draconicace · 29 days ago
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my horrible son named usps charging $1.10 to change my address online and not even being able to do it because the site glitched vs my wonderful daughter named dmv that let me update things online with zero issue and didn't even try to sell my email address to crate and barrel
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animehideout · 11 months ago
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LOVE IS THE MOST TWISTED CURSE OF THEM ALL
PART ONE.
read part 2 here
GOJO SATORU X FEM! READER.
a/n: Here's part one, since all of you voted for Gojo satoru arranged marriage. Once I'm done with this story I'll start writing Long distance relationship x geto suguru.
Let me know if you want to get tagged in the next parts🫶🏻
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"You can use the main bedroom; I won't be home much anyway," Satoru casually said glancing your way.
You silently agreed, carrying your bags to the spacious new bedroom.
The house was fancy; everything looked classy and pricey, but it's Gojo Satoru we're talking about.
You didn't exchange many words. It's your first night together after saying your vows. Still in your wedding dress, changing felt awkward with his intense gaze, so you began unpacking instead.
Leaning against the door frame, he observed you before finally speaking.
"Let's agree on something, okay?" he said.
"Huh? What agreement?" you asked.
"Listen, I have no idea how I ended up in this marriage mess, and I think you feel the same, even though you're the one benefiting. But let me be clear—this marriage isn't real."
"But how the curse will break?—"
"It doesn't matter how. The prophecy said it will so you can save playing as real husband and wife to yourself," he interrupted. "I'm not interested in you, and I don't need to know more about you. I already know enough," he added.
"I'm not interested in you either, and you know it Satoru."you spat.
"Yeah, right. That's why you needed my help." he mocked.
"I DIDN'T. I was fine with not breaking the curse, but my family and the higher-ups insisted for some stupid reasons."
"Yeah, right. STOP LYING. I know you wanted this; otherwise, you could've refused."
"If I had any power to do so, I wouldn't have wasted a second" you glared at him, feeling offended.
"You just confirmed that y/n, I really don't wanna see your face, you can wander this house as much as you want. I'll be in Jujutsu high” he said closing the door forcefully, leaving you all alone.
You removed your dress, changing into comfier clothes.
You were more than relieved that he left, you couldn't stand him anyway or stand his annoying voice. You wanted peace and you finally had it.
You couldn't understand why your family and the higher-ups insisted on breaking your curse, you were completely fine with it. With not being a sorcerer, breaking the curse will only bring a huge responsibility on your shoulders and you'll end up like every one in your family...A jujutsu sorcerer, exorcising curse day and night to help those who can't defend themselves.
Even though you weren't capable of seeing curses, you still could sense them roaming in the space..
It scared you at first, knowing that something is near but you can't do anything about it, unlike your other siblings.
But you grew to accept it and see the whole situation as a blessing not a curse.
But here you found yourself, marrying Gojo Satoru the strongest sorcerer, by an order of both your family and the higher-ups, saying that this bond wouldn't only break your curse that's stopping you from using your Jujutsu but it will also bring a new balance to the jujutsu world.
You're stuck with him, stuck with Satoru. You don't know him well, all what you know is that he's extremely powerful and from what you've seen, he's also a dick and a pain in the ass. Only a few hours in your marriage and he managed to offend the shit out of you.
“its just a matter of time” you said to yourself, while getting under the covers.
The night was truly terrifying for you, you weren't used to spend a night all alone in a big house like this, but it was 100 times better than spending it with Gojo.
So you just shut your eyes, hoping to fall asleep before falling apart.
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•In Jujutsu High•
“Huh Gojo what are you doing here?” asked principal Yaga.
“What?” he answered coldly while shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Its your wedding night, why'd you let your bride alone?”
“Hah bride?” he laughed raising an eyebrow. “And I thought she's the only one being delusional.. I did what all of you wanted, I married her, but thay doesn't mean I wanna live with her” he added.
“But Goj-”
“Sensei- I did my responsibility as the strongest sorcerer for the sake of the jujutsu world.. you can't ask for more”
“but if the higher-ups learn that you'-”
“Well screw the higher ups hehe” he laughed then headed to his room, reserved on Jujutsu high to spend the night away from you.
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ghostsarepeopletoo-2 · 27 days ago
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My Live DRDT episode 16 reaction
HERE WE GO CHATT
SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT
“Are we all ready to vote?” It’s so Aceover
how much you wanna bet David voted for Teruko
“Congratulations!” ITS ACEOVER 😭
“I’m proud of us-!” Can he stfu already
“What do you have to say in your defense?” Can SHE stfu already I’m sorry Hu fans but at this point she makes me want to punch the wall
“I killed her. And if you never forgive me for that, then there’s nothing I can say.” THE NICO PARALLELS?!?!! THE FOILS OF ALL TIME
“This… This all could have been prevented, couldn’t it?” YES THANK YOU EDEN
of course Eden would be the one to point that out first…
“It’s just… misfortune.” Yeah you would know a thing or two about that wouldn’t you
I actually see this line as Teruko refusing to accept either blame or the idea that she could turn out like Ace
“So we can’t possibly blame ourselves…” Hu. HU.
This time I KNOW she’s refusing to accept blame. It’s become a theme in her character, that she refuses to take criticism or herself or those she cares about. It’s a very interesting character trait and I really love her as a character but oh my GOD does she make me mad-
I guess I should specify that while it’s technically everyone’s fault that Ace committed the murder, it’s Ace’s fault most of all for making himself so unapproachable in the first place. I’m not gonna ignore that just because he’s my fav, I’m not gonna do the same thing I literally just criticized Hu for. However, it was Nico’s botched murder attempt that led to Ace finalizing his murder plan, and Hu’s blind defense of Nico didn’t help matters. Out of everyone she might be one of the people who made him want to kill the most.
“… He was happier, and he trusted people more.” “Like adding stones one a pane of glass… until eventually, the glass cracks.” Okay nvm you guys really did ruin him didn’t you
“Nico’s attempted murder isn’t a cause, it’s just a symptom…” Maybe I was wrong okay I’m sorry Hu
“Whatever. Whatever!” Uh oh
“Did you all get the Veronika virus or what?” “You all are wrong, so shut up!” I was gonna say, it’s pretty rude to talk about him like he’s not there 😭
“I didn’t want to die. That’s all.” My boy… my boy you are cooked
“Don’t think that I forgot about your secret, you damn murderer!” Man I was so sad about everything else I almost forgot about Acevi. Almost.
“It’s really funny in hindsight how you acted all betrayed when you found out Levi was a murderer, as if you were unaware that you yourself had killed someone.” I fucking hate him but fair.
I’m not gonna quote anything else David says unless it’s important because I hate him with a burning passion
“But still, I-! I don’t care what it was! I don’t care if it made me a hypocrite!” Acevi is gonna kill me dead just fyi
“I just needed a reason to stay mad at you…!” This yaoi is so doomed I’m gonna kms/j
“I can’t understand you, no matter how hard I try.”
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“I need you to do a favor for me right now. It might just save your life.” Huh???? Wha??? Teruko what’re you cooking
is she gonna ask Ace to dropkick Monotv omg
“The whole reason this killing game keeps going on is because we’re all forced to follow MonoTV’s rules.” HOLY SHIT SHE IS
I wanna see a cg of Ace vs. Monotv so bad ngl
“Yeah, more murder! Wait, what??” I love this stupid cat. Rip Monotv you will be missed
“I can’t…do it.” What is wrong with him/genuine concern
“I don’t wanna die. I can’t do that-” my brother in Christ you are cooked anyway. Go out in a blaze of glory
OH MY GOD A WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING ANIMATION!?!?!! AND HE GOT MONOTV, ITS MONOVER
I FUCKING KNEW THAT WOULDN’T WORK THERE’S NO WAY- wait did that say XF-TURE?!?!?!!
XF-TURE IS BEHIND THIS, OR AT LEAST CREATED MONOTV
Help ain’t no way Ace’s about to get cooked by a default personality 😭
“Sorry, Ace.” Help 😭
“To run this killing game until the death of every participant.” WHAT
okay lore drops this episode: XF is behind, or at the very least heavily involved in, the game. The game is designed to run until every participant is dead, implying that the mastermind wants every participant dead- possibly including themself. If that’s true it puts major points for people such as Hu, David, or maybe Whit to be the mastermind as they have been shown to have suicidal ideation. (Whit not so much but I can assume)
“I will pass the punishment for breaking the rules to the one who made that decision.” ITS TEROVER. wait but she’s the ultimate lucky so she’s probably gonna survive
imagine it becomes a running “joke” that Teruko has a near death experience in every chapter lol
ITS TEROVER- does she not gaf 😭 maybe Teruko could be up there with our suicidal peeps
she really doesn’t gaf 😭
this is so wild she doesn’t care bc she’s lucky and her life sucks and-
“I was perfectly willing to get shot.” Was???
ITS LEVIOVER NOOOOOOOO
MY POSITIVE ASPD REP 😭
ACEVI BOTH DOWN IN ONE CHAPTER WE ARE SO COOKED
“LEVI!!” Oh so you do care. Okay. Okay. A single tear rolls down my cheek
oh yeah I forgot about Charles’s whole thing. Thanks for being a good bf Whit
“His injuries are not fatal.” PRAISE THE LORD HALLELUJAH
YOU CAN’T TAKE HIM TO THE INFIRMARY YOU HAVE TO WATCH ACE GET COOKED- wait YO IS THAT A SAD WHIT SPRITE??? Isn’t that one of the harbingers of the apocalypse or smthn
Ace is gonna die not knowing if Levi survived… oghgh
Ace speeding up his own death to save Levi 😭 I’m gonna 😭
“Stop saying you can’t do it, because you can!” Maybe with the power of belief, anything is possible
Ace is gonna die and Arturo’s gonna be like “yeah Levi’s dead” like immediately
ARTURO HAVING A MOMENT THATS NOT ABOUT HIM SUCKING HELL YEAH
not Ace calling him a coward 😭 stones in glass houses looking ass
here we go boys/gn… it’s Aceover
HES COOOKED
NOT A THANATOPHOBIA THEMED EXECUTION I QUIIIIT
the last ones gonna be death by horses just watch
DID HE DIE OF FEAR???? IM KILLING MYSELF
THERES NO FUCKING WAY THAT HORSES WEREN’T EVEN MENTIONED
Teruko what’s your deal
“I’m a hypocrite” chewing on her. Grrr grrr
“I have no choice…” there is no way drdt is out here trying to give depth to the MONOKUMA equivalent, of all things. I’m out
she blames herself… honey no…
the. the ending. I’m killing myself I quit I can’t-
ace has hand trauma too??? You know what sure at this point
you don’t get any final thoughts bc I’m tired. Have a nice day
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jessequinnfirstofhername · 7 months ago
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The Rules:
Every twenty-four hours there will be another round. After every round, the character in last place will be eliminated.
If there are multiple characters tying for last place, there will be a special elimination round. In these rounds, every character in last place will be eliminated, even if all the characters have tied equally.
When there are only two characters remaining, they will face off against one another in a week-long poll to determine the victor.
If the character that you consider the hottest isn't listed here, hit the 'what about ___???' option and reply to this post with the overlooked character. The character with the highest 'write-in' votes will be added to the next round. Unless the 'what about ___???' option is the least voted for, in which case it will be eliminated. Welcome to the party, Han and Cassian!
This is all for fun. Don't take it too seriously ;)
We have our first casualty: Qui-Gon Jinn.
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My apologies to all the DILF hunters.
Now, everyone please give a warm welcome to our two new options: Han Solo and Cassian Andor!
...and let's also acknowledge all of the studs who didn't quite make it:
Darth Maul, Commander Cody, The Bad Batch Boys (you get all of them at once or none of them at all), Jango Fett, Boba Fett, Kanan Jarrus, Lando Calrissian, Alexsandr Kallus, Klaud, Mace Windu, Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus, Cal Kestis, General Grievous, Kit Fisto, Cad Bane (as a Cad Bane anti I refuse to acknowledge this submission), Bodhi Rook, K2-S0, Quinlan Vos, Ferus Olin, Eli Vanto, Garazeb Orrelios, Ruescott Melshi, aaand Brasso.
You know… I have a sneaking suspicion some of those entries might’ve been jokes…
Anyway! Onwards to Round Two!
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fairyhaos · 1 year ago
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❍ the 2k event: junhui + castle
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vote for this fic in the poll!
alternative title: you are my kingdom
pairing: crown prince!junhui x royalty!gn!reader
genre: historical royalty au, arranged marriage, strangers to lovers
word count: 1167
warnings: none
event taglist (send ask to be added): @slytherinshua @rubywonu @pepperonijem @amxlia-stars @weird-bookworm @hannyoontify @my-moarmy-heart @suminsfav @minhui896 @haocovr @lockburn-castle @sweet-like-caramel @horanghae8 @graybaeismytae @karionice @hopetiger10 @shuabby1994
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The wind whistles through the castle, seeping in through under the heavy wooden doors, in through the windows that aren't quite sealed enough to keep away the small squeals of air. You hold your breath, trying to not make a sound, curling up even tighter in your spot in the wardrobe. 
"Y/N?" A voice singsongs, and you stiffen at the sound of footsteps echoing on the stone floor outside of the room. "Where are you?"
The door to the room you're in creaks open, and you try to pretend that you're not there.
It doesn't work, though, because not even two seconds later, the wardrobe door swings open and a man grins down at you, dark eyes glittering. 
"Aha! I found you!" Junhui declares, bright and happy, and you groan. He offers out a hand to help you to your feet, and you accept it, brushing off your clothes as you step out of the wardrobe. "Why are you even hiding in these rooms, anyway? You're never gonna need to come to the visitor's wing."
"Hey. We're playing hide and seek for me, you know. Because I don't know the layout if your castle. You never gave me boundaries!" you point out as Junhui leads you out of the room. "I wouldn't have known the boundaries, anyway. Because again. I don't know the layout of your castle."
Junhui laughs. "That's true. Well, anyway, now you know. These are the visitor wings, where we place the visiting royals or Lords who are coming to make relations with the King."
"Your father," you correct. 
"The King," Junhui says again, smiling. "They don't come say hi to my father just because he's my dad, do they? They come because he's the King."
You shrug. "Fair enough."
"Do you wanna play another round of hide and seek?" Junhui asks. "We have some time before some duties we need to carry out. And then Father wants us to eat with him for dinner."
"Yes! Let's play another round!" you say, clasping your hands together. "I think I almost have down the important parts of the castle."
Junhui grins, and takes your hand. "Okay, let's go back outside! I'll count to one hundred again."
As Junhui drags you through his castle, laughing as you stumble over uneven cobblestones and barrel past surprised servants, you can't help but marvel at how different he is from any other Crown Prince you've ever met. 
You can't help but marvel at how you're married to him. 
It hadn't been a love marriage, but rather an arranged one, as most marriages between kingdoms' royal children were. You had little say in who you were going to marry, and Crown Prince Junhui had been chosen for you purely because your father had wanted to maintain peace with a newly emerged kingdom that showed potential to one day be powerful. 
You were a pawn in the grand scheme of petty politics, to say the least. And you had hated it. 
You had done your utmost to sabotage the engagement, refused all of Junhui's courting gifts, fiercely denied meeting him right up until the day of your marriage, insisting that if your freedom to choose who you were going to marry was being taken from you, then you were going to fight for every other little bit of freedom that you could. 
The marriage had been a whistlestop affair, feeling more like a treaty signing with mildly more fanfare than the wedding it was meant to be, and that had infuriated you even more. 
You'd vowed to despise Prince Junhui and his kingdom forever, especially when you'd been whisked away from your home to go live in his castle with him. 
That is, until the day you walked in on Junhui in tears. 
It had been an accident, with you still unaware of the castle layout having only been there a week, and your maidservant was little help, a snooty young lady who seemed to despise the fact that their "attractive young prince was marrying a person who could hold no candle to his beauty". 
You were trying to search for the stables and had gotten hopelessly lost, wandering around the edges of the castle until you accidentally stumbled upon Junhui, hidden in the long grass in a dip in the stones where a turret met the straight walls, wiping his eyes. 
It had startled you, to see him look so sad and lost, and in that moment it struck you that Junhui was in the same position as you, that he was stuck in a loveless marriage just like you, and here you were, snapping at him and avoiding him and being utterly horrible when his life surely wasn't looking any nicer than yours. 
Silently, so as not to be noticed, you had stepped backwards and left him alone. And three days later, you sought him out in his chambers, hand outstretched and tentative smile on your face, asking for a truce. 
And that leads you to where you are now, many months later. Running through the castle. Playing hide and seek to help you understand the layout of how your new home works. 
"Your Highnesses!" the Head Knight yelps, practically throwing himself into the wall as the Crown Prince runs past, with you in tow. "Please be careful!"
"Sorry, Cheol!" Junhui yells back. "You're getting slow in your old age, though!" he adds, and you laugh. 
There's something so youthfully beautiful about Junhui's face when he smiles like that, you think, as he rounds the corner and throws open the doors that lead outside into the courtyard. 
He's so beautiful. 
"Oh my God," you gasp, leaning against the wall, panting. "I think I'm getting slow in my old age."
Junhui laughs again, dark eyes twinkling. "Nonsense. You're young and fit and beautiful, nothing at all like the old hag that is Seungcheol."
You stifle a grin, trying not to focus on how his words make your heart thump oddly in your chest. "Sure, sure. I bet he could still run you through in the blink of an eye, though."
"Oh, definitely," Junhui says instantly, and you laugh at the promptness of his answer. "But our Court Physician? Wow, Jeonghan is even more of a hag, I swear. He never leaves his room."
You tilt your head. "Jeonghan?"
Junhui's eyes widen. "I haven't taken you to meet Jeonghan, have I? Don't worry, we'll do that first thing tomorrow."
It makes your heart warm, really, the amount of effort Junhui is putting in to make you feel comfortable in his kingdom. Ever since that incident those several months ago, he's been the one friendly face you've found comfort in within this new place. He's been your friend. 
But as he beams at you before turning to face the wall, rambling on about how's he's going to count to 100 really slowly to allow you to choose the best hiding spot ever in this castle, a realisation hits you in the chest so hard that your eyes widen. 
Oh, no. 
"Junhui."
Junhui turns around, his face open, and he looks so beautiful that your heart thumps even harder and you're blurting out what you're thinking without even stopping to reconsider. 
"I think I'm in love with you."
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veevei · 4 days ago
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DAWN IN THE ADAN
megumi x reader smau | prev | masterlist | next
ch 32: distraction
yn turns her phone on do not disturb and walks out of her door at around 5 pm. its about a 15 min walk to get to the book store. what should she even get?
she doesn’t know. she didn’t think that far. she just wanted a distraction.
she don’t know what she needed a distraction from exactly. maybe classes, or friends. that’s rude. is it? well maki said something like that, so couldn’t she?
she checks her phone at around 5 mins into the walk, seeing her twitter blowing up. toge must’ve started the stream. she ignores it and continues walking, even putting her music louder to block out the lame thoughts in her head about how her friends are having more fun without her.
she did this to herself
once she arrives at the book store she starts looking around aimlessly. she wonders into the historical section, then the novel section, eventually stopping at the manga section.
maybe she should just go back. theres nothing interesting that she could see. she should do that paper. it’s due soon.
she starts to walk out of the store empty handed. refusing to buy a coffee or a treat. maybe she wasnt as productive as she hoped but atleast she could stop herself from wasting more money on treats this week.
oh megumi here.
should she wave or something? no never mind, she’s already out the building by the time she made up her mind, it didn’t matter anyways.
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(megumi pov)
yuji already started the stream and immediately started yelling. yelling too loud it was hard to focus on his papers, even with headphones in.
maybe he should just go to the library, it would be quiet in there. wait was it closed?
maybe a cafe then.
and maybe he could get a coffee there.
he packs his backpack quickly and quietly leaves the room.
its kind of cold outside. maybe he shouldve brought a sweater.
by the time he gets there its 6:15 pm, and by the time he gets inside he sees yn leaving out of the corner of his eye.
should he wave? no. she’s already out of the building by the time he made up his mind, it doesnt matter anyways.
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not proof read
yn so angsty
megumi WASNT stalking yn!!!!!!!!!!!🙏😕
just a coincidence
woah i got my science work done
IM NEVER LATE CHAT!!!!
heh…
i hate u mfs who voted yes
i mean i did too but i didnt think….
i just needed someone to bully toge tbh
panda is human now
taglist ask to be added/removed….
@frogtits1 @matsugumisou @megumisdivinedogs @satoryaa @starmaiya11 @tuna-toes @loriisheart @kurtcobaingirlie @san-it-is-i-guess @tomikixd @blu3-l0v3r @goobleissocool @lucislovebug @jasminasblog22 @walllflowerrrsss @creteansailor @gumims @kiss-my-asscheeks @sirenla @love-me-satoru @distinguishedpenguinbread
if u arent tagged by ch 36 i will remove u from the taglist!! (sorryy)
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mandokero-eboy · 3 months ago
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YET ANOTHER VENEZUELA POST
THIS ONE'S HILARIOUS
Seriously guys, they're not even trying. A National Assembly (that's what we call congress) deputy (that's what we call congresspeople) and third party candidate for Last Sunday's election, Jose Brito went on Venezuelan news network Globovision (which was bought out by government cronies in 2013, but that's another story) to defend the electoral results posted by the government. You can see the clip here:
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Community note on twitter says everything but why would you willingly go to twitter when a sexy Canadian/Venezuelan man can explain this to you instead? Ok so what happened is that he got one of those paper receipts the voting machines print and he alleged that his was the real one and it contradicted one of the opposition's.
I've been saying for days that the only thing the government needs to do in order to cast doubt about the opposition's entire evidence base is literally to show receipts. Literally just one, which could be shown to contradict any of the opposition's posted receipts and could be authenticated. There's a series of authentication tools that are printed on each receipt which essentially make these difficult to fake, not to mention there would be a long paper trail backing the authenticity of one set next to the others. The hash-code at the top is based on some information in a server we don't currently have access to. From what I understand the hash is meant to show that the results on the receipt match the results in the tabulation servers. If they altered the results on the receipt they would have to alter results in the servers as well to correct that discrepancy and that would print a different hash code. We don't have access to the tabulation server cause it's controlled by the government and they refuse to show shit (and they are claiming the digital count is compromised anyway). Thankfully there's other paper trails that can be compared to the receipts the opposition are showing to verify their authenticity as well as copies and photos that were taken of them on the day of the election and videos of poll watchers reading out the receipts as well. And of course there's direct testimony from the Poll Watchers themselves.
None of that third party fancy shmancy verification and long process needs to be done in order to disprove that this receipt is fake, however. The receipts also have a QR code which shows the ID of the voting machine which printed it as well as the vote count for that voting center. It is formatted as [voting_machine_ID]![party1_votes],[party2_votes],[party3_votes]... and so on. Must be noted that multiple parties can nominate the same candidate and the votes for each party that nominates a candidate are added together in the final count.
The opposition's receipt that corresponds to the one showed by Jose Brito on TV was this one.
If you scan the QR Code, you will see that the code matches the results on the receipt posted by the opposition originally and does not at all match his own. This shows that the receipt he's holding was altered digitally, in quite a lazy fashion as well. Falsifying a QR Code isn't very hard it would've looked fairly authentic had he done that and pasted it on the thing while he was photoshopping this.
So to summarize
All they had to do was show exactly one receipt that could be authenticated or hell even reasonably believed to be authentic on first glance in order to cast doubt on their integrity.
After almost a week and a half of showing no copies of the receipts they should have in their possession one of them decides to show one and it turns out to be FAKE.
If the government's results hadn't been suspect until now they definitely are now. And all because they were too lazy to fake a QR Code with Photoshop. This is so funny dude. The politics fandom is laughing so hard.
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mint-yooxgi · 2 years ago
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{12} - Hotel California - Yandere!Demonic Entities!Ateez X Reader
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Yandere AU & Demon AU - Based off of This ask and Hotel California by Eagles
Genre: Mature, Horror, Angst, Fluff, Slight Humor
Pairing: Ateez X Reader (Focus on Wooyoung & Yeosang, slight Jongho & Mingi)
Words: 13,562
Warnings: Sexual tension, a whole lot of it. Mentions of violence, some insecurities. This is a Yandere story, it will contain themes such as stalking, violence, obsession, possessive natures, and just general overall creepiness and swearing. You have been warned.
A/n: The song that Yeosang plays for the OC is from The Two Towers, and is the first 1:30 or so from The King of the Golden Hall. It’s the main Rohan melody found throughout the series. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy the chapter, you should all know what and whom to expect for the next chapter *wink wonk* by the time you’re finished reading this. Hehehe, let me know your thoughts! As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! Enjoy~
Main Story - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight - Part Nine - Part Ten - Part Eleven - Mini Masterlist
The remainder of that same day is spent resting and catching up on sleep. That headache didn’t want to seem to break until late that same night, and once it did, the tremendous amount of relief you felt was insane. 
The guys all noticed, of course, immediately offering to take your pain away and heal your headache. Only, you refused, saying you probably just needed some sleep. You had too many things on your mind to think about, so you figure that that’s probably what all the stress had been from, anyways. Plus, you have the added fact about Miyeon and the danger she poses.
Now, you aren’t dumb. You figured that they would have many, many exes and past relationships given who, and what they are. If they didn’t have at least ten significant others in all of their long years of living, you would be extremely curious as to why not. Still, you never expected their latest ex to hate your guts, more than likely wanting to kill you in the most brutal ways she knows how.
What a sad life that must be, to not be able to move on after twenty long years, and recognize one’s own faults. Clearly, Miyeon is incapable of self-reflection, but then again, she’s probably incapable of realizing a lot a things about herself if that’s always been the way she’s treated them. She is nothing but a narcissist, seeking that validation through manipulation, and believing that she can do no wrong.
When the next day comes, you still find it difficult to get out of bed, except to do the basic things like eat and bathe yourself. All you want to do is rest, your mind exhausted from all of this new information presented to you in the past week alone.
The guys are good about it. Giving you your space when you need it, but still making sure to check in on you every now and then. You’re still a little colder to Seonghwa, Hongjoong, and Jongho, though. A fact which the three know they all deserve, but still makes their hearts pang in their chests when it happens.
At least you never went back to ignoring them.
San, on the other hand, is constantly kissing up to you now. Every day, he’s making you your favourite meals, and showering you in praises and apologies. Granted, he didn’t surprise you as much as Jongho did when he originally voted ‘no’, but he did sound a bit hesitant to you when he said it, and he’s shown the greatest amount of remorse since the incident. The quickest, too. At least, in your opinion.
You’ve noticed a change within you, as well. The other four, certainly, you’ve grown closer to, but there’s a deeper understanding between you all now - a deeper trust. You even go so far as to begin smiling when you see one of them pop their head into your room, your eyes lighting up as they ask you how you’re feeling. Though, none have experienced quite the change as Yunho and Yeosang have.
If someone had told Yunho that you would be suddenly brushing up against his mind more often, let alone speaking to him through your connection over the next three days at the very start of your relationship - if you could have even called it that - he would have laughed in their face. Even now, on the fifth day after the mall incident, as you link your mind to his once more to show him an art meme you found that he might like, he cannot help but swoon. Finally, you’re opening up to him, just as he has always been ready and willing to open up to you.
He just wishes you’d come to see his art room, but he supposes that that’s all in due time. After all, good things come to those who wait.
Yeosang, on the other hand, is still one of the first ones to get you anything and everything you might need. He’s almost memorized your patterns, recognizing the familiar twitching of your lips when you’re starting to crave your favourite flavour of ice cream in the middle of the night, or even the slight trembling in your hands when you’re aching for another’s embrace.
One thing that they can both agree on, though, is how much more affectionate you are towards them. Even Mingi and Wooyoung have experienced the change, though you still keep a little bit of a closer eye on Wooyoung than the others. It saddens him, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before you’re opening yourself up to him in the same ways the others have already gotten the privilege to experience.
At least he’s not like Hongjoong, Seonghwa, or Jongho for the moment.
Poor Jongho. The one male you had seemed to be the closest to is suddenly the least of your concern now. You used to spend hours with him in the library, either simply just sitting in one another’s company, or discussing some book one or the both of you have read with each other. Now, it’s like all of that progress means nothing, and he knows he only has himself to blame. He just wishes you would talk to him again, instead of giving him short, one word answers, or brushing off his inquires entirely whenever he sees you.
Luckily, with each day that passes, the three of them have slowly been making their way back into your good graces. By the time a week has passed after the mall incident, it’s almost back to what it was like before the argument, just not as intimate. At least you’ve told them that you’ve forgiven them at this point, sternly reminding them about what would happen if a situation like this should arise again.
Both San and Jongho cried at your vindication, and even Hongjoong got a little teary-eyed. Though, none felt their hearts swell with joy as much as the eldest did.
As soon as those words had left your lips, Seonghwa had fallen to his knees, soft cries of gratitude falling like mantras from his lips. It was then that he asked if he could embrace you. A first for the eldest and what you have so often experienced with him.
The moment the confirmation had escaped your lips, his arms were around you. One hand immediately came up to cradle the back of your head as he tucked your face into the side of his neck, while the other wrapped securely around your waist. You felt the tears he had so desperately been holding back finally fall. The tiny droplets began to hit your shoulder once more as he whispered his thanks into your ear, promising you that he would never let you down again.
You had returned the embrace then, softly carding your fingers through the hair on the back of his neck while cooing comforting sentiments into his ear. Along with a joking, ‘you better not’, of course.
They had all chuckled at that, watching as you pulled away to stare deeply into Seonghwa’s eyes. An understanding had passed between you then, and you smiled. You actually smiled at him for the first time in what felt like ages.
All too soon, you were puling away, only to be asked by each of the other three if they could also embrace you.
You agreed, which could not have made any of them happier at that moment in time.
Currently, after a week and a day since the mall incident, you find yourself making your way towards the library, a bag held firmly in your hand. In all of the commotion and fallout of the past week, you have yet to open any of your new albums, or shelf your new books. Which is exactly what you’re going to do now.
Stepping into the library, you make your way over to your specific section, as you so lovingly call it, and place the bag onto the antique coffee table before you. 
Excitement thrums through your veins at the prospect of reorganizing your shelves after opening your new albums. It’s been a while since you’ve been able to do so, and you’ve found that it’s always been able to help calm you down; a relaxing way to take your mind off of things for an hour or more, depending on how many new items you have, and how quickly you work. You’re just glad that there’s ample shelf space for all of your things, you were starting to run out back in your old apartment.
Turning to the bag you’ve just placed on top of the table, you start to remove all of the items, spacing them out in neat little piles on top of the desk after sitting on the edge of the couch.
You don’t even hear the door nearest to you opening until you hear a fond chuckle from across the room. Looking up with wide eyes, you see Wooyoung leaning against the side of the frame.
“Want some company?” A small grin tugs at the corner of his mouth as his arms are crossed over his chest, mirroring the exact same position he was in when he asked you such a question for the very first time in the game room.
You cannot help but think back to that moment, a slight upturning of your lips as you do so. He looks much less nervous now than he did then.
“Sure.” You respond. “Though, I don’t know how entertaining this’ll be for you.”
Looks like you might have to tone down your reactions for certain albums when you open them, especially if you pull your bias. The last thing you want is another jealous demon to deal with for the moment. You giggle to yourself.
“Penny for your thoughts, Beautiful?” He quirks a brow as he walks over to you, sitting right next to you on the couch so that your knees are almost brushing.
The best part? You don’t move away.
So, you decide to tease him, a knowing grin tugging at your lips. “I’m just surprised you’re willingly ready to be made jealous.”
“I would never,” his jaw drops, hand coming up to cover his heart as if he’s personally been scandalized. Then, he’s nudging your knee with his own, soft smile tugging at his lips. “Don’t feel like you have to tone down your excitement for me.”
You shoot him an incredulous look, brow quirked and all.
“I want to know more about you.” The way he repeats the same words you said to him merely a week ago with such earnest reflected in his voice has your heart warming in your chest.
“Alright,” you meet his gaze, a softness shining there that he’s only ever dreamed of being on the receiving end before that makes his heart jump into his throat. In a good way, of course. Then, you’re shooting him a playful look, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Seeing you happy makes me happy, Gorgeous,” he replies, smiling wide as his eyes fall shut.
You smile back softly, “I appreciate that, Woo.”
Oh, if only you knew how that one simple little word makes his heart thunder in his chest. His head spins at the fact that you’ve just referred to him by one of his own nicknames, the ghost of your lips tingling against his cheek once more.
A shudder nearly runs down his spine. Now, if only he could have you moaning as such beneath him… Yet, he knows: all in due time.
“So,” he begins, shifting closer so that his thigh is now pressed right up against your own, “how do you usually go about this kind of thing?”
“Well, I don’t really have a particular order in terms of opening certain groups first,” you admit, reaching for one of the albums in front of you. “But, I do usually save the albums I’m most anticipating opening until last.”
Wooyoung nods, eyes eagerly watching as your hands unwrap the plastic from the colourful package held in your grip.
There was more than one reason Wooyoung wanted to join you today. Yes, he wanted to spend time with you, and he’s so glad that none of his brothers have decided to interrupt so far. However, he also wants to get more of an idea of how you think. What so many people do not realize, is that every action they make, every word they say, slowly gives away everything about them. All of their fantasies - all of their desires - are laid bare in the subtleties that make up who they are, and how they want to be treated.
He isn’t the master of seduction for nothing.
Every single action you make, every ministration against the packaging, he observes. Even the words you have just uttered ring through his ears as he does so. 
You must like to be built up, then. Teasing yourself until you’re finally able to find relief in what you crave most. A relief that Wooyoung is always more than ready and willing to give to you, in any and every way he knows how.
He’s so caught up in his own thoughts, and staring at the delicate way your hands open each album, that he hardly registers that you’ve asked him a question.
“Sorry, Beautiful,” he grins sheepishly, “what was that?”
“I said,” you simply shoot him a playful side-eyed look, a chuckle falling from your lips in the next second, “any luck with finding Miyeon yet?”
“Not yet.” Wooyoung exhales a small sigh through his nose, lips tugging downwards in the corners. “We’re still trying to track her down, but she keeps moving from one place to the next before we can get to her.”
You nod your head in understanding. “I’m sure you’ll find her soon. I have faith in you.” You turn your head to meet his gaze, a soft smile causing your lips to quirk upwards reassuringly. “All of you.”
“Thank you, Beautiful.” Wooyoung cannot contain the pleased hum that builds in his throat. “That means a lot to me.”
Before he can stop himself, or lose the nerve for that matter, Wooyoung places a gentle hand onto your knee, giving it a light squeeze. Of course, he lets his touch linger, especially as he watches you place your own hand on top of his, giving him a soft squeeze back.
Oh, so badly does he want to let out a roar in happiness. You’re touching him. You’re actually touching him! And you’re not pulling away, or tensing beneath his grip. A fact of which only makes him more ecstatic for the moment, the pleasant thrum of his heartbeat echoing in his ears.
In the next moment, he’s shifting his gaze to the three opened albums you have stacked in a pile on the table, keeping his hand resting upon your knee all the while.
“Pull anything good so far?” Genuine curiosity is held in his voice as he asks this.
“So far, so good, but nothing monumental.” You smile back. “These three are only groups I listen to casually, anyways. Now, these on the other hand…” you trail off, motioning to the last five albums you have yet to open, “will be a different story.”
“Which one are you looking forward to most?” He looks over the five items spaced out before you on the table.
There seems to be three groups left, for there are two piles of two albums stacked together, while a singular album lays in between them. You reach for that one first.
“You’ll just have to wait and find out,” you shoot him a wink, and you feel him physically shiver with his leg still pressed firmly up against your own.
So, you like to tease, do you? Though, that fact isn’t all that surprising to him any more. He’s known that since the very beginning. It’s just different when you tease him now, for you’re no longer doing it unknowingly. At least, most of the time. Plus, there’s a greater significance to it now than there was when you were just doing it before just for fun. The fact that you want to tease him, to rile him up and make him go even crazier for you drives him insane. Always, in a good way.
Fuck, he can’t wait for the day when he can properly tease you back. In any and all the different ways he knows how. 
Though, that’s not including the times he teases you now. No. Wooyoung wants to be able to build you up, to have you aching for his touch in the best ways until you finally give in to him. He wants you to embrace every primal desire you’ve ever had, and experience a type of pleasure only he can provide for you. After all, he’d do anything for you, including letting you use him in any and every way you so desire. As long as it’s him you’re using, you could do whatever you want, and he would not complain.
“My word, she’s so beautiful,” your breathless voice draws him out of his much too vivid thoughts of laying you down on this couch and kissing you until you’re breathless and clinging on to him desperately, begging him for more.
Wooyoung blinks, eyes focussing on the album you seem to be flipping through at the moment. He takes the opportunity to lean further into you, resting his head on your shoulder as he gazes down at the pictures printed on the pages you keep looking at.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?” You sigh wistfully, turning another page and admiring the photos there.
“Sure, she’s pretty,” Wooyoung shrugs, nonchalantly agreeing with your statement. Then, in the next second, he’s turning his head to stare intently at you, his eyes shining as his chin rests on your shoulder, “but I’ve seen prettier.”
“Psh, sure,” you chuckle, a playful roll of your eyes as you flip over another page. “Who could be prettier than Kang Seulgi?”
Wooyoung hums, his lips tugging upwards gently. “I’m looking at her right now.”
You wish you could deny the way that your heart positively flutters at his words, a heat rising to your cheeks fairly quickly in the next moment. From the way you can practically feel his cheeky smile boring a hole into the side of your face at the reaction you give him, you just know he’s heard your response loud and clear.
“I meant it in a gay way,” you mutter, slightly embarrassed for the moment.
“Oh?” Wooyoung quirks a brow, shifting his body so that he practically drapes himself over you, wrapping his arms around your torso and leaning further into you in the next second. His voice is a low drawl right by your ear as his breath tickles the skin of your neck. “Should I start getting jealous, then?”
At the way he can feel you shiver in his arms, a smug smirk is stretching across his features.
“Depends.” You hum, deciding to play along with him for now.
“On?” The grin that pulls onto his lips is nothing short of devious, loving the way you still have yet to pull away from his embrace.
“If you believe there’s really anything to get jealous over.” You shrug, managing to push him slightly off of you for the moment as you close the album and place it to the side.
You can feel the growl reverberate in his chest as you say this, the pleased sound caressing your ears softly. You chuckle, reaching for the next two albums by the same group.
Little do you know of how significant those words are to Wooyoung. If what he’s interpreting them to be is correct, you’re implying that you would still choose him over this female idol any day. Despite the attraction you may feel towards her, the attraction you feel towards him is stronger, so he has nothing to worry about. Besides, you two share a deeper connection. You always will.
The sound of your voice draws him back to the reality before him.
“Two bitches, two bitches, one Porsche,” you mutter, almost subconsciously to yourself as you unwrap the one album.
Wooyoung snorts, “please tell me that’s not actually how the song goes.”
“The demo did,” you laugh, right along with him. “No, they changed it to ‘Two Baddies’, which, in my opinion, doesn’t make it any better.”
“Is the song any good?” He asks innocently.
“Subjective.” You tilt your head, tossing the wrappings into the bag with the others as you place the album on the table in front of you, flipping to where all the inclusions are. “My bias wrecker looks great this comeback, though- holy fuck!”
The gasp that escapes your mouth as you flip the first photocard around is nothing short of shocked. The way he can see your eyes widen, lips parting in awe has a pout tugging at his features. However, it’s the way he can hear you hum in content, nodding your head in the next moment that has the growl of discontent finally escaping him.
“Who is that?” His eyes narrow at the one photocard in your hand, nearly flashing black as he sees the second photocard displaying the same exact male on it.
“Mmmh,” it’s like you don’t even recognize Wooyoung is even there anymore as your hooded eyes stare at the two cards held in your hands, “Yuta. What a fine ass man.”
Wooyoung’s lips pull back against his teeth in a snarl as he releases you from his hold. The worst part is, you don’t even seem to be registering you’re saying these things. The response is so natural from you, almost as if it’s been ingrained in your mind since the very beginning, that Wooyoung hates every second of it. Why can’t you react like that for him? Why can’t he be the one who has you practically drooling at the mere thought of him?
“What’s so special about him, anyways?” He grumbles, crossing his arms against his chest as he slouches in his spot.
“So, it’s only the males I find attractive that you’ll get jealous over?” You quirk a teasing brow as you place the cards back into the album. “Double standard, much.”
“I’ll get jealous over anybody you find attractive that’s not me,” he tells you, a slight rumble to his voice as he watches you flip through the rest of the inclusions with a soft smile on your face.
“Even your brothers?” You quirk a brow knowingly as you close the album, placing it onto the pile with the others in the next second.
He grins, “especially my brothers.”
“It’s a shame, then,” you hum, a teasing lilt to your voice. “You won’t have a reason to be jealous much longer.”
“Oh?” His heart begins racing in his chest, excitement beginning to pour through his veins as he leans closer into you, eyes briefly glancing down to your lips. “Why is that, Beautiful?”
“Because, Woo,” the way you drawl out his name sends a pleasant shiver down his spine, “I find you extremely attractive, so you have no reason to be jealous over someone who doesn’t even know I exist.”
The growl of pleasure that wants to escape him gets caught in his throat, doing whatever he can to stifle his immense satisfaction for the moment. He can tell you have more to say, and like hell is he going to stop you, especially right now.
“You should know, though, that yes, I can still find people attractive, but looks aren’t what matter the most to me.” You shake your head. “In fact, I don’t really care about how someone looks. It’s their attitude and personality that really attracts me to someone in the end. And Sunshine?” You meet his gaze and his breath hitches in his throat at what he sees swirling behind your eyes. “You’re stunning.”
This time, he doesn’t even try to muffle his pleased snarl, eyes swirling with that all too familiar blackness as his hands find purchase on your waist, instantly pulling you on top of his lap so that your legs rest on either side of him. His grip is desperate, fingers digging into the skin of your thighs as he pulls you in closer, staring deeply into your gaze before his own is flicking to your lips once more.
Only, the way your breath hitches in your throat, your whole body tensing as you do so has him freezing in his spot. He can feel how hesitant your touch is as your hands steady yourself on his shoulders, purposely holding yourself away from him as far as you can for the moment.
A soft breath escapes him, immediately releasing his grip on your thighs in the next moment. His eyes droop, averting his gaze as he squeezes his hands into fists beside him on the couch to prevent himself from shaking until the need to touch you, the need to pull you closer into him until there’s no space between your bodies left, dissipates.
“Sorry, Gorgeous,” he swallows thickly, clearing his throat in the next second. “I got a little too carried away.”
Seonghwa is right. You really do make it so difficult to control themselves around you, in any and every way possible. Looks like he owes the eldest an apology.
You move off of him carefully, sitting back onto the couch beside him with just a tad more space between the two of you than before. A fact which makes his heart squeeze in his chest.
Fuck. Why can’t he seem to do anything right? Three steps forwards, one step back.
“It’s okay,” that all too familiar heat rises to your face once more as you reach for another album, attempting to control the trembling of your own hands. “I’m just-“ you let out a soft sigh, “I’m just not used to it.”
Wooyoung blinks, completely caught off guard by your admission. “Surely, you’ve been desired before.”
It’s not a question, but a statement that falls from his lips.
You shoot him a side-eyed glance, hands momentarily pausing in unwrapping the plastic from the album you’re currently holding. Then, you’re letting out a small sigh through your nose, a slight shake to your head. “Not in the way you all want me.”
For a brief moment, that conversation with Seonghwa all those weeks ago flashes through your mind.
“You lie,” there’s no malice in his voice when he says this, only pure and honest disbelief. “Impossible.”
When you remain silent, he shifts closer to you. Though, he’s cautious, not wanting to scare you away again.
“Have you-“ his voice is gentle, swallowing the sudden dryness in his throat. “Have you ever-“
“If you’re asking about whether or not I’ve had sex before, the answer is yes.” You reply, keeping your gaze locked on the album in your hands as you cling to it for dear life. “Now, whether it’s been satisfactory or not… well, that’s a different story.”
“What imbecile didn’t take the time to learn how to please you properly?” He nearly scoffs.
“You’d be surprised,” you huff, flipping open your album quite pointedly as if you’re recalling the memory right now.
He nearly growls in response until an idea pops into his mind.
“Well, you know what they say,” he hums, a smug look taking over his features as he leans into you, breath once more tickling the shell of your ear as his voice drops, “it takes a true King to know how to please his Goddess.”
The way his words have your breath hitching in your throat has another content rumble building in his chest, eyes swirling with that all too familiar blackness. The way he can practically smell your scent spiking in arousal has his eyelids practically fluttering shut, the ghost of a moan on his lips.
What Wooyoung wouldn’t give to completely ravish you right now. To pull you into his arms and beg you to let him please you in any and every way he knows how. A single touch isn’t enough. A small taste won’t be able to sate him. He wants it all, - your everything - and he wants it bad.
“Tell me, Gorgeous,” he shifts his head ever so sightly, his nose brushing along the column of your neck and causing a shiver to run down your spine. “When was the last time someone had you trembling from their touch? When was the last time someone worshipped you like you’ve always deserved?”
Your heart skips a beat, voice catching in your throat as your lips part in response.
“Tell me,” he hums, placing a tender kiss right over your racing pulse beneath the skin of your neck, and absolutely revelling in the way a shuddering gasp leaves your lips. “Has no one ever taken the time to drown you in ecstasy, focussing solely on your own pleasure, and the intimacy it brings from knowing that they are the only one to touch you like this? To please you in any and every way they know how, making you come over, and over, and over again for them and them alone?”
“Wooyoung,” your voice is breathless, an airy whimper of his name that he’s long since desperately craved to hear fall from your lips. Hearing it now sends a shiver down his spine, his cock twitching excitedly beneath his slacks.
“Because I would do it all in a heartbeat,” his voice is but a low growl on his lips, shifting once more so that he can nip at the skin of your ear, “and I would never expect anything in return.”
Your eyelids flutter closed, your breathing coming in shallow breaths as you attempt to control yourself for the time being. No one has ever said anything remotely like this to you before, and meant it so sincerely. A fact which just makes heat flood straight to your core, liquid fire burning in your veins. The fact that you believe him only adds to the amount of anticipation growing within you at this very moment.
Much to your disappointment, or perhaps relief, he’s pulling away from you while another pleased rumble escapes his chest.
“How about we save that for later, though,” he trails his fingers down your spine, caressing you tenderly as shivers follow in his wake. “Why don’t we start with you telling me about everything that you like? I cannot please you to the best of my abilities if you do not tell me how.”
Though, even without you saying anything, he can already tell the type of effect his words have had on you. You must absolutely adore when your lover is vocal, then. In every way possible, too - dirty talk, moans, groans, growls. Wooyoung is willing to bet you love praise, too, and heartfelt confessions during the moment, especially if your reactions now are anything to go by.
Still, anything and everything there is to know about you, he wants to find out. What better way, too, than to ask?
A moment later and you’re inhaling a shaky breath as your eyelids flutter opened once more. You take a few calming breaths to steady yourself, noticing how he continues to trail his fingers along the back of your spine comfortingly, the touch both soothing and sensual at the same time.
“No one’s-“ you swallow the dryness in your throat, “no one’s ever asked me that before.” 
The admission feels like a condemnation as you clasp your hands in front of yourself while leaning forward to rest your elbows on your knees. An image he recognizes from last week as he watches you curl in on yourself in embarrassment.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever cared enough to ask,” you say, your thumbs nervously rubbing over one another.
Immediately, his entire demeanour is shifting and the tension around the both of you lessons. Concern is on his features as his one hand stills on your back, the other reaching over to gently cup you chin using the tips of his fingers, guiding your gaze to meet his. The sincerity and love that you can see shining there has your breath hitching in your throat once more.
“I do.” His voice is firm as he stares deeply into your eyes. “I care. More than you’ll ever know.”
You smile faintly, heart racing in your chest at his words as you feel your entire body relax in his hold. Your eyes briefly glance down to his lips before a small, albeit hesitant, smirk is pulling at your own. “I didn’t think I’d need to explain the female gaze to you."
“The only female’s gaze who is important to me right now is your own, Beautiful.” He breathes out, his skin singing beneath his fingertips where his touches your own. “I want to know everything about you. I want to know what makes that pretty little mind of yours tick. I want to know your greatest desires, and I want to be the one to be able to fulfill them all.” 
He swallows, licking his lips in the next moment as his voice drops, his eyes hooding over as his grip tightens against your back. “I want to know every single little thing that drives you crazy, and then I want to drown you in the deepest of pleasures so that you can feel my love, my passion for you in everything that I do. Every touch, every whisper is for you, and you alone. Please, never forget that.”
“Wooyoung,” again, the way you whisper his name, so tenderly as your one hand comes up to cup his cheek, has his eyes fluttering shut, a shaky breath escaping him as he leans into your touch. “I believe you.”
His heart is pounding in his chest, and he’s sure that you can feel it pulsing beneath your fingertips as he watches you begin to lean in. His eyes glance to your lips once more just as he knows yours do the same to his, his tongue darting out to wet them in the next second.
This is everything he’s ever wanted, and so much more. The only thing that would make this moment sweeter is hearing you say how badly you want to kiss him, just as he does to you right now.
Only, before the question of permission can escape his lips, a harsh clearing of somebody’s throat draws both of your attention to the side.
You practically fling yourself away from Wooyoung, and to the opposite end of the couch as you both turn to see Jongho standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.
“No fucking in the library.” His voice is low, accusatory as he glares at his brother across from him.
“I wasn’t-“ you splutter, eyes wide in shock, “we weren’t-“
“Aw, come on, Jongie,” Wooyoung whines teasingly, “you ruin all the fun.”
Internally, though, Wooyoung is more than irritated with the younger male right now. He was this close to finally kissing you after simply dreaming about it for so long, and then Jongho had to go and ruin it for him. Ugh, Wooyoung could just scream.
From the pointed glare the younger sends him, too, a smug upturn of his lips as he takes a seat in the empty armchair across form the two of you, Wooyoung knows that Jongho’s doing this on purpose.
You little fucking shit. Wooyoung glares at him from across the way.
It’s not my fault you’re sitting in the place that I frequent the most. Jongho retorts, flipping open the book held in his hands quite exaggeratedly in the next second and pulling out his bookmark before beginning to read.
Wooyoung is so caught up in cussing his brother out mentally that he doesn’t even register that you’ve managed to recover much quicker than he has. In the next moment, an excited ‘oh’ is escaping you as you finally pull the photocards out of the other album you had unwrapped a little while ago.
Immediately, Jongho is glancing at you from over his book with a fond look in his eyes. “Who’d you get?”
“Jaehyun.” You smile to yourself, placing the inclusions all back into the album before reaching for the final two on the table.
Little do you notice the way both males seem to stiffen as soon as the admission is out of your mouth.
You mean that same bastard that broke her heart? Wooyoung nearly growls audibly.
At least we know which one he is now. Jongho adds.
“Who’s Jaehyun?” Before he can stop himself, the words are out of Wooyoung’s lips.
“Isn’t that just the million dollar question right there?” You sigh, shaking your head. “He’s just an idol I enjoy.”
“Enjoy how?” Jongho quirks his brow at you, doing his best to hide the snarl that pulls at his lips behind his raised book.
“In the same ways I enjoy the other idols I like, you weirdo,” you shoot him a suspicious look. “What are you expecting me to say? That I saw him every weekend for funsies until he broke my heart, and now I’m stuck in a sad bit of unrequited love pining after an idol I can never have?”
The snarls both men release are probably the most feral you have ever heard from them.
“Woah, okay,” you raise your hands, a semi-amused chuckle falling from your lips. “Reminded me not to joke about the idols I like around you guys anymore.” Then, more to yourself, “and here I thought the reaction to Kai and Taemin was bad.”
Wooyoung’s eyes flash at the mention of those two dancers, but specifically Taemin. There you go again, probably thinking about him when Wooyoung is right there, ready and willing to dance for you at a moment’s notice. Not to mention how he literally just admitted to being open to pleasing you whenever and wherever you wanted him to.
“We’re just…” Jongho searches for the right word, “concerned, given the fact that you told Yeosang and I that he broke your heart without a care.”
“Wait,” you blink at him, brow furrowing in the next second, “you thought I was serious about that? Did you also believe me when I said Samantha pushed me off the swings when we were five, and I scraped my knee?”
Jongho shoots you a bit of an irritated look.
“Darling, I wasn’t being serious.” You chuckle, and the use of the pet name has him instantly relaxing in his seat, unlike a certain demon beside you who only pouts at the fact that your attention is no longer on him for the moment.
“We just worry about you, Angel.” Wooyoung replies, a gentle tone to his voice as he looks towards you. “Knowing that you’ve been hurt before drives us insane because we haven’t been there to protect you.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Woo. I really do,” you shoot him a tender smile as you reach for the second last album you have yet to open. “But, you all won’t be able to protect me from everything. No matter how badly you may want to.”
“We can try.” Jongho mutters, flipping the page of his book rather pointedly.
You let out an amused huff, shaking your head in the next moment as a silence settles over the three of you. It’s neither tense, nor awkward as you finish opening the final two albums on the table, a smile painting your features as you manage to pull a few of your biases for Stray Kids, sending a quick pic to your friend as you’ve also pulled one of hers.
Immediately, she’s texting you back, saying she’ll trade you her Lee Know for the Bang Chan you’ve pulled. Of course, you immediately agree, a smile tugging at your lips as she sends you a meme imitating how you usually react to seeing Minho in general.
“Thighs, huh?” Wooyoung’s voice is teasing, the same lilt to his tone as there was when he inquired about a certain knife kink you may or may not have.
At this, Jongho shoots a quick look towards his brother from overtop of his book, sliding slightly downwards in his seat to extend his own legs outwards, emphasizing the thickness of his thighs as he spreads them slightly apart. He nearly smirks when Wooyoung sends him a mental image of that brief flash of your phone screen with a meme of a gold star with ‘goddamn, your thighs are just *positive grunting*’ printed on it beneath a message of your friend saying ‘you when you see Minho’s thighs’.
“Female gaze, remember?” You decide to tease back, a quirk to your brow as you quickly lock your phone before standing back to your feet. Not before sparing a quick glance at the way Jongho is now sitting, of course. In the next second, you’re turning to your shelves. “Now, the fun part!”
The next hour or so is spent integrating your new books and albums onto your shelves, fitting them in nicely where there’s space and moving some things around to categorize them how you like. The two males still keep you company, chatting with you idly to pass the time.
Wooyoung did offer to help at first, but you brushed him off, saying you were okay for now. You admitted you don’t really like other people touching your albums when you shift, because that way if you drop them, or damage them in any way, you have no one but yourself to blame. That is, until near the end of everything, when they hear you swear under your breath.
“Shit,” you sigh, looking back at the coffee table where the last few albums rest as you purposely hold the space open on the shelf for them. You turn to look at the two men already staring at you. “Can one of you-“ you immediately stop, recalling the way your sweater was torn in two by two other eager demons ready and willing to lend a helping hand. “Sunshine, can you please hand me those albums on the table?”
“Of course I can, Gorgeous!” Immediately, he’s hopping up from his spot, a large smile on his face as he reaches for the albums.
“Remember,” your smile is nothing short of threatening, “if you damage them in any way, I will damage you.”
Wooyoung falters for only a moment as he picks up the albums from the table. Then, a sultry grin is pulling at his lips at he walks over to you. 
“Promise?” His voice is full of hope, his eyebrows raising at you expectantly.
“Wooyoung!” You gasp, clearly scandalized as your mouth parts in shock, hitting his arm lightly with your free hand as he comes to stand beside you. “I’m starting to think you’re a masochist.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Jongho snorts from his seat, turning another page of his book as his brother shoots him a pointed look from over his shoulder.
Your eyes widen in understanding, a chuckle falling from your lips as you take the albums from Wooyoung’s hand to place them on the shelf before you. A moment later, you take a step back, admiring your work.
“Looks wonderful, Darling,” Jongho appears on your opposite side, hand finding purchase on your lower back as he looks over your shelves with you.
The best part is, you don’t move away, or brush off his touch like the last few times he had attempted to initiate contact with you.
You smile faintly, admiring the detailing of the library once more. Your heart swells in your chest as those all too familiar emotions of awe and gratitude flood your veins, eyes shining as they roam over the shelves of your collection.
“Oh, perfect timing,” you hear a voice from the doorway to your left. “Looks like you’ve just finished.”
Turning your head, you see both Mingi and Yeosang standing there with grins on their faces.
“I did,” you confirm, stepping back towards the table to grab the bag with all your garbage in it to clean it up, only to see it already gone.
“Great!” Mingi grins, sharing a look between his two other brothers standing just off to your right. “Yeosang and I have something to show you.”
“You do?” You blink in mild shock. “What is it?”
“It’s a surprise, My Dear,” Yeosang smiles at you, extending his hand out to you in invitation.
Instantly, you close the distance between the both of you, placing your hand in his. Yeosang wastes no time in interlocking your fingers together, leading you out of the library in the next second with the others following close behind.
Slowly, he leads you through the hallways and back to your own room. Only, you don’t recall closing your door when you left. Which is when you realize that the surprise must be inside, especially given the way Mingi giddily smiles at you when you spare him a glance over your shoulder.
You pause just outside the threshold, anticipation and excitement shining in both Yeosang’s and Mingi’s eyes as they watch you carefully. Both Jongho and Wooyoung stand just behind, also eager to see your reaction to their brother’s gifts. After all, your happiness brings them no greater sense of joy, or pride, especially when they are the cause of it.
“Go on, Starlight,” Mingi encourages softly with a nod of his head. “We’re right here.”
Carefully, you extend your free hand out to turn the handle, entering your room shortly after that. As soon as you cross the threshold, a gasp is escaping your lips.
“No fucking way,” your jaw drops, along with your hold on Yeosang’s hand as you see the giant Snorlax beanbag chair sitting off to the side, a black fuzzy lump curled up right in the centre of it.
The first step you take closer to the cushion is synonymous with the little furry lump’s raise of it’s head, and you cannot help but let your jaw drop. In the next second, an excited squeal is escaping your lips as you cover your mouth with both hands.
“Is that-“ you turn to look at both Mingi and Yeosang, eyes shining in awe. “Is that Kuroo?”
Mingi nods, eyes crinkling at the sides as he smiles widely at you.
At the soft mewl you hear, you turn your head just in time to see the little black kitten with the golden eyes jump off of the giant Snorlax and trot over to you. Happily, he rubs against your leg, beginning to purr quite loudly as you pick him up and hold him in your arms.
“Oh, yes, hello there,” you chuckle as Kuroo rubs his face all along your jaw and neck, purring all the while. “I’m happy to see you, too, Tetsurou.”
At the lick he gives your cheek, you giggle, and it’s one of the most melodic sounds the four men have had the pleasure of hearing, soft smiles adorning their faces as they take in the sight before them. What makes it even better is that in the next moment, you’re turning back around to face them, that look of wonder and awe directed directly at them.
“Which one of you-“ you briefly glance between Mingi and Yeosang.
“I did,” Mingi smiles once more, feeling his heart race as the bright expression is mirrored on your own face, directed straight at him. The fact that he feels you tenderly reach out with your mind to his own in this moment only makes it all the more sweeter.
“And the Snorlax?” You turn to look towards the shorter male standing right beside his brother knowingly.
“Was me, Dearest,” Yeosang nods in confirmation, a loving smile tugging at his features as you send one back. A fact which has Yeosang’s heart racing erratically in his chest.
You walk up to them, a warmth blooming in your chest as you take the time to meet each of their gazes.
“Thank you,” you breathe out, holding Kuroo securely in your one arm as you reach out to place a kiss onto Mingi’s cheek before turning to Yeosang and placing a lingering kiss onto his forehead. “The both of you.”
Mingi’s ears turn bright red, a giddy chuckle escaping him as he brings his one hand up to cover the cheek you’ve just graced with your lips. His fingers press lightly into his tingling skin, heart swelling with love for you and only you. He smiles wide, eyes crinkling naturally in response.
“Of course, Starlight,” his voice is barely above a whisper as he responds to you.
“We’re just glad you like the surprises we got for you,” Yeosang replies with a smile of his own, cheeks warming as he clasps his hands in front of himself almost bashfully. 
He can feel his forehead tingling from where you’ve kissed him, and he couldn’t help but to notice how he’s the only one to have ever been graced such an intimacy with you. Sure, three of his other brothers have all received kisses on the cheek from you, but he’s the only one who has had your lips grace his forehead. Besides, if Yeosang didn’t know any better, he would swear that your lips lingered against his skin a little longer than the rest, too.
“I love them,” you reply earnestly, scratching happily at Kuroo’s chin as he continues to purr loudly in your arms. “Now, could one of you hold him? There’s an urgent matter I need to attend to.”
“Of course, Dearest,” Yeosang is already moving to take Kuroo from you without a second thought.
“Thank you,” you grin while handing the kitten over to Yeosang. “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment.”
All of the boys share a brief, curious glance with one another as they watch you walk right up to the Snorlax bean bag chair before flopping face first into it with your arms spread wide.
You let out a blissful sigh. “Yeah, this is the life.”
None of them can help the fond chuckles that escape them, projecting this happy memory immediately to the others who are more than willing to share in your joy, even if they’re not in the room. The way your legs seem to be kicking slightly in earnest behind you has warmth flooding their veins, jaws twinging from smiling so widely.
“I think I’m going to have a nap,” you call from over your shoulder, snuggling deeper into the plush comfort of the Snorlax beneath you. “This is way too comfortable to be legal.”
“We’re glad you’re enjoying yourself, Dearest,” you hear Yeosang reply from behind you.
“We’ll let you rest, then,” Jongho says, and you can hear the soft smile in his voice as they begin to exit your room.
Just as Mingi goes to shut your door like you normally do, your voice calling out to him stops him right in his tracks.
“You can leave the door open, Min,” you turn to look at him from over your shoulder and notice the way he freezes with his hand still holding the knob. You smile softly at him. “I don’t mind.”
Mingi nods gently back in acknowledgement, his eyes shining with something you can’t quite understand from this far away. He leaves only a moment later, but not before wishing you sweet dreams, an adoring smile on his features.
Little do you realize the significance of what leaving your door open for them means. The trust alone makes their hearts flutter in their chests, warmth flooding their veins as content rumbles build beneath the surface. 
The opening of your door feels like the opening of your heart. To all of them. A fact of which they could not be more grateful for.
Turning back around, you adjust your position on the large plush beneath you, cradling your head beneath your arms as you let out a blissful sigh. Cuddling deeper into the cushion, you close your eyes, letting the darkness consume your thoughts and mind.
About an hour and a half later, your eyes are fluttering open, sleep still clinging to the corners. You yawn, stretching your limbs outwards like a cat would as you rub your neck. Next time, you should definitely grab a pillow or something for extra support.
Shifting slightly, you feel a small warmth at your side that mewls when you move.
A smile tugs at your features as you turn yourself around, allowing Kuroo to immediately crawl onto your chest and curl up into a little ball there. You fingers gently stroke through his fur, giving him soft, gentle scratches as he begins to purr once more. A few minutes later, and he’s fallen back asleep, perfectly content to lay on your chest.
Being stuck beneath a cat, or any animal like this, is never a bad thing. As your fingers continue to mindlessly pet Kuroo, it allows you time to think. All of the events from the past week and a day flood your mind, and that familiar warmth blossoms in your chest.
Despite the minor setback you had, and the major one with Miyeon, you do trust them. More than that, you appreciate their honesty. For, to you, it not only demonstrates the trust that they have in you, but also their respect.
Taking a deep breath in to steel your nerves, you decide it’s time to extend that same curtesy.
You drop your void.
It’s Yunho that notices first. Is everything alright, Petal?
Everything’s fine, you don’t need to panic. You reassure all of them. Don’t be popping up in my room suddenly, either.
Aw, darn, you hear Wooyoung jokingly complain. There go my plans for the evening.
Did you sleep well, Starlight? It’s Mingi’s voice that echoes through your head next, and you cannot help but smile softly, his concern easing some of the tension you can already feel building within.
I did. You hum. Thank you, Min.
You cannot see him, but you just know he’s smiling at you right now.
There’s, uh, actually something I wanted to share with you all. You begin, somewhat nervously. But I want you all to promise me not to come running. It’s nothing bad, I swear. I just don’t want to be crowded, and I’ve already received the comfort I needed at the time. I just- they can all hear you sigh, I just want you all to understand some things about me that I think you all deserve to know.
Did you kill someone? Perhaps it’s just you, but San sounds just a little too hopeful in his inquiry.
What? No! You immediately respond, and you notice how your shoulders relax from the distraction. 
You smile softly to yourself as Kuroo stretches, curling deeper into your chest.
Whatever it is you would like to tell us, My Love, know that we are all ears. Hongjoong’s gentle tone resounds in your head, and you can feel the way he reaches out to you to caress your mind tenderly.
Thank you, Joongie, you reply, subconsciously leaning into his phantom touch.
Hongjoong nearly drops the dagger he had been sharpening in his hands. This is the first time you’ve ever referred to him with an affectionate name, and he wants to revel in it. His heart thunders, for more than one reason now.
One of you already knows what I’m about to share with you all, you begin and Seonghwa can already sense where this is going, but I need you all to promise me not to come running.
There’s a brief moment where you can practically feel them all agreeing with one another before one of them is speaking to you in your mind.
We promise, My Love. Hongjoong informs you, a lingering feeling tugging at the back of his mind as to what you might be about to share with them.
Okay. Good. You nod to yourself before continuing. You’ve all been honest with me this past week, and I want to extend that same curtesy to you. I am sharing this memory with you all because I trust you, and I feel comfortable enough to do so. It will hopefully shed a little bit of light on why things have been a little rough to start on my end.
You pause, and they all wait anxiously for your thoughts to return. They can feel the nervousness pouring off of you in waves, the uncertainty in your emotions clear as day. This is a big part of yourself you’re sharing with them, after all. The vulnerability alone is astounding, and each male recognizes that, even before you continue.
Whenever you’re ready, Dearest. Yeosang’s soft voice assures you, feeling him also reach out to caress you tenderly with his mind in the next second.
You lean into his touch more than you realize.
Immediately, all eight of them are plunged into your memory, unfamiliar to all, except two.
“Do you want to know why I reacted the way I did when that happened?” You seem to be sitting inside of Seonghwa’s tailor shop, said man sitting across from you with your sweater held firmly in his hands.
That’s when they all realize: this is what transpired between the both of you that day all those weeks ago. You are finally sharing this memory with them, a fact which could not make them happier as Seonghwa’s own words about this not being his memory to share with them rings through their ears.
Intently, they all listen, hearing your words wash over them as you explain your feelings to the eldest in your memories. Each cannot help the way their breaths hitch at hearing that you actually enjoyed Seonghwa’s ministrations that first day all those weeks ago. A fact which still takes the eldest’s breath away hearing it for the nth time in your shared memories.
The echoes of your conversation from earlier begin to flit through Wooyoung’s mind as he listens to you admit to everything in your memory. No wonder you were so tense when he pulled you into his lap today. No wonder you said what you did.
If each of them could, they would go back in time to comfort you right then and there, pulling you softly into their embrace and whispering sweet nothings into your ears. They would tell you that you have nothing to worry about. That they do want you. You, and only you. Yet, from where this is going, they know Seonghwa’s already beat them to it.
Mingi and San both drop the glasses in their hands as they hear you utter words that could not be more untrue in this memory of yours.
“It’s because I’m not- I’m not beautiful.”
Wooyoung falls to his knees in his room, mirrored exactly by how Yeosang collapses into a chair in his own at this admission. Yunho, who had been working on painting a bouquet of your favourite flowers, drops his brush, managing to spill his paint water all over the floor without even realizing. The book Jongho had gone back to reading tumbles to the floor, his whole body frozen in shock as your words reverberate through him. 
The two eldest, who had both been expecting such an admission, are still not prepared for how harshly their hearts squeeze in their chests at hearing you say such an untrue thing once more in your memory.
Unbeknownst to you, tears spring to each male’s eyes, falling freely down their faces as your emotions within the memory wash over them.
The last glimpse they see of the memory is Seonghwa’s look of complete and utter bewilderment before he’s hissing out, “That is the filthiest lie that has ever fallen from your lips and you know it.”
A fact of which they all agree upon.
You end the memory there, choosing not to share with the seven men the words of comfort Seonghwa had given to you at the time. A sort of silence settles over all of you as you let the memory sink in. That is, until you’re breaking it.
Well, now you all know. Your voice is calmer than you feel, inhaling a shaky breath as you hold onto Kuroo’s soft body for support. Do with that what you will.
In the blink of an eye, you’ve closed your mind off to them once more.
San’s reaction is immediate, the sentiment echoed by nearly all of his brothers as he prepares himself for what he’s about to do.
I need to go to her. He’s about to transport to your room despite the promise they all made not to. Until Yeosang is appearing beside him and holding him back. Let me go! She needs me!
We all promised her we wouldn’t disturb her after this. Mingi reminds him mentally, even if he is also having a hard time not running to you immediately and pulling you into his arms, comforting every negative thought in that beautiful head of yours until they are no more.
This is not just difficult for you, San. Seonghwa reminds him.
Says you. Jongho is having a hard time keeping his breathing under control as more tears escape his eyes. You were there. You gave her comfort at the time, didn’t you?
Of course I did! Seonghwa’s response is immediate. Do you think that little of me, brother, that I would let the love of our lives believe such filthy lies about herself?
We never doubted your integrity, Hwa. Yunho wipes at his tears before moving to clean up the spilt water on there ground. Any one of us would have comforted her were we in that situation.
Did anyone else know? Yeosang finally manages to calm San down enough to sit him in a chair, the two clinging to each other practically for dear life as another sob escapes the younger’s throat.
A moment of silence as most of them deny knowing. All, except one.
Captain? It’s Mingi’s soft voice that asks.
I did. Hongjoong admits, staring intently at the dagger held in his hand. I overheard them talking that day, and concealed myself so Hwa wouldn’t know I was there.
When did you get there? Seonghwa asks, a slight frown pulling at his features. Only Hongjoong could sneak up on him like that. No wonder the younger entered the shop at the point he did, acting the way he did.
Shortly after she admitted that she enjoyed what had transpired between the both of you. Hongjoong tells them, twirling the blade slowly in his grip.
And neither of you told us? It’s Jongho who says it, a hint of bitterness in his voice.
It was not our memory to share. Seonghwa repeats his same words from days earlier.
We could have went to her. Wooyoung attempts to reason. We could have done something to lesson those worries in her mind.
I think we already have. Yeosang breathes, stroking a comforting hand through San’s hair as the younger demon finally calms down enough to speak.
She trusted us enough to share such emotions with us. San says, and they can hear the lingering tears still in his voice. She chose to share that memory with us.
All we can do now going forward is make sure that she never thinks - she never believes - such things to be true about herself. Yunho replies, eyes catching on the now dried out flower crown he has hanging on display at the side of his art room.
I’m sure whatever Seonghwa told her was what we all would have said in the moment. Yeosang adds.
It was. Hongjoong confirms. She believed it, too.
How do you know? San questions, genuine curiosity in his inquiry.
We felt it. Seonghwa answers for him. At least, I know I did.
A moment of silence as they all wipe at their lingering tears.
What are we going to do now? Mingi leans against the wall, supporting himself as he runs a hand through his hair.
We’re going to do what we promised her we would, and give her as much time and space she needs until she wants us to go to her, or she comes to one of us. Hongjoong responds. Until that time, just go back to whatever you were doing. Or do whatever you can to pass the time and take your mind off of things for now.
Echoes of agreement sound throughout each other’s minds, each male going off to do their own things to channel their feelings for the moment.
Immediately, Yunho is grabbing a fresh canvas, setting the one with the bouquet of your favourite flowers aside for the moment. If there’s one thing he knows he can do right now, is express himself through his art, and he knows exactly what he’s going to paint. 
Grabbing a pencil to begin outlining the figure, a single tear escapes his eye once more.
Artistry be damned, Yunho is going to paint the most beautiful portrait of his life right now, and he doesn’t care if it takes him weeks to do it. By the time he’s done, he’ll have painted the exact way he sees you. A fact which he hopes will make you never question your unfathomable beauty again.
Meanwhile, Seonghwa loses himself in his shop. He grabs a fresh stencil, outlining a design for a new dress, this one even more extravagant than the rest. A brief thought crosses his mind, but he quickly shakes it away. He doesn’t think you’re ready for that type of gift from him, yet. Though, perhaps he’ll still start a set for you. After all, he only wants you to feel as beautiful as he’s always known you are.
By the time he’s done designing and fashioning you an entire outfit like this, you will finally be able to realize the royalty that you are. By the time he’s finished, he’ll make sure you both look and feel like a Queen.
Jongho, on the other hand, begins browsing through the stacks of poetry in the library. He’s always been better with words on paper than with speaking them, anyways. Besides, he’s more of a listener, and he loves listening to you, but perhaps this time, it’s better if you listen to what he has to say.
Pulling some books off of the shelf, Jongho is quick to grab a highlighter and a pen. Once he’s done, he will have compiled an entire library’s worth of quotes from his favourite poems and poets about how he feels about you, and of beauty, life, and love. He will quote them to you as you read them, repeating every annotation he adds in order for you to understand what you mean to him.
There is no greater part of himself that he can give to you than the pieces of his soul scattered throughout his favourite pieces of literature for you to find. For you, and only you.
San, Mingi, and Hongjoong all do what they normally do when they need to relieve some tension from their bodies. They spar, practice, and train. 
Hongjoong focusses on throwing his knives, hitting each target and pretending that they are every single person who has ever made you feel less about yourself, or insignificant in some way. He imagines skinning everyone alive who has ever told you such lies and made you believe you are not the most beautiful thing to have ever walked this earth in decades. He only wishes he could kill all of your insecurities in the same ways.
Mingi and San spar with each other, a tangle of emotions and limbs as they clash their weapons against one another. Each male has tears still lining their eyes, not caring how rough or irrational they’re being with their attacks right now. The only thing on their minds is how best to comfort you when you call; how best to protect your mind from such horrid thoughts taking control again.
There are tears in Wooyoung’s eyes as he vents his frustrations out while in the dance studio, the speakers playing some of his favourite songs. Choreographies he’s made for you are second nature to him at this point as he runs through the dances again, and again, and again until he collapses onto the ground in a pile of sweat and tears. The sound of the music barely muffles his sobs, his mind reeling with both your shared memory and what happened with you earlier in the day.
Wooyoung doesn’t regret what he said or did earlier, no. He only wishes he knew. He wishes he could have controlled himself better, or even tried to brush against your mind to see if you would be open to sharing your thoughts in the moment. 
He just doesn’t understand how you can’t see how precious you are to him. To all of them. He feels as if they’ve failed you, that he has failed you by not making you see how utterly stunning you are to him - to all of them. He’ll just have to find a way to show you; to make you believe you are both incredibly special and beautiful for the rest of your life.
At the same time, Yeosang finds himself in the music room, picking up the instrument that he loves so dearly. He spends a minute tuning it, making sure everything is properly in its place before bringing the small piece of carved wood and strings up to his shoulder. Raising the bow in the next second, he begins to paint a melody, letting the music guide him through his emotions.
The notes soon begin to flow together, blending into a hauntingly beautiful symphony that cascades around the room as his eyes flutter shut. He’s always had a way of getting lost in the music he creates, and when it now concerns you - the emotions you shared, the memory, and everything that you make him feel, Yeosang cannot help but to let the sombre notes ring out.
The song is hauntingly beautiful, reflecting every emotion that he’s feeling right now for you. The melody itself is you, embodied within his music - how he sees you, how you make him feel, what you do to him. Everything that you mean to him is put into the way he draws his bow across the strings, his fingers pressing into the neck of the violin as he plays this song for you.
He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s started, but by the time he hears footsteps approaching the room, the sun is beginning to set behind him. The warm hues of light filter through the large windows as he rounds out the melody, heartbeat racing erratically as he recognizes those soft footfalls to be yours, drawing closer and closer to the music room with each step.
His back is turned to you when you reach the open doorway, and he can feel your gaze staring intently at him as he lets the last note ring out through the air. Slowly, he lowers the instrument to his side, turning to face you in the next moment.
The moment his eyes meet yours, your breath hitches in your throat. The tender love and affection you can see shining there sets your heart racing. Not only that, but the clear concern, and empathy you can see lingering there, too, has a warmth spreading through your entire body.
You smile at him softly, an expression which he returns almost immediately.
“You play beautifully.” You comment, voice a bit airy as your breath escapes you in awe.
That single expression - and admission - is enough to knock the wind right out of his lungs.
“Thank you.” His voice is small, heart catching in his throat as you two stare at one another.
“How long have you been playing for?” There’s an excitement in your voice that he can hear you trying to contain for the moment. A fact which just makes him smile, palms suddenly becoming sweaty at you interest in his other passion.
“A millennia or so,” he admits, running his thumb lovingly over a string as he holds the violin at his side. “Give or take a few centuries.”
“Wow,” your eyes go wide, swallowing the sudden dryness in your throat. “Can I-“ you nervously shift from foot to foot, averting your gaze so sweetly. “May I watch you play?”
Yeosang nearly collapses on the spot. This is everything he’s always wanted, and so much more.
He clears his throat, a soft smile gracing his features as he meets your gaze, “I would be honoured.”
Slowly, carefully, he walks over to your form still standing in the doorway. Extending his free hand out to you in offering, he gently guides you into the room. Your touch, placed so delicately on top of his own, sends a pleasant shiver up his spine, his thumb brushing over the skin on the back of your hand.
“I, uh-“ he clears his throat, helping you sit down on the piano bench at the side of the room, “I actually have something that I would like to play for you. Would that be okay?”
Immediately, you nod your head, eyes lighting up as a smile adorns your features. “I would be honoured.”
It’s the way you repeat his very own words back to him, combined with the way you’re looking at him right now that has a feeling unlike any other spreading throughout his body. It’s a pleasant feeling, yes, but there’s also a lingering sense of nervousness that Yeosang has not felt when he’s played in years.
He says nothing, opting to place a lingering kiss onto your forehead instead before stepping away from you and taking his place once more in the centre of the room. The way he feels you brushing against his mind has him immediately latching onto that feeling, solidifying that connection so that you both won’t be disturbed by the others.
This moment is for the two of you, and the two of you only. Nothing will change that.
With the connection open like this, Yeosang is privy to all of your thoughts and emotions. He can sense the excitement strumming through your blood, making your pulse race beneath your delicate skin. He can feel the anticipation lingering in your mind, curious to hear the song that he wants to play for you. His only hope is that you like it, and that he can do such a song, given it’s meaning to you, justice.
He raises his instrument, bow at the ready, as he shoots you a final smile. A soft one being sent back from you almost instantly.
Taking a deep breath, Yeosang begins to play.
As soon as you hear the first notes echoing around the room, your whole body straightens in your spot. Your breath hitches in your throat, heart leaping in your chest as tears spring to your eyes. Immediately, your one hand comes up to cover your mouth while the other grasps at the jewel shining around your neck.
The beautiful sound of the melody of Rohan fills the air, flooding your senses and comforting you like a warm blanket on a cold day. Your absolute favourite violin melody.
You can feel your entire body trembling as the first of your tears begin to trail down your cheeks, your hands never leaving their positions for even a second. Chills wrack your body as goosebumps form over your skin, the meaning and significance of such a song washing over you in this very moment.
With each rise and fall of the notes, your breath hitches, sitting frozen to your spot as you watch Yeosang lose himself to the melody, his eyes having long since fallen shut.
It isn’t a very long song by any means, the simple melody only lasting a minute, maybe a minute and a half at most. However, the fact that he learned this for you, that he is playing this for you because he wants to, not because you asked him to, or he felt the need to, has your heart swelling in your chest. 
More tears trail silently down your cheeks as the final notes ring out in the air between you. You wipe at your eyes, chest shaking as you inhale a breath, your emotions overwhelming you.
Every thought, every feeling, Yeosang understands. His mind is still connected to yours, so every fleeting emotion you felt during his performance, he felt, too. A fact which has his own heart thundering away in his chest as he’s over come by your awe, your gratitude, your wonder, your fondness, but more than all of that, a single emotion he’s never experienced from you before. An emotion that he doesn’t want to assume, or feel for too long, as he doesn’t want to get his hopes up before the time is due.
Wordlessly, you stand to your feet, drying your eyes with the back of your hands. You swallow the lump in your throat, taking a deep breath to steady your nerves.
“Yeosang,” the soft call of his name from your lips is like the gentlest of breezes caressing his skin after a long summer’s day. You begin to step towards him slowly. “Did you-“
You can hardly form the words, but he already knows exactly what you want to say. Even if you both already know the answer, you still want to hear him say it. You need to hear him say it.
“I did.” He breathes, allowing his arms to fall to his sides, his one hand holding both his violin and bow. “I learnt it for you.” A brief pause as he swallows. “I learned them all for you.”
All of your favourite songs. He taught himself all of your favourite songs on the violin for you.
You can hear your heartbeat echoing in your ears as you come to stand in front of him, tongue darting out to wet your lips. A movement, which you notice, that he catches.
Softly, your one hand comes up to caress the side of his face, eyes shining with all of the unspoken words you wish to convey. Not only that, but there’s such adoration and fondness shining there, that he cannot help but stare into them. 
He leans into your touch, raising his free hand to gently place it over your own.
“Thank you,” you breathe out, caressing his cheek softly with your thumb. “Yeosang, thank you.”
It’s one of the greatest, most meaningful gifts you could ever give me.
His heart skips a beat in his chest, eyelids fluttering shut as he revels in both your touch, and your praise. Anything for you, Dearest.
Your lips part, glancing down at his own as you subconsciously step closer into him.
“Can I-“ your breath catches in your throat, hardly able to get the proper words out. “May I-“
“Yes,” Yeosang’s eyes are flinging open, a desperation you’ve never seen before shining within as he hears you pose the question in your mind. “Please, Dearest. Kiss me.”
Your lips are on his without another thought, your one hand moving to tangle in his hair as the other continues to cradle the side of his face tenderly in your palm. Without another thought, you deepen the kiss, pulling him in closer as he gently cradles the back of your head with his one hand, his opposite arm wrapping around your waist and pulling you into him.
Yeosang cannot help but let the pleased rumble that builds in his chest escape him as he feels you tug him closer into you. This is everything that he could have ever asked for, and so much more, especially when he hears the small whine escape your throat as he pulls away, teasingly tugging your lower lip between his teeth as he does so.
His eyes fall shut once more as you both lean your heads forward to rest against each other. Nothing can take this moment away from him, right here, right now, with you. He revels in the feeling of your hands against his skin, his lips still tingling with the ghost of yours as he attempts to catch his breath, along with you.
“Dearest,” his one hand tightens its hold on you as he pulls you impossibly closer, overcome by his own emotions for the moment as his lips tug upwards in a brilliant smile. “You are my entire world. There is nothing that I would never do for you. I am so in love with you, I fear I lack the words to describe such strong emotions. You are so unbelievable beautiful, kind, intelligent, and unquestionably perfect in every way. Please, never forget that.”
“Yeosang,” you breathe out his name once more, pulling away just enough to stare deeply into his eyes as a tender smile tugs at your features. A brief pause, until you’re uttering the words that have his heart racing once more in his chest, “I believe you.”
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AITA for not knowing which friend to pick? TW: violence and sexual assault
This happened a little while ago. Two of my friends (F and M, mid 20s) were married. A few years in they start having problems.
Both of them are claiming that they did nothing wrong, and the other one is abusive. (F claimed M raped her and sexually assaulted her, M claimed F hit him and damaged his house unprovoked several times and described the situations. I didn't see any physical damage, but it might have been healed/fixed between times I saw M.)
Both these people are making claims that, knowing the other, seemed hard to believe, but our whole friend group agreed that SOMETHING was going on. We just didn't know what the truth was, we only had one's word against the other, no hard evidence, and no stories were adding up. All we had was M claiming their couples' counsellor believed him, and F said nothing about counselling.
F started asking people in the friend group to decide between her or M, splitting the group in half. Being neutral was not an option since she would take that as choosing M, and F's friends were being asked to ghost M's friends. M was making no requests like this, just that he and F to be kept separate, that we were all our own people, and he thought F should be safe to be friends with.
The group was in flux for a bit. Everyone sort of agreed that since there was no clear bad guy and we don't know what happened, we would remain friends with each separately, and they could take turns coming to social events.
During this time, F did something to me specifically that everyone agreed made her TA - but this was totally unrelated to the divorce, we still didn't know who was TA on that.
I explained to F why what she had done upset me, plus that I felt the difficult choice she had given me and expectation to ghost my friends was a hard thing to ask. F began jumping to conclusions, saying I had unfriended her on Facebook (I haven't been on in years and never added her in the first place), assumed my reluctance to ghost my friends meant I was refusing to be hers - in her words, "choosing my rapist over me." She blocked all of us and moved to fuck knows where interstate, before the divorce had even finished. M now cannot find her or contact her and is trying to find legal ways to separate from her anyway.
I've seen the AITA where someone was voted YTA for remaining friends with someone who was a known abuser, and I know how important it is to be on the victim's side and get the abuser out as fast as possible. I just didn't know which one it was, and I didn't want to make the wrong choice.
How she behaved afterwards to me was definitely wrong, she's definitely TA there, but we still don't know about during her marriage - her behaviour afterwards could be chalked up to someone who was abused until she forgot how to act and became scared and desperate for people firmly on her side and to get away from her abuser at all costs, but it could also be revealing her true colours as an abuser the whole time.
So, AITA for not knowing who to choose?
What are these acronyms?
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tricitymonsters · 3 months ago
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A long rambling post about US Healthcare
Alright so waiting didn't really help me parse out what I want to say but a big pillar of our online community passed away suddenly because of what amounts- frankly- to the gross negligence and cruelty of the US healthcare system.
For those of you who don't know Furaffinity is essentially THE cornerstone of the centralized furry and monsterlover community and the site was, for a long time, run by a guy named Dragoneer LARGELY by himself. This website hosted community ads, moderated its own content, and maintained a welcoming and corporation-free space for artists and other creatives to do their thing. My involvement in furaffinity has been pretty low key but I firmly believe that monsterfuckers and furries are only spitting distance apart at best so I feel a strong camaraderie and sense of kinship with them. As for how Dragoneer ran Furaffinity, what I can tell you personally is that FA was one of only TWO websites that will allow me to advertise TCM and when I emailed to get ads set up and configured, Dragoneer answered those emails personally.
Dragoneer had chronic issues that were difficult to diagnose for a while and reading his twitter/journal posts paints a really depressing, heartbreaking story of frustration, misdirection, and the banality of pure evil. Dragoneer was denied care he deserved because of the bureaucratic void that is our healthcare system here in America. He was charged tens of thousands of dollars for inconclusive tests, ordered to wait at home with minimal or no treatment, and this culminated in his rapid decline and sudden death last night.
Our healthcare system is traumatic and one incident, one accident, one sickness can financially ruin any of us permanently.
It's awful. One of the reasons this is difficult for me to talk about is because my dad died suddenly and horrifically to Covid in late 2020 because our for-profit hospitals refused to prepare for a pandemic while our executive administration pretended nothing was wrong. My dad died two weeks before vaccines began rolling out and when my mom and I had to make the choice to end his care we were only allowed to see him for 2 minutes at a time, separately. My husband was denied entry altogether because he wasn't "immediate" family.
Personally, I have chronic health issues that regularly get ignored. I have a mandatory medication (of several) that has no generic and costs over 300$ for a 30-day supply and my pharmacy (I'm not allowed to change) sometimes runs out and I gap for weeks at a time, sending my brain function into the toilet.
If you're American please help by keeping healthcare reform a primary voting issue in both Federal and State/Local elections. We need officials who see what this is doing to us, not more 1%ers who will never have to worry about what to do with a $25k hospital bill (one of Dragoneer's latest) or even a $250k one (my dad's bill for daring to die in ICU). I know it's a rough ask but for the financially stable, consider legal recourse for rights violations (some lawyers work pro bono for health stuff, the point is to always explore avenues to push back). We can't go on like this.
If you're not American, please help us by raising awareness in your own areas. Most of us look to more socialized countries like Canada and the EU for examples of how to improve our current system and of course, we know things aren't perfect but it's an embarrassment and a tragedy that Americans can't access the quality of care our system should VERY MUCH be able to provide.
Anyway.
This was really long-winded but it hurts a lot to know that there are so many cases like Dragoneer, like my dad. People with serious or even chronic issues can't get the smallest scrap of compassion in this system that reduces us to inconvenient numbers that our for-profit system can squeeze pocket change out of while murdering us.
I'll post links if a fundraiser goes up for Dragoneer's family to help cover the funds but until then, thanks for reading my long and winding thoughts. It's very hard to tame the emotion with this particular issue.
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solarpunkpresentspodcast · 5 months ago
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Is This the Last Dance Before the Lights Go Out?
I hate to say it, because it’s not very solarpunk, but it feels a bit fin de siècle here right now. Like we’re in the last days of normality before we fall off the cliff. Every time we have a nice moment—in the late spring splendor of the garden, for instance, or even just when walking the dog through the fields—we stop, Spouse and I, and tell one another to enjoy it. Because feels like that in the midst of the cataclysms that are about to strike us, we’re going to look back at these little things and wonder how we could have taken them for granted.
And it’s not just us who’s feeling this way. Lately, when we have dinner with friends or chat with our neighbors, at some point, the group converges suddenly upon such thoughts. Be grateful for these moments, we murmur to each other, where we can relax together on our backyard patio, drinking cold white wine, and watch the sunset. Understand that they’re a luxury. Such days are numbered and once they’re gone, not all of us, and maybe not even any of us, will see their likes again.
Who can blame us for seeping in this bittersweet gloom? A perfect storm doesn’t just seem to be looming, it feels like it’s adding elements to itself all the time.
At first it was just the global warming we are still failing to address. But now it’s clear that this global warming is not just bringing deadly heatwaves, droughts, bigger and more frequent storms, sea level rise, and flooding, it’s also threatening to collapse patterns of ocean circulation within the next decade or two such that northern European temperatures will drop to resemble those in Anchorage, Alaska, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and Kamchatka, Russia. On top of all the other disastrous effects this would have—including sudden massive heating of lower latitude areas along the Atlantic—just imagine what would happen if farming were no longer possible in such heavily populated places like Britain, Ireland, northern Germany (where I live now!), Poland, and all of Scandinavia. Food prices soaring all over the world, anyone? Plus widespread famine (and not just in Europe) and the collapse of major economies? If we were young enough to start over again and had the money to move, I’d say we decamp back to my home state of California before climate change turns us into actual refugees. I’m sure I’ll kick myself in five, ten, or fifteen years when saying our garden full of potatoes and the neighbor’s Muscovy ducks and alpacas will be what gets us through the winter here without starving is not just a matter of gallows humor.
Meanwhile, we’re balking at getting the renewable energy revolution going fast enough soon enough to avoid environmental disaster. And why are we balking? Because it’s “too expensive” or because we just don’t want to change anything about the way we live, although these arguments are ridiculous because the cost of doing nothing is astronomically higher and the changes are coming anyway.
We’re also refusing to reverse the widening wealth gap that’s ultimately what’s driving people into voting for the far right, neo–Nazis, and other politicians with authoritarian urges and the desire to destroy democracy… even though these people and political parties will only add fuel to the fires that need to be put out.
Then there is all that misinformation and all the conspiracy theories that seem so perfectly constructed to stop us from working sensibly together to tackle the existential environmental, economic, and social problems that are making it increasingly harder for us to thrive, or often, even to survive.
On top of all that, here in Europe, we have the added issue of the political failures of the post–Cold War period that have had us sleepwalking into a dangerous situation with a resurgently imperialistically hungry Russia. After the Wall came down and the Iron Curtain opened, European politicians thought we could just be friends and trading partners with Russia. Because Russia’s interest in selling us natural gas and crude oil would weave them into our economic world and make them value our markets enough for them never to want to wage war on us ever again. Thus would we lull them into peaceful capitalist prosperity and democracy.
Cozy in that lazy thinking, Europe dropped its guard, domesticating itself rather than its enemy. Its armies grew thin and its stocks of weapons and military machinery thinner. Today, countries like Germany would need the greater part of a decade to build up enough weapons, equipment, and trained manpower to wage even a strictly defensive war. It’s not much different for any other country in Europe. Which is not the position you want to be in when one of your neighbors starts dreaming of their glorious imperialistic past.
To hear politicians and analysts tell it, unless some political miracle convinces Putin to remove crush western democracy from his bucket list, we have three to five years to prepare for war. Such a miracle might be as simple as a heart attack. More likely it involves a sudden splurge in funding to beef up European defenses ASAP plus upcoming elections handing power over neither to the far right in Europe nor to the raging danger that is Donald Trump nor to the Republicans party that has been taken over by people who’ve lost their tether to common sense, compassion, and reality. In other words, yes, we really are talking about a miracle.
I’m no professional, but from my little perch here in Northern Germany, having as long as three to five years feels optimistic. Ukraine is all that is standing between Putin and the massive expansion of his war. If Trump and the Republicans roll into the White House, that’s got to bump up the war is coming to us timeline to... sometime next year or the one thereafter. Seems to me, anyway, because Trump & Co will pull US support out from under Ukraine faster than you can say God damn the electoral college and then she will fall.
Won’t that be the start of the wider war, for the next stops will be Baltic states, like Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Sweden, and Poland, plus neighboring countries like Moldova? Or maybe it won’t even wait that long. Knowing this danger for Estonia, Estonia’s current leader has already more or less said that, in order to save Estonia, they’ll give everything the country has, in terms of funding and military support, to stop Russia from taking Ukraine. And since Estonia is a member of NATO, as soon as they do more than send funding and equipment, doesn’t that drag a huge chunk of Europe straight into the war, even before Ukraine falls entirely to Russian aggression?
Again, I’m no professional on this front, I just live here. But likewise, it’s also hard to see how it will be as long as three to five years before we’re all at war, given how zealously Russia is working to undermine peace, prosperity, and political stability in the West and how feebly we’re counteracting this. Russia takes a mile for every inch we give them, spreading misinformation, causing destabilizing political problems, and committing not even terribly covert acts of sabotage. This sowing of dissent aims to weaken western countries and coalitions ahead of the overt war Russia plans to wage on us. We totally know this! But our politicians are too frightened to retaliate against this hybrid war against us , lest it trigger a real war between us. You can all but hear Putin laughing into our timid faces. Real war is coming anyway!
All of that (plus a bunch of other equally dismal stuff that I haven’t had room to mention) is why living in Europe right now feels like the last dance before the lights go out.
Is it any wonder my thoughts have also recently frequently turned to how such a war would unfold?
Will tanks speed down the little lane we live on? (Honestly, actually, I’ve seen that already, because I think back in summer of 2022, they were training Ukrainian soldiers to drive Marder armored vehicles around here. There was a week when every time I looked out the window, one was zipping by… and let me tell you, it’s amazing how fast these things can race by.)
Will bombs flatten our house?
What can I do to prepare for what is coming? I live in Germany, a couple of hours from the Polish border. So, there is somewhat of a buffer there, but not a huge one. It isn’t inconceivable that there might be fighting here, or that we’d be the target of drones.
I don’t mean to be self–centered about this. There’s a whole lot of destruction and carnage that has to happen to other people and other countries before battles happen here. But it’s not right to just shrug this looming war off by thinking oh, well, it won’t happen here.
I feel like, at my age, I’d make a terrible solider. Never mind that I’ve never been great at blindly following orders, I’m small, middle aged, out of shape, and full of asthma and allergies and chronic injuries, the battle scars from too much fun and soccer playing in my twenties, too much swilling of diet soda, and too much stress in my career. Yet, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to go and fight than it would for someone in their late teens or twenties (or even thirties), who has so much more of life in front of them? Spouse says, well, it would be our jobs to do all the jobs that wouldn’t be getting done if a good chunk of the young men were off fighting. We’d be farming, or helping out in hospitals, or riding around in garbage trucks. I don’t know if that would really feel like doing enough. Part of me thinks he’d be among the first to sign up if Germany gets invaded, even the current work that he’s doing would be critical to maintaining Germany’s renewable energy infrastructure.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about how we live about 100 miles from the nearest city that would likely be hit by nuclear weapons, should things get that bad. I think that means we’d be the ones to die of radiation sickness, unless we could stay in a fallout shelter for the couple of weeks it takes the most acutely dangerous radionuclides to decay away. But, of course, like everyone else here, we haven’t got one in our backyard. We don’t even have a cellar. And I don’t want to die in an old abandoned local potato cellar or in one of the dank cubbyholes that passes for a cellar under some of the neighboring houses.
So, I haven’t just started thinking, whelp, even though I finally let us work down the supplies of toilet paper and canned goods I began hoarding in February 2020, it’s time to build up the collection again. I’ve started wondering how I could maybe turn our downstairs guest bedroom into a fallout shelter. It’s already got brick walls and a concrete ceiling. They’re not thick enough, but it’s a good start. What if I bricked up the window and then lined all the walls with another layer of bricks? Would that do, so long as I solved the issue of the flimsy wooden door? Also, could we rejig our solar panels to use them as an island, isolated from the grid, so that we’d have lights and could run a pump a few hours a day to bring air in through a Hepa filter? We could pee into buckets and poop into ziploc baggies, but how would we deal with the dog? With paper, pens, pencils, and maybe even our laptops, and maybe even something as decadent as an exercise bike, at least we wouldn’t die of boredom. Oh… a radio! And batteries. I’d better add that to my mental list.
Then, the dilemma. We have our anniversary coming up. Should I buy him a Geiger counter? Or would it be better to wait until Christmas? Or his birthday early next year? Or can I put it off even longer than that? I don’t want to buy one if I don’t need to buy one, but I don’t want to wait until it’s too late and be unable to get one and then die because we left the fallout shelter too soon, or didn’t realize we had a leak that was letting in dusty radioactive fallout.
But, honestly, argh! I have never in my life been afraid of the future. I even made it through the entire 1980s without having more than the occasional flicker of anxiety about dying in a nuclear war. But now thoughts like these are tying my stomach in knots and keeping me awake deep into the night.
As much as I love solarpunk, and as much as I believe in solarpunk’s vision of a great future that doesn’t require that we go through an apocalypse first, it’s hard to be optimistic about that right now. I cannot shake this feeling that our systems have been so broken and the changes we need to make to the way we do everything are so great that the only way forward is for it all to fall apart. It is hard to shake the feeling that we truly are about to go over that cliff.
That doesn’t mean I won’t stop fighting for the changes we need to make to avoid catastrophe on our way to a sustainable future. But I’m still stuck with the melancholy of these very possibly being the last nice days I will see for either a while or the entire rest of my life.
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kariachi · 5 months ago
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Some Gwen and Argit ficlet! Going over some of the shit he's doing in his early mayoral days.
~~
“Okay, so you’re imposing a property tax-”
“Gotta fund and maintain public shit somehow. Roads don’t fall from the sky, and I’d swear two-thirds of this damn town won’t pay the fuckers cleaning the public baths. How hard is it to drop five bucks in a box?”
“Uh-huh. Probably doesn’t hurt that you can skim off the top, huh?” Argit just shrugged, his ear twitching.
“Depends on what needs paying for.” Gwendolyn did not seem convinced, or impressed. Snorting in the face of her narrow-eyed expression, he flashed a toothy smirk. “Not ‘bouta let the kittens go without lessons, Red, but come on, you know me.”
“Unfortunately,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes as she turned back to the paper in hand. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do about him; he’d been voted in perfectly legal. That his competition had joined the fight only a few weeks before election day, supposedly only because democracy demanded options, and was rumored to themself voted for him, didn’t really enter into it. “Do I even want to know about this one? ‘Buildings cannot be mobile between dimensions and/or universes.’”
“Ask Benny about that one,” Argit said, “his story’s better than mine. Swear, with how much shit he gets into I should be just taking notes when he talks.”
“You’d ban him in a week,” Gwendolyn said.
“Would have already if I didn’t like him.” Huffing, she shook her head and rolled her eyes again.
“I just can’t see how you can-” Another little huff. “You implemented a food bank and signed a refusal to fund the Plumbers into law on the same day.”
“Yeah.” Argit’s nose crinkled, his head tilting to the side. “Making sure everybody is fed is part of the job, adding to the Plumbers’ pile ain’t. Only ones actually do anything around here are Benny and Rook anyway, and neither of them need paying.” He flashed another smirk. “‘less you want me to offer ‘em a salary. Abandon the Plumbers, abandon Bellwood, come keep the peace here full-time.”
“You know they’d never go for it,” came the answer with a small glower. He just shrugged.
“Then I’m not tossing extra funding at that shit. Plumbers have got plenty enough money, and I got a few thousand mouths to feed, shelter, and shit.”
“See, that shit-” Not quite slamming down the piece of paper, Gwendolyn pointed an accusatory finger at him. “-where you talk like you give a fuck when you’re just out for your own skin, is what pisses me off.”
“Aw, Red,” he all but purred, plucking the paper from his desk and scanning the list she’d prepared like it was fanmail, “here I thought it was me breathing that did that-”
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redundant2 · 2 years ago
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Thursday must be tea day
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From SecondhandCoke on Reddit who allegedly has a relative who is connected to Netflix:
"Okay I have some tea. This is all gossip, but it makes other rumors make sense, AND it feeds into something that everyone is pretty sure is Meghan is trying to make happen.
So allegedly, Meghan is not invited and will not be attending the coronation. I still hear mixed reports about Harry.
Remember the reconciliation meetings with the Royal Family that were rumored? That was Sussex Spin on the fact that PaPaChuck3 has called for an audience with Harry. It's NOT, though, as they'd like us to think, some kind of reconciliation and apology. Meghan is not invited. If she comes she will not be given audience. The children will always be given audience, but she will never be given the honor of another personal audience with the King ever again in her life.
Anyway, Chuck summoned Harry to talk about whether or not Harry would have a role in the coronation and the fact that obviously his ceremonial role to swear fealty to the crown has been undermined by the book, the Netflix show, the book tour interviews, et al. I heard from my source in LA (because Meghan is a fucking sieve and keeps nothing private), that the King has said that the Royal Family will not be apologizing for anything, not now, not ever, and certainly not publicly. On the contrary Harry would have to publicly apologize and recant the litany of irrefutable lies to play the small ducal role played by the peerage in the coronation ceremony....
Now here's the thing: my source texted this to me today....
Source: Check IMDB about the coronation. Then check MM unforgiven.
Me: What in the fuck is this?
........Here is the condensed version of what the fuck a lot of people think this is. Again this is rumor, but it's compelling rumor:
Charles has refused to apologize for anything. On the contrary he has demanded that Harry publicly recant and apologize. He isn't even asking for Meghan to because she won't and even if she did, she'd never have access to the family again anyway.
This is the provocation for Meghan's latest tell-all "Unforgiven." It's a documentary short telling "Meghan's story..." again... probably a new one. To my knowledge, a network hasn't picked it up yet.
On the actual Coronation IMDB, only Archie and Lily are listed. This makes me wonder three things:
Are Merchie and Lilibucks on there just because Meghan added them herself? Seems like the palace would keep their IMBD locked down so Boaty McBoatface doesn't end up on there (and Boaty SHOULD be on there.) Sinners who've been watching IMDB, have the Marklets always been listed? Have Ginge and Cringe ever been listed and taken down? Anyway maybe the Sussexlets have been added without any proper permission.
Why is Prince Harry neither on the Coronation nor Unforgiven? Is he on the verge on apology to his family? Is that why his children are listed on IMDB but not him. He hasn't decided?
Unforgiven is said to be coming out on January 23 (or in January of 2023). That's fast. Is that what she's been doing? No network looks poised to air it. What's she going to do, upload it to Insta or YouTube? Will it tell new lies about palace racism, like that Meghan was forced to dress as a maid? MOST importantly, why is this coming out so fast? Is it because Harry is going to apologize and she wants to get out on front, say he is being coerced and that the mistreatment has made his abuse and addiction issues "almost unsurvivable" and so she is announcing their DIVORCE? Is it coming out so fast because she wants to drop a load of mud about the palace because they are getting ready to drop their dossier on her?
I don't know, but I know this: narcissists are like toddlers and when toddlers are quiet, they are getting ready to create a huge mess. Meghan's a narc who's been too quiet for too long. What kind of mess can we next expect?"
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silvathemagicalgirl · 6 months ago
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Look not enough people on here are upset about TikTok rn and it's a problem.
I don't care your opinion on TikTok as a platform. The US banning TikTok is an objectively terrible move and you should be mad.
And don't go saying "um actually it's a divestment" because TikTok has already stated they will not sell and a pretty small minority of their revenue is from the US in the first place. It's a ban.
It's infringing on the first amendment right to free speech. The government is saying what website its citizens are and aren't allowed to visit.
The government should not be allowed to just ban a business. Or force a sale. Especially when that business has not broken a single law.
If they're worried about privacy, they should be writing a over-reaching Privacy Law. Make it apply to all platforms. If you don't want the Chinese government to have access to US citizen's data, make it that NO government can have access to that data. But then the US wouldn't have access to it, so we're gonna just blame China and TikTok instead.
There is some inherent xenophobia in the fear of China behind this ban.
Meta, Twitter, and other US based social media companies have been publicly caught and documented selling/leaking this exact data to the US government or other private companies such as advertisers. In fact, TikTok has some of the best security of any social media platform. But we are concerned about China. Okay.
If they do this to TikTok, it sets a precedent that they can do this to tumblr or any other social media platform.
They have added this ban (which has now passed the House and Senate) inside another bill providing aid to Palestine and Ukraine. They added it to a must-pass humanitarian bill because that was the only way they could see getting it through. Why is the US government allowed to put unrelated topics up in the same bill for the same vote.
Thousands of US small businesses who depend on TikTok to run (creators, sellers on TikTok shop, etc.) will be completely out of work.
The ban in its current form is almost unenforceable.
The US government could be solving literally any other problem right now. Instead, this is what they want to push through right before election year.
Despite polls showing that this is NOT what the US population wants, our elected officials insist on putting it through anyway. They claim there is some secret information that they have that we don't, but refuse to share. And it means that the younger generation who uses TikTok is losing even more trust in the government and the voting process. They do not feel like their voice is heard. They will give up, and stop voting. This will continue to widen the gap between what the constituents want and what the elected officials actually do.
I could go on and on about what TikTok the platform personally means to me, but honestly it shouldn't matter. This ban will infringe on my right to free speech. And I haven't seen anyone outside TikTok talking about it.
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fantastic-nonsense · 2 years ago
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Do you think the Republican Party thought that the anti-abortion crowd was more popular/powerful than it actually was? Nearly all the ads in my state for the republican candidate ran on the promise that they would ban abortion entirely if elected only for the democratic nominee to win, and the proposition to keep abortion in the state got an overwhelmingly positive response. I mean, I always knew that the anti abortion crowd was a loud & vocal minority but even I didn’t think they were so outnumbered
Yes, they absolutely did. And I think there's a couple of reasons for why they thought anti-choice sentiment was more powerful than it actually was, but it really boils down to three things:
They underestimated and dismissed women, especially older women who remember what it was like before Roe and young women watching a right they took for granted being taken away just as they were trying to ramp their lives up. Political punditry and forecasting are very male-dominated industries anyway, and I genuinely think the GOP crowd thought a lot of women would just...accept the Dobbs ruling (or at least "forget" about it as a major issue if the election was far enough away). Which is stupid if you've ever talked to women who aren't hardcore evangelical Christians, but well....¯\_(ツ)_/¯ such is the hubris of conservative men.
The GOP is currently being dominated by a group of Christian Nationalists who want to impose a very narrow-minded, conservative, and fundamentalist interpretation of evangelical Christianity on a population that is growing less and less religious by the year. They misjudged their cult-like base for national sentiment because they're in an echo chamber where they're only hearing and listening to people who buy into their nonsense.
"It's the economy, stupid!" works for abortion rights too. A lot of male politicos (liberal and conservative) seem to not understand that even apart from the bodily autonomy concerns, abortion is a major economic issue for women. Few things impact someone's finances more than becoming pregnant and having a child, especially in a country without universal healthcare and childcare. And that's all without taking into account the impact children have on women's long-term salaries and participation in the workforce. When you think of abortion as a wedge social issue instead of a core economic issue, of course you're going to think you can get away with the abortion ban your base wants without it impacting your vote totals too much.
That being said, I was very pleasantly surprised by the Kentucky referendum. I've rarely been so happy to be wrong as I was when I saw the vote totals showing people decisively refusing to enshrine anti-abortion sentiment into the state constitution.
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cityofduluthmn · 8 months ago
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Gonna be really honest here, I'm genuinely worried about a Trump victory in November specifically because of Michigan.
My hometown was extremely pro-Biden in 2020. Aside from a few crazy neighbors, it was very safely leaning Biden and had a historically high voter turnout that year. Nowadays, Biden is viewed and discussed with vitriol, and rightly so given his disastrous policies and complicity in the ongoing Palestinian genocide. Nowadays, all you see around town are some Trump signs and flags, when four years ago it was absolutely plastered with Biden/Harris ads. Our mayor made national headlines for refusing to host the president on a visit.
Biden won Michigan by just over 100,000 votes in 2020. My hometown, now leaning towards Trump by virtue of a huge segment of our population ostensibly abstaining, has about 106,000 people.
Trump could very feasibly take the state of Michigan and 14 electoral votes with it in November because of one single suburb.
I understand that we're fucking pissed at Biden right now, and we absolutely should be because what he's done is abhorrent. But an election isn't a business where boycotts/targeted abstentions are going to hurt the government directly. Even if only five people vote in the election, the person who wins still gets to be the president for four years. Especially if you live in a swing state, you need to consider the entirety of what's at stake with this election.
We need to consider whether we want the president to be a person who's maintained the status quo and participated in genocide, or someone who is going to actively make the ongoing genocide worse and initiate more. Palestine isn't the only thing at stake here (and it's not even necessarily at stake. Trump has been very open and unambiguous about his support for Israel in the past. Biden is not great but trump is going to be so much worse just in that regard) and even though our system sucks actual garbage and doesn't represent the interests of anyone, we can't jeapordize the tenuous little progress we have made over a principle that isn't going to matter in the end anyway unless we have a viable alternative ready.
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