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swordsandholly · 4 months ago

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Cherry Bomb - tattoo parlor au anthology

MDNI | poly 141 x fem fat reader | masterlist

Part 2: Piercings and Puns

“Pleeaaasse?” Johnny whines, pressing his hands together and giving you the biggest, sparkliest puppy dog look you could imagine.

You roll your eyes. “No.”

“Please! My two o’clock cancelled an’ I’m so bored!” He flops over the counter, arms dangling right above the appointment books. You pointedly ignore the size of his biceps.

“I’m not letting you pierce me just because you’re bored.” You scoff. “Now shoo, Simon’s got an appointment coming in soon.”

“But ye barely have any!” He argues. “All I’m askin’ fer is a wee ear. No’ even a nipple!”

A shocked amalgamation of a bark, laugh, and scoff forces it’s way out of you at that. “It’s still a no!”

Johnny groans, but at least moves away from the counter. Unfortunately, he takes the opportunity to circle around behind you, pinching the cartilage of your ear. “C’mon, ol’ righty’s beggin’ fer a conch.”

The intercom buzzes before you can respond. You swat Johnny away with one hand while pressing the speaker button with the other. “Hello?”

“I’ve go’ an appointment with Ghost.” A man’s voice drifts through. You blink dumbly for half a moment. You still haven’t gotten used to Simon’s social media and booking moniker - he doesn’t like giving his real name out much, apparently.

You buzz him in. Johnny is still hanging around the desk even when you leave to get Simon - making your way down the shirt hall to his studio. The large man stands in front of his stencil maker, back turned to you.

You knock on his door frame quietly. “Your guy’s here.”

“Be out in a moment.” He mumbles, focused on whatever he’s doing. You don’t really know the steps by heart, but you do know that there’s something so special about watching artists perform this repetitive song and dance. This rhythm they know by heart. Skilled hands enacting each step with careful precision.

He’s so hard to read. Big and bulky but calm as the night sea. You want him to like you, but you know badgering him certainly won’t get you there. So, you turn on your heal and head back out. When you return to the front, Johnny’s disappeared back into his room.

You suck your teeth and lean back in the desk chair, rolling your earlobe between your thumb and index finger. It’s not a bad offer, really. You only have two earlobe piercings on each side. Wouldn’t hurt to add a helix… you’ve also wanted to get your thirds done for a while. Work your way up. You glance at the clock. Simon won’t be done with his client for at least an hour or so, and you’ve balanced the registers for the moment. Both Kyle and John are out today, so they won’t need anything.

It wouldn’t hurt… well, not metaphorically.

With a sigh you stand, wandering your way to Johnny’s space. The door’s wide open, and his head snaps up the moment you step close like a sixth sense. “Takin’ me up on my offer, bonnie?”

You roll your eyes. “Guess I am.”

“Whit d’ye want?” Johnny practically skips around his station, pulling out wrapped, sanitized tools and placing them on a rolling tray. He pats the center of the padded table in the middle of the room.

“Uh, been wanting to do my thirds for a while.” You shrug. “If you have time for two.”

“Och, I’ve got all the time in the world fer ye, hen.” Johnny grins, pulling up in front of you and grabbing a marker.

He’s so close as he places the marks on your ears, warm fingers feeling for the best spots. A thumb traces the back of your left ear down just to the beginning of your jaw briefly. Fuck, he smells good. Warm musk with hints of citrus around the edges. The way he tucks your hair back, hands framing your face as he lines up the dots, is so oddly intimate compared to the other times you’ve gotten pierced. He chews at his lip in concentration, pulling at the scar on his chin while turning your head back forth a couple times.

“Think I’ve got it.” He grins and steps back. “Have a look.”

You take the mirror, casually checking but not paying too much attention. You trust him to do right by you. “Looks good.”

“A’right. Now the fun part.” He grins, tearing open the pack of tools and a two new needles.

“Is this fun?” You frown, squirming a little at the size of the needle.

“It’s always fun t’poke a pretty girl.”

You roll your eyes, a growing theme between you two it seems. “Oh, you thought that was real clever, didn’t you? Had that in your pocket a while?”

“Why donnae ye reach in an‘ check?” He murmurs, leaning close to clamp your left ear. You’re half tempted to tell him it’s mean to tease a fat girl like this - but you don’t think he means anything like that by it. He’s just a flirt by nature.

Before you can answer, he shoves the needle through your ear. You stiffen, a strained noise bubbling up out of your throat.

Johnny coos as he slips the earring into your ear. “One doon.”

“Uh-huh.” You sniffle. Not that it hurts badly, just a basic physical reaction. Johnny still gives you an empathetic smile.

The second goes quicker, Johnny locked in on his work. It’s interesting, seeing how intense they get. You Is it odd to wish someone would look at you like that? With that much focus and passion?

“There ye go…good girl.” He murmurs in that deep rumble that would have you squirming if you didn’t still have a needle through your ear. “Doin’ so good f’me...”

“You’re a devil, MacTavish.”

Johnny just chuckles, knowing full well exactly what he’s doing. He steps back to look at the final result after slipping the second stud into your ear. They feel hot - like two small ovens on either side of your head.

“If it weren’t for the piercings I’d think ye were blushing, hen.”

“You’re gonna get yourself slapped one of these days.” You scoff, sliding off the table.

“Wouldnnae be the first time.”

You find yourself rolling your eyes for the millionth time.

You grunt, squatting low in an attempt to pick the last of the parlor trash. It’s not that you mind, trash was part of your duties from the start, but holy shit do these boys put bricks in their bins? You’d think tattoos would make light trash. Especially after the sharps are disposed of separately.

“Solid?” Simon appears in the hall, eyes flicking over you. You still can’t tell how he feels about you. Neutral, you suppose. At least that’s all you can glean from behind his seemingly permanent black surgical mask.

“Ya.” You sigh, letting the bag drop and leaning back to stretch. “Just heavy. Swear y’all aren’t throwing rocks in these just to fuck with me?”

You give him a grin. Simon just cocks an eyebrow - exaggerated by the small piercing lining it. You think, maybe the slight shaking of his shoulder is a laugh. In combination won’t he crinkles in the corners of his eyes. Maybe not.

“‘ere.” Simon grunts, closing the short distance between you quickly before snatching up the bag like it weighs almost nothing.

You stutter, following after him toward the back exit. “You don’t have to-“

“Not a problem.” He grunts, tossing the thing over the side of the bin. He quietly leads you back inside, locking the door behind you “Johnny go’ you already?”

When you frown in confusion he points to his ears.

“Oh! Yeah.” You shrug, leading the way back to front desk to finish up your closing duties. “He’s insistent. I’d wanted them for a while anyway so I figured there’s no harm.”

“Give ‘im an inch...” He sighs, pointing to the black bar bridge piercing at the apex of his nose. “Somehow talked me into this shite.”

You tilt your head. “Yeah? I think it suits you.”

It really does. You can’t see most of his nose form under the mask but the arc of it leading up to bridge is strong, the piercing settling into the space nicely.

Simon breaks the silence. “You about done?”

“Almost. Just gotta check the ATM against the book real quick.” You nod.

He stares down at you for a moment, glancing out the semi-opaque window, now black with the night sky. There aren’t many street lamps on this side of town. You can only see a very faint glow from the one down by the car park.

“I’ll wait.” Simon settles his wide frame into Kyle’s usual chair.

“Oh! No you don’t have to! I’m sure you’re tired-“

“Wouldn’t feel right leavin’ you alone in the dark.” He cuts you off.

“It’s not a far walk-“

He scoffs. “Definitely not leaving you to walk alone.”

You sink your teeth into your lip, debating briefly on arguing. Based on his comfortable lean and crossed arms, it’s probably best to just let him walk you home. He looks so wide like that, veins prominent across his forearms. Fuck, you gotta find a boyfriend or booty call or something in this city. Anything to stop the temptation to stare at your hot coworkers.

It doesn’t take long to finish up your final chores. You turn all but one light off, wiring down from the bright overheads glaring at you all day. You glance over at Simon a few times while locking up the ATM, his covered face lit up by the light of his phone.

He leads you out of the shop once you’re finished, locking the door behind you and trying it a couple times to be sure. “Which way?”

“Uh, down here. It’s only twenty minutes.” You murmur, feeling guilty that you’ve kept him out extra late. You shove your hands in your hoodie pockets as you walk, the only sound on the street made up of your footsteps and some distant cars.

“What falls but never gets hurt?” Simon asks suddenly.

You frown. “Huh?”

“What falls but never gets hurt?”

You squint at him, trying to decipher anything from his face in the low light. You get nothing but a calm, warm gaze resting on you.

His eyes crinkle in the corners again. “Rain.”

“Pffft-“ You choke, caught off guard. “That’s such a lame pun.”

“Oh? I’ve got a better one.” Simon says, a smirk in his tone. “Why’d the mother clam scold her children?”

You chew your lip. God, you’re too literal to be clever enough for stupid puns and riddles. It doesn’t help that your head is spinning from this brick shithouse, incredibly attractive and intimidating man spitting popsicle puns at you.

“They were being shellfish.”

“Oh fuck off!” You shove at his arm playfully without thinking. He gives, let’s you push him slightly before you stiffen. “S-sorry! I don’t-“

“Nothin’ to apologize for.” The corners of his eyes crinkle deeper. Yeah, definitely a smile. You answer it with one of your own.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 11 months ago

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What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

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

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

tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

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

#pluralistic #ai #economics #business #hype #bubbles #bubblenomics #residue

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mtchee · 5 months ago

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An Honour to be Had - [Genshin Impact SAGAU] GN

blurb:

Imagine, being isaeki'd into miHoYo's most popular open-world rpg gatcha game and discovering yourself to be interpreted as Teyvat's most beloved All-Maker--a God above Gods, with even Celestia in the palm of your hands. You'd read fanfictions--FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY--so when you first arrived you promptly freaked the fuck out and stayed away from any form of civilisation. You'd hung out with the hilichurls and regisvines and other non-human mobs whom happily cuddled up to you and kept you fed, but you didn't stay in one place for long. However, you got lazy in Sumeru, loving the shade and the Aranaras and their music--that was your downfall. But not really, because it turns out you weren't being hunted. Eventually, after accustomising to your odd new life as Teyvat's Beloved (a title which you felt you very strongly did not need nor deserve), someway, somehow, the topic of your love life comes up. Of course, ensues much embarassment on your end, and much excitement from everyone else on the other.

cw: not edited, second-person-pov, teyvat simps over you, you are the most beloved as should be <3, [name] freaking out from being surrounded by such gorgeous people all the time, fluff, Mild Fontaine Quest Spoilers!

| masterlist | genshin impact collection |

next.> [GN 18+ MDNI] afab! ver. | amab! ver.

[3.1k]

Being the Beloved of Teyvat--you could not very well agree with being 'the Creator' seeing as you very well did not code and encrypt and design genshin, though you didn't deem yourself its 'beloved' either but whatever, you win some you lose some--was incredibly overwhelming.

Particularly at first, after having been fearful for your very life and sanity and then being thrust into the limelight of literally the entire world, but you've learned to make do.

Though at times still, it was intimidating. Constantly dining on only the finest, wearing the rarest (and sometimes impractical) jewels and cloth (of which now you've put on hold until festivals), and living in an ethereal estate situated in the middle of the waters bordering the lands of Liyue, Sumeru, and Fontaine.

You're duties--which, admittedly, was a slow learning process for you--consisted of overseeing the people of Teyvat. At first, you'd often times be thrown into the deep end with various meeting from Liyue Officials, Sumeru Sages, Inazuman Leaders, and all the like, wherein you kept to yourself unless directly spoken to (which was... all the time).

Eventually you'd eased into the life, speaking up for yourself and declaring the authoritive entities for each nation capable of their acts, henceforth relieving you of such meetings unless absolutely necessary.

Really, you just got bored and all the important politics and finesses they talked about stressed you out.

You were still given many reports to oversee, along with an almost never ending number of letters from both important figures and common folk whom hoped to either wish you well or seek audience with you.

Unlike in historic transcripts, this time (apparently) you'd decided to take a more hands on approach in your duties. This being adventuring the lands and meeting with the people in person.

Honestly though, your social anxiety killed you but you were too meek to say anything much about that. Besides, it got you out of just slinking around the esate (castle? Palace??) so, whatever.

You don't think you'd ever be able to wrap your head around the whole 'our holy creator' thing though.

If this is what being famous was like, you didn't want it.

You had no idea what these people liked about you, enough to keep worshipping you even after meeting normal old you in the flesh.

But... that wasn't for you to decide, you suppose. Odd as it is.

"Your Grace~"

You jerk up at the sudden voice, almost loosing your page in your surprise.

You look up to see Venti smiling at you with closed eyes and his familiar carefree smile, and you close your romance book with a light hum in acknowledgement.

"Lunch is served~ Come, come! The picnic's been all set out now!"

Your shy suggestion of a day out in the forests of Inazuma had been clearly heard and happily granted, wherein the Yashiro Commision itself volunteered to make themselves available to cater to you.

You dusted yourself off from the grass and make your way over with the unnecessary help of Venti clinging to your arm. But he looked so happy, so you didn't compain.

Having made your way past the tree line from the cliffs and into a natural clearing, you were surprised at the number of faces whom you saw.

You spot Zhongli, Ningguang, the Traveller (Aether), Paimon and Tartaglia, and Nahida and Kaveh alongside Tighnari, Cyno, and Nilou. Lisa and Kaeya were chatting over a glass of champagne, with Diluc and Jean politely keeping to themselves. The sight of Furina and Neuvilette gave you whiplash--you figured the latter would have been much too busy with Fontainian matters.

You think you spy Xiao keeping an eye on things somewhere in the trees.

What shocked you moreso was also the appearance of the Yashiro Commision representatives themselves, Ayaka and Ayato, accompanied by their ever helpful housekeeper, Thoma, and Yae Miko and Ei.

The small crowd gave you the jitters before Venti dragged you into the centre of it all, guiding you to a purposefully situated pile of pillows to sit on.

You follow graciously, bowing your head politely at everyone with a quiet greeting.

Everyone else regards you with much more flourish before taking seats themselves. Many other pillows were scattered around, though you saw Itto (who somehow managed to crash in) happily laying on his side on a grass edge.

You place your book on a pillow beside you, thanking Zhongli when he passes you a plate of fruits he's noticed you'd come to favour.

"Thank you," You start slowly after moments of deliberating how much courage you had left for the day, "for organising this. Uh, especially on such short notice. I really wouldn't have minded just setting things up myself."

"Think nothing of it, your Grace," Ayato inclines his head towards you with a warm smile, "it is our utmost pleasure, I assure you."

You nod slowly, "Mm. And... thank you, all, for uh, coming out, as well. You certainly didn't have to."

You sweatdrop slightly, glancing towards Zhongli who sips his tea contently without a single worry. You don't doubt he was the one spread the word, given his proclaimed title as your most devoted.

"Nonsense!" Kaveh bows towards you, "I'd accept any invitation to spend time with you, your Holiness."

Itto lets out a belch after downing one too many tri-flavoured skewers.

"Yeah! Besides, we love having you here!" He grins unabashedly.

You bite back a smile behind a glass of fonta. Itto is funny.

You spot Tighnari narrowing his eyes at him from his lack of manners. You snicker through a bite of sushi.

Yae Miko spies the book beside you and hums, "Oh? Is that a book from my publishment?"

You side eye the item, not so subtly pushing it behind you with a small nod. She doesn't let up.

"Ah, one of our better known romances! How delightful~"

You can't help but feel embarassed at the proclamation, shrinking at the number of eyes that snap to you with interest.

"You like to read, your Grace?" Neuvilette tilts his head curiously despite it being more of an observatory statement than a question.

"Yeah, it's a nice--pastime, of mine."

"Oh? What types of genres do you prefer?" Lisa inquires from her place on a decorative, plush euro cushion.

"You know," Yae leans forwards with a mischevious glint in her eyes, "it's implied that the types of books people read are what they desire, particularly in romance."

"Is that so?" Nilou blinks innocently, and Yae Miko hums affirmatively in response.

"Oh, how lovely!" Nahida claps her hands, "your Grace, what types of romances have you read? Which ones appeal to you the most?"

The eagerness of her expression makes you feel bad if you don't answer, but the expectant looks of the others makes you reluctant. You take an obnoxiously large mouthful of yakisoba and motion at your inability to speak.

"Or is it the love interests that intrigue you the most?"

You want to deadpan at Kaeya's implicit undertone.

You roughly swallow your mouthful of food, just managing to avoid borderline choking on it to dismiss everyone's prying, "It doesn't really matter."

"On the contrary!" Venti grins cheerily, "I'm sure it's safe to say that most of us are very curious about our Grace's most intimate interests~"

You eye him wearily before slowly shrugging--there isn't much to tell. Prior to your iseaki'd life you didn't really care to mingle, instead prioritising your studies and friendships over romantic relations. You'd heard that some people had the occasional crush on you, but you never really explored your own preferences.

And fictional characters do not count.

So, like hell you'd say anything about them to them.

"Uh, well, don't get excited. I don't really have anything to tell."

"What do you mean, your Grace?" Ei's gentle prying has you shrugging once more, "have you not previously aquired a suitable consort?"

"But your Holiness," Venti gasps dramatically, "you must have had plenty of suitors!"

You wince at his loudness, stressing over his words. Would they think you pathetic? Would they believe you to be a prude? Or that you had some sort of twisted whore like behaviour?

"N-No," You sweatdrop, "I don't think anyone had been interested in me long term, and I was more focused on my pursuits than anything."

"Truly?" Yae Miko hums, "then surely now you must be at a stage of yearning, yes?"

"I mean, I-I guess..? Wait. No--" You feel a sense of dread wash over you as soon as the words leave your lips. You didn't really even mean them in the first place, you just wanted her to drop the topic--

"Oh! Your Grace is looking for a spouse?" Nilou brightens, clasping her hands together estatically.

"Hang on--"

Diluc raises a brow, "Is that really any of our business?"

"--this isn't--"

"As their most trusted acolytes, yes, indeed it is," Zhongli sits up straighter, amber eyes glowing with a sharp (if not determined) glint, "it is my, moreso yet, our duty to ensure our Dearest Beloved has only the best whilst simultaneously adhearing to their needs and preferences."

"Then wouldn't it make sense for our Creator's beloved to be one of their most reliable acolytes?" Tartaglia's words strike a chord within the group, each individual going still while you sit there stressing on top your pile of pillows.

It wasn't long after that picnic when the news of Teyvat's Beloved seeking a partnership broke out. The incident spread like wildfire, alongside information about your less than experiences.

While some were awed at your purity, more made speculations about your witholding until your chosen, and others praised you for your prioritising your duties over oneself.

It really wasn't that deep, but whatever.

Soon enough scholars and akademics from everywhere began debating on the choice of your potential spouse, namely between yours closest and most faithful acolytes.

One of the archons would be the most obvious choice. Each with their own nation and wider prospects, the only subjugation between them and you was celestia--of course you'd pick one of the Seven!

The strongest contender was Liyue's Rex Lapis--one of the remaining from the original. Known by many revered names, whether it be the God of Contracts or the God of War, Morax is and always had been without a doubt one of the Creator's most devoted.

He is known to be one of (if not the) most attentive to you, at your beck and call however you please. And though your wishes are so too his without question, he is also most discernable with his wisdom and experience. Should you need a guiding hand or a pliant ear, both your caretaker and your spear, Morax is your first choice.

The Electro Archon's dedication to you is undoubtable, as proved with her ideals towards eternity. While some argue it is only her recent disposition that sits her in legence as a suitor, others agree that having the Raiden Shogun by your side is a clear sign of strength and resolve.

In this, many agree that having her as your chosen would very well place her people at ease. Your connection to Beelzebub implicates a more personal approach to her duties, solidifying the nation's current state of peace and leaving the Sukoku Decree as history.

Aside from Mondstadt, many were skeptical about the Anemo Archon's potential to being your chosen. He's an inactive Archon, and whimsical in nature. To Mondstadt however, it does make some sort of sense for him to be a suitor.

After all, what is freedom if demanded by a God? In this comes the freedom of choice. Barbatos, in his presence, while inactive, has never abandoned his people. With him as your lover, you are guaranteed both flourishing love and solidarity. He won't be your pillar, but he will be the gentle wind caressing your cheeks, and the refreshing breeze leading you forth and easing your worries.

The Hydro Archon, while technically no longer their Archon, is still up for debate as a suitor. While some disapprove of her being a choice, like the others, her devotion to you is absolute. Unlike the others, Furina is moreso a celebrity to her people than a figure of worship.

Choosing Furina signifies a life of luxury and limelight. Entertainment is her forte, so keeping you light-hearted and well loved would never be a problem with her as your chosen! With that, your relationship would establish a stronger presence of a God amongst people, exceeding beyond your duties as the Creator.

If not an Archon, mayhaps one of the nations Officials?

How about Mondstadt's Acting Grand Master?

Jean is very meticulous in her work, and incredibly diligent. Living up to her name as the Dandelion Knight, Jean is steadfast and strong willed without lacking empathy. Aside from her tendency to overwork, with you she would without a doubt find a way to better manage her time.

Not only would you teach her to treat herself kindly, but she too would reveal to you the love and care any mortal could only dream to have the privilege of showing their Beloved.

Liyue's Ningguang is another strong competitor. She has all the funds and luxuries she could offer teyvat's Divinity, with her you would no doubt be bathed and lavished in everything the land could possibly offer.

Though some of her time might be torn towards her work, her attention would be yours so long as you so much as breathe for it.

Many believe that none other than Inazuma's Yashiro Commissioner would be the most suitable choice. In a matter of both wealth and diligence, Ayato Kamisato has it all. Without a doubt would he cater to your needs and preferences, worshipping you as you deserve.

While his work is of utmost importance, his heart belongs to none else. Plus, the people of Teyvat can rest assured of your person's protection thanks to the Shuumatsuban.

But don't disregard Sumeru's Acting Grand Sage, Alhaitham.

Although aloof and forthright, Alhaitham offers much more than meets the eye.

Though he lives humbly, he holds much wealth to look after and spoil his Beloved. In addition, his work ethic and nature deems him quick to return to your side from whatever he was called away for. Effecient and effective, Alhaitham holds a much deeper admiration than he lets on.

This is evident through his attentiveness and intimidatingly accurate deductions and observations--though, that just makes him all the better choice for a suitor.

Now last, but certainly not least, Fontaine's Hydro Soveriegn, Iudex Monsieur Neuvillette.

Despite his reserved lifestyle, many have noted his gentle nature, particularly when in the company of the Melusines. With this, alongside his reverence in court, he is labelled as another much suited choice for their Grace.

Bound to live a fulfilling life in Neuvillette's care, his worship of you is evident, ensuring you a reliable shoulder and adoring partner should he be chosen.

If not any of them, well, you still have plenty of faithful acolytes to choose from!

Mondstadt contains many delegates and powerful influences. After all, Master Diluc is known as the city of freedom's most eligible bachelor. Strong and independent, aloof but not apathetic, Diluc would be sure to take care of you, whatever you may want or need.

Cavalry Captain Kaeya is another suitable candidate, alongside the Favonius Knights' Librarian, Lisa.

Both are romantic in their own rights, with Kaeya you're bound to be wine and dined with a side of suave sweet nothings, whereas Lisa offers a peaceful night in with open windows and flustering praises.

Outrider Amber is a well known face in Mondstadt! With her, your days would never be gloomy, the girl would do her utmost to keep you well taken care of and happy with your spontaneous adventures!

Looking at Liyue, there are many of whom desire your holy praise.

Within the bustling city is Keqing, Ganyu, Baizhu, and Yelan--all of whom would rightfully drop their work and serve their most Beloved to their utmost.

Outbound towards the plains and cliffs are the adepti pladged to Liyue, particularly, Xiao and Xianyun. Although they are in oath under Rex Lapis, even his orders may be overruled in favour of a simple contented sigh from their Grace.

Similarly in Inazuma, you have many at your beck and call.

Yae Miko is one of the strongest candidates in this area, closely followed by the Yashiro Commission's Shirasagi Himegimi, Kamisato Ayaka. Both are respectable figures, though with vastly differing attributes to cater to their Beloved's preferences.

Perhaps the Tenryou Commission's Kujou Sara, or the Divine Priestess Sangnomiya Kokomi? Moreover, there's General Gorou, and Inazuma's renouned detective Shikanoin Heizou. Even the young, wandering samurai Kazuha from the former Kaedehara Clan.

If you so truly wished, there is also the infamous oni, Arataki Itto, alongside the ever skillful Kuki Shinobu and Thoma--all of whom would stop at nothing to ensure their Grace's happiness and comfort for all their days.

Sumeru is certainly not short of devotees.

Take the ever illustrious Kaveh, who would spoil you with the sweetest words one could utter with his dedication to you, or the ever shining Nilou, who dedicates her elegant arts to you.

So too would many others be of suit to stand by your side: Cadance, Deyha, Tighnari, and Cyno, even the every so prickly Wanderer would be awed as your lover.

As it is in Fontaine, the people readily introduce Navia as a suitor, even the Duke of the Fortress of Meropide has proved to be a potential partner! Despite his intimidating stature, his ideals and desposition deem him worthy.

Ignoring public scrutiny, those within the Fortress positively root for their warden; Wriothesley would no doubt be one of the best suitors for their Creator.

Outwardly, no one really addresses Snezhnaya on the matter, but even then they have to admit that while no one other than that nation wants them to be chosen, they are indeed rather suitable candidates.

The Tsaritsa, for one. Formidable, strong, steadfast and ambitious, however, her people know her to be elegant and, while icy, her cold touch is known to sooth those of whom she cares for. Aside from Rex Lapis, and if not for her underground state of affairs, she would surely be one of the most preferred suitors.

Each to their own, even the Harbingers harbour the potential to be their Beloved's chosen. With the Eleven playing to their utmost strengths, the main few with the strongest potential are Pantalone, Il Capitano, Arlecchino, and Tartaglia.

But overall, that's all only to name some of the strongest contenders to be their Grace's chosen!

Oh boy...

#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #gi x reader #sagau #sagau x reader #genshin sagau x reader #x reader #character x reader #various x reader #mtchee's tea & story house #mtchee's library #genshin sagau

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joeloverture · 9 months ago

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morning cardio | dbf!j.m. x f!reader

masterlist | updates blog pairing: dbf!neighbor!joel miller x f!reader summary: [no outbreak] your neighbor and dad's longtime buddy catches you sneaking back home after an underwhelming hook-up. you want more — he provides. warnings: (18+ mdni) dbf!neighbor!joel, age gap (23/50), reader has a bad relationship with her father, reader's father is overly strict, reader hooks up with an oc, dirty talk, soft!dom joel, degradation, praise, thigh riding, 1 spank, titty slapping, daddy kink, exhibitionism but nobody sees, almost caught, heavy petting, misogyny for sexiness that joel doesn't actually believe in since he's a sweetheart [no use of y/n] word count: 3.7k a/n: watch me almost exclusively post dbf joel. watch me. also, mind the tags, they've changed slightly since i posted the teaser. this was supposed to be a series. this is no longer the case bc i'm indecisive. sorry.

Mistake number one: your eyes are crusted shut with the mascara you’d forgotten to wipe off.

Mistake number two: the bed you wake up in is not your own.

Mistake number three: sleeping with your neighbor.

Rubbing your mascara-sealed eyes, you blink yourself into consciousness and instantly regret it. There’s a moment of stillness, time stretching as you take in the room underneath the swelling orange sunlight. The window is cracked just enough to give you a glimpse at the world outside — birds chirping, sprinklers spritzing, cars crunching gravel as they pull out of the driveway. Surrounding the narrow, rumpled bed is a graveyard of orphaned socks. A box fan whirrs in the corner. The room had felt much cleaner past midnight when it was only the yellowed street lamp outside shining through the window. Then you spot the digital clock on the cluttered bedside table reads 6:10, ten minutes later than you’d wanted to be awake for, and time returns to its regular pace.

Your heart kicks awake in your chest, veins going cold. You kick the sheets off of your sweaty body, roll out of bed, and stumble two steps before planting your feet on the carpet below. Even that isn’t enough to stir your hookup. Dylan Andrews.

It’d seemed like a good enough idea at the time. Both of you were home for spring break. Both of you had flirted at the block party with each other. He was only decent-looking and mediocre with his hands, but you needed a break from spending another night in your childhood bedroom. What better way to do it than with a dick appointment?

Again. It’d seemed like a good enough idea at the time. Sneaking out underneath the nose of your strict, tough-as-nails dad was the easy part. Sneaking back in? Less easy. And to make matters worse, you were already ten minutes behind.

Shit.

You tiptoe across the room, naked as the day you were born, and stuff your underappreciated lingerie into your backpack. Without even putting your panties or bra on, you hop into your shorts and wrestle with your hoodie. By the time you’re out of Dylan’s room, it’s 6:12.

The difference between your dad and Dylan’s mom? She doesn’t give a shit what side of town Dylan wakes up on or how much alcohol is sloshing around in his system as long as he’s safe. You’re not the first girl to do the walk of shame out of Ms. Andrews' generic McMansion house, and you’re far from the last.

She’s downstairs in front of the coffee maker, still wearing her pajamas and doing a Dollar General crossword when you slip past her kitchen unnoticed. The door clangs shut behind you, and you figure she must see you walking down the cul-de-sac.

Your dad always leaves for work at 6:45 after a freezing cold shower and a steaming cup of black coffee for balance. You can only hope his shower ran a little late and that he isn’t at the dining room table already. Cramming two steps into one, you continue with your beeline down the awakening street.

You’re followed home by the mailboxes and flower beds, the pebbles you kick with every step. You’re almost to the property line, prepared to make a mad dash to your front door when you hear the faint call of your name. You skid to a stop, and turn to face the source: the craftsman-style house next door.

And there he is – Joel Miller, sitting on one of the cushioned chairs of his front porch in nothing but his sleep shorts and a t-shirt, legs spread as wide as the chair can accommodate. There’s a smug, knowing look on his face, one that says I’ve caught you. See how you can get out of this.

It’s been a long time since you’ve been face to face with Joel — Mr. Miller. You’d think you’d see him more often, with him being your dad’s buddy and your neighbor, but it’s been since summer. You’re sure he must be having the time of his life by joining your just got laid parade.

“You’re up awful early,” he calls, beckoning you up the driveway with a come-hither movement of his fingers. Leaving your dignity at the curb, you pad up the yard to his porch, climbing one of the stairs to lean against the gutter that feeds into his shrubbery. Pollen and moss is scattered across the wooden deck, surrounding a package that he hasn’t bothered to pick up yet. His guitar is off to the side, propped up against the doorway of the house. You wonder if he’d been playing when he’d seen you walking by.

Joel’s covered for you before, briefly and sparingly. Taken the fall for the half-empty bottle of fireball in your dresser even though he’d never go within ten feet of that shit, blamed it on himself for accidentally leaving it behind after fixing a wheel that had jumped off track for you. Even though your dad had chewed him out for drinking on the job, he’d still managed to sneak it back to you with the wise words of hiding it in a sock next time. You’d been two months past your twenty-first when that had happened, and maybe Joel had pitied you after realizing how authoritarian his friend was.

You aren’t as sure if he’ll pity you now.

“Needed some fresh air,” you defend lamely, hands hanging limp by your sides.

“Needed some cock?” he corrects, and his bluntness makes you choke. He seems relaxed for the words that just came out of his mouth, fingers drumming on his impossibly large thighs, a playful smirk resting on his lips.

You sputter, “No! Jesus, what the hell–”

“I got eyes, hun. Saw you leave that Andrews kid’s place. Clearly he didn’t stick it to ya that good if you’re still walkin’ steady,” he comments. His head tilts.

“Joel,” you hiss, eyes flitting to your dad’s house next door. He seems to read your mind, his smirk widening.

“Wonder what your pops would think. Bet I have a pretty good idea. His little angel, sneakin’ around and whorin’ herself out.” He clicks his tongue at you. “A damn shame.”

Heat spools low in your stomach and down to your unsatisfied center. You wish you’d worn darker colored shorts instead of the flimsy gray things you have on. There’s no barrier of your panties to stop yourself from leaking all over them, and with the way Joel’s looking at you, eyes dark and sly, you’re wishing there was.

“Can’t even imagine what you’re gettin’ up to at that college ‘a yours. Bet you had five guys inside of ya all at once, and I sure ain’t talkin’ about burgers, hun.” He lounges back in his chair, watching you.

You feel yourself gush. Heat burns in your thighs, and they rub together on instinct, seeking to extinguish that brimming ache between your legs. You bunch your hands in the fabric of your sweatshirt and can’t stop yourself from squirming underneath his gaze. It’s not like you’ve never thought about this, this with him of all people when you’re underneath your covers and your hand finds the warm junction between your thighs. Always unattainable. Always just out of reach.

You whisper again, “Joel,” but this time, it comes out as more of a moan. Humiliation warms your cheeks and chest, forming a different kind of pit in your stomach.

“Hmmmm?” Joel hums at you with a raised brow. He’s casual, indifferent, almost. But then his eyes flicker up and down, stopping at the wet patch smeared across the front of your shorts, the way your thighs press tight, tensing before letting go. “Ah. A little slut shamin’ gets you all riled up, hun?” That tears a whimper from you. He does that stupid come hither motion again, and like a lost dog, you listen. Standing in front of him, you feel completely, utterly exposed.

He adjusts himself in his chair, and you swallow the building lump in your throat when you see his bulge hardening. It sends another zap of heat to your core, and then another, more surprised one when his hand goes up to grab at your tit. Your breath catches as he thumbs one of your hardened nipples. A triumphant noise echoes out of him. “Braless, too?” His other hand goes down to your shorts, playing with the waistband. “Prancin’ around in these short, skimpy things, too. Practically giving the whole neighborhood a free peep show.”

His hand slides lower. Lower. Pans over to the crease of your thigh and then his thumb is planting over your clit, rubbing only once before he pulls away. “Messy pussy. Bet you stained the guys sheets.”

You’re quiet, staring at him, his wicked fucking expression, those hands that look like sin itself. You bite the inside of your cheek.

“Ah. Poor baby. All this effort and you didn’t even get to come.” He just looks at you. Unmoving. Not doing a single damn thing to get you there.

“Please, Joel,” you whisper, embarrassed by the gritty need already embedded into your voice when he’s hardly even touched you.

And he’s still wearing that wolfish look, that tainted-with-intention gleam in his eyes that tells you he knows exactly what you do want when he asks, “What? What do you want?” He licks his lips, a fleeting moment.

You look over your shoulder, at the rising street. Anyone could have their windows cracked. Anyone could hear you confess on this porch. Still, you murmur, “I… I want you to make me come, Joel.” Your voice shivers a little bit along with the stroke of wind that wisps against the backs of your thighs.

His brows raise together, now. His head tips forward. “What was that? A little louder. You know, my ears really ain’t the sharpest these days…”

Fucking bastard.

“I want,” you say again, fighting to stop your voice from wavering, to keep it not too loud but not too quiet. “you to make me come.”

Joel sucks on his teeth for a second. “Ohhh. Now I don’t think that’s really fair, hun.” He gives you a mockingly sad look.

“Why?” you ask, and you know you sound as whiny as a petulant child. But he’d been correct earlier. You put in all of this effort, sneaking out for a thrilling night that had turned into something more like two sweaty bodies moving together and only one of them feeling good from it. You want to feel good. You’re tired of looking at the right and the wrong. Joel’s sitting in front of you, his thumb still smelling like your arousal; that’s what’s right.

“You’re out here breakin’ all the rules. Shouldn’t be rewarding you for that, sweetheart. Besides, it’s a little fucked up, dontcha think? Makin’ you come all over me while your pops, my buddy, is none the wiser gettin’ ready for work next door?” His vulgarity only weakens you even more, pussy clenching and begging to be filled. You’re about to protest again when he cuts in, “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help ya out.”

Your heart pedals in your chest, eager and wanting. But Joel, instead of getting up and elbowing you inside like you expect, stays right where he is. He pats one of his splayed thighs, the grin on his face only widening. Your face contorts. Joel hears your question before you ask.

“What? Never humped someone’s leg before? With how much of a bitch in heat you’re actin’ right now, I’m surprised.” You can feel the shock on your face plain as day. Joel jerks his head down to his thigh, egging you on. “Better hurry up if you want my help, sweetheart. Pretty sure your dad’s about to get goin’, and I sure don’t have all day, either.”

The rapidly shrinking part of yourself that isn’t consumed with desire tells you to take a step back. That anyone, God forbid, even the Adlers across the street could witness this. Talk about a free peep show.

You think of the alternative: sneaking back into your house with a hope and a prayer that your dad won’t find you, backpack over your shoulder and shoes on, as you climb the stairs back to your bedroom. Open up your Joel-advised dresser drawer of things your dad says you shouldn’t have and pull out your vibrator. Do the same old hassle of a routine, desperately trying to make yourself come. Reach an unfulfilling peak.

Or… take what Joel’s offering you. Risks and all.

You take a tentative step forward, glaring at Joel when he chuckles because of your hesitance, and plop yourself down on his thigh. The pressure against your clit immediately pulls a whimper from you. His big hands fix themselves on your hips, holding tight, but not too tight as to hold you captive against him. There’s still the faint existence of the Joel you’ve always known, considerate and sweet and all southern gentleman, that exists behind the guise of his dominance.

You nestle your head into the crook of his neck, breathing heavy against him as you get a slow start to grinding your hips on his thigh. Although your movements are tentative, uncertain in nature, your head is already going fuzzy.

“Bet you’re only this wet cause that boy already put a new load in your dishwasher.” You scoff at him in disbelief — both at how much more wet it gets you, and how foul his words are. He chooses then to jerk you forward by the hips. You cry out as your pussy drags along the thick expanse of his thigh, clit catching on the bunched up fabric of your rumpled shorts.

“Zip it, you fuckin’ hussy. Ain’t a damn soul in this neighborhood that wants to wake up to you sobbin’ while gettin’ off on this thigh.” One of his hands drifts back to squeeze at the flesh of your ass. You hear the spank before you feel it, a sting that echoes and sticks right between your legs. He’s effortlessly strung a barbed wire of humiliation around your body. The lack of power makes your thighs clamp down around his, and you can’t tell if you crave more of it or despise it.

Unable to decide which, you loudly, exaggeratedly moan into his ear, still rocking down on his lap. It resounds through the neighborhood, the springboard roofs ricocheting you coquettish noises down the street and through the flowerbeds. A spooked crow lifts off of the power lines behind you, and you hear it squawk as its wings beat and carry it away.

Joel cocks his head at you, brow raised. “So it’s not just your legs that have a problem stayin’ shut. It’s your nasty mouth, too.” His hands migrate up your sides to your tits, which jostle with every flighty movement across his thigh. Before you know what he’s doing, he tweezes at your nipples in a way that makes you melt into him, forehead falling flat against his neck. And then he lands a hard smack across your chest, pleasure with a bite. Your hips jolt. “Behave for daddy before I make you walk next door draggin’ a snail trail behind ya.”

You know he doesn’t mean your real dad. A new rush of heat settles in your stomach, tightening your cunt from an ache to an insatiable thrumming that only Joel can solve. “Fuck,” you almost shout, but end up muffling into his skin with an open-mouthed kiss. He sighs, adjusting under you. The change in angle on your clit makes you whimper, especially when you feel his hardened length smushed against the outside of your thigh.

Your hand goes down to grip it, to participate in the push and pull, the cat and mouse, but he shakes his head, pulling it out of the way. He holds you by the small of your back, urging you to keep rubbing on him. “You’re lucky I’m even givin’ you my thigh,” he spits. “Ain’t gonna let you play chutes and ladders tryna make me come when I know damn well where that hand was last night.”

“Daddy,” you pout at him, lower lip jutting out.

He only shakes his head. “Don’t start.”

Whining in agitation, you manage to school yourself into behaving like he’d told you to. Every grind of your hips welcomes pleasure, beckons it, activates the porch light inside of you that invites it inside. You go limp against Joel as he guides you back and forth, and even limper when he tightens the muscle underneath your soaking core. Your hands anchor themselves on his broad shoulders, nails carving into his skin through the flimsy material of his shirt. He hisses underneath you, a break in his seemingly titanium resolve. You feel yourself getting closer, heat wreathing around your stomach, cunt clenching.

In your house, the foyer light flickers on.

Your hips stall over Joel’s as you see your dad’s backlit silhouette moving around in the foyer. Likely sliding on his shoes, patting his pockets for his wallet and his work phone…. You have two minutes at best.

Joel’s eyes follow your distracted line of vision. His amused chuckle warms the back of your neck. “Oughta hurry up if you don’t wanna get caught. Your old man would be in for a rude awakening, headin’ to work and finding his precious little girl fuckin’ my leg like a whore,” he murmurs.

He bounces his leg underneath you, and you bite back the needy cry that threatens to slip out. It feels so good, too good for you to think about anything other than the haze of arousal and pleasure that hovers over your head like a perpetual fog. You return to grinding down on him, hips pumping with a greater, renewed speed. “Attagirl,” Joel croons at you, and the hand at the small of your back presses harder, pushing you up and down his thigh.

Short, strained breaths of yours meet the morning air, eyes pinned on the rectangular window. It’s a golden-washed reminder of how wrong this is. Your dad would blow a gasket, see red, breathe fire at you if he knew exactly what was happening just a few feet away from his front yard.

But you forget all about that when Joel’s calloused fingers cup your chin, nudging you to look at him. His eyes are all pupil, darkened with something like starvation, something like want. “Don’t look at him. Look at me,” he coaxes, and he bounces his thigh again.

You’re close, you can feel it. He can feel it, too, in the way that your thighs fasten around his, your cunt rocking on him as your fervor makes the whole front porch shake and shudder. Tossing your hips back and forth, you wanted it, but now? Now you need it. Your stomach tightens, your legs shivering below you as your cunt gushes all over both of your shorts. “That’s it, baby, come on me like you were beggin’ to. ‘S alright, nice and easy for daddy, mhm?” He tenses his thigh one final time, and you lurch over that edge. “Gooood girl,” he hums as your cunt flutters against his leg. “You’re a daredevil, aren’t you?” he asks, jerking his head toward your house.

You figure you must be, after what you just did.

You’d planned on staying there, riding it out and trembling against his warm chest. But the garage cranks open. You jolt off of Joel’s lap, damn near teleporting across the porch with how fast you move. Joel smirks at you, crossing his unfucked leg over his freshly fucked one, where you’d rubbed your cum all over his skin until it’d glistened. The sight warms your stomach all over again, but it doesn’t last – nerves spasm in your ribcage as your dad ducks out into the driveway.

You fumble with your shorts, pulling them down and crossing your hands in front of the obvious stain on the gray fabric. Your dad squints across the yard, cupping a hand over his eyes. “Miller?” He calls your name shortly after, and you straighten. “You’re up early, kiddo.”

You open your mouth, on the precipice of a lie that you know won’t be good. It’ll come out unsteady, dishonest, and uneven.

Joel points at the package at the foot of his doorstep. “My toolbox got sent to yours,” he explains. “Damn postal. ‘Bout as good as the Boston Post Road these days. But your kid’s got me covered. Raised her right.”

For the second time, Joel Miller covers for you. You have no idea where this leaves you, standing under your dad’s scrutinizing gaze. With your cum cooling and sticking to your folds the same way it’s cooling and sticking to his leg, Joel knows your secret. And he’s keeping it.

Your dad only gives a shallow nod, looking between the two of you. “Well,” he hooks a hand back at his truck. “I gotta head off to work.” He shifts on his feet, this time pointing to you. “And you head back inside, kiddo. Too early for you to be up and movin’.” Of course it is.

You stare at the ground, the pollen and stray leaves below your feet. Finally, you settle on a nod. Shallow and halfhearted, much like his. Your dad, satisfied, retreats back into the garage. You hear the truck engine come to life.

“You heard the man,” Joel says. You tighten your fists, moving to step away, but the way Joel’s eyes glimmer has you loitering. He lowers his voice. “See you soon, daredevil.”

That damned nickname. “How do you know I’ll be back?” you retort under your breath.

He shrugs. “I’m sure there’ll be more… ‘packages’.”

You blame the heat in your body on the rising sun, sweat clinging to the back of your neck as you plod off through the front yard. There’s only one thought in your head as your dad pulls out and you close the garage. Mr. Miller can’t happen again.

Mistake number four: thinking you’re telling the truth.

#vetty's words 𓇢𓆸 #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller/reader #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fic

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sflow-er · 1 year ago

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So many thoughts on the fabulous Barbie film, but especially on how anyone who thinks it’s “hateful towards men” clearly isn’t getting the message.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

[Credit for both gifs goes to their makers!!]

I mean... Ken’s arc is secondary to Barbie’s, and rightly so. This is her film, and her message deserves to be the main takeaway.

That being said, I just find it really sad that the people who could’ve definitely used the point of Ken’s arc just let it go right over their heads. Maybe it’s because they aren’t great at reading subtext, or because they just balk at anything presented as feminist, I don’t know.

Because to me, Ken’s arc is about as far from “hateful towards men” as you can get. It’s a multi-layered depiction of how restrictive, outdated views of masculinity can hold men back and make them susceptible to harmful ideologies that promise easy solutions for all their problems but only make those problems worse and hurt others around them.

The first layer is an allegory for real men don’t show their feelings. In the movie, this is represented by Ken’s need to look tough and cool all the time, and to keep his insecurities and sadness bottled up. Barbieland is a utopia where being happy is a social norm, and the main Barbie also starts to struggle with that. The difference is that she eventually tells her friends, and they all support her. Ken just puts pressure on himself not to look weak - in front of Barbie, or in front of the other Kens.

Which brings us to the second level: a competitive and inherently hostile view of the other Kens, aka. toxic male relationships. Some of them are friends, and all of them work together for a while to build the Patriarchy, but they don’t actually bond for real. Even their boys’ nights are mainly about getting back at the Barbies for all their girls’ nights (which really were about bonding). When push comes to shove, the Kens still see each other as competition, which is one of the reasons why the Barbies are able to play them against each other.

Another reason is the third layer: the idea that Ken only has value if Barbie loves and admires him. It starts out as unrequited love that makes you feel sorry for him...until he turns bitter. He basically starts on the path that could lead him down the incel/mra rabbit hole and into a mindset where Barbie owes him love and admiration and the relationship he wants in exchange for his devotion to her. He decides that everything would be better if Barbies were subservient to Kens, but of course that’s not true. None of the Barbies’ newfound admiration for their Kens is real, and his own Barbie still rejects him.

All this is of course underpinned by the final layer, which is Ken’s lack of self-respect and sense of purpose. He’s got a pointless job, he’s not particularly qualified for anything, and he just feels kind of lost in Barbieland - a society run by successful Barbies who are living up to their full potential. That’s why he gets so caught up in the idea of the Patriarchy, which is supposed to make him successful, get others to respect him, and give him a sense of purpose. (This can be generalised to all kinds of harmful ideologies in the real world, e.g. the alt-right movement.)

However, the success he achieves is superficial and not based on any real passion; he even admits that he wasn’t happy in his new position and already lost interest in the ideology. The (forced) respect of others does feel good for a while, but it only goes so far. At heart, the whole thing is still mostly about his feelings of inferiority and unrequited love for Barbie, and instituting this harmful new system did not resolve those for him.

So what does? In essence, breaking out of all these harmful patterns and internalising the idea that he is enough.

He ends up reflecting on his feelings, finally puts them to words (or rather, song and dance), and manages to connect with the other Kens through those feelings. He even cries in relief and acknowledges that it doesn’t make him weak. He and Barbie finally have a proper talk, he lets go of their (non-)relationship, and he listens when she says he needs to figure out his real self. He starts to see himself not through his job, his girlfriend, or even his competition with the other Kens, but as just Ken, who is enough.

I honestly can’t think of a less hateful message to send men and boys.

#barbie spoilers #barbie movie spoilers #barbie 2023 spoilers #barbie movie #barbie 2023 #barbie meta #greta gerwig #barbie #ken #and of course the perfect ken #ryan gosling #he is kenough

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atlaswav · 4 months ago

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CATACLYSMIC ☾

INFO: 5252 words..... dr ratio x fem! reader SYNOPSIS: You hate him, of that you're certain. You hate the man behind the alabaster figurehead, and you want to see him unravelled, but you don't know exactly what you do to him. WARNINGS: um alcohol and one kiss. also some swearing but mostly fine AUTHOR'S NOTE: rising from the grave to bring to you this thing i found this in my drafts from who knows how long when I was obsessed with this man (still am). someone help. i can no longer write this much for one fic. what was i on.

Veritas Ratio made it no secret that he despised those who lived in ignorance. He openly shunned those who were stupid enough to turn their eyes from knowledge – they’d be beggars in due time. They didn’t know how the world was governed, and ignorant fools would play victim to fate’s cruel touch.

With this philosophy of his, you often wondered whether or not his ivory figurehead would soon burst with the tumultuous storm of the man’s self importance. You wondered what would lie underneath. Surely, the divine makers would’ve allowed balance in his creation – surely, his face was horribly disfigured in exchange for such otherworldly intelligence.

He was both delightfully astute and horrendously ill mannered at once. Brighter than your entire class combined – your entire university combined, no doubt – but his pretentiousness was overflowing, and you believed he was in dire need of being put in his place.

Arrogant and pretentious were two of the words that came to mind when someone mentioned Dr. Ratio, and you were sure you weren’t the only one who refused to worship his word like the gospel. In turn, he seemed to despise your very existence, as if you were merely a faded annotation in the footnotes of an ancient epic. Vandalising a work of art. A moustache on the Mona Lisa. Circe in the Odyssey, if she’d welcomed sailors with open arms, allowing them to degrade her as they would a common concubine, not a descendant of the gods.

Yet instead of sharing the witch’s beguiling, seductive nature, you only shared her mortal voice. Thin, reedy, quiet, compared to the booming voices of gods. The voice of Veritas Ratio. Your achievements could only pale in comparison to his, and it took everything within you to clap politely as he received his third – fourth? (you weren’t intent on keeping track) – diploma.

God you hated that man. You’d muttered as much under your breath countless times.

“Dr. Ratio is fine. No need to worship me.” he’d once corrected. But the attempt at humour was lost on you as your classmates began to laugh. The divine makers likely brought him into existence just to spite you. Oftentimes, you fought your urges to hurl the nearest textbook at his caricature head and watch the plaster crack, fall to the floor, and reveal his disfigured face.

Not that you’d seen it before – lingered around him enough to see it disappear.

His scorn held no favourites, and certainly not when it came to you. He’d openly dragged your work through the dirt a couple of times before, and it was only a matter of time before he did it again. His words were scalding, leaving burns across your thin skin and leaving your mouth tasting of ash. Your voice, faint and human, fell quiet at his ‘gospel’.

If it weren’t obvious, the hatred was mutual. He’d never admit it outright – he was far beyond these meaningless, trivial things such as immature hatred – but you felt his scathing glare in your soul, even through that perturbing headpiece, and that was enough.

“Have you found it?”

You turn around, meeting the cold, blank, unseeing gaze of his caricature head behind you. It was disconcerting to say the very least, but no one else had asked him about it, so you never pushed him further. None wanted to invoke his wrath, no matter what circumstance. It was a miracle neither of you had exploded at each other yet, but you suspected that he’d gladly put aside any type of loathing he harboured for you so that this project would get done faster.

You were happy to oblige as he took the lead. A free credit was a free credit. But you did have your limits.

“Nope. The text is ancient. I doubt this library has it.”

“Nonsense.” he clicked his tongue, glancing to the side. “I’m asking the professor. Go work on your part.”

Patience is a virtue, as you keep reminding yourself.

“Sure. Let me know if you find anything.” you say instead of the retort that sits on your tongue. False niceties and biting, underhanded remarks. This charade was entertaining, at the very least.

How did everyone love him? There had to be people like you who shared your dislike towards that conceited scholar. With a long suffering groan, you took a seat at one of the plethora of tables in the university’s library, clicked your pen and began to write.

Maybe the reason he despised you so was because of your ideas, arguably the opposite of his own way of thinking. Where his twisted logic, rearranged rationality and pulled apart natural reasoning to formulate new material, you cut and stitched the work of others together to create your own emulations. (Frankenstein's monster. Was that a cliche? For Ratio, it probably was.)

He’d likely scrap what you’d written as soon as he returned, but that didn’t stop you from trying to spite him anyway. You hoped your readings wouldn’t go to waste as you recorded your findings, then started to draft an outline for your project.

The scratch of paper became white nose, your hand struggling to keep up with the pace of your mind – was it even worth it? He’d likely call it worthless, snatch it from you and throw it into the recycling bin, then start writing his own outline. It only angered you further as you frowned at the page, wondering how he’d approach the project.

The thump of a heavy tome on the wooden desk snapped you out of your sombre thoughts.

“Here.” Ratio took a seat at the chair opposite of yours, brushing the dust off the thick text, leafing through its yellowed pages. “I told you they’d have it. You just need to search better.”

You offer him a tight smile. “Noted.” More false niceties, more flat remarks.

Then the figurehead disappears in a blink, and you nearly drop your pen. He barely pays you any mind as he runs a hand through his hair, flipping through the text. You’d heard the rumours of the handsome face beneath the statue, but you’d never have imagined him to be so disgustingly perfect.

Statuesque.

His deep violet locks looked unbelievably soft. His crimson eyes showed laser focus as he scanned the text in front of him, ignoring you completely as he noted something down. After a brief silence where you skim over your outline and he presumably attempts to decipher the undeniably unreadable and ancient text which you were opposed to reading in the first place, he turns to you with a sigh. “What did you do while I was gone?”

“I wrote an outline.” you hand the papers to him begrudgingly, fidgeting with the pen in your hand. You don’t meet his gaze, afraid that his calculating gaze might see too far into your soul.

“This?” his distaste seeps through his tone. You don’t need to look at his face to know that he’s frowning.

You say nothing as he skims through your work, twirling your pen between your fingers.

“...It’s not the worst thing I've ever read.”

Your eyebrows shoot up.

“It’s not good, either.”

You scowl at him.

“I can salvage it.” he nonchalantly throws it back onto the table, returning to the text at hand.

You want to shove his grotesquely perfect face into the book. He really was put on this earth to spite you.

“Don’t just sit there. Go look for texts on criticism of our stance.”

You don’t know how you’re going to find the patience to survive this project. If anything, it irked you further to find that there wasn’t some monstrosity hidden behind that figurehead. In everything he did, he seemed to be inventing new ways to get on your nerves. However, unbeknownst to you, Veritas Ratio held you higher than you gave yourself credit for. He believed your ideas to be invigorating. Refreshing, almost. A welcome reprieve from the same reiterated, chewed, swallowed and regurgitated approaches that your other classmates had.

You weren’t like the rest of the mindless, studying machines at the university. You could be brilliant, and it annoyed him that you didn’t know this. He’d admitted as much to himself before, but he’d never tell you. But it was still not good enough for his standards – far better than what the imbeciles in your class could’ve come up with – but still far behind him. Or so he kept telling himself.

Days passed by without a word from either of you. You were content to write your part in the solitude of your dorm, and he seemed perfectly content mulling over whatever he’d found in that indecipherable ancient text. By the time you’d nearly finished your part, he decided to meet with you once again to share your findings.

His definition of deciding to meet with you meant simply cornering you after class and asking you to follow him.

You started to protest, but he’d already turned and briskly walked out of the classroom, so you groaned and followed after him, winding up in the library again. This time, in a secluded corner with the late afternoon sun pouring through the window, illuminating the small table and workspace with a warm glow.

You wondered how he wasn’t winded after trekking across the entire campus. You certainly were. His muscled build suggested that a mere leisurely walk couldn’t possibly have tired him out. What did he eat? Was he what Nietzsche had in mind when he wrote of the Superman?

“What are you doing? Sit.” he gestures to the seat across from him, and you sink into the armchair, taking out your papers. His headpiece disappears once again, and your breath catches in your throat.

His hair cast a faint shadow across his face, and his eyes seemed to glow. As you leaned in closer, you realised there was a thin ring of gold around his pupils.

“Are you done with your part?” he demands, breaking you out of your trance.

You silently hand over your drafts, watching his eyes flit across your paper. His eyebrows furrow slightly, eyes narrowing, but he remains quiet. Were his eyelashes always this long? They created an indistinct shadow on his cheeks. His skin was pale, fair. Not the sickly kind of pale you thought he’d be. Did he exercise? You wouldn’t be surprised, with all your classmates always fawning over his broad, strong chest and narrower waist.

Was it your imagination, or were his cheeks slightly flushed? It might have been the light.

“It’s deplorable.”

Your heart sinks in your chest as you sit back against the armchair.

“Your ideas are rudimentary. Have you been reading at all?” he sighs, holding his head in his hand. “No matter. I can fix it. I don’t need you to do anything anymore. You can go.”

You stay seated in shock, unable to move. You’ve heard the anecdotes of people crying over being scolded by him, but was he always this harsh?

“You know it’s a group project, right?” you begin before your better judgement can decide against it, “My work is just as important as yours, it doesn’t matter if you think my work is ‘deplorable’. I’m in the same class, I take the same course, I learn the same things as you do, you don’t get to look down on me no matter how stupidly smart you are.”

He raises an eyebrow, unamused. “Why not?”

“Take that stick out of your ass, Veritas Ratio. Get off your high horse.” you snatch your papers out of his hands and take your leave, ignoring his calls of your name.

Were you dramatic? Yes, but not without reason. Given Ratio’s reputation for prioritising academics over everything else, you suspected that it wouldn’t take long for him to find you, either.

You were so wrong.

More days passed with no contact. He didn’t seem to be affected by your dramatics, and never once batted an eye in your direction unless necessary. It seemed your hypothesis of him inventing new ways to get on your nerves was on the track of being proved correct. But if you didn’t do something within the next few days, you trusted him to turn in the project without your name on the paper, resulting in a zero.

He was just as stubborn as you, and though you were nothing compared to him in actuality, you were so close to grabbing his face and forcing him to look at you for who you were.

Seemingly, even in the battle of wits, he seemed to emerge victorious.

“Ratio.”

He barely glances up, engrossed in his writing. “What?”

“Are you done with the project?” Biting the bullet stings your teeth and left a bitter taste on your tongue.

“No. Not yet. Why? You’re finally going to help?”

“Are you going to stop looking down at me?”

The library is nearly empty. The sun is barely a sliver on the horizon, and the voices of students float down the corridor beyond the grand stacks of books, yet you’re here. Why do you bother? Are you really that desperate for his validation?

“Are you going to keep writing such reprehensible work?”

You glare at him. “Guess not.” you turn on your heel.

“You’re absolutely infuriating.” he sighs, leaning back in the armchair. “You’re not aware of what you can do, are you?”

You glare at him. Your chest stings.

He looks at you, then. Truly. His complexion relaxes, and he rubs his temples. “Sit. Let’s go through your part.”

“Why?”

“I mulled it over. Your part is brilliant.”

Your eyes widen.

“But your expression and research is appalling. Have you learned how to write academically at all?”

You’d never simultaneously wanted to slap and kiss a man at once until today. “What happened to getting off your high horse?”

“I got off it. Now sit and listen, I won’t repeat myself.”

You supposed that was the closest to an apology he’d ever give you, so you sat. It pained you, but you did. Besides, he had called you brilliant – your part – but still, you couldn’t force the smile from your face as you listened to his instruction.

“Your ideas in your introduction are well formed, but from there, it all goes downhill. You have to reorder your logic for it to make sense, and we will be deducted points if you don’t elaborate on the principles of your concept first.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “So how would you do it?”

“For one, I’d restart completely and get straight to the point.”

You sigh exasperatedly. “Show me, then, if you’re so good.”

His eyes narrow at you, but he says nothing as he motions for you to come closer.

The librarian was likely too scared to kick either of you out after closing time. Your arguments were heard by all of your neighbouring desks, and whenever there was a break in conversation, it seemed as if everyone held their breath. There was pin drop silence except for the two of you – but neither of you realised it.

He was blunt, and had no idea what you were thinking, but perhaps this is what entrapped him.

You, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about how he had called your ideas brilliant.

You quickly learn how good of a teacher he is. Maybe it’s his forced patience or once-in-a-millenium genuine praise that spurs your decision, but you find yourself so willing to prove yourself, and he finds himself willing to help.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad.

“Just fix it, stop arguing with me. I’m right.”

“Why? Do you know every single thing about our topic?”

“No, but I have four degrees and more experience than you.”

“Jackass.”

“Change it.”

You grumbled another insult under your breath, yawning as you scribbled out the section you wrote and began to reword your thoughts. The sudden quietude was jarring, and as you looked around, you realised the overhead lights were off, the only source of light from the lamps illuminating the desks.

“Is everyone gone?” you ask, sitting up straight and stretching.

“Who cares? Finish up, then we can head back.”

“Fuck you, give me a break. I don’t write at the pace of a robot.”

“Then learn.”

“Fuck you too Veritas Ratio.”

“Expand your vocabulary while you’re at it.”

“Why are you so intent on irritating me?”

“You get irritated easily. Not my problem.”

“If you know I get irritated easily, why do you keep provoking me then? Do you want me to hate you more?”

He seems to pause. Minisculely, almost unnoticeable had your gaze not been trained on him for the past few hours. He had a habit of pausing and furrowing his brows when you said something slightly out of line.

“Just finish the paper. You talk too much.”

You sigh and get back to work as he leafs through his own research.

Amicable silence passes. The night is alive outside, gleaming and glistening with the touch of benevolent gods and whispers of long gone wishes – pearls stitched by fate’s knowing hands.

“I’m done.”

“Show me.”

You pass the paper to him as you watch his expression carefully.

Crimson eyes flit across your work, gold ringed irises flickering in the scarce light. If you could capture the way the light reflected in his eyes in a jar, you think wishfully that you’d stare at it forever; Until the light died out, or it decided to escape the ephemeral glass confines.

But you’d never admit it out loud. It was wishful. If Veritas Ratio could read minds, he would undoubtedly reprimand you.

He clears his throat, and you snap to attention, swatting away your fantasies of stealing and bottling evasive light.

“It’s good.”

You wait for him to speak further, but he says nothing. “Just good?”

“Well, by my standards, no, but for you, it’s good.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean,” he leans on the table, forearms flexing. “That you’re finally starting to live up to your potential.”

“Huh?”

He blinks. “What do you mean?”

“What potential?”

He shakes his head absently, almost in disbelief. Forget light, you’d barter with the lady of fate to let you preserve this moment in a frame so that you could glimpse this expression forever. You’d never seen him so dumbfounded and awed at once – you doubt anyone ever has. He’d always been a man of knowing, and whatever he didn’t know, he would find out. Nothing was ever a “maybe,” or a “probably,” it was always absolute. It had to be absolute in his philosophy.

You happened to be the one exception.

“You’re not aware of the potential you have?”

“You think I have potential?”

“Aeons,” he murmurs under his breath, before standing and gathering his belongings. “I’m going to bed. See you in class tomorrow. We’ll finish up then.”

He leaves before you have the chance to question him, but as you slump back in your armchair, you can’t help but smile.

Potential was as close as you’d ever get to a compliment from Veritas.

—

The lady of fortune and lady Themis looked him in the eyes and saw their mortal emanator at his birth. He’d never been certain what he was made for, but he never let it burden him. Things like these weren’t made for him to ponder, that was up to the dreamers and inventors.

He was a being of logic. A doctor of calculations and reason, and everyone knew him as such.

But he simply couldn’t figure out what it was about you – your naive gaze or that pout that absently curved your lips – that had your words and scent and eyes lingering in his mind like a vengeful phantom.

You were the being of all chaos and irrationality, but you were so bright. Unhoned, rough and unhewn. A gemstone shining with impurities but shining still, casting a beautiful mosaic cast across the ground with indecipherable shapes and patterns.

It was deplorable. He hated you for being on his mind, and hated you even more for your wasted potential. He hated how you stared, how his cheeks would redden from the intensity of your gaze, and how he’d have to pretend he was unfazed, because he couldn’t afford any distractions.

You were the being of his undoing, he was sure. You were brought into existence to spite him, to bring an unaccounted variable into the equation of his being, and present a causality dilemma for all he was.

He wanted you gone, but he wanted you closer all at once.

He hated it.

It wasn’t common for him to sleep in either, so when he woke five minutes before class was supposed to start, he cursed you with all the spite in his heart and rushed to class, clutching papers from the night before, still imbued with traces of your lingering fragrance. Just how long had you pored over those papers for your smell to latch to them? It should be impossible. Fate was clearly against him.

Fate brought you back together as he entered the brimming lecture hall, and the only vacant seat was the one next to you.

“Did you get the papers in order?” you asked, glancing at his dishevelled state. The Dr Ratio you knew was never dishevelled, but this was the closest you’d ever seen him to it.

“Yes. Just write your name on your bits and sign the sign off sheet and it’s complete.”

You take the paper from him, scrawling your name across your work, then handing it back.

With your project finally submitted, you could breathe easy again – never endure his biting remarks and criticism again.

But as the class progressed, you realised you were in trouble.

The professor was merciless. He flicked through the presentation on the new topic with haste, rushing through new concepts, formulae and calculations with record speeds. You’d nudged Ratio, whispering for help, but he rolled his eyes and kept his stare attentively on the presentation.

You wanted to slap him.

Was he tolerating you because of the project? Was he going back to cold stares and dismissive glances?

You wouldn’t allow it. Not when you were so close to discovering the man behind the alabaster figurehead. As soon as the professor signalled the end of the lecture, a collective sigh was released from the class.

You turned to Ratio, and he was already staring at you.

“What was it you wanted to say?”

“Tutor me please.”

He raised a brow. “Why?”

“Because you’re smart.”

“Pick someone else, then. I don’t see why I should.”

“You asshole, I’ll buy you lunch if you tutor me.”

He frowns at you as he begins to leave. You trail after him. “Please?”

He sighs deeply. Like a man burdened with the weight of his own world on his shoulders. Byron’s brooding, romantic hero, in his melodramatic glory. “Fine. Stop annoying me.”

You smile. “Thanks. Meet you at your dorm after dinner?”

He sighs again. “ Don’t be late or I'll lock the door and go to bed.”

He watched the seconds tick by in agonising motion – a man awaiting his sentence, but also his reprieve. Is this what his classmates felt before they took tests? It certainly seemed like it. Relief was on the horizon, and yet great suffering was imminent. He’d never known the feeling until now.

But as they say, the harder the rain, the sweeter the sun, and he wasn’t about to relinquish his quest to decipher you.

It seemed mutual as he paced in front of his front door, having eaten dinner at the cafeteria early to mentally prepare himself.

When your knock finally sounded at his door, he sighed, checked his watch, then reluctantly opened the door.

You were a picture to behold.

Hair slightly damp from a shower, drowning in loose, oversized clothing. It was all painfully domestic to see you walk through his doorway, scanning his living space. In the back of his mind, he thought it felt right, but he shook his head.

You were messing with him again.

Two could play that game.

“Take a seat.” He pulled out a stool from his kitchen island. “Want a drink?”

“What, like alcohol?” you huffed.

“Are you an alcoholic?”

“Only if you want me to be.” you shrug, setting down your notes on the bench.

He sighs exasperatedly, already berating himself for agreeing to this. He never agreed to tutor anyone. Why were you the exception? You shouldn’t be.

His hypothesis: you were trying to get something out of him. A way to cheat the class, his academic favour, something hedonistic, even. It seemed plausible enough, but you listened intently as he explained the concepts the professor spoke of in the lecture, asking questions and actively engaging with his explanation.

It didn’t seem like there was any ulterior motive. So why was he letting you break his rules and defy his nature?

“God, why didn't the prof explain it during that lesson? Everyone struggled.”

“You’re not smart enough to understand his concise methods, then.” he huffed.

“You’re too smart.”

“You’re not smart enough.”

“Smart ass,”

“Get back to work. You did that question wrong, by the way.”

You groaned. “Where?”

He was so caught up in your quarrels that he didn’t notice the time grinding away at the pestle. It was nearly midnight when you’d finally caught up with that day’s classwork, and he sighed in relief.

“You understand?”

“Yes. You don’t have to worry now.”

“I won’t. Now get out.”

“No drink?” you frowned, pretending to sulk at his expense. He simply stared at you, getting up from his stool and walking to the fridge.

Remarkably, he pulled out two beers.

“Don’t speak. If you do, I'll regret allowing you over again.”

A smile befell your lips. “I’m not saying anything.”

“I don’t like the look on your face.”

“Wipe it off then.”

A frown. His new hypothesis: you were trying to seduce him for better grades, more tutoring sessions, or for his own downfall.

“Drink and leave.”

“If you say so.” you take the chilled bottle and drink. He watches your throat move, and he thinks of himself as pathetic as he drinks as well, wincing at the bitterness.

“Do you live by yourself?” you ask, head propped onto your hand.

“I do.”

“Are you lonely or something?”

“No, people are irritating.” Like you.

“What a ray of sunshine you are.” You’re not much better.

“I don’t have to put up with any idiocy.”

“If you say so.”

Quiet passes as beer fizzes in the bottles, golden liquid sloshing at the sides of the glass.

One thing you learn that night is that Veritas Ratio, the famed multiple time valedictorian of your university, is an extreme lightweight. His cheeks become red quicker than you can finish your bottle, and he starts to grumble nonsense under his breath.

“You’re really smart, you know?” he suddenly says after mumbling something about quantum physics.

“What was that?”

“You’re really smart. Really smart. Impressive.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you idiot, how many times do I have to repeat myself?” he leans on the bench, not entirely aware of his surroundings as he does so. He squints at the ground.

He’s a cute drunk, you realise begrudgingly.

“Thanks, Veritas. You’re smart too.”

“I know.” he drinks from his bottle again, swirling the dregs. “But I can’t figure you out.”

“Hm?”

“Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“Do you hate me?”

You hesitate for a moment. “Yes.”

“Then why are you like this?”

Your eyebrows raise.

“You’re making me irrational. I can’t figure it out.”

“...Sorry?”

“You should be. You know, I was nearly late to class today because of you. You kept me awake.”

“Really?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking. Thoughts. And things.”

You laugh at his predicament, draining your beer and gathering your things. Trying to leave before he said anything that could turn the encounter south.

“Wait. Don’t go.” he slams his palm onto your notes, determination in his eyes.

“I need to go to bed.” you say as if scolding a child.

“I need to figure you out. You’re still an enigma to me. The anomaly of my behaviour. Is this your intention?”

“What are you talking about? You’re drunk.”

“I can think. I can move. I can see fine. I’m not drunk. Answer me.”

“Maybe I'm just so mesmerising to you.” you joke, but his brows furrowed in thought.

“Maybe.” he retracts his hand from your notes, and you stow them away into your bag, slinging it onto your shoulder before he can do anything else.

As you’re halfway to the door, he pushes you against the wall.

You never realised how tall he was until then. How much of a height difference you had, or how muscular he was. He had to have worked out on a daily basis. The pungent smell of alcohol lingered on his breath, and his cheeks were tainted with deep red as he searched your gaze.

You decide he’s officially lost his mind, but who were you to complain?

“Are you mesmerising?” he whispers, eyes trailing down your face, examining and analysing, his hand tracing down your body with those slender scholar’s hands.

“You tell me.”

Then he grabs your face and mashes your lips together. The kiss is rough, biting and rushed. You freeze for a sliver of a second before returning it, letting him decide your allure with his own devices.

He pulls away almost too fast, lips kiss bitten, breath fast.

“You’re a siren.”

“Am I?”

“You’re going to ruin me.”

“What a weak man you are, if it only takes one woman to ruin you.”

“I hate you.”

“Really?”

“I hate it because I’d probably let you.”

“Are you a masochist?”

“Not in my right mind. I’ll wake up and regret everything, but it’ll all be the same, fundamentally.”

“So what’s your conclusion?”

He still has you pushed against the wall, caged within himself. “You were put into this world to bring about my destruction.”

“How? Why?”

“You’re my opposite. Brash, naive, carefree.”

“Are you normally this analytical of people?”

“No, which supports my point.”

“I see. So you’re going to let me ruin your image?”

“No. I hate you for it.”

“Let me go then.”

He wordlessly steps away, and you stumble to the door.

“So what are we?” you ask, turned away from him. You can’t see the way he drinks in your visage like a starving man, and the small, sober part of him is grateful for it.

“Polar opposites.”

“I mean who am I to you?”

He’s silent for a while, so you turn back to him to find him leaning on the wall, gazing into space.

“Veritas?”

“You’re my undoing. A catalyst, maybe, for my downfall. But there must be balance, right? So what are you?”

“What am I?”

“I don’t know.”

You knew then that he was beyond reason. Was this what you did to him? You took some sadistic pride in seeing a man such as himself reduced to a mumbling, questioning, incoherent mess. You were somewhat pleased with the effect you had on him., but you could never let him know this.

He crumpled to the floor, back to the wall, clutching his head in his hands. “I’ll figure you out.”

“Sure you will. Goodnight, Veritas.”

“Night.”

Your smile was brighter than the morning as you left his apartment, embracing the night’s welcoming chill.

written by @atlaswav , published 15th of July 2024

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ancientgoddessofegypt · 5 months ago

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ROMANTIC SYNASTRY PT. 3!

Decided to make trines & sextiles the primary focus on this synastry list. Trines show us a deep bond between the lovers, the sextiles show a connection with the stars that aligns with the souls energy at this moment. Both are useful and great energies to have in a synastry chart. So look up you and your favorite crush, your lover, your boyfriend, girlfriend, hell, even your baby daddy, and enjoy !

Moon trine pluto in synastry gives a deep romantic bond that opens the couple up to intimacy that reaches deeper layers into the soul. No one else can see you (moon) the way the pluto person does. And no one can make you (pluto) open up the way the moon person can.

Sun trine Moon synastry is big butterfly energy. Healing, mind opening, and transformative. The love these two have for each other make for a remarkable relationship, and gives a nice dose of balance as well.

Sun sextile Mercury in synastry shows a talkative couple. A couple that can share their thoughts with each other and it makes them want each other more. It's beautiful when the sun can finally express its truest thoughts to mercury. And its fun for mercury to let go and share their world with the sun, while they hold their hand as they become their private journal.

Venus sextle Asc - Woah! These two really love each other. The venus person knows the ways of the asc person. And the asc person loves how the venus person shows they care. Theirs a unique bond here. And the love they share can open up a can of worms as jealousy can form around them (Some with this placement could have it in the 3rd house of communication/community/locals/neighbors/siblings etc. as well as the 11th house of groups and friendships). A bond thats willing to stand the test of time if they can handle their true feelings for one another.

Moon sextile Venus - When I think of this synastry, i think of two people hugging it out.. laying down watching a movie together, having a footsy fight lol. Its romantic, relaxing, cool, calm, collective and its also good with keeping the spark going. Lovely connection.

Mars Trine Pluto - Hot and heavy sex life. Yeah we gettin straight to it, cause thats exactly how it gets with these two lol. Romantic connection can go from twists to turns, from I love yous to I hate yous.. but it keeps the romance going.. its like roleplay. Not for the week. Even in the trine aspect, mars/pluto still plays tug of war with each other.

Jupiter Trine Mars - Like the last one, the sex can be a bit jumpy. Strong appetite to keep it going. Could last for hours here. The mars person keeps the jupiter afloat, and jupiter will be the confidence booster for the mars individual. Both need each others sex drive to be on ten, so this romance connection can keep the fire going if they need it.

Mars sextile Moon - This placement can be a baby maker (as all mars/moon aspects can do lol). The romance/sex life here can be too good to be true, it'll have you going back for seconds.. Can go at it like the rabbits do!

Sun sextile asc - Beautiful connection. You guys look good together. Nobody can hate on it. The sun person moves the light on the asc person, showing all the life and treasures hidden in that house. While the asc person's magic reflects on to the sun persons affection and care for them. Its a romance that these two can embrace and share for ages. Its a best friend connection for sure. So you're getting a 2 in 1.

The end !

#romantic synastry #astrology thoughts #astrology #astrology theories #tropical astrology #astrology observations #astro observations #spirituality #astrology signs #astro notes #astro community #vedic #synastry #astro synastry #synastry connections

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lurkingshan · 2 months ago

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10 Things I Love About Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

This wonderful little show has come to an end, and I feel compelled to tell folks why I loved it, and why you should watch if you haven't yet. First, a big word of thanks to @isaksbestpillow for providing her excellent subtitles and making this show available to international fans. You can find all seven episodes here, get them while you can!

This drama understands that sometimes we really do want to fuck that old man

I don't know what to tell you, the man is hot. He is kind, patient, and generous, he's a master chef, he has a beautiful home with a garden that he tends himself, he is a loving dog owner, and on top of all that he has a hilarious dry wit. Who wouldn't want to fuck him??

Ishida is an endearing protagonist having a relatable quarter life crisis

Ishida certainly does! Which is a nice little revelation for him in a time when he's already struggling to figure himself out, as it's his first time wanting to fuck a man and his work colleague to boot. Ishida has hit a stumble in his original career choice and is feeling pretty apathetic about his job when he meets Mitsuya and gets his world rocked.

Mitsuya is a weary older man who has been burned

Mitsuya is quite a contrast to Ishida as an older adult who very much has his shit together, but has also survived some deep hurts living as an out gay man and grown reluctant to let people in. He and Ishida both see something in each other that the other needs.

It's a food drama that will make your mouth water

The food Mitsuya makes and serves to Ishida in this show looks so delicious that I had to make sure I was fed before watching each episode. Mitsuya can feel free to bait me with food any time.

Shige is my idol

We get to spend ample time at the neighborhood bar, where Mitsuya's old friend Shige serves drinks and hot goss. Shige is a great mix of the wise elder gay dispensing advice and the mischievous trouble maker who likes to stir the pot. I love him, and this show's understanding of the realities of men their age living out and proud.

Frito is a very good dog

FRITO! I'm not always too hype about pets with prominent roles in my shows, but in this story Frito is an important character and an emotional support to Mitsuya, and often provides impetus for Mitsuya and Ishida to grow closer.

Have I mentioned this show is hilarious

Truly, so funny. I laughed out loud during most episodes. Ishida is a walking comedy show as he flails through life, and the few moments when Mitsuya's dignified exterior cracks will have you howling.

It gave us one of the best dates I have ever seen on my screen

I still think about this date all the time. It was so beautifully written to underscore why this couple fits and how they each meet the needs of the other. Just having seen this one day spent together, it's easy to understand how a life between the two of them would unfold.

This show has a mature and nuanced understanding of relationships

We get deep into the show's perspective on love and romantic relationships via the return of Mitsuya's ex, Kaoru, a plot which the story handles with remarkable grace. I loved the space they gave to Mitsuya's former love and need for closure, and that Kaoru was not treated like a villain. He even got to provide an assist to Ishida!

The main romance feels deep and compelling

All of this adds up so that by the time we got to the finale, I really believed in this romance and why Ishida and Mitsuya needed each other, and the way the show dug into their hesitations and fears around that was so moving. My only regret is this show is short and we can't follow them to keep watching their lives together, but we got what we needed to feel confident in their future. I will miss them.

#mr mitsuyas planned feeding #mitsuya sensei no keikakuteki na ezuke #japanese bl #jdrama #shan recommends #10 things #shan shouts into the void

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itsjusthockey · 11 months ago

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December - Adam Fantilli

Officially in Adam era. Enjoy

I miss him at Michigan

w.c: 1,923 (credit to gif maker)(don't steal my work)

You learned quickly that December is a lot colder without him here. All the Christmas lights seem a little less bright, the hot chocolate tastes a little more bland, and the joys of the season are still there, just slightly muted.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. He was busy, so were you. College and hockey don’t stop, and the world will never cater to your relationship, no matter how much you wish it would sometimes. Instead, you both learned to figure it out. You FaceTime, call, and text as much as you can. Adam even suggested writing letters, but with his handwriting, you suggested something else.

You both send each other care packages, his typically filled with snacks you knew he’d love or books you insist he needs to read. Yours were always filled with new merchandise and one of his sweatshirts that still smelled like him. It is a good system, and you love how you make it work. But alas, Adam isn’t in Michigan, and you wish every night that he was.

A pound on your door jolts you out of your daze, and you check what time it is on your phone; it’s around 6:30, and you aren’t expecting anyone to your apartment. You’re confused when you look through the little peephole, but that all of a sudden disappears when your second favorite Fantilli is on the other side of the door. He’s not alone either, standing patiently with Rutger.

Each boy is clad in Michigan gear from head to toe, and Luca giggles about something when you open the door. The boys turn to you with the wildest smile that immediately makes you suspicious.

“What do I owe this pleasure?” You ask, narrowing your eyes a bit.

The boys dramatically roll their eyes, and Rutger places his hand on his heart in mock betrayal.

“Are we not allowed to visit our favorite person ever?”

You roll your eyes at Rutger and shift in the doorway, opening space for them. With bright smiles, they shuffle in, dropping their bags and immediately making themselves comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, Rutger opens your fridge and grabs out Capri Sun.

“I love this, don’t get me wrong, but why’re you here? I know you’ve both had a busy day.”

The pair grow quiet, and Rutger looks toward Luca to lead.

“Adam said you were a bit sad today.” Luca pipes up. “And we’re good at making you happy.

A small part of you feels terrible; it’s not their job to check on you, but most of you want to cry happy tears. You love these boys, and it means a lot that they still care about you, even when Adam is gone.

“So, we’re taking you out. No arguments, go change.” Rutger says, shooing you to your bedroom.

You give in because, of course, you do. It has been a bit of a rough day, and it didn’t help that your boyfriend has only texted you a few times today, telling you about how busy his weekend is going to be and he might not be around much.

You pull on some of Adam’s old Michigan gear, and within a few minutes, you’re walking out of your apartment with the boys. They don’t tell you where they’re taking you, but you just follow, content with being with your friends.

“She actually said that to her face?” Luca asks in disbelief.

You are telling the boys about some friend drama when you reach your destination. It’s a cute little pasta place close to campus, and It is one of your favorite spots. Adam took you here a lot in the last year, and you haven’t been able to go as often now that he’s been gone.

You smile as you follow Luca in, Rutger trailing behind you as you continue telling your story. Soon enough, you’re seated in a booth, food ordered, and you’re listening to them tell you about their own lives, hockey, and whatever the hell else.

You’re soaking up every minute with them, and you realize as you’re talking that you miss being around them. You miss the jokes, the laughs, the chaos, and you know that you have to get out of this little funk. They’re still your best friends, and you have to start seeing them more.

The pasta comes, and you dive in. It tastes like heaven, and you’re transported back to all the times you’ve eaten this meal with Adam. Your heart twinges slightly, but you shove the emotion down and continue laughing with the boys.

“So what’d you get A for Christmas?” Luce asks, mouth full of pasta. “Promise I won’t tell.”

You shrug your shoulders a bit. “A couple of little things. But I was thinking about visiting him, but I’m not sure he has time.”

You looked into it a bunch, but every weekend before Christmas was jam-packed in both of your schedules.

“You guys will figure it out.” Luca hums.

“Yeah, besides, he hasn’t seen you in a while, and I bet all he wants is to unwrap you like a pres-“

“Gross Rut,” Luca interrupts him, and you both laugh at his disgusted face.

The rest of the meal goes by, and at the end of it, you’re feeling much better about life. You’re super happy with this reunion, and you want it to continue, but Luca's phone buzzes on the table, and he gives Rutger a look.

“Ready to go?” Rutger asks, and you nod, heading back outside into the Michigan cold.

It’s a beautiful night, and when you step out, you see that light snow has started to fall. It looks picturesque as you stare at the snow and the decorations for the season. You feel your heart swell, then get slightly sad again, but you smile anyway.

“It’s perfect out.” You whisper to the pair, and they nod. “Are you guys going to come back up? Watch a movie or something?”

The pair share a quick look, and Rutger shakes his head.

“We can’t, we gotta head back.”

You’re a bit disappointed, but you don’t show it. They both have lives, and you can’t expect them to stay forever just because you’re a little lonely.

“All good, this was so nice. Thanks, you guys.”

Both the boys smile at you, and you walk back to your apartment. It’s still snowing, and when you reach the building, they stop at the entrance.

“Are you good to go back up yourself? My mom’s calling me.” Luca says quickly.

You nod your head, say a quick goodbye, and watch as the boys walk briskly away. You’re a bit confused, but you wave anyway as they speed off.

You make your way to the elevator, and you feel good as you climb the floors. You’re happy you got to spend time with some of your favorite boys, even if it was just for a while.

When you step out of the elevator and round the hall to your place, you smell a Christmas candle, and a wave of nostalgia hits you. It’s your favorite Christmas scent, and you almost want to cry. However, you don’t because as you come to your door, you realize the smell is wafting from your apartment.

You’re so completely lost, but when you unlock the door, everything falls into place.

There he is, standing in the center of your apartment wearing a cozy ugly Christmas sweater you’d bought him and smiling as though he’s the happiest man in the world.

You freeze, taking in the decorated apartment. You see a small little Christmas tree with a few presents, lights that line the space, and your favorite fucking candle lit on your dining table.

You drop your keys to the floor, and tears flow as he crosses the room to meet you. When he envelops you in his arms, you cry even harder, knowing that this is probably the happiest moment you’ve had in a long time.

“Hey baby,” Adam says into your hair. “Merry Christmas.”

You release him just enough to see his face. His beard has grown back, his eyes are a little glossy, too, and his smile is one of the brightest you’ve ever seen.

“Did you miss me?” He asks, wiping a tear from your face.

You pull back even further and give him a slight glare. “Yes, you asshole.”

You pull him back in, but this time, you pull him down slightly to meet his lips for the first time. In a simple moment, it’s like a world of color appears again before your closed eyes. Almost every thought in your brain is stripped out and replaced with him. He’s here. Really here. He’s here pressing his lips to yours and pulling you closer. He’s cupping your face, running his hand up and down your back and into your hair. He tastes familiar, and everything about him makes you feel complete. You finally feel whole again within his arms.

When you finally convince yourself to pull away, you meet his eyes again. You want to tell him you love him, but instead, your brain fails to string any thoughts together. So you simply pull him back to you and hope your kiss will show him those three words.

———————-

The night goes by slowly, and you couldn’t be more thankful. You spend hours talking, laughing, and staying cuddled on your couch. Only removing yourself when it gets late enough and you can barely keep your eyes open. You eventually make it to your bed, and everything is right as you lay against Adam’s chest, listening to his heart steadily beating.

“So Luca and Rut were your pawns?” You ask Adam, tracing little shapes on his chest.

He lets out a small laugh, and it's music to your ears.

“I mentioned I needed help surprising you, and the team had to draw names to see who would be the distraction.”

You smile at the thought and cuddle even closer to him.

“I missed you.” You say after a minute.

You grin as he pulls you impossibly closer and kisses you gently on the head.

“I know,” he says. “But this doesn’t last forever. It’s just tough right now.”

You nod, agreeing with him. Right now, it sucks, but soon enough, you’ll be done with school, and he’s already out there making a name for himself. You know he knows how proud you are of him, and you support his dreams, even if it means you have to spend a couple of years like this.

You have your own life and your own dreams to keep you busy. But even then, you crave being with one another, and a piece you is always missing when he isn’t around you. But you do it anyway. You love him, and it’s these little moments that remind you why you put yourself through the pain. When he’s with you, when you’re together, everything is aligned, and it's nothing but perfection.

Yeah, December might be much colder when he isn’t with you, but when he is, it’s like you’re on fire. The only feeling you have is endless warmth.

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branwinged · 3 months ago

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jonelias is incredibly thematically compelling to me because of their character trajectories. like it starts out as twisted nbc hannibal season 1 psychological horror "you wouldn't put a guy in situations" wherein elias runs his lab rat i mean jon through the archivist trauma punch card machine ("wind him up and watch him go") and every day is tortured gothic horror protagonist day for him but he doesn't quite get it yet. and then season 3 happens and jon's a little further in the beholding's grasp and he's experiencing physiological changes which only elias understands and now we're in vampirism metaphor territory, he turned you into a monster but he's the only one who will offer you the absolution you seek! ("elias, am i still human?") murderer mentor maker!!! and you hate him you HATE him but *will graham voice* where else would i go?

and then season 4 happens and audio recording by jonathan sims, the Archivist. point of no return. he's extracting statements. he's feeding. he's unwittingly channelling elias ("you just need... a break.") he's scaring everyone at the institute, but doesn't it feel a tiny bit good after having been powerless and at the mercy of all these other avatars for so long? and even then the only person in the whole world he can turn to for advise is elias because they're alike. they're mirrors. they were similar even before the beholding had its hold on jon, because to be avatars of the eye is to hold a shared, unabating curiosity for knowledge and both of them sought it out to protect themselves from the fears. why else would jon end up at the magnus institute if not for a guest for mr spider.

then there's the panopticon reveal and turns out jon was trapped in a bluebeard narrative all along! but bluebeard's just won. jon took the key and opened the door and found his secret but he's not simply another victim, being bluebeard's final wife means narratively distinguishing yourself from the ones that came before and he does. he's the special one, he's the archive. and jonah/elias says he did everything to free himself from pain and death forever, to free them both from it all forever. and he says "don't worry, jon. you'll get used to it here. in the world that we have made."

and then. power dynamic reversal‼️now season 5 fumbled this badly but listen. the monster you created is coming down to hunt you for sport. the thing you created to escape annihilation is also the very thing that can end you at any given moment. "behold a god more powerful than i who comes to rule over me." and then it's "suffer for me, as i suffered for you." and eventually they play out some equivalent of tackling each other off a cliff hannigram style. or dead ringers 1988. because they're doubles they're mirrors they're shadow selves they're the watcher and the archivist. conjoined. and one cannot exist without the other :)

#this is what your brain looks like on a month of je thoughts #finished tma a month ago and this is so embarrassing like i've never done insane shipposting before!!! when will it end #first time i think i should've made a sideblog... well.#jonelias #tma #jonah/elias #jon/archivist #*[👁️]

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genacity · 1 year ago

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Hi there 🫢

So I just had to write a letter… and I had to put it in an envelope (obvi) and it was one of those envelopes that you have to lick to seal.

Now imagine Scaramouche being ur roommate, and he sees you lick the envelope and his thoughts run WILD

I had to share this cuz idk 💪

🎐anon

nsfw / suggestive scaramouche & the envelope; ANON THIS IS CRAZY WHY ARE YOU SO SMART

i am literally shaking. your last request was so good but this one takes it all 💯 HOW DO YOU THINK OF THESE THINGS

i was thinking of making this an entire fic by itself but i have other drafts i need to clear so you get whatever the hell this may be sorry 😰

you and scaramouche had been roommates for a few months now. he wasn’t the sweetest person in the world; but he payed his share of the bills, had a stable job, and had contributed to the house enough to be able to label him as a decent roommate.

the both of you never seemed to bother each other very often unless it was about the house. maybe the occasional “good morning” or “see you later”, but other than casualties, you never seemed to speak much.

maybe that was why you didn’t expect today to be so different than the rest. today, you had to head down to the post office to send a thank you letter to one of your family members. you had just graduated college recently and since they had send flowers and some money to “treat yourself” (you knew it would just go towards taxes anyways), you concluded that it would be basic courtesy to send a card back at the least.

you stood over the kitchen counter writing out the last of your letter to your extended family. your wrist ached with fatigue as you signed your name next to the love at the bottom of the card and put the pen aside, reaching over to the envelope you had put next to you.

scaramouche walked into the kitchen past you to slide a mug under and press a few buttons on the coffee maker. “what are you doing?” he had asked, the buzzing of the machine behind him making you lick your teeth to hold back the outward cringe. ‘that coffee maker must be old,’ you thought. ‘we should buy a new one soon.’

“just writing a letter.” you said flatly, picking up the envelope and turning to face scaramouche to engage in small talk.

scaramouche raised his eyebrows. “to who?” he inquired. you blinked and looked around for a moment; never had he held a conversation out with you for this long. this was definitely a first. “just some family that came to my graduation.” you murmured, lips occupied as you brought the envelope in your hands to your tongue to lick the seal.

you stuck your tongue out to glide it across the sticky part at the top, the taste of plastic lingering as you wet the seal. your eyes were too focused on the envelope to assure you didn’t cut your tongue (it’s happened before) that you didn’t notice the growing expression on your roommate’s face.

scaramouche’s eyes widened at the sight of your long tongue extending from your lips, carefully licking the adhesive and sealing the letter shut. his lips parted slightly, chest heaving with heavy breaths as his grip against the counter behind him hardened.

he could only stare, frozen in place as you finished the letter off with your stamps of choice and signing the address on the front. you said something to him, but he couldn’t hear you; the only thought in his mind your tongue and what it could do to him.

wait— what? what the hell was he thinking? you were his roommate; just some lowlife he shared an apartment with. but as much as he bashed himself internally, the image of you bending him over this counter right now, using that careful tongue of yours to please him was all he could see. vision foggy as his lips pressed themselves into a line, the sound of the coffee machine behind beeping snapped him out of his thoughts.

“scaramouche, hello? have you seen my—” “no!” he snapped, snatching the mug from the machine and rushing off to his room. your eyes trailed him confusedly. what was wrong with him? matter of fact, what was wrong with you?

you watched him rush away, eyes falling to the evident bulge in his pants before he slammed the door of his bedroom.

#@ genacity ☆#@ 🎐 anon ☆#@ scaramouche ☆#sub scaramouche #sub wanderer #sub kunikuzushi #dom reader #sub character #sub character smut #sub genshin #that. that is insane.#🎐 anon is WILDING in my inbox right now

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lovecomedy · 9 months ago

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If you need any convincing that Noel and Liam Gallagher are incestuous freaks (affectionate), here's the basic information you need

First of all. The kisses

Loch Lomond kiss, where they just... made out on stage in front of cameras. Cool. There's a gif with every photo from every angle.

Another kiss, this time in Japan. Here's the actual video.

And here's the same video but together with nice quotes from their 2016 documentary:

Here's a 2005 award event where they kiss again and also look quite in love

And here's Liam straight up groping Noel during concerts:

General stage antics and more groping:

Just one more groping

Ok. Let's talk about the music, then

Oasis has a song that Noel wrote called "My Sister Lover". The title speaks for itself, really. It includes amazing lyrics such as "You're my lover, I'm your brother"

But there's more! Noel used the same chorus of this song (with different lyrics) for a song he released in his solo album, 20 years later. It's called "Lock All the Doors". The very first line says: "She wore a star-shaped tambourine, prettiest girl I’d ever seen". And guess... guess who famously played a star-shaped tambourine? Liam! And Noel was the one that gifted him the fucking tambourine!!

Liam wrote a song for Oasis called Guess God Thinks I'm Abel

I'll just link everything that's been said about this song, because it really is batshit insane that this song exists

(It's common in the north of England to refer to things and people as "our". When either Liam or Noel say "our kid", they're talking about each other)

Liam has the tendency of thinking every song Noel writes is about him, including the love songs

Here he says "I'm his muse", along with some other interesting quotes

Ok, now we're on to suspicious quotes!

They had sex last night, according to Liam

This one is my favorite:

Of course this one is just all the weird quotes jammed in one post, you can feel yourself going crazy as you read it

Noel assures us that Liam knows about his arse

Other people confirming that they act like a couple. And them being fucking weird about each other’s marriages.

This one has Noel saying Liam is deeply in love with him. At the bottom, Liam's tweet.

Actually Liam always tweets things that basically confirm they're relationship. Like when somebody asked him if he ever rimmed Noel. Yeah.

This radio interview is where the most lovely quotes come from. Only Noel was supposed to be interviewed but then they both showed up PISSED DRUNK. Transcription in the same post

Even More weird quotes

This one involves the word impregnate

Noel making a suspicious comment about his daughter and son, Anais and Donovan

I think to be convinced you really just need that, but I'd like to add some niceties.

Just genuinely enjoying each other’s company

This is from the Oasis; 10 Minutes Of Noise and Confusion documentary. As Noel is kissing Liam's cheek, Liam is saying "He’s a fucking cunt and I hate him and I love him and he twists my melon, man. He’s the best songwriter in the fucking world.”

Some sweet quotes, and some less sweet ones as well

From the Supersonic documentary

Hugging after playing football

Just being silly

To finish off, two wonderful video edits with endearing moments

#gallaghercest

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badaleesbish · 6 months ago

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I want to see something where Bada gets idol!reader pregnant and their relationship is public. I dont have a plot just want to see something cute. Maybe throw in some drama cause why not

Down bad bada is a must

What A Life. | Bada Lee x Reader

°SUMMARY:

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎."

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸'𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚗."

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎."

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸'𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐."

"𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎."

~ 𝙹𝚑𝚎𝚗𝚎 𝙰𝚒𝚔𝚘 - 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚢 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢 (𝚆𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎)

°CW:

𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏, 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝, 𝚐!𝚙 𝚋𝚊𝚍𝚊, 𝚝𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚌 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚢, 𝚝𝚘𝚡𝚒𝚌 𝚏𝚊𝚗 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎 (𝚛. & 𝚋𝚊𝚍𝚊), 𝙳𝙸𝙳 𝙽𝙾𝚃 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙾𝙵 𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙳‼️ 𝚂𝙾𝚁𝚁𝚈 𝙵𝙾𝚁 𝙼𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴𝚂‼️

There is a lot to being an idol. From having some sort of talent, just simply being a pretty face to look at to strict diets and contracts, hectic overloaded schedules, and toxic groups and companies, but there is something that is expected of you is an idol. Can you guess what it is...

Being the only one for your fans, a parasocial relationship if you will. You are supposed to stay pure and innocent for your fans, no sex, no relationship, no children, no drinking or smoking, no potty mouth. You are supposed to keep your fans as happy as possible, whether it makes you uncomfortable or not. Just do it with a smile, they say. Well, so much for not "breaking" the "idol rules."

You may have screwed up a few months into your solo career as an idol. Your relationship with your choreographer, Bada Lee, was exposed by fucking sasaengs and then was quickly picked up by Dispatch, fucking snitch. There was some hate with comments on your social media like,

"Unnie, you are not ashamed for abandoning us like this?"

"Well... there goes her career."

"Noona, a woman, seriously?!?!? Maybe you should get a real MAN?!?!"

"Wow, so we fuck our choreographers now."

"STAY AWAY BADA, YOU DIRTY CUNT!!!"

But despite the hate, you and Bada decided to go public with your relationship, which gained quite a bit of support with comments from both your fanbases,

"Come on, guys, just admit it. They are cute as fuck."

"Love it!!!"

"Both of my worlds are colliding. What the actual fuck?!?!?."

"My parents are so cute!!!"

"Made for each other fr."

"Look at how they look at each other."

You both were happy. Your careers were skyrocketing, and you two still had somewhat of a supportive fanbase together and solo. Your company were somewhat supportive but still made you apologize to fans to regain their trust again.

"So what you are telling me is that I have to apologize for falling in love?" You scoffed as you sat across from your manager and a couple of members of your staff. "Are you hearing yourself right now?"

"Well, ma'am, you signed a contract that states everything regarding the dating ban as well as the consequences that may follow if broken." Your manager said, pushing the contract towards you as well as pen and paper to follow. "It's there in black and white, ma'am."

"So what's next? Are you gonna make me apologize for getting married and starting a family, too? You said as you began to write your heartfelt apology to your fans.

"Well, let's just hope that doesn't happen, right?" Your manager said as he leaned back in his seat with a smirk on his face. "You are our money maker, sweetheart, so we kind of need you. Tell your bitch to wrap that shit up, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever." You scoffed as you pushed the pan and paper back towards him, standing from your seat as you made your way to the door. "Also, if I were you, I'd watch what the fuck I say since ya know, I am your money maker."

"So what do we do with it?"

"Bada, you don't have to do anything. I have to handle this."

"It should be fairly easy, right?"

Bada was quite confused about the whole situation. It's like, at one moment, you were perfectly fine and then you end up sick at the simple scent or taste of a food. At first you both thought it was your menstrual cycle until you realized you were a whole two weeks late. It can't be, right? There's no way... Is there?

"Okay, I'll just read the instructions and just go for it. What's the worst that could happen?" You grabbed the bag of pregnancy test and made your way to the bathroom with Bada hot on your heels. "Baby, just let me take the test, okay? Alone, please?"

"Yeah, of course. If you need me, just call." Bada said, kissing your forehead before backing up allowing you to walk into the bathroom. "I'll be right here, okay?"

You nodded as you closed the door behind you. Nerves began to rush over your body as you pulled the test from the bag and began to read the instructions.

"Okay, step one, remove the plastic cap and use immediately. Step two, hold the absorbent tip in urine stream for five seconds. Step three, replace cap and lay test flat. Step four, wait 1 to 3 minutes for results." You read, taking deep breath after the mouth full. "Alright, seems simple."

After five tests, constant hand washing and the struggle of just trying to pee on the stick, you were finally done and now is the even more nerve-wracking part, waiting for the results. The three minutes seemed like hours, but it was time, and to be honest, you were scared shit less. If these tests come out positive, what will this mean for both of your careers?

"Bada..." You called out for your girlfriend on the other side of the door. "Come in here now."

"What does it say? Baby, why are you crying?" Bada said as she rushed into the bathroom to see you sitting on the floor with a test in your hands as tears stream down your cheeks.

Bada looked over to the other tests on the counter. Her hands flew over her mouth as she let out gasp. "Positive... it's positive."

Bada sat next to you, wrapping her arms around your body as you sob into her shirt, still gripping to test in your hand. You are pregnant, and there's no going back now. It's not that you don't want children, you do, but not this early and not like this. You wanted to getting married and be settled, no more idol life just you, Bada and your baby living somewhere discreet and outside the public eye.

"What are we gonna do, Bada? What about my career? What about your career? The fans? The company?" You began to play out everything in your head of what would happen if the public found out. All the backlash and more negative comments. "I'm scared, Bada."

"Hey, it's you and I, okay? Don't worry about all of that. If this was not meant to be, then it would have never happened." Bada lifted your head as she wiped your falling tears, gently caressing your cheeks. "It's okay to be scared, baby. This is new for both of us. We're gonna take it one step at a time. Together."

You smiled weakly as you leaned into her touch, nodding in agreeance. "I love you."

"I love you too." Bada said, pulling you into a kiss. "We got this."

"We got this."

°AN:

Ummm... I really hope you enjoy this, and I am sorry for the VERY late response. Enjoy, tho!!! 💙

#bada lee #bada lee smut #bada lee imagine #bada lee x reader #bada x reader #street woman fighter x reader #team bebe #street woman fighter 2 #swf2

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