#and no its not because of the notes i just let that go by now i accepted this fact

[iceunhie]

“and i can go anywhere i want just not home” : genshin men

premise. home is where the heart is—perhaps it's why they feel so empty whenever they're away from you. or, what it's like when they miss you while they're/you're away.

featuring: kazuha, lyney, wanderer, neuvillette.

notes: gn!reader (you/your pronouns), welcome to the depths of my drafts, you can tell where i got lazy and when i got motivated tbh 💀 an attempt at humor (i am unfunny) reblogs are appreciated! like usual, might make a part 2 idk

...alternative title: 3 twinks and a dragon

NEUVILETTE: wait, why's it raining so hard?! 😱 “oh, it's just the monsieur sulking ^^”

neuvilette finds that one of the most inconvenient things granted in his power is the fact that his emotions can be broadcasted live over fontaine at any given moment.

subsequently, it's pouring; buckets of rain that clearly weren't on the daily weather report yesterday. he can see parents ushering children into their homes, the melusines providing umbrellas to those who had the unfortunate problem of not bringing one at the side.

all in all, fontaine is as is, but neuvilette feels even emptier than before.

it's probably because of you. it's definitely because of you. as fleeting as the rain on a summer day, you'd come and went, wishing him well before you'd leave for liyue for a short vacation.

2 weeks....

(the rain showers even more, heavily pouring over the nation.)

his shoulders tighten uncharacteristically, and if you were to see him, you'd tell him he'd resemble a sad fontainian otter with its seashell taken away.

. . . .

BONUS:

"i'm back- GAH! why are the streets flooded?!"

"oh, mx. [name]! welcome back! i'll tell monsieur neuvillette that you're back now!"

two hours later, the sun shines back again as if it hadn't poured consistently during the entire duration of 2 weeks. the people of fontaine rejoice.

KAZUHA: like a bird longing for the sun to shine again (the most normal) 😭

kazuha isn't the type to brood. he isn't, because he knows he has nothing to brood about. well, most of the time, anyway.

this, however, is partly because you're usually with him, you in all your glory, nourishing him with affectionate kisses and letting him feel the breath of fresh air he desperately needs after a long, enduring trip on the crux.

the days you aren't there however are the days he finds himself most appreciative of his reclusive nature. as the rock of the ship against gentle waters make it sway, kazuha thinks of you.

you, you. were you at liyue, doing well as he hopes you always are, trudging away as you work wonders in the kitchen, preparing meals and watching day turn to night, waiting for time to pass, missing him too?

he hopes you are. (he feels like every time you're gone, a part of him can't erase the sense of homesickness. even if liyue wasn't his home, you are the closest to it.)

"you look a bit blue these days, kazuha. missing a certain someone?" a certain captain guffaws, to which the white haired vagrant can only smile to, though the smile betrays his rather dour mood. beidou's tease is only indicative of his longing.

he does miss you. a whole lot. he misses the way you run up to him as he finally steps off the crux's arms, embracing you with fervor and inhaling the cool scent of your hair. only then, kazuha thinks, he could really feel at home. "only a fool wouldn't miss the one they hold most dear to them."

beidou pats him on the back, sympathetic of his plight. he feels a bit embarrassed. beidou always saw through him. "gotta tough it out, kid. just a few more days and we'll be back to liyue in no time."

he wasn't a kid—beidou knows this, but she felt the need to emphasize so, what when kazuha looked akin to a kicked puppy waiting for its owner in the rain. "I'm well aware."

and so she's gone, warbling an old sailor's tune, leaving kazuha to deal with the ache of you behind.

he also misses a lot of things about you whenever you're gone. though temporary as his wanderlust may be, because he promised you—"i will always return to you"—this has brought him to associate everything he sees in your likeness.

is it the poet in him? perhaps. but loving you is as natural as him taking in the sights of nature, as lovely as the moonlit nights he spends, alone, and without you.

tough it out, as beidou says. that's difficult.

watching as the moon seems ever perpetual in the sky, kazuha only hopes he can tough it out well.

(when he comes back, he's thinking of running towards you this time.)

. . . .

"welcome back, kazu-" you don't even make it to the harbor's docks before you're being tackled and literally thrown off your feet. "what the fuck are you doing?!"

or should you say, swept off your feet? you feel every ounce of shame right now, and burying your head in the crook of kazuha's neck. profanity aside, it's hard not to be ashamed when almost every person with a pair of working eyes can see you being carried by your lover.

you can hear the playful whistles and cheers of the crux crew from behind, and beidou's knowing, knowing smile.

"i'm home." kazuha's breath is close to your nape, and you feel the soft press of his lips to your neck. you flush. face him, and you see his dreamy, lovesick eyes.

if he was looking like that, how could you be ashamed? you laugh, even if you see people side eye you into oblivion. brush your noses together, and close your eyes.

"welcome home, kazuha."

he smiles. the day is bright today.

BONUS:

"kazuha?"

"mm, what is it, love?"

"if you do that ever again i will literally drop dead on the floor from the shame, so don't make it a habit."

"haha, i wouldn't dream of it."

(one voyage later, you find out kazuha is a liar.)

LYNEY: 😐 'insufferably insufferable,' given by lynette

if lynette could choose between smelling every perfume in emilie's shop (and put herself through an attack to her very delicate senses) and seeing her brother mope like a deflated balloon over his absence in fontaine, she'd pick the first option.

you are to blame. rather, maybe it's her brother's utter lack of propriety, proclaiming just how much he misses you with almost enough talk to make her want to rip her cat ears out.

or maybe she'd actually claw at him. lyney was just that infuriating. is this what they mean by love changes a person?

(if so, then lynette reckons her twin has changed for the worse.)

okay, she was exaggerating a bit, because she loved you very much and considered you family as well—but she would gladly dropkick lyney any time. they'd been stationed at poisson for a while, set by father. it was cleanup for the remnants of the prophecy, but it provided them sufficient time away from the court of fontaine, away from distractions.

and, in lyney's mind, it also means he's away from you. in lynette's opinion, he should've stayed. that way, she won't get to listen to him prattle on and on about—

"do you think [name] will still love me even if i've been away from them for far too long? ahh, and lynette, these rainbow flowers, do they need a bouquet matching their eyes instead?"

and of course, her brother being the drop-dead love-drunk fool he is (bless your heart for being able to tolerate her sappy and corny brother) has not. stopped. talking. about. you.

you'd probably accept a bouquet with a dead fish in it if it meant lyney gave it to you, but lynette doesn't voice it out. in a corner of her mind, she wonders if she should just actually become a clockwork meka so she could voluntarily tune herself to tune out lyney's voice.

she crosses her arms, putting her (4th) dessert aside. "they'll like anything you give them. and there's no way they'd get sick of you just because we're away for a week, lyney."

her brother sighs, dreamily looking away at the sky. probably thinking about the flutter of your eyelashes and your smile that makes a magician want to bottle it up and never let it show to anyone else—

blergh, she was beginning to let lyney get to her.

"a week is far too long for me." lyney sulks. lynette resists the urge to roll her eyes. you and me both, brother.

"what if they might be in danger somewhere I can't reach?"

but because she's such an amazing sister (factual), she lets go of her temporary reprieve and comforts her utterly hopeless (factual?) brother.

(for your sake too. because lyney has changed. though she may say it's for the worse, that's not true at all. in fact, it's the opposite.)

"relax, lyney." her tone is sincere this time, that in which always gets lyney to look up to her. they're children again, and lynette is facing her older brother, and they're hand in hand together. "[name] will be fine. as long as it's from the heart, you know that they will cherish anything you give them."

because it's you, someone that accepted them, every part of them. lynette doesnt show it much, but it's one of the reasons why she's so fond of you. she grateful, really, that you love her brother.

thankfully, (to her great relief) it seems the hint that you'd rather have him home without anything than not be home at all, has gotten through lyney's mind. he goes silent, and lynette takes it as a successful mission success. another lovesick crisis averted, her brother's relationship with you stabilized.

at last, peace.....

. . . .

"alright then!" lyney says enthusiastically, with an unhappy lynette and a sheepish freminet in tow.

"let's commence operation steal their heart the moment we finish this mission!"

"the what now?"

lynette facepalms. she shouldn't have said anything....

BONUS:

"uh, lynette, what's that?"

"headphones."

"why?"

"....noise cancellation."

freminet looks at lyney, who's pacing around the room, muttering to himself as his grip on the rainbow flower-marcotte bouquet tightens.

"oh." lynette nods at him wearily.

WANDERER: warning! ⚠️do not approach, he bites (scowls) 😨

there are many times when wanderer wants to bash his hat and let it squash the traveller's flying companion, and today was one of those times.

"hey, hat guy! why are you looking even more scary than usual? your scowl can be seen from miles away!"

he can hear her irritatingly cheery voice in the distance, undoubtly exposing him to the eyes of others. damn it.

"paimon, shh...!" aether silently prays to whichever god may hear (hopefully nahida), because for someone so small, wanderer was emitting a very ominous aura not akin to an aura of death.

"quit your nonsense, you-" wanderer barks back, insult at the tip of his tongue, but he tempers his temper (heh), going quiet instead. "forget it. i don't want be pissed off even more from that disgustingly chatty pet of yours."

"what did you just say to me?! urgh, you, you- ugh, paimon can't think of an ugly nickname! help out here, traveller...!"

"i think you should just let it be this time, paimon..."

he ignores the chatter of the two—mortals—thumbing at his vision, and then tenderly at the little doll he's sewed in his likeness, as well as.... your doll.

(you gave it to him once as a keepsake, in exchange for him sewing you the mini him he painstakingly made. when you got your wish, you made the two dolls kiss, saying something so ridiculous as, "that's us now!" his face burned the entire way back home.)

instead, he finds his thoughts lingering to you. you'd seen him off, staying back at sumeru city with nahida as company, leaving him to escort the traveller and paimon to the desert to clear out some ancient ruins. how boring.

you kissed him breathless back there— much to his chagrin at seeing nahida's knowing smile; but he finds himself longing for your voice and your hands in his hair more than ever. at least then he'd be able to solve the ringing in his ears from paimon's voice.

he's long stopped denying his erratic, tumultuous feelings, but he misses you. unbearably, because at least you were better than the two he's forced to babysit accompany.

and he also misses how you would take shelter in his hat in the sweltering desert heat, kissing his cheek when he flew you around to explore the pyramids, and when you would hold his hand as you complained about how long you two would be walking up, all sand and sweaty.

(he'd tease you about leaving you for dead, but was always the first to worry whenever you get dizzy from heat. a walking contradiction, this one.)

"hey, wanderer, you there?"

"you're a little red. are you overheating?woah, so puppets really can do that.... ah, you're spacing out, too!"

ugh. "what am i, a tea kettle?" he scowls, crossing his arms.

he's already counting the days he can finally return to your arms.

paimon stomps her feet at the nonexistent ground, "we're just a tiny bit worried, you know!"

"yeah? well you should do me a favor and shut your mouth a little. otherwise you'll end up overheating from the amount of nonsensical words you spit out."

"this guy's a real piece of work, only being kind to [name], jeez..." to his glee, the pixie mutters angrily. something about being a meanie and insufferable. well deserved.

aether watches the exchange with the soul drained from his body. 800,000 mora, 800,000 mora.....

. . . .

"uh... wanderer?" you chuckle nervously, not knowing where to place your hands as he buries his face head-first into your chest the moment he's home, allowing you to gently caress the soft strands of his hair.

"..."

"so are you gonna talk about it, or?"

"just let me hold you, will you?" he bites, but there's no bite at all. you kiss the top of his head as his ginormous hat is taken off his head completely. he nuzzles deeper into you. "....i missed you."

that shut you up real quick. you try to hide the giddy smile you have, but he lifts his face up to see it anyway.

"i missed you too."

BONUS:

"[name], is that an insect bite on your neck?"

"huh?!"

aether squints at you, "what kind of insect leaves that big of a bite-" his eyes pop out. turns red. "oh."

you look away. one less pure soul in the world.... sorry, aether.

(in a corner of the house of daena, wanderer sneezes.)

more hsr content soon, also for very important reasons: do you think sunday would let you bite the wings by his ears yes or no

© 𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐈𝐄 : do not repost, copy, or plagiarize my work.

#mhie's spirals #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact #wanderer x reader #kazuha x y/n #kazuha x reader #neuvillette x reader #neuvilette x reader #kunikuzushi x reader #scaramouche x reader #lyney x reader #genshin drabbles

[xiaosfavqingxin]

Pillow Talks // OM! Brothers Aftercare hcs

Cw: none really, just fluff after a scene because aftercare is SO important, based on a convo i had with one of my bsfs (mentions of rough sex, bite marks and hickeys)

Gender neutral reader!

A/n: I'll work on the requests soon i swear!

- Lucifer -

Man is so so gentle with you after it (in contrast to just a few minutes earlier)

PRAISE !!!!

Would definitely clean the both of you up and give you one of his shirts to cuddle into

After making sure you're alright and doing well he would brew the both of you some tea

Asks you if you would like to listen to a specific record and if not, he'd just put on something calming

Definitely spends quite some time in bed with you, cuddling and talking about everything and nothing, only going back to his work when he's 100% sure you're mentally and physically alright

- Mammon -

Would not give a single fck about the mess the both of you made, you're immediately wrapped up in his strong arms

He'd definitely would shower you with innocent kisses all over

Naked cuddles!! I repeat, naked cuddles!!!

Would also make sure you have everything you need, not leaving your side for more than five seconds though

Cracked jokes about what just happened!!!

Would probably spend hours just lying in bed with you, the both of you just scrolling through Akuzon, voicing out your thoughts about certain items you stumble across (he takes mental note of everything you mention to be to you liking )

- Asmodeus -

Spa time!!! Bubble bath especially!!

Would totally rant about how beautiful you looked earlier

Cuddles in the bathtub, facemasks and candles

If you would be sore anywhere he would totally massage it

Washes your hair and body for you, he just wants you to relax

When he dries you off, he'll wrap you in the softest towels and carry you to bed after he sprayed you with his perfume just so you still smell like him

- Satan -

would definitely question if he was too rough on you

Totally kisses any marks or hickeys that he'd left and brush over them gently

Cleaning up kinda is teamwork, until you curl up next to him, scrolling through ur DDD a bit

A book in one hand, the other arm wrapped around you, keeping you close

Makes sure to wrap you up in a nice fuzzy blanket too, he doesn't want you to feel cold after all

You fall asleep before him, but he eventually gets tired too, the book is now on his face, you still cradled in his arm, your DDD dropped next to you

- Leviathan -

Asks you if you enjoyed it and if you felt good immediately

Admiring all the love marks hes left on you

Cleaning up and then he seats you in his lap in one of his hoodies

Also quite literally SHOWERS you in kisses, extremely flustered

It's your decision what you want to do, rather its just cuddling, watching anime or him playing a a game, or even playing something together

Man is clingy asf, he knows that the afterglow is a quite vulnerable state so he keeps you as close as possible

- Beelzebub -

No doubt, this man carries you to bed after he cleaned your up. Bridal style. No exeptions.

Tucks you in carefully and would feed you your favorite candy from the jar in his room

Keeps you in his arms until you are fast asleep, then quietly goes to clean up the kitchen

Would totally kiss the bite marks he left, probably even lick over them apologetically

He finishes that cake you had started only for you to wake up to an almost empty plate of it, and a very sorry Beel

- Belphegor -

It takes him a while before coming down from his high, so hes perhaps a bit quiet at first and just keeps his arms wrapped around you, processing in silence

Veeeeryyy sleepy afterwards, but also cold

Will probably get another fuzzy blanket after wiping the both of you down lazily

Naked cuddles part II

Gives a lot of small tired pecks and pulls the blanket over both of you

Hes not gonna let go of you this soon, but that's okay, the both of you will take a nap first anyway

Heya everyone, this is it for today (kinda short im sorry) these are actually my first hcs posted on here, enjoy!!!!

#nb reader #obey me #requests open #nonbinary reader #obey me levi x reader #obey me nightbringer #obey me x you #obey me x mc #obey me x reader #lucifer x reader #om! leviathan #om! shall we date #om! mammon #om! belphegor #om! brothers #om! lucifer #om! nightbringer #obey me headcanons #om! swd #obey me boys #obey me belphie #obey me shall we date #obey me satan #obey me smut

[ellecdc]

Hello I’m new here (tumblr) and idk if I’m doing this right but hi!

Your fics first came up with regulus and moon water so I’ve been binge reading your fics :), I was wondering if you would write Sirius x reader?

Where like Sirius is like head over heels for reader and it’s just him talking to the marauders about her because she’s like on prefect duties so he misses her.

If not that’s fine.

hahaha lovesick Siri is my kryptonite - thanks for your request; here's a cute little baby blurb <3

please note: my requests are currently closed as I finish exams and work through the requests that I currently have.

lovesick!Sirius Black x fem!reader who's on prefect rounds and he's upset about it

“So….why exactly is Padfoot pouting right now?” Peter asked cautiously as he shed off his bookbag and sat down to watch James and Remus’ game of wizard chess as Sirius hung upside down from a grandfather chair looking awfully contemplative. 

“His bird ditched him for some other bloke.” James muttered without raising his head.

Sirius scoffed dramatically and shot James what was probably supposed to be a withering glare, but was significantly diminished from his current upside-downness. 

“First of all, do not call my darling girl a bird. Second of all, she did not ditch me for another man, she has prefect rounds with Regulus.”

“The better of the Black brothers; good for her.” Remus commented; dodging a throw pillow lobbed at him from Sirius without moving his attention from the board. 

“What? You think you’re going to die if she’s not here to stroke your ego, Pads?” James asked teasingly.

“I might.” Sirius responded earnestly.

The other three Marauders groaned.

“You’re all just jealous you don’t know what it’s like to be in love.” Sirius accused as he repositioned himself upright in the chair.

Remus and James both turned to give him unimpressed glares.

“You’re nearly as bad as Prongs now.” Peter muttered, earning him indignant “oi!”’s from both James and Sirius.

“I can’t help it if she’s the best thing to ever happen to me, Wormy.” Sirius pouted.

“I am sitting right here.” James grumbled. 

Sirius rolled his eyes. “You’re a close second, Prongs.”

“She can’t be that great if she willingly puts up with you.” Remus commented, causing Sirius to launch himself out of the grandfather chair and onto Remus’ back.

“You take that back right now! My girl is the sweetest, most angelic, lovely person in the whole wide world and we’re all better for it.”

“Oh my gods, okay, okay. Merlin’s tits you’re wild.” Remus muttered as he bodily shoved Sirius off of his person.

“I can’t believe she puts up with you if this is what you’re like around her.” Peter commented, earning him a laugh from James.

“Oh, you should see it, Worms. She reduces him to nothing but a soppy lovesick smile whenever she’s around; no more feral Pads, he’s right docile with her.”

Sirius stared between his three friends with his mouth hanging open, face painted in a look of pure betrayal.

“See, this is why I spend so much time with her; she’d never treat me like this.”

“And yet, here you are.” Remus taunted.

Sirius stood quickly as he scoffed derisively. “Fine. I’m going to go hang out with her; at least then I’ll know I’m wanted.”

No one said anything as Sirius dramatically stormed out of the portrait hole and the Gryffindor common room once again returned to its appropriate volume.

“His logic is flawed if he thinks Regulus wants him anywhere near them during their rounds.” Peter commented, causing James to groan.

“Reg’s gonna hex him into oblivion if he disrupts their prefect duties again.” The Headboy groaned.

Remus let out a long suffering sigh as he stood from his long since abandoned chess game and made for the portrait hole.“I’ll go play interference…again.”

#marauders era #marauders au #marauders fanfiction #reader insert #self insert #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black fluff #sirius black drabble #sirius black blurb #sirius black ficlet #ellecdc fics

[seresinhangmanjake]

Stolen Angel - Part 4

Demon!Jake Seresin x reader

Summary: You thought you were having a one-night stand with some random, normal guy. Turns out he’s a winged, demon-like stalker who has been obsessed with you for years.

Warnings/Notes: Jake is a little dark. Kidnapping. Manipulation. Obsessive behavior. I’m sure there are typos. This used to be a different fic for August Walker, so if you see it, it’s fine. I wrote that one too.

Words: 1793

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

“You didn't eat.”  

You don’t flinch at the intrusion of his voice, not this time. While it was peaceful without his deep tone in your ear, you knew him finding you was inevitable, and honestly, you’re surprised it took him this long. Although, it’s possible that he didn’t need to find you at all; he could have been watching you from afar. Just because you haven’t seen his face in almost twenty-four hours doesn’t mean he hasn’t seen yours, and you’ve certainly provided him with an unobstructed view. But then you wonder why he hasn’t dragged you back to your room. 

You weren’t going to run. You just needed to see it, feel it, for yourself. Maybe that’s why he’s let you be; why he’s not scolding you until your brain melts. Maybe he knows that you won’t have logic overpowering your emotions when it comes to this, because even if you had some semblance of which direction to go in, you wouldn’t know what to do once you got there. To be anywhere other than here, like it or not you need him. You need his guidance and support, and worst of all, his permission.

“I ate some of it,” you confess. 

“Not enough,” he says. 

When he steps in front of you, his body eclipses the sun. The field around you untouched by his shadow still radiates its vibrant shades while you sit in the darkness he is creating. You look up, and his blond hair is glowing almost blindly from the backlight of the sun.

“Why are you out here, Angel?”

You turn your attention to your hand that’s nestled in the grass. “I had to see if it was real,” you say softly as you twirl your finger around a green blade.

He hums. “And are you satisfied with what you've found?”

Satisfied? You could scoff. What a foolish question; a disrespectful question. You can’t be satisfied with what you don’t understand. Feeling the dirt between your fingers and toes doesn’t provide you with the wealth of clarity he has been denying you. Clarity that you’re owed. 

“Come on,” he says at your lack of reply, reaching out a hand. “Out of the grass.”

“Tell me what this place is,” you say.

“I can explain it to you later. You’re not completely healed and we need to—”

“No,” you snap, meeting his eyes. “Now. Explain it to me now.”

Jake sighs, his hand dropping back to his side. “Angel—”

“I could become a lot more difficult, you know.”

He lets out a huff of a chuckle. Little crinkles form in the corners of his eyes. “Yes, I do know.”

“Then tell me.”

His smile settles. He mutters something under his breath before he glances over your head to the structure behind you. When you turn to get a look at what has stolen his attention, you find only an empty doorway. 

“You want me to like you, don’t you?” you ask, knowing that will draw him back to you. 

A blond brow raises in curiosity and suspicion. “This will make you like me?”

“It would help,” you lie. “The truth is important to me, and I don’t understand how you can expect me to want to be here if I have no clue what ‘here’ is.”

As he bites the inside of his cheek, you begin to worry that the promise of your affection is not a strong enough offer—that he might want more than just your words, he’ll want proof that you intend to follow through with what you say by your actions—but then he turns where he stands and lowers himself into the grass beside you. He’s close, and when his wing brushes over yours as he makes himself comfortable, he’s quick to pull it away, as if your feathers could set his aflame. 

Clearing his throat, he runs a hand through his hair before he rests his elbows on his bent knees. “It’s called The Tower,” he eventually says. “It was a prison, technically, until about two months ago.”

“A prison,” you repeat. “How fitting.”

He shoots you a look. You’ve offended him and you need to reign yourself in. “If you bothered to behave, it wouldn’t have to feel like one,” he informs you.

You hold back from rolling your eyes. You’re the textbook definition of a prisoner and you both know it. He can deny it to your face all he wants, but you have a right to feel like this place is a prison, even if it doesn’t exactly have the look of a prison. At least, not where you’re from. You don’t know of many ‘cells’ that include wardrobes, open windows, double beds with thick coverings, and fireplaces. Before you left your room you were imagining many possibilities for the cage you’ve been kept in, but among those were large estate or small castle, not a home for the naughty winged people.

“It’s awfully fancy for a prison,” you say.

“Our offenses weren’t so horrible.”

Our? 

Your brows almost shoot off your forehead until you take a half-second to soak it in and then accept the shame of being shocked. “Of course, you’re a criminal,” you say, nodding to yourself. “Did you kidnap a few other innocents and turn them into monsters, too?”

Jake doesn’t look you in the eye as he swallows hard, so you turn your head back to the horizon. “You’re not a monster, Angel. You’re perfect,” he tells you, then shakes his head. “But no. There were no others. I broke a rule—the same rule—a few times, which got me three separate six-month sentences in five years. Four months into my last one, the prison was dissolved here and set up elsewhere. Everyone was released; I stayed.”

Your brow pinches. “Why would you stay in the place you were captive?”

“I liked my room—well, your room right now. I liked the view. I thought it would be a good place for us once you joined me,” he says. “Secluded. Intimate.” 

Stomach flipping, your heartbeat gives a sharp thud. Instinctually, you think to move away, make an early retreat back to your room, but for once he’s actually answering your questions and you can’t sacrifice that in case you’re never given the same chance.

“What was the rule that you broke?” you ask. 

“Out past curfew, so to speak.”

“Out where?”

Jake goes silent, contemplating, then he says, “That's enough for now.”

But it’s not enough for you. “Out where?” you press to no response, so with a huff, you push off the ground to stand. 

He grabs your wrist as you’re about to take a step. “Sit,” he says. “I'll tell you if you stay.” 

Subtly smirking at the win, you return to the grass. 

Jake blows out a breath. “The Below,” he tells you.

“The Below…” You roll the words around on your tongue. They mean nothing to you until Jake makes a face like he might come to regret what he’s just done, and then they mean everything. “My world?”

Jake groans. “How many times do I have to tell you that that is not your—”

“You were there more than just that one time?” you interrupt, stunned that you momentarily forgot that your home is where he met you. It must have been the anger or fear or lasting daze from the week of pain, but somehow it didn’t register that you could potentially return as well. “How?”

“No more questions,” he scolds.  

“But I thought you wanted me to like you,” you counter. 

Shifting to sit on your hip with your legs bent at your side, you set your hand on top of his. He stares at the new touch, then his thumb begins to rub along the line of your index finger in soft, slow motions. 

He doesn’t stop his staring. He doesn’t stop his thumb’s gentle caressing. “Yes, I was there more than just that one time.”

Despite your carefully restrained excitement at the plethora of new information, you forget the game you’re playing and jerk your hand away from his just as he’s about to intertwine your fingers. “So you can go whenever you want?” you ask. “Then take me.”

At the demand, his teeth clench, jawline sharpening. “No, I cannot go whenever I want, and no, I am not taking you.”

“Why not!”

“Because you are right where you should be,” he says decisively. 

You feel his heightening irritation, so you quickly place your palm on his shoulder and slide it down to his toned bicep where it stays. 

“I just want to see it,” you tell him before you scoot yourself closer to his side, your hip a couple inches shy of pressing against his. He looks down to where your bodies are nearly touching, then back up at you. You try a light smile. “Please, Jake.”

His eyes lock on to your smile, your lips. He darts his tongue out to wet his own, and you prepare yourself for the kiss you’re sure he’s about to give you—a kiss you won’t say no to if it helps get you home—but it’s a kiss that never comes. He just thinks; drinks in your smile and thinks. 

The green of his irises in the sunlight is overwhelming when directed at you for such a long pause, and you don’t initially notice when he opens his mouth. 

“If you show me that you can listen to me and do as I tell you, I’ll consider it,” he finally says. 

Your head flinches back, mind immediately going to the worst of what he could want from you. “What will you be telling me to do?” 

“To start, you’re going back inside. You haven’t finished healing and because you took yourself on a little adventure, you stressed your wing and now part of it is inflamed. You need rest.”

You must have been so mentally preoccupied that you blocked out all physical transmission to your brain because it’s only when he says it that you feel the return of the ache.  

“And you’re going to eat,” he continues. “Everything, this time.”

“Fine,” you relent. 

“You’re going to wear something made of more comfortable fabric than that,” he gestures to your smock, “And you’re going to stop arguing with me over every damn thing. You can’t change what’s been done, so being pissed at me doesn’t do you any good.”

It takes extra effort to muster up an agreement to that last one. Your swallow you can only compare to trying to get down a sponge soaked in wet cement. “Fine,” you grit out.

“Fine,” he says, standing. He extends his hand out toward you again. “Let’s see if you’re capable of behaving, Angel.”

tags: @wkndwlff @kmc1989 @sagittarius-flowerchild @dempy @oliviah-25 @rosiahills22 @xoxabs88xox @matisse556 @hardballoonlove @lynnevanss @pono-pura-vida @tgmreader @amgluvsbooks @djs8891 @shakespeareanwannabe @penguin876 @tgmavericklover @athenabarnes @emilyoflanternhill @wretchedmo @shanimallina87 @crowsreadsarahjmaas @mamachasesmayhem @sky2nd @jessicab1991 @rosedurin @averyhotchner @horseshoegirl @roosteraloha @b-bradshaw @fandom-life-12 @hookslove1592 @buckysteveloki-me @eloquentdreamer

#jake seresin #jake seresin x reader #jake hangman seresin #jake hangman seresin x reader #top gun maverick #jake seresin fic #top gun #jake hangman seresin fic #top gun hangman #jake hangman seresin x y/n #demon!jake seresin x reader #top gun au #tgm fic #jake seresin smut #jake seresin fluff #jake seresin angst

[seventeenytiny]

can i ask for a dom jisung public sex typa thing? sorry if its too straightforward or smth like that😭 its my first time asking for smth !!

you dont have to do it and can ignore this if u want!! <3

SMUT MDNI

Authors Note: Hope this works for you love! Sorry if it's kinda rough my grammar-checking app wouldn't check most of it because it was so dirty hehe. Word count: 528 Warnings: Smut, MDNI, Name-calling, Public sex ofc!

You looked both ways before pulling Jisung into the bathroom with you. It was a decent-sized unisex one located in the food court of the mall. After checking that the door was locked, the two of you wasted no time. Jisung was all over you, his mouth attacking your neck as his hands pushed up your skirt. All the teasing and touching the two of you had done while shopping earlier has you skipping foreplay. He pulls your panties down around your knees before rubbing at your clit. "You're so wet already, did you like me grinding against you while you were going through the clothes rack earlier today?"

"Yes, Jisung... you know I love feeling how hard you get..."

"Your such a slut, letting me play with you in the store and then bringing me in here with you. You love how I'm playing with your clit right now, don't you? I know you're just aching for me to fuck you"

"Jisung..." you moan out, "We don't have much time, please, just put it in."

He can't deny your request. He unzips his pants, pulling out his hard cock. He flips your skirt up before bending you over and sliding into you with ease. He holds your body to help support you as he fucks you over the sink. The stretch of his cock makes staying quiet difficult, he places his hand over your mouth to silence you.

"You gotta be quiet baby, can't risk getting caught."

He knows the two of you can't be in there long, as a result, the pace of his thrusts is fast and rough. His cock slides in and out of your soaking wet pussy with ease. The angle he has you bent over has his cock hitting your sweet spot with every motion. With his hand covering your mouth, the only sound filling the bathroom is his heavy breathing and the sound of his skin slapping against yours.

"I need you to come soon, baby," he whispers urgently. "We can't be here much longer." The hand on your mouth moves back to your clit, expertly rubbing circles on it. The pressure is just right, and you can feel the heat building up in your lower stomach, the sweet feeling of your orgasm approaching.

"Jisung I'm gonna come, I'm gonna come..." You say breathlessly.

"Let it go, babygirl."

Your orgasm rips through your body, and you struggle to keep quiet as your legs turn into jelly. Jisung supports your body as you ride through your pleasure. The feeling of your pussy clamping down on his cock has him losing it. He pulls out right at the last minute, his come falling onto the bathroom floor. His face is flushed, and he's gasping for air. "Ah, I didn't mean to make such a mess," he says, flustered.

You turn to him, kissing him. "Jisung, that was so fucking hot."

"You like being dirty in public don't you?" He says with a little smirk. "You're so kinky, baby."

He pulls away from you to clean up his mess while you attempt to clean yourself up. Your next challenge? To leave the bathroom without being spotted.

#han jisung #stray kids #skz #stray kids smut #skz smut #stray kids x reader #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz jisung #han jisung smut #han jisung x reader #anon

[starcrossedxwriter]

Wicked Fantasies Part 11.1 (MBJ x OC)

A/N: Ummm so welcome backkk! This is 11.1 because there's a second part to this chapter (I know... my self control keeps getting worse lolol) But I hope you enjoy!

TW: grief

“I’m never fucking drinking again,” Raven moaned to herself as she stumbled out of the comforts of bed. She felt like hell, if hell had a truck run over its head a few dozen times. 

Raven generally considered herself an early riser but nothing could pull her out of bed that morning after what was, objectively, the dumbest night of her life. Part of her wished she had had one or two more drinks so she could have officially transitioned into the ‘blackout drunk’ phase. So that she would, at least, be spared the embarrassing memories. But no, every horrible moment of the night from dancing wildly at the bar to Michael saving her was etched into the crevices of her brain with shocking clarity. 

Now, it was after noon and Raven still found herself wanting to be curled under her blanket asleep so she could escape her embarrassment. 

A knock at the door pulled her out of her wallowing self pity. She did not make an attempt to move, expecting Tiffany to answer. However, when the voice of their landlord rang out and her knocking persisted, she quickly slid on her robe to open the door. She decided Mrs. Winters would have to get over the fact that she looked like death reincarnated. 

“Rough night, dear?” 

Raven grimaced for a moment, she did indeed look as terrible as she felt. 

“Something like that,” Raven offered a tight smile, her body slumping against the door. “W-what can I do for you, Mrs. Winters?” 

“Oh I’m just letting everyone know that we had a pipe burst on the floor above. We’ll have folks in and out and you might hear some noise and stuff. But if you see any leaking into your unit, give me a ring?” 

“Of course. Will do. Thanks, have a good one,” Raven tried her best to politely shoo the woman away. However, she lingered. 

“Oh I meant to tell you, that boyfriend of yours is just such a good egg. So kind and polite. Admittedly I haven’t met many famous people,” she laughed. “But you just don’t expect them to have such good manners, you know?” 

Raven stopped. “My boyfriend?? Sorry… When was he here?” 

“He stopped by this morning. Gave me a check for your rent for the rest of your lease. Oh and asked where your mailbox was, said he wanted to drop something in it.” 

Raven was worried her jaw might come completely unhinged as the woman spoke. 

He did what?? 

“Are you alright, dear??” 

“Y-Yea, yea. Just… a bit of a surprise. Thank you.” 

And with that, Raven immediately closed the door, not listening to the elderly woman’s reply. 

“This nigga… I hate him,” she muttered to herself as she slumped against her door. 

Every cell in her body knew that was not true. But she also knew that everything she had told him last night was still accurate. She was too tired to forgive him and not just him… anyone ever again. The world has used up all of her second chances and she did not have it in her heart to be disappointed by him again. The narrative in her brain was so set in stone, she did not think anything he could say or do would make her believe anything else. She could not even make herself go retrieve the note that was apparently waiting for her in her mailbox. 

“Such a coward,” she grumbled as she flopped back into bed. 

She stared at her phone for several minutes, her text thread with Michael open. She wondered what she could even say? Thank you?

She knew any conversations demanding she pay him back or he rescind the money would be moot. Even if she had the mental fortitude to argue with him right now, she would still lose. But she could not just accept it without trying to push back. 

She typed and erased and typed and erased before lamely landing on: 

Raven: You can’t pay my entire rent. I can’t accept that. 

Raven: I don’t want that.

Michael: Yea you can. Told you… gonna show up every day tryin’ to fix us. You just gotta let me.

Raven: Money isn’t gonna fix this, Michael. 

Michael: I know. But it can fix the tangible things I fucked up for you

Michael: So let me fix that for you. 

Raven paused, as a warm sensation filled her, a warmth she had not felt in over a month now. The warmth of being cared for. She had never had someone take care of her without wanting something in return, except Michael. Even when their relationship was built on transactions, he still took care of her without needing or asking for something from her. The book deal, her rent were just the tangible examples of how he had stepped up to right the wrongs he could and she could not deny that those actions meant something, softened something inside her. 

He was doing exactly what he promised he would do the night before. He was fixing what could be, he was showing with his actions that she meant something to him. And yet, that blockade that stopped that belief from taking root was still there, still prohibiting her from believing these actions were anything more than a skilled manipulation. 

He would draw her back in, he would not change, and when he got ready, he would hurt her again. That’s what everyone in her life did. 

Raven: It doesn’t change anything

Michael: I know… didn’t expect it to.

She tossed her phone to the side and grabbed her pillow, screaming into it as her frustration got the better of her. The complex web of conflicting feelings with Michael B. Jordan trapped at its center only continued to grow. She wanted him to let her go, to stop caring and trying and going out of his way for her because that fit into the narrative nailed to the cross of her brain, it would confirm her beliefs and fears. 

But instead he continued to do the things that made her fall in love with him the first time, things that only reignited the dimmed but still existent flame that was her love for him. And she knew she would never get over him if she kept letting that happen, kept letting him in. 

So she did not even respond. Instead, she just closed the thread and tossed her phone to the side. 

“Let him go, Rae,” she demanded to herself. “You don’t deserve him and he doesn’t love you.” She repeated that a few times before it felt real again, before all that had started to soften was once again as solid as a block of ice. 

***

“You look like shit,” Alex moaned as she watched Michael’s makeup artist, Shanta, struggle to make him look less like a living zombie ahead of his Oprah interview. 

They were tucked away in a suite in Oprah's sprawling LA estate. It was difficult to make Michael feel poor but Oprah was certainly one of the few people in the world who could do so. 

“Thanks, appreciate that.” 

“You know I don’t believe in lying to you. Make sure you get those bags under his eyes,” she instructed. “Alright, this is it. Final stretch. Movie’s out and every review is stellar so far. Do this interview, it’ll air this week, Oscars on Sunday and then you can sleep. Though I bet it’s not the schedule keeping you up? Talked to her since the premiere?” 

Michael forced his body not to sag at the mention of Raven as to not disturb the hard work of the woman trying to make him look alive after days of no sleep.  

“She texted me about the rent thing the next morning. But it’s been radio silence ever since.” 

It had only been a few days since the fiasco after the premiere but Michael’s concern for Raven had not diminished one bit. He  could not let her go as she requested but he tried his hardest to respect her desire for space. His heart was stuck in the quicksand that was Raven and he had no desire to pull himself out. He wanted to be right there. He knew eventually he would have to accept defeat, accept that she had moved on. But he could not do it while she still questioned her own deservedness. She could hate him for the rest of his life, it would be her right. But his soul could not allow her to live thinking so lowly of herself. So if he had to pay 30 years of rent or call in favors to make her life easier and make her see that she deserved care and someone to sacrifice for her, he would do it. It was high time someone in her life put her above themselves. 

“Well, at least she talked to you. That’s something. You’re doing what she asked. Sis has lived a life, she needs time and space. Keep doing what you're doing. Except for the no sleep. For the love of God, by the Oscars, please get a good night’s rest. That’s your night.” 

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Alex…” 

She scoffed. “You’ve won the big four, Mike. It’s not just because I believe you deserve it… Statistically, Best Actor is yours. The Oscars is your night. Have a little faith in yourself.” 

“I hear you. I just don’t wann-” 

“Excuse me?” A young man poked his head in the door. “Apologies for interrupting. I’m a PA. Just wanted to let you know that we’re almost ready? I can take you out to the garden when you’re ready.” 

“Be right out. Thank you,” Alex called. 

Shanta did her last quick finishing touches before Alex gave him her customary once over. 

“Shanta, my girl, you’re a miracle worker per usual.” 

They both offered Shanta their thanks, Michael rolling his shoulders before heading out the door to walk out to the gardens. 

He had met and interviewed with Oprah once before so he was not particularly nervous. But despite having done millions of interviews, there was always a kernel of nerves right beforehand that he could just never shake. 

He was dressed in slacks and a light black sweater, thankful for a cooler day as he walked out into her expansive gardens where the Oprah Winfrey waited for him. The cameras were already rolling, capturing footage that may or may not make into the hour-long special. 

“The man of the hour!” she called, her arms stretched wide to wrap Michael in a hug. “Actually I think man of the year is more appropriate. Welcome. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have you here.” 

“Thank you, thank you. It’s so good to be here.”

“Have a seat,” she gestured at the very comfy chair across from hers. “And we can jump right in.” 

***

Raven’s head was propped against her fist as she stared at her computer. A sentence. That was the grand total of her hard work for that Wednesday afternoon. But it was something, she supposed. Weeks of hard work had amounted to maybe two or three pages of her book. She had been offering Angelina vague answers on her progress, ducking and dodging her to avoid admitting that there was no way in hell she could have a draft by March 15 like they talked about. 

“Rae? You busy?” 

She turned in her chair toward the door to find Tiffany’s head poking in. 

“Nope… I’ll never be busy again at this rate,” she grumbled. “What’s up?” 

“I just turned on the interview… if you want to watch?” 

Raven scratched her head, unsure if she could even watch him? See him happy and thriving without her? Despite everything happening between them though, she could not pretend there was not a part of her that still wanted to celebrate this moment in his career. Interviewing with Oprah the week he was poised to win his first Oscar? How could she ever forgive herself if she did not watch this? Even if it hurts? 

“I’ll… be there in a sec. Thanks, Tiff.” 

Raven let out a deep sigh before she grabbed the blanket off her bed and dragged herself to the living room. The interview had already started and he looked gorgeous. Tired, she could tell, in the way he constantly had to readjust his posture, in the bags under his eyes that the makeup artist could not quite fully cover. But even at his worst, he looked captivatingly good. 

Raven found herself studying him so intently that she did not even comprehend the words he and Oprah were sharing. She just watched him and his mannerisms, she focused on the glimmer in his eyes that sparked every so often. She missed looking into his eyes, missed how expressive they were.  

This moment only amplified how much she missed him, missed hearing the deep baritone in his voice and the spark in his eyes when he spoke about his passions. She missed his bright and uninhibited laughter, how his hands were always on her in some way. She just missed him. But she had pushed him away, had told him to let her go. And even if he had not fully let go of her yet, she felt too scared to open that door again, even if her soul ached for her to. Particularly when he continued to try to show up for her in small ways. 

And despite how angry she still wanted to be at him, she had never had anyone show up for her quite like this… try for her like he did. And everyday, her brain took up far more mental space than it should have, debating whether she should follow her foolish heart and forgive him or listen to her logical brain and cast him aside. Days passed and she still did not know the answer. 

“So I’ll admit,” Raven’s ears finally started to pick up the conversation between Oprah and Michael, “I watched Waves more times than appropriate. But Gayle and I saw it at Sundance and we both thought it was just the most heartbreaking and poignant look at loss and grief that we had ever seen. While still being engaging and funny and so relatable. The journey your character goes through is just… I mean I think grief is one of the few universal experiences that we all will have at some point. And you really brought that to life through this character and his struggles with addiction. And the fact that you filmed this while engaged in completely different projects with complex characters like Killmonger in Black Panther and Adonis in Creed 3… I’m curious what you pulled from to give that performance?” 

Michael shifted in his seat as he chuckled, Raven had missed how passionate he got about this project, even though he had been talking about it and doing press for it since they first started dating. She knew he had not truly expected the role to blow up in the ways it did but she could tell he was grateful for it, nonetheless. 

“Well first, thank you. Yea aside from Oscar Grant, Andre was the hardest character I’ve ever played and he stretched me as an actor in ways, you know, I didn’t really expect? And I learned so much from him in his sort of journey through grief. You know, when I read the first script, the line ‘grief is the final stage in love’s evolution,’ really stuck out to me. When you lose someone, grief, this enduring pain you feel, is that love shifting and changing because it has nowhere to go, there’s no outlet for it anymore. And so, Andre really reframed my own thoughts on grief and loss and how I process that and allowed me to pull from personal experiences with loss to pour into that character.” 

“Yea I will say, that line was one of my favorites. I sat with that long after the credits rolled.” 

“Yea same. I remember sitting a-and thinking about that one for a while after reading it. And I loved that even in the more comedic moments of this movie, we still had those lines that made you wanna stop and really sit with what the characters were going through.”  

“Definitely, I was dissecting this movie for weeks after. It’s just amazing. So I do want to shift gears to talk about this moment you're experiencing because of this movie. This really is the biggest moment of your career. You’re nominated for your first Oscar and a favorite to win, so far in 2023, you’ve won a SAG Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA. And you, as of two days ago, just had your directorial debut in Creed 3. First question, how are you still awake?” Both of them shared a laugh. “But serious question, how has this moment felt? How does it feel to be having this moment at this stage of your career?” 

“Oh wow, when you list it like that, I don’t know how I’m awake either,” he chuckled. “But seriously, you know… it’s been a ride. I know you’ve felt this too but you know, you don’t often take a moment to just pause and soak it in. You finish one interview or award show and your mind automatically just jumps to the next one. And I think what I’ve been trying to force myself to do in the later weeks of this insane time is just to slow down and enjoy it. Not rush through it and really enjoy the fruits of… really years of hard work and sacrifice. But that also means sitting with… you know, the challenges of this time too, which isn’t as rewarding,” he admitted with a sad smile. “But I’m growing and learning alot so it’s worth it.” 

Oprah nodded. “You know I always appreciate when people don’t let the 24 hour news cycle and gossip sort of steal their thunder and moment from them. And I applaud you for sort of moving through the more gossipy side of the last few months with grace and maturity. But you haven’t really talked much publicly about those stories and the effect they have had on you. And you don’t have to get into it if you don’t want but I am curious on how you navigated that and really came out on the other side, from what I can see, stronger for it?”

Michael bowed his head and chuckled. “Um… you know a good friend of mine told me that she thought this was the most vulnerable and most genuine I had ever been publicly on this press tour and I think it’s because I’ve had to navigate some really personal stuff during this great but hectic public moment? And that’s new territory for me.” 

“And I think that friend is right. I don’t think we have seen or learned this much about you ever.” 

“Yea and I wish I could take some credit for it but… it was all one person: Raven Turner. And the way we met, now as the world knows, was extremely unconventional and I can admit that our relationship started as a complete lie. A lie I thought would help me be seen as this serious, mature man my team was worried I wasn’t. And I wasn’t,” he admitted. “I was cold and guarded and not at all the best version of myself. And while I regret how we started and trying to fool the world into thinking I’m something I’m not, there isn’t a bone in my body that regrets falling in love with her.” 

He leaned forward a bit as he spoke. “Because all those walls and barriers we build around ourselves to survive in this world of Hollywood? To endure the criticisms and insanity we deal with? She's the first woman to see me. Not the actor and the money and the fame but just me. And in that, she saved me… without trying or intending to. She just loved me and loving her, choosing her is the single greatest decision I ever made. And I hate how this moment has fallen on her, how my terrible decisions led to these pretty disgusting misogynistic attacks on her. And I think my biggest regret is putting someone as pure as her in the line of fire like that and not doing enough to protect her. And you know, I have to live with that, which is tough.” 

“You know I’ve interviewed thousands of people in my career and while I believe you have to change for yourself and on your own, I also have found that the ones who love us, really love us, are often the most powerful catalysts for change in our lives. I’ve certainly seen and experienced that in my own life and it’s important to spotlight those who were that catalyst.” 

“Oh 100%. Especially when, I think this version of me was always there? I was just too hurt to trust anyone with it, so no one saw it. I buried me under this facade I thought was better? But I fell in love with a woman who taught me that you can’t be guarded, you can’t shut down just because you’re hurt. Life is about getting up every day, being authentically you, and reaching out and loving and risking your heart every time. And sometimes you’ll get swatted away and sometimes you’ll get an embrace. But you just deny yourself love when you don’t show up at all. So I’ve been trying to live by that more lately. Because she showed me what real strength and courage looks like. And I want to have that, I want to lead with that.” 

“Wow… you know people are going to watch this and I think, applaud that vulnerability. It’s refreshing to me because I don’t think our world incentivizes or encourages people to admit when they aren’t being their best selves. So I think for you to do that, at a moment when you’re at the top of your game, is commendable.” 

“She deserves to know the positive effect she’s had on my life. To be celebrated for how she supported me. And you know it’s not just me? When we first started dating, I remember her one stipulation was that we couldn’t go out on Wednesday evenings because she hosted a book club for kids at the library she worked at. And that was the most important thing to her, being there for them. The day of our first date, she spent an hour delivering books and SAT prep books to those same kids she worked just because. There’s just a selflessness to her that is truly admirable. And I think while people are attacking her and calling her these vile names because she made a certain choice during a hard time, they should know who she really is. A woman that would drop everything to help you even when you don’t really deserve it. A woman who I’ve seen give others all she had because they needed it more even when she did not have a backup plan for herself. I could honestly talk about her for the rest of this interview because she deserves celebration far more than I ever could. Genuinely good people don’t always get the shine they deserve, they don’t always get the love and care they deserve because we can often take them for granted. But no one deserves to be celebrated more than her, to be celebrated loudly more than she does.” 

“I love that… she seems like quite the woman.” 

“She is… and I hope she knows that.” 

“So tell me about…” 

The words faded away as his words tumbled through Raven’s head. They clashed jarringly against every belief she had internalized about herself, like metal against metal. But she found herself wanting to believe him. Believe the words a section of the world just heard. She wanted to believe that what he saw in her, even over the course of six months, was who she truly was. Not this broken, damaged scapegoat life had fashioned her into. 

There has to be more than this, right? 

Tiffany nudged her with a box of tissues in her hand. Raven had not even realized she was crying but she accepted them gratefully. 

“Don’t know how I still have tears over this man left,” she whispered as she wiped her eyes. 

“I don’t think those tears are because of him, sis.” 

Raven sniffled and grabbed another tissue. “You m-might be onto something. I can’t watch anymore. Night, Tiffany.” 

However, before she reached her bedroom, she heard Tiffany call her name. 

“I know what he did… sucks. And hurts. But that’s a man who loves you, Rae. More than anything. After that? The only person in the world who still won’t believe it is you.”

She turned around to face her, the back of her hand wiping away a few more stray tears. “You know he said the same thing?” 

“Well, I generally don’t think actors are that smart,” Tiffany admitted with a laugh. “But he’s right about that. You deserve to believe good things about yourself, we all do.”

“Nothing good has ever lasted… I always ruin it somehow. I tried to believe I deserved him and life proved that I didn’t,” she answered, her voice small. “D-Don’t have it in me to try again.” 

“Raven… I know we aren’t best friends or anything. But how many times have I watched you forgiven your dad and sister? Let them back in, try to make things right with them? Try to build the family you want?” 

“Too many…” 

“Right… So why does Michael only get one shot when you found the strength to give them 100? When he’s the one actually showing up for you? He’s the one who actually is trying to earn another chance?”  

“It’s not that simple and you know it.” 

“I know that the only person denying you happiness right now… is you. You push away the good people and things in your life because you feel like you don’t deserve it but no one would be here if you didn’t. Michael, the kids in your book club… me. I don’t keep signing leases with you because you’re a terrible person who ruins everything, no one has a gun to our heads, Rae. We’re here because you do deserve it.” 

“Tiff…” 

“Nope, shut up. This pity party is getting old and tired. It doesn’t matter what I think of you… or what Michael thinks or anyone out there.” She gestured toward the window. “All that matters is the narrative you’ve created and until you decide to believe something else, all you’re going to do is push people away and fuck up and self sabotage because it’s all you think you deserve. You gotta wake up and do some fucking work, girl. Cause until you figure out how to erase this narrative from your brain, you’ll never be happy. And you’ll never fall in love with anyone except for someone who treats you like crap. You’ll never build your own family. You’ll never finish your book or have another fulfilling career. You’ll just be stuck in this broken version of yourself alone… forever. And I’ve seen a few different versions of you over the last two years but this is by far the most pitiful.”

Raven had never heard Tiffany be so blunt. The words were biting but she could not deny that some of them rang true in her ears. And that was always the hardest information to hear. 

“Damn… tell me how you really feel.” 

“The soft gentle love wasn’t resonating clearly so had to go with a different tactic…. Just think about it. And once you fix all this shit and move to a mansion in the hills, don’t forget about me.” She winked at her, causing Raven’s jaw to drop slightly. 

“How do you even know that’s gonna happen?” 

She shrugged and grabbed the remote to press play, Raven not even noticing that she paused it.

“Just got a good feeling about the two of you. Now go so I can lust after him in peace while he's still single. Kidding! Kinda..."

Raven let out a small laugh as she shook her head. "I know you're not kidding. Night, Tiff.” 

She slid into her bed, her only refuge of late, and stared at the ceiling. She was surprised she was not tired of looking at it by now. Michael and Tiffany’s words wrestled with her own thoughts for hours

What was her problem, really? It was not that what Michael did was unforgivable because it wasn’t. Some distant part of her, too quiet to break through the noise of her anger, always wondered if there was more to the story, believed that he had to have had some reason. But she was too angry to allow him to explain. It just became vicious ammunition that no one could ever love her or care about her… that she was the problem. 

Well, that’s true… no one’s ever loved you. And everyone who does leaves. 

She supposed her mother must have loved her, but she would never know. She would never feel it. And her grandmother’s love was so distant, so long ago, that it no longer felt tangible, was no longer a tether to anchor her self worth to something positive.

Instead, the only thing that tethered her sense of self worth to anything was her family’s disdain. Disdain that made her question what Michael could’ve seen in her, how he could ever love someone like her? That disdain which made it far easier to believe that what he did was proof that he did not love her than that he possibly did do it to protect her in some weird way. No other thought could live long enough in her brain to take hold. 

And she did not know if doing what Tiffany suggested would fix that. There was not enough time in the world for her muster the courage to interrogate and confront the source of these feelings. She had hoped she would never have to see her family again. Some days, never felt like too soon.

But she knew she could not avoid it. They were the root cause, the narrative in her head was fueled and sustained by them. And screaming at them across the Thanksgiving table and never speaking to them again was not the closure she needed. She thought she had dropped the weight that was her family when she cut them off. But she was still dragging all the luggage they gave her around and it was time to give it back. 

She knew her family did not want to see her either, knew it would be difficult to get them to even speak to her after everything. But she knew she had to try… because she knew there had to be more to life than this. That she had not been born to only suffer through life instead of live it. So she needed to confront her demons for herself, even if her relationship with them did not change one bit.  

She grabbed her computer and her wallet. It was time to go home.

***

Raven’s eyes remained trained on her dad’s house across the street as she sat in her rental car. She was almost shocked that none of her family’s nosy neighbors had not called the police yet as she sat there for nearly an hour, summoning the courage to actually go inside. 

She had felt so sure this was what she needed when she bought her plane ticket. And that confidence did not waver when she stepped onto the plane or during the long journey from LAX to Charlotte, NC. However, once she was in her rental car, she found herself waffling, aimlessly driving around for hours. Her brain seemed unable to direct her to the place she knew she needed to go. Home. 

She just could not make herself do it… not yet anyway. So she did not. Instead, she finally went to her hotel to try to get some rest and her night’s rest turned into the entire Friday holed up in her hotel. She had not booked a return ticket, prayerful and hopeful that there would be a reason to stick around for a few days. But that also meant she did not have the incentive of time to make her move faster. 

But she could not even make herself do this. Because she did not know how to be brave like this. Her life had been nothing but running from pain and confrontation. This was so contrary to that. She did not know how to do any of this. She tossed and turned all night, unable to get any sleep particularly when there was only one person who she wanted to talk to, wanted to seek courage and strength from. Because when she felt scared, when she did not feel strong, he was the only person she wanted to reach for. But she was not sure he would even answer. She had pushed him away, told him she needed space. 

But she had not felt like she could do this alone. So last night, she called him. 

“Rae! Everything ok?” he asked immediately, his question met with silence. 

Raven did not know what to say and regret filled her like ice water in her veins. But she knew it was too late to hang up, she had to see it through. She paid for that moment of weakness when she hit the call button as her throat closed at the sound of her voice. She found it impossible to speak, even if she knew what words to say.  

“I’ll wait until you’re ready, Rae. Got all night for you.” 

And she knew he was not just talking about waiting for her to speak. 

“Why?” she whispered, the simple word coming out in a strangled sound as she tried to push past the tightness in her throat. 

“Why what?” 

“Why even answer after everything I said to you? W-why do you keep trying?” 

“Because I love you,” he answered simply. “And you’re worth it. I’ll keep reaching out, baby girl. Even when you swat me away.” 

“You might be the only person who thinks that,” she whispered back as a tear fell. 

“I don’t think that’s true. But even if it was, knowing one person is in your corner is all you need sometimes.”

She laughed lightly. “That press tour got you only speaking in motivational boxing terms or something?” 

His deep laughter filled her ears and filled her soul with such joy that she had forgotten. She had forgotten what these moments felt like, the two of them on the phone or curled up together in bed, just talking. She missed it… she missed him. But she could not say it, could not bring herself to pull her body out of the water to make that long trek back up the cliff to where he waited for her. Everything in her brain screamed at her that she couldn’t do it, that she did not have it in her. And she hated herself for it. Hated how she clung to the ice barriers around her heart, even though they were utterly fractured and ready to fall. She just was not ready yet. 

She let out a shuddering breath as she hastily wiped away her falling tears. “I… don’t know why I called. I s-shouldn’t have called.”

“Call me anytime, Rae. I’ll always answer. I’ll always show up for you. I hope you know that… at least.” 

“Y-Yea… I think I do… or at least, it’s getting harder to deny it,” she revealed. “Your interview with Oprah… it was really good,” she offered lamely. 

“You watched??” she could hear the surprise in his voice. 

“Yea… I almost didn’t,” she admitted. “But I caught most of it. Did you mean it? Everything you said?” 

“Every single word.” There was no arguing with the definitive tone in his voice. “I get that you don’t trust me anymore. I lied and kept secrets. But one thing I never lied about is how much I love you.”  

Her eyes clenched shut for a moment. That was one thing he had always been consistent about, her ears had just been perpetually shut to it. 

“I… um… I gotta go. Early day tomorrow,” she lied as she sniffled. “I’m sorry for bothering you. Bye, Michael.” 

She was not sure what she had expected to get from that call and, at first, it felt as if she only got a firm kick in the heart for it. But for the first time since she landed, Raven had enough strength to finally drive to her family’s house. She had rolled her eyes at his boxing motivational quotes but hearing someone say they were in her corner, that had given her courage. To just feel like someone was behind her, even if she was alone, that meant something to her. 

She took a deep breath and got out of her car, forcing her legs to carry her to the front door. 

Her rounds of knocks went unanswered, Raven getting slightly frustrated but determined not to leave the porch. If she turned around and walked away, she’d never come back. 

After an extremely brief internal debate, she decided to simply let herself in, deciding that since she contributed to the mortgage, she had a right to come in as she pleased. And her father still, foolishly, kept a spare key underneath the welcome mat.

Though she had not been to her family’s home in two years or so, it still looked the same. Her father’s favorite work boots were thrown haphazardly at the door, several pairs of her sister’s shoes lined up next to them. She was an utter mess but she was, at least, somewhat neat. And it still felt… cold. And it had nothing to do with the cold winter east coast weather. The house had always felt like that, void of warmth and love that made a home a home. 

“Kiara?” she called out. “Dad?” However, she was met with utter silence. 

Part of her supposed she was thankful they were not home and that they had not just ignored her or something. She stood in the living room, staring around the room at the pictures that lined the walls and shelves. So many of her mom, her dad, and Kiara but there were none of her. That was not a surprise, it had always been that way. But that did not make it sting any less. All they had ever wanted was to erase her from their lives and if a stranger walked into this house, it would be as if she never existed.

She started up the stairs, her eyes refusing to linger long on any of the photos there. They were all lies anyway, a picture perfect family that did not exist because she had been born. She decided to ascend to the attic once she made it upstairs. Because that was where all her grandmother’s and some of her own things now lived. She had never really gone through her grandmother’s things after she passed, no one aside from her dad to pack them up. But she knew there was so much of their lives, so many memories she had forgotten of the one person who loved her, forgotten in those boxes that she now desperately needed to remember. 

She ignored how narrow the opening to the attic was, realizing that it had been easier to maneuver up here when she was a young teenager. Everything was still neatly packed away as if her grandmother would be back one day to pick it up. 

She started to open each box, pulling out and examining her grandmother’s things, so many beautiful things forgotten in this attic no one went into. For the first time in nearly two decades, she felt close to the only maternal figure she had ever had, felt like her grandmother’s hand was on her shoulder as she reminisced on their short but well-lived time together. 

She found the old costume jewelry her grandmother used to let her play with, laughing to herself as she thought back to dressing up in front of her vanity mirror pretending to be a model or whatever silly idea the pair had thought up. She almost cried as she found a very crumpled piece of paper with the last story she gave her grandmother to read before she died, a random short story that she had written for class. She had not realized, as she found a folder, just how many of her stories her grandmother had kept. 

A gold glint caught her attention, Raven reaching into a giant box to find a shoe box. Raven had seen that box 100 times but her grandmother had never let her touch it, claiming that it held priceless family heirlooms that she did not want Raven or Kiara to mess up. Raven rolled her eyes that something her grandmother had valued so much had been discarded and forgotten haphazardly at the bottom of this box. 

Finally giving into her childhood curiosity, she opened it. It was still filled with things, part of her thankful that Kiara had never found it. The jewelry and pieces in it were gorgeous and indeed priceless. She took her time as she examined each one, wondering if they had belonged to her mother or her grandmother or some other relative she never met. However, it was what existed underneath the jewelry that caught her eye: piles of tied up envelopes, one with her name on it and one with Kiara’s. 

The handwriting was not her grandmother’s, which made Raven even more curious. 

She pulled out the stack with her name on it and undid the thin ribbon that tied them together. There were ten letters there in total, each one with a different note scribbled on the envelope. 

To Raven on your 18th birthday 

To Raven on high school graduation 

To Raven after your first love 

To Raven after your first heartbreak

To Raven on college graduation 

To Raven on your wedding day 

She only had to flip through a few of them to realize who they were from. Her mom. 

“You’re killing me,” she muttered to the sky, unsure if she was speaking to God, her grandmother, her mother or all three. 

Her hands trembled slightly as she ripped open the one on top, addressed to her on her 18th birthday. These were some of the only words her mother would get to say to her, she did not care how long ago she should have read it. She would savor each one. 

To my sweet darling girl, 

If you are reading this, it means that I am not physically there with you on your birthday. It means that I’ve missed 18 birthdays and too many milestones to write a letter for and for that, I am sorry. You might be wondering why there is not a letter for all those milestones and birthdays that have taken place but this felt like the best place to start and the appropriate age for reading the musings of a dying woman. If there’s even such a thing.

We learned your gender today. Another sweet girl. If the doctor somehow got it wrong, these letters will be incredibly awkward. But I know they are right. Because you, my darling girl, are the manifestation of my wildest dreams. I dreamed of you almost a year ago, this beautiful girl with half my face but all of my spirit and personality. And every night since then, I prayed, begged God to make that dream a reality… no matter the cost. And he did. 

I know my body is not strong enough to be your mother, to be around to be the mother someone as brilliant as you will deserve. But I hope you know that deciding to have you and keep you, regardless of the risks, is the single greatest decision I ever made. You were not an accident or a misfortune given to me. You are my dreams. And if my last moments on this earth are spent looking at you, it will have been worth it. 

I waited until 18 to start these letters because I worried a child could never understand the choice I made. And you may still not. And if you resent me for leaving you before you could know me, I understand that too. But I hope that through these letters, you will get to know me. And you will feel some semblance of the immense love I have for you. 

I don’t have much advice because you’ve likely heard it all at this point. But the two most important things I can tell you, that I wish someone had told 18 year old me, is to know that failure is part of the journey. Your grandmother used to always tell me to keep reaching out your hand even if it doesn’t work. I didn’t really understand it soon enough but I hope you do. Life is about risks and if you don’t reach out your hand out of fear, you’ll protect yourself from pain but you will also miss out on the gifts God is trying to hand you. As a daughter, I hated to admit it, but mama was right about that… and so many other things. 

And finally, more importantly than anything else I could offer you in these letters, please remember every day that you are so, so loved. 

Know that regardless of what happened to me, I loved you with every fiber of my being until my last breath. Know that you were a gift from God. And every day you venture out into this world, know that you are worthy of so much because you were so loved from the moment you were dreamed up. Do not let anyone or whatever will happen to you in what I pray is a long, rich, happy life diminish that light, diminish your worth. I know how special you are and I don’t even know your name yet. And while I hope that your father and grandmother will affirm you daily, you don’t need other people to tell you that you are special. You have to know it for yourself. That’s the most important advice I can give you. Know who you are and your worth and take up as much space in this world as you want. And as long as you never forget how special you are… how deserving you are, you’ll move through this world shining bright. And the world will be forced to know it too and move to give you what you deserve. It’s not much and a bit cliche perhaps but I’ve been torn down enough to know that sometimes we all need the reminder. But those are stories for another letter. 

By the time I write my next letter, I promise I will have picked out a name for you. I read a book the other day where the main character was named Raven… I had not thought of it before but I like it. 

Happy Birthday. 

Love, 

Mom

The river of tears streaming down Raven’s face splashed against the slanted handwriting on the page, Raven quickly whisking them away so the words would remain legible. Raven did not even know how long she sat there staring at the words on the page, her heart bursting with the knowledge that her mother’s hand had touched this very paper, that she had poured her heart and soul into every word etched into it. 

It was like proof she had been real and not this entity Raven had conjured up in her head. Raven could not stop herself from ripping open all the ones that she should have gotten along the way. The one for her first love and the separate one on heartbreak were four pages each, and Raven did not pay attention to the clock as she absorbed each and every word. 

Everything she had learned about her mother had been through her grandmother and she had always wondered if her grandmother told her things just to make her feel better. But she realized that her grandmother had been telling the truth, she and her mother were so much alike. She found herself nodding and laughing along to her mother’s stories and wisdom embedded in all those pages. She was a prolific storyteller too and an amazing writer, another trait Raven realized she must have inherited from her.

For the first time in 30 years, Raven did not feel weighed down by this unbearable guilt. She felt lighter than she had ever been in her entire life. Perhaps this was what God wanted her to find here, not a confrontation with her family, but these words. This tangible proof that her mother had chosen her, wanted her… loved her and that she had not ruined anything at all. 

Her mother would not have wanted her to carry such guilt around for so long because there was nothing to be guilty about. 

The letters were scattered across the attic floor when she heard the faint sound of their garage opening. She quickly folded up all of her letters and stuffed them back into the box, tucking it under her arm as she climbed out of the attic. She did not make much noise as she closed up the attic, just as she heard her father and sister close the garage door and enter the kitchen. 

Their voices drifted up to her ears as she started to climb down the stairs, deciding that she might as well get the pure unpleasantness of this moment over with. 

“Wait… you hear that? Is someone in the house??” she heard her sister ask, knowing that they both could hear her footsteps against the old floorboards. 

“Don’t get your gun,” she called out as she started down the stairs. “It’s just me.” 

She was greeted with less-than-welcoming expressions from her family, such disdain that it made her want to scurry away. But she did not. She had done enough of that in her life.

“Adding breaking and entering to your criminal activity, now?” 

Raven scoffed as she placed the box on the kitchen counter that stood between her and her family. 

“Don’t think you can break into a house you helped pay for?” she answered coolly. “And I’m not the one with a mug shot here if I remember correctly.” 

“No you’re just the one who sold her cheap ass for a quick buck.” 

Raven shook her head, opening and closing her mouth for a few moments as she tried to find the words. 

“Yea I did… And I’m not proud of it,” Raven admitted. “But I won’t let you or anyone shame me for doing what I needed to do to survive. What helped the two of you survive too.” Raven scratched her head, realizing that trying to get closure from her family was unnecessary. Her mother’s words had given her all the closure she had ever needed. That’s what she had come home for. 

“You know, I got a plane ready to rip you both a new one for 30 years of abuse and torture. To try to force you to admit that I’m not the villain you made me to be. But… I don’t need that anymore. Because the cross of guilt and shame you two forced onto my back for all these years isn’t one I should have to carry. But I did because I thought it was the only way to keep you two around. And even without you two in my life, I still drag that cross around because I thought I deserved it. But I realized today, way too late, that I don’t need a damn thing from either of you to put it down.” 

“So you came here to what? To chastise us and steal?” her father asked, gesturing toward the box on the counter. 

“You can’t steal things that belong to you. These are letters mom wrote to me,” she lifted the open letters out before sliding the unopened pile to her sister. “And to you.” 

“Your mother wrote these?” he asked, his jaw tensing as he looked down at the stack. 

“Yeah, she did. You’ll enjoy yours… she was a really good storyteller,” she glanced at Kiara. “These letters just told me something I should’ve realized long before Thanksgiving. That cross? That guilt? It isn’t mine. And I am done wasting my life trying to rectify the mistake of being born. Because it wasn’t a mistake. She chose me… prayed for a second daughter knowing the cost and she decided it was worth it. And hearing her say that? That’s all I need to know that I deserve so much more than this… so much more than you.” She took a deep breath. “Being a grieving husband isn’t an excuse to be a terrible father and I’ll just be grateful I found some way to survive you and this. And jealousy doesn’t give you the right to be a shitty sister.” 

“What the fuck do I have to be jealous of??” 

“I always wondered that. But reading those letters… I finally got it. Because even as a failed author and prostitute, I’m everything she was. Grandma used to always say I had her personality… her talent. I always thought she was lying to make me feel better. But you knew she wasn’t and you could never stand it. Couldn’t stand that I was more like her than you.” For the first time, her sister was speechless. A good look on her in Raven’s opinion. “Mom wanted so much better for me than this and I’m gonna go and find it. Because I’ve wasted too much energy trying to earn the love of people who don’t deserve it. So if you want to go to your graves hating me, making me the scapegoat for every problem in your miserable lives, have at it. But know that I don’t hate you even after all this. I won’t be weighed down anymore by any feelings toward either of you ever again. You aren’t worth it.”

Raven pulled herself to full height and rolled her shoulder back as she scooped up the box and folder she had taken from her grandmother’s stuff. 

“Now I’m gonna go and have that long… rich and happy life mom wanted for me. And I hope you two do the same.” 

She did not look behind her as she walked away, a soft smile on her face as she walked out of her family’s house for the last time.

She let out a long laugh as she sat in her car, so much of the weight she had been carrying around gone. It did not feel sad like when she cut off her family at Thanksgiving. She finally felt as if she had cut the anchor away and she could float away, she could move forward and heal all the broken pieces of herself that they had gleefully chipped away at. 

When she got back to her hotel room, she just kept rereading her mom’s words. She would memorize each letter at this point. A part of her desperately wanted to open the other ones but she had not reached those milestones just yet so she left them where they were. For some reason, she worried her mother would disapprove of her breaking into them early. 

One line of five letters she read and reread stuck to her bones above all else. And of course, as if her mother had known, it was embedded in the letter for her first love. Love… the thing that had cracked her wide open and brought her to this moment in the first place.

You’d be surprised to know that this was the hardest of the letters to write. Because everyone has some prolific idea of what love is and feels like. And I realized I don’t… because I don’t think I’ve ever experienced the love I pray you are as you read this. That’s not to say I don’t love your father, I do. But I want something different than convenience for you. I hope that the love you feel is safe, allows you to feel the full spectrum of what it means to be human - strong and vulnerable, insecure and confident, boisterous and timid. I hope it feels like stepping out of the cold air and into a warm embrace. I hope it is loud and unapologetic because you deserve nothing less. And I hope it makes you feel so enraptured that everything else in the world goes quiet. And lastly, I hope, more than anything, that it feels like home. That when you’re in this person’s embrace, you feel as if your soul finally landed right where it is supposed to be. 

Her eyes scanned that passage over and over again, realizing that she had found the exact love her mother described. She had come back here thinking she was coming home. But this wasn’t home at all. Home was where he was. And he was back in LA, about to prepare for the biggest night of his life in 24 hours. And regardless of whatever trust needed to be rebuilt and conversations needed to be had, she could not allow herself to miss it. She could not allow herself to not show up for him.

Raven scrambled to find her phone as it was hidden beneath sheets of paper. She scrolled through, praying she had not deleted a long forgotten group thread that housed one number she had once thought she would never need but now was the most important phone number in the world. 

She almost shouted praises to God when she found it, clicking the call button on the unsaved number. She paced up and down beside her bed as every agonizing ring dragged on. 

“Didn’t think I’d see your name pop up on my phone ever again.” 

Raven let out a sigh of relief as her voice filled her ears. “I know… me either. But I need a favor.” 

“Does it involve a certain award show tomorrow night?” 

“Yes. Is it too late?” 

“Yea it is.” she knew Alex could hear the tiny sigh of sadness she let out. “For anyone but me. I’ve earned enough favors around here to create a miracle or two.”

“Really?? Cause I need like more than one or two miracles… a dress, hair, makeup… hell a flight from Charlotte to make it back in time. Without him knowing?”

“Consider all of it done. Hope you don’t mind getting up at the ass crack of dawn though.” Alex asked, Raven hearing the smile in her tone. 

“For him… I’ll get up anytime.” 

“Good. Then I'll take care of everything... I'll have to tell his mom but she'll love this. And probably be happy as hell that she doesn't have to go anymore. I'll text you details in an hour."

"An hour?? That's all you need??"

"You're new here so I'm gonna choose to not be offended by that."  

"Noted." She was about to hang up when she stopped herself. “Hey… Alex? Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it. Seriously. Just make sure your ass is on that plane and in LAX tomorrow when Allen picks you up, got it?” 

Raven chuckled. “Yea I got it. See you tomorrow.”

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***

A/N: So now will y'all stop yelling at me LOLOL our good sis is going back to her man! We love to see it! How surprised do we think Michael's going to be? Part 11.2 will be the Oscars! Drop a comment and let me know what you thought! And as always, thanks for reading!

#black writers #michael b jordan #michael b jordan x oc #mbjordanedit #black panther #michael b jordan fanfic #michael b jordan x reader #creed 3 #adonis creed #creed iii

[phoenixyfriend]

Can you explain the Iran-Israel situation please?

Alright, let's get to it. Please note that I'm writing this on mobile during my lunch break, so I can't include reference/source links as much as I'd like. Thankfully, most of what I'm going to be telling you should be easily located by searching for an article on one of the following: APNews, Reuters, BBC Global News Podcast, Democracy Now!, NPR, or The New York Times. Long-term background is probably best found in videos by the YouTube channels Real Life Lore or tldr global news, or on Wikipedia if you prefer text.

The short version: Israel attacked Iran's consulate in Syria to get at some of the military commanders that were there, which is legally equivalent to attacking Iran itself. Iran responded by sending about 300 bombs at Israel, most of which were shot down in transit. Given that they still called it a success, even though it seems only one person was even hurt, my understanding is that it's very likely that they only intended the rockets to be a show of force, rather than an actual escalation, because Iran can't afford a war right now.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.

The long version:

Okay, let's start with some background on Israel, then Iran. This is... a lot, so if you already know the broad strokes skip down to 2023.

Israel was established following WWII by the English and French, following borders the two countries had secretly drawn up decades earlier in the Sykes-Picot agreement. The intent was to give the Jewish people a place to go... or, depending on who you ask, a place to send them. Their ancestral homeland was viewed as the best choice, sort of like a deportation millennia after a diaspora. Given that WWII had just ended by the time Sykes-Picot was actually put into effect, 'getting out of Europe' was something a lot of Jews were given to agree with.

The Arab world was not happy, as that land had belonged to the Ottomans for centuries, and had long since 'naturalized' to being Arab. I'm not going to pretend to know the nuances to when people do or do not consider Palestine to have been its own nation; it was an Ottoman state until WWI, at which point it came under British control for just under three decades, and that period is known as the British Mandate of Palestine; it ended after WWII, with the creation of Israel. Palestine's land and people have sort of just been punted around from one colonizer to another for centuries.

Iran is the current form of what was once Persia. They were an empire for a very long time, and were a unitary monarchy up until the early 20th century; in 1925, Iran elected a Prime Minister who was then declared the monarch. The following several decades had Iran's monarchy slowly weakened, and occasionally beset by foreign interventions, including a covert coup by the US and UK in 1953. The country also became more corrupt throughout the 1970s due to economic policy failing to control inflation in the face of rising oil prices.

In 1979, there was a revolution that overthrew the monarchy and the elected government, replacing the system with a theocracy and declaring Iran to be an Islamic Republic, with the head of state being a religious authority, rather than an elected one. This was not popular with... most countries. 1980 saw the closure of all universities (reopened in 1983 with government-approved curriculums), as well as the taking of over fifty American hostages from the US Embassy in Iran. You may have heard about that in the context of Ronald Reagan encouraging Iran to keep the hostages until the end of Carter's term in order to force the election.

So, the West didn't like having an Islamic state because it claims to like democracy, and also because the Islamic state was explicitly anti-American and this has some Bad Effects on oil prices. The Soviets didn't like having an Islamic State because a theocracy goes directly against a lot of communist values (or at least the values they claim to have), and weakened any influence their supposedly secular union could have on Iran and the wider middle east. The other countries in the Arab world, many of them still monarchies, didn't like the Islamic republic because if the revolution spread, then it was possible their monarchies would be overthrown as well.

(Except Oman, which is not worried, but that's the exception, not the rule.)

This is not a baseless worry, because Iran has stated that this is its goal for the Arab world. Overthrow the monarchies, overthrow the elected governments, Islamic Rule for everyone. That is the purpose of its proxies, like Hezbollah (Lebanon), the Houthis (Yemen), and Hamas (Palestine), along with less well-known groups like the Salafi Jihadists in Mali, who are formally under the umbrella of al-Quaeda, which Iran denies having any relation to but is suspected of funding. In areas where these proxy groups have gained power, they are liable to enact hard Shari'a law such as has happened in Northern Mali and other parts of the Sahel region.

While other conflicts have occurred in these countries, I think the above is most relevant.

Israel has repeatedly attacked, or been attacked by, other nations in the middle east, as they are viewed as having taken over land that is not theirs, and as being a puppet of the US government. The biggest conflicts have been 1947-1948, 1968/1973, and 2014.

And then, of course, 2023.

Now, Iran, more than any other nation in the Middle East, hates Israel. They have for a very long time, viewing them as an affront to the goal of spreading Islam across the whole of the middle east, and as being a front and a staging ground for the United States and other Western powers. Two common refrains in the slogans of Iran and its proxies are "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

Due to Iran's military power and virulence towards Israel, the United States has been funneling money to Israel for decades. It has more generally been to defend itself against the Arab world at large, but it has narrowed over the decades to being about Iran and its proxies as relations have normalized with other nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Cue October 7th, 2023. Hamas invades Israeli towns, kills some people, and takes others as hostage. Israel retaliates, and the conflict ramps up into what is by now tens of thousands of dead, some half of which are children.

In this time, Hamas's allies are, by definition, Iran and the other proxy forces. Hezbollah, being in Lebanon, share a border with Israel's north. They have been trading rocket fire across the border in waves for most of the past six months. The Houthis, down in Yemen, claim to be attacking the passing cargo ships in order to support Palestine. Given that the attacks often seem indiscriminate, and that the Houthi's control over their portion of Yemen is waning in the face of their poor governance, this is... debatable. It's their official reason, but given that "let's attack passing ships, claiming that we only attack Israeli or American ships and that it is to support Palestine" is rallying support domestically for their regime, it does seem to be more of a political move to garner support at home than about supporting Palestine.

Iran, however, has not attacked Israel. They've spoken out about it, yes, but they haven't done anything because nobody wants a regional war. Nobody can afford it right now. Iran is dealing with a domestic crisis due to oil subsidies bleeding the states' coffers dry, and the aging Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran, refusing to pick a successor. They are looking at both an economic crisis and succession crisis, and a regional war would fuck up both situations further. Iran funds most of its proxies, and they can't do that, and fight a war on top of it, while their economy is in its current state. Pure self preservation says they don't want a war, especially with the ongoing unrest that's been going on for... well, basically since the revolution, but especially since the death of Mahsa Amini.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Netanyahu has been looking at corruption charges and legal issues since before the Hamas attack. It's generally agreed that if Israel were to hold new elections right now, he would lose and be replaced, and also immediately taken to court. Netanyahu wants to stay in power, and as long as the war on Hamas lasts, he is unlikely to get voted out. A change in leadership in the middle of a war is rarely a good idea for any country, and he's banking on that.

However, the war on Hamas rests on the shoulders of American money and supplies. Without that military support, Israel cannot fight this war, and America... is losing patience.

Officially, America and most of the western world have been telling Israel to not fucking escalate for the majority of the war.

There have been implied threats, more or less since Schumer's big speech about how Israel needs a new election, of American legislators putting conditions on any future aid. There have even been rumblings of aid being retracted entirely if Israel follows through on invading Raffah.

So...

American aid to Israel has, for a very long time, been given in the name of defending Israel against Iran and its proxies.

Israel has been fighting this war against Hamas for six months, killing what is by now innumerable civilians, on the power of US military aid.

Netanyahu benefits from the continued war due to domestic troubles.

Iran does not want a regional war, or really any big war, due to its own domestic troubles.

The US is, in theory, losing patience with Israel and threatening to pull the plug on unconditional support. It's very "we gave you this to fight Iran. Stop attacking civilians. If you keep attacking civilians, then you're going to have to rely on what we already gave you to fight off Iran so that you won't keep wasting it on civilians."

Israel... attacks Iran, prompting a response, and is now talking about escalating with Iran.

I am not explicitly saying that it looks to me like Israel, which is already fighting a war on two physical fronts and even more political/economic ones, has picked a fight with Iran so that America feels less like it is able to withdraw support.

I just... am finding it hard to understand why Israel, which is in fact fighting both Hamas and Hezbollah, would attack the Iranian consulate in Syria otherwise. They can't actually afford to fight this war, escalating to a full regional conflict, on a third front.

Not without pressuring American into keeping the faucet of military funding open at full blast.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post OR this post.

#phoenix politics #current events #iran #israel #hamas #houthis #hezbollah #syria #politics #united states #military funding #military aid

[deafsignifcantother]

the baby

♥ summary: almost loosely based off of this by @ukor02. I made Alastor a main character and her main bestie because of course I did. This is really just a small little writing thing I did at 4am. ♥ relationship: no direct romance really, just some cute stuff between Lucifer and reader. ♥ word count: 1.6 ♥ notes: no childbirth mentioning and this is written like just as summaries of the situation tbh. almost like a bullet point format without the bullet points

You wanted to give your baby a chance to get into Heaven, even if it meant they'd leave without you. Hell is no place for a child. Both you and Charlie knew that.

.

"What a pleasant surprise," you sign to Alastor when you see that damn smiling demon right outside your hotel room.

He laughs; aw, you're describing his arrival as pleasant. Did he make a good impression on you when you saw him last when he introduced himself in person in Pride Sign Language? You never seemed to have paid any mind to him, giving one motion signs as responses whenever he tried starting a conversation. But even when you interacted with him like that, he couldn't help but wonder why you always looked at him with your sweet, shy gaze. It's not on purpose, which is the worst part.

Pleasant, you called it a pleasant surprise.

"It's good to see you too, my dear!" He signs, bowing a bit and pushing past you into your room. "What have you been up to?"

What an obnoxious question.

You close the door, squeezing the doorknob tightly. This is going to be a long evening. When you turn back to Alastor, he's in your living room examining the decor, your random art pieces taped to the walls and organized together, though not concisely.

He waves his hands. "I love what you've done with the place."

"I've been bored." You sign with a slight nod to yourself. It's awfully isolating, which is obvious. Still, it has never hit you as hard as it does now as you watch another person walk through your chambers.

"I'm glad I can be in your company then." His smile widens, and the static he emits gets heavier. His ear twitched a bit, which you noticed but tried not to directly look at. Was it a good or bad thing?

"But it's often relieving to be alone," you start and look him up and down.

"You're quite used to being alone, aren't you?"

Your lips tighten, your hands stiff, and you are unable to finish your sentence. Absentmindedly, you rest them on your plump, pregnant belly. Alastor does his best not to let his eyes draw down to analyze it. Still, his head tilts, even just a little. He hates looking at your hands when you touch your stomach. Did his mother hold her belly like that when he was inside of hers?

"Don't you have others to talk to?"

"They're out on their little journeys, you know them."

"Of course."

Alas, he lets his eyes trail down to your stomach. It's not quite full, but it's obvious enough to gain attention from others. Charlie will put her hands on it every day, waiting for the baby to show its presence. She can feel the heartbeat, and so can you and Vaggie, though everybody else can't feel a thing. Alastor refuses to put a hand on your stomach. Life is precious and loud, and the few who were never human understand that differently than the others.

"I wanted to check in on the baby."

A twitch of your eyebrow makes his smile widen.

"Why?"

.

The day before, Lucifer arrived.

You try on your best clothes, laying them flat against your front, looking at your belly in the mirror. For the king, should you try to hide it or show it proudly? He has a daughter, but does that affect his thoughts about Hellborn pregnancies? Gosh, what do you have to worry about? So stupid.

With the other people, your new friends, you stood with your head proud.

He swirled with the dragons and hugged his daughter as if he hadn't seen her for years. What a kind man, unusually kind. His eyes... Those soft, precious eyes. And when they landed on you, your heart almost stopped. He looked at you as if you were an angel. When his lips started to move, the smile you didn't even know you wore faded.

Charlie put her hand on his shoulder and whispered something to him. And there came Alastor, saving the day.

"The idiotic king was just telling you how happy he is for you." With the signs came the grinding of his teeth.

Lucifer approached, his cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. He addressed Alastor with aggressive hesitance. 'Tell her...' he said.

Charlie smiled excitedly, Nifty kept nodding, and Sir Pentious's eyes started tearing up.

Alastor grimaced. "He's asking if he could feel your stomach."

As always, you've put a thorn in the flow of interactions.

Still, you put on a smile. "Of course."

And there you stood, the King of Hell's hands gently holding you. You could feel the cold of his touch even through the fabric of your shirt. The heartbeat vibrated through both your body and his. The baby was alive and well; you could tell through the pure glee that spread across his face. Beyond your tiny ounce of worry, you knew he'd find hope within your baby.

Alastor watched with a terribly strained smile.

.

"Why?" You ask again when he doesn't answer. "What's with the sudden worry?"

"Worry? No, no." Alastor waves you off. "More like..."

You watch with interest as he trails off, a vulnerability you love.

He squints his eyes and clenches his fists, but only for a moment. His lack of vocabulary kills him. "...Intrigue."

You crack a smirk. "Are you finally gonna feel my stomach?"

Another pause. Alastor considers it, but all he can imagine is his claws accidentally drawing blood.

"No."

"That's okay." Again, your hands rest on your stomach.

.

Alastor has been watching it grow, but so has Lucifer. Charlie's father scarcely visits, and you've convinced yourself it's to see you. Every time he enters the hotel, he asks how you are. He tries to lift his hands to sign but finds no words forming. A language was created in his world, and he has yet to learn how to learn it.

Whenever he presses his hands against your belly, he can feel the liveliness of the soul forming inside you, and he can feel your appreciation at his care.

Begrudgingly, he always has to ask Alastor for advice on communicating with you. Alastor always has a cocky smirk when he teaches.

Charlie has to ask Alastor for help, too, but more willingly. Alastor raises his chin and squares shoulders when people ask him for help. Charlie went to him for help on a conversation you knew she was going to start with you:

"You're not going to stay here for the battle."

"I know." There was no argument on your behalf. Charlie's cheeks still went pink.

"But I have to figure out where it's safest for you. Alastor told me Cannibal Town, but uhh... Maybe not."

"They'll all be here anyway. Maybe they'll distract the angels from going over there."

Her bright eyes widen a bit. "Do you think so?"

"I can stay over there, even if they try to eat me." They won't, and even if they try, they know Alastor would end their lives, don't they?

She fiddles with her fingers before lifting them up again. "I suppose..."

She's so quickly convinced it's cute. You're right, though, of course. Cannibal Town might be the safest place, specifically under the hands of Rosie, who Alastor had previously told you would be more than willing to help you. You can imagine her smile at seeing your belly, twice the size as when Alastor first told you about her. Unbeknownst to Charlie, he's been planning this for a while.

Your stress for their safety irks you more than you expected.

You place a hand on Charlie's, lifting your other one. "I'll be okay."

Before you left for Cannibal Town, you met Lucifer once again, a more loving side of him. He cradled your head and held the back of your neck as he did. His cold body felt like warmth to you. He whispered things to you; you could only tell from how his breath constantly brushed against your ear in sing-songy waves. Was he singing to you? A lullaby? He pulled away and finally signed to you. "You're going to be a great mom."

A moment before, Alastor finally put his hands on your belly. His hands were warm. Like Lucifer, he was whispering to himself, holding silent words from you. In another life, you'd imagine they were prayers. At that moment, only an instinct, you put your hands on his, and he allowed it.

The stress of their safety worsened when they were left alone in Cannibal Town without a word of winning or losing.

The winning of Hell was all you wanted to focus on when you noticed the contractions getting worse, spaced out in purposeful ways. Oh goodness, you found yourself thinking, oh my God.

What if Lucifer dies on the same day your child is born?

But after the battle, he was right there to cradle the baby in his arms, his heavenly grasp relaxing the tiny baby. The rest of the group sat in your room, Sir Pentious absent, tears in their eyes at both the birth and the death.

Beyond Lucifer's cradling, Husk was the only one who touched your child that day. He placed his furry paw against the baby, feeling the body heat that they admitted. Life could be beautiful, he decided.

Vaggie's sense of revenge deepened. She sacrificed Heaven to save a child, and now she's even more than willing to kill her sisters to save yours.

While Charlie stares at your baby with tears, Alastor smiles warmly at you. He knew you could do it: birth something beautiful and worth protecting.

Your eyes are locked on Lucifer. He's an amazing, supportive dad to Charlie, and your heart begins to swell. Your heartbeat increases, and a blush weakly forms on your already flushed face. His rough hands hold a forgiving softness. He's beautiful.

#x deaf reader #hazbin hotel #x reader #lucifer #alastor #lucifer hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel x reader

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Fujitsumon

Debut: Digimon Pendulum 2.0 Deep Savers (kind of. It's a little complicated. But don't worry about that)

Fujitsumon is a darling little eyes-in-a-void barnacle! With their brown exteriors, they really do bring to mind Jawas, world-renowned eyes-in-a-void creature. This is a rare design choice for a barnacle, and a barnacle is a rare creature inspiration choice! Too rare! They are such incredible and fascinating animals, and should absolutely be represented as such, and not just background decorations!

Fujitsumon is essentially a Digimon by technicality, an accessory of a creature, and I'm fine with that. They're acknowledged as creatures, and that's enough for me! They're almost always seen attached to the surface of another creature, and that sure is barnacle of them!

This is their host, Octomon! Or Octmon, if you don't like the dub name, but I think Octomon sounds better. Octomon wears a clay pot on its head, and Fujitsumon live on top of that! This is a smart setup. If I lived underwater I would love to wear a hat that some barnacle friends of mine could live on! Fujitsumon and Octomon have a mutualistic relationship going on, where the barnacles will sense danger, and warn the octopus of it, getting the whole group out of danger!

The reason I wasn't so sure about Fujitsumon's debut is that in Deep Savers, Octomon's sprite looks like this, not nearly detailed enough to even depict some barnacles! However, it does seem like the official art was made around this time, so I might as well consider this Fujitsumon's debut too.

There isn't much to Fujitsumon, but I love it! It's cute, it's a barnacle, and it's almost a "secret" creature, and that makes it, dare I say, even more fun than if it was a standalone obtainable Digimon! A charming little oddity in the digital world.

That's what I thought until I found out this little barnacle has a whole dedicated ANIME EPISODE! YEEHAW! This is the best barnacle-related cartoon episode I've ever seen! Better than SpongeBob SquarePants episode 164a Barnacle Face! Why, even better than Benny the Barnacle (2022)! Can you believe it? Better than Benny the Barnacle? I can.

In this episode of Digimon Ghost Game, the human protagonist is tormented by premonitions of disasters occurring to everyone around him, revealed to be caused by a Fujitsumon settled on his head. A land mammal is no place for a barnacle! Wouldn't it be crazy if you could go to the beach and leave with a barnacle settled on your fingernail? What would you even do? I would probably feel obligated to dip my finger into the ocean regularly to let it filter-feed. If only we had air plankton!

This Fujitsumon, as well as others that are affecting other humans, come from one particular Octomon, who got so angry at his barnacles that they Left. These are no real-life, cemented-in-place-for-the-rest-of-their-lives barnacles! They can just get up and leave if they're bothered. I bet real barnacles wish they could do that! It would be so embarrassing to end up settled right next to a turtle's... hehe... I shan't say...!

Octomon's petty outburst was over his magic brain barnacles not using their clairvoyance to help him win at a mobile game. Now, because of his Gamer Moment, there are Fujitsumon stuck directly to peoples' heads, which can cause these heads to explode. Maybe he should have just played a good mobile game, like Pico Pets Puzzle! *high fives someone offscreen*

Don't worry! Everything's ok in the end, like it always is with invertebrate friends! Octomon apologizes, the lead Fujitsumon gathers the whole crusty crew, and everything is fine except for the physical damage that has already been done, but don't worry! The virtual invertebrates are all friends again! Squishy or chitinous, none of us have spines, and that's what matters!

If you know of any obscure barnacles in media, please let me know in the notes! And until the next high tide, remember to close your armored plates to prevent dessication!

#fujitsumon #octomon #digimon #not mario #funky friday #mod chikako

[jo-harrington]

Pinprick (A Gutterballs Story)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Jo!Reader

Summary: You're sitting down to listen to one of your favorite podcasts when you hear your name as one of a long line of Eddie's loves, and you have a moment of reflection.

Note: This is a very very very late post in dedication to one of my fandom loves @dr-aculaaa (who is very much on hiatus but still deserves all of the love us resident weirdos have to give) and not only one of my favorite fics Sunday Morning but the offshoot she made for Valentine's Day: Gutterballs.

IT STARTS OUT SWEET BUT ITS A LITTLE ANGSTY AT THE END. SORRY DRAC. WE SORT OF TALKED ABOUT THIS. THE TIMELINE.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

---

You're sitting on the floor.

To be completely honest, you shouldn't be on the floor. You knew that, your doctor knew that, your team knew that. In fact, they yelled at you when you got down there, legs akimbo in a way that was comfortable for you to sit in but uncomfortable for them to look at, so you could start ripping the sleeves off of this fucking jacket.

You're alone in the studio now, hours after everyone left.

It's just you, a bottle of Tums, your favorite fucking jacket, and the dulcet tones of the man who gave it to you coming from your phone.

“Welcome back to another episode of Gutterballs! My name is Eddie Munson..."

As if he had to introduce himself.

"Nerd," you scoffed fondly.

It's your Wednesday night ritual. Well, not the jacket or the floor or the tums...Gutterballs. At the least, you owed it to your former client; at the most, you owed it to your ex.

And Eddie Munson was both of those things.

Although "ex" is a relative term.

An ex wouldn't still send you a gift basket full of goodies every award season when you barely took care of yourself, the way Eddie did for you.

An ex wouldn't shoot an email with wardrobe recommendations when they hear about some charity concert or something, like you did for Eddie and Corroded Coffin.

Still telling me what to wear Jo?

He would email back almost immediately.

Doesn't seem like anyone else is. I saw you at Lolla Ed. Not cute.

Would be your response.

You don't think I'm cute anymore?

That would go unanswered though.

Until next time.

Because you were exes.

But an ex didn't keep the jacket their ex got them because it was their favorite. Exes didn't take apart said favorite jacket because it got a rip in the sleeve, and then plan to just cut two new sleeves for it. Nor did they spend the last 20-ish years mending the jacket that their ex-slash-former-client got them as an apology for a spontaneous kiss before a red carpet.

---

The CFCA awards ceremony wasn't the band's usual haunt but they had composing credits for a film score that was up for nomination. It was a big deal. Something that would take them to a new caliber of their career; not just rowdy rockstars, but well-rounded musicians.

So of course, they were running late.

Their suits all needed a bit of alteration, Eddie was chattering nervously as you hemmed his pants, Gareth drummed a beat on his leg with two of the hangers from your roll rack and Phil, the band's manager, yelling for you all to get a move on.

"Do you want them to look good or not!" You yelled right back. "I'm not having them go up for their award looking like shit Phil!"

"Yeah remember the Grammy's," Jeff pointed out. "That's why you got us a stylist in the first place."

"You'd have thought you paid them to be here or something," Phil grumbled at you from across the room.

"I do pay," you shot up at Eddie with a conspiratorial smile. "With my sanity."

This was your schtick. He let you dress him in whatever dark-romantic victorian-gothic-inspired outfits your former-Catholic heart could dream up, and in return you let him be the spieling midwestern boy that he really wasn't allowed to be anywhere else. Because yeah the band was in charge here really--they were the talent, the money--but Eddie didn't like the whole pomp and circumstance of celebrity. Not anymore, according to him at least.

"The drugs are fun until they're not," he told you once. "We're just...guys from Indiana."

So you'd let them be that in the safety of your studio, shithead manager be damned.

You severed the thread with a swift bite of your teeth and wished the guys good luck with hugs before sending them on their way.

But Eddie...Eddie chose that moment to kiss you.

Well, you kissed each other.

As everyone walked out of the studio to get down to the car, you kissed each other.

And you froze.

Both of you.

Because it was a romantic, world-ending kiss. A kiss of declaration. A kiss of familiarity. The kiss you gave someone when you loved them for a long time and didn't know how to tell them.

Only...you hadn't loved each other for a long time.

Had you?

Hadn't said anything of the sort at least.

That wasn't love...was it?

He left for the awards ceremony and you absolutely spiraled questioning it all. You thought about all the long walks down State Street discussing ideas for this event and that one. The way he got you a membership to the Art Institute so you could sit in front of Salome and Hercules for hours and be inspired. The nights that he just couldn't work on lyrics anymore, so he would come over to sit in absolute silence save for the droning sound of your sewing machine.

The aches of the world were just a little bit easier when you could be near each other, whether it was being inspired or talking shit or sinking further into oblivion.

Was that love?

Eddie must have spiraled too. Because he showed up at your studio past midnight, disheveled and with a green Marshall Field's bag in his hand. A bag containing, you'd find out later, a black wool and leather coat that sat in a window that you'd noted looked nice months ago. One he made the guys make a special stop for before the award ceremony so he could get you to make up for fucking up your professional relationship.

The apologies were stuck on the tips of your tongues though.

And there was a beat before some silent decision was made.

And your lips came back together again, solidifying that decision, even though the words weren't said.

---

“Today on Gutterballs,” Mrs. H’s announces on the phone, breaking you from your reflection, “our lovely listeners at home are in for a real treat. As we record and discuss topics such as first loves, lost loves, and, as you can see, from our current location -body modifications."

“First we have… A spool and thread for Jo."

"She used to poke my ankles like a voodoo doll when she hemmed my pants. I still have the scars, if you wanna check ‘em out. I think that was her way of saying I love you."

Yeah that was the way it was with the two of you.

All the ways you said I love you without the words being said.

And they would never be said.

But that was another story.

"Yeah," you agree with Mrs. H belatedly, seam ripper making quick work of a line of stitches. "Lost love sounds better than ex."

#eddie munson x reader #gutterballs #drac <3

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

Splatoon 3 Version 7.2 patch notes breakdown

The patch notes for version 7.2, which is going live tomorrow, dropped earlier today, and this is a fairly beefy patch balance-wise, so let's take a look together, shall we?

First of all, the patch includes the renovated Undertow Spillway, but we won't know how it's been changed until it goes live, so let's jump right into the main weapons:

Sploosh's bullets have had their hitbox size increase, and while they don't specify by how much this should in theory make Sploosh's damage more consistent.

Splattershot Pro and H-3 now do 3 more damage, which doesn't change much about them directly but if you've been even lightly chipped by anything they're now gonna 2-shot you and that can be pretty scary. Watch out!

Nova is now 8% more accurate when its feet are on the ground, which means it might actually hit what it's aiming at every once in a while!

Luna Blaster's explosion ink is now 20% bigger, which means it paints more and can trap people in its paint more reliably, though I can't see that changing much with how fast it fires.

S-Blast's long-range mode will now do 50+ damage more reliably. Note that this is not a splash radius buff, it just makes it deal damage more reliably within the radius it already has.

Painbrush now paints more when rolling and starts recovering ink faster after rolling. This seems like a very meh buff to me, but it does speed up the weapon a bit, and it definitively needs that.

And the final main weapon change of the patch, Dapples now move faster when walking and shooting. It's a bit quicker on its feet now, and that only makes sense for the lightest dualies, doesn't it?

Now, moving on Specials:

Big Bubbler receives a chunky durability buff on its weak spot. This thing's gonna take a lot of effort to take down now.

Splattercolor Screen now does 10 more damage. This makes it combo with a couple of more damage sources, but did you know that you can squid roll through a Screen to take no damage from it? Now you know.

Triple Splashdown is getting a buff and a nerf. You now spend about ten frames less time in the air, but the splash radius was reduced to compensate. My gut feeling is that this is an overall buff, as it makes it less risky to use, but we'll have to see how things pan out.

And finally, and this is actually a big deal, when you Super Jump to a teammate using Kraken Royale you'll no longer jump to their location, but instead to the place where they activated their Kraken. This is huge because it deals a massive blow to the popular Clam Blitz cheese strats that the special had become known for where you use it to swim up to the basket and let your team jump super clams to it with no effort required. It was a huge sore spot in the mode for a lot of people, and this change pretty much kills the entire strategy. Very nice!

And with there being no Sub Weapon changes, let's move onto the final section, the points for Special changes:

Neo Splash and N-Zap '89 are the winners of this patch's "random shooter buff" lottery, and I expect the '89 to be incredibly common and incredibly annoying in turf wars after this. Carbon Roller becomes the first weapon in Splatoon 3 to hit 160p, and considering how poorly it paints that's only fair. Splat Charger and Dapples get 10p taken off their special charge as well, and in the case of the latter it's a buff that works pretty well with its mobility buff from earlier. In the nerfs department they hit a bunch of the most popular meta weapons with 10 extra points for Special, with Squeezer becoming the second ever weapon to get 220p after Sloshing Machine (and unlike it, squeezer kind of deserves it).

Overall, I think this is a good patch. The biggest pain points for competitive play going into this patch was Trizooka spam and the utter dominance of Snipewriter, and this patch does address both of them, albeit indirectly. Trizooka still probably needs a nerf, and nintendo remain as hesitant as ever to address any problem directly, but it's still a step in the right direction.

#splatoon 3 #drizzle season 2024

[rel124c41]

NOW PLAYING ‘I CAN’T STOP THE LONELINESS’ BY NIGHT TEMPO. jade leech

Good old Jaido is being ironic, acting happy on the worst day of his life. Why would an artist create happy music to pair it with such sad lyrics?

tags: unrequited love, angst and tragedy, hurt no comfort, complicated relationship, regrets & sorrows, friendships, bro doomed by the narrative, happy birthday to me fuckers

word count: 2,087

The first dance goes to Floyd, his brother.

This is only natural because, of course, the bride dances with the groom on their wedding day.

At his seat at the family table, Jade rolls a glass of celebratory champagne in his gloved hand. Freshly poured, it still bubbles with some last desperation. Champagne is a sipping wine but – carbonation burns the bridge of his nose with white pain as he gulps it down. Each organ in Jade stirs like kicked sediment, bubbling over. 

Floyd’s side of the table is weighed down by their father, mother, himself, and grandmother; yours is weighed down by Grim, who is trying to steal extra food off his father’s plate. The reservation hall is drowned in people though, all coming together to support your unity. 

The only one who fails to uphold this support wholeheartedly is one-drink-down-ten-more-to-go Jade Leech, the pillar of brotherhood crumbled and eroded. 

It is my own fault. Jade thinks as his mother pours him another drink. All my fault.

You and Floyd dance to ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’. Sung by Frankie Valli, each lyric and note match up with each other perfectly. There is no juxtaposition between melody and meaning. With you cradled in his arms, Floyd looks down, softly mouthing each word to you. By doing so, he expresses that each word is genuine, engraved in his soul. 

To Floyd, he truly cannot take his eyes off of you, magnetized in. When there is a break in lyrics, he steals June coded kisses – warm like the beginning of summer. You two nuzzle cheek to cheek, amorous. 

As expected, Floyd cannot stay slow-dancing for longer than a minute. Melody starts to change. From sweet, it goes to this jumping excitement as the baritone horn and baritone saxophone intensify. You two start to pull away, independent in your motions. 

Besides the tight hold both your right hands have … refusing to let go … tying the knot.

The music goes: can’t take my eyes off of you, bum bum, whump whump, bam-d bam-d, bum bum, whump whump. You shimmy your shoulders back and forth, a smile eclipsing your face. Floyd throws you a wink, hips swaying side to side. Despite the ridiculousness … no, because of your joint ridiculousness, it amplifies that sentiment of nuptial bliss: you two were destined and designed for each other.  

Moved by music, you even hop in platform heels. Then, blindsided and unexpecting Jade watches, as the beat reaches its peak. You two shout, both of you jumping, but making certain your eyes connect when you shout the lyrics: “I love you, baby!!” The crowd goes wild with cheers, clapping along to the music. 

And if it’s quite alright, I need you baby to warm a lonely night! You and Floyd throw away coordination lessons as the song continues, already the perfect dance partner for each other. 

This entire wedding feels like one big, ironic joke being played on him. 

Jade looks up from his happy, bubbling champagne when Floyd dips you so low that your spine is parallel and supine to the ground, floating only four inches or so. Both of you laugh louder than the music and cheers. A polite smile is still glued to Jade’s face. 

He says words that only the watery ear of his champagne hears, “I should have never introduced them.” Unsaid because he is swallowing his alcohol-scented sorrow: It is all my fault.

The second dance goes to their father.

You seem to remember those coordinated dance lessons afterall. Especially graceful in his father’s imposing arms. Though, you keep your stance far away from his father’s shoes. Trembling at the mere notion of just touching the side of one. Burnished elkan leather that probably costs equivalent to your engagement ring. 

Your engagement ring – ah, what a cursed, loathed object it is in Jade's world. 

He was there when Floyd bought the ring. Do you know this? Jade thinks you probably do not. The proposal spot was all Floyd’s plan while the engagement ring was Jade’s. 

“Get her this one.” Jade had pointed towards an engagement ring with a criss-crossing design on the band and a diamond the size of a dime. “Diamonds are known for their durability.”

Diamonds would be able to sustain through a wild lifetime with Floyd. 

Washing dishes and spreading cream cheese on bagels in the blissful morning light, typing on computers and holding a phone up to your ear to talk in the middle of noon, brushing teeth and reaching under the sheets to stroke teasingly at his navel, moving further down and down, in the blanket of night light. Living a domestic life until you were dissolved into seafoam. All the remains of your love. A single diamond ring on a skeleton finger. Resilient.

Even though one should be the main player in their own life, it seems Jade is destined and designed for the background. 

When Floyd told Jade where he would propose, it kicked his ribs and stomach harder than any alcohol could. ‘I’m already down, why push me further’ is what Jade’s half-a-second wrinkling expression spoke. With the news broken, Jade smiled with hidden rage, “I’m sure she will love that.”

The place Floyd proposed? It was the place Jade introduced you to his twin. 

Isn’t it ironic? Jade knew you first but he will never know you the best. You will reveal your pink love and black secrets to Floyd yet never Jade. Jade: your first friend in Twisted Wonderland, now your brother-in-law. 

The third dance goes to their mother.

You are truly more beautiful than any diamond. You are something that gleams brighter than all the jewelry on the ocean floor or in sunken shipwrecks. When Jade and Floyd were little, they used to steal stuff from each other all the time. Noses would be broken because hey, that shell you found is prettier than mine! It only makes sense that they would find themselves attracted once again to the same, shining allurement. 

They learned to share as all children do. They broke off pieces of a sturgeon’s scales together and shared that. The diamond that is you though? Jade means a lot to you, he knows it; he knows it does not go beyond friendship. 

When you are dancing with his mother, you shine. Laughter pianos out of your mouth in a genuinely happy melody. Unlike him, you do not have to force this mirth. Acrylic nails grab your wrist and twirl you so fast you could puke. Giggles are a kinder substitute. Despite your early anxiety, all is alright now. 

Jade reflects upon that. The only moment you were frowning at that wedding.

He was speaking to Trey Clover when you appeared out of nowhere, platforms clicking. The visage of you stole his breath away; then, you stole him away from his conversation with Clover, apologizing. Jade let himself be dragged by your firm hand. As the tendrils of your hair and wedding veil bounced with your pace, Jade watched the dorsal side of his diamond gleam and raced down to a secluded hallway. 

You turn on Jade, blindly bright. Sevens, you look gorgeous. Even with that frown on your face – how can he help, he wants to soothe it away immediately – you are a sight he will never tire off. 

“Am I doing the right thing?”

For a second, Jade’s world stops. 

He thinks for a second, perhaps he could be the main character. For second, the diamond on your ring finger is not so loathsome to him. Instead of it representing infinity, it turns finite. It is a piece of jewelry you can take off. It takes only a second before you speak again:

“I mean, Floyd has been so great through all this. Super understanding, super wonderful. I mean he’s put up with all my little whims. And he was so excited about seeing the dress! I mean, the tradition of not seeing the bride before the ceremony is boring and super outdated –”

Ah, he is back in the secondary character position. You were only talking about the tradition you brought over from your world. It had a little bit of your culture that you wanted to keep with you – not seeing Floyd until you walked down the aisle. 

Jade is incredibly stupid to think you were talking about the wedding. You do not seem the type to call off a wedding. He smiles and asks, “That eager?”

“Well, I,” you fluster and look away. ‘No. I’m not, but it was the only thing Floyd and I really fought on. I’m starting to realize that it is a bit silly.”

“Keeping tradition is often how we show love for the generations before us.”

You weigh Jade’s words carefully on the scale of your consciousness. He wonders if he spoke his heart if you would take that into consideration or ignore it. After a pregnant silence, you say, “But I don’t really have a family history anymore.”

Jade blinks, surprised, as you continue, “Today, Floyd is going to become my family. Or, well, I’m going to become part of his. I have nothing of myself to offer in terms of tradition anymore.”

“You will just choose to assimilate to the circumstances?”

“Wouldn’t anyone do so for love?”

Those words fall like an anvil on Jade’s heart. “Yes. I fear they might.”

“Fear is such a drastic word!”

Jade laughs as you say, “Ah but I suppose it is true. I’m actually terrified right now.” Your hands fall down to play with the hem of your gown. You run your thumb over the outfit you will only wear once. Such a monumental, life-changing piece of fabric. 

The diamond catches a flicker of light, reflective. Jade asks, “Are you having regrets?” He waits with bated breath. 

“About Floyd? No. Never.” Your expression only solidifies the truth of your words. 

“Then my advice?” You look on with eager eyes. Jade smiles through the pain. “I say you should keep with the tradition. Weddings are a merge of the very notion. When you become a Leech, you still have your identity to care for.” That is not the real reason though. Because, this. This Jade gets to steal: the first sight of you in your wedding dress.

“Thanks, Jade. You’re the best friend – the best brother that a bride could ask for.”

Hand over his heart, concealing everything, “It is my pleasure.”

The final and fourth dance goes to Jade.

Carried by a crowd that rushes, you two dance a mad dance, hands welded together. In your gown, you move like Jade imagines all those sneaky princesses that defied and tricked the Seven must have – well, six princesses. Like an oscillating dream, you lean back, arms out. Laughing, you swing right back into Jade, chest to chest and arms out to the side instead.

When your hearts connect in the dance, Jade thinks he could be foolish enough to steal a kiss. Just one to be a solution to all his troublesome pining. A shade of Venus pink, shining and alluring him into a dumb mistake. 

I had you first but I will not have you last. Or in any ways that matter to your heart. 

The song that plays is a melody that demands dancing. It is a force that moves your hips to sway side to side. Puppets you jump around, platforms banging along with the lyrics. And what tragic lyrics they are. The smile on your face would make him think he was listening to a love song. 

Fluent in quite a few languages, Jade knows better. Though, Jade is unsure why the song is structured like this. Why would an artist create happy music to pair it with such sad lyrics? It is such a cruel juxtaposition. Jade smiles when you twirl yourself so your dorsal side lies against his front, snug in his arms as he dances with you. Those Venus-hued lips pull up in a diamond grin.

Why would an artist create happy music to pair it with such sad lyrics? There is only one answer. Irony. 

Jade laughs and helps you back to your feet when your platforms catch on the bottom of your wedding gown. You thank him so genuinely. Jade never wants this particular melody to end.

Then, it does.

“Can I steal my Shrimpy back,” Floyd jokes, when the song ends. You happily launch yourself into his arms, ready to dance until your feet are sore. Stolen successfully. 

#jade leech x reader #jade leech #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland

[kamesama]

— ravishing: ryōmen sukuna.

— notes + warnings: human! husband! sukuna x wife! reader. slightly suggestive. domestic bliss because i am a self-proclaimed domestic fluff provider™ for a reason. — word count: 1094

he was lounging on the sofa, phone in hand, crimson eyes seemingly deeply immersed in whatever was on-screen. the remains of his coffee had gotten cold, but he held onto an unspoken intention to finish it within the upcoming minutes. there was little to no fatigue clinging onto him, but the aftermath of his day stained his frame nonetheless; the pair of buttons undone to reveal his clavicle, an occasional yawn that he did not bother to veil with the palm of his hand, the subtle bend of his spine that suggested leisure. he is begging for it, you concluded.

confidence seeped from your pores as you stepped into the living room, wordlessly demanding attention. however, your stomping was too subtle to capture sukuna’s interest. perhaps he had taken notice of your footfalls but refused to humour you – you couldn’t tell.

you coughed, clearing your throat. 

it was enough to make him look up, his brows going up to express an undeniable interest at the sight; your proud expression bearing gingerly mischief at its outlines as you slowly swayed your hips in order to make the skirt of your dress flow as if in the spring breeze. it was a lovely piece, hardly provocative save for a subtle v-line providing a small glimpse at cleavage. innocent. too innocent – excluding the way it revealed dying love-bites creeping up your neck. he would have to revive them, he thought.

something in your eye – an expectant, hopeful gleam – reflected an eager impatience; you were waiting for a praise, for something saccharine. honeyed. perhaps just a little indecent. you saw it in his gaze; coated and hazed with something akin to amour, softened in the manner familiar to you alone.

“oh? what’s this?” sukuna hummed, “do a little twirl for me, doll,” his phone was now abandoned and left to lay by a cushion, “let me see the whole thing.”

you obliged with sheer delight, the pirouette causing the material to flutter like a bud opening into a graceful flower. the movement exposed your knees for a split-second; a sight of forbidden fruit, teasing and tempting. a sense of warmth filled sukuna’s chest – you were utterly endearing and a sight to behold.

he would have patted his lap, as he always did when you, his precious little thing, chose to treat him to such a show. however, before he could set his palm onto his knee to deliver a message of that nature, you waltzed over with a grin tugging at the corners of your painted lips, straddling him with breathtaking decisiveness. the palms of your hands nested against his chest and made his body lean against the backrest of the sofa. instinctively, his own large ones came to lay across your thighs, moving up a little and dragging the skirt of the dress up merely a few inches. 

his gaze gently devoured the make-up on your face; every hue, every line, every blend. the angle of your jaw. the tease at the edges of your lips. the loving provocation reflected in your eyes as you teasingly ran your palms across his breasts before wrapping your arms around his neck.

there was something in-between the lines of your approach that made it vividly demure. your skin did not seem to ache for the fervorous touch and bittersweet bites. you looked at him with a tender genre of hunger which let him know you would prefer he lay you gently rather than pin you down. 

“you like it?” you whispered, your lips ghosting against the shell of his ear before you kissed his jaw. it sent shivers down his spine and then caused his body to relax.

“yes,” he admitted, “you look lovely, little one.”

“lovely?” disappointment dripped off your tongue as you pulled away to look down at him, your lips pursed and expression distorted to further express a sense of discontent. there was a dose of sarcasm subtly sprinkled over your alleged chagrin. sukuna chuckled at your reaction; a smooth, rich sound that never failed to tug at your heartstrings and stir something deep within the pit of your stomach.

“ravishing, my dear,” he added, lifting one of his hands off your thigh to cup your face between his fingers, “delectable,” his digits pressed into your skin, the pad of his thumb tapping over your pouting lips as if to inspect the lipstick and its quality, “and a little needy, too, i would say.” 

his other hand trailed up your leg, slithering across your hip before moving to squeeze your buttock. you smiled, your own moving to rest against the one on your face. 

“you’re imagining it,” you uttered against his thumb, placing a small kiss onto it before nuzzling his palm with your cheek, “i saw it on sale today. had to get it.” you elaborated for no reason in particular, “it’s so… dainty. leaves a lot to the imagination, doesn’t it?” there was something suggestive in your tone, dragging and tugging at your words very subtly. 

“not everything,” sukuna claimed, his hand nudging your chin up so as to have you expose your neck all the more. the dress left a good patch of your skin bare, nearly to the valley of your breasts. sukuna leaned in, pressing a small, chaste kiss against your collarbone before moving his lips up towards your pulse. his open mouth ravished the expanse above your clavicle, and you shut your eyes in ecstasy as your fingernails gently scraped across his scalp; digits sunken into the strands of his blush hair. it was a form of encouragement. 

a soft breath drifted off your lips, urging him to kiss you all the more; his teeth grazed your skin just enough to leave it ever so slightly aroused and pink. 

the air grew thicker and sweeter; honey-like.

the dedication with which sukuna tended to you made you aware that his mind was slowly getting clouded by desire. the way he pulled you closer against him, his hands trailing across the outlines of your body, spoke volumes of starvation slowly heating up inside of him. 

you had to make it worse.

“i might have bought new lingerie, too…” your voice trailed off, and you could almost hear the way sukuna’s eyes rolled back behind his closed lids as he groaned against the sweet spot at the curve of your neck. it took him just a second to push you down onto the sofa. 

it was nearly a pity that his desire to undress you peaked whenever you chose to dress up for him. 

thank you for reading!

— kamesama.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk sukuna #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x reader #kamesama

[totheseok]

home is where the heart is

Jung Sungchan x reader

trope?: friends to strangers, strangers to lovers, childhood friends, college au?

requested: yes?? but I'm turning it into a series??

req by: @melokoyy

warnings: swearing?

stage one: damn those theatre kids

words: 1.3k

Jung Sungchan and L/N Y/N grew up together but this didn't mean they were best friends. Nor did it mean they hated each other. Simply put the two of them were friends.

Sungchan and Y/N's parents were good friends but the two never found themselves hanging out with each other besides the times their families were together. They went to the same school but hung out with different people, they were in the same class but sat at different ends. Outside their homes, they were mere acquaintances.

When they were six Sungchan's family moved into the house across the street from Y/N's. It was then that they started hanging out more. Walking to and from school together, doing homework together, and sometimes going over to each other's house to play games when bored. The pair's newly formed friendship, however, was sadly cut short when Y/N's mother got a job offer abroad and the family decided to move. When you're six years old and are told that you're moving to a new country it's exciting, but then you realize you have to leave your friends behind and suddenly your whole world gets crushed. And that's exactly what happened to Y/N. The idea of exploring new places was amazing but what fun would it be if she didn't have Sungchan to do it with her.

Yet the move was inevitable, they were six what could they possibly do to stop it.

As the day of the flight approached the kids spent more and more time with each other and the night before Y/N's flight Sungchan handed her his favorite puppy plushie Haru and told her to remember him with it. In return, Y/N handed the young boy her beloved Eeyore (Winnie the Pooh) stuffed toy.

And with that, they bade farewell to each other and Sungchan walked home crying as Y/N stood outside her door hugging Haru tightly to her chest.

Considering Y/N was only seven when she moved to Canada with her parents, the adjustment wasn't too difficult. She knew English because she was sent to an international school in Korea, and being only seven fitting in with other kids wasn't too hard.

She soon became friends with a girl named Somi and a guy named keeho and they became pretty much inseparable due to their korean backgrounds (a/n: reader doesn't have to be korean she was just raised there).

Surprisingly, the friendship lasted, even through middle school and high school and soon enough, senior year of high school rolled around.

"Girl, did you apply?"

Keeho has a habit of whispering to y/n during classes, especially if she's zoned out. She should be used to it by now but being broken out of your thoughts is always a bit surprising.

"Fuck! KEEHO! What the hell man?" Y/n replied not bothering to look at him.

"Did you apply to SNU, dumbass?" he quipped at her, pinching her arm to fully bring her back to reality.

"Oh. Oh, wait, oh shit I forgot." she started switching tabs on her laptop, making sure the teacher didn't notice and quickly opened Seoul National University's website. "When's the deadline to apply for the September semesters?"

"In two hours..." Keeho sighed."I swear to god y/n you're hopeless. HOW are you maintaining your GPA!?!?!"

Now y/n's GPA isn't a 4.0, but it's still good at a 3.79, keeping her at an A. Along with that, she actively takes part in extracurriculars and has won a few competitions for her society. So she was definitely HOPING to get accepted by SNU, preferably on scholarship, but hey, she'll take what she can get.

"When does this class end?" she asks him opening the application form and started filling it out, let's hope Mrs. Anderson doesn't notice she's not taking notes.

"Well considering its been about an hour and fifteen minutes, that means there's an hour and forty-five minutes left. Seriously WHY are our classes THIS long?!?!"

"Ugh, I get you," the girl mumbles, "So I either do this right now and risk getting caught by Mrs. Anderson OR I wait until class ends and try to write an application for my dream uni in fifteen minutes?"

"Basically."

"You know what? I'll take my chances, what's Mrs . Anderson going to do, give me detention for applying to uni in her class?" and she starts typing, looking up at the board every few minutes to make it seem like she's taking notes and not doing something her entire future relies on.

"Wait so you JUST applied?" Somi stops in her tracks and turns to Y/n as they walk out of the campus towards the closest 7/11.

Keeho replies for her, "Yeah, that too during Mrs. Anderson's class."

"Damn I knew you were crazy but Mrs. Anderson's class is just wild."

"Hey, atleast my application went through before the deadline," Y/n finally speaks up "Now we just have to hope all three of us get accepted together."

"Damn right, I still applied to a couple other unis in Seoul, just in case you know?" Somi comments, opening the door to the convenience store.

"Same. I applied to Yonsei, Hanyang, and a couple of others." Keeho agrees, following her.

"Other than SNU I just applied to Yonsei but no where else in Korea, if I get into SNU great, Yonsei's my backup option, the other unis I applied to are in the Middle East and Europe." Y/N adds.

"Hmm, you're just going to leave us to rot in Seoul I can't beleive this, but if you do end up going to the Middle East fuck learning, find a rich prince and marry him."

"KEEHO!" both the girls exclaim.

"ANYWAYS, let's hope all three of end up in SNU, I mean how could SNU possibly turn down a trio as amazing as us." he continues.

"Yeah, let's do this together." Y/N adds while she waits for her hotdog.

Summer after high school came sooner than expected, and suddenly life slowed down, highschool was over and the little group of friends were on there way to be adults.

The only thing they were worried about now?

University acceptance emails.

The three hung out almost every day and every two hours they'd refresh their emails hoping to see an email from SNU.

"What if they accidentally sent our letters to the wrong emails? Is that possible?"

"Keeho I highly doubt a university as established as Seoul National University would send acceptances to the wrong emails..." Somi responds.

"Yeah and even if they did I doubt it'd happen to all three of us, plus apparently acceptes don't come until like June or something idk." Y/N adds to Somi's point.

"Damn, I just want the stress to end man, I don't like not knowing." the boy mumbles.

"I get you," Somi agrees, "Plus its already the end of May so anytime now I guess."

"Oh my god Somi I think you just manifested something, I got an email !" Y/N frantically opens the mail app on her phone and sure enough there was an email from Seoul National University. "Quick both of you check yours."

As she waits, she looks around her bed to find a worn-out puppy plushie, Haru. Once she finds him, she holds onto him, hugging him with her left arm while her right holds her phone.

"I got one too!"

"Same! oh my god oh my god I'm going to shit my pants!"

"OK on three we open them together and remember no matter what happens, we support each other through it."

"Alright one, two, two and a half, two and and three-"

"Y/N FOR FUCKS SAKE, ONE"

And que silence.

The first one to break the silence was Somi, "I GOT IN!"

"I DID TOO!" Keeho jumps in his seat.

The two friends realise the third hasn't spoken yet, and so they turn to her, only to see her sitting with a grim face, tears gathering in her eyes. Grip on her plushie tighter than ever as she hugs it to her chest.

She looks up, looks at Keeho, then at Somi, one singular tear slipping out of her eye.

"Oh Y/N-"

"SNU is overrated any -"

Just as her friends are about to comfort her, a smile overtakes her face.

"I GOT IN TOO!!!"

Damn those theatre kids.

synopsis: Sungchan and y/n are family friends but y/n moved abroad and they lost touch, now y/n is back in Korea for uni and it's just so happens sungchan is attending too and now he's helping her readjust and navigate through life in Korea. What could possibly go wrong?

a/n: So originally, this was supposed to be a oneshot, but I'm turning it into a series, first ACTUAL fic!!! I hope you all like it :)))

and special thank you to @ywnzn for helping me with the name for this series ❗️❗️❗️

taglist open: @seungzzzz @wccycc

#riize #riize x reader #riize fluff #riize imagines #sungchan #sungchan x reader #jung sungchan #sungchan fanfic #sungchan fluff #jsc #riize fics #riize fanfic #riize sungchan #nct sungchan #nct u #riize smau #riize texts #riize fake texts

[napoleonic-sexyman-tournament]

So, I saw that you had no propaganda for the Iron Duke himself and thought that should be corrected, because I cannot let this man go unloved.

He is the ultimate sexyman. I don't really get that title or the requirements but I do know this man and he is the ultimate in Regency-era sexiness.

Field Marshal Sir Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington, whose full list of titles merits its own Wikipedia page, he had so many (including Prince of Waterloo of the Kingdom of the Netherlands), was so well known for his debonairness that he was often called "the Beau" or Beau Wellesley.

Our dear Duke with his eyes of "a brilliant light blue," is quite the underdog made good. The fourth son of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family, he was a bit of a loner as a child, whose star was eclipsed by the academic success of his older and younger brothers. Yet he had a remarkable talent for the violin, which as we know from Mrs. Jefferson is quite a good quality for a man to have. As a young man he was considered extremely good humored and drew "much attention" from female society. The Napiers of Celbridge thought he was a "saucy stripling" and he was also considered quite mischievous. Yet he also had a rich inner life, reading and contemplating the great philosophers of the day.

Yes, we know about his military victories in the Peninsula (the position of Field Marshal of the British Army and the accompanying baton were created for him) and his success at Waterloo, but he was also both romantic and a ladies' man. (I could go on about the military success but that's not really what this is about, is it?)

Want the romantic side? He fell in love with Kitty Pakenham while a lowly aide-de-camp in Dublin but, with no real position or prospects, was laughed away by her brother when he sought to marry her. In a fit of pique he destroyed his violin and turned firmly toward progressing his career. Over a decade later, after he had made something of himself in India, he learned she hadn't married, supposedly because she was still pining for him. Reader, he married her, despite thinking she'd grown ugly, and got two children from her in less than two years. I'm not kidding, this man was virile. They married in April of 1806, their first son was born in February, 1807, and their second son was born in January 1808. Although he wasn't sexual faithful to her, Wellington wore an amulet she gave him for over twenty years, and was still wearing it when he sat with her on her deathbed. When she was surprised he still wore it, he told her if she'd just bothered to check in the last twenty years, she'd have found it. Despite surviving her by twenty years, the Duke never remarried.

Now, please don't think badly of him for the lack of sexual fidelity. It was the Georgian era. Sexual fidelity was not a part of marriage in high society. Men didn't sleep only with their wives and some wives could be quite happy with that (for one, it's much easier not to have one pregnancy after another when your husband is sleeping with someone else). Not that women weren't also sleeping around. Which brings me to one of Wellington's more... interesting conquests: Lady Caroline Lamb, wife of William Lamb (the future Second Viscount Melbourne and Prime Minister). Why do I know that name, you ask? The OG pixie manic dream girl, Caro's much more notably known for her affair with Lord Byron. After that particular bit of nonsense, she was in Brussels with the rest of the English aristocracy during the 100 Days/post Waterloo. She and the Duke supposedly slept together and she took his cloak away as a souvenir.

Who else did the Duke liaise with? Well, there were the usual flings with actresses and singers, such as La Grassini. As previously noted in another post on this tumblr, he was noted as a stronger, better lover than Napoleon by another of their mutual lovers. Wellington also was a client of Harriette Wilson. He visited her when she was in Paris after the Duke of Beaufort bought her off, though this was before Beaufort stopped paying her, prompting her to publish her memoirs. She canvassed her old lovers, including Wellington, to see if they'd pay her not to be in them. Wellington send her a note in return saying "Publish and be Damned." Something about his succinct dismissal of her is just so hot.

Oh, want a bit more of Wellington being a bad boy? In 1829, while Prime Minister, he got into a duel that still is commemorated almost two hundred years later. King's College, London, was set up while Wellington was also advocating for Catholic Emancipation and this led to Lord Winchilsea publicly insulting Wellington's honor to the point that the Duke (who'd never dueled before or supported dueling generally) called him out. They went to Battersea Fields and settled the matter with pistols. Wellington won and Winchelsea apologized. King's College celebrates "Duel Day" every March.

Even better, want to read about Elizabeth Bennet and the Duke being witty and falling in love? Complete with scenes of the Duke showing he knows what to do with his cannon? Then let me recommend the third variation of An Ever Fixed Mark, A Dalliance with the Duke. I dare you not to vote for him for all eternity with that portrayal in your head.

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#extensive wellington propaganda

[melanatedeuph0ria]

the boy is mine ⋆˙⟡♡

rick grimes x black!fem! reader

since he’d arrived in alexandria, you and rick have gone from complete strangers to close friends. you’d proven to be extremely useful to his team-after all, you were a great shot and had skin tougher than steel. but now, you’ve started seeing rick in a different, more romantic light. will your newly-developed crush on the police officer be reciprocated as you’d dreamed?

summary: you and rick go on a run for supplies. some hidden feelings get uncovered along the way.

NOTE: this fic takes place in alexandria era BEFORE negan (i’m guessing like s6 bc i forgot)

a/n: MY FIRST FIC EVER AAAAA i’m hoping its ok bc i’m literally just going w the flow lmao

also sorry ts took so fucking long i still have school n stuff guys 🙏🏽😞

genre: fluff, angst, hurt, comfort idk

warnings: blood, zombies, cursing, use of n word, near-death experience

“y/n! you ready to head out?”, rick yelled as he leaned against a silver sedan parked in front of Alexandria’s gates.

after finding yourself caught in a conversation with maggie and glenn, you quickly swooped your head around to acknowledge the gruff man, your eyes widening at the sound of his southern drawl lingering on your name.

“yeah, I’m comin’!” you croaked, creasing your lips into a nervous smile. after a moment, you made your way over to his car, backpack slung over your back.

you and rick were headed to a small, nearby grocery store that an old-time alexandrian claimed was hidden away from the frequent commotion of the town. there was a 50/50 chance that it might’ve or might’ve not been looted, but you both weren’t willing to skimp out on this rare opportunity. after all, the community was running short on food and supplies-it started getting obvious that it was once people were given smaller portion sizes than normal.

and it was you who, stupidly enough, agreed to check out the area with none other than your best friend you’ve been harboring a crush on, rick grimes.

you were intrigued with the man from the moment he stepped foot into alexandria-he lowkey terrified you, him AND his group, but that only sparked your urge to get to know them a bit more. you didn’t actively seek interaction with them- it was by really by circumstance when you had the chance to kinda intermingle with them all. you forgot how you and rick even met each other, to be honest. he knew you were a good shot and had skin tough as nails, that’s for sure. you had grown into something of a maternal figure for Carl, his teenage son, although it took a while for him to finally warm up to you. you couldn’t blame him, to be honest. you knew he’d been through some rough shit-he told you about his mom and what he was forced to do to her after she’d been bitten and just delivered judith, his month-old half-sister. nonetheless, you and rick were both each other’s rocks; he cared for you unlike anyone else in alexandria, and you adored certain things about him-his deep, southern voice when he gently called your name. the traces of vanilla and bourbon cologne left on his clothes despite sweating all day-most of the time he didn’t even bother trying to put it on, but the days he did, you subconsciously noticed. him surprising you with 90’s rnb album CDs that he’d snatched on his runs- once he’d surprised you with a whole erykah badu album, and since then, you’ve kept it under lock and key inside your nightstand. his damp, ruffled hair as he stops by your house for a towel to dry it off because he never seemed to have any of his own; you let him in without much question, of course, but for the past few weeks he’s been on your porch steps, your heart’s been pumping at speeds you’ve never experienced before-at least, not in a while-a zombie apocalypse ruins one’s concept of love when the one you’re in love with can slip from your fingers in a heartbeat.

but could it be? could you really be in love with your best friend in a zombie apocalypse? you were sure of it, but horrified to know if he felt the same, which is why you didn’t even realize your leg was was anxiously bouncing up and down on the floor of the car until…

“y/n. you alright?”

“huh? oh y-yeah, i’m good. what’s wrong?”

“nothin’, you’re just..extra quiet.”

“do i need to start talkin’?” you didn’t mean for that to come off as rude as it did. you were just nervous, nervous about what he’d tell you if you told him how you truly felt.

“no, no, it’s fine. you don’t gotta say nothin’ if you don’t feel like it.”

aww shit, now i feel bad, you thought. you tried your hardest not to sink into the car seat in shame so he wouldn’t notice yet another thing off about you today. you tilted your head to the window.

“we made it.” in what seemed like a flash, you and Rick were parked outside the convenience store. did you zone out that hard? not that it mattered anymore. you climbed out of the car and you both took a closer look at the store. it was abandoned all right-at least, it could’ve just looked that way-but it still looked intact. untouched by the world. you hoped that would also apply to whatever awaited inside.

bigger than what i thought it’d be, you thought as you peered at the building.

“bigger than i thought it would be.” rick said aloud.

is this nigga reading my mind..? you thought. “let’s just hope there’s no walkers on the inside.” you said in an attempt to reassure yourself that there were no undead lurking around.

You looked back at Rick for a response or some sort of agreement, but when you did, out of the corner of your eye you saw him damn near snap his neck just to stare back at the store. he cleared his throat loudly. the gesture alone radiated an anxious energy, something you had almost never sensed in the man since knowing him. it was kinda like he was afraid of getting caught…wait…

..was rick staring at you? and how long had you gone without even noticing?

if he was staring, it certainly wasn’t for no reason. you are undoubtedly stunning, so much in fact that some people were envious of your beauty before and during the apocalypse. your rich, brown skin, glistening in the hot, june sun, and your thick, coily hair, pulled into a low puff, were just a few of your most admirable features, both inside and out.

shaking the thought off your mind, you both finally approached the building, carefully peeling open its glass doors and sliding inside. you knew the drill already, but rick felt the need to tell you again, which wasn’t to your surprise at this point. “i’ll take the left side, you take the right. we’ll use our walkies to communicate-if you’re in trouble, i’ll be right there, alright?” you nodded in compliance-you both knew you could handle yourself-but you couldn’t help but bite down a smile when he said that. his low, whispery voice was strangely reassuring, like he cared for you as a lover instead of a friend. you felt your cheeks begin to burn-it’s not really like he could tell anyway, for obvious reasons, but also because it was dark as hell in the store- you assumed the owners didn’t survive long enough to pay the electricity bill.

you were shocked to see that the aisles were just barely looted-you we’re expecting them to show signs of being scavenged at least a bit, but there they were, filled to the brim with food that would just about save Alexandria from starvation.

you clicked on your walkie and held it up to your mouth. “holy shit.” is all that could manage to come out of your mouth right now.

“looks like we hit the jackpot.” rick replied on the on the other line. he already knew what your “holy shit” meant.

with caution, you strolled down the “canned goods” aisle, looking up and down each section in awe. you came to an abrupt stop in front of one of the rows, gazing at everything in stock until your eyes settled on a can of peaches. you knew they were probably expired, you expected everything else in there to be, but you were curious to see what the expiration date read on its back, to see how long it’d been since the world went to hell. you held the can in your left hand, examining the date on its back: 10/18/09; it’d been expired a year before the apocalypse even began…

didn’t think it’d be that expired.., you murmured to yourself as you creased your lips into a disgusted frown. just as you began to set the specimen back on the shelf, a loud thud from underneath the rack sent it bouncing upwards, startling you so badly that the can slipped from your fingers and splattered onto the floor into a mushy mess. somehow, there was a walker under there, reaching its pale, maggot-infested limbs out to grasp at your leg. your eyes immediately traveled to the undead as you quickly thought of how you could quickly end its 2nd life. you frantically tugged your imprisoned foot backwards in an attempt to break free, reaching into your leather sheath and pulling out your dagger halfway, but, soon enough, you were met with an even more terrifying scenario. your back clashed violently with the rack behind you, and a walker on the other side, suddenly aroused by the sound and the smell of your human flesh, reached its spindly hand through a wide, open hole in the decaying rack. its hand curled around your throat with enough pressure to keep you pinned to the shelf while you also tried to free your leg from the walker below you.

“RICK, I NEED HELP!” you yelled out into the aisle. it was a risky move and could probably attract even more walkers than what was already threatening you, but you couldn’t get a good grip on your dagger and that was the only weapon you had. calling for backup was the only option you had left.

the oncoming presence of death pricked at prodded at your skin like thorns. the thought that-in that moment, you could be bitten, and all of your hopes and ambitions for the future could immediately be crushed-left you speechless, stricken with terror.

just as the walker grabbing at your neck prepared to take a bite out of it, rick appeared and stabbed it right in its head. just after you finally freed yourself from its grasp, the man noticed the walker on the ground and stomped on its skull, leaving a bloody, mushy mess on the floor, but you were too panicked to even notice.

an exasperated sigh escaped your mouth. “oh my God, rick, you’re a lifesaver-“

your rushed, panicky words were interrupted when he suddenly crashed his lips onto yours. your eyes immediately widened at the sensation of his coarse lips pressing onto yours, soft and plump, then slowly fluttered shut. your breathing, at first rapid and filled with anxiety, had simmered down into slow and steady breaths as his lips passionately devoured yours. almost subconsciously, he trailed his right hand, roughened with scars and calluses, on the nape of your neck, holding you closer than ever before as he rested his left hand on your hip. his ocean blue eyes drifted shut as he explored you, desperate for your touch, before he slowly pulled away from the kiss to give you some time to breathe. you fluttered your eyes back open and waited for him to look up at you.

“i’m-i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have done that, just so randomly. fuck…” rick babbled rapid apologies before a frustrated, shaky sigh escaped from his mouth. without thinking, you cupped his cheek, burning with the embarrassment of his decision, and leaned into him, rewarding him with a kiss of your own; it only seemed fair after he saved your life and your heart in only a matter of seconds. his eyes fluttered shut at your touch as your other hand tangled into his neatly combed hair. you let the feeling of your lips gently pressed together linger for a few seconds before you slowly pulled away. you felt your heart buzzing with excitement but also with relief, now that you knew that he’d been storing feelings for you this entire time. a confident grin appeared on your face as you looked up at him.

“i like you too, grimes.”

-the end. ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

#black reader #rick grimes x reader #rick grimes x black reader #twd rick #the walking dead #andrew lincoln #new fanfic