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#so like. they're not for a specific fic set in a specific year. so like sure yeah i'll slap whatever on there.
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was rereading some of your Ao3 work and had a thought, if Nobby, or any preserved engine for that matter went the way of "passing on" i.e the face fading away as mentioned in "Departure", do you reckon they'd be kept around, or would they be scrapped? I'm not majorly active on Tumblr so apologises if this has been answered somewhere that I've missed, but I was curious.
That's an interesting question (though repeats are fine, dw)! My fics are never necessarily in the same universe unless noted, and for the Nobbyverse in particular I really did remake my mental image of the TTTE world from the ground up - I've never considered 'departure' in the context of that series (excepting only that I supposed poor 115's spirit would have passed on after being buried and abandoned) - so for me this is a new angle to examine.
And I'm cackling a little up my sleeve, because this actually sounds like a great plot set-up… if you own a preserved engine and its spirit has 'passes on,' you've probably fucked up, and very publicly too.
A preserved engine whose animation faded away would lose a great deal of its appeal for the public. I generally suppose that engine sapience has become rarer and rarer over the years of mass-production and cheap-ass maintenance, so in-universe part of the glamour associated with 'the old days' is that people yearn for the times when trains were alive. You go to a transport museum in part to show your kids what a talking vehicle is like because most kids don't meet them anywhere else.
Furthermore, although the general public could certainly get used to visiting 'dead' engines, just like seeing dinosaur skeletons... they aren't used to it because unalive preserved engines are almost unheard-of. Engine spirits 'depart', not out of any old unhappiness but specifically because they believe that they are no longer needed in this world. An engine who knows that they are being preserved for posterity is wildly unlikely to believe that.
But I'm sure it happens, especially for the sort of engines sitting in storage for years on end, waiting for some sort of overhaul or opportunity. However even in those cases it really doesn't take that much care to avoid a 'departure' - machines are like camels when it comes to attention! They are hugely inclined to err on the side of believing they matter to humans. So long as someone visits them regularly with assurance and keeps 'em clean and dry, they are capable of waiting in readiness for quite a long time.
So the norm is that engines are preserved alive and stay alive. Any 'departure' is so abnormal that rail enthusiasts would be pissed. Questions Will Be Asked. Either some heads or gonna roll, or the owning institution's name is going to be mud among railfans.
Thus, if I'm in charge of the York Railway Museum and my staff reports one morning that Coppernob's soul seems to have 'passed on' in the night, I'm gonna be in panic mode.
Which, even as I type this and you read it, we both know means that Nobby has definitely faked them out at some point or another.
If an engine has really 'departed,' however, I expect they're immediately tarp'd ("she's, errm - she's having a nap! 🙃 ") and moved into storage a.s.a.p., where either attempts are made to coax their spirit back, or else the owners hope that the public eventually forgets about them. There are still people who would be interested even in the lifeless body, but too bad for them, they will have a hell of a time ever seeing it now because things will usually be so lock-and-key.
And that brings us to Boxhill, maybe… (? 🤔)
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softgrungeprophet · 2 months
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my kaine playlist is 2 and a half hours long...
okay well actually it's more like—
there's my primary Kaine playlist which is 2 and a half hours long and kind of doubles as a partial Janine playlist (still mostly Kaine but there's bound to be some overlap, all things considered):
and maybe it has some questionable song choices
There's my Spider-Man (well, really it's just Peter) playlist which is also 2 and a half hours long and has perhaps what some might call "too much" Blink-182 and pop punk on it:
There's a mixtape from Annabelle to Kaine which probably isn't done yet but is 40 minutes long:
There's a response from Kaine that he makes after leaving which is 44 minutes long and also probably technically not done yet:
There's also a playlist for the "worst year of peter's life" fic-in-progress which is 55 minutes long, probably complete, and which is sort of about Kaine but is also about Peter and in general about the entire situation that they've all been subjected to (including like, Flash's interactions with not-Peter (Ben)) and also a little bit about the past:
I don't have a playlist for Ben lol
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ohhgingersnaps · 1 year
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I'm seeing some frustration over fandom creatives expressing anger or distress over people feeding their work into ChatGPT. I'm not responding to OP directly because I don't want to derail their post (their intent was to provide perspective on how these models actually work, and reduce undue panic, which is all coming from a good place!), but reassurances that the addition of our work will have a negligible impact on the model (which is true at this point) does kind of miss the point? Speaking for myself, my distress is less about the practical ramifications of feeding my fic into ChatGPT, and more about the principle of someone taking my work and deliberately adding it to the dataset.
Like, I fully realize that my work is a drop in the bucket of ChatGPT's several-billion-token training set! It will not make a demonstrable practical difference in the output of the model! That doesn't change the fact that I do not want my work to be part of the set of data that the ChatGPT devs use for training.
According to their FAQ, ChatGPT can and will use user input to train itself. The terms and conditions explicitly state that they save your chats to help train and improve their models. (You can opt-out, but sharing is the default.) So if you're feeding a fic into ChatGPT, unless you've explicitly opted out, you are handing it to the ChatGPT team and giving them permission to use it for training, whether or not that was your intent.
Now, will one fic make a demonstrable difference in the output of the model? No! But as the person who spent a year and a handful of months laboring over my fic, it makes a difference to me whether my fic, specifically, is being used in the dataset. If authors are allowed to have a problem with the ChatGPT devs for scraping millions of fics without permission, they're also allowed to have a problem with folks handing their individual fics over via the chat interface.
I do want to add that if you've done this to a fic, please don't take this as me being upset with you personally! Folks are still learning new information and puzzling out what "good" vs. "bad" use is, from an ethical standpoint. (Heck, my own perspective on this is deeply based on my own subjective feelings!) And we certainly shouldn't act like one person feeding a fic into ChatGPT has the same practical negative impact, on a broad societal scale, as a team using a web crawler to scrape five billion pieces of artwork for Stable Diffusion.
The point is that fundamentally, an ethical dataset should be obtained with the consent of those providing the data. Just because it's normalized for our data to be scraped without consent doesn't make it ethical, and this is why ChatGPT gives users the option to not share data— there is actually a standardized way (robots.txt) for website servers to set policies for how bots/crawlers can interact with them, for exactly this reason— and I think fandom artists and authors are well within their rights to express a desire for opting out to be the socially-respected default within the fandom community.
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5ummit · 1 year
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So there's this post with a troubling number of notes going around insisting that "dead dove" is not a genre, it doesn't inherently have anything to do with darkfic, and that the tag could be applied to fics that are "100% fluffy where everyone's having a good time" if they happen to contain some abnormal (though entirely non-problematic) content like an unusual kink. The claim is that "dead dove: do not eat" is simply a "courtesy tag" that means "this is a very specific niche, mind the tags." And that's just... wrong.
I wrote up a whole rebuttal to this post since I can't stand misinformation and frankly OP was being kinda rude and judgey on top of their wrongness. But right after I posted my reply, OP turned off reblogs because, and I quote, “some fuckwad added some dumb shit onto this post and it is no longer educational” (the “fuckwad” being me and the “dumb shit” being proof that they were wrong). A couple people have asked me to make a rebloggable version of my response, which I've decided to do because this isn't the first time I've heard similar claims and I want to help set the record straight. However, I'm not linking the original post on the off chance this gains traction because OP did the right thing by turning off reblogs, preventing it from circulating further, and I don't want them to get hate for being unfortunately misinformed.
For those who don't know the history, "dead dove: do not eat" was originally proposed as a catchall "hydra trash party" alternative label for any fandom to warn that the content of a fic may be considered problematic or potentially upsetting and to read the tags carefully so you know what you're getting into and won't complain later. Specifically, DD:DNE was intended to convey that the Bad Things in the fic would likely be reveled in and not explicitly condemned by the narrative, which some people tend to get up in arms about, hence the need for the extra warning in addition to the tags. Don't believe me? Here's the original proposal (note DD:DNE can be found on a handful of fics dated before 2015 but this is when it really took off and became a Thing).
There are currently around 50,000 fics tagged as "dead dove: do not eat" on AO3 and close to 50% of those also include the rape/noncon warning (which of course is not the only type of "dead dove" but is one of the most popular and most consistently tagged). The normal percentage of noncon fics in any given fandom? Around 1-3%. That's a HUGE disparity. So don't tell me that dead dove is just a general "courtesy tag" and doesn't or shouldn't have dark connotations. Even the context of the original joke on Arrested Development has a dark undertone. Micheal Bluth casually finds an animal carcass in a bag in his refrigerator with the label "do not eat", as if eating it would be any sane person's first thought. The whole situation is kinda fucked up. And this fucked up vibe very much carries over into fandom usage too, as was intended.
The claim that dead dove has nothing to do with the content's genre and could just as easily be used to describe a 100% fluffy fic in which everyone's having a good time is straight up Wrong, or at the very least, severely warping the original meaning. Also, when someone these days says that they like/dislike "dead dove" most people in fandom automatically understand what that means because of the consistency of its usage over the years and the way language evolves. Whether you like it or not, "dead dove" IS a genre now and the term does carry a specific connotation. I do agree that DD:DNE should definitely still be used in conjunction with other tags, when applicable, to be explicit about the exact type of fucked up content you may find, but to say that the term is meaningless on its own is patently false and I'm tired of people who don't know what they're talking about pushing this narrative and causing even more confusion.
You want a generic term that also means "mind the tags" and doesn't have any inherently dark connotations? Just use good ol' "what it says on the tin" instead of trying to force dead dove to be something it's not.
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tsukimefuku · 12 days
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the event (1) ❖ nanami kento
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this part → part 2 (soon) | mdni! | the nile is a river in egypt 👍
summary: after struggling for so long with the feelings you had for nanami, your colleague and closest friend, you finally decide to put an end to your misery and confess to him. little did you know there was no misery left for you to wallow in that night — none at all. alternatively: nanami was a gentleman, but holy hell, given the context, there weren't many ways he could misunderstand the phrase "I want you".
tags: jujutsu kaisen, sorcerer!f!reader, colleagues in the field, 18+, alcohol, explicit! smut (oral f!receiving, piv, squirting), 1/3 plot 2/3 filth ratio, it’s romance guys, nanami x reader, reader is emotionally stunted, they're clearly in love, angst, fluff, hurt and comfort, basically a book chapter, no beta my inner demons proofread this.
wc: 8k
notes, etc.: if i have to rewrite this one more time i will commit a felony. inspo → just like you do (carly simon) and sonnet (the verve). saved by smooth operator (sade). the bit "love is something brave people do" is inspired by fleabag's last episode. appetizers for this fic are the shorties “would you let me die?” and “where does your mind drift”.
❖ collection of stories: "jujutsu partners au" → masterlist
this is big but very worth it, i promise.
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Today, you were determined to finally utter those three words and put an end to your own personal brand of misery. 
Ever since you and Nanami kind of discussed if getting involved would be a bad idea — he said it would, but you had your doubts — you just couldn't stop thinking about it. He knew you had feelings for him. Maybe. He mentioned that he believed you thought about him. 
But the thing was… nothing was actually said. It was all implied. Implied into oblivion.
You two had been working together for a good while now, and you didn't fail to notice that, in the most recent encounters you've had, be it on missions or just having a drink at your favorite bar, your heart would involuntarily throb whenever you gazed at him for too long. 
Not only that, but you were finally able to admit to yourself that your gratitude towards the sorcerer, who saved your life years ago, had become love. You were, without a shred of a doubt, in love with him, and the fact that he clearly stated that getting involved would be ill-advised — his words, not yours — was a special type of torture.
So be it — you were confessing your feelings for him today, at least to have a definitive answer. It would be better to get shot down than keep doing this little tip-toe dance around the unsaid. You just couldn't do this anymore.
Thing was… You were terrible with feelings. And words. And putting feelings into words. And also just feeling your feelings, in general.
So you decided to invite him to a bar — like you always did —, and chat the night away — again, like you always did — to try easing yourself into this conversation in a comfortable, known setting. Your drinks were downed until the middle of the night like you were filling up a Jeep tank, trying to fuel yourself with liquor-bought courage. 
Eventually you slowed down, because certainly throwing up would be less than ideal. Better to be sober and chicken out than drunk and vomiting.
You were so in your own head, though, that you failed to realize Nanami was accompanying you in the "getting completely hammered" department until about a few hours prior, partially regaining his sobriety, with a lot of things swirling around in his own mind.
Mostly, he still thought about the non-conversation you both had about thinking of each other. More specifically, the fact that you inquired, right at the end, if it would really be such a bad idea.
Would it? 
Could he dare to dream of a life beyond killing curses and hoping not to die every time he stepped his foot into a mission?
He wasn't sure about it anymore, and could feel his usual negative stance about getting romantically involved with someone while still being a jujutsu sorcerer wavering — an absolute first for him. He was hardly someone to be swayed on his stances in life.
But this time, just maybe, you were able to do that without even realizing.
He caught himself gazing at you more frequently than usual, and wondering what would be the texture of your flower-scented hair tangled in between his fingers.
Today, your hair smelled like jasmine flowers.
Unlike you, however, Nanami was unsure if he'd touch upon the subject that night, specifically, in case he ever decided to do so. He’d prefer to talk about it in an appropriate setting — dinner at a restaurant, maybe? No, you weren't someone who'd like that. Perhaps at a picnic, she does enjoy nature...
He tried shaking those thoughts away along with his feelings, but it didn’t work.
The conversation was very pleasant, and you two were reminiscing about his mission at your hometown where you both met years ago. 
”Do you remember when I tried cooking breakfast? Oh, that was a good one,” you jested, chuckling. 
Nanami nodded, resting the edge of his whiskey cup on his bottom lip. 
“I’d say that was a terrible one. You nearly set your entire kitchen on fire trying to fry eggs,” he noted, letting a smile take over his lips.
You laughed in response.
”Yeah, you’re probably right. But at least you rescued me and made one of the best tamagoyaki I’ve ever eaten.”
He put his glass down on the counter, looking at you with those adoring, beautiful, brown honeyed eyes.
"One of?"
You chuckled, trying not to stare too much.
Good God, he's looking gorgeous tonight.
“Oh, come on. According to you, I can barely taste my food the way I eat, mixing everything up in my plate,” you joked, “I don’t have the same particular taste buds of yours.”
Nanami sighed, rolling his eyes at your teasing, taking a sip of his whiskey.
The ice had melted a little, and he felt the watery coat on the drink with displeasure, grimacing a little.
Somehow, Nanami failed to see the irony in that.
You noticed, and laughed a little before continuing.
"The other amazing tamagoyaki I had was when you rescued me from starving during my first week here. But I don't think I'd really regret burning Jujutsu High down, even if it was an accident."
Nanami shook his head lightly, the smile still on his face betraying his half-hearted chide.
Then, after the banter evaporated in the air, that moment finally came.
The absolute silence.
Arguably the perfect opportunity to say these types of things… So you began.
"Nanami, I…" words gagged. "I wanted to tell you something."
His body visibly tensed up a little, but he probably didn't realize it.
He knew, of course.
Nanami noticed all the recent instances you'd stare at him, and ever since pulling you in for a not-so innocent hug when you were both stranded on the road after a mission together, he felt dangerously close to crossing this boundary. 
Nanami's words were easily controlled, always so neatly put together with mathematical precision to express his thoughts. However, ever since he crossed the line of physical contact beyond pure platonic affection, it had been difficult keeping his hands to himself. 
Right now, he wanted to cup your face with his palms and brush his thumbs against your cheeks.
Perhaps even press his lips against you- stop that, you’re not a teenager anymore.
This comfort zone of avoiding the discussion about the feelings you both had for each other was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. 
"What?"
You gulped, and took a few more sips of beer.
"I…"
Your voice got stuck in your throat.
Your syllable had stretched long enough for this to have become a little awkward.
"I wanted to thank you," you blurted out, more for your benefit than his.
Nanami was equal parts relieved, disappointed, and surprised.
Did he actually want you to tell him you had feelings for him?
"Thanks for welcoming me to Jujutsu High, for shepherding me all this time, and for being a reliable, good friend. I was ready to face hell here, but it was… much better than I had anticipated. So, thank you, Nanami."
He looked at you, and both held each other's gaze for a moment. His hazel brown eyes were always something that lured you in, and you surely enjoyed how he'd always remove his green shades to talk to you.
Seeing them felt strangely — and endearingly — intimate.
"You're welcome," he offered in a kind note.
"Last call!" the bartender stated loudly, as you and Nanami looked at each other, feeling somewhat disappointed that the night was about to be over.
Stepping outside after paying, you both realized it was raining — something neither had noticed from inside the bar.
With half a mind to do something, definitely inebriated, and still with a declaration stuck in your throat, you absentmindedly made a question to Nanami.
"Can I wait the rain out at your place?"
He did live close by, in any case.
For a second, you realized you were probably butting in his rest hours, and felt a little embarrassed.
"Yes," he replied immediately, also absentmindedly, before you could retreat your request.
***
It was actually the first time you ever visited his apartment, and it was interesting to see his place. To no one's surprise, Nanami's pristine apartment, with his collections of books and CD's — he still had an actual stereo CD player — felt as every bit put together as Nanami himself did.
His kitchen drawers alone were surely more organized than your income tax return.
You sat on the counter and had your drenched hair haphazardly covered with a blue towel as Nanami fixed something to eat for the both of you.
The smell of cooked rice and eggs filled the air, hugging your senses, as you watched, still halfway drunk, how he skillfully walked back and forth, being somewhat inebriated himself, making way more than instant noodles, your first choice after proposing you both ate something to ease the alcohol out.
You stared at his back while he cooked, trying to push the thought of telling him how you felt to the back of your mind, at least for a while, just so you could enjoy the following moments without the sensation of impending doom.
As he finished plating the food, you were nothing short of impressed — the man mustered up the skill to cook omurice while inebriated, a feat you couldn't do sober even in one of your best days. 
"This is incredible, you're such a badass," you remarked as Nanami gave you a plate with a pair of chopsticks.
"It's a simple recipe," he replied, getting his own and taking a bite out of it as he leaned against the sink counter, facing you.
"Oh, it surely is,” you remarked, ironically.
You were getting ready to eat as Nanami interrupted you.
"Don't desecrate it," he chided, referencing the way you'd usually stir up your food on your plate until it became an unidentifiable goo before eating, "try to taste your food at least this once."
You chuckled a little, acquiescing.
"Okay. This is too beautiful to get vandalized, anyway."
Nanami huffed, the faintest ghost of a smile on his lips, before he took another bite.
"I am so going to regret this entire thing tomorrow," you stated, taking the first piece out of your plate, “I drank like a sailor.” 
It was absolutely delicious, of course. It was Nanami's food, after all.
He swallowed before proceeding.
"Me too, most likely. I hadn't drunk this heavily since… ever."
"Hah, me neither."
You both resumed eating peacefully, partaking in a comfortable and cozy silence for the next few minutes. During that time, he looked at you without you noticing, and realized just how much he wanted this small sliver of peace — sharing a good meal with you in his kitchen after a remarkably pleasant night — to keep going for eternity. 
You were looking so adorable with his blue towel over your drenched hair.
As you were finished, he took both plates and put them inside the sink, going back to his original position. Nanami had already removed his tie, his weapon holster and opened the top of his blue buttoned shirt by this point, both of his sleeves rolled up for him to cook.
It was becoming increasingly hard not to stare.
"Thank you, Nanami," you said, smiling at him.
"It's no trouble," he answered, softly smiling back at you.
His smile was much sweeter than usual, and it sent your heart throbbing against your chest.
The urge came again, to finally tell him.
However, when you actually spoke, something entirely unexpected came out of your mouth.
"Why did you come back to Jujutsu High after years of working a regular job?"
Nanami was surprised, to say the least, and pondered for a while before resuming his answer.
He had left the jujutsu world shortly after the mission where he met you and ‘failed you’ — that last part solely according to him — so, needless to say, this was a sensitive topic. 
"Well, I had known the jujutsu world, and after entering the corporate one, I realized both were idiotic. So-"
"No, not that speech," you interjected, "I want to know exactly what happened for you to come back. I mean, when we ran into each other years ago, you seemed pretty resolute in trying your retired-by-40 and moving to Malaysia plan, and from what I gathered, not long after that, you just came back, out of nowhere."
Nanami was silent, because he remembered vividly what had transpired, and that you had something to do with it.
"Well," he began, "a few days after we had that conversation, I went into a bakery to buy breakfast. It was always the same person at the cash register, and she had a small fly head curse on her shoulders for a while. It began affecting her sleep, given her complaints. I had avoided doing something about it, but our conversation kept ringing in my head."
Nanami averted his gaze, as if remembering the moment in its details before proceeding.
"After I exorcised it, her shoulder pain subsided, and she thanked me. That was it."
You remembered well how you chided him, telling Nanami to go back into sorcery because the world of jujutsu needed people who truly cared, such as himself. You just didn’t think it would have such a direct connection to the reasons he came back.
"So... you realized the importance of the job we do?" you inquired, with a half-smile pulled on your cheek.
He sighed. "Something like that."
"Oh, Mr. Nanami 'I'm just doing my job' Kento... you have finally understood that meaning is something relevant to you, it seems," you remarked, light-spirited.
He smiled, looking the other way, somewhat appreciating the fact that he had just been read like a book by you.
"But... don't say I had something to do with you coming back," you stated, "I might feel responsible if something happens to you."
Even as a joke, this snapped at your heart a little. The mere thought of losing him felt terrifying.
Nanami sighed, smile vanishing, looking back at you. 
"You always see things from a perspective of assigning responsibility and guilt... It is a perspective that usually warrants unnecessary suffering."
You scoffed, still wearing your mid-smirk on your face.
"Oh, and looking at everything from a protective perspective is any different? I mean, both boil down to us thinking we're responsible for other people's fates."
He was slightly taken aback, before smiling discreetly and crossing his arms in front of his chest. 
"I guess you're right."
Nanami looked at you, and seemed to be staring at your cheek. Under the dim light from the stove hood, you could make out the contours of his face — his sharp jaw, his chiseled cheekbones, and his now exposed forearms with taut, sculpted muscles, right under the rolled up sleeves of his blue shirt. 
If pupil dilation could be felt, you would have definitely felt it at that moment.
The urge came up again, but by this point, you were already feeling defeated enough at your pathetic inability of confessing your feelings, so you just let your mouth roll with whatever came out of it.
"I really admire you, Nanami."
You surprised even yourself.
His eyes then met yours.
"Do you?"
Pondering on your words, you nodded, thinking a little about it.
"You're such a calm, collected and responsible person. You seem to always know exactly what you're doing, meanwhile I'm usually just guessing around. No wonder Ino and Yuuji look up to you."
Even under the soft lighting, you could swear you saw Nanami's face blush a little.
"Thank you," he stated, bowing his head slightly towards your direction.
You smiled at him and sighed right after.
"Most times, I don't think I'm someone people would call admirable or actually look up to."
This was something you hadn't anticipated you'd say. You had never told that to anyone.
But, well, this was him. This was Nanami.
"Why do you say that?" he inquired in earnest.
"Because... Because I'm often hanging by a thread, just trying to survive. I'm not doing great things. I'm barely existing, sometimes."
He mulled his thoughts over for a second before answering you.
"You have a good capacity for adapting, taking whatever life hands you and doing the best you can with it," he noted, "and you keep going even if you feel like you're guessing. Even when you don't know where you're going. That takes bravery, and I find it to be admirable."
Now you were the one surprised, and you could feel your entire face burning the moment he finished uttering those words. You were never one to take compliments easily, but this was a whole other level.
You stood there, mouth slightly agape, faltering without any words.
His eyes had returned to your cheek, and in a swift movement, you heard him say excuse me as he stepped into your direction, rubbing his thumb on it to take off some food you hadn't realized that was still stuck on your face.
Nanami barely registered that the thoughts looping around his mind the entire night about touching you had finally taken the best of him.
Before he could remove his hand, though, you held it in place, lifting your eyes to meet him.
His palm felt warm against your skin, his digits rough, and perfect. Just like he was.
Nanami's expression was unreadable as he gazed back at you, and you began hearing your heartbeats against your ears, muffling the sound of the tapping rain on the window.
Words failed him too, and he was guided by his body once again.
Nanami lowered his face and softly pressed his lips over yours, still tasting like whiskey and Demi-glace, which sent waves — that you couldn't quite discern if were hot or cold, perhaps both — all throughout your body.
It was a quick kiss, though, because shortly after, Nanami backed out, still with his eyes closed, and had something resembling a frown on his face.
"I apologize, that was inappropriate," he mumbled, beginning to pull his hand out from your cheek. You, however, held it in place, and that got him to open his eyes and look at you.
He seemed taken by trepidation under his usual collected demeanor, and his lower lip had the slightest twitch to it as his eyes flickered quickly between your mouth and your eyes.
For a moment, you felt like you were looking into the eyes of the Nanami you once knew — the bangs, the uniform, the seventeen-year-old version of him.
Little did you know that your corresponding younger version was looking right back at him with the same bated breath, just like the teens-becoming-adults in the most traumatic ways you two once were.
"Stop apologizing and kiss me," you pleaded, edging your face closer to his, pulling his towel off your head.
You could feel his breath exhaling against your skin, as Nanami approached his body to yours, putting himself in between your knees, and cupped your face in his hands. His body was incredibly warm, just like his hand, and his woody, musky scent sent your senses spiraling when he finally descended his lips to yours, determined on taking his time — after all, this was a kiss ten years in the making.
His mouth felt velvety and supple, and you both melted into each other while exploring the way his head tilted against yours, how your nails would eventually find their way up the nape of his neck, how your breath would hitch every time he pressed his mouth against yours more intently. Your lips slid wetly over each other with a newfound ease none of you expected.
You were both dipping your toes in the ocean and testing the temperature before committing to dive into deeper waters, taking all the time into familiarizing with the feeling of each other's bodies.
Nanami's hands descended to your waist, leaving a trail of heat on the way, and you let out a soft moan into his mouth when he pressed them against you. He groaned lowly, a sound reverberating from the depths of his chest, as he parted his lips from yours and put some distance in between your faces with his eyes closed.
You didn't understand, but before you could ask anything, he began speaking.
"I don't mean to assume," he stated, letting his forehead rest on yours.
"Hm... What do you mean?"
"I... What I mean is we can stop, in case you don’t..​. We're both still somewhat under the influence. You are," Nanami replied, opening his eyes to look into yours. The faltering restraint dwelling in them was palpable. 
In the back of your mind, you wondered if there was any way of loving him more than you already did. Even now, he was so mindful and careful with you.
"I want this," you replied, resolute, "I want you. I've wanted it all for a very long time. It's not a drunken decision, I mean it."
His gaze softened in a way you had never seen before, one of his hands ascending to brush his thumb over your cheek. Nanami snuggled his nose against yours and sighed, seemingly fluttering.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure. I want you," you repeated, incisively.
He let out a huff of air against your mouth, and you could smell his breath, mingled with the scent emanating from him and his clothes. Intoxicating wasn't a strong enough word — you were completely enthralled, entranced and overwhelmed by him. Every sound got muted, but the sound of his breathing. Every smell disappeared, but his. And there was no other temperature in the room other than the warmth of his body.
You had entered tunnel vision mode, and at the end of it, he was your light.
Closing the remaining inches that separated the both of you, he brushed his lips against yours, whispering, "then have me. Have all of me."
Still cupping the side of your face, Nanami tilted it, finally fitting your lips against his again, like lovely little puzzle pieces getting more and more accustomed to each other by the second. He felt around your contours, pressing the tip of his tongue softly over the seam of your mouth, and you warmly welcomed him in, his true taste lingering just under the drinks and sauces being enough to knock the air out of your lungs.
He was salty, fresh, and a breeze of cool air by the seashore.
There were a few times you wondered what he'd be like, but your fantasies were quick to pale in comparison to the reality of him.
Nanami’s broken restraint was completely done for, and just this once, he wanted to let it come tumbling down like a house of cards, as he parted to gaze at your disheveled hair, your flustered face, your slightly puffy lips.
His chest swelled full and content at that sight.
He met you once again, and the ruffling from the fall was sounding better than he could have ever hoped for, insistent heart beat pushing against his ears, encompassing your breathless kissing like a sonnet.
Nanami's hands, however, didn't dare explore beyond your waist, and all this intense make out session was starting to make your panties feel uncomfortable against your pooling arousal. You were starting to feel antsy, and your body was nearly twitching at the aching desire. You needed some kind of relief, or you'd go insane.
Nanami was a gentleman, but holy hell, given the context, there weren't many ways he could misunderstand the phrase I want you.
You put your hands over his and slip them down to cup your ass, parting from his lips for a moment.
"Stop keeping your hands to yourself. Touch me," you pleaded, with some type of simmering desperation to your voice that you hadn't yet heard — never, actually.
He looked at you, and seemed equally desperate in an unfathomable way. He pulled you in, kneading his fingers fiercely against your skin while moaning into your mouth, and pressed your bodies hard enough for you to feel him pulsating through multiple layers of fabric.
Oh, my.
You knew he was strong, but this was something else. 
Instinctively, you wrapped your legs around his hips, and drew the tips of your fingernails down his back, while grinding over his growing erection with your clothed core. Nanami let out a muffled groan on your skin and began kissing your neck intently with messy, open-mouthed kisses.
He put his hands under your thighs and whispered in your ear, "hold on to me."
That caught your attention from your hazy brain.
"I... My hair is still wet. My clothes are a little damp, too. I'm kind of a mess right now," you told him, chuckling sheepishly.
This man's apartment was the most immaculate place you had ever been in your life, and the last thing you wanted to do was to dirty it around with dripping water from the rain. In his bed, of all places.
Nanami immediately pulled himself back and held your face, locking eyes with you.
"You are beautiful right now," he remarked, not giving you enough time for an answer, as he pressed another kiss on your lips — this time, more urgent, a little sloppy, but just as passionate, if not more. You gasped into his mouth, letting your body take control.
In an instant, your arms were draped over his shoulders, your legs tightened firmly around his body, and his strong hands held the back of your thighs, as Nanami lifted you from that counter like you weighed nothing.
You squeaked in surprise, and he uttered a soft, deep chuckle before planting a quick peck on your lips. 
After walking you both into his room, he calmly descended towards the mattress, laying you down delicately and climbing his way on top of you.
When he approached his face to yours, you smiled at him, and he smiled back, sharing a tender moment of silent closeness.
This was probably your favorite shared quietude yet.
“I should get out of these wet clothes,” you stated, giggling softly, before tugging your shirt over your head.
He huffed a soft smiling hum in return, as his palms found their way towards the sides of your hips. Their warmth clashed a stark contrast against your still dampened, cold skin, and his touch was electric, making you involuntarily sigh.
"Help me take these pants off," you cooed, relaxing your legs around his body.
Nanami didn’t need to be told twice, and swiftly slid his hands down to unzip you and pull your damp pants off while you unclasped your bra.
After he was done, his eyes lingered over the drenched patch on your underwear, a realization that definitely riled him up, as his breath got caught midway out his nostrils for a second.
Nanami’s fingers swirled around your bra straps, but before he removed it, you began unbuttoning his shirt, finishing off unclenching his belt and unzipping his pants.
"It would be unfair for me to be the only one exposed here," you remarked, light spirited, while smiling tenderly at him.
He smiled back very much the same way, and pulled his shirt off, downing his pants, letting it all become a wrinkled puddle on the floor. Nanami caged you in between his arms, and pressed a quick kiss on your lips, asking, "do you ever stop?"
"Why don't you try to find out?" you slyly replied.
Nanami wasn't usually one to appreciate being teased. This was especially true when it came to Gojo annoying the hell out of him, and he could — and would — also get annoyed at your snarky teasing from time to time.
But it felt different with you. He wasn't nearly as irritated as he would've been with anybody else.
Perhaps because you teased him with love.
Your hands pulled your bra off and tossed it aside, and for some seconds, he was speechless, contouring his eyes all over your body. With butterflies on his chest, he finally cupped your face in his hands again before kissing you once more, and you couldn’t help but notice he really liked holding you like that when he kissed you — and you'd let him, every time he wanted to.
It was lovely to be held so preciously under such an adoring touch.
Letting go of your lips, Nanami began planting kisses under your jaw, descending towards your neck, and nesting his face in between your breasts, inhaling your scent with his face laid over your skin. With your encouraging hand tangling in his hair, he began kissing and licking his way around, kneading on your breasts with his palms. Your hips instantly bucked up against him, at the same time you let out a needy moan.
He noticed it, very pleased, and gave you the tiny mercy of removing your panties.
Still with his mouth plastered on your skin, Nanami descended one hand towards your folds, and groaned the second his fingers touched over your wetness, cock twitching inside his underwear.
You were drenched.
He sounded so satisfied, you couldn’t help but blush a little in between your moans and mewls, wanting to brat out just a little.
“Hah-- I did say- a-ah… that I wanted you,” you half jested, trying to fend off your fleeting embarrassment, “w-what did you… hah-- expect?” 
He stopped briefly, and lifted his face to look at you, sighing with his classic I could be eye rolling at you right now expression.
You smiled mischievously, fully aware he noticed the teasing.
Nanami brushed his fingers above your clit softly, not breaking eye contact, and you thrust your hips up again, mewling mindlessly. Huffing, you tried saying something, but he pressed his fingers a little more intently, having your words turn into incoherent moaning tumbling down past your lips.
At that moment, you just knew…
You stood defeated.
“Finally, you relentless little devil,” he mumbled, kissing his way down your body, as you huffed a few chuckles in between your pleasured sounds.
If he was so hellbent on shutting down your antics like that, you’d probably try to keep them going all night long. Perhaps you could even break his composure completely.
The idea was enticing.
However, he was the one about to break you apart completely, as you realized when his wet, hot tongue got seared-flat against your clit, and stroked on your glistened folds with the ravenous dedication of a starving man.
Nanami was delighted to have finally shut down your quick-wit tease mouth completely, especially like this.
In the back of his mind, he realized he’d gladly do it every time you got on his nerves. 
Being a pretty tactile person, with heightened senses overall, Nanami was sure that tasting you would feel amazing, but this was otherworldly.
Completely enthralled, he began dipping his tongue inside you to drink you in, having your walls clenching immediately around it.
The sounds you made — your moaning and begging, as your thighs rubbed against his cheeks and fingers tugged on his hair — would be etched in his brain for eternity, he was sure of it.
The moment his hands pressed harder on your thighs, pulling them against his shoulders, and you let out a mixture of a squeal and a moan, something inside him snapped, sending his mouth into a feral quest against your cunt.
Groaning and panting into you, he lapped relentlessly on your folds, nuzzling your clit so intently it nearly sent you crawling over the walls. Your vision was white, starry, black, and then white again, and you wondered for a minute if this was all pleasure or if the light of the room was actually flickering. 
Mouth agape, your moans bounced off the walls, and your back arched desperately, while your entire body tightened with the tell-tale signs of an intense orgasm. Your toes were curling, your ears were ringing, and your face contorted in desperate need for release.
“D-don’t stop- don’t… Hah-- I-m… I-I… Hah---!“
Upon hearing your pleas, Nanami latched his lips on your clit and sucked on it so powerfully you didn’t get tipped over the edge, but was effectively thrown from it with no parachute or lifeline. 
Your entire body tensed and jolted. You came with a desperate cry, tightening your grip on his hair with bruising force. He let out a loud moan, trying to hold himself together as you fell apart on his mouth, and started to lick you softly to wean you off your high.
For a few seconds, your entire body stopped answering any voluntary movement signals from your brain, and you could’ve sworn you forgot your name.
You were sent to heaven and returned unscathed. 
Coming back to Earth, your grip on him loosened, and Nanami brought his mouth up to one of your thighs, pressing gentle kisses over it. 
When your vision wasn’t all abstract colors anymore, you looked down to see Nanami with hooded eyes, resting his chin over your mound, gazing at you like you were the most beautiful creature in existence.
Given what had just transpired, you found it to be incredibly absurd that this — him gazing at you — was what had you blushing violently.
But here you were, hiding your face under the back of your hand, as you chuckled sheepishly solely from the way he looked at you.
This beautiful, adoring man.
The urge to tell him how much you loved him came back, but even like this, so unclad and vulnerable, it was incredibly hard.
Nanami was barely blinking, wondering how he had allowed — or better, forced — himself to live without this, without you, for so long.
“I’m starting to feel embarrassed,” you said, equal parts joking and genuine, as you finally managed to meet his glance again. 
He blinked a few times, being pulled from his thoughts, whispering a half-hearted apology as he crawled his way back to you. 
His hair was a mess, his lips were rosy and puffy, and his eyes…
His eyes.
Trying to keep yourself from becoming a fluttering chaos all over again, you shook your head lightly as you resumed speaking.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” you cooed, sliding your fingers down his face, pressing your lips to his. Nanami pushed his tongue inside your mouth, and you moaned in response, tasting your essence mixed in with his own flavor.
God, you could kiss him and taste this for hours on end.
His mouth and tongue flowed and veered softly, with no rush other than to imprint your flavor in him. Nanami clearly was a kisser — a very good one —, and was delighted to keep exploring you like that for as long as you’d let him. 
Suddenly, you had a little wicked idea creeping up on you, as you made some effort to finally part your lips from his and uttered, “you know what, I’m sorry.”
Nanami was puzzled.
“What do you m-“
With your strength back, you locked your legs on the sides of Nanami’s waist and rolled his body over, landing on top of him. 
His breath was caught for a moment before he smiled at you. Smiling back, you straddled yourself back, diving your fingers on the edges of his boxers to slide them down.
Nanami helped you by raising his body, and the moment you removed the piece of clothing, his cock sprang out, bearing a flushed, bulbous, red tip that mutely slapped against his belly. It was bigger than you anticipated, thicker too, and you wondered if you could fit it all in your mouth.
Probably not.
You also didn’t fail to notice the very evident damp patch on his underwear from his pre-cum alone.
He must be desperate right now, you thought to yourself, enticingly amused.
However, the moment you were about to wrap your fingers around him and descend, Nanami held your hand and sat up. He seemed slightly… Embarrassed?
“Hm… what is it?” you asked, pressing against his hand.
He cleared his throat.
“I’m… very wound up. Could we…” Nanami mumbled, words dying on their way out. 
Truth was, ever since the moment you were grinding your clothed cunt against him, his mind was boiling to the thought of burying himself inside you to the hilt.
There was no sugar-coating it. 
“Oh…” you let out, “so… you want me too?” you asked, a hint of amusement to your voice.
You weren’t the only one needy tonight.
He sighed from the depths of his soul.
“Stop teasing.”
His voice came out raspy, more of a plea than an actual chide.
The man was crumbling down, and it was delightful to watch The Nanami Kento, always so unflappable, falling apart like this.
You chuckled and planted a quick kiss on his lips.
“I’m sorry,” you offered in earnest.
He exhaled gently, gaze towards you softening as he did.
You blushed a little before proceeding.
“Where is the…”
“First drawer.”
Everything happened quickly. You snatched the condom from his nightstand and opened it. Nanami took it from your hands and slid it down his length. A soft sigh escaped his lips as the rubber snapped at the end.
Softly crawling your way towards him, you put both hands on his shoulders to straddle on his lap. Nanami locked his gaze on you, not breaking eye contact even for a second, right up until you both finally kissed again.
His hands began making their way down your back, and then…
You felt it.
The tip of Nanami’s fingers pressed against the scar you had right over your spine, and you gasped in pain as it hit the bundle of tangled nerves bumping over your skin. You instantly backed your face away with an aching grimace.
Nanami had witnessed how you got that scar in the fateful mission in which you two met years ago.
The sound of the blade piercing through your skin and flesh still lingered on in his nightmares.
His hand retreated so quickly you barely felt it leaving your body.
Following the aftershock, you opened your eyes to see him with his own eyes sealed shut, and Nanami appeared to be crawling his way back into his mind. His expression, usually so calm and collected, was replaced by a pained frown of his brows.
“I apologize, I… I’m…” he muttered, and you realized this wasn’t an apology for what just happened.
He still blamed himself for what had taken place then.
It broke your heart to shambles to see him like that, knowing full well nothing that transpired that night was his fault.
You cupped his jaw in your palms, and pressed your forehead to his.
"Hey, stop it. Stop apologizing, you haven't failed me. You never failed me."
Nanami's eyes were still very much sealed, and he seemed to be pulling even further away from you as the memories swirled around in his mind.
"Please, look at me," you pleaded, nuzzling against his face.
After a sigh, he answered, "I… I can't."
And he truly couldn't, still feeling the shame eating away at his chest like a parasite.
You scrambled your mind after something that might help, and finally realized the only thing you could say to pull him back.
Shit.
You were still terrified, and your entire body tensed up.
This is it. Now. I have to tell him now.
According to Nanami, you were brave.
And love, apparently, is something brave people do.
Still cupping his jaw, you sighed before letting the words come out of your mouth.
"Nanami Kento, I love you."
Your voice didn’t falter or stutter. Your declaration smoothly left your lips as naturally as breathing — the same way loving him came to you.
His breath caught halfway out, and he finally opened his eyes, soft and bare, gazing into yours.
"I love you, I have loved you for so long, I…" you repeated, sighing greatly, "I love you."
Nanami opened his mouth, but for a second, nothing — not even a huff of air — would pass. Knotting away in his throat, the words also struggled to form.
Should he? Could he? How deep in trouble would this launch the both of you?
Surpassing his worries, eventually, the words finally came out.
"I love you too."
The guilt and trauma had taken a backseat in his mind, at least for now.
When you heard Nanami’s words — heard him say that he loved you too —, your heart immediately began fluttering, and you could've sworn there was a ringing sound around the both of you.
There wasn't, though, just as much as the honeyed dewy warm rain that prickled over your entire skin was a manifestation of your love ridden excited imagination.
Smiling, you pulled him in for a kiss, and he intently pressed his lips against yours, no exploration left to be done — your tongues, by this point of the night, had met and familiarized themselves with every inch of each other's mouths, breaths, and moans.
Mindlessly, his hands plastered themselves back into your body, and brushed up from your hips, to your waist, over your back all the way to your shoulder blades.
Nanami brought you even closer, and kept kneading his hands against you, almost as if he was trying to touch your entirety all at once.
His fingertips ghosted softly around your scar accidentally again, and your breath hitched for a second. You pulled your mouth from his, just long enough to say, "lay me down."
Nanami understood it, and acquiesced. Swiftly, he supported you from your shoulders and hips, laying you down like a porcelain treasure, and caged you in with one hand to each side of your head.
You both took a few moments to admire each other.
Nanami was a tall and broad man, but from underneath, he seemed even more mountainous. His angular face, his wide shoulders and muscular arms, everything about him was just grand.
In a second, though, interrupting your gazing, his hand pulled a pillow from the top of the bed, and he gently lifted your head to put it underneath.
That was it.
In the end, you knew that his kindness, just as grand as he was, was what stole your heart.
Nanami slowly descended over you, and supported himself with his forearm to the side of your head, using his free hand to part the slightly sweaty hair on your forehead and press a fleeting, soft kiss in between your brows. Your heart skipped a beat, and his mouth came down pecking at your face in the most delicate fashion, until it rested on one of your cheeks.
You guided your hand down and positioned his tip towards your entrance, noticing Nanami shuddering with the sensation of your fingers clasping around him. His hand got down to the side of your hip, and Nanami let out a soft huff as he began to slowly push his length inside. He could feel himself gliding along your slick folds, and scrunched his eyes shut as the tip got past the resistance of your ring, eyelashes brushing over your skin with a feathery lingerance.
To say he was savoring this down to the last infinitesimal tactile sensation would be a gross understatement.
You dragged the tips of your fingers down the muscles of his abdomen, seeing how he deliciously flexed himself inside you, as you savored this in your own way too.
Sinking inch by inch, you could feel all the muscle stretches while his girth accommodated inside your walls, widening and filling you as he slipped in further. Your mouth opened in a muted moan, and with a hazy mind, you turned your face towards his, having the tip of his nose brushing over until your noses bumped against each other.
You captured his lips haphazardly, and Nanami stroked his tongue over your mouth, groaning the moment he bottomed out inside you.
You felt him almost kissing your cervix with the tip of his cock, and your mind was sent spiraling with the shivers that shot up from your lower abdomen to your entire body. It got you fluttering around his shaft, and Nanami's grip on your hip suddenly tightened, as a strained groan fell from his lips.​
It took you a second to realize exactly what was going on.
"I-I… need… a second,” he mustered up to say in a cracked, coarse voice. His length was throbbing strongly inside you, and his expression looked almost pained. You noticed his fist beside your head was strongly clenched around the bedsheet.
Nanami wasn't lying when he said he was very wound up.
You planted a small, loving peck over his cheek and drew your hands to the back of his head, gently brushing your thumbs against his hair until you felt Nanami’s body relaxing, and his pulse inside you evening out to something calmer. He eventually let go of the bedsheet and drew his hand closer, tangling his fingers in your hair.
In an easy, gradual pace, Nanami began dragging his length out from you, and did so completely, pushing back inside the same way, robbing you of a gasp the moment he bottomed out again. His hips began in a steady, calm rhythm, and from your mouth, came out what he could only say were the best sounds he had ever heard.
“Fuck-- y-you feel… so good…” you purred for him, sending pleasured shivers all over his body. You were both completely covered in sweat right now, and your bodies slapped against each other, sounds only covered by your begging whimpers.
However, as good as it was, you needed more. Greedily, you felt the increasing need of being completely taken apart, and this slow love making was not doing it for you.
“Harder…” you pleaded, and Nanami picked up the pace as soon as he heard you, thrusts becoming more intense. It was better, no doubt about it, but you still wanted more.
Your hungry desire had become something indescribable, and all you could do was mumble softly in between mewls, pleading him to go even harder.
Nanami was also feeling himself grow more and more intent on satisfying your pleas, and realized this might not be the best position to do so. 
He stopped for a second, and you muttered in complaint.
However, your disquiet was short-lived, as he propped himself up, manhandling your hips to accompany him and pulled one of your legs straight, letting your ankle rest on his shoulder, supporting your leg with his arm's length and hand cupping your ass. Your other leg kept hooked around him, and this shift sent his cock even deeper.
“Harder?” Nanami asked, almost as a dare, with his disheveled hair falling over his forehead, a few golden strands tangling with sweat. There was something remotely playful in his eyes, and it sent your heart pounding inside your chest to see him in a way you had never seen before.
Oh, how you coveted to freeze this moment in time.
In answer to his question, you nodded, half-lidded eyes and an anticipation smile, only to be surprised with a thumb making its way to your bottom lip, softly asking its way in.
You obliged, and put your lips around it, sucking on his thumb, basking in the view of this boulder of a man completely shuddering to the sight and sensation of that.
Nanami pulled his hand back, resting his digit over your clit.
“Hold on to something, darling” he warned, having a cheeky smile pulling on his face. 
In sweet anticipation, you pressed your hands against the wall on which the bed rested, and locked eyes with Nanami, just to see him admiring you for a moment before he made a complete mess out of you.
In a sharp motion, he thrust his cock into you so intensely his tip bumped fully against your cervix, trembling the bed on its foundations. Your head launched on the pillow, your mouth falling open to let out the loudest moan — if that sound even be called a moan — you had ever uttered in your entire life.
Not sparing you a moment to recover, he retreated and plunged again and again inside your cunt, sending wet plap sounds bouncing over the walls. Nanami began rutting into you, kissing you deeper and deeper with every thrust, and you were nearly yelling from the pleasurable pain with which he had you finally crumbling down.
“Fuck,” he let out, “is this-- hah- hard enough--?” Nanami asked half in jest, knowing full well he didn’t need an answer. The way your back began arching so deliciously as you yelled and mumbled incoherently was enough of a response.
Every time he’d thrust, your body would tense up, and your walls would suck him in. It was sending his mind into a wild spiral.
Nanami was mesmerized by your face, and had the faintest feeling that he might cum from it alone. You looked and sounded like you were having the most delicious, toe-curling, gut-wrenching, blissful-stupor inducing sex of your life.
And well, up until at that moment, you actually were.
Dear God, he could die right now, and he’d die the happiest man alive.
You were having shock waves of stupor-filled pleasure shooting through your body, and Nanami began circling his thumb over your throbbing, sensitive clit. Oh boy, did he have you seeing the entire Milky Way in a split second behind your eyelids. Your mind distantly registered the noise of dragging wood and your fingers starting to struggle reaching support behind your head.
Is the bed pushing away from the wall? Are we literally rocking the bed? Holy shit.
A heat you rarely felt began to burn like incandescent molten lava in your belly, and you looked at him wide eyed, holding out onto some kind of desperation.
Nanami barely registered that you were looking at him like that when he felt the warm spurts, getting his entire crotch completely greased. You squirted so intensely that for a second you felt like you actually fell unconscious, before coming back to the second wave — the continuum of earth-shattering, convulsing orgasms that always followed it.
He wasn’t ready to have you squirt all over his cock so fervently, letting out the most heavenly, luscious, indecent and pornographic sounds he had ever heard.
He could never be prepared for that.
The sheer scent alone sent shivers throughout his entire body. Your scent was completely smeared over him, slowly dripping down his thighs.
With your walls tightening around his cock, his own peak took him by surprise, as much as he had tried to hold it away. The most animalistic and ferocious groan came out of his mouth as thick strands of white cum filled up the condom. Nanami's entire body jerked, making it incredibly difficult to keep pumping himself into you without risking pulling out too much by mistake, so he just let the convulsing waves finish washing down his body before collapsing on the bed by your side.
You both took a moment to breathe, then two, then three, still panting like you had just run a marathon.
Hell, you were probably panting even harder than that.
"I'm… I’m s-sorry about… the mess," you apologized, huffing and puffing, face blushing as you rolled your eyes back, still recovering from the aftershock.
Nanami instantly turned your face to his, mouth agape and gaze locked onto your lips, as he, without uttering a word, thrust his tongue inside your mouth in an open-mouthed, wet, sloppy kiss. All while still panting heavily.
Pulling back, you smiled, asking, “nothing to apologize for?”
He huffed, smiling back at you, “nothing.” 
You both felt like you'd have the best night of sleep of your lives.
Nanami would not, however, as the thoughts he shoved away to the back of his mind earlier that night were about to take him into unwanted nightmares.
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End notes:
I can’t reread this again. I just can’t. Hope I got all the typos out, lol. Old version of this fic is here. When I read it a few weeks ago, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t quite like it, so I decided to give it a go on rewriting it. Three rewrites later, here it is, hope you guys enjoyed it.
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Tag list (for this fic + current AU tags):
@jadedjane @senseifupa @nikos-a-clown @fairy-corno @ldrcvlt
@magical-girl-b @montyrokz @hexrts-anatomy @g-kleran @otomesass
@redlikerozez @yammy-yammy-yama
352 notes · View notes
gffa · 3 months
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Usually, I like to finish reading a fic before recommending it properly, but I've been sucked into about five different STAR WARS fics recently that I've gotten far enough into that I'm willing to trust my heart to them because they're scratching a very specific itch for me--namely, that I want deeper explorations of both the Jedi Order and of Anakin's character. I want fic to punch me in the feelings over both of these aspects of the story. I want fic to sometimes set Obi-Wan and Anakin aside and focus on Ahsoka for awhile, really tell her story. I want Jedi themes woven into a story. I want an exploration of Anakin's mindset that reminds me of just how much I love him and have sympathy for him. And fandom has delivered for me.
DO YOU WANT FIC TO BLACK OUT TO AND LOSE AN ENTIRE WEEKEND OVER? HAVE I GOT SOME RECS FOR YOU:
✦ Out with Lanterns by SkyeBean, ahsoka & mace & jedi & clones & cast, 312.5k     In another universe, Jedi Masters Plo Koon and Depa Billaba decide a Padawan could do Mace some good. It takes a while, but he eventually agrees. When he takes Ahsoka Tano as his Padawan, Mace knows that he's broken through a Shatterpoint and changed the course of a life. How, he doesn't know.     This fic accomplishes several things that have sent me over the moon: 1) At its heart, it's an Ahsoka fic that shows her growing up as a Padawan, going on missions, learning lessons, and having character growth. 2) It weaves in so many other characters around her, that Mace is there in almost every chapter, serious but warm in the Force, just as beautifully characterized as she is. 3) The other Jedi get their moments of excellents, Shaak taking Ahsoka on her Akul hunt was wonder to read, seeing Obi-Wan show up for a chapter had me over the moon, Adi taking care with Ahsoka was lovely, Depa was a shining star when she took Ahsoka under her wing, Fox growing used to these strange Jedi and growing into himself through Ahsoka's eyes was wonderful. 4) The writing is that kind of solid that I don't mean as mid-tier, but the kind that I feel like can bear weight on it, I can pick it up and read for 30k and barely realize any time has passed, despite that I've gotten through an entire arc of the fic. 5) It does an incredible job of balancing that feel of The Clone Wars show, without directly copying anything, that it's like these are arcs that I could have seen on the show itself, the lessons woven in, but still with enough plot moving forward and action to make it exciting. If you want more Jedi-centric fic in your life (where they don't have to be perfect! sometimes they can be less than perfect and it's okay because they're still good! ohhhh, my heart warmed at that) or you want to read a lovely Ahsoka-centric fic in a different life, but still so recognizably herself, then this is one I want to shove right in your face immediately.
✦ Take it from the top and try again by mauvera, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & padme & mace & dooku & cast, time travel, 116.k wip     Five years into his self imposed exile on Tattooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi is gifted the chance to go back and bring hope back to the galaxy. With hindsight on his side, he fully intends to save his master, save his padawan, make some new and old friends again, prepare the Jedi for a war they’ll hopefully never see and begin to pull apart all the many tangled threads of the Sith Lord’s plans. Should be relatively easy. Right?     I got sucked into the first fic in this series (which is complete, if you want to read it--it's not the end of the story, but it's a good stopping point and feels like it should have some solid resolution if you don't want to get into a wip) and read the first fic over the course of about three days because I was sucked in so thoroughly. I can never get enough of Obi-Wan time traveling back to the past, where he loves the Jedi and they love him, and I love this one because he has to make genuine plans for changing things--things change and I have no idea how that's going to affect Palpatine's machinations! Exciting! But it's also a lovely look at Obi-Wan's dynamics with multiple characters--I found the Obi-Wan & Padme scenes a hightlight personally, their friendship really blossomed as they both flung themselves into trying to better the galaxy, even if she doesn't know he's from the future, that he's working so hard matched a lot of her energy and I really enjoyed that--from Qui-Gon to Mace to Padme to Anakin and, as the sequel progresses, Dooku as well. It's another Jedi-positive fic, it has me invested in the plot, it's a joy to see competent!Obi-Wan, and I would love to shove it at more people.
✦ Post Order 66 Exile AU by Livsy, obi-wan & anakin, 46k (wip-esque)     After a failed order 66, in which many Jedi still died but the Sith were defeated, an exiled warrior and a boy wander a distant planet and attempt to get along.     This is probably the shortest fic on this list but I'm including it because it genuinely felt longer than that, for how dense the emotional intensity of it is. It's an AU where the Jedi barely eked out a victory, still on the edge of extinction in many ways, and Anakin deep in the pits of the dark side, so Obi-Wan takes him to a backwater planet in exile for the both of them, traveling through the countryside and just trying to make it from day to day. What punched me right in the feelings place is that this fic doesn't shy away from the hurt and the anger on both sides, that both of them are allowed to be unreliable narrators that have their own points of view on what's transpired and what lays between them. It doesn't back away from the hurt they both feel, the despair they both feel, yet there's hope here. It's ultimately a story about clawing yourself back from the dark side, and it's beautifully characterized for both of them, that unkind things are said on both of their parts, but you understand why the characters are in the place they are. It's wrapped up in a lushly written backdrop, with some lovely Japanese feudal era details woven in, but also with a Star Wars patina spread across all of it. It's not necessarily a kind fic, but if you like fic that bites down on a wound, I enjoyed this series a lot and would love to see it continued--but, honestly, what's here is already enough resolution that, looking back on it after the initial "Noooooo, I need more!" feeling has faded, I'm actually very satisfied with. ✦ Men of Power by AlabasterInk, obi-wan & anakin & mace & yoda & jedi & palpatine & cast, 86.1k wip     When an old powerful man suddenly comes in and sweeps your underage Padawan away without so much as a by your leave, that’s the time to start asking questions.     I'm only about 20k into this fic, so I can't say what shape it will take later on or how much pairings might come into it, but I still had to come running over to shove this fic at people, because it's scratching the itch I have for Jedi-positive fic that explores the idea of Anakin's trauma from his childhood as a slave, that this is a child who is wound so tight and comes from such a horrible thing having been done to him, having been owned as a person, that I understand why he stays silent on some of the things I desperately wish he could talk about or he doesn't really believe some of the things the Jedi tell him. It's a fic that takes a lot more care with Anakin's character than I think canon ever intended, weaving in a lot of the heartbreaking stuff from Legends' supplementing the canon, and is creating something that punches me right in the feelings place for him, that he's such a bright, brilliant boy, but I see why he struggled and it's not about assigning blame in any direction. It's about deeply caring people who fate has take a few steps to the left and something shifts just a little--and I appreciate that there's something very delicate feeling here, that the Jedi just don't have any real reason to be suspicious of Palpatine, his actions make sense, they genuinely can't feel any ill intention from him in the Force, they discuss why it would make sense that he'd want to support Anakin, all while we the readers can see, in hindsight, where the shadows have been creeping in. If you want Jedi-positive fic that also leaves some teeth marks over Anakin's trauma being explored in a way that is entirely sympathetic to him, then I want to shove this fic at you, too.
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nibbelraz · 3 months
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SQH + An Ding Idea
-An Ding runs similar to a sort of college campus, everyone writes about An Ding basically doing everything for the whole peak.
(Architecture, Accounting, Business, Operations, Textiles, etc. etc.)
There's no way every disciple can learn all of the things An Ding does, and be able to perform them to a high quality.
So, perhaps SQH is the one who starts it because he realizes how kind of fucked the An Ding mechanics are. (Or system helped out, or possibly SQH god powers because that little guy is real busy and instituting all of these plans would take a whole long time)
But An Ding ends up running like some sort of campus, with a bunch of disciples specializing in different areas. Younger disciples take all of the essential classes, and then pick one or multiple areas of study/specialization. And they get real good at them, because specialization and not covering a million jobs at once means quality goes up. And I think SQH would just take in kids at the masses, just gathering up pretty much any kid with no place to go even if they have no real cultivation potential. Because running An Ding means they need a large number of disciples. He has a recruiting system or something, so there's a little girl in the street who fashioned her rags into a slightly cuter skirt. And an An Ding person is like 'hey, you like fashion? Textiles? You can do that for as long as you want if you join An Ding.' room, board, safety all for people who enjoy these sorts of trades to be able to specialize them and produce all the things the sects need. Street kids who are good with numbers or good with carpentry get taken into An Ding, no cultivation potential needed just kids who have passions but no way to enjoy them in their current situations.
This would also mean so much less outsourcing for the peak, much easier to work in house if it can be set up correctly.
Do the An Ding kids still get pushed around and shit on by other peaks, yeah for sure none of those peaks ever appreciate all the work An Ding does. But these kids are fine anyways because as soon as they get back on An Ding their solid, their doing what they enjoy and what they're good at. Who cares if some buff bai zhan kid teases them for being An Ding, they get to go to woodshop after this and the hall master is teaching embellishments and decor carving!
(one of the req. Classes would be a year long 'how to deal with Bai Zhan' training)
OH MAN OHHHH MAN I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCH??? OHHHHH THIS IS GOOD YES YES A THOUSAND PERCENT
Qinghua running the peak that has each category to specialize in is great. They handle literally everything for course they need more man power and of COURSE THEY NEED PEOPLE TO LEARN SOME THINGS THAT ARE VERY SPECIFIC INSTEAD OF A THOUSAND THINGS AT ONCE ohhh OH I love the does that he takes in just anyone
I wonder if he takes in whoever doesn't make it from the other peaks. "Trust me you don't want to be at Bai Zhan peak. You actually get to do what you like here" also I feel like there has to be a group that does the heavy lifting from all the stuff they get so there IS a group that are ready to fight anyone who picks on the other An Ding kids
This means An Ding must have the most disciples of course its HUGE, imagine if he doesn't tell the other peak lords
He's just like "fuck it what are they going to do? Tell me I can't when efficiency has SKYROCKETED AFTER MY SYSTEM!"
Yes YES i would read a fic with this premise so FAST I absolutely love this idea
Wonder what the whole "campus" of kids think when Mobei Jun starts popping in randomly
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butdaddyilovehim-hs · 8 months
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✨My Masterlist ✨
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This is my official masterlist!! Thank you so much for reading my stories and I hope you enjoy them! Just a few things:
Requests are always open, send me any prompts you would like! I only write for Harry at the moment so if you are sending requests it's a good thing to note :)
I take requests for basically any trope or au so send them through!
Feel free to dm me if you would like to join my main tag list or if you would like to join a tag ist for a specific fic
All smut will be updated with a mature label as per tumblr's requirements. Update your settings so you don't miss out! Here is a link to @ gurugirl's lovely post with instructions on how to update them!
Everything is ordered from oldest and this masterlist will have warnings as well as a summary for each work
Reblogs, likes and comments are always appreciated!! I always love to hear what you think of my writing!
Happy Reading! x
Series:
The Years Between US (incomplete)
age gap, smut, angst, fluff
Synopsis and Character List
Part I
Mini Series:
The Divorce (incomplete)
the one where Y/N takes on her first high profile case as an assistant at a law firm. Her first client? Harry Styles.
smut, angst, fluff and a Harry who is delightfully insufferable :)
Part I
Part II
Part III
Tolerate It (complete)
the one where Harry is a workaholic and Y/N doesn't know how long she can take it anymore.
angst, taylor swift inspired and a Harry who needs to get his head on straight
Part I
Part II
Part III
Obsession (incomplete)
the one where Y/N meets her brother's girlfriends family for the first time and takes a specific interest in a certain older Mr Styles
Part I
Stars Around My Scars (incomplete)
the one where Y/N is throwing Niall a surprise birthday party and she bumps into Harry Styles on the street while buying candles
Part I
Mr and Mrs Styles (upcoming)
the one where Y/N and Harry are assassins for rival companies and they're trying to take each other down. oh and they're married.
Mr and Mrs Smith AU
A Delicate Point of View (upcoming)
the one where recently widowed Mr Styles is looking for a nanny and Y/N just recently happens to be jobless
Sound of Music AU
One Shots:
The Wedding
the one where Y/N is stressed planning for their wedding and Harry can't seem to do anything right
Rainbows and Hospital Rooms
the one where Harry is a grumpy doctor, Y/N is his intern and she's late on her first day
Kissy?
the one where Harry simply cannot keep his lips off Y/N
Enough For You
the one where Harry kisses EmRata in Tokyo and Y/N finds out on Twitter
Spells of Fate
the one where Y/N keeps feeling dizzy and Harry is ever the protective boyfriend
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effortandmore · 2 years
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you, after all | knj x reader (18+)
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summary: your break up hadn't been angry or contentious. he wanted to go, you never asked him to stay. it was simple, really. but when namjoon shows back up after three years, things don't seem so simple anymore
pairing: namjoon x f!reader
rating: explicit (18+ please)
genre: exes to lovers, smut, fluff (because of who i am as a person)
warnings: smut, a little swearing, here are the specific smut tags: kissing, penetrative sex, oral sex (f receiving), fingering, maybe a whisper of a hand job, namjoon has a big dick (i had to)... it's really pretty soft—they're just in love without saying so
word count: 6.8k
a/n: i haven't been able to write the things i need to write (sorry jin and yoongi), so here i am with some namjoon fluff & smut. thank you, as always, to @ugh-yoongi who is helpful and kind with reading these things. apologies for the banner quality; idk how to make it look nice on tumblr. this is posted to ao3 here if you like to read fics there.
There’s this thing about awkward silences—they’re not inherently awkward because of the absence of sound, they’re awkward precisely because you become acutely aware of every little sound around you that isn’t the one you were expecting or wanting to hear. 
The tap of his heel against the floor, muted by the thin cork flooring and then enhanced again by the way the fabric of his jeans whooshes when he jiggles his knee. The almost white-noise din of the other conversations around you, loud enough that you can pick out words but not meaning. The tinkling of silverware and chopsticks on ceramic and glass as people (including you) swallow things they think to say down with some glass noodles or spoonfuls of soup. 
No, you decide. Awkward silences are anything but quiet, they’re terrifyingly fucking loud. 
“So…” you finally start, “are you going to tell me what you’re actually doing here?” 
Namjoon looks up from his food at you as you speak, his eyes wide like they get when he’s been startled out of some (probably depressing) train of thought, eyebrows raised in crescents that sit like shadows above the rim of his glasses. Noodles trail out of his lips and hang there, resting on his chopsticks, waiting for him to act. 
It’s a perfect visual representation of the pause you feel in your whole body waiting for him to respond. Maybe somehow you are like a noodle, you think. 
You try not to laugh at the thought because you know it will send him back into some sort of overthinking spiral of dismal self-worth. You know he’ll think you’re laughing at him. Sometimes, back then, you were. But not usually.
(And he’s not the only one prone to existential crises. 
Perhaps that’s why you two had always gotten on so well. You’ve had plenty of time to think about how the two of you started and stopped, and being aligned in this sort of… well, thoughtfulness is maybe a generous way to put it… being alike in that way a little bit probably drew you together as much as it split you apart. One overthinker is enough for any relationship. Two is… two is probably one too many). 
With a slurp, he sits up and sets his chopsticks down. He’s still regarding you, his eyes haven’t left your face, you’re pretty sure. But now, it’s with the careful consideration he’s known amongst your friends for, not the surprise you clocked on him a moment prior. 
He’s still fidgeting. You can feel the vibrations of his legs when they brush the underside of the table because he’s too tall to keep his limbs to himself and too polite to stretch them out in a violation (would it really be? You’re not sure) of your space. For a moment, you think it’s out of character, and then you start to recall every difficult conversation you’ve ever had with this man in front of you. The way he would twist up his face into a scowl almost involuntarily, the pulling on his hair, the crumpling up of whatever paper was in reach, the peeling of countless labels off of beer bottles… No, you decide, the fidgeting is perfectly in sync with what you know of Kim Namjoon when he thinks he’s going to say something someone doesn’t want to hear (and also when someone’s telling him something he doesn’t). 
If you didn’t know him as well, you’d think he was stalling. Or unsure of himself. And he might be those things to some degree, but this version of him, you’re sure, is trying to figure out how to say what he wants to say in a way that you’ll accept. 
The problem is, you’ve been broken up for almost three years. You’re not sure what he could say that would even affect you like that any more. 
So, this is all a little frightening, this awkward loud silence between the two of you. 
You point the blunt end of a chopstick at him. “Joon, just spit it out. We haven’t seen each other in ages, I don’t want to waste this watching you think.” 
At that, he grins, and at least some of what you loved about him rears its head. He’s gorgeous when he’s happy—it’s contagious, too. His dimples appear, his cheeks push up into his eyes and his lips spread so wide they almost cover the span of his face. He’s really, truly beautiful like this, and when you see it now for a split second, you’re reminded of how much you used to love making him smile, how much pride you took in being the one who could almost always make him laugh. 
“Sorry,” he mutters as his grin turns from bright to sheepish. “You know how I can be.” 
That, you certainly do. 
“Well, you said you wanted to catch up, and we’ve done that, so now are you gonna tell me what you’re doing back here?” 
“I’ve been thinking,” he says, eyes dropping down to his bowl.
“Uh-oh.” You mean it to tease, not to be cruel, but his face falls a little anyway. You suppose it’s two sides of the same coin—being able to make him laugh and having enough influence to disappoint him with your words… they’re essentially the same thing and you know it. “Sorry,” you add, tapping his foot under the table with yours. “I was just teasing… Trying to make this less weird, I guess.” 
“It was never weird with us, was it?” He’s asking you, for what you’re not sure. Reassurance? Absolution? 
“No,” you reply softly. “It was a lot of things with us, but it was never weird.” 
And it wasn’t. Not when you fought about stupid shit late-night in the kitchen of your crappy apartment. Not when he took off to the city to do “big things” after uni and you just sort of… let him go. Not when your friends “didn’t take sides” but took careful measures to not invite you to the same parties, and not when he called you earlier today, totally out of the blue, telling you he was around and he wanted to see you. 
In order, it was frustrating, disappointing, lonely, and surprising, but none of it was weird. Not weird standing in his empty living room, leaning against a stack of his moving boxes and watching him pack the last of his belongings into a duffel. Not weird to wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer to you as he fucked you into the mattress that last night before he left, whispering that he loved you and needed you. Not weird after, when you spilled tears on his chest and told him you were scared for what life would be like without him while he ran fingertips up and down your spine and reassured you that no matter what, you were going to have an incredible life. 
It wasn’t weird when the next morning, he promised you’d always be friends. 
It wasn’t weird when you both eventually stopped texting. 
It wasn’t weird when he never came back. 
But now he’s here, sitting in front of you in the same grungy noodle shop you used to have your cheap college date nights at, and things are absolutely, inarguably weird. 
Namjoon’s staring at you, still hasn’t answered your question, when the server comes with your check. He snags it before you can argue and gives you a distracted sort-of-grin when he gets up to find the cashier. 
Everything about this is so familiar and different at the same time. In your past life with Namjoon, he’d never just leave the table to pay with noodles left in his bowl, he’d never forget his manners and ignore asking whether or not you were ready to go. But him getting distracted by his own thoughts is on brand… So is the way he knocks over the cashier’s pencil cup when he tries to return the pen he used to sign the receipt. The most familiar thing is the glance he throws your way when he does it, rolling his eyes affectionately when he sees you stifling a laugh. 
It makes your stomach tumble. 
There isn’t a discussion when you leave the noodle shop, thank god. No asking if it’s okay if he walks with you, no awkward first date bullshit. Which of course there isn’t, you remind your nervous system, because this isn’t a date and it’s not a first anything really. First time you’ve seen him in a while maybe, but even that feeling’s been fading since you saw him through the window of the restaurant, sitting alone (waiting for you with his knee bouncing) at your usual table a couple hours prior. 
“Why do you think we call it a pencil cup?” he asks quietly. You can barely hear him over the car that happens to pass as he speaks. 
“Huh?” 
“We always call it a pencil cup, but everyone keeps pens in them, you know?” 
You smile softly in spite of yourself. “I don’t know, Joon-ah.” It’s a nickname you haven’t used or thought of in a long time. It feels too affectionate for what you are to each other now (you feel a little too affectionate toward him for what you are now, so you suppose it fits), but he doesn’t seem to notice, leaving you thankful for the universe’s small favors. “Humans are quirky. Language is worse,” you finish. 
He hums in response. “You’re right. You’re always right,” he agrees. 
Suddenly he stills, footsteps halting as he grabs your hand. The surprise you feel absolutely accounts (you hope) for the stupid swoop of your stomach; not the first one you’ve felt since the sun went down. “Can we?” he says, tugging on your hand like a ridiculously strong kid. 
It takes a second for you to realize what he means, but when you do, you readily agree. “Of course we can.” You move first, pulling him behind you, and it’s not lost on you when you look over your shoulder that he looks happier than you think you’ve seen him maybe ever, and that you’re still holding hands. 
You hop up onto the metal platform, letting him go, and he grabs one of the bars and starts to pull it behind him as he jogs. Your world literally spins. Arms out, you tilt your head back and puff out a long breath. It’s cold enough that you can see the smoky trail of it float above you, tendrils of steam looking like they’re curling around the stars. 
With a thud, Namjoon lands across from you on the merry-go-round, sitting to face you, legs sprawled out in front of him. You sit, too, and the metal wheel spins a little more slowly with each revolution until it’s barely moving millimeters, all of the momentum from Namjoon’s effort petering out. 
It’s weird, you think, that staring at him across from you, it still feels like the ground is moving. 
“I left.” He breaks the silence with a simple statement and you’re not sure what he expects you to say in return, so you just nod. “But I don’t know why you let me.” 
He doesn’t look at you when he says the last part, his head tilts off to the side and he leans it against one of the cold, metal railings. If he was anyone else, you’d think he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. But you know him, and you know he rarely says things he doesn’t mean. 
The first response in your chest feels like anger. He left you after all. He walked away. Of course you let him, what the fuck else were you supposed to do? Beg him to stay? You were basically kids. You still are. He had opportunities, you had a sick mom… it wouldn’t have been fair to ask him to stay. 
And then there was this: the insecure part of you didn’t want to give him the opportunity to tell you he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. That you weren’t worth it. 
Maybe you should have taken that chance. You’ve learned a lot since then. Grown up and gotten more confident, surely. Made new friends, had other partners. “Lovers,” as Taehyung likes to call them (just to see you roll your eyes at him in response). 
He keeps talking before you can let the angry thoughts have a voice. “I love being here,” he says softly, still not looking at you. “I love how you can see the stars, I love that the air smells better. I love the sea and the way it makes you feel small…” he sighs before he continues, “but I’ve been back for a week and I didn’t love any of it as much as I love this right now.” His voice gets quieter with each word. You barely hear him tack on, “with you.” You might even be imagining it, he’s that quiet. 
It almost makes you sick to not know what he’s getting at, to wish he would just be straight with you. All of this nostalgia… what amounts to a recreation of all your college dates… It’s just so much. 
“Are you pregnant?” 
“What?” Namjoon’s eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his skull. 
You let yourself laugh when you respond. “I don’t know! This just feels like the lead up to something big, you know? You’re pregnant, you have cancer, you’re moving to another country…” You trail off and then sit up straight, letting yourself get a little more serious. “What’s all this about? It feels like you have big news or… to be honest, it kind of feels like a date, Joon-ah.” 
“Feels like a date good or feels like a date bad?” he asks. 
“Feels like a date confusing,” you answer pointedly. “I don’t even know what you’re doing in town.” 
“Can I walk you home?” 
“That’s not an answer.” 
He stands then, and reaches a hand out to you to help you up. You let him even though you don’t need it, and he pulls you into a hug. Tight against his chest, things feel a little less confusing and this seaside town feels a little more like home than it has in a really long time. It’s distressing how right it feels to be close to him like this, how he smells just like he always has, how soft his stupid sweater is under your cheek. You do everything you can not to nuzzle against him in a complete violation of any boundaries that both of you might have. It’s all you want to do though, and that’s disconcerting in and of itself.
“Yeah,” you mumble into his collar. “You can walk me home.” 
You give him some grace as you walk, not repeating yourself for the millionth time with your request to know just exactly what he thinks he’s doing crashing back into your life with a half day’s notice. Then it occurs to you that he’s leading you home, which is fine except… you’re not sure how he seems to know where you live. 
“Joon? How do you know where we’re going?”
“Huh?” He gives you a distracted glance like he didn’t quite intake your question.
“My apartment, how do you know where it is?”
“Oh…” His cheeks flush the prettiest rose color. “Ah… you were at that art show in the city a few nights ago, right when I got to town, and Tae invited everyone over. We’d been drinking and the bar was closing and he said you wouldn’t be there…” He gives you a pained sort of smile. “He said you wouldn’t mind. Said you’d be staying with friends.” 
The idea that your ex was in your apartment without you knowing it is… well, it should be infuriating. But it’s not. It’s more like you want to know what he thought, if he liked it. If it felt like the you that he knew or a new version of you. If it felt familiar and different at the same time the way he does to you right now. 
“So… you’ve been in our apartment then…” It’s not a question, but Namjoon answers anyway, rushing the words out. 
“No! No.” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t do it. We got there and I… It felt like sneaking around and I couldn’t do that to you. I went back to Hoseok’s and crashed on his couch.” 
“Oh… okay.” You can’t figure out why you’re almost disappointed. “You can see it now. If you want. If that’s something you’d be interested in, you know…” The words spill out in a rambly jumble. 
Namjoon stops to consider you, head tilted like he’s trying to listen to words you’re not saying. He must find whatever he’s looking for, because he responds quickly. “Yeah, okay. I’d like that.” 
“Okay.” You nod but don’t move. 
“This is it, right?” 
And it is, indeed. You’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of your own building, too distracted by whatever this thing is with the two of you to notice where you are. 
“Yeah, yeah. Come on up.” You punch the door code in and hold the door for him, bowing a little and giving an exaggerated gesture for him to enter to lighten the mood. 
Taehyung, the world's most interesting roommate, is working an overnight shift, so you know he’s not home, but you pray he hasn’t left anything strange out in the living room. You’ve walked into your apartment to find it perfectly spotless except for a trumpet and a dildo sitting side-by-side on the coffee table before, and though you’ve never really discussed it for obvious reasons, you’re fairly confident it won’t happen again. But not one hundred percent. 
“Tae’s working tonight,” you explain for some unknown reason as you unlock your door. It’s not like Namjoon is some third date here to fuck you for the first time, so it doesn’t matter if Tae’s there or not and he probably knows your roommate (his friend, too) is working, anyway. 
“I heard,” he mumbles behind you. 
To your extraordinary relief, nothing odd or personal is strewn around the living room or the kitchen, so you say a silent prayer of gratitude and slide your shoes off, motioning for Namjoon to do the same. 
“This is it,” you say, in your most uncreative moment of the night. “It’s nicer than the last place you saw me living,” you joke. It is, though. Much nicer. Having Tae to split the costs helps, and your art has actually been selling for the past couple of years, so that’s afforded you a little more than the old studio with a leaky shower and what was probably mold around the windows. 
“Mmm,” he murmurs as he looks around the open space. “It was nice ‘cos it was yours. It felt like you. But this does, too.”
“Water?” you offer. 
“Sure, thanks.” 
You fill up two glasses from the pitcher in the fridge and pad back into the living room where Namjoon is looking at the art on one of your walls. It’s a combination of your paintings and Tae’s photographs that the two of you thought complemented one another. 
“Your art.” 
“Yes…?”
“No…” Joon shakes his head and sets his water down on your coffee table. “Your art. It’s why I came back. That's why I’m here.” 
“Oh,” you squeak. It’s not what you expected—you didn’t expect an answer to your question, and even if you’d hypothetically received one, ‘your art’ wasn’t what you’d thought it would be. “I don’t think I understand. You want to buy one or something? You can just have a painting, Joon-ah... Friends and family discount. You didn’t have to come here for that.” 
He frowns and shakes his head again before he carefully takes your water glass and sets it on the table next to his. Then he reaches for your hand, and when you offer it to him, he guides you to your own sofa to sit. 
This time, sitting too close like you were in the noodle shop, you’re the one who’s nervous. Something’s up with him, and you’re not connecting the dots. 
“I saw your show. The solo one. Congratulations,” he says. His smile is warm like his hand that’s still wrapped around yours and it feels like you could maybe let your nerves settle a little bit. 
“Thanks. It was a lot of work, but worth it. I’m still a little surprised at how well it was received.” 
“I’m not.” He says it with conviction, and you love it. The hint of praise laced with his belief in you has always been a driver of your confidence; you don’t love that you need the external validation, but it’s nice, regardless.
“It reminded me of home,” he continues. “Made me sick for it. Like I couldn’t stand to be away from it for another minute. So, I told my work I needed some time off, and I came home.” 
“Oh… Okay. Well, I’m glad you felt something… I hope being home has been what you wanted.” 
“You don’t get it,” he says, frustrated. “I haven’t been home, not really. Not until tonight.” 
“Joon-ah…” 
“Please? Can I get this out?” 
And there are so many things to feel, you’re not even sure where to begin, so you just listen. It’s not easy to ignore the feeling of being on edge, the idea that you think you know where he’s headed with this. Since you’ve never even let yourself consider it (you’ve really not let yourself think about him much since he left. Certainly not recently), you have no idea what to think. So you focus on him instead; the tendons that run from his hands up his forearms that you used to love to trace with your fingertips, the way he’s filled out some since you last saw him—his chest and shoulders are broader, his jeans hug his thighs tighter than you remember… He looks good. Great, even. Everything you remember but a little bit more. Like he’s become the person he was always meant to be.
“I’ve dated a lot of people since I left,” he starts. And maybe this isn’t going where you thought it was. You scoff involuntarily, and he rolls his eyes at you. “Can you just listen to me?” he asks. 
You nod. “Sorry.” 
“Not at first. I missed you. I couldn’t figure out why you never… I don’t know… Tried to talk me out of it, never asked me to stay. I thought it meant that maybe you didn’t love me the way I loved you. After a while, a few months maybe, Yoongi told me I was depressing to be around, that I should try and make friends, meet people. He reminded me that I was the one who left, not you. And he was right.”
“I remember,” you say. It comes out a little harsher than you’d intended, but maybe not ever letting yourself think too much about him (especially about him leaving) has left you with some unresolved feelings you weren’t totally aware of. Namjoon’s jaw tightens, but other than that, he doesn’t react. Maybe he knows he deserves you being a little upset. Things ended oddly fine between the two of you, it was amicable, but if you’d let yourself feel everything back then, it might not have been that way. 
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice softer now. “I needed to go, though. You know I did.” He looks at you, waiting for you to give him some reassurance you think, so you squeeze his hand. 
“Yeah, you did, Joon-ah. It’s okay.” 
His fingertips trace patterns across your wrist and you can almost feel his body get looser when you give the small peace offering. “So,” he says, “I tried. I met people, I dated people, I moved to new apartments with new roommates to new parts of the city. I tried to get that feeling back. Not to… I don’t know. Not to replace you, but to feel like I was home. But nothing worked. Nobody worked. And then I saw your show.” 
“Oh…” It’s not much, but it’s the only thing you can think to say as he pulls you closer to him on the couch and runs a thumb across your cheekbone. It’s so much, it’s such a private thing for him to touch you like you're something breakable. Like you’re his, still. It’s making you short-circuit. 
“Home,” he says in a whisper. “I needed to come home.” 
“Home.” You repeat it like he’s taken all the words you used to know and pulled them out of your head to scatter on the floor in a mess. 
His lips are on yours before you have time to process, and you hear a whimper that you quickly realize must have come from your own throat as he kisses you more tentatively than you ever remember him kissing you before. You know this is him testing the waters, giving you time to decide if you want this—sort of—and maybe this is a one-night nostalgia thing for him, or maybe this is what forgiveness tastes like, and maybe it’s a terrible idea, but Namjoon’s lips on yours feel like home to you, too, and you don’t want to talk yourself out of something that feels so fucking right. You didn’t even let yourself remember that you missed him until now, and your chest aches with something like longing even though he’s here, he’s real, he’s kissing you. 
Kiss back, you remember suddenly. So you do. A slightly shaking hand moves to his thigh as you let him slip his tongue between your lips and lick into your mouth slowly. He’s firmer than you remember when you squeeze over his jeans and tilt your head to give him a little bit better access. The kiss, which started out so sweet, soon turns into something else entirely, and before you know it, you’re out of breath and letting out another whine when his hand drops from your cheek to around your waist and he tugs you even closer to him. You can feel him smile against your mouth when you pause to breathe.  
“Is this okay?” he asks, cheeks flushed, dimples out, and hair mussed. He looks like a dream. 
He looks like he’s yours again, and you want to let yourself have this, even if it’s temporary. 
“Yeah.” You nod too furiously to even look remotely cool or in control of the situation, and he laughs. It’s not like he looks much better off with his swollen lips and the stars in his eyes. “Bedroom.” You’re up and pulling him up with you before he can argue, practically dragging him behind you past Tae’s room and the bathroom to yours at the end of the hall. 
You move into your room and barely get the door closed before you’re being pushed back up against it, Namjoon moving his mouth down your neck, over your pulse point– all his attention focused on seeing what might make you shiver and whine. So much hasn’t changed. 
It’s odd, you think, as he finds the perfect spot, to have to learn this all over with someone. Does he remember all your places and all the things you like? Will he still be patient like he used to be, content to watch you get worked up because of his touch before he lets you focus on him? Will he have new things that make him moan, are there new things he likes that he learned from someone else? All these questions float through your head as Namjoon slowly slips his hands under your shirt and pulls it over your head. 
With your back against the wall, Namjoon drops to his knees in front of you and carefully unbuttons your jeans, slipping them down your legs with your underwear, groaning and face flushing when he finally gets you undressed. 
“You… are… incredible,” he mutters against your skin in between leaving hot, wet kisses across your pelvic bone. “I’ve missed you so much,” he adds as he hooks one of your legs and rests it on his shoulder. His breath is hot on your skin and it’s like you can feel it everywhere—he’s barely even touching you and every nerve ending in your body is responding, wanting more. 
As he brings his tongue to your clit, you let your head fall back against the door with a soft thud. He was always so good at this, he still is. His stubble brushes against you and makes shivers run up your spine. He’d probably not shaved that morning—you wonder if he did on purpose, remembering how you used to brush your cheek along his chin and tell him you liked it, how it made you feel soft and delicate when he wasn’t. 
His tongue works you over in long strokes, dipping inside on occasion and you hear him practically whine when he really tastes you. There’s never been anything hotter, you decide, than his deep voice so fucked out and turned on because of you. If you could get off on sound alone for the rest of your life, that might be the one you’d pick.  
When he finally slides a finger inside you, you moan—you’re so much louder than you’d meant to be, louder than you have been for anyone in so long, but he knows you. Knows your body, knows just how fast to move his tongue, how deeply you like to feel him inside you.
Namjoon’s lips form into a smile against you as he pauses, asking in a whisper, “Can I make you do that again?” before curling his finger inside you and taking your clit back between his lips. 
“Oh, fuck…” you whine. And yes, the answer is definitely yes. “Keep going,” you say as he fucks into you, giving you space to roll your hips away from the door and into his face. 
It doesn’t take much longer for you to come—Namjoon puts a large hand to your waist and helps support you as you tremble around him and your knee buckles. With a lot of effort, you ignore the quiet, private voice in the back of your mind that tells you that you don’t deserve this—that you shouldn’t be doing this, that you’ll get hurt again. Finally, your shaking subsides, and he moves your leg off of his shoulder and to the ground, keeping a grasp on you to help you stay upright. 
“You’re… still very good at that,” you say breathily. 
“Thank you. I’m pretty good at a lot of things, I think,” he says with a wink as he stands. 
You love when he’s cheeky like this, confident in a way that you remember being one of his best traits. Like he knows exactly what he’s capable of. It’s the first time you’ve seen him like this tonight and it makes you ache for things you don’t think you can have, for the past. He’s suddenly close again, so fucking close, and you can smell yourself on his lips and you can feel that he’s hard in his jeans. He leans in, even closer, bringing his lips to yours but not doing anything with them, and running a single fingertip across your jaw to hold your face in place—no place to look except at him, square in the eyes.
“Are there things you’re still good at?” 
Oh, holy shit. 
And you’d remained upright this whole time, but fuck if your knees aren’t ready to give in now. You swallow audibly and struggle to form an answer in your post-orgasmic haze, turned on by the nostalgia and the way he’s half-whispering, half-rasping. The intimate way he speaks to you  makes you almost drip again with desire.
“Well, if you’re not going to tell me, I guess I’ll find out for myself,” he says. Namjoon grabs your hand and squeezes, then leads you to your own bed. “Do you want me to find out? Do you want… me?” 
It should be something you have to think about longer, should be more of a consideration. But it isn’t at all. Your head is bobbing a ‘yes’ of its own accord and you’re slowly unbuttoning his jeans and pulling his sweater off before you really realize you’re doing it, before you can think about what it might mean in the morning. Before he slips out of his pants, he pulls a condom out of his wallet in the pocket and tosses it on the bed. 
The simple action has you a little nervous now, like suddenly this is real, and this is Namjoon, the actual love of your fucking life who left you, and he must see it on your face as you stand next to the bed, naked, facing one another, and unmoving. 
“Are you alright?” he asks.
“Yeah… I’m nervous. It’s been so long and it’s… you.”
Namjoon cups your cheek and brings his lips softly to yours. His other arm snakes around your waist and pulls your body into his—skin to skin everywhere, and it feels so good. His body really is different than you remember: firmer, broader, bigger, and you like it. It’s different, but just as good, you decide. Familiar and different at the same time, just like everything else about him. When he breaks the kiss, he finally speaks.
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” 
“I do,” you say resolutely, convincing him and yourself at the same time. You bend over to grab the condom and feel his hands on your ass, so you stay, dropping to your elbows on the mattress, remembering how he’s always appreciated the view from that angle. “Do you still like it this way, Joon-ah?” you ask as you push your hips back toward him a little, leaning into the familiar to calm any lingering nerves.
And instead of answering, Namjoon slides his hands up your back and down your arms, pulling you up at the elbows and pressing your back into his chest. “Yes,” he replies. “But not this time. I want to see you, I want to know I’m taking care of you. I want to remember.” 
He starts kissing you then, lips on your neck, across your shoulders, hands wrapped around you—one teasing at your nipples, one firm around your waist. You do feel taken care of, and it’s nice, you decide, to be with him again. This part hasn’t changed. You meant what you said—he’s really good at this.
Eventually, you move to the bed, and you become a little more brave, letting yourself explore his body. As you lay facing each other, you run your fingers along the ridges of the muscles in his abdomen, stroke his cheekbones, let one arm snake around his ribs and then fall to his ass. He really is firm all over, and you find yourself more attracted to that than you’d anticipated. You murmur appreciations into his skin, telling him he’s worked hard, that he looks incredible, that you want to take your time and appreciate everything he’s tried to build. 
Namjoon watches you as you test the waters, carefully mapping the ridges and planes until you take his length in your palm and start stroking him. The first time he breaks eye contact with you is when you bring your other hand down and palm his balls, softly squeezing as his eyes roll back in his head and he lets out a long, low moan. 
Maybe things aren’t so different than you remember, after all. 
You touch and kiss and whisper until you know he’s been hard long enough and you’ve been stalling long enough, and his hand makes lazy circles over your clit, no problem getting you wet again. Namjoon rolls the condom on and pulls your leg up over his hip. He’s careful in a manner that’s completely him (but you’re no longer used to from your recent hookups) as he slowly pushes into you. And you’ve been in a lot of… positions in the last few years, but nothing quite this intimate: chests pressed together, arms wrapped around each other, noses touching, and Namjoon so deep inside you, moving so, so slowly. You’re almost not moving at all, and you had no idea something like that could feel so fucking good. 
It’s slow and sweet, and he kisses and caresses you, and you realize that this is was what people are talking about when they talk about the difference between making love and fucking. 
Namjoon is quiet, quieter than you remember, but the look on his face is reverent, like he can’t believe you’re letting him do this, like he can’t believe you’re real. And you know how he feels, and you want to reassure him and whisper how much you care about him and how you think you could still love him, but it’s all too much for the moment. So, instead, you just let out soft moans of approval when he rolls his hips in just the right way and otherwise try to focus on him and the way he’s making you feel, cock buried in you, better than anything has been since the night before he left all those years ago.
Your second peak comes steadily and seems to last a while as Namjoon whispers how beautiful you look and how lucky he is. The praise has you clenching around him and pulling his climax out of him, too. 
You stay intertwined as your breathing slows, kissing and smiling with pink cheeks and tired limbs. When you’re sure you can move, you slowly push back from him and roll off the side of the bed, grabbing his undershirt. “You mind?” you ask, holding it up. “I thought I’d grab water and if there’s anything else you want…” 
“Sounds great,” Namjoon replies, a sleepy smile on his face, obvious in his preening over you wearing his clothes again. 
You try not to let yourself think too much about what just happened as you retrieve your water glasses and fill them up again. You find your phone on the counter, next to Namjoon’s, and you shoot a quick text to Tae telling him you brought someone home and you don’t know if they’ll still be there in the morning. You don’t want your roommate to be surprised by a visitor. But you know if Namjoon’s still there when he gets home, Tae will definitely be surprised. 
When you pad back to your bedroom and click the door shut behind you, you realize Namjoon’s already fallen asleep, snoring softly. He looks ridiculous on top of your sheet with the duvet kicked down to the end of the bed, his big cock soft against his big thigh and his hair sticking up in fifty different directions all over your pillow. His lips have fallen open to let his stupid snores out, and you have never been more endeared to anyone in your life. 
Like a thunderbolt, it comes suddenly, the realization that you think you probably never stopped loving this man. 
You set the water down on your nightstand and crawl into bed next to him, careful not to wake him up, even though unless something’s changed, you know he’s a fairly deep sleeper. You pull the duvet up over both of you and settle into your pillow, thoughts of unresolved and maybe unrequited feelings still clouding your mind. 
He wakes up enough to roll over and sling an arm around you, possessive in a way you like. You miss being his, you miss the quiet way he loved you before. All folded up love notes and kind gestures and small gifts for no reason. You almost let yourself tear up thinking about how big your love for him used to feel—maybe still does. 
You’re fully spiraling, deciding this was probably a massive mistake, when Namjoon strokes his thumb over your stomach and nuzzles into the back of your neck. 
“Baby? You awake?” he mumbles, half-asleep. 
And fuck, you’ve missed the casual endearment from him. “Yeah.” 
“Do you want me to go?” he asks. 
And you know three years ago, if you would have said it, it wouldn’t have mattered. That’s the real truth of it. Because if you’d asked him to stay then, he wouldn’t have, and he would have been making the right choice to leave, anyway. So letting him go without putting up a fight was easier on both of you. It was the right decision then to not ask him to stay. 
But now? Now, after tonight, you know things aren’t the same as back then. Some of them, yes. But not the ones that matter, not the ones you’re thinking about when you reply. 
“No, Joon-ah… I want you to stay this time.”
You feel him smile against your shoulder and pull you tighter into him. Neither of you says anything more, and it’s only a few minutes before he starts his snuffling snores into your hair again. It feels nice, you think as you finally start to drift off. It feels like home.  
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romana-after-dark · 4 months
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Dead Dove December 2023 Masterlist
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Hello everyone!
So sorry it took forever to get this out, but it took me 5ever to read through these fics bc I was expresso depresso and working a lot LMFAOOOOOOO
Anyway, THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH FOR EVERYONE ENTRIES!!! I adore you so so so so much. I am SO HAPPY with how this worked out and the amount of response! I hope to hold another event this March with @for-a-longlongtime at @triplefrontier-anniversary for the TF anniversary over at my main account @romanarose, and an event in June for pride, so if those interest you, follow my main page or this one, or @romana-updates
NOTE: I was unorganized so if I forgot someone's fic, IT WAS NOT ON PURPOSE. I know right now there discourse right now the Pedro fandom specifically, about different people not liking others or small writers or big writers ETC, but I want you to know no one was left out on purpose!
Note 2: If I put your fic here but forgot to reblog LET ME KNOW! I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to shine.
Without further ado, the fics and art!
ALL OF THESE ARE DARK SO SOME DEGREE FROM CNC, DUB CON, TO VIOLENT NON CON! HEAD WARNINGS!
The Last of Us
The Burglary by @aurorawritestoescape and @milla-frenchy: Two men break into your house and take more than just your valuables.
Fight Club by @anama-cara : Post outbreak set in the Boston QZ. You decide to go against Joel in an underground QZ fight club for some extra coin. Joel doesn't take kindly to the competition and decides to punish you in his own special way.
Deja Vu by @milla-frenchy : After a bad experience with a former boyfriend, you meet Joel who makes you trust him fully in the bedroom
Silent Night by @kewwrites : Despite the way he always acted around you, you find it hard to say no to Sarah when she invites you home to her dad's house for the holidays. Surely nothing would happen while she's with you.
Training Day by @koshkamartell : Set in AU, no outbreak. You get more than you bargained for after trying to make Joel jealous.
Code Broken by @auteurdelabre : You only wanted to pull a silly prank on your neighbor, Joel. Who could have seen it ending up like this?
The Art of Breaking by @corazondebeskar-reads : Your meeting is happenstance, but everything that follows? Well, that’s all Joel. He just knows you’re going to be his perfect little toy. He just has to show you how.
Cry Harder by @romana-after-dark : While keeping you captive, Joel's sex drive is insatiable, and the sex seemed to be never ending. You tried to warm him you needed to use the bathroom... he didn't listen.
Nightmare Before Christmas by @katiexpunk : As an escort, you’ve found yourself in some pretty fucked up situations before. Years of experience have taught you to navigate such situations with a combination of tact and assertiveness. Most of the time the men who exude an air of sleaze shrivel back into the corner, embarrassed and limp dicked.  Most of the time.  Tonight is not one of those times.
Locket by @toxicanonymity : Dark!Reader dugs her friends hot dad Joel
Run, Rabbit by @justagalwhowrites : It was just over a year after the world ended that you were captured by Joel and Tommy Miller. They're harsh, they're cold and they're killers. But, as a nurse, you're a valuable person to have around and they're not the worst thing wandering the wasteland that was the United States. And there might be more to these men than meets the eye.
Godless by @javier-penas-wifexx420 : You work at a brothel that operates above a saloon in your town. Joel is the leader of a group of outlaws that come periodically to collect payment and wreak havoc. One visit, you catch Joel’s eye and he decides he has to have you.
Across the Spiderverse
After Dark by @runa-falls : He wants you. and he knows you need him.
Triple Frontier
Deep Seeded Issues by @djarinmuse: Summary: At an N.A (narcotics anonymous) meeting you recall a dark and embarrassing memory, not knowing the connection in the room.
My Blood Would Teach Me How to Love by @winniethewife : Santi finds you self harming, blood kink ensues.
Room's on Fire by @romana-after-dark : Cult AU, Pope, Frankie, Will and Ben are cult leaders and need a virgin to breed who will birth the savior: the Madonna. Initially honored to find redemption, the Madonna has to learn how to navigate all four men and a circle of other people at the house.
Goodnight, Princess by @melodygatesauthor : Your dad's best friend accidentally discovers that you're a sex worker. He tries to let it go, but it eats away at him until things go way too far.
The Card Counter
Bad Bet by @boredzillenial and art by @lunar-ghoulie4art : William beats you in a poker tournament, but you just can’t accept defeat, not yet…
Getting Whats Mine by @winniethewife
Lightening Face
Puppy by @darkuselesssomebody : In which the reader is a manipulative bitch - and basil snaps because of it
Mojave
Cruel Intentions by @hon3yboy : You're on a soul seeking journey, just another young, pretty, thing. All alone and stranded in the desert, ripe for the picking and ol' Jack has his eyes set on you.
Moon Kight
Death to Dignity by @juneknight : An intruder (Marc) breaks in to your apartment.
*************
I cannot thank you enough for your support and interaction for htis series!!!!! I had SUCH a good time reading all these, you are all so talented!!!
I hope to do more events soon as it's really helped me make some friends and get to know people here!!!!
Please remember to reblog these authors, and if you're tagged here, be sure to check out more! Lots of great content here!
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bloodynereid · 6 months
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Hi can I please request a Jordan x reader . Reader has power that glitch & saves Jordan. Reader hey I am lucky that I didn’t get stuck in between a wall.
Thank you.
Flying Grand Pianos - headcanons
pairing: jordan li x gn! reader
tw: cursing, mentions of uncontrolled powers, cate and sam went to prison (i'm sorry okay! they're my pookies but for this fic to work i had to do something), uh nothing much ig? unless u have a phobia of falling pianos... then maybe don't read this??
description: your powers come in handy in the weirdest situations.
a/n: hiii hopefully u enjoy this! i literally did not mean to make this as insane as it ended up being but hey i'm sick and running on like too little sleep, i hope it's still entertaining tho cause i had sm fun writing this lol. i tried to integrate everything you said into headcanons cause it felt more apt ? ig... anyways requests are open & lmk ur thoughts <3
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It was your final year at God U, somehow you had actually made it through the insanity that happened during junior year. You had even come out of the whole situation with a whole new group of friends… even if Cate and Sam sort of had to be locked away because of all the shit they did.
Thank whoever had decided to call the FBI because you had no idea how the entire situation might have turned out if Homelander showed up instead.
So life had turned back to normal towards the end of junior year, mostly because Vought was able to keep most of the situation quiet. Now you were only a step away from becoming an actual superhero… which was a strange situation to think about.
Your powers weren’t all that noteworthy but were insanely useful in battle and to get out of awkward conversations… especially since you were able to mostly control them.
You had the ability to glitch, which essentially meant you could manipulate the fabric of reality around you and mess with it (always with a limit of course, you weren’t an all-powerful magician). You mostly used it for teleportation or to mess with people, something that was always sooo worth it.
You also were kind of insanely good at dealing with actual glitches in computers, which made absolutely no sense but it did help adding to your skill set for your major.
There was probably one specific time where your powers worked in your favor in the best way possible. Over the past few years you sort of developed a tiny little miniscule (HUGE) crush on Jordan Li and now that you were actually able to call them your friend that tiny little crush grew into something way bigger.
What you weren’t aware of was that Jordan felt the same way, they always viewed you as this pretty incredible supe but never really had the chance to talk to you… until the whole The Woods situation. After that it almost made it harder for them to just ask you out on your date… because you had created such a tentative but strong friendship - something that Jordan hadn’t had since Luke. Something that they weren’t sure they would be able to walk away from again.
It was a few months into your senior year when the incident happened. It wasn’t something crazy like Homelander suddenly massacring the school instead it was an incident that belonged in the halls of a supe school… one of the new freshmen had somehow conjured up a piano in the middle of the damn sky and was unable to make it disappear.
The one problem with this piano was that it was falling... and falling really fucking fast.
You had been drinking one of your favorite drinks from Jitter Bean when you were surprised (and very concerned) to see a piano making its way towards Jordan - a very distracted Jordan who was talking, or rather yelling into their phone.
It barely took you a second to make the decision before you dropped your drink and glitched in Jordan’s direction - thank whatever all powerful force was out there for actually having it work because a moment later you reappeared next to Jordan and grabbed their arm before glitching again.
Suddenly you were standing in your room and Jordan was looking at you like an insane person before a loud crash and a whole bunch of yelling was heard outside the window.
Jordan shot a confused look before darting over to the window, only to find that a huge grand piano now stood (well not really it was sort of everywhere) where they had just been standing a moment ago.
You shot them a sheepish smile as they turned around to look at you with a dropped jaw.
“I actually can’t believe that worked, I’m lucky I didn’t accidentally get us stuck between a wall.”
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lol i have no idea what this is but i like it anyways.
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ao3commentoftheday · 6 months
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i'm curious about the reason ao3 users subscribe to works, previously i assumed that it was used just for WIPs but since writing for a new fandom and reading your blog i've realized its far more common to sub to complete works than i thought. though i appreciate the attention on my works, i was initially frustrated seeing subscription stats on works that were complete, esp bc i have seen readers in this specific fandom insist that writers continue works that they stated were completed. i had considered creating a poll bc i would be interested in the statistics of why readers subscribe to works on ao3, is this a fandom specific behavior or remnants of fandom elders continuing old habits? you can totally ignore this if it's redundant, im mostly just rambling and feel like i dont understand ao3 bc i've only been posting for a few years that i haven't experienced much fandom interaction until recently.
AO3 users are no different from users of any other website. We all make use of features in ways that work for us - even if those ways are different from (or counter to) their intended use.
Some users subscribe to completed works and/or oneshots because they hope authors might come back some day and add on. I once left a oneshot for something like 2 years and then came back and turned it into a 10 chapter fic because I had an idea for something longer and the oneshot was the setup I needed. It saved me writing the start.
Some authors will also add a new chapter onto a completed work to let readers know they've posted a new work in the series. Again, the subscription lets readers know a new work is there for them to go and read.
Other reasons they might do this include:
wanting to show the writer more love. They've commented, kudos'd and bookmarked already, so subscription is all they have left to say "I LOVED THIS!"
similar to this, not realizing what the subscription is so they press it because they're pressing all of the buttons to say ❤️
thinking that the subscribe button on and individual fic will act the same as the subscribe button on an author's profile page. i.e., they think if they hit the subscribe button on the work, that'll set up a subscription to the author instead of the story
finding it easier to sort through subscriptions to find their favourite works because their bookmarks are too numerous or disorganized
This is an individual thing and not a fandom thing. There might be a generational difference, but that's mostly just because the nature of online subscriptions and creator subscriptions has changed over time and the way modern social media handles it is different from how the Archive handles subscriptions. Mostly it just comes down to personal preference and quirks of habit.
Readers, feel free to share if you have another reason for subscribing to completed works. Did I miss any?
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practically-an-x-man · 11 months
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ok y'know what. I'm tired of all the same questions in ask games so I'm taking matters into my own hands
OC/Writing Art Asks
For the character:
Pencil: does this character have any "sketchy" habits? Have they ever broken the law? Do they regret it?
Pen: what's one minor moment your character regrets? A small mistake, but something they "can't erase"?
Paintbrush: How often does your character "brush over" conflict instead of facing it head on? Is there something specific they don't like to face, or do they avoid conflict as a whole?
Marker: what's one thing your character would never tattoo on their body, even if they were paid a million dollars for it?
Crayon: what was your OC like when they were four years old? Were they loud? Shy? Were they the resident "weird kid" or did they get along with others their age?
Colored Pencil: if given the choice, would this character splurge on an expensive (but potentially worthwhile) branded product, or buy a low-budget alternative even if the quality suffers?
Copics: what is this character's most expensive habit or hobby? Do they ever feel guilty about the money they spend on it?
Graphite: what's something decently common that your character does in a unique or different way? (like how graphite is present in all pencils, but not everyone uses pure graphite)
Charcoal: share any unique physical features about this character that are not scars or tattoos.
Tortillon: does your OC "blend in" with the people around them? Physically? Metaphorically?
Pastels: Give me three colors that best represent your OC. Now give me three colors that your OC likes best. Is there an overlap?
Chalk: what was one activity this character enjoyed with their sibling(s) as a kid? If they don't have siblings, what they did with their neighborhood friends
Eraser: what's one way this character has changed over time? Either over the course of their story, or over the course of designing them as an author.
Palette: list four of your character's primary skills, then share at least two ways these skills might blend or overlap
For the work:
Starry Night: are there any scenes in this work that take place at nighttime? Is this significant, or just the passing of time?
Mona Lisa: oh, it's the fanfic writer's favorite word. Do a find-and-replace on the word "smirk" and share any lines that pop up.
The Scream: are there any moments in this work that you think could scare a reader? Are there any moments where the characters themselves are profoundly scared?
Persistence of Memory: are there any moments in this work where a character's memory plays a strong role? Either an individual memory, or simply a character's ability to recall the past.
Girl With a Pearl Earring: are there any moments in this work where a character's clothing or accessories play a major role?
The Kiss: share your favorite kiss scene from this work. If there's no kiss scene, share your favorite moment of intimacy (romantic or platonic)
American Gothic: what's one relationship between characters in this work that you think people wouldn't expect? (i.e., how the people in American Gothic are not married, they're the painter's sister and dentist)
Guernica: look through a few of your imagery/descriptions in this work. Are they generally straightforward, or are they more "abstract"?
Wheatfield with Crows: are there any scenes in this work that involve birds? Do the birds play a definitive role, or are they simply part of the setting?
Woman with a Parasol: are there any moments in this fic that feel "blurry" to you? Is this a stylistic choice, or would you go back and clarify the descriptions if you were given the chance?
A Sunday Afternoon...: pick one "little moment" from this fic. How representative is it of the fic's tone and story as a whole?
Creation of Adam: choose one character that is not present at the beginning of this work. How did you introduce them into the story?
The Swing: are there any moments in this fic where the characters get to slow down and have fun? If not, why is that?
The Last Supper: does this fic incorporate any symbolism based on religion, theology, or mythology? If so, give an example.
For the author:
Paper: Who do you feel is your most two-dimensional or underdeveloped OC? Why is this? (including those that are still in development/haven't been written about yet)
Canvas: Do you ever "prep" your fics with outlines or warmups before you start writing, or do you just dive right in?
Graffiti: Have you ever had to research something that felt illicit or illegal for a fic? What was it?
Photography: What's one moment from any of your fics that you feel is preserved in your memory?
Clay: Do you usually take time to "sculpt" your OCs before you write them, or develop them as you write?
Film: Which one of your fics do you think would work best if turned into a movie? Who would direct it?
Adhesive: when you write, do you usually "stick" to one character or story for a while, or bounce around various characters and ideas?
Cricut: are there any characters you've had to "cut" from a story? Are there any moments/chapters/stories you've had to "cut" entirely?
Felting: how often do you include soft moments when you write? Do these moments play a role in the main plot, or do you include them as an escape from the rest of the story?
Weaving: are your works typically similar to one another? Pick two works, and share one similarity and one difference between them.
Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.
Creative!: free space! share something you've been dying to share about your writing! Could be an OC that never gets the limelight, a moment you were proud of, or anything else you'd like to share
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Why the TF2 Defense Trio deserve more recognition
The people have spoken, I have decided to create an essay disguised as a post on this godforsaken website because it's a free country goddammit! (I would have done it either way lmaooo, I have a lot of shit to say about these maniacs) To start this formal essay glorified very serious shitpost, why should you as a tf2 fan care about these 3 men? They're so "boring" and there's not much going on with them. If ya took a second, let's pause with what was being said. YOU MUST BE OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND to think such thoughts, we must shake you out of cuckoo land by giving you an in-depth look into these three so that you understand where I'm coming from. Let's start in order:
Demoman:
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After being in the fandom since 2019, there's always one character I always thought wasn't given much anything in the fandom at all. Even taking ships out of the equation, there's barely any fics I've that focus on Tavish Finneagan Degroot specifically that I've seen that isn't a compilation fic (I read a lot of x readers, don't judge me). Believe me, I checked ao3. I went through Demoman's tags and I tried very hard to filter a lot of the crossover and relationship tags, yet there's less of Demoman himself, than there's him just existing as a side character of a story. Which is honestly sad, I honestly think Demo is one of the more kinder mercs compared to a lot of the team. This man made friends with the BLU soldier, despite knowing that they were supposed to be killing each other. Sure, it's unclear whether or not Demo did actually go through with it and it's just a ruse, because the voicelines in WAR! don't have a set timeline. But I do think that Demo would have tried to keep his friendship with BLU soldier. He's very chill. I've never actually seen him get violent against his friends and family, despite being a drunkard. I honestly think he's one of the sweetest people in TF2, he takes good care of his mom and haunted sword lmaoooo. Jokes aside, he seems like a genuinely good man and I barely see anything that suggests he's sadistic. He's a chaotic and loud, but not bad. Not bad at all. The fact he can still do his job well, even after drinking so much that his body created a whole distillery, is even more impressive. He is damn good at what he does and works very hard. He's had multiple jobs, even as wee little lad. Despite what people think of him, the fact he's getting paid 5 million dollars a year, is proof he knows what he's doing. He loves his job and couldn't bear the thought of not working. I feel like his backstory isn't talked about enough in the fandom either. When you think about it, it's kinda fucked up that he was put in an orphanage by his biological parents until he was in the right age to be blowing people up. Not only that, his eye socket was haunted by the Bombinomicon so that every halloween a giant eye would manifest, attacking him and his friends. Even Medic couldn't help him and instead resorting to scooping the part of Demo's brain where he remembered so he would stop asking. He most likely has a lot of stories for you, I see him as the type that has a lot to say. His past is the most fleshed out and complete out of all the mercs, which I really appreciate, you can do a lot more with him. Also another thing, during Unhappy Returns, he took the time to reassure Soldier that he wouldn't think he's a civilian. He didn't brush Soldier's worries aside and instead comforted him. I wish I had a lot more to say about Demo because I am baffled that he isn't being gushed about as a potential partner. He has the excitement and like zero baggage. A thing I also wanna point out is that he seems to be insecure of the fact he's a black scottish man with only one eye during Meet The Demoman. I may be reading into things a bit too much, but it makes me wanna be like "NOOOO don't talk about yourself like that, bro. You're so cute UGHHH" Also also he's handsome. Sure looks can be subjective, but I still think Demo has a face I would kiss hehe. He looks great with his beard and his cheeky ass smile. GOD I could gush about him all day, but I have to move on rip.
Heavy:
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Honestly, I'm having a hard time just finding the words to describe this amazing man without giving him the respect he deserves. But I'll sure try. Heavy has had a difficult life and I've always admired how strong he was. Not just of his muscles, but he endured one of the toughest situations and still kept moving forward with his life even though it was traumatizing. You see why I'm even having a hard time talking about him? I can't really get down into the weeds, without getting serious for a min. I feel like the fandom doesn't give him much credit for being able to deal with so much. He's the rock for his family after his father disappeared (atp I think he's dead, which is the cherry on top this depressing sundae) and I wouldn't doubt that he would be the same for his team. He's a man of few words, but that makes him all the more intriguing. Just because this man has a lot of brawn does not mean he's dumb at all. Despite how he acts in the battlefield, Heavy is observant and clever. Although, it's implied that Spy being Scout's dad is an open secret between the mercs and Miss Pauling, the fact he figured it out without saying it directly must mean he has a lot more going on. He's also educated, getting a phD in Russian Literature. It's not a STEM program, but he actually got a doctorate and went to college, that's a lot more than half of what the mercs did lmaooo. Also he has a bit of a softie side, not just for his mom and sisters, but also other creatures as well. I respect him so much for avoiding violence against those dogs during the Showdown comic. Not only shows what an absolute sweetheart he is, but also how much he's able to think quickly on his feet. Heavy is very direct and blunt, I don't see him as the type to lie about his feelings. I appreciate that he doesn't feel the need to sugarcoat anything, he'll get the job done and he ain't playing. There's no fluff, he knows what he wants and that's to rev up Sasha and ram through sons of bitches without any worries.
I feel like I wanna point out, his story seems the most unexplored in the fandom, even though it has a lot of potential for ANGST factor. I already broke down how sad it is, but I just feel like it isn't said enough. Can I just say how cuddly he looks?! GAH, I feel like he would give the warmest hugs! The way he smiled in Unhappy Returns when he finds out his family doesn't need to live in fear anymore, just melts my heart! He's so protective over his family and friends! I wish I had a lot more to say about this guy because I just can't stop finding more things about him that go unappreciated. I had to literally edit this part so many times before moving on, he just has those little details you don't notice until you take a second and have that OH MY GOD moment
Engineer:
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I was getting so hyped, when it was finally our resident southern nerd's time to shine. GOD I have so much to say about this man. It's been over 5 fucking years and I have never stopped simping for this man since 2019, I think I'm gonna go insane from how much I've been repressing, I go feral when he's around. Anyways enough stalling. I don't ever think a fictional character has ever made me swoon quite like Engineer, I really mean that. I have ask and pleaded to whatever god was listening to give me a man like Engie. To me, he is everything I ever wanted and more.
First, I wanna talk about what makes him attractive to me. His accent. His southern charm, UGH he's killing me with that smooth voice and chivalry! I swear this man could make me faint just from existing. The way he smiles is so warm, his insults are so corny I love them. That five o clock shadow GAHH! I'm getting butterflies all over again. I swear I love all three of the defense bois, but Dell Conagher has my heart wrapped around his gunslinger metal finger. All those personal reasons aside, I've always thought Dell Conagher was a very interesting character in the world of TF2. He might not have much screen time or goofy shenanigans like the other mercs, but that doesn't mean you can ignore him oh no no no. This man is important within the whole story of Mann Co and TF industries, his grandfather being the catalyst of the game's events and the comics going forward. The Conaghers are the SOLE REASON why Team Fortress 2's story exists. I find it strange that the fandom hasn't done much with this fact because you can do a lot with this idea. Engineer knows a lot of shit and would be the biggest threat to Helen, if not for the fact that his family has been helping her for years.
Like his backstory, he's not seen much in the battlefield, but he has a lot more going on behind the scenes. Imagine the possibilities. He is damn intelligent and he knows it. While Dell is very sweet and has a southern charm, this is a facade to hide his God complex and sadistic tendencies. If you think this man is just your boring gentle engineer, you've got a big storm coming. It's heavily implied that he sawed off his own arm so that he could use the gunslinger. This man works on projects with Medic and doesn't question the moral implications of putting a human brain in a pumpkin. Hell, he threatened his own employer, even if he was an old man (Granted, Blutarch dug up his grandpa's grave, so he probably should have gotten something a lot worse than just Dell telling him to fuck off). Engineer is more than the texan egghead sweetie pie, he is a mercenary for a reason and I would argue that he might be as insane, if not more than, the rest of the team. No sane man would willingly work with a bunch of war criminals if he wasn't also crazy. That's the thing I really like about him. I love playing as him in the game because it represents his character very well. He technically serves a supportive role to the team with his buildings, but he is a killer with a lot of tools in his disposal, With the right amount of training, he can absolutely dominate in the battlefield.
I feel like he's one of the people that underestimate and assume that he's an easy target, but he's a lot more than that. He has a lot of layers that makes me want to learn more about him and what he has to offer.
In Conclusion:
These guys are cool. Lmaooo okay I won't just end it there. I genuinely believe that they're not getting the recognition that they deserve, they've got a lot more going for them if you pay attention. Sure they might not always be the loudest or most prominant character in the story, but what they lack in quantity, they make up for in quality TEN FOLD. They don't have to be your favourite, but you should at least give them a chance. You never know, they may surprise you.
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Okay so thats enough of that, I couldn't find a divider above this message, so you're getting this grainy ass gif. Honestly, I put way too much effort on this shitpost lmaooo, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out in a more concise manner. If you want to add more stuff about these three that I didn't mention, feel free to do so. Anyways thanks for reading
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Good Omens Fic Rec: Oh, Maker
"The humans are strange and graceful as they explore the garden, explore themselves, explore each other. The trouble is, the humans stare back, which makes him uncomfortable; there’s nothing particularly interesting about him. And, though he rarely admits it to himself, the humans make him lonely; he has no Other to explore." Or: how many times can you take a bath with your best friend before you kiss him?
Length: 57,034 words
AO3 Rating: Explicit / Spice Level 🔥🔥🔥
Best for: Mostly Safe in Public, At Home, Angst, Romance, Slow Burn
Triggers: None/ Religious Trauma themes
Read it here, fic by voluptatiscausa
*Minor Spoilers* I've had this fic bookmarked for months, I love this author and all the stories of theirs I've read. But my ADHD often has me piling on more without diving into what I already have saved. So, when I was about to begin the author's latest fic, I paused. I realized I needed to prioritize this story first, and appreciate it fully. And now, I want you to do the same!
This is a pre season 2 "through the ages" story, visiting some of the historical settings we're familiar with and adding new ones as well. We watch as the weight of the world hangs on Aziraphale and Crowley’s shoulders. The impossibility of alleviating human suffering, the pain of being abandoned by their Creator, their Mother, and the lingering desperation for her approval. So when they've burnt out, they turn to each other. They comfort each other with warm intimacy through baths, manicures, brushing each other's hair, each taking care of the other and showing us how holy love can be. It's gorgeous and heartbreaking all at once. Their love is so true, even if they have trouble believing they're worthy of being loved and desired. “It’s because love can’t be earned, sweetheart. It’s given.”
The beauty of fanfic is that it can exceed the canon. This is not just in character; to me it's more in character than the canon itself. The book and show are comedies; they don't have time to dive this deeply into their characters' motivations and histories. And, of course, that's not a bad thing, especially since it brought us all here. But when I read something like this, something that brings a real depth and understanding to the characters, I'm amazed. This isn’t the only fic I’ve felt this way about, but it’s a prime example of that feeling. It’s just that, when I read a story that specifically focuses on their entire 6,000 years together and all the history they’ve gone through, I get frustrated that those moments are played for laughs in the book/show. The Flood, the Crucifixion, the Spanish Inquisition all throw away lines that don’t stop to dive into the wealth of story that’s possible there. I get why it doesn’t linger, I do, but fic narratives are so much more interesting to me than what the canon alone can provide.
This is a deeply moving and powerful story. Full of musings on shame, desire, religious trauma, and the beauty of the world we live in. Life is a terrible and wonderful thing. While this is mostly safe for public, I really suggest making this an at home read. It's a bit heavier, something you want to be in the right headspace for, and it features very rich prose. Never dense or hard to follow, but very beautiful, and you'll want to give it your full attention. I realize I may have made this seem like full angst, but it’s not! There's some wonderful loving fluffy moments to be found as well. Be sure to check out the other works that belong in this series! They are devastatingly good as well. Pair with some fruit for the full effect!
Read it here, fic by voluptatiscausa
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oreramar · 24 days
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Florist Talk: a flower shop calendar
So I talked about the average day in a flower shop. Now it's time to talk about the average year (usual disclaimer: US-centric, small town sort of knowledge is to be found here. Adjust as needed for a different setting, whether real or fictional; these notes are merely meant to provide grounding or ideas for your writing).
So, Month By Month:
January
Business is basically dead for most of this month.
It's too early for springy colors but nobody wants the red and white Xmas color combo anymore. Floral limbo.
Prep for V-day begins in earnest sometime around here.
Earliest V-day orders might start coming in middle-to-end of the month. Sometimes people think ordering super early means they can get roses for cheaper. This is not the case; they will be charged the price of the roses they're gonna get, not the roses that exist a month before.
February
VALENTINE'S DAY ALL HANDS ON DECK OH GOD SOMEONE HELP US
A longer post will be dedicated to V-day itself eventually. For now, know that there's usually a lull in business immediately after the day itself.
There may be leftover roses. Nobody will want the leftover roses. If your Florbo over-ordered these supplies, they will have a difficult time shifting them. Write a fic and have them donate roses to an elderly care facility or something.
March
Kinda dead for the most part, aside from a little bit of prep toward Palm Sunday and Easter and Prom (see April)
I always make stuff for St Patrick's day but very few people want flowers for St Patrick's day so there's not much point. Maybe this could be different in a community with more people who go all in on St Paddy's.
When there are orders, this is when people start to ask for "springy" flowers.
April
If there are Christian Churches around they might want Easter Lilies ordered in for Easter, and Palm Branches for Palm Sunday.
Sometimes people will ask for flowering mum plants too, usually in white, yellow, or lavender. The wholesalers always seem to send way more lavender mums than any others, like they're trying to get rid of them.
Prom Season - technically can stretch from mid-late March through April. Depends on how many high schools are in the area. This means lots of corsages and boutonnieres. If there's a single big school that's very local then that means one very, very busy weekend spent doing nothing but assembling these things the day before and getting them picked up and paid for the day of. Might make a focused post on these one day.
Secretary's Day / Administrative Professionals' Day - late April. Technically there's a Day for this but it also covers the entire week of that day as well. Businesses and Bosses buy small flowers or maybe candy bouquets for their various Admins. Can get a little busy.
May
Teachers Appreciation Day / Week - early in May, lots of school deliveries.
Nurses Appreciation Day/Week - the next week in May, lots of hospital/clinic deliveries.
MOTHER'S DAY OH GOD OH - oh it's not quite as bad, actually. People get their Mother's Day flowers the entire week before so it's less concentrated. Still a big one.
US has Memorial Day right at the end. This means arrangements made for placing in the local cemetery. Can be busy but isn't usually too bad.
June
Dead business. So bored.
July
Dead business. So bored.
Attempt at July 4th table arrangements. Not many tend to sell.
August
Dead business. So bored.
September
School is back in session, which means that any student, teacher, or school admin staff who has a birthday or anniversary on a weekday might get sent flowers or balloons or candy bouquets or things like that, which means Flower Shop business.
Preferred floral designs shift toward "fall" and "autumny" colors and flowers somewhere between August and September.
October
Not a lot going on specifically, but business still tends to be busier than in summer. Also, despite all efforts, Halloween does not tend to involve a lot of flower orders, which is a real shame because you can do some real fun things with orange, purple, and bright green flowers, and with hot glue strands on twigs to make cobwebs, and with black painted bowl vases to resemble cauldrons...
November
US has Thanskgiving this month and some people want fancy flower and taper candle centerpieces for their tables. A responsible florist will include tags warning people not to burn those candles unattended because while the floral arrangement isn't going to be dry by any means, it is still technically flammable, especially if the candle has burned very low and for a very long time.
December
Christmas also involves fancy flower and taper candle centerpieces for tables. Also like 80% of all floral arrangements are being done in red and/or white.
And that's more or less it. Set your writing appropriately for how busy you want the Florbo to be with their flower job - if the plot demands Florbo have a lot of free time or be very very bored, look at the summer months, or the downtime of early January or late February. If you wish for them to be overwhelmingly busy, set it the week before Valentine's or Mother's day, or pick an April weekend for a local Prom and give them like forty corsages to make on a single Friday. A more moderate or variable day to day structure might be in May, or one of the Autumn months, when there's usually plenty of everyday type stuff to do plus the wild card busy days around big funerals or the like, with random dead days peppered in there.
Happy writing!
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