#<- another way to type it .. without the hyphen

[lobslobslobs]

* alright gang . new (as in it existed before bur it just wasnt named apparently) ship cuz i've been rotating these 4 in my mind since last night ... i present to you - shark-infested waters (artificer x rivulet x spearmaster x hunter) (named by my partner @voldkat !!!!)

* name explanation Lol . two shark one infested one waters

[forjongseong]

the reward // jay (ENHYPEN)

pairing: student!jay x tutor!fem!reader

genre: campus!au, smut (minors dni) // warning: older reader, they call reader "Noona", profanity, mentions of studying (lol), Heeseung makes an appearance, the rest of hyung-line are mentioned, making out, a lot of making out, just making out, fingering, protected sex (because Jay is responsible) // wc: ~9.5k

summary: you teach for a living, and you had been picking up tutoring since the extra money wasn't that bad. most of your meetings consist of essay-writing, mock tests, and speaking exercises; so when Jay became your student, you weren't expecting the lessons to include rewards.

author’s note: what?? two fics in the span of three days? with this I announce my retirement...

just kidding I STILL HAVE the secretary!Jay series to finish so I won't be retiring soon. this one is based on the rimless glasses series which is like, a random note I made for my wips, and believe it or not, while I made Bite Me sit and marinate on the shelf for so long, I finished this fic below within seven hours. yes, sometimes I am very motivated.

ANYWAY since I kept getting ideas for this one, I decided to sit down and write everything in one go, because if I pause to pick it up later I end up feeling not that confident with my work.

with that being said, I totally loved this one, so I hope you guys will enjoy it AS MUCH AS I DID writing it.

special mention to @excusememissiloveyou who was there the whole time virtually giving me mental support and good reactions

taglist: @thots4hee @end-hyphen @nyanggk @yoursjaeyun @maggstar @bucketofhiros @dimplejaehyuncutie @shinkenprincess-oh @mochimchimo @jongseonglogy @strawberrification12 @xiaoderrrr

You took the last sip of your latte as you tried to hold in your laughter. You then carefully swallowed your drink before chuckling and putting your cup back on the table, and then swatting the guy in front of you for cracking a joke and deliberately trying to make you laugh and choke at the same time.

“No, but seriously, thank you,” Heeseung said, tapping his fingers on the table. “I reached my target score.”

“What was it again?” You asked, at the same time unlocking your phone to check the time.

“7.5,” he answered.

You frowned. “That’s literally the same score you had before you took lessons with me, is it not?”

Heeseung nodded. “But without your help, I probably would have scored lower. Thanks for all the practice. And your time.”

You smiled and waved your hand, pretending to be humble. “Well, you’re welcome. I’m just doing what I get paid for.”

This time Heeseung was the one who chuckled, and before he could say another word you had to excuse yourself because it was time for your afternoon class.

“I’ll make the transfer tonight,” Heeseung said as he stood up, collecting the used napkins on the table. “Oh, by the way, Noona, I gave your number to my friend. He said he needs a tutor too. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Sure, you can broadcast my number to everyone who needs a tutor, to be honest. I’d love the extra money.”

Heeseung snickered and waited for you to start walking. He sped up and held the door open for you as you both exited the café.

“What’s his name? Or her, sorry, I just assumed.” You fixed your bag’s strap on your shoulder before taking out your phone again.

“Jay. He’s a med student too. We’re in the same class.” Heeseung started typing on his phone. “I’ve just let him know that you know he’s going to text you.”

“Awesome,” you said with a smile. “I’ll see you around, Heeseung. Good luck with the semester abroad.”

---

The waitress eyed the empty plates you had set aside before you started scrolling on your phone, and when you made eye contact with her you nodded, and she immediately took the plates away. You then placed an order for a cold drink since you were sure your new student was going to be running late.

“Punctuality,” you sighed to yourself, “should literally be counted in every single score…”

You heard the bell chiming as someone entered the restaurant, and your eyes immediately fell on him. The guy had his hair slicked back with a couple of strands hanging on his forehead, he was wearing a white button-down with a suede jacket on top, and the straight-cut pants he was wearing made you want to ask him where it was from.

“Y/N Noona,” he greeted you with confidence before you could even stand up, “Sorry, I’m late.”

“Hi, Jay,” you watched as he took his backpack off and set it on the chair beside him. He then sat down and looked at you with a huge smile.

The fuck? What is he so attractive for? You thought, smiling back.

“I didn’t know this place existed on campus,” he began, initiating small talk. His eyes were scanning the place, and as he looked around in wonder you thought for a second that he looked like a majestic black cat. And you love cats.

“Yeah,” you said before the silence became too loud. “It’s my favorite place to grab lunch or to hold private sessions like this. So, what do you need an IELTS score for?”

“Same as Heeseung,” Jay answered you only after he looked around for a waiter. He quickly placed his order and refocused his attention back on you. “Did you order yet?” He asked, sounding concerned as he looked around and saw nothing in front of you.

Your drink order arrived, and you thanked the waitress in a whisper and a smile, and you made an effort to explain yourself before Jay started to speculate.

“I already ate, and this is my dessert,” you said, turning the cup around and making sure it was the right order. “You can go ahead and eat while I answer any questions you might have about our lessons.”

“Right,” Jay shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “So, I want to get a higher score than Heeseung, but I’ve never taken the test before, so how many meetings do you think we should have so I can achieve that?”

Confident, curious, and ambitious, you thought. You could definitely work with him.

“Alright,” you began, clearing the space in front of you and taking out your notebook and a pen.

You spent the next two hours talking to Jay, mostly stuff regarding lesson plans, but after that, you asked him about his studies, and he also asked you about your experiences and your current work. He mentioned the names of the students you had previously tutored, Jake and Sunghoon, and only then did you learn that the four of them must have their own clique.

“Where do you usually have your lessons with them?” Jay asked, wiping his mouth with a clean napkin after he finally finished his meal.

“Since they’re only available in between my classes, I usually ask them to go to cafes around the campus,” you replied. “I literally just go where I am asked, though. You guys are the students, so.”

“Can I pick the place for our next meeting?” Jay asked, grabbing his phone. “I’ll match your schedule first.”

You opened your calendar on your bullet journal and started jotting down Jay’s availability while he typed in your schedule on his phone.

“Right, so on Tuesday, since you only have a morning class, let’s have lunch at this place, hold on,” Jay said, eyes glued to his phone as he pulled up a website of the place he was referring to. “Here.”

You craned your neck to look at Jay’s phone, and when you read the address, you tilted your head. “I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like it’s walking distance from campus.”

“Oh, I’ll pick you up.” Jay blinked at you innocently. “I’ll drive you back to campus too. Or your home?”

“Campus is fine, I carpool with my brother,” you quickly replied. “Thank you.”

Jay shrugged and checked the time on his watch. “We’re done here, right?”

You nodded. “Unless you have more questions?”

He smiled and shook his head, and you hated the way you thought he was just so damn handsome. He then stood up and made his way to the booth, and you saw him take out his wallet while gesturing to your table. When he walked back to his seat, you leaned in and whispered.

“Did you just pay for my meal?” You asked, trying to be discreet.

“Why are you whispering? Of course, I did,” Jay replied, also whispering to match your energy.

You chuckled and mouthed a ‘thank you’ before you stood up, and you were slightly surprised at how fast he walked ahead of you just to hold the door open.

“I’ll see you Tuesday?” Jay asked, stretching out his hand.

You realized he was going for a handshake, so you took his hand. His fingers grabbed your hand firmly and you had to hold in a wince.

“Tuesday,” you replied, keeping your cool. “Bye, Jay.”

---

After a couple of meetings with Jay, you realized that the guy had grown on you and that he might be your favorite student ever if you were even allowed to have one. Skill-wise, he needed a lot of help, but he was a quick learner, and he took all your advice seriously, putting it into action almost immediately and showing up with instant results.

“Can I ask you what your thought process is like when you write an argumentative essay like this?” You said previously on your second meeting with him, at a café that he picked out.

“I look at the topic and begin writing, and I just… write as I go,” he answered truthfully.

You sighed and he took a quick glance at your face. “See, that’s where you’re wrong.”

You began explaining how outlining an essay was essential to make sure you can get your points across, and as you were speaking you kept looking at your notes, his hands, the window, and everything else except his face. But you can feel his eyes glued to yours. He attended every single meeting with the type of energy that you had never found before in any of your other students, and somehow, he just exudes positivity and passion.

During the meeting after that, he handed you over his homework, along with an extra essay that was written according to your input. He could not hide his stupid grin every time you complimented a sentence structure, and for the first time, you finally made him speechless.

“Thank you,” you said after ending your feedback.

Jay tilted his head and frowned. “What for?”

“For taking my input seriously,” you continued.

Jay became even more confused. “Isn’t that what students do?”

You scoffed and shook your head. “A lot of my students don’t.”

“Well, they’re just dumb, then.”

Your mouth hung open in shock at Jay’s sudden insult, and he found your face hilarious that he just had to cackle, his laugh echoing throughout the place. You covered your mouth and giggled silently, helplessly smacking his arm so he would quiet down.

On your fourth meeting, you requested to have the lesson at the campus café since you had to go home as soon as your session with him ended. This time, however, he was running late, and you had to spend a couple of minutes alone chugging down your latte to stay awake.

“Noona, I’m so sorry,” Jay said as soon as pulled the chair beside you. He sat down and started complaining. “My professor just announced this urgent assignment that we had to do, and…”

The annoyance that came with almost being stood up evaporated completely when you heard Jay yapping about what happened in his class. Maybe you were just too tired to be angry, or maybe you were just happy to see him.

“Shall we just practice Speaking then for now?” You asked after he finished his explanation.

Jay nodded quickly. “Anything you want. Do you want me to order another drink for you?”

“It’s fine, calm down,” you said, chuckling lightly. “Alright, let me look for a topic.”

You quickly browsed your phone and began asking him questions. You made a gesture and pointed to his phone, signaling him to record himself speaking, so he did so without breaking eye contact with you. For the next part, you picked a topic that required him to talk about a close friend, and as he began to elaborate on his answer, it was your turn to look at him intently.

“What I like about her is,” Jay spoke in the middle of his answer. He then paused as if he was searching for the right word to use, but you were feeling sleepy and goofy, so you interrupted him.

“Her smile?” You asked in a teasing tone before you started laughing.

Jay became flustered and quickly waved both his hands to deny your guess. “No, not that!”

He then joined you laughing, and you had to apologize for stretching the time limit he had. You then asked him to continue and wrap up, and after that you immediately gave feedback. However, when you were speaking you got tongue-tied a lot, and you kept saying the wrong words or taking too long to find one.

“Noona, if you’re really tired, we can end the class early, I don’t mind,” Jay said calmly, looking at you with concern but also smiling like he somehow found you adorable.

“No!” You said with an unreasonable tone of refusal. Jay flinched in his seat from how loud you spoke. “No, you already came late, so I’m not cutting this meeting even shorter.”

“Alright,” Jay chuckled to himself. He looked to the ground and saw that you had your shoes off.

Eventually, you gave him constructive feedback and even managed to pull up the previous essay he had written and gave him pointers on the spot. When it was time to wrap up, Jay cleared his throat before proposing an idea.

“Noona,” he began, “can we have the next meeting at my place?”

“Sure,” you replied without hesitation. “What’s the name of the café this time?”

Jay smiled and shook his head. “I meant my place, as in, my house.”

“Oh?” You paused and let your hand hover over your book, trying to formulate a response. “Uhm, I have never—”

“If you feel uncomfortable, it’s fine. We can go to another place. You can choose!” Jay quickly revised his statement, worried that he made the wrong decision of even voicing his idea.

“Well, where do you live?” You asked, genuinely curious.

“Not walking distance from campus,” Jay said with a smile. “But again, I’ll drive you there and back. I live alone, it’s my parents' house, but they’re currently living in another city to take care of their business, so they left the house to me. And we won’t be alone, I’ve got some workers who are doing renovations, so…”

You realized how flustered he became, and by now you already know that Jay tends to say a lot of words when he was nervous, so to save him from further embarrassment, you nodded. His eyes lit up when he finally got an answer from you.

“I’ll text you when you can pick me up,” you said. “Don’t be late.”

Jay licked his lips before grinning widely. “I won’t.”

---

You were lounging on a huge sofa, a couple of pillows under your head and between your legs, and you winced as you heard the sound of ongoing construction outside the house. You glanced over to Jay, who had his eyebrows knitted and his rimless bluelight filter glasses perched on his nose, studiously reading the questions on his laptop screen. The noise-canceling headphones you brought proved to be useful, as he seemed to stay focused really well, and you wondered why he did not own a pair.

After introducing the idea of taking mock tests online and reviewing them right away, you ended up staying for longer hours whenever your meetings were held at Jay’s place, and when you first came there, one of the workers mistook you for Jay’s girlfriend. You then began to wonder if he had brought home other girls as well.

“Noona,” Jay called for you, breaking your chain of thoughts. “There’s no way I can answer this one correctly.”

Jay pulled his headphones down and gestured for you to sit next to him, so you did, and he pushed his laptop to your side so you can see its screen better. He was complaining about the true-false-not given questions, and he was getting frustrated because he could not tell the difference between false and not-given.

As you began to explain, Jay pulled the laptop closer to his side again, and you wanted him to read but also listen at the same time, so instead of pulling it closer to you, you moved closer to him. You ended up sitting closer to the coffee table and closer to the screen, with Jay sitting right behind you.

“So, if you see this passage here, the third paragraph,” you said, pointing at the screen. You did not hear a reply. “Jay?”

“Sorry,” Jay quickly replied, shaking his head. “Sorry, I zoned out. You smell so good.”

You were not going to let Jay see you blush, so you merely chuckled and cleared your throat. “Okay, moving on.”

You continued explaining, and Jay kept responding to you with one-word answers or mere hums, and you thought as long as he was paying attention, you did not need to check on him.

Little did you know that as you were speaking, his eyes were scanning your whole body. He leaned in ever so slightly to take in your scent better, and he noticed how sheer the button-down you were wearing was. He could barely see the outline of your light blue bra strap, and as you adjusted your position, he realized he was leaning in too close, so he quickly backed away before he got caught.

“Do you get it now?” You asked, looking back at him.

Jay was leaning against the sofa, a fair distance from you, but his eyes were focused on your lips, and that was a hard thing not to notice. To be frank, you were fighting yourself and trying to regulate your heartbeat whenever it beat faster when he came a little too close to you, and now you were beginning to think that the feeling might be mutual.

“Jay?” You asked. You then waved your hand in front of his face. “You seem out of it—”

You could not finish your sentence as you were in shock from the way his hand grabbed your wrist. You froze instantly, and your heart was beating even faster than when he was up close.

“Sorry,” Jay said, clearing his throat. He lowered your hand and let go of your wrist. “Sorry about that.”

“We can end the session now if you don’t feel well—”

“Noona,” he interrupted, “don’t end it now.”

“Okay,” you replied as you shifted in your seat and turned to face him. “How can I help you understand this better?”

Jay licked his lips and looked at the screen before looking at you, and within a short moment, he was flipping coins in his head, trying to imagine the different possible outcomes that would happen if he suggested what he was thinking the whole time.

“If I get the answer right,” he began, “would you show me your boobs?”

The question came out of nowhere and your immediate response was to laugh out loud, but once you looked at his face you realized he was dead serious, and since he asked politely you decided to entertain the idea.

“Alright, why not? Nothing to lose here,” you replied, confident that he would get the answer wrong. It was one of the types of questions that you hated the most because of how tricky it was, so you were convinced that even he would not get it right.

You were glad that you were wrong, for the first time in your life.

“I got it right, didn’t I?” Jay asked minutes later as you leaned closer to look at the screen, scanning the answer key and looking at Jay’s answer.

“Goddamnit,” you muttered, mindlessly clicking the mouse all over the screen.

You heard Jay whisper a ‘yes’ triumphantly and you sighed to yourself before turning around to face him. You began pulling your button-down up from the tuck in your pants, and Jay’s eyes immediately widened.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He shouted, reaching his hands out to stop you. “What are you doing?”

“Flashing you?” You asked back, fingers frozen at the edges of your shirt.

Jay chuckled and fell back leaning his head on the sofa, taking his glasses off and covering his eyes with his forearm. “Noona, I was just joking.”

You felt disappointed, for some reason, and a little bit humiliated. Was he really just using you to feel motivated? And did that actually work? Were you secretly hoping for him to get the answer right?

“Really?” You asked again for confirmation. Jay nodded.

You paused for a second and then smiled. Jay thought you were going to say, ‘Good one’, but then you began scooting closer to him, and he immediately tensed up.

“So, when I sat down in front of you, and you got distracted, that was part of the act?” You asked, almost batting your eyelashes at him.

You could basically hear him gulp. “Yes,” he said, eyes on yours.

“You said I smelled good, was that just a joke too?”

“No,” Jay answered, chuckling this time. “You really do smell good.”

You reached a spot close enough to hear his thoughts, your breasts just inches apart from his chest.

“I really hope you’re not lying,” you whispered, your lips almost grazing his.

Jay let out a soft grunt before he pulled you by your wrist, and you yelped as he somehow managed to maneuver you to sit on his lap. You then kissed him first, pushing him back and letting his head rest on the seat cushion. Both his hands began riding up your thigh as you mercilessly dominated the kiss, quickly tangling your fingers in his gorgeous hair.

His hands moved to your ass to give it a squeeze and you moaned into his mouth, your body shaking and quickly succumbing to his touch. You began grinding on him, barely feeling his bulge, but as he began to dominate the kiss you heard feet shuffling right out the terrace.

“Jay?”

You jumped out of his lap at the sound and immediately made your way to the open kitchen, pretending to busy yourself. Jay cleared his throat and wiped away his saliva, or maybe yours, from his mouth. He stood up and walked over to one of the construction workers who called him, and you tried to observe them quietly as he spoke to him. He held himself with so much composure, almost like he did not even get caught making out with his tutor.

The worker then nodded, and Jay waved slightly at him, and you assumed that the man just gave Jay an update before excusing themselves for the day. You took a deep breath and held the empty glass you took in one hand while massaging your temple. You saw Jay making his way towards you with an apologetic smile on his face.

“Sorry again,” Jay said, standing on the opposite side of the counter. “I actually… don’t have anything else to say.”

You chuckled and looked down to avoid eye contact because you were sure that one more look from him would make you combust.

“Are you okay?” Jay asked, voice full of concern.

“I am, why?” You replied, confused.

Jay shook his head, unsure. “I just did not want to come off as a… I just hope you know that I’m not taking advantage of you, and I really don’t want you to feel—”

You began laughing softly and Jay had to stop speaking.

“Noona?”

“It’s fine,” you said as you began walking to him. You fixed a strand of his hair that was out of place from how much you were ruffling his hair earlier. “I’m okay.”

Jay kept his eyes on you, and you detected a different emotion. Before, you saw that it was lust, but now his eyes seemed hopeful.

“If you’re really okay with it,” Jay spoke, placing a hand behind his neck, “do you think it would be cool if we make it, like, a regular thing?”

“Elaborate, please.”

Jay chuckled softly. “I meant like, I think I could get motivated a lot if there was a reward waiting if I get a question right. Or if I reach a certain score in a mock test, don’t you think?”

You liked the idea very much that there was literally no reason to refuse. “I actually agree.”

“You do?” Jay started smiling widely. “Okay, cool, so the next meeting—”

“You’ll have to pick me up again after my class,” you interrupted, “and we’ll probably need some snacks here.”

Jay nodded firmly as if he had just negotiated a great deal. “Wait, Noona, you don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

You shook your head. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Of course not,” Jay scoffed. “I just didn’t want to get in between of anything.”

You pouted and nodded, understanding. “Well, you’d probably be getting in between something.”

Jay tilted his head in confusion, and you brought your hand to your thigh, patting it. Jay closed his eyes and sighed. You giggled at his reaction.

“This session is over. You need to drive me back,” you demanded, placing the glass you were holding the whole time back on the counter.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Jay muttered before winking at you and turning around to go grab his car keys. You rolled your eyes before following him.

---

To say that you could not wait for your next session with Jay would be an understatement. You were literally counting the days, down to the minute, and you were checking your phone a ridiculous number of times just so you could respond to his chats in an instant. When he picked you up and you saw him getting out of the car to open the door for you, your heart was beating like a drum.

It was understandable, and pretty logical, actually. You had not been intimate with anyone in a long time, and Jay was, quite frankly, fucking hot. It did not help that he was intelligent as well, which was definitely your type. Your heart was racing, and your mind was imagining a thousand different scenarios that you did not even realize that you had arrived at Jay’s place.

You quickly noticed the absence of noise when you stepped out of the car. Jay walked up to the door and looked back at you, noticing how you were also silent.

“It’s a day off for the workers, today,” Jay explained, “it’s just you and me.”

“Thank God,” you muttered.

Jay chuckled. “What?”

“Did I just say that out loud?” You asked back in shock.

Jay laughed, genuinely finding you amusing. “You said it under your breath, but I heard it.”

“How embarrassing,” you said to yourself as you entered the house after him.

“On the contrary,” Jay responded, “I find it adorable.”

For this session, you decided to stay as farther away from Jay as possible, to let him focus and also to clear your mind. He was doing a mock test on his laptop after he received major feedback on his homework essay, and you took the time to wander around his kitchen and check his supplies.

“I can hear you opening the cabinets,” Jay spoke in a louder tone, all the way from the living room.

“Don’t mind me,” you shouted back. “Just focus if you want to get a good score.”

“What was the reward again?” Jay asked, smiling to himself as he scanned the question on his screen.

“A make out session if you reach 7,” you reminded him despite knowing full well that he just wanted you to recite it back to him. “And if you reach 8, I’ll give you a blowjob.”

“Fuck,” Jay muttered to himself.

You were unsure if it was because the thought made him unable to focus, or if he was actually struggling to answer the questions. After a few more minutes, he finally finished his Reading mock test, and you walked over to check his score.

“Noona, I present to you,” Jay began speaking, proudly, “a 7.5.”

Your eyebrows knitted as you observed the screen and scanned the page, checking Jay’s answers and matching them with the answer key. Meanwhile, Jay was leaning back and stretching his arms up, cracking his neck and basically doing preparations as if he was about to run a marathon.

“Good job,” you said, pushing the laptop towards the center of the table. You then turned around only to find him sitting comfortably on the sofa, arms to his side and his lap looking so inviting.

“Can I get my reward now?” He asked, eyes glowing and expecting.

“I’ll count it as a 7, since we never agreed on anything if you get a .5 score,” you said, taking the scrunchie from your wrist and tying your hair up in a messy bun.

“I’ll take anything,” Jay whispered, his arms welcoming you as you carefully straddled him.

You paused to place your hands on the sides of his face, and you bit your lower lip slightly before you leaned into him. His lips greeted yours warmly, and you could not help but sigh into his mouth once you felt his heat envelop you. Jay roamed his hands around your waist, up to your back, and lingering on your shoulders for a moment, pushing you even closer to him.

“Fuck,” he muttered into your lips. “You taste so good, Noona.”

You smiled and kissed him even harder, hoping it would translate into gratitude. You felt his fingers going under your shirt, grazing your skin and you shivered at his touch. He continued kissing you, licking your lips, tugging on your tongue, teeth slightly clashing with yours when the two of you got way too passionate. His fingers tugged your bra and he pulled away only to ask you a question.

“Can I?” He spoke, voice raspy from the lack of air. You wanted it just as much as him, so you nodded quietly.

He unhooked your bra with one hand and immediately moved his hand to the front, squeezing your tits as he continued to devour your lips. You began moaning helplessly, and you could feel him growing hard against your core.

“Jay,” you whined, “your reward is just a make out session.”

“I know,” he whispered. “I know, but doesn’t this feel so good?”

You felt him pinch your hard nipple slightly and you flinched before giggling, hiding your blushing face in the crook of his neck. You realized that he had a birthmark there, so you began kissing it, then licking it, then sucking on it, and only then did Jay let out a moan that sounded new to you.

“Noona,” he said, breathless. “We need to establish clearer rules and rewards.”

You kissed him all the way up to his jawline before meeting his lips again. “What do you mean?” You spoke against his lips.

“How about,” Jay said, pausing to groan since he felt his hard-on getting too restricted against his jeans. “For 7.5, I get to finger you?”

You pulled away from him to look him in the eyes and chuckled. “That sounds like more of a reward for me than it is for you.”

“But I really want it,” Jay confessed. “Please let me finger you.”

“Now?” You asked, placing your hands on his shoulders.

Jay nodded. “Aren’t you wet yet?”

He took the liberty to slide his hand under your pants, which happened to be elastic, thank God, and placed two fingers right along your slit. You elicited a whimper, and Jay could swear that you even shuddered at the sudden contact.

“You are,” Jay announced boldly. “Would you let me?”

His palm was right on your core anyway, and you thought that it would be stupid of you to refuse since he was already making you feel so good. Besides, his argument made sense.

“Okay,” you answered breathlessly, and within a second Jay was pulling your pants down to the floor.

“Seamless,” he commented as he eyed your panties. “Why am I not surprised?”

You shook your head and chuckled. “Why? Do you prefer a lacey thong?”

Jay stroked the inside of your thighs gently as he guided you by your waist to sit back down on the sofa, letting him hover his body over you.

“I would actually prefer nothing,” Jay whispered before closing the gap between your lips.

You felt his tongue enter your mouth and his fingers slipping inside of you almost at the same time, and the immense pleasure made you arch your back. His two fingers curled up inside you, making a ‘come hither’ motion that somehow felt gentle and harsh at the same time. He was moving his fingers at a slow pace, but the pressure he put on made you see stars.

“Oh my God,” you breathed, reaching for Jay’s arms to hold on to. “Jay…”

He loved the way you moaned his name, so he curled his fingers one more time and you whimpered, feeling your legs beginning to shake.

“Fuck,” you muttered again, tilting your head to the side, and letting Jay leave love bites along your neck. “Fuck, Jay, I’m gonna cum.”

“Please do,” he whispered into your ear, maintaining his pace the moment you told him so.

When you finally reached your high, your legs were shaking, and your body was spasming, and Jay had to wipe the sweat that formed on your forehead, tucking your hair behind your ear at the same time. His hand was drenched, and you could feel your cum trickling down onto the sofa.

“Oh my God, sorry,” you said in an instant.

Jay shook his head. “Don’t be,” he said calmly, waiting for you to catch your breath before he deemed it was time to pull his fingers out of you. When he did, you watched as he stared at them, two fingers glistening with your essence. He brought his hand up to his mouth and took a sniff before tasting it. The sight made you roll your eyes back.

“It’s unfair,” Jay began, “the way you taste as good as you smell.”

“God,” you said to yourself, and Jay laughed lowly, proud of how he was able to render you speechless. “What about you now?”

Jay tilted his head and then looked down at the obvious tent in his pants. “Oh, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it later.”

“In that case,” you said, pushing his chest slightly so he could move away from you. You tugged down your panties that had stayed on the whole time, and when you took them off your ankles you handed them to Jay.

“For later.”

You smiled as he took your panties in his hand, and you cackled the moment he took a sniff dramatically.

“Thanks, Noona,” Jay said, leaning in to leave a quick peck on your cheek. “Time to drive you back now.”

---

The next couple of meetings were spent in the same manner, more or less. Jay would try his best to get a score as high as he could, but he would never go over 7.5, so all you did was make out with him in his living room, in his bedroom, or even in his car on the ride back to campus. He took it like a champ, though, and he never insisted on taking things further than what you had previously agreed on.

You had one meeting left with him before his scheduled test, and you were dreading the day. Usually, you would be looking forward to meeting him, but all things come to an end, even private lessons, so you halfheartedly dolled yourself up in front of the mirror in your faculty’s restrooms, still determined to look your best for your favorite student.

The car ride to his house was spent in comfortable silence, and you did not mind the way his hand reached for your thigh, resting it there as he rubbed his thumb along your skin. You were wearing a short skirt for a change, and you loved the way it had caught his attention in an instant. Once you arrived, Jay took you by your hand and led you straight to his bedroom for privacy, since the workers were currently at his house.

“Noona,” he called for you before starting the mock test on his computer. You were halfway making yourself comfortable on his bed. “Can you sit with me while I do this?”

“Where?” You walked towards him.

He spun his chair towards you and patted his lap. “Here.”

You chuckled. “Why?”

“It’s our last meeting and I want to be close to you.”

You were underestimating the effects of his words and you felt like your stomach did a flip. You never shied away from his advances, though, so doing it now would be weird. And you did not want it to backfire and end up demotivating him.

“Okay,” you said, turning around before you carefully sat on his lap. You had to adjust your position several times to make sure he was comfortable, and he wrapped an arm around your waist and rested his head on your shoulder as he began the test.

“You can answer in your mind if you want,” Jay said, tilting his chin towards the screen.

You answered by reaching your hand back to stroke his hair, and he hummed in delight as he began answering the test. Eventually, you leaned your back towards his chest and sat comfortably, almost falling asleep from his warmth. You eyed the screen and noticed that he was about to answer a question wrong, so you placed your hand over his and moved the mouse to the right option.

“Isn’t this cheating?” He asked, genuinely unsure.

“I’m giving you a pass, Jay,” you answered calmly, patting his cheek.

After a while, he finished his mock test, and you saw the results come up as soon as he clicked next.

“You did it,” you said, staring at the screen. “That’s an 8.”

You noticed that Jay was silent for too long, and then you realized you had sat on his lap for too long, so you quickly stood up and stretched your legs, smoothing your skirt down.

“Are you ready for your reward?” You asked, eyes full of anticipation.

Jay licked his lips and shook his head. You immediately frowned.

“I feel like if you hadn’t corrected that one question, I would still get a 7.5,” Jay confessed. “It’s okay, I’ll skip the reward.”

“What?” You said, almost spitting your words out. You did not know why his refusal got you so worked up.

“Noona,” he began, reaching for your hands as he stood up from his seat. “I appreciate what you’ve been doing for me, but I also don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

You continued to frown, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I’ve loved the sessions we had, and I’m really thankful for all the rewards, but I need you to know that my goal remains the same, and it’s to get the highest score possible. The test is in a week, and I need to remain focused.”

He really did it, you thought. He used you to his advantage until he didn’t need you anymore.

But you knew that, deep inside. You knew that this way of giving him motivation would be dangerous, more for you than for him. You knew that Jay is a professional and that he takes his studies seriously, so you knew that catching feelings would be out of the picture for him.

Sadly, you forgot to set the boundaries for yourself.

You really thought that you could keep it casual, and you really thought that you were not going to start having feelings for him since it had been ages anyway since you had loved someone, so why does his professionalism hurt you? When in fact, you should be thankful that he respected you?

Your mind was running a mile a minute thinking of possible scenarios, and his face was becoming concerned. Eventually, you managed to fake a smile and you nodded before you said your response.

“As expected,” you began, “from the top student in class.”

Jay blinked, not expecting you to remember the one fun fact that Heeseung had told you about him.

“Your essays have improved so much since the first meeting. Your speaking is fine, just remember not to use fillers too much. You have no problem with the listening section, and for reading, I suggest you keep practicing during the few days before the test.”

Now, Jay was the one with a frown on his face. He was wondering why you were acting so formally again.

“I’ll text you good luck before the test, and when the results are out, tell me your score,” you continued.

“If I get over 7.5—”

“I’ll treat you to lunch.”

Jay scrunched his nose. “Pardon?”

“I’ll treat you to a nice lunch, okay? My pick this time,” you said with a smile so convincing that it was hard for him not to smile back.

“Okay,” Jay smiled back at you, trying to hide the tone of disappointment in his voice.

---

Days had passed by since Jay took his test, and even since the results of it came out. You held back from texting him first since he never responded to your good luck text on the day of his test. You then swallowed the bitter fact that, maybe, or most likely, Jay really was using you and your dumb self had consented to it.

But it could not be, you convinced yourself. He was a gentleman. Would he really do that?

You gave up trying to find answers that might make you feel better, so you decided to busy yourself with other freelance work that came your way. You felt bad turning down the other students that Heeseung had referred you to, and you had to come up with lame excuses like you had no time or you had way too much on your plate.

The real reason was that everything about the test prep now reminds you of Jay, and you would not want to take out your anger and disappointment on your new student. You thought it was best to stop tutoring for a while until you had completely moved on.

One of the latest gigs that got you a little too excited was speaking for a panel discussion in a workshop that was related to your teaching experience on campus. Previously, you attended these events as a participant, sitting in the audience and actively taking notes and recording the speakers, but now you get to see it from the other side of the stage, and you could not help but feel proud of yourself.

You dressed your best to impress, for once not dressing for yourself but for the audience, and when you sat in between the other speakers on stage you became so engrossed that you almost did not realize the familiar figure sitting on the front row but at the farthest chair from the stage.

Jay noticed you looking at him, so he threw you a soft smile and a tiny wave with his hand. You smiled and quickly turned towards the host who had called out your name to address a question. You answered the question and looked at the other speakers on your side, and you were glad that they were nodding along to your response, signaling that you had indeed answered the question correctly.

Surprisingly, it was not hard to stay focused on the rest of the discussion. Jay sat pretty far from your sight, so all you had to do was look anywhere except in his direction. You did look at him one more time, though, and you caught him looking at the huge screen that was focusing on your face as you were speaking. You almost sighed in relief a little too loudly when the session ended, and you gathered your belongings as well as your thoughts as the other people swarmed towards the outside of the hall.

You could feel someone approaching you from behind, and when you turned around Jay was looking at you with a soft gaze in his eyes.

“Noona,” he said.

“Hey, Jay,” you greeted him back.

“Listen, can I speak to you somewhere else private?” He asked before looking around and spotting several people still lingering inside the hall.

“This seems private enough,” you said as you looked around too. “I barely know anyone here.”

Jay became visibly uncomfortable, and you instantly felt bad.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I can drive you home and we can talk on the way, or—”

“Or, you can come up with me to my room,” you suggested.

Jay’s mouth was slightly open as he tried to process your words.

“I am staying here for the weekend. You don’t have to drive me anywhere,” you said with a smile, turning around to grab your bag. Your heart was beating a little too fast to your liking.

Jay tailed you and kept silent as you both waited for the elevator to open. Once it did, you entered and he followed behind you, waiting until the doors closed before he finally began to speak.

“I got an 8.5,” Jay said, looking down at the floor.

Your eyes widened. “Jay, that’s amazing!”

“I’m sorry,” he then said.

You were confused. “What?”

The elevator dinged and two people came inside. You decided to wait until you reached your floor to continue the conversation.

“I’ll explain once we’re inside, I promise,” Jay said as he matched your pace, walking beside you until you reach your door.

His face instantly switched from worried to wonder when he realized that you were walking all the way to the end of the hall.

“The event gave you a suite?” Jay asked, pure curiosity getting the best of him.

You could not help but chuckle. “No, I upgraded myself. Come in.”

As soon as you closed the door, you felt Jay pull your hand before he quickly trapped you between his body and the wall. You did not even have the time to be surprised because the next thing you knew his lips were latched onto yours, and your body betrayed you by reciprocating him and pulling him closer to you.

Jay quickly pulled away when he felt your fingers hooked on his belt. You licked your lips and let your eyes search for his.

“I’m sorry, I owe you an explanation,” Jay said, rubbing his hand on your waist. “I shouldn’t have lunged at you like this.”

You cleared your throat and fixed your hair, gently pushing him away from you before you made your way to the loveseat in the center of the room.

“Have a seat,” you replied, sitting on the sofa yourself and bringing your legs up to your chest.

Jay sat down and took his bag off, letting it fall to the floor as he let out a huge sigh.

“I don’t know where to start,” he confessed.

“Take your time,” you responded, stretching your arm and leaning your head on it. “Maybe start with why you didn’t reply to my texts?”

“I lost my phone,” Jay began. “Literally the night before the test. I had no time to get a new one, and I didn’t want to get distracted, so I just went on and took the test. Right after, though, my professor… that jackass…”

Your eyes widened at Jay’s frustrated insult, and you had to hold back a smile.

“It was just class after class, task after task, I really did not have the time or mental capacity to get back to you, and I don’t want you to think that I consider you as less of a priority, because I don’t, and I really tried to ask Heeseung for your number again, but it’s… you know what? These are excuses. I don’t want to give you excuses.”

You frowned but at the same time, an amused smile was slowly creeping up your face.

“I should have contacted you the minute I could, but I didn’t, and I let other stuff take up my time. That’s my mistake. I’m sorry.”

“Alright, apology accepted,” you said, tapping your fingers on the sofa.

Jay looked at you in confusion. “Really? That easy?”

You clicked your tongue and tilted your head. “That still does not explain why you kissed me a second ago, though.”

“Right,” Jay continued. He took a deep breath before he spoke again. “Right.”

You chuckled lightly and adjusted your position. “Why are you so nervous?”

“Because you’re so fucking gorgeous, and I have feelings for you but I’m not sure you have the same.”

You held a hand over your mouth in shock. “Jay,” you mumbled.

“You understood me wrongly,” he continued. “The day of our last meeting when I said I needed to remain focused. I was trying to confess to you.”

Your eyes were looking into his and you nodded once, telling him to continue.

“I really did not want you to think that I was taking advantage of you. I just grew to like you a lot, and you can’t even imagine how fucking relieved I was when you agreed to my proposal of rewards. Every single time I spent with you only deepened my feelings even more, and I…”

Jay paused to look at you, and you straightened your position.

“I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Rambling when I’m nervous?” Jay said, almost stuttering towards the end of his sentence.

You smiled to yourself before you pushed your body up. You made your way to his side and sat close beside him, touching your thigh with his.

“Well, let me tell you that I’m fucking relieved that you’re here to straighten things out,” you stated, resting a hand on his thigh. “Because guess what?”

You ended your question by inching your face closer to his.

“What?” He muttered under his breath.

“I have feelings for you, too.”

Jay sighed out of relief and smiled before he leaned in to kiss you, and as his hands found their place on your waist, you moved to straddle him. You were both in a familiar position, taking you back to the hours you would spend at his house, making out with him as a reward.

“Noona,” he spoke against your lips in between kisses. “When I said if I get more than 7.5, I was going to say I wanted to eat you out.”

You broke down laughing against his lips and you had to move your face to his neck so he wouldn’t choke on your breaths.

“You just had to interrupt me and say that you were going to treat me to lunch,” Jay continued before bringing your face back up and devouring your lips again. “You kind of owe me.”

You hummed against his lips and guided his hands to go underneath your shirt. He unhooked your bra with ease before moving his hands to cup both your breasts.

“God,” you muttered, grinding your hips harder against his crotch.

“Noona,” Jay breathed, moving his hand to unbutton your shirt. “Can’t you moan my name instead?”

“Oh, Jay,” you whispered, chuckling when you see him smile as your hands cupped his face. “You sweet little thing.”

Jay had managed to take both your bra and your shirt off in an instant, and you brought his head closer to your breasts so he could fondle them with his mouth. You moaned louder as he nibbled on your nipple, grinding faster against his hips and placing your hands firmly on his head.

“Why don’t I treat you to lunch now?” You proposed, tugging his hair and making him look up at you.

Jay nodded and you moved away from his lap, standing up and bringing him to his feet too. You started unbuttoning his shirt as you walked backwards, leading him towards the bed. He placed his hands firmly on your waist, letting you do your thing. Once the back of your legs hit the bed, you sat down and took off your panties and trousers in one go. Jay immediately kneeled in front of you.

“I still have your panties, Noona,” he said as you rested your legs comfortably on his shoulder.

“What do you do with it?” You asked, challenging him.

“I touch myself with it and imagine doing this to you.”

His lips brushed against your folds without warning, and you immediately fell back to the bed, lying down. He kissed your clit before running his tongue along your slit, and the warmth and wetness of his mouth drove you crazy. You began pulling on his hair, determined to get him even closer, and he reacted by hooking his arm around your thighs, humming as he lapped up your arousal.

“Jay,” you whimpered. “You’re doing so good.”

He began making loud wet noises deliberately, knowing how it would make you moan louder, and when you were squirming under his touch he inserted a finger, all the while toying with your clit using his tongue.

“Fuck!” You hissed, arching your back and lifting your ass from the bed. “Don’t stop, Jay, please.”

You pressed the ball of your foot against Jay’s back as he continued to eat you out, taking you to your first high of the night and cumming against his mouth. You were breathing loudly, panting so much like the air was sucked out of you. Jay squeezed your thigh before unlatching his lips, then he gently caressed your folds with his fingers, collecting the remains of your cum before licking them dry.

“Come here,” you begged, your hands reaching out for nothing until he moved and placed himself between your legs.

Jay leaned down and began kissing your jaw, and you took the liberty of unbuckling his belt and tugging his pants down as he devoured your neck. You felt the bulge underneath his boxers and almost froze at the contact.

“What’s wrong?” Jay asked, noticing how you stopped moving for a split second.

“You’re…” You tried your best to look down at his crotch. “You’re fucking huge.”

Jay was the one with a breathy chuckle now, amused at your reaction.

“That’s because it’s hard, and that’s because of you, Noona.”

“Fuck me, then,” you replied, bringing one hand to squeeze his biceps. “Literally, please.”

“Wait, let me just…”

Jay moved away from you to reach inside the pockets of his pants before kicking it off then he pulled his boxers off completely, and only then you realized he was holding a condom.

“That condom was in your pocket this whole time?” You asked in disbelief. “Were you expecting this to happen?”

“Noona,” Jay looked at you with a smirk. “You know how driven I am.”

“Oh my God,” you retorted, chuckling and covering your eyes with your arm. “Can’t believe I fell for it.”

Jay unwrapped the condom and slid it down his length with ease.

“Staying safe, are we?” You asked with a smile as you welcomed him back into your embrace.

“Well, I’m a med student, so…”

“Okay, enough, let’s just fuck.”

Jay kissed your face a couple more times until it got annoying because he was clearly stalling. You grabbed his face and he chuckled, biting his lower lip.

“You’re really pretty,” he confessed all of a sudden.

“And you’re hot as fuck, so can you just fuck me please?”

Jay nodded and kissed you with a smile, aligning his tip with your slit. “Take a deep breath,” he whispered.

You did as he said, and you were glad you did. Jay filled you up and once again you had underestimated your own predictions. Back when you were still just making out and straddling him, you only had a faint idea of his size, and he was wearing loose pants all the time, so it was not like you were able to tell easily. Your breath became shaky as you felt him bottom out, and he brought his hand up to caress your face.

“Tell me if it’s okay to move,” he whispered ever so gently before kissing your nose.

You opened your eyes and found him staring at you. You were breathing from your mouth, so he tilted his head to kiss your cheek softly. After that, you reached your hands under his arms, latched them on his shoulders, and then you nodded.

He pulled out of you and thrusted back in gently, and the force already had you gasping for air. Once he found a steady rhythm, you began matching his pace, thrusting your hips upwards and meeting him halfway. It was impossible to hold back your moans, and if you weren’t moaning you were whimpering, or breathing his name with every stroke he made.

“I’m close, Noona,” he spoke against your lips.

You nodded and ran your fingers through his hair. “Me too.”

Jay began increasing his pace, thrusting into you with a little more force. He looked down and placed a hand under your thigh, keeping your leg secure beside him. He then looked up at you to check if you were still okay. You licked your lips and pulled him into a kiss. His thrusts soon began to grow sloppy, and after he finally released his seed, your walls clenched around his shaft, letting him know that you had reached your high too.

You slowly try to catch your breath, and Jay kissed you once more before pulling out of you, careful not to make a mess. He took the condom off and tied it before quickly chucking it in the bin, and he made himself comfortable lying beside you. Your hand was looking a little lonely, so he took it and intertwined his fingers with yours.

The two of you sat in silence as both your chests heaved up and down. You turned your head to look at Jay and he was closing his eyes as if he was savoring the moment. You scooted closer to him, taking your hand away but letting him wrap you in his arms.

“So, what are we?” You asked in the most straightforward manner.

Jay’s heavy breaths turned into a chuckle, and soon after you were both just laughing like idiots madly in love.

-END-

© forjongseong 2023, all rights reserved

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!!! do NOT copy, translate, or repost any of my work to your blog or ANY other platform.

[wannabe-cartoonist-blog]

I do like that Momoi and Akashi have this mutual respect thing going on in which they address each other properly (“Akashi-kun”/“Momoi-san”), but then again I also love the idea of them being overly familiar with eachother like they are with the other GoM.

What Akashi would potentially call Momoi is easy enough to guess (if “Momoi-san” is off the table, it’d be “Satsuki(-san)” in my mind, as Akashi’s patterns of address are pretty easy to nail down. But Momoi nicknames people in a random pattern, and no two nicknames are the same. So I’ve always struggled with what she’d use for Akashi, especially since I don’t understand how nicknaming works in Japan. From my limited understand on diminutives, a lot of them 1 of 2 ways; either formed by shortening someone’s name and adding a cutesy honorific (one meant for children), or by combining sounds that “sound good”.

Personally, I think she’d use some variant on his family name, as the only ones she uses a nickname based on their given names for are Aomine and Kuroko (“Dai-chan” and “Tetsu-kun”) which makes sense seeing as one is her childhood friend and the other her crush. (She also uses “Shogo-kun” for Haizaki, which I always found interesting. This could be her perhaps matching Hazaki’s disrespectful attitude (in which he uses everyone’s given names without permission to show he thinks of them as beneath him (Aomine, Kise, Kuroko) by acting overly familiar/referring to him like she would a child or it could be completely harmless and perhaps they have some sort of history (like they were in the same class when they were much younger, in which it’s common for young children to use given names more freely etc)).

So, what do you think Momoi would nickname Akashi? For reference, here are her nicknames for everyone else;

Aomine - Dai-chan (based on given name “Daiki”; -chan is used for young children or girls you’re close with, in Aomine’s case, he and Momoi grew up together, so her using a shortened form of his given name + -chan for him makes sense)

Kuroko - Tetsu-kun (based on given name “Tetsuya”; -kun is a more respectful honorific used for boys; using your partner’s given name/a shortened form of it + -kun is also a way a girlfriend would refer to her boyfriend).

Kise - Ki-chan (shortened form of family name; -chan is a cutesy/girly honorific, usually used for young boys)

Midorima - Midorin (cutesy, based on family name, this is a case where the name is shortened/added to for it to “sound good”)

Murasakibara - Mukkun/Muk-kun (I personally prefer to omit the hyphen for this one when typing it out but I don’t think it matters) (shortened family name, -kun is a proper honorific for boys)

Kagami - Kagamin (cutesy, based on family name; another case where you added on to the name to make it “sound good” in Japanese)

[youling-the-ghost]

Now that we have some more canon ao3 tags, here's a revised ao3 tagging guide from tumblr user youling-the-ghost (or insertkoolnamehere on ao3)!

(quick note: this one is going to focus on things specific to the sfth fandom so it's not going to touch up on the general stuff like warnings and rating, but feel free to check out this post for a more general guide :])

(another quick note: all of the tagging conventions that I mention here are how canon sfth tags have historically been formatted, but there's always a chance that a new tag has a different way of formatting.)

Fandoms

You're most likely going to need two types of tags: the general Shoot from the Hip - Fandom tag and the longforms/sketches (if applicable).

If you need to tag a longform, you should format it like this:

[longform name] - Shoot From The Hip Sketch (e.g. The Unrelenting Aubergine - Shoot From The Hip Sketch)

This is especially relevant if you're the first person to write for a longform (I was the first person to write for Wild Wet & Worrisome, for example).

Here's an example of how I tagged my ditch fic just for reference:

Even though the Shoot From The Hip - Fandom tag redirects to the British Comedy RPF tag, it's still good to tag your fics as such just so there's a tag that encompasses all sfth tags.

Note: We can also try and get a Shoot From The Hip - All Media Types tag going as sort of our own sfth fandom tag, but I'm not certain that the ao3 team would be willing to make it canon. This might be something worth emailing the ao3 team about.

Characters

Character tags are pretty straightforward. Every character should be formatted like this:

[character name] (longform which the character originates from) (e.g. Titch (The Unrelenting Aubergine))

Again, this especially applies if you're the first person to write a fic about a character.

For characters with canon last names, the full name is usually listed without the longform at the end like this:

But there are some exceptions, such as Jemima Steven:

(my guess is that Jemima's surname canonically changes from Steven to Jeffrey so this is just easier)

Relationships

Relationship tags are also pretty straightforward. They should be formatted like this:

character 1 (longform 1)/character 2 (longform 2)

However, here are some things to note:

The characters should be sorted alphabetically (i.e. the character whose name is first alphabetically is listed as the first person in the relationship tag)

If two characters are from the same fandom, the longform only needs to be put in the end. e.g. Derek/Titch (The Unrelenting Aubergine)

/ indicates a romantic relationship while & indicates a platonic relationship. Remember that they're not interchangeable.

There also aren't many existing canon relationship tags in the sfth fandom, so chances are you'll have to write out the whole tag yourself instead of just searching up an existing canon tag.

Tags to Avoid

You shouldn't use these fandom tags because they have weird redirecting issues and could result in your fic being incorrectly tagged:

Shoot from the Hip Universe - it redirects to the D&D campaign

Shoot from the Hip Sketch - it redirects to The Unrelenting Aubergine

Shoot from the Hip fandom (without the hyphen) - it redirects to Beetroots & Murder

Shoot from the Hip Improv - it redirects to Beetroots & Murder

The ao3 team might be able to sort these problems out, but for the time being these tags probably should be off-limits just to avoid mistagging your fics.

Lastly, here is a document that compiles all of the existing canon sfth tags that you can use as a reference. I'll try my best to update it as frequently as I can, but feel free to DM me if I missed any :]

My DM's are always open if you need help with navigating ao3 (it can be difficult I know, I've been there) and I really hope this post helped!!

EDIT: some things have changed since I posted this so here are some more things to note

We have an official sfth tag now! It's "Shoot From The Hip Universe" and it's a freeform tag, NOT a fandom tag, which is very important. This means that the new tagging convention for sfth fics would look something like this:

(plus any longform fandom tags of course)

If you're writing for an unnamed shortform (a named shortform would be like Thirsty Vampires while an unnamed shortform would be like the genre game from HUGE) and are unsure which fandom to tag it as, just don't add any additional fandom tags. Look at the picture above as reference and just add a note to your summary about which shortform the fic is from.

Some canon tags have weird formatting. For example, Nigel/Andre Beetroot is formatted like Andre Beetroot/Nigel (All Eyes On Nigel) even though Andre wasn't in AOEN. It's always best to check beforehand to make sure that a canon tag doesn't already exist before coming up with your own formatting.

[cocommunitymoon]

Oc Spotlight! Aidonea, goddess of the dead and Queen of the Underworld

Using this Ask Game by @cwritesfiction, I wanna get a better feel for my character outside of what I already know about her! So come along for the ride 🥰

😋 Tres Leches Cake: Describe your character in three words.

Refined. Self-assured. Forward-thinking. Hyphenated words count because I said so lol

😋 Fruit Tart: How does your character feel about spring? What’s their favorite and least favorite thing about the season?

😏😏😏😏😏 lol Aidonea is in love with Spring and married him to prove it 😌 I imagine Spring to have always been a slower season for her. It’s a time of optimism, blooming, and thawing. I think she’s always felt on the more positive side of neautral about spring until she met Timothée, now it is synonymous with her husband. More bittersweet because he leaves her then but she’s comforted by the beauty and life he brings

😋 ^^ Summer? Fall? Winter?

I’ll lump Lemonade, Pumpkin Pie, and Gingerbread all together! Summer her workload gets a little spike, heat related deaths and exposure. In general she doesn’t like excessive heat or gaia forbid sweating so summer is her least favorite season easily. Fall is her favorite because not only is it a time of plenty and harvesting (so her work slows a bit again) but that is also the time her husband returns home. Winter, work picks up for the same but opposite reasons as Summer but she at least has her husband to rule over presidings with her. Her workload may increase but her days don’t feel long and grueling.

😋 Chocolate Covered Peanuts: Describe one character who’s sweet and another character who’s salty.

Ooo im taking this as one person she’s sweet to and another she’s salty to. Absolutely she’s sweet to Adonis. She never really has to be the disciplinarian with him so he gets only sweetness from her. They’re adorable together. Salty? Hands down Zeus lol like yeah Demeter too but she at least doesn’t bite her without provocation. Zeus? On sight, on hearing, on sensing, on smell, on touch, Aidonea is attacking him verbally or just giving him the most caustic glare

😋 Ice Cream: How does your character feel about the cold?

Certainly prefers it. It’s where she’s most comfortable

😋 S’mores: Is your character an outdoorsy person? 

As evidenced by her earlier, let’s call them dates, with Timmy, she can be! As long as she isn’t overexerting herself in a hotter climate, she’s pretty outdoorsy

😋 Milkshake: How does your character deal with change? Do they prefer a consistent routine, or do they like to shake things up?

Change is an inevitability and so she deals by mentally preparing. As I said, Aidonea is very forward-thinking. Her life is mostly routine because that is the most efficient way forward. There is a general schedule to her days. But when presented with new input or a stimulus, she’ll analyze the multiple possible outcomes and prepare for it to go any way. She leaves actively shaking things up to her husband. She married the Bringer of Chaos, so she knew nothing would be the same for her again 🤣

😋 Smoothie: What would your character do on a warm day at the beach?

Sit under a large umbrella with someone fanning her with a large leaf lest she suffer heatstroke

😋 Iced Coffee: Describe how your character runs errands. When they have things to do, do they just get up and leave, or do they make a list and a plan?

Babygirl is a PLANNER let me tell you!! She’d be the type to have multiple journals and planners and calendars and to-do list tear away packs and actually use them all. If she’s ever ill-prepared for anything or if anything is spontaneous or done last minute, bet your ass Timmy is why

😋 Donut: Describe your character’s morning routine.  

Rise at what amounts to dusk aboveground. (If Tim doesn’t ahem delay her 😏) Have a bit of breakfast, usually on her way to court. Judge souls for a few hours with one or two recesses before ending for the rising. Eat again (if Timmy doesn’t delay her). Go to her study, retrieve the prayers for the day, and find a spot in Del to sit and answer them. The devote the rest of her rising to her husband and her subjects. Rinse repeat.

😋 Brownie: What would your character do if they suddenly became rich? (Or, if they are rich, describe how they spend their money.)

One of her epithets is Plouton which means the rich one as all of the riches underground are her domain and at her disposal. Aidonea is a benevolent monarch and is hospitable as any ancient greek is expected to be. She is generous and charitable with what she has and only sees her riches as tools or as beautification.

😋 Sugar Cookie: Does your character enjoy decorating their space or do they prefer keeping things plain?

Enjoy might be a stretch but she gets in moods I’d say. It’s more done in service of her subjects, she wants them to have a beautiful place to spend their afterlife. Decoration is much more Timmy’s lane but she’s no slouch

😋 Tiramisu: Describe your character’s layers. How do they appear to others on the outside? What are they like on the inside?

On the outside, it is clear her aura exudes from her and effects people differently. To mortals, it is a conflicting scary finality and welcome, comforting inevitability that death presents. She’s gorgeous and ancient and powerful and she carries herself as such. To those who know her better, you can never forget she is both a queen and a goddess, but you see her rare playfulness, her generous nature is a touch warmer and her smiles are still small but more frequent

😋 Birthday Cake: How does your character celebrate their birthday?

If Aidonea has a birthday, she definitely doesn’t know it 😂 I honestly think Timmy just declares it her birthday whenever he wants to spoil her. She could have up to 6 birthdays a year lol

[sukka-week]

~ Details & Rules ~

The most important rule is to have some Sukka fun! But here's a few guidelines to help us all have a good time

1) First and foremost, to submit a work for Sukka Week, please tag @sukka-week in your post.

You can also use the #sukkaweek and #sukkaweek2023 tags on your post, but the best way for me to see your submission is to @ this blog (and keep in mind that this blog has a hypen; there's another another blog without a hyphen so just watch out for that).

2) Sukka (romantic relationship between Sokka and Suki) should be the primary ship in your work.

Including other ships in your work is totally fine, but they shouldn’t break Sukka.

For the purposes of this event, poly ships that contain Sokka and Suki don’t count as Sukka. Stories where Sokka and/or Suki are in another relationship towards the beginning but Sukka is endgame are okay! However, the work should contain more Sukka than it does the other ship(s).

3) It's okay for the work to focus primarily on Sokka or Suki as independent people, as long as Sukka appears somewhere (and fits the criteria above).

For example, if I wanted to write a fic that's mostly about Suki's character development after the war, and Sokka appears in less than half the story, but they're still a couple and they think about each other/write to each other/visit each other once in a while, then that still fits for this event!

Or, if I wanted to draw a picture of a grown-up Sokka and a grown-up Foo Foo Cuddlypoops charging into battle, and I put Suki's face in the background with big pink heart eyes, that would also fit for this event!

4) Please tag all your content appropriately!

This includes mature or potentially triggering content like NSFW and violence, as well as content like additional ships.

5) Yes, NSFW content is allowed.

Intimate content should be consensual in nature, and please make sure to follow the guidelines of whatever platform is hosting your work.

As an FYI, this blog will use the tag #spicysukkaweek for any NSFW content in case you’d like to block these types of works.

6) Submissions should be previously unpublished.

One of the goals of this events is to inspire people to create brand-spankin’-new Sukka works! If you would like this blog to promote your existing works, I’m happy to do so during the lead-up weeks prior to the actual event week. Feel free to shoot me an ask or DM with a link.

That said, unpublished chapters to pre-existing works are okay! As are works that are cross-posted to simultaneously-occurring events.

7) If possible, it would be helpful to provide descriptions of visual or audio content.

e.g., image descriptions for fanart, edits, gifs, etc. and transcripts for audio content. I will do my best to remember to provide these descriptions when reblogging if they haven’t been included already.

8) Any kind of creative work goes!

We're not limited to fics and digital drawings! Want to create a new Sukka-Wild-West-AU-themed playlist? Please do! (I'd seriously love to hear what that sounds like.) Got inspired to do some Family-themed incorrect quotes? Have at it! Want to do a podfic of an existing Sukka story that gives you Battle Lovers vibes? That would be beautiful! (With the original author's permission, of course.) Don't feel like you have to write seven different 5k-word one-shots to participate in Sukka Week. (I'll try to take my own advice here, too. ;))

Any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out to this blog or Mod Myargalargan (@the-power-of-stuff) via ask or private message.

And let's have some fun!

[mazziegoldobm]

More detailed introduction to: Maz

Her colour would be yellow or pink but I can’t get yellow on mobile and I use pink for seren so she gets orange

Maz is my main MC, drself, and by extension oc for obey me :) I’m going to refer to Maz in first person, since she’s me in another reality, sorry for any confusion!

here’s a little fact file:

FULL NAME: Mazzie-Gold Rees (I claim Gold is my middle name, but I have a hyphenated first name because my parents felt quirky. I hate it.)

COMMONLY USED NICKNAMES: Maz (What I introduce myself as), Mazzie (Technically a nickname because the gold is gone, but everyone thinks it’s just my real name. Har har), my roommate from the human world has half a million nicknames to mock my name, the most common ones being Magazine, Maztronaut, Mazturbate and Rees’ puffs.

AGE: 19 (Im gonna turn 20 two months into my dr once I shift though so I’ll usually refer to myself as 20)

GENDER: Female, I use she/her pronouns mostly but I don’t care if someone uses he or they on me

BIRTHDAY: 13/06/2004

PERSONALITY TYPE: ENFP-T (I retook the test thinking I’d get a different result to normal. Nope. Still ENFP-T, just less extroverted and more everything else LMAO)

HEIGHT: 153cm / 5’02ft (I round it up to 5’2ft because… I can! It’s only 1.8 inches away!)

RACE: White, human (but a human with wings… erm!) (I’m not related to Lilith though, I found a way to script that out but keep the small angelic power)

ETHNICITY: Welsh (I will scrap anyone who says English and avoid saying British unless someone doesn’t know where wales is)

SEXUALITY: Bisexual, aromantic (aromantic is a spectrum! I’m not entirely against or disgusted by the thought of a relationship, I just don’t develop feelings easily at all and struggle in believing love is real so I don’t trust serious relationships. I’ve been in relationships before, I just never really cared for them until mams), possibly asexual (I didn’t change anything about this section from my CR so if this doesn’t make sense I apologise, I’m still figuring myself out)

S/O: Mammon <33

In my DR, I have a loving but distant family. They care for my, but due to an argument I had with them when I was 16, we don’t talk much. They check up on me, but know that I prefer to just do my own thing and trust me to tell them if something is wrong.

My roommate did the application form to RAD for me without telling me cause she thought it was a joke (Daisy, girl, bfr) and I signed the confirmation letter because I didn’t realise it. When I proofed out of existence, my roommate assumed I had either gone on some sudden spiritual journey or something crazy or that the letter was real, because she’s a skeptic and trusts me. So my parents, who quite like her, would ask her rather than me if I was ok when I couldn’t talk to them when I was in the devildom. She vouches for me and says I’m ok and my family just trusts her🤷‍♀️

I have 2 siblings, an older brother (five years older) who I don’t talk to often but get along with and an older sister (three years older) who I was super close with as a kid but she moved out when I was 13 and we haven’t spoken since.

I can’t think of anything else but feel free to send asks!!

[iconoclast-infidels]

Recap & Rename - Nico's "The living are the hope of the dead" Verse or "Raging Sharknado" Verse - Either or. lmao

General info:

Dmitry - Other half of his soul - Ok not just a romantic metaphor because part of his soul has been amputated and surgically injected into his heart. Yo. It's a thing.

Dmitry Kolyavich Churchill-Myasnikov - Yeaaaaaaaah the last name thing. Nico took it hyphenated too. So Nico is really annoying with his 'Merican repeat vocalization attempts at saying his own last name over and over. Niccolo Jeremiah Churchill-Myasnikov. It's probably his number one self soothing technique as he plays with Nick slime, blows bubbles, smoke rings, finger paints on dirty car windows, anything really. It's coming out of his mouth.

Dmitry has also sold his soul to Nico via demonic contract. Usually this by default ends with damning the exchanged soul to Hell after death. Of course there's the caveat that Dmitry doesn't stay dead for long. Nico never mentions to Dmitry the one side-effect this may have on him either considering their unique heart situation mentioned above. He may inadvertantly also be damning himself, but can't truly know and doesn't care because he's always believed himself to be damned due to being a demonic halfling child to begin with. Their souls are pretty entwined at this point. Now he's mixed with another sort of fallen angel? He goes around believing he could never make it to Heaven anyhow. Dmitry has always had more faith in him than that even if the system was truly rigged as Nico tends to believe.

Nico's goal in life used to always be to find his absent demonic father and make him proud. This way he'd be able to rise in the demon ranks for fear of being tortured due to his human nature.

The longer he's been with Dmitry and throughout all the cataclysmic events that have evolved Nico his goals are changing... sort of. He wants his earth family. He's focused on life a little more than death and that wasn't always the case. Is he still obsessed with death? Sure. But, he actually wants to live now even if that means he has to be a cyborg koala to do it. He's good with that.

The Good Family Through Nico's Eyes

Dmitry's and Nico's family - Gary the Penguin, Lisbeth the cat, Nadya - Dmitry's mother, Nova - Nico's biological mother - Nova Noelle - and a sounder of boars. Oh, and let's not forget Luca, Dmitry's alter.

Nico's Foster Family - All still reside in Detroit (Mom - Veeda) Has a tendency to call them Psuedo-Mom or Faux-Dad adding such random prefixes to their monikers in playful affection still to this day.

Nico's real sisters exist out there still. This means the twin sisters who are actually witches that Nova had adopted and Nico was raised with until he was taken away from her. They weren't biologically his sisters, but they were raised with him and his biological mother. They were separated in foster care. He learned later they were adopted by another family. He only saw them once and chose not to approach when he saw them living a happy life afraid he'd curse them since he destroys everything he touches. This is an avenue of Nico and Nova's tale yet to be completely adventured. They were Nova's best friend's children. She took them in upon an untimely death of the biological family. All of this was demon/magic related. All the more to Nova's tale and why she's so hard headed herself and was so protective of Nico until it all fell apart. That may be something Nova wants to explore more even if Nico did not when he had the chance.

The Friends Nico Tolerates as a Masking Non-People Person

Caim - The demon who took an interest in Nico when Murmur wasn't around. If Murmur wasn't going to take up on his son's loyalty, this demon saw it as a way to get in and create a bond of loyalty. It was an "I was there when your father wasn't" type of bond. It's one of the few demons in Hell Nico might choose to turn to in a bind, not that any are completely safe or without ulterior motive. There's a slew of demons under this ring that fall in the category of Nico knows them through Caim, but he doesn't really know them very personally. Nico is not tight with much of Hell.

Amelia - The red head that actually knows about Dmitry and his whole life. So of course he's down with his BFF

Wasp - Biker/Hacker friend/s. Nico's down with this person and her crew thereof. She was probably Nico's fave friend of Dmitry's people.

Samael - The Angel of Death - He is absolutely fascinated by this person and actually thrives in their appearances, however harbors suspect feelings around them in case he's there to take Dmitry aways worried there's going to be a final time. He holds no belief that God would grant him the gift of Dmitry forever and there is nothing more sus than an angel coming into the scene to take his angel back where he rightfully deserves to be even if Nico would fight for Dmitry tooth and nail to keep him. He's selfish like that. That's the only way Nico could ever see that. So Samael's presense does keep him on edge despite the fascination.

Jovan - Ghost boy - Yeah, that happened. Oops. That was probably Nico's fault. Jealously happens. But, ghost friends are cool, right? Of course a necro-ghost-sensitive halfling like himself would get stuck with an annoying "accidental death" of his making guy that he'll always be able to sense because of who he is. Fun. Ghost life after death means unfinished business for Jovan. Nico didn't plan on that. At least he plays guitar? Nico plans on making up for this one. Yes, demon boy feels guilty.

Lock - A werewolf that got involved. Son of the Boogie Man. Hell shit is weird. Nico doesn't question it anymore. Who doesn't like dudes that like crows? Yeah, we'll see. He's on squinty eyes with him still. Unsure.

Le Not So Good People In Nico's Eyes

Murmur - His Demonic father despite the constant need for his attention and approval.

Collin Hackshaw - Though this name is never uttered. Dmitry's father.

Leila - Soul he hated hearing about not because of the thought that Dmitry could have been in love before him, as everyone has a past, but because Dmitry used to speak as if he still was. Big jealousy vibes there. It was hard to compete with a non existant person held on a pedestal. That got worked through though and Nico's more secure than he used to be on that matter or he'd not have gotten married.

Tags that may be used, Raging Sharknado Thoughts, Cyborg Koala, My Journal, Nico things, Dmitry Feelz, Nico's Playlist, v.the living are the hope of the dead, my cute nerdy boyfriend is outsmarting me again and I don't care, rock hound shit, space shit, quotes

[pomrania]

Here's my second pass on it. I'm not doing to be repeating typos I'd noted or questions I'd asked in the first pass, although there might be some clarifications.

4: In the disclaimer phrase, "living or dead" feels like it would flow better if set off by commas.

5: Correction to my earlier post, "will lead many places" is NOT necessarily an error, it's just a less common way of phrasing things.

6: In the first paragraph, does "per person" just modify the "at least five tokens", or is it also for the dice? …I was going to say something here about including the equivalencies for a tarot deck's minor arcana, for the card randomizers; then I realized that anyone who has easier access to a tarot deck, than to a normal playing card deck, would already know what to do for that.

7: I'd say something to the effect of "if the dice are visibly different from each other", instead of "if they're different colours", for being able to roll both dice for a d66 at once; but I can't say that your way of phrasing it is wrong. Typo, "aformentioned" should be "aforementioned".

Having gone through the whole thing, there's still no clarification on "a few minutes", which is relevant for at least two traits where it mentions them getting deactivated (and thus not being able to be tagged) for "a few minutes"; is this in-game time or around-table time? I'm pretty sure it's in-game time, but I think it should be clarified.

16: "Hundred-handed", I think "well defined" would look better with a hyphen, but it's not WRONG without it.

17: "Lanky limbs", the list of examples looks slightly awkward because they're separated by commas, but the first example ("unfolding, many-jointed arms") contains a comma within it. "Masterful mimic", there's mention of perhaps another Form allowing something to be louder, but currently I don't believe there's a Form that increases one's volume. "Menacing missiles", I think "closely spaced" should have a hyphen; and the last half of that last sentence feels awkward, because of the verb-type (I forget the term) difference between "taking" and "make".

18: Since "mighty muscles" describes how much you can lift in relation to your weight, is that intended to interact with Forms that increase one's weight?

18: My previous post had a question on "mobile members" under page 16, but it's actually on this page.

21: "Weaving webs", I'm not sure whether "a mass of threads" is grammatically singular or plural; it looks awkward either way to me.

22: The header says "inventing your own Forms", but it only talks about reskinning extant Forms, or interpreting multiple of them as the same thing. If you don't want to talk about how to make new Forms, that's completely fine, but in that case the header should be changed; if you do plan to include guidelines on making new Forms, there should be like a TODO about it.

23: In the grey box, the two examples feel like different ways of phrasing the SAME Expression, while the phrase "both plausible Expressions" implies completely DIFFERENT Expressions.

24: In the second paragraph, I'm not sure if the last sentence, "on the honour system", is supposed to apply to "choose a permanent replacement", "just happen to have a catalyst", or both; I think (just) the penultimate sentence being in brackets is responsible.

26: The instruction on the table -- "optionally, roll 1-3 times" -- feels odd.

27: "Ethos", typo, "inescapabably" should be "inescapably".

30: In the first paragraph, I think "nor" would work better than "or", for what I presume to be the intended poetic tone.

31: "Art of abundance", can it be re-activated multiple times, to get even more instances, or is it limited to one extra re-activation?

41: I think there should be some examples of choosing different Facets for a given action -- say, "making a speech about why people should wear a certain style of hat" -- and what that looks like in practice. Because I know that for Costume Fairy Adventures, it always tripped me up, which thing would logically go with a particular approach. Plus, none of these map to anything from D&D-type games, and the "comedy trio" archetype isn't as commonly used these days, so that's a decent chunk of the audience who won't necessarily have a touchstone here. In the second paragraph, "several different Facets" feels odd when there's only three Facets total.

43: Possible typo, "to add a die to test".

44: It might be good to have an example of "highest die whose value does not exceed the Facet". Also, clarification of "ties have no special meaning"; maybe rephrase it to something like how it doesn't matter if there's multiple dice showing that same value?

46: Typo in the penultimate paragraph, "succeeeded" should be "succeeded". For "taking six", does this involve tagging as many Traits as would apply and rolling the resultant number of dice? In my first read-through, I'd assumed it was just rolling a single d6; even though a more careful pass suggests otherwise, that should prolly be explicitly stated.

47: Does the "five dice limit" apply to cooperative tests too? If so, I think that should be restated here.

48: So if I'm reading this correctly, potential results for a wisdom test are a) you don't do the dumb thing, b) you do the dumb thing and get a point of Obstinacy, or c) you do the dumb thing and get a point of Obstinacy AND there's a Calamity Point.

49: Typo, "basic terminolgy" should be "terminology".

54: So, with the default Stress Limit, at nine points of Stress you're fine, but at ten points you're out? It seems that there's nothing anyone can do to restore a character who's Stressed Out, aside from "end the scene"; is that intentional?

56: Since the text mentions that it's possible for someone to interrupt activating a Rebellious Art… what happens in that case? Can you prevent them from interrupting if you notice they're trying to do that, do you get your point of Obstinacy back if the Art wasn't activated, what? My earlier post had a concern about a paragraph being a near-verbatim repeat; I do not believe that to be correct, now that I've read through the thing again while fully awake.

58: I think the phrase is "alternate timelines", and not "alternative timelines".

59: Typo, "is actually you disguise" should be "in disguise". Does "repair irreversible damage" only apply to inanimate objects? I understand that it's an example for a Limit Break, but it's raised a question in my mind.

61: It's odd to have the "recovering obstinacy" paragraph right after a multi-page section on Limit Breaks; I'd recommend moving it upwards in future versions, since it's way more relevant.

64: Two questions about overloading. First, does anything need to be done to STOP being overloaded; can you be in a situation where you wouldn't be able to make yourself NOT overloaded? In real life, as a human, that's extremely possible with an intricate-enough arrangement of bags, where you literally can't just drop them even if you don't care about their contents; however, I can easily imagine a cartoon character simply slipping out of it. Second, if the fourth item that makes you overloaded is an item of food, can you eat it to no longer be overloaded, or do you have to actively set it down and THEN consume it?

65: I believe "hairbrush" is a single word, and doesn't need a hyphen. "Oversize boots" feels awkward; I'm not sure if it's a typo, a specific meaning you have in mind, or a dialect difference. "Poorly tuned lute" feels like it should have a hyphen.

70: Although I know what "lowers its Calamity Threshold" MEANS, it still FEELS like "reduces its effect" instead of the actual meaning of "it's now more dangerous"; I'd suggest that you consider rephrasing.

72: "Reversal", is that Trait-rewriting permanent? Does it automatically change back to its original form at the end of the scene, is there a way to work to change it back?

73: What kind of NPC would have no Stress Limit? Because that's been mentioned in a number of places, but no description has been given to that.

79: Typo, "limits on on repeated attempts" should just have the one "on".

81: In the second paragraph, "Calamity clock" is missing a capitalization.

82: Typo, "a very momentuous event" should be "momentous".

83: There's two different ways of stating Threat ratings here, "X or greater" and "X+", and I don't know if that's an intended distinction between "talking about an NPC" and "talking about a hazard".

84: With how advancements are currently written, that's a maximum of twelve "normal" ones, plus the mathematically-complicated option of adding or swapping in a new Rebellious Art. At some point, there's going to be no more valid advancements, except for possibly swapping an Art; do you intend to address that situation?

Not associated with any particular page: do you intend to write something about what would be a TPK in a more standard game? Like, a situation where all God-eaters have managed to be Stressed Out at the same time. It seems substantially easier to handle than an actual TPK, because of how they're not DEAD merely unable to act for the moment, but still.

88: Typo, "the layout of the city is circuituous" should be "circuitous".

89: Typo, "involve the Gizmo in some fasion" should be "fashion".

91: "Hand jack", it's written "meters" when elsewhere in the text the spelling is "metres". "Program card", its sentence structure doesn't match that of the other entries; maybe rephrase it to "metal card that can be slotted" etc.

92: "Racing goggles", same sentence-structure issue as "program card" above. "Silver tulip", typo, "or other surpirses" should be "surprises". "Static grenade", ignore my previous reasoning for this entry; however, I still think it should be changed to "it explodes", but for clarify reasons. "Tin of frictionol", the last sentence feels like it needs an extra preposition, even though that would result in two "to"s in a row; I don't know what should be done about it, but I'm bringing it up. "Tiny mechanical horse", same sentence-structure issue; here, I think it should be "Miniature model of a horse that bears visible damage".

94: "The grand baths", I don't think "accouterments" is the intended word here.

From a bunch of different Locations and NPCs, there's a thing about +1 or +2 effect if a certain condition is met; does this stack with other effect modifiers, or subsume them?

100: "The clockwork performers", I don't think the comma in the first description sentence is needed.

102: "The machine preacher", "they'll instantly identify" is grammatically ambiguous as to whether "they" is "the city's residents" or "the machine preacher". "The novice alchemist", I think "mousy looking" should have a hyphen.

105: "Gearquake", typo, "to a maxmium of 6" should be "maximum".

106: "Picket line", typo, "has spring up" should be "sprung". "Slipped a cog", typo, "picked up by the Rampaging Lift-o-Magic" should be "Lift-o-Matic".

Welp, that took a while. Really glad I did that second pass though, there was some typos I hadn't caught the first time around.

Playtest draft 0.4 of Eat God is up! This version includes a reworking of player character Traits, clarifications (and, in most cases, moderate buffs) for most Arts, a whole new semi-freeform magic system for when none of the standard options are quite bullshit enough, and most importantly, The Clockwork City, a complete playset (this game's version of an "adventure", though they don't work quite as you might expect if you're familiar with pre-written adventures form other games) co-written by @cryptotheism – a name I trust many of this blog's followers will recognise.

Like my previous early access projects, this one has been moved over to itch.io for better exposure. Pay-what-you-want pricing is enabled for those who'd like to contribute to the game's ongoing development, but I encourage you to hit the little "just take me to the downloads" button first; there's no sense paying sight-unseen for something that's still a work in progress!

In terms of player feedback for this one, I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on any of the newly added rules or playset material, with a particular emphasis on the new Expressions stuff; those currently lack worked examples, and it would be useful to see what people come up with in the absence of any direct guidance.

As always, questions, comments, and bizarre rants are welcome; you can put your two cents in either in the notes of this post, or via the Penguin King Games Discord server – there should be a channel for Eat God set up already.

[valoisfulcanellideux]

i dont really have any questions i just wanna say i love your way of twisting names around so that they're still recognizeable as their names but not entirely divorced from them either

also, pixl s1 dragon fight lore??? (eyes emoji) i've been eyeing that specific comment for a While and i CANNOT WAIT to see what you do with

i read every chapter the second i get the email notification for it and it's been getting me through the preparations for finals week- even if i forget to leave a comment sometimes, i'm still reading and cheering so hard whenever something new happens to The Riffs

Thank you! Naming things and people is a fun little brain-bending exercise that involves typing many things into Google Translate, cursing when I find out that an affectionate nickname translates to 'goalkeeper' in some other language, and then looking up translations and meanings of words to see if I can merge and twist bits of them into a name.

An example of that would be the name that was given to David: Dar’veh Ehr-maah Nu’hazin

'Dar'veh' was as close as I could get to 'David' without it sounding quite like the word. The other two parts of its name were a merging of three Arabic words (whether they're the correct translation doesn't matter; I only want an idea of a word to springboard from), followed by twisting their spelling and adding apostrophes and hyphens so I'm not completely messing up someone's mother tongue (which is the biggest fear of any writer trying to invent another language). The bits that I took to form the name are highlighted red:

ager = eumar (I used the whole word; just twisted its spelling)

copper = nuhas

verdigris = zinjar

Yep, we're going to get some S1 dragon fight lore, and it's going to be absolutely crucial to the story, which is why I can't go into too much detail. Pix's comment when the fight happened really came a bit out of the blue. The only way that it made sense was if he couldn't get back home any other way than dying in the void, because the dragon was guarding the portal out. I wanted to give it a reason that made sense for my story.

And thank you! I'm having so much fun writing this, and I'm glad that people are enjoy it. Good luck with your finals!

[forjongseong]

mon soleil // jay (ENHYPEN)

pairing: secretary!jay x CEO!fem!reader (part 10 of the series)

genre: office!au, fluff, smut (minors dni) // warning: older reader; Jay calls reader “Boss”; cockwarming; unprotected sex; oral sex; semi-public sex; mentions of marriage // wc: ~10.7k

previous chapters:

part 1 - carmesí part 2 - mi reina part 3 - millones part 3.5 - hasta los dientes part 4 - vente conmigo part 5 - tusa part 5.5 - apaga y vámonos part 6 - versos de placer minisode part 1 - cuando nadie ve part 6.5 - yo te quiero más minisode part 2 -la niña de mis ojos part 7 - aeropuerto minisode part 3 - falling autumn minisode part 4 - night night part 8 - ambulancia minisode part 5 - subtítulos part 9 - al caer la noche minisode part 6 - after last night part 9.5 - the way you look tonight

next chapters:

click here for the masterlist

summary: you're enjoying life with your boyfriend/secretary, and you're beginning to grow closer to his parents. perfect timing, though, since he seems to have something up his sleeve.

author’s notes: welcome to part 10! and sorry for the delay.

I never measure how fast I finish writing a part, but I know for sure that this one took me longer than any other part I have written. Maybe because I was trying to see from Jay's perspective, and I kept changing how I plan to make him... Wait... I don't want to spoil it for you. You'll see in the end!

the song for this episode is one of my faves, Mon Soleil from the series Emily in Paris. pretty sure it translates to "my sun".

taglist: @jaylaxies @jayked @thots4hee @end-hyphen @nyanggk @yoursjaeyun @maggstar @bucketofhiros @dimplejaehyuncutie

(send an ask if you want to be added)

Weekends were your favorite time of the week, mostly because you get to detach from work and have some time to yourself. For your assistant slash boyfriend, however, weekends do not seem to be any different from weekdays. Jay would take any spare time he had left into doing work, either to catch up on the previous week or to prepare in advance for the next. When this happens, you would find Jay perched on your desk that faces the window, and most of the time it would be hard to get his attention once he was already focused.

You spent the day cleaning up and organizing your bedroom, and once you were done you took a quick cold shower and put on the daintiest night gown you have ever seen in your life. It was purple with a greyish hue, with ruffles attached to the straps, and an a-line cut that would flatter anyone’s body, complete with the mesh details on both sides of the skirt in place of a cheeky slit. You remembered buying it randomly when you were online shopping, and you did wash it, but you never really got to wear it since you did not really have an occasion for it.

But now you do.

Your slippers muffled the noise of your footsteps as you made your way to your desk. Jay was focused on the screen, scrolling the mouse with one hand and typing with another. He stopped to push back the pair of rimless glasses that were sliding off the bridge of his nose, and with a deep breath he started typing again.

“Is that last week’s work or next week’s?” You asked, standing behind the chair and placing your arms on the headrest.

“Next week, Boss,” he answered without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Take a break,” you said, starting to run your fingers through his hair, brushing it back.

Jay chuckled softly. “I just started, not even an hour ago.”

“How long will it take?” You asked again, this time leaning in and resting your chin on the top of his head. You brought your hand down to his shoulders and he gave it a squeeze of reassurance.

Jay hummed as he glanced blankly out the window. “At least another hour, I think. Why?”

“I’m bored,” you stated. You waited for Jay to stop typing before swiveling his chair and making him face you. You didn’t know if his flustered face was because of the sudden movement or because you were wearing a night gown that he had never seen before.

“Oh, wow,” Jay muttered, fixing his glasses in place again. “Is that new?”

“Never worn before,” you said with a pout. “I want attention.”

Jay smiled at you fondly. “I really have to get this out of the way, baby. Give me fifty minutes?”

You continued to pout and stare blankly at the screen before coming up with an idea. “Can I just sit with you?”

“You mean on my lap?” Jay asked to confirm. When you nodded, he nodded too and swiveled his chair back to face the computer. “Hop on.”

With a small smile, you secured your place on Jay’s lap with your back facing the computer. You chose that position so you could rest your head on his shoulder and nuzzle into the crook of his neck. You were both lucky that the chair was big enough and comfortable enough to host you both.

After gently rubbing your back a couple of times, Jay got comfortable and started typing again. You closed your eyes and let your nose touch his neck. You could smell the faint scent of cologne that he put on this morning, already mixed with his natural odor that you liked too. You shifted a bit, and it made Jay freeze for a second before he continued to work.

When he was rereading what he had typed, he made sure his hands continued to be occupied by either caressing your arm or brushing your hair. You snuggled even closer, snaking your arm around his waist and eliciting a soft laugh from his lips. He felt warm under you, and you tried to be as silent as possible even though your mind was racing.

“Why the glasses?” You asked with a squeak, your voice leaving you from being silent for too long.

Jay kissed your forehead before giving you an answer. “It filters the bluelight, darling.”

“No, I mean,” you muttered, bringing your head up to look at him. You caressed his cheek before observing him closely. “Why rimless?”

“Does it look bad on me?”

“It looks great on you, that’s the problem. It makes you look older.”

Jay’s eyes squinted at you before he chuckled again. “Thank you?”

You hummed and rested your head on his shoulder again, but this time you changed sides. Jay continued to stroke your back in between typing, and he could feel your breath becoming heavier with each touch.

“You okay there?” He whispered.

The vibrations of his voice sent a shiver down your spine, and for some reason you couldn’t respond with words. You nodded and placed a chaste kiss on his neck, and you noticed how his breath hitched. Licking your lips, you continued to kiss him where his skin was closest to your lips—his neck, his collarbone, up to his jawline too. The moment you feel him shift under you, you knew you were about to get what you came for.

“Baby,” Jay sighed. “You’re making me hard.”

“Hmm.” You continued to kiss his neck, making sloppy noises on purpose. “That is my intention.”

Jay let out a shaky laugh. “I still would like to get this done, my love.”

“You’re good at multitasking, aren’t you?” You challenged him, pushing yourself away from his shoulder. You rested both your hands on his shoulders before moving one to brush his hair out of his face. He closed his eyes when you touched him, and you leaned in carefully to kiss his lips.

“Sit on my cock?” He asked, his lips grazing yours.

“I’m glad you asked,” you replied, smiling when you saw him smirk at you.

Jay squeezed your waist to make you lift your hips for a bit while he tugged his joggers and boxers down. You bit your bottom lip at the sight of his cock fully erect, and as he slid his hands under your gown, you couldn’t help but smile.

“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? No panties,” Jay whispered again, and you just chuckled softly as a response.

“I’ve wanted to try this,” you spoke, your sentence halted in the middle as you feel him entering you, “…for a while.”

“You sure you can sit still while I finish work?” Jay asked as he caressed your arm lovingly. You were still wondering how he could still act so angelic while he was fully inside you.

You nodded. “Are you?” You asked back, grinding your hips once as a test.

Jay groaned and threw his head back while you giggled. He cleared his throat and gripped your hips before speaking right into your ear.

“Be a good girl and stay still. I’ll reward you later.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Jay rolled his eyes back at the way you addressed him, and you smiled triumphantly as you nestled your head back on his shoulder. It was fairly easy for you, since by default you did have great self-control. Whenever Jay shifted in his seat, causing his cock to graze your insides, you would whimper once before composing yourself again.

On the other hand, Jay was trying his best to stay focused. The scent of your shampoo and the way your hot breath kept tickling his neck almost made him want to give up working right then and there. He tried brushing it off by clearing his throat, but it was not helping since you could literally feel his dick twitch inside of you.

You were resting on him comfortably, like a koala hugging a tree, and to cure yourself of boredom you would occasionally reach out to his face, caressing his cheek or brushing his hair back. He responded by hugging you with one arm, squeezing your waist before he redirects his focus back to the screen. After what felt like an eternity, Jay sighed as he made a couple of clicks with the mouse and finally closing all the windows.

“Are you done?” You asked innocently, lifting your head up to look at the screen.

Jay took off his glasses in a flash before grabbing your chin and smashing his lips into yours, causing you to yelp into his mouth. The movement was simultaneous with the way he thrusted his hip up, and all you could do was release a loud moan. His arms were still wrapped around your waist, holding you firmly on his lap while you both continued to eat each other’s face off.

You started grinding into him and he groaned, his hands finding the straps of your gown and pulling them down to reveal your breasts. He squeezed them both before diving into you, latching his mouth to your nipple like it was the most natural thing to do. Your moans filled the room, and your fingers were now lost and tangled in his hair.

“Bed,” he whispered on your skin. “Now.”

You stood up and reluctantly let him slide out of you. His cock was tainted with your juices and mixed with his precum. As you swiftly made your way to the bedroom, Jay pulled your wrist from behind you and turned you around before lifting you up against the wall. He slid into you with ease, and you moaned in pleasure as he started fucking you.

With your legs wrapped securely around his waist, and your night gown already halfway falling down your torso, you grasped onto his shoulders for life as he continued his sharp thrusts into you. He was moaning as much as you were, and you were desperate to feel more of his touch. Lucky for you, he seemed to sense it and quickly carried you all the way to your shared bed. He slipped out of you only to take his shirt and pants off, and he did not even give you a chance to undress completely before he entered you again.

Jay made love to you slow and sweet, peppering kisses all over your face and swallowing your moans when they got too loud. You felt the heat of his skin against your breasts, and your hands traveled down to his ass to push him even deeper inside of you. His lips never left yours, not even when you mumbled that you were close. Your walls clenched around him as you chanted his name, and after he helped you ride out your high, he pulled out and cummed on the skirt of your night gown.

You were both panting when you were done, and after a few seconds Jay collapsed beside you. You craned your neck to see how much he tainted your gown, and when you turned your head to look at him, all he gave you was a cheeky grin.

“Do you have any more of these that I can ruin?” Jay asked, his fingers lifting the hem of your night gown.

He wasn’t aware that you would literally buy a thousand more night gowns just to get him to fuck you like that again.

---

For the last couple of days, Jay had insisted to leave for work hours before you, claiming that you needed the extra time to sleep and get ready while he makes sure all is well at the office. You thought it was sweet of him, although completely necessary since you did think you were handling your job well without the luxury of being given extra time.

Settling on the thought that Jay was just a sweetheart for doing so, you walked out of your bedroom fully dressed and ready to go. When you walked to the kitchen to grab your bottle of water, you realized there was a message on the touchscreen of your refrigerator’s door.

Don’t forget your water bottle, and the bowl of acai that I made for you in the fridge. Finish it.

-J

“So bossy,” you commented to yourself as you opened the fridge, finding exactly what the note says.

As you spent the next seven minutes downing your breakfast, you remembered the countless times Jay had spoiled you with his acts of service, from preparing breakfast for you to mopping the floors of your house. After a silent minute, you cleaned up after yourself, grabbed your phone and your bag and walked out the front door.

You got into your car as soon as it pulled up, and as you greeted Mr. Lee, he handed you an iPad that Jay left for you. You checked your schedule and the notes for an upcoming meeting, and while doing so you couldn’t help but notice Mr. Lee eyeing you through the rearview mirror.

“What seems to be the problem, Mr. Lee?” You asked, putting your iPad aside.

“Oh, Miss,” Mr. Lee replied, “I just wanted to ask if it’s possible for me to have a week off. I wonder if the young Mr. Lee could take over for a while.”

“Of course. But what’s going on? Is everything okay?” You leaned into the front seat and even poked your head to Mr. Lee’s side, earning a small chuckle from him.

“My daughter is giving birth,” Mr. Lee answered. He sounded so happy, and you could see the crinkles in the corner of his eyes. “I’m about to become a grandfather.”

Your response was a mixture of squealing, screeching, and a little bit of arm-hitting, while Mr. Lee was just trying his best to drive safely.

“Congratulations!” You said after finally able to form words. “Take two weeks off if you’d like. I’m sure Heeseung can manage. Even if he couldn’t, I can just have Jay drive. I’m so happy for you, Mr. Lee!”

At a red light, Mr. Lee turned to look at you and you reached out to squeeze his hand. Mr. Lee had been a loyal driver, and after having taken care of you for so long, it was only normal that his happiness would be yours too.

---

You were so focused on reading the document in your hand that when you swiveled your chair to face your desk, you almost slid off it out of surprise. Jay was standing in front of you, beaming for whatever reason, with his iPad open in his hand.

“Since when do you have cat feet?” You commented as you placed a hand over your chest, still recovering from the shock.

“I knocked. Didn’t you hear?” Jay pointed his thumb to the door as you shook your head. “Anyway, results are in.”

“The top 10 candidates for the scholarship? Give it to me.”

You almost threw your pen on your desk before eagerly reaching out your hand to Jay. Jay slid the iPad into your hand and pulled the chair beside him to sit across you. You were mumbling the names of your employees as you scrolled down the list, and Jay was observing you closely. When you got to the bottom, your fingers froze, and Jay’s smile grew wider.

“Heeseung,” you muttered, almost in disbelief. “He’s shortlisted.”

“Don’t worry, I doublechecked already. That list is legit. Heeseung is actually qualified. Must be interesting though, since they all have to go through the interview process. You will be overseeing that, right?”

Jay’s endless comment did not seem to bother you as you were busy collecting your thoughts. For some reason, your thoughts snowballed into the far future—what if Heeseung goes abroad? Who is going to be your second driver? What if Mr. Lee decides to retire? Will you even have a driver?

“Boss?”

You blinked twice before focusing on Jay. He was now looking at you worried.

“Don’t zone out like that, you’re scaring me,” Jay sighed. “Is everything okay?”

You nodded. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“We shouldn’t tell him, right? Like, let’s not get his hopes up,” Jay said after clearing his throat. “I’ll start looking for a new driver just in case.”

It was like he read your mind.

“Right. Thank you,” you replied, giving back his iPad.

Jay cocked his head as he observed you getting back to work and picking up the document you were reviewing. He noticed that you were frowning a little too much, and that for some reason you seemed tense. You reached for your pen that rolled off too far from you, so Jay leaned in and pushed it back into your hand.

“Boss,” he started, “I can handle the meeting at 4. You should get off early.”

“Why would I do that?” You asked, not taking your eyes off your document.

“Because it’s time to redo your nails,” Jay answered, tilting his chin towards your fingers. “You never miss a schedule for a new manicure.”

All the attention to detail made you sigh, and now Jay was the one feeling tense. You pushed your chair away from your desk after freeing your hands, and then walked towards your secretary. Out of reflex, he straightened his position and turned to face you, only to have you rest your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to you.

“Why do I feel like you’re trying to get rid of me? What are you up to?” You asked, eyes boring into his.

Naturally, he felt nervous and gulped before licking his lips. “Nothing.”

“I hope you’re not lying,” you said softly as you caressed his face. “You know I hate lies.”

Jay’s response after your statement was enough to make you stop nagging, or whatever it was you were doing. The way he gently captured your lips in his for a kiss, and nibbling it afterwards, made you sigh into his mouth.

“There is nothing for you to worry about,” Jay muttered. He then kissed your cheek. “Boss.”

---

It took you less than an hour to reach your nail salon, and to not have Heeseung wait around for you too long, you sent him back to the office. You had to hold yourself back from spoiling him about the results, so every time he initiated a conversation, you just let him take the lead with the topic.

The lady at the reception greeted you by your name, as you had been going there for years at this point. You did not have to wait for your turn, and they immediately escorted you to your usual spot. After browsing countless colors, you opted for a soft pink for your nails and a chic nude for your toes. The therapist who was handling you very carefully initiated small talk, which you happily reciprocated, and you ended up talking about a lot of trivial things.

When you made your way back to the counter to pay for the services, the receptionist smiled at you as she refused the card you were holding.

“Your treatment today is already paid for, Miss. As well as the next three treatments, whenever you would like to have them.”

You frowned, trying to remember if you asked Hwiyoung to do this or if you did it yourself. Sensing your confusion, the lady continued to explain.

“I believe it was prepaid by a Mr. Park Jay?” She said, looking at the screen of the iPad in front of her.

You sighed and smiled to yourself before thanking the staff and exiting the salon. As you walked, you took out your phone and snapped a selfie of yourself, showing off your nails.

“Thank you for the treat,” you texted Jay.

It did not take a minute for him to reply to you.

“Can’t wait to see them wrapped around my dick tonight. See you at home.”

“My God,” you muttered to yourself as you brought a hand over your lips to cover your smile. Your boyfriend really had no filter when it was just the two of you.

---

It was a sunny Saturday morning, and you woke up with Jay kissing you all over your face, claiming that he wanted to go hit the gym early and do a couple of errands after. You sulked and held his face against your breasts for a couple of seconds before he chuckled and patted your waist, making you let go of him.

Half an hour later, you decided that it was the day to be experimental. You had your mother send you a recipe of her classic mud cake that she used to make for you and your brother all the time when you were little. Since tomorrow was the monthly meetup schedule with Jay’s parents, you thought it would be nice to show up at their house with something homemade.

You had your iPad propped up on the kitchen counter, away from the stove and the sink because you knew that you could not be trusted with the way your hands move. You had the ingredients stocked since two days ago when Heeseung accompanied you grocery shopping again—a routine that had formed ever since that time you spent away from Jay, and whenever he wasn’t available for you to shop with. In the middle of prepping the mixture, you didn’t trust the measurements that you prepared, so you paused and called your mother.

You managed to keep the conversation focused to cooking, and not derailing to any other topic, but once you hung up you immediately forgot what she said, so you ended up texting back and forth with her. Eventually, you managed to put the cake in the oven to bake, and just as you were wiping your hands on your apron, you heard the door unlock.

“Baby?” Jay called from the doorway. You could hear him placing the keys on the counter and taking off his shoes.

Deciding not to answer, you merely waited until he showed up in the kitchen. He froze and stared at you, and since you couldn’t decode what was in his head, you quickly unlocked your phone to check your reflection. Strands of hair were loose and falling from your messy bun, your black tank top had splotches of white from the flour and sugar, and the apron tied around your waist barely covered the short shorts you were wearing.

“Um,” Jay cleared his throat, “is this my birthday?”

You scoffed and turned around to face the oven again, making sure you had set the temperature right. “I’m experimenting.”

“Define ‘experimenting’,” Jay said, walking over to the sink and getting ready to clean up after you.

You moved to block his way. “I’m baking a cake for our visit tomorrow. Don’t clean up!”

Jay put both his hands up out of reflex, startled that you raised your voice. You sulked and pushed him out of the way, knowing very well he had done enough for you.

“If you’re bringing a cake for my parents then that’s even a better reason for me to help clean up.” Jay stepped towards you and rubbed your shoulders. He then brushed his thumb over your cheek to get rid of the bit of chocolate that somehow ended up there.

“You don’t need to clean up after me. I can do it. It takes an hour and a half to bake the cake and you can go shower or whatever,” you whined, pushing him away again.

“I wanna do whatever, and that means cleaning up,” Jay replied. He bent down to kiss your cheek roughly and then pushed you away.

You realized it was pointless to fight Jay when it comes to cleaning, so you got out of his way and started lightly tidying up around the rest of the kitchen. Meanwhile, Jay was quick to wash all the tools you had used for the cake, and even got to washing the dishes from this morning’s breakfast. When he was done, he turned to look at you and found you texting on your phone, your hair was now let down and the scrunchie you used to tie it was on your wrist.

There was something about you wearing an apron that made Jay stare, and you could feel his eyes boring into you after a couple of seconds.

“What?” You asked nonchalantly, setting your phone down on the counter.

Jay eyed the timer you had set by the oven. You had thirty minutes left until the cake is ready.

“You say that like I’m not allowed to stare at you,” Jay commented, leaning back on the kitchen sink and gripping the edges with his hands. “You look beautiful.”

Your eyes squinted in suspicion and Jay just laughed. “What do you want?” You asked, genuinely cautious.

Jay shook his head as he pushed himself forward, walking towards you. “My answer to that is always you. I want you.”

He tilted your chin up to kiss your lips and you immediately sighed. You loved the way he was always so forward with you, and you were grateful that he knew exactly the time and place to be intimate. You felt his arm wrapped around your waist, so you threw your arm around his neck, pulling him closer to you as you continued to make out.

“Jay,” you whispered, almost out of breath. “Not now.”

“Why not?” Jay protested, his lips grazing yours.

You tilted your head to the side, and he instead latched his lips on to your neck. You stifled back a moan. “The cake is almost done and sex with you takes at least an hour.”

Jay chuckled lowly right by your ear, and you hated how it still made you shiver. You could already feel your panties getting damp, and you did not want to give him the satisfaction.

“You have the timer on, it’s not like you’re gonna burn it,” Jay argued, innocently leaving more kisses down your shoulder.

“But I don’t want to rush when it comes to you.”

Your sentence made Jay stop in his tracks. He sighed before leaving the gentlest kiss on your collarbone. He then cupped your face with his hands.

“Just let me show you how much I appreciate you. Okay?”

You frowned but nodded anyway, and before you could form a reply, Jay’s lips were already attached to yours again. His hands moved to your waist, and with one swift move, he picked you up and made you sit on the empty counter. He continued to kiss you, distracting you with his tongue while his hands untied the apron around your waist. When you felt him tug your shorts, you whined a little, but when he pulled back to look at you with a face that looked like he was begging, you eventually indulged.

He pulled you off the counter, making you stand up straight as he carefully took your shorts and panties off. Instead of sitting back on the counter, he turned you around and made you face it. He then pulled you against his chest before his hand traveled downwards, coating his fingers with your arousal.

“You say you don’t wanna rush but look how quick it takes for you to get wet because of me,” Jay whispered into your ear. You moaned and threw your head back, making him gain access to leave marks on your neck.

“Don’t… tease,” you whined in between breaths. Jay smirked before kissing your cheek again and taking his hands away from your core.

You couldn’t form a coherent sentence before Jay gently but very firmly pushed you against the counter. You winced in an instant, feeling the cold against your lower ab. Jay kneeled behind you, your ass right in front of his face, and made you lift your left leg up against the counter. This created the perfect angle for him to stuff his face in your cunt, so that was exactly what he did next.

As soon as you felt his nose nudge against your ass, and his warm tongue pressed flat against your slit, you let out a lewd mewl. Jay wasted no time in making you reach your high, and you could tell from the way he was dragging his tongue up and down your folds as his fingers became busy with flicking your clit. You desperately reached your hands out for something to grip, but with every thrust of his tongue into you, you couldn’t help but moan loudly. For a second, you couldn’t even say his name, your mind clouded by the amount of pleasure he was making you feel.

“Jay,” you whispered, almost inaudible. “Oh my God.”

Jay ignored your pathetic wails and continued to devour you, humming whenever he felt your arousal drip onto his chin, groaning whenever he heard you moan too loud. Whatever he was doing, it was too much and too good, and you easily lost track of time. Your moans became quicker and higher in pitch, and Jay let you stain his face as you squirted all over him. He detached his lips only to rub his fingers along your folds, and when he noticed your legs shaking, he carefully helped you stand up straight.

You turned around as you tried to catch your breath, and Jay was still on his knees, rubbing your thighs and licking you dry. You looked at the mess you just caused on the floor and Jay followed your eyes, grinning at the result of his ministrations. He placed his hand beside you on the counter as he stood up, and as soon as his face was in front of yours you kissed him passionately. He reciprocated your kiss, lovingly rubbing his hands down your hips, and moments later the timer you had set went off.

“Perfect timing,” Jay said with a smile after pulling away from your kiss. You rolled your eyes and he merely chuckled, reaching for your shorts for you to put back on.

Once you did, Jay smacked your ass as you walked over to the oven, peeking to see the cake. “Ugh, I hope it’s good.”

“Even if it isn’t, we just created a core memory,” Jay replied. “I’m actually excited to see you in the kitchen more often.”

“Why, so you can distract me and fuck me senseless again?” You asked, challenging him with your tone.

Jay shrugged as he leaned back on the counter again, a smug smile on his face. “I mean, if that’s what you want.”

---

You waved goodbye for the nth time to Jay’s mom and dad as they both watched you enter your Palisade. Jay was already keeping the engine running, and he had to wait for a couple of minutes since his mother was so happy about the cake you bought and wouldn’t stop thanking you and praising you about it. Once you buckled your seat, Jay lightly pressed the horn and waved his hand out the window, carefully steering the car out of the driveway.

It started to rain when you were still on the highway, and the darkness combined with the soft pitter-patter of the rain made you feel sleepy. You yawned once and quickly reached for your phone to change the playlist into something more upbeat.

“You can sleep if you want,” Jay said, noticing your movement through his peripheral vision.

“No, I don’t want you driving in silence,” you replied. You finally found your dance playlist filled with Latin pop songs, and you sat back and relaxed.

After two songs, you realized the music wasn’t helping you stay awake, but you turned your head and saw Jay tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and bobbing his head to the music.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, looking at you for a split second.

You shook your head. “I’m still sleepy.”

The highway was not completely empty but was not packed either, so Jay settled on a speed that felt like cruising. Since the road was straight, he set his free hand on your thigh and gave you a couple of comforting strokes. The way his grip was firm against your skin surely made you feel awake, and he noticed it by the way you were sighing in content.

Jay trailed his fingers up your thigh, and you regretted not wearing a dress or a skirt. Thankfully, though, the fabric of your culottes was thin enough for you to feel the pressure of his touch. Jay calmly stroked his finger along your core, pressing harder just in case you couldn’t feel him, and you squirmed a little in your seat.

Before you were about to protest, the rain started pouring harder. Jay became distracted, and as he tried to focus on the road, he pulled back his hand to put on the steering wheel again. Now fully awake, you sighed and checked your phone, and you noticed that you weren’t even halfway home. You saw Jay slowing down the car and turning on the fog lights, as well as putting the windshield wiper on a faster setting. The cars around you were also slowing down, with some even putting on their hazard lights for caution.

“Baby, there’s a rest area coming up. Let’s just stop and grab coffee and wait for the rain to calm down,” you said, turning your phone towards Jay. He nodded and began searching for the entrance to the rest area.

You were focused on your phone, searching what stores the rest area had, and when you felt the car stopping, you looked around and found out that Jay picked a secluded place to park. The rain was now pouring even harder to the point that the raindrops completely covered your windows, making it hard for anyone to see outside, or for anyone outside to see what’s inside.

“Let me grab the umbrella,” you muttered, undoing your seatbelt. You pushed yourself up with one knee and squeezed yourself into the gap between the driver’s seat and yours, unintentionally sticking your ass up to the air. “Oh, shit. I forgot to put the umbrella back here. It’s still in my Benz.”

Jay chuckled at your comment before lightly smacking your ass.

“Hey!” You protested as you wiggled your way back to your seat.

“Take the hint, baby,” Jay sighed, undoing his own seatbelt. He brushed his hair back and you hated how good it made him look. “Allow me to finish what I started.”

“What do you—mean…”

Your question was put to a halt as soon as you felt Jay palming your core again. You looked at him in question and he nodded at you reassuringly.

“It’s raining hard. Nobody is here. Don’t worry.”

At the sound of his voice, you calmed down. You let Jay adjust your seat, pulling it backwards and making you lie down so he would have ample room to be in front of you. He tugged the edge of your pants once, and it didn’t take him a second time for you to pull them down to your legs and even taking them off completely.

“Oh, baby,” Jay sighed as he saw the sight of your cunt dripping. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”

He ran two fingers along your slit, and you shuddered, grasping his wrist. He then brought his fingers to his nose and sniffed them before sucking them dry. Your eyes rolled back at his actions, and he found you adorable.

It wasn’t often that you and Jay would fuck with clothes on. When you were in a hurry, or when you needed a quick fix at the office, it would happen. But nowadays, you prefer to keep your intimacy reserved for at home. Now, seeing Jay with his navy collared short sleeve, his hair styled neatly, and his watch around his wrist, made you feel somehow even more aroused than when you saw him completely naked.

Jay took his pants off and carefully made his way to your side, with one hand pumping his length. He leaned in to kiss your cheek before moving down to your neck, licking and sucking on your supple skin because he knows it’s the best way to get you wetter. Your breathing became heavy, and as he continued to devour you, he began massaging your breasts, desperately pulling your top down so he can kiss your tits too.

You felt the cold of his rings and the metal of his watch against the heat of your skin. You were already a whimpering mess, and when he aligned himself with you, you felt the tip of his cock brush your folds.

“Jay,” you whispered, resting your hands around his neck. “Please just do it fast.”

Jay kissed your cheek tenderly at the same time he pushed inside you. Your moan stuttered as you felt him slowly fill you up. He thrusted into you once, and you closed your eyes. You caressed his face and ran your hands through his hair, encouraging him to move faster. For a while, the sound of the raindrops was replaced with the sound of skin slapping, and it echoed in the car. The way Jay was thrusting deeper made you spread your legs wider, and you were grateful that your first car sex with Jay was done in a bigger car, not your Benz.

Determined to get you off fast, Jay kept going faster, and you had to stabilize yourself by holding on to his shoulders. You heard him groan into your ear, signaling that he was also close, so you hooked your legs around his waist and pressed his body closer to you. He came first, shooting his cum inside you, and the warmth drove you to your own high just seconds after.

At this point Jay was panting on your neck, and you gently caressed the back of his head, while your other hand was still holding on to his shoulder. He tilted his head to kiss your jawline and you smiled.

“I don’t want a single drop staining the car,” you whispered. “Don’t make a mess.”

Jay licked his lips before pushing himself up with his palms. He then reached down to grab his dick and began to very carefully, and in an agonizingly slow manner, pull out of you. Your breath began to even out, but then you felt his cum slowly dripping out of you. You gasped when you felt Jay collect his cum with the tip of his dick and pushing it back into you.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“I know,” you responded.

You grabbed a couple of tissues to clean the rest of it, and in a matter of minutes, you were already fully dressed, and Jay was already buckling his pants on as he sat back on the driver’s seat.

“The rain stopped,” he said, peeking out through the window. “Wanna go get that coffee?”

“Yeah, why not?” You looked for your purse. “I feel relaxed after I have sex with you, so I do need caffeine to wake me up.”

Jay laughed, palming his face and brushing his hair back. “So, my attempt to wake you up sort of backfired?”

You checked your phone before chucking it into your purse. “Hey, at least the driver’s wide awake, right?”

---

You had your lunch at your office while you sent Jay off to the canteen, claiming that he needed to socialize more and get a decent lunch since you never really had your custom lunch order exceed a portion of one. You finished eating in less than fifteen minutes, just in time for you to greet your brother. He knew his way in the office, so even without waiting for Hwiyoung to come back from his break, your brother managed to find you seated comfortably on your chair.

“Knock-knock,” your brother said as he knocked on the door and pushed it open at the same time.

“Who’s there?” You responded, placing your chin on your palm and eyeing your brother from your desk.

“Oh, that wasn’t a joke,” he said. Smiling, he trotted over to your desk. “Sister,” he sighed, reaching out both his eyes to hug you.

“Ugh, stop it, Seungho,” you said as you rolled your eyes. You welcomed his embrace. “You don’t want me calling you oppa, do you?”

“God, no,” Seungho shook his head in horror while hugging you tight. When he pulled back, you began observing his looks closely.

“You got a tan,” you commented.

“You cut your hair,” he retorted.

“Is that a scar near your eyebrow?”

“Is that a hickey?”

You fumbled for your phone and checked your reflection, craning your neck to see the spot Seungho pointed at. Nothing was there.

“Made you look,” he chuckled.

You led your brother to the sofa while offering him a choice of drink from your minibar. He settled with sparkling water, and you commented how it was so on brand of him. You then proceeded to join him, sitting on the lounge chair to his side and leaning closely, listening to all his updates on his life and stories about his husband.

“I mean seriously,” Seungho continued, “Byunghee never cleans up after he shaves. And what does he even shave? The damn beard is still there when he’s done.”

You chuckled softly, mostly at the fact that your brother’s husband’s facial hair was one of the things you remembered most about him. He finished his story, or his rant, and then you heard two knocks on the door.

“Come in,” you said.

Hwiyoung came inside and at the sight of your brother, he immediately bowed. Seungho smiled wide and spoke even before Hwiyoung had a chance to formally greet him.

“Is this the famous Park Jay? Oh, I love your hair. So nice to finally meet you!”

You facepalmed and sighed, and poor Hwiyoung was just looking at you in panic. Seungho was confused at both your reactions.

“Wrong assistant, Sir,” Hwiyoung finally spoke up. “I’m Hwiyoung. The second secretary.”

“Oh my God,” Seungho said as he stood up. “That’s embarrassing. I am so sorry! Forgive me for assuming. Also, are you single?”

“Seungho, you’re married!” You yelled.

“Asking for a friend!” Seungho yelled back in defense, putting both his hands up.

Hwiyoung waited exactly two seconds before breaking the silence. “Anyway…”

He walked towards you and spoke in a lower voice, asking for confirmation about your next schedule. Once you were done talking to him, you looked at your brother, who was busy checking his phone for messages.

“Hwiyoung, this is my brother, Seungho.” You sat back as you finished introducing the two.

Seungho apologized again to Hwiyoung before you sent him off. As soon as Hwiyoung left, Seungho looked at you with a wide grin.

“That was more embarrassing for me than for him,” you stated. “Don’t tell Jay about it.”

“Tell me what?”

You flinched in your seat as you heard Jay’s voice. You realized that Hwiyoung did not close the door behind him since he already saw Jay approaching your office.

“Seungho, Jay. Jay, this is my brother.”

You gestured your hand randomly towards the both of them, and then Jay immediately bowed before reaching out his hand to your brother.

“You’re really handsome,” your brother commented.

“Isn’t that lovely?” You chimed in before giving Jay a chance to reply. “I think you’re handsome. My gay brother thinks you’re handsome. You’re universally handsome.”

Seungho cackled and fell back to his seat while Jay was trying to control himself from blushing. It’s not every day that he gets to hear you say he’s handsome.

You instructed Jay to take your seat and talk to your brother to keep him company while you checked on a couple of documents that Hwiyoung sent to your email. You realized there were a couple of things that need fixing, and since there was a guest in your office, you decided to just go to your staff’s desk.

Jay was a natural at socializing, but he had no idea how to properly behave around your brother. You had never told him much about Seungho, and even when you do, nothing about your stories reflect that much about his personality. It took him a while to finally relax and find a shared interest with Seungho, and soon enough the conversation shifted to the topic of you.

“I’ve been meaning to say,” Seungho cleared his throat before emptying the bottle of sparkling water into his glass, “thank you.”

Jay’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not sure I understand…”

“For making my sister happy.”

Jay blinked once, blankly staring at Seungho’s hands. “Oh,” was his only respond.

Seungho smiled. “I’m saying this because all she did in her past relationship was rant about her boyfriends, I mean exes, to me. I haven’t heard anything bad about you, so I guess you’re doing something right.”

Jay scoffed, still searching for the proper way to respond. Seungho calmly waved his hand as he set back his glass on the table.

“I’ve also heard good things about you from my parents. My mom, particularly, wouldn’t shut up about you. And I know it’s none of my business, but… your relationship is serious, right?”

Hearing this question, Jay nodded without a beat. “I’m serious.”

“Good,” Seungho said. “Because if you hurt her, I’m gonna have to unleash all the hidden knowledge I have gained from listening to a lot of true crime podcasts.”

Jay blinked again in astonishment. Seungho laughed.

“I’m kidding! Obviously.” Seungho gently punched Jay on his shoulder, and Jay responded with a nervous laugh.

---

You winced as you felt the cold of the water hit your face. You quickly washed up and put on your skincare, deciding to go extra on the sunscreen for today. It was still dark, but you woke up before your alarm went off, so you figured you could get ready early before Jay wakes up. When you were done in the bathroom, you went back into your bedroom and changed into your workout outfit in the dark. Once you were ready, you turned to see Jay still sleeping soundly.

“Baby,” you called as you sat on the edge of the bed. “We need to leave soon if we want to catch the sunrise.”

Jay stirred in his sleep and shifted to face you. His eyebrows were knitted, and his lips pursed. You chuckled as you tapped your finger to his lips. He then whined and pulled you into him by your wrist. He managed to hug you sideways, and all you did was pat his shoulders in return.

“You smell nice,” he mumbled, lips brushing your skin.

“Up on the count of three, come on,” you replied, getting ready to pull him up. “One, two…”

Jay pushed himself up and into your arms, leaning towards you and kissing your lips but missing his aim. He ended up kissing your chin.

“Three,” you said calmly before properly giving him a good morning kiss. “Now go change. You promised you’d take me to see the sunrise. I wouldn’t have gotten up so early if you weren’t the one taking me.”

Jay merely yawned and stretched his arms. “Okay, Boss.”

You had to tell Jay to chill and not speed since it was quite a long drive to the mountain. Apparently, Jay had done extensive research about the best sunrise spots in the city, and he deemed that the best spot would be the one that was not walking distance from your place. Luckily, you both got there in time. You spotted a couple of people who were also hiking early, assuming they were there to watch the sun too.

Once you reached the perfect spot—away from the people but not sacrificing the view, you brushed the back of your leggings before sitting down on the rocks. Jay followed suit, sitting next to you as he kept his hands inside the pockets of his windbreaker. He froze for a while, running both hands into the pockets like he was searching for something.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, noticing his jittery behavior.

He paused again like he was processing something to say, then he took one hand out and felt the pocket on his jogger.

“Forgot I put the keys here,” he said with a stupid grin.

You chuckled and sat comfortably. With Jay right beside you, it meant you had a nice shoulder to lean on. Jay pressed his head on yours, and as you both sat there in silence, the sun started to peek. You watched as the dark sky turned orange, and although it felt like it took ages to get there, the sun rising ended way faster, and in that short moment the view of the sunrays hitting the forest below you and the rocks around you made you choke up.

Jay linked his fingers with your hand and brought it up to his lips. Kissing your knuckles, he told you he loved you in a voice that was barely even a whisper. You closed your eyes as you nuzzled into the crook of his neck, letting his warmth cover you like a cozy blanket. When you opened your eyes, the sun had already turned the sky a light blue. The slight fog you saw between the trees had disappeared too.

“We’re having dinner tonight at the restaurant that Jake does part-time work,” Jay stated, pulling back to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “Wear whatever you’d like, but I’d love it if you look pretty.”

“Are you saying I’m not pretty now?” You asked. You then pulled up your hoodie to cover your head.

“Hoodie on, hoodie off, you’re always pretty,” Jay replied. He then tugged the edge of the hoodie back to expose your ear as he leaned into it. “You’re the prettiest when you’re naked for me, though.”

His whisper obviously sent shivers down your spine, so you just hit him gently on the chest to combat the sheer embarrassment that was starting to show on your cheeks. Jay chuckled lowly and pulled your hoodie back completely before pulling you into a warm hug.

---

“Babe, can you unbox the two packages that have been sitting by the door while you wait?”

Jay had to look up from his phone to pay attention to you. You were sitting at your vanity table, taking your time to put on makeup since you really did want to look pretty as per Jay’s request. He nodded before setting his phone down on the bed and leaving the bedroom.

“Do you want me to unbox it here in the kitchen, or…?” Jay’s sentence hung in the air as he waited for your response.

You answered him by walking out of your bedroom and meeting him in the kitchen. You were done with your makeup except for your lip color, and for a second Jay thought you were sick because of how pale your lips looked.

“Actually, I think one of those boxes is my order,” you said, hopping to sit on the bar stool. You watched as Jay carefully opened the box with a cutter.

The first box was filled with paper wrap and paper confetti, and you noticed how Jay was already smiling even before he took out what was inside. When he did, you gasped and kept your mouth open as you admired what appeared to be two matching cat mugs—one was light blue with a black cat on it, and the other was baby pink with a white cat one it. When pushed together, it looked like the black cat was grooming the white cat.

“Matching mugs for us!” Jay said with a huge smile. “Do you think it’s cute?”

You were still speechless from the shock and pure adoration, so you said nothing as you unboxed your own package. A second later, you pulled out a dark green mug with a little white cat siting on the handle.

“I literally got this for you,” you said, pushing the green mug to Jay.

Jay was now laughing softly and rendered speechless. You pulled the blue and pink cat mugs and carefully picked one up.

“What made you buy these?” You asked.

Jay shrugged, also admiring the green mug. “I just thought of you when I saw them. I figured, since you can’t hang out with cats because of me, I should make an effort to add more cat stuff to our daily lives.”

“That’s adorable,” you replied. “Thank you.”

“And this?” Jay asked, holding up his mug.

“Bought that on a whim. I thought of getting it for you since it’s your color, but if you don’t want it, I was gonna use it for myself.”

The two of you then just stared at the three mugs on the counter, and then at each other. You chuckled before you stretched out your arms, and Jay walked over to your side to give you a hug.

“Go finish your makeup,” Jay said, kissing the top of your head. “Jake will literally be waiting for us.”

You snorted at his pun. “Funny. You still need to style your hair.”

Jay muttered a soft ‘fuck’ before you cackled and walked away to the bedroom, with him trailing behind you.

---

You and Jay were seated by the window that overlooked the city. The lights from the buildings and the moving cars below created the perfect view, and you had to admit that the night sky was one of your favorite things to look at, second to watching sunsets. You were wearing a baby blue jumpsuit with a matching-colored fuzzy cardigan and your pearl choker around your neck. Jay was dressed in a darker shade of blue, with his navy button-down making his honey skin glow. His wristwatch matched your golden accessories, and if someone were to take a picture of the two of you at your table, it would have looked like something out of Pinterest.

The conversation you were having with Jay was hushed because you did not want to disturb the serenity of your surroundings. The restaurant was not full, but you spotted several couples as well as families sitting quite far from where you were. Jake was already waiting for another table when you arrived, but whenever he had to pass you to get to the table, he would always look to you and give you a wink.

You felt like this had become a routine, for Jay to reserve a table at a restaurant you did not know and to enjoy a luxurious dinner while talking about everything going on in your lives. While Jay was speaking, you lost yourself for a moment, just staring at him while he was looking down at his food and babbling about stuff at work. You realized that you will never get bored of his stories, no matter how long you two had been together. You will listen to him for the rest of your life.

Your waiter cleared out your table once you finished your main course. When he asked what you wanted for dessert, Jay requested some time to choose. It was odd, you thought, since normally he would come prepared with a set of dishes to choose from. The waiter excused himself, and right after, Jay cleared his throat.

“Y/N,” Jay said in a low voice. The change in his tone sort of alarmed you. If you weren’t madly in love with each other, you would have thought he was about to break up with you.

“Jay?” You asked back. It made him chuckle. “Is everything okay?”

You saw Jay shifting in his seat, reaching into his pocket. He then took out a small box. It was black velvet, and from the size it could only be an engagement ring. Or earrings. Your heart started beating so fast. It seemed like Jay could sense it, so to make things clear, he opened the box and pushed it towards the center of the table, showcasing the ruby ring that was planted inside.

“Oh my God,” you muttered, more towards yourself.

“Listen,” Jay cleared his throat, “I prepared a whole speech, so I hope you’d be willing to listen.”

You laughed softly and straightened your position. Your hands were fiddling on your lap, and you tried your best to keep looking into his eyes as he spoke.

“I’ve thought about this for a long time, even before I proposed to you when I was drunk. I rarely get drunk, but when I do, my friends usually tell me I become even more honest than I already am. So, believe me, it wasn’t just me blabbering. I really want to marry you.”

You nodded gently and waited for him to continue. He took a deep breath.

“First, I want to apologize to you. For lying.”

You frowned.

“Whenever I’m away, spending a couple of hours from home, and whatever my excuse was, it was a lie. I was making appointments, planning stuff, seeing the designer for the ring, meeting your parents, meeting my parents, basically taking care of everything I needed to do before I ask you the question.”

Your eyes softened. “You talked to my parents?”

Jay nodded. “I’ve been spending more time with them, together or separately, just so I can get to know them better. It’s nice of them to always meet up with me in the city since they know I’m allergic to cats.”

You chuckled. You felt your eyes slowly tearing up.

“I talked to your dad first. I think he was the one who ended up convincing your mom, you know, that I’m actually a decent guy.”

Jay laughed nervously after his statement, and you continued to look at him, smiling.

“I’ve thought about everything regarding work, too, you know. If this status would change anything, and I kind of weighed all the options before coming to the decision that I do want to marry you and I still want to work for you.”

You nodded again. Jay then reached out for your hand, and you quickly placed your hand in his. You could feel him slightly trembling, and you thought that it was wholesome.

“Damn it, I forgot what else I was supposed to say.”

You almost snorted at his remark, looking down to contain your laughter. Jay pressed his lips together before he looked into your eyes again.

“Y/N, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

You could no longer hold your tears back, so you let them fall. As you sniffed, you squeezed his hand in yours and smiled.

“With all my heart,” you answered.

Jay smiled back at you before taking the ring and putting it on your finger. You did not even take a second to admire the ring before you stood up and took a step towards him. He stood to pull you into his arms, hugging you tightly and whispering words of love in your ears. And at the same time, you heard the dispersed sound of clapping throughout the restaurant.

You felt slightly embarrassed that the people there had to witness your crying face, but you were happy that they shared the joy, so you silently thanked them with a hand over your chest. Jay did the same. He helped you go back to your seat.

Jay sat back and let out a sigh of relief, and you chuckled at him. Your waiter returned, and this time Jay placed the order for your dessert. Just seconds after, Jake walked over to your table.

“Way to go, mate,” he said, bumping Jay’s shoulder with his fist ever so gently. Jay muttered a soft thanks, and then Jake looked at you. “Noona, congratulations.”

You reached out both your hands to Jake and he held them tightly, a huge grin plastered on his face.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got pictures and videos of the proposal. I’ll airdrop them as soon as my shift is over,” Jake confessed. “Now I gotta run before my manager sees me.”

Your mouth was wide open, and you were left stunned, unable to form a response. Jay laughed.

“Does that mean he recorded me crying?” You asked Jay, looking around.

“I’m sure he got it at a good angle,” Jay responded, reassuring you. “Oh, right, I remembered what I was going to say.”

You were taking a sip from your glass of water and almost spat it back out from laughing. “What is it?”

“I was supposed to propose to you this morning when we were watching the sunrise.”

You looked at Jay for a couple of seconds before you blinked. “So, when you were frantically patting yourself down and searching for something in your pocket, it wasn’t the car keys but the ring? You left it at home?”

“Exactly.”

You snorted again and laughed silently, your fiancé chuckling with you.

---

After a hearty chat with Jake as soon as his shift ended, you went home with a bunch of pictures and videos on your phone. Jay was right, Jake knew all the good angles, although it’s a shame he couldn’t capture the audio since he was recording from a distance.

Mr. Lee picked you up with a huge smile on his face, and it made you realize that Jay had given him a heads-up already about his plan. Your driver glance towards you and you held up your hand, moving your fingers and showing off the ring.

“Are you relieved now, Park?” Mr. Lee asked after congratulating you both.

“I am!” Jay replied. “Thank you for driving me around, Mr. Lee.”

“You made him drive you around?” Your eyes widened as you shifted your gaze between your fiancé and your driver.

Mr. Lee waved off his hand. “Only once or twice, Miss. Don’t you worry. The younger Mr. Lee drove him around more often.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking both my drivers behind my back,” you sighed, leaning your head on Jay’s shoulder.

Jay merely shrugged. “I’ll be sure to leave them both a huge tip later.”

The moment you arrived at home you were exhausted. Jay was too, and you guessed it was because the whole suspense and anticipation he had been holding in for the whole day. You decided to take turns showering, and when you finished first, you went to the kitchen to make tea for two.

When you returned to the bathroom, Jay was already done washing up. You did your skincare side by side, and Jay took the jade roller from your hands and made you give instructions on how to use it on your face. You did the same routine on Jay’s face, and throughout the whole process he was closing his eyes and smiling.

You both then slipped into your favorite pajamas—your silky kimono set in green and Jay’s cotton pajamas in black. He made you sit on the sofa to choose a movie for the night while he made sure the tea that you prepared was still hot. You opted for your all-time favorite romcom that you had watched more than five times, and at this point you were able to follow almost all the dialogs in the movie. Jay smiled as he listened to your rambles, alternating between rubbing your shoulders or running his fingers through your hair.

As the end credits rolled up, you turned to look at Jay and started fondly caressing his face. Your eyes fell to your engagement ring, and Jay quickly noticed it.

“Gorgeous, huh?” He asked with a grin on his face.

“It’s breathtaking. And also huge. Would you be offended if I don’t wear it every day? I’m afraid of losing it,” you confessed, fixing the ring on your finger.

“You can do whatever you want, my queen,” Jay replied. He leaned in to give you a chaste kiss on your lips.

“I’m tired and sleepy right now. Can we have sex in the morning?”

Jay chuckled and booped your nose. “I kiss you once and you already think I’m trying to get in your pants?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I am.”

You snorted and lightly slapped his cheek. “In the morning. Not now. Or try waking me up with it. Whatever.”

Jay nodded and saluted you. You pulled his hand down as he laughed. You then threw your body onto his and let him cage you in the warmest embrace you had ever been in your life.

-END-

© forjongseong 2023, all rights reserved

another author's note: THERE YOU HAVE IT! he proposed. it was cliche but i love it. hope you did too! as usual, if you find any mistakes, typos, or grammatical errors, do let me know! ❤

read the next part: daylight

[iamraque]

Hey guy's!!!

You might be wondering about what is Word formation processes and how to use it, So Today, We will discover and discussed about What is Word formation processes and What are it's types.

Word formation processes in morphology

Definition

Word Formation Process (also called Morphological Process) is a means by which new words are produced either by modification of existing words or by complete innovation, which in turn become a part of the language.

Types of Word Formation Processes

Different types of word formation processes are employed to create new words. However, all word formation processes basically bring either inflectional or derivational changes. Therefore, inflection (also called inflexion) and derivation are the two core processes of word formation. Inflection differs from derivation to the following extent:

The major word formation processes include but are not limited to the following:

Affixation

It is a word formation process wherein an affix is attached to a root (also called stem; base) to form a new word. A root is a free morpheme (also called unbound morpheme) that can appear alone. On the other hand, an Affix is a bound morpheme which never occurs by itself, but is always attached to some free morpheme and can be either inflectional or derivational. An Inflectional affix modifies the form/grammatical category of a word, i.e., tense, person, number, gender, case, etc. For example: rat → rats. Contrariwise, a derivational affix modifies the parts of speech of the root, while leaving the grammatical category unchanged. In this way, there is a change of meaning of the root. For example: write → writer.

Conversion

This refers to the change of function or parts of speech of a word without adding an affix. Conversion is also called zero derivation or null derivation since the functional change is brought about by supplementing an invisible affix. Sometimes it is also called functional shift. Typically conversion is made from “noun to verb” and from “verb to noun”. Less frequently, conversion is also done from “adjective to verb” and “adjective to noun”.

For instance:

Back-formation

Back-formation is a morphological process in which new word is created by extracting affixes from another word. In this way, it is the reverse of affixation, in which affixes are added. Back-formation is also different from clipping since it brings a change in the parts of speech or the word's meaning. For example: the noun insertion has been back-formed into verb insert by removing the suffix ion.

Clipping

As the name suggests, clipping is the word formation process in which a word is reduced to a shorter form. With a sharp contrast to back-formation, clipping keeps the original word meaning intact. These words are very common in everyday speech. For instance: lab is the clipped form of laboratory. . There are four types of clippings:

Compounding

Also called composition, by this process two or more than two words are combined together to create a single word, having a single idea and function. In English, there are compound nouns, compound adjectives, and compound verbs. Customarily compound words are spelt as a single word, or as two or more hyphenated words, and even as two or more separate words.

For example:

-life + style → lifestyle

-mother + in + law → mother-in-law

-shopping + mall → shopping mall

There are no specific rules for hyphenated compounds. Generally, some new and original compound nouns are hyphenated, but the hyphen is ignored when they become more familiar. However, there are some compound adjectives that are always hyphenated. For instance: state-of-the-art. The hyphen is often retained when two vowels come together, such as: Co-operation. Hyphens are often used to tell the ages of people and things, for example: 10-year-old. The general rule is that words are combined with hyphens to avoid confusion.

Borrowing

This refers to the words adopted from other languages. There are two types of borrowings:

Coinage

Also called invention, is a morphological process by which new words are invented. Sometimes popular trademark names of various products are adopted by people so extensively that they ultimately become the everyday words of language.

For example:

Heroin

Aspirin

Escalator

Xerox

Kerosene

Nylon

Band-Aid

Vaseline

Margarine

Note: some words are being invented due to rapid cultural changes and the spread of information technology, mass media, internet, etc.

For example:

Google

Blog

Hotspot

Netbook

Tablet

Tweet

Emoticon

Smartphone

Blending

Blending (also called portmanteau) is a morphological process in which the parts of two or more words are combined together to form a new word. Usually, the parts consist of the beginning of one word and the end of the other word(s). Typically, the meaning of the blended word reverberates with the meanings of the original words.

For example:

breakfast + lunch → brunch

motor+hotel → motel

However, blending should not be confused with compounding, which combines two words without truncation of parts of the roots of the blended words.

Acronyms

These words are formed with the initial letters or each of the major parts of a word or a longer phrase. With a few exceptions, acronyms are usually capitalized. Some linguists confuse acronyms with initialisms, which are also abbreviations formed in the similar manner as the former. In essence, there is a sharp difference between the two. In language, an acronym is pronounced as a single word rather than just a sequence of individual letters, which is characteristic of initialisms.

For example:

Reduplication

Reduplication (also called cloning; doubling; duplication; repetition; tautonym) is a word formation process in which a new word is created by repeating all or part of a root or a stem, often with a change of vowel or initial consonant. Reduplication is not a major means of creating lexemes in English, but it is perhaps the most unusual one. Based on their usage, the techniques of reduplication could be classified in the following manner:

Repetition without Change: bye-bye, tick-tick

Rhyming Reduplication: ding-dong, super-duper, bow-wow

Repetition with Change of Vowel: tiptop, chitchat, flip-flop, ping-pong, dilly-dally, wishy-washy

Repetition with Change of Initial Consonant: teeny-weeny.

I hope you learn something new today, thankyou!!

References

“English Word Formation Processes.” Really Learn English. 2016. Really-Learn-English.com.

14 July 2016 <http://www.really-learn-english.com/word-formation-processes.html>.

“Inflection.” Wikipedia. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 14 July 2016

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflection>.

“Morphological Derivation.” Wikipedia. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 14 July 2016

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_derivation>.

Yule, George. The Study of Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.

“Word Formation.” Wikipedia. 2016. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 14 July 2016

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_formation>.

[starlessea]

Ultimate Guide to Proofreading

Here’s the next installation of my writing tips series!

[Just a quick disclaimer: this isn’t meant to discourage anyone! We are all still learning. These are just some tips you may want to consider when editing your writing].

As a language / linguistics student, I tend to focus on the grammar, or just the overall presentation of my writing. Obviously, if you’re writing online or self-publishing, without a beta reader that is, then no one is going to scrutinise you over the small things.

However, it can elevate your writing SO MUCH if you simply proofread it. Often, I find myself taken out of the immersion of a story because a typo is so glaringly obvious. Most of the time, we can gloss over them and they don’t impact the reading experience too much - but if your work is littered with small errors, they tend to pile up.

Proofreading is an easy way to get your readers to stick with you - and it often doesn’t even take that long! You just need to know HOW to proofread, and it will save you time. 

1) Spell Checkers

I know this seems really obvious, but I read so much work that could be improved tenfold just by being copied-and-pasted into a spell checker. You can literally type ‘spell checker’ into Google, and use an online service.

Personally, I use Google Docs. I just Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+V my work into it - and it will underline the spelling mistakes in red, and the grammar errors in blue. 

It’s as easy as that.

2) Consistency and General Grammar Points

This section is by NO MEANS an exhaustive list, but I’ve just compiled the things I’ve noticed the most when reading online. 

American English vs. British English:

This one is quite self-explanatory. If you’re going to use American spellings, then use them consistently throughout - and vice versa with British. Some common ones to look out for include:

color / colour

neighbor / neighbour

humor / humour

(US/UK respectively)

I found a good article here that gives a more comprehensive list.

Homophones or the Question of Verb / Noun:

You may want to double-check that you’ve used the right form of a word (verb / noun) - especially if they sound the same. 

affect / effect

hoard / horde

practice / practise***

*See this article.

allowed / aloud

were / where

I know these can sometimes get a little tricky for non-native speakers - especially since English is really quite a weird language. But these are the most common errors I’ve picked up on.

A lot of the time, things like Google Docs won’t spot these - so it’s good to be aware of the TYPES of errors you’re trying to find.

Also, remember that Google Search is your friend. I can’t even count the number of times I look things up when writing - THERE IS NO SHAME IN IT. It doesn’t take long to check if you’re using a word in the correct context, or the correct form of the word.

Showing Possession:

A lot of people tend to get confused about using the genitive marker, apostrophe ‘-s’ to show possession. See the examples below:

[Disclaimer: don’t judge my name choices...]

Jade has a bag. That is Jade’s bag.

Jade Simpson has a bag. That is Jade Simpson’s bag.

Jade Simpson lives with her husband, John Simpson. They are the Simpsons.

That is the Simpson household. That is the Simpsons’ house.*** 

*This is the one most people struggle on. There are two Simpsons, so the apostrophe comes at the end to show PLURAL possession (i.e., belonging to BOTH Jade and John).

This is Jess. That is Jess’ bag.

Here, the above can be written as Jess’s, but the extra (-s) usually gets ellided if it is following an ‘s’.

Another thing people get confused about is its/it’s. 

In English, ‘it’s’ = a contraction of ‘it + is’ (NOT TO SHOW POSSESSION). ‘Its’ is the possessive form in this case.

E.g., The dog lost its collar; it is brown = The dog lost its collar; it’s brown (the collar is brown).

Punctuation Consistency:

Personally, I don’t mind what style of punctuation you use. Whether you put your full stops INSIDE your quotations, or OUTSIDE;

E.g., “Go away.” vs “Go away”.

or if you sometimes like using hyphens in place of a comma; likewise with capitalisation, and whether you decide to capitalise certain nouns etc.

But, whatever you choose, BE CONSISTENT WITH IT.

You don’t want to give your readers whiplash by changing styles every couple of lines. Otherwise, it’s like you’ve chosen one academic referencing style for your essay, only to switch it half-way through. It’s confusing. It may seem like a nit-picking point, but people will notice it - and it’s good written practice to focus on being consistent.

3) Formatting:

Dialogue:

PLEASE PLEASE start a new paragraph/line if SOMEONE NEW IS SPEAKING.

Your readers will be so confused if you don’t properly distinguish who is speaking. It takes away from the reading experience when you think one character has said a line, but it turns out to be another. 

Don’t just rely on “[...]” John said. We should know if someone new is speaking by the format, not just the name that follows the dialogue.

Paragraphs:

Don’t let your work be one block of text. Break it up and make it more digestible for your readers. Try to start a new paragraph for a new topic, place, thought, etc. You can find some really great guides online that go into more detail. Personally, I think it’s quite a stylistic thing - but you should still be consistent in how you choose to establish your paragraphs.

4) Other Things to Look out For

Detography: Have you written a word twice?

Pronouns: Are you using the following correctly?

their/they’re/there

your/you’re

Tenses: Are you sticking to the same tense? Are your verbs all conjugated in the same tense? Do you switch tense half-way through?

Repetition: Are you relying on the same words a lot. Are you using the same verb / descriptive word very close together?

For this, I just make a quick Google search:

E.g., “said synonym” or “angry synonym” - it adds variety to your writing.

Character Names: This seems obvious, but make sure you’ve spelt them correctly throughout - same goes for place names etc.

5) READ YOUR WORK ALOUD

I really can’t stress this enough. Even after studying language, literature and linguistics for as long as I have, I still miss so many of my own errors if I don’t read my work aloud. My editing process literally involves:

Write the draft

Read over the draft and correct any glaring errors

Copy and paste into a spelling/grammar checker

Re-read the new work and edit again

Read aloud and edit as I go

Final read through

Obviously I don’t do this every time - but it shows just how easy it is to miss mistakes when you’re still finding them during step 6.

6) Bribe a Beta-Reader (or a Friend)...

This is a really helpful step if you are able to find someone willing to check over your work. Often, we become blind to our own writing after we’ve read over the same thing a number of times. It can be really useful to get someone to take a look at it with fresh eyes!

Disclaimer: These are just some things I’ve noticed that I tend to look for in my own work. Also, I want to make a point of saying that English is a strange language, so please don’t be discouraged if you’re a non-native speaker feeling confused. I still get confused!

Also, please feel free to ask me any questions! I might not always be available to give a full beta-read of your work, but if you have any queries relating to grammar etc., don’t hesitate to drop me a message!

[madamewriterofwrongs]

For AUs, how about 9-1-1/Castle: Buck and Eddie end up called to an emergency at a crime scene that Beckett and the gang have also been called to :)

Prompt Me with AUs

I just finished watching an episode of Castle and I forgot how sexy all those motherfuckers were. Damn. Add the 118? That might be too much sexy.

This one kind of got away from me a little. Oops?

Here’s a little excerpt from my series: Unashamed.

Beckett was supposed to be on vacation - an actual vacation not a pretend vacation where she actually spends her time fighting bad guys. This was supposed to be her and her husband, celebrating their anniversary on the other side of the country where no case could follow them.

She should have known better. 

Los Angeles is exactly how she remembers: hot, crowded, and filled with people who make her feel mildly self-conscious about her body.

For example: the two firefighters currently pulling the body of some mysterious woman out of the tree in their front yard, who look like they walked off the set of Baywatch.

Seriously, what is in the water out here?

They answer questions from a woman whose glare could put Gates’ to shame - they should call her and thank her for the gift she sent - and then wait on the lawn until they’re condo is cleared of first responders.

While they lounge, they overhear some of the firefighters chatting and stop pretending that they’re listening in. Five years of marriage has not made Castle any less nosey, nor Beckett any less inquisitive (yes, it’s the same thing, but it’s all in the wording). 

“That girl was totally hitting on you last night.” The blond’s voice isn’t necessarily accusing but he certainly isn’t pleased about the development.

The brunet simply shrugs in response. “She wasn’t my type.” 

“Oh yeah? And what is your type?”

“Tall, blue eyes, blond, muscular, kind of dumb but in a smart way, good with kids.”

As if he hadn’t actually heard the intense declaration of love, the other firefighter chuckled without looking up from his work. 

“That kind of sounds like me. Too bad it isn’t.”

Of course, the brunet rolled his eyes to the back of his head. “Did I mention ‘dumb’?”

“Yeah.” 

“Just checking.” 

As the pair walked out of earshot Beckett turned to her husband who held the same disbelieving - yet highly amused - expression. They exchanged gaping mouths and halted sentences, struggling to find the words to describe the exchange they’d just witnessed.

Nothing came to mind.

Before they could continue to flounder, the couple returned, carrying even more nonsense.

“Okay, so my husband’s birthday is coming up,” the blond explained. “but I’m afraid to admit that I don’t know what to get him. Everything I can think of is either expensive or sexual.” He made a face. “Or both.” 

The brunet rolled his eyes fondly. “I’m sure your husband will like whatever you get him because it came from you.” 

Beckett mouthed her surprise to her partner (who silently echoed her disbelief) as the boys continued their conversation as though they weren’t at an active crime scene.

“So how do you figure she got up in the tree?” The brunet asked.

“Fell out of a plane?” The blond supplied.

Three voice answered at once: “She didn’t fall out of a plane.”

Castle and Beckett looked more startled at the police officer approaching the group, than at the fact that they’d been caught listening in to the pair’s conversation. 

The firefighters took their intrusion with welcome curiosity, raising an eyebrow without questioning their presence. 

The officer, on the other hand, still had some questions. “And how do you know that?” 

Again, both Castle and Beckett opened their mouths to speak. “Well...” but Beckett cut off her husband. She could at least speak, one cop to another.

“This far west, we aren’t in the path of any commercial flights.”

“And the way she landed suggests a slightly softer landing than falling from 30,000 feet.” Castle interjected - speaking as one private investigator to... a cop.

There were few people who could intimidate Kate Beckett with a single look, but this woman was certainly trying her hardest. 

And succeeding, as far as the NYPD captain was concerned. She was not afraid to admit that she shrunk into her husband’s side as the other woman scrutinized the couple. 

Finally, the woman impatiently asked: “Any suggestions?” 

Castle opened his mouth but only glottal uncertainty came out. Luckily, he was saved by the rather enthusiastic blond. 

“A hot air balloon.” 

“Gold star for Buckley-Diaz.” The sergeant congratulated him, earning a preening look of glee that even Beckett could admit was adorable. 

His brunet companion snorted. “Which one?” 

“The one who solved the case.” The woman replied with a smirk. “Dispatch got a call from a sightseeing company twenty minutes ago. Said they lost a passenger somewhere in the area. We’ll investigate but it sounds like a terrible accident.” 

With that, she walked away from the quartet without so much as a nod goodbye. 

“Nice solve.” The brunet high-fived his partner who smiled brightly in response. 

Castle conceded the win to the dynamic duo before them, but Beckett was still caught on one specific detail. 

“You’re both Buckley-Diaz?” The boys shrugged in affirmation. 

“We wanted to hyphenate instead of one of us taking the other’s last name.” The brunet sent a fond look that Castle recognized from the mirror. “Create our own family, you know?” 

Wait.

“Are the two of you married?” He tried to conflate this new information with what they’d received earlier.

The blond winked at Castle in response. “Guess you’re out of luck.” 

Before the writer could even compute the last five minutes, the pair were gone and out of their lives forever. 

The couple sat silently on the lawn as first responders finally rolled away from their rental condo, leaving them in stunned disbelief. 

And they sat. For what could have been minutes or hours, but was certainly not how they planned on spending their first day in LA.

Beckett broke first.

“Do you want to go to Disneyland?” Castle was up and packing their bags in an instant.

They officially needed a vacation from their vacation. 

Prompt Me with AUs

[thedeaditeslayer]

INTERVIEW: Bruce Campbell on the enduring legacy of horror classic ‘Evil Dead’.

Bruce Campbell, the multi-hyphenate actor who has had a tremendous cultural impact in the world of entertainment, has put together a résumé like no other performer. He’s known for playing the iconic character of Ash in the Evil Dead films and its spinoff TV series, Ash vs.The Evil Dead. This horror credibility is by no means exclusive; he has also acted in many other projects, including Burn Notice, Bubba Ho-Tep, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. Add to that a couple bestselling memoirs, and his professional life has been a full one.

Now he’s ready to talk about perhaps the best-known bullet point on that résumé: his starring turn in the original Evil Dead. On Saturday, Jan. 23, Campbell will take part in an interactive virtual watch party while the horror movie plays for an online audience. The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts in San Antonio is one of the national venues hosting the event. Tickets are $25-$50.

Recently Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Campbell about his career, about the horror movie that started it all and his new “retirement.” Here’s what he had to say …

On what fans can expect from the virtual event …

They can expect amazingness at every turn. You know what it is, it’s not your father’s commentary. Your father’s commentary was on the old DVDs, and the movie starts, and the actors sit around and shoot the shit about what they remember. But it’s real time. It’s OK, but you miss a lot of stuff. So in this case I’ve got some kind of device that’s going to allow me to stop, start, maybe even rewind because you can get a lot more detail. My problem with the old commentaries I would do: You tell a story, something, something. You look up, and you go, ‘Oh, I wish I could have told that story, but it’s already gone.’ So this is a chance to expand the experience, get a little more detail, more trivia. I can kind of tease stuff up. I can pause it and go, ‘Oh, oh, oh,’ and let the people know something [is coming], so it’s just a different type of format done in a very safe and responsible fashion in this modern era.”

On his other work during this pandemic …

My agent kind of put this together because I’ve done similar stuff. I have worked with Wizard Entertainment a lot over the years, and I’ve been doing Last Man Standing as a game show host virtually through Wizard Virtual. And we’ve done that a bunch of times, and we’ve done this sort of Hercules type of reunion sort of stuff. So we’ve danced around it, but this is a way to kind of do another version of something where you go, OK, let’s do a little sit down. You know what it is, it’s just a live performance without the theater. I would be doing essentially the same thing in a movie theater, but until those open again, this is a pretty good second opportunity because the cool thing about the broadcast is it’s open to the world.”

On his hopes for the future of this type of virtual programming …

I hope it works because there are a lot of other movies that I’d be happy to sit with and watch.

On whether he knew Evil Dead would be so legendary …

We knew it from day one. [laughs] No, we did not. Honestly, it was a struggle just to finish the movie. We were under-funded. We shot in Tennessee, but we left 12 weeks later. We were supposed to be there for four weeks, so everything fell apart. We put it back together again. It fell apart — raise a little more money, shoot a little more. So most people think it was 1981, when it came out, but you’re close. But it’s really 1979 is when we actually shot the movie, and then it took several other years just to cobble the thing together. So, no, there was no heightened sense of oh my God we’ve got Star Wars on our hands. We felt fortunate that we had just enough money to finish the damn thing.

On whether he was OK with the gore …

Going in, we knew we wanted to have no holds barred. The only scene I objected to as an individual was the vine rape scene, but it wasn’t my character they were doing it to. So my dog wasn’t really in that fight.

On how he approached the role of Ash …

Well, look the first Evil Dead is pretty straight. It’s kind of a melodrama. There’s not a lot of cracking jokes. By the second Evil Dead, he’s sort of like a veteran with a little more sardonic cracks here and there. By the time you get to Army of Darkness, he’s sort of the ugly American. He’s morphed into the full braggadocious guy — I’ve been through stuff; get out of my way. And then by Ash vs. Evil Dead, now he’s on the downslope. The guy is picking up chicks at the Last Call. He’s doing mescaline. It was fun to follow the character as he progresses and digresses.

On whether he wanted more episodes of Ash vs. Evil Dead …

You can never tell a company that’s putting up the money that they need to pay you more and finance more seasons because they have their own agenda, and they gave us three seasons, which is a fair shot. … Hey, they allowed us to do three seasons of basically unrated television, so fans certainly got their mouthful.

On whether he likes changing it up in his career …

I come from Detroit where in manufacturing they would do job rotation, like Fridays you’d work on tires, next week you’d work on fenders. This is in the factory, working in the auto factory, so it would be a way to keep the workers sort of interested. So, yeah, I love bopping in front of the camera, behind. This year I’m going to be a publisher. I’m going to publish a bunch of books later this year. I started a publishing company because there are a lot of projects that’ll never get made into movies, but doggone it, they sure can be made into novels and books and all kinds of fun stuff. … I’ve got 10 prospective books that I’ll sort of squeeze out over the next couple years. I’m just prepping each one, coming up with a cool cover. There’s tons of projects over the years that I developed. You look at it, and you go, well, no one is going to put up $10 million for this movie. But it won’t cost that much to put it out as a book because I think there’s a lot of stories that we thought were cool. I’d hate for them to wind up in a digital graveyard.

On whether he would ever play Ash again …

I’m officially retired, but I’m sure actors have said that before. I feel like I left it all out on the table for the TV show, and then beyond that, there wasn’t much I was either able or interested in lending to it. I’m going to do the voice for the video game. We’re doing an official Evil Dead game.

On whether he likes to meet fans at conventions …

I have no problem with it. It’s a fun interaction. You get to see new towns and see what folks are up to. You can do your own market research about what are they into, what are they like, what are they all about, who are they, how old are they, what do they look like, so that’s pretty fun. And staying relevant in front of a crowd is always fun, to torment the kids, so I’ll probably get that done if they’ll let us. I might do a drive-in movie tour later this summer.

On the fans who like the sequels as much as the original Evil Dead …

I just know that it was nice of them to embrace the rest of the movies, for different reasons. There are aficionados who like the straight horror of Evil Dead. There are people who like the wackiness of Evil Dead 2, which is sort of splat-stick. And there are some people who can’t really handle the gore, and they like Army of Darkness. It’s jokes; it’s talking skeletons. I mean a 12-year-old could watch Army of Darkness.

On being remembered for Ash above any other role …

You can’t predict how the viewing public will want to remember you over the years. I’m OK with it because Evil Dead got me into the film business and has given me gainful employment for years. What I found in the past is there’s no point grousing over what you think you are perceived as. Every person perceives an actor differently. If you only watch westerns, you might watch The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and love it, but hate Evil Dead. You might love spy shows and watch Burn Notice, but you’re still not going to watch Evil Dead. So I’ve found I’m sort of known by what people watched, and that’s good. I’m OK, as long as they watch.

[ashley-ghuleh]

Chapter 1: A Friend

(Little note, this is waaaay longer then I thought it would be. But I’m pretty happy with it, here’s to just writing to have fun~<3)

In which a Phoenix befriends a Crow. And the roaring Fire is to meet the Icy Sea.

High school for the rich, some think it would be nicer than a middle class school. Nice kids from prestigious families with good standing reputations. Those people are wrong, rich schools are just as bad if not worse than those of anything lower than them.

Rude kids who were living either spoiled lives with parents who gave them everything they’ve ever wanted.

Or kids coming from homes where they feel smothered by the ‘charitable acts’ their family was known for, or how controlling their parents could be.

And then the kids who didn’t have it so rough who rebelled no matter, just wanting to cause trouble for fun, showing up for school properly dressed and disheveling themselves once in the building without a care if a teacher scolded them, though most teachers have given up on this type of student and their stubborness.

But not all students who acted or dressed this way came from a household that was normal or standard for a rich family. Some who did this came from a place like, The Kohle family.

When it came to higher power in a society of nothing but fake suits and dresses.

The Kohle’

A house made of a mother and father like most were, Elizabeth Grace Kohle Heiress to the original bloodline of Kohle, and James Kohle, formally James McKnight though when he married into the family he had taken the Kohle name in place for his given name as to gain further power from the title. This family on the outside looks picture perfect. Seven kids, six boys and one girl, blessed with many children to continue on the family name. Two loving parents to care for the kids and bring their family to greatness. But under the picture of a ‘perfect’ family portrait lies the full unedited truth. Seven kids, six boys and one girl, six prodigal children and one black sheep. It wasn’t easy being the disappointment, but it was a dirty job and somebody had to do it, and that somebody was Marcus Kohle, born fourth before the twins, his father’s only hated child and his mother’s favorite. 

Being babied and spoiled by his mother and disregarded or shunned by his father and other siblings his father has turned against him, happened to be what shaped this tiny rebel.

Marcus looked like any normal teenager going into school, but these students wouldn’t know this was his fifth transfer for fighting and being an all around troublemaker. 

He walked through the halls remembering the short tour, his school uniform tidy and neat, his hair nicely styled as his mother had done for him before he left that morning, everything in its place. 

Until he stepped through the doors, heading right to the locker rooms. Changing into black beat up combat boots and then ruffling up his hair so it hung perfectly a mess, while undoing the buttons on his uniform dress shirt and loosening his tie to hang lazily around his neck. Walking out he strolled with his bag to his locker ready to cause some chaos.

Those feeling suffocated by the bosom of their parent’s cloaked public affection were like Ashley Carter.

The Carter’

This home was built on a steady arranged marriage of two high school sweethearts, David Carter and Adela Guilani now Adela Guilani-Carter. She kept her maiden name so if things got ugly she could easily drop the hyphenated last name of her husband. Two ‘loving’ parents of course, who were blessed with a single gifted daughter. 

Being born with birth defects that stunned the two parents had been such a reputation concern, that they announced the birth of their daughter without showing her face. The doctor had said Ocular Albinism didn’t run in the family lineage as far as they could find, it just happened to be a rare occurrence.

Rare she was, Ashley Carter was an oddity in a world of normalcy that her parents tried to force upon her. Once she had hit 14 she didn’t care much anymore.

She was the family disappointment, a disgrace to the family name and she would never be what her parents wanted for an heir or a child.

This torn family dynamic wasn’t lost on most other families, some of them were sympathetic, giving the pale eyed girl a safe place to decompress and feel as though nothing or no one could do anything to her, they couldn’t touch her in these safe havens.

Walking into school, she was in her school uniform of course. Hair tied up in high ponytail and her uniform skirt pulled up some to show off her knees as well as her top two blouse buttons undone and her cherry red converse squeaked softly as she trudged to her locker, another day of torture was all she could think.

But she didn’t know that she was about to make the friend that would fight for her till the end.

Some of her friends met up with her to walk to the lockers, chatting softly as she would adjust her sunglasses, the indoor/outdoor lenses for these ones taking a little longer than usual to switch over.

Ashley looked the same as she did the year prior, but with this new year and being a year older, she had changed her looks a bit, having decided she was done hiding she no longer wore her colored contacts to hide her eyes and the most outrageous part of her new look was her new hair color.

Kids from other classes and her own watched her walk by, chest length hair that was now a bold fiery red, Ashley was tired of hiding, wanting to be seen for the girl she could and would be. This new color caused her ‘poor’ mother to faint and her father to demand her to “Wash it out! Now!” Only for the recently rebellious teen to reply with, “ It’s permanent. And no~”

The colors resembled the many hidden within a burning flame, reds, oranges and even some soft pinks, yellowy oranges, all laid out with the best strategies to make her unnatural hair color look.. Well natural. It made her skin seem paler but brought out the color of her freckles, her eyes though always milky crystal seemed to be brighter in a sense.

Closing in on their destination, Ashley and her friends slowed to see a new student being cornered by the lockers, the red haired girl’s happened to be the one this boy’s back was pressed to. “ Hey! I said to say something funny, you're the new foreign kid right? I bet you got a fucking hilarious voice and accent! Go on skinny, say something!” This teasing voice, that was oh so grating on Ashley’s ears made her groan, it belonged to a boy she hasn’t been able to stand since they met at the age of 10, “ Tommy. Fucking. Wilson.” She grumbled now standing before said boy, a born jock through and through. It was like in the dna for that family or something. He would’ve been handsome if he didn’t act so ugly.

“Ashley Carter~ Finally ready to submit to me and become my girlfriend.” The new student against the locker, snorted with a sharp inhale before snickering. “ She’s way out of your league.” His voice was soft, masculine for a 14 year old boy and oddly feminine in an angelic satisfying way. 

The two girls that had been walking with Ashley giggled at the remark and not so much the strange European accent he had and tried to fight around.

Tommy and his two friends looked confused and then shrugged it off. “ I changed my mind, totally thought that you would sound funny but you don’t and honestly..” He narrowed his eyes at the new boy. “ The sound of your voice makes me wanna punch you.” He brought his fist up and Ashley stepped in, smacking Tommy on the back of the head, while he reacted she spoke, glaring down at him. “ If you lay a finger on him, I’ll remind you of what I did when you messed with Cecilia’s lunch and fed her meat. Knowing full well she went vegetarian.” The young jock’s eyes widened at the idea and he straightened himself out and dusted his shirt off. “ Well.. I guess-” “ You're just going to let a girl scare you?” Came the squeaky voice of another boy in Tommy’s little friend group.

Ashley stepped forward putting more heat into her gaze while taking her sunglasses off to show fully the anger in her murky eyes. “ Test your luck punk.” She hissed before the small gaggle of boys and Tommy became legitimately scared and ran off down the hall pushing passed students as they went.

The new boy stood up and sighed, running his hand through his messy hair, “ They didn’t hurt you did they?” Came a sweet soft voice belonging to a beautiful girl only describable as looking like a picture of a blond bombshell girl, the little accessories she wore and her vintage looking makeup were perfect replicas of most early war propaganda posters from the 50s. “ I’m fine thanks..” He said softly trying to not talk too loud, any louder than he was his accent would slip.

“I’m Cecilia, you can call me Cici~” She held out her hand, cocking a brow. He took it and shook it weirdly, clearly uncomfortable.

A tall raven haired girl on Ashley’s other side grinned and gave a tiny two finger wave. “ I’m Lilith. Call me Lili or Li'l.” He nodded at her before looking at Ashley whole nodded at him. “ I’m Ashley. Also the girl who just saved your little tush. What’s your name, new kid?” She asked while getting into her locker and arranging her things and grabbing what she’d need for her class.

He grumbled something under his breath and then sighed through his nose. “ Marcus.. Kohle..” Cecilia jumped and gasped. “ Holy shit! Like the Kohle family from Germany that owns and operates a huge oil rig branch?!?” Groaning the new kid, Marcus, nodded and rubbed his forehead.

“Don’t remind me please.” He sighed, Lilith and Ashley both nudged Cici who shrugged and flailed a bit, “ S-sorry sugar.. Didn’t mean to upset you. So! You guys just moved here right? You're gonna need some friends!” She giggled, smiling brightly. Ashley nodded, “ Yea, and it might as well be us if you're gonna survive in this jungle. Especially if you want to avoid conflict with Tommy.” Marcus grinned and laughed coldly. “ I was doing my best.. Not to hit him.” Lilith nodded.

“Steer clear of him if you can kid, he packs a punch..” Ashley snorted and shut her locker, “ When he can land one. My depth perception is clinically off by birth and can aim a hit better. Tommy couldn’t hit the broad side of a cow with a banjo.” She quipped while looking down slightly at Marcus. “ What class do you have first?” The german boy looked at his curriculum list. “ English li-....” He frowned at the word he was obviously having a hard time with. Cecilia peeked over his shoulder and saw it, “ English literature.. Not to be rude, hun, but I’m guessing your English reading is..” She raised a worried brow and Marcus frowned deeper and flapped his hand back and forth, the three girls looked at each other and nodded. “ It's okay, we’re all in that class with you, so we’ll help you. We’re friends now! So we’re gonna do what friends do best and help each other~” Cecilia giggled, her giggles were infectious and Marcus smiled softly, Ashley looked down at him taking him in for a moment, small and thin as a whip. His hair was messy and was a rich, dark black, it was so dark it had a soft tint of an iridescent shine like crow feathers. His face was sharp, feminine. His skin was almost sickly pale, but his eyes were what stood out to her.

Deep, blue oceanic eyes. They looked tired, obvious by the deep set circles under them, but she found herself feeling like she was falling into a dark blue void, swirling through an angry whirlpool in the temperamental sea. Even with how emotionally exhausted he looked, his eyes held this intense energy to them.

Ripped from her thoughts by her friends, she looked to see if they noticed she had spaced out, Marcus didn’t notice, neither did the girls, Lilith was running her fingers through Marcus’ messy tresses. “ Your hair is so cool.. It reminds me of a crow~” She grinned, the foreign boy nodded his thanks softly. “Oh! Oh! Our little friend group is complete! We’ve got the sassy Italian’s,” She giggled, waving at herself and Lilith, “ I’m Italian too..” Ashley pouted, “ Yes, but now we also have.” She sang that ‘a’ to draw it out while shoving Marcus and Ashley shoulder to shoulder, “ The phoenix and the crow~” The blond bubbled and grinned brightly.

The two looked at each other and then shrugged, “ Works for me. Just don’t be calling me that around others.” He grumbled though wasn’t actually grumpy about it, Ashley nodded, “ I mean I like it but it's a little… Stage name-y? How about something more subtle for general use?”

Marcus looked up at her and immediately spoke before anyone else could. “ Ash.” He stated plainly. “ Phoenix's rise from ashes, reborn into the world. Becoming greater with every rebirth.” He said with a bored tone almost like it was so obvious before adding on, “ Plus it's her name but shortened.. I am foreign but not dumb.”

The girls all laughed and smiled at the boy’s antics, he was going to be a lot of fun to get to know and hang out with. Already each girl held special places in their hearts for this precious kid and wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

“Well gang.. We better get to class before Professor Davidson comes searching for us.” Groaning at the idea they made sure they all had everything including Marcus and went onto class.

Walking down the hallway were four new best friends, and two who would stand up for the other no matter the scenario. Beautiful bonds were made between the Phoenix, and the Crow. 

But the two thought, how would the intense Fire handle meeting the Freezing Sea, that’s been raging for centuries?

That’s something they’ll find out together. As they would do so, with many things to come.