#somehow this is the first time i've read this article

[redflagshipwriter]

Hot Ghouls in your Area 9

masterpost

“Good morning!”

Jason winced and moved the phone a little further from his face. “Is this Doctor Fenton?” 

“It's one of them! What can I do ya for?” Jack Fenton boomed, just as bombastic as his newsletter made him seem. Jason knew, deep in his heart, that Jack Fenton was indeed the one who had selected green neon bold for his headings and borders. 

Angels wept. Jason scrubbed his palm over his eye. This man had no poetry in his soul. “I, uh, had some questions about a ghost. I've read some of your articles and your most recent published paper on the topic.”

“We love ghosts!” Fenton bellowed. “Ask away!”

“Do you know a ghost called Phantom?” Jason tried.

“...Sure do,” Jack Fenton said. “Whatcha need?” 

Jason cleared his throat. “It's somewhat complicated,” he said evasively, because he didn't need these people to know he was the Red Hood. Fuck. He should have either gotten his helmet stored away or not given his real name. Phantom knew his face and that his name was Jason. Any information that got around via Phantom might tie his face to his alter ego. If Phantom said he got married to Jason, the Red Hood, that could lead to the end of the Bat family vigilantism.

“...He cause you trouble, sport?”

Jason let out a slight laugh. “You could say that, though it wasn't really his fault,” he admitted. He cast a paranoid eye out the window to be sure no siblings were creeping on him. “No, it's really more that…” Fuck, he should have planned this better. “Is there any information you can give me about how a human could contact him?” 

Not that Jason didn't have a phone number for the guy. But it made him very uncomfortable to have any basic knowledge or way to track Phantom down if he decided to leave Jason to whatever was going on. 

“I could probably do that,” Jack Fenton said slowly, now sounding like an entirely different human being. “Say, you wouldn't be Jeremy, would you?”

Jason blinked. “...How did you know?” He went with. Phantom had contact with a human guy named Jeremy? That might be his in.

“Oh, well then, you've definitely got to come over,” Dr. Fenton wheedled. It somehow came across as shifty. “You'll be wanting a whole primer on how the Ghost Zone works, won't ya?” 

“That would be immensely helpful,” Jason agreed. “But I'd hate to take up your valuable time.”

“Nonsense!” Fenton bellowed. Jason nearly lost his grip on his phone in surprise. “Come over Jeremy, I'm dying to meetcha!” 

So, there was a plan. Jason packed for a day trip and dialed up his travel agent. 

“Fuck off,” said Tim. “I'm busy. Christ.” 

“I need an airplane ticket and a rental bike to Illinois,” Jason continued. He tossed his mostly full bag on the sofa and went digging for the socks he knew he had washed the other night. “I'm going to go see some nerds about my impromptu adventure the other day.”

Tim groaned. That was the first Jason had given any hint at all about what had happened to him when he'd been ‘sacrificed.’ “What nerds?” He asked wearily. 

Jason grinned into his sock drawer. Gottem. “Why, do you all know each other?” He asked blithely. 

“Do you always antagonize people you want favors from?” Tim whined. A keyboard clacked rapidly in the background. “Jason, I swear to God, you massive bitch. Cut the crap and communicate, or I'm hanging up.” 

Jason frowned at his socks and grabbed a random pair. “You don't gotta be like that,” he said sulkily. He slammed the socks into his bag with a very unsatisfying silence. “So, the ritual doohickey sent me to the infinite underworld, I met a guy there actually and we are magically connected because he's who that dumb ritual matched me up to. He doesn't want to be stuck with a human so we are on the same page about breaking this. We started looking for answers and he took me back to Earth since it's not good for humans to be in the green dimension for too long.” 

There was silence from the other end of the line for a few seconds. “You're fucking lying,” Tim said. 

“Only by leaving things out.” A bit stung, Jason pulled a hand through his hair and accidentally ruined his good hair day. 

“What are you leaving out?” Tim rejoined swiftly.

Jason laughed at him. “You think you're getting that kinda information in exchange for plane tickets?” He asked incredulously. 

“You are the most annoying person who has ever tried to kill me.”

Ouch. That genuinely stung.

“Fuck off.” Jason slammed the drawers shut. 

“I could guess aliens or supernatural off of what you just said.” Tim ignored Jason’s very good point. “Based off of your trip to the Gotham U campus and-”

“Are you still stalking me?” Jason cut him off, incredulous. He scoffed. “Little buddy, you already got my pixie boots, Red Robin costume, and my Dad. What else do you wanna take from me?”

“I think that you were there to assess Daniel Fenton,” Tim ignored him.

Jason was silent for a moment. There was probably no point in pretending that Tim was wrong. “You already knew about the Fenton’s connection to the supernatural.” He was suddenly tired.

“His older sister is an intern at Arkham, she stepped out of line to get a chance to talk to Jeremy Waters.” Tim didn’t seem to notice that the mood had changed. He was caught up on whatever twenty level plan was whirring away internally.

Jason looked at the wall for a moment, not bothering to think about why that name was familiar. “...and that is…?”

“The guy who kidnapped you, keep up,” Tim snarked. “Her supervisor guessed what she was hinting at, shut her down, put a note about it in the private server so there was a paper trail if she turns out to be a collaborator.”

““Private” is a strong word to describe that server.” Jason rubbed at his jawline and hefted his bag out to the bathroom to gather his shaving kit. 

“Mmhm,” Tim said blandly. “I bugged her phone. The signal is absurdly bad, unexplainably bad. She doesn’t send a lot of messages, but she had a very suspicious call with Daniel Fenton where, among other things, she hinted she had inside knowledge regarding some kind of local mystery, possibly criminal activity. Her brother accused her of supporting crime.”

Jason groaned. “I’m going to interview their parents.” He checked that the razor blades were stowed away correctly before snapping shut the travel case. Then he noticed that his bathroom mirror could use a wipedown. He left his bag for a moment to dig for the cleaner.

“Probably for the best,” Tim said, definitely misunderstanding his purpose. “They seem…” He trailed off when he couldn’t find an appropriate adjective.

“You should read a book,” Jason said, because he saw an opportunity to be an asshole. “Anyway, I wanna get out to the area tonight and see them in the morning. What’s my flight?” He spritzed the glass and watched his reflection blur. It was oddly comforting to not have to stare at his green eyes.

‘That ghost zone was the same green as the Lazarus Pits,’ Jason thought dully. He didn’t really want to think about it. But he had a pretty good idea why he hadn’t had the reaction to the place that Danny expected a human to have.

“Kon could take you,” Tim said sweetly, which was basically a death threat. It was enough to jar him back to the real world. Kon was still not feeling chill about the Titans Tower scuffle. It probably wasn’t good for him to be so petty, but Jason was not going to be the one to tell baby Superdork that.

Jason winced. “I was thinking more like United.”

Tim snickered. 

[spanishskulduggery]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Non-binary Translation in Spanish

A while back I had mentioned that when I learned how to change language settings for Baldur's Gate 3, I was curious to learn how they would adapt the non-binary [no binario] option into Spanish since Spanish (like many Romance Languages) is very gendered

What I saw actually surprised me a bit

Usually in game translations with different genders, English tends to treat you as a "they" even though it's usually male or female; and in Spanish most of the lines are gendered, or phrased in a very ambiguous way in translation like speaking of your character as una persona "a person" rather than "he" or "she", or "they"

This is one of the first times I've seen the gender neutral -e endings used in an official setting

-

For the purposes of this, and any future posts on this, I decided I would try to play as a non-binary gnome cleric. I should also mention that when you start up the game in Spanish and you do the character customization, everything starts you with the base word (i.e. masculine by default, or possibly agender but looks masculine)... as in you can choose to be elfo "elf", semielfo "half-elf", humano "human", semiorco "half-orc"... choose between bárbaro "barbarian", mago "wizard", brujo "warlock" and so on

My default character creation screen read gnomo, clérigo for "gnome cleric"

But the way your character is addressed by others is what changes

The first NPC you interact with is "Us" a little brain thing you can choose to help. If you do it calls you "friend":

Nosotros: Somos libres. Tenemos nuestra libertad. amigue Us: We are free. We have our freedom. Friend [nb].

The word used is amigue

For the sake of understanding Spanish grammar, you probably know amigo/a "friend". The G here is a hard G. The gender neutral ending is E... but the combination of GE is pronounced like an H sound in Spanish [la gelatina "gelatin" for example is like "hel-a-ti-na"]. To preserve that hard G sound, you have to add a UE to it... so amigo/a becomes amigue for non-binary

[if you study Spanish this is the exact same grammar you'll see in turning -gar verbs into subjunctive forms; why pagar would turn to pague]

The next person you come across is Lae'zel:

Lae'zel: Tsk'va. No eres une sierve. ¡Vlaakith me bendijo en el día de hoy! Juntes, tal vez podamos sobrevivir. Lae'zel: Tsk'va. You are no thrall [nb]. Vlaakith blessed me today ["on this day of today"; emphatic]. Together [nb plural], we may (yet) survive.

Interestingly, there's first siervo/a meaning "servant" or "serf" or "thrall"

What I found very interesting was that you have une... un and una being "a" are used for indefinite articles; the non-binary form seems to be une

What threw me off though was seeing juntes... now junto/a is "together" [lit. "joined"] but juntes implies a non-binary plural.

I don't know if this is because in Spanish grammar it would imply that non-binary trumps feminine [the way amigos "friends" could be male+female or multiple male, as opposed to amigas "friends" being all female]... or if it's maybe an error or something else; the game treats Lae'zel as a woman in every other regard so I think it's the first one which is a situation I somehow hadn't considered. I had just assumed it would be juntos ...or juntas if you played female

Next I decided to rescue Gale first because he uses a lot of adjectives/professions and I wanted to see what they looked like:

Gale: No serás clérigue por casualidad, ¿verdad? ¿Médique? ¿Cirujane? ¿Increíblemente hábil con una aguja de tejer? Gale: You wouldn't happen to be a cleric, right? A doctor/medic? Surgeon? Unbelievably skilled with a knitting needle?

First is clérigo/a "cleric" being used in non-binary as clérigue. Similarly we have médique which is the non-binary médico/a for "medical doctor"

[just like above C turned to QUE to preserve a hard C/K sound; you'll see this with subjunctive and even preterites of -car verbs... why atacar "to attack" will turn to ataqué "I attacked" and ataque in subjunctive... because CE has a soft S sound in Latin America, and can be lisped in Spain]

And next is cirujane... the word cirujano/a is "surgeon"

Finally important note - hábil being "able" or "skilled" is a unisex adjective, so there is no change in any gender - masculine, feminine, or non-binary

*Note: I did miss it but at some point someone used the article le to describe my character. The el and la "the" are the masculine and feminine definite articles; le is non-binary "the" which still catches me by surprise because it looks French to me

-

I've been told since I made the original post that people have seen the non-binary E ending used in other things, but this was special for me to see. I'm curious how the other gendered languages available treated non-binary options

It was a fun surprise for me, especially for some modern day Spanish linguistics in a VERY big modern game, with non-binary word choices being heavily prominent. It's a bit of a learning experience for me

If I find any more fun examples of NB language being used I'll let y'all know as I go

[randomshyperson]

Lacy - Werewolf!Reader x Wanda Maximoff - Kinktober #07

Summary: This Halloween, Wanda receives a surprise visit from her favorite werewolf. The problem is that it's very difficult to keep a crush hidden during mating season.

Warnings: (+18), mutual pining, semi-public, very vague allusions to omega verse, beefy!reader, power!bottom wanda, a bit rough but they are actually sweet to each other, some praising and dirty talk. | Words: 3.144k

A/N-> First, I know nothing about werewolves. It was never my thing growing up (I’m a witch type of person I suppose) but I know about omegaverse stuff and since it’s wolf-based I tried some references from that lore. Also, I was totally thinking about Wednesday's show (and Wenclair ship tbh) when writing the school but you all be free to image whatever you wish. Also, the name is from Olivia Rodrigo’s song, ‘cause it’s such a friends-to-lovers/mutual pining coded lyrics. Good reading folks! 

General Masterlist | Kinktober Collection | AO3 | Wattpad

-&-

The mating season was always the most tiring part of the year.

Even as a child, her days were marked by hard work and running errands - her mother was always very busy with orders, and somehow, the twins were obliged to finish the tasks in record time, so as not to delay the calendars and keep Natalya busy when her customers needed her.

As the largest and most respected apothecary in the country, Natalya Maximoff was also one of the biggest dealers in magical items - and this also included natural suppressants. Her customers wrote to her from all over the world, many famous packs like the Romanoffs or the Howletts only bought her products, and the witch was always very busy at this time of year.

So when their mother told them that she would leave the Maximoff Magical Articles Boutique in their care for two whole days, while she delivered packages around the world, none of them were surprised, as this had been done dozens of times before.

Wanda's indignation stemmed from the fact that her twin brother, as soon as there were no more magical remnants of the portal his mother had conjured to travel through, put on a jacket and told her he was leaving.

"But you can't leave me alone!" Wanda hurried away from the counter. Pietro chuckled, adjusting his hat on his silver hair. Since he had turned 18 last month, he had grown a good few centimeters, and even with her best serious expression, Wanda, who hadn't grown much since she was 15, no longer succeeded in frightening him. That, and well, like his father, Pietro had a bastard heritage of lycanthropy, and with his new skills, he had also gained extreme confidence.

"What, you gonna tell me you're scared of some little wolves?" He sneered, his fangs protruding from his smile. Wanda huffed angrily, her cheeks slightly red. "Don't be silly, Wanda. You're a witch. Nobody's is crazy enough to mess with you."

He tries to pat her on the shoulder, but Wanda pushes a finger against his chest. "I'm not afraid of any wolves, you selfish idiot! Mom says the store is our responsibility. And you're sneaking off to do who knows what! I don't want to spend all night looking after this place on my own. Apart from the season, it's Halloween, and kids go apeshit and-"

"Jesus, Wanda, I'll make it up to you!" He cuts in, already pulling away and ignoring the other girl's protests. "I've got to go, I'm taking Crystal to the movies, then we'll settle up!

"Pietro!" But the call was ignored and the store door was slammed in her face.

Wanda huffed to herself. She could survive a Halloween night, but her brother would owe her a lot if he didn't want to be snitched on. She returned to the counter, texting him another dozen curses before texting to her mother that everything was under control.

And lucky for her, that's how the evening actually went. 

Most of the few customers who showed up were locals, a few sorcerers in need of ingredients, and even a traveling vampire who needed to replenish some reserves for a long trip. Some children also asked for candy, and tired of getting up so often, Wanda decided to leave the jars outside.

It was almost at the end of her shift, when she was ready to close the shop, that a delicious smell wafted into the room. Wanda, who was distracted by the holiday lessons that the institute where she studied always offered when there were short vacations or not, was snapped out of her concentration by the fascinating smell. She looked up just as a figure stumbled into the store, covered by a school uniform hood.

She didn't need you to remove the cap to recognize you, and yet, when your face became visible, Wanda felt her heart unlearn how to beat properly. 

"Good evening?" You looked between the shelves, approaching the cashier, only to hesitate as soon as you saw Wanda. "Oh, h-hi. Uh, is Madame Maximoff around?"

You looked uneasy, adjusting your hair and fiddling with your fingers. Your flushed face must have been due to the walk from the Institute to the store. 

Wanda shook her head as she replied: "She had some orders to place. How can I help you?"

The color of your face deepened, and you couldn't look her in the eye for more than two seconds. "Hmm, I kind of need... suppressants." And it was the turn of Wanda's face to heat up. You continued talking anxiously. "I thought I still had some, but my reservation ran out, and since I'm in the dorm, I wouldn't want to... well, would you have any left? I know it's very short notice but I really need it."

Wanda nodded quickly, equally at a loss for words. You see, if you were any other of her werewolf colleagues, the situation might even be comical. She wasn't like Pietro and didn't make friends very easily, but she shared the same taunting nature. One horny wolf in the store and Wanda would have jokes for the rest of the year. But it was you, her longtime secret crush, emanating a very pleasant scent and in need of something so intimate that Wanda could barely control her own thoughts about what other ways she could help you if there were no other suppressors in the store.

"My mom usually sells everything before the season starts, but I can look in the warehouse to see if we have any leftovers. I'll be right back." She says, smiling softly at your anxious figure.

Wanda has never seen you in heat before; the mating seasons for new wolves begin at the end of puberty, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, and the vast majority of her werewolf classmates at the Institute return to their packs at this time of year, already matched with their partners in the traditions of the lycanthrope. Wanda only knows about the rituals from her father's family, because each clan, from the Vampires to the witches, is very private about it all. Witches like her mother, who specialize in all kinds of products, are the exceptions.

Wanda tries the storeroom next to the counter, but after a few boxes, she snorts in frustration. Her mother really did sell everything, and she almost reprimanded you for not planning properly. For older, mismatched wolves, being without suppressors could be really dangerous. For you, a new werewolf, it would only be quite painful. It was easier for her to feel sorry. 

And while she tried the last few shelves at the back of the storeroom, you grew even more restless outside. Wanda had no idea how intoxicating the essence of a witch, especially a witch one cared about, was. If you hadn't been so desperate, you would have given up going into the store as soon as you could smell her from around the corner, but then again, your brain wasn't working very rationally right now.

And there was also a scarf on the counter, Wanda's most characteristic item since she had received it as a gift so many years ago. Many of the times you've noticed her, she's worn the item around her neck and it made sense that her scent was so strong in the room, even though she was upstairs.

Your limbs moved by instinct, you didn't have to think much, just let yourself be guided by the urge to exhale that distinctive smell more deeply. 

Your face was pressed against the scarf when Wanda reappeared, and her confused giggle made you jump away mortified.

"Are you all right there?" She ventured, receiving a very quick and embarrassed nod. Wanda chuckled again in amazement, and without caring much about your current condition, she approached. "I looked upstairs, but my mother sold everything, sorry. There's something else you might like to try, maybe a calming potion so you can sleep while... well, this happens to you."

You quickly agree, still embarrassed at being caught. Wanda doesn't mind, if anything, she always found it very entertaining how different you were from the other werewolves she knew; loud and confident to the point of being idiotic. Pietro was a prime example. And if it wasn't for your distinctive stature, she could easily have assumed from your shy and careful personality that you were just an ordinary human, perhaps a mermaid from the way you seemed to bewitch Wanda's attention all to yourself.

"I'm sorry." You mutter suddenly, while she is searching for a sleeping potion on the shelf under the counter. Wanda turns her face up in confusion, but you're looking away. "From the scarf, I know it's... weird. But my body seems to be acting on its own. Just forget about it when we get back to school, okay? I'll be normal when it's over."

"Don't worry, I don't mind." She assured meekly, before finally finding some bottles that could help you and taking them back to the counter. She bit her lip at the way you were panting, and the way your trembling fingers pulled some notes and coins out of your pocket. "You can take these two vials today, and this one in the morning if you're still..."

"Horny'?" You joke, and take Wanda by surprise, but she manages to return the short laugh. Your hands push out the money and she turns away to pack the vials into a small bag. "So, one now and two tomorrow."

Wanda quickly denies it. "No, darling, two now and one tomorrow. Are you... are you sure you're all right? You're sweating-"

"Just give me a minute." You interrupt her with a gasp, the sudden wave of heat catching you completely off guard. The room starts to spin, and for a whole moment, all you can feel is your own arousal and the way you want to touch the witch in front of you. Your body gives way, and your hands force down on the counter, disastrously strong enough for the wood to crack. Wanda jumps in fright, worried, but you grunt quietly. "Shit, I'm really sorry-"

She hurries around the counter, and her soft hands make you jump away. "Hey, it's okay, I just want to help you stand up."

But you gasp in despair, wrenching your body away from her. "Don't touch me, Wanda, for God's sake." You grunt, and if you hadn't sounded so affected, Wanda would have taken offense. Instead, she stands ready to catch you if you lose your balance again, and that's exactly what happens. This time, your weight falls forward, and Wanda's body serves as a barrage. 

Your wolfish weight is almost too much for her, and it doesn't help that your face is buried against her collarbone, and your arms embrace her clumsily. "Hm, so soft." She hears you sigh, as she struggles to drag you over to the reading area of the store's bookshelves, where there's a sofa to put you on. When you fall into the cushions, you look up with dreamy eyes and an easy smile playing on your lips. Wanda gasps softly from exhaustion. 

"Wait here a moment, okay? You feel like you're burning up with a fever. I'll get you some water." She explains, but it doesn't seem like you're listening very much, disconcerting her with the way you're looking at you so discourteously, your pupils dilating. Wanda adjusts a strand of hair, self-conscious under your gaze. "I'll be right back."

She practically runs out of there, and alone, realizing her own hands are trembling as she remembers the sensation of having your body against hers. She shakes her head to push the thought away, you were clearly in a vulnerable moment right now, and Wanda doesn't think she'll survive the shame of being rejected once the heat wears off.

When Wanda returns with the water, she almost drops the glass on the floor. You haven't moved, but you've changed position, limp against the sofa, evidently rubbing yourself down the item as you whimper. 

"Oh, detka, let me help you." Wanda abandons the glass on a shelf, and rushes to your side, kneeling beside the sofa. You gasp in embarrassment, trying to escape her gaze, but Wanda's hands grab your warm face. "Let's go upstairs. I'll make it better." She whispers the invitation, but the thought alone is enough for you to grunt in affection and pull her face towards you. 

It's a hungry kiss, and the position doesn't help. Wanda has to grab your shoulders to keep from falling to the floor and ends up breaking into a giggle when a moment later it's you who's throwing yourself at her, desperately kissing her as if she's going to disappear. 

The lightness disappears quickly. She feels very hot and bothered, especially when your tongue slips into hers as if you already knew exactly how to kiss her, and your hands touch her entire body with determination. Her plea for you to slow down turns into a moan when your knee pushes between her legs.

It's almost primitive the way you seem willing to have her right there on the floor, angrily trying to pull her clothes off while your moans mingle. Wanda's face burns and she struggles to match the kiss, losing that battle all too easily when your palms begin to stimulate her nipples. 

She can feel the wetness begin to bother her through the fabric of her panties, and perhaps, you can smell it too, because you grow more impatient, and begin to murmur disconnected compliments into her skin, your hands reaching down to unzip her pants. Wanda chokes between moans, practically whimpering when your fingers find her so ready. 

You enter her, all at once, without a second thought. You suck on her tongue as she squeezes your fingerprints and soaks your hand. It's dirty and rough, and Wanda couldn't hold back even if she tried. Yet the store door opens, and she has to bite down hard on your shoulder to muffle her own noises.

Whoever the customer is, asking if there's anyone there or if the store is open, Wanda makes sure they don't see her. Her eyes are scarlet, and it's never been harder to do a concealment spell than it is now, with your fingers thrusting inside her as if the world around you hardly mattered. Finally, the customer leaves and her magic plays its part in locking the door before Wanda digs her nails into your back and comes against your fingers.

It's not enough - Nothing seems to be. You continue your movements inside her until Wanda is spasming again, begging for a pause. Your hungry mouth finds its way into her most intimate place then, just to tear more pleasure out of her. She loses count of how many times she comes, on your fingers and tongue, until the whole store smells of sex.

Fuck, she has to move you before Pietro comes back.

It's only when you let her breathe, retreating like a wounded wolf, that Wanda notices the puddle of moisture on your pants. You came at the mere act of watching and touching her. 

"Hey, are you okay, sweetheart?" She coos gently, propping herself up on one elbow now that you're lying on your back, one arm over your face. Your clothes are as torn as theirs, but there are many more marks on her body than on yours. 

You sniffle quietly, and Wanda looks at you with concern. "Why didn't you stop me?" you ask upset, and Wanda stares in shock for a moment. Then, swallowing dryly, she works up the courage:

"You didn't want this?"

But your reaction is to laugh incredulously. "Of course, I wanted it, Wanda! But I'm talking about you. Why didn't you stop me? You're a witch, you could have knocked me down, look at you! You're all purple, and I... God, I can't believe I... hurt you." 

She climbs into your lap before you can despair, ignoring your soft protest and grabbing your crying face. "I haven't stopped you because I've wanted you to since we met." She assures you determinedly, caressing your cheeks. "I'm in love with you, you idiot."

Sniffling softly, you raise hopeful eyes. "Really?"

Wanda smiles, her weight against your chest. "Really." She assures you. "And don't worry about the marks, I... like it rough."

You groan in embarrassment, looking away and amusing her. There's a moment's pause, and then finally: "I like you too."

Wanda bites back a smile. "I got that impression, you know? When you were all whiny on me." 

Your laugh is sincere and shy, and Wanda kisses you as your hands grip her thighs. But before she can deepen it the way she'd like, you break again.

"Thanks for helping with the heat... but I'll take you on a date after this. I promise."

She pulls on your bottom lip with a provocative bite. "I'll charge." She assures you in a naughty whisper, and you sigh contentedly as she presses your hips together. Smooth movements, and you're already seeing stars again. 

Your breathing becomes shorter, and Wanda traces her fingers along your jaw, while her other hand moves down. "I bet you're all warm and tight."

You sigh, closing your eyes and nodding in agreement. Wanda kisses you leisurely, also taking time to slide her fingers into your pants and assess the effects of everything so far. She's not surprised by the immense wetness, but the sensation of sinking into you is overwhelming. She can feel ready for another when she starts to stimulate you and watches you squirm beneath her.

"So good... don't stop..." You moan helplessly, and the grip on her thighs is almost strong enough to hurt. Wanda makes a mental note of how to make you lose control of your strength, before curling her fingers inside you and being rewarded with the sweetest sounds in the world. "W-Wanda!"

She decides she likes it very, very much when you whimper her name like that. She continues her motions a few more times until you come hard on her fingers. Wanda thrusts a few times, before removing them and bringing them to her mouth, sucking them clean while you try to catch a breath. 

Your murmurs are labored, and Wanda kisses your cheek a few times. "Come on upstairs, sweet baby, I'll take care of you." She tries to get up, but your hands steady her on your lap.

It's almost ridiculous how easily you lift the two of you, and Wanda has to hold onto your shoulders, chuckling softly at your uncertain stumbles on the way upstairs. 

She'll have time to look after the store when you fall asleep. Right now, she's more focused on kissing you again.

[equallyreal]

Transmission Received: The Call Is Coming From Inside The House And I'm Mad About It

Or, a response to National Novel Writing Month's stance on Artificial Intelligence.

But before we get into that, a quick story update: I actually haven't been working on much of anything lately due to some IRL issues going on (nothing too serious, don't worry, I am still alive and healthy). The Edge is going to be on a soft break until I get my energy levels back up to serious writing levels, but I will continue to make update posts to keep people in the loop about how well I'm recharging.

Unfortunately for the people behind National Novel Writing Month, while my energy levels might be low, my spite levels are always at an all-time high, and they are fully fueling me to take down their official position on AI. But first, a timeline.

I wake up to a message in a group discord I'm in with a screenshot of National Novel Writing Month making some...interesting comments about their position on AI.

While going to tumblr to see if anyone else is talking about this, I find this post my @the-pen-pot featuring the screenshot I saw. In the responses, I see @darkjediqueen saying that the article had been updated @besodemieterd giving some information that I'm going to keep secret for now because it creates a truly amazing punchline.

I get off tumblr and read the updated article.

I feel a deep rage in my soul that cannot be tamed by group chat participation, and I click the "write a post" button.

So, with that out of the way, let's break this down, shall we?

The original post, as seen in the screenshot of the above post, contained the following two paragraphs:

NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of AI. NaNoWriMo's mission is to "provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page." We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing. Please see this related post that speaks to our overall position on nondiscrimination with respect to approaches to creativity, writer's resources, and personal choice.  We also want to be clear in our belief that the categorical condemnation of Artificial Intelligence has classist and abelist undertones, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege.

This was all I saw when I first heard about this, and this on its own was enough to tap into my spite as an energy source. The second paragraph, in particular, was infuriating. "People who argue against AI are classist or abelist" is a terrible take I've seen floating around AI Bro Twitter, and to see it regurgitated by an organization that is supposed to be all about writing was, to put it simply, a lot.

But, as noted in the timeline, I did see that they had updated the article (about two hours ago as of me working on writing this), so I went to the updated post to see what was said. Somehow, it had gotten worse. I'll be addressing the updated post on a point by point basis, so if you want to read the whole thing without my commentary, here you go.

The first paragraph is the same was it was in the screenshot. The first major different is an added paragraph that begins like this:

Note: we have edited this post by adding this paragraph to reflect our acknowledgment that there are bad actors in the AI space who are doing harm to writers and who are acting unethically. We want to make clear that, though we find the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic for the reasons stated below, we are troubled by situational abuse of AI, and that certain situational abuses clearly conflict with our values.

First off, I find it a big troubling that while they discuss bad actors in the AI space, they won't acknowledge that these same bad actors are often the ones pushing the whole "being anti-AI makes you morally bad, actually" accusations with the most fervor.

Second, why are you not more strongly discussing and pushing back against the "situational" abuse of AI? Why is the focus on how using AI can be good, actually, rather than acknowledging the fears and angers of your userbase around how generative AI is ruining an art form that you claim to want to help foster? I have a theory about this, but we're saving that for a bit further down.

The paragraph concludes:

We also want to make clear that AI is a large umbrella technology and that the size and complexity of that category (which includes both non-generative and generative AI, among other uses) contributes to our belief that it is simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse. 

The funny thing is, in a vacuum, I don't have a problem with this statement. They're not wrong: AI is an umbrella term with a lot of complexity to it, and I can see how people would be hesitant to condemn the technology as a whole when there are uses of it that aren't awful. If their whole statement had been this, I would have less of a problem with it (still some of a problem, sure, but I wouldn't be writing a lengthy blog post about it) But they had to delve into how Being Against AI is Morally Bad, Actually, which is where the post continues from here.

The last big change between the screenshot and the updated article is in this paragraph:

We believe that to categorically condemn AI would be to ignore classist and ableist issues surrounding the use of the technology, and that questions around the use of AI tie to questions around privilege. 

This is much less strongly-worded than the original paragraph. If I had to guess, they got a lot of criticism regarding the original sentiment (namely, assuming that disabled and poor people can only make art if a machine does it for them is actually way more abelist and classist than saying generative AI is bad), and dialed it back through this rewording. They could've just worded it this way from the beginning instead of saying the dumbest possible thing they could've, but whatever.

I don't know if the rest of this was in the article from the beginning or if it was added later, as the original screenshot I saw only showed the first two paragraphs. Regardless of whether this is them trying to cover their asses by explaining logic they should've explained from the start or if this was always here, I still have major issues with these points, so we're going to address them next.

(As a quick full disclosure note: I had to transcribe the rest of the article instead of copy-pasting it because I lost the ability to do so at about this point in the blog writing process. I don't know what happened or why, I just wanted to let you know that almost all typos are my fault, but beyond that I recorded the text as-written at the time that I had the article up in another tab. I promise.)

Classism. Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.

You may note that they are discussing the use of AI at what seems to be the editing process. As someone in my group chat pointed out, National Novel Writing Month has nothing to do with editing, and everything to do with writing. The only way you can currently use AI for the act of writing is if you use generative AI to do it for you, which is, I think we can all agree, not actually writing and actually bad. This emphasis on editing ties into the punchline, which we'll be getting to shortly.

On a final note before we proceed though, I would like to carry over an argument about this matter that is used in the small business/handcrafts sector: If you can't afford it now, save up for it. Don't devalue the work of other people (in this case, editors and things like sensitivity readers or beta readers) by saying it's too expensive and I can get it cheaper on Shein by using AI. Save up and support your fellow workers if it really means something to you, or just do the editing yourself and hope for the best. (Disclosure: I don't have an editor. Or a beta reader. I can't say my writing is the most polished all the time, but I get by just fine.)

Abelism. Not all brains have the same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals. The notion that all writers "should" be able to perform certain functions independently or [sic] is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can't "see" the issues in their writing without help.

First of all...just say "disabled." I promise your hands will not fall off if you type that word.

Second, level of education should really fall under the class bullet point, but that's just me nitpicking.

Third, I would argue that the real goal here shouldn't be to say "no using AI is finem actually", but rather to a) dismantle the idea of what writing "should" look like in order to make it more inclusive, and b) fight back against people who bully imperfect writers. Those are actually more noble goals than propping up a corrupt industry by using the disabled as your scapegoat.

Fourth, the dangling "or" is not a typo I take credit for. It was in the article as of me transcribing it. If I had to guess, there was more to this sentence at some point, and they just didn't fully delete the thought.

Fifth, funny how this is once again more about the editing process of writing and not the writing part. Even more funny when we view the final point.

General Access Issues. All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don't always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.

This one really pissed me off, because the indie author sphere is actively under attack by the use of AI. AI-created scam books on Amazon's kindle publishing platform are increasing and actively stealing attention and money away from human authors (see this article). Sci-Fi magazine Clarkesworld had to shut down new author submissions due to the influx of AI generated stories, and while the head of Bards and Sages cited physical and mental health problems as a reason for shutting down the company entirely, having to weed through AI generated submissions and the way such bad actors are impacting the industry were listed as the final straw. There are probably even more examples of this, but I only did a cursory google search to avoid being here all day.

Simply put: AI is not helping authors who have to go to the indie space in order to escape systemic problems. It is actively killing the space instead. I don't want to sound doom and gloom, but if this keeps up, these authors aren't going to have anywhere to run to. A refusal to condemn the ways in which AI is impacting these spaces does, in my opinion, make you complicit.

On a final note, you might notice that this point is seemingly once again focusing on editing, not writing. Which means it's time to unveil the punchline pointed out by besodemieterd, the response that made me lose my mind:

They made this bullshit up to justify them getting into cahoots with an AI company called ProWritingAid, it's all over their instagram.

I immediately ran to factcheck this...and it's true. ProWritingAid is, in fact, a more in-depth Grammarly that uses AI for its functionality. They are a sponsor for National Novel Writing Month, and the first three posts on their instagram are dedicated to this partnership.

I completely back up besodemieterd's belief that they wrote this article to justify their taking this sponsorship. If I had to guess, they started taking a lot of flack for taking ProWritingAid as a sponsor and wrote this article in order to defend their decision to do so without actually saying so directly.

I don't want to shame NaNoWriMo for taking sponsors on the whole, as they do need money to stay afloat. However, taking an AI company as a sponsor and then defending their stance by essentially calling people with concerns about this morally wrong and bad is, as the kids say, clown behavior. This is clown shit. It's laughable, it's cringe, it's incredibly disheartening. It's so, so bad.

The next paragraph is just about how they "see value in sharing resources about AI and any emerging technology, issue, or discussion that is relevant to the writing community as a whole." Since my stance on this can be summed up as "AI bad and platforming it is bad", I'm going to skip over this paragraph. I will, however, address their last paragraph:

For all of those reasons, we absolutely do not condemn AI, and we recognize and respect writers who believe that AI tools are right for them. We recognize that some members of our community stand staunchly against AI for themselves, and that's perfectly fine. As individuals, we have the freedom to make our own decisions.

So, basically, you're incapable of saying "no" to money and decided to lean into the talking points of bad faith actors and refuse to address the destruction that generative AI is wrecking on the writing world in order to justify why you took a certain sponsor. In taking this middle of the road, individual choice-ass response, you also threw human editors and beta readers under the bus by justifying the use of technology that actively removes them from the space. You are making the writing world a worse place, which is absolutely crazy when writing is supposed to be the thing you're all about.

Truly amazing. And they're doing this on Labor Day, too.

In conclusion, I will be dead in the dirt before you spot me participating in National Novel Writing Month again. Which is probably for the best. My life can only handle so many self-imposed deadlines. I guess I should be grateful to them for removing one from my plate.

[multifandomgirl08]

Me Against Him - M.V. #1

Max Verstappen x Younger Verstappen Sister!Reader (Platonic), Unnamed Male Character x Younger Verstappen Sister!Reader (Romantic)

Summary: You never wanted to be on the sidelines watching your brother compete, you wanted to be out there with him fighting for a championship.

Warning(s): Dual POVs (Reader and Max), Jos Verstappen (on page), Kelly Piquet (mention). I’m warning for Kelly as a precaution to those who aren’t a fan of her, she was in the request so I’m only writing about her because of that. She will be brought up in part 2.

A/N: Taken from this Request by @fordlita. I had to work with what I felt was important vs. fitting everything that was given to me in the request. That is why it has taken so long to work on this request. Most of this is just set up for part 2, which I've already started working on. I have no plans on extending this further than that.

Words: 1.8k

→ Next Part Formula 1 Masterlist

From the moment that you started karting, you knew that it would never be easy. Being one of the few girls striving to drive in Formula 1 and get a seat. It had always been tough especially since your brother was also working for a Formula 1 seat.

Racing and competing had always come easy to Max, even when you were both karting, your father Jos had always made Max the priority. He would finish working on Max's kart first, he would give Max the more expensive parts. You would put the same time and effort into competing and somehow it was never enough.

Once you had finally made it to F1 Academy and were racing with some of the other top women in the sport things seemed to feel like they were easier for you.

In the eyes of the media, Max was still the prodigal child of Jos Verstappen, and you were just Max's youngest sister, Victoria's twin, and Sophie Kumpen's karting legacy.

You loved your mother, she was the one who encouraged you to give karting a real try, not just because of your father or Max but because you really loved it and racing had made you happy.

Over the two years that you had been in F1 Academy, you had managed to win a championship and eventually, your agent had gotten a call from McLaren to be their reserve driver. You weren’t happy with being their reserve driver. You wanted to be driving for the team. And then you finally got your opportunity.

Six weeks later you had gotten another call from your agent telling you that McLaren wanted to sign you to be their second driver for the upcoming season.

It was everything that you had worked for all your life. You had called your mom and Victoria and shared the news with them. Victoria insisted that she should fly out to celebrate but instead, you offered to fly home to Holland and spend time with her given that she had your nephew Lio a few months ago.

When you had told Max, he had been excited for you and said he couldn’t wait to see you around the paddock all the time, and Max’s girlfriend Kelly even seemed happy for you.

Your father however didn’t have much to say when he heard from Raymond that you ended up signing with the team that you did. It was like you being the first woman to gain a seat in F1 meant nothing to him.

Over the next few years, Max won championship after championship. Your father was forever proud of Max and his achievements. With each championship win, it was like the media had also started to pay more attention to Max. It went from headlines like, “Brother and sister duo Max and Y/N Verstappen take P1 and P2 in Monza” to “Max Verstappen ahead of the rest of the field”. You had read that article. Every driver got at least a good paragraph about that race in Singapore, while you got a single sentence. Y/N Verstappen, younger sister of Max Verstappen started in qualifying P9 before dropping down to P15 during the race because of gearbox issues.

You never wanted to be on the sidelines watching your brother compete, you wanted to be out there with him fighting for a championship.

When the season started again you made a promise to yourself, you weren’t going to focus on Max or your father. Focus on what’s going on on the track, and don’t worry about the rest of the grid. You could still be friendly with Lando when you needed to but it would be easier if you avoided Max altogether. You needed people to see that you were much more than just Max Verstappen's baby sister.

So after the first race of the season, you stopped going to Max and congratulating him after races. Stopped visiting him, Kelly, and P when you weren’t with your fiancé. You didn’t talk to Victoria as often and barely called your mom when things felt like they were too much. You had barely made the effort to talk to your father after his second divorce went through and only spent time with your half-sister when you needed to.

It was just easier to shut them all out. The media couldn’t say anything if there was nothing to talk about.

"This is outrageous, my sister won't talk to me," Max yelled as he stood in his mother’s living room.

Victoria was sitting on the couch while his mother was sitting in the armchair, his father looked stoic. Aside from his father, they were all concerned about Y/N, she didn’t talk to anyone unless it was for birthdays or holidays.

Max was genuinely concerned for his little sister, they had always been close, even closer than Y/N and Victoria had been growing up because while Max and Jos were off in some part of Europe for a karting race Y/N would be with them, offering to help Max without Jos around or wanting Max’s advice on the way that something in her kart wasn’t working right. What she could do to make it better for her and the type of feedback to give their father as he was working on both of their karts.

He had been so proud of Y/N when she signed her contract with McLaren, even if it wasn’t Red Bull or Mercedes. Being able to share podiums with her meant so much since they ended up in different junior categories before they both got to F1. He always wanted her to succeed.

“It's fine Max, she’ll get over it.” His father said leaning back in his chair.

He just glared at him. His father didn’t care that Y/N wasn’t talking to him, he said that it was good for her. She was finally getting podiums and had ended up getting engaged in the last few months. Jos said that it was good, she would keep driving in F1 until she was married and then end up giving up the sport when she was ready to have kids.

Max knew that it was a lie that Y/N had told Jos to shut him up. Y/N wasn’t going to retire until she knew that she had a real chance at winning a WDC, she wanted to be the first woman to accomplish that feat.

At the next race, Max walked by the McLaren garage to try to talk to Y/N but he didn't see her so he ended up looking for Lando instead. He saw him talking with some guy in a suit.

"Yeah, she's a great teammate. A little intense at times, but Max can get like that too." He heard Lando say.

"Do you know why she doesn't talk to them anymore?" He heard the suit guy ask. "From how she brings it up, it's as if they did something. We've been together a long time and I've never even met her family."

"Honestly man, I don't know. That doesn't seem like how I know Max or any of Y/N's family. Maybe talk to Max." Max saw Lando point in his direction. "He is standing, just over there."

At first, Max didn’t recognize the guy in the suit. He was taller than you for sure, and he looked a little too comfortable around the paddock to just be a fan or celebrity. As he got closer Max started to recognize him, he was the man you were engaged to. Max did wonder how you ended up engaged to a real estate broker who was from the States. It seemed so strange to him.

Max walked closer to him, pointing himself towards Lando so the men would think that he wasn't paying him any mind. He didn't want to insult his sister's fiancé, just make the other guy aware that he didn't know who he was.

"Hey, Max, right?" He heard from the guy.

Max turned towards him, looking at the man in the suit. He was a little overdressed for a Formula 1 race.

"Yes, do I know you?" It was a fair thing to ask. Max didn't know him and this guy didn't know Max.

"No, but I know your sister." He offered before stretching his hand out to Max's to shake. "We're together."

That wasn't much of an explanation. He didn't even know if Y/N had told this guy that their family knew that she was getting married but none of them had met him before.

"So you're my baby sister's fiancé." He bit out not taking this guy's hand.

Max wasn't normally rude to anyone. When he was younger, Jos would have ripped him a new one for something like this.

Max could see that the guy was shocked hearing this from him.

"Yeah, I am." He answered.

Part of Max wanted to walk away from him, the part that was angry that his sister wouldn't talk to him and had stopped confiding in him over this last year.

"I just wanted to talk to you about her." He started to say. "She's been different and as her family, I would think that you would want to keep being in her life."

Max immediately wanted to stop this guy from finishing his sentence. This guy had no idea what his relationship with his younger sister was like, and he didn't need this guy to tell him.

Max was quick to look around the room, trying to see if there were reports or cameras around. He didn't need any of those people giving opinions about his family. Luckily all of them weren't in the garage.

"I want to keep being in her life, it's hard to when she's pushed me out of it," Max said cutting him off.

This guy's shoulders instantly dropped a little. He had no idea that it was Y/N who had pulled away from her family and left them in the dark for the last year. This guy was just as clueless as he was.

"I um... I had no idea." Max looked at him and could tell that he felt awkward.

"Yes, well she hasn't been talking to quite a few people lately." Max couldn't help but fire at him. He shouldn't be angry at this guy, but he can't help it. Y/N had been the one to pull away from all of them, and Max knew that the media was to blame for all of it.

He just wanted his baby sister back in his life.

"Maybe we can help each other," His sister's fiancé suggested. "You want your sister back in your life, and I would like to see my fiancée happy again."

Max wanted to think this over. He didn't just want to agree with the guy out of nowhere but he could try to hear him out.

"You have something in mind?" He asked. The man before him nodded.

They agreed to swap numbers and would find a time and place to talk.

F1 Taglist: @mindless-rock, @cixrosie, @taylorslovesswifties13, @konsti081, @thatsusbitch

[therhythmafterthesummer]

Hi. Long time reader. Big fan! Hi!

I have a question. Would you ever consider doing a "7 days" drabble or something? I've always wondered how Mr and almost not quite Mrs Pack Leader both handled the 7 days from when Pretty found out about the awoo awoo, to when she returned home with more knowledge and acceptance?

Can I have your autograph? Big fan! Much respect! Wow!

you sent this ask on may 2023. it's been over a year. OVER A YEAR... i told you i'd consider it and i did ☝☝☝

it's probably not exactly the same as what you'd imagined and it's also been the first thing i wrote in a long while, but i hope it's entertaining and that you like it and that it doesn't suck~

Pairing: Werewolf!Chan x Human!F.Reader (one of the main pairings of my WereRoomies series. reading Alpha Dog before this one is highly recommended as it’s something that happens within that story). | Word Count: ~1.8k | Themes & Warnings: fantasy/supernatural AU · roomies idiots to ??? · there's like a smidge of angst but probably not enough for it to be taken into consideration · pre-relationship situations · this was barely proof-read oops

minors do not interact.

‘I’m a werewolf… We’re all werewolves’

‘We’re all werewolves…’

‘We’re all werewolves…’

Werewolves.

Everything you thought you knew about the world around you was completely obliterated a week ago. It wasn’t every day that one learnt that supernatural creatures lived among humans, so it was–quite understandably, in your opinion–an absolute shock when your roommate revealed to you that he and the rest of his friends were, in fact, werewolves.

Werewolves. As in, a half man, half wolf creature… You’d been unknowingly living among werewolves for four whole months and you’d convinced yourself that they wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t literally seen one of them shift from his wolf form into his human one with your own two eyes.

You’d been trying to process this knowledge for a whole week. The first couple of days, you told yourself you had just imagined the whole thing, up to the conversation you had with your roommate right after the fact…

But then, the text messages started coming in.

> Yang Jeongin (neighbour): im sorry > i know i probably spooked you when i shifted > i couldnt control it honestly > i was too shocked > i shouldve done better > sorry

> Lee Minho (neighbour): hiya > just wanted to check in on you… > hope you’re well

> Bang Chris (roomie): hey… how’re you

You weren’t imagining those. They were very real. They stared at you from within your phone’s screen whenever you opened your messaging app, reminding you that the whole thing had actually happened.

When you started digesting the situation and accepted it had happened, you felt angry. 

They lied to you. Every single one of them had lied to you. They lied by omission, at least… It wasn’t like they ever said they were human, but you’d never really considered the fact that people needed to specify something like that.

You’d found yourself laying on your childhood bed, fuming at the thought of these people possibly laughing at your expense, maybe toying with you like you were somehow less than them. Like you were prey.

But after the initial fire of anger subsided, you just grew… confused.

Going online to research something could either go really well or really bad. The higher the number of the page in your search engine became, the more you started to wonder if these dark corners of the internet held any truth about the topic at all.

A website with ten year old graphics drawn in 8-bits exposed how werewolves lived among humans. It went in detail on their super-strength, their enhanced senses, and their innate desire to live in communes. All of which just sounded like someone was detailing lore for their next fantasy story.

There was no way for you to fact-check any of the articles and forums you found, no way of knowing what was real and what was simply made up by someone’s hyperactive imagination.

So it was towards day four of being away from your usual residence that you remembered a key detail. 

There was a person that was close with your neighbours, the childhood friend of one of them who you could now vividly recall telling you how ‘Being human kinda sucks sometimes. We can’t do shit’.

At the time, you thought she was just hyperbolising. There was no way you would’ve thought she was actually confirming to you that she was human and that she somehow knew of beings with greater abilities than her own. There was no way she didn’t know.

So you went to your recent chats and clicked on the one with the phone number that was still saved with the same name it had when your neighbour Minho had shared it with you. You really needed to update it, but that was seemingly insignificant at this time. With trembling fingers, you sent a message.

< You: you knew didn’t you?

It didn’t take long for the reply to come, signalled by the gentle vibration of your phone, bringing with it a knot that made its home in your throat.

> kittenkittykat🐱: Hi, how are you? I’m fine, thanks for asking LOL. > I’m gonna need you to elaborate on that, babes.

< You: about the guys and their… condition

You saw the ‘typing…’ message appear and disappear for a long minute, until the person on the other side finally replied.

> kittenkittykat🐱: What condition?

It annoyed you, you’d admit. She was acting aloof, there was no way she wasn’t. So you ignored the heavy feeling in your chest and decided to get to the point.

< You: the… furry one < c’mon, don’t act like you don’t know < there’s no way minho didn’t tell you about what happened the other day < hell, there’s no way you don’t know what the boys are < you’ve known minho for years

> kittenkittykat🐱: He did tell me. > I just wanted you to tell me you knew yourself. > And yes. I’ve always known. > I’ve known Minho since before he contracted lycanthropy.

< You: contracted? < are you saying he wasn’t always like this?

> kittenkittykat🐱: …Yes > You’re either born a werewolf or turned into one. > To be honest, I don’t think I’m comfortable disclosing Minho’s past in much detail without asking him first. > In any case, please don’t be mad at them. > Or me, for that matter… > It’s not just something you go around telling people that have no connection with the supernatural, you know?

You knew she was right. Deep within you, you knew. You kinda… understood. 

Before you could reply to that last message, she sent more.

> kittenkittykat🐱: Know that any questions you’ve got, you can ask me. > After so many years I think I might know a thing or two about the furry men… > And women. And, uh… people. > Furry people. Yes. > Anyway, I know of some resources online, too…

And resources online she shared…

Some of the dodgy websites you’d found hadn’t been too far off. Apparently werewolves did live in communes, more accurately referred to as packs, which aligned perfectly with the whole living situation your roommate and your neighbours had. When you moved in with Chris, you were surprised to see how close he was with his friends, you brushed it off as their apparent lack of toxic masculinity, but now you knew.

Now you knew…

But did you, really?

You figured the only way to get proper answers was to actually speak to them–to him, more specifically. After all, you lived with Chris. In the same flat. You were missing it terribly, your flat… and maybe you were even missing Chris.

But you weren’t ready to face him.

What would you tell him? How could you even approach the situation? 

Especially considering… Well, the very inconvenient crush you’d developed on your roommate… Your roommate that you now knew was a werewolf.

You hadn’t really entertained the thought of doing anything about said crush… You were convinced that it’d probably just complicate things, but all it took was a charming smile and the sight of dimples to make you want to risk it all.

It was a reaction that you now questioned.

He wasn’t human. On the off chance that you did risk it all, would you even want to be with someone like him? Or, more importantly, could his supernatural condition be somehow influencing you into believing you liked him? Was he literally charming you?

You figured you needed to know…

One of the forums your neighbour’s friend shared with you had this whole section dedicated to romancing a werewolf, explaining how their designation affected the whole process most of the time. This led you to another section where you learnt about those designations, about what an alpha, a beta, and an omega were. 

Alphas were usually the leaders of a pack, according to this site. Very protective, territorial, particularly stubborn… It definitely sounded like Chris to you. His friends looked up to him, and it took only one word said in a serious tone for them to do anything he asked them to do. 

This knowledge led you to many threads. ‘How to deal with a violent alpha?’ ‘Our alpha is forcing us to do things for her, how can we stop her?’ ‘Tips to take an alpha [in a fight] pt3’ ‘Tips to take an alpha [in every hole possible] pt5’

Some conversations were a bit too explicit for you to comfortably read them. Not because you were a prude, by any means, but because anything too explicit would make you think about your roommate a bit too much… You weren’t in the most appropriate mood to think about ‘An alpha’s preference in bed’ or ‘How to stretch for an alpha’s knot’ –whatever that was.

You were more in the mood to dig into all these threads related to violent, overly possessive and controlling alphas. You felt like you needed to know about this supposed inherent nature of your roommate’s.

These people didn’t particularly sound like Chris. Yeah, he wasn’t perfect, and anyone could tell he wanted to be the one in charge at all times, but he’d never given you the feeling that he was forcing anyone around him to do anything at all. 

Admittedly, you might’ve gotten a bit too invested in the topic. It started to worry you when all you could read was these horrible experiences people had with alphas–both in platonic and romantic settings. But eventually, you started seeing the opposite side. 

‘Our pack’s alpha is honestly great. They always make sure we’re okay with any decisions taken…’ ‘As an alpha, I can tell you that any alpha that tries to force you into anything is just toxic and abusive. We aren’t all like that…’ ‘I feel very cared for when I’m with my alpha…’ 

Those testimonials gave you a bit more hope. They reminded you that in this short time you’d spent living with Chris, he’d done nothing but made you feel comfortable. He was that type of person, it didn’t matter if he was a werewolf.

Crush aside, you liked Chris. He was a guy you felt you could trust; yes, he’d lied by omission, but if you thought about it with a clear mind, it was pretty obvious that he wouldn’t just outright tell you he wasn’t entirely human. He seemed genuine, but you needed to hear his side of the story with your own two ears, without the panic of suddenly seeing your younger neighbour’s body twist and turn in ways you never knew were possible.

So with that in mind, on day seven of you being away from the place you considered your home, and after reading many articles and comments from people online, you left the comfort of your childhood bed, gathered your belongings, and left your mother’s house.

You were determined to get answers. You needed the truth, directly from the wolf’s mouth. If knowing Chris was a werewolf meant he’d kick you out, then you wanted him to tell you. If knowing he was a werewolf meant you’d be able to perceive malice in Chris, you wanted to see it.

In all honesty, if Chris was as genuine as he seemed and if he wanted you around, you genuinely wanted to stay, lycanthropy and all.

© therhythmafterthesummer 2024. all rights reserved. do not repost or translate my stories.

General Masterlist | WereRoomies Masterlist

[jokeroutsubs]

[ENG translation] Joker Out: Playing on the main stage of Sziget means the success with capital letters for us

An interview with Joker Out published in the August 2024 issue of Rockstar magazine. Original article written by Viki Erdős, photo by Viki Erdős. Translation and review by X ddrflctns and X brnbergeron, proofread by @flowerlotus8.

In the former Yugoslavia they have won the 'Artist of the Year' and the 'Song of the Year' awards several times. With two albums under their belt, they entered the Eurovision Song Contest with their song 'Carpe Diem' last year, which put them on the Spotify Viral Top 10 list and then on the Main Stage of Sziget. We met the Slovenian five-piece Joker Out before their first concert in Budapest, where they told us: their biggest dream came true by playing for us at the Island of Freedom on 8 August. Read more of our interview on rockstar.hu!

What's your first impression of the Sziget Festival, now that you've spent a few hours here?

Jan: Actually I already came here yesterday to see L'Impératice. It's definitely the biggest festival I've been to, yet it doesn't seem too crowded. I really like the atmosphere, somehow despite the noise it's calming, and the line-up is incredible!

Jure: It's going to be the biggest stage we've ever played on.

Bojan: I didn't even see you on the stage during the soundcheck, because there was so much smoke! I turned around and just blinked 'where is everyone'?

You posted concert photos from 2016 on Instagram just yesterday. Did you ever think you would play on the main stage of Sziget?

Bojan: Performing at Sziget was always our biggest dream, we somehow thought that playing here, on the main stage would mean success with capital letters. I think we always believed that it will happen one day.

Last year your Eurovision performance brought you international success. How to imagine this? Are you getting recognised on the street, for example?

Bojan: We're constantly being recognised in Slovenia, but there are other countries, for example the Balkans, or Finland and The Netherlands, where we have a big fanbase. So the bottom line is that it's all unbearable and we're huge rock stars. (they all laugh)

Kris: And to top it all off, we are doing an interview with Rockstar Magazine.

How do you handle fame?

Bojan: Oh, it's all terrible! I can't even have a cup of coffee without being surrounded by people! (laughs)

But seriously!

Bojan: No, it's super good, in my opinion, our fame at the moment is perfectly manageable. We’re not recognised by a crazy amount of people yet, and the people who do recognise us are usually very nice. Sometimes a few fans wait for us at the airport, weirdly specifically it always happens in Finland. They tell us about how our music helped them getting through tough times or how they found new friends thanks to us. Only at times like this, we realise that we're getting closer to our goals, that music is no longer just for our entertainment, but also for the pleasure of others.

You recently came out with an animated music video for your song 'Šta bih ja'. How did you come up with this idea and how did you find the right artist for the job?

Kris: It was quite liberating to make a music video without having to be in it. Jokes aside, I thought it was a great time for an animated video, which we've never done before. We had a lot of gigs and time was tight, so it was a perfect move. We've been working with a lot of our fans over the last six months, who are great artists, by the way. We keep an eye on what they post, and we're always completely blown away by it and try to collaborate with them whenever possible. For example, they've made merch and a cover for our single for streaming platforms. The new music video was also made by one of our fans.

How much do they freak out when you contact them?

Kris: A lot, I feel like. But they try to be chill about it.

What is the story behind 'Šta bih ja'?

Bojan: We moved to London for two months to write new material, this was the first song that was written there. It was the first time we really felt what it was like to be away from home and miss our loved ones. In additional to how it feels to be a stranger in a new city, the song is also about what it's like being in love when you can only keep in touch with your partner over the phone.

I've noticed on your Instagram that you like lame photoshopped pictures. Is there an expert in the band responsible for these, or is it a team effort?

Jan: That would be me... (laughs) I don't even know how it started. I always use the same picture, it was taken for our Eurovision campaign, we all look hilarious on it. I noticed that our faces fit perfectly on any picture depicting people. It started as a joke, but now it's become our general marketing strategy.

Bojan: You've already extended the scope to foods, animals...

Jan: Yes, last time I photoshopped Nace onto a sausage.

Earlier this year, your concert film and it's accompanying live album was released. Was this a big dream come true?

Jan: The concert film and live album itself was not a dream, but playing in the arena where it was recorded was. It's nice to relive that experience.

Bojan: I haven't watched it at all. It's really about the fact that we had the opportunity to record and release it, and we took it. That's how the market works. We had to have something to spend our money on, so that we would have as little left as possible. (laughs)

Your festival season will be over soon. What's in store for the rest of the year?

Bojan: Before the tour we had already recorded most of our third album in Hamburg, but we knew that we would need to come back [to the studio] for a few more session. So we spend all of our day-offs in the studio, but now in Ljubljana.

How would you describe the new sound in three words?

Bojan: Makes. No. Sense. (laughs)

[bliss-in-the-void]

Gege Akutami, You Do Not Understand Gojo Satoru, and Here is Why

I was reading this article to help me cope with the traumatic events of Chapter 236 when a certain portion didn’t sit right with me.

Long post, click to read the full analysis:

(this is probably the most important post I've made so far)

Now, we all know that Gege doesn’t like Gojo. They don’t make it a secret in the slightest. Which is fine in itself, as an author you are 100% within your right to hate a character you created, and I respect that—it gives dimension to the dynamic of a story.

What I don’t care for is the reasons Akutami lists for their dislike of Gojo.

Reason #1 as stated in the above blurb of the article: Gojo doesn’t have depth.

To me, this is a wild statement to make as an author, but especially as the one who wrote Gojo. Where does he lack depth? Genuine question.

I believe he is an incredibly complex character.

He is the first sorcerer in centuries to be born with the Six Eyes and Limitless techniques, which automatically sets up so many nuances. Coupled with the fact that Akutami has stated that he grew up spoiled, that right there should tell you some things about why he is the way he is. He has a bit of an inflated ego when it comes to his powers. And why wouldn’t he? From the time he was born, the people around him treated him like some sort of God. How else was he supposed to grow up? He’s told his whole life he possesses unparalleled power, and he’s going to believe that.

Even still, it really isn’t as unchecked as Akutami seems to believe it is. Despite his distaste for authority, Gojo still reports to the higher ups, goes on missions, exorcizes curses, and works collaboratively with his fellow sorcerers. If he was really the giant egomaniac Akutami argues that he is, he’d say ‘to hell with authority’ and run off to do whatever he wants like Yuki. I mean, COME ON, this guy is the most powerful modern sorcerer and he still attended all four years of high school. He could have easily never attended—who was going to stop him?

He has a peculiar sense of humor that can get inappropriately timed in certain moments, but it’s obvious that it’s a deflection and a coping mechanism for the horrors of a sorcerer’s reality. He doesn’t just joke about death and dying because he doesn’t care. He cares too much and he doesn’t know how to deal with it, so he suppresses and laughs it off. Moments like this are seen after Suguru dies in JJK 0 when he was clearly crying afterward, but had to put on a cheerful facade for Yuuta and the other students.

He is a very good teacher. It’s hard for a naturally gifted prodigy to effectively teach things which come automatically to them, and somehow he finds creative ways to do it. Teaching Yuuji to control cursed energy by using one of Yaga’s dolls and giving him a movie marathon? One of Yuuji’s favorite hobbies? Genius and so considerate for Yuuji. He’d just been thrown into the sorcerer world, learning all these new things, and Gojo decided to introduce a foreign concept to him through something familiar and comfortable to him. That is amazing, and the mark of a very kind, understanding teacher. He’s also really patient with his students. Yes, he gives them tough love sometimes by throwing them into missions, but it really is to make them strong. How else will they grow if they aren’t put under pressure?

His motivation for being a teacher is very selfless. He himself has stated that he isn’t suited to be a teacher, but that he has a dream to raise a generation of strong allies to prevent isolation from occurring like what had happened to Suguru. He felt guilty about growing apart from him, didn’t see the warning signs before he snapped, and regrets not being there for him more. His entire purpose now is dedicated to making sure the new wave of sorcerers have a tightly-knit network so that no one ends up alone and on a dark path like Suguru.

He constantly sticks his neck out for the helpless even when it’s far from his benefit. He paid off the Zenin clan to save Megumi, the child of the man who ruined his high school years and nearly killed him. He then raised him. He threatened the higher ups to keep Yuuta alive, and then did it again for Yuuji. He does this to preserve their youth, because his own was taken away from him. His whole life he’d been controlled by the higher ups and people around him because of who he is in the sorcerer world, so by waving his own status in front of authority to hold them back from his students, he acts as a sort of shield to take as many burdens off of their shoulders as he can so that they can remain carefree. As much as he can within his power.

With all of that being said, I really don’t understand where Akutami is coming from with lack of depth, but another argument I say to that statement is: well, you’re the author, give him the depth you think he’s missing. (Personally, I believe he’s one of the best-written characters in any anime I’ve seen).

Reason #2 is that according to Akutami, he doesn’t have a likable personality.

What about his personality is unlikable?

He is cocky, but not to the point where he stops caring about others, not to the point where he never considers how other people feel or how his actions affect other people, and not to the point where he never feels guilt and remorse about his shortcomings. Like I said, he lives his life trying to prevent his past from repeating itself, to save the fates of others.

I really don’t get it. In JJK 0, after Nitta gives her report on the shopping mall, Gojo thanks her and praises her. Would a cocky asshole do that? No. If you wanted to characterize him as unlikable, you could have made him dismiss her, or ignore her.

He makes pop culture references, he has endearing flaws like not being good at drawing, being a lightweight drinker, and overdoing it on the sweets. He’s funny, he’s kind, he’s considerate…he is a very likable character.

Honestly, the self-absorption he displays when he’s fighting is probably a result of his upbringing. Being told you have so much power you have so much power you have so much power over and over again instills this belief that yes, he’s needed by Jujutsu Society to fight curses as a weapon. As. A. Weapon. The Six Eyes & Limitless user is a formidable weapon, but what about Satoru Gojo, the person? The only time he feels useful is when he’s fighting curses. That’s where he gets his self-worth. We can see that expressed in this panel, from Chapter 236:

In the second half of Gojo’s second text bubble, he says, “でもどこかで人としてというより生き物としての線引きがあったのかな”.

This translates to: “But I wonder if somewhere there was a line drawn between being a creature rather than a person.”

Rather than having drew the line himself, being constantly treated like the strongest, being handed over the difficult missions, being relied on so heavily pushed him away from other people. It distorted the perception everyone had of him, and it distorted the perception he had of himself. He also believed he could never lose because he let his human side fade into the background. The world didn't need human Satoru Gojo, they needed sorcerer Satoru Gojo, the one who could bend rules to his will with his might, the one who could exorcise any curse and save the day no matter how bad things got. Why would he remain human when that part of him was treated as non-existent? The only person who did treat him as a person with weaknesses and flaws has been dead for eleven years. Of course that voice of reason is going to fizzle out.

How can you possibly vilify him for that? It would be a disservice to everything he has had to endure his entire life.

Reason #3 and the last point I want to touch on is when the article says, "Akutami believes that much of this adoration is based solely on his striking appearance, overshadowing his more abrasive personality traits."

Okay. Where to start?

Honestly, and I know this is probably not Akutami's intention, but that comes off as so condescending. It's so presumptuous. It's as if to say we're all going "ooh look at pretty man, pretty man do no wrong because too pretty" mindlessly with dilated pupils and drool coming out of our mouths. Uh. No.

Yes, Satoru is a good-looking character, but no, that is very far from why we like him so much as a character, and it's also very far from why he's so popular. Aside from all of the points I've made above explaining why he's so universally loved, I'll make another one that isn't superficial and tired.

He's so relatable.

This is a man so incredibly traumatized by his high school years that he is mentally and emotionally unable to move on. Suguru Geto was his very best friend, and for reasons he took too long to understand, chose to abandon their friendship for his own goals. For anyone who has grown apart from a best friend, this hits so hard.

Because of his upbringing it was hard to become close to anyone. But somehow, Suguru was able to break past his walls, and for that, he became entirely too dependent on him. This is common for anyone who finds it hard to make friends and get close to others. Once someone is allowed in, you cling so hard to them and imagine them being there for your entire life. So, when they leave, you take it entirely too personally.

Everyone has a right to live their own lives, and as we see with the divergence of Suguru and Satoru, sometimes our paths aren't leading to the same place. It's not personal. But Satoru took it personal, and that's so beautifully human. When you lose a best friend who was important to you, you think "I like being around this person, they put me at ease in a way no one else does", and you assume they feel the same way about you. So when they leave and show you that no, they didn't feel the same, it hurts. It's almost as if they're saying "I actually do think you're unlovable like everyone else, that's why no one likes you, you are too much."

Someone you thought was safe, isn't anymore.

That is such a relatable thing to watch a character go through! Especially someone as awe-inspiring and charismatic as Gojo! As an audience, we think, "he's just like me!" and we like him for it.

So, as I stated in the title, Gege Akutami, you don't understand Satoru Gojo at all. I commend you for writing such an amazing, iconic, universally loved character, but I will never understand nor respect the superficial way in which you perceive him.

[greenwitchfromthewoods]

inhale, exhale l Javi Gutierrez

Summary:  he will help you deal with something unpleasant

Warnings:  panic attacks, describing symptoms, just fluff

A/N: please, read this. this little story is about something i have experienced and sometimes still experience. anxiety and panic attacks are horrible and make us feel out of control. if you are struggling with this don't be afraid to ask for help and seek information. i hope these scribbles will be something comforting for you. feedback is very important to me and I thank you for all the reblogs, comments and likes. 🖤 sorry for all the mistakes

When he saw you like this for the first time, he was just as scared as you were. 

He found you in a small room near the banquet hall. You were sitting on the floor, gasping for breath, your whole body shaking. He had no idea what it was or how to help you. For a few hours, the marks of your nails were still visible on his hands, but he didn't care. He only thought about you and the fear in your eyes.

The next day, you finally admitted to him the panic attacks you had been having for some time. And when you apologized to him for witnessing it... His heart almost broke.

You were his assistant, his friend, his soulmate. Despite everything, you didn't feel safe enough to tell him what you were dealing with.

"It's not that easy, Javi." You sighed that evening as you talked on the shaded terrace. "Sometimes they're just anxiety attacks. But sometimes..."

"It can be worse?" he asked and you nodded.

"Yesterday it was 'worse'. Worse than before. I usually manage somehow, you know." you tried to smile, but Javi didn't fall for it.

"Is it because of me?" this question couldn't get out of his head and finally he had to ask it. "I know I can be...intense sometimes, but..."

"No! Please don't even think like that." you grabbed his hand. "You're the nicest person I have around. And your presence yesterday really helped me. I'm just sorry I scared you."

"It'll be okay, you'll see." he said, hugging you tightly. He knew then that he would do anything for you.

A few days later he showed up in your office carrying some papers in his hands and waving them around in delight.

"I spent dozens of hours looking for this on the internet." he said and you felt slightly worried.

"Last time you did this you wanted to buy alpacas and keep them in your garden. Javi, I'm not raising alpacas with you." You laughed nervously.

"We'll deal with that another time." He waved his hand ignoring your remark. "I read a dozen articles, listened to a few hours of podcasts, and then I talked to my doctor to find out more about what you were telling me."

"You mean..."

"Yes!" Javi was clearly excited, you would think it was cute but you didn't know if you could think that considering what he was talking about. "Listen, Y/N. I want to help you. I can't take this fear away from you, even though I would like to, but I can try to help you when you need me. I've read about different ways, about breathing, about distracting and focusing on other things, about relaxation methods."

The words poured out of his mouth like a river and you stared at him completely dumbfounded. This guy had already won your heart, but at that moment you started to wonder how on earth he was real. 

You slowly stood up from behind the desk and approached him, not really listening to what he was saying. After years of experiencing anxiety you already had some knowledge about it, but Javi was so involved, so absorbed in it all.

"Javi?" He completely ignored you, because he was talking about some podcast he listened to a little after midnight, you had to grab his wrist and shake him a little, "Javi! Listen to me!"

His wonderful soft brown eyes stopped on you. You were sure you saw a glint of excitement in them.

"I don't know what to say." you finally choked out "No one has ever done something like that for me. You didn't have to. You're my boss, you didn't have to..."

"But I wanted to, sweetie. When I think that my favorite girl is alone with something like that..."

Your hands grabbed his face, his stubble was pleasantly soft, and in this way you managed to direct his gaze to you.

"Thank you, Javi." you said, feeling your throat tighten with emotion "You are the most wonderful guy in the world. I love you."

And then you kissed him. It was just a simple kiss, a peck, but it expressed all the gratitude for what he had done and what he wanted to do for you. 

Javi was surprised, but somehow he managed to hide the fact that his knees trembled for a moment. His arms closed around you and you snuggled into him, thanking him for something he had done completely selflessly.

You weren't ready, but was there a chance you could ever be prepared for something like this? Your fingers gripped the porcelain sink as you stood in your bathroom in your underwear, fighting for your breath. Your heart was pounding in your chest like a wild animal ready to spring at any moment.

Only that fucking sink and your fingers clinging to it kept your trembling body from sinking to the floor.

Your senses felt everything a thousand times stronger. The cold tiles beneath your feet, the warm steam from your shower rising in the air, the loud ticking of the clock on the counter. In half an hour you were supposed to be out and greet the guests, and you were a complete mess.

Everything had been going so well for the past few weeks. You were doing great, and Javi had been a real support system for you. But now you were alone, tears welling up in your eyes.

A sudden knock on the door made you jump.

"Y/N! I need help with my tie. I don't know which one to choose." Javi's voice came from behind the closed door.

You took three quick breaths.

"I left everything on the couch for you!" you shouted back, trying not to let your voice crack. "Just put it on!"

"It's not that easy, love." you closed your eyes. "I think I spilled coffee on it all."

"Javi..." you groaned. "I need a few minutes."

"And I need you and your amazing sense of taste."

Tears rolled down your cheeks completely uncontrollably. You took one hand off the sink to hold back a sob, but you probably didn't succeed, because you heard Javi's voice again.

"Y/N? Sweetie, are you okay?"

"Y-Yes..." fuck, you sounded desperate.

"I'm going inside!"

You saw in the mirror how your eyes widened in horror. Javi had seen enough action movies that you were afraid he would kick the door down, but luckily you heard the squeak of the lock turning. He stood in the doorway in an unbuttoned shirt, socks and boxers, and you felt relief just seeing him.

"Oh, sweetie..." he groaned, quickly approaching you, he grabbed your arms tightly, "Okay, we practiced this, right?" you nodded, "Look at me, only at me. Inhale... Exhale... In... Out... Deeply."

Your breathing didn't slow down at all, you started breathing even faster. His fingers tightened on your shoulders, but Javi didn't start to panic. In stressful moments he could be very focused sometimes, and now it was about you.

"Sweetie, look at me the whole time, okay? You're doing great, this will pass soon." his voice was soothing, he was really doing his best to distract you "Hey, how about we go diving tomorrow? Not far, I know you don't like open water. We'll have a day for ourselves. Would you like that?"

You nodded and he smiled. He had your full attention.

"In… Out… In… Out… And you know, you look great in that underwear? Maybe I shouldn't say that..." he was worried, but he noticed you trying to smile, your breathing starting to calm down "You're so brave, honey. We'll have a great day tomorrow, we just need to survive this evening, right? You have to help me with this tie, but I don't know why, because you'll be the most stunning at this party anyway."

"Jesus, Javi..." you sighed, embarrassed by his words "Don't flatter me in this situation."

"Sorry! Let's talk about alpacas then."

After a few minutes, your body finally gave in. You were still trying to breathe deeply, but you had already managed to drink a few sips of water, and your hands had stopped shaking. You felt completely exhausted, but safe.

Javi was still standing next to you, completely forgetting that he should be getting dressed and greeting the guests. He didn't want to leave you like this, and you knew that you wouldn't find a way to repay him for his kindness.

"I think I'm feeling better already." You said quietly.

"Are you sure?" Javi looked at you still worried.

"Yeah, I definitely am. I should get myself sorted out, the guests..."

"You shouldn't rush. Maybe just go to bed." His hand brushed away a few strands of hair that had fallen over your face, his eyes full of concern.

"But I want to go with you." You smiled weakly. "You supported me, and I want to do the same for you." you smoothed his shirt with your hand, letting your eyes wander over his sun-kissed chest. "Maybe don't wear a tie? You look much sexier that way."

"Do you like me in the sexy version?" Javi grinned, and you lightly slapped him on the shoulder.

"I like you in any version, Gutierrez." you sighed. "Just go and... Thank you, Javi. Thank you for being here."

"I always will, little one." he replied, kissing your temple and heading for the door. "Just don't stare at my ass!"

"I'll try to stop myself, but it'll be very difficult!" you laughed. "Javi?"

He stopped in the doorway and turned to you. A pleasant warmth spread through your body every time you looked at his handsome face.

"I love you, you know?"

"I love you more." He winked at you, and as you turned to the mirror to fix your makeup, his eyes longingly swept over your figure. 

You were his everything, and he already knew that the next day he would tell you all about it.

☆☆☆

Thank you for your time.

[bones4thecats]

Hello ^-^ may I please request the housewarden's reactions to their s/o working REALLY hard on a paper for a school contest, but it gets stolen and turned in by someone else. On top of that, the paper wins the contest and the thief gets the credit. Thank you in advance ❤️

A/N: Apologies that this took so long to write, I've been getting ready for my classes starting up again. But I do hope you enjoy this Anon!!

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❤️ Riddle knew you were working hard on this next assignment, and it made him very happy to see you finally taking a lot of time to make the paper perfect. And seeing your nose scrunch up in concentration made him chuckle inside.

❤️ Without your knowledge, your tart-loving boyfriend had read you paper, and he swore on the inside that this was going to be the winning paper! It was so good, the way you explained the topic was amazing!!

❤️ He had expected you to run back to the dorm with a very happy look, which seeing you frowning was something he did not expect in the slightest.

❤️ Hearing about the student who dared to do this to you made his blood boiled, if his cherry-red face didn't scream 'behead trial', welp!

❤️ Riddle obviously yelled at the student and beheaded him, along with informing the headmaster and contest's leaders about the 'incident', which, because of his reputation, they got punished severely for this.

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🦁 This lion could care less, at least that's what he says. Seeing you work tirelessly away on this paper was quite hilarious to him, he didn't even put that much effort in his familial relationships!

🦁 He didn't doubt you abilities to write, which is what he did enjoy you for, as if he was having a hard time sleeping somehow, he would just read a short story you wrote, it was like a bedtime story for adults!

🦁 When he heard from Ruggie about what happened, he was angry, just not visibly. He walked up to you and asked who it was before sending out another Savanaclaw student to retrieve the 'victorious' bastard who dared to hurt his S/O.

🦁 Leona didn't even have to use his fists against the student who had used your hard work, all he did was glare and scold them in a far more violent manner than the previous did.

🦁 Afterwards, he just lets you stay the night and sleeps the night and parts of the next day with you.

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🐙 Azul is a hard-working man, octo-mer? Whatever! He had built his life of his effort and amazing social skills, he can read people like open books, and he definitely understood how hard it is to win something of this caliber.

🐙 Your boyfriend was someone that you had read the article over and over, making sure it sounded good and flowed like, in your words, the sea that he swam in.

🐙 He had expected you to get the first place because of how excellent it was made, but when you came back alongside Jade and Floyd attempting to hold your emotions back, he immediately understood.

🐙 He had seen the student parading himself around the hallways alongside his buddies, laughing about how easy the mission was and how he was finally going to get the spotlight he deserved. Though, Azul could careless at the time, he recognized the paper once he saw you and sent the twins off to 'assist the student in manners'.

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☀️ Kalim is a very devoted lover, so, even when you were busy writing this paper for the contest, he was right there next to you, reading whilst you wrote the words down.

☀️ He wanted to appoint Jamil to help you out, because normally Jamil would help him out on a difficult subject, but every time you turned his offer down, he learned to just accept it and watch the words flow down on the papers.

☀️ Seeing you cry was something Kalim never liked, he loved seeing others smile and have fun, not sobbing their eyes out. So when you came running into his room crying, he grabbed onto you like a piece of tape to your fingers and didn't let go.

☀️ Eventually, he sent Jamil to grab the student, which he gladly did, knowing how much you were valued by the Al-Asim heir, and let's just say they weren't spared from a rare Kalim-yelling.

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

👑 It was hard to make anything for Vil, but with this subject, he'd be not in an average, 'Vil is angry' mode, he'd be in a whole different level of pissed off.

👑 Because of how much he values his beauty, he would make sure whilst you spent hours upon hours on the paper that he'd check you face for any markings from concentrating and staring at the dreaded screen. (if you wrote it on a computer)

👑 He knew you would win the contest, you were his S/O after all, why wouldn't your effort prove victorious?

👑 Vil didn't see you immediately, in fact, he had heard from Rook that someone had stolen your paper and submitted it, and in the end, winning the contest without being caught, which caused him to freeze and glare at the hunter, obviously not mad at him, but at the person who did this heinous action.

👑 If they were in his dorm, he'd punish them accordingly, but if they were in another member's dorm, he'd speak with them and eventually trap them into punishing the guilty student with as much power as they would use.

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・���・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

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🎮 Idia was one of the first to see this happening, but he couldn't react accordingly, at least, the way 'normies' would.

🎮 He had seen you at his door the next day after submitting the paper that you had work graciously on and he believed you were attempting to trick him with the 'fake sadness to shock' trick.

🎮 Well you weren't, and that scared him tremendously.

🎮 Who would do this to you?! You were literally the nicest person he had ever met! And, thankfully from his availability to the school's cameras, he found out who did it and ended up sending the video to the contest's heads anonymously

🎮 This Shroud brother may be a very shy and reclusive person (don't tell him I said that, he'll flush and get upset again), but when it comes to the people he cares about, Idia would go through a massive crowd for them all.

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

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🐉 Malleus has no words.

🐉 He valued your hard work nearly more than anything really, it was fitting, as you were with him, and in turn, were destined to rule Briar Valley alongside this powerful dragon fae.

🐉 It surprising that somebody had the balls to face any potential harm by hurting you. Everybody has seen you and Malleus talking in either the halls or in Diasomnia's main lobby, so hearing about this was shocking.

🐉 Malleus definitely has Lilia stay with you, unless you requested his presence. If you did the latter, he'd send out Silver and/or Sebek to find the certain student who did this and would give them the scariest warning ever.

🐉 If you allowed him to confront the student himself, he'd have Lilia (most likely) stay with you as he hunted them down like a hawk.

🐉 Either way, the student gets the shit scared outta them. There's no stopping him here.

[biscuitboba]

Yall, another zoro-centered article from CBR just dropped!!

I just love how zolu truthers always talk about how zoro's relationship with luffy is different from the rest of the strawhats, but we are not alone in this as some op male fans think so too!!!

Like, you said it man!!!!

💯💯💯

Personally i think i've talked a lot (i'm talking about my previous posts) about zoro being luffy's anchor or luffy being zoro's compass, but "Zoro serves as luffy's compass" (even with his questionable sense of direction) is actually such a nice perspective from a non-zolu person, and i think that yes, he is right.

I just love how the author keeps on emphasizing zoro's loyalty to luffy, cause it's very clear to see how zoro's loyalty to his captain is so different, you just need a basic reading comprehension skills, and you will be able to see it

This right here.... ofc i've talked about this particular topic before (in fact i think every points written by him, i've made a post about it somehow😭) but yea, he's spot on. Couldn't have said it any better

"By the time of the TB arc, zoro came to a realization about his dream. More than anything, he wants to help luffy to become the pirate king and to do just that, he must become the strongest for his captain instead of just himself" oh zoro... the first mate that you are

"Zoro is the vice-captain", exactly

And ughh.. i just love how he can't stop bringing up the importance of the captain and the first mate's relationship??

"Zoro met luffy and his whole life changed" ,"He has been with the future pirate king the longest", et cetera...

Last but no least, of course you cannot talk about the relationship between zoro and luffy without talking at length about thriller bark and zoro's sacrifice

[redflagshipwriter]

Hot Ghouls in your Area ch 9 PREVIEW

In which Jason makes not a single good judgement call.

“Good morning!”

Jason winced and moved the phone a little further from his face. “Is this Doctor Fenton?”

“It's one of them! What can I do ya for?” Jack Fenton boomed, just as bombastic as his newsletter made him seem. Jason knew, deep in his heart, that Jack Fenton was indeed the one who had selected green neon bold for his headings and borders.

Angels wept. Jason scrubbed his palm over his eye. This man had no poetry in his soul. “I, uh, had some questions about a ghost. I've read some of your articles and your most recent published paper on the topic.”

“We love ghosts!” Fenton bellowed. “Ask away!”

“Do you know a ghost called Phantom?” Jason tried.

“...Sure do,” Jack Fenton said. “Whatcha need?”

Jason cleared his throat. “It's somewhat complicated,” he said evasively, because he didn't need these people to know he was the Red Hood. Fuck. He should have either gotten his helmet stored away or not given his real name. Phantom knew his face and that his name was Jason. Any information that got around via Phantom might tie his face to his alter ego. If Phantom said he got married to Jason, the Red Hood, that could lead to the end of the Bat family vigilantism.

“...He cause you trouble, sport?”

Jason let out a slight laugh. “You could say that, though it wasn't really his fault,” he admitted. He cast a paranoid eye out the window to be sure no siblings were creeping on him. “No, it's really more that…” Fuck, he should have planned this better. “Is there any information you can give me about how a human could contact him?”

Not that Jason didn't have a phone number for the guy. But it made him very uncomfortable to have any basic knowledge or way to track Phantom down if he decided to leave Jason to whatever was going on.

“I could probably do that,” Jack Fenton said slowly, now sounding like an entirely different human being. “Say, you wouldn't be Jeremy, would you?”

Jason blinked. “...How did you know?” He went with. Phantom had contact with a human guy named Jeremy? That might be his in.

“Oh, well then, you've definitely got to come over,” Dr. Fenton wheedled. It somehow came across as shifty. “You'll be wanting a whole primer on how the Ghost Zone works, won't ya?”

“That would be immensely helpful,” Jason agreed. “But I'd hate to take up your valuable time.”

“Nonsense!” Fenton bellowed. Jason nearly lost his grip on his phone in surprise. “Come over Jeremy, I'm dying to meetcha!”

So, there was a plan. Jason packed for a day trip and dialed up his travel agent.

“Fuck off,” said Tim. “I'm busy. Christ.”

“I need an airplane ticket and a rental bike,” Jason continued. He tossed his mostly full bag on the sofa and went digging for the socks he knew he had washed the other night. “I'm going to go see some nerds about my impromptu adventure the other day.”

Tim groaned. That was the first Jason had given any hint at all about what had happened to him when he'd been ‘sacrificed.’ “What nerds?” He asked wearily.

Jason grinned into his sock drawer. Gottem. “Why, do you all know each other?” He asked blithely.

[boba-beom]

･ﾟﾟ･｡ my beautiful girlfriend | WEN JUNHUI

pairing: idol/actor!junhui x ff!reader // genre: oneshot; hurt, comfort, angst(?) // warnings: petnames; (baby and love), misunderstanding, overthinking, crying, lowkey self-depricating, proofread quickly. // wc: 1.6k

a/n: merry christmas <3 @honajoong hii lex!! I'm your secret santa :> despite starting a little late, I wanted to be involved as well and I got you!! I will admit I struggled to write for junhui since he's the first seventeen member I've written about, but hopefully I think I managed to grasp his characteristics(?) 🥹 I hope it's okay!! also 'yn yln' is 'your name' and 'your last name' :>

Two years. Two whole years since jun asked to be your boyfriend. Two whole years since you started supporting him through his acting career. But never in your two whole years together were you jealous about his co-stars or fans. You've always been hidden away from the public, not going to any events together. Not even getting barricade tickets for his and his group's concerts for the sake of not getting caught somehow.

It's always been like that though. But that's because no one knew about your relationship, not even the rest of his group members.

Jealousy has never been an issue for you until you read an article regarding jun's new upcoming Chinese drama. See, this was new to you. Usually you'd be excited; treating him to order take out from his favourite place, or buying him small gifts to add to his collection of other things you got him within your relationship.

As you read article after article the majority published about how jun and his co-star make such a good couple. Some even published pictures of them together at the premier event they recently attended, while others are scene captures from the said drama.

There was this one picture you saw that made your heart drum disturbingly loud in your ears, not because of the photo itself but because of the comments regarding it. Your eyes dart from comment to comment, 'Wen Junhui and ____ have incredible chemistry', 'A new couple in made in the industry?', 'I hope they're dating in real life.'

Your breathing pattern becomes ragged from the thought of feeling like you're hindering Jun in his life. If you were just making things difficult for him since you were no one but a regular person who works a 9-5 job. In times like this, which was rare, you had no one but yourself to console you.

A single tear runs down your cheek which has you vigorously wiping it off your face, refusing to let yourself become so weak because of this.

You see a text appear from the top of your phone, a text from your boyfriend asking how you were and letting you know when he'll be home, but a part of you felt like you were sinking inside. All these comments getting to your head about Jun and his co-star, but you know you shouldn't think that way. Besides, you never used to think that way initially.

Thinking that it's best to sleep off the thoughts gathering in your head, you grab the folded blanket beside you on the couch, splaying it over you as you play music from the t.v, hoping that would help you get your mind off it.

Hours pass, the living room dim from the lack of light but only from the t.v itself. You pick up your phone to check the time, and while you were asleep, you received multiple texts and a missed call from Jun; all the messages asking if you've eaten, what you want to watch later in the evening, and so forth.

However, you didn't feel like messaging him back, or even calling him back either. You thought your nap would rid of the uncomfortable overthinking, but it just has you questioning, 'why is he even with me?' He could pick any other girl, but why did he choose you. He has a beautiful co-star with incredible chemistry, why doesn't he just ask her to be his girlfriend instead—

"Yn?" Jun's voice echoes in the room and cuts off your trail of thoughts.

You refuse to turn your back and greet him, instead, you pick up the remote and search through films to watch as if he wasn't calling your name again.

"Hey, did you get my texts? Have you decided what you wanna eat tonight?" Jun asks again, caressing the top of your head and missed as he tried to kiss the top of your head, but you flinched away.

"Not hungry." You reply curtly.

He could sense something was off, not wanting to think too much into it, he lets it slide as he goes into the bedroom for a quick shower and change of clothes. He hasn't seen you behave this way before, wondering what possibly could have happened recently to tick you off. His mind was thinking of every possibility but to think of articles since his shoots for the drama were quite a while ago.

As he walks back into the living room, you're still sitting in the same spot on the couch. He walks around the couch to sit beside you, lifting the side of the blanket to share, but you take it off and let him have all of it instead.

Jun turns his head to look at you, a questioning expression on his face yet you don't turn to look at him. A straight, unbothered face is what he sees as your eyes are stuck on whatever movie you put on the t.v.

"Is everything alright? I feel like I've done something wro-"

"Everything's fine." You lie, cutting him off and not wanting to think about it anymore. For the first time in a while you almost didn't want to be in his presence for the sake of keeping sane.

"Well it doesn't sound fine." He turns his body, attempting to test the waters as he places a careful hand on your lap. This time you don't flinch.

You sigh. Pausing before you answer him honestly, "Because it's not."

"Love, how am I supposed to know what's bothering you if you won't tell me straight?" Jun's hand starts caressing your thigh in attempt to comfort you and allow you to open up to him, like you usually do.

You try to gather your thoughts and stare at one spot, but nothing in particular, on the t.v as your breathing becomes uneven. It's difficult talking about a feeling you never thought you had to ever talk about, but it was bound to happen at least once in your life. And that was this current moment in time.

A stuck, choked up feeling in your throat starts to erupt as you struggle to find the words to say, leading to you struggling to stop yourself from tearing up out of frustration.

You explain about the articles you've read about him and his co-star, the ones headlining and the comments you've seen. Your breathing hitches a little while you're talking, and Jun couldn't help but scoot closer to you with his arm around you.

"I tried my best to not let it bother me, but it was a lot to take in. I'm sorry." Jun wipes away at your tears, listening intently as you continue, "I know it's your job, I understand if I'm being unacceptable and if you don't want to be with me anymore."

Tears are non-stop streaming down your face, also because you're mad at yourself for becoming so weak and letting this get to you in the first place. You feel Jun's hand resting on the middle of your back, rubbing it with comfort.

You continue letting out your hushed cries, burying your face into his chest with muffled sorries leaving you. Jun's never seen you cry so much and his heart drops at the sound of your irregular breathing pattern in attempt to stop yourself crying. How could you stop when he hugs you tight momentarily, slowly swaying you side to side as he rests his cheek by your temple.

"Hey, hey. It's okay." He cups your cheek, pulling back to hold your face close to his. "You know you're always going to be the one for me. I'm sorry that hiding our relationship has been difficult, I know. I want to let everyone know that I'm yours, but right now it's a little tricky, and I know that's no excuse but I swear I will let people know. Sooner than later, I promise."

Your sobs quieten down, a little exhausted from the thoughts occupying your mind the whole day. But you respond with a slow nod and a tight lipped smile as you both shuffle on the couch and lay your head on his chest as his hand finds its way to skim up and down your back once again.

･ﾟﾟ･｡ ･ﾟﾟ･｡ ･ﾟﾟ･｡

It's been a few days since Jun had comforted you. Your phone pings from a notification about another article that had just released with the headline reading, 'Wen Junhui breaks rumours about dating co-star and is a relationship with Yn Yln"

You read it once more. And another time, expecting there to be hate thrown at you, but there was nothing but love and support from Jun's fans. It was entirely different to how you thought they would take it, but you're just grateful that it didn't go that way at all.

Your boyfriend's tall figure walks through the door with a bouquet of flowers, not even a couple of minutes after you had read the article, and he's making his way to you sat by the breakfast bar.

His subtle smile curves his lips as he holds the bouquet out for you. While you, on the other hand, are pouting; worried that it might ruin his career and receive potential hate, but Jun was unbothered. He was certain about it.

"You didn't have to do that, Jun." You insist, receiving the flowers from him. "I don't want this to affect your career."

He stands by your knees as you face him, towering over you ever so slightly.

"I wanted to let them know. I can't keep hiding this relationship forever," he kisses your forehead as his hands plant on your shoulders, giving them a tight squeeze. "And honesty, as much as I love to keep you to myself, they need to know that you're my beautiful girlfriend."

© BOBA-BEOM ; do not repost, alter, translate, or claim as yours on here or any other platform.

tags: @lovejoshua @junniieesbby @flwrseon

permanent taglist: @choiwrld @yjusei @wccycc @lizdevorak @fairybin @laylasbunbunny @acaiasahi @ttyunz @cha0thicpisces @fairybinie @ja4hyvn @yunkiwii @aprilisque

[kremlin]

An earnest call for your support: Help me determine if there is a gas leak in my house.

for a long time now, I have been reading and hearing about This Guy on the news, and have been reading all the articles and stories about him:

Above: Sam, tenting his weird-ass fucked up fingers like a real Wall Street Guy might do in a movie he saw

Yep, you already know this guy, his name is Sam, I'll be referring to him as Sam, as that is his first name, and not by his initials, which is what I imagine a pod person might do in an attempt to emulate human behaviour. Whatever. You already know him and what he did, I won't waste your time. Listen. Pay attention. This is not a post about this guy or what he did. That shit is boring as fuck. This is a post about a potential gas leak in my house. We'll get to that in just a bit. Remember.

I've read all the articles and all the op-eds and everything. About Sam. Let us explore the entire spectrum of media coverage of Sam and Sam's Big Ass Problem, starting from the bottom, with the worm-food-tier jackasses: What do people like Jim Cramer and Shark Tank Guy have to say about him?

Above: CNN's "Mad Money" Jim Cramer also doing a weird hand gesture while he tells your alcoholic cable-news-addicted uncle to put his money in some dumbass shit

Above: I think this is the Shark Tank guy? I don't remember his name. Could have sworn his suit had dollar signs and not question marks (?)

I'll summarize their conclusions: "Sam is a boy genius who is super duper smart and can move objects with his massive brain due to knowing about Tech, FinDom FinTech, and computer money, specifically Money Coding. Unfortunately Sam committed massive fraud and will get his ass fucked in federal court".

Moving on from the worm-food-tier to the mediocre-tier: The totally nameless basic bitch journalists at the New York Times or Bloomberg. What do these assholes have to say?

Above: Jim Fuckface, associate financial correspondent for Bloomberg. Jim enjoys winding down on a Friday afternoon by sipping a Bud Lite Lime and wearing his baseball cap backwards, which bears the logo of his local professional sports team.

Above: Kate Fuckface, columnist at the New York Times. Kate enjoys spending her time chatting and interacting with her friends on Social Media Platforms like Facebook and Instagram, as well as purchasing items on Etsy

I'll summarize their conclusions: "Displaying the characteristic awkwardness of incredible technical and financial genius, it was clear to me during our interview that Sam's depth of knowledge truly knew no bounds. Unfortunately Sam committed massive fraud and will get his ass fucked in federal court."

Finally moving on to the people that might actually have a clue about what they're talking about. Sam Levine and Michael Lewis:

Above: Matt Levine, author of a comedy email newsletter named Money Stuff that is 95% financial information by weight and somehow still usually funny as fuck.

Above: Michael Lewis, author of a bunch of really good books you haven't read that were made into pretty decent movies you have seen: Moneyball and The Big Short.

I'll summarize their conclusions: "Sam sure is a smart kid and seems to know a whole lot about economics and this digital currency, and I mean a whole lot, and even more about business, accounting, and finance. Bright kid! Unfortunately Sam committed massive fraud and will get his ass fucked in federal court."

A pretty goddamn clear consensus across the board on both counts.

I listened to the interviews the entire spectrum of people listed above conducted with him -- the ones during which they unanimously concluded how smart he is. I listened to many hours of ad-hoc, unscripted Twitter Space calls he participated in, where he fielded questions about his fraud and his business with complete strangers. I listened to them very carefully. And here is my problem! I came to a different conclusion!

Sam is a fucking moron. I am not talking about solely his intellect, or solely his decision-making abilities, or any specific criteria. I am talking about all of them.

There are two possibilities:

(A) I am correct and, somehow, literally everyone else is incorrect, most of whom know vastly more about these topics than I do

(B) There is a fucking gas leak in my house and I have completely lost all cognitive abilities, suddenly and unwittingly, and exist in a cartoon reality inside my skull that would allow me to reach such a wildly different conclusion from the same evidence.

The likelihood of (A) being correct is very nearly 0%. I mean, come on. I am not fucking around when I tell you how troubling this is for me. I wrote earlier that this isn't a post about Sam or his bullshit. This is a post asking for your help in determining whether I have lost my god damn marbles.

I'll give Sam one thing -- he has some nominal ability to bullshit. If he's writing a Tweet, or making a short statement, he can finesse his words that, on some level, mask how much of a dimwit he is. He absolutely can't do that through about six hours of unscripted interviews. Listen to that shit. Listen.

I am going to go check all the joints in the gas lines in my house as well as the ports on my stove and heater. I'll come back and write a follow-up post on outlining exactly why I think homeboy is an idiot. While I do that, please, go listen to the interviews and tell me what you think.

[armpirate]

Anti-romantic || JJk | Ch. 19

Pairings: Boxer!Jungkook x fem!reader || Enemies to lovers, neighbors

Genre: smut, angst, fluff, curse, illegal boxing, violence

Warnings: fuckboy!Jungkook x reader, smut, dirty talk, curse, mention of tarot and fate

Summary: Jungkook had always been carefree when it came to love. He always believed he was worth sharing himself with everyone, and thought it was selfish of him to ever think of keeping himself exclusive to just one person.

And maybe that was exactly what got him into the big problem he was in.

A curse that kept him away from love didn't seem an issue for him. The fact that his ex-girlfriend thought he'd be affected by the idea of the girls he slept with running away from him after sex was ridiculous. She actually did him a favor, and took a burden away from him.

At least that was what he thought at first.

He had never found himself thinking of the possibility of repeating with neither of his hook ups, because they disappeared before he was able to even think about it. But when he makes the mistake of sleeping with the sexy neighbor that lives in front of him, he finds himself hoping to get the chance for a second round every time their paths cross.

Y/n hated him the second he set foot inside the building by the way he started making her life a miserable mess for no reason. Sleeping with him was a big mistake she wasn't thinking of repeating. At least not until he came up with the excuse that she rejected him for a curse. Not only she thought he was annoying, but she was also convinced he was crazy. 

There was no way she could take him seriously.

Aprox. time of reading: 13 minutes

Previous || Next

MASTERLIST

Those four days were like hell.

It didn't matter how many times they came across each other on the common landing, or how he tried to smile at her every time their eyes met. Her answer was always the same: silence. Putting all of her strength to simply ignore him and just be as friendly as she could, while trying to fight that side of her that was urging her to make a comment that'd unchain the bickering between them like it had been happening since he moved into the building.

She was convinced she needed to get out more. It could be that sudden need only came from the fact that she could be feeling lonely, which was a relief for her. At least that was better than even thinking of her liking Jungkook somehow.

Her steps were stopped as she approached Donna, Alma and Jackie, regretting her decision on getting closer to them as soon as she was getting herself to do it. She had already tried many times before, and it was always the same thing. It wasn't that she didn't like them, she just wasn't able to click with them, there wasn't anything they could have in common. But being fair with herself, there was nothing she had in common with the group of friends she hung out with when they were able to.

—Oh, Y/n —Donna called her from afar, lifting her hand to motion her to walk to them—. Come sit with us. We're taking a sip of coffee.

As usual...

One thing about Donna, Y/n would never find her at her desk, she was always in the cafeteria or somewhere in the resting areas of the office -which made her wonder how she managed to write her articles, and do her research when she never worked in her workplace.

Not like it mattered, but it just made her curious.

—Look who's joining our dark side —Jackie giggled, smiling so wide that she could see her light pink gums.

—Well, I'm quite busy usually —Y/n answered, carefully sitting on the free chair in front of Donna—. I'm currently working on some coverages, I'm also still working on my article...

—Oh right, the one you couldn't tell anyone about? —Donna interrupted her, smiling.

—Yeah, that one —Y/n nodded.

—How long has it been since you started working on it? I guess they should be hurrying you up to publish it —of course she was going to drop that type of comment.

—Well, I'm taking my time. I've had some problems getting inside the biggest issue...

—Maybe you should change it and write about something else —Y/n's tongue was trapped between her lips when she was interrupted by Donna's advice filled with poison—. It's just an advice from a more experienced colleague —she tried to justify when the other two glanced at her.

—Don't drop it —Alma encouraged her—. Were you given a due date?

—No, no —her head shook—. I was even told to take my time to make it as perfect as possible.

—Then that's it! —Jackie clapped— Take it easy. And if you need help, just tell us. I'm good with photographs, so if you ever need a good shot, just let me know.

As much as Y/n was grateful for Jackie's kindness, she couldn't imagine her and her colorful clothes among the type of crowd that was formed by those boxing parties.

—Yeah, we're here to help —Alma seconded—. I know we didn't get close, but we love to help and enlighten you whenever you need it —she assured, placing her hand over Y/n's—. And Donna can also help you, right?

—Right —she forced a smile—. Of course.

There was no lie in admitting Donna was forced to say she was going to help, when at first she just wanted to mock Y/n -for some reason she didn't care about-, but there also was no point in focusing on that when two people she never gave a chance to were being so nice and good to her after barely spending any time together, despite sitting two desks away.

After that, she was able to look at the rest of the day in a different way, she felt happy, her mood went through a high boost after talking with Jackie and Alma, and not only because they encouraged her to go on with the article -which she had no idea how she'd continue writing after she dumped Jungkook. She also felt like a whole new possibility was opened after speaking to them, like she had a new place to go to whenever she felt like work was getting to the best side of her. It made her feel like she drew a safe line between them and her because she felt attacked, when they both were accepting and friendly.

It was amazing the effect one small detail could have on the other things. She didn't care about how crowded the subway was, or how tired she felt to walk back home, she just didn't mind it.

Just like she didn't mind finding Jungkook waiting for her in front of her door, while he stared at her doormat.

He was going insane.

Jungkook couldn't understand what was happening, but he was sure he couldn't go on that way. If anyone else had told him before that he'd be looking for someone else's attention, waiting for the exact time to meet up with her, he'd have cackled in the loudest way possible.

It was so bad that even Jimin noticed the change in him.

Normally, his attitude was chill and careless. Their dynamic worked because his friend was too emotional, and Jungkook was the one that lacked that sense. His nickname as they both grew closer together was Iron Man, but those few days he walked around like he was missing something.

He kept checking his phone, for no logical reason -because the only times Y/n had texted him was to tell him to lower the volume or shut up. But he still looked every once in a while, thinking her message would find its way into his device.

He was missing her, and he just couldn't accept it. Jungkook needed to solve it all out before it went worse, and the only way to sort it out was to have her going back to her petty responses and bad looks. He was convinced the only real problem was the fact that he wasn't the one rejecting her. That was it.

—What are you doing there? —she sounded tired, dropping the smile that adorned her face the second she set foot outside of the lift.

—I need to talk with you.

—Again? —she sighed— What is it now? They'll come to check your router? Will the plumber show up?

—Seriously? I come to speak with you and you only think that I want something from you? What image do you have of me?

—The image that you earned with passion —she answered immediately after.

Jungkook looked away, tilting his head as he tried to find the words to speak. Sentences were mixing together, the sounds were rolling around his tongue, and he was sure that he wasn't going to be able to form a proper phrase while she looked at him that way.

—Okay, then —she finished, turning to her door to open it.

Jungkook stopped her from closing the door behind her by speaking again, placing his palm on the exterior door knob, earning another exhausted sigh from her.

—You can't ignore me.

—Excuse me? —she chuckled, raising both of her eyebrows at the order.

—We're neighbors, you just can't act like I'm not living next to you.

—Unfortunately, it's a reality. That's why I have no other choice but to pretend you aren't there.

—I know I've done things wrong, but... let's make it up?

—No —she firmly said, crossing her arms on her chest.

—Is this because of the article? I told you I was going to do it.

—It's not because of the article, it's because of the way you dealt with the whole thing —she confessed—. You just can't ignore people when you don't want to do something, you speak with them. That's what adults do.

—So would you have accepted my decision if I had told you that I didn't want to help you? —he fought back— You mean you wouldn't have acted annoying and petty about it.

—No —she answered again—. I probably would've get mad. But I would have been on the wrong because I can't force people into doing things I want —she explained—. That's not the problem now, because you always find a way to make me mad and make it valid.

—Y/n...

—Didn't you want me to leave you alone? —she cut him off— I'm leaving you alone. Live your life, do your things... But don't bother me or I'll make you regret it —she threatened, pointing her index finger at him—. Get lost now.

—How can you tell me to get lost?

—Well, like I've just done it now —she shrugged—. It's a two-word sentence, pretty simple to say and understand.

—Okay, I'll tell you why I didn't want to do the article.

—That's literally not what I said —she mumbled.

—... but you can't judge me.

—Too late —she rested her arm on the door frame.

—This goes back to some time ago —he exaggerated the move of his hand—. An ex, that wasn't really an ex, cursed me. She promised I wouldn't have a stable relationship, and it had been working until now. I went to a tarot reader, and she confirmed everything that was happening, until she told me that a woman would come to break the curse. She said that I'd fall for her after she appeared, and told me that it'd be made through some work. You showed up in the middle of nowhere, you're the only woman who's still in my life when the rest of the flings disappear the morning after, and you're the only one I was going to do some work with.

Y/n completely lost the plot of the story at the mention of a curse. She couldn't believe he really believed she was going to fall for such a lame story. But it was even crazier that he spotted her as his savior, or the person that would break the curse. What fairytale did he escape from?

—So I wanted to avoid you, because I didn't want that change to happen —he continued—. I'm really happy with the way my life is going right now, okay? I don't need anyone to put everything upside down.

—Wow, you're really creative with excuses —she tilted her head—. Ever thought of leaving boxing and becoming a writer?

—I'm telling the truth.

When she was going to speak, he sighed loudly, throwing his head back while causing her eyes to open wide in surprise to the sudden sound coming from him.

—Okay... —she smiled nervously— So how does that curse break? With a real love kiss? Maybe a magic spell? Oh, I know, the power of love!

—It doesn't seem like you're taking it seriously.

—Look, I don't know what excuses you've made up to get girls to forgive you, and I have no idea how they could've worked, but all of this is a bit too much.

—I'm being honest.

—Sure you are —she shrugged.

—And it's also an explanation why you reject me every single time.

—Because your attitude can't be a valid explanation to you —her eyes squinted at his comment.

—It now makes sense!

Y/n just couldn't go past the fact that Jungkook did in fact believe the story he was telling her, and even was able to find some sense in something that seemed to be taken out of the wildest fantasies he could've read about -if he had read any book at all. At first she just thought he was recurring to his long list of excuses to justify his actions, and that only made her angry, with the only wish to crash the door against his face while he spoke. But the longest he went, the more she was convinced that the man in front of her needed psychological help. Urgently.

—You're scaring me a bit —Y/n admitted, looking around for the nearest exit to ask for help in case she'd need it.

—It's weird you slept with me a second time, but I guess the curse works differently since we see each other every day? Now it's one of those moments where I wished Carly didn't block me so I could ask her —he kept thinking out loud, moving his eyes away from her and losing the focus of the conversation.

—That many blows on your head have officially fucked up with your sanity —she mumbled, seeing her neighbor having a full on conversation with himself—. Instead of wasting money on a tarot reader, why don't you pay for a good therapist?

—Y/n, it's serious. My ex-girlfriend went crazy after I cheated on her —Y/n scoffed at that detail—, which isn't relevant now, and she cursed me before leaving my house. What was what she said? —his eyes moved to the top of his head as he tried to bring back the exact words Carly used— Something that I treated people badly, and that I was going to suffer the same thing or something like that.

—Are you hearing yourself? How do you pretend me to believe you, for fuck's sake? —Y/n insisted, controlling her big wish to roll her eyes in front of him.

—How many times have I lied to you?

—Do you really want me to answer that question? —her ironic tone was challenging, making Jungkook regret that question almost immediately.

—I promise I'm telling the truth.

—Okay, let's say I believe you. What do you want me to do with that information? —her lips puckered, before she continued speaking— Everything's okay, and everything you do is valid, only because you were cursed for not being able to keep your dick in your pants?

—But...

—You were cursed because you are a fifteen year old trapped in the body of a twenty six year old, and you aren't able to keep a woman exactly for that reason.

—Well, look who's talking, are you going to call me immature? You?

—Are you going to attack me?

—No, I'm saying that someone that drills a hole in a wall, because of a little noise, can't speak of others.

—A little noise?

—You're just as immature as me, but you disguise it with that serious facade thinking you're fooling anyone. Spoiler alert: you don't.

—Spoiler alert? See how you're a horny teenager? The only reason you don't want to commit to a relationship is because you have the Peter Pan syndrome.

—Here comes the smart ass with her bit of information taken from the short research she does for her articles... And what if I have the Peter Pan syndrome?

—You're nearing thirty, as much as it hurts you.

—I know, and do you know how attractive that is to women? I'll be a bomb when I turn forty.

Y/n rolled her eyes again, almost giving up the argument because there was no way any bit of common sense would kick inside his brain.

—I can't believe I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you right now.

—Because you like me, as much as it hurts you —he mocked her—. And the only reason you're willing to believe the curse thing is because you want to give me a free pass.

—No, the only reason I'm pretending I believe you is because I don't know if you're going to have a psychosis and do something crazy.

—Look who's coming up with an excuse now —he chuckled.

At that point her hand was tickling, reviving how it'd feel if she crashed her palm against his face. She could lie and justify herself by saying she did it in her defense because her neighbor's brain wasn't working right, which at that point wasn't really a lie.

—You could only wish. At the end of the day, I'm not the one scared of falling —she defended herself.

For the first time, Jungkook was the one nervous and speechless, opening his eyes a bit wider and parting his lips to speak, but not letting a word come out from them.

—You're sure because you haven't spent enough time with me.

—That means I'm so attractive that you fell for me barely spending any time together?

—No, that's not what I meant.

—But that's what you said —she rushed to say, keeping him from going on speaking.

—I'm sure that if I spent more time with you, I'd probably end up sick of you.

—Yet you had the chance, and you didn't take it. That's a bit contradicting —she fought back.

She left him stuck, between two options that he couldn't escape. One was a lie, and the other one was the brutal truth, and he was still fighting to confirm what belonged to each one of them.

—Don't worry though. There's no way I'd ever spend any more time with you than what we already did.

Y/n shouldn't have tempted the universe that way, and dragged it to a challenge that she wasn't going to like.

Not even a second after that sentence left her filthy lips, a huge noise interrupted their casual bickering, making them wonder what was happening. 

Taglist: @jk97bam @ttanniett

[f4iry-bell]

for your event!! would you do a Jameson x reader where the reader is hopeful journalist and is scared that she’ll never be loved and it reflects in her work.

pairing: jameson hawthorne x reader

summary: well ↑

taglist: @clarissaweasley-10 @whatsamongus @sheisntyou @emelia07 @elysianwayy77 @cassie6392 (lmk if u want to be in this)

word count: 784

a/n: anon, hope you like this, anon. ily!

masterlist | 300 event masterlist

Being in the school newspaper doesn't automatically make one a good journalist, just a good writer for her age. I got a lot of compliments about my writings but I never felt truly appreciated for my writings. Because people read two sentences and then poof, they say you're amazing. What about the rest of my work? Do those two sentences judge my entire work? Everytime I read and reread my work I want to rip the printed paper to pieces. Especially since I joined college, I somehow managed to be in the college newspaper as well, probably because I was in my school newspaper.

I didn't get any recommendations or any of that sort, I managed to believe that I am where I am for my talent. In school, I doubted myself a lot, I thought my writing was bad because people didn't read them entirely, it took me time to realise that they are just lazy to read. 

Or they just don't want to read my work. They just don't care about what I have to say. Even my own friends.

Maybe that's the reason I haven't made it yet. Sure, I do talk to people but you can't label them friends. With all of this, I somehow managed to grab the attention of the smartest, most handsome, and charming boy in college ever; Jameson Hawthorne.

His first words to me were “nice work.” I wanted to scream, because with those two words he also added “pretty girl.” 

We started by talking a lot after that. I went to him when I wasn't sure of my writing. He is an honest critique and I was able to take criticism. But there was this nagging feeling that told me that he's just tolerating me and my work. Sometimes I wonder if he ever regrets talking to me first at all.

I was about to leave the newspaper room when Jameson walked in holding the newest paper of our college, and he looked pissed. 

“Can we talk?” He asked, trying to keep his cool which was obvious.

“Sure. What is it about?” I asked. That's it, he's mad about something that I did. He's gonna leave too.

“What is this?” He placed the paper on my table with my article on being the wallflower.

“My article.” 

“I can see that. Did you take inspiration from a character? Or did you write it just with your imagination? Tell me it's either of those.” Jameson’s tone was firm.

I just stayed quiet. I'm not telling him that I'm a loser, and people hate me for that directly.

“Seriously?! I know you're shy and reserved, and don't like people. I know your family’s history. But writing that you're never been truly loved by anyone? That no one cares about you, ever?” He scoffed.

There was a moment of silence before I spoke. “It's the truth, Jameson. I'm not going to lie.” I shrugged. 

He's going to leave anyway, so what's the point of trying?

“6 months.” Was all he said.

“What?”

“We've known eacother for 6 months. And I've been nothing but nice to you. Yes, I tease and mess with you sometimes but have I ever given you the idea where I don't care about you?” He looked hurt now.

“I- It's complicated.”

“It's not, damn it. How can you not see it!” 

“See what? Cause all I'm seeing right now is my friend who is pissed at me about work, who is going to drop me like everyone else.”

Jameson frowned which made me frown. “You really think that just because I'm mad I'll drop you?”

“It's how people are, Jameson.”

“I'm not people. Those people were stupid.”

“You say this now. But I'll do something else to make you mad, and then you'll drop me.”

“You're stupid sometimes for a person who is way too good with words.” 

“What?”

“Why can't you see how much I love you?” His features relaxed, it looked like he just spilled something that he was holding for a very long time.

“You what?”

“I'm in love with you. And you're too blind to see it, and now I'm afraid you won't even believe it.”

“Jameson— I don't know what to say.”

“Just say you like me, you don't even have to love me. Say you have feelings for me, and I promise you I'll do everything to make you believe how much you can be loved. Don't push me away, don't sabotage this.”

After a few moments of silence I nodded. Jameson's shoulders relaxed as he took a step forward to kiss my forehead. “I'll do everything, okay? And you know how ‘everything’ can be when I say it.”