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#Reimagine Your City
leveloneandup · 2 years
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re—inc The revolution is global, yet real change begins local. Explore our new collection inspired by the athletes, artists and activists who reimagine their cities through small or large acts.
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th1777 · 2 years
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Tobin Heath: Reimagine Your City NY
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i-am-kmyl · 2 years
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Tobin “yeah-I-am-a-model” Heath modeling Re-Inc’s latest collection, Reimagine Your City
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byebitchs · 2 years
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re—inc The revolution is global, yet real change begins local. Explore our new collection inspired by the athletes, artists and activists who reimagine their cities through small or large acts.
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reasonsforhope · 4 months
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"Chicago’s 82-story Aqua Tower appears to flutter with the wind. Its unusual, undulating facade has made it one of the most unique features of Chicago’s skyline, distinct from the many right-angled glass towers that surround it.
In designing it, the architect Jeanne Gang thought not only about how humans would see it, dancing against the sky, but also how it would look to the birds who fly past. The irregularity of the building’s face allows birds to see it more clearly and avoid fatal collisions. “It’s kind of designed to work for both humans and birds,” she said.
As many as 1 billion birds in the US die in building collisions each year. And Chicago, which sits along the Mississippi Flyway, one of the four major north-south migration routes, is among the riskiest places for birds. This year, at least 1,000 birds died in one day from colliding with a single glass-covered building. In New York, which lies along the Atlantic Flyway, hundreds of species traverse the skyline and tens of thousands die each year.
As awareness grows of the dangers posed by glistening towers and bright lights, architects are starting to reimagine city skylines to design buildings that are both aesthetically daring and bird-safe.
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Pictured: Chicago's Aqua Tower was designed with birds in mind.
Some are experimenting with new types of patterned or coated glass that birds can see. Others are rethinking glass towers entirely, experimenting with exteriors that use wood, concrete or steel rods. Blurring lines between the indoors and outdoors, some architects are creating green roofs and facades, inviting birds to nest within the building.
“Many people think about bird-friendly design as yet another limitation on buildings, yet another requirement,” said Dan Piselli, director of sustainability at the New York-based architecture firm FXCollaborative. “But there are so many design-forward buildings that perfectly exemplify that this doesn’t have to limit your design, your freedom.”
How modern buildings put birds in danger
For Deborah Laurel, principal in the firm Prendergast Laurel Architects, the realization came a couple of decades ago. She was up for an award for her firm’s renovation of the Staten Island Children’s Museum when the museum’s director mentioned to her that a number of birds had been crashing into the new addition. “I was horrified,” she said.
She embarked on a frenzy of research to learn more about bird collisions. After several years of investigation, she found there was little in the way of practical tips for architects, and she teamed up with the conservation group NYC Audubon, to develop a bird-safe building guide.
The issue, she discovered, was that technological and architectural advancements over the last half-century had in some ways transformed New York City – and most other US skylines and suburbs – into death traps for birds...
At certain times of day, tall glass towers almost blend into the sky. At other times, windows appear so pristinely clear that they are imperceptible to birds, who might try to fly though them. During the day, trees and greenery reflected on shiny building facades can trick birds, whereas at night, brightly lit buildings can confuse and bewilder them...
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Pictured: A green roof on the Javits Convention Center serves as a sanctuary for birds.
The changes that could save avian lives
About a decade ago, Piselli’s firm worked on a half-billion-dollar renovation of New York’s Jacob K Javits Convention Center, a gleaming glass-clad space frame structure that was killing 4,000-5,000 birds a year. “The building was this black Death Star in the urban landscape,” Piselli said.
To make it more bird friendly, FXCollaborative (which was then called FXFowle) reduced the amount of glass and replaced the rest of it with fritted glass, which has a ceramic pattern baked into it. Tiny, textured dots on the glass are barely perceptible to people – but birds can see them. The fritted glass can also help reduce heat from the sun, keeping the building cooler and lowering air conditioning costs. “This became kind of the poster child for bird-friendly design in the last decade,” Piselli said.
The renovation also included a green roof, monitored by the NYC Audubon. The roof now serves as a sanctuary for several species of birds, including a colony of herring gulls. Living roofs have since become popular in New York and other major cities, in an inversion of the decades-long practice of fortifying buildings with anti-bird spikes. In the Netherlands, the facade of the World Wildlife Fund headquarters, a futuristic structure that looks like an undulating blob of mercury, contains nest boxes and spaces for birds and bats to live.
The use of fritted glass has also become more common as a way to save the birds and energy.
Earlier this year, Azadeh Omidfar Sawyer, an assistant professor in building technology in the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, working with student researchers, used open-source software to help designers create bespoke, bird-friendly glass patterns. A book of 50 patterns that Sawyer published recently includes intricate geometric lattices and abstract arrays of lines and blobs. “Any architect can pick up this book and choose a pattern they like, or they can customize it,” she said.
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Pictured: The fritted glass used in Studio Gang’s expansion of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, depicts the animals in the local ecosystem.
Builders have also been experimenting with UV-printed patterns, which are invisible to humans but perceptible to most birds. At night, conservationists and architects are encouraging buildings turn off lights, especially during migration season, when the bright glow of a city skyline can disorient birds.
And architects are increasingly integrating screens or grates that provide shade as well as visibility for birds. The 52-floor New York Times building, for example, uses fritted glass clad with ceramic rods. The spacing between the rods increases toward the top of the building, to give the impression that the building is dissolving into the sky.
Gang’s work has incorporated structures that can also serve as blinds for birders, or perches from which to observe nature. A theater she designed in Glencoe, Illinois, for example, is surrounded by a walking path made of a wood lattice, where visitors can feel like they’re up in the canopy of trees.
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Pictured: The Writers Theatre, designed by Studio Gang, includes a walking path encased in wood lattice.
Rejecting the idea of the iridescent, entirely mirrored-glass building, “where you can’t tell the difference between the habitat and the sky”, Gang aims for the opposite. “I always tried to make the buildings more visible with light and shadow and geometry, to have more of a solid presence,” she said.
Gang has been experimenting with adding bird feeders around her own home in an effort to reduce collisions with windows, and she encourages other homeowners to do the same.
“I’ve found that birds slow down and stop at feeders instead of trying to fly through the glass,” she said.
While high-rise buildings and massive urban projects receive the most attention, homes and low-rise buildings account for most bird collision deaths. “The huge challenge is that glass is everywhere.” said Christine Sheppard, who directs the glass collisions program at the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). “It’s hard to know what I know and not cringe when I look at it.”
Tips for improving your own home include using stained glass or patterned decals that can help birds see a window, she said. ABC has compiled a list of window treatments and materials, ranked by how bird-safe they are.
Whether they’re large or small, the challenge of designing buildings that are safe for birds can be “liberating”, said Gang, who has become an avid birdwatcher and now carries a pair of binoculars on her morning jogs. “It gives you another dimension to try to imagine.”"
-via The Guardian, December 27, 2023
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acourtofwhatthefuck · 3 months
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Practice On Me — Bonus Part — Fin x Reader.
Summary: A reimagining of how things would have gone if Reader had decided she wanted Fin — despite him being her friend’s father.
Word Count: 7.2k
Warnings: Heavy on the smut. 18+, minors dni. Some jealous and possessiveness. Mentions of forbidden relationships/affairs. If the choices Reader makes in this are something you’re against, I urge you not to read! 🫶🏻
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Rita’s is like no other place you’ve been — or seen — before.
Is this what you’ve missed out on, trapped within the frozen maw of Windhaven? There is no place like this there, of such vibrancy and euphoria. The music, the coloured faelights, the energy — it all makes you feel…on top of the world.
Like there’s life outside the misery you’ve known.
Mor knocks a shot back, grimacing as she slams the empty glass onto the bar. A sudden burst of giggles leaves her as she says, “My father would have my head if he could see me right now. Literally.”
You don’t doubt that for a second, because Mor looks resplendent, not just in her natural beauty, but her joy. She has danced and drank and kissed and danced some more. And seeing her like this…it makes you glad that she convinced you to come out with her tonight.
“My father would have my head, too,” you tell her over the music. “I’m surprised he hasn’t already.”
At that, she rolls her eyes, and she reaches for two more shots. “Here’s to saying fuck the males,” she knocks her glass against yours. “May they all perish.”
You’ll happily drink to that. With the alcohol that has you in its grip, you’re buzzed on thoughts of storming back to Windhaven and confronting all your demons. Confronting anyone and everyone who has ever hurt you and made you feel less than you are. Your father. Lord Devlon. Azriel—
You banish that thought as the liquid slides down your throat with a satisfying burn. You are in Velaris, not Windhaven. A new place with new people, where anything feels possible. The thought is heady and dizzying.
Someone calls Mor’s name, and she glances over her shoulder, her beautiful eyes lighting up again. You truly don’t know how often she’s able to escape the Hewn City and get away to Velaris, but judging by the amount of friends she’s introduced you to tonight, she’s certainly made her mark here.
“Let’s go dance with them!” Mor yells over the music, grabbing your hand.
You think that dancing might be the answer to everything you’ve never known, and so you gladly follow; gladly throw yourself into the thrall of the busy floor.
But that’s when you see him.
Something…some deep power…compels you to look up. Coaxes your eyes to that area a level above, where the city’s VIP guests spend copious amounts of money on copious amounts of alcohol and drink it from their cushy velvet booths. They’re reserved for associates of the High Lord, a not-so-formal place to meet to discuss not-so-casual things.
But none of that matters. There could be an entire circus up there right now, and still all you would notice is — him.
He notices you, too.
The High Lord’s eyes zero in on you from up above. You watch, rooted to the spot, as he takes in the sight of you, from your braided back hair, to your painted face, your dress and the legs exposed by them. He looks like…like he’s finally setting his sights upon an image that was merely fantasy up until now.
He braces his arms on the balustrade. And he just stares.
You want to know what he’s doing here. Whether he’s at Rita’s for business or…or for pleasure. You’ve heard that there are rooms upstairs for people willing to pay the price. Perhaps there’s a lover up there with him somewhere, waiting to explore every last inch of that glorious, sculpted body—
The bleating jealousy that makes your heart twist is…unexpected. And not ideal; not one bit.
He is Rhysand’s father. Things may have been fucked up royally with Azriel, and you may have been burned by the experience — but Fin is Rhysand’s father.
Your friend’s father.
Your friend’s father who has just so happened to help keep you feeling alive these past weeks. With his layers-deep allure, the sweet, sweet words that roll off his tongue. His hospitality, his generosity. His kindness. All of it, you’d attributed to him being a natural charmer, a High Lord who knows precisely what to say, what to do.
It strikes you in that moment — just how much it’s all sunk its way into your bones and made you feel…dangerous.
He watches you like a cat with a mouse. Watches as somebody grabs your hand and yanks you into the tightly knit dancing bodies. The music pulses through you from head to toe, a frenzied tune of strings and keys that somehow come together to create the feeling of being borne aloft. Being on top of the world.
As you become lost to the sensation of dance, you’re glad to forget all your thoughts about Fin. You don’t want to wonder what he’s doing here. You don’t want to imagine what those strong, rough hands might get up to, where they might venture.
You become sandwiched between two males who dance with you in a way that makes you forget your wings were ever stolen. They touch you and touch each other, and you welcome it all, happy to be someone, somewhere, else. At least for a while.
But there’s suddenly a foreign touch to your shoulder. That of a cold, meaty hand that stills your movements and draws your attention. The two males happily slink away and begin grinding on each other, and you spin on the spot to find a tall, stocky male who looks like he punches people in the face for the hell of it.
“Y/N?” He checks, and you nod. “The High Lord wishes to speak with you. Upstairs.”
You glance over your shoulder, eyes searching for Mor and finding her just as she’s following a male and female to a cloaked-off area at the back. That’ll be her occupied for the remainder of the night. You’re officially going solo.
But not for long. Not as the bouncer juts his chin in the direction of the staircase and begins to lead you there. Perhaps it makes you a fool, but you follow without a word.
He pulls back a rope and gestures for you to go on up, and then he’s refastening it behind you and turning back to train a keen eye on the dance floor. It’s purely the alcohol that hits you with enough of an ego to climb those stairs like you belong amongst the chandeliers and velvet booths.
But you look good — amazing, even. You know you do. And looking like this, things like scars and other insecurities seem so trivial. You’ve taken back the right to feel as beautiful as you are. You wear your Illyrian features proudly, and you’re pretty and lithe and graceful—
And your heel catches on the top step of the staircase, almost sending you sprawling to the floor — if not for the warm hand that catches your elbow.
“Easy.” Fin rasps into your ear, setting you steady on your feet.
Your numbed, inebriated senses are not immune to the effect of his voice, it would seem. The deep baritone, rough as jagged rock, pushes its way into your skin, your veins, and spreads far faster than any alcohol could.
“Pardon me, my Lord,” you answer, and you’re unable to shove down the hysterical giggle that claws up your throat. “Fuck, you’re the High Lord.”
He cocks a dark eyebrow. “And you are drunk.”
“The whiskey they serve here is immense.”
“I’ll be sure to extend your compliments to Rita herself.”
Is that, you wonder, who he’s up here meeting? Perhaps the elusive Rita is a close associate of his. Perhaps they do deals in both business and pleasure.
And taking in your fill of the High Lord right now, in a dark button-up shirt and fitted breeches of a slate grey, you would not blame Rita one little bit.
Gods, he’s exquisite. Rhysand may resemble Roza more than he does Fin, but…with two parents of such stunning beauty, it’s no wonder your friend is as handsome as he is.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” you make no secret of the way your eyes linger on him. Tonight is dangerous, and you’re enjoying it.
“Nor I, you,” he narrows his gaze down at you. “Imagine my surprise, considering that when I left the palace earlier this evening, you were curled up in the library with a book. And yet, here you are. Wearing…” mahogany eyes take in the short cut of your dress, “…that.”
“Mor surprised me with a visit.”
“My niece ought to be more careful not to press her father’s buttons too much,” a muscle in his chiselled jaw ticks. “And I think you ought to be more careful not to push mine.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” Bold. So foolishly bold of you. You’ll regret it once sober, you’re sure. “Was there a particular reason you summoned me up here, my Lord? I was rather enjoying dancing.”
“I noticed. And I’m taking you home.”
“What—”
Before you can even finish the word, Fin’s gripping your elbow again, and darkness sweeps you away.
Being winnowed while drunk is not a fun experience.
You feel the cosmic, air-light step from one place to another. Your stomach lurches, your head spinning. You can barely get a hold of yourself as you cling to Fin and prepare your feet to touch solid ground.
And then the darkness is gone, and you’re back in the toasty, warm glow of the palace’s library. Your knees buckle, trying to drag you to the floor, but Fin keeps you upright.
“What the…” you gawp up at him. “Why did you bring me home?”
He ensures you’re able to stand on your feet before pushing away from you. Doesn’t even look at you as he commands, “Get to bed.”
“I was enjoying myself.”
“Just as those males were enjoying you, too. You’re drunk and you need to sleep it off. Get to bed.”
He strides towards the door, his knuckles white from how hard he grips the hilt of the sword sheathed at his side. But sword or no, you refuse to give up so easily.
“No,” you say simply. “I will not.”
Fin stops. Goes still. And then he turns back to you.
His temper is clear on his face, but he doesn’t storm back over like you’re half expecting him to. Instead, his eyes shutter, and he seems to take a deep, soothing breath. When he’s looking at you once more, he flicks his wrist in your direction.
And immediately, gone is the haze of the alcohol.
Immediately, you’re completely lucid, completely steady on your feet. Not a lick of inebriation remains, as if you had, indeed, slept it off.
“Did you just sober me up?” you’re outraged by the mere idea.
“Yes.” Fin admits shamelessly. “Now you won’t fall victim to a hangover in the morning — a favour from me, to you, and I ask you in return to get to bed. And don’t even think about trying to venture back out. I’ll know.”
Your blood boils. And the anger isn’t simply because of your ruined fun, but because…because it stings, the way Fin is treating you with such contempt. Scolding you like you’re little more than a petulant child. He’s been nothing but wonderful since you came to Velaris, and yet now, he speaks to you like…like most of the males back in Windhaven do.
It makes you see red.
“What right have you to dictate how I spend my evening?” you snap. “I was under the impression that my free time is my own, and if I wish to go and get drunk and dance like a fool, that is up to me.”
Cold, beautiful anger hardens Fin’s face. He stalks closer, squeezing the hilt of that sword so, so tightly. “What right have I? This is my home. My city. My court. I am your High Lord, and you choose to behave in such a way when I’ve opened my home to you and offered you refuge? When I’ve given you a place to run to and left my resources at your disposal?”
You rock back on the heels of your feet, staring at him. Every word lands a hit — as good as if he’d nocked them in a bow and fired them right at your heart. It stings. Gods, it stings. You want the careless oblivion of the alcohol back.
Because you grapple daily with the pain, the anxiety, of feeling unwanted. And you…you had begun to think that Fin actually cared for you. Actually enjoyed your company as much as you enjoyed his.
You’d begun to care about his thoughts and feelings where you were concerned. And begun to believe that it wasn’t just the hospitality and courtesy that he would dole out to any runt on the street.
His eyes seem to track the way your expression changes, your shoulders slump. You swallow. The anger is replaced, simply, by hurt.
“If I am a burden, my Lord, I apologise,” you rasp. “I don’t intend to be one. I appreciate your generosity, and I…I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused.”
You hope you can keep your tears at bay long enough to escape to your room. You’re pelted with shame, embarrassment, hurt. You step forward and hurry past the High Lord, desperate to book it out of there, to get to bed.
But his hand encloses around your wrist, tugging you to a stop. And he says, quietly, “wait.”
That hand on your wrist holds the weight of a thousand unspoken words.
You pin your gaze to the ground, unable to look at Fin. You hear him swallow.
“That isn’t—” his voice is gravelly. “I didn’t mean that.”
You don’t think you can speak. You remain a statue beneath his touch.
But so gently — such a contrast to the whirlwind of his actions before — he’s walking you backwards. Slow and careful. You feel your back hit the wall, and he lets go of your wrist and seems to curl his fists at his sides. There’s a desperation to the action that only then coaxes you to look up at him.
His expression is…pleading. For what, you’re not sure.
“You are the furthest thing from a burden,” he says, quietly, on an exhale. “Your presence here is very much welcomed, I assure you.”
You don’t dare breathe a word. Every last bit of your very sober courage is being thrown into maintaining eye contact. There’s none to spare for speaking.
But your lack of response seems to trouble Fin. His eyes rake over your face, searching for something. He swallows again.
And then his eyes shutter, and he whispers, “Mother above, what are you doing to me?”
You don’t know how to answer him — whether he’s even talking to you at all. He takes in a very slow, very deep breath, as though it’s the only thing that’s stopping him from…doing something. What, you’re not sure.
But you can feel it, sense it — the ferocity with which he’s swallowing down words and holding himself back. Like he wants so badly to say something, but can’t.
His eyes open, clearer than they were seconds before, and he says in a far gentler tone, “Get to bed, Y/N,” he inclines his head. “Sleep well.”
With tense, squared shoulders, he turns — and it’s you, this time, that stops him. You halt him with a hand on his arm, and you could swear you feel the muscles flex under his touch.
“Wait,” you say, not ready to let him go, not prepared to leave things between you like this. “Stay and talk with me for a while.”
His jaw clenches like he’s gritting his teeth. “That isn’t a good idea.”
“Why? We talk all the time, you and I. And there are clearly things you’re holding back from saying—”
Your words are cut short as he suddenly meets your gaze with the intensity of a blazing fire. You think it might burn you. You hope it will.
“It’s a bad idea,” he grounds out, gutturally, “not because of what I want to say. But because of what I want to do.”
“What—”
“You are my son’s close friend. You are Roza’s guest,” he tugs his arm out from under your hand. “You are far younger than I am. I am trying my hardest — I have been trying my hardest — to be a good male. And right now, a good male would take his leave and go to bed, so I bid you goodnight, Y/N.”
“Fin—”
“I hope you sleep well.”
“Fin,” you grab for him again. “What if I don’t want you to be a good male?”
Beneath your touch, he stops. Goes preternaturally still.
Words punch out of you with terrifying gall — and truth. “What if I want you to do those things—”
Quick as a flash, he’s pivoting, and he has the upper hand. Has you pressed so tightly up against the wall, his body boxing you in.
And gods, the feel of it might set you on fire. A brush of your hands, a kiss on the backs of your fingers — they’re nothing compared to the weight and press of his muscles against your body. You want your clothes to melt away, and his, too. You want your hands on his bare, hot skin.
“I don’t think you realise what you’re saying,” he growls.
“I do,” you breathe. “I am completely sober. Completely clear of mind. And I am telling you, Fin, I want you—”
A strangled noise is the only warning you get before the High Lord’s mouth is on yours.
The kiss is pure power. It passes from him, into you, roils through your veins and makes you feel like somebody remarkable. It’s the cloak of darkness and the kiss of sin. Of somebody capable of very, very bad things.
And it’s immediately addicting. You’re not sure you’ll ever be able to get enough.
You claw at his shirt, tugging him closer, closer, and his broad hands cup your face as his mouth devours yours.
This kiss…it’s been building. The need for it has been working its way beneath your skin for a while. All the heated glances, the late-night conversations. All the thoughts, in the dead of night, of what Fin might be doing in his own bed. Wondering whether he was thinking of you.
It’s so, so forbidden. So wrong. But it feels so godsdamn right.
And the way Fin’s tongue slides between your lips and strokes into your mouth — it tells you that he feels it, too.
Your hands glide from his waist, round to his back, and you yank him harder against you. So desperate are you to feel him. Feel what you think you do to him.
He makes another low noise. And then he’s tearing his mouth from yours. But he lingers close, your foreheads touching.
“Better than I’ve been imagining,” he pants, his hands still clutching your face. “Much better.”
“You’ve imagined kissing me?” You know he has.
“I have imagined,” his thumbs sweep your cheeks, “doing all sorts of things with you, Y/N. Things that would make even the most salacious of a person blush.”
Such a relief — to know that it’s not all just some wild fantasy you’ve cooked up in your mind. That you’re not just some wayward, longing young female who craves the affections of an older male to patch her deep wounds.
No, it’s not that. It’s desire. It’s need. And it burns inside your veins until you think you might erupt into flames.
“I’ve imagined them, too,” you say, without a lick of shame.
Once again, his eyes are shuttering. Once again, he takes that slow, steadying breath. And as you watch him do so, you can’t bear the thought of him still grappling with right and wrong. You can’t bear the thought of him squaring his shoulders and walking out of here, leaving your lips bruised, your body aching, your heart hurting. You can’t bear it—
“I want you to do those things,” you lift your chin, gaze unflinching. “I want you to touch me.”
Fin’s eyes reopen.
He stares at you.
His throat bobs.
You have never seen somebody look so wild, so ravenous. There is heat everywhere, in his stare and in his taut body. His eyes flick down to your lips.
That mere glance at them is the deciding factor, it would seem.
He growls, the sound not at all one you’ve ever heard from a person, and he yanks you up into his arms and kisses you again.
So naturally, your arms twine around his neck, your legs locking around his waist. You can feel the strength of him against you, in the way he holds you. You can taste his crackling power.
He doesn’t falter in the kiss nor his steps as he carries you away from the wall, and you’re suddenly being placed down on the library’s desk, sending books and parchment and pens and ink pots flying. They all clatter loudly to the floor, and neither of you care.
But Fin does pull away to look at you, and there’s wicked, boyish charm in his eyes as the corners of his mouth twitch up. He merely says, “Oops.”
You surge up and kiss him again.
He sighs into it, like your mouth is the answer to all his questions. And when heated hands land on your thighs, you part them, allow him to slot his body in between. The mere feel of it has you pushing up against him, finding him hard—
But again, he pulls away. He scans your face and rasps, “Tell me you’re sure.”
You do not balk from his intensity. From the fact that this is the fucking High Lord of your court, who was changing this world and building a reputation long before you were a mere thought in your parents’ minds. You do not balk from the fact that there are a million different reasons that this is wrong.
You think only about the fact that it feels right.
And that translates into your voice as you say, firmly, “I’m sure.”
You think you see the words course through his body. They change something — forever.
“This isn’t about Roza,” he breathes — breathes heavily, like it’s taking everything to tamp down on the desire to devour you then and there. To say what needs to be said.
You shake your head, “No.”
“Nor is it about Rhysand.”
“No.”
“It’s about me and you.” He destroys what little gap exists between your bodies, his hardness pushing through his breeches, right up against your centre. His hands brace on the desk, either side of you. “And gods, I want you, Y/N. I want you so much, I can scarcely bear it.”
“Have me,” is all you manage — before he strikes.
You think, hope, that his mouth might find yours again — but he’s barely brushing it before his lips settle on your jaw. His hands travel up your legs, fingers biting into the flesh. They find your hips, thumbs delivering explorative sweeps. They tug your dress up as they climb, exposing more of you to the warmth of the room. Exposing more skin that you know he wants to lay claim to.
And when the hem of your dress is ruched around your waist, you smile — at your little wildcard exposed. That he finds no underwear hiding what sits between your legs.
Your choice to forgo a pair seems almost foretelling, now — like some part of you knew the night would end like this, and you wanted to be ready.
Fin’s eyes dip to your slick, exposed cunt. The hunger in them is almost intimidating. You open your legs just a little wider—
But his rough hand is gripping your chin, almost hard enough to hurt. And he snarls deeply, “It drove me to madness — seeing those two males dancing with you. Touching you.”
Pleasure bolts down your spine, and from the way his nostrils flare, you know the scent of your arousal is consuming him.
“Did it?” you stare back at him, welcoming the discomfort of his brutal grip.
“I wanted them dead. I wanted to draw my sword and gut them for even looking your way. For touching what I want to be mine.”
That pleasure again — skittering over your skin. His words do something to you. You bite down on a moan.
“It is yours,” you tilt your chin up to him, smiling when he immediately glances to your lips. “Take it.”
“I warn you,” he lowers his face to yours, “I don’t like to share.”
“And I warn you, High Lord,” you watch as your words land, drawing a deep, raw scent from him. “Neither do I.”
With a growl, he snaps. The kiss he gives you is not slow or sweet. His hand continues to grip your face, and his mouth attacks yours, his tongue sliding between your lips. You can’t help your moan, this time, as his taste overpowers you — a taste that you can only describe as pure thunder.
But it ends too soon, as he begins to leave a trail of heated kisses and bites and sucks along your jaw, down your neck, your collarbones. Your head falls back, and the touches are like little zips of lightning — lightning cleaving through the night sky.
“Pretty dress,” he hums against your skin — and that’s all the warning you get before that dress is ripped apart. Torn to ribbons.
No part of you is left to Fin’s imagination.
He tears his mouth from you and steps back to drink you in.
Instinct roars at you to curl in on yourself and hide. To remember that you are scarred, and flawed, and not to the liking of many — including yourself, a lot of the time.
But something about Fin’s weighty, scorching stare stops you from moving a muscle.
You lift your chin and hide nothing as he takes his fill. His eyes travel a journey from the top of your head and down — down your face, your neck, your breasts. Down your stomach, your waist, your hips. Down to that fine dusting of hair on your pelvis that tracks a thin path to—
Fin drops to his knees with a low noise. His hands wrap around your legs and prise them further apart.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he levels his face with the very centre of you, and your breath hitches in your throat at the sight.
The sight of the High Lord on his knees before you — on his knees for you.
As though he senses the direction of your thoughts, his eyes flick up, and he smiles.
And then he dives in.
His tongue wastes no time in sinking between your folds, licking a broad stripe right up the centre of you. At the first stroke, your head falls back, your arms wobbling where they’re braced on the desk.
“Look at me,” Fin growls. “Only me.”
His voice of pure High Lord power drags your eyes back to him. And thank the fucking Mother it does.
You see everything in the way he feasts on you. His tongue laps at your wetness, and it coats his lips, his chin, coats him in you. The damp heat of his tongue is liquid fire. It promises to scorch you, end you, and rise you anew like a phoenix from the ashes.
Your fingers sink into the strands of Fin’s hair and tug. Judging by the noise he makes, the way his pace picks up, you think he likes it.
He utterly fucking devours you, like he’s fought a centuries-long wait to do so. And whatever magic commands his mouth — you know you cannot possibly last against it.
“Oh, gods,” your moan breaks from you, hips bucking up. You think your voice might be loud, but you don’t care. “Fuck—Fin.”
It all happens at once — his name falling from your lips, the growl rumbling in his throat, the flicking of his tongue against your clit and the finger he plunges into you, curls inside you. Every part of it is lightning strikes to your veins, and you come apart, utterly break.
Your climax slams into you and steals your breath. You’re nothing but a gasping, panting, trembling shell. Your mind is somewhere else entirely.
With your head falling back, eyes pinned to the ceiling, chest heaving, you don’t catch the swiftness with which Fin stands, licking your wetness from his lips. With which his clothes are gone in a blink of an eye.
But then he commands, “Look at me.”
It’s the second time he’s said it. Your head lolls forward once more.
You swallow the breaths you’re still trying to get down. Try to stop your body fucking shaking.
But it’s no wonder it does, as you look at him.
Your High Lord is nothing short of exquisite. He is art. Your fantasies have done him no justice.
That golden skin of his seems to attract the glowing light of the room. It bathes him, but it does not steal the attention. It outlines every fine plane of his body, the sculpted muscles on show, the nicks of injuries that have scarred and silvered over time.
There is not a single part of him that isn’t pure, refined power. And when your gaze drops to below his waist…a shudder wracks through you.
His cock stands hard and leaking at the head. You watch, your mouth watering, as he wraps a hand around its length and gives a long stroke.
“Fin—”
“When you look at me like that,” he prowls closer, “there is no way I can consider this forbidden.”
He’s within reach. Your fingers inch towards him. You want to touch him, taste him—
But he curls a hand around yours and stops you in your tracks.
“Not tonight,” he says. Pure promise is laced within the words. “No playing tonight.”
As if he hadn’t just played with you. You want to protest, to get your fucking mouth around that considerable length, but his hand tightens around yours.
And then he’s flipping you over, so fast that you don’t have time to even register it. You land on your front, your belly and breasts pressed against the desk. Fin lays his palm against your back and drags it slowly down. And in the wake of his touch, he leaves kisses. Kisses to your shoulder, your back. They’re…soft. Tender.
“Have I disappointed you?” he murmurs against your shoulder, folding his body over yours. You don’t think it’s an accident that the head of his cock nudges that sweet area between your legs.
It’s all you can do to breathe, “I wanted to taste you.”
“And you will,” he drops the brush of a kiss to your skin. “But now is not time for that.”
You don’t need him to tell you what now is the time for. Not as his hands find the flesh of your hips, and he yanks you to the very edge of the desk, moving with you. The feel of him so close to where you want him is downright cruel.
“Have you thought about me fucking you?” he asks, those hands travelling to rove your ass.
Your nails bite into the desk as you answer, “Yes.”
“Did I make you scream?”
You bite down on your lip at the feeling of him spreading you apart, opening you up to him. “Yes.”
You feel it — his cock sliding between your folds. Not pushing in, but dragging torturously against your sex. From your entrance, up to your clit. The head of his cock pushes against it.
And the moan that rips from you is downright filth, as he rolls his hips and allows your wetness to slicken his length. It feels so fucking good. To you, and to him.
A breath shudders out of him, and he purrs, “Are you going to scream for me now?”
“Fuck yes,” the words tumble from your lips. “I want you, Fin.”
Just like that, his restraint snaps. The High Lord strikes.
He drags his length through your folds and enters you with a single, powerful thrust.
A shout leaves you, and you’re clawing at the desk, trying to keep your grip against the pleasure that courses through you. Fin fills you and stretches you. He pulls out and slams back in to the hilt.
“Fuck me, you’re tight,” he growls, his hands sinking back into your hips. He begins a steady thrusting, sliding in and out of you with a drag that makes you feel every glorious inch of him. “Gods.”
“So good,” you pant. “Want you harder.”
The plea seems to make him groan, and he wastes no time in picking up the pace. His hands bite into your skin as he fucks you faster, harder, your moans and pleas and curses falling from your lips without any nudging from you. The pleasure is all-consuming. In seconds, it’s buried within your veins.
“You like that?” The grit in his voice has you clenching around him. He’s so fucking filthy, so fucking sultry, as he snarls, “you going to be a good girl and come for me?”
Gods, yes, you are. Already, release is coiling tightly within you, and it’s a force entirely of its own right, inching closer and cresting the hill, ready to sink its claws into you. Fin’s cock hits deep, and out of nowhere, his palm is flying through the air and making contact with your ass cheek. That is all it takes.
The pleasure of it all is too much — the sting of the slap, the depth and thrall of his thrusts, the way he growls and grunts as he lays claim to your body, your pleasure.
You cry out, your orgasm blasting through you with unstoppable force. The long strokes of Fin’s cock fuck you through it, through earth-shattering pleasure, through what feels like a mind-altering experience.
“My filthy girl,” he pulls out of you suddenly, and though your cunt still clenches and twitches, desperate for more, more, more, he flips your trembling body onto its back once more and tugs you up, slipping back between your legs. “Fuck, I can’t tell you how relentlessly I’ve thought about making you scream for me like that.”
Past words, you can only reach up and pull his head down to yours to capture him in a kiss. Your taste still coats the tongue that he slides between your lips. It spurs you on to deepen it, luxuriate in the feel of it. And you become so lost in it that you tug hard at the strands of his hair when he enters you again in one great, sweeping thrust.
His arm folds around your back, hand grasping at your shoulder, and it seems to afford him perfect purchase to pound into you. Sounds fill the air of his skin slapping against yours, of the breaths and moans you huff into each other’s mouths. You think the two of you, together, might be loud enough, forceful enough, to bring the City of Starlight to rubble around you.
Fin’s lips tear away from yours, and he buries his face into the crook of your neck. His thrusts are growing quicker, sloppier, reaching a feverous pinnacle that will surely break.
“Fuck, you’re going to make me come, Y/N,” his sweat-slick brow presses against your neck. “Taking me so well like this. Squeezing me like this. You’re going to make me fucking blow.”
You want that — more than anything. To feel the power of him spilling into you.
You squeeze your thighs against his, dragging your free hand — the one not sunken in his hair — down the muscles of his shoulders, his back, his waist — to his ass, where you dig your nails into the tight, toned flesh and encourage him to pump into you harder, faster. The feel of it makes Fin shout.
“Come for me,” you choke around your pleasure. “Please, Fin…want you to come.”
An animalistic growl rips from him, and he slams into you one, two, three more times, and then stills, throwing his head back with a roar that shakes the library. Hot, thick ropes of his seed seem endless as they’re unleashed inside you.
The force of it shatters you both, you think. With his trembling as thorough as yours, your nails are still raking over his skin as his brow presses to the crook of your neck. Strands of hair stick to the back of his. Your fingertips smooth over them tenderly.
It feels like eons that you stay there like that, holding each other up from collapsing under the weight of your mutual release. You want to hold him like this, always. You don’t care what others may have to say about it, what they may deem to be wrong about it. You want him.
He pulls back, as though sensing the thought. Meets your eyes. For a beat or two, he simply studies your face, something like clarity on his own.
And then he dips down and drops a kiss to your brow. Such a tender act, in the wake of such passion.
 No words are needed. Not as he scoops you up into his arms, leaving behind the mess the two of you have created. There’s a flash, and he’s winnowed you to your bedroom. A fire roars to life immediately. Fin places you down on the bed.
You watch through hooded eyes as he makes his way into the bathroom. Moments later, he’s returning with a warm, damp washcloth, and he perches beside you.
“Open your legs for me,” he whispers, and you do.
The High Lord of the Night Court is gentle as air as he takes care of you, wiping between your thighs and delivering soft, soothing strokes to your skin. A pleasant soreness sits in your lower belly. He leans down and presses a kiss there like he knows just that.
And then he’s sitting up, and it frightens you — the thought of him walking away, of this ending here and now.
So you lay a hand on his arm, breathing, “Stay with me.”
He pauses, eyes roaming your face like he’s assuring himself you mean it. And then he dips his chin.
“I would be honoured,” he rasps.
And thus, the affair begins.
✧: *✧・゚✧・゚: *✧・゚✧・゚: *✧・゚✧・゚: *✧・゚✧・゚: *✧・゚
The need you and Fin have for each other is…insatiable.
Every moment he’s away, you’re thinking of him, longing for the moment he’ll appear in your room and rip your clothes off. If anyone else in the palace — staff, servants, associates — are aware of what’s going on, they don’t give it away. And that suits you just fine.
You can’t get enough. You’re giddy with it. Giddy from the multiple, interesting circumstances you’ve landed yourself in.
Like when you lured him out of a meeting and dropped to your knees in a fucking broom closet, taking his cock into your mouth until he was canting his hips forward and spilling down your throat. Or when he fucked you on the balcony of his personal quarters, your body pressed up against the balustrade, the two of you open to the elements and your moans loud enough to reach the stars above you and the city below you. Or when he took you to watch the ballet, and up in the cushy surrounds of your private viewing box, you watched the performance with him deep inside you, his fingers indolently playing with your clit, his low voice in your ear reminding you to keep quiet.
It’s…exciting. Enthralling. It changes everything.
And as he pulls out of you now, sweaty and panting, and collapses beside you in his bed, you’re not sure you could ever tire of this feeling.
He wants you. He wants you so ferociously, like nobody has ever wanted you before.
As you catch your breaths, he props his head up with his hand and stares at you through hooded eyes, glazed with lust. He leans down and grazes a kiss to your mouth.
“I don’t know how to make it stop,” he ponders as he pulls back, moving a hand to brush his fingers over your breast. “All this need — wanting you constantly.”
You lean up on your elbows, tilting your head, “Do you want it to stop?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Never.”
Never. Never is a very long time. It makes your stomach flip — the enormity of it.
Fin circles the tip of his forefinger around your pebbled nipple, watching with predatory fascination as he adds, “But this will, inevitably, blow up in our faces at some point. We haven’t exactly been secretive — not that I want to be. But people will talk.”
You lean up to brush your mouth over his. “Let them talk,” you say, and kiss him.
Immediately, he melts into the kiss. Your mouth seems to have an effect on him that you never thought yourself capable of. Always draws a long, pleasured sigh from him as he sinks into it, welcomes it.
He kisses you and kisses you, so greedily, so desperately. His hand snakes up to cup your cheek. He’s already hardening against your leg.
But he pulls away, dropping his forehead against yours. And he breathes, “Make a bargain with me.”
You trace a thumb over his bottom lip. You’ve never made a Night Court bargain before; never had reason to. “What bargain?”
“When this blows up in our faces,” he grips your hand, folding his own over it, “we face it together. You and I.”
“You and I?”
“You and I” he kisses your hand. “I don’t claim to be perfect. I don’t try to be. I can be brutal and callous, and I can lie and play games,” another kiss. “But not with you. Never with you. I will look after you. Take care of you. I’ll be whatever you need me to be.”
Words that you’ve always longed for someone to say to you. Words that should not be taken lightly, should not be said without meaning.
But you know he means them. You can tell he does.
You watch closely as your fingers interlace with his. And you whisper, “Together?”
Fin’s thumb sweeps over yours. “Together. We’ll face it together.”
“Then it’s a bargain.”
A flash of splintering pain zips around your midriff. You glance down to find the tattoo now inked there. The black line that draws a perfect circle around your waist, like a trail of night-kissed lightning.
You look up at Fin to find a roguish smile playing on his lips.
“Oh, I like that,” he hums.
And then he’s leaning down and pressing kisses to that circlet signifying your promise to one another. Kisses the entirety of it, flipping you on your front in the process.
And kisses lower, until you’re screaming for him again.
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anny-ley · 3 months
Text
"You’re a pretty little thing ! "
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Seonghwa x fem. reader
warnings: masturbating, oral (m. receiving), biting, rough sex, unprotected sex (don't do that wrap it up guys!), dominance, submission, hair pulling, begging, a bit after care
18+ content bellow, minors dni
reblogs and feedbacks are appreciated! sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language.
As you laid in bed, the soft glow of the moonlight bathed the room, casting a dreamlike ambiance. Thoughts of him consumed your mind, and the memories of your passionate encounters danced vividly in your imagination.Closing eyes, you let your mind drift back to that electric moment when you two last kissed. The warmth of his lips, the taste of his desire, still lingered on your own. You could almost feel his breath against your skin, igniting a flicker of heat that coursed through your veins. Your fingers traced the outline of your lips, reimagining the sensations as Seonghwa‘s kisses brushed against your tender flesh.The memory of his touch sent a wave of delicious anticipation surging through your body, awakening every nerve.
You recalled the way his hands explored your curves , with each caress leaving a trail of fiery longing. The memory of his fingertips dancing along your collarbone, skimming down your neck, and teasing the sensitive skin at the nape of your neck sent shivers of pleasure cascading through your body. Heart quickened as you vividly recalled Seonghwa‘s touch inching higher, setting your skin ablaze with desire. The anticipation built within you, like a tightly coiled spring yearning to be released. The imagination his hand slipping beneath the fabric of your dress, his fingers tracing the outline of your body, awakening every inch of skin with his gentle, yet electrifying touch.The intensity of your longing heightened as you replayed in mind the intoxicating dance of your two bodies.
You could almost feel the weight of Seonghwa‘s daze his eves filled with desire as he explored you with an intensity that stole a breath away. In the depths of your imagination, you allowed yourself to indulge in the sensations, each touch, each kiss, growing more intense, more vivid, more electrifying. The memory of your connection fueled your desire, stoking the fire within you until it burned brightly, consuming your thoughts. Lost in the ecstasy of the memory, your hands began to explore your own body, tracing the paths where his had once traveled. Your fingers trailed along your neck, down your chest, and across your heated skin, mirroring the sensations you craved so much. With each touch, your breathing grew more labored, heart racing with the intensity of your desire. The memory of Seonghwa‘s tantalizing kisses and teasing sent ripples of pleasure coursing through you, building your arousal with each passing second. As you surrendered to the power of your imagination, you allowed yourself to be swept away by the intoxicating wave of pleasure. In the depths of your passion, you found solace, knowing that soon, he would be in your arms once again, turning your dreams into reality.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a golden glow over the city, you stood at the window of her cozy apartment, heart pounding with anticipation. It had been months since you last saw Seonghwa , your beloved boyfriend, and the ache of his absence grew with each passing day. The longing to be in his arms, to feel his warm embrace, consumed every thought. His job had taken him to far-off lands, as the next world tour was due. But now, after what felt like an eternity, he was finally returning home. You had spent countless nights imagining your reunion, creating vivid scenes in your mind. You wanted this moment to be perfect, a culmination of all the love and longing you had endured. As you adorned yourself in a stunning dress, your hands trembled with excitement. You know what would happened, too often you had imagined how he would pick you up and carried you to your bed. You missed the way he makes you feel. The way he leans over you with so much desire in his eyes. The weight of his body on yours, feeling how turned on he is. How his length is completely filling you out…
Minutes turned into hours as you waited by the door, your heart fluttering with each passing sound. And then, as if on cue, the sound of a key turning in the lock filled the apartment, sending waves of joy through your entire being. In that instant, all your impatience and longing transformed into a surge of pure bliss. The door swung open, revealing Seonghwa, his angelic features illuminated by the soft glow of the hallway lights. His eyes met your, and in that single moment, the world around you ceased to exist. Time stood still as you rushed into each other's arms, your bodies fitting together like missing puzzle pieces. His familiar scent, feeling the warmth of his embrace. In that embrace, all the months of longing, all the nights spent yearning for his touch, melted away, replaced by an overwhelming sense of completeness.
As Seonghwa held you in his arms, your bodies pressed together, a flicker of desire sparked between you . The heat of your reunion ignited a fire within both of you, awakening a hunger that had been building during your time apart. Seonghwa leaned in, his lips brushing against your earlobe, sending shivers down your spine. His voice, husky and filled with longing, whispered words that resonated deep within your soul. "You have no idea how much I've missed you," he murmured, his warm breath tantalizing your senses. Your pulse quickened as you locked eyes with him, feeling your desire growing. Gently, Seonghwa trailed his fingers along the curve of your jawline, his touch sending a rush of heat through your entire body. He traced a path down your neck, his fingertips dancing lightly along your collarbone, leaving a trail of fiery anticipation in your wake.
Your lips met in a searing kiss, an explosion of pent-up passion unleashed. Your arms wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer, as your mouths moved in perfect harmony. The taste of him, the familiarity and yet newness of his kiss, set you aflame . As you continued to explore each other's mouths, your hands roamed, igniting flames wherever they touched. With a gentle tug, Seonghwa guided you towards the bedroom, your bodies moving as if in a dance of pure desire. His hand slipped beneath the fabric of your dress, his fingers tracing the outline of your curves, teasing and tempting you. You gasped against his lips as you felt the warmth of Seonghwa’ s hand inching higher, igniting a delicious ache between your thighs. Every nerve in your body tingled with anticipation as he teased and caressed, his touch conveying a deep understanding of your desires.
He smiled at you. He could see you was getting turned on by him. He was making you wet. You was getting so horny. You couldn't believe how much this was already turning you on. You wanted to be fucked by him right there. You wanted him to feel your tits, suck on your nipples, to lick and bite them. You wanted to feel his tongue in your pussy. These were all you could think about, the way he would fuck your brain out. You closed your eyes his lips touching yours again, his tongue entering your mouth. You felt his hand cup your breast as his other hand reached around your back and unzipped your dress. The way his fingers found your nipple through your bra made you moan into his mouth. He moved back looking at you with a dirty smile. "So turned on already jagiya? I barely touched you yet…“ he said as his thumb began to rub your nipple. You moaned louder as his lips went to your neck. He sucked on your neck as his hand massaged your breast. His hand moved from your breast to your thigh. As his hand slid under her dress he wormed another pretty moan out of you which seem to affect him, you could feel his bulge underneath your panties growing even bigger.
You shivered as his fingers found your panties and rubbed your pussy. "Spread your legs“ he said, you could her how his voice trembled with arousal. You slowly spread her legs and he pressed his big hand against your pussy. You felt his finger move the hem of your rather conservative panties, electric shocks ran through your body when his skin touched your sensitive area. He kissed your neck and whispered into your ear, "Do you like it? " You moaned." Yes. "He smiled, "Good. Because I'm going to take them off. "He pulled your panties off and threw them away.
He put his hands on your ass and lifted you up. Your arm wrapped around his neck. You felt his dick concealed by his trouser pressing against your pussy. You moved your hips a bit forward and stared to move them in little circles pressing directly against his erection. He hissed the grip around your waist tightened "You dare to tease me?
You moaned softly into his mouth as your tongues danced in each other's mouths. You broke the kiss and looked into his eyes. You both smiled at each other. You felt his cock press harder against your pussy. A soft moan left your lips as he picked you up and carried you to the bed. You laid down and watched as he removed his shirt. You smiled as you saw his beautiful body, the perfect skin, the slim waist and toned body.
He took his pants off and stood there. He was wearing white undies. You gasped as you saw his bulge. You wanted to touch it so bad, yearned to feel it throbbing in her hand. You dared to sit back on the bed and ran your fingers on the soft fabric. You could feel the hotness emanating from Seonghwas manhood. He was hard and stretching the undies. You smiled as you felt him twitch under your touch. From the past you knew that if you tried to fit it in your mouth, you would choke. You licked your lips as you imagined how good it would taste.
You took his underwear and slowly pulled it down. His dick sprung out and slapped against his stomach. His dick wasn’t new to you but everytime you asked yourself how this could fit your pussy. Even for your mouth this looked way too big. You slowly reached out and touched it. You stroked his cock slowly. He moaned as he felt your hand moving up and down his shaft. You stared at his dick and he slowly lowered your head towards it.
You opened her mouth and put your tongue on the tip of his cock. You could taste his precum. It was salty and sweet at the same time. You liked it. You licked his cockhead again and then moved your head lower. You licked his shaft and slowly started taking more of his cock in your mouth. You gagged as it hit the back of your throat. A beautiful moan left Seonghwa’ s lips which sent a electric shiver down your spine. You sucked on it and moved your head back and forth. You felt his cock throb in your mouth. God damn you loved it. You kept sucking his cock and moved your hand faster. You felt his balls tighten up as he got closer to cumming. Just the image that showed you could have made you come straight away. His head tilted back, his beautiful face covered with a light film of sweat, his eyes and lips pressed together. You stopped sucking his cock and held it still, admiring his very erect, ready to burst, shaft. But you did not want him to cum right now. You needed to feel him inside you.
You looked up at him, your eyes wide and pleading. He was still for a moment, as if he was unsure of what you wanted. Then he moved to the edge of the bed and you quickly turned around so that your back was facing him. You felt Seonghwa’s hand on your shoulder, slowly moving down your arm. You shivered as he touched you, his fingers brushing against the skin of your back. He moved closer to you and you could feel his breath on the back of your neck. "What do you want?" he asked, his voice low and husky. You bit your lip, trying to find the words to say. " want you," you finally said, your voice barely above a whisper. He chuckled softly and you felt his lips against the back of your neck. "I want you too," he said, his voice rough and full of desire.
He turned you around to face him, his eyes dark with lust. He pressed his lips against yours in a searing kiss, his tongue sliding into your mouth as he deepened the kiss. You moaned against his mouth, your hands sliding up to tangle in his hair. He pulled away from the kiss, his eyes dark with desire. "I want to taste you," he said, his voice low and husky. He trailed kisses down your neck, his hands roaming over your body. He reached the top of your panties and hooked his fingers into the waistband, sliding them down your legs. You stepped out of them and he tossed them aside, a look of hunger in his eyes as he took in the sight of you naked before him. In this moment you changed your mind. Yes you love it when Seonghwa eats you out his tongue is so perfect, so long and he knows how to use it. He can make you fall apart in seconds. But right now you just wanted to feel him thrust deep inside you. You griped his hair and pulled his head up so you can look him in the eyes. A little headshake and he immediately knew now it's not time for this. You need something else. You need HIM.
"I want you to fuck me. I need you to fuck me." You said with a slight whisper and he smirked at you. "You want it rough?" Seonghwa asked and your eyes widened in surprise. "Or do you want it slow?" He continued and your eyes fluttered shut as he began his descent down your body again, but this time not stopping at your thighs, instead continuing on to the wetness between them. "You're a pretty little thing." Seonghwa took his underwear off. 'I'm going to fuck you good." He said and you let out a small moan. He pushed your legs apart and licked his lips as he stared at your pussy. "You're so wet." He commented and he began to kiss the inside of your thighs, teasing you as he moved closer towards your center. He pulled you closer by your hips. You gasped as you feel Seonghwa's erection pressing against your heat.
He groaned as he felt your wetness and you let out a small moan. He grabbed your hips and slammed into you hard, making you cry out in pleasure. You could feel his cock stretching your pussy, filling it up completely. He was so big and thick, it felt like he was splitting you in half. But it felt so good. He started to move his hips, fucking you hard and fast. You could feel his cock hitting your cervix with every thrust, making you moan and whimper in pleasure. He reached down and grabbed your hips, pulling you back onto his cock. You could feel him hitting even deeper now, his balls slapping against your clit with every thrust. He was grunting and moaning as he fucked you harder and faster, his cock pounding into you relentlessly.
You was a moaning mess and this even more boosted Seonghwa's ego. He was so turned on by the way you were reacting to his cock. The way your pussy was gripping him and how wet you were getting. He could feel his orgasm building and he knew he wasn't going to last much longer. He grunted as he pulled out of you, flipping you over onto your back. He gripped your thighs and spread them apart. With a deep thrust he leaned over your back. The way you laid there under him so small and moaning just because of how good he fucks you.
Seonghwa’s dominance, how he leaned over you, pressing your body in the sheets and thrusting into you made your pussy clench. You felt his cock grow and throb inside you, and the way he moved his hips made you feel like he was fucking your soul. You felt his hands on your hips, pulling you closer to him. His fingers dug into your skin as he pounded into you.
You were his.
You felt his teeth on your neck, and the way he bit down made you moan in pleasure. His hands on your breasts, and the way he squeezed them made you feel like a woman.. You felt him thrusting into you, and the way he filled you up made you feel like a goddess. Your head began to spin and you felt how close you are to cumming. You felt his hands on your hips, and the way he held you down made you feel like a slut. "You're mine," he said as he thrust into you one last time, and that was all it took for you to cum. You moaned in pleasure as your body shuddered from the orgasm. You felt his warm cum fill you up, and it made you feel even more submissive. You loved the way Seonghwa took control of your body and used it for his pleasure. After a few moments, he pulled out of you and sat back on the bed. You felt his cum drip out of you and onto the bed. He looked at you with a smirk on his face. "You're such a good girl, taking my cock like that." You blushed and smiled back. He got up and went to the bathroom, returning with a warm washcloth. He cleaned you up gently, making sure to get every drop of cum off of you. "You're so beautiful." he said as he kissed your forehead. He helped you sit up and handed you a glass of water. "You need to drink this," he said. "I'm fine," you said, but he insisted. You took a sip and realized how thirsty you were.
You finished the glass in one gulp and handed it back to him. He set it down on the nightstand and pulled you into his arms, holding you close as your breathing returned to normal.
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Text
Meet Cute
Meet Cute
Pairing: Daryl Dixon x f!reader, Reader POV
Summary: Reader is surviving in the apocalypse alone, until she meets a stranger who needs her help, even if he doesn't want to admit it. This is a reimagining of when Daryl gets hurt trying to find Sophia in Season 2, in which the reader shoots Daryl instead of Andrea. This can be read as stand alone, but can also be read as a prequel fic to "Your Fault," describing how reader and Daryl met for the first time. (I'm so bad at summaries, please forgive me).
Era: Hershel farm era.
Tropes: Angst, Fluff (if you squint at it), Patching up someone's wounds.
Warnings: I mean, I don't think there's any. I'll say references to past trauma with survivors, but mentioned only once or twice and not detailed. Blood and gore, because the reader is patching up Daryl's wounds and of course zombies. Cursing, not a lot, but a few words.
Word Count: 4.1K (Oops) (Seriously did not mean for it to be this long.)
Note: There is minimal use of (y/n).  Any references to the reader besides the (y/n) is done using "your" or "you". I tried to proofread the best I could, nobody's perfect. If you don't like, don't read, but if you do like you're my favorite!
Internal monologue is done in italics and is in first person.
ENJOY!
******************************************
It was raining and you were having a bad day. You weren’t having a bad day because it was raining, you actually liked standing in the rain, feeling the cool water drip down your face and through your clothes made you feel alive in the best way. It was difficult to find things that made you feel alive, especially after two months in the zombie apocalypse.
You considered yourself lucky, the first day everything went to hell you had slept through it. Pulling a double at the hospital downtown knocked you out and you woke up to the screams and the pounding of feet in the hall of your apartment building.
By then the phones were gone, electricity to the city had been cut off and you were hopelessly alone. Not unwelcome, due to the fact that it had been you on your own since your father had died a year earlier, but still acute enough for you to notice. It took you a week to leave your apartment to try and scavenge for food, even then you were not ready for the carnage that waited on the streets of Atlanta. After another week you realized that you needed to get out, it was too dangerous to be there. The military had failed and there was nothing left for you in the city. So you packed your backpack and said goodbye to your old life. Finding the cabin outside Atlanta was fortuitous, especially after you ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere. That being said when you found it originally, it had its quirks. No windows, a door that hung off its hinges, blood stains on the wooden floors, and no running water all made the cabin less than ideal.
But after two months it was home.
You sigh to yourself as you reset the trap, hiding it underneath the wet dead leaves as rain dripped from the treetops above. Someone or something was getting into your traps. It was the third time in a week it had happened and you were starting to get annoyed. You suspected it was a walker, since you continued to find bits and pieces of squirrel in the forest around the trap.
You continue your trek in the half-circle one mile out from the cabin. It was a nice spot, dense forest with a small creek that ran through, small enough to cross, but enough water that you didn't have to worry about going any further to find it. The only time you left the cabin was to scavenge, but that took a few days of preparation.
Rain pattered softly over the fallen leaves, weaving in and out of the canopy above, and kissing your skin. Being alone never bothered you before, but the thought that you might be the last person on earth was different. It was one thing to choose to be alone, another thing to be forced into it.
The sound of shuffling and sliding leaves makes you pause, ears peeled. You did not see too many walkers where you were and figured that because you were in the middle of nowhere there weren't enough people to turn.
The shuffling gets louder and you duck behind one of the trees, drawing your pistol from the belt at your waist. It was a gift from your father when you moved to Atlanta to start your residency. Target practice every week made you a good shot and helped blow off steam when shifts at the hospital were tough. Unfortunately, you hadn't been able to find many bullets, which prompted you to carry a hunting knife on the opposite side of your waist. The only ammo stores you found were stripped down and desolate. Sometimes you worried what would happen when you ran out.
You hear the heavy exhale of the walker as it continues through the woods behind the tree where you are hiding. You peer around the tree trunk, watching it shuffle along. It's wearing dark clothes, blood dripping from its side as it hunches over and travels away from you. A crossbow is strapped along it's back at an awkward angle and every step it releases a heavy exhale.
You click off the safety. Probably the same walker that's been eating all my squirrels. You think to yourself as you aim the gun at the back of the walker's head and take in a deep breath. But just as you pull the trigger, the walker stumbles to the left and the bullet scrapes along the outside of the walker's skull.
Shit.
As it falls, it hits its head on a tree stump and lies still, face down. You come out from behind the tree cautiously, replacing the pistol at the holster on your waist and pull out the hunting knife. The walker doesn't move.
Okay. I can do this. I can do this-
You tap it with your boot. It groans once, but doesn't make an attempt to get up. Wait. If its groaning and not moving is it not-
You bend down and grab the back of the walker's shirt, avoiding the crossbow to roll it over, and suddenly realize, it's not a walker, it’s a man.
SHIT.
"Hello?" You poke his chest once, twice, but he doesn't respond. "Um- Sir? Are you okay? Can you speak?"
Why did I just call him sir?
The man groans softly, but does not open his eyes.
SHIT.
You hadn't run into many people in the apocalypse. Saw them from afar, but never approached one. Your father had instilled in you that desperate situations bred a new kind of person. No one could be trusted. The one time you had run into a group, you learned that the hard way. You shake it off and look down at the man on the ground.
He's covered in a layer of dirt and grime, a necklace of walker ears hangs over his dark green tank top, a large hunting knife hangs from his waist next to a child's doll, and blood soaks through the side of his shirt.
Why does he have a doll? Is he like one of those truckers on the highway that has a teddy bear strapped to the front of their semi? Because that's kind of weird.
You stepped closer to examine where the blood has stained his shirt along his side. He's really hurt.
You raise your head to look around the forest around you. He doesn't have a pack, his camp must be nearby. Which means that there might be others that come looking for him.
You look back down at the man where the bullet scraped through his hair, watching the blood trickle down the side of his head. You think about leaving him there. I don't know him. I can just walk away no harm done-
You bite your lip. I can't do it. I can't leave him here. You curse your conscience. Now I just have to haul him the entire mile back to my cabin, without waking him up or hurting him.
Great.
*******************************************
Dragging him back to the cabin through the woods and up the front steps took over an hour. You were too afraid to drag him back quickly, afraid that it would do more harm than good especially because you were unsure how bad the wound on his side was. He hadn't woken up, a bad sign, but you were optimistic.
Guilt momentarily fills your chest. You wouldn’t have shot him if you knew he was still alive. You probably would have just let him go on his merry way. But then you think about how he stumbled.
If I let him go, how far would he have gotten? Maybe me taking him is better than the alternative.
Staring at him laying on the hardwood floor made you wonder if this was a bad idea. You didn't know him. He might have a group somewhere and he might be faking to find out where you lived.
If he is faking he is certainly committed. You mused gazing down at him again.
He was older than you, by a few years at least, with brown hair that stuck out in different directions. Your eyes sweep his clothes, nose wrinkling at the strand of walker ears around his neck. His clothes were dirty, covered in dirt and dead blood. You had taken great care with his crossbow, setting it down on the small wooden table that you usually ate at, noticing how clean it was.
He must really care about it.
You couldn’t help but notice how small the man looked laying on the floor. And it made you feel more guilty about shooting him.
You walk away to get your medical bag, it was on the makeshift kitchen counter on the right back wall. The cabin was one room, in one corner there was a giant cabinet filled with whatever cans you could salvage, in another there was a wooden counter with a non-working sink, a small fireplace sat on the left wall, and in another there was a small twin sized bed covered in mismatched blankets. You had been prepping for winter, moving further and further into town to salvage what you could and storing chopped wood against the inside wall by the fireplace. The thought of winter scared you more than you’d care to admit. Especially with the squirrel traps giving less and less each day.
I wonder if this is the person stealing all my squirrels. You frown to yourself. Maybe I shouldn't help him.
You hear a strange sound behind you and as turn around, bag in hand, you notice that the man isn't on the ground anymore. He's standing, crossbow drawn, pointed directly at your chest.
Great.
"Where the hell am I?" The man growls.
Your chest tightens in fear. By the time I reach for my gun he’ll shoot me.
"It’s okay." You force the tremor from your voice, trying your best not to look frightened. The bag drops to the ground  and you hold up your hands in front of you in a gesture of surrender. "You're at my cabin. You're safe."
"Why?" His eyes narrow as he takes another step forward.
This was such a bad idea. Granted I also would have that reaction if I woke up in a strange place.
"I'm a doctor. I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You collapsed and I noticed you were bleeding."
He backs up towards the door without turning around, eyes wild, body tense, ready to spring.
"Wait please. I feel really bad-"
The guilt is back now as you look at the scrape along his head and the blood soaked shirt.
"Why?" The man narrows his eyes.
 "Because I-" You scrunch up your face in embarrassment. "I thought you were one of those things and I shot you. I'm sorry."
"You shot me?"
"Yes. I mean, you stumbled at the last second and I missed, but I'm also pretty sure that you hit your head pretty hard."
"What?"
"It felt wrong to leave you there.”
“I don’t need your help.” He spits.
“You’re probably right.” Your hands are still palm up in front of you. “But I thought it would be stupid if you survived this long with those things out there and then died from an infection. That's pretty pathetic." You smile sheepishly at your attempt at a joke to lighten the mood, but he doesn't smile.
Well the good news is if he leaves I'll never see him again, and I'll be able to forget about this entire awkward exchange. Who am I kidding? It’s going to haunt me at night, right up there with the time I tripped and ate it on the way to the microphone at my 8th grade talent show.
"I don't want your help." The man says again as he turns to go, but groans when he feels the muscles on his side strain with the movement.
"Please." You breathe. "It'll take ten minutes then you can leave and we never have to see each other ever again."
His eyes are still narrowed. They skate across your body sizing you up. “Are you alone?”
The question makes a cold shiver travel down your spine. It's the question that made you avoid other survivors, the question that made you tie your hair up under a hat, wear oversized clothes to hide your body, and a scarf to hide the bottom half of your face.
“If I say yes are you going to attack me?” Your throat is thick when you ask it.
He shakes his head.
You watch him curiously, but even though he’s pointing a crossbow at your chest you don’t think he’s lying. “Then yes.”
The man stands there for another few seconds. “Five minutes.”
“Fine."
He makes no move to lower the crossbow.
"Is it okay if I move or are you going to shoot me?" You raise an eyebrow.
The man sighs and finally lowers the crossbow, which you take as confirmation that you can pick up your medical bag.
What am I doing? I should have just let him leave. You think to yourself, watching the way his eyes dart around the cabin.
You both stand there awkwardly for a second. “You can just sit on the bed. It'll probably be easier than the chair.”
He sits down, but places the crossbow next to him on the bedside table, as if preparing for you to attack him.
You tried to remember the training you had for dealing with unwilling patients. Of course when that happened the hospital let them leave, but you didn’t want him to leave. You felt guilty for shooting him and you felt guilty for dragging him all the way here. And despite not knowing him, you were worried.
He could barely move without it hurting, what would happen if he left? One of those things were sure to get him on the way back wherever he came from.
You pull up a chair, so close to him that your knees are almost touching, and place the bag on your lap, looking through for your supplies.
“How long have I been here?”
“A little over an hour. Took me a while to drag you here. You’re heavier than you look.” You smile up at him, but he continues to frown.
“Are you really a doctor?”
“Why would I lie about that?” You shuffle through the bag, placing the supplies on the bed.
“I don’t know.” He shifts. “You don’t look like a doctor.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No. You're just-“
You wait for him to think of it, but he doesn’t finish his sentence.
Okay.
“This is going to hurt just for a second.” You soak the cloths in the antiseptic and raise one to the side of his head. The man flinches away from your touch with narrowed eyes. “For this to work I’m going to need to touch you.” You say softly with a gentle smile. You were under the impression that he wasn't mean, rather he just wasn’t used to other people.
He leans forward, looking away from you to give you access to the side of his head. Your left hand brushes away the strands of hair from where the bullet scraped along his head, dabbing with the cloth along the shallow wound. You were happy to note that it didn’t need stitches, but you still wanted to clean it out. The man doesn’t wince when the cloth touches his skin.
“I’m y/n by the way.”
He waits a beat. “Daryl.”
You continue to clean along the wound, concentrating on getting as much blood and dirt away from the opening.
“Have you been out here alone this whole time?” Daryl asks.
“Yeah. How about you?”
“No.”
Guess he doesn’t say a lot.
When you finish with his head, you start to reach for his shirt, but Daryl jumps hand twitching towards the crossbow.
“It’s okay." You smile at him.  "I want to look at your side. If you could just take off your shirt-"
“No.”
“But I have to see it-“
He frowns at you. Finally, Daryl pulls up his shirt only enough for you to see the wound on his side, but no further. Just under the cloth of his shirt where it stops, you see remnants of pink scar tissue.
You try very hard not to look at the pink scar tissue, but you were curious. Was that why he didn't want me to take off his shirt?
He’s not looking at you. In fact the only time he made eye contact with you was when he was holding the crossbow.
“You might need to lie down for this one.”
Daryl eyes you again, before finally he lays down on his side, still not looking at you. The wound on his side is deeper, two piercings that go from the front of his abdomen and through to his back.
Did he shoot himself with the crossbow? How is that even physically possible?
“What happened?”
“Fell.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I think I’m going to need to pour the antiseptic in this one and it's going to hurt. You can hold my hand if you want.” You put your left hand on the bed as a peace offering. He doesn’t take it.
Or not.
As soon as the liquid touches his skin, Daryl fists his hand in the mountain of blankets, clenching his teeth together.
“I know I’m sorry.” You can't help but touch his arm and he flinches back away from you. “But now it’s clean and you don’t have to worry about infection.” You go through the motions with the stitches, pulling the needle through the skin smooth and steady, surprised that Daryl does not react to the needle. You reach for a bandage to cover the affected area. "Okay, so keep this clean, don't raise your arm up too high or the stitches will rip, change the bandage in a day or so. I'm going to give you one to take with you. Do you want some painkillers? I think I have some in here somewhere."
"No."
"Okay." You stand up and move out of his way so that he can get up from the bed, before beginning to look through the bag for a spare bandage.
Daryl stands there for a minute with his crossbow dangling from his right hand as if he's not sure what to say.
"Here." You hold out a bandage.
"Don't need it."
"Are you sure?"
Daryl nods once.
"Well if you rip your stitches or decide you want another bandage, you know where to find me." You can't help but smile at him. 
As much as you were afraid of him at first, you couldn't help but like the interruption in the monotony of your day. And despite his gruff exterior, you liked talking to him. Which was surprising given the fact you hadn't liked talking to anyone else in the past.
He doesn't say anything, instead he starts to walk to the door of the cabin, but he stops. "Thanks." Daryl doesn't look away from the door.
"You're welcome. Be careful out there."
And then he's gone, leaving you in the still silence of the cabin once more.
********************************************
The next few days pass as they usually do. You check the traps, scavenge for water, read a book by the fireplace at night, but every time you leave the cabin you hope to see Daryl again, hope that he'll come back because he needed that bandage or maybe will just come by to sit in utter silence.
That last bit seemed the most in character.
You didn't want to admit to yourself how disappointed you were in the silence that followed his exit. Not because he spoke that much, but even his presence in the cabin made whatever this was easier. Before you relished in the fact that you were alone, but now after you met him, it felt too quiet.
However, you had noticed more dead in the area over the past few days and that made you worry.
What if Daryl never made it back to wherever it was he was going? What if he had gotten attacked as soon as he left? You tried not to think that, because Daryl looked capable enough to survive in the apocalypse. Definitely seemed capable when he held a crossbow to your face.
You jolt awake to the sound of someone frantically knocking against your door.
What?
You tighten your hand on the hunting knife under your pillow before you sit up in bed. Maybe I dreamed that.
Someone kicks open the front door of your cabin.
Definitely didn't dream that.
A ball of fear lodges in the back of your throat as you grab the gun on your bedside table, holding it up between you and the dark figure standing just inside the doorway.
"Y/n?" A familiar voice shouts.
"Daryl?" You lower the gun watching the dark figure turn to barricade the door.
"We have to go."
"Daryl what's wrong-" As soon as the words come out of your mouth, you hear the moaning and shuffling of the dead  followed by the pounding of hands against the door.
Fear makes your entire body freeze. You had been in Atlanta long enough to watch the chaos, watch what happened in the streets, the memories of what you saw keeping you awake more than one night, memories of the masses of bodies swarming survivors and the ungodly screams that followed.
"We gotta go.” He grabs your wrist and hauls you out of bed.
In case of an emergency like this, you always slept fully dressed. You clip your belt around your waist before putting the gun back in the holster and throwing your oversized jacket on over your t-shirt. Your pack is on the floor by the back door. The medical bag is small enough to shove inside the black backpack.
“Come on!” Daryl grabs your hand and pulls you out the back door, dragging you through the woods behind him.
You glance over your shoulder. The moonlight above illuminates the mass of walkers that surely would have destroyed the small cabin and you inside.
He came back for me. The thought makes a surge of gratitude warm in your chest. He didn't even know me and he was willing to fight his way through dead infested woods to save me.
Daryl shoots one that stands in your way, glancing behind him to see the mass of walkers that follow, before letting go of your hand and reloading the crossbow.
“Where are we going?” You shout running behind him, gun drawn.
“Up ahead-“ He responds over his shoulder.
You break out of the tree-line onto a road, where a motorcycle waits haphazardly on the edge of the long grass.
He jumps on the motorcycle revving the engine once, looking up at you expectantly. You don’t hesitate. You kick your leg over the side and wrap your arms around his waist to secure yourself. Daryl's muscles tense as you do, but the motorcycle shoots off, the sound of the engine masking the moans and shuffles of the dead emerging from the trees behind you.
You drive for a few miles, far enough that you put your face into Daryl's back to block the onslaught of wind that comes up over the road.
As soon as Daryl hits the interstate he weaves through the broken cars, before finally parking in the median. The world sounds quieter without the roar of the motorcycle, you notice as the smooth silence of the night returns.
"Why did you come back for me?" You ask him, as you get off the seat before you can stop yourself.
Daryl lights a cigarette, not meeting your eye. "You helped me."
"After I shot you."
"You missed." He shrugs.
You snort. "I did." You look out over the desolate interstate where cars are haphazardly parked and empty luggage cases spew clothing onto cracked pavement. "So what now?"
Daryl blows out a lungful of smoke. "You could-" He stops.
"What?"
"Well." Daryl shifts his feet, taking another drag of his cigarette.
"Daryl?" You try to catch his eye worried that he's going to tell you to go away, that he's going to say goodbye right here right now.
"My group is supposed to meet up here." He doesn't meet your eye. "If you want you could come with us, but you don't have to." In the moonlight you swear you see his ears turn pink.
"Well," You sigh looking around. "How else am I going to repay you for saving my life? Might as well stick around."
"We're even."
"No. I think saving someone from zombies trumps suturing a wound. Plus, somebody's got to make sure you don’t shoot yourself with your crossbow again."
Daryl frowns. "I didn't shoot myself with my crossbow."
"I think that you did and that you're too embarrassed to say anything. But don't worry, your secret's safe with me."
He continues to frown at you, but it only makes you smile wider.
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
***********************************
Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, be sure to read "Your Fault!"
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thatsthewrongwallcraig · 10 months
Text
Insomnia
Summary: After tossing and turning for the better part of the night, Roman helps you to find ways to relax.
Pairing: Roman Roy x fem!Reader
Word Count: ~2k
Content Warnings: Fluffy Smut 18+!, Everybody Is Needy And Soft In Here, Unprotected P In V, Nipple Play, A Little Bit Of Logan Roy Slander, Roman Being Absolutely Enamored With Reader, L-Bombs, Established Relationship Because I Just Want Roman To Be Happy For Once 🤧
A/N: This fic was brought to you by my current inability to sleep 🫠
(Happy little edit: By the time I finished the fic, I had finally slept a whole night 🥲)
Tagging:
@alalalaaallaaalaaa @crypticsewerslut @angelsanarchy @arch1viste @icarus-star @fadedviolets
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Für Elise - Reimagined By Alexander Joseph (I WHOLEHEARTEDLY encourage you to listen to this piece of art!)
Round after repetitive round your slightly burning, half-lidded eyes followed the quietly whirring ceiling fan right above the bed. Everything was perfect, the sheets fresh, the room temperature comfortably cool and the muffled out city sounds in the background provided just enough white noise to drown out your everlasting inner monologue and yet you just couldn't fall asleep.
You've already been cutting out caffeine for a few days now, carbohydrates too and with that practically everything that was remotely fun, hell, you even picked up a guided meditation podcast here and there trying to simply put yourself to sleep by getting bored enough but nothing really did the job. With each and every night passing like this, getting one to two hours of fairly interrupted sleep at best, you dreaded it a little more.
"Goddammit." You huffed under your breath before turning yourself to the side where Roman was comfortably snoozing next to you.
His back was facing your front as you scooted up close to him to gently wrap your arm around his waist, fingertips sneaking themselves underneath the hem of his white t-shirt while you rested your forehead against his shoulder. For a few minutes you just listened to him breathing in a steady pace, his ribcage rising and falling with every peaceful inhale and you couldn't help yourself but to envy him a little.
You couldn't explain to yourself how he did it, dealing with pent-up assholes, the worst of them being his father without a doubt, all day long and then just passing out when he felt like ending the day. Right now you wished for that ability to be one of your own, too, but for now it was to no avail. Pondering over it for longer would only turn you more sour by the minute and that wouldn't exactly help anyone here right now. Instead, you gently sighed into the soft and warm fabric of his shirt, shoving as much of the internalized malice regarding your situation to the side while much rather focusing on your curious fingertips that you led to wander over his defined torso. In gentle, slow strokes, you traced the outlines of his muscles up to his ribcage, caressed his collarbone, that was slightly curved upwards in this position, and then all the way back down again, your fingers getting lost in the softly curled hair of his happy trail down to the waistband of his shorts.
"You're getting me all worked up here.." Roman's sleep-drunk voice whispered to you.
"Sorry… I didn't mean to." You reciprocated, drawing your fingers from his lower abdomen until you felt his broad hand softly pressing yours back onto his skin.
"No, no, it's fine, don't you worry, babe. Still can't sleep, huh?" His tone was laced with a heavy layer of upright worry about you.
"Nope, Morpheus still won't treat me with a dream or two. Just endless buzzing up in the noggin." It left your mouth alongside a tired and painfully exhausted yawn.
"I'm sorry.", Rome yawned right there with you whilst he turned himself on his back, offering you his arm to seek shelter under, "Come here, you don't have to suffer through that alone."
"You don't have to be sorry, it's none of your fault." You shrugged your shoulders a little, quickly moving into his embrace and resting your weary head on his chest.
"But I really think it would be if I didn't try to help you somehow." He stated rather bluntly before placing a soft kiss to your hairline.
"Oh, Rome, you don't need to make this your problem, really-" With a well audible smile in his voice, Roman cut you off.
"But I want to! And I'm going to." He whispered against your forehead as his hand, that hung around your shoulder, started to softly caress your upper arm.
In barely even there strokes with his fingertips, Rome brushed over your skin from shoulder to elbow and back again, leaving waves of goosebumps after goosebumps in his wake.
"Now you're getting me all worked up!" You smiled against his chest, pressing your body impossibly closer to his, the silky soft fabric of your satin slip dress rubbing against his shirt.
"Oh, god forbid, am I right?", Roman laughed out softly, "And what if I do that right here?"
His other hand reached out to lift your chin up to his face before he leaned in to press a longing and anything but chaste kiss to your lips.
With that, he elicited a low moan of yours to get swallowed up by his mouth, his tongue darting out between his lips, gently snaking towards yours, nudging it playfully. Immediately, you felt your blood rushing down between your legs in nearly violent determination, an aching need to feel him even closer with you drowning out everything else.
"Fuck, Roman." You sighed against his lips, trying to steady your breath.
"If you insist.", You felt the grin forming on his face, "Please, take a seat and make yourself comfortable."
"If you insist." You chuckled right back whilst reaching down to your hips, taking a hold of the lacey string underneath the slip dress and shimmied out of it.
"Keep the dress on, please? You just look stunning in it." Roman asked in a breathy tone, pulling himself back a little to sit up straight against the headboard.
"Of course…" You whispered with a smile on your lips, rising yourself so far from the mattress until you were able to arch one leg over his waist and straddle his lap.
"Oh, damn.." He groaned a little raspy as the length of his pulsing cock pressed against your thoroughly soaked folds, your slick threatening to just drip down on him.
"That's all you, getting me wet like that." You said in return, wrapping your arms around his neck before rolling your hips against his lap to let him slide right inside of.
The feeling of him filling you right up to the brim, the girth of his cock stretching you out delightfully, had you both moaning out in pleasure. It absolutely didn't matter how many times you had slept with each other in whatever way, the moment of Roman thrusting into you for the first time was something that simply knocked the air from your lungs and eradicated any and every thought from your crowded mind.
"You feel so fucking good around me, you have no idea.", He hummed against your cheek before peppering the corner of your mouth with playful pecks of his lips, "And it just drives me insane when you wear just that slip dress here."
"It's the one you gifted me on our last anniversary, remember?" Your breath heavy as you started rolling your hips at a slow pace.
"How could I forget, babe?" Rome smiled at you, cheeks flushed in a soft tint of red and his olive eyes sparkling with unbridled joy even in the dark.
Seeing him beam at you like this made you forget all about not being able to sleep for the past two weeks, it made you forget all about the negativity that followed your each and every step through the days but what it made you remember clearly was how much you loved him. Every part of him from his expressive eyebrows, to his loud mouth to his colorful and exciting character.
"I love you, Roman." It fell from your lips before they touched his in a nearly bruising kiss.
"And I love you…more than anything." He reciprocated as soon as you broke from the kiss a little, leading his mouth to wander over your jaw, pressing loving kisses and playfully soft bites down your neck and all over your collarbone.
The tip of his nose stroked over the cleavage that the silken slip dress gave room for before his lips wandered down another notch to close around one of your perked up nipples, suckling at it carefully. A rush of pleasure seeped from your chest throughout your whole body as you felt the thin fabric soaking up his saliva, a wet patch forming around your areola before he moved on to the other side. The ceiling fan from above rendered the damp spot cold to your skin, sending soft shivers down your spine whilst you allowed yourself to just not think for once.
With eyes fluttered shut, you let your head roll back, basking in each little sensation he gifted to your body. This right now wasn't about chasing an orgasm just for the sake of getting off, no, this moment of shared intimacy was about feeling each other in the closest way possible and you reveled in every second of it.
"Love you so fucking much.." Roman's breathy tone got muffled by the fabric and you could hear that he was equally far gone by now, carefully joining in on your rhythm with every roll of your hips over his lap as his hands held you by the waist.
You intently listened to his shallow breathing, the sound of skin slapping against skin and the wet sounds of his lips Kissing and sucking on your nipples in a seemingly relentless vigor as you felt your walls tightening around his cock, the tip of it stroking over that especially sensitive part repeatedly.
"I'm about to…fuck, I…" It cascaded out of your mouth into the bedroom as you weren't even able to for a coherent sentence before it rippled through your body.
Orgasmic bliss set every nerve on fire for a split second, your pussy contracting in reckless waves around him, pulling him further in and eventually throwing him over his own edge. With raggedy breaths and choked back moans, Roman pressed his face into your neck as his fingers clawed at your waist. You felt him filling you up with throbbing pumps of his twitching cock as he pressed himself as far as possible into you with one final thrust.
Neither of you said a word whilst you pulled yourself off of him, the accumulation of bodily fluids leaving a little mess in his lap and between your thighs, and curled your satisfied body up to his again.
"Do you want me to read you something?" Roman asked and to say it caught you by surprise was a broad understatement.
"Huh?" You looked up to him with arched brows.
"I vaguely remember you telling me how much you liked being read to back when we started dating and I'm quite a bit ashamed that I never did that for you by now." He answered with a soft smile on his lips.
"You…you remember that?" It rolled over your tongue in some sort of excited shock.
"Of course I do, babe. So, would you like me to? If you're lucky, I'll find something a little more suitable than a yucky Forbes magazine."
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heartmachinez · 8 months
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CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF HEART MACHINE
A Decade of Creativity and Community
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A decade ago, we began a journey that would lead to the birth of Heart Machine - a game studio committed to crafting immersive, vibrant experiences that resonate with players on a profound level. As we celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we reflect on our history, achievements, community, and the exciting future that lies ahead.
THINKING BACK
Glitch City, Kickstarter, and Hyper Light Drifter
In 2013, we took a leap of faith and launched a Kickstarter campaign for our debut project, Hyper Light Drifter. Little did we know that this campaign would not only secure the funds needed to bring our project to life, but also ignite a beautiful connection with supporters, players, and community members who believed in us from the outset.
Fueled by a need for camaraderie and knowledge, we spent those early days of Drifter’s development as a part of Glitch City, a then-small collective of independent game developers, artists, and creators all working together out of Alx’s basement. Those early days and (often) sleepless nights vision were critical in defining our design philosophies, studio culture, and grassroots community connections - setting the stage for what was to come.
Our Heartfelt Gratitude to Our Early Contributors
To date, thanks to the incredible support of our community, the Kickstarter for Hyper Light Drifter remains one of the most successful game projects on the platform. It smashed through the initial funding goal of $27,000 and ultimately raised over $600,000.
To our early backers who believed in us and our vision, and those fellow devs who helped us through endless rounds of playtesting and feedback, we extend our deepest gratitude. Your unwavering support enabled us to bring our dreams to life and emboldened us to continually push the boundaries of game design.
Special shout out to core Drifter team members: Alx Preston, Beau Blyth, Teddy Dief, Casey Hunt, Rich Vreeland, Akash Thakkar, Sean Ward, Lisa Brown, and Cosimo Galluzzi.
The critical reception following the release of Hyper Light Drifter was incredible - beyond our wildest expectations. We never could have anticipated the accolades and recognition it received, or the impact it made on players far and wide. It was humbling, and affirmed our dedication to continue to make great games to share with the world.
Moving Into a New Dimension
We started development on Solar Ash about a year before the multi-platform release of Hyper Light Drifter. Early on, we joined forces with Annapurna Interactive, whose expertise and resources facilitated our exploration of 3D game development. Over the next five years, Annapurna's support played a pivotal role in bringing this ambitious project to fruition. The vastness of the game's ethereal landscapes and fluid movement mechanics opened new avenues for worldbuilding and storytelling.
To date, Solar Ash continues to engage new players and inspire returning ones to create beautiful works inspired by the game. It is following in the footsteps of its predecessor and is now available on a a wide array of game platforms for a worldwide audience.
All of the positive reception that followed Solar Ash’s release proved that our community was ready to continue along this new aesthetic path with us. Just as Drifter smashed through its initial Kickstarter goals,  we are poised to once again smash the boundaries of possibility with our upcoming projects.
HEART MACHINE TODAY
Reimagining a Familiar World
As we celebrate our 10-year milestone, we're thrilled to now be well underway with our newest title set in the familiar Hyper Light Universe. This new project, Hyper Light Breaker, builds upon the foundations we've laid, evolving our creative vision in unexpected ways.
A Shared Journey
Our journey would not be complete without acknowledging the invaluable contributions of our community. From community leaders who pave the way forward with creativity and kindness, to creators who challenge us with incredible skill and passion,  to modders who continuously breathe new life into our games, to wiki writers who meticulously document every detail, to speedrunners who push the boundaries of possibility – you are the heartbeats that keep our worlds alive.
Over the years, we've had the privilege of connecting with our wonderful community at conventions and events across the digital and physical world. These gatherings allowed us to share our passion, hear your stories, and learn from your insights. Your presence and enthusiasm continue to inspire us.
We’re so grateful to: Polare, Lukas, Durtle, Clark, Yrrzy, CornMayor, Aza, Andreas, Conscy, Perfectly Mediocre, Thunderbrave, Bryonato, Utsu, NicowithaC, Covert Muffin, Sylvi, among many many others who make our work worth doing.
Our Company Vision
At Heart Machine, we've built more than games. We've cultivated a company culture that values kindness, inclusivity, and pushing the envelope. Our mission has always been not only to entertain but also leave a lasting impact. This dedication has enabled us to support and grow a thriving studio of some of the most talented, thoughtful, and fun people in the entire industry.
Our ethos revolves around fostering a work environment that prioritizes professional advancement, mental and physical health, and employee happiness. This commitment takes shape in various dimensions of our culture. We proudly offer Heart Machine University (HMU), a collaborative peer-teaching initiative where we cover everything from how to LARP or make sculptures out of driftwood to environment, concept, and tech art techniques. We also organize activities like group gaming and anime sessions, provide access to networking and learning resources, and support social and charitable initiatives to reinforce our team’s sense of purpose. As a studio, we strive to hang our culture on a framework where each individual can flourish and achieve their own growth and learning goals.
It’s no accident that the trajectory of these past 10 years has led us to forming the team we have now. We have always and will continue to adhere to our culture of high quality standards, emphasis on creative innovation, and heart-first leadership practices.
LOOKING AHEAD
As we stand at the threshold of the next chapter, we're excited to announce that Hyper Light Breaker will be arriving in Early Access in 2024. This project represents our ongoing commitment to pushing boundaries, taking risks, and creating experiences that captivate and challenge players in our specifically unique ways.
Beyond Hyper Light Breaker, we have other projects currently under wraps that will continue to define us as a studio. We can't wait to share these journeys with you as we forge into this next decade.
Thank you thank you thank you for joining us on this incredible ride. Heart Machine wouldn't be the same without each and every one of you. Here's to the many more adventures that lie ahead!
With love and gratitude,
The Heart Machine Team
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leveloneandup · 2 years
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💚♥️💙🖤🌴🌊☀️💛 & #GucciLoveParade
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theworldendswithsho · 3 months
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OKAY can you please hit me with some nanami wherein he is pinning for the reader? She’s insecure because the higher ups prefer her ex 💔
ALRIGHT here's my very first fanfiction in AGES! Sorry if its not great, I'm definitely rusty! I wasn't sure who to put in as the ex so I chose Kusakabe lol, hopefully that doesn't ruin it for ya. Enjoy!
warnings: very slight nsfw, mentions of sex, some angst
His Life's Work, Reimagined
Kento Nanami was a man dedicated to his life’s work. At least, that’s what he told himself after dropping out of life as a Tokyo businessman and returning to Jujutsu High as a teacher. He had nothing and no one else to dedicate himself to, after all. He was a sorcerer of immense talent, though he was humble and stoic. Though reserved and a bit stern at times, his students loved and respected him.
You, on the other hand, were having a hard time settling in as a teacher. Here you were, brand new to a job you loved, but you behaved so youthfully that your students had a hard time taking you seriously. Hell, you’d have a hard time taking you seriously. To make matters worse, you’re teaching alongside your ex-boyfriend, Atsuya Kusakabe. Before you’d landed the job at Jujutsu High, you had met him at a bar. You were there with a couple of friends from college, and he was there to have a drink after work with Nanami, the only teacher he really got along with at Jujutsu High. Nanami, being the responsible man he was, left after two drinks and got a taxi home. Your friends ran off with some guys they met at the bar, and there you were, alone, and there Kusakabe was, alone. A few drinks later, you went home together in the back of a taxi cab and the rest was history. 
He was handsome, but he was a fucking coward. He ran away with his tail between his legs, afraid of committing to you the way you wanted. Everyone at work noticed a strange tension between you and Kusakabe, but no one said a word. Everyone, Principal Yaga included, seemed to respect him, and no matter how badly you hated him, you had to smile and nod whenever his praises were sung. Several times, you tried to speak with Principal Yaga about how to engage with the students, and he told you to speak with Kusakabe, that he was a master at engaging with his pupils. Needless to say, you never spoke with him, and your teaching skills haven’t gotten any better.
Word gets out about a Special Grade curse in Shinjuku, and a meeting is called for all of the Jujutsu High teachers. When you enter the room, you expect to be struggling to keep your piercing eyes off of Kusakabe, but when Nanami walks in, you find your eyes have a new target. He was stony-faced, but awfully handsome, and his body seemed well defined, despite being hidden underneath his suit. Briefly, Nanami looks over his glasses at you and you suddenly look down, feeling your face go red. Did he catch you? What must he be thinking right now?
Principal Yaga assigns Nanami to the mission, and tells him he can pick any other teacher to bring with him as his partner. You look up, and Nanami’s gaze is steady on you. “Y/N will come with me,” he says with unwavering confidence. Your mouth falls open, and then closes again, before you nod your head. The meeting is adjourned and the teachers file out one by one, leaving you and Nanami alone to walk out together.
“Hello, Y/N. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Kento Nanami,” he says cordially, extending a hand.
You take his hand and shake it. “I’m Y/N L/N, nice to meet you.”
~~~~~
You leave Jujutsu High late in the day. The mission goes off without a hitch. The curse is exorcized, and the city of Shinjuku is safe again (for now). You yawn, and Nanami looks up, noticing the bags under your eyes. He feels his heart tug upon seeing you look so exhausted. He quickly shakes his head, thinking to himself that he cannot let himself feel for a coworker. To do so would be unprofessional. And yet…
“You look tired. We should get you some coffee before we head back to campus,” he says, motioning with his chin in the direction of a cafe. You nod, and he straightens his tie before walking silently with you to the cafe.
It is there, over coffee, that he gives you advice on teaching. For someone so stoic, he was surprisingly caring and ready to engage in conversation. Sitting across from him at the small table and sipping your cappuccino while he had his black coffee, you began to realize he was even more handsome than you’d thought. His hair was neatly kept, his face was chiseled and strong, yet possessed a kind of grace that was uncharacteristic of such strength. His normally downturned lips would quirk upwards sometimes during conversation, or when he had a particularly delightful sip of his coffee.
You both stood up from the table after finishing your coffee, you stretching your arms over your head and Nanami straightening his suit jacket. He held the door for you as you left the cafe, and you made your way back to Jujutsu High without a problem. You found yourself thinking about him, and how truly mature and responsible he was. You felt your heart flutter, and then you squeezed your eyes shut. I can’t fall in love with another teacher again. If this goes badly, my job will be twice as hellish as it is now.
Little did you know, Nanami was in the dark of his room on campus thinking about you, too. Thinking about your dainty hands around your coffee cup, and then around your weapon, and then around him. Suddenly, he had a new reason to go teach every day, and it wasn’t that he was dedicated to his life’s work.
~~~~~
During a lunch break, you observe Nanami and Kusakabe sitting together and chatting. You feel your stomach clench nervously. How could I have forgotten they were friends? They were at the bar together that night, weren’t they? You noticed Kusakabe’s eyes flicker behind Nanami and land on you, and you squeeze your lunch box a little tighter. Nanami, whose back is currently to you, follows Kusakabe’s gaze, and his lips upturn slightly upon seeing you.
“L/N, come sit with us. We were just talking about the mission last evening,” Nanami says.
I offer a fake smile and apologize. “Sorry, I was just about to take my lunch back to my classroom. I’ve got some lesson planning to do,” you say, and with that, you scurry out of the faculty room and back to your classroom. Nanami’s slight smile drops, and Kusakabe shakes his head. “If she wants to keep her job here, she’ll have to be a little friendlier than that,” Kusakabe mutters. Nanami looks confusedly at Kusakabe, who then explains that you used to date. Nanami feels a pang of jealousy in his chest upon hearing Kusakabe joke, “She must still be in love with me or something.”
The next few days at lunch, Kusakabe continues talking with Nanami about you. He always makes snide comments about your abilities as a sorcerer and as a teacher, and of course, your relationship together. Nanami senses your presence in the lunch room, and though Kusakabe is speaking quietly, Nanami decides to speak up so you know he was talking about you.
“Actually, L/N’s a pretty good teacher. I think she just needed time to settle in, is all,” Nanami says loudly. Kusakabe’s face drops and he shushes Nanami. “Kento, she’s in the room. Don’t need her knowing I’m talking about her.” Nanami nods in false agreement, and turns to you and gives you a slight smile when Kusakabe looks away.
You feel pride swell in your chest knowing that Nanami thinks highly of you. Who cares what your ex says, right? Nanami believes in you. The feeling of pride ebbs away as your thoughts run wild, and you begin to wonder if Nanami was just trying to save face. How much have they said about me when I wasn’t there? Does Nanami think I’m easy for dating Kusakabe?
You don’t know that Nanami thinks about you every morning when he combs his hair and puts on his cologne. You don’t know that he wishes he was waking up next to you in the morning, or cooking meals for you when he’s cooking for himself. You don’t know the way your name falls from his lips when his hands roam his body in the shower at night, after a long day of work.
~~~~~
You’re sitting at the your desk in your empty classroom, mulling over the lesson plans in your binder. You look up at the clock. Its 2:27, and Nanami is supposed to be here at 2:30. You feel your palms begin to sweat at the thought of being alone in an empty classroom with him, but wipe the sweat off on your skirt and resume mulling through your lesson plans. The door to your classroom is open, but there’s a knock. You look up, pleasantly surprised that Nanami is early, only to find Kusakabe leaning in the doorframe, looking at you with a smirk.
“What are you doing here?” You say, disgust clear in your voice.
“Now, now, Y/N… You’re really going to have to be nicer to me than that. I’ve got a meeting with Yaga and some of the other teachers today to discuss your performance… and your behavior.”
Your eyes widen. Was he seriously blackmailing you right now?
“What do you want?”
“I want those teaching the next generation of Jujutsu sorcerers to actually be worth their salt,” he retorts. “Your performance has been lackluster, to say the least. Nanami’s the only reason Yaga hasn’t put you on administrative leave, yet.”
Kusakabe saunters over from the door frame, putting his hands on your desk and leaning over you.
“Nanami speaks real highly of you, y’know. You fuckin’ him?” he says in a low voice, leaning in close to you.
In the uncomfortable silence following that statement, you hear Nanami clear his throat. You look towards the doorway, and Kusakabe whips around and stands up straight. “Oh hey, Ken-”
“Save it, Atsuya. There’s nothing going on with me and L/N. I’ve been mentoring her in her teaching skills and I have seen genuine improvement. She is more than worth her salt, and she is more than capable of teaching the next generation. I advise you leave so I can go over lesson plans with her. And be very sure Principal Yaga will be hearing about this at the faculty meeting later,” Nanami says, his voice stern and low, a near growl.
Kusakabe rolls his eyes and stalks out of the classroom.
The air in the room suddenly feels very hot as Nanami pulls a chair over to your desk and sits next to you, looking towards the binder full of lesson plans on the desk. 
“Thank you, Nanami. For standing up for me.”
“Please, call me Kento,” he says in a honeyed voice, his eyes meeting yours and softening.
“Nan- I mean Kento,” you start, not yet used to the name change. “About what Kusakabe was saying… I know you said there’s nothing going on between us, but to be honest, I kind of wish there was.”
Your words hang in the air, and your face flushes. You expect Nanami to push his chair back, to tell you its unprofessional, to shake his head and pretend it didn’t happen. But instead, he smiles, a real genuine smile, and leans closer to you.
“I’ve been wishing there was something going on between us since I first met you at the mission briefing,” he practically whispers. His voice is steady, but it cannot conceal his longing for you. “Is this okay?” Kento asks, bringing his hand up to brush a piece of hair behind your ear. You nod once, and that is all it takes for him to press his lips to yours.
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i-am-kmyl · 2 years
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Christen “everything-looks-good-good-on-her” Press modeling Re-Inc’s latest collection, Reimagine Your City
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byebitchs · 2 years
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racefortheironthrone · 3 months
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fantasy sometimes doesn't afford itself the ability to fantasize about a better world with many of the same problems of real life. thankfully ive found fantasy thatfantasize about things like gender roles, orientations, social status, etc. being more accepting, and the world kinder more often than not. question is, as hard as it is to find solid urban fantasy, are there anyworks you know of that use itself to imagine a optimal city for us urban nerds? magic public works, free dragon transit?
So there is a real problem in the fantasy and sci-fi genres that they often have a failure of revolutionary imagination, as I’ve termed it. We’re so used to not just the world as it is but also the public historical imagination of how change happens, that even in art that’s supposed to be about radically reimagining our world or new worlds, we often revert back to the familiar. (I find this tic particularly annoying in alternate history, which is supposed to be about imagining how the world could have evolved differently, but often reverts back to a retelling of (often bad) history with the numbers filed off.)
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(A sadly rare counter-example.)
You raise a fascinating question about the potential for urbanist fantasy. This is often quite rare in urban fantasy, because often out of a desire to maintain the verisimilitude of urban life, they default to a masquerade scenario which renders it impossible to explore the impact of magic on transit, housing, and other aspects of urbanism because the central conceit is that people with magic are trying to hide and thus have no impact on the mundane world.
However, it does crop up sometimes in Magitech settings, because their central conceit is all about how magic would function in place of science and lead to new ways of organizing societies, urban and otherwise. For a popular example, look at how Arcane examines the social impacts of Hextech and Shimmer. My personal favorite example of urbanist fantasy is the plane of Ravnica from Magic the Gathering.
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Ravnica is a ecumenopolis, a city-state that covers the whole planet. The city is governed by a guild council, each of whom are responsible for an aspect of the city’s physical and social infrastructure:
The Azorius Senate is responsible for running the courts and the legal system, and sometimes they run the police as well (although they have a jurisdictional dispute with the Boros Legion on that front).
House Dimir are couriers, messengers, journalists, private investigators, spies, assassins, thieves, and librarians, as well as the city’s clandestine intelligence service - if it deals with information in any way, the Dimir have a hand in it…or do they?
The Cult of Rakdos run the city’s entertainment, food service, retail, and labor recruitment (lots of shanghaing and press ganging goes on in Ravnica) - and they’re also a crazed juggalo bdsm blood cult who are responsible for keeping an ancient arch-demon entertained so he doesn’t try to destroy the city, again.
The Gruul Clans are an anarchist collective responsible for the planet’s wilderness areas, which they try to maximize by violent raids that tear down developed areas any chance they get - which also makes them Ravnica’s main demolition industry. The Boros Legion spends a lot of time defending built-up areas from Gruul rampages.
The Selesnya Conclave are a hippie nature cult commune who manage the city’s parks and other green spaces, as well as providing basic welfare services (food, “shelter,” clothing, etc.) to the city’s poor. They also use magic to do weird hivemind brainwashing in the name of harmony and unity, and they can raise giant Ent-Kaiju to defend the city in times of need.
The Orzhov Syndicate are a vampire banker mafia, and also one of the city’s biggest religions. They believe in debt on a spiritual level, and their religion fully embraces indulgences to their logical conclusion. The Orzhov preach that you can literally buy your way into heaven, and that debts to the (Catholic by way of Prosperity Gospel Evangelical) Church or its many front organizations and legitimate businesses will carry over into the next life; the Orzhov practice debt slavery on both living people and ghosts. And lest you think it’s all a cover for profit-making, they can summon dark angels to conduct rituals, lead services, and make war on their enemies. Something above is answering their prayers…
My personal favorite is the Izzet League, an institute of mad scientists and engineers and elementalist wizards who combine science and magic to research, build, and maintain the city’s infrastructure (as well as funding all tech R&D and theoretical and experimental research in physics, chemistry, and engineering) - the power grid, water and sewer systems, heating and gas lines, as well as the city’s mass transit and transportation/freight system, are all powered by their steam and fire and lightning and Magitech gadgets and robots and cyborgs made out of a magic metal named mizzium. Yes, a lot of their devices explode, and yes their golems and robots and elementals have a tendency to go rogue, but that’s the price of progress!
The Golgari Swarm are a subterranean necromantic cabal who run the city’s waste disposal, burial services, and do the bulk of the agricultural production for Ravnica’s hungry masses. All of Ravnica’s citizens are entitled to a food dole provided by the Golgari’s fungi farms as a form of basic income. Just don’t think too hard about what went into the compost heaps or what your rations might be made of…
The Boros Legion is Ravnica’s main police and military, led by a literal host of warrior angels. Imagine the combination of a police force entirely made up of noir detectives and loose cannon Dirty Harry-esque cops and an army with flying fortresses led by fiery angels who are all deeply dramatic lesbians. True believers one and all, the Boros are here to mete out justice and divine wroth upon evildoers wherever they hide. If they had their way, the Orzhov would all be in prison along with the Gruul and the Rakdos, but the damn bureaucrats in the Azorius Senate keep trying them up in knots with paperwork.
The Simic Combine are responsible for the city’s environmental quality, ensuring biodiversity and sustainability in a global metropolis; they are also the city’s universal health care providers. All Ravnicans have access to free health care, as long as they consent to the Combine’s biomantic research. See, the Simic are the other group of mad scientists/mages in the city, except they went into genetics, environmental science, and (marine) biology and they believe in individual and societal evolution through the use of augmentation, cloning, and splicing. After all, why stop at curing someone’s respiratory illness when you could also give them gills? Or giant crab claws? Or tentacles?
I love the world-building and the attention to urban systems and infrastructure in Ravnica. More than most, they’ve thought about what urban life needs to function and made it magical.
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cosmereplay · 3 months
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Day 4: Doomed by the narrative
Rated Teen, Veil & Tyn, RoW spoilers
“Where am I?” Veil asked. One minute, she'd been asking Shallan if she had done well, and the next, she'd found herself fading…and now, she was at a darkeyes tavern?
She stepped forward tentatively, looking around. The other people seemed…indistinct, except for one person sitting at the bar who looked deeply familiar, despite the fact that Veil had never met her. 
They could never have met, because it was the woman whose manner, fashion, and history Veil had stolen whole cloth.
The woman glanced down and to the side, tilting her ear towards Veil as if she could hear Veil’s thoughts.
“You gonna come join me, Veil?” Tyn asked. “Always room for one more in the Tranquilline Halls.”
“You’re not even Vorin,” Veil chuckled as she sat beside her, her confusion drowned in the sheer excitement of meeting the mentor she’d never actually met. “Am I dead?” she asked, as Tyn gestured to the barkeep for a round of Horneater White. “How do you know me?”
Tyn offered a cheers. “First, to the woman who finally killed me,” she said with an easy smile. She didn’t seem to have taken it too badly.
“To Shallan Davar.” They clinked glasses, and Veil drank her small cup in one go. It didn’t even burn going down. It just warmed her belly, leaving her feeling as indistinct as the rest of the tavern looked. She shook her head, as if to shake off the fuzziness. 
“What a woman. I had no idea what I was getting into when I met her.” Tyn smiled again, looking Veil up and down. “She really liked the outfit, huh?”
“She liked a lot about you,” Veil said, and spun her empty glass on the bartop at what looked like an impossible angle. The trick was simply to do it confidently. “Because of you, I could do what she felt she couldn’t do. I had the skills she didn’t have, or didn’t want to have. Because of you, I was free in a way she thought she couldn’t be.”
Tyn narrowed her eyes. “She even took my advice about blending in as a darkeyes. I like that. You know, I’ve been watching ever since she ran me through with that storming Blade.”
The idea that she’d been watching them brought up some acutely embarrassing memories, and Veil winced. “Even in Kholinar?”
Tyn laughed, loudly and freely. “Yeah. You two were a piece of work out there. Nah, I'm remembering that cursed place with the beads.”
“Shadesmar?”
“Yeah. And your time at the tower city. You earned that hat and coat, girl, the way you can flip those cards. The way you can talk yourself out of trouble. You earned your reputation. You were based on me, Veil, but you grew out of me. You did things I was never capable of. Putting someone else first. Loving someone. Protecting them. After a while, I realized I was rooting for you. I want you to know that. You were…” She wiped her eye. “Storms, you’re the closest thing I ever had to a daughter. I…”
“You don’t have to say it.” Veil’s breath caught between embarrassment and longing.
“No, don’t you see?” Tyn said. “That’s why I’m still here, hanging on. I have to say it. I was a conwoman all my life. This is my last chance to say something honest in this Heralds-forsaken life.”
Tyn reached out, taking Veil’s freehand in her uncovered safehand. She had stayed behind for her. For Veil. The touch was intimate in a way Veil had never known, and it moved her deeply. 
“You did good, kid.” She squeezed Veil’s hand, and Veil squeezed back, treasuring the warmth of it. She reimagined those same worst moments knowing that Tyn, her never-mentor, had been cheering her on. Her throat swelled with emotion, and she could feel her eyes watering. 
She looked up to find Tyn’s eyes were also sparkling with barely-suppressed emotion. They both quickly looked away, wiping their eyes in a symmetrical series of motions.
Veil ordered the next round, and lifted her cup. “To learning from the best.”
“If I’d been the best I wouldn’t have gotten stabbed by a seventeen-year-old,” Tyn laughed.
Veil grinned. “Fine. To the woman I tried to become.”
The older woman lifted her cup. “And to the woman you actually became.”
They clinked their cups, then drank. Veil felt this one hit harder. She started to feel a bit dizzy, disoriented. The tavern around them started to swirl and fade. “I am dead, aren’t I?” she said, half in awe. The air seemed to sparkle with an electric energy.
“No, just me. It’s my time now,” Tyn said. She had stood, and she leaned back against the bar casually, looking upwards as the scene faded into a soft, warm light. “Go back to Shallan, kid. Things’ll be different, sure, but that’s life, and you’ve got a lot more living to do.”
The light brightened until Veil couldn’t see Tyn anymore. “Goodbye,” she whispered, as finally, she felt herself floating in the back of Shallan’s mind again. She stepped forward, feeling her former consciousness fade and change into a bright new awareness.
She had done well.
"Yes," Shallan whispered. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
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