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blank-potato · 1 day ago

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A Special Surprise

Pairing: Bob Reynolds x Reader

Summary:

“What’s going on?” he asks, brows raised. You say wearily, “It’s been shaking all morning… almost dancing?” You both look at it. The plant is doing a slow, rhythmic shimmy like it’s listening to music, only it can hear. It was no longer sad, that was for sure. You watch it…it’s almost hypnotic in its movements. Going round and round and round and— you look away, shaking your head. “Not today, horny plant, not today.” Bob tries and fails to suppress a snort. “Did you just…. call it horny?” Or Since the plant attack a month ago, you and Bob haven't had sex, agreeing that you should take things slow. But your plant sees how pent up you both are and changes your plans.

Tags/Warnings: 18+ Explicit Content, plants being freaky asl, Bob using his telekinesis for horny reasons, orgasm control/denial, tentacle handjob (tentacle job?) oral sex (female receiving), p in v sex, hair pulling, bondage via tentacles and telekinesis, established relationship

WC: 5.8k

A/N: This is part 2 of Something Special linked below. This was another really fun one to write, more plant action as promised, hope you enjoy it!

Part 1

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Since the great plant incident, the two of you had decided to take things slow.

Really slow.

It had been almost a month, and you guys had just worked your way up to holding hands, kissing and the occasional makeout session.

Even though you guys had had sex, it probably wouldn’t have been the natural progression of your relationship. You would have kept awkwardly not quite flirting with each other until one of you made a move.

So, taking it slow seemed to be the best course of action. It was fine, you were both okay with it… kinda. In all honesty, you wanted each other bad.

You’d be completely normal, working on something, and you’d feel his arms wrapping around you from behind, and that is all it took. The rest of the day, you’d think about you and him in many different compromising positions.

But you had to be normal and chill, and that is something you definitely know how to do.

Bob enters your office, and you smile up at him. You could never resist your daily dose of Bob Reynolds. “Morning, I brought you cinnamon rolls. I figured you haven’t eaten yet?

“You know me and my bad habits so well,” You say before leaning up to peck him on the lips. You taste sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. “You’ve already eaten yours?”

“Couldn’t resist.”

He rounds the table to settle next to you, the smell of his cologne and shampoo already making you feel at home.

“How’s it looking?” he says, nodding at your flower.

You look at the plant in the corner of your lab, which has lost a few petals and curled in on itself a little. It’s looking out your window, all forlorn like it’s wishing for better days. “I swear I’ve been taking care of it, giving it enough water and sun, but it’s…”

“It looks a little sad,” Bob finishes.

The plant had taken to Bob over the past few weeks, probably because Bob was always in your lab, hovering nearby under the guise of helping or waiting for you to finish up.

It was oddly endearing, watching the way the plant seemed to lean toward him whenever he was around, as if it had claimed him, too. It was very cute how it would do a little shiver whenever you ruffled Bob’s hair or laughed at one of his awkward jokes, almost like it was rooting for you.

Sometimes, when Bob got too close to your workstation, the plant would nudge toward him, its leaves twitching like it wanted to be involved in whatever the two of you were doing.

He turns away from the plant and observes you instead. Instantly, he sees that you’re looking a little tired. “You alright?”

You mumble as ‘yes’ but honestly, without your second coffee of the day, you’d be curled up underneath your desk, asleep.

“Just didn’t sleep well last night.”

And that was the truth. You didn’t sleep well last night, he didn’t need to know that it was because you had a dream about him fucking your brains out. Another shitty side-effect of not having sex with your hot boyfriend.

“Anything I can do to help? I could… organise your notes, or bring coffee, or I don’t know…” Bob offers, clearly trying to come up with anything useful. “I just don’t want to see you burnt out.”

You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him close, resting your forehead gently against his. “I’ll be okay. I survived med school, okay? I’ve been more tired,” you say with a soft smile, “You’re so sweet, wanting to take care of me…”

You loved it when he got like this, all cute and tender. And the way he’d be doting on you even when you insisted you were fine. Like when he found you passed out at your desk, surrounded by papers and coffee cups, and you woke up in your bed and had a sparkling lab by the next morning.

You glance up at his worried eyes, framed by the faintest crease in his brow. He’s so beautiful when he’s like this; it makes you want to melt into a little puddle on the floor. There’s even a smudge of sugar on the corner of his lip from the cinnamon roll, and you just wanna kiss it right off.

Just then, you’re overcome by that aching kind of affection, the kind that just demands an outlet, and you start pressing kisses all over his face: his cheek, his temple, the bridge of his nose.

He bursts into laughter, leaning back just slightly as you continue your playful assault. “What are you doing?” he laughs.

“This’ll keep me awake,” you murmur against his jawline.

He wraps his arms around you and lifts you in his arms like you weigh nothing. You lock your legs around his waist like a little koala. You have no idea what has you both feeling so bold, but you like it.

“You’re so perfect,” you say, as you move to the other side of his jaw. He lets out a moan, quaking under your praise. You knew just how to make him feel good, just how to make him feel special.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he says, his voice dipping even lower. Your lips leave his skin, and you look up at him to see his eyes glowing gold. All that does is turn you on even more, the fact that you got him so worked up…

Then, like that, as if you realised you weren’t exactly going slow right now, you break apart.

“We should probably…”

Bob hums in agreement, and you reluctantly release your python grip on his waist. It’s a near-impossible task, and you miss having him hold you as soon as he plops you down on your desk.

You fan yourself a little and fix your shirt, trying to look composed even if you were the furthest thing from it.

But when your eyes sweep the room, you notice the plant now turned away from the window and right at the two of you, like it was watching.

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By the next day, the plant is going wild.

Bob stops by your office, hoping to take you out to lunch, only to find you locked in a tense staring contest with the plant, before you turn and he sees why.

“What’s going on?” he asks, brows raised.

You say wearily, “It’s been shaking all morning… almost dancing?”

You both look at it. The plant is doing a slow, rhythmic shimmy like it’s listening to music, only it can hear. It was no longer sad, that was for sure.

You watch it…it’s almost hypnotic in its movements. Going round and round and round and— you look away, shaking your head.

“Not today, horny plant, not today.”

Bob tries and fails to suppress a snort. “Did you just…. call it horny?”

You nod profusely before pointing an accusatory finger at it. “I know that look. I’m telling you, something isn’t right.”

“Do we have any idea why?” Bob asks, but you shake your head.

“I’ve called a specialist, but they won’t be here by next week.” Shifting away from it, you hold onto Bob’s arm. You needed to be ready to bolt just in case, it went crazy on your asses again.

You knew exactly what this plant was capable of, the flashbacks to your completely destroyed office coming back to you all at once. You still missed the shirt that it obliterated.

You sigh. “You still wanna get lunch?”

Bob smiles. “Only if we’re not bringing the third wheel.”

You shoot the plant a final stern look. “Stay.”

The plant, as if in response, gives another aggressive little shimmy.

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Lunch was perfect, but moments with Bob often were. You shared jokes and a meatball sub from the corner shop and sat together in a nearby park.

How could someone look so cute with sauce on his face? You wiped it off, brushing his lips with your napkin. Pretty lips, lips you wanted to devour.

You almost didn’t want to get back to work.

Once you get back to the Tower, it’s quiet as the rest of the Avengers are now halfway across the country, fighting dangers unknown.

Like a big weighted blanket, he wraps his arms around you, walking with you in a slow, sleepy sway.

“Do you have to get to work now?” he murmurs against your temple.

You nod, sighing as you both waddle down the hall like two sleepy penguins, still tangled in each other’s warmth.

“See me after?”

“I will.”

Then, without warning, he stops and spins you around, lifting you off the ground like you weigh nothing, pressing a deep, giddy kiss to your lips.

“You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet,” you laugh breathlessly as he sets you back down.

He smiles, that soft, golden smile. “You just bring something out in me.”

Swiftly, he disappears down the hall, leaving your heart pounding and you wondering when exactly he got all suave and smooth.

When you swing your door open, still swooning over Bob, you see something. Something…concerning?

It’s another flower.

The door shuts behind you as you pause mid-step, squinting at it. This wasn’t the one Bob gave you. That one had soft green leaves and leaned adorably toward his voice and evidently danced.

But this? This one had glowing yellow petals that pulsed faintly, almost like it was breathing. You hadn’t seen it before, and you certainly hadn’t grown it.

“I come in peace, plant.”

You carefully lift its pot and set it next to your other plant. If you were more attentive, or just less exhausted, then you probably would’ve noticed the faint tremble in the soil, or the way the leaves angled ever so slightly toward the door. You’d deal with it after the giant stack of papers and emails you had to get through.

You click-clack at your computer and try to focus, your body becomes heavier, the letters on your keyboard become blurry.

“Stay awake, stay awake,” you whisper to yourself, like a chant to keep you up, but it’s no use. “Just five minutes,” you murmur to yourself, as you rest your head on the desk.

What must’ve been at least an hour slips by, and when you jolt upright, disoriented and sticky-eyed—

“Of course, I fell asleep…”

You look around, scratching the back of your neck, stretching with a yawn, trying to blink the fog from your brain. But when you look to the corner, the one you’d started glancing at by habit, it’s empty.

When you wake up, the flower is gone.

Actually, both flowers are gone.

“Shit.”

You blink, disoriented, and then the sudden crack of gunfire rings out. You bolt upright, and you step out of the lab into complete chaos.

The hallway is a mess, vines are all over the ceiling and walls, snaking around furniture and lights, creeping fast. Ava is blinking in and out of sight, phasing wildly as she dodges them, while a vine nearly snags her ankle. Yelena is hanging from the chandelier on the ceiling with a gas mask, shooting at them.

You can’t see him, but you can hear Alexei roaring in the distance, presumably batting the plant’s tentacles away with brute force.

“What the fuck is going on?!”

At the centre of the chaos, the yellow flower that was on your desk was now mad with power and trying to pull Bucky out of the elevator. And in another corner amongst overturned chairs and sparkling wires is a pink one, that had tentacles attached to John’s back, trying to pry off his clothes.

How the fuck did they get here? Did they take the subway? A taxi?

Before you can do anything, you’re being pulled away into the air with a scream… not by a tentacle but by an invisible force.

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A few minutes before the plant attack on Avengers Tower, Bob’s lying in bed, living his best life and thinking of you, like always.

Since you were busy working, he decided he’d take a nap, five minutes tops. He had been tired these past few days as well, thoughts of you in his bed, riding him, calling out his name until your voice was hoarse, keeping him awake more and more often. The sex dreams were wreaking havoc on his sleep schedule. Every time you guys would makeout, he’d be brought back to all the filthy things you’d be whispering in his ear in his dreams.

He’d only meant to close his eyes for five minutes.

But eventually he drifts off peacefully, the comfort of his pillow and the lingering scent of you on his shirt pulling him under. Only to wake a few minutes later to the feeling of a warm, unfamiliar weight on his chest.

A soft rustle. Something moves.

A bloom of purple petals hovers above him, looking down at him with something almost resembling fondness. The plant tilts its head, mimicking him as he shifts, confused.

It takes him a moment to realise… his sheets are gone. His wrists, tied gently but firmly to the headboard by vines. Velvet-smooth tentacles looped like cuffs around his ankles.

Bob freezes, his breath catches in his throat. His heart races too, thoughts piling up in his head faster than he can sort them.

He swallows hard, shifting his hips in a vain attempt to sit up, but the vines hold firm. One of the petals tilts curiously, responding to his movement with something too close to glee.

Still pinned, still breathless, he whispers to the ceiling:

“…This plant is going to kill me.”

As if hearing him, the plant gets to work, making quick work of his clothes, discarding the fabric in smooth, deliberate motions, like it had done this before.

Bob couldn't deny it felt good… He'd been left wanting more every time, longing to be touched more. Every heated makeout session, few and far between, cut short by your mutual agreement to take things slow.

The tendrils slither their way around his body until they found what they were looking for, his cock. They wrap around him, the substance that was oozing from the tentacles onto his cock making him feel weak.

His whole body shivers when they start moving. They fluctuate between pulsing around him and jerking him off, making it impossible to focus on anything.

He bites back the no doubt embarrassing moan that was bound to come out. But he can’t keep them back for too long. The moan that rips through him is more of a pathetic whine. They use his reactions against him, rubbing wherever made him whimper the loudest. But instead of moving as fast as they can, they slicked up his cock, moving just slow enough to leave him wanting.

His breath is short, and his limbs feel heavy, too heavy for him to do anything, but he’s not sure he wants to do anything right now.

“Fuck…”

He feels himself getting closer and closer, but one of the tentacles curls around the base of his cock and squeezes. Denying him the release, he very much needed. His legs shake as he groans and slams his head against the headboard, denting it.

“Please…,” he lets out, his eyes dazed, and if you asked him what he’s begging for, he wouldn’t be able to tell you.

The plant isn’t done with him yet; it starts moving again. The tentacles are making themselves right at home, working their hardest to get him to another orgasm. It's hell-bent on draining all his energy and leaving him a complete mess. He moans, bucking his hips up into its grip, causing it to squeeze around him harder.

“I can’t, I can’t…” he gasps, before collapsing into a quiet sob, trembling under its iron grip pressing down on him.

He turns his head to the side, burying his face in the pillow, his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat. His breathing quickens, shallow and erratic, as his toes curl in pleasure.

It’s not long before he feels it coming again, another dry orgasm he’s too weak to do anything about except whimper.

“Please, let me—”

His back arches off the bed as he has a second dry orgasm. All he can think about is you, how he wanted to kiss you and hold you in his arms… and fuck you senseless. He wanted to hear you, wanted to make you feel good. His eyes start to glow gold as he moans out your name over and over.

“Please, please, please—”

With the thought of you fresh in his mind, he finds his orgasm hitting him that much faster and harder. No matter how much he begged, the plant wouldn’t let him finish. But that’s not what really hurt; what hurt is the fact that you weren’t here right now with him. And he needed you.

The tentacles keep moving, but start exploring the rest of his body more. He felt boneless and unbelievably horny, like he was about to go crazy.

He needed relief. He needed you. To feel your body pressed against his, to feel your pussy squeezing down on his dick.

He flexes his hand and thinks of you, hoping that you’d come to him.

And you did. You were still mid-yell when you flew in there, as he slammed the door shut behind you with his telekinesis.

Not even in your wildest dreams could you have imagined seeing Bob like that when you floated into his room.

Vines around his body, his abs twitching, panting out your name in desperation. He was practically gift-wrapped.

“Holy—” You start, but you see Bob nod his head, and your clothes literally go flying off your body.

“Need you right now,” He breathes out, and your body floats over to him. Good to know that Bob could throw you around with his mind. You land on his lap, just as the vines fall away from around him.

He only wants to focus on having you.

“Bob, what happened?” you ask gently, caressing his cheek.

He’s so sensitive to your touch that he lets out a soft moan, eyes fluttering shut under your fingertips.

He doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he leans in, mouth finding your collarbone, marking it with slow, desperate kisses. He’s been craving you, and that's evident.

“Bob…,” you whine, getting lost in his touch. You’re sure he can’t be affected by the sex pollen capabilities of the plant, so it must have found a way around it.

He kisses his way from your collarbone to your neck to your earlobe, gently nibbling on it.

“I’ve been wanting to be inside of you for weeks,” he confesses, finally saying it, feeling like a weight off his shoulders.

Your heart jumps in your chest, and something about the way he says it, all breathy and needy, goes straight to your core.

“Oh yeah?”

He nods, every movement he makes methodical. “Every time you’d climb in my lap or grip my hair when we’re kissing, all I could think of was how you looked lying out on that examination table that day.”

His hand runs down your stomach until he’s gently pressing on your aching pussy, not moving yet. “How good you felt to touch… You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to just bend you over and…”

You gasp, feeling him start to move his hand, rubbing your clit in slow circles. “And just fuck you,” he says finishing his sentence.

“Need to fill you up,” he says and moves you until you’re over his dick. “Can I?”

You nod excitedly. Who were you to deny him when he’s so cute asking for permission?

He slides in, and you remember just how good it feels to have him inside of you. Your walls stretching to accommodate his size, the biting pain that melts into pleasure, there’s nothing like it. He makes the most of it immediately, moving in sync with you.

“So perfect,” he moans, like he’s finally gotten that relief he’s needed so badly.

It’s clear he’s desperate for you, and only you.

“Want my cum to be dripping out of you for days,” Bob rasps, as he thrusts harder.

That was a surprise.

“O-okay,” you squeak. He looks at you like he’s starving, like only you can satiate this aching hunger that’s eating him alive from the inside out.

You had never heard Bob talk like this, but you kinda liked it.

He locks eyes with you, something fierce and tender flickering there, then pulls you flush against his chest. He starts thrusting into you with inhumane force, which makes you drool. His breath brushes your ear as he whispers, “You feel that? That’s all for you.”

“Bob!” you scream as he bounces you up and down on him with vigour. You cry out his name so loud, you swear the other Avengers might hear it over the potted plant chaos. It feels so good, you swear you’re about to lose your mind.

“Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” you reply immediately.

He slows down, holding you by the hips and rocking you gently, the head of his cock pushing right against your sensitive spot. He leans in and kisses you like he’s scared you’re going to disappear, his whole body pressing into the moment, as he pours every ounce of feeling into it.

You're his world, and in that kiss, there’s no mistaking it. He wants you just as much as you want him.

He pulls back, kissing you on the forehead. Before you can even think of whining at the loss of him, you’re in the air as he flips you over with his mind. That was going to take a lot of getting used to.

You end up back on the bed, legs spread, waiting for him to fill you up again. The anticipation is almost killing you and just when he decides to tease you, pushing the head of his cock against your entrance but not giving you want.

“Bob, please…,” you beg, looking behind you to try and convince him with doe eyes and a pouty lip, but an invisible hand forces you to face the front and arch your back. You can feel Bob’s both of actual hands replacing his dick, spreading your wet folds apart.

“Don’t tease me like this,” you complain, still at the mercy of Bob’s invisible hold on your hair. Then catching you off guard he gets underneath you and starts licking at your pussy.

“Bob!”

He sucks your folds hungrily, like he was starved of you, before flipping you around over like a rotisserie chicken to get more access. You land on your back, chest heaving as you look up at Bob, so determined to please you.

“You’re so beautiful, can’t believe I have you all to myself,” he praises before diving back in and turning your brain to soup.

You’re about to close your legs, too sensitive to the feeling, but the plant now sprang back to life with impeccable timing, catching them to keep them open. The vines deepen the stretch of your legs to allow Bob all the access he could ever want.

You watered it every day, gave it sun, and now it betrays you, just when you think you know a plant. Traitor.

He laps you up, your slick coating your lips as you continue to squirm. “Gonna die…,” you breathe out, and you’re surprised you’re not already dead.

You try sitting up, but again that invisible force pulls your body around like you’re a puppet. He takes your arms with his mind and pins them above your head as he continues to please you with his mouth.

“So…mean…” you whine to which you feel the vibration of his chuckle on your pussy.

When you look down, you catch his eyes, glowing gold and full of desire for you.

Just when you feel like you’ve had enough, you feel his fingers rubbing on your clit and more fingers pressing on your g-spot? Or at least you thought it was his fingers, but when you looked down, Bob’s hands were under your knees, so he was doing it with his mind. You didn’t know he had that much control, but you’re glad he did.

“Bob, you’re fucking magical,” you say, as you let your head loll against the sheets.

If his telekinesis wasn’t keeping you flat, you’d be arching your back off the bed as you scream out his name again.

The moment you finish is something you’ll never forget. You’re whining because you can feel the orgasm coming but a final lick on your clit, as he looks up at you sends you crashing.

You fight against the hold the plant has on your legs, and the hold Bob has on…well, the rest of you, but it’s no use. The orgasm rolls through your whole body as you’re practically forced to stay still.

He finally lets you go and shoo the plant away from your thighs.

“Are you okay?” he asks, checking up on you, and you nod. You may be slightly (very) disorientated but you could fuck until the sun came down and then continue to fuck until the sun came up again.

He pulls you up to a seated position, arms wrapped gently around you, letting you catch your breath as he whispers sweet nothings in your ear, words soft and warm enough to melt you.

“Want to keep going?” he murmurs, voice low, lips brushing your skin.

“More than anything,” you breathe, and before he can respond, you shift, taking him by surprise as you climb on top of him, eyes locked with his.

The look on his face?

Completely undone.

His Adam’s apple jumps and he gulps, eyes locked on you like he’s trying to memorise every inch.

You were so beautiful, so sure, so sure of him. It made something ache deep inside him.

“You want no one else?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper, needing that confirmation.

“Just you,” you say without hesitation, and it’s all he needs to hear.

You run a finger slowly down his abs, watching the way his muscles tense beneath your touch.

Then your desire takes over, and then leaning down, licking a line from the bottom of his abs to the top, savouring the way his breath catches, the quiet, broken sound he makes in response.

He's yours, and right now, you're making sure he feels it. You even feel his whole body shiver when you do that, a subtle tremble beneath your touch, and it gives you a quiet satisfaction. It’s something special, knowing you can unravel him like this. That even someone as powerful as Bob Reynolds can fall apart in your hands.

He’s looking up at you with wide eyes, “Always wanted to do that.”

They were perfectly crafted. What were you supposed to do, not lick them?

You hop back on top of him and start rubbing his cock against your entrance, knocking him out of his stupor. He reaches for you immediately with a quiet beg, “Please.”

You can never handle it when he asks you for anything, so you oblige. Slowly, you lower yourself on his cock but when it comes to riding him, it’s hard and fast.

He’s crying out your name as he clutches at your hips.

You roll your hips faster and the plant comes to help you this time, pulling his hands from you and holding his arms down. Even though he could break the hold at any time, he’s rather enjoying being entranced by you. The way your body moves made him want to give you anything and everything.

“You like this?” he asks, voice needy but happy. He loved seeing you feel good; he loved being the one making it happen.

“I like everything you do to me,” you say back, breath hitching, fingers threading through his hair as you pull him closer.

And the way he looks at you then, like you just gave him the universe, makes your heart stutter in your chest.

You slow your pace for just a moment, catching your breath, and his eyes, before leaning in to press a soft, tender kiss to his forehead.

It’s gentle, the kind of kiss that says I’m here.

But next thing you know, you’re being plucked off of him and placed at the edge of the bed so your trembling bottom half hangs off of it. He was putting you through your paces today, that’s for sure.

You feel him suddenly behind you as he runs his fingers over your body with reverence and lays a soft kiss on the small of your back. He pushes you legs apart and pushes in without warning but at this point, to his cock, your pussy was a second home.

You grip the sheets as once again you’re being ganged up on by Bob and the plant. You feel tendrils wrap around your legs and ankles, lifting you in the air to create more space for Bob and invisible hands grab your hands from their death grip in the linen to place them behind your back.

He’s fucking you so hard, the bed is shaking. You can quite literally hear the legs groaning under the pressure and screws coming loose as it scrapes, inch by inch, across the floor.

“More, please, more…” you blurt out, your mind halfway across the world

In response, the plant wraps around you more, pushing you back to meet his thrusts. The sound of your hips meeting his echoes in the room so loud, it’s obscene.

“Only want you,” he says, his voice sounding completely wrecked.

He’s so deep inside you now, stretching you out so perfectly, you can barely handle it.

Your legs spasm and shake, you know you’re close, and so does he.

“I’m close too, I know,” he says like he’s reading your mind and picks up the pace. You’re barely holding on, moaning so loud you might lose your voice.

You wanted to be fucked senseless and you suppose this is it.

The toe curling, leg shaking, drool inducing pleasure tears through you once again as you slobber out a series of “Fucks” and “Bobs”.

And before you can catch your breath you feel his cock twitch inside of you then you’re being flooded with his cum, it feels never ending. He just keeps pumping you full of his load before he presses down on top of you, kissing everywhere he can reach.

“I love you so much,” he pants out, almost quiet enough that you don’t catch it.

He freezes.

Then suddenly, he’s off you, untangling himself, backing away like he’s afraid he said too much. Your limbs, once wrapped up in Bob and the tentacles, now lie free and cold in the absence of him.

He won’t look at you. His hands fidget. His breathing’s uneven. He’s spiralling. He’s thinking too hard.

What if it was too soon? What if you thought it was stupid? What if—?

“I love you too.”

His head snaps up, eyes wide, meeting yours. You’re looking right at him, that beautiful, grounding smile on your face, the one that always reminds him of sunshine after a hurricane.

“I love you,” you say again, slower this time, to make sure he knew you meant it.

Then you hold out your hand.

And when he hesitates for half a second, you yank him back down onto the bed, right next to you, where he belongs.

The moment you two settle, you hear a creak, then another, and before you know it, the whole bed collapses with a definitive thud. All you could do was laugh, breathless and tangled in sheets with him.

“I’m sorry. Got a bit carried away,” he says sweetly, laying a gentle peck on your cheek. Bob Reynolds, folks. Talking to you all sweet as if he wasn’t railing you so hard, his bed collapsed.

You look around and see the plant sitting there innocently, like it hadn’t just caused a full-scale disaster. The state of Bob’s bed has the place looking like a tornado tried to redecorate.

“Seems you had a lot pent up,” you say, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “So did I.”

He nods, quiet for a beat. “One of us should’ve said something.”

“I agree. So let’s agree to communicate,” you reply, exasperated but softening, “instead of letting a plant interfere and tear the tower apart… again.”

He smiles, small, sheepish. “Deal.”

Slowly, his eyes flick to the plant in the corner. “Do you think that’s why the plant did this?”

The plant had been oddly in tune with both of you, following your every move like you were its favourite reality TV show. You sigh, dragging a hand down your face.

“Fuck, probably…”

Then, the door slams open.

“Wait! There are naked people in here!” you yell instinctively, cuddling up to Bob, who yelps and fumbles for the blanket.

Alexei freezes mid-step, unbothered. “Just checking you and Bob still alive,” he says, then nods toward the chaotic hallway behind him. “There’s a team meeting. Everyone’s… angry.”

You groan into Bob’s shoulder. “Of course they are.”

You both get dressed and peek your head out in the hall. The vines are gone, but there’s a significant amount of damage (those flowers could pack a punch) that they left behind.

When you step into the living room, you’re happy to see everyone’s alive and unfucked.

The yellow and pink flowers sit peacefully without a care in the world in the middle of the room, with the rest of the Avengers, who look like they just survived a hard-fought battle.

You and Bob waddle out of the wreckage and stand in front of them.

“Hey guys…,” you say sheepishly, brushing a leaf out of your hair. This was the second time a plant-related attack happened on your watch, so safe to say you weren’t feeling too great.

“Again? Really?” John throws his hands up. The plants got him the worst, as he was only left with his beret, boxers and his shield. “How did the other two get here?!”

You shrug, half-defeated. “I think the first plant summoned the other two?”

A collective groan and chorus of exasperated sighs ripple through the room. You think you hear Ava mutter about “never trusting a flower again.”

“How?” Yelena asks, exhaustion rife in her voice.

“With a dance?” you say, instantly regretting your own words. “It was a kind of shimmy,” Bob adds, trying to be helpful, and you squeeze his hand with a smile.

There’s a long pause.

Bucky sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. “That’s it, we’re banning plants. Or we won’t have a tower left to work out of.”

“Agreed,” you and Bob say in unison.

Main Masterlist || Marvel Masterlist

#bob reynolds x reader #bob reynolds #robert reynolds #bob reynolds fanfic #robert reynolds x reader #smut #x reader #thunderbolts #thunderbolts x reader #established relationship #thunderbolts*#thunderbolts fanfic #the new avengers #marvel fanfic #marvel fic #mcu fanfiction #mcu fic #bob reynolds smut

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manyegos · 13 hours ago

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I wrote on 2019 "Me during the last decade" I think I gained so much wisdom and strength on 2023. The last 2 years were absolutely miserable, whereas in my early childhood and youth it was embodied with trauma, violence, abuse, poverty and utter loneliness . . . the last years specially after covid (and a little bit still) were marked by stagnation, dissapoitment and unkown. I am etraordinary better now and I can handle them but these years were difficult even if I would like to say otherwise. My financial situation really affected me to a point I reached a low point for consecutive years. I am very strong because the combination of everything with the pandemic and the recessions would have taken anyone out. I am better today and it makes me happy to read what I was feeling and going through and to know I gained so much wisdom and strength. That movie also represented how much I felt disconnected, lost and a feeling I can't put into words "stolen" from life. Now Blue is the warmest color does not have the same effect on myself.

By the way on a funny and uplifting note, at one point I reached the Fat Thor (if you seen Avengers you will understand) state of mind, where I had given up on everything and I was a mess (still not the lowest I have been, as I was hedonistic and careless) I posted this back then, thankfully all those questions have been answered and I am still working on the last one. “do you have a boyfriend yet?” Yes I did, I almost get married. Thank GOD I did not. By the way youngerself, you become a master and a pro in relationships and on ending in good terms after a nightmare fall out and dating so many frogs. You will find so much pleasure in being alone and single and even envision creating a family on your own! You also learned that anyone even the sort of wrongly titled "love of your life" are just complements, being good with yourself fixes everything around you and truly attracts people! “when are you gonna get a job?”Well youngself, you will discover soon after COVID hits that we actually had more luck back then and there was so much more we could do. You will experience a new industrialization wave (the AI and supercomputer wave.) Neither Trump, Communist, progressives or any party will fix it. You have to survive, good luck We are still doing that! “what are you gonna do with your life?” Well young self, I am still answering that. I keep avoiding and ressisting. Going after our dreams isn't as clear, easy or serendipitous. It is scary as fuck, sometimes and for many close to impossible and as we are discovering not even applicable (AI changed the landscape, laws change things, the economy, war, etc) But we are actually very motivated and more focus than when we were young.

Bonjour Tristesse (1958) // Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)

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tywrites · 2 days ago

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heavy | mateo manta

pairing: mateo manta x gn!reader

word count: 1,360 (not proof-read)

warnings: reader is implied to have depression

a/n: okay so this is really bad since i haven't written in quite a long time but!! i love him and i Needed to write something abt him. i desperately need more mateo fics lmao. hope you enjoy <33

-----

You rolled over in your bed, the usually comforting plush of your mattress feeling awfully cold today. You sighed, closing your eyes and quietly hoping to just fall back to sleep. Things had been… difficult recently. Losing your job had definitely taken its toll on you – on your mental health in particular. Even when working from home, you still had to make the time to leave every so often and interact with the real world. But with everything that had happened recently with the dateviators, you hadn’t been able to leave at all.

Of course, you still had the objects. And they were great company! Most of them anyway. But it didn’t stop you from feeling a bit… alone sometimes. You sighed softly, finally accepting the fact that sleep wasn’t coming. You looked over to your end table at the dateviators. You had a lot to do. It was really overwhelming, honestly. You hadn’t even met all of the objects in the house yet, let alone made any progress towards realising any. You had made a lot of close friends through them though. And even one very special, different relationship…

Even just thinking of Mateo brought a slight smile to your face, cheering up your bleak mood ever so slightly. If you’d told yourself a few weeks ago that you’d soon be dating your blanket… well, considering your track record with love, it wouldn’t be all that surprising.

You bit your lip, reaching over to the dateviators. You popped them on, blinking at the warm, pink hue that enveloped your vision. You didn’t think you’d ever get used to this. In a second, Betty had materialised in front of you, perched on the edge of the bed – or uh, on the edge of herself. She gave you a soft smile.

“How’re you feeling today, gorgeous?”

You made a face. “Well for starters, I don’t feel very gorgeous,” you reply groggily, sitting up as you wiped a hand over your tired face.

She chuckled. “Sweetie, you’re always gorgeous to me. But what’s got you so down? You barely slept last night, or the night before… should I be offended?” She was clearly joking, but there was a definite tone of concern in her voice.

“Nah, it’s not you, it’s me,” you admit, looking down at the sheets. “I just… I don’t know. I feel so… heavy? I’m so tired, all the time. Which makes no sense, let’s be real, I’m doing nothing all day but..” You trail off, unsure of how to word it. “I just can’t sleep though. I can’t relax. I feel so tense all the time and I don’t see a way out of it. Easier to just lay in bed, I guess,”

She looks at you, worry in her eyes. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked. You try your best to force a smile.

“Not really. I think it’s just… something I have to deal with on my own,”

She frowned. “Honey, I don’t think-”

“I’ll see you tonight, Betty. Thanks for the talk,” you said quickly, standing up and heading to the bathroom, leaving Betty sitting on the bed, her face twisted in concern.

-------------

You’d spent most of the day dodging the other objects. Mateo especially. You just couldn’t bring yourself to talk to anyone right now. You left the dateviators on the table next to you, doom scrolling on your phone until the socially acceptable time to hit the hay. You were planning to go straight to bed, not call on anyone with the dateviators. The idea of bothering any of them, of forcing them to sit and listen to your silly problems was excruciating. But as you settled down into bed, trying in vain to close your eyes and let sleep come for you, there was only one thing on your mind.

You knew how upset Mateo would be if he knew you were avoiding him, especially if he knew it was because you weren’t feeling the greatest. Helping others is what drove him, it was the one thing he took pride in the most. He’d never let you wallow in your own self pity. You glanced at the glasses on your bedside table and sighed in defeat. You slid them on slowly.

You hadn’t even had them on for a few seconds before Mateo was materialising. You didn’t expect him to be right here, waiting for you. He was usually in the living room, caring for the inanimals. That man never took a break. When you saw the worried expression on his sweet face, you wanted to break down there and then.

“Ah mi vida, finally!” He said, sitting down onto the edge of the bed. “I’ve been waiting for you all day,”

You flushed in embarrassment. So he’d been watching your pathetic display of self-loathing, huh? “Sorry, Mateo… I’ve just been, um, tired,” you said, avoiding his eyes. If there was anything in this world that could make you immediately spill all your darkest secrets, it was Mateo’s big, brown eyes.

“I’ve noticed… my love, I’m worried about you. Betty came to me earlier and told me you haven’t been sleeping. Is that true?” He asked tactfully.

“Betty said that?” Betrayal, you thought.

“She was worried. Honestly, a lot of us have been worried. You haven’t been acting like yourself for a while now. If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, you know you just have to ask, right? I would do anything for you,” he said, a small blush rising to his cheeks. “I mean, I’d hope you’d know that…”

You finally look at him, truly seeing the concern on his features. His bedhead was especially messy today, as though he’d been running his hand through it every five seconds. His usual easy smile was replaced with a small frown and you realised something. In that moment, you would do anything to see that smile again. As you were preoccupied with gazing into his eyes, Mateo took this opportunity to place his hand over yours. His touch was feather soft as his thumb gently traced the back of your hand. You could almost feel your anxiety melting away.

You finally spoke.

“Mateo?”

“Yes, amor?”

“Could… could we cuddle?”

You ignore the burning in your cheeks and make your request, looking down at his hand still on yours. You focused on his touch. His touch seemed to make many things a whole lot easier.

At your words, a huge grin took over Mateo’s face. “You never even have to ask,” he said, bringing your hand up to his lips and placing a soft kiss onto the back of it.

You manoeuvred yourself so there would be room for Mateo beside you, turning so your back was towards him. He wasted no time in enveloping you in his arms, pulling you into the comforting warmth of his chest. His face snuggled into the crook of your neck and he took a deep breath in.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed this. The inanimals have missed you too…”

An arrow of guilt hit you right in the heart.

“I’m really sorry, ‘Teo… I-”

“You have no reason to be sorry, amor. Look, I can tell you’re struggling right now. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all, you have nothing to be ashamed about. But you have people around you that can help share your load, okay? You taught me that when we first met. When you bottle it all inside, it’s just too heavy for one person to handle. I want to help you. Please let me,”

You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes. You sniffled, wiping them away as quick as you could but they just kept coming. Mateo brought up the sleeve of his plush duvet jacket, wiping away the tears as they trickled down your face. You both said nothing. You laid there, wrapped up in Mateo’s arms, feeling more safe and secure than you had in a very long time. If Mateo was there to help you hold it, maybe things could be a lot lighter from now on.

#mateo manta #mateo manta x reader #date everything #date everything x reader #mateo manta imagine #date everything imagine #ty writes

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redrose10 · 2 days ago

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Something I wrote last night…

Yoongi x Female Reader

Warnings: Mentions of anxiety and mental health struggles, depression

Word Count: 2,345

🍉🍊🍉🍊🍉🍊🍉🍊🍉🍊🍉🍊🍉🍊🍉🍊🍉

Some days Yoongi gets like this. It has been happening since his teenage years. He doesn’t know how or why. From the moment he gets up and out of bed to the moment he finally lays down in that same spot at the end of the night he feels it. Anxiety, worry, guilt, and a little bit of sadness. He over thinks everything. Wonders if he’s doing too much and too little all at the same time. There is a dark cloud that follows over him the entire day causing him hardships that only he sees.

He accidentally cut off a car on his way to work. He didn’t mean to. A split second of poor judgement. There was no accident. No harm. The other person probably forgot about it seconds later, but not Yoongi. He thought about it all day, worried that the other person, a complete stranger, was still angry with him over it.

When he texted Jimin asking if he wanted to meet up for lunch he replied with a simple ‘sure what time?’ Jimin always included emojis in his texts. Always. It was annoyingly cute. Yoongi spent the rest of the morning spiraling and wondering what he did to upset his friend. In reality Jimin was running late to an appointment and just wanted to make sure he responded before he forgot because he always gets excited when Yoongi invites him out to lunch.

During these dark times his words always fail him the most. He tried working on songs that he has had in progress for months, but he got nowhere. He tried to start a new one only to spend two hours staring at a blank computer screen resulting in him just beating himself up even more. On the worst of days he’ll stop by Namjoon’s studio and hand him a piece of paper with the code to enter his own studio written on it. He’ll tell Namjoon to take whatever equipment he wants out of it and sell the rest because it’s of no use to him any more. Namjoon will smile and nod and wait for Yoongi to exit the room before tearing up the piece of paper and tossing it in the trash next to him. He doesn’t even read the numbers out of respect for his friend. He knows Yoongi will be right back there tomorrow morning ready to give it another try.

On the way back home after a long day is when Yoongi will have a realization that will cause the biggest struggle of them all.

He doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t deserve to call you his wife or the love of his life.

He’s not good enough, not smart enough, not handsome enough. He’s not affectionate. He struggles greatly in these times of darkness and brings you down with him.

He’s not very romantic. Most of your dates consist of takeout and movies on the couch. He asked you to marry him on a Sunday morning while the two of you drank your coffee at the kitchen table. He didn’t even have a ring yet but you still said yes. You must have just felt pity for him.

He works hard for you. A nice house, nice cars, designer clothes, fancy vacations. He knows you could get all of that by yourself, but he wants to provide it for you. It makes him feel good, needed even. He’ll cook you an amazing dinner including dessert and will even wash every single dish afterwards, but will struggle to tell you how beautiful you look that same night.

He doesn’t know how to tell you how much he loves you. He’s tried. He can feel it in his chest so deeply it hurts, but for seem reason his brain struggles to let him say it to your face. Like his own security blanket, a way to protect his heart from getting broken once again.

So every night he waits until you’re asleep all snuggled and safe in his arms and then he’ll whisper it into your ear.

But what if that isn’t enough?

What if you want more than he can provide? What if you’re unhappy? What if you regret ever marrying him? What if you want a divorce? What if you’ve already found someone else? No one else will ever love you like he does, but someone else will be able to say they do.

Because at the end of the day he’s nothing special…he’s just Yoongi.

By the time he pulls into the parking garage he has tears spilling down his cheeks and his breathing is ragged. He parks in his assigned spot which is thankfully towards the back corner of the garage and lays the leather seat of his car back to try and calm down. He sets a timer and then uses his breathing techniques that he learned years ago to hopefully prevent his body from going into full panic mode.

After fifteen minutes the timer goes off and he starts to gather his things and heads up to your apartment.

His head is pounding and his chest aches. He knows he is moments away from crying again, but he enters your home anyways.

He knows you won’t judge him. You won’t question what’s wrong until he’s ready to talk and that only makes him feel even less worthy of having you in his life.

When Yoongi gets to the kitchen he sees an assortment of fruits and veggies spread out on the counter. It seemed like you had a good time at the local farmers market with your friend. He immediately eyes a very large basket of tangerines. A small smiles forms on his face for the first time that day.

Then he notices the watermelon sitting off to the side. It’s one of your favorites, but you have made it very clear how much you hate cutting them. The effort, the mess, the danger…he shudders at the memory of having to bandage your poor little pinkie finger after the knife slipped while you were trying to slice through the watermelon rind. Yoongi tells you all the time to just buy the precut ones from the grocery store but you refuse to spend the extra money and you also don’t want to use more plastic than necessary which he admires.

Yoongi moves around the kitchen with ease grabbing the cutting board and one of the bigger chefs knives. Silently he gets to working cutting through the watermelon making sure to get the pieces just to the size you like. He’s so focused on the task before him that he doesn’t hear you come into the kitchen and is startled when your arms wrap around his waist.

“When did you get home?”, you mumble into his back, “You should’ve came and got me.” The vibrations tickle slightly.

“Just a little bit ago.”, he smiles yet again, “I wanted to get this watermelon cut for you.”

You squeezed him a little tighter as a silent thank you. Yoongi feels his heart thud.

“Did you see the tangerines? They probably thought I was crazy buying so many of them, but I know they’re your favorite and these ones looked so ripe and juicy.”, you excitedly exclaimed already reaching for one to peel for him.

As Yoongi continues to cut away at the melon you sit on top of the counter and feed him pieces of the tangerine while he listens about your day.

Your favorite cafe has a limited time pineapple drink for the summer months, but you had already had your heart set on the hibiscus lemonade so you’ll have to try it another day. Yoongi makes a mental note to take you there for lunch tomorrow.

He finds himself genuinely laughing for the first time that day when you tell him about the bee that viciously chased after your friend causing her to run into a wall spilling her latte all over herself.

He gives you a questioning look when you tell him about the cute baby goats you saw at the farmers market. The two of you have had this conversation many times before because you refuse to accept that goats are not good pets for an apartment.

You grab a piece of the watermelon and pretend like you’re going to feed it to him just like you did with the tangerines only to pop it in your mouth at the last second instead.

“Oh we’re going to play that game huh?”, he questions playfully. Your giggles that follow sound better than any melody he’s ever written.

Then you grab another piece of the melon and this time you actually feed it to him. It’s juicy and sweet and it’s perfect just like you.

“Thank you for cutting up the watermelon. You know how much I loathe doing that.”, you say before placing a kiss on his cheek.

Yoongi grabs a piece of the melon and feeds it to you, “Any time jagiya.”, he whispers as he watches you happily enjoy the fruits of his labor.

“I’ll clean all this up. Go take a bath and get changed into something comfy.”, you say as you hop off of the counter, “I thought we could order some food tonight and start watching that new drama everyone’s talking about. Or…should I say I’ll watch the new drama while you watch the first ten minutes and then snore through the rest.”, you laugh.

Yoongi fakes offense, but deep down knows you’re 100% right so he ends up laughing with you before walking off to the bedroom.

On the bed you’ve already laid out his favorite sweats and tshirt. A new pair of fluffy lavender infused socks that you got for him at the farmers market today are next to them. In the bathroom you’ve already got his skin care put out on the counter and his favorite eucalyptus bubble bath is placed on the tub along with a brand new vanilla scented candle sitting next to it.

There’s also a new bottle of some fancy goat milk lotion you probably got at the farmers market today. A note taped to it reads, If we had our own pet goat I wouldn’t have to spend so much money on fancy lotions made by other people…Just saying.

The note makes him laugh and shake his head at the same time. He starts to get undressed until he’s hit with a wave of emotions so strong it makes him nauseated. He decides that he can’t take it any more so he goes to find you.

You’re still in the kitchen and when he calls your name you look at him with wide eyes and cheeks full of watermelon. He bites lip to keep from laughing.

He grabs your hand and pulls you back to the bathroom with him. The water is running. He adds a touch of the bubble bath and lights the candle.

Then he helps you out of your clothes before removing his own and gently guides you into the bath with him.

He takes a seat behind you ignoring the coldness of the porcelain on his back because he’s too focused on you sitting in front of him with your back firmly pressed against his chest.

Once the tub is filled up the two of you sit there in comfortable silence while he lovingly runs his fingers across your belly and thighs until you’re nearly asleep.

“Yoongi?”, you finally speak after a while. “Hmmm.”, he hums back.

“I love you.”

His heart races. Suddenly the room feels unbearably hot and is spinning. If it wasn’t for you being perched up against him he would’ve already left.

All of those bad thoughts from earlier return. Is he good enough to receive those words? What if you don’t mean that? You’re only saying it because that’s what a wife does. You deserve better than what he can provide?

His downward spiral is broken up by you continuing, “You don’t have to say it back. I know it’s not easy for you. And you tell me you love me every day in your own little ways. I just wanted to make sure I told you that today.”

Your words repeat in his head like a mantra and he relaxes back against the tub with you against him.

Maybe you are right. He may not be able to tell you in words how much he loves you and how much you mean to him, but he tries to show you in everything that he does.

Slowly as the night goes on the dark cloud that has been hanging above his head starts to dissipate.

When the bath is over the two of you fill yourselves on pizza and ice cream.

You show him pictures of goats that are up for adoption. He rolls his eyes and laughs but internally he’s panicking because he can feel his resolve breaking and he doesn’t know how many more times hes going to be able to tell you no on the goat thing, especially when you’ve been learning techniques to make puppy dog eyes from Jungkook. Yoongi just knows he’ll end up being a goat dad by the end of the year.

He manages to stay awake for a whole episode and a half of the new drama proving you wrong. It was a major struggle though.

When he does wake up you’re silently asleep on his shoulder. As comfy as it is he knows that if you both sleep on the couch you’ll be sore tomorrow so he gathers you in his arms and brings you to the bed. Moments later he’s right there next to you.

You snuggle into his side like you always do.

Yoongi takes a moment to admire your sleeping form. No matter how hard he tries he can’t believe this is his reality.

He didn’t know a love like this was possible. Maybe that is why he struggles so hard to comprehend it.

And even though he knows that he isn’t perfect and he has his dark days, he knows that it’s okay to feel like that because while he might be just Yoongi…he is your Yoongi and you are his and that’s all he will ever need in this world.

#bts #yoongi x reader #yoongi fanfic #bts x reader #bts fanfic #min yoongi #yoongi fic #yoongi x y/n #yoongi angst #bts yoongi #yoongi fluff #yoongi

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cosmogyros · 2 days ago

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language-learning advice from a pro

(I started writing this post just now as a message to a friend who asked for language-learning advice. But I’m a GIANT NERD when it comes to language learning, so it got wayyy too long to be a message. So I’m posting it here in the hopes that it might help others as well. I have not edited this or even read through it all yet – it just poured straight out of my fingers – so please let me know if you spot any typos!)

Okay, first of all, there are two parts to language learning: active learning and passive exposure. You can choose to do only one or the other, but you’ll have the most success if you do both.

ACTIVE LEARNING

Active learning is pretty much what it sounds like: actively focusing on the language, learning new words, sounds, phrases, idioms, etc. It’s often centered around a textbook, sometimes with accompanying audio, but you can do active learning in other ways too. For example, you can read a news article online and check a dictionary for every word you don’t know. Or do the same thing with a foreign film – when you hear a word you don’t know (or see it in the subtitles), pause the movie and look it up.

Active learning makes you progress fast, but it also tires out your brain and overwhelms it with new information, making it easier to forget things you’ve already learned. That’s why it’s best to space out your active learning sessions and fill the gaps with passive exposure.

PASSIVE EXPOSURE

The goal of passive exposure is for your brain to randomly encounter words and phrases it learned recently and go “Hey! I recognize that!” This is SO important not only for reviewing and consolidating your memory, but also keeping up your motivation! If the only place you ever encounter your TL (target language) is in your textbook, on some subconscious level your brain will think it’s not that important… because after all, you never encounter it out there in the real world, do you?

Passive exposure can include any of the following and much more: listening to music in your TL; watching a movie in your TL (either with English subs, or with no subs at all and just don’t worry if you don’t understand everything that’s going on); skim-reading a book or a short story or a news article or a blog post in your TL and looking for words you recognize, even if you can’t 100% remember what they mean; finding speakers of your TL in real life and eavesdropping on them; watching instructional YouTube videos or short documentaries in your TL (the visuals ought to help you understand some of what’s going on, even if there are no subtitles); etc.

The idea is to let your TL wash over you without straining your brain at all. Zero effort, just relaxation and fun. You will inevitably notice and understand a few words or phrases, and that percentage will increase as time goes on, but you’re not actively studying when you’re doing passive exposure. Remember the two things you’re trying to achieve with passive exposure: 1) effortless review/practice, by inevitably re-encountering some stuff you’ve already learned; 2) reminding your brain that this language is a real cool thing out there in the world, not just a boring chore located in a textbook.

But there are also two more extremely important benefits to passive exposure that are drastically neglected by most language-learners: 3) picking up the correct pronunciation and accent; 4) gaining an instinct for natural, native-sounding language.

These are two things you will not learn in a language class or from a textbook. You can’t learn them except by doing a LOT of listening and reading in your TL. But the good news is that it doesn’t need to be the “Active Learning” kind of reading and listening; it can absolutely be the “Passive Exposure” kind, and you will still pick this stuff up.

The most important thing, above all else, is to figure out a method of passive exposure that works for YOU personally. This means: do NOT force yourself to repeatedly do something that you don’t enjoy, because you won’t benefit from it. To pick the right method, think of your interests and the things you like to do in your free time: watching movies? reading books? listening to music? writing in your journal? surfing the internet? You can do any of this in your TL, too. Yes, you will encounter a lot of stuff you don’t understand at the beginning. But A) that’s good for you, it helps you learn patience, which every language-learner needs, and B) the internet has free translation tools everywhere you look.

COMBINING BOTH

Personally, I like to pick a well-respected textbook with accompanying audio (Assimil is my favorite; Teach Yourself and Colloquial can also be very good, especially the older editions; Linguaphone used to be fantastic but I’m not sure if it’s still around) and work my way through it, doing one lesson per day if possible. That takes only about 10 to 20 minutes, so that leaves a lot of time for passive exposure. My preferred method is listening to music (I learned a good 50% of my German from just obsessively listening to German pop music in high school), but here are some other things I like to do:

find an internet talk radio station in my TL and put it on in the background

same deal with a podcast

translate a few keywords related to my favorite hobbies/interests into the TL and then paste that text into YouTube and watch random videos in my TL

read a news article in English, and then find a news website in my TL and see if I can find an article about the same topic in that language

watch bad reality TV or soaps in my TL with no subtitles, just trying to guess what’s going on from context

etc.

No Duolingo. No Rosetta Stone. (I’ve written a whole post about the latter here.) You don’t need to spend any money at all, though if you e.g. use a pirated resource to learn and find that it really helps you, I strongly suggest buying it from the original producer after the fact, to say thank you.

MEMORIZATION

This is very much a “YMMV” piece of advice, but: if you’re having trouble memorizing stuff, just don’t. Don’t bother trying to remember anything. Remember that “passive exposure” bit? It does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of memory. If you keep bumping into the same word or phrase over and over again, you will incorporate it into your body of knowledge almost effortlessly. Of course this is easier with more common words that turn up again and again – but you’d be surprised how well you can get by, especially at the lower levels, with only the more common words!

Intentionally memorizing vocabulary can of course be very beneficial, so there’s nothing wrong with it. But I notice that it’s often one of the biggest pain points for language learners, and I believe language learning should be pain-free.

FROM INPUT TO OUTPUT

Once you’ve gotten a good grasp of the basics of the language, a really effective way to consolidate the knowledge you’ve gained is to use it actively and creatively yourself, in speech or writing (or ideally both!). For speaking practice, besides simply making friends who are native speakers of the language, you can search for a physical or virtual tandem. This is when you meet up with someone who’s a native speaker of your TL and is trying to learn your own language. You can meet for, say, an hour, and chat together for half an hour in your native language, and then half an hour in their native language. So both of you benefit!

Don’t underestimate talking to yourself, too. Whether it’s narrating your actions, complaining to your pet (okay, I guess that’s not technically “talking to yourself”), or simply having an imaginary conversation with someone else, it’s actually a good way to practice.

I also really enjoy writing in my journal in my target languages. The act of hand-writing a word does a lot to help me remember it. If you like writing, of course, you could also look up penpals who speak your TL.

And that’s about it. As always, I am more than willing to answer specific questions on language learning, as this is something of a specialty of mine and I absolutely love to help other folks get started on their own language-learning journeys. Please feel free to drop me a line if you need any concrete advice or are struggling with some aspect of your current language-learning efforts!

#language #languages #language learning #learning languages #langblr #cosmo gyres #i am a dormant giant when it comes to this shit hahaha #i've been accumulating knowledge in this area for a couple of decades now and rarely get any chance to share it #so it genuinely makes my day when i get to share some tips and help folks out #language learning should not be scary! it should be fun! and more people should do it :D

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disorganizedkitten · 2 days ago

Text

Oh also more on this but commenting legitimately gets fics back into the Active Wip Designation. Just so you know.

Every author works differently, of course, but I have around 200 works in progress and write mostly according to what sparks joy - you know what sparks the most joy? Nice comments.

I'll drop a few examples but comments like this genuinely do get me into the document to add another sentence, paragraph, chapter, etc

Say you like the fic and are interested in where it's going! Say you enjoyed XYZ! Ask a question about a mystery left in the chapter! What made you laugh? Drop some hearts! Say you reread a fic or you got it from a rec list and are deeply enjoying it! Say "thank you for posting, I'm looking forward to more!" I promise, that will be a thousand times better received than an "update pls" comment.

Just. Comment please, it makes the author happy, it helps you to gush over the writing and enjoy it on a deeper level, it shows - especially on multichapter works - that you're still reading, since you can only leave kudos once. And a lot of writers do adjust their upcoming chapters based on comments, especially big plot reveals. How else do we know if we've left enough clues?

do fic readers know that their comments actually influence the course of the story sometimes? i don't mean in a "you need to write it this way because i say so 😡" type of comment, i mean when people are asking questions or really engaging with the plot and the themes in the comments they sometimes bring up things that i didn't even think of, or dig into parts of the story that i've overlooked, or get really interested/fixated on something i was going to just kind of glance over--and it has me going 'oh wait that's actually really interesting, that's a good point' and fully adding or tweaking or changing things about the story going forward. i'm literally adding an entire additional chapter to something right now because someone's comment had me like "oh i didn't dig into that as much as i could have." you have impact!

#Comment please #It makes me open documents #Quickest way to get an update #Jaymeow speaks

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midnighthazee · 1 day ago

Text

My Girl

Pairing: Stalker!Jeongin x afab!reader

Summary: When Jeongin first saw you, his world became revolved around you. He was your stalker (unbeknownst to you) and now he's your loving, devoted boyfriend. He finally has you all for himself and he had no intention of ever losing you.

Word Count: 3578

Warnings: SMUT 18+ MDNI, slight angst, little violence, face riding, multiple orgasms, oral, fingering, unprotected sex (be healthy ladies!), creampie, kinda rough, lovebites, both getting sex drunk off each other...I think thats it..

a/n: sorry if you don't like Mint Chocolate ice cream...

Jeongin POV

It finally happened. He had been coming to this coffee shop six days a week at 8:30 in the morning to catch sight of her. He noticed her about three weeks ago when he stopped by randomly. She was leaving as he walked in and he nearly got hit by a car staring. She was breathtakingly gorgeous. The kind of beauty that made him forget why he went there in the first place (which was to get coffee for his coworkers).

He didn’t get her name until the next week when she had finally shown up after he was already there. He waited eagerly by the window for the barista to finally call out her name. And when she did, it was like music to his ears.….Y/n.

Now that he knew her name, he began researching on the internet trying to find out more about her. He had to know more. But to his dismay, just her first name was not enough to get far. So instead, he had been coming here every day to try to see her and work up the courage to talk to her - or at least be noticed. And today…she noticed him.

8:42 and she walked in.

8:46 it happened.

His name was called for his drink order and went up to the bar. He took the drink and thanked the barista. And when he turned around, there she was.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” she said after nearly bumping into him.

Oh her sweet, sweet voice. It sounded even better directed at him.

“It’s okay.” Was all he could manage to say, gesturing for her to walk past.

She ducked around him, and he caught her scent. It was warm and comforting like linen and lavender. So faint one could barely smell it, but it was there. It was her scent and he loved it. The twitch in his pants was undeniable.

He cleared his throat and took a sip of his coffee as he walked back to his table. He looked up once more but she was gone. Just like that. Looking outside, he spotted her walking to her car. She got into a white sedan and he sighed - tomorrow was Saturday and he wouldn’t get to see her.

He packed up his stuff, content with the progress he made and headed to his car. As he pulled out of the parking space and left, he found himself behind her car. It wouldn’t hurt to see where she lives…right?

1 month later…

Y/n POV

You are currently in your room, putting the final touches on your makeup as you take one last look in the mirror. You had a date with this guy off Bumble and were quite nervous. He seemed like such a catch that you prayed he would live up to it in person.

The doorbell rang and you went to answer it, smiling brightly.

“Wow…you look gorgeous,” he said, eyes wide.

“Thanks.” you blush.

He drives you to the restaurant, making small talk the whole drive. You find out he has 3 younger brothers and an older sister and grew up in California. He was currently a lawyer but not stuck up like they are stereotyped to be.

“Reservation for Grant.” he says to the hostess.

The date was going great…until it wasn’t. You excused yourself to the bathroom before dessert and when you came back, you found him smiling and laughing with a waitress. He gave his phone to the waitress with a flirty smile and she took it, typing briefly before giving it back.

You sigh, fighting back the tears threatening to fall - he wasn’t worth it.

“Please tell me that’s not your date…” A male voice says beside you.

You look over at the young handsome face before looking back. “Unfortunately.”

“What an ass. Doesn’t appreciate the beautiful girl he brought here.” he shakes his head.

You smile politely and then turn to leave but he grabs your arm softly.

“Hey…at least let me take you home.” he smiles, dimples visible.

“I’m okay.” you say.

“I promise I’m not a serial killer.”

“Isn’t that what a serial killer would say?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” he shrugs. ”You don’t have to talk to me. You can call a friend and talk the whole way so she knows you made it safely.”

“You look familiar. Do I know you?” you squint your eyes.

“I don’t think so…” he says. “My name is Jeongin.”

“Y/n. Nice to meet you.”

“So can I take you home now? We can stop for ice cream.”

You smile with a blush. “Okay. But I need your social security number, and legal name to text my friend.”

“You got it.”

You both laughed, exiting the restaurant and getting into his luxury sedan - way nicer than the lawyer’s company car.

Jeongin drove you about ten minutes away to an ice cream shop. He held the door open for you, as you two went in. He even shook off his jacket when you shivered from the chill inside. It smelled like him - earthy and clean but sexy. It was definitely something expensive.

“What’s your favorite flavor? Mine’s gotta be Mint Chocolate.” he asks.

“Me too!” You exclaim.

Unbeknownst to you, he already knew this. He had seen you buy it countless times.

“They have the best mint chocolate here,” he says.

You both order a double scoop of mint chocolate and go sit outside on one of the benches. The two of you made small talk and got to know each other. And soon enough, hours had passed.

“I didn’t realize it was so late. I should probably get you home.” he says, standing. “Although I would love to stay and talk all night.”

You blush. “Yeah me too. But my roommate is probably wondering where I am.”

“Then we should get you home. I don’t want to make a bad impression with her.”

You giggle. “Thanks, Jeongin. You saved the night and I had a really great time. Better than I did with him.”

“I’m just glad I got the chance to see you all dolled up” he realized how they may have sounded. “I mean, you know because I don’t usually do fancy first dates…I keep it casual until it’s serious. Lowers the pressure, you know.”

You nod. “Yeah. I like that. So next time I won’t be so overdressed.”

“Next time?”

“Yeah. Unless you didn’t want to-”

Before you can finish, he smashed his lips onto yours. You were stunned for a second before melting into it. Your hands were on his chest, his own slipping around your waist. Your legs nearly gave out but he pulled back.

“Sorry. I’ve been wanting to do that like... all night.”

“No, um…don’t apologize.” You say, unable to look him in the eyes. Your stomach was flipping with butterflies.

“Shall we go?” He asks.

You follow him to the car and he takes your directions to your house. He walks you to the door, exchanging phone numbers, and waits for you to get in. Once you’re safely inside, he speeds off down the road.

It takes nearly thirty minutes before he arrives at a group of townhomes. He goes up to one, knocking on the door.

Grant answers and Jeongin immediately punches him. “Stay the hell away from my girl. How dare you take her out and treat her like that.”

“The hell man? Who are you?” Grant says.

“Stop flirting with other girls on your dates.”

Grant looks up at him.

“Are you the reason Y/n bailed on me?”

Jeongin punches him again, knocking him to the ground. “Stay. Away. And keep her name out of your mouth..”

With that, Jeongin leaves.

Grant shakes his head, going inside to ice his jaw and delete your number.

Months had gone by and you were absolutely smitten with Jeongin. He really understood you - like no one else had. He learned quickly all the things you liked and disliked. He spoiled you, always surprising you with little gifts for every date. It felt like fate to find a man so attentive and detail-oriented.

“How do you know me so well?” you ask, laying on the couch in Jeongin’s lap.

“What do you mean?” he asks with a smile - that dimpled smile that makes you melt.

“Aren’t guys supposed to like…act nonchalant and forget things. And then the girl yells at him for not caring and he comes back with flowers and chocolates apologizing.”

“Is this your way of asking for flowers and chocolate?” He asks, booping your nose.

“No.” you swat his hand. “You’re not like that.”

“I know…I actually care. It’s shocking.”

“Shut up.” you swat his chest but he grabs your arm and kisses the top of your hand.

“You’re the forgetful one though…”

“I am not…” you pout.

“What’s my go-to order at Mama’s Noodles?” he says, raising an eyebrow at you.

“The um…the japchae.” you say with a nod.

“Nope. The Gochujang noodle. You owe me flowers and chocolate.” He says, crossing his arms over his chest with a pout.

You sit up and look at him. He turns his head away from you and you roll your eyes. He’s such a big baby - your baby. You move to straddle his lap, pulling his arms apart and smiling mischievously.

“What about something better than flowers and chocolates?”

“What’s better than chocolate?” He asks as if that was a stupid question and pushes you off.

You scoff, surprised that it didn’t work. It always works.

“You wound me. I’m going to bed.” he says with a hmph and stalks off.

You shake your head and get up to follow him. If he wants to play….you’ll entertain it for now.

Coming into his bedroom, you find him shirtless and laying across the bed on his back. His arms are over his face - probably to hide the smirk he had.

You stand in the doorway, calculating how you wanna play this. His bare chest and the way it moves as he breathes was driving heat to your core. You slip out of your clothes as quietly as you can and saunter over to him.

You run your hands up his thighs and he tenses. One hand ghosts over his bulge and you swear he sucks in a breath. You hook your fingers in his waistband and begin pulling his pants and underwear down.

He was semi hard as you threw his pants to the side. Smirking, you take his cock in your hand and begin stroking. Looking up at him, you can see him biting his lip under his arms. You squeeze a little tighter as he grows harder at your touch.

You know he’s trying his absolute hardest to refrain from making any noises but that was one of the things you loved about him. You loved how vocal he was in bed, always groaning and moaning in your ear.

You kneel between his legs, taking his tip into your mouth. He hisses but keeps his arms covering his face. Okay, you like a challenge.

You take his length into your mouth, stroking what won’t fit with your hand. His body jerks, his cock fully hard and erect now. You bob your head, sucking hard and swirling your tongue around.

His breathing has picked up, but still not a peep from him. So you lick a stripe up the underside of his cock and then climb onto him. You move up his torso, watching him try to drop his smile. You take his arms and push them out to his sides. His eyes are closed, mouth twitching as he fights the urge to smirk.

You move a little further up, straddling his head. His eyes pop open as he looks up at you.

You smirk down at him. “Still not better than chocolate?”

He immediately moves his mouth closer, licking your folds as his hands grip your ass. He pushes you down onto him and begins devouring you. He moans at your taste, the sound of him slurping filling the room. It’s so lewd but you can’t help but smile. You finally broke him.

You throw your head back, moaning loudly as he pushes you towards your high. One hand fists in his hair as the other rests on his chest behind you for support. His tongue prods at your fluttering hole, pushing you over the brink. You convulse, cumming into his mouth. He holds you in place, teasing your clit and prolonging your high with nudges of his nose.

You squirm in his hold as it becomes too much. Now, it was his turn to break you.

He pushed you off him, making you fall to the side with a squeal, and crawled over you. He smashed his lips onto yours, letting you taste yourself on his lips. He kissed along your jaw and down your neck until he attached his lips to one of your nipples. Your hands fisted in his hair as he took a hand and slid two fingers into your tight heat.

“Innie…fuck…” you moan.

“I gotta take care of my girl… gotta ruin you for anyone else.” he says between nips along your neck.

You moan, knowing he already has.

He places his hands under your knees and pushes your legs up, bending down for one more taste. You gasp as he licks you once more and chuckles.

“So sensitive, jagi” he teases.

He lines himself up and sinks into you with one fluid motion. Your eyes roll back as he fills you so deep. It’s like he was made just for you. He lets go of your legs, holding himself up as he thrusts into you. Your legs wrap around his waist, your nails dragging down his torso. He bit his lip, his hooded eyes looking hungrily at you.

“Jeongin…” you whine.

“I know….” he says, picking up the pace.

He knew you liked it a little rough and was always eager to please. He bent down, sucking harshly at your nipples. Your grip on his upper arms tightened as you felt the coil inside about to snap. He knew your body so well - thrived off the way it reacted to him.

“Cum for me, jagiya. I know you’re close.” he says.

You whine, clenching around him as he slams into you. You cry out his name as you cum, the high washing over you. He peppers your face in kisses as he finally slows down his tempo. You come down from your high, eyes still squeezed shut.

He leans up, moving one of your legs so you’re on your side. He begins moving again, your knees to your chest allowing him to reach impossibly deeper. You moan as he leans down and kisses your arm. He grinds into you and you look up into his eyes.

He kisses you deeply before straightening up and thrusting harder. You moan out, one of your hands holding his while the other grips the sheets. His free hand holds your leg, holding you flush with him.

You're lost in the feeling of him - in the drag of his veiny cock against your walls. He feels too good and you’re never going to get tired of it. How did you get so lucky?

His hand snakes between your legs and rubs your clit with a teasing amount of pressure. You buck your hips, trying to grind harder but he just lightens his pressure. You whine and he chuckles.

“What is it, jagiya? Hmm?” he asks condescendingly.

You whine. He knows what he’s doing. And he knows exactly what you want.

“Be a good girl and use your words…” He says, sliding his hand along your leg.

The loss of contact makes you pout your lip at him. “Innie…”

“Yes, my love?”

“Please…” you pant.

“Please what?”

Ughhh…why is he doing this….

“Please…harder…let me cum…”

He snaps his hips into you, fucking you so hard the skin clapping is all that can be heard. You’re sure his apartment neighbors could hear you two.

“How bad do you wanna cum, jagi?” he says, leaning down to whisper in your ear.

“Mmmm….please…” you breathe…unable to form words.

You were cock drunk and he knew it. He loves you like this. He loved having this power over you. It made him feel like you would always be by his side. And you wanted that too. If he proposed, you would easily say yes.

“Cum for me, love.” He whispers in your ear.

The coil snaps and you cum hard. Your body trembles as you ride out the high. He doesn’t stop thrusting as you clench around him. His head is thrown back, groans leaving his smirked lips as he relishes in the feeling of you.

He was losing himself and you loved it. You slip off his cock and push him down, straddling him. You sink down on him and he swears he’s seeing stars. He wanted to drag it out but he was getting too close. And the way you were grinding and bouncing on him was not helping.

You circled your hips, clenching and relaxing to drive him crazy. His eyes were squeezed closed, his hands gripping the sheets. You raked your nails across his chest and stomach, tweaking his nipples.

“Ah,..jagi. Hajima…I’m not gonna last much longer…” he panted.

“Cum for me baby. Want you filling me up…” you say, bouncing on him.

His hands went to your hips, holding tightly. You could feel him twitching inside you and you knew he was gonna cum any second. You grind down on him as you lean forward and nip at his neck. You left little love bites, nipping at his sensitive spot.

He held your hips in place, stopping your movements as he came with a groan. His body convulsed beneath you and you clenched, milking him for every drop.

“Yes…want it all..” you say.

Between the feeling of his cum and his thumb’s pressure on your clit, your own release was triggered. He moved his thumb so strategically, prolonging your high. You weakly pushed at his hand and he chuckled, removing it.

You fell forward, your sweaty bodies flush together. You lay like this for a while - letting your breathing slow as you come down. His fingers were running through your hair, the other hand holding yours.

“I love you.” he whispers.

“I love you too.”

“This is always better than chocolate,” he adds.

“It better be.” you wink at him.

A few more moments of silence passed and you would have been asleep if your stomach wasn’t growling.

“Hungry?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Let’s get cleaned up and go get something. We could grab ice cream,” he says.

“Mint Chocolate?” you ask, popping your head up.

He nods and the two of you climb out of bed.

A few minutes later, you’re washed and headed out the door. He drives you to the nearest grocery store where you head inside and make a beeline for the freezer section. You scope out your favorite brand of ice cream and put it in the basket.

“I need some shaving stuff.” Jeongin says.

“Okay. I’m going to grab some milk for tomorrow.” you say.

In the milk aisle, you slip past a man as you reach in and grab the brand you like.

“Y/n?”

You turn to see a familiar face. Oh..you know him. It starts with G….

“Grant…” he says, as if reading your mind.

“Right. Hi.” you smile.

“Hi. I just wanted to apologize about that night. It wasn’t me getting a girl’s number…well it was. But not in the way you probably thought. She was a photographer who needed a gig. I told her my sister was getting married and I offered to connect them.” He explained.

“Oh.” you say, blushing.

“Not that it mattered to your boyfriend at the time.” Grant huffs.

“What?” you furrow your brows.

“Your boyfriend. Although I was surprised he was mad about the girl and not you cheating. Then I just figured you two did the polyamorous thing. No judgement or anything.” Grant says with a shrug.

“What boyfriend?” you ask.

“Um…tall, dark hair. Asian…”

No…he couldn’t mean…

You pull your phone from your pocket and show him the lock screen of your Jeongin. “Him?”

“Yeah. That’s the guy.”

Your eyes go wide. You had just met him that night.

“Why did you think he was my boyfriend? How did you even meet?”

“You bailed and he showed up at my house…” Grant says, confused. “He told me to stay away. That you were ‘his girl’. Punched me twice. Broke my damn nose.”

You just stared.

“Guessing you didn’t know this. My bad. I should go. Have a good night.”

Grant walks off and you watch him. Fear courses through your veins. Hurt. Betrayal.

How could the man that you loved - this perfect, wonderful man you wanted to marry - have done the things Grant says he did. Your mind is racing…and swirling…

You panic, dropping the basket and hurrying towards the front of the store, checking aisles before you walk down them in the hopes of not running into him. You needed to get away from him. You needed time to think.

You dial your roommate’s number, hoping she will pick up so she can rescue you. She answered on the second ring.

TAGLIST: @butterflydemons @readr1221 @thecutiepieme @sillygoosegoose @kaleigh-2002 @stvrrylove @iknow-uknow-leeknow @estella-novella @staytinyluv @galaxy4489 @motheraiya55 @gaby105-skz @thatgirlangelb @hxnnielk @bookswillfindyouaway @ihttinniee @writeuntilthebitterend @its-the-solar-system @rain-water-flowers

#stray kids x reader #stray kids x y/n #stray kids #stray kids smut #yang jeongin #yang jeongin x reader #yang jeongin smut #yang jeongin stray kids #yang jeongin x you #jeongin #skz smut #skz jeongin

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nostalgebraist · 2 days ago

Note

When you finish writing a big story and you became very close the characters, was there a time after where you were like "i kind of want to revisit these characters again, but i should probably just let the story be, they deserve to rest" Im not talking about wanting to write a sequel, is more about still coming up with fun ideas for them, maybe a little scene or something, but choosing not to do anything with it because it'd feel disrespectful to the ending you gave them?

This doesn't happen to me, no.

The reason is that, once I finish the story, my sense of "being close to the characters" suddenly vanishes. And, although there are rare moments where it (briefly) returns, it mostly stays gone.

I can't remember if I've ever talked about this in detail before, but – when I'm in the process of writing a story, especially near the end, the characters feel "real" to me in a very strong and kind of uncanny way.

I don't actually believe that they exist as independent entities from me (much less sentient ones), but it does almost feel like that's true, when I'm in the thick of the writing process.

I have no trouble intellectually distinguishing fiction from reality, even in the state I'm describing. But my emotional and intuitive relationship with my characters, when I'm in that state, is pretty similar to the one I have with real people I know in real life. And there are a bunch of... uh, mental phenomena?... associated with this that I'm slightly afraid to describe because I worry they'll sound like hallucinations or delusions if I don't add a lot of caveats.

For example, when I'm alone in a room writing (especially if I'm writing in the middle of the night), I sometimes feel like it's not just me in the room, that the character I'm writing about is "there with me," in much the same way I'd be aware of someone real person's presence if I knew they were in the room but didn't happen to be looking in their direction. Or: sometimes I feel like the characters' voices are "flowing through me," that I'm merely taking dictation from them – and will sometimes even think to myself: "man, I'm so grateful that the character is helping me write this part, because if I tried to do it all by myself there's no way I would get it right." And it takes a moment before I realize, wait, no, I am writing it by myself – at least in a literal and physical sense.

Basically if you read this post, and then sort of read between the lines of it under the assumption that I'm downplaying how weird the experience actually is because I'm worried an accurate account would make me sound kind of unhinged... then you will have roughly the right impression of what the writing experience is like for me.

Whatever is going on here, it feels like it's probably on some kind of spectrum that also contains stuff like tulpas, multiple systems, and maybe also the way that children can sometimes get really deeply wrapped up in their imaginary play. I don't know how common this stuff is among writers (maybe it is common but rarely talked about?). It's not something I've experienced anywhere else in life; I don't experience it with other people's fictional characters or stories, or with fantasies I have that aren't associated with a work in progress, and I don't remember ever experiencing it before I started writing fiction as an adult.

Anyway, as I said at the top, the moment I finish writing a story, this phenomenon simply turns off, suddenly and completely. The transition is very noticeable when it happens, and makes me feel something akin to grief or loneliness over the brief span between the moment it starts and the moment it is fully completed – like I've just lost a bunch of close friends at once.

With Almost Nowhere, I remember a very specific feeling – on the evening of the day when I finished writing – that the characters were "departing 'into' the finished book," reverting to a lesser existence as "mere words" rather than "real people," as though they had been plastic toys animated by Terra Ignota's Bridger, and were now turning back into toys again. It made me sad, for a little while, but once they'd fully "lost their reality" I no longer cared, because it was that same sense of reality that made me care, and now it was gone.

So, to finish answering your question: I don't feel an urge to return to my old characters, because it feels intuitively obvious that doing this is impossible. That anything else I wrote about them would be inauthentic, somehow, in a way that the original work wasn't. They were "there," before, but they're "gone," now. This difference is very stark, and very hard to ignore.

(As I noted above, they do sometimes "come back" to me – very rarely, and very briefly, but that is enough for a proof of concept. Perhaps, if I were to try, I could find some way to "bring them back" for longer intervals. But I doubt I will ever try that. I feel a bit afraid of the concept for several reasons – for one thing, the "inauthenticity" I just mentioned squicks me out and I'd prefer not to come too close to it, and I also have a baseline wariness of doing stuff that seems too much like messing around with my own mental health. There's also a "catch-22" involved here, where I don't feel motivated about the characters the way I used to, and that means I'm not even motivated to do things that would generate that motivation. The "target" of the effort won't appeal strongly to me until I've already gone to the trouble of obtaining it, which means the effort doesn't feel justified in the first place.)

#almost nowhere

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iatrophilosophos · 3 days ago

Text

Hmm well my thoughts are as follows

I am an anarchist and thus not invested in how we build systems of knowlege that effectively interface with the legal system because i do not believe we should have a legal system, generally speaking, so none of my responses here are actually going to answer that for you.

The dichotomy of "science vs vibes" is both incredibly funny and incredibly annoying to me, and a complete failure of imagination or grace on behalf of all who propose it.

This is of course what thr academy dose and why I hate it. It's the cornerstone of maintaining the western progress narrative: academic ideas are good and order, all others are chaos and vibes.

Science is a tool. It is also a religion rivaling Christianity in scale, scope and obsessive-yet-liturgically-uneducated believers. I am interested in science as a tool; I am fully disinterested in fundemental faith assumption of science (that the universe is governed by consistent and knowable laws). Science as religion pleads an optimism about how its *supposed* to work and discards objects of criticism as heretical. I refuse to engage with this perspective. The purpose of a system is what it does. However, i am going to endeavor to talk about the fundemental flaws of science that would still be present without capitalism and specifically bad-faith (academic def; do not earnestly believe what they have said to be true) actors. I am doing this because I DO think this critique is essential to understanding the limitations of science and how we utilize it + other systems to our best advantage.

Science is a toolset for generating a predicitive model, because humans love predicitive models. They're very useful! They help us make choices like how to care for plants and the land, what foods to eat, what medicine to take. There are actually many other tools for generating predicitive models, and I will speak to one shortly. Science accomplishes this by identifying an observation, hypothesis and variables, running scenarios in different configurations to see what may happen, and concluding something either about the experiment itself or the nature of the world. We accomplish those conclusions these days through the application of statistics, which can do some really nasty shit--not just making results seem more promising than they are!

Science is optimized for big answers on a fast timescale. It is a really useful tool in a lot of applications. In the medical field, I can say wholeheartedly that im a big fan of the scientific model as applied to communicable pathogens. I like cultures and i like testing novel antibiotics to see if they do what we want them to do. The situation of a mass outbreak is one where we want a big fast answer.

However, this tool has a lot of limits that I dont think are adequately described by just talking about the replication crisis or specific scientific atrocities. I want to push back on the idea that its "throwing spaghetti at the wall"; cuz i think we both know thats not actually true. Its testing hypotheses based on observations.

Observations are cultural. I firmly believe that one of the problems with psychiatry is that the perceptions, the "common knowlege" as is being derided here, of what Madness is and how it works predate science significantly, and they're ugly. The lobotomy is not throwing ugly evil shit at the wall and seeing what it does. The lobotomy is the "observation" that a certain kind of mad person is the way they are because they are over-active, too much, want stuff too badly, are plagued with an urge to sin so great that it must be excised before they can be saved by willpower and prayer (therapy). The hypothesis then follows: if we have "observed" that Mad people are "too much", we cut part of them away. If we have "observed" that Mad people desire incorrectly, we inhibit their ability to desire. In this way, the logic of the lobotomy is still active in the world and still being used to generate atrocities that I firmly believe we will look back on as a horrific stain on the history of official medicine in 10, 20, 50 years.

Psychiatry and psychology are easy to poke holes in, but this issue is at play in other areas of medical science as well. I am less well versed, but my associates in cardiology will very-unhappily tell you that a similar caliber of "observations" into the nature of human beings, specifically Black people, plague their field and cause deaths they themselves have witnessed firsthand.

The other foundational problem with science is statistics. This is why science as a legal basis actually sucks shit, though as I said im not really interested in constructing more legally-appriopriate knowledge sets. Statistical analysis as the bar for evaluating experimental results can tell us what works most of the time in most cases; especially in those high-quality mass-scale studies. There will be a number of cases where something doesnt work that works most of the rest of the time, and a number of cases where something works that doesnt most other times. I fucking care about statistical outliers. I am one. People i love live in this space. Land i love lives in this space. I believe there is value in high-reward low-risk low-likelihood interventions being widely available. I fully and completely reject the cultural value that most people is good enough, let alone the bar to strive for.

So, alternatives? There isnt one alternative because I dont subscribe to science as religion and thus I do not require it to be an all-encompassing world view or thrown on the trash heap; and i feel this way about other predicitive modeling tools. I believe in doing things that get the results i want for myself, my loved ones and social relations, and the land we participate in; without exploiting others in the process and in a way that hopefully supports others in achieving the same. Many tools fit in that box. I will however take this moment to soapbox about what im gonna term "conversational knolwege" because I think its an interesting model that kind of precursors our modern understanding of citations but retains a lot more nuance.

One benefit of science, and i think WHY it lends itself to systems such as legality, mass medicine, and so on: it endeavors to replace interpersonal trust and deep individual basis of knowledge. Who this benefits is a hell of a question: on the day to day scale, we can say it benefits the average person. It's nice not to have to trust your doctor, a person you probably dont actually know, who has financial and social interests that might diverge from your own, to have your best interests at heart: let alone agree with you on what your best interests actually ARE or have the knowlege and decision making skills to help you get there. Its nice to believe that everything will be okay, that there is an answer, and that you arent personally responsible for making hard decisions in the world. On the mass scale, this way of living doesnt benefit us, it benefits power. Medical codification as a stage of empire is an entirely different can of worms i could talk about forever but suffice to say: medicine is a constant cultural practice present among all people. States get big. In the same way they endeavor to retain power over people by preventing them from feeding themselves etc; they outlaw, burn, and replace the common medical culture with a system more conducive to control. Prescientific medical models have also been used in this way; as are the state-backed nonscientific medical models traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda (medical nationalism is another can of worms we can talk about with all three, western industrial, tcm, ans Ayurveda, but especially tcm...its rlly fucking interesting. Don't even get me started on the medical models of colonized countries that fall somewhere between these three powers. Aaaa! I love this shit. Anyway).

Point being: this benefit is damage control for a society that perpetuates itself via deskilling the population. What does generation and transference of knowlege look like in populations with high individual skills?

One answer is conversation. It goes like this:

Person A spends their life engaging with an area that they are passionate about and have a high aptitude for. Maybe its a field of medicine, drug production etc, maybe its a field of engagement with the land like food production or having trails that dont erode to shit or building structures that work well for the beings using them. They come to an understanding of the world based on what they personally see happen (notably, not "vibes", watching something over years is NOT the same as reading half of three news articles and adopting a worldview based on it, I think we can all agree that the latter is an unhelpful way to engage with information). They collect students who learn those worldviews. Maybe they write a book or in oral traditions, pen a folktale with something important to say about the world. Person B is one of their students just starting out in the world. They compare this worldview to what they experience. They travel, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles, to meet a person with the same role as person A in a different community. Person B learns different things and, by transporting what person A knows into a new context, finds problems with it, and finds where it succeeds. Person B teaches. Person C, a student of person B, has a both what person A and person B thinks, and continues the process adding their own voice to the conversation. Person C carries these three perspectives and communicates them to person D, by saying who told them what they have to repeat and in what context. This "citation" is then allowed to carry elements of personality, reputation, and nuance in trust. This happens over and over again for thousands of years. Every lifetime makes it better.

The problem with this engagement of knolwege is that it is slow. It leads to understandings of the world that are not as good at adapting to the chaotic and rapidly changing conditions of our modern world and its documented to be not as good at responding to drastic shifts (e.g. natural disasters) in history. It requires every individual to participate to at least some degree in the stewardship of knolwege. It requires willingness to break from dead ends and acknowledge we were wrong. Ugly things have happened when we fail to do this and especially when social configurations make it harder: for example, societies that abuse their children are responsible for some of the gnarlier and more shocking historical medical practices, because doing something to someone when they are a child is an easy way to make humans keep doing stuff that sucks (sumn we're otherwise fairly good at avoiding).

What it is very good at is creating skillsets that are nuanced and treat situations as individual; it is good at making knowledge systems that account for statistical outliers. In part, it is because its a system that DEMANDS an answer to *why* something is known: even moreso than science, because a citation doesnt suffice, we are forced to interrogate to trust.

Maybe, especially to folks who are already fully bought in to the logic of the academy, this system cannot shine a candle to the imagined benefits of a perfect science. As I said, I refuse to engage with the imagined benefits of a perfect science, because we might as well start talking about what we should do if the moon is made of cheese. And what the real world right now has to say is that a large swath of interventions generated in these traditional modes WORK, when trialed in good faith; with limitations for drastic shifts in climate, bodies etc occurring over the last few hundred years, +/- the severing of many of these traditions and thus their ability to grow and change approximately concurrent with industrialization and the acceleration of *gestures* All This Shit. (For example, many plant-based drugs that were exceptionally low risk 100, 200 years ago now carry much higher risk or unknown risk profiles in an age of pharmacuetical prescriptions and way more possible drug interactions).

So, that is a way of answering "how do you know?" That is neither a scientific citation nor "vibes". I am personally most interested in hybrid strategies and novel study models because of my aforementioned investment in working with statistical outliers AND the rapid shifts in the world that are occurring in our lifetimes. I think it is imperative to reject science as religion and the comforting position that we'll solve all problems by following the right rules. I also think that its a mistake to resign ourselves to "the best we have", because the best we have doesnt fucking cut it, definitely not for me or people I care about.

So idk if thats the weigh-in you wanted but its what I got. Im not gonna put hella cites in a fucking Tumblr post i wrote before breakfast for one friend, and anyway most of this info is the synthesis of rlly diffuse inputs across historical texts, medical anthropology, conversations with mentors across the spectrum of academy to licensed practice to traditionally educated practitioners to wingnuts like myself, and a ton of dives into random questions about topics across the above spectrum. I can provide my standard entry reading list upon request and as always my #1 reccomendation for people who are new to medical anthropology is The Expressiveness of the Body by Shigehisa Kuriyama. Peace ✌️

"these researchers published a paper on something that literally any of us could have told you 🙄" ok well my supervisors wont let me write something in my thesis unless I can back it up with a citation so maybe it's a good thing that they're amplifying your voice to the scientific community in a way that prevents people from writing off your experiences as annecdotal evidence

#medicine #fair warning: ill talk to my friends & folks who wanna have a real convo but this topic is pretty to the edge of what i care about spending #my energy on so imma block fast & freely if i dont already kno u

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mona-risms · 14 hours ago

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Okay hear me out. Polytrix x reader with reader being their coreographer but when they train they have a vibrator that's just slowly buzzes all troughout and if they mess up a move reader would just turn it off but if they manage to get to the end without mistakes reader would turn it to the max and make them cum until their legs shake, but afterwards they still have to do more practice and in the end they're just edged beyond believe and desperately begging reader to just mess them up in frint of the big wall mirror <33

Also may i be 🎨 anon 🫶

First of all, yes you can!! Welcome 🎨 :3c. Second of all, no fuckin wonder Rumi's muscle memory kicked in when it did during Takedown LMAOOOOO it's a fucking Pavlovian reflex by that point 😭

They SWEAR to you that it's completely beneficial. In fact, they say it's an incentive!! To do better!!!! Bc it's very fun and very effective!!!!!!! No it's not unprofessional (it is technically) and it's not a distraction (it definitely is), but honestly when you get results like how sharp they are with choreo? Literally why would you ever debate otherwise??? Clearly it's working soooooo..... It's most definitely funny as fuck when they see reviews and stuff ab how their choreo's so sharp and smooth and whatever, and maybe they even get asked ab it, to which they just. Thank you for your service 😜 and no one will know the wiser

They all just have different colour-coded vibrators inside them ("fun-coloured and fun-sized", thanks to Zoey LMAO), all at different settings that'd count as their individual 'minimum' aka what they can definitely feel and get absolutely dripping wet and sexually frustrated over but nowhere near enough to push them off the edge. Imagine even slowly turning up the intensity as the three of them progress through the choreo you taught them, whether it be via turning it up based on the part's difficulty level or inching it closer and closer up the closer the song gets to the end. You even get them to sing while doing the choreo too, bc how could they EVER think of being the top-charting idols if they can't even sing through a number and perform perfectly while they have distractions threatening to throw their concentration and mobility coordination out the window? Honestly, you're being a good choreographer by helping them here!!!!

By the end of it their panties are absolutely soaked through from the edging and the overstim and constant switch and everything and NONE of YOUR touches, and unless they've done a Particularly shit job, it always ends with you making sure that the trio gets a turn in being eaten out and fucked through; they're begging you to give them a reward, and honestly why wouldn't you, when they've done and will do their very best?

There's a reason why their dance studio's soundproofed and always locked whenever you lot are using it 😁

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perseephoneee · 3 days ago

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┈ ⟡ crash out [a frank langdon fic]

˖ 𐦍 CHAPTER 1: SOMEONE SAYS 'I DO'

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After returning from rehab and looking to earn forgiveness for his mistakes, Frank makes his way back to the Pitt Trauma Medical Center, where he discovers he's been given a supervisor to oversee his progress.

a/n: finally returning to this after crashing out for the past three weeks. can you even crash out for three weeks? it doesn't matter...i did it anyway

beta'd by the beautiful @eurydiceauxenfers <3

“I’ll bet you $10 this isn’t going to work,” you said, watching as Langdon operated. The patient had been injured on a construction site, and you both were arguing over the best way to treat them. While part of you was well aware that he usually had smart ideas for how to handle these situations, you also knew he responded best to competition.

“Then you are going to be $10 short and feeling very stupid,” Langdon laughed, eyes focused on his work. He seemed a lot more joyful than he was a few weeks ago when you first met him.

“Don’t be a douche.”

“Can’t,” he shrugged. “Because I just succeeded.”

You bit back a smile as he finished off his work, standing back and gesturing to the nurses to bandage the patient up. You left the room, knowing he’d meet you later, as he finished cleaning up.

You’d had no idea what to expect when Robby asked you to be Frank’s supervisor. You had heard from the rumor mill that he tended to be arrogant, had a hard time not being in control, and was close with Robby. Oh, and the whole stealing drugs thing. But the man you saw on the first day seemed more desperate and sad than anything. Challenging him in his work was the closest you got to seeing that version you were told of before.

You had also heard him referred to as ER Ken, which gave you a certain idea of what he was supposed to look like. You were not disappointed.

He’s married, you thought to yourself, looking at the board in central. You heard his footsteps a second later. You could always tell it was him because the steps always seemed hurried, much like a puppy. He wore a grin.

“You owe me $10.”

You raised a brow at him. “How about I just get you a drink from the vending machine and we call it even.”

Langdon pretended to think about it, even though you knew he had already decided. “Deal.”

“Good. We have a sick child in six.”

Langdon pouted. “There’s an amputation in three.”

“I don’t care,” you snorted, watching as his expression fell. You enjoyed that aspect of being his supervisor, getting to make him do whatever case you wanted. He didn’t complain…much.

He made sure to stay a few paces behind you as you approached the curtain, announcing yourself as you opened it. A little girl, seven years of age, sat on the bed with her knees to her chest and a rabbit in her arms. She was frowning as her parents sat in the chairs next to her.

“Hi Chloe, I’m Dr. L/N and this is my colleague Dr. Langdon,” you smiled, closing the curtain behind you. “What seems to be the problem?”

“She says her ears won’t stop hurting, and we gave her Tylenol, but it isn’t doing anything.” Her mom twisted her hands, looking anxiously between you and her daughter. You grabbed your otoscope and got closer to Chloe. You hummed as you looked inside both ears.

“Any other symptoms?” Langdon asked as you examined her ears.

“She said her head hurt a little bit, but we thought it was just from the strep,” her dad replied.

“Strep?”

“She just got over strep throat,” the mom replied. You put away the otoscope.

“Her ears are very swollen, but it doesn’t look like the eardrums are affected. Her strep likely didn’t go away and moved to the sinuses, which gave her an infection,” you explained. You felt bad for the little girl. Her ears were so inflamed that you were shocked she wasn’t crying. “Dr. Langdon, what would you prescribe as treatment?”

“Another round of antibiotics, as well as oxycodone as needed for the pain,” Frank smiled, hands in his pockets. You nodded in agreement.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” he replied.

“Her ears right now are full of pockets of excess liquid. Her hearing might be slightly affected, but it’d only be temporary. At some point, the pockets will burst and drain out naturally. If they don’t go away and she’s still in pain after finishing the antibiotics, you should come back in.”

“Thank you so much,” the mom smiled gleefully, giving her daughter a kiss on the head. You noticed Frank tense up out of the corner of your eye.

“We’ll write you a prescription now for everything,” you nodded, opening the curtain and stepping out with Frank behind you. He seemed quieter than before.

“What’s wrong, Langdon?” you asked, bumping his shoulder. He looked down at you, plastering on a smile.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You never do, cupcake,” he grinned, walking backwards towards the ER entrance. You frowned at the nickname. You don’t remember when he started calling you cupcake, but you didn’t always appreciate it.

“Where are you going?” you called out, arms crossed.

“STEMI incoming, and I’m going to beat the record.”

“Like hell you are,” you grumbled, following after him. He was like a dog with a bone when he wanted to do something. The STEMI rolled in a moment later. You both ran alongside the gurney as you wheeled it into the emergency OR…

Langdon did not beat the record (neither did you). But the guy survived, so all in a day’s work. Things managed to calm down a little bit, and you found yourself taking a breather in the break room. You slumped against the wall with a Rice Krispies treat, staring a hole into the opposite wall. The door creaked open, and Frank slumped down next to you.

You sat in companionable silence.

“Wanna see me shotgun this Red Bull?” He asked, holding up the can.

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” you responded. “But yes.”

It went about as poorly as expected. Frank’s scrubs were now covered in the energy drink. But it made you laugh, actually snorting laughing. He was an idiot, one whom you were in charge of.

“Glad my failures entertain you.”

“Always,”

Frank smiled. You were waiting to see the smile reach his eyes, but you knew progress was slow. You cleared your throat.

“What happened earlier?”

“Earlier?”

“With the kid. You got kinda…distant.”

Frank looked down at his hands. He played with the wedding band on his finger, twisting it around. You observed the action.

“I just haven’t seen Tanner in a while,” Frank admits. “And it’s hard.”

“You haven’t?” He wore his friendship bracelet everywhere. Frank wore Tanner’s friendship bracelet everywhere, you’d noticed. You knew he had to be the light of his life. “How—?”

“Abby left me,” Frank shrugged. You felt your heart drop. “After the…she was mad at me. For lying. For everything.” Langdon ran a hand through his hair. “I haven’t seen him since. Courts are still figuring out custody.” He takes his ring off, holding it up in front of you both. “And I didn’t want people to know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’m fine,” Frank forced a smile, in a way a totally not fine person would.

What do you do in this situation? Sit and empathize, you guess. You’ve prided yourself on being good at comforting, but you didn’t always know what to say.

“Do you mind not telling anyone?” Frank murmured. God, he looked like a wounded puppy with those eyes.

“Of course I won’t.” You paused for a second. “Would working on the amputee make you feel better?”

“Yes.”

~ * ~

You’re not sure why you did it. Following your co-worker home was never a good idea. Following the mystery that was Frank Langdon was a worse idea. But you couldn’t get that look of his out of your mind, nor the way he held his ring like he wasn’t sure if he should toss it or cherish it. And frankly, you were nosy.

You follow a little bit behind him as he walks. Luck had it that he didn’t drive to work (your snooping would’ve ended then), but that didn’t leave many options in the closest area. He didn’t ride the bus either. He walked for several blocks, and there were a few close calls where you would roll into the bushes very sleek and cool like a movie spy. You were kidding yourself; you fell into the bushes like a flying squirrel.

Thoughts of squirrel-like tendencies left your mind as you watched him enter the three-star hotel near the hospital.

Well, shit.

#frank langdon #dr langdon #the pitt #the pitt hbo #frank langdon x reader #frank langdon imagine #dr langdon x reader #dr langdon imagine #patrick ball #my writing

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