#slightly different categories than last year

[shaguro]

synposis: the story of how you met your sugar-daddy, nanami, at the cafe you work at. ♡ (the prequel to this drabble!)

ੈ✩‧₊˚ tags: sugar daddy nanami! (college student/barista reader x coo nanami), reader is fem, age gap (nanami is 30, reader is 24.), ceo gojo cameo at the start, flirty nd playful banter btwn reader nd nanami, anna is reader's coworker nd friend. nanami calls reader sweetheart once, nanami is just smitten with her as soon as he sees her. sweet fluff! as a whole, this is very light-hearted and unserious y'all. — w.c: 2.2k. ♡

angel's note: consider this my official comeback from my hiatus! thank you so much @preciousamethyst for beta-reading, love you downn. ♡

“you’re telling me out of the five blind-dates that i set up . . . you didn’t like any of them? not even a little bit?” satoru asks incredulously, the french-vanilla latte in his hand almost spilling on the table as he leans forward. “you’re too damn picky, nanamin! they all seemed like nice, respectable ladies to me.”

nanami sighs, looking up from his laptop with an annoyed expression on his face. “the last one didn’t have any teeth . . . and can you keep it down? i’m trying to focus and you’re making a scene, as usual.”

“oh, heh. my bad.”

nanami’s eyes linger on the white-haired man for a moment before focusing on the screen in front of him again. he’s not sure why satoru tagged along to this new cafe with him on his lunch break. (when he clearly stopped visiting his favorite one to avoid him.) it’s not like nanami could say no, anyway — satoru is his boss. his annoying and extremely invasive boss who always finds a way to be in his way and in his business.

it goes without saying that his dating life is certainly not off-limits.

unwrapping the chocolate eclair he just bought, satoru takes a bite of the puffy pastry, humming once the sugary goodness hits his tastebuds. “you were right, nanamin. this does taste amazing.“ he pauses between his words to lick chocolate off his bottom lip, then off his fingers. “maybe we need to try a different approach . . . dating apps! ever tried tinder or bumble—“

“no.” nanami slams his laptop closed, shooting all satoru’s incoming questions down. “i don’t need your help. let’s try ‘letting things happen naturally and staying out of my business’ for a change, yeah?”

“but i have everything planned out! it’ll take me two seconds to make your profile and i have the perfect bio for you — thirty year old trick looking for a pretty woman to spend all my money on — how’s that sound?”

“terrible.” nanami deadpans, placing his laptop into his briefcase. he lifts the sleeve of his shirt, checking the time on his breitling navitimer before standing from his seat. “you have fun with that. i’m getting my pastry to go, i’ll see you back at the office.”

satoru’s jaw is on the floor. “but, nanami—“

without another word, nanami leaves a whining gojo to make his way towards the line that was, thankfully, empty. the baristas don’t notice him, backs turned while they talk to each other by the back counter and nanami doesn’t mind — it gives him more time to decide on what pastry he wants anyway.

truly, he doesn’t understand the obsession surrounding his love life. while nanami is looking, he is by no means desperate. even he knew it was a bad idea to present yourself as a sugar daddy on a dating app, unless you’re an idiot or just lacking a single ounce of dignity.

both categories that satoru fits into, nanami thinks. 

kneeling slightly for a better view at the assorted desserts behind the crystalline-glass case, nanami’s unsure of which one to choose. this cafè’s selection is extensive, they offer much more than what he’s used to; tarts, cakes and pastries that he’s never even seen before. ultimately, he opts to keep it simple with one of his favorites: a fluffy cinnamon roll with extra vanilla glaze.

“girl, i’ve been working real hard and i still don’t have enough saved to pay tuition.” you murmur, scooping a handful of coffee grounds into the filter and shaking the brew funnel to level them. “i’m stressed out.”

nanami’s eyes flicker to where the two of you stand. while he’s never considered himself to be a nosy man, he finds his focus shifting from his lunch to the conversation you’re having, ears perked in interest as he continues to weigh his other options.

your co-worker, anna, gives you a reassuring pat on the back, her face itched downward in concern. “yeah, you were telling me about that last week . . . how much more do you need?”

“around like five-hundred more.” you sigh, brushing your hands off on your apron. anna starts to speak but you stop her with a raise of your palm, already knowing what she’s thinking. “and yes, i’ve taken out loans already. my loans have loans at this point.”

anna raises her brows. “so what are you going to do?”

“i’m out of options.” you shrug, adjusting the valves on the coffee machine to their correct settings. with a heavy sigh, you lean your head on her shoulder with a pout on your glossed lips, “it’s either i start an onlyfans or god sends me a rich old man that wants to be my sugar-daddy.”

anna giggles and playfully swats your arm. even in a serious moment like this, you find a way to lighten the mood. she plays along, tapping her chin with her index finger, “hmm, that can work! maybe you can start stripping. you watched the tiktoks i sent you, right? they touch thousands on a good night.”

“oh my god, i didn’t even think of that!” you stand straight and cup your hands on your breasts through your shirt, poking your ass out a bit. “i might need a boob job and bbl if i wanna be serious about it, though . . . plus, isn’t twenty-four a little too old to start stripping?”

“girl, please. twenty-four isn’t old and you know that. you have a nice body and you’re pretty. they’ll throw stacks just based off that, trust me —”

that whole sugar-daddy thing that satoru was suggesting doesn’t sound half as bad to nanami, right now. you get the money you need and he gets to spend time with you, it’s a win-win.

“she’s right,” nanami agrees, unable to hold back the chuckle that leaves his mouth when the both of you literally jump at the sound of his voice, whipping your bodies around to see just who that deep, smooth timbre belonged to. “you’re very pretty miss . . .” his brown eyes shift down to your name-tag. “ . . . ( name ).”

you blink once, twice — lips slightly parted, heat slowly rising to your face once his sweet compliment slowly registers in your brain and how your name flowed so easily off his tongue. just looking at this man, you can tell that he has money. he’s handsome, even more so as your eyes shift from his chiseled face down to his body. nanami stands tall, he must be around six feet. sporting a white dress-shirt and navy-blue slacks that match his tie, nanami is built. the soft cotton of his shirt clings to his biceps, outlining each vein and curve. the very top of his shirt is unbuttoned, exposing a sliver of his toned chest underneath.

there is no way god answered your prayers this quickly.

in a trance, you stare at nanami like a deer in headlights, completely enamored until anna nudges your arm, snapping you back to reality. she whispers a curt ‘you better talk to that man, girl’ in your ear and that’s you realize that you didn’t even thank him yet, how rude. 

“o-oh, thank you.” you move towards the register, giving nanami a sheepish smile whilst drumming your french-tip acrylics against the granite counter. “so um . . how much of that did you hear?”

“hmm . . . most of it.”

“the onlyfans part too?”

nanami nods with a grin. “and the old rich sugar daddy part.”

you cover your face with your hand, letting out a long sigh. this is just your luck, embarrassing yourself in front of this extremely sexy stranger. “let’s just . . . pretend that didn’t happen.” you’re certain that you were definitely not getting his number after this. “what can i get you, mr . . .?”

“kento.” nanami answers, leaning a tad bit closer and you have to crane your neck slightly to look at him, that grin still on his plump lips. “but you can call me ken.”

“oh?” you catch the cheeky switch in his tone, the teasing glint in those pretty pools of brown. he’s flirting with you and why not return the same energy? you’re interested in him, too. biting back a smile of your own, you hold his gaze, staring up at him through your wispy extensions. “ok, ken, what can i get you?”

“two of those cinnamon rolls, please.” nanami answers, pointing towards the case he’d been looking at prior.

you nod and grab a set of tongs, opening the glass to place the rolls into a small plastic bag, then into a paper bag on the counter. “just that, nothing else?”

pondering on the question, nanami’s debating the risk of what he’s about to say. it’s obvious that you’re attracted to him but this was a whole different ballgame, asking you to be his sugar baby? — really, the worst that could happen is you rejecting him and as much as he doesn’t want that, he’d just have to accept it. nanami inhales a deep breath once he gathers his thoughts. here goes nothing. 

“well, there is something that i have. it’s a proposition of sorts for you.”

you look up from the register, one of your brows raised. “and what would that be?”

“allow me to take you out a few times a week, whenever you have the time . . . and i’ll pay your tuition.” nanami pauses and shakes his head, combing some of his blonde locks back with his fingers. “no, i’ll pay all your bills. as long as i get to see you, i’ll give you anything that you want.”

you tilt your head to the left and raise your brows. “you want to be my sugar daddy?”

nanami nods, chuckling at the look of sheer disbelief on your face on your face. “i’m missing the old part so i’m not exactly sure if i qualify . . . but yes, i do.”

you scoff at that. “. . . and you just want to see me, take me on dates, no sex?” did he think you were that naive? if there’s one thing you know for certain, it’s that nothing in this world is free —  everything has a price and in this case, your pussy would be the desired currency. you pout, crossing your arms over your chest. “i don’t believe that. what’s the catch?”

nanami supposes you aren’t wrong for thinking this way. it does sound far-fetched, especially from a stranger you met not even an hour ago. he wasn’t a liar or a perv, and he’d just have to make you see how serious he is. “there is no catch. i think you’re beautiful and i want to get to know you better. i understand that this may seem too good to be true but i promise you, my intentions are pure.”

nanami isn’t surprised when you don’t budge, eyes slanted as you glare him down. (and you look so adorable while doing it.) he expected this reaction from you and little did you know, he’s already one step ahead. if his words don’t move you, then he’s sure his actions will get the point across.

fishing for his wallet in his pocket, he pulls it out, handing you a five dollar bill, “this is for the cinnamon rolls and this,” he takes out a set of bills, hundred dollar bills and you watch him, mouth ajar as he counts off each one before placing it in your free hand. is he serious? “this is for your tuition and a little extra to spend. we’ll handle the ‘loans that have loans’ on our first date, alright?”

you’re speechless, eyes shifting between nanami’s face and the money in your hand as you try your best to process what’s happening before you. from joking about needing a sugar-daddy to having one in front of you. and the man wants to spend time with you, no sex required! you surely couldn’t doubt him now, not when he gave you the money without you actually agreeing. maybe this was the blessing from god you’d been waiting for.

you clear your throat, nodding dazedly. “a-alright, yeah . . . we can talk more on our first date.”

nanami smiles once more, glancing at his watch prior to picking up the paper bag off the counter. “as much as i want to stay with you, i have to get back to the office.” reaching into his pants pocket, he slides a laminated card on the counter. “my personal number is on this card. when you get a chance, call or send me a text. i’ll see you soon, sweetheart.”

with a playful wink, nanami leaves the cafe — your eyes trailing his lithe frame until he turns a street corner, completely out of sight. it’s like you were frozen in place, the money still in your hands. when you finally decide to take a look at the business card he left, your jaw quite literally drops to the floor: this man is the coo of jujutsu, one of the biggest marketing companies in the country.

                                 kento nanami

                            chief operating officer

               jujutsu marketing and e-commerce, llc.

                                 xxx-xxx-xxxx

kento.nanami@gmail.com

now, you were definitely certain that god did indeed hear and answer your prayers. in more ways than one.

tagging: @sttoru @screampied @thebimbopalace @tojancy

© shaguro, 2023 - do not plagiarise nor repost anything on any other platform.

[cy-cyborg]

Tips for wring amputees: its ok if your amputee can't repair their own prosthetics

There's a trope in fiction for amputees to always be these mechanical geniuses who can make and repair their own prosthetics, endlessly tinkering away and improving them. This isn't a particularly trope, and i dont think its harmful or anything, but in reality, prosthetics are REALLY, REALLY complicated, and a lot of amputees cant do their own repairs. And thats ok. Like, prosthetic creation and repair is way, way harder than I think people expect. Well outside the skillset of your standard mechanic, handy man or craftsperson.

People who make and repair prosthetics are called prosthetists. To become a prosthetist, most countries around the world today require you to have completed a bachelor's degree in specifically in prosthetics and orthotics, which covers not only how to make a prosthetics (and orthodics) but a great deal of medical knowledge, physics, how different forces impact "non-standard" bodies, the additional biological wear-and-tear that comes with being an amputee and so much more. This will qualify you to do the job of fitting/making the prosthetic socket (the part that attaches to your body) and putting premade components together to make a functioning device. On top of this, many prosthetists are also expected to have artistic skills, sewing skills, good physical strength and dexterity, IT skills, and more recently, knowledge of 3D modelling and printing.

You want to make all the high-tech components the prosthetists put together to make the full prosthetic? The requirements for that vary country to country, but most will require at least some level study in the field of engineering and/or medicine, on top of what was already required for the prosthetics course.

The reason for all this is because even "basic" prosthetics are extremely finicky, and messing up one thing will have a domino effect on the rest of the body, especially in more complicated prosthetics. It can also result in people getting severally injured if anything is even slightly off. many leg amputees for example end up with spinal issues due to extremely minor issues with their prosthetic that weren't caught until years later, and by then the damage had been done.

Some amputees do learn to do basic repairs. This is most common in places like the US, where a visit to the prosthetist can cost hundred to thousands of dollars (depending on your insurance), but it's also quite common in rural parts of countries like Australia, where cost isn't an issue but access is due to vast distances between major cities. I was personally in this category; as a kid, my nearest prosthetist was 6 hours away. My prosthetist was able to teach my dad, who later taught me, how to do some of the simple repairs, but we still needed to go in every few weeks for the more complex stuff (Kids prosthetic need more adjusting than adults because they're still growing. Also I was rough on my prosthetics and broke them a lot lol).

But even after being taught how to do repairs and having my prosthetics for 20+ years, I only ever did these sorts of repairs to my below-knee prosthetic. I will not do any repairs of any kind to my above knee leg, which is much more technologically complex. Every time I tried, I made it worse to the point where the leg was unusable. I just leave those repairs to the guy who went to university to learn how to do it, and sometimes even he needs to send it off to someone with even more specialist knowledge when it's really badly messed up lol. Last time that happened Australia post lost the package. Not really relevant to this post, I just find the idea of it being sent to the wrong place by accident hilarious, it was one of my more realistic legs too so someone probably had a heart attack when they opened that package lmao.

Anyway, back on track lol.

This isn't even touching on the fact that on some more advanced prosthetics, many features are actually locked behind a security barrier only prosthetists can access. My prosthetic knee has an app on my phone I can pair it to, that allows me to change certain settings and swap between certain modes for different activities that tell the leg to change its behaviour depending on what I'm doing (e.g. a mode for running, a mode for cycling etc). but most of the more in-depth settings I can't access, only my prosthetist can, and he can only gain access to those settings with a security key given to him by the manufacturing company that requires him to provide proof of his credentials to receive it. I don't really agree with this btw, something about being locked out of my own leg's settings makes me feel a bit of an ick, but it's set up like this because people used to be able to access these settings and they would mess with things to the point their leg was virtually unusable. Because altering one setting had a domino effect on all the others, and a lot of folks weren't really paying attention to what they were messing with, all their prosthetists could do was factory reset the whole leg, which causes some issues too. Prosthetic arms are often similarly complex, as I understand it and have similar security barriers in place for more advanced arms. I don't know for sure though, so take that with a grain of salt.

All this to say these are incredibly delicate, finicky and complex pieces of equipment. There's nothing wrong with having a techy amputee character who can do their own repairs, but in reality, that is pretty rare, and its ok to have your character need to see a prosthetist or someone more knowledgeable than them. It's a part of the amputee experience I don't see reflected very often in media. In fact, the only examples I can think of in fiction (meaning not stories based on real people) where this is reflected are Full metal alchemist.

technically I think Subnautica Below Zero also mentions prosthetists are a thing in that world, but its a very "blink and you'll miss it" kind of thing...in fact I did miss it until my last playthrough lol.

[whatawonderfulexistence--blog]

Fall For Me (Poly! Sleep Token x Fem! Reader) - Part II

Thank you to @spookyghostjelly for beta reading and letting me be insane in her DM's ❤️❤️❤️

WARNINGS: None

Part I ~ Part III

My Masterlist! ~ AO3 Link!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You sigh as you finish your closing duties, giving the door one last pull to make sure it was locked with a tired sigh. You walked around to the back of the building, heading up to your apartment that was very conveniently located on top of your store. You kick the door shut behind you, haphazardly throwing your shoes in the entryway. You put the kettle on the stove, leaning against the counter and looking out the window as you waited for the water to boil. Your mind immediately wandered back to Vessel, your short interaction had left you with so many unanswered questions. Where did he come from? Why did he choose this sleepy little town of all places to settle down? Was he actually part of a cult? He was so different from what you had imagined. Hearing all the reports in the paper you had been terrified to run into any of them. Vessel, in what scraps of his personality you had seen, seemed so gentle. You were snapped from your thoughts by the sound of the kettle singing.

"At least our mystery man has a name now." You chuckle to your empty apartment. You guess you would just have to wait and see what tomorrow brought.

Music blasted through the speakers in the empty store, you sang along loudly with your favorite songs as you worked on restocking the shelves. You groaned as you hoisted one of the heavy crates of produce off the counter. You screamed, oranges scattering across the floor as you lost hold of the crate. There standing at the door was Vessel. Seeing that he had finally caught your attention, he pointed to his wrist as if he was motioning to a watch. You paused your music and quickly headed over to open the door for him. "I'm so sorry, I completely forgot to tell you we close early tonight." You blurt out the second you open up. Your eyes land on Vessel, this was the first time you had been standing in front of him without the barrier of the counter. He was a lot taller than you had realized, you stumbled back slightly to put some distance between you and the absolute wall that was his body. "Every Sunday I have to restock the store, I close at four."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'll just-"

"No!" You exclaim, waving your hands wildly in front of you. "No, really, it's my fault. You come in and get what you need, just don't mind the mess. It'll take me a couple minutes to reopen the register." You motion him inside, he follows you hesitantly. He looks around the store, various pallets and stacks of crates are organized into neat categories waiting to be put away. From what he could see it was definitely more work than one person should be handling by themselves.

"Is it just you that works here?" You nod in response as you drop onto your knees to start collecting the oranges you had dropped. Your hand jerked back as your fingers bumped into Vessel's. Your eyes dart up to look at him, "it's my fault you dropped the crate, I'd like to help you pick up a little if that's alright." He says softly as he remains completely still. He could tell being so close to him made you nervous, yet it was somehow different than interactions he had in the past. You weren't scared, more… shy.

"You don't have to go to all that trouble, Vessel, really." You try to reassure him.

"And you shouldn't be alone trying to restock all of this inventory by yourself." You almost rolled your eyes at the statement.

"I've been managing just fine by myself for the last seven years, I think I can handle a spilled crate of fruit." He chuckles at your determined tone.

"I never said you couldn't," he returns to the task of picking up produce as he talks. "I'm saying you shouldn't have to. You work hard, I can tell by how meticulously your store is always maintained." He trails off for a moment, not exactly sure how to phrase his next statement. "I guess I'm just curious as to why you don't have any help."

"There isn't anybody I like enough to have them work here with me." You smile. "This place is my home, literally, my apartment's upstairs." He shakes his head with a slight laugh. "If they aren't someone I would invite into my home they're not someone I would want to spend hours upon end in here with them. Besides, I like working, it keeps me occupied." Vessel finishes helping you clean up. "You go get your groceries, I'm sure you have a long drive back to… your camp? House?"

"Camp works." He quips. You head up to the counter to get the register up and running again, knowing his supply runs never took long. You found yourself unable to tear your eyes away from him. The strange red sigil in the center of his white mask, the ornate detailing on the bottom edge, the black paint that covered every area of exposed skin, everything about him just made you curious. Your eyes snapped to your register as he glanced in your direction and you swore you heard the sound of him quietly chuckling. He carries his groceries up to the counter and lays them out.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You can ask me as many questions as you want, I can't guarantee I'll answer." He responds bluntly.

"What made you decide to finally start talking to me?" He seemed a bit taken aback by your question, not expecting you to be so forward.

"It's no secret that a lot of people don't like the fact that we're around. Luckily, the only real nuisance we've had to deal with are the reporters, but I'm still worried about what would happen if we ventured too far into town. But, we needed supplies. We could only last so long on the sorry excuse of a garden we managed to start when we originally bought the land, your store is relatively close by and out of the way. As far as why I started talking to you, you're the only person I've met from this town so far that hasn't greeted me with hostility." Vessel laughs softly at your shocked expression. "I'm tired of running (Y/N). Tired of having to move from city to city every other month to try and keep ahead of the backlash from people who don't understand us. If I'm going to do that I need a place to come get supplies where I won't immediately get chased off, someone I can trust in my time of need… after some thought I think you might be that person. There's something special about you, I think we were fated to meet each other, I'm just not sure why yet."

"Well, I appreciate that." You can't help but smile at the admission. He trusted you. "If there's anything I can ever do to help you guys out, just say the word."

"Actually, there is something. Would it be alright if I start coming to grab supplies after you close, at least on Sunday's?" He asks.

"Of course you can. I was actually going to ask if that would work better for you." You admit with a chuckle. "I know that a lot of people around these parts tend to be pretty… close minded, to put it gently. I think it's smart for you to wait until you're ready to have those interactions." He nods his thanks at your agreement, collecting his belongings, and heading towards the door.

"Next Sunday it might not be just me, don't be intimidated." He dismissed himself with a chuckle, leaving you to finish restocking.

You pondered over who exactly he would be bringing with him. No one knew for sure how many members there were living in the woods, from what you had seen everyone except for Vessel dressed relatively similar. You were tempted to ask him throughout your daily visits, but you also didn't want to pry. As next Sunday arrived you kept anxiously looking up at the clock, waiting for closing time to roll around. You bid farewell to your final customer as you locked up. Just as you had pulled the key from the deadbolt you saw the familiar sight of an old, beat up pick up truck rumble into the parking lot. Vessel got out, talking to whoever was seated in the passenger seat before heading in your direction. You waved at him, opening up the door and stepping outside. "Is your friend coming in too?" You ask quietly as he gets closer to you.

"Yeah, he is. I just wanted to tell you something first. II isn't much of a talker until he gets to know people… He also has a staring problem." You laugh, Vessel returns your enthusiasm with a smile.

"If I can handle you giving me the silent treatment for a full week I think I can handle it big guy, don't worry." He waves at his friend to come join you. You waited in anxious anticipation as the passenger door opened, two heavy black leather boots thudding against the pavement as someone jumped out. The slam of the door echoes through the surrounding trees as you finally could see just who Vessel brought with him. II was a bit shorter than Vessel with a lean frame. His striking blue eyes met yours through the holes in his mask, black cloth with the same rune that adorned Vessel's, yet his covered the entirety of his face.

"II, this is (Y/N)." He slowly approaches you, you could tell he was studying you. He offers his hand which you timidly accept. His hand was warm around yours as he feigned the action of bringing your knuckles to his lips, his eyes never leaving your face. "Come on, I didn't bring you to flirt with her." You see the corners of II's eyes crinkle as he chuckles at Vessel's joke. He straightens up, moving swiftly to the door, holding it open and motioning for you to walk inside.

"Thank you II." You smile sweetly at him. Vessel claps him on the back as he walks past.

"We're here to help, what do you need?" He offers kindly.

"Oh, I couldn't ask you both to do that." II steps forward, offering you his arm. You cautiously take it with a curious expression. He leads you to your chair behind the counter, pulling it out for you to sit. He rolls up his sleeves, picking up the first box of stock he saw and searching for its tag.

"See? You don't even have to ask?" Vessel chuckles. You got your restock done in half the time you normally did with their help. Vessel stood in front of the register as you rang him up, smoking smugly. "Wasn't that easier than doing it all yourself?"

"What? You looking for a job?" You shoot back, you hear II breathe out a chuckle at your joke. You bag up his groceries, handing them off with a smile. "II, hopefully I'll see you next week." He nods his goodbye as he heads out the door.

"I think he likes you." Vessel jokes.

“He’s sweet.” You giggle. “If your whole group is this nice you’re welcome in my store anytime.” Vessel smiles at your statement.

“You’ll meet the others eventually, I think they’d enjoy getting to know you.” He starts walking towards the door, shooting you a flirtatious smirk. You waved goodbye to them through the window, catching II’s gaze as they drove off. The next night as you sat reading at the counter you smiled as the familiar sound of Vessel’s sputtering engine met your ears as he pulled into the lot. You looked up as the bell jingled over the door, your greeting froze in your throat as you realized it wasn’t Vessel who had entered the store.

“Hey II.” You couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your face at the sight of him.

“(Y/N).” He greets you with a slight nod. His gaze traps you in place as his eyes meet yours, he saunters up to the counter, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“No Vessel today?” You ask, trying to keep your flustered state a secret.

“He had something to take care of today.” You could hear the gentle intonation of a smile in his voice. “Call me selfish but I wanted the chance to see you again.” You let out a flustered giggle. He leans his elbows on the counter, bringing his face impossibly close to yours. His eyes slowly scan over your features before catching your gaze. “He sent me with a list, think you could help me out?”

“Yeah, sure.” You stutter, making your way around the counter. He hands the list over to you, trailing behind you to hold everything you pulled from the shelves. You struggled to reach something on one of the higher shelves, a shiver ran up your spine at the sudden warmth that spread across your back as II stepped closer to you.

“Allow me.” He gazes down at you, bright blue eyes studying you for a moment. You feel his eyes on you the entire time as you scanned all of his groceries. You handed the bags over to him, his fingers brushing over yours. You smile bashfully as your eyes lock with his. “Hopefully I’ll see you soon.” He gazes at you playfully.

“Yeah, hopefully.” He bows slightly as he heads for the door.

“Goodnight, (Y/N).”

“Goodnight, II.”

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Tag List: @herripinkle @themultiverseofmars @wingsofeternitysstuff @mustluvecho @the-hole-in-terzos-shoe @jumpcauseimfroggy (if I missed you or you'd like to be added to the Sleep Token tag list, please let me know!)

[thatgenericwriter]

I'm Eepy || Gregory House

Paring: Dr. Gregory House x fem! reader

Summary: House and the reader have a 4 year old child that definitely takes after her father

Warnings: Children, House, Swearing

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

You took your eyes away from your kid for 10 seconds. 10 fucking seconds! And when you turned around she was no longer playing with her monster trucks by the nurse's station. You immediately start to panic, frantically searching the entire floor you're on.

Normally you wouldn't be this panic, she runs off all the time, except the last time she wandered off in the hospital she got into the drawers of a patient's room and almost took an entire bottle of pills thinking they were candy.

You collect House's fellows and make them split into teams, sending them to scour the different floors in search of your daughter. By this point, you're on the verge of a panic attack. Your daughter is missing in a giant hospital with so many ways of hurting herself, or getting kidnapped, or just leaving on her own, or---

Your hysterical train of thought is interrupted when you hear your name called out from behind you. Whipping around you find that the source of voice is none other than House. You practically sprint towards him throwing yourself into his arms.

"She's missing and I can't find her and I have everyone looking for her and she's gone and I'm an awful mother and I should have never let her out of my site and how could I---."

"Calm down!" House pushes you back slightly and leans down to be face-to-face with you. "I know where she is."

You look into his eyes before punching him in the shoulder. "Why the FUCK did you not tell me that in the first place!"

"Well I was going to but then someone got all weepy and pathetic so I didn't get the chance."

You roll your eyes at him and scoff, but then you lean back in for another hug. You feel him run his hand along your back soothingly before pulling away and turning towards the elevator.

"Come on I have Thirteen and Kutner watching her right now, but I'm not sure how long they can last around her before their feeling are hurt so bad they cast her out of my office."

You grab his hand and walk to the elevator while picturing your daughter making fun of Thirteen and Kutner. She definitely took after her father in the 'making others feel like trash for fun' category. Something you were trying to teach out of her, but someone keeps teaching her more and more curse words.

As the elevator doors open you let go of House's hand and run to his office. You throw the door open and look around for your daughter. All of the fellows have gathered at the table and give you sushing gestures before pointing behind you.

You turn around to find your daughter lounged in House's yellow chair, her eyes fighting to stay open. You quietly walk through the connecting door and crouch by your daughter's head.

"Hey pretty girl," you stroke her hair lovingly, "you know you can't run off like that. Mommy was so scared. You don't want to scare me do you?"

She groggily shakes her head no before letting out a yawn. "I'm sorry Mommy, but I'm soooooo eepy."

You shake your head with a small smile before kissing your daughter's head lightly and watch as her eyes finally close. Standing up you turn and look through the glass to see House standing there looking at you and your daughter with the most content look you've ever seen on his face.

Turning off the lights and closing the blinds you give one last look at your daughter before walking through the conjoing door and into House's awaiting arms.

"Get a room you two!" Everyone whips their head around to Chase with a furious look on their face.

"Shhhhhhhhh!"

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

Author's note: i did not prof read this so if it sucks don't tell me... also I'm going to write more I swear! plz be patient with me as I get through requests!!

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Top 3 Are HEATING UP

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

Dec 2023 Wk 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Honestly, 3 are neck & necking for top position! They are all so good in different ways. But The Sign had me hooting with laughter this week, so it scooped #1.

The Sign (Sat YT) ep 4 of 10 - This show is literally everything (except straight) all at once. It's BL, queer, band of brothers, romcom, erotica, paranormal, fated mates, mystery, suspense, slasher, and horror. It’s the king of genre mash-up chaos. I have no idea what I’m watching but I’m ON this ride. Is it a roller coaster? Is it a haunted house? Is it a twirl & hurl? Is there candy floss? Am I even tall enough? Who tf cares. All through the second scene, I was laughing. It was legit funny. Billy has great comedic timing. Guess he’s not just a pretty face.

Everyone should be watching this. Sure, it's madness but there is genius in it.

Last Twilight (Fri YT) ep 6 of 12 -  Yech. August may be one of GMMTV’s least likable characters ever (and that is saying something). Meanwhile, MOAR language play! They spoiling me!

Mhok letting Day go then walking away at the party hurt so bad.

Argh this show is great!

Ep 6 so that kiss was right on schedule. I’m looking forward to the boyfriend eps before doom & pain in the new year. Carry on GMMTV. 

Speaking of...

Cherry Magic (Sat YouTube) ep 2 of 12 - Oh they’re great. It’s great. It’s paced oddly, moving quickly through most of the key scenes of the original JBL in these first 2 eps. I think it’s intending to encompass more of the manga series than that one did. Which is good, cause that will get us all the way to The Library Kiss (TM). It's the best kiss in the manga. I also like the sides in this show (better than the JBL version). 

My Dear Gangster Oppa (Thurs iQIYI) ep 8fin - What a lovely slightly unhinged little show. Tew, can we talk? Un-ironic suspenders, that takes courage. Also, the revolver was a crazy gun choice. 

Final thoughts:

This show is just as ridiculous as its title. About a gaymer who falls in love with one of his in-game teammates, who just happens to be a IRL gangster. A real gangster, the kind that actually kills people regularly. The lead pair is doing their best with a ridiculous story and shoddy script, but I enjoyed it. Although I was grateful it wasn’t very long, what we got was oddly satisfying if, frankly, a little bit silly. Recommended. 8/10 

That said, what's important about this BL is not the show, but the production and style. Let me explain... no, too much, let me sum up.

This is a chimera BL. Regarding characters: it has Japan's style otaku + Korea's style gangster + Thailand's style friendship group. It used Thai talent + Korean money (Kakao) & IP (adapted from a manwha) but aired on a Chinese channel globally (iQIYI). I'm delighted by the eclectic insanity of this production and truly doubt that any other genre but BL could ever produce like this. It's like diplomat's BL and it's the great wonder of our age that it happened at all. This BL deserves its place in the history books on production alone, even if that place is only in the footnotes. A remarkable little monster.

For Him (Thurs iQIYI) ep 3 of 10 - The sides are… messy. Using the same actor for the old bf is… odd. But in the end, this show leaves me smiling. Which means, I like it despite myself. 

Bake Me Please (Mon Gaga) ep 4 of 6 - It's decent. It’s basically what I wanted Antique Bakery to be when I first watched that way back when (not to mention Bite Me). But there’s been so much BL since then that, for some reason, this is falling flat. I think it’s moving too fast for a Thai series. Although, say what you like, Ohm has to be one of the best soft kissers in the industry. He's just good at mouth tenderness.

Ugh, that doesn't sound right. But you know what I mean.

Twins the series (Fri GaGa) ep 7 of 10 - I love how First is so upset when Sprite starts chatting and being nice to Koh. Sprite is just a sweet easy-going likable boy. I enjoy Sprite as a main character, he’s a bubbly little communicator. And they had a cute kiss.  

Pit Babe (Fri iQIYI) ep 5 of 14 - Because there was more Alan and Jeff and they were more key to the plot I was more into this ep. I do compare it to green smoothie down the pants in the Trash Watch.

Cooking Crush (Sun YT) ep 3 of 12 - Look OffGun are truly great. But I’m just not sure we need them in BL anymore. That said, it’s nice to see Off as "the one with the crush" for a change. Also, this show is only good when OffGun are on screen together, otherwise it kinda, well, sucks.

Night Dream (Sat YT) ep 1 of 6 - Cafe setting featuring a cook and a writer. *Seems awfully familiar.* Except these two are exes and this is a reunion romance. It’s stiff and very pulp but not bad (no crap sound effects) and I am a sucker for a reunion romance. That said, Rookie Thailand is not to be trusted, proceed with caution.

Absolute Zero (Weds iQIYI) ep 12fin - I'm grateful this is over. It was tense but for the wrong reasons - sadness and confusion. This final episode was fine, but that’s because it was mostly them being together + flashbacks. Plus all the familiar actor faces of the grown-up friends (hi, Karn my lovely, still stunning I see). But 2 of 12 episodes is not enough for the 10 of suffering and confusion that came before.

In conclusion:

A man is killed on his 10th anniversary resulting in a time paradox, for which the only solution is him never meeting his childhood sweetheart until later in life. Both lovers cycle back to the past at different ages, so that they each become their own 1st & 2nd great loves, but every time it ends in pain, until each also endures 10 years of separation. Finally it gets fixed, but leaves them with multiple memories of time's failures like temporal PTSD, and everyone around them has chronic deja vu. Me? I got both. This is one of those BLs that is high-quality with great acting but poor story. If you like your BL dwelling, maudlin, and tense due to angst and suffering, then you might enjoy this. But I just regret it, 6/10. Recommended only if you like confusing time travel emo pain.

In which case, just watch Tokyo in April is... instead. Give over Thailand, Japan does it better.

Middleman’s Love (Fri YT & iQIYI ep 6 of 8 - While our main couple isn’t working for me... the side couple isn’t working for me either. I really wanted to give LeoTai a chance, this is the 3rd show I’ve seen them in, and still nope. I like Jade a lot more when he’s sad. He’s a much more pleasant screen experience depressed. I would like him to stay hurt for a couple of eps, just so I can enjoy this show a tiny bit more. But then he just goes unhinged again. Argh. I just don’t like it. 

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) Pisces of Me ep 17 of 24 - Codependent boyfriends in middle school planning for high school dealing with stuff. Including other boys being into them. 

Playboyy (Thurs Gaga) 5 of 14 eps - Dear Playboyy, it's not you, it’s me… I hate you. You’re about as deep (and as palatable) as a shot glass of cum. While I'm sure you’re someone’s kink, you're my weakest link. Goodbye. DNF 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

VIP Only (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 5 of 10 - It’s cute but I don’t think BL in this short format is Taiwan’s strength these days. And this is quite slow and dull. Perhaps they should have whacked it down to 6 eps, not 10.

Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 3 of 8 - This is one of those JBLs that I should like on paper but is failing me. The drag bit was ridiculous but handled gently. The kiss was… well… something wasn’t it? It’s all very odd. I like the photographer cutie character. 

It's Airing But...

The Whisperer (Sun ????) 10 eps - Thai horror BL that ALSO involves cheating (what joy is mine). I don't think even the perfect single dimple can motivate me to watch. Word is... it's terrible.

7 Days Before Valentine (Weds WeTV) 10 eps - Giving me Luminous Solution vibes. I'm waiting to binge if it's safe.

Beyond The Star (Weds iQIYI) 8 eps - House of Stars meets Boyband. I was NOT impressed with ep 1. Been told I shouldn't bother.

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps - I find this series more fun to binge, so I'm waiting until after it completes its run next week.

Dear Kitakyushu (Thai/Japan movie) in theaters in country only, I know nothing about distribution.

Behind the Shadows (Korea movie) this is a historical I was interested in, but I've been told they kill the gay so I'm OUT.

Next Week Looks Like This

Still coming:

12/23 Dead Friend Forever (Thai horror) iQIYI

Original 2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED). With the end of the year upon us I'll do an "announced for 2023 but never happened list" soon.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

He so pretty.

I forgot how likable TayNew are, and frankly I think New is a better version of this role for me, personally. I like him a lot. He's a conscientious sweetheart. And a good egg. (Cherry Magic)

Ah the rooftop my old friend. (Last Twilight)

I would like to point out that it's no accident the naga's sex dream happened in the shower, he's a water creature after all. (The Sign)

(Last week)

[captainsophiestark]

To The Stars

Rhysand x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Summary: With war on the horizon, Rhys and his mate have been busier than should be possible, with almost no time to even see each other. But sometimes, to stay sane, you have to make time.

Word Count: 1,064

Category: Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I squinted at the words on the paper in front of me, trying to get them to stop blurring. My eyes burned, and my head ached, and before I knew it, I was face down on the desk.

Not the first time it had happened to me, and probably not the last. But the Night Court was basically the only court who had our shit together and stood a chance at stopping Hybern, which meant it was on me and the rest of the Inner Circle to organize what we needed to organize to save the world as we knew it. That tended to lead to a lot of exhaustion.

Even worse, it had left me no time to see my mate, Rhysand, as we were both running around like maniacs, often in different directions. His face floated across my subconscious as I fought to stay awake despite my body begging me to rest my eyes and stay down on the desk. I thought I'd finally lost the battle when I heard his voice, calling my name in his smooth, soothing voice that had come to feel like home. Then I felt his hand on my shoulder, and realized this wasn't an exhaustion-induced dream.

I groaned, slowly dragging myself back into a sitting position as I blinked at Rhys through bleary eyes. He hardly looked better than me, with dark bags under his eyes. Still, he pulled a soft smile onto his face when he looked at me.

"You look about as tired as I feel," he said, voice a little more gravelly than usual. I huffed a sigh.

"I'm absolutely exhausted. But we have to do what it takes to have a chance at winning this war."

"We do."

The silence hung between us for a moment, the massive weight we carried together resting heavily on our shoulders. Then Rhys, my wonderful mate, sighed and gave me a tired smile, running his hand along my cheek.

"Come outside with me."

I raised an eyebrow at him, but his face didn't change. I held his stare, but when his calm expression didn't crack with even a hint of what he was up to, I finally gave in with a sigh of my own.

"Fine. But only because I love you so much. If anyone else was asking me to accompany them for mysterious reasons rather than wading through these papers or sleeping, I would tell them to fuck right off."

"I'll make sure to remember how lucky I am to be met with a different response."

I snorted, at myself more than him, and he shot me a small smile as I got to my feet. He held out a hand and led me out of our bedroom and up the stairs to the roof.

"If we had even a single extra second to string together, I would've told you to close your eyes first," Rhys said, a smile in his voice from ahead of me. I raised an eyebrow, more curious than ever as he stepped out onto the roof of the Velaris townhouse and I followed after him.

Rhysand stared at me with a massive grin on his face, holding his arms out slightly on either side in a 'ta-da' gesture. I looked just past him to find a nest of blankets assembled on the roof, with glasses of sparkling wine waiting for us. A small fire roared in a firepit that hadn't been there the last time I'd checked.

"We have to rest at some point, or so I've been told by every other member of our court. And if I have to take a break, I'd much prefer to take it with you."

I smiled, none of the tiredness leaving me but most of the tension draining away. I crossed the short distance between me and my mate, wrapping my arms around him tightly and breathing in his scent. I could hear his heart beating in his chest, the soft thud mixing with the crackling fire, and for just a moment everything was right with the world.

"How did I get so lucky as to find you?" I asked, a soft smile on my face as I at last pulled back to look at Rhys. The corner of his mouth quirked up, and he leaned in until his lips were just a breath away from mine.

"I wonder the same thing, how we could be so lucky to find each other, almost every day that I walk this world," he murmured. My heart swelled, and a heartbeat later Rhys closed the distance between us. I lost myself in his embrace and his soft, tender kiss.

We stayed locked together for a few long moments, then finally, reluctantly, I pulled back. Rhys watched me like a hawk, but I just gave him a little smile.

"We'll have time for that after wine and stargazing," I promised. He sighed, playing it up a little, even as he leaned back.

"I suppose it would be a shame to let it all go to waste."

I winked and gave him one last peck on the cheek, then led him over to the pile of blankets. The two of us made ourselves comfortable, snuggling into the warmth together and staring up at the crystal clear night sky. I sighed, the light from the stars shining out through the darkness above.

"This is beautiful," I murmured. Rhys handed me a glass, which I took, my eyes never leaving the night sky above.

"It really is. It helps, to look at this. To look at Velaris. And you. To... remember what we're fighting for."

"Yeah. Yeah, it does."

I finally tore my eyes away from the starlight overhead to look at my mate, meeting his sparkling eyes. I would go to the absolute ends of the world for him, and I knew he would do the same for me. The road ahead would be hard, against Hybern and the other courts, but how could anything hope to stand against us? Especially when we had the rest of our friends behind us, too.

"To the stars who listen," he said, lifting his glass to mine with a half-smile. I returned the gesture, the soft clink of the glasses ringing out in the night.

"And the dreams that are answered."

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

[happy74827]

Burning Bridges

[Dexter Morgan x Female!Reader]

Synopsis: Upon an incident that was out of your control, Dexter comes to the realization that it wasn't just a coincidence.

WC: 1951

Category: Slight Angst, Hurt/Comfort

I forgot how much I missed this show (him), so I decided to write another. It's been so long since I last wrote for him that I actually see the difference in my writing. It's wack.

『••✎••』

Dexter was many things… a brother, a son, a pro bowler, a serial killer… but what he lacked was being a good friend.

He didn't understand friendship or its value. It was something that he simply couldn't grasp. Sure, he was able to fake it well enough in order to make sure that people liked him and didn't find him too creepy or strange, but there was never any real emotional connection. In his mind, everyone was either someone he needed or someone he didn't need, and he would treat them accordingly. The only exceptions to this rule were his sister, Debra, and you.

The two of you had met back in college, having been assigned to be each other's partners for a group project. It was a poetry class and a course that Dexter hadn't really wanted to take, but a general education requirement and the promise of an easy A convinced him to at least show-up and suffer through it. Well, for a guy who had to fake every single aspect of his personality in order to fit in with society, it turned out that poetry didn’t come quite as easily as he thought it would.

He had always found the art form to be rather silly, with all the emphasis on metaphors and flowery language. There was no purpose or goal other than to be creative and artsy, and it bored him to no end. The first time you had sat down with him to discuss the project, you could tell how much he didn't want to be there, and the look of complete disinterest on his face as he tried to figure out what your poem meant was the most hilarious thing that you had seen in a while. You couldn't help but laugh, the sound of which made him sit up and give you a quizzical look.

"What?" He asked, tilting his head slightly, confused.

"Nothing," you replied, still giggling. "It's just that I can tell that you don't like poetry."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because you haven't said a word; you're just sitting there, staring off into space and twirling your pencil between your fingers," you told him, and he glanced down at the utensil as if he didn't realize that he was doing that.

"Oh. Sorry, I guess," he apologized, his tone making it clear that he was actually a little annoyed at having been called out on his inattentiveness.

"That's okay. I like poetry, so I'll be happy to do most of the work," you offered, smiling sweetly, and his eyebrows raised.

And that you did. In fact, you loved it so much that you majored in English and planned on getting your Masters, while Dexter got his degree in criminology. It was a nice trade-off because while he struggled in poetry, getting down into the debts of his feelings that were nonexistent, you struggled with chemistry, unable to wrap your head around the subject no matter how hard you tried.

So, the two of you had a mutually beneficial agreement. You did all the work for the poetry class, and in exchange, he tutored you in chemistry and made sure that you got a decent grade. Once the class was over and done with, the two of you stayed friends, though you had very little in common. Dexter had no interest in books, and you had no interest in criminology. He was a loner, and you had plenty of friends. You were a romantic, and he was completely unromantic. He didn't even have a girlfriend, and you had been in three different relationships over the course of the two years that you had known him.

Still, the two of you got along well enough. You were one of the only people that Dexter could actually stand for more than five minutes, and he was the same to you. So you went out to the bar sometimes, hung out with his sister, and did your best to keep him company while also doing your best to try to set him up on dates, hoping that one of these days, he'd actually find someone. It eventually did work out when you found him Rita, but as of right now, she had broken up with him, and he was back to being a lonely bachelor which it didn't bother him much until now.

You were in the hospital, your head wrapped and bandaged like a mummy. You were apparently attacked outside the grocery store, and if it wasn’t for the small instructions he had given you for self-defense, you most likely wouldn’t have survived.

At first, Dexter didn’t think of it as anything important in terms of his line of work. He believed it to be a coincidence, a random crime in the night. But it turned into something more the night he decided to visit with some cake.

“How’s the head?” He asked as he came inside, seeing you propped up reading. Of course, you were reading.

You shrugged. “Like I’m wearing a sweater hat, but it doesn't hurt, so there's that." You paused, setting down your book and glancing at him. "I’m still salty about my groceries. Almost two hundred dollars I spent on that stuff. Gone. Wasted. Poof."

Dexter had to chuckle a bit. "Hey, I can't do much about the food, but I brought you something," he said, revealing the white box.

"Is it chocolate? If it is, I love you," you joked.

"No, it's just vanilla. But, here."

He opened the lid and showed you, and you immediately lit up.

"Awww, Dexter! You are the best friend ever," you gushed, giving him a warm smile.

He smiled back. "It's the least I could do."

He was cutting it up for you when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. You didn’t seem to notice, but out in the hall, a shadow passed by the window. His body went on alert, eyes flickering towards the door. He couldn’t see much, but he could make out an elderly man with gray hair and a beard.

Dexter's face remained unchanged, though his body language betrayed him as he sat the cake knife down. He knew that look. That look in a man's eyes when he was looking at prey. This was a predator.

"Hey, uh, what was that description again? Of the man who attacked you," Dexter asked, his tone a bit distracted.

"You mean Santa Claus on drugs? That pretty much sums it up. Why?" You looked up, confused.

"I don't know. It's probably nothing."

But it was something. The man had apparently come back to finish the job, and Dexter's jaw clenched at the thought. He was already planning his death in his mind. It wouldn’t be pretty. He gave you a piece of cake, swearing that he’d be back soon before going after the man. He stopped at the lobby momentarily, informing Angel to keep an eye on you, which, of course, the cop complied with.

Angel was a good cop. He was loyal, smart, and a damn good shot. But there was one thing that made him a great cop. He cared about his city and the people in it. He would protect the innocent no matter the cost, especially when it came down to those he was closest to. He was the kind of guy who would risk his life without a second thought if it meant saving others.

This is why Dexter liked Angel and why he was the only one that he trusted with this job.

Finding the man was extremely easy on his part. Dexter already knew what the guy’s plan was, so he stuck around outside the parking lot, watching the shadows. After a few minutes, the man appeared, heading towards the entrance once again.

He never got that far.

A hand was clamped over his mouth while the other dragged him away from the double doors and towards the side of the building. Dexter didn’t pull out his knife, though, only resorting to his arms as he applied pressure against his throat. The man fought, trying to break free, but he didn't get the chance. Dexter didn’t kill him, no, not yet, but his arm was still strong, and he had no plans to let go.

“Listen closely. If you so much as look the wrong way, I will rip your heart out and shove it down your throat. Understand? Nod if you do," he threatened, his voice calm and even. The man nodded, terrified, his eyes wide.

"Good," Dexter replied, “Why are you here?"

The man was quiet, but he was breathing heavily, and his eyes were watering.

"Talk. That girl, why are you after her?"

"I’m not—”

"You attacked her, and now you came back to finish the job, did you not? Who sent you?"

The man was sweating; his face was flushed and red. Dexter was pressing too hard, and his victim was starting to lose air. He didn’t care.

"Who?" He repeated.

The man choked, unable to speak.

"Last chance. Who sent you? And don't lie to me."

The man didn’t answer, and Dexter tightened his hold. That finally did it. The man began to squirm violently, trying to break free, but it was too late. His face started to turn purple, and Dexter had to adjust his grip and pull him closer.

“It wasn’t personal! I had to! I didn't have a choice! It was just a job!" He gasped out, struggling for air. “I got paid to do it. I was just doing what I was told! Please, please, don't kill me."

"Who was it?"

"I—I don’t know. It was some lady. I met her at a bar. She didn’t give her name, but he wasn’t American. She gave me ten thousand dollars and told me that the job was to attack this chick in the parking lot and make it look like an attempted robbery. Said it had to be done in a couple of days. Listen, man, I didn't want to do it. But the money—"

"What did she look like?" Dexter cut in.

"Dark hair. Young. I don't know! I don't know, I swear. She wore sunglasses the whole time. Please, don’t kill me. Please."

Suddenly, it hit him like a ton of bricks. The Dark Passenger was roaring, the realization washing over him like cold water.

Lila.

Everything made sense now. The way she had suddenly showed up out of nowhere, the incident outside the bowling alley, her sudden interest in you. It all made sense. She was behind it. She had done it.

Dexter wanted to snap the man's neck. He wanted to rip his throat out. He wanted to take his knife and stab him over and over again, to punish him for what he had done to you, but he refrained. He had the answers he needed, and the cameras around were still running.

He dropped him and watched him collapse, gasping for air. He didn't move, too scared and in shock to do so. Dexter didn’t say a word; his anger was silent, but it was boiling beneath his skin.

He was going to kill her. He was going to hunt her down and end her, and there was no place on Earth where she could hide.

“You ever, and I mean ever, come near her again; I will tear out your spine and make you choke on it. Understand?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I understand."

Dexter didn’t say anything else; he simply walked off, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He had a lot to think about.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

undefined

Les aspirations les plus absurdes et les plus téméraires ont parfois conduit à des succès extraordinaires.

- Vauvenargues

St. Moritz has been a famous health resort in Engadine since the 19th century. At first, it was only frequented by spa guests, before the village developed into a high alpine sports centre, and for a time it was a playground for the rich and famous. There’s still some of that element present but not as in its hey day of the 70s. For nine months of the year it’s just another picturesque village in the gorgeous Swiss Alps, with Lake St. Moritz lying at its heart.

Crucially it is quietly forgotten by the outside world. Residents can breathe and go about their daily chilled out lives. For those precious nine months it was great to hike and ski there as my boarding school wasn’t too far away from getting there. But the other four months of the year, the high season, it gets flood with skiers and altogether more showy crowd.

The frozen surface of the lake, which can only be described as a desert of snow, now serves as a symbol of the resort itself. From nine months of natural bliss to four months of chaos and madness. Every time the ice lends its surface to polo tournaments, horse races, and the wealthy and beautiful make the pilgrimage down the mountains from their grand hotels, St. Moritz seems to transform. St. Moritz’s newest ‘gimmick’ for the past three years or so has been to serve the International Concours of Elegance St. Moritz - or The ICE St. Moritz - as a kind of classic car museum with an adventurous character.

Since the first ever The ICE St. Moritz in 2019, historic rally cars have been exhibited to the sports car-crazy public on the opening day, before demonstrating their horsepower on the ice racetrack on the second day of the event. However, the fact that The ICE is taking place on Lake St. Moritz, of all places, is no coincidence. In 1985, a group of Scottish and British sportsmen drove their vintage Bentleys to St. Moritz to celebrate the centenary of the Cresta Run (an eccentric and high spirited toboggan amateur race). As part of the festivities, they drove their cars on the racecourse across the frozen Lake St. Moritz.

This year, however, the ICE St. Moritz evolved slightly differently. For the first time, the event was held on two days: Friday 24 and Saturday 25 February. On the first day, the lake was transformed into an open-air museum, where the jury evaluated the cars on display from an aesthetic perspective. Then, on the second day, the actual race took place, whereupon the jury evaluated the classic cars from a performance perspective.

This year there were five category winners. In the ‘Open Wheels’ category, the 1958 Maserati 420M/58 “Eldorado” held its own. Meanwhile, the ‘Barchettas on the Lake’ category crowned the Ferrari 500 Mondial Series II from 1955 as the winner. My personal favourite, the aforementioned Ferrari 250 Testarossa ‘Lucybelle’ emerged as the winner in the ‘Le Mans 100’ category. As expected, Lancia Strato’s HF Zero of 1970 came out on top in the ‘Concept Cars & One Offs’ category. Last but not least, judges crowned the 1958 Bentley S1 Continental Drophead Coupé as the winner of the ‘Queens on Wheels’ category.

The evening gala took place at Badrutts Palace, which towers over the city like a castle with its high stone walls. In the stimulating semi-darkness and under shimmering candlelight, riders, collectors, enthusiasts, the public and media from all over the world celebrated the conclusion of one of the most anticipated competitions in the Engadine. Overall it’s spectacular fun and contrary to what one might believe it really does draw the car enthusiast crowd rather than the snob mob. It’s a very chilled event and bags of fun.

[thebibliosphere]

Hey, friendly question that you don't even need to answer if you don't have the spoons:

I have APD (Auditory Processing Disorder for those who are unaware, though I assume if someone follows you, they know what that is lol), and I've been considering over the last few years how exactly to quantify it. It is in large part due to my neurodivergencies, but I think it's slightly worsened by the fact that my ears just... make a lot of wax. For these reasons, I often need subtitles, I can become totally lost in certain conversations, when there's a lot of noise, or when I'm speaking to someone who puts different emphasis on words than I expect, or uses a word I am not expecting altogether. Not being able to see someone's lips also makes all of this more difficult.

I also know, from what I've heard and read, that a lot of these things are similar to some of what HoH people experience in the social aspect. I'm not HoH, as far as I know, I haven't experienced any true *hearing* loss, rather, difficulty processing.

My question is, is there a way that I, as a person with APD, can converse with and relate to HoH people from our similarities without making them feel invalidated because I do not experience difficulty with *hearing*? I'm also not sure how HoH and d/Deaf people feel about people with APD requesting similar accessibility aids (closed/open caption, headphones, etc.), especially in cases where there are limited aids available, or how they feel re: APD-ers in general. I don't wish to make it seem as though I expect you to speak for *all* HoH and d/Deaf people, but I am interested in your perspective, as someone who is HoH and has APD. Do you see there being a day when HoH, d/Deaf, and APD will be considered part of the same category, or would it be insulting to the former two categories to have the latter one included in the same breath? Is there ableism that comes from those with APD aimed at HoH and d/Deaf people that we should call ourselves in on (and have I maybe hit some of those even in my attempt to word this well)?

Regardless, thank you for your time, and I hope you're having a good night. Day. Whatever time it is for you 😅

So there's a lot to here that I don't really have the experience to unpack (hopefully, someone else does), but I find it interesting that you are very focused on not wanting to step on anyone's toes in the hoh / d/Deaf community when it comes to needing accommodations for your ADP.

And while I can't speak for the broader community in terms of whether they feel like ADP belongs under the same banner or instances of lateral ableism... I just want to point out that if you benefit from accessibility features like closed captions, headphones, and being able to lip-read... you're not taking resources away from someone who needs them more because YOU need them.

ADP is not well understood, and while the debate rages on over whether it's a learning disability (some places say no, some say yes. Typically, the same places that debate whether ADHD is a learning disability, which for some of us, it absolutely is.) but this stems largely from thinking of disabilities as absolutes and not spectrums that are largely influenced by individual severity.

I've had ADP my whole life, and it is absolutely worse for me than my actual physical hearing loss. Should I not use CC or listening aid devices to help just because my physical hearing loss is not profound?

Some people develop ADP after severe ear infections, head trauma, or conditions like MS. Do they not deserve accommodations just because their inability to process sound differs from someone else who is hoh or d/Deaf?

Of course not. That'd be ableist.

I think, perhaps, you need to be kinder to yourself over this and acknowledge that it's okay for you to use these accessibility aids.

You don't need to suffer more. I promise you.

[spectrumgarden]

how do you know if you have medium support needs?

Gonna go on a bit of a long winded support needs rant here.

Frankly theres no hard lines between the terms low medium and high support needs. Medium support needs specifically is a community term, meaning it was made by autistic people instead of medical professionals. There are also many people who consider themselves right between two categories, so they'll say they are low-medium or medium-high, which honestly turns it into more of a 5 options system than 3 if you're being pedantic. And then theres also the option of describing the category further, for example like saying you are on the high end of low support needs, or the low end of medium support needs.

( slight tangent: depending on where you live there might be actual legal categories with strict definitions, based on how much support someone needs, seperate from the specific terms of LSN MSN and HSN. In germany where I live there are Pflegegrade, translating to "care degree", which has 5 levels. I am right under the point cut off for level 3, so I'm a high level 2, described as "substantial limitation of indepence and skill". (Which I think also fits well with me considering myself on the low end of MSN.) This care level translates to funding for my care by my insurance and (alongside my disability ID score and markers) is often used in services for disabled people to "prove" that I need them to begin with before the question of funding even comes up. )

When it comes to assessing these support needs, whether legally defined or community coined, you can not really get around ADLs, activities of daily living. There are bADLs and iADLs, and most lists online will be fairly similar in what they include. ADLs are used in assessing disabled peoples need for care no matter their type of disability. It's what was used for my grandmother with alzheimers the same way it's used for me or my neighbor with mobility issues.

Since there are no strict "you need to hit exactly these many of the bADLs and these many of the iADLs that you need help with in this way" rules to qualify for, anything past this point will be my subjective opinion that I formed after looking at tons of peoples self reported and caregiver reported support needs label and what they need help with, and in what capacity. Others might define this (slightly) differently.

Support basically starts at reminders and ends in someone else completely doing it for you (sometimes done as hand over hand to hopefully build motor memory so you might be able to start doing them a bit more independently in the future). Theres also the detail of "how do you define needing care" and in general disability circles, not necessarily autism specific circles, I've often seen the phrase "can you do it reliably and safely" to assess if you need help with something. So if you can only get yourself to shower once a month for example even with reminders, that would still count as requiring care of some level for it to be done reliably. Or if you can use an oven to heat up / make food but you sometimes get burns that go beyond regular "clumsiness" that also means you probably need additional support to use it safely.

From what I've seen in the community over the last few years I honestly consider bADLs to be a large deciding factor for your support needs. If I did not need help with bADLs beyond reminders I could for example probably get away with only having a few hours of support a week for things like assisted grocery shopping or driving me to a doctor's appointment or helping me write an email or make a phone call or helping me deep clean the bathroom or kitchen, while spending my day to day completely by myself. I would still have to accommodate myself the rest of the time, such as mostly relying on instant and generally low effort food, my apartment would probably never be super tidy (but also like. Majority of peoples apartments get messy on the regular, I should know from my friends that are all 100% abled), and relying on a schedule, for example an app or physical list on the wall, for bathing, dressing and grooming.

But because I need prompting for my bADLs to be done reliably in any way or form I suddenly need a lot more care, so this small detail made it go from 1-2 days a week to daily.

with bADLs (and similarly iADLs but that's not the focus right now) it starts with people who need no help with them, then people directly below me who need reminders for (some) of them, people like me who need prompting and on bad days hands on help with some. And over that are people who need prompting for most if not all of them, and ending in people who need hands on help for all of them. And if you crammed that entire experience all into high support needs and left low to medium support needs open for people who only need help with iADLs it would be way too much for the HSN category alone I think. But if you extended it into low support needs it would also make low support needs basically useless as a term. Which to me means it makes the most sense to consider needing some help with bADLs beyond reminders the thing that sort of starts the category of medium support needs applying. Because frankly speaking reminders dont take up a lot of time, often can be done virtually or without the need for another person via reminders and checklists etc. Which is a stark contrast to someone who needs to be walked through a task from beginning to end by someone by their side at all times. So you can need help with most/all of your iADLs, which means you still need a relatively high amount of care if you look at it from an abled perspective ( i.e. someone to control your finances for you, and organize your transportation, and help you keep your environment clean, ...) and maybe rely on a phone app that reminds you to brush your teeth and shower, and still be low support needs, because you're putting it in the perspective of the large variety that is disabled experiences.

Lastly I do think the ADLs are not perfect, for example at least older definitions usually do not include things like if you can engage in fun activities by yourself such as watching media or reading or drawing, whatever you enjoy, or how effectively you can communicate in daily life even though that is in itself important to your quality of life and will affect how much time needs to be spend on your care. However they are the best we have currently and make a lot of sense.

[bubbloquacious]

Do you have any recommendations for texts for a first reading of category theory? :))

So this is a super common question and I think it's a little hard to give a good answer to! I'll tell you what I did.

Back in the summer of the beautiful year 2019 I had just finished my first year of university mathematics education. I don't remember where I had even heard of the subject, but the first math book I ever self-studied out of was Mac Lane's Categories for the Working Mathematician (the second edition, specifically). It's a good book, I think! But I only really appreciated it on my reread (i.e. my more-than-the-first-three-chapters read) last year. For one, I had not done a lick of topology by this point, and I really do recommend knowing basic topology and basic abstract algebra before getting into categories; it gives you a nice two-pronged approach to view every construction.

So I washed out of that one pretty quickly. I learned the basic definitions of categories, functors, and natural transformations. I could work out what it meant for a product to be the limit of a discrete diagram (super neat when you just learned what a group was five months ago!), but if you asked me to give an example of a pair of adjoint functors that wasn't in the text I would've been stumped (natural transformations between hom-functors? what?).

Over the course of the next semester I got familiar with the basics of topology (and I made this blog!). Now I could see why a lot of Mac Lane's examples were so nice. Compositions of homotopic maps are homotopic, so you can take a quotient category the same way you take a quotient group. The fundamental group is so useful exactly because it is functorial. A map into a product space is continuous precisely when its composition with the projections is continuous. And so on. I sampled some more books. I read the first few chapters of Awodey's Category Theory and of Adámek, Herrlich, and Strecker's Abstract and Concrete Categories. Each offers a slightly different perspective, but every time I would wash out after the first several chapters.

But it was exactly rereading all of these different perspectives that made me grok what it was all about. How to work with these structures. I had limits and colimits pretty much down by this point. Ah, it's not a coincidence that the least upper bound and greatest lower bound are categorical limits, they're expressing the same idea. I realized on my own that not only is the discrete space functor to topological spaces left adjoint to the forgetful functor to sets, the indiscrete (or chaotic, or trivial) space functor is right adjoint. The abelianization of a group or the completion of a metric space are left adjoint to the inclusion functors of abelian groups and complete metric spaces, because a map from a group/metric space into an abelian group/complete metric space determines a unique map (in fact it factors through this map) out of the abelianization/completion. Even though the abelianization makes the group smaller, and the completion makes the space bigger, they're expressing the same relationship.

This went on for a while. I read Bartosz Milewski's blog on Category Theory for Programmers, but I didn't know Haskell so that didn't get me very far. I read a lot of nLab pages (I still do). I read a small bit of Borceux's Handbook of Categorical Algebra, which is very nicely written if you can get your hands on it. I spent a summer in a reading group for Tai-Danae Bradley's Topology: A Categorical Approach (this one's probably a good pick for you in particular!). Like two years ago I played the Natural Number Game (which they changed recently apparently!), which got me really into Lean and proof assistants in general. Playing around with Lean gave me a great appreciation for what category theory brings to the table for logic and computational mathematics. Reading Dan Marsden's blog on monads got me really into monad theory, which is just super cool and I love it very much. I had a brief fling with bicategories, mostly because of the monads. Around this time I made a bunch of explanatory posts on the things I was learning about, and that was just terrifically helpful for my understanding. I read Mac Lane and Eilenberg's original paper introducing categories, General Theory of Natural Equivalences, and it's fascinating to see the perspective that it takes. Last year I got really into sheaf theory by reading Mac Lane and Moerdijk's Sheaves in Geometry and Logic, which finally made me understand the Yoneda Lemma.

These last few examples are what I would call pretty intermediate, as far as categories go. Somehow by reading all these different sources (and progressing in my studies in other mathematical subjects!) I had gathered up enough experience to understand the higher-level structures built on top of the basics. I still don't understand Kan extensions (though I tried reading Riehl's Category Theory in Context to understand it) or fibrations, or model categories, or co/end calculus, but I'm sure I will once the need arises.

So that's my advice! Read as many different introductions to the subject as you can, in as many different contexts as you have the experience for! The power and beauty of category lies in the bridging over the gaps between these contexts. Any of the books I mentioned I would recommend, but really the most important rule of category theory is to have fun and be yourself :-)

[carmesi-butterfly]

from me to you

vampire yang jungwon + human female reader. word count 2,3k. vampire au/fantasy au. warnings hurt/comfort, abandonment. &team's appearance. not proofread.

«From me to you. A letter for Yang Jungwon.

I miss you, Won. I don't know where you are, I don't know why you left me, and I don't know if I honestly want to hold that knowledge in my soul until my ends arrive.

Because unlike you, I'm just a mortal spirit. I desire to spend the rest of my life with you but I understand that you don't yearn for the same as me, and even if it hurts my heart, I accept it, by cause of my respect for you and your freedom, since I had the chance to meet you I noticed how you are an untied person and that's what attracted me of you, and that's why I always knew how this would end, I tried to ignore it but… such a free nature being tied to someone? The end was evident.

I'm sorry, at this point I'm just rambling about everything I can, I have sent so many letters this year and no one got a response which makes me feel a bit unmotivated, because of that I chose to start using a diary and set all my thoughts in there! I don't want to wait anymore for an answer that will never come, for a lover that will never come. A diary is for me, I feel it can help me to heal and cure my inner self.

It's my time to go, this will be my last letter meaning that is a definitive farewell for me, forgetting is not an option and even if it was I would never choose it, because ¿why would I forget you? The only man I loved, you opened my eyes to a new world full of beautiful things and a different perspective, and I will always be grateful for that. I love you Jungwon, goodbye.»

The body of a man lay on the ground of a big lounge, surrounded by an immense amount of envelopes and letters, all opened, his friends standing near him encircling the space.

"She sent fifty-five letters, those are at least one letter a week" announced Jake, impressed by the situation.

"I feel bad… maybe we shouldn't have left" followed Sunoo with a hand on his chest, slightly caressing it.

"Maybe? She was heartbroken, and this letter was from a month ago so who knows how she is now" answered Sunghoon trying to be honest, but slightly being a bit rude at the end.

All the voices resounded in Yang's ears but he didn't seem to notice.

"Guys, this is not helpful for any of us" The conversation was interrupted by Heeseung, who seemed worried about his friend's state and how the others managed the situation.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think I could cause more problems than planned" apologized the leader of the pack of wolves.

"Don't apologize, K" a soft voice echoed over the rest, comforting his friend who seemed a bit conflicted. Jungwon left the cloud forming on his mind, bringing his feet back on the earth. "It was my fault, I managed the situation poorly" his hand reached his head, messing his hair with frustration that tried to hide behind a tiny smile.

"I think it's our time to leave," offered the second oldest of the opposite group, holding his comrade's shoulder.

"Are you okay with that, Jungwon?" kei asked.

The relationship between both groups was clearly out of the ordinary, vampires and werewolves forming an alliance, it could even be considered against nature, two categories who faced each other since the start of their lineage collaborating in search of a common good: peace, not only for vampires and werewolves but for the humans too, because ignoring the amount of suffering humans caused to their people, there were a few ones with a golden heart willing to help any creature just in behalf of the mere wish of assist the fellows, precisely like you.

"Yes" affirmed, accompanied by a nod, "I think it's time to rest, especially for all of you," said referring to the predators, "we don't need sleep hours, but you do. Especially after this long trip, the best is to go rest right away"

They assented, and the head of the wolves talked again. "We owe you a favor, search for us when you need it"

By the time all the werewolves crossed the entrance their presence became undetectable, fusing with the big trees that make up the forest and blending into the darkness. With that, the vampires dispersed in the house choosing to mind their own business, leaving their friend alone to have his time for himself.

"Are you going to be okay, Jungwon?" Jay asked, preoccupied with his confidant.

"Yes, don't worry, I have to fix the mess I created" sighed, his tone became serious showing his friend everything he needed to know: determination.

Between vampires and other magical species that knew him, Jungwon had a reputation of the solve problems in his group, one that tends to be a magnet for problems as pure vampires with a high range tend to get into problems easier than other vampires with a lower status, adding to the mix the uncommon union with a few werewolves, it gives the perfect recipe of a disaster. Because of this, a case where Jungwon committed a mistake was unusual, and now in a position where he had to resolve his own problems the logic that characterizes him is pushed into the background and his heart takes the lead.

«Since I had the chance to meet you I noticed how you are an untied person and that's what attracted me of you, and that's why I always knew how this would end, I tried to ignore it but… such a free nature being tied to someone? The end was evident.» The words materialize in his mind, recalling the letter he read just a few minutes ago. "She thought I abandoned her," thought, feeling his heart break like a crystal shattering on his chest.

He has to search for you, no matter the late hours or the poor lighting because of the recent night arrival, he had a mission before and achieved it sacrificing your union in the process, his mission now was to rectify his mistake, even if that doesn't bring you back to his arms like you were before, knowing that you're aware of the events that lead him to fade away and giving the most sincere apology was enough for his soul.

As if someone dropped a spell over him his body began moving by itself, heading to a small cabin near a lake that was pretty well-known to him. It was your house, probably one of the places where he keeps most happy memories, and where a lot of new emotions blossomed on his inside.

Since the start of his long-lived life, Jungwon had the opportunity to experience what love is, the love for his brothers, for his life, for his home, for his hobbies, and the nature around him amongst a lot of other things, but the feelings unfolding in his chest caused by you were a new experience, a ton of butterflies hovering on his stomach directing to his heart, a heart that hasn't beat in a long time but now felt warm and alive.

His journey ended with your portico in front of him, a lamppost lit up the entrance that was decorated with bindweed hanging over the top of it, flower pots beside the door; red carnations, crimson roses, and few aloes. Like a final touch, baby's breath surrounded the area. All of those plants were new, there was no way you could keep a plant alive, because as you said to him once: «I always forget to water my flowers! This is the third time I have killed a cactus, why do I have to be so reckless?».

Without noticing, tears started to fall from his eyes, on a familiar place that felt distant, with flora that didn't have to be there and memories from a faraway moment that now felt overwhelming, the young Jungwon got off the deep end, crying intensely while all sorts of emotions impact him, the remorse and fear, he should have told you, even if it was an emergency, how long would it have taken to inform you about the recent urgency? He just needed to tell you, but he didn't, and now he probably lost you forever, and that's such a long time for a vampire. Despite his recent thoughts about not needing your love again and only wanting to deliver his apologies in search of your wellness, his body quivered just thinking about it, the suffocating feeling of knowing that he could lose the person who showed him what is love, was eating what he had left of a soul.

But the situation had to be confronted, he was the one who chose to appear, if he had to talk to you with his face full of tears, reddish eyes, and his nose dripping then he would.

Three knocks on the door were enough to wake you up, and distrust invaded you while thinking "Who is knocking on my door at this time?" it was suspicious not to say the least, at first you decided to not open it, perhaps whoever was knocking your door in the middle of the night would choose to just go and come back in the morning, but when the second banging started it worried you, what if someone is in danger? There were sightings of wolves near your area, it could be someone at risk of being attacked and searching for help in the desolate house close to the forest. As a precaution you approached the front door with a sword in hand, maybe it was a bit exaggerated for the situation, but the elegant weapon had sentimental value being a gift from an old lover who yearned for your safety.

"Who's there?" you asked, raising your voice as a try to make your voice clearer for the person on the other side.

"I-I am Jungwon…" mumbled, his weak voice exposing the crying session he had just a few minutes before.

The answer petrified you, it was him, it was his voice, after a year of waiting patiently, after months of feeling heartbroken, and after a few weeks of giving up on ever seeing your significant other again, it happened, Jungwon came back. Without a doubt, you opened the door desperately searching for your once-lover, dropping the sword in the process.

When the entrance opened, both maintained an ecstatic stand, you wanted to jump into his arms, searching for the warmth and comfort only Yang can give you.

Taking the initiative the boy said "Hi, y/n…" while collecting the courage needed for the words he was planning to say. "I know that maybe it's not the best moment to come and that it's egoistic on my own to show up like this… but I couldn't wait anymore, not after all this time".

The words unfolded through your ears like soft petals falling out of a tree, it was enough for your tears to start sliding over your cheeks until they reached the end of your jaw, and a gasp came out of your mouth "Did you receive my letters?".

"I wasn't here to read them, but I've received all of them. I never knew you could write so good" A tiny smile showed up on his face, emphasizing his soft cheeks and shrinking his sharp eyes.

"I thought I was never going to see you again" cried with a weak voice, "Where were you?... Why did you disappear just like that?" the efforts of the boy in attempting to make a more agreeable space for the conversation worked, in spite of your questions each one more intense than the other one, your body language demonstrated comfort, especially for the way your eyes searched his and your distance reduced discreetly with a few steps made by you.

"I can explain everything, that doesn't mean you have to forgive me" Delicately his hands cupped your face, brushing your cheeks softly.

"Why wouldn't I forgive you?" you asked, a smile showing up on your face while your hands took his and caressed them, also maintaining the embrace on your cheeks.

The question confused Jungwon, who didn't manage to formulate a question before you talked again.

"Even if you truly leave, I forgive you, because that's what you decided although my heart may not take it well," said with a giggle "I already forgave you, there's no bone in my whole body that can be mad at you" the happiness you tried to demonstrate was overshadowed by crystalline years balling through your eyes. "I love you Won, and love hurts sometimes, I'm willing to experience that pain for you" Your testimony shocked the vampire, who felt touched by your words.

"I don't desire to hurt you, not anymore" And with that, helping himself with the grab he had on your face, Jungwon placed a kiss on your lips, after a long time of missing this kind of connection. A few seconds passed and the kiss got intense, the result of more than a year of dreaming with any dose of contact now unleashing, but sadly, you need to breathe. When the kiss broke, with irregular breathing spoke "Maybe we should talk inside… so I can explain everything, and you can talk to me about your new hobbies" referring to the new plants that formed part of the environment, "I'm interested in reading your diary entries if you let me"

All the pages you had the opportunity to fill talked about him, from top to bottom without wasting any minimal space, and because of that the petition made you feel a bit embarrassed, but you agreed intending to show more from you to him.

[bun-lapin]

Hello I am not the same person who asked for the game night with the freshmen. But I really injoied it. Can u make a part 2./ gen pos

Hello and thanks for the request! I'm so glad you liked the first one! I loved writing the 'hanging out with your buddies' mood of this prompt. Really brought back a lot of fun memories from my high school days~! Hope it's ok that they're playing a different game this time and that I tweaked the rules a bit to fit the story better. I also tried out a slightly different formatting due to the extra dialogue <3

Game night part 1: link here

CW: humor, platonic friendship, silly time

First Years Game Night: part 2

Walking into the lounge with a broom and dustpan in hand, you take in the chaotic scene of spilled popcorn on the floor, countless empty cans of juice scattered around the room, and your fellow first years excitedly shouting and running all over the place. You stride over to where Grim is lounging on a cushioned chair and hand him the cleaning tools with a stern look. He reluctantly takes the broom from you and sighs, “Yeah, yeah I got it. My mess, my job to clean it up.” He halfheartedly begins cleaning and you turn to face the rest of the group as Ace begins speaking.

“Alright everyone!” Ace shouts and everyone settles down. “Time for our next game which is: Who am I?” He holds up a small box of folded paper scraps and shakes it. “I just finished writing the names and the overall category is important people on campus. So basically housewardens, vice housewardens, staff, you get the picture. The teams have been reshuffled and you’ll have one minute to ask as many ‘yes or no’ questions as you can to your partner to figure out who you are. Everyone understand?” He grins as everyone nods their head. “Sweet! Let’s get this game started then!”

Round 1: Ace ❤��� and Deuce ♠️

Ace stands with his back to the group as Deuce fishes out a random name from the box. He sticks the paper to Ace’s back with some tape and then walks over to stand facing him. The rest of the first years stand behind Ace and read the name on his back. Epel tries not to burst out laughing when he sees the name ‘Vil Schoenheit’.

Ace: Am I a housewarden? Deuce: Yes. Ace: Sweet! That narrows it down to like seven people! Ace: Am I rich? Deuce: What!? How would I even know something like that?! Jack: The rules state you can only answer yes or no! Deuce: (He thinks really hard as many seconds go by) ...Yes? Ace: Do I put a lot of care into my appearance? Deuce: Yeah! Ace: Am I a hard worker? Deuce: Yes. (You hear Epel sigh very tiredly next to you.)

Ace suddenly yells out, “I got it! I’m Azul Ashengrotto!” The timer rings out.

As Ace checks the paper on his back, everyone sits in stunned silence thinking about how Vil and Azul share a surprising amount of characteristics.

Round 2: Jack 🐺 and Sebek 🐊

Jack tapes his selected name to Sebek’s back and then swiftly takes his place facing his teammate. Everyone else leans in to read the paper and then immediately hold their sides with silent laughter as they see the name ‘Malleus Draconia’ taped to Sebek’s back.

As soon as the timer is started, Sebek begins shouting a stream of questions without leaving a single pause for Jack to answer back.

Covering his ears with his hands, a pained grimace on his face, Jack yells back, “Stop! Stop! My hearing is way more sensitive than anyone else here! Plus, you’re going too fast for me to even answer!”

Sebek begins yelling in a slightly reduced volume about how speed is of the essence and the last team lost because they ran out of time. The timer continues to tick away and Jacks yells over Sebek’s voice, “Our time’s almost out! Ask something!”

Sebek shouts, “Alright! Fine! Am I Lord Mal-” The timer’s ringing cuts him off.

The rest of the room dies laughing while Jack and Sebek start arguing and throwing couch cushions at each other.

Round 3: Epel 🍎 and Grim 🐱

Epel tapes the name to Grim’s ribbon (because the tape doesn’t stick very well to his fur) and then stands facing him. The rest of the group raise their eyebrows in mild surprise as everyone reads the name ‘Dire Crowley’ on the paper. Making sure Grim can’t hear, Ace starts a bet about whether or not he’ll be able to guess in time. You’re the only one to wager in favor of Grim.

Grim: Am I a member of the staff? Epel: Yes! Grim: Am I well dressed? Epel: Uhh... (He looks towards you and, making sure no one is looking, you slightly nod at Epel) Yes? Grim: Am I good at my job? Epel: (He looks at you again but this time the rest of the group are watching you like hawks) ...Yes?

Grim laughs and jokes, “Well if I’m good at my job, there’s no way I’m Crowley, right?” Grim sees the expression on Epel’s face and shouts, “Wait! Epel! Am I Crowley!?”

The timer rings and you collect your winnings from the bet as Grim yells at Epel that his opinion of the headmaster is too high.

Round 4: Ortho 🤖 and You 🦐

As you stand with your back to your friends, you hear Ortho grab a piece of paper from the box and then you feel him tape it on your back. You raise an eyebrow in fierce curiosity as you hear everyone burst out laughing behind you.

You: Am I a member of the staff? Ortho: No. You: Am I a vice housewarden? Ortho: No.

You silently celebrate because with those two questions, you realize you must be a housewarden. There are only five people you could be because Vil and Malleus have already been selected.

You quickly go through the list of remaining housewardens, leaving enough of a pause for Ortho to respond, and ask if you’re each one. Ortho responds ‘No’ to each question.

You pause with intense confusion, trying to remember if you’ve left a name off the list. While you’re thinking, the timer rings and you rip the paper off your back to read the answer.

Everyone else in the room falls to the floor with laughter as you read the piece of paper with your name on it. You smile and laugh along with your friends, feeling just how important you are to this close knit group of first years.

[glittering-moonlillie]

Your take on damian×affectionate!reader?

Warnings: Slightly Suggestive, mentions of Sex

As an affectionate person myself, I would love to say that Damian would fall head over heels for a person as affectionate as fuzzy moths to light. 

And, to an extent, I think he would want someone like this. 

However, we first need to distinguish the different types of affection there are in a relationship, since the term does not just adhere to the physical displays of love (kissing, cuddling, holding hands, etc) 

There are five types of affection that one can display (six if you count sexual intimacy as its own category): Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gift Giving, Quality Time, and finally - physical touch. 

In this list, there are two categories that I feel like Damian would prefer over the rest: Quality time and Words of Affirmation

My reasoning for this? Well, the first one is almost self explanatory. With the partial vigilante life that Damian lives, the both of you are robbed from spending as much time as you would want together. Because of this reason, any time spent needs to be worthwhile for him or else he will get antsy. 

As unfortunate as it is to say, the both of you don’t know if the kiss he gives you will be the last, or if the movie you watch will be the last one you watch together. 

Quality time with Damian would include having long and meaningful conversations and cuddling on the couch whilst watching new movies/TV shows/anime. Due to Damian’s competitive nature, he would also enjoy going out to compete in Laser Tag, Paintball, and Escape Rooms. I also think he would really enjoy places like Color Me Mine where you two can paint together while still getting out of the house. 

The second type of affection, words of affirmation, is something Damian would also really enjoy although he would rather die than admit it aloud. 

Damian is a very goal oriented person who strives for perfection, often going above and beyond in order to prove his worth to those he respects. He also has the confidence in his abilities to shrug off most compliments given to him with a simple “I know.” 

However, as the love of his life, the sporadic compliments you give him will bear the weight of a thousand suns. One of the most important factors in this relationship is honesty and trust, so he will accept anything you say to him as fact, therefore making any compliment worth gold. 

And for the rougher patrol nights where Damian begins to berate himself for letting Bane (or any other Gotham villains) kill as many people as they did, or for generally not having as good of a night as usual, a few kind words of encouragement will help boost his confidence tremendously. 

Even the most confident of people might need some kind-hearted words of motivation to continue forward! 

As for other forms of affection, Damian will definitely not mind someone who was physically affectionate. He will gladly seize the opportunity to hold you in his arms and kiss you until the two of you couldn’t breathe. 

Sexual intimacy is similar enough to fall into this category as well. I feel like it will take a few more years of maturing (and for him to meet you) for Damian to appreciate the benefits of sex. 

It’s like he goes from “That sounds disgusting” to “Get on the bed, habibti, I want to make love to you.” 

I’m not going to touch on Acts of Service much because I believe that is Damian’s dominant way of showing affection/love. 

Damian also seems like the type to spoil his s/o ROTTEN, and he would prefer giving rather than receiving.

To sum it all up, Damian would prefer to be with someone who appreciates the small amount of time you share and someone who is (at least slightly) emotionally open enough to motivate and affirm him during his brief lapse in confidence; however, this does not mean he will not appreciate physical affection, and in fact will initiate it about half the time. 

Prompts list will come out tomorrow! Also, I really loved this ask! It had me thinking a lot about Damian's personality and made me feel like I was entering his psyche or something lmao

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Ugh it's taken me like a week to post this because reformatting PF posts on my phone is a bitch so I'm gonna throw this out here so that i don't put it off any longer; my Dune Part 2 review.

Basically, I feel like I'm living through a Category 5 LOTR event in real time. I was worried going into the second film that I was overhyped and that I should temper my expectations; speculative fiction adaptations 9 times out of 10 are usually dead on arrival and Dune Part 1 already defied the odds for being as good as it was for an almost 1-to-1 recreation.

I feel like after this I could confidently trust Denis Villeneuve with my life. The man's not really making a product. He clearly LOVES sci fi. Respect for the source material oozes out of every scene of Dune, and his little tweaks and changes are done with care and with a sense of critically engaging with the story that shows real thought.

Praying to the gods that once Denis finishes the trilogy he brings out a boxset DVDs with at least three behind the scenes DVDs MINIMUM. I need to see every single aspect of production on this leviathan of a project and then ritualistically watch all three movies back to back as I would with LOTR.

Spoilers under the cut

In terms of what I liked:

I've only read the first two books in full - Children and God Emperor are next on my list to finish this year - so I can't speak as an uber knowledgeable Dune nerd who knows the books back to front, but I'm very confident when I say that Denis's changes to the source material didn't take away from the experience of the story at all.

- Chani's probably the biggest change of all in the sequel and oh my god does it revitalise her character. I was quite shocked scrolling through tags to see book readers complain about how much the movie changed her and her arc. What are they mad about? That they gave Chani something to do other than sucking Paul's dick? In the book, literally everyone is 100% behind Paul uncritically accepting every single thing he does and Chani is just one of a swarm of characters that do that. I say this with much love because I like her book counterpart but I struggle to understand the people who claim to be so invested in book Paul and Chani's dynamic as opposed to the film's when book Chani's whole character is "Wife", until Dune Messiah when she gets the "Nagging Wife" upgrade. Denis's version effectively makes her co-protagonist with Paul and it was so exciting to see that play out on screen. She became the moral litmus test and the last vestige of uncorrupted ideals in the movie; Paul's descent into fascism and betrayal of the Fremen would not have hit nearly as hard if everyone went along with it like in the book.. I really felt for Chani having to watch everyone she knows get swept up in this insane fervour. She's too dedicated to the concept of freedom to fall for the bullshit and that was such a relief ti witness. Film Chani is her own character, not just another limb of Paul's, so her story is going in a slightly different direction and I'm really excited to see that. Would not have been nearly as hyped if her whole arc was just going to be "be pregnant. die" again.

- Jessica being an absolute FREAK. She was probably my favourite character from the book and I was so pissed she wasn't in Dune Messiah. I needed to get inside her head and wiggle around in there while I was reading, and Denis fed me. In the book, I got the impression she was quite a passive participant in the prophecy, so getting to see her go full wicked witch in the film was a massive highlight. Speaking to Alia in the womb, her sinister use of The Voice (such a horrific departure from her only using it for self defence in Part 1), her FASHION. Denis needs to adapt her into Dune Messiah I refuse to watch a version of Messiah without Jessica in it.

- Stilgar came out of nowhere with the steel chair for me. The first book is filled back to back with noble fatherly leader figures so he got very lost in the shuffle and I didn't really pay attention to him that much beyond being one of Paul's many mentors. I read a tiny bit of Children before watching Part 2 and Stilgar seriously considering murdering Paul's children made me do a double take. Then seeing him in this movie blew me away. Guys I think I've slept on Stilgar all this time xD. Not gonna lie though, the film beefs up his character quite a lot from the books. I think it was a good decision to make him comedic relief, because it offsets that "religious fundamentalist" element that could put people off. It makes him much softer and more likeable. He's just a guy with big hopes and big dreams and a big heart who's a bit silly sometimes, and that makes him the ultimate prey for Paul and Jessica. It's absolutely sickening to see them exploit his sincere faith and beliefs and I'm getting upset now just thinking about all the horrific things he'll be lead to do. Denis did a fantastic job of making him a more sympathetic and softer character for people to compare with his post-timeskip Space Hitler's Right Hand Man role.

- Introducing Princess Irulan early hell yeah!! Huge improvement on the book imo; she was very much a dark horse character for this film and Florence Pugh nailed it. I loved her being the narrator much like in the book, and it was interesting to see her contribute to putting the pieces in place for the endgame, rather than just turn up at the end. More of her please, Denis!

- One of my complaints about the first film was that there wasn't enough Harkonnen action, specifically the Harkonnen-Atreides rivalry, which was talked about a bit but not really shown. Denis made all those Harkonnen scenes specifically for me. I adored the balls to the wall aesthetics and the incredibly villainous acting. This film isn't afraid of moustache twirls and villainous laughter and I LOVE that. It felt fresh. Villains who just love doing bad shit and aren't even trying to justify themselves they just LOVE being horrible creatures in their black stone murder palaces.

- What can I say about the look of the film. You've all seen it. If you haven't then go fix that. It's one of the most visually cohesive and stunning films I've seen in a long time. I don't know how a world can feel so real and yet unreal (/pos) at the same time.

- Hans Zimmer showed the fuck UP for this score. I've been listening to it nonstop all weekend. I kinda miss the Atreides bagpipes but the new horns drive me insane so it's a good tradeoff.

Things I'm on the fence about:

- I think it was a good call to remove the whole thing with Paul uh, inheriting Harah from Jamis. It gave more screentime to Chani and I think would have really put viewers off Paul when really you wanna keep people going in blind rooting for him until the third act. BUT I was surprised she wasn't in the film at all? I was convinced that the lady we see Chani talking with was supposed to be an adapted Harah, but I'm seeing everywhere online that that's not supposed to be her and Harah wasn't in the film? Why not? It just felt a bit weird that she's just some nameless Fremen.

- I'm not gonna lie I forgot Thufir existed on my first watch. I think me not missing him overall is a good sign. I didn't rewatch part 1 so I guess I assumed they'd killed him off in the Arrakeen attack, and didn't realise his part had been cut until I saw an article about it later. That was kind of disappointing. While I think the film is perfectly fine without him, I think the inclusion of his plot as kind-of prisoner kind-of strategist for the Harkonnens would have really solidified the Harkonnen-Atreides rivalry. Again because we almost never see an Atreides and Harkonnen onscreen together, so having him there to exemplify it in practice I think could have just polished things up for me personally. But also I want all films to be 5 hours long so what do I know.

- Jessica and Chani didn't interact nearly as much as I wanted them to tbh. I'm hoping that Dune Messiah beefs up their relationship.

- Timothee Chalamet

Things I didn't like:

- Not Paul btw, just Timothee

- Been saying this since the first movie but him and Zendaya were really only cast cos they're hot ticket items right now, not because they have the look and feel of the characters or the world; they just wanted to cast some hot supermodels in the roles

- Zendaya justifies her casting though by being the better actor though; I was sceptical but I came to buy her as Chani and she did a good job resonating with me

- Timothee's just a guy though, wasn't impressed

- Which is a huge problem because the emotional throughline of the movie is their romance and I just. Did not buy it. Timothee could not have paid me to believe that he was in love with Chani. They were like the definition of everybody's beautiful but nobody's horny. Just saying words with their blank hot faces. At least Zendaya put some effort in.

Anyway 10/10. This is going in my top 5 movies of all time and is one of the best book to screen adaptations I have ever seen.

[dogtoling]

What is art fight? Do all you artists just. Punch in face

ok it's slightly better than that. As a quick introduction, Art Fight is a website with a yearly event that takes place every year in July. Very simply put, you make an account there, upload whatever OCs you have and want to display on there, and then just sit and wait around until July pops up. A week or so before the event starts, there is a theme reveal (this year the teams are Vampire and Werewolf), and people may choose a team to join, or be randomly assigned to a team after the event starts.

For the event itself, the objective is to "attack" artists that are on the opposing team by drawing their OCs. Attacking people on the other team nets your team points, which are tallied at the end of the event. But to be honest I feel like no one cares about which team actually wins. That might be "the objective", but really the objective is doing gift art and trades largely with strangers on the internet and making their day, and maybe getting surprise art in return!

When you attack someone, people might attack you back by drawing your OC, which begins something called a revenge chain! So that's when you're doing art trades (for people who have never heard the term art trade before because i've realized deviantart isn't hip or mainstream anymore, an art trade is an occasion where two artists draw a thing for each other). Not everyone does revenges though and ESPECIALLY not chains, so the main draw of the event is gift art. In general expecting stuff back tends to set people up for disappointment, especially if attacking the same team. Drawing OCs from your own team counts as "friendly fire", and while your team still gets points for it, you get DRAMATICALLY less points than you would for drawing for the opposing team. Either way it is a thing that you CAN still do.

The amount of points you get from an attack depends on the medium (which include stuff that isn't just drawing!), level of finish and polish, the general complexity of the art, the amount of characters in the piece et cetera. You determine these categories yourself while posting your attack, so it can be a bit daunting if you're not sure on things.

Art Fight recently introduced tag search, which lets you tag your OCs with specific tags (for example, "splatoon", "furry", "pokemon" or whatever) and search for characters with those same tags if you have preferences on what you want to draw. It also has some nifty other things, like the ability to customize your profile sometimes to insane degrees if you want, the ability to set permissions for characters (what people are and are not allowed to do with them), a storage for hiding characters if you want to retire them for a specific year but don't want to delete and re-add them later, the ability to link stuff to character profiles such as their toyhouse or full reference sheets, fields for crediting artists for the design or art if you got it from somebody else... et cetera. It also has some achievements, if you're into that kind of stuff.

The barrier of entry is really kind of low and the event is very versatile - you can go the whole fight making pixel sprite attacks, you can do 3D models, you can do halfbodies, you could even just do sketches and call it a day and that's all very valid and usually always fun. Personally I find Art Fight really fun because not only do you get to pick characters to draw that you might never have seen otherwise, but also have a completely good excuse to draw other people's characters and make their day. I usually spend a lot of Art Fight trying out different art styles and dabbling in stuff I normally do less, and don't have much motivation to do with my own characters - for example, last year I did digital art, painting, pixel sprites, pixel animation, 3D modeling and 3D animation and yeah I wouldn't have done any of those without the Art Fight excuse of "yeah why not draw this guy's OC". So it's also a really good way to step out of what you usually do with your art, and try different styles or mediums just to see what it's about.

And of course, the most important tidbit: the site is always, and I mean always, EVERY year, down at the start of the event. Every year the first week of Art Fight the site is completely unusable. The good news is, you can join Art Fight even in the middle of the event, and joining the site doesn't require you to partake in every upcoming Art Fight or even to pick a team. You can simply spectate and not partake one year, then come back the next and pick a team. TL;DR it's fun.