#I know it doesn't sound all that plausible

[canmom]

This an interesting angle. I've never been particularly taken with trying to determine True Art from False Art on the basis of specific qualities of the piece.

(I did ok-ish but not exceptionally on the AI art quiz, probably with a slight bias for misattributing human pieces as AI ones - like many other respondees, I found the Impressionist pieces hardest to distinguish, since they very much play to the AI's strengths.)

There are many different ways you could describe "art" as a human activity, I'm sure there's a post somewhere where I make a list, but a really big one is its communicative function - one purpose of art is to somehow pass on some aspect of our 'inner world' to another person, through a lossy and limited channel.

That a signal can be easily imitated doesn't mean it doesn't carry contextual information. For example, I could ask a yes/no question of enormous emotional importance - "should I take the shot", "has the baby been born", "will you go out with me", "am I a good girl" - and be answered with either "yes" or "no". It would be trivial to generate a machine which randomly substitutes for this communication - that's basically all a magic eight-ball is.

The amount of information that can be contained in an image of a given size and colour depth can also be calculated. For example, the number of fullscreen images that would fill my current monitor at 8 bits per channel would be 2^(3440 × 1440 × 24) ≈ 3 × 10^35788372 - about 15 megabytes uncompressed. It's a number that seems astronomically huge, though effectively the amount of information is much less than you'd calculate since all the likely pixels are correlated. The same goes for other art forms, like novels (encoded as, say, UTF-8 strings or PDFs) or pieces of music (encoded as sound files, MIDI, MuseScore files, etc.). The exact number is complicated, you end up getting into Kolmogorov complexity and shit like that, but the point is that it's finite.

If we want to claim that all the information about a human life that Hofstadter describes (grief, despair etc.) is in there somehow, we're claiming that this finitely many bits is adequate to capture all the nuances of a human life. I don't know that that's true!

This, however, doesn't really seem to align with how we interact with art. Human production and exchange of "art" is a social act - I would describe it as being continuous with "play". When we observe a piece, we are opening a communications channel - at least a one-way channel. The person on the other side sends some information into the channel, and we process it somehow.

Since it is a lossy channel with limited information, we must infer various things about the other mind on the opposite side of it. If I show you an artwork that I made, we might have a conversation about how I did it, why I made the choices I did. If I feel something looking at the work, I might imagine that you felt something similar, and designed the piece to evoke it intentionally (a guess that will often be wrong but sometimes still productive). I might also look at what specific choices you have made, compare them to the choices others have made in the same medium, etc etc.

We form these inferences on the basis of experience - the more you learn about making art, the more you learn to appreciate other peoples' art and vice versa. And we project these experiences, usually plausibly, onto other artists.

(Perhaps I am saying all art is in a sense performance art? Seems like a tasty soundbite, though I'm not fully sure I wanna commit to it.)

I'm not meaning to claim that a computer couldn't simulate this kind of 'how did you make it' interaction too. This line of argument was anticipated by Turing in his original 1950 paper on the 'imitation game' that someone links in the comments above, where he describes a poet undergoing a viva voce test interrogating their word choices, and argues that a computer might be programmed to give convincing answers to such a test. I imagine he's right - for a paper written in 1950 he makes some surprisingly sharp predictions for how future AIs might be made, such as the idea that an AI could be built to be 'educated' like a child. (He also thought the evidence for ESP is 'overwhelming', but hey, can't win 'em all).

A lot of the context around art would be quite easy to forge, had you a mind to. For example, suppose I go to a film screening, and someone is introduced as the director so we can all clap them. Did they really direct it? I don't know! You could totally send an actor. Less conspiratorially, if someone says they made an artistic choice for x or y reason, they could be lying about it, or misremembering, or most likely oversimplifying a complex and inscrutable process down to a simpler story.

At some point you have to take something like that on trust, or else simply accept that being lied to about it is part of the game you're there to play! (c.f. Oshi no Ko.)

Anyway, the sudden arrival of a new process that can produce, at least sometimes, near-indistinguishable output to various types of communication, throws a spanner in the process. If we're feeling uncharitable, we could call it something like a DDOS attack, stuffing the channels with spurious inputs that don't fit our design assumptions. I think that goes too far, though. AI gen doesn't preclude communication, but it does need we need to think differently about what is being communicated.[1]

So to consider that last question, if art is like a game, could you train an AI art to produce art that is meaningful to humans only by 'playing against' itself, like AlphaGo Zero? I don't think this is so likely. The rules of Go are strict and well-defined; the rules of what humans find meaningful are inseparable from the history of interacting with other humans, which is why art constantly evolves. Training an AI on existing human artworks is training it to compress and interpolate/extrapolate that dataset; training it to optimise for "making novel art that expresses something in a form that its interlocutor could understand" requires it to be interacting with someone.

You could imagine a training process with an "artist" AI and a "critic" AI (a sort of more sophisticated GAN, where the adversary is optimising not to distinguish human/AI art but to judge it on aesthetic grounds) - but how would you get the "critic" AI? Whose taste would it express?

Admittedly, the developers of image generators are constantly refining their models in response to users, so they are being optimised to appeal to someone, not just interpolate existing artworks. But I think it would be very hard to remove humans from the equation entirely. And the present means of providing feedback to the AI are very crude.

For an AI to learn from interacting with other AI (and the world), I feel like you'd need a whole new process that isn't about minimising loss against input-output pairs. Romantically, I imagine it would be closer to how humans learn from life, but I don't really know what will 'work' in the end.

below: some other remarks that were excised from the main post.

[1] We can view AI image gen as another channel for communication between humans, with its own set of inferences to make. If someone shows me a picture they've generated with AI, there's no point asking why they painted this bit that way, but I might approach them more as a curator and ask why they chose this generation over others, or how they went about prompting it.

The AI artists who go to the trouble of finetuning their models with LoRAs for a specific end goal, or using more involved processes with multiple stages of generation, probably have most to 'say', either through the work they generate or how they'd discuss it. (I find it very endearing when someone trains an AI to serve up a hyperspecific fetish.) And the more I know about how AI images are generated, the more I can probably have a productive conversation.

In this light, the "problem" of AI is mostly one of deception, insofar as it tries to look like something else and thereby tell a misleading story. That's probably a big reason why why it brings the rancour it does, although it doesn't explain all of it. It's not (usually) a forgery of a specific human's work, but it is designed to forge spurious communications in this channel in general, so the channel is 'noisier' - and this could be thought to undermine many of the contexts, i.e. the operating narratives and social games, which are why we exchange art in the first place. Over time, we'll presumably end up renegotiating the 'games', and spawning new ones, as humans always have.

And of course, the issue of provenance and plagiarism in art - particularly when prestige and money get involved - long predates AI and is full of all sorts of bizarre contortions when you look at it closely.

More intriguing is whether there is some possibility for "real communication" between humans and AIs - that is, could there be an AI output that does respect the 'rules of the game' in some way. This is harder to imagine! Like, if you ask why we aren't solipsists, we could point to how much we resemble other humans and say, all things considered, seems very unlikely we aren't the same type of entity. But I only know 'what it's like to be' a human. Conversely, while I know a reasonable amount about how AIs work, the attention mechanism and latent-space vectors and so on (thanks 3blue1brown), the analogy isn't so clear anymore, so I don't even know how I'd determine whether there even is a 'what is it like to be' under all the 'noise' of communications aggressively optimised to fit the patterns of something a human might say. If there is, it's probably very alien to all of my experience.

Ironically I feel like the current model of 'AI', which teaches us to regard any generated output with suspicion of having 'nothing behind it', would make it harder for any 'real', agentive, subjective-experience-having AI to make itself known to us. But perhaps it's good that we're forced to sharpen our criteria of what we're looking for out of these things.

Anyway, all of this is probably just idle imaginings, because nobody can figure out how to make anything like enough money to justify the exorbitant costs of training and operating AIs, so at some point this whole speculative bubble will go up in smoke and whatever AIs continue to be in use will likely remain about as good as they are today, or stupider - at least until the next 'AI summer' when a new paradigm emerges.

Thinking about that that "slop accelerationism" post, and also Scott's AI art Turing test.

I also hope AI text- and image-generation will help shake us loose from cheap bad art. For example, the fact that you can now generate perfectly rendered anime girls at the click of button kindof suggests that there was never much content in those drawings. Though maybe we didn't really need AI for that insight? It feels very similar to that shift in fashion that rejected Bouguereau-style laboriously-rendered pretty girls in favor of more sketchy brush work.

But will we really be so lucky that only things that we already suspected was slop will prove valueless?

As usual with AI, Douglas Hofstadter already thought about this a long time ago, in an essay from 2001. Back in 1979 he had written

Will a computer program ever write beautiful music? Speculation: Yes, but not soon. Music is a language of emotions, and until programs have emotions as complex as ours, there is no way a program will write anything beautiful. There can be "forgeries"—shallow imitations of the syntax of earlier music—but despite what one might think at first, there is much more to musical expression than can be captured in syntactical rules. There will be no new kinds of beauty turned up for a long time by computer music-composing programs. Let me carry this thought a little further. To think—and I have heard this suggested—that we might soon be able to command a preprogrammed mass-produced mail-order twenty-dollar desk-model "music box" to bring forth from its sterile [sic!] circuitry pieces which Chopin or Bach might have written had they lived longer is a grotesque and shameful misestimation of the depth of the human spirit. A "program" which could produce music as they did would have to wander around the world on its own, fighting its way through the maze of life and feeling every moment of it. It would have to understand the joy and loneliness of a chilly night wind, the longing for a cherished hand, the inaccessibility of a distant town, the heartbreak and regeneration after a human death. It would have to have known resignation and world-weariness, grief and despair, determination and victory, piety and awe. In it would have had to commingle such opposites as hope and fear, anguish and jubilation, serenity and suspense. Part and parcel of it would have to be a sense of grace, humor, rhythm, a sense of the unexpected and of course an exquisite awareness of the magic of fresh creation. Therein, and therein only, lie the sources of meaning in music.

I think this is helpful in pinning down what we would have liked to be true. Because in 1995, somebody wrote a program that generates music by applying simple syntactic rules to combine patterns from existing pieces, and it sounded really good! (In fact, it passed a kind of AI turing test.) Oops!

The worry, then, is that we just found out that the computer has as complex emotions as us, and they aren't complex at all. It would be like adversarial examples for humans: the noise-like pattern added to the panda doesn't "represent" a gibbon, it's an artifact of the particular weights and topology of the image recognizer, and the resulting classification doesn't "mean" anything. Similarly, Arnulf Rainer wrote that when he reworked Wine-Crucifix, "the quality and truth of the picture only grew as it became darker and darker"—doesn't this sound a bit like gradient descent? Did he stumble on a pattern that triggers our "truth" detector, even though the pattern is merely a shallow stimulus made of copies of religious iconography that we imprinted on as kids?

One attempt to recover is to say Chopin really did write music based on the experience of fighting through the maze of life, and it's just that philistine consumers can't tell the difference between the real and the counterfeit. But this is not very helpful, it means that we were fooling ourselves, and the meaning that we imagined never existed.

More promising, maybe the program is a "plagiarism machine", which just copies the hard-won grief, despair, world-weariness &c that Chopin recorded? On it's own it's not impressive that a program can output an image indistinguishable from Gauguin's, I can write such a program in a single line:

print("https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gauguin,Paul-Still_Life_with_Profile_of_Laval-_Google_Art_Project.jpg")

I think this is the conclusion that Hofstadter leans towards: the value of Chopin and the other composers was to discover the "template" that can then be instantiated to make many beautiful music pieces. Kind of ironically, this seems to push us back to some very turn-of-the-20th-century notion of avant-garde art. Each particular painting that (say) Monet executed is of low value, and the actual valuable thing is the novel art style...

That view isn't falsified yet, but it feels precarious. You could have said that AlphaGo was merely a plagiarism machine that selected good moves from historical human games, except then AlphaGo Zero proved that the humans were superfluous after all. Surely a couple of years from now somebody might train an image model on a set of photographs and movies excluding paintings, and it might reinvent impressionism from first principles, and then where will we be? Better start prepare a fallback-philosophy now.

[ishipthis]

Why do I feel like it's possible from the spoiler pictures that the 'proposal' is the red herring, because she's not asking him to marry her right there, she's asking him to get married, right there. Surely that can't be, like it makes no sense, and yet..... It also kind of does?

Does Freddie need another wedding? No.

Is everyone they love already there? Yes.

Could the cliffhanger be 'Does he say yes?' possibly?

I don't know guys, a perfect red herring is not are they engaged, with that name we're either expecting that to happen already, and if they don't that's no real surprise either. We're already strictly in one camp or the other. So the question begs, how do they knock us off our freaking chairs? Skip the engagement and suggest a wedding.

And then fade to black.

[krysmcscience]

Did somebody say Bill shouldn't be allowed to swear? I think somebody said Bill shouldn't be allowed to swear. Thanks to that, have these retooled The Good Place jokes:

The "powers that be" can refer to either the Theraprism staff, the Axolotl, or just. Ya know. Disney in general. Or all three! Whichever you think is funniest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The "party" Bill's referring to is Weirdmageddon, of course. He was quite the ashhole to everyone back then.

Ford has probably gotten pretty good at the 'tune out your psychopathic ex with dank memes' challenge.

It must be very cathartic to be able to make Bill shut up whenever you want with just the press of a button. I'm sure Ford doesn't abuse this ability at all.

Oh, sure, 'Not now,' he says, before he immediately backs out of the newly-made hole in the Theraprism wall. 🙄

Don't worry, Bill doesn't get far.

also yeah i know this one doesn't have an attempted swear - i just wanted to use the joke because of the massive stink-eye involved in it because it makes me laugh

⬇️ More goofs beneath the brief ramble if you wanna skip it lmao⬇️

Why is Ford even there, you might ask? Well, he either decided he preferred to watch Bill suffer in person over being distantly and repeatedly harassed with the same evil desperation book for the rest of his life, or he got roped into some kind of contrived community service for 1.) all his many counts of interdimensional thievery, and 2.) his ignoring all the very clear warnings to NOT summon Bill in the first place (which I like to imagine is also illegal). Theraprism staff were just like, 'Wait, this guy matters to Bill? Ooh, we can USE that! It might be the only thing that can help him want to get better!' It is not considered that throwing Ford at Bill so soon after Weirdmageddon could instead make them both WORSE - in new and altogether special ways! :D

Anyway, I'm calling it the Community Service AU, and I am most likely not going to do anything else with it beyond appropriating these silly Good Place jokes. So, feel free to adopt the concept if y'all wanna??? Just make sure that Bill is still not allowed to swear, no matter what, full stop. It's gotta be a real linguistic corkblork of a situation for him, is all I'm sayin'.

Finally, have these bonus Good Place jokes, but with Handyman!Bill this time:

'Opposite tortures' doesn't sound so bad...at least until it's an all-powerful chaos entity known for torture saying it.

you may think i forgot mabel's cute pink cheeks but the truth is that i did in fact forget but then immediately stopped caring which makes it okay, SHHHHHHH

And, finally:

lmao this is shit

True facts, if you cram Season 1 Eleanor Shellstrop and Michael into a singular triangle shape, they turn into Bill Cipher. This is science, look it up. Or don't, and just trust the source that is me, bro.

Anyway, I should be in bed, y'all have fun with these, I guess. Tune in after like a week or so and maybe I'll have an addendum to my comic about how Bill was drawn naked for karaoke night. Because him actually being naked was not the only thing I considered as a plausible explanation. XD

Also if you see any inconsistencies or errors in any of these comics, No You Do Not :D

Also also, reblogs are rad as hell and I appreciate every single one, just don't repost, please and thanks. Every time a repost is made, an artist somewhere cries. :,)

[wilonevys]

𝐄𝐍𝐇𝐘𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐔 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 (𝟏/𝟐)

the list of the smaus i've read and liked so far!

completed ✔️ - discontinued/on hold ❌ personal favourites 💎 - ongoing 🟩 - smut/nsfw 🔞

note: any smau that hasn’t been updated in over a year will be considered discontinued.

en- sunghoon and maknae line smau recs click HERE!

txt smau recs click HERE!

sorry for the tags!

links are under the cut!

hyung line/multiple

𓆩♡𓆪 « confident » ✔️ 💎💎💎 🔞 by @bambisgirl

SYNOPSIS. after graduating high-school and having a major glow-up over summer, you became more confident in yourself and got the title of the most popular girl at decelis university in your first week of freshman year. you instantly dethroned all of the sophomore girls, on top of being so pretty, kind, smart and sexy… girl you have it all. yet you’re still the same kind, naïve and funny y/n that can’t refuse anyone coming her way. after all, you know what they say… confidence makes a girl sexy but kindness is key!

𓆩♡𓆪 « no nut november » ✔️ 🔞 by @jayflrt

SUMMARY ▸ four men suppressing their carnal instincts for thirty days doesn’t sound plausible, but it’s no nut november, so victory is crucial. yet, there’s only one obstacle keeping lee heeseung, park jongseong, sim jaeyun, and park sunghoon from their prize: you. game on, boys.

𓆩♡𓆪 « to do: find a boyfriend » 🟩 by @seokgyuu

being single for three and a half years all of your friends are tired of your constant whining. while your girlfriends want you to just get laid, your boy-friends, on the other hand, just think you should pick one of them to date. ignoring them all, you instead decide to try out a dating app to find your match.

𓆩♡𓆪 « r u online? » ❌ (on hold) 💎 by @hoonvrs

SYNOPSIS seems like there’s a small problem between the four best friends when they each find themselves crushing on the same girl. now it’s left up to you to decide who’s your endgame.

𓆩♡𓆪 « zoom » ❌ 💎 🔞 by @enhas-bestie

SYNOPSIS: In which Y/N has a zoom meeting and it turns out that her TA! is incredibly hot. Things escalate. Chaos ensures.

lee heeseung

𓆩♡𓆪 « buy one, take me » ✔️ by @heeracha

synopsis: with his best friend asking him for help because said best friend was scared he wasn't "boyfriend material" enough, heeseung looks for flower shops for his best friend's girlfriend. thankfully, jake knows someone from the university who has an aunt that owns a flower shop, you. now, heeseung messages you and shyly, but shamelessly asks if he can get any promos or discounts to which you shamelessly answered him, "buy one, take me". heeseung doesn't pass on this, of course. after all, you are pretty damn cute.

𓆩♡𓆪 « you, me and the moon » ✔️ by @heeracha

synopsis: lee heeseung is a famous frat boy who is known to be mysterious since he would always stay at the corner to observe people passing by but he does not like the fact that his eyes would linger a little longer on you than he likes to admit because who the fuck is he kidding? you're way too good for him.

𓆩♡𓆪 « so sick ! » ✔️ 💎💎💎 by @yeonjunszn

summary: when your boyfriend of almost eight years cheats on you your senior year of university, you decide that you’re done with anything and everything to do with love. that is, until you meet a guy who sings love songs for a living.

𓆩♡𓆪 « hands on you » ✔️ 💎 💎 by @thatfeelinwhenyou

IN WHICH; I-LAND 2 happened and you debuted first place as the leader of LUMIÈRE. Having been told that your group is involved in a lore crossover with ENHYPEN, you navigate work, friendship, and love while trying to make it in an industry filled with animosity and condemnation. When life throws you lemons, you gotta make lemonades chuck it right back!

𓆩♡𓆪 « the revenge pact » ✔️ by @boyfhee

synopsis: lee heeseung is the handsome yet good for nothing mysterious boy living a floor below you, who dropped out of college and is living quite a lavish life. when you get fired from your job, ending up struggling to make your ends meet and failing to pay the rent, heeseung offers you rather an eccentric proposal : pay the rent or be his girlfriend.

𓆩♡𓆪 « sugar daddy » ✔️ 💎 by @jayflrt

SUMMARY ▸ in which heeseung accidentally becomes your sugar daddy, but funding a sugar baby is hard when you’re a broke college student.

𓆩♡𓆪 « a stoner's guide to starbucks » ✔️ 💎 by @jayflrt

SUMMARY ▸ in which you work at the starbucks where heeseung is a regular at (and considered a public enemy). also he only goes when he’s stoned off his ass.

𓆩♡𓆪 « poison » ✔️ 🔞 by @onlyjaeyun

synopsis: new city, new people, a new life. after finally getting the chance to live your dreams, you're ready to close old chapters, only for a certain someone who's always been off limits to open again...

𓆩♡𓆪 « verboten » ✔️ 🔞 by @heesbaby

SYNOPSIS; a bad stroke of luck saw lee heeseung, your dads coworker, moving into your small apartment until he found his feet again. emotionally unavailable and a workaholic, you were going to try your absolute hardest to make him loosen up. even if it meant breaking a few of the house rules he'd set out.

𓆩♡𓆪 « anonymous » ✔️ 🔞 by @heesbaby

synopsis: heeseung had been your biggest supporter for months under the pseudonym ethan, sending you money in return for content and interactions. he stuck around, spending half his paycheck just for your attention, until the delusions of your work convinced him you were his.

𓆩♡𓆪 « a little dramatic » 🟩 by @heeliopheelia

yn: knock knock

heeseung: who's there?

yn: your annoying best friend

heeseung: your annoying best friend who?

yn: your annoying best friend who has to do a kissing scene in the school play but she's never been kissed before and needs you to teach her how to do it so that she doesn't make a fool out of herself in front of her crush

...in other words heeseung's down bad, yn is an idiot in denial and riki gives everyone a headache.

𓆩♡𓆪« trainees » 🟩 💎 by @hoonvrs

SYNOPSIS heeseung wasn’t known as ‘the ace’ for nothing, constantly ranking number one after every monthly evaluation. then suddenly a new name takentakes over first place — baek ‘Rin’, and heeseung doesn’t take lightly to competition.

𓆩♡𓆪 « fancam » ❌ 💎💎 by @bambisgirl

SYNOPSIS. you’re a rookie camerawoman for kpop music shows and you’re designed to film lee heeseung’s focused fancams for this enhypen comeback. you know he’s just an idol but… you spent $500 on a 4k mirrorless full frame 12.1 mp camera just to catch a better glimpse of him.

𓆩♡𓆪 « reality check » ❌ 💎💎 by @yunverse

SYNOPSIS › Shocked by the sudden revelations, yn realizes that she has been pulled into another world belonging to her favourite reverse-harem novel as the female lead’s best friend. Content with her new life, she excitedly watches from the sidelines knowing every single encounter in the novel would be unravelling right in front of her. However, as time goes on, she slowly comes to the horrifying realization that the characters she seemingly idolized are not who they seem to be.

𓆩♡𓆪 « nevertheless, (ft. park jay) » ❌ by @postalenha

SYNOPSIS, after a horrendous break up, you met a guy at a bar. you two instantly clicked and got close the whole night, so close that the two of you almost kissed. but you ran off, and planned to never see him again. but what will happen if one day, a commotion started at your university; girls going crazy over the new handsome guy in fashion design. and there you see the man standing with a butterfly tattoo on his nape. the same man from the bar, looking for you.

park jongseong

𓆩♡𓆪 « adore you » ✔️ 💎💎 by @enzenwriting

Summary: Debuting as BE:LIFT Lab’s next solo artist, you reunite with your best friend Jungwon in Enhypen! With the groups’ quick fondness towards you, a certain member is sure he adores you extra with brotherly and senior care! But what if Jay finds that this doting is unlike his feeling towards his younger members because he definitely does not want to kiss Yang Jungwon like he does to you?!

𓆩♡𓆪 « reparations » ✔️ (short smau) 💎 by @jayflrt

SUMMARY ▸ in which jay is a dog.

𓆩♡𓆪 « deuce! » ✔️ 💎💎 by @jaeminvore

summary: one may ask, what would happen if you put a prodigy and a hard worker in one room? Absolute chaos. Jay and Y/N absolutely hated each other’s guts. Having been rivals from middle school until present, it’s a cruel twist of fate that they ended up going to the same university years later. To make matters even worse, both have been selected as captains for the men’s and women’s volleyball team respectively.

The coaches, the managers—hell, both teams knew they had to put an end to this ridiculous beef as they were slowly tarnishing the esteemed reputation of both teams, but the question is: how?

𓆩♡𓆪 « strictly business » ✔️ 🔞 💎 by @onlyjaeyun

synopsis: two people, two different stories, two different hearts, one capital city. a story in which a young secretary from a small town manages to bring a new breath of fresh air into the life of seoul's most famous and untouchable ceo.

𓆩♡𓆪 « more than this » ✔️ 🔞 by @heesbaby

in a society where hybrid's were still made to feel like nothing, you wanted to show jay how much more he was worth

𓆩♡𓆪 « are you blackmailing me? » ✔️ by @liliansun

Synopsis: Jay has his eyes on you, but you couldn’t care less. When he finally musters up the courage to speak to you, you ask him about his friend instead. In attempts to salvage his chance, he agrees to help you if you help him in return.

𓆩♡𓆪 « 21st century girl » ✔️ 💎 by @hoonvrs

SYNOPSIS where jay 'claims’ he has a girlfriend but none of his friends believe him because how are you a girl in the 21st century and don't have any social media, right? and if you and jay continue to let them think your relationship is fake for entertainment purposes, nobody has to know.

𓆩♡𓆪 « yours forever in 786 » 🟩 🔞 by @jayflrt

SUMMARY ▸ after being blackmailed into accepting an assignment, jay park, a young private detective, is thrown back into college. this time, though, he’s at an ivy league and tasked to follow you to uncover what dark secrets your old money family is hiding. in doing this, jay must fraternize with your inner circle by joining a secret society called the "order of kryptos.” what he doesn’t realize is that the deeper he gets into his mission, the more he starts to lose himself.

𓆩♡𓆪 « knock me down » ❌ 💎 by @nekkodiaries

SUMMARY: park jay lives life as a hot-headed gamer by day and.. well.. still a hot-headed gamer by night— except he secretly goes by the name killstrike. after losing a pubg duo match, he finds himself trash-talking his teammate notursniper, who happens to be the mysterious classmate he's been admiring for over a year and more.

𓆩♡𓆪 « friendzoned » ❌ by @szniki

summary! - nishimura yn has been pining for her best friend jay park since 7th grade, but she’s well aware that jay will continue to be oblivious and had accepted that she’s stuck in the friendzone, that is until she befriends a foreign exchange student from australia and jay can’t help but feel jealous over how quick yn and her new friend are bonding

𓆩♡𓆪 « can i call you tonight? » ❌ by @heesbaby

yn needs money. that’s the only reason she keeps agreeing to babysit jay’s son each week. nothing was ever going to blossom out of it, not with jay - a workaholic 6 years older than her. she keeps telling herself that every time his smile lingers a little too long on his lips, but each time she dials his number into her phone, he picks up before the second ring.

𓆩♡𓆪 « nevertheless, (ft. lee heeseung) » ❌ by @postalenha

SYNOPSIS, after a horrendous break up, you met a guy at a bar. you two instantly clicked and got close the whole night, so close that the two of you almost kissed. but you ran off, and planned to never see him again. but what will happen if one day, a commotion started at your university; girls going crazy over the new handsome guy in fashion design. and there you see the man standing with a butterfly tattoo on his nape. the same man from the bar, looking for you.

sim jaeyun

𓆩♡𓆪 « the world's a little blurry » ✔️ by @0x1lovebot

synopsis: having feelings for someone who’s in a relationship is already so hard to deal with. so imagine jake’s struggle when the taken girl that he’s had feelings for for years comes to him for help in physics. will he actually move on or will the lines start to blur between tutoring and romance?

𓆩♡𓆪 « doctors orders » ✔️ 💎💎 🔞 by @heesbaby

synopsis. jake was a little concerned by how often you were sat in his waiting room, but he couldn't deny how he searched his appointment list each morning hoping to see your name

𓆩♡𓆪 « after hours » ✔️ 💎 🔞 by @heesbaby

SYNOPSIS; jake sim, bassist of AFTERHOURS and all round terrible guy, so deep in his self absorbed world where everything went his way and everyone fell at his feet. he hardly noticed you moving in next door until he caught a glimpse of you in the hallway. completely uninterested in your neighbour, you did you best to ignore his advances. that was until you found yourself humming along to the songs he practiced every night.

𓆩♡𓆪 « hype boy » ✔️ 💎 💎 🔞 by @onlyjaeyun

synopsis: after years of hiding himself in the responsibility of raising his youngest brother, jaeyun finally finds himself falling head over heels for the sweet college student from next door...

𓆩♡𓆪 « maybe we could be together » ✔️ 💎💎 by @jaeminvore

summary: in which Y/N has already accepted the fact that she will never be anything more than a best friend to Jake. She’s fine. She’s kept it all together for so long. However, Sunoo is a force to reckon with and he will do anything in his power to get Jake and Y/N together—Oh, and not to mention Sunoo really hates Jake’s current girlfriend, much to the annoyance of Y/N.

𓆩♡𓆪 « nights with you » ✔️ by @nvertheless

sypnosis — jake sim couldn’t sleep at night. with the stress of school taking over him he wasn’t able to fall asleep anymore.. until he gets recommend a nightly lofi channel to fall asleep to and it works really well for him.. not knowing your the owner of that nightly lofi channel.. and u possibly have the biggest crush on jake..

𓆩♡𓆪 « cigarettes » ✔️ 💎 💎 by @hoonvrs

SYNOPSIS where university student jake develops a little crush on the girl he sees with a cigarette between her lips in the smoking area and decides he needs to impress her. how else would he do that except calling his smoker friend to teach him how to smoke ( spoiler: it doesn’t go so well. )

𓆩♡𓆪 « boomerang » ✔️ 💎 by @amakumos

SYNOPSIS: you and jake sim have always been academic rivals. it was always you against him for top of the class, and jake is sure that you two were made to hate each other. a couple years later when you debut and become an idol, you find yourself talking to him again - but it’s in a group chat with other aussie idols, and perhaps you realise that he isn’t that insufferable.

𓆩♡𓆪 « equation for disaster » ✔️ 💎 by @amakumos

SYNOPSIS — much to you and your boyfriend jake’s delight, there’s going to be a math championship for idols now. with both of you hellbent on winning, you two decide to be rivals again for just a little while. may the best star-crossed hater win. (the sequel to boomerang.)

𓆩♡𓆪 « collie duty » ✔️ by @filmbyjy

SYNOPSIS > being the new CEO to the ‘Sim Corp’ was hard and stressful. jake didn’t have much time to spend with layla and so he decides to get a dogsitter, you. though, you were originally already his secretary. how will dog sitting bring you two closer?

𓆩♡𓆪 « one note » 🟩 by @filmbyjy

SYNOPSIS > When you turned 18, you heard your best friend’s favourite song. Turns out, it was just one of the various signs to finding your soulmate. However, you couldn’t bring this up to jake. Not when he was in a happy relationship with your other best friend! Would you choose heartbreak or sacrifice your happiness for the sake of keeping the friendship

𓆩♡𓆪 « consequences of a one night stand » ✔️ 💎 🔞 by @luvyeni

( synopsis ). in which after a drunken hookup , y/n y/ln and are jake left with some heavy consequences and now they have to come to terms with it.

𓆩♡𓆪 « all about you » ✔️ by @heeliopheelia

synopsis: finding it harder and harder to keep your feelings hidden from one of your best friends, with each day you become more restless. with the confession constantly resting on the tip of your tongue, you wonder how much longer you’ll be able to keep your sweet secret to yourself. little did you know, the exact same question has been haunting jake’s mind, keeping him just as unsettled as you.

𓆩♡𓆪 « cat & dog » ❌ by @yeongwonie

SYNOPSIS a year after his notorious 10 months ending fairy, jake is confident that the occasional jokes and furry allegations have subsided. he's wrong, unfortunately, and no amount of teasing from his members could've prepared him for his ult—you—seeing the video.

𓆩♡𓆪 « lucid dream » ❌ 💎 by @yyunari

SYNOPSIS  . many might recognize y/n as one of the most beloved and rounded 4th generation idols. being in aespa brought her a lot of popularity and made her really well known, especially for her talents and bubbly personality. when y/n becomes a music bank mc along with enhypen’s sunghoon, what will happen when she meets her old high school crush from back in australia?

𓆩♡𓆪 « cupid's cure » ❌ by @amakumos

synopsis. as the new admins of cupid’s corner, gunwook and eunchae make it their mission to get back some of the couples that jungwon’s girlfriend had unintentionally broken up. one of the couples on their list are you and jake sim, also known as the self proclaimed “rizzler of oz”. you haven’t talked to jake since the breakup — because one, you don’t think you’re quite over him yet, and two, you have zero reason to speak to him! that is, until eunchae works her “magic” — she decides to post a confession (apparently coming from jake himself), saying that he still loves you.

𓆩♡𓆪 « pinky promise » ❌ by @sunboki

THE LAST SUMMER you spent with Jake Sim was the beginning of a disaster and it all began with a pinky promise. You left Australia a few days before high school to become a trainee under BigHit Entertainment, sending you far away from home, from Jake. Well, you didn’t know it back then, but Jake had also come to Korea as a trainee a year later, and fate worked its magic when you’re both selected as KBS MC’s together. The pinky promise in question? A promise to be together till the end.

note: sunghoon and maknae line smaus will be on another post! tumblr being a bitch and doesn't let me add more links :(

[rockrosethistle]

If there's one thing TGWDLM fans are gonna do, it's think about the implications. And the implications of the opening number are crazy.

So. We know that the show isn't completely chronological since the opening number takes place before the meteor hits. So that song is a sort of "flash forward" moment. But when you think about it, we don't really know how far in the future it takes place.

What we do know is that by the time it's happening, Emma is infected. She has a little solo in it singing about how Paul is pining over a barista

And we know that this is meant to be an infected Emma specifically. Lauren had other characters in the show, if they wanted to avoid the Emma implication they would've just dressed her as one of those.

So we know this is meant to be Emma.

And Emma isn't infected until the very end of the show. She's dragged off stage during the credits. So since she's infected in the opening number, we know the number takes place after the events of the show.

Another important detail is that Paul is infected before Emma. He's the one that passes it on to her.

So back to the opening number, Emma is infected. Which means by just following a simple timeline, Paul must also be infected. He should be singing and dancing, right?

But that's not what happens. Paul misses his entrance.

If Paul is infected, then there's no reason he should be missing his entrance. Furthermore, if he's a part of a hive mind, there's no reason other members of the same hive mind shouldn't know where he is. They are literally all connected by one brain, and yet both Mr. Davidson and Bill express they have no clue where he went.

What I'm saying is that Paul is not infected. He was infected (again, we know that because Emma is infected and he was infected before her) but now he's not anymore.

I'm saying there's a way out of the hive, and Paul found it. That's the only explanation that makes sense given the facts of the situation. Sometime after the events of tgwdlm, Paul is able not only to break out the hive mind, but to hide from it.

And if he broke out, others could do the same. Maybe even Emma.

Edit because a countertheory has emerged: Yes it's possible that everyone is infected the entire time and the show itself is just Pokey replaying the events for the fun of it. But it seems unlikely to me. First of all, each of the Lords in Black has a distinct personality. They all are evil, but within that they seems to fall somewhere on a spectrum of "silly billy" to "prick." For example, Tinky is more of a silly billy. He toys with humans without much of a motive and more for just shits and giggles. But in every instance, Pokey's more on the extreme side of prick.

He's one of the few with an actual motive behind what he does. In Yellowjacket, it's confirmed that Pokotho hates the sound of anyone's voice except for his own. The events of TGWDLM don't happen because Pokey is bored, they happen because he is executing a plan. So I don't think that he would just have them play out their little scenario just to entertain him, especially just one small island? I just feel like he'd be more focused on world domination.

If the theory is that all this is happening after Pokey's already taken over the whole world, no one was successful in stopping him, then yes it's plausible, but still weird. There are a strange amount of things in that show you just think an eldritch god wouldn't include.

Edit 2: New evidence has emerged???

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is loosely based off of Invasion of The Body Snatchers. Paul's last name is even a nod to the main character, Matthew. At the end of the film, Matthew survives, and continues living among the infected, pretending to be one of them. And wouldn't that be just such a fun little parallel...

Obviously it doesn't prove anything but the source material doesn't lie folks.

[max1461]

I guess the other thing about Dark Souls is. I know this is gonna sound weird. Who maintains those elevators? There's all these elevators with clearly rested metal chains, right, in the... forgotten... realm of the old lords, or whatever the fuck, where everything is in ruins and clearly nobody is maintaining shit. It takes a long time for stone castles to fall to ruin like that, and a lot less time for exposed steel to rust away!

I know this "doesn't matter", but I'm not merely nitpicking realism here. I guess it's like... to me, I'm a conlang-head and shit, I'm algebraic according to @fruityyamenrunner, there's something about this that bothers me very deeply. Not every "unrealistic detail" in fiction bothers me, but some do, and this one does. I don't know exactly what makes the difference.

But Dark Souls' world feels very, it feels very themepark, from what I've seen of it, there's a lot of shit that doesn't track. There's all these knights and shit sitting around in the ruins on these like, high plateaus. The environment is like that for obvious game design reasons: Dark Souls isn't open world, and it's not meant to be, so you have to constrain the player's path, and ruined castles on high plateaus with gaping cliffs next to them provide an environment where such limited paths make sense. I get this and don't disprove of it. But the problem, as I said, is all these wandering knights or whatever sitting around in the ruined castles on high plateaus: what do they eat? Do they forage? There isn't anything to forage. There aren't any animals to hunt. It's just rocks and zombies.

Again, this is the kind of detail that like. I don't need games to answer this, and if a piece of fiction is explicitly going for something more dreamlike I'm even ok with a setup as above. But the way Dark Souls presents itself... I need to at least be able to come up with a plausible idea about what these guys eat. You see?

I don't know. Suspension of disbelief troubles me. Fiction is not natural to me.

[luneariaa]

ᯓ★٠ ࣪⭑ UNSPOKEN. ✧ KENJI S. { 𝐈 }.

✰ — PART 1 ; mentions of kenji having some deep; untold sadness, emi mention, the reader being the sunshine friend to kenji + having close relationship.

✰ — probably will have more two - three parts of the story! tried to fit in one part, but it doesn't work somehow ( ╥ω╥ ) to those who wanted to be tagged in the next future parts, feel free to comment or send me an ask <33 !! ✩₊˚. PART 2.

. dividers by @/strangergraphics ⛓ !!

GROWING UP, for almost his entire life, KENJI— regardless of the increase of popularity and fame, doesn't really have that much of friends. Does he even have them at this point? He doesn't really have anyone that he could actually rely on; even trusted fully.

Despite everything from the outside of one's possible perspective, he's still the lonely, sweet boy deep down. None has ever truly cracked his persona down and managed to bring out his true self, which a part of him is glad for some reason— but the other, not so much.

The attention that he has received all over the world doesn't really mean anything, not what he silently craved and secretly desperate for.

Companionship, someone who actually cares about his wellbeing as a whole despite his ongoing status.

Yes, of course, he loves the fact that he's able to accomplish something that's quite significant to him, at least— getting all of the attention that they think he truly deserved, but there will always be this one void within his heart; as if begging to be fixed with something that even he himself wasn't so sure about it.

His mansion may have everything that he ever needed, but it still feels bleak, somehow, no matter what he's trying to do. What's the point of having large spaces, when in the end, the mere silence will be his only company?

Kenji doesn't even realize it, but sometimes, he ended up just staring blankly at the empty gaps of his surroundings; feeling lost at the said moment.

His world has been nothing but simply revolving around his stardom life as much as the realization hits him; an endless, monochromatic-colored world that he tacitly faced alone with some fair, or unfair number of struggles.

"Must be a tough day today, yeah Ken?"

"You should take some more needed breaks, at least!" He swiftly got pulled out of his train of thoughts, eyes immediately glancing to the source of sound. This is his reality now, not the one that he keeps on unconsciously reminiscing of.

"Pushing yourself too hard wouldn't be too good for your health, y'know." A euphonious voice scolded him lightly, accompanied with a bright, albeit concerned grin.

Kenji now took notice of you standing by the doorway; your smile remained despite the visible apprehensive look that was directed towards him. Completely aware of the mere truth behind your words alone, he averts his gaze back elsewhere— cracking a small, yet almost forceful of a smile as if he's trying to ease down your concerns.

"Yeah, you got a point. It's just the usual, I guess," he scratches the back of his head while lazily slouching on the bed. "It's not me if I don't mope over some pointless stuff."

"Well, it's not that pointless if it bothers you." You exhale out, gradually pulling him out of the bed.

"Maybe we can try something for the day— maybe you wanted to play baseball for a bit? I'll watch 'cuz you know I suck at those."

He couldn't hold back the snort from escaping, which earned a disapproving pout from you, but nonetheless, you added further.

"Or we could just play around with baby Emi as always! Or both, I don't know.."

"Perhaps that could at least ease your mind for a bit..?"

He could clearly sense your efforts; chuckling as he knows that he doesn't have any other plausible choices, but to simply follow your lead without any complaints. When it comes to you, Kenji knew it would always be futile to try anything quite the contrary from it.

"That sounds nice, actually." A genuine smile, despite the hints of his exhaustion, tugged at the corner of his lips. Has he even noticed it himself on how easy it is for you to coax him out of his shell? "Playing with Emi sounds amazing."

Kenji admitted along with a smirk being present by now, replacing his previous smile while doing some mini stretches here and there.

"I know!" You merely giggled over his words, "Besides, I just know that the baby already misses you. I fed her earlier too, in case you're wondering!" His pretty, midnight-colored eyes seemed to brighten up after you finished speaking for a bit.

"At this rate, I think you're spoiling her a bit too much," he castigated facetiously, earning an eyeroll from you when one of his hands ended up atop of your head— giving it a playful ruffle.

"Well, what can I say.."

"She's just a cute, big baby."

His genuine smile returned in mere seconds, finding the whole idea to be quite endearing; causing for him to feel the warmth that's starting to blossom within his chest. He's totally aware of his whole responsibility at this point— unintentionally, yet welcoming the idea of becoming a father to the baby kaiju, now willingly to take care of her because she's one of the reasons that actually changed him for the better.

Throughout the whole conversation that the two of you have shared with one another, it seemed as if the burdens on his shoulders has been lifted away; the atmosphere becoming more comfortably lighter than before without you even realizing it yourself.

Kenji doesn't even know how, but your sole presence has something in particular that keeps him grounded, and he values you deeply for that.

Even with such mystery that's been shrouding around you, it never really bothered him that much; respecting your boundaries and taking an immediate notice on how you seemed to be uncomfortable with talking about your own past and parents, in a way. He assumed that something might have happened before, hence the vague details you kept telling him— no irritation present ever.

Maybe someday, you'll have the courage to tell him. But for now, you would rather keep it a secret.

@luneariaa. do not repost; reblogs are welcomed. all rights reserved.

[nthspecialll]

Kieran was definitely not a stablehand to the O'Driscolls. While the cover sounds plausible enough because he loves horses and seems kind of nervous, it really does not make sense when you think about it.

When we first see Kieran we see him riding out with Colm and one or two other O'Driscolls only to later be alone, most likely having some mission of his own. Why would you bring a stablehand along for any mission that would be so important it required the gang leader and why did they leave him later?

Secondly, we are told that Colm killed all of Kieran's previous gang members, and then gave him the alternative to join or die, why would Colm care about Kieran at all enough to save him?

We also see Kieran having a lot of information about the O'Driscolls that normal gang members would not have, such as where the money is stashed in six point cabin. We know that The O'Driscolls are not a gang that is close like the Van Der Linde gang where Arthur doesn't even know where they stash money. It wouldn't make sense for regular gang members to know where the money is stashed when there is such a high risk of it being stolen.

He also kills a fella he probably knew without hesitation to save Arthur. He is not just some nervous fella, his nerviousness probably comes from being around the Van Der Linde gang and not his personality. We literally see Javier, Bill, Sadie, Sean, Jack and Arthur bully and threaten (except Jack) Kieran, you would be a bit neavous too which he himself points out when Arthur says "you are a nervous little fella aren't you?" and he replies with "wouldn't you be?"

He is a kind guy, no doubt, but he has some skeletons in his closet and I don't blame the Van Der Linde gang for not trusting him because they most likely see it too.

[p0orbaby]

Actions Have Consequences

summary: you take the walk of shame to a very uncomfortable level

warnings: other than the barca girls being little shits, nothing!

a/n: a fun little part 2 to this

word count: 549

-

“You’re walking weird”

“I’m not”

You are. It’s glaringly obvious. And the wincing accompanying each step is making everything ten times worse.

“Deja de mentir. Ale, dile a tu novia que deje de mentir”

Alexia doesn't respond to Mapi’s petulant attempts at trying to weedle information out of you. Which you are grateful for. Saving your dignity is the least she can do after being the one to turn you into a snipers nightmare.

“En serio, what happened to you?” Patri chimes in, unwanted curiosity gleaming in her eyes as she strides across the room.

You feel your cheeks heat up instantly as you try to come up with a plausible excuse. “I just... overdid it at the gym,” you mutter, hoping it sounds believable.

It doesn’t.

Not with the way your voice cracks and the way Alexia tries and fails to hide her smirk.

Ona raises an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. “Sure, because we all limp like that after a workout. Tienes razón, Mapi. Ella está mentir”

Aitana saunters over next, a knowing grin on her smug little face. “Maybe she had a different kind of workout,” she teases, earning a chorus of laughs from the rest of the team.

You want to die.

Your reputation is ruined!

You groan, hiding your face in your sweaty hands. “Can we please just focus on training?” you plead, though your voice is muffled. Strained. Both from embarrassment and a consequence of you overusing it.

You make a mental note to take a bottle of apology wine ‘round to your neighbours.

Alexia gratefully steps in, her authoritative captain voice cutting through the laughter. “Muy bien, es suficiente. Manos a la obra.” She gives you a quick, supportive squeeze on the shoulder before moving to the front of the group.

Leading her pack away from the prey they have just mauled half to death.

The team reluctantly follows, though the giggles and whispers don’t fully die down. You try to focus on the drills, but every step reminds you of last night, and the sly glances from your teammates make it increasingly hard to shove the memories to the back of your mind.

As the session draws on, you manage to push through the discomfort thanks to your competitive streak taking over. By the time everything is done and dusted, you’re exhausted but relieved to have survived without further interrogation.

Mapi sidles up to you as you’re grabbing your water bottle. “You know, next time you could just invite us over to watch,” she jokes, winking.

You roll your eyes, but there’s a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “In your pervy little dreams, Maria”

She laughs, giving you a playful nudge. “No harm in asking ¿eh?”

Alexia appears suddenly by your side, wrapping an arm around your waist. “Ignórala,” she murmurs, kissing your temple.

You lean into her, grateful for her support, emotional and otherwise. “I always do”

Keira makes a gagging noise. “You two are disgustingly cute”

You stick your tongue out at her, and she laughs, heading off to join the rest of the team in the locker room.

Alexia looks down at you, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “So, about tonight…Segunda ronda, ¿sí?”

You groan, but you’re smiling. “We’ll see, Captain. We’ll see”

[literaila]

eavesdropping

gojo satoru x fem!reader

summary: seriously, the door was already open

warnings: satoru is an idiot, as per usual, sad tsumiki :(

last part | next part

*

year one.

satoru approaches the door to tsumiki’s room and he pauses. 

after two weeks straight with the kids, you’d finally returned back to work--leaving the three of them to fend for themselves for the day--but you'd insisted on coming over for dinner. 

to which satoru suggested, for the twentieth time, that you might as well stay the night. might as well move in already. 

really, there's plenty of space. 

but you'd pinched his arm and pushed past him at the door, telling the kids that you brought dinner. you didn't stay behind to watch satoru cradle his arm or smile at the back of your head. 

and, seriously, he doesn't mean to eavesdrop (if he meant to he would've planned out something much more sophisticated than this) but the door is already slightly cracked. 

“—but megumi doesn’t like it," he hears tsumiki say, soft and concerned. her tiny voice is a whisper through the opened door, so satoru takes another step towards it. 

“that’s okay," he hears your voice saying, "you can talk about it if you want.”

one eye appears through the crack and he can see you and tsumiki, curled up on the bed, her eyes looking up at yours, tear stains an obvious sin. 

satoru is quiet as he pushes the door, ever so slightly.

“he always ignores me when i talk about my mom or his dad, or he says something mean about them. sometimes he won’t talk to me for the rest of the day.”

this seems plausible. just five minutes ago satoru had witnessed an influx of cursed energy coming from megumi when tsumiki merely mentioned their old house and the dolls she kept on her windowsill. 

he can still feel that anger brewing now, but megumi, so you’ve said to him, needs to breathe. you didn't exactly tell him to exit the table and leave the little boy alone, or come to tsumiki's room to check on the two of you, but, he knows that's what you meant. you don't have to say something for satoru to help out. he’s just doing what’s best for all of you.

honestly, you probably wouldn't even mind that he's listening in on this conversation. 

you tilt your head at her. “did you ask him why?” 

tsumiki sniffles, she pushes a sticky hand at the hair matted to her head, so you gently push it away and move it for her instead, much gentler with her than you've ever been with him. satoru almost complains, before he remembers that he's not even there.

“he thinks that they don’t care about us,” tsumiki answers, the hurt obvious in her voice, "he—he can’t remember everything that i can, but he doesn’t care. he doesn't want to.” 

you coo at her softly, nodding your head with every word. 

satoru has never heard the little girl so sad--he's used to her smiling face and bright energy. honestly, if there's an opposite to cursed energy, it would be tsumiki. 

you must feel as disturbed by the difference in the little girl as he does because he watches as you try to restrain a frown. 

satoru's eyes are wide through the crack as you attempt a smile. “it’s okay to not feel the same,” you tell her, “wanting to remember your parents isn’t going to make megumi hate you.” 

“but it upsets him.” 

“well not talking about it upsets you, right?” you say this the same way you chide satoru. and, yeah, you typically know best. 

not that he'll ever admit that. 

but tsumiki nods.

“then you should talk about it. don’t worry about megumi. you can tell me about them, or satoru.” 

he wants to open the door completely just at the sound of his name. 

“really?” 

“you can talk about whatever you want with us. we’ll always listen," your smile is genuine now. 

satoru tries to imagine you as a little girl, with someone wiping your tears away. but he doesn't quite believe that you were ever as small as tsumiki looks now. you'll always be this to him, he supposes, safe and infallible. 

even when you were younger, blinking idly at him as he introduced himself to his new underclassmen, you were certain. he's always been sure about that. 

tsumiki frowns, her eyes wide. “gojo put his hands over his ears and started singing yesterday when you asked him to take the trash out.” 

he has to catch a laugh. you shift around on the bed, your face is stern but satoru can see you about to laugh. 

you nudge her with your head, teasing. “i didn’t say he always listens to me.” 

the little girl laughs as you nuzzle her nose and for a moment, satoru thinks he's invading. 

but how can he walk away when the two of you are cuddled so close, looking so cute together? he should probably take a picture, just so he can always remember this. 

but then again, a camera probably wouldn't capture the supple sound of tsumiki's laugh as you cuddle her, or your smile as you hold her closer. 

so he just stands there, observing. 

you don't say anything as the girl thinks, merely rub your hand up and down on her back, like a reminder that you're still there. 

tsumiki remains quiet for a moment, and then she whispers, “i’m afraid that i’ll forget about my mom." 

satoru is shocked by the statement, little pricks of guilt perusing through his chest. during all of the digging he did about toji zenin, he wasn't sure where the woman was, or if she was worth finding. he hadn't even thought of it, really. he wasn't very good at that. 

and he watches as you pause, feeling kind of eager to see how you'll respond. 

your hand continues its circles, and you smile, gently, knowing. “i used to feel that way too," you tell her, just as softly. 

and maybe that hurts satoru even more.

“really?” 

“yeah. i don’t talk to my mom anymore, but i used to worry that i would forget how she smelled," your nose falls in tsumiki's hair, and you pause for a moment. satoru almost smiles as you close your eyes. "or the way she hugged me," you add, squeezing. 

he's never really heard you talk about your parents before. the vauge comment here and there, sure, but nothing more. he knows the bare bones of when you left home—if only from what yaga told suguru, a million years ago, but nothing more. you don’t talk about that.

or maybe he's just never asked. 

tsumiki nods, her wide eyes kind of amazed at the confession. and satoru is suddenly glad that he let you follow tsumiki to her room, that he knocked on your door that first night when he wasn't sure what to do with either of them. 

you understand this better than he ever could. better than he ever will. 

“did you forget?”

you smile. “no. it’s hard to forget those little things, no matter how long it’s been," you consider it for a second, "i don’t remember a lot about her but i remember hugging her when she got home from work, and the way she said my name.” 

tsumiki's perks up, “do you think it’ll be like that for me?” 

“i don’t know, sweetheart. it could be. you might remember more than i do," you cup her face for a moment, hoping with her. 

“my mom always wore rose perfume,” tsumiki's hands cover your own, and she looks closely at you, like satoru wishes he could. “do you miss your mom?” 

satoru holds his breath for a moment, and your eyes narrow as you think. 

“sometimes," you admit.

“does it make you sad?” 

“every once in a while.“ 

tsumiki swallows, her face falling. “i miss my mom."

you kiss her head. satoru sees your eyes flutter closed as you speak to her, so softly he almost misses it. “it’s okay to be sad without them.” 

satoru closes his eyes with you, for just a moment. 

he thinks about aquariums and trips to abandoned houses and souvenirs that he couldn't keep but covet. 

and his eyes open again. 

“really?” tsumiki asks as if she doubts it.

“yeah. that’s just the way love comes out sometimes. it makes you sad.” 

“will it always?” 

“well, you’ll always love your mom, right?” the girl nods without thinking, and you smile at her. “then being without her will always make you a little sad. and sometimes a lot. but it’ll find its place in your heart, like everything does.” 

tsumiki thinks about this for a moment. 

satoru wants her to ask how many holes you have in your heart, and if you think they could ever be filled. 

and he also wants her to never ask you anything again. he shouldn't be listening to this, but he's stuck at the door. 

“do you think about your parents a lot?” 

“almost every day,” you say, looking away from the girl for a moment. and then you look back. “but i think about how my mom is happy where she is, and how i’m happy where i am.” 

satoru almost falls through the door. 

“you are?” 

“well yeah,” you say, obviously. you squeeze her a bit. “i’ve got you here. and megumi and satoru. how couldn’t i be happy?” 

tsumiki settles into you, she nods in agreement, but considers something, frowning up at you. “i don’t want megumi to be mad at me. he’s my best friend.”

“he’s not really mad,” you tell her--and, well, satoru disagrees. megumi is mad at everything. “and even if he was, he’ll always forgive you. that’s what best friends do. they argue and then make up.”

“who’s your best friend?”

your lip twitches. “satoru. and we fight all the time.” 

“really? gojo?” 

satoru wants to ask the same question. shoko, he might've assumed. nanami, even. if you knew he was there you would probably say that tsumiki was your best friend, just to mess with him. 

but he's there, and you don't know. 

you shake your head, acknowledging how crazy this statement is. “yup. i’m stuck with him.” 

“has he always been your best friend?” 

“oh no,” you laugh at the suggestion. “we met just a couple of years ago, at school. and he always had more friends than i did.” 

“…but now?” 

“he’s been my best friend for a while, i guess, but i haven’t been his for very long.” 

satoru frowns. 

“cause you always fight?” 

you laugh. “something like that.” 

something like what? 

and then you turn to her, eyes on eyes, making sure that she’s looking at you. “tsumiki, you know—“

and satoru thinks that he’s heard enough. he doesn't want any more secrets or any more questions. he closes the door as quietly as possible, letting his ear linger on the wood when he hears the two of you laugh. 

satoru sits for a moment, almost able to see your smile through the door, without all of his eyes, like he really took that picture. 

and then he walks away, into the dining room, where megumi is pushing his dinner around on a plate. 

satoru sits down. 

“what are they doing?” megumi asks, gruffly. he's calmer now, satoru notes, though grumpy as ever. 

“girl stuff.” 

“it’s dinner time.” 

“oh, megumi,” satoru tsks, shaking his head. “you’ve got lots to learn about women.” 

megumi frowns. “i know more than you.” 

“okay, i just came here to have a good time—“

*

later on, you’re unloading the dishwasher, trying to be quiet while the kids get ready for bed, and satoru walks in.

in striped pajamas naturally. no glasses. he is already grinning at you as he leans against the counter, his fingers tapping on the granite. 

you roll your eyes automatically, pushing him a little because he's in your way. 

"what, satoru?" 

“so, i’m your best friend, huh?” 

you turn. “i knew that door was open—“ 

*

next part

[mapis-putellas]

Braids

Pairing: Nat x you

Words: 1100

Warnings: none

Summary: You and Natasha had only been together for a few weeks when you ask to braid her hair.

Notes: Yikes. It’s been a while. I’m so sorry. I hope this cute fic makes up for it.

The atmosphere was almost peaceful as both you and Natasha lounged on separate sides of the couch. You were idly watching her from the corner of her eye as she focuses on the laptop screen in front of her, hands distractedly flickering through the pages of the book you were planning on starting.

She was clad in one of your hoodies along with a pair of grey shorts; her hair down and a little mused from the way she would continuously run her hand through it. You often found yourself wondering if it was as soft as it looked. How soft it would feel in between your fingers.

You see, you and Natasha had only been together a little over four weeks, so the tentative relationship you did have was still very new. You'd held hands once or twice. Kissed a few times more. Chaste pecks that never trailed off into anything more. But that was it. No hugs had been given, and you'd yet to know how it felt to hold her body against your own.

Though you longed to hold her in your arms, you found that you didn't quite mind waiting. Good things come to those who wait after all. Well, that and the fact you knew months before you'd started dating that she was a very guarded person, and that wasn't going to change just because the label on what you were was different.

"I can feel you watching me, you know." You hear her speak, and your eyes flicker away from her hair to her face. Her eyes, you notice, remain on her computer screen, but the tiny smile present on her lips does not go amiss.

You sigh contently as you turn in your seat to face her, your back now pressed against the arm of the couch whilst your legs sprawl out in front of you. "Just admiring." You admit, your voice a mere murmur.

Natasha's fingers still on the keyboard of her laptop as her eyes finally meet your own. The emotion in them was undecipherable, just like always, but they do soften at the sight of you sitting before her. You couldn't help but melt slightly at the sight as you reach over to the coffee table and set down the book you never did get the chance to open.

Eyes once again meeting her own, you finally bring yourself to ask the question that had been on the forefront of your mind since you'd sat down.

"Can I braid your hair?"

You brace yourself for the rejection, but much to your dismay, it doesn't come. At least, not straight away. Natasha simply stares at you, mouth slightly agape as though she was attempting find a plausible answer to your question.

She clears her throat, eyes flickering away from you for just a moment before they return.

"Braid my hair?" She seems to finally find her voice, the sound of it alone making your heart race.

You nod, swallowing the sudden tightness in your own throat. Natasha stares at you for a little moment longer before she nods. It was just once, almost unnoticeable, but it was all the confirmation you needed. With more confidence than you felt, you let one of your legs fall to the floor and pat the now open space in between them.

Natasha hesitates for only a second before she was setting down her laptop and scooting herself towards you. As she settles, you place your hands on either side of her waist in a silent question. It was only when she nods again do you tug her backwards just slightly, the insides of your thighs now settled snuggly on either side of her hips.

"Good?" You question in a mere murmur, and she vocalises her agreement with a soft hum as your hands begin combing through her hair. It wasn't necessarily tangled, but you didn't want to accidentally snag any loose strands like you tended to do with your own hair. Soon, you'd parted the top her hair into three thin strands in preparation to start the intended dutch braid.

A comfortable silence seems to settle upon you, and you can't help but smile softly when you feel Natasha's hands rest almost tentatively on each of your thighs. You risk a gentle kiss against the back of her head, immediately rewarded by the feeling of her body relaxing completely against you.

"Nearly done." You reluctantly break the silence as your fingers begin to quickly finish the braid, and Natasha hums in acknowledgment as you grab the hair tie off of your wrist and secure it with ease. As you bring your now unoccupied hands back down to your lap, you watch as one of Natasha's own rises to feel the top of her head. It lingers for just a second before a satisfied hum escapes her lips.

"Dutch?" She questions knowingly, and you smirk slightly as you nod your head and place another kiss to the back of her head.

"Good guess." You muse, and Natasha looks back at you with a smirk of her own.

"It wasn't a guess." She tells you simply as her head settles against your shoulder.

"You're just that good huh?" You tease, craning your head slightly to you were more or less face to face with her.

"Damn right." Natasha smirks as she leans forward to affectionately graze the tip of her nose against your cheek, the appendage scrunching up cutely when you press a gentle kiss to it, and you roll your eyes fondly as your arms settle around her waist.

Tight enough for her to feel secure, but loose enough that should she choose leave your arms, she could do so without issue.

Your heart races when Natasha settles her hands atop of your own, choosing wisely to ignore the way they tremble slightly with what you could only assume was nerves. Instead, you simply press your lips against her forehead hoping to alleviate whatever fear may be there.

"Nobody likes a smart ass." You murmur as you pull away.

"No?" Natasha grins slyly as she turns herself in your arms so she was more or less cradled. You accept the change of position with ease, keeping one of your arms beneath her whilst the other loops around her stomach to meet the other that had come to rest on her hip. "You like me."

You sigh heavily in fake exasperation, "Unfortunatel-Hey! What was that for?!"

**

I hope you enjoyed 😊

[blossomarlia]

dressing up

When you're unsure how you feel in the dress the boys bought you, they make sure to re-inspire some confidence. (reupload from previous blog, see navigation for more info!)

poly!jegulus x fem! reader

warnings: mostly fluff, sexual references and implied smut at the end, reader has hair and is able-bodied.

You rub the liquid-soft silk of your dress absent-mindedly between two fingers, eyes locked on your reflection in the bathroom mirror. When you'd tried it on just a few days ago, the shop lady had told you you were a vision; now you're sure she was just trying to sell her product.

You want to blame the sizing- maybe it's too small, the wrong shape, impossible to look good in even if you had the body of a mannequin. But even that doesn't seem plausible. It's a beautiful dress, high-quality with a price to match. There's no alternative: you must be the problem, straining fabric with the parts of you that you wish you could just forget about.

You breathe out as much as you can, trying not to flush with the embarrassment you feel at the thought of having to show your boyfriends just what a mistake it was, encouraging you to spend their money on a pretty dress you can't possibly wear. It was wrong of you to accept the gift. Guilt boils hot and hurting in your stomach as you imagine your lovely boyfriends, so pleased to finally have convinced you to let them sponsor such a luxury. How awful to repay them by looking dowdy and silly and not at all right for something so beautiful.

You think quickly, aware of the expectant pair sitting just seconds away in the living room. You can't pass them without revealing yourself, but the prospect is unimaginable. What a waste of money.

“Baby?” James’ voice, soft and cheerful, sounds from just past the door. Your throat tightens. “Not that we’re too miffed, but we would like to see you at some point. You’ve been in there since we got back from the shops twenty minutes ago.”

Shit. You curse yourself for deciding to come in here for a full-body view of the dress, leaving all your other clothing in the bedroom. Exiting naked would usually warrant rather a happy reaction from the boys, but after looking a few moments more at the outline of your body in the mirror, that doesn't seem like a good option either. “Sorry!”

"Not to worry, sweetheart."

James’ white bathrobe is the only reasonable alternative. You grab it off the hook by the towels and wrap it around yourself, nodding contentedly as it reveals only a sliver of fabric at your chest and nothing more. You might as well be wearing a nightie, for all they know. The dress will just have to be returned, and you'll tell them you couldn't find one that fit- technically correct.

You aim to leave the bathroom casually, but that becomes almost impossible when you open the door and find yourself face-to-face with Regulus, his fist raised as if to knock.

“Hi, Reg!” Too cheery. You tamper down your smile and stand on your tip-toes to kiss him, holding the robe tightly around yourself.

“Hello. I was just going to ask what you wanted for dinner. Are you alright, darling?" He wonders, watching you with storm-grey eyes that always seem to see just a little more than you're expecting them to.

"Of course! Dandy." You supply.

He cocks his head, unmoving. "You’re in an odd mood.”

“What? No. This is my usual mood,” You insist.

“M-hm.” His eyes drop momentarily down to the robe, narrowing. “Any particular reason you're wearing James' robe?” 

“Am I?”

The aforementioned individual appeared, suddenly, grinning. “I don’t mind. Looks great, very sexy!”

You wonder if it's possible for your face to heat so much that it melts.

“Incorrigible, James.” Regulus says softly.

You give him a weak smile, squirming away from the impossible weight of their combined gazes and heading for the bedroom. Regrettably, they follow you.

“Why are you wearing it, angel?” James asks, flopping onto the bed. 

You shrug, searching for an opportunity to get them both to leave you alone to change. The truth is that your own robe would've been much too short, and if they see the bottom of the dress they'll probably ask for the whole thing, and that's just not going to happen. You press your fingers into the soft curve of your lower stomach nervously, taking a few steps backwards until your back hits the wall. James' brows pull together. 

“Um. I don't know.”

The two of them exchange a glance. You understand; you're not exactly behaving in a normal manner.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Regulus asks. You like to think you're better at reading his expressions than most- the slight slant of his dark brows tells you he's concerned, but you can't get a good read on the rest of it.

"Yes, I'm fine! Why are you- I- I'm just a little warm."

"Call me crazy, angel," James says, amused, "But taking off the robe might help with that."

Your reply comes too quickly, to your immediate regret. "No!"

There's a brief silence. You feel like a total idiot, but you're sure it beats the feeling you'd get seeing them pretend to like the way you look right now. You squeeze your eyes shut for second, swallowing hard.

"I'm sorry," You sound mortifyingly close to tears. "Sorry. I just- sorry."

At a total loss, James stares at you from the bed. Regulus touches your upper arm gently.

"There's no need to apologise, darling, just tell us what's happened. What's made you so upset?"

You force yourself to make eye contact. "Please can you both just go while I get changed?"

Their expressions are awful; knowing you're causing such a fuss over something so trivial, so stupid, you feel like just about the worst girlfriend in the world.

“Is there something you're worried we'll see? Bruises, or something?” James asks. "We can go, baby, but if there's something going on it might be better for Reg or me to take a look. You know I was joking when I said I'd break up with you if you got that tattoo of Margaret Thatcher's face."

You deflate, softened by his attempt to break the tension. Regulus rolls his eyes, but you see the corner of his mouth twitch. "What's going on, hm?" He asks quietly.

With a sigh, you stare at the ground, giving up. They're too lovely to stick to your original plan- you'll just have to let it happen, and hope to make up for it another time by looking better.

"...I'm not sure you'll love what you see."

“Of course we’ll love it. We love you.” Regulus says firmly, like it's obvious.

“That doesn’t mean-”

“Angel. Take the robe off, yeah? We’ll prove it to you.” 

At James' insistence, you take a deep breath and stare at the ground as you shrug off the robe, wrapping your arms around your middle. You're keenly aware of the places where your skin presses against fabric, the way it falls, and the heat rushing to your cheeks. Oh, god.

"Fuck." Regulus says, uncharacteristically crude. You curl in on yourself a little further.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s not how it looked on the-”

James interrupts you. “Baby? I’m gonna be honest, because I love you, okay?”

“Okay.” You say meekly, eyes stinging. Maybe it's even worse than you’d thought.

“I cannot hear a single word you are saying when you look that good. Like, a single word. It’s all lost on me. I’m going to need a minute.” 

Regulus’ hands are on you before you could properly react to James’ words, drawing your arms away from your body and taking in the dress with hungry eyes. 

“Exquisite, sweetheart," He exclaims, hands on yours. "I would say you’re never taking this off, but that’s actually all I want to do.”

"What?" You manage, smiling despite yourself. You pull your hands away and press them to your face. "Reg, you don't have to-"

“You thought we wouldn’t want to see this?” Hands on your shoulders, Regulus spins you once, before pulling your back against his chest and planting a heated kiss to the side of your neck. “And you called me crazy?”

“You’re- I’m- what?” You stammer. James makes an unintelligible sound from the bed, pressing a dramatic hand to his heart. "Thank you."

"Don't thank us, angel. Holy shit. I'm thanking you. I'm thanking the gods. I'm thanking-"

"James is very thankful." Regulus whispers into your hair. You laugh out loud, a little giddy at all their praise. "D'you know what I'd be thankful for right now?"

"What?"

"You on that bed, darling," He says. You lean into his touch as his hand slides down your side, squeezing a part of your waist you'd prodded critically in the mirror not ten minutes ago. Now you enjoy the feeling of his warm hands through the thin fabric, enjoy having a shape his hands both appreciate so well. "Off you go."

It's an instruction, now, and you shiver at the authority in his tone as you obey. James is on you before the duvet has even settled, making you gasp as he presses kisses all over your face.

“I’m going to destroy this dress. I’m sorry.” He says earnestly. You giggle happily, insecurities not quite gone but coated in a honey-sweet joy that softens their presence.

“I thought you liked it.”

“M-hm. It’s okay,” His hand finds your thigh and grips it firmly, fingers pressing into soft skin. “We’ll buy you a million more.” 

You let yourself enjoy it all for a moment more before giving any space to the snarky voice at the back of your mind, more out of a desire for reassurance than genuine belief that the two boys on top of you would genuinely do such a thing. "You're not- not just saying all this to make me feel better?"

“Why would we ‘just say’ this?” Regulus murmurs against your right shoulder, forearm across your stomach as he does wicked things to your skin that you'll have to cover in concealer if you want to wear anything sleeveless for a few days.

“...I don't know. Make me feel better?”

“You’re stunning. Literally- how often is James speechless, hm?” 

You laughed. “Hardly ever.” 

“Exactly. You're quite regularly the most beautiful girl either of us have ever seen, darling, whether you're feeling the same way or not,” Regulus leans on his elbow to look at you sternly. "We don't appreciate you this way because you look like somebody else, we adore you because you're yourself, and completely radiant."

“I don’t think you don't like me, I promise. It’s just something that’s in my brain- that I’m ugly, or something. It's silly."”

"It is," James agrees, allowing Regulus to return to whatever he's doing to your collarbone. "But it's not your fault. Your only job is to listen to what we're telling you, instead of your insecurity. Yeah?"

"Yeah," You nod, a little breathless. It's very easy to be agreeable when they're doing all these things to you. James kisses a line down your throat, to your chest, to your arm, slipping the strap of the dress down to follow. “I love you both," You manage.

They answer in their own, doubly enjoyable, ways.

[all-purpose-dish-soap]

Got any more of that uhhhhhh desperate af people-pleaser reader? CUZ DAMN I think you got my number with that one

writing people-pleaser reader is so healing. if aggressively working through shit via smut is healing.

... be careful around HORANGI. all it takes is one slip up during a kortac training exercise--all he has to do is disarm you and push you up against a wall; your back crushed to his chest. the moment he cracks a joke about it--something about you being so cute, so submissive, it is literally just an inappropriate joke--but you can stop neither your own body from squirming nor the embarrassing sound that comes from your lips. it's half embarrassed squeak and half encouraging groan. 

he's shocked and intrigued. "ah... did you like that?"

he presses against you a little harder and is rewarded with another little wiggle and a noise. 

you do. he chuckles. you're some kind of freak. 

nsfw ↓

horangi has, not to put too fine a point on it, extraordinarily poor impulse control. the only thing that saved him from gambling himself from an early grave was the foresight to hire himself out to the military. the only thing that keeps him from doubling back and gambling his life away again is  the rigid structure of the military. business separate from pleasure. but you put something that tempting in front of him, you can bet he doesn't hesitate. 

he pulls your tucked-in shirt loose and his gloved hands slide up from behind, groping you hard. you're embarrassed to like it but god, it turns you on that he wants you like this--in the middle of this round, risking his teammates' ire if they were to find out. you're a little too cooked to think about what would happen if YOUR teammates found you like this. he has you on the ground in no time, all your gear still on, his fingers pumping into you, transfixed and so eager to take everything you're offering him. it's depraved; you both know it. so depraved that when he sees your comm collar, it's more than just a passing thought to activate it and let your whole team hear the way you're begging him to go faster. 

then he thinks even longer about radioing on his own comm for an assist, or two, or three. he smirks, asking you lowly if you think you'd like to get fucked in the dirt by his whole squad. you can't stop saying yes, god, anything you want, i want what you want. nice plausible deniability there. he chuckles and decides against it. might be his only chance to have you at his fingertips like this, so he'd better take you for himself.

but... you know he's not keeping his mouth shut about it. after that training exercise is over, you'd better be careful, because horangi will be bragging. maybe even sharing a picture of you, your eyes glazed and an appreciative smile on your face. it would be easier to count the kortac operators who don't see it instead of the ones who do.

you'd better watch out after that, because the next time your squad and kortac conduct a training exercise together, they're going for you, and you're at the mercy of whoever gets there first.

...

more kortac / masterlist tag

[tinytinyblogs]

Okay hear me out can I request yandere skz whose darling hates/refuses to even look at them and says mean things to the boys in order to get them to leave her alone but it has the opposite effect

Are you defying me, darling?

The more you distance yourself, the closer they might become. Take it slow if you're unsure.

⚠️ yandere theme, unhealthy obsession, and a lot more⚠️

Hyung line, Maknae line

💬 Thanks for your patience! Things have been a bit hectic lately, and I apologize for the delay. Here's the reaction post you requested, as promised. Let me know if you have any feedback or if there's anything I can improve on.

stray kids masterlist

Your insights and reactions make these posts come alive. Love reblogs, comments, and all the good vibes welcome ✨

Chan

Chan, your sunshine, your anchor – the very picture of gentleness. He opens doors with a smile, treats you like royalty, and knows exactly how to make you laugh. Yet, a knot of apprehension coils in your stomach because for all his sweetness, there's a line you never want him to cross. The air hangs heavy. You haven't spoken in what feels like hours, the silence a suffocating blanket. It started with a simple plea, a desperate need for some space, some time to breathe without the constant hum of his presence. The words tumbled out, harsh and ragged. "Can you just leave me alone, damn it?" The change in Chan is instantaneous. His smile vanishes, replaced by a coldness that sends shivers down your spine. A heavy silence descends, thick and suffocating. You steal a glance at him, and your heart plummets. His eyes, usually sparkling with warmth, are now narrowed lasers, fixated on you. The air crackles with a tension you've never witnessed before. Then, a deceptively calm voice breaks the silence. "What did you just say, sweetheart?" he asks, the endearment sounding foreign in this new context. It's clear he doesn't like what he heard, and a flicker of fear ignites in your chest.

You shrink back, your voice barely a whisper as you repeat, "I... I just want to be alone, Chan." But the damage is done. With a slow, deliberate movement, Chan closes the distance. He towers over you, his form an imposing shadow. He crouches down, invading your personal space, and gently, but firmly, cups your chin with his hand. You wince as his nails dig slightly into your skin, forcing you to meet his gaze. "Sweetheart," he says, his voice a low rumble, sending shivers down your spine. It's calm, almost too calm, and that terrifies you more than any outburst. His eyes hold you captive, a storm brewing beneath the surface. "I may love you," he continues, his words laced with a dangerous undercurrent, "but disrespect won't be tolerated. Remember that." Seeing the tear, a flicker of something crossed Chan's face – maybe regret, maybe anger. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a chilling coldness. "Tears won't work this time," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. He reached out, a single finger brushing against your chin, tilting your face up to meet his gaze. "You will explain yourself," he said, his voice a harsh whisper. "And you will understand exactly why you don't get to ask for space from me."

Minho

Minho wasn't like other guys. He didn't crave grand gestures or whispered sweet nothings. No, Minho thrived on the spark in your eyes when he sent shivers down your spine with a surprise tickle or a whispered threat that danced on the edge of plausibility. The way you flustered, the stammer that replaced your usual sharp retorts when he'd corner you with a teasing question – that was his fuel. So, when you finally snapped, a glorious eruption after weeks of his calculated torment, a thrill snaked through him, cold and exhilarating. "Get away from me, don't touch me, you jerk!" you shouted, cheeks flushed a furious red. He'd expected the usual splutter of insults, a well-placed punch maybe, but this raw defiance, this unfamiliar vulnerability – it was intoxicating. Minho's smirk wasn't playful this time. It was a slow, deliberate twist of his lips, a predator recognizing a challenge in its prey. You wanted him gone? Perfect. He'd become your shadow, a constant reminder of the delicious chaos he reveled in unleashing. The way your breath hitched when he brushed past a little too close, the flinch you couldn't quite suppress when he materialized at your locker – oh, he'd savor every startled reaction, every muttered curse under your breath.

Perhaps you didn't understand him, and maybe that was part of the allure. Minho was an enigma, a puzzle only he held the key to. But that didn't matter. He thrived on the chase, on the unpredictable rhythm your dynamic had taken. Your pain, a byproduct of his gamesmanship, was a mere footnote – the price you paid for defying him. "Feeling spicy today, aren't we?" he drawled, his voice low and gravelly. He stopped directly in front of you, his face mere inches away. "Seems like somebody needs a reminder of who's in charge," he continued, his smirk widening. A single finger brushed against your cheek, sending shivers down your spine. You wanted to fight back, to spit out a retort, but the words wouldn't come. The fear was a thick fog clouding your thoughts. Minho seemed to revel in your silence. He chuckled, a low, humorless sound. "Don't worry, sweetheart," he leaned in closer, his voice barely a whisper but filled with chilling promise. "We have plenty of time for you to learn your lesson." The enclosed space became a prison, the air thick with unspoken threats and simmering tension. You knew this wasn't a game anymore. This was Minho asserting his dominance, and you were the unwilling participant in his twisted play.

Changbin

You clench your fists, heart hammering against your ribs. "Damn you," you growl, the words tasting metallic on your tongue, "don't come any closer, jerk!" Changbin's laugh echoes in the confined space. It's a sound you've never heard before, devoid of its usual teasing lilt and replaced with something darker, hungrier. This new side of him sends a shiver down your spine, both terrifying and...exciting? The thought is fleeting, pushed aside by the urgency of the situation. He ignores your protest, a predatory glint in his eyes. Each step he takes is a deliberate invasion of your personal space, until your back is pressed flush against the wall, trapped. His hands snake around you, pinning you against the cool surface. It feels like the room has shrunk, the air itself thick with unspoken tension. "So what, huh?" he taunts, leaning in so close his warm breath tickles your ear. "I can do whatever I want." His voice is a low rumble, sending shivers down your spine. It's as if this sudden resistance has ignited a fire within him, a twisted competition to break you, to own you completely. You can almost see the gears turning in his head, a game suddenly unfolding before you. One he intends to win.

Shame burned through you, hot and acrid. You hated yourself for the traitorous flicker of excitement that had dared to ignite within you. Changbin's dark eyes, usually lit with playful mischief, were now narrowed with predatory intent. The possessiveness that radiated from him was suffocating. "This isn't a game, Changbin," you spat, your voice shaking but defiant. You met his gaze head-on, refusing to show fear. "Don't you dare turn this into some twisted dominance act." A flicker of surprise crossed his face, quickly replaced by a slow, dangerous smile. "Dominance act?" he echoed, his voice low and silken. His thumbs brushed across your wrists, sending a jolt through you. "Perhaps," he continued, leaning in further, his breath hot against your cheek. "Or maybe it's just a reminder of who calls the shots here, sweetheart." His smile faltered for a moment, a flicker of something you couldn't decipher passing through his eyes. Then, with a sigh that seemed to shake the very room, he released you. You stumbled back a step, breathing heavily, the air suddenly feeling thin. "Maybe you're right," he conceded, his voice back to its usual drawl, though a hint of darkness lingered. "Maybe we need a different kind of reminder." He took a step back, his eyes holding yours with an intensity that sent chills down your spine. "A reminder of the consequences of defying me."

Hyunjin

Your outburst, a tirade fueled by pent-up frustration and veiled truths, had frozen Hyunjin. He stood there, a statue carved from confusion and a flicker of something darker. You spat out the final words, "Just get out! Leave me alone you jerk!" expecting a fight, an apology, anything but the unsettling silence that followed. He left, the quiet deafening and thick with unspoken threats. But the absence wasn't a reprieve. It was a predator stalking its prey. Every creak of the floorboards sent your pulse racing, every shadow a potential monster. Sleep was a distant memory replaced by a hypervigilance that left you drained. The bed felt vast and empty, the once comforting weight of Hyunjin beside you a chilling reminder of what you'd lost. Days blurred. The air crackled with a tension so thick you choked on it. Then, one evening, just as the remnants of hope started to flicker, Hyunjin reappeared. He wasn't the playful boy you knew. His eyes, usually sparkling with amusement, were now steely and focused. They scanned the room, lingering on you, assessing. Silence stretched, broken only by the shallow rasp of your own breath. "So," he finally spoke, his voice devoid of its usual warmth, "you want to be alone, do you?" It wasn't a question.

It was a challenge, a test to gauge your sincerity. You opened your mouth to apologize, to plead, but the words wouldn't come. The fear had lodged itself in your throat, a physical weight hindering any attempt at defiance. A slow, predatory smile spread across Hyunjin's face. "There are consequences for everything," he said, each word dripping with a chilling possessiveness. "Especially disrespect." Tears welled up in your eyes, blurring your vision. You wanted to scream, to fight back against the oppressive atmosphere, but the fear kept you rooted to the spot. "I… I'm sorry," you stammered, your voice barely a whisper. Hyunjin stopped in front of you, his face inches away. You could feel the heat radiating from his body, the intensity of his gaze making it difficult to breathe. "Sorry isn't enough," he said, his voice a low growl. "You will understand, one way or another, how much respect I deserve." He reached out, a single finger tilting your chin up so you were forced to meet his gaze. "We don't need space," he murmured, his voice a chilling caress. "We need understanding. And you," he leaned in even closer, his breath hot against your ear, "will learn exactly what that means." He wasn't angry, exactly. He was calculating, methodical, a predator who had finally cornered his prey.

[saintsenara]

Do you think the wizarding world even has a concept of rape? I don't think this was JKR's intent but love potions are considered perfectly legal, Romilda Vane doesn't get in trouble, Dumbledore doesn't seem to think Merope did anything wrong to Tom Riddle Sr., and despite a member of Magical Law Enforcement witnessing lots of sketchy stuff at the Gaunts' no one steps in to help Merope. Plus we know their society is archaic and lacks modern values - ie. quills, slavery, lack of democracy

it's a great question pal.

the answer for which is under the cut, for the obvious reason that it comes with a trigger warning for rape.

when the statute of secrecy was signed in 1689, rape - defined as "the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will" - had been illegal under english law since the middle ages.

however, the "against her will" bit is important here. in the seventeenth century, it was a legal requirement for a victim of rape to prove that she had maintained a continuous state of physical resistance during her assault. in cases where a victim could not prove this, her consent was presumed - even if she had been incapacitated in some way. unsurprisingly, consent was always assumed between husbands and wives.

men could not be raped under the letter of seventeenth-century english law - but the rape and sexual assault of men was illegal under buggery [sodomy] laws, and was often taken much more seriously by the state...

and i think we can plausibly say - should we want to - that, on the basis of what we find in canon, the wizarding world might retain this legal requirement for rape to be indisputably resisted, and that this explains why love potions seem to have no repercussions attached to them.

because, of course, love potions essentially function like date rape drugs, even if they leave their victims appearing to be of sound mind [the officiant who married tom and merope wasn't suspicious of anything, for example - and the only reason ron is so badly affected by the love potion he takes is because it was out of date]. they incapacitate a person to the extent that they cannot offer legitimate consent to sexual acts, and they also incapacitate them to the extent that they cannot physically resist their attacker - in their case, by compelling the person dosed with the potion to regard their attacker as someone they want to have near them.

therefore, if wizarding law only considers rape to be something which is accompanied by evidence of resistance... then using a love potion on somebody would not be rape.

the cultural implications of this are fascinating - especially since [no matter what jkr thinks] the wizarding world appears to be restrictive [by the standards of muggle britain in the 1990s and 2000s - although, unfortunately for those of us on our high horses about coming from a superior nation, not by the standards of muggle ireland...] in terms of conventions surrounding sexual behaviour and gendered expectations placed upon women.

the marriage age for women is extremely low [any woman whose wedding date we can pin-point in canon - molly weasley, andromeda tonks, lily potter, fleur delacour - gets married as a teenager]; the age for having children is also much lower than it was in the muggle world - and even than it was in the muggle world of the 1940s-1980s [all four of the women above fall pregnant before they're twenty-one, for example]; unmarried couples don't seem to live together, and there's clearly a social taboo against premarital sex [molly weasley gets a lot of flack from the fandom for making bill and fleur sleep in separate bedrooms, but nobody in the story regards this as prudish or old-fashioned]; divorce doesn't seem to be common [and blaise zabini's mother killing her husbands certainly takes on a new flavour if we assume that divorce is extremely difficult... or even illegal]; and married women - at least in the middle- and upper-classes - don't seem to work.

i also think that it's canonically plausible that arranged marriage, including between cousins, is a common cultural practice [sirius' comment in order of the phoenix about parents "letting" their children marry basically confirms this, i think] - which means we can also imagine, if we'd like, that there's perhaps little legal distinction between arranged and forced marriage.

obviously - obviously - i don't think that any of these are things the doylist text intended. the reason the story says very little about sex - both consensual and otherwise - or law or gender norms is because the harry potter series is a story about a boy-wizard who goes to a cool magic school and fights a good-versus-evil battle to the death which was written for children. i don't begrudge the publishers for not fancying a hundred pages on harry learning how to put on a condom...

[and the low marriage/childbearing ages genuinely seem to be because jkr is functionally innumerate and didn't realise how young she was suggesting everyone was...]

but from a watsonian perspective, they're really interesting - especially for the extremely disturbing paths they can lead us down as authors when we're trying to flesh out the worldbuilding of magical britain.

what - for example - is the wizarding age of consent? and how would this impact how wizards understand sexual maturity, adult-child power relations, and child abuse?

[after all, if the age of consent is unchanged from 1689... it could be as low as ten. which goes some way towards explaining why nobody thinks of tom riddle as grooming ginny...]

does the law consider it possible for a wizard to rape his wife? and if it doesn't, what does it think about him beating her?

what legal rights do sex workers have in the wizarding world?

is abortion legal? is contraception? is homosexuality? does gay sex have a higher age of consent?

is divorce legal? can women initiate a divorce? how are single mothers treated [and, therefore, what was lupin willing to do to tonks by walking out on her]? how are the children of unmarried parents treated? what property and inheritance rights do women have? are marriages performed by muggles - or dissolved by them - recognised by the wizarding state? what position does this put a witch [like eileen snape] who marries a muggle man in? would a wizard who marries a muggle woman and then abandons her be committing bigamy if he married a witch?

would wizards ever be punished for sexual offences against muggle women? does merope get away with attacking tom sr. in the eyes of the wizarding state because of her gender or because he's a muggle or both? could a muggle raped by a wizard even report the crime?

what modesty standards are there in terms of dress and behaviour? what would wizarding feminism look like? what is it like to be muggleborn [especially from the 1960s onwards] and enter this world?

i think i'm inclined to take the grimmest possible view of all of these questions, to be quite honest...

the wizarding world is fucked up.

[girlbowser]

What exactly does "gloves is canon" mean, if you don't mind me asking?

let's just fucking get right into it.

Ultimate Rose Pt. 2: Gloves Are Canon

if you haven't seen part 1, here it is. the tldr version of it was to estabish candy rose (at the VERY least) as a liar. i also have a headcanon about ultrose putting alpha earth rose into front in candy timeline, but that doesn't really matter too much. its just kinda fun

anyway. heres the theory.

so you guys know A Threat, Sensed, right?

it's one of the hs2 bonus comics. originally patreon exclusive, but was made public for everyone during the hiatus. and i think it contains some deeply revealing information.

you may be wondering... hey, isn't that the comic where ultdirk talks to hussie about yiffy? like, its hussie's one appearance in the comic. kind of weird.

ahaha. yeah. so. about that.

let's rewind a bit. what's the contents of A Threat Sensed?

dirk wakes up after having the shit kicked out of him in pesterquest.

rose is like huh? huh wuh? but dirk gives her a thumbs up. and then he goes to sit on his computer, and type to god.

and then after that delay, he gets a reply.

etc etc etc. they talk. they chat. hussie talks about his beloved daughter yiffy. normal stuff. hey roll that last one back

let's play in this space. lets play in this space. perspective. daughter.

who's daughter is yiffy?

---

let's rewind.

when homestuck act 6 dropped, it released with one very important page.

this page.

this page, where someone with seemingly grey skin is typing on a keyboard. holy fuck, what a reveal. new troll. oh my god. this is the 13th troll

like, they have to be a troll, right? theyve got the time stuff. theyve got a symbol. theyve got shit going on with them

ah.

they were wearing gloves.

this? this is fucking huge.

in homestuck we see that shot a lot. of fingers on a keyboard. but every single time we have seen it, we have also seen at least one shot of the person typing, right?

with two exceptions. one is callie in the act 6 reveal.

and the other is andrew.

er, sorry.

"andrew."

from the patreon post on A Threat Sensed:

those are fake hands. what. what . what. what.

so

if this comic has a history of having a reveal when it comes to characters where Only Their Hands are being shown

and gloves are canon to homestuck, and have been used to precipitate this reveal

then perhaps

gloves are canon here as well.

if you'll allow me to speculate. on the gloves are canon in question.

yeah of fucking course rose is pretending to be hussie because WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE adjKFJGSKDHdskjgjkfskjgdsf

ITS ROSE!!! IT WAS ROSE THE WHOLE TIME

LETS REREAD.

"is that why you were lying on the floor" a question that Rose had because she saw his ass lying on the floor!!!!!!!

MY DAUGHTER

MY DAUGHTER YIFFANY LONGSTOCKING LALONDE HARLEY

hm purple background. anyway im sure thats fine

hm. hm. hm. psychoanalysis. hmmm. hm.

now if i was rose

if i was ultrose. and i wanted an ultimate weapon against dirk.

if i wanted to Make A Weapon Against Dirk.

what would i do.

how would i create it.

who would i hurt in the process.

anyway. this is all leading up to part 3 of this fucking nightmare roller coaster. but uh. basically. i think this one is like all but confirmed????

like...

We’ve had quite a bit of speculation on whether this is “really” Andrew. To that, I think we’d say that it doesn’t “really” matter. If you’re asking are those Andrew’s actual hands, then no, of course not. Because those hands are fake hands that are on the computer screen.

this sounds like it's telling us no, it's not "really" andrew. and to look at the hands. and we KNOW from part 1 of this theory that rose is incredibly deceitful.

the delay in "andrew"'s response could have plausibly been rose slipping away into her little hidey hole, putting on the stupid fucking gloves, and only then typing.

andrew never confirms who he is. and i'll admit, some of the lines don't sound 100% like rose. but others do. others really, really do.

i like this theory because it makes rose and dirk's rivalry on deltrius interesting. it means she has legs up on him. he thinks he's talking to hussie, but he isn't. she has plans within plans. she's got shit she's cooking.

i like it because it contextualizes yiffy, too.

hm wow it sure seems like the candy timeline isnt actually all that sealed! it sure seems like theres something in there that is a corrosive paradox! something that affects both timelines!

something

or someone!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyway. yiffy is an ultdirk icbm created by rose . rose wore gloves. gloves are canon. that's my theory graaaaaaaaaahhh

part 3 coming soon :3

--

EDIT SEVERAL MONTHS LATER: this is what part 3 would have been