#and also some other projects that might not see the light of days

[dr-trafalgar-law]

Trafalgar Law X CisFem Reader

1

The rich scent of coffee percolated through the small apartment kitchen. Preferring to keep the room dark only the tiny light above the stove was left on. The sun had yet to rise and judging by the pattering against the window above the sink it wouldn't matter anyway.

Bringing the hardly sweetened liquid to his lips Law did his best to keep anxious thoughts away. Usually these consisted of work related topics, things he needed to get done when he arrived at the hospital or patients that took priority. This particular morning you were prominent.

He thought back to a night in November. At the time you had been matched for a month and had very recently moved in together. He had been opposed to all of this arranged marriage nonsense from childhood. Forcing people to be together for procreation didn't seem healthy mentally. But the alternative was prison, so most people just went with it.

Then he met you and discovered how similarly you operated so he decided to learn more. You had been pretty forthcoming with your reluctance, almost offensively so. You also felt the need to explain that you had a previous relationship that ended abruptly because of the law and obviously weren't dealing with it in a healthy way.

That week you stayed late at the shop every night working on different orders. When he did see you, you were practically vibrating with nervous energy. So, the nightly ritual of visiting the shop started, at least until that Friday. When he had announced he was coming to the shop you told him you'd meet him at home, which you did arriving at the same time. Even in the chilly humid air he thought he caught the scent of cologne as you passed, chalking it up to the hoodie you must have borrowed from a coworker, as he had never seen it before. After showering you shared the meal he'd brought from the hospital. You didn't say much but somehow seemed at ease especially considering the project you had been working on. Perhaps finishing the cakes provided some sort of closure? No, Law couldn't be that naive. Something definitely happened, something you didn't want to share. However, at the time he wasn't compelled to press you for information. He wasn't sure that even now after nearly four months you'd come clean. It wasn't like you had grown any closer as a couple, and he didn't know if you ever would.

His ears perked hearing your bedroom door softly open and shut behind you. Finally, the smell of coffee had made it to your room inviting you into the kitchen. You rounded the corner in an old purple shirt with the collar cut out, so it hung off your left shoulder, a pair of black leggings and mismatched knee-high socks.

His silver eyes roamed over the dip of your exposed shoulder before swaying up to your yawning face. It amused him that from day one you had no problem looking like a straight up mess in front of him. Perhaps it was because you weren't interested or maybe you just weren't like other girls. No woman he'd ever slept with dared to be seen without makeup.

You wore makeup as well, but it was always tastefully done. Law had surprised himself finding that he preferred you without, he liked the very light olive toned semicircles under your eyes and the natural hue of your lips so much so that on occasion you caught him staring. Being unaware of this preference and very aware of his constant stern expression, you had not thought about the attention being out of attraction.

"Morning." You yawned again running your fingers through your tangled hair.

"F/N-ya." Your fiancé nodded bringing his cup back to his lips.

"Top you off?" you asked pulling your mug from the cupboard not bothering to turn on the lights.

"Big order this week?" Law asked leaning back to hand you his cup.

"No, just couldn't sleep. There isn't much going on today I might just stay here and get some things done." Now that you'd said more he noticed your voice was a bit hoarse.

He hummed turning to let his eyes trail over you, even in the dim yellow light of the stove your skin seemed pale and clammy. Carefully he watched you fix his cup of coffee with shaky hands and move on to your own. The shadows under your eyes had deepened slightly, it was probably nothing, but no one would die if he asked.

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes doctor," you smirked handing his cup over, "just a restless night is all."

"Then It's best if you stay home." He affirmed sipping the strong brew.

Somehow it was always better when you made it, though you did it the exact same way he had, yours was something to savor.

"Is it good?" You asked in amusement.

"It's ok. Why?" was his curt reply.

"You hummed," you chuckled, "That means you like it."

Had he? When were you so observant?

"I did no such thing." He glanced away from your smug expression.

"Will you be home for dinner? I was thinking about cooking." The light from your phone caught his attention drawing his gaze back to your face.

"I can probably arrange that." He tried to sound nonchalant, but you caught the intrigue in his tone.

"Anything you'd like? It's been a while since I made something savory, but I can still throw down."

He raised a brow at your enthusiasm, "Whatever you'd like is fine."

"Sandwiches then?" You teased.

He rolled his eyes, "If you can really throw down, how about onigiri, Ms. Chef."

"That will require some research and a trip to the store, but I accept your challenge." You were already searching for recipes on your phone.

After sitting in silence for a few moments and finishing his second cup of coffee Law checked the time and rose from the table to place his mug in the empty sink.

"Seven o'clock." You murmured looking up to meet his stormy gaze.

"I'll do my best. Have a good day F/N-ya." He exited the kitchen, a few seconds later followed by the sound of the door locking from the outside.

After your short trip to the store, you returned home to stock the fridge and pantry. It was shameful how much time you avoided spending there. Only coffee, sugar and creamer sat in the kitchen, and there were still boxes stacked in a corner of the living room waiting to be unpacked. You intended to remedy that.

Moving into the common space you began opening boxes. They'd been there so long you didn't know if they belonged to you or Law. The first was heavy and filled with medical magazines and notebooks. Box two was full of novels, most of them adventure, and the smallest was yours full of framed pictures and photo albums.

You organized the magazines and novels on the empty bookshelf that lined the back wall, leaving Law's notebooks for him to sort. At the bottom of that box you found a small framed picture turned over. Carefully you plucked it from the box curiosity piquing as you flipped the silver frame over. Law hadn't had any pictures of family or friends that you knew of. Making a mental note to ask about that your gaze fell over an old photo of your fiancé. He couldn't have been more than ten, wearing a school uniform with a little yellow backpack hooked over his shoulders. Next to him crouched a tall blond man with shaggy bangs swept across his face and a cigarette pressed between his lips. You were sure he'd always had that attitude and judging from the look on his adolescent face you were correct. The man in the photo must have been his adopted father, whom he didn't talk much about.

You filled your day with little projects and finally got around to making dinner. It wasn't difficult, but it was time-consuming. You felt good about preparing something he had picked specifically. It was your job to make people happy through their appetites, but this for the moment muted the crippling guilt that had been plaguing you.

Seven turned to eight turned to nine o'clock. You covered dinner in plastic and placed it in the fridge before moving back to the living room to binge watch some shows you had missed. It was disappointing that Law hadn't arrived or returned your texts but you supposed that came with being a doctor.

                                                                                          ____________

Law walked in quietly shutting the door behind him, first noticing the pictures lining the hallway. He stopped at the photo of his eleven-year-old self with Corazon on the first day of sixth grade. You must've had a productive day. Feeling incredibly guilty he continued into the apartment greeted by the soft light of the tv, he hadn't even noticed you on the sofa buried in a mess of blankets until you gasped.

"Sor-" Law was cut off as more gasps left the now writhing blanket pile.

Removing his coat, he crouched down pulling the throws away quickly. Your body had curled up into itself as you tried desperately to catch your breath. In the natural motion to ball up you'd smashed yourself into the back of the sofa. His slim tattooed fingers wrapped firmly around your wrists as you clawed at your chest and throat.

"D-don't..." you rasped.

"F/N-ya," he started softly pulling you into him as he sat, "try to calm down."

"Trying." You shuddered grasping his hands trying to fend off your instinct to fight back.

Now your clammy skin and shaky hands that morning made sense to him.

He hummed cradling you while you cried and hiccupped still hooked into a fetal position. Being wrapped in his warmth and hearing his low soft voice helped you focus on your breathing. The dark abyss that had been enveloping you began to fade.

"I'm... I'm sorry." You stammered. 

#trafalgar d law x reader #closure #x reader #one piece #trafalgar law #lyndsyh24 #heart pirates #marco the phoenix #18+ mdni #mdni #slow burn

[mariclerc]

A project of love | ls2

Summary: where you have to do a project with your crush and you try not to fall for him.

Warning: none.

a/n: requested and dedicated by @bananaleclerc I hope you like it!! And yes, I need a break from posting so much 😂😂

You're hunched over a textbook at a library table, surrounded by scattered notes and a half-eaten granola bar. Just then Logan enters the library, a whirlwind of energy and a backpack overflowing with what looks like every microbiology textbook ever written.

He slammed his books down next to you. “Hey there, study buddy! Ready to conquer the microscopic world?”

You jump a little, startled. He flashes a dazzling smile. “Uh, yeah, hi Logan. I was just... uh... reviewing.” You say, trying to sound casual.

“Awesome! Me too. Though, to be honest, my brain feels like it's about to explode from all these bacteria names.” He pulls out a chair dramatically and sits down. “Did you get a chance to look at the project outline Professor Davies sent? Apparently, we're germ-fighting partners!”

Your stomach flips. Internally screaming, you manage a smile. “Yeah, I saw it. Partnered up, huh? Makes sense, I guess.”

“Definitely! We balance each other out, right? You with your quiet genius vibe, and me... well, I bring the enthusiasm.”

You laugh nervously, a blush creeping up your cheeks.

“I wouldn't call myself a genius, but hopefully, I can keep up with your... enthusiasm.”

“Oh, you will, trust me. So, what do you think? Should we start with some foundational stuff, or dive straight into the exciting world of, like, antibiotic resistance?” he grins.

You take a deep breath, trying to focus. “Maybe foundational stuff first? That way, we're both on the same page when we get to the more complex topics.”

”Sounds like a plan! But hey, don't worry about keeping up. Like I said, I'm basically a walking microbiology encyclopedia. Just ask away if you get lost.”

You nod, but your mind is racing. Trying to focus on the project feels impossible now that you're so close to him.

You clear your throat. “Okay, so... cell walls of bacteria... what were we talking about those in lecture?”

Logan launches into an explanation, peppered with jokes and pop culture references. You try to concentrate, but all you can think about is the way his eyes light up when he talks about something he's passionate about.

Later, after a productive study session, you're packing your things.

“So, should we meet again tomorrow? Same time, same place?”

You feel your heart pounding. “Uh, yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

“Great! Hey, you seem a little quiet today. Everything alright?” he asks softly.

You force a smile. “Yeah, no, I'm just... tired, I guess... All this studying.”

“Studying can be draining! But hey, at least we're suffering together, right?” He winks at you. “See you tomorrow, germ fighter!”

He flashes another smile and throws you a peace sign before walking off. You sigh, a mix of frustration and a secret thrill bubbling in your chest. Studying with Logan might be the most nerve-wracking, yet strangely fun, experience of your university career so far.

You watch him disappear into the library crowd, a bittersweet pang in your chest.

You mutter to yourself. “Germ fighter, huh? More like heartbreaker.”

You gather your things, a sudden wave of determination washing over you. You like Logan, a lot. But you can't let that distract you from the project. You take a deep breath and head out of the library, a plan forming in your mind.

***

The next day, you arrive at the study table a few minutes early. You've spent the morning making flashcards – not just on microbiology, but also on Logan's interests you've gleaned from his conversation snippets. Genetics? Check. Obsession with the movie "The Andromeda Strain"? Double check.

He bursts in, a little late and slightly out of breath.

“Sorry I'm late! Professor Davies got us sidetracked talking about her research on bioluminescent bacteria. Apparently, there's a kind that glows neon green – can you believe it?” He says hurriedly, making you laugh a little, just then he notices the flashcards on the table. “Whoa, flashcards? You serious?”

You nod smiling, not as nervously as yesterday. “Just thought they might help us remember all this complex stuff. Besides, I found some fun facts related to the topics we need to cover. Maybe a little trivia can keep things interesting?”

His eyes wide at your words. “You got fun facts about bacteria? Okay, you officially win coolest study partner ever! Shoot, let's hear one.”

You pick up a flashcard and grin. Maybe studying with Logan won't be so bad after all. Maybe you can find a way to balance your academic focus with a sprinkle of something more.

***

The following week becomes a whirlwind of flashcards, late-night library sessions fueled by takeout, and a slow, simmering tension between you and Logan. Your knowledge of bacteria trivia becomes legendary, earning you surprised yet impressed glances from Logan. He, in turn, starts bringing coffee (with extra whipped cream for you, which you secretly adore) and peppering the study sessions with personal anecdotes, revealing a surprisingly deep and caring side beneath his bubbly exterior.

One rainy afternoon, hunched over a microscope analyzing bacterial cultures, Logan asks. “Hey, you ever wonder what those bioluminescent bacteria actually look like in real life?”

You glance up, surprised by the sudden seriousness in his voice. “Not really.” you admit, “but Professor Davies said she has some under a special microscope in her lab. Maybe we could ask if we could take a peek after our next class?”

He grins, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Perfect... We can make it a little research adventure.”

The stolen glance you share sparks a warmth in your chest, a silent acknowledgement that this is more than just a study session. The next day, after you convince a hesitant Professor Davies to let you glimpse the glowing bacteria, you find yourselves alone in the dimly lit lab.

As you peer through the microscope, Logan leans closer, his shoulder brushing yours. “Wow.” he whispers, “they're incredible.”

You hum in agreement, captivated by the tiny emerald lights dancing before your eyes. The silence stretches, charged with unspoken emotions. You can feel the heat radiating from him, his breath tickling your ear.

Suddenly, the lab door bursts open, revealing Professor Davies returning from her meeting. You and Logan jump apart, both cheeks flushing a deep red.

“Did you get to see them?” she asks cheerfully.

“Yes, Professor,” you stammer a little bit, “they're amazing!”

As the week progresses, the air between you crackles with a new awareness. You find yourself stealing glances at Logan as he talks, your heart skipping a beat when he laughs at one of your jokes.

During a particularly frustrating attempt at culturing E. coli, you blurt out, “Ugh, these bacteria are so stubborn!”

“Hey,” Logan says softly, placing a hand on yours, “we'll figure it out together... Like always.”

His touch sends a jolt through you, and you meet his gaze, your eyes locked in a silent conversation. In that moment, you both know this partnership has become something more, a budding connection waiting to bloom amidst the petri dishes and microscopes.

The shared look hangs heavy in the air, the frustration of the stubborn E. coli forgotten. Logan's hand lingers on yours, his thumb gently brushing against your skin. You can feel the warmth radiating from him, and a blush creeps up your neck.

“Maybe,” he starts, his voice a low rumble, “we should take a break from these little buggers. Grab some coffee, clear our heads?”

You nod mutely, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs. Stepping out of the lab, the rain has stopped, leaving the air fresh and clean. As you walk side-by-side, a comfortable silence settles between you. You steal a glance at Logan, his profile sharp against the setting sun.

Reaching the familiar coffee shop you frequent, you order your usual, Logan opting for his favorite with extra whipped cream (a detail that makes your stomach flutter with a strange mix of amusement and affection). Settling into a quiet corner booth, you both sip your drinks, the tension still simmering beneath the surface.

“Thanks for sticking with this project,” Logan says, his gaze fixed on you. “It wouldn't have been nearly as fun without you.”

A shy smile graces your lips. “It wouldn't have been so bad with you either.”

He leans closer, his eyes searching yours. The air crackles with unspoken desire. In a voice barely above a whisper, he asks, “Can I do something?”

Your breath catches in your throat. You nod hesitantly, a shiver running down your spine. He closes the distance between you, his hand cupping your cheek. His touch is soft, sending a jolt of electricity through you.

The kiss is tentative at first, a brush of lips that sends a wave of heat through your body. But then, something shifts. He deepens the kiss, his hand moving to cradle your head, tilting it for better access. You melt into him, the taste of coffee and something uniquely Logan swirling on your tongue.

The kiss is brief, broken by a gasp for air. He leans his forehead against yours, his chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. Your eyes flutter open to meet his, a goofy grin plastered across his face.

“Wow,” he breathes, a mixture of awe and amusement in his voice.

You can only manage a shaky smile, your heart overflowing with a mix of exhilaration and nervousness. The world seems to tilt on its axis, and for a moment, only you and Logan exist in this small corner of the coffee shop.

As you pull back and smile, a newfound confidence sparks within you... Maybe this partnership, born amidst bacteria and microscopes, could blossom into something more. And you, for one, are eager to see where it leads.

#formula one x reader #f1 x you #logan sargeant #logan x reader #logan sargent x reader #logan sargeant imagine #logan sargeant x you #logan x you #logan x y/n #logan sargeant fluff #mariclerc fics

[yhwcomeback]

Who let bro cook 💀

#qsmp eggs #qsmp #qsmp fanart #quackity smp #qsmp cucurucho #cucurucho fanart #cucurucho #qsmp egg #IGNORE THAT I HAVE DRAWN 3 DIFFERENT FANDOMS AND STILL HAVE ONE MORE IN THE WORKS #got also some rich4rlyson sketches in the works #and also some other projects that might not see the light of days #we'll see #my art

[literalgrill]

Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

#video games #patreon #hard drive #ai critical

[musingsofahufflepuff]

Dating Theo Headcanons

gn!reader; fluff & light smut at the end

a/n: i’m currently drowning in Mattheo writing so here’s boyfriend headcanons for our favorite italian slytherin while i finish bigger projects ♡

♡ Ofc he calls you a bunch of sweet names in italian, some of his favorites include: vita mia, tesorino, principessa/principe, and of course la mia ragazza/il mio ragazzo, which is simple but makes you melt anyway

♡ Speaking of foreign languages, you definitely beg him to teach you some italian so you can talk shit behind everyone’s backs

♡ He might seem stoic and cold, but just underneath the surface he’s a sweetheart

♡ This man is a cuddler and he loves being little spoon. And getting his hair played with? He’s a goner

♡ One of his favorite things is when he’s standing in the halls between classes and you run up to him and wrap your arms around his torso, he just wants to feel wanted

♡ Y’all have a height difference too, so when you hug him your head rests perfectly on his chest where he can press a kiss on the top of your head

♡ He likes intertwining your pinkies when you walk together

♡ Gift giving is one of his love languages, whether it’s buying you that new book you had your eye on or a piece of jewelry he thought would look good on you or taking you out to dinner every weekend, he loved spoiling you

♡ He got the biggest smile on his face when you told him you wanted to start coming to his quidditch practices and he immediately was like “i’m gonna marry this person one day” after you looked at him with puppy eyes asking for his team hoodie

♡ If you’re not in slytherin he loves seeing you sitting at your house table wearing his green hoodie. Regardless of which house you’re in, he takes some pride in having his last name plastered on your back

♡ He’s really picky about what people call him and you’re no exception. Anyone other than you call him Teddy? They better be ready to catch these hands. But also he’d probably cry if you tried calling him Theodore or heaven forbid— Nott

♡ As for couples activities, he is 100% a switch. Sometimes he’s got you under him screaming his name, but he’s got no shame about the noises he makes when you take control and call him a good boy

♡ I also heavy agree with the sentiment that he loves going down. Eating, blowing, worshipping? He’s all about it.

♡ Honestly, he’s just obsessed with you

#theo nott x reader #theodore nott #theo nott x male reader #slytherin boys #theo nott

[limarieb]

so high school

Pairing(s): Wanda Maximoff x fem!reader

Summary: Growing up, you could never understand how people your age were so romantically interested in other people. You begin to understand for the first time, however, when you encounter a certain Sokovian during your first semester of university.

Warnings: mentions of underage drinking, college!au, friends (?) to lovers, college au, making out, slight angst (but not really)

Word Count: 4.0k

Author's Note: everyone say thank you taylor swift for the spontaneous new fic! also this is lightly proofread, so edits might be made later oops

Main Masterlist | ao3 | Wattpad

...

Growing up, you never truly dated anyone. Sure, you had crushes on fictional characters in the media you consumed, and you allotted arguably too much time to admiring celebrities online; but, you never saw anyone in your personal life in such a light. At various hangouts and sleepovers over the years, you noticed just how much your friends discussed their love lives. Hushed whispers and sighs of the same phrase, “I really like them,” flooded your ears in the hallways at school. You had originally tried to join in on the conversations, not wanting to be excluded, but you simply couldn't engage in them wholeheartedly; eventually, the inability to relate began to upset you. You naturally boiled it down to something that must have been wrong with you — how could it possibly be normal to be like this when everyone else around you seemed to share these romantic sentiments?

Thankfully, you became completely preoccupied, both mentally and physically, by the prospect of university. By the time your junior year of high school had started, your love life — or lack thereof — no longer held too much importance to you. Instead of keeping whimsical love letters on your desk like others your age did, you opted to pile various books. From Camus to Aristotle, you discovered a deep fascination and affinity to the field of philosophy and the metaphysical discussions it posed. Therefore, when your senior year had arrived, you threw yourself head first into your studies, determined to build up your application in order to get into a top university.

After accepting your offer into one of the best philosophy programs in the nation, you anticipated your time at university, daydreaming about all of the things you would study and all of the people you would meet there.

But never could you have anticipated someone like Wanda Maximoff.

You had met her during one of your introductory courses in your first semester. Wanda was the type of person that, upon first glance, you would be scared. Not just because she was undeniably pretty, but she also had this stone cold exterior to her. Her lips were permanently etched into a slight frown, and she never really showed too much expression while she spoke during class. To put it simply, she intimidated you; so, you settled on admiring the brunette from afar (two seats up, one to the left — if you were to be specific).

Your plans changed, however, after the two of you got assigned to be partners for a class project. It was just a presentation, but it required you both to meet outside of class to work on it. You would be a liar if you said your heart didn't skip a beat at the thought of seeing Wanda outside of these four walls of your classroom, even if it was just to work on this assignment.

Seemingly unbothered by it all, she gave you her number for you to set up a date and time to meet. Her messages were all business, but they still made you feel like a dopey teenager every time her name showed up on your screen.

The day quickly came for you both to work on the presentation. Ultimately, you had settled on the two of you meeting in your dorm, which you made sure to deep clean before she came. You were not necessarily messy by any means, but the idea of Wanda, the most daunting person you could imagine, stepping into the safe space of your room made your blood run cold for some reason.

As Wanda knocked on your door, you rushed to open it. The two of you stood face to face for a moment, divided only by the doorframe. She still had her typical frown, but you noticed it shift into the slight uptick of a smirk. After a moment had passed, she finally broke the silence. "Are you gonna let me in, or...?" she asked, teasing you and your awkward nature.

Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment as you stepped aside for her to enter, "Oh, right... Sorry."

You led her to your side of the room, where she stood for a moment analyzing all of your possessions. You felt small as she did so, like a tiny insect under a bright, unsettling microscope.

She suddenly turned to face you, dropping her bag on the floor, "So, are we gonna work on this or not?"

That is how you found yourself on the floor, her laying on her back and you on your stomach. You had your computer in front of you, typing furiously as she provided you the words and ideas. You glanced over at her every now and then, especially if she was being awfully silent.

Most times, she would just be looking up at the ceiling in thought, her brown hair sprawled in random patterns underneath her; however, after a particularly long bought of silence, you looked over at her to find her gaze directly on you. You quickly returned your eyes to the screen of your computer and began typing whatever came to your mind. You hoped she did not notice the blush rise to your face.

She did.

She sighed, turning her body to lay completely facing you. "You're very quiet, you know," she stated, closely observing your reactions highlighted by the light of your screen.

Unsure of how to respond, you simply say, "So I've been told."

"Oh," she exclaimed, her smirk from earlier returns. "She has jokes."

You hum in agreement, "Just a few, unfortunately."

With the project now finished, the two of you abandoned it in favor of simply talking to each other. Never would you have guessed that Wanda could be this... warm. Unlike what you had witnessed in the classroom, she was very friendly and sarcastic in the privacy of your dorm.

You discovered a lot of information about the brunette during this conversation, such as how she loved coffee but only if its iced, how she never loved texting (preferring to call or talk in-person) but will do so if she must, how she immigrated with her twin brother from Sokovia when they were children. As she recounted her memories from Sokovia, you could hear the accent she once had poking through the surface; although, you did not point it out, afraid it was an insecurity of hers. Maybe you would tell her another time how nice it sounded, but for now, you bonded with her about collecting CDs and vinyl records from various artists.

While the two of you casually spoke, all you could think about was her — how pretty she was under the dimmed lighting of your dorm, how every joke she told was the epitome of humor, how much you wanted to stay in this moment with her. She was perfect.

Is this what people were talking about in high school?

As the night came to an inevitable end, you found yourself feeling quite sad, for you no longer had an excuse to hang out with Wanda. Though she had her number, you did not have the confidence to use it and ask if she wanted to meet up again.

You did not have to worry too much about it. As she packed her belongings back into her bag, swinging it over her shoulder, she spoke, "You know, you're pretty cool, Y/N."

You tried to hide the shock caused by her words, "Thank you, I think?"

She chuckled lowly, "My friends are having this thing at my place this weekend, if you wanted to join?"

Your head perked up, eyes blinking rapidly in shock. Unable to deny her offer, you nodded, "Yeah, sure... okay."

“Great,” she replied, walking toward your door. You followed behind her and reached around to open for her. She smiled at the gesture before speaking again, “I’ll text you later with the details and everything. See you in class.”

“Yeah, see you,” you returned. As you closed door behind her, you feel your mind finally catch up to reality: you, the stereotype of a nerd with very few friends, are going to hang out with Wanda and her friends.

You close your eyes, leaning your head onto the back of the door. “Oh, shit,” you whisper aloud into the open air. What have you just gotten yourself into?

Decoding your own thoughts and feelings about the Sokovian in the days leading up to your next class had revealed just how infatuated you had become; yet, you didn't even know how to act upon them. For years, you had only observed romantic behaviors from the outside looking in, whether it be through your friends' dating experiences or the words on a page from whichever sapphic novel you had picked to read. Now that you finally found yourself in the loop, what were you supposed to do?

Should you message her about whatever? No, that would come across as needy and overbearing.

What if you found her after class and ask to hang out again? No, that's even more overbearing than the text message.

The internal war waged on, resulting in your mind and body being paralyzed out of anxiety. For now, you have settled on simply waiting for her message regarding this weekend and presenting your assignment with her this week during class.

Days later, you walked into the class, practically shaking from your nerves about the presentation and the girl that you had to present with (who had just so happened to become your first teenage crush over the span of weeks).

You sat down in your unofficially assigned seat. Being so focused on the way your leg bounced repeatedly, you failed to notice the familiar brunette enter the classroom. Instead of sitting in her typical seat, however, she dropped her bag on the floor by the seat directly next to you.

Wanda instantly noted your nervous demeanor. While she had her own anxieties regarding the presentation and such, hers remained within her mind. She never showed such things outwardly, unless she was with someone with who she felt undeniably comfortable expressing those thoughts.

She slid into the seat and reached over to place her hand on your bouncing leg. Immediately, you noticed the feeling of someone's hand, breaking the chain of your anxious thoughts; upon glancing to your side, you discovered the culprit: Wanda.

"Hey," she started. "Everything is going to be fine, I promise."

Unable to find the words currently, you opted to remain silent, but you provide her with a uncertain nod in return. With a squeeze of her hand as a final attempt at reassurance, she placed her hand back within her lap and waited for the class to begin.

As always, Wanda was right. Your presentation went well; there were a few instances of stumbling words on your part, but otherwise it went great.

When the two of you returned to your seats, she leaned over and muttered under her breath for you to hear, "Told you so."

As you began to do your typical nighttime routine that evening, you heard your phone go off. Unsuspecting to who it was, you tapped on the screen under the assumption that it was just another email added to your overflowing inbox. You were wrong yet again.

Wanda: hey y/n !! are you still able to make it to the thing this weekend?? its gonna be on saturday at my place... lmk !!

You stared at the message for a moment before confirming you would still be in attendance, of course. Was it normal for your heart rate to speed up this much from mere words on a screen?

Saturday night rolled around quicker than you had anticipated. It was almost time to leave, yet you were currently standing still in your pajamas, surrounded by the miscellaneous clothing items you had thrown around. Ultimately, you had settled on the outfit you had first chosen, resulting in a bunch of unnecessary cleaning afterwards.

When you arrived to her place, you promptly knocked on the door. A moment passed before the door creaked open to reveal the Sokovian. Her outfit was considerably more casual than others you had seen her wear around campus. She stood in front of you, adorned with an oversized band tee and jeans; her fingers were still littered with her usual assortment of rings. However, the thing that surprised you the most was her lack of makeup. Not that she needed it, of course; in fact, it was quite the opposite. Tonight she seemed to have abandoned her typical heavy eyeliner and rose-colored shade of lipstick, choosing to only use her mascara and some chapstick.

"Sorry for the jumpscare," Wanda joked, her nose scrunched in amusement from your reaction. She continued to explain, "I know I'm dressed down compared to class. I just don't like putting in the effort to get ready sometimes, especially to just hang out with friends."

"No!" you exclaimed, quickly trying to backtrack the way she took your shocked expression. "No, you're fine. You're beautiful, actually, I just- I was just surprised to see you without the eyeliner and all."

Her cheeks became flushed at the compliment, but you seemed to miss it being overly concerned with your own response. She chuckled at your awkwardness, "Thanks. Oh, you can come in, by the way. I think everyone is here now."

She introduced you to each friend, after which you gave an insecure wave in return.

As the night progressed, you gradually loosened up. Whether it was time or the alcohol in your bloodstream, it frankly did not matter to you. You were not drunk by any means but definitely buzzed enough to not worry about every single decision you made. You even talked to one of Wanda's friends, Natasha, for awhile without the Sokovian present (given that she had left to use the restroom, but it still counts in your mind).

Suddenly, you were sat on the floor, playing childish party games with the others. It was fun, you couldn't lie... until it wasn't. You had already survived Truth or Dare, but someone (Tony) had suggested Spin the Bottle. With no romantic history, it was practically a given that you subsequently had not kissed anyone yet. For your first kiss to be during a stupid game of Spin the Bottle would be depressing; but, you didn't want to be the loser who said no to playing because the reason would be too humiliating to explain.

So, you elected to power through the hesitation, hoping the bottle just would not land on you.

At first, you were confident. The game was now three rounds in, and you remained lucky.

Eventually, the group had noted your lack of participation and had chosen to give you a "free spin." You silently prayed it would at least land on someone with whom you had become somewhat acquainted. With a shaky hand, you reached forward, spinning the emptied beer bottle. In the moment, it felt like the bottle would never stop spinning, but, once it did, it felt like time froze altogether.

It landed on Wanda.

Though you liked the brunette, you truly did not want your first kiss to be this way, especially with her.

She instantly noticed your apprehension. Turning to where Tony sat in the circle, she offered, "Hey, what if we did a hybrid of this and Seven Minutes in Heaven?"

Your eyes widened at the question, feeling unsure about all of this.

With a smirk on his face, Tony agreed, "I like the way you think, Maximoff. Alright, new girl, go follow Maximoff, and don't have too much fun while you're gone."

Before walking off with Wanda to the nearest bathroom, she briefly turned around to aim her middle finger at the boy. Though you were extremely overcome with anxiety about what was about to occur in the bathroom, you released a chuckle at her response.

She pulled you into the bathroom, flipping the lights on. As the door clicked shut, you faced her with your back against the wall.

"So, um, what are we supposed to do?" you asked.

"We don't have to do anything, Y/N," she replied, leaning against the bathroom counter. "I just noticed you weren't very comfortable with the idea of kissing me out there, so I improvised a little bit."

"Oh, okay," you breathed out. "Just for the record, it was not the idea of kissing you that made me uncomfortable. You- You're cool, so, it's fine."

Wanda tilted her head in curiosity, clearly not expecting that response. "Oh?" she questioned. "What was it then? Because I could clearly tell you were not very comfortable in there... I mean, you were visibly stiff."

"It's not you, I just..." you looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

"'It's not you, it's me'?" she joked, narrowing her eyes.

"Yes! No! I mean..." you exhaled. "It's not that the idea of kissing you makes me uncomfortable because, believe me, it very much doesn't. I just- I've never done this before."

The blood rushed to your cheeks during your admission. You felt utterly embarrassed, wishing you could just be back in your dorm in this moment.

"Y/N," she called softly. Despite every ounce of your body screaming at you to not do so, you returned your gaze to the Sokovian. "Do you want to kiss me?"

You couldn't read her tone. A part of you was nervous, maybe this was all some sick joke between her and her friends; yet, the other part of you was thrilled by the proposition alone.

"I wouldn't oppose," you muttered, automatically employing humor as your defense mechanism.

Wanda rolled her eyes at your antics, "Ok, then, let's play a new game." She looked down at her phone, checking the time. "We have less than four minutes in here."

Confused by the sudden change, you acquiesced in her request, "Okay?"

She stepped closer to you, standing a foot away.

Her tongue escaped her mouth, briefly licking her lips, before she proposed, "Are you going to marry, kiss, or kill me?"

Your eyes widened at the unexpected question, but you attempted to recover in order to return her playful energy, "Can I choose all three?"

Her eyebrow had risen, the infamous smirk forming on her lips. Slowly, she inched closer and closer to you until you could feel her breath on your skin. One hand found refuge on your hip, while the other she brought to the side of your face. She used her fingers to tuck a few loose strands of hair behind your ear then cradled your face. You licked your own lips and closed your eyes in anticipation.

Then, you felt it. Her lips brushed against yours, softly and slowly as if she were testing the waters. It was only a peck, but you swear your heart burst from the experience.

A moment passed before she pulled away enough for her to speak.

"Was that okay?" she inquired, ensuring you were still interested in this.

"More than," you affirmed.

She smiled, "Good, because we still have a few minutes left, and I intend to use them."

Without another second, she connected your lips once again. This time was different, however; there was a newfound fervor behind it. Her kisses started slow like the initial pace, gradually becoming quicker and deeper. Uncertain about what to exactly do, you continue to follow her lead. You felt her slide her tongue across your lips, asking for entrance. How could you ever deny her that? As her tongue began to clumsily caress with yours, a familiar feeling settled in the pit of your stomach, but you ignored it and kept kissing her.

A knock at the door pulled you both back into reality.

"Time's up, lovebirds," the voice called. "Clothes better be on and straightened when you leave."

Wanda chuckled at her friend's words and bit her lip. For the first time, you think you see her outwardly nervous. She swallowed as she shifted her gaze from your lips to meet your eyes, "Hey, I um- I hope this wasn't a one time thing."

You sighed in relief, "With you? Never."

She leaned forward once more, placing a final peck on your lips before grabbing your hand to return to the circle. Instead of your prior placements on the floor, in which she sat on the other end, Wanda refused to let go of your hand, instead pulling you to where she had been sitting.

Thankfully, no one mentioned how your cheeks were now incredibly plagued with a pink hue, allowing the game to continue onward.

After the group decided to finish playing games and turn on a movie, you followed Wanda to the couch in order to sit next to her. As soon as you found your place at the end of the sofa, she gravitated closer, leaning into your side. Her head rested on your shoulder as if you both had been close for years.

The movie American Pie started playing, all of her friends too engrossed in it to note how the two of you were cuddled up together. She picked her head up from its place on your shoulder. You didn't think too much of it, imagining her neck must have simply gotten uncomfortable in that position.

However, she turned her head to face you, taking in the sight of you and her friends all hanging out and watching a movie. Unable to resist herself any longer, she leaned in closer, her breath hitting your ear as she whispered to you, "I can't focus on the movie. All I can think about is kissing you right now."

You rotated your head to face her, biting your lip at her words. "Shush, your friends are here," you quietly argued, but you were secretly enjoying her antics. You peered over her shoulder, observing her friends who sat quietly with their attentions fully focused on the film.

Wanda pressed a soft kiss to the base of your neck prior to returning to its original position on your shoulder. You sighed at the feeling of her affection, wondering if it would linger forever.

Soon enough, the movie ended, and it was time to go home for the night. Her friends had left moments ago, but not without saying how you should "come around more often." Honestly, you were deeply excited that you received their approval, especially after the recent developments with Wanda.

You stayed behind for a little, attempting to garner as much alone time with Wanda as you could without being interrupted.

With the others now gone, you allowed Wanda to be more affectionate; or rather, you allowed her to give in to her desires and kiss you again, and again, and again.

After the final peck, you pulled away with the cheesiest smile and swollen lips. She loved seeing you this way: giddy and carefree.

"I really like you, Wanda," you proclaimed with a sigh, effectively breaking the comfortable silence between the two of you. "Like, a lot."

"I really like you, too," she replied. "You know, in case it got lost in translation with the kissing and everything."

You playfully slapped the side of her arm. "I'm serious," you started. "You make me feel so... high school."

She raised her brow, gesturing for you to continue.

You resumed, "I never felt like this, especially during high school. For a while, I actually thought something was wrong with me." Her lips formed a slight pout at your past conflict. "I was always so... jealous of others my age, having all of these teenage experiences with crushes and romance. Since I never did, I just assumed that it was my fault, that something was wrong with me. It was isolating; it felt like some inside joke that everyone else knew about except me. But, I'm happy I waited, truthfully, because now I can experience all of those high school feelings with you."

End.

#limarieb #wanda maximoff #elizabeth olsen #wanda maximoff x reader #elizabeth olsen x reader #wanda maximoff x female reader #marvel imagines #limarieb wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff fluff

[luciddownloading]

Astrology Observations: Gemini Edition 🗣️

📱In the "classroom" of life, Gemini Sun, Gemini Moon and Gemini Rising each represent something different.

Gemini Sun is the teacher. They are the person with a lot of information to share but their methods will vary. You might not understand why they're trying to teach you something the way that they are or why they're telling you something. They can confuse or stump you or mentally challenge you. But, at some point, it clicks. Also, remember how, in school, you used to see your teacher as just a teacher and the fact that they had a whole other life and side to them outside of that was weird? That's how people experience Gemini Suns. They're viewed so heavily in one light that people struggle to see there's more to them

Gemini Moon is the student. There is always some new fact or tidbit to absorb to them. In the same way different students have different ways of learning, there is a wide range of Gemini Moons. Some of them are quiet and observant, some are scattered and never shut up, and some can be both, depending on the setting they're in. There is often an inferiority or superiority complex around their intelligence. They may be super-intellectual and bright and lean into that energy hard, like the proud valedictorian, or they may fear they're stupid and compensate with a class clown or airhead charm

Gemini Rising is the textbook. Or maybe even the whole curriculum. They keep people sharp and on their toes and you never know what you're going to get from them. A class project this week, a pop quiz the next. Gemini Rising is unpredictable but in a way that stimulates you and even feels good for you. Also, the textbook comparison fits because a) their body language and reactions are very easy to read and b) how you read them depends on your approach. You can do a quick "skim" and only get part of them or fully invest your time and energy into them and discover how interesting they really are

(I feel like my metaphors for Gemini were more descriptive than the other signs so far and that feels very fitting lol)

📱 Gemini Mars people can be VERY verbally aggressive. And I don't even just mean when they're mad. Their words intensely affect others. (This is also true of Aries Mercury and Mercury conjunct Mars but not to the same extreme)

If they make smart-ass remarks, edgy jokes or little digs, people can take it extremely personally or, if they don't know them well, suddenly dislike them. Also, the very talkative ones can drain others' energy easily or even piss people off with their talkativeness. "Can I get a word in edgewise?!" "Can you please stop talking?!" Gemini Mars folks are often an acquired taste and their old friends or loved ones may just have to tell others that this is just how they are and not to take it personally

📱 People with Gemini placements are the embodiment of "yes, the rumors are true". Gemini rules gossip and if there is any gossip spread about them, it's probably a fact. Even if it isn't, they will either just laugh it off or be delighted that people are discussing them. "Any press is good press" was probably first said by a Gemini person.

📱 Gemini Suns might just have the most notorious reputation in astrology. Although they are not all evil, obviously, a lot of them clearly fit that "split personality" stereotype and that can manifest in fascinating or chaotic ways.

The regular girl named Norma Jean who became the otherworldly icon Marilyn Monroe and the constant struggle she felt between both parts of her. The fact that Tupac loudly proclaimed "thug life" while also being a sensitive guy who loved poetry. Angelina Jolie, in her younger days, being both a compassionate UN ambassador and a scandalous siren. Every Gemini Sun displays that famous duality in some way

📱 Venus in Gemini gets a bad rap as "the cheater's placement" and that's not going to apply to many with this Venus sign. In fact, some of them may frequently be the victim of cheating themselves or made to be the "side piece" a lot. But, their romantic situations do get messy on a regular: love triangles, exes that persistently pursue you when you're with someone, being torn between two different romantic options, etc. Some sort of "third party" situation.

Gemini Venus people, unlike most, also find it possible to be in love with two people at once. They may be very happy with their current person yet still hold feelings for an ex. OR they can be that person that an ex will never stop loving, even after they've settled down. "The one that got away" energy

📱 Gemini Moons have very powerful relationships with their sibling(s). (And if they're an only child, it's probably a cousin) It can be an incredibly close bond from childhood or it can be an intense and complicated sibling rivalry (or both).

And yeah, siblings fight. But, a lot of Gemini Moons have downright cutthroat rivalries with a brother or sister. Yet, there's still a lot of love there and the fighting is like an expression of it. Their family may accept this but it's pretty crazy to outside observers

📱 Mercury in Gemini people would be very good at learning new languages and would really enjoy it. Their Mercury is extra-strong and would make it very easy to adopt a new way of communicating and understanding other people. Also, they need good hobbies to keep their overactive brains stimulated and learning another language would be a very fruitful hobby

📱 Gemini Risings can pull off just about ANY look. Even if it doesn't perfectly suit them, it still works. They can go blonde, brunette, ginger, even wild colors like orange or purple. They can rock long hair or switch to a pixie or buzz cut. And they can easily move from one type of attire to the next: formal to casual, masculine and feminine, clean-cut or grungy. It's best for them to experiment with their style or aesthetic and not get too stuck on one thing

📱 Gemini actually doesn't do as well alone and that's not talked about as much. People with Gemini placements function better when they have a partner of sorts consistently by their side, similar to Libra, whether it's a romantic partner or a friend or anyone else close to them.

Gemini is symbolized by the Twins and that doesn't just represent their inner twin/alter ego but a steady companion who really connects to them, understands their viewpoint/mentality or even expands their outlook. (This is why The Lovers card in Tarot is represented by Gemini) This could also be a spiritual twin of sorts who is both very similar to and very different from them in beneficial ways. Without this influence, Gemini people aren't at their best

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#astrology #astrology observations #astro notes #astro observations #gemini #gemini sun #sun in gemini #gemini placements #gemini stellium #gemini moon #moon in gemini #gemini rising #gemini ascendant #mercury in gemini #venus in gemini #mars in gemini #gemini venus #gemini mars

[dfortrafalgar]

Distraction

Portgas D. Ace x Fem!Reader

You and Ace intended to spend the day at the beach, but he can’t seem to be able to relax.

Warnings: modern au, so much smut. like so much smut. wet, sticky smut. 69-ing briefly. reader is also written to be on the chubbier side (im projecting <3) ace fucks you in the back of his car, basically. MINORS DNI. YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.

I woke up thinking about Ace today so I cranked this out in, like, an hour. It was a nice change of pace while I've been finishing up IMLY and the Luffy fic from my poll, which is almost done! (speaking of which, thank you for 200 followers <3)

Ace hadn’t seen your swimsuit yet.  All he knew about it was that you purchased it recently on a shopping trip with a group of your friends, but it was currently concealed under a light t-shirt and denim shorts.  Throughout the drive to the shoreline, he was anxiously eyeing your bare thighs, his grip on the steering wheel of his station wagon turning his knuckles white.

“What’s got you so nervous over there?”  Your airly voice shook the freckled man out of his daze.  “Eyes on the road, hotshot.”

“It’s nothing,” he blurted, pouting and turning his attention back to the road.  Maybe he should have you sit in the backseat when your skin was exposed.

His own friends often joked that he was no better than a dog.  It wasn’t his fault that his sex drive was higher than cruising altitude… or maybe it was.  But he couldn’t help his wandering eyes when the soft skin of your plush thighs was exposed, or the way your deft hands fiddled with your cuticles as you stared out the window, sparkling eyes taking in the cloudless summer day as the backroads passed by on the drive to the beach.  Most of your evenings together were spent with either his head between your legs, your head between his legs, or your face smushed into a soft pillow while Ace desperately railed you from behind.

It was a good life, that’s for sure.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been to the beach,” you suddenly stated, turning your head to look at your flustered boyfriend.  “I’ve only ever been swimming in pools recently!”

“Yeah, me too,” he replied, his voice shaky.

Your eyebrows furrowed in concern.  “Ace, are you really alright?  Your face is kind of red.”  You reached your hand over to press your palm to his forehead.  “You don’t feel like you have a fever, do you?”

“Nah, I feel fine.  Honestly.  Just… thinking.”  One of his hands left the steering wheel to rub his sweating palm against the fabric of his swim trunks.  All he had on, other than the baggy trunks, was a white tank top that had a very unfortunate oil stain around the chest area.  He was sure his entire upper body was flushing red with the debauched thoughts that plagued his weary brain.  He hadn’t even seen your bathing suit yet and his mind was running in circles.  (He started to debate calling up that therapist that Sabo recommended.)

“Well, tell me if you really don’t feel good.  I don’t want you to force yourself to be out today just because of me,” you cooed, your voice soft and comforting.

He needed to tell you to stop talking.  Even the sound of your voice made butterflies swarm in his gut.

He might as well have been ovulating.

After what felt like an eternity, the trees surrounding the backroad route he had taken began to dissipate, replaced with the beautiful sight of the shoreline.  The ocean spanned outward as far as you could see, disappearing along the horizon and blending in with the bright blue sky.  A few small beach houses dotted the shore.

“You said this was a public beach, right?” you asked curiously.

Ace nodded, swallowing a thick glob of spit.  “Public, but very minimal.  There’s some private properties surrounding it so a lot of people assume the entire place is off-limits to locals, but there’s a small parking lot set back from the beach near a tiny bathroom shack-lookin’ thing.”

You grinned.  “Nice.”

“Do you not like public beaches?” he inquired, tossing you a side eye as he pulled further down the road, approaching the aforementioned parking lot.

“I don’t mind them,” you replied.  “But sometimes really busy beaches make me nervous.  Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable swimming when there’s too many people around… I get self-conscious in my bathing suits!”  Your statement was punctuated with a fluttering, nervous laugh as you involuntarily squeezed the skin of your thighs.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that when I’m here,” Ace replied, flashing you a cheeky grin.

The parking lot seemed sparse.  It was entirely gravel with a few decrepit wooden fences separating where cars could park, some overgrown weeds poking through the impacted dirt here and there.  Sure enough, there was a brown, run-down bathroom shack between the beach and the parking lot.  During high tide, it almost seemed like the entire area would get flooded, but the gravel was drier than bone thanks to the beating sunlight.

You dug through your bag, removing a tube of sunblock.

“I thought you already put on sunscreen before we left,” Ace said, pulling into a spot and putting his beat-up station wagon in park.

“I did, I’m just putting some extra on my face,” you responded, uncapping the tube and squeezing some of the white gel onto your fingers.  You deftly rubbed the lotion onto your skin, across your cheeks and brow, down your nose, and down your neck.  

Ace needed to look away from you as your hands trailed down your neck and across your collarbones, ridding your hands of the excess lotion.  You weren’t provoking him on purpose, he knew that, but clearly his dick was taking charge of the day.

Little prick.

The two of you excitedly exited the car, grabbing your small umbrella and towels to find a nice spot to set up camp on the sand.  You were quick to lay down your towel when you found a spot, Ace digging a deep hole into the ground to mount the umbrella and provide a shelter from the beating sunlight.  Only a few other people were dotted around the beach, mostly older folk who were most certainly retired and enjoying their elderly days basking in the sunlight.  The thought made you smile.  You watched with glittering eyes as Ace pulled his tank top over his lean body, his muscular chest rippling with his movements, letting the cloth fall into his bag in a wrinkled heap.

“Oh, shit, forgot the cooler,” Ace mumbled suddenly.  “I’ll be right back.”  He swiftly turned tail and hiked through the sand back to his car.

You smiled, crawling under the umbrella and feeling the sand beneath the fabric shift below your knees.  You slid your denim shorts down your legs, shifting your weight to pull them off before folding them neatly and tucking them into your beach bag.  Your shirt followed, your hands hooking under the bottom hem and pulling it up over your head, repeating the process of folding it and storing it away.  Weirdly enough, you felt more comfortable on this beach than any other.  While some old folk liked to gab, the sparse population on this beach seemed more than willing to keep to themselves.  And there was no risk of creepy men your age or obnoxious teenagers to toss rogue comments about your body or shitty pick-up lines.

And you had Ace, of course, who would kiss the ground you walked on if you asked.  The thought made your stomach flutter with glee.

Back in the parking lot, Ace was quick to haul open his trunk and grab the small cooler they had packed with water, some sodas, and some light snacks, slinging it over his bare shoulder and slamming the door closed.  The hinges made a terrible squealing noise as the door moved.  He really needed to get that fixed.  He quickly jogged back to the shoreline with the cooler bag in his possession, his sandals making scuff marks in the gravel.

He almost died and came back to life when he saw you from behind.

Your clothes were off, your body hugged in a bikini that looked sculpted for you and only you.  The strawberry-print bodice was tied around your neck and below your shoulder blades with thin straps, the front of the suit being held together in the front with a metal ring between the bust.  Your plump breasts peeked over the seams slightly, making blood rush to Ace’s face.  The solid-colored bottoms squeezed your hips and ass perfectly, with one side open and held together with strings in an intricate criss-cross pattern.

Ace’s feet were moving on their own, his soul ascending from his body as he floated toward you.

You heard the rustle of his swim trunks from behind you as you approached, turning to look at him over your shoulder.  “Hey!  All set with the cooler?”

He plopped to his knees on his own towel, the cooler hitting the ground with a thud.  “Yeah, all set…”  His voice trailed off as if he wanted to say something else.

You gazed at him with confusion painting your features.

“You… you look…”  Ace could barely look at you.  “You look so fucking hot… oh my god.”

Suddenly, his demeanor in the car made much more sense.  The constant red flush painting his adorable freckled cheeks, his mouth in a perpetual tongue-tie, his lips pursing together tightly as he struggled to keep his composure.  Your lips pulled into a bright smile, relishing in the flustered behavior of your boyfriend.

“Aww, thank you, baby!” you cooed, moving closer to him.  Your hands trailed down his arm, ghosting over the tattoo on his bicep before teasingly falling to the cooler and unzipping the top, pulling an orange soda out of the bag.

“Please don’t tease me, I think I might explode,” Ace huffed.

You popped open the can with a satisfying click, taking a quick sip from the opening.  “You know… I don’t think anyone’s going to mess with our stuff if you want to go back to the car…”

Ace’s dark eyes darted toward you, assessing the mischievous expression on your face as you kept the cold soda can pressed against your mouth.  The metal was rapidly developing condensation thanks to the heat in the air, droplets of water dripping down the orange can and onto your fingers, plopping against your folded knees.

He carefully removed the soda from your hands, tucking it back into the cooler to make sure it didn’t spill, before standing up and hauling you to your feet, dragging you by your hand across the hot sand and back to the parking lot for a third time.  He ripped his car keys from the pocket of his swim trunks, shoving the metal key into the door lock to open the vehicle before leading you to the trunk and popping open the door.  You quickly clamored inside, him following behind you and closing the trunk from the inside.  He chucked his keys somewhere towards the front of the car.

He wasted absolutely no time in smashing his lips against yours, making you wince slightly at the feeling of his teeth hitting your own, but the way his long fingers expertly groped the skin of your breasts below your bikini top made you forget about the momentary discomfort.

After a few stifling moments, Ace pulled away and heaved into the skin of your neck, holding you down by your shoulders.

The best part about him owning an old, refurbished station wagon was the ample amount of room in the back, as well as the lack of center console between the two front seats.  It was a car built for fucking.

“Is this what you were thinking of on the ride over here?” you asked, a coy tone on your tongue.  “About what my new swimsuit would look like?”

Ace grumbled, a childish pout on his lips as one of his hot hands continued to rub patterns up and down your side.  Up to your breasts, his thumb ghosting over your concealed nipple, trailing down your waist and groping the plush flesh of your belly, down your thigh to squeeze your ass.  The way the strings on the exposed side of your bottom piece fit into your skin made his cock throb.

“You’re insatiable,” you giggled, your own hands leaving scorching patterns over his shoulders and arms.  “Are you ovulating?  You’re acting like me before my period.”

“Shush,” he grumbled, followed by another sweltering kiss, all tongue.  You felt a dribble of spit leave the corner of your mouth, sticking to the skin of your cheek.  His lips moved against yours, exchanging a blistering heat.  Ace always seemed to radiate warmth even on the coldest days, and his presence in this moment filled your body with a heated, lustful buzz.  Goosebumps rose on your skin when he pulled away from you leaving your front exposed, gently biting your puffy lower lip with his teeth.

“How worried are you about someone messing with our things on the beach?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

You adjusted yourself slightly below him, his knees beside your hips caging you onto the floor of his trunk.  “Hmm… not too worried.”

“Perfect,” Ace replied swiftly, tugging his swim trunks down.  

He had such a nice cock, perfectly shaped with a cut tip that flushed a beautiful rosy hue.  A slight upward curve, lean and not too long, perfect.  He was either hard for the entire time you were setting up your small spot on the sand and you hadn’t noticed, or he was fighting with every fiber in his body to keep the erection at bay.  Whatever the circumstance, the fantasy of spontaneously fucking you in the trunk of his car in that sexy bikini of yours that he daydreamed about on the drive down was finally coming true.

Your hands made a move down to your hips to pull on the fabric of your bottoms before his fingers wrapped around your wrists, halting your movement.

“Sorry,” he uttered, his voice a soft whisper filled with a desperation you rarely saw from him.  “Your suit stays on.”

Your mouth morphed into a grin as he released you, leaning back up on his knees and idly stroking his cock with his right hand.  You parted your legs for him, making a show of smushing your breasts together under your tight top.  God, your suit could have been molded onto your body, it looked so good.

“Are you going to stay there and jerk off over me, or are you going to share some of the fun?” you asked deviously, one of your hands crawling below your bottoms and teasing your clit with the slick that had built up.  A pleasant, tingling flutter resonated in your belly and floated down your thighs, but nothing was better than the feeling of his fingers and cock doing the work for you.

“I want to do everything to you,” he muttered, releasing his dick from his slow ministrations.  “I don’t even know where to begin.”

You watched as it bobbed in the air, so hard it held itself out away from Ace’s toned stomach.  You involuntarily licked your lips at the sight.  “You’re so pretty…” you muttered.  You took it upon yourself to sit up, gently pushing against Ace’s shoulders to get him to sit on the trunk floor on his ass, leaning against him further to get the hint to lay down in the position you had just been in.

Neither of you had a strictly dominating or strictly submissive attitude.  Rather, you mutually shared the moment, taking charge when you wanted and snatching the lead away whenever you pleased.  This was one of those moments as you rotated your body on top of his, moving your ass closer to his face as one of your hands ghosted along his hip bone, your other arm supporting you and keeping you upright.

Ace got the hint almost immediately, his greedy hands groping and squeezing your ass as he pulled you downward to rest your clothed cunt against his mouth.  The hotness of his breath and the feeling of his lips against your weeping pussy concealed by the polyester made your breath hitch as your lips traveled closer and closer to the tip of his dick, watching hungrily as it seemed to pulse in the air, desperate for attention.

Your boyfriend made the first move, pulling you down by your hips and resting your cunt over his mouth, his tongue forcing its way between your folds through the suit and quickly finding your clit.  You gasped, your arm shaking somewhat as you quickly followed his lead, wasting no time in taking his cock into your hot, ready mouth.  

And goodness, did he taste good.  A familiar slightly salty musk partnered with the residual scent of his daily body spray, a vanilla and cedar flavor that always made your heart flutter in your chest.  His cock might as well have been burning as you hollowed out your lips and took him further down your mouth, loving the way the organ pulsed against your tongue.  

On the other end, Ace’s fingers had found their way into the fabric of your bathing suit, holding the barrier aside as two of his digits spread your natural slick over your cunt and lubricated his skin before he pressed them into your pussy, addicted to the way your muscles constricted around him.  Your entrance was always on the tighter side no matter how many times you fucked, and it was absolute heaven for him.  He turned the pads of his two fingers forward, pushing gently against the roof of your vagina where he knew you were acutely sensitive, and smirked to himself when your thighs clenched around his head.  Your movements over his cock momentarily stuttered at the feeling of his thumb connecting with your clit to simultaneously stroke the needy bud while passionately fingering your pussy.

He knew you too well.  He knew what you needed.  Ace wasn’t a selfish lover, he had learned your quirks and needs very early on in your relationship.  You loved your clit rubbed in somewhat slow circles, alternating between various pressures.  You responded to his fingers against your g-spot, and you loved when his dick curled upward into the same area.  Not too deep so as to hit your cervix, which hurt you quite a bit, but deep enough to reach those sensitive areas that had your legs shaking.

You learned quickly too, however.  Ace’s tip was the most sensitive part of him, his breaths growing shallow when you delicately sucked your lips around it and trailed your tongue along the slit, collecting the small amount of salty precum that emerged from the tip.  He loved it when you gently fondled his balls, rubbing the wrinkled skin between the pads of your fingers.  He adored the inside of his thighs being caressed, and you tried your best to do both with one hand as the other trembling appendage fought to support your weight as you continued to blow him.

You popped off of his cock momentarily, stroking the base with your hand.  “Did you have fruit recently?” you asked, turning your head somewhat to look over your shoulder.  Not like you could see much.

Ace paused his motions against your pussy.  “... Maybe.”

You grinned, the usually salty, bitter taste of his essence now replaced with something slightly sweeter.  You wanted to egg him on, to ask him if he had planned for this to happen and eaten some pineapple or citrus with his breakfast in preparation, but you decided to keep your inquiries to yourself and return to your task of sucking him off.

Ace was content to keep fingering you, his current position in between your thighs a bit too difficult to involve his tongue, but he knew he could please you regardless.  The circular movements of his calloused thumb against your throbbing clit had you sucking in sharp, lustful breaths through your nose, small whimpers leaving your throat and vibrating down his shaft making him bite his lip and stifle a wheeze.  Your thighs were quivering as he continued to curl his fingers into your g-spot, following the rhythm of your lips around his cock.

After some moments, however, you quickly scrambled off of him, your hand clutching around your stomach as you pivoted above him, capturing his lips in yours.  You ground your clothed cunt over his pulsing cock, keeping it locked between your pussy and his toned abdomen.

“Now who’s the desperate one?” he asked, teasingly, his signature boyish smirk traveling right back to your clit.

“I can’t help it, you’re contagious,” you huffed against the skin of his cheek.

Usually, the two of you used lube.  It didn’t matter how wet you got thanks to foreplay, the sensations were always heightened when there was no risk of chafing.  But clearly, you didn’t have that luxury today.  Nor did you have any condoms.  Instead, you bit down your thoughts, reserved yourself to spending 70 beri on the morning-after pill later that day, and hovered over his cock.  You pulled your swimsuit to the side and took his dick in your hands, wasting no time in slipping it through your folds that were thoroughly drenched thanks to Ace’s expert fingers.  

The first insertion always hurt somewhat.  A slight, red-hot throbbing pain that radiated through your pelvis, followed by a pleasant pressure as his cock slowly intruded into your tight muscle.  The groan that radiated from Ace’s throat made your pussy flutter.  

That was another thing you loved about him.  He was loud.

Maybe on a normal day you’d be worried about someone hearing you, or seeing the way his car shook with the force of your collective moments, but both of you had succumbed to desperation and couldn’t care less.  Traumatize the elderly beach goers who might happen to walk through the gravel parking lot to their own cars.

You sunk fully down onto Ace’s hips, his dick perfectly nestled inside your wet and willing pussy as his hands tightly gripped your hips through your suit bottoms.  You slowly rocked your hips, desperate for some extra friction against your clit.  It was much harder with the fabric covering you, but eventually you found a movement that felt just right.  Edging your hips slightly forward, you rolled your pelvis against his, dragging your clothed slit over the taught skin of his lower abdomen, moaning at the feeling of his dick pulsing within you.

Maybe you really didn’t have to worry about lube today.  Every motion against the walls of your vagina had you biting your lip and arching your back over him.

Ace’s hands assisted with bouncing you on his cock, his voice slowly increasing in volume as he watched you through half-lidded as your breasts jiggled with each movement, how the fat of your belly and thighs rippled so deliciously as you gyrated above him.  His voice was delectable, gruff and whiny, higher-pitched than usual with stuttering breaths and hitches in his throat that had your heart beating a mile a minute.

Your legs were growing tired, and Ace could tell.  He wordlessly beckoned you off of him, being quick to lean you over the back seats and move your suit to the side again, slipping his cock back in between your folds.  This angle always fit the both of you.  As much as Ace loved it when you rode him, taking you from behind came with many more benefits.  His free hand could travel down to dip beneath the cloth of your swimsuit and rub those delicious circles against your clit while simultaneously thrusting his desperate hips against your ass.  His chest pressed into your shoulder blades, his free hand supporting him against the back of the seats as you held onto the leather for dear life, whining with each motion of his cock against your inner walls and his calloused fingers against your clit.

It didn’t take long for you to unravel, the feeling of his rough finger pads against your desperate nub too much to bear.  Your orgasm approached slowly at first, filling your stomach with warmth, the insides of your eyelids flashing purple and indigo, before your body snapped and you were shuddering against Ace, moaning out loud as your pussy involuntarily clenched around his cock, your cunt feeling feather light as it fluttered.  The force of your orgasm caused you to gyrate your hips back against his, weak, airy moans escaping your tongue as the red-hot pleasure radiated through your entire body leaving your pussy buzzing with the aftershocks.

Ace was barely holding it together.  The force of your orgasm causing your pussy to clench around his cock had his arms weakening against the seat, his hips frantically rutting into you as sultry moans left his lips at the feeling of his cock burning inside you, begging for satisfaction.  His fingers never stopped rubbing your clit, caught up in what had essentially become second nature for him.  The overstimulation had you twitching around him, shallow breaths heaving from your lungs.  Ace’s pace increased as did the stuttering of his hips, his thrusts growing more shallow as his own orgasm approached.

“A-Ace… fuck, baby…” you whined, dropping your forehead against the back of the seat.  “You’re gonna make me cum again…”

The man was too caught up in the throes of pleasure.  Calling him desperate earlier was clearly an understatement.  A loud, throaty groan reverberated from his lips as his hips rapidly drilled into you, forcing you against the back of the seat.  His shallow breaths only helped to fuel your second orgasm that rocked you with a sudden wash of white light behind your eyes and you were shuddering against him again, your own moans filling the stifling air of the car.  

Ace barely had time to call out your name before he was thrusting disjointedly into you, crackled, weary moans leaving his lips as he came into your sore cunt, his hands pressing down onto your lower back to keep you still as he buried his cock into you, soaking you more than you already were.  You felt him pull out of you, your cunt fluttering around nothing as the sound of him falling backwards against the closed door of his trunk filled your ears.

Your own spent body dropped to the side, sitting on your hip and barely holding yourself up with one hand.  You slowly picked your head up, gazing at your boyfriend and assessing his condition.

Black hair mussed beyond belief, his freckled cheeks and shoulders flushed with a delicate red hue, his lips wet and swollen parted with the force of his labored breathing.  His eyes were closed, jaw slack as his pelvis continued to twitch from the force of his orgasm.  A few last drops of cum were bubbling from his tip, slowly dripping down his drenched dick that almost glistened, covered in your own fluids.  You felt wet between your legs.  It would have been a nice feeling if you weren’t already so stifling, your entire body feeling sticky.  You finally noticed the way the windows had fogged up.  You didn’t have time to think about carbon dioxide toxicity before Ace’s weary hand traveled up to the back window of his trunk door, blindly popping the window open a crack to let some fresh air flow into the car.  The summer heat felt oddly cool against your sweaty skin.

You slowly crawled closer to Ace, ignoring the way your drenched cunt sat uncomfortably inside your bathing suit.  You combed a damp strand of black hair off of his forehead before delicately pressing your lips against his cheek, encouraging him to finally open his eyes.

“You alright?” you asked, your voice low and quiet.

He finally smiled, his narrow, dark eyes filling your chest with warmth.  “I think my heart almost stopped.”

You giggled, running your sweaty hand up and down his skin.  “Should I wear bathing suits around you more often?  I don’t think you’ve ever fucked me like that.”

Your boyfriend’s humble laughter made you grin.  “For the sake of my health, you probably shouldn’t.”  He finally leaned forward to press a tender kiss against your wet lips.  “Though, if I were to die fucking you in a bikini, I’d die a very, very happy man.”

#x reader #reader insert #fem reader #one piece x reader #op x reader #ace x reader #portgas d ace x reader #portgas d ace #portgas ace x reader #portgas ace smut #ace x reader smut #portgas d ace x reader smut #smut #op smut #one piece smut #ace oneshot

[yoongiseesawmp3]

anything but - jeonghan

summary: roommate!jeonghan. you thought living with your best friend, jeonghan, would be easy. fun. like a sleepover every night. but as he watches you struggle week in and week out with crushes that don't like you back or dates that never seem to go well, he decides to take matters into his own hands.

word count: 8.2k

warnings: none rly, afab reader, unedited, sry

masterlist

jeonghan is ready to go to sleep. he had a long day, followed by a good, but tiring, night with friends, and he's been thinking about his soft sheets for the past two hours now. he's also been thinking about you, thinking about how happy he gets seeing your face light up when he walks through the door, but he knows he won't see that tonight. you're going on a date, dinner with some loser who's not him. he knows he could treat you so much better, but he can't just say that. things would get weird, and jeonghan can't afford the rent on his own. so selfishly, he keeps you and his feelings at arm's length. he's still thinking about you as he puts his key in the lock, wondering if he can stay up late enough to make sure you get home safe. when he opens the door, he changes his mind.

"what are you doing here?" jeonghan asks with a bit of anger in his voice, finding you laid out on the couch scrolling through your phone. "you told me you were going on a date tonight. did you cancel on him?"

"nope," you reply, popping the p as you sit up to stare at your roommate. "he cancelled on me. ten minutes before he was supposed to pick me up, actually, so i got ready for nothing."

that's when jeonghan notices the nice clothes you have on, your hair done up but mussed now that you've been laying on it. and, with a pang in his chest, he notices your makeup that looks smudged with tears. he knows you've been having dating trouble lately, and it's definitely been getting to you. but it makes his heart ache to think that you've been home all night crying over some loser who couldn't even bother to take you out.

"why didn't you call me?" he asks softly, joining you on the couch as he lifts your legs to lay them over his lap. he keeps a comforting hand on your calf as you explain, a slight tremor in your bottom lip as you say, "i didn't want to interrupt boy's night."

"baby, come on," he sighs. "you should have told me. you could've come to boy's night!"

"right," you scoff, rolling your eyes. "and hear all of them talk about their beautiful girlfriends and being so happy in a relationship? i'd rather eat drywall."

"we talk about other stuff," jeonghan laughs. "i told them about you getting us tickets to that soccer game and now i think they like you better than me. mingyu might be calling to see if he can take my ticket."

"never," you smile at him, sitting up and swinging your legs from his lap. "well, it's late. you're probably tired."

"eh," jeonghan shrugs, looking over you carefully to gauge if you're upset. "i could stay up a little longer, if you wanted to watch something."

"we're caught up on all our shows though," you pout. jeonghan sees an idea cross your face, so he asks, "what are you thinking?"

"nothing," you shake your head. "i remembered i didn't watch project runway last week, but you don't like that show-"

"put it on," he nods to the tv, looking over you one more time and noticing your clothes must not be that comfortable. "or you go change, i'll set it up."

"you don't know what episode i'm on though," you squint at him, and he shakes his head.

"nope, you're two weeks behind," he says. "i remember, because we went out the week before and you were ticked off that you were missing it."

"you pay too much attention to me," you mumble as you finally get up from the couch, jeonghan barely hearing you as he checks you out from behind. you're right, he does. too bad you haven't realized why.

when you come back from your room, you're wearing a hoodie that's seen better days and shorts that aren't quite doing their job. jeonghan clears his throat, trying not to stare, but when you sit down and put your legs back over his lap he can't help but skirt his hand over your skin, getting too close to your thigh without realizing.

"that tickles," you giggle, pushing his hand away. "you're annoying."

"ha, sorry," he laughs nervously, not sure what to do with his hands now so he reaches for the remote to press play. not far into the episode you curl up on your side of the couch, your knees tucked up beneath you as you lay down. jeonghan keeps an eye on you the whole time, attune to all your reactions and movements. he notices when you shiver, up in an instant to get a blanket.

"where are you going?" you call out, and he comes back wordlessly with the comforter from his room. he wraps it over you, using the rest of it to cover himself as he gets comfortable again. you find yourself dozing off, waking up every few minutes to see the progress on your favorite designers. you sleep through a whole section of the show, whining that you need to rewind, but jeonghan quietly explains what's happened and you're satisfied enough.

"do you want me to turn this off?" jeonghan asks after he sees your eyes closed again after you just complained about missing part of the show. you shake your head, not much of it visible outside of his blanket. you're noticing how nice his blanket smells, recognizing it as the same fresh scent that follows jeonghan around. it makes you feel at home, and that's part of what's making you so sleepy.

"i don't wanna go to my room," you admit shyly, feeling the tears from earlier just a moment or two away. "i'll stay awake, promise."

"do you want to sleep out here?" jeonghan asks, and you think about it for a moment. it wouldn't be the first time you had a little sleepover of sorts, both of you squished awkwardly on the couch or sleeping far apart from each other on someone's mattress that's been dragged out from one of your rooms. your silence decides it for jeonghan, and he says, "i'll go change, and then we can go to sleep." all you do is nod, getting comfortable beneath his comforter again as jeonghan slinks back to his bedroom to get ready for bed.

he comes back out and laughs to himself, your messy hair and scrunched sleepy face pulling at his heart. he knows someday he should tell you how he feels. he knows what you're looking for, and he knows he's perfect for you. it's just a matter of time before you figure that out, too.

-

a few days later, jeonghan was in the middle of a nap when he heard mumbling in the hallway and the sound of someone slamming doors. he was worried for only a few minutes, thinking it could possibly be an intruder, but as the mumbling gets closer to his door he knows there's a very frustrated y/n on the other side. he groans as he hoists himself up, shuffling to the door so he can peek out at you putting laundry away in the most irritated way possible. it's like you're trying to punish the towels for existing, and jeonghan can't help but laugh at the annoyed look on your face. it's cute, he finds himself thinking, but his chuckle pulls you from your dark thoughts and brings your anger to a new victim.

"what."

"nothing," jeonghan says defensively. "i thought someone was breaking in, you know, with all the banging around."

"shut up," you mumble, shoving the washcloths into the hall closet before slamming the door. you turn to your best friend and roommate, finger pointed accusingly, "i'm in a bad mood so don't piss me off."

"that explains the stress cleaning," he notes, and you ignore him.

"i'm going downstairs to put the dishes away," you grumble as you pass by him to get to the stairs, and he puts a timid hand on your shoulder.

"maybe do something that involves less breakables," he says coolly. "go punch a pillow or something."

"that's a good idea," you say, face lighting up slightly, and he laughs nervously as he finally asks what's wrong. "you remember that bitch of a dude who i was talking to a couple weeks ago?"

"gar bear?" jeonghan asks, and you roll your eyes.

"gary, yeah."

"what about him?" he asks, watching you unlock your phone and scroll to find something. you shove it into his hands, open to a very disturbing picture of a very ugly dick. "no."

"yeah. at three pm on a fucking thursday."

"stop making me look at it," he whines, pushing your phone back to you. "that's what made you mad?"

"yes!" you shout. "how did that thought process work? oh, this girl who i led on and then gaslit and then weirded out, she really needs to see my dick right now. it's the middle of the day! get a job! contribute to society!!!"

"why's he posing like that?" jeonghan asks, noticing more about the photo since you haven't locked your phone yet. "he looks so stiff."

"please stop," you say, but jeonghan sees a smile pulling at your lips.

"so what did you do?"

"i said 'what is your problem' and then i blocked him," you shrug, and he laughs.

"remind me to never piss you off," he says as he wraps an arm around you. "i'm sorry guys are assholes."

"i think i'm gonna become a nun," you mumble into his shoulder, staying in his hold maybe a minute too long. he presses a quick kiss to the crown of your head before letting you go, a blush on your cheeks that he takes pride in.

"you'd suck at being a nun, you're not nice enough," he jokes, and the way you glare at him makes him smile. "plus you fuck too much, aren't they supposed to be celibate?"

"forget punching pillows, i'm gonna punch you."

"sure baby," he chuckles, looking back at you as he walks downstairs. "you want food or something? i'll do the dishes. you just focus on not burning down the patriarchy."

"no promises," you mumble as you follow behind him. "but yeah, i wanna try this recipe i found the other day..."

it's over dinner that night that you realize how perfect jeonghan is. if only you could find a guy just like your best friend. someone who supports you, makes you smile, know how to get your heart to skip a beat. take, for example, his compliments. you like to joke to jeonghan that you need validation on your cooking, like tinkerbell, so whenever you cook for him the praises are nonstop. he's nothing if not supportive, so he tries to find things to comment on that he knows will make you blush. it works, and you do your best to tell him to stop without making it obvious that your heart is doing somersaults at his words.

this is what you want from a relationship, you find yourself thinking. you want to be comfortable with them, feel supported, all the things that jeonghan gives you. that night, you scroll through your dating apps, looking for a guy you think could meet those standards. in reality, you spend the whole night comparing the men on your screen to your roommate, subconsciously thinking of all the things you like most about jeonghan that these losers don't possess. you fall asleep like that, phone open to an empty chat, with jeonghan still on your mind.

-

so, a downside to living with jeonghan is you get the brunt end of all his weird energy. sometimes it's fun, and manifests itself in silly ways. like when you go thrifting, he takes it upon himself to find the weirdest thing in the store and insists on bringing it home. it means your apartment is decorated uniquely, but some of the stranger things you make him keep in his room. you haven't figured out yet that he only does this to make you laugh, loving how you smile sweetly at all the funny trinkets littered around your house. anything that goes into his room is eventually donated back to goodwill, its purpose served, doomed to delight another unassuming shopper some day.

other times, his weird energy comes out in worse ways. like today, he's not home, but you can feel that something's wrong. you know jeonghan is helping his friends with some video shoot, and he won't be home until much later. but there's a vibe in your apartment when you walk in. something is off, and it doesn't take you long to realize it. jeonghan has moved everything around, the couch where your kitchen table should be, the chairs from the table lined up in place of your couch. he's a strange one, your best friend, but it makes you laugh nonetheless, sending him a picture of the chairs and asking, "how am i supposed to fall asleep watching tv on this?!"

jeonghan smiles when he gets your text, shooting back, "watch tv in your room if you know you're just gonna fall asleep!"

really, he did the switcharoo for you to let your guard down. yes, moving furniture around is something silly that he would do, but he hid something further in the house that he wants you to find. he's hoping he'll be home when you do, but just the mere thought of your reaction has him chuckling. he goes back to whatever vernon wanted him to do, curious at each buzz from his phone, wondering if it's you.

jeonghan got the best of you, like usual. you did just go to your room, putting on one of your comfort shows so you could relax after a boring shift at work. you only get up to make a quick meal, dozing off again with the empty plate beside you. when the tv wakes you up you figure it's just time for you to go to bed, so you shuffle to the kitchen and notice a light coming from under jeonghan's door. he must have come home while you were napping, but it's late, so you go about your business. you drop your things off in the kitchen, returning upstairs to grab a washcloth and towel from the closet before you lock yourself in the bathroom. jeonghan is listening intently as you move around, waiting for the sound of the shower curtain pulling back and-

"JEONGHAN?!"

with sock clad feet that send him crashing through the now open bathroom door, he greets you with a shit eating grin. "you rang?"

"what the FUCK is that doing in here," you bellow, pointing at the plastic skeleton jeonghan found at the party store earlier that day. he thought it would be funny to hide in the apartment, at first just thinking about propping it up in the kitchen like the dead guy was making a meal, but the idea of scaring you a little was too good for him to pass up.

"man, when was the last time you cleaned your bathroom?" jeonghan jokes, "he must've been in here a while."

"fuck you," you spit, heart still racing from the surprise. that's when jeonghan notices something: you're naked. well, not entirely. like, you definitely don't have clothes on, his eyes flicking down to see your discarded panties and sleep shirt on the floor. he can't see the goods though because you're dangerously holding a towel over your body, one edge of it slipping as you reach out to try and punch jeonghan.

"what, you don't like him?" jeonghan pouts, stepping out of the bathroom to protect himself. "i thought you said you wanted to start decorating for halloween."

"this is not what i meant and you know it, you jackass," you try to say meanly, but jeonghan finds it cute. "it scared the shit out of me."

"i'm sorry," he says finally, hands twitching to reach out and grab you by the waist so he can rub comforting circles on your skin. but he can't. he physically shakes his hands out, a thing he does often enough to reset his mind that you look at him quizzically.

"why'd you do that?" you ask, and he clasps his hands behind his back defensively.

"felt like it," he shrugs. you roll your eyes and reach for the door, grumbling more expletives at him as you try to shut it in his face. "um, y/n?"

"what."

"you gonna shower with him?" jeonghan asks, pointing to your new friend. "i gotta admit, i'm a little jealous-"

"oh my god," you groan, grabbing the skeleton and throwing it at jeonghan with a comical clangor of plastic bones. "i hate you."

"love you too baby," jeonghan laughs as he closes the door for you, hefting the skeleton over his shoulder to go hide him in another corner of the house.

-

a few days later (jeonghan has hid the skeleton twice now), you come home from a date, dopey smile still on your face. you gasp when you see a body on the couch, thinking it's that stupid skeleton again. you breathe a sigh of relief when you realize it's a snoozing jeonghan instead. he looks angelic, his soft features shining brightly even in the dark room, illuminated by the tv. you don't realize that you're staring, nor do you realize jeonghan is peeking at you, the sound of the door waking him up.

"hey," he calls quietly, startling you. "sorry. i can go back to sleep and you can keep staring."

"i wasn't staring," you say defensively.

"sure," jeonghan nods, checking you out. "you look nice."

"who's staring now?" you ask as you cross to the kitchen. "i went out to dinner, but the portions were too small. do you want something to eat?"

"no, i'm good!" jeonghan calls. "was it a fancy place?"

"what?" you ask, coming back into the living room with a bag of chips. "i couldn't hear you."

"where you ate," he clarifies. "you dressed up, the servings were small, must have been a fancy place this guy took you to."

"how'd you know i was on a date?" you pout.

"y/n, i know you better than anyone else," jeonghan chuckles. "it was obvious. how'd it go?"

"good," you nod, ears burning under jeonghan's close attention. "don't wanna jinx it though."

"ok," jeonghan nods. "well i'm glad it was a good date. you deserve one of those."

"how was your night?" you ask. jeonghan shifts on the couch so there's room for you to sit and join him. once you're settled he explains how his friend seungcheol had come over for drinks, but he left a little while ago.

"i think he's got a girlfriend and doesn't want to tell me," jeonghan says, "because he feels bad that i'm not seeing anybody."

"you want me to find you a lady?" you tease. "you know my friends love you, i'm sure it'd be easy.''

"no," he shakes his head so some of his hair falls in his eyes. it makes it easier for him to stare at you without you noticing. "i'm good."

"well, it's a standing offer," you say as you get up to return the chips to the pantry. when you walk back through the living room, you ask, "where's jack tonight? i'm about to shower, i don't want another heart attack."

"i put the skeleton in your bed," jeonghan smiles with an impish glint in his eyes. "i figured it would be a nice surprise for the poor sap you might have brought home."

"you're annoying."

"thanks!" jeonghan chirps, and you laugh before telling him goodnight. he watches you go, smiling at something on your phone. jeonghan feels a pang in his chest ever so slightly, but he shakes it off, turning the tv off before he goes back to sleep trying not to think about you.

-

the following week, you're acting off. jeonghan notices immediately, but he doesn't bring it up to you at first. he's not sure if maybe work is stressing you, or maybe you've got family stuff going on...whatever it is, he'll give it a day or two before he checks on you, knowing how you like having time to yourself before someone swoops in to help.

the reality is, you really like this guy you've been talking to. that first date was amazing, and you wanted to go out with him again as soon as possible. you talk all the time, always ducking into your room when he calls while you're around jeonghan. you're actually ignoring jeonghan a lot, which you feel bad about, but you just can't get enough of this new guy. even though you're talking a lot, it's hard to set up another date with him because you're both busy with work. you've got plans to hang out on sunday, and for the first time in a long time, you're excited for a date. not nervous, not dreading it, just pure schoolgirl crush excitement.

that's why it's so crushing when, a few hours before, the guy texts you and cancels. you play it off at first, asking when he's free to reschedule, but his response is basically telling you to get lost. it hurts your feelings more than it should, because he is just some loser dude, but you also didn't know him that long. you have no reason to be so devastated over this, but you are.

jeonghan knew about your second date with this guy, so he made plans to be out of the house for as long as possible on sunday. as selfish as it was, he didn't want to be there for the giddy getting ready (you always ask him for outfit advice and he always tells you that you look great) or for the nervous pacing while you waited for the guy to pick you up (jeonghan always distracts you with jokes to calm your nerves). he also didn't want to be there after the date, if you happened to bring the lucky guy home. so he's out running errands, bothering his friends, and killing time until he's sure he won't walk in on anything he doesn't want to see.

when jeonghan gets home, it's late. after his day of farting around he went to his friend wonwoo's apartment for a while to heckle him while he played video games, and wonwoo finally kicked him out.

"don't you need to go home to your girlfriend?" wonwoo had teased, and jeonghan kicked him from his spot on the couch.

"y/n's my best friend and my roommate."

"so basically your girlfriend," wonwoo smiles that little smile of his, and it annoys jeonghan.

"she doesn't think of it like that," jeonghan mumbles, looking for his phone so he can head home anyway.

"because you're being too subtle."

"i'm not trying to be anything!" jeonghan says defensively. "i don't want her to know."

"why not?" wonwoo asks, finally turning to look at his friend. "you afraid she'll say no? because we all think-"

"i'll see you later, ok?" jeonghan says quickly, his shoes barely on as he tries to unlock the door. "hope cheol doesn't kill you again."

"in his dreams," wonwoo mumbles, his attention effectively back on the game and off of jeonghan.

jeonghan comes home to a mostly dark apartment, the stove light in the kitchen the only indication that you got home before him. he stops at the door to make sure there's no...unpleasant sounds coming from elsewhere, and when he's met with silence he kicks his shoes off carefully before heading to his room. he's exhausted, hiding from you all day being a good way to wear a person out. when he passes by your room something catches his ear, and his heart stops. were you moaning?

jeonghan knows he shouldn't, but he presses his ear against your door, telling himself he's only doing this so he can decide if he needs to stay somewhere else tonight. he's waiting to hear another voice, a man's voice, but he's met with a quiet whimper, followed by some sniffles. his heart roars back to life hearing that, almost breaking to pieces when he realizes you're not moaning, you're in your room crying. he's opening the door before he knows what he's doing, and you jump out of your skin at the unwelcome intrusion.

"go away," you whisper. jeonghan ignores you, coming to your bedside and looking down at you with concern in his eyes. "jeonghan, please. go away-"

"why are you crying?" he asks, and you don't say anything. "what did that asshole do?"

"nothing," you sniff again, willing your tears to stay back as you try to appease your roommate long enough for him to decide you're fine and leave you alone. "h-he was bu-busy and had to cancel-"

"fuck him."

"yeah, whatever," you say shakily. "it doesn't matter. i'm fine. now leave. please." your eyes are closed, trying to hide the tears that are welling up, and jeonghan is so quiet you assume he left, but he's trying not to let his own emotions show as he calls your name.

"y/n," jeonghan whispers, and when you look up at him you can't help it. you start crying again seeing him so upset over you being so upset, and before long you're back to bawling your eyes out. you barely register jeonghan cooing softly at you, climbing into bed and scooping you up into his arms. his lips are pressing soft kisses up and down your hairline, and it makes you cry even more. this is what you want, you think. this is what you need, what you've been missing. you want a boyfriend that will care for you like jeonghan does, that will be there for you like jeonghan is. it physically hurts you to think that you may never have that, that there's a possibility you'll never feel that kind of romantic love from someone. and you want to say that, you want to tell jeonghan why he came home to you pathetically crying so much, but he doesn't care. he just wants you to stop, so he'll hold you in his arms whispering sweet jokes to you until there's no more tears. he gets the slightest smile out of you right before you doze off, hands bunched into his shirt holding on for dear life. jeonghan holds you tighter, pressing one last kiss to the tip of your snotty nose before he drifts off to sleep with you.

-

you wake up later, not quite in the morning, but a few hours have passed. you're not used to sharing a bed with someone, especially when that person has such a vice grip on you as jeonghan does. once your mind has registered that you're awake, you also feel the burn of someone's eyes on you. sure enough, when you peek into the darkness of your room you see jeonghan staring back, eyebrows creased and teeth nibbling his bottom lip.

"stop chewing your lip," you tell him, reaching out to tug it from between his teeth. "i'm fine. you don't need to worry about me."

"wrong," he replies, watching you intensely as he brushes a strand of hair behind your ear. the quiet that follows has your face heating up, and the heat spreads through the rest of your body. it feels like every point where jeonghan's body is pressed against yours is on fire, and you want to pull away. but you don't.

"why aren't you in your room."

"because i wanted to sleep here," he replies. "i hope that's ok."

"it's not-"

"bummer," jeonghan cuts you off. "i'm not leaving."

"i'm not crying anymore though," you point out. "so. i'm fine."

"nope," he shakes his head. his bangs fall back into his eyes, and you think briefly he must need a haircut, but you hope he doesn't get one. the long hair suits him, even if it keeps him from seeing sometimes. you don't think about it, your hand unclenching his shirt and instead reaching up to brush his hair out of his face. jeonghan watches you carefully, and your breath gets caught in your throat when you look back down to his eyes. he's staring at you so intensely you can feel it in your chest, and that's when it hits you: jeonghan. you want a boyfriend like jeonghan. well! jeonghan's right here! what are you gonna do about it?

"jeonghan, i..." you trail off, staring at him like you're seeing him in a new light. he waits patiently for you to go on, thinking you might explain the situation a little more, but you don't know what to say. you just get hit with the intense need to bury your face in his chest, breathing in his scent and listening to his heartbeat as you fall back asleep.

"what?" he asks, trying to encourage you to keep speaking.

"um, can i just-" you try, but instead of speaking you just nuzzle into his chest, nose at the base of his neck tickling his skin. "i want to go back to sleep."

"then sleep baby," he whispers as he squeezes you tighter, afraid to let go. as you fall asleep, you let your hands relax against his chest, one of them laid right over his racing heart.

-

the next morning, you wake up to an empty bed and almost convince yourself you dreamed up jeonghan last night. like an oasis in the desert, he came to you when you needed him most. a little part of you wishes it wasn't real so you could go back to a time where you didn't know your true feelings for jeonghan, but your mussed sheets proves it wasn't a dream. jeonghan's scent is still lingering on your extra pillow, and you take a deep breath and remember how it felt to be wrapped up in your best friend.

jeonghan comes back into your room with two coffees in hand and he sees you nuzzling your face into the spot where his head laid just minutes ago. he lets you wallow for a moment before he calls your name softly. you jump up, cheeks warming as you look at jeonghan in your doorway.

"morning," he smiles. he hands you your coffee, your cold hands brushing his and sparking warmth across his skin. he stops himself from leaning down to kiss your forehead, knowing that whatever intimacy you shared last night is probably left in the past. you were sad, and jeonghan was there to comfort you. he'd happily do that a million times over, but he doesn't think you feel the same way he does.

"jeonghan, i'm sorry about last night," you try to apologize, but he shakes his head.

"don't," he stops you. "i would do it again if you needed it."

"well if you find me crying over some loser again tonight you have full permission to slap me," you tell him. "one night was enough."

"noted," he laughs, awkwardly standing in your room, unsure if he can get back into bed with you. you pick up on the way his eyes keep flitting from you to his spot, and you pat the empty space so he'll sit down.

"stop being weird," you say, bumping shoulders with him once he's comfortably next to you again. "so how'd you sleep?"

"pretty good," he starts out, "but there was this really annyoing sound coming from your side of the bed?"

"oh you mean me crying?"

"no, like this really loud, obnoxious snoring, kinda like-" jeonghan starts demonstrating, sending you into a fit of giggles and a pushing match to get him to stop.

"i think that was you!" you shriek, carefully trying not to spill your coffee. "don't spill that in my bed, i'll kill you."

"and then who are you gonna cuddle at night?" jeonghan asks, regretting it when he feels the tension between you both.

"i could always cuddle with jack," you joke to break the awkwardness, and jeonghan rolls his eyes.

"i hate that you named the skeleton."

"the skeleton is a guest in our home," you tease him. "show him some respect."

"whatever, freak," he says before downing the rest of his coffee. he gets an idea then, turning to you to ask, "what are you doing today?"

"um, nothing except work," you reply. "but you know my job is barely real so i'm basically doing nothing."

"let's go get coffee," jeonghan says, a playful look in his eyes.

"we just had coffee," you point out.

"no, no, we'll get good coffee, you can do some work, i'll watch you do some work, it'll be great," he insists, getting up and pulling you out of bed with him.

"if you're still trying to cheer me up i swear i'm fine," you say through your laughter, pressing back against jeonghan trying to push you toward your closet. "you don't need to take me for coffee or do anything else to make me feel better. i'm fine now."

"glad to hear it," he smiles softly, squeezing your hand that's clasped firmly in his. "but i still want to get coffee, so get dressed or everyone at the cafe will see you in that god forsaken t shirt."

the t shirt in question is one that jeonghan found for you during one of your goodwill visits. for whatever reason, it says 'i shaved my balls for this' and it got the biggest laugh from you all night, so jeonghan had to bring it home. despite being awful colors (light blue paired with neon yellow) it's actually quite comfortable, and you love the way it makes jeonghan laugh every time you wear it. it's unironically become your favorite sleep shirt, but you are mortified at the thought of anyone aside from your best friend seeing you in it. you quickly change, grabbing your work laptop from your desk before you head into the living room to find jeonghan waiting for you.

it's not unusual for him to take you out on random adventures, but this one feels different. he stays closer to you than normal, insists on buying your drink, and you catch him actually watching you work.

"get a hobby," you mumble, looking down at your laptop so he hopefully won't see your blushing cheeks.

"this is my hobby," he says. "i'm hanging out with my favorite person."

"seungcheol's going to be very sad to hear he's been demoted," you tease.

"he knows where he stands," jeonghan says, still watching you intently. you can't take it anymore, staring back at him.

"seriously, pretend to read or something! you're distracting me."

"i'm distracting you?" he smiles. "why? i'm not doing anything."

"i'm sending this email and then we're leaving," you say, and he shrugs.

"if you want, baby."

baby. it hits you harder this time, jeonghan's silly little nickname for you. you thought it started off as a sarcastic thing, but recently you feel like it sounds sweeter and sweeter coming from his lips. after last night, it makes your heart skip a beat, and that's when it hits you: are you on a date with jeonghan right now?!

"wait. waitwaitwait. hold on," you say, pointing at jeonghan and then yourself. "is this a date? are we on a date?"

"what? no baby," he shakes his head, and now you're confused. "no, if we were on a date you'd know."

"what's that supposed to mean?" you squeak out.

"do you want us to be on a date right now?" jeonghan counters, and you know your blushing cheeks have you in trouble. "you do?"

"i-i don't know-"

"hm, you wanna go on a date with me," jeonghan says matter of factly. "well, that's good to know."

"what are you doing?" you ask as he starts cleaning up his space.

"oh i need to go back to the apartment," he says. "gotta get my laptop so i can start planning a date that's worthy of you. i'll see you at home?"

"jeonghan, what?" you're left sputtering as he heads to the door, not looking back even though he knows your staring. he's afraid you'll see the excited/nervous shake in his hands, so he needs to go cool off. well, that and plan the best date of your entire life. he's got a lot of ground to cover. thankfully, the idiots you usually grace your time with have set the bar pretty low. jeonghan is determined to bring it higher, so high in fact that you won't be able to go on another first date without comparing it to his. if things go right though, maybe you won't have to go on a first date ever again.

-

jeonghan left the coffeeshop before you, so it would make sense if he was at the apartment when you got back, right? wrong. you come home about an hour later to an empty home, no sign of jeonghan. you think that's fine, it gives you a chance to actually get some work done. but jeonghan being mia has you a little nervous. what's he doing? he said he was going to plan a date. for you. and him. you and jeonghan...on a date? that's crazy.

you've done a good job ignoring that whole concept, trying to get ahead on a project you need to present later this week. you're so hyperfocused that the whole day goes by before you realize it, and when you finally emerge from your room you really expect to find jeonghan in the living room. he's still gone, so you decide to text him, asking casually if he would be home for dinner. the domesticity isn't lost on you, and it makes jeonghan smile when he gets it. he decides to call instead of texting back, balancing his phone against his shoulder and his cheek once you pick up.

"you miss me or something?" he asks, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

"i was just curious," you reply nonchalantly. "you've been missing all day."

"i've been busy."

"oh ok."

"i'll be home soon though," he tells you. "don't make dinner, just make sure you're dressed in an hour."

"for what?"

"a surprise."

"i need more information and you know that," you scoff, and you hear jeonghan chuckle.

"dress nice, but not fancy. and wear something blue so we'll match," he explains, and you feel your cheeks warm. "i gotta go, but i'll see you soon, baby."

hearing that coming from jeonghan now makes your heart skip a beat, and it makes you wonder if you've always felt like this and you just didn't notice. you keep thinking about him as you get ready, steaming out a dress you were planning to wear on a date that didn't happen. it's a soft blue with long sleeves and a low tie in the front. you worry for a moment that it might be too revealing, but checking the time rushes you into action. you're almost ready when there's a knock at the front door, which you ignore. there's another knock, this time louder, so you grumble your way to the living room to peek through the peephole. you gasp when you see what's on the other side.

you throw the door open, revealing a visibly nervous jeonghan with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. he's wearing a blue shirt, almost the exact shade of your dress, and he openly stares at you with a happy smile and a look in his eyes that you've never seen before.

"jeonghan?" you ask, pulling him from his intense focus on your chest.

"y/n," he smiles, eyes flicking up to yours. "you look stunning."

"i'm not ready yet," you pout slightly, checking the time on your phone. "you weren't very specific about when you were coming home."

"you look perfect," he says, checking you out again. "what else could you need to do?"

"wouldn't you like to know?" you tease, and he rolls his eyes.

"i can give you ten minutes, but any longer than that and we'll be late."

"late for what?" you ask as he passes you the flowers. "these are beautiful by the way, carnations are-"

"your favorite, i know," he smiles softly. "you buy yourself a bunch almost every time you're at the grocery store."

"i can't remember the last time someone bought me flowers either," you mumble, opening the door enough for jeonghan to come inside. "what are you still doing out there? it's your house, come in."

"finish getting ready," he laughs at you, reaching for the flowers again. "i'm putting them in a vase, weirdo. you'll get them back when you're done getting pretty."

"i'll be back," you whisper, running off before he can see how nervous you just got. you try to calm your nerves as you finish your touch ups, panicking last minute over which shoes and purse go with your outfit.

jeonghan is sitting on the couch, your flowers in your favorite vase on the coffeetable. he perks up at the sound of you shuffling down the hallway, but he pouts when he sees you holding up all your shoes.

"y/n, we're gonna be late."

"i don't know which ones to wear," you say simply, and he smiles as he comes up to you, analyzing the choices. he picks the white shoes and the white purse.

"glad we're still keeping this tradition alive even though i'm the one taking you out this time," he says proudly, watching you get situated. you stand back up, mussing your hair one last time before he asks, "ready to go, beautiful?"

"i don't know why i'm so nervous," you tell him, taking his arm as you leave the apartment. "we hang out all the time."

"yeah, but this isn't us hanging out," jeonghan says as you wait for the elevator. "i'm taking you on the best date of your life. nerves are completely valid."

"are you nervous?" you whisper, leaning in so jeonghan gets a good whiff of your perfume that he loves finding traces of all through his life. he holds your gaze, eyes flicking down momentarily before he shakes his head.

"no, i thought i would be, but i'm not," he replies simply as you get on the elevator.

"ok good, so i'll just freak out for the both of us then."

"would you? that takes a lot of pressure off of me," jeonghan jokes, and you pinch his arm. "ouch! so mean to me when i've made the perfect night for you."

"and what does this perfect night entail?" you ask. jeonghan just shakes his head, leading you out into the lobby of the building. he takes you a different way, not walking to the parking garage but instead to the main entrance of your building. "jeonghan, are we walking there? i don't think i can make it in these shoes-"

you stop mid-sentence, spotting the shiny baby blue mustang convertible parked outside. you look at jeonghan, mouth open in surprise. he has to tug you down the hallway and out into the cool night air, helping you into the passenger seat with ease. you watch on in shock as he gets into the driver's side, finally cutting through the fog in your mind to ask, "do you even know how to drive this?"

"yeah," jeonghan says coolly, opening the glovebox to hand you a scrunchie of yours that he stole. "here, you might wanna put your hair up."

"you're insane," you tell him, playing with the scrunchie in your lap as he starts the car. you can't believe this so far, and the date's barely begun. what other surprises could he possibly have in store for you?

-

after a quick ride out of the city, you find yourself at a retro drive in that's completely empty. you have a sneaking suspicion jeonghan rented it just for the two of you tonight, but you don't have a chance to ask. once he parks, he's asking you to open the glovebox and you smile when you see the stack of movie theatre candy boxes he's stashed away. you take them out, turning back to jeonghan to see he's produced a tub of popcorn from somewhere and a couple of your favorite sodas. you stare at him with your mouth opening and closing like a fish and he just smiles proudly in return.

"jeonghan, what did you do?" you finally ask, and he laughs.

"do you like it?"

"what are we doing here?"

"watching a movie," he says obviously. he shifts the snacks, the drinks going into the holders by the radio and the popcorn and candy going on the dashboard. "come closer," he mumbles, tugging your arm. the smooth vinyl of the seats sending you flying into jeonghan's side, and you giggle nervously as you adjust your dress. jeonghan lays the snacks out over your laps and drapes his arm across your shoulders for good measure. he looks at you to gauge whether you're settled or not, and when he decides you're ready he presses on the horn once. the screen in front of you lights up, and you gasp as you see the opening credits for your favorite movie flashing before you.

"where did you get the idea to do this?" you ask him with a smile, taking a few pieces of popcorn to give you something to do with your hands.

"just thought it would be something different," he shrugs, and you leave it at that. you can barely focus on the movie, hyperaware of how warm jeonghan is next to you and how every glance he casts your way sends your heart racing faster and faster. a few minutes into it, you remember your hair is still tied up from the ride, so you shuffle out of jeonghan's grasp to pull the scrunchie down and reset yourself. you know jeonghan is watching, so you mumble, "watch the movie, weirdo."

"i've seen it before," he whispers back, eyes still heavy on you. "i'm not missing anything."

"you've seen me before too," you point out, leaning back into his side once you're done moving around. "quite a lot, actually."

"yeah, but i've never seen you on a date before," he says. "and on a date with me? whoa. i gotta soak it all in."

you turn to look at him then, admiring the way his hair falls so slightly into his eyes, the way his lips stretch over his shy smile, how his eyes glisten when they meet yours. you could kick yourself for not noticing any of this sooner. who knew you had exactly what you were looking for right here?

"jeonghan, i-" you start, but realize you don't have the words to tell him what you want to say. you stop, staring at him with your brows furrowed cutely.

"what, baby?" he laughs, his thumb coming up to trace the creases in your forehead. "you're gonna give yourself premature wrinkles like this."

"why are you doing this?" you ask quietly. "why are you so...wonderful? all the time?"

"because," he shrugs, his hand falling from your forehead to rest just below your chin. "i've been trying to show you what it would be like. took you long enough to come around."

"show me what?" you ask confused.

"what it's like being loved by me," he smiles back. you feel your breath catch in your throat, and you want to say something. you want to tell him how you feel, how you're sorry it took you so long, how you love every moment you spend with jeonghan by your side. instead you just lean forward, lips brushing over his. you bring your hands up to his neck, wrapping them in the soft hair at the back of his head as you scoot impossibly closer and try to press all your love into this one kiss. jeonghan keeps his hold on your chin, thumb stroking softly at your cheek. he's the first one to pull back, laughing when you try to bring his lips back to yours so quickly. he leans his forehead against yours, soft hair tickling your skin as he asks, "so you get it now?"

"yeah," you nod, knocking your heads together and sending you both into a fit of giggles. jeonghan steals a few more kisses, and when you finally calm down he pulls you back into his side, squeezing you as close to him as possible. you lay your head down on his shoulder, pressing your lips into the closest part of him you can reach. "thank you, jeonghan. my jeonghan."

"my y/n," he sighs, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "my beautiful, kind, funny girl."

"stop staring," you whisper bashfully. "you're missing the movie."

"i'm not missing anything," he repeats, but he takes one last look at you before he kisses the top of your head and finally turns back to the screen. this might be your first date with jeonghan, but it certainly won't be your last.

#yoon jeonghan #yoon jeonghan fic #yoon jeonghan imagine #yoon jeonghan one shot #yoon jeonghan fluff #seventeen #seventeen fic #seventeen x reader #jeonghan x reader #svt imagines #svt x reader #svt one shot #svt fluff #seventeen imagines

[angelltheninth]

If you’re still taking requests how do you feel a about Modern Mizu? If you’re interested in that setting could you do one in which both the reader and Mizu are in college and they get paired together for a project? Could be the reader is super shy but has a huge crush on Mizu and this is the perfect chance for them to get to know each other but the reader keeps stumbling on her words or blushes whenever Mizu looks at her 😂 oooh what if after one of their project sessions they didnt finish what they were supposed to do so then Mizu suggets they meet up for coffee tomorrow and run by some ideas and the reader agrees and Mizu is like “great, its a date” gosh the backflips my little heart would do lol. If you like this request and would like to do it then awesome and thank you! If not that’s cool too and i hope you have an awesome day! 💖

Funny I was talking to @multi-fandom-imagine about modern Mizu. Check out her Mizu imagines too cause they kinda inspired these.

Pairing: College!Mizu x Fem!Reader

Tags: fluff, college au, studying together, coffee date, secret crushes, shy!Reader

A/N: Mizu brainrot is still strong. Also reminder that I appreciate the reblogs/comments, it lets me know that you enjoy my content.

College!Mizu keeps to herself and her small, very small, circle of friends. She is mostly focused on her studies and her various competitions, martial arts and swordsmanship. She's more passionate about those then her studies.

College!Mizu is very popular on campus. The target of many crushes, many confessions, bit never reciprocating them. She doesn't try to get attention, she really doesn't but it seems to follow her where ever she goes. That include attention from you.

College!Mizu was surprised when you approached her for the upcoming class project. Little did she know it took all of your courage to do so. She planned to do this with one of her friends but since you asked she'd feel bad refusing, she has seen you struggling a little in this particular class.

College!Mizu invites herself over to your place pretty casually. But don't you worry, she brings snacks. Explains why she asked for your favorites earlier that day. She was amused by how flustered you got trying to settle on just one so she brought more than one snack.

College!Mizu gets entirely too close to you, making it impossible for you to focus on the project. Try as you might you keep looking at her rather than focusing on the task at hand. Because of this time passes without you getting much done at all.

College!Mizu isn't oblivious to why you're so distracted. Her suspicions are only confirmed when she asks you to meet up for coffee and your eyes suddenly light up. When she puts her number into your phone you can't help but get the biggest smile on your face.

College!Mizu texts you the very next day asking if you're available tonight. She was so shocked by how quickly you replied, but also a lot more talkative through texts then in person. She even sent you a picture of herself so you could figure out what to wear to your date.

College!Mizu was a little bit late because of her swordsmanship practice but she did let you know in advance. Besides you don't mind waiting because she did send you a picture while on break. You never knew how pretty she looked with her hair down.

College!Mizu enjoys taking a break from everything and just talking to someone with nothing impending happening. Yes, there's the project but you have lots of time. Truth be told she wanted to see what you were like when you're casual with her.

College!Mizu is well aware that she can be a little bit intimidating at first, so breaking the ice like this will be good for the two of you if you're gonna work together in the future. For that to go smoothly she needed to get to know you better and she can't do that when you're constantly staring at her, too shy to say anything.

College!Mizu hopes that you'll learn to be more relaxed around her as time goes on. Maybe even work up the courage to confess, cause she's been secretly waiting for it since your first shared class together.

#blue eye samurai #mizu #bes #blue eye samurai x reader #mizu x reader #mizu blue eye samurai #bes x reader #blue eye samurai imagine #mizu imagine #bes imagine #blue eye samurai headcanons #mizu headcanons #bes headcanons #blue eye samurai fanfic #blue eye samurai fluff #mizu fluff #bes fluff #college au #x female reader

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

(Full HC)

We've had the M6 bodyswapping with their familiars, we've had the M6 bodyswapping with each other… But what kind of antics would ensue if the M6 had a bodyswapping incident with MC?

The Arcana HCs: When M6 bodyswap with MC

~ anon, you spectacular genius ~

-- to set the scene --

You know you're in a magic-infused dream as soon as you open your eyes. Off to your right, you can see your beloved standing in the open air, staring at the glowing ball of light that hovers in front of them. You're about to remind them of the cardinal magic rule - don't touch the mystery orb - but by the time you call their name, it's too late. Imagine your surprise when you wake up to your own face staring back at you from your pillow!

Julian

He's staring at you in horror because he knew his eyebags were bad but he didn't know they were that bad

You, on the other hand, are experiencing all the physical ailments of a 6'4 human that never remembers to eat and the headache of needing a daily dose of six shots of espresso to function

He's immediately concerned about physical wellbeing and checking both of you over for any signs of injury. Yeah, he doesn't hate magic anymore, but he's still not comfortable with it

Coaches you on how to speak more like him in his voice. His voice is made for DRAMA, MC, you must PROJECT! ENUNCIATE! The people at the back can't hear you!

He's also going to encourage you to wear all of his normal getup. Enjoy wearing multiple layers of leather in a Mediterranean climate, MC, it's all for the *aesthetic*

You, however, have a secret weapon, and that is basic self care

You are going to eat so much nutritious food and drink so much clean water and get so much sleep and sunlight and exercise ...

It's also payback for how much you're sweating right now, because you won't be the one dealing with all the sore muscles later

He gets unbearably flustered when he changes clothes/bathes in your body and won't stop talking about it

Asra

They know exactly what's happened as soon as they wake up and they know it's their fault and they have 0 regrets. none.

Quick to suggest taking a lazy day so you won't have to juggle the shop with this. And then suggests sleeping in immediately after

He's very curious about what it's like to enjoy all kinds of experiences in your body, but he doesn't do anything until he knows you're comfortable with it (including changing)

Gets distracted/sidetracked every time they pass a mirror/window/shiny pot/remotely reflective surface because they like your face and it keeps surprising them to see it reflected back at them

You're about to watch yourself make the weirdest faces into the mirror as they try to document what your face looks like with different expressions

Has the time of his life picking out his outfit (to wear on your body) and watching you pick out yours (to wear on his body)

Pulls out every food item in your kitchen because they want to know if you taste things differently than they do. You're going to wake up with heartburn tomorrow

Might suggest pranking a few friends, but he's generally so averse to conflict that he won't be dead set on the idea

Occasionally taps into your bond, just to ground themself

Nadia

She's going to keep lying still for a moment or two to finish processing what's just happened and decide what she's going to do about it

And then she's going to teasingly tell you that you're welcome to help yourself to her body, and ask if she can help herself to yours

Tells a trusted Palace servant that she is indisposed and that neither of you will be available today (because there's no way she's going to try to swap jobs with you)

You might be tempted to set yourself up in front of a mirror and see if there's any pose or outfit in the world that Nadia can't look elegant in. She'll have a very amusing time watching you

Portia will inevitably hear about her absence and stop by at some point, which will only ramp up the hilarity

Nadia does suggest sneaking out at some point, your body makes for a great disguise and a day on the town sounds fun!

(You still haven't figured out how to tell her that what sets her apart more than her appearance is her bearing. You've never seen your own posture look that good)

Speaking of posture, welcome to life in a body that's excellently cared for! You can stretch in every direction and nothing hurts!

Though this much thick hair is heavy and hot

Muriel

Oh, he knows before he opens his eyes that something's off, because the furs feel unusually heavy over him and he's never shared a bed with anything bigger than he is

Speaking of, he had no idea that his body radiated that much heat. It's like lying next to a furnace (and it's more comforting than he expected. maybe you're onto something with all the snuggling)

He's violently uncomfortable with being in your body, mostly because he's assuming you'd like it back, and he doesn't want to do anything with it that you don't want him to

You, on the other hand, spend a day as the pilot of a body with unusual size and strength. You're going to have to be reeeeally careful not accidentally bump your head/break and tear stuff

What you choose to do with that is entirely up to you (and up to your body's capacity to contain Muriel's embarrassed blush)

Have fun flexing and watching yourself turn beet red

He is going to request that the two of you stay in the woods and out of sight, which certainly makes things easier

He's also going to apologize to you because he knows this was his fault (you'll have to convince him that being in his body is not a miserable experience, which he may have a hard time believing)

Inanna will be wolf-laughing at both of you the whole time

Portia

She woke up first and put two and two together. By the time you open your eyes, your face is staring back at you with this specific expression: >:3

Also, your body is buzzing (and I mean, buzzing) with energy. You feel like you could climb a mountain and still have the capacity to chop down at least 20 trees. Oh, and your hands are tiny

It's going to take a second for her to get used to your body, if only because she keeps stopping at every new movement/sensation to comment on it/experiment with it/tease you about it

As soon as you've had breakfast, she's taking the day off and dragging you into town for some good old-fashioned mischief

Because yeah, she just woke up in one of the most powerful magician's bodies in the world, she fully plans on taking advantage of that. Who wouldn't??

Long story short, your day is going to consist of running after her while she comments on your "low energy levels" (they're not low, they're human) and wreaks havoc with your magical capacity

The fountain in the town square spouts glowing orange water for a week after she passes through. Even she isn't sure how she did it, so you just have to wait it out and hope it won't poison anyone

Mazelinka saw you two at one point and cried laughing

Lucio

It takes him a while to figure out what's happened

Don't misread this as him assuming that things are normal. He knows things are not normal, because he's getting human sensations from his left arm

But his first assumption is that this is because his arm magically grew back in the night, and his second assumption when he sees his own body next to him is that he's been cloned

You wake up because he's frantically calling your name, asking why his voice sounds so weird and if you had to clone him as part of getting his human arm back and where you've disappeared to

Shrieks and falls backwards off the bed when his clone's eyes open and you tell him what's happened from his own body

You, on the other hand, are going to spend all day figuring out how to function with a metal arm. It's nowhere near as easy as he makes it look, plus it makes that whole side of your body cold

Lucio insists on doing your eyeliner (on his face) because yes, he loves you, and yes, he trusts you, but that's his signature look and he needs it to be perfect

And then you're going to accidentally ruin his face anyways when you go to scratch an itch, forgetting about the claws on his hand

It's nothing compared to his attempts to use your magic

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana headcanons #the arcana hc #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

[lunajay33]

Change

•🩰🎀🩷•

Summary: Y/n is a loner but loves ballet but her family doesn’t have enough money for her to dance at the studio, Daryl is a redneck who hates people and prefers bikes, until one day these two run into eachother and their lives change drastically, will Daryl toughen her up? Will y/n soften Daryl? Or both? How will things go when people start coming back from the dead

Pairing: Young Daryl Dixon x f!reader

A/n: This is going to be a series, it’s gonna start with how they met eachother and their lives before the apocalypse, eventually it’ll blend with twd story line!!

•Masterlist•

I’ve always wanted to dance, to strap on pretty pink ballet slippers and wear the tights and everything, ever since I was a little girl and first watch Swan Lake, watching how there was a light beautiful side but how also a dark side to a person it hooked me, but that dream was quickly crushed when my parents refused, saying they didn’t have enough money to put me in ballet because my older brothers football was more important and they couldn’t afford both at once

It’s always been like that, whatever my brother wanted he’d get within a reasonable price, but when I asked for the simplest things they would get mad and always turn me down, saying I should get a job if I ever wanted anything. So that’s exactly what I did, I got a waitressing job at the little diner in town, working after school and on weekends just hoping to be able to save enough for ballet classes, but balancing school and work everyday is exhausting and having a terrible home life ontop of that doesn’t help

My older coworker told me to make some friends and that might help things, help distract myself for a while and have a person to relay on for once but it wasn’t so simple, if you weren’t drop dead gorgeous, or had nice clothes and money in my school then the girls treated you like a ghost

So here I am sat at my usual bench under the wilting tree behind the school for lunch, sitting in the cafeteria all alone at a whole table felt pathetic, embarrasing, plus it was more comforting here, no pry judgemental eyes, plus the air out here smelt of fall, fallen crisp leaves, the towns forest right behind the school, it was comforting

I finished my lunch putting the book I was ready away in my bag and made my way back for my next class, biology and today we were getting a new seating arrangement, one I’ve been waiting for the whole month since I was sat next to one of the mean girls, I took my seat right as the bell rang

“Okay class today we are moving around, so find your spots” she said as she projected the new seating up on the board, I found my name at the second table to the back on the left, I made my way noticing I was sat with Daryl Dixon. He was quiet, usually kept to himself kind of like me, people would always talk bad about him but never dared say anything if his older brother was around, I remember the times my brother would complain about how obnoxious Merle Dixon was….as if he wasn’t the exact same

I plopped down next to him taking out my books and pencil case

“Hi”

“Hey” he said keeping his eyes on the table

That’s all we said to each other the whole period until the end of class

“Okay everyone, whoever you’re sitting with is now going to be your new lab partner, you’ll be working on this project together outside of class and it’ll be due at the end of next week, so I advise you figure out a time and place to work on this” she said as she handed out papers seeing it was a project on the cycle of frogs and their habitats

There was 10 minutes left in class for us to figure out how to get this project done, I turned in my seat looking at Daryl, up close I noticed he was actually kinda cute in a mysterious way

“Would you like to come to my house tomorrow so we can work on it?” I asked as tomorrow was Saturday

“Sure” I wrote down my address and gave it to him right when the bell rang

I was getting ready for Daryl to come over, I don’t know why I was so nervous maybe because I’ve never really had many people over and that my parents and brother were psychotic and mean and I didn’t want him to witness that. I looked in the mirror brushing out my hair that I’ve combed through a hundred times already, hoping my outfit was nice enough, a whiteish sweatshirt that had a hint of blush pink to it, paired with black leggings just wanting to be comfortable but hopefully still cute, that’s when I heard a knock at the door

“ILL GET IT!” I screamed not wanting anyone else to answer especially not my brother since he knew Daryl was Merle’s brother

I stood infront of the closed door huffing out a breath to calm my jitters, I opened it and there he stood, hands in pockets with his usual gruff demeanor

“Come in” I said stepping aside for him to come in

“Do you wanna work in my room?”

“Sure” he said as he kicked off his shoes

I lead the way to my room, it wasn’t a big house so it wasn’t like we had to go down hallways to get to my room, I closed the door when we got in as he dropped his notebook on my bed looking around my room which made me anxious, my walls had little framed photos of Swan Lake, little painting of ballet slippers, my room wasn’t much since my parents put so much into Jackson’s room but these photos were all I had to keep me happy

“Nice room” he said with a smirk

“You don’t have to lie” I said smiling as I crawled on my bed sitting up against the head board as he followed to sit at the foot of the bed

“I ain’t, it’s…..different, do ya dance?” He asked looking back to the pictures I adored

“No, I’ve always dreamed of it though”

He looked at me with a strange look I couldn’t read

“Well why don’t ya?”

“My parents won’t let me, said Jackson football is my important and will lead to something” I said shrugging my shoulders, if anyone could understand brother problems it would be him

His usual glaring eyes softened but I didn’t want the pity, I thought about my crushed dream enough I didn’t want to think about it more so I flipped open the text book to the section we needed and we got to work, it was silent for the most part and I welcomed it, until we took a break

“Merle says yer brother is always runnin his mouth, talks bad about ya” my heart thumped in my chest, Jackson could say anything about me and I’d have no way to deny it since no one really liked me and he had his whole football team full of guys who only thought with one thing

“What does he say?” I asked nervously

“Says yer a weirdo, says ya run around sleepin with every guy on his football team” my heart felt like it stopped and shrivelled up

“What……..I would never, I can’t believe he would say that, I don’t know why he hates me so much” I said as my bottom lip quivered try to control myself, not wanting to cry infront of him and make him uncomfortable

“Merle an I, we don’t believe ‘em……..plus it ain’t like everyone else in that damn school ain’t like that” he said looking back down at his note book, fidgeting with his pencil

“It would be better if I had friends that would believe me and be on my side” I said huffing a little sarcastic laugh

“I can be yer friend” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him

“You don’t have to pity me, I know you don’t like people” he looked back up at me with he glaring expression but for some reason it didn’t bother me

“I ain’t pitying ya, yer one of the few people that don’t annoy me at school, yer nice and keep to yer self” he said bluntly making my heart flutter

“Okay, I’d like to be friends then!” I said smiling as we both went back to work

After 2 hours of going back and forth working and talking we got the project done, I led him to the door standing there as he laced up his shoes, I opened the door as he stood back up

“So uhh, ya wanna hang out again tomorrow?” He asked gripping his backpack strap

“Sure, I have a shift at the diner in the morning but you can come by and we can eat there after I’m done, I get a discount!�� I said excited

“Sounds good” he said about to leave before I stopped him

“Wait, here’s my number, it’s for my room phone so you can call anytime if you want” I said handing him a piece of paper with my number

“I’ll call ya later then, see ya” he said in his gruff voice as he left watching him disappear up the side walk

It was the next day and I was almost done my shift, I’d covered a lot of tables and was now just wiping down the counter waiting to see Daryl walk through the door, the door bell chimed and I looked up excited but instead it was Jackson and some of his football team members, they came in loud and obnoxious as usual

They came to the counter, filling three seats along the counter

“Jackson what are you doing here?” I asked putting down the rag I was using

“Oh come on sis we’re just hungry” he said sarcastically as his friends laughed with him

I sighed taking out my pad “well what do you wanted?”

“I wanna see you bent over my truck” his friend said, I was disgusted but I wasn’t good with this kind of thing

“Cute little thing like you mmmmm, what I wouldn’t do” his other friend said

I was beyond embarrased I just wish someone could help me, and as if my prayers were answered someone came in to intervene

“Leave er alone jackasses” I looked down to a seat further down the counter seeing it was Daryl, he must have just came in

“Oh ya and what’re you gonna do Dixon?”

“Just get outta here” he said sending a glare that could kill, they huffed and got up with a commotion

“Whatever, we’ll see you around bitch” they said to me before they left, I made my way to where Daryl was seated my face felt so hot

“Sorry you had to see that?” I said giving him a glass of water

“Do they do that often?”

“Ya usually when I’m working on the weekend, they think it’s funny”

“I can get Merle, set them straight” he said making me smile

“Nah it’s not your problem but thank you, I’m kinda use to it by now, even though it incredibly embarrassing” I said covering my cheeks

“Anyways, I’m done now so I’ll go clock out and be right back” I said trying to change the subject, I walked to the back taking of my waist apron and got my purse

“You done for the day sweetie?” My older coworker May asked

“Yeah, but me and my friend are going to have some lunch here”

Her eyes lit up “Friend? Did you finally manage to snatch someone up” she said twirling her pen as she smacked on her cherry gum she always had in her mouth

“Yes, he’s just easy to be around”

“HE?”

“Yes May my friend is a boy don’t get all crazy, but he’s waiting so I have to go before he thinks I left” I said blushing as I went back out and sat next to him at the counter

May took our orders and left to attend to the other few customers that were still here

“So why do ya work here?” He asked

“My parents said if I ever wanted anything I needed to get my own money, plus I’m trying to save to be able to afford ballet classes, it may be stupid but it’s my dream”

“It ain’t stupid, yer workin fer what ya want, I get that” his voice was kind but the grumble to it made me tingle

“Thanks, do you work anywhere?” I asked as May gave us our meals, my strawberry milkshake and grilled cheese, and Daryl’s coke with a burger and fries

“Sometimes I work on fixin people’s bikes ‘round town ta make some extra money, Merle said I’d make more if I did what he did but I don’t wanna fall into that crowd” I knew what Merle did, the whole town did

“Maybe one day we can get outta this town where people won’t judge us and we can have actual good jobs”

“Ya maybe”

With that we silently ate our food until we finished and May gave us our checks with my discount then we were leaving heading the door bell chime

We walked down to my house as neither of us had cars, until we stopped infront of the house awkwardly

“Lunch was nice, thanks for coming bye, you can come anytime”

“ ‘course, I’ll……I’ll see ya tomorrow then?”

“Ya I’ll see you tomorrow Daryl” I said smiling as we went separate ways, I closed the door to the house my heart thumping against my chest

I finally had a friend

Part.2

This will be a series so if you like to be added to the taglist and get notified of the next part comment below!!:)

Taglist: @deansapplepie

#twd fanfiction #daryl dixion imagine #twd daryl #daryl dixon #twd x reader #twd fluff #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon twd #daryl dixon smut #daryl x you #daryl x reader #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon fluff #daryl dixion x reader #daryl dixon series #daryl dixion smut #pre apocalypse Daryl Dixon

[theoccultz]

Astrology observations -I

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>>>Lilith in the 3rd house is having difficulties expressing your views in youth and later saying things as " it is" when you grow up .

>>>Uranus in 8th house -people in their environment/class/work place just know them and when its natal retrograde then you could be targeted for nothing.

>>>8th house/12mercury-i'm sorry but we know everything even things you have never heard of .

>>>Neptune in 1st house (r) -seeing prople as they are with no filter they usually do not fit in and yet they are the most talked about.

>>>8th house mercury retrograde -are you able to put your views across or do you think people are not like you neither they respect your values?

>>>Pluto in 5th house-they are deserving and worthy of much more then they get , they usually struggle to fit in especially if you have aqua placements.

>>>Pluto in 1st house dont act on their ego honestly as everyone mostly describes if they start doing so then someone is not gonna have peace.

>>>Pluto in 12th house(retrograde)- they just "have" to do things differently than those around them they really dont follow trends cause they see no point in it.

>>>Libra in 10th house-is a power placement they are likable if affiliated talked about either way nothings getting in their way ;they are successful because these people are adaptive and smart af libras are air sign at the end of the day .

>>>Pluto in 6/8th house -unknowingly getting to know peoples secret ,who talks behind who's back ,who is the mastermind -it always happen like that ;they can trick others easily .

>>>Uranus in 10th house-people be just fighting with them because they think they can take away their deals or Destroy their reputation,people are usually scared of them .

>>>Venus in 9th house - is providing comfort to everyone around them whether its to provide financially or creating emotional stability

>>>Cancer mc - you have heard of them also celebs with this placement- they are the most shipped and looked upon

>>>Venus in 4th house and having multiple interests in music they usually think outside of box and they are accepting of people diff from their culture

>>>If its (retrograde) people be jealous of them for no reason like stop projecting everything ,they are judged for everything

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>>>Gemini in 6th house -people speak with their hands ,their hands are noticable they might have soft or rough hands but either way it differ from other associative's hands.

>>>Taurus 2nd house:famous for their style

>>>Taurus in 8th house are fine & classic af they have their own ideologies and you aren't having any opinions they mostly remember everything

>>>Capricorn placements -dont waste their time ever they'll hate you for life these people hate when people aren't on time even if its 2mins

>>>Pisces in 12th house -these people are so emphatic oh my god they'd do "anything" for you sven if you are a stranger

>>>Aquarius moon are not that in control tbh they are impulsive af lmao-coming from an aqua moon .

>>>Libra placements doesn't give me *fairy vibe* they are the people who you'd see on streets wearing leather jackets , listening to soft rock and wearing golden boots they are just noticable+blue suits them especially rising and Mercury.

>>>Cancer in 2nd house -sensitive to light,touches, sound they are quick to notice if someone is being sneaky these people know how to build themselves from the scratch

>>>Leo /virgo 11th house -i have noticed these people have interest in Artificial intelligence and the concept of it

>>>Pisces MC- They are known for their creative arts and writing also this is *unforgettable* placement.

>>>Virgo in 7th house - these people are built differently ,they always transform other people in some way or other

>>>Pisces rising and having a way with their words they can pull anyone once they get out of their head and learn to use resources .

>>>Scorpio moon are money makers they'll literally give their all in their projects .

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Pics not mine -credits to their rightful owners ,i do not own any pictures.

#astrology #astro posts #astro observations #astrology observations #astroblr #pick a card #astrology notes #astro community

[secretgamergirl]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

#computers #computer science #history #electronics #education #relays #transistors #vacuum tubes

[lady-raziel]

long reaction to the update

ok. so they put out an update video! since i've been commentating for the last three days i might as well subject you all to more of my thoughts today.

main takeaway: this was a good apology video. i mean it. short and to the point, no overproduction, heartfelt and honest (and not a ukelele to be seen. thank god.) they took ownership of the situation, apologized, and restated how much they value their relationship with the fandom.

their solution is to make the watcher tv platform into kind of an iteration of patreon where content is available for early access before it is released onto youtube later. this is clearly a better option than paywalling everything for everyone. i'm not sure what the relative breakdown of costs turns out to be when you compare how much they were making on patreon after the platform took their cut VS how much it costs in overhead to run and maintain their own platform (how much it costs annually to contract via Vimeo, essentially). but i'm sure that's part of the calculation.

all things considered, that does seem like the best option out of all the alternatives. it allows them to not completely abandon any of the pans they have simmering over the fire for the time being. i don't think i ever thought they were going to just say "oops, forget about the streaming thing! let's pretend that never happened!" because at this point they've invested quite a lot of time and money into it, and i don't disagree that keeping it in some iteration may help them make up some of the funds they're lacking.

i would say, it's fine to keep the streamer. this is one of the ok outcomes, all things considered-- but if they're going to do it, they've GOT to do it smart from this point forward. listen to both the fans and the consultants intimately. both are going to have valid points, and both are going to be right. listening to too much of either side will sink this thing because each has motives and expertise that the other doesn't. if the fans say $6 is too much, listen to them-- but have conversations with business consultants about how much you realistically need to charge to make things work.

also, i'd use this whole situation as a learning experience. watcher is a young company, and it's literally inevitable that mistakes will happen. what's different is that the watcher crew haven't really been in a position before where they've been on the receiving end of the internet-angry-justice-hammer to this extent. it's one thing to watch it happen to others, but it's a position of extreme privilege (and a bit of hubris) to think "but that won't happen to me, because i'm built different." naw, man-- two things in life are inevitable: death and fuckups. the callout posts get us all in the end.

what's really important is that they use this as a wakeup call that even the most loyal fandoms will only follow you so far to the cliff's edge, and you don't want to push that. you have to strike a balance between the passion projects that you think are worthy and the stuff that maybe doesn't excite you as much anymore but the people want to see. a little fanservice keeps the lights on, as unfair as that might seem. i'm gonna make 50 markiplier choccy milk memes just so i can make one niche political joke once and a while for 6 likes. it is what it is.

i'd also use this as a chance to take a very careful look at company structure and finances. it's not fun to do and nobody likes it. trust me-- this is hard whether you're a single adult trying to pay the bills or the freaking US government (speaking from experience on both-- i have to read the president's budget for work frequently). but you all have to ask hard questions about the ratio of creative staff you take on VS staff for administrative and other business roles, as well as the costs and benefits of everything you spend money on. how many staff members are essential to location shoots? can this video be shot with 2 cameras instead of 3 and thus you don't need another cameraperson? you might even have to come to the decision that instead of pitching a new show it makes more sense to use those funds to hire your essential non-creative roles or contract firms or freelancers.

paying staff a fair wage with benefits speaks highly of what watcher wants their values to be. it's hard to find such a position in a creative role and still actually get to work on things you care about. but it would be much worse if watcher didn't make realistic decisions about finances and it lead to the death of the company and everyone losing their jobs. the whole watcher company can work, in my opinion, but not without some sacrifices. they're going to have to run it more like a business and less like a youtube-channel-turned-business in the future if they want to survive.

last thing i'll add is that while i do think this was a good apology video, i still think they hurt themselves by not putting out some sort of statement on Friday or Saturday just to say that they were formulating a response. As i've said in other posts, it's ok and in fact beneficial to not make a kneejerk reaction, but it's also very important to communicate that you SEE what's happening. you SEE what people are saying and THAT'S why you need more time to respond. saying nothing and leaving the angry public to wonder if you dropped your phone off the Hoover Dam or just don't care? that's a fumble. it's a common mistake companies make in a crisis, but that doesn't mean it doesn't erode trust fast.

this could have been handled better in many ways. we see that, and i'm glad watcher says they see that too. crucial going forward is taking all this and patching the errors that caused all this to fall apart and learning from the experience.

tbh at this point what i'm most sad about is that the watcher crew have probably been too stressed out and upset to appreciate some of the absolute bangers people have been laying down to clown on them. i think if it wasn't about them they might be touched by the collective attitude and creative spirit. /j

#watcher #watcher tv #after this post i have got to actually not spend time writing long reactions about this anymore because i too #have fires caused by my own fuckups to put out #alas

[kisses4lao]

Just read some of your stuff, absolutely BEAUTIFUL I might add. Can you sfw/nsfw headcanons do the Lin Kuei boys with a super social gal? Like she’s all energetic and is HUGE on the PDA? Can she also have big titties? (Totally not self projecting or anything)

Tumblr is still being mean and not letting me edit drafts ugh so this is probably gonna be really bad srry

Tw/cw: afab reader, jealous bi han, toxic bi han? he's his own warning guys, kind of just scenarios and not hcs, still hcs tho I cannot deny you all of that, WRITING THIS AFTER I WROTE EVERYTHING AND I FORGOT THE PDA PART IN BI HANS FORGIVE ME ANON, boobs galore, Kuai being a tit guy, I literally hate this so fucking much

Not proofread fuck you

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Bi han

Sfw

Wouldn't admit it, but he finds you adorable.

The way you're the complete opposite of him makes his heart melt.

You practically do all the talking in your relationship while Bi Han silently observes and listens.

When you're out together, he mainly stays beside you as you lead him everywhere.

He finds your ability to quickly make friends amazing, considering he was never able to do that(skill issue).

He can't help but smile when he sees you talk so kindly to everyone, whether you know them or not.

He usually wears his mask when you two are together because of this.

You'd most definitely be the person in the relationship to say "excuse me, he asked for no pickles", mainly because he'd refuse to send his food back because a meal is a meal.

Nsfw

Cool, calm, collected. That's what Bi Han likes to describe himself as. But it's much different when it comes to you.

My god, does this man love tight shirts. It doesn't matter what color, what time of the day, if youre wearing one, he's in the mood.

And he hates how much power you have over him.

He hates when you wear tight clothes in public, too. Mainly because it's extremely hard for him to control himself.

He sees how well you get along with others, how people stare at you with nothing but admiration, and he can't help but feel jealous.

More jealous than he'd like to admit.

Bi Han thinks that he should only be the one staring at you, that he's the only person who can give you the love you deserve.

He'd occasionally see other men staring, looking at your curves and the smile that Bi Han loves so dearly.

He hates the amount of jealousy that pulses through him, clenching his fists tightly as he tries his hardest to keep his composure.

When you get home however, he's showing you just how much he loves you, deserves you, needs you.

He can't help his hands from wandering your body, taking in every curve and relishing in just how beautiful you are.

He'd whisper praise as he kisses and nibbles lightly on your neck, cupping your breasts as a gasp escapes your lips.

You could feel the tent in his pants as he began grinding against your inner thighs, desperately calling out your name as he continues.

His breathing is heavy, fanning your neck as his teeth sank into your shoulder.

A surprised yelp escapes your breath as you can now feel his breath hitting your ear.

"Look what you do to me, you'll have to help me with this, you know."

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Kuai Liang

Sfw

He'd absolutely love seeing you socialize with others.

He'd love the way you can strike up a conversation with anyone and just turn such a bad mood into a light hearted one.

He completely commends your social skills and practically can't go anywhere without you.

Kuai Liang himself would most likely indulge in PDA on his own, so if you initiate, he isn't going to stop you.

He loves holding your hand in public, he loves making people know that he's with you.

He'll also kiss you in public, but not often. Like, at all. He prefers to keep something like that private.

But if you insist, he can't really deny you.

Nsfw

Two words: staring problem.

This man can NOT keep his eyes off you.

Seriously, who decided you can be THAT fine? He genuinely can't stand it.

He's in love with all of your curves, and he LOVES your breasts.

He genuinely can't help wanting to nap on them. Theyre big and soft, can you really blame him?

Kuai Liang would just, touch them. All the time. No warning, he'd walk up to you and just palm them.

Oftentimes, this leads into other things. Kuai is generally just a big fan of titties. Any size, any shape, any color, if you have them, he loves them.

So, he's a professional titty sucker. Willingly.

Kuai genuinely does feel comfort in bringing you pleasure, and if you both get pleasure from doing something, he's all for it.

But if you want to make a night all about him? He's more than excited.

He'd absolutely have you tit fuck him.

He kind of doesn't even get pleasure from the actual feeling, he mainly gets off to how you look during it.

If he was going to be completely honest, seeing you topless and pressing your breasts around his cock is so much more pleasurable than most things.

He'd be a complete mess while watching you, he'd grip the sheets in his hands tightly as he watches his cock disappear and come back through your breasts.

He whimpers as you begin to place kitten licks on his tip, hissing as his grip on the sheets tighten.

Seeing you like this never fails to turn him on quickly, anything that involves you turns him on, but that's not something he'd admit.

"Y/n- please,, let me cum already~"

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Tomas

Sfw

Oh my god.

This man would be OBSESSED with you.

You're pretty AND social? He might as well propose immediately.

He's constantly around you, literally never leaving you alone, especially not in public.

If Tomas has to go into a public setting and he can't bring you, he isn't coming.

To him, you're like an emotional support person. You're usually the person who starts conversations for him, and he genuinely doesn't know what he'd do without you.

He loves how kind and naturally nurturing you are, the smiles he sees on other peoples faces simply because of you is something that has made him more happy than he's willing to admit.

Nsfw

STARING PROBLEM but worse.

Tomas is genuinely insufferable when it comes to your body.

Since he practically worships the ground you walk on, he worships your body even more.

If you were to ask him for literally anything, no matter what it is, he'd do it for you, but he has weaknesses.

If you were to ask him for something while batting your eyelashes, he'd simply stop working.

Because of this, sex with him usually results in him being a bottom.

Yeah, I know, it's practically cliche at this point to make Tomas a bottom, but have you SEEN him?

That man is on his knees day and night trying to please you.

He'd usually have you ride him as one hand would be on your waist while the other is firmly holding one of your breasts.

Sometimes he gets too in the moment and holds both of them, but can you really blame him?

Hes entranced to say the least. They're big, soft, warm, how could he not want to hold them constantly?

Even just touching them is enough to get him off.

His head would be thrown back is pleasure as his grip on you tightens, moaning out your name as he bucks his hips upward.

"Shit- hah,, y/n~ I'm so- ngh, close~"

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Might disappear and never post again wouldn't that be fucking funny

#mortal kombat smut #mortal kombat x reader #mortal kombat x reader smut #bi han x reader #bi han smut #bi han x reader smut #kuai liang x reader smut #kuai liang smut #kuai liang x reader #tomas vrbada x reader smut #tomas vrbada smut #tomas vrbada x reader