of work you had to do and events you had to accompany him to, working for Hoseok always felt worth it. Despite the insane amount of pressure he was put under and the stress he had to endure, Hoseok somehow always managed to smile. 

He was serious when he had to be, but there was joy in how he did things. He allowed himself moments of calm, of time to check in on his support team for a few laughs. He’d spare himself a few minutes a day to sway to the soft music he plays in his office, he’d preside over meetings with vigor, and he’d start and end every interaction with anyone with that smile - the same smile that assures you that all your hard work is appreciated and which encourages you to keep learning.

It’s that same smile that he has on right now, as he hands you a custom-made cake with ‘you worked hard’ written on it. He says the words as your eyes turn to him in surprise. 

“Thank you for all that you’ve done,” Hoseok says. “I know you were new to the role just like I was but you made everything so easy for me. I’m gonna have to get used to being without your brilliance, Ms. Cho. I hope you never doubt yourself ever again.”

Your astonished face turns into a pout, as it dawns on you that it’s Friday, the first unofficial day of you no longer being Hoseok’s executive assistant, given his appointment as President not long ago. Yet despite the big change he’ll be experiencing starting next week, he’s the one affirming and comforting you, something that’s rare for someone of his stature and something you’ll definitely miss. 

“You know I don’t cry, but I just might,” you respond, earning you a chuckle. “But really, I… I can’t thank you enough for taking a chance on me. I know my credentials weren’t like the others but—”

“Ms. Cho,” he interjects. “The only credentials those other applicants had were the universities they went to, but none of them matched your level of skill and dedication to the role. I can assure you that none of them would’ve managed the past three years like you did. I should be thanking you for dealing with all the craziness with me.”

“You’re a good boss, it’s that simple,” you return the compliment now. “You were patient with me and challenged me to be better without putting me down. That does a lot for a person’s confidence, you know?”

“I know that now,” he smiles again. “But really, I don’t think I could’ve asked for a more competent right-hand woman. Jungkook’s lucky he’s taking my position with the most capable assistant to help him out.”

At the mention of the man’s name, your face sours, something that Hoseok picks up, earning you another laugh. 

“Not a fan of him, I see,” he eyes you curiously.

“I don’t mean any disrespect, Mr. Jung, but your cousin is not you,” you explain. “I may have only seen him a handful of times but those are enough to let me know that he does not smile.”

“Yes, I do confirm that,” Hoseok chuckles. “Jungkook’s quite the perfectionist and very much a workaholic. But he’s brilliant and creative and you’ll learn a lot from him, too. He’s being primed to co-lead the company with me and he needs a strong support for that and I think that’s you. His father thinks that’s you, and for the CEO to think so means a lot, ___. Uncle has seen how you work and was adamant that you remain in this role, especially with his son assuming the Vice President position.”

You know that Hoseok means to reassure you, but you suppose your insecurities over having this role and even being in this company won’t ever really go away. You didn’t graduate from a prestigious university in Seoul like most employees here did, and in this society, that usually means everything. You’re thankful for the trust that you’ve been given and you agree that you worked hard for it, too, but it will always be overwhelming; even then, it sometimes still feels undeserved. 

At your silence, Hoseok speaks again. “___, as your former boss and as your friend, I’m here to back you up. Jungkook’s family but if he, for some reason, acts like a hard-headed jerk, you let me know, okay?”

He turns serious now, as he silently asks for you to promise him that you’ll speak out if you need to. Hoseok knows what you went through under Mrs. Byun, the former manager who abused her power over you until her own slip-up caused her downfall years later, and he doesn’t want you to go through that again. 

“Okay. But I didn’t mean to imply that he’s a jerk just because he doesn’t smile,” you clarify. “I guess I meant to say that… I’ll miss working for you. That’s all. We somehow always got a laugh in, no matter how stressful things were. I’ll miss being with A-yeong, too.”

“I know you also meant to say that I’m the best boss you’ve ever had,” Hoseok chuckles, though you don’t miss the sadness in his eyes, too. “But I’ll just be two floors above you. You’ll still see me everywhere. And A-yeong’s gonna miss you, too, that’s why she can’t let you go without having dinner out, that I’m apparently not invited to.”

“We’re just gonna gossip about you, don’t worry,” you tease, appreciative of the fact that his wife has been kind to you all these years, apologizing to you on his behalf during the rare times he’s cranky, and gifting you little things from their trips abroad. “But thank you again, Hoseok,” you continue, dropping the formalities when you mean to speak to him as a friend, because that’s what he is, and it’s a rarity in this industry where those in power tend to take advantage of those below them. “You’ve treated me well, and I’ll never forget that.” 

“Thank you, ___,” he smiles once more. “I’ll finish setting up my new office now. I’ll see you there in 30 minutes, okay? I know Jungkook officially starts on Monday but he wanted to get all the administrative stuff out of the way as soon as possible and since my old room is being sanitized, he’ll be staying at mine the whole morning. HR has everything he needs to sign so please get those documents from them before heading to my office.”

“Oh, so he’s coming today?” You ask, unable to hide the mix of surprise and disappointment in your voice. You’re clearly uninformed about this. “Didn’t he just arrive last night?”

“Yes, he did. I thought he’d at least spend today resting but no, he called me an hour ago to say he’ll drop by this morning so he can get straight to business on his first day,” Hoseok explains, shaking his head at the thought of his cousin wanting to get straight to work. “I know it’s short notice so you don’t need to brief him or anything yet. You’ve been buried in organizing all my files this past week after all.” 

“Okay, but I’ve got everything organized for him already anyway in case he wants to start,” you say, having prepared all the documents he’d need to ease into his role more smoothly, knowing it’s your job to help him with that. 

“Of course you have,” Hoseok chuckles, impressed as always with how on top you are of everything. “I’ll see you in half an hour.”

You sulk in your seat once he’s out of view, whining internally because much as your files are ready for your new boss, you’re the one who isn’t. You’d held off on mentally preparing yourself for meeting the Jeon Jungkook, second son of the current CEO of Jeon Corporation and the new Vice President, thinking you’d have the entire weekend for that, so you’re caught off guard at having to face him today. It’s one thing to move on from no longer having Jung Hoseok as your boss - that itself took you months to process and accept; it’s another to have to get used to assisting someone else, someone you know is completely different in attitude and approach to his work.

Jungkook used to be an executive in the Singapore office, the Southeast Asian headquarters of the company. In your three years as Hoseok’s assistant, you’d only seen Jungkook a few times, such as when he’d fly to Seoul for an official visit or a family gathering but you never interacted, as you didn’t really have a reason to, especially since you were always busy with making sure the event was running smoothly. 

But you’d definitely noticed him, partly because the female staff always talked about him when he was around, and partly because next to his parents and his cousins, who are all personable in their own ways, Jungkook sticks out like a sore thumb. You’re not exaggerating when you say that you’ve never seen him smile - not for the pictures and not when he’s talking to the other executives and employees, a contrast to his father’s infectious charm and his mother’s youthful energy.

You’ve gotten used to Hoseok’s passion balanced with his thoughtfulness and joy - you always enjoyed the videos that A-yeong would show you of their weekends doing ballroom dancing because it’s what he loved to do with her. You’re unsure how you’ll manage assisting someone who’s the complete opposite. You’ve heard of Jungkook’s abilities though; his father always spoke of them with pride. Creative and innovative, he’d say of his son, but he always lived in his head, too, and perhaps that’s why even if he can socialize with others, he prefers not to, given that you’d always seen him at the bar after said events, drinking on his own.

You didn’t think those times that you’d one day be having him as your boss. You didn’t expect the appointments to come this soon, nor did you expect to still be in the company by the time they happened. But here you are, about to meet him and hoping to the heavens that whatever preconceived notions you have of him based on what very little you know would be proven wrong. 

Wanting to calm yourself down before meeting him, you head to the management support team’s office for a cup of tea in the pantry, but you’re stopped by Do-hyun, one of the project assistants. 

She hugs you like she always does, even if you rarely ever return it, and she whines like you expect her to, given her unusually pouty face. 

“It’s only been an hour but I already miss Mr. Jung,” she laments. “Why did they appoint him as President so soon? They could’ve waited for another year or so, or at least let him take us with him!”

You find yourself being the reasonable one this time, as you pull her away from you so you could talk to her properly. 

“We always knew he was going to be President, Do-hyun. But then the Board decided to make Ji-woo head of the Singapore office after their uncle stepped down, and that meant Hoseok had to take his sister’s place,” you explain, knowing how generational corporations like this work, with family members rotating in the executive positions. “And much as he’d like to take us with him, the position already comes with its own team. He’s just two floors above us, though. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we popped in every once in a while to say hi.”

“No, I’m bitter,” she pouts again, earning her a laugh from you.

“Well, at least the new Vice President isn’t a stranger,” Manager Lee chimes in. 

“I heard the CEO’s son doesn’t smile,” Do-hyun counters. “How do we go from assisting someone who literally gives all of us the energy to work each day, to someone who doesn’t think there’s anything worth being happy about? I also heard he’s a workaholic, so what if he demands that we can’t leave the office until he does? And that he’s kind of a fuck boy, so what if he has a scandal that we have to—” 

“Yah! Those are just hearsay, and we don’t listen to those,” you warn her, not wanting the team to start on a bad note because of some rumors about your new boss that may or may not be true. 

And if those are, it’s your job to make sure that those are handled properly and that there’s no friction between the management support team and the Vice President. The thought suddenly hits you and you feel nauseous. You’ve never had these worries with Hoseok because he always prioritized the team - he made sure that tasks were properly delegated, that you all took your well-deserved break, that you weren’t burnt out, that you all knew he got your back the way you all got his. 

But then again, it’s natural to be anxious about change, especially when what you had was already the best it could’ve been. And much as you were the one worrying about this earlier, you’re now the one who has to reassure the team, especially the younger members, that things are going to be okay. 

“You’ll meet him soon, and I’ll make sure he’s properly oriented with everything before he sits down with you all,” you say. “Let’s just be optimistic about this, okay? Manager Lee has been here a while and he can guide all of us when it comes to adapting to changes like this.”

The rest of the team nods, voicing their agreement about being open and welcoming to your new boss. 

“Okay, good. Now let me get my tea before I combust,” you chuckle, heading towards the adjacent room. 

You’re busy taking breaths in between sips of your hot drink when you see a familiar face in the room through the glass window, prompting you to head back outside.

“Mr. Ri,” you greet, causing the man before you to turn towards you. “What are you doing here? Does Mr. Jeon need anything?” 

Knowing you’re referring to the elder Jeon, Mr. Ri shakes his head. 

“I’m here as Jungkook’s chauffeur and bodyguard, actually. His father appointed me, wanting people he trusts to help his son,” he clarifies. “I’ve just driven him from his penthouse.”

“Oh,” you say, unable to control the way your face falls a little. “So, he’s here.”

“He is. He said he wanted to get things done today so he doesn’t waste his time when he starts next week. He’s at Hoseok’s office right now. I believe he’s supposed to sign some documents?”

“Oh shit,” you blurt out, immediately setting down your half-finished tea and rushing out the door to speed-walk to your desk, ignoring Mr. Ri’s demand for you to slow down. 

With what little you know of your new boss, he seems like the type to not excuse tardiness, so you take your files, head to HR to retrieve some documents, and then proceed to Hoseok’s office. You try to catch your breath as you head towards the door, which opens before you get to knock, revealing Bitna, the President’s assistant, who greets you with a sweet smile. 

“Hi, ___. I was just about to call you,” she says. “CEO Jeon is inside as well. Just walk in, they’re waiting for you.”

You cross the small hallway as the door gently closes, and you stop in your tracks the moment you hear Jungkook’s voice.

“I still prefer my old assistant,” he says, obviously displeased. “He was very organized, highly educated, and well-traveled. While this Ms. Cho didn’t even study in a top university in Seoul. And Hoseok says she doesn’t know any other foreign languages when that’s one of my requirements.”

“Son, you’re being too harsh,” CEO Jeon chides. “Ms. Cho is a top performing employee, very hardworking and dedicated. She’s worked here for eight years and she imbibes all our values; she knows the company culture and knows the ins and outs of things with how she’s been exposed to them. Ask your cousin; Hoseok speaks highly of her.”

“___ is great, Kook. She’s incredibly organized and highly analytical and observant. She doesn’t need a Seoul education to be good at what we need her to be good at,” Hoseok argues. 

“I still want my old assistant. It’s more convenient that way. Lucas already knows how I work and what I require of him,” Jungkook insists. “I’m just saying that I need things to be efficient and she and I can’t be adjusting to each other when there are multiple projects that I’d much rather give my attention to.”

“And I’m saying that Ms. Cho probably knows more than you do when it comes to these projects,” the elder Jeon counters. “Plus, your old assistant would have to adjust to life in Seoul and that’s harder. It’s just not practical, especially since you’re due to start in a few days. You have other things to worry about. ___ is there to make your life easier. Give her that chance to do her job.”

“But I—”

“Good morning, gentlemen,” you greet, not wanting to hear whatever unfounded things that Jungkook has to say, even if you have your own preconceived notions about him which, you remind yourself, are partly founded. Barely five minutes in and you already can’t stand his judgmental and entitled ass. 

You walk towards the middle of the room where they’re congregated on the couches, with the elder Mr. Jeon and Hoseok smiling at you while Jungkook merely glances at you, his jaw clenched, perhaps irritated at the fact that you’d overheard him completely misjudge and undermine your abilities without even knowing who you are.

“Good morning, Ms. Cho,” CEO Jeon says. “I know you’ve seen him a few times but I’d like you to officially meet my son and the new Vice President, Jungkook.”

Jungkook turns to you with a disinterested look but he doesn’t meet your eyes. You bow as a sign of respect, even if it’s the last thing you think he deserves.  

“My pleasure, Mr. Jeon,” you respond. “I was told that you’d like to proceed with administrative matters this morning. I have all the documents with me and I can explain each one to you before you sign them. I’ve also consolidated all the things you need to know prior to your meetings next week,” you add, handing him an iPad. “This has the resumes of each member of your management support team, including their professional and development goals. Mine are there as well, so you can read about my credentials and achievements in this company the past eight years, which I think have tremendously helped me in performing my duties satisfactorily. There’s also a folder of team profiles of each of the departments you’re overseeing. You’ll also find closure reports of completed projects from the past five years, progress reports of ongoing projects, and approved and working proposals of upcoming ones. I’ve included summaries and key figures for each of them. You may read them prior to your meetings, and if there’s anything missing that you’d like me to include, I can have them ready by the end of the day.”

“Hmm,” Jungkook hums, as he scrolls through all the folders you’ve prepared for him.

In your periphery, you can see the other two men holding in smiles as you seemingly render the younger man speechless, but while he assesses all that you’ve provided to him, you’re given time to observe the man seated before you. Other than his slightly longer hair, not much has changed from when you saw Jungkook in last year’s gala. 

As he drags his tongue across the inside of his cheek with his scrunched eyebrows in judgment, you’re reminded that this is the first time you’ve seen him up close. And even from his angle, you can tell. 

He’s unfairly handsome. 

He’s got dark expressive eyes, soft-looking pink lips, and a sharp jawline that complement his lean figure. You understand why the staff are enamored by him even from afar and - if the rumors about him are true - why women would shoot their shot with him at clubs, in hopes they’d be the lucky one he’d choose to be with for the night.

The illusion breaks, though, as he turns to you with a hardened gaze. 

“I’m sure I’ll find something that’s missing,” he states.

“If they’re relevant and necessary, I can have the files ready by today,” you respond, knowing full well that you’ve included every possible document that would be of use to him. 

“I’ll be the judge of what’s relevant and necessary, Ms. Cho,” he counters. 

“Of course, Mr. Jeon,” you say, conceding. “Whatever it is, then I’ll make sure to have them ready for you as soon as possible.”

Jungkook hums in response, turning his attention to the HR documents this time, breezing through the text and ignoring your brief explanations of the contents before signing at the bottom of the pages. You inform him of sections he’s missed, and he groans at having been corrected but you don’t mind. He’s the one who chose to do all this now and in here, in front of his father and his cousin.

Once he’s done, he hands you the signed files and holds your gaze. “Is there anything else, Ms. Cho?”

“I suppose that is all, Mr. Jeon. Unless there are other things you want to assess, or people you want to ensure are qualified to assist you with your functions,” you say. 

Jungkook huffs in displeasure. You can sense the tension build, as irritation paints his face. It’s at that moment that his father chimes in, suggesting that you introduce him to his team.

“You can maybe also orient him on the current projects and partnerships,” the older man says. 

“That can wait. I’ve had enough of engaging for today,” Jungkook responds, his voice cold, detached. 

“In that case, let me lead you to your floor, Mr. Jeon.”

You step back and wait for him to walk ahead, before you excuse yourself from the older men. You don’t miss the sorry looks on their faces, and you give them a smile as if to say that it’s fine, that Jungkook’s someone you can handle, and his obvious displeasure towards having you as his assistant doesn’t faze you. It doesn’t change the fact that you wish he wasn’t your boss though, or at least, that he wasn’t such a jerk like what he’s being right now.

Walking behind him as you both head towards the elevator, you see the way he carries himself - hands in the pockets of his sleek black trousers, his eyes focused straight ahead, nothing like Hoseok who was always gesticulating as he spoke to you every time you walked side-by-side from one place to another.    

Jungkook stands in front of the doors, seemingly waiting for you to press the buttons and you do it before he could even express his annoyance. You stand in front this time, then make sure you hold the doors open for him to exit, and you resume your spot behind him as you walk down the hallway. 

“On the left are two small meeting rooms and one conference room,” you start, thankful that there’s not much to tour him around on this floor, given that everything is exclusive to the Vice President. “On the right is a seating room, and up ahead is an archive room. Down the—”

“I’ve been here before, Ms. Cho,” Jungkook interjects as he looks at you blankly. “This is my family’s building; I’m very much aware of how the floors look like.”

Not rattled by his disruption, you nod and smile, wanting to show him that whatever intimidation or humiliation he’s trying to make you feel isn’t gonna work on you. You know if you show any sign of frustration, that will just give him a reason to have you replaced and despite your clear dislike for the man, you need this job, especially this position that allows you to pay your rent in a safe part of town and send money to your family every month. At this point, that’s the only thing that will keep you going.

Approaching the management support office, you walk faster and make sure to enter the room before he does, signaling the team with your eyes that their new boss is coming, your silently frantic gaze telling them to be on their best behavior because their usual antics won’t work on Jungkook the way they did with Hoseok. 

Once Jungkook appears, everyone bows and greets him, and you can sense them holding their breaths as they look up, taking him all in. You see him eye each person, and you can tell he’s already assessing them individually. You take it upon yourself to introduce each one, stating their name, where they studied and what course they took, describing their primary role in the team and their specific strengths. You see him follow your words, nodding and humming as you go, and you think he’s processing the information and making sure he remembers them. 

There are no pleasantries; Jungkook just goes straight to the point. 

“I’m sure you have concerns about having a new boss and the changes that come along with it. But I’m here to tell you now that you should get over whatever those are, as I’d like the adjustment period to be as short as possible,” he starts. “My cousin is brilliant at his job and so am I, but we work very differently, so whatever you got used to doing with and for him, don’t expect the same with me. I demand excellence and efficiency from each one of you because that’s what I commit myself to and that’s the only way that this team will be able to do its job. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the team answers in unison. 

“We commit to those as well, Mr. Jeon,” Manager Lee says. “As the head of your support team, I will make sure that all our deliverables are of high quality and that things will run smoothly so that we may properly do our job of assisting you.”

“That’s good, and that’s what I expect,” Jungkook says, nodding at everyone before walking out the door to head to his office, with you trailing him from behind. 

“Is my room still being sanitized?” He turns to you. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Why did it need to be sanitized? And why today?”

“It’s protocol, sir. We also had a sendoff for Mr. Jung yesterday so the room smelled of food. And he instructed for this to be done today so that I don’t need to come here tomorrow, as he doesn’t like any of his staff working during the weekend,” you reply. “This should be finished this afternoon. I’ve also purchased the oil for your diffusers. The room will be ready for you by Monday.”

Jungkook merely hums and looks around, specifically at your designated area with your desk and shelves at the back, then takes a call before turning to you again to say that he’s heading out to meet his friends.

“Is there anything else you need, Mr. Jeon?” You ask, thankful that you don’t have to deal with him for the rest of the day.

“No.”

“Okay then, sir. I’ll meet you at your apartment at 6:30 AM on Monday. Is that time alright?”

“Sure,” he responds, then turns around and starts walking out. “Just keep your phone on. I work during the weekend.”

He’s gone before you can even respond, and you rush to the support office once you’ve heard the elevator ding that indicates that he’s gone. When you get there, you’re greeted with everyone’s frowns, with Do-hyun close to tears.

“I don’t like him, ___. He looks so unapproachable and too serious!” She complains. “I miss Mr. Jung. Is there an opening in his team? Should I just resign?”

“Aish!” You reprimand her. “Don’t speak like that. And don’t let those few minutes determine everything for you.”

“Well, those few minutes are enough to tell me that I don’t like him. No matter how good-looking he is,” Chin-sun says.

“He is, right!” Do-hyun chirps now, a complete 180 from seconds ago. “I’ve seen him around but I didn’t think he’d be even more handsome up close! It just sucks that he’s a grinch and that makes all the difference. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have a girlfriend! He’s probably too snobby and—”

“Yah! You really need to stop it with those rumors,” you scold her this time. “That’s your boss. His personal life is none of our business. Where do you even hear these things?”

“Every washroom in this building, basically. Staff are always gossiping there, you know?” Do-hyun responds. 

“And since when do we listen to gossip,” you scowl at her. “Sure, he’s not our favorite person right now but we don’t have the right to make claims about aspects of his life. And where are people even getting those ideas!”

“People talk, I guess,” she shrugs. “And he’s often spotted in clubs with those Kim brothers so maybe they see things. I’m not saying they’re all accurate… just that rumors often have some truth to them, you know?”

“No, I don’t, and we shouldn’t be sticking our noses in places where they shouldn’t be,” you say.

“Fine, but it’s just a heads up,” Do-hyun says, turning serious now. “You’re his executive assistant, and you have no choice but to stick your nose in places because personal and professional lines are often blurred in your situation, and that’s just how our world’s set up.”

“She’s right,” Chin-sun chimes in. “I mean, you need to know his personal schedule, go to his apartment, do errands if you need to, maybe buy a box of condoms if he runs out… You just got lucky that Mr. Jung’s pretty chill and has a wife who’s even nicer than he is. Your only problem was that he was damn scared of everything that moved and wasn't human.”

You’d laugh at the last statement if you could, but you know they’re both right. Hoseok wasn’t perfect, and neither was his marriage, but it never reached a point where you had to be put in a compromising position because you were his assistant who, by nature of your work, had to be privy to some of his personal matters. The most involved you were was when he and A-yeong had an argument and they used you as their messenger, but even that was more of a miscommunication issue than anything serious. They apologized to you after and promised to never put you in that kind of situation again.

But with Jungkook as a single man, you’re unsure what personal business you’d end up being involved in. You just wish it wasn’t something that would test your principles and cause you to lose your job. Regardless, whatever that would be isn’t something you can even really talk about with others.

“Well, I don’t wanna think about any of that right now,” you sigh, knowing you’ve got enough to worry about, such as how you’re going to start surviving everyday assisting a man who clearly doesn’t want you around. 

But if he’s gonna be a hard-head about it, then you’re just going to have to match him. You got to where you are because you’re determined to prove yourself constantly, and you’ll just show him that he needs you, and he doesn’t really have a choice unless he wants to argue with his father. 

You try to encourage your team once more and give Do-hyun that rare hug in comfort before going back to your desk, intent on finishing all the presentations for your briefing with Jungkook next week. You begin setting up his room by mid-afternoon, using a photo of his Singapore office as a basis since you were told that he prefers a certain style for his furniture and decor. You’re no stylist but over an hour after you finish, you think you did pretty good. You were so into designing the space that you didn’t notice the time fly by; before you know it, it’s 6PM, because you can hear A-yeong right outside calling for you.

“Hi,” she chirps, hugging you in greeting. “Are you ready?”

“I’ll just pack my things,” you say, walking to your desk. 

A-yeong takes a peek at the room and praises your efforts. “This looks so different from how it used to be. And that’s good because those cousins have such different tastes. But I think Jungkook will like this. He’s into the masculine and moody vibe, so good job, ___.”

You know that despite her kindness, she wouldn’t lie, and you could only hope that she’s right. You think it looks nice, but it’s what he thinks that matters; you’ll just have to wait until Monday to find out. 

As you’re about to leave, Hoseok appears in the hallway and asks how you are. Your scowl pretty much gives you away.

“I’m sorry about Jungkook, ___. He’s stubborn and a hot-head sometimes but he isn’t always like that, and this isn’t me making excuses for him,” your former boss says. 

“Why, what did he do?” A-yeong asks worriedly. 

“Basically implied that I’m not qualified for this role, among other things,” you respond. “But it’s okay. Not like I haven’t heard that before.”

“And you know that’s not true,” Hoseok comforts you. “He’s not good with change, that’s all, and you know how these appointments were all pretty short notice and he’s just been frustrated ever since. But whatever it is he said, don’t take them to heart. He’ll get a word from me, and he’ll definitely get one from his father.”

You want to say that it’s not easy to just disregard what Jungkook said; he’s your boss after all, and all that matters is what he thinks about you. But you’re not one to air out these feelings to Hoseok now that you’ve experienced a bit of what it’s like, so you just shake your head and ask the older man to let it go.

“He’s probably just tired,” you make an excuse this time, not wanting to discuss further with Hoseok. “And he had that assistant for over five years. I can understand wanting that familiarity and convenience. I’m just gonna have to adjust; there are a lot of things going on right now and he’ll need to focus on the projects, not his compatibility with his assistant.”

“But that matters though,” Hoseok insists. “I got things done because we worked well together. He’s gonna have to meet you in the middle with this one. And I’ll make sure that he does.”

“I know you said you want to look out for me but I don’t think it’s a good idea if you intervene this time, Mr. Jung,” you say, letting him know you’re serious and you mean business. “I’ll be okay, don’t worry about me.”

You give him a comforting smile, and you hope it’s enough to quell Hoseok’s own worries and it works this time. He returns it before letting you and his wife go, and it’s the Thai dinner and incredible desserts that somehow make up for your not-so-great day. 

You think the weekend will give you the peace you need to face your dreaded week - you do your errands and chores on Saturday and go to the market and watch a movie by yourself in the cinema the next day. 

All it took was a text from Jungkook that Sunday evening, asking for copies of certain policies and disapproved proposals from the last five years, that just had to ruin it, as you spend the entire evening consolidating the files, making you already wish it was Friday.

Jungkook’s apartment building is one of the Jeon properties that you haven’t been to yet, as it’s one of the newer massive residential structures that they built three years ago. You enter the sleek-looking lobby then submit your documents at the reception in exchange for your own access, and you internally marvel at how luxurious everything looks. 

You get to the 42nd floor, and it seems that there are only two units here. You walk towards the one on the right, choosing to be on the safe side by ringing the doorbell. It’s Monday, after all, and it’s your first time here; you don’t want to just enter without him permitting you to do so. 

You’re about to press the button again after a minute of no response, when the door opens and you take a moment to process the sight before you. 

There, standing just a few feet away, is Jungkook with nothing but a pair of black gym shorts on, his taut chest glistening in sweat, and his entire right arm covered in black and colored ink. His hair is damp and ruffled, and it’s probably due to the boxing he’d just done, as evidenced by the wraps on his knuckles and the way he’s panting heavily. 

You get your senses back and look away, not wanting to look affected by his half-naked form, even if you’re the one who has to catch her breath this time because much as you dislike the man, you can’t deny that his body is something that definitely deserves to be praised. 

“You’re here,” he speaks first, surprise laced in his voice as he takes in your obviously flustered form.

“I asked if 6:30 AM was a good time to come, Mr. Jeon,” you answer, glancing at him before looking at whatever you could behind him. “Perhaps I misheard your confirmation. I can wait downstairs if you’re not yet done with your exercise. My apologies for coming in early.”

You don’t actually have anything to be sorry for; he did confirm the time, and he’s the one who decided that working out at this hour was a good idea, knowing that his assistant’s scheduled to come. You would’ve appreciated it if he says you don’t need to apologize, but he doesn’t.

“It’s fine, I just finished,” he huffs. 

He leaves the door open for you to enter then heads straight to the large room on the right, which looks to be an indoor gym. You allow yourself a few seconds to look at his retreating form, quietly gasping as his broad shoulders and slender waist blind you a little, then scolding yourself for doing so. You stay rooted by the kitchen and look around the spacious penthouse as you wait for him to return. He exits the gym wearing a loose white shirt now, combing his hair with his fingers as he drinks a bottle of water.

“So, Mr. Jeon, uh, I would prepare Mr. Jung’s outfits for the week and then help his house staff make his breakfast. I run down his schedule as he eats. Are you okay with the same arrangement?” 

“Sure. I just don’t have any staff with me so you’re on your own. I’m fine with anything though. I’m not usually hungry in the morning,” he says before walking to the other side of the apartment.

You follow him, careful not to enter spaces you’re not given permission to, which is why you stand by his bedroom door before asking to come in. 

“How will you prepare my clothes from there?” He huffs. “Of course you can enter. Just be done before I finish taking a shower.”

You nod shyly and then head to the walk-in closet that thankfully has a separate door from the bathroom. He’s already unpacked his clothes, although not everything has been organized. You spot a few suits that are ready to wear, and you fix those first, taking note of asking him if there are things he wants dry cleaned or pressed. 

You leave his bedroom in time, hearing him slide open the door as you make it out, and proceed to make his breakfast. There’s really not much you can create with what little he has, so you make do with eggs and toast and whatever spread you find in his cupboard.

Jungkook walks into the kitchen not long after, the dark gray suit looking immaculate on him as you expected. Spotting his crooked necktie, you immediately walk up to him to fix it, unaware of how he holds his breath with how close you are. Noticing his body stiffen, you step back right away, apologizing for not asking permission first. 

He looks away and says it’s fine, then sits on the spot at the dining table where you’ve set up his meal. He stares at it for a good few seconds, prompting you to explain yourself.

“That’s… that’s all I could make with what you have, Mr. Jeon,” you say. “I can arrange for online groceries for you, as well as dry clean and pressing for your clothes and—”

“I’m having someone come in to clean my place and do all of that,” he says, as he takes a bite of his food. “So, what’s my week like?”

You start to enumerate the conference and lunch meetings he’ll be having this week, including who they’ll be with and their purpose. They’re mostly with the department leads to discuss updates on processes and current projects, and you’re thankful that Hoseok involved you as much as he did, given that Jungkook’s questions are more specific than you expected. 

Sure, he’s a Jeon and obviously works in the same company, but the Southeast Asian projects are different from the ones being implemented in South Korea, and while he used to oversee overall compliance to design standards, he’ll now be in-charge of setting those very standards this time. As Vice President, he’ll be involved in crafting policies; he’s also free to manage his own construction projects, and that’s what the support team is for. Given his much more expansive role this time, there are more departments and projects to oversee, and definitely more executive decisions to make. 

You suppose it’s why his questions don’t stop, even after he’s cleaned up and you both find yourselves in the backseat of the car and on the way to the office. He looks through the iPad with all the files you gave him, and you see the notes he’s made on them as you turn to him to answer his queries. Even if you know that he’s also still assessing you - perhaps on your knowledge and attention to detail - you can’t help but admire his thoroughness. You may have also cursed him in frustration for making you work on a Sunday, but he seems to have done way more than you, given that he went through all the documents over the weekend. You suddenly don’t feel too annoyed. 

But of course, he has to ruin it again.

“I need these annotated versions of the project and departmental documents ready before my meetings with the respective teams,” Jungkook says, his voice low and stern. “And I expect progress reports to be as detailed as possible, so make sure to check them first before they get to me. The ones you gave need revisions. I believe you’re trained enough to know immediately that these are lacking.”

“Yes, sir,” you respond, noting his instructions on your notebook while internally yelling, given that you’re unsure of the need for them before the meetings. 

Surely, he could give you some time to work on them, but with a meeting with one team in the afternoon and seven more the rest of the week, and on top of the other things you need to do for him, you already know you’ll be cramming to get everything done. 

You try to manage your breathing. Somehow, your habit of pressing your nails against your palm when you're stressed has miraculously come back today. It was something you developed while working under Mrs. Byun, which you eventually got over after working for Hoseok. You feel the anxiety build up, especially as you look at the half crescent marks on your skin, and it’s times like this that you wish your best friends were based in Seoul instead of Busan, so you’d at least have people to comfort you when things are a little tough. 

It’s not to say that work wasn’t overwhelming before. It definitely was, but Hoseok always found a way to make everything bearable and he was always reasonable with what he demanded of you. Now you’re stuck with a man who already makes you feel like your hard work isn’t enough. 

You make it to the office with no other words said and a thick tension in the air. It follows you to the elevator and into Jungkook’s room, where he dismisses you so he can prepare for the first meeting of the day. You rush to your desk and get on with your tasks, making sure to work on the annotated project file that he needs by the afternoon. 

It’s an hour later when you find yourself in the conference room for the meeting with the management support team. You prepped them just 10 minutes earlier, and while you tried to hide your frustration, your unusual lack of energy told them enough that it wasn’t exactly a good start of the day. 

They come in one by one, and you take the time to prepare Jungkook’s coffee, remembering from his former assistant’s notes how he wants it. He’d put it off earlier, given that he prefers to drink his protein shake after his workout, so this is the first time you’re doing it for him.

His eyes flit from the coffee in front of him to you as you place it on the table.

“Two espresso shots and half teaspoon each of milk and sugar,” you state, wanting to confirm that you got it right.

He merely takes a sip, places it down again, and then starts the meeting. 

How bold of you to assume that he’d thank you or even acknowledge it, as if he’d shown you even the tiniest amount of gratitude for anything you've done for him since Friday. Which he hasn’t. 

You let it go and proceed to sit next to him, your eyes and ears ready for what you already predict is gonna be a long meeting. 

It ends over three hours later. As you expected, he had a lot of questions. He made sure that each member had time to explain their current tasks and how they will monitor the projects assigned to them. You didn’t miss the way he’d acknowledged them with “good” and “well done,” and thanked them after they finished. He only nodded at you after your turn, with his eyes barely meeting yours, and for all the confidence you built over the past three years, you can’t process how it’s his non-acknowledgment that’s just going to undo all that. And quite frankly, you’re unsure if that’s on him or if that’s on you. 

Half of the meeting was spent discussing the big project that he wants to take on as Vice President. There’s a property they recently acquired - a non-operational arts center that he wants to revive by adding a performance hall, small theaters, a grand library, function rooms, and a permanent exhibition presenting the buildings that his family had developed over the years to showcase their architectural designs. 

You saw the excitement in your team members’ faces. Hoseok took over with several unfinished projects so you all had to focus on those. Aside from Manager Lee, this is the first time that you’re all handling something new and different. Even you felt the excitement creep in, a welcome emotion given how your day’s been going, but that shattered once he said that he wants it done by June of next year in time for an International Media Festival happening in August. The 12-month period he’s giving is too short with everything he wants to do, and you saw that the team felt the same. 

You go to them after Jungkook leaves for a lunch meeting, and their sighs and pouty faces tell you enough. Mr. Lee does his job of encouraging the team, and you add that you’re all gonna be supporting each other through it all. Sure, you’d have to match Jungkook’s ambition and thoroughness, but you should all take it as a challenge. 

You’re clearly not convinced yourself as the words come out of your mouth, but you don’t have time to debrief with them, as you still have that meeting with the design department that you have to prepare for. You take two biscuits and a cup of tea, and you decide that this is enough to last you throughout lunch, given that you’ll be spending the entirety of it working on the files. 

You don’t realize that an hour and a half have passed until you hear footsteps and see Jungkook’s form appear in the hallway. You stand to greet him, with him asking if you’re done with the annotated documents. 

“I’ll send it in five minutes, sir,” you say, hoping he’ll at least give you that. 

“Okay,” he responds. “Come to my office after you’ve sent it.”

“Yes, sir,” you say, quickly finishing the last two pages once he closes the door. 

You rush to get everything done and click send, then you head to his office and prepare yourself for more questions. It’s quiet inside as you watch him behind the desk, with his legs crossed and his eyebrows furrowed as he reads the document. You answer one of his questions and it’s at that moment when your very empty stomach decides to make itself known.

You freeze on your spot, as the grumbling sound starts low, getting louder for a few beats before it temporarily stops. Your eyes widen in embarrassment, and you press your belly so hard with your fingers in hopes that that would do anything, even if you’re too far gone at this point. Your only hope is that it was all in your head, but Jungkook’s eyes flitting to you tells you otherwise. The only other sound in his room is the air purifier, but it’s not remotely loud enough to drown out your intense hunger. 

It goes again, and all you can do is look away; humiliating yourself was definitely not the plan for your first day as Jeon Jungkook’s assistant.

“Do you need to step away, Ms. Cho?” He asks, not meeting your eyes. 

“Oh, it’s not… uh,” a bowel emergency or something, you want to say. “I just had a busy lunch break.” 

You settle for that, a hint that you’d spent its entirety doing something in such a short notice. Hoseok would always be apologetic whenever he had you do something during your break; he always made up for it with a nice meal as thanks. You doubt you’d get anything close to that from this man.

Jungkook hums and surprisingly doesn’t ask for anything else. He dismisses you and orders you to go ahead and prepare the conference room for the next meeting, and you do just that, dropping by the pantry for a muffin that you eat in four bites, in hopes that it would be enough to shut your stomach for the next three hours. 

Right as you exit, Jungkook picks up his phone to make a call. And then another one.

“Mr. Ri, please pick up the pastries that Ms. Cho ordered at the food hall,” he instructs his chauffeur. “She’s too busy right now.”

“Will do, Mr. Jeon.”

Taking minutes of a meeting when you’re starving is not a good thing. You know this because you’ve done this so many times, like during monthly executive meetings and the quarterly board meetings that have you spread out thin. It’s also not rare to miss out on lunch because there’s a report to finish or a site to visit; during events, you go on a day with having barely eaten anything. 

But just because you’re used to it, it doesn’t mean that your body has fully adapted, because here you are, eyeing the croissants in front of you, your mouth watering at the gloss and softness of the pastry. They’re so tempting and also out of reach, given that you need to be entirely focused on the discussion that you’re documenting, and munching on something is out of the question. You don’t even know where this is from and you think maybe the design department called for snacks but it’s really not helping your concentration.

You hope the way you’re nibbling your lips doesn’t give you away, but Yoongi from across the table picks it up, as you get a notification of his message.

[From: Min Yoongi] you didn’t have lunch, did you? 

You ignore the prompt on your laptop and respond to him with a look instead. You know your pouty lips will give him his answer, and he merely shakes his head at the confirmation. 

You do your best to shut out the sight and scent of the food before you, absorbing instead the discussion so you can note this down properly with just minimal edits needed. You have a lot of documents to work on for the next few days after all, and that’s on top of the file reorganization that Jungkook asked you to do. 

It works after you hang on by a thread for two and a half hours, a little earlier than you expected to finish. All you want is to sneak out that croissant and maybe some tarts, too, but your heart breaks when you look up and find the boxes empty. 

You let out a sigh, relieved that your boss didn’t hear you because he’s already on the phone and heading out the door. But it’s that same time that a plate of food appears in front of you, and it feels like the gates of heaven have opened. You’re not surprised anymore to find out who it’s from.

“Eat,” Yoongi says from next to you. “I could see your hands shaking from across the table.”

“What about you?” You ask, your lips in a pout once more. 

“You know I don’t eat these things,” he shrugs.

He doesn’t, and you know this, too. You also know he called dibs on these earlier, seeing as his staff were quick to get them, and he’d saved these so he could give them to you. 

“Ten years later and you’re still trying to make sure I eat, huh?” You say, nudging him with your hips to tease.

“If I don’t, who would?” He responds, walking out of the conference room with you. “You have a bad habit of not doing that.”

“Well, duty calls. What can I do?” 

“Take care of yourself even if it’s hard,” he replies. 

“Says the man who rarely does it himself,” you chuckle. 

“You know, the best advice I give are the ones I don’t actually follow, so disregard the fact that I don’t even do what I say because they apparently work,” he says. “But I mean it, ___. Eat this now.”

“Thanks, Yoongi,” you smile, taking a piece of pastry and eating it in two bites. 

Your puffed out cheeks cause him to laugh, and despite still being hungry after this, you suppose it’s enough to not make you faint at this moment. 

“And eat a proper dinner, okay?” He follows up.

“I’ll be off late, so I’ll just grab something from the convenience store,” you say. “That’s as proper as I can afford tonight.”

“Aish, fine,” he shakes his head. “But let me get you coffee at least. Those tarts won’t taste as good without one.”

“That would be life-saving,” you dramatically say. “What did I do to deserve a friend like you?”

“Don’t know. I mean, I’m not that great,” he shrugs. 

You playfully roll your eyes. “I’ll save the compliments once I have the coffee.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he feigns annoyance, gesturing for you to get back to your desk then walking the other direction. 

You take your seat and clean up the document, deciding that you’ll just review the meeting minutes tomorrow so you can get on with other pressing matters. It’s 20 minutes later when Yoongi returns, a tall cup of coffee on one hand and a banana loaf on the other.

“This is all they have left,” he says. “I hope it can last you until tonight.”

“It will,” you smile. “Thank you again. No one looks out for me here as much as you do. And that means a lot, more than you know. I don’t think I would’ve survived all these years without you.”

“Wow, all because of coffee and snacks,” he laughs, teasing. 

“It’s a fair trade. You feed me during my greatest need, I boost your ego,” you tease back. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Yoongi huffs in submission, but you know he enjoys it. 

You’re thankful that after everything that’s happened, you’re still able to maintain the friendship that you created when you were a mere intern and he was just starting out his career. 

“Anyway, I’m quickly meeting Jungkook and I need the portfolio of the contemporary arts institution joint project from 2019. It was VP-led so I assume it’s still here? Unless it’s in the archive room,” he continues.

“It’s within five years so it should be here,” you say, turning to the shelf behind you to confirm. 

You spot what you need and make the attempt to pull it out but your fingers barely even touch the rack.

“Need help?” Yoongi asks.

“And what help could you give, huh?” You tease again, earning you a playful groan.

“You brat.”

You laugh and pull out the small stool you keep for times like this. 

“Just make sure I don’t fall and embarrass myself further today,” you say, climbing up the steps then pulling out the heavy folder. 

You feel Yoongi’s arm move from where it was near your waist to over your head, as he lightens the load. You both try to balance it and laugh at your distorted faces in the process, and it’s moments of relief like this one that you’re glad you’re afforded after a long day like today. 

From inside the room, Jungkook sees you through the window, your eyes crinkling as you laugh along with Yoongi, head of the design department and one of his very few friends in the company. It catches him off guard, as he realizes that since meeting you last Friday, he’s never seen you laugh, much less smile or even have an expression that isn’t agitated or serious.

He knows that that’s probably on him. He’d spoken ill of you after all, something he regretted once he saw the frustration on your face when you made it known that you were in the room with them and had definitely heard everything he said. But he’d been tired and HR confirmed that he could bring Lucas over as his assistant; CEO Jeon was the one who vetoed that decision. 

Jungkook had already mentally prepared himself for the ease of his transition, knowing that he’d be assisted by someone who knows how he works and the quality of outputs he expects, only to come here and be told by his father that the current staff will stay, and that you - someone he’d only heard of as Hoseok’s assistant - will be the one assisting him from now on. Your resume didn’t even impress him.

Jungkook doesn’t like change and when he has to undergo it, he needs as much of what was familiar and convenient to remain; that’s the only bit of control he can have and he hates not being in control of things. You just happened to unluckily be at the receiving end of his anger.

But unlike what he expected, you stood up to him in the subtle ways you could. He’s been so used to people just following him, partly because his way is always the best but also because he commands that respect, and he knows his capabilities enough to know that he deserves it as well. So when you answered back, he felt rattled and just a little bit uneasy. He was unable to backtrack after, but he didn’t really plan to.

That doesn’t mean that he didn’t plan on being a bit of a jerk today, too. He’d been exhausted working over the weekend after going through all the files you gave him that he snoozed his alarm so many times and ended up doing his workout later than he intended. When you rang the doorbell and stood by his door with your skirt and satin top, he suddenly felt lightheaded.

He mentally smacked himself once the thought that your pastel colored outfit brought out your eyes more than the monochrome ensemble from last week floated in his head. He just hated that not only are you thorough with your work, you have to be beautiful, too. He’d never admit to anyone that both of those things make him nervous, and it’s the only reason why he thinks he needs to establish his authority so that he doesn’t get rattled the next time you counter him.

That’s why he demanded more work, which he didn’t intend to take up so much of your time, like your lunch break. He’d seen how your hands shook while you were taking notes during the meeting, prompting him to end the meeting early so you can have something to eat of what he’d bought but he’d left before he could find out if there was anything left for you. 

Maybe there wasn’t enough, as he also witnessed Yoongi hand you what seemed like food with coffee that the man also got for you just minutes ago. The smile you gave him was bright and sincere. Jungkook doesn’t think he’d ever see that directed at him, considering how he’d been to you on his first day, but maybe that’s also good; that could be his defense. Maybe it’d help quell that initial attraction that he doesn’t want and cannot allow at all to grow.

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t agitate him to see you a bit too close with his friend, because with the way you seem so comfortable and with the way that Yoongi sports that rare smile, it almost feels like there’s something there.

Jungkook is the son of the CEO, and having personal relationships within the company isn’t exactly advisable, but he’d gone to university with Yoongi and their introverted personalities instantly clicked. The older man is perhaps the only non-relative company employee that Jungkook kept in touch with when he was in Singapore, not that he even really talked much to his family outside of work anyway.

But in all the years of their friendship, his friend never mentioned any relationship - nor the makings of one - with another staff member. Jungkook hates how his curiosity is slowly getting to him. Maybe a few more moments would tell him more, but something about the scene happening outside his room is making him nervous and uneasy, so he decides to step in.

“Hey, Yoon,” he says as he opens the door. “Can we discuss now? I have to meet my parents for dinner in an hour.”

Your bubble with Yoongi bursts at the sound of Jungkook’s voice, and you immediately return to your seat. Your friend nods at you then enters the room, leaving you the peace and quiet you need to plop down on the floor for a quick snack of your loaf before going back to work, glancing inside every once in a while to see how the two are going, and perhaps confirm the friendship that you didn’t expect the two would have.

“This building is a good starting point,” Yoongi agrees with Jungkook. “If this is the general feel you want for the Arts Center, I can look into other projects and designs and come up with ideas. I’ll just ask ___ for the files I need.”

“You two seem close,” Jungkook says too quickly. 

Leaning back against the chair, Yoongi processes the question that he didn’t expect he’d hear. More than that, he tries to read what’s underneath it, knowing that his friend’s tone of voice and feigned stoic expression mean something more.

“You could say that,” Yoongi replies. “She did say that no one’s looked out for her here as much as I have. And that she wouldn’t have survived all these years without me.”

“So you’re actually friends?”

“Yes.”

“Were you more?”

Yoongi chuckles, the question giving him the answer he’s looking for. Jungkook may often be too serious but he can be transparent sometimes, too.

“Does it matter?” The older man asks.

“Just don’t want to be surprised, that’s all,” Jungkook shrugs. “If there’s an employee relationship happening under my nose, I should at least know.”

“It happens here a lot,” Yoongi responds. “I mean, it gives people something to gossip about but it’s how things are - work sucks sometimes and we want someone to hold at the end of a terrible day.”

Feeling like he won’t get an answer to a question that Jungkook doesn’t know why he felt the need to ask in the first place, he just shakes his head to concede. 

But it’s what prompts Yoongi to reply. 

“We met when she was just an intern,” he says. “We used to take the same bus then found out we both came from Daegu. Then she was employed and we were both on the logistics team before I was reassigned and she got the EA role.”

Jungkook merely hums, taking in the information.

“I also asked her out before,” Yoongi continues, earning him a surprised look from the younger man. “You just can’t help what you feel sometimes, you know?  But she turned me down, said she didn’t want to lead me on because she didn’t feel anything more. She also doesn’t like being involved with a co-worker, so yeah.”

“How are you still friends?”

“Asks the guy who’s still friends with his ex,” Yoongi laughs.

“Chaerin and I are civil, there’s a difference. And we haven’t spoken in years.”

“You loved her, though,” Yoongi counters. “I never got to that point.”

“This isn’t about me,” Jungkook huffs. 

Knowing it’s a topic that his friend doesn’t like talking about, Yoongi relents. “I moved on. That was years ago,” he says. “And it seemed like she needed someone. I mean, she’s not from here and her friends aren’t here, either. She appreciated the friendship even if she said she didn’t think she deserved it. I guess that made me really get over her, you know? That’s all she wanted and needed from me; it was better than not having her around.”

“How brave,” Jungkook remarks. 

“You mean mature?” Yoongi corrects. “Yes, that’s what I am, and it’s the best I could be for her. Especially since she’s got a boss who makes her miss lunch because somehow, there’s just so much to do for your first day on the job.”

“Don’t remind me,” Jungkook groans. 

“I will. Only so you could feel bad.”

“I already do. That’s why I…”

“Bought the pastries,” Yoongi finishes. “I mean, I didn’t order them.”

“Was any even left for her?” Jungkook sighs, remembering how he was internally screaming for you to just get from the box and he’d been the jerk to not offer you some even if it was technically for you.

“Sort of. I put some aside for myself so I could give them to her.”

“You sure you don’t like her anymore?” Jungkook cocks an eyebrow, an attempt to hide his uneasiness over something he doesn’t understand. He finds you attractive, that’s it. He doesn’t know why his mind searches for more answers.

“You don’t have to like someone romantically to be nice to them, you know?” Yoongi responds. “And she needed it. Heavens know the support she’d need now that she has to deal with your rude ass.”

Jungkook sighs, but the remark is a welcome one because he did tell Yoongi not to treat him differently just because he’s the Vice President now. He also partly agrees. But he sees the effort; his friend wouldn’t call him out for how he does things, so the most he would do is offer help to you. And Jungkook could maybe take advantage of that, as Yoongi stands up to leave.

“Hey, could you, uh, grab dinner for her at the food hall? And not say it’s from me?”

“The food hall’s closed,” Yoongi says.

“The cafe down the street, then?”

“You can’t be fucking serious,” the older man groans. 

But Yoongi knows his friend, knows the distance he creates from the people around him, knows his need to have control over everything, including his feelings, and knows the walls he builds because it’s easier to keep others out rather than do the hard task of letting them into a space that’s become comfortable because he’s been the only one inside for so long.

So Yoongi does as he’s asked. He takes the money then heads to the cafe to order pork cutlets and curry. He returns and sets them on your desk to your surprise, and you ask what it’s for.

“Just thought you deserve more than just convenience store instant noodles and gimbap given the day you’ve had,” he says. 

“Hey, those are delicious,” you pout, but wanting to melt at how good the rice bowl smells. “But thank you, again. I owe you a lot, Yoongi. I mean it.”

“Just make sure to eat on time so I don’t have to buy your dinner again,” he teases. “I mean it. You have to stay healthy, okay?”

“Okay,” you smile brightly. “Get home safe tonight.”

Jungkook glances out the window and holds back a smile himself at how innocent and genuinely happy you look. There’s this joy that you seem to enjoy to yourself and he sees that, he understands that. And somehow that’s enough to lessen the guilt for now. 

He still doesn’t know if he’ll ever see that smile directed at him or if he’d ever want that because of how disarming it is. But seeing it from afar is enough; it’s trivial and short enough to let him bask in it without having to climb out of his walls. He’ll watch you from behind, he thinks. He just wishes he doesn’t push you away in the process.

Series Masterlist

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[susicheng]

𝜗𝜚⋆₊˚ dm for prices      l.mk

plug! mark x fem! reader , college au , strangers to lovers , warnings: drug use (obviously), suggestive content, k¥$ jokes, more tba

overview : small lifestyle influencer yn, who also happens to be a stressed college student, runs into a life threatening dilemma: plug moved to a different state post grad. having developed a crippling dependency on her weekly smoke sesh, she needs someone new, FAST. luckily, chenle seems to know just the guy. enter: mark lee, an astoundingly reliable plug with an interesting texting style. 

status : completed taglist : closed

chapters . . .

profiles: dead dove do not eat | cuntfused chapter 1: water does wonders chapter 2: moral considerations when smoking weed chapter 3: i could kiss you chapter 4: yes ma'am chapter 5: 3sum? chapter 6: perfect match chapter 7: pink blooded chapter 8: do it for suho chapter 9: wotd chapter 10: markie? chapter 11: blocked! chapter 12: onlyfans? chapter 13: kissy kissy chapter 14: bitchless no more chapter 15: gf in law chapter 16: hey girlie! chapter 17: ynification chapter 18: meow chapter 19: bread museum chapter 20: a thank you to dependency bonus

daily / almost daily updates

© susicheng .. please do not copy, reupload, or translate my work

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - THERE IS SO MUCH ON RIGHT NOW, it's crazy-making!

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

July 2024 Week 1

Ongoing Series - Thai

Wandee Goodday (Sat YT) ep 10 of 12 - I am with Dee, noodles do solve everything. The brothers were SO GOOD together. I’m getting to really love a back drop in BL, it’s like the mic drop of gay boys smooching. This is such a good show. I had a big grin on my face while also crying a bit. Everything I want from a BL is happening right here, in front of my eyes.

Did they gloss over the trauma a bit? Yes. Do I care? No. I don't like dwelling in trauma in general, mine, friends, online, or in my BL.

The Rebound (Weds Gaga) ep 2 of 12 - All Thai mafia is gay… again. Yes, it’s still great. No, I have no idea why they’re dropping so many eps at once. That’s not normal for a Thai drama. But I’m not gonna complain except there’s a lot on right now. I like the side couple too. I also like Frank’s poor little rich kid side dish action. I mean, Meen is an ult for me, but Frank is giving excellent second lead syndrome. Suspiciously aggressive and a touch stalker, but I don’t mind a boy that sus if he that cute. And of course, with the mafia involved there is kidnapping.

Look, is this the best show currently airing? No. Which is why it slid a little in the standings. But that's only because Wandee hit it out of the park this week. Frankly, this may not be the best BL airing right now, but it’s the best BL for me.

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 4 of 12 - That oppa bit was fucking genius. (You get it right? If you don't, I can explain.) And I immediately adore the secretary character as a result (I typed that as "reslut" and that works too.) Pleased to have such a "rich man and his spoiled boy" dynamic it going already. A dynamic I am personally IRL familiar with from the 90s. Also, kiddies stop filming adults at play! Sheesh.

I pretty much love all the couples in this show. It’s lots of fun. SamYo’s cat and mouse thing is delightful. Meanwhile, the mains are so sweetly hesitant about kisses and everything (hilarious coming from this pair). I love them and their awkward first time, or whatever is going on.

Do you know what? After that "oppa" comment this lead pair makes me feel a little bit like I’m watching a gay K-drama, similar style of personalities and everything, even the random martial arts ability. And the outing. I'm getting Business Proposal vibes. Nothing wrong with that, I was weaned on K-dramas.

All in all, great episode.

My Stand-In (Fri iQIYI) ep 11 of 12 - Yet again I spent the entire episode saying "poor Joe" over and over again. This time I didn’t cry though.

The pat way to end this is to have Joe walk through that door and then wake up back when he was about to get into the motorcycle accident. So that none of it ever happened. I suppose we’ll see what they do next week but I hope it isn’t that.

We Are Cute (Weds iQIYI) ep 14 of 16 - Do you know what this friendship group reminds me of the most? The old Love Sick music club boys. This is just the college version... 10 years later. (Love Sick was one of the few shows where I mostly didn’t yell “no singing” at the screen (also Ingredients). In my defense, I didn’t know any better back then.)

As boyfriends, PhumPeem are even more puppy/cat paring. And I am even more delighted by it. And them. In fact, this show is ALL puppy/cat pairings. I’m not mad about it.

"I’m hugging you so you won’t feel hungry" is the weirdest pick up ever. But Phum is weird. 

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (Fri iQIYI) ep 1 of 8 - The PittBabe team behind a new restaurant set BL full of hidden agendas and starring my new favorites SailubPon. I’m reminded so much right off the bat of PokeTongue’s side dish couple in What’s Zabb Man. Interesting, considering that came from Pon’s former studio. Love the call out of obnoxious content creators (not to mention corporate property developers). I like the chef character, he’s nicely complex. In fact, so far I like most of the characters, it’s a good range of different personality types. The plot is a little contrived and complicated but I don’t mind because the characters are such fun.

The Trainee (Sun YouTube) ep 1 of 12 - Reported on this last week already but here's what I said:

Gun still looks like he’s just out of high school. Madness.

The set for the print shop reminds me of Mork’s dad’s place in ‘Cause He’s My Boy? I swear GMMTV has only 3 sets.

I wasn't looking forward to this show at all. Maybe I just needed more of a break from OffGun? Cooking Crush happened yesterday.

Whatever, because I was absolutely riveted by this first episode.

I’m enjoying The Trainee a lot. Like, a lot a lot. It's not higher up just because there is so much good content from Thailand airing right now.

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 5 of 12 - Still a chaos muffin no matter which country. So earnest. So cute. Talking stage commence!!!

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 4 of 10 - I got so bored I started looking up ways to organize my sunglasses. Trash watch here.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 6-7 of 12 - The exes are odd. I like that Latte finally got some backstory.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) Ep 2 of 10 - I’m still enjoying this quite a bit. It’s paralleling the manga quite closely, which is nice. But it’s not gonna be a particularly exciting drama if this continues. The manga is rather quiet (pun intended to amuse not insult).

Takara's Treasure AKA Takara No Vidro (Japan Mon Gaga) ep 1 of 10 - Look, if some kid followed me to college and changed the whole course of his life because I was nice about his dead bird? I'd be skeeved as fuck too. It's odd and uncomfortable, in that way Japan loves. Visuals are on point but can't say I'm enjoying it as yet. Still, it is JBL, and so I am intrigued and open to all possibilities.

It's airing but...

The Last Time (Thai Fri YT?) - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something. Can't find it.

OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ???) 10 eps - I've put the search on hold for and y'all can let me know if it's worth tracking down once it ends?

In case you missed it

Blue Boys finished it run. I like it quite a bit. This felt a lot like a Strongberry short series. It’s very curtailed and could’ve used some legs but I've been trained into ignoring that for Korean BL. Short has always been their thing. Essentially, two boys who were acquaintances in high school are reunited and it turns out always had crushes on each other. It’s definitely an extrovert meets introvert scenario, and this being Korea, they can’t resist a tiny love triangle in the eleventh hour. But it all came out fine in the end. It has great kisses and higher heat than is normal from Korea. All in all, a surprisingly charming offering. Recommended with some reservations around the brevity of plot and character development. 8/10 

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer released to Korean theaters 5/25. HoTae & DongHee, side couple from Unintentional Love Story are back! Same actors, same character names. I love them. Devastated this hasn't had international distribution. I demand you tell me the moment you find it!

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

July Releases to Come

7/10 Century of Love (Thai Gaga) 10 eps - trailer here, DaouOffroad are back, this time as fated mates in a quasi historical paranormal moment. San has spent many lifetimes waiting for his lost beloved, to reincarnate from her death a century ago. But if he fails to find her within this century's time window, he will succumb to a tragic death. And this time she's a boy. Very much Director Who Buys Me Dinner meets First Love Again, hopefully better than both. I love this pair and think they can handle the premise, it's whether the storytelling is up to the challenge. I'm curious to see but I have reservations.

7/24 I Saw You in My Dream (Thai Weds WeTV) - Dee Hup is behind this one so I have high hopes. Younger boy chronically teased his whole life by the older boy next door suddenly starts having horrific prophetic dreams about his bully and must save hime.

7/26 4 Minutes (Thai Netflix or iQIYI?) - Great is a university student from Faculty of Business and the son of a wealthy business owner. Out of the blue, he gains the supernatural power to see four minutes into the future.

7/29 Battle of the Writers (Thai ????) - trailer here, TutorYim return and while I adore them, I really hope this is better than Middleman's Love. Won't be hard. However: that premise! Ugh. Something something authors fighting - save me. Why don't writers understand that nothing is more boring than writers?

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Product placement du jour! Also the only product placed in a BL that I regularly enjoy myself.

Yes I cried. I'm a sap.

The faens in the wive's positions! So cute.

All Wandee

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

There's these tricks, remember.

[redgoldsparks]

May Reading & Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut. Unfortunately, I must include the usual set of bad news for book lovers :(

Texas SB-13, a senate bill that, according to the Austin American-Statesman, “would require school districts to pull books with ‘indecent,’ ‘profane’ or ‘sexually explicit’ content and grant elected board members veto power over new purchases," passed in the Senate and is now headed to Governor Greg Abbott's desk where he will either approve or veto it. If you live in Texas, or know anyone who lives in Texas, please ask them to tell Greg Abbot they oppose this bill. In addition to the quote above, any new book that a school library wishes to acquire would be subject to a 30-day public review period, after which the school board would have another month to approve or reject the book. This would be such a nightmare headache.

Book banning is now becoming more common in Canada. Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides from Alberta, Canada, announced a public feedback process around what he called “extremely graphic and age-inappropriate content” in K-12 school library books. The four books singled out by the government as containing examples of such content are Blankets by Craig Thompson, Flamer by Mike Curato, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and Gender Queer, all of which are comics, three of which are queer. Folks in Alberta, Canada can share their opinion on book banning in this (very biased) survey before June 6. Please share this with your Canadian friends! (source)

This isn't related to books, but please keep contacting your Representatives about the Republican Budget Reconciliation, HR 1. Every single thing I learn about it sounds like a new level of hell. In addition to blocking states from regulating AI for ten years, stripping Medicaid from approximately 21% of trans adults and cutting abortion and healthcare access from millions more people, I now hear there's a hidden provision seeking to limit the ability of courts—including the U.S. Supreme Court—from enforcing their orders. "No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued," the provision in the bill, which is more than 1,000 pages long, says.

The provision "would make most existing injunctions—in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases, and others—unenforceable," Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, told Newsweek. "It serves no purpose but to weaken the power of the federal courts." (source) This is all extremely terrible, obviously. Please call your Senators, especially if they are Republicans, to tell them you oppose this.

I also have some good news! Two of the worst anti-library bills in the nation died earlier this month when Alabama SB6 and HB4—nicknamed the “Jail the Librarians Act”—failed to make it out of committee before the legislative session ended. The victory was the result of months of work by Read Freely Alabama, and the thousands of Alabama residents who rallied to their cause. If you live in a state with active book ban legislative battles, please join a state Freedom to Read group!

Okay thank you for sticking with me, here are the book reviews:

The Prisoner of Limnos by Lois McMaster Bujold read by Grover Gardener

Bujold had so much fun putting Penric in drag and in prison in the previous books, so she decided to do it again! Another fun installment of this series, with some character development that I did not expect. 

Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas 

This book walloped me! Set in 2002, which technically makes it historical fiction, this book follows a pair of nerdy queer high schoolers who develop an intense co-dependent friendship which is then destroyed just shy of their graduation by a series of painful emotional mistakes and unprocessed traumas. Nell is the only out lesbian at the small Quaker school in New York City. Fay is a self-professed 'fag hag' (a term which body slammed me back to the early 00s) or someone obsessed with gay men and gay male culture. I immediately clocked and read Fay as a gay trans man who lacked the language to express or definite himself as such. The book supports this reading, but also keeps the majority of the plot in an 18 month stretch of time in which Fay and Nell waltz through school joined at the hip, heckling their teachers, ignoring much of their homework, acting in the school play and musical, writing fan fiction about their classmates, and DMing each other on AOL until 2 or 3am every morning but never talking about their deepest emotional wounds. There were so many feelings and moments from this book which felt deeply, or even uncomfortably, familiar from my own gender confused teen years. But also this is a novel deeply interested in the concept of narrative foils and baby does it deliver on the mirrors, the parallels, and the consequences of layering your own expectations over a real human person in your life. I have some quibbles with the epilogue of the book (part of me wants to cut that part off completely) but overall I had a great time reading this and if you were gender nonconforming and in high school between like 1998-2008 it will likely hit you very hard as well. 

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar read by Gem Carmella 

I listened to the audiobook and it is SO gorgeously well produced; full of singing and atmospheric background sounds of water, rain, and rustling willows. If you like audio and can handle soundscaping I highly recommend that as the way to experience this fairly short but lovely queer fairy tale. One thing to note is that the audiobook is 4 hours long; but that it's actually one 3 hour story called "The River Has Roots" and then a second 1 hour long story which is a teaser for El-Mohtar's forthcoming short story collection. I enjoyed both but the second one doesn't have the emotional impact (in part provided by the music and sounds) of the first. 

Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day by Alex L Combs and Andrew Eakett

A well-researched, thoughtful, engaging look at trans and gender nonconforming people through history and from all around the world. This book is very welcoming to newcomers, but also full of little gems for those of us who have been reading trans histories for years. Combs and Eakett come from within the trans community, but they also pass the mic to many other trans folks of different ages, races, nationalities, and identities to share non-white and non-Western experiences. A beautiful and compassionate primer!

Side Quest: A Visual History of Roleplaying Games by Samuel Sattin and Steenz 

A brief but engaging history of role playing games, which dips into some of the most ancient forms of recorded human gaming and the diverse development of war games, courtroom games, and board games which directly proceeded the creation Dungeons and Dragons in 1974. I should have guessed that D&D wasn't the first game that Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson created, and that it borrowed many mechanics, rules, and aesthetics of previous games but remixed into a more potently successful package. The back matter includes a short playable adventure! 

Unbecoming by Seema Yasmin 

In an alternate near future so close to our own it hardly feels speculative, two Muslim teens work on a guide on how to access abortion in Texas now that it is completely illegal, with prison sentences for anyone who even aids abortion access. For Laylah this is need is not theoretical- she's over two months pregnant and desperate to end the pregnancy without anyone in her life finding out. This stubborn shameful secrecy is not based in any specific logic, as it was made clear that Laylah's mother, grandmother, and best friend would immediately all support her and offer help if she asked. Meanwhile, Laylah's bestie Noor, a student journalist, is chasing the rumor of stolen donations made to the local mosque and an Iman's wife who might have taken them for her own purposes. There was a lot I enjoyed in this book, from very fun mixed media formatting choices, to the strong female friendship, to seeing two characters different relationship to religion. As an adult reader I was at times somewhat frustrated by the teens making foolish, self-sabotaging choices (please just be honest with your very supportive family!) but as a teen I think this book would have knocked my socks off. 

The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin read by Sarah Zimmerman 

Another home run of a book from NK Jemisin. This one is set in an alternate version of ancient Egypt, a city-state called Gujaareh, in which dreams serve as a source of magic. Sharers take dream-tithes from the citizens which they use to heal wounds and mental illness. Gatherers take a person's dreamblood- their life force- to be used in the service of Hananja, the moon goddess, ruler of the realm of dreams and the afterlife. One of these Gatherers is Ehiru, whose faith in his work and his mission is absolute- until he botches a gathering, accidentally sending a man's soul into the nightmare realm instead of a peaceful eternity. The man's angry spirit warns Ehiru that he is being used for corrupt purposes before it is ripped apart. Meanwhile, a diplomat from a neighboring country investigates her predecessor's probable murder; an apprentice-Gatherer begins his final training, not hiding the feelings he harbors for his mentor; and the Prince of the city, who killed his father and all of his siblings except one to gain the thrown plots a course towards immortality and domination. This book was written before the Broken Earth trilogy, and it's a bit easier of a read, partly because it is shorter. If you want to get into Jemisin but have been a bit intimidated, this is great book to start with. If you've already read Broken Earth, pick up this one too! It's a delightful treat. Re-read (audiobook) in 2025 and enjoyed it very much again!

Firebird by Sunmi 

This is a quiet, gentle coming of age story about two Korean American teens both trying to balance responsibilities of family and school with a search for their own identities and priorities. Caroline is a sophomore whose days are shaped by zero periods, band practice, studying, and reading fantasy romance comics when people aren't paying attention. Kim is a senior failing Algebra 2, possibly because she is in constant motion: picking her younger siblings up from school, working at a mechanic shop, teaching guitar lessons, helping her mom, and showing up at every social occasion even at very last minute notice. Caroline is assigned as Kim's math tutor, and that connection blooms into a friendship which pulls Caroline out of their shell and slows Kim down a little bit. I loved the hand inked line art and the soft way the story unfolded; it felt like real life. 

Watson’s Sketchbook by Molly Knox Ostertag 

The best reading experience of this book would be as a companion piece to a re-read of the complete set of Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, as these sketches and short comics weave in between the canon filling in a compelling love story that can be glimpsed between the lines. As a long time Sherlock Holmes AU enjoyer, I am very happy to add this version to my collection! These comics can also be read on tumblr.

Strange Bedfellows by Ariel Slamet Reis 

Beautiful, but at times baffling, this comic follows Oberon, a trans college dropout living in a terraformed space colony where many people have developed superpowers of some sort, called Ghosts. Oberon has been struggling with burnout and migraines which doctors can't cure or diagnose. He's also the only person in his family without a magic power, which he has a real chip on his shoulder about. But then he starts manifesting things from his dreams, and also manifesting a grown up version of his high school crush, Kon. Oberon knows that this version of Kon is just a manifestation of his own fantasy and thoughts, but he started working with Kon to try and explore and train his new powers. I LOVED the art in this and was wowed by many of the action sequences but will admit I was at times kind of lost as to what was happening. It's a trippy, dreamy book! Pick it up when you are in the mood for a dream logic ride, not when you are in the mood for hard sci-fi.  

The King’s Companion by Hannah Hallman 

A sexy, self-aware fantasy story of an immortal elf lord falling for a human king. This comic was clearly born out of a Legolas/Aragorn fanfiction, but then grew into its own tender meditation on unrequited love and mismatched lifespans in a world of magic, danger, and adventure. It's spicy, it's funny, it's beautifully drawn, what's not to love? 

The Shadowed Sun by NK Jemisin read by Sarah Zimmerman 

NK Jemisin is a master world builder, and there was a lot of sensual pleasure in simply returning to the world of Gujaareh, a city infused with dream magic, ten years after the end of the events of the previous book. This second volume picks up a very minor character from book one (Wanahomen, son of the previous Prince) as well as some completely new characters (including Hanani, the first woman ever to be trained as a healer by the Hetawa) as its leads. This unlikely pair must work together to free their city from the Kisuati occupation which resulted from the last war. While I enjoyed how this book explored some of the indigenous tribes who live in the desert between Gujaareh and Kisua, I have some fundamental questions about the ethics underlying the plot. Gujaareh's justice system includes religious mercy killings, performed by characters who are written as sympathetic heroes. There's also a pretty black and white system for determining whether someone is corrupt, and so merits a mercy killing, or not corrupt, and so is allowed to continue on with their life. Multiple characters express that "intentions matter more than actions", a belief that is directly opposite of what I believe in our real world. Because intentions justify actions, it is okay for Wanahomen to start a violent uprising because his ultimate goal is to rule Gujaareh peacefully. SPOILERS: It's also apparently okay for him to put Hanani in a position where she is probably going to be raped, in order to cement a political alliance and his war plans. Hanani learns that Wanahomen set her up for a sexual assault but forgives him and ultimately falls in love with him. In addition to this, the main "villain" of this story is a disabled child, who is accidentally killing innocent people with her powerful nightmares; nightmares fueled by the abuse she has received at the hands of her father, who is also her grandfather, because she is the produce of incest and rape. This story is set in a world where healers can use magic to cure 90% of all wounds and illnesses, as well as some types of mental health issues. Yet Hanani makes the call the disabled child is too damaged to be healed, and that the best option for her is a mercy killing, since as long as she lives she will continue to kill other people around her unintentionally. Why isn't the dream blood magic strong enough to heal the child? Why is it the right choice to kill the child, who is killing people but without intention, in a world where supposedly intentions are more important than actions? In some ways the ending of this book feels like an echo of Omelas, but instead of keeping the child alive and suffering in the hole, Hanani must peacefully kill the child in her sleep in order for the utopian city life to continue. I don't know man. I'm just really not sure about the values this book seems to be arguing for. 

[drivinmeinsane]

Miracle : 12 Days of Goosemas

Day One ❆ Officer K / Reader

{12 Days of Goosemas 2024 Masterlist} ※ {Regular Masterlist} ※ {ao3}

❆ Summary: Waking in the middle of the night isn't an uncommon occurrence for K, but you're always there to bring him back to his baseline. ❆ Rating: No mature content. ❆ Content/Tags: K survives, symptoms of PTSD, comfort, no use of Y/N ❆ Word Count: 1933 ❆ Author's Note: This is loosely connected to Somebody to You. Reading is not required, but might provide some additional context!

He opens his eyes in the subdued gloom only to be nearly blinded by the faint glow of his own irises as they take on the scant light from the curtain covered window and reflect it. They dart from side to side, desperately seeking the source of what woke him. His heart is hammering against the cathedral of his rib cage with such force he worries that it will manage to wake you.

The replicant lays paralyzed, fingers itching for a weapon he no longer carries. There had been a tracker in his old blaster. He’d left it behind with his badge when he defected all those months ago. There had also been a tracking device in him, sank deep between the knobs of his spine as if he were no better than an old world animal. The scar that its removal left behind is a small thing in appearance. Pressing a finger against it would reveal a gnarled twist of torn tissue underneath the surface of the skin. He seeks it out sometimes, bears down on it so hard with his fingers that he leaves mottled bruises in his wake of his touch. He needs to know that his freedom is not a dream he has made up in his own mind while looking down the barrel of the interviewer’s camera awaiting the moment that he finally will be found defective.

There’s a shuffle outside the front door followed by the light pitch of giggling. It’s only the next door neighbors passing by to get into their own unit.

They’re harmless.

K has shared many a cordial nod with them since you both moved into this run-down complex together. Your previous roommate, an unerringly patient replicant, had gotten tired of the way you were dancing around each other and had politely demanded that relationship developments happen in an entirely different building so that he wouldn’t have to bear witness to the awkward flirtation and love that poured out of K like an unstaunched wound. The Nexus 9 figured he owed Gradus that much and had shyly presented you with a list of apartments to choose from.

Clinging to the knowledge that the noise that had woken him was not from a threat, he tries to force himself to relax. It’s a futile endeavor, his shoulders remain tense. K’s body stubbornly refuses to settle. It is convinced that conflict is going to arrive in a messy tangle that means the death of everything he has come to care for.

He turns his head, considers the slumbering form of you at his side. The desire to take you in his arms and draw you tightly to the broad expanse of his chest is nearly overwhelming, but his conscious stops him. Your rest is far more important to him than his unsettled nerves. Both of you have been working long hours to afford the cost of living. He knows that you fall into bed each night weighed down by exhaustion.

Instead, K chooses to distance himself. He eases out of bed, taking pains to not shift the mattress too much. His feet make contact with the inhospitable surface of the laminate floor. He’s grateful for the thick socks that serve as a barrier between it and his skin. They had been a gift from an unlikely friend.

As he moves to the bedroom door, he realizes that the concept of having friendship with others beyond indifferent work relationships is still foreign to him. Companions were not something meant for his kind. His Madam had kindly reminded him of that fact time and time again during his servitude.

K had been cut free of his growth bag, devoid of contact starting on the day of his inception. He’d simply assumed that he would be retired the same way. Alone. Friendless. At best, accompanied only by the disinterested eyes of an impartial observer who was waiting to call in biohazard to hose his viscera down the floor drain hidden underneath one of the rubber mats padding the floor of the interviewing room.

He pushes the bedroom door open and shuts it silently behind him. The replicant keeps the hinges well oiled in preparation for nights like this one.

The living room is bathed in soft, multi-color hues. It’s familiar, almost soothing. He skirts around the furniture on his way to the kitchen. Once there, he pulls a glass down from the cabinet before filling it from a pitcher kept in the fridge. Tap water runs murky and rust orange here before clearing to a metallic tasting liquid. Filtration is all but a necessity in a world that has been poisoned by greed.

Turning, he puts his back against it and considered the living room while he takes a careful mouthful of water. It tastes like coins against his tongue. For a choking moment, K is taken back to the flavor of another replicant’s blood flecking against his teeth as he pleads for his struggling target’s submission while he cuts out the replicant’s eye.

He swallows hard around the sudden lump in his throat. He’s gripping onto the loose material of his pants, pulling the fabric taut over his thigh as he tries to return to baseline. His eyes lock onto the main source of light in the adjoining room as if were the lens of the interviewer’s camera.

The flickering string of rainbow lights wrapped around the tattered fake tree you’d brought home one evening after work sits proudly in the corner on their hand-me-down side table. You’d been so happy that night and the nights after. He tries to focus on the memories, pushing aside the afterimage of a future he’d never had. There are moments where he feels wrong—when the tissue gives a phantom snag at his unmarked side and he feels so cold and so tired. There is a nagging idea in his mind that he was meant for another fate, not the one he’d somehow received. It had to catch up with him eventually.

“K?” Your voice is thick with sleep.

He looks away from the tree to find you standing in the doorway to the bedroom. It takes him back to the times Joi would interrupt his downward spirals.

K has not activated her in a long time. Her emanator is kept wrapped in a thin piece of cloth and tucked away in his cigarette box. Real life holds appeal for him now. He doesn’t need to embrace a simulacrum for something he thought unattainable. There is no more pretend. He is K and you are you. And the both of you are happy despite the odds.

Not trusting himself to speak for fear that his voice will betray the inexplicable current of terror persistently pumping through his veins, he inclines his head in greeting.

The silence does little to deter you and you move to his side. Warm fingers work their way underneath his clenched hand. K allows you to gently pry his grip free from his pant leg, leaving creased fabric behind. The sensation of skin on skin is enough that he has to close his eyes.

“What’s got you up this late?” you prod. Your fingertips rub over his knuckles, lingering on the scars that have been pounded into them. He can only heal so much. At the end of the day, K is still made of flesh and bone. The replicant knows that his body is a faded ledger of brutality. Both given and received.

K shakes his head. He sets the glass of water on the water with a twist of his arm. “I heard a noise in the hall and I thought it was something it wasn’t.”

“Oh, honey…”

He risks a glance sideways at your face. Your expression is strangely sad. It’s still novel that someone real could feel an emotion other than disdain for him.

Lightly, you tug at his hand. He goes willingly, allowing you to guide him to the sagging couch where he takes a seat at your wordless prompting. He sits quietly as you take the handwoven blanket off the back of it and drape it over his lap. Before you withdraw, you brush a hand over his jaw, down the side of his neck, and finally stopping at his shoulder.

“I’ll be right back,” you say, giving the tense span of muscle and sinew a squeeze.

As he watches you return to the kitchen, K does his best to let himself go limp against the back of the couch. His spine is seemingly made of granite and refuses to bend. Seeking distraction, he turns his head to look at the ornaments decorating the faux branches at his side. Most of them were made by hand. Some are crocheted bits of fiber made into snowflakes and stars. Others are shaped twists of foil that have been painted.

His stomach unclenches as he remembers the way you’d encouraged him to join you and Gradus at the table. He’d given in and taken a place for himself only to be further surprised when you had pushed scraps at him and asked him to join the two of you in making decorations. Working with his hands to create rather than destroy had felt right.

Two replicants and an organic make up a ragtag bunch by any metric, but it is more family than he’d ever dreamed possible.

“Here you go.” Your voice cuts into his thoughts as you appear at his knees.

He looks away from the horse he’d clumsily made of foil and painted to look like the one he saw in his fake memories. You’d told him to put it near the top—in a place of honor.

You have two mugs of steaming tea clasped in one hand, and in the other, a battered book. Not his alcohol stained copy of Pale Fire, but something else. Something that doesn’t stalk the halls of his mind like Nabokov’s work does. There is no tall white fountain waiting for him in the novel you’re holding.

“Thank you,” he says as he takes one of the mugs—the one painted with an array of flowers he wonders the names of. “You don’t have to stay up with me,” he adds, worried.

“But I want to,” you counter and sit down next to him, resting your cheek against his shoulder.

The chipped ceramic is warm against his fingertips, but it feels chilly in comparison to the heat of your body tucked against the length of his side. You put the book on his covered lap before taking a corner of the blanket for yourself and pressing impossibly closer. His heart rate has slowed to something steady. The nervous muscles are relaxing under the attentive presence.

Automatically, his fingers trace over the cover, skimming through the pages until he finds the bookmark nestled along the spine. His mouth traces the shapes of the words, voice rising and falling with the careful intonation, and he allows himself to lose his worries in the story of another world. He accepts the miracle you’ve given him by loving him in return. Long after you set your empty mug aside at the base of the little fake tree as if it were a present and gone lax against him in your slumber, he reads. He reads until his eyes grow heavy and his voice hoarse. Until he has no choice but to place the book and the mug aside and draw you into his arms.

Morning will find you both stiff-backed and achy, but for now, you sleep interlinked.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Haim Rivlin, Shomrim

Billions in undisclosed funding

“In a short time, we identified over $3 billion in donations to Yale and other universities that were not properly reported as required by law,” Small said. In 2019, he presented his findings to senior officials in Washington, prompting a federal investigation that exposed extensive undisclosed foreign funding.

Three years ago, Small teamed up with retired Brig. Gen. Sima Vaknin-Gil, Israel’s former chief military censor and director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry. Along with a team of 10 researchers and an Israeli forensic accounting firm specializing in global financial investigations, they deepened their inquiry. Their research led to a series of reports detailing the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatari funding on academic content, the promotion of anti-democratic and anti-Israel agendas, and even antisemitic rhetoric in higher education.

Their latest report, released recently, highlights a previously overlooked dimension: Qatari involvement in U.S. elementary and secondary education (K-12).

Soft power in early education

Small, who now serves as CEO of the New York-based Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), describes Qatar’s strategy as one of “soft power,” using vast financial resources to shape narratives and policies through investments in infrastructure, lobbying firms, academia, research, and media.

“The fact that Qatar—a country with fewer than 350,000 citizens—donates more money to American universities, civil society organizations, and cultural institutions than any other nation in the world is deeply troubling,” he said.

According to ISGAP, Qatari funding has also reached K-12 education in the United States. One key example is a program called Choices, run under the auspices of Brown University, a prestigious Ivy League institution. Choices provides schools with curricula, books, and teacher training on history, international relations, and human rights.

ISGAP’s findings reveal that Choices collaborated with the Qatar Foundation International (QFI), an entity operating under the Qatar Foundation (QF), founded by Sheikha Moza, the mother of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Documents uncovered by ISGAP show that QFI sponsored teacher training sessions that included Middle East history courses, covering travel and registration expenses for educators. At another event during the COVID-19 pandemic, QFI funded curriculum development for American middle and high school teachers, offering free Middle East studies lesson plans. Though a link to QFI’s website was initially embedded in Choices’ digital materials, it was later removed. ISGAP retained an archived version of the original reference.

Shaping narratives in schools

Vaknin-Gil, now vice president for strategy at ISGAP, called the findings “astonishing.” She said QFI, registered as a nonprofit in the U.S., ultimately influences lesson plans that reach about 8,000 schools and millions of children.

According to ISGAP’s research, over time, the Choices curriculum shifted from presenting a balanced history of the Middle East to incorporating an overtly anti-Israel narrative, including questioning Israel’s legitimacy. “This ranged from omitting historical details like the Balfour Declaration and the Abraham Accords to distorting Jewish ties to Israel and even erasing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,” Vaknin-Gil said.

[transformationsproject]

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States.

Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates:

Bathroom bills deny access to public restrooms by gender or trans identity. 

They increase danger without making anyone any safer and have even prompted attacks on cis and trans people alike. Many national health and anti-sexual assault organizations oppose these bills.

Connecticut introduced bathroom bill HB05125 today and sent it to the Joint Education Committee.

Indiana introduced bathroom bill HB1342 yesterday and sent it to the House Courts and Criminal Code Committee.

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender-affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm.

Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.

Washington introduced the under-18 health care ban HB1038 yesterday and sent it to the House Health Care and Wellness Committee.

Wyoming introduced health care bill HB0164 today. It would ban off-label HRT.

Oregon introduced prison-fund healthcare bans SB506 and SB672 yesterday.

Educational Censorship and Student Suppression bills force schools to misgender or deadname students, ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make schools alert parents if they suspect a child is trans.

They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth. 

Washington introduced school misgendering bill SB5136 yesterday and sent it to the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee.

Iowa introduced school misgendering bill SF8 yesterday and sent it to the Senate Education Committee.

Indiana introduced educational censorship bill SB0257 yesterday and sent it to the Senate Education and Career Development Committee.

Connecticut introduced a school misgendering bill SB00504 yesterday and sent it to the Joint Education Committee.

Trans Erasure bills create legal definitions of terms like “sex” designed to exclude or erase trans identity and insert them into various laws. This can have many different effects, depending on what laws are affected.

They can force a male or female designation based on sex assigned at birth.

Some target anti-discrimination statutes, legally empowering trans discrimination.

Arizona introduced sex-designation bill HB2062 yesterday and sent it to the House Government Committee.

Indiana introduced trans erasure and birth certificate bill SB0441 yesterday and sent it to the Senate Health and Provider Services Committee.

Oregon introduced trans erasure bill HB2439 yesterday. It would remove "gender identity" from the law.

Oregon introduced birth certificate bill HB2309 yesterday.

Nebraska introduced trans erasure bill LB89 today and sent it to the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. Senator Megan Hunt is already working to filibuster it.

Digital Censorship Bills describe any legislation that potentially targets Queer and Trans media/material for removal. 

They typically do this by using vague and broad definitions of "Obscene" or "Harmful to Minors" and then banning such content from being accessible to minors, which often either removes the material entirely or requires age verification methods in order to view. 

This includes online censorship bills, library book bans, and other such legislation.

Oregon introduced device-filter censorship bill HB2308 yesterday.

Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by their sex assigned at birth. 

They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.

Georgia introduced sports bill SB1 yesterday.

Oregon introduced sports bills HB2037, SB618, and SB787 yesterday.

In other bills that either fit multiple categories or stand on their own, we have:

Washington introduced HB1027 yesterday and sent it to the House Community Safety Committee. It would ban the housing of any trans person with those not of their "biological sex" if said trans person has been convicted of a sex offense against those of the same gender identity.

Indiana introduced anti-DEI bill SB0235 yesterday and sent it to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

North Dakota introduced HB1430 yesterday and sent it to the House Human Services Committee. It would allow discrimination against queer and trans people by social workers.

Wyoming introduced anti-DEI bill SF0103 yesterday.

It's not too late to stop these and other hateful anti-trans bills from passing into law. YOU can go to http://transformationsproject.org/ to learn more and contact your representatives!

[mariacallous]

In early 2020, deepfake expert Henry Ajder uncovered one of the first Telegram bots built to “undress” photos of women using artificial intelligence. At the time, Ajder recalls, the bot had been used to generate more than 100,000 explicit photos—including those of children—and its development marked a “watershed” moment for the horrors deepfakes could create. Since then, deepfakes have become more prevalent, more damaging, and easier to produce.

Now, a WIRED review of Telegram communities involved with the explicit nonconsensual content has identified at least 50 bots that claim to create explicit photos or videos of people with only a couple of clicks. The bots vary in capabilities, with many suggesting they can “remove clothes” from photos while others claim to create images depicting people in various sexual acts.

The 50 bots list more than 4 million “monthly users” combined, according to WIRED's review of the statistics presented by each bot. Two bots listed more than 400,000 monthly users each, while another 14 listed more than 100,000 members each. The findings illustrate how widespread explicit deepfake creation tools have become and reinforce Telegram’s place as one of the most prominent locations where they can be found. However, the snapshot, which largely encompasses English-language bots, is likely a small portion of the overall deepfake bots on Telegram.

“We’re talking about a significant, orders-of-magnitude increase in the number of people who are clearly actively using and creating this kind of content,” Ajder says of the Telegram bots. “It is really concerning that these tools—which are really ruining lives and creating a very nightmarish scenario primarily for young girls and for women—are still so easy to access and to find on the surface web, on one of the biggest apps in the world.”

Explicit nonconsensual deepfake content, which is often referred to as nonconsensual intimate image abuse (NCII), has exploded since it first emerged at the end of 2017, with generative AI advancements helping fuel recent growth. Across the internet, a slurry of “nudify” and “undress” websites sit alongside more sophisticated tools and Telegram bots, and are being used to target thousands of women and girls around the world—from Italy’s prime minister to school girls in South Korea. In one recent survey, a reported 40 percent of US students were aware of deepfakes linked to their K-12 schools in the last year.

The Telegram bots identified by WIRED are supported by at least 25 associated Telegram channels—where people can subscribe to newsfeed-style updates—that have more than 3 million combined members. The Telegram channels alert people about new features provided by the bots and special offers on “tokens” that can be purchased to operate them, and often act as places where people using the bots can find links to new ones if they are removed by Telegram.

After WIRED contacted Telegram with questions about whether it allows explicit deepfake content creation on its platform, the company deleted the 75 bots and channels WIRED identified. The company did not respond to a series of questions or comment on why it had removed the channels.

Additional nonconsensual deepfake Telegram channels and bots later identified by WIRED show the scale of the problem. Several channel owners posted that their bots had been taken down, with one saying, “We will make another bot tomorrow.” Those accounts were also later deleted.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Telegram bots are, essentially, small apps that run inside of Telegram. They sit alongside the app’s channels, which can broadcast messages to an unlimited number of subscribers; groups where up to 200,000 people can interact; and one-to-one messages. Developers have created bots where people take trivia quizzes, translate messages, create alerts, or start Zoom meetings. They’ve also been co-opted for creating abusive deepfakes.

Due to the harmful nature of the deepfake tools, WIRED did not test the Telegram bots and is not naming specific bots or channels. While the bots had millions of monthly users, according to Telegram’s statistics, it is unclear how many images the bots may have been used to create. Some users, who could be in multiple channels and bots, may have created zero images; others could have created hundreds.

Many of the deepfake bots viewed by WIRED are clear about what they have been created to do. The bots’ names and descriptions refer to nudity and removing women’s clothes. “I can do anything you want about the face or clothes of the photo you give me,” the creators’ of one bot wrote. “Experience the shock brought by AI,” another says. Telegram can also show “similar channels” in its recommendation tool, helping potential users bounce between channels and bots.

Almost all of the bots require people to buy “tokens” to create images, and it is unclear if they operate in the ways they claim. As the ecosystem around deepfake generation has flourished in recent years, it has become a potentially lucrative source of income for those who create websites, apps, and bots. So many people are trying to use “nudify” websites that Russian cybercriminals, as reported by 404Media, have started creating fake websites to infect people with malware.

While the first Telegram bots, identified several years ago, were relatively rudimentary, the technology needed to create more realistic AI-generated images has improved—and some of the bots are hiding in plain sight.

One bot with more than 300,000 monthly users did not reference any explicit material in its name or landing page. However, once a user clicks to use the bot, it claims it has more than 40 options for images, many of which are highly sexual in nature. That same bot has a user guide, hosted on the web outside of Telegram, describing how to create the highest-quality images. Bot developers can require users to accept terms of service, which may forbid users from uploading images without the consent of the person depicted or images of children, but there appears to be little or no enforcement of these rules.

Another bot, which had more than 38,000 users, claimed people could send six images of the same man or woman—it is one of a small number that claims to create images of men—to “train” an AI model, which could then create new deepfake images of that individual. Once users joined one bot, it would present a menu of 11 “other bots” from the creators, likely to keep systems online and try to avoid removals.

“These types of fake images can harm a person’s health and well-being by causing psychological trauma and feelings of humiliation, fear, embarrassment, and shame,” says Emma Pickering, the head of technology-facilitated abuse and economic empowerment at Refuge, the UK’s largest domestic abuse organization. “While this form of abuse is common, perpetrators are rarely held to account, and we know this type of abuse is becoming increasingly common in intimate partner relationships.”

As explicit deepfakes have become easier to create and more prevalent, lawmakers and tech companies have been slow to stem the tide. Across the US, 23 states have passed laws to address nonconsensual deepfakes, and tech companies have bolstered some policies. However, apps that can create explicit deepfakes have been found in Apple and Google’s app stores, explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift were widely shared on X in January, and Big Tech sign-in infrastructure has allowed people to easily create accounts on deepfake websites.

Kate Ruane, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s free expression project, says most major technology platforms now have policies prohibiting nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, with many of the biggest agreeing to principles to tackle deepfakes. “I would say that it’s actually not clear whether nonconsensual intimate image creation or distribution is prohibited on the platform,” Ruane says of Telegram’s terms of service, which are less detailed than other major tech platforms.

Telegram’s approach to removing harmful content has long been criticized by civil society groups, with the platform historically hosting scammers, extreme right-wing groups, and terrorism-related content. Since Telegram CEO and founder Pavel Durov was arrested and charged in France in August relating to a range of potential offenses, Telegram has started to make some changes to its terms of service and provide data to law enforcement agencies. The company did not respond to WIRED’s questions about whether it specifically prohibits explicit deepfakes.

Execute the Harm

Ajder, the researcher who discovered deepfake Telegram bots four years ago, says the app is almost uniquely positioned for deepfake abuse. “Telegram provides you with the search functionality, so it allows you to identify communities, chats, and bots,” Ajder says. “It provides the bot-hosting functionality, so it's somewhere that provides the tooling in effect. Then it’s also the place where you can share it and actually execute the harm in terms of the end result.”

In late September, several deepfake channels started posting that Telegram had removed their bots. It is unclear what prompted the removals. On September 30, a channel with 295,000 subscribers posted that Telegram had “banned” its bots, but it posted a new bot link for users to use. (The channel was removed after WIRED sent questions to Telegram.)

“One of the things that’s really concerning about apps like Telegram is that it is so difficult to track and monitor, particularly from the perspective of survivors,” says Elena Michael, the cofounder and director of #NotYourPorn, a campaign group working to protect people from image-based sexual abuse.

Michael says Telegram has been “notoriously difficult” to discuss safety issues with, but notes there has been some progress from the company in recent years. However, she says the company should be more proactive in moderating and filtering out content itself.

“Imagine if you were a survivor who’s having to do that themselves, surely the burden shouldn't be on an individual,” Michael says. “Surely the burden should be on the company to put something in place that's proactive rather than reactive.”

[stylus-22]

Our learning and development consultancy will help you to develop a cohesive strategy that includes custom elearning development, visit now at Stylus Solution.

[oh-shtars]

Hey Flicker! I have a little question about Sueño, if you are uncomfortable answering it I totally understand and you can not answer it if you want:

Has Sueño ever had self-destructive thoughts? I mean ……. thoughts of wanting to do something to no longer exist (I don't know if you understand me but I really don't know if it's correct to use THAT word 😅).

I mean Sueño has been kidnapped at 12 years old? that's a long time to stay in one place and develop clustrophobia and there's also the fact that he couldn't go home, and seeing how Magnifico is in your Au…..idk I only see it as something probable.

As I said before, I hope the question doesn't make you uncomfortable, you are free to answer it or not, your Au is very interesting and I couldn't think of another question to ask (Bo is certainly better than me at asking interesting questions, really what's your secret Bo?)

It’s fine, Aled! I’m okay with answering this question but first, I just want to say:

You don’t have to go under the cut if you get uncomfortable with this kind of topic.

It’s nothing graphic or detailed, don’t worry. It’s more of another peek into Sueño’s character for those who are starving for angst content.

And when I say angst, I mean angst. Like. REALLY. MEAN. ANGST.

Btw, @signed-sapphire. Aled has a really good question for you <3

Sueño doesn’t start off with those thoughts. For the decade that he was held captive, he’s just really, really, really homesick and afraid of what’s to come, but he’s never considered it. All he wants is to go back home, go back to how it was in the Astral Realm, and never come down again for a millenia.

If anything, he mostly thinks about what his fellow stars are doing right now. They must be looking for him, right? He still has a life up there to look forward to once he does escape.

He’s always had that hope that he will leave soon. Someday. Somehow. Even if it takes a while. After all, he’s always been taught as a starling that hope is one of the strongest things there is.

*coughs* ‘Hopes and Dreams- *cough cough* Sueño being a very hopeful character that teaches Asha to do the same while she helps him see the light in others- *COUGHS*

But I have this idea for my plot that Sueño thought his magic is being exploited by humans in general. That since Mag has access to using Wish Magic, the kingdom’s citizens are being spoiled with all the things they could dream of. Which is why if you remember in my old comic down here, he gets all upset and offended that these guys still have the audacity to ask for more when they literally have a wish-granting king for a decade.

“These humans are just never satisfied with all their begging, do they? What more could they want? They have everything!!“

And it’s true, in Rosas, there seems to be multiple citizens gifted with a talent that allows them to automatically create what they want without much effort or mistakes. A complete utopia.

However, as he follows Asha along the story, Sueño comes to understand humans more than he did back when he was 12. Not all wishes are self-centred. Some were even desperate and selfless. Like wishing good for someone else or wanting to see a lost friend/family again. Some even came to Rosas despite the long boat journey to start new after their homeland outcasted them.

And it’s shocking to find out that these people don’t even remember what they wished for in the first place. Sueño really thought they had it all. That they simply just wished for something and it’ll just be given in a snap. But he comes to find that these people are held captive in a terrible cycle of waiting, fearing, and longing just like he was.

He really had no idea it was like this the whole time this past decade. And in a way, he felt responsible. After all, it was HIS magic that got them into this mess, right? It was because of HIM that this ‘cycle of feeling empty’ started. It’s HIS fault that people are hanging on to a very thin thread of hope, most dependent on one king that promised them a chance to get their desires granted.

And gosh, will that realisation break him. Sueño wonders if the other stars would even want him back in the Astral Realm after what happened. Heck, people, even Asha, could hate him if they realised this. He wouldn’t belong anywhere. He doesn’t have anyone else to go to. And dammit, maybe none of this would have happened if he wasn’t so unlucky enough to be captured and taken advantage of.

If he never existed…..

(There’s obviously more to that backstory buuuuuut, that’s kinda spoilers 🤐)

Also, holy fawk. This post helped made me realise I could do ‘Hopes and Dreams’ in reverse in the 2nd half of the plot. Sueño could be the one who lost all hope of finding somewhere to belong this time while Asha, having been betrayed by the Royal Couple, saw the very terrible darkness in some people and now they get to help each other relearn lessons-

*G A S P*

OMFG MAG. I KNOW I CREATED YOU BUT I’D BE LYING IF I SAID I NEVER FELT LIKE THROWING YOU DOWN A WELL-

[phantomdialogue]

˗ˏˋ. ݁₊ ✶ ˖ 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐲 𝐛.𝐤. 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 - 𝟔/𝟓 ☆ . ݁ ˖ˎˊ˗

release date: february 11, 2025

premise: aiden valentine hosts baltimore's romance hotline, heartstrings, but he has found a problem with his job. he's fallen out of love with love... until one night a 12-year old calls into the station asking for dating advice for her mother, lucie stone. when their conversation goes viral, everyone is rooting for lucie to find love, including aiden. but finding her that love might prove harder than he thought.

couple(s): aiden valentine and lucie stone

tropes: grumpy x sunshine, hopeless romantic x doesn't believe in love, workplace romance, single mom, forced proximity, red string, opposites attract, found family

content warnings: many conversations about cancer/illness, some misogyny

review below!

review:

this is the best new romance of 2025. i can say that with confidence and it's only february. this was just the all around perfect book. it gets 5 stars in every single ranking category i can think of. it's the perfect plot with just enough of that cheesy romcom goodness but still a very serious undertone that works so well with it. the setting is adorable and very picturesque and fits the whole vibe. it's so vivid and you truly read this book and feel like you're watching a movie because of how clear you can picture everything.

this is a book that i can happily say SHOULD be and is dual pov. it works so so incredibly well with this author's writing and these characters. i actually think this story would be ten times weaker without it. getting to go back and forth between these characters and seeing how they see each other and the situations they're in really just works with what the book is tackling. there isn't a "preferred" pov either. you want to read both of them throughout the whole book. you're never starting a new chapter and thinking "damn i wish this was in the other character's pov". you're attached to both of them so much and it's truly wonderful.

the characters are amazing. every last one of them you fall in love with. this is truly a masterclass in creating an ensemble cast. every single character you can picture so clearly in your head without even having extremely detailed descriptions of the characters. they all have an important role in the story and they push along the plot and the characters and there truly is no character that i would get rid of without thinking there would be considerable damage done to the story. and even with the ensemble, these main characters stick out so beautifully.

aiden valentine. number one book boyfriend of the year. i'm calling it now. again, it's only february and the ranking has been called. he is just the perfect mmc. he has a past that affects him still to this day and he deals with it in such a human realistic way. you grieve with him and you feel for him and i can't decide if that's fully because of the character himself or if it's because of how b. k. borison approached writing him. getting to read his pov and really understand his thought process makes you feel so much more connected to him. i think if you read the ending conflict only from lucie's pov, it would feel out of character but reading parts of it from his pov makes it make so much sense and i appreciate that so much.

i adore lucie. first off, tall girl representation and she's a single mom. i love her. i love her so much. i'm not ranking the girls i read this year but if i was, she'd be right up in the number one spot so far. she's just such a powerhouse of a character and getting to watch her change and grow and develop as a person throughout the story is so beautiful and i truly loved every second of it. her pov really helps you understand what she's thinking and what the whole journey she goes on means for her and i loved it so much. i will sing her praises over the rooftops forever. she's a powerhouse fmc and deserves so much love.

i can't begin to even process this book in the slightest because i'm going to be thinking about it constantly. i am so incredibly attached to these characters and i love them alarmingly so. i think that aiden really spoke to me in his struggles with life and grief and all of his internal angst and i will love him forever. lucie's outlook on life and love also is sticking with me for so long. this book really just hooks you from the very first chapter and it's got so much love and heart in it that you can't help loving every second of reading it. i know this is listed as #1 in a heartstrings series and i truly hope the author writes more about any of these characters because it wasn't just the main characters that i fell in love but the whole story and cast and setting and just general vibe of it as well.

my ratings:

characters - 5 ☆ - believable, change and grow, memorable, minor characters stand out, multilayered, original, strong relationships, relatable

plot - 5 ☆ - addictive, fast-paced, satisfying conclusion, steady pacing, well-structured

setting - 5 ☆ - atmospheric, idyllic, lush, nostalgic, realistic, picturesque, vivid descriptions

writing style - 5 ☆ - beautifully written, descriptive, funny, original, witty

favorite quotes (some spoilers here, of course, but minimal):

It feels like every time I get my hopes up for something good, reality comes out swinging. I don't know how to be a hopeful person anymore.

Aiden Valentine: Flowers die. Everything dies. Caller: I thought this was a romance hotline.

"There's nothing to fix, Lucie."

"I hate it. It's like everyone is doing some dance that I never learned the steps to. I'm clueless, and I'm not using that as an excuse. I am genuinely clueless. I don't understand all of the... stuff you have to sift through before you can be yourself."

It's not the words she says, but the way she says them. Quiet. Embarrassed. Like somehow it's her fault she hasn't found what she's looking for yet.

And somewhere out there, Lucie is sitting on her kid's bed. Talking to me.

"When the whole world tells you you're silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you're not worth it. That if the things you're waiting for do exist, they're not someone like you."

"I don't want to waste my time on things that don't feel like everything I've always wanted for myself."

I think sometimes I get so caught up in the roles assigned to me--mother, employee, daughter--that it's easier to shrink down the things that hurt and set them to the side. I never want anyone to worry.

"I'm not lonely, honey. There's way too many people in our lives for me to be lonely." Maya squeezes my hand back. "You don't have to be alone to be lonely."

I wish there was a guidebook for this. An instruction manual that could tell me how to take myself apart and put everything back together so I'm good as new. I wish I knew how to make sense of my pieces.

When a woman got on the line and said she believed in magic and I thought maybe I could believe in it too.

"She might. And you'd deserve it too. I swear to god, you've regressed to the emotional aptitude of a high-schooler." "I'd give high schoolers a little more credit."

I wish I had two emotional support cookies.

I've never felt like I've been able to be anything other than okay, not while my mom has been the furthest thing from it.

"I don't think you want me in your mouth."

I didn't think I was talking to a six-foot-something man with perpetual bedhead and a penchant for dentistry innuendo.

"Maybe watching you fall in love with someone will give my cold, dead heart some hope."

Hot, my brain supplies. Also, kind of a disaster. I'm not entirely confident he knows how to talk to people when he's outside the booth. He hosts a radio show about love, but he doesn't believe in it himself and he wants me to help him remember how. I think. I keep sharing things with him I don't mean to. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

My coffee, which she managed to find again despite its new hiding place.

But something keeps me still. Maybe it's the look on her face or maybe it's the way she's holding her body a little too tight. Like she's never let herself think of these things before. Like she's never let herself want them.

"You still haven't gotten to the good stuff," she says, and I believe it. I believe with Lucie, there's only good stuff.

"I think books are sexy," she says very seriously. "No one at school has quite lived up to Aragon yet."

It's her choice. All of this is her choice. I'm not going to let anyone bully Lucie into doing anything she doesn't want to do.

"Who the fuck made you cry?"

She looks tired, burned-out, like the weight she's been carrying around has suddenly become too heavy to bear. I want to wrap her in a blanket and make her some of my secret coffee.

He keeps looking at me. The same steady, studying look he always seems to be giving me. Like I'm an equation he can't figure out. Or a particularly interesting constellation that he's trying to orient himself with.

"I think you're the magic."

Grayson Harris: Listen up, lizards. There's a new daddy in town. Aiden Valentine: Oh, boy.

"Ah, Lucie." Aiden smiles, his fingers fanning out wide against my back. "I'd know you anywhere."

"I started to see this common thread with callers. How love could make them miserable. How it could tear them to absolute pieces. And once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. I think I started waiting for it. Bracing myself for it. It felt easier that way."

Sometimes I think I hear her voice twisting through my dreams. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I feel like she should be in the space next to me, her laugh ringing in my ears.

"Lucie," I whisper. I think I'm begging, but I have no idea what for. To let me go. To drag me closer. I don't know.

"Anyone who's listened to you guys on the radio for longer than thirty seconds can tell there's something going on between you two, Lucie. He called me the wrong name like sixteen times."

What am I going to do with all this information when she's gone? All these tiny data points of Lucie.

I dream of rough laughter and coffee beans hidden in cookie tins, Aiden's voice in my ear and his firm hands on my hips.

"We're having a conversation"... "Words are happening." "Not many of them."

"Because you said it was your favorite," I admit, "And I want your favorite to be my favorite."

"I remember all the things you've said."

Burn myself into her the way she's burned into me.

The first thing he did when he woke up was smile at me.

"You tell me all the time you have all the love you need. That you're fit to burst with our family and all the people in it. But I thought, maybe just this once, you could have all the love you deserve too."

"It was never a choice, Aiden."

My heart knows the sounds of him before my head can catch up.

"Long-time listener, first-time caller."

"It's not about deserving," I say, my throat tight. "If someone gives you something, you have it. You don't have to earn it."

The almost and the maybes and the what-ifs. The universe lining up for one perfect moment and handing me her.

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 16, 2025

Cortical VIP neurons as a critical node for dopamine actions. Bae, J. W., Yi, J. H., Choe, S. Y., Li, Y., & Jung, M. W. (2025). Science Advances, 11(1).

Confidence regulates feedback processing during human probabilistic learning. Ben Yehuda, M., Murphy, R. A., Le Pelley, M. E., Navarro, D. J., & Yeung, N. (2025). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 154(1), 80–95.

Neural Encoding of Direction and Distance across Reference Frames in Visually Guided Reaching. Caceres, A. H., Barany, D. A., Dundon, N. M., Smith, J., & Marneweck, M. (2024). eNeuro, 11(12), ENEURO.0405-24.2024.

Bifurcation Enhances Temporal Information Encoding in the Olfactory Periphery. Choi, K., Rosenbluth, W., Graf, I. R., Kadakia, N., & Emonet, T. (2024). PRX Life, 2(4), 043011.

The origin of color categories. Garside, D. J., Chang, A. L. Y., Selwyn, H. M., & Conway, B. R. (2025). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(1), e2400273121.

Oppositional and competitive instigation of hippocampal synaptic plasticity by the VTA and locus coeruleus. Hagena, H., & Manahan-Vaughan, D. (2025). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(1), e2402356122.

Dissociable Effects of Urgency and Evidence Accumulation during Reaching Revealed by Dynamic Multisensory Integration. Hoffmann, A. H., & Crevecoeur, F. (2024). eNeuro, 11(12), ENEURO.0262-24.2024.

Allocentric and egocentric spatial representations coexist in rodent medial entorhinal cortex. Long, X., Bush, D., Deng, B., Burgess, N., & Zhang, S.-J. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 356.

Limitation of switching sensory information flow in flexible perceptual decision making. Luo, T., Xu, M., Zheng, Z., & Okazawa, G. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 172.

Sparse high-dimensional decomposition of non-primary auditory cortical receptive fields. Mukherjee, S., Babadi, B., & Shamma, S. (2025). PLOS Computational Biology, 21(1), e1012721.

Memory-based predictions prime perceptual judgments across head turns in immersive, real-world scenes. Mynick, A., Steel, A., Jayaraman, A., Botch, T. L., Burrows, A., & Robertson, C. E. (2025). Current Biology, 35(1), 121-130.e6.

Multisensory integration of social signals by a pathway from the basal amygdala to the auditory cortex in maternal mice. Nowlan, A. C., Choe, J., Tromblee, H., Kelahan, C., Hellevik, K., & Shea, S. D. (2025). Current Biology, 35(1), 36-49.e4.

Exploration in 4‐year‐old children is guided by learning progress and novelty. Poli, F., Meyer, M., Mars, R. B., & Hunnius, S. (2025). Child Development, 96(1), 192–202.

Aberrant auditory prediction patterns robustly characterize tinnitus. Reisinger, L., Demarchi, G., Obleser, J., Sedley, W., Partyka, M., Schubert, J., Gehmacher, Q., Roesch, S., Suess, N., Trinka, E., Schlee, W., & Weisz, N. (2024). eLife, 13, e99757.4.

Retinal ganglion cells encode the direction of motion outside their classical receptive field. Riccitelli, S., Yaakov, H., Heukamp, A. S., Ankri, L., & Rivlin-Etzion, M. (2025). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(1), e2415223122.

Dynamics of visual object coding within and across the hemispheres: Objects in the periphery. Robinson, A. K., Grootswagers, T., Shatek, S. M., Behrmann, M., & Carlson, T. A. (2025). Science Advances, 11(1).

Single-neuron spiking variability in hippocampus dynamically tracks sensory content during memory formation in humans. Waschke, L., Kamp, F., van den Elzen, E., Krishna, S., Lindenberger, U., Rutishauser, U., & Garrett, D. D. (2025). Nature Communications, 16, 236.

Information sharing within a social network is key to behavioral flexibility—Lessons from mice tested under seminaturalistic conditions. Winiarski, M., Madecka, A., Yadav, A., Borowska, J., Wołyniak, M. R., Jędrzejewska-Szmek, J., Kondrakiewicz, L., Mankiewicz, L., Chaturvedi, M., Wójcik, D. K., Turzyński, K., Puścian, A., & Knapska, E. (2025). Science Advances, 11(1).

A language model of problem solving in humans and macaque monkeys. Yang, Q., Zhu, Z., Si, R., Li, Y., Zhang, J., & Yang, T. (2025). Current Biology, 35(1), 11-20.e10.

Offline ensemble co-reactivation links memories across days. Zaki, Y., Pennington, Z. T., Morales-Rodriguez, D., Bacon, M. E., Ko, B., Francisco, T. R., LaBanca, A. R., Sompolpong, P., Dong, Z., Lamsifer, S., Chen, H.-T., Carrillo Segura, S., Christenson Wick, Z., Silva, A. J., Rajan, K., van der Meer, M., Fenton, A., Shuman, T., & Cai, D. J. (2025). Nature, 637(8044), 145–155.

[itsnobodysproblem]

Alright. This is part 1 of a list with the questions already addressed in mailbag episodes on patreon. I've shortened or paraphrased some of them, for space and clarity.

I'll also eventually have all of them in this google doc. Hopefully. Ok let's go.

Mailbag Questions 1-10

Mailbag 1

23 Jan 2024, aired between Redh & Glor

Where to go when visiting London?

What are your hobbies?

How did Archie get his name?

Sherlock, [...] have you ever handled cases in New Zealand?

Is Sherlock's hugging machine based on that of Temple Grandin's?

Why did Sherlock need John's shoelaces?

John, if you miss an upload, should we assume you and Sherlock have been arrested or are dead?

Favourite Shakespeare play?

Favourite tv show?

(For Sherlock) Do you have a sweet tooth?

(For John) Do you use a cane for your leg injury?

30 Jan 2024, aired between Redh & Glor

Mailbag 2

If you could make a Spotify playlist for each other [...] what would some of the highlights be?

Has Sherlock ever hit a vape? What flavour?

(For Sherlock) Do you have a favourite classical piece or a favourite composer?

(For John) If you were an animal, what animal would you be? +

What kitchen appliance would you be?

Sherlock, what kinds of biscuits are the best?

Favourite supermarket, Tesco or Sainsbury's?

What is the story behind the theme tune?

Mailbag 3

13 Feb 2024, aired between Glor & Soli

If you go to Subway, what do you usually order?

If you guys want another pet, what animal would it be? 

Favorite case you’ve solved so far?

(For Sherlock) Any specific reason you started smoking a pipe?

Does Archie get human food? Who feeds it to him?

(For Sherlock) Do you have any piercings? If you don’t, do you want any? Which ones?

(For Sherlock) Your deductive skills, was it a talent you were born with or a skill that you developed [...]?

(For John) Has your mother finally listened to the podcast? If yes, what does she think of it? 

The flowers on my orchids are gone, but the plants themselves are thriving. [...] Will the flowers ever come back?

(For John) Any funny memories from your childhood that you’d like to share with us?

Mailbag 4

27 Feb 2024, aired between Soli & Cree

Favorite tube line?

How do you both know Stamford?

Do you believe in ghosts?

(For John) Did you suffer any hearing loss during your army days?

Dogs or Cats?

Favorite musical?

Did you feel bad for Violet Caruthers?

How many languages do you know?

(For Sherlock) Have you seen any of the fan content?

Does the fingerprint in your logo make an ‘S’ and is that deliberate?

What’s your spice tolerance?

Multiple questions about John describing a woman as ‘tasty’.

(For John) Thoughts on ranch dressing?

Does Sherlock have any tattoos?

What is your advice about dealing with a noisy flatmate?

Mailbag 5

12 Mar 2024, aired between Cree & Reti

Who has been your favourite client so far?

John, which football position do you prefer?

What superpower would you have?

Favourite book genre?

Favourite hobbit characters?

(For John and Mariana) Are you partial to karaoke? If so, what songs?

Sherlock, would you still love Watson if he was a worm?

John, will you make a tumblr?

How many cases have you not published on the podcast? [...]

(For John and Sherlock) How do you keep your bedroom? Are you more organised or messy? [...] 

Dream jobs as kids?

Did Sherlock share a room at home or in school? How about you, John?

Mailbag 6

19 Mar 2024, aired between Cree & Reti

(For Mariana) ¿Cómo es vivir con John y Sherlock? ¿Tienen hábitos que te molestan?

Where is Mariana from?

Did you bury Ratthew?

(For Sherlock) Why do you like maps?

(For all) What was the moment you realised your job was right for you? +

What has been your favourite moment with Sherlock & Co?*

Could we let Sherlock choose a question?

Favourite tube stations? Over and/or underground. 

How is Violet doing? Has she ditched Zach yet?

(For John) Do you have the mic running majority of the time just in case something happens? Or do you have a bit of a spidey sense [...]?

(For Sherlock) Do you know every tube station with a toilet?

* They didn't actually answer this one.

Mailbag 7

16 Apr 2024, aired between Silv & Reig

No questions. They got distracted by a possible shoplifter.

Mailbag 8 

23 Apr 2024, aired between Silv & Reig

Dr Watson, do you have a favourite pigeon?

Do any of you have any siblings?*

Favourite fictional detective?

Height?

What do you look like?**

Sherlock, how do you cope when you think you aren't real?

John, do you have any collections?

How frequently are you on cases? Are there more cases than there is downtime or viceversa [...]?

(For John) How did Waterfalls become your toothbrushing song? Do you have songs for any other routines?

If Carol Watson's phone number was an amount of money, how much money would you have-

Would you rather have toes as long as fingers or fingers as long as toes?

Sherlock, have you ever thought about keeping bees? + 

John, have you ever rode a horse?

Sherlock, what's your favourite stim ever or at the moment?

Favourite museum in London?

Favourite hot beverage? What food would you eat for a week straight? +

If you could travel to one moment in the entire human past, which moment would it be?

Favourite place to visit?

Opinions on Pirates of the Caribbean? 

Apart from the violin, what is Sherlock's favourite orchestral instrument?

Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?

Worm question, other way round: Would John still love Sherlock if he was a worm?

* Sherlock wasn't actually in the room so only John answered.

** They don't answer that. 

Mailbag 9

30 Apr 2024, aired between Silv & Reig

Tesco meal deal of choice? + What are your nightly routines?

Hogwarts houses?

(For Sherlock) How did you start helping the police with investigations?

Did John do any writing of fiction beforehand, or journaling?

(For John) Is Guinness your main poison or are you partial to anything else?

(For Sherlock) [...] What is the highest thing you have or would plan to climb?

Bonus: "And why were you climbing outside my window that time?"

(For Sherlock) Were you ever stunned by police incompetence?

Trolley problem, but it's five people against your roomie. Do you pull the lever?

(For John) If you were to face Sherlock as an opponent in either chess, go, or poker, which game do you think you would have the best chance of winning in?

Mailbag 10

14 May 2024, aired between Reig & Iden

John asks Sherlock how he pronounces "scone".

Do you have a favourite memory?

Did you have any 'phases' in your adolescence or young adulthood?

What was lockdown for you?

Did you ever get caught, as a kid, doing something you were not supposed to? And if so, what was it?

[joshiji-darlingyuyuno]

𐙚˙⋆.˚ 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠'𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 ๋࣭ ⭑⚝

synopsis: learn about suin's first group she debuted with, or well, read about what happened to her best friend and beloved member, Shin Ryeonha, and what happened to Korea's beloved duo of gen 2, Darling content/trigger warning: mention of suicide,death, and terminal illness, angst proceed with caution read ryeonha's profile here!

kwon suin masterlist

Darling's debut in 2007 was a hotly anticipated event in the K-pop community. Suin, who was only 12 years old, was already regarded as a prodigy due to her vocal talent, stage presence, and skills, being the first idol to be nicknamed "Born to be an Idol".

Her pairing with 17-year-old Shin Ryeonha, who was already a well-known trainee, created an wholesome dynamic that resonated with fans.

After releasing hit after hit, Darling climbed the charts, becoming K-pop's "it" duo.

They adorned magazine covers, sold out concerts, and cultivated a devoted fan base known as the "Dearests." Suin and Ryeonha's bond on and off stage was endearing, and fans were captivated by their sisterly relationship.

Even with their five year age gap, Ryeonha was a sister figure and almost mother-like as well, taking care of young Suin

Then, in 2012, came the devastating news: Ryeonha had become ill with a serious condition.

As Suin took over Darling's promotions, Ryeonha fought valiantly, even writing songs from her hospital bed to stay in touch with the fans.

The public watched their struggle with bated breath, admiring Ryeonha's bravery and Suin's steadfast support.

Suin would continue activities as to almost distract the public, but there was no hiding the fear and grief Suin felt. 

Tragically, Ryeonha's condition became too severe, and she passed away in late 2013. The loss was devastating, not only for Suin, but for the entire Korean industry.

Suin retreated from the spotlight, consumed by grief and pain, and attempted suicide in her darkest moments. She had no support system, her best friend had passed, she had recently cut ties with kyungsoo, her long term childhood best friend and boyfriend. she was alone. 

The fandom flooded social media with messages of love and support.

They organized online vigils, fan projects, and even fundraisers to support mental health initiatives in Ryeonha's honor.

Dearests were determined to be a source of strength for Suin in her darkest moments.

Suin's healing was ultimately facilitated by the kindness and compassion of the Seventeen trainees, who were also Darling fans.

Suin realized the long-term legacy of Darling and the importance of honoring Ryeonha's memory after seeing how deeply her loss affected those around her.

Suin gradually recovered, thanks to the Dearests' unwavering support. Her return to music was met with jubilant applause, with fans overjoyed to see Suin reclaim her passion.

Dearests saw themselves not only as devoted listeners, but also as active participants in Suin's journey of development and resilience.

a song dedicated to Ryeonha written and sung by Suin, "A walk" (Yerin Baek)

I miss you, your face that I long for It disappears like a picture drawn with water I miss you Again today, I’m thinking of that person As I take a walk

comment for requests!