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fuckyeahgoodomens · 2 months

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SFX Magazine Issue 368, August 2023

THEY’RE BACK – AND THIS TIME THEY’RE IN ALL-NEW TERRITORY. NEIL GAIMAN TALKS RETURNING FOR SEASON TWO OF GOOD OMENS

THE RASCALLY DEMON Crowley (David Tennant) and the neurotic angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) put aside their differences to pull off one doozy of a Hail Mary and prevent an impending Apocalypse in Good Omens’ first season. The task cemented the pair’s unconventional friendship. So what are divine beings, who have fallen out of grace with both Heaven and Hell, to do for an encore?

The answer lies with archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm), who shows up unannounced on the doorstep of Aziraphale’s London bookshop. Suddenly, Aziraphale and Crowley are caught up in a caper of biblical proportions – but also a more intimate tale.

“It’s a mystery,” showrunner Neil Gaiman tells SFX. “It kicks off a story that doesn’t have giant consequences for the universe, even if it does have consequences for Aziraphale and Crowley. We have a lot of the marvellous Jon Hamm, who is the angel Gabriel and turns up at the beginning stark naked, carrying a cardboard box with no memory of who he is. In the same way, it is about Aziraphale and Crowley having to get involved with humanity in a way that they haven’t before.

“They get dragged in slightly against their will to try to sort out the love life of Aziraphale’s tenant,” he continues. “Her name is Maggie [Maggie Service] and she runs the record shop next to the bookshop. You’ll see the coffee shop over the road, which is Nina’s [Nina Sosanya]. The relationship between Maggie and Nina is one that Crowley and Aziraphale try to fix, and mess up, because they are not good at human relationships, even if they can do miracles.”

Truth be told, Gaiman never originally intended this arc to serve as Good Omens’ second instalment. The TV series was based on Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 novel. The two collaborators had partially hashed out the details for a sequel to the fantasy comedy, late one night in a hotel room. This, however, is not it. Gaiman instead plotted a new narrative that could provide the connective tissue between the first season and a theoretical season three, if it happens.

“Because the hypothetical season three exists, there is a story that is there, and I didn’t feel that we could drive straight from season one into that,” Gaiman explains. “I knew what the stakes were. I knew what the parameters were. I also knew that I had David and Michael. I had the angels from plot number one.

I had demons from plot number one. And with anybody that I wanted to bring back, but didn’t have room for right now, I did not have to bring them back as themselves. “I had absolutely nothing for Madame Tracy to do in this plot, but I would be damned if Miranda Richardson wasn’t going to be in this. She is one of my favourite people in the world. She is hilarious and is so good. And I knew I was going to have a new demon replacing Crowley as Hell’s representative in London/ the UK. Miranda’s demon Shax is the best demon you could want.”

It’s late February 2022 and SFX is in Edinburgh for a set visit. A soundstage in Pyramids Studios has been transformed into a street in Soho. The visible local stores include the aforementioned book, coffee and record shops, as well as a magic establishment. In the middle of them all stand Aziraphale and Crowley, the latter in close proximity to his classic Bentley. It’s close to the end of the six-episode season, so exactly what the duo is discussing constitutes a spoiler. We can say, however, that Aziraphale has picked up the pace. Time is of the essence as Shax marshals her forces to descend on Aziraphale’s store and retrieve Gabriel.

“This is really Shax’s first time out on Earth,” Gaiman explains. “She is working very diligently and very hard in Hell for a long time. Now she is on Earth, trying to figure it all out. She’s just discovering what Crowley has known for 6,000 years, which is that if you’re a demon and come up with a brilliant plan to screw up the lives of humanity, people will get there first and do worse than anything you could have imagined! She’s coming to terms with that.

“She is having to deal with the first crisis on her watch, as well, which is the disappearance of the archangel Gabriel from Heaven. It would be fair to say that by the end of the story, she is leading as much as she can get from Hell’s requisition department – a legion of Hell – in an attack on a Soho bookshop.”

When audiences catch up with Aziraphale again, he’s enjoying his time among humans. He owns most of the block in a Soho neighbourhood, and he’s meddling in Nina’s love life. Meanwhile, Crowley has been living in his car, with his plants sitting on the back seat. He’s grumpy about his current status quo, but frequently hangs out at Aziraphale’s. The duo began as antagonists, but their history and blossoming relationship will be fleshed out in flashbacks.

“One of the enormously fun things I came up with is the idea of minisodes,” Gaiman explains. “They are 25-minute-long episodes within the episode. We have three of them over our six episodes. Each of them is like one of those chunks of episode three [in season one]. Whereas the longest one of those was four or five minutes, if that, these are full stories.

“You get to have the story of [put-upon Biblical figure] Job, and you learn Aziraphale and Crowley’s part in the story. Then writer Cat Clarke takes us to Edinburgh in the 1820s for a tale of body-snatching and attempted murder that the boys get involved in,” he adds.

“Finally, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman reunite the League Of Gentlemen in a Nazi-period story that takes place very shortly after the episode in the church. That one was the only one I said had to be there, because I fell in love with our Nazi spies in the church. I kept thinking, ‘What would happen if they essentially came back as zombies, with a mission from Hell to try and investigate whether or not Crowley and Aziraphale were actually fraternising?’”

Gaiman admits that one of the greatest challenges has been filming Good Omens simultaneously with his upcoming show Anansi Boys. The two shoot within throwing distance of each other, but are both timeconsuming endeavours.

“If I could go back in time, I would go back to 16 September 2020, when Douglas Mackinnon [co-producer] and I got the phone call from the Amazon bigwigs to say, ‘We have good news for you and interesting news for you,’” Gaiman recalls. “‘The good news is we are greenlighting both Good Omens and Anansi Boys. The interesting news is you are going to have to do them both at the same time.’

“I would go back to then and I would throw myself on the call and say, ‘Neil, don’t! This is unwise.’ That we are doing them both together is great. The amount of sleep I am not getting is monumental and monstrous.

“It’s a little bit like childbirth, in that I managed to forget all the things that drove me nuts about the first one. Having said that, I managed to fix all the things that really drove me nuts making season one, which is great. We just have a whole new set of problems making season two…”

The Odd Couple - David Tennant and Michael Sheen talk character and sets for season two

Crowley and Aziraphale come off as the best of frenemies at times. Where do they stand with one other now?

DT: They are indeed. What’s different in season two is because of what happened at the end of season one, they no longer have head offices that they have to report to. They are in a very different position. Whereas before they were trying to get away with things, now they are kind of free agents.

MS: Although sort of fugitives as well. They are sort of in-between. But this amazing life they have created over a millennia, they are now able to enjoy in a slightly different way. They are not having to put on a front for their respective teams. There is a different kind of freedom.

DT: While at the same time being cut off, so they are also strangers in a strange land.

MS: That kind of connects them in a slightly different way. They have always been the only two beings who could understand each other’s position. Now they are pushed even closer together.

Now that they have the run of the place with no obligations, does that bring its own set of problems, being cut off?

DT: They have this sort of uneasy relationship. They are not entirely cut off from their head offices. Indeed, their head offices are quite keen to exploit that sort of adjacent connection, as we will see as the story unfolds. They exist in this grey area, neither the supernatural nor of the Earth.

MS: By the time we pick up their story in this series, they have appeared in time where they were kind of let alone a bit more. When we pick the story up, they are being bothered again.

The depth and the richness and the detail of what we are seeing on set here in Edinburgh is mind-blowing. How is it for you having it all in one place now, rather than having filming scattered around the UK?

MS: It’s completely changed the experience of doing it. Just being indoors… The Soho set on the first season was freezing cold.

DT: I was in a car park. Even inside the bookshop I was exposed to the elements! There’s a greater percentage of the show set here. There was a practical imperative to making it a manageable environment. If we had been in a car park, the elements might have impinged our ability to film.

Hellraiser - David Tennant is Crowley

You and Michael know these characters inside out. Do you have a shorthand?

It’s a hard thing to be objective about. Although I didn’t know Michael that well before we shot season one, it was always easy and exciting working together. It’s well-oiled now, for sure. It’s certainly fun to come to work. We enjoy bouncing off each other.

How comfortable are they about becoming involved with Gabriel?

I suppose Aziraphale is a much more enthusiastic detective. We are very much voting for the spin-off called The Azirafiles, which will follow this! As with most things, Crowley is reluctant to get involved or to exhibit any kind of energy or enthusiasm about very much. He is dragged kicking and screaming into this. Necessity forces him to get involved, whereas Aziraphale rather likes it.

Where does Crowley hang out these days?

He spends a lot of time in the book shop. He only has one friend. He can only have one friend. That is the great liberation, and also the great prison, that they find themselves in. They have no one else. They have come to rely on each other more than they ever did. And more than they care to admit.

Crowley is a rock star, in a way. Were there any particular musicians that inspired you?

Not consciously, no. The look was assembled accidentally during the first costume sessions. The Crowley of the book is of the mode when the book was written. He is more kind of Wall Street, the way he is described. We just decided that Crowley should always be of the moment he’s in. We were just trying to find a look that we felt fitted.

Divine Being - Michael Sheen is Aziraphale

How has knowing your characters better informed this series?

The first series was the first time we really properly worked together. It feels like we haven’t stopped working together since. Everything that has happened in-between plays into coming back to these characters. I am sure it is all feeding into it. It’s very difficult for us to know how that is informing the characters and their relationships.

With the flashbacks to various points in Earth’s history, is there a period of time Aziraphale enjoys the most?

One of the most enjoyable things for the audience and us is moving through different historical periods. It’s a great source of joy, and people thoroughly enjoyed that episode in the first series, so that has been expanded on in season two. But in terms of which Aziraphale enjoys the most, I think it’s not actually a period of time that we’ve seen him in on this series.

He would have been happiest at the end of the 19th century, in the Victorian era, which is considered the golden age of magic. He would have loved being with the greats like Harry Houdini. He loved the Victorian period. It was a great period of time for philanthropy and doing good works in a municipal way.

How has it been going from something dark like The Prodigal Son to a more whimsical show?

That’s the nature of an actor’s job. You go from one thing to another. In some ways, it’s even more useful to have big differences between the characters. What tends to happen, and I think most actors feel this way, is if you are playing one character for a long time, part of you yearns to play the bits the character doesn’t have. There’s a naivety and an innocence about Aziraphale. But at the same time, underneath that, there is eons of knowledge and experience.

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bigfatbimbo · 2 months

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God I love your little extended universe of Vox and the reader it's so damn good-- I have a little folder on my phone with a bunch of your work saved for later. It's like a treat

I do agree that Bad Liar seems to be at a nice enough conclusion BUT I second that anon asking for the "fucking Vox so Val can hear" fic. Petty dom reader with her prize.

-🐭

a/n — Long awaited fic incoming! It’s been like three weeks… jesus.

summary — Reader fucks a very vocal Vox in Val’s porn studio, mainly to be petty because you all can make Vox feel 100x better.

warnings — Smut, pegging, afab reader implied, aka use of a strap on, very self indulgent, small use of ‘mommy’, even smaller use of ‘y/n

Vox was loud, in and out of bed. You knew that all too well. That’s what, in hindsight, made this whole situation a bad idea.

You were in a backroom of Val’s studio. At first the intention was only to visit Vox during work. However, you did have the strap in your bag and he looked so damn good in his suit.

To sum up, you couldn’t resist. Pulling him off to subsection of the porn studio, not even bothering to close the door all the way, and bending him over a table to fuck him relentlessly.

At first he argued, telling you he had to get back to work. But it didn’t take much convincing to get him to take a ‘quick’ break.

His pants were off, leaving his ass and dick fully exposed to you, but aside from his suit jacket and vest, his button up was still on. His tie was undone, however, and his shirt was only hanging on by three buttons.

“Quiet, Vox. What would anyone say if they saw you like this?” You coo down at him, thrusting deeper into his ass.

He whines loudly at your words, completely disregarding the actual order behind them.

“It’s hard to be quiet when yo—ouz—u’re doing that with your hips—szz—“ He tries to remain coherent, but it didn’t take much for your rhythm to affect his system.

You roll your eyes, leaning in closer and covering his mouth with your hand, rolling your hips once more. He whimpers.

“If you don’t start controlling your volume soon, Vox, I’m gonna have to stop. Got that?” You whisper, cruelly.

He whines, quieter this time, and nods his head. “Good boy,” you praise, grasping his hips harder.

That almost got him to break him promise immediately. He whimpered pathetically and arched back further into you.

“Good, baby. Doing so good, taking orders so well,” You breathe, finding a steady pace to fuck him.

Once again, he whines quietly and mutters something under his breath. You didn’t pick up on it, instead catching a glimpse of something by the doorway, moving in the corner of your eye.

You don’t turn your head fully, instead sparing an unintentional looking glance towards the door. Vox hadn’t noticed, too busy focusing on the dick up his ass.

You noticed though. And god, it took everything in you not to turn over to the figure and flash a proud smile. No, no, you had to go about this right. It had to be slick.

“Vox, sweetheart, I changed my mind. Be as loud as you want,” you say sweetly, picking up the pace and starting to go faster.

He whines and glitches out a small, “Yes, f—ffc—fuck. Thank you.”

You can’t tell if the figure is still there, but you feel a presence around you. And it wasn’t exactly out of character for Valentino to lurk. Fucking prick. You’ll show him, though.

Vox claws dig into the table as you rut into him roughly, still keeping a solid rhythm, but making it more aggressive. It’s an art after all, and you’re sure that damn moth knows.

“Oh god—zzx— fuck, fuck,” Vox whines, clawing at the table desperately, leaving deep marks.

That’s when you get an idea. All at once, you stop, and pull out.

“Fuck, why the f—ffz—fuck would you stop—“ Vox’s question is cut off when you flip him over quickly, hoist him up by his thighs, and slam him onto the nearest wall.

You make sure the doorway has a clear shot of the scene. Not so slowly, you push your strap into Vox once more, he hisses and wraps his arms around your neck instinctively.

You thrust into him with force and, for lack of a better word, talented rhythm. Vox cries out, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes, threatening to drip down him screen.

“Oh god, y/n—“ he moaned so loudly you were sure that half the studio could have heard, “y/n—zzf— Fuck. Deeper, fuck—“

His incoherent babbles only grew stronger as you planted kisses on his neck and bit down roughly.

“My pretty boy,” You say, all too loudly, “Doing so good for me baby. Taking me so well.”

At this point, the tears finally got the best of him, starting to dribble down his screen and he whined pathetically. The lights around you flickered, and you smirked to yourself.

A power outage? Aw, and maybe even during a filming session, how sad. Not really, though. Because Vox deserves to be treated like this, always. No exceptions. And you were doing your part to make sure everyone knew that.

“You look so fucking stunning, sweetheart,” Vox’s claws scrapped up and down your back, leaving deep marks.

You try not to hiss too loudly, “Aw, baby. Mommy making you feel that good?”

He moans and lets out a sob as you fuck into him roughly, “Yes—szz— mommy, feels so good. Please ‘m—“

He cuts himself off by buffering in an almost violent sputter, sending a shock of electricity out. It shocks your body and fully cuts the lights off for a long moment.

“Fuck,” you almost growl, “Your mine, Vox. You’re fucking mine.”

Your rhythmic pace, if possible, becomes faster, shooting all the way up to his core. He whines at your comment, gripping onto you harder.

“Say it,” you hiss, nails digging into his hips, surely causing a bruise for tomorrow, “Tell everyone here who you belong to.”

You’re lucky he was so fucked out, because never in a million years would he normally admit to anything worded like that. However, tonight you were doing an excellent job at fucking with his head.

“You, mommy—zzs— ‘m yours. ‘m yours,” he practically sobbed out.

“Damn right,” you say lowly, finally sparing a glance to the seemingly empty doorway. No matter, you were sure people hallways down could hear these phrases clear as day.

“Cum anytime you want baby—“ He didn’t hesitate to let go, sputtering out a mix of moans and malfunctions.

With that, the power flashed one more time, before completely shutting off. Vox clings onto you for a few more moments, before you feel his body loosen.

Still having a hold on his thighs, you pull out of him and access the damage. Just as you thought; total blue screen.

No matter, you’d clean up just fine. The feeling of self accomplishment totally overpowered the annoying process of getting him to turn back on.

This feeling only gets better when you heard a foul shriek from down the hall in your direction. Already smiling, you couldn’t help but begin to laugh.

You’d practically won. The power had gone out, prohibiting that perverted moth from filming anything, and at the same time stopped him from doing anything to distract himself from that loud pleasured noises Vox was making.

But most of all, you treated Vox like the princess he is and took care of him well. And that, in a sense, was victory on its own.

a/n — YIPPEE GUYS I FINALLY WROTE IT!!

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel smut #dom reader #inbox open #hazbin hotel vox #vox x reader #vox x you

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solecize · 2 months

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ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 | 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘. every summer on your grandpa's farm was real-life magic to your younger self, who left a piece of her heart in amber valley when the years went on and the town became nothing but a faint childhood memory. soon enough, you become rocked by his death and realize the dead end in your bustling city world. this leads to you making an abrupt decision.

despite knowing nothing but designer purses and the corporate ladder, you uproot your entire life to take over your grandfather's old farm in the town you were desperately trying to remember - alongside a familiar face from your youth that permanently finds his way into your heart. 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆. jungkook x reader 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒. swearing 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓. 5k 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒. inspired heavily by stardew valley, friends to lovers, childhood friends, small town alternate universe, slice of life, grief, growing up.

part one: the storm, the envelope and the granddaughter ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ next. masterlist

i. the storm

for the first time in a long time, your eyes flutter open to the golden curtains of the sun and not the blaring noise of a royalty-free iphone alarm. the rays are harsh and welcoming all at once, as you blink away the stinging sensation and adjust to the muddy path ahead. there was no mistake about it, the town withstood an unforgiving storm last night. however, mud coating the wheels of your bus seemed to be the only indication, as you became distracted with the kiss of summer from the skies above and the clear cerulean painted across cotton candy clouds.

memories of amber valley became bygone over the years, as memories always do. but, amber valley seemed to be a long lost chase you haven’t won in years and the older you became, the town disappeared entirely. it was like the smell of your favourite scented markers and the feeling rumbling at the pit of your stomach on the first day of school - nothing but faint ideas from your childhood.

“we’re not going to visit grandpa this summer?”

at age twelve, you couldn’t fathom missing out on the midsummer festival or being away from your horse, marshmallow. for that age, absolutely everything felt like the end of the world, whether it was missing an episode of your favourite show or not getting an invite to a classmate’s sleepover. it was a little different for you, though, as you looked at your dad’s dull eyes. they’d been dull since the divorce went through that february. they never shone since and that’s how you knew things weren’t going to be the same.

he shook his head at you, but never met your eyes. “no, i’m sorry. he’s coming up for to the city at the end of july, though - “ it would be later in life, precisely at age 25 and months removed from your grandfather’s funeral, when you would learn that he only began coming up to the city to regularly see a hepatologist, “ - so you can see him on your birthday.”

you did, in fact, see grandpa for your birthday and for the rest of the years to come. he laughed with his whole body and his smile never failed to reach his eyes when he gave you updates on the farm and amber valley. grandpa did his best, but time passing came with you losing your bright eyes whenever he spoke fondly of his town. it was inevitable, when the big city enveloped your teenage self and you became more concerned with interests that come with the turn of youth - clothes, parties and boys.

now, there was absolutely nothing wrong with any of those ideas. you stood by this at heart, embracing femininity and defending it alongside your love for science and life. you grew up and began wearing high heels to dates, to university lectures and finally, to your 9-5 on the busiest corner of your city’s financial district. you had long outgrown your riding boots, likely tucked away at the back of your closet in your studio apartment. you began just politely smiling and nodding when your grandfather shared local amber valley gossip about individuals who were just names to you now, also tucked away at the back of your mind.

even though you eventually grew past the age where you needed your parents’ permission to make the trek over to amber valley, past the period of time where your mother refused to speak to your father to coordinate your trip to see your grandfather, the idea of returning to the valley never crossed your mind. like summer camp, it was something you thought you didn’t need anymore and preferred spending your school-less months with your friends in your hometown, working away at your first part-time job and getting your first ever drivers’ license. a seventeen year old city girl wouldn’t want to waste her summer at her grandfather’s old farm.

“mrs. oh’s husband just left the valley for his deployment overseas. may god watch over that family.” it was one of the last times you saw grandpa, late on christmas eve when everyone else went to bed. your mom, her new husband and your little sister had bade their goodnight’s by 10pm and left the two of you sipping honey lemon tea by the fireplace.

your mom’s new husband made a lot of money. that was one of the first things you noticed about him and it was so different from the two bedroom inner city apartment you were raised in. it was certainly different from your grandpa’s farmhouse, where the television only got three channels and all of the windows never fully opened because they would fall apart entirely if you pulled too far. you and your grandpa mused these thoughts on their white leather couch, when the conversation slowly moved back to how the old farm was going.

you tried to sound interested. “oh really?” the reality was you couldn’t remember if the oh family was the one that ran the general store or the one couple who seemed to be constantly fighting, on the verge of divorce.

grandpa grunted in response. “mhm. thankfully, they have jungkook helping out around the store. ah, the wasted potential with that boy, but such a kind heart.”

“jungkook..?”

“oh, you remember him! the two of you would always bike by the beach,” he said. “i’ll never forget, you two would always come back and show me the seashells you collected that day. always made a competition out of everything.”

he chuckled and you joined in, hiding the despondence for being unable to recall. grandpa didn’t seem to notice, though, continuing to discuss amber valley. cranberries and pumpkins were the strongest crops of the fall, mayor kim was re-elected for a third time and something about the town soon getting their first chain convenience store since amber valley’s founding. then, grandpa’s face lost his smile and a serious expression formed on his ageing features. he asked you about your job and how life was for you.

by now, you’re 22 and working an entry-level position with nothing but a bachelor’s in your pocket and a hunger to climb the corporate ranks. like any fresh college graduate, there was no meaning to life if it weren’t for paying overpriced rent, mimosa sundays, dating apps, and maybe remembering to go to the gym every now and then. the life you lived was loud from city traffic and heavy from looming student debt.

“my job is..okay. i’m just starting out and i’m really just trying to do my best,” you replied.

grandpa, still with a serious look, placed a gentle hand on your shoulder. “it gets stressful, doesn’t it?”

you opened your mouth to respond again, but failed to find your voice this time. your stress was found in a growing caffeine addiction and getting too tired to give your parents a call on the weekends. adulthood was everything you expected and nothing you expected. you secured a job that you dedicated four years of studies to and just like that, was pushed into a world of hustle and bustle and nothing in between. once this realization settled, you tried to hide it by cracking a faint smile. grandpa saw through it, though - he always did.

“well, darling, if it ever does get too stressful..” you became confused when grandpa reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sealed envelope. he handed it to you and you turned it over, finding no writing other than your name in your grandfather’s decorative penmanship.

you asked, “what is this, grandpa?”

he finally smiled again, but shook his head. “a gift. it’s yours for when you find that you need a break from the challenges of life.”

grandpa only gave gifts from the heart. only, this time, you wouldn’t know that he was giving you his entire heart and soul. you had taken this envelope and slid it in the drawer of your desk at home, where you tirelessly worked after hours, even after returning from the office. it was hidden away, but always poked your curiosity at the back of your mind. however, you restrained from opening it, even when it eventually became one of the last things you had from grandpa.

ii. the envelope

the only time you took the pristine envelope out of your desk was on the day of his funeral.

it was no surprise that grandpa wanted to be buried in amber valley, his home for over fifty years and his birthplace. it was once your heart’s home, too, once upon a time when you were a child skipping rocks by the town river and rode your horse through mustard-hued sunflower fields. for that, you were nervous to return and confront the realities of your coming of age in the face of a town that only lived in your memories, sickeningly reminding you of the years that have gone past.

wedged between your mother and father who had only began speaking to one another as of three years ago, you stared blankly at the onyx coffin that, in about 20 seconds, was gone from your sight and lowered into the ground. it happened all too quick. you clenched your arm tighter, squeezing the envelope tucked underneath and protecting it from the rain. your very last summer in the valley was marked by constant rain and wind and once again, you greet the town amidst storms.

the drive was quick, having gone directly to service after the three hour drive from the city. you couldn’t make much of the town through the gloom and suddenly, the valley was so much colder than you remember. like your being since your grandfather’s passing, it lost its colour. it was unwelcoming and felt like a punishment for your neglect over the years. amber valley was unforgiving as much as it was perfection.

you couldn’t make out much of the attendees through the gloom, either. many of them appeared absolutely devastated, sobbing and cold-faced at the goodbye of a beloved neighbour. your grandfather was always well-liked amongst the townspeople, helping out his friends with mundane tasks whenever he had free time away from the farm and shared his warm personality at community events. this was affirmed through the stories that were shared about him at the service, recognizable for his distinct good heart, but seemed so far away for you, having detached yourself from amber valley.

“oh, an unfamiliar face! what’s your name, dear?” a man around your father’s age with salt and pepper hair was handing out hor d'oeuvres at the post-service gathering in the church basement. he seemed to be the most upbeat one in the room - though, it wasn’t saying much, considering the occasion.

you told him your name, while looking around for either one of your parents. being in a room of strangers wasn’t your favourite activity, especially following a funeral. the last thing you wanted to do was socialize, feeling like you weren’t even in your own body all day. while you were saddened and to an extent, numb, you knew your grandfather’s passing was coming up. his illness was going to catch up to him and you spent months mentally preparing yourself for the day you would have to say goodbye. despite not being surprised, your grief was accompanied by the painful nostalgia of the town that raised you in the summertime.

the man looked at you, appearing to search your face for something. “you’re the old man’s granddaughter? bunny?”

the nickname almost made you flinch, having not heard it in so long that you were surprised you recognized it. you began searching the man’s face, too, also looking for some signs of familiarity. for so many years of your childhood, you were almost exclusively called this nickname by adults and friends alike.

there wasn’t room for a response when the man pulled over another individual by his sleeve, merely attempting to walk by in peace. this one was a man closer to your age and you were too distracted by the glisten of his facial piercings to scan for recognition. the second thing you noticed the adornment of tattoos peeked from below his sleeve and trailed onto his hands. the third and final thing you noticed about him was how gentle his hands were. this was realized because the sight of this man made you drop whatever was in your own hands in surprise.

the only thing you were holding was your grandfather’s envelope, no longer pristine and stained with a few raindrops. you noticed that you had been clutching onto this keepsake the entire service. you bent down to reach for it, when he also attempted to make the save for you. your hands brushed and you looked up at his eyes, suddenly taken away by confusion.

“jungkook, you remember bunny?”

you forgot the older man was in your presence, as he was the one who pulled jungkook over in the first place. jungkook. this was the little boy you spent hours running around with all those years ago. although you seemed to forget when your grandfather had last brought him up, those moments began to rain down on you upon taking sight of him for the first time in years. you had barely looked, but it hit you.

jungkook handed the envelope over to you and you cleared your throat, standing up properly and trying not to wobble on your favourite high heels. he also stood up and seemed to mirror your confusion, not understanding who was the person in front of him. you muttered a thank you and fixed an imaginary snag on your cardigan.

“i just go by my first name now,” you said through a tight smile to both men, still feeling like your gut was punched in after hearing the nickname that your grandpa coined,

“oh, of course. you’re all grown up now!” the man exclaimed. “do you remember me? mr. kim?”

the truth was that you didn’t remember him by face, but instead remembered that your father mentioned a man of this name being the mayor. if he was the same person, mr. kim’s father was the previous town mayor, as well, and was your grandfather’s best friend before his own untimely passing. given his larger than life presence, it was same to assume that the man in front of you was the tiny valley’s politician.

“mayor kim, of course.” you hoped you sounded convincing.

jungkook was still standing to the side, the same confused look etched on his face. “you’re the girl that tricked me into eating mud that one time?” he blurted, as if an imaginary lightblub flashed above his head

that took you by surprise and you almost snorted. “i didn’t trick you, you just went for it.” the quick snap back also took you by surprise, having left behind a bit of your normal self in the city before coming down to the valley for the funeral, as well as your instant recollection.

somehow, this memory was clear as day and you could remember jungkook as a seven year old with a horrible bowl cut and missing teeth. you wore light-up sneakers and candy bracelets that day, sitting on the porch of your grandfather’s farmhouse with him and were exchanging dares to see who would give up first. maybe that was why your grandpa said you two were -

“ - always competitive,” jungkook said.

although the two of you surely shared countless more memories, it was this one that stood against the test of time and it showed when it immediately hit you with a laugh. it took jungkook a second, too, but he eventually gave in and joined with his own. you hadn’t realized it until his swollen eyes became crescents in his giggles, but he seemed to be having his own trouble of a day.

“there it is, jungkook! nice to see you finally cheer up a bit,” mayor kim encouraged and jungkook’s chuckle immediately fell back to a straight face, almost intentionally. you suspected that this was not the first time today that mayor kim was on his case.

before mayor kim could add on, his attention gravitated towards something at the other end of the room. he sighed and set down the hor d'oeuvres, checking the time on his wrist dressed with gold.

“oh, i’m being called over,” he sighed and turned back to you. “it was a pleasure seeing you again, i hope to see you around town before you have to go back to the city.”

swiftly, mayor kim weaved his way through the crowd and just like that, it was just you and jungkook.

you took this opportunity to give jungkook an actual once over, comparing it to the faint image you had of this man from when you were children. undeniably, he was handsome, but you were more concerned with the fact that this was still the little boy you spent your summers with. he grew into his face and you didn’t realize that you accidentally said this out loud.

jungkook looked as much taken aback as he was amused. “oh, you got jokes, huh? that’s what you learned growing up in the city?” he teased.

“i didn’t mean it like that - “ you started, but he waved you off with a laugh.

the conversation was a bit overwhelming, considering you were still stuck in a church basement following your grandfather’s funeral service and could not locate your parents anywhere. jungkook recognized this in your face and eased into a sympathetic smile. somehow, you felt okay enough around him to drop your tense shoulders for the first time that day.

“i’m sorry, i should be giving my condolences. your grandpa was a loved man by everyone here.”

looking around the room, it was clear. everyone had shared fond stories and were making toasts in his honour. you felt out of place, but more so because you felt like you should have been joining in with the attendees. instead of being a kind of extended family that once saw you grow up, these people were strangers. you weren’t sure if anyone recognized you, having tried to lay low and not draw any attention to yourself. the only times you seemed to have caught anyone’s eye was when you were sat beside your parents at the burial, but no one dared approach you then.

“you were like a son to him, too,” you offered. it was true, given the amount of time you spent with jungkook as a child, maybe even going so far to call him your best friend at one point.

he let out a long breath, eyes moving to the enlarged portrait of your grandfather propped up on the wall. “that’s nice of you to say. i miss him already. i’m sure you feel the same.”

you learned quickly that, in light of your disappearance from your grandfather’s farm over the years, jungkook was the one who began helping out and taking over what were your old chores. your grandfather was physically able, but he kept the young boy around for company and made feeding the chickens an excuse to have his presence. hearing this made your heart drop, feeling an unknown sense of regret that you didn’t know existed when it came to the farm.

“it’s not like that!” jungkook cut in, seeing the tears well up in your eyes. “he would always talk about the two of you going on adventures in the city and how he loved spending time with you whenever he came up to visit. he knew that’s where your heart was.”

you sniffled a bit, having already promised yourself to limit your breakdowns to two that day, and took a second to reel it in. “sorry…i don’t mean to - “ you sighed.

“it’s okay. it’s weird being back here, huh?”

it was weird. it was so damn weird that the air of amber valley stuck with you for the months following, like bubblegum in your hair and a melody on loop in your head. you couldn’t shake it. not when you were working an extra 20 hours overtime in a week, not when you became stuck in traffic everyday, and especially not when your boyfriend of three years dumped you because you “changed” so much since the start of the year.

and, it was true. you changed a lot since your conversation with your grandfather on christmas eve, with his words echoing about the stressors of life everyday. it opened your eyes to how much you were really struggling and it wasn’t simply you who had changed, but your outlook on life. ever since you were twelve years old, everything shifted to the fastlane and years breezed by you in the blink of an eye. everything moved so fast and you never got a chance to catch your breath. one moment, you were 15, sneaking a sip of your first ever drink, and the next, you were 24 and drinking straight out of the wine bottle on a tuesday evening. you wondered how you suddenly found yourself jaded at a 9-5 black hole of a job that sucked out your energy and passions.

these days made you think about what truly deserved your energy and what truly were your passions. did you like your everyday routine of gluing on false lashes and slipping on pantyhose? were you happy, alone in your apartment with not even a cat to talk to? your parents had their own worlds and new lives to deal with and long stopped asking why you never call. your friends were co-workers, having no time to meet anyone new. you didn’t even have time for hobbies, given how tired you were every time you finished work and the amount of overtime you did.

one thursday night, you arrived home from work at 10:13pm and decided you had enough. it was constraining, nearly strangling you with exhaustion everyday. you spent the entire day wondering was “it” was and when you kicked off your loafers by your doorstep, it hit you. this was what your grandfather was talking about.

almost walking with fear of what was to come, you creeped over to your desk. after your grandpa’s funeral, his envelope no longer lived underneath manila folders in your drawer, but found a place on the surface. you kept it there, as it mocked you every time you opened up your work laptop after hours. you didn’t realize why you left it in plain sight, until this moment when you came to terms with the fact that you were reminding yourself of him.

“if you’re reading this, you must be in dire need of change. the same thing happened to me, long ago. i’d lost sight of what mattered most in life. . . real connections with other people and nature. so i dropped everything and moved to the place where i truly belong.”

it took you precisely two weeks to pack up your things after opening the envelope. nobody could convince you not to. your mother complained that you were wasting your degree and your father had concerns about the massive role you were about to take on all by yourself. it didn’t matter.

two weeks later, you met amber valley and its sunlight for the first time in years, pretending that the storm ceased and the sun shone to welcome you back.

iii. the granddaughter

the sun faded quickly when you realized the bus dropped you off on a plain dirt road in the middle of nowhere. the movers took the rest of your belongings separately, so you were left with nothing but a duffel bag and a cell phone that couldn’t find any signal.

“oops,” was all you could say. you didn’t think it was a crazy idea, that there would be service at the very least.

it took you a few moments to let the situation settle in and for you to realize that you were abandoned in a place that was unfamiliar to you. was it unfamiliar? you looked around, seeing nothing but fields on fields and accepted that there was no way you could even try to remember where you were, even with the help of the maps app. you knew you made it to town, but you were certainly left at the farthest point of the borders.

and then, you heard it.

it was over at least ten years since you last rode, but your ears perked up at the sound of a horse’s gallop naturally. you had to squint, but it was unmistakable.

they were going in the other direction and they were going fast, so you had to think fast. you tried yelling and waving your arms, but quickly saw that it was useless. so, you dropped your bg and brought your hands to your mouth, releasing the loudest whistle that your vocal chords could handle.

the horse and its rider kept going and for a few seconds, you thought you lost hope. but, then, as you were about to pick up your bag in shame, you watched them take a wide turn back around. they were headed to you.

you waved your arms back and forth again, affirming that you needed their attention. as they came closer, you could make out a figure of a man with chestnut brown hair peeking out underneath his cowboy hat. he wore medium wash, stained jeans and a plain white t-shirt.

“that was the loudest whistle i’ve ever heard,” he hollered, drawing closer to you.

you shook your head bashfully. “didn’t even know i remembered how to do that.”

“pretty sure the whole town heard. my name is namjoon, are you visiting someone here?”

likely a few years older than you, you tried to recall someone named namjoon from your memories. his appearance didn’t ring a bell, so you were searching your brain for his name or if you heard it from somewhere.

you told him your name and then squinted at him, pausing for several moments before speaking again. “are you. . .joonie?”

his eyebrows shot up immediately, looking at you like he couldn’t understand what language you were speaking. “pardon me?”

joonie. he was mayor kim’s eldest son, who was sent to a fancy arts camp every summer when you were younger. you only met him a few times throughout the years, as he often arrived back the same week you were due to leave your grandpa to go back to your parents, but one feature stuck in your mind always. his dimples. you thought you recognized namjoon’s polite smile and piecing it together with his name seemed to be the key.

“i’m pretty sure you’re mayor kim’s kid. i’m bad with faces, but you’re joonie, aren’t you?” the confidence in your voice was fuelled by the fact that no one really left amber valley. it was the kind of place where families would raise their children with the kids they grew up with themselves.

namjoon seemed to still be calculating your appearance in his head when you heard the faint noise of galloping once again. the two of you looked over to see another person on a horse who was looking around the field, likely looking for namjoon. the man in question brought his hand to his mouth and released a whistle similar to yours - though, you did gloat silently because yours was, in fact, louder.

still, it was enough to get the person’s attention and they finally made eye contact with the two of you. they began approaching and you could make out that it was a man’s figure. still, even with how small of a town amber valley was, you were surprised to see who it was.

“jungkook!”

“namjoon, i just spent fucking 15 minutes looking for you - “

you tried to keep your expression neutral when you saw that it was actually jungkook on the horse. he wore an all-black outfit of cargo pants and a wife beater tank that exposed his tattooed arms. it made it hard to keep your expression the same.

“oh, hey. did you come to collect something from your grandpa’s property?” jungkook suddenly ignored his previous frustration at namjoon, cleared his throat and dropped his voice by an octave, in addition to cutting his voice’s volume by a cool half. he swiftly hopped off his horse, too cleanly to be casual.

namjoon’s confusion only doubled, darting eyes between the two of you. “sorry, have you guys met?” he didn’t miss the way that jungkook straightened his shoulders without even trying to be subtle.

you missed it, though, having cut away your stare to double check if your phone managed to get any signal. none. sighing, you shook your head at jungkook, as he began explaining to namjoon.

“ - we called her bunny. remember bunny?” he nudged towards you.

namjoon looked back at you again and concern formed. “you’re the granddaughter. oh, you were at the funeral - i’m sorry about your loss. your grandpa was such a great person.”

you put on the same tight smile every time someone mentioned him. the worst of the grief came back on some days, but you learned how to manage it day by day as time went on. jungkook watched you do so and cleared his throat.

“the old bus stop is the worst,” he interrupted, gesturing towards the tiny sign that indicated that it was in service. “people get lost all the time when they arrive. well, we don’t really have a lot of people visiting by bus - “

you couldn’t help but cut in. “i’m not visiting.”

the two men gave you and your single chanel duffel bag a blank stare and wondered if the idea was so hard to believe. it was for your parents, who both thought you caught them on some sort of prank show when you told them about grandpa’s envelope. you were wearing platform mary janes and a leather skirt in the dead of the june sun, so maybe they had a reason to be confused.

there was a moment of silence, so you decided to speak again. “yeah, i’m not visiting. um, i’ve decided to take over my grandfather’s farm. i’m moving to amber valley permanently.”

#jungkook au #jungkook fanfic #jungkook scenarios #jungkook x reader #jungkook imagines #bts fanfic #kpop fanfic #bts imagines #jungkook x you #bts scenarios #jungkook series #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #bts series #jungkook reaction #*** / the farmhouse.

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xxoxobree · 9 months

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Morales Fam Road Trip HC’s.

Ft. Jeff, Rio , The Twins, And You 🥰

You guys are driving to Florida To Visit Rio’s Parents. Orlando Specifically.

You weren’t supposed to come but the twins begged you and their parents until they heard yes.

It was so last minute too, they asked you two days before the trip.

It was Really Miles’ idea that you came, he hates to be separated from you.

Milo (because you guys like that name 😭 it’s so basic) too hates to be separated from you but he’s Capital P fr so he couldn’t let you know that.

Rio said you guys weren’t going to any theme parks but the ticket prices are reasonable so they bought them to surprise you.

You are forced in the middle seat to keep the peace between the twins. 😂

It works for the first 2 hours of the trip.

Big Daddy Jeff 😍

He’s Driving ofc

Goes 10 under the speed limit.

Calls out every traffic violation he sees.

Had a lot of coffee so he’s a bit jittery and is talking a lot.

Holds Rio’s hand🥰

Does the dad hand thing when he hears snacks being opened.

Shakes it and throws it in his mouth 🤣

He was that nigga back in the day, yk what I mean ? 😏 so the playlist is good but clean versions only 🤣

Does the dad “Hey.” When y’all are misbehaving in the back.

We’ll get there when we get there , when asked how much longer.

Needs to stop to pee every hour 🤣

Mama Rio.

Had to pray for her sanity before she entered the car.

Takes pictures of everyone and everything the whole car ride.

Loves the cows , makes everyone look at the cows and horses.

“Oh my god Jeff, stop.” Whenever he calls out a road violation.

Ask if you guys are excited every time you stop.

Turns around with the mom face when you guys aren’t listening. Fussed at you guys in Spanish.

Y’all are listening to Selena.

Plays some of her childhood music and talks about memories in Puerto Rico.

Plantain chips and water. And don’t ask her for none. 🤣 She gives Milo some cause that’s her baby Miles is salty , but she shares with him too.

Miles

Is sooo excited you said yes, has a whole itinerary for you guys, that he FaceTimed you about the night before.

Sits to the left behind Jeff

Sketches Things he sees, on the way , redesigns street signs. Sketches a picture of you and his brother.

Shows you the sketches to get your approval.

Only one who listens to Jeff’s fun facts

“That looks like you” when he sees something ugly. He did it to Jeff and had the whole car cracking up

Begs to go to universal studios because he wants to take a picture with Megatron. Lowkey a minions fan too.

Shares his blanket with you.

Leans on your shoulder and falls asleep.

Makes you watch cartoons with him. You love it.

He and Jeff eats everyone snacks. Doesn’t want to share his tho.

Share with you ofc.

Tells you stories of his grandparents.

Takes pictures of him you and Milo.

Throws his legs across you and Milo.

Milo

Is excited you came too but he’s Capital P so he just hugs you.

Is the reason you’re in the middle. “I’m not sitting next to him ma.”

He leans on your shoulder too , they’re clingy boys.

Talks to Rio in Spanish the whole ride.

Shares his AirPods with you. His playlist is fyeeee🔥🔥🔥 puts you onto new artists and songs.

Plays IMessage games with you. He wins every time.

Texts you talking shit about Miles 🤣 you tell him to be nice.

Shares his candy with you and Miles

Him and Miles go back and forth about Miles eating his snacks.

Pushes Miles’ legs off of him every time and give him a death glare.

“We close Ma?” Rolls his eyes every time he hears no.

Watches Tik toks with you

#morales twins #neteyamsmunch #miles morales x reader #earth 42 miles x reader #e42 miles x reader #earth 42 miles morales x reader #prowler miles #miles morales fic #neteyamsmunch fics #miles morales x you #miles g morales #breeandhermunchesfics #breeandhermunches #miles g morales fic #miles g morales x reader #prowler miles fanfic #earth 1610 miles morales #morales twins au #morales twins head cannons

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reasonsforhope · 3 months

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Paywall-free version

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, what began as a fringe experiment has quickly become central to the city’s efforts to reduce homelessness. To Justin Tyler Jr., it is home.

Mr. Tyler, 41, lives in Community First! Village, which aims to be a model of permanent affordable housing for people who are chronically homeless. In the fall of 2022, he joined nearly 400 residents of the village, moving into one of its typical digs: a 200-square-foot, one-room tiny house furnished with a kitchenette, a bed and a recliner.

The village is a self-contained, 51-acre community in a sparsely populated area just outside Austin. Stepping onto its grounds feels like entering another realm.

Eclectic tiny homes are clustered around shared outdoor kitchens, and neat rows of recreational vehicles and manufactured homes line looping cul-de-sacs.

There are chicken coops, two vegetable gardens, a convenience store, art and jewelry studios, a medical clinic and a chapel.

Roads run throughout, but residents mainly get around on foot or on an eight-passenger golf cart that makes regular stops around the property.

Mr. Tyler chose a home with a cobalt-blue door and a small patio in the oldest part of the village, where residents’ cactus and rock gardens created a “funky, hippie vibe” that appealed to him. He arrived in rough shape, struggling with alcoholism, his feet inflamed by gout, with severe back pain from nearly 10 years of sleeping in public parks, in vehicles and on street benches.

At first, he kept to himself. He locked his door and slept. He visited the clinic and started taking medication. After a month or so, he ventured out to meet his neighbors.

“For a while there, I just didn’t want to be seen and known,” he said. “Now I prefer it.”

Between communal meals and movie screenings, Mr. Tyler also works at the village, preparing homes for the dozen or more people who move there each month.

In the next few years, Community First is poised to grow to nearly 2,000 homes across three locations, which would make it by far the nation’s largest project of this kind, big enough to permanently house about half of Austin’s chronically homeless population.

Tiny-home villages for people who have been homeless have existed on a small scale for several decades, but have recently become a popular approach to addressing surging homelessness. Since 2019, the number of these villages across the country has nearly quadrupled, to 124 from 34, with dozens more coming, according to a census by Yetimoni Kpeebi, a researcher at Missouri State University.

Mandy Chapman Semple, a consultant who has helped cities like Houston transform their homelessness systems, said the growth of these villages reflects a need to replace inexpensive housing that was once widely available in the form of mobile home parks and single room occupancy units, and is rapidly being lost. But she said they are a highly imperfect solution.

“I think where we’re challenged is that ‘tiny home’ has taken on a spectrum of definitions,” said Chapman Semple. Many of those definitions fall short of housing standards, often lacking basic amenities like heat and indoor plumbing, which she said limits their ability to meet the needs of the population they intend to serve.

But Community First is pushing the tiny home model to a much larger scale. While most of its homes lack bathrooms and kitchens, its leaders see that as a necessary trade-off to be able to creatively and affordably house the growing number of people living on Austin’s streets. And unlike most other villages, many of which provide temporary emergency shelter in structures that can resemble tool sheds, Community First has been thoughtfully designed with homey spaces where people with some of the highest needs can stay for good. No other tiny home village has attempted to permanently house as many people.

Austin’s homelessness rate has been rapidly worsening, and the city’s response has whipped back and forth... In October [2023], the official estimate put the number of people living without shelter at 5,530, a 125 percent increase from two years earlier. Some of that rise is the result of better outreach, but officials acknowledged that more people have become homeless. City leaders vowed to build more housing, but that effort has been slowed by construction delays and resistance from residents.

Meanwhile, outside the city limits, Community First has been building fast. [Note from below the read more: It's outside city limits because the lack of zoning laws keeps more well-off Austin residents from blocking the project, as they did earlier attempts to build inside the city.] In a mere eight years, this once-modest project has grown into a sprawling community that the city is turning to as a desperately needed source of affordable housing. The village has now drawn hundreds of millions of dollars from public and private sources and given rise to similar initiatives across the country.

This rapid growth has come despite significant challenges. And some question whether a community on the outskirts of town with relaxed housing standards is a suitable way to meet the needs of people coming out of chronic homelessness. The next few years will be a test of whether these issues will be addressed or amplified as the village expands to five times its current size.

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024. Article continues below (at length!)

The community versus Community First

For Alan Graham, the expansion of Community First is just the latest stage in a long-evolving project. In the late 1990s, Mr. Graham, then a real estate developer, attended a Catholic men’s retreat that deepened his faith and inspired him to get more involved with his church. Soon after, he began delivering meals as a church volunteer to people living on Austin’s streets.

In 1998, Mr. Graham, now 67, became a founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit that has since amassed a fleet of vehicles that make daily rounds to deliver food and clothing to Austin’s homeless...

Talking to people like Mr. Johnston [a homeless Austin resident who Graham had befriended], Mr. Graham came to feel that housing alone was not enough for people who had been chronically homeless, the official term for those who have been homeless for years or repeatedly and have physical or mental disabilities, including substance-use disorders. About a third of the homeless population fits this description, and they are often estranged from family and other networks.

In 2006, Mr. Graham pitched an idea to Austin’s mayor: Create an R.V. park for people coming out of chronic homelessness. It would have about 150 homes, supportive services and easy access to public transportation. Most importantly, it would help to replace the “profound, catastrophic loss of family” he believed was at the root of the problem with a close-knit and supportive community.

The City Council voted unanimously in 2008 to lease Mr. Graham a 17-acre plot of city-owned land to make his vision a reality. Getting the council members on board, he said, turned out to be the easy part.

When residents near the intended site learned of the plan, they were outraged. They feared the development would reduce their property values and invite crime. One meeting to discuss the plan with the neighborhood grew so heated that Mr. Graham was escorted to his car by the police. Not a single one of the 52 community members in attendance voted in favor of the project.

After plans for the city-owned lot fell apart and other proposed locations faced similar resistance, Mr. Graham gave up on trying to build the development within city limits.

In 2012, he instead acquired a plot of land in a part of Travis County just northeast of Austin. It was far from public transportation and other services, but it had one big advantage: The county’s lack of zoning laws limited the power of neighbors to stop it.

Mr. Graham raised $20 million and began to build. In late 2015, Mr. Johnston left the R.V. park he had been living in and became the second person to move into the new village. It grew rapidly. In just two years, Mr. Graham bought an adjacent property, nearly doubling the village’s size to 51 acres and making room for hundreds more residents.

And then in the fall of 2022, he broke ground on the largest expansion yet: Adding two more sites to the village, expanding it by 127 acres to include nearly 2,000 homes.

“No one ever really did what they first did, and no one’s ever done what they’re about to do,” said Mark Hilbelink, the director of Sunrise Navigation Center, Austin’s largest homeless-services provider. “So there’s a little bit of excitement but also probably a little bit of trepidation about, ‘How do we do this right?’”

What it takes to make a village

Since he moved into Community First eight years ago, Mr. Johnston has found the stability that eluded him for so long. Most mornings, he wakes up early in his R.V., feeds his scruffy adopted terrier, Amos, and walks a few minutes down a quiet road to the village garden, where neat rows of carrots, leeks, beets and arugula await his attention.

Mr. Johnston worked in fast-food restaurants for most of his life, but he learned how to garden at the village. He now works full time cultivating produce for a weekly market that is free to residents.

“Once I got here, I said, This is where I’m going to spend pretty much my entire life now,” Mr. Johnston said.

Everyone at the village pays rent, which averages about $385 a month. The tiny homes that make up two-thirds of the dwellings go for slightly lower, but have no indoor plumbing; their residents use communal bathhouses and kitchens. The rest of the units are R.V.s and manufactured homes with their own bathrooms and kitchens.

Like Mr. Johnston, many residents have jobs in the village, created to offer residents flexible opportunities to earn some income. Last year, they earned a combined $1.5 million working as gardeners, landscapers, custodians, artists, jewelry makers and more, paid out by Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

Ute Dittemer, 66, faced a daily struggle for survival during a decade on the streets before moving into Community First five years ago with her husband. Now she supports herself by painting and molding figures out of clay at the village art house, augmented by her husband’s $800 monthly retirement income. A few years ago, a clay chess set she made sold for $10,000 at an auction. She used the money to buy her first car.

“I’m glad that we are not in a low-income-housing apartment complex,” she said. “We’ve got all this green out here, air to breathe.”

A small number of residents have jobs off-site, and a city bus makes hourly stops at the village 13 times a day to help people commute into town.

But about four out of five residents live on government benefits like disability or Social Security. Their incomes average $900 a month, making even tiny homes impossible to afford without help, Mr. Graham said.

“Essentially 100 percent of the people that move into this village will have to be subsidized for the rest of their lives,” he said.

For about $25,000 a year, Mr. Graham’s organization subsidizes one person’s housing at the village. (Services like primary health care and addiction counseling are provided by other organizations.) So far, that has been paid for entirely by private donations and in small part from collecting rent.

This would not be possible, Mr. Graham said, without a highly successful fund-raising operation that taps big Austin philanthropists. To build the next two expansions, Mr. Graham set a $225 million fund-raising goal, about $150 million of which has already been obtained from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, the founder of the Patrón Spirits Company, Hill Country Bible Church and others.

Support goes beyond monetary donations. A large land grant came from the philanthropic arm of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and Alamo Drafthouse, an Austin-based cinema chain, donated an outdoor amphitheater for movie screenings. Top architectural firms competed for the chance to design energy-efficient tiny homes free of charge. And every week, hundreds of volunteers come to help with landscaping and gardening or to serve free meals.

Around 55 residents, including 15 children, live in the village as “missionals” — unpaid neighbors generally motivated by their Christian faith to be part of the community.

All missionals undergo a monthslong “discernment process” before they can move in. They pay to live in R.V.s and manufactured homes distinguished by an “M” in the front window. Their presence in the community is meant to guard against the pitfalls of concentrated poverty and trauma.

“Missionals are our guardian angels,” said Blair Racine, a 69-year-old resident with a white beard that hangs to his chest. “They’re people we can always call. They’re always there for us.”

After moving into the village in 2018, Mr. Racine spent two years isolated in his R.V. because of a painful eye condition. But after an effective treatment, he became so social that he was nicknamed the Mayor. Missional residents drive him to get his medication once a week, he said. To their children he is Uncle Blair.

Though the village is open to people of any religious background, it is run by Christians, and public spaces are adorned with paintings of Jesus on the cross and other biblical scenes. The application to live in the community outlines a set of “core values” that refer to God and the Bible. But Mr. Graham said there is no proselytizing and people do not have to be sober or seek treatment to live there.

Mr. Graham lives in a 399-square-foot manufactured home in the middle of the village with his wife, Tricia Graham, who works as the community’s “head of neighbor care.” He said they do not have any illusions about solving the underlying mental-health and substance-use problems many residents live with, and that is not their goal.

“This is absolutely not nirvana,” Mr. Graham said. “And we want people to understand the beauty and the complexity of what we do. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the face of the planet than right here in the middle of this, but you’re not fixing these things.” ...

From an experiment to a model

Community First has already inspired spinoffs, with some tweaks. In 2018, Nate Schlueter, who previously worked with the village’s jobs program, opened Eden Village in his hometown, Springfield, Mo. Unlike in Community First, every home in Eden Village is identical and has its own bathroom and kitchen. Mr. Schlueter’s model has spread to 12 different cities with every village limited to 50 homes or fewer.

“Not every city is Austin, Texas,” Mr. Schlueter said. “We don’t want to build a large-scale village. And if the root cause of homelessness is a loss of family, and community is something that can duplicate that safety net to some extent, to have smaller villages to me seemed like a stronger community safety net. Everybody would know each other.”

The rapid growth of Community First has challenged that ideal. In recent years, some of the original missional residents and staff members have left, finding it harder to support the number of people moving into the village. Steven Hebbard, who lived and worked at the village since its inception, left in 2019 when he said it shifted from a “tiny-town dynamic” where he knew everyone’s name to something that felt more like a city, straining the supportive culture that helped people succeed.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes said more staff members had recently been hired to help new residents adjust, but Mr. Graham noted that there was a limit to what any housing provider could do without violating people’s privacy and autonomy.

Despite these concerns, the organization, which had been run entirely on private money, has recently drawn public support. In January 2023, Travis County gave Mobile Loaves and Fishes $35 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to build 640 units as part of its expansion.

Then four months later came a significant surprise: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the use of federal housing vouchers, which subsidize part or all of a low-income resident’s rent, for the village’s tiny homes. This will make running the village much more financially sustainable, Mr. Graham said, and may make it a more replicable blueprint for other places.

“That’s a big deal for us, and it’s a big deal on a national basis,” Mr. Graham said. “It’s a recognition that this model, managed the way that this model is, has a role in the system.”

Usually, the government considers homes without indoor plumbing to be substandard, but, in this case, it made an exception by applying the housing standards it uses for single-room-occupancy units. The village still did not meet the required ratio of bathrooms per person, but at the request of Travis County and the City of Austin’s housing officials, who cited Austin’s “severe lack of affordable housing” that made it impossible for some homeless people with vouchers to find anywhere else to live, HUD waived its usual requirements.

In the waiver, a HUD staffer wrote that Mr. Graham told HUD officials over the phone that the proportion of in-unit bathrooms “has not been an issue.” But in conversations with The Times, other homeless-service providers in Austin and some village residents said the lack of in-unit bathrooms is one of the biggest problems people have with living there. It also makes the villages less accessible to people with certain disabilities and health issues that are relatively common among the chronically homeless....

Mr. Graham said that with a doctor’s note, people could secure an R.V. or manufactured home at the village, although those are in short supply and have a long waiting list. He said the village’s use of tiny homes allowed them to build at a fraction of the usual cost when few other options existed, and helps ensure residents aren’t isolated in their units, reinforcing the village’s communal ethos.

“If somebody wants to live in a tiny home they ought to have the choice,” Mr. Graham said, “and if they are poor we ought to respect their civil right to live in that place and be subsidized to live there.” But he conceded that for some people, “this might not be the model.”

“Nobody can be everything for everyone,” he said.

By the spring of 2025, Mr. Graham hopes to begin moving people into the next phase of the village, across the street from the current property. The darker visions some once predicted of an impoverished community on the outskirts of town overtaken by drugs and violence have not come to pass. Instead, the village has permanently housed hundreds of people and earned the approval and financial backing of the city, the county and the federal government. But for the model to truly meet the scale of the challenge in Austin and beyond, Chapman Semple said, the compromises that led to Community First in its current incarnation will have to be reckoned with.

“We can build smaller villages that can be fully integrated into the community, that can have access to amenities within the community that we all need to live, including jobs and groceries,” Chapman Semple said. “If it’s a wonderful model then we should be embracing and fighting for its inclusion within our community.”

-via New York Times, January 8, 2024

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kissami · 2 months

Text

UN ÁNGEL- Cloud strife Headcanons

sum. Need boyfriend headcanons for cloud? SAY LESS.

warning: modern cloud, oc cloud srry I love him soft, might be a little self insert because of the stuff I like but that’s all

femreader! with she/her pronouns

song of the day: igual que un ángel - Kali uchis

boyfriend Cloud who knows your order by heart at your guys’ favorite coffee shop and no matter how many times he does it, it never fails to make you blush and impressed.

Boyfriend Cloud who never fails to make you ticklish especially during intimate moments that you can’t help but burst out laughing.

Boyfriend Cloud who sometimes can’t handle all the attention and affection so he distances himself but can’t help but miss you even more.

Boyfriend Cloud who loves picking you up from university on his motorcycle to show off especially knowing that Reno would be there. He is still very bitter that Reno was your first kiss in fifth grade and not him because he was too busy helping collect Tifa’s shopkins from the grass at recess.

Boyfriend Cloud who loves going to Aerith’s flower shop because he helps her make your bouquets extra pretty just for you. #bestfriendprivileges

boyfriend Cloud who has recurring nightmares of losing you to Sepiroth. No not the “I’ll steal your girl,” kind of way. More like he murders you and Aerith at the same time. Perhaps something from a past life?

Boyfriend Cloud who loves watching studio ghibli movies with you especially ponyo and spirited away. Let’s not get started on his love for Princess Mononoke.

Boyfriend Cloud who goes with you at the bookstore for now on to carry your books because he found out that a guy put his number inside of a book after catching it for you when you accidentally dropped it from your stack pile.

Boyfriend Cloud who’s COMPLETELY and UTTERLY obsessed with you. Not the annoying obsession, but the obsession that makes your tummy in knots and the cute things he loves to do for you. Whether it’s making you lunch for school/ work, leaving cute notes on your door handles, or literally dropping everything instantly for you when you call.

Boyfriend Cloud who hid in the bathroom after you guys had…yk…and too embarrassed to come out. If only he knew you were on the bed breathless and wanting more.

Boyfriend Cloud who baby trapped you. With a cat. Her names Honey and every time there’s an argument he uses her as an excuse to visit you. “We can’t let our cat have separated household problems,she needs both of her parents so please answer the door.”

Boyfriend Cloud who had no idea him getting a lip piercing would be in the way of kissing you for it to heal correctly. He ran out of the piercing shop and only agreed to come back to get a matching eyebrow piercing with you instead.

Boyfriend Cloud who not only made you a playlist, but this mf burned a cd for you, made tifa draw a one in a million piece of art for you for the cover, has a sticker of it on his car, and even bought a necklace that had the Spotify playlist code. So whenever a person flirts with him, he’ll hold it up and say, “scan this and read the description. That’ll be my answer for you.”

Boyfriend Cloud who didn’t understand why you were so obsessed with kpop, especially BTS. Him and jungkook have beef apparently. He also buys you albums all the time and even sacrifices himself to let you use his phone to make sure you guys get tickets to concerts.

Boyfriend Cloud who WILL call your work to call off. He doesn’t care, cuddles are more important.

Boyfriend Cloud who forces you to drink water whenever you hang. You always complain about headaches and he makes sure when you’re with him you’re hydrated.

Boyfriend Cloud who is addicted to Dr.Pepper. You gave him some when you two went to watch Barbie in the summer and it’s his holy grail. “We need to head to Costco, I ran out of my pepper.”

#kissami #x reader #final fantasy 7 #cloud strife x reader #cloud strife #cloudstrife #cloud strife x you #cloud x reader #ff7 cloud #final fantasy cloud #headcanon #bf headcanons #ff7 fanfic #ff7 fic #ff7 #final fantasy 7 remake #final fantasy vii #final fantasy x reader

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dre6ming · 18 days

Text

On set of Dune II

This part of “The delicate beginning rush” universe- whole series HERE

If you want to be tagged

Masterlist

Pairing: Austin Butler x fem reader

Warning: smut 18+, blow job, cursing, MINORS PLEASE BE AWARE

Word count: 2k

Plot: you want to surprise Austin on the set of dune 2 and he gets shy about his fight scenes, but that is all forgotten when you work your magic on him.

A/n: this was a request by someone and it was so exciting to write, if you have more, send them to me and I’ll get to them as soon as I can.

With my busy schedule I barely got my assistant to fit this surprise flight to Budapest, so I could visit Austin on set of Dune 2. We haven't seen each other in person in 5 weeks, filming taking all of our time, on opposite sides of the world. It's not easy and it definitely is not pleasant, but we aren't the first nor the last to go through long distance. I have a few days off, time which I should have spend in the studio with Taylor, who's working on her new album, but I could not stay any longer without seeing Aus.

"Y/n so nice to meet you in person, I'm Denis. I have to say, I look forward to some day working with you, you're amazing!" The director says, putting his hand forward for me to shake. I smile kindly at him and take his hand. "Oh that's so beautiful of you to say, I look forward to that day as well, your work is so detailed and ambitious." I giggle, blushing a bit at his compliments. "Now I know this is a surprise for Austin, I did not say anything" he zips his lips closed chuckling "but you do have to sign some papers, just formalities you know." I nod and sign away, promising not to tell anything that I see today to anyone. "He's working, full make up, so brace yourself, it's really, it's a bit scary, come on."

Denis puts his hand on my shoulder and leads the way, as we walk I can start hearing grunting and thudding and all sorts of scenes. I am a bit worried about seeing Austin in full make up and acting like this psychotic character, considering that after the first time seeing him over video in full makeup I had a horrible nightmare. Granted he did call me at 3 am in the morning and I did answer kinda unconsciously, but still. There's big lights centered on two figures in the middle of a blue room, the rest is pretty dimly lit, so my eyes take a moment to adjust. I could recognize Austin's grunts anywhere, having had them in my ear for so long, so my knees feel a bit weak, my skin already hungry to feel him.

As I get used to the light, I see Austin move so athletically, jumping back avoiding hits, then throwing some good punches himself. He's been working very hard in the gym gaining a few pounds of muscle, looking toned like never before. God he looks so weird with this make up, I miss his blonde curly hair, thank god for the other movie he's filming, and this is all a fake bald cap. The other guy he's fighting with, uses a small knife, which I'm pretty sure it's fake but still scary. He swings it, in front of Austin's face and next thing I know he falls to the ground, catching himself mid fall, turning his head to the camera, showing his face full of blood. I stifle a scream, covering my mouth, feeling my heart pounding in my chest, I look at everyone, no one seems to notice. Austin flashes a smile, black teeth showing, with trembling hands I push my hair behind my ears and try and act as if I had known this was all an act.

"Cut! Austin man, amazing! Let's get makeup in here and clean it up, I want to shoot it one more time. Let's take five!" Denis says, and suddenly Austin's whole demeanor changes, it's so strange, he looks so scary, but his stance is so Austin. I clear my voice and wipe my sweaty palms on my pants, walking forward. Austin, being the sweet guy he is, is shaking hands with his partner. "Hi there stranger, need a tissue? I think you got a bloody nose." As soon as he hears my voice, he turns around, scooping my up in a tight hug, getting fake blood all over me. "Y/n!" Austin says, holding me tight to his chest, his lips kissing my neck, leaving wet splashes of fake blood. "Did you miss me baby?" I ask, patting his back, as my feet touch the ground. He doesn't answer, instead, his hands hold my face and he pulls me in for a kiss. It wet and bitter, even a bit sticky, but it tastes like him still. Austin breathes into the kiss, his tongue, entering my mouth exploring. I lace my hands around his neck and moan into him, forgetting for a minute where we are.

Austin pulls back resting his forehead on mine, breathing softly. "What are you doing here?" He asks a smile evident in his tone. I giggle when he rubs his nose against mine, pulling back to look at me. "Oh fuck, I got fake blood all over you, honey I'm so sorry!" He tries to wipe it with the back of his hand, but I take it away, holding his hand in mine. "It's fine, I'm just glad it's fake, I thought it was real." Austin can see that I'm as honest as they come and his eyes look sympathetic "I'm so sorry darling, I didn't mean to worry you!" He says, kissing my forehead head, then grunting annoyed. "I really should stop kissing you now." He says, rubbing his thumb over my forehead, on what I'm assuming is another fake blood stain. "You look so buff and scary, so so hot!" I say biting my lip.

"Really?" Even though all this white makeup I can see the slight blush he has on, turning all shy and avoiding eye contact. "So so hot!" I stand on my tiptoes and whisper in his ear, feeling him shiver as my breath fans over his skin. "I can't wait for you to make those pretty noises for me!" I laugh, but my breath gets stuck in my throat as his arms circle around me and he pulls me in, flush to his front. "Baby these leather pants are very very tight and leave no room." He says rubbing his pelvis in mine so I can feel his hard on. My blood starts boiling and I can almost see myself with him on top of me.

"Ask for ten minutes, bathroom break or something." I plead under my breath. Austin looks hesitant, but he still does it anyway. Denis gives his ok and we bolt to his trailer, knowing we don't have much time. I laugh all the way there and he tries to make small talk, telling me all about how filming as been going so far, event this he's already told all this stuff. I listen, but in the back of my head I'm far gone.

We close the door to his trailer and his lips are on mine instantly. His hands hold mine down, so that I won't be able to try and thread my fingers through his nonexistent hair. "Get on the bed!" I say breathless and step back, letting him move past me and onto the bed. "Y/n, my darling, I've missed you so so much." Austin says, sitting on his bed, leaning back a bit, legs spread wide, sporting a noticeable bulge. "I've missed you too." I admit and move in front of him, placing my hand in his hard on, squeezing him through his pants. "Fuck!" He says, throwing his head back. I work his pants open and slide them down enough to free his hard dick, looking red and needy. I lick my lips and get down on my knees. This would be my first time ever doing anything like this, but I've been thinking about it a lot and I've been wanting to try.

"Y/n y/n, no no baby you don't have to, honey come on!" Austin tries to lift me off the ground but I keep my position. "I want to, but I've never done it before, so if I do something wrong, just tell me. Please!" I bat my lashes at him and his hips thrust in the air. "Just, ok, but take it easy ok?" I nod and hold him in my hand. I spit on him and move my hand up and down, using my thumb to touch his head gathering more sleek from there. I can already feel my panties getting wet, so I squeeze my thighs together. I lean forward and take him in my mouth. So far he's been quiet, but now that my warm mouth is on him, he lets out a long breathy moan, fisting the sheets beside him. "Fuck, you are an angel! I love you so much!" He tastes salty, but good in a way. I swirl my tongue around and suck, bopping my head up and down. One of his big hands leaves the sheets and finds purchase in my hair. I moan around him and feel him shiver as a few more cures slip past his lips.

God I've missed him. "Fuck baby, you look so beautiful with your mouth around my cock, do you like it? Like how I fit in your mouth?" I love when Austin talks dirty to me, so I moan, picking up the pace, causing him to fall back on the bed, crying out In pleasure. I finally understand why he loves to do this for me, I think I could watch him like this for ages and not get bored. I feel him twitch in my mouth, so I move my free hand from his thigh, to his balls, squeezing softly. "Shit, fucking hell!" He grunts, pushing his hips a bit in my mouth. "Y/n, baby, I'm not going to last long, if you don't want it in your mouth, I'll tell you when ok?" I nod, but I know want it in my mouth, I've tasted him before, after giving him hand jobs, so now I'm more than eager to get a taste of him.

I sneak my hand under his balls and push slightly on the spot there, which causes Austin to jump off the bed a bit, pushing himself further down my throat making me gag, tears prickle my eyes. I breathe through my nose and relax for him, working on him, pushing on that secret spot. "Fuck, Y/n, baby that feels so good, ahh I'm cu-" he doesn't get to finish what he has to say, as his body goes rigid and he spills himself into my mouth. I stay calm and swallow him whole, enjoying they way it feels. When he's done, I let him out of my mouth, give him a few more strokes, ending with a kiss to his head, smiling at the way he curses.

He lifts me up into his arms and I lay my head in his chest. "Wow, are you sure you've never done this before? Because this must have been the best I've ever had!" Austin says out of breath. I giggle and kiss under his chin. "I like to read, I learn what I read." I explain, sighing when he moves his head to kiss my lips. His hand travels down my body and gives my ass a good squeeze, making me yelp, so he can sneak his tongue into my mouth.

A knock on the door as us parting, him quickly putting his pants on and me, wiping my face with a tissue. "Back on set!" A voice shouts from the other side of the door. "In a minute!" Austin screams back, trying to make himself as presentable as possible. "Can I come watch you some more?" I ask, turning the water on to was the dried fake blood from my face. I look back at Austin and he looks so timid now, scratching the back of his head. "I mean of course baby..."

"Aus..? What's up?" I ask using a towel to dry my face, while I look at him, his eyes wondering the room, avoiding mine. "Well I guess I'm just a tad shy, you know, I have to act pretty barbaric out there and I feel so silly, I'm just I don't know.." he says dropping his head. I get close to him and take his hands in mine, rubbing slow circles on his knuckles. "You don't look silly, you look fierce, and bold and scary, you have nothing to be shy about." I say kissing the tip of his nose. "Now come on big boy, you've got work to do, and the faster you finish here, the sooner you get to make love to me!" I wink at him and he chockes on his laughter, blushing a deep red.

Tags: @galaxygirl453

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rboooks · 10 months

Note

Can you write a dead on main? Something with a bookstore au please!

Now that I know the ship names, you bet I can! I'll try my best to get through the ones I got requested in the past few days.

Jason liked bookstores.

They were a safe haven for him as a child, even when the fancier ones chased him off when he became a street kid. He adores the various series, the smell of books, and the quiet of stores. Often he thought that they were a small pocket to escape reality.

He had always known he could escape between the pages when everything had been terrible.

Maybe that's what lead him to this store even if it was a bit odd.

It was out of the way by the old docks that Joker used to run, thus making it condemned to the rest of the populace.

An old warehouse turned into a three-story bookstore. The entire first floor was aisles placed in side-way lines with the main counter as its center. The second floor had cozy reading nocks, plush futon couches, pillows, and blankets, complete with a small cafe. The rule was that anyone could take a book off the second-floor walls to read for free.

Employees asked to be informed if any food or damage was done to the second floor since the second book only had one copy of each. The owner would pull one off the bottom floor shelves to replace it.

The final floor had various reading rooms, but Jason loved that each room was based on a book. The room was professionally decorated to the point it left visitors feeling like they actually stepped into the world of the book.

Sculptures, playable settings, phenomenal little details the hard die fans could spot, and even sound systems playing sounds that sounded like the world. Jason could only compare it to Disney World or universal studios. The fact that people could rent the rooms for an hour for only fifteen dollars made them much more popular.

The third-floor rooms- ten in total- would rotate between series after a few months. Hence, the rooms were always different, but inside them were recommended books with the same kind of theme that was always the perfect recommendation, or maybe people just wanted to explore a room of their favorites.

Jason had visited the strange little bookstore with Tim after his brother had gone on a date with Bernard there.

Tim and Barnard had rented the "Hogwarts common rooms" room for three hours. Jason had been amazed by how real the four standard rooms looked, how there were even dragons spitting fire in one corner, moving portraits, a sorting hat ceremony, a small teddy bear decorating corner, and even a wand building second. All for only fifteen dollars. Tim had practically been glowing when he came home with his Ravenclaw bear and his own wand.

And maybe Jason is a huge Harry Potter fan; perhaps it was one of the first things he boned with Tim over, so maybe his brother had taken him to have an experience that he compared to the first time Bruce took him to Universal Studios.

Then he ran into the owner while one of the employees had been helping him pick runes to have burned into his wand.

Jason started to come back for an entirely different reason.

"Hi, Jason!" Elle says when she sees him climbing the stairs toward the third floor. She's the store's co-owner and has gotten to know him on a first-name basis due to how often Jason has visited the store in the past year. If they made a reward points system, Jason knows he be the highest one on the chart.

She's sitting at a table that is decorated like a galaxy. The books for these quarters' room themes are on the table's surface, all with a door key under them and a clipboard for the various hours.

Jason's eyes land on Pride and Prejudice, and his heart leaps.

"Hi, Elle. What's the wait time for door seven?"

She smiles, flipping the clipboard to the time slots. "The Ball at Netherfield Park has a lot of openings today. I got a three, four, six, or seven. When shall I fit thee dance card in milord?"

Jason laughs and checks his phone, ensuring he doesn't need to do anything for a while before saying. "Three will be fine. It's only thirty minutes. I'll go get a coffee while I wait."

She nods, writing his name down for three. She then passes him some disclosure forms he has to sign, forgoes the long-winded explanation of the rules, and sends him on his way, promising to send him a reminder text.

"Just so you know, Ball at Netherfield Park comes with a unique costume option. Five extra dollars to go through our costume section, and you can dress up like Mr. Darcy for a full hour."

Jason shakes his head though it's a very tempting offer. "Thanks, Elle but I'm okay with my street clothes today."

The other shrugs and checks her nails- their asexual theme today, he notes- before nonchalantly commenting. "Too bad. Danny really wanted someone to cosplay with him. Jane Austin's books are less prevalent in Gotham than we thought, and he's been dying to wear his Mr. Bingley outfit. I thought you like to, so I told him to come over when you arrive, but I can text him to cancel-"

"Five dollars, you said? For the full outfit or just like a coat?" Jason ignores her smug expression and quickly places a twenty on the table.

"Full outfit. What do you take us for?"

He glares at her just as the man of the hour himself runs up the stairs. Danny Fenton, founder, and co-owner of Ghost Zone Reads. He's in a light blue Regency period man coat that makes his eyes pop. A pair of white pants that hug his hips and thighs in all the right places, black knee boots, and a black gentle top hat.

Jason's knees go weak at the sight of him.

Danny's face is flush from the run, but his whole face lights up when he sees his sister and her guest. "Jason! I'm so glad you choose the Ball at Netherfield Park experience. I can't wait for our dance."

"Dance?" Jason chocks. Elle chuckles.

"You can't experience a Ball at Netherfield without the ball part dingus." She waves a hand at her brother. "Told him Dick canceled on you, so he offered to step in."

Jason never even mentions Dick to her but he's not about to call her out on her lie. She's doing him such a big favor.

"I always wanted to go to a Jane Austin ball!" He says instead, mentally wincing at how lame he sounds. Thankfully Danny's eyes only light up even more as the other man starts explaining the instructional videos installed in the ballroom mirrors so they can learn the real moves of Contra Dancing.

Jason falls just a tad bit more.

(Elle watches with a fond smile as Jason and Danny get lost in Austin's most significant works. She quickly texts her allies in Wayne Manor under the table. This is a big step in the "Make us in-laws" operation; the Fenton and Wayne children started a few months back. They were all tired of watching Danny and Jason dance around each other. Damian's idea to use Jason's favorite author was working fabulously.)

#dc x dp crossover #Ghost Zone Reads #Dead on main #request #jane austin the way to Jason's heart #Danny and Dani run a bookstore based off the idea of Ghost Zone's magic doors #It's a huge success #(Yes Danny kills the joker off screen when the man tries to take his store)

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odxrilove · 3 months

Text

☆ TXT AND THINGS THEY DO WHEN THEIR PARTNER IS A FIRST GRADE TEACHER

pairing: txt x f!reader

genre: hcs/scenarios, fluff, established relationship

a/n: requested by anon! song rec - fairy by dvwm.. thank u coco @enluv for helping me out and being my partner in crime ily ^^

back to masterlist!

☆ YEONJUN

gives you stickers he gets as freebies in his packages. Yeonjun is a sucker for a good pair of jeans, a heavy leather jacket and some silver accessories to top it off. The thing is, being fresh out of university and moving out of the dorms into a small studio is quite a problem when you’re a clothes fanatic such as yeonjun. So, to earn some money beside his job and keep his closet in order, he opens an account on some popular secondhand online shops. Yeonjun likes showing off his new finds to you, excitedly telling you about the deal he managed to get, how happy he is to finally get his hands on said item and upon seeing your soft smile, kissing you on the temple and whispering how he’ll make sure you two match. Sometimes, the package includes freebies, mainly stickers, which he immediately sets aside for you– you and your students would love this, he thinks. Yeonjun sells clothes too though, and you find it particularly endearing how he refuses to reuse any of the stickers as freebies, because they are yours, like he always claims.

☆ SOOBIN

buys the food for the classroom's pet. Soobin used to work at a pet store in his first year of university to be able to afford his own car. The pet store was also the place where you both bumped into each other for the first time, and where you ended up sharing your first kiss after you decided to swing by to check in on him. So in short, the pet store in between the old dinner and newly-renovated 7-11 meant a lot to the both of you. Years had passed and now you both only stepped foot in the store a few times a year, just enough to not forget the workers’ faces and see the new animals come in. The next time your boyfriend visited the pet store was exactly a few days after your principal allowed your class to get a classroom pet– a cute hamster whose name was Snickers, voted by your students. The owner of the store welcomed Soobin with a wide grin and a pat on the back, even offering him a discount on the hamster food you had begged him to get since you’d forget (he acted like you owed him but in reality, it was on his way to work and he could never resist your pretty pout). It would become part of your routine, your boyfriend buying Snickers’ food when needed and you accompanying him on the weekends, staring at the cute animals with joy while the store owner and his old boss teased him about the heart eyes he’d send you. Ah, young love, he’d say, laugh resonating through the store.

☆ BEOMGYU

sharpens the classroom's pencils for you every friday. Beomgyu’s week is usually always booked– when he isn’t studying or working, he’s playing the guitar and meeting up with friends and family. That doesn’t mean though that you aren’t spending any time together, but more often than not your dates or “quality time” moments are are the end of the week (he once claimed he likes it because he enjoys ending his week on a good note– tsk, what a romantic). He hasn’t outright told you that he likes the comforting silence when you’re both sitting in the living room, cozying up together and doing your own things, but the way he shyly nods when you pat the space next to you on the couch every time is proof. Sometimes Beomgyu just needs life to be a bit more peaceful, and sharpening all your classroom’s pencils while you grade your students’ papers next to him is exactly fulfilling that need. Once in awhile too, if he’s free, he will walk into your empty classroom with a grin as you do your “typical end-of-the-day teacher things”, ready to pick up every single pencil off the floor and from under the desks, just so you don’t have to collect them and you can go home, together.

☆ TAEHYUN

helps you paint your monthly and seasonal banners for your classroom. Taehyun isn’t a very artistic person– younger, he’d more the type to clumsily spread different colors of paint over the canvas, turning the stunning colors in a brown mess– but he fails to help you out if you’re feeling even the slightest bit out of inspiration. Truly, you had been planning and working on these banners for your classroom for months and to say you were getting tired at the unaesthetically pleasing sight in front of you was an understatement. The only banner you were missing was the one for fall but every time you tried to paint out a beautiful scenery with trees and fallen leaves, the dark colors only made you want to bury yourself six feet under. Only one call of your boyfriend’s name was needed for him to come running to your rescue, taking a pause to look at your “art” before stiffing his laughter and settling next to your on the ground. It wasn’t long before Taehyun had filled the banner with mushrooms and squirrels, brushing paint on the fabric carefully. He was proud of his artwork at the end and you could only smile, thanking him with a kiss and a promise to show his work off. When the next Monday came, you couldn’t help but snap a photo at all your students admiring the new banner, scooting closer to it to take a better look and giggling at the baby squirrel.

☆ HUENING KAI

prepares you your favorite drink in colorful thermos mugs. Huening kai wakes up around the time you’re getting ready to leave for work and every time without fail, he’s drag himself out of bed and to the kitchen to make you your favorite drink. While the water boils-- you usually have coffee, sometimes hot chocolate if you’re feeling a little bit silly– your boyfriend would walk over to where standing rummaging through your bag for your daily-use lipbalm and stare. He’d look you up and down and even wink at you if you make eye contact. He would compliment your outfit (“your shoes go well with your pants, they make you look taller”, “I like how you did your hair this morning”, “your eye shadow is cute, did you use the new pallet I bought you?”, etc..) and kiss you good morning before walking off to finish his daily task at the ping of the boiler. Just before you walk out the door, a sleepy voice calls out to you and a thermos mug is soon pushed in your free hand. The mug’s color matches perfectly well with your outfit and you blush at the effort, kissing him goodbye and leaving for work, ready to brag about your favorite drink and new mug to your students– you just know they are going to be thrilled at the flower print.

taglist: @0x1lovebot @fairybinie @blaqpinksthetic @odetoyeonjun @pockyandme @soobin-chois @lolalee24 @soobisms @junityy @kaimal @laylasbunbunny @jaeyunverse @enhacolor @honglynights @starry-mins @bibinnieposts @yoonzin0 @tyunni @4xiaojun @pointlessapple @yyx2 @hykai @pearlygraysky @angelhyj @enluv

please do not copy, repost or steal any of my work. all content belongs to @odxrilove

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paegei · 4 days

Text

UNIVERSE FACTORY

pairing - idol!woozi x afab!reader

summary - you often found yourself locked up in your boyfriends studio with him, trying to make the most of his hectic schedule. sometimes however, things take a turn for the... steamier side.

a/n - another long break guys... im sorry <(＿　＿)>

NSFW CONTENT ! MDNI !

SMUT warnings under the cut !

SMUT WARNINGS: voyeurism, semi - public, degrading, use of slut, choking, sex up against a window, protective sex ( lets go ! )

UNIVERSE FACTORY - your boyfriends second ( well... maybe first ) home. you often liked to come visit him during his working hours, seeing as you have to remind him to take breaks. he made it very clear, however, that when he is in the zone, to NOT DISTURB HIM.

listen, jihoon LOVED your company alright ? loved the fact that you could simply exist in the same room as him, no words having been spoken, but you and him both know that he cannot, for the life of him, resist you.

it was like any tuesday night. you were stuck up on the leather couch in your boyfriends studio, admiring how passionate he was about his work. you usually spent your time in Universe Factory simply lounging - listening to music, ordering take out, scrolling aimlessly. today, was different. there was something in the air tonight.

you watched as jihoons arm moved while making his creations. the muscles under them seemingly glowing in the LED blue lights he had on. he had been getting so buff lately, so really, it was his fault ! you were simply appreciative of his hard work !

apparently, your staring was too loud for his liking, as without turning around he let out a gruff "stop". honestly ? pretty contradictory of him because he is WELL AWARE of what his deep voice does to you.

you tried your hardest, you really did. but it's not your fault he's so insufferably attractive ! enough was enough, and you decided to approach him. sure, he'll get mad, but all that means is an extra rough night. win-win situation in your books.

you slowly walk towards him, placing your arm atop his shoulder before brushing it further down, resting on his biceps. a shiver delved through his body, yet he still didn't turn to acknowledge you. horny beyond repair, you pushed his chair away from his desk, spun him around to face you, before plopping yourself down on his lap.

the act in itself was risky, so, without letting him so much as utter a word, you rushed forward, smashing your lips with his. a yelp left his lips, muffled due to the barrier that is your mouth on his. he hesitates, contemplating on giving you an earful for distracting him, but he cannot deny that your boldness melts his brain. so, with a heavy heart, he begins to match your vicious kisses, placing his hands on your waist and squeezing.

the kiss is hot. messy, spit sliding down your chins. he had been just as desperate as you, if not more, he simply had more control. his hands began to wander, just as your lips did the same. with his mouth free, he was able to finally speak.

"that fucking desperate huh ?" the rasp in his voice had made the effect of your panties growing wetter, so, as payback, you began to ground your hips down onto his, enjoying the feeling of his cock growing firmer with you ministrations.

his grunts followed the movements of you grinding, one escaping his lips with every stroke. he strained his neck back, allowing you more room to continue your nibbling.

"couldn't wait 5 more minutes, hmm ? my slut just can't help themselves, is that it ?" a whimper was all he got back in return.

his fingers somehow found their way inside your underwear, his fingertips brushing over your bundle of nerves. your lips detached from his heavily bruised neck to let out a wanton moan. his fingers continue their journey down.

"fuck, so wet. just from watching me work ?" his smirk is evident in his voice, and you watch as it grows when you weakly nod your head. "mm, could probably just slip right in, fucking soaked." he follows this promise as two fingers slide into your pussy.

you squirm above him, finally getting the relief you craved all night. for the second time, your lips gravitated towards each other, the kiss nothing but heavy panting a whimpers.

you feel his fingers stop for a slight moment, before he withdraws them completely. you begin to protest, your fingers gripping onto his shoulders. his gruff voice next to your ear stops you.

"up." the command sends electricity through your spine, your body obeying before your mind can even catch up. you stand on your shaky legs, looking down as he quickly follows, grabbing your wrist and walking towards the window. the one MANY carats look up to, hoping to catch a glimpse of your boyfriend.

"if you want to act like a slut" he starts, pushing your front up against the glass, slotting himself behind you. "why not let the world see it, huh ?" he moves to nip behind your ear. "safeword ?"

a moan leaves your lips, brain unable to complete a sentence.

"words or i stop". he starts to untangle himself from you, and the desperation finally allows words to form.

"r- red ! red ! please hoon don't stop !"

he wraps around you again, stopping to place a quick kiss to your forehead, mumbling a quick "good job, baby". his hands begin to rake your body, one reaching up to play with your tits, while the other runs up and down your back comfortingly.

his hands leave yours as he leans back to grab a condom from his desk drawer. while the time it took for him to slip the rubber on was closer to a minute, the horniess clouded your brain and caused the interaction to feel like hours.

finally, you feel his body return behind you, one of his hands resting on your waist while the other guides his cock towards your heat. as the tip pushes pass your walls, your forehead rests upon the glass, while he nuzzles his against your neck.

he waits a couple beats before he begins to slowly rock his hips into you. each thrust growing in strength.

"this what you fucking wanted ?" his tone is rough, angry, and makes you mewl. the clenching of your pussy causes him to let out a small whimper, completely contrasting his tough demeanor. you would use this as an opportunity to tease the man, however he predicted this, reaching his arm up to squeeze your throat. the feeling of air being restricted felt heavenly. the slight dizziness caused you to push your ass back, trying to fuck yourself on his cock.

"just had to be a slut and throw yourself at me."

there was a small lull in his dirty talk, as he leans his head back, focusing on the heat of your cunt. his neck was flexing as he bites back his moans; he doesn't want any noise besides the fucked out gasps you are making. the sight alone causes you to arch your back and smush your face further into the glass, letting a multitude of curses and jihoon's name pass your lips.

his arm that had previously been choking you, moves to sit up against the glass, helping his body completely envelope yours. his front rests against your back, one arm above your head, the other on your waist, his cock is kissing your cervix; the two of you could not get any closer.

"fucking slut, anyone could look up and see you drooling for me" his words cause you to clench around him harder. "let carats know i'm taken, yeah ?"

you peer down from the window. you can see no one is actually watching, and for a moment that disappoints you. the thought of one of jihoon's fans attempting to see your boyfriend, yet being met with the sight of you getting your life fucked out of you... now that brought immense pleasure.

his pace quickens, he appears to be just as affected by his words. the sound of skin on skin grows harsher, and the grip your cunt has on him gains strength. the tip of his cock finds your bundle of nerves and begins to make you unravel.

"hoon- hoon- fuck- 'm so close"

"yeah ? wanna show everyone how gorgeous you look when you cum for me ?"

the squelching of your cunt was deafening. you could feel the wetness sneaking down between your legs. jihoon runs his hand down, making figure 8 motions on your clit.

tears had begun to escape your eyes. your body began to convulse. the noises you were making somehow doubled in volume, as you let your orgasm take control. all of your words got slurred together, completely intelligable due to the weight of your peak.

faintly, you could hear jihoon praising you, something along the lines of "that's my fucking baby" or "so good for me". his thrusts lost their rhythm, he starts mindlessly humping into you.

his face smashes into your neck once more and his whimpers fill the room. you could feel his cock twitching inside you, emptying himself into the condom.

attempting to catch your breaths, jihoon quickly redirects you to the leather couch you had previously been occupying. he lays the two of you down, dick still inside you. his hands rub up and down your body while he patiently waits for you to come down from the intense high.

he peppers kisses along your neck, only looking up when he feels your hands in his hair. he leans forward, redirecting his kisses to your lips.

"y' okay ?" the question is murmured into your mouth. you softly nod your head.

he eventually lets your lips part, looking down at you before saying:

"i really hope no one saw that"

not proof-read ! lmk if there's any mistakes (づ￣ 3￣)づ

#seventeen #seventeen x reader #seventeen smut #svt #svt x reader #svt smut #woozi x reader #woozi smut #jihoon x reader #jihoon smut

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