#not only would this actively make the story worse

[rubyin-wonderland]

Sleepless Nights

opla!Zoro x gn!reader

Summary: due to your anxiety, you haven't been sleeping that well. Or at all. Someone needs to step in.

WC: 3.4k

Warnings/tags: anxiety, insomnia, overworking yourself, breaking down, there's fluff in here I swear, hurt/comfort written by someone who's never been comforted or knows how to comfort so we'll see

It was a sunny day. Perfect for any arrangement of fun activities or entertainment. And yet, on your ship, neither of those were to be found.

The crew stood on the deck, watching as you paced back and forth across the length of the deck, mumbling something incoherent to yourself.

"When did they last sleep?" Nami asked, peeking over at Zoro, who stood up straight, arms crossed and brow furrowed at your display. He was more tense than usual. "Few days. Unless you count napping at a desk for a few minutes as sleep." "I don't."

You had been really nervous lately. The ship was rapidly approaching the Grand Line and the air was lit with nerves. Both of excitement and anxiety.

The anxiety was primarily yours. For the past week you had taken it upon yourself to keep everything ship shape. There was one problem with this, that being that you were not comforted by completing your self-appointed list of tasks.

On the contrary. As days passed by, you grew more and more agitated, your anxiety building instead of settling. When you weren't hidden away in your room, writing yet another list or searching through your small library of informational books or doing menial tasks all over the boat, you were doing what you did now, pacing along the deck until inspiration struck and you would go back to your room, mumbling to yourself all the way.

The crew had done their best in terms of trying to calm you down. They invited you to participate in small activities with them, hoping you would relax enough to let go of your stress, but that rarely, if ever, worked.

Zoro took responsibility when you got too bad, stepping in when you broke down, helping you as best he could until you had calmed down enough to be stable, but you never relaxed past that. The anxiety never left you. Never completely.

At one point, you had gotten so worked up over Sanji's meal plan that you had holed yourself up deep in the belly of the ship, crying in between boxes of unknown things. You made a mental note to run inventory on them, which only made you feel worse.

After sobbing your eyes out, you returned to the world above the waterline and complained about the situation to Zoro, who comforted you as best he could before going to argue with Sanji about the meal plan and how you were handling everything.

The argument was bad, but you spent the most of it inside your room, as you read about the probability of a tornado encountering your ship while you travelled.

That night had been difficult for everyone, trying to keep Sanji and Zoro from attacking each other while also making sure you stayed fed and in the best mood you could possibly be, the bar for which was getting lower and lower as the days passed by.

That was the first night you didn't sleep. You told Zoro to sleep off his anger and you would join him, but while he did follow your orders, you disobeyed yourself and stayed up all night.

You hadn't slept since. They had all tried to convince you to sleep, but all manners of convincing and pleading with you were unsuccessful.

You would eat at meals and spend time with the crew when requested, but nobody knew how to get you to sleep.

Not even Zoro, your beloved nap addict, was able to pull you down. He had tried. He had tried so hard, but you tried harder.

His naps had felt unsatisfactory without you leaning on him while he rested. He was missing your presence and he was feeling it.

He would ask for you to nap with him, but you would brush him aside, and he was not the type to beg you to sleep with him, so he let you go. At first.

Sleeping at night was a different story. He would ask you to join him and you would do one of two things.

The first option was saying yes and crawling into bed with him, allowing him to pull you close in some futile attempt at falling asleep, but it never took, and you would just break out of his grasp once he had fallen asleep, returning to your work.

The other was telling him you would be there in "just a minute", promising both him and yourself that you would be there soon, but there was always something that took your attention. One more task, one last note. Until the morning came and Zoro woke up alone in your bed.

He would try to lure you in, napping close to you. Before everything went south, you would join him if you ever saw him napping, sliding in next to him, resting your head on his shoulder or draping a lazy arm over his body, tangling yourself with him.

You used to seek eachother out to nap, but since you weren't sleeping, it was just him, by himself, while you worked yourself to death.

Occasionally, your body would force you into sleep, but it never took. Zoro would find you slumped over your desk, unmoving but breathing deeply, and he would hope that he could move you to the bed somehow to get you to sleep but you would soon jolt up, taking in a ragged breath and your brief rest would be over and done with.

You were usually at your desk when it happened, overly tired and overworked. Your head would fall onto your work, and for a few minutes, you would regain miniscule bits of strength to power you for the next little while.

While it happened mostly at your desk, it had happened in other places too, but always while you were sitting down. Never while you were standing and certainly not while you were walking.

However, earlier that day, on your way to the kitchen with Zoro, you had just collapsed. It terrified Zoro to no end, as he watched you fall, carefully watching as your chest rose and fell, indicating that as scary as it had been, you were still alive.

When you woke up as you usually did, you took longer to get up, lethargy taking over. In a few more minutes you were back to being as anxious as ever, but it was this incident that had spurred the crew to watching you pace along the deck.

You made a sudden, sharp turn, going inside, ignoring the stares that followed you in.

"You need to get them to sleep." Nami insisted. "And not just a nap. A full, healthy sleep. This can't possibly be good for them."

"I could make their favourite meal, maybe-" "This isn't about your food, waiter. Butt out." Zoro frowned at Sanji, poison in his gaze. The argument about the meal plan still pretty fresh, and spirits hadn't gotten much better since you stopped sleeping.

"Maybe during the meal we could talk to them about what's going on. Or is that too complex for you?" Sanji asked, hands on his hips.

"Don't forget that you and your stupid meal plan are a part of this problem." Sanji was prepared to shoot back but Zoro cut him off. "Leave it. I can do this."

Zoro followed you as you ducked into your room, sitting down once more in your chair, hunched over your papers, scribbling something down. Over time, your handwriting had deteriorated significantly. Slowly but surely you could see the descent into exhaustion you had gone through. You writing had gone from it's normal script, into chicken scratch, into missing letters and words, into things that looked like words, but the letters were all wrong, leaving you with a pile of nonsense on your desk.

Closing the door behind him, prepared to put an end to this, Zoro approached you.

He was careful to make sure you knew he was there before he spoke. Heavy steps, making sure to lean on the one creaky floorboard.

"Hey." His hand reached out, resting on your desk. You looked up, meeting his eyes. You blinked a few times before you processed who was there with you. A smile spread on your face, in an attempt to convince him that you were fine.

"Oh, hi Zoro." The smile was forced and looked like it took a bit of effort.

"Why don't you take a break from work and sleep a bit?" He suggested casually, hoping you wouldn't catch onto how bad he needed you to go to sleep.

"Why?" You asked, voice soft. The way you spoke the single word had him weak. Even in your exhausted state, you could manage to charm him.

"You haven't slept in days." You looked at him, still smiling. "I'm fine, Zoro." "You fell asleep standing up this morning." "It won't happen again, I've got a handle on it."

"I'm worried about you."

That was one thing guaranteed to make you stop. He didn't like telling you about his emotions. It was always a struggle. So this confession gave you pause.

"Zoro, I'm alright. I promise." "You need to rest."

You sighed, gesturing at the piles of paper scattered across the table. "I still have things to do. I need to plan a schedule for how long we're going to stay at each island, which one we'll reach first so I can see what we're dealing with, I need to make Sanji's grocery list-"

"He can do that himself." Zoro cut in, still angry at the chef for suggesting that his food would help you better than he could.

He kneeled next to your chair, looking up at you, face completely serious.

"Please." He said as earnestly as he could. A cautious hand reached up to rest on your arm. He noted that your skin was ice cold. "I wouldn't ask you to do this if I wasn't worried for you. One decent sleep is all I want for you."

Your eyes rested on his hand, which held your arm away from your writing. You could feel the warmth emanating from him and resisted the urge to snuggle up against him.

"Zoro, I need to-" "What does this say?" Zoro grabbed one of your messier pages off the desk, showing it to you. The words were messy and barely legible, if they were even words at all. It was a mess of circles, dots and arches, scribbled in wandering lines across the page, making no sense. What words that did exist meant nothing without the context of the words around them.

You moved your hand, taking the page from Zoro's hand, doing your best to read the scribbles, trying to remember what you were even trying to write about.

Your eyes stopped moving after a while and Zoro carefully removed the paper from your grasp, taking it away from your line of sight.

"I messed it up." You whispered, letting your hands fall, eyes beginning to shine with tears. "Oh no." You repeated that phrase over and over, as you glanced at the many many pages sitting on your desk in similar condition.

You pulled your eyes away from the desk, turning to Zoro. You reached out for him, for something, anything to latch on to, hands grasping at his arms. He held on to you, hands on your elbows as you began to cry.

As the tears fell, you could hear Zoro. Under your shaky breaths and sniffles, his voice. Sturdy as a stone wall. Supportive. Protective.

"It's alright. You're okay." He whispered, thumbs gently rubbing up and down the skin of your arms.

You tried to stand, but you fell back into your chair, legs having given out. Zoro lifted you up instead, effortlessly. You let go of his arms and wrapped your limbs around his body, continuing to cry as everything came crashing down around you.

You didn't have much strength left, but what strength you did have was used to keep your arms and legs out of the way, holding him as tight as you could, letting him carry you the two steps to the bed.

You had buried your face in his neck while he sat down, your sobs quieter, but audible right next to his ear.

He leaned back, making sure to get your limbs out from under him, laying down completely. His arms embraced you once more, but this time, he just held you.

In his arms you continued crying, but it was slowing down. As your breathing began to settle, you squeezed him, not easing up. A hiccup escaped your lips and you let out another shuddering breath.

"You didn't mess anything up. Zoro reassured from under you. "You did everything right."

You sat in silence and he held you as you relaxed. You were cold in his arms, but he just reminded himself that to you, he was warm.

He felt you soften around him, it was like you were melting into him, your muscles loosening, until you were just splayed out across him like a strange blanket.

He didn't care. He had no mind for how you were to fall asleep, just that you had to do it. He would suffer through anything as long as you got your sleep. He was not unfamiliar with being kicked late in the night, but he was ready to shoulder that burden too. He could suffer any arrangement of bruises in order to see that you had a good sleep.

Now that he had finally gotten you into the bed, he wasn't going to let you leave. You would not wiggle out to return to your work. He would keep you here. He missed it so much.

"I can't sleep." You confessed to his chest, aware that you falling asleep was the specific reason for this visit. "I close my eyes and it's all nightmares." Zoro looked down at you, still embraced in his arms, the occasional shiver running through your body.

"About what?"

"Getting to the Grand Line and being unprepared. Getting hurt, lost, sick. Dying." Zoro listened attentively as your worries finally escaped from the place where they'd been locked up in your head.

"The Grand Line is dangerous. I know we can handle it, but what if we don't?"

"Look how far we've gotten already. You really think there's something on the Grand Lina that can stop us?"

You let Zoro's words sink in, but still fought back, holding him just a tiny bit tighter. "I almost lost you after the duel with Mihawk." You could see the tip of the scar peeking out of his shirt. A reminder of what you had nearly lost. "And that was just one thing. We all got attacked at Kaya's manor, Nami abandoned us for Arlong, Luffy almost drowned while you were unconscious and if it weren't for Sanji, I have to think at least one of you would've died there."

You noticed a shift in Zoro's grip when you say Sanji's name. "We've been in trouble before, but we survived." He insisted. "We've been lucky. We were lucky to have Usopp run to tell the people about Kuro, we were lucky to have Sanji and Zeff to save Luffy and you at Baratie."

"Then we're really lucky to have you to keep us organized. Keep us grounded. We'll survive the Grand Line, because I'm not dying until I become the greatest swordsman in the world, and I haven't done that yet."

You wanted to say more, to go on about the many things that could happen to you as you traveled, but your body was completely exhausted. You were so tired.

And so, you shifted in place, making yourself comfortable in bed, still held within Zoro's arms, moving downwards to lay your head on his chest. He moved in turn, sitting up against your pillows, readjusting his arms and pulling a blanket up and over you.

"Get some sleep." He whispered gently, trying not to rouse you too much. "Please."

This time, you didn't protest. There was no last excuse or question as to why he would ask you to do such a silly thing as getting some rest. There was just peace. There was just you, sinking deeper into his arms, breaths becoming slower and slower.

Within a minute of sitting silently encased in Zoro's grasp, you had fallen asleep. Zoro only moved once, to pull the blanket up a little higher. Zoro was ready to drift off himself, having missed sleeping with you close to him, but just as his eyes drifted shut, he heard the door squeak.

His eyes shit to the door, an intense glare on his face as the eyes of his crew peeked in to make sure everything was alright.

He briefly looked down to make sure you were undisturbed before returning to glaring at the eyes peeking through the door, a warning that if any of them woke you up, he was prepared to raise hell.

The door squeaked shut and closed with a click, the sound of whispers from outside. You remained sleeping, undisturbed by the sounds that Zoro had been worried about.

You were breathing deeply, a soft snore rising from your lips. You didn't move much, unexpectedly, your dead weight just resting on Zoro's body. He looked past it, glad he had taken his belt off beforehand so that his swords didn't dig into you while you slept.

Under normal circumstances he would've fallen asleep with you, but because of how badly you needed this, he stayed alert. You needed this sleep and he was going to let you have it, even if it meant staying awake while you slept so comfortably on top of him.

He didn't keep track of time, just letting it pass, every second being just that small amount of rest you deserved for working so hard and caring so much.

On his chest, you moved, finally spurred to action, twisting your head in the other direction, pressing a cold cheek to his chest as the rest of your body shifted as well.

Zoro remained still. You needed a place to rest and he could be that for you. He would be that for you.

You had done so much for the crew already, working yourself so hard. He wished he had stepped in sooner, after two nights without you at his side or the first time you had drifted off at your desk and woke up even more confused and disoriented than before.

He stayed still, almost like a statue, the only movement being that of his breathing, which was beginning to line up with yours.

He wasn't even conscious of when he began to draw circles on your shoulder.

You used to do it with him when he was almost asleep, running the tips of your fingers across his skin, the gentle touch soothing and sweet. He liked it, and he hoped you did too.

His mimicry surely wasn't as good as yours, but he traced the circles anyway, tracing his masterpiece through the fabric of your shirt.

He hoped that if you weren't in a deep, dreamless sleep, that you were at least dreaming of good things. Of adventure and happiness and love, not of your struggles or your anxieties about the future. He hoped the nightmares were gone and that you didn't have to worry about what was to happen.

He hoped you knew that you weren't fighting your battles alone. He had your back. The crew had your back. They would be okay even if you didn't plan every single thing out to the very last, intricate detail. That you were allowed to calm down, take breaks, and let people take care of themselves.

"I love you." He whispered to your sleeping form.

He wasn't one for heartfelt declarations like that. He had said it before, and the truth of the statement rang true every day he spent by your side, but to hear it out loud was a rarity. You both knew the statement was true, and that was enough.

He said it now. And he would say it again when you woke up. And he would say it again any time you needed to hear it. He would say it a million times as long as you knew it was true. That he loved you.

You didn't respond, he didn't even know if you would be able to hear it, but a tiny smile curved up at the corners of your lips, ever so slight, and yet it was wonderful. He smiled back, just as sweetly as you had done it.

He wasn't sure if you had heard him speak, or if you had just dreamt up something really nice, or even just felt the rumbles of his voice in his chest, but no matter what, he wouldn't mind having to say it again when you woke up.

[disastergenius]

by far the worst take i've seen so far post-ep19 of Junior Year is that having a week-by-week live play would have allowed fans to essentially influence the direction of the story in the way they want it to go and that would have resulted in the cast being more sympathetic to the Ratgrinders (ie getting them a redemption arc)

why do you feel the need to try and control this story? YOU ARE NOT THE ONE TELLING IT. if you want to tell a story please go write your own, or go write fanfiction to cope or whatever but you don't get to say that the players are telling the story wrong when it's their story they are telling

[orchid-n-petals]

So I've already shared parts of this on a discord server, but I have to scream about Ketheric Thorm on here as well. Obviously spoilers about the character under the cut! It's a long one.

The entirety of act 2 is about him, right? Jaheira, Shadowheart and numerous other NPCs shit on him for his fickle faith. First Selune, then Shar, then, as we meet him, Myrkul. You hear about his changes of faith on a whim, you hear that he's the person responsible for the shadow curse, he is painted as a villain, plain and simple.

You can figure it out pretty early on that Isobel was resurrected and that she is his daughter; the detail as well that he wants Isobel alive is so on the nose, it gives him away completely but there are still a few questions that remain unanswered, mainly about his faith.

And then you get to the mausoleum and the picture assembles; this entire tragedy, the death of hundreds if not thousands and the complete ruination of a landscape was all, ALL because you had this absolutely wrenched, heartbroken father who had lost everything and nobody answered his grief. He was left woefully alone, the Goddess whose daughter his daughter was involved with did nothing to save Isobel.

Imagine outliving your wife and your daughter. Imagine dedicating your life to fight the Lady of Loss, your Lady of Silver's enemy, and then be left so completely alone and in silence with your grief, with your loss. It's so, so poetic how and why he turned from Selune, and it's so understandable as well; he broke. His spirit completely broke. He couldn't deal with that void of having lost the only two important people in his life, seemingly undeservedly so. He was going mad with this and a lot of his ire was likely targeted at Aylin who, in his eye, represented Selune; she's literally her daughter, after all, and it was implied that even before the deaths of his family, he sort of saw Aylin courting Isobel as Selune taking his daughter from him, despite his service. This relationship was clearly not seen by him as a boon of "giving his daughter to the Moon-maiden".

His ways in the past clearly didn't spare him from tragedy and having to cope with it (which he clearly didn't, he snapped under the weight of his grief). He was clearly angry and unable to do anything, furious and helpless, which is a dangerous combination. A good part of his first change of heart must have been fuelled by a sense of revenge.

But then Shar didn't provide any balm to his aching heart either. If you read his letters in Grymforge and in act 2, he is so focused on enacting the will of Shar because he believes that healing lies in oblivion. Everything would be easier if he could just forget, if the damn world could just forget, if nothing was remembered because without Melodia and Isobel, nothing was worth remembering.

Then came Myrkul. Literally the only god who was not only able, but WILLING to give back his daughter to him. Imagine spending your all, EVERYTHING you have to serve two gods who would not give a single shit about the greatest suffering in your life. You were basically nothing, your loyalty didn't matter for shit, everything that was taken from you amounted to no recognition whatsoever: you should simply cope and seethe. Your grief will not simply go unanswered (which is not inherently antagonising) but ignored.

And then comes this supposedly evil entity who can alleviate your pain just like that, snap of a finger and it's a done deal.

I am so serious when I say that I believe Ketheric's main incentive was to extend Aylin's immortality to Isobel as well. You can read in her diary that she feels a taint after having came back, and there are things not even Selune can cleanse, but at this point, Ketheric doesn't care about Selune, vengeance is secondary if not tertiary, he's done that war during his Shar years and what did it give him? Literally nothing.

He doesn't even care about the fact that Isobel is still her cleric. He cares about the single most important fact: Isobel is back. Life is worth living again, there is something for him, and it was not Selune or Shar who gave it to him but Myrkul, and for this singular gift, he would raze the world for the Lord of Bones. Like people can clown on him for being disloyal but the man has the loyalty of a dog bonded to its owner.

He is powerful and is willing to go to insane lengths for crumbs. What is raising a single life for a god? Nothing. It has happened and it will happen again. But Ketheric will go to the ends of the earth to serve the single god who actually listened to him. The one god who didn't ignore him.

He knows that what he does is not the morally upright thing! He is so insanely self-aware that allying with Orin and Gortash and doing this entire plot with them only to then betray them is morally reprehensible at the best of times, he knows that people hate him, etc-etc. He was a Selunite at one point and he's not stupid. He just doesn't care; it could be literal Asmodeus and he wouldn't care as long as he got what he wanted, no matter the price.

He is probably the only one from the three of the chosen who has complete clarity over his situation, he almost sways (if you pass the check during his confrontation), he is not an inherently evil man blinded by power.

But he is inherently loyal to those deserving, and as of the story's standing, completely broken by his grief. In his eyes, at this point, the only one deserving loyalty is the one who actually listened to him. Isobel lives. It doesn't matter that she hates him, that his entire life has fallen apart, that literally nothing else that is good has come of it, because Isobel lives.

I don't think he regrets a single thing. His consciousness might tear at him at the end, but I believe he would do everything over again, exactly as he did, because in the end, his daughter was brought back. Because what would a grieving, broken parent give to bring back their child? Everything. Absolutely everything. And it's such a simply given answer, no second thoughts, no doubts.

Nobody can tell me that this man is fickle. Nobody. This man was willing to burn the world to the ground, create a Boudica destruction layer all by himself for the one single thing he wanted. For any God that would listen.

I don't know, I just have a lot of thoughts about his character.

[tasmanianstripes]

Are you ever tired of the fact that in gaming/fandom spaces when a character uses he/him or she/her it's taken as a fact but when they use they/them it's used as a suggestion?

[autisticlee]

I know it's wrong and bad to say this, but sometimes I really hate when my friends have other friends. (specifically when I can't also be friends with those friends) because every time I want someone to hang out with or talk to, the only couple friends I have are always busy with their other friends. when I want to plan something with them, they will always choose the other friends over me. they will cancel plans *with* me as soon as other friends ask, but won't cancel plans *for* me when i ask. they will use up their social spoons on other friends and leave none for me. always putting things with me off or simply not responding at all.

i'm always told by random people when I say I want mkre friends "it's better to have a couple great friends than many aquantances" or something like that. but honestly it sucks because you can't rely on 1-2 people to always be there for you every day or every week when you want or need someone. if you keep asking, you're seen as annoying and clingy and they will ignore you eventually (or worse)

it's annoying that they get to fill their social needs at all times, but I never get to. because i'm never the one that gets to go first in the social queue. and when it gets to my turn, it refreshes and i'm pushed to the back again.

the only solution I can ever think of is being friends with my friends' friends too....but for some reason!!!!!! that never works out!!!! (if my friends will even share their friends with me to begin with)

[aroacettorney]

perhaps the reason why aup ended like *that* is because it was not supposed to have a happy ending in the first place, but sayren didnt have the guts to deal with readers' backlash for when they finally kill off the main character so a half baked happy ending is what we get 😔

[fordp1nes]

do you ever have a thought that makes you realize you've levelled up mentally?

[livvyofthelake]

was any recent era of mine worse than early 2022. remembering that january and february and just thinking wow that was truly the trenches i should stop complaining about my life right now huh. imagine for a moment you’re coming off your bleakest semester ever. and that’s including the one where you almost killed yourself and the ones where there was a global pandemic. fall 21 was hell for me i felt like a monster from a fairy tale or perhaps the cheese from diary of a wimpy kid the whole time. and then there was winter break and i was happy being at home. and then there was cobra kai season four, my third obsessive cobra kai era and also my last. all three were utterly horrific i was never well at any point during any of those three eras. (the september/october 2020 one when i saw seasons 1 and 2, the january 2021 one when 3 dropped were the other two) anyway and THEN the mere thought of going back to college made me want to vomit profusely and perhaps shoot myself in the head so then we had my loser ass gap semester where i took one gened class because i was worried that if i took the whole semester off i’d never go back so i just did one easy peasy class and started working retail. and the whole time remember i was still in and coming down from aforementioned cobra kai era. and then march came. i don’t mean to be dramatic but that march saved my life. changed everything. helena you have no idea the role you played in me not killing myself fr wow. context: this was around the time i started talking to helena, who was watching shadowhunters, and wanting to read the books. and because of that i remembered how much EYE liked those books and i got back into THAT obsession. now for those of you that haven’t been around long it may seem like i’ve always been weird about tsc but from like 2019 to that march i was like fully not even thinking about anything related to that franchise at all ever. which is crazy to think about like maybe that’s why i was so depressed that whole time damn. anyway so that was when i got back into tsc. and sincerely i think that actually saved me for real and seriously. and of course. in a rube goldberg like chain reaction THAT led to the horrors which were terrible but really in hindsight the horrors were not that bad because tee and i went through them together and formed an unbreakable bond <3 but wow those early months of 2022…. it’s never been more bleak than it was then

[bbyobbyo]

seventeen as dads headcanons

content: reader is married to svt, normative(?) family structure, literally just unhinged thoughts, not proofread lol

note: was trying to write an actual fic but then got distracted sorry, dadventeen brainrot is so real

Seungcheol

Super protective “don’t touch my family” dad outwardly

All of his kids’ friends are straight up SCARED of him

But within the household he's the one sneaking ice cream when you say no, albeit guiltily

Shopping trips with him will always result in buying something for them and he is very willing to be taken advantage of

“Babe if I can’t spoil them now, they’re gonna grow up and move out before we know it!”

Tries his best to be handy around the house, but probably makes it worse, ends up calling Mingyu to come fix it

Jeonghan

DEFINITELY a “go ask your mom” dad

This man not only powerless, he doesn't even want the power, he's just here to have a good time and if you say they can't, then sorry kiddo

You can’t tell me that he doesn’t bring up becoming a family prank channel at least once a week

LOVES bragging to everyone else about his kid’s achievements, cannot shut up about them to anyone in a 5 foot radius tbh

His kids definitely talk to him about everything, which is great because he is SO nosy.

Has a list of all their best friends, enemies, and crushes at school somewhere on his notes app for future reference when they come to him for advice

Joshua

The REAL practical joke dad, admittedly made them cry a few times when they were younger and felt really bad about it

Perfect sweet husband and father in image, all of his kids know he’s actually lame af

Dominates the summer barbeques, UNDISPUTED GRILLMASTER

Super dependable, will drop everything if his family needs him and never goes back on his word

Gives surprisingly good fashion advice

Jun

Definitely walks around the neighborhood with his baby in a sling carrier strapped to his front, POINTS AT EVERYTHING OF INTEREST

When they start learning how to speak he adopts all his baby’s weird mannerisms (it started off as a cute joke but then realized he couldn’t stop)

Cries at every baby milestone until they’re like 10

Will not stop bringing up embarrassing childhood moments, especially in front of their kids’ friends/significant others

Cuts fruit for them instead of apologizing

Hoshi

Will fully ally himself with his kids

Like legit would do anything for them. ANYTHING.

I’m talking borderline go to his kid's school to beat up their hypothetical bullies himself sort of dad

The kids can always count on him to say yes if you say no

Absolutely DEVASTATED when they grow out of the tiger stuff he buys for them and become angsty teens

“What do you mean tigers aren’t cool? Do you not love your old man anymore?”

Wonwoo

Quiet doting dad

Definitely more affectionate when the kids are younger but gets into the awkward advice-giving stage when they grow up

LAME DAD JOKES GALORE, groaning is a regular activity in this household

Tries to google basic algebra every time his kids ask for help on math homework because he doesn’t want to admit he forgot everything

Chaotic af unsupervised. “Guess we’re having pizza again tonight kiddos” kinda dad because he cannot and should not cook

Jihoon

Another quiet dad, but make it savage

I feel like he would just love roasting his kids (affectionately of course)

And always overwhelmingly acts of service so his kids know they are loved

Allowance randomly appearing under their pillow, their favorite foods magically stocked in the fridge, always relenting to one last bedtime story no matter how tired he is

Would let you have final say but he makes it really clear he’s on their side and empathizes with them but its out of his hands

“Next time just don’t get caught, okay?” *winks*

Minghao

Loves loves loves just spending time with his babies

Doesn’t matter what he’s doing he just wants to be in the same room as them or cuddling and holding them

Emphasizes equality in your relationship so his kids can grow up with those values and learn to respect others

TURNS EVERYTHING INTO A LIFE LESSON OH MY GOD

Doesn’t believe in allowances but will cave and literally buy them anything they want if they ask

Would rather die than miss any important event (competition, speech, recital, talent show, graduation, etc.)

Mingyu

Absolute super dad, what can’t he do? Nonstop home improvement projects, cooks anything his kids are craving, offers to drive everyone everywhere

But also the whiniest dad ever lol constantly complains about people “ruining his system”

Absolutely FUCKS at the school bake sales, earns them twice the target fundraiser amounts because he's dilf material and knows how to get the moms to spill their pockets

Likes to have the final say, but you’re both usually on the same page in regards to discipline so his kids aren’t getting away with anything

Just the most supportive dad in the universe, the kids learn to never take him for granted

Seokmin

You already know his kids are gonna be spoiled rotten. He will be the favorite parent by default sorry I don't make the rules!!

His arms are the very definition of a safe space

Leaves all the discipline to you because he cannot keep a straight face when delivering a lecture (one time he made them cry and also ended up crying because he felt so bad)

Does so much embarrassing shit just to cheer his kids up when they have a bad day, acts surprised when they tell him he's cringe

Such a pushover that they are probably gonna make fun of him when they're older, but that's okay because they know there's no universe in which their dad will stop loving them

Seungkwan

As long as he can pick them up still, his kids are never on the ground for too long

Two words: SPORTS. DAD.

He could practically captain the cheerleading teams at their school with how many events he's been to

Knows all of his kids’ friends parents, they all get together and have coffee once a month actually

Nags nonstop and complains about everything he has to do for them, but is always diligent and does it without question

Gets so pouty when they start getting embarrassed to show affection, he WILL get his cheek kisses if it's the last thing he does!!

Vernon

Chillest dad in existence?!?

Literally as long as his kids are safe he doesn't give a single fuuuuckkk

“Sleepover? Yeah, call me when you're done and I'll pick you up.”

He WILL argue with you if he doesn't think there's a good reason to say no to them

So cute and encouraging to all their weird hobbies and phases throughout the years. “Lemme see” and “Really? Show me” are regular phrases in his vocabulary

His kids are definitely gonna inherit his legendary facial expressions afnngjdg

Chan

Super affectionate and doting, but also quite strict with them at times

“I just want the best for you, I want to see you succeed”

HAS A PHOTO OF THEM READY AT ANY TIME, lockscreen is a different shot of his kids every day and is eager to show it off even if no one asked

Not so subtly signs his kid up for dance lessons

Just the most encouraging dad ever, makes sure that they know making mistakes are a part of life and that he will always love them no matter what

[rin-may-1103]

The Wrong Robin Au (part four)

Previous | Master Post | Next

Danny slowed his car down, staring at the black iron gate coming into view; Bats and ivy welded on in an elegant pattern, obviously more thought-out than The Drake's ducks had been. He had to give it to Tim, the kid had been right about how stupid the ducks looked.

Glancing around, Danny found he was completely alone on the dirt road. The gray sky slowly brightened as the sun climbed higher in the distance, trees swaying in the gentle breeze, and birds chirped.

If it hadn't been for his experiences at Vlad's place, he would have found the scenery comforting, maybe even inviting. But the knowledge that this was the home of a billionaire, one that went out at night to fight crime like a furry on crack nonetheless, ruined it.

Maybe he should just head back to the motel...

...

Fuck it, when had Phantom ever backed down? That's right! Never! Danny was going to stick to his metaphorical guns and follow through with his admittedly stupid plan.

Taking his foot off the brake; Danny activated his intangibility, shared it with the car, and drove through the gate. (look, what were his powers for if not to make his life convenient? He deserved it after literally dying for them. AND the gate was probably locked. There was no way he could convince someone to let him in at this time in the morning, so...)

Danny kept an eye on his surroundings as he drove, he doubted Bruce Wayne would have ghost vultures working for him, but that doesn't mean Danny wouldn't be prepared if he did.

Eventually, a large building came into view. Its gothic architecture and obvious timely design set it apart from Vlad's modern monstrosity of a castle. Danny could just tell this was a home for a family with old money; the weathered roof and aged water fountain told stories of the people who used to live there. This was a home, not just a house.

Pulling his car over and parking, Danny quickly sent a mental prayer to the home's ancestors. He hoped they could forgive him for what he was about to do.

Grabbing his backup phone and his keys, Danny tossed the car door open and stepped out. Immediately his senses were clouded with grief and anger. It was so strong he almost lost his footing. The house was just drenched in the emotions, tendrils reaching out and wrapping around anything and everything.

Closing his eyes, Danny held his breath so he could focus on blocking the emotions out. (flashes of someone else's memories rushed past his mind; a glimpse of a young boy sitting in a library reading a book. An older man sitting next to him silently. In another flash, the two were now in a dark cave, the light of a computer the only thing illuminating them as the older man draped a blanket across the boy's back. whispered words of sincere promises echoed in his head.)

He had believed Tim, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad. Ancients, this was worse than when he had to deal with Spectra.

Batman definitely needed therapy.

...

Maybe Jazz should be Robin instead, she'd know how to handle this properly. but Jazz wasn't here right now, she was in Sweden learning all about mental health. Which meant Danny would have to do this himself.

yay.

He had two options; One, he sits down with the man and they have a sincere and very emotional conversation. Or two, he beats it into the guy's head that he needs to stop going out and trying to get himself killed. Based on everything he knows about Batman? It was going to be number two that was going to get results... Well, at least Danny had experience punching things until he got what he wanted. (even if it didn't always work.)

Shaking himself out of his mind, Danny started making his way to the front door. It was past five in the morning, Bruce should be home now. Whether he was sleeping like Danny would assume he usually did, was a different question altogether.

Glancing around the door, Danny found there was a large rope hanging to the left. Vlad had the same thing at his place, it was an old-fashioned doorbell.

shrugging, Danny pulled on the rope and waited.

and waited.

and waited.

After a minute or two, Danny pulled the rope again. Suddenly the door swung open to reveal an older man dressed in a nice waistcoat and trousers.

"Can I help you?" the man asked, a British accent completing the look.

Danny blinked for a second before quickly focusing back on his task. "My name's Danny. Bruce is being a dumbass who needs to take a chill pill and take a step back from hospitalizing criminals. Can I come in?"

It was the old man's turn to stare and blink at him. After a minute, the man stepped back and opened the door, his eyebrow raised. "I would like to see how you plan to tell this to Master Bruce. His office is this way, young man."

"May I ask what exactly you're doing here?" the man asked, closing the door behind Danny.

Danny shrugged, "I'm here to beat some sense into him. He's going to get himself killed and no one wants to see what happens when he does."

The butler, because the rich fruitloop would obviously have one, hummed as he nodded his head in agreement. "I see. Maybe this is what he needs then. he won't listen to me, no matter how much I nag him."

Nothing else was said as he guided Danny through the manor, eventually stopping at a fancy dark wooden door. "Master Bruce, you appear to have a visitor." Then He opened the door and gestured for Danny to enter.

He only had a moment to ponder how he should do this before he entered the room. He should keep his powers hidden, for now at least.

He was greeted with the sight of an exhausted man in a bathrobe sitting at his desk and staring out the window. He was clutching a very worn and loved book in his hands, his brows slightly furrowed. (Danny noted that it was the same book the kid had been reading, The Hero and the Crown... or something like that, Danny hadn't really gotten a good look at the title.)

The butler stepped back, closing the door, and stood next to it to maybe await his new orders. Ones he probably wouldn't get any time soon, if the way Bruce hadn't moved or responded meant anything.

Well, if the old man wanted to see this then who was Danny to stop him?

Stepping forward, Danny leaned over the desk and slapped the back of Bruce's head. The man swiftly turned and stared at him, raising one of his hands to touch his head in shock. Danny heard the butler choke in surprise but ignored him. He could only pray to Clockwork that Bruce didn't kill him for this.

"You are being absolutely idiotic, dude." Danny declared. "Do you think Jason would have wanted you to act like this?" Bruce stood up, his chair slamming into the wall, his eyes burning in anger. "No? Then get your shit together and be the man he would be proud of."

Bruce lunged over the desk, his fist pulled back to hit Danny. It was just like Danny expected, just like Tim had told him, the man was letting his emotions control his actions. Dodging to the side, Danny continued talking, "This going out every night, fighting more and more dangerous and outlandish people all by yourself? It's going to get you killed."

Bruce gave up on trying to punch him, instead, he threw himself forward and body-slammed Danny to the floor. Danny coughed, quickly blocking his face as Bruce took a swing at him. Using the man's blind anger to his advantage, Danny kicked Bruce in the chest and sent him flying into his desk. "Jason's dead. It sucks. and it hurts. It's probably the worst pain you've ever experienced, but there's nothing you can do about it."

Danny glared at the man as he scrambled into a crouch, waiting to see what Bruce did next. "Shut up," the man growled, shoving himself up and away from his desk. He picked up his stapler; he was probably either going to use it as a blunt weapon or throw it at Danny. Widening his stance, Danny got ready to dodge or lunge.

He remembered reading about him, online when he first became Phantom. He remembered reading about Robin and Batman and how they worked together to protect Gotham. How they tirelessly worked day and night to put their rogues away every time they got out again.

He remembered seeing pictures of Batman standing next to little Robin, a proud smile on his face as the police took the criminals away. Pictures of the man helping and protecting Robin whenever the boy couldn't handle whatever mess he had gotten into. There was even a memorable one of Batman scolding an obviously sheepish Robin, a knocked-out Riddler slumped behind him.

He had wished so badly for someone to help him back them, for someone to be his Batman when times got hard. He remembered how devastated he was when it turned out the only person like him was Vlad. Vlad, who had wanted to murder his father and marry his mother. Vlad, who had overshadowed people to gain more wealth and power. Vlad, who hadn't seen how wrong it was to try and clone him.

He remembered the comments and videos from the citizens of Gotham, cheering for their heroes when they succeeded in capturing the rogues. How they still supported them when they failed. It was nothing like Amity's reaction to him.

He remembered how Gothom reacted when Robin was pronounced dead. How the city had cried and raged. He felt it all the way over in Amity, the grief and anger. The whole city had come together to mourn the boy who protected them. Even two years later, Danny could still feel the echoes.

"Jason's dead. He's dead and gone and you're letting yourself get consumed with your grief. but you made a promise Bruce."

Danny knew he had, it was the same promise Danny had made just four years ago.

Bruce's eyes widened and the anger that was surging in his eyes froze for just a moment. His hand loosened around the stapler but didn't let it go. The butler looked concerned, unsure if he should interfere or not.

"You made a promise all those years ago when you first dawned that stupid bat suit. You promised to do everything in your power to help your city. To protect it. Robin made the same promise. When he took up his suit. They both did."

Bruce's jaw tensed, his eyes narrowing. Danny lowered his body, still ready to dodge at a moment's notice.

"You made a promise to your son, Bruce. Even if he didn't know it. One that you couldn't keep."

Bruce threw the stapler, making Danny jump to the side to dodge it. His mistake was not keeping an eye on what Bruce did after throwing it. The man quickly rushed up to him, eyes blazing in anger. "You don't know anything!" he cried, his fist slamming into Danny's jaw. Danny staggered back but ducked under the next punch.

"I lost my son! I wasn't there!" Bruce shouted, kicking Danny's legs out from under him. Danny's back hit the floor, knocking the breath out of him. Bruce followed him down, breaking his nose with another punch to the face. "I promised I would protect him and I wasn't there!"

Danny growled, catching Bruce's fist in his hand and sending a punch at the side of Bruce's head. Bruce tried to lean back, Danny's fist clipping his forehead. Bruce grunted, reaching up to grab Danny's fist to keep him from punching him again.

"You couldn't protect him! I get it, it sucks!" Danny shouted back, flashes of Dani's melting form grasping at his shirt in panic pulled to the front of his mind. "It leaves a black hole in the center of your chest! It sucks all the warmth out of you, leaving only the cold bitter knowledge that you couldn't save him!" (that he couldn't save her)

Bruce pulled his fist out of Danny's hand, slamming his elbow down into Danny's chest and twisting Danny's right arm sharply in an attempt to break it. Danny kept talking though, ignoring the pain as he pulled his arm out of Bruce's grasp, "But Jason made a promise! and you're doing nothing to keep it!"

Danny grabbed onto Bruce's bathrobe and flipped them so Bruce was the one on the floor now. Quickly reaching up, Danny grabbed both of Bruce's hands and held them as still as he could. Bruce was strong, but Danny had years of fighting Skulker and the other super-strong ghosts under his belt. "He made that promise knowing that you had made the same one!"

Bruce growled, throwing his head up in an attempt to hit Danny with it. Danny leaned back, accidentally loosening his grip just enough for Bruce to break out of it. Bruce shoved him off of him, making Danny slide back and hit a chair.

Grunting, Danny stood up and lunged at Bruce. Bruce dodged to the side, dropping down to pick the stapler back up. "I can't claim to know what Jason would have wanted," Danny spat, backing up to give himself more space as Bruce stepped toward him. "but I know as someone who made the same promise, I wouldn't have wanted you to change into what you are now!"

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Danny, "Yeah, and what's that?" he growled.

"A careless, suicidal, moron," Danny growled back.

Bruce froze, stopping in place as he stared at Danny.

Danny took his chance to drive his point home; standing up straight, he raised his hands up in surrender. "He was your son. He looked up to you for protection. For guidance. And sure, maybe you weren't the best dad, and maybe you made mistakes. But you were his dad."

Danny stepped forward, watching as the butler stepped forward to reach out to the man. "and what kind of son would want his dad to kill himself?"

Bruce dropped his stapler, his eyes falling to the ground and catching onto the book he had dropped earlier. It was opened to the front page, written words in messy writing covering it.

"You need to stop, Bruce," Danny said, slowly crouching down and reaching out for the book. Bruce watched him as he stood up, the book still open to the front page in his hands. Jason's writing visible to all of them.

"you couldn't keep your promise to protect him. It sucks and it hurts. but you can keep his promise. The same promise you made all those years ago."

Bruce looked up at him, his blue eyes filling with tears, the butler's hand resting on his shoulder. Danny stepped forward again, holding the book out for Bruce to take.

"You can't protect Gotham if you're dead."

Jason's handwritten note stared up at them, the ink messy and smudged.

'to the best dad in the world and the many adventures we'll go on!'

and Bruce? Bruce crumbled to the floor with a sob, leaving Danny to stand in front of him. Blood running down his face, staining his hoodie and pink Hello Kitty pants, the book still held out with steady hands.

Next

[buzz-season]

i think the difference between the barbie's treatment of ken's in barbieland vs the ken's treatment of barbie's in kendom can be summed up pretty easily actually:

barbie's ignored ken, realistically they were given an opportunity to have their own lives and do what they wanted and they didn't do it. everything revolved around their barbie's, ken would only have a good day if barbie did or if barbie acknowledged him. they never tried to do anything they genuinely wanted to.

whereas when the ken's took over, they brainwashed the barbie's into liking them and doing things for them. they would bring them beers and act like waitresses, give them foot massages or watch films they otherwise wouldn't be interested in. they became mindless and existed to serve the ken's. they were no longer just friends with the barbie's, they didn't want barbie to love them back, they wanted to own them.

people talking about ken falling down the patriarchy pipeline out of neglect or loneliness but why couldn't the ken's form friendships and communities like the barbie's did? why is it up to barbie to ensure that ken doesn't feel that way? at what point is it acceptable to blame barbie for ken's feelings? barbie let ken come to her party, watched him beach, held him whilst he went to the hospital, agreed to let him go on her journey, says hi to him when she sees him, things friends do and things she's shown doing with all the other barbie's, but if he still feels loneliness after that because she doesn't want to kiss him or doesn't love him back, why is that barbie's fault? meanwhile the entire time ken is ignoring other ken's out of his fixation on barbie and is even trying to "beach" other ken's off and causing problems with other ken's to gain barbie's attention

to me it's the perfect representation of the real world in the sense that women will leave men alone, men will want to own women, and women will be blamed for men's neglect and loneliness but it's a paper cage they create for themselves because they refuse to see women as individuals and arguably they don't actively try to create and nurture communities in the same way women do. ken's story is sad yes, but it's a story of his own design and what makes it worse is that he blames barbie for it. not himself, not mattel, no the real world but barbie, who's friendly disinterest in him means that she should be the one who is blamed and punished

[couldeatthatgirlforlunch]

A Day in Life

Synopsis: A day in the life of Jason Todd. Also, he's a househusband now. Oh, and a little plot twist.

Pairing: Househusband!Jason Todd X Gn!Reader; Platonic!Batfam

Tw: Canon level angst for Jason; Some sexual innuendos; Writer apparently doesn't know how to finish a story anymore; This is pretty slice-of-life so maybe boring?; English is not my first language.

Word count: 3,8k

Requested? No.

General masterlist | A Day in Life - Series masterlist

Wake up, make out, get up. First steps of your everyday routine. Sometimes making out turns into something more, but not today.

From his past life, as Robin, Jason learned a lot about discipline. As much as he tried to forget everything and everyone from his past before you, some habits die hard, although with time, with you and with therapy, he accepted that not all of his experience was bad or should be thrown away just because of one sociopathic clown who hurt him. Yes, Jason died, came back angry and did a lot of shit. But he was still alive and this could be a second chance.

While you, his darling spouse, get ready for work, Jason gets up, puts on his apron, fills the dog bowl for Daphne — your little brown dachshund that you adopted together four months after getting married —, opens the doors to the garden, so the dog can do whatever, and finally starts making breakfast and lunch. Breakfast so you two can eat together and lunch for you to eat at work. Sometimes you both meet up and eat together at your office or a restaurant. Today, that's not the case.

Simple yogurt with fresh fruits and nuts, coupled with a slice of chocolate cake he baked the day prior, eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast. As for your lunch box, a natural sandwich, salad, fruits and juice. He also fills up your two liter water bottle, so you feel pressured have no excuse but to stay hydrated.

Food. Until he was 12 his relationship with food was complicated, to stay the least. At first, his beloved but troubled mom would be in no condition to cook him three or more nice and fulfilling meals a day for a growing boy, he either had to learn and make do with quick instant food, eggs and old bread, or starve, since money was something he only saw when it was being handled to her drug dealer. His father was even worse. Jason loved his mom. Still suffers for her. He hated his father who was the one making her addiction worse. He’s still happy he died.

Living on the streets, food was a dream. A bad dream. It either came from trash or he had to do things that made him feel humiliated and guilty just to get some. And it was gone in a flash, he was so hungry he devoured it all in a second, and then his belly hurt.

Then he came. Jason loved his new father. Loved his new grandfather. Loved their food. So healthy, abundant and full of taste. So fun to prepare. He learned a lot from Alfred because he loved to spend time with him, play with the ingredients and make everyone and himself happy with the results.

But then he had those memories wiped out of his mind, (un)fortunately they came back, but at that time food was in the back of his mind. Sure, he didn't have to worry about starving, crime paid more than enough for that, but he didn't put much thought into any of it.

Now, with you, he's making new memories with food. He cooked and baked a lot with you and for you throughout all your relationship, and you did the same for him. He loves his kitchen, just like the rest of your house. The pantry and fridge are always full thanks to you. You take good care of him. You make his trust in you be worth it. And he reciprocates it. Healthy and nice food that brings comfort and makes you roll your eyes. Especially after he started frequenting cooking classes as a hobby, again, thanks to you.

After you are gone with a full belly and a pet in the ass (just like him, honestly), he continues his routine. He changes clothes and goes to the gym. Jason never stopped exercising, but the lack of all the activity vigilantism entails and with all the treats you two have, he started getting more soft. You loved it, he hated it. — Okay he didn't hate it, he just wasn't the most happy with it. Roy thought it was kinda funny, until Jason pointed out he also got softer after Lian. You honestly couldn't see why all that softness they were talking about was so bad since they were still very muscular and defined, just less dry and more snuggly. You honestly thought your Jaybird could go even further. — So the addiction of yoga to his routine happened.

After that, he goes straight home, eats, showers, takes care of his appearance to keep looking like a proper hubby that you can shove on your bitter frenemies faces, and makes sure to keep the maintenance of the house, so you can come back tired from work and enjoy a perfect house to rest on.

Hygiene. Another things that was complicated with his biological family. His father wouldn't touch a single plate or broom, and would beat and scream at his mom if she didn't put her high (again, because of him) ass up and did the labor. Most often than not, their house was messy, had a bad smell that his little nose was so used to that it's not like he minded, and had insects around. His clothes were dirty hand-me-downs, some fit him, some didn't, a lot of them had holes. His hair tangled and itchy.

When he went to the streets, it just got worse.

Bruce and Alfred fixed that. He finally learned what stink was because he only knew good and neutral scents. His clothes fit him. Everything around him was clean and well-kept. No holes, no stains. Hair always trimmed, soft and clean. Well maintained.

When he came back, cleanliness was basic. Of course he is gonna keep everything around him clean. Habit and common sense, you know? Clothes his size because why the hell would he use hand-me-downs when he can just buy his own? And they had to be the right size for his new 6’2 and almost 200 lbs body. Hair? Whatever. Always washed but as long as it didn't look ridiculous he didn't have time to put much thought on his appearance. He was genuinely surprised you were attracted to him at first sight.

Being with you, he learned to enjoy the little things in life again. Sometimes he finds himself unmoving in front of a random room of the house, or in front of the mirror, trying to grasp if it's all real, If this is really his life, if that's how he looks. His mind flashes memories of his childhood home and his current home. He ignores the memories of the manor not only because of the betrayal he felt for Bruce, but also because the manor was from the Wayne's. He was a Wayne. He is not anymore. This is him. His new house, with you, is what he wished he had growing up. What he always dreamed of. Love. Company. And comfort. He felt all of that while being a Wayne, until he despised the Wayne's. Not the couple that died decades ago or the centuries old descendants. But his father and his siblings.

On days where he doesn't take care of the house, he practices his hobbies. He now has time to do it all, surprising you, his therapist, Roy, and himself, he did cooking, gardening, pottery, crocheting and of course, reading. You paid for all his classes, praised him on his achievements, added his creations to the decor of the house, accompanied him on any event or place related to his interests, gave him his own library in one of the rooms in the house. He even made some friends between middle-aged women and the only other househusband and stay-a-home dad that frequented those places.

It was very funny and cute seeing rough, huge, leather jacket wearing and scarred Jason Todd telling jokes to 50-year-old white moms/grandmas and sometimes even babysitting their kids, pets and plants. You knew he could be a good dad one day if you decided to have kids. He was also more than happy to have just you, Daphne and good friends. And plants.

Warmth. When he was a kid his parents broke the heater during a fight, he wondered if they didn't have money to fix it, even with his father's activities, or if his father just refused to fix it. Anyhow, it was always cold in Gotham, freezing on winter, his dirty clothes with holes didn't help much. The streets didn't seem much different in that aspect. The manor kept him warm when he wasn't seven feet under the dirt, in a casket. When he came back, Jason always wore the warmest of clothes, even while sweating, he didn't know why. Now he did. Your house is always warm. Your body is always warm. Comfort. Your love gave him comfort. Warmth. A reason to live.

Love. His mom. Bruce and Alfred. You.

After he was done and rested for a little, Jason took Daphne for a walk in the way to the grocery shop. He wanted to try a new receipt you saw on tiktok today for dinner and had to get more flour and something for the filling.

After a few minutes of walking on his perfectly nice looking and safe neighborhood — nothing like crime alley. The type of neighborhood he saw on the television and imagined those other happy kids his age living and envied them. Dreamed of being adopted into one of their families while jumping from orphanage to orphanage. It never happened. He just got more abused. And then the manor was so isolated that you could only see mansions and plants all around. So big and far away that they looked empty of life. — he got there and strapped the dog to a post, next to a smiley golden retriever.

He got in and- fuck it, I'm going home. The empanadas can wait another day.

— Jason? Oh my god. Jason! Is that you?! — The infuriatingly familiar loud voice calls out from the middle of the shop and all heads turn to look. Shit, he can't go now without embarrassing himself in front of the cashier of his favorite and most visited shop. So he just nods, takes a basket and walks as if there was nothing interesting happening. It worked with the others costumers, unfortunately, Dick thought it was way too interesting and forgot his own basket that only contained eggs and cereal, and started following him around, this time, with a less surprised tone.

— Hey, Dick. — Jason idly muttered, that just made his coff coff brother indignant.

— Hey, Dick?! What the hell? Where were you? It's been three years! We thought you were dead! Or kidnapped! We never stopped looking for you! We were worried! We mourned! What happened? — Was it bad that Jason didn't want to give him a real answer? Probably. Especially with how much his therapist, who he saw on the days he didn't go to the gym, told him he should try to mend things with his family. So much so that he started actually contemplating it recently. But if he did it, it was going to be on his own time. Not by bumping into them in the grocery store. Oh, well. Jason was always good at adapting. The best.

And wow, three years had passed? Makes sense. Recovery does take time and he's been really happy for a while. Jason still remembers the day he decided to quit everything. It was the same day he decided you were the one, truthfully he always knew you were marriage material, the perfect one for him, out of his league, straight out of his most amazing dreams, peak goal for him, but he wasn't sure if he deserved to be the one you should be stuck with forever. He desperately wanted to, but he had to commit. Ride or die. He loved you, now more than ever, and didn't want to waste your time. He was still a bit messy at the time, but you made it all better, he was a lot better than he was before you came into the picture. You were the right choice. Jason always took you seriously, he was just insecure. So, while still in around eight months of relationship, he quit everything.

He quit his family. He quit vigilantism. He searched for recovery. And a year and a half later, with a little more than two years of dating, he made the big proposal. You married on your three-year anniversary. Got Daphne four months later. It's been around three or four months ever since.

While Dick’s math might not be exact, it is not necessary in this context, the point came across just fine.

He also knew that the fact that you both decided to not leave Gotham was going to bite him in the ass one day. One way or another.

— What happened? Oh, well. I retired. Got married. And now I'm a dad. — Daphne was like a daughter to him, so it was the same, right?

His nonchalant reply didn't seem to satisfy the other, though. Todd could see it, the urge to strangle him in his eyes. Dick wouldn't strangle his dead missing little brother, would he?

— You… You what? — Dick was in disbelief.

— You guys searched for me? Thanks, I guess? It means a lot. — Jason just sniffed and went on his way, leaving Grayson behind, paralyzed.

Maybe he could be fast enough and get out of there before the older one got a grasp of his senses back and followed him out. Part of him felt hope, the other heard yours and his therapist voices in his head, and the nagging was annoying. Maybe he never stopped being a “grump”, like you always amusedly said.

Oh, no. Here he comes again. Jason suppresses an eye-roll.

— Stop. Can you really explain? — The mix of emotions was almost overwhelming, an urge to cry, punch a wall, punch Jason's face, scream and who knows what more was running through Dick's body.

Jason sighed and finally addressed him completely. Tone lower so no one could hear.

— Okay. I met someone… Someone good. Someone special. A civilian. I was tired of everything. So I decided to retire and made sure none of you could find me. I'm surprised Roy and Lian kept the secret from you, though. Anyway. Now I'm a stay-at-home hubby, have a dog and go to therapy. You happy? — A beat of silence. — Hey, don't make that face… I was going to tell you guys eventually… When I felt like it… It's not like you guys saw me a lot. How much time did it take for you all to miss me? I made an appearance once in a while when someone asked for help and that's it. Alfred knew everything so if you’re gonna be mad at anyone, be at him too, not just me… And Roy. Don't forget Roy.

— A-Are you kidding me? Oh, yes, blame the butler! You couldn't even tell us? Like “hey guys, I'm gonna retire and take some time for myself for a while. Also, come to my wedding!” I wanted to be invited, you know?! Why didn't you invite me? Did you at least invite Alfred? Did- — Jason rolled his eyes and cut his rant.

— Yes, Alfred was there. Front row and everything. — Dick shrieked.

— T-That’s not the point! — His voice raised slightly from exasperation and both of them checked around for anyone's attention, then came back to the conversation.

Jason raised a hand to interrupt him and took a deep breath.

— Look. I wasn't in a nice place at the time, okay? I'm better now… And I was going to talk to you guys sooner rather than later… — Jason let a moment of vulnerability shine, hoping that would melt his brother's heart and fix things. It did. — We will have a second wedding when we renovate our vows in our 5th anniversary. You can be there… Everyone can be there. — Jason cleared his throat to interrupt the other again. — But now I have to get home in time to make dinner for my honeyboo, so why don't we… Stay in contact and… One of those days everyone can have dinner together and catch up, huh?

Dick took one of the deepest breaths of his whole life. Jason pursed his lips.

— Okay… — He stuck a finger in his face roughly. — But don't disappear again. Or else I promise I’m gonna personally make everyone track you down, understood? — Jason snorted. As if Tim and Bruce wouldn't do it already once they knew everything. As if Bruce didn't secretly keep track of him this whole time. Unless… Unless everyone changed and he didn't know his… His family anymore.

Why did it make him feel weird?

— Yes, boss. — Jason saluted him and left.

— Relax… — You elongated the word. — Nothing bad it's gonna happen… — You went behind Jason and tried rubbing his broad shoulders to chase the tenseness away. The sight and feel of his muscles almost made you drool, and you blinked to focus again.

— How do you know? — You pursed your lips and went to his side to try to make him take his eyes off of cleaning the countertop for the 4th time due to anxiety.

— Because they love you. And they care about you. And they miss you. — Jason deadpanned you. — Just give it a chance. If anything goes wrong, we will just kick them out and you never have to talk to them, ever again. We can even move if you want. Or go on a vacation to the same place we had our honeymoon, I can wear that skimpy piece you like… Spoil you rotten… — Your voice lowered seductively and you pressed your body to his side, running your hand up and down his arms with some pressure.

Jason’s mind went blank and he was speechless for a few seconds. Your eyebrows raised with a small, convincing smile that made all his worries go away. He sighed.

— Okay… Okay, you’re right… — He leaned down and sneaked an arm around your waist. You both shared a slow and wet kiss, bordering between sensual and calming. Unfortunately, he had to wait a few hours before having some action. He pulled his face away a few centimeters, looking you in the eyes. — I thought I had ripped that thing. — You blinked.

— You just might have. But I bought another one because I looked too good on it not to wear it again. — You shared a chuckle when the doorbell rang. You both looked at the door, then at each other. — Want me to get it? — You ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm the last of his nerves. Jason swallowed.

— No. Have to get it over with. — He took a deep breath and then let out. Pulling away from your embrace. — Put the juice on the table for me, please? — You hummed and nodded.

Without giving a second thought, he walked in long strides and abruptly opened the door.

It was like that scene in Avengers: End Game when on one side there was just Captain America against the whole Thanos's army, just staring at each other.

— Are you wearing an apron? — Damian snarked with an eyebrow raised. Jason looked down. Yes, he was. Good start.

— Take your shoes off, there’s other shoes for you all there. And here I was having hope that at fifteen you wouldn't be a demon anymore. — Jason said sarcastically and gave them space to enter.

As soon as they got in the neighborhood they were all already skeptical. If you were the only one working, how much do you earn to live in such a nice area and with this nice house? They could even see a pool in the backyard and there were TWO expensive cars in the driveway. Jason said he quit all of the crime lord thing, did he keep the savings? Did he invest?

The little dog came running and barking, taking their attention away from the house and their shoes, Damian immediately crouched to pet her. Jason let a side of his lips go up. At least that hasn't changed.

— Her name is Daphne. — Jason spoke over the cooing of Duke and Cass at the dog. He locked eyes with Bruce who had an unreadable expression on his face. He looked older, Jason didn't know how to feel about that. Then gazed at Dick, who had a shit eating grin, Alfred, whose satisfied smile warmed his heart, and Tim, who was analyzing the space while changing shoes.

— Nice place. So, what does your partner do? — Are they committing fraud? — You appeared from the corner and replied for him.

— I direct the Queen Industries’s Gotham’s office. — You answered softly with a polite smile, stopping besides Jason, who wrapped an arm around you. Everyone's gaze turning on you made you feel shy, but you held on with confidence.

— Oh, wow, so Jason really is a malewife. — Your eyes widened in surprised and you couldn't hold back a laugh. Jason let a small smile graze his lips, coaxing the easiness out of him.

— I offered to pay cleaning and cooking service, but he wanted to do things himself. — You say, a little afraid they would get angry at you for “slavering” their Jason.

— Did you buy those cars outside? — Wow, Tim really was as skeptical as Jason had said.

— Hmhmm. — You nodded simply, as if it was nothing.

Jason's siblings raised their eyebrows and Bruce cleared his throat, and took a step forward, feet clad in fluffy slippers. He offered a hand and presented himself politely to you. You wondered how much of that was his persona and how much was just a father meeting his son's partner.

While giving them a tour of the house, the family — aside from Alfred who already knew it all — observed the details, happy memories in the form of pictures of trips, your marriage, birthdays, anniversaries, Daphne's growing stages, spontaneous moments that just deserved to be eternalized, trinkets, handmade pots, plants, Daphne’s toys, and the decor that was just a mix of you both. No guns in the walls, no corpses buried in the backyard, no blood stains. The only signals that it was their Jason living here and not a clone were the books, pictures and hidden security measures. 

It was… Good. Peaceful. Clearly the change in scenario helped him. It hurt them a little, some more than others, that it took him cutting them off for him to start healing, although, maybe opening up this new side of him for them meant that it wasn't just that. And it wasn't. The fault didn't fall completely on them. Nor on Jason. And one person, you, can't be the solution for all global crisis. Mental health is complex. Trauma is complicated. Past can't be changed, but the future can. 

That night, everyone enjoyed Jason's cooking, Daphne and the new future.

Like, comment and reblog 🥰

Taglist:

@wandalfnation

[thebibliosphere]

I was already on a hair trigger today trying not to snap at a mutual for reblogging a "fuck authors who use Amazon" post, but, like, this shit is why some authors can only afford to use Amazon.

They don't have the $75+ to distribute through Ingram Spark. They don't have the $25 it takes to change your files if you need to update them after they've been accepted. They can't afford to take the cost of printing hit to their sales. They can't afford to lose an additional 40% of their income to retailer discounts.

And just so we're clear, Ingram isn't a vanity publisher. They're one of the largest print monopolies in the world. They're used by most mainstream traditional publishers and indie and self-pub authors alike. Amazon uses them when their print demand is too high.

My friend, whose work is published by Gollancz, is printed through Ingram, the same as mine. The difference is their publisher takes the hit for them. In theory. We won't get into dwindling advances here or how publishers are increasingly putting the onus of marketing and sales onto their authors or the fact that their editors can't afford rent or food while the executives get richer and richer.

So what do you do when the mainstream doesn't want you? What do you do when you're told if you can't keep up with the rat race, that you don't deserve to have your work published? What do you do if all you have is the ability to tell stories for a living, and no one wants you?

Well, you could die of starvation. I'm sure there are several people on here who'd be happy if that happened to me. (I know. Because they tell me. Often.) Or, you can shake hands with the devil, knowing it's a bum deal, knowing everything is fucked, but also knowing that every other aspect of this fucking industry is just as fucking bad.

There's no escape. It's relentless.

And you've got people out there posting things like, "Actually, I think authors who charge for their books are part of the problem."

And yeah, in an ideal world, I'd be making art for art's sake.

But we're not in that world. We're in the bad place, and you're actively making it worse. You're encouraging people to steal from people who are struggling just like you and calling it activism against billionaires or putting them in the same moral category as said billionaires as though we're not trapped in this system, same as you. Some of you are fellow fucking authors. And, like, my mind boggles at what it would take to stab a fellow creative in the back like that, but here we are.

Hell world.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Company that makes millions spying on students will get to sue a whistleblower

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia handed down a jaw-droppingly stupid and terrible decision, rejecting the whistleblower Ian Linkletter’s claim that he was engaged in legitimate criticism when he linked to freely available materials from the ed-tech surveillance company Proctorio:

https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/23/01/2023BCCA0160.htm

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/20/links-arent-performances/#free-ian-linkletter

It’s been a minute since Linkletter’s case arose, so I’ll give you a little recap here. Proctorio is a massive, wildly profitable ed-tech company that sells a surveillance tool to monitor students while they take high-stakes tests from home. The tool monitors the student’s computer and the student’s face, especially their eye-movements. It also allows instructors and other personnel to watch the students and even take control of their computer. This is called “remote invigilation.”

This is ghastly in just about every way. For starters, Proctorio’s facial monitoring software embeds the usual racist problems with machine-learning stuff, and struggles to recognize Black and brown faces. Black children sitting exams under Proctorio’s gimlet eye have reported that the only way to satisfy Proctorio’s digital phrenology system is to work with multiple high-powered lights shining directly in their faces.

A Proctorio session typically begins with a student being forced to pan a webcam around their test-taking room. During lockdown, this meant that students who shared a room — for example, with a parent who worked night-shifts — would have to invade their family’s privacy, and might be disqualified because they couldn’t afford a place large enough to have private room in which to take their tests.

Proctorio’s tools also punish students for engaging in normal test-taking activity. Do you stare off into space when you’re trying through a problem? Bzzzt. Do you read questions aloud to yourself under your breath when you’re trying to understand their meanings? Bzzzt. Do you have IBS and need to go to the toilet? Bzzzt. The canon of remote invigilation horror stories is filled with accounts of students being forced to defecate themselves, or vomit down their shirts without turning their heads (because looking away is an automatically flagged offense).

The tragedy is that all of this is in service to the pedagogically bankrupt practice of high-stakes testing. Few pedagogists believe that the kind of exam that Proctorio seeks to recreate in students’ homes has real assessment merit. As the old saying goes, “Tests measure your ability to take tests.” But Proctorio doesn’t even measure your ability to take a test — it measures your ability to take a test with three bright lights shining directly on your face. Or while you are covered in your own feces and vomit. While you stare rigidly at a screen. While your tired mother who just worked 16 hours in a covid ward stands outside the door to your apartment.

The lockdown could have been an opportunity to improve educational assessment. There is a rich panoply of techniques that educators can adopt that deliver a far better picture of students’ learning, and work well for remote as well as in-person education. Instead, companies like Proctorio made vast fortunes, most of it from publicly funded institutions, by encouraging a worse-than-useless, discriminatory practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/24/proctor-ology/#miseducation

Proctorio clearly knows that its racket is brittle. Like any disaster profiteer, Proctorio will struggle to survive after the crisis passes and we awaken from our collective nightmare and ask ourselves why we were stampeded into using its terrible products. The company went to war against its critics.

In 2020, Proctorio CEO Mike Olsen doxed a child who complained about his company’s software in a Reddit forum:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#moral-exemplar

In 2021, the reviews for Proctorio’s Chrome plugin all mysteriously vanished. Needless to say, these reviews — from students forced to use Proctorio’s spyware — were brutal:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/04/hypervigilance/#radical-transparency

Proctorio claims that it protects “educational integrity,” but its actions suggest a company far more concerned about the integrity of its own profits:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

One of the critics that Proctorio attacked is Ian Linkletter. In 2020, Linkletter was a Learning Technology Specialist at UBC’s Faculty of Education. His job was to assess and support ed-tech tools, including Proctorio. In the course of that work, Linkletter reviewed Proctorio’s training material for educators, which are a bonanza of mask-off materials that are palpably contemptuous of students, who are presumed to be cheaters.

At the time, a debate over remote invigilation tools was raging through Canadian education circles, with students, teachers and parents fiercely arguing the merits and downsides of making surveillance the linchpin of assessment. Linkletter waded into this debate, tweeting a series of sharp criticisms of Proctorio. In these tweets, Linkletter linked to Proctorio’s unlisted, but publicly available, Youtube videos.

A note of explanation: Youtube videos can be flagged as “unlisted,” which means they don’t show up in searches. They can also be flagged as “private,” which means you have to be on a list of authorized users to see them. Proctorio made its training videos unlisted, but they weren’t private — they were visible to anyone who had a link to them.

Proctorio sued Linkletter for this. They argued that he had breached a duty of confidentiality, and that linking to these videos was a copyright violation:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/17/proctorio-v-linkletter/#proctorio

This is a classic SLAPP — a “strategic litigation against public participation.” That’s when a deep-pocketed, thin-skinned bully, like Proctorio, uses the threat of a long court battle to force their critics into silence. They know they can’t win their case, but that’s not the victory they’re seeking. They don’t want to win the case, they want to win the argument, by silencing a critic who would otherwise be bankrupted by legal fees.

Getting SLAPPed is no fun. I’ve been there. Just this year, a billionaire financier tried to force me into silence by threatening me with a lawsuit. Thankfully, Ken “Popehat” White was on the case, and he reminded this billionaire’s counsel that California has a strong anti-SLAPP law, and if Ken had to defend me in court, he could get a fortune in fees from the bully after he prevailed:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1531684572479377409

British Columbia also has an anti-SLAPP law, but unlike California’s anti-SLAPP, the law is relatively new and untested. Still, Proctorio’s suit against Linkletter was such an obvious SLAPP that for many of us, it seemed likely that Linkletter would be able to defend himself from this American bully and its attempt to use Canada’s courts to silence a Canadian educator.

For Linkletter to use BC’s anti-SLAPP law, he would have to prove that he was weighing in on a matter of public interest, and that Proctorio’s copyright and confidentiality claims were nonsense, unlikely to prevail on their merits. If he could do that, he’d be able to get the case thrown out, without having to go through a lengthy, brutally expensive trial.

Incredibly, though, the lower court found against Linkletter. Naturally, Linkletter appealed. His “factotum” is a crystal clear document that sets out the serious errors of law and fact the lower court made:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aB1ztWDFr3MU6BsAMt6rWXOiXJ8sT3MY/view

But yesterday, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court, repeating all of these gross errors and finding for Proctorio:

https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/23/01/2023BCCA0160.htm

This judgment is grotesque. It makes a mockery of BC’s anti-SLAPP statute, to say nothing of Canadian copyright and confidentiality law. For starters, it finds that publishing a link can be a “performance” of a copyrighted work, which meant that when Linkletter linked to the world-viewable Youtube files that Proctorio had posted, he infringed on copyright.

This is a perverse, even surreal take on copyright. The court rejects Linkletter’s argument that even Youtube’s terms of service warned Proctorio that publishing world-viewable material on its site constituted permission for people to link to and watch that material.

But what about “fair dealing” (similar to fair use)? Linkletter argued that linking to a video that shows that Proctorio’s assurances to parents and students about its products’ benign nature were contradicted by the way it talked to educators was fair dealing. Fair dealing is a broad suite of limitations and exceptions to copyright for the purposes of commentary, criticism, study, satire, etc.

So even if linking is a copyright infringement (ugh, seriously?!), surely it’s fair dealing in this case. Proctorio was selling millions of dollars in software to public institutions, inflicting it on kids whose parents weren’t getting the whole story. Linkletter used Proctorio’s own words to rebut its assurances. What could be more fair dealing than that?

Not so fast, the appeals panel says: they say that Linkletter could have made his case just as well without linking to Proctorio’s materials. This is…bad. I mean, it’s also wrong, but it’s very bad, too. It’s wrong because an argument about what a company intends necessarily has to draw upon the company’s own statements. It’s absurd to say that Linkletter’s point would have been made equally well if he said “I disbelieve Proctorio’s public assurances because I’ve seen seekrit documents” as it was when he was able to link to those documents so that people could see them for themselves.

But it’s bad because it rips the heart out of the fair dealing exception for criticism. Publishing a link to a copyrighted work is the most minimal way to quote from it in a debate — Linkletter literally didn’t reproduce a single word, not a single letter, from Proctorio’s copyrighted works. If the court says, “Sure, you can quote from a work to criticize it, but only so much as you need to make your argument,” and then says, “But also, simply referencing a work without quoting it at all is taking too much,” then what reasonable person would ever try to rely on a fair dealing exemption for criticism?

Then there’s the confidentiality claim: in his submissions to the lower court and the appeals court, Linkletter pointed out that the “confidential” materials he’d linked to were available in many places online, and could be easily located with a Google search. Proctorio had uploaded these “confidential” materials to many sites — without flagging them as “unlisted” or “private.”

What’s more, the videos that Linkletter linked to were in found a “Help Center” that didn’t even have a terms-of-service condition that required confidentiality. How on Earth can materials that are publicly available all over the web be “confidential?”

Here, the court takes yet another bizarre turn in logic. They find that because a member of the public would have to “gather” the videos from “many sources,” that the collection of links was confidential, even if none of the links in the collection were confidential. Again, this is both wrong and bad.

Every investigator, every journalist, every critic, starts by looking in different places for information that can be combined to paint a coherent picture of what’s going on. This is the heart of “open source intelligence,” combing different sources for data points that shed light on one another.

The idea that “gathering” public information can breach confidentiality strikes directly at all investigative activity. Every day, every newspaper and news broadcast in Canada engages in this conduct. The appeals court has put them all in jeopardy with this terrible finding.

Finally, there’s the question of Proctorio’s security. Proctorio argued that by publishing links to its educator materials, Linkletter weakened the security of its products. That is, they claim that if students know how the invigilation tool works, it stops working. This is the very definition of “security through obscurity,” and it’s a practice that every serious infosec professional rejects. If Proctorio is telling the truth when it says that describing how its products work makes them stop working, then they make bad products that no one should pay money for.

The court absolutely flubs this one, too, accepting the claim of security through obscurity at face value. That’s a finding that flies in the face of all security research.

So what happens now? Well, Linkletter has lost his SLAPP claim, so nominally the case can proceed. Linkletter could appeal his case to Canada’s Supreme Court (about 7% of Supreme Court appeals of BC appeals court judgments get heard). Or Proctorio could drop the case. Or it could go to a full trial, where these outlandish ideas about copyright, confidentiality and information security would get a thorough — and blisteringly expensive — examination.

In Linkletter’s statement, he remains defiant and unwilling to give in to bullying, but says he’ll have to “carefully consider” his next step. That’s fair enough: there’s a lot on the line here:

https://linkletter.opened.ca/stand-against-proctorios-slapp-update-30/

Linkletter answers his supporters’ questions about how they can help with some excellent advice: “What I ask is for you to do what you can to protect students. Academic surveillance technology companies would like nothing more but for us all to shut up. Don’t let them silence you. Don’t let anyone or anything take away your human right to freedom of expression.”

Today (Apr 21), I’m speaking in Chicago at the Stigler Center’s Antitrust and Competition Conference. This weekend (Apr 22/23), I’m at the LA Times Festival of Books.

[Image ID: A girl working on a laptop. Her mouth has been taped shut. Glaring out of the laptop screen is the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Behind them is a tattered, filthy, burned Canadian flag.]

Image: Ingo Bernhardt https://www.flickr.com/photos/spree2010/4930763550/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Eleanor Vladinsky (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canadian_flag_against_grey_sky.jpg

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[jungkookstatts]

Not in the Way You Think

[Summary]: You've been after your best friend for ages. But how are you supposed to know that he's after you too if he insists on being a bachelor until his dying breath?

[Theme]: ChildHoodFriendsToLovers!AU, NonIdol!AU, VirginReader!AU, BachelorJK!Au, Fuck-Boy JK, Virgin Reader

[Rating]: 18+, explicit content, dry humping, protected sex, fluff, somewhat angst, many many years of pining, making out, oral. Soft dom/Dom JK, sub Reader, virgin things, mention of alcohol and a pen

[Word Count]: 6,043

[A/N]: Hi. I've resurrected. For now. Enjoy! Also, if anyone knows what's going on with my materialist -- sos!!

[Materialist]

“Sorry, but there’s no fucking way,” your best friend scoffs against the lip of his dab pen. He was about to take a hit, but was abruptly stopped before you told him something completely unbelievable to his ears.

“Jungkook, I’m serious,” you whine.

God, this is so embarrassing. You fiddle with the rims of your hoodie's sleeve, examining it in shame. You can’t dare to look at the face of your best friend on the other side of the couch. His words already make you feel embarrassed enough, you can’t imagine what looking at his face would do.

“Y/n,” he starts again, that disbelieving smirk proving to adorn his features. “You’re 24 years old. What the fuck.”

“24-year-olds can be virgins, too, Jungkook,” you roll your eyes. “Not everyone strives to have over 30 bodies on their ‘fucked list’ by this age.”

You feel so embarrassed. Of all people, you thought your best friend wouldn’t shame you like this. It’s already embarrassing enough to be at this age and to not have tried anything sexual with anyone before. You’re inexperienced. You know that. But the conversation originally didn’t start this way. What was once a talk about which flavored soju was better than the other, turned into a ridiculing conversation about your lame sex life. The last thing you need is his bantering about how shocking it is to hear everything you haven’t done yet.

“57,” he corrects you with yet another smirk. This time, there’s a tease in his eye, obviously waiting for your reaction on his body count number. 

“Whatever,” you roll your eyes. “Forget it.” 

You try to grab the remote on the coffee table, but Jungkook takes it before you can. 

“Wait, now,” he laughs when you smack his arm. “I’m not done asking about this yet.” 

“Jungkook!” you whine. “I’m seriously so embarrassed. I don’t want to talk about it with you anymore.”

“Have you ever kissed anyone?!” He raises his pierced eyebrow. “What about Taehyung? And Soobin? Aren’t those guys your ex’s? You had to have done something with them, Y/n, c’mon.” 

“Yes!” you blush harshly. “Of course I’ve kissed people before. I’ve just never…done anything dirty with them.” 

“Not even like a hand job or anything?” he raises his other eyebrow.

“Jungkook, please stop reacting like that. You’re making me feel worse,” you tuck your hair behind your ear. 

It’s no news that Jungkook is not only your childhood best friend but he’s also been a notorious fuck-boy since about 5 years ago when the two of you moved to a different city to attend the same college. He has always told you that he was going to spend his university life being a bachelor, making it a goal of his to see how many girls he could get underneath him by the age of 25. He's gathered quite a lot. Except now, he’s more knowledgeable than you for once, and you’re not taking the news so well.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” he apologizes. But his words prove to be carried with no remorse. “Not even oral?” 

“Jungkook!” you kick his knee. “Seriously. I continued this conversation with you because I thought you’d be nicer about it. You’re obviously the experienced one here. But clearly, you’re not experienced enough to know that not everyone is constantly looking for which sexual activity to try on the next stranger.” 

You’ve been his #1 ear to all of his stories for years now, no matter how repetitive they can be…or how much they secretly punch you in the gut every time he tells you a new one.

The two of you couldn’t be more opposite. He’s sporty and social, you’re quiet and mellow. He’s into the music and business world, whereas you’re into radiology and all-things-hospital. He’d rather spend his free time partying and making himself feel good in any way that he can, whereas you’d spend your free time wrapped in a book or having coffee over a new podcast about aliens.

But no matter your differences, the grunge boy that you grew up with sitting on the opposite side of the couch, making fun of you and laughing at the sheer difference in how the two of you chose to live out your college years, will always be your best friend. He might remain a crush or even your first love, but nothing can change the fact that the two of you click like two peas in a pod. You couldn’t trade anything for that, even your secrets about what you feel for him. 

“Woah, hey,” he chuckles. “Sorry. I’m just–wow. It’s just shocking to me, I don’t know. Especially for you.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” you scrunch your eyebrows together. 

“Well, I mean,” he laughs awkwardly, putting his pen on the table. “It’s no secret you were the girl every guy was trying to get into their bed all throughout college…and high school.” 

“Tch,” you shake your head. “As if, Kook. Don’t try to make up for ridiculing me about my sex life by covering it up with fake scenarios.”

“I’m serious, Y/n. Just as serious as you are about this,” he says. “You thought that Soobin, the university's #1 crush–a guy even more wanted than me–would agree to go out with you and date you if you weren’t the hottest chick in the school?” 

“Yeah, well, that was short-lived,” you scoff, remembering the events of your break up. “He didn’t really want me. Or well, he did, but not like how I thought.”

“This is why I’m shocked,” he explains further. “Literally every man that I knew talked about you. I don’t know how their efforts could have gone unnoticed by you. But I guess you were too in your head to notice. You had the hottest man in the school, but not even that was enough to even make you think about doing anything with him?” 

As much as that information flatters you, it doesn’t satisfy you at all. Truthfully, Jungkook could talk about any man in the world that might want you. But if that category doesn’t include him, the thought doesn’t arouse you at all. 

Your own brain can’t even wrap itself around why you were so hung up on him. Why would you possibly want a guy like Jungkook to want you. He’s careless and reckless. He doesn’t give things a second thought and pushes all your buttons at the worst times. He’s foolish and irresponsible – a walking stick screaming ‘bad news’.

But at the same time, he is oh-so gentle. He’s kind and sweet, considerate and respectful. His touch makes you jolt, and his voice relieves your headaches in an instant. You feel safe when he is there, and absolutely terrified when he is not. He’s strong and capable, but also sentimental at heart. 

You don’t think you could find anyone else like him in the world. No one like your Jungkook. 

No wonder your past relationships didn’t work out for you. Taehyung you broke up with out of frustration. It was with him that you realized that Jungkook was too in your head to be dating anyone fairly. And just when you thought you were over Jungkook being your ideal man, Soobin walked into your life. But since he broke up with you over your own inexperience, you haven’t been able to stop thinking about how maybe you waited too long. No one wants someone who has no idea what they’re doing in the bedroom at the age of 24. Most of society at this age is dating to marry. You’re still dating for the experience. 

“It’s not that I didn’t think about doing anything with him,” you respond. “I just–I don’t know. I couldn’t. It didn’t feel right. He wasn’t–I don’t know. We just weren’t a good match. The same goes for Taehyung and everyone else before him and Soobin.”

Your best friend is quiet for a moment, trying to wrap his head around everything that you’re saying.

“But it’s all irrelevant now,” you continue. “We’re graduated, and there’s nothing I can do about previous male efforts towards getting me in their sheets. It’s just–there’s something wrong with me.” 

“Clearly,” Jungkook agrees. “Sex is like–life. You truly don’t know until you try. Do you even masturbate?” 

“Jungkook,” you sigh quietly, as a disappointed palm presses against your forehead. “You weren’t supposed to agree to that.” 

“Well, do you?” 

“Of course, I masturbate.” 

“And that hasn’t persuaded you at all? Don’t you imagine what it would feel like to have something other than your fingers or some toy getting you off?” 

“That’s so graphic,” you scowl. 

“Well, do you?” 

You roll your eyes. 

“I do, don’t get me wrong,” you agree. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just too hung up on a scenario that’s not possible–at least not for me.”

“You’re pined after by millions, Y/n,” he sits up straight on the couch, his legs folding against the cushions to get a better look at you. “Any scenario is possible in your world. Especially related to sex. You could get any man that you wanted to if you just broke down a wall or two and went after them.” 

“That’s not–never mind,” you give up. You’re too embarrassed to admit anything. You also don’t really want to. Risking your friendship with Jungkook isn’t worth letting out a secret like this. You’d lose him forever, and you can’t risk that. “No one wants a 24-year-old virgin,” you begin again, trying to move on from your previous words. “Unless they’re a crazy perv, or one of those dudes who thinks that only ‘marriageable girls’ should be virgins until they tie the knot. And, well, those guys are just…weird.” 

Jungkook laughs at your words and a small smile forms on your lips from the sound of his laugh. 

“Y/n, what are you saying?” he exclaims amidst his laughter. “Look at you! You haven't lost a cent of your desirability in all the years I’ve known you. Any guy would want you.”

“But not you,” 

“Huh?” 

Fuck. 

Fuck fuck fuck. Why did you just say that?! 

The thought slipped past your lips without a second thought. There’s heat in your cheeks, and you can’t bear to look at Jungkook’s face. You might have fucked everything up now. Just over a thought you didn’t think twice about. Your brain must have been done suppressing it, but now you have to sit here and wait for the consequences of letting it all go. 

“Sorry,” you clear your throat. “C-Can you give me the remote? I’d like to drop this and finish this show.” 

“Nuh-uh,” he laughs in disbelief. His rough hand gently wraps around your wrist, forcing you to look at him again. “What did you just say?” 

“Jungkook, please,” you cry. There’s fear in your voice. You’re so scared of losing him, you can’t even think properly. All you want to do is pretend like nothing happened. Like this whole conversation didn’t happen and you were back to talking about flavored soju. The thought of losing your best friend floods your mind, and you beg him with your eyes to stop. But he’s unrelenting. 

Jungkook scoffs at the look in your eye, his grip loosening on your wrist before sliding it off completely. 

“Y/n, you are so oblivious, it actually gets on my nerves more than anything in this world sometimes,” he says. 

You feel your heart sink to your stomach. 

“I didn’t think I’d actually have to tell you this because I thought it was obvious how I feel about you,” he laughs to himself. “I don’t know how long you’ve noticed, or if you’ve even noticed at all, but I’ve had a crush on you since freshman year of high school, Y/n. And it’s only grown since then. So don’t think for a second that I wouldn’t want you.” 

Words fail to leave your lips. You’ve had so much shock and embarrassment during your time spent with him tonight. But nothing could have prepared you for this. 

“Jungkook, none of this is making sense,” you stop him. As much as your heart leaps at his confession, a part of you is still completely misunderstanding something. “You mean to tell me that you’ve had a crush on me for how long? And yet in the meantime, you’ve made it your mission to be with every woman on campus? How in the world do you expect me to think you had feelings for me when every Saturday morning you tell me about whose pussy you were up the night before? How was I supposed to know?”

There’s a bit of anger in your voice. All these years of getting your heart shattered over his countless stories about girls that weren’t you. About how he kissed Emily on Friday night and then fucked her best friend, Rachel, in the ass a few hours later. About how he went all the way home one weekend just to fuck your high school calculus teacher. Or about the countless times you’ve walked into your shared apartment with him, only to look down and see an extra pair of girly high-heels sitting by the door next to his shoes. Or the many pairs of unfamiliar panties you’ve found in the wash. Or the smell of strong perfume constantly stained on his side of the couch. 

“How in the world did I expect you to think I had feelings for you?” he reiterated your questions irritably. “Y/n, I asked you to be my date to prom! Hell, don’t even try to cut out the fact that we almost kissed when we graduated high school. I hung out with you every day after school in both high school and college. Fuck, half the reason I came to this university was to be by your side. We even have an apartment together!” 

“You’re my best friend, Jungkook!” you explain. 

“You don’t have to remind me,” he runs his hands through his hair in frustration. “I gave up trying to make us anything more than friends a while ago. Fuck, every time I lay with a girl it’s the biggest reminder of all that we’ll only be friends.” 

“Fuck you, Jungkook,” you cry. A tear falls down your cheek from his words. God, you’re so frustrated and angry and annoyed and so relieved. You don’t know which emotion to put first. “Fuck you. You shattered me into pieces. You call me oblivious when I’ve spent years loving you. But you’ve been too busy telling me about who you’re going to fuck next to notice." 

Jungkook breathes heavily, anger leaving his nostrils. His eyes are foreign to yours. You’ve never seen so much emotion in them at once. 

And then suddenly he’s on your side of the couch, hovering over you, holding your jaw in his big, tattooed palm. His lips sear against yours kissing you with passion you’ve never felt before. 

It’s second nature to hold his face in your hands. His ears slip between your middle and index finger; the cool metal of his earrings touches your skin gently. 

You moan into him when you glide your right hand into his locks, pressing him tighter against your body. Jungkook grunts at the feeling of your hand in his hair. Never in a million years did he think he'd feel you like this. No matter how many times he’s imagined it before, no matter how many times he’s pretended it was you instead of the stranger beneath him, the feeling of imagining you is nothing compared to the feeling of actually having you right there in his arms. 

You can feel him lay his weight heavier on you the more you kiss him. It prompts you to wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him tighter against your body. 

Jungkook’s lips detach from yours slowly, his thumb lightly pressing against your bottom lip as he pulls away. 

“I’m sorry,” he kisses you again slowly. It’s wet and soft, but you don’t mind. It’s him, and he feels right. “I guess we gave each other too many mixed signals.” 

You kiss him back, holding his chin between your index finger and thumb. 

“Are my signals clear now?” you ask him gently. 

“If you’re telling me that you want me…more than just friends,” he presses his nose against yours. “Then they’re clear as day.” 

You smile against his lips when he indulges on you again. Jungkook kisses you slowly and softly for another few minutes. It’s much different from the kissing you did a few minutes ago. This time, he’s gentle, and so are you. Your hands find purchase at the base of his scalp again, and you smile as he moans at the feeling. This is a whole new learning curve for you, and you’re finally going through lessons you’ve restricted yourself from accessing for a very long time. It feels so good. It feels amazing to have him in your arms like this. 

But still, somehow there’s something missing. There’s a pit in your stomach, a wetness in between your thighs that begs you to rub up against him. And so you do, but you’re stopped with a firm hand on your hip from the man above you. You suddenly feel embarrassed again. 

"Y/n,” he pants against your lips. He looks down at your conjoined hips. A part of him feels embarrassed at the sight–he doesn’t think he’s been more hard in his life. But he respects you more than to indulge in his own fantasy right now. “You’re still a virgin,” he reminds you. 

“I know,” you exhale. “But I want you, Kook. I want you to be the one to take it.” 

“Y/n,” he coos, swiping his thumb across your cheek. “I think you should think about it. I’m not the most romantic person in bed. I also don’t think I’m cut out to be your first. I don’t deserve you like that.” 

“Don’t say that Jungkook,” you scrunch your eyebrows together. “You say that as if I haven’t been imagining you in the same way that you imagine me. You say that as if I haven’t been waiting for 10 years to kiss you like this. I want you. I’ve wanted you for so long, and I think this moment is why I haven’t been able to indulge in sex with anyone else. I feel right with you.” 

You watch his eyes dart from your eyes to your lips. He’s lazy with his decision on which to focus on right now. His heart is so overwhelmed, he doesn't know which feature of yours to honor first. 

“What are you doing to me,” he laughs at himself. You smile back at him, and he swears nothing has ever been more right than how it is at this moment. 

“Will you take me, Jungkook?” you ask him again, much softer this time. It sounds strange coming from your mouth. You’ve never asked anyone to do that for you. The only person you’ve wanted, or have imagined, taking it away from you has been Jungkook. And here he is above you. 

“Fuck,” he whispers. Your words send all the blood straight to his cock, as if it didn’t have enough blood in it already. “If that’s what you want.” 

“It’s what I want,” you confirm with him. “I want you.” 

“God, I want you, too,” he says, kissing you passionately yet again. This time, he scoops you into his arms, sitting you up on his lap. You straddle him perfectly, your thighs hugging his, and your core pressed temptingly against his own. 

Jungkook moans at the feeling, his hands finding purchase on your hips before slowly grinding them against his own. 

Your hands fall from his jaw to his shoulder, the feeling of his clothed dick against your pussy is much more shocking than you thought it would be. Never in a million years did you think such a strange action would feel so good. 

“Kook,” you whine against his lips. 

He breathes lightly against yours, trying to keep his composure as you make yourself feel good on his thighs. 

“Can I touch you?” he asks gently. His hands remain on your hips until you nod, giving him permission to explore your body in whichever way he would like to first. 

He watches your face as he slides his hands up to your waist. His fingers make their way under your silk pajama shirt, causing you to jolt at the feeling of his skin against yours. It puts a desire in your heart that you’ve never felt before. You’ve never wanted to explore anyone else like this. 

“C-Can I touch you?” You ask him this time. 

Jungkook laughs a little at you asking for his permission. In a way, he’s not really used to that. He finds it endearing that even though he’s fucked a lot of girls in his lifetime, the fact doesn’t take away that he’s still worthy of asking something like that to you. The other part of him laughs as if he’d ever say no to you. 

“Please,” he gives you permission. 

With that, you look at the fabric of his shirt leaning against his collarbone. His typical black shirt covers just enough to make you curious. 

But your eyes move to your own hands, which are delicately mimicking his actions, except they start by pushing up his shirt from the bottom. Your fingertips feel his abs underneath them. They’re defined, and you hate to admit that they make you really nervous. 

Your eyes flick to his, and they read your mind like a book. 

With one motion, he takes his hands off your waist and pulls his shirt off, revealing all his glory to you in one quick second. 

You take a deep breath, and he chuckles a little. But his laughs stop the minute you touch him again. They slide up his abs, your fingertips feeling his honey skin underneath you. They slide to his arm, covered in ink. They’re a perfect representation of him, and you haven’t told him enough how much you love them. They’re passionate and edgy, handsome and strong, but gentle and honest all at the same time. 

You almost get lost in his ink when he slides his fingers further up your shirt. 

Your breath stops in your throat when he grazes his fingers on the underside of your boob. You’re not wearing a bra, and the fact only excites Jungkook more. 

But he wants to be patient with you, even though he knows that the two of you want this so badly. 

“Can I?” he asks again. 

“Yes,” you give him permission in a whisper. 

With that, he slides the silk fabric up and over your shoulder, his breath stopping in his throat when he sees you. 

“Fuck Y/n,” he breathes out. He looks to you for permission again to touch you, and you nod with a small smile on your face. 

Jungkook gently cups the underside of your breasts, his body leaning forward as he does so. His lips wrap around your nipple and you gasp when he twirls his tongue around your sensitive bud. 

The sensation prompts you to press your hips deeper against his, eliciting the sweetest sound from his throat. His black jeans frustrate him, the barrier is too thick between you and him. 

He sucks on you harder before popping off and transferring his torture to your other nipple. Your pussy feels like it’s almost gushing arousal from his mouth alone. A raspy moan leaves your mouth as he gently bites on your bud, prompting you to tug at his hair. 

“K-Kook,” you moan. “Please,” you beg. 

Jungkook pops off your nipple, his mouth trailing kisses up to your neck. His hands slide up your back, holding you close against his chest as he kisses and sucks on the sweetest parts of your neck. You know he’s learning you, and you’re 100% willing to let him continue. 

“I want you inside of me,” you pant against his ear. “Please, Kook. I want you.” 

Jungkook pulls away, resting his hands on your waist again. 

He looks at you with more seriousness now, although his lips are red and swollen and his skin is starting to shimmer with the slightest bit of sweat. 

“Are you sure?” He asks you again.

“Yes,” you hold his cheek. 

“Okay,” he smiles. 

With that, he stands up with you wrapped around his waist. You know where you’re going, and you giggle against his neck at the fact that this is reality. You’re in his arms, your skin against his, and he’s on his way to make you feel closer to him than you ever have before. This is the only man that you’d let do this to you, you’ve realized. And the relief that it is finally happening makes you giddy and so so happy on the inside. You can’t help but hold him closer. 

Jungkook gently lays you on his sheets. They smell like him, and you feel warm inside when he tops off the scent with himself hovering over you. 

“Have you…you know,” he gulps. “Used anything before?” 

“Like a dildo?” you clarify. 

“Yeah,” he kisses your neck again. He’s completely overwhelmed with you. He can’t stop kissing you, and he doesn't want to stop anytime soon. The urge to mark you as his own–to show every man that you belong to him–is so strong. He can’t help being so proud that this has finally happened. That you’re with him, and that this is the start of something new between the two of you. 

“Other than my fingers,” you sigh. “No, not really.” 

Suddenly, Jungkook stands up, uncomfortably fiddling with the zipper of his jeans. What you said made his dick hurt with arousal. His jeans are too tight on him now, and he wants to feel all of your skin against his. 

You watch him take off his jeans, feeling overwhelmed by the look of his cock springing free underneath his gray Calvin’s. 

“S-Sorry,” he apologizes for the change in pace. “They were getting tight.” 

“I can see why,” you exhale. 

You feel taken aback by Jungkook’s size. It’s still clothed by his boxers, and he already looks like he’s going to rip you open. No wonder he is in such high demand. 

“I’ll prep you,” he promises. “N’ go slow.” 

You watch him give himself a few pumps over his boxers, closing his eyes from the feeling of releasing a little bit of tension. He smiles when his eyes land on your face, your eyes completely fixated on his dick. 

“Something caught your eye?” he laughs at the expression on your face. 

“Shut up,” you smile. 

Your breath stills when he hooks his fingers around the rim of your pants, asking your eyes for permission before he continues. You allow him, and soon you’re left in just a pair of boy shorts with a huge stain soaking at your core. The sight has Jungkook immediately leaning himself on his elbows against the mattress to get a better look. 

“Fuck,” he whispers, sliding his hands on the underside of your thigh. He pushes your legs up, examining you for the first time. “You’re soaked, Y/n.” 

“S-Shut up,” you shy. “Do something already.” 

Jungkook laughs at your embarrassment, hooking his fingers underneath the waistband of your underwear and sliding it up and off your body. 

“As you wish,” he whispers against your core. You don’t even have time to react before his mouth gently envelopes your clit. He sucks on it as you squirm beneath him, the intensity of his pleasure feeling like it’s going to be a lot to handle. 

You slide your fingers into his hair when he plays at your entrance. It’s so wet, and he can’t control himself from sliding his finger in, knuckles deep, as you moan from his actions. 

Your responses only fuel his fire, causing him to lap you up even more, to slip another finger in and curl it up into your g-spot. He can feel you tense, and he knows you’re close. He wants you to get there, but you stop him before he has the chance to. 

“Want you, Kook,” you whine. “I wanna cum with you.” 

“You wanna cum with me?” he restated your statement as a question. 

You nod feverishly against his pillows, your eyes coming to lock with his. 

“I want you inside of me when you make me feel good,” you explain. “That’s how I want it.” 

Jungkook gulps. Fuck, if that wasn’t the hottest thing he’s ever heard. 

“If that’s how you want it,” he smiles. 

With a swift motion, he gets up to take off his boxers, his dick slapping against his abdomen as he does so. 

It's almost comical how quickly he reaches for a condom in his nightstand drawer, slipping it on while his eyes stay right on yours. They tell you he’s been longing for you for so long. That this moment was one that he always dreamt of, but never thought would become a reality. You can only hope that yours convey the same. 

Jungkook hovers over you again, his tip lining up with your entrance. 

“Are you sure you want this? I can stop right now if you want me to,” he asks you again. There’s a worry in his eyes, as if he doesn’t think he’s the right one to take this from you. 

“I want you, Koo. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. Please take me,” you plea. 

You watch that man above you gulp before he kisses the tip of your nose. He rests his elbows on the sides of your head, trapping you underneath him. With a kiss, you feel the burn of being stretched suddenly flood your system. He pushes in slowly, your back arching into him as he struggles to find a normal breathing pace. 

It hurts, but he goes slow. He’s aware of your discomfort, and he wants you to say something before he continues. 

“S’ this okay?” he asks you. 

When you look down, you realize he’s only half way, and your head tilts back against sheets. He’s so big, you don’t know what to do with yourself. 

“Mmhm,” you grip his shoulders. “You can move, Kook.” 

Jungkook pulls out, and then goes back in quicker and deeper this time. The feeling causes you to dig your nails into the skin of his back, the pain and pleasure bringing you to a high you’ve never felt before. 

“Ahh- Y/n,” Jungkook moans on top of you. His head falls into the crook of your neck as he keeps a steady and slow pace. “You feel so good,” he pants against your skin. 

“F-Faster, Kook,” you beg, wrapping your legs around his waist. 

“Mm,” he hums, happily obliging to your request. 

Jungkook speeds up the pace, his hips slapping against yours lewdly. There's so much liquid shared between the two of you, but neither of you care. It feels too good to stop. 

“M’ feel good, baby?” He asks you, hovering his lips above yours. “This what you wanted?” 

“Y-Yes,” you cry, trying to ignore the butterflies in your stomach from the name he called you.

Jungkook suddenly takes your hips in his hands firmly. Sitting on the back of his heels, his body towers over you before ramming his hips into yours again. The action causes you to tilt your head back, feeling fuller than you were just a minute ago in this new position. 

“Yeah?” He licks his lips. His face looks demonic–like an actual sex demon is on top of you right now. “This is what you wanted, huh? You wanted to be fucked by this fat cock so bad, didn’t you, hm?” 

Jungkooks fingers grip your hips tighter, slamming them against his own even harder than he did before. You can feel him against your cervix, hitting your g-spot with every exit and entrance of his cock in your pussy. 

“Wanted you so bad, Koo,” you cry. 

You feel your toes start to curl, and a part of you feels scared that you might cum too quickly. You want this to last longer. 

“Yeah?” He bites his lip. Hearing you say that makes his head go fuzzy. The girl he’s wanted for so long, the girl he thought he could never have, is finally his. And he’s a part of something that is so special to you, he feels honored and overwhelmed all at the same time. “You gonna cum for me, baby? Gonna cum on my dick?” 

“K-Kook,” you whine. “S-Say you wanted me, too. S-Say–” 

“Fuck, Y/n, I wanted you so bad,” he grunts at the thought. He feels angry for the time he’s lost due to thinking one thing when it was actually the other. He could have been with you like this every night. He could have been loving you and holding your hand, and kissing you all day long had he just grown a pair and done it earlier. He should have kissed you at graduation all that time ago. Or maybe even earlier at prom. He’s wanted you all along. And thinking about how he felt when you got together with Taehyung and Soobin made him feel a jealousy he’s never felt before. He can only imagine what he’s done to you. The fact that he had someone new every night to talk to you about makes his heart hurt with the fact that telling you those things might have shattered your heart into dust just as you dating someone else did to his own. 

“I wanted you then, and I want you now, and I want you after,” he continues. “I don’t want to let you go ever again.” 

Your back arches from his words, your neck falling back from the pleasure and the pain all at once. 

“Koo,” you grab onto his wrist. “I think I’m gonna cum.” 

“Yeah?” He bites his lip again. His hair falls in front of his face as he watches your breasts move with his dick inside of you. “Cum for me baby, I’m not that far behind.” 

Jungkook falls on top of you again. But this time, he brings your legs up over his shoulders, pushing into you even further than before. You’re starting to think he has an endless cock. Every new position he puts you in, you feel another inch inside of you. 

You feel a white heat wash over you, and somehow you see stars as he continuously moves his dick in you harshly. 

“A-Ahh,” you hear him moan. “You’re so tight–m’ gonna cum,” he tells you against your ear. “S’ that–that alright?” 

He holds out until you let him, nodding into his cheek, too blissed out from your orgasm to form a worded response. 

His thrusts get sloppy after you give him permission. The last few of them are hard and deep before you feel his dick pulse inside of you. A stream of sweet moans and your name falls from his lips as he releases inside of you. Out of all the music in the world, this is the sweetest sound you’ve ever heard. 

After a few moments to catch a breath, he pulls out, not wanting any of his cum to leak out of the condom as he begins to soften from his post-sex glory. Jungkook kisses you gently, moving your hair off your sweaty face. He kisses your cheek and your forehead before tucking your hair behind your ear. 

“You okay?” he asks you gently. 

You laugh at his question. Hell, you were more than okay. Your best friend, first love, and current love, just took your virginity. Although you know you have a lot to experience in the sexual world, you whole-heartedly believe that it cannot get any better than this. 

“Yes, are you?” you ask him back. 

Jungkook laughs in the same way that you laughed at him. 

“Is it safe to say that you’re my girlfriend now?” he asks. 

“Only if the feeling is mutual.” 

-----

[End. Do not copy. Original work of @jungkookstatts, 2023 ]

[xqueen-of-disasterx]

Hey there could I request G!P professor!nat x shy!quiet!reader where reader goes to the school dance alone and feels like a loser for not having the balls to talk or join in with other people but then nat decides to keep her company because she can’t stand seeing her favorite student all pathetic just standing there like a lost puppy and then they sneak off to do “other” stuff

Favourite

Paring: fem!reader x prof!Nat

Warnings: SMUT, amab!Nat, top!Nat, bottom!reader, age gap (legal), taboo relationship, soft sex, p in v, brief oral, soft!Nat, virgin!reader, gentlewoman!Nat

!Disclaimer English is not my first language so please excuse any grammar or spelling errors. This story is completely fictional. I do not own these characters!

A/N: I’m not dead yet and more active noe

I had always thought in college things would change for girls like me, the quiet ones, with a few friends, who you would only talk to to copy their homework. However it stayed that way or at least for me. I had found my small group of friends but I was far from well socialised in my college. But I wasn’t complaining about it either after all it left more time to study.

Most of the lessons I attended were boring except for one: Russians literature with Professors Romanoff, a tall, athletic woman, with red hair and the greenest eyes you had ever seen. You didn’t mind her talking for hours about poems and novels and what we were supposed to think of them. However you couldn’t care less about the words leaving her mouth when you’re eyes were only fixated on her lips.

Eventually more of the semester passed and soon it was time for the annual ball. Because of your low social status you didn’t even try to find a date opting on going alone instead, it wouldn’t be that bad right?

Once there you where alone, the few friends which you had didn’t bother to attend so you stood alone at the side of the large room your eyes fixated on the ground. You should just go, you thought to yourself. “Good evening, Y/N” you heard the familiar husky voice next to you. You looked up only to be greeted by your smirking professor. She looked gorgeous having picked out a matching suit to her eyes.

“Hi, Ms. Romanoff” she leaned against the wall next to me her eyes darting over my smaller body. “Where’s your date?” “I don’t have one” I answered truthfully, her expression stayed the same it was hard to read her. “And you’re friends?” I sighed she knew the answer to that already. “They didn’t attend.” She chuckled licking her lips like a predator who just found it’s helpless prey. “Poor girl, all alone and needs her professor to keep her company”

I let out a small laugh which sounded incredibly fake. Her words made my cheeks heat and I didn’t even know why. “Could be worse” I looked up in her eyes again “You’re a very pleasant conversation partner” “Am I?” She chuckled “That means a lot to me, hearing my favorite student say something like that” “I’m your favorite?” you stammered out “Trust me bunny a girl like you” Her hand trailed to my hip “You hardly get something like that every ten years. I’m very happy to have you”

Her words made my heart flutter and my head turn. I was special, Romanoff’s girl. “Do you mean that?” My voice was still a bit shaky. “Of course I do. We should go somewhere more private” I nodded her hand intertwined with mine she pulled me with her through the masses into the parking lot. Once seated in her expensive looking her hand never left my thigh before she started the car she leaned over to me our lips inches apart I tried to lean forward but her hands pushed my shoulder back against the car seat.

“Don’t do this to make me happy” She paused her eyes looking sensire “It won’t affect your grade no matter how you decide.” “I want this”

I breathed out our lips immediately finding each other. The kiss was passionate and heated until Nat pulled away to fasten my seat belt.

“I’ll drive to my apartment” She put her own seatbelt on “Is that okay with you or do you want to go to your dorm” “I’d like to join your tonight” Natasha gave you a cheeky grin at the response her plan had worked out perfectly.

Arriving at her apartment she seated you on her leather couch. She paced around her living room having two wine glasses in hand. “Do you want a glass?” I laughed I was extremely nervous but in a good way “Oh, I don’t drink but I’ll have a water instead” She just nodded accepting my preferences.

“You’re the prettiest girl I’ve met” She laughed slipping away from her wine glass. “And I’m not just saying that because of the wine.” She added she was sat next to her hand on your thigh. She had long forgotten about her crumpled up suit jacket on the ground though she normally was so precise about keeping everything organized.

“You don’t look bad either” You laughed she pulled you on her lap forcing you to but your legs on either side her crotch on yours. “Let me kiss you” she mumbled against you wet lips. You lips were pressed together so where your bodies and you could feel a bulge poking you. “Fuck you make me so hard” she breathed out on your lips making you moan out in response.

We were caught in the dance of our tongues when I felt her standing up her arms under my ass supporting my weight. I giggle and tighten my grip around her. “Let me take you to the bedroom”

She laid me out on the bed being careful with every item removed and making sure I was comfortable. She kissed everything inch of my skin paying extra attention to my sweet spots and I never felt so loved before. “Have you done that before” She breathed put against my skin.

“Never” I answer truthfully and suddenly I felt a dang of jealousy in my chest. “Is that- a problem?” My professor moved up again before kissing me “Of course not” She looked me in the eyes with her green eyes. “Will you let me be your first” She was being incredibly cheesy but Iiked that. It made me feel safe. “Yes”

She took one of my nipples in her mouth twisting and turning the other with her trained fingertips. She made me putty in her hands with each lick or flick she brought a new sound from my tongue.

My back arched which only made her increase the speed of her movements. After she seemed it to be enough foreplay she kissed her way down to my pubic bone, pressing her nose against my skin to take in the smell of my sweet arrausel. “Can I bunny?” She smirked and kissed your clit I was already wet but Nat was dying for a taste. She flicked her tongue over my now exposed bud. The pleasure was incredible better than any other toy I ever had and you tried to not lose my mind as she teased you bundle of nerves.

She pulled away shortly after ripping away my release in front of my eyes. I looked at her confused as she was already freeing herself from her boxer. She didn’t have a size to be ashamed of and her bush was well groomed too, like you would’ve suspected. She pumped herself a few times groaning until she was fully hard a little droplet of cum on the redden tip.

“Wait I’ll put a condom on” She reached for the drawer but you stopped her “I’m on the pill” Her lips formed a smirk as she positioned herself between my legs. “It’s not gonna hurt sweetheart” She reassured you kissing my neck.

She pushed inside and I making me scratch down her toned back making her whimper. Fuck her whimpers where hot. She bottomed me out looking down at where our bodies were connected she smiled up at you and you smiled back and after I nodded to her she picked up pace.

She was slow at first making me want more you could tell she being careful with you. “Faster” I moaned out making you hips buckle into her trusts. She moaned like a pornstar panting above me as she increased her speed the bed creaking. She made my back arch and my eyes squeezed shut as I released my quiet prayers for her.

“You close?” She panted and I nod “Fuck, your so tight” I grabbed on her shoulders scratching down as I came all over her shortly after she filled me up too. She pulled out the cum leaking down my legs. She climbed up my body flipping us over so I lay on her chest.

“You’re my favourite” She whispered and kissed my sweaty forehead

:)